Game Announcement (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=1321697#post1321697)

Victory Condition - Conquest

Here is the >>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4PTW-4000BC.SAV)

Final Scores- Courtesy of Space

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4final.jpg

Jason Scores
Roster PTW - 6198 in 1788AD
Roster A - 7594 in 1715AD
Roster B - 7840 in 1585AD

This game is now completed.

Placeholder for fun :D

I'm thinking we will want to settle on the spot.

Any idea what civ traits we have?
What do we want to research first?

Adrian

I have posted the game a day early so that I can engage in a deep and meaningful conversation with my local barmaid tomorrow evening. The save is in the first post of this thread.

got it

I'll play Saturday night or Sunday so the rest of you have some time to comment on opening strategy.

Adrian

I've downloaded the save and set up the game. I opened the 4000BC save.

It looks like the ODA are MILITARISTIC and RELIGOUS as we have Martial arts and Burial Rituals.

I am now considering moving the settler 1 to the SW to settle on the hill. Thay way we can work the goat hill on turn 2.

If we settle on the spot the worker can mine then road the grassland on the river for a total production in the first 10 turns of +20F (growth) and +15S with the first warrior produced on turn 8. After 10 turns we expand and can work the goathills and goat mountain.

If we move we will have a total production of 18F and 27S with warriors on turns 5 and 9.

Given food is not abundant I think researching terra cotta on max is important.

Comments?

Adrian

If the starting spot is wet then irrigating and roading the plains is a quicker way to get 2 food and one shield.

I like our traits. Lots of leaders and easy government switch. Great for war. Terra Cotta ASAP would also be my choice.

EDIT: As a courtesy would the other team members check in just so I know you are still playing and know where the thread is. IF you don't I'll have to PM you all to death.

Sorry, I am trying to get the GOTM files installed.

Edit - After i Installed the GOTM files, my regular game graphics is in a mess, is that normal?

I'm here, but I also need to install the GOTM files.

Gormdragon,

You will have to manually swap the resource graphics files back and forth to match the different games. This is not hard and only takes a second once you find where they are located. There is a text file of instructions "Swapping Resource ..." that gives you the pointers.

You can also choose whether you want to have the GOTM resource icons be plain or with the added blips and/or smilies.

I'm hoping Peanut will join this team in the near future, so overall numbers should be fairly even.

Looks like a lot of us are in the same boat with installation. I'm glad cracker is keeping tabs on the game to help with any issues we might have.

Guys

If you have the disk space creat a duplicate Civ directory. That way you don't have to mess around with switches.

Gormdragon - the resources.pcx files need to be swapped to support this GOTM.

A hill with goats is worth 2F and 2S in despotism. Irrigated plains is only worth 2F 1S.

Allright - I'll start. Terra Cotta ASAP. I'll post the save later this evening.

Adrian

Originally posted by mad-bax
I'm hoping Peanut will join this team in the near future, so overall numbers should be fairly even.


I have just PM'd you Mad-bax. I will join up as long as I can track down my 1.29 disk (I usually use PTW).

If I join at the end of the roster then I have a few days to empty drawers and look under the half tonne of papers on the desk for that elusive bit of plastic ...

I will post here ASAP to let you all know whether I was successful and if the 1.29 add-ons loaded up ok.

Ok here is what I did:


4000BC - settler moves SW, worker irrigate plains
3950BC - found Azuchi, Research Terra Cotta at Max, start Warrior
3800BC - worker starts a road, Warrior built, order another
3750BC -Warrior 1 heads North to explore
3650BC - road built worker moves to grass
3600BC - worker starts mining, second warrior built
3550BC - warrior 1 heads east, warrior 2 explores south
3450BC - Azuchi grows, borders expand, micromanage Azuchi
3400BC - warrior 3 born - set to Military police in Azuchi, start temple as granary prebuild, Terra Cotta due in 5
3300BC - worker starts a road
3150BC - Terra Cotta learned, switch prebuild to granary, set research to Tao Mysticism at minimum (trade bait), worker west to bonus grasslands
3100BC - worker starts a road, warrior 1 heads east, warrior 2 heads west
3000BC - growth due in 1, granary due in 5 (likely 4 after growth)

Note Gormdragon will have to boost luxury spending next turn to accomodate the growth. The worker should build a road to the dyes next. We need to build up cash to buy techs.

Because of the shortage of food, we should always work a 2F square. Azuchi will only be able to produce a settler every 10 turns! It would be 20 without the granary.
In the meantime Azuchi can build a warrior a turn at size 5! An early temple (to help with flips) or a barracks are also good options.

Score is 81.

Enjoy

>save< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-3000BC.SAV)

Adrian

I downloaded but the Civ3 says it's not a valid save game.

It looks like we'll have to find another spot or two on which to found settler factories, and, once we get them up to speed, have Azuchi focus on producing workers and other things that it can produce more efficiently.

In the GoTM 23 SG I was playing, someone made the good point that zipping the save games before uploading them acts as extra protection against save-game corruption. I think we should use that too.

gormdragan, I had the same problem with the save-file myself. AdrianE, is it a CivIII save or a PTW save?

The problem with the save file from AdrianE may be related to Mac file format transfers and the MacOS.

You can try to see if properly zipping the file will fix the problem or if you still need more horsepower contact Txurce of AlanH to see if they can help you out.

Adrian will probably need to implement a different upload procedure in order to fix the problem before handing off future turns. Just a minor nuance of interfacing MacOS and the Rest of the world.

I'll zip the file and upload a zipped version this evening. Sorry for the delay.

Adrian

@AdrianE

It would be good if you could post a screenshot of where we stand right now. This would be very helpful for discussions.

Hope this is OK

Its a 96k JPEG.

I agree with Alweth that we must explore a site for a settler factory (ideally 4 turn). Choices are downstream of Goats (N of Azuchi) if we reveal further food bonus tiles nearby or more likely to east using wheat + grapes or cattle + grapes tiles (both sites on river for extra gold). Need to explore these areas to see if other bonuses are within a city radius.

This is my initial dotmap based on available recon.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/3000bc_map.jpg



Red dot

Advantages
(1) Immediate access to 2 BG, improved production rate.
(2) secondary border gets cattle(+2food) and wine(+1food). With 1 more citizen producing +2food, this is a 4 turn settler factory.
(3) Decent number of hills for long term production.
(4) River access for extra gold and no aquaduct.

Yellow dot

Advantages
(1) at least 2 BGs in borders, 1 is immediate access.
(2) good number of hills to offset production loss due to coast tiles.
(3) Hill defence, across river defence.
(4) Sea access.
(5) River access for extra gold and no aquaduct.

Disadvantages
(1) Unknown tiles, need more recon.

Green Dot

Advantages
(1) Decent spot with wheat and good mix of plains+grassland. Plains irrigated gives quick improvements for production.(irrigation takes 4 turns as opposed to mining of 6 turns)
(2) Decent number of hills to offset lose of shields from coastal tiles.

Disadvantages
(1) No river access, need aquaduct.


I would settle in this order of red, yellow and green.

Here is a zip. I won't bother with a screenshot. It seems some can read the file.

Anyway I like the red dot. But a temple would have to be built first to get the cattle in range. We would also need another worker.

It should be fairly easy to crank out more warriors to help with exploration.

>save< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-3000BC.zip)

edit:fixed link

I haven't been paying enough attention here.

gormdragan: you are UP.

I will be posting a comparative score chart in the first post of this thread in the next couple of days. Please be patient.

Adrian: you need a lower case "zip" extension in your link to match the uploaded file. :)

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy."

The lost disk is found, the add-ons run, and the save loaded OK. No error messages ... yet ... so let's hope that CivIII 1.29 with add-ons up to GOTM24 will happily coexist with PTW 1.27 with all add-on's up to GOTM 25.

Otherwise ... this Peanut will need to put on his propellor-equipped beanie cap and install his pocket pen protector and do some serious re-engineering.

Hark ! What distant spluttering from across yon ocean echoes ? Is it Cracker choking on his cornflakes with mirth as he contemplates Peanut's hybrid game installation ?

Anyway, its looking ok for now.

I just hope that all you other Ferrari drivers in this SG team enjoy those sessions when this Volvo driver takes the wheel ...

Thoughts from the Peanut ...

I agree with Gormdragan and AdrainE - Red is the best choice, followed by Y an G. A rushed temple at Red will be necessary to get the cow & grapes. Seeing as we are on emperor, the extra lux (grapes) will be handy when we want to grow towns to run up military production. Azuchi should crank out a worker or two reasonably soon if we can't buy any - the investment in boosted production will be worth it.

Settling at red, yellow & green also means a spacing of 5 & 5.5 for the first ring of cities. A bit more corrupt than a tighter fit but we should fit more into the first ring. Good for building a military.

We dun need to rush, remember we are religious, so temples is not a big problem.

Well, I just got beat to a pulp in my GoTM 25 game, so I can now devote all my Civ3 time to this game.

I think I'm a pretty good contender for lowest scoring submission.

I just thought I'd inspire some confidence in you guys.

I am struggling to win 6-2 by cultural 100k. If only, the victory condition could be domination.

Edit - Can't download save.

Originally posted by gormdragan
We dun need to rush, remember we are religious, so temples is not a big problem.
Um er um .. oh yes ... right ... (embarrassed silence) ... I knew that ... so only 30 shields ... it should end up being around a dozen turns or so after building a warrior or two to keep the peace. Less if we flick a worker that way seeing as getting that city up and productive will be a high priority.

... Peanut retreats into his shell to brush up on his Civ basics ...

Gormdragan - the problem is just that the save link has "ZIP" in upper case. If using IE then Just rightclick the save link and click "copy shortcut". Go to the Address line and paste the shortcut. Overtype "ZIP" with "zip". Hit enter.

Otherwise type in "http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-3000BC.zip" and it should work.

With the shortage of food in our start area, I don't think we should ever pop rush anything. We have plenty of shields. We are short of people.

It will take about 40 turns to get the red dot running as a settler factory.
15 turns to build the settler and move him
10 turns to growth (@ +2F, +2S working BG)
7 more turns after that to build a temple (faster if we mine BG)
5 turns after that for expansion
We also will need to irrigate several squares to get irrigated wines and cattle.

We could settle N,NW of the red dot to use the wheat (+3F, +4F after irrigation) immediately.

Edit: Oops I meant N,NE

how can you use the wheat N,NW of red dot immediately? You still need expanded borders.

There is no way we can get wheat+wine or wine+cattle without expanded borders. The only other option is to do a 5turn settler factory with just the wheat or just the cattle. It is a possibility we could look into.

In other words, we can't make a 4 turn settler factory without granary+temple. The first 25 turns in your analyses is unavoidable no matter where we pick our spot. We will definitely need to work those BGs. (That's precisely why we picked that spot for immediate BG access). IMHO, the 40 turns is unavoidable and is worth the effort.

I am also not very convinced about the shortage of food. We have at least 1 goat, 1 wheat, 1 cattle and 3 wine at close proximity. Most of our revealed tiles to the north are either plains or grassland, which is pretty decent in my opinion. While it is not the best of starts, it is far from food-poor. However, I agree we should not pop rush, at least not for the temple. Once we have wine+cattle or wine+wheat, rushing is not a big deal for that particular city.

@Peanut
Thanks for the adviceon the save.

With regards to RCP, it was not intentional. I am not a fan of RCP, I rather play by terrain.

I concur with Gormdragon that any settler factory will require an expanded city hence a temple. That will be useful to control happiness without using too much gold or tying up warriors as MPs.

NB An good alternative site is north, northeast of the red site in the bend of the river capturing the wheat immediately and grapes + bonus grassland once expansion takes place. It also has mimimal coastal squares. It will require only three roaded tiles to connect to capital.

The yellow site will be best for a coastal city for future galleys (if required) but further exporation may change that view.

Got it!!!

Preturn:
Everything looks good, except it would have been more productive to skip the mined grassland and mined the BG directly, it will not be used until pop 5.The work actions could have been used to road dyes.

In addition, it usually preferred to mine/irrigate b4 roading.

2950:
lux up to 10%.

2900:

2850:
Takeda San!! Hagimemashi te.

Trade Terra Cotta+Burial Rituals+10gp for Bronze Culture, or Terra Cotta+Burial Rituals+18gp+3gpt for The wheel. I decide to trade for The wheel so that we can reveal horses immediately.

2800:

2750:
Azuchi makes granary, starts war, swap to use irrigated plains (5spt for 2 turns).

2710:
Kuroda San!! Hagimemashi te.

Trade Terra Cotta+Burial Rituals for Bronze Culture+10gp.

Banzai!! We achieve tech parity.

2670:
Azuchi makes war, drop lux tax to 0%. Starts temple. Temple in 5, growth in 4. Need to up lux at last turn. Start roading for dyes.

2630:

2590:

2550:
Tech parity still.

Next better player.


The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-2550BC.SAV)

Alweth: You are UP

gormdragan: can you post the Firaxis score please?

Thanks.

@mad-bax

It's 94. If you don't mind me asking, what's the purpose?

I am going to publish a table that the three teams can look at. In this way everyone will have at least an inkling of how well the other teams are doing.

This team is a little behind (in number of turns played) and I have been waiting for a little more data b4 putting the table up. This I'll do tonight now.

Okay, I'll download it and play this evening. Unfortunately, this should be the evening that my Conquests expansion arrives, so I may be a little distracted.

You can be distracted as much as you like after you play your turns :whipped: ;)

I found time to have a look at the save just now.

The first thing I'd say is that obviously the capital will not be a settler factory. I would change the temple to settler. I would then get cities in the two dotted locations and get these three sites building our settlers between them. Granaries can go in all of them I s'pose but lets get at least the pink dot settled quick.

What d'ya think?


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mb4b.jpg

EDIT: The problem with Pink dot is that a cultural expansion is required to use the cow.

My thoughts on pink dot.

Because of the direction worked tiles was assigned, the advantage of tile sharing with the capital is lost. Furthermore, Pink is not adjacent to the river, which means we need to build an aquaduct. I would suggest moving the pink by 1 square to the east, hence utilizing the 4BG+1cattle+1 wine to develop into our settler factory. Since we are religious, temples come cheap and we can build it from scratch, taking advantage of the 2 immediate BGs.

Whether to build a settler or temple first is subjective, each having it's own merit. Azuchi may not be a settler factory, but it definitely can produce enough to make a settler once in a while. The temple b4 settler allows Azuchi to grow to 5 b4 a settler is made, which may be a better size.

Building a settler first however, gives us the 2nd city that we are really need and since we already have granary, dropping from 4 to 2 pop is not that big a deal. Considering that our luxury will roll through soon, switching to settler is good idea.

Yeah, I realise pink dot needs a duct. But if it is going to build settlers and workers for a while it's not going to get to size 7 anyway. I sited it there to provoke a discussion. Warriors can get from town to town in one turn with this layout, and I've avoided siting on a BG.

Personally I WOULD settle on the BG SE of Pink dot so a cultural expansion is not required to use the cow. At this stage of the game I'm always thinking about how to generate surplus food.

By settling on the BG we need only irrigate two tiles to get the cow wet, and then we have a 6 turn settler factory after granary. In reality of course we may have run out of room before it gets up and running. With the capital turning out a settler every ten turns we get 5 settlers in 18 turns which is acceptable, but will give us a slow military start of course.

I really don't like the temple. It adds no value to our position at all. I almost never build temples in the ancient age. I just wait for markets. I really would swap that build to settler, then prbably worker after that to improve the second city.

It wouldn't be everyones choice I know, but that's SGs for you. :)

:D I am just the opposite with you. I think granary is a waste of time I never build them in any of my solo games.

With regards to size 7, I was under the impression that the best settler factory should be the 7 to 5 factory.

SE of pink.
If we just have cattle in our borders, we have 2wasted food(+4,+4,+4 to fill 10 slot) every 3 turns. That is not efficient especially since we have no forest to temporarily switch to for more shields. We also wasted a BG. ICP advantage defensively is also lost since you need 2 turns to shuttle warriors.

E of Pink dot.
If we build a temple+granary, we can be at +5 per turn, therefore having no waste. This gives us a nice 4 turn settler factory. We can cycle from pop 7 to 5(8/8/10/10 shields per turn). Assuming mined BG, irrigated cattle+wine. To be optimum, we should have 3 mined BGs, irrigated cattle+wine to make 8/8/9/9 shields per turn (total 34, waste 4)

Will swapping the temple for a settler waste shields? If so keep the temple. An early temple is very useful for flip suppression in the warmongering phase.

We should be able to crank lots of military units out of Azuchi as well. We should be able to do warrior/warrior/settler if we cycle between size 2 and 4 or warrior/spear (or archer)/settler if we cycle between size 3 and 5 every 10 turns.

I much prefer cities on water. The orginal red dot is my preference.

Delete this duplicate post please

Switching temple to settler should be the same, temple costing 60shields(30 since we are religious) and settler is 30.

You don't need a duct to make a 7-5 settler factory. At size six you fill the bin and drop back to size five that turn. You never actually get to see the seven.

A temple will not help flip supression unless we jump the palace. The capital won't flip.

Just ask yourself what a temple will do for us right now, versus what a settler would.

I thought religious temples were 40 sheilds. Maybe I'm wrong.

One of the aspects of flips is total culture. If we have high culture (from an early temple) then we reduce the probability that captured cities flip back.

Given that we are paying 3GPT from our wheel deal can we afford to drop to pop 2 now?

Alweth will decide. We'll know tommorrow.

Originally posted by mad-bax
You don't need a duct to make a 7-5 settler factory. At size six you fill the bin and drop back to size five that turn. You never actually get to see the seven.

I will have to take your word on this one.

The loss of commerce will be a pain. We'll probably run at around -3gpt for a while. Maybe worker after settler would not be a good idea. A road on the goats would help.

gorm: try it and see.

I trust you, please for give my ignorance. :D

I prefer the plan to settle RedDot, GreenDot and YellowDot in that order, and go for temples in each. RedDot wil be a decent settler factory as well as having good production capacity. GreenDot & YellowDot will have production potential as well as coastal cash benefits.

Another option for the first site is 1 tile W of the cow (unexplored but looks like grass ?) - this will share the goats straight away from proximity to Azuchi), immediate cow access, and BG access.

RedDot et. al. can be settled later and the two can share the cow and BG as needed.

Overlap is OK is we will exterminate all other civs well before we get to the modern age, so we won't need all that real estate in each city.

If it's not too late ... settler not temple in Azuchi as we gotta get growing ! And granary anywhere we want to pump out settlers.

I agree with overlapping but not at the expense of a potential settler factory.

For my (new) pennyworth I would go for the yellow site as the better settler factory prospect. We seem to have plenty of land so push out and backfill later (once the factory is churning out settlers). We also need to explore bit more around some of the potential sites, i.e. S of 'pink' site as there may be extra bonus stuff we are missing, ditto near the coast for 'red' site.

I go with settler as we need that 2nd city and can then turn out a few warriors while we grow (to explore further & for future upgrade to swords) then intersperse workers to link cities and develop tiles. You an never have too many workers.

Err, if i calculate correctly, yellow site will not be a 4 turn settler factory due to lack of shields.

At population 5, we can work 1 irrigated wine+1 irrigated wheat+1 mined BG+2mined grassland+1irrigated plains. This gives us 6 shields for 2 turns if we maintain +5food per turn.

At population 6, we can work the above + 1 more mined grassland. That gives us 7 shields per turn. At 6/6/7/7, we will be 4 shields short to make a 4 turn settler. My 2 cents. :D

I checked: a temple for a religous civ is 30 shields. Therefore we waste none by switching to settler. We should definately have a settler built asap.

Will city provide any shields ? - on grasslands no :(

Is there not a trick with adjusting new pop to get extra shields over inter-turn period. Needs MM to switch to 2 x shield tile before turn end and back to food after. Need to re-read to settler factory thread in the war academy.

I thought yellow dot would be settled too late. It's a long way from the palace and so would probably be about a third corrupt. My idea for yellow dot was a worker pump. We need lots of workers on this terrain. Yellow dot could be a four turn worker pump with no granary and only 4 tiles improved (I think).

I am still surprised that the thought of settling 1 SE on Pink dot si not attractive to the team. As I said before it is a dead cert 6 turn settler factory, and later in the game will build military like shelling peanuts :p

Alweth should have posted by now. We are lagging the other teams by some distance. :sad:

My 5 cents worth (we abolished 1 & 2 cent pieces years ago) :

YellowDot is a good site but not immediately. I'm with Madbax on this one. Madbax's idea of 1 tile SE of PinkDot would be OK, so would 1 tile W of the Cow. A town near the wines is also a priority - on Emperor we will need the luxuries to keep the unruly mobs happy.

We also don't know what is NW of Azuchi - there could be a decent spot there too.

But the debate about a second city is (hopefully) irrelevant as Alweth should have decided by now, if the temple was switched to a settler.

And incidentally Madbax, I'll shell myself thank you very much, you cheeky devil.

Let's get on with it comrades - our opponents will die of boredom waiting for us to pillage and overrun them.

Alweth - You didn't get distracted playing around with Conquests, did you ? Hmmmm .. ?

Originally posted by Peanut
Alweth - You didn't get distracted playing around with Conquests, did you ? Hmmmm .. ? [/B]

Yeah, I admit it. :sad: Both the save and my expansion arrived at the same time and I couldn't help myself, but I'll have my turns up tonight.

Originally posted by Alweth


Yeah, I admit it. :sad: Both the save and my expansion arrived at the same time and I couldn't help myself, but I'll have my turns up tonight.
Tsk Tsk. Give yourself 1 dozen lashes and get back to the game.

I don't think that Conquests has appeared in the shops here yet, but seeing as it is a nice warm sunny day today in Brisbane I will now go for my lunch time walk to try my luck.

I, too, may well be distracted by Conquests tonight ...

... and there it was, on the shelf at Mr Toys Toyworld, right on schedule (14/11) ... and now that excellent emporium has one less in stock ...

Ack! I was writing my play log in a post to this board and when I tried to post it said the attached save was too big so I lost my play log. Here's the save, though.

Things to note:
1. Check out what the other civs have to trade. Notice that Tokugawa doesn't have Terra Cotta yet.

2. You can change Nagoya's production to a temple.

3. Mining and roading the goats on the mountain should get us a 2f 3s 1g spot, even in Despotism, which will upgrade to 2f 4s 1g when we go to Monarchy or something.

Anyhow. That's my thoughts. If you have any questions about what happened, please ask away, and I'll try and tell you.

If you guys are really missing it, though, I might be able to reconstruct what happened from auto-saves.

I have the game.

Questions for Alweth - where did you intend the settler to found the next city ?

As I am now going to work (9 am GMT) I include a screen save which I can check out from my browser during any pre-turn discussions. I should be able to play tonight.

All that argument about city placement and Alweth finds an even better site. Nagoya can be a four turn factory. Great move Alweth :goodjob:

Looks like Alweth picked good ol' RedDot from Gormdragan's proposal ... and the Settler is headed to GreenDot. Looks OK to me. Get settled and get reproducing !

Would Nagoya perhaps be better with a Temple first ? That will get expansion sooner and will keep a larger population happy.

It's fun being a back seat driver ...

Nagoya needs the temple first to expand to get the cows in range.

It looks like the settler is headed for green dot. I'd send it to yellow.

We probably need some more military. The barbs could show up soon.

I think it may not be a good idea to road and mine the goat mountain. We are non-industrious and mining/roading a mountain takes up too much time for our lack of workers. It is more worthwhile to work tiles for other cities. We can tackle the goat mountain when we have enough slaves :devil2:.

Originally posted by Peanut
Looks like Alweth picked good ol' RedDot from Gormdragan's proposal ... and the Settler is headed to GreenDot.

Yeah, I meant to send him to the yellow dot, but got the two confused. Hopefully that won't hurt us too much.

Also, I forgot to post the score:


SCORE: 105

Looks like we're lagging behind the other known civs. If we can just get up some trading power, though, I think we might be able to make a come-back in score fairly quickly by gaining some techs.

2150 BC to 1750 BC

Turn 0 – 2150 BC

After review of situation switched Azuchi to warrior in 2 (to replace existing warrior who will explore to west) and Nagoya to warrior in 1 (to replace existing warrior who will explore to south). IMHO there is too much unknown territory close to our core cities.

Move Wr(Az - Azuchi) > N > W, Wr(Ng - Nagoya) > S

Iron Working too expensive to trade I think and we are not desperate for swordsmen yet.

Turn 1 – 2110 BC

Nagoya builds Warrior – Temple (for expansion & happiness)

Wr(Ng) > S, Wr(E – in east) > E dead-end so bring him home, Wr(Az) > W, Settler > W

EOT – Azuchi builds warrior > W – warrior.

Turn 2 – 2070 BC

Found ISE on river next to wheat (will have to mine for shields but good worker farm) – build warrior.

Wr(Az) > N, Wr(E) > S, W(SW) > SE

Turn 3 – 2030 BC

Wr(Az) > N – reveal good city site on hill next to cattle & bonus grasslands on river.
Wr(Ng) > S, Worker completes road > E, Wr(E) > SW, Wr(SW) > SE

Turn 4 – 1990 BC

Azuchi builds warrior(Az2) - barracks ( as resource rich city good for future unit production)
Worker starts road, Wr(Ng) > SW, Wr(Az) > W, Wr(E) > W, Wr(SW) > E spots barb.

EOT – other civs still asking high prices for iron working & now Mysticism (so switch to masonry)

Turn 5 – 1950 BC

Wr(SW) > E (spot Barb camp), Wr(Ng) > S (lots of sheep), Wr(Az2) > W, Wr(Az) > SW, Wr(E) > W.

Trade Tokugawa Terra Cotta for 34g (He is close to SW Civ which has Terra Cotta – get money while we can).

Turn 6 – 1910 BC

Wr(SW) > SW (to hill for better defence from Barb), Wr(Ng) > S, Wr(Az2) > S,
Wr(Az) > SW (spot horses), Wr(E) > W

Turn 7 – 1870 BC

Trades on offer are Iron Working – 81g + 5 gpt and Mysticism 81g + 2 gpt. We have 81g and +7 gpt.

Wr(Sw) attacked & kills barb, now Vet. Wr(Ng) E, Worker completes road > NE (to link up Ise), Wr(Az2) > S (mostly mountains), Wr(Az) > SW, Wr(E) > S

Turn 8 – 1830 BC

Azuchi builds barracks – warrior (then worker before growth creates unhappiness).
Worker starts road, Wr(Ng) > E
Wr(Az2) > SW, Wr(Az) > W, Wr(SW) > N, Wr(E) > SW spots Tokugawa warrior long way from home (looks like we wont be able to trade contact East to West).

Turn 9 – 1790 BC

Wr(E) >SW (avoiding Tok warrior & spots Kuroda warrior), Wr(Az2) > S, Wr(Az) > SW (mt view of cattle + horses & edge of Tokugawa terratory– bring him home),
Wr(Ng) > S (finds sea coast, is this long thin island – like Japan ?), Wr(SW) > NE

Turn 10 – 1750 BC

Aghh – growth in Ise leads to unrest – up Lux rate at cost of 1 gpt and send Wr(reg) from Azuchi to Nagoya & Wr from Nagoya to Ise for MP duties.

Wr(Az2) > S, Wr(Az) > E, Wr(Ng) > NE, Wr(E) > S, Wr(SW) > NE (and then east to check for coastline.

All three civs offer Iron Working for 110g + 3 gpt and Bajutsu for 110g + 1 gpt. Tokugawa (18g) & Kuroda (0 g) & Mysticism (110g) while Takeda (113g) has neither. Trading opportunity for next player !

Summary – Have fully explored immediate neighborhood and continue development. Decided to let cities grow before raiding for further settlers / workers. Bring some warriors back to core for future upgrades to swords when we trade for iron working.

Behind in Tech race so smart trading needed (see above) – perhaps should have traded sooner but little opportunity for on trading on to recover high asking price.

Civ Score 130

The saved game is here -

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4-1750BC-SAV.zip

Screenshot attached.

MacBaldrick -

A sterling effort - jolly good show all round.

Based on MB's list, it looks like you all are now in the capable (?) hands of Captain Peanut for the next leg of your thrilling journey towards mass bloodshed and world conquest.

Stay tuned - if I can get time away from the enormous list of household tasks that normally occupies my Saturdays (an occupational hazard arising from being married and having small children) then I should have the next installment up by this evening.

Yes Peanut - You are UP.
Good luck!

:goodjob: everyone, we are looking good.

Comrades - a mixed effort.

Here's the 1500BC save file (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-1500BC.zip) and a chronology (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Peanut1500BC.txt).

Summary - a massive 155 points, 1 tech behind, four techs bought for a net cost of 141g (41g+5gpt). Still 3 towns but number 4 soon. Well placed to start pumping settlers soon from Nagoya. One warrior down (lost 4-0 to a barb camp - what a poop !).

Over to Mad-Bax to lead us to glory !

Peanut over & out, and back into his shell for a sleep for whatever is left of the night.

OK. Got it!

1500BC: Pre-turn.
Well, we have iron to the north and horses to the south. Nagoya will be a settler factory, but not for 10 turns or so. Ise I still think will be a worker pump. So I reckon the next couple of cities should pump units. We are desperately short of workers and we still need to get a couple of settlers out b4 Nagoya comes on line. The long and the short of it is that I am changing Ise to worker and Azuchi to settler.

Nagoya needs another MP in three turns or the slider has to move so I send a warrior from Ise.

The research path we are taking is not one I'm used to, but it could work. I doubt Monarchy would be good long term, but we can use it for a while.

IBT:
Nothing happened

1475BC:
The settler warrior pair are on goto. In Sg's it is customary not to put units on goto's that last longer than your set of turns. I'm not moaning, I'll probably do the same myself sometime :)

I decide to bring the explorers back home. Further extension might make it difficult to get them back, and it would be difficult to explore further anyway.

1450BC:
All the known civs have alphabet, so it isn't gonna get any cheaper. I buy it from the Koroda as they are poorest. We pay 95g + 1gpt.

1425BC:

I don't know where our warrior/settler pair is going. I'll have to stop them.

1400BC:
No news

IBT:
Ise Worker - Worker

1375BC:
Found Koromo - rax

IBT:
Azuchi settler - warrior

1350BC:
Send new settler to clain southern horses.
Tokugawa have Calligraphy.
Sell tham contact with the Takeda for contact with the Mori + 81g
The Mori are broke and stupid.

1325BC
All quiet

IBT:
Nagoya granary - settler
Azuchi warrior - settler

1300BC:
No news

IBT:
I think the Tokudawa and Takeda are in a war. There are a lot of purple warriors heading east.

1275BC:
Still nothing happening.

IBT:
Ise worker - worker

1250BC:
Decide to change the settler an Azuchi to Flagged footman. There are a lot of units running around and I have seen a couple of barbs too. I don't want to lose workers in a silly way.
Found Ogaki - rax

We are behind Calligraphy, but we can afford it if we want it :p
It is customary to let the incoming player make the deal as he/she feels fit.
Ogaki is not an RCP placement, but I didn't want to road over about three hills to hook up horses.

Koromo needs culture. I'm thinking we should wait for Lit and put a library in it.


Our score stands at 189, dead last :)

Here is our empire
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mb4c.jpg

Here is the >>save<<. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-1250BC.SAV)

AdrianE: You are UP

got it

Everything looks ok. Interesting to note that Mori has 8 cities, Kuroda 5, Takeda 9 and Tokugawa 8

Turning the explorers back was a major error IMO. Any contacts they make are more valuable than their lives. Also why were workers irrigating the plains near ISE?

1250BC IBT - Tokugawa establishes an embassy with us.

1225BC nothing interesting

1200BC Azuchi flagged foot -> settler
spot a purple horseman

1175BC Nagoya settler-> settler
Baejke build Oracle

1150BC nothing

1125BC nothing

1100BC ISE worker - barracks

1075BC Azuchi settler -> Flagged Footman
Tokugawa declare war on the Mori

1050BC Nagoya - settler-> settler
Takeda demand 28G - we pay

1025BC - Hammatsu builds Pyramids (its close and has a big target on it)
Bejing (Han) builds great wall

1000BC Kurono warrior -> warrior

Score is 228 and dead last of the known civs. We have 5 towns but 3 settlers are out. The one near the wool is ready to found a town. The fish and wool will make a productive town. One is on the north west cows and should move onto the coast hills. The third is south of the north western olives. He can either settle near the lake (get the cow via expansion) or on the hills near the rocks.

I declined to buy Calligraphy. There were no workers or any other techs available so I did no trading.


>SAVE< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-1000_BC.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-1000BC.jpg

Madbax -

Sorry about the goto on the settler/warrior. This is the first SG I have played, next time I will leave them waiting for orders from the next player. My write-up said that they were heading for the hill beside Koromo. My thinking was that way they it could reach the cows and 4BG immediately, the iron later at the cost of needing an aquaduct eventually.

The tech choice (Shamanism) was based on the AI's preference for the Alphabet/ Calligraphy/ Map Making/ Mathematics/ Construction paths, and hopefully we could finish Shamanism first and get a three or four techs for one trade advantage (as the AIs swap techs for little more than a nudge & a wink). It might just work as the AIs did research Alpha & Callig first.

Peanut: My bad! I obviously didn't read you turnlog carefully enough. My apologies. The research selection is fine, and you are right in saying that the AI don't "do" polytheism. I was just remarking that it isn't the way I tend to play, and it makes it interesting.

Adrian, I sent 3 warriors out of the 5 back. My thinking was that with the raging barb setting, sending unescorted settlers would be bad, and I didn't want to delay getting settlers out. But yes, I agree, further contacts are much more valuable than the lives of the units and on balance it was a bad move.

Irrigating the plains tiles is a good move IMO. Originally Ise was working the irrigated wheat and an uniproved hill and was therefore at +3 food. Irrigating a plains is quicker than mining a grass to get to +4 food, so that is why the first one was irrigated, and the second was just to provide another 2 food tile to allow Ise to Size 3 so we could pop rush a temple a bit later. Later, most or all of the plains tiles that lie between our capital and Ise will be irrigated, and the irrigation needs to come from somewhere. On top of that I envisaged Ise as a worker pump for practically the whole game so shields were not a priority.

What tiles around Ise would you have improved?

Rather than to build a whole lot of workers, I would rather start a ancient age-middle age war with sufficient warrior-upgraded swords and go for slaves. This is considering a conquest victory condition. I would not make Ise into a worker factory. We should leave worker production to outlaying corrupt cities that can build nothing else. Ise is a first ring highly productive city, definitely not worker production material.

My 2 cents.

Well, if it's a war you want, then maybe we should buy Calligraphy and establish an embassy with the Takeda and see if they are at war with Tokugawa. The Takeda look the weakest ATM.

We may have to agree to disagree about workers. With our terrain type and a non-industrious civ I would look at 2 workers per city. If Adrian irrigated the wine then we can have a four turn settler factory and therefore I would want to build 1 worker every other turn. So, again IMHO the rax going into Ise could be changed to granary. We have a fairly shield rich ring of cities that should be able to knock out a couple of warriors and the odd horse every turn soon, so we could get maybe a dozen warriors and say four horses by 500BC. Can we make enough money to upgrade a dozen warriors?

BTW gormdragan, you're UP

I would war for calligraphy instead. :D

Rather than to build a fixed worker production, I would use worker production on all our cities as contraciption, i.e., to maintain a managable population size. Pinning a first ring city for settler is justifiable, but for workers, that is more touchy. We could swap Nagoya to worker production once we run out of space.

Incidentally, I am perfectly comfortable with populations using unworked tiles, and this may be the big difference in playing style. It's a matter of comfort level. I use war to pull ahead rather than production or research.

I am just throwing out my opinions, alternatives to consider. :D

BTW, are we doing 40turn research gambits?

Since it's my turn, I would like the take on everyone b4 I play my turns.

If we agreed on everything SG's would be pointless. :)

ISE cannot grow every two turns anyway and without a granary can only grow every 6, so it looks to be on a worker/warrior rotation anyway as things stand. Peeling workers off other cities to prevent the lux slider moving will be necessary for us to make enough money for the upgrades.

In my turns purple (Tokugawa) declared war on the Mori. There has been a constant stream of purple units heading west. The bulk of their army will be in the Green (Kuroda) soon. Purple is a nice target as they have the Pyramids in Hammatsu.

If we buy caligraphy from Mori, then get them to pay us for an alliance against Tokugawa we might get most of our $ back. Then we sign up Kuroda against Tokugawa. Kuroda then fights the bulk of the Tokugawa army and we get the spoils! We'll need about 10 swordsman and 5 horsemen before we start the war though. That means we'll need 400G for the upgrades and $ to bribe the Kuroda. We'll also need 200G for embassies. I estimate that 800G is needed.

We need to crank out veteran warriors to upgrade to swords and get the horses hooked up. I have 4 workers building the road to Oqaki. We need Caligraphy first to sign alliances and buy contacts. The AI's were asking 182G +1GPT. The AI's usually ask for 20% more than they'll accept, so we could get it for 160 or so.

We should send our new settlers out south and west. We need to grab that territory ASAP. Then settle old yellow dot. I think we should expand first, build up warriors and then swordsman rush the Tokugawa while their army is half a continent away.

Mad-bax I'd have mined the grasslands on the river near ISE to get extra cash flow. I've got a worker doing that now.

I did finish the irrigation of the wines. One worker team is mining the last BG required for the settler factory in Nagoya.
I think the Fish/Wool settler will be able to get a worker pump going. We don't need a core city producing workers. I agree with the others on this. I think we need some workers up by Kuromo. We will need a road pointed at the heart of Togukawa.

Personally, I don't like to form alliances for war. It severely restricts the freedom to sue for peace for profits when appropriate. If I go to war, I usually do it alone.

I only get an alliance when I am in a war I am not interested in fighting. An example, would be a distant AI declares on me and I can't be bothered. I wiil find another AI nearby to my enemy and make alliance to fight the war for me and not bother me.

I would have bought calligraphy(or will buy) immediately. The lack of calligraphy spells the lack of ability to trade contacts.

The short of it, if I declare war in my turns (not in these 10 of course) I will not bring in an alliance, sorry not my style.

Originally posted by gormdragan

BTW, are we doing 40turn research gambits?


It'd be 50 turn gambits in this game :)

Less attractive? I dunno.

Most early wars last a long time so alliances aren't so bad. It will take 10 to 12 turns to march our swordsman SOD to Hammatsu from our borders anyway. We want the Pyramids before any peace talks. So we'd just have to wait a few turns. The advantage of bringing the Kuroda in via an alliance is that they will engage the Tokugawan army and protect our eastern border. Otherwise the returning Toks will hammer our lightly defended eastern cities. Signing Kuroda up with us means that the Toks can't get them. We only want to fight 1 civ at a time if we can help it.

Alliances have their uses. I wouldn't categorically discard them.

I'd also like to suggest that we always fight 'honorably' and declare war from outside the territory of the enemy. It is bad form to take the rep hit and saddle the other players with a poor reputation.

Originally posted by AdrianE

Alliances have their uses. I wouldn't categorically discard them.

I'd also like to suggest that we always fight 'honorably' and declare war from outside the territory of the enemy. It is bad form to take the rep hit and saddle the other players with a poor reputation.

I definitely agree with this.

Workers vs. War -

I believe that we will need to go onto a war footing in the near future, but before that we should have our core (ring 1) cities running productively. That means more workers.

We also need to have roads built to the edge of our empire (& even into unclaimed territory) in order to get troops to our target faster, and to move them back if we are attacked from another direction or have a barb uprising. That means more workers.

We also need to get our luxuries and towns connected up to keep populations happier and corruption down. That means more workers.

My approach, for what it is worth, is to time the production of settlers and workers to coincide approximately with pop growth. The remaining production goes into military (or city improvements). That way we build just the right level of improvements (mines & irrigation) to match our town populations as they fluctuate as we produce settlers and workers.

So, we need to produce our own workers first to get our core tuned for a military campaign. Any slaves we gain in war will be working hard firstly to connect up our new conquests.

Preturn:
No trades done, using Peanut's advice on Shamanship trade.

975:
Azuchi makes Flagged, starts war
Handa founded starts war.

IBT:
Tokugawa threatens war, I fold. Just you wait for our swordsman. Gave away our territory map+27gp.

950:
Yokkachi founded, starts war.
Suzuka founded, starts war.

925:
Nagoya makes settler, starts rax. Please let Nagoya grow to at least 5 b4 starting settler production. That would give us a 4 turn settler. Don't build settler prematurely, not efficent.

900:

IBT:
Takeda and Tokugawa MA against Mori.

875:
Tokugawa got 100+ more gp this turn, Tokugawa and Takeda has MM. Still no one has Shamanship, this gambit is looking good. I noticed that no one has additional contacts, so on hindside, pulling the warriors back to protect the settlers is not a bad idea. :goodjob:

850:
Azuchi makes temple, starts war.

825:
Nagoya makes rax, starts settler this is the start of a 4 turn settler cycle. :jump:

May need to MM, please check every turn.

At pop 5, work 3 mined BGs, irrigated cattle and irrigated wine. 7 shields per turn, 5 food per turn.

At pop 6, work 3 mined BGs, irrigated cattle, irrigated wine and unworked BGs. 8 shields per turn, 5 food per turn. No waste at all.

Nagoya does not need any more tile working, any addition work is wasted.

Kuroda has MM too. Still no one has Shamanship.

800:
Azuchi makes war, starts Flagged footman. I think we have a good cycle here. Nagoya makes settler, Azuchi makes flagged footman escorts and workers to trim the population.


Summary and Thoughts

(1) Tokugawa gets Mathematics. We can do a 3-fer if we trade 266+7gpt+WM for Maths with Tokugawa. Then Trade Maths with Kuroda for Calligraphy.
Then Trade Maths with Mori for Contact with Chosogabe.
Then Trade Maths with Takeda for Mapmaking.
Then Trade Contact with Chosogabe with Tokugawa for $$$ (Try to get back some of our dough).

This empties our coffer and I am not sure if we can get all. It might be worthwhile though. We can get $$$ back with Shamanship. We can get additional trade possibilities with Chosogabe.

266+7gpt+WM+(more) for Maths+Calligraphy+Mapmaking+Contact with Chosogabe. :goodjob:

Personally, I would go for it. If this occurred during the middle of my turns, I would have jump on it. :D

(2) Nagoya needs to be MM to maintain 4 turn settler cycle. Azuchi provides settler escort.Do not move garrison in Nagoya, it will screw up the cycle.

(3) Let the first ring core city populations grow to 5 or 6 b4 slashing them down, that is more efficient in production.

(4) Rely on Outer cities (Yokkachi, Suzuka and Handa) to make workers.

(5) Escorted settler NE of Suzuka heading one more tile E to settle between the cattle and game.

Next better player.

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-800_BC.SAV)

Wow Gormdragan :goodjob:
Can you post the Firaxis score pls?

Alweth you are UP :)

Err...I haven't make the trade yet. I tot it is customary that the last turn trading is done by the next player.

I am in the office now, wouldn't be able to post you the score anytime soon.

Originally posted by gormdragan

Tokugawa gets Mathematics. We can do a 3-fer if we trade 266+7gpt+WM for Maths with Tokugawa. Then Trade Maths with Kuroda for Calligraphy.
Then Trade Maths with Mori for Contact with Chosogabe.
Then Trade Maths with Takeda for Mapmaking.
Then Trade Contact with Chosogabe with Tokugawa for $$$ (Try to get back some of our dough).

This empties our coffer and I am not sure if we can get all. It might be worthwhile though. We can get $$$ back with Shamanship. We can get additional trade possibilities with Chosogabe.

266+7gpt+WM+(more) for Maths+Calligraphy+Mapmaking+Contact with Chosogabe. :goodjob:



We should be able to get and trade everybody's world map too. That will put even more cash in our pockets. The Chogosabe may know someone else also.

I suggest that we do the Math for mapmaking trade before trading it away for contacts. We'll get higher value in the trading. Techs are usually more costly than contacts.

Is the 266G +7GPT +WM the lowest they'll take for math? Or is that what they say they'll take? If so, they'll probably accept 225G + 7GPT +WM. Always offer them less than they say'll they'll take. The AIs usually ask for 10 to 20% more than they will accept. Also see if you can get everybody's WM or TM during the trades. Then sell it back to everyone else.

I say we should do the trades ASAP.

That is the lowest I could get. Hehe, I always bargain. :D

The greedy Tokugawa wanted 273 + 9gpt+WM

I would do maths for contact first b4 mapmaking because I suspect MM is worth more than just Maths. I suspect we need Maths+Contact with Chosogabe.

I got it.

I'm pretty sure I'll do the trades. See what I can squeeze out of them.

@Alweth

Could you do me a favor and get my Score at the end of my turn? :thanx:

Gormdragan

Your score was 267 (an increase of 39).

@MacBaldrick

Thanks alot, appreciate it :thanx:

Originally posted by gormdragan
... Please let Nagoya grow to at least 5 b4 starting settler production. That would give us a 4 turn settler. Don't build settler prematurely, not efficent ... Nagoya does not need any more tile working, any addition work is wasted.


Gormdragan has it right - pick the production "sweet spot" for Nagoya & get the terrain improvements to match it, then let it run.

Trades : I agree - do the trades. Where there is a trade arbitrage opportunity we should grab it. The AI's will trade away any differences between themselves pretty quickly as at Emperor they value techs lower for eachother than for us.

Plus ... trading keeps the AI civs happier with us, meaning that we are more likely to be able to choose the time for war rather than have them doing it.

One way of thinking about tech purchases is to look at our maximum possible research spending (gpt) and convert the net sale price to a turns equivalent. When I managed to get Iron, Masonry, Mysticism & Bajitsu on an arbitrage sale for the equivalent of 141 gold, it was like getting each of them on a four turn research cycle (approx. 35 gold each @ 9gpt income). Researching them all ourselves would have been more like 10 turns each.

It's another way of looking at it ... but of course pointy stick research is a lot more fun and rewarding.

Another issue is to look at what the techs will do for us when deciding whether to buy them. If they won't give us added offensive and defensive capability (eg. Iron, Chivalry, Feudalism etc.) , or give opportunity for income growth (eg. Currency) then our cash may be better held back for upgrades with future research being the pointy stick variety. Any thoughts ?

Are you guys expecting me to go to war with Tokugawa?

I wouldn't go to war against Tokugawa, I think we are no match for Tokugawa.

Preturn
I do gorm's suggested trade with Tokugawa.

Kuroda: TM + Math for Calligraphy + 10g

Mori: Math + 4g + 4gpt for Contact with Chosogabe (Takeda wouldn't make any decent deals.)

Chosogabe have 45g and 7 cities.

Takeda: Math + Contact with Chosogabe + TM + 11g for Mapmaking

Chosogabe: WM + Contact with Kuroda for 45g + WM

Tokugawa: WM + Contact with Chosogabe for 45g + TM

Kuroda: WM for WM + 1g

Takeda: WM for WM + 10g

Mori: TM for WM + 11g

Turn 1 - 775BC
Ise: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 2 - 750BC
Yokkachi: Warrior->Warrior
Ogaki: Warrior->Warrior

Moriyama-ku founded: Worker

Turn 3 - 730BC
Handa: Warrior->Worker
Nagoya: Settler->Settler
Azuchi: Flagged Footman->Flagged Footman
Koromo: Warrior->Warrior

Turn 4 - 710BC
Mori and Tokugawa sign a peace treaty--d'oh.

Suzuka: Warrior->Worker
Ise: Warrior->Worker

Wow, Kuroda has left Tanabe completely undefended, but I resist the temptation, since it's not a good town.

Turn 5 - 690BC
Ogaki: Warrior->Flagged Footman
Koromo: Warrior->Flagged Footman

Turn 6 - 670BC
Yokkachi: Warrior->Barracks (so we can upgrade warriors there)
Azuchi: Flagged Footman->Warrior

Turn 7 - 650BC
Good News: Now we have horses.
Bad News: Now Tokugawa has Shamanism.

I'm going to leave us researching Shamanism (ETA 5 turns) and hope that we can get it and sell it to the other AIs before they get the money to buy it. Also, it's probably the cheapest way we're going to get it.

Nagoya: Settler->Settler
Ise: Worker->Worker

Change some places to making Horsemen instead of Warriors or Flagged Footmen

Kita-ku founded: Worker

Turn 8 - 630BC
Move some units.

Turn 9 - 610BC
Move some units some more.

Turn 10 - 590BC
Ogaki: Flagged Footman->Warrior
Ise: Worker->Worker
Azuchi: Horseman->Horseman

Summary
Well, not much happened. We need to look for another opportunity to fight a war. As soon as we get Shamanism, we should try to get a little money out of it. I really can't think of anything else to say.

Score: 321

mb4b-0590bc.zip (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/mb4b-0590bc.zip)

The Shamanism Gambit :

Ah well, as the great philosopher Maxwell Smart often said, "Missed it by THAT much !". Perhaps we can still chalk up a few sales in a few turns.

If we can now build our UU (can we ?) then perhaps we should move towards some pointy stick research before the AIs reach Feudalism and can build more robust defenders.

Our UU is some sort of swordsman, isn't it ? I'm not quite sure so please someone enlighten this little Peanut.

Edit - this Peanut has mastered self-enlightenment! Kensia Oda = Super swordsman (4.2.1). So we probably ought to get a few battles under our belt before the AI's work out how to build Pikemen. I wonder if we should soon invite the Kuroda to step outside for a quiet chat about land and technology sharing ?

I wouldn't bank on this unit being our UU Peanut. It may or may not be. I honestly have no idea what our UU would be.

I have it. Will have a closer at situation tonight, e.g. how much gold is needed to upgrade warriors etc. and complete play tomorrow as I am now at work and will be out tonight. Also my extended edition DVD of The Two Towers arrives any day (3 1/2 hours less time to play ;)

Peanut - the real issue with Kensia Oda if our UU is it will trigger our GA. We will find out soon enough when this unit has a victory in future 'combat operations'.

Check the civilopedia on the Kensai Oda. The new units usually have an entry in there.

I think it would be our unique unit. It is better than a regular swordsman. It will be like playing with the Persians. I don't think we want to wait too long to strike out with a force of these guys even if that means a despotic golden age.

A screenshot of the known world would be nice too.

AdrianeE

I can only grab our core + minimap in one screen as below.

Some thoughts.

I have this feeling Tokugawa is strong. Therefore, I would propose we strike on Kuroda(Mr Green) and secure our FP in Kuroda's territory. Once we have our 2nd ring of cores in place, we will have the industrial strength to come back and kill off Tokugawa (and I suspect Takeda will ally with Tokugawa against us).

We might want to get another settler out of Azuchi. Its size 6 with growth in 4. Send him 5 (or 6) SW of Azuchi to grab the gold mines. A city in there will only grow to size 5 but will be a shield and $ powerhouse. It will really rock after the grassland gets irrigated but thats a long long time away.

If we go after Green first we could surround Mishima with temples and maybe flip it over to us. Green might be an easier first victim as Gormdragon pointed out. Also the Tokugawan army will be marching back through out territory. We might consider selling him a ROP to expedite the process.

We also might want a port on the south coast (9S of Azuchi or 10SE). A galley or two might help especially if there is anything of value on that unconnected land south of Kita-Ku.

We seem to be catching up to the AI's. Good work everyone. Red has 12 cities, purple 10, green 7, orange 9 and yellow 8. We have 10.

Originally posted by AdrianE
We seem to be catching up to the AI's. Good work everyone. Red has 12 cities, purple 10, green 7, orange 9 and yellow 8. We have 10.

That's the power of settler factories, which the AIs don't use, I think.

I agree to taking on the green first. I would like to see us try to fight on two fronts fairly early. So East first, but then west. We can gain ground quicker by fighting close to home.

If the Kensai is our UU then I think we have to bite the bullet with a despotic GA and get to chivalry as soon as we can. With decreased tech rates it could be a while before we get republic. We must have fast units to conquer quickly IMO. We will not have enough workers to keep up with the advance.

The war on green should happen anytime soon, so I would road that iron now if it hasn't been already and just get on with it. Once we have upgraded our warriors and sent them east I think production should favour horses and they should be sent west as I think an FP in the West would be more beneficial as the island is "thicker" in that direction, and also getting the pyramids would be huge, and the longer the civ that has them now keeps them, the more difficult they will be to take.

590 BC – 390 BC

Turn 0 – 590 BC

General situation – Substantial numbers of warriors which will take a lot of gold to upgrade – concentrate on vets with regular units switched to MP duties. Get iron hooked up for those upgrades. Tokugawa seems to be the leading AI with all the techs and most gold so must be our strategic target but not till our peace treaty expires (10 turns) as reputation still has some value. Kuroda (green) is weak so we can take most of his western cities (probably leave eastern cities as buffer against Mori) then make peace and switch to west – we must ally with Takeda otherwise they will gang up with considerable resources.

Turn 1 – 570 BC

Koromo builds horseman – worker
EOT – Discover Shamanism > Monarchy

Turn 2 – 550 BC

Moriyami-Ku builds worker > warrior
Move workers to Road cattle south of Moriyami-Ku
Move horsemen East, move regular warrior to core cities to release vet warriors.
EOT Trade Mori (orange) Shamanism for Confusanism, trade Takeda (red) Wm for WM+ 2g, Kuroda (green) WM for WM + 40g, Chosogabe (yellow) WM for WM + 4g (keep ‘em poor)

Turn 3 – 530 BC

Tokkachi builds barracks – horseman, Suzuka builds worker – warrior. Road to East complete.

Turn 4 – 510 BC

Set 3 workers to mine iron. Continue building roads in east. Move settler down S coast to river with 2 lambs.
Takeda is at war with Mori

Turn 5 – 490 BC
Turn 6 – 470 BC

Found Kasugai in East (builds warrior) & Ichinomiya in South (builds temple)
Cost of Civil Service remains Wm + 250g & contact with Shimazu WM + 210 g.
Establish embassy with Mori (52g) as we will need treaty to keep him out of wars to come.

Turn 7 – 450 BC

Road to iron complete.
Spend almost all our money on upgrades to Kensai Oda swordsmen.

Turn 8 – 430 BC
Turn 9 – 410 BC
Turn 10 – 390 BC

Generally repositioning units.

Review – Steady building forces with upgrade of warriors to Kensai Oda & horsemen – but not enough money for all. Foreign troops passing through territory is a pain but how do we get some money for ROPs ? Don’t want to risk unplanned war.

Perhaps we should rush a galley on the south coast and see if we can contact a new AI civ (Han is out there – check wonders screen).

Score 382 (+61).

The save file is here

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-390BC-SAV.zip

Screen shot

Peanut you are UP.

Are you going to find out if the Kensai is our UU? ;)

Got it !

It is Friday 10:30PM here and we just got home from the local community street festival - the main road closed off, a few thousand people. lots of food, music, stalls selling junk, and children (including my two) running everywhere !

I could have a go at the game now, but it's still about 26 degrees (C that is) in the house - so my eyes might glaze over :crazyeye: :sleep: and I may end up attacking the WRONG COLOUR. This could prove that the Kensai IS our UU, and at the same time give us one of the shortest Golden Ages in Civ history. Perhaps I'll wait til tomorrow.

Nagoya is building a horseman!?! That surprises me. IMO, our settler factory needs to be building settlers until we run out of room to place them!

The first ring around Azuchi is not yet complete. That would be my highest priority before starting the wars. We'll need all the production a fully developed core can provide.

Give that our Kensai swordsman is a 4.2.1 we probably don't need catapults. They'll crunch other spears and swordsmen easily.

I don't use pults offensively much myself. They're too slow, and as you say, we'll be fighting with immortals basically for a little while, so I wouldn't build 'em either.

I have trouble understanding the train of thought. Since we are using immortals, they have the same movement rate as cats and shouldn't that be "same speed" as opposed to "too slow"?

In any case, I don't use cats much myself. :D

While we are using immortals then fine. But for how long will that be? Will we be using Kensai for a long time?

I hope we'll be using the Kensai a long long time whith a slowed tech pace.

The cats are very helpful when using swordsmen to attack spears. They are still useful when 4's attack 2's. However the odds are that a vet 4 will beat a reg 3.

Yes, I think I will have to change my mind. Lets build some in non-rax towns. Why not indeed?

cat are perfect production unit for corrupted cities. We can give that to all our outer cities which are no longer producing workers. Just a thought.

Sorry MadBax - I didn't try out the Kensai. However, you may well be tempted ... read on !

Pre-take off Checks :
Koromo has an unnecessary entertainer - back to work !
Switch Nagoya & Azuchi to Settler - still a few more spots to settle
Switch Yokkachi & Ise to Junk - lets explore !
Economy - 44g, 22gpt, 12 cities, Monarchy in 42 turns
Military - 20 warrior, 6 horse, 6 flag foot, 8 Kensai

1 - 370BC : Upgrade a warrior in Suzuka. Workers near Nara (why ?) sent to deer forest near Moriyama-ku. Settler sent towards land SW of Azuchi.

- Mori has Civil Service, Currency, Construction, 506 G, Comms w/Shimazu.
- Kuroda is behind Shamanism
- Chosogabe has Civil Service, Currency, Construction, 0 G, Comms w/Shimazu.
- Takeda has Civil Service
- Tokugawa has Civil Service, Currency & Monarchy, comms w/ Shimazu & 38 g.
No trades worthwhile.

2 - 350BC : Upgrade a warrior in Suzuka. Various terrain improvements. Horses interfere with Kuroda settler near KitaKu. Change Handa to Temple - might squeeze out Sanda (Kuroda).

3 - 330BC : Settler to forest near Yokkachi. Junk goes sailing.

4 - 310BC : Kensai gathering on Kuroda borders. Kuroda declare war on Mori !

5 - 290BC : just boring moving about.

6 - 270BC : Another junk sailing off. Komaki settled near Yokkachi.
Civs Check
- Mori has Monarchy, Currency, Construction, Civil, Shimazu contact.
- Kuroda have Construction but not Shamanism
- Chosogabe have Currency, Construction, Civil, Shimazu contact.
- Takeda have Civil Service.
- Tokugawa have Monarchy, Currency, Construction, Civil, Shimazu contact.
No trades worthwhile available

7 - 250BC : Suicide Junk ho ! Chosogabe settle on headland near Kuromo. Swap Kuroma to temple and it may flip one day. Upgrade another warrior.

8 - 230BC : Suicide junk survives ! Still nothing !

9 - 210BC : Junk sinks. Poop. New Azuchi settled.

10 - 190BC : More positioning ...

From the Peanut Strategy Desk ... We can trade wool with Takeda now - might be worthwhile to keep him happy as he has lots of troops marching across our land. The 2nd dyes will be hooked up soon & a trade with Mori would be good as they are at war with Kuroda. We could also trade horses with Kuroda ... but perhaps not .. he can walk to the battlefield !

It may be time to sink the boot into Kuroda. There are 8 Kensai & 2 horses ready on the border with 3 more Kensai marching 2 turns from the border - almost all veteran. We may be able to take Nara, Tanabe and Kobe within three turns. Four more Kensai will build in 3 turns. I think we are now almost ready to march ! Go on MB - first blood may well be yours to take.

The 190BC Save Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-190BC.SAV) and The 190BC view of our little budding empire (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/190bc-map.jpg)

IMHO once temples have been built we should rush a junk in one of the south coast cities and explore the land clearly visible in two spots off to the SE. This may give us a new contact which can be traded for lots of money which means more Kesai Oda upgrades.

If our offensive is successful (taking Tanabe & Nara) we could switch Kita-Ku to junk directly as a flip becomes unlikely and occupying ground is less relevant for an interior city (which it should become)

Got it and played 5 turns. The Kensai is our UU.
I will try to finish tomorrow, but I am supposed to be going round the outlaws. If I do, then I'll hand the game on rather than hold it up.

190BC: Pre-turn.
We have fallen way behind in tech. I have to correct this despite it costing us all our gold. Some civs already have monarchy, and with 32 turns b4 we get it it is a worthless endeavour now.

Buy currency fromTokugawa for 19gpt +15g
currency to Takeda for Civil service + contact with Shimazu + 5g
I cannot trade the wool with Takeda as the trade route is through a Kuroda harbour. Once we declare the trade route will close and or rep will be trashed.

I can't get construction yet.
Decide to research lit at 30% to get it in 25 turns.

Declare war on Kuroda.
Capture worker connecting their iron.
Change Nagoya to settler.

IBT:
Komaki warrior - rax

170BC:
Tanabe
vet horse against reg Flagged foot wins
vet horse against reg flat foot wins.
This leaves an archer in the town that I didn't know was there.

vet horse vs archer on open ground retreats

Kobe
Vet Kensai vs vet FF wins triggering GA and promotes
vet Kensai vs reg FF dies
reg Kensai vs archer wins anc captures city
Kobe - Flagged foot

IBT:
Kuroda retake Kobe.
An archer kills a warrior in Isa
An archer dies attacking another warrior

Nagoya settler - settler
Ise Kensai - Kensai
Moriyama temple - rax
Hikone warrior - temple (needs the culture as it is under pressure)
Yockachi temple - Kensai

150BC:
Tonabe
3/4 horse vs reg archer retreats
3/4 horse vs reg archer wins autorazing city.

Nara
Vet Kensai vs reg FF wins
vet Kensai vs ref FF dies
vet Kensai vs the now vet FF wins taking city
Nara - Flagged foot

Kobe (again)
3/5 Kensai vs 3/4 archer wins
vet Kensai vs reg archer wins taking city.
Kobe - FF

Kashihara
Vet horse vs reg archer wins taking city
Kashihara - FF

To protect Handa I have to attack an archer on a hill with a warrior. Reinforcing Handa would have put back the offensive.
Handa switched to flag foot for protection.

IBT:
A worker is captured. Just stupid, no excuse.
Azuchi Kensai - horse
Koromo Kensai - horse
HAnda FF - Temple

130BC:
Vet horse against archer wins in open ground.

No attacks on cities possible. Probably have to wait a couple of turns now. Not enough workers for roading.

Forgot about the pults. So I change Moriama and KAsugai to pults.
Tokugawa learn Republic. So that settles it, I'm pre-building the GL. Ise is changed to Palace.

IBT:
we lose an elite Kensai to an archer.
Ogaki kensai - kensai

110BC:
Just moved troops around.

IBT:
Azuchi horse - Kensai

90BC:
Vet horse kills archer
Found Komaki - junk

IBT:
Archer pops out of town and kills another elite Kensai :mad:
Chosogabe demand wines. I refuse. He backs down.
Kobe flips back to the Kuroda. Good grief. This town is a pain in the neck. Lose a horse that was garrisoning it.

Nagoya settler - settler
Koromo horse - Kensai

70BC:
Kobe
Vet horse vs reg Flag wins retaking city - FF

This is turning into a mess. I still can't get to the remaining cities. I am very tempted to change to my normal method of using horses.

IBT:
6 archer attacks. We win 3 and lose 3 Kensai.
Azuchi kensai - horse
Kita-ku temple - rax

50BC:
Wakayama
vet horse vz reg flag retreats
Elite Kensai vs reg flag wins
Elite Kensai vx reg flag wins
A couple of redlined archers now hold town.

IBT:
Tokugawa has the cheek to ask our troops to leave. We do.
Ogaki Kensai - Kensai
Yokkachi Kensai - horse
Suzuka horse - horse
Komaki rax - warrior

30BC:
Wakayama
Elite Kensai vs vet flag wins
Elite Kensai vs fet flag wins taking city. This city had a leader in it. Wonder where that came from :confused:

IBT:
Horse retreats from archer
Azuchi Horse - horse
Koromo Kensai - horse

10BC:
Founded New Nagoya - worker
Autoraze Tanabe without loss.

IBT:
Kuroda and Mori sign peace
Nagoya settler - settler
Han complete the Great Library. Nice :(

10AD:
Kyoto has been pop rushing like mad.
Horse kills archer outside it.
Vet Kensai kills archer outside Sanda

The Mori look like a candidate for Republic if we get to lit in time.

IBT:
Azuchi Horse - Market
Tokugawa completes Hanging Gardens. The pre-build is now useless.

30AD:
Sanda
vet Kensai vs reg flag wins and promotes
vet Kensai vs reg flag wins and autorazes town.

IBT:
Koromo Horse - Horse
Ogaki Kensai - Kensai
Komaki warrior - warrior.
Hikone Temple - worker

50AD:
Open Ground
Elite Kensai vs reg archer wins
Vet horse vs reg archer wins
vet horse vs reg archer wins

Kyoto (The Biggie)
vet Kensai vs vet flag wins
vet Kensai vs vet flag wins
Elite Kensai vs reg flag wins.

Kuroda has a 1 tile island city. So we cannot wipe them out with this war. So now I take peace. The island city, 2 others, construction, WM and 25g. This leaves them with one city and 50g.

I should have left this deal to the next player. I apologise. I forgot it was the last turn.

I took 12 turns to get us back onto the correct pattern. I think Gormdragan only took eight last time.

A settler should be sent to the peninsula near Handa.
My kill ratio was pathetic. A mixture of terrain and just poor play.

Our Firaxis score is 557.

Sorry this is short and sweet but I was in a hirry to get this done.
I'll try to post a screenshot tomorrow AM.
Tokugawa is a monster. We'll have to do something about him very soon.

Here is our >>game<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-50AD.SAV)

Got it

I'll play this evening.

I got 5 turns in this evening.

Tokugawa got contact with the Han in 70AD. There was a massive trading round. We are now tech leaders and have the world map. I revolted us to Republic. If we get too much WW, we can always easily switch to Monarchy with our 1 turn anarchy.

I am in the middle of redeploying our armies to face Tokugawa (we are strong compared to him).

Mori brought Tokugawa in to his war with Takeda! That's good for us.

More tommorrow.

This is great news! :goodjob: I was getting concerned about the hole we were in regarding research. I agree with your comments about government. Republic is where we want to be. Using Kensai will make keeping WW down a a little more difficult as they can't retreat out of enemy territory after they attack.

Since Tokugawa has Pyramids and Hanging Gardens, the sooner we take them out the better.

We've been making really good progress lately. I look forward to seeing the next save.

Excellent work - still think we should rush a junk in New Azuchi and contact the Civ(s) on the land to the south (Han?). Also note there is land SE of northern island (Grey Civ) - send northern junk there fast.

A Junk was in construction on the southern coast at the end of my turn. Now we have Republic it can be hurried if Adrian so wishes.

MacBaldrick

We have contact with the Han, Baejke, Korea and the Goguryreo. The Han are also monsters. No need to send a junk.

I plan to rush the southern junk to move to let us settle the island just south of us (as long as its not swarming with barbs!).

We are running out of places to put settlers! I think I'll let Nagoya produce 1 more and then switch it to marketplace for cash flow.

I don't think I'll start the war with Tokugawa on my turns. I'll let Takeda soften him up for the next 5 turns. It will take that long to get our SODs in place anyway. Those battles should pull the Tokugawan forces out of position as well.

Oops - not paying close enough attention - contact but no territory or world map fooled me - they're asking too much gold as usual I assume.

When we finally go to war, might be worth having the odd worker near the action to act as bait for the enevitable counter-attack.

All will be clear after I finish and write up my turns ...
However we have full WM and are tied for tech lead (with Han, Mori, Tokugawa).

Short version:

IIRC, in 90AD Tokugawa had contact with the Han but we couldn't afford contact. 110AD (next turn) all AI civs had all contacts and we were 6 techs behind the leaders.

I bought contacts from Shimazu for old techs. I bought WM and Lit from Baejke for old techs. Then I bought Engineering from Mori and used that to get Monotheism and Feudal warlords. Then I used those to get Monarchy and Republic. Then I sold WM for as much as I could get.

50AD - status
Mori has Rep, Mon, Eng, 13G
Kuroda has 48G
Chogosabe has Rep, Mon
Takeda has Rep, Mon, 2G
Shimazu has 2G
Tokugama has Rep, Mon, Eng, 93G

trade WM around to net 28G
Kashima change to temple and pop rush
Otsu change horse to flagged
found New Ise in South

start westward redeployment of forces

70AD Tokugawa has communications with Han - we can't afford to buy it
I buy embassies with Takeda and Shimazu

90AD
Mori has Lit, Mon, Rep, Eng, Mono, FW and 4 contacts
Kuroda has Lit and 4 contacts
Chogosabe has Lit, rep, Mon,FW and 4 contacts
Takeda has Rep, Mon, 4 contacts
Shimazu has lit and 4 contacts, down currency, Shamanism
Tokugama has Lit, Mon, Rep, Eng, Mono, FW and 4 contacts

Trades
Shimazu gives 4 contacts, 2G, TM, Lit for Currency
Goguryeo gives 67G, TM for Shamanism
Baejke gives WM and 2G for Currency

Han has Rep, Mon, Mono, FW and Eng
Korea has Mon, Rep, FW and Mono

Buy Eng from Mori (best deal) for Wine, Dyes, ROP, WM,16GPT, 204G

I thought about this a great deal. As long as we have peace with Kuroda for 20 turns we'll be fine. I'm also building some harbours!

Buy Monotheism from Korea for Eng, WM, 3GPT
Buy Feudal Warlords and WM from Chogosabe for Eng and WM
Takeda gives Monarchy, 8G, WM for Monotheism
Shimazu gives Furs Ivory and WM for Mon, Eng (might as well be us who benefits)
Takeda gives Republic for WM and Eng

I sell the map for more gold

Revolt! to Republic
Switch prebuild to Sun Tzu's

IBT
Mori bribes Tokugawa (with our $) to attack Takeda

110AD - redeployment and WM trading, most of Takedan forces in our empire turn around and march west

130AD - watch Tokugawa and Takeda fight in our territory, our forces march west

150AD - more of same

170AD - found new Kuromo

190AD - trade Monothesim to Chogosabe for 74G, silks,4GPT

I note there seems to be a problem with the Flagged Samurai - they are only 1.2.1s not 1.3.1s. I had built a couple for defense. If they are really 1.2.1s then we are way better off with Kensai

210AD - Steady stream of Mori marching west through our territory.

230AD - Mori, Chogosabe, Tokugawa and Han have invention. I don't buy it.
- golden age ends

250 AD - where I leave it

We have a northern force of 7 Kensai, 9 horse, 1 Flagged Samurai, and 1 catapult in Yokkachi and 6 kensai outside Komaki. These guys are aimed at Yaizu.

In the center we have 8 Kensai , 2 horse, 1 flagged samurai aimed at Mishima

In the south we have 2 horse, 1 flagged foot, 1 warrior for local defense of Ichinomia. There is 1 kensai and 1 settler on the southern galley. Another settler is headed south. The little island will be ours.

Score 687.

Let the destruction of Tokugawa begin.

>SAVE< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-250AD.zip)

Looking good Adrian. :thumbsup:

Gormdragan: Time to show your warmongering credentials. You are UP

Err....got it...not sure if I am up to the task. In any case I am up in 2 SGs at once so I might only play this tomorrow.

We must take care as Tokugawa has alliance with Mori against Takeda. Will attacking him trigger an attack from Mori (not a good idea with so many Mori units all over our central core) ? He doesn't seem to bribable into an alliance against Tokugawa.

I've added 250 AD map.

We have a ROP with Mori and are giving Mori wines and dyes. I did this to cut down the cost of engineering. We are also paying them 16GPT. I doubt Mori will want to break those deals. However we could renegiotiate peace with him as insurance.
We also have current deals with Shimazu and Chogosabe. The eastern front is fairly secure IMO. However we may wish to keep a eastern reserve. There are some horsemen and Kensai as garrisons over there. We just need a few defensive units there too. If we divert some production over there as well they can demolish the rest of Kuroda in 10 turns.

Tokugawa is rich and may be able to buy someone in to a war against us. It will likely be a far away Korean country.

From Peanut's Strategy Desk : If Tokugawa is in a war with Takeda then all his offensive troops are probably busy away in the south. Massing Kensai & Horse and advancing quickly may let us capture his capital (and the Pyramids I think) before he can regroup.

To do this we will need to divert workers to connect up border city conquests to speed up the flow of reinforcements as they are built.

We can then negotiate peace from a position of strength, perhaps pick up a few techs & cities, and pick our next target (the rest of Kuroda maybe ?).

Mori may have a trade deal with Toku which he won't break (at least for what we can afford).

On the other hand the offensive may stall, Toku may sign peace with Takeda, Mori and the rest of the loveable Japanese gang could join him in the fun, and we could be squashed flat - but we will have died trying !

So go for it Gormdragan - bite Toku on the ankles & kick him on the shins. It may just bring him crashing down.

Thanks for clarifying the situation AdrianE.

I agree with Peanut - the main strike should in across the more open ground in the North aimed at the capital. Take out Yaizu from the hills to the south (avoiding the river defense bonus), push on to Lida and then on Hamamatsu. A few blockers on the moutain W of Yaizu can protect us from any interference from Owase. A few horse should be used to tear up the roads behinds Hamamatsu before any troops can return from the southern front.

Take out Mashima & Ina only to remove possible platforms for any counter attack. Ditto new Fuji which will move the border up to a mountain chain which should withstand any counter-attack on that front with minimal defence.

Sound like a good approach MacBaldrick. Our objectives should be to secure the wonders in Toku's capital and maybe a neighbouring city or two to the south as a buffer. The north-west approach down the coast will also be easiest to road up after our victorious advance. Any other wins will be a bonus, and if the going is good we should keep going to fish for leaders and to strengthen our bargaining position. Who knows - we might get an army and an FP out of this effort !

At this rate we armchair generals will have the war won from our backseat vantage point well before Gormdragan takes the wheel ;)

Preturn:
One and only one comment: Mis-matched troops. Don't mix 2-move troops with 1-move troops, they will just slow down the advance.

I declared war on Tokugawa.

Wake up all our troops at Tokugawa front.

BTW, did you notice Mori has Kensai Odas too?

Kensai Oda means Oda (Nobunaga)'s Swordsman. So how can Mori have Oda's swordsman? Nuts :crazy:

260:
I feel like Heinz Guderian opening the floodgates of the german war machine on France.

Yaizu is ours, hmm, Yaizu has 6 defenders.

Mishima is ours, 2 defenders.

Since flagged sams gives us no advantage, I am swapping to horseman.

No trade possible.

270:
Koromo makes Kensai, starts horseman
Ogaki makes kensai, start horseman
Moriyama-ku makes horse, starts catapult

Owase is ours, 2 defenders.

New Fuji is ours, spawns GL. 2defenders. I will rush our Sun Tzu.

Ise switch to marketplace.

Ina is ours. 3defenders.

280:
Azuchi makes horseman, starts horse.
Ise makes market, starts horse.
Yokkachi makes kensai, market.

We make Sun Tzu in New Fuji, starts warrior.

Ichinomiya makes war, starts war.

290:
Lida is ours, 3 defenders.

New Handa founded, starts worker.
New Yokkachi founded, starts cat.

300:
Koromo makes horse, starts horse.

310:
Azuchi makes horse, starts kensai.

320:
Kuroda declares war on Takeda.

Ogaki makes horse, starts horse.
Hikone makes flagged footman, starts war.
New Azuchi makes temple, starts horseman.

Shimada is ours, 4 defenders.

Okazaki is ours, 3 defenders.

Stupid Takeda!!! units block my path to New Kofu. Need 1 more turn to reach it.

Hamamatsu is ours, 7 defenders. We get Pyramids, starts war.

330:
Chosogabe makes peace with Takeda.

Ise makes horseman, starts horse.
Koromo makes horseman, starts horse.
Handa makes cat, starts cat.
Kita-ku makes horse, starts horse.
Komaki makes kensai, starts horse.

340:
Azuchi makes kensai, starts kensai.
Yaizu makes worker, starts horse.

New Kofu is ours, 2 defenders.

350:
Fuji is ours, 3 defenders, we get Hanging Gardens, starts worker.

Kumano is ours, 4 defenders, starts cat.

Summary

(1) I have split our forces into 4 groups. (see screenshots). The decision was made because I noticed the terrain in the north and southern front had little mountains while the center front was full of mountains. Taking advantage of horsemen's mobility, I decided to reorganise our troops and strike at all fronts.

(2) Techwise...it is quiet.

(3) score is 857.

(4) I would kill off Tokugawa now. We have too many of his cities and we can't afford flips. Tokugawa is totally out of gas and we will walk over his cities.

(5) If you noticed, I built mainly horsemen and avoided our UU Kensai. In Vanilla, Kensai is a deadend unit. We should start producing horsemens as they can be upgraded to sams and then cavalries.

Next better player.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/MB4B-350AD.SAV)

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

Crikey Gormdragan ! What a corker of a war ! The laurels of victory are yours :thumbsup: - Azuchi will stage a triumph for you. Us backseat armchair generals have had a great ride this time.

I agree with your view on the horses - although they have only 2 attack, they can retreat. Plus the upgrades should see us dominating Japan and probably paying a "social call" on our overseas neighbours before they are obsolete. So the more horses the merrier I think, and keep prosecuting the war.

Sun Tzu is a good choice. Should we go for an army or FP next time (assuming the RNG gods give us another leader this war) ?

Perhaps when we finish Toku and reach Takeda we can sign up a MA with Mori (to keep him on our side) and plough on into Takeda ? That opens up the possibility of having lots of Mori's troops concentrated in the south ... far from home ... just waiting for us to decline to renew our ROP with him.

That means a slow and exposed walk for his troops back through our territory, giving us time to rearm position ourselves and to open a new front in the north against Kuroda and then ... on to visit our friend Mori ?

Nicely played Gormdragan.

I have known for a couple of days that the Flagged Samurai has ADM values of 121 instead of 131. This affects 2 civs in the 1.29 version. In other words we don't have a Pike equivalent. The other vanilla team discovered this first and I didn't think it was fair to inform you until you had built a couple, the same as they did.

Alweth: You are UP.

Peanut: If you are around anytime soon could you post the score from the end of your last (beautifully played) turn please. I am at work and can't open the save, and I would like to update the score graphs.

Thanks

I usually prefer to make warriors as defensive units, hence you will notice most of the captured cities are making warriors instead of flagged footman. The flagged sams is merely an inconvienience to me.

Here are some of my thoughts after the Tokugawa annex.

Striking Mori is not preferable, strategically undesirable. Not only is he weaker than Takeda, he is also on the other side of the continent. I would rather strike at Takeda.

This could be achieved by starting a build up of "Takeda Shadow Force". Basically, we assemble a force (preferably horsemen for quick movement) and "shadow" (or follow) the movement of the Takeda troops in our borders.

From what I can see, none of the 4 "army" groups really needs any reinforcing. The one needing the most would actually be the north "army" group, as this is the group that has to take the most cities and yet has the "weaker" (I disagree) horseman. Casualties are highest in this front. The problem is sort of solved as we have Sun Tzu.

Instead we can assemble all future-built horsemen (and other units) to "shadow" Takeda's army in our territory. This frees up our troops in all the fronts to strike directly at Takeda. The battle is likely to be tougher than attacking Mori but we are wasting strategic time to re-mobilise our current forces to the east (which we later have to mobilise back to the west).

The short version is Takeda after Tokugawa and if the going is well against Takeda and reinforcing does not seem necessary, an East Front "army" group can then be assembled with freshly produced troops (part of this can come from "Takeda Shadow Force"). Clean up our western front beyond thought and then turn east.

A further plan would be to start constructing galleys (or more advanced troop carriers) as soon as we are done with Takeda (or when we are confident of victory) so that by the time Mori is finished off, we will have sufficient troop transports to strike at the 2 other continents northeast of us. These transports can be filled with the West front troops returning from destroying Takeda and Tokugawa and leave our Mori War party free to destroy Mori.

It is would be IMHO strategically efficient if we can plan in such a way so that the war on Takeda starts right after (in other words on the same turn) Tokugawa dies, Mori right after Takeda is destroyed. And ships loaded and ready to move right after Mori is terminated (with Kuroda along the way :D).

This is how i vision our future at the end of my turns. My 2 cents. :crazyeye:

@ Peanut

I do not intend to let this game reach industrial ages, or at least not much into IA. Cavalries are all I expect needed for us to close this game up. Hence horsemen are better investments. I would make our next GL our FP or if we get invention by then, Leo (of course unless Takeda or Mori builds it for us) as we have mass upgrading coming up with chivalry. I would think making an army at this point is cosmetic and of no significant value, I would go for hurried production instead. My 2 more cents :D.

I agree with all your comments Gormdragan.
I would put our FP in the Pyramid city, forget its' name. I would continue west with the current war until we have driven the AI into the sea. New units should open a second front in the East, and we should conduct the war on two fronts.
Building horses rather than Oda is important, and I favoured them on my turns. However, with this type of terrain some of the advantage is lost without roads, so we need to organise some road building parties, and churn out another dozen or so workers quickly.

I think the time to start building ship transport is now. All our coastal cities can be dedicated to this.

If we are really clever, we can research to military tradition and avoid learning Education. If we do it right we can take the "Korean" city with the Great Library and get well educated rather quickly.

Mainly though, wars should be continuous, without a break. The FP needs building ASAP. The next leader won't be long in coming, and we need to build a navy so we are not hanging around for a few boats when our landmass is cleared. At current rates that will be within 30 turns.

I only wish I could open the save... only a few more hours. :)

Nicely done.

Maybe we should reduce Tokugawa to one city and then make peace for techs? We might also want to rush a few temples in the new Oda to stop the others from poaching.

I like Kumano for the FP as it is in the center of the landmass. Hammatsu is't bad but it will benefit fewer cities.

I think Takeda is the next logical target. Then I don't know. It will take a very long time to march across our lands to get to Mori. Note that its a short hop to the Korean lands from the western most point of Tokugawa.

The Han could be a real problem if left alone too long.

We have too many cities that used to be Tokugawa's. Tokugawa has to die, tech is not important.

I agree with the temple rush (was trying to stockpile $$$ for mass sam upgrades).

Han is powerful but is beyond us until we at least get navigation. So no point worrying about them.

I like to emphase that i think Leo is more important than FP. Please consider that possibility b4 rushing our next GL. Remember we are gearing up for a mass upgrade once we get chivalry.

I think that the 2 front war suggested by mad-bax sounds good. In that way, the troops moving back from western front can assemble onto troop transports for invasion of the 2 other northern continents. BTW, our road system to the front is actually in pretty good shape. every worker we captured were used to connect our new cities. So the time taken to move our troops back may not be that bad. My 2 cents.

Originally posted by mad-bax
Peanut: If you are around anytime soon could you post the score from the end of your last (beautifully played) turn please. I am at work and can't open the save, and I would like to update the score graphs.

Thanks Oops I forgot to do it - I will fix when I get home tonight.

Since Alweth has not posted a "Got it" within the 24hrs required he is skipped.

MacBaldrick: You are UP

Got it !

Should complete by tonight - let the war continue.

My humble continuation of the glorious patriotic war 350 AD – 450 AD

Turn 0 – 350 AD

Grand strategy continues as outlined by Peanut & Gormadragon – Destroy Tokugawa then turn on Takeda. The four army groups should finish the job and I agree we need to keep tabs on any Takeda units in our territory.

We start with 29 kensai Oda, 24 Horsemen, 13 Flagged Footmen & 15 Warriors (potential upgrade material but mostly ex low cost MPs).

Invention is on general offer for WM + 6gpt + 646g (decline unless we get another GL) although Chosogabe will take dyes & wines + 240g. Our world map is worth 9g.

IBT Tokugawa & Takeda make peace. Han & Mori make deal & declare war against Takeda (may the fratricide continue).

Nagoya marketplace – settler, Koroma horseman – horse, Nagahama – fl footman – temple, Hikone warrior- horse, New Ogaki warrior – junk,

Turn 1 – 360 AD

Attack new Lida with little success (lose 2 horse to 1 def).

IBT Azuchi – kensai Oda – horse, Ogaki horse – horse, Kashihara catapult – horse, Ina warrior – kensai Oda, Mori builds Leonardo’s in Yamaguchi – shame L.

Lose Furs & Ivory trade. Trade Chosegabi WM + wines + dyes + 160g for Samurai Code - bring on the Samurai 4.4.2 J. Upgrade selected elite horse to Samurai. Takeda trades WM + 4gpt + 20g for wool.


Turn 2 – 370 AD

Advance on Kofu, Attack Yokkaichi unsuccessfully (one horse too few because I upgraded 2 horse to Samurai). Blocked Peninsula at Suzuki & Nara.

IBT Mori offers ROP for dyes + 16 gpt (no thanks). Lida flips L losing 1 horse.

New Fuji warrior – warrior, Owase warrior – warrior. New Nagoya harbour – junk
General unrest forces increase in Lux – continuous war will need switch to Monarchy or break in war to turn off war weariness. Trade dyes to Takeda for WM + 6 gpt + 11g. (we will lose this when we attack - we will anyway but any gold is welcome until then and after Takeda we will be so big as to not to worry too much about rep – we’re going to attack them all eventually. Sell Mori ROP for 20g so they can continue to attack Takeda

Turn 3 – 380 AD

Take Yokkachai (elite Samurai) Move troops to recover Lida and mass next to Kofu.

IBT Mori’s units finally catch up with Takeda with loss on both sides J We will block Takeda’s units around New Kofu for maximum mutual destruction. Trade world map for some gold & dyes to Mori for 6 gpt + 50g.

New Handa worker - warrior

Turn 4 – 390 AD

Recover Lida - worker. Take Kofu - warrior (4 def killed, 1 ko lost), Capture Shisuoka - junk (2 def killed). Capture New Lida – warrior (kill 2 def).

IBT Mori / Takeda slaughter continues :) . Kobe temple – kensai Oda,

Turn 5 – 400 AD

Capture Shimoda (kill 4 def),

IBT Nagoya settler – Samurai,

Turn 6 – 410 AD

Capture New Ozakawi (kill 2 def),

IBT Koroma samurai – samurai, Wakayama temple – samurai,

Turn 7 – 420 AD

Move units up to next target cities.

IBT Ise samurai – samurai, Mashima worker – warrior, Kasugai temple – kensai Oda, Shimada warrior - junk

Turn 8 – 430 AD

Attack Misusaka.

IBT Azuchi samurai – samurai,

Turn 9 – 440 BC

Matsusaka & Hamamatsu captured. Only New Shimoda remains on an offshore island – since we can’t attack it for many turns make peace for Invention and concentrate on Takeda. Tokugawa discovers gunpowder immediately after we make peace ! How does he do that ???

IBT Sazuka courthouse – temple,

Turn 10 – 450 AD

Rearrange units on Takedas border. Move units to East.

Summary – Tokugawa is history but can’t be removed just yet. As he has several junks event attacking his island may not seal his fate.

We can move units next to Takeda’s only source of iron without ROP which should enable us to reduce him to new archers only. Should be worth trading for gunpowder to locate and neutralise his saltpeter asap. Spend money to get high gpt deal – broken when we attack with rep loss I suppose but who cares now.

Score 1057 (+200).

The save file is here;

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-450AD-SAV.zip

Gentlemen you are playing beautifully and truly giving this map the play that it deserves.

You may notice that the game has the "Kensai" and the "Kensai Oda" installed. The Kensai is a Medieval infantry timing replacement while the "Kensai Oda" is a substitute of the Immortals. These units have the same stats but by installing them seperately we could manipulate the timing of their deployment in the game and also provide complex layers of interactions and Golden Age Timings in what would other wise be a lackluster implementation of just too many copies of Japan.

If you look closely you will begin to notice other examples of this unit diversification in your game.

The Flagged samurai is and example where I forgot to counteract one of the original game tweaks that was used to adjust the build priorities and aggression postures of all the Japanese civs. I just forgot to restore that unit to 1/3/1 when you guys selected to play that other start position. The original intent of the change was to create more of a stimulus and opportunity for the AI's to declare war on each other in the original game. Sometimes we can find in the play testing that just adjusting the balance of one unit slightly can result in a more dynamic game situation that otherwise might be characterized by the AI's being too much in balance for them to do anything other than just sit there or screw with the human.

Again great, play!!! and I particularly enjoyed to Akira Kurazawa version of the rape of the low countries. ;)

Jolly good show MacBaldrick ! The cunning plan is still on track it seems.

Time for this armchair general to move, with trepidation, into the front seat. Mmmmm ... the steering wheel's still warm and the engine is well tuned and running hot. Let's hope I don't steer us into a ditch.

Glad to see that we have Samuri now - these are even more fun that those horses. Stay tuned folks ...

Hey guys. Sorry I missed my turn--Thanksgiving week has been pretty hectic and I didn't check as often as I should have been. I'm glad to see that you are doing pretty well without me, though.

I'll just wait for it to come around to my turn again, as per the rules.

Actually Alweth it would help me out if you could take the turn after Peanut. Would that be OK?

Sorry it took so long fellow generals, but here it is :

450AD to 550AD - Takeda's Nightmare Unfolds ... slowly and not without some incompetent leadership ...

Pre-turn checks :

1) Put those lazy entertainers back to work in New Fuji, Suzuka, Nagahama, Moriyama-ku, Kumano, Kasugai, Ichinomiya, Otsu, Ina, Shimada, New Kofu, Hikone, Fuji, Nagoya, Ise, Okazaki, Shimoda, Nara, Matsusaka, Kashihara, Handa, and a few others I forgot to note. No extra production or gold, but it got them growing again (or prevented starvation).

2) Units :
1 settler (why ? what will we do with him ? Must think ...)
10 warriors (good MPs)
9 Horses (patiently awaiting promotion)
4 catapults (bless them little wooden killers)
10 Samuri eager to go conquer
14 Flag Foot
2 Junk
2 Flag Samuri (alas)
38 Kensai Oda (good old reliable troops)

3) Economy : Lux @ 30% (gulp!), Science ambling at 10%, 284g+ 26gpt (16 from other civs). Losing 355gpt to corruption ! We need an FP soon I think ... we have 50 cities in all.

Ah I know - let's send our settler to the Iron tile near Ina. Shimazu does not have iron but he has spare luxuries. We might be able to do a little trading soon, pull in some more luxuries and cut our entertainment spending.

4) Foreign affairs : Kuroda & Mori still fighting Takeda. Good.

5) Technology - Only Korea will sell Gunpowder, in exchange for Samurai & our first- and second- born children. Go boil your head in stale fish oil Wang you dissipated old pirate.

Strategy : Mori has lots of troops heading south to "visit" Takeda.
If he loses interest in his war, signs peace and heads north - then that's a lot of bored troops walking past our core cities. So lets keep him engaged ... he will draw some of Takeda's offensive strength, and any territory he wins we can relieve him of later on. So we buy from Mori an Alliance vs. Takeda & Gunpowder for 275g. A bargain (I think) compared to Wang the Thief's price for Gunpowder. And look - Takeda has saltpetre in easy reach of us.

But lo ! Lots of the AI civs also have Chemistry ! Poop. We will need that as well soon to get to Military Tradition. But not yet.

Finally we sell dyes to Shimazu for 6gpt - money for nothing really as no-one else wants it, and it keeps him on the sidelines for a while.

Well Mori, let's have your troops up front and centre - its your cue ! You can have a go at Takeda first while we position ourselves a little better.

Let's go ...

450AD IBT - Lost a horse to an archer. Mori still moving south.

1) 460AD Yokkachi Market>Samuri. Trade WM with Shimazu - a chance see what Takeda has roaded up. Good - only one Iron & one Saltpetre, both within reach. Move to cut Iron near Setagaya-ku & Saltpetre near whatever it is (our horse is blocking the road sign).

Some Flip risk minimisation - put some troops in New Fuji and Hamamatsu. Would be a right royal pain to lose the Pyramids or Hanging Gardens. Position troops to attack, and defend border towns & workers against a few roaming Takeda troops. Swap Azuchi to Samuri.

IBT - Lose a Kensai to a Samuri. Defeat an archer no problemo. My dear friend Mori still marches south ! And Kuroda is coming along for the fun.

2) 470AD - Shimada flips back to Toku. No great loss. Settle New Suzuka on Iron near Ina. Trade Iron for Furs & Ivory with Shimadzu. Lux to 0 - now 92 GPT ! Sagamihara captured 1 Kensai lost, 1 catapult & 2 workers captured. Oops - we pillaged saltpetre then we captured the city. Duh. Looks like only one Takada musketman around - in Chosi. Samuri weakens him and retreats.

IBT - Redlined Samuri killed. Kuroda trade WMs.

3) 480AD - Assault started on Adachi-ku. Pillage horses near Chiba. Positioning. Pillage Iron.

IBT - nothing really.

4) 490AD - 2 Kensai lost to one Flag in Setagaya-ku. Poop. Skirmishes. Bloody hard going this. ROP with Toku to get through Shimada. Blasted city flipping. We should probably take the city back but ... we will get around to it eventually.

IBT Mori captures Chiba. He has a leader, who starts the long walk back home.

5) 500AD - Position troops, a few skirmishes (well leader fishing really but no success).

IBT - troop movement but litle fighting. Takeda must be a little short of troops.

6) 510AD - The battle for Chosi. It has 1 redlined archer left. We have - sob - run out of units. Poop.

IBT Mori moves lots of units around.

7) 520AD Chosi captured - we get a catapult & worker.

IBT minor warfare. We are not attacked. Takeda is tiring ?

8) 530AD - Civil disorder starting. Selected entertainers + Lux to 20%. Try a little suicide exploration with the junk - what's in that big black space ?.

IBT lots of Mori movement.

9) 540AD Junk sunk. Troop positioning. Saltpetre connected up.

IBT positioning. Mori captures Fujisawa. Blast it. 2 Samuri left twiddling their thumbs watching Mori enjoy the sea air from Fujisawa's waterfront cafes. Mori's leader is still walking home. What will he do with him ? Obviously not build a FP in his new southern conquests (fortunately).

10) 550AD - Adachi-ku captured. Troop positioning near Setagaya-ku & Yokohama. They should be ours soon.

Summary - Treasury looking good. Could rush some temples maybe. Lots of elite battles but no leaders. Curses. We need a FP SOON. We are losing 450gpt in corruption. I fear this war may bog down soon. It is a long way for our reinforcement Samuri to travel.

Mori has some of Takeda's cities but they are far from his home. Ah, soon my friend Mori ... very soon ... we will be coming to visit you ... ooohh ahahahahahaa haha (play a maniacal laughter soundbyte here for full effect)

Lastly the score - 1289 points - we are NUMBER ONE ON THE PLANET !

A map of the battle zone (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-550AD.jpg) The save file (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-550AD.zip)

On to you Alweth - you are sure to do better than my modest effort.

Good Job Peanut :goodjob:

We really MUST build a few boats in harbour towns. 10 to 15 turns from now our conquest will move overseas.

Whatever happens, and whatever wonders are available, the next great leader must build the FP IMO. 50+ cities without one makes me shudder.

If Alweth doesn't pick this up by 8.00pm GMT tonight then I'll take it and play.

I have opened the other two game threads for you to look at. In the first post I have published page numbers that you can safely read to. When I get time I'll replace the plain text with links.

Originally posted by mad-bax
Good Job Peanut :goodjob:

We really MUST build a few boats in harbour towns. 10 to 15 turns from now our conquest will move overseas.

Whatever happens, and whatever wonders are available, the next great leader must build the FP IMO. 50+ cities without one makes me shudder.

If Alweth doesn't pick this up by 8.00pm GMT tonight then I'll take it and play.

I'll pick it up and play it this evening.

Guys

It occurs to me that in order to successfully invade Korea,Baejke,Goguryreo and the Han we will need astronomy and/or the lighthouse. Who has the lighthouse?

Galleys just don't have the movement neccessary to make the hop from our (or should I say soon to be our) lands. We'd also need a lot of galleys as they each only transport 2 units. Caravels (or their equivalents) will be needed.

Where are we tech wise? We need Education and Astronomy soon.

We might want to assemble some Samurai on the eastern front to finish off Kuroda. We can probably handle a short war with him as well.

One of the things I've been doing with recently captured cities is building workers with them while putting the cities on a diet. I'll rush the worker every 2nd turn for 36 gold.

My view on captured cities ATM is to raze cities above size 6 and replace them. Size 6 and under I starve and build workers and settlers with them. I garrison them for one turn since they cannot flip on the turn they are captured and then I move all the units out until their historical nation is wiped out. Rushing workers is OK but could be very expensive in a conquest game, and I would reserve it for cities which have a large distance ratio of their capital to ours. Even then I would be tempted to raze and replace. Since we are religious I wouldn't object to a temple in some captured cities. But again I would do this sparingly. 1 or 2 flips would not be a disaster.

RE : the FP question ...

What if we built it in our core in the direction of our Kuroda conquests (say in Nagoya) then disbanded Azuchi ? Would the Palace then jump to Hammawhatsis as it is an old, large city ? I have never done one of these Palace jump tricks so I am not sure.

We NEED to get the southern conquests productive - we need swarms of Samurai if we are going to overrun Mori after Taka is squashed.

This may be quicker than waiting a l-o-n-g time for a leader. In my experience you never get them when you really want them, and then they come in a rush just a little too late. A bit like the bus to the city in the morning.

Got it.

I am against FPJ. I consider that as an exploit. Any thing AI does not do is considered an exploit IMHO. :(

yeah it is against the spirit of it ...

This game is being played to GOTM rules. Free palace jumps are legal. If this were a single game then sure we might decide as a team that we were not going to allow it. However we are playing against other teams that are allowed to do it. It's not a question of if it's fair to the AI, more of a question of would it give us an unfair advantage compared with the other teams. It wouldn't.

IMO we just need to decide whether a FPJ would help us or not. Personally,I don't mind the Palace where it is ATM so I don't think it would be the best move. I would concentrate on generating elites and then a leader and build the FP in the right location. We are going to be at war for the whole game, and a leader will come.

BTW, Adrian is right, we need to get more naval movement for the invasion of Korea. How are we going to do that?

I perused the other threads now that mad-bax let us:

At the end of 250AD (that's when gormdragan started the blitzkrieg of Tokugawa) the other teams had:

PTW - attacked and defeated Kuroda, in Republic, had contact with Korea, approximately equivalent to us in tech

CivA- attacked an defeated Tokugawa (16 turns - gormdragan did it in 10), had no contact with Korea yet, in Monarchy, using RCP and herding Takedan troops, behind us in tech

I note the civA team was using mostly Kensai and few if any horseman and preparing to invade Takeda. They are using RCP and that may give them an advantage. It will be interesting to see. However I think our horseman/samurai strategy will give us an advantage over them. 20 Samurai should be able to blitz the world.

The PTW team settled on the spot that's why they were ahead of us in the early going. However our settler factory allowed us to out expand them.

I expect that the next comparison graph will see us leap ahead of both teams as our major military expansion gets underway.

On thing you may also wish to consider while you are here at or near the point of no return is to identify a save game file here in the early game where you might want to come back to it again later and play a different split variant game that goes for a late industrial style game.

Because you have chosen a conquest style approach in this game it may be likely that you will not see much of the industrial age.

This game has some hidden easter eggs and features that could be of great interest in a variant game that would be defined as a "deferred conquest" to set up what might be a WWI to WWII Sea of Japan type situation.

Sounds like a good idea. I think I'll post Gormdragans save on the first page for future use, since it ends with the destruction of the Tokugawa and is a fairly natural break point.

How's retirement cracker? Bored yet? :)

Sorry, my times up and I've only managed to play five turns. Here's what I've got, though.

Preturn
Looks like we're doing well. Time to take out the competition.

Turn 1 - AD 560

Send a Junk to Nagahama in preparation for attacking Yellow.

Take Setagaya-ku.

IBT We don't do so well in some of the fighting. Not like we're in danger of losing to Takeda, though.

Turn 2 - AD 570

I have more workers than I know what to do with.

IBT We lose Setagaya-ku.

Turn 3 - AD 580

Son Buddhism has been discovered by a few other civs.

IBT The Koreans want to trade TMs, so I do.

The Mori want to renew the ROP, but their text is talking about how they're tired of the war. (I wish I had transcribed it or screenshoted it.) This is a hard one because I want to keep them beating on Takeda for a while still, and yet I don't want to take a reputation hit when we go to war with them. I accept, figuring that if it takes us less than 20 turns to finish off Takeda, we can always go after Yellow until the ROP runs out with Mori.

The rampaging Han forces have destroyed the Gogury. Thanks for doing some of our work for us, Han, but if I had to guess, I would say we were receiving luxuries from the Gogury, because everything falling into civil disorder.

Turn 4 - AD 590
To regain civil order. I trade Chosogabe Dyes, Wine, and 175gp for Silk. But to take revenge I kick their settler off our land. But that's still not enough. Why are all these Tokugawans so unpatriotic? I make some taxmen and entertainers.

IBT Tokugawa and the Han sign a military alliance versus Takeda. I guess they want a piece of the pie as well.

Turn 5 - AD 600
Advance more troops. Not much to report.

Summary
I've consolidated our Takeda forces into one large force that's posed to take Setagaya-ku (or whatever it's called).

I've been gathering a few of the more distant produced military units up near the Mori, so that we can strike quickly when we're done with Takeda--however, that may take a while, and we just entered into a ROP with them, so we might have to take a rep hit if we finish Takeda too soon. Alternatively, we could take on Chosgabe next.

Because I wasn't planning on only playing five turns, there may be a few galleys and/or samurai with move orders. I hope you don't mind. I don't think any of them are in critical positions, but I would watch for them when you end turn. Sorry about that. :(

Chemistry and Son Buddhism are available for trade.

War weariness is pretty bad. We might want to switch to Monarchy?

That's all I can think of at the moment.

The save: mb4b-0600AD.zip (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4b-0600AD.zip)

Kill 'em all.

OK I've got it and had a very quick look at the save. There are a few muskets around, so it looks like we have fallen off the tech pace. I don't think this is too much of a problem right now, but it can't be allowed to persist. I propose we turn off research completely for a while and buy our techs. We cannot catch up in tech directly using pointy stick as we are at least 2 techs behind on the lower branch. The peace deal with Tokugawa is up in 4 turns and it looks like he only has one city left, so I will take it and I will also take out the remaining Kuroda towns. IIRC this makes self research cheaper (and therefore quicker).

I haven't looked at the save closely enough to decide whether 2 turns of anarchy and the loss in revenue would be worth a government change. The Takeda have enough cities left to prolong the war for at least 10 turns by which time the lux slider might be up around the 50% mark.

It would be great if a few people could download the save and give me some thoughts.

On another note. I am trying to keep the turns ending on the same date for the three teams so that the comparative scores are easier to manage. So I will play either 5 or 15 turns. Which should it be?

Play Alweth's remaining 5, post the score and then play your 10.

If war weariness is a problem then switch to monarchy. As we are religous we'll only lose 1 turn of production.

Definately wipe out Tokugawa and Kuroda.

The Han wiping out the Goguryeo is bad for us as that will make them dominant on their continent.

Yeah. Fifteen turns is fine with me, if you have the time. Also, unless Tokugawa has lost a city, I think they actually have two: one on our continent, and a capital somewhere else.

The Han dominance on their continent is bad, but fortunately our continent is bigger, so at least we'll have that advantage. We might want to consider gifting techs to the weaker civs on that continent so that they can sap more of the Hans resources and maintain a balance of power.

From Peanut's Strategy and Free Advice Desk :

Yes, Toku has two cities - one on the island that Gormdragan left him, and one that flipped during my turn at the wheel.

Play the 15 turns (as 5 + 10) MadBax if you can.

There are muskets and we can have them too as I bought Gunpowder at at the start of my turn. Many of the AIs have Chemistry and are probably close to Metallurgy.

A switch to Monarchy is probably advisable as WW will cripple us eventually, seeing as we are going to be fighting for a while yet.

I think we have to finish off Toku and Takeda to stop flips. While Toku exists we still risk losing the Pyramids and the Gardens.

Finally the message from Mori about "tired of war" is I think a just glitch in the setup files. I got idiotic messages about finishing a war from Mori when he was polite and we negotiated an alliance.

I have only played the pre-turn, but will play the other 5 turns tonight.

We are not in good shape. :(

Here are the notes from the pre-turn log
600AD: Pre-turn.
We are in much worse shape than I can believe. The Mori are running around with cavalry. We cannot research at more than 20% without running a deficit.

We are running research at 10%, yet hiring taxmen to cover war weariness. Change a tax man to scientist and switch off science, netting us and extra 30gpt.

Militarily we have elite units and our best attack units garrisoning towns and the few cats we have are dotted all over the map. I wanted to do some short rushing with our money, but I am going to have to buy tech.

Buy chemistry from Han for 384g +27gpt. They were the only ones who would sell it.
I can also buy metallurgy from them, but it will take the little gold we have.

I need to make some calculations regarding whether the switch to monarchy is worthwhile or not.

Tokugawa has three cities. There are two listed in the diplomacy screen plus the capital. It may be possible to extort a tech out of him if we take one city and wait a few turns.

If we are running a minimum research gambit we have to trade. This means looking at the trading opportunities every turn near enough. We cannot possibly pursue a conquest victory if we are half an era behind in tech. Having said that, the speed at which the AI has researched in the Middle ages is astonishing.

We may not need gormdragans save to have a go at a WWII type war after all.

Lets get a leader and get our FP done, and then we can discuss how much infrastructure we need.

So. Do I buy mettallurgy so I can extort MT from the Takeda later? I'll wait a couple of turns.

IBT:
Takeda and Mori sign peace.
Azuchi musket - Samurai
New Koromo harbour - Junk

610AD:
Positioned troops to re-start war with Takeda. But it will be a while before that gathers momentum. Also send some troops to finish Kuroda.

IBT:
Takeda want an audience. Believe it or not I am tempted. But No.
Han wants Tmap and 26g tribute. Sure, there you go. Our time will come.
Yaizu settler - Library :eek:
Yokkachi samurai - samurai
Mishima temple - musket

620AD:
Setagaya-ku (It's on a hill and no cats avalilable :( )
vet samurai vs reg flagged footman wins, taking city.
Setagaya-ku - worker

Declare war on Kuroda
vet sam vs vet footman wins
vet Kensai Odo vs reg archer wins capturing settler.

Hire a few tax-men. Not more war weariness, just cities growing.

IBT:
Kofu temple - market
New Suzuka temple - court

630AD:
The Takeda get salt from somewhere. We now face muskets.
There is a sizeable stack that will try to retake Setagaya-ku on the inter turn.They are on mountains, but are longbow equivalent. I guess it's more efficeint to attack them than defend against them. I lose 2 samurai taking 6 of the seven units out.

Osaka
vet samurai vs reg flagged foot wins
vet samurai vs reg flagged foot wins
vet samurai vs reg flagged Bushi wins taking city.
Osaka worker

IBT:
Our net revenue is increased by an elite samurai being slain.
Nagoya Samurai - Samurai
Nara smaurai - market

640AD:
Sakai
Vet samurai vs vet flagged foot wins
3/4 samurai vs reg flagged foor wins taking city.
Sakai - temple

I switch Ina to Forbidden Palace. Hopefully we'll get a leader so we can change it to market and put the FP somewhere more useful. Nearly all our cities are 1 shield hell holes.

Elite Kensai Oda vs 2/5 Kensai Oda wins generatin leader. Oh joy. Now where do we really want the FP? I decide on Kumano which means abandoning Shimoda. I also want to move a couple of other cities a little too. They havent been improved so I'll switch them to settler now.

vet samurai kills 2/5 elite samurai
vet samurai kills vet samurai archer
vet samurai kills reg sam archer
vet samurai kill reg sam archer
Elite samurai kills reg sam archer.

I've found the stray kuroda settler and I'm on his case.

Next level war weariness sets in. I wont revolt until after I've posted.
Happiniess slider at 30%. Remember Forbidden Palace is due in 2 turns.

IBT:
Fuji temple Samurai
Ogaki samurai - samurai
Adachi-ky Flagged foot - temple

650AD:
vet samurai vs Kuroda flagged foot wins and captures settler. The Kuroda refuse to die.
Now I'll have to find more. I bet he's on a boat somewhere.
I demand Son Buddism from Tokugawa. He refuses, and I declare war.

Shimada
Vet samurai vs re flagged foot wins taking city and promoting to elite.
Shimada - temple

Vet Kensai Oda vs reg flagged foot wins

Yokohama (Expect this to be bloody)
vet sam vs vet musket wins. Praise the RNG. That had no right to happen.
vet sam vs elite Pike equivalent (forgot the name) wins.
vet samurai vs vet samurai archer wins taking city.
Yokohama - temple

Declaring war on Tokugawa makes me realise that the ex-Tokugawan cities have not been starved down. So I set all ex-tokugawa cities to starve by hiring taxmen. Our income jumps from the 40odd you can see on the screen shot to 109gpt.

Our score is 1517. The FP will be built next turn.

I guess it just got interesting.

Here is our empire
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4d.jpg

Here is the >>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-650AD.SAV)

mad-bax

Nice job. I am shocked that the AI's are at Military Tradition. We must have missed some trading opportunities. Can we extort a tech from Kuroda? We might as well if we can't find him.

Good job on the leader. We need a FP big time.

Are you going to play the next 10 or shall I take it?

Adrian

Adrian: I'm afraid I've already played 9 of the next ten turns. In fact I think I'll post a turn early as this game has exhausted me tonight. Could you play eleven and write down the score at the end of your first turn please?

The save is towards the end of turn 9

IBT:
Korodo samurai - samurai

660AD:

Hmmm... A takeda junk is spotted near New Fuji, so I swap new fuji to junk and hurry for 8g. I
Rush FP in Kumanu.
Prepare attack on Edo. Again risky as there are no defensive tiles within striking distance. The SOD will have to stand on plains tile next turn.

IBT:
Tokugawa is eliminated by the Takeda. This is not good, as I was going to extort a tech out of them.
Our salt is pillaged. Should have been more careful.
Azuchi samurai - samurai
ISe samurai - samurai
Okasaki settler - worker
Shimoda settler - worker
New Fuji Junk - junk
Kumano FP - Market
New Okazaki Kensai Oda - Samurai
New Ogaki Junk - Junk

670AD:
Just moved stuff and sorted the cities out after the FP placement.
Captured a worker that was roading a Saltpetre mountain.

IBT:
Renew furs and Ivory deal with Shimazu in exchnage for iron. It's all he would accept.
Hammamatsu temple - market
Yokkachi Kensai Oda - junk
Sagamihara worker - worker
Suzuka samurai - market
Owase Kensai Oda - junk
New Kofu temple - Samurai

680AD:
Edo
vet sam vs vet sam dies.
vet sam vs vet sam wins.
Elite sam vs reg flag foot wins
Elite sam ve reg flag foot wins taking city.
Edo - temple.

Make quite a big decision here. I change all production around the palace core to library. I don't tnink wd can avoid doing some self research. The FP core can make units.

IBT:
The Kuroda find a place to land their settler. It's on an island. :(
We lose and elite samurai in fighting. Win three other battles on defence.
Matsusaka junk - library
Mishima settler - samurai
Hikone Market - library

690AD:
Hino
vet sam vs vet sam spear wins.
vet sam vs reg musket dies
vet sam vs reg musket dies
vet sam vs reg musket wins taking city - temple

I only have one sam outside Ohara. But I decide to test it.
Elite sam vs vet flagged foot wins. Revealing reg flag foot underneath.

Built a new city at RCP distance 5 from FP. I think we should fill all possible sites at this distance.

The Han wont trade us Metallurgy anymore. I check and realise that noone will trade gpt with us now. At the start of the turn only the Han would trade gpt. :confused:
So our rep is shot. Can't work out how it happened.AFAICT I have not broken any turn based deals. Unless I'm wrong, and the price of metallurgy increased for some reason it looks like we have to self research or buy techs for cash.

IBT:
2 samurai are redlined.
Yokkachi Samurai - Samurai
Kita-ku samurai - market
New Moryama-ku worker - Library

700AD:
vet Kensai Oda dispatches a pesky Samurai spear (the one that pillaged the salt)
Ohara (properly this time)
vet sam vs vet flagged foot dies.
vet sam vs reg flagged foot dies.
Elite sam vs reg flagged foot wins
3/5 sam vs 1/4 flagged foot wins taking city - temple
Elite sam vs archer wins on open ground
Elite sam vs 2/4 Kensai Oda wins on open ground.

Found New Kasugai - worker

IBT:
Learn Son Buddhism research Education in 10. Running a defecit. Hopefully as the libraries and markets come on line things will improve.

Nagoya library - samurai
Shizuoka junk - worker

710AD:
Everyone that matters had Education, except Korea. I am going to switch research back off to see if I can make a 2fer in a couple of turns. They cannot buy it, I just hope they don't self research it. Remeber I can't pay gpt.
Elite Samurai vs archer wins

F1 says that the next level WW is going to hit. I would say that most of our towns will revolt. I'll have to switch to Monarchy until the Takeda are taken care of. I hate doing it because I know how long it's going to take to fire all the specialists ;)

IBT:
Koromo Library - Samurai

720AD:
We make a tidy 184gpt in Monarchy.
I'm in a spot of trouble at Ohara. It is defende by a single elite samurai. Takeda have sent a Samurai, Samurai archer (Longbow) and a horse to attack it. Not sure I can save it.
Lose a samurai attacking a horse and a samurai protecting a great leader.

Hino is retaken. I was just too thin in this area.
A leader is generated in defence. Thanks a lot.
Kuromo Library - Samurai
Setagaya-ku worker - worker
Handa temple - harbour

730AD:
Build army with Leader. Sistines was the other option. But I doubt we'll build a single cathederal.

Retake Hino. Forgot to write down the two battles. Won them both anyway.
Tateyama
Vet samurai vs vet musket retreats
elite samurai vs samurai spear wins
elite samurai vs vet musket wins taking city - temple

IBT:
Kuroda land a couple of units next to an undefended city. They really are a pain the neck.
Azuchi Library - Samurai
Osaka worker-worker

740AD:
Buy Education from Shimazu for WM + 728g
Buy Metallurgy from Korea for Education + WM + 334g

Funabashi
Vet Samurai vs vet flagged foot wins
Elite Samurai vs 2/3 flagged foot dies
Elite Samurai vs 1/3 flagged foot wins, taking city and generating another leader.
Heroic Epic or Military Academy?

I can get typography and one city from Takeda for peace, or 3 citiesm but the army (which has only 2 sams loaded into it ATM) needs to win a battle before we sue for peace.

I would take the the cities personally. Typography is an optional tech and we will never get to democracy.

The major players are up Typography, MT, Banking and Astronomy at least. Probably more.

The Mori are scary. They send dozens of units backwards and forwards through our lands, and they could take out our core any time they liked.

Heve fun Adrian. I did, but it wasn't without squirming in my chair IBT.

Here is the
>>save<<. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-740AD.SAV)

Sorry to leave it like this, but the alternative was to post tomorrow.

OK

I got it. I'll play 11 turns

Crikey MadBax - you really did have a corker of a turn. :eek: And an FP - about bloody time - and a good location !! Our southern province can now work to churn out some decent cashflow and more troops.

I think the reason we have shot our rep is that I signed an ROP with Toku in 450AD to move faster through the eastern city that flipped (Shimada) on the coast road to Takeda. I did not just declare war and recapture it then because we had a peace treaty with him including conceded cities and I thought that attacking would kill our rep, and I thought he could wait until Takeda was finished with. I should have emphasised that little detail - sorry. :blush: Unfortunately our war with Toku started again before the ROP expired so .... alas it looks like pointy stick research or cash-only tech sales from now on.

Some musings ...

Maybe in our postings from now on we should emphasise and summarise any deals outstanding. In Civ3 it is much harder to keep track of these than in PTW.

The Leader - I would go with an attack by the army and then rushing the Epic. Then we will hopefully get leaders more often which is just plain fun to have happen even when there is no practical use for them. It's like a sign of approval from the Gods.

Also just stick with Monarchy I think while fighting - we can park obsolete troops for MP duties in key core cities to keep them happier and more productive, and WW is no problem. If we get another leader soon we could rush Sistine, build cathedrals and then hop to Republic for the extra cash when we get markets & banks built in core productive cities ... if there is anyone left to fight then that is ...

Mori is a bit of a worry - should we sign him up against Takeda again to keep him busy ?

On reflection - maybe not. We need the freedom to make peace with Takeda if we want to. Maybe we could sic him onto Chosogabe or Han or somebody ??

Some notes I didn't have time for last night.

The army has only 2 units in it so that it can be transported by sea before galleons.

I think the palace core should build infrastructure for a while. Libraries, markets, 8 banks and then units.

The FP location is shield rich, but commerce and food poor. I think we should go for a very tight build around the FP and get that core pumping units. If we build tighter than RCP 5 then it exploits the palace rank bug, which some people may object to.

I think that once we get to steam we are going to be OK, and the game may be nearly over then anyway. But I would still aim to double the number of native workers we have between then and now so we can rail our cores very quickly.

Partially corrupt cities near the Eastern edge of our land should build canon IMO. We may need it to keep unit losses down, particularly against the Mori who have a roughly equivalent army to us, but only a dozen cities to defend.

Korea should be our friends for the next 20 turns. They are at tech parity with us, and so we can use them to claw our way back to near tech parity. The only important techs for us are magnetism and military tradition IMO to allow us to get to the other continent with cavalry.

There are a couple of Sams stood outside the remaining Takeda town, which is only defended by a regular flagged footman. The sams should be able to take this town comfortably.

Although current research is set to astronomy I was going to research banking. My thought was that we would take one more Takeda town using the army and then sue for peace taking Takeda down to one town, which would be on our mainland and so easy to take out later. Personally, I would then switch back to republic and switch on research. Korea must be researching military tradition, as they don't have it and it was the only tech available for them before the deal. If we can get banking in 10 turns then we can use it to get Military tradition from Korea. The alternative is to keep research switched off, save our money and by a tech to trade with Korea for MT once they have it.

There are half a dozen Sams in an Eastern City. Can't remember its name, but it's the one to the south of the one tile island city. There are a couple of junks there too. We may as well gear up for a war against yellow.

Peanut: You are right, I checked the save. I declared war with the Tokugawa the turn after the peace deal expired. There were 4 turns left on a straight ROP deal. So it was my mistake, I'm sorry about that.

The tech situation is a niusance, no more than that. But if we manage the situation we can pull it back fairly comfortably. All in all I think we are in pretty good shape.

Well done Mad_Bax,

I does get difficult when troops get thin on the ground and you try to do too much at once. Its a suble trap as waiting to reposition fresh troops lets the defence strengthen - you can't win.

Anyway - the main purpose of this mail is to stand-down from this game as by tommorrow I will be on-route to New Zealand / Middle Earth for a four week holiday over Christmas. We are doing well and I have confidence we can beat the other teams.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy, healthy & prosperous New Year :))

Brief report from the front.

I played 5 turns to 790 AD. Score at 750AD was 1781.

We reduced Tokugawa to two cities and got typography and Hitachi in the peace deal.
Kuroda's island town is being a pain. I'll kill it soon though.

I built the Heroic Epic and then got another leader who built Sistine Chapel. In trading I got Astronomy and Military tradition. We are now behind banking and physics. We make 273 gpt.

I'll play the other 6 turns tommorrow.

By the way ... we should irrigate the valleys and mine the hills/mountains. We are choking our cities growth by mining the valleys.

Sounds like you are having a great turn. The point you make about worker tasks is absolutely correct of course. We have been out of despotism a while now and we should have started swapping tile assignments a while back. However, we need more workers for that, especially with steam around the corner. I would be pefectly happy building another 30-50 workers in our 1 shield cities.

Who should our next target be?
Chogosabe (yellow) or Mori (orange)

We have no active deals with either at current. We are strong versus Chogosabe but have to do a naval invasion. We are average versus Mori. I'm busy redeploying/ consolidating/ concentrating our forces.

Mori and the Han went to war. They are busy killing off each other's pop 1 cities in the south west corner.

Dare I say both? The thing is that the route through the Mori is very narrow, and only really suits one SOD.

I can't remember the map too well. The Chosogabe have a silks Monopoly I believe. Do the Mori have any lux that we don't have?

If you don't think we can handle two wars at once I'd go for the Chosogabe first, and then declare on the Mori 5 turns later. We could sign an MA with the Han against them and that might allow us to buy a tech cheaply.

Still, It's up to you Adrian

:wavey:

Ok here's my report:

Pre-turn

We are down 4 techs to a lot of civs. I purchase a worker. I micromanage our corrupt hellholes and hire taxmen. Most 6 pop cities can support 2 taxmen if we do it right. Many of our workers are improving corrupt lands. No point in that. Our workers are also mining the valleys. We need those irrigated.

740AD - lose a wounded samurai in Funabashi

750AD - trade dyes to Mori for 9GPT (try to keep him happy until the Blue Horde comes) - score 1781

IBT -Funabashi lost
Mori declares war on the Han

760AD - Army wins battle, leader builds Heroic epic, buy worker from Chogosabe
Start redeployment, concentration of forces.

770AD - Smash all but 2 Takedan cities, get another leader build Sistines
sign peace with Takeda for Typography and Hitachi
Sell horses, wines and dyes to Shimazu for 45GPT (we need the cash and it will slow their research). I could also sell them saltpeter but no point giving them Cavalry.
No one will sell Astronomy to us but I'm saving cash

780AD- disband the city mad-bax wanted to get rid of near FP
IBT - Baejke and Takeda sign peace
Mori wants to renew ROP - I say no - he has a lot of settlers in our lands and I want to slow them down.
Shimazu builds Copernicus

790AD - finally have enough to buy Astronomy
We are strong so I use the reneogiate peace trade tactic
I renegoitate peace with Shimazu- We get Astronomy for 898 gold
I renegiotiate peace with Korea - We get MT for Ast, 85G and WM

IBT - Korea eliminates Baejke
Silk deal with Chogosabe ends - I don't renew it as they are next

800AD - finally destroy Kuroda - their stupid island town was a pain
Build wall of Samurai to stop flow of units from Mori

810AD - not much of note - I start herding Mori's settlers in the west.

820AD - upgrade some Samurai to Cav
IBT - Han completes Newtons

840AD - Chogosabe has 4 settlers and a half dozen units in our turf
I demand they leave or declare war. They choose war. We lose 1 cav to wipe out their offending forces. We get 8 free workers!

850AD - send cav units to barracks to recuperate.
We don't have enough cash to buy physics. We should be able to buy physics (from Han - give them the $ to buy an ally against Mori) next turn. Then swap Physics for banking from Korea. Navigation's asking price is 600$. We are making over 300GPT so its only two turns away.

Score 2072

We have ACTIVE deals with Mori and Shimazu and Korea. We have 12 turns of peace with Takeda. We are at war with Chogosabe. We have 9 cavalry near their cities on the mainland. We have 5 kublai junks (can carry 3 units each) to ferry the invasion force over. Basically we should be able to wipe out their mainland holdings and get a beachhead fairly easily.

>>save<<. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-850AD.zip)

Nicely done Adrian.

Gormdragan you are up.

I have PM'd gormdragan as he hasn't posted here in a while. So, Peanut, get ready as you may well be up this time tomorrow.

Edit: spelling. :blush:

:wavey:

Hmmm... Looks like the library builds I ordered were a wate of time and shields as Adrain has caught us up in tech pretty much without research, and we only need steam and maybe industrialisation to finish the game. I would say that the only infrastructure we need are markets and maybe 8 banks. Some productive cities may support an aquaduct but otherwise it's just cavalry and boats IMO.

I'm a bit worried about coal. I hope we have some.

Given our land mass, I'm sure we have coal somewhere.

The libraries are not a waste IMO. They'll help with flip reduction as they generate culture. We will also need some research. I'm sure we'll need artillery.

Our biggest problem is that some of our core cities are woefully under developed. Our non-corrupt cities are working unimproved tiles. For example Azuchi was working an unimproved hill, unimproved goat hill and unimproved goat mountain. That's a loss of 6S,3$ per turn. The towns NE of Azuchi are even worse off. And the ones SE are worse still. I'll bet we are losing 50 shields a turn that we could have.

I started moving workers back towards the core to develop the core cities. There are some worker gangs near Azuchi fixing the problems above. I also ordered some aquaducts in core cities. We need a dozen size 12 productive cities to build cavalry. I also started reassigning tiles for max growth and productivity.

On the trading front: note Korea is behind and scientific. Watch out for the opportunity to gift Korea techs to elevate them to Industrial age, buy the instant free tech from them and then sell it. Korea's days are numbered though. Mori brought them into the war with the Han for 2 techs.

If unhappiness becomes a problem we can build cathedrals in our big cities. We are a monarchy now. If we flip to republic we will need cathedrals to help with WW.

As soon as we have Navigation, explore the empty ocean with our southern Kublai junks. The AI's will pay lots of gold for maps of empty ocean.

I think that when we started to expand militarily we didn't have pyramids, and we used workers to road to the front line. Because the core didn't have granaries the lack of development was not too apparent. Now the cities have grown, (and yes I noticed on my turns too) the lack of development is hurting, but getting the workers back to the core can be a 10 turn exercise and it is off-putting.

In general I think we should try to double our worker numbers before we get steam. Maybe we can form gangs to improve particular cities, irrigating grass and plains, and mining hills and bonus mountains in a balanced way on a per city basis.

If we start a new war against a new opponent I thought war weariness accumulated from zero again. So if I'm right we would have very low war weariness if we switch back to republic. Could anyone confirm whether this is correct or not? Of course if we have LOTS of units then it may not make a great difference.

If we stay in monarchy we could use up the nearly obsolete Kensai Oda against the Mori. If we switch to Republic we could selectively disband them gradually to help replace unupgradeable border defences to muskets. As we get more banks and markets I think we should try to get back to Republic if possible.

mad-bax

I used up the Kensai Oda relieving Samurai from garrison duty. With all those Mori units marching through our lands we needed garrisons. There is a corrupt but unconnected town I set to producing spearmen. Its south of the FP. They can be rushed every 2nd turn for 76gold. Use these spearmen to garrison towns and free up the Kensai Oda. Most of the Kensai Oda are in the west IIRC. They will never march to the Mori lands until after rails.

Since Chogosabe declared war on us we are experiencing war happiness.

A new article (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_war_weariness.shtml) in the Academy deals with just this subject.

As usual, it is not simple. The article suggests that WW takes a while to dissipate. What happens on a change of government is not clear - just try it and see I guess ...

I got it....will play tomorrow.

I am sorry that there is no progress as of yet. The other SG took a really long time. Will definitely post tomorrow, this SG is on the top of my list.

It's fine gormdragan. No pressure here.

Preturn:

(1) We have a serious tech problem. I will be boosting our research expenses to catch up. Hopefully, we can get MT to trade for the rest.

(2) There is no strategical reason to remain in war, our military force is not capable to do much. I would push Chosogabe out of our continent and quickly sue for peace. Any chance of winning this game b4 the industrial ages died when the Hans became a superpower.

(3) If opportunity arrises, I will take Mori, otherwise I think it is time we gear up for the industrial ages.

(4) Why do we have so many Kensai???? I hope we didn't upgrade Kensai for garrison duties.

Start a TOE prebuild at Azuchi, Hoover prebuild at Koromo.

Revolt to Republic.

IBT:
Chosogabe and Han MA against Mori, lucky not us.

Chosogabe lands 3 cavs in our West coast!!!

860:
Research up to 90%, MT due in 3.

We slaughtered the Chosogabe landing.

Tosashimizu is ours.

All our sams are performing blocking actions!!!! What a waste of resources!!! Our Army is also performing blocking actions????

Also, there are so many unworked squares, DO NOT MINE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!!

I am glad we did not try a 2 front war. It would have destroyed us.

I am going to keep New Kasugai unconnected to mass produce garrison wars for us.

IBT:
Chosogabe and Han signed MA against Korea, again lucky not us.

870:
We need more workers.
We don't need to build anymore junks, we don't even have enough troops to fill the ones we have.

Crap!!! Hans have reached Industrial Ages, Barbarian uprising!!!

IBT:
our fur+ivory deal expired, can only get ivory back.

880:
Uwajima is ours.
Aki is ours. We kicked Chosogabe out of our continent. Let's see if we should carry on the push, Aki is the staging ground for the landing.

IBT:
Barbarian assault cost us 3 sams (all elites) and 1 kensai. We killed 17 horseman though.

890:
MT is discovered.
Trade MT+WM+10g to Mori for Physics
Our reputation is toasted, we can't trade any per turn deals.
Trade Physics+MT to Korea for Banking+WM.
Start Economics, due in 5 (need to do another 3-fer).

Start alots of Banks.

900:
New Hikone founded.
New Tateyama founded.
New Yoshi founded.

910:
Crap!! Hans and Shimizus discovered Economics. no 3-fer anymore. I am switching to TOG, economics is useless if you know you wouldn't get smiths. TOG in 5.

Our overseas assault begins, 6cav+3sam.

IBT:
We lost 2cav+3sam. OMG!!! I suspect we will not be able to take even 1 city.

920:
We landed another 5cav+4sam.

IBT:
Chosogabe wants peace, I said no.
OMG!!! we lost 3sam+1cav. We have only 5 cav and 1 sam left.

930:
I give it a shot. lost 3cav. There is no way will can take even 1 city, I sue for peace. Sorry pple, I disappointed everyone.

Agreed to peace for 43g with Chosogabe.

940:
Unhappiness strikes, I up lux to 10%, can't get any lux deal.

950:
Chosogabe makes Mag Voy.

Summary
(1) I think the time for war is over. We should start catching up in tech and also build up our cities to gear up for IA and tanks.

(2) I am mass producing workers, steam is around the corner, but we should do a medicine gambit to hope for a 2-fer.

(3) Azuchi and Hamamatsu are prebuilding for TOE and Hoover. If possible, hang on to that. Hydro plant in each of our cities is an incredible advantage.

Next better player.


The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-950AD.SAV)

Peanut: You are UP.

gormdragan: good turns. Don't get too disheartened. We were late to MT that's all. We really do need to build cannon and cav and a few muskets to starnd the canon on. Since we can't go against the Chosogabe for a while we will have to look at the Mori once our deals are up.

I've had a quick look at the save.

There is unclaimed territory to our southwest thet the Mori are sending settlers to. I would rush settlers and beat them to it. Don't let then expand.

There is unclaimed territory on the Han continent. We should establish a coastal city there and put a harbour in it.

Researching TOG was a mistake in my view. Magnetism would allow trade accross ocean squares and would allow us to get to the Han continent. I believe it would be better of cutting off research competeley and just buying magnetism as soon as we can afford it. Then we can switch research on and get steam quickly. At this point it is all over for the AI.

I think we should only build 8 banks and Wall street at this stage.
This is a conquest game. There is no soft option. Mainly we should build units. Productive cities produce Cav, unproductive cities produce canon. We have to use canon and Cavalry together against rifles. When we face the Han we may need RP for arty and Infantry.

What I don't want is for us to revert to builder mode just because the Mori and Chosogabe are not a walkover. This is exaclty the time where good players excel, because they continue to expand at the time the AI get rifles and cav. Mainly they do it by using SOD's that contain bombardment units.

Come on guys lets build an army and take out the Mori as soon as the lux deal expires. Let's :hammer: them into the ground.

Edit: The slider can be dropped for TOG next turn. There are a couple of good cities building Kensai Oda. These should be changed to Cav. There are a few bad Cities building Kensai Oda which should be changed to worker. There are 11 banks in construction. The 3 in cities with the lowes uncorrupted commerce should be changed to cav. I also believe that all cities making 3-8spt but have a market should build canon. We have a number of cats in the southwest. They need shipping up to the northeast and then upgrading.

Just my 2 cents.

Got it ... after threatening the PC with a screwdriver if it did not recognise its modem again very quickly. After a few Control Panel tweaks and some mystic and ancient incantations (like "what the ****" and "I'm warning you, you *** *****") I'm online again.

Its been lovely weather here - very conducive to thinking about this SG. It was 34 degrees (C that is) & 60% humidity yesterday and even more sticky today until the thunderstorms around lunch time. And I was outside in the blazing sun rebuilding the front stairs.

Ah well. I will read the wise advice from Gormdragan and MadBax and see whether I can nurse our jolly gang along for another 10 turne without too much damage. Stay tuned folks but don't hold your breath ...

Originally posted by gormdragan
Preturn:

(1) We have a serious tech problem. I will be boosting our research expenses to catch up. Hopefully, we can get MT to trade for the rest.

(4) Why do we have so many Kensai???? I hope we didn't upgrade Kensai for garrison duties.

All our sams are performing blocking actions!!!! What a waste of resources!!! Our Army is also performing blocking actions????

Also, there are so many unworked squares, DO NOT MINE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!!

We need more workers.

MT is discovered.
Trade MT+WM+10g to Mori for Physics
Our reputation is toasted, we can't trade any per turn deals.
Trade Physics+MT to Korea for Banking+WM.
Start Economics, due in 5 (need to do another 3-fer).

Agreed to peace for 43g with Chosogabe.




I am going to disagree with your comments gormdragan.

re your point 1 : It is MUCH cheaper to buy the techs than to actually research them. We earn enough to buy a tech every 4 turns. We can usually get 2 for one.

re your point 4: I did not upgrade any Kensai. Note that Kensai are our cheapest garrison unit at 30S, now that we have muskets at 60S.

re the army and samurai blocking: The army is obsolete. It will never get anywhere in time to be useful. It is a 15 to 20 turn march across our empire. The samurai were all elite. I didn't want to upgrade the elites. These guys are also the ones scheduled to exterminate the Takedan remnants two or three turns after your turns end. Therefore I used them for a useful purpose while they waited. With the hordes of Han cavalry racing around in the west we needed units there anyway.

re mining mountains: of course we want to mine mountains to maximize production. We especially want to mine them if they are being used anyway. Anything over 24 food is a waste for a size 12 city. We are at war. We need the shields, especially in our core. We had workers improving hopelessly corrupt outposts. Mining core mountains is a much better use for them.

re workers: With all the ai/ai wars you can usually buy a couple workers every 10 turns. Its good to build them in our corrupt towns. However most of the corrupt towns were finishing their temples during my turns.

re trading: MT? Military tradition? Mori already had it so how could you trade it? or was it Magnetism? We lost our rep several players ago. We'll just have to live with it now. It just means we have to be more disciplined.

re peace with Chogosabe: good decision. If we can't crack their defences, we'll try again later.

Yet to attack it folks - priority interrupts from the real world (Christmas coming, school holidays, etc. etc.). If I can't get to it tonight then I may have to pass this round.

Some ramblings from Peanut's Strategy Desk :

Military : Looking at the game pre-turn I am concerned at our offensive capability - only around 10 Cavalry. There are a few more Kensai though but Cavs are much more fun. Giving Choso peace (for the moment) was a wise choice.

My feeling is to agree with Mad-bax that we need to press on with our conquests. Choso & Shimadzu have luxuries that we will need to keep folk happy (as well as boosting the score) and we cannot afford to buy these luxuries as we are just too big ! So we need to visit them in force sooner rather than later.

Han is no real threat just yet but having Mori next door ready to be brought into a war by Choso / Shimadzu / Han should they bribe him is a nuisance we don't need. Much better to have a war with an overseas rival with incompetent AI admirals than one over the side fence just a short walk away. So Mori is next on the list I think.

Economy & Techs : I think we should build a few banks in high yield core cities for the cash, but then primarily crank out more cavalry. I agree with Adrian - we should buy / trade techs and only research essentials if we cannot buy them. However we have to get into the IA asap so we can see how far behind we really are, so break-even research is on for a while.

Prebuilding for Hoover / ToE is a good idea just in case we don't get leaders at the right time - good thinking Gormdragan. However the Academy may complete before we get the right techs so it may need switching to (say) a University and restarting closer to buying / researching the techs.

Workers : We need more workers busy near our core productive cities ready for strategic railing. They HAVE to do whatever they can to boost all non-corrupt production in the core cities and just ignore corrupt shanty towns (apart from strategic road building). That means mined hills & mountains with just enough irrigated grass to feed the miners. While population is crucial in the early game, production is King now !

Town Planning : Our half corrupt cities are only good for cannon and workers and the outer ones for workers only, with a rushed temple if we need the cultural boundary to discourage AI settlers. It also keeps their population down so they don't revolt.

Debate : A healthy debate is always a good thing as we can refine each other's ideas. Thanks for your views and ideas everyone. This is my first SG and I have learned a lot from seeing other's playing styles and discussing game strategy. So let's be sure we limit the discussion to creating a future that brings a quick and bloody end for our rivals, instead of holding inquiries into the past.

I like the debate too, especially when someone disagrees with me. A different view is great for learning. Also, playing SG's forces you to adopt different styles of play.

Having said that, I agree with everything you said. We can't really take on the Mori until we have around 15 - 20 cav and a similar number of canon.

I had about 15 cav+10sams+4cannons to start the offensive. Out of which all sam are used for blocking action. I have to disagree with you on the blocking action. Samurais are not obselete!!!! They provide the best and fastest defensive units for our attacking cavalries, being equal to musket in defence. using them as blocker are bad ideas. Plus we have a sam army, which is probably the best defender in the game at the point of my turns.

With regards to mining the mountains, why not mine the hills.
Considering we have so many unworked squares for our core cities, we can work at least 4 grasslands or mine 2 hills for every mountain we mine. We do not exactly have a supplus of workers so I am still not convinced that mining mountains is at all a good idea.

Before I sue for peace with Chosogabe, I had a 10 cav, 5sam, 4 cannon SOD slaughtered. I had only 1-2 sams+4-5cavs left, having attacking by more than 5 cavs per turn. I was totally convinced that we cannot take Chosogabe. We are not even producing a cav a turn, therefore I did not think we could sustain such losses, especially in view of the Mori troops running around our territories. Considering Chosogabe was signing MAs (twice in my turns), I was really concerned with a Han-Chosogabe alliance against us. We are in no condition to even defend our territory.

With regards to Mori, We need a lot more than 15 cavs to take them on. FYI, there are at least 5-10 sams in the south, + 4-6 cavs. Those troops were pushing the Hans off our continent and are now nursing in the captured cities. That is not counting any troops in the Mori core. Personally, I would not go to war again until tanks because I am not convinced our cores are producing sufficiently. Furthermore, with nationalism around the corner, rifleman+conscription would be an offensive issue. If we do intend to push for an assault, we need a huge number of cannons (I would be confortable with at least 20-30 cannons). In addition, I suggest waiting for railroads to stablise our own defence. We have practically nothing left to defend. If AI lands in a far off spot, we do not have sufficient units scattered thoughout our lands to repulse the landing.

With regards to research, I saw what I thought was an opportunity to catch up in tech, doing a 4-fer (ended up as a 3-fer) with Musical Theory(MT, not Military Tradition), then another 3-fer with Economics (ended up AI got it b4 us) and finally a 3-fer with TOG (as opposed to Magnestism suggested by mad-bax as AI tends to research Magnestism instead of TOG). I still firmly believe that my gamble was a good one that failed in the end. In other words, I would have taken the gamble again if I were to re-do those turns. Based on your idea of buying a tech every 4 turns, my 3-fer more than covers the 10 turns I played out (12 by your analyses). You can never catch up tech by buying them, we are not exactly making alot of $$$. By buying techs, you are paying for AI's reaseach (I think everyone is aware of that). Utilizing 2-fer, 3-fer, etc, is the key to keeping the tech race. I am actually disappointed we allowed ourselves to slide so far from the tech front.

My 2 cents.

Oh, I suggest switch Military Academy to Newton's College, if we press on TOG, we need both TOG and Magnetism to get to IA.

Rather than to build Kensai, which are really expensive defenders, what I typically do in my own games, is to maintain unconnected cities (about 4-5 of them) and use them to produce cheap warriors or spears. Once they are produced, march them to roaded cities and upgrade only when threatened. That is what I am doing for New Kasugai. If it were up to me, I would pillage the roads to a couple of corrupt cities to build warriors. Noting that some players don't fancy pillaging our own roads (considering that as exploitive), I did not do so.

Well fellow generals, I managed to play 8 turns after all the other distractions but I'll need to hand over to the next player. Sorry I was so slow but that's life sometimes,eh ?

Basically I followed my strategy of a few banks, get to the IA, re-arm like mad and build workers. Productive cities (about 24 of them) will be worked over to maximise production and growth potential. That means a few rushed aquaducts if necessary.

The rest (numbered beyond counting it seems) will churn out workers and can be neglected. A few settlers headed south to fill in the empty spaces. Overall, a rather boring 8 turns ... except for the war that is ... I'll just give the basics rather than list all the dull details.

Preturn : Scale research back to minimum needed for TOG in 1. Swap some towns to worker rather than wait till forever for a Temple or something at 1 spt. Our offensive capability = 9Cavs + 4 Samuri (2 in army) + 29 Kensai. Whoopee. Swap some cities to build more Cavs. Sell Wool+Wine+Dye+WM+60g to han for Incense - got to keep our happiness up even though it will boost Han for a while (maybe this was not such a bright idea after all ...). Upgrade the cats to cannon and head them north.

IBT : Dyes deal with Mori lapses. No need to help his economy along just for a few coins per turn. Mori & Han sign peace.

960 : ToG > Mag. Trade ToG for Nav+WM+3g with Korea. Mag in 5 @ max non-deficit rate - got to get to IA soon and nobody will sell us Mag. Workers are streaming towards the core cities. Cavs are heading to Mori's border.

IBT : Takeda invites us to ally with him against Choso. We fall about laughing and then sell him Music for 20g+4gpt instead. Every bit helps ... and it may stop him getting silly and declaring war.

970 : Workers gathering to groom our core cities. Rush Aquaduct in New Nagoya as it has productive potential. Switch to courthouses in core cities.

IBT : Choso asks our junk to get out. We agree. The Shimazu Horse deal expires. The cheapskate will only pay 15gpt. Bugger off then - see if you can get horses elsewhere.

980 : Yet more workers & cavs & miscellaneous improvements built. Cavs moving east. We now have 15 Cavs & 13 Cannon.

IBT : Wines & Dyes deal with Shimazu expires. We renew for 44gpt - a useful sum. He is now buying horses from elsewhere - Han probably. Poop.

990 : More workers & cavs roll off the assembly line. 17 Cavs & 45 workers.

IBT : Nothing of note. Mori loves to shuffle his troops around.

1000 : We have 20 cavs & 49 workers. More positioning.

IBT : Shimadzu lands 4 Cavs near Kyoto. What the ... ?? Hmmmm... Mori builds Bachs in Yamaguchi - very very tempting - we must go and "visit" him real soon.

1010 : Mag done - we are in IA - only Nationalism is known by the AI so things may not be that bad. Research Medicine or Steam ? I pick Steam as we MUST get production up and there is an army of workers just bursting to build railroads. So I won't chance the trade deal risk on Medicine but they probably won't sell to us anyway on the Emperor weightings and our reputation. By the way, I agree with Gormdragan's tech approach in general - if you can get a tech like ToG just ahead then it could have levered us up the tree nicely. It doesn't always work but it's worth trying.

Oh yes - Shimadzu declares war on us rather than shift. What a surprise. Well, well - all 4 of his Cavs are in range of our Cavs camped waiting to visit Mori. Round 1 results - 4 dead Shimadzu cavs, two elite promotions, no casualties. But where will they land next ? Who will they persuade to join the fun ? I turn on the Happiness Governor in case I miss a key city rioting.

IBT : No allies join Shimadzu, no more troops landed. Shimadzu ships off the SE coast.

1020 : Now 55 workers, 21 cavs, 14 cannon. A few upgrades of Junks to Cannon Kublai (these carry 4, move 8). Oh yes, it looks like Mori is at war with Chosogabe ! A nice distraction for both of them.

IBT : More Shimadzu sailing about near Gifu but no troops landing. Han wants to swap maps for a few coins ... yeah ok.

1030 : More improving & positioning. More workers and Cavs produced. Some cavs and the Elite Sam moved towards the SE coast to shadow the Shimadzu ships.

Conclusion : That's all I had time for folks so on to the next General. We are close to invasion strength for Mori if wanted - he has Leo's and Bach's which might come in handy. I don't think Mori has Nationalism yet so his cities only have muskets. There's still more mining to be done in the core cities to squeeze more production out. Steam will be ready in 9 turns, less if the AIs get there first. Shimadzu is being a right royal pain but not much more. We will very soon have enough cavs to neutralise any landings and sustain an invasion of Mori. There are also Cannon Junks waiting to load troops for next campaign as well (Choso again perhaps ?).
And here's ... The 1030AD Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-1030AD.zip)
edit to clarify a confusing sentence

Okay, I've got the save. I'm thinking that I'll play two turns tonight, to get us to the ten-turn mark, and post the score. And then, if it's okay with everyone, play the next ten turns tomorrow. I expect this week to be a little hectic for me, though, so things might not go as planned.

Alweth - Thanks for finishing the last two turns for me. As for hectic - well it's that time of year isn't it !

Two Turn Round Finish (Part 1)
This is the log for the first of two turns I'm playing to round out Peanut's eight turns into ten turns, so that we can keep playing on the ten-turn mark like Mad Bax wants. I hope that's fine with everyone.

Preturn - AD 1030
Tech situation: About half of our enemies are at the same tech level as us or less, that's good. The other half all have Nationalism, Democracy, and Economics, that's not so good. I don't know about Shimazu, since we're at war with them.

Here's my plan:
I think I'll declare war on Mori, since they're the biggest threat at the moment; Shimazu's over the sea, so I don't think we have to worry too much about them, and if things get ugly we can just sue for peace, I think; and I think we can take Mori, now. I'll plan on accepting peace from them when they're weak enough so that they'll no longer be a problem and when they're willing to give us lots of good techs. I hope to make this war fast, since war weariness will probably become a problem pretty quickly.

It looks like we can afford to start the attack now, so I demand that they remove their military from our land, but they declare war, so it all works out neatly. Hopefully this will keep the war weariness down.

I move and attack. I go for the enemies on our land in the West, and I got for their cities in the East. Overall, I am pleased with the results.

Lose: 1 Calvary, 1 Kensai Oda
Gain: 5 Elite Cavalry, 1 Elite Kensai Oda

Capture: Tsuyama, Takahashi

I'm going to starve them down to one, and then let them build up their pop again.

IBT:
Lose: New Yokkachi, and Matsusaka (because I had accidentally moved the guy defending it out of the city). Also lose a cavalry.

Turn 1 - AD 1040
Kill some enemies.

Gain: 1 Elite Cavalry
Lose: At least 1 Cavalry (forgot to keep track).

Found Ise 2.

IBT: Nagoya 2 (?) is razed.

Well, that's all I'm going to play tonight, because it took a lot longer than I would have thought. (Finding stuff for all those workers to do can be quite a chore.) I hope I can finish the turn first thing tomorrow and post the score, then do the next ten turns that evening (and the next evening, if I can't finish in one night.)

Well done Peanut. Looks like we have recovered the tech situation. Lets see if we can get an offensive army together. The turns are ticking away...

Alweth. Can you post the score at the end of the 1050AD turn please. Thanks.

Turn 2 - AD 1050
Lost: Samurai Army (Bad luck.)
Gained: 1 Elite Cavalry, 1 Elite Kensai Oda
Freed: New Yokkachi and Matsusaka.

Score: 2655

I'll try and start playing the rest of my turns tonight. However, I'm pretty satisfied with just the two turns I played already, so, mad-bax, if you think that now would be a good time for you to play, please feel free to go ahead and download the save, post a "got it," and take your turn. If, however, you haven't posted a "got it" by tonight, I'll just take my turn as originally planned, and you can just go after me, as usual.

Here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4b-1050AD.zip).

EDIT - Removed typos and fixed URL.

Okay. I'm starting on the next 10 turns now. I hope I can pull it off.

I'm sorry guys, but some things have come up. They're not major, but they will prevent me from being able to complete my turn. Rather than perpetuate a cycle of odd turn-counts by playing only part of my ten, I'll just forego my turn since I already got to play two turns anyway. Please take it away, mad-bax. I hope this doesn't cause any problems for you. The main thing to keep in mind is that we're at war with the Mori in the North, East, and Far South. The latest save is two posts up.

OK. Got it. Play tonight. I've been a little preoccupied, so I apologise for the delay in posting.

In the case of Medicine VS Steam, I would be in the same dillema as well. Since we need both to start on TOE, and as you said, our reputation is "toast-er" than toast :D, Steam is probably the right way to go. I think at this point, once we secure Steam and start our glorious railroad, we will be in good shape both in production and in research as well. It is time to do our own research. With regards to our deficiency in Nationalism, Democracy and Economics, I say we have no deficiency. With Replacement Parts around the corner, I say we skip Nationalism entirely. Democracy is totally useless since we plan to win by conquest. Economics too is useless as Smiths is already built. The key now is to get TOE and Hoover.

From my experience (which is not much), AI tends to waste their time trying to get Nationalism, Communism, Epionage. This should cut us some slack to pick up Steam, Medicine, and finally Scientific Methods and Electronics. If we have slipped our prebuild on TOE and Hoover, it's time to start it off again. I am sure we will win the TOE-Hoover gambit but the key is to get it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

I have played 2 turns. It's horrendous in terms of time, and it's a very difficult situation to play. It would be so easy to say "lets call it a day and go for a Space win".

I won't finish tonight. The turns take too long. Sorry.

Well, I completed my turns. Took nearly 5 hours. I want to post a couple of pictures and stuff and its 2.20am here and I really should get a couple of hours sleep. I'll post in around 12 hrs I guess.

The Firaxis score at the end of my turns was 2926 if that's relevent.

1050AD: Pre-turn.
Researching for steam is fine. But we are in a very dicey war ATM and may need to cash rush to save cities and units.
I switch off city governors.
I micromanage some of the important towns to optimise for shields.

I don't like the way our military is arranged ATM. We should be stacking cannon on muskets, and the cavalry should be in nice stacks. We are spread too thin and I expect to lose several units on the interturn.

Fukuyama would not have been my first choice as a target. Kure is much better as it would deprive the Mori of Salt. This will be my aim this turn. I'll Pillage it at least.

We have little defence in the border cities which is where they are most required.

I start to move some units in order to provide us with a fig leaf, but we are going to get slaughtered.

Cross my fingers and press the space bar.

IBT:
Koreans want to exchange Tmaps. I see no reason why I would want to. No.

So... To the damage.
We lose a vet Cav in one attack
We lose an Elite Cav in another attack
We lose 2 workers to a cav
A cav retreats from its canon stack and we lose 3 canon.
We win one fight. A warrior defending an island city defeats a Kensai.

That could have gone better.

Korea and Han sign peace treaty.

We Complete the Military Academy. We don't have the luxury of waiting 17 turns for an army though.

1060AD:
Firstly just tried to get the workers moving back to the core, ready for steam, and to improve some tiles around our productive cities.

Attacked a couple of Mori units to the south that are wandering around. Killed them without loss.

Killed a musket and a Kensai outside Chiba without loss.
Killed a samurai spear outside Chiba without loss.

I don't have enough units to kill Fukuyama, but I decide to try anyway as they will be picked off in the interturn anyway.

Fukuyama
Vet Cav vs Vet musket wins
Elite Cav vs Vet musket retreats
Elite Cav vs Vet musket wins
Elite Cav vs conscript rifle retreats.

IBT:
Lose 2 Kensai and a cav in fighting around Chiba. We are really weak here and it will take a couple of turns to rectify. I have to sacrify units to use up enemy movement points as a means of preventing units getting to cites.

Didn't realise we were at war with the Shimazu. :smoke:
They land a pair of Cavalry outside New Handa. We can't defend it.

1070AD
Take out Samurai archer and a Kensai near Chiba. The Mori are showing signs of weakening around here now.

Fukuyama Reprise
5/5 cav vs conscript rifle wins
4/5 cav vs conscript rifle retreats
3/5 cav vs conscript rifle wins, generating leader
This leaves a cav in the city unfortunately. Next turn there will be another conscript.

Attack the two stack of cav outside new Handa with our lone Kensai and lose. I abandon the city rather than take the war weariness hit of having them walk into it.

Getting this into shape is turning into a RPITA. None of our 3 cities in the south west are defended or connected. Now a stack of 3 Samurai and a horse turn up 2 tiles from Ise 2. Absolutely no way of defending it.

Kure
Vet cav vs vet rifle retreats
Vet cav vs vet rifle retreats
Vet cav vs conscript rifle wins
Elite cav vs vet rifle wins taking city.

War weariness is going to kick in in a big way next turn, I am going to try to hold out till steam, then revolt to monarchy.

Although things are still in a mess, I am beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.

IBT:
The Samurai stack move next to undefended Ise 2 as expected. So I abandon it.

1080AD
Chiba
vet cav vs conscript rifle dies
vet cav vs newly promoted reg rifle dies
Elite cav vs reg rifle wins, taking city.

Moved loads of stuff around.

IBT:
The Samurai stack approaches the next undefended city - Except I am going to have a go at saving this one - maybe.

1090AD:
Fujisawa
Vet cav vs vet musket retreats
Vet cav vs vet musket wins - taking city.

Fukuyama
Vet cav vs Elite cav wins
Vet cav vs vet cav dies
vet cav vs vet cav wins
vet cav vs conscript rifle wins taking city.

Sign Straight peace with Shimazu. That was one war we really didn't need.
There are signs that things may simplify over the next few turns. Still need more workers though. As things stand I can either rail up to the front lines, or rail our core, but not both.

I'm a little worried about this interturn. What the heck... press the button.

IBT:
Learn Steam, research electricity.
Damn. Missed the next stage of war weariness. Really unlike me. Still, I'll revolt this turn so not too much harm done.

We get the iron works message. Hope it's somewhere useful. Well, the only place I can see is Setagaya-ku, which is hopelessly corrupt. Pity.
The Shimazu complete Smiths. Pity, coz we are a ways from dealing with them yet.

1100AD:
No chance of further attacks this turn. Just begin to organise workers into teams for railing. They are not in the right place yet.

IBT:
Oh dear. I missed the fact that a Samurai could get to New Yoshi in one turn. The Mori Take it. Sorry.

Undefended Edo is taken too, I have no idea where that cavalry came from. It sounds bad but it is correctable and both cities were worthless anyway.

1110AD:
Retake Edo without loss.

Kui
Vet cav vs vet rifle loses
Vet cav vs vet rifle retreats
vet cav vs vet musket wins
vet cav vs reg rifle retreats
Elite cav vs reg rifle wins
Elite cav vs vet rifle wins taking city.
I decide to raze Kui

IBT:
New Hikone is captured by yet another phantom cav. Why are they not visible on the map until they attack?
Tatayama is captured. by the Sam stack. I have just about manged to get some units to this part of the map, So I will be dealing with it presently.

1120AD:
Hiroshima
vet kensai vs vet musket loses
Asterisked elite cav vs vet musket wins
vet cav vs vet musket wins
vet cav vs vet musket dies
elite sam vs vet musket wins
Elite cav vs vet musket wins
Elite cav vs vet Kensai wins taking city.
I decide to keep it pending where the new capital goes.

IBT:
Korea and Mori sign trade embargo against us.
Ooh we get a palace expansion.

1130AD:

Finally get some units to the problem area.

Retake Tateyama - no losses
Re-take New Yoshi - No Losses

So we are gradually getting cleaned up. It's just taking a little time and effort.

I won't be able to take out all their size 12 cities on my turn however.

1140AD:
Okayama
The preliminary bombardment was moderately successful.
Vet cav vs vet musket wins
Vet cav vs vet musket dies
Vet cav vs vet musket retreats.
Vet cav vs vet musket wins
Elite cav vs vet musket retreats
Elite cav vs vet musket wins taking city.

Retake New Hikone without loss.

IBT:
We lose an Elite Cav
Aki flips to the Chesogabe for the loss of a Kensai.

1150AD:
Although I didn't have enough units to capture Yamaguchi I decided to soften it up for the next player. I left one 2HP elite musket in the city. Next turn of course there will be a conscript rifle too.


Post turn remarks.

Yamaguchi and Matsui must fall. Once that has been done we can sue for peace.
We want Yonago and Tottori in the peace deal, plus economics if possible. Yonago gives us a beachhead on the Han continent, and Tottori gives us a town on the island I had to give up.

The Cavalry in the south can be used to Clear up the Takeda, and take the last Mori town on our continent.

The leader is for TOE, and there is a Hoover pre-build in Koromo. It is due in 30 turns, which should be about right.

We have a small chance of getting to electricity first. If we do then I wouldn't hang on to it. I'd trade it for medicine and anything else you can get. We don't have to be the first to Scientific method, we just need to get there within ten turns of the AI since we have a leader.

We MUST get after the Chesogabe as soon as humanly possible. We are desperately in need of their silks.

Active deals
We have a lux deal with the Han
We have 14 turns left on a peace treaty with the Shimazu
We have no deals with the Chesogabe and Korea
We have 1 turn left on a peace deal with the Takeda.

I believe we are in control again now. Not because of my play, just because we have steam, and a clear road to TOE and Hoover.

Our score is 2923

Pictures and Save to follow.

This is the northern front. The Mori have two productive cities left. If we get rid of these and take a coastal city on the Han continent in the peace deal it would be good for us.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4g.jpg

This is the southern front. We really do need to take out all these cities and cover this area with culture. We can do without foreign cities springing up around here.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4e.jpg

Our military includes 30 cavalry and 20 canon. This is enough to take on the Chesogabe, who we are already strong in comparison to. We need their silks badly. We also need to deprive the Han of their luxes. We should not give any more luxes to the Han.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/mb4f.jpg


Finally, here is the >>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-1150AD.SAV)

Adrian: You are UP. Enjoy!

:goodjob: Thank you for pulling us out of the hole I have created.

You didn't create the hole we were in gormdragan, and I didn't get us out of it. IIRC it was me that argued for an attack on the Chesogabe when we were clearly in no position to do so.

This is a great game, and we are playing it really well IMHO.

I will be on vacation from Christmas until next year. I hope to play at least 1 more turn b4 I disappear. :blush:

Mad-Bax : you did well to manage a complex two-front war against Mori along with those annoying Shimazu popping up every so often. I have no idea why they attacked us while we had trade deals going with them. Straight peace was a good deal to strike, but we will remember their treachery. You have left us in a great position for the future.

Gormdragan : You didn't dig the hole - it was more that the ground we were standing upon subsided a little underneath us. Recall that you took the Choso holdings on our island, had a valiant attempt at the Choso home island which didn't come off, and then skilfully extracted us from that war. Your tech gambles didn't pay off this time but I would have tried exactly the same strategy as it does pay very well when it works. So, c'est la vie, eh ?

Team - to paraphrase old Mr Grace - "You are all playing v-e-r-y well ... ". If the reference eludes you then you are either too young, or you come from a different culture. Just take it as a compliment. I await the next round with interest, and hope that the weather cools a little before my next round (today's forecast approx 37C).

NB. we need Yamaguchi as it has Bach's ! A nice little happiness helper for us, especially since the Hanging Gardens (which we appropriated from Tokugawa) has just expired when we learned Steam. Also, doesn't Hiroshima have Leo's ? Could be handy as well.

I have managed to play 6 turns so far. The rest will be tonight.

The Mori main cities fell easily. I only lost 3 cav. I wiped out the Takeda and only lost 1 cav. The home continent is ours.

I have not yet made peace with the Mori. They'll give me their 3 cities but won't give Nationalism. I can get economics and 1 city, IIRC. The Mori cities on the Han continent are untenable. Chogosabe has forces over there. We will lose them immediately when we attack Chogosabe. Do you still want cities over there?

The 3:1 lux deal expired with the Han. I did not renew it as per mad-bax's suggestion. However we have had some severe unrest problems as we only have 3 native luxuries.

Our economy is also in trouble. We need more marketplaces and banks in the FP core.

The Shimazu will trade with us. I can get 50gpt for some luxes. Should I make the trade? Or I can buy a lux from them.

I am assembling the Chogosabe invasion fleet. We'll have a go at them next. The first wave will have 12 cav, 6 muskets, 6 cannons. The Chogosabe have ironclads.

Gormdragan - you will have a hell of a battle ahead of you

Don't bother with Demo,Econ or Nationalism, they are not worth a dime IMHO.

Techs - I agree with Gormdragan. These techs give no benefit apart from access to riflemen, but when we reach Rep Parts we get Infantry anyway. Besides, who but the meek needs defenders when rampaging through enemy territory ?

I would be inclined to deny luxuries to Shimazu, and I would be astounded if anyone would sell luxuries to us - we are just too big and nasty.

Perhaps we could trade a lux or two with Shimadzu for Medicine, and then immediately declare war. Our reputation is in the gutter already, we may as well trample it underfoot. We're going to crush them all anyway so who cares ? Or is this too unethical for a GOTM reprise ?

Gormdragan : Looks like your destiny lies in Chosogabe - fate decrees it's time to invade, again, just when it'll be your turn, again! So, best o' luck laddie - quick now up over the trench, through the barbed wire, and give'em a damn good thashing eh what ? We'll cheer you on from the command post, and hope that you've slaughtered 'em all before it's our turn again.

Let me know if pple are comfortable with the trade then war idea. I am cool with it, since our reputation is toast.

preturns - MM cities corrupt cities to each support taxmen

IBT - HAN wants to renew the 3 for 1 lux deal - I say no - some big cities riot

1160AD - lose 1 cav to take Yam. from Mori
I order some cheap cathedrals (only 80S) to deal with riots
Shimazu discovered Industry

1170AD - Han gets Industry
gift Magnetism to Korea hoping they'll learn Medicine - but its Nationalism - doh

1190AD - take last big Mori city

1200AD - declare war on Takeda, lose 1 Cav to reduce them to 1 city

1210AD - Takeda consigned to the dustbin of history
- rush another ship

1230AD - sign peace with Mori, declare war on Chogosabe.
land 28 units beside silk city and brace for the counter attack

IBT - no counter attack !!!!

1240AD - take silks city for no loss ! We now have Magellans. It seems Chogosabe's homeland is not well defended! I shuttle more troops in.

IBT - Chogsabe's counter attack is a solitary cav that kills a musket.

1250AD - we raze a large Chogosabe city for the loss of 1 Cav

Our strategic rail net now lets us traverse the home continent in 1 turn.

We have 106 workers, 39 Cav, 20 Cannon, 19 Muskets. Lots of cannons and cavalry on order.

Edit : electricity due in 2

Have fun Gormdragan. Chogsabe should not last long.

I built some cathedrals, marketplaces and courthouses in our core to improve production. A few of our core cities were in bad shape. The cheap cathedrals and sistines helped. I switched worker production to cannons and naval vessels.

>>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-1250BC.zip)

Edit: fixed link file name

Originally posted by AdrianE
>>save<<

Adrian : I suspect you mean This File (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/MB4B-1250BC.zip) - you may have just mistyped BC instead of AD. The SAV in this ZIP is 315K and the datestamp looks right so it is probably the right file ...

Corker of a session though eh ? Gormdragan must have scared them witless with the last invasion and they were all hiding under their beds at the thought of his imminent return. If the AI have Industrialisation then we might get Electricity ahead of them, with some trading possibilities ahead. Things are going well ... Go Gormdragan ...

Great Job Arian. :thumbsup:

I agree that we now have enough workers. Now we need a navy and some (maybe 6 - 10) settlers. We will need a large navy to Transport workers to rail up for the canon.

The 3 for one lux deal with the Han is almost certainly why we got into tech trouble. Depriving them of these luxes will slow the research rate considerably.

We need a harbour to get the silks on line (unless the city we captured has one).

This game is getting better all the time.
Go gormdragan! :)

Will the AI trade a tech for luxes? I find that surprising. I am not concerned about our rep now anyway.

Our score is 3215 at 1250AD

Sorry about the file naming. Can someone double check that it is the correct save. I was really tired when I finished. I stayed up until 3am Sunday night and then raced home Monday after work to finish it. I might have uploaded the wrong file.

The silk city has Magellans, a harbour and a barracks which is why I kept it. The trade route is blocked by their cultural borders for the time being. We just need to take 1 city and we have a SOD outside that city. Then our homeland will have silks. Kimono's for all! I razed the other Chogosabe city I took. They have a significant culture lead on us.

What about the domination limit? How close are we?

Maybe we should try to keep our rep so we can ROP abuse the Han.

Nationalism might be useful for us. We could draft some riflemen to use for garrisons which would free up some regular units.

Mori, Chogosabe, and Korea all have Han continent outposts. We should be able to take them out fairly easily. Ours are not likely to last as the Chogosabe have at least one cavalry over there. We have nothing over there except undefended cities.

Peanuts link is correct Adrian.

Yes I looked at the save and the silks city is perfectly dealt with.

Now we have rails I don't see the big need for garrisons. We just need some arty and a few cav to deal with anything the AI throw at us. I know that as we switch governments that the happiness factor is important but we can just distribute the forces we have intelligently.

I would not make a big deal out of nationalism. Hoover will sort this game out.

This is a got it.