Presenting the first Realms Beyond Conquests Succession Game!

Civilization: Incans
Difficulty: Demigod
Map: Standard, 40% land, continents.
Climate: Arid, temperate, 4 billion.
Normal AI aggression
Barbs: Roaming
Opponents: Mayans, English, the rest random. (Charis, I wanted to give the Iroquois a chance to rest after Epic 36!)
Random seed preserved, cultural link off, respawn off.

This game is currently full, overfull even. However, Charis will be running the conquests as SG's, so there should be plenty of opportunities for more players to participate.

Roster (updated 11/25):
Griselda
Charis
Jester
Kylearan
Sullla
Skyfish

If you have a "?" by your name, please check in so we can get the roster updated if we need to.

RBC1 - The Incans Rise Again

Sorry for the delay, guys. My RL RPG ran very, very late last night, and I was in no condition to post anything after it ended.

(0) 4000 BC - We're pink. A floodplains opening with some desert looks like just the thing, though

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1-opening.jpg

We're in the far west on the minimap, a little south of the equator.

Our scout heads north towards the mountain, and sees a hut. I decide to move on to the mountain, and pop it next turn, in hopes of a settler. Cuzco is founded, and we see wheat! There's incense off to the other side. I start a Chasqui. That was a tough choice, on a flood plains start like this. Shields are not easy to come by, and they are an expensive unit. Although they take twice as long to build in the first place, it seems to me that they're likely to make up for it in movement over time, especially with their ability to ignore mountains' and hills' movement penalties. Of course, that's comparing them to a regular warrior. Compared to a regular scout, I'd probably rather have a scout, especially on a flood plains start. We'll see. I hadn't seen the Chasqui discussion thread that Charis linked to today, but I am interested in checking that out.

I want the alphabet, but at this point it would take 43 turns at max science! Ack! Our beaker count is not likely to get better right away, and 50-turn research wouldn't lower the price for us if we did meet an AI who had it for trade. Cermonial burial is only 17 turns at max science. That sounds attainable.

(1) 3950 BC - Pop hut, get maps of the region. There's two more huts in view now.

(2) 3900 BC - Scout heads for the west hut, because I'm thinking prime exploration will be to the east, and we can send a Chasqui that way.

(3) 3850 BC - Pop the hut, get a settler! Did I mention that this start is a little bit too good? The settler is on the coast, in the desert (since when has that been a decent spot?). I can move him NE one and the city will still be coastal, and also have a game in range when the borders expand.

(4) 3800 BC - Tiwanaku founded. So much for the AI's extra settler! Tiwanaku doesn't have great food right now until it's improved, but it does have a forest tile. So, Tiwa can work on a Chasqui, and Cuzco swaps to worker. I don't even think we should build a granary in Cuzco right now. Shields are precious, for the moment. Once the city grows and gets some tiles improved, it can have good food and production. So, we might want to let it get a bit bigger than the average settler factory, when we're ready.

(5) 3750 BC - With the first flood plains improved, Cuzco is at size 1, with +4 food.

(6) 3700 BC - :sleep:

(7) 3650 BC - :sleep:

(8) 3600 BC - Pop another hut - maps again.
BT - Cuzco worker - worker

(9) 3550 BC - I see another hut in the jungle to the NW. I don't believe that a Chasqui can move more quickly through the jungle than a regular scout, so the regular scout goes that way.

(10) 3500 BC - Cuzco expands, and I see another hut to the south. I don't have anybody who can head that way right now, though. Cuzco is at +5 food right now, at size 1.

(11) 3450 BC - Pop a hut, gets maps again. There's bananas to the NW. Science to 50%, cb in 2.

(12) 3400 BC - :sleep:

(13) 3350 BC
BT - CB in. There's no clear research choice anymore. Science off, at least until we meet some neighbors.
Tiwanaku Chasqui - warrior (there's a camp with two warriors in sight just to the NW in the jungle).

(14) 3300 BC - Hmm, maybe we should have a warrior on Cuzco too if barbs are coming this way? Also, we'll need MP to let the city grow.
BT - Cuzco warrior - settler. It's odd to be expansionist and only have two scouts out. :crazyeye:

(15) 3250 BC - Warrior stays home for MP.

(16) 3200 BC - We meet the Mongols, to the NW. They have bronze working, alphabet, and warrior code. We have masonry and ceremonial burial. This may be :smoke: , but I trade both of our techs for alphabet. They didn't have any gold to add to the deal. Alphabet is so hard to research now, and cb *so* cheap by comparison that it doesn't seem like a bad deal. I'm also not sure how much gpt we'll want to have in reserve for lux, or how close they are to other AI who would just trade the techs to them anyway.

(17) 3150 BC - Irrigating the desert now seems to make sense, even in the early game. :lol: I start a LOI towards our second city, which can make it much more useful without too much effort.

(18) 3100 BC - Pop a hut, get maps.
BT - Tiwanaku warrior - temple (vetoable, there's many directions we can go with this city, depending upon what the group wants to do).

(19) 3050 BC

(20) 3000 BC - Here's the lay of the land.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1-3000bc.jpg

I can't believe I didn't get more scouts or settlers built, considering our start.

I saw the Mongols heading towards the barb camp, and they have gold now, so thay *may* have cleared it. I wouldn't count on it, though. I'm also not sure where their homeland is. They just recently got a third city built, and they don't have any new techs.

With two cities and more wonders available, it may be reasonable to start thinking about a wonder in one of them. At any rate, there's more to cascade to now.

I saved over the start file with one from later in the same turn. :( But I'll post that, if anyone wants to take a look.
RBC1-start (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1-4000bc.zip)

Here's the save:
RBC1-3000 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1-3000bc.zip)

Enjoy!

Griselda - Just played
Charis - Up now!
Jester - On deck
Kylearan
Sulla?
Hotrod?
Ridgelake?

Woohoo! We're "live" :hammer:
Thanks for getting the ball rolling, Griselda :p

'Got it' -- speak up if you have any thoughts on our civ or on this position...

Charis

Well, just to say hello here ! :D I wish you good luck in your 1st C3C SG. I'll be lurking it from time to time, especially because of this UU. You guys (and girl !) will probably make good use of them, but maybe you won't like it a lot... Who knows ? Griselda, I think Charis posted the link to the Chasqui scout discussion, in which I actively took part, maybe too much ? :rolleyes: You must make me lie now. :goodjob:

Long live RBCiv !! Clear out the C3C fogs for us ! I don't know if I'll want to play the conquests on my own or not, maybe I could play them in SGs, but then I'd have to play all of them in SGs, or maybe not... :crazyeye:

Finally : If anyone wishes to play as Sumer on Deity, well, just look at my poor little thread... There are RBCiv rules there too !...

Well, we'll certainly find out how useful the desert-improving aspect of the Agricultural trait is!

I think we're going to have to make a fairly aggressive land grab in the north, or else we're going to get boxed into our little cul-de-sac. If we can grab the land far away, the land close to home should be fairly safe. Maybe there's some nice land to the east of the desert...

I'm specifically eyeing that floodplain up north for quick settlement. I guess it's kind of a no brainer to grab it, the only question is whether the Mongols will get there first.

I wouldn't worry about the number of settlers. We have a food heavy start, which should pay off nicely, but it does mean we'll be slow on our initial settlers. Not much we can do about it, really.

Jester

Hotrod

Edit: After signing on here Charis opened RBC2 and the roster is not as full yet so rather than being a 6th if not 7th here I will join up with RBC2.

damn, I've been waiting for a game like this. Mine wont start...

Woo-hoo!! Nice to see an RB game back on the street! Good luck folks!

Tis one of those events that's simultaneously a 'woohoo' and a 'ah crud',
popping a very early settler from a hut. Given our very dry start and that
we are expansionist though, it's not over the top. Good scouting in any case!

"Irrigating the desert now seems to make sense, even in the early game. lol"

[ROTFL] omg, what a difference a 'letter' makes (RBD1 vs RBC1)
(inside joke, but a very funny one if you've been around a while :P )

...

Pacharis Inca Andes came to power after the first millenium of rule by the
wise one, known as "Grisly Bear" to her opponents.

So far so good, with a decent second city. Alas, as it's coastal but not
on a river the agri food bonus does not come into play. Look at all that jungle
too, ouch. Can we get a foothold up there? Can we keep it if we do?

[0] 3000 BC - The temple is not a bad idea as it would bring in the game,
but we remain too ignorant about our land situation and our neighbors.
What is there to the S/SE? What lies East? Where exactly are the Mongols and
do they have room to expand? Are the two of us alone? And vitally important,
is that small water area just south of us coastal or lake? We need more scouting
info! Then I remind myself, it's just 3000BC! Usually turn two wouldn't start for
10-20 more turns, so there's no cause for concern :P I do like the idea of
one more settler as it stands in the capital, to found one more city very quickly,
especially with the low shield situation. Looking more closely at our second city,
without expansion it's stuck at size 3 due to food, except... irrigation will
provide two food - a brilliant stroke of irrigation genius :P The science
completely 'off' threw me. Then again I think Gris is adjusting to Conquests
faster than I. 50 turn for min science won't net us much of anything. BUT...
14 turns for Bronze or WC, or 20 for Wheel seems worthwhile. Mongols lack the
latter, so I turn on science at a good clip toward Wheel. (Besides, tis nice to
learn where resources are, especially when they're for your neighbor's UU!)

I swap Tiwanaku from Temple to... Curragh (!) This will make a very nice
exploring unit. I also send the warriors out. Scouting info is far more useful
than 1gpt saved doing MP at home.

[1] 2950 BC - Micromanage food and shields, settler due next turn, move warriors.

[2] 2900 BC - In Cuzco, I queue up a Chasqui scout, taking advantage of our food
bonus to work the forests and get a 5 turn build still with +4 food.
The hut to the SE gives us 25g.

[3] 2850 BC - Machu Picchu is founded, in fishing village style but on the
river, just SW of the capital. It's shields won't be high but will be a solid
source of workers and settlers by trading squares judiciously with Cuzco.
Later on Cuzco will get and keep priority on the good squares.

[4] 2800 BC - Our northern scout sees that the river up yonder is RATHER
long, and meets up with another long one. That area *NEEDS* to be ours :P
He does however run into one Mongol warrior who may think differently.
Jester's comments seem wise - to boogy up there and asap.

[5] 2750 BC - More Mongols are seen wandering up North, at least four warrs
and an archer. That far from home and with those kind of foes, a farmer's
gambit at long range could be lethal. We may be forced into an early South
and East expansion followed by a pre-Keshek war vs the Mongols to gain the
river area (ie let THEM do the settling, and we'll reap our river-town bonuses
later after capturing them.)

[6] 2710 BC - Curragh finishes in Tiwanaku, and we start a Chasqui. (Why?
Because we can :P I want to see how we can use them, not just forgoe them
due to cost)

[7] 2670 BC - Our northern scout had ended last turn next to a small barb
camp and I thought he was a goner, but a Mongol archer saved him. Then up
next to both of us comes... a an annoyed Greek warrior. Hrmm... where are THEY
coming from? Does this totally wreck out chance to claim unchallented the northern
floodplains?! Anyway, Greece has Bronze, WC and Wheel. The Mongols must have
bought Wheel from them, and they have Mysticism as well, making Genghis quite
the researcher. Our Wheel is now due in 7, but we're quite a bit behind now.
We're dead even in score and somewhat caught up in power after founding our
third city. All of us have base lvl culture. Their deal on the Wheel is
pretty poor, so we'll finish that up ourselves. We'll buy one tech from each
if that's possible, to improve relations? From Greece we buy WC for 28g+6gpt,
and from Mongols, Bronze 44g+6gpt. Yikes, now we see the Mongols have Iron Working
and Mysticism (and the Wheel). Alex is only up the Wheel, which means our yellow
friend has made far better use of 'plain' scouts than our Chasqui :P At least
after those trades if we get tech from a hut it will be a better one.
Alas, that much gpt expenditure will slow down our finishing the Wheel.

[8] 2630 BC - I found Karakorum, the Mongol capital. Take a look on map below.
It seems Greece used our cash to buy Mysticism from Mongols. Cuzco finishes
a Chasqui to send SE, and starts a warrior, as our empty cities and lack of
MP are getting to be dangerous. Some good news at least - to our south are some
very nice bonus grasslands and a cattle (which our roving warrior is finding)
The new scout finds that SE is a dead end and will have to divert to NE past
the choke. (Hrmm... or at some point, park *on* the single tile choke.) The

[9] 2590 BC - I couldn't help myself... I irrigate the dessert! :smoke:
SE scout runs into... a faster Mongol scout! (Darn, he did poach our huts)

[10] 2550 BC - Warrior finishes in capital, time for a settler lest lux cost
kill us. Machu's worker heads to a grass, intending to mine it. Note our
econ is *hurting* temporarily from the tech deals and from lux cost. The
incense road will complete in two turns, easing the burden. Next leader might
want to get Tiwanaku back on a temple, now or after the Chasqui due in 3 or 4.
It will also want a warrior for sure soon, as will Machu.

The key decision is on expansion - early peaceful expansion near capital followed
by a later war to win the Northern river? Or a major gambit to throw settlers up
North into the Mongolian killing fields and hope Genghis Khan has no spine?!?!
My view has shifted firmly from the latter to the former as I see the swirling
of troops of green and yellow up north, and as I see better land to our south.
But that is now for the rest of the team to decide...

IF we didn't have a trade deal going on at the moment (for 17 more turns), there
would be *ONE* more, far more radical option open. I left one Chasqui to the
East unmoved. He's in striking range of the Mongol scout. It would be bold
beyond belief, but we could declare war and kill him, kicking the Mongols out
of expansion mode into war mode - but it would hinge on this - we would have
to use our scout and warrior up north to kill/pillage more than we lose, and
they would have to want to stop the war BEFORE they could physically reach our
totally undefended core. It's likely madness, but I toss the idea out. It would
likely fail, but if it worked... chalk one huge mark next to the Chasqui scout
over the regular scout :lol: Anyway, we have a trade ongoing, so that's academic.

Ok, back to reality. That Chasqui, just saw the Mongol scout move up from his SE,
so I would probably move him now W/SW toward the river, since the SE is likely
a dead-end and/or has any huts already taken.
In other upcoming exploration, send our little movement-2 boat up the coast to see what we can see.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-Incans-2550BC.jpg

RBC1-Incans 2550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-Incans-2550BC.zip)

:hammer:

Jester <-- UP
Kylearan <-- On deck


Good luck,
Charis

(PS to Hotrod, ok, you and Todd are in RBC2 rather than here)

I'm going to play RBC2 since Charis still has openings there. Ridgelake is out of town till the 13th I saw in one of the LK threads so you'll need to give him time to respond that he is in. You might want to pm Skyfish about the game since he told me he usually only reads his suscribed threads now. IF your ?'s all fall through and you do still need somone I'll be happy to play last in the rotation.

Either way I'll be following the game with interest. Looks like a good start so far.

[9] 2590 BC - I couldn't help myself... I irrigate the dessert!
SE scout runs into... a faster Mongol scout! (Darn, he did poach our huts)

:lol: Man, I knew that was coming. Agricultural = revenge of the pungent weed!

Tis one of those events that's simultaneously a 'woohoo' and a 'ah crud',

Yup, especially since this was the third start I'd generated for this game. I wasn't trying to stack the deck, but I did want something that wouldn't feel like :wallbash: for most of the time, and I did want to be able to test the agricultural trait. The hut situation is balanced to some extent because we are expansionist, and it's all we've gotten from the huts except for maps so far.

I couldn't help myself... I irrigate the dessert!

Maybe you were just agricultural before agricultural was cool. :rotfl:

Good idea on the Curragh. We might as well try them out!

I'm not adjusting to the Conquests tech tree at all; I am just confused. I keep thinking we'll meet lots more civs any day now, and they'll have all the first-tier techs for cheap. I was thinking that we'd want to have science (and gold) available if we buy writing soonish and want to try for philosophy. I assume the AI would prioritize going for philosophy now (which would mean they'd always beat us there if we buy writing), but they may not. It will be interesting to see how that goes. Researching the wheel, considering we're by the Mongols, was certainly a good choice, though.

I do want to try out Charis' Chasqui-war gambit at some point in the future!

Since we have more land than we'd thought down south, the northern floodplains are less critical. It might make sense to encourage Alex and Genghis to fight it our first without putting target signs on our heads. Still, we can't *fully* enjoy the river unless we're still in despotism! ;)

I am interested in jumping into the ancient age wonder race to learn more about how it plays. I do think Tiwanaku has potential for an early wonder city if it gets a temple and some tile improvements, but maybe that's just :crazyeye: thinking.

Thanks for checking in, Hotrod. Good luck to all in RBC2!

Sullla (do you prefer two "L" 's or three?) is in, Ridgelake is still a maybe, and there's a spot for Skyfish if he's interested.

Sulla could jump in after Jester if Kylearan's copy hasn't arrived, but I'm also fine with just waiting, too, especially since the last couple of spots aren't firm just yet.

Oh, and Charis, in looking at your 2550BC.jpg, you may be thinking of
this game (http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/epic3.html) . The Incans have already risen, let's see if they can do it again!

-Griselda

I would very gladly join, however being European I do not have a copy of Conquest yet so I do not want to delay everybody while I wait for my copy.

If you dont mind me maybe skipping the first turn and being last in the roster I would love to join though :)

Hi,

Griselda wrote:
Opponents: Mayans, English, the rest random. (Charis, I wanted to give the Iroquois a chance to rest after Epic 36!)

:lol: You cannot imagine how thankful I am for that, Gris! I really hope the Iros won't be in the game. After Epic 36, the doctor said if I have to see them again in the near future I will need to take my pills again... shudders And *if* they're in, I must excuse myself beforehand - could be that I instantly declare war on them to make sure they will never get over 1100 MIs/MAs again... ;)


That's some very interesting land layout we have here. It's odd to view the desert as not so bad now, but to really try out the agricultural trait, we certainly need to have some cities on that juicy long river to the north! I don't think we will be able to bring our settlers there fast enough, with the Mongols being so near themselves. So I would prefer to settle in our immediate surroundings first, especially the greener lands to the east, and then prepare for some early war. :hammer:

I'm not sure about the wonder race. On the one hand, like Gris I'd like to experience how the added wonders change the wonder race. On the other hand, I'd like to settle our lands and then prepare for war ASAP, and wonder building would slow us down considerably. A nice compromise would be to go for that unit breeding wonder (Temple of Zeus?): We would participate in the race and, assuming that we get the wonder, help our war efforts as well. What do you think? If we'd take that route, we should beeline to mathematics.

Charis wrote:
[ROTFL] omg, what a difference a 'letter' makes (RBD1 vs RBC1)

Most probably the developers had followed RBD1 as well, and that's how they got the idea for the agricultural trait in the first place... :-P

If all goes well I should have the game on Tuesday, but I won't feel bad if skipped once - better that than losing momentum, I think.

-Kylearan

I was thinking that we'd want to have science (and gold) available if we buy writing soonish and want to try for philosophy. I assume the AI would prioritize going for philosophy now

I find this one of the most interesting remarks at that point as I just realized that Firaxis looked into preventing min science gambles (obviously by upping to 50 turns) but also reaching a tech first to deal at monoploy price.
But more importantly by allowing Wonders with Techs that were more often than not bypassed by the AIs, even going at max science might not guarantee monopoly anymore :
- Polytheism : Temple of Artemis
- Mathematics : Statue of Zeus
- Philosophy : Mausoleum
- Chivalry : Templar
Exchanging contacts at Printing Press is also in that vein...

This is a smart way to make the AIs less predictable without having to change the code, so I am sure that now those techs will not be bypassed by the AIs anymore.

Interesting points, though I'm not sure on a key point -- will the AI now go for some techs faster that it previously didn't care for (as you guys suggest), or did in fact the nice-ish wonders get put with those somewhat neglected techs *so that* the human has a better chance to get them, especially at higher diff lvls (how many ancient wonders do we usually get at deity?)

Sulla's input on that issue would be good. But for now I'm thinking the AI will not increase their desire for techs they don't like. Also, in this game, we have a big current issue - shields. I'm not seeing anything approaching a wonder town yet. We'll need to find something like a BG-grass zone with a cattle and iron hills soon, perhaps to our near South? This problem suggests pushing our agri and expansionist nature and trying to found cities like mad, then when ready go and *capture* the Statue of Zeus, Artemis, and Templar! :hammer:

> I keep thinking we'll meet lots more civs any day now,
> and they'll have all the first-tier techs for cheap.

Of course one of the *dominant* changes in the game is the lack of communication and map trading. So if we don't explore like crazy, this will *never* happen and we'll be left in the dust. That's why I've been building Chasqui and a Curragh to the point of leaving all core cities undefended. Being first to find a new civ or two will make a big difference (as would being last to find the other civs!)

Something to keep in mind -- Chasqui victory over an enemy unit with a defense will spawn our Golden Age (though capturing an unprotected scout or worker, or defeating a barbarian will not)
So we do get to pick when we get our GA within reason by nailing a weak redlined unit later. Let's hope that comes after getting out of Despotism :P (And as far as the Chasqui War Gambit, we'll need to have a variant game devoted to this sometime :lol: )

Charis

A couple thoughts. :)

The standard games of Conquests that I played were all with earlier beta builds, in which the AI was changing a lot with each new versions. Since I haven't gotten my hands on the final product yet, I'm not able to say just how much weight the AI gives to each tech now. I'm assuming that the new wonders have increased priority for the formerly "min science" techs, but just how much that is I don't know.

We can only build the Statue of Zeus if we get our hands on some ivory. Much as I'd like to get some Ancient Cavalry rolling, I don't see any of that nearby. With this looking to be a largish continent, the Pyramids would probably be the best wonder to go after. The Temple of Artemis is lots of fun, but I'd generally rather capture that wonder than go to all the trouble of building it ourselves. :mwaha: :satan:

My initial feeling without looking at the game is to simply focus on expansion for now and deal with what comes later as it happens. We can leave the backlands to the south unsettled for now, but we need to push east and north pretty aggressively to get our share of the land. Good luck sees Temujin and Alex get involved in a little tiff in the near future, leaving us free to settle in peace. Bad luck and the khan looks in our direction. :cringe: :arrow: At the least, let's make sure to submit to any tribute demands from the pointy-toothed one for the forseeable future!

And keep me at the bottom of the list for now, since I do not have a copy of Conquests as yet.

Got it!

I'll be playing as hard as I can to settle the north. If the Mongols threaten us, we'll cave mightily!

If the Mongols declare on us, we'll... well, we'll probably lose horribly!

No pain, no gain!

YAAAARGH!

Jester

There is a semi-choke spot to the North -- a city there and probably two units on either side should cut off all passage into our southern lands. It's total junk land, mid-jungle, but provides a nice line-in-the-sand. Also, to the east is a single spot choke point that we should part a unit or a city on, which really seals us in nicely. Point defense is much easier than core or zone :P

Good luck! :hammer:
Charis

Okay, here's the game!

Okay, here goes!

Turn 1) Jeez, Charis, you really weren’t kidding when you said our econ is hurting! :(

I take one look at the Chasqui in Tiwanaku and decide to switch it to a temple. That city will be half decent with that game in play, but it will just be worthless until then.

Turn 2) Well, our money crisis is solved for now, but I’m really not at all sure how it’s going to be solved once we get our growth in a couple turns at Cuzco.

Our warrior runs into a hut! It’s like money that walks and talks! Hallelujah! Now if only we can win…

I set our worker to irrigate the plains next to the river, giving us another tile to swap to for production, rather than the crazy amount of food we have.

Chasqui on the right finds a peninsula, and has to backtrack.

Turn 3) Our warrior survives two attacks by barbarians, and becomes veteran. Wait, there’s no camp there!?! There were apparently just two barbarians sitting around, having a smoke, talking about skinning and tanning and whatnot… Damn.

I move our warrior to the south, and THERE is the camp. We may make it yet.

Our irrigated desert completes. I switch the tile, and the shield gets eaten by corruption! There just isn’t any justice in this world. The worker goes to build a road in the forest, since we need the production badly, but can’t sacrifice one iota of trade.

Our scouts in the north spot 3 greek warriors and a settler… maybe this north territory just isn’t in the cards.

The more I look at the bottleneck to the east, the more I think it would be more profitable to seize that beautiful land to the south, and let the Mongols have what we can’t grab in the north. Of course, a true expansionist would go for both… thankfully, this isn’t going to be my decision alone.

Note: This is NOT the one-square bottleneck on the desert, which would be a great spot if we didn't want that land to the south. I think I'm greedier than that. Thoughts?

Turn 4) Scouts find ivory in the north. The greeks are right next to it. I think we can fairly expect them to pop the statue of zeus… uh oh.

Cuzco grows, and I have to rearrange it for maximum trade in order to earn the money necessary to run the extra lux. Hopefully, our warrior wins in the south, and we earn some breathing space. It will likely come too late, though. He needs a turn to heal, and is across a river from the camp. Two turns at best.

Turn 5) Uneventful. The southeast is looking better and better.

Turn 6) Settler pops in Cuzco! Time for the big decisions. He goes… north.

Our warrior loses horribly in the south (4 health to none against barbarians!) :mad:

Southeast looks so good I don’t think we can afford to pass it up.

Turn 7) Machu Piccu finishes its mine. I set the worker to road, and the warrior is due in one turn.

Chasqui pops a hut found in the SE, and we get free mysticism. Neither the Greeks nor the Mongols have discovered anything new.

Turn 8) MP warrior finishes in Machu Piccu. Ironically, we don’t need him right this moment; he’ll be our roving MP for whichever city needs him first. We need more MP in the near future, though, so I leave Machu Piccu to build another warrior.

There’s a column of Mongol troops (just a couple warriors and an archer) that’s been marching west. I’ve got a warrior following them… hope they don’t have ambitions!

Turn 9) An advanced Chehalis village has joined us! Uh, wow. This is interesting. Totally out of position, but in exactly the spot I think we should concentrate our settling!

This really might change everything… Oh, well, I’m still going to try for the north, even if we don’t get the river. We might be able to grab some more modest terrain.

Turn 10) I move our MP into Machu, since it will grow next. I was a little wary about what to do with our workers, but I decided we could probably use another developed plains tile by Cuzco. If nothing else, it helps if we need to run lux like we are now.

Ollantaytambo, our little village to the southeast, is producing a warrior.

Our settler, moving north, is not yet so far that we can’t found a more reasonable city with it. I leave the choice about whether to go for it up to the group. There IS a Greek settler moving down, but I think they’ll probably grab a spot further up the river.

I haven’t done any research, figuring we need what little money we have. We could have the wheel coming in 18 turns, though.

The temple in Tiwanaku will greatly increase our productive power, once our radius expands. Then we can really start cranking settlers.

My recommendation from here is to take our two Chasqui warriors from the south, and make a blockade at the choke point below the Mongols, above our southeastern territory. Then, having grabbed what we can in the north, we’ll fill in that area from the top down, blocking off the Mongols as much as possible.

One thing is pretty clear, though. We’re going to be building nothing but settlers for a long time. Building a wonder from this position, IMO, is suicide. :nono:

Jester

Way to go, Jester! :hammer:

> Turn 1) Jeez, Charis, you really weren’t kidding when you said
> our econ is hurting!

Would you believe it was worse and I 'fixed it' as best I could before handing off so as to not give you a heart attack?! :lol:

> I take one look at the Chasqui in Tiwanaku and decide to
> switch it to a temple. That city will be half decent with that
> game in play, but it will just be worthless until then.
Aye, I thought you would do that, good call.

> Chasqui on the right finds a peninsula, and has to backtrack.
Guessed so, since the Mongol scout did a backtrack there too.

> The more I look at the bottleneck to the east, the more I think
> it would be more profitable to seize that beautiful land to the
> south, and let the Mongols have what we can’t grab in the N
Tis easy to think North until one looks at that lush uncontest area of which you speak and compare it to the yellow horde jungle-laden area to the north. :P

> Chasqui pops a hut found in the SE, and we get free mysticism.
Super! I'm glad it was that and not Ceremonial Burial (feeling better about the econ bashing trades now) but we could sure use one they *don't* have yet.

> Turn 9) An advanced Chehalis village has joined us! Uh, wow.
> This is interesting. Totally out of position, but in exactly the
> spot I think we should concentrate our settling!

[party]

Wow, excellent! It may be subjective, but somehow that one 'feels' right. We chose to go scout heavy, not even keeping a warrior home to protect the core, and as Expansionists, were properly rewarded. I think too, by the rules of popping, that the computer considered us 'short' compared to other civs in the number of cities.

If you get a chance, post a map (EDIT -- see below!) I would love to see both where our newest city is, and where you think we may want to settle in the North?! (I'm still leaning toward cutting them off completely from getting to our lands, but it's just a 'preference' at this point)

> One thing is pretty clear, though. We’re going to be building
> nothing but settlers for a long time. Building a wonder from this
> position, IMO, is suicide.
With our shield output and the need to grab, "I concur"

We may have some time to discuss, since --

Kylearan and Sulla <-- One up, one on deck, whoever gets game first (literally, who gets their game copy first :p )

Well done,
Charis

-- EDIT - Map below:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-Incas-2150BC.jpg

Well that sure is nice land near our baby city! It will want to whip a temple when it gets a chance to pull in the cattle. At its distance though it's fully corrupt unless we can get a Forbidden palace down there. Red dot is a very nice spot, on river and next to wheat, and look at white dot, river, wheat *and* cattle. If we could found there and put/rush a FP there, it would be a super wonder city.

Micromanagement tip - Cuzco is running 6 spt, needing 9 to complete its settler. Unless trying to slow growth on purpose (pointless as if it's too big it can run a taxman) you still take two turns to finish running 5 spt, ie swapping the hill to the 2-food 2-commerce tile NE of center. That would even help our faltering econ a bit :P I can't remember if that level of MM detail is too much to bother with, but I just wanted to point that out if you (or other readers) like to push their cities to the max. It's tedious with more cities, but worth keeping an eye on during these early stages.

After getting a free settler we then got a free city as well? :crazyeye: I never had such luck with the expansionist trait before! Together with the large amount of land open for settling, this could become an easy game - if the Mongolians and Greeks won't decide to attack us while we're in expansion mode, that is.

If all goes well I should have the game on Friday (and not Tuesday as I had mistakenly written in my previous post). Maybe Sulla gets his copy a bit earlier; and if not, I won't have problems with Gris taking the game again.

-Kylearan

Hmm, tomorrow night there's going to be a nationally televised (American) football game going on where I live. Not only am I going to be at that event, traffic will be horrendous all day beforehand. That means I probably won't have a chance to get my copy until Friday... So, to reiterate the earlier posts, whoever gets their copy first - me or Kylearan - will take the next turn. :)

Will you play in the marching band at the game ? :D

Enjoy the game, Sullla. Well, at least enjoy it until the visiting team emerges victorious!! :hammer: (can you tell where my loyalties are??)

Argh! :wallbash: The store I ordered Conquests at just informed me :wallbash: that the date they get the game :wallbash: has to be moved back to the 19th. :wallbash: So I will have it no earlier than the 20th, as things stand now. :wallbash:

So skip me for the first round. I really hope that I will be able to participate in this SG at all. :(

Of course I could buy the German version now. But then I will be left out of the community as soon as the first patch arrives. :mad:

-Kylearan

Got a copy yet, Sulla? Or should we circle around once more?

:D

Jester

Got my hands on Conquests tonight. Had to uninstall all the previous patches from the beta to get it to work right, but it's all good now. :)

Enjoy the game, Sullla. Well, at least enjoy it until the visiting team emerges victorious!! (can you tell where my loyalties are??)

Ha ha, well Bam-Bam, I don't see you laughing quite so much now. :p Let it be known that there was much celebrating :beer: [party] :beer: here in Maryland on Thursday night. :D

Playing as we speak...

(0) 2150BC Well, I've never seen quite so much open land to grab at this stage of the game; we have a realistic shot to get an absolutely enormous amount of territory if we play our cards right here. Totally agree on blockading the Mongols with our two Chasquis in the east. We then only need two units at the OTHER choke in the jungle to block off all land access to our territory. Of course the AI will still use boats, but it will slow them down a lot. Setting up blockades and founding cities will be the goals of my turn.

After dotmapping the area, I decide to found the settler on the tile where it stands. It will share one tile with Tiwanaku, and have a game tile, an oasis, a fish, and three bonus grasslands to use. Pretty good for a first-ring city! I map out some more cities in the surrounding area; it looks lousy, but all that desert is good stuff for us agricultural Incans. The oases will produce FOUR food when irrigated (three even under despotism). Nice! :)

We can't get anything from the other two civs as yet. I'll wait on getting back our gold per turn before I try to start researching anything ourselves; Writing or Polytheism are likely targets to pursue next.

(1) Corihuayrachina - uh, let's just call it "Cori" - founded on the tile the settler is sitting up. This brings the game forest into cultural range of Tiwanaku. Now that we have the game tile in play, there's no urgent need for a temple; build switched to GRANARY because we'll need a LOT of settler for this map. Workers move to cut down said game forest and bring irrigation to it. We need more workers too (when does any civ not?)

(2) Cuzco builds settler. A barb horse appears out of the wilderness to the north to give us problems; Cori is going to be sacked next turn and we can't do anything about it. Good thing we don't have much money to lose... One of our Chasquis in the east attacks a barb camp and does no damage - but fortunately retreats when losing. OK - so much for combat, we need that unit for the blockade.

Not-so risky prediction from me: that whole eastern area, the place with the beautiful land - it's going to be one massive barb hunting ground before long.

(3) We lose 4g to the barb horse; since our income is 4gpt, this is not much of a loss. Certainly preferable to fighting the unit! Mongol units continue to move south towards our cities; they will all have cardboard warriors in them by the time the units get there. Machu Picchu builds a much-needed warrior, starts on an also-needed worker. Mongols have Writing this turn. Greeks also look from our scouting to be crammed into a small area behind the Mongols; let's hope that leads to hostilities.

(4) Uneventful turn. Still hoping the Mongols aren't trying to sneak-attack us, because we can't do much about it if they are.

(5) 1950BC Ha! Mongol units scatter in all direction. They are clearly only in the area to explore. Not that we were worried or anything. :mischief: Huamanga founded in another first-ring city site; it's pretty non-descript with all plains and desert tiles, but it's right next to the capital and does have a sugar bonus tile. Needs irrigating badly though. Oh, and however briefly, we have more cities than either of the AI civs. Not bad for near-Deity conditions. :D

(6) Pop-up message that the Iroquois have completed the Colossus. For 1910BC, they must have started on it almost immediately; maybe they are on a small island (?) Not much going on, other than Cori finishing a warrior so that now all our cities have at least token defense. Well, except that weird one way out to the east.

(7) Tiwanaku finishes its granary, starts settler. It should have high priority for worker attention in the next few turns. Machu Picchu builds workers, starts another. I'd suggest letting it pump workers for a while since it is high-food, low-shields. Scouting confirms that Greece is cramped for space and can only go through Mongolia. :mwaha: A total shock occurs as Temujin founds an embassy in our capital (!)

We get our income back too, going up to 21gpt. I choose to go after Mathematics at max rate, due in 12 turns at -1gpt (we have 54g in the bank). Alex and Temujin are both up The Wheel and Iron Working on us, Temujin has Writing also. No telling what techs they may have beyond that, but I doubt it's many more. Alex has some pretty sad lands on the whole; we should trade him Math right away if we get it so he can build the Statue of Zeus and take it to Temujin. It's a thought.

(8) Nothing to report. :sleep:

(9) Cuzco builds a settler, it takes a warrior escort and heads north to found a city by the oases. Suggested site will be in the next post. We're doing great at expanding - too bad our defenses are pitiful. Hey, we're focusing on what we Expansionists do best!

(10) 1750BC Uneventful end. I've blocked off the east route to all that open land; with only two units it's not a perfect blockade, but the Chasquis can shuffle to stop settler pairs. Cori is working on warriors to block off the western approach to our lands. Other than that, the rest of the civ is pretty much on full expansion mode. We're roughly 10 turns away from getting Math, which should have pretty good trade value. Good luck to the next player! :D

RBC1: 1750BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1_1750BC.zip)

Here's a current map. I'm sending the settler to the city marked with the red dot. This is all open to veto, of course, but I thought this plan made decent use of the tiles we had nearby. Still need to explore to the south too. Oh well, that's for the next player to decide! :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1_1750BC.jpg

With Kylearan waiting on a copy of Conquests, I presume we go back to Griselda for now in the rotation.

Griselda >>> UP NOW
Charis >>> on deck
Jester
Kylearan >>> hunting across Germany for a copy
Sullla

Griselda >>> :hammer: UP NOW
Charis >>> :sheep: on deck
Jester >>> :whipped: making sure we're moving along!
Kylearan >>> :scan: hunting across Germany for a copy
Sullla >>> :thumbsup: just played
Skyfish >>> :scan:hunting across Amsterdam for a copy

Yeah, you can see my brain is fried tonight, but I can play tomorrow. I promise, I won't start any wonders, and am looking forward to full-expansion mode. We :love: Alex! (for now that is).

I am wondering if there might be another civ down to our south. I sure wouldn't want to meet them as they're settling by our first ring! I'll try to check that out.

-Griselda

My luck must be changing. I was expecting a quiet round of building, and that's what I got. Lately, if I go in expecting quiet turns, I get sneak attacked or something. This is a good sign.

(0) 1750 BC - Looking good! :thumbsup: I do swap Cuzco to a chasqui so we can explore the south a bit more. I think the Tiwa settler can find an escort from somewhere in the mean time.

BT- Machu Picchu worker - worker. Cori warrior - warrior. A Mongol warrior moves past our western checkpoint. Any settlers to declare, sir? No? Move along, then.

We see a barb horsie for a second, but when it comes to the next turn, it's out of sight. I think it's north of Huamanga somewhere.

(1) 1725 BC - Curragh moves further into Greek lands, but it can get out next turn.

BT - Forest chop complete, and the shields go to Cori. Mongol settler pair appear by the eastern checkpoint (since it's not quite a blockade yet). Cori warrior - warrior.

(2) 1700 BC - The Mongol settler is held up at the eastern checkpoint. It seems he can't present proper identification. No ID, no passage, sir. Oh, and we're going to need to inspect that waterskin. You can't be too careful these days, you know.

Our northern scout has made it as far as he can go. There's no fog now with the curragh up there. Oh, the Greeks didn't ask us to leave, which was nice of them.

Our settler arrives on the red dot, next to a Mongol warrior that was up there. Could the Mongols have gotten that horse I saw?

Cori can keep the game for now, because Tiwa will grow in 1 either way.

The Mongols and the Greeks have math. :mad: Ours isn't due for seven turns. The Greeks lack writing. I have a plan, but it may not be a good one. I turn science off for now, but don't change tasks. We want to save our math beakers to buy at a discount. It may be worthwhile to buy writing at second, and trade it to the Greeks for math and change. Hmm, not that buying at second is usually a good idea. We can't afford it now, so I wait.

BT - The Mongol settler gets impatient by the delay at the checkpoint, and founds a city right where he is.

(3) 1675 BC - Well, we can still hold a blockade there, maybe, if we move a bit south and send another unit. Well, until they build a temple. Our western blockade is complete, though. Fear our cutouts!

Vilcas founded on the red dot, starts worker. Tiwa takes the game tile for now.

BT - Macchu Picchu worker - settler.

Mayans complete pyramids. BTW, Sullla, you said the Iroquois did make it into the game? I feel a sudden urge to :ar15:

(4) 1650 BC - Macchu Picchu can have the wheat this turn.

BT - Cuzco chasqui - warrior. I wanted to go to a settler, but we could use a unit for that settler. Huamanga warrior - warrior (the first one will go to the eastern blockade, the second can stay at Hua).

(5) 1625 BC - Chasqui moves south, and sees a barb camp. Hmm, we have a settler about to head that way! The Cori warrior moves south to meet settler. Cuzco to archer. It will take even longer to get to that settler, but I think it's worth it. Tax collector needed in Hua and Cori until the road is in (soon). Lux to 30%.

BT - Tiwa settler - worker.

(6) 1600 BC - Tiwa settler will wait one turn for cover to arrive. Chasqui is able to move past camp with two warriors unscathed.

(7) 1575 BC - Chasqui sees ivory to the south. Our Curragh goes east to the other landmass (er, probably the "Mongolian peninsula").

BT - Greeks complete Oracle.

(8) 1550 BC

BT - Cuzco archer - settler. Tiwa worker - worker.

(9) 1525 BC - The Mongols are on the mountain north of undefended Cuzco. So far, they haven't stepped in our borders, but would a capitol "sneak attack" be too tempting for them to resist? I move up a warrior from Macchu just to be sure.

BT - Cori warrior - barracks? (very vetoable)

(10) 1500 BC - Archer moves south, into range of the barbs. Will they ignore the archer like they ignored the Chasqui? Sheesh, they have a horsie and two warriors in the camp now.

The Mongols have moved into our territory now, but not towards Cuzco. They are on our tobacco.

The eastern blockade is complete, for the moment.

Our southern Chasqui is next to a barb horsie. :help:

Olly (otherwise knows as "the weird city to the east") needs a specialist. It will be forever until we're even able to whip that temple, too.

Lux needs to go to 40% to keep undefended Macchu happy. It has a settler due in 2. Another idea, probably not a good one, is that the Mongols would sell writing to us (finally, this turn) for 210 and 23 gpt. But, we'd need to drop lux to 30% and run a specialist in Macchu until that settler is done, and it would take all our gold. I'm not so sure what we could get back from the Greeks for doing that.

The tech race isn't so different, so I don't know why I feel completely baffled by it. Charis, once again you get the game with science off. :crazyeye: Let's make sure not to waste those math beakers, whatever we do.

Oh, and there is no civ to our SW, as the coastline slopes eastward. That's a relief, anyway.

The dotmap looks good. There is a settler moving towards baby blue dot. I hope the barbs will ignore it since it does have a warrior. I'm wondering if we'd want to move yellow dot one NW? That would allow us to use the grassland tile instead of a desert, and would exchange a desert for a plains and an eastern grassland for a coastal tile (who knows if we could get there to improve the grass, or if the Mongols will settle somewhere that takes that grassland anyway).

Rise, Incans, Rise (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1-1500bc.zip)

Griselda >>> just played
Charis >>> UP NOW
Jester >>> on deck
Kylearan >>> hunting across Germany for a copy
Sullla
Skyfish >>> hunting across Amsterdam for a copy

Depending on when Kylearan gets his copy, it may make sense just to have Sullla and Kylearan swap places in the roster. We'll see what Kylearan's eta is when Jester has played.

-Griselda

Pacharis Inca (also known as the man of science) ascends again to the thrown!

While the idea on science has some merit, we really don't have a ton of beakers
invested (45 turns to go at low rate), and we're better off going slow burn on
a tech they don't have than to do nothing. For example, changes that they'll go
for Currency in the next few hundred years is tiny. It's too expensive and many
other more needed techs. Also, since we're in a settling phase, we REALLY do want
to know where horses and iron are. In fact... I give strong consideration to
attacking the Mongols, NOW, to capture a worker, kill a warrior, and sack Hovd.
There would be no reprisals until time for peace. Ironically, if Mongols were
stronger I *would* probably do this, but they're actually behind Greece, so
giving them a charlie horse might backfire (besides we have no mil and don't
want to go there)

[0] 1500 BC - Minor tweaks, as all seems in decent shape. Huamanga rearranges
to get the warr out next turn. Cori goes for a worker with all that jungle nearby.
Tiwa is managed to get worker and growth both in 3.

For the reason above, I buy Math and the cheap Wheel from Greece who is annoyed and
who we want as an ally if Mongols hit us, for 18gpt+10g. (Of course both have HBR)
I buy Iron Working from Mongols at 27g+12gpt. Now we can research currency with one
sci (especially since Olla town NEEDS a specialist) and know where things are.
Actually, Construction is more expensive, and enabled with Iron Working, so we do that.

There is Iron four squares SE of Hovd, so glad he didn't get further. There's one
spot with BOTH iron and horses in the SE corner of the penninsula. We have *NO*
horses or iron anywhere within 500 miles of our core 8-| Greece have horses
next to Delphi. At least we do have horses 3 squares away from Olla. Also, nicely,
the Mongols don't have horses :P (or iron! Nor does Greece have iron yet)

[1] 1475 BC - Humanga starts a rax since other one was shifted.
Greece now has writing too. Archer defeats one barb (though more left)

[2] 1450 BC - Archer takes out a second barb, promotes to vet.

[3] 1425 BC - Archer clears the camp and nets a needed 25g.

[4] 1400 BC - We now have THREE settler pairs heading down South.
I think light blue dot is ok, but want to backfill given our lack of iron.
I am thinking though, that a city on the ivory would bring a much needed lux.

[5,6] 1375, 1350 BC - Quiet, moving settlers.

[7] 1325 BC - The logjam of barbs at the southern ridge starts to break.

(IBT) A barb horse catches our archer in the open and we're lucky to survive.

[8] 1300 BC - We do catch two loose horse barbs now, and make them glue.

(IBT) Temujin demands 24g as recognition of our friendship. Must... fight...
back... urge... and... keep... expanding. Ok, my friend.
(BTW, they DID move 3 warriors up to Hovd last turn)

[9] 1275 BC - MKOB (More killing of barbs)

[10] 1250 BC - Kill another barb camp. Which is good - we would be *broke* if
not for these camp razings! We're at 92g -16gpt, with deals lasting 10 more turns.
The cash problem is lux, we're having to run at 30-40% - snagging that ivory
soon is key, and when we get a chance, some more MP. (Paper cutouts don't give
a happy face!) We're 4 units over allotment, so founding a city will help too.

I noticed too late that ONE of the settlers should definitely have gone
East to catch the iron south of Hovd. Huamanga swaps from rax to settler.
It will grow next turn, and if you swap to forests, will be done the
settler in 2-3 turns after that. Our friends have gotten no new techs, btw,
still just ahead HBR and Writing. (er, unless they have a tech past writing)

TWO settler pairs are as yet unmoved. The one right next to the cattle is
doable if you want to get another city laid down. The spot before it, 2N then 1E
would catch 6 bonus grass tiles and the cattle, if you prefer that spot. The back
pair could catch that spot, or back up to the ivory (backtrack?! ew), or just
keep going to form more cities around Olla with the nice river/wheat/cow way down
there, and with the iron/horses east of there. This path begs for a GL-rushed FP.

RBC1-Incans 1250BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-Incans-1250BC.zip)

Jester <-- UP
?? Sulla ?? <-- On Deck

:hammer:

Good luck to our next leader, and pardon the hurting econ :P
Charis

I can't shake the feeling that "Hovd" is short for something...

Hoviginavid? Hovarishinad? Hovdignabitus?

No, it's just Hovd. What a kooky name.

Anyway, got it. Yes, I'm backtracking the settlers. I want those cities to hit the floor, in good spots, soon. I also want to hook up that ivory ASAP. This -16 gpt thing is AWFUL. No wonder you're a better player than me, Charis; I'd never make a move with that much cojones.

But, then, I guess what's really going to be the trick is surviving that deficit for another ten turns!

Jester

Turn 0) I choose to backtrack the settlers, moving to the 6 grassland/cow area, and to the ivory.

Turn 1) I think I’ve got a pretty decent pattern planned out for the south. I’m going to grab the light blue dot with the farthest north pair, the ivory with the one after that, the cow with the next, then send the next one to find a good spot over by Ollytantaytambo (or whatever the hell it’s called).

Aside from that, all’s quiet, except for a settler pair from the Mongols coming towards our eastern blockade. :confused: What, as if we’re just going to stand aside?

Turn 2) Tiwanaku and Cuzco are set to build spearmen. We need some more MP, and I figure it might be nice if they could hold up to the summer breeze, let alone the Mongols.

Our top warrior/settler pair finds a barbarian, so I keep the settler back. Hope the warrior wins.

Oh, and the Byzantines complete the Temple of Artemis

Turn 3) Our warrior dies to the barbarian… I’ll see if I can find him a new escort. Huamanga builds its settler, and switches to warrior. Vilcas does the opposite.

Villacamba and Vitcos founded. We’re now only losing 9 gpt, but it’s still not enough. I sent Villacamba’s warrior up to a barbarian camp to the north. If he loses, we’ll be in a situation, but I’ll cross that bridge if/when I get to it.

Vitcos and Villacamba are building temples, to get the ivory and the good tiles in range. I figured it was worth it to put Vitcos in a more efficient place than get the ivory sooner, but I may yet be proven wrong about that. Either way, it’s going to take worker turns to get down there anyway.

Huamanga’s settler goes east to get us a real blockade and nab the iron.

(between) English get Hanging Gardens, Iroquois get Great Wall.

Turn 4) Machu Piccu gets disease. Yippy skippy.

We beat the Navajo encampment (barely!) and get a veteran warrior and 25 gold. Well, at least we won’t have to contemplate a fire sale.

The Mongols build yet another city north of our blockade Choybalsan.

I’m moving the archer back to be MP at Villacamba, and the Villa warrior to replace the ambushed one.

Turn 5) Cory needs MP, so I make an entertainer for now, and send Cuzco’s new spearman up there. Or, rather, I moved it, then noticed that there was a warrior parked right outside, defending some workers. Er, maybe I’ll leave the workers vulnerable for now, and keep the spearman defending them. He can MP wherever he’s needed.

Mongol archer spotted down by Olly, steals a camp from us.

I switch Tiwanaku from spear to settler, changing my mind about our priorities. MP can wait, a little. Settlers can’t. Cuzco builds another spearman to accompany it.

I found Andahuaylas south of Olly. It might not dotmap perfectly, but it looks pretty decent.

We’re only losing 8 gpt! We might yet see financial stability, or at least something not resembling ruin.

Turn 6) Warrior at light blue wins against the last straggler barbarian! We can finally found light blue dot!

Chasqui finds spices in the south. That should help our eventual lux situation nicely.

Temujin and Alex have both figured out how to put rocks on top of each other to “Construct” things. I’m leaving things as they are, but we’ll probably end up abandoning the min-science effort.

Turn 7) Settler/spear pair heads off to the south, to build a city and hopefully extend our city radius to the ivory before the exceedingly slow temple gets here.

I send some workers to start on the road to the south.

(WARNING: I’m pretty sure I missed a turn somewhere, or reported two turns as one, or something. I’m still going until 1000BC, and stopping there.)

Turn 8) Ica founded on light blue dot, finally. It starts on a temple. Feel free to change this, or any of the new cities. I just can’t see what else they’re good for at this point. Maybe workers?

Arequipa founded just south of Hovd. This city will grab the iron once it grows.

Cuzco is building a temple, but it’s not too late to change it over to a settler.

Last Turn) Cory builds a temple. Massive barbarian uprising near Arequipa; they’ll get there in time to loot our treasury of sand and lice. J

We’re out of the red and back in the black. Enjoy it while it lasts.

There’s one settler pair headed south, and another just assembled at Cuzco that I would also send south. After that, the next pair (methinks) should go to the east, to finish off the blockade. Then, it’s all about filling in the south before people get ambitious with their galleys. Actually, it might not be a bad idea to send one of those new pairs into the deep southeast to grab some of that prime real estate.

Remember to evacuate Arequipa, or else we’re just pointlessly sacrificing a Chasqui.

Good luck!

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-1000_BC.zip)

Jester

Turn 0) I choose to backtrack the settlers, moving to the 6 grassland/cow area, and to the ivory.

Turn 1) I think I’ve got a pretty decent pattern planned out for the south. I’m going to grab the light blue dot with the farthest north pair, the ivory with the one after that, the cow with the next, then send the next one to find a good spot over by Ollytantaytambo (or whatever the hell it’s called).

Aside from that, all’s quiet, except for a settler pair from the Mongols coming towards our eastern blockade. :confused: What, as if we’re just going to stand aside?

Turn 2) Tiwanaku and Cuzco are set to build spearmen. We need some more MP, and I figure it might be nice if they could hold up to the summer breeze, let alone the Mongols.

Our top warrior/settler pair finds a barbarian, so I keep the settler back. Hope the warrior wins.

Oh, and the Byzantines complete the Temple of Artemis

Turn 3) Our warrior dies to the barbarian… I’ll see if I can find him a new escort. Huamanga builds its settler, and switches to warrior. Vilcas does the opposite.

Villacamba and Vitcos founded. We’re now only losing 9 gpt, but it’s still not enough. I sent Villacamba’s warrior up to a barbarian camp to the north. If he loses, we’ll be in a situation, but I’ll cross that bridge if/when I get to it.

Vitcos and Villacamba are building temples, to get the ivory and the good tiles in range. I figured it was worth it to put Vitcos in a more efficient place than get the ivory sooner, but I may yet be proven wrong about that. Either way, it’s going to take worker turns to get down there anyway.

Huamanga’s settler goes east to get us a real blockade and nab the iron.

(between) English get Hanging Gardens, Iroquois get Great Wall.

Turn 4) Machu Piccu gets disease. Yippy skippy.

We beat the Navajo encampment (barely!) and get a veteran warrior and 25 gold. Well, at least we won’t have to contemplate a fire sale.

The Mongols build yet another city north of our blockade Choybalsan.

I’m moving the archer back to be MP at Villacamba, and the Villa warrior to replace the ambushed one.

Turn 5) Cory needs MP, so I make an entertainer for now, and send Cuzco’s new spearman up there. Or, rather, I moved it, then noticed that there was a warrior parked right outside, defending some workers. Er, maybe I’ll leave the workers vulnerable for now, and keep the spearman defending them. He can MP wherever he’s needed.

Mongol archer spotted down by Olly, steals a camp from us.

I switch Tiwanaku from spear to settler, changing my mind about our priorities. MP can wait, a little. Settlers can’t. Cuzco builds another spearman to accompany it.

I found Andahuaylas south of Olly. It might not dotmap perfectly, but it looks pretty decent.

We’re only losing 8 gpt! We might yet see financial stability, or at least something not resembling ruin.

Turn 6) Warrior at light blue wins against the last straggler barbarian! We can finally found light blue dot!

Chasqui finds spices in the south. That should help our eventual lux situation nicely.

Temujin and Alex have both figured out how to put rocks on top of each other to “Construct” things. I’m leaving things as they are, but we’ll probably end up abandoning the min-science effort.

Turn 7) Settler/spear pair heads off to the south, to build a city and hopefully extend our city radius to the ivory before the exceedingly slow temple gets here.

I send some workers to start on the road to the south.

(WARNING: I’m pretty sure I missed a turn somewhere, or reported two turns as one, or something. I’m still going until 1000BC, and stopping there.)

Turn 8) Ica founded on light blue dot, finally. It starts on a temple. Feel free to change this, or any of the new cities. I just can’t see what else they’re good for at this point. Maybe workers?

Arequipa founded just south of Hovd. This city will grab the iron once it grows.

Cuzco is building a temple, but it’s not too late to change it over to a settler.

Last Turn) Cory builds a temple. Massive barbarian uprising near Arequipa; they’ll get there in time to loot our treasury of sand and lice. J

We’re out of the red and back in the black. Enjoy it while it lasts.

There’s one settler pair headed south, and another just assembled at Cuzco that I would also send south. After that, the next pair (methinks) should go to the east, to finish off the blockade. Then, it’s all about filling in the south before people get ambitious with their galleys. Actually, it might not be a bad idea to send one of those new pairs into the deep southeast to grab some of that prime real estate.

Remember to evacuate Arequipa, or else we’re just pointlessly sacrificing a Chasqui.

Good luck!

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-1000_BC.zip)

Jester

I love making the game interesting by having those following me have to do economic gynastics :lol: Well done.

Alas, my thesis for doing it went for naught -- out of all the
techs to go for, they went for the one we were min-sci on, Construction. Aye carumba! I should have stuck with my guts that Currency would be last to go, but no -- had to look at the tech costs and get greedy!?

BTW, I hope that settler pair doesn't hop on a boat and jump
past the blockade to snag the (er... 'our') iron. Perhaps I should have stopped at eight turns, but I perhaps overestimated how much others like backfill.

Uprising? Oh-*MY* we're behind in tech. Two or more civs are in the middle ages?! :eek:

Good luck to... (? Is Sulla hopping in next?)
Charis

Guys I dont have the game, its not in Holland yet :sad:
Feel free to skip me for now I will more news on Monday....

"Uprising? Oh-*MY* we're behind in tech. Two or more civs are in the middle ages?!"

Is that the requirement for an uprising? Yikes. I didn't know that... I can't imagine that anyone could be THAT far ahead of us... but, then, this is demigod. Maybe we'd better get used to it.

Jester

Reading the release thread, it sounds like most Europeans should be able to get the game sometime between now and Friday, unless they ordered from dynabyte or possibly some other sluggish site.

I'm all for waiting after Sullla's turn, if it seems likely that Friday would be the longest wait. The Incans are all about the ancient age, so it seems like we should try to give everyone an opportunity to experience it.

What do you guys think?

-Griselda

Of course I like Gris' proposition to wait after Sulla. :D But I know how bad longer delays are for motivation and fun in a succession game, so I'd be fine with any other decision (another skip or even a drop) as well. I won't get news about my copy until Wednesday. Then I'll either get an email saying they've got the game and a copy is underway to me, or saying the date has been pushed further back again. I'll post as soon as I know more.

Regarding this game, it sounds good so far! Maybe somone from TH5 - The Cutthroat Capitalists' game should always follow Charis, they probably know best now how to manage income best. :) But Jester seemed to have done a great job on this, too!

I didn't know *two* AIs have to be in the middle ages for a massive uprising to occur - I always thought, one would be sufficient. Anyway, I hope we have some military near Arequipa, because the barbs won't all sack the town but love to run past to harrass us. By the way, has anyone noticed any changes in the barb AI again?

-Kylearan

I don't mind holding up for a bit, as yes, everyone in the game should get a taste of this era and the expansion.

Jester, twas a surprise to me as well to find out there was a cause for the uprisings. It's two anywhere, you don't have to have met them.

Good plan on TH5, Kylearan :lol: BTW, I'm not *always* like that, although in my early days I gained a rep for spending since I didn't do as well back then (plus I was often followed by Sirian :P ) In retrospect, I don't like the move, but I do want to point out why it was a decent gambit, not just :smoke:

i) In a typical expansion phase, your income goes up fairly nicely with time as you found more cities and as you work more tiles. In *this* game, on my turn, I only produced settlers -- didn't found any cities. That means unit costs for the settlers, no new cities for income, and worse... two less tiles per settler city getting worked. Together that meant the deficit grew instead of shrinking.
ii) Polytheism and Currency are very slow for the AI to go for, but actually this was the first time I tried a 'Construction' gambit and now see that they prioritize this. If we had ended up with Currency monopoly for example, we could have sold it for 4-5 cheaper techs and gotten near parity, which if you compare with not making the deals in the first place, is a huge gain.
iii) I wanted to go *pure* expansion, no military, reach far out for cities, and making the deals was to keep the AI's from attacking us. Conversely, before it got to the point of a fire sale, I would have ordered the Mongolian worker to leave, they would have declared, and our income goes positive (from the gpt gain and from the war happiness) We would have then sacked Hovd and hoped they didn't have enough *local* force to cause us pain before peace came.
iv) Construction is the most expensive ancient tech, even now we may want to stick on that - especially since we have a city needing a specialist and since it's cheaper to buy than to research ourselves.

Anyway, that's the thought behind it, though I think it was a gambit, that failed :crazyeye:

Charis

... it just didn't get us any particular advantage. We needed the techs, we needed to pay for them somehow, and we got them. We didn't lose any opportunities by it, we didn't need a fire sale, or an emergency war-default with the Mongols, and all's quiet on the western front.

(Heh, I get to be the cutthroat capitalist... that ought to be funny to those who frequent the RB general forum...)

Are we sure that the "two civs in the middle ages" rule applies to Conquests? It blows my mind that the enemy civs could possibly have gotten that far ahead, or, more accurately, that the Mongols and the Greeks could be that far behind!

:p

Military... I'm not too concerned about, but warriors are wasted money, so I figured a turn or two extra on some spears would be a good investment in the long run. I don't think it's going to matter much, but it might let us be a bit bolder with war and peace; I tend to cave like crazy in my solo games, and SGs are a time for mixing it up a little more, and letting the next guy deal with the mess. :goodjob:

Jester

Sounds like you all are having fun so far. :)

Just wanted to point out that warriors upgrade now all the way to "TOW Infantry" at least according to Sulla. :) So warriors aren't totally useless anymore.

Jester:
Heh, I get to be the cutthroat capitalist... that ought to be funny to those who frequent the RB general forum...

:lol:

And hi Ozy! I see the TOW infantry more as a help to the AI than to the human, because most of the time the human player has all needed resources or will at least be able to acquire them for modern armor. And if you have modern armor available, I don't think you will use the TOW infantry so much. ;)

I'm with Jester here. I usually switch to spear production as soon as I can, even if that means that some cities will stay empty for some more turns. (Of course I do this only if I don't plan a massive sword upgrade)

I remember building more warriors back when PTW came out, thinking they won't be wasted because there's the MI and the guerilla now. But while the MI is an okay unit, I rarely ever used the guerilla except in a cerain epic. ;)

Oh, and let's see how long your resistance against buying the overpriced Conquests will last now that you see how much fun we (er, the others...) have here! :p

-Kylearan

When was the last time you played a massive sword upgrade Kylearan ? :groucho:


;)

Since I still have to play a turn in the Rise of Rome game, I'd be all for waiting another couple of days to give Kylearan and Skyfish a chance to play. Isn't the worldwide release of Conquests supposed to be this week (?)

Also, maybe someone should post a map of where we stand now. I'd look at the game myself, but I am pressed for time with work at the moment. :D

Checking all the shops again today...
The worldwide release was supposed to be last week and they already said that the UK release will be *next* week ...so I would not trust too much what Atari says : it s a big mess atm !

Just curious, Skyfish: Are you planning to buy the US, UK or any other version? No way I had ordered the German one, but I had to decide to get either the US or UK version. I've chosen the US version to be on the safe side with patches although it's 10 Euros more expensive; do the US patches work with the UK version?

Tomorrow I should get an email about my copy, hopefully not with a pushback again.

-Kylearan

Interesting question : I have heard that C3C is truely global in the sense that you can use any patch you want. I heard a Dutch guy say he got a copy sent from the US, and even though he has a UK civ3 vanilla, installed C3C with no problem and played :eek:
Just like patch 1.27 was, I now believe Atari when they say every new patch will be released globally that is probably why C3C can be used anywhere...
To be definietly on the safe side however I would order/buy a UK version, not a US one. Thats guaranteed to work for you because if you buy the US version there is still a chance it will not work when you try to install it as you have a non-US Civ3...

I know some German who already have C3C so you are in good shape Kylearan, for myself nobody has bought it/found it in the Netherlands yet... :sad:

Good news! I just received an email that my copy has finally arrived at the store and has been sent to me. That means that I should have the game either tomorrow or Saturday, although I suspect from the time of day the email was sent that the postal service won't make it tomorrow. But you should expect a "got it" from me on Saturday the latest, but maybe Skyfish manages to get his copy earlier.

Finally I can start screwing things up... :D

-Kylearan

Got it.

Indeed its arrived !
I should get my copy on Monday and can play after you Ky :)

Let's see...haven't played civ3 in months...played in only one SG before...this is the first time I started Conquests...okay. And there's really enough weed for a full set of ten turns, you say? Yes? Great, then let's get started! :)

Mongolia has over 2200 gold?!? :eek: They either have busted a lot of camps, or maybe the gpt bug is responsible for that? Scary.

After I've familiarized myself a bit with the curren situation, I decide to pursue the following goals on my watch:

- One of the settlers will head for the eastern iron/horse location, which would be *very* nice to have and which I suspect will be a prime target for AI galleys. An extra iron for us would be invaluable!

- We are horribly underdefended! While there's a lot of land still to grab, I fear AI landing commandos near on of our numerous empty cities. We don't even have barracks anywhere and only two regular spearmen, so a war would be a major setback. Additionally, barbarians are said to roam in the east in large numbers now, so although this will slow down our expansion, I will set probably two cities on barracks to crank spears afterwards.

- Because of the gpt bug, I hesitate to make many more gpt deals. But if there are barbs running around, I may be forced to do some so that our treasury won't be sacked.

I take a stroll through our cities and change some things. I decide to let the temple in Cuzco complete so it can work some more shield tiles and remain larger when producing more settlers. When Cori's borders expand, it will have access to the game and the oasis and so would make for a good settler factory, so Tiwanaku will soon give up the game tile and is switched to barracks and MMed to get more shields while retaining growth rate. Huamanga is set to barracks as well - it won't have many shields, but I don't see a better location for a spear factory for now. Vilcabamba will eventually become a nice productive city, but will need a temple and a courthouse first.

Andahuaylas is switched to worker, and Ica to granary (temple won't get any important tiles in range). Arequipa is left open to greet any unwashed masses.

(I) Our curragh is sunk by a barbarian galley. No other barbarians can be seen yet.

975BC (1): The northern settler starts his long trek to the "knight resource" city location - hurry up, will you? Then, a worker surprises me by automatically going to a spot I don't want him to be, and a warrior then automatically goes to a place I actually like him to be. :crazyeye: Our workers continue their road to the southern ivory, and start to chop a forest at Tiwanaku to speed up the barracks. At size six it could only work the hill and one forest anyway, and who knows? Maybe a bonus grass is underneath.

This Mongolian archer near Andahuaylas, which is only guarded by a warrior, makes me nervous.

950BC (2): Where are these fabled barbs from the uprising eveyone is talking about?

925BC (3): I have to increase lux for two turns until the temple in Cuzco is finished. Still no barbs, "near Arequipa" probably meant on the far eastern tip on the continent?

900BC (4): Yikes! The settler escort of the southern pair moves forward and finds... a barb camp with 9 horses and 2 warriors south of Vitcos! (Why haven't they moved out of the camp?)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1_1000bc_barbs.jpg

The settler turns around and flees. Hmpf, that will probably delay connecting the much needed ivory. "Near Arequipa", huh? A virulent case of lying game screen, it seems. :p

875BC (5): Hello? What's that? The horses remain in their camp! What's up with them, are they getting old or what? And somehow I have the feeling that the barbs "near" Arequipa prefer to remain at home as well, as none appear.

A Mongolian worker escorted by a spearman appears at our blockade at Hovd. Scared of our glorious scouts, eh? :D

Cuzca completes the temple and is configured to produce 10spt for an archer - I guess we will need some to clear up that camp.

850BC (6): Hrmpf, still no signs of moving barbs. Cori completes a settler who would badly need an escort. Andawhatever produces a worker and starts a temple again, this time helped by forest chops.

I decide to open up the tech tree a bit and save our treasury from threats at the same time, and buy writing from the Greeks for 160g+7gpt, minimizing the gpt part of the deal. Both Mongols and Greeks have map making, but Mongolia also knows code of laws, unbuyable for us at the moment.

(I) Oh crud, our spear watching the camp gets attacked by several barb horses, but *not* one from the camp (what's up with them?). He only defeats one, and dies to the second. Boo, hiss.

825BC (7): Tiwanaku completes barracks and starts to produce much-needed spears. Cuzco produces an archer and starts another - I think it's not that bad if they are regular only, as they will have enough possibilities to promote soon. Olly gets its temple whipped. I move the warrior in Machu Picchu south, to reinforce our "troops" there aginst the barbarians.

Greece has code of laws now, too.

800BC (8): Well, our settler/spear pair on the way to the iron horses has found the camp near Arequipa - full of paralyzed barbs as well. It's on the hill two squares southeast of the iron.

(I) A barb warrior attacks Vitcos and dies against the defending warrior. I also get witness to the first strike ability of the archer that was in the city as well, but it missed. :p There seems to be a more active barb camp on the far eastern tip of land as well, because our eastern scout sees 10 horses approaching.

We get a palace expansion, although I don't feel like celebrating at this time.

775BC (9): Wow, now Greece and Mongolia both know philosophy as well. Do they have contacts with other civs already? Cuzco starts a spear - although regular, we will need him. The settler/spear pair decides to rely upon the barb paralyzation to hold a bit longer, and moves past the camp.

(I): Greece demands 22 gold, and I cave. And I'm glad I did, because the next thing Alex does is declaring war on Mongolia! [dance] Out of settling space, huh? :lol:

750BC (10): Our eastern scout flees westwards, while our other one observes a newly appeared barb camp.



We will complete two spears next turn, and a warrior/archer pair is heading for the inactive camp south of Vitcos, unfortunately they met a roaming horse on this turn - I hope us being in a forest and the first strike ability of the archer will save us there. There's also an unmoved archer in Vilcabamba where a warrior has just arrived, it's up to the next player to decide whether to move him out or wait for a spear.

There are also two settlers without escorts, but we need escorts against all the barbs, although their behavior is really werid. I vote for the southern settler to head straight to the spices, and if the next leader doesn't want to wait until the barbs are gone, the northern settler could use the nearly finished long-distance route to Arequipa and try to settle there alone. Unfortunately, the ten horses our eastern scout has sighted are near the iron/horse location, so move the settler/spear pair there with caution.

The barracks in Huamanga could be whipped this turn, I didn't in case the next player would want to veto them. I would really like to have a second city producing veteran spears, though. The lone scientist sits at Arequipa at the moment.

Macho Picchu had produced warriors for MP duty on my turn; feel free to change this. Several cities (Cuzco, Tiwanaki, Cori) need some micromanagement attention, if the next player has the nerve for that. If not, at least Tiwa has to be reconfigured next turn to max shields when the spear has been finished, or the lux rate could be lowered, saving some money but slowing down spear production.

Sorry that I haven't managed to do very much on my turns (no cities founded...), but the barbarians and our dire military situation didn't allow me to do more.

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC1-750BC.zip)

Have fun, Skyfish!

-Kylearan

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/rbc1_1000bc_map.jpg

Not that we would have the resources to do that now, with all the fighting and settling, but maybe it would be nice to acquire map making and send out some suicide galleys to search for contacts.

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

The other problem is that I will be up in the 3 SGs I am signed for as soon as I get the game :wallbash:
Would you guys be kind enough to skip me for this round ?

OK... can we get Griselda to post a list of who is up next? I get the feeling it's me, but I'd like to be sure. :)

Sorry for the delay guys, I've been sick. Miss me?

The Roster (the finally final version):
Griselda
Charis
Jester
Kylearan
Sullla
Skyfish

Sullla's up now, Skyfish is skipped for this round (but good news that his copy is on the way!) and I'm on deck.

The barbarian AI is very odd these days. I was noticing similar things on my turn when I'd find additional barb units fortified in their camp, but the uprising situation makes it very clear. Maybe they just sit around waiting for undefended cities to call them? I also wonder if "roaming" barbs are now less likely to leave their camps than other types.

-Griselda

Sullla?

Just checking to see if you've got it.

-Griselda

The value of building warriors... Hey, haven't we had that debate three or four times by now? :) If you don't remember my opinion, you must have either been hiding in a cave or have suffered amnesia. :lol:

Wow I don't know any of those city names. :eek: If I have seemed absent from the SG threads even as a spectator, that's because I've been absent from the SG threads even as a spectator. ;) I certainly don't want to spoil the surprise on the various conquest scenarios, at least. I'll only get to learn about them once, and that will be when I play them solo.

I'm still waiting on word about the first patch before I shell out and buy the expansion, too. :)


- Sirian

Well, this is starting to stagnate. I'll play on Friday unless Sullla knows he can instead.

Now that everyone at least has the game, I'm thinking we should use 24/48 rules. We'll go longer than 48 later on, of course, but for now that should be enough.

-Griselda

Well, I thought we'd hold a bit for everyone to get their games, but I didn't expect quite this long! Let's hope I can remember what's happening here.

(0) 750 BC - Whip rax in Hua. Move unmoved archer out in SE. Lux to 30%. Cuzco to settler. We could also use some workers, to get roads out to those far cities. Anda to warrior so the single Mongol fortified down there can't take the city on his own.

BT - Tiwa spear - worker. Hua rax - spear. Anda warrior - worker. Barb horse doesn't attack our archer.

(1) 730 BC - Our archer kills the horse. We won't be able to kill all those frozen barbs for a while, so I decide to try to settle them out! Our other settler can do some backfill. Macchu Picchu to granary. It's a decent city, and at +4 a granary seems like a reasonable thing. Lux to 30%. Vilcas to worker.

BT - The barbs must have heard about our plans, our maybe it was the warrior emptied out of Vitcos to protect the settler! One horse moves, and attacks the warrior. The archer hits on our free shot, and we win. The second horse kills the warrior.

Cuzco settler - worker. Vilcas worker - temple.

(2) 710 BC - I want that knight spot, but I don't think we're in any position to get there alive. I decide to head for a spot E of Arequipa for now.

BT - Cuzco worker - settler. Tiwa worker - spear.

(3) 690 BC - I send a spear up to replace a warrior at the choke.

(4) 670 BC - Settle Nasca on the far east coast. I debated a long time between that spot and the one just to the NW, but the fresh water at the current location sold me. It's got one flood plain, it's coastal, and it should be able to have decent shields (eventually).

BT - I left a Chasqui fortified on a hill, thinking it would be safe there, but a barb killed it. Cori settler - worker. Greeks complete temple of Zeus at Sparta. :eek:

(5) 650 BC - Our SW settler is in barb-popping location. Atico is settled to fill in the north desert. I decide we don't need spears. I don't think we need warriors, either. We can escort our settlers all day long, and they're still toast if any of those stacks of 10 barb horses attack. We need archers! Our barracks cities swapped to archers.

BT - The Mongols send a galley south.

(6) 630 BC - Settle Juli in the SW. The camp pops, but all 11 barbs are still there, right next door. Oh well, at least I can kill them from the safety of the city now! I kill four of them this turn.

We continue settling with Chuito east of Cuzco.

BT - Cuzco settler - archer. Hua archer - archer.

(7) 610 BC - The horses by Juli still don't move, even though they don't have tents anymore. :crazyeye: We can kill one this turn, and there's 6 more left. The Mongols have landed a settler by the iron/horse spot. I'm sorry I didn't prioritize that one, guys, but I didn't think we could. Our Chasqui will keep an eye on the settler pair.

BT - The fortified Mongol units move, and the barbs move. Was there some sort of AI freeze in effect or something? Tiwa archer - archer. Olly worker - granary.

(8) 590 BC - Kill 3 more barbs at Juli. 3 left now. Arequipa will get sacked next turn, as the bars are finally there. Buy map making from Greece for 264 g plus 8 gpt. I hate to use gpt, but this is an emergency! Tiwa to galley.

BT - Arequipa, size 2, is sacked. It loses several turns on a temple and one pop, but that's it. It would have taken many more shields worth of units to kill all those horsies. Cori worker - worker. The English complete the Mausoleum of Mausollos.

(9) 570 BC - We kill the last of the Juli horses- no losses! The barbs are coming to Olly, rush an archer.

BT - Horses move up from the south. Cuzco archer - archer. Olly archer - granary (prebuild for courthouse at some point?). Iroquois complete lighthouse.

(10) 550 BC - We kill 3 out of 4 of the new Juli horses, losing one archer. I moved two workers by accident south of Vilca, sorry. There's a settler pair there. I had been thinking of sending it to the river/wheat spot, but there's clearly a barb camp, so be careful. The northern settler is headed towards the iron/horse spot, but may not make it that far. The spices are important, of course, but just got put on the back burner with all the barbs and trying to fill in to Olly.

There's a worker by Vitcos trying to hook up the ivory. That will help the economy quite a bit.

We are very behind on tech, and the minsci on construction will come in in 11. Both AI have it, but it seemed reasonable to finish it out while buying others. Maybe Charispender can help in the tech department!

Save Us! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-550bc.zip)

Griselda - just played
Charis - UP UP UP
Jester - on deck
Kylearan
Sullla
Skyfish

Pacharis Inca (now known as Pacha-ching!) comes to power :eek:

His first words are... eep! That's just from reading the report. Looking at
the actual map... 16 cities and large territory? Sweet! That plays to our
strongpoint, agriculture. Then Ca-Ching looks at the status screen. DEAD even
three-way on score, and we're ahead of Mongols in power. We lead the planet in
population with 14%. And the Mongols are at war with Greece, lovely. Really,
the only issue AT ALL is that we're hugely behind on tech. Waaaay behind.

What's the best way to get out of that hole? The pointy stick of course!

:hammer:

We declare war on the Mongols, converge 3 units on Hovd, attack and kill the warrior
near Cori, and surround their archer down south. Finally the Chasqui kills the
settler pair. Next turn we ally with Greece, and the Mongols are so toast. They'll
be throwing about 3 techs our way before the round is over. Just kidding. I didn't
declare war. Yet. But this approach has merit. In a solo game I might chance it,
but might pass for the same reason I pass here, we're stuck at present with attack 1
units vs attack 2 defenders. With even odds and greater local concentration of force,
I would hit them for sure, despite our low national military. Instead I'm going to
continue the settling plan, but get a few more units in place to open up the pointy
stick door for our next leader.

[0] 550 BC - Swap Cuzco to rax and MM it to get 10spt. Other minor mm changes in
corrupt cities. If only getting one shield anyway, work grass instead of forest, etc.
Macchi is set for grow in 3, granary in 4 - we save a half-box of shields by slowing
growth by two turns.

[1] 530 BC - Archer takes out barb camp in NE. Down south our Chasqui peers at about
six barb horses, and in running away, stumbles into an *English* spear-settler pair.
They're not too far from SE knight spot. Good news is that *whoever* settles there
will have it 100% corrupt and we'll be able to capture it easily enough. The English
have Philo, CoL, HBR, Poly, Currency, and Constr (but only 9 total cities). I doubt
if the other civs have met them, since they have more techs than our neighbors,
who lack Polytheism and Currency. Clearly it's the other continent who has reached
the Middle ages and caused the barbarian uprisings. Can we buy Polytheism from her?
Not quite. Gah... here we go again... Ca-Ching starts doing his funny little tech
dance. I doctor the books, er... work the tiles to look like we have +38gpt. Not quite
enough? Eep. Kick that higher, and can buy Polytheism for 65g+43gpt. Tis monopoly price,
but we in turn get to sell at monopoly until the Mongols meet her next turn.
To Greece for 635g, then to Mongols for 282g. Huh, no techs? Wait... Return to Liz
with more cash in hand, and try to buy Currency. We're a few gpt short, so we go
deeper in hock (Ca-CHING!!!) 932g+9gpt buys Currency. Dial up Alex, before he
meets this Liz gal. To Alex for CoL,HBR,Philo+207g. He's now Middle Ages. Currency
to the Mongols for 369g. Done. We'll be in Middle Ages ourselves in 10 turns when
our minsci Construction finishes. England has Monarchy and Republic too, but they're
way too expensive.

Let's see what the total cost of all that ca-ching was... We paid 997g+52gpt
then received 1593g and five techs. Converting at 20g/gpt rate, that means we got
five techs for net 444g, or less than 90g per tech. Considering Currency alone
cost 1112g, that's phenomenal :goodjob:

That leaves us with two remaining issues. We did all this with a paltry 85g in our
pocket to start with, so now we'll be running at negative income for some time. The
second issue is that our neighbors are now in the Middle ages. That's not too big a
deal though, as they were close, as the other civs are already there, and as the
Greeks already have their 3-def hoplites. I return to all the cities I put on curr
tiles and taxmen and try to get back to a 'sane' deficit. That ends up being
581g-20gpt for the next 20 turns unless Liz demands tribute which we'll refuse.

With more settlers showing up South, and with our acute need for iron, the
warrior-settler heads to the Northern iron patch.

IBT - Two barb horses move next to Nasca. At least we have a spear there.
The two foreign settler pairs move *west*, away from the 'knight' spot,
which means it's already settled, or they see something better. Actually,
that wheat/cattle/river spot they're heading to looks great.

[2] 510 BC - Our settlers press forward, our archers head towards barbs for that
crucial ca-Ching economy boost! IBT some horses appear near workers.

[3] 490 BC - Warriors move to cover those workers.
IBT - Four more horse move next to Nasca. Greeks start SunTzu.

[4] 470 BC - Macchu finishes granary, starts settler (probably rax soon)
Chuquiapo is founded on hill on the coast near iron. Unfortunately... not quite
close enough. I thought the proximity with Arequippa would merge the border
over the iron, but no. Moving one step closer was just TOO close to Arequippa though.
That means a temple whip (or worse, a colony) asap.

IBT - Mongols and Greeks come to peace. That's not so bad actually, as a highly
dominant Greece would not be that great. English start Sun Tzu. A Chasqui defends
against a barb horse, and more of those move off Nasca hill to chase workers.
The mongols settle 'Tsetserleg' on the river near wheat, next to cattle.
The English settler nearby then shuffles back east.

[5] 450 BC - Our South roaming settler chooses the gap between our core and Anda,
on a coast and river, with wheat, two BG and game in the full radius: Huanuco Pampa.

IBT Mongols start Sun Tzu. Barb horses run past our warrs defending workers toward
city.

[6] 430 BC - Notice Macchu is set to grow to 8 then pop settler back to 6, not efficient.
So we swap off settler to temple, as it has happiness issues. Archers intercept the barb
horses. Painfully we lose a warrior, and see no promotions. (Bah, 'regular' units :P )
Our first galley is finished, and we sent it around the South coast to see if we can
find the other civs (e.g. England's home).

[7] 410 BC - Ivory finally to come online! That cuts deficit to -10gpt.

[8] 390 BC - Hmmm, those are horses on the hill east of Olla, aren't they. We have none
yet do we? Hurry up settler from Andahuaylas! Our archer trio takes out a barb camp,
and we hear 25 ca-Ching! sounds. A settler just finished in Cori in our NW. Do we
send him just up to that jungle to form a choke city, or continue to rely on our
warrior fence? The fact that the AI has NOT grabbed it highly suggests that we'll find
no rubber or anything there. What can wait... must. It heads East instead.
At Vitcos a temple is whipped, also Vilca. Our galley sinks a barb galley, and puts
in at Juli.

[9] 370 BC - zzz til IBT - Good news! Karakorum has completed Sun Tzu! Er, why is that good
news? That's an eminently capturable and useful city/wonder, in the hands of a
not-too-strong civ on our continent.

[10] 350 BC - Some barb activity South of Arequippa, our archer is first to stumble on
a camp, as two occupents LEFT it IBT. So we attack, and... ca-Ching! 25g.
We see Liverpool is founded to get the SE iron, but it's not in the 'Knight' position
per se, leaving the horses free.

To our next leader, Jester...
- Settler due next turn out of Andahuaylas, it's strongly urged that he go six
squares north, then probably one NW, on the coast(hill) directly next to horses.
We definitely need those.
- There is an unmoved settler near Atico. He could instead get to this horse spot,
or send him somewhere else. 3-4 squares SW of Nasca looks good when you look at that
in combo with the other settler next to the horses, filling in a large gap nicely.
- Decide whether to colonize iron or to whip Arequippa to pull it in. (That route will
take about 11 turns when a double whip will do the trick.
- The archer trio down south has been sweeping along vs barbs, no new ones seen yet.
- There is an irrigating worker quartet bringing life-giving water all the way to our
eastern shore. Together they irrigate in one turn. Likewise another quartet is
irrigating down West and South. They just did two squares not in radius at the moment,
but the choices of squares to mine outside Vilca wasn't optimal. When they're done
they can chop a few forests at Vitcos perhaps, as a courthouse would be helpful there.
- I had been running closer to 10-13 gpt deficit these turns, but at low growth. I've
taken a few more cities off taxman to get them growing again, as a treasury of
483g, -25gpt for 10 more turns doesn't sound as awful as after the deal which left
us at 581-20for20.
- Despite being weak militarily compared to other civs, I was surprised to get no
tribute demands this turn. They're all still busy expanding? Ah, looking at F8,
our score has climbed a notch for sure, our power is second only to Greece, and our
culture... er... ew, better whip a dozen temples out before new govt I see!
- Our scientist is now at Andahuayla, which at present needs a specialist anyway. Keep one.
- Yes, there is a Mongol warrior next to an undefended town. Don't worry, that oaf
has been patrolling aimlessly for ten turns now. Thoughts of war have been but off
considerably, as their entrance to middle ages means that our hookup of iron and
horses are top priorities now!

Here is our view of the world:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-350BC.jpg

Griselda - (In shock we're about to enter middle ages when we hit 'enter', and
that with 85g cash we bought five techs for 90g each :D )
Charis - Spent!!
Jester - UP!
Kylearan - on deck
Sullla - in the dugout
Skyfish - in the hole

RBC1-Incans-350BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-350BC.zip)

:hammer:

Good luck to our next leader, who will likely need it :P
Charis

Geez, Charis, haven't you seen me play enough times to know that I *never* declare war on my turns?

:rolleyes:

Maybe it's time to start. :D

I've got it. I'll play it out tomorrow. Looks like we're in for a fun ride, lots of temple whippin' to do. :worship::whipped:

Jester

(Inherited turn)

I decide to move the settler to the square you recommended, not seeing any reason why that’s not a good idea.

Turn 1

Construction comes in, start engineering at minimum. Not sure if it’s a worthwhile idea, but it’s not like we can do anything else research-wise.

Settler comes in, he’s going up to the horsies. Andahuaylas starts a temple, although that could just be a placeholder for something more useful, if the next person has a better idea.

Mongols start the Great Library.

I build a colony on the iron. Why wait?

I don’t really know what to do with the galley at Juli, so I send it to explore around the southern coast.

I move to start some serious deforestation near vitcos.

Turn 2

Archer trio in the south finds a barb camp, lightly defended.

Turn 3

Vilcas revolts, whoops, should have checked for that.

Cuzco finishes marketplace, switches to colosseum.

Our archers are initially victorious, and the camp should fall next turn.

Turn 4

A barbarian horseman kills a chasqui in the southeast. The archer kills him as soon as I get the chance. The barb encampment to the SW gets sacked, and an archer gets promoted to veteran.

Vilcas whips a temple, as does Machu Picchu. Juli switches from a catapult (?) to a temple.

Turn 5

Machu Picchu finishes temple, switches to marketplace. Feel free to change this to a colosseum if you like, I couldn’t decide which we need more there. Huamanga starts a temple. Vilcas starts a settler, as does Villacamba.

Tamboccocha founded on the white dot. I start it on a temple, although that can be changed long before it finishes. I’ll get one of the archers to defend it for now.

I switch Atico to a temple. Again, it can be switched back, I just think we need the culture, plus that bonus grassland tile might help its rather barren location.

Turn 6

The English start the Knights Templar.

A barb horseman pillages near Andahuaylas, so I attack him with a warrior. The warrior dies, fantastic. Uh, I dunno what to do about that. I’ll just hope he doesn’t move anywhere, maybe get the archers over this way.

A barb galley sinks ours. More lucky breaks for us! :mad:

Huaras founded by the horses.

I just notice that I seemed to have wiped out our specialist! Oops. That’s not good. It’s not like we’re likely to get anything in at 50 turns anyway, but…

Turn 7

Barb horseman attacks, kills our warrior, and steals 19 gold. Grand. :cry:

Ica finishes granary, switches to temple.

The English have a settler on our fair isle, in the extreme SE… we’ll have to kick them off pretty soon.

Turn 8

Cuzco revolts… bah. I should have been paying closer attention. Oh, well, at least we have our scientist back. :crazyeye:

Tiwanaku rushes temple. Wait, I did that between turns! D’oh, that’s an exploit, right? Oops, sorry. I was checking if any other city was about to revolt, and I got a little overzealous. :hammer: It starts on a worker.

The Mongols have founded Baruun-Urt (!?!) in the SE, near the English cities.

Corihuayrachina builds a setter, so I send it to darkest Peru (the jungle up north) to grab the ‘nanas.

Turn 9

Woah, the Mongols have a settler pair down in our territory, ready to grab our precious oasis! When did that blockade go down? Ah, whatever. They can take it. :p

Turn 10

Temujin demands 35 gold… I cave. :( Why? I think we could be in a better position before we take him on. We’ve got too many cardboard cutouts, not enough warm bodies. I agonized over this one, but I’m pretty sure this was the right move. Not like we won’t take the hammer to him eventually, but now would not be the time of maximum advantage.

:mad:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH HHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I check the trades afterwards, and our good friend the Khan has NO IRON! We could have spanked him around the block! Bah!

Oh, well. Revenge will be sweet. :lol:

English and Greeks start the Great Library.

Conclusion

I feel like half a split-personality drunkard; he gets to splurge, I get to nurse the hangover. I didn’t do any trades, of course, since that’s Charis’ job. (Not that I begrudge that, you’re a phenomenal trader, and I’m much better at getting out of holes than digging them.)

So, my turn was pretty much maintenance and temple building. There are a few more of those to whip in good time, look out for those.

A lot of our construction is placeholder-ish. I felt a little directionless, ( :confused: ) so maybe the next person should go back and decide with a little more vigour. Maybe build some swordsmen? I dunno.

This especially is true of the settlers. We’re building lots, and only need two or three. So, decide which we need and where we need them before they finish, there’s still plenty of time on the clock to make the key decisions.

Jester

Er, yeah, the game. Here it is.

The Sacred Game of the Four Corners (www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-150BC.zip)

Jester

Given your last comment of never starting a war on your turn, Temujin was wise to choose your last year in reign for his demand. ;) Overall, a very good turn I would say, Jester :goodjob:

Since you mentioned a lack of direction, I'll throw in some thoughts --

On direction
-- start now to prep for a short war as we simultaneously get out the last 3-5 settlers we need to fill up our land
-- get some courthouses going, we have tons of cities but a lot of corruption
-- get a galley to the waters East of the SE tip, where it seems
England came from, to see if there are other civs with her
-- ASAP, once we have about, oh, 8-10 swords+horses,
we'll go to war with Mongols. Capture Baruum-Urt (if it doesn't autoraze) and Tsetserleg with minimal forces. Main attack stack captures Hovd (in 1 turn, if we have ~5 horses there to hit it
immediately). Then with swords try to take Choy and Kazan, although these would be bonuses not essential. The goal is to purge our interior lands, get firm cities at chokepoints, and inflict enough pain for a tech or two compensation (Specifically, Republic would be great). The timing must be ASAP in that we want to hit them with swords/horse vs spears, NOT pikes, and definitely before they get their UU!

On micromanagement
- Always hit F1 before hitting end-of-turn. To let a ultra corrupt city revolt is one thing, but the captial?! :smoke:
- In a size one city you never want a clown as there is no one else to make happy. Andahuaylas should be a taxman.
- If a city is amongst the most unhappy you have, tailor tiles to work more shields and less food. Cuzco for example has a specialist (eep, in the capital?!), but is producing 3 food for colloseum in 7. It should go 0 food and colloseum in 5. When the capital needs a clown, it's time to nock up the lux slider (and/or build the colloseum)

Options for next leader to consider
- Chuqiuapo might swap to temple?
- Machu Picchu needs a worker to mine some grass. If we're thinking war, I would definitely swap to rax and with mines it's at 6spt, or 30shields per 5 turns.
- Vitcos needs 38 shields for a courthouse and is size 3. Rather than wait I would double whip it and make it capable of more than 1 shield and 1 commerce. What's that, it won't let you? Swap to granary which is 18 shields to go. Whip it, then immediately switch back to courthouse, whip again.
- We have THREE cities with rax, Cuzco, Tiwanaku and Huamanga. When Cuzco grows one more it can do 15spt, or one sword per two turns, highly recommended. Poor Tiwa is stuck at size 6 with only moderate food but cranking workers. He needs an aqeuduct and courthouse. Huamanga is hurting too, at 4spt, and trying to get one more gives one more wasted shield instead. Consider swapping temple to courthouse.
- After about five more settlers the map will be full. With three cities working on settlers, we're about right, and nearly done with peaceful expansion.
- Change Huaras to worker and send some more workers out of the irrigating quartet to the horses asap!

Kylearan - UP
Sullla - on deck
Skyfish - in the hole

Hmmm.... Let me think out loud here... I wonder if Kylearan can set up Sulla for war on his watch? 2.5 swords from Cuzco, 2 from Tiwa, 1.5 from Hua, and first half of Sulla's watch would see an equal number of horses/swords, doing horses last or further away so they both reach the front at the same time, and we're talking start of war right at end of Sulla's turn or beginning of Skyfish. Delay past that would almost surely mean pikes, except, fortunately, for the two Mongol cities in our interior which can't get iron.

Good luck,
Charis

Got it.

we're talking start of war right at end of Sulla's turn or beginning of Skyfish

Yes !
War :D Me like it :D

:hammer: :hammer: :hammer:

The first thing I notice is that not only the Mongols lack iron, but Greece as well! Not only have they iron not hooked up yet, but in fact there is none on their territory! Ok, maybe there is under the small unexplored patch in the northeast, but I doubt it. That spells doom for Mongolia in the short run, and for Greece in the long run as well (their hoplites saving them for now, but Mongolia's Keshiks? Oh come on!). I like Charis' vision of war ASAP, so I'll follow his suggestion and try to prepare us for that. I was the one who built our first barracks, so it somehow figures that I will be the one to start preparing us for war as well.

I increase lux to 20% and fire the specialists in Cuzco, Machu Picchu and Tiwanaku.

Tiwanaku is swapped from worker to swordman (we will get some slaves as compensation soon). Machu Picchu is swapped to barracks, Olly to courthouse, Huamanga to sword. Vilcabamba is swapped from settler to courthouse - sorry, one settler less, but with 66% corruption (4 of 6 shields lost), I want a courthouse there rather sooner than later. Vitcos feels the double-whip, and Andahuaylas gets a taxman instead of a clown (no scientist, since I figure we will have engineering in 48 turns anyway, one pointy way or another). Ica is swapped from temple to settler - it's low on shields and probably will be for some time to come because workers are needed more urgent elsewhere at the moment. Nasca gets the galley whipped (could have been done six turns ago already), Juli, Chuito and Tamboccocha are set to courthouse and Huaras to worker. I wake up the archer in Tamboccocha and move him north - I don't like the Mongolian warrior near empty Arequipa at all.

Then I hit next turn.

(I) A barbarian horseman kills our veteran archer on the hill down in the south, and the Mongols found Ereen south of our, er, "blockade" which is open like a barn door at the moment.


130BC (1): Arequipa gets the temple whipped. In the north, a settler was on goto which I didn't catch, and he finds...an Iroquois pike/settler pair! Both Iros and England have engineering which Greece and Mongolia have not, and maybe one or both of the latter have not yet made contact? Our payments to the English have ended this turn, but our treasury and income are not enough to get us engineering. So I temporarily set lux to zero, and now am able to buy engineering for 250g+44gpt. And indeed it's a monopoly for us to Greece and Mongolia! Unfortunately, though, Mongolia seems to be nearly done researching it for themselves, but I trade it to Greece for the republic, monotheism and all of his six gold pieces.

That's 375 gold per tech - sure, given that amount of money, Charis the former Enron employee would probably have catapulted us into a comfortable tech lead. :p But I like this simple 3-fer anyway, given that we we got two middle age and a government tech.

Revolting now is out of question, though, as the gpt deal would kill us (actually, I need to bust a camp or build some roads not to go negative even now). But I guess the end of our short war will be about the same time our gpt payments will end, so let's continue the military buildup. At least our unit support limit isn't reached yet with all these empty cities. :D

(I) The Iroquois start to build the great library. Their pike/settler pair decides not to settle right away, but move one step - a big mistake. A third English city (Brighton) appears on our continent, at the spice location. It has a big sign at its entry reading "target me!". :shotgun:


110BC (2): Riobamba founded, in deep jungle. I hope the Iro pike won't attack it, as it will be undefended for the next two turns.


90BC (3): MM Cuzco


70BC (4): Our palace gets a nice lawn. Chuquiapu has now growth problems and so gets partially whipped.


50BC (5): Huanuco Panpa has growth problems as well and gets partially whipped.

(I) Hovd's borders expand, and our ex blockade units get kicked out.


30BC (6): An archer duo gets rid of a barb camp and gets a much needed 25 gold. Juli gets the courthouse double-whipped. Our galley tries a suicide run eastwards from Dover, and spots blue borders. :scan:

(I) The Iros start the Sistine Chapel


10BC (7): Two Mongolian archer/future-double-slave pairs try to get through the ex-blockade at Hovd; I hinder them. :p Our galley has survived, and makes contact with the Mayans! :beer: They have 11 cities.

(I) The English start the Sistine Chapel, and finish the Knights Templar. The Iros switch to Leo's.


10AD (8): Machu Picchu is finally set up to produce 6spt, but unfortunately needs a taxman. Our galley finds beautiful Theodora of the Byzantines, who only controls six cities - war or bad lands? I'm looking forward to the ability of map trading.


30AD (9): Whip temple at Atico. Horses are finally connected! Switch far-away cities from swords to horsemen.


50AD (10): Troop movement, worker actions.



We now have the impressive army of 16 warriors, 8 archers, 4 spearmen, 5 swordmen and 1 chasqui, all in all 34 units (not counting the workers). Compare that to our 20 cities (plus two settlers on the way) and it's clear that we're ready for war. :p Unfortunately, Khan seems to sense this: He has moved an elite archer and a warrior into Tsetserleg. Four of our archers are already waiting outside their border and one is on the way, and roads to it are finished as well. The few swords we have are at our blockade at the moment (or on the way); I haven't moved them yet. Baruun-Urt and Ereen have not yet units outside their borders, so maybe you could move them in that direction.

I've played cats and mouse with the two settlers/archers at the blockade (if this were chess it would have been declared a draw already due to repetitive position :D) to get the four slave workers when war is started. Mongolia still lacks iron, but beware: They may have Keshiks or longbows by now.

Interesting times ahead! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-50AD.zip)


Roster:
Griselda
Charis
Jester
Kylearan
Sullla - UP
Skyfish - ON DECK


-Kylearan

Hooray for contacts, and for gearing up for future pointy-stick researching. Hopefully these two things will help everyone maintain direction and interest no matter where they fall in the turn rotation. :goodjob:

There's still no word from Sullla, so I hope he's doing OK. We're going with strict 24/48 at the moment, so hopefully he is able to at least check in by Tuesday some time.

Roster:
Griselda
Charis
Jester
Kylearan
Sullla - UP
Skyfish - ON DECK

This forum needs a new smiley: one smiley with a spear or "pointy stick" and an evil grin prodding a forlorn second smiley, either in the rear end or the ribs. Dollar to a donut, that would see a lot of use. :lol:

They could call it, THE PROD. :lol:


- Sirian

Well, Sirian, this was about the closest I could come to a "prod" http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/horse.gif

Not quite what you meant, but hey ;)

Still no word from Sullla. Sullla, we hope you're doing OK, first and foremost. However, we should probably auto-skip him until he's checked in.

Roster:
Griselda - on deck
Charis
Jester
Kylearan
Sullla - skipped
Skyfish - UP NOW

Skyfish? Are you available? This looks like a fun time to be picking it up. :hammer:

-Griselda

Yep I got it !
Thanx Gris !

50AD : not a lot to change, few bits and bobs here and there.
Indeed we should strike early we dont have enough horses yet but these 2 settlers are just too much to resist...

70AD : We kill the 2 archers defending the settlers at the cost of 1 sword, but get 2 promos to Elite !
We capture Tsetse at the cost of one archer. A loose mongol warrior threatens Tambococha.

90Ad : The mongols send a horse and an archer against our "wounded stack" but we survive and the horse has to retreat.
Reinforcement is on the way.

110AD : We lose a sword but kill 2 horses and an archer : all of the action is by Hovd. The mongols have tons of reinforcement
though...
Caxamalca is founded in the south.

130AD : the flow of units from the Mongols is just non-stop :( I have to retreat in Arequipa and try
to counter.

150AD : This is getting ugly, we lose an archer and a wounded horse to the mongols.
There is a force of 5 archers, 1 elite horse and 2 vet horses near our border.
We manage to take the Elite horse out with no cost but lose a horse to their 2...

170AD : Longbows make their way towards us but the Mongols are ready to talk!
I throw everything I have at them and then out of nowhere comes a Great Leader !
we can get peace and the Mongs will pay Literature, 1gpt + 2g. Cant get anything more.

I believe we need to take peace now but I have no idea what to do with the GL: we desperately need an FP but with
that horrible corruption bug...that could make things even worse...

I need the team's feedback here :D

Was that just a highlight, or is the only city we've captured Tsetserleg? What about Ereen and Baruun? Hovd?

If none, you may have ruined your 'appetite' on the delicious settler snack and not had as much for dinner as hoped, certainly no dessert :P

It's vital to know whether the unit flow is non-stop or just 'all they got'. In other words, have we now reached their peak (and a good time to stop) or after what seems like a big crunch, are they now so out of gas that stopping would be insane?

In any case, the key question is the MGL. Just how bad *is* the FP bug? I no it exists and that it's quite broken, but... what exactly would happen if we rushed a FP in, oh...
Tamboccocha? Seems like a great location for one.

The safer bet would be to build an army immediately, put one sword in it, and use it to kill a defense-1 target, and later throw a few MDI or MDI/musket in there for general purpose use. With that approach you build army, partially fill, get your kill, then halt the war. With the FP approach we may as well take peace now.
(A vet/elite horse will do too, just be SURE it's at strong odds to win, if you prefer to add a pair of Knights to the army later)

The problem with the way things have turned out is that we've not purged our interior or owned the chokepoint, so we'll need one more war with Mongols, and we'll be facing quick Keshiks at that point. Given no iron for Mongols and Greece, as someone pointed out a manifestdestiny plan of owning our entire continent is a very good and obtainable objective. If we're going there, and our national ambition that large, Karakorum itself is a good FP city.

Without rather a few more swords and horses available and in position, I don't see the point of continuing the war. Unless that is, you can maneuver enough units to be on the offense, not defense, vs a weakly-defended longbow stack.

At the point where it's no longer advantageous to continue the wary, we'll want to stop, regroup and build some better attack units, and almost surely revolt out of Despotism. (To Republic?)
If you expect not to take over the continent and if the FP bug is an improvement of some sort, rush FP now in or near Tambo. Otherwise (larger nation expected, or FP 'hurts'), then make an army and get a victory then immediately take peace -- we can fill it with better units when they're available not long from now.

Looking at the score we're in good shape. And our next steps will only see our position improve. England is in prime position for a smack down as we continue purging our interior - perhaps we can get another tech out of them.

Good luck with the rest of your turn :goodjob:
Charis

The FP reduction corruption by NOTHING. It is a 100% waste of time until the patch comes out next year.

The two settlers could have been kept busy for some more turns easily by moving our chasqui left and right. That way, the war could have been delayed a bit longer to make sure we could have captured more cities during the first two turns, but oh well. We have captured Tsetserleg and can get a tech for peace, that's a nice gain! :goodjob:

Too bad this leader cannot rush the great library. Okay, in fact I like this change. :) Because of the FP bug, I'd vote to form an army with him, especially because they are so powerful now. I don't know our exact unit situation, but maybe with a 2-move sword blitz fast-healing army, the war could be prolonged a bit to see if the Mongols will be gassed soon and we could capture Hovd and the cities in our territory? If not, at least get one victory in and don't fill the army now.

I'm all for revolting into republic after the war, not monarchy or feudalism. Short pointy-stick research wars can be fought in republic quite easily; for example we should think about throwing England out of our continent before committing ourselves to a major infra push. Especially their spice city would be a major boon to us.

Looking forward to the rest of your turn, Skyfish! :)

-Kylearan

Although I haven't tried it myself, it seems like the FP would at best be no better, and at worst be a disadvantage to us. So, I'd prefer just about any choice to a FP personally (although part of me is curious to see just how bad it is).

It's a shame that the people who review Conquests don't care about the details of the program. Conquests has a lot more "stuff" than PTW, yes, but PTW was much more playable out of the box. Yet, Conquests gets great reviews, and PTW didn't. I do think I'll enjoy Conquests a lot with the right patch, but trying to avoid all FP building and gpt deals is just too painful at the moment. :( </rant>

As far as the war goes, it's always hard for me to say without looking at the save. Just do your best, and we'll work with whatever happens. :)

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/LAK-Corruption.zip

Download the above zip of an excel spreadsheet. Look at shields / gold before and after. This will end the fp debate.

OK I made my decision and figured a plan out , I am playing the turns today and will report back tonight :)
Thanks to all.

170AD : After the Great Leader emerges, I check the f4 screen again fiddle around and see that Mongols are close to
giving us Ereen which is inside our "territory" :eek:
Arequipa is in danger from a stack of Archers actually and I have a 4hp Elite sword (who created the GL) in it. I create the Army
and retreat it in case we lose the city.
I take the chance and press enter.
On the counter Mongols take out a wounded horse outside the city then a longbow takes out the elite sword and then...thats it !

190AD : We have 2 wounded horses left, they both win their battle :jump: and now Mongols are ready to give us Ereen :o
I take peace and realize that in the euphoria I should have loaded the Army and attack with it, but thats hindsight I was just scared of losing the city AND the Army.

Now the biggest objective is to go for England they are weak in the histograph, on the other side of the world and have an extrmely valuable Lux for us in Brighton : I move our archers towards the South to take the city ASAP, we have no deal with the English.

I consider the move to Republic and decide to do it now! we cant lose anymore time or this game will slip away from us...
We are paying 44gpt to Iroquois for another 4 turns, we might have problem until then but we can do it with the new value of Taxmen.

I revolt and ...bingo a real C3C anarchy !
9 Turns :rolleyes:

We get major unhappiness and the counter says -38gpt while we have 23g in the bank :)
Taxmen are hired everywhere in place of unhappy ppl, it comes perfectly to 0gpt but both Cuzco and Machu Pichu are starving pretty bad.


210AD : Moving forces south, well forces... a few archers we got left plus a horseman, we dont ahve that many forces left :sad:

230AD : Moving forces, checking a few cities for riots. Mongols start Leonardos.
Iros settler pair finally leave our land at the blocked jungle isthmus.

250AD : Forces are now fortified by Brighton with a settler on hand to claim that desperately needed lux ! Our gally will need to
leave english waters at the risk of sinking or you can wait a few more turns to be close to Republic. We should definitely do this though :evil:
Very soon our 44gpt deal will end and that will give us more flexibility...

In conclusion the Mongol war was indeed not as fruitful as what we had hoped but I believe now that waiting for a few more turns
at the start of the war would have not helped us, we would have lost Hovd for sure. At least we got an Army and a city out of this...
Now on to Lizzy :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1,_250_AD.zip

I would suggest delaying a potential war with England until we have enough forces to take out all English cities on our continent during only a few turns. England is not so far away, and if they land MDIs, longbows, pikes or even knights, it could get ugly - not to mention if they buy in Greece or Mongolia.

I haven't looked at the save if that's possible at all; maybe we have to take a break instead to concentrate on getting our economy going.

Nice that we will become a republic during Gris' turns. Now let's take bets about what will happen to our enhanced economy after her turns... :lol:


Griselda - UP NOW
Charispender - on deck :p

-Kylearan

(0) 250 AD - First up, check anarchy. Still 6 turns left, boo.

I take a look at the military situation. At Brighton, we have 4 archers and 1 horse. While this is *probably* enough to take the city, it may not be enough with a couple of bad rolls, and in anarchy, we would have no ability to adapt by building more units to attack or to cover in case Liz has a SOD hiding off our shore or something. Also, we'd want to be in position to attack Liverpool when we start the war, too, and we don't have any units up there. So, I will do what I can on my turn (considering the anarchy) to get us into position to attack on Charis' turn. Time is of the essence, but I don't expect their defenses to be so much improved between now and then that we have to move right away.

I see there are some horses to the north at the "chokepoint". But, there's a stack of Mongol archers by Ereen, and it's undefended. Actually, we have a lot of undefended cities out west, still, and with settle-able land filling up, that could be a problem very soon. The Mongol SOD in our lands is more important than a potential Mongol SOD that isn't here, so the NE choke is abandoned to send the horses south. They can guard nearby cities for now, and move on towards Liverpool in a bit.

In anarchy and republic, there's no MP, so we don't need two defenders in our core cities. I move units out of our core and send them to the wild, wild northeast. There's a barb camp just to the south of us, with an undefended city nearby, so I dispatch two warriors down that way. I accidentally send all of Cuzco's units out, but that's not really a big deal because there's nothing nearby at the moment. I expect it to be able to build a defender if we ever need one, as long as we don't forget to do this at some point.

I also set Testserlog to a starvation diet. It had been building a settler, so I guess the plan was to lower pop that way, but in anarchy that's not working so well.

Not bad for a turn zero in anarchy, eh? I then very carefully go through and MM everything, look at the terrible deficit I accidentally made, and scramble to put it back the way it was. :lol: I happily note that nothing is going to starve down a point, except Testserlog, while we're still in anarchy.

BT- Iroquois start Copernicus. The Mongol archer stack moves SW.

(1) 260 AD - We have an empty army, and nothing good to put into it. Even for this next war, I hate to make a horse army in the middle ages. I send it corewards, I guess. At least it will do us more good than a FP in the long term, probably! Our 44 gpt deal has ended. I MM cities for more food, taking us down to +28 gpt. Several civs lack theology, but we can't afford it ourselves.

BT - Greeks complete the Great Library, start Leo's.

(2) 270 AD - Found Tambo Colorado between Tsetserlog and Tamboccocha. There's a settler by Anda, which is patiently waiting to resettle Brighton when it's auto-razed. But, it's unguarded, and I don't know that I want to worry about it as I march my low-defense units in. There's a lot of roving AI and barbs down here, so for now I think I should retreat it to a guarded city. It would have been very helpful if I'd have taken the chance to go to war at the start of my turn, of course.

BT - The Maya, English, and Mongols start Leo's, presumably as a library cascade. The Iroquois start Copernicus. I really still do want to :hammer: the Iroquois just for being purple, and now for being so far ahead too.

(3) 280 AD - A warrior arrives in Atico. Atico's horse heads SE. The Mongol stack has moved south, and are now next to another undefended town. I move Tambocc's spear over, because he can make it in one turn and at least prevent sneak attack. I certainly wouldn't trust them to hold to 20 turns! Our galley finds the Iroquois mainland. Liz doesn't seem to mind that we're sailing her waters.

BT - Spoke too soon. Liz asks us to move, and the only option is to auto move. I guess she asked about that before? It auto-moves the galley all the way back to our west coast. That's some transport for the middle ages!

The Mongol stack is still next to the city, but have moved south. They sent a settler pair through the blockade, but I'm still glad they haven't had a chance to take a city.

(4) 290 AD - Spear arrives in Arequipa. Warrior arrives Huanuco. Arequipa's horse moves on. Hua was undefended and near barbs, but I think the AI are taking care of most of those. The rest are staying in their camp. Our galley will head north, looking for the last civ east of Mongolia, I guess.

BT- Tsetserleg starves to 1. Brighton's borders expand, so we no longer will auto-raze it.

(5) 300 AD - One of our newly-released horses follows the archer stack to keep an eye on it. The rest will go to Liverpool.

BT - Select Republic. [party]

(6) 310 AD - The horses will gather on the hill by Liverpool's iron. We note that it is not hooked up, and no workers are in sight. We kill a bar with a warrior I'd sent south. If we can bust the camp, that would be most helpful.

We need 20% lux. There's not really any luxuries to import, except from the Iro! :eek: I look, and they can trade maps and communications. They also know the Indians. They want too much gold for their lux at the moment, though. We have enough that we could two-fer Theology with the Byzantines (the only civ left that still lacks it, besides us). But, the Byzantines don't have cash, so aren't likely to buy from the AI, and we should wait as long as possible to lower the gpt payments.

MM all the cities now that we're out of anarchy, finally.

Rush a spear in Nasca, Anda, and Testse for about 90 gold total. I realize that's counter productive when we're saving for a tech, but we need to cover these cities, and I only did this in cities that were hopelessly corrupt and had some shields in the box.

I keep the core on horsemen. I don't think we have time to march swords over to England's cities.

Some moderately corrupt cities go from temple to courthouse, if border expansion isn't a big deal. It's a tradeoff, though, because happiness is an issue in republic with so few lux. Feel free to swap back. Rio Bamba to worker. Arequipa, Caxa to rax.

In all the end-of-anarchy excitement, I let an Iro settler pair plast the NW choke. Sorry.

BT - Stuff gets built! Hua horse - spear. Vitcos rax - horse. Anda, Nasca, and Tsetse spear - temple. Iroquois start Magellan's.

(7) 320 AD - If the Iroquois know India, and have navigation anyway, there's not much point in sending our only galley out for a suicide mission. He turns around, though I'm not sure where he'll be the most useful. We kill another barb horse, still one left in the camp.

BT - Cuzco - horse - horse. Tiwa horse - horse. Mongols start Sistine.

(8) 330 AD - Kill another barb horse, but there's perpetually one left, and we never promote to vet. We haven't been attacked or lost any hitpoints, though, either.

There's a lot of settlers milling around, and Liverpool has grown too. I decide that if we don't fill the gap between the Tambos and Liverpool, someone else will. I wake the settler in Olly. Hopefully it's not too late!

The English have settled another city east of Liverpool, Dover. We can now "take three", on our own continent! [dance]

BT - Iroquois complete Leo's, aargh. Maya, Mongols start Sistine.

(9) 340 AD - Iro settle another city in the SE, and pop that barb camp I've been bashing this whole round. The warrior heads north, kinda going towards Brighton.

BT - Cuzco horse - horse. Machu horse - market. It will need a specialist next turn, oops. Our palace gets a lawn and some steps. The Maya start Sistine (again?).

(10) 350 BC - We hear the sound of horses galloping east. There's now three by Liverpool, and a few more on the way. At Brighton, there's one horse and four archers, with one horse on the way.

I'm thinking we're in good shape to declare on England soonish, and I know Charis has been itching for action for a while now. Another option would be to take it to the Iroquois, who now have two cities on our lands. I still think England is best because right now, we'd get the same pointy-stick techs from whomever we fight. But, if we can fight someone else, and trade if possible, a later war with the Iro might allow us to get some tech from them that still has broker value.

The Iroquois are going to need to be dealt with, sooner or later.

Speaking of brokering, the Byzantines still lack theology, and are still broke. We'd still have to pay a bit under 40 gpt for it at the moment.

Here's a picture of our east lands, since it's changed a bit lately.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1350ad.jpg

The settler is tentatively headed for yellow dot, but may need some protection if we go to war. We may want that settler (or another) for resettling Dover, depending on how long it takes us to get there.

RBC1-350AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-350ad.zip)

Roster:
Griselda - just played
Charis - UP NOW
Jester - on deck
Kylearan
Sullla - skipped
Skyfish -

Heh, looking at my screenshot it's clear that Dover's been there for quite some time. I must have never noticed it before. :P

-Griselda

I'm thinking we're in good shape to declare on England soonish, and I know Charis has been itching for action for a while now. Another option would be to take it to the Iroquois, who now have two cities on our lands. I still think England is best because right now, we'd get the same pointy-stick techs from whomever we fight
No, we definitely need to hit the English because of the Spices that are in Brighton !

What an opportunity!! Multi-colored dots in 'our' territory! With some continued push in military this will mean at least 2-4 techs for free, via the stick-most-pointed! Bring it on with either civ, then take on the other after we extra a tech.

> So, I will do what I can on my turn (considering the anarchy)
> to get us into position to attack on Charis' turn
Ah, looks like I'm up?!? :eek: for them :hammer:
I knew there was a reason I like Gris :love:

Actually though, it's distinctly possible that it might take the whole turn to generate enough troops to do the war, we'll see. "Got it."

Charis

--- EDIT - I took quite a while to look over the following...

Let's look more closely at corruption, since with no chance for a FP boost knowing
which cities are going to be useful is key. Our capital Cuzco is great, with 16spt.

Here's the map for a better look:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Inca-CorruptionMap.jpg

A-Inner core: Macchu, Tiwanaku, 10-25% corruption pre-crthouse
B-Middle core: Ica, Vilcas, Vitcos, Cori, Huamanga, Chuito 25-38%.
C-Outer core: Atico, Vilcabamba, Juli, Olla, Sausa, 40-60%
D-Still useful: Ereen, Huaras, Huauco
E-Majorly corrupt without help: Tambo, Caxamalca, Riobamba, Arequipa
F-Utterly corrupt: Tsetserleg, Chuquiapo, Nasca, Anda, foreign cities

Our A class cities will not need a courthouse until they have nothing else to build
and we're at peace. Until then, these are our main mil producers. (Tiwa needs a duct)
B- Most of these are already working on courthouses, excellent. Vilcas isn't just
because it's efficiently putting out 5spt for now, and we could use another rax.
C- Every one here is working on or has a CTH, nicely done folks! Sausa is the only
exception, and we swap it to CTH too.
D- In the same boat, Ereen will start a CTH next after its worker.
E- Here is where the build orders get a bit scrambled. These cities are not ultra-corrupt,
so they can be helped, but are stuck at 1s/1c until they get one. Alas, these non-
producers are working on rax and temples, both of which cost maintainance. If we
solve the commerce corruption problem, the happiness issue will be helped more than
what a temple would do. Their time for temples was back when we could whip them. Too
late now. A few are swapped to CTH unless we need the temple for a border expansion.

If we can turn all these cities into producers we'll be in great shape. We just don't
have any production power for military right now, or even in the near future. Any
fighting will be done with truly lightweight forces I'm afraid. We have 5 cities with
rax, and each one is on a horse (or spear), 'cept Macchu finishing its mktplace.

Charis

Rumors are that the current state of the economy is far too strong! The people
cry out for massive, crippling debt! Who will hear their cry?!?
Pacharis "Ca-Ching!" Inca rises to the occasion! :hammer:

Status? We've just finished a mildly productive if not altogether satisfying
Mongol war, and are gearing up to fight limited wars with both England and at some
point Iroquois. But first, our military needs some attention, and a few more sites
need to be settled. Speaking of sites, a yellow dot has been suggested, and though I
prefer one spot South, on the river, Liverpool is too close. (BTW, looking at
Riobamba's site... yikes!! We founded on a BG tile that left room for the Herakleia
border to kick us off the chokespot, ouch. Well, the BG wasn't visible at the time,
though the spot one tile east looks better) We put a scientist on
Printing Press, since there's no rush for that.

Builds? Most things look fine. Ica is stuck at size 6 and corruption isn't wicked there,
so I swap courthouse to aqueduct there. (OTOH, great choice for a courthouse in Atico)
One minor problem is our unemployment rate is kinda obscene. No one around here
likes to work?! At 20% lux our income is +67gpt. What about 30%? Down to 48gpt and
the shields gained add almost nothing. 10%? Income stays essentially the same at
+71gpt, only slowing down the growth rate in unhappy cities. This is a consequence
of our high corruption and lack of marketplaces, both medium-term problems.

We're actually doing quite nicely on score and power, though culture is in the dumps.
The entire world is in Republic, and our army is weak every any nation except Byz.
Iro have communications with the Indians, which they will cough up when we aim
our pointy sticks at their rears. Tech? We're down Lit, Monarchy and Feud. Also
Theology to every civ but Byzantium??! Omg, Ca-Ching can't believe this two-fer is
going to go to waste. With the master spender in office, this will not stand!!
The Mayans are in next to last place and with a good price, are natural partners.
We trade 205g+40gpt for Theology, and then for Feudalism we trade to Theodora
Theo+86g+21gpt. Greece, England, Iro have Invention and Edu, Mongols and Mayans just
Invention, and Byz neither. Hmmm, who has Chivalry (translation: who can put a major
hurting on us if they DO land a force?) Uh, *everyone*. At least we have most of the
iron on our continent! Er... we see a Musket in Choybalsan, yikes!! The more I look
at this, the more I think that we can kick 'interior' cities off our continent at
ANY point in the game, but what we need most now is not more ultra-corrupt cities (which
is, alas, all they would EVER be), but a far stronger core. It seems like an era of
building is underway, and the pointy stick goes in the closet.

[0] 350 - Press return.
[1] 360 - Gosh, as soon as the pointy stick goes away, I just now see that nice stack sitting
outside of Brighton. Liverpool is down to size 1 from 3? Ah... a settler.
We send a few more horse down, and tell our army it's almost time to wake up.
Just the very act of picking up the pointy stick to put in the closet was too much too
handle!? Warmonger fever comes over Ca-Ching??! Can he control it? :hammer:

IBT - Grand River of Iro finishes Copernicus. 8-\

[2] 370 - I put one horse in the army, intending two cavs or a knight/cav later.
Vitcos starts our first harbor.

[3] 380 - Chuito's cth is done, now corruption only 20% and it's a 5spt city.
Huaca Huaca is founded on yellow dot in a gap. Hmmm... any reason not to break
out the Pointy stick vs England this turn?? Yes, next turn sees two more units
get into position, so we'll hold off one more.

[4] 390 - Vilca's cth is done, and it's now 7spt. We declare war on England. :slay:
Horses hit Liverpool, but two retreat and only one wins. A hurt elite spear is left.
We move up on Brighton, and see a spear-settler pair coming back toward it.

[5] 400 - Cori finishes its cth and can hit 9spt.
The assault starts on Brighton. Elite archer wins, vet horse wins, vs reg spears.
Next we lose a reg archer (ew, who builds such a thing?! :P ) then a vet archer
wins and promotes, and the city is ours. Our lil army gets its win out in the open,
allowing for an eventual Heroic Epic. Liverpool holds as we retreat, gah!

[6] 410 - Just healin'. Our rather poor luck at Liverpool will likely cost us Dover.
IBT - Chicken Itza completes Sistine. 8-\
[7] 420 - More healin', next turn we hit.
[8] 430 - We hit. That pesky elite spear dies, then his longbow buddy falls and the
city is ours. :P IBT The Mayans start Bach.
[9] 440 - More movin' (our territory sure is large) May as well sell our TM's to those
who can buy. IBT A longbow steps OUTSIDE of Dover into the open :lol:
More start Bach's, and Iro start Shakespeare.
[10] 450 - Cuzco hits size 12 and 20spt, and starts on MDI's.
We kill a spear at Dover but one left. Shoot, not in range. Sorry for going one
over, but I can finish this war in a turn.
[11] 460 - To make tech tribute more likely, I buy contact with Indians from the
Mayans for 49g. Then trade Monotheism for Lit. Poor Gandhi is so far behind I
let him have Engineering for free, and he turns quite polite. No more nice guy though,
heading back to Dover. Retreat, retreat, lose... oh no... win, and... oh no??!!
win, phew! The city of two spears falls. We also catch a galley in port.
The one-horse army is in city resting. Add no more horses, but 0-1 knights plus 0-1 cav.
With about 3 galleys off shore and no more cities blighting 'our' land, it's time
for peace. What can the pointy stick bring us? Not quite a full good tech,
just Printing Press I'm afraid. But they'll discount Education to 21gpt, and we'll
take it. New tech situation: the pace is a blitz! Almost all have both Banking and
Astronomy, except Mongols with just Banking, and Byzantines who lack both but have
Invention -- keep an eye out for a trade opportunity there. There's just no way to
do anything now, all is WAY too expensive. Or is it????? Ca-Ching's wheels start spinning.
Do we need iron right now? Not really. Does Greece? You bet. We sell our ONLY iron
to Greece with 27gpt for Astronomy. (Crank out a few spears in the next 20, eh?)
Then talk to Mongols about Banking. (Note that Iro had one extra iron, so we're not
giving up something catastrophic to Greece.) Gosh, he's tight with Banking, it
costs us Astro+16gpt+62g+RoP to get it. To Byzantines go these two for Invention
and Chivalry. (All but Byzantines and India have Gunpowder).

Er... time to check the econ situation, after another (in)famous Ca-Ching special!!
13g in the bank, and -26gpt. :spank: Eep! He flees to the hills! (Where he rearranges its tiles)

Actually, a spice from Brighton will come online next turn, so I'm going to extend the need
to be spanked further - let me hit return then balance the books. We're at 13g-13gpt right now.
[12A] 470 - Finally the police come and kick Ca-Ching out of the palace!!! The cries of the
unemployed workers reaches the courts. Before he leaves he manages to sell off some world maps
to civs who just now got Navigation, and leaves with the economy at 44g+4gpt!??!? :jump:

Next Leader notes -
- Overall we got 3 cities this turn and 7 techs, on a shoestring budget (about 2433g total,
or about 17gpt per tech, when the direct cost for any one tech was over 50gpt on average)
- I've reset a partial blockade vs the ridiculous Mongol hordes. When the worker
is done irrigating, just fortify him, don't let it loose again.
- The next leader can decide if he wants to help Iro's push even further ahead and
sell our one newly excess spice to them for around 180g+1gpt.
- Nothing else is moved this round, just MM and diplo.
- I hope you can keep as many courthouses going in the queue as possible. I've started to chop
quite a few forests to accelerate these and the distant temples. After those two key items,
marketplaces/banks are likely next up for a focus.
See my last post, above, for more info on corruption.
- Sorry in advance for cutting down your options next turn (low cash, no iron, RoP and a 20turn
deal with Mongols) But with our military so low and with muskets in the Iro towns, its hard
to see going after anyone else in the next 20.

Charis - Spent!! (Overspent!)
Jester - UP! (Again, sorry, take your full 10 turns)
Kylearan - on deck
Sullla - in the dugout
Skyfish - in the hole

RBC1-Incans-470AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Inca-470AD.zip)

:hammer:

Good luck to our next leaders
Charis

Charis,

Well done! :hammer: . I knew we weren't geared up for a "real" war, but I did try to set you up for a mini one. The English don't seem to properly value the danger of our pointy stick, though.

As far as the two-fer, I wasn't letting it go to waste, just waiting while the Byzantines were broke so that we'd pay less in gpt. I don't think that the gpt bug has been discussed in this thread, but apparently the paying civ pays the correct price, but the receiving civ receives double that amount. I think that's why the Iroquois have such a huge bankroll.

I was wondering about the best tech "policy" to handle this bug. I've been basically playing to limit the gpt bug, similar to having a ruined rep but trying not to pass on some opportunities (barbs about to pillage, two-fer with civ about to buy tech from others). I keep thinking that we can build up a bankroll and basically play as if our rep was bad, but of course without markets this isn't easy.

On the other hand, you've been having great with major trades during your turn. Your Charispender policies have allowed us to remain in the game techwise, and much closer to the leaders than we would be otherwise (and then some!).

I suppose the gpt bug could be discounted to a degree, because I don't know that the AI would make good use of the money.

What I'm wondering is if we should have a "gpt strategy" for the time being that we all agree on, so that we're all on the same page when looking for trades. I guess I'm asking the whole team for feedback at this point.

Should we-

1. Avoid gpt deals at all costs
2. Avoid gpt deals but grab great opportunities
3. Some middle ground
4. Trade as usual, but limit incoming gpt deals
5. Trade as usual, and not worry about AI gold

Thoughts?

-Griselda

Charis, great turn as usual! Regarding the odd location of Riobamba, that was my doing. As I had reported, one of our settlers moved up there and found an Iro pike/settler pair. The Iros decided to move one tile instead of settling immediately, so I figured it would be better to found a city on our own in an awkward location than let the Iros settle there next turn.

Concerning the gpt bug, I'd vote for a middle ground solution: Try to limit gpt deals, but if 2-fers or other good opportunities are available, let the AI have the extra cash. Passing up good trade opportunities just to avoid the bug would of course be doable, but I think the challenge of staying behind longer tech-wise is higher than the challenge the extra money for the AIs will pose.

-Kylearan

Kylearan, tnx for the reminder about the Iro wanting to settle. Given the option of city where it is, or no city, good call.

As far as the gpt bug, it's certainly not something to avoid 'at all costs' as it benefits the AI, and afaik goes both ways. So far I've handling this mostly as: ignore the bug but if I have cash on hand and have a choice, I'll pay them in cash. When you are (way) behind the AI in tech however, I'm convinced that trying to save up and pay in cash will just put you in the hole further. We've been 'just' on the trailing edge of tech such that we typically see one civ missing one tech and another missing two, this has been the source of my multiple 3-fers. If you save up and let them buy those techs, you have no brokering opportunity, which means you pay full cash price for every individual tech. And who do you pay? Not the top dog, but your closest behind-civ. What do they then do? Buy another tech from top-dog and pull themselves once again out of broker range.

Taking the approach we've taken, we have paid 1/3 the total gold for the techs we have and given the AI about 1.5 times as much gold (1.5 not 2.0 because the trading means that one tech is double cost but you use a tech not gpt to secure a second tech)
The benefit ratio to us is still 2:1 in our favor -- without the gpt bug it would be 3:1 but still, it's a good thing. The other factor is that the AI really isn't that great at using its excess cash on-hand. It will be able to upgrade more units if rax/harbors in place, but not much else.

We're accelerating the tech pace though; let's think how bad that is. Our highest gpt payment is for that first tech in a brokering deal, and so a top researcher ends up with more cash. But they won't burn negative gpt and spend-down that cash supply, so there is no tech rate increase there. The civs close to us get a tech + small gpt for another tech, and that gpt gets doubled. But that's a fraction of the cost of the tech alone, so the increase in rate tech there isn't too big.

Option 4 I don't like, which is letting the AI benefit from incoming gpt but not us -- and besides these AI never seem to have excess gpt on hand, just excess gold.

So I'm advocating a continuation of what we've been doing - option 3 very close to 5 -- don't worry about AI cash and take good deals when we get them, but preferring to spend cash IF we have it on hand. Also, do **not** jeopardize rep to save a few pennies to avoid the bug. If a lux swap included a payment of 3gpt, don't even think of making it a dangerous hard-for-soft deal by changing that to 60gold.

Did you expect any other response from "Ca-Ching!??!" :lol:

Charis

The AI may not be great at using excess cash on hand, but it will do so, at some point. In my current solo deity game, Greece blew through over 20K gold in just a few turns.

Not-so-coincidentally, my production on Hoover Dam was sabotaged twice, four cities were hit by propoganda (some more than once), my spy in Athens was exposed, and I once caught a Greek spy. One can argue about the merits of this particular approach, but I lost over 20 turns on Hoover because of their meddling. It's not completely innocent gold in their hands.

Still, gpt trading is such an integral part of the game, on so many levels, as Charis points out, it's hard to outright ban it or to even limit it. What I've done in personal games is not let myself "sell" any gold for gpt -- no iron + 6 gold for 11 gpt deals (even though I've often done things like that in the past). Now I make myself just do iron for 10 gpt (for example). That's all I've done.

I'm not part of this game (nor really the discussion), but I thought I'd add my $.02 anyway.

Arathorn

Got it.

Don't worry about handing me crapped out, debt riddled situations, Charis. It's what I do best, and save me many hours in trading. :cool:

Jester

Turn 1) I haven’t got the foggiest where most of these military units should go. So I’m going to make sure every city’s got at least one unit, then position the rest near possible targets, probably mostly at the north borders. If we want to go pointy stick on someone and take useful cities, that’s going to mean either the Greeks or the Mongols. (Later note: I mostly just parked them near that menacing stack of archers the Mongols have in our territory.)

I put Huanuco Pamba on courthouse

Turn 2) Olantaytambo finishes courthouse. No longer quite worthless, it starts an aqueduct. Cori finishes aqueduct, starts colosseum.

English start Magellan’s.

Turn 3) Iros start Smith’s, Mongols start Bach’s.

Turn 4) Nothing

Turn 5) Mayans and English start Smith’s, Greeks start Bach’s. Huamanga starts on an aqueduct

Turn 6) Tiwanaku finishes aqueduct, starts on colosseum. Chuito finishes temple, starts aqueduct

Turn 7) Macchu finishes marketplace, starts colosseum. Vitcos finishes aqueduct, starts colosseum

We’re rich! How are we rich? I don’t get it! Oh, well. Time to put cities back on their growth curve, and save up a little bit of emergency cash.

Turn 8) Nothing

Turn 9) Now we’re really rich. Unlike some rulers, I just sit on our newfound surplus, and add to a treasury I know will be horribly, horribly plundered by some future wastrel ruler getting us unneeded “tech” for some ill-conceived notion of “winning”. Sheesh.

Turn 10) Cuzco finishes bank, starts on cathedral. Ica finishes temple, starts courthouse. Atico finishes courthouse, starts aqueduct.

Tsetserleg apparently got left out of the happiness loop when I was fiddling with tax collectors and whatnot last turn, and revolts. We lose… 1 trade and 1 shield?

Iroquois finish Magellan’s.


Okay, even for me that was a maintenance turn. We're richer, slightly more populous, and slightly farther behind in tech than when I took over. Maybe we could trade some of our 2 turn old largesse for some more tech? I'd be happy just to sit back and develop our infrastructure for awhile, but maybe someone later's going to be more ambitious.

Jester

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-560AD.zip)

Here's the game, sorry it wasn't working before.

Jester

(Ouch I just wiped out my whole message 8-* let's try again)

Good job Jester, a quiet but solid turn. I took a quick look at the file just to see what it looked like to have a positive economy. One thing I noticed- we still have an unemployed citizen in nearly every city. We can bump lux to 10% but keep nearly the same income, +82gpt vs +87gpt and get quite a few more shields, both in core cities and in a few less productive ones trying to finish up their courthouse, so this would be a good move. Or, we can buy spices from Mayans for about 12gpt, less than the 20gpt the lux slider costs.

Our score and power continue to do well, and the by-far major threat is Iroquois (don't sell them our lux, for example). There are no real tech trades in sight. We can't even see if we have a two-fer coming up since we lack Gunpowder -- all the other techs the AI have are a slew of optionals. So building seems the right course for now (unless someone is foolish enough to demand tribute, as there is no one on the planet I would cave to at this point)

BTW the nice thing about that Mongol mini-stack in/near our lands is that it's all 1-2 defense units, and not high attack either. They would be chewed up in short order if war broke out - so it's good to leave our excess units near them as you did. (I'm pretty sure there are more holding out in Baruum-Urt, btw, which would be a major objective in the next war, to take back those horses)

One more thought, I think for the last turn of next leader. We have ten turns left on our peace treaty with England. On the turn where it's at zero *before* the IBT where they offer to extend it for free, it would be an option to demand some payment for another 20 turns of peace, or a discount on a tech. If our next leader were bold, he could actually go to the Peace treaty under active deals with Mongols and then work out a discount for Gunpowder. I'm guessing here, but I think given their low power vs ours, the discount we be at least 10gpt, perhaps more. Mayans are also low 'power' and you could almost surely get a 10gpt discount (maybe 5, maybe 15, I'm only guessing). Some think that's being too dastardly on weak AI, but I don't hold that view on a civ that has 5-6 techs more than I do. It keeps you from taking other action against such a civ for 20 turns, and it has implications for attitude and diplomacy later, so it's not something you do lightly. If we get in a spot where we *need* to buy a tech to open up a good opportunity but end up about 10gpt short, it's another something to consider. England was a good choice in that they are very low in power, we have no beef with them having kicked them off and so lose nothing by inability to declare war on them for 20 turns. If we wanted 20 turns of peaceful building and wanted to encourage Mongols to behave they would be a good choice too -- beside they're already furious with us. If instead we think we might 'cleanse' our interior once more while the yellow horde is still kinda weak, tying our hands for 20 turns would be bad. Anyway, with no good opportunities for tech wheelin' and dealin' and with no good way to wreck our economy, that's what types of things Ca-Ching thinks about :p

Hmmm.... if the beta patch comes soon we can actually think about a FP?! Tambo Colorado looks like a good area - and if later we ended up taking over the whole continent, a palace jump to Almarikh would make a nice double core with Tambo. Otherwise Cuzco-Karakorum is a nice pair.

Kylearan - UP
Sullla - on deck (waves? hello?)
Skyfish - in the hole

Charis

Got it. In fact, playing right now. I had intended to have posted my results already, expecting some quiet builder's turns. Well, nope, didn't happen. :eek:

Gris, purple isn't our favourite colour, is it...? :mad: :rocket:

-Kylearan

Hopefully, some quiet builder's turns are lying before me - let's see what our current situation is. We have a lot of land, but several cities that are rightfully ours are controlled by our opponents at the moment. We shall allow them to improve these lands for us before we take them over. :p Our economy stinks, as does our defense situation. We have several undefended cities, and several are only garrisoned with regular warriors. Still, we need not fear war, as our production power is now good enough to respond fast enough to any threat.

Our main rival is Hiawatha, as he is ahead in every aspect: Land size, population, culture, score...and probably technology as well. But as our lands get improved further, our cities grow and new improvements get built, we will soon be ahead of him, I'm sure of that. And if the patch arrives soon, a well-placed FP will make us dominate this game completely!

Unfortunately, the tech tree is very narrow for us at the moment as we lack gunpowder and maybe chemistry as well, and so we cannot look out for any trade opportunities. Getting gunpowder/chemistry would be great, so threatening England or even Mongolia for a discount would be a nice way to catch up.

On the other hand, some turns with a healthy economy (what a concept!) would be great to rush some crucial things: Courthouses, aqueducts and marketplaces would help our abilities to broker for tech tremendously in the long run, and I also like to have some embassies (we only have one in Mongolia). So while I won't be afraid of Mongolia, I decide not to threaten them but instead use our cash to rush key improvements and decide later whether to threaten England or not. I hope Charis will not be too annoyed about my rather peaceful approach here. ;)

The only two civs that would sell a luxury to us are the Iros and the Mayans, but both want more than 20gpt for the deal (23gpt in case of the Mayans), so I instead decide to raise the lux slider to 10% and rearrange tiles. This speeds up the ETAs on several of our projects.

I swap Huamanga from aqueduct to marketplace, as it has happiness problems and cannot grow anyway, and Ica is swapped from courthouse to marketplace. The rest is fine.

I notice that Riobamba is in danger of flipping away: The Greeks have four times our culture and have control of some of its tiles, and it is only defended by one spearmen. As I see no real point in maintaining the blockade there, I decide to move some units into Riobamba for flip protection and will rush the temple there next turn. Regarding the blockade, if Mongolia or Greece wanted to sneak attack us, I'd rather see their troops marching into our territory as a warning than a surprise landing via boat. I leave the northern blockade intact, though.


570 AD (1): I rush the temple in Riobamba and move a lot of workers. An Iroquois longbow has left Goigouen last turn and is now in our territory - I wake up some horsemen to shadow him.

(I): Quiet, peaceful builder's turns, huh? Saving our economy to rush things, eh?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1_irowar.jpg

Should've known that with Gris and myself on the team and the Iros against us, they would try to take revenge for Epic 36. Oh well, and least they don't have 1000+ modern units yet. They take out the spearman at Brighton, capture three of our workers with a pike and sink our galley (which I hadn't seen last turn: It was fortified).

580 AD (2): This unwanted war could be a dicey one. The best case would be that we capture one or all of the Iro cities on our continent and then make peace for a tech discount. But with our laughable defense situation, the worst case would be that we lose one or more cities to Iroquois landing commandos, and that they sign in Greece and/or Mongolia into the war. Let's hope for the best.

Our horseman at Brighton leaves the city to cross the river, then attacks and kills the longbow. Unfortunately, we ship our only iron to Greece for another nine turns and our second source isn't hooked up yet, so we only have a handful up-to-date units, most of them at out northern blockade. I wake them up and send them south. So I guess gunpowder would be nice to know after all, as would be keeping Mongolia out of the war. Fortune favours the bold, right? So I dial up Khan and renegotiate peace, and indeed get a 12gpt discount on gunpowder. And guess what? With all the desert we have in our lands, there's no saltpeter anywhere! :aargh: Nobody knows chemistry yet.

I fear for our western core cities, as they are all defended only by warriors and very vulnerable against landing commandos, but I cannot do much against that except exposing some of our inland cities, which I do. I also decide to move most of our forces out of Huaca Huaca, where the Mongolian mini-SoD is: If the Mongols decide to attack now, they probably will take the city but would give up 59gpt and their rep by doing this, and we need the horsemen down in the south now! The Iro pike is two tiles away from Huanuco Pampa, which is only "defended" by a trebuchet, but one horseman and one warrior can reach it next turn.

War happiness helps production a bit.

(I) The Iros sign an alliance with the English! So much for the idea of renegotiating peace with them. Then the Byzantines get bought in, too. And then, even worse, the English buy Greece into the war against us! :eek:

590 AD (3): Well, the only good thing about the war with Greece is that we now have iron again and a lot more income (121gpt). I sell our excess spice to the Mayans for 100 gold and 2gpt - we need the money for upgrades, and hopefully the spices will stop them to enter the war against us too. Ouch, under the new rules, upgrading a horse to knight costs 120 gold! That means one knight per turn for us via upgrade.

I change some cities to knights and pikes. Our trebuchet wounds the pikeman, and I expose Caxamalca to get two warriors into Huanuco Pampa to defend against the pike. Unfortunately, our eastern lands have no city with barracks, but Andahuaylas' temple project is exactly one shield away from finishing a potential barracks, so I change production there. Several horsemen and our army arrive in that city this turn, perfect.

I hate to say this, but while I think we can manage the current situation I think we're in major trouble if Mongolia enters the war against us, too. So I dial up Khan and pay him 26gpt for an alliance against Greece, hopefully keeping both busy until we have dealt with the Iros. That locks us into war with Greece for 20 turns which is a major PITA, but I felt that was a necessary precaution. And besides, when/if we have captured the Iro cities and have secured our coastal cities, we may be in the position to attack Greece anyway. Other AIs can still buy the Mongols, but then at least they're busy fighting Greece practically for free.

(I) The Iro pike turns around and heads for empty Caxamalca, where a pike of our own will arrive next turn. A Greek horseman and an Iro longbow appear near Huanuco Pampa/Cacamalce, and an English caravel is spotted heading for our southern coast. Our palace gets expanded - somehow that only seems to happen at my turns. :lol:

600 AD (4): I move our two elite horsemen to the Caxamalce/Huanuco Pampa hotspot to strike next turn, and upgrade another horseman to knight to load him into the army. Our valuable iron city is now protected by a pike.

(I) The Greek horseman kills a warrior in Huanuco Pampa, and the Iro pike pillages a tile. Our palace gets expanded again, and the Iros complete Shakespear's.

610 AD (5): Okay, I confess: I haven't told you what unit I had ordered up immediately after the Iro's sneak attack: Our most powerful unit at the moment the... chasqui scout! :hammer: It arrives this turn at the southern hotspot, and after our trebuchet has redlined the Iro pike, the scout attacks. GOLDEN AGE! (And that with a regulat chasqui: I had somehow overlooked that the city I produced him in had no barracks... :P) I rearrange cities for GA production; our capital now makes over 30 spt. Our two elite horsemen kill the Greek horseman and an Iro longbow.

(I) The English caravel continues to sail along our southern coast, and a Byzantine Dromon and Caravel appear.

620 AD (6): Our army advances on Goicouen, killing a regular longbow on the way who put up a valiant fight, taking three hitpoints off the army.

(I) The Iros buy the Indians into the fight against us. The AI ships continue to sail along our southern coast, apparently heading to our weakly defended core.

630 AD (7): Our army uses its blitz ability and kills two spearmen and a longbow in Goigouen, taking the city. :hammer: The English are now willing to talk peace and would give us a discount on chemistry, but we're not finished yet!

(I) Heh, all AI ships turn around, probably because our coastal cities on the western coast are now protected by pikes and a fast response knight. :) A redlined Greek ancient cavalry appears at our northern border.

640 AD (8): I start the Heroic Epic in Cuzco, done in seven turns. With enough cash now in the bank, I rush courthouses in Huanuco Pampa and Cazamalca.

(I) Three Byzantine Dromon appear, heading for our east coast.

650AD (9): Our healed army leaves Goigouen and kills a hoplite in Halicarnassus. Two knights that had arrived there on the previous turn kill the second hoplite and a longbow and take the city, capturing two more slaves.

(I) The Greeks and the English both sue for peace, but I happily decline.

660AD (10): Some troop shuffling and healing.


Although being at war with nearly the whole planet, I have tried to use the GA mainly to get some infrastructure done. I have produced some pikes and two knights, and together with upgrades of our existing units, this is enough to capture all cities on our southern border. The next leader should be able to capture Kawauka easily in two turns; there are some knigts and the army down there.

I have left several units at our northern border to Mongolia in case someone buys them into the war against us, and some knights as fast respone units as coastal guards. The Greek border was quiet so far; this turn, a longbow has appeard in the jungle.

England and Greece are willing to pay for peace, but England is no threat and we have an alliance against Greece, so I haven't made peace yet. After capturing Kawauke, we should leave one or two knights down there for protection, but the rest of the units could easily advance into Greece in the north.

The Iros are talking now, too, but actually want us to pay for peace! Let's see what they say after the capture of Kawauke, though. The rest of the other civs won't talk to us, and the Mayans and Mongolia are our only friend left.

Our defense situation still isn't glorious, though: There are two pikeman who protect three cities each, and our eastern cities are either empty or protected by regular warriors...but it should all be safe now more or less, not so hairy like it had been at the beginning of the war.

I have connected our second iron now for possible trading; bear that in mind when negotiating for peace.

Evil Iroquois! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-660AD.zip)


Roster:

Kylearan - just played
Sulla - MIA, hope all is well!
Skyfish - UP NOW
Griselda - on deck
Charis
Jester


-Kylearan

Here's a shot of our lands, soon to be cleared of the Iro blight:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1_660ad.jpg

Wow, you were deal lemons for sure and made lemonade!! With that mini-dogpile you did far better than expected on first reading :goodjob:

> Hopefully, some quiet builder's turns are lying before me...
:lol:

> Our economy stinks, as does our defense situation.
Ha!! You should switch turns with Jester and see what it really means to stink :p

> Getting gunpowder/chemistry would be great, so threatening
> England or even Mongolia for a discount would be a nice way to
> catch up. ... otoh... would be great to rush some crucial things
> so I decide not to threaten them but instead use our cash to
> rush key improvements and decide later whether to threaten
> England or not. I hope Charis will not be too annoyed about my
> rather peaceful approach here.
Oh, no problem at all, it was just pointing out something advantageous that would be non-obvious to many players.

> The Iros sign an alliance with the English! So much for the idea
> of renegotiating peace with them
Ha!! This makes me chuckle for some reason :P

> An Iroquois longbow has left Goigouen last turn and is now in
> our territory - I wake up some horsemen to shadow him.
Cue the theme from Jaws!

> Should've known that with Gris and myself on the team and the
> Iros against us, they would try to take revenge for Epic 36.
:eek: Well, war with them was expected. I wondered why it was a sneak attack instead of a tribute demand, until I read this:

> They take out the spearman at Brighton, capture three of our
> workers with a pike and sink our galley
Ah! I don't know about other players or what the statistics are, but in many many games of mine waving unprotected workers on the border within one step of capturing is like holding up a red flag to the AI bull

:help:

Kylearan, your response to the war was excellent! Rushing the needed units into place, bring on the GA (brilliant!!), and using some of that cash to not ignore infrastructure - even taking the time to build the Epic mid-dogpile.

> So I guess gunpowder would be nice to know after all, as
> would be keeping Mongolia out of the war. Fortune favours the
> bold, right? So I dial up Khan and renegotiate peace, and
> indeed get a 12gpt discount on gunpowder.

Now this was a tough call indeed. 20 turns with Greece could turn out to be a disaster, since they might take 8 turns just to get any kind of real force to our borders but then have a steady stream for the next 12. Their new lack of iron is a huge plus in our favor. You're right though, on top of all else we just plain didn't need Mongols coming in too. Ironically, them coming in around turn 10 or 12 of the war would be perfect as it would be at a time where we could now remove ALL blights from our interior, but if they came in on turn 4 it could have been brutal!

> And guess what? With all the desert we have in our lands,
> there's no saltpeter anywhere!
:saiyan:

Gah!! Is there one near enough in Greece to make an objective. Is there one very close over the border to Mongolia? Yuck.

> Nobody knows chemistry yet.
Unless the Iro do, which wouldn't surprise me.

> And then, even worse, the English buy Greece into the
> war against us!
Liz has just signed on for the "abuse me" program. There will no turn of Ca-Ching, from now through the end of time, where she is not paying for the blessing of our peace. :hammer:

> Our army uses its blitz ability and kills two spearmen and a
> longbow in Goigouen, taking the city.

It would be distinctly delicious to benefit from all this war (and the Heroic epic) to get a MGL out of this dogpile. Either a knight army or a musket partial army would be of great value.

> Our healed army leaves Goigouen and kills a hoplite in
> Halicarnassus. Two knights that had arrived there on the
> previous turn kill the second hoplite and a longbow and take
> the city, capturing two more slaves.
Yes!!


> The next leader should be able to capture Kawauka easily in
> two turns; there are some knigts and the army down there.
Aye, that and your other upcoming strat comments are right on. Killing quickly down south, leaving 'rapid response' units for zone defense, and getting the rest of our offense up North - are all key.
We should almost surely get the Greek city that is pressuring our city before letting them off the hook, unless a dozen-knight stack comes-a-callin'.

Careful not to make any more alliances, as we'll need leeway to choose when to stop.

> I have connected our second iron now for possible trading;
> bear that in mind when negotiating for peace.
That will fetch a good price, although don't sell it to anyone on OUR continent. With their current attitude, I'm now leaning MUCH more than I was earlier toward taking over our whole hemisphere. (Otherwise we'll not have saltpeter or rubber)

Good luck Skyfish (and then Gris). Sulla, hope all is well! :P
Charis

> Well, war with them was expected. I wondered why it was
> a sneak attack [...]

Well, that had been :smoke: on my part. I had seen the pike (in neutral territory) near our workers, and noticed the longbow stepping into our territory, but somehow was convinced the longbow would head for another target. Why I didn't realize that the spice city and the workers were the obvious targets I don't know; I should have demanded their leave, but didn't because most of our troops where too far away at the time.

That really hurt as we are a bit short on workers anyway. Maybe we can rescue them when taking Kawauke, but Iro galleys have entered and left the city several times already; don't know if the AI uses ships to transport workers?


> Liz has just signed on for the "abuse me" program.
> There will no turn of Ca-Ching, from now through the end of
> time, where she is not paying for the blessing of our peace.

:rotfl:

You guys are EXCELLENT players, I,'m learning a lot from this game.

10X

We might as well have a copy of the current roster on this page.

Kylearan - just played
Sulla - MIA, hope all is well!
Skyfish - UP NOW
Griselda - on deck
Charis
Jester

You have some fun turns before you... ;)

Oh sorry ! Was still secretly hoping Sulla would show up :D

A very important fact about this game that has not been noted so far is that we are extremely penalized by the Anti-RCP "bug".
In order to prevent players from using the "RCP bug" (which greatly reduces Corruption in first and second rings) Firaxis/BreakAway's quick fix was to indirectly penalize cities which are founded at equal distance from the Palace, the same measure indirectly resulted in the FP bug that we have talked about here.
In this game we have settled 5 out of 7 first ring core cities at distance 5 of the Palace !This has a disastrous effect on our economy and production capacity, we are majorly penalized because of this...This combined with the no FP problem would make it a real achievement to win this one :D

All looks good. Mongol has 3 salpeter, Greece has none ! grrr Indeed the Greek front is manned by 1 knight and 3 warriors that might be a bit weak so forces are directed towards there.

670AD : Byzantine come in asking for Peace and 20g, I give them Peace and pay them 15g to close it. Thats one less on the dogpile.
Did Charis mess the count turn again ;) As punishment I will only take 8 turns so someone else can get a bit of GA as well.
Knights are moved to Tawauka which is defended by a Spear (or 2..) The greek Longbow retreats :scratch:
As the Great Ca-Ching instigated those Greeks are surely gonna pay for their terrible treason ! They're toast !

680AD :A caravel is sighted fleeing Kawauka, wise move Iro ! Kawauka falls not after taking out our Elite horse of course.
We get our workers back ! :jump:
Buildings come up I pursue Kylearan' Infra push of Markets and banks but switch to Knights in cities with Banks.
Use some of our cash to rush some temples in the corrupt south, we dont want ppl settling there again.
I hate dogpiles and I doubt we cant achieve anything more with the English and Iros, I signed them both for peace : they give us 50g
between the 2 of them.
Everybody has Iron except for Mayas, we trade it for 585g + WorldMap and finally can see the world !
Because of end of War Happiness I have to remanage all cities to avoid riots, we are at 20% lux and the specialists are mainly in
the corrupt lands.

690AD & 700AD : Shifting units, the Greeks actually retreat from the jungle where they had advanced 2 longbows and an Ancient Cav.
Getting the Army towards them in order for them to taste some Incan recognition :mwaha:

710AD : The Heroic Epic completes :D The Iros build JS Bach Cathedral in Grand River.
Teh greeks longbow show up again on Jungle, I take one out and retreat to stay out of touch from them.

720AD : India allies with Mongols vs Greece. the English start Smith.
I take back some of our workers from the corrupted lands towards the jungle patch between us and Greece so we have better access to our soon to be acquired lands :)
India is our new friend : they lack Education, we sign Peace for all their gold (126g)+ Printing Press for Education.
End of dogpile.
Now on to our friends the goat-lovers :D
Our army and 3 knights kill 3 longbows and advance towards Herakleia.

730AD : No greek counter, however they have taken Almarikh and acquired a Salpeter ! I believe we can push an offensive the time is now so I swap 2 Bank builds to Knight. We kill the Greek forces advancing towards us easily. we are now at the gate of Herakleia. A settler will be ready from Corihua...

740AD : Byzantine join the dogpile on Greece. Mongols and England sign an alliance vs Maya.
Our Army attacks Herakleia and takes out 2 Muskets and an Ancient Cav :eek: Gotta love those blitzing armies !
A reg MedInf kills the last unit a longbow and Herakleia
is ours, I doubt a lot and decide to keep the city, it can not flip on the first turn and our settler will take quite a few turns to get there.
If it later flips we might have to take better care of it :evil:
One of our knights makes a foray into Greece to check out the incoming reinforcements he will also go towards the Salt of course.
It looks quite empty, maybe the Greeks are concentrating on the Mongols.

750AD : Salamanca builds Smith.
On the tech front we have no 2fer available as Chemistry is preventing us from looking further up the tree. The Mayas are getting pounded by the Iros.
Nobody is Industrial yet...English miss Spices : I will let Gris decide what to do, on one hand we can lock England with a high gpt deal on the other hand the gpt bug is so bad it might be better paying cash.
Our knight gets wounded by Longbows its the only real offensive unit of Greece with Ancient Cav, we can really damage them.
Our SoD is on Jungle right by Herakleia, there a few Greek longbows (which u dont see) who can reach us but we cant get get to them. Just stay put this turn and next turn you can go towards Pharsalos, the Army might need one more turn to heal, just see how you want to do it.
The Greek counters are not dangerous you should go on pounding them until Ca-Ching can put his prophecy into action. I would rush the few markets/bansk in our core and go on churning out Knights until the end of our GA if it was my game but I might be too agressive for you ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1,_750_AD.zip

Fish of the sky, you laid down the hammer!!!!

:hammer:

Great turn! Twasn't too aggressive by me. We're out of the dogpile, we have our entire interior reclaimed (if I read correctly), and our prospects look sweet against Greece. This makes the liability of the forced 20-turns vs Greek a non-issue, as we'll want to go at least that long :p

I would definitely try to get Chemistry when a good deal is available (extorting England would be my top choice, but that option won't open up for a while :P ) I would also be prettty prone to push hard in the war and gain as many cities as possible, and hit Greece as hard as possible. (Though I say that without looking at the save, Griselda may have other/better thoughts) I'm rather glad to be on-deck, as I'll win either way. If Gris keeps up the war I'll get some good fighting done, if she decides to build instead then I will have opportunity for some Ca-Ching trading :goodjob:

Charis

I see it. I'm up here and in RBC3 right now, and pretty busy, but I should be able to get to both by Saturday.

-Griselda

We are in great shape here. We're tied for #1 in land area with the Iro- a few tiles behind, but at the same percentage. We're only 1% off the top population! It's hard to believe we're only in the middle ages, wow.

Our great starting location certainly helped, with so much land available to our SE. But, judging by how quickly several AI got to the gaps, we could have lost a lot more of that land if we wouldn't have settled so quickly. Being agricultural helped, certainly, and being expansionist helped keep the barbs down to a tolerable level.

Maybe I'm being too optimistic here, but I'm starting to think about domination. We'd probably be at about 44% just from our own continent. With all the bugs, building seems like it might be kind of :wallbash: . But, :hammer: can still be enjoyable.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Way ahead. Let's see what I can do here. Our alliance with the Mongols will last 4 more turns.

I consider trading spices to England, but she will only pay about 120 gold for them. That doesn't seem like a good idea. Plus, aren't we supposed to be upset with Liz? I show her our "annoyed" face.

We're paying the Mongols 16 gpt for an expired ROP. I'm all for supporting their war effort, but that seems like a bit much. I go ahead and cancel it outright, and they're now furious. I wonder if they'll attack us? That wouldn't be so nice, as most of our units are in the NW. We could take them, certainly, but the first few turns would be a scramble.

With the GA production, Cuzco could buid a pike every turn, or a knight in 3. I'll queue a pike next, to get us some defensive units.

I set Hera to starve. It's empty, and in resistance. I don't think it's *that* likely to flip, especially if we starve it properly. I'll try to get some units in there too. There's a pike in Cori that can head that direction right now.

Liverpool set to high shields to build its worker before it grows. Otherwise, those Englishmen will be there forever! Various other MM, nothing especially significant. I send a horse to a tile SW of Dover where the AI might settle. A temple wouldn't help us there, I don't think. I think the other gaps are secure.

In case you hadn't guessed, Skyfish, your plan was not too aggressive for me at all! I rush some markets in Vilcas and Hua. Chuito is building a knight, but lacks a rax. It's got too many shields in for a rax, so swap it to bank. The cities building banks I'm not so sure whether to rush. Banks would cost a lot of money to rush, although they would partially pay for themselves once built. Some of the bank cities don't even have barracks yet, so rushing seems silly. I opt to rush one back, in Vitcos, because it can pull in the coastal tiles soonish, and has a rax already. I swap Sausa to a temple and rush that. Cori to pike. We don't have many defensive units at the front (I know they have the same def as knights, but they're a lot cheaper, and we have a lot of 15 spt cities anyway).

We desperately need to have units to cover our SE lands. Is that Greek caravel incoming? I hope not. I aim to keep it in mind, but not sacrifice the actual war with Greece for a possible war in our SE. Hopefully some of the cities by the Great Lake can get to units soonish. We don't have much of a zone offensive force that I can see. I wake the knights in Kawa and send them north (northeast, eventually).

BT - Our lone 1hp knight is killed. The Greeks move some units up. I see 1 knight and two longbows, I think. The Greek caravel moves away, but there is a galley moving in.

Cori pike - pike. Hua market - pike. Vilcas market - knight. Vitcos bank - knight. Hera starves. Huaras duct - temple. Sausa temple - rax.

Liz wants to be friends. She builds an embassy in Cuzco.

(1) 760 AD - Our army kills the lone longbow by Hera, taking one damage (now at 9/13). Hera needs to get its resistance ended, and it has a rax. I decide to move the army in to heal. The MDI also moves in to heal, and the knights move towards Pharsalos.

BT - We're attacked by two longbows and a knight, but suffer no losses. Cuzco knight - pike. Tiwa knight - knight. Vila colosseum - granary (!). Hua rax - pike. Hera starves. The Iro start Newton's.

(2) 770 AD - There's a Greek galley right by Chuqui. I move 2 MDI out of Arequipa to help if they land there. Four of our knight stack by Pharsalos is wounded now, and I suppose I should have anticipated that. I haven't seen any more incoming units, though. The settler goes to Rio. I'll try to raze Rhodes and resettle two cities in that area. Meanwhile, I rush a court in Rio.

BT - SOD attacked by 2 longbows, but we win both! The Byzantines sink that incoming Greek galley. Thanks! :love:

Build some units. Gradually start increasing knights again, but keep Cuzco on pikes. Rio court - rax. Goigouen riots, oops.

(3) 780 AD - Army arrives by Pharsalos. Our knight stack, on the other hand, accomplished nothing and needs to heal. The five wounded knights retreat. Oh well, so far that's only cost us time, and I know it's taken the pressure off of Rhodes. A warrior and pike arrive in Hera. It's now size 2, with one resistor. One longbow did head south out of Rhodes towards Rio, but our Chasqui can kill it. You just can't do *that* with a regular scout! Rush courthouses at both Tambos and Arequipa.

BT - Mongols renew peace with us. I forgot to check that deal last turn. We finally lose a knight in the Pharsalos Knight Fiasco when the retreating stack is attacked by a knight. I promise the people that there will be a thorough investigation into this matter.

Units built. Arequipa courthouse - pike. Tambocc courthouse - rax. Tambo C. courthouse - market.

(4) 790 AD - At least we can kill the knight that killed ours. Blast those Iroquois, they're growing faster than we are. I wouldn't be surprised if they take that entire continent. The Mayans are down to one city. Atico needs culture. I swap it to a cathedral. I also note that the saltpeter now once again belongs to the Mongols. Chuqui to market.

I can't do any mega deals, but there is a two-fer available, plus a straight trade. India has been offering monarchy for banking forever, but I haven't taken it. This turn, they'll only offer music theory, but will still trade monarchy for it if I put it on the table. They don't have any gold and aren't likely to, so I go ahead and take the deal.

I buy chemistry from the OCC Maya for 1380. They won't be giving that gold to the Iroquois, which is a big plus. Obviously, we don't want to pay them gpt for anything. Then, chemistry to the Byzantines for economics. They don't have anything to sweeten the deal, but it's still a two-fer.

The Mongols now have a stronger military than Greece, according to my advisor. Would we be ready for an attack? I don't like paying them gpt, so I cancel the alliance, but stay at war with Greece.

BT - Units built. The English start Newton's.

(5) 800 AD - This knight vs. musket thing would be more fun if the trebuchets could get through. I try Rhodes, but lose a knight and almost lost a second. We will have to wait for something to change there.

BT - The English (!) kill the Mayans. We build units. Anda will try building a courthouse. Workers built in the SE. Sausa rax - knight.

(6) 810 AD - We kill a longbow by Rhodes, leaving our knight at 1. Now, the Rhodes knights will have to retreat. Once one more jungle tile is cleared, we can bring the wheels! There's a bunch of workers on the case. The Hera knights are feeling much better, and move back up.

The People are not happy about the Pharsalos-Rhodes Knight Fiasco. Why are you marching our units around in circles, letting them get wounded? Hell no, we won't go! I'm actually amazed that this is the first turn I've seen war weariness. I was beginning to think it was broken in Conquests too. The war weariness isn't too severe, yet, but that's not saying much considering we're already running 20% lux. Our core is fine, so I leave the lux alone, but a bunch of other cities need additional specialists. We will want markets and cathedrals in these cities when we can.

BT - GA ends, and Machu riots. I hadn't thought to leave a happy buffer for the end of the GA. I scroll ahead to fix it for this turn. This is one unhappy civilization at the moment. Juli market - cathedral.

(7) 820 AD - Attack Pharsalos with our army, and we win, taking no damage. Let's do that again! Attack another musket, win again, taking 2 damage. Our army has one more move, and we'll attack again! We win, and take the city. It was size 11, and we captured 5 workers.

MM all now that the GA is over. Cuzco will build knights again. Machu would need two entertainers at 20%! That won't do at all. Lux to 30%, ugh. I check into importing from the Iroquois, but they charge 1 gpt more than the price of raising the lux tax, and I don't trust them anyways.

We can't seem to negotiate per-turn deals for tech. When did that happen? :(

BT - Units built, as usual. Chuito bank - granary. Huaras temple - granary.

(8) 830 AD - Move towards Rhodes. Rush temple Hera.

BT - Greece and the Mongols make peace. Vilca granary - harbor. Hera temple - trebuchet. The Iro establish an embassy in Cuzco. I didn't note any units getting built. Did the GA slow it down that badly, or did I just get too lazy to write "units"?

(9) 840 AD - Now that Pharsalos has fallen, we have the strength to take Rhodes, even though the road isn't ready. Our elite knight wins vs. a regular musket. Our vet knight wins vs. another regular musket, and we take the city. That was easier than I thought. Actually, we raze it, because we can resettle two in the area. The settler from Rio can move out this turn. I neglected to build our second settler. Almost everything close by is in the core, with a bunch of shields in the box towards units. I don't want to wait and lose the tiles again. So, I rush a settler in Rio, which is stuck at 6 right now anyway.

There are extra horses that aren't needed to take Rhodes. They go to Pharsalos to provide resistance support, on the way to Ephesus I guess. Thess has horses, but the Greeks have another source, so it's not urgent.

BT - Ollytay cath - gran. Pharsalos quells resistors, and riots (I think I forgot to set all entertainers last turn). Ereen temple - rax. Rio settler - rax.

(10) 850 AD - Our settler arrives on a possible resettling spot. I think we'd probably want to move one further onto the hill, though. Our new settler heads north out of Rio, towards the flood plain area. Our SOD moves to Ephesus. I haven't seen any Greek knights or longbows in a while. I wonder if they'll be able to send some now that the Mongol war is over, or if they're just out of gas?

I neglected to fortify the SE zone, and was able to get away with it. At some point, we may not be so lucky.

The Byzantines have physics, and lack some other techs. But, we have no gpt rep with anyone that I can see. We may be able to afford to pay cash in a few turns, if the deal is still around.

We're now "strong" militarily compared to both the Mongols and the Greeks (a few turns ago, we were average compared to the Mongols).

War weariness seems like its going to start hurting, just when the war was getting good.

Let's see what Ca-ching can do for us. :santa:

Oh, and there's this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-sapainca.jpg

850 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-850ad.zip)

Griselda - just played
Charis - UP NOW
Jester - on deck
Kylearan -
Sulla - MIA, hope all is well!
Skyfish -

Great turn, Gris! I really like our progress against Greece. Soon the whole continent will be ours! :hammer:

> We can't seem to negotiate per-turn deals for tech. When did
> that happen?

I guess this is a result of something I did. When we got dogpiled, I sold our excess spices to the Mayans, to get some money for upgrades and to prevent them entering the war against us. I didn't anticipate that they would die, and so soon.

I guess we're now at a strict "avoid gpt deals at all costs" policy. Sorry. :blush:

-Kylearan

Out of curiosity, I opened up the 750 AD save. I didn't even try to trade gpt until more than halfway through our turn, so I wanted to see what things were like in 750.

In 750 AD, we had no active deals with the Mayans, and our rep was already shot. Hmm, actually, we have no active trade route with the Mayans. So, our rep must have been damaged when the trade route was cut. It's hard to judge the stability of a trade route when you can't even see the world map! That's probably a good thing to keep in mind in Conquests.

Luckily, I think we're in a situation where we can manage this. :hammer:

-Griselda

His attendants gingerly entered the room of Ca-Ching the new king...

"Sire, we have the most dire of news!!!"

"The most dire news?? Has my 401K lost another 40% of value??"

"Uh, no."

"Have my thirteen wives died in a shopping accident at the Mayan Mall?"

"Nay!"

"Has my only son and heir been dismembered?"

"No sire - FAR worse news that that!!"

:o What on earth could it be??

"Oh sire, our reputation has been tarnished for an act beyond our control, and... our credit is worthless sire!"

:cry:

Ca-Ching fell into a nearly lifeless heap on the floor, his wracked body sobbing uncontrollably.

"Prepare my steed for battle... there will be heck to pay when the heathen do not extend credit to the mighty Ca-Ching!"

:hammer: :hammer:

(His wrath is at his foes, not the players of course. We had a tough break, would never have guessed Mayans to go down so quickly)

(EDIT - Server for downloads directory is back up) -- Got it!

Charis

It took days for the impoverished constitution of the leader known as
"Ca-Ching" to recover from the crippling blow that our reputation was tarnished,
and that the nations would stand for no more of his economy-wrecking trading
antics. Whatever glimmer he had previously held out of a kind and gentle world
where all could coexist was gone -- the world would know only the fierce wrath
of the spurned Incan people. The biggest traitors of all were the Iroquois. Supposed
close 'cultural neighbors', these cheeseballs were the biggest enemy of the Incan
people. Yet there was a long line of such enemies - the Greeks in active war, the
Mongols in furious uppity-tone, the English in their shrewishness. Only the Byzantines
had ever done anything good for us -- never poaching our lands, and sinking that
Greek galley near our shore. Such little things are not lost on Ca-Ching, and if they
mind themselves they will be lifetime allies.

So, where are we at and what is our new plan?
We're second in score (to Iro) and are *distinctly* more powerful than any other civ
except the renegade mounted warriors. Our culture is a pathetic joke (!) but our pop
and GNP are #2. We're 12 turns min-sci into Democracy, down Physics, Metallurgy and
3 optional techs to England, Iro, Mongols, Greeks. Byzantines are a two-fer opportunity
lacking Mlurgy and India is just plain backward. From the leader faces, the top three
are Industrial, which means ToG and Magnetism ahead. The only wonder in progress is
Newton's. We have no active trades? We lack saltpeter which Mongols have. We also
have a hefty 55 cities :P Compared to England we're weak and Indians avg?? Well that
may let them last longer vs Iro anyway. We have 21 pikes, 20 Knights, 1 army, 3 MDI,
3 Trebs, 1 Scout, 2 horse, 3 spear, 3 archer, 11 warr.

England has 3 turns left on peace, so she's *assured* a chat soon. Iro also 3. Mongols 13,
Bzyantine 1 and India 7. Sheesh, does the world not like us?!

[0] 850 - So enraged at the lack of trading opportunities, Ca-Ching lashes out with a
steal attempt off Iro and fortunately snags Metallurgy. Alas, we don't quite have
enough to get Physics with that from Byzantines, so I'll have to wait one more turn.

Atico swaps from Cathedral to more effective marketplace.
Chuiquiapo and Huaca Huaca which are corrupted to 1s/1c swap from mktplc to courthouse.

IBT - HOLY @#$#$. Cavalry on counterattack???? OW! Just two fortuntately.

[1] 860 - Huamanga MM'd to 10spt. Tiwa grows to hit 10spt. Ica will need an irrigation
swapped to mine to hit 10spt, starts a rax. We counterattack a cav, but with no
artillery help we lose a knight. Second counter does win after we redline.
Our NW settler heads to hill on coast, giving room to slip the other settler to the
west near the flood plains.

Ephesus is mean, R,L,L,R,W,W. We used knights, letting the army slip behind,
and it kills two muskets at Thessalonica, leaving a cav showing on top.

Trading, we don't like to see India TOO weak, and trade it Econ to get Music
Theory (useless, but I hate to see it keep showing up in foes trading box :P )
Now it's time to take to Theodora. Ca-Ching tells her how DELIGHTED he is to have
her as an ally, and how he would defend her country to the death. Then he discusses
this little credit issue. At this candlelight discussion, she submits, and will
give us Physics for Metallurgy when we throw in Spices and 9gpt.

She has no tech past Physics. England and Iro have both (plus MT). Mongols only have
Magnetism and MT. Greece we see is same as Mongols. Good two-fer opp, except it will
be hard to get ToG. I know JUST who to talk to! Lizzie... in 2 turns!
Militarily, I expect Thessalonica to fall next turn, then Argos is next, which
cuts the 'front line' area way down.

IBT Phew, no counters. I'm glad Greeks got gassed BEFORE they got Mil Tradition!!
Good job to Griselda for pushing the matter!!

[2] 870 - Indeed Thessalonika falls despite they're rushing a musket. The army
heads to Ephesus where it will heal next turn. "Coastal Hill Huaca" is founded.

IBT Two cav strike at a hill pike, and both retreat.

[3] 880 - We counterattack the cav with Knights and take them out.
Time to dial up Lizzy and have a heart to heart about this credit issue...
The "Ca-Ching" informs her that he's not going home without either Theory of
Gravity or her duodenum (carved out of her). The sheer weight of his logic
compels her, and we buy it for 95gpt. Ya know, that's not much of a discount,
if ANY. Alas I can't tell "true" price since no one will sell for gpt straight.
I wonder if they've changed dealing prices at the negotiation table in C3C??
I had to save cash for this next deal - ToG for Magnetism to Mongols. Had to throw
in 547 cash there, with no gpt option. So there we have it...

Ca-Ching brings us into the industrial age :hammer:

England has nationalism (ew! We don't want THAT showing up) So do Iro. Thankfully,
Greece lacks ToG. If they draw nationalism, that's the end of the offensive for now.
The Byzantines are Scientific. They lack both techs, but if I give them both,
they'll draw a free one, perhaps too soon. What we need is Mil Tradition, but
the Byz do NOT have this - only Greece does. They'll 'almost' give it for peace,
so perhaps Argos will do it? Since they can't give better, MT is what we will want
for peace from them anyway. Again, the Mongols have MT so we're not looking to start
anything with them until we've had the tech for a few turns and have a cav army.
Then again, the age of the effectiveness of our Knight army is of limited duration.

IBT just one cav attack vs fortified knight and we win.

[4] 890 - Vilcas starts a bank. So does Huamanga. Byz came up with Magnetism, not good.
Nasca got too big for happiness, and had to rush a worker.

The Battle for Argos begins as our army strikes and defeats a reg musket. Then another
reg musket draws a knight. Retreat, win, win and now cav on top. The army goes
again, and the city of Argos is ours! Rax, mktplace and aqueduct in place. Past the
city we see one cav and two workers now, both attacked with knights. Greece still
won't give MT for peace, but my 10 knights and one army on their front will persuade
them otherwise!

IBT England and Greece sign a trade embardo vs us. Liz... I thought we had grown...
more intimate than that?! The response? Even Monty recognizes treachery and the
Iro declare war on England!? That should be interesting, but we can hope that with
rifles on defense and the extra cash from gpt to rush, that they'll both just
get beat up badly without England taking too bad a beating.

[5] 900 - No counterattacks at all? Is that gas I smell???! :P If Greece is going to
be assinine, the plan now looks like: Thermopylae then... Athens!
We're at 30% lux, +96gpt right now. Cutting back to 20% would known down the production
of several cities, including several with 10spt. Those key ones I try to swap now to
open that option. Vitcos, Macchu -> Cathedral. Cori->Bank, Tiwa->Mkptlc. Sausa->
Harbor. Ah... btw we're at 20%+ War weariness, so the economy should rebound nicely
once Ca-Ching is out of power :P Army heals, seven knights move in range of Thermo.

IBT - A cav kills one, but itself is redlined. Iro suggest an alliance vs England.
He'll give no hard items for it, so I suggest he blow it out his @#%@%Ching@#$
Liz buys Alex' loyalty in alliance vs Iro. Hehe.

[6] 910 - Iro now (alone) have Steam Power. At Thermopylae, win, retreat, loss, win
vs that 1hp cav, and the city is ours. It seems like it will be a huge flip risk,
but we need it temporarily to have 'our' territory to hit Athens.
I notice India has Democracy but not even Chemistry. That won't get it, but I gift
that to them and can trade Met and Phys for Dem+1 gold. They're still 2 techs away from
Industrial era. After the war weariness has died down we may want to revolt later??
We stick with minsci but now on Nationalism.

IBT England signs MPP with... Greece?! Woohoo! They're only 4 turns into a 20turn
95gpt deal with us :)

[7] 920 - We move within range of mighty Athens itself. Home of Great Library and
the Oracle, these expired wonders will not save the city.

IBT Three greek longbows step into open, only one attacks and it loses.
The MPP pulls in England, and our economy is MUCH improved. The annals of history
show this has never happened during a Ca-Ching reign!! :eek:

[8] 930 - Alex has lost grip on reality. Athens is about to fall, and he's actually
*insulted* at the thought of giving mere MT for peace??! :rolleyes:
The Army leads the way, killing two reg muskets. (OMG Alex, no rax in your capital???)
Two knights lose, one wins, and just one 1hp defender visible. Army goes again and...
rides into Athens!! We'll never hold it, in fact, we're a huge flip risk in all the
cities I've left with too few defenders, and some still in resistance. It's
time to end the war (for now). Athens is RAZED.

MDI beats loose longbow, then a Chasqui (!) beats one :P It promotes to elite.
Whoa... speaking of weariness, we just shot up a big notch!! We would have to
go to 50% lux to overcome it, which hardly seems worth it.

Ca-Ching tries to talk some sense into Alex. He's insulted to give up a tech?
I wonder if the MPP is affecting his brain, his pain has been enormous!!?
Our best hope for MilTradition is to extort England or Mongols, or see if Byzantines
get that before the ToG they lack. With no saltpeter of our own anyway, no reason
to pay top dollar for it now.

Nothing feels right here. With no iron, an unwillingness to give us anything, and
him still pre-Nationalism, something is crying out 'Finish him!!' Another voice says,
he's crippled, shot, toast, can finish him at our leisure later - and we couldn't get
to Marathon anyway. Don't let the success vs Greece fool you, we have an avg army
vs Mongols, their fresh cav will ride roughshod over us, we're underdefended, have
a hideous border shape in the N/NE, and lack saltpeter anyway. Before we can hit them
we'll need to: buy Mil Tradition, buy 20 turns of saltpeter, rush muskets and upgrade
to cavs like mad, and shore up our production base.

Ca-Ching just can NOT let him have peace for nothing. Then he gets ToG soon, his
free tech and probably becomes rich and a new tech leader. Let it not be said that
Alex slipped though a noose that Ca-Ching let go! Ratchet up the lux boys, we're
not done yet. Forgetting Corinth which is a lame tundra town, we're going to hit
Sparta next. I carefully arrange worker tiles and we manage 40% lux, still +99gpt.

Mongols and Iro ally vs England. Distracting the Mongols is good.
Then... OMG... Greece declares vs Mongols!!! Their MPP with England has just given
Alex a death warrant!! Wowza! I'm glad I didn't make peace now, with the gas the
Mongols will swallow them whole within 12 turns - we're just in a race now to
capture the Greek cities!

[9] 940 - No counterattacks, they've got nothing left. Looking at the map, Mongols
will get Marathon, and might reach Delphi first. We'll reach Sparta and Corinth,
leaving just Knossos and Mycenae. If the Mongol cavs are nearby, they should reach
them first, so we send all available Knights forward.

Army plus one knight move to our territory to sit next round and heal, then will
single handedly take Corinth. There can be no peace for tech now really, they'll
be gone within 20 turns. So capture all cities, don't raze. I can probably stop
starving now, but don't want to increase flip chance over next few turns.

A knight steps up on the mountain outside Sparta and sees... a rifle?!?!?!?!
GAH!!! He got ToG, probably from Lizzie the vile, then drew nationalism for his
freebie!??? :wallbash:

IBT Two Greek longbows leave the city. One dies, one stays in open.

[10] 950 - Sparta was rough. Just reg rifles, fortunately, but we lost 2-3, won two,
but left them with a redlined conscript. Was it the only one left?? Not quite, one
underneath, but we may not have enough to take it now. Change of plans, army
comes up to help at Sparta. Gonna run one extra to avoid handing off a dud :P

[11] 960 - Knights retreat, but army pulls through and captures Sparta. It's home of
the Statue of Zeus, now a tourist attraction.

It's finally realized that Ca-Ching has been in power a full reign (and then some)
and has left the economy in STRONG shape!?? The man is immediately thrown in jail
with charges of impersonating the king! As he is dragged off, he pleads that the
next king not let the Mongols have free peace, but renegotiate it for both Mil Tradition
AND saltpeter, whether that costs 50, 100, or 150gpt. (Slide lux to 30% or less for a
minute before renegotiating) It's due in like 2 turns for this.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-960AD.jpg

Charis - Spent!!
Jester - UP!
Kylearan - on deck
Sullla - in the dugout
Skyfish - in the hole

RBC1-Incans-960AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-960AD.zip)

:hammer:

Good luck to Jester, who for the first time isn't left with a crippled economy!
Charis

PS Good timing Griselda, on Tuesday I leave town out of contact for a full week. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays all! :love:

I'll play this out right away!

A non-crippled economy! Hallelujah!

Jester

Edit note: Er, wait. There's a beta patch out?!?!?

What shall be done about this? Should I play out my turn without it? Or install immediately, and reap the rewards?

I'm not sure what to do about the patch in this one. One the one hand, I feel like we can beat this one with half our cities tied behind our back (unpatched), but I do want to try the patch out, and it does seem like a huge improvement over the current version.

I haven't patched yet, and would be fine either way. What do others think?

edit- Jester, if you haven't patched yet and are itching to play, I don't think it would hurt anything to go ahead and play your turns unpatched while we wait for a team consensus.

-Griselda

Shouldnt we sue the Greeks for Nationalism just before the Mongols take them out ? :groucho:

I haven't had the time to play it out yet, and I'm now going to be leaving town for a few days.

So, skip me for this round, svp.

Jester

Have a nice trip, Jester :wavey: I hope there's gold left by the time your turn comes around again!

Now that I think about it, there's not really much reason *not* to patch, so from this point on whoever's playing is free to move us to beta 1.12. Please just make a note of this if you do so that the next player will be ready to pick it up.

If anyone can think of any reason not to patch, speak up now!

I heard from Sullla, fwiw, who is fine but hasn't had time to play lately. We will keep him in the roster, but definitely auto-skip him unless he says otherwise.

Roster
Griselda
Charis - just played
Jester - skipped
Kylearan - UP NOW
Sullla - auto-skip please
Skyfish - on deck

Got it.

Don't know exactly when I will be able to play. I'm suffering from a severe post-christmas stress trauma at the moment. ;) My godchild wants some attention; we had a christmas tree accident resulting in water damage in our living room that needs tobe treated; a paper wants to be written... I hope I can sneak in my turns tomorrow.

-Kylearan

Sorry for the late report, but life is a bit hectic at the moment.

I upgrade our last horseman to knight who now will protect our southern lands against landings. I change some minor things, like changing Chuito from pike to barracks and prioritizing growth in totally corrupt cities, but everything else looks fine.

970 AD (1): Halicarnassus has no defenders, so I move the pike from Huanuco Pampa there. Delphi is defended by a veteran rifleman, so we have to wait for our army in order to attack. The army heals.

(I) We lose a pike to a Greek longbow. The Mongols kill the vet rifle in Delphi, and wound a regular.

980 AD (2): Delphi is now size six, so Alex has drafted. That means our three knights won't suffice to kill the three rifles and the longbow - let's hope Mongolia won't take the city this turn! Although there are still some resistors in Sparta, I move our nearly healed army out of the city to attack Delphi next turn.

Our peace treaty with Mongolia expires this turn, so I dial up Khan. Another twenty turns of peace and 149gpt (*gulp*) gives us military tradition and saltpeter. We're now making -70gpt, which after following Charis feels more right than that strange surplus we were making during the first two turns. :-P But once the war with Greece is over, which should be soon, that will change.

(I) :mad: Stupid, stupid Alex moves two conscript rifles *out* of Delphi to attack something I cannot see, losing both fights, and then Khan is able to raze Delphi, capturing gazillions of workers!

990 AD (3): I rush a settler in Argos to claim the ex-Delphi site. Sparta has still two resistors, so I cannot rush a barracks for upgrades there, but elsewhere two knights are upgraded. Our army and three knights head for Mycenae - no time to send the knights home to become cavs!

(I) A longbow and a veteran rifleman leave Mycenae to die against an unknown target. Hooray for artificial intelligence! Grand River completes Newton's.

1000 AD (4): Our army defeats a veteran and a regular rifleman in Mycenae, then a knight retreats against a conscript and another one dies. :aargh: But the third and last knight then takes the city. There are several Mongolian cavs in striking range of Knossos, so our own cavs and the knights from Sparta head towards Corinth in the north.

(I) Knossos is razed, and lots of Mongolian cavs head towards Corinth.

1010 AD (5): Sparta rushes a settler. On my race to Corinth, our forces spread out to block the path to the city.

(I) Mongolia lands three cavalry near Corinth.

1020 AD (6): Flooding Huaca and Herakleia riot, ups. Corinth is only defended by two hoplites and a longbow, so...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1_greece_dead.jpg

Finally, lux can be lowered again and our economy returns to normal. Thermopylae rushes another settler. Cuzco switches from cavalry to military academy. Knights block the path to the ex-Knossos site.

1030 AD (7): The marketplace in Tambo Colorado is rushed to prepare the city to build the forbidden palace.

1040 AD (8): Sparta rushes yet another settler. Huaca is founded on the ex-Delphi spot to claim horses once borders have been expanded.

(I) India declares war on the Iroquois...! :crazyeye:

1050 AD (9): New Cuzco and New Tiwanaku are founded.

(I) A Volcano in Iro territory activates.

1060 AD (10): Worker movement


I haven't patched yet - no time, sorry. But since we will patch this game soon, I have started to construct the forbidden palace in Tambo Colorado. Additionally, I have built mines on tundra to mark tiles where we already have chopped forests.

Our main priority should now be getting steam power ASAP. More defense wouldn't hurt, too - now would be the perfect time for Mongolia to attack us, with their rifles and lots of cavalry, they ould hurt us considerably at the moment.

The game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1_1060AD.zip)


Skyfish - up now
Griselda - on deck


-Kylearan

Good-bye and good riddance to the Greeks. :)

Looking at the map, it seems like only a matter of time before the wretched Iroquois try to harm our beloved Theodora of the Byzantines! It is my hope that our noble civilization shall be strong enough to save the Byzantines from total obliteration. Alas, if we are unable to prevent such atrocities, we should see the perpetrators brought to justice!

Does anybody else wonder exactly what Temujin is doing with all that cash? With the gpt bug, he's making about 300 gpt from us. But, he has only 750 gold in the bank, and can't even offer a single gpt for our spices (even with a ruined rep, I believe they'll still make gpt payments for luxuries, as long as cash isn't part of the deal). We should patch, and soon, to see if we can wreck his economy!

-Griselda

Ditto comments on 'Good riddance to Greeks'!
Very well done, Kylearan, and I hope that the cause of the stress dissipates and you can at least get a few 'relaxing' days in!

I can't see the map right now but these thoughts come to mind.

- The only question is 'when', but our next target is crystal clear - the Mongolians. There's no way we're stopping short of full continent ownage this game.
- The 'shape' of our empire is hideous for the age of cavalry, as we have a very sprawled out and underdefended string of cities in the NW.
- We have NO saltpeter of our own obviously, and probably do NOT want to pay for a second 20-turns at the ridiculous price it costs. On the 20th turn be sure to have any rax city producing a cav (or a musket if need be), and even after the deal runs out they'll get to complete what they start.
- I doubt there are enough defenders to go around on that weak outer cities anyway, so I wouldn't likely push too hard to defend them, rather I would focus all forces at Hovd (apart from a few defenders on the city to the NE of our jungle chokepoint) and aim to crash through and capture Karakorum itself and put an extreme hurting on their core cities. If they want to trade junk cities for core cities, so be it. Use our armies to crack their nuts.
- Crank cav, cav and more cav right now. Sure building would be nice but we've got just a small window on saltpeter and attack forces, so use it now. We can build when we own our own saltpeter and are sitting comfy in the ex-palace of Karakorum.

Good luck!
Charis

I finished the game yesterday in a hurry but now have some free time before we have to prepare our new year's party, so here are some more thoughts...

* Charis is right of course, we have to use the saltpeter as long as we can. I always find it very hard to resist the temptation of building vital infrastructure like banks in our core cities but in this case we need more units. Please switch production accordingly - I'm afraid I left the game with too many banks in production, having had a better economy in mind to get steam power and nationalism ASAP.

* Mongolia has lots of cavalry at the moment, I saw about 15 during my last turns, plus rifles. So before we declare, we should be quite sure to hit him *hard* during the first turn of the war.

* Our new cities in the north are all defended by knights at the moment which can and should be upgraded. One of the ex-Greece cities has a barracks for this. I didn't want to bait Mongolia with empty cities at their border, so we should produce some muskets or expose core cities to defend them when moving the knights out. We have one elite knight which should go leader-fishing, though.

* What about England? We're still at war with Lizzy, but I haven't seen more than a passing ship from her during my reign. We could make peace with her when she's down to one cirty to get nationalism nearly for free?

-Kylearan

Got it.
Am all patched up.

I agree with Charis we need to build as many cavs as possible. We got 5 right now.
The upgrade Knights->Cav at 30g stays one the best value for money in C3C.
I move our knights towards our rax cities and start upgrading, rax cities start
producing Cavs, infra will just have to wait :mwaha:

1070 : Byzantine offer to re-sign Peace with no possibility of negotiating...oh well...
Ouch ! Mongols and Iros sign an MPP ..and an alliance vs India :(
Palace extension (its starting to get huge btw)
New Macchu Pichu founded.
1080 : mOngol forces leave our Greek border probably heading for India :D
I reposition our forces in anticipation of a Mongol campaign :
- the north villages (totally corrupt) do not need defence
- We need attack/def forces north of our isthmus (Pharsalos) and the bulk of our offensice force south of Hovd.
AS charis said there is no way we can defend the whole border : we just need to secure our core and gather a strong offensive
force near their capital. When the time is right we can "sandwich" Karakorum from the West (Pharsalos/Hrakleia) and the South (Hovd)

1090 : Volcano erupts in Iroland. Game tells me one of our city is in disorder when its got 2 unhappy gaces and 2 happy faces !
Peace with England +all our gpt does not buy Nationalism.
Settler is produced and sent near Batshireet to prevent Mongol settling in a void.

1110 : New Ollia is founded. The English are now down to 2 cities but our whole economy (180gpt+600g) does not buy Nationalism yet :cry:
However Steam Power is available for 158gpt+peace...maybe a 2fer is available with Byzantine.

1130 : Finally the English are down to 1 city, they accept 180gpt, Peace + 264g for Nationalism !
We make the deal hoping the Iros will not end the war.

1140 : The rampaging Iroquois finish off the English ! Yeeha ! :jump:
There is still no sign of Indian losses in their war vs Iro and Mongol for now.
Iros are building US

1150 : We now have 21 cavs, with 7 due in 1 or 2 turns and 4 or 5 more before Charis's turn. THe Mil Academy is ready in 4 turns.
I say we go on building cavs and be ready to charge the mongols during Charis's turn.
I really would not worry about defence at this stage and we should use our corrupt cities to skim workers off for the much needed railroad boost.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans,_1150_AD.zip

Looks like a decent set of turns. Only one item catches my attention....

Finally the English are down to 1 city, they accept 180gpt, Peace + 264g for Nationalism !
Followed by: "The rampaging Iroquois finish off the English ! Yeeha!"

This is rather vile dealing, I must say. While not outright forbidden, tis abusive and to be avoided in the future, please. The only mitigating factor is that our reputation is already trashed due to what seemed beyond our control earlier. If they want to treat us like we have no rep, that's what we do. Anyhow, solid set of turns.

Griselda, you're up, and it's likely one of us will be taking it
to the Mongols! :hammer:

Charis

> This is rather vile dealing, I must say.

In defense of Skyfish, I guess I have to take responsibility for this as I was the one bringing the idea up in the first place (see my post before Sky's "got it"). Normally, I wouldn't have suggested something like this, but since our rep is trashed already I wasn't sure what to think about this kind of deal (hence I posted the idea with a question mark).

My apologies for bringing this up, because I should have known better.

-Kylearan

Well I admit it was edgy, I am not giving the right example my apologies :(
Whats important to note though is that I made the deal because it was exactly the time the tech became affordable : I could not have made that deal one turn before !
I feel it is as abusive as taking a high gpt deal from an opponent before you suspect they will sneak attack you and you ask them to leave your territory : the Iros could have very well signed peace with England and we would have honoured the deal for 20 turns. But thats a personal opinion off course.
I dont believe this action has any great effect on our current reputation though.

Well, not the war I expected. :(

(0) 1150 AD - Status- we have three more turns of saltpeter, and very few defenders. I agree that we shouldn't focus on defense up in ultra-corrupt towns, but we shouldn't just hand them to the AI, either. When we're at war with the Iroquois (they have MPP with the Mongols, so it's only a matter of time), they will land units in our weak areas. We do, however, have good border defenses. :goodjob:

I agree that cavs will continue to be the priority while we have saltpeter. So, my plan is to push cavs for three turns, then switch to rifles for the rest of my round. Hopefully, that will leave Charis set up nicely for war.

I note that Thermopylae and Sparta will need temples to avoid AI poaching. However, first priority for gold will have to go to rushing cavs in ultra-corrupt barracks towns. In a few turns, we'll see about those temples. I go around and set ALL rax cities to cavalry. Well, nearly all. Cuzco stays with the military academy, and a couple of core cities really need some happy help to be productive. But, they have to really need it, and be lacking serious infra to get a "pass" on the cavs. I think that's maybe two cities besides Cuzco.

I go around and MM, mostly looking for build orders and happiness. This isn't too complex this time, because our core cities are stuck at 12, and at max shields already. :) I do manage to prevent one riot, though. I'm also interested in seeing what the "police" specialists can do. I try changing taxmen to police officers in a few cities, to no effect. But, in Huaca Colorado, a policemen can give the city one more shield per turn, and way out there, that does make a difference.

The Iroquois have a lot of tech, and the rest of the AI are just up free artisty and naviagtion on us. I don't want to give the Iro second-civ prices, but I'm wondering if we'll even miss ToE at this rate. I do buy wines from India for horses, spices, ivory, and 15 gpt. I don't think that we have to worry about strengthening India or the Byzantines at this point, since that might buy us some insurance against an even larger Iroquois. Also, we can sure use the lux! I could have had the wines for iron and horses, but I didn't want to leave us with only one source of iron with steam power so close.

BT - Cavs built, more cavs ordered. Halicarnasius temple - cannon. Several Iroquois vessles sail by old Greece, looking to be full of units. We don't have any military for miles!

(1) 1160 AD - I send some cavs that had been stacked by the salt up to old Greece in case the Iroquois land. If they don't, we can just send the cavs back down to Mongolia before we're ready to declare war.

BT - Iroquois sail on by without landing.

(2) 1170 AD - Upgrade a knight. Move cavs to rally points.

BT - Ephesus settler - worker. Huaras cathedral - harbor (no barracks in this city).

(3) 1180 AD - Settler is sent towards Pharsalos to be used in the upcoming Mongol campaign. I consider backfilling up in Greece, in the spot where I'd wanted to rush temples, but decide that there's no point in using a settler for another ultra corrupt spot if it's not of strategic value.

BT - Mongols renew peace without saltpeter. Now we're in a 20-turn peace deal, but it's straight peace, so I don't think we'll have any desire to abide by it. I also don't think we had any other choice. We complete the military academy, and start an army. Ereen market - granary. Chuqui court - granary (hey, this will all be nice FP land soonish!). Dover worker - worker (I suppose Dover may be useful, but we'll have to see).

(4) 1190 AD - Chop a forest at Tiwa, and shave a turn off a cav. Rush about four cavs in the ultra-corrupt rax cities. I think the other cities still on cavs can build their own.

BT - Argus cav - temple. Mycenae cav - temple. Anda cav - trebuchet(?). Hera cav - courthouse.

(5) 1200 AD - Send some workers towards core to wait for steam power. The AI have to be able to buy it soon, right? Right?

BT - Indians offer free artistry for 600 gold, but I decline. Tiwanaku cav - rifle. Machu cav - rifle. Brighton worker - worker.

(6) 1210 AD - Rush those temples in Sparta and Thermopylae. Tambo Colorado, our future FP city, has grown to size 10 (I delayed growth, just a couple of turns, by running a police officer who made a huge difference). Now, I note that it would need a clown instead of police if it grew to 11, and it wouldn't be able to get to 12 anyway before the FP was in. But, I can slow (or halt, I forget which) growth for the moment, maintain size 10, and run two police officers. That brings the ETA on the forbidden palace to 22 turns. It was estimated at 40 turns when I started, so this is a nice improvement. Overall, I like the police officers, although I can see it will lead to more clicking when trying to quickly reset cities that the game has "fixed" for us. They're nice because they're quite helpful in some situations, but aren't a "one size fits all" type of a cure.

The Byzantines finally have some gpt. I sell them spices for 5 gpt. They're still annoyed.

BT - Sparta temple - trebuchet. Huamanga cav - rifle. Vitcos cav - rifle. Chuito cav - rifle. Riobamba aqueduct - granary.

(7) 1220 AD - Movin' right along, footloose and fancy free!

BT - Vilcas cav - rifle. Iroquois start ToE! :eek: :mad: They still have a monopoly on steam power. Maybe I missed the boat here, and should have started researching. I didn't realize how pathetic the other AI had become.

(8) 1230 AD - Well shoot, I can't buy tech from the Iroquois at second, even if I wanted to, because we're about to attack the Mongols, and that MPP is still active. I consider starting research now, but really, we've delayed so long, the AI will just have to get it soon, won't they? They're probably all stuck researching communism, I guess. Boo.

BT - Those dirty, rotten, Iroquois scoundrels demand our spices. We're slowly moving into rifleman mode, and I expect to be at war with them, one way or another, within a few turns. So, it seems counterproductive to cave for a spices demand. Well, they weren't bluffing, so now we're at war with the Iroquois.

Ollytay cav - rifle. Cori cav - rifle. Vilca cav - rifle. Ica cav - rifle. Arequipa cav - rifle. Huaras harbor - rax. Goigouen worker - worker.

(9) 1240 AD - Well, the good news is that the Iro war declaration gives us enough happiness help for us to turn the lux tax completely off. I hire a policeman in Juli to shave a turn off a cav. Tsetserleg swaps to courthouse. I consider drastic measures now that we're at war, but the best thing to do still seems to be to focus on the Mongols (who would declare on us via MPP anyway), especially since we have no navy. We're not quite ready to declare on the Mongols, I don't think, so I don't.

BT - Iroquois bombard Chuquiapo.

(10) 1250 AD - Keep movin, movin, movin, though they're disapprovin'

Well, the good news is that we now have 44 cavalry. The bad news is that we're still defended by cutouts. We have only one rifleman. That will change very soon, as cities have completed cavs and started rifles. We may want to go ahead and rush defenders for northern Greece, at 250 or so each it may be easier than getting them built and sending them out there (but of course they wouldn't be vets).

We have a decent amount of money now, not that any of the AI have managed to buy any tech. We may have to self-research, and even then, ToE and even Hoover look shaky. In a way, though, this could lead up to a more interesting industrial age than we're used to seeing. The wonders and tech scene are certainly not a given, and the Iro are a good ways ahead of us still. We have to do *something* to stop them from running away with it.

We will also need to have something in place to prepare for landings, which will probably start happening sooner rather than later. Eventually, we will need a navy.

Keep an eye on the happiness, because when the novelty of their declaration wears off, things could start looking different quickly. The one thing that bugs me the most about getting into war a few turns early is that we're in republic. War weariness vs. the Iroquois could be a major problem. Of course, keeping the Iroquois in a wartime economy could slow down their tech-and wonder glut that they're having.

Anyway, good luck! I can't wait to see what it looks like when it comes back to me next time.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-1250ad.zip)

Roster
Griselda - just played
Charis - UP NOW
Jester - on deck
Kylearan
Skyfish

It was a time of turmoil and a time of strong econony. People cried out for help,
and knowing he could help 'take care of' the latter, Ca-Ching rose to power!! :P
Kudos to our last great leader for her wisdom in employing policement, very effective!
One comment on the peace, whenever a peace treaty expires, deal with it on YOUR turn,
not IBT. In other words, the turn after (1 left), when it is expiring, talk to them
and renew or renegotiate peace. If you don't, they'll come to you IBT and it's then
a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, no chance to negotiate terms. In this case I don't
think it would matter because there had been a payment ongoing on last peace, so we
couldn't just let it go on 'as is' - there was no way around those 20 turns.

Ca-Ching saw that 2311g+417 and his jaw dropped. Such flee flowing cash he had
never seen before. He thought it would be a good time to finish embassies. Constantinople
had salt, iron and horses, four rifles, building a frigate at 14spt. Delhi had only
horse, four rifles working on a fifth at 7spt. (Ugh) There was little doubt the Iro
had Communism and if they slipped into it, their days in the lead would be over.
Trade situation: deals active with Byz (16), India (10), Mongols (free peace treaty for
13 turns) No worries whatsoever about research. In fact, we need not even worry about sci
buildings. We'll catch up with Iro in tech in a way fitting how they have treated us,
via Espionage. With our econ we'll fund a steal every 4-5 turns :hammer: They can
have ToE, it's Hoover we want, and speaking of which, we better be on a prebuild soon!

With them besmirching our reputation in a bad way anyway, that 20 turns will mean
nothing as you said. Gris showed restraint not taking advantage of the AI and their
MPP. BTW, the Mongols will NOT come in to this war due to MPP, since we will be
attacking the Iro not on their land, but on ours.

[0] 1250 - Ca-Ching ponders again how to 'help' the economy... ah yes, upgrades! Not
even Ca-Ching can afford mass upgrades, but on key cities like Arequipa, we get a rifle
or so. Size 12 excess food cities draft a rifle. Up from 1 to 28 rifles, not bad :P
The capital and FP are spared. Kawauka is stuck in size for food, and swaps from temple
to Harbor. We're probably good to go in about two turns, so we'll gather forces into
SoD's next turn. The question is... what's our attack plan? We want to hurt their core,
and bad, so it looks like a two flank converging offense. West wing led by army at
Ulaanbaatar, and East wing by cav SoD at Hovd. Those are both 2-steps and so will
be crushed on the first turn of the war. After Hovd Choybalsan is 2-steps. Kazan will
not be reached first turn but will be next. Then both stacks converge on and raze
Karakorum. Belay that order! Karakorum has Sun-Tzu :P So it's a city to capture.
Batstireet is also a 2-stepper, and so we send some cavs there.

[1] 1255 - Time begins to slow down. I notice Baruun-Urt in our backyard and send
a few cav their way to capture it when the war starts too.
LOTS of movement, we're ready to rock next turn. IBT Byz and India ally vs Mongols.

Ruh roh!!! Mongols demand ivory?!? Now that's interesting... We're about to declare
war on them next turn, what to do? They won't be bluffing. Give them first attack
with their cav and benefit from war happiness? Or let them have 'it' for one turn,
then let them 'have it' ( :hammer: ) the next turn? If we had a shred of reputation
left, I would avoid the latter, but in this circumstance... it seems the most
'appropriate' action we could take.

"Temujin, we agree to your demands. For now." How *very* appropriate those last
two words are. In fact, my good, good friend, seeing how you are so enlightened to
try to steal the ivory from us, can I offer you some spices? Would you please accept
our gift of 137gpt?! You will? Super!?! Thank you so much. What's that?? You *insist*
we take a pinch of saltpeter in return, to assuage your guilt? Oh I couldn't! Well,
if you insist, but just for one turn!!!!

IBT later - HOLY COW!!!! I don't even get the pleasure of raking him over the coals
next turn and breaking the deal, he smells a rat and allies with the Iroquois NOW
and declares war on us!!?!?!? :lol:
This is going to sting, but what a delicious string of dastardly actions on both
sides!! (I just hope the attacks aren't TOO brutal)

IBT more - nothing. :hmmm: AH!!! The Mongols declared war on the *Iroquois* turn!
So we get war happiness, first attack, and no blight at all on what's left of our rep!
:rotfl:

[2] 1260 - Oh, Ca-Ching is fired up for action this round, hang on to your hats!!
:hammer:

At Ulaanbaatar we start and our army drops, and drops, 4... 3... 2... wins! Phew!!
It is SO showing its age and wants the pentagon to drop in a fresh cav!!
Our next to cavs both win (!?) and a cav is seen defending. We defeat it and the
city is ours, with mktplace, aqueduct, bank and harbor intact.

At Baluun-Urt we R,L,W,W and defeat two rifles but there is one left.

At Batshireet we start smooth (win with no hp loss), then tank (1 retreat, 3-4 losses)
and finally beat down the last conscript and cav to take the city.

At Hovd we're glad to see only 1 rifle is vet. Four retreat and we lose one, but each
does dmg, and we take the rest. No promotions, ouch. But the city is ours. The borders
look rather odd, and we don't get a beneficial square in our land yet.

While could press on Choybalsan, odds are way too high we would leave wounded units
out for slaughter, as we can get no cover there this turn. We'll prep for next turn.
The extra cavs behind Ulaanbataar wonder where to go. Ah! Almarikh will be our
saltpeter city, so it's a MUST get. We move 11 cav next to the city.
Nervously, we await the counterattack. (Thankfully we're 'strong' compared to Mongols)

IBT - A grueling turn! It starts well for us, as their cav hit hardened targets
(full hp, fortified, on mtns, etc), and they lose about five of first six. They
promote our rifle at Ulanbaatar, but then kill him.

The Mongols hit two targets in the open, then pound Batshireet and kill three - just one red defender left, one more will lose the city! :mad:

Then *all* our wounded cav fall
at Ulaan, and it's down to our 2 hp army! :eek:

The army holds, 1 hp left!! :D
But another cav comes at us!!! :eek:

Our army and Ulaanbaatar are surely toast, as must be Batshireet and Almarikh :cry:
(Echoes of Gris' comments of 'Not the war I was expecting' ring in my ears)

(more shortly)

Here is a picture of the situation before the interturn...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1265AD.jpg

That one cav that came toward our army... found a longbow instead!! As we dropped
to 1hp that longbow was a better defender. The cav beat him badly alas, but...
NO MORE CAVS CAME!! They were ONE cav short of killing our Army and retaking the
key city. :eek:

And no more went at Batshireet, OR Almarikh. They shot their... ammo. And fell short!
Five wounded cav dead, but town is still ours. Other news, Iro and India come to peace.

:hammer:

[4] 1270 - Phew, no towns lost, but we're hurtin! Income is good, but cav rushes
are expensive. We can massively outproduce Mongols, but its the next few critical
turns I'm worried about.

Choybalsan is captured. Ulaan rushes walls now that resistance is over.
Not much attacking except two redlined units in open. We try to defend our new towns
and heal up some. War weariness is up another notch, lux to 30%.

IBT - Phew! Not much! They have two cav who win vs exposed targets, but no cities
hit. They probably have about 4-5 healing, but are otherwise out of gas!
The Iro *slam* us with a dozen frigate bombardments at Thessalonica and a few at
Dover (hoop-di-doo, nothing lands!) If they had ANY gas left, Batshireet would
now be in Mongol hands. In the mean time, we build at least *4* fresh cav this turn :D
(Also IBT I have dinner :p )

[5] 1275 - There should be enough healed horsepower now to get back at Bu-Ult.
Archer absorbs a cannon blast and dies. We lose one cav, but take the city of
three defenders, and capture that cannon. Our rear is now fully secure! (Well,
if any thinking AI landed four ships they would eat half our continent, but
that's another story!)

IBT Mongols get lucky at our cav on the hill outside Kazan. They win four for four 8-\
I'm glad those forces didn't go North, but that turns the tide down South :grr:

Eep! TWO landings outside *empty* Thermopylae! Two Iro and one Mongol cav.

[6] 1280 - Last turn we moved a well guarded settler between Almarikh and Karakorum,
also 3 nice steps from Ulaanbataar. Do we found or move up one more closer to their
capital, still 3 away from all cities? I think we'll move up one.

We can *just* reach Thermopylae from Almarikh, phew. Go zone defence! We clean
the clocks of those unfortified horsies :P
Gosh it's been so long since a promotion, fahgedabowdt a leadah!

The Mongols will finally talk, but they're just talkin' trash! They have only
seven cities left btw, so although we may have lost last round, we're going to
crush them this war.

The healed Army heads toward Karakorum, and starts pillaging along the way.
More cav join him. A brave rifle jumps on the hill between Kazan and Karakorum.
If he lives, that sole roadway connected the two cities will be severed!?
Just East of Kazan we see... Holy cow, fortifications?!?! Er... ok.
One held by reg musket, one by reg rifle.

IBT Those cav coming out of cities are rough. We lose three units, but that's all
the attacks. This turn should be quite good except...


The Iro land *16* cav next to Thermopylae!!! :eek:

OMG, please tell me they're ready to talk?!?? They've refused ever turn I've checked :cry:

(yet more, shortly)

[7] 1285 - Please, please, let them talk!!! Will they??

They will??! Yay!!! :jump: Hrm, after all that useless (but to them useful) bombarding,
how much will they gouge us? Just 80g? Yay! Oh wait... they have an MPP with Iro,
right? I check... no!! Let's make peace!! BTW, Iro have Steam, Med, Communism,
Fascism and since working on ToE, more) Hmm... since negotiating, I *could* buy
Steam or Medicine here, but it would cost 300gpt. That would be incentive for them
not to fight us again, but way too costly. We take the 80g for peace, straight up,
actually, no, we give 5gpt for peace. He will sell dyes for 55gpt, but we have too
few cities with mktplace to benefit enough for that price. We could sell him the
spice he demanded, but no thanks for now.

Snip goes the main Mongol road from Karakorum to Kazan.
We found New Corihuayrachina (and rename it to 'Bring it Cori')
Some movement around Kazan, and we pillage six squares around Karakorum. We're
going to starve it down before capturing it.
Looking at our happy face, the people seem slightly *sadder* now that war with
Iro is over. Mostly unhappy in small towns, so I keep slider at 30% and make a
few more clowns and police. That's almost every turn now that I'm going through
every one of our 56 cities, yikes. In fact, I think I'll have to redo them ALL
next turn, as we'll need to finally popup lux for the sake of our FP city 8-\

IBT India and Mongols come to peace. Ouch, the Mongols boot us off the
chokepoint between Kazan and capital (too late for road though :P )
as they kill three units. The Iro ships leave but the cav do not! They will
be trouble. At any point, if Iro re-declare, we would lose about four cities
instantly. We'll need to get peace soon with Mongols, surround those cav with
an equal number of our cav plus some rifle, then tell them to leave.

[8] 1290 - It's time to lay down the hammer, we should have enough force at
Karakorum now. R,R,L,W,army wins two,R,R,W,W and it appears to be one 1hp rifle
left. Our army has ONE attack left, here we go... and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-CaptureKarakorum1290AD.jpg

It's bank and Police station are intact, and of course... Sun Tzu's! Once the
next leader is sure we'll *keep* this city, he can and should sell off all raxes.
Be sure to keep a decent garrison here for that matter.

That attack took its toll. WW just poppep up another notch. At the beginning of this
turn I felt we should be in democracy as the unit cost was killing us, but now I'm
rather glad we didn't - the WW would be unbearable now.

Do we dare press on at Kazan too? Why not!?? We have over a half-dozen attackers
there. The third defender is nice to see as a cav. The fourth is a red cav.

Hmm... I would sorely love to end up with one MGL after this extreme carnage, shall
we try? An elite rifle takes aim and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-MGL1290AD.jpg

woohoo! [dance] Huayna Capac shows himself to be a true military leader!! :hammer:
Finally!! Yet there's not one, but two hurt cav inside, so two more attacks and...
Kazan is ours! It has marketplace and harbor in tact. Like every other Mongol city
this round, I'm starving it down.

I can see no reason whatsoever not to make a Cav army at this point, since our FP
is not far from completion anyway, and no other small wonder needs rushing.
The army is just the ticket to take out those units in fortifications next to our
new city! The Mongols will give Dalangazad (right next door to Kazan) or Erdnet
for peace but not both. Dalan is one of their two saltpeter sources, and the
other one could be pillaged next turn just outside their new capital Ta-Tu.
In either case, they are toasty toast.

Just over one half of the population is crying out for peace at this point.
We try raising the lux slider to appease them. The deciding city will be Tambo.
Gah, Tambo is about ready to implode. It's basically shut down and perhaps
starving until peace is made. What more can we do? I think we want at least ONE
turn more of war to pillage Ta-Tu's saltpeter, then take Dalan for peace.
To go more than that would take probably 4-5 turns, which the people may not
allow. We crank lux up to 70% and readjust cities. Oh my, we're going to have
rioting next turn, and starvation within just a few turns if this doesn't end SOON.

IBT One cav takes out a rifle in 'our new fortification'. Thankfully they didn't
have a second, or my army could have proved an embarassment.

[9] 1295 - The people start to riot and curse and fie upon the war, not to mention
that the once strong economy is in a shambles!! (Ca-Ching!!) The nation sees their
precious Forbidden Palace city *smoking* :smoke:
Tis time to think exit strategy :hmm:

Definitely peace at the end of this turn. So for now we send out wounded units
for one last pillage, and hit a few more open units near Kazan.

Finally, time to talk turkey with the turkey. Cool, he has Steam Power! :P
But he's insulted at the thought of buying the life of his whole nation with it?!
Bah! We can gpt it - oh shoot. We can get Dalandzagdad, OR go for a gpt payment,
but not both. We'll take the city for his saltpeter, and we'll manage to get the
steam from a steal in a few turns with money saved up.

Ca-Ching is about to be kicked out of power, and between that and the end of
war the country is MUCH happier now, with the trauma of being -20gpt instead of +400
gpt averted! Tambo is still rather in trouble, and still needs two clowns.
Time to go through all cities yet again... Then once more to stop any rax orders
and to swap some cavs in production to rifles. Hmm, what is our current miliary?
It was 1 rifle and 44 cav when I started, now: 45 rifles and 24 cav. Youch! That's
a lot of dead cav considering I must have made 2-3 dozen. With about sixty cities,
we're short at LEAST 15 rifle, so I try to put at least that many in production.

Remember! The Iro stack of Doom is still right next to Thermopylae. Round up the two
armies and a dozen cav and a half dozen rifles and surround them asap!!

IBT Iro and Byz sign an alliance vs Mongols! That's about it for them! :lol:
And it keeps the Iro out of our hair. Resistance ends in Karakorum and Almarikh,
and Baruunt-Urt. Many we-love-that-CaChing-is-leaving celebrations break out!
In bigger news, that Iro SOD awakes and is on the move toward Mongols. They've split
up a bit. It's nice they're coming near our armies, and will thin themselves out on
Ta-Tu :P That and Darhan are their target and they'll reach it in 1-3 turns.

As if by pure slight of hand, the nation that mid-reign had over two dozen empty
cities now has an actual live defender. Some are only barely stronger than cutouts,
but there is actually no empty city at the moment! (Up in far far north we could
use conscript rifles rather than tie up several cav) BTW I just noticed that Iro
have nation-wide culture of 45K. That's almost *quadruple* ours, and is significant.
The whole world has Steam Power now ('cept us). Hmm, both Byzantines and India
are up with their peace treaties now? Who is weak? Byz are weakest, and could use
our gpt help most. So I 'talk' to Theodora, at the peace table. She'll part with
it for 99gpt. That's 2K, similar to steal cost, so that sounds good. It also opens
up two more expensive techs if we do want to steal soon from Iro (when they're SOD
is gone or covered of course!) The Iro have monopolies on both Industrialization
and Electricity.

Do we have coal? Yes! Two. Near Cori and Olla in our core. Conveniently, I notice
that stack of 13 workers at home twidling their thumbs. They're awoken, and we
start on rails. When our nation is railed up and our FP is done soon, we are going
to become monsters! :P We probably want to skim a ton of workers now. In fact,
with wars over, this would be a super time to revolt to Democracy for the *much*
quicker worker improvements.

The next leader should rush several temples, especially near Ta-Tu. I've rushed
the one in Kazan this turn, Karakorum needs it next. When India gets a tech we don't
have like Medicine, you might want to have him rethink the benefits of peace.
Watch Tiwanaku - it will grow next turn but become unhappy.

Ca-Ching quietly slips out of town, although with the economy back at +400gpt
and 0% lux, folks wonder if it was really him in power?!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1300AD.jpg

Griselda - relieved
Charis - Spent!!
Jester - UP!
Kylearan - on deck
(Sullla - on hold)
Skyfish - in the hole

RBC1-Incans-1300AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1300AD.zip)

:hammer:

Good luck,
Charis

Wow, what an exciting set of turns! :hammer: Your report kept me on the edge of my seat, and I totally forgot to drink my coffee this morning. Now it's cold. :-P

I absolutely love the way Mongolia entered the war! :rotfl: And what an exciting war that was - good that this happened during your turns, because I guess you were itching for some action like this. :) And did I see that right, the Mongols have built fortresses on the choke point near Kazan? That would be incredibly intelligent for an AI! (Well, if the fortresses were manned, at least :p )

Great that we finally have steam power, too! Too bad that we had to threaten poor Theodora to get it though, as I somehow liked her. ;) So I guess it's finally building time now: Rail net, improvements (especially near the FP city!) and catching up in technology (Hoover!). With our high number of cities, the palace should be expensive enough to serve as a nice prebuild, but timing can be tricky here. I find it hard to estimate how fast we will be able to catch up with stealing and threatening.

I would be against revolting into a democracy, though. The future will most probably bring more wars, at least one against Mongolia and probably more against the Iros as well. We cannot do this in democracy, as we have neither Suffrage nor any nation-wide happiness wonders, so revolting now to democracy and later back to either republic or monarchy would cost us a lot of money and production during anarchy which we won't be able to compensate for with the higher income of democracy and the earlier rail net.

That said, that's only true if we are planning to go the military route. If we decide to do only one war against Mongolia in the future and then go for a space victory (diplo is probably out of question), then we could think about becoming a democracy now.


So I guess now's the time to decide how we want to finish this game:

1) Peaceful and quick: Do only one war to get full control of the continent, then concentrate on a good economy and build libraries/unis to prepare to do our own research for a space launch. If we get attacked, defend only on our own soil to avoid war weariness.

2) Bloody: Build rail net, then kick the Mongols off the continent. Then build a navy and teach the Iros another lesson once tanks are available for us.


I'm for option 2) because of a personal bias against the Iros. But of course I have no problems playing peacefully if the team so desires.

-Kylearan

Charis : great report ! :hammer:
:D

Originally posted by Charis
In fact, my good, good friend, seeing how you are so enlightened to try to steal the ivory from us, can I offer you some spices? Would you please accept our gift of 137gpt?! You will? Super!?! Thank you so much. What's that?? You *insist* we take a pinch of saltpeter in return, to assuage your guilt? Oh I couldn't! Well, if you insist, but just for one turn!!!!

IBT later - HOLY COW!!!! I don't even get the pleasure of raking him over the coals next turn and breaking the deal, he smells a rat and allies with the Iroquois NOW and declares war on us!!?!?!?

Some of the funniest stuff I have read in a long time. Keep up the great posts. Thanks!

That was hands down one of the most fun and exciting turns I've ever had at Civ 3! (

My jaw hit the ground several times, words were uttered that I do not normally utter, and I was bouncing up and down in my chair. (The double backstab, realzing I would get first attack, seeing my units get slaughtered only to leave a 1hp army alive, seeing the Iro land six ships of troops) Then that turn was followed up by an extremely fun but dicey RBC5 game.

I was a delight to see the AI land a 'brilliantly effective' naval invasion force, to see the AI build a smart fortification, and see them attack me the very eve of my own attack on them.

My last big comment that was wiped was: concentration of *local* force. The turns results show exactly why we HAD to ignore all thoughts of defending the useless Greek towns. It was so close that +3-4 cav/+3-4 rifles on our part and we would have rolled through Ulaan to Karakorum without problem, -1 cav and our army and stronghold would have been lost, -2 cav and we would have seen a big defeat down south, +1 cav for AI would have rebuffed our North offensive, and a few more on top of that would have also rebuffed the South. Any strategically useless targets that they went after, including some poor choices to attack 'easy prey' in the open instead of a city led to a big swing. Even hanging an extra two cav back for zone defense vs a one ship landing would have been disastrous!

Kylearan, I like Theodora too, but business is business :P And actually, don't rule out a diplo win yet! Our wars with India and Byz were minor, and if one/both of them is left and we're MPP with them both vs Iro in a vote between us and Iro, I think we would actually win. Don't sweat our trailing. With FP soon to kick in and with railroading starting, we're about to becdome a monster. Given that my last turn took virtually all day, I shudder to think how long a turn of Iro invasion would last. If we do choose to do that, we'll need an armada and a force of 100 Mech Inf. landing with a settler on a foothold hill. Throw in a Pentagon-ized Mech Inf and Tank army out of our Mil Acad. Given that it's the Iro... I don't object if we go after them, but all I saying is... give peace a chance :P

Jester - UP!
Kylearan - on deck

Good luck :D
Charis

PS I wrote a longer reply/commentary yesterday morning, but I hit backspace thinking my cursor was in this text box where as my last click happened to be just next to the box. Poof!!!! Did you know the Micro@#$)@#% in their infinite wisdom thought backspace should be a short cut to "go back and lose your last 30 mins of life" :mad:

Originally posted by Charis
Did you know the Micro@#$)@#% in their infinite wisdom thought backspace should be a short cut to "go back and lose your last 30 mins of life" :mad:

Maybe they plan to market this as an anti-aging strategy. The paperclip will now suggest this option whenever possible. "It looks like you're hitting back space. If you want to lose the last 30 minutes of your life, press any key." :mwaha:

A couple of clarifications-
I actually considered renewing the peace with the Mongols on our turn, but since we planned not to honor the full 20 turns, I decided it would be more honorable if we simply accepted their "take the deal or war now" treaty offer, rather than if we called them up talking peace. In this situation, it makes no difference in game terms. If we weren't planning war, and had something to negotiate, then yes, it would be unwise to let the treaty expire. I'm not quibbling with your assessment, just making a note of odd Gris-logic that probably wasn't evident otherwise.

In this case, your approach was SO perfect for the situation! Even the text generator was in on it. :lol:

The cavs were really just meant to be in Greece for my round, since I didn't see any point in losing half of Greece when we had a stack of cavs just snoozing two turns away. I left them there so that you could position them wherever you wanted. "Galloping into Mongolia" sounds like a good position to me! I had hoped to have more defenders ready for you too, but that didn't quite work out.

In this position, we may have everything to gain from letting the Iros swallow most or all of Mongolia. It would keep them in war more for longer, encouraging them to go to communism (if they haven't already), and to slow other aspects of their growth. If we're ready for them, and they lose units in the war, I don't think it would be that hard to then kick the Iroquois off our continent.

Maybe that would satisfy Kylearan's (and my) desire for Iroquois blood without necessitating a full-scale invasion? I'm actually all for :hammer: the Iroquois in any way possible, but we'll just have to see how it goes.

-Griselda

Whoo, that sure came up again faster than I thought it would... first couple days of school kinda fly by.

Anyway, got it.

Jester

This game sure has come a long way since I last saw it!

Inherited Turn: Charis has obviously balanced our situation with far more precision than I could muster. I’ll just leave it, and tweak it as the situation decrees.

IBT 0-1: The Iroquois move their cavalry into Mongol territory. I’m following Gris’ advice, and letting the Iros eat the Mongols, for possible later booting. Most of my turn (hopefully) will be building. I’m going to rush a couple temples out.

Turn 1: There’s a settler to move, and I have no idea where it’s meant to go. I fortify it for now, seeing no immediate need for it. If it’s supposed to go somewhere, someone else will have to move it there.

The army, I’m not so sure where to position, so I leave it positioned to the south of both Mongol city clusters. God help us if I get us attacked, I’m terrible in a fight. :lol:

I rush temples at Almarikh, Cori, and Karakorum. More on the way next turn.

IBT 1-2: The Byzantines dial us up, and Theodora proposes an embargo vs. the Mongols. The son of the sun is not impressed at diminishing trade, even with the subject Mongols. I reject her offer.

Iroquois take Darhan.

Turn 2: Temples rushed at Batshireet and Huaca (What kind of a city name is that? It’s like saying “Totem Pole”, or maybe “Icon”…)

Turn 3: Dalanzagdad rushes temple, along with New Tiwanaku.

Turn 4: More of the same, this set of turns seems delightfully uneventful, after the madcap last reign of CaChing. Maybe I’ll stir things up a little bit.

I decide to revolt into democracy. We draw 7 turns of anarchy. I manage to rig it so we’re neither losing nor gaining money. This will take up the rest of my turn, so here’s to hoping it’s uneventful.

Turn 5: We’re now losing money, 16 bucks per turn. Oh, no, I feel bankruptcy coming already.

IBT 5-6: Nothing of note.

Turn 6: I fix up our economy to yield 12 gpt, rather than losing 56 (!)

Turn 7: More micro on the taxmen, more anarchy.

IBT 7-8: Iroquois start Hoover Dam. (WOAH…)

Turn 8: Nothing.

IBT 8-9: Splat, there go the Mongols. The Iroquois wipe them off the face of the planet. Iroquois finish ToE.

Turn 9: Nothing.

Turn 10: Our new-built army is now in Kazan. We could assemble another cavalry army, or wait for tanks. I didn’t want to commit it yet, since we don’t know when the next threat is going to be.

Okay, that’s the turn! If you ever want a real sleeper of a turn, hold a revolution, for sure. I’ve built much of a military rail network, although probably not in the most efficient pattern. It’ll come together in the next ten turns, with democracy inbound in one turn. We're going to be scary, scary people once we've got our infrastructure finished, with rails, FP and all.

Finish rushing the temples, since we need the culture. I’ve kept the bank at 500 gold during anarchy, not too shabby I hope.

Oh, and I have NOT checked the diplomatic screen for this turn, feel free to make whatever deals you like. No options have come up so far for renegotiations or new tech, unless we want to be ripped off by the Iroquois.

Jester

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC-Incas-1350AD.zip)

The Iros start Hoover even before they finish ToE? :eek: My, are we behind! I'm used to be tech-leader or at least on par at this point, not behind half a dozen techs. Amazing! Maybe we have warred a little bit too much and have neglected infrastructure for too long? Hm.

Okay, got it. I'll have a look where the Iros have started Hoover to see if it makes sense to start a prebuild now. I'll also try to prepare us for some intelligence: Positioning our units to attack the Iros in case a steal attempt fails. Thanks Jester for revolting!

-Kylearan

The Hoover Dam is constructed in Salamanca, the Iro capital, and we're six techs away from it so say good-bye to that wonder. I'm really impressed how far ahead the Iros are! They are in fascism - I have no idea what that means for their future development, but I think we will be lucky to get the UN before they do. Yes, we may become a monster soon, but we have to catch up in so many areas - technology, factories, hospitals, artillery, navy...

I woke up boatloads of workers who were building roads in mountains that are not in any city's range - we need them to rail our core instead! I had ignored finishing our military rail net for the first two turns and instead railed tiles at Tambo Colorado, and additionally mined two bonus grass tiles that were previously irrigated. That increased the number of uncorrupted shields from 3 to 5 there, greatly speeding up our FP. (Had we known how Firaxis would "fix" the FP, we should better had built it in our core, but oh well...too late now)

I changed a lot of build orders in lots of cities. Although we are now a democracy, our economy is very, very weak! Many of our core cities lack banks or even marketplaces, and many of them have happiness problems, so we're now producing less rifles and more buildings, otherwise we won't be able to catch up. I also rushed some workers, but stopped to do so later to accumulate cash for some steal action - I have cancelled the building of some libraries, too, because I don't see us researching for ourselves anytime soon.

I moved our offensive troops onto a hill between Darhan and Tatu so that if the Iros attack us, we can reach and attack both cities.

Both India and Byzantines had electricity plus all the optional techs at the beginning of my turns, and India lacked iron, saltpeter and coal. But since we want industrialization or medicine more than electricity, I didn't renegotiated peace at first. Then I saw that the Iros now have infantry in Darhan and Ta-Tu and decided to get electricity now on our way to replaceable parts and artillery! We had to pay a lot for it, though: Iron, saltpeter, coal, incense and 42gpt. I have also set some cities on cannons so we can defend better against infantry in case of war.

I didn't dare to renegotiate peace with the Iros which we were paying 5gpt for it, so Hia did it on his own, for free.

Every city is now connected to the railnet, and railing of our core has already begun. Our FP will be done in two turns, which hopefully will improve our economy significantly or otherwise we will have a hard time winning this - we have too many cities! I'm deeply disappointed by our income, in fact. An immediate steal from the Iros would cost us 1500 gold and we're now only making about 140gpt, by the way. :eek:

Gandhi now knows replacable parts, and more importantly, Theodora has discovered industrialization this turn! Most conveniently, our peace deal with her has expired this turn as well, so the next leader should please renegotiate peace with her to get the tech and switch production to factories where appropriate.

End the recession! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-1400AD.zip)


Skyfish - UP NOW
Griselda - on deck


-Kylearan

Got it

Sorry am a bit late : I should have the turns ready in a few hours :sad:

Sorry for being so late, I totally lost my report and thought i could find back somehwere else.
___________________________

I renewed our deal with Byzantine for Industrialization for peace, 130gpt and 200g.
It s a good discount but India gotnothing to sell for it actually.
I change the core to Factory orders and our workers go on railroading and going for shields
in our size 12 cities. A lot of improvement can be found there.
Our FP comes online and its a big downer of course. Some cities right next to it get only 1 shield. Gpt goes from 130 to 165.
Then I realize I was still on 1.12 on this computer (I always juggle between my laptop, destop from work
and desktop from home and sometimes laptop from work ;) )
I upgrade to 1.13 and we're now making 247gpt (after resetting the governors). Also our FP city is almost not corrupt
and the cities between it and the capital look good. They are also set on factories.
So cities are still very corrupt despite being FP 1st core of course.
Iros complete Univ Suff.
Our factories start to complete but Iros are in Modern Age ! I must say I am shocked by the speed at which it
occured. I can finally buy something for not too expensive : I buy Espionnage from Byz. We will to tech steal our way out of that one.
I start some coal plants vetoable of course. We are now in position to attack (or defend vs) the Iros and will have some money for a safe steal when we have Intelligence Agency built.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incas-_1450_AD.zip

Charis,

Would you be able to grab it before me this round? As I said in RBC6, I'm swamped at work until the end of the week.

Sorry for not posting sooner, but I didn't realize I'd need the skip until today.

-Griselda

Griselda, no problem. (Charis steps up to the feeding trough!)

Griselda <-- On Deck this round
Charis <-- Up (swapped order this round)
Jester <-- In the hole
Kylearan
(Sullla - on hold)
Skyfish

"Got it", and wish me peace :P
Charis

Ca-Ching was summoned to visit the new 'Forbidden Palace' and see how well
it did with corruption in the empire. The previous king reported terrible
corruption, even near the FP site. Actually, there is a big drop off from one
side near to palace to the other. With CTH in place, Huaras is 75% productive,
Tambo 50%, and Huaca <25%. We'll need Police Stations for these guys later on.
Econ is 1735+284gpt, almost luxurious by Ca-Ching standards! Really the only
problem in the world was that the Iro we're getting to be runaway leaders
in tech and otherwise. There are just four nations left - Glorious Incans,
vile purple Iro, isolated Indians, and the downtrodded yet lovely Byzantines.
Our chances are excellent if we could get to UN first, else a close space race
would ensue. Er... Hiwatha is modern???? YOWZA!!!! Byz are up govt techs and
Replaceable Parts. Same for India. Fascism is due in 15 with a scientist. We've
been researching that for 35 turns???? We'll never use it - while with Communism
we would get Police stations. We'll want the CIA for spy missions as I sense a
lot of stealing coming up. India has 4 turns of peace, Iro have 7. A few build orders
are bizarre - like a colosseum in a size 4 totally happy city. Most look good though,
factories, courthouses, markets and banks. Ca-Ching, in a fit of sobriety, goes through
and optimizes cities for commerce and even sells off a few bldgs.

He starts by selling all old barracks, since we have Sun Tzu. That's +240g.
Iro are in Fascism, let's see if that will allow them to continue the blistering
research pace. We're in Democracy, and paying 183gpt for unit cost. A few warriors
are disbanded. Several police citizens are deputized. Income now +341gpt up from 284.

[0] 1450 - Time marches on...
[1] 1455 - Zzzz
[2] 1460 - Since we missed Hoovers, cities finishing factories start coal plants.
[3] 1465 - India just showed up with Corporation, but wants about 2300g for it.
Our rep is (for a while now) shot. There will be no two-fers based on credit,
something which still leads Ca-Ching to try at night. Probably best would be
to steal corp and trade for RepParts, or try Med and get those two.

Hmm, let's try this. Buy Corp for 2266, sell to Theodora for 1073 (all her gold).
Steal attempt off Iro... Yes! This was really the only one I needed to be careful
about and hope it worked - once we deal for Replaceable parts war isn't nearly
as bad as with rifles. Anyway, we took Refining and sold that to India to get our
cash back, 2264g. That's a near even trade for ReplaceableParts with Theodora,
as we kick in 50g. We have two oil, India has none. Next turn when peace is up
for renegotiation, we'll discuss some of those other older techs he has.
Oh, we do have one rubber, too (phew!)

We now have Civil Engineers for those corrupt courthouses, and faster workers :P
Even in about the worst location, if it's got spare food we can crank out a courthouse
in about 12 turns from scratch, instead of 40. Since we're building about 95%
city improvements, they're useful everywhere. (CE's only help bldgs, not units)
For example, there were many beef ups like Temple in 6 instead of in 29.
I probably employed over 100 Civil Engineers! Income down to +233 for now, but
after the burst of courts and markets complete, that should come back up.
The value of CE is an odd feature or a bug - it does NOT show up in the 'shields'
line, but you'll just notice the 'turns to complete' go down. E.g., Alma shows we're
making 2 shields, with 28 left to go. Employ 3 CEs, still shows 2s, but 4 to go.

Cuzco is now at 62spt, and starts CIA. I notice the following in the desert
at Cuzco. Because we're agricultural, a mined-RR desert is 0f/3s, while an
irrigated one is 3f/1s, better. So we mine an irrigated plains there, then irrigate
the desert. Now its 68spt.

IBT - We love the Ca-Ching celebrations ring out all over the land, and they
build the 'Ca-Ching Wing' extention to the palace.

[4] 1470 - Lots of railroading...
India's peace expires. They don't have much we need, but old treaty had us shelling
out 42gpt. Actually, we're paying for his wine too, let's consolidate.
Peace treaty gets us wines for horses, incense, spices and one more resource.
We ship him our extra coal so he can build railroads. Even adding iron and salt he
won't throw in Communism, so that must wait. Actually we can pick up Navigation and
Free Artistry (I hate seeing useless techs over there for trade) with Iron included.

I would try a steal at this point except we need to be getting two-fers from them,
ie one of our friends must figure out Medicine or Steel soon. So I update just
a handful of rifles on the Iro border to infantry, and two artillery.

[5] 1475 - Lots of railroading, no new techs show up.
[6] 1480 - Vitcos finishes coal plant, 48spt (bah!), starts our first Stock Exchange.
No new tech, so we save our cash.
[7] 1485 - Cori finishes coal, also around 47spt, starts stock.
Our FP City, Tambo Colorado, finishes Coal plant, makes 52spt. It still needs a bank,
otherwise I would put it on Pentagon. No new techs. Come ON guys!

IBT Iro are building UN and Manhattan! (At least they're not launching yet!!)

[8] 1490 - Sparta and several cities with bad corruption just have nothing more
to build, so a few go on wealth and taxmen now. Vilcas coal plant done, 46spt.
Vilcas is MM'd to 50spt with an extra mine. No new techs. CIA due next turn.

A cav steps next to Ta-Tu and sees... infantry guarding it. While that's awful
for cav to break, I was quite glad not to see Mech Inf! Our choices for when to
hit Iro and eliminate them from our continent are: i) when we're caught stealing and
they decide when; ii) ASAP, Cav on Inf before they get computers; iii) after we
get either tanks or bombers.

[9] 1495 - Intelligence Agency completes. Time to 'safely' plant a spy... it works!
Quickly we check space race... 0/0, good. Still no new techs, but we don't have all
day. Let's try out the spy. We get Steel - India can pay about 60gpt for it, but
no more, so we first trade to Byz for Communism (must kick in 169g). Gandhi will
pay the same as before, 61gpt and all his 133g.

Checking in with Hiawatha our advisors tell us he has TOW infantry (yet fears our cavs!)
I consider negotiating peace to buy tech for gpt, on risky assumption he would declare
on us before end of 20turns, but that's both too risky and too cheesy.
Instead, Ca-Ching will do the honest thing. Send in his spy again!! Combustion is
ours (partly because if he's going to declare war on us, may as well let Ca-Ching's
reign go down in flames and let him absorb the crisis in our NE border.)
Now if India or Byz would do something USEFUL and research Medicine, we can
trade with them for Combustion. I think they undervalue Medicine in C3C.
How long would it take us to self-research? 14 turns at -21 instead of +360,
for an insane cost of over 5000g. Fahgeddabouddit! Let Fascism finish its looong
course in 5 turns, then go another 50 at some high end optional tech.

[10] 1500AD - Shoot!! Borders expanded at Ta-Tu. We have our own expansions due there
in 19, maybe that will reverse it. We back off the hill. Salamance just NOW completed
the Hoover Dam. So now his production is going up?? Lovely. I just assumed he finished
that long ago. We could sell ivory to India for 14gpt, but I'll leave that for next.

That's it! We're at 394g+353gpt, a high-water mark for Ca-Ching! An increase of 70gpt,
with six new techs, a large increase in shield production, reduced corruption, and
we're still at peace with a spy in Salamanca. While upgrades of rifles to infantry
are important, tech is more important. Our next leader will need to decide if we
push for a war with Iro asap before their mech inf, if we let it come when it may
on a failed steal, or go a little carefully and hold out til we have two flight and
two dozen bombers.

In any case, this was the factory and coal plant stage, the next one is Stock Exchange
and Wall Street for sure. Then finally we can think about tanks and planes.
Good luck to our next leader, should be an interesting turn! BTW, it's the last turn
of peace treaty with Byz. Alas, they have zilch to give for a forced negotiation,
so it'll likely be straight up. (No map, nothing new to show)

Griselda - UP!
Charis - done
Jester - on deck
Kylearan - in the hole
Sulla - in limbo
Skyfish - in the dugout

RBC1-Incans-1500AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1500AD.zip)

May the Incans rise...
Charis

Got it. I played about halfway through this afternoon, but it took longer than expected to reorient myself. I expect to finish up tonight, then work on getting scrappy.

-Griselda

Before I forget, I figured I'd mention that I played my turns in 1.15.

(0) 1500 AD - I take a look around. The first thing I notice is that Ta-Tu is actually defended by TOW infantry :help: . Hmm, I recommend option 3, and will hope to avoid option 2 and 1 in that case. Also, it looks like we'll be needing some artillery!

All the AI have fascism, but it seems silly to throw out 45 turns of work, so I keep that one going.

Spices and ivory to Byzantines for 15 gpt. Then, I renegotiate peace with them. We can't make any deals, but at least we get out of our 138 gpt payment to them, plus, being AI, they can still magically pay us our 15. I can't believe dear Theodora still doesn't like us!

Ivory to India for 15 gpt. Now we're at +501 gpt.

Almarikh from cav to artillery. The day of cavalry, I'm afraid, is over.

BT - Hua coal plant - stock exchange. Hovd courthouse - market. Vitcus stock - arty. Caxamalca market - factory. Tambo Colorado bank - stock.

(1) 1505 - Railroads! Lots of em.

BT- Cuzco stock - pentagon. Ollytay coal - stock. Cori stock - cathedral. Ulaan court - artillery. Vilcas stock - artillery. Argos temple - cathedral. Ica coal plant - stock.

(2) 1510 - New Ollytay to market with civil engineers. Chop some forests.

BT - New Tiwa worker - coastal fort. Flooding Huaca court - market. Pollution Cori. Vitcos artillery - artillery. Hera market - factory. Atico coal - cathedral. Cauquiapo duct - granary. Bring It worker - courthouse. Batshireet courthouse - market. New Macchu harbor - duct.

(3) 1515 - Most of the railroads are finished. I start railroading high ground even on wasted tiles in case we ever happen to want units on those tiles.

India has medicine. I trade combustion for medicine, 19 gpt, and 18 gold.

BT - Tiwa coal - bank. Cori harbor - granary. Vilcas arty - arty. Chuito coal - stock. Tsetse market - factory. Dover harbor - market. Huaca market - bank.

(4) 1520 AD - Heh, now the Byzantines have combustion and both have ironclads. I guess I should have waited another turn to trade, but I'd honestly given up on the AI's ability to come up with any tech at all.

New Cuzco is unhappy, and gets 3 engineers. Irrigation and engineers is a funny way to help happiness, but maybe that's just because I'm not used to it.

BT - Fascism in. I don't think we can wait 50 turns for any industrial age techs. I have to disappoint the people, who are yearning to revolt to fascism. The people are forced to continue on as a democracy. What a meanie I am. :lol:

Vitcos artillery - artillery. Juli factory - coal plant. Tambocc coal - bank. Huaras coal - stock. Tambo Colorado stock - wall street.

(5) 1525 - Hmm, I could turn science to 90% and have sanitation in 5, for about 2660 gold. That's about the price of a careful steal, but with even less risk. It will probably end up costing a bit less, of course, and our economy is improving. That sounds like a reasonable deal, so I start researching. At this rate, the AI may be another 50 turns until they have sani (not counting the Purple Menace, of course).

At 90% science, we're at -404 gpt. But, we have the cash to cover it.

BT - Karakorum court - factory. Cori cathedral - granary. Hua stock - granary. Pharsalos market - bank. Vilcas arty - granary. Vilcabamba stock - cath. Anda market - factory. Ereen factory - coal.

(6) 1530 - Hire a few scientists. They make no noticeable difference this turn, but may down the road. I try not to run scientists in places that could be getting more shields instead.

BT - Macchu coal - stock. Vitcos arty - police (lots of police station prebuilds this turn and next). Sausa factory - coal.

Iroquois complete Manhattan Project. :eek:

(7) 1535 - Not much left for our workers to do.

BT - Cuzco pentagon - army prebuild. Almarikh arty - arty. Ollytay stock - police. Cori granary - police. Hua granary - police. Vilcas granary - police. Ica stock - police. Coastal Hill duct - granary. Hali harbor - court. New Machu duct - gran.

(8) 1540

BT - Tiwa bank - stock. New Cuzco court - market. Nasca harbor - factory. Brighton court - market.

(9) 1545 AD - Science can go to 10% for sani in 1, which is odd, because we couldn't go to 70% last turn. Sure enough, everyone now has sanitation. I suppose if I'd chosen another tech, we'd have a two-fer now, but, like I said, sanitation was too important for me to count on the inept AI. In any case, we buy sani at the price offered by the Byzantines - world map plus 3 gold (no, NOT gpt), so we got something for our beakers. We fire our scientists, naturally.

Looking at the other tech, if we wanted to keep researching, we could have mass production in 8 turns at 548 gold per turn. That works out to 4384 gold or so, even more expensive than a safe steal. No thanks! So, we turn science back off for now.

I have 16 pollution workers fortified by Cuzco. Pollution still isn't too bad, but we haven't really started to grow yet, either. There's a few random workers doing silly jobs, plus 81 "extra" workers in a stack by Cuzco. Most of them can by merged, I guess, when the hospitals are done, except for the assorted ones we might want to re-work the tiles for larger cities. I suppose we could also amuse ourselves by building and chopping forests down on the tundra.

BT - Thessalonica court - market. Chuito stock - hospital.

(10) 1550 AD - Swap core cities to hospitals.

We have cash for an immediate steal, or we could wait. We'd have enough for a careful steal next turn, for example.

The Iro are building the UN in Smyrna, which is not exactly their best city. I didn't investigate the situation there, but it probably wouldn't hurt to peek in and see how they're doing.

I have the feeling that this might be one of the last quiet turns from here on out. At least, we're going to have to do something sooner or later if we don't want to go gently into that good night.

-Griselda

Next, on General Hospital... (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-1550ad.zip)

Griselda <-- just played
Charis <-- done (swapped order this round)
Jester <-- UP
Kylearan <-- on deck
(Sullla - on hold)
Skyfish

I don't know when I'll be able to play this one out, but I'll try to get to it soon.

Jester

... I forgot I had this game taken. I didn't realize quite how much I had to do when I grabbed it.

I'm going to be buried in readings and practice for the next couple weeks, so you're going to have to consider me out, probably for the rest of the game (presuming that's only going to be one or two go-arounds).

Skip me, and sorry for not passing up on it earlier.

Jester

Griselda <-- just played
Charis <-- done (swapped order this round)
Jester <-- (on hold)
Kylearan <-- UP NOW
(Sullla - on hold)
Skyfish < -- on deck

I move our armies and cavalry into the cities of Huaca and Almarikh. I don't want them to be in the open in case war breaks out, so they now "protect" our oil and rubber cities on our border to the Iroquois. I change several production orders; for example, totally corrupt Sparta is on wealth but can build a hospital in 15 using engineers, or Kazaan can speed up its courthouse from 8 to 2 with engineers. In general, I'm impressed with the engineers in corrupt cities. But I don't fully understand them - for example, in Mycenae or Liverpool, they add no shields. Why? Because they are of a foreign nationality, or how do they work exactly? If someone could enlighten me here, I'd be grateful.

I also switch some cities to police stations - I don't think factories are a high priority in cities with less than 10spt after corruption.

1555 AD (1): Cuzco completes hospital and starts to build an army. Tambo Colorado completes wall street. With our income, we can do a careful steal every 4 turns, or a safe steal every 5.5 turns. I know that the Scouting Sid team has stolen a gazillion techs without being caught, but I like to be on the safe side here because we are a democracy and would suffer heavy losses in case war breaks out; I don't want to imagine what several carriers full of bombers could do to our war weariness (do the AI bombard units more often now that bombers are lethal?). For that reason, flight should be our next steal attempt...

1560 AD (2): The Iros get a beachhead in our southern parts... :wallbash:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-1600ad-1.jpg

How did that happen? There's no Iro culture for miles there, and there are not many cities who are farther away to their capital! That sucks. I move several units into Caxamalca for flip protection. For flip protection! In one of our core cities! :mad: :aargh:

I merge several workers into Cuzco. India has scientific methods now.

1565 AD (3): More workers get merged. We safely steal flight from the Iros, and trade it away to Gandhi for scientific methods, WM, 16 gold and 38gpt. Cuzco and Cori switch to airport.

(I) India extends the peace and wines deal.

1570 AD (4): Workers get merged, first bomber is ordered.

(I) The Iros complete the UN, but don't hold elections.

1575 AD (5): More workers get merged, and our income skyrockets.

1580 AD (6): Guess what? Even more workers get merged! And I sell flight to Theodora for 20 gold and 8gpt.

(I) The Iros complete their first spaceship part.

1585 AD (7): It's amazing how many native workers we still have to merge...

1590 AD (8): We try another safe steal, but get caught. :( Our agent is still alive, though.

1595 AD (9): A single Iro TOW infantry enters our territory. Scrappy as we are, we demand he should leave - Hia refuses and declares war! We bombard the TOW and kill it with our cav army, which redlines. Then, over a dozen Iroquois modern armor enter our territory and capture Almarik, Huaca, Bring It Cori and raze Karakorum and Ulaanbaatar.

...

Oh wait, we're not scrappy. So I leave the TOW in our territory in peace and all is well. :)

1600 AD (10): :sleep:



The Iros habe one part of the spaceship built and have five under construction. Our core is producing bombers and fighters now; some bombers are at Almarikh already, so we could try careful steals if you think safe steals need too long. We're making over 900gpt now, which means a safe steal every four turns, or a careful steal every three turns.

I didn't rework all our tiles in our core to optimize production: I don't think it makes much difference in this stage of the game and was too lazy. If the next leader disagrees with that, feel free to do it...

This round was not very satisfying: Lost a city, burnt 3,5k in an unsuccessful steal attempt. I hope the next leader has more luck.

007 trying to reach the moon (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-1600ad.zip)

Next up: Skyfish, good luck!
On deck: Not sure. Gris. I guess.

-Kylearan

Kawauka flipped?! :saiyan:

That's it, I'm officially *tired* of cultural flips in C3C, where they've never bothered me in the least before. I'm not aware of anything changing, maybe it hasn't, but don't be surprised to see flips off next game :scan:

Cute tale on being scrappy, boy did my jaw hit the ground! I can't *believe* how much they're running away from the pack. I've never owned 1/2 the world in a game solidly played and still been one full age behind, and we're not even on Deity lvl. That's quite a significant gpt bug they had helping them.

As you said, flight next and whip out a major bomber force, then we optimize for income and go on a steal rampage 8-\
I think you've all read it, but if not, be sure to check out the comeback in Scouting Sid :hammer:

Charis

I got it !

Any news, Sky?

Our capital is at 88spt and we can go to 92spt by starving it in a cycle.
For the rest we have only 5 cities above 50spt and 5 cities above 33spt.
The rest is just useless in terms of production in this day and age.
In the north we are producing loads of infra with the help of civil engineers,
a noble goal but the game will be long finished before we can get any real value
out of those cities : what we need them for is *MONEY*.
We have to steal our way back in this game.
So in most cities I swap all engineers to tax collectors (with no starving)
I leave the marketplace which are bieng built they serve our purpose.
Income is now up to 1100gpt.
Notice our far city of Dover is only 16 tiles from the UN (in Smyrna):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Smyrna1.JPG



In 1605, Iros add Cockpit.

In 1610, Iros add Storage supply. Enough money for a safe steal.
Notice that the Indians are lacking soem essential supplies, we need to keep them alive if
we go for diplo victory so I provide them our extra luxuries and resources (like oil and coal).
They can pay 58gpt which is not too bad after all...
We then proceed to safely steal a tech from our Iro friends : Atomic Theory.

During the following turns, no more parts from the Iros.

In 1625, We have again enough money for a safe steal and again succeed to steal Mass transportation !

After 5 turns I decide to stop here for now : we need to strategize more.
We are 4 techs from Modern Age, the Iros have completed 4 parts and are building another 4.
A failed attempt and a war declaration from Iro could mean the end of the game :(

Iros have huge force and already an impressive nuclear arsenal.
Here are the respective forces :
Incas / Iroquois
Workers : 29 / 43
Marine : 0 / 1
Cavs : 25 / 24
Rifles : 48 / 0
Infs : 12 / 187
Tanks : 0 / 9
Modern Armor : 0 / 24
Arti : 11 / 15
Cruise Missile : 0 / 12
Tac nukes : 0 / 5
ICBMs : 0 / 5
Transport : 0 / 10
Carrier : 0 / 6
Submarine 0 / 4
Destroyer : 0 / 32
Battleship : 0 / 4
Nuke subs : 0 / 4
Fighter : 3 / 3
Bombers : 16 / 24
Jet Fighter : 0 / 18
Guerilla : 0 / 5
TOW : 0 / 59
Mobile Sam : 0 / 1

It looks pretty bleak : how many forces do we need to takeand hold Smyrna ?
How do we get there without navy ?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1,_1625_AD.zip

Oh man! Well, at least this isn't like so many games with a boring endgame! With all of our military successes, we're over OCN by a lot, and lacking production power in our core. :(

If we're going for Smyrna, before we declare it probably wouldn't hurt to work on sabotaging production in the Iro spaceship cities, as long as we're "ready" for war before we do so. Actually, I've never used the "sabotage" option, does anyone on the team have experience with it?

-Griselda

I have tried sabotage a long time ago and found it not worth the money. Back then, sabotaging big projects like wonders or spaceship parts in big cities was way too expensive; especially in this game we could use the money better for tech theft, IMHO. But maybe sabotage has changed in C3C?

Not that I have a better idea what else to do. :undecide: &nbsp I don't think we have enough time to assemble a big navy, a large stack of bombers *and* a considerable ground force to attack and hold Smyrna. IIRC, Speaker nuked the UN city in the Scouting Sid game, an option we don't have here yet.

In C3C, some parts of the spaceship have been moved back in the tech tree, so maybe we have enough time left with stealing and building our own? Not sure.

If not, how can the spaceship be destroyed? Is it always in the capital, or the city that built the first/a specific part? And has the city to be destroyed/captured, or will a nuke suffice? I never tried to destroy one before.

-Kylearan

I agree that sabotage is likely quite useless and that the UN city would be extremely difficult to hold (impossible with our current units)

Two huge things in our favor
- Bombers. Until their folly is fixed, they reign supreme. If recent leaders have acted wisely and have a few dozen on hand, not only is war not "game over" but it's time for Iro smackdown. We get our city and continent back with the bombers and one cav, and the Iro are powerless to hurt us in any way (short of nukes).
- Prolonged space race. The first parts are still early and nothing to fear, but as they keep up the pressure and get towards that last one, we'll be in a crunch.

We do **NOT** have the cash for continuing this "safe steal" policy. We have, what, 12 techs to reach parity, and they have, oh, 8 more techs until they win? At 4 techs per new tech for them, that's 30 turns guys. At 1100gpt and aiming to get 20 techs in 30 turns we need to steal three techs every two turns, which means immediate spy steals the whole time. The only 'game over' situation is being at war and losing our spy. We need to be able to continue stealing even at war. It's not a question of if, but when - with that many techs to steal, especially quickly, war WILL come.

As Gris may have already done, we need to absolutely maximize income to the hilt (short of selling Iro lux), get a fleet of a few dozen bombers and that's IT for units - wealth will do after that.

The backup plan?? Nuking a capital will NOT take out the spaceship as far as I know -- only razing it will. That means our backup plan for when they're about to start their last part is to nuke their capital, nuke enough surrounding tiles to make it unreachable, then use helicopter or paratrooper (or if near coast, just a landing of cav) to raze the city on the next turn. Not a pretty backup, and one probably best used only if they launch the first nuke. Ugh... don't even want to go there...

Charis

Hey people, what's up? Difficult end-games with the prospect of losing aren't very popular, it seems...

I guess there won't be more input on how to proceed, so who's up next? Skyfish, will you play another set of five turns? Or if you're finished, who's up next - I'm confused about that. Gris, or Charis?

C'mon, challenging and fun turns are ahead! We only need some carriers and battleships, a dozen or so more bombers, maybe a transport or two and then a lot of fun can be had! :hammer:

-Kylearan

Kylearan, thanks for chiming in. I missed/forgot that Skyfish's turn post was a 5 turn partial. In general, that's a bad idea to do so, just for this very reason. (Though clearly, Skyfish thought it was crucial to do so) -- if/when you do, never wait more than 24hrs plz.

I gave my input - bombers, max income, must go immediate steals, and war with them is a given. Two other important notes though!

- Building bombers for 20 turns and saving money then stealing 4 techs leaves us no further behind than stealing one every five turns, and leaves us ahead militarily if one of those causes war declaration.
- Judging by RBC6 Sumerians, the Iro *are* in a 4-turn per tech death march. So if you know how many more techs they need, the game is over in 4*n+3 turns! The war may slow them down if we can get embargoes from our allies vs them. I also remember in rbc6 thinking "These guys don't even have radio and I'm on robotics?? Heaven help them if they go to war with me now!" :eek:

It's Gris' call how to proceed. Tonight and tomorrow night are my last nights before leaving town for a week, so I'll either need to slip in next (whether Sky takes 5 more or not) or be skipped (whichever Griselda prefers is fine). Skyfish, please report status - if you've played anymore turns, and whether you could finish the remaining 5 within the next 12-16 hrs. If no to both, the turn should be over.

Charis

Sorry it was my idea that we could go to 5 turns each since these are longish turns...
I have not played more turns no.

Okay, so Skyfish has finished his turn. The current roster of still active players seems to be:

Griselda
Charis (away until 12th or 13th)
Kylearan
Skyfish

That would make Griselda up next, right?

Sorry for pressing this, but I'm dying to know if we can still win this. ;)

-Kylearan

Ack, thanks for the reminder! I'd meant to reply to Charis and get him to jump in, but I must have overlooked it.

I'll play tonight or tomorrow, and we can have this moving again.

-Griselda

The situation looks grim. I'm going to post another partial, because we're at another key decision making point.

Anyway, my goal for this turn is to build wealth and some military capability for bombing and razing of Salmanca if need be. I'll also build up cash for several steals in 10 turns or so.

(0) 1625 - Give Cuzco back its food tile. Irrigate at Machu to prevent startving. Besides the bombers, cities are on wealth or economic improvements that can be ready in 10-15 turns or so. Several decent shield cities to airport. Cori to transport.

We're at +935 gpt, which should improve. I do cancel the ivory and spices with the Byzantines. They're broke, so I'm sure they would have just cancelled it anyway.

BT - Cuzco bomber - bomber. Machu stock - c. dock. Ollytay bomber - c. dock. Vilcas bomber - bomber. Vilca bomber - bomber. Vitcos fighter - bomber. Anda factory - bank. Hera aqueduct - bank. Juli harbor - stock. Bring It Cori market - bank. Ereen cathedral - bank.

(1) 1630 - Re-base bombers to Cori.

BT - Cori transport - battleship. Hua bomber - bomber. Vitcos gets pollution and riots. Ica bomber - bomber. Dover courthouse - bank. Sausa colosseum - bank. Tambo Colorado bomber - bomber.

(2) 1635

BT - Cuzco bomber - bomber. Kazan granary - wealth. Vilcas bomber - bomber. Choybalsan bank - stock. Tsetserleg colosseum - bank. Tamboccocha bank - stock.

Iro add fuel cells.

(3) 1640

BT - Tiwa airport - bomber. Hua bomber - bomber. Pharsalos police - bank. Argos bank - wealth. Vilcabamba bomber - bomber. Nasca bank - wealth. Huaras airport - bomber. Tambo Colorado bomber - bomber.

Iro lose Laguerto(?) to volcano.

(4) 1645 - I had thought maybe a bombing run from Coastal Hill Huaca could reach Salmanca, but it's a few tiles short. Our west coast set to carriers. I don't think any of our other cities could build them fast enough with transport time. Riobamba to harbor.

We're at +1002 gpt.

BT - Cuzco bomber - bomber. Karakorum market - wealth. Vilcas bomber - bomber. Mycenae market - wealth. Ica bomber - bomber. Chuito airport - bomber. Riobamba harbor - carrier.

Iro start SETI, and add Exterior Casing and Engine. :eek:

(5) 1650 - The Iroquois are at 7(1)/10. I'm guessing that means they need only laser and robotics, although I suppose I don't know that they have nuclear power. So, we probably have 11-15 turns left until they launch at this rate.

Even with an immediate steal every other turn, we can't get tech, and build a space ship, that quickly. So, we've clearly lost that race. The other option- try to raze Salmanca I guess. :eek: :eek: :eek:

The problem is, carriers are damn expensive, and I'm not even sure we could have them ready in time. If we rush any carriers, we would be spending our valuable tech-steal money.

Then there's the matter of what the Iro can throw at us. But, I'm not seeing any other options here.

I moved out our cavs and such near the Iro cities on our continent. I haven't rushed any carriers yet. Does this course of action sound reasonable?

We could go to a 5-turn rotation so we can each get a small bite of endgame, and I can pass it off here. What do you all think?

1650 AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-1650ad.zip)

I haven't looked at the save yet, but if the carriers have to be rushed to get them near Salamance in time, then so be it - better lose some tech-steal money than the whole game. We also need an escort for the carriers, and at least one transport for some ground troops to raze Salamanca, probably cavalry because of their three movement.

Got it. I'll take a look at our situation tomorrow.

-Kylearan

There's a transport, and there should be a bettleship done, or ready within few (rushable).

-Griselda

The good news is that Salamanca is located on the coast, so capturing it after bombardment won't be too hard. Ideally we would attack with marines, but stealing amphibious war only for that task is probably a waste.

So my proposal for a plan would be:

A) On turn one, declare war and land cavalry, infantry (and maybe SAM?) on the mountain near Salamanca. The bombers destroy all roads near Salamanca so that no reinforcements from outside can attack our units, then start to begin to bombard Salamanca itself. On turn two, our bombers destroy the garrison in Salamanca completely and our cavalry razes the city.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc1-salamanca.jpg

The disadvantages of plan A are that the Iroquois have lots of bombers and jet fighters and we don't know what units are in the city itself, so our cavalry/infantry or our carriers could be killed in the interturn. We also have a lot of roads to destroy to protect our units - too bad we cannot nuke.

An alternative plan would be:

B) Shortly before our navy is finished, steal amphibious war and produce some marines. Then, declare war. Now our bombers can concentrate on destroying the garrison in Salamanca, and our marines can attack the city on the same turn, giving the Iros no time to respond.

Plan B has the disadvantage that we have to waste money on an otherwise useless tech, with the additional risk that our spy will be caught and war breaks out before our navy is in position.

If anybody has a plan C, speak up please. :)


So which option do you all prefer? I vote for B), but have to admit that I find it difficult to assess the risks of plan A).

Since during the next five turns we will be busy producing carriers and battleships anyway, regardless of how we attack, I'll play soon.

-Kylearan

I like plan B myself. With that one, we can make the best use of the bombers and carriers we do have, and making do with less might save us enough to pay for aphibious warfare by itself (unless our spy is killed, of course). I think we only need to bomb from a few tiles off the coast of Coastal Hill Huaca, so our carriers could pop out of the city, do the bombing run, and pop back into safety. Since carriers, and not the number of bombers, is likely to be our limiting factor, we want to be able to hit Salmanca with everything we have without spending turns bombing the roads.

We could use all of our cover for the transport and the marines. We likely won't need many marines if the bombers are effective.

-Griselda

I reconfigured our cities and raised our income by 40gpt and set some cities to grow again on the inherited turn. Only a few orders were changed.

Carriers still have only a transport capacity of only four, which I hate. That means we need a lot of carriers to carry enough bombers to destroy the garrison of Salamance in one turn, so I rushbought several carriers in cities that would need too long to build them by themselves.

Theodora demanded spices, and I caved - I didn't want to be distracted from our war preparations, and she still has gpt payments to make.

The Iros have started to build the internet.

I renegotiated the iron for wines deal with Gandhi and sold ivory to Theodora for all her 10gpt.

Atico rioted on my last turn, sorry for that - too many cities. :crazyeye:

We now have 10 carriers, 2 battleships, 1 transport, 44 bombers and 4 fighters. We need more battleships and maybe a transport and, of course, a few marines. I don't know if we need more bombers and fighters, but that wouldn't hurt. Maybe we should move our navy near Salamanca and wait there, bringing in more carriers and bombers until the Iros begin to build the last two parts of their spaceship. That way, we maximize our chances of taking Salamanca in one turn. The only tricky part is when to steal amphibious warfare to produce and bring in the marines.

Feels like Sid (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-1675AD.zip)

Roster:
Griselda <-- on deck
Charis (away until 12th or 13th)
Kylearan
Skyfish <-- UP NOW

-Kylearan

Skyfish or Charis,

Are either of you available to play 5?

If nobody has it by Fri-Satish, I suppose I'll play again.

-Griselda

I'm back [dance]

What a wonderful trip, the missus especially had a great time :goodjob:

I can take it here for five - wow has it gotten dicey :eek:

imo, this has the strong feel of what you get when you tweak something and look at it in isolation -- the changes made in corruption are seeming now to lead to runaway wins for both AI and humans, as we've seen in several games. (Look at Maniac1 and RBC6 for human examples) Anyway, we'll see what we can do.

"Got it"
Charis

We have a HUGE gap to surmount here, and current thought is that razing of
Salamanca will be needed to prevent their ship from launching in the next 10-20 turns.
And this is only Demigod level! We're behind *16* techs, so for comparison's sake,
picture being Portugal in the Maniac1 game toward the end. And we'll likely have to
detour for one extra tech, Amphibious assault, to be able to raze their capital.
Riobamba holds our entire Air Force (talk about what dmg a preemptive strike on
their part would do :P ) The range of the bombers is such that we can hit them
on turn one once the carriers move. A transport will take 3 turns to get to
Salamanca (or 2 to the mountain nearby) With their rail network and vast tech
superiority, I would hate to count on landing and survining a turn before
attacking.

First thing I notice is that we have WAY too many long term projects in the build
queue. Even a bank due in 20 will never see the light of day. I'll need to go through
all the cities and swap as much as possible to wealth. Also sell libraries and other
maintenance items that aren't needed.

Er... I just now notice something that spells our total doom. Iro have 97.6K culture.

:eek:

Game is over in less than 4 turns and we can't do a thing to stop it.
This will be a hit-return-and-die reign I'm afraid, we can't even get to Smyrna
for a UN capture in time.

[0] 1675 AD - First tough call - we need marines, and ASAP. If we fail, it's
pretty much game over, so let's get it done. Careful steal... works and we
get Amphib assault. That's quite likely our last non-immediate steal, as we just
have too many to buy. Electronics comes immediately, and next batch will be in
a few turns.

[1] 1680 - Iro culture 98587 up from 97604. Two turns to go.

[2] 1685 - 99,577.

[3] 1690 AD - 100,571, that's it. Cultural loss to 100K, 84h, 5m, 15s.

Constantinople was 4th city, Iro had all the rest. Turn 328, 7 of 10 parts built.
Even so, we'll be remembered (somehow!) as Pacachuti the Magnificent! Good grief,
the score is 4334, and it beats Maniac1 for score.

Well team... not sure what to say. We played well I thought. The start was hindered
by a lack of FP, by v1.12 and Iro jumped in the lead never to look back due to gpt
and other bugs, so this is by no means a shameful loss. I came away from this game
thinking "Yes, the Agri trait is nice, but not the uber auto-win trait some folks make
it out to be." However... the Chasqui pretty much *are* as poor as most folks think :P
I'll take cheaper regular scouts anyday.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1690AD.jpg

Thanks, Griselda, for hosting this, and to teammates Jester, Kylearan, Skyfish,
(and briefly, Sulla).

RBC1-Incans-1685AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC1-Incans-1685AD-preCultureLoss.zip) Pre-100K loss

May the Incans someday rise again...
Charis

D'oh - I don't think I ever had a 100k loss before, so at least this is something new for me. But the game was fun nonetheless, especially the beginning with Ca-Ching's appearances and our glass cannon wars. :D

Charis had noted in another thread that "there are definite balance problems that have crept in with the changes made in recent patches. The ability for one civ (whether AI or human) to 'pull away' seems greater than it has ever been since Civ I days!?". I'm not sure if that's really a problem. It would be one if only the human could pull away easily, but looking at this game, the map and how the Iros were able to spread out, I think it's okay for them to pull away with a 4-turn-research cycle. This is demigod, and I think we have done some mistakes. A slower expansion with less war and an earlier infra push, less overall cities and maybe a campaign vs the Iros to stop them would have changed the game completely. I actually like it how an AI can become strong if left unchecked. The game seems to have become harder overall, even without playing at Sid level. It's hard to grasp why, but I like it. YMMV, though.

-Kylearan

I fully concur with Kylearan. Except on the "slower expansion part with less war " :p
I dont believe the changes in patch were the problem in that game at all. I am glad the AI can still beat us or else it would be no fun playing anymore (except against another human :D )
I also dont fully agree that we played well...
Many times in this game I was shocked at some of the choices or tactics, but thats just to say I would have played differently, probably not better.
What mainly undid us was the corruption/waste bug which meant our 5 core cities being at equal distance from the capital, they suffered from excessive early corruption while the Iros were benefiting to the max from the gpt bug building a huge treasure.
Finally, indeed the game has become harder and the usual tactics of min science and massive upgrades (for example) are not possible anymore at high level, it is great news for RBCivvers I think :)

I still think the problems are really very significant, and recent turns in other games demonstrate this.

- This is just Demigod, and without the extra settlers/etc of Deity it's significantly easier. I've never seen a Deity AI runaway this badly on a standard size map. Even in this game India had a significant size island, and the Byzantines area is actually quite decent. In any previous Civ3 version, those three would have been both closer together and just a tad slower.
- The game after Civ I is *not* about who has the biggest empire. There's no way in the world we can have 40% of the world's area, and have it for a large chunk of the game, and be THIS far behind.
- It's not just that an AI pulls away from the human, they're pulling away from the pack like I've never seen before.
- No we didn't play perfectly, but don't kid yourselves - we OWNED our hemisphere, we had an early hut settler, we expanded nicely, there was no glaring deficiency. We were *one full era* behind!
- I wonder how much Temple of Artemis and other wonders are a factor, or did they cash rush culture, but 100K with no one even *one quarter* of their total is astonishing.

> I dont believe the changes in patch were the problem in that
> game at all.

> I am glad the AI can still beat us or else it would be no fun
> playing anymore (except against another human )

You're missing my main point, although making a good additional point. I'm *not* upset at the fact the AI is doing better, nor do I argue that increased difficulty is bad! What I'm saying is that it's apparent that something *significant* has changed in either C3C or the patch such that a single top civ is FAR more likely than before to utterly run away with the game.

The equicorruption bug was a tiny part of this, not as you suggest the main reason for our undoing. The gpt bug led to them getting a significant lead over the other AI, but we patched in what I thought was plenty of time for that not to be a game-ending issue.

> Finally, indeed the game has become harder and the usual
> tactics of min science and massive upgrades (for example) are
> not possible anymore at high level, it is great news for
> RBCivvers I think

Min science had nothing to do with the results. Min science means that you can spend no money on research and still get an occasional tech before everyone else does and trade it around, for a big savings. That was helpful but above Emperor not a big factor. Intelligent trading is a far bigger boon to the human than the ability to run min sci. In this game the other AI were so behind that they were not effective trading partners.

Massive upgrades had nothing to do with this game. We made very little use of big upgrades, certainly didn't make it part of our strategy, and the loss was not a military one.

> I'm not sure if that's really a problem. It would be one if only
> the human could pull away easily, but looking at this game, the
> map and how the Iros were able to spread out, I think it's okay
> for them to pull away with a 4-turn-research cycle.

It's a problem both when humans and AI can get THAT far ahead. Our games in RBC6 and Maniac1 were insanely easy, at pretty much the same difficulty level. RBC11 is heading that way - to paraphrase Dwip: "Let me note the ridiculousness of the situation. We're stomping the Iroquois mostly without trying to build military, researching Metallurgy while they lack Construction, and we have more wonders than the rest of the world combined."

I'm basically saying that changes in the corruption model have led to VERY significant gameplay changes, and that they changes were not intended, designed, or tested. Being in early on the beta patches I can assure you that runaway-top-civ was NOT considered in the least, nor was there any significant testing time between the coding and the release of the patches.

How has this turned out? Let's review shall we?
RBC1 - blowout loss
RBC2 - blowout win (Mesopotamia scenario)
RBC3 - good games (Rise of Rome scenario)
RBC4 - blowout win on DG, blowout loss on Sid
RBC5 - blowout win (with Feudalism)
RBC6 - blowout win (running full science)
RBC7 - blowout win (just after getting into Fascism)
RBC9 - blowout loss (look at the most recent Mongol screenie)
RBC11 - blowout win (and it's still in early stages)
Maniac1 - blowout win (just with six cities)
RBC8 is in progress, but the blowout nature doesn't bode well.

Do you see a trend here? Contrast this with some of the better known Epics of PtW or earlier. The Defiant Nationalists under C3C would have lost to a runaway leader. RBE2, one of the great comebacks of SG history, would have been a loss under this patch. Scouting Sid was a great game, but it swung from blowout loss to win through the use of what the game host Arathorn called a broken game element (lethal bombard). Any of the Deity OCC wins would fail to a superpower under this patch. And any of 1-2 dozen other games that were "fun wins" where the humans trailed most of the game but turned things around in the middle Industrial era - would these games have worked or been as fun with the current patch?

> I actually like it how an AI can become strong if left unchecked.
> The game seems to have become harder overall, even without
> playing at Sid level. It's hard to grasp why, but I like it. YMMV,
> though.

Well it's certainly ok to like "the new style" of the game, but my again my main point is that a new change *has* occurred, and it moves the game play dynamics back in the direction of Civ I. And no, I don't think it's a good thing (but that's my opinion in response to my assertion, not the main point itself) It works to kill the epic 'comeback', and it kills the chance for trailing AI's to catch up to humans who get in the lead.

Charis

Hi,

>I've never seen a Deity AI runaway this badly on a standard size map.

I remember the PTW "exploring Deity" game with Gris, Tex and Dwp, where Rome ran away with the game and left the other civs and us way behind:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52676

Granted, that hadn't been so drastic as recent examples (Rome had "only" a tech lead of 5-6 techs on the rest of the world), but still - Rome was *huge*, had built nearly all important wonders, and we won only by sheer luck.

But I agree that something has changed and that this kind of situation is more common now, although your review of RBC games is a bit unfair: Your commanding lead in RBC11 is mainly a consequence of the map layout (archipelago, lots of fertile land), the Conquests don't really count with their altered rules and special tech trees and several games were hurt severely by the FP and gpt bugs. But there's still a trend to be seen, yes. I also see your point that it makes turning around a nearly lost game nigh impossible, and thus takes away a lot of fun. But it also looks more "natural" now: AIs that have the same number of cities as the human player, and a lot more than the other AIs, *should* run away with the game. Compared to the human, the demigod bonus gives them an advantage over the human, and compared to the other AIs, the higher science output because of having more cities should do the same. Size matters. :-P

Let's differentiate between two seperate issues here: Comparing the runaway AI to the human player, and comparing it to other AIs

1) AI vs human: I still think we did a key mistake in this game that put us so far behind: We waged war and ignored infrastructure for too long. Yes, we owned our hemisphere, as you noted, but what is a large empire worth without a solid infrastructure? I remember one of my later turns, I think it was when I had stolen flight, where I noticed that some of our core cities were building airports while still lacking banks.

I have not enough energy to play a shadow game so I cannot prove it, but I think we should have stopped after conquering the southern part of the continent and should have concentrated on getting a good economy going. Instead of marketplaces and cathedrals, our core cities had to build knights and pikes for too long, which had put us way behind on the economic growth curve, not even speaking of culture. It had been great fun, mind you, but not effective long-term IMHO.

2) AI vs AI: Why there's a bigger chance for one AI to run away technologically compared to other AIs, I really don't know, and I agree that happens too much. But on the other hand, the Iros had a much larger empire than the other AIs, so it somehow feels "right" that they would be able to outresearch their rivals. I have no idea why the other AIs nearly stopped researching anything for themselves, but that had been the case in PTW as well. Maybe we have to adapt our playstyle and have to look more who's growing too large, and attack that AI earlier to stop it. Ignoring other continents was fine in PTW, but maybe it just won't work anylonger.

I have a guess, though, what may be one reason for an AI to be able to run away with the game: I suspect there's a bug/new "feature" regarding war weariness affecting AIs. Normally, war weariness is a limiting factor. For an AI to get as large as the Iros did in this game, they have to wage a lot of war. That will lead to war weariness and to less optimal governments or earlier peace eventually, resulting in a slower research speed. What I suspect is that war weariness doesn't affect them anymore, or only marginally.

Look at our Scrappy Sumerians game: The Iros managed to stay in democracy all the time while we were beating on them. I remember playing my turns and capturing several big cities from them after my two predecessors had done the same, and they *still* managed to remain a democracy - not possible, if you ask me.

Another example is a private game I played: On a standard size map, emperor diff, I attacked a democratic AI which had 40 or so cities. I razed approx. 30(!) cities before domination triggered, and again they managed to stay in democracy the whole time. There's something wrong there, and maybe that enables war-happy AIs to maintain a high research rate while enlarging their empire and as a consequence, run away with the game?

-Kylearan

Edit: Regarding the huge lead in culture:

>but 100K with no one even *one quarter* of their total is astonishing.

Is it? A 100k win in 1690AD for such a large empire with demigod production boni sounds about right, no? In our cultural communists game we try to achieve the same: Lots of cities.

Edit2: Forget what I just wrote - you're not wondering about the 100k victory itself, but that the other AIs have not even one quarter if the Iro's culture. And yes, they seem to have more than one quarter of the Iro's cities, so my comment was stupid. :crazyeye:

Thanks, team, for coming along on the journey!

Regardless of the balance and corruption issues that seem to be apparent from the amount of blowout games, I think a major factor for us as players is that of expectations. When we defeated the Greeks and the Mongols, in PTW that would have been a "can't lose" position, even with the lack of infrastructure. In PTW, there would have been plenty of time to switch over to builder's mode and take the game just about anywhere we wanted it. Even though the AI gets bonuses on demigod, I'm sure there were examples of dumb-AI choices that we could have seen upon investigating any Iroquois city. That's what the bonuses are for!

So, I think the expectation for many players here was "sure, we haven't done much building lately, but, with the empire we'll have when we defeat the Greeks and the Mongols, we will be unstoppable." Now, we've seen that it doesn't work that way in Conquests, and I'm sure we will keep this in mind in future games.

Thanks for playing!

-Griselda

Folks.

Thanks for an entertaining game. I think the biggest mitake was to let Iro in the game (again)!

BTW, some people mentioned that Epic 36, where can I find the report? I am curious to see the 1000+ modern armors. :D

microbe,

I'm glad you enjoyed the read. :)

Epic 36 is one of the Realms Beyond Civilization Epics, which you can read more about here (http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/epics.html) . Epic Thirty-six was primarily a builder's game, played on a huge map, yet many remember it for the Epic struggle that developed between the player and the Iroquois. You can read more about Epic Thirty-six itself right here (http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/epic36.html) .

The Epic 36 reports were posted on the RBCiv forum, in this thread (http://www.network54.com/Hide/Forum/message?forumid=189557&messageid=1067290788) . I think Kylearan's game, in particular, featured an extensive modern battle vs, the dreaded Iroquois.

-Griselda

I have been playing some conquests games, and I think the biggest change is the corruption model. If you have ever tracked down where the AI builds its FP, you will see in many cases it is in some city relatively close to the capitol. Thus in pre 1.15 conquests, the FP location was generally poor. The human would get 2 effective cores, while the AI would have 1 1/4 cores. However, the AI placement is very well suited to the 1.15 corruption model - In a city close to the capitol that is easy to build. Add in the improved courthouses and the AI is able to do much better in terms of building a viable large empire.

I think we would have seen the similar effect if they had kept the old corruption model, but had the AI place the FP initelligently. I am liking the new 1.15 corruption model a lot more than I thought I would. I do miss the ability to make second cores, but do like the fact it can make the AI actually compete effectively and not be totally gimped a bigger size like before.