Civilization: Netherlands
Leader: William
Difficulty: Sid
Map: 60% water archipelago
Temperate: Normal
Age: 4 billion years
Climate: Average
Barbs: Random
Default conditions except Cultural Link and Respawn are OFF.

I didn't take the first start, because I wasnted at least ONE two food tile in our opening 9 -- it was a horrible tundra start that would've been a challenge on Emperor in all likelihood. Second start isn't ideal (no bonus food), but we're going with it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-4000bc.jpg

Move worker north and spot nothing interesting, so I found on the starting square. Being on a river and on the ocean gives us quite a center square to our city -- 3 food, 1 shield, 4 commerce. I start min run on Writing, because min is all we're able to research, considering tech costs are 2.5 times "normal regent" values. And we begin a warrior.

3800 -- First Sid warrior I've ever built. Looks like all the others. Guess I'd better try a curragh next, to get something different. That completes in 3600 and I begin a granary because we look to be FAR from everyone. No contact, no barbs, no huts, no nothing. TOO quiet in a way.

By 3000 BC, we still got NADA, but our granary is almost complete. And we have a lot of cash.

And a lot of map....
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-3000bc.jpg

[Note a sugar, a curragh, and some tobacco, I believe.]

And a roster, whose order will be determined by who claims it next from the list of crazies who've already signed up (home connection is slow, so I will look up and edit tomorrow).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-3000bc.zip

Arathorn

Inherited Turn

Nothing to change. Nice bit of scouting, Arathorn.

2950 BC (1)

Granery completes, start settler.

2900 BC (2)

Amsterdam grows. Lux to 30%.

2850 BC (3)

Our curragh spots the first AI border--looks blue.

IT

Spot a Spanish curragh.

2800 BC (4)

Spain is up BW, masonry, wheel, WC, and CB on us--NO trades available. Spain has SIX cities.

2750 BC (5)

WE meet the Hittites. They are up the same as Spain except for masonry. CB is only tech available at 2gpt and 126g (that is all our treasury). I pass. Mursilis has 6 cities.

IT Spain starts the Pyramids.

2710 BC (6)

1st settler. Heads north to grass wines. Amsterdam will build another curragh. Lux back to 20%.

2670 BC (7)

zzz.

2630 BC (8)

zzz.

2590 BC (9)

Curragh produced.

2550 BC (10)

Amsterdam grows. MM is off--settler is due in 3, growth to 5 in 4. Any build will waste too many shields. Found Rotterdam in between two wines--best spot I saw up north. Spain has 8 cities and the Hittites 7. :eek:

Here are our lands near the capital.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-2550BC.jpg

SID!! (http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-2550BC.zip)

Good luck to the next player!

Sheesh, that's some "island"...Should be able to "get it" tomorrow afternoon.

Discussion? Options? Opinions?

Amsterdam can't grow any faster than every 4 turns, so it can pop a settler every 8, which isn't that great. Rotterdam should be able to get 5 fpt fairly easily, but it will struggle to get the shields it needs to be a 4-turn settler factory. With a granary (assisted by the new shorter time forest chop), though, I think Rotterdam would be an ideal worker factory. [I have no problem, at this point, with using a worker factory, even to pump other cities, although the last point is a bit stickier.] It'll need a granary, 5 fpt, and 5 spt to get that. Should be possible, if a bit tricky. That's what the team is for!

It appears the rest of the north is the barren wasteland of my first rolled start. While it will be worth settling eventually, it's lower priority (and if we lose it to the AIs, oh well!). I agree 100% with the placement of Rotterdam, but I think our next several cities should push south and/or west (yeah, into the fog). I think a realistic goal for the expansion phase is enough cities to get a FP -- which will be built in the south, I'm sure (or I sure hope).

Contacts are still hugely critical. Hopefully, we can get a third and have a Writing monopoly and get some serious catch-up techs out of it. Keep sci @min and go deep into the tree. We won't be able to tech faster than min for a long time (if ever), so we want expensive techs to help us keep up.

Roster:
Arathorn -- still on a high from playing last night
Bam-Bam -- got those kids into bed
Speaker -- PLAYING NOW
Gothmog, Reagan -- fielder's choice for next
Skyfish -- can only comment at this point

"Breathe. Breathe. Relax. Only 8 hours 'til you can go home. And 13 'til you can play again." :)

Arathorn

Sorry, what size map is this? And also how many opponents do you have? You don't seem to mention it at the start.

Standard size map. Full slate of 7 random opponents. I should've mentioned that, I agree.

Arathorn

I can't play until after 8 pm Central time tonight. I started on the Meso conquest last night. It's a blast. The enslavement feature is pretty cool, although taking cities is a challenge because the units are so balanced (2 attack v. 2 defend for a great deal of the game). Having Jags (and their retreat ability) helps to make up for that a little bit.

On settlement--yep, I debated sending the settler south, which would have been my natural inclination to settle. I decided to go north because I could NOT see a good river site by the wines. Finding the second wine was icing on the cake. We are probably going to have to live with one first ring without a river--so no extra food in the center square until republic. The half price aqueduct will make its growth easier.

My recommendation for the non-river city would be NE of the coastal wines (I know it wastes the fish, but I HATE wasting BGs, which would happen if we take the only site that can get the fish.)

We need to get some land exploring done SW--there is likely to be another AI there.

I don't have the game yet :( , but hopefully I'll get it in the mail tonight *crosses fingers* *knocks on wood* *tosses salt over sholder* ...

We need more info about our immediate area, and obviously expand, expand, expand. A granary in Rotterdam is a no-brainer at this point with no close neighbors, IMO.

IT- God I love Sid. Finally a challenge! Swap Rotterdam over to granary.

2510BC (1): Eastern Curragh continues north and contacts Portugal, who "only" has 4 extra cities as well as Bronze Working, Masonry, the Wheel, Warrior Code, and Ceremonial Burial. I hold off on any trades for now.

2470BC (2): Exploring.

2430BC (3): Amsterdam Settler => Warrior. Hittities now have writing but no one else does.

IT- Portugese finish Colossus, start Oracle.

2390BC (4): Risk pays off and our Curragh does not sink in a sea square. I am enjoying the seafaring trait so far.

2350BC (5): Amsterdam warrior => Settler.

2310BC (6): Exploring.

2270BC (7): Russian city sighted to the west, but no contact is possible at the moment.

2230BC (8): Yellowish (or orangish, can't quite tell) borders next to my curragh in the east.

IT- Russia builds Pyramids.

2190BC (9): Amsterdam settler => Warrior (vetoable). Found The Hague on the coast (no good river spots nearby. Starts curragh. Contact made with the Ottomans who have 6 techs (including writing) and 8 cities.

IT- Aztecs build the Oracle.

2150BC (10): Exploring.

Conclusion- Pretty uneventful set of turns. We should be able to expand a good deal here and have met more than half our rivals. Hopefully when writing finishes in 11 turns it will still have some value. This looks like it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

Scouting Sid (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-2150BC.zip)

And a few images. Note the power graph:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Lotr10-2150BC.jpg

I see it. I'll play and post tonight, barring a force majeure event.

This one is going to be FUN. Our civ traits are nice for this game, and having no one really close should make this competitive.

Good call on the granery Gothmog and Speaker--that warrior was a placeholder since Rotterdam was just founded on my last turn.

Would also be nice to get another worker out before Rotterdam pulls its granery, but that's a borderline call.

Good luck Reagan.

I rolled a 3, 3, 4, 1, 1 for ten turns of Tyrant rule. I immediately declare war on every civ we know and then get to work trying to rid the world of their vile presence . . . .

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr101.JPG

OK, OK – wrong LotR game. Here’s the real deal:

(0) 2150 - MM Rotterdam for +1gp. <enter>

(1) 2110 – Amsterdam: warrior->curragh. Hague swaps to worker. Bust some fog with our itty-bitty boats.

(2) 2070 – Our first luxury is online. Let’s party like it’s 1999 . . . errr . . . 2070 BC! Pass the wine, baby! Lux tax to 10%.

(3) 2030 - :sleep:

(4) 1990 – Amsterdam: curragh->warrior.

(5) 1950 - :sleep:

(6) 1910 – Amsterdam: warrior->warrior. Utrecht founded, starts barracks.

(7) 1870 – Oh joy. Everyone has Writing now (except us).

(8) 1830 – Amsterdam: warrior->warrior. Rotterdam hits the magical +5fpt mark. Lux to 30% for one turn.

(9) 1790 – Hague: worker->worker. Lux back to 10% now.

(10) 1750 – Amsterdam: warrior->settler.

directions to Sidville (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-1750BC.zip)

And a map of our neighborhood:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr102.JPG

Shouldn't we chop some wood to hurry the granary in Rotterdam :groucho:

We definitely should, Skyfish. Good observation. This is especially true since a wood chop costs half as many turns as it used to. I would chop north of the river, too, to be certain Rotterdam gets the shields and not Amsterdam.

It looks like we have a lot of land to ourselves -- at this point, anyway. We need to be in all-out claim mode for a while. From the mini-map, there looks to be a choke just north of the equator. If at all possible, I would like to blockade that, so that the AI civs will require map-making before getting into "our" north.

Bummer about writing already being so widespread. Not sure what, if anything, we could've done differently on that score. For techs, I'm thinking keep min-sci runs going on expensive techs (we can do Lit, Philosophy, Map Making, or Code of Laws) while trying to buy cheaper ones. Twofers and morefers would be nice, if possible, but we might already be too far behind for that. Teching looks to be extremely tricky. [Anybody have a good reason for picking one of the four above? Philosophy wouldn't be ours first, so no bonus tech. Lit might be neglected and get us a monopoly, but it's not a required tech and I doubt we'll build many/any libraries. I'm undecided, but would probably pick CoL in a solo game.]

Somebody with dot-mapping expertise want to have a go at this one? Of my civ strengths, dot-mapping is not one of the highest, but I might try over the weekend, if nobody else does.

Roster:
Arathorn
Bam-Bam
Speaker
Reagan
Gothmog -- waiting for delivery still?
Skyfish -- unfairly denied access for another week

Arathorn

We have a warrior to the south who can park himself on the choke point at the appropriate time. We are on one helluva big island for a 'pelago map. If we can go into full settlement mode and grab a good chunk of the prime land we can take the rest from whoever settles it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait a bit longer before chopping the forest? We've run out of two-food tiles so the forests are going to come into play in two and seven more turns, which should speed the granary's construction. Chopping the forest(s) would leave us with more two-food tiles, sure, but we very well might end up with non-BG tiles and slow our production again. Adding another ten shields right now won't help because we are still 35 shields from completing the granary. In the meantime, we can mine the grasslands before chopping. If I'm missing something, please let me know, because I want to make sure I'm using sound logic for this and future games.

This one's going to be a challenge for sure!

Crap, I just checked my supplier's web site and it seems that they haven't even shiped my copy yet. :cry: Also, I'll be away on buisness from the 16th to the 22nd and unable to play (laptop is a mac). Though I am pretty sure I'll be online.

As for the forest chop debate, don't forget about the whip! If we whip a lower cost item ASAP the unhappiness wont last much longer than the build! Has anything changed with respect to whipping?

Amsterdam could just be switched temporarily to palace/wonder b4 the chop finishes. The shields won't go to Amsterdam, they'll go to Rotterdam. Now you can chop any tiles in Amsterdam radius you want to. :)

Excellent point mad-bax, we could then chop the forest right by Amsterdam so it wont take production tiles away from Rotterdam.
However the timing needs to be good so we dont lose a turn on the settler from Amsterdam of course.

Reagan the only point I dont agree with you is :
Adding another ten shields right now won't help because we are still 35 shields from completing the granary
So many shields to completion is precisely why chops are required :)
Gothmog is alos right that a whip can be an even better alternative, I'd need to see the save to check that for sure :D

We may want to pop another worker out of Amsterdam after this worker, to help get Rotterdam to a more shield-friendly state. The faster we get them both producing settlers, the faster we'll cover the land.

I'm generally against whips so close to the capital. They "feel" like a loser to me. I've tried to do the math a few times and it gets very confusing very rapidly, with far too many "what if"s for me to feel comfortable answering too definitively.

I definitely like the chop. That would get a big priority from me -- using the wonder in Amsterdam trick if it'll work (and if we have one available). But I'm not it really matters TOO much which forest we chop.

Another worker out of Amsterdam? Hmm...Amsterdam is food-limited, not shield limited, so I like settlers and units (MP) out of there for the time being. But, we can never have too many workers..... <Shrug> And getting Rotterdam up to speed might be the winner there, too.

Summing up, I'd chop, wouldn't whip, and wouldn't worker out of Amsterdam (yet). The latter two are very close. And even on deity, it wouldn't really matter, because we'd win easily either way. I love that Sid is making us consider so fine differences.....

Arathorn

/lurker de-cloaking/

This is going to be one tough puppy

/lurker cloak re-engaged/

One reason why I advocate the whip in this circumstance is that we want to be on a 6-4 cycle with growth at Rotterdam as a settler factory. At this rate our city will be at roughly size 8 before we build our granary (less with chops, I can't see how many bonus grass or corruption we have atm). Then we need to get another 30 shields for our first settler. Also, if we use the whip and get the granary faster, then growth will be doubled for that additional amount of time. If it's 10 turns faster, that becomes at least two growth cycles and we come out ahead in terms of population anyway.
Anyway it is an alternative to having to work forest squares just to make up some shields, if it were just me I'd do a whip asap and a chop.

A few thoughts, as well as a rough dotmap.

Forget the chop or the whip. Fastest that you can get the chop done while letting the closest worker complete his mine (6 turns) is 12 turns. Granery can be put online in 9 turns with the following sequence.

Switch Rotterdam to work a forest instead of the non-roaded grass (+4fpt, 2spt) for one turn. Then work both forests for two turns to get +3fpt, 4spt and growth (this slows growth by one turn to get an extra 7 shields). Then work both forests and the roaded grass for three more turns (+3fpt, 4spt), at which point the mine completes on the grass pushing production to 5spt). The granery completes three turns later, with the last turn switching off one of the forests to a grassland, since only 3 shields are needed. Town will be at size 5 with 19 food in the box-- ready to grow to size 6 and start cranking settlers. The wasted shields are the 3rd and the 7th shield, so we'll not be getting above 5spt net for a bit.

BTW, Arathorn, you are up since Gothmog has not gotten the game.

As far a dotmapping.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10dot.jpg

I feel pretty good about the red and dark blue dots (red keeps the tundra down to 4 total, and blue will use a harbor for food, since it will be a pain to get water to those plains tiles). The pink dot could be moved two tiles NW--which would put it on a hill next to the river--allowing irrigation to pass to the west (unless things have changed since PTW). The western grey dot is just there to get water to the wheat. If you move the pink dot, then I would move the green dot SW to the coast.

Ugh--that's enough micromanagement for me today--I don't see how some people do this so easily (and I am no slouch in math).

GM, when do you expect to get your copy of C3C? I'd rather not skip more people than I have to. I won't be playing until tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon, anyway. Let me know by then, please, if you do happen to see this.

Arathorn

Hopping right into Sid?! Woo :hammer:

Looks like you assembled an excellent team for it though, Arathorn :p

I'll need to remove the rust some before trying Sid, but hopefully that won't be too long.

Charis

:love:
Yeeha! :hammer: is back !

[dance] :beer: [party]

:fish: :sheep: :fish:

:thanx:

Got it. Hope to play this afternoon.

Arathorn

Looks like things are going decently for this Sid attempt. Good luck with the rest of it, I will be watching.

Little question: I noticed that one of the screenshots included graphic changes (perhaps Snoopy's), but I have not been able to use such graphics in Conquests (if you do, it plays as a PTW game). How do you use the good graphics for a Conquests game? Also, I noticed that the game started with the default graphics but changed midway through. How do you change like that? Sorry for the somewhat off-topic questions, but I wanted to make sure to ask somebody who knew what was going on. Thanks in advance, guys. :goodjob:

Welcome back Charis. I noticed over at RBCiv that the games were filling up quickly--I suspect I will be giving them a miss--have to keep to my word on only 2 SGs at a time.

No surprise that Arathorn wanted to jump right in--he of the AMIMVs. :p We DO have a good crowd here (even without the :hammer: )--at least enough to keep me mostly out of trouble. :p

Yaype--I think Reagan is the one who has figured the graphics thing out--I was off to go do that this afternoon. As far as the different screenshots--if you have all of your default games playing with a different graphics pack, then a normal (non-scenerio or modded) game will always show up on your machine with that pack, even if others are not playing with that graphics pack. It looks like Snoopy's, but Reagan can say for sure.

[delurk] Yaype - All my default games go to snoppy's. It is the modpack in way down in the CivIII art folder. If you want a scenario or mod to use a specific pack like water colors, or snow etc then you have to point to that ART folder in your scenario setup. I am by no means a mod expert but have been using snoopy for all my conquest starts so far.

[/lurk]

hotrod

I'm certainly no expert at graphics mods, so all I can do is tell you what I'm using and how I got there. After backing up the original files, I installed Snoopy's mod pack onto the default graphics files. I also installed modded files for bonus grassland tiles (they have little rocks and trees on them now), barb camps (larger pics), goody huts (structures rather than mushroom looking things), and resources/luxuries (there is a mod that has little beige discs with the initial of the resource/luxury, which makes them much easier to spot). Unfortunately, Conquests' addition of new resources has rendered the "easy-to-spot" graphics unusable. I hope someone will be so kind as to create a new file for Conquests so the silver, saltpeter, coal, and other resources that are sometimes difficult to see can be easier to find.

When you play an epic game of PTW or Conquests and post a screenshot from the game, the picture will use your default graphics -- not those from another player on your team. An exception to this is when you use a different terrain set altogether, like when we played the MOW game using the watercolor terrain. In that case, I presume, one would have to modify those particular files in order to have something other than the default. I hope this has been helpful.

Oh yeah -- I looked for a modified resources file already but didn't find one, so I posted a request in the C&C forum. If I simply overlooked the file, I'd appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction.

Re: Bam-Bam's dotmap -- First, thanks for putting that together, BB. It takes a lot of effort to think those things through. My three main questions are: (1) is yellow dot on a river? It doesn't appear to be. Moving it one square south will put it on a river and still on the coast; (2) shouldn't green dot be moved so it's on the coast? I hate having water tiles that can't be maximized because harbors and other improvements can't be built in a land-locked square; and (3) where are we going to put the FP? Building it in Utrecht and then jumping the palace with a leader could be a good plan.

More time and trouble.... We're way behind in tech, but there's a lot of land for the grabbing, if we can get there.

(0) 1750 -- Rotterdam almost as suggested, but I work the forest the first two turns and then the grass the third, so that it will auto-pick the forest when it grows and we can squeeze an extra two shields out of the deal.

(I) Finish Writing and start Lit. at min_sci. The AIs will sometimes ignore optional techs...and if it takes us 50 turns to get there...who cares?

(1) 1725 BC -- what's map making cost @ 3rd? I dunno, but we can't afford it. Check it out.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-mapmake.jpg

(2) 1700 - Spain picked up MM, too. We *could* buy it by removing our lux and science and paying all our gold and gpt, but I don't think that's quite wise. Portugal still doesn't have it and we MIGHT be able to broker successfully, but I want a bit of extra cash around to broker. Hope it doesn't come back to bite me.

Oh, and Rotterdam micro this turn. Looking good up there.

(2) 1675 - I gotta do it. Brokering options will be few and far between, I fear, so I'm gonna take this one while I can, even though it almost kills us financially. Science to zero and then....

17 gpt and 388 gold to Hittites for Map Making.
Map Making, 2 gpt, our last 24 gold to Portugal for Wheel, Warrior Code, and Ceremonial Burial.
And we're at 0 gpt and 0 gold. Kindof a 4fer, though, so I think it was worth it. Hope others agree.
We're down 4 visible techs to all 4 AIs -- the same 4 in all case.

(I) Settler out of Amsterdam.

(4) 1650 -- The pop loss from the Amsterdam settler has us at -1 gpt and 0 gold. I do NOT want to lose troops, so I have to lower the lux tax and make do with a taxman in Rotterdam for one turn. Another MP is on his way there, though, so it should only be this turn. I'm not sure it will matter in the long run.

(5) 1625 - Second MP in Rotterdam, taxman back to work. At +1 gpt now.

(6) 1600 - Ulbrecht has grown and needs a specialist until an MP arrives. He gets a taxman for a bit, too.

(7) 1575 - Rottderdam completes its granary and begins a settler -- growth and settler to pop at the same time. I think a 5/5/3/3/4 food pattern here might be required -- a 5-turn settler factory. I think that's the only way to get enough shields in time. Will need VERY close attention.

(8) 1600 - Utrecht taxman back to work.

(9) 1575 - Meet Russia. They're up the same 4 as the others.

(10) 1500 - Meet Mongols. They're up the 4 we've been done forever, but now Hittites and Ottomans have Philosophy visible, too, so we're down 5 visible techs to those two. With -1 gpt (to keep Rotterdam happy) and 10 gold, though, I don't think we can purchase it! ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-1500bc.zip

We now have two pretty good settler factories (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) going. I built two settlers but founded no cities on my turns. I sent one south to the dark blue dot on the forest and one is headed west to be near the tundra. Those two dots I felt very comfortable with, but I couldn't reach either during my turns.

We only have one more civ to find. They about have to be sharing our landmass, in the southern part, I would think. Getting a city to the choke would actually be my next priority. The Russians will be filling in the west soon, though, so be wary.

Jumping our palace with a leader? Is the palace an SGL or an MGL item? We might get a few of the latter, but I imagine the former will be few and far between (like NONE!).

For now, we've still gotta be in mega-expansion mode. Ulbrecht as military producer seems like a good plan for now. Keep the cities flowing.

Arathorn

Jumping our palace with a leader? Is the palace an SGL or an MGL item? We might get a few of the latter, but I imagine the former will be few and far between (like NONE!).

I don't believe the palace is a wonder at all. I think MGLs are precluded from completing great wonders (but can still build small wonders and rush other improvements).

Pre-turn

All looks good, except for our treasury and economy. No changes.

IT Russians start lighthouse.

1475 BC (1)

Settler movement.

IT Spain demands our 8g. We are at -2gpt, so will lose something. I cannot risk losing any of the graneries, so I tell Isabella to stick it. She declares.

1450 BC (2)

Groningen founded on coast by wines. Starts on warrior. Amsterdam gets to size 4, so the economic bleeding stops. Able to drop lux to 10% with the war happiness from Spain declaring, now we have a whopping +2gpt.

1425 BC (3)

zzz

IT Ottomans complete the lighthouse, and Statue of Zeus. All kinds of cascading, but no completions.

1400 BC (4)

Rotterdam settler-settler. Lux to 0%. The Hague warrior--granery. This city has enough 2 food tiles to warrent the granery before either a harbor (food from sea) or temple (opening more sea tiles for food). I sent one of the inherited settlers south first, instead of to the red dot, so that there would be 3 cities founded by the end of my turns.

1375 BC (5)

Meet the Aztecs south of Russia. They are up BW, masonry, myst, philosophy, and HBR. This is the same as the Ottomans, Russians, and Hittites. Portugal and the Mongols do not have Philosophy, and we are at war with Spain.

IT The Russians land a settler pair on our Island.

1350 BC (6)

Utrecht rax-->archer.

1325 BC (7)

Amsterdam settler-->rax. Eindhoven founded on red dot-->warrior. Might be worth a worker first, since we have a military only city going. Arnhem founded two tiles NW of my pink dot. It's on the river, and should be able to take water over to the west. Starts on worker (vetoable--I chose this because its at +3fpt), Settler from Amsterdam is heading west for the yellow dot--which should be moved 1 tile south as Reagan suggested. The next settler from Rotterdam should head south to the grey dot chokepoint. Lux @10% with Rotterdam growth to 6.

1300 BC (8)

The Russians founded their city--it is a real crappy location, so there MUST be some resource there. :rolleyes:

1275 BC (9)

zzz.

1250 BC (10)

Rotterdam settler-->settler. It is now at size 4, growing next turn. The best we can get is 5 shields as it grows. (I can set it up to try to pick the forest, but I am sure it will not--picing one of the irrigated wines). We cannot get +5fpt here running how we are--maybe worth popping a worker and getting on a true five turn run with the settler popping when the town grows from 5-->6. Goodness knows we need workers. Settler should head south to the choke. I have a scientist in Utrecht until we get it connected to the wines network.

We are screwed on natural luxuries--only wines. Folks are starting to settler the southern end way below the choke.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-1250BC.jpg

Western settler is heading to the red dot. Settler just finished out of Rotterdam is heading to the blue dot. Next settler should head to the green dot, then the next two should go one to the wheat, one to push the choke further south.

Sid's Viscious (http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-1250BC.zip)

Good luck Speaker! You should get a chance to make our next set of trades!

All right, good expansion and a nice MM analysis by Bam-Bam (on the 7th).

The tech situation reminds me of the earliest versions of CivIII, wasn't uncommon to be a half an age behind back then.

We have writing now, do all the other AI's have contact with each other? I am wondering what kind of priority they put on the new early ship unit.

My copy is being shipped to me as we speak (it left the warehouse on friday), but as I live off the beaten path it will be mid next week before I get it I am sure. Sorry about that, when I ordered it I didn't consider Fed Ex :p, I guess I just wasn't thinking. Hopefully I can get a turn in before I am gone for a week on buisness (16th - 22nd).

I didn't consider Fed Ex Fed Ex from Amazon was really 2 days instead of 1 and cost $15. I got mine from a local shop on the 7th.

Got it. Will play tomorrow.

IT- Spain requires a city for peace. This might be a long "phony" war. Egads, we only have 3 workers for our entire Civ and we are not even Industrious...This will not do at all.

1225BC (1): Russians have settled their first city on "our" land.

IT- Spain signs Aztecs to an alliance against us. Umm, let's hope we don't get a dogpile here...

1200BC(2): Nothing Much.

IT- Mongols join in the fun, signing a MA with the Aztecs against us.

1175BC (3): Found Maastricht on the red dot.

1150BC (4): It takes all of our treasury, 26gpt and 62gold to buy Code of Laws, from Portugal. Russia offers Masonry and Mysticism, but instead I take Bronze Working, Masonry, and 45 gold (since we have a non-existant treasury). Code of Laws then goes to the Hittites with 40 gold for Iron Working.

The net is a 4-fer 1 (clearly I can't add), 2 of which are important military techs, which we may need in the near future. We have iron next to Arnhem.

Rotterdam grows and requires a taxman to stay happy. We cannot afford the lux tax.

IT- Russia moves about 35 troops into Krasnoyarsk. Aztec jag dies on our warrior in the southern jungle, across a river. Ottomans start Sun Tzu, so the AI is into the Middle Ages. We're 7 techs short at the moment.

1125BC (5): Amsterdam starts a harbor (due in 4) because I can't bare to waste that many shields building a spearman (currently making 9spt)and so we can trade our excess wines to Russia, which should net us something nice. Bingo, many civs, including Russia, have no iron connected. Arnhem requires a taxman to stay happy.

1100BC (6): Nothing much.

1075BC (7): With no available scientist, Literature research ceases for the moment.

1050BC (8): Nothing much.

1025BC (9): Amsterdam builds Harbor. Found Haarlem on the blue dot. Ugh, it looks like our trade route with Russia is being held up by a single square of fog. We should have that cleared up and be able to trade our iron to Russia in the next 8 turns. We can trade our Wines to the Hittites (for Mysticism) and Portugese (for 70 gold), but I'm not so sure about that trade route and if we lose our rep, we're toast. Our continent is attached to theirs via coast in the south, but with the Aztecs and Spain founding cities down there, one coastal city in the right place and we're screwed.

IT- Portugese join in the dogpile. I stand by my decision to not trade them wines.

1000BC (10): Finally some good news. By declaring on us, Portugal forfeits the gpt payments we were giving her. We are back at 30gpt. Unfortunately we are at war with 4 Sid civs. Maastricht requires a scientist for peace, so Literature is back in action. Russia has now founded 4 cities on our half of the land. The moving warrior near Amsterdam and the Hague is moving toward Maastricht and should probably clear out that fog. The settler is heading toward green dot.

Conclusion- Uh, good luck.

Sid Dogpile (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-1000BC.zip)

I bet that was fun, Speaker. :p A dogpile at this stage is not too bad--we just need to find a way to get the Aztecs (and possibly Portugal) out of the pile, since they DO have an opportunity to hurt us. Too bad we aren't getting reverse WW from the dogpilers, like we are from Spain. That would sure help our happiness problems. The iron trade to Russia sounds like a must do.

Originally posted by Bam-Bam
I bet that was fun, Speaker. :p A dogpile at this stage is not too bad--we just need to find a way to get the Aztecs (and possibly Portugal) out of the pile, since they DO have an opportunity to hurt us.
I'm not sure how we are going to get out of the pile, short of giving away cities (which we obviously can't do) or 10+ gpt each. And with 4 of the 7 rivals at war with us, that doesn't leave much in the way of (already-meager) trading opportunities.

Reagan -- UP
Gothmog -- ON DECK
Skyfish -- waiting impatiently

No hurry, guys. Best hope for Skyfish is Friday, but realistic isn't until Monday, the 17th, so Reagan and Gothmog can take a bit of time to play slowly, carefully, and beat up on those Sid opponents! OK, OK...maybe just try to make peace a bit cheaper -- swords will help that. Plus, if they'll talk to us, we can hopefully get to the point where we can buy peace with gold if we're truly desperate.

Wines to Russia should be safe. That route goes north around our lands and will probably not be cut, except by Russian action. A little impetus to not have them join the dogpile would be good (although a fairly heft gpt payment didn't seem to deter Portugal).

I know from first-hand experience that Sid AI's can be fought successfully. I got sneak-attacked in a Sid OCC I was trying and managed to raze two cities in response (in Middle Ages, with spears, longbows, and trebuchets), but they were terminally corrupt AI cities on an island far from home. We'll need to be alert, but I think we can handle this for a while, if we're smart about it. Remember even the most corrupt AI city can build a spear in 8 turns.

Nice turns, Speaker. The 4-fer (whatdya mean, 3-fer? We got 4 techs out of that) was nice, especially since we somehow, sorta, lucked into getting out of the payments. The tech situation is actually better than I was fearing.

Without looking at the save, I'm thinking workers and unit will be the order of the day. But we'll need a few more cities. My goal remains to have enough cities to build the FP by the end of the landgrab.

Good luck and good hunting!
Arathorn

:hmm: workers, units, more cities... would you like tea with that?

Maybe a couple catapults to help with defence?

I wont comment on diplomacy until I see the save, still don't have the game :o

Yes, I do want tea with that! Thanks for asking! With just the slightest bit of honey added, please. :)

Yes, 'pults would be nice...but impossible without Mathematics, which we don't have yet (it's after Masonry, right? And we just acquired that, so...). Archers with a defensive bombard only are actually pretty useful in that role, letting spears (or swords, for that matter, I've just been iron-deprived in my solo games, so it's not been an issue) survive sword attacks much more often, when stacked. Something to consider.

GM -- when are you getting the game? You gonna be able to take your turn in a couple days? You're USA located, right?

I'm torn on using gpt to buy more techs. On the one hand, we might get out of the payments again (or stop another opponent). On the other, being able to buy peace for gpt might be required in the near future and we will need funds on hand to do that! On balance, if a good brokering opportunity comes up, we'll probably need to do it -- just for techs sake.

I do recommend wines to Russia for whatever tech/gold/stuff we can get. The route is unlikely to be broken (unless we lose a harbor city...) and the gain should be substantial.

As for rep, it's actually less important, IMO, than at Deity. With techs cheaper to steal than to buy starting early in the Middle Ages (from my experiences in Sid to date) (and with which tech dependent on the exact chance of success in a steal), paying for techs becomes less interesting than stealing, early and often, to get 2fers and morefers.

Arathorn

I am indeed in the US, but only just ;) - outside of Santa Fe, NM.
I just checked my tracking number and the game arrived at the USPS here in Santa Fe yesterday at 1pm. I didn't get it yesterday because this is Santa Fe! If it weren't a federal holiday I should have gotten it today, as it is I am hoping for tomorrow. Assuming I don't get mañana'ed.

I have been really busy with work lately (preparing for my trip next week, and my other one in December), I worked all day Sunday. So I haven't had time to really read up on Conquests. I have no idea what the new tech tree looks like, nor did I know about the defensive bombard. Rest assured that I will take some time to at least RTFM before I play. When I am away from home I'll have lots of time to catch up while in the hotel at night.

GM, check this out, I found that little document extremely informative !

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/c3cref2.zip

Got it.

edit: Someone take it back -- please!

(0) 1000 – Look at all those pouty faces on the diplo screen! Wines+2gpt to Hittites for Philosophy+8gp. *Gasp* Someone’s polite?! Say it ain’t so! I know we have nine turns invested in it, but even a monopoly on Lit likely won’t get us Republic, so I start a min sci run on that important tech. Only pre-turn MM tweak is to work a forest tile in Utrecht. This slows growth but gets us a warrior in two turns rather than six. I did a double take when I saw not one, but two, empty cities right next to two AI cities. :nono:

(1) 975 - The Ottomans joined the dogpile through an alliance with Spain. Amsterdam: spear->spear. Our palace gets spruced up a bit. A Russian warrior starts towards undefended Maastricht. Swap to spear and :whipped:

(2) 950 – Utrecht: warrior->warrior. Groningen: warrior->spear. Maastricht: spear->worker. Lux tax to 10%.

(3) 925 – Our valiant little boat dies under a hail of Mongol arrows. Amsterdam continues to churn out spears. Groningen whips a spear. Literature is in play already.

(4) 900 – Now Russia joins the party by allying with the Ottomans. Ugh. Rotterdam: settler->settler. Hague: granary->worker. Groningen: spear->worker. Haarlem’s archer takes out an Aztec warrior.

(5) 875 – Can you say 100% participation? The Ottos enlist the Hittites in their evil crusade against our pacifist nation. :help: Iron comes online and Amsterdam swaps to sword training (every three turns), while Utrecht does the same. Those blights on our western landscape are in trouble now! :hammer:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10a.JPG

:eek: AW-Sid?
3PO: "R2, calculate their chances of survival!"
R2: "0.00001%"

:eek:
Guys please wait 'till I can take a turn before losing that one please ! :lol:
;)

Nothing like blood in the water... :eek: Well, we weren't looking for an easy game, right? :lol:

Scouting Sid, huh? A full dogpile in 875BC... shudder May the PRNG be with you! :hammer:

I hope you scouts report back with screenshots from the fighting scene! ;)

Awww...what's a little dogpile between friends?

Just use standard ideas. Stop expansion. Button up. Wait for the alliances to expire so buying peace is cheaper. Fight defensive. Hope for good PRNG results. Buy peace with several at the same time to hopefully lessen chances of the dogpile repeating.

I have full faith in Reagan.

It looks like we still don't have math. Catapults would have been very nice. But I would strongly recommend using archers as part of the defensive force. The first strike ability on defense (like defensive bombard) is very useful and worth the investment, if the city can be saved.

And it's not like the AIs have strong productive cities on our mainland. They have to ship over strong troops. Their cities on our land will require 4 turns to build a regular warrior, so it shouldn't be much worse than fighting AWM, for a short while.

Arathorn

My copy arrived last night!
:thanx: [party] :band: [party] :thanx:
(where it a 'churn the butter dance' or 'milk the cow dance' smiley when you need it?)

It is installed, but I didn't have time to spark it up. I am looking forward to my turns.

Sorry guys . . . I'm almost through with the back half of my turns, but I had to work around a lot of distractions (including a certain blonde Texas gal) last night and played only half to a full turn at a time before having to shut it down. It's kind of annoying when it takes as long to load the game as the amount of time one has to play. Despite that, I have taken my time playing and have kept pretty good continuity with our defensive approach. We haven't lost a city (and shouldn't) during any of my turns, although the whipping effects will be felt for awhile yet. The Ottomans are dropping ancient cavs on us, which is not fun! I settled one more city and we now qualify to build the FP. I will finish and post by early evening today.

No worries about the time. Gothmog just got his game and Skyfish still has no chance to even have it in stores yet.

Good news on the no loss of cities -- especially against those ancient cavalry, which are almost brokenly tough.

Arathorn

Anyone remember the last time (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54625&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=4) an LOTR game received a 7-way dogpile in the BC era? I remember how that one turned out (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54625&perpage=20&display=&pagenumber=16)... :D

Those ancient cavs are darn near too powerful. I think 4/2/1 would be a much more acceptable stat line for them. The movement point is the killer, not to mention the bonus hit point.

(6) 850 – We hold back a Russian warrior, but there are two galleys that will drop troops next to our core cities next turn. The palace expands. I hate to do it, but I upgrade a regular warrior in Amsterdam. I also whip Amsterdam to get another vet sword ready next turn. Middelburg is founded in the hills (more easily defended) near Arnhem. We can take any flatland cities the Russkies drop west of Arnhem. All build orders are swapped to military production.

(7) 825 – The Ottomans dump a 5/5 ancient cav and a 4/4 archer on a hill next to Hague. Utrecht whips a sword. Our vet sword and regular sword perish while redlining the cav and our regular archer knocks off the archer.

(8) 800 – The cav kills our archer but then dies to a counter-attacking sword. Portugal has three galleys off our coast now. Ugh. Utrecht: sword->sword. Utrecht gets a forest chop and can whip a sword next turn. Amsterdam upgrades a vet warrior.

(9) 775 – Portugal comes calling with a peace offering, but I don’t want to tie up our gold. We can see whether they land a lot of troops before deciding to make peace. They don’t, so we don’t. Eindhoven: barracks->sword. Upgrade another regular warrior.

(10) 750 – I decline another peace offering (from Ottos). Amsterdam: sword->sword. Take out a Spanish archer with a sword. Upgrade another regular warrior. I think this is more intentionally upgraded regular troops in one set of turns than I have upgraded in total over the past year. Haarlem’s archer kills another Jag warrior (and promotes to elite). It’s interesting that the Aztecs are now less willing to build Jags for the extra shield cost.

Any and all build orders are wide open to veto, particularly in the corrupt cities. At this point, our primary choice is whether to build some infrastructure (barracks?) or just content ourselves with whipping regular troops for now.

I left movement on two warriors near Aztec territory and fortified a couple swords in Amsterdam so the next player (Gothmog?) can better position himself for his turns. The warriors could be used to move next to/pillage an Aztec city in order to induce a lower peace payment from Monty. The Portuguese boats have not unloaded any troops, nor has the Ottoman boat (look out for another cav?). The Spanish boat should be empty. Good luck and have fun!

El Sid (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-750BC.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10b.JPG

Looks like you did a good job holding our position Reagan.

I got it and it looks like my first try at conquests will be tasty.

Talk about your brutal first plays on a new expansion -- at the bottom of a dogpile on Sid. Good luck, Gothmog!!!!

And take your time. I don't think Skyfish can play until after the weekend anyway, so you're in no hurry to get your turns in. Slow, smart, and safe should be the keywords, I think.

Arathorn

Its excruciating suspense here as none of the stores seem to know whats going on.... A german poster friend (Grille) bought it yesterday in a shop already so we know its in Europe at least :lol:

I have 3 shops I can buy from today, none of them have it atm but they are all confident they will get it this afternoon or tomorrow : more news later today !

Go, Skyfish. Go, go, go Skyfish! Good luck getting it in your hands ASAP. We look forward to your input on this game.

And as long as Gothmog doesn't get too unluckly with the PRNG (I've had horrible luck in Conquests so far), you should at least get one turn. :)

Arathorn

Whoop – Conquests… I like it!

First I RTFM, not much info there but I do learn what an ancient cav is and a bit about the new tech tree.

Preturn – Move warriors in south back NW towards the Aztec city of Malinalco. I am a bit worried about Groningen and Haarlem being defended by a warrior and an archer respectively, so I shuffle a sword from Amsterdam south and move the fortified sword between Amsterdam and The Hague south as well.
I turn lux down one notch, only Amsterdam needs a tax man (!2 gpt!) and can still pull 10 spt anyway, I also note that scientists make 3 beakers per turn.
Other minor MM. I decide to keep minimum run on Republic, I guess it is better than a minimum run on math.

(IT) Maastritch spear promotes to vet defending vs. Russian (?) warrior attack. Otto drops a warrior and a horse where the fortified sword was, the three Portuguese Galleys go north. A Russian galley comes into view from the south (?) that seems an unlikely path for the Russians.

(1) 730 AD - I notice the new victory status screen :cooool:. As I am pondering this my one year old son comes up and pushes the restart button on my computer :love:, he can be a bit passive-aggressive at times :mischief:. So I restart, do the same things, and then spend time with the kids.

After the kids are in bed I get back to the game :yeah:

730 AD continued – I swap Utrecht to forest to complete the sword in one turn. Whip sword in Eindhoven. Sword kills Otto warrior, take out horse with wounded sword. I check out peace prospects, everyone wants all of our gold and 5-11 gpt for peace. I guess we’ll be at war for a while.

(IT) – Defeat Aztec archer in the south with warrior fortified on mountain. Russia lands two horses. Portuguese Galleys continue north – no drop off yet.

(2) 710 AD – Take out one Russian horse with sword but am redlined. Move warrior out of Groningen to block other Russian horse from attacking in the IT. Move shield from The Hague to be able to fortify in Groningen next turn.

(IT) Russian horse takes out redlined sword that killed his buddy.

(3) 690 AD – Whip sword in Arnhem. Rotterdam racks -> settler, we’re doing OK on the defensive front atm and need to continue expansion. Can always swap back to sword if necessary. Kill russian horse with sword.

(IT) – Aztec archer in south kills fortified warrior on mountain and takes no damage.

(4) 670 AD – Start road to connect horses. Our scouting Curragh causes 20 (!) Russian spears to mobilize in their territory. Soon I may have enough swords to send out a party to prosecute peace on the AI.

That is all I had time for last night, it was quite fun. Hopefully a couple of the AI’s are at war with each other, otherwise we will be seeing a lot more landings in the future. No doubt that we are the underdog in this one, how fun is that?
:sheep:

I'm sure it’s been said before but archers thru guerillas have a bombardment defense when stacked. You might want to consider combining swords & archers. Until someone does the math my guess is that makes for a 5/3 unit. Good luck.

Archer bombard only works on defense. An archer/sword pair defends at a value similar to 3, but not exactly 3. It still attacks like a 3 and then a 2. It is still quite possibly/probably worth the time to build archers for defense/offense, because they can function kinda like a 'pult on defense but still maintain their archer offense ability.

Remember we get a 1/4/1 pike with Feudalism, so that tech will be incredibly nice to get. How we're going to get it is beyond me, because it's priced like Nationalism now that there's a government associated with it, too.

Nice looking turns, Gothmog. Hopefully, the kid(s) will let you finish up tonight and we can continue to survive and maybe even make progress.

Unless they've changed it, peace will get cheaper as:
- We kill their units
- Alliances expire/are broken
- Our military strength improves

Good luck on those! At least the second is very likely to start occurring before TOO long.

Arathorn

At this point, we're able to conduct defense through offense, so I'm not sure archers are a good investment for us. Unless and until the other civs land sufficient troops that they'll be attacking our cities, I vote to stick with swords.

Yeah, I agree with Reagan. I don't want to have any tiles pillaged while waiting for them to attack a city. I might build a couple to take along on raiding parties though. It will also be good to have some horses for rapid response troops.

Another reminder that I am leaving my computer behind on Sunday and will return on Friday night (the 21st). I should have internet access in the interim though.

670 BC continued - Notice settler fortified in Amsterdam. Move him out.

(IT) - Hittites call up and offer peace for 202+5gpt - nope. In the south a fortified vet warrior on a mountain defeats a regular Aztec archer.

(5) 650 BC - movement.

(IT) Otto founds a city in the north. Middleburg warrior -> worker. Amsterdam sword -> sword.
:eek: Aztecs start Leo's.

(6) 630 BC - Sent archer south to scout and see troops approaching.

(IT) Our curragh defeats a spanish curragh. Otto starts Leo's and Sistine! Hittites start Leo's.

(7) 610 BC - Horse road completes, but we don't have the HB tech. I have two swords scouting out a new city spot in the west and I see a Russian settler/spear headed that way. I'm one step behind to get some slaves.

(IT) Here comes an Aztec longbow from the west. Aztec start Sissy.

(8) 590 BC - One of my swords kills a straggling Aztec warrior and promotes to elite. I start an irrigation path to the south, though I have to go over a mine for the best route.

(IT) another Russian galley appears from the south? I blockade part of the coast where reassault would be tough.

(9) 570 BC - I kill the fortified shield in the newly founded Russian city of Kazan with my elite sword, but somehow there is another regular shield there (unfortified)!?! Does the AI get a bonus defender for each city in Sid? Where did that bum come from? I decide to take a chance and go at him with my other regular sword, otherwise I have to delay founding our new city for a few turns waiting for the elite sword to heal. By that time Russia could have more defenders. I attack and win, raze and promote! First blood is mine! :evil:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LOTRGM2.jpg

(IT) Russia lands two horses from that Galley. Archers advance on Haarlem. The aztecs get the Knights of templar. I have to look to see what that is, not good for us. Hittites start Sissy.

(10) 550 BC - Delft founded. Kill Russian horses with two swords. Kill Aztec longbow with sword.

Notes - I left units in Haarlem with movement so next player (Sky?) can decide to what to do. If we attack there is a I archer reassault, but we could cover with a spear. If we defend it is reg archers vs. fortified vet and reg spear with an archer too. Your choice. We are so far behind in tech I don't know what to say... We may get swamped no matter what we do.

the save
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-550BC.zip

current situation
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LOTRGM1.jpg

Great turns Gothmog !
Here the news aint good :sad: I spent 3 hours biking all over Amsterdam to find a copy of C3C but it appears Atari totally messed up the release and shops dont have it and have no clue when they will...
In the UK the release has been delayed to Nov21st...this does not bode well, since we use the UK version here in Holland.
I will order tonite from the internet where they state 2 to 4 working days delivery : hoping its real and not just based on that phantom release date of the 14th.
:mad:

I'm going to await further news from Sky. I can't play until tomorrow night at the earliest, anyway, and I want to see what news there is by then. If the 21st or 4-6 working days is more likely, I'd like to skip him for one more round, so we can keep this thing moving.

Gothmog -- good looking turns. Getting out from the dogpile is the first step towards catching up in techs. One thing at a time.

Arathorn

I might get to this tonight (but Tuesday might be more likely), unless Skyfish can come in with good news.

Arathorn

No good news yet, more info in a few hours though...

I tried to get on last night and take my turn, but the forums were down both times I tried. I'd rather Skyfish take his turn now, but I don't want to wait too long either. Hopefully in 12 hours all this will be sorted out. If I do take a turn, whenever Skyfish gets his game, he will be slotted into the rotation.

Arathorn

OK, we're at the bottom of a Sid dogpile; we're quite a ways behind in tech, and things are looking great! First decision is, do I attack 3 vs. 1.1 and 2 vs. 1.1 and then defend 2.2 vs 2 or defend 3.3 vs. 2 twice? (e.g. attack two archers with sword and archer, covered by spears or let the archers attack fortified spears?) I think the latter gives better odds, so no attacks in the south (Haarlem) immediately. Mongols offer peace for the low-low price of 160. Since they're not an immediate threat, I decline for now. And only one archer attacks Haarlem, giving us a promotion.

(1) 530 - Archer vs. archer -- we lose 4 hps and win. Sword vs. archer -- we lose 3 hps and win. Close by it works.

(I) Aztecs come offering peace for 120 gold. Before I decline, I make note of the fact that they have 4860 gold and weep.

(2) 510 - Kille Ottoman archer by Bolu in the frozen north. I want to either take or raze/replace that city before we're done with the Ottomans. It's gotta have a resource, I'm thinking. Portugal has 3 galleys near Rotterdam and we have very VERY few troops in the area. Instead of waiting for them to land and making peace more expensive, I do it now for only 140 gold. Down to 6 foes. I could get Horseback Riding for 215 of our 277 gold, but I pass for now.

(I) Russia's turn to offer peace -- but they want 180 gold for it. "No way! We're going to crush you first!"

(3) 490 - Bolu has a longbow...sigh. It first-strikes our attacking sword, but we win anyway and kill the spear. Second sword does no damage to a spear and we can't take the city, so I retreat for now. Sword kills a Russian archer in the west.

(I) Spain sink s a curragh. Russia sends 36 units out of Krasnayorsk, seen by one of our curraghs. How many troops do they have??? Ottoman longbow finishes off wounded sword near Bolu.

(4) 470 - Kill Russian archer by Tver' -- once we raze that city, I think it will be time for peace with Cathy. Kill Russian spear by Groningen (from galley) but lose a vet sword attacking a regular warrior. Ouch. On the plus side, Russia is already willing to take peace straight up. But I don't yet.

(I) Nada.

(5) 450 - Kill that blasted Russian warrior by Groningen. Rotterdam starts a settler -- we will want to settle the north and Bolu might be razed instead of captured. Anyway, it keeps the growth nice and utilizes Rotterdam's strength. We're doing OK militarily right now and are ready to start thinking about considering doing more than "not losing" right now.

(I) Nil.

(6) 430 - Battle for Tver'. Elite sword kills spear. Vet sword kills spear. And that's it? Raze the city (which was size 5), netting only one slave? Bummer. Settler nearly in position to replace it. This might be an OK city if/when we raze the Aztec city just to its north.

Peace negotiations with Russia reveal that Bryansk, north of Tver''s ruins, almost certainly has a resource, as it's out-of-the-question to acquire, while other cities aren't. But now is not the time for us to go after it -- maybe in 20 turns. Instead, I just pay 66 gold for peace with Russia. Oh, and we get Mathematics, too. 'Pults can help with casualty rates. Why can't I trade wine to Russia now? Hmm.... Anyway, down to 5 foes.

(I) Little.

(7) 410 - Kill 2 Otto longbows by Bulo. Now I can give wines to Russia. Wines and 51 gold to Russia for Horseback Riding -- I want troops that can kill and retreat, if necessary.

(I) Aztec longbow kills a sword (they have roads and I couldn't get our troops to safety yet. Aztecs complete Leonardo's. Ottomans cascade to and complete Knights Templar. Othes cascade to Sistine.

(8) 390 - Kill Ottoman warrior by Haarlem, but the southern front has been pretty quiet most of my turns. Lose sword attacking Aztec longbow. What's up with my battle luck lately??? I've had more 3 and 4 attack troops lose to 1 defense units in C3C than I've lost in a long time. Anyway, the second sword kills the offending longbow. Another sword kills a longbow. Beda founded on Tver''s ruins, with 2 wheat in its radius.

(I) Ottomans complete Sistine. Aztecs parade about 6 boats past Haarlem naer to Delft, which is undefended.

(9) 370 - Kill Ottoman longbow by Bolu. As much as I want to raze the Aztec city north of Beda, I fear their boats. Sign peace for 100 gold. Only 4 foes left. Move troops to Delft, too, because of Ottoman ship nearby.

(I) Ottomans land horse/archer by Delft. I can attack with a vet sword and vet warrior. Hope its enough.

(10) 350 - Vet sword retreats horse (attacked with the sword first because the archer will get a first strike attack and I want to win both times -- winning once isn't good enough). Vet warrior doesn't scratch archer, so Delft is doomed. Troops are gathering by Bolu in the north.

Suggestions to next leader:
- Abandon Delft, but switch Arhelm to settler to reclaim the spot after we remove the Ottoman interlopers.
- After Bolu (I'd probably keep, not raze), make peace with Ottomans.
- Spain didn't have Republic last I checked. If our min run completes and she still doesn't, make sure to trade.

Good luck!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/lotr10-350bc.zip

Arathorn

Looks like a great set of turns Arathorn. We should be able to regroup and hit the Russians pretty hard in the next 20-30 turns and have a nice piece of land to sow. I expect the AI will be involved in some pretty vicious wars in the near future, so hopefully we'll be able to catch up a bit in tech. What does the order look like now?

Well, the order is:

Skyfish -- UP whenever he gets the game

Bam-Bam -- UP NOW
Speaker -- ON DECK

I know at least one AI-AI war is going on -- I saw units fighting "Not us"....I thought I'd written it in my notes, but it was pretty late last night, so I guess I didn't... Spain vs. Portugal, I think. Embassies, just to know the war situation, might be a reasonably good plan.

My thoughts on goals:

Short-term: (10-20 turns)
- Finish getting out of the dogpile, but getting Bolu in the process.
- Finish filling in the north with cities.

Mid-term: (15-30 turns)
- Revolt to Republic
- War with Russia to capture the west
- Hold the southern checkpoint (Haarlem) strongly

Long-term: (???)
- Gain control of our entire continent
- Catch up in tech (pointy-stick and stealing is my thought at this point)
- Survive and thrive

Arathorn

I see it, but will not get to the game before tomorrow night (eastern time US). I just returned from a business trip and am up in both my SGs.

UPDATE: Earliest I can play is tomorrow night. My wife decreed that the office had to be cleaned, so I was only able to get to one of my SGs. Skyfish--if you get the game in the next 18 hours--feel free to play. I will have time tomorrow.

The game has finally arrived in Holland !
However I am on a business trip around Europe and can not play before Monday night (If all goes well...)
I hate having to make you guys wait so long so if you want please skip me or slot me in later...Apologies again :sad:

Good News, Skyfish!

@all--my turns will be up this evening. Hopefully, I can complete the extrication from the dogpile (fitting, since I started it) :p

YAY! [dance][party] The team is complete.

Roster:
Bam-Bam -- PLAYING NOW
Speaker -- ON DECK if he can play and post by Sunday evening our time
Skyfish -- after either Speaker or Bam-Bam
Reagan (or Speaker if he didn't play before Skyfish)
Gothmog
Arathorn

and then we'll keep that roster order for a while.

Arathorn

Looks like a great game here! :)

Can someone tell me what the P in PRNG means please? :blush:

"PRNG" = PseudoRNG

hehe :D

Pre-turn 350 BC

Move the worker to safety and abandon Delft. Could send wines to Monte for mysticism, 2gpt and 7g, but the trade route looks too risky.

IT: Lose a warrior to the archer by Delft. Ottomans start Cops.

330 BC (1)

Northern mini-SOD advances on Bolu, taking out a longbow. One sword avenges our warrior, while another kills the 1hp Ottoman horse, promoting to elite.

IT: Aztecs start Cops.

310 BC (2)

Battle for Bolu:

Vet Sword takes longbow bombard (miss) and wins vs. reg spear 3-1
vet sword vs. reg spear loses 0-4 and promotes the spear
vet sword vs. vet spear wins 4-3
vet (3/4) sword vs. reg longbow wins 3-1 and Bolu is ours!

Take Ottoman peace for a 39g discount on mysticism. Peace and myst for peace and 140g. Three opponents. We can trade wines to the Aztecs or Ottomans. Hmm --both routes go through Russian waters. .Wines to Osman for ivory and 150g. Not worth risking a rep hit here. Lux can now go to 10%. Buy currency from Portugal for 14gpt and 326g (cheapest) to get the marketplaces going.

IT: Monte establishes an embassy. Hittites building cops.

290 BC (3)

Quiet. First catapult completes.

270 BC (4)

Lose a warrior to a Mongol archer exploring.

IT: Ottomans are building Bach's.

250 BC (5)

Make peace with Hittites for 80g. This opens up trade--Mursillis has dyes for trade. Two opponents.

230BC (6)

Found Leiden up north by the fish. Buy peace from Mongols for 80g. One opponent.

210 BC (7)

Settler heading for the ruins of Delft.

190 BC (8)

zzz

170 BC (9)

Haarlam finishes walls.

IT: Spain pulls the Aztecs into the Spanish--Ottoman war. Aztecs are building Bach. Aztecs pull in the Hittites against Osman.

150 BC (10)

Amsterdam's market completes--starts on a temple (vetoable).

Some thoughts:

(1) Trade for tech: The trade route with the Hittites looks stable. Probably worth sending wines there to get a discount on poly or construction. We can trade horses with Monte, but that route is less stable (runs through Russian waters). May be worth a gamble to get into the middle ages.

(2) The One: Spain, our original opponent, will take peace for 120g.

(3) Builds: I have still been building horses to prepare for future russian war to the west after we get knights/cav. Rotterdam needs MM attention for increased settler production. I only built one and a worker there. Rotterdam should spam settlers until all the land is claimed.

(4) Nota Bene: The worker is on the forest by Rotterdam to road it for more commerce and to start a route to the northern fishing villages. There are workers to the northwest covered by a sword bringing water to our two-wheat city.

And then there was one (http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-150BC.zip)

Good luck to Speaker/Skyfish!! I have not done any serious MM the last turn or two--feel free to veto as necessary--I've got thick skin. :p :D :lol:

Nice turns LotR10 players. I felt this one had some life left in it. :)

I can't get it until tomorrow EST, so Sky, feel free to jump ahead of me if you can.

I'm back in town, glad to see that things are going well. As well as can be expected, the uncertainty is great.

Well I was too optimistic :sad:
The game is not in Holland yet but its in the mail between the US and my home...Should get it in the coming few days...Sorry again

I could have sent it from the UK Sky! That is next day in europe...

In that case, I got it, will play later today.

I'm going to be away from home for a week. I'll have I-net access but no C3C access during that time. Please skip me until December 1.

IT- If our trade route to Otto gets broken, we will take a rep hit, having taken 150g from him. Give Spain 120g for peace and we have finally escaped the dogpile.:goodjob: No need to risk another dogpile over such a relatively trivial sum. Well, the original 8g was even more trivial, but let's at least learn to keep our income positive when we are nearly broke in the future, just in case. :p

Looks like we have lost our war happiness and now require a raise in luxury tax, or....

Wines plus 1gpt to Spain for Silks and Furs.

Copernicus' Observatory is being constructed by Ottomans, Hittites, and Aztecs, so that means Astronomy is out there (meaning trade routes can go through sea squares). Hittite route is totally safe, as is Russian. Portuguese cities threaten the Aztec route and Russian cities the Ottoman route. This means we cannot declare war on Russia until our Ottoman deal expires.

Aztecs get Horses for Spices and 18gpt, which shouldn't dent her treasury which already has 10293 gold in it!

Russia then gets our only Iron and 1gpt for Polytheism and Construction (since we will be building horses for our future war with her) and we are now into the Medieval Age. All the other Civs are up 6 visible techs, including optional Literature, Monarchy, and Republic (which we'll have in 10 turns), but for some reason the Mongols are back with us, only up Literature, Monarchy, and Monotheism. Wines and all our gpt (57) are close to getting Engineering from the Hittites, but we'll just have to wait.

Slight mm change at Amsterdam to try to get a horseman with growth in 2 turns. Scientist is now at Bolu, can't remember where he was before.

Finally hit enter...

130BC (1): Eindhoven Horseman => Horseman.

IT- Ottomans build Copernicus in Edrine. Ottomans have both the Statue of Zeus and the Knights Templar along with Sistine and Sun Tzu? Uh, look out Cathy.

110BC (2): Establish embassy in Moscow for 55 gold. Moscow is size 7 with 0 growth, making 15spt, protected by 2 pikes and 9(!) spears, along with an archer and 'pult. Russia has 4 luxuries, is running 60% tax and 40% science and Moscow has all possible improvements. A university is due in 1.

Establish embassy in Hattusas (Hittites) for 65 gold, size 11 making 5fpt and 16spt. It is protected by 7 pikes and has all improvements. Hittites have 2 luxuries and are running 70% tax and 30% science.

Establish embassy in Lisbon for 47 gold. Lisbon is size 3, making 2fpt and 7spt. It is protected by 4 shields and a 'pult, with a settler and curragh inside. Portugal has no iron and only 2 luxuries and Lisbon is missing some infrastructure. Portugal is running 70% tax and 30% science.

AI wars we can see:
Hittites-Ottomans
Portuguese-Mongols
Aztecs-Ottomans

AI alliances we can see:
Portugal-Ottoman vs. Mongol
Aztec-Hittites vs. Ottoman

MM Rotterdam for an extra shield and Amsterdam for an extra food.

IT- JS Bach is being built around the world.

90BC (3): Notice the GPT bug in effect. Well, at least the AI is benefiting from it too, so it's not really an exploit. Arnhem Spear => Spear. Utrecht Horseman => Horseman. Found Den Helder in the southern most ruins because it will have more good tiles to work initially. Starts temple, vetoable. Amsterdam is MM to a horseman every 2 turns, with the Hague helping out.

70BC (4): Gronigen Barracks => Spearman (vetoable). Osman establishes an embassy in our capital.

Build an embassy in Madrid, size 12, making 7spt way over irrigated. Madrid is protected by 6 pikes along with 2 'pults and has most infrastructure. Spanish have 5 luxuries and are 60/40 tax/sci. I don't waste my money on the final embassy because we can ascertain the Mongolian status from the rest of the embassies. Spain is at peace with all.

IT- Russia and Aztecs sign alliance vs Ottomans, but trade route to Ottomans is still in tact somehow.

50BC(5): Nothing much.

IT- Hittite Knights ride in the north. Portugal and Ottomans sign alliance vs Aztecs and vs Hittites.

30BC (6): The Hague Market => Aqueduct.

10BC (7): The Hague Settler => Settler. Amsterdam continues to pump out horsemen. Russia tries to bring a settler/spear pain into our land but I block them with horses. Two cities have been founded in the north, one each by Portugal and the Aztecs. Wines deal expires with Russia, and I wait to extend it until we get Republic, to see what kind of deals I can leverage.

IT- Settler/spear pair turns back. Ottomans finish JS Bach in Istanbul.

10AD (8): Scientist switches to Haarlem, who requires a scientist to be happy until we can get a road to it.

IT- Portugal demands wines and I think long and hard about it before teling him to stick it. He is already involved in a bunch of wars and doesn't have time to deal with a small fry like us. Thankfully he agrees.

30AD (9): MM Rotterdam for growth. Getting ready for next turn which will be a big one.

IT- Spain and Ottomans sign alliance vs. Aztecs.

50AD (10): Republic comes in from min sci. Start Feudalism for now. Arnhem Spearman => Market. Found Harlingen in the north, filling in space. Not exactly a great spot, but there aren't many left here.

SO UNFAIR. Somehow the Mongols have developed the Republic, Engineering, and Feudalism in the last turn, with no treasury or resources to trade and no alliances made. This is a major bummer and leaves us with no trade opportunities. I was hoping to catch us up by at least 3 techs here.

Pissed off, I'll pass off here. Amsterdam should build the Horseman with growth next turn, and switching to Republic should help us big time.

Conclusion- Well, at least we have a big treasury and the AI is fighting. And no one is in the Industrial Age yet.

AI Wars
Spain: Aztecs
Portugal: Hittites, Mongols, Aztecs
Russia: Ottomans
Aztec: Spain, Portugal, Ottomans
Hittites: Portugal, Ottomans
Ottomans: Hittites, Russia, Aztecs
Mongols: Portugal

Good Luck (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-50AD.zip)

OK I got it !

:D

I suggest we revolt first and then go to war with Russia : is everybody OK with that ?

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Arathorn

All looks good of course. Excuse the :smoke: guys these are my first ever turns, didn't even have time to have a few practice rounds.

I perform quite some (partial)whips mainly for acqueducts/temples/harbours, we will jump into Anarchy next round and we can get pop back up fast in Republic .

We have a huge FP issue in all these games : what are we gonna do about the FP guys ?

I go to F1 and revolt! We draw 7 turns of anarchy :( Welcome to C3C Sky :cry:
However no need for any taxmen, only 2 fishing villages are unhappy.. We make 6gpt.

IBT :
Acqueduct completes in Utrecht, Den Haag Eindhoven, Temple in Maastricht, Harbor in Leiden.

70AD : Mongols and Aztecs sign vs Spain.

90AD : A deal ends we make 22gpt.
I go looking for a deal and the Hittites can gives us Literature+Worker for Wines+45g.
I dont see the trading route being a danger so I do it (the next best deal was Lit for Wines +7gpt)

110AD : Ottos renew the deal Ivory vs Wines for only 10g extra ..but then I see a Carrack !

130AD : Portugal and Ottoman sign vs Russia :interesting ! Russia starts Magellan

150AD : Aztec & Portugal sign peace SPain & Ottos sign vs Russia.

170AD : We come out of Republic and make...71gpt. Nice :) There is no tech deal anywhere though, the cheapest tech is all our treasury 740g + 35gpt for Engineering :vomit:

190AD : The Aztcs have now 16620g (no typo!) this can only be a bug in the program sorry but this is borken...

210AD : A few civs can sell map, I shop around and the Russians are teh cheapest, I buy their WM for ours+175g.
We now see the whole word except the Ottos who cant sell maps yet.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-WM.jpg

230AD : Pop is on the rise everywhere, we need to go up to 10% luxes, we are still at 66gpt though.

250AD : Mongols and Russia sign vs Ottomans, Hittites sign peace with Portugal.
I sell our map for whatever we can get, teh aztecs pay 20g for it :)
Was going to move troops in Russia to start the war but I dont want to wreck our reputation, I leave the units unfortified.
(remember CB1 Arathorn ? ;) )

Also since the deals with Russia are finished, the Iron is available to trade if you want to do that I will let you handle
it.
Aztecs have now 20000 gold sorry but this is broken...and it affects us and the other AIs.

Now the good news in this game is this :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10-carrack.jpg

As long as they keep beating each other we still have a chance..

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LotR10,_250_AD.zip

Wow. That's some nasty gold bug with the Aztecs! :(

Well played Skyfish.

We definitely have extra problems with the gold bug and the FP "fix". Gotta hope that the AI stays at war and no one comes out on top. Continents should help that. At least it looks like we will be able to conquer the land north of the isthmus pretty easily, and there isn't really a dominant AI to the south (yet).

Any victory will be a good one in this game, we should take a hard look at diplo - though getting the UN will be tough.

Reagan's up AFAIK.

Most of the Aztec gold gain was from gpt deals from other civs. Their gold gains drop dramatically when you ally all the other civs against them (I played with the save and tried this out).

They did have another source though. Tourism? Capturing cities? The turn I checked they were at 100% science and gained slightly in cash. The amount of gold from the Oracle looked impressive. I certainly couldn't count them. Seems hard to believe it was enough to support their whole empire maintenance though.

I'm without C3C access for several more days (See post #97). Please don't forget to skip me this round. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

That makes Gothmog UP NOW. Sorry I'm a bit at a lack for InterNet access myself, so I can't really keep up on rosters. I should be back golden soon, hopefully tomorrow.

Arathorn

OK, I didn't look back to see that we were skipping Reagan this turn. Got it, but may not get to play until tomorrow night.

:hmm: just looked over the game and noticed that the aztecs have a longbow in our territory, they also happen to need Iron and will give us feudalism and a bit more for it (best deal on our Iron by far). I know it is a bit dastardly :evil: but I am thinking about doing the trade and them asking the longbow to leave. If he leaves, the deal is still good for us. If he declares war we get feudalism and our Iron back. He is already at war with Oz and Izzy and his cities on our continent aren't that powerful. The big risk is another dogpile, but only the Hittites really scare me and I could probably get a RoP with them. That combined with the Wine we give them might dissuade him (though the Aztecs have piles of Gold). Plus we would have feudalism and be on our way towards Chiv...

So what do y'all think?

Otherwise we can go at Russia with our horses, give the Aztecs Iron for feudalism and hope. We could still end up at the bottom of a dogpile in that scenario.

Nothing wrong with demanding that they leave, after trading. In general, unless they're on a sneak-attack vector, they'll just leave, but it's certainly worth doing...like you said, iron for Feudalism is a good deal for us anyway.

Arathorn

Watch out that the trade route to Hittites goes through one Aztec coast tile no ? (cant open the save to verify)

Thats Aztec city on our continent is a much better site than any Russian cities, however I am scared of their huge treasure :scared:

The Portugese declared on us in the last dogpile despite an ongoing trade deal. With the big ol' pile of gold the Aztecs have, they can entice a lot of civs to jump on us. That said, if the trade route to the Hittites is secure without going through Aztec territory, I'm open to the Aztec trade/demand approach Gothmog proposes.

I believe trade routs can now go through sea tiles. Not sure if that is applicable without looking at the map, but it's something to think about. With what technology can trade routes go through ocean tiles?

Navigation and/or Magnetism.

Preturn – Hittites have two knights in our north. Aztec longbow next to our capital?

I think over the trade and demand issue… It does look to me like our trade rout travels south along the coast through Aztec land, I am not sure about all of the rules surrounding trade through sea tiles but I know we can’t travel their safely yet. I also don’t know who has Navigation and/or Magnetism, so I decide that Iron for Feudalism+130 gold is a good deal anyway. When our deal with the Hittites expires we could try the demand rout with the Aztecs, as we will want to capture their cities on our part of this continent anyway.

I move our troops towards Russia, no need to declare and capture those workers this turn. They are building a mine on a mountain and will be there for me.

(IT) Renew Wine for Silk+Furs with Spain, have to kick in 2 gpt + 5 g up from 1 gpt. Spain and Otto MA vs. the Hittites, Otto starts Shakes.

(1) 260 AD – movement.

(IT) Hittite knights enter our territory, I looked into an RP but they want us to pay a few gpt. A spear leaves Magadan (the city I am targeting as the first Russian casualty). Aztec call up and want to ally vs. Spain.

(2) 270 AD – War vs. Russians begins – worker capture, regular musket in Magadan?

(IT) Spain and Mongols make peace.

(3) 280 AD – Attack on Magadan: horse vs. musket retreat no damage, 2nd horse retreat 1 damage, 3rd horse kills musket, 4th horse vs. spear retreat 1 damage, 5th horse kills spear. We capture Magadan for 5 gold and harbor intact. Good retreat luck on that one!

(IT) Longbow emerges from Bryansium and attacks a horse, which retreats. Spain starts Magellan’s.

(4) 290 AD – Kill Russian longbow, spot two more. Kill them too.

(IT) I see a couple Russian galleys entering cities. :(

(5) 300 AD – movement

(IT) Lose a sword to a Russian longbow.

(6) 310 AD – Kill Russian longbow. More troop movement.

(IT) Aztec and Russia MA vs. Portugal (Aztecs declare on Portugal). Nice that Cathy doesn’t consider us as much of a threat. Russia lands a spear and two longbow near our capital.

(7) 320 AD – Attack on Bryansium: horse vs. spear retreat 1 damage, 2nd horse dies 1 damage, 3rd horse kills spear and promotes (my first), 4th kills unfortified spear, longbow left on top. I kill the Russian invaders near the capital and get another promotion.

(IT) Mongols call up and offer monarchy for 1290 gold (we can buy about any tech for gold now but I want to extort them from Russia). Russian longbow kills a sword outside our next target, Khabarousk. A spear settler pair leaves Khabarousk. Russia lands a 2/4 knight (?) and two longbows near Magadan.

(8) 330 AD – Attack on Khabarousk: Sword vs. (reg) Musket dies 1 damage, 2nd sword kills musket, horse kills reg pike, horse kills longbow (and sinks a galley) and Khabarousk is ours. That went well, I have 4 more horses ready to attack.
Horse dies on fleeing spear, horse kills fleeing spear. Attack on Bryansium: horse kills whipped shield, horse kills longbow – ours.

(IT) Russian knight and 2 longbows move off mountain away from somewhat vulnerable Magadan, onto a hill towards my main force outside of Khabarousk. :smoke:
Aztec cancels spices deal, I renew for a few less gpt.

(9) 340 AD – attack Russian knight, lose a horse but then kill knight with second horse. I then lose another horse to a longbow before taking them out.

(IT) Aztecs and Spain come to peace. Aztecs start Shakes.

(10) 350 AD – Eindhoren goes to unrest with 3 happy and 3 unhappy citizens? Is this something new to Conquests? Horse dies attacking Russian longbow, horse kills longbow.

Notes – once we take that last Russian city we should be able to get some techs from them, that will be good. Then we probably want a limited war with the Aztecs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LOTR10_350AD.zip

I believe that makes me up. I got it.

The AI is building Shakespeare and we have only achieved one Medieval techs yet. Is that right? BTW, maps require Navigation, which allows trade through ocean squares, so everybody but the Ottomans are/were very safe to trade with. We know that much. And only one side in the trade needs to have the route open.

We have a very long ways to go in this game. Has Newton been started? That pretty much pre-sages a huge cascade into the Industrial Age and I hate fighting rifles with horses and swords.

Thoughts on how to procede? My initial inclination is to finish the war against Russia, hopefully getting a tech or two for peace. Unless things have changed dramatically, though, we're still really short on infra. I would vote for using our saved cash to hurry markets and courthouses (maybe aqueducts/granaries, too) to look to increase our long-term potential. The next sets of techs (engineering, monotheism, education, invention) don't offer us much (except the ability to plant trees) that we can use, so this might be a good time to power up our profits, to make the best use of our cash -- invest now so we can spend more later.

Other opinions?

War with Aztecs for a city or two might be a good option, too, but it will depend on the state of our military at the end of the action vs. Russia. And I truly fear facing cavs/rifles with spears/horses.

Arathorn

After playing my turns I did a test of the trade route, if we had declared war on the Aztecs (during my preturn) our trade route to the Hittites would have been broken. So there is something wrong with your analysis above Arathorn, though I don't know what.

I did not get a message about Newtons.

I did start some infrastructure during my turns, but didn't do much rushing (I did a little though). As I note we have enough cash to buy a tech straight up now.

The war with Russia is almost over, they just have the one little city left to capture and we have enough forces around to get the job done in the first half of your turns. More logistics than anything else, be aware of possible drop off's by Russia on our west coast. I captured two cities and razed one so we should be able to get a couple techs for peace.

I was thinking we would get monotheism and engineering for peace, then we would be in a position to buy Chivalry if necessary to fight the Aztecs. Though I tend to think we could take their 2 or 3 cities in 'our' territory without Knights.

Also check out Eindhoren, it went into disorder with 3 happy and 3 unhappy faces, what up with that? I did not MM it on turn 350, so do you leave it be at 3/3? or will it continue in disorder and possibly take out a building?

The Hittites don't have a harbor? That's about the only thing I can conclude....our trade route might go through an Aztec harbor to get to the Hittites. The AI is notoriously bad about building harbors -- just like it is about connecting resources/luxes and the like. That's my current best guess.

I see no benefit in Chivalry. It's an optional tech and if we're forced into too much fighting in the near future, I think MDI/swiss mercs/trebuchets will be our salvation, not knights. I want to catch up on required techs, getting valuable things like Banking ASAP. The only optional medieval tech I am interested in is military tradition. That may change if 2fers/3fers open up, but, right now, I am interested in the long-term catch-up game.

Arathorn

Glad you did not go after the Aztecs Gothmog, looks like my doubts were justified ;)

I also don’t know who has Navigation and/or Magnetism

Sorry I was not more explicit in my report, you could have checked who can sell us World Map : those civs then have Navigation. Of course some could have Magnetism and no Navigation but there is no way of knowing that anyway.

I had this great report all written and when I tried to save it, it crashed my machine, taking not only the latest version, but corrupting all saved versions of it as well. It was a great tale of the highs and lows of this turn. I'll recap briefly, as I have no heart to try to write it again.

Capture the last Russian city on "our" land with no losses. Only get about a 200 gold rebate on Engineering out of it, though, as Cathy fears us not. Late in my turn, one of our conquests flipped to Russia, despite having been starved. Only one garrison spear lost.

Moved on to Aztecs, who declared on us, possibly to get out of a 15 gpt deal they were giving us. Anyway, razed their city in the west for big cash (like 660 gold) and was moving on the one in the north when it started spitting out riflemen.

We've killed one @ a loss of a sword (30 shields for us, 32 shields for the AI -- painful trade) and now have 16 units next to their city, hoping to stop the rifle production and claim the northern part of our island from the Aztecs.

There's been some activity in the south, but our swords and spear have so far been successful. A couple horses recently arrived and that front is stable for now.

Our gpt went from 60ish to over 100 on my turns. Losing some troops against the Aztecs in the north should increase that even more.

I picked up Engineering, Monotheism, and Theology, mostly by trading away luxes and our only iron. The AI civs are mostly definitely in the Industrial Age and Shakespeare has already been completed, with Smith's and Newton's keeping the cascade alive currently. I was aiming for banking to help our cash situation.

Hittites allied against us, too, so we have two foes, although I've not seen a single Hittite troop since the alliance. Just might be a foe we have to pay to get free of. Just be warned I'm using "war happiness" to keep our citizens in line, so be wary of peace.

Good luck with 16 on 2. I had hoped to lure a rifle into attacking a swiss merc for a GA, but I failed on that score. We only have one swiss merc, as unit costs were killing us and I traded away our iron for a huge discount on Theology.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr10-450ad.zip

Arathorn

Got it. Spears/swords/horses vs. rifles. Yay. Prepare for the "charge of the not-so-able brigade". At least there are only two rifles to kill. :lol:

Let's see if I can get us up to banking. We sure need a boost to the economy.


Since there hasn't been a roster in a while....

Arathorn (just played)
Bam-Bam (UP)
Speaker (ON DECK)
Skyfish
Reagan
Gothmog

:saiyan: Lost my report as I was trying to save it, so that I could reboot the PC and get online (my DSL modem software is more fickle than Scarlett O'Hara).

Early: Take Aztec city to the north at great loss, no leaders, but the Aztecs had moved a rifle OUT of the city on to the mountain :smoke: and then decided to attack--for this result

http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-ga.jpg

This happened in the 2nd interturn.

After sighting a nice 15 longbow Aztec SoD (with rifle and musket support), I pay Monte 140g for peace. I then make peace with the Hittites for a 326g discount on education (40gpt and 326g), then buy banking from the Hittites (they were at war with 5 civs at the time) for 105gpt and 399g, This opens up trades with the Mongols and Portugal for astronomy and invention--with us paying gpt each time. Income was as low as 21gpt for a turn or two.

The great bank building started, and several should complete in the first few turns for Speaker. The Hittites are taking advantage of the gpt bug, and have bought all but us and Spain against Portugal. There are 2fers available, but we cannot buy any of the optional techs to trade to the Mongols for gunpowder.

We are now up to about 65gpt net, with 189gpt going to other civs.

Sid's Vicious (http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-550AD.zip)

Arathorn
Bam-Bam (just played)
Speaker (UP)
Skyfish (ON DECK)
Reagan
Gothmog

Good luck, Speaker! Sorry that I lost the details of the report, but I think I got most of the important points. I have a few taxmen in cities until banks and/or happiness builds complete. Several cities just shook off the effects of the whip.

Got it.

I'll be out of action between Dec 7th and the 14th. It is possible I can play on the night of the 14th, though I doubt it. I'll check in first thing on the 15th, for sure. This is my last trip until Feb.

Thanks for the reminder, Gothmog. We'll skip you until the 15th -- probably one round. Hopefully, we'll still be around by the 15th, but I wouldn't be TOO terribly surprised to see the AI's launch in less than those 80 turns. Hopefully, Communism/Fascism and wars can slow even the Sid AIs down.

Good luck, Speaker. Looks like a definite time to crank markets/banks/courthouses/aqueducts. Don't be afraid to disband some old regular troops. With upkeep costs 2 gpt in Republic, we really don't want to be over our allowance unless we have to be for a current/pending war. And upgrading costs more now. I disbanded some regular warriors on my turn. Pretty much any reg troops might well be disbanded, so we have a chance of getting our income as high as possible....

Arathorn

IT- I hope report losing isn't a trend. :p I would like to starve Tepexpan to remove any chance of flipping, so we can disband some military there.

Trade Horses, 65gpt, and 145 gold to the Aztecs for Gunpowder. We have no saltpeter. Banks finishing in the next few turns will improve our income again. All the AI have chemistry.

Mongols and Russia sign MA against the Aztecs. Spain builds Smith's in Murcia.

560AD (1): Disband one warrior and replace him with a horseman.

570AD (2): Portugal is walking a few units around our territory and I am feeling a bit antsy about it. The Portugese city on our continent has been razed. Leiden switches to a Settler and I rush it for 60 gold to fill in the space before someone else does. several cities have hit their happiness limit without another luxury or a cathedral. Renew Wines-Ivory deal with Ottomans, getting them to throw in 1gpt.

580AD (3): Disband a warrior. Settler moves toward open spot in the north. Ottoman city of Istanbul is size 16, meaning the AI is well into the IA. Actually no, this is the new Shakespeare's theater in effect. I see no other cities over size 12. Wow, what a great wonder this is now!

IT- Mongols sign peace with Portugal, even though Portugal has only a few cities left. :smoke:

590AD (4): Nothing much happens here.

600AD (5): Hittites are moving several units near our territory. I think they are chasing the Portuguese, but I'm not sure. I hope they're not after us because um, we have no military. I'm tempted to make them leave or declare war to recover 145gpt, but we would likely lose a couple cities with nothing able to destroy Knights up there. We have an extra wines to trade, but nothing to get for it at the moment.

IT- Hittites and Aztecs sign MA against the Mongols. Ottomans declare war on the Hittites.

610AD (6): Wow, Caravel's get 5 movement for us Seafaring folk. There's an unclaimed iron in the south that we could grab.

620AD (7): Amsterdam could build Spearmen to replace warriors and horsemen as mp, but really, what's the point? They would get trounced by any unit out there anyways, so Amsterdam goes on wealth.

IT- Hittites kill Portuguese units. Aztecs offer MA against Russia and RoP.

630AD (8): Rush settler in Haarlem to put on the waiting Caravel. Disband a warrior.

Iron/Horses deal with Portugal expires and I can use them to get a discount on Chemistry, but our GA will expire soon. I think it's worth the risk. We have a bunch of deals expiring in 6 turns and some banks finishing before then, so I expect we'll be ok. The deal is Iron, Horses, 74gpt, and 80 gold for Chemistry. Jackpot! Neither the Portuguese nor the Mongols have Physics or Metallurgy. We have no money at the moment, but hopefully can pull a two-fer soon.

640AD (9): Finally found Zwolle in a spot I don't love. I would have preferred one tile north, but the Hittites wouldn't move their worker from the spot and I did not want to wait any longer. Mongols and Portuguese now have Physics.

650AD (10): Some minor troop shuffling.

Conclusion- I'm not sure exactly what I got done here. I got us a couple techs, although I paid full price for them. It looks like there may be some future two-fer opportunities. I would avoid spending any money until our GA runs out. A trade deal with Spain has expired, feel free to renew if you want. Our core is mostly done with banks and moving on to cathedrals so they can grow, although a luxury would work better. Any project that finished this turn was left to my successor to choose. Good luck Sky!

Sid (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-650AD.zip)

We're digging out of the hole, slowly but slowly. (not a typo) GA production was great. Using the iron and horses for trades ASAP is instrumental in trading them as many times as possible. We have little choice with techs at this point...pay full last-civ price or try to steal. Neither is particularly appealing. We just have to keep on pushing and hope eventually we get some good luck and/or something turns our way. At least the game isn't over yet.

Skyfish -- UP NOW

Arathorn

Got it !

OK we shell out 328gpt to other civs, make 4gpt and are in Golden Age with 0% lux or science :lol:
That "coming out of GA" is gonna be great...
Ottomans have 47499gold, this is just sick :vomit:

Hittites have Dyes but wont part with it.
Aztecs have 2 available luxes, we need to dish out all our cash (230) and a free wine but it s worth it.
Spain refuses to renew the deal we had of 2 luxes against one of course. We will see next turn
we have specialist in all our core cities, it s an even greater waste in GA.
At this high a cost I wonder if doing our own research is not going to be recommended very soon, after Cath and
Banks we might want to go for Libs..

MMing with the new lux we get up to 9 gpt. We get 172gpt back in 4 turns.

press enter

Russia and Hittites sign vs the Mongols. Hittites request we leave their territory.
Spanish cancel our lux deal, I can only salvage one lux (for wines) and get 82g on top. Re-arrange all cities
to take into account the lux loss, we still made 9gpt this turn, all the small bits are worse grabbing, we now have
money to run a deficit until the big money comes back.

660AD : Increase lux to get more production, it s our last GA turn I suspect :sad:

Aztec and Spain sign peace.
Russia and Spain sign peace
GA ends
We run a 137gpt with 10g in the bank. We lose our barracks in Rotterdam and Groningen riots. Thats all

670AD : Arnhem Bank-> wealth (temporarily)
Maastricht Bank-> wealth (temporarily)
We are now at 113gpt deficit and -68gpt at 0% lux.
I re-arrange all the tiles to gof for commerce losing production but we can only get down to -59gpt.
We'll have to see which building we lose, we are not purposely exploiting this bug (it would have been nice
to fix it in C3C though)

Spain signs peace again with Hittites this time, they must have Steam Power or Nationalism and thus get out of the
dog pile they were in...
We lose the Temple in Maastricht.A worker got disbanded.

680A: Nothing much to do, our caravel is heading Ironbound south.

Hittite and Portugal sign Peace.
Ottoman starts Universal Suffrage.

We lose the granary in Rotterdam and a worker, of course it had to be the one that was in our caravel :rolleyes:
The deals end we make 68gpt with 10% lux and after reworking all the tiles again !

690AD : There is indeed a 2fer available but I cant buy it.

Hittites want our Territory Map, they have units inside our territory so I agree, they also want to renew our Peace deal
but refuse to give us anything for it of course.

700AD : Even at 110gpt now I can t afford either Physics or Mettalurgy for a 2fer :( Our settler and elite spear land on Hittite land
in teh south next to the Iron, we can t settle on the Iron as it is on mountain and might lose it to a flip but no matter.

Ottomans and Russia sign peace, Aztecs and Portugal sign peace everybody smoking :smoke: here and they getting all peaceful now :cry:

710AD : Gouda is founded next to Iron.

720AD : Portugal and Mongol still do not have Metallurgy ! But we are only close to get Metallurgy from Spain
Everybody has physics...so we can afford it for all our economy 346g and 125gpt

Mongol and Russia sign peace.

730AD : still no deal...

740AD : 2 Cath complete and Libs are started.

Hittites and Aztecs sign vs Russia : way to go guys !
Ottoman frigates bombard Hittie Knights in our territor, Watch out guys ! :eek:

750AD : Our caravel is just busting fog in the SOuth. We now have enough money for a 2fer deal !
But I'll let that honour to my follower :D

Good luck !

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/William_of_the_Dutch,_750_AD.zip

346 gold + 125 gpt is 2846 gold, which should be roughly double the cost to steal the tech. If we can indeed twofer it (and I'm not convinced we'll have anywhere near enough cash to do the back-end of the twofer. It appears that in C3C the AIs value techs as its cost to the purchaser, not as its cost to the human, which makes 2fers from behind much harder to do), it's worth paying the extra total cost, but at some point, we may need to be stealing the first tech in a twofer effort.

Specialists in our core? Well, that might not be too bad. If the citizen were working the land, he might be providing 2 food, 1 shield, and 2 commerce. If the pop is maxed, and the shield doesn't help, plus markets/banks aren't finished, we're losing next-to-nothing from the specialist.

Roster:
Reagan -- UP NOW
Gothmog -- skipped until 15th
Arathorn -- ON DECK
Bam-Bam
Speaker
Skyfish

I think my next effort on Sid will wait until after a patch.

Arathorn

I think my next effort on Sid will wait until after a patch.

You bet !

About the specialists, oh they werent that bad of course, we only have one city maxed on pop but a another lux was even better ;)

I'm very sorry to disturb u on this game but i have a few questions, i wud be happy if you would answer (some of) em :)

1.) On the 1st page, i saw some screenshots and I wondered
- How to see the powergraph in the same screen ur playing in (in mid-game)
-Your textures of the tiles differ from mine, where to download these?

And last 1 (for now :D)

-In a screenshot of the 7th page, cities were called by their name, and behind it was the nation the city belongs to (e.g. Tenochtitlan(Aztecs), I only get the names of the city (Tenochtitlan). How do I get the nationname behind it?

thnx in advance,

Kirbz (a noob who's playing on warlord :P)

How do I get the nationname behind it?

In the Main Menu, go to Preferences tick Colourblind Help ;)

The powergraph I think that was a Photoshop or in your game
try F8 and then at the bottom choose "Power"...

Originally posted by Kirbsta
1.) On the 1st page, i saw some screenshots and I wondered
- How to see the powergraph in the same screen ur playing in (in mid-game)
-Your textures of the tiles differ from mine, where to download these?
I actually used Paint Shop Pro and pasted the power graph into the picture of our map.

Tile graphics can be found in the Creation & Customization forum here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=46).

I see it but won't get to play until Thursday night or Friday.

I've played three turns so far. We can trade our last horses for 33gpt from the Aztecs. Is there some reason we haven't capitalized on that deal? A potential 2-fer is out there now due to the Mongols' acquisition of Magnetism. Any cash we can get will put us that much closer to tech catch-up. The only downside I can see is that the Aztecs have saltpeter and would be able to build cavs. With their Sid-enhanced production capabilities, though, they could still spit out enough iron-based units to put us in a world of hurt if they came after us, so the downside risk seems minimal.

I say definitely go for it. We won't be using the horses any time soon (we can't afford the unit upkeep!), and we have to use every possible advantage we can. With the appalling state of our military, we could hardly repel any real invasion, Cavalry, Knight or otherwise. I mean, I was frightened to death by the appearance of 4 Hittite Knights just 15 turns ago....

The reason the deal was left open was precisely to leave it for help with a 2fer ! Go for it :D

We don't have the income to support a 2-fer quite yet, but we should when some deals expire in a few turns. In the meantime, I'll make the horses deal to stash some cash away for future trades.

(0) 750 – Eindhoven’s spare horse awakes and begins a trek to defend undefended Enschede. We might want to think about not chumming the water and attracting the AI sharks. Some of Tepexpan’s horsies awake and start a journey towards the middle of our core in case those Hittite soldiers decide to play naughty. Fire Groningen’s taxman for a gain of two food and no lost income. Haarlem gets a taxman to stave off a riot. Various MM techniques speed some growth, shave some turns, and make our civ a bit more efficient. 154gpt+WM+12gp gets us Metallurgy from Spain. Metallurgy+234gp+WM gets us Physics from Portugal. Metallurgy to the Mongols gets us all their gold (204gp) and Economics. There are no 2-fer opportunities, obviously.

(1) 760 – Arnhem: temple->granary. WM trading nets us 18gp (75% boost to our net income).

(2) 770 – Mongols and Aztecs make peace. Enschede: temple->harbor. Tepexpan: harbor->market. Our palace gets a yard. Wines+5gp get us Ivory+11gpt from the Ottomans.

(3) 780 – Lauwersoog: temple->market. Harlingen: market->duct. Gouda: worker->harbor. Trade horses to Aztecs for 33gpt.

(4) 790 – Amsterdam: library->university.

(5) 800 – Utrecht: cathedral->granary.

(6) 810 – Hague: library->university. Enschede: harbor->courthouse. Novo: temple->harbor.

(7) 820 – Hittites and Ottomans make peace. Middelburg: courthouse->duct.

(8) 830 – Russia and Portugal make peace. Groningen: temple->granary. Arnhem: granary->library. Bolu: temple->duct. Our 2-fer opportunity has dried up for the moment, unfortunately. We need Portugal to acquire a required tech so we can trade for the other one. In the meantime, we renew our iron deal with Portugal in exchange for 493gp (he has no gpt and is the highest bidder).

(9) 840 – Russia and Aztecs make peace. Maastricht: library->university.

(10) 850 – Rotterdam: library->university. Eindhoven: library->courthouse. Wines+5gp get us Silks+5gpt from Spain. Wines+145gp get us Spices from Monty.

Keep an eye on Portugal and jump on the next 2-fer chance we get. Have fun!

Sidd Finch (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-850AD.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr10850ad.JPG

Why are we spending so many shields and so much gpt on libraries and universities? Are we really thinking we're ever going to be doing our own research? It's already cheaper, in terms of pure gold, to steal than to buy and research is going to be even more expensive than that!

As it is, we're spending 80 shields and 2 gpt for each library -- for what purpose? We're not researching and I can see no foreseeable circumstances that have us researching. WHY?

Anyway, I got it. I'll see what I can do. But unless I hear very compelling reasons, I'm not only going to stop all libraries and universities in progress, I'm going to sell the ones we already have. What a waste! We can't afford to throw away hundreds and hundreds of gold.

Arathorn

(0) 850 - OK...it's gonna be a long pre-turn. I can feel it coming already. We have 1960 gold and an income of 182 gpt before I get started. Let's see what happens....

Exploring around, I see...Universal Sufferage underway in a number of nations, but nobody's completed it yet. That's good. Nobody's running away with population or with land area.

We're at 49 units with 45 allowed. We're paying 8 gpt. That's not bad at all. Under the old Republic rules, we'd've been paying 49 gpt, so we're ahead of that game...right now...as long as we don't get attacked. I doubt that 49 units (16 of whom are workers) will inspire much fear in our foes.

I sell many libraries. We were losing quite a bit of gpt on these. They are never going to do us any good. University/library builds are changed to courthouses/banks/units to move shields from one place to another. Wealth was changed in C3C, too, from 8 shields/1 gold and 4 shield/1 gold (pre- and post- Economics) to 4/1 and 2/1 respectively, so it's actually a reasonable thought at this point. No cities are put on wealth, yet, but it's worth considering.

Why wasn't a temple rushed in Gouda like right away? We're losing lots of squares we don't have to. And then a harbor to actually get some iron home? Wasteful, wasteful, wasteful.

I rush a number of temples in high-fliprisk areas. A few other important buildings like courthouse and aqueduct get rushed a couple of places.

Checking prices on steals vs. buying techs, I wonder why we've bought any of the first halfs of twofers in a long time. We can steal for ~2K and buying a tech costs roughly 5K. Even if we fail in the steal, as long as we don't get warred upon, we're good to go. I'll be building up cash.

Portugal offers 5 gpt, 20 gold, and WM for horses. I debate, but I decide against this, as Portugal might be a twofer partner, is in danger of not surviving 20 turns, and isn't really paying full price for the horses.

Only two wars going on right now. Hittites are fighting Mongols and Russia. That's it. That's very disappointing. Our hope really lies in the AI civs beating each other to death while we catch up.

Governments are very spread out, though. Aztecs are in Fascism. Hittites Monarchy. Mongols and Russia Republic. Portugal Democracy. And Ottomans Communism. How very interesting.

After my spending sprees, we're down to 916 gold and 187 gpt. The latter number should perk up as some of my efforts come to fruition, however.

(I) Aztecs declared war on the Hittites. Goodie! More confrontations are good for us, as long as nobody comes too far out on top. Magadan is captured/flips to Aztecs, too. That's odd. Anyway... I'm hoping the Aztecs and Hittites can do some razing in the south to open up room for us down there. I'm going to get a settler or two ready, as insurance.

Haha! After Gouda builds its temple, its borders expand slightly and we now have two railed squares under our control. But Steam Power is still a ways in our future.

(1) 860 - Little of note. Prevent a riot here, short-rush a building there. Portugal's still down the same 2 required techs we are.

(I) Spain wants MPP, RoP, and 5 gpt from us. Since I'm not interesting in participating in her wars, I have to pass.

Dang! Ottomans and Spanish start ToE. We're going to be even further behind in tech real soon now.

(2) 870 - Almost nada. Not building up much cash but our gpt is increasing a fair bit, which should help in the long run. My goal is 3K cash and 300 gpt at the end of my 10 turns, in the IA, but that might be impossible.

(I) Ottomans offer similar deal as Spain but with us kicking in 7 gpt. I again decline. Aztecs and Hittites join ToE parade. Not much differentiation between the tech leaders -- almost assuredly a by-product of the gpt bug flooding too much cash into the system.

(3) 880 - Got iron to play with again. Does anybody need it? Russia does, but 100 gold and WM does not a deal make. So, nothing happens.

(I) Ottoman ships that had been hanging out in our territory forever decide to start moving.

(4) 890 - Not much to do until we have more cash.

(I) Russians want an alliance against the Hittites so much they're willing to offer a RoP with it. :lol: Nothing doing, Cathy.

(5) 900 - Just nothing to do. Hopefully Portugal will get a required tech soon for a 2fer, but we might have to move without Henry.

(I) Watch Hittites die.

(6) 910 - YAWN! There's an opening on "our" southern continent with saltpeter. I consider signing a RoP with Aztecs to get there faster, but our settler and theoretical defender aren't close enough yet to make it an issue.

(I) Hittites/Mongols sign peace. See Aztec infantry.

(7) 920 - Isn't Sid supposed to be exciting?

(I) Aztecs capture Tosontsengel down by Gouda. I was hoping they'd raze it. With their relative culture roughly 20 times ours, I fear for Gouda's future.

(8) 930 - Standard diplo checks. Approaching 2K gold, but I'm still spending some on improving our economy.

(9) 940 - Pay WM and 111 gold to Aztecs for RoP. This should help them move through our area a bit faster AND get us a city by some saltpeter on the southern continent. But nothing interesting to do.

(10) 950 - Not much to do. Income is way back up. A deal must've ended. Save up cash for a steal and hopefully a 2fer with Portugal.

Settler/spear pair, I had intended for one SE of their current location. It's on a river, minimal overlap, has saltpeter first ring, and looks good to me.

With our income well over 400 gpt, we should be able to steal every 5th turn or so, safely (from Russia first, because they're least strong and therefore have cheapest steal rates AND are the least threat to wipe us off the map if we're detected). Ideally, we could 2fer with Portugal, but Henry seems to be getting left in the dust. Steam Power is obviously first priority in IA, with Industrialization and Replaceable Parts coming soon thereafter. If/when 2fers become available again, we'll want to do that. For now, though, catch-up is the order of the day.

Roster:
Arathorn -- just played
Bam-Bam -- UP NOW
Speaker -- ON DECK
Skyfish
Reagan
Gothmog

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr10-950ad.zip

Arathorn

Got it. Should be able to play this evening (Saturday), after I tear myself away from GalCiv.

Sorry for the late notice folks--I have to ask for a skip. The missus has taken over the computer for xmas card production. Woe is he who wants to use this machine for games in the next day or so!

That means:

Speaker -- UP NOW
Skyfish -- ON DECK

Arathorn

I'm back. Things look about as I would have expected. Seeing Magadan not in our possession still pains me.

Playing Sid without any benefits from a FP (we never built one right?), and the gpt bug is pretty rough. But we persevere, with any luck we'll play catch up right up till the big launch.

Got it. Might be a day or two before I can play though.

I'm really sorry to have to do this, but there is no way I will have time to play this before I go home for winter break on Sunday. Please skip me.

Gothmog could you grab it for me please ? Seems I only played 2 turns ago ! I can switch with you or play after you....if it s OK with the guvnor ;)

Since I was the original requester of the skip, I will take up the game. The Chistmas card peril is no more. Got it--will play tonight.

Roster (I think):
Arathorn -- just played
Bam-Bam -- UP NOW
Speaker -- skipped 'til Sunday or later (swap with Skyfish, maybe?)
Skyfish -- ON DECK (just go with the flow, man...)
Reagan
Gothmog -- BACK for sure

Arathorn

Heh, I was not awake at 1:45am to see your message Skyfish but it's just as well. My civ computer's hard drive has gone a bit buggy and civ is not stable atm. I need to reinstall, but have been quite busy since returning from my trip (my 'honeydo' list is quite long and my kids are all over me). I should have it all under control by the weekend.

Inherited Turn 950 AD

Pre-flight checks ok. We can steal, but there is no 2fer, since Portugal is the only civ besides us not in the IA. They lack Mag, MilTrad, and ToG

Bursa completes ToE :eek:. A volcano erupts on Mongol lands.

960 AD (1)

Amsterdam swiss merc--swiss merc. Settler pair moves SE into position. Careful steal from Russia gets us Magnetism.

970 AD (2)

Dordrecht founded at Arathorn's recommended spot. There are some more locations opening up with razed cities--will try to get some settlers into position. Argh--Portugal was researching mag--my choice of the steal lost the 2fer. :mad:

980 AD (3)

Amsterdam merc--wealth. Harlingen duct--granery. Rush court in Breda and harbor in Gouda.

990 AD (4)

Gronigen harbor--cathedral. Breda courthouse--market. Gouda harbor--catherdral for culture. I know the library is cheaper, but we will be in more need of happiness than research in this backwater. BTW, why are we mining tundra--foresting gives an extra shield for the same food and commerce (of course-that extra shield is likely to be lost to corruption :rolleyes: ).

IT: Salonika (ottoman) completes US.

1000 AD (5)

Arnhem cathedral--wealth. Time for another steal.--this time we fail, and Cathy declares on us! Rush temple in Dordrecht.

IT: Ottomans declare on Aztecs.

1010 AD (6)

Dodrecht temple--worker. Tilburg temple--court. I have been upgrading a few mercs--just in case. Also switch some weath to trebuchets or longbows--we do not have anything to fend off even a halfhearted AI landing. We have 49 units with 52 allowed.

IT: Hittites and Aztec sign peace.

1020 AD (7)

Blockade Aztecs at the choke. Rush court in Enschede.

IT: Spot Ottoman destroyers--looks like ToE is doing them a load of good.

1030 AD (8)

Rotterdam cathedral--trebuchet. Enschede court--market. Cathy's still sore at us.

1040 AD (9)

Amsterdam longbow--longbow. Arnhem longbow--longbow.

1050 AD (10)

The Hague longbow--horse. Utrecht trebuchet--trebuchet. Maastricht trebuchet--trebuchet. Get a palace expansion (what, for surviving this long :lol: ). I saw a Russian galleon coming around to our northern cities (bypassing Khabarvsk??). Troops should be kept up that way, if there were any troops :lol: . Cathy will talk, and will give us a discount on ToG (1815g--which is about the cost of a careful steal).

So...peace and 1815g for ToG, and we are FINALLY in the industrial age.! [dance]

THE 2fer IS NOW POSSIBLE!!!. Everyone is up the three visable techs, EXCEPT the Mongols, who lack steam power. [dance]. Of course, we lack the cash right now for a steal, but that should be corrected in a couple of turns. I suggest that we stick with the steal plan--the AIs want over 250gpt and 750g for steam power, and Russia is so pissed that even iron doesn't get us a decent discount.

I suggest letting the current military builds complete, and then start skimming workers--we do NOT have enough for the massive railing (assuming we have coal :lol: ).

Sid's Vicious? (http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1050AD.zip)

Good Luck, Skyfish!

Skyfish <=== UP
Reagan <=== ON DECK

I was mining tundra that had already been chopped -- trying to clarify where it was of no use to plant and chop again. Once rails come along, mined/railed tundra is as good as forested tundra. I should've mentioned that.

Arathorn

OK--makes sense. Probably a good idea for SGs. In solo games, I try to keep to a pattern of chopping/reforesting so I do not lose track--and I USUALLY have enough workers that a few lost turns do not matter. That isn't the case here.

Hopefully, if we get that 2fer with the Mongols, we will start to see the rest of the AI not so bunched up on tech--opening up more 2fers. Based on them getting the ToE, and also US, I suspect the Ottomans are starting to pull away from the field. Not good, since they will also get a boost in the modern age from their free tech--not to mention more possibilities of SGLs. With all the wars, I suspect that an AI diplomatic victory will likely not happen.

We might just see the modern age--right about the time the AI launches. :lol:

What about preparing ourselves for a limited war to "acquire" the UN in the hopes of achieving a diplo victory?

That's one of the the reasons I was building trebuchets (no salt for cannons yet). Artillery would be an essential element to that assault team.

Realistically, we DO have a chance to catch up on tech. Lots of AI warring (a couple of more wars broke out on my terms), the land formation (few credible threats if we get caught stealing), and lack of variant rules for diplomacy (where other LotR series games ran into trouble). While I am not certain that we can achieve complete parity with the leader by the end of the IA, we should be pretty darn close. We have a strong economy before stock exchanges/commercial docks (which will be cheaper for us IIRC), so that should get even better--allowing more steals/2fer buying opportunity.

Got it !

Got it !

Aztec want 8gpt for on top of our Spice-Wine deal.
Ottomans start the Hoover Dam :(

1060Ad : Mongols have all first level techs :vomit:

1070 AD : We lose the 5gpt we were making our lux deal with Spain, now it s a straight swap.
The Ottomans want to exchange TM for 2g I say yes just to keep them happy (they are "annoyed" :sad:)
They do not have rails in their territory :eek: One of C3Cs great ressource distribution again.
There could be lots of money for coal if we had some :mwaha:
I go on building units for later upgrades even though they are so expensive now...

I buy an embassy with Mongols (in Democracy), they have coal.
Aztecs & Hittites are Fascist [eek]
Russia, Portugal & Spain are in Democracy
Ottomans are communists

1080AD : This happens
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-Steal.jpg

We just have enough for a careful steal I go to Russia and...
we succeed !
We have one coal, not super but better than none ! It will take a while to connect though.
The units we can build are really outdated and I seriously doubt we will be able to upgrade them, we were buildings loads of longbow, ew are just over our Unit allowance and I want to keep it at that level in order to make at least
400gpt, I turn a few big cities to wealth, the increased value of wealth makes it worht it. We do not have enough workers but still
have hardly any size 12 cities...

1090AD : Aztecs extorts us 21g + TM ...

1110AD : I start some granaries in a attempt to get some more or less worker factories temporariliy running.
I start a Library in our Salt city in Aztec land, just for the culture.
The volcano in the north by the Mongol city of Mugla "turns active"...

1120AD : The ports come knocking for ToG ahving them Industrial could help us in 2fers we never know, so I exchange ToG for Navigation plus all their money (87g).
Mongols are trailing in techs so 2fers are available with them...Electricity is also only partially available (Russia lacks it *and* Iron!) so I would steal that one so a 3fer could be available

1030AD : We have an Iron Works city :D Not too badly corrupt.
The Ottomans reach the 100K gold :rolleyes: but they are not prepared to give us more than 935g for our *only* coal ! :mad:
this is really bad...
Same story with Spain at 25K gold, our coal does not even reach 900g...
We have right enough gold for a careful steal and I choose Spain because they look weaker and that Russia does not have Electricity...
Unbelievably we succeed !
Industrialization is extremely expensive I hesitate a lot and then decide that we have been quite lucky with steals until now the
next one might be fatal. So I decide to dent our economy in order to perform a 3fer (maybe a bit more ;) )
So here it goes : Electricity, Iron, our only horse and 105gpt to Russia for industrialization
Electricity and Indus to Mongols for Medicine, Mil Trad, Printing Press 11g (all their money) and WM.
Nationalism is just way too expensive right now...
I go to Portugal and get Democracy, Monarchy, Music Theory plus all their Money for Steam and Medicine ( I lost my notes about that deal sorry...). There are 2 fers/3fers available with Russia and Mongol for our next stolen tech (if we succeed)
Change all our core cities to Factories.

1050AD : Osman does not want to renew the lux deal where he pays us 11gpt, we can only get 168g, nobody is accepting our gpt anymore...

Aztecs want 100g for renewing our RoP, do we really need it ? Next leader can decide...
We now have Salpeter from our Aztec city.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/William_of_the_Dutch,_1150_AD.zip

(0) 1150 - Wake Gouda’s sleeping worker and order him to rail the iron mountain (additional bombardment protection, if necessary). MM Amsterdam to shave a turn off our factory, same with Utrecht, Hague (six! turns shaved), swap Groningen to factory, Tepexpan gets more production because it can’t grow any further at the moment (cuts marketplace build time in half). Why are we RRing a hill when we could RR two mined grassland squares for the same price?! They’re too far along to stop now. Renew our horses deal with Aztecs for 572gp+worker (they have no gpt). The Aztec RoP is not needed any longer because we got our settler through their territory during the last RoP. Coal is simply too valuable to trade away for the small amount we’d receive for it. The AI should be programmed to pay more for coal, at least until they complete railroads on their productive squares.

(1) 1160 - :sleep:

(2) 1170 – Russia tries, and fails, to plant a spy. We now have a six-worker RR crew by Rotterdam, which can RR flatland squares in one turn.

(3) 1180 – Ottos complete Hoover. :eek: We have three RR crews now.

(4) 1190 – Russia has SciMeth now. We have enough for a careful steal (to get RP), which fails. Fortunately, we avoid detection.

(5) 1200 - Aztecs take Mugla, which frees all cultural pressure from Khabarovsk.

(6) 1210 – Ottos raze Magadan. I move a longbow within one tile of the rubble, with the hope of staking our claim to it. Our fourth (and final) RR crew is formed. Russia now has RP but still lacks Corp.

(7) 1220 – Kathy boots our longbow, which is no biggie because the Otto troops remain on the rubble square.

(8) 1230 – Swap Khabarovsk to settler. Bah – Russia has Corp now, too. Mongols have RP.

(9) 1240 – Hittites and Russia are now at peace. I decline the Ottos’ offer of MPP and RoP. Spain starts the countdown to our demise by beginning construction of the UN. :cry:

(10) 1250 – Spain declares war against the Aztecs. Amsterdam: factory->coal plant.

We’ve got most of the mined flatlands RRed now. I started mining/RRing irrigated lands in size-12 cities. Four factories and the iron works will complete during the next six turns. We’ll also have enough to try another steal very soon. The longbow on the rubble is there simply for blocking purposes. I recommend settling where the other longbow is, so we’ll have full cultural control after the borders of the new city expand. Have fun!

edit: :rolleyes: The upload feature isn't cooperating, so I'll post a pic and the save later this afternoon.

Solid turns, guys. Not sure what we can do to go faster, with the extreme price of techs from the AI and the painful gpt bug. Sigh.

Anyway,

Gothmog -- UP NOW (as soon as upload folder works)
Arathorn -- skipped until 12/29
Bam-Bam -- ON DECK
Speaker
Skyfish
Reagan

Really bad news about UN being built. Have any of the AIs behaved honorably enough to win a vote, though? I tend to doubt it, so myabe they'll have to do the full space race.

Corporation, for stock exchanges and Wall Street, has to be a fairly high priority for us. I think stealing and then paying for the 2fer/3fer is the way to go, now that we're caught up enough to do that a bit.

Good luck all! I'll be gone for over a week -- hope to access the web but definitely no Civ3 chances. I'll be back closer to 2004.

Arathorn

P.S. As regards patching, do whatever the team thinks is best. I'd tentatively vote for playing it out the way it started, but I don't really care much....

Let's just play it out. We'll patch for Scouting Sid II (which I assume will be starting soon).

Agree on playing this one out. It would be nice if we can scratch, claw, bite, steal, and kick our way into the modern age before the AI launches.

Sid Caesar (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1250AD.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr101250ad.JPG

Got it, will scratch, claw, bite, steal, and kick... ?

Actually I don't think I'll be doing any biting or kicking, but I will claw, steal, and generally finagle for all I'm worth.

Hopefully no AI will win the vote, it's been good for us that there has been no uber AI in this game. We'll just keep on keeping on.

Damn, I left my notes at home. Well here is what I remember.

Did a bit of MM, mostly swaping to food/commerce tiles where builds wouldn't be slowed. I also swapped Lauwersoog to courthouse as it was at 1spt building a market, but nearby some cities that were doing OK with a market. This proved to be a good move as it is now at 5 spt with the courthouse. I also swapped to workers in a couple cities.

Early on Russia demanded 100g+TM. I caved mostly because they are our steal target and we don't have spy's. The next turn I did a safe steal, but Russia declared war on us. Feh.

I founded a city on the rubble in Russian territory in our Far East.

I watched the Aztec get a leader from a reassault on an Otto rifleman.

Gouda got hit with propoganda twice during my turns.

Many factories and coal plants are complete (also Iron Works), cities near 30 spt started creating more defenders and ones with more production got put on Wealth.

Otto started the UN.

My attention lapsed and I forgot to rush a granary in some city in our north west, we lost a half full box due to my mistake. Sorry, I had to play this set in about 5 sittings.

In the IT after turn 9 Russia landed a guerilla and a longbow in our North East. On my last turn I built rail access to the square and attacked with a longbow. He beat the guerilla hands down. Then I attacked the longbow with an elite horse, he won and we got a leader. I left him unmoved for the next person (Bam-Bam) to figure out what to do with him. I guess save him in case we get lucky and have a wonder opportunity?

Russia wouldn't respnd to my entreaties at any time during my turns. Steals are much more expensive from other Civ's (like 1000g more expensive). Probably worth our while to make peace with Russia and try to steal from them again. You might use excess cash to ruch some buildings (we have about 2000 now + 350 gpt).

That's about it, I'll check my notes tonight and post if there is anything else important (I doubt it).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1300AD.zip

Remember no rushing great wonders with GLs in C3C. :) You can rush small wonders though.

Not that we're going to win anyway, but if we're going to try an assault on the UN city (once it's built) we might want to use the leader to build an army to fill with infantry (when we get 'em) to fortify our landing. Just a thought . . . .

Got it.

Leader will be used for a future beachhead army.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope the holiday finds you and your family well.

Sorry folks--Holidays have induced various maladies into the household--so I have to beg off this round.

Got it.

IT- Abel Tasman is returned to Amsterdam. I turn off the luxury tax, which requires hiring 1 taxman in our size 12 cities, but gives us an extra 30gpt. Eindhoven switches from an unnecessary cannon to wealth, gaining 20gpt. Rotterdam switches to wealth as well, since I see no real reason to build any more Swiss Mercenaries. Utrecht does as well. We are now making 458gpt. Unless I am grossly underestimating the Russians, I don't think they can threaten us. Aztecs will trade 13gpt (26 with doubling bug) for horses and I take the income. I trade Electricity to Portugal for Free Artistry, Chivalry, 30 gold, and 10gpt partially for the income and hoping an opportunity for a two-fer will open up.

*hit enter*

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Lotr10-1305AD.jpg
All hell breaks loose.
15 Cavalry
25 Infantry
2 Guerillas
3 Riflemen

1305AD (1): I consider a huge gpt deal with the Aztecs to protect against a sneak attack, but finally see two Ottoman units near the Aztec city of Mugla in our northwest. So I buy Scientific Method from them for 260gpt and then send it with 51gpt to the Mongols for the Corporation. Stock Exchanges ordered in all our cities producing wealth and in several cities producing factories which have less use.

IT- And it turns out that's where the stack is heading. A bit of overkill for two units methinks. Russia lands 2 guerrilas and 2 riflemen next to Khabarovsk, which is protected by a single horseman. :eek:

1310AD (2): I wake up all of our workers from tasks they are performing (clearing pollution, building rails, etc), and hope there are enough to build rails to Khabarovsk. And we have just barely enough to rail 3 tiles away. I am able to muster up a garrison of 5 Swiss Mercenaries, 3 longbowmen, 5 trebuckets, and 3 horsemen. The Mongols somehow picked up 2 techs this turn. There's a two-fer available, but we cannot afford it.

IT- Somehow we manage to kill a rifleman and a guerrila and only lose a single Swiss Mercenary. The Ottoman units have been killed and the Aztecs begin to run back home.

1315AD (3): 'Buckets bombard the Rifle down to 2hp, matching the guerrila. I don't dare attack yet, since they are on a mountain.

IT- They move off the mountain, onto the hills. And drop off two more guerrilas and one rifleman.

1320AD (4): I should have done this last turn, but I rush city walls for 60 gold. 'Buckets bombard the original Rifle and Guerrila to 1 hp. A pair of longbowmen take out the redlined enemy.

IT- Mongols declare war on the Spanish. Guerilla takes out our exposed Longbowman. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do to save him. But they do not attack the city. Spain builds the Manhatten Project in Toledo.

1325AD (5): Walls are built, so Khabarovsk should be safe now. Railnet now includes Haarlem.

IT- The units start to head toward our mainland.

1330AD (6): 3 Stock Exchanges finish and we are now making 131gpt. I start 3 cavalry units for a little more protection. Bombard the enemy further.

IT- They retreat back to Russian soil (they have a couple tiles poking unto our continent.

1335AD (7): Longbow takes out the rifleman. Longbow takes out a guerrila. Longbow takes out the last guerrila and we are safe for now.

1340AD (8): Several stock exchanges and a couple banks finish and we are up to 269gpt (and with the three Cavalry done we go back on wealth). We could potentially make a huge trade, but Atomic Theory is hugely expensive.

IT- Ottomans and Aztecs sign peace. Montezuma demands 100gold and our TM and I cave.

1345AD (9): Arnhem finishes its factory and starts Wall Street. Russia will finally talk and will give 125 gold for peace and I take it.

1350AD (10): I would love to attempt a steal for Atomic Theory, but most of the world is in Facism, so I don't dare risk it. Renew our Wines-Spices deal with the Aztecs and they whine an extra 2gpt out of us.

Conclusion- Watch out, our Silks-Wines deal with Spain runs out next turn. We have the number 1 GNP in the world! Uh, at least that's something to cling to. Good luck to the next player.

Stalking Sid (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1350AD.zip)

Looking "good" (as good as can be expected, considering the circumstances):

Roster:
Skyfish -- UP NOW
Reagan -- ON DECK
Gothmog
Arathorn
Bam-Bam
Speaker

According to F8, how close are the AI civs to launching? Who has the most parts complete and how many? We need to keep racing for tech as fast as we can. Thank goodness the Aztecs didn't throw that stack at us! While we might be able to absorb/defeat it, it would completely cripple us.

Arathorn

As far as I can tell, only three Civs are in the Modern Age--Spain, Aztecs, and Ottomans. Portugal is more backward than us, and the Mongols, Hittites, and Russians lack Atomic Theory, which means they also lack Electronics, Radio, and Motorized Transport. I don't imagine that Spain, the Aztecs, and Ottomans have progressed too far in the Modern Age, since they are in Facism and Communism. Maybe if we could build up enough uber-bombers we could take the UN city.

Heh, the Swiss Merc's were for our totally unprotected cities and the cannon to help destroy Russian guerillas/rifles. But looks like you did fine without. Glad that the Aztecs didn't come at us.

The new year's feast goes on, am up in RBC1 as well...
Got it.

I played through half the turns but could not play today because of Samuel's 2nd birthday : we have visits all day long ! ;)
Sorry I should be ready tomorrow !

Skyfish--Congrats on Samuel's B-day! :bday:

1355 : renew silk for wine deal

1360 : mongols want 100g + TM , we give in Ottos declare on russia
Spain is a good target for steals even though they are the only polite civ towards us, we have enough money and nothing to lose : I go for a safe steal and succeed :D
I take Atomic theory. We want Espionnage dont we ? well we need Nationalism for that...
With the Hittites who alledgedly are Commercial, AT does not even get me Rep parts, or Steel, or Refining :argh:
Same with Russians.

So first to Portugal : Indust, Sci Meth, WM, 1300g +49gpt for Nationalism :crazyeyes:
Then I want some money back : sell them The corporation for Sanitation + 457g
Mongols : sell AT for Rep parts +627g (all they have) one more tech would cost us all our gpt (aro 275), they also refuse
to pay us 1 single gpt.
Russians : sell AT for Espionnage +210g (all they have), they refuse to pay 1gpt on top


Back to Portugal : sell Rep parts for all their gold (831) + 25gpt
Now only the Hittites (and Portugal but they have nothing left) dont have AT : getting Steel or Refining is
costing us all our gold (2150g) PLUS 80gpt on top of AT : too pricey sorry. I'd rather build some money up and train some spies ASAP rather than giving all this money to the AI.
So I sell AT to Hittites for all their gold (791) plus all their gpt (28)
All the big guys have Electronics of course.
Net result : for around 1700g we got Sanitation, Atomic Theory, Rep Parts, Nationalism, Espionnage and aro 25gpt.
No way I am taking risks anymore in this round...
Switch core cities from wealth to Hospitals. Min Sci set on Electronics.

1365 : Bang! Thats it ! our target is Uskudar -> the Ottos build United Nations !
Spanish switch to SETI.
The Ottos are really hurting the Russians, maybe we can make a big gpt deal with them soon ;)

1370 : I mm our IronWorks city to get more shields, railing some hills in the core to get more shields, rush Libs in our Aztecs colonies for culture.
Spain and Hittites lack coal AND rubber ! Russians lack Horses, Iron, Salpeter,Coal and Rubber :lol:
the Ottos still have not made any more progress vs them though...

1375 : Ooops the hittites are cooking something am sure about it, the price they are willing to pay for rubber is just going down everyturn and stacks of transports have shown up near our waters, our southern colonies are being watched by SoDs of Cavs as well :sad:
This not good, I need to take insurance : I upgrade all our Swiss Mercs (13) to Infantries and a few Spears too. It blows our treasury of aro. 3000g but this is needed because... I sell Rubber + 197gpt to Hittites for Steel !
Our economy is wrecked but will strongly recover in 6 turns when we get 310gpt back.

1380 : The Hittites SoDs move back to their waters :o
Most hospitals complete, Wall St completes and we start Intelligence Agency.
MM around for growth. Playing around with Civil Engineers : they can really help in mid-corrupt towns, the bank in Enschede
(who was employing a tax collector) goes from 42 turns to 25 Courthouse in Tilburg goes from 29 turns to 6 with 2 of them (its at size 12) Breda Marketplace from 18 to 8 :)

Notice that there are NO mpps at all in this game !


1385 : Just as I type that the Ottos and Spain sign an MPP
Ottos declare on Mongols
Spains declares on Russians
Ottos declares on Aztecs
:eek:
[dance]

1395 : With bigger cites we need more lux the only one available is from Mongolia for 500g+16gpt, I buy it. We have no clowns employed anymore.

1400: I have to renegotiate the Ivory deal to Ottos and have to pay 10gpt now.
Aztecs are in Modern Age : there seems to be no progress on any
war fronts, no losses of cities by anyone.

In 2 turns we get 310gpt back plus we will not need coal or Iron soon as our whole land will RRed...maybe an opportunity there. Spain and Hittites are still not roaded !

With everybody Fascist or Communist and some major war going on between the big guys we still have a fighting chance COME ON !

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1400_AD.zip

Nice work Skyfish! :goodjob: I think we have a reasonable shot of making it into the modern age! Who'da thunk it?

I see it, but may not get to it for a day or two.

Reagan -- UP NOW
Gothmog -- ON DECK
Arathorn -- waiting his chance

Now that the holidays are over, let's try to keep this one on a bit faster of a pace, OK?

Nice turns, Skyfish. We're making good progress on techs at this point. Having the IA and the ability to steal while at war will be a nice benefit. We definitely want Espionage.

A number of infantry is also a good sign. SOME defense against the wolves of the world (i.e. everybody but us) in the form of infantry is also nice.

I see two avenues for us to try to win this game.

Choice 1:
UN! Diplo. Build approximately 100 bombers and get them into position to strike Uskudar, while simultaneously fielding a unit or 10 in the neighborhood. Take Uskudar, pillage all the roads leading to it (also probably with bombers), maybe even plant forests to slow movement, and hope to hold it long enough to get a vote.

This will require getting to Flight and maybe the tech for carriers as well, depending on where, exactly, Uskudar is (I've not looked at the save file since Skyfish's turns), plus building TONS of military units, primarily to defend Uskudar once we have it.

Choice 2:
Space Race. Test out and see if the AI has gotten much better at getting into space. This should also make for a pretty long game and the longer the game goes, the more the human advantage of intelligence comes into play. They changed some of the techs required for certain SS parts (I don't remember the exact details off-hand), so it should last even longer than before.

This will require a zillion techs and continual stealing, 2fering/3fering, and continuing on the minimal troops but maximal income route. We might well consider getting Communism, too, for police stations, which will help with income in a number of places.


We've another turn or two before we need to make this decision, but once we have Flight, we'll need to decide whether to build a couple bombers and fighters for protection or start a horde for attacking the UN city.

What does the team want?

Arathorn

Good play from Sky as always.

The Diplo option assumes that we could win the vote. Does the AI still always vote for a civ with an MPP or MA? Could we afford those MPP's and MA's? I need to see just where Uskudar is too.

The Space Race option is attractive as long as we don't get a monster AI and war continues as a stale mate.

So for either option we currently need techs and continued war between the AI. Now that we have infantry war is much less risky for us so we could start to get involved in some aliences to set the table for a Diplo win.

We definitely want Espionage.

We already got it, Boss :D

...and the CIA in 4 turns :D

ps : Diplo win please :D

I would tend to vote for the Diplo route. With all the AI wars, I think we could win the vote. I don't know how feasible space is, since Spain et al have such a head start on us.

I'd like to try the diplo route, too. I'll wait until the team's consensus is finalized before picking the game up and playing. I should be able to play tomorrow.

Diplo.

Oh yeah -- I started to play and then realized something. I have fully patched C3C and have no desire to revert to the old version. Have we patched this game yet?

I played it unpatched. Not sure what Skyfish did after me.

I played patch to 1.12.
I am already patched to 1.13 by the way but I guess you all might be by the time the turen gets back to me ;)

A little comment from a lurker who just can’t keep quiet… THE DIPLO ROUTE, PLEASE!

That would really be spectacular! It is possible that I’ve not read the right treads, but I’ve never even thought of that option! To capture the UN to PREVENT a loss, yes, but to ACHIEVE a victory… Really funny in a real-life historical perspective :crazyeye:

Good luck! Hoping to see some screenshots…

Here is a screenshot I wanted to post in my report of how far Uskudar actually is.
It could have been worse and be way down in Spain, it' not too bad.
There are no hills or mountains near it though which will not really help a beach head...
If Aztecs or Russians get further destroyed by the Ottos, we should have a settler ready to poach a site closer to Uskudar in order to maybe use the Speaker-Uber-Bomber ;) to get to the cities, if there is a site in range....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-UN.jpg

I have been playing completely unpatched. I guess since we never built a FP anyway the importance is somewhat lessened. Didn't they change the RNG too?

I thought we'd come to a consensus to not patch.

They did not change the PRNG's effects for 1.12 (claimed but not verified to my knowledge...I've not tested yet). Same for 1.13.

gpt bug fixed in both.

1.12 corruption:
FP affects distance corruption only and increases OCN by 10%

1.13 corruption:
FP has not completely explained effect on corruption -- appears to affect distance corruption significantly, increase OCN by 50% (or so), does not influence city ranking at all, and the FP city has "special" rank characteristics somehow to get its corruption really low

In 1.13, building the FP ASAP in first or second ring is HUGE and has an effect beyond what I think Firaxis maybe understands. Anyway, the "two core" concept is out for 1.13.

I've still got original and 1.12 available to run (just saw 1.13 this morning) and would prefer the original. I'm not sure I like either of the corrections much beyond the original. Is Civ3 dying in my heart????

I'd rather play with the original. If you think the AI civs are monsters now, wait until they get the mega-effects of the FP. Of course, we could build one very fast in our IW city and get good benefit, but it REALLY changes the game dynamic really fast in the middle.

Arathorn

Sorry I thought we were holding on the patch because you were not sure I could get it in Europe so I changed once it was available :(

I do believe 1.12 is better than 1.00 though Arathorn only if it were for the gpt bug correction ! I noticed that now Ottos are stuck at 125K :vomit: and dont go up anymore... :rolleyes:

As to 1.13 well its even better I believe but lets not get into an argument cause 1.14 is already out :lol:

OK -- I have 1.12 but have not done 1.13 (or 1.14???). I should be able to play tonight. What are we doing for this game? I intend to move to 1.13 (or higher) ASAP, so if we're keeping this game at 1.12 I'll play my turns and then patch.

@Skyfish: Where is 1.14?

:blush:
Oops it might not be public yet... :( Sorry.
It totally reverses what has been done in 1.13 so I think we should just decide to stick with 1.12, Jesse Smith there could be up to one beta *per week* coming until they find the right formula.
Beta 1.14 actually goes back to the old PTW version of a strong FP that creates a second core but without the rank bug
That might get Civ a bit of a chance with Arathorn's heart no ? :confused:
:D

Hopefully it fixes some weird problem with labels that I have. I have been unable to install 1.13 properly in either my "Conquests" or "Copy of Conquests" folder. Anyone else have such a problem and if so, how did you fix it?

I think I like the sounds of 1.14.

So, Skyfish, how are you seeing these beta betas before the rest of us?

Arathorn

Hehe... I guess I never told you am Civ3 Product Manager at Atari (ex-Infogrammes, a French company) :lol:

;)

Skyfish you rascal, why didn't you say so? I'm so jealous.

You scallywag...holding out on us. Makes me wonder how many ideas/games you've been in have influenced C3C!!! ;) Anyway, good to know some different ideas are still being kicked around at Atari.

<Still shaking my head in disbelief>,
Arathorn

Pre-turn: Fire taxmen in Eindhoven, Hague, Utrecht, and Arnhem, which increases both growth and taxes by working productive tiles whose commerce is multiplied by commercial buildings. Swap an engineer to a clown in Haarlem to stave off a riot. Swap three clowns to useful specialists in Breda (and hire another specialist) and another each in Leiden and Tilburg. Hire three engineers in fully corrupt and pop-maxed Gouda. Fire Denhelder’s engineer and make him work a RR, mined coal mountain, for a gain in both shields and tax money. Lauwersoog swaps from granary (it can’t get any bigger) to bank. We’re now up to 162gpt net income after micromanaging. Then, I swap Hague, Utrecht, and Eindhoven to rifle production in anticipation of our daring future assault on the UN city. We’re going to steal Electronics at some point, so there’s no sense spending 2gpt researching it.

Summary of my turns: Renewed our Aztecs horses deal for 36gpt. Caught Monty trying to steal our world map, of all things. :smoke: Completed the IA and a FP (it only took Arnhem four turns to do it and our gpt went up by 35). Spanish completed SETI. Our attempt to plant a spy in Spain failed but didn’t result in a war declaration. If at first you don’t succeed, blah, blah, blah – our careful diplo tech steal attempt worked and we acquired Electronics from the lovely Izzy. We then shipped it to the Mongrels along with 6gpt for Refining and 13gp. Packaged with 93gpt to a dying Cathy, it landed us Combustion and 8gp. Hopefully she’ll either die soon and relieve our payment burden or she’ll use the income to buy another tech so we can 2-fer steal. We have two sources of oil. One is connected and the other should remain disconnected. Our rifle-producing cities swapped to destroyers.

For the future: Portugal is on its last legs. If we care about our reputation, we shouldn’t send them any more hard goods. At this point, I’m not sure it matters much. I left a big ol’ stack of active workers by Rotterdam. Some strategic forest chops could get us some spare artillery units out of our northeastern cities. Maastricht might be able to use a worker merge and Tilburg could stand some mining, but I’ll leave that choice to my successor. Have fun!

Sidney Ponson (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-1450AD.zip) I'm running out of baseball-related "Sid" names here, guys. :D

Nice turns Reagan. :goodjob: Masterful trading. When you run out of baseball Sids you can always go to Seinfeld. Don't forget Sid Farcus the bra salesman. In the words of the immortal Estelle Costanza:

"He only sells them. He doesn't wear 'em!"

</delurk>

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but...

Originally posted by Reagan

worked and we acquired Electronics from the lovely Izzy. We then shipped it to the Mongrels along with 6gpt for Refining and 13gp. Packaged with 93gpt to a dying Cathy, it landed us Combustion and 8gp. Hopefully she’ll either die soon and relieve our payment burden or she’ll use the income to buy another tech so we can 2-fer steal.

If I understand correctly, you sold Electronic + 93gpt to Cathy for combustion and 8gp.

If she dies, won't she relieve you of your rep as well as your payment, or am I missing something?

On another note...good game. You should play a variant starting at the earliest version, and every time a player takes over he installs the next highest patch...
</relurk>

Thought I'd post this; it has been a while since we had a posted roster.

Gothmog -- UP NOW
Arathorn -- ON DECK
Bam-Bam
Speaker
Skyfish
Reagan-- JUST PLAYED

Nice trading, Reagan! :goodjob:

@ Skyfish-- http://pages.prodigy.net/rogerlori1/emoticons/EEK2.GIF. That was quite a shocker.

@theGrimm IIRC, you only get a rep hit if you are supplying hard goods (e.g., luxuries or resources) to the AI when they kick the bucket. I could be wrong here--but I have not experienced a rep hit if someone dies while I am shipping them gpt.

Good news on the oil. 3 techs in 10 turns is a pretty good pace. Since the vote was for diplo, we're gonna need flight ASAP and start cranking bombers. Bombers and infantry will be essentially all we'll need, with explorers possibly useful.

@theGrimm: I don't recall testing the loss of gpt payments with C3C, but in prior versions, it didn't affect a reputation. Seems pretty safe to me.

@Bam-Bam: Love the jaw-drop smiley! And I was just gonna post a roster, even though it was just before Reagan's turn that I last posted one. Thanks for doing it, though.

@all: Keep watching the cities and making the most of things. This one ain't over yet!

Arathorn

As Bam-Bam and Arathorn have pointed out, getting out of a gpt deal because of the untimely (or even expected) demise of the AI civ does not hurt one's reputation. I assumed that had not changed in C3C. The way they've randomly changed other things, though, it could well operate like losing one's king in a regicide game. So, if all our cities turn to rubble upon Cathy's parting, I apologize. :lol:

We have several infantry units and I cranked cheaper rifles when we had the opportunity so we can upgrade them later. I started building destroyers because it would both suck and blow if we were to have some transports sunk. By the way, my attempt to plant a spy in Spain was three turns ago.

Got it.

I'm still a bit unclear as to what patch we are supposed to be playing on though.

I was under the impression that there were only beta patches out currently (e.g. 1.12b at civ3.com)

1.12 patch, for now, I think, Gothmog. 1.13 might come soon. All this patching makes SGs very hard to run. Just make it clear what patch you're playing with so I can do the same.

Arathorn

I played using 1.12.

The 1.13 patch is around:
link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74648)

Allright, I installed 1.12 and opened the game last night. Didn't play any turns though.

If we are going the diplo route we need to take the UN, that means attacking Otto and holding for a number of rounds (and hoping it doesn't flip). Otto will have tanks, he might have some MI too. He is at war with three other civs currently and is alied with Spain. So we want to have tanks for taking and infantry for holding. I think 4 transports with 14 tanks and 14 infantry is probably bare minimum. 21 tanks and 21 infantry would be OK, more tanks would be better. I guess we should try and investigate the city when we near our goal, but we really don't want Oz to declare war on us prematurely, then we would need more navy. Otherwise, we shouldn't need too much navy, as we just want to transport the stuff into range, declare war, and then land the stuff. Or the more dishonorable route of landing and refusing to move. A few destroyers should be fine just in case.

Our likely opponent in the vote will be the Aztecs, but a RoP with them would make reaching Otto much easier.

So I guess I need to build transports, and a few infantry while waiting on MT - then build tanks.

We are currently trading away our rubber, that will end in 5 turns. We will need our rubber. I am thinking of hooking up the second oil to trade for more techs. We will also need traid bait for getting enough AI support to win the vote (MA's vs. Aztec I am assuming). Also having anyone declare war on us will make winning the vote more difficult.

Thoughts?

You are right about the goal Gothmog, but I think you have the wrong plan. Instead of tanks, we should use bombers. Enough of these suckers and we can destroy every unit in the UN city and sever all its connections to the mainland. I think we would then need one marine to take the city so we could move in a ton of Infantry to protect it, and would probably want to bring along some other units to disband to get the walls up immediately. See Arathorn's post 7 above mine for confirmation of this overall plan. I am suggesting the marine rather than the beachhead, so we don't lose all our troops before we capture the city.

My thoughts are that tanks are nearly worthless. We want bombers, lots of them, with their lethal land bombard. Infantry to defend the city. Bombers. Perhaps some artillery, as they're a bit more cost-effective to redline units than bombers (but not a whole lot). Cheap flip-suppressers, as many as possible. Bombers. Rifles, infantry, conscripts, whatever. Transports to get them all into Uskudar. Bombers. Perhaps explorers to pillage all roads/railroads coming near Uskudar (suicide mission). Bombers.

We have to be certain that bombers can reach Uskudar from one of our cities. But no casualties taking the city is very good and allows more units to defend the city, only requires one stack, and should allow us to kill new attackers as they come.

I see no need for MT...Flight is the way to go, with transports (only carry 6 now!!!) also important. Infantry armies would be ideal, if we had that ability, but....

Arathorn

I (bombers) agree with what Arathorn and Speaker said in (bombers) their posts. We should bomb(ers) the snot out of Uskudar and then take/hold (bombers) it until a vote is held. We absolutely (bombers) must not spoil our reputation by sneak-attacking the Ottos. Our reputation (bombers) is vital to our hopes at UN election, isn't it?

I can't tell from the map whether Uskudar is coastal. It doesn't have a harbor, which isn't a good sign. We have an unused leader that was saved specifically for the purpose of forming an infantry army. If the city is coastal, the army will help hold it. If it isn't, we'll have a good beachhead. Either way, this isn't going to be easy.

I don't think Uskudar is costal.

I don't know how bombers are going to reach Uskudar unless I am missing something. Don't they have a range of about 8 still?

Either way it sounds like you are really talking about a lot of bombers. Any estimates? then we need troops and navy too... that will take a long time.

I must admit that I did not know that bombers had lethal land bombard.

I am also unsure about the utility of the pillage/plant trees plan (though it would be great if we could use bombers for pillaging of course). We are going to have to hold Uskudar for long enough for the bulk of available Ottoman forces to reach us in any case. The number of explorers we would have to transport could just as easilly be infantry used for defence/flip protection IMO. We could bring along a few arti for pillaging from the safety of Uskudar though.

Bombers range has been hugely increased -- 4fold or 6fold or something like that. Uskudar, I *think*, will be out of range of our current cities, but it will be a very near thing. We can build some bombers and test that out before we need to commit, however.

I was averaging about 0.7 damage/bomber against infantry fortified in cities. Figure 4 infantry with 4 hps each is 16 hps and that's a mere 23 bombers. Add another 6 for a tank. Figure another 50% if they have mech infantry. 30-40some bombers should be sufficient, and maybe even overkill. You actually need fewer bombers than artillery, often.

We'll want 5 or so fighters to help defend Uskudar from AI bombings. And then as many infantry as we can park there. For a navy, all we need are transports for the initial landing party. 10 transports, 50 infantry, 10 artillery.

Total needs:
50 bombers -- play it very safe with these
10 transports
50 infantry
10 artillery
and probably 13 carriers (the hard part, IMO)

120 troops, with the transports and troops on them needing to be amassed early. 15 turns?

The goal with pillaging is to make Ottoman troops spend one turn in range of our artillery/bombers before attacking (no ride in and attack). Dinging them and sending them home will be huge, but if they can send all their troops against us, we're FUBAR. But, I think you're right that planting trees is probably a non-option.

Arathorn

We also have the army remember. Hopefully that can defer the Ottomans from attacking. If the Portuguese are still alive, we may want to declare war on them so we can mobilize to build the troops faster. Or the Russians if that will be easier. This could be a big help.

The more I think about range and a few other things, I think a city in ex-Russia (near Moscow?) or Azteca (Tlat...) would be inordinately helpful in a number of ways. I'd have a settler standing by on a ship ASAP, just in case a spot opens up. Depending on how badly the Aztecs are hurting, I might consider a war purely for Tlaxcala, if we think we have a prayer of getting it and not losing much, if anything, on our mainland. I don't see that happening, however.

Arathorn

Yeah, I thought of the advantages of mobilizing too. But we will need votes and the Aztec will be our opponent. We need votes we can buy.

I don't think the Aztec are hurting at all atm but we'll see.

I will have a settler ready to ship to Moscow, though we currently don't have any transports nor any in production (though I already swapped Amsterdam from wealth to transport due in 2).

Any chance of declaring war on the Ottomans 6-8 turns before you plan to capture the city? Then capture it and make peace on the same turn, no need to defend it against anything...

Nice idea from T-Hawk here thanks, we will have to defend our lands for 6 to 8 turns *anyway*...
There's a galleon available (albeit a bit far) to bring a settler in ex-Russia or ex-Azteca like I suggested in my report ;)

120 troops, with the transports and troops on them needing to be amassed early. 15 turns?

U mean that we would need 15 turns to build those 120 units ?
I believe we need way more than that...

Took a peek at the save file. Uskudar is not coastal. It is located one tile from the coast. Total :smoke: placement, but it works out well for Osman in the end.

Here is our relationship to Uskudar. Leerdam is our closest city, as shown in the top right corner. The shaded region is the operational range of bombers (10 tiles).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-Uskudar2.jpg

Here is the full operational range with Uskudar at the center.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/LotR10-Uskudar1.jpg

Well Portugal is weak and easily takeable :D

I think T-Hawk's idea has a lot of merit. We could get a RoP with the Aztecs and keep our ships near Tenochtitlan while at war with the Ottomans for 6-8 turns. We can send basically all our units to war because the Ottomans can't hit us for at least a few turns, and we can be mobilized and cranking out more troops to protect our mainland.

In the interim, we should send a ship with a settler, worker, and some defense as soon as possible in case a space opens up where we could then make an airstrip (if possible to save money on rushing an airport), to airlift units in for the battle. This could make our war preparations much easier.

If the poaching settler idea doesn't work in time, why not go take one of Portugal's cities? If we can crank enough carriers, do we even need to worry about taking a foreign city? Getting a RoP with the Aztecs will do the trick.

Yeah, I didn't think the bombers would be able to reach. It's a long way.

So we are going to bank on a space opening up for a city/airstrip?

I haven't noticed any major losses by Russia lately so...

In terms of the UN the Aztec will be our best bet to declare on (Otto most likely wont vote for us, heh), if we attack Portugal too who will vote for us? Spain and the Mongols? But of course the Aztec would probably put up a real fight.

If we declare war on Otto early we will need extra navy to defend against an Ottoman navy of unknown strength (actually I haven't checked to see if they have Oil).

I'll be able to check it out tonight, think it over and report back. I probably wont have time to play until tomorrow morning.

You can see the Ottoman oil a few tiles below Novgorod.

I just looked things over... Wow I didn't realize that Russia was so close to gone. They only have Orenburg (north of Yakutsk) and Krasnoyarsk left, there are some open spaces that could be settled - 2 tiles NE of Moscow for example - but still nothing in range of Uskudar. Even if Otto razes Tlaxcala the borders will just fill in as the Aztec capital of Tenochititlan is just to the SE and you can see that its borders are beyond Tlaxcala. So the only way we will get a position for bombing is if the Aztecs somehow raze one of the old Russian cities. I am guessing most of you knew this already, but I thought I'd lay it out anyway. I will move our Galley into position right away, but it will take it a bit to get there as it is sleeping in Haarlem atm. This option is not high probability IMO.

According to the civolopedia bombers can be stationed on Carriers, but only 4 per so that would be a huge fleet... 10 carriers at minimum @ 180 shields per Carrier and 100 shields per bomber.

My main concern with declaring war on the Ottomans 6-8 turns before we try to get Uskudar is defending our transports. They'll probably have 50-100 military ships patrolling the waters. And ships in C3C really can move quite a long ways. How in the heck are we suposed to protect our transports of troops? Are we depending on an Aztec RoP then? Sounds kinda scary to me.

Flips will also be a HUGE problem. Uskudar will have tremendous cultural pressure. It will be hard to remove resisters. Even 50+ troops will fall to a flip. It's gonna be tough.

For now, though, try to work into Uskudar's operational range and build up some troops, while hoping, I guess.

Arathorn

Pre-turn: Fire taxmen in Eindhoven, Hague, Utrecht, and Arnhem, which increases both growth and taxes by working productive tiles whose commerce is multiplied by commercial buildings. Swap an engineer to a clown in Haarlem to stave off a riot. Swap three clowns to useful specialists in Breda (and hire another specialist) and another each in Leiden and Tilburg. Hire three engineers in fully corrupt and pop-maxed Gouda. Fire Denhelder’s engineer and make him work a RR, mined coal mountain, for a gain in both shields and tax money. Lauwersoog swaps from granary (it can’t get any bigger) to bank. We’re now up to 162gpt net income after micromanaging. Then, I swap Hague, Utrecht, and Eindhoven to rifle production in anticipation of our daring future assault on the UN city. We’re going to steal Electronics at some point, so there’s no sense spending 2gpt researching it.

:eek:
How could I leave our cities in such terrible state ?!??!
I have no idea what happened there, I was messing around with the new specialists everywhere and I uploaded the wrong save
on the server, I am pretty sure the cities were not set up that way the turn before...
My apologies to Reagan, Arathorn and the whole team, and I would totally understand if you'd rather go on with this SG without crappy players like me, it s a very difficult variant and you guys need to be strong on every single turn :sad:

Well, if we get beat we know who to blame!

No, not really. You are an asset to any team Sky and I wouldn't think of going on without you.

Here's my effort.

I check out our deals - Rubber and 198gpt to Hittites done in 5 turns, Iron and 27gpt to portugal done in 2 (hey I forgot to renew this, we might be able to squeze a few gpt for it).

Hittites, Oz, and the Aztec up all visible techs. Russia and Mongols up Ironclads, Communism, and Feudalism.

MM check reveals spotless play by Reagan in that regard.

I swap Amsterdam to transport, Rotterdam to Destroyer, Maastrich to transport (sci->police gets it in 3 vs 4), Eindhoven to Cruiser, Tepexpan to settler. Wake Galleon and move west.

Forest chop gives 0 shields so I plant and chop another square. I'm putting mines where forests have been chopped.

(IT) Hittites move an infantry into Gouda's territory. Spice deal with Aztec runs out and he no longer has any for trade. Krasnoyarsk falls to Otto. Riots ensue, I scroll ahead.

(1) 1455 - I get furs from Izz for 44gpt +WM. Upgrade Galleon to transport @ den Helder.

(IT) I renew silks with Izz for +10 gpt. I sell her Oil for 2570 gold.

(2) 1460 - Sell wines to Hittites for 158+10gpt+WM. I do a safe steal against spain and succede. I decide to take Mass Production as I don't believe we will get an airbase. I send Portugal Refining for WM+12gpt just for the halibut. Everyone is still up all visible techs :(
MP to Russia for 210+79gpt, to mongols for Ironclads+WM+32gpt+228gold. This was all they both had, they wouldn't give up communism for less than MP+Wine+45gpt+WM+1382 ???

(IT) Hittites call up and we trade TM's. Istanbul completes the internet, Otto definitely has MI now and has likely started the space ship already.

Not much else...

I stopped after 5 becuase that is all I had time for this afternoon and I wanted to check w/the team anyway.

We have enough gold for another safe steal. The transport and a couple destroyers are making their way to the bombing range but I really don't see Otto loosing any cities in former Russian land. I would probably turn them around and have them join the rest of our navy (see below).

As I said before if it were just me I would steal motorized transport, mobilize, and build tanks. We are running out of time and I wouldn't bank on getting an airstrip. If we steal flight and start building bombers that will be our final gambit. We will need many many tanks as Otto will have MI, I've built enough navy for escort already - at this point I would even unload our stuff before declaring on Otto, though I am sure he will demand we leave and get a free round on us anyway. I've built a bunch more Rifles that can be upgraded to infantry and as many transports as I could (I would stop building navy other than transports at this point).

But it's not just me, and I can't say I feel like a tank/infantry force has much of a hope anyway. We would have to rely on a kind RNG and/or Otto being somewhat gassed after being at war with Russia and the Aztecs for so long. He clearly is somewhat gassed as he hasn't been able to destroy Cathy yet, or make any more headway against the Aztec.

So here is the save after 5, sorry it isn't zipped. I have a new cpu and haven't gotten a zip utility on it yet. I'll check later to make sure the file is OK.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/William_of_the_Dutch.SAV

Can we swing two Ottoman wars? We need Uskudar. Bombers are our only chance to get the kill ratio we need (30:1 or so). I'm very disappointed we stole anything but Flight. We can probably push and settle our way through old Russia, but only if we have very big stacks of infantry that the Ottomans won't want to attack.

If it were me, I would do most/all of the following in the next 5 turns:
- Disband our old horsemen and swordsmen to save on upkeep costs and because they're essentially worthless
- Steal Flight ASAP -- probably from the Ottomans
- Make a bunch of alliances against the Ottomans, to get Communism (Russia will give this and more) and as much gold as possible (Aztecs will pay 400+)
- Establish our presence with bombers and infantry stacks (why isn't our leader an army by now? Were we ever going to need to rush a small wonder?????????? Have we missed leader chances by keeping him around? An empty army would've been just as good or probably better)
- Build very little besides bombers, infantry and settlers for the next LONG time
- March our way through the Ottomans (if possible) by use of extreme kill ratios through air superiority
- Hope to capture Uskudar before too long

Why are we wondering about the status of the space race? F8 very clearly tells anybody who cares to look that the Ottomans are leading the space race with 2 parts complete. Since Robotics is now required to get, there are still a few techs to go. We have SOME time, but not a whole lot, before we need to get the UN. Probably enough to war twice, if we absolutely need to.

I would give a tank/infantry force a .05% chance of getting Uskudar. I give bombers and a push through Russia over 1%. Anybody have a better plan/idea?

Gothmog, was that an "I'm done, somebody else take it" or a "Here's a break. What's to be done? I still want to play"?

Arathorn

I would totally understand if you'd rather go on with this SG without crappy players like me

Uhhhh . . . yeah. Is January 10 some sort of European equivalent to our April Fool's Day? I hope it is, and that you're joking with us, because you ain't going anywhere, mister! :D If my notes about micromangement ever seem harsh, I apologize. I have a very direct writing style and sometimes it can leave a bad impression, I guess. The main reason I take note of any changes/vetos I make after inheriting a game are for the benefit of newer/developing players who are reading along with us. It's important for them to see that MMing is still important even in the late stages of the game. Anyway, I apologize again if my notes came across in an unflattering way. You're a good player and there's no need for you to think otherwise.

I'd like to pretty much mirror Arathorn's comments about our end-game strategy. I did a double-take when I read that we didn't steal Flight when we had the chance. We don't have to found an airbase city to take advantage of bombers, although that would be preferable to using carriers. I'm not so sure about disbanding of units, though. Even horses and swords count as flip protection and we may need them if/when we take Uskudar.

Arathorn, we haven't been in a war since our leader arrived (IIRC), so we haven't lost anything by keeping him in reserve. You're right, though, that there's no reason not to form an army with him right now.

Originally posted by Reagan
I'd like to pretty much mirror Arathorn's comments about our end-game strategy. I did a double-take when I read that we didn't steal Flight when we had the chance. We don't have to found an airbase city to take advantage of bombers, although that would be preferable to using carriers.
Count me in here. I thought we were in agreement that we were going to use bombers to take Uskudar? :confused: Arathorn did make a list of the troops we will need for our attack a few posts above mine.

Originally posted by Skyfish
I would totally understand if you'd rather go on with this SG without crappy players like me
We all make mistakes Skyfish. We've made it this far as a team, and we're going to finish as a team. You know we all :love: you. And everyone knows you're not a crappy player.

As I have noted in my posts, I don't think we have any chance of getting an airstrip within bombing range without taking on the full force of the Ottoman army.

Don't worry about me not having stolen flight, we would need Mass Production anyway to build carriers and I left the game with enough gold for a safe steal of Flight.

That is why I left the game to others, if it were me I would steal MT, mobilize and build tanks and transports and maybe a few more arti. Then load them all up, move into position for an assault on Uskudar. I would take the Rep hit involved in unloading next to Uskudar before declaring war. Then assault Uskudar, I wouldn't do any slogging through Otto territory. I think the navy needed for using carriers against Otto is prohibitively expensive.

If I had to assess our chances I would put our chance of gaining an airfield in range of Usukudar at 0.001%, our chance of slogging through Ottoman territory at 0.1% and our chance of winning a one shot offensive against Usukudar at 3-5% but then we still have to win the vote.

As far as the space race I was using f10 and it was saying 'you need a spy', but I do see now that the victory screen has the top space contender listed.

We haven't lost any chances for leaders because we are not currently at war with anyone.

So whoever is next should take it. If we're still alive I'll play on my next round. I just can't bring myself to commit to the bomber strat.

I got it and will play when I can find time, then. Will steal Flight ASAP and see what can be done.

Arathorn

Perhaps there is another way to cut the Ottoman defenses around Uskudar down to size with some convoluted diplomatic manipulation...

1. Get the Ottomans to be as furious at you as possible. Demanding a city 50x in a row would work, or (if that is considered an exploit) sign as many embargos/alliances against them as you can (which would also put relations in the gutter).
2. Declare war 6-8 turns before you intend to take Uskudar. The Ottomans respond against their hated enemy by launching their nuclear arsenal at you, causing every civ on the planet to declare war on the them.
3. The Ottoman eat the entire nuclear stockpile of the rest of the world (which I would imagine could be quite substantial on Sid) reducing Uskudar to rubble.
4. Land tanks/infantry/cavalry 2 squares from Uskudar (to avoid being caught in the blast radius of any continuing exchanges), withstand whatever counterattacking units the Ottomans have left, take Uskudar (hopefully from minimal resistance), and make peace with the Ottomans.

Of course, this is dependent on the Ottomans possessing Uranium, Aluminum, and the required techs. Even if it worked, you would also have to accept the nuclear devestation of most of your cities. Since the launch date for the Spaceship has been push back, there should be enough time for the top civs to accumulate a substantial number of ICBMs, before the end. In fact, it wouldn't be surprising if the missles begin to fly sometime soon without any outside intervention.

I got about halfway through my turns last night. The second half will probably take longer, though. Care of each city is kinda necessary at this point.

It might be done tonight, but I think tomorrow night is more likely. There's just a lot to be done and checked every turn.

Arathorn

(0) 1475 - No time like the present. Do an immediate steal from the Ottomans -- it's much cheaper and we really don't care if they declare on us at this point. It succeeds and we are now the proud owners of Flight. Nobody has much of anything to offer for Flight. I would kinda liked to get Communism for Police Stations (both for corruption and happiness help while in Republic), but it's not woth all our gold or ~90 gpt, so I don't. I hope to get it for an alliance in a few turns (when it will be too late) anyway.

I think about allying vs. the Ottomans now, but we have a number of undefended ships in the area that would pay the penalty, so I don't do that now.

Go through and micromanage cities, changing some production orders to get us bombers and a few airports for fighter defenders.

Entertainers are generally made into engineers. If the entertainer made WLTKD, they were kept...otherwise they were changed to engineers to help buildings complete in reasonable time. All buildings that I think might be wanted are ordered now. Realize it was silly to MM now, because I'm going to mobilize, so I'll need to MM again after that. Essentially all build orders changed to buildings, so I can have them where I want them after mobilization.

MOBILIZE!

Re-MM. Well, I want to, but it doesn't seem mobilization affected anything at all. No change in shields is really detectable. Is mobilization broken in C3C??? Something is screwy anyway. I can't seem to get extra shields for units in any city. Hmmm.... Well, that really blows.

Find the leader and turn him into an army -- fill it with 3 infantry (shuffling rifles where necessary). Blow a ton of gold (750) upgrading trebuchets into artillery. It was either that or disband them and we really need the firepower more than the cash at this point. Nearly our last 330 gold goes into upgrading rifles into infantry.

We're nearing readiness. I want a few settlers. We have one, but he's clear over west of Russia, for reasons unknown. Good thing I didn't jump the gun vs. Osman. In 4 turns, when our trades to him are complete, though, we might go to war. By that time, though, I can have the settler safe. That'll give me a bit of time to try to find another spot to build them from. Haarlem will be the spot, once it finishes its marketplace. Might have to get creative with engineers, too.

Having spent essentially all our gold, I finally press enter.

(I) Takes forever but little of note happens. I do figure out what the deal with mobilization is, though. Apparently, bombers and fighters aren't military units, so they don't get the shield bonus?!? How wrong is that? Hmmm...what to do.

(1) 1480 - Catch a glimpse of Ottoman troops -- they're using tanks, not modern armor, which is a very encouraging sign. Move a lot of troops towards the Ottomans.

Oh, interesting. All cities that were on non-military builds are now building Flak cannons. Apparently, you can no longer "trick" a city into building ANYTHING non-military while mobilized. Good to keep in mind. Means a bunch more MMing for me this turn, but that's OK.

All bomber builds sent to submarine. Anybody that will complete a submarine in one turn will be switched back to bombers. Tedious and unnecessary, but it's the way to actually get some benefit out of our mobilization.

(I) Ottomans finish off the Russians. Bummer. But they're still at war with a couple other civs, so their military might will hopefully move in that direction (like against the Aztecs).

We catch an agent of Spain (Isobella) trying to sabotage production in Utrecht. That's kinda odd. Not like we're gonna retaliate, though.

Arnhem, even with the bizarre mobilization rules, can do a fighter/turn, which will be helpful for air superiority, so he's put on that mission now.

(2) 1485 - Not much to do but clean up pollution and wait for a few more bombers to come online.

(I) Still trying to figure out how mobilization works. It might be your first project STARTED after you're mobilized that gets the bonus? It's weird.

(3) 1490 - Test and see that we can effectively take all of old Russia to Moscow without needing to rebase bombers from Leerdam. With the Ottomans have 150K+ gold, we should get a bunch from them every time we raze a city. Just gotta keep the bombers flowing and get 50 infantry ready to ship across (we're getting close to that mark).

Our ivory and incense imports will expire next turn. Try to renogiate the non-Ottoman ones.

(I) Portugal and Spain make peace.

(4) 1495 - Continue positioning for attack.

Cancel ivory deal with Ottomans. Re-purchase incense for Flight (also get 130 gold). I don't care if the Mongols have some techs, as long as it saves me 40 gpt, I'm happy. But there's no source on the planet for another luxury. Sigh.

I end up raising lux tax to 10%, because there's no other way to keep our major cities happy. Even so, I have to re-MM a lot of cities. Income down to 591 gpt. Not ideal but the best I can do under the circumstances.

(I) Mongols declare on Aztecs.

(5) 1500 - Send Wines to Aztecs for Gems and an alliance against the Ottomans. Land troops by Krasnoyorsk and bomb it empty (MI and TI defending). Can't take it this turn -- can't attack from boats (I wonder if I could've used the army???). Cross fingers in fear of the inter-turn.

(I) Ottomans declare war on the Spanish. They bomb Leerdam once, injuring some boats. And that's it????

Aztecs come wanting to cancel Horses for 36 gpt deal. They have no gpt, but they give WM and 626 gold for horses, which is just as good, almost.

We catch a spy plant attempt from Montezuma of the Aztecs. No worries there.

(6) 1505 - Only one MI defends Krasno now. Two artillery hit...bomber flies and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr10-kras-capture.jpg

Yakutsk is scarier -- defended by two TIs...and a modern armor. Sigh. That'll make progress a bit slower. Bombers actually kill no one. I attacked before we were prepared. We'll have more bombers next turn. One city/turn is going to be the best we can hope for for a while.

I do use some of our gold to plant a spy in Istanbul against the Ottomans.
19 workers, 13 rifles, 1 infantry, 3 tanks, 70 MI, 19 MA, 17 artillery, 2 cruise missiles, 4 ICBM, 1 transport, 14 destroyers, 3 fighters, 3 bombers, 7 jet fighters, 67 TOW infantry, 1 mobile SAM. That's actually much smaller than I would've guessed, but it doesn't include captured units, which looks to be another dozen or so artillery.

We carefully steal Mobilized Transportation from the Ottomans, but tanks are almost valueless, so I start production on precisely zero of them. Radio for towers might be nice, and if we can get modern and MI, that would be extremely handy. That's used up our ill-gotten gains, though, so I stop for now.

(I) Lose 2 infantry to MA. Bummer. I wish they'd concentrate on the Aztecs in the south. Oh well.

(7) 1510 - We have more gold from the interturn, so we carefully steal Radio. We're now in the modern age. Aztecs and Hittites are only up Rocketry in the Modern Age, so our next steal might turn into a 2fer. Spain is up all visible techs. Mongols and Portugeuse are behind us. Ottomans are unknown.

Hilversum founded on the Ottoman continent. It will be a target of many attacks, I'm sure. Walls rushed via worker.

Kill 2 MAs, a jet fighter, one one tow infantry in Yakutsk. Final TOW has 1 hp left and I can't kill him this turn. More bombers are on the way, however.

(I) No counters from Ottomans. Swap WMs with Aztecs. The Ottomans are hitting them hard on the Ottoman continent. Once the Aztecs are driven off that soil, we're gonna start seeing a lot more units.

(8) 1515 - Bomb the final TOW out of Yakutsk. I'm gonna have to lose a unit to raze it. Horseman gains 1785 gold razing Yakutsk. He'll be lost, for certain, but he's easily replaceable. A second infantry army would be incredibly handy now -- one to cover attackers and one for the city to limit attacks on us. Only one MI in Orenburg, and it's now gone. Do I send a cavalry to its death? Darn right I do. We'll get enough cash to rush a replacement next turn. On second thought, we're doing OK on fighters. I change Arnhem over to cavalry production -- their speed makes them a great complement to bombers. And we get another 1818 gold in our coffers. Steal coming up.

That gold we just took from their cities turns into a careful steal. And we now have Computers. Computers gets Communism, WM, 4765 gold (all they had), and Amphibious War (marines are often useful in conjunction with bombers as well). Computers and 5000 gold isn't enough to get Rocketry from Hitties, so maybe another steal is in order. Anybody know if a 2nd steal in one turn is more or less likely to succeed?

Another careful Steal from the Ottomans gets us ... Hmm... Ecology, I guess. Computers + Ecology gets us Fascism, Rocketry, WM, and all 23 gold from the Hittites. We're making some serious progress through the Modern Age here. And we have enough for another steal. Do I dare?

Well, not immediately. Spain is up all visible except Synthetic Fibers. We do have aluminum, one source by Harlingen near our core. I'd like to upgrade some fighters to jet fighters, but I'll need to cycle them in and out.

Yekaterinburg resists initial bombings. It's defended by at least an MI and a TOW.

Well, I do try a third time, still carefully, but our spy is caught. I do get him replanted, however.

(I) Mongols and Ottomans come to peace. I don't like that at all. Ottomans don't even kill our exposed horse units. But SOMEBODY sabotages production in Maastricht. Oh well.

(9) 1520 - Jet fighters are starting to appear in lots of Ottoman cities. We catch one on the ground and then lose a bomber to one. Take out MI and TOW in Yekat, but I can't reach it for a couple of turns. Lose a couple more bombers to jet fighters, operating out of St. Pete. We'll need to bomb in force to get rid of them. I'll try to accomplish that next turn.

No gold for a steal this turn. No good diplo stuff at all. Ottomans still not talking (not that peace at the current time is good for us, anyway).

(I) Ottoman counter is once again non-existent. The silence is starting to scare me a bit.

(10) 1525 - Rushed marine razes Yekat for 1815 gold. He'll be exposed, but the Ottomans haven't been attacking much. I'd hoped to catch a plane or two in the city, but I should've known better. They would have been visible (and first to die to my bombers earlier). Time for the St. Pete battle royale....

I send in the fighters first, to try to draw enemy fire on less important targets...but all of them bomb without being intercepted and without hitting anything.

Bombers time.... First two kill of a jet fighter. Third and fourth reveal one MI and one TOW in the city. We should hopefully have enough to finish both of those off. Shoot! We're missing a lot and they had a conscript MI, too. It's gonna be close boys and girls. Both MI fall and then I start hitting buildings -- courthouse, factory, stock exchange, marketplace...come on, one hp on a TOW -- you can do it!!! But I can't... Everybody else misses. My only unit in the area is one horsemen, who could take the empty city with no problem, but do I attack a TOW with an ancient era unit??? You bet your sweet bippy I do!!! And he wins with one hp left, capturing an artillery and destroying an ICBM!!! 1850 gold ain't shabby neither.

There are lots of Hittites appearing in our way. Do we sign them in against Ottomans? Up to the next leader. I think I would, but this is a team game!

I spend a fair chunk of change upgrading our infantry in Ottoman lands to mech infantry. I also have noticed a couple of extra aluminum in our lands and not hooked up, so I'm working on getting those up and going. I even upgrade one longbow to TOW infantry, mostly to see what the team's impression of it is.

Another careful steal attempt against the Ottomans is attempted. No luck with getting Synth Fibers, which we could use to get a bunch of cash from Spain. Our spy isn't captured, though. Not enough to try again this turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/lotr10-1525ad.zip

I'll have more to say about strategy tomorrow. It's bedtime now.

Arathorn

Not only did you enter the Modern Era, you did so with a vengeance. I'm in total shock about the lack of response? Is it coming, or... wassup? Are we such a non-threat he's ignoring us like a pesky fly while he attacks a 'real threat'? (If he only knew!)

My favorite part of course is the horseman beating the TOW! :lol:
Bet you're glad they didn't change the combat model :P

Very well done -- it did seem unprepared at first, but with what they've come up with so far... outstanding!
Charis

Wow Arathorn! :worship:

Got it. So I get to try an top this amazing set of turns? :eek:

If I do not get to it tonight--will be Thursday, since I have a business trip.

I don't think we're going to lose anytime soon. The Ottomans still only have two spaceship parts completed. They're quite a ways from launching and I don't think they can get enough votes to win diplomatically, since they're at war with much of the world. Culture looks safe, too, with the top city just over 10K and the Ottomans, Hittites, and Spanish all pretty culture-heavy.

There are still 3 cities we can bomb to oblivion from the safety of our continent. Once those are gone, we're going to have to make some more decisions.... Should be fairly early in Bam-Bam's turns.

We have probably 15 MI or so in Hilversum, plus a settler. The path to the front is blocked by Hittite troops and poor roads (some of which I bombed out myself when I was still in fear for Hilversum's life). At some point, we'll probably want to found a second city around where Moscow currently is. Movement forward might need to start soon. This makes me afraid.

I'm somewhat convinced that the reason the Ottomans didn't attack much (their only attack was when I had split my stack very early) is that they don't think they can win and they have Aztec targets. Splitting the stack to cover two cities (and only having the army in one location) might cause us to look weak (although MI will help that appearance) and encourage attack.

OTOH, those ICBMs might get used before too long. The Ottomans are going to start hating us more and more as we raze their cities. I fear for our large stacks. Hopefully, the AI will not nuke us at all!!! But if they do, I hope they hit bigger cities and leave our unit stacks alone. But for that reason, it might be worth starting to spread out just a bit.

We can push to Uskudar with only two more city foundings. A city near where Moscow is won't be enough, but a third city on the Ottoman landmass should get our bombers into range of Uskudar.

Alternatively, we're not badly positioned to make a run at space. Spain and the Ottomans are still significantly ahead of us, BUT a successful steal of Synth. Fibers from the Ottomans and selling it to Spain would finance another few steals. It's definitely possible.

BTW, the Ottomans are willing to talk but not offer much for peace. Breaking our deal with the Aztecs doesn't seem particularly wise to me, but I thought I should mention it as an option.

Arathorn