GOTM23 Succession Game [civ3] [Archive] - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

AlanH

Oct 13, 2003, 11:32 PM

I decided to "try" to play this as if I hadn't seen the map before.

We are religious and expansionist - cheap temples, scouts for fast exploration, and short revolutions. We get Pottery and Ceremonial Burial as starting techs, we have raging barbs and a pangeia. We might pop some techs from goodie huts, we'll certainly meet all our rivals early for trading opportunities.

Our UU is a knight on steroids, so our strategy should be to get horses hooked up, build lots of horsemen ready to upgrade, beeline to Chivalry, save some cash for upgrades and then take over the world. A prefer to fight in Monarchy - saves all that nastiness with smoke pouring out of cities - so I propose we first get the Wheel to find the horses, then take advantage of our ceremonial burial starter and move up the Mysticism/ Polytheism route, trading for everything else.

OK, here we go.

SG23 timeline 4000 BC to 3050 BC.

T1 4000 BC. 10 gold.

Check F10/space race. We are up against:

Egypt - ind/rel
Rome - com/mil
India - com/rel
Persia - ind/sci
Zulus - exp/mil
France - com/ind
Carthage - com/ind
Ottomans - sci/ind
Spain - com/rel

No Japanese with wheels, so I think wheel is still the right first project.

We have a scout a worker and a settler.
We need food - more than 2 fpt, so check out the river first.
Scout East. Sees wool and another mountain range.
Scout South. Sees the start of some flood plains.
Settler SE. We get the wool and the flood plains in range and keep the goat hill in the radius as well. Two flood plains plus wool gives us 5 fpt, and we should have enough shields around to get a 4-turn settler farm going.

Worker E, heading for the wool.

T2 3950 BC. 10 gold

Settler builds Makkah, starts Scout (4 turns)
Set research to Wheel, ETA 22 turns with Slider at 0.10.0. Break-even gpt.
Worker SE to wool
Scout SE, E to mountain. Sees spices in the next valley.

T3 3900 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 21 turns
Scout S, SE. Sees olives, gold, river.

T4 3850 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 20 turns

Scout SE, SE to hill. Sees flood plains and desert
I'm using alternate flat ground and hills/mountains where possible to get scouting distance and visibility.

T5 3800 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 19 turns

Scout E, E across river.

IBT. Makkah completes Scout 2, starts Scout.

T6 3750 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 18 turns

Scout 1 N, E. Sees Orange border. No contact.
Scout 2 W, W. Sees olives.

IBT Worker finishes irrigation.

T7 3700 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 17 turns

Worker moves SW towards flood plain.
[Sorry, this was a bad move in retrospect. As a roaded wool plain gets no extra gpt in despotism I decided to move straight to the flood plain, and road the wool later. But if I'd done the sums I would have realised I had time to build the road - and get the lux advantage - and still get the flood plain irrigated in time for the city growth].

Scout 1 E to mountain, closer to Orange border, still no contact.
Scout 2 W, W. Sees wool

T8 3650 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 16 turns

Scout 1 SE. Still no contact!
Scout 2 W, W. Sees more wool.
Worker S to flood plain.

T9 3600 BC. 10 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 15 turns

Worker starts irrigation on flood plain
Scout 1 SE. FInds Sogut. Contact with Ottomans
Scout 2 W. Finds Carthage.

Ottoman is polite, has 10 gold, has Bronze working and Masonry.
Needs Pottery but not CB. No deals. Sogut is built on incense.

Carthage is polite, has 10 gold, has Masonry and Alphabet.
Needs CB but not Pottery.
Offers Masonry for CB + 3 gold. OK - it's cheap and we might not get another chance.

Makkah is about to grow to pop 2. No problem as we get 2 contnt citizens at Monarch level.

IBT. Ottoman complains about our contact scout.
Makkah completes Scout 3 and grows to pop 2. Starts Warrior (ETA 3 turns)

T10. 3550 BC. 7 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 11 turns

Scout 1 E. Sees some coastline.
Scout 2 SW, S. Sees more wool.
Scout 3 N, NW. Sees goats in desert.

T11. 3500 BC. 7 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 10 turns

Scout 1 NE.
Scout 2 SW, S. Sees more goats, olives.
Scout 3 N. Sees goats olives, gold.

IBT. Makkah borders expand.

T12. 3450 BC. 7 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 9 turns

Scout 1 N in mountains on east coast, sees oysters.
Scout 2 SW, SW.
Scout 3 N, N across desert.

IBT. Makkah completes Warrior 1, starts Granary (ETA 12 turns).
Worker completes irrigation on flood plain.

T13. 3400 BC. 7 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 8 turns

Warrior 1 fortifies in Makkah. Needed as MP for next pop growth.
Worker 1 starts road on flood plain.
Scout 1 N in hills, sees spices.
Scout 2 S, SW
Scout 3 N, N, Sees desert, lake, river and jungle.

Our extra unit is costing us -1 gpt. We can afford it, and we have nothing else to spend it on, so stick with 0.10.0.

T14. 3300 BC. 6 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 7 turns

Scout 1 N in hills.
Scout 2 SW, SW
Scout 3 N, N.

T15. 3300 BC. 5 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 6 turns

Scout 1 NW, N to spices.
Scout 2 SE on hill.
Scout 3 N, W. Sees blue border. Contact with Persia.

Persia is cautious. Has 0 gold, and Alphabet, needs nothing we have.

IBT. Worker finishes road.

T16. 3250 BC. 4 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 5 turns

Scout 1 E, N on east coast.
Scout 2 W, W. Sees Egyptians.
Scout 3 W, W onto hills.
MM Makkah to complete pop point in one turn instead of two, using flood plain.

Egypt is polite, has 10 gold, needs Pottery, has nothing else to offer. Has furs hooked up.

IBT. Makkah grows to pop 3.

T17. 3200 BC. 3 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 3 turns

Scout 1 W to hill.
Scout 2 W, W. Sees south coast?
Scout 3 W. sees silks.

Ottoman now offers Warrior code or Bronze working plus cash for Pottery.
We sell Pottery for Bronze woking plus 9 gold.

T18. 3150 BC. 11 gold. Slider 0.10.0. Wheel 2 turns

Scout 1 N, N along east coast.
Scout 2 NW, NW. Sees gems and mountains, east coast?
Scout 3 NW, NW. Sees light blue border.

T19. 3100 BC. 10 gold. Slider 1.9.0. Wheel 1 turn

Scout 1 N, N
Scout 2 W to mountains confirms west coast.
Scout 3 SW, W to investigate light blue border. Contacts Spain.

Spain is cautious, has 22 gold, Alphabet and Warrior code. Needs nothing we have.

IBT. Complete Wheel. Start Mysticism.
Zulu scout shows up near Scout 3.

T20. 3050 BC.

We can see horses on the other side of the eastern mountain range, towards Ottomans. There are also two sources further away in the north and west.

Scout 1 NE, N in east coast desert.
Scout 2 N on mountains on west coast.
Scout 3 N on mouontains

Zulu polite, has 3 gold plus Warrior code and Alphabet.
Carthage offers the best deal for Wheel - Warrior code plus Alphabet plus 42 gold. That's a deal.

Here ends the first chapter in the glorious saga of the great Arab nation.

The bad news:
We have the lowest score and weakest army of the known civs. We don't know much about our local territory, so we need to do some local exploration to find the best city sites. We haven't found a single goodie hut yet.

The good news:
We have pretty well cleaned out all treasuries but the Spanish and we have jumped ahead of most known civs in technology, with all the first level techs in our kit bag. We have a fast settler farm on the way to completion, and our explorers have spanned the continent to the east and west. We have met all out rivals except Rome, India and France. We haven't met any raging barbs yet.

Here's the minimap:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/3050BC_minimap.gif

And here's the detail we know of around our Bedouin encampment at Makkah:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/3050BC_local_map.gif

And this is the link to SG23C_BC3050.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC3050.SAV), my save file at end of turn, 3050 BC

Over to you.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 05:18 AM

AlanH - just played
MacBaldrick - UP NOW
Karasu - Ondeck
smackster - on the bench
Alweth - Welcome to our game and to CFC!

Remember
24Hr to claim "Got It". 48Hr total to post the game but I'll look the other way until 72Hr. If you can't play, post a skip out of kindness.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 05:29 AM

Great Job AlanH! Looking good.

The wheel was a fine idea and it looked like it payed good dividends.

Granary is a good idea. I think we can get a settler every four turns from this position once we have four irrigated plains. We should have at least one of the plains mined for MM purposes but that should be last on the improvement list.

About the warrior in town: Don't be afraid to raise the luxury tax. We're at min science now. (I assume you turned the slider down on Mystism, maybe you didn't) The Luxury slider is a great value, paying 1gpt for a happy citizen that gives you 3fpt +2gpt. Use the warrior to make a loop around the capital so we have a better idea where to settle next. (If you're wary of barbs you can wait until the granary is done but then you only have 4-6 turns to scout before your settler pops out. Next player should raise lux and move the warrior around a bit. We have the wheel, knowing where our closest horses are should be a priority.

Alweth@ Welcome to CFC and to our little game. When you said you posted to the wrong thread I assumed you meant "instead of the signup thread". I put you in this game but if you really want to be in [ptw] then let me know. Are you familiar with SGs and how they work? If anyone needs more clarification please post or PM me.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 06:05 AM

@ControlFreak. Thanks for your positive and helpful feedback. Very welcome after half a night's sleep.

My last turn completed the Wheel, and because I wanted to do that deal I didn't want to turn down science during my stint. And because of my bad worker move at T7 I therefore needed the warrior in town for my last 5 turns. I could have moved him out of town on my last turn, as I was able to reduce the science one point and still complete. We grow again in two turns so we'll need some lux then anway, and we do need to get the wool road in asap.

In my saved game I left the slider at max, and left a decision to be made whether to turn it down. I think I'd turn it down to 10%, and up the lux tax and get the warrior out to explore now, as you recommend. I guess I should have saved the game in my recommended state - it was late/early - sorry! :(

We probably already have most of the info we need about the locale to place our next town - it has to be towards the horses, and it looks like the river near them is favorite, with the incense in range, if Suleyman doesn't get there first. So we *could* wait five until the granary is built before we move the warrior and then head for the mountains to the east to scout that area further.

I don't usually worry about barbs too much, but for the next five turns we don't want the granary work to be pillaged. After that we could build another warrior before we start a settler, or take a small risk of losing a pop point or some gold. I haven't done the sums yet on when the first settler should pop.

Good luck, MacBaldrick, and welcome aboard, Alweth :thumbsup:

Karasu

Oct 14, 2003, 06:30 AM

Very good start, AlanH. :goodjob:
In particular, I think going for The Wheel right from the start was a very good move.

I agree on a relatively close city placement.
We may want to discuss the feasibility of a 3 or 4-tiles distance RCP around Makkah.

I also think that Monarchy is a good government choice if we play aggressive enough and manage to get it very early (even though it is often argued that Republic is a better government in most cases).

It would be nice to set up a small (10-20) Swordsmen army for an early war on Persia or the Ottomans.
In this sense, founding immediately a city next to the horses may not be top priority -we will expand there anyway: it may be better to concentrate on building a reasonably productive core of four-five cities (open to debate, of course).

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 07:40 AM

Good start, I already have a feeling that Arabia will dominate the world in this game. I agree with Karusu that we don't need to settle next to the horses quite yet, I suggest we settle in the next best growth area which may be the Olives to the NW on this map. I'm judging this from looking at your map, not the game so I might not have the location right.

Even when waring if I have enough luxuries hooked up then I switch to Republic (or if I have a wonder like HG). I agree that we should go to Monarchy first and then do the Republic switch when the happiness looks fine.

Personally I would not move that warrior more than a square or two from home, there are bound to be some barbs coming our way and its not worth the risk.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 07:48 AM

Don't forget that you have 1 turn anarchy as a Religious civ. You can switch at will with very little penalty. When at peace, Republic or Democracy. When at war, stay as long as you can in the high cash/low corruption government until happiness forces you to switch. If your wars are short, you never need to switch. If they are long, switching to Monarchy or Communism erases the war weariness.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 08:18 AM

Agreed that we can switch, personally I hardly ever do that, I guess I would in a really bad long war, but I feel that I would prefer to switch up the happiness slider than change to monarchy with one turn of Anarchy. If you add up the loss of the one turn and what you lose in Monarchy I think one or two clicks on happiness slider might be enough to keep it ok in Republic.

Alweth

Oct 14, 2003, 08:56 AM

This is great. I'm looking forward to seeing how this game progresses.

Some questions:

For your final save, do you save at the end of your last turn, or the beginning of the next turn?

Is there a way to generate some of the timeline automatically, or do you have to record all of it yourself?

Also, I can't download the Full Game of the Month Setup, since they seem to have taken it offline currently. If I can't get it I'll have to skip my turn, which would be very disappointing.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by Karasu
Very good start, AlanH. :goodjob:
In particular, I think going for The Wheel right from the start was a very good move.
Thaks, Karasu. Luck played a part, as the AI could have popped it from a goodie hut. Fortunately there's only one other expansionist - the Zulus. Check out the PTW timeline for an alternative approach that didn't look too clever to me, until they popped *two* techs from goodie huts, lucky B___s.

you've made some interesting points. In the hope of getting some educational debate going, here are my comments ...

I agree on a relatively close city placement.
We may want to discuss the feasibility of a 3 or 4-tiles distance RCP around Makkah.
I'm still in two minds about RCP. It looks good on paper, and I see great reports of its effectiveness, but (a) it flies on the face of "normal" placements wrt resources and (b) it locks you into a specific Palace/Forbidden Palace placement strategy.

To explain point (b) further: RCP round your Palace assumes your Forbidden Palace is going to be distant, because if you build a local FP and then move or jump the Palace your carefully constructed RCP loses its effectiveness. RCP round your expected FP site *should* cover that, but Qitai had shown that rank corruption round the FP is not affected by distance from the FP, but rather by distance from the now-distant Palace. So RCP has to be on the Palace site, and you are tying yourself down to a Palace/Forbidden Palace strategy that could fall apart in the face of reality. It may be argued that this doesn't apply until the FP gets built. But that should be asap after we get to the (eight?) cities required, in order to get a second core going fast. Before that time the rank corruption effects are low anyway because there aren't many cities and the higher rank outer ones are generally small. I haven't done the sums on this, but these are my gut feelings about RCP. I'd love to see them debated, and this seems a good time to do it.

I also think that Monarchy is a good government choice if we play aggressive enough and manage to get it very early (even though it is often argued that Republic is a better government in most cases).
I've been bitten twice trying to fight in Republic and had to flip to Monarchy to keep the cities under control, but I may just be bad at minimizing war duration, and keeping troops alive and out of enemy territory, the three tricks for minimum war weariness in Republic/Democracy. Our fast and powerful UU ought to make all three easier to achieve, of course.

It would be nice to set up a small (10-20) Swordsmen army for an early war on Persia or the Ottomans.
In this sense, founding immediately a city next to the horses may not be top priority -we will expand there anyway: it may be better to concentrate on building a reasonably productive core of four-five cities (open to debate, of course).
That's the other way to get to the horses - let Suleyman or Xerxes settle them for us. Nice idea, so long as they do a good job of placing the city. Until Ansars arrive swords are stronger than horses. It kills two birds with one stone - weakens a neighbour and wins the horses. It does assume that iron is easier to reach than horses, of course, as we need iron for the swords. Without prior knowledge there's no guarantee of that and we have to wait a while to find out. It also needs a fair bit of "long-term" planning, so everyone needs to buy into it to keep a consistent build program going through several player cycles. We need:

1. Iron working to find the iron - preferably via trade or goodie hut, as the AI usually researches it early so we probably wouldn't be able to sell it but will almost certainly be able to buy it with Mysticism and cash. This could take up to forty turns if we have to wait for Mysticism to trade for it.

2. One or more productive core barracks cities not connected to the iron to produce a stack of vet warriors, plus one city to snag the iron tile into our territory. The easiest way to leave it unconnected is to avoid putting it on an intercity trunk route and road it when we need it. Make the tile it's on a spur road that could be added or removed without disrupting the city trade network. The problem with this is we may road it without knowing during the 40 turns when we don't know where it is.

3. Gold for tech trading and for the warrior-sword upgrade - is that 20 gold per unit? We need to make maximum use of roaded river tiles to keep the cash rolling in.

4. Workers to build the road network to get the forces to our target fast, and to hook the iron up to the trade network when we are ready to upgrade the warriors. That should happen soon, because once we have the granary, we can build a few workers as the settler farm gets up to speed, as we *must* avoid it going over size 6 to prevent the granary emptying.

For anyone unfamiliar with settler farming, we are already at five food per turn in Makkah, and so when our granary is built in five turns we shall expand every two turns, and we are nearly at pop 4 now. Makkah won't stop at 6 because it's on a river. But until we improve some plains and/or the goats we won't produce the 30 shields we need for a settler every four turns to keep the population under 7. However, while we have insufficient shields we can produce workers to keep the population under control. They only need 4 or 5 shields per turn. Most of us can slip up on this sort micromanagement occasionally, so in an emergency we should switch citizens from flood plains to plains tiles to slow down food production and avoid pop 7, but this is not best use of Makkah's good food resources.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 09:06 AM

Your save should be the last of your turns after you moved all the units. That means, make sure your preferences have "Wait at end of turn" selected. Note that it's bad form to do diplomacy on the last turn. It's very bad form to have units on goto. Make sure any goto moves you make end before your turn does. No automating workers either.

You should download GOTM21 full install and GOTM23 addon. Install them in order and you should be ok. Once installed, you will need to check that the installer has created [b]files] for spain.flc, spain1.flc ... spain7.flc. Eight spain files total in the Art/Flics/ directory.

Also note that the resource file in the art directory will now only work for GOTM. You will need to swap the resource.pcx files manually if you are playing other games as well.

Post or PM if you need further help.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Don't forget that you have 1 turn anarchy as a Religious civ. You can switch at will with very little penalty. When at peace, Republic or Democracy. When at war, stay as long as you can in the high cash/low corruption government until happiness forces you to switch. If your wars are short, you never need to switch. If they are long, switching to Monarchy or Communism erases the war weariness.
Quite right. Once we have access to both we can swap, and we should when it's appropriate, give our short revolution time. If we want to move out of Despotism fast for productivity then Monarchy is probably going to happen sooner than Republic. Monarchy is quicker to research than Republic, and is on a path with more trading potential and with fewer prerequisites. It will also fund a decent army better than Republic until we get some markets/banks built. We shall need to sustain our cash to upgrade all those horses and/or warriors.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by AlanH
For anyone unfamiliar with settler farming, we are already at five food per turn in Makkah, and so when our granary is built in five turns we shall expand every two turns, and we are nearly at pop 4 now. Makkah won't stop at 6 because it's on a river. But until we improve some plains and/or the goats we won't produce the 30 shields we need for a settler every four turns to keep the population under 7. However, while we have insufficient shields we can produce workers to keep the population under control. They only need 4 or 5 shields per turn. Most of us can slip up on this sort micromanagement occasionally, so in an emergency we should switch citizens from flood plains to plains tiles to slow down food production and avoid pop 7, but this is not best use of Makkah's good food resources.
You asked for advice, your going to get it.;)

If you do indeed "slip up" and let your population grow above 7, go with the flow. A large captial is extremely productive. Take this opportunity to build some higher ticket items (barracks, temple, even swords) Then build settlers. With the high shields of a large city, settlers build faster than you can grow. Your population will slowly drop back down. The food in your granary is used to fill the granary when you drop below size 6 so no waste there. MM to low food just because you want to avoid growing past size 6 is wasteful. You've already blown the settler every four turns, why not take advantage of the power rather than put a limit on your potential.

As far as RCP, it is very powerful but I still only use it to decide between two equal positions that grab the same resources. Note that the RCP route is in a large way negated by the City Rank Bug: A city that is closer to the FP than the closest city to the capital is given a first city ranking. I myself received a free town way away on the East. I built my FP near my Palace and if I had enough RL time, I would have used my first leader to move the Palace to the far away town. That have made my entire empire Rank 1! It just depends on how much you want to abuse the system.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 09:27 AM

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Note that it's bad form to do diplomacy on the last turn.
Whoops! :blush: I assumed I got twenty full turns to play, including any diplomacy actions. As I felt I'd worked hard for the trading opportunity afforded by the Wheel on my last turn, I did the deal with Carthage. I doubt if anyone would have done it differently, but I apologise to all, and especially to my successor MacBaldrick, the incumbent Sheik of Araby, if I stepped over the mark here.

ControlFreak

Oct 14, 2003, 09:36 AM

AlanH actually I should have included a disclaimer: If you've been working your whole turn for a particular thing you want to get done feel free to: do the diplo on your last turn, play an extra turn or to, play a turn short. The ten turns is a guideline. Don't hog all the fun but don't short change yourself either. (thanks for that line Meldor)

If we fall off of a strict ten turns just be SURE YOU SAVE AT THE END OF 1000BC That's so I can do the comparison with the Quick Start Challenge scoring system.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by ControlFreak

You asked for advice, your going to get it.;)

If you do indeed "slip up" and let your population grow above 7, go with the flow. A large captial is extremely productive. Take this opportunity to build some higher ticket items (barracks, temple, even swords) Then build settlers. With the high shields of a large city, settlers build faster than you can grow. Your population will slowly drop back down. The food in your granary is used to fill the granary when you drop below size 6 so no waste there. MM to low food just because you want to avoid growing past size 6 is wasteful. You've already blown the settler every four turns, why not take advantage of the power rather than put a limit on your potential.

I agree that large cities with lots of improved tiles to work are productive, but that will not be our position in the short term, during the phase before we even start pumping settlers. I'd rather we didn't blow or delay the 4-turn cycle early on if we can avoid it, but, as you say, it's not a disaster and we just have to get as much out of the city as possible if it happens, and get back to producing settlers as fast as possible. [A temple in the capital is useful for a cultural victory, but perhaps not in our situation. A barracks would be my first choice at this stage if we have to build something else].

Note that the RCP route is in a large way negated by the City Rank Bug: A city that is closer to the FP than the closest city to the capital is given a first city ranking.
It sounds like we agree. RCP does very little if you later want to move the Palace some distance, which is far more powerful than RCP anyway, and then RCP only has any effect prior to the move. Meanwhile you may be compromising resource management and other city placement considerations like defence, fresh water, or positioning relative to your rivals.

TedJackson

Oct 14, 2003, 10:39 AM

Have a look > here < (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1295294#post1295294) for a very useful resource chart originally produced by ControlFreak.

Ted

Karasu

Oct 14, 2003, 10:57 AM

Wow, you did put down "some comments", didn't you. ;)
Btw, I *love* discussing game plans...

Originally posted by AlanH

Check out the PTW timeline for an alternative approach that didn't look too clever to me, until they popped *two* techs from goodie huts, lucky B___s.

I didn't have time to check the other thread (but I will do that). One thing I tried to do in my GOTM attempt was to avoid Alphabet, acquire all the other first-layer techs and go hut-hunting hoping to speed up the path to Monarchy.
I didn't find any huts for a looooong time, so I ended up trading for Alphabet and trading again when I discovered Writing and Polytheism.
I managed to get to Monarchy reasonably early, but not enough to compete for a good finish date.

I think your approach was better, but I would really make an effort to rush to Monarchy -we can't think to do all the research on our own (besides, we need money for the upgrades...).

I'm still in two minds about RCP...

I agree with what you say. I personally prefer to place cities in 'strategic' locations, rather than in pre-determined tiles around the Capital.

But the key point relates to the FP. When and where to build it depends a lot on geography. In general, I started liking the 'safer' approach of building it close to the Capital and the moving the Palace (which, indeed, goes against 'hard-core RCP').

With the landscape I see here, this approach does not look too attractive -it would really be nice to get a GL soon, but when I last ended up depending on a leader, it came in 1750 AD...
We will surely need to discuss our approach to the FP and any possible Palace movements.

That's the other way to get to the horses...

A city right there would not be very productive, I fear. I'd rather have closer cities to share improved tiles and make the best use of our worker.
Besides, I like bashing our neighbours... :D

Also:
1. Yes, but I am confindent that we will be able to trade for Iron Working in a reasonable time.

2. With three or four core cities, it will be easy to build up to ten warriors in a short time. Besides, with good settler production we won't have too much to build other than Barracks, units and some temples for border expansion... (Two notable exceptions are pre-builds for wonders and the FP, depending on what we decide to do. I would really like Leonardo and Sun-Tzu...).

The gamble is our having it within close reach. If we don't, then we should make it our #1 priority to get it (with Archers, Chariots, culture, whatever) as we would really be too weak otherwise.

3. This is tough. The upgrade cost is 40. We can't self-research all the way to Monarchy, but need at least one 40-turns gamble and good trading to keep on par in tech and grow rich.
Plus, at some time we will *have* to go at max science if we want to acquire Monarchy (or Rep) in a short time.

4. This is very correct. We must avoid Makkah to grow to size 7 before it can produce 30 shields in four turns, and building workers is a good way to achieve that. We need a couple more workers quickly anyway.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 11:00 AM

I think we need to make a decision on whether to do a palace jump soon, that way we know that RCP round the capital will only have an effect in the early game. Personally I would still do RCP round that as you get so many location choices for cities with RCP and any bonus sheilds in the early game is a great help. Given that we have a couple of days before my turn I'll take the time to calculate our best city placement and compare with an RCP placement (once I can see enough of the map that is).

Then we should decide on our FP site and provide a close ring round the FP, that ring will likely be the first level corruption (after we jump) as the new palace is likely to be further away from its first level cities as the AI is likely to have built them.

Peronally again, I hate palace jumps, in Medal 5-6 my inner cities had built up so much that I had to build settlers everywhere to allow my FP site to become the next palace candidate after the jump. I ended up with about 30 settlers wandering around before I could make the jump. I vowed never to do it again after that. But in this game with slower growth should be easier to do.

Bottom line is lets decide if we do the palace jump now.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 01:12 PM

My Ancient Age threw up just a couple of warriors from huts, and I lost as many to barbs - a net loss, swapping regulars for conscripts :(

Palace Jump. Another of my prejudices hits the streets - I've never done a palace jump, mainly because it goes against the grain to disband the capital I've come to regard as "home", and devoted so much time and attention to :). Also I have no confidence in my ability to apply the formulae that determine where the destination will be, and I don't much like reducing population to ensure it will work. I fully understand these are all bad reasons for not doing it, and I'd be interested to watch it being done at close quarters by an accomplished expert.

As you say, the Palace rebuild or jump usually happens in someone else's capital, so inevitably there will have been a bit of pointy stick work leading up to it. My preference is to get a leader to build the palace during the fighting, but I've never had to suffer a wait until 1700-plus for a leader :eek:. Since we are planning on a few skirmishes :D we all ought to check out SirPleb's leader farming thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61506) in the Strategy Articles forum. The odds of leaders appearing are given in there, along with lots of suggestions on how to maximise the number of elites you get and when to use them to maximum effect.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 01:48 PM

Well I certainly agree with not doing the palace jump.

There is no doubt we need to get the FP up ASAP however, and as we will clearly be doing a little bit of fighting in this game it should come through that method. What helps is to farm the elites. Helps to identify our warrior farm builder and build a barraks . Then one method is to surround a barb camp, don't attack the camp, give them a space to move out, and then attack with your favorite unit. If we have the camp surrouded before the end of Ancient age then we should have great fun with 32 horses. Really helps to get the barb camp near the sea. Also if our unit is attacked by the AI and wins if that same unit attacks on our turn guaranteed promotion.

Once we have some elites then give them the easy kills. Imagine we attack a city with 2 regular, and 2 elite, first attack with regular so that the elite will attack the weaker defenders. I'm convinced this is the way to do it, but when I do it normally the regular wins against a vet defender and then the elite dies on the regular defender, crazy RNG. Also never attack with the elite into open space undefended, always have backup defence for the elite (a minder).

Finally as a contingency we should start a totally corrupt, or nearly totally corrupt FP ASAP (this is a 100 or 200 turn FP). So we identify our best place for it, take that city ASAP (or build it) and then start the FP. If we really get no luck on leaders we will actually get that FP in time. I usually forget and when its too late start the FP.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Well I certainly agree with not doing the palace jump.

There is no doubt we need to get the FP up ASAP however, and as we will clearly be doing a little bit of fighting in this game it should come through that method. What helps is to farm the elites. Helps to identify our warrior farm builder and build a barraks . Then one method is to surround a barb camp, don't attack the camp, give them a space to move out, and then attack with your favorite unit. If we have the camp surrouded before the end of Ancient age then we should have great fun with 32 horses. Really helps to get the barb camp near the sea. Also if our unit is attacked by the AI and wins if that same unit attacks on our turn guaranteed promotion.

All good stuff. I suspect ;) that there might be some useful barb farming territory to the south, where the south coast *might* be reasonably close and we *might* find a coastal camp.

Finally as a contingency we should start a totally corrupt, or nearly totally corrupt FP ASAP (this is a 100 or 200 turn FP). So we identify our best place for it, take that city ASAP (or build it) and then start the FP. If we really get no luck on leaders we will actually get that FP in time. I usually forget and when its too late start the FP.
Interesting ... I'm not sure I understand this bit. I would expect to build an FP somewhere where it will be surrounded by a local core of productive cities once it is complete, and hand build it fairly fast using a Palace pre-build as I grow the city count to the required level. That usually means it's one of my early core cities so that the core remains productive after I move the Palace. It sounds like you are suggesting we earmark a captured or built city further out from our core? Doesn't that result in higher distance corruption for our core cities once we move the palace? If this is a good plan, then one option that comes back on the table is to build my early city on the river bend near the horses and incense, and start the FP prebuild there.

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 05:36 PM

Originally posted by Karasu
Wow, you did put down "some comments", didn't you. ;)
Btw, I *love* discussing game plans...
....
A city right there would not be very productive, I fear. I'd rather have closer cities to share improved tiles and make the best use of our worker.

On with the discussion then ...

I went back to my original post,and I *did* say the next town should be "towards the horses". The horses/river tiles are at radius 6 or 7 from Makkah, so horse city will be a second tier city when it arrives. I would actually build one at a closer distance first, radius 4-ish, for tile sharing with Makkah, but pointing in that approximate direction. For example, a city at S, SE, SE, or S, S, SE would be on the river, with access to flood plains for food and mountains for shields, and is moving in the right general direction. That way we get some roads going the right way, whether we are going to grab the horses ourselves or fight for them. My point was that the horses give us a strategic priority for the general direction of one early city. As has been suggested, we may choose to ignore that and go for the best food/shield resources we can find first.

You're right, we need to use our current worker carefully, and he will be fully occupied for a while on getting Makkah irrigated and roaded just to the settler farm level we need. We need road and irrigation on three more tiles, a mine somewhere, and we need to get the wool tile roaded. That's over 30 worker-turns by my reckoning, so we'll want a couple more workers as soon as the granary is done ... see the discussion about popping a few out during the settler farm build-up.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by AlanH

Interesting ... I'm not sure I understand this bit. I would expect to build an FP somewhere where it will be surrounded by a local core of productive cities once it is complete, and hand build it fairly fast using a Palace pre-build as I grow the city count to the required level. That usually means it's one of my early core cities so that the core remains productive after I move the Palace. It sounds like you are suggesting we earmark a captured or built city further out from our core? Doesn't that result in higher distance corruption for our core cities once we move the palace? If this is a good plan, then one option that comes back on the table is to build my early city on the river bend near the horses and incense, and start the FP prebuild there.

Forget it my idea is crazy, I've been too into palace jumps, and leaders building FP. Actually building the FP somewhere distant is fine and you never move the palace, but that only really works with the jump or leader. To actually build it one sheild at a time, completely mad.

What I think you are saying makes a lot of sense.

So we build the FP (for example) a couple of cities west of the palace in a city that gets a reasonable amount of shields so it doesn't take too long. Then we rebuild the palace in a city a couple of cities east of the original palace and then our two cores are well spaced out and were easy to build. Brilliant.
If that is not what you are saying then its even more Brilliant, as its my idea :lol:

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 14, 2003, 05:59 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Brilliant.
If that is not what you are saying then its even more Brilliant, as its my idea :lol:

Smackster
You get the credit for that one, as I was thinking of a new palace in a foreign capital, built with a leader that arises from the aquisition of said capital ... that's how we got onto leader farming. In my scheme I'd put the FP within one or two cities of Makkah so that it takes over the first core when the palace moves.

Alweth

Oct 14, 2003, 06:32 PM

Okay. Thanks for your help guys. I was able to load the game, but I didn't do anything. I'm going to have to get used to some of the changes, like the new resources.

By the way, if anyone feels like explaining it, I would like to know why it is that sometimes bonus resources don't seem to give the bonus they're supposed to. An example is wheat which the Civilopedia says are supposed to give +2 food, but sometimes it seems like it's just giving plus 1.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 07:18 PM

Originally posted by AlanH

You get the credit for that one, as I was thinking of a new palace in a foreign capital, built with a leader that arises from the aquisition of said capital ... that's how we got onto leader farming. In my scheme I'd put the FP within one or two cities of Makkah so that it takes over the first core when the palace moves.

Sorry I was describing the contingency plan in case we don't get a leader. If we get a leader then just build the FP where ever we want, don't need to pre-build anything. But if we don't get a leader what do we do? What I was suggesting is that we start pre-building the FP in a totally corrupt foreign city as soon as we take it. Then if the leader does not work we still get the FP at a reasonable time.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 07:28 PM

Originally posted by Alweth
By the way, if anyone feels like explaining it, I would like to know why it is that sometimes bonus resources don't seem to give the bonus they're supposed to. An example is wheat which the Civilopedia says are supposed to give +2 food, but sometimes it seems like it's just giving plus 1.
In Despot any square that produces more than 2 food, shields or commerce get each reduced by 1. So wheat on grass (not irrigated) would be 2+2 =4 food, less 1 for despot = 3, and +1 = 4 if irrigated.

Here is a cheat sheet for the new resources.

Lambs:
Hills-2/1/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
Plains-2/1/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
3/1/0 if irrigate
Irrigate lambs on plains!

Sheep:
Hills-2/2/0 default
2/3/0 if mined
Plains-2/2/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
3/2/0 if irrigated
Irrigate Sheep on plains!

Wool:
Hills-2/2/1 default
2/3/1 if mined
Plains- 2/2/1 default
2/2/1 if mined
3/2/1 if irrigated
Irrigate wool on plains!

Oysters:
2/0/2 default
3/0/2 with harbor

Pearls:
2/0/4 default
3/0/4 with harbor

Coastal Rocks:
1/1/2 default
2/1/2 with harbor

Goats:
Desert-2/2/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
2/2/0 if irrigated
Hills-2/2/0 default
2/3/0 if mined
Mountains-
2/2/0 default
2/3/0 if mined
Just slap a road on those goats in desert!

Menudo (young goats):
Desert-2/1/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
2/1/0 if irrigated
Hills-2/1/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
Mountains-2/1/0 default
2/2/0 if mined
Mine those young goats in desert!

Olives:
Desert-2/1/1 default
2/2/1 if mined
2/1/1 if irrigated
Hills-2/1/1 default
2/2/1 if mined
Mountains-2/1/1 default
2/2/1 if mined
Mine those olives on desert!

Cotton:
Desert-0/2/2 default
0/2/2 if mined
1/2/2 if irrigated
Plains-1/2/2 default
1/2/2 if mined
2/2/2 if irrigated
irrigate that cotton!

Alweth

Oct 14, 2003, 08:31 PM

Thanks. I took the time to find the info in the manual.

smackster

Oct 14, 2003, 11:17 PM

Originally posted by Alweth
Thanks. I took the time to find the info in the manual.
Funny, but that is where I got it from too. However, it is worth noting that most information we discuss is not in the Civ manual so don't be afraid to ask again. All the goats and wool info came from a GOTM post (don't remember who).

Karasu

Oct 15, 2003, 01:37 AM

@Alweth,
You should be able to find info on the new units and resources in the Civilopedia if you open the game (the 'pedia was edited for this purpose).

Regarding the FP placement, I agree on the approach(es) we have been discussing.
Given that getting a leader at the right time is what we all hope, building the FP on a reasonably (but not too) productive city in the Capital area is the safe approach: if we don't get the leader to relocate the Capital and we decide against 'the jump', then we will have a larger high-production core.
Not the best option, but certainly better than no FP at all: we will need to decide the location of this city as soon as we have more information on the local geography.
I have no clues about that (of course... ;) ), but it may not be an easy choice if we have little valuable land around Makkah.

ControlFreak

Oct 15, 2003, 06:00 AM

MacBaldrick@ You are past your 24hr GOT IT period. Are you around?

Team@ I'm going to PM MacBaldrick. I will give him a grace period of another 24hr since this is the first round. I'd hate to drop to a three person roster but maybe he's just on vacation and will get it soon or at the end of the roster.

Karasu

Oct 15, 2003, 09:02 AM

I really hope he can play.
In case you need to skip him, ControlFreak, I probably won't be on the board tomorrow -so, don't worry if you don't see anything from me.
I will pop up on Friday and most likely play my turns over the weekend.

smackster

Oct 15, 2003, 09:18 AM

I will be away from Friday to Sunday so wont be able to play any turns until Sunday PM

ControlFreak

Oct 15, 2003, 09:46 AM

I figured we'd have problems running this game quickly, as I asked for people who had no time for Civ.:lol:

Frankly, I'm surprized the PTW team is playing so quickly. (Hey, I'm allowed to look. I'm running both.;) )

smackster, if you can finish by Friday, please take it now. Then Karasu can get it after you and we'll see where MacBaldrick is by then.

If you can, post here either way smackster.

We'll get it going one way or another.

smackster

Oct 15, 2003, 09:53 AM

I got it, I'll finish and post my 10 turns by end of day

Smackster

ControlFreak

Oct 15, 2003, 10:59 AM

Thanks smackster.

AlanH
smackster (Playing Now)
Karasu (Ondeck - will play 10)
Alweth (Added!)
MacBaldrick (MIA - where are you?)

MacBaldrick

Oct 15, 2003, 11:51 AM

Sorry to miss my turn - I didn't pick up the thread email promptly (am still struggling thru GOTM21 at half-hour a turn) and with the time zone difference too much time passed. It is now 18:45 on Wednesday evening (15th) here in UK.

Might be best to pick up later as I tried this as a QSC (never submitted) but didn't have time to take it much further - so I have too much inside info (like where the other horses, iron & Civs are). This should be all out in the open by my turn.

Phew - what a lot of interesting discussions. I've never done a palace jump but finding a good location for a FP will be key as this is not a wonderfull location (at least until the oil is found - ages away). I built cities at a 4 / 4.5 radius with little loss of productivity but an outer circle hits too many mountains / desserts I think - you will be able to judge long before we have that many settlers.

MacBaldrick

Oct 15, 2003, 11:57 AM

Correction - I think is was at 5.5 radius building cities on the hill next to the olives (in the desert) to the NW and next to sheep / goats to NE. Need to reveal more of the map before commenting further.

ControlFreak

Oct 15, 2003, 12:00 PM

MacBaldrick@ are you still willing to play and check the forums when your turn is due? If so, I'll leave you in the last slot of the rotation.

Please work harder at forgetting the map.;) And if you do remember something. Please don't post it. I'll take the comment about the oil as an educated guess regarding the desert terrain that surrounds us.

AlanH

Oct 15, 2003, 02:21 PM

Sorry if I pushed the pace a bit with my first stint. Maybe you were all expecting a 48 hour respite while I wrestled with it, but my schedule gets more hectic mid-week, so I figured I'd better get it out of the way in a single overnight session on Monday.

Note that, if we go too slowly relative to the PTW team, they'll all come back and heckle us after they've finished :eek: Ted already claims to be chuckling!

smackster

Oct 15, 2003, 07:01 PM

Some higher power is working against us. High winds on the NE seaboard in US, power lines down, get home with no power, therefore no internet access. Being dedicated I've come back into work to download the save, I assume it will go quick 10 turns with only one city, should be a breeze.

smackster

Oct 15, 2003, 09:48 PM

3050BC

Before I hit end turn I traded Pottery to Egypt for 10GP. As soon as they meet somebody else they will get it so might as well take their 10GP for ourselves. I'm tempted to trade Wheel as again as soon as you trade it to anyone they will all get it very soon after (AI->AI trading is very cheap), but decide to wait as I've only just got into this game. Decided to leave the music on as I'm working in the dark through power cut, wierd music.

Turn 1 3000BC

See a Zulu scout, had we met them before, still can't get online to check. Whatever they have nothing to trade.
NW Scout- NE->N
NE Scout - N->NW
SW Scout - NE (onto mountain)
Worker completes irrigation, decide to road that square. Really want to road the wool, but decide that a one click of the happiness slider will lose us 1GP, which is exactly what we'll gain from roading the flood plain now, and then move to the wool (3 turns to get to the wool) Nobody has anything to trade. In a game with raging barbs expect lots of trades because of the AI killing barb camps

Turn 2 2950BC
Makkah grows to 4, luxury flipped to 10% we are losing 1 per turn now, but have 62 in hand. 5 food and 5 shields per turn, Granary in 3, growth in 4 no amount of manipulation can change that yet.
NE Scout NW->NE (on hill to see far)
NW Scout N->NW
SW Scout E->N (back into space)

Turn 3 2900BC
NE Scout NW->N
SW Scout NE->NE
NW Scout W->W
Still feel very tempted to take Spain 22 Gold for Wheel, in a normal game I would take it but here I feel responsible for you guys and pass it up for now, but will take it soon.

Turn 4 2850BC
Worker completes road, decide to irrigate plain on the way to wool, that extra food will be needed before we need the happiness. One gold is nothing at this stage as its so easy to get 25 Gold from a barb camp
NE Scout N->N
NW Scout W (onto mountain)
SW Scout NE->NE (actually fat fingered it, still working in the dark, but the move is ok)

Turn 5 2800BC
I'm sitting here in the dark, only light is from the computer, wind is blowing outside, haunting music from Civ, very atmospheric. Well you have to be there. I'm making the most of my 10 turns.
Disaster hits, Disease!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What can you do, we'll be losing 2 population, we have to work the FP. That's life, sorry that's Civ.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Disease1_copy1.jpg

Bingo, lights come back before I get a chance to move.

Can't build the Settler now, we'll be down to 3 pop, decide to build at least one warrior then think about the Settler. Worker start irrigating the plains.
NW Scout W (onto hill)
NE Scout N->NE (see border edge of new Civ)
SW Scout W->N (maybe another border, hard to tell if I know this civ)
Luxury slider back to 0%

Turn 6 2750BC
Mecca back to size 2, oh dear. Grows in 1. Decide to build another scout then warrior, then Settler (maybe)
NW Scout NW->N (see another corner)
NE Scout E -> Meets India they have 10 Gold, need the Wheel
SW Scout NW ish into Zulu territory, wasn't sure who's it was, find Zimbabwe

Turn 7 2700BC
Builds new scout, going to look South
New Scout S->S
SW Scout W->W through Zulu
NE Scout N (onto mountain)
NW Scout NW->N Meets France, give them Pottery for 10 Gold
Switch Mecca not to work goats so we can grow in 2

Turn 8 2650BC
NW Scout W->W
New Scout S->S See olives looks like a great location for second city, already new that with the FPs (disease aside)
SW Scout NW-N
NE Scout W
Notice that Spain now have Wheel and all gold gone, I told you, should have trusted my instincts

Turn 9 2600BC
NW Scout N->N
Warrior compelte irrigation of plain, now roads it, we only just need to push the slider again
New Scout S-SE
NE Scout N->NW (see goody hut, oh goody goody)
SW Scout N->NW

Turn 10 2550BC
Build Warrior, decide to make him have a look NE
NE Scout gets Settler from hut. I'm going to give the next guy a chance to decide what to do, I would settle him in place.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/New_Settler_copy1.jpg

New Scout E->S
SW Scout E->NW
NW Scout N->N
Switched Mecca to Settler, gets it in about 5, Meccas will be size 6 nearly 7 at that time.

Losing 5 Gold per turn, 60 in the bank, Myst in 5. The Disease really killed us, but we can pull this back.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/2590BC_copy1.jpg

Late in the day, need to stop now. Will fix the typos and mistakes tomorrow.

.SAV (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC2590.SAV)

Smackster

ControlFreak

Oct 16, 2003, 04:55 AM

AlanH
smackster
Karasu (Playing Now)
Alweth (Ondeck - will play 10)
MacBaldrick

ControlFreak

Oct 16, 2003, 05:06 AM

Bummer about the disease. That really sucks about FP starts. You guys really have a black cloud over your head.

About the free settler, I would move him. One tile in almost any direction is better than where he stands in the picture. SE is on the river and gets FP immediately. SW or NW get to the coast (not as important since your homeland's won't have any coastal towns for a while.) NE or E gets the sheep.

If you're willing to gamble you could move three tiles SE, SE, S. This would but ivory in your second radius, be on the river, get three FP and a goat. If India still only has 1 town, an embassy now will tell you how close to their settler they are so you can see how much of a risk it is to walk that far.

smackster

Oct 16, 2003, 07:18 AM

I did actually push him one south, towards the river already

ControlFreak

Oct 16, 2003, 07:47 AM

So he's standing on the FP now?

AlanH

Oct 16, 2003, 11:53 AM

@smackster

Good job under trying conditions :goodjob:. I love the atmospherics. I didn't notice the music was on, as I always have my speakers muted. I did turn animations on, though, so if anyone prefers them switched off, feel free to do so. I don't trust myself to spot AI movements without them.

I notice you stuck to maximum research speed. On the later techs I usually go for the 10% approach and build a cash mountain for trading. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. We should be in good shape to trade Mysticism in a few turns, as long as someone has something we need. High priorities for us are Iron and Writing, I guess, plus HBR.

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Bummer about the disease. That really sucks about FP starts. You guys really have a black cloud over your head.

Yeah, but never mind, we'll be pumping poulation like fury now. We just lost four turns on our worker and settler production schedule :(.

About the free settler, I would move him. One tile in almost any direction is better than where he stands in the picture. SE is on the river and gets FP immediately. SW or NW get to the coast (not as important since your homeland's won't have any coastal towns for a while.) NE or E gets the sheep.

If you're willing to gamble you could move three tiles SE, SE, S. This would but ivory in your second radius, be on the river, get three FP and a goat.
If we are going to settle locally think I favour S, SW. That gets us on the coast, with flood plains. There's not much point in snagging the ivory as it will only help this town. We will not have a land route to Makkah for a long time, and the coast gives us a better chance, with Map Making not so far away.

The reason I say "if" is I'm not sure what we are going to do with this city. It's a long way from home, and it's going to need defence or else it will just be easy meat for the Indians, but building and moving spears from Makkah would take for ever and divert Makkah from its main task of building a homeland core. Until this city gets a forbidden palace it will suffer major distance corruption, so its productivity will be lousy, and building its own defences will also take a while, during which it can't start the Palace prebuild. It will also need a worker or two to irrigate the flood plains. I guess the best way to go is to build a spear first, then a worker to get it growing as fast as possible, since food doesn't suffer from corruption, then use some pop rushes to produce some more defence, then start the Palace. Meanwhile we could keep in mind a requirement to get a coastal city nearer to Makkah so that when we get Map Making we can establish a sea trade route.

But I have no experience of trying to settle this far from home this early in the game. Anyone?

If India still only has 1 town, an embassy now will tell you how close to their settler they are so you can see how much of a risk it is to walk that far.
Sorry, no embassy, we haven't learnt how to write yet. Even if we did see a settler near to completion we wouldn't know whether he would prioritise the spot we have in mind.

Since we can't see into the Indian territory right now, we don't know if a settler is already on the way. If he isn't then we would get there first anyway. The AI seldom settles within existing cultural borders this early, so it would take three turns for the Indian settler to get to a spot. We can hedge our bets. Move the settler south next turn and move the scout towards Delhi. The scout will then be able to see into Delhi on the subsequent turn to tell us whether there's a settler moving to beat us. If there is, we go south west for a coastal city. If not we still have the choice.

MacBaldrick

Oct 16, 2003, 12:25 PM

I shouldn't get to hung up about using our 'free' city as even if moving down to the river/coast location is hardly wonderfull and we may be hemmed in by the Indians.

IMHO build defensive units till size 3 then go for a settler to build another city. Choices are 1/ build towards core then use worker to link by road. Repeat in new city till we link to expanding core - 2/ build city chain across to other coast to hem in the Indians 3/ occupy as much good land as possible to cramp Indian development. With so much dessert to S & W I would go with latter.

Either way a long term back-burner project unless we reveal some important resource.

Have we decided / agree where to settle next and in what order (each player's choice but guidance with underlying thinking would be nice) ? Need to check close in terrain for good sites.

PS Pure guess as to presence of oil but this is a Cracker scenario :)

smackster

Oct 16, 2003, 12:28 PM

Originally posted by AlanH
@smackster
I notice you stuck to maximum research speed. On the later techs I usually go for the 10% approach and build a cash mountain for trading. I'll be interested to see how this plays out. We should be in good shape to trade Mysticism in a few turns, as long as someone has something we need. High priorities for us are Iron and Writing, I guess, plus HBR.

Just left it where it is. In fact if the disease had not hit I think we would have got it by now. Then would have turned on 40 turns for Poly. I like Poly as the AI often does not get it. The others would have got Iron and Writing for us. But we can go either way.

Originally posted by AlanH
@smackster
But I have no experience of trying to settle this far from home this early in the game. Anyone?

Just build two warriors, then temple, then spear, then workers, then settlers. If 32 barb horses come near, gift it to the Zulu's.
It was free so nothing to lose. Corruption will be very bad so it isn't much use. Now with the temple the culture will grow and grow to help our domination limit

One thing we should note on this game is that the growth rate is slow, see how the AI has settled so few cities and are behind already.

ControlFreak

Oct 16, 2003, 12:46 PM

Sorry about suggesting embassy without writing. I'm good for a few boneheaded comments.

The only experience I had with a far away city was in my QSC entry for this very game so it's sort of spoiler info for you. I got a free CITY on the very end of the Roman pennisula. I didn't even have the choice to move it. I did as smackster suggested and built warriors and a temple. Then switched to spears, occationally rushing with pop. I made sure to keep the Romans on my side during wars so they wouldn't gobble it up. My plan was to get a leader and move the palace to this far away city to take advantage of the city rank bug. I ran out of RL time and had very bad leader luck. Maybe you guys would to better.

In my preparation for that, I ran very tight city spacing, no more than three tiles all around my FP city (built in the olive grove). If I could have pulled it off, I would have had a ton of rank 1 cities.

About the civ growth: The AI try to build settlers from every town AFAIK. On this desert map dotted with food bonuses there is a tendency to see the sheild power of the bonuses rather than the food power. Failing to prioritize a "settler factory" is a big disadvantage. I think that is the reason for the slow growth. Once they develop enough towns on food bonuses, they will start reproducing rapid, would be my guess.

AlanH

Oct 16, 2003, 01:27 PM

We should consider the "free settler" as a repayment by the gods of the RNG for taking two citizens away from us. I'm pretty sure I popped the same hut in my QSC and got a conscript warrior, and I played on until 1200 AD and never saw any flood plain disease at all. In any case, we should take it and make the most of it. I'm reassured that you guys think we can get it to produce. At least its rank corruption factor will be low for a while, until the core has grown a bit.

Have we decided / agree where to settle next and in what order (each player's choice but guidance with underlying thinking would be nice) ? Need to check close in terrain for good sites.

I'd like to see a bit more terrain to get a good dot map aroud Makkah, but if I had to settle a city now I'd go for S, S, SW, or S, S, SW, SW if you prefer a bit more distance (I like three tiles, specially as they are on the same side of the river) . I know it's on the flood plains again, but it gives us two places to expand population fast, it's in reach of the olives with a cheap or rush temple build, and has plenty of two-food tiles to work until we can get some worker action going down there. Other options are W, W, NW to grab some olives and to grow towards Carthage, or N, N, N to get to the goats and to point towards Persia.

@smackster: Note that your timeline turn dates are wrong. After 2750 you were running 40 years per turn, hence your save file is 2590 BC, but your last turn reported is 2550 BC. Also, we are only 4 turns from Mysticism, not 5. You're forgiven, of course, lateness of the hour, strange Halloween conditions and all :crazyeye:

smackster

Oct 16, 2003, 01:56 PM

Yes I blame the lack of power for the date mix up. I was running off laptop power if you are wondering, had about 30 minutes left when the power came back.

What I was doing was just subtracting 50 years each turn in my notes and not taking notice of the actual date :(

smackster

Oct 16, 2003, 02:00 PM

Which reminds me to charge up the batteries as I have a 6 hour flight tomorrow. I feel sorry for the guy next to me. I actually look forward to a flight when I can play GOTM for 6 hours straight, with somebody bringing you food and drink.

AlanH

Oct 16, 2003, 03:50 PM

NOw that sounds a great way to while away a six hour flight! I envy you on several counts:

1 When I was doing my long haul flying my Powerbook battery was good for two hours max.

2. When I was doing my long haul flying my cheap employers (later that was me :confused: ) bought me cattle-class seats where a modest Pismo would only open far enough to use if the guy in front had his seat back in take-off position, so it wasn't worth investing in spare batteries anyway.

3 Where was Civ3 when I needed it then? :cry:

Karasu

Oct 17, 2003, 01:26 AM

Well played, Smack. :goodjob:
Must have been really a weird feeling, to play in those conditions.

I got the save, anyway. I won't be able to play at work today (now, that's strange :rolleyes: ), so I expect to be able to post my log on Monday morning.

We can use the next hours to talk about city placement.

@MacBaldrick -no problems about your mentioning oil. We should not even get to the Industrial Age in this game, unless we want Ted to keep on chuckling forever... ;)

Karasu

Oct 17, 2003, 09:30 AM

I was thinking to build the next two cities to take advantage of the Flood Plains to the S; then the Olives and Goats to the North.
With three-four cities around Makkah we would be able to build some military units while popping settlers, and to start the FP without sacrificing too much production.

As a first site, I would like (distances from Makkah):
- 3SW+1S (has water, is not on FP and can use both FP and Olives right away)
- 3SE+1S (can use FP and is in the direction of 'our' horses, but has no running water and needs border expansion to use Olives).
After that, I can't say right now.
Since the first two spots are (not intentionally) 4.5 tiles from Makkah, some interesting places are:
- 3NW+1N for the olives (or 2W+1NW as Alan was saying, or both)
- 3N for the goats.

- 3E for the spices (?), but that needs some exploration.
The FP could be started in the area between the spices and the horses for what I can see here.
Actually, it doesn't seem feasible to build it anywhere else, but we will need to know the map in that region to be able to talk about it.

The first city site seems easier to develop in a short time, so I would go for it unless we want to discuss the issue a bit more. I won't be able to start playing before tomorrow anyway, so I will check the forum before I start playing.

Alweth

Oct 17, 2003, 12:39 PM

Karasu, as you're taking your turn, please be thinking up suggestions for what I should do on mine.

AlanH

Oct 17, 2003, 01:02 PM

Alweth, I'm sure you'll get some suggestions. Your problem will be deciding which ones to follow, if any ;)

AlanH

Oct 17, 2003, 02:47 PM

Originally posted by Karasu
I was thinking to build the next two cities to take advantage of the Flood Plains to the S; then the Olives and Goats to the North.
With three-four cities around Makkah we would be able to build some military units while popping settlers, and to start the FP without sacrificing too much production.
Sounds good. I still think we have some unfinished business wrt our remote settler - do we settle near India, or try to get him a bit nearer home? In my experience the AI probably won't attack an unaccompanied settler, and we've seen no barbs yet that I'm aware of, so he could probably get back to build a core city if we thought that was a good idea.

As a first site, I would like (distances from Makkah):
- 3SW+1S (has water, is not on FP and can use both FP and Olives right away)
- 3SE+1S (can use FP and is in the direction of 'our' horses, but has no running water and needs border expansion to use Olives).
After that, I can't say right now.
Since the first two spots are (not intentionally) 4.5 tiles from Makkah, some interesting places are:
- 3NW+1N for the olives (or 2W+1NW as Alan was saying, or both)
- 3N for the goats.

- 3E for the spices (?), but that needs some exploration.
The FP could be started in the area between the spices and the horses for what I can see here.
Actually, it doesn't seem feasible to build it anywhere else, but we will need to know the map in that region to be able to talk about it.

I don't think it will make any difference whether we build on or next to the flood plain. As far as I know, a city is vulnerable to disease whenever it is working flood plains. Disease can only hit at pop 2 or above, by which time we would be working a flood plain tile if it's in reach anyway.

Just to provide an aunt sally for debate, I have put together a map showing RCP distances of settlable tiles between 3 and 8 from Makkah, plus a possible dot map for five cities at distance 4 (or 4.5). Please don't consider this definitive. I wasn't looking for RCP, so much as a distribution of cities not too far from Makkah, with enough overlap for some tile sharing as they grow. It happens to give radius 4 for most of them, but there is one at radius 3 to get another fresh water city that wouldn't need an aquaduct. Fresh water cities can be specially useful if we want to get an early start on a wonder or forbidden palace and not have a pop 6 limit to cramp our style as it builds.

Feel free to tear it to pieces:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23-Cities.gif

The first city site seems easier to develop in a short time, so I would go for it unless we want to discuss the issue a bit more. I won't be able to start playing before tomorrow anyway, so I will check the forum before I start playing.
I agree with going for your olives site - it gets an immediate extra shield and would fit into most city plans I've tried. I think it's a toss up whether we build the other flood plains city or the northern goats next. They both point at our neighbors, but I like the the flood plains one, as it also moves us in the direction of the horses. It can also make better use of shared tiles as Makkah's pop grows and falls as it produces settlers.

Karasu

Oct 18, 2003, 03:54 AM

Originally posted by AlanH

Sounds good. I still think we have some unfinished business wrt our remote settler - do we settle near India, or try to get him a bit nearer home? In my experience the AI probably won't attack an unaccompanied settler, and we've seen no barbs yet that I'm aware of, so he could probably get back to build a core city if we thought that was a good idea.

I don't like a city that far from home at all, but it surely is a long way back...
I thought the general consensus was on settling there, but if there is a possibility to start the 'pilgrimage', I would like to consider it.

I like the dotmap -the SE city just has no obvious site for us to pick. I'll explore a bit more the area.

Sorry for the rushed post, but connecting from home is not the same as connecting from work... :mischief:

AlanH

Oct 19, 2003, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by Karasu

I don't like a city that far from home at all, but it surely is a long way back...
I thought the general consensus was on settling there, but if there is a possibility to start the 'pilgrimage', I would like to consider it.

Check my first post after we started the debate about where he should settle. Sure, I contributed to the discussion of the options near Delhi, but I also raised the question of the value and productivity and vulnerability of a remote city this early.

I've checked. He's actually 29 turns away from Makkah. In that time we should be able to get most of our first rank cities settled unless we suffer anouther disease hit, so if we brought him back towards Makkah he could found a city in about 22 turns to contribute to a second ring in the east or north east. He could walk back through the big black area to do some exploring on the way. That would add value to our map, and we could send out a warrior or spear to meet him and to found a new city site around seven or eight turns away from Makkah.

I like the dotmap -the SE city just has no obvious site for us to pick. I'll explore a bit more the area.
That's our best-explored direction, as it happens. I think we can see all we need in that area already, certainly within core city range of Makkah. That was one of my reasons for adding the distance markers to the map. There's only one isolated black tile in the region within reasonable core city distance from Makkah. Your proposed olives/lake city is a must-have, and that limits the options for another southern location.

There are only two alternatives for Firaxis distance 4 in that direction - one tile SE or one tile E from my dot. Either way we lose the river and that costs us 100 shields for an aquaduct. The move E has nothing else to commend it, so we can discard it. That leaves the SE move. A city there can reach the olives, but only after we build a temple for 30 shields. They would give us an extra shield per turn, but we can also get to them later with a second ring city and without a 130-shield expense. So the one shield per turn bonus is only effective between the time we build the city and its temple and the time we build the next SE city. As the south east is a priority direction for us (horses, Ottomans), that time is unlikely to be more than 30 turns, so the olives wouldn't even repay the cost of reaching them before that time.

So the key question is what would be the benefit of putting this city at Firaxis distance 4 and going RCP?

I thought this would be worth studying, if only to test the effect of RCP in a real situation. I've used Alexman's formula (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=240847#post240847) to estimate the effect on the other four towns of changing their rank from 1 to 2. I've put the results in a spreadsheet here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/CorruptionCalc2.xls.zip) for anyone who's interested.

[EDIT: In the interests of avoiding misleading the innocent future generations who may find their way to this post - the rest of this paragraph was rubbish, as a result of a misreading of the relevant formula, so I have faded it to pale grey and inserted the true situation afterwards. The above link also points to a corrected spreadsheet.

It looks as if it will make a difference of one or two shields and gold per turn in each of these four cities. This difference starts once their production gets to around 7 spt or 7 gpt, and lasts until we succeed in building the Forbidden Palace plus a new Palace elsewhere, when they should all become rank one anyway, so long as the nearest city to our new palace is at least at distance four. If this period lasts 100 turns, we can gain up to a total of 400 shields and 400 gold in waste/corruption from the four cities during that time by using strict RCP in the first ring. This is an interesting result, and does make a good selling pitch for RCP in this situation. It means an Aqueduct in that city would be more than paid for by the RCP benefits of putting it one tile SE of my dot, and it would probably still be cost effective even if we were to build a new palace in less than 50 turns or so from now. So here's my revised dot map.
The true story is that there is little-to-no difference in performance for these four cities if the SE city is placed at Firaxis distance 3 instead of 4. This is because at rank one or two the rank corruption effect is minimal. A few specific production rates suffer a hit of one extra corruption/waste unit per turn as rounding errors do their worst, but the difference is unlkely to pay for an aquaduct during the time it would exist.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23-Cities-2.gif

Note also that there are two flood plain tiles and one NW olives tile that we can only work if we expand our borders, either by settling cities in a second ring or by building temples.

Exploration should concentrate on expanding our map to make it more valuable and to start planning our next ring of cities. We should have the best world map when Map Making comes around, as we and the Zulus are the only civs with scouts, and the Zulus are at one end of the continent. In the QSC I was able to trade my comprehensive map for Map Making, then corner all other known techs and cash and complete my map, all in a single turn. We also still need to meet Rome, I think. When Writing arrives we want to have all the contacts in case the others haven't met or traded them all yet.

Karasu

Oct 20, 2003, 07:30 AM

Pre-turn
Everything looks fine.

Makkah is already at 5 food per turn, but a bit low on shields. I'm not sure we can make a 4-turns Settler Factory in Despotism.

Turn 1 - 2550 BC
Pop growth in Makkah means Mysticism next turn.

The faraway settler.
Hhmmmm...
I know it may be unpopular, but I will move it towards Makkah, with the Scout scouting ahead of him. It is going to take around 20 to reach the mountains east of Makkah. Not too much.
Of course, we can always build a city along the road, if necessary.

Stupid Gandhi must have got Mysticism from a stupid hut.

Turn 2 - 2510 BC
Mysticism. Polytheism in 40 turns (to be reassessed in the future).

No trades possible. Looks like Ottomans have Mysticism too.
Gift CB to France and Alphabet to Egypt, lest they lag too much in tech.

Turn 3 - 2470 BC
A scout ends its turn right in front of a Barbarian. Typical... :rolleyes:
Makkah reaches pop 6; Settler in two turns.

Turn 4 - 2430 BC
Some scouting. There seems not to be too much room to the East.

Turn 5 - 2390 BC
Makkah: Settler - Worker

Turn 6 - 2350 BC
Goats are on the tile we had chosen for the next city.
I decide to settle in the desert 1NE, closer to Makkah (but as long as we keep building settlers, overlap will not be a problem).
The city will need an Aqueduct, though. And a Temple.

Settler moves in position. Worker is on Flood Plains.

Xerxes has found 25 gps, which he gladly gives us for The Wheel.

Turn 7 - 2310 BC
Madinah founded (at last): Warrior.

No trading opportunities.

Turn 8 - 2270 BC
Not much. Still no new techs around.

Workers on the Goats next to Madinah.

The second warrior from Makkah has been scouting to the NE. He'll be waiting for the Settler to come.

Turn 9 - 2230 BC
Still not much. No trades, some exploration.

Turn 10 - 2190 BC
Shaka had 28 gps, which we gladly receive for The Wheel.

The situation:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23Makkah1.jpg

We need to reassess our city placements. Those goats forced a different distance from Makkah. It looks like the second city could go where Alan was originally suggesting (much as I don't like building on Flood Plains).
The northern cities can also be brought a little closer to the capital (sorry, I didn't have time to prepare a dotmap).

If we want to start building the FP, it could go in the area between Spices and Horses (3E of Makkah? 3E+1NE?).

I would have Makkah build another worker after the next settler (taking some care in managing the worked tiles).

Madinah could build a Granary to help with Settlers and workers, as it has both food and shields (plus a Temple sometie in between).
The next couple of cities could go for Barracks and Warriors (maybe the Temple for border expansion), and nothing else for some time.
Of course, this is just an idea -and maybe not even a good one.

One more point: no new techs came out during these turns, so I would expect IW and Writing to come out fairly soon. It would be nice to use Mysticism (and some money) for a good trading round, so remember to check the Diplo screen every turn.

Ops, almost forgot THE SAVE! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C-2190_BC.zip)

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 07:51 AM

AlanH
smackster
Karasu
Alweth (Up Now)
MacBaldrick (Ondeck)

As my nick implies...

File names should be SG23C_BCXXXX.zip or .SAV
This is to avoid trying to open save games and having alternating 10AD,10BC,1000AD,1000BC...Really gets my goat for some reason. I wish Civ just used a regular open file dialog box where I could sort by date modified.:cry:

Alweth, open the save, make a plan and post questions if you have any.

Karasu

Oct 20, 2003, 08:01 AM

Sorry, mates.
The uploaded files seem to have a 0-bytes size (which is not encouraging).
I will try with the attachments.

Karasu

Oct 20, 2003, 08:03 AM

And the save (properly renamed... ;) ).

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 08:32 AM

After downloading Karasu's file I realize my tirade was misdirected. You can name the zip file anything you want. But please make sure the save game file has the above syntax. An note the capitalization. (OK, enough controlfreakout.)

Karasu, you can get a four turn settler factory. The key is to mine one of the plains tiles and MM every turn.

Here's how:
Size 5, empty food, empty shields:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Mined Plains(-1F,+2S)
That gives +4F,+7S on turn 1.

Size5, 4F, 7S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x3
That gives +6F which grows from size 5 to 6. The governer assigns the new worker to the Mined Plains(-1F,+2S) but since food is already calculated, the -1F is has no effect, you just get the +2S, resulting in +7S this turn.

Size6, 0F, 14S:
Size 5, empty food, empty shields:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Mined Plains(-1F,+2S) {same as size 5} plus 1 irrigated plains (+0F, +1S).
That gives +4F,+8S on turn 3.

Size 6, 4F, 22S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x3 {same as size 5} plus 1 irrigated plains (+0F, +1S).
Again, grow to size 7 the governer should put the new citizen on the mined plain giving +8S on turn 4.
22+8=30 -> Settler is done, and pop falls back to 5, 0F, 0S. Do it again.

So you will need a mined plain and an irrigated plain. You may also need to set the governer to prioritize shields. You will definitely need to check MicroManagement every turn to make sure you are on the right emphasis. The idea is if your food bin is empty, you work the mined plains, if its got 4food, you work the Flood Plains. That means you should never had a Grow in 2 indicated when you hit enter. The empty bin should have Grow in 3, the MM'd 4food bin should have Grow in 1. So if the capitol every has grow in 3 you're doing something wrong.

Not for those who are not into MM, you are going to miss this once in a while. Therefore you should not move all the workers away from the capitol but rather improve EVERY Tile. Mostly irrigate the plains but one or two mines won't hurt. They will be used if you miss the MM and the city grows past 6 without finishing the settler. Don't panic, let it finish and use the extra pop to build a higher ticket item like temple/spear. Then, as the food bin fills up, build settlers and workers to drop back down to your settler factory size

Karasu

Oct 20, 2003, 08:42 AM

I HAD capitalized my file, I swear! ;)

About the Settler factory, thanks for the solution: I thought it would work that way, even though I've been too lazy to work it out myself... :D

But I agree with you that it's worth, even if I personally hate micromanaging (Warning: restricted information).

Besides, we will need some mines for the SE city.

EDIT: talking about save files, it is safer if we zip them. In MB1 a probably corrupt upload caused some trouble. Zipping them won't prevent the problem, but will warn us in time.

EDIT2: Ops. Removed classified information from the post... I hope Cracker hasn't noticed ;)

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 08:47 AM

Karasu@ Although I am very impressed with your MM efforts in the current GOTM, please avoid discussing anything about GOTM24 in this non-spoiler thread. (Could you edit it out maybe.) I know it seems like a harmless comment but I'm forced to keep very strict rules to stay with this grey area SG. Thank you for your understanding.

AlanH

Oct 20, 2003, 10:42 AM

Bad luck about the lost scout, and losing the race for Mysticism. We're really not getting the run of the ball, are we!

Good job getting the sattler back towards the core. We need all the local production we can get. No problems with me on that decision.

I would have settled Madinah one tile further south to get immediate access to the olives and fresh water. I don''t understand your fear of settling on flood plains. As I understand it disease probability is not affected by whether you are built on them or not, just whether you have a citizen working them, which would always be the case regardless where you build.

I just rechecked my RCP calculations, and they were rubbish. Ignore them and everything I said concerning the benfit of RCP in this situation, as I misinterpreted one of the formulae. My recalculation indicates that there would be a one shield or gold per turn benefit at a small number of specific production levels in the radius 4 cities. So I recommend that we settle the next four core cities according to my first dot map to avoid the cost of an aquaduct in the SE one.

I'm not sure why both workers are on Madinah duties. We still don't have the wool hooked up (my fault), and we should really have another irrigated plains tile for when Makkah grows to size 6 next turn.

Re. Makkah's shields. No point mining the goats while we are despotic of course - we would still be at 2 spt there. So if we sustain 5 fpt we can't do better than 6 spt at size 5 and 7 spt at size 6. To do that we need that irrigated plain SW of Makkah. That gives us 26 shields in the normal production sequence. Can we get 2 bonus shields on each pop growth turn? With a mined plain and governor set to emphasise production, the new pop each time should go for the mined plain and get an extra 2 shields as we go from 5 to 6 and again as we go from 6 to 7 and pop the settler. We would need to make sure that we revert to the 5 fpt configuration every two turns. Would that get us 30 shields every four turns?

Have fun, Alweth

Alan

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by AlanH
Can we get 2 bonus shields on each pop growth turn? With a mined plain and governor set to emphasise production, the new pop each time should go for the mined plain and get an extra 2 shields as we go from 5 to 6 and again as we go from 6 to 7 and pop the settler. We would need to make sure that we revert to the 5 fpt configuration every two turns. Would that get us 30 shields every four turns?
Scroll up three (four counting yours) posts. I highlighted how to get a 4 turn settler factory in my second to last post (third to last counting this one).

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 11:03 AM

BTW Happy Belated Birthday, Karasu. Sorry I missed it with being offline during the weekends. Hope it was fun.

AlanH

Oct 20, 2003, 11:04 AM

Originally posted by ControlFreak
Karasu, you can get a four turn settler factory. The key is to mine one of the plains tiles and MM every turn.

Here's how:
Size 5, empty food, empty shields:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Mined Plains(-1F,+2S)
That gives +4F,+7S on turn 1.

Size5, 4F, 7S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x3
That gives +6F which grows from size 5 to 6. The governer assigns the new worker to the Mined Plains(-1F,+2S) but since food is already calculated, the -1F is has no effect, you just get the +2S, resulting in +7S this turn.

Size6, 0F, 14S:
Size 5, empty food, empty shields:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Mined Plains(-1F,+2S) {same as size 5} plus 1 irrigated plains (+0F, +1S).
That gives +4F,+8S on turn 3.

Size 6, 4F, 22S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x3 {same as size 5} plus 1 irrigated plains (+0F, +1S).
Again, grow to size 7 the governer should put the new citizen on the mined plain giving +8S on turn 4.
22+8=30 -> Settler is done, and pop falls back to 5, 0F, 0S. Do it again.

I don't see where the second and fourth turns get three flood plains to work. There are only two in Makkah city limits in my copy of the file.

[Edit] Sorry, we cross-posted while I was recalculating my RCP impact. If I am right about the two flood plains I'd like someone to check my solution as an alternative. Putting it in the same notation as yours:

Size 5, empty food, empty shields:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Irrigated Plains(+0F,+1S)
That gives +5F,+6S on turn 1.

Size5, 5F, 6S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Irrigated Plains(+0F,+1S)
That gives +5F which grows from size 5 to 6. The governer assigns the new worker to the Mined Plains(-1F,+2S) but since food is already calculated, the -1F is has no effect, you just get the +2S, resulting in +8S this turn.

Size6, 0F, 14S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2,Irrig Plains(+0F,+1S)x2.
That gives +5F,+7S on turn 3.

Size 6, 5F, 21S:
Goat(+0F,+2S),Wool(+1F,+2S),FP(+1F)x2, irrigated plains (+0F, +1S)x2.
Again, grow to size 7 the governer should put the new citizen on the mined plain giving +9S on turn 4.
21+9=30 -> Settler is done, and pop falls back to 5, 0F, 0S. Do it again.

MM every two turns.

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 11:22 AM

I was going off the pictures and not the game save. As such, you may be correct that there are only two FP. What you propose should work. (Actually, what you propose would have worked regardless of there being 2FP or 3FP.) Either way, you need to get more plains irrigated as AlanH already indicated. And at least one mined as I indicated.

smackster

Oct 20, 2003, 11:31 AM

My only problem with sending the Settler back to home is that he'll probably go the way of the scout, on the end of a barb stick. But I'll stick with this plan when my turn comes up.

smackster

Oct 20, 2003, 11:43 AM

Great plans on the 4-turn settler factory, I really didn't see that we could do it but what you are saying makes sense. I think getting that running should be our priority before we get the road to the wool.

Alweth

Oct 20, 2003, 11:45 AM

Okay. I'll get the game and start playing after work today.

ControlFreak

Oct 20, 2003, 12:04 PM

On a managerial level, the PTW team is now past the spoiler 1 level. When you meet the spoiler 1 requirements, you can read their report upto my **End of Spoiler 1** post. On the default forum view it's page 5. When you get there I'll tell the game date they left the Spoiler 1 realm. Their RL date was 2003OCT19.

The requirements to reach are:
Full Map including all civs (or their remains)
Entered the Middle ages.

I am posting in there thread to tell them that they can read your thread until you meet these requirements. Expect some popcorn throwing.;)

Karasu

Oct 20, 2003, 01:19 PM

Regarding settling on Flood Plains, I remember reading somewhere that there is some chance of getting disease on any turn for each FP tile worked, and my understanding is that this cumulates (i.e., the more FP tiles you work the higher the chance).

So, if you found a city next to a FP, you will risk disease on every turn; the risk will be higher when you additionally work a Flood Plains.

Of course, I may have understood it incorrectly and I am probably overestimating the entire thing. But then, nobody is perfect... :)

I sent the workers to Madinah as Makkah has already some worked tiles, and I wanted Madinah to grow faster. Not having to cross the river made it faster to go to Madinah before roading the Wool. But I agree that that needs to be done quickly.

I also agree on founding according to your previous dotmap. Forget RCP!

AlanH

Oct 20, 2003, 01:44 PM

@Smackster: Our settler's in good shape. He's already completed ten of his twenty moves back to base. Alweth should be able to get him to a city site in the north or north west, and he's got a warrior on his way to meet him. I think Karasu did the right thing running the scout ahead of him, and we are a long way from the coast, which seems to be the home of most barbs.

Here's a possible dot map with some second ring cities at radius 7 shown in yellow. Our Settler can get to the nearest, lakeside site in ten turns from where he is right now.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23-Cities-3.gif

Feel free to throw popcorn ;)

smackster

Oct 20, 2003, 01:47 PM

Alan,

If we get the Settler back then you are right, if he dies then I was right. Proof positive. Actually I think maybe 20 turns isn't so many and he should help us to catch up. So good decision.

AlanH

Oct 20, 2003, 01:51 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Great plans on the 4-turn settler factory, I really didn't see that we could do it but what you are saying makes sense. I think getting that running should be our priority before we get the road to the wool.

I agree. Next worker that comes free should irrigate the plains SW of Makkah then road the wool. The other one should mine and road an unimproved riverside plains tile somewhere next to Makkah. We should use riverside tiles as much as possible so that we get an extra gpt whenever we work them.

AlanH

Oct 20, 2003, 05:46 PM

Originally posted by Karasu
Regarding settling on Flood Plains, I remember reading somewhere that there is some chance of getting disease on any turn for each FP tile worked, and my understanding is that this cumulates (i.e., the more FP tiles you work the higher the chance).

So, if you found a city next to a FP, you will risk disease on every turn; the risk will be higher when you additionally work a Flood Plains.

Of course, I may have understood it incorrectly and I am probably overestimating the entire thing. But then, nobody is perfect... :)

That's probably true, but my point is that disease can only strike when you are at size two, and it can only cost two lives at size three and above. At those levels you will probably be working every flood plain tile in range, regardless of what you are built on, so I doubt if the probability changes. But it's been known for me to be wrong as well ;) I'd really like to meet that "nobody" guy sometime ...

BTW One additional bonus from building on a flood plain tile is you get a shield out of it instead of the extra food. That can help in situations where there are lots of flood plains, and shields with food are hard to come by.

I sent the workers to Madinah as Makkah has already some worked tiles, and I wanted Madinah to grow faster. Not having to cross the river made it faster to go to Madinah before roading the Wool. But I agree that that needs to be done quickly.
I only debate whether both should have gone to Madinah. Also, beware of stacking workers on jobs this early because of rounding problems. A road costs three worker-turns, so two workers take two turns and waste one worker-turn, ie 33%. When you take the movement costs into account as well it can be quite wasteful to double up workers, as each tile you improve is likely to cost two worker-turns of movement instead of one.

Alweth

Oct 20, 2003, 08:21 PM

I'm having Madinah build a temple right off. Any comments?

smackster

Oct 20, 2003, 09:18 PM

Originally posted by Alweth
I'm having Madinah build a temple right off. Any comments?

You should build whatever you feel is right. Once you have the save I think its down to you. We can then discuss it afterwards, this is just my opinion but I think it adds more to the game, these are your 10 turns, enjoy them :-)

However this time I'll give my opinion, in the assumption that you already played it.

I know I played this before, and I built the temple. But now I think I might go for the Granary, and make Madinah the worker/settler/warrior factory, a Granary will help that. The early temple in this one city to help domination will not make any difference in the long run, but early worker production will.

Alweth

Oct 20, 2003, 10:39 PM

Well, I've played 5 turns now and I'm going to call it a night, so I thought I better give you guys something to think about until I get off work tomorrow and finish it up. So I'm uploading my log so far and a save so you guys can take a look and give comments. (Since I'm really trying to improve my Civ game.) I'll play the next five turns tomorrow and may be able to have it finished tomorrow morning but evening at the latest.

Here's the log:

Preturn - 2190BC
Look around. That's it.

I'll leave research at 10% even though I'm not sure what the strategy

behind it is. (I usually try to have my research as high as possible,

but I'm not very good.)

1. 2190BC

Madinah finishes warrior. I build temple, since production is currently

good, I'm concerned about happiness vs. population, and it's already

being crowded by Makkah.

E. Warrior->E to meet settler and explore.

E. Scout->NW>NW since warrior is exploring to his south.

Settler->SW

N. Scout->South

S. Scout->N>N to check out land around possible horse town

Madinah Warrior->W because I see some more warriors in Madinah's future

and we haven't explored that way yet. (Just realized this was dumb,

should have gone SW>W.)

End of turn, while checking diplomacy Civ III quits on me. Close some

other programs and load autosave. Do the same things again. Nothing to

report in diplomacy.

2. 2150BC - E. Warrior is attacked and killed by barbarian. Darn.

Makkah produces settler->S over river (forgot about that)

eqWorker->NE>NE>N (heading for wool)

Worker->NE>N (Because I don't know if I can handle another pop factory

yet)

Makkah Warior->N to meet settler

W. Warrior->SW to explore a tad before I bring him back to defend.

S. Scout->N>W

E. Scout->W>W

E. Settler->W (hope to avoid barb)

N. Scout->S

This time I save before checking diplomacy. Good thing too, because this

time it quits to desktop immediately. Load save. Mysticism is burning a

hole in my pocket, since the Ottomans have it too, but only neoCarthage

has anything (23 gp) to trade. Decide to gift Alphabet to them since

they're the only ones that don't have it and so that they wont trade

mysticism for it.

3. 2070 BC - Ottomans(?) grab horses with Uskudar

E. Scout->N>N sees barbarian settlement with barb next to him. Darn.

E. Settler->E hoping Veteran Persian Warrior will handle barbs in that

area.

Makkah Warrior->N

eqWorker->NE>E to wool

home Settler->SE>SE to city spot

Worker mines

w. Warrior->SW

Since city near horses has been set, no need to explore more, so:
S. Scout->S(see barb)>W(see another) Darn.

N. Scout->SW>S

End of Turn. Save. Apparently whenever I diplo the Spanish at the end

of my turn it quits to desktop. Zulus have Iron Working, but they want

everything we have plus gpt in exchange. I'll wait.

4. 2030 BC - S. Scout dies. E. Scout is okay. Makkah to 5 pop.

Found Diriyah. Start building Warrior because barbs are eating me alive.

eqWorker roading wool

N. Warrior->NE

W. Warrior->SE because my hand was off a key (meant to head back E to

defend)

N. Scout->SW>S

E. Scout->N

Settler->W sees Veteran Persian Warrior

MM Makkah and Diriyah. Quality land is getting a little crowded.

EOT. Save. Spain. Desktop. Load. Persians have Iron Working, so Zulus

are singing a different tune. Still will wait, though.

5. 2000 BC - Barbs approach Settler. Elite neoCarthage warrior

approaches Makkah.

For that reason, I decide to do diplo at the beginning this turn.

neoCarthage has Writing but is cautious. Don't know what their

intentions are, so I hope if I throw Myticism and Iron Working at them

they'll go away (and I can pick up writing in the process). 47g and

Mysticism to Zulus for Iron Working. 63g, Iron Working, Mysticism, and

contact with Egypt to neoCarthage for Writing and some politeness. I

think this should leave us in a very good position to trade as the other

civs get their techs.

When Madinah expands we'll have access to iron (assuming we road it).

Settler->W trying to avoid barb

E. Scout->E>N for same reason

Knew the mismove would come back to haunt me. W. Warrior now can't reach

Makkah before neoCarthage. Run, Warrior, run!->NE

N. Scout->S>S

N
. Warrior->N If neoCarthage causes trouble I'll have to rush-build defense.

6. 1950 BC - neoCarthage behaves, barbarians from south.

So that's what I've done so far.

Here's my save so far:

THIS IS NOT A FINAL SAVE. I STILL HAVE 5 TURNS TO GO.

Alweth

Oct 20, 2003, 10:40 PM

Oops. Didn't upload zip.

THIS IS NOT A FINAL SAVE. I STILL HAVE 5 TURNS TO GO.

smackster

Oct 20, 2003, 11:36 PM

Originally posted by Alweth
I'll leave research at 10% even though I'm not sure what the strategy behind it is. (I usually try to have my research as high as possible, but I'm not very good.)

When you research 10% you are effectively not researching, you just let the AI do it for you and trade something for it later (this assumes you know how/what you are trading for and when). 10% is better than 0% as you do actually get the tech after 40 turns if you don't get the trade you need (1 scientist and 0% is even better). Early in the game for hard techs (say writing) it makes no research time difference if you research 100% or 10% you get the same time to get the tech, so you might as well leave it at 10%. This leads to the main reason for 10% as that leaves most of the slider on cash, so that you can earn lots of cash while at 10%, for our big swordsman upgrade that is sure to come. Basically at most times in the Ancient age, either do 10% or 100%. (100% when we are sure we can get the tech first, and 10% when we can't get it but we are saving up to buy it or demand it).
Originally posted by Alweth
good, I'm concerned about happiness vs. population, and it's already being crowded by Makkah.

Just adjust the luxury slider to make everyone happy. Don't be concerned about it right now as you only lose a GP or two for adjusting this. Keeping all the citizens working is key.

Originally posted by Alweth
End of turn, while checking diplomacy Civ III quits on me. Close some other programs and load autosave. Do the same things again. Nothing to report in diplomacy.

This will be the old Civ3 spain diplomacy bug, just copy the attached files into the \Civilization III\Art\Flics folder. These are just the leaderheads for Spain which somehow got lost from the install. I'm suprised this didn't get fixed in the install yet. I had the same problem on GOTM 21 when I first me Spain.

Spain flics (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/spain.zip)

Email10

Oct 21, 2003, 04:02 AM

Originally posted by Alweth

I'll leave research at 10% even though I'm not sure what the strategy

behind it is. (I usually try to have my research as high as possible,

but I'm not very good.)

As smackster said, the main benefit is to let the AI research for you and then trade for the techs. The real gains come when you are researching really expensive techs at minimum, which will let you get a monopoly on them once they are researched. Once you get it, you can easily trade for the other techs which the AI have researched, leaving you with a huge treasury from the taxes you got. This has been used a lot in QSC where you play 81 turns, making it possible to go for 2 minimum research projects. Depending on the level of play it might be possible to get monopoly on for instance Mathematics or Iron Working at turn 41 and on Code of Laws or Polytheism on turn 81.

At lower levels (chieftain/regent) this might not be as useful as the AI researches so slow, also on Deity it might be tough, since you will probably never get a monopoly, although it has happened to me once in a while.

For even more benefit, you can use a scientist in one of your not-so-good cities and then go 0% on science. This even works through anarchy. But be careful, you can't use governors since they will remove the scientist, and be careful that this city doesn't revolt.

AlanH

Oct 21, 2003, 05:51 AM

Wow! Thanks for a very thorough write-up Alweth.

We seem to have a great lead in every department - techs, contacts and money. I'm very impressed. The contacts situation is particularly surprising, as by the time I reached this point in my QSC everybody had already met or traded and there were no opportunities left. I think we must be pushing the tech rate along faster than I did. I've never used tech gifting much before, so this has been a lesson. Thanks.

After a quick look at the save, I have a few obvious comments. Sorry if these are egg-sucking lessons :rolleyes:

1. Shaka will give us all his gold for one contact. He's near to France, so he'll get that one soon anyway, so we should go for it. Our contacts wil expire in value very fast as they get traded round, so we should make what we can from them as soon as possible.

2. We are about to be raided by a barb south of Diriyah. He can grab gold and/or destroy the work in progress on our warrior. We can't get any defence there in time, so we need to do some damage limitation. The barb won't destroy the town, the pop is only 1 so he can't kill citizens, and they don't steal food, so ...

(a) Gold: With Shaka's 47 we'll have 150+ when the barb hits town. I think gold is distributed roughly in proportion to population when you get raided, so we would lose maybe 20-30 gold. Since we shall need embassies soon anyway, we could spend it now rather than lose it. We have lots of tradable items - contacts and techs, so we can afford to reduce our treasury. At our 10gpt rate we can get it back again fast. We could buy three expensive or four or five cheap embassies and leave the barb with little to rob.

(b) There's no point in accumulating extra shields in Diriyah for the next two turns until the barb has done his thing, as he might destroy them, so we should work the flood plain not the plain and accumulate some food. I would be doing that anyway - population is power, and Diriyah is growing slower than it could.

3. I would have moved the worker to the roaded plain SE of Makkah to irrigate, not the unroaded one, and saved a turn on getting the plain irrigation started. Small things, I know, but they build up.

4. 10% research is fine. If you try turning up the research budget you'll find Poly still takes 26 turns no matter what you set it to. With research at 10% we make loads of money each turn and we'll be able to afford all those upgrades and other techs when they come along.

5. Don't worry about isolated rival warriors approaching undefended cities. They will very rarely sneak attack with a single unit. Start worrying when you see a stack approaching. I had several heart-stopping turns during the QSC when stacks appeared near undefended cities, only to see them march on through on their way to some other objective, and I was much weaker that we are. This is going to happen, as we are right in the middle of the map. A bonus of getting some embassies is that we'll start to be able to see who's at war, and make alliances if we do get attacked.

Having said that, I'd like to have one or two warriors or spears around now we have a homeland to defend, who can move to defend any city reasonable quickly. We don't want to have to keep draining our treasury every time a barb appears. Watch out for the river, though, when assessing how fast a defender can switch cities. If they live in Makkah they can cut lux tax as well in the short term, until we need to move them out to our expanding border towns.

6. Don't forget to turn the lux slider down next turn. You'll have the wool hooked up, and Makkah will drop to pop 4 when the settler is built.

@Email10: I know you understand this, but I just want to emphasise that we don't even want to think about using a scientist at this stage in the game. There are several pre-conditions for this, none of which will apply to us for quite a while.

I don't change to 0% and a scientist until I have a seriously corrupt city to do the science in and a much bigger gpt than we have now. We are grossing 19 gpt currently so 10% for research rounds down to only 1 gpt. A scientist won't even be cost effective until we are spending at least 3 or 4 gpt at 10%, and even then the scientist would have to be in a city that can still grow, or sustain a max'ed out pop (6 or 12), without his food contribution. One exception is that you can use a captured city while I starve it down to reduce flip probability. You can make one citizen a scientist and the rest tax collectors. You get income and science even when there are still resisters in town. Sure, you have to reassign them each turn as they starve, but it's worth it. It can also be the case that these conditions don't apply until you are at a stage in the game when you want to max research anyway - beelining to Military Tradition, for example, or racing for a key wonder tech, so single scientist research is rare in my experience.

Oh, and I don't recommend using governors at any stage, for anything other than to exploit their ability to get bonus shields in our settler farm.

ControlFreak

Oct 21, 2003, 06:14 AM

AlanH
smackster
Karasu
Alweth (Up Now, Still;))
MacBaldrick (Ondeck)

Email10

Oct 21, 2003, 06:21 AM

You are absolutely right AlanH. If I use scientists this way, I've probably already hit MA and have some really bad city which isn't doing any good anyway.
My intension with my post was not to suggest a strategy for you to play with in this particular game, just to answer Alweths question about why people research at minimum science and I suppose I got a little carried away in my explanation ;)

ControlFreak

Oct 21, 2003, 06:47 AM

Alweth, you're doing well and the turn log is a great help to your team mates interested in giving you advice.

Here's my take on 10% Research (A.K.A Minimum Science) - In civ, gold is better than almost anything else because it's flexible. You can buy shields, beakers (tech), happiness (luxuries), resources, upgrades, rush buys... Doing maximum, or as fast as you can research puts all your flexible gold, into inflexible beakers. There are many considerations as to whether beakers are worth investing your gold in. Here are some times when I do max research.
If you think you can completely research a tech before any of the AI. If you can, then you get the full value of the beakers because you get the tech at a monopoly and can sell it at monopoly prices.
If I absolutely need a tech to continue my game plan and I waiting makes my situation worse. Examples: pottery for a granary, map making to get off of an island start with no other civs, chivalry to use my UU to dominate the world before muskets, literature because my prebuild for the GL only has 10 turns left.
If a lot of civs know the tech. The value of a tech drops dramatically, meaning the amount of beakers required to research it are lower. It may be an advantage to put your gold into your scientists rather than in the treasuries of other civs.
If you have a lot of librarys, universities and/or research labs that multiply any gold invested in research. This is especially true of scientific civs that have cheap librarys and universitys. It also works much better with a well placed FP/Palace as corruption affects the amount of gold you can contribute to science.

Here are some factors that make me go minimum science:
Using a "gambit" to get a monopoly on a tech. Typical gambits are Math, Polytheism and Literature. The AI has a lower priority on these techs so even researching at minimum, you may get it first. If you succeed, you get to buy a lot of the other AA techs with it. If you fail, you've wasted 40 turns research so that's why it's a gambit.
I'm relying on the AI but I still want to make sure I get a tech within a certain amount of time. For example, I want to make sure I have economy in time to switch a prebuild to Smiths.
I can't research it any faster at max (still 40 turns at 100% science) but I really want it. For example, writing on a riverless, food less start.
The AI will not discount government techs. For example, Republic is still a 40turn tech but I don't want to rely on the AI selling it to me because they add a premium to governmental techs.

There are even times when you should go No Science. If you have no hope of getting a tech first and are planning on buying it, just save your cash. This often happens in the AA when all the gambit techs are gone and you don't have the prereqs for Republic.

A big part of this discussion is the fact that a tech devalues as more civs learn it. Gold never devalues. Thus, given the choice between 100g, 100 beakers or Cerimonial Burial, I would always take the 100g. This is true when you're selling techs too.

I've probably missed some points but that should improve your understanding of science slider adjustment.

smackster

Oct 21, 2003, 06:55 AM

Originally posted by Email10

For even more benefit, you can use a scientist in one of your not-so-good cities and then go 0% on science. This even works through anarchy.

Are you sure about this, when in anarchy a scientist will continue to research? Not that it matters in this game with one turn anarchy.

ControlFreak

Oct 21, 2003, 07:09 AM

Alweth@

Don't let attitudes bully you.

Citizen attitudes: Early on, happiness becomes a problem because you have no luxuries, temples and the luxury slider starts at 0. Most people (except of AlanH I guess;) ) prioritized connecting luxuries. That's fine if it's convient. But the next thing to do is raise the luxury slider, not build a temple. Even if you are religious (like you are now) a temple is thirty shields AND it delays building something else by a significant number of turns. In a highly productive city, you will want the shields going to settlers, workers a granary or military at this early point in the game. Building a temple is missing out on 3 warriors.

In addition, the luxury slider is a great value. Lets take an extreme example of pop 3 in your capital. You have 1 unhappy face. Raising the slider 10% is probably 1gpt. The 3rd (unhappy citizen) is making 2food, 1shield and 1g on average. That's a great payoff. Use the luxury slider until your empire is large enough that the corrupt towns are wasting your luxury money. To help with the luxury slider, try to keep your core towns, where the uncorrupt gold leads to more happy people, larger than the fringe towns, where corruption prevents the luxury tax from making happy faces. That means building lots of workers from your peripheral towns. Peripheral towns are also good candidates for temples since luxury slider doesn't help them. Plus they can use the flip prevention/border expansion.

Don't let the AI Attitude bother you either. Cautious just means they don't know whether to like you or hate you. Furious just means that don't like you. It doesn't necessarily mean they will attack you. And it doesn't necessarily need to be fixed either. Making gift's to improve attitudes should be done for a purpose, like winning the UN. Selling at slashed rates does nothing to improve AI attitude, and should not be done unless you have some other purpose, like catching up a trading partner.

You could read Bamspeedy's article on AI Attitude (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=44999) for more information. Since this will be a military win (Domination) don't worry about AI frowns too much.

EDIT: smackster, yes scientists work well in anarchy. It's a great way to get your four turn minimum out of the way and then crank up research once out of anarchy and finish the tech in a turn or two if you're a really science powerhouse.

AlanH

Oct 21, 2003, 07:48 AM

Originally posted by smackster
But now I think I might go for the Granary, and make Madinah the worker/settler/warrior factory.
Why? We have a settler farm already, I can't see how Madinah would be any better at it, and it will cost us time and effort to bring it into operation. We do need some workers, but remember that Madinah is going to stick at pop 6 until we invest in an aquaduct, so a granary will cost us 60 shields for a limited objective.

A temple is relatively cheap, and gets the iron and the olives into our radius, so I prefer Alweth's plan.

smackster

Oct 21, 2003, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by AlanH

Why? We have a settler farm already, I can't see how Madinah would be any better at it, and it will cost us time and effort to bring it into operation. We do need some workers, but remember that Madinah is going to stick at pop 6 until we invest in an aquaduct, so a granary will cost us 60 shields for a limited objective.

A temple is relatively cheap, and gets the iron and the olives into our radius, so I prefer Alweth's plan.
Yes didn't think about the fact that we need the culture growth in this city to make it production, so the temple is required for that reason alone. After that we make that city pump out warriors, workers, and maybe some more settlers if we feel the need.

ControlFreak

Oct 21, 2003, 08:14 AM

Originally posted by smackster
Yes didn't think about the fact that we need the culture growth in this city to make it production, so the temple is required for that reason alone.
Yeah, me either. Sorry Alweth, for my previous post regarding temple. You are correct in picking a religious civ's cheap building to get border expansion for the needed tiles in the second radius.

I vow (at least for this SG) not to give anymore advice without first looking at the save. A downside (or maybe plus side given my recent weediness) will be less input from me.;)

AlanH

Oct 21, 2003, 09:06 AM

Originally posted by smackster

Are you sure about this, when in anarchy a scientist will continue to research? Not that it matters in this game with one turn anarchy.
Yeah, I'm certain of it. I've used it in situations where the anarchy periods were more extended than they will be here, and the turns-to-complete went down by one every turn, so it definitely wasn't just techs getting cheaper as a result of others learning them.

AlanH

Oct 21, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by ControlFreak

I vow (at least for this SG) not to give anymore advice without first looking at the save. A downside (or maybe plus side given my recent weediness) will be less input from me.;)
Keep it all coming, ControlFreak. There's plenty of valuable input coming from your direction, and the odd controversial item keeps our brain cells active and gets the debate going.

Alweth

Oct 21, 2003, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by AlanH
[B]
1. Shaka will give us all his gold for one contact. He's near to France, so he'll get that one soon anyway, so we should go for it. Our contacts wil expire in value very fast as they get traded round, so we should make what we can from them as soon as possible.

Yeah, thanks. I was thinking about that but hadn't taken the time to check if any of them were close to him yet.

Originally posted by AlanH
[B]
2. We are about to be raided by a barb south of Diriyah. He can grab gold and/or destroy the work in progress on our warrior. We can't get any defence there in time, so we need to do some damage limitation. The barb won't destroy the town, the pop is only 1 so he can't kill citizens, and they don't steal food, so ...

Yeah, I was going to do the shield thing but I had forgotten that they take gold. Good solution though, thanks.

Originally posted by AlanH
[B]
3. I would have moved the worker to the roaded plain SE of Makkah to irrigate, not the unroaded one, and saved a turn on getting the plain irrigation started. Small things, I know, but they build up.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. My reason for picking the plane I did was it can be shared by Madinah and Makkah (but so can the other plane, d'oh). The other reason I had is I didn't know if the current road counts as crossing the river or not, so I figured I could ensure a 1-turn transit by adding a road here too. Also, I'm mining it, not irrigating it. Maybe I should be irrigating it? I was planning to mine another plane that Makkah and Diriyah can share too.

Originally posted by AlanH
[B]
6. Don't forget to turn the lux slider down next turn. You'll have the wool hooked up, and Makkah will drop to pop 4 when the settler is built.

Thanks. I probably would have noticed, since I always try to MM after population growth, but it's a good reminder.

Everyone Else@
Thanks for all the good input and comments. It's been helpful.

Alweth

Oct 21, 2003, 06:07 PM

@smackster

Oh yeah, thanks for the Spain fix.

AlanH

Oct 21, 2003, 06:17 PM

Originally posted by Alweth
Maybe I should be irrigating it? I was planning to mine another plane that Makkah and Diriyah can share too.

Check out my sequence for the settler farm. I think you'll find we need:

TWO irrigated flood plains (we have them)
TWO irrigated plains (we have ONE, we need another)
ONE irrigated wool (we have it)
ONE unimproved goat hill (we have it)
ONE mined plain (you're doing it, and you should carry on and road it now while you are there)

So top priority is to irrigate that roaded plain SW of Makkah. You can start that next turn, using the worker that's about to finish the wool road. After that we can irrigate flood plains in Madinah and/or irrigate and mine two more plains tiles north of Makkah so that we can liberate the shared ones for Madinah.

Makkah will need to use the mined plan every alternate turn as its pop grows, so it is too dangerous to try to share that tile with Madinah - reserve it for Makkah. Makkah will use all the other tiles except one irrigated plain every turn. It will use that irrigated plain whenver it is at pop6 - 50% of the time. Mt recommenation is that, unless we are really confident of doing the MM accurately, we should not try to share that tile either.

BTW the road from Makkah to Madinah doesn't cross the river. The roads from Diriyah to Makkah and Madinah both do. It takes two turns to get to Diriyah from either of the other towns. It only takes one turn to get from Diriyah to Makkah, though, because the river is right next to Makkah.

Alweth

Oct 21, 2003, 07:17 PM

Okay, I'm done. Here's the full log:

Preturn - 2190BC
Look around. That's it.

I'll leave research at 10% even though I'm not sure what the strategy behind it is. (I usually try to have my research as high as possible, but I'm not very good.)

1. 2190BC

Madinah finishes warrior. I build temple, since production is currently good, I'm concerned about happiness vs. population, and it's already being crowded by Makkah.

E. Warrior->E to meet settler and explore.

E. Scout->NW>NW since warrior is exploring to his south.

Settler->SW

N. Scout->South

S. Scout->N>N to check out land around possible horse town

Madinah Warrior->W because I see some more warriors in Madinah's future and we haven't explored that way yet. (Just realized this was dumb, should have gone SW>W.)

End of turn, while checking diplomacy Civ III quits on me. Close some other programs and load autosave. Do the same things again. Nothing to report in diplomacy.

2. 2150BC - E. Warrior is attacked and killed by barbarian. Darn.

Makkah produces settler->S over river (forgot about that)

eqWorker->NE>NE>N (heading for wool)

Worker->NE>N (Because I don't know if I can handle another pop factory yet)

Makkah Warior->N to meet settler

W. Warrior->SW to explore a tad before I bring him back to defend.

S. Scout->N>W

E. Scout->W>W

E. Settler->W (hope to avoid barb)

N. Scout->S

This time I save before checking diplomacy. Good thing too, because this time it quits to desktop immediately. Load save. Mysticism is burning a hole in my pocket, since the Ottomans have it too, but only neoCarthage has anything (23 gp) to trade. Decide to gift Alphabet to them since they're the only ones that don't have it and so that they wont trade mysticism for it.

3. 2070 BC - Ottomans(?) grab horses with Uskudar

E. Scout->N>N sees barbarian settlement with barb next to him. Darn.

E. Settler->E hoping Veteran Persian Warrior will handle barbs in that area.

Makkah Warrior->N

eqWorker->NE>E to wool

home Settler->SE>SE to city spot

Worker mines

w. Warrior->SW

Since city near horses has been set, no need to explore more, so:
S. Scout->S(see barb)>W(see another) Darn.

N. Scout->SW>S

End of Turn. Save. Apparently whenever I diplo the Spanish at the end of my turn it quits to desktop. Zulus have Iron Working, but they want everything we have plus gpt in exchange. I'll wait.

4. 2030 BC - S. Scout dies. E. Scout is okay. Makkah to 5 pop.

Found Diriyah. Start building Warrior because barbs are eating me alive.

eqWorker roading wool

N. Warrior->NE

W. Warrior->SE because my hand was off a key (meant to head back E to defend)

N. Scout->SW>S

E. Scout->N

Settler->W sees Veteran Persian Warrior

MM Makkah and Diriyah. Quality land is getting a little crowded.

EOT. Save. Spain. Desktop. Load. Persians have Iron Working, so Zulus are singing a different tune. Still will wait, though.

5. 2000 BC - Barbs approach Settler. Elite neoCarthage warrior approaches Makkah.

For that reason, I decide to do diplo at the beginning this turn. neoCarthage has Writing but is cautious. Don't know what their intentions are, so I hope if I throw Myticism and Iron Working at them they'll go away (and I can pick up writing in the process). 47g and Mysticism to Zulus for Iron Working. 63g, Iron Working, Mysticism, and contact with Egypt to neoCarthage for Writing and some politeness. I think this should leave us in a very good position to trade as the other civs get their techs.

When Madinah expands we'll have access to iron (assuming we road it).

Settler->W trying to avoid barb

E. Scout->E>N for same reason

Knew the mismove would come back to haunt me. W. Warrior now can't reach Makkah before neoCarthage. Run, Warrior, run!->NE

N. Scout->S>S

N
. Warrior->N If neoCarthage causes trouble I'll have to rush-build defense.

6. 1950 BC - neoCarthage behaves, barbarians from south.

E. Scout->N>NW

Settler->W

E. Warrior->N

W. Warrior->NE

N. Scout->S

Switch guy in Diriyah to FP. Trade Communications with French to Zulus for 45g, as AlanH suggested.

7. 1910 BC - Makkah produces Settler

I'll go for a worker next because we're not up to 4TSF yet and I need more.

Makkah Settler can go north for safety or east for fastest hook up and approach to horses. We'll probably get another Settler before we can take the horses anyways and chivalry is a ways off still. Could go for the NW site but that's further off and I'm afraid of barb attacks. So, I'll go north.->N (Oops, just remembered that that was the target for the N. Settler.)

eqWorker->SW toward FP

W. Warrior->NE>NE>N

N. Warrior->N

N. Settler->W being chased by barb

E. Scout->W>W "Eat my dust, barbarians!"

W. Scout->SE

EOT. Luxury to 10%. Nothing to report in diplo. Establish embassies:

neoCarthage: Warrior; warrior in 1 (as I recall)
Ottomans: Spearman; settler in 1
Persia: Spearman; settler in 3
Spain: Spearman; settler in 23 (yeah, 23, but growth in 1 from FP)

8. 1870 BC - Diriyah ransacked for 1 gold

eqWorker->SW (Probably should have had the him go W last turn then tried SW>S>SE this turn)

Home Warrior->NE>fortify

Makkah Settler->N

N. Warrior->NE

N. Settler->wait because he doesn't really have any option that won't move him away from the warrior or into danger since there was a barb following him

W. Scout->E>S

N. Scout->W>SW

EOT. No diplo.

9. 1830 BC - barb gets in the way of N. Warrior, Makkah produces worker, now making settler

MM Makkah

that Worker->N

eqWorker->S

other Worker roads

Makkah Settler->N

N. Warrior->NE kills barb

N. Settler->S

N. Scout->SE>S

W. Scout->S>E

EOT. Zululand now has 7 gold.

10. 1790 BC

N. Scout->S>S

N. Warrior->S

N. Settler->S

Other Settler builds Damascus

N. Worker roads

eqWorker irrigates

W. Scout->NE>NE

EOT. That's it! Ottomans have 25g and Persia has 19, might want to trade them Egypt's com before Carthage does.

FINAL SAVE, HAVE AT IT:

Alweth

Oct 21, 2003, 07:19 PM

Erk, I accidentally uploaded the SAV instead of the ZIP again.

FINAL SAVE, HAVE AT IT:

Karasu

Oct 22, 2003, 02:35 AM

Well played, Alweth. I liked a lot the tech trading and the settler's evasive manoeuvres on his way to Makkah... :)

I also agree with building a Temple in Madinah, and with using this city to build some military units. However, since our goal is Domination, it will be good to have it build workers and settlers from time to time (also to keep it below pop 6 -even though I am slowly reaching the conclusion that it should have been founded on the FP... ;) ).

We also need to start piling up money for the warrior upgrade. My bet is that 10-15 will be enough to give them a good hit without compromising our growth.
So... let's start building warriors!

EDIT: I swore to myself not to run Civ3 while at work... anyone care to post a screenshot?

ControlFreak

Oct 22, 2003, 06:55 AM

I will be unable to continue running this game. AlanH, could you please see that it stays on schedule?

I posted my reasons here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66633) .

I am truly sorry I am unable to continue. I wish you well and good luck.

MacBaldrick

Oct 22, 2003, 10:27 AM

My turn now - sorry to see you drop out ControlFreak but these things happen. I am still at work - with a PC :( so will get stuck into tonight on the iMac.

smackster

Oct 22, 2003, 10:50 AM

ControlFreak,

I'm kind of shocked and sad about this, I thought I'd post here rather than the other thread. Thanks for all your help. I understand your issue, I have wife and 2 kids myself, but they all need to sleep more than I so still get time for Civ.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 22, 2003, 02:58 PM

Good luck Control Freak. There but for the grace ... We'll miss you, friend.

Picking up the baton - here's the current roster:

AlanH (on deck)
smackster
Karasu
Alweth
MacBaldrick (playing now)

Good sequence, Alweth. Go, MacBaldrick!

smackster

Oct 22, 2003, 03:42 PM

Hay Alan,

Assuming that MacB gets done soon (he's UK time so I assume he's about to finish???), and I know you are addicted enough with Civ to play the next moves tonight and I'll keep checking the forum, so I could also play mine tonight. How would that be, 30 moves in one night. I can always dream.

[Edit] Of course I realise you are UK time too, whatever, stay up late, play civ, call in a sicky tomorrow

Smackster

MacBaldrick

Oct 22, 2003, 03:46 PM

1790 BC Status
Researching Polytheism at minimum in 22 turns (won’t be completed in my session).

Increase Lux one notch to keep cities happy when they grow - loses only 3 gpt.

Four cities close to capital which is near to 4 turn settler farm (should generate 2 new settlers this session) plus settler from North. Settle two cities to East, one 4.5 tiles due E and 2nd (using N settler next to Lake & Olives). Third settler to found city NW over mountains (4.5 tiles) to capture Olives and build Warriors for upgrading to Swords (skip road over mountain for now to keep isolated). Funture builds (next session) towards horses to SE.

Objectives: 1/ Complete infrastructure for Settler farm & build - link three new cities.
2/ Build up warriors / swords.
3/ Find Rome (probably thru trade).
4/ Trade for any techs possible.

Diplo before next turn : Trades

Spain - cmms with Egypt for 20g (still lack mysticism)
Persia - comms with Egypt for 19g (still lack writing)
Ottomans - comms with Egypt for 6g (still lack writing)
Zulu - comms with India for 5g (have all the techs)
Spain - comms with India for 5g
Egypt - lack wheel, writing & mysticism
Carthage - have all the techs
France - lacks iron working

Got all the gold now (+57) for total of 101 and all the techs. Will have to check for AI research.

EOT

turn 1 - 1750 BC

Temple built in Madinah - go for Warrior (will need Barracks some time for upgrades but need warriors now to protect cities). MM Makkah for extra shields.

Warrior + Settler > SE
N Scout > E
W Scout > E > N (fill in blank area then head S)

Diplo reveals nothing. EOT

turn 2 - 1725 BC

Diriyan builds warrior - go for warrior.

worker completes mining SW of capital > NE start irrigation
warrior + settler > SE, N scout > SE, W scout > E > E (go round mountains & use roads)

Diplo : Egypt research Mysticism. EOT

turn 3 - 1700 BC

Zulu are building Oracle.

MM Medinah - work unimproved FP still growth in 1.
switch Makkah to Temple - 1 turn (don’t want to lose 2 pop right now) & MM Makkah for growth in 2.

N scout > E > SE
warrior + settler > SE
N worker completes road > N
W scout > E > SE

Diplo : Trade

India - Comms with Egypt for 10g. (still lack wheel & iron working)
Establish embassy with Zulu - Zimbabwe building Oracle (in 90) - 2 pop (growth in 6), 2 Impis ?, Horses.

EOT

turn 4 - 1675 BC

Makkah builds Temple, switch to worker & MM for growth / build in 2.
MM remaining cities for max growth.

worker completes irrigation of FP > NW
N worker starts road (to link Damascus)
W Scout > SE > S
warrior + settler > SE
N scout > S > S

Diplo : nothing EOT

turn 5 - 1650 BC

Madinah builds warrrior & expands to include olives & iron, go for barracks.
Damascus builds warrior, go for warrrior.

W scout > S > S (call it S scout)
worker > NW > W to iron tile.
settler + warrior > SE
N scout > S > SE

Diplo : Trades Egypt - comms with French for 20g EOT

turn 6 - 1625 BC

Makkah produces worker > E, set to settler with MM for 4 turn production
(cap + wool + wool + Fp + Fp + IP = 5 f + 6 s)

S scout > S > SE > SE > S
worker completes irrigation > SW > W
worker starts road on iron
settler + warrior > S (to found city next to olives NB losing one bonus grassland)
N scout > SE > S (discovers Barb camp - Arghhhhh) rename E scout

Diplo : Egypt / France / Persia now have all techs & contacts + some gold. EOT

turn 7 - 1600 BC

worker completes road to Damascus > S > S
Found Bagdad by lake in NE, set to warrior.
E scout > S > S (barb camp empty ?)
S scout > S > SW (spot Egyptian warrior)
worker builds road on iron (4 turns)

Makkah (cap + wool + goat + Fp + Fp + IP = 5 f + 6 s + 2s on growth)

Diplo : nothing new EOT

turn 8 - 1575 BC

MM Makkah (Cap + wool + goat + Fp + Fp + IP + IP = 5f + 7s)

worker > SW > S > S
worker builds road in E mountains
E scout > S > S
S scout > SW > SW

diplo: nothing new EOT

turn 9 - 1550 BC

Dyriah builds warrior > E, produce more.
worker > SW > SW (olive tile)
S scout > SW > SW
E scout > S > S

diplo “ nothing to report EOT

turn 10 - 1475 BC

Makkah builds settler, MM back to 2 x FP + IP and begin cycle again (note this process only requires switch of tile worked at each pop growth - every two turns)

Damascus builds warrior > S > S (to escort settler).
settler > E (to found city just beyond mountains next to forest/spices)
worker mines olive tile
S scout > SW > SW (reveals spices & 2 x goats)
E scout > S > S

diplo : Ottomans have contact with Romans (want 190g). limited gold to recover cost from others ? That decision is up to next player.

EOT

Summary : 4 turn Settler factory up & running. One new city founded and 2nd in 2 turns (slower than I thought) Several cities turning out warriors and since we get iron next turn we can spend gold on upgrades to swords (once barracks completed in Madinah - 5 turns but will speed up once mining complete).

Future thoughts -

Since Ottomans have discovered Rome they must be in the SE of map.

Could found city next to horses (next to Uskudar), connect up to core and fill with swords and be ready to grab from Ottomans when Horseback Riding appears. If we rush temple / library (assuming Literature is researched by AI soon & we can trade) will we expand into horse tile ?

Q my scout was unable to occupy the ‘empty’ barb camp. Does it need a warrior to ‘pop’ it or do we get a city or does it just disappear - can’t remember what should happen ?

mistakes - I think I should be checking Diplo at start of turn not end.

Will place zipped file in separate post (not sure I'm doing it right as when I saved I got a CIV III data file (tablet icon) and when I dragged that into macZip I got zip file which when unzipped gave me a folder with the file in it.

MacBaldrick

Oct 22, 2003, 03:56 PM

This is the Zippped file I produced. Lets see if I can get it back myself.

MacBaldrick

Oct 22, 2003, 03:58 PM

This is the Zippped file I produced. Lets see if I can get it back myself.

AlanH

Oct 22, 2003, 04:08 PM

Whoops! Waaay too late! Well done, MacBaldrick, fast turnaround!

I've got it, I'll have a quick look and see if If I can get it to you tonight, Smackster. Anyone got any comments before I begin?

AlanH (playing now)
smackster (on deck, and rarin' to go!)
Karasu
Alweth
MacBaldrick

smackster

Oct 22, 2003, 04:18 PM

Only one comment, civ before sleep. Stay up until you have done it, you know you'll regret it if you don't.

AlanH

Oct 22, 2003, 09:48 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Only one comment, civ before sleep. Stay up until you have done it, you know you'll regret it if you don't.

An offer I can't refuse? Now it's your turn to stay up all night ...

Here's my report:

1525 BC Check status

Otomans have Rome contact for 169 gold. The rest only hve 80 gold, so we can't get our cash back. I decide to hold off until it gets cheaper or we meet them ourselves.

Adjust slider to 9.1.0.

Objectives: develop the map, trade our socks off and settle three cities. Build some barracks and a pile of gold for upgrades.

Hit space bar.

IBT Iron road completeed, Carthage starts Pyramids, Ottoman starts Oracle.
Venerable Bede reports happiest nations: Arabs - Yeah - Spain, Egypt, Rome, Ottomans, France, Zulu, Persia.

T1 1500 BC Polytheism 11 turns
Settler continues E. Iron workers move to flood plains SE & E of Madinah.
Scouts to SE and SW to fill map gaps and find Rome.

Diplo: Ottoman and Zulu have HBR. Zulus researched it and sold it to Ottomans.

Ottoman now offers Rome for 84 gold. It's a deal, as we can get a lot of that back from the other civs.

Rome needs Masonry, Pottery, Wheel, Mysticism, has 7 gold. Has Ironworking, but needs to hook up iron to build legions.

Sell Rome to Egypt for 32 gold, Persia for 6, France for 16, India for 1. Sell Spain to Rome for 7. We got 62 back, so net cost was 22 gold. Carthage has still not met Rome, but has no cash.

Send Makkah's second warrior souht to seek out barbs from the camp that's visible. We'd like to promote a few warriors.

IBT Ottomans complain about scout near Iznik.

T2 1475 BC Polytheism 10 turns

Warrior heads south, settler moves east to city site next to spices.
Makkah grows. Slider to 8.1.1 to keep them happy until another warrior comes by.
Scouts scout.

IBT Ottoman settler and spear seen by SE scout. Damascus completes warrior, starts Barracks (10 turns).

Diplo: Ottomans have spent some cash, now has 56 left, not sure what he spent it on ...

T3 1450 BC Polytheism 9 turns

Damascus warrior to Makkah to keep them happy. Slider to 9.1.0
Barb camp appeared next to SW scout. Scout moves W, SW away from camp. Carthage warriors close by will dispose of camp.

Diplo: no change

IBT Makkah completes settler, starts settler

T4 1425 BC Polytheism 8 turns

Rome must have killed a barb camp, has 25 gold, and is annoyed.
Sell Carthage to Rome for 21 gold. We've now broken even (-1 gold) on the Rome contact deals.

Scouts keep scouting, warriors head south for barbs.

IBT Madinah completes barraxks, starts swordsman (8 turns)

T5 1400 BC Polytheism 7 turns

Worker completes road on flood plain. Moves to north to irrigate towards Damascus

Diplo no change

T6 1375 BC Polytheism 6 turns

Diplo: France and Zulu have HBR and Philosophy. Ottomans and Egypt have just HBR. It's wheeler-dealer time :)

Buy Philosophy from France for 93 gold
Swap Philospophy for HBR with Egypt - she has no cash or gpt.
Ottomans give 56 gold for Philosophy
Carthage gives 25 gold (from that barb camp) for Philosophy
We got HBR + Philosophy for 12 gold.

Scouts keep on scouting.

IBT Barb horse arrives at the gates of Baghdad.

T7 1350 BC polytheism 5 turns

Baghdad produces very well timed warrior, starts warrior (5 turns)
Warrior attacks barb horse and kills it. no promotion :(
Worker completes moutain road to Riyadh, moves to spices.
Settler builds Jeddah. Scout finds Roman border

IBT Makkah completes settler, starts settler. Egypt starts Oracle.

T8 1325 BC polytheism 4 turns

Settler heads south towards a city location near the Uskadar horses.
Worker starts a road on the spices.

Ottomans and Spain have Mapmaking. Dealing time again.

Buy Mapmaking from Ottomans for wmap + 77 gold
Now maximise our map and sell it around. Start with the most remote civs:

Swap wmaps with Rome
Sell wmap to India for wmap + 3 gold
Sell wmap to Spain for wmap + 20 gold
Sell wmap to France fro wmap + 72 gold
Swap wmaps with Egypt
Sell wmap to Zulus for wmap + 31 gold
Swap wmaps with Persia
Sell wmap to Ottomans for wmap + 61 gold
Sell wmap to Rome for 1 gold

All except Ottomans (24 gold) are flat broke. We have the full continent map.

IBT Barb horse attacks our warrior outside Baghdad and dies. Warrior lost one HP. Rome starts Pyramids.

T9 1300 BC Polytheism 3 turns

Damn! In the trading excitement I forgot to MM Makkah. It's not going to grow quite fast enough, so the next settler will drop its pop to 4. MM now for min food to grow in 2 turns, giving max shields.

Scouts heading back home. Job done.

Diplo no change

T10 1275 BC Polytheism 2 turns

Diplo no change

Wounded warior recovering in Baghdad.

Warrior and settler converging on horse city site. There are three options, all on the river and all far enough away from Uskudar not to be considered provocative. They are the hill at distance 7, the plain at distance 7 or th palin at 6.5. Smackster gets to choose.

Summary:

Two cities settled, one settler in transit.
Makkah needs some recovery MM action to get it back in the groove. Sorry :(
We are in good shape financially and in terms of techs, and we have Polytheism coming up in two turns. All the vital signs look good right now.

Roster:

AlanH
smackster (24 hours to got it)
Karasu (on deck)
Alweth
MacBaldrick

Here's a screenie:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/1275BC.gif

and here's the SAV:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC1275.SAV.zip

smackster

Oct 22, 2003, 10:01 PM

Alan,

Good session, great trading. I see the barb fun has started. Well done for staying up so late, don't let it get out of hand mind, don't want you going the way of ControlFreak.

Should get this done tonight, its only midnight and they are still playing baseball. Then again bases loaded with one out, not that you guys would understand that :D

Smackster

smackster

Oct 22, 2003, 11:31 PM

Not extensive notes, but its late

My hasn't our empire grown since I was last here.

I see that we are doing major barracks building, I feel that I'd like to swat that road in front of the iron, so we can build some warriors for upgrade, but I'll stick with what we have. Also as the middle ages is not that far off, would be better to have swords ready for the massive barb uprisings. Plan to build swords and move on Ottoman as soon as possible, want to get the horses ASAP and then start building horses and nothing else. I really like the Roman land, and an FP in Rome would be really nice. Rome being really weak now looks attractive, although they will surely have legions by the time we get there. One thing about this map, is that its a long way for Swords to walk.

1275BC EOT

1: 1250BC
Moving settler towards horses. Set north worker to irrigate plains for Damascus. Upgrade one warrior in Madinah, should get another next turn and these two will start to fish for upgrades. They have the defence to wander anywhere, but very slow, so I'll think about where they go.

Micromanage Makkah to squeeze extra growth, Settler in one. Micromanage Medinah for a little growth.

Otto have Maths, but want 320 gold, I don't think so.
EOT

2: 1225BC
Discover Poly, now Monarch at 10%. Seems like a plan as we are going to war, we are sure to get it first and can trade for the other techs. Don't really want to speed too fast to the MA.

Zulu have 75 Gold and give it to us for Map Making. I'm not giving Poly to Otto for Maths, we'll get it in our own time.
Moving next settler west over mountain to settle 4 from Mecca.

Research set to max, can get Monarchy in 23. My feeling is that the benifit we'll get from that outweighs the loss of gold. -4 per turn.

3: 1200BC

13 gold for map from France. This shows us a new barb hut south of Medinah, swords moving in.
Dharan, settled near horses.

4: 1175BC

India have 50 gold and give it to us for our map. Spices roaded so now we are all very very happy. Begins building road towards horses

5: 1150BC

Najran settled west of Mecca.
Roading round north mountains. Sell our map again for 10 gold to egypt. They love paying for our map

6: 1125BC

Settler built in Mecca. Barb horses appear, not uprising, one in range of swords. Continue to upgrade warriors to swords and keep the cash the same with all the map trades. Warrior on mountain lost to barb warrior. Sword kills horse, one hp left, no upgrade boo.

7: 1100BC

Barb horse next to Bagdad, warrior kills him, no upgrade

8: 1075BC

Giving Mecca a rest from Settler, building a spear, needs to catch up pop to get back to 4 turns.
Decide to take 49 gold and maths for poly from Otto
Not much else going on this turn.

9: 1050BC

South Barb camp dispersed, still no upgrades. Swords move to east to take that barb camp.
France has Literature, and we get that +7 for Poly.

10: 1025BC

Set Damascus to build temple (only 5 turns), we've got to build some, we have lots of swords now, lots more coming.
Ottomans building GL, Spain Oracle. We set worker building mine on gold near Madinah.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/1025BC_copy.jpg

.sav not big enough to bother zipping (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC1025.SAV)

Alweth

Oct 23, 2003, 12:26 AM

Well, it looks like we're making great progress with well thought-out turns. If Karasu can play his game tomorrow (Thursday) I should be able to finish mine on Friday and then we can power off a few more turns on the weekend.

Karasu

Oct 23, 2003, 01:06 AM

Good progress :goodjob:

Got the save, I'll look for some ways to stir up trouble in our nice little world: Rome appears to be growing really fast, and we need to start thinking about them soon. India seems to be a good, lower-resistance alternative both for expansion and for our FP (if we get a leader...).
It would also be nice, as soon as we start a war, to get the other civs at war with one another.

I will try to place one-two cities towards Persia.
After that, I think there is room for one more city north of the horses and a couple south of Najran (?).

AlanH

Oct 23, 2003, 03:34 AM

Note to all: I zipped the file because it was noted earlier that it gives added protection against corruption, as it is sum checked by the zip wrapper. I think that's probably important, as a subtle corruption could jump out and bite us much later on and then we'd be dead in the water.

Well played, Smackster. Baseball? Is that like rounders? [DUCK!]
Good trade on Mathematics, and our cities are falling into place well. Quite right to upgrade before going barb hunting. That was a mistake on my part.

We can't unhook the iron without damaging the quick road from Makkah to Madinah, unless we destroy the mountain road, and that's expensive to rebuild. So I think we leave it there, and use unconnected ciies to build more warriors until we connect them. We should be on to horse building soon, anyway.

BTW I moved Jeddah nearer to Damascus than planned when I realised we could get to the four olives with one city at radius 4, and the fact that it's a bit near to Damascus is not a big deal as they mainly share mountains. It made more room for Najran as well, so I think that's OK.

Karasu, your plan sounds the right way to go. I agree we are getting near pointy stick time. I didn't buy any more embassies, but it might be a good idea to do that while we have cash lying idle.

I can't do another dot map until later, but you've identified the right places for the next few cities, so go for it. if someone else wants to give it a try, feel free. In any case, we'll start having to take account of new builds by Ottoman, Carthage and Persia soon, so we need to stay flexible on future city placement. Let's fill in around our two ring circus right now, taking advantage of resources and sticking roughly with radius 4 and 7, the start looking for opportunities around the 10 range. There's lots of space down south, and some unclaimed horses, though the distance and OCC corruption will kick in down there.

We ought to start thinking about prebuilding for a wonder. Hanging Gardens might be a good investment if we want to war in Republic or Democracy later, and for sure it would be good to get the Sun Tzu and Leo twins. We should also consider whether we want to start building the Forbidden Palace locally now, ready for a leader-built Palace in another capital later - that's my preferred plan normally, but I'd welcome a discussion. If we do decide to build the FP locally then I would vote for one of the towns south of Makkah, as it will move the center in the direction where we have most free space to expand.

TedJackson is looking after the other team, so I'll liaise with him on communications when we get to the QSC and spoiler 1 conditions - they are already past that stage, so as soon as we get there we'll be able to make some comparisons.

@Alweth: You asked a question earlier about popping an empty hut. If it's empty that's all you get - zilch. Doesn't matter who pops it. Scouts are best at hut popping as a rule, as they never pop barbs. We haven't had much luck with huts this game though, have we! One Settler?

We are doing very well. Keep up the good work, Karasu and Alweth.

Roster:

AlanH
smackster
Karasu (playing)
Alweth (on deck)
MacBaldrick

Karasu

Oct 23, 2003, 04:15 AM

Alan, good points as usual.

I am not sure of the FP location -our starting area is not astonishing in its beauty... I was thinking of Riyadh, but it's questionable.
I agree anyway on starting a local FP build as soon as possible, as this seems indeed the more flexible approach.

We also need to start discussing where we want our second core.
Ideally, the second Cataphract-producing area should be in the centre of the map. But I can't find a 'nice' placement there.
My first impressions:
- Persia: close, easy to conquer (they are *not* going to connect that Iron, are they? ;) ) but not too good a place.
- Ottomans: similar to Persia. Actually, expanding there would probably force us to deal with the Romans next.
- Rome: good place, might be a 'natural' target if we hit the Ottomans now (which would somewhat compensate for the distance, as some attacking units would already be there). Will require a larger Swordsmen army, though (so possibly need to disconnect and reconnect Iron).
- India: similar to Rome, possibly easier to conquer but far away. And if we go for India we risk facing Immortals and Legions...
- Carthage: I don't like facing 3-def points units right now. Plus, their lands are not too nice, even though well placed for an attack on the western civs.

Talking about wonders, I would just concentrate on one or two vital ones and let the AI build the others.
I would go for Sun Tzu over Leonardo, based on the assumption that we will reach domination before Military Tradition, so that we could stop research as soon as we get Chivalry and get enough money for the upgrades and build directly Cataphracts during the Golden Age.
This too, of course, is more than debatable.

MacBaldrick

Oct 23, 2003, 10:04 AM

Alan,

Thanks for clarifying empty bard huts - it was what I though happens.

IMHO For the future we should place city next to horses to South. When we grab horses near Dharahn I think we lock out the Ottamans UU cavalry - maybe they will be history by then.

As a leader can build either new Capital or Forbidden Palace (say in Roman lands) I would stick with our current capital as the alt FP sites are not really that good.

If we could flip Uskudar we might still get a ROP with the Ottomans to attack Rome. Without iron (& legions) they are not to be feared and it will be pretty inaccessable to any other AI so we can concentrate our forces in the centre.

It gets interesting !

MacBaldrick

Oct 23, 2003, 10:50 AM

Karasu,

Don't forget to save at 1000 bc for comparison with original QSC.

smackster

Oct 23, 2003, 11:43 AM

Originally posted by AlanH
Well played, Smackster. Baseball? Is that like rounders? [DUCK!]
Good trade on Mathematics, and our cities are falling into place well. Quite right to upgrade before going barb hunting. That was a mistake on my part.

AFAIK Baseball was actually based on rounders, something I love to tell Americans on a regular basis, and particularly the part about rounders being a girls game in England. There is a hint to where I hale from in my location, but maybe it needs to be more specific. MacB might be interested to know I was brought up in Woodley, not too far from Reading, although if he's from western Reading he might not be familiar with Woodley (they don't get out much).

That aside Baseball is IMHO the perfect compliment to Civ. Its a slow long game that has a few really meaningful moments and you can basically concentrate on Civ and look up at the interesting moments.

I think I watched about 140 Baseball games this year (on TV) most while playing Civ.

MacBaldrick

Oct 23, 2003, 02:19 PM

Hi Smackster

I know Woodley well as I actual live in Winnersh, only 2 miles down the road.

smackster

Oct 23, 2003, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by MacBaldrick
Hi Smackster

I know Woodley well as I actual live in Winnersh, only 2 miles down the road.
We probably know each other, how long have you lived there? . Actually it occured to me last night that I have been away from Reading now for longer than I lived there, by a couple of months (I lived there for 18 years).

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 23, 2003, 03:37 PM

Originally posted by smackster

We probably know each other, how long have you lived there? . Actually it occured to me last night that I have been away from Reading now for longer than I lived there, by a couple of months (I lived there for 18 years).

Smackster
Lived? In Reading? :p

I'm not really from those parts, but for eight years I worked in Chineham on the Reading side of Basingstoke. I commuted daily from my home, then as now in Dorset, to avoid living there. Winnersh, or the M4 bypass as I preferred to think of it, was on one of my many alternative routes to the airport.

smackster

Oct 23, 2003, 03:51 PM

Originally posted by AlanH

Lived? In Reading? :p

Look it wasn't like I had a choice, and somebody has to live there. First chance I got I left home, first chance I got I left the country, still working on the planet thing however.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 23, 2003, 04:07 PM

Just kidding! Some of my best friends have come from around there. I went to a great wedding near Yately about .... 30 years ago. Boston's nice too. Have they fixed the 5:00pm traffic jam yet? I missed a plane home once while I was stuck in that extended car park.

smackster

Oct 23, 2003, 04:13 PM

I wasn't joking about Reading :lol:

The first two phases of the Boston "Big Dig" have opened. So depending on which route you come it is easier to get to the Airport. However the route I come hasn't been finished yet. Luckily I know the back street route.

AlanH

Oct 23, 2003, 06:03 PM

Meanwhile, back in Arabia the Sultans of Swing are getting restless. Here's some more food for thought:

We are only three techs from the Middle Ages and the barb uprising that will take place then. We need to build our defences against a few big stacks of barb horses coming out of the east and/or the south. Ideally, I guess we should try to position to attack them as they appear by surrounding their camps with swords at distance three. But I'm not sure we can predict where their camps will appear. I don't know whether they will build new ones or burst out of their existing ones. Anyone know? If the latter then we need to make sure we know where they are. Each time we buy an AI map we get an update on all the barb camp positions not covered by the Fog. We need to minimise the fog and buy the world map regularly as we approach the new Age.

Apropos of which, we still haven't explored to the coast that must exist to our south. Probably a breeding ground for barbs as it's a long way from Egypt and Ottomans as well.

I've been checking out city placement issues, and it's interesting to note that Carthage is actually crowding us worse than the Ottomans. If we build cities at radius 7 or 8 to the west they are nearer to Carthage than they are to Makkah, so we may be glad of that strong culture we are growing, to help prevent flips.

We have one city missing from the north east of our first ring, and I am assuming the settler in transit is going to build where he now stands. There's a radius 7 site on the river bend north of Uskudar that would put more culture pressure on Uskudar to maybe flip the horses to us. There's a radius 7 site south of Madinah in the desert on the lake, and one to the east of that to grab the olives south east of Diriyah. That's five more sites with some resource/terrain/strategic purpose, giving us 14 total. That is actually about the optimum city count for a standard map at monarch level (85% of 16), so additional cities will run at high corruption levels. There are no other compelling city sites that I can see, so we can just place them where they will do most strategic good, as they won't benefit from any attempt at RCP. Examples are:
the southern end of the Persian lake, the eastern end of the lake east of Baghdad, the southern horses and associated lake, plus one between that and the southern radius 7 ring cities at about 10 from Makkah. These are all for denial and rapid transit as much as for our own purposes. I've tried to do a dot map, but it's a bit messy, and I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow ....

We are doing well in military strength. Rome is the only civ we rate Average against in F3, we are stronger than all the rest. I'm wondering if maybe we should declare on Rome soon and buy an alliance with Ottoman. Rome is a fair way distant, and they'd have to come through Ottoman to get to us, so we could let them wear each other down for 20 turns, then turn on Ottomans and cut them down on our way to Rome. Of course we'd need to be ready in case Rome cut Ottomans to pieces, but they don't have iron hooked up yet, so they don't have legions. I think they'd just bog down and kill each other slowly.

We are low on workers. We only have four, for a city count of nine and rising, and the terrain is getting more labour intensive. I would have suggested getting a ROP with Ottoman during the 20 turn alliance and building some roads to help our mobility, but we can't spare the workers we have.

Just some random ramblings to stimulate some discussion ....

smackster

Oct 23, 2003, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by AlanH
[B]Meanwhile, back in Arabia the Sultans of Swing are getting restless. Here's some more food for thought:

We are only three techs from the Middle Ages and the barb uprising that will take place then. We need to build our defences against a few big stacks of barb horses coming out of the east and/or the south. Ideally, I guess we should try to position to attack them as they appear by surrounding their camps with swords at distance three. But I'm not sure we can predict where their camps will appear. I don't know whether they will build new ones or burst out of their existing ones. Anyone know? If the latter then we need to make sure we know where they are. Each time we buy an AI map we get an update on all the barb camp positions not covered by the Fog. We need to minimise the fog and buy the world map regularly as we approach the new Age.

Yes they appear at existing camps, in two recent games I was close to a camp when MA hit and saw the 16/32 barbs on my turn in that camp. I don't know if they appear in all camps on the map, or just some. I have a hunch based on a recent game (that should not be spoiled here) that they do appear at them all.

We should control the jump to MA, we should make sure we have a stack of (3 to 4) Swords next to the camps. If Swords can be on hill or mountain fortified then I'm sure we'll see many upgrades. The horses will just attack, attack, attack (in PTW they appear more selective ie. don't attack troops fortified on mountain, in CIVIII they just seem to attack). As we'll defend well we should see many upgrades because of the "two attack/defend same turn upgrade" rule. The problem will be getting our Swords in line at the right time and stopping the AI from destroying the camps early. That is why I suggested very early to look for a camp near sea so we can seal it off.

Originally posted by AlanH
We are doing well in military strength. Rome is the only civ we rate Average against in F3, we are stronger than all the rest. I'm wondering if maybe we should declare on Rome soon and buy an alliance with Ottoman. Rome is a fair way distant, and they'd have to come through Ottoman to get to us, so we could let them wear each other down for 20 turns, then turn on Ottomans and cut them down on our way to Rome. Of course we'd need to be ready in case Rome cut Ottomans to pieces, but they don't have iron hooked up yet, so they don't have legions. I think they'd just bog down and kill each other slowly.

Now that we are strong then we should reneogiate peace with any Civ that we are not due to attack soon. Funny I was looking in the diplomacy screen that says the size of our military is the same as the others, but the F3 screen says we are stronger. This is an easy way to get their spare cash. Do this for anyone with 20 gold or so and no other reasonable means of getting it from them, make sure we have a stronger military and do this every 20 turns for every AI. Make sure we do not do this once we have an attack planned on that civ, don't want to break the 20 turn peace deal. Well we want to keep our reputation for a while at least.
At this point only Neocarthage has gold that we can take, 18.

Originally posted by AlanH
We are low on workers. We only have four, for a city count of nine and rising, and the terrain is getting more labour intensive. I would have suggested getting a ROP with Ottoman during the 20 turn alliance and building some roads to help our mobility, but we can't spare the workers we have.

Yes we should launch this soon within 10 turns. My only concern is that this will wake Rome up to roading their iron.

Karasu

Oct 24, 2003, 02:25 AM

A lot of interesting ideas in the last posts.
I have (quite surprisingly, in fact) followed the same logic behind a few, in the loneliness of my bedroom, while I went on another path on others -especially regarding Rome...

Here's the log.

Pre-turn
I am a bit puzzled about how to proceed. Our empire looks good and growing steadily; the army is shaping up well, but we can't sit on this.

Karasu fries more of his last remaining brain cells trying desperately to come up with some ideas.
The smell of burnt neurons fills the room; Clementina the cat, now the only sentient being there, smells the air with a surprised expression on her face...

So, I will follow this course of action:
1. keep on expanding as there is still room for settlers (esp. to the South, as Alan pointed out, even though that area may bee too far for an FP build).
2. Regroup our Swordsmen who are not barb hunting. A smaller group, to the North, will be used to attack Persia in case they get close to connecting their Iron. I think 3 to 5 should be ok; the rest will go to Dharha in preparation of a war with Ottomans and/or Rome (especially if they complete the Pyramids, see below)
3. Build more workers.
4. Within 10, declare war to the Zulus and ally with Carthage (at least), and leave Alweth with a war to fight... :D

I take the worker mining the mountain by Madinah; I prefer to improve easier tiles (17 turns are a long time to wait).

Switch Jeddah to Temple (needs expansion to grab the last olives), Damascus to Sword (Jeddah will provde expansion), Diryiah to Temple, Najran to Barracks (no more regulars!).

Establish embassies:
Egypt (45 gp), no resources; Oracle underway in Thebes.
Rome (47 gp), no resources; Pyramids underway in Rome.
India (47 gp), Iron connected; Settler due in 2 (Delhi at size 1).
France (50 gp), Horses connected; Oracle underway in Paris.

Turn 1 - 1025 BC
Madinah: Swordsman - Worker (cannot reach 10 spt; need to improve some terrain here)
Diryiah: Temple - Worker

Turn 2 - 1000 BC
Move units
Shuffle world map around for about 15 gp

Turn 3 - 975 BC
Kufah founded: barracks
Madinah: Worker - Swordsman
Trade map.
S and E Swordsmen chase barbarians, barbarians refuse the fight (come on!)

Turn 4 - 950 BC
Makkah: Settler - Spearman (to bring it back to size 5)
Riyadh: Barracks - Worker (cannot grow past size 2 until terrain is improved)
Switch Baghdad from warrior to temple (to grab the BGs)

Turn 5 - 925 BC
Move workers and Swordsmen around.
The barb camp E of Baghdad disappeared! Must have been razed by another civ (probably Ottos).

Turn 6 - 900 BC
Damascus: Swordsman - Swordsman
Diryiah: worker - worker
Swordsman in Diryiah goes to Dhahran (with Temple, Diryiah needs no MP right now).

Turn 7 - 875 BC
Makkah: Spearman - Settler
The French start the Great Library

Basra founded. Temple. Right in the face of a Carthaginian Settler :D

Turn 8 - 850 BC
Riyadh: Worker - Spearman
Rushed Temple in Baghdad

Turn 9 - 825 BC
Diryiah: worker -Spearman
Baghdad: temple - worker

I have been waiting so far to see if Egypt managed to get horses, before dragging them into a war with Shaka, but they didn't. Now they are on tech par with us (even though their military capability is close to zero...).
CoL has appeard, so it is really time to start spreading some confusion.

Declare war on Zulu, kill a Zulu wandering Archer south of our territory.

Sign Military Alliance with Carthage against Zulu
Trade Poly + Lit to Carthage for CoL + WM + 55 gp (all she has)
Give CoL to Spain for MA against Zulus
Sell WM and techs around until all AIs are broke (sorry, it was quite late and I forgot to note down the details :blush: )

Karasu repeatedly looks at the map and at the Diplomacy screen, where Caesar's smiling face grows larger and larger with every passing second...

Option 1: Ally (or RoP) with Ottomans to attack Rome directly. Hhmmm, I am not too confident in Uskudar flipping to us at a convenient time for us, and a 20-turns deal with Ottomans would bind us quite a bit as they are the closest civ to our borders.
Besides, there are no roads yet between Uskudar and Sogut; even with a RoP it would take some time to get to Rome.

But Rome is growing fast and they will connect the Iron sooner or later. So...

Option 2: Ally with Rome against Zulu :eek:
This might in fact speed up their connecting the Iron, but will slow down their expansion a little, and will cause them to send some troops to the end of the world.
In the 20 turns the deal will last, we can decide whether to attack Ottomans and/or Persia, and whether to proceed against Rome or not. In the second case, we would use those 20 turns to prepare and send there a reasonable amount of Swordsmen/Horsemen.

I like Option 2: give all techs to Rome for MA against Zulu (to keep him busy sending units to the other side of the world)

Turn 10 - 800 BC
Moved workers and Swordsmen
Disperse a barb camp, get 25 gp and a promotion to Veteran.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23800BC.jpg

Conclusions:
Some Swords are already in Dharhan.
Uskudar has just grown to size 2, so it won't autoraze if we attack (I wouldn't mind keeping it); more Swords can be sent SE if we want to start and keep on fighing a bit more. They have also just founded Bursa due E of Baghdad.

The two Swords in Damascus, plus the one underway there, plus a couple more taken from Madinah and/or Diriyah should go to Kufah to be ready for a raid on Persia quite soon. We really don't want Xerxes to connect that Iron (and he looks like he might do that in the near future).

We will need to send some units towards Baghdad, as when the uprising comes some barbarians are bound to appear over there.
I used the Scouts to explore a bit the southern lands, but I would now bring them a little back and use them to patrol the territory (still thinking of the uprising).

We can prepare a little defense in case a Zulu unit makes it to our territory, but I think they will be quite busy with Carthage and Spain. I got Rome into this hoping they will stop expanding like crazy.

There are three groups of workers: one in the North, to irrigate Damascus and then connect and improve to Kufah; one is bringing Irrigation to Riyadah and Baghdad (B may not be connected, to have it build some warriors if we feel like).
The third group is working on Diriyah to have it produce a little more shields.

I forgot to MM Makkah to build a settler in four turns... :D
I would found the next city 2NE+1N of Dharhan, to make use of the improvements already in place.
The other option (a bit aggressive, in fact) is to found 3N or 3N+1NE of Kufah, to be ready for an aggression on Persia (and possibly to break their road to the Iron with a border expansion).

Monarchy is due next turn.

Of course, feel free to change anything I did so far if you have a different opinion on how to carry on the game!

The saves:

QSC Save at 1000 BC (strange that I remembered!) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC1000.zip)

The game in progress (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC800.zip)

AlanH

Oct 24, 2003, 02:54 AM

@Karasu: Thanks, we're moving along very nicely. Well done remembering the 1000BC save.

There's lots to look at in your timeline and the save, so I'll just post the roster now and comment later.

Here's the roster:

AlanH
smackster
Karasu
Alweth (up now. 24 hours to "Got it")
MacBaldrick (on deck)

[EDIT] I downloaded the zips. Please rename the file before it is zipped so that it unzips to the agreed file name format. CF is gone, but not forgotten ;)

Karasu

Oct 24, 2003, 04:00 AM

Hhhmmm... I always manage to screw something up with file naming, don't I :D

MacBaldrick

Oct 24, 2003, 11:36 AM

Some thoughts on future strategy (taking a good look at the map first unlike my last comments) based on 800 BC map.

Leave Persia for now - they have nothing we want right now (resources/wonders/position) so it is a diversion of resources. If they continue roading their cities we can use these later to open up fast attack routes to India & Spain rather than build our own roads.

Several interesting city locations present themselves : A/ 2nd city next to Dhahran. B/ city next to horses / spices to SE 3/ city next to 2 x goats / spices at S end of mountains (to SW). D/ city on jungle next to lake & spices in N (future jump off point to attack Persia but in mean time link to Persia for trade ?)
Link B to Dhahran, C to Basra & D to Kufa.

When we attack Ottomans / Rome take some settlers along to build city for recuperation, to activate existing roading for our use and to replace badly sited city we capture or where we don't want to have to use troops to prevent flips.

If attacking Ottomans go straight for Capital, Iznik & Izmit then make peace, the rest are scattered and not likley to grow signifcantly while we deal with Rome. After 20 turns + we can finish them off.

If Rome does links to iron (will take them a long time to road mountain (I don't think the AI doubles up on workers ?) send sword to destroy road and defend mountain.

What are your thoughts ( what have I missed, got wrong, what better ideas do you have) as a consensus will help continuity between different players turns.

AlanH

Oct 24, 2003, 05:59 PM

Apologies for my delay in getting back, I had some RL to attend to :rolleyes:

@Karasu: It's OK. The file name thing is inconvenient, not life-threatening. It's just quicker for one person to change the name than for all of us to do so.

Lots of interesting ideas in Karasu's timeline and in MacBaldrick's post. One benefit from my delay is you don't get me shooting from the hip and it gives someone else a chance to pipe up and get in first.

Just in case anyone is in any doubt, we are not bothered about AI attitude towards us as we are not looking for their UN votes, and that's all attitude really affects. Sure it might slightly improve tech trade prices, but it's not worth gifting stuff to them for. If a civ is furious, so be it, it's not important. Reputation is different. We *do* need to keep our reputation intact, which means no broken treaties or 20-turn deals, no ROP rape, and make sure we have no forces inside their territory when we declare war.

I think the Zulu war is a good thing, it should keep them and the other civs busy for a while, and I like the thought that Rome might march half its army off across the map and split its forces ready to come back our way and be decimated when our MA expires. I suggest we get Egypt, and maybe France, into the Zulu fight as well, then we can concentrate on the other end of the map.

MacBaldrick is almost correct - Persia has nothing we want at the moment, except territory. But we need territory to achieve domination, and we want to achieve that quickly, so we should look at the earliest times to take out the various civs. Persia are an easy target for our swords before we get cataphracts, so if we think we could hold their cities we might do well to take them out soon. Though I take the point about letting them improve the terrain a bit first. Unless we can deny Rome iron we will need cataphracts to take out the legions. Rome has two iron sources they could hook up, though both are outside their cultural borders, and they could annex a third one north of their territory, so it could be a challenge to keep them iron-free.

When we go for Ottomans, I suggest we get India on our side. That'll provide a distraction for Suleyman, and keep the Indians off our backs for a while until we can get around to them. If we brought Rome in against Ottoman it might distract them from sending troops off to Zululand and splitting their forces, so it may be better not to do so.

We may be able to win the horses just by expanding Dhahran's border. Next turn we could pop rush its temple. I suspect our wider border might then cut the horses out of Uskudar three turns later. We can then road them to provide a fast route into Uskudar for a surprise attack, and onwards towards Sogut. If it doesn't work out that way then we can still take them out using pure military force.

I made some suggestions about our city placement options earlier, and I haven't really changed my views since then. I assumed Kufah would be one tile EAST (corrected!) of its current location to get access to the bonus grass. That's where the settler was standing last I saw. Where it is now is a bit closer to the vacant inner ring site I identified, in hills 4 tiles NE of Makkah, and it has no 2fpt tiles, but maybe we can still build that first-rank city. As I said, once we have 14 cities close to Makkah the rest are going to be totally corrupt as we are over the optimum for this map size and difficulty. So we should settle the two obvious sites south of Madinah and Diriyah, plus the first ring city NE of Makkah if it still works, plus the one I still like on the river bend north of Uskudar. After that we should go for strategic sites - resources, denial or trade and military routes and concentrate on how we get our second core going.

smackster

Oct 24, 2003, 09:47 PM

I agree that the attack on Ottoman should be imminent, we should aim to take the first four cities, Uskudar, Sogut, Izmit, Iznik. That works nicely in line, we'll need all our troops to take Sogut, and I think it would be a mistake to attack Antalya as the troops would be split. Taking Izmit and Iznik would block off Rome.

I think any new Swords should be sent this way to help. I think this attack should be slow, wait for the Vets to clean up. When they are damaged wait until they are healed. We have the time and a chance to get leaders. When we get an elite, give that unit easy wins. I'm only talking about waiting a turn or two between cities.

As the two nearest Persian cities are size one, I think we should wait a little on that attack.

As for the uprising I think we know exactly where they will be, we should control the move to MA, swap maps well in advance of it happening and get our troops in place. 32 horses will appear from each barb camp. I'd hate to lose our gold to them.

Oh, and road those horses.

smackster

Oct 24, 2003, 10:06 PM

Note the most likely candidate for us to get workers from is NeoCarthage. As their capital is close to the Zulu capital we could see workers running home. Once the workers are in the capital they are available for us to buy. Look out for this from all civs now they are at war.

Alweth

Oct 25, 2003, 12:11 AM

Okay. I've got the game. I'll either finish it tonight, or if I get too tired, first thing tomorrow.

AlanH

Oct 25, 2003, 02:14 AM

Go Alweth!

Good points Smackster. Leaving Antalya alone will also distract some of the barbs when they come. They go after every nearby target. In my gotm I certainly didn't see more than ten. The rest must have gone after other targets.

Roster:

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu
Alweth (playing)
MacBaldrick (on deck)

Alweth

Oct 25, 2003, 02:51 AM

I'm done. Here's the log:

0. Preturn - 800BC
Look around. That's it. Now, where to go from here?

END TURN
French want to trade world maps, so I agree.

Finish Monarchy, why not construction? And why don't we revolt while we're at it?

Oops, Makkah, Madinah, and Baghdad all descend into chaos.

I'll drop the research slider to 10%. I hope we're not trying to rush into the MA, because this won't help. At least it will give us plenty of time to set up for the barbarian boom.

1. 775BC

Ottomans have 52g, but I don't want to release Monarchy on the world just yet.

Erk! Workers near Riyadh, and I don't know what they're supposed to be doing. Aha! Looks like they're getting water to Riyadh.

Well, I'm not sure if we've decided on when we're going to war with the Ottomans, but it looks like Karasu had an idea, so I guess I'll attack. I'll follow the strategy of going slow and safe. Take the capital and the two I-towns.

I pay them 4 gold for their world map, since I figure we're going to be getting it back anyways. I hope. Then I declare war.

END OF TURN

Makkah: settlers - settlers
Jeddah: temple - spearman

2. 750BC

War on Ottomans doesn't go quite as well as hoped, lose a veteran swordsman.

Settler heads for spot between Riyadh and Baghdad.

END OF TURN

Give France maps for theirs and a gold.

Damascus: swordsman - swordsman (though I was tempted toward a temple, since I really love my city improvements)

3. 730BC

Uskudar is destroyed. (I could have sworn it had two pop just a turn or two ago.)

END OF TURN

Madinah: swordsman - worker

4. 710BC

More war.

END OF TURN

5. 690BC

Change Jeddah to worker because we need them up there and it's not growing anyways.

END OF TURN

Territory Map for World Map with Persia.

Oops. Forgot to MM Makkah.
Makkah: settler (heads for SW goats) - library (hope to pop rush it)
Madinah: worker - swordsman
Diriyah: spearman - barracks
Jiddah expands: worker - barracks

6. 670BC

kick neoCarthage out of our territory.

Alexmanistan is founded.

END OF TURN

Rome is advances on Alexmanistan?

Baghdad: worker - spearman

6. 650BC

Nothing unexpected. Tell Rome to leave.

END OF TURN

Damascus: swordsman - swordsman
Dharan: temple - barracks

India is building the Great Library

Rome goes toward Alexmanistan again.

7. 630BC

Is Rome trying to attack Zululand with three warrios by sending them through our land, or are they trying to take the undefended Alexmanistan? I tell them to get out.

END OF TURN

Riyadh: spearman - spearman

Indians are building the Colossus.

8. 610BC

I put the spearman in Alexmanistan and let the Romans through this time.

Wait, can't pop rush in Monarchy, so I put Makkah back to settler.

We have lots of money (718) so I spend 108 to finish the temple in Alexmanistan much earlier, so we can get to the goats.

END OF TURN

Rome and Zululand sign a peace treaty, but Rome keeps on moving its troops through, so I don't know what's up.

Makkah: settler - settler
Madinah: swordsman - worker
Alexmanistan: temple - barracks

9. 590BC

Head settler north for hill next to spices. Send swordsman to protect.

Take Sogut, gain an Elite, lose another Veteran.

Some of the other civs are getting some gold stock-piled, but I don't know what to trade them for it, since I don't want to trade off Monarchy for that little gold, and in fact I'd like to save it for another tech.

END OF TURN

Najran: barracks - spearman

Rome is building Great Library.

10. 570BC

Ottomans have Construction, so we might want to switch to Currency, since we'll probably be able to get Construction out of them for free. They also have a lot of money, so making peace after we take the cities we want should be pretty cheap.

I have Diriyah have a scientist, so that it won't go into disorder next turn.

I'll leave the rest to MacBaldrick.

Here's a screenshot:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/civilize.JPG

Two issues to ocnsider as you begin your turn:

1. I forgot to settle where Uskudar had been.

2. You should consider changing research right to currency or something since we can probably squeeze construction out of the Ottomans.

HERE'S THE SAVE ZIP:

SG23C_BC0570.ZIP (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/sg23c_bc0570.zip)

smackster

Oct 25, 2003, 07:24 AM

As Ottoman have Construction then somebody else will soon get Currency they will swap and we'll be in the Middle Ages and find groups of 32 barbarians wandersing.

Good job on capturing Sogut, and I looked back to see why Uskudur was not captured, looks like they pop rushed as soon as we declare war. I even tried again just attacking them and they pop rush when we move in so nothing could be done about that. Couldn't leave the city there.

I think we need protection for that southern settler, imagine if the barbs arrive there after he settles.

I think that I might be tempted to leave that barb hut on the mountain to the south of Diriyah. Fortify the sword, and send 2 or 3 more down there. On his own that sword would die against 32 horses, but with 2 others, fortified and on a mountain the defence is very strong, they might all get elite promotions. If we don't get the rest there in time that sword just needs to move one north to get out of the way.

So I would use the spear in Meccas to provide southern defence. Then send both swords from Madinah and Diriyah to that barb hut. Jeddah has a spare warrior so bring him round to get promoted. One of the swords in Damascus needs to protect the northern settler. We could also use the Riyadh sword now either on the Otto front, or the barbs, I think it is just enough inside our territory to do that.

We should be able to get more cash by peace renogotiations, you can do this if in alliance. Looks like Egypt, Persia, NeoCarthage, and France have enough cash to make this worthwhile. Just click on active deals, click on the peace treaty.

AlanH

Oct 25, 2003, 09:42 AM

Thanks Alweth. Good job taking Sogut. Did you consider settling closer in? There are two or three sites in my list that are closer to the core than the places your settlers are heading.

I think I'd have let Rome through. I guess they were trying to get to Zululand, and we could have had half their troops well away from Rome on our west, unable to upgrade to legions. Kicking them out may have caused them to negotiate peace since they couldn't get to the enemy. The good news is that they've broken a treaty and damaged their rep, and we now have no obligation to delay a war with them if we want to do so before they start building legions.

I suggest we don't road where the worker is standing now between Sogut and Alexmanistan, as that should be a city site. We need to starve Sogut down to pop 1 before we let it grow with our own citizens, to avoid flips. Particularly if we are going to let Ottomans survive for a while. We can make the non-resisting citizens tax men for more gold and we should move all but one of the garrison outside the city to avoid losses if it does flip while we are taming it. If a couple of swords stay just outside it will be easy to take back as there will just be one spear in residence.

@Smackster: Is it wise to renegotiate peace with civs we are in alliance with? Surely we have a 20 turn implicit peace deal already in progress, so we would effectively break that if we put it back on the table?

AlanH (on deck)
smackster
Karasu
Alweth
MacBaldrick (You're up. 24 hours to get it)

smackster

Oct 25, 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by AlanH
I suggest we don't road where the worker is standing now between Sogut and Alexmanistan, as that should be a city site. We need to starve Sogut down to pop 1 before we let it grow with our own citizens, to avoid flips.

Take a look at our culture comparison, I think we have no chance of a flip.

@Smackster: Is it wise to renegotiate peace with civs we are in alliance with? Surely we have a 20 turn implicit peace deal already in progress, so we would effectively break that if we put it back on the table?

I've done this before, of course it is not always obvious when you have a rep hit, but what I do know is that the MA stays in place after you renegotiate peace, this I assume means its ok to do it.

AlanH

Oct 25, 2003, 10:54 AM

You may be right about the flip probability, but I tend to play safe on this after having had a few bad experiences. The other reason I cut a city to pop 1 and then grow again is that I have found that war weariness hits cities with multiple foreigners much quicker than native cities. This could be significant later.

I'll take your word for it on the effect of peace renegotiation on allies. I've never tried it, but the logic escapes me and it sounds like a bug, since it seems to me that you are cancelling a 20-turn deal, even if you immediately choose to sell a new one.

MacBaldrick

Oct 25, 2003, 11:33 AM

I have it. Need to study the last moves + comments before playing my 10 tonight (or Sunday night).

smackster

Oct 25, 2003, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by AlanH
I'll take your word for it on the effect of peace renegotiation on allies. I've never tried it, but the logic escapes me and it sounds like a bug, since it seems to me that you are cancelling a 20-turn deal, even if you immediately choose to sell a new one. [/B]
I think that the peace deal and the MA deal are seperate deals, so you never cancel the MA. All we are saying to the AI is I'll guarantee you 20 turns of peace if you give me 25 Gold, and they happily agree. However, if we chose war then the MA would break and that would be our rep hit.

AlanH

Oct 25, 2003, 01:59 PM

Originally posted by MacBaldrick
I have it. Need to study the last moves + comments before playing my 10 tonight (or Sunday night).

Good luck! Let us know if you want to discuss anything.

AlanH (on deck)
Smackster
Karasu
Alweth
MacBaldrick (playing)

@Smackster: That is where I'm confused. I thought any 20-turn deal included an automatic 20-turn peace treaty. On that basis, if you "break" the peace treaty to renegotiate it you *ought* to be considered to be breaking the associated deal. However, as I say, I'll accept that your experience says that's not so.

smackster

Oct 25, 2003, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by AlanH
@Smackster: That is where I'm confused. I thought any 20-turn deal included an automatic 20-turn peace treaty. On that basis, if you "break" the peace treaty to renegotiate it you *ought* to be considered to be breaking the associated deal. However, as I say, I'll accept that your experience says that's not so. [/B]

I just loaded up 800BC to check I'm not going mad. I guessed that I'm allowed to load up an old save turn and do something, as long as it doesn't take me to anything that could spoil anything in the future.

Anyway I just looked at our MA with Spain that year, the MA is greyed and has (19) in brackets, and you can't click on it. The peace deal is bold and no numbers next to it and you can click on it to renegotiate the deal.

Looks like we can get 80 gold or so on the current turn doing this.

AlanH

Oct 25, 2003, 03:20 PM

Sounds good to me ;)

smackster

Oct 25, 2003, 05:22 PM

Of course there is a risk with this, if the AI thinks its civ is stronger than you then you have to pay them for the peace deal, or you have to declare war on them. No going back, so once you have decided to do it and find that they want something for peace renegotiation you have to accept it or you have to declare war. Generally if the military advisor says we are strong compared to them then I do it.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 26, 2003, 03:33 AM

Peace renegotiation was discussed a bit during Moonsinger's excellent trading training exercise (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54088) a while back.

You can pretty well eliminate the risk by ensuring that you only renegotiate with weaker civs. The key to this is to carefully check your relative power value vs. the civ you are thinking of renegotiating with, using the Power histogram. Size matters!

Right now we could renegotiate peace profitably and confidently with any civ, as we have the highest power rating. Rome comes closest, but we are also safely higher than them. I marked off the edge of a piece of paper against the bottom of the histogram to compare them. If there's ever any doubt then you can still go for it, as in the worst case you'll only lose a little on the deal.

MacBaldrick

Oct 26, 2003, 04:26 PM

Here the log of my eleven turns (missed an update of my turns count in the log).

Turn 0 - 570 BC

Some MM of cities including rush Basra's temple (expand to keep Carthage at bay) and switch to warriors * we need bodies for the coming barb rush * and switch Diriyah to settler * its crowding other cities and has little shield potential - use as worker farm *. Use a Tax Collector in Madinah (its not growing anyway without aquaduct) as well as Diriyah (we don't need extra science).

Switch Alexamanis tan & Kufah to Spearman (barracks only useful in cities with good shield production or potential like Jeddah).

Drop science to zero (we will trade the next two techs when we are ready for Middle Ages). Note later up Lux rate to activate WLKD and counteract corruption.

Follow Smackster's advice and renegotiate MA's with Carthage (25g), Spain (12g) & France (24g).

EOT

Turn 1 - 550 BC

Madinah : Worker - worker (MM for 1 turn at no growth).
Kufah : spearman - spearman
Basra : Temple - warrior

Zulu complete Oracle in Zimbabwe
Barb rising near Dhahran - too soon (Rome has reached Middle Ages) !

Trade : Egypt Monarchy for Construction, Rome Monarchy for Currency & Persia Construction for WM + 20g. Research Engineering @ 40 turns (& trade for other which AI usually favours)

Move swords from Sogut > E
Found Akaba in south. Move sword S from Basra and replace with sword from Madinah.
Move workers from Madinah & near Makkah (completed mining) north to mine olives near Jeddah & road to new northern city.
N Settler > E > NE > N, follow with sword from Damascus.
Move warriors from Jeddah & Kufah to Makkah for upgrade to sword
Shuffle swords / spearmen south through cities of Riyadh / Alexmanistan / Dhahran to release 2 swords from Dharhan > S towards bards
Aghhh moved sword off mountain by mistake.
Move swords near Sogut SE & road with worker. Move 2nd worker > SE (gap to be filled by city as earlier recommended ).
Move S scout > N > NW to avoid barb & Otto warrior.

EOT

Sword kills 9 barbs before his glorious death.
Indians want WM trade (done).
Trade Construction to Spain for 80g + WM

Turn 2 - 530 BC

Madinah : worker > N > E > E - horseman
Diriyah : settler > E > SE > E - settler
Settler & sword >N from Kufah (spot Otto warrior to NE) sword from Damascus > NE > E > NE to Kufah
Sword > S towards Akaba, sword > NW to defend Basra
Continue swords towards Iznik & scout located archer.
S scout keeps out of way.

EOT

Diplo : Trade Construction to India for WM + 20g
Makkah : settler > E - settler

Turn 3 - 510 BC

Move troops to cover barb rising & towards Iznik. Kill Otto warrior NW of Iznik (Rome has galley).
Settler > N to hill (city location), Sword > N, sword from Kufah > NE to find / kill Otto warrior.
S scout sees barbs from coastal camp but runs into original barbs (will they attack Otto cities ?)

EOT

Ottomans seek peace - not yet.

Barbs kill S scout.
Najran : warrior > SE - warrior

Turn 4 - 490 BC

Diplo : Trade Rome WM + 30g for worker (limit his development, increase ours) send to Basra to road south.

Gather troops round Iznik. Send swords S after barbs & continue shuffling troop around.
Found Mosul - spearman (in North) Sword > to defend
Sword > SE after Otto warrior heading for Bagdad + sword > NE > NE from Riyadh.

EOT

Otto warrior attacks sword & dies.
Otto archer kills sword near Iznik

Turn 5 - 470 BC

Diplo: Trade France Currency for WM + 20g
Found Samarra on flood plain W of Sogut (defended by spearman)
Rush barracks in Jeddah & warrior in Sogut.
Attack & kill archer. Attack on Iznik loses sword
Sword reaches Akaba

EOT

Sogut : warrior - warrior
Madinah: horseman > E > E > SE > E - horseman
Diriyah : worker > E > SE - worker
Jeddah ; barracks - horsemen

Turn 6 - 450 BC

Diplo :

Lose sword, kill 1 spearman attacking Iznik. Its being a tough nut .
Move sword near Bagdad towards Bursa
Start mining Olives around Jeddah.
Build road south of Nairan

EOT

Zulu sue for peace -reject for now as they have little to offer.
Ottomans sue for peace - reject for now as they offer little.
Rome demands WM + 50g - ignore so they declare war and advance on workers. Intend to kill off their warriors with our swords and quickly sue for peace if possible.

Makkah: settler - settler
Damascus: sword - sword Bagdad: Spearman - horseman

Turn 7 - 430 BC

sword nr Bagdad > NE, warrior > S > SW > SW (to Riyadh for upgrade)
move troops east.

2 swords kill roman warriors (reg. promoted to vet.)
worker irrigates plain N of Dhahran, settler > S towards horses
Q where have the barbs gone ?
sword in Samarra > SE > SE covering worker. Move 2nd worker (completes road) > W for protection of sword.

EOT

Weak sword killed near Sogut
Ryihad : spearman - swordsman
Najran : warrior > S > E > E - sword, Basra: warrior > N - warrior

Turn 8 - 410 BC

Diplo: trade France Monarchy for WM + 20g

Switch Sogut to spearman & rush (roman warriors to N).
Move troop towards Sogut.
Move sword & settler (s of Dhahran) S (single barb), workers continue road

EOT

Barb killed by sword
Romans approach Sogut but Sogut : Spearman - spearman
Madinah: horseman - sword
Diriyah: worker > E > S - worker

Turn 9 - 390 BC

Trade WM to Egypt for WM + 7g, India for 6g, Spain for 6g, France for 4g

1st settler S with Sword, 2nd Settler towards Sogut. Sword towards Iznik, Elite sword nr Iznik kills Roman warrior.
Keep moving troops towards the east

EOT

Turn 10 - 370 BC

Trade India WM for 6 g (keep them poor)

Roman Archer killed attacking Sogut, Spear becomes Vet.
Romans crossing mountains from heartland.
Barb horseman in South.
Palace improved
Cover worker in jungle with spear from Kufah, cover Kufah from Damascus.
Warrior reaches Madinah for upgrade.
Worker irrigates FP by Samarra.
Fortify sword by Bursa until 2nd arrives.
Fortify sword with S settler, join with 2nd sword, move sword S from Dhahran
Close troop up to Iznik.

EOT

Makkah: settler - settler (you may wish to change)
Alexmanistan: Spearman - sword
Kufah: Spearman - sword
Akaba: warrior (fort) - warrior

Turn 11 - 350 BC

Move 2 words nr Iznik onto mountain & spearman to hill. Horseman retreats.
Switch Sogut to sword & rush
Barb horseman killed attacking 2 sword & settler who move SW, workers move s to continue road with sword
2 workers near Bagdad > NE joint worker to road/ mine plain
sword near Bursa kills barb horse.

EOT oops Taken one turn too many - didn't keep track of turns

Not the progress of conquest I hoped for although barbs gave little trouble (& no promotions). Rome has attacked us but we are killing them off quite easily - let them come onto our ground and continue to kill them (less to defend later).

Kept turning out swords and a few horses which are moving toward Sogut area. Settler (with 2 sword as escort) has nearly reached site for city by horses / spices (still to cross river + eliminate barb camp) with further sword + horse on way.

Couple of swords near Bursa can take that out.

Generating warriors in Basra & Akaba who can be cycled back for upgrade on road connected (3 workers on the job) - rushed warrior in Basra to get another started before road complete.

Settler sitting in Samarra waiting for sword escort. Can build city near Iznik or on S coast (by fish / goats) to block peninsula.

Jeddah now has 3 olives mined for shield production - use to build swords / horse ?

OnDiplomatic front next player can make peace with Zulu or Ottomans but little to gain. Minor trades of WM & older techs kept some money coming in before for next phase of techs from Ais complete. Pursued less popular engineering at 40 turn pace.

More of the same I think.

MacBaldrick

Oct 26, 2003, 04:44 PM

File too big so uploaded Zipped file here >
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23_350 BC-SAV.zip

and map view here >
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/350_BC map.jpg

MacBaldrick

Oct 26, 2003, 04:52 PM

File too big so uploaded Zipped file here >
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23_350 BC-SAV.zip

and map view here >
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/350_BC map.jpg

oops should have given it full pre-fix

MacBaldrick

Oct 26, 2003, 04:55 PM

Corrections
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23_350_BC-SAV.zip
and
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/350_BC_map.jpg

upload doesn't like spaces.

AlanH

Oct 26, 2003, 05:31 PM

Thanks. I've got it. I'm off to bed right now - heavy day tomorrow. I'll play my ten on Monday evening UK time, so with luck, if he's available, Smackster can pick it up later the same day in Boston.

AlanH (playing on Monday)
Smackster (on deck)
Karasu
Alweth
MacBaldrick

@MacBaldrick: Sounds like you were enjoying yourself. The eleven turns brings us to a nice round number for now :). I'll try to pick it up and follow in your warlike footsteps.

URLs never have spaces in them - those were underscores. It's safest to view the uploads5 direcory listing and right (or control) click the link to your file in case it gets renamed by the server, then you can copy it to the clipboard and paste it into your post. For the other team members, the save is at:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23_350_BC-SAV1.zip

and I've re-shot the map and scaled it to fit the forum page:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23_350BC.gif

smackster

Oct 26, 2003, 10:32 PM

I had a look at the map, to take the heat of us from Rome, consider declaring peace with Otto for an alliance with them against Rome. From the look of the Roman archers there is a good chance they'll divide their attacks. If the Romans take Izmik then we can take it back.

Karasu

Oct 27, 2003, 01:16 AM

Yes.
I was thinking exactly the same thing as Smackster. Try to take Iznik first, of course, then offer peace to the Ottomans and ally with them against Rome (you can check some other nation as well, of course... ;) )
All those cities will be ours anyway.

I haven't checked the save, but I would consider sending as many swordsmen as possible towards Rome to make sure they don't connect the Irons. Let's also try fishing for leaders, as we haven't started prebuilding for anything yet.

We should also stop building Swordsmen and start on Horsemen as soon as possible.

We seem to be making good progress overall, but I am growing a bit concerned over the FP. It would be ideal to have two productive cores and some horsemen already when we hit our Golden Age...

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 06:59 AM

If you look at the map, you'll see about 5-6 Romans right next to Iznik, so if we declare peace right now and move our troops away then they might attack Iznik. As we have been attacking it I assume it might be weak, MacBaldrick do you remember how many defenders you killed. This will give us time to gather our forces.

Note I see an undefended Otto city to the north, I assume barbs got to that one, whatever happens lets take that first.

Smackster

MacBaldrick

Oct 27, 2003, 09:52 AM

I only killed one spear in Iznik (should have waited to build up forces but equally don't want defence to be re-inforced).

Agee with Smackster sit back on mountains and let Romans take Iznik if they can with only archers (provided we can get Ottomans to ally against Rome).

Once new horse city is secure can move 2 swords to take out small cities on coast if Ottoman's don't play ball.

NOTE: When we defeat Rome they may try to slip a settler away on their Galley. Once we have coastal cities a few ships could be useful for jumping past mountainous terrain or taking out key resources deep in enemy territory but near coast.

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 11:26 AM

I have an etiquite question for succession games. When I load the latest .sav (when its not my turn) what are the limits to how much I can look at. Now I assume that hitting end turn is obviously not allowed, and generally anything that is a one time hit, like spending cash for anything. But is it legal to bring up the diplomacy screen to see what is on offer, I mean you don't have to take the deal just see what is there.

For example I did this with Otto, and I know what they offer, I didn't take it I just looked at what the advisor said. I wont tell you but wanted to know how far you can push these things in an SG.

Smackster

MacBaldrick

Oct 27, 2003, 12:03 PM

I don't know of any formal etiquete but since anything you learn cannot be used for 40 turns (assuming you do not post any info or comments based on info) I think you should be free to do what you want.

As this is a learning experience I think you should be free to try different (short term) tactics to get a feel what what might have happened - the better to inform your own choices is future games. Take the current situation - assuming AlanH gets Ottomans to go to war with Rome & peace with us - what would have happened if we left thing and took on Rome alone for 5 or 6 turns ?

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 12:11 PM

My view is that we should not click end turn on the current save, or do anything final with any negotiations. But it is ok to play with the diplomacy screen to see what they offer, without accepting the offer.

So I can bring up the dip screen with Otto, offer peace, and offer alliance with Rome, and all their cash. Without accepting it, I know what they will do.

I knew what they'd offer without doing that, as you usually get a lot from somebody when you take their capital.

AlanH

Oct 27, 2003, 02:55 PM

Originally posted by smackster
My view is that we should not click end turn on the current save, or do anything final with any negotiations. But it is ok to play with the diplomacy screen to see what they offer, without accepting the offer.

So I can bring up the dip screen with Otto, offer peace, and offer alliance with Rome, and all their cash. Without accepting it, I know what they will do.

I knew what they'd offer without doing that, as you usually get a lot from somebody when you take their capital.
I agree. It would be very difficult for a player to join in discussions about options it they already know the future outcome of some player decisions.

The key question is: "Can I do this wthout making an irreversible change to the game state?". You can do anything that's reversible, like looking at screens and trying out diplo options (your trade advisor tells you what's acceptable and what's not, so no irreversible commitment is needed to discover the possible deals). Hitting "Next Turn" is not reversible wthout reloading. Attacking a city and discovering the outcome is not reversible.

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 04:18 PM

OK, so I'm pleased to announce that Otto are willing to offer peace for an alliance against Rome.

MacBaldrick

Oct 27, 2003, 04:28 PM

I also agree you must not do anything to the playing timeline.

My comments refered to exploring post-dated saves 'off-line' to see what might have happened (and where any knowledge gained is not applicable to the current succession game.

AlanH - I think Rome's military is about to bleed to death at the gates of Iznik before our gathering swords/horse deliver the knockout blow. With an alliance we should build that city on the coast to split the Otto empire in two and provide a base for operations against Rome.

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 05:20 PM

Yes I think its good to go back and look at key decisions that were made to see what effect the alternative would have had. Although you shouldn't play too many turns, certainly less than we are up to and stop if anything is getting close to spoiling things.

So far in this game, I can think of two keys decisions,
1) Giving in to the Roman demands and seeing how quickly we can take the Otto cities we had planned. Not saying it was wrong just a decision that could have gone the other way, I would not have given them the money.
2) The decision we are about to make to ally with Otto against Rome. The problem being that if Rome does not take Iznik then we are stuck with Iznik in the way for at least 20 more turns.

I'm sure Alan has already played this now, but we clearly need a ROP with Otto. Oh and that is available in the peace if we need it.

Smackster

P.S. Still waiting for that save

AlanH

Oct 27, 2003, 06:18 PM

Bad news, I'm afraid Smackster. I had a very long day today, fighting several very obstinate Windows systems for supremacy, and I'm not ready to do battle with the AI tonight. I hate Windows!

So I plan to hit it fresh in the morning. Sorry to disappoint, but I think I'd make some stupid mistakes if I took it on now. I'll probably make some different ones tomorrow, but at least I'll have done my best ;)

smackster

Oct 27, 2003, 10:07 PM

Alan,

Good job you didn't play it, I'm just back from watching Monday night (American) Football, its past midnight and I would have played it and made mistakes. I'll be ready for it tomorrow with a fresh mind.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 28, 2003, 04:10 PM

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I think my Mac's trying to tell me to give it a nice new black cat to play with. I played my ten turns, saved it, and transcribed most of my notes into a forum reply. I went out to run a taxi service for my wife, came back and found the dreaded translucent screen of death staring at me. So I had to type all my notes up again. My Panther (Mac OS X 10.3 for the philistines among you) was delivered yesterday, but I deliberately put off installing it to get this sequence finished first :(

Anyway, here goes again .....

I looked at the save, and your comments and suggestions, and tried to formulate a plan. My conclusions were a little different from yours, as I decided not to make peace with Suleyman. My reasoning was as follows:

The idea of a peace deal was (a) to reduce the pressure on us and (b) to get the Romans to capture Iznik for us so that we could take it from them.

Well, first, I couldn't see too much pressure coming our way. The barb uprising seems to have subsided, the Ottomans are only throwing new build archers at us, one every few turns, and the Romans don't seem to have much to hit us with either. I felt they had probably thrown their main force at us and we could now expect a slow dribble of new build units - more than from the Ottomans, but not enough to cause trouble.

Second it seemed to me that Iznik would not be building new defensive units because according to F7 it was building the Great Library. So it shouldn't be too big a nut for our swords to crack. My guess was two or three spears defending. But Rome might not do it with their few pathetic archers, and we'd be stuck with the Ottomans as allies for 20 turns.

So I checked around, renegotiated peace with Egypt for 34 gold and their map and decided to stick with the current state for a few turns. My objective was to gain and hold territory as fast as possible. To that end, build up a strong force in the south east, and keep building settlers to fill spaces and to replace any auto-razed cities.

Hit next turn:

Romans kill our scout. Roman galley appears. Roman archers and warriors move towards Sogut.
Sogut sword>horse(30). Madinah sword>horse(3). Diriyah worker>worker(3). Damascus sword>horse(5). Jeddah horse>horse(5). Basra warrior>warrior(5).

T1 330 BC
Sword walks into undefended Bursa. One unhappy citizen > taxman.
Spear into Kufah - not sure if he was supposed to be going to Mosul, but I decided to defend Kufah as a French warrior was sniffing around. Workers complete road to Mosul in jungle. Move to spices.

5/5 sword kills Roman warrior near Iznik > 3/5, no leader.
4/4 sword kills Roman arher near Iznik > 3/4, no promo.
Wounded horse to Sogut to heal. Spear to defend 3/5 sword.
3/3 sword kills archer near Sogut > 2/3. Spear from Sogut to defend him.

Diplo check: France now Polite, was Annoyed.
Its too quiet on the western front. Buy an alliance with Spain vs. Zulus for 5 gpt = 10 gold + wmap. If they break it we haven't lost much.

IBT: Carthage signs peace with Zulus.
Ottoman archer appears near Iznik. Barb horse attacks sword and dies.
Dhahran barracks>horse(10)
Persians start Great Lib and build Bactra near our olives city.

T2 310 BC
3/5 sword kills Roman archer > 1/5, no leader.
3/4 sword kills barb camp, 25 gold. Build Snagha on horse hill.
Barb horse visible near Snagha.
Switch Madinah to Aquaduct.

Buy a new alliance with Carthage plus wmap for 6 gpt + wmap. Just want to keep the west busy.

IBT: Ottoman archer moves into mtns. towards Sogut.
Romans move towards Sogut. Barb horse attacks Snagha and dies.
Baghdad horse>horse(6)
Egypt completes Great Lib in Thebes. Rome completes Pyramids. Persia completes Great Wall. Other civs with Monrchy cascade to Hangng Gardens.

T3 290 BC
4/4 sword kills Ottoman archer > 1/4. Other troops consolidate and heal.

IBT: Barb horse attacks horse and dies.
Makkah settler>settler(4). Diriyah worker>worker(3)

T4 270 BC
Build Sirplebidah on lake south of Madinah > warrior (10)
Build Khurasan on south coast near Antalya > temple.
Rush temple in Sogut (108 gold)
Continue troop recovery and build-up on mountain west of Iznik.

IBT: Roman archers attack approaching horses. They have unexpected extra range because they have bought a ROP with Suleyman. One horse dies. Now I'm a bit cross!
Sogut temple>barracks(40). Basra warrior>barracks(14).
Paris completes hanging Gardens. Cascade is over.
Egypt builds Abydos on *our* south coast.

T5 250 BC
Our swords attack archers on mountains and hills around Sogut. Kill three, one sword dies, red-lining one archer. Horse kills Roman warrior. Horse kills barb horse.
France has Republic, monopoly, won't sell. Rome will talk now, but has nothing to say.
Rush temple in Khourasan (116 gold)

IBT: Roman archer kills a wounded sword.
Damascus horse>horse(5). Jeddah horse>horse(5). Khourasan temple>spear(20).

T6 230 BC
4/4 sword kills Roman archer > 3/4
3/3 sword kills Ottoman archer > 4/4
4/4 sword kills 1/4 Roman warrior.
Sword takes out barb camp in the eastern desert, 25 gold. India has build a city there.
Upgrade a warrior. Rush a temple in Bursa (100 gold).

IBT: 2 Roman spears and settler appear near Iznik. Not sure where they are going?
Diriyah worker>worker(3). Najran sword>horse(8). Bursa temple>spear(20).

T7 210 BC
Sword kils Roman warrior fortified near Sogut. Regroup for attack on Iznik.
Renegotiate peace with India fo r124 gold + wmap.

IBT: Makkah settler>settler(4). Riyadh sword>horse(10).

T8 190 BC
Sword attacks archer near Sogut and dies. Spear kills redlined archer.
Sword kills Roman archer > 2/4, sees Ottoman archer in forest south of Iznik.
Buy a Carthage worker for 23 gold + wmap. Rome now has Republic. Doesn't want to swap it for peace, not that I had any intention of doing so.

IBT: Ottoman archer kills wounded sword. Barb horse attacks sword and dies. Roman settler/spear are heading north, probably towards the coastal iron.
Baghdad horse>horse(5).

T9 170 BC
Horse kills barb camp on south coast. Joan still wants silly money for Republic. Buy Persian worker for 22 gold+wmap.

IBT: Carthage wants to swap territory maps. Hmmm! OK, Hanny, let's renegotiate peace. Kerrrr-chinggg ... 43 gold + wmap.
Diriyah worker>worker(3). Dhahran horse>horse(8). Akaba warrior>warrior(10).

T10 150 BC
Kill 2 Ottoman spears and capture Iznik. Finger trouble - selected the wrong unit and sent a spear to his death :(.
Status
I've set Iznik for starvation. There are 4 resisters, and it would only produce 1 shield whatever you do, so my strategy is always to ethnically cleanse captive cities to remove later war weariness problems. Smackster may have other plans...
Swords and horses also killed 2 Ottoman archers and 2 Roman spears, and the territory is fairly clean. Just a Roman spear in the mountains to dispose of.

Rome is currently only sending out spears. I think they are struggling. There's one Roman spear/settler pair heading towards the unclaimed iron on the east coast.

Ottoman cities are at our disposal, and we can move on towards Rome, deprive them of iron if possible, and we could have the Pyramids in another day or two. We have reinforcements arriving - horses and swords. One settler is moving south - I was going to settle between the two Egyptan cities on the south coast, but other options are open. Another settler is heading for a position on the southern end of the Persian lake. A sword is moving to defend him. Workers are moving to road in those directions.

Mistakes: I could have used the taxman in Bursa as a scientist ad saved 10% science and I lost a spear unnecessarily taking Iznik - just selected the wrong unit. The lux tax has been at 10% throughout as well. I should probably have thought more about my sliders.

Here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC0150.SAV.zip), and here's the current screenie ....
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_BC0150.gif

AlanH

Oct 28, 2003, 04:57 PM

AlanH
Smackster (24 hours to get it)
Karasu (on deck)
Alweth
MacBaldrick

smackster

Oct 28, 2003, 05:24 PM

Yea I got it.

I will certainly starve out Iznik during this major resistance period as there is clearly a flip risk with capital distances. Izmit and Ayden will have to go, but I wont stop moving on Rome as that is clearly the most important target. I'll keep a sword near Iznik in case of flip and leave it empty.

Stroke of luck Rome getting the Pyramids as that will surely help us.

I am playing this early for once so can take my time over it. Catch you all later.

Smackster

AlanH

Oct 28, 2003, 06:09 PM

Originally posted by smackster
I'll keep a sword near Iznik in case of flip and leave it empty.

Leave at least one unit in Iznik or the resistance will only die when the people do. As the resisters give in you can make them into starving taxmen, a concept I find strangely appealing :D

AlanH
Smackster (playing)
Karasu (on deck)
Alweth
MacBaldrick

smackster

Oct 28, 2003, 09:47 PM

150BC

Take a look at dip, can get Republic for a silly amount will wait. No peace with anyone for now, still in alliances against Zulu, don't like the flip chance with Iznik on Otto and we want the Pyramids. This 10 turns will be war war war.

Move one of the Akabah warrior to a promotion town, not needed in Akabah have a sword and warrior there. Bringing the Riyadh spear to the front as its far enough in our lands not to defend.

Pushed the slider to 100% cash. 20 turns to Engineering, can't really do it much quicker without losing stacks of cash.

ET

IBT Carthage sign peace with Zulu again, I wonder if their rep can get any lower. 4 Roman archers come into view, approaching Iznik. We'll let them come and heal.

T1 130BC

Damascus horse->horse, Jeddah horse->horse
Could really do with a barracks in Iznik, worth the risk of losing it to flips. Can't rush resistance.

Set the Snagga workers to irrigate. Sword moves next to Uskudar and its undefended. I will destroy it next turn, I just don't want those cities around.
More swords and horses rush to Iznik, should have troops ready to push next turn. The Roman archers will be easy meat.

I notice that there are a couple of Ottomans left in Sogut, wonder what happened to the starving of Sogut?
Send warrior from Sogut to keep eye on settler near iron, who is now sitting on iron, have nothing to attack it with right now.
Made a mistake with southern settler, as I didn't see him below the sword.

Renog peace with Spain for 53 gold, Spain has Fuedalism now, Egypt have it too. No trade thankyou.

ET

IBT 4 Rome archers come next to Iznik, 2 others one square away. 6 nice easy kills.

T2 110BC

Killed three archers, no upgrades, no leader from one elite attack. Left one archer on hill near Iznik, one vet sword fortified in city, hoping for the archer to attack across river, and then letting the sword kill one of the next wave of archers for a guaranteed promotion. Rushed barracks in Iznik for 156 gold, expensive but allowing our troops to recover quickly is more important than gold. Will continue to starve out Iznik now as I'm now obsessed with getting a leader ready for the FP in Rome.

Why does it feel like I've played 10 turns already.

Moving settler to lake near Leptis Magna. Now my feeling is that these settlers are purely for either resources or space filling, so the best position for domination.

Don't need defence in Makkah, push sword out west as Carthage can't be trusted.

Destroy Uskudar, I was willing to take it for peace, actually they did offer it but I wanted all the Otto cities for peace, would only give two. Now they will only give one, looks like they wont give their last city away (not including capital).

ET

IBT Romans refuse the chance to attack across the river, put another archer on hill. Will have to think about this one.

T3 90BC

Mosul Spearman->Temple, leave sword in place for now in case Persia gets funny.
Narjan Horse->Horse
Madinah Aquaduct->Library. As I'm sure one of you warmongers will change it, I'll rush it near the end. I believe that we need a little commerce boost in our core cities.
Alexmanistan Sword->Horse

Worker completes road to Persia, we have no resources to trade. But get worker for WP + 25 Gold.
Built Anjar on the lake near Persia, might cause them to attack, defended by swords.

Sword kills Roman archer, horse kills Otto archer, decide to attack archers on hill, kill one, wound second, no losses horses retreated.

Romans settle next to iron, but we put a warrior on it.

Nothing to trade

ET

IBT Carthage Archer comes near, Roman archer move away.

T4 70BC

Sirplebidah warrior->spearman
Bagdad horse->horse

Swords begin long march to Rome, we can deal with Otto in its own time. Sword attacks Byztantium (rome) to the north, kills spear, but another left.

ET

T5 50BC

IBT 2 Carthage swords approach from west, 2 archers from SW, I've seen this before, we'll counter with our own swords, the weak Roman archer approaches Iznik, signs of desperation.

Jeddah changed to sword.

Elite sword kills roman archer, vet horse kills roman archer, vet sword dies attacking antayla, elite horse kills spear in antayla.
We can now take techs for GPT, so when we decide to kill our rep we should take one and declare war next turn. I already don't see much use for reputation in this game, but I wont destroy it until we all agree.

ET

IBT Carthage seemingly move to go around our southern border, will watch them carefully. Rome attack a weak horse on a hill who retreats but is trapped, can we send help in time.

T6 30BC

Jeddah sword->horse
Damascus horse->horse
Riyadh horse->horse

Destroy Antayla another elite win
Massed sword and horse movements into Roman territory, kill a roman archer

ET

IBT Carthage massed troops carefully skirt our land. Trapped horse dies, he will be revenged.

T7 10BC

Large stacks of death approach both Lutitia and Hispalis which sound like spanish cities to me, but appear to be Roman, what do I know.

Iznik down to size one now, safer to grow, AlanH will be pleased.

ET

IBT Carthage continue to send troops carefully round the southern border, could be approaching our undefended cities in the core, will keep watching very carefully. I'm sure now they are going to attack. Rome appear with an endless supply of archers, decide to let a 3 stack attack our stack of death on the mountain outside Hispalis.

T8 10AD

2 swords and a horse capture city Lutitia NW of rome, horse kills roman archer in open.
Otto launch counter attack near Kurasan with a warrior from galley our sword eats him for lunch.
City of Byzantium captured to the north, linked to our lands.
Footsat formed near lake next to Carthage, the sword there is close enough to cut their Iron if the attack comes.
Aden formed next to sea between Egyptian cities.

ET

IBT Carthage make right turn towards our land, no border broken, but the intent is obvious. Rome move over from their own city, don't attack our troops on mountain

T9 30AD

Bahgdad horse->horse

horse kills archer on hill, horse dies to archer on hill, horse dies on attack on hispalis, horse kills one unit in hispalis, one weakened 2hp spear unit left, decide to use the elite sword to finish him, and then it happens...................................Smackste r's Revenge generates Uthman for the slaughter of our defencless horse near Aydin.

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

Still hispalis was not taken, horse kills archer in hispalis (elite upgrade), sword kills archer in hispalis still not taken, sword kills 1hp spear in hispalis, city is taken at last.

Elite sword kills archer on hill, vet sword kills archer on hill, Uthman has room to get out to safety.

Block off carthage troops on mountains akaba, still expecting trouble here.

Happiness slider squeezed 10%

ET

IBT Carthage come to their senses move away. Rome puts more archers into attack, kills one of the sword defenders in hispalis.

T10 50AD

Makkah another settler, in another game I'd stop producing them, but here as we want to claim all the land space we can't rely on capture need to actually settle most of it.
Library in Madinah, back to horses

Just defensive movements for this turn, still under a little pressure from Rome, but only with archers, they are going to run out soon.

Here is the picture around the Roman front lines. Careful moves are required here.

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

Here is the picture of the Carthage troop movements. Still watching.

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

10 turns to Engineering, stacks of cash, probably need to think about getting republic soon. Uthman is in Iznik, which is funny as although its only size one, must have a flip chance still, I advise that he's moved next turn, if it flips this turn, I'll resign my commision for puting him there, I was just trying to get him out of the front lines. Hispalis should be safe as Smackster's Revenge is holding the fort there.

Summary

One turn left for alliance with Spain against Zulu, might as well declare peace now, get whatever we can for it. France has some money now 39gold so we can renegotiate for it. Egypt has cash too, I've been watching they didn't until now.

The settlers out there are just filling in the gaps, don't need to rush the temple until much later, 5 turns before we are ready to dominate in fact.

I had planned Uthman for the FP in Rome, but clearly its up to the rest from now.

SG23C_AD50.zip (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD50.zip)

Smackster

Karasu

Oct 29, 2003, 01:22 AM

Very nice progress! :goodjob:

Got it. I'll give it a look and post something later on.

AlanH

Oct 29, 2003, 02:10 AM

Good job Smackster. Sorry about the Ottomans in Sogut, as they weren't starving when I took it, I assumed I had been shouted down.

Why does it feel like I've played 10 turns already.

I know how you felt!

Now my feeling is that these settlers are purely for either resources or space filling, so the best position for domination.

Absolutely. We are way past the optimum city count, so until we get our second core new cities are for land, resources and denial.

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu (playing)
Alweth (on deck)
MacBaldrick

AlanH

Oct 29, 2003, 03:31 PM

Interesting. Izmit grew from pop 6 to 9 during your 10 turns. I wonder if workers joined it.

It's probably going to take another ten turns to take Rome. I've been wondering whether it's worth using the leader to build sooner so that we can start fishing for the next leader during those battles. Options are (1) build the FP near to Makkah - perhaps Madinah or Diriyah then use the next leader for a palace in Rome, or (2) build it in Iznik. Option (1) to some degree exploits the remote palace bug to reduce corruption in our starting core. Option (2) gives us a chance of an army with the next leader, and then the Heroic Epic for more leaders. Any thoughts?

MacBaldrick

Oct 29, 2003, 04:05 PM

Good work by all.

Since I am away from home this weekend - from Friday to Sunday (cross-country running with lots for post-run beer) I think you will have to skip my next turn. I will jump back in on Monday hopefully. I trust that is OK.

smackster

Oct 29, 2003, 04:15 PM

I meant to mention the Izmit growth, I did see it go from 6 to 8 in one turn, so they must have dropped workers in there, I wonder what makes the AI do that. Probably Otto had no money to support them.

I think our most important objective is to get the 2nd core running. We can rush the FP in Rome but until we destroy all their cities there is a risk of flip and that would destroy our FP. We can build the FP in Madina in 14 turns (manipulate it to max shields). That would allow us to use the leader for a palace in Rome the very turn that resistance ends. I think that is the quickest safest method to get the two cores running. We don't need to starve Rome as it will be immune to flips, and pretty safe to keep the rest as well, which gives a very powerfull 2nd core very quickly.

If we risk using the leader on something else we risk not seeing another leader for a long time.

If we play the percentages we should keep this leader and use him on a palace in Rome.

Just my 2 cents.

Smackster.

BTW if Karasu hasn't played it yet, you do need to manipulate Madinah, I was in between MM for some squares and they need to go back, like not using the mined hill, forgot to mention that.

AlanH

Oct 29, 2003, 06:22 PM

Originally posted by smackster
I think our most important objective is to get the 2nd core running. We can rush the FP in Rome but until we destroy all their cities there is a risk of flip and that would destroy our FP. We can build the FP in Madina in 14 turns (manipulate it to max shields). That would allow us to use the leader for a palace in Rome the very turn that resistance ends. I think that is the quickest safest method to get the two cores running.
I didn't look at how much faster Madinah could hand-build the FP, I just saw 29 turns and thought that was too long. I'm not sure how you get it down to 14 without stealing Basra's only food tile - the olives, but if you can do it that sounds like a good plan.

BTW, Smackster. What was the idea behind the library in Madinah? If we want to multiply cash we need markets and banks. A library only multiplies beakers, and we aren't doing them. I'd have gone for a market. It gives double-bubble with improved happiness as well.

Who should we get in our sights next? The civs that are showing growth in the power and culture histographs currently are Egypt, France and India. Carthage is showing signs of getting restless, and I can't quite see what that stack they sent was trying to achieve. Persia could get aggressive if we let them get their hands on iron and build Immortals, so we probably ought to take them out fairly soon. His road system is still a bit primitive, but those silks look useful. Carthage and Egypt are also local and convenient for our swords and horses, and Egypt could donate the Great Library to our cause. India and France are a bit distant until we can get our UU into action.

@MacBaldrick: Cross country ... that sounds too much like the torture I was put through as a lad. I hope you enjoy it, I guess we didn't have the beer as anaesthetic in my day. Thanks for the warning. I'll move you to the current end of the roster. That way you only slip and don't actually lose a turn unless we play extraordinarily quickly for the next few days. It only brings Smackster and me forward, so if Smackster is OK to take another crack at it this weekend here's the revised roster:

AlanH
Smackster
MacBaldrick
Karasu (playing)
Alweth (on deck)

smackster

Oct 29, 2003, 07:16 PM

What happens if our Answar hords start to struggle with Muskets? And we are nowhere near researching MT?

We certainly look like we could generate enough Answar (although we are a long way from researching Chivalry at current rates, 50 turns) that we can overthrow any amount of Muskets, but there is a chance that we wont. I remember Qitai's post from GOTM 22 when he didn't even build a temple in the entire game, and took over the world, but I say that if by luck or whatever reason his main domination plan did not work, he had no plan B. I don't want us to get behind in tech find we can't fight our way out of it, and can't research anything quickly either.

So I built one Library, instead of 2 horses. I don't think we'll be able to tell the difference, but that is essentially why, just in case we need our plan B, not much of a plan B. Actually I think the leader building the palace will make this irrelevant.

Smackster

smackster

Oct 29, 2003, 09:13 PM

Alan,

Yes 14 turns (or so, give or take one) stealing the olives, taking into account the mine build that is about to happen.

I would like to attack Persia next (after we have secured Rome, but we might be able to attack before we have finished Rome and Otto). I would also like Spain and France to fight, and Carthage and Egypt to fight. We should ally with Spain against France, and then later Egypt against Carthage. We should only fight one main neighbor at a time.

Smackster

P.S. It was only one Library

Karasu

Oct 30, 2003, 01:40 AM

Here I am. Had a hell of a day at work, so I didn't have a chance to play yet. I will today, promised!

I like a lot the idea of building the FP in Madinah and leader-rush the palace in Rome. I'd really go for that plan.
By the looks (I did manage to open the save, even for a brief moment), we need some more forces in the roman area to conquer it as quickly as possible.

We need to decide what to do with Carthage.
Having to divert some forces to our SW border is a bit of a waste; on the other hand, we haven't got enough military yet to fight on two fronts against close neighbours.
Options:
- Start a war with Carthage (we might get Egypt and / or Persia and / or France into it, just to keep them busy). I am starting not to dislike this idea. A bit risky, though.
- Start a war with someone else and get Carthage as an ally; in this case I'd pay them gpt to see if this can prevent them from breaking the deal after two turns.
This option has the advantage, if successful, to remove the carthaginian forces from our borders without our getting involved in another war (I would try to ally again against Zulus or against Rome).

Next target: I see Persia as a good candidate too. Egypt are also worth considering, especially if they manage to build Sun Tzu.
It may be good to start with Persia and take their closest cities to make sure they don't connect the Iron. Then stop and re-assess the situation.

As a general approach, I would like to settle in the direction of India to speed up a possible future invasion (let's not forget they will have War Elephants...).

There is another possibility we may want to consider: if we capture the Pyramids quickly (Religious) and are lucky enough to get another leader, we could rush the Lighthouse (Expansionist) and trigger our GA through wonders. This will allow us to get to Chivalry in a shorter time, and to speed up the buildup of horsies and cash for the upgrades.
In fact, I am not expecting to do a lot of research after we reach Chivalry (except Invention to get a chance on Leonardo).

P.S.: Smack, don't worry about that library. I'll probably keep it... :D

AlanH

Oct 30, 2003, 02:19 AM

Originally posted by smackster
Yes 14 turns (or so, give or take one) stealing the olives, taking into account the mine build that is about to happen.
Note that stealing the olives will starve Basra back to pop 2, as we don't have any irrigation there yet.

I would like to attack Persia next (after we have secured Rome, but we might be able to attack before we have finished Rome and Otto). I would also like Spain and France to fight, and Carthage and Egypt to fight. We should ally with Spain against France, and then later Egypt against Carthage. We should only fight one main neighbor at a time.
Spoilt for choice, aren't we! You are right about muskets. We need to be ready to use our Ansars as soon as we hit Chivalry. Karasu has a good point about triggering our Golden Age as soon as possible. That way we can have more horses ready to go, and more gold ready to upgrade them. We could then take out two or three neighbours before muskets appear, then wait for Mil Tradition, upgrade again and wipe out the rest.

P.S. It was only one Library Never mind, I just didn't understand your reasoning, and thought I might be missing something. Actually the biggest impact is that we could be much closer to an FP in Madinah now.

We'll have Chivalry in less than 50, because it'll be researched by the AI.

@Karasu: I can't see the logic behind Carthage's preference to threaten us rather than go for the Zulus. I tried a 6 gpt hook for the alliance with Carthage last time, and they still reneged a few turns later, for the second time, so their rep is already shot to pieces. If we bribe them with more it *might* hold them longer, but we'll impact our treasury growth. Maybe we need to get Carthage out of the way next with Egypt's help, then go for Egypt and Persia.

Scheduling: If Karasu plays today, that gives us the following predicted playing windows:

Alweth - Friday/Saturday
AlanH - Saturday/Sunday
Smackster - Sunday/Monday
MacBaldrick - MondayTuesday

Please let me know if there are any problems with this sequence?

Karasu

Oct 30, 2003, 02:38 AM

Ansars can be very good riding units, to disconnect anyone's Saltpeter.
So, I would assume no Muskets in our way in any case... :devil2:

smackster

Oct 30, 2003, 08:13 AM

Alan,

In case its not clear, my PS about the library was a subtle attempt at humour :-)

The only safe war that I see right now is to ally with Spain against France, they have a big open border that they should fight across.

Or a little more risky, is we ally with France and Carthage against Spain. Our borders are a little closer to Spain but probably safe to do that.

We cannot afford to fight Egypt or Carthage right now. I don't know how tough Rome will be to crack, but our troops there need some rest and I'm afraid that the Carthage incursion did stop me sending reinforcements to Rome. Now we could do with those 2 horses from Madinah :-)

smackster

Oct 30, 2003, 08:17 AM

Originally posted by AlanH

Note that stealing the olives will starve Basra back to pop 2, as we don't have any irrigation there yet.

Yes, so whoever does it can make the choice. Now we don't need the FP until we have Rome mind.

Originally posted by AlanH
Alweth - Friday/Saturday
AlanH - Saturday/Sunday
Smackster - Sunday/Monday
MacBaldrick - MondayTuesday
[/B]
I have a free weekend, so will play the same day as you

Karasu

Oct 30, 2003, 08:29 AM

Sounds good to me.
What about Spain and Carthage (with a try with Egypt) against France?

And yes, it looks like we need most of our forces to clean the roman lands.
I will try to see if we can spare four-five Swordies for a blitz on Persia in a while, though.

smackster

Oct 30, 2003, 08:31 AM

My logic for attacking Spain is that we might actually get Carthage to actively engage them, whereas France maybe too far. Not sure that we should worry about their past alliance breaking, this could just be the RNG, which might not do the same this time.

AlanH

Oct 30, 2003, 11:47 AM

My thoughts were to plan what we do after we have dealt with Rome. I agree we can't open up a new front until Rome is reduced to nothing or a shadow of its current self. Since Carthage seem to be spoiling for a fight, and they are between us and the Great Library in Thebes, one option seemed to be to repeat a western mirror image of our Ottomans/Rome campaign.

Getting some civs into an alliance against France sounds a good idea in any case, to slow them down a bit. We might even make peace with the Zulus in exchange for their assistance there.

Alweth

Oct 30, 2003, 01:10 PM

I won't be able to play this weekend, starting Friday, since I'm going on a camping trip. If Karasu has his game finished by his evening, I'll try and play my turn then, but otherwise you'll have to cycle me to the back of the queue and I'll play on Monday.

AlanH

Oct 30, 2003, 04:39 PM

OK Alweth. Let's see if karasu gives you time to play your sequence before the weekend. If not Smackster and I will play, and then we'll wait for MacBaldrick to pick up after his weekend of running and beer.

smackster

Oct 30, 2003, 09:13 PM

Karasu, where are you,
Are you gonna play your turn,
Karasu, where are you,
We wanna see Rome burn.

Alweth

Oct 30, 2003, 11:54 PM

Well, it's too late for me to play now, but that's okay. You guys go on without me and I'll be ready to play on Monday. Maybe Karasu can even play another turn.

Karasu

Oct 31, 2003, 12:46 AM

Originally posted by smackster
Karasu, where are you,
Are you gonna play your turn,
Karasu, where are you,
We wanna see Rome burn.

:lol:
Sorry, folks. Life is starting to get busy to a point that borders the ridiculous... About time for a well-placed holiday, I'd say.

And turns are starting to get a bit longer. Anyway, here we go.

Pre-turn
Madinah set to Forbidden Palace. Basra will starve to pop 2, though. Workers will be sent to irrigate the area.

Hurried Spearman in Basra
Hurried Spearman in Snagha
Hurried Spearman in Hispalis
Hurried Spearman in Bursa
Hurried Horseman in Alexmanistan
Switch Fustat to Temple

Declare war on France (we still have a MA with Spain!)
Give Carthage Monarchy for 24 gps and MA against Zulu and France.
Spain pays us 29 gp for a MA against France
At this point, why refuse to give RoP, WM and 37 gp to India for MA against France?

Egypt doesn't want to join the party, however.

Press Enter.

IT - Roman archers attack Hispalis, killing Smackster's Revenge and Elite Horseman... They will be revenged! :vampire:
The French build the Colossus in Lyons
The carthaginian forces around our border leave for other destinations ;)

Turn 1 - 70 AD
Damascus: horseman - horseman
Jeddah: horseman - horseman
Hispalis: spearman - spearman
Basra: Spearman - spearman
Bursa: Spearman - spearman
Alexmanistan: horseman - barracks
Snagha: spearman - temple

Hurried Spearman in Byzantium
Hurried Spearman in Lutetia

Uthman is resting in Samarra

Five roman archers outside Hispalis. Our defense outnumbered, I withdraw the offensive units from the city to try to recapture it in the next turns.
I just leave the Spearman hoping he can kill at least a couple attackers.

IT - Hispalis falls, two archers killed by our Spearman.

Turn 2 - 90 AD
Diryiah: worker - spearman (to let it grow and use some MP in Madinah)
Lutetia: spearman - temple
Byzantium: spearman - temple

Alawetha ;) founded: Temple

Brundisium captured without losses. Spearman
Units around Hispalis retreat on mountain to heal.

Hurried Spearman in Sirplebidah

IT - Loose wandering Swordsman to Ottoman Archer
Egypt found Avaris just south of Sirplebidah. Will need to move the settler somewhere else.

Turn 3 - 110 AD
Dhahran: horseman - horseman
Najran: horseman - horseman
Sirplebidah: Spearman - worker

Captured Brundisium: spearman. Promotion to Elite
A regular Swordsman stumbles upon his sword and dies while attacking a redlined Ottoman archer at the door of Iznik. The second Swordie manages to score the kill.

Hurried Barracks in Baghdad

IT - Barb horseman captures lone worker near Snagha
Two roman archers start chasing one arab horseman

Turn 4 - 130 AD
Baghdad: Barracks - horseman
Riyadh: horseman - horseman
Jeddah: spearman - horseman
Samarra: temple - worker

Hurried temple in Iznik

IT - Roman units try to head to Lutetia.

Turn 5 - 150 AD
Sogut: Spearman - settler
Iznik: Temple - settler

Kill roman horseman+archer north of Hispalis; lost a horseman and a swordsman on the archer.
Kill two defending Archer in Hispalis (no losses). The city is destroyed (was at pop 1).

Make peace with Ottomans for MA against Rome. This will divert some of the roman troops, and allow our stack to go for Rome more easily.
I don't feel like detaching our troops to conquer Izmit right now. We will come back on the Ottomans as soon as the romans are done.

IT - Roman galley approaching Khurasan
The Egyptian built the Great Lighthouse in Thebes -Now we will have to wait for Cataphacts for our Golden Age.

Turn 6 - 170 AD
Damascus: horseman - horseman
Khorasan: Spearman - spearman

Switch Sirplebidah to Temple

Monotheism is around. We are getting Engineering in four turns.

Turn 7 - 190 AD
Fewer roman troops around. Our big stack is almost ready.
Kill a roman archer, two horsemen redlined (there must be something between my horsemen and their archers...)

Turn 8 - 210 AD
Makkah: Settler - settler
Diryiah: Spearman - worker
Dhahran: horseman - horseman
Najran: horseman - horseman
Basra: spearman - horseman

IT - France signs peace with Spain and Carthage (India is left). Doesn't look like a game in which the AI care too much about their reputation...

Turn 9 - 230 AD
Baghdad: horseman - horseman
Jeddah: horseman - horseman
Hurried Spearman in Anjar
Hurried Spearman in Bursa

IT - A Persian lone horseman has crossed the entire continent to approach Giza. What is it up to? Barb hunting?

Turn 10 - 250 AD
Anjar: Spearman - temple
Bursa: spearman - spearman
Alexmanistan: barracks - horseman

Engineering!
Trade it to Egypt for Monotheism, WM, 35 gp and 2 gpt, MA against France and Zulu
Sell Engineering to India for Feudalism, WM, 6 gp (all he has) plus Alliance versus Zulu
Sell Engineering to Spain for 4 gp (all he has) and another MA against France (he was close to discovering Engineering anyway)
Carthage agrees to pay us 20 gp for a new alliance against the French :confused:

Destroyed Dijon (north of Baghdad). Two horsemen redlined.

Conclusions:
I have left a small number of Swordsmen close to Persia if we feel like blitzing them.

Chivalry is due in 20 turns at 40% science, -2 gpt. A lot of time... But I doubt that switching to Republic now would help (large army).
I think we should keep some research on anyway, as being closer to it will lower the price we have to pay if we end up buying it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23250AD.jpg

Free-for-all (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD250.zip)

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 03:33 AM

Good fun! Well done Karasu, nice touch letting the Romans take Hispalis and then retaking.

Got it. I'll play this evening

Roster:

Karasu: As we have three days before MacBaldrick and Alweth are back in the saddle, could you take a sequence after me and Smackster? If Smackster picks it up straight after me you'll have all weekend to fit a set of turn in, but as it's been a hectic week for you, don't kill yourself.

Her's the roster on that basis ...

AlanH (playing)
Smackster (on deck)
Karasu
MacBaldrick
Alweth

Karasu

Oct 31, 2003, 04:10 AM

If I find the time, I will love to give it another go.
I will try to pop into the forum tomorrow and see how things go.

Of course, I have (involuntarily!) sabotaged Alweth's turn, so I am ready to pay my turns-debt as soon as we have a chance.

We have a better looking stack two-three turns from Rome, which we woul all like to see burn ;)
It grew to size 8, though, so we may take some losses.

After that, it's open to debate. I left it open to attack Persia, as they have not connected to the Iron yet and we may be able to afford a short war with them while the bulk of our forces are busy with the romans.

Sun-Tzu has not been completed yet. My bet is Egypt...

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 07:52 AM

I'm still in shock about the loss of Smackster's Revenge.

One word of advise, attack Rome from the south, note the river running through its northern side. Also make sure Madinah completes the FP before rushing the palace in Rome.

Karasu

Oct 31, 2003, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by smackster
I'm still in shock about the loss of Smackster's Revenge.

He fought bravely, but was overnumbered by the traitorous roman archers.
It is said that he was stabbed in the back, and still managed to take down one more foe before falling.

A statue was erected in his honour by our Arab troops where Hispalis used to be.

And the great Saliddin himself promised to rename our next city after him (Alan? ;) )

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 08:54 AM

I have a high priority interrupt to deal with. The gotm25 file set is out, and I need to build a Mac installer for it. It's slightly more complicated than the previous ones because some sound files have to be copied around. I figure this will take me the rest of today, so I'll probably play my set on Saturday. I hope this is OK with you guys. If I need a break from the installer I might fit my ten in earlier ;)

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 09:15 AM

No problem this is meant to be a game for players with less time. I'll spend my evening on the Mongol quick game.

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 10:24 AM

Originally posted by smackster
No problem this is meant to be a game for players with less time. I'll spend my evening on the Mongol quick game.
if I get the installer done I'll be getting a bit of that as well, as it'll be a useful test bed for the installed mod.

Keath

Oct 31, 2003, 12:32 PM

Hi everyone! This is my first post and I am learning a lot about this fascinating game and this site. I have been following your moves with anticipation and playing the ten moves to compare my results.

My attempts have been pretty novice mode so I hope to follow along and if I can think of anything intelligent to add I will do so.

I am surprised at the huge stack ready to attack Rome. Good stuff, Karusa! How do you do that?

Keath

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 12:50 PM

Keath,

Welcome to our little game, glad that you found it interesting, it certainly has been fun for us playing it.

That stack is a good lesson. Try to take Rome from the end of my last turn by just throwing troops at it and you'd probably fail. A large city like Rome (size 8) gets defensive bonuses, and is probably defended by maybe 4-5 spears. The best way to get it is with a big sustained attack all in one turn, with no chance for the defenders to rest. Karasu showed great patience as he only had 10 turns and probably wanted to take it.

Smackster

P.S. What is the breakout of the stack, haven't played it yet to see?

Keath

Oct 31, 2003, 01:13 PM

Smackster,

Even when I play the game through with Karasu's (apologies for spelling) move list, I don't end up with near the units in that area as there are in that one stack. Patience, I guess is important, and planning.

Thanks,

Keath

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 01:21 PM

What is in the stack?

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 01:44 PM

Welcome to CivFanatics, Keath.

We have 16 units assembled on the moutain west of Rome, 10 horses and 6 swords. The build up has no doubt been accelerated by the fact that we now have Engineering, so troop movements have speeded up from the production center round Makkah to the front line. I was finding rivers were impeding movement a lot before. We can now probably get a horseman to the front line in Rome in three moves from completion moving at 6 tiles per turn along the roads.

The key is getting a strong production base in the core cities and then concentrating on building a big enough force to do the primary job in hand immediately rather than by slow attrition. We now have over 20 swords, over 20 horses and over 20 spears in our army, which is a tribute (a) to the focus we have had on military build-up and (b) to careful use of units during attacks and counter-attacks, avoiding heavy losses.

Ten cities each producing a horse every 5 turns gives you two new horses per turn. We are deliberately building a big army of horses, as we shall have Chivalry soon. At that point we shall be able to upgrade our horses to Cataphracts (aka Ansar warriors in PTW), which are able to move nine tiles at a time over roads, and have the attack strength of a swordsman plus the retreat attribute - they will often pull back before they are killed. They should be unstoppable in the hands of our resident warmongers. The only fly in the ointment is that we would need twice as much gold as we have right now to upgrade our current horsemen, and we are currently shrinking our treasury. So I am wondering whether we are wise to push so hard on the research button.

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 04:55 PM

I don't think the cash is going to be a problem. Within a couple of turns we will have Rome, the FP in Madinah, rebuilt the palace in Rome, and then if we convert to Republic we'll probably find our cash situation much improved. As we capture the rest of the Roman cities it will only get better. As we will have the Pyramids our growth will allow us to grow to an unbeatable strength. As soon as we attack with the UU then our Golden age should give us a boost that we can start attacking everyone.

I noticed on the Mongal quick game forum one of the PTW SG23 players said they had nearly finished. Not sure what year they are in though.

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 05:41 PM

I agree we have lots going for us. I'm not so sure about Republic being a net plus, though. That would absorb a lot of unit support costs as well as requiring higher lux tax to counter war weariness, and I don't see it generating enough extra income to compensate. When you revolt to Republic, I think war weariness immediately hits the level you would have reached if you had been in Republic throughout the war, so it could be very painful in this case, as we have been at war for at least 50 turns.

I don't normally switch to Republic until I have a significant number of markets to generate cash and to keep the people happy.

The PTW team have been playing maybe twice as fast as us, and I think they expect to be finished in a day or so. I've no idea what date they have reached.

I've checked in my Mac GOTM25 installer. It's nearly 1:00 am, though, so although I might be able to complete the turns I can't see myself writing it up. Think I'll go at it fresh on Saturday.

@Keath: i think we had mostof those swords in the area when I last played, and more were on the way. We also had maybe three or four horses, with at least three more on the way. That was twenty turns ago, so I can't see why it would be difficult to get the stack together that's there now.

Happy Halloween.

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 06:09 PM

The good thing about an SG is that we have time to think about and discuss the Republic switch. The only civ we have war weariness against is Rome and they will eventually be gone and the war weariness associated with them gone.

Being Religious if we agree we can certainly try it when the dynamics are right, and analyse the net effect. Then switch back if really bad. If for the sake of what we'll learn its only two turns lost.

We should discuss this again around the time that we defeat Rome.

We should also discuss when we break our rep as that will speed up the game. Not sure that we really need any trades anymore. Initially I'm just suggesting when Rome is down to say 3-4 cities (after Rome) we declare peace for as many cities as we can get and go back to war immediately. We can basically just keep doing this and will save having to capture the small outlying cities.

We also have one chance for a ROP rape, but leave that until we need it or it doesn't matter.

AlanH

Oct 31, 2003, 06:26 PM

Sounds reasonable. I thought ROP Rape was outlawed in the GOTM rules of engagement.

smackster

Oct 31, 2003, 07:22 PM

No its allowed because there are consequences, such as your reputation is totally broken, so any GPT type trades or ROP deals are over. Also the AI does do it all the time.

smackster

Nov 01, 2003, 01:19 PM

AlanH, AlanH
he's the bravest of the brave
AlanH, AlanH
where is that game .save

I'm concerned that the reason you have not posted is because our stack of 16 crumbled on the walls of Rome. Please tell me at least that we took Rome.

AlanH

Nov 01, 2003, 06:47 PM

I just surfaced after the longest ten turns I've ever played. I hadn't appreciated the extra pressure to make every move count in an SG!

OK, finally, here you go ...

In summary:

Turn 1 260 AD
Sold peace to India for 25 gold + wmap.
Sold peace to Egypt for 20 gold.
Built Yamama on souther lake.

Turn 2 270 AD

Our horsemen took Rome with the loss of one horseman. Yay!

Caesar only offers a couple of small villages for peace. No deal.

Turn 3 280 AD
Moved our swords towards Veii.

IBT: Forbidden Palace complete in Madinah.

Turn 4 290 AD
Moved forces to the gates of Veii.

Turn 5 300 AD
Uthman arrives in Rome to a triumphal civic reception. Ticker tape, or its medieval equivalent in the form of small tablets of stone, was hurled and much wine was consumed. The morning after, they built a Palace. Just like that!

Our swords took Veii. Two swords and one horseman perished.

Accelarated the research. Chivalry due in 9 turns.
Renegotiated peace and the alliance vs. Zululand with Spain. Instead of paying 5 gpt we get 14 gold and a worker, oh, and another damned map.

France has learnt Theology, but doesn't think peace is worth it.

Turn 6 310 AD
Corruption is reduced from 79 gpt before to 52 gpt now. Chivalry is now due in 6 turns.

We take Cumae with the loss of one horseman.

Rome now has Theology, and will give it plus a small town for peace. I'm not enthusiastic. I'll let Smackster to the deal-breaking.
Build Bukhara.
Egypt has Theology as well now.

Turn 7 320 AD
Two vet horsemen take Pisae with no losses,

but we lose one horse killing a spear escorting a settler.

Egypt and Persia have settler pairs wandering around. I guess the central southern region is the only spare land left now.

Turn 8 330 AD
We take Viroconium with one horseman lost and one promoted to elite.

Turn 9 340 AD
Stack moves towards Pompeii. Continue build-up on the Persian border.
I still can't bring myself to sign peace with Rome. They stubbornly refuse to give us real cities. We could get Theology, but it's not a lot of use as we can't wap it for anything we want.
Chivalry is now due in 2 turns.

Turn 10 350 AD
Our stack takes Pompeii with nothing to spare, but no losses.

Status:

We have taken 6 Roman cities [EDITED - I originally wrote 5]. Pompeii is garrisoned by a single wounded horseman, and there's a solitary Roman archer at the gates, so it will probably fall between turns. But we have sufficient troops available to take it back from a single, probably-wounded archer.

We have a couple of settlers en route. One is standing on a suitable site on the edge of the desert. The other could go anywhere, but I was planning to fill a gap to the west of Rome in its first ring.

We probably have enough horses and swords to make a mess of the Persians, but I figured it would be much tidier if we started it with Cataphracts. The horses are all garrisoned in the northern cities, and we will need a couple of rushed barracks to enable the upgrades.

Watch out for a stray Persian horse in the mountains south of Madinah. We have an undefended city he can reach in two turns, so some defensive moves are required to head him off before we start hurling insults at Xerxes. I have a horse moving that way from the west. There's also a French settler pair in the mountains between us and Persia. Easy pickings when they come down to sea level, and there's a Persian settler pair marooned in the middle of our eastern desert. I expanded a city and wiped out a lot of neutral territory they had their eye on.

I've turned the science slider down to minimum for Chivalry next turn. As soon as we have that you can turn science down to zero, use a scientist to keep it ticking over, and you'll have 100-ish gpt for upgrading the 30 horses we now possess. Have fun, and try to spend it all at once ;)

Here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C-AD0350.SAV.zip)

Here's a minimap and headcount ...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD0350.gif

AlanH

Nov 01, 2003, 07:17 PM

And the roster:

AlanH
Smackster (playing, I imagine!)
Karasu (on deck)
MacBaldrick
Alweth

smackster

Nov 01, 2003, 11:53 PM

SG23 350AD

Quick diplomatic survey tells me that we can trade with Egypt and I don't believe we plan to attack them for a while. Trying to get every inch I trade spices for Chivalry, 26GP and and fantastic looking map, I'm sure they must have copied ours. So I rack up the slider this turn to 10.0.0 and get +140GPT.

IBT Madinah complete marketplace->Cataphract (oh yea baby), Pompeii is taken but an elite sword takes it right back.

T1 360AD

Kill the french spear, catpure the settler. Tell Persia to get of our land. Take back Pompeii.

T2 370AD

Allepo formed.

T3 380AD

Lose two horses (one elite) and one vet sword attacking weak spears in Ravena. Roman archer dropped of Galley next to Kurasn, not enough defence in range.
Building attack for Neopilis but only 6 troops, don't want to wait will go in. Rome still wont give cities. Trade wines with Egypt, 6GPT, 67GP, WP.

T4 390AD

Rome take Khurasan, and burn it to the ground. We have a settler there and build it right back after killing archer.
Attack Ravena again, and elite horse retreats (without loss on defender) and elite sword dies (one hp loss on defeder).
Attack Peopiliss, horse dies, horse retreats. Eventually get it down to one hp spear, elite sword attacks and this happens.....

Mu'awiya emerges

The Scourge of Rome is victorious.

"The Romans would, according to custom, scourge a condemned criminal. The Roman scourge, also called the "flagrum" or "flagellum" was a short whip made of two or three leather (ox-hide) thongs or ropes connected to a handle as in the sketch above. The leather thongs were knotted with a number of small pieces of metal, usually zinc and iron, attached at various intervals. According to history the punishment of a slave was particularly dreadful. The leather was knotted with bones, or heavy indented pieces of bronze. "

Now we take the peace from Rome for Ravena and Lugdunum. That leaves them left with only one city that we intend to take. Our reputation will be less than good, not as bad as a ROP brake but it really will help us in the long run, now we can destroy Rome easily.

I think for some time about what to do with Mu'awiya, there are really only two options, Sun Tzu or Army. The Army only so that we can get Herioc Epic and generate more leaders, but I decide on Sun Tzu as this is the most important wonder for us, to be able to get barracks right away in distant captured cities is too much to miss.

Find ourselves at war with Ottoman, they were not at war with us last turn, guess they didn't like the peace with Rome. Didn't even realise we had an alliance.

T5 400AD

Persia horse charges through our territory, tell them to go again, they declare war. Sorry guys but the only defence near is the Cataphract, and that has to kill it or risk losing a core city. We enter our Golden Age. +254 GPT.

Sun Tzu is rushed in Rome. I think Persia may not live to regret this action. They probably declared war because of our reputation break (sorry).

T6 410AD

We now have barracks in all cities, 18 horses are upgraded to Cataphract. Even Makkah is switched to Cataphract for the Golden age period.

Bactra destroyed. Cataphracts gather.

Now up to +336GPT.

T7 420AD

Pasargdae taken. Samaria destroyed. Anitoch taken. Yes Cataphract move fast. Shiraz formed.
Spices for 10GPT to Egypt.

T8 430AD

Inidans are all over Antioch, we'll ignore them for now.

Declare war with Rome, have to get rid of that last city. Then I notice the attack is over the river, but the first Cataphract attack succeeds against the elite spear with 1hp left.
Next attack, Rome is gone, all their troops (and there where lots of them) all disapear. Reputation, what reputation.

Capture Perian capital Persepolis we now have Great Wall but who cares, capture Sidon.

T9 440AD

Indians may be actually going over to France, with one turn left in our alliance, maybe not.

Sardis captured, Tarsus taken,
Izmit captured, Aydin captured, Otto destroyed.

T10 450AD

Gordium captured, Arbela captured, super spearman kills two Cata, but the third takes it.

Summary

Only one Persian city to take, the northern forces may need to be grouped to attack the next civ. All the alliances are either over or about to finish, check the dip screens to see this. Inida don't have Chivalry still, so may be an easy target. Look in Fez next to Carthage there are 7 Cataphracts waiting for attack orders, plus two others to the south, we have already cultured their iron out of them. I put Madinah on a Cathedral as it was on 29 shields per turn, needed 30 to get Cata in 2 and on 29 we wasted 26 every three turn, so switched to cath. Maybe we should trade for Theology and start the Sistine Chapel with it. We don't need the Cathedral.

As we don't really have anything left to upgrade I put science on 20% so that we would at least get Invention a little sooner.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/450AD_copy.jpg

.zip (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD450.zip)

AlanH

Nov 02, 2003, 04:54 AM

Go Arabs!

Well played Smackster. What a warmonger! Two civs consigned to history in one stint and a third about to join them? I love it when you can get all the leaders on the F4 screen ;)

The Egyptians must have just completed or purchased Chivalry, I didn't even look at the diplo screens at turn 10. (a) I wasn't supposed to do anything and (b) I was just relieved to reach the hand-over point and start the write-up. I've often bought a tech on my last research turn, it's usually dirt cheap and you either get an early start on your next project or, as you did, a cash windfall.

Pity about Khurasan. Sorry about the low defences in the south :(.

Excellent timing on the leader and good decision on Sun Tzu. Those barracks are just what the doctor ordered. There were a lot of civs going for it, and only two are building the Sistine now, so there was no cascade. That must have resulted in a few very expensive buildings :D

Don't you just :love: those cataphracts? That is one fast, mean species at this stage in the game. The RNG still manages to screw them up sometimes, though. We just need to keep them busy during the time between now and gunpowder/muskets.

I agree that India looks like a good next target. We need to shut them down before they get Chivalry and too many elephants start charging around. I think we have a big enough drop on them not to worry too much, though. Our cataphracts, 38 and counting, should be enough to destroy anything they can build, and I don't think they can upgrade anything to a jumbo, can they? Carthage or Egypt might decide to commit suicide anyway, so it would be a good idea to maintain a counter-attack force in the south/west, and maybe upgrade a few spears to pikes in case of a sneak attack. [Edit: Whoops - sorry they are all upgraded :rolleyes:]

I've run JMapstat on the 450 AD save, and we are well over half way to territory domination. We need 900 more tiles, and the remaining civs have about 100 or 200 each. The good news is that there are over 800 unclaimed tiles somewhere, so we should probably keep the settler pump churning, and maybe build a galley or two? ;). To do it purely by conquest we need to wipe out all the civs and occupy all their current territory.

I'm sorry, I forgot to name a city in memory of Smackster's Revenge. Next captured city, Karasu?

[EDIT - PS] Karasu: Check F1. Baghdad and Antium are about to revolt, and there's some starving to do in a couple of resisting towns.

PPS: Just noticed that we haven't sold our hand built barracks in Iznik, and I suspect this applies to granaries and barracks elsewhere. I didn't sell the granaries at the time we took Rome as I didn't want to risk a counter-attack. No chance of that now :) So there's some more gold to be had, and it may reduce maintenance.

The roster:

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu (next up - 24 hours to get it)
MacBaldrick (on deck)
Alweth

Karasu

Nov 03, 2003, 01:14 AM

Got it.
I have a meeting now, will try to post some comments later on.

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 09:42 AM

The Cataphract movement really does enable you to attack far off cities in one turn. One of the Persian cities I took was three deep in their territory, I had three Cataphract actually three squares deep in our territory. First two moves on road took the Cataphract to the edge of their territory, third move was one square inside (actually the first full move for the Cataphract), second move was next to city, third move was to attack the city. City fell that turn. In this case I was just trying to position them for an attack next turn and found that I could take it in one.

I do think we should use the Cataphract force next to Carthage (look in Fez), there are already 9 in position if I remember rightly, and we have already taken their iron. Although their defenders have 3 strength with our retreat ability this force should be enough. I was actually ready to launch the attack before my turn ended but thought I'd let the next player decide.

Smackster.

Karasu

Nov 03, 2003, 09:56 AM

I am a bit in doubt between Carthage and Egypt right now.

I had a stupid awful "technical meeting" today, with everyone feeling free to jump into the project after the critical design review and to make the most idiotic comments on the design of units that are presently being manufactured.

I spent the whole meeting thinking of cruel ways to eliminate every single person in the room... :mad:

Anyway, sorry for the OT digression.
I couldn't check the save, of course. By looking at the map I was thinking to send about 50-60% of our forces towards India, and the rest on Carthage / Egypt (keeping an eye on counterattacks or sneak-attacks, of course).

Attacking Carthage would put us in a nice position to procees on Zulus, Egypt, Spain and France quite nicely.
Egypt on the other hand is colonizing our southern lands, and taking those cities may allow us to send a flow of settlers more safely in that area.

Other than that, how is our reputation looking? I'd like it if we RoP-raped someone (I've never done it...) to close the game sooner :devil2:

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 01:01 PM

First question we should ask ourselves is whether we all agree that we should do the ROP rape. Its a one time activity as once we done it most GPT type trades will be impossibe. The AI will still pay us for our resurces and lux's etc, and as we don't really need any tech from them its no problem. But morally some people don't like to do this, I'm playing a game so don't mind doing it.

In my opinion the best use of ROP rape is to take over the civ with the most distant mountainous terrain. In this game France is probably the best candidate as there are a lot of mountains/hills to get through. Consider if we declared war now, how long it would take even the Cataphract to get to their most distant city. However, if we sign a ROP and use their roads to get to the NW of their land then we sweep down taking their cities, when we finish our troops would be in position to take Spain.

So after (or before) we finish Persia, we should attack Carthage with 9 Cataphract in place. The rest of the troops attack India. Once both of them are secure. Sign ROP with France and move them into place, depending on how many Cata we have by then move another force to the south next to Egypt. Don't bother waiting until the trades expire, and attack them. Hmmm how about a double ROP rape?

Spain then is left if we need more space. But don't wipe them out.

Note the domination limit includes coastal squares, meaning that you should not be afraid to settle right on the coast, and start building a temple. We can then selectively rush some of the temples, but a totally corupt town will still give us a temple in 30 turns so we don't have to rush them until 30 turns before we think we can end. Actually 30 + 5 for culture growth. If this email does not make sense then please send questions on a post card to Santa.

Smackster

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 01:29 PM

Originally posted by Karasu
I spent the whole meeting thinking of cruel ways to eliminate every single person in the room... :mad:
Our Cataphracts will probably take out a contract on them!

I couldn't check the save, of course. By looking at the map I was thinking to send about 50-60% of our forces towards India, and the rest on Carthage / Egypt (keeping an eye on counterattacks or sneak-attacks, of course).

Attacking Carthage would put us in a nice position to procees on Zulus, Egypt, Spain and France quite nicely.
Egypt on the other hand is colonizing our southern lands, and taking those cities may allow us to send a flow of settlers more safely in that area.

We're spoilt for choice right now. We could just let Egypt settle the south, wait until we have taken out Carthage, and then take over the Egyptian cities when they've grown to 2 or more. It will give us shorter travelling times to the Egyptian core., and reduces the number of settlers we have to build. Taking Egypt first would leave us with a very long border to defend/attack across, with Carthage and Zululand as enemies. Carthage first keeps the border a bit shorter, I think.

I think we could wipe out Carthage quite fast, and maybe deal with India at the same time, then go for Egypt, Spain, Zulus and a final showdown with France. During this we want to avoid a Conquest victory, so we need to leave at least one foreign city alive.

Other than that, how is our reputation looking? I'd like it if we RoP-raped someone (I've never done it...) to close the game sooner :devil2: Rep? What rep! I think Smackster removed that small consideration by making peace with Rome and then destroying them. I don't think we are going to need any gpt deals anyway, so it's not an issue any more. We could use ROP rape to stitch up Carthage a little faster. But ROP rape is mainly a way to get our attackers into position fast, and with Cataphracts we can do that pretty well anyway as Smackster has described.

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 01:33 PM

Actually what you say is a good point, having broken our rep with Rome and Otto, can we still get a ROP with France. I did not ROP rape Rome, just broke the alliance and I think there is a big difference. Will have to check later on.

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 01:45 PM

Originally posted by smackster
First question we should ask ourselves is whether we all agree that we should do the ROP rape. Its a one time activity as once we done it most GPT type trades will be impossibe. The AI will still pay us for our resurces and lux's etc, and as we don't really need any tech from them its no problem. But morally some people don't like to do this, I'm playing a game so don't mind doing it.The main reason ROP rape is a one-time deal is that no one will sign a ROP with us after we've done it, so we can only do it once.
I don't feel strongly about it is it's allowed by the GOTM rules. This isn't RL, so morals don't come into it.

In my opinion the best use of ROP rape is to take over the civ with the most distant mountainous terrain. In this game France is probably the best candidate ... That's a plan, and you're right, we really ought to get to France before they start producing musketeers.

Hmmm how about a double ROP rape?That's one way to make it work twice! If you're going to do it, you might as well do it thoroughly.

Spain then is left if we need more space. But don't wipe them out.
... and the Zulus. We'll have to take them all down to near zero to reach domination unless we can find more space. Check my post above on MapStat - there's enough unclaimed land about somewhere to allow us to reach territory domination with one more big civ under our belts, but remember we also need 2/3 of world pop.

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 01:49 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Actually what you say is a good point, having broken our rep with Rome and Otto, can we still get a ROP with France. I did not ROP rape Rome, just broke the alliance and I think there is a big difference. Will have to check later on. I don't think ROP rape is a separate crime as seen by the AI. It's a breach of a 20 turn deal and a declaration of war while in the opponent's territory. Did you redeclare while you were in Rome? I don't know whether we'll get a ROP deal now, but I'm guessing we can if we pay up front.

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 01:51 PM

No I was not in their territory when I declared. In my opinion there are different levels of rep, its easy to find out see if anyone will sign ROP with us right now.

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 02:34 PM

... our trusty trade adviser informs me that we could have a ROP deal with Egypt for free - they'd probably pay us for it. But they will not take any amount of gpt for anything we can take away up front, not even their world map.

So our rep is trashed, but we can have a ROP.

Alweth

Nov 03, 2003, 05:09 PM

Well, I'm back and it looks like you guys have made great progress while I was gone.

Karasu, don't worry about making me miss my turn--there's no point in playing a succession game if you have to rush in order to let the other people play. Watching what happens is about as fun as playing, for me, so I'm willing to miss out on a turn and just wait for it to come around again.

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 05:33 PM

Welcome back, Alweth. Now we just need some reassurance that MacBaldrick has survived his weekend of running and drinking and we'll be back to full strength.

The roster:

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu (playing)
MacBaldrick (on deck)
Alweth

Please let us know if you think you'll need to switch or skip.

BTW. In case you haven't seen my post in the shared SG23 thread, I've enjoyed this so much that I've signed up for SG24, and I'm hoping we can get a quorum together for another Civ3 team. There are still places free, and it starts on the 9th. Karasu is tentatively on board as well, so give some thought.

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 06:09 PM

Reputation

I loaded up 350AD to see how our reputation looked and then trashed it to see the effect.

I'm not 100% sure what our reputation was at this point but I believe that may have been close to perfect, we had autorazed one city which I know effects attitude.

Now I looked at Egypt to see how much I could get Theology for (they had an exclusive):

625 Gold or
139 Gold and 27 GPT (=679 gold)

The interesting thing is that 139 gold is the minimum lump sum, if we offer 138 Gold and 1000GPT they wont take it, but offer 139 Gold and suddenly its possible to do the GPT deal. I don't know why the minimum, I know that I've recently got a tech for simply GPT, and no cash, so I wonder if one of the above can affect that a little, the only thing I did not do in that other game was autoraze any cities.

or for Chivalry (we had one turn left to research it)

110 Gold or
1 Gold and 6 GPT (=121 gold), and actually can get this for 7GPT.

I now declare peace with Rome, and that trashes our alliance with Otto, who we are now at war with (no warning).

I go back to Egypt and this is what I can get Theology for:

625 Gold
But not for any GPT, or luxuries.

Chivalry for:

110 Gold or
59 Gold and 27 GPT (=599 gold), so GPT is at a crazy price now

Now I try ROP rape, alliance breaking multiple times but not against Egypt, it has no more effect same price, so "per turn" reputation is either good or bad.

Then I break a deal with Egypt and they now keep the price the same but will not accept GPT or resources at any price. So there is such thing as "per turn" reputation against each individual Civ and "per turn" reputation against other Civs.

Now I tested ROP, I could always get a ROP from Egypt regardless of my repuration to them or others for free, but once I broke a ROP it would cost me 550 Gold to get one with Egypt. Once I broke ROP you can't get another with the same Civ.

Conclusion

Absolute gold price for tech is not affected by reputation (it is by attitude).
When a per turn deal or alliance is broken to another Civ then the GPT price for a tech goes up exponentially (to the point where you think you can't use GPT).
When a per turn deal or alliance is broken with the Civ in question then GPT does not seem possible anymore (maybe its too high for my test)
ROP price is not affected by "per turn" reputation.
ROP rape for another civ adds a large premium for ROP with an individual Civ (remember that the size of your land adds to the price of ROP so it may be free if you land is big enough even after trashing the ROP).
You can only ROP rape any one civ once.

AlanH

Nov 03, 2003, 06:45 PM

Originally posted by smackster
Conclusion

Absolute gold price for tech is not affected by reputation (it is by attitude).
When a per turn deal or alliance is broken to another Civ then the GPT price for a tech goes up exponentially (to the point where you think you can't use GPT).
When a per turn deal or alliance is broken with the Civ in question then GPT does not seem possible anymore (maybe its too high for my test)
ROP price is not affected by "per turn" reputation.
ROP rape for another civ adds a large premium for ROP with an individual Civ (remember that the size of your land adds to the price of ROP so it may be free if you land is big enough even after trashing the ROP).
You can only ROP rape any one civ once.
I believe our Reputation is shared by all civs, whereas attitude is a per-civ parameter. So it sounds like ROP rape is having an effect on some aspect of attitude rather than rep, since its effect depends on who you do it to.

There's an article by Zwingli here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1113349#post1113349) that, if I had any energy left tonight I'd read and it *might* explain these results ... or not!

smackster

Nov 03, 2003, 08:55 PM

Originally posted by AlanH

I believe our Reputation is shared by all civs, whereas attitude is a per-civ parameter. So it sounds like ROP rape is having an effect on some aspect of attitude rather than rep, since its effect depends on who you do it to.

There's an article by Zwingli here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1113349#post1113349) that, if I had any energy left tonight I'd read and it *might* explain these results ... or not!

I've read that before and I did the see the attitude effect here, but it only has a little effect on the total Gold required, and in the Chivalry case only 10Gold. But I think I proved that reputation is not shared equally between all civs. If I trash my rep with civ X then GPT trades with them are impossible, but civ Y will still give me a GPT trade albeit at inflated prices.

Here are the reputation levels

When dealing with a specific civ

1) "per turn" reputation with other civ = good/bad
2) "per turn" reputation with this civ = good/bad
3) ROP reputation with other civ = good/bad
4) ROP reputation with this civ = good/bad

*note if you break ROP you break "per turn"

That is it, your level with each civ is defined above

Karasu

Nov 04, 2003, 02:53 AM

I'm back.
Got to play terribly late last night, as I needed to write a complaint letter to Alitalia...
so I only played half my turns. The last five are up for sale now... ;)

Turnlog

Pre-turn
Everything looks fine.
Change production to Cataphracts wherever possible.

Press Enter.

IT - Alliance with Spain against France expires. We don't extend it.
Alliances with Carthage expire. She doesn't want to extend them. Well, this basicly settles who we are going to attack next...

Besides, Egypt is still paying us some gpt deals, which won't hurt to keep alive for a while more.

A Persian archer outside Susa kills an Elite Cataphract. Not a good start...
Our worker close to Punjab irritates Gandhi. I promise the worker will leave (Cataphracts will come to replace him :D )

Forgot to do anything with Madinah. We now have a Cathedral there (see what happens to play late at night?).

Turn 1 - 450 AD
Most of our cities have built something and are continuing with Cataphract.
Pisae (now renamed Livorno) and Viroconium are building a Temple.

MM'ed Madinah to speed up growth, aiming to achieving those 30 spt.
France already has Invention. I switch off research: we will be able to get it by trade or extortion before 13 turns.

Declare war to Carthage. Alliances have become very difficult to sign now... :D

Hurried Spearman in Aydin

Susa conquered with no losses. Temple
Tyre is conquered with no losses. Temple
The stupid Archer is killed. Promotion to Elite.
The Persians must have a settler wandering somewhere

Captured Leptis Magna with no losses. Temple
Captured Theveste. One lost.

Pikemen from Jeddah and Najran are moving towards the new border with Carthage.

IT - Carthaginian Persian Mercenary kills one Cataphract in Leptis Magna

Turn 2 - 460 AD
Rome: Marketplace. Cataphract
Aydin: Spearman. Temple
Byzantium: Temple. Settler
Muscat: Spearman. Temple

By the looks, Indian troops are marching towards France through former Persian lands: I give Gandhi a RoP to help him fight more effectively. When we have enough troops...

Apparently, we have at least one option open for a RoP rape. I would try to sign more with France and Egypt

Turn 3 - 470 AD
Attack on Utica. Two lost, will have to wait next turn.
Hippo conquered. No losses.

Hurried Temple in Theveste
Hurried Temple in Aden
Hurried Cataphract in Snagha
Hurried Pike in Fustat

IT - Two attacks on Leptis Magna kill two defenders.

Turn 4 - 480 AD
Theveste: Temple - Cataphract
Abydos culture-flips to us!

Alanah founded. ;) Temple

Hurried Temple in Antium and Ravenna

IT - India and France sign a peace treaty

Turn 5 - 490 AD
Antium: Temple - Spearman (city not connected yet)

There is a superHoplite in Utica who redlined three Cataphracts in a row...

Hurried Temple in Leptis Magna
Hurried Aqueduct in Akaba
Hurried Pikeman in Sogut

Ok. Enough for me tonight.

Conclusions

I have been sending troups towards India (Muscat and Persepolis IIRC) in preparation for the attack, and towards Carthage (Basra and Najran).

Reading your discussions, I came to love the idea of a TRIPLE RoP-rape, on India, France and Egypt. We need to amass a good number of troups for that.

We already have a RoP with India, and I think we can succeed in signing one with France and Egypt.
On second though, Egypt may be left out of the deal if we can't manage enough cataphracts (besides, if we have a RoP in place with them, we can always abuse it later on... :evil: )

So, we can concentrate our present effort in finishing the carthagians, and prepare for the 'final attack'.

I think we can afford a little wait here, waiting (as Alan said) for Egypt to settle the lands to our south and India to settle the desert between us.

Spain is almost gone, and I think we can leave the westernmost parts of the Zulu territory last, to acquire only if we really need more tiles to reach the domination limit.

I also suggest to rush a Temple between Cataphracts in the Roman cities that still miss it, and to rush a Settler from time to time in the small, useless cities we have scattered around. We will need them to recover some auto-razed cities and to fill some gaps.

Carthago Delenda Est (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD490.zip)

Oh, and please, put to the sword all male citizens of Utica, won't you? :nuke:

P.S.: Just to strenghten somewhat Alan's 'gentle persuasion', I would like to point out that a most interesting variant of GOTM24 is about to begin... We don't want to miss this marvelous chance, do we? :D

AlanH

Nov 04, 2003, 09:38 AM

If I read Karasu's post correctly we are now at end of his turn 5, next turn is 500 AD, and he is handing over. MacBaldrick, you're next up, so assuming you're still in one piece, here's the current schedule:

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu
MacBaldrick (24 hours to get it)
Alweth (on deck)

Thanks for the entertaining log, Karasu. I usually love all things Italian, so I'm sorry to hear Alitalia are giving you grief. What's the world coming to?

I'm at work now, with a PeeCee in front of me and no Civ3, so I'll have a look at the state of our proud empire when I get home and offer some badly thought-out pearls of wisdom, as is customary on these occasions.

I assume you've all noticed that the PTW team have finished. It'll be very interesting to compare results.

MacBaldrick

Nov 04, 2003, 10:24 AM

Hi all,

I'll take things forward another 10 turns later tonight (when I get home).

The idea of the GOTM24 sounds great - count me in - I have yet to look at it or download the upgrades - that can follow this turn.

AlanH

Nov 04, 2003, 11:30 AM

Roster update:

AlanH
Smackster
Karasu
MacBaldrick (playing)
Alweth (on deck)

smackster

Nov 04, 2003, 12:34 PM

MacBaldrick,

You need to post in the GOTM24 SG thread to get signed up for that.

AlanH

Nov 04, 2003, 12:57 PM

Well, I've poked around a bit, and here are some thoughts (hopefully they're too late to mess up MacBaldrick's thinking):

Production
Our cities are churning out the Cataphracts well, we have 46 now, but we have only a few more turns left of our golden age. I think it ends half way through MacBaldrick's set, at which point our productivity will take a dive.

Catapracts cost 60 shields each, so the magic spt numbers in each city are 15, 20 and 30 - 4, 3 and 2 turns per Cataphract. I've sorted F1 by shield productionm and I can't see anywhere that will produce 30 spt now, and there's no chance of it after our GA ends, so we should be mm'ing shared tiles for 20 spt in as many cities as possible with the aim of building enough Cataphracts to last us most of the rest of the game, upgrading them to Cavalry if we haven't finished before then.

I'm wondering if we should get a few courthouses built in the semi-corrupt cities.

Victory
According to JMapstat we currently need 847 more tiles, with 792 unclaimed tiles out there somewhere. So a couple more mergers plus some fast expansion may be all we need. Settlers are cheap now, and could be built fast in cities that currently struggle to deliver timely Cataphracts, and there's lots of land we could fill by building cities. We don't care what they achieve, just that they occupy space in no man's land.

JMapstat says Persia owns a city somewhere. That being so we could wipe the rest of the civs out without risking a conquest victory. Alternatively we could find out where they live, delete them and see if there's more territory available there.

[Edit] We can find out where Xerxes lives by selling a peace treaty for their world map and cash ;)

We are only at 3000 culture points right now, so there should be no danger of a 100K victory sneaking up on us.