RBC3B - Ancient Mediterranean Mayhem - Persians

This game is one of four running on the Rise of Rome Conquest,
seeking to experience each of the four playable civs and to
compare their different situations.

Scenario: Rise of Rome Civ: Persians
Difficulty: Deity Goal: Domination Victory before 130 turns

Roster
------
Charis
Rubberjello
hotrod0823
Sir Bugsy
gormdragan

All exploits listed at RBCiv are off-limits
10 turns per player at all times
24/48 rule is in effect for "got it" message/playing turns
Players may read other RBC3 threads on other civs

Starting position:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3B-350BC-Persians-Start.jpg

A few items of interest are shown with white or red lines/circles.

Units:
1 Settler, 9 Worker
9 Archer, 3 Horsemen
17 Spearmen, 4 Galley
1 Army (Darius!)
4 Immortals (woo!)

Cities and Resources:
16 cities, all size 3-5, 11 have rax (not capital?!)
Greece has 15, size 2-5.
3 iron, 1 horse, 2 lux. Shields run from 1-11 per city, total ~72

Tech and Winning Conditions:
The tech tree is rather different, so take a look at it. With only 130 turns
max in the game, unless the other civs are research hounds, we won't see many
new ones. We're in an Oligarchy gov, one tech from Monarchy. More important
we're two techs from "Heavy Cav" which are a sweet 5 attack 2 speed. I would
think we head there. (Philosophy first for free tech would be an alternative)
The objective is 20% of area and 50% of population for a modified domination
victory. Winning the war with Greece and taking all their land is a virtual
must. I think we have a Barb tribe nearby too?
Egypt with its large area, good food and small size will make for a
tasty morsel at some point. :groucho:
Startup pre-game:
- At 40 turns min, I find a very corrupt city and make one scientist.
- Any city with no barracks starts one, then if no spearman, starts one
- The city orders, squares worked, absurd deficit, and clowns in the capital
are like inheritting a Succession game from an extreme newbie :smoke:

War Zone: :ripper:
There are four cities in "our" land in Asia Minor, and one
more beyond those is the gateway -- Byzantium. If we can take
and hold Byzantium the rest of Turkey will fall automatically.
Fail to hold it and we have a wide west front and trouble.
Three of our immortals are central/front, one is far-rear.
The settler is in our capital -- there is a decent island
near us which is empty and we have a boat near (Crete).
There's a larger and nicer island near Greece, that's Cyprus.

Darius army is in Melitene, which is about nine turns from
Byzantium. "Compared to Macedon our army is weak."
Egypt has just 5 cities, and we're "strong" compared to them.

Near the front in Asia Minor, discounting 1 spear to stay in
each town, we have spare: 4 archers, 1 spear, 2 immortal.
Adding in the next six cities after that, spare are:
5 archers, 2 spear, 3 immortal, 3 horse.

Plan, unless other input suggests differently: gather up a force
together near Byzantium, and capture that city, which will split
the Macedonian empire in two. Build an immortal army to do this.
Hold Byzantium, then capture the other cities in Asia Minor.
In the north consolidate and build up a fresh offensive force,
and in the south, roll over Egypt with some immortals. (If this
seems approprate at the time, but chances are equally good that
a second front would be bad - it depends how aggressive Macedon is)

Questions: do we want to build settlers and explore/settle more land? When?
Should we even pull some spears from the 'central'-back locations to get a
greater concentration of power for the battle of Byzantium? Do we enter any
alliance against Greece? If we ally with Rome does Carthage go to war with us?
(Do we care?) Vice versa? The only civ who could actually do something to them
in the near future is Rome. Do we try to trade around?

Not that it should matter, but here is the starting game file (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3B-350BC-Persians-Start.zip)

I'll be playing the first turn today, so speak up soon if you have any thoughts...

:hammer:
Charis

Sounds like a good plan there. Here are my notes (which are pretty similar to the above, sorry for the repeats)

Well, at first I dispaired when I found our Capital was in the far corner, but it seems corruption factor is not as horrendous as I feared. I think we still need to establish a bunch of cities in a "slightly" tight build near our capitol and on up the Tigris/Euphrates valleys to be our productive core throughout the game. 2 Cities should turn into settler farms, and another one (probably 2) into worker farm(s).

I vote ignoring Egypt for now, but the plan of eliminating the Macedonians from Turkey should go full throttle. Defending Byzantine from the Macedonian core (after the initial victory) *might* be a bloodbath because we don't have catapults to help out defensively. If archers have the "defensive bombard" capability, that will help matters immensely, and they should be up there in good quantities.

After the initial push, maybe take a breather and concentrate on getting our core up to snuff?

As per usual, ignore Wonder builds and let the AI's build them for us?

Rome is up Mathematics on us. Maybe if we research Monarchy, that would be the best bet for a monopoly?

It looks like we don't have to worry about Barbs too much - They are all in Europe? Maybe that is a bad assumption.

A shot of the tech tree. (Note...only one page!)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3bpic001.jpg

Everything sounds good! Just a couple additional things I noted when reading through the civilopedia and trying out the game a bit as our civ just to look around.

* Movement on Roads is 1/4 not 1/3 so you can move 4 tiles on roads. Horsemen can move 8 :eek:

* Republic is required for a Forbidden Palace and should be a priority to get our lands a bit more balanced as far as corruption.

* I also like Philosophy just for the free tech and have in a funky wonder that acts like Bach's. NOT that I am advocating any wonders just thought that was cool. I found it funny that the AI is jumping on every wonder under the sun. Don't they know there is a war on. :hammer:

* The B-line for Heavy Cavs is clear given the attack strength and the fast movement along roads.

* Trading our excess Lux (dyes) and maybe even our extra iron will bring in some extra cash. NOT to even mention stripping a worker from Rome, Carthage or Egypt. WE NEED MANY MANY more. That many cities and only 9 workers :eek:. Not too mention the complete lack of roads on tiles that were irrigated.

Okay looks like I have said too much without really saying much of anything. Looking forward to playing soon.

Hotrod

RJ: Are you the Carthaginians?
Charis: Bugger off!
RJ: What?
Charis: Carthaginians! We're The Persians! Carthaginians, God!
Sir Bugsy: Blighters...
RJ: Can I...join your group?
Charis: No, piss off!
RJ: I want to join! I hate the Romans as much as anybody!
All in team except RJ: Ssch! Ssch! Ssch! Ssch! Ssch!
RJ: Oh.
Hotrod: Are you sure?
RJ: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
Charis: Listen! If you wanted to join the Persians, you'd have to have really hate the Romans.
RJ: I do!
Charis: Oh, yeah, how much?
RJ: A lot!
Charis: Right, you're in. Listen, the only people we hate more than the Romans, are the freakin’ Carthaginians!
All in team except RJ: Yeah!
Hotrod: Splitters!
Sir Bugsy: And the Macedonians!
All in team except RJ: Yeah! Splitters!
Gormdragan: And the Persians!
All in team except RJ: Yeah! Splitters!
Charis: What?
Gormdragan: The Persians. Splitters!
Charis: We are the Persians!
Gormdragan: Oh. I thought we were the Egyptians?
Charis: Persians! God...
Sir Bugsy: Whatever happened to the Egyptians, Charis?
Charis: They’re over there. (points to the West)
All in team except RJ: Splitter!
Charis: Peace, brother! Haha! What's your name?
RJ: RJ. RJ...Rubberjello.
Gormdragan: Rubberjello? What kind of a name that?
*A moment of embarrassed silence amongst the group as they all look around*
All: Right. Moving on.
Charis: We may have a little job for you, RJ.
***Whispering***
RJ: Er…Charis? Why are we killing the Macedonians? I thought we were killing the Romans? I mean they don’t even have the game yet!
Charis: Exactly. Kick ‘em while they're down, says us!

:confused: :rotfl: It's a bit quiet in these here parts isn't it ?

I ofcourse have a quiet night but will be up in like 4 games tomorrow :p

Here we go... :hammer:

Thanks to hotrod and Rubberjello for their input, especially pointing out that roads are 1/4.

[0] 350 BC - As mentioned, most cities orders are changed. Research is tactics
toward hvy cavs the next tech

Our settler heads West of Susa for a double wheat river square.
Settler farm: Babylon and Karhai, Worker farm: Gazaca.

We leave only 8 spears in cities, mostly at borders, and send rest to 'front'
Rome gives best offer for our spare dyes. WM+worker+some gold. To Carthage
WM+3gpt+some gold for worker. Egypt lacks both iron and horses (muhaha)
and will sell worker+WM+12g for Iron+3gpt. That's it for main-civ worker buys.
She turns polite.

(IBT) Uh... brutal? Our archers in this scenario do *NOT* get a bombard ability,
so the two I put with two spears that I thought was a nice defensive stack to
cut of Byzantium is already in trouble. Two spears die and they only see two
horses retreat. Near Iconium a hoplite came out and attacked a spear-archer
on a hill... and lost, then sent another one and won?! :eek: Then a horse killed
the archer, and our front shock troops are... well, shocked.
Ok, time to smack myself. I looked up a few items in the civopedia, but not
enough -- hoplites are *3.3.1*. :wallbash:

[1] 345 BC - Near Byzantium we force a horse retreat, then kill one.
Outside Iconium our horse counterattack wins vs horse, and second wins.
Darius forms an army with two immortals, another on the way. (Now tis move 2)

(IBT) I was expecting more, but Macedon horse beat our horse, and two hoplites
beat two archers. An archer lost to our spear. Romans start Temple of Artemis.

[2] 340 BC - The Darius immortal army kills a horse and we enter our Golden Age,
timed to match that of Macedon. (An immortal within promotes to vet.) Up north,
we do kill one Hoplite with an archer, and the hurt spear pillages.

(IBT) Egypt and Carthage ally vs Rome. A Greek sword butchers our archer, but
they send a *1* hp hoplite vs our spear in the forest and they lose :lol:
That's it! No more counterattacks?!

[3] 335 BC - We found Pasargadae aka 'The Wheatlands'. Our capital was one shield
short of barracks putting out 17spt. Let's compete for the Temple of Artemis!?
For a domination victory, it's temple per city is big. (Had to read to confirm)
Just to keep Rome polite, we exchange RoP rights for 8g.

We get the Heroic Epic msg, which is just better chance for leaders.

(IBT) Macedon and Egypt sign an alliance vs Rome. Perfect! We get Rome in
vs Greece and don't have to ally to do it! Carthage starts the Colossus.
The scenario tactics continue to surprise me. They slip a hoplite BEHIND
our advancing stack of doom. They attack a galley with a galley, and win.
They also move *5* units toward Ancrya, rather than pull back to defense.
That's very interesting, as purely due to the road logistics, our Army
has ended up in the South of Eastern Asia Minor, poised to take a lower city
or two on the way up to Byzantium. Let's see if when he gets next to a city
they come back?

[4] 330 BC - We do pull back to Ancyra, and push forward the SOD (ie, Army of
3 immortals, 3 archers, 2 horse and a spear. The army makes use of it's free
pillage on the way down. We can't delay for the hoplite, and move forward.

(IBT) The Romans want an alliance vs Carthage. No thanks Caesar, not our war.
The Macedonians pull obliquely with their northern force, neither up nor back.
The hoplite moves erratically, and we see a settler pair float by.

[5] 325 BC - Two immortals, settler, worker and spear complete this round.
Our army pilages their iron, but they have about four more. The army kills a
top hoplite at Miletus, and two horses finish the second - we capture the city.
(Figures, since we're pillaging machines, that we capture)

(IBT) Carthage demands TM+30g??? Hmmm, there is truly zero chance of them
coming to get us, but do we want to lose them as trading partners? I think it
seems our lot is with Rome. If Carthage declares war, it will break their rep,
and we will likely enter an alliance with Rome. I refuse, they declare.

[6] 320 BC - Ok, Hannibul. We ally with Rome vs Carthage, getting contact with Celts
discounted to 11gpt. The Celts are backwards and we get their large WM for Masonry,
Alphabet and 1gpt. Now that we have crossed the Rubicon, so to speak, we let them
pull us into an alliance vs Macedons, and they pay US 92g :P
If Hannibal has *ANY* sense he would pay Egypt to ally against us.
Why let him do that? We pull Egypt into alliance vs Carthage, for contact with
Celts and 8gpt. It's tempting to sign her vs Greece too, but not for 15-20 gpt
and no 'real' help.

We found Tarsus on a river heading to the West of Hatra, near cattle.

(IBT) Wow, they ignore the fact our Army is about to sack Sardis, and run
past it to try to get back Miletus.

[7] 315 BC - We found Gordium, near cattle and horse, and on fresh water lake.
Our army chooses to go after his units, as Sardis attack would be across river.
OUCH!! We go into the red, 2hp, but beat a hoplite and a sword, then our horse
and archer beat two horses.

(IBT) Hoplite forces our horse to retreat, and a second kills it.

[8] 310 BC - Susa swaps to Oracle, or use for Heroic Epic, or something else.
Tyre completes one immortal, and we leave it around as it's our Egypt-border city.
Note - there's now a settler on goto-6 from Babylon to a spot at the Mouth of the
Tigris-Euphrates with Spices.

[9] 305 BC - Here come along the road some reinforcements toward Miletus.
Our army (and everything else) retreats to Miletus. I hope the new healing
is fast enough!! For first time, we must raise lux bar to 10%, as Susa and
Arbela would become unhappy.

(IBT) Two swords and a Hoplite move up, outside Miletus!
I see the hoplite-spear who went around us, have founded Corinth.

[10] 300 BC - Hatra spits out another settler, which heads for the 'blank spot'
near our core. There are a few good spots right near where he is which
would catch cattle and wheat. It's end of ten, but if the army gets unlucky
and dies I want it to be on my watch, not the next schmo! (Especially when
said leader hasn't been in an SG with me yet :P )

(IBT) A scary moment, our army absorbs blows from a Sword, then moves off top
to let a horse die, then a hoplite loses to an archer defender!

[11] 295 BC - The army half-heals, and kills a sword still on the hill.

(IBT) Athens completes the Oracle (darn, their GA is useful too)
Three hoplites attack immortals, and we win two and lose one. No more units
come at Sardis, in fact an archer retreats toward it.

[12] 290 BC - Just let the in-process moves go, didn't do anything else.
With Miletus safe, I can handoff now. (Would recommend do NOT move the army
this turn, let him stay and heal 6 more hp)

To next leader...
- There is an explorer horse near a brown city of Chertomylk (Scythians or Goths?)
He can be moved to make contact almost right away. (East of Sinope)
- Outside Ancyra are some spears and now immortals that were bracing for an attack
that never came. Move them west, or keep them for the assault on Byzantium later.
- There's a spear from Beirut on goto to vulnerable Iconium, as we just sent the
spear there to cover the two immortals just west along the road.
- If the thought of an Egyptian sneak attack scares you, ally with them vs Macedon.
- In our capital the Temple of Artemis is due in 17... cross your fingers :P
- We have top score, by quite a margin :P

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-290BC.jpg

Rubberjello <-- Up (take your full ten turns unless short on time)
hotrod0823 <-- On deck

Too bad the Byzantium cut-off didn't work, but 3-attack hoplites threw a wrench in that. We have no 'good' defenders. Pardon again the turn and a half over, but that happends sometimes to avoid a sloppy handoff.

RBC3b-Persians-290BC Save File (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-290BC.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Very nice start! I like the looks of our much improved economy not to mention some new purple cities. This should be interesting !

Got it. I really don't relish the thought of fighting the Macedonians during their Golden Age with 3.3.1 Hoplites. I'll test the waters for a few turns, but I would much rather see that might directed towards Rome instead of us! (That was a HUGE break, Egypt roping them in against Rome!)
Edit***
Nevermind. We have the alliances, so we'll stay the course.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice...diplomacy!"
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3bpic002.jpg

No rush RJ:

Just came off a lot of warring in LK56 with little to show for it so take your time :D

Take a look around to see what is happening. I'm just a "schmo", so I don't dare Veto stamp a Charis decision ;), but I really question the wisdom of the Heroic Epic/Wonder pre-build in Susa? Shouldn't we be building something more productive during this time? Too late now though, with the number of shields invested.
We are at 10% Lux, and our lone Scientist is banished to Sinope with 28 turns to research Tactics (Or else 'off with his head!'). We are allied with Rome and Egypt against Carthage in a phony war. We are locked into a war against Greece. Egypt has learned Mathematics, so that drops the price somewhat. I want to get that, since Catapults will help us immensely in the non-mobile war against the Greeks.


Inherited turn: (1) (Movement left on units? If Lee were here he would slap your hand, Charis!) Note the new brown town to the North. A new Contact should be worth quite a bunch (I hope!) Can't get to it this turn though. I vote making Gazaca a 2 turn Worker town. Babylon and Hatra make a good Settler factories. We need another worker town, but we also need lots of military to fend off Greece (much less make headway). Bactra founded in our core. I AM a little worried about Egypt, so I bring them into an Alliance against Macedonia for only 15 gpt.

(IT) Lots of Macedonian movement, at least 7 Hoplites moving towards us! :eek: An immortal on a mountain successfully defends against a Sword attack. Egyptians start the Artemis Temple.

285 BC (2) The brown borders belong to the Scythians (fearsome horse archers if I remember my ancient history correctly?) Sell Masonry and Alphabet to them for Territory Map and 195 gold. Their territory extends quite close to the Macedonians, so I figure I won't keep their contact a secret as it will probably be blown before too long. Their World Map is exceedingly expensive, but it will be worth it. Trade Writing and 170 gold for their World Map. Their special unit appears to be the Scythian Rider (3-1-2 Keshik).
Trade Contact with Scythians and 435 gold to Egypt for Mathematics and World Map. Uh oh. Rome is up Currency and Construction now. It would bankrupt us to buy Currency, and Ceasar won't even talk about trading Construction. Trade him contact with Scythians for 235 gold and World Map. Trade same thing to Celts for 87 gold and their World map. I sell Macedonians and Carthaginian contacts to the Scythians. I didn't really want to, but the AI would have sold them to the in the next IT, so I might as well grab the 190 gold. Trade WM around for more gold. Open an embassy with the Scythians. They are in tribal council government and their Cap has no infrastructure, size 3, and building a settler. Open Embassy with Celts. They are also size 3, do have some infra, and are building archers. There is still one unmet civ. (Goths? located in Germany?)
I really don't want to hassle with the movement bonus of the Scythian Riders in case the Macedonians buy them into an alliance with us, so I do the deed first. Alliance against Macedonia for our extra Iron and 4 gpt. (They were about ready to hook up their own Iron)
Change 3 cities over to Catapult production. Wow! When do we discover bridges? A movement rate of 4 on roads is nice, but rivers stop your movement very abruptly.

(IT) More Macedonian movement. A stack of 3 Hoplites and a spear is heading East out of Sardis. A Macedonian Sword gets dropped off by a galley near the Egyptian border at Tyre. An Immortal fends off a Hoplite attack succesfully in central Turkey.

280 BC (3) Found Sidon and Samaria in our core fertile areas. Our Immortal barely beats the "marine" sword near Tyre. Lots of movement of our armies towards the war zone, but it is a long way!

(IT) A fortified spear fends off one attack by a Hoplite, but falls to the second. Lots of movement of Macdonian galleys. Carthage and Egypt sign Peace.

275 BC (4) Question for the group. Do we want the Heroic Epic or the Mauselium of Mausollos? Both are could be due in 3. The Wonder is not that great, and the Heroic Epic would actually give us a slightly more direct benefit. (Or just do both, with the wonder first?)

> Take a look around to see what is happening. I'm just
> a "schmo", so I don't dare Veto stamp a Charis decision

:eek:

Oh my, ye have no idea how bad a shape several of our SG's would be in, had the next person not picked up the veto gavel!!
:hammer:

By all means, if anyone has what they feel is good reason, they should do so and explain why so we can learn. (BTW, 'schmo' was a generic term and I wasn't even looking at the list at the time I used it, rather it's what whoever it was would be called if he 'lost' the army on his watch :P )

> ... but I really question the wisdom of the Heroic Epic/Wonder
> pre-build in Susa? Shouldn't we be building something more
> productive during this time?

Ah, good question... allow me to explain. Looking at how poorly chosen the cities were for building wonders, if the AI civ choices were as bad, we stood a great chance at snagging a wonder or two. Artemis is just HUGE, and if we get this we're in super shape. In this game Zeus is Sun Tzu's and would also be a huge boost. The fact that it's a "same continent" item and that we're contiguous with all of Macedon make both these even better. At the time I started it, the Oracle looked like something we could get, which along with Artemis would have been huge as well. (Alas Greece chose a good city and beat us -- this too is where Deity build factor helps immensely) The Heroic Epic is available as a fallback to avoid an expensive aqueduct, and if it helps us get even one leader for our non-mil civ, a rushed FP perhaps in captured Greece would be of enormous benefit. So while there is risk involved, the possible benefit of any one of these far outweighs a handful of extra immortals, especially with the number of 'other' cities available for building, and with the GA behind us powering the wonder building.

In general, when I have a civ with this many cities, it's quite good imo to be building 1-2 building wonders.

The cats sound like a good idea, and a good turn for you so far!

> Inherited turn: (1) (Movement left on units? If Lee were here
> he would slap your hand, Charis!)

Welcome to Realms Beyond!!! :hammer:
This is intentional, not an oversight. Any unit 'active' is one where the direction/choice should be up to the next leader, and there's just a few -- especially with settlers (note in RBC1 there would have been even worse backtracking if I had moved the settlers)
Any unit who is fortified with movement left, was my choice not to use - but it lets the next guy veto it instead of taking his choice away by hitting space on the unit. (Thanks for the tip though, I wouldn't have known otherwise to avoid that in an LK game :P )

> I vote making Gazaca a 2 turn Worker town. Babylon and Hatra > make a good Settler factories. We need another worker town,
Yes, a good idea. I've been working it's tiles to try to get it set up to the point of a 2-turn worker farm.

> I AM a little worried about Egypt, so I bring them into an
> Alliance against Macedonia for only 15 gpt. ...
> I really don't want to hassle with the movement bonus of the
> Scythian Riders in case the Macedonians buy them into an
> alliance with us, so I do the deed first. Alliance against
> Macedonia for our extra Iron and 4 gpt. (They were about
> ready to hook up their own Iron) <-- delightful!

:goodjob: I can sleep nights now!

> Wow! When do we discover bridges? A movement rate of 4 on
> roads is nice, but rivers stop your movement very abruptly.

No lie, this was BRUTAL to watch in practice.

> A Macedonian Sword gets dropped off by a galley near the
> Egyptian border at Tyre. An Immortal fends off a Hoplite attack
> succesfully in central Turkey.
> Immortal barely beats the "marine" sword near Tyre.

:eek: Wow, the AI is pulling some real stunts this game!! At the time I thought it was foolish to leave an immortal back there when
we need them badly at the front, but good thing :P

> Do we want the Heroic Epic or the Mauselium of Mausollos?
> Both are could be due in 3

In this scenario that's one of the most useless wonders around, and I'm hoping for a GL-rushed FP, so I would vote Epic. (Can we buy the tech to shift to Zeus? Do we have Ivory?)

So far so good, keep it up ;)
Charis

Looking good on all fronts. I can't see the why we would want mauseium so I would take the HE. Armies and a GL rushed FP is the way to go. We HAVE to remember that eventhough we are over the number of cities for the FP Republic is REQUIRED to get it.

Did I read that right?? Swords have amphibious assult!

Hotrod

Originally posted by hotrod0823
Did I read that right?? Swords have amphibious assult!Hotrod
NO! That was just kind of weak joke. That sword traveled a long way on a galley to get there, so I was refering to their "sea" legs.

I was casting doubt on the H.E. because, well, quite frankly the chance of us getting a Leader from fighting tons of 3.3.1 Hoplites are exceedingly small. It will improve once we get Cats up there to knock off a few health before our Immortals attack, so that might coincident if we build the useless wonder first and THEN start and finish the H.E. (The Macedonian war is going to be LONG, trust me! :D )

I have a settler on the way to suck in both Silks and Ivory, but it would take 10+ turns to hook up the city and the Ivory to our road network.

I must be blind. I can't find the Statue of Zeus on the Tech tree at all???

There IS a nice, super-powered JS Bach Wonder (The Baccanalia) that comes with Philosophy. (3 content citizens in EVERY city) that may be worth considering.
P.S. I was kinda pulling your leg with the schmo comment, Charis. I knew what you were saying there. ;)

IT Rome sign in the Celts against Carthage. Carthage starts on the Artemis temple. Immortal successfully defends against an archer attack.

270 BC (5) Our army approaching Sardis sees a group of *9* Hoplites heading for the interior of Turkey. We don't have many forces there! Divert some of the reinforcement chain northward. What the ??? Egypt suddenly knows Currency and Tactics? I check with Carthage. They know Currency, Monarchy, Construction, and Tactics. I would love to make peace with Carthage because that war is really cramping our Trading opportunities, but I don't want to ruin our Rep because we have an alliance with Rome against them. I decide to wait on trades to see if any 2-fers become available if/when the Celts or Scythians get some of those techs. I turn the army around back to Miletus because some Hoplites are circling back through the mountains in the East. Sink a Macedonian Galley.

IT This is ridiculous. I see at least 5-6 Hoplites coming down past Byzantium every turn! :eek: They are like roaches! They are chasing after our Immortals like wolves after lambs. We can only hope to defend what we have, IMO. Romans start Hadrian's wall. 11 Hoplites and 2 swords start towards us at Miletus.

265 BC (6) Buy a worker from Scythia. Trade WM around. Prepare to defend Miltetus while a secondary force of Immortals and catapults are forming in the interior.

IT A bunch of wonder building messages. Just about everybody is building every wonder. The Hoplites near Miletus suddenly take off towards our force in the interior.

260 BC (7) Finish Heroic Epic. Trade WM around. I blow our kingdom's savings and end up getting Construction, Currency, and Tactics this turn. What is really strange is that the Celts and Scythians show that they either instantaneously have it when my deals are complete, or else they can never learn it? Perhaps non-playable factions are following a limited tech tree? In that case we are screwed as our trading opportunities are extremely limited. Our research is switched to 40 turns on Military Training. Rome is up Engineering.

IT Macedonians start Great Library (They know Literature). Rome Completes Artemis Temple! :( We had 9 turns to go.

255 BC (8) Persepolis switches to Hadrian's Wall with no loss in shields. I'm open to suggestions here. As soon as our army leaves Miletus, 10-13 Hoplites suddenly start converging on the city. If I leave the army there, then the Hoplites start converging on Iconium where we are staging a large Catapult and Immortal stack. The Goths have announced themselves to the world mid-turn, and there are no deals to be struck. I do make a killing selling their WM around.

IT A Greek galley sinks one of ours (fortunately empty.) Macedonia completes Great Library (Scientific Leader rush?) Carthaginia completes Colossus. There is a major cascade.

250 BC (9) Hamadan founded. Ergili founded in poor spot, but immediately pulls in Incense. Kill off two wandering Hoplites in Central Turkey.

IT Macedonians move to emperil Iconium.

245 BC (10) I fat-fingered the move of a settler to off the road network. He can go wherever the next leader wishes. I left the movement of all units around Iconium unmoved. The next leader can determine whether we can fight or flight. There 14 Hoplites around the town, and it is defended by 5 Immortals, 5 Catapults, and 1 spear (and walls). 2 More catapults can be moved into the town this turn.

I personally think it is too soon to claim the Hoplites are unbalancing in this scenario, but it sure does look like it at this time! Why did they get such a huge boost and the Immortals did not? (And I'm really beginning to hate locked wars.)

The Save (245 BC) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-245BC.zip)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3bpic003.jpg

<delurk> You might want to check out the Macedon thread of this SG as well, to see how many Hoplites they started with. They had some huge advantages in initial troops. You playing on a high difficulty level is not helping either.

Also, in whatever deity game would you expect to be successful at early warfare ? :p

Happy slugging.
Grimjack

Sorry, I haven't shown my ugly mug yet. The game just showed up at my desk. It looks like I need to do a lot of reading before I jump too far into the discussion.

This scenario seems to be throwing us curves left and right with some very interesting tactics by the AI.

My initial inclination was to move all our forces to the front as Charis did. However, the AI are not always using conventional tactics.

I haven't checked the save yet, but is there a chance the Macedonians could initiate a flanking manuever around the Black Sea and into our back yard? Or will our MA with the Scythians prevent such a thing.

It sounds like we will be reacting to the Macedonians until we can get heavy cav.

Woohoo, the game is afoot!! :hammer:
Looks like you did well against some crushing opposition RJ :goodjob:

I'm actually delighted to see the AI is not going to roll over, and yes, they're definitely doing some things 'different' and unexpected this game. Imagine a minute things from the Greeks' point of view - they have NO other place to expand then at us, and would like to pour troops into Turkey and go on the offense. With our best defense a 1.2.1 spear, they would do quite well with this approach. Instead, they've sustained heavier losses than we have, and have lost a city while putting no pressure on us.

Now I obviously don't know the scenario well, but if there's truly a sustainable 6 hoplite per turn stream of units, it really doesn't matter, Turkey is about to turn green, and that would have to be part of the scenario design, with Persia like Carthage needing to counterattack when their initially-stronger foes have become gassed and/or when the right techs come along.

When I get a chance after the game one of the first things I will try doing is to take a different path for the army and do a 100% beeline for Byzantium or the hill just past the chokepoint and interdict these units coming in (rather than trying a South-North-back-East loop as we tried).

My own thoughts, and it's based on my turn and on experience, not on the current (rough sounding) situation, is that we need to be more offensive than defensive. We want 4 on 3, not 2 defending 3. If our immortals are used on defense then Macedon has already won. These individual cities like Miletus are not as important as keeping them from attacking OUR poorly defended cities and keeping a solid kill ratio so we gas them. The army is our trump card too -- I rather hope we don't see a Hoplite army for a showdown! If it's a choice between a defensive battle where we have no terrain or good-defender bonus, I would scoot for the mountains to get the best bonus we can, across a river if possible, and manuever to take our attacks on them on plain ground. Rubberjello's thought for some catapult/siege engine support is good (*as long as* we have a defensible position and didn't end up giving them away to capture)

Rome got Artemis?! Ah SHOOT! Chalk that one up to deity bonus, otherwise a nice try. Also, regarding lack of trading opportunities, I would *FAR* rather keep a neighbor out of a war with me, and increase weariness for Macedon (if their government feels that, maybe not), than to garner a few gold in trade. With Rome as our good buddy and a tech leader, I'm not worried, nor am I looking to sell around tech for better units that will end up in enemy hands. As far as our research, I guarantee the AI (Rome in particular) will have Mil Training for Heavy Cav long before the 40 turns -- if you're going to run min sci, you basically never pick to research a tech you WANT when it becomes available. Min sci is better run on alternate techs in hopes the AI doesn't go there and you get a monopoly to sell.

Again, if Macedon overwhelms us right now, fear not -- we're not doing anything wrong and it would be due to design. In fact, looking at the other threads it's funny how EACH of us thinks of ourselves as under-the-gun in a big way. Keep up the offense, which is our strength, keep up the dogpile, which is Macedon's downfall, and use your noodle on terrain and picking the location of the battle, which is the path to victory for human players.

Good luck to our next leaders!! :goodjob:
Charis

I saw a Macedonian Horseman army to the north of our Immortal army.

I'm also inclined to give up Iconium and make our stand on a mountain further back somewhere. We'll be OK if the AI straggles in attackers at us. But stacks of 15 plus Hoplites is just impossible to stop at this point. (Is this tactics the AI improvement?) They aren't being stupid about it either - the stacks are sticking to the hills and mountains once they are in our territory.

I suppose I *could* have kept them in an endless loop, by moving our army out of Miletus and back again the next turn. They reacted to that by backtracking. But that seemed a little exploitive to me.

Attacking vs defending sounds good in theory, but with large stacks the problem with attacking is that you are sitting in front of a still-large stack on their next turn. ;)

Plus I see that the other threads expect a slow tech race. PHAW! This tech race is fast so far! (Probably due to all these golden ages floating around.)

I've been looking at the save. Here's a screenshot for lurkers.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBE3b_-_Tactical_Situation_245_BC.jpg

So the question would be - where are all those Greeks headed?

If they continue east we want to get them out on the flatlands NW of Antioch. Making a stand at the river maybe a good battlefield. We'll need to keep them out of the mountains to the north.

Of course, you can throw that all away if they attack Iconium.

They will attack Iconium. (I'm 90% sure) Those Hoplites go after our poor Immortals like Modern Armor after horsemen. ;) That 3 to 2 attack to defense ratio is very attractive to the AI and makes them very aggressive.

I've got it but don't expect miracles. Will begin working at it as soon as I complete LK57. Should be started later tonight.

Hotrod

I've started and played only 5 so far. We have new units NuMercs. We have bridges and still have a hop problem.

Good night !

Originally posted by Rubberjello
They will attack Iconium. (I'm 90% sure) Those Hoplites go after our poor Immortals like Modern Armor after horsemen. ;) That 3 to 2 attack to defense ratio is very attractive to the AI and makes them very aggressive.

It's like legion vers. immortals in the orig. game. I always prefered the legions and disliked playing against them because they are so hard to kill.
A defense-3 unit in the ancient age is simply huge.
You need pults if you want low casualties.

Tnx for the screenshot, Sir Bugsy -- OUCH, that IS a stack and a half! What will be interesting to see is if they go for Iconium, or... will they head to Antioch? My own bet would be the latter (just to be contrary :P ) I hope, in a sick way, it's Iconium though -- otherwise a 'pull the goalie' attack tactic will inadvertently pull their strings. (Moving up units to concentrate an attack as a tactical choice is fine btw, it's when you have an existing defender step out of a town just so it appears empty to compel the AI to do something stupid, that's "puppet strings" an a no-no)
If the AI does choose to attack Iconium it will be because it thinks it can win. And... they will be right I'm afraid.

I look forward to your report, hotrod. NuMercs for us?!?! How do I keep missing key stuff like this? :wallbash:
River bridges? That means Engineering, which means buying construction was a smart move, and it means the tech pace is going quite a bit faster than I expected!

One last tip to keep in mind -- *one* galley holds 4 units, which means if the army gets in a hopeless situation, use it as an escape pod rather than have it die. Fortunately with its two moves it can run away pretty quick. And did someone say the Macedonians made a horseman rather than a hoplite army?? If so, Yay!! :hammer:

Charis

OK. Rule number 1 when playing Persia: On turn 1 send a settler and 2-3 workers to N- NE of Persepolis to get that Ivory roped in as soon as possible. A '3' defensive unit will make all the difference in the world vs. the Hoplites. It should alter their tactics quite a bit.

*Keeps repeating to himself: 'Ivory is not just a luxury anymore...Ivory is not just a luxury anymore'*

245 BC (0): Am I looking for Monsters under the bed or is that really a Egyptian units just outside our undefended cities. With all our rivers Engineering would be huge right now but all our gold and gpt is a bit steep. Okay now I check out the front :eek: there are a lot of hops 14 can attack next turn. And we have 5 cats, and 5 immortals and 1 spear. It is not enough not by a long shot. The city isn't even on hills. But it has walls. I am not sure how many hops we can kill if they attack but I am almost positive it isn't all of them. I attack the hop in the forest figuring the best chance to kill any hops is if I attack. 2 die and finally a third is victorious. Move the cats to the mountains to avoid losing everything. Change Antioch to a baracks.

IT: Macedonia takes Iconium killing the remaining immortals and the spear. Goths join the fight against us.

240 BC (1): Change Zela from Cats to horses. Found Darius Kabir in the hills. Move another settler to a less congested position. Found Gulhaman near silks and ivory. Various movement. Being moving our stack to take Sardis in 2 turns. Our cats in the hill go 2 for 5.

235 BC (2): Our Golden age is over. A couple cities riot. Egypt builds Great Lighthouse. Macedonia is sending reinforcements to Sardis in large numbers will have to retreat and wait for our own reinforcements.

230 BC (3): Have enough units to attack Iconium now because the stack of hops is stuck in the MOuntains away from Iconium. Retake the city barely. Various moves. Found Zohac in the center of it all .

After seeing how I unintentioally moved the hop stack toward Sardis by moving the army and immortals out of Miletus I take my original plan of action and attack Sardis, before the SoD arrives. Manage to kill 2 hops in Sardis but the Army is beaten up badly and needs to retreat. Hops I thought were on the way to protect Sardis from our advancing army. :wallbash: Fail to kill what may have been the last elite on the town. . We lose a galley to Macedonians attack. With only 2 turns left on the Roman alliance vs. Carthage we will be able to make a few more trades soonish. Carthage has Lit. rome Engineering and Monarchy now.

IT: Rome made peace with Macedon. But Celts join our cause. Then declare war on us too. What I thought were reinforcments have belined for Miletus. or so it seems. There is a spear and an immortal still in the city.

225 BC (4): Hops are all over the place but can't decide what to do. Carthage completed the Mouseleum. Found Istakhr in the East. Kill 2 more hops outside of Iconium. Retreat wounded immortals near sardis. Moving reinforcements to the front. Kill a lone hop that landed on our shores. A futile attempt to cut the supply lines at the choke results in the lose of 3 units. Hop are everywhere.

220 BC (5): Spend some gold and upgrade 10 spears to NuMercs. Cancel alliance with Rome vs. Carthage. Make peace with Carthage for the cost of our WM. Buy Engineering for dyes and 170 gold. If I can secure Iconium with a few Mercs then I will send the immortals to the choke up north and maybe cut Macedonia in to 2 halfs. The huge stack is now in the vacinity of Miletus and our galleys were just cut down by Macedon ships, thankfully they were empty.

215 BC (6): Continue forming up units to move on Sardis and now Delphi. 5 more immortals are enroute. Astronomy, Lit and Monarchy are out but can't buy any of them. Our Army is healed but I am reluctant to dare try again. Will wait for better numbers but how long is too long.

210 BC (7): Slowly the stack builds. A few rouge hops enter our lands I will just watch them for now. Still no tech trades. Need to send units to Ancyra to protect against an advancing small stack. Darius steps out and kills a hop in the hills taking no damage.

205 BC (8): Begin moving a stack toward Delphi. Found Jinjan in the desert. Moving another settler up north. Start on a market in persopolis. Still no tech trades.

200 BC (9): Delphi was bombed an destroyed neting us 120gold. Kill 4 hops advancing on Ancyra. Plenty more remain. Still no trade opportunities. MT is due in 28 more turns. We have 404 gold and +37gpt. Still building settlers and workers like they are going out of style we have so much land it is tough to pick where settlers are needed most.

Here is the save;

http://civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-200BC.zip

How about a screenshot

I've got it. I'll try and provide a screenshot during lunch. I probably won't get this played for 30 hours or so, since I have a commitment this evening.

Bugs

Guys...sorry for my silence. I had no idea this game has started. Only when I clicked on the thread replied by Bugsy did I realise the game has begun. I am so sorry. Will read the entire thread. :blush:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/200_BC_-_Western_Front.jpg

BTW. Goodjob on your turns Hotrod! That Hoplite Stack of Doom is pretty scary, isn't it? Good thing the AI can still wander around aimlessly at times or else we would have been hurting pretty bad. :goodjob:

I like hotrod's move of razing Delphi. Perhaps that should be our treatment of all Macedonean cities in Asia Minor.

Some how we need to get control of the chokepoint.

Here's an idea and I would appreciate all comments. Especially on whether it is even possible.

If I gather a defensive task force of approximately 4-5 NM, some cats, plus 4-5 workers and move to one tile east of Byzantium. Use the workers to build first a fort and then a barricade.

Two problems I can see with the plan:

1. We have 20+ Macedonean units running around our territory at the moment.

2. Any injured units couldn't heal in the fort since it is inside Macedonean lands.

Perhaps this plan should wait until the fall of Byzantium.

Any comments?

I'll be studying the save during breaks. Additionally, other than try to continue hotrod's stabilization of the western front. Is there anything else that needs to be done?

Bugs

I like the razing too -- the initial thought of capturing the four Asia Minor cities then blockading Byzantium was wildly overoptimistic (unaware of the number of hoplites that would stream down). We just don't have enough extra units on hand to HOLD several cities AND be on the attack, especially when our army is our key attacker, so razing the rest in Turkey sounds better.

One thought on the Byzantium situation -- we could take a heavily guarded combat settler and plonk him down on this side of the straight, opposite Byz, and cutting off the 'road' between their Turkish cities and home. (The lack of lux itself would hurt 'em too) Our defenders could then heal, shoot at any troops trying to run past, and in general see them stop dead in their tracks for a minute rather than shoot through.

I have to think they would avoid a city of 6+ Numes and cats and try (to their doom) to take 'easier' cities deeper past it.

Where? See that hill two steps from Cyzius? That would give the most protection from attack. Otherwise, pick one of the two square right ON the road for maximum 'cutoff' potential, although without the defense bonus.

Regarding Miletus, if we could raze Sardis at the expense of losing Miletus again (after whipping it down at least twice) it would be a fair trade -- we need to get our army and that nice force up closer to Byzzy, preferablly leaving a few ruins in its path. This has another advantage -- if we sit still in Miletus and put no offensive pressure on their cities, their stacks will go after (and likely take) a city or two of ours. That "20+" hops in our lands again make any planning dicey, but fun. (In fact, I can't remember ever in a SG having such 'tactical' interest or uncertainty on where to attack, whether to attack, raze/keep, can we hold a choke... and on top of that the AI mixing it up and pressuring our cities as well -- this is great :P Tis like a chess match of opposing king-side and queen-side attacks, and Byzantium is the 'center' that one side must gain to win)

Keep in mind that not only is OUR GA over, so is Macedons! :D

Charis

I thought units could now heal in enemy territory (just slower).

This is so much fun.

Here is a partial turn log of my first four turns. Alex is short an army and a city in Asia Minor. All advice and criticism is welcome.

Preflight 200 BC - City check – Change Trapezus from a NM(17 turns) to a cat (7 turns)
MM Zela to grow and still get a NM in 7.
Change Ergili from a NM (20 turns) to a Barracks (30 turns) Another corrupt city.
MM Zohak for an extra gpt.
Change Jinjan from a warrior (9) to a worker (9)
We can buy a worker from Cleo for 118G. Go back and check the thread to see if we’ve bought any from her yet…Scythians, but not Egypt. Execute deal.

Checking the map, Rome is rapidly expanding northward, although Carthage has kicked them off of Sicily.

Don’t think I can learn anything more… been studying this for the last day. Hit and enter and begin my first turn playing C3C.

IBT – Macedonians are running around like a bunch of nuts. Some Hops move off a tile then others move back. They don’t seem to have any pattern. A fleet of galleys head for our shores. Scythia and Egypt sign an MA against the Goths.

1. 195 BC – Consolidate our forces and allow some to heal. We have a settler north of Arbela, but I don’t see any direction in the thread on what to do with him. Decide to settle NW of Arbela on the river, sharing one tile with Melitene.
Diplo check – Literature is known by Carthage and Rome, but neither will trade. Monarchy and Astronomy are out also. The only two-fer I could see was getting Monarchy from Egypt for everything we own. Then trading it to Scythia for Astronomy for peanuts. I don’t see what we would get from either of these techs, so I pass.
F1 check – boy I need to get some faces with smilies. The basic heads are too hard to count.

IBT – We have hoplites running amuck. Several cities build stuff, but the preferences weren’t set to ask for a new build order. I set that up in preferences. I don’t trust the governors very much.

2. 190 BC – Bombard a hoplite outside of Ancrya down to 1hp. Kill him with a 4/4 immortal (-1hp) Move NM to cover immortal. Now there are only 27 Macedonian units in our lands. :D
Arbela has grown. Hiring a tax lady still gets us a NM in 3 due to corruption.
Move our army to the gates of Sardis.

IBT – Goth & Rome sign a peace treaty. We lose a NM and an Immortal. The Macedonians lose three hoplites. They land a huge amphibious force of one hoplite next to Beirut.
Gazaca: Settler=> settler
Ecbatana: Immortal=>Immortal
Antioch: Barracks=> NM
Istakhr riots :smoke:

3. 185 BC – It is hard to figure out the AI’s objective’s. Mostly it seems that they are going after our weakest units. However Alex has divide his forces and is sending a force towards Sardis for defense.
5/5 immortal kills 2/5 hoplite in the open (-1hp)
Found Borazjan NW of Arbela. Start worker.
The Goths sign a peace treaty and give us 20G for it.
The Celts give us a peace treaty and kick in 140G for the good looking guy bonus prize.

IBT – Rome and Macedon sign a MA against us. Goth and Egypt sign a peace treaty.
Carthage and Egypt sign a peace treaty.
Susa: NM=> NM
Carrhae: Imm=> Imm

4. 180 BC – Siege of Sardis. Cats go 2 for 4. Looks like 2 defenders.
12/12 Immortal Army kills 3/4 Hoplite (-2hp)
10/12 Immortal Army kills 3/4 Hoplite (-3hp)
4/4 Immortal kills 4/4 Horse Army (-2hp)
Sardis is razed. 4 slaves captured.
Found Herat north of Gazaca. Start worker.

Goodjob!

Hmmm....The AI doesn't know how to fill up an army? Maybe it got stuck in a loop and wanted a Horse army, but never built any more or got any more horses to Sardis? I saw on my turn that the army only had one unit in it, but I had assumed that the AI would shortly remedy the situation.

> This is so much fun.

:D

The only odd thing I note is... "IBT – Rome and Macedon sign a MA against us." :eek:
We're forever at war with Macedon for the entire game, and we were gracious at one point with old Caesar. What a chump! (I would try to keep him in alliance vs Macedon for most of the game until we set our sights on Rome. I can see folks not liking extra alliances which cut trade opportunities, but let's keep the dogpile on Greece, shall we?!)

> 4/4 Immortal kills 4/4 Horse Army (-2hp)
> Sardis is razed. 4 slaves captured.

[dance]

A double bonanza! Our biggest single foe (unit) is dead, and the large city of Sardis is toast.

Excellent, keep up the good action! :P

Charis

:goodjob: Excellent new on Sardis! War with Rome :eek: ! :hammer:

As far as build orders it wasn't the governor but rather build same unit. Sorry for not noting that :blush:

Aren't too many SG's with Governors ;)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b_-_150_BC_Front.jpg

4. 180 BC (con’t) – Since Cleo has some units floating around in our lands, I decide to give them a mission. I sign Cleo to a MA against Alex for WM & 240G.
We don’t have an embassy with the Goths so I buy one for 80G.
I could bring the Goths in on a MA against Caesar for WM and 342G, but I feel that is a bit steep. They are at war with the Macedonians and the Scythians, so they won’t be a threat to us anytime soon. This maybe a poor decision, but I think we need to save the money for Heavy Cavalry ungrades.

IBT – Scythia and Macedonia sign a peace treaty. Looks like we’ll bring them back in right away. The Macedonians are in general retreat to support their Turkish cities.
Persepolis: Market=> Imm.
Babylon: Settler=> Settler
Arbela: NM=> NM
Hatra: Settler=> Settler
Pasargadae: Worker=> Barracks
Istakhr: Worker=>Worker

5. 175 BC – Bring Scythians back into our war for WM & 250G. (not a penny less.)
Cats bombard two hoplites down to redline.
4/5 Imm kills 1/3 Hop (no loss)
5/5 Imm kills 1/3 Hop. He is redlined and Cyrus is born. [dance]
Use Cyrus to build an Army. I will fill him up with some immortals.
Carthage now has Military Training, but won’t sell it.
Hire a tax collector in Melitene

IBT – Scythia and Rome sign a peace treaty. Lose two Immortals that I thought were beyond Macedonian reach. :smoke: They kill two hoplites. Our four slaves are also captured that they were protecting.
Susa: NM=> NM
Sidon: Granary=>Barracks
Dariush: Barracks=> Horse

6. 170 BC – 5/5 Imm kills 1/4 Hop
4/4 Imm kills 4/4 sword (-3hp) recaptures 4 slaves. I disband the slaves since I’ll never get them out. Resource denial. Our Mini SOD with our cats are going to come under attack from a Macedonian SOD of Hoplites next IBT.
Bringing the Scythians in on a MA against Roma will cost us WM & 194G. I decide against it. Hoping to bring the Romans to the Peace table and sign them up against Alex.

IBT – The Celts sign Carthage to a MA against Macedonia. :) Inexplicably the Macedonian SOD runs away from our Cat stack. Our raiding Immortal who captured the slaves is killed. And a Hoplite disconnects an Iron source.
Trapezus: Cat=> Cat
Zela: NM=> Horse

7. 165 BC – Decide to fill the Army with NMs. [Edit - fill with 3 NMs]
Much maneuvering.
Sell WM around netting 42G and some TMs.
Hanni now has Siege Craft and 2420G. He won’t sell TM or SC.

IBT – A 4/4 NM loses to a 2/3 Hoplite. The Macedonians are headed back our way. A hoplite lands next to Beirut. An Egyptian sword attacks him and knocks off a hp.
Persepolis: Imm=> Imm
Susa: NM=> NM
Ecbatana: Imm=> Imm
Ghulaman: NM=> Horse

8. 160 BC – Found Dakyanus on the Caspian Sea. Start worker.
4/4 Imm kills 1/3 Hop and promotes with no loss.
More maneuvering.

IBT – Our NM kills a Hop (-1hp). Immortal on top then loses to a Hop.
A second Hop loses to a NM.
Arbela: NM=> NM
Jinjan: worker=> worker

9. 155 BC – 5/5 Imm kills 1/3 Hop (no loss) outside of Ancyra.
5/5 Imm kills 2/4 Hop outside Beirut (no loss)
Hanni still won’t budge on MT.
We get 10G and some Tm’s for our WM.

IBT – Carthage and Goth sign a peace treaty. We lose a NM, after killing a Hoplite. Another Hoplite lands next to Beirut, and one of Cleo’s archer’s promptly kill him.
Susa: NM=>NM
Babylon: Settler=> Settler
Bactra: Imm=> Imm
Samaria: Granary=>Barracks

10. 150 BC – Found Bampur. Start worker.
5/5 Imm kills 1/3 Hop (-3hp)

After Action Report: There are two groups that are on their way to our choke point control city (see picture.) The worker group is building a road and should be done within a turn or two. The settler group is coming from the south.

There is a task force just outside of the next Macedonian city on Asia Minor (edit - Antandrus). They will need to cross the river before attacking.

I left the settler for the next player (gorm?) to move. I’ve been trying to expand our holdings while settling in reasonable locations. Sometime in the next 50 turns or so we will probably need to start a few temples to expand some boarders.

I just noticed that there is some spices just under the city name badge of Samaria. I didn’t have any worker moves left to get the spices hooked up.
>SAVE< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-150BC.zip)

Looking at the number of green dots left in Asia Minor, and the number of units we're bringing to bear at Byzantium, and the progress is excellent! :goodjob:

I'm glad you didn't pay good money to ally vs Rome, that would be utter folly. We should (imo) continue to pay for alliances vs Macedon from our *near* neighbors, Egypt and Scythians, as such a war would not be phony. But definitely don't spend money on alliances vs anyone other then Macedon. Besides, we want the Rome war to end ASAP, not be locked into 20 turns of peace to avoid killing our rep.

Woohoo on the leader! The FP being horribly broken makes the decision easier, to go for an army. Our first one is kicking tush, the thought of two of them working together?! :hammer:

Since you made a Nume army, his role is clear. We take Byzantium and plop him in there with a few extra units and some cats. Their turkish rear will be irrevocably cut off. Before Cyrus arrival I too thought the 'opposing' city was best. If the next leader prefers, that route will still work, but with the defensive army I no longer fear trying to hold Byzantium.

One minor comment however, on the filling of the army. It's key not to mix units of different "speed" in the army, but it's not a bad idea to mix the units -- since it will defend with its best defender and attack with its best attacker. If you had put one immortal / two Numes, then the army would attack with strength 4, not 2 (a huge difference, giving him hoplite-killing counterattack potential), yet it has two numes in the army defending. Alternately, one could put in two immortals, making great advantage of the army's blitz ability. Since the army gets two attacks, having two immortals is all you need. With that approach you still get one nume on top of defense. (In a recent game I had a wickedly effective early army with two crusaders, 5.2.1 and one musketeer, 2.5.1)

Let's hope later we can pull down another leader for a heavy cav army :P

Good job expanding and keeping up the city/settler push. Once Byz is under our control and is secure, we'll have the option of either having a major 'settler' expansion, or having a war to takeover Egypt or Scythians. Speaking of Egypt, the minimap below suggests a VERY effective chokepoint on the Nile where we could take 3-4 Egypt cities, cut them in half, and take away their entry point into our lands. Food for thought, but later on.

Charis

got it, will play tomorrow.

Charis, thanks for the nice words. Playing with you, Rubberjello, and Hotrod makes me want to do the best I possibly can do.

On the army's contents, sorry, I guess I miss typed that. I only filled the army with three Num Merks. I thought that a defensive army would be best holding our city just off the choke point, but your point of capturing Byzz-town is much better.

Bugs

One important thing to note is that the Forbidden Palace, broken or not, is far away. I this Scenario the FP is not available until Republic. The only thing I would have considered rushing would be the Heroic Epic but I am not sure if that is available to us yet. Any army at this point seems like the best choice.

Hotrod

@Hotrod - We already have the Heroic Epic built. :)

Excellent turns! Things are looking much, much better that when I touched the game last. Hmmmmmm.....:hmm: Naahhhh!

:blush: Sooo... many games

Preturn:
Everything looks good. I suspect MT is probably the only tech we need to walk the world.

IBT:
Macedonian Heavy Cav kills our Numec, so Macedonia has Heavy Cavs, or does everyone knows except me?

145:
Goth+Cathage ally against Roma.
Celts+Scythia ally against Goth.

Persepolis makes immo, starts immo.
Beirut makes Numec, starts Numec.
Melitene makes Numec, starts immo.
Ganza makes settler, starts immo.

I am edgy with all the macedonian troops in our territory. I will make my aim for my 10 turns to clean out macedonian troops in our territory . I will try to assemble a clean-up force at Iconium to remove this threat. Once the threat is removed, I plan to use this force to capture Corinth.

Antandrus is ours, but our army is redlined. We spawned a GL. I make another army. we get 220g, wow Macedonians must be really rich.

We have 2 luxuries yet to be roaded, spice and gems, I'll try to get that in order.

I pulled back the settler team, feeling that the frontline is still too uncertain for non-combat units to be this exposed.

IBT:
A counterattack with hoplites and heavy cavs from Macedonians costed us 6 immos and 2 Numecs. Hoplites are so imbalanced in this scenario.

140:
I pulled back our assault force on Cyzicus onto our Numec army, in hope to avoid another round of assaults. Those heavy cavs are killing us.

Trade Cathage 975g+18gpt+Incense+WM for MT.
Trade Egypt MT for 66g+Literature.

Strange? Celts, Goth and Scythia gets MT and Literature right after I got them? I can't do a 3-fer or get our $$$ back. Can someone explain this to me? I have just dumped our stash of cash. Is there something in the C3C rules that prvents or avoids 3-fers? :smoke:

Switched a number of cities to Heavy cavs.

Start 40turn gambit on Monotheism, the only tech not discovered by anyone else, researchable by us.

135:
Rome and Celts signed peace treaty.
Egypt and Goth signed alliance against Scythia.

Upgrading from horseman to heavy cav cost 90g a piece. I am sorry I emptied our coffer.

Start a solo scientist research.

130:
Roma declares on Scythia.
We connected spice, a number of cities have WLTED.

125:
Cyzicus is ours, +264g.

Yes...I got an army plugged in the penisula bottleneck.

120:
Piling more troops on the bottleneck.

Going after the last MAcedonian city in our territory - Corinth.

115:
Corinth is sacked, +189g.

Hmm, AI has been avoiding our army stack. So if they are not coming for us, we will have to go to them.Troops assembling for the assault on Byzantium.

IBT:
Macedonia made a troop landing near Beirut.

110:
Looks like Macedonia has another troop landing planned. I will station 2 heav cavs in Antioch, we can use those 2 heav cavs to shadow any Macedonia ships in our seas. These 2 heavy cavs should cover Iconium, Antioch, Beirut and Tyre.
I will also station 2 heavy cavs in Antandrus to cover Miletus and Cyzcius. I will also keep 1 heavy cav in Sinope to cover Trapezus. A landing in this sector seems unlikely though, especially after I take Byzantium.


105:
Ancyra is our aids-station(has rax). I moved injured troops to heal there, so feel free to move those troops where appropriate.

I noticed that any army gets 2 movements even if they have 1-movement troops. The GL i spawned in early turn, I will make a 2 heavy cav+1 Numec army.

Byzantium is ours, +206g. Hmm, we can earn our living just by sacking/capturing macedonian cities.

Hurray!!! Byzantium has rax, I am moving up our aid-station to Byzantium. I am moving the heavy cav away from Sinope since a Macedonian troop landing is not longer viable against Sinope.

Err, army gets unit movement+1, so I am going back to a 3 heavy cav army.

100:
Troop movements, converged our 3 armies into 1 huge SOD in Byzantium.

Summary
(1) Tech-wise no one has monotheism yet, so our gambit still looks good.

(2) Gem luxury (last available luxury) will be only in 3 turns. (East of Miletus).

(3) We seem to have fallen behind on our victory goals, have 25% pop and 9%land (req. 50% pop and 20%land). Might be a good idea to start building up new cities and growing current ones. I did not do so during my turns as I was up against heavy cavs with my immortals and we were taking heavy losses.

(4) On the hindside, I did not regret making the MT deal. While we did not get a 3-fer for it, the heavy cavs we started building really turned the tide for us in battle. In our government, $$$ can only be used for upgrades and trading, and since I also very much doubt we need any of the remaining tech to fuilfil our victory goals, I hope I did not make too bad a mistake. :smoke:

(5) I have left the SOD in Byzantium unmoved, as we have just completed a phase in our conquest. It seemed inappropriate for me to make a 1-turn battle plan and may end up messing the charis's battle strategies. So please feel free to mobilise those troops where appropriate. All troops in Byzantium are fortified and still has movements

(6) There are 3 galleys west-bound from their earlier landings. I am more concerned of the 6 east-bound galleys (see screenshots).

(7) Charis, our territory was too large and I got a little lazy, used GOTO to get troops to Ancrya. I believed I made all my GOTOs to end at my turn. :smoke:

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b,_100_BC.SAV)

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


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


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

Originally posted by Charis
Besides, we want the Rome war to end ASAP, not be locked into 20 turns of peace to avoid killing our rep.



Crap, I made a huge mistake. I didn't realise we wanted peace with Roma, I flatly rejected him. :smoke:

Good progress there!
We can't trade the more advanced techs with Goths, Celts, or Scythians because they are working on their own (much cut down, I suspect) tech tree(s). I say tree(s) because for some wierd reason the Scythians can learn Astronomy while the other two can't.

GormDragon, On the tech trading:

It appears that the "barbarian civs" such as the celts can't learn all the techs - they have a limited subset. This got me too in my trading. Its not that they already have the tech, they just can't get it.

In my case it was more clear. I gave them writing so I could trade the techs that depended on it (Map Making and Code of Laws). After giving them writing, I could not trade anything further, even though I knew I had to be ahead in tech. The only conclusion that made sense was that only the 4 player civs can learn most of the techs.

Thank you Greebley and rubberjello, appreciate the heads up.

I must say two things... i) my eyes hurt from the number of times they
popped out of their head reading of the last turn, and ii) gormdragan
had an OUTSTANDING turn! :hammer:

The ebb and flow went something linke this...

> I didn't realise we wanted peace with Roma, I flatly rejected him
:eek: Do look over previous turn notes carefully :P

> Macedonian Heavy Cav kills our Numec, so Macedonia has Heavy Cavs
:eek: Holy cow, as if the hops aren't ripping us up enough!!

--> But then you get us MT, cool. Expensive or not, a crucial tech :P

> I am edgy with all the macedonian troops in our territory. I will make my aim
for my 10 turns to clean out macedonian troops in our territory .
:eek: First thought, "Oh no!! Until we cut off the supply line coming through
Byzantium this is futile - treating the symptom and not the root problem.

--> Yet you (quickly) got the supply cut off with the army, and even
better, capture Byzantium! :hammer:

> Antandrus is ours, but our army is redlined.
:eek:
--> "We spawned a GL. I make another army." Woo! [dance]

--> "Corinth is sacked, +189g" WOW! Not only the bottleneck, but all the cities too?!

> I noticed that any army gets 2 movements even if they have 1-movement troops.
The GL I spawned in early turn, I will make a 2 heavy cav+1 Numec army.
:eek: OMG no!!! It's +1 move, not move 2 for armies!

--> Err, army gets unit movement+1, so I am going back to a 3 heavy cav army.

Phew!!!!!

> Troop movements, converged our 3 armies into 1 huge SOD in Byzantium.

Oh ya!! I'm going to have FUN with this turn, I can tell ya that!

I wouldn't be too concerned about the victory goals yet. Our main goal is to stop
getting abused by our mortal enemy, and to see him wiped off the map. The territory
and population will come. Hope for Rome and Carthage to have a bloody, painful
stalemate in the meantime. (BTW, short gotos for hurt troops to nearest rax is fine)

My initial thoughts now, looking at your map -- Macedonians are on the run, and the more
troops they have wasted now on ships, the better. We have the initiative and it will
be fully pressed in the next turn. Next step seems at first glance to be to cut out
their heart, capturing Athens. (It has the Oracle, or it would be a raze) Then
Themopylae and Sparta need a razing. That will be the end of their productive core,
and the end of Macedon. Then we sweep up and wipe them off the map. (I won't get
past Athens this turn, if I even get near there, so the Green line option will
be up to the next leader) The big question is whether to leave the Nume army in
Byzantium to take that threat off my mind, or to bring them to defend the attacking
SOD as we move forward -- need to think on that one a little more.

I appreciate not making a snap decision on the battle plan on your last turn,
and wow, nice drawings :goodjob:

Well done!
Charis

Since we are going for the kill and our culture is close to Macedonia, do we really need to raze anymore?

Other than the SOD, we have 5 Numecs, 4 Immo and 1 catapults close by, on their way to Byzantium. Most of these were our mop-up force. I might be wrong but we might be able to hold the cities we capture. Just a thought. I am a greedy man :blush:

This may sound crazy but: How much of a force can we muster to hit Eygpt now? Do they have Merc or for that matter Heavy cavs?

Just a thought.

PS. As far as razing the Macedonians cities I think it is the way to go. We can fill in them later. I don't think flips are the question as much as it is the need to have a few units there to avoid allowing the city to be recaptured. Raze it and there is nothing to recapture. We just have to be aware of poachers.

Ah...i see the logic....I am slow, sorry. We could capture before Byzantium because we don't have to worry about recaptures, but a different scenario altogether beyond Byzantium. :blush:

With regards to attacking Egypt, I think we make about 1 Heavy Cav per turn, 1-2 numec per turn. stripping garrisons, I think we can form a 6+ heavy cav, 6+ Numec strike force immediately. However, the problem is the egyptian units already in our territories. There are about 20+ moving along our territories towards Scythia. If we want to strike at Egypt, we have to be able to simulatanouesly deal with these or at least re-garrison our inner cities to survive their assaults. It is doable, but probably take us around 10 to 15 turns to prep for it. Incidentally, those egyptian units comprises mainly of archers/spears and chariots. I did not recall seeing any egyptian heavy cavs but I earlier trade the tech to them :smoke:

gorm - Outstanding set of turns!! :goodjob:

I think we should take out our mortal enemy first, before we get involved in anything else. A two front war would slow us down tremendously.

I'm not so sure. Moving units from the Southern cities to the Front lines take 4-5 turns even with the fast movement on roads. I think a force of immortals or heavys can put a hurt on Egypt now. But maybe it is being a bit aggressive. :flamedevil:

Hotrod

SO CLOSE!!!! (more on that soon)

I open up the save file, and have a few things to note.
While we're not close to victory conditions, we are distinctly in the
lead over top contender Carthage, and we're WAY ahead on the 'tie-breaker'
condition of score. 50 turns done, so 80 more to go, that's 1.6 turns each.
While the score curve is constant, it's the shape of the power curve I like.
Carthage is doing far better than Rome. This highlights the need to cut Rome
a little slack so they can beat down our score-opponents. That is, of course,
unless we wipe out the Macedons so fast that we want a piece of Rome. Still,
do we want to face Legion II's or War Chariots. After Macedon I would have to
wager Egypt and/or Scythians are next, not Rome by a long shot. Looking at
foreign affairs, wow, good job keeping the dogpile on Greece :P

Tech? Scythians and Celts have Astronomy. Rome and Carthage both have a lot -
Philo, Monarchy, Edu, Astro, Siege Craft. Boy the latter would be nice.

Hmm, Rome will talk, and we're not allied against them, so we can end that
war now. I make peace with Rome, getting a small discount on Philosophy
to WM+25gpt+9g (yes, I chose gpt to help them out vs Carthage, and so we could
pay the latter cash for the next deal and less gpt)

Carthage can sell us Siege Craft, for dyes, most of our gold and about 17gpt. Done.
Egypt alone can take Philosophy, and we trade it for Astro, Edu, WM+1g.
We now see Carthage and Rome have Medicine (and Monarchy), Egypt has Monarchy.
Did you notice how powerful Bacchanalia is? 3 faces content in EVERY city, available
with new Philosophy, and cost of 500 shields. I look at the build queue, OMG, are
we warmongers or what?!?! Screen after screen of heavy cavs! :P
Not only that, but the ONLY wonder of any kind under construction anywhere is
Bacchy in Marsala. Hehe, and that's a fishing village city, Susa starts on it
and that puppy is *OURS* in 25 turns. (I micro Susa to 20spt)

We're in *desperate* need of workers to have some excellent cities become
productive, like Babylon.

[0] 100BC - I go over the city queue's carefully, and make the following swaps.
Cities with no rax are taken off mil units, and put on settlers.
Our mil units take 60, 40, 40 and 30 shields. So 8 shield cities are put on
fire cats or immortals (40), 6 shields go on Numes, to avoid waste.
Macedon cities are starved down to reduce flip risk. They also get a temple whipped.
Tarsus gets its granary whipped and food surplus to benefit from that.
These rearrangements increase our income by over 20 gpt :P

Ok, time to look at the front. Three HvyCavs in the open, in range of immortals.
Off we go, killing all three with Darius and a friend.

(IBT) Macedons and Celts come to peace. That's one HUGE line of Egptian units
roaming through our lands unfettered. It makes one nervous with all the undefended
cities in our midst. :P A few Macedon cav head toward Byz but can't reach it.

[1] 95BC - We shell Maronea. Not too much damage, but enough. Our army kills two hops, then
an immortal kills the third and last. To capture or to raze... Not an easy call given
the proximity to Athens, but then again, I expect Athens itself to fall shortly.
In order to be able to press on with the attack, I capture. It has rax, granary and
walls, excellent. We'll start and temple-whip soon. (Speaking of capture choices,
I note the expired GL is in Sparta, Oracle in Athens)
(IBT) Two Macedon cavs redline and retreat outside Maronea. They're toast :P
Several ships show up outside Beirut, I move cavs nearby to counterattack if they land.

[2] 90BC - Gordium is not ultra-corrupt, it switches to courthouse and whips it.
At Thessalonica we lost a Hvy cav, but knocked out five defenders to capture it.
In the last two turns we've upgraded about 10 cats to fire cats.

(IBT) Resistance in Thessa ends. Do you know how many troops a fleet of 4-transport
Macedon galleys can bring?!?!? Thank goodness they don't know! This armada comes to
drop of **two** cav next to Beirut.

[3] 85 BC - We start by slaughtering the two puny landers, overcoming laughter to do so.
Our Nume army completes a very brief mission to pillage the only two tiles connecting
Northern Macedonian from the South. Apart from harbors they're now disconnected. :D
The other two attacking armies are at half strength and sit this round to heal.
We do have enough extra units, btw, to send a flanking wing of slow units at Sardis.

(IBT) Carthage and Celts ally vs Egypt. (Good, less focus of Egypt on us)
However, Scythaians and Macedon come to peace. We loose a Nume on counterattack.

A volcano goes active next to Neopolis!! :P

[4] 80 BC - Macedon now has a wedge driven across it, tis lovely to see.
Our Nume army whacks a redlined hop-settler pair. Thebes is a little further
back. We hit it, but can't take it this turn.

(IBT) Not a PEEP from Macedon. They're SO gassed. They sign peace with Goths,
and the two of them then ally vs... Carthage.

[5] 75 BC - Defenses in Macedon are getting thinner and thinner, and our new units
pour in every turn. Although I thought I wouldn't have the strength to do it,
I split off a few small task forces for the upcoming cities. Two Green Swords are
in the open, and they're shredded by the new fire cats.

Thebes has just two defenders and our immortal army takes 'em both, and the city!
Not only that, we catch two hops behind it, and have some units next to Athens,
and our heavy cav army knocks out two defenders!

We found Kandahar in the NE area in the gap between Bampur and Behistum.
We found Altin Tepe in another large gap between Trapezus and Borazjan.
(IBT) Nuthin'. Carthage and Scythia ally vs Egypt. Macedons and Goths ally vs Rome.

[6] 70 BC - Heavy can and the HCav army take Athens! We keep it, to capture the
Oracle. (There's something good in C3C for capturing a capital, no? Increased flip
chance?)

We found Bunyan and Charsadda in the middle of nowhere, in the desert near Egypt.
The latter is ON incense. We also found Ura Tyube in the central gap between
Zela and Iconium. (Yah, I made a fair amount of settlers in addition to fighting)
Rome and Carthage have Monotheism, btw.
(IBT) Carthage and Scythia ally vs Egypt. (Didn't they do this last turn??)
A hoplite runs out of a city about to be sacked to attack an immortal fortified
in the mountain. It loses as we chuckle.

[7] 65 BC - We're in striking range of about FOUR Macedonian cities this turn,
albeit smaller groups. Let's see what we can do...

Group A - Six slow units converge on Sardica, but we only need two immortals to
kill the two hoplites, and the city is ours.

Group B - Thermopylae starts with a Hvy Cav losing, but our HvyCav army wins two
and... that's it? The city is ours!!

Group C - Argos starts with an elite immortal losing, but the Immo army wins two
and... that's it, the city is ours!!

Group D - Ambracia is shelled with Fire Cats. Just two again. can't take it with
just immortals, so the Nume army finishes off the last one, and it's ours.
Not bad for a day's work!! (Lots of resistors though, insufficient quelling forces)
(IBT) Hoplite loses to HvyCav on a hill.

[8] 60 BC - Resistance over in Sardicia (our big stack of lil guys), and a few quellings.
A temple is whipped there.

Sardis is founded in the desert just east of our capital.
New Perseopolis is founded just NE of Byzantium, between two old ruins sites.

Stacks head toward Dyrrhachium and Pharsalos. Armies rest in cities near Sparta.
(IBT) Macedon and Egypt sign a peace treaty. Ship sets sail from Sparta. If it's
a lone settler I'm gonna scream. No Macedonian attacks. Resistance ends in Argos.
Over eighteen Carthage galleys stream past the Greek short, heading back South.

[9] 55 BC - Courthouse whipped in Zohak, as it has potential.
New Susa is founded past Gordium, near Assyut of Egypt.

Dyrrhachium falls to two immortals and a cav.
(IBT) Athens resistance ends. Outside Pharsalos a hoplite attacks into the
darkness. Thebes resistence ends, but that throws it into civil unrest for the turn.

[10] 50BC -

The battle for Sparta! Bombardment fails, but our immortal army does not, killing
top two hoplites (he'll need to rest now though) Our cav army also knocks out two,
and also gets hurt, but there's still another defender.

Note, I've been irrigating a long path down from about 11 squares north of
Perseopolis down to our capital. Finish the task and plz... get it to size 12!

At Pharsalos we have three elite immortals to go first. The first one dies,
second wins, and third... spawns a MGL, Xerxes! [dance]
We immediately fill him up with three Heavy cavs (vets, a few pts dmg) at
Dyrrh.

- Gem luxury (last available luxury) will be only in 3 turns. (East of Miletus).

To next leader...
- There's one settler outside of Merv that is on short goto to the ruin site
where a Nume is already in place to defend his new city. Actually, there are
*five* unmoved settlers and two workers this turn.
- Whip the temples in Macedonian as soon as their out of resistance.
-The mighty Baccanalia is due in 15 in Susa, and barring a SGL rush we'll get it.
- If I forgot this turn, please whip Bampur temple and Behisthn
- I've not kept close tabs on cash, but we now have over 3700g in the bank.
We're on top with score, power, and victory pts, with 13% area and 27% population.

*EDIT- On the turn you hope to attack and take Sparta, I would go to all our current allies vs Macedon and cancel the alliance, just so the civ dying doesn't hurt our rep for 'breaking' the alliance.

*NOTE* When we capture Sparta, we'll get the Great Library. It *WILL* be active
for one turn, as it gets its beneficial actions THEN checks if it's obsolte.
So we will get Monarchy and Medicine when Sparta falls :goodjob:
Medicine should help us raise our population.

Here's our empire... one turn short of eliminating the Macedonians!! (Actually, probably four turns, as the only sane
move is to send our two armies right two steps to the city to heal, then come back and capture Sparta. But the other city should fall next turn)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-50bc.jpg

Rubberjello <-- Up
hotrod0823 <-- On deck

RBC3b-Persians-50BC Save File (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-50bc.zip) <-- EDIT, was wrong file earlier

Good luck,
Charis

PS to Hotrod - you have no idea how many Egyptian units are *STREAMING* through our lands. Greece will be gone in a handful of turns, probably once the armies heal and capture Sparta. At this point, what I would probably do is line up as best I could a large number of heavy cav along the roads near where Egypt
is running through. Be sure no deals/treaties ongoing, declare war, and decimate their army just hitting what's in our territories.
With that done, probably at a 5:1 loss ratio, we can bring our armies to bear and swallow their cities.

PPS - EDIT - I think the gems are online (gormdragan was looking at my improperly old link for save file??)
Our military is 'strong' compared to all barbarians and the Macedonians, but we're "weak" compared to Rome and Carthage. We have about 15 *under* our allowed military (sort of by choice, as I went very settler heavy, but we could definitely use a lot more Heavy cav for the next phase) Egypt is in Anarchy, and Rome and Carthage are in Republic. At 13% area and 27% pop we have a long way to go to 20% land and 50% pop. That means we need to control a whopping 50% more area, and double our *relative* population. Peaceful settling and swallowing Egypt should get us most of the way there, but perhaps not all the way.

Wow that's one impressive set of turns. :goodjob:

I could have sworn that the gem would come online in 3 turns. I am suprised we still need to wait 3 turns.

Looks like we are more than on the right course to win this game by a long mark.

At the end of my turns, there is no way I would have thought twenty turns later, Macedonia would be breathing its last. gorm and Charis, a masterful job of generalship.

Declaring war on Cleo will be an ROP rape in reverse. In one turn her entire offensive miltary can be decimated. I'd be surprised if Egypt will still be in the game by my next set of turns.

Sir Bugsy,

Judging from the stream of units they were sending into Turkey earlier, I wouldn't have guessed them to be so out of gas, so quickly either. I would normally never have split forces so badly, but there was just so little counterattacking, and the slow units could barely keep up with the quick armies.

Whatever Cleo gets, she has FULLY coming to her. She has, *without our permission* paraded her entire national army across OUR soil. So yes, her pain will be great, and swift, but earned. Their units are rather weak too, spears, warriors, archers, and a few swords. Even if we don't have enough cavs on hand to wipe them out in a single turn, they'll never survive three turns, then our whole army can sweep down toward the cities.
I don't know if they can build Heavy cav or Numes, but I've never seen any from Egypt.

Reminder to those up... I'm pretty sure we have non-renegotiated alliances with Egypt, and others. Before making any attack on Egypt definitely be sure to end that deal. It would probably help also on the turn we declare on Egypt, to get their enemy the Scythians to ally with us. Ironically, that will spell their eventual doom, as they too will parade troops over our lands and spread themselves out for a slaughter. :mischief:
We'll want to consider a (cough) Carthage alliance, lest the Egyptians who are their buddies draw them in. Given they're our top rivals however, that might not be so bad if they are as bad as Macedon was with landing a semi-amphibious invasion.

Use the next 4-6 turns while the armies heal then take out Sparta to see what Hvy cav we can muster, find good spots on
the yellow chain to ambush, and get in position. In other words, if there is a yellow mini-SOD next to a defenseless city, we're gonna have problems. Don't dally, but don't rush. If we take the remaining 4-6 turns to get ready we can pull the armies back down, and they can kill 7 units per turn just with the offensive ones. Speaking of armies, this should be a great chance for another MGL by leader fishing with our elite cavs. (If RJ can withold and 'setup' for the next turn, he might become hotrod's new best friend :cool: )

EDIT - I was curious on how many Egyptians there were in our land and went to count them:

5 Spears, 6 Swords, 7 archers, 3 Numes (boo), no warriors
That's just 20 units, less than I thought. Their movement in stacks
each turn gave the impression there were more. Our *total* army is 16 hvy cav, 15 immo, 13 fire cats, 30 numes plus a few spears we didn't upgrade yet. (That's also less than I thought, no wonder we're weak compared to Rome and Carthage) I count about 7 hvy cavs and 1 immo in our 'core' that could reach the 'line' in the next few turns.
Good news: they have so few that our armies alone (if they were there) could wipe them all out in 3 turns. With a dozen more heavy cav we could take them out in one turn.
Not-as-good news: The numes are all 'rear' guard very near Egypt, so those are the first ones off their production line. They've recently got the tech and the longer we wait, the more we'll see.
Good news again: The AI isn't "holding back" much if anything. What we see, plus what is engaged in Scythia is it. Once they're gone Egypt is already gassed.

Depending how aggressive the jello of rubber is, he might see the first strike after all toward the end of his turn. :hammer: ?!?!

Charis

Oh my lord! I'm so screwed!

(Heh! not in this game. Had you worried there for a sec, didn't I?)

Well, I'll try to complete this one as soon as possible, but my work (which some of you may have guessed is pretty kick-back since I have dropped references that I get to play Civ3 at work occasionally), has just called in the debit chits and I'm pulling some 16 hour days before Thanksgiving here. I think I can get it done, but my turn log may not be as verbose as I would like it.

Good job, Charis! I will have to print out all your notes and tack them beside the monitor before I even consider starting to play! :D

(Edit - PS) And to top it all off, I've finally got my LoTR Two Towers 4 CD set with all the goodies and 45 mins. of deleted scenes. Oh well. Sleeping and personal hygiene are optional activities, right? :p

Quickee question and small revelation.
The Great Library in this scenarion does not end with Education. It went ahead and gave us Republic and Imperialism. We haven't talked about a government switch at all, but Imperialism (at least according to the Civilopedia) gives all the advanatages of Democracy with no War weariness at all. I'm seriously considering revolting to it, unless you can talk me out of it?

I know the general concensus on most of these scenarios is that it's not worth leaving your original government, but since we are "investigating" this scenario, should we go for it?

From the start I like Imperialism I say go for it ! :D

:confused: Did I miss us getting the Great Library ;) :goodjob: That could only mean that Sparta is toast.

It was so nice of him to build that for us.

Preturn: Wow! The world has sure changed since I last played this! Move the settlers and workers. Everything else looks good, and the armies by Sparta DO look pretty gassed, so the Macedonians may have a reprieve on life for a while. Move our reserve up to be in hitting distance of the Egyptian units.

IT: Scythia and Macedon sign peace. Macedon and Celts sign in an MA against us. An Immortal on the hill outside Sparta (all by himself?) :no-no: barely manages to fend off a Sword attack.

45 BC (1) Get an updated World Map from everyone (at only a small deficit). We have no MA against Macedon with anyone, so we are clear on that front. Salonae does the decent thing and falls before our Cav army without even a whimper. We capture 3 slaves and a catapult. Bombarding reveals that Sparta is only defended by 2 Vet Hops and a Reg Hop (who are now all wounded). Hmmm...We do have 2 healed heavy cavs there, it may be worth the risk...I decide to go for it. The two Cavs easily win (one promotion) and the final Hop was taken out by our wounded Cav army very easily. We capture The Great Library and a slave,
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3bpic004.jpg
and with great relief we get the message that the Macedonians are considered a defunct civilization (as opposed to a settler-in-exile-floating-around-on-a-ship-somehwere-making-stupid-Alliances-against-everyone-under-the-sun-for-30-rounds.) Found two new cities in semi-bad locations just for the domination area gains. Gee! Those Hops were not nearly as scary this time around (once we have a decent army!)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3bpic005.jpg

IT The Scythians are pouring past our Northwestern border and taking it to the Romans hard. (One of Romes' cities on the Danube gets razed this turn). The Great Library gives us Monarcy, Monotheism, and Medicine. (Research switched to Republic.) Resistance in all Macedonian cities end.

40 BC (2) A bunch of temples are whipped in former Macedonia. I decide that most of our Cats would take forever to get down to Egypt, so I keep most of them in Macedonia for eventual? Rome-bashing. All Cavs are sent down through Turkey as soon as they heal. Egypt still is doing the "march of death" through our territory, but they are sticking to mountains and hills (like they suspect something? ;) ) I take a couple of our units and block their line of march so they are forced out into the plains. We are still nominally at war with the Celts, but I'll try to settle that as soon as possible. Egypt and Scythians are at war (thus the northern march of Egyptian units through our territory.)

IT Apparently, the Great Library is not defunct with Education in this scenario, as we get Republic and Imperialism for free. A small bug in the program instantly transports us through 3 ages (the picture screen) into the "Unknown Future".

35 BC (3) Fire our lone scientist in Sinope. I know we haven't talked about governments in this game at all, but Imperialism seems like a kick-butt government. Since we are not fighting for our life and are, well, "almost" cruising to victory, I think maybe we should investigate to see what it is like? After some indecision, I go for it, and we get a disorder interval of 2 turns? (scenario parameters for Religious Civ?)

IT Scythians and Carthaginians sign an alliance against the Celts.

30 BC (4) Cav armies are almost in position.

IT Scythians and Goths sign peace. Carthage brings in Goths against the Egyptians. The Egyptian parade turns around and starts heading South, (Carthage is much more of a threat to them then Scythia.)

25 BC (5) We are now proud Imperialists. I go on a huge spending spree with our 4000 gold piggy bank. I decide to wait one more turn to attack Egypt.

IT Celts and Goths have signed peace.

20 BC (6) Trade around WM, and clean out Egypt of gold by selling them Imperialism (not taking the offered GPT payments. Verify no active deals, and then declare war. It is a slaughter. 12 Egyptian units die to zero of ours. (only 2 promotions)

IT No Egyptian counterattack. Units still moving southward.

15 BC (7) Kill 10 more Egyptian units (only 1 promotion), and lose a heavy Cav and an Immortal due to bad luck.

IT Rome and Egypt sign peace. No Egyptian counterattack. Rush some more temples.

10 BC (8) Healing turn. Kill 2 more Egyptian units. Approach their small city in the north.

IT Nada

5 BC (9) Capture Minuinsk in the north from Egypt with no losses. Invade Egypt proper with a stack heading towards Gaza. Make peace with the Celts for 120 of their gold without firing a shot.

IT Goths sign peace with Rome. Rome took out a few of their cities way up North. Some Egyptian units shuffling about, but no real threat. Capture the Egyptian city of Asyut with 1 Cav loss. (It was defended by 3 Numies and a Sword). Our army and Elite Cav killed three Numidians off of Gaza, but I ran out of offensive units after a Sword was revealed still in the city.

We now have 17% of the world area (20% to win), but only 30% of the population (50% to win). We are well ahead of Carthage though.

The Game (1 AD) ((Whatever happened to 0 AD???)) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/RBC3b-Persians-1AD.zip)

Great turn Rubberjello! :hammer:

> An Immortal on the hill outside Sparta (all by himself?) :no-no:
> barely manages to fend off a Sword attack.

Ah, there is method behind that madness. At the end of attacks our best army was red and if they got lucky there was a chance they would kill it in a counterattack. The immortal gave himself up (or intended to) with a bullseye painted on his shirt to insure that the army would live (it's that principle of don't do something on your turn that let's the next' schmo' see the army die on his :lol: )

GL didn't end with Education? Big WOO on two techs including Imperialism, and definitely the right call to revolt :goodjob:

Nice setup and execution (pun intended) on Egypt -- that's going to be like shooting fish in a barrel for hotrod :hammer:

We'll definitely reach 20% land area, so once that's in hand we'll want to have a major 'food'/population push. Once Egypt is gone (ya, thinking ahead) we'll have no fear of second front and can take on our choice of Northern neighbors with our extra mil units.

Well done!
Charis

PS in EDIT - speaking of growth, I believe Bacchanalia will be due in 5 turns in the middle of hotrod's realm. That's +3 happy PER CITY :P

world map screenshot please :)

:D :goodjob: I've got it but with the holiday I may need some extra time.

Hotrod

Looks like you guys have this one in the bag, what's the next conquest this crew is gonna take on? Mesoamerica perhaps?

I've opened the game and started to scope things out. A few observations before I really get into it.

We are really close to the land area requirement but have a ways to go in the population requirement. I have stopped settler production and swapped most non-miltary cities to granaries, aquaducts and infirmaries to focus on population.

My question is this: How do we feel about worker merges? We are not exactly worker rich infact if this were a standard game I think we would need more but in this case we have many core cities that have been so focused on settlers that they are behind the curve.

Realizing that for the most part merges may not be necessary but if I rush a few infirmaries I may be able to get some of the core cities up to size rather quickly.

It is not my intention to open old RBCiv sores but wanted to bring it up before proceding.

Hotrod

That topic got a decent amount of discussion, with some disagreement in the end as
to what remedy if any was needed. It's neither an exploit nor a dastardly deed, so without
other rules mentioned in place, it's perfectly fine. The middle ground on it, if any player
doesn't like how worker merge works out producing from <6 and adding to >=7 or >=13,
then just use it to add to small cities to bring them up to 7. In other SG games where the
host things of this as a no-no they can and will disallow it. I myself prefer to leave that
one 'on the table' and let the individual player decide if it's in theme, appropriate, or not.
Here with the victory condition to go forth and multiply, and reach population goals, it makes
sense to share the wealth from food-rich areas to food-poor - at the very least by
isovictual worker mergers ( :cooool: new word for merges where food gained is same as food
used up, ie town to town or city to city)

That's my 2c anyway,
Charis

I shall go forth and multiply.

I like that idea of city to city, town to town. Let me work on that I have a bit of MM to do ;)

Originally posted by Charis
isovictual worker mergers [/B]
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Love the term! (and it seems like a good compromise)

I have always tried to go from city to city or town to town. Usually, I use a size 12 city to generate workers to populate my smaller cities.

RBC3b

1 AD (0): Future Tech :lol: Anyway techs are off the table. We are 3 % from

land area and 20% from population. I don't think we will need anymore

settler so I will look to grow all our cities as best as I can. We will most

likely need workers and irrigation to get growth. I think taking Egypt will

bring us the territory requirement. Will spend some time now doing some MM.

In all honest didn't do much in my last turn during the heat of battle.

Consider this payback :D.

What I really should ask is how we feel about worker merges? I'll cross that

bridge when we come to it.

Many towns were swapped from settlers to ducts, or infirmaries. Looking to

push population all the while push into Egypt.

INBT: renew peace with Rome when he comes to visit.

5 AD (1): More projects get swapped, missed a few settler. Rushed a couple

ducts, sold incence to Carthage for 400 gold to get more for infra-rushing.

Found New Trye and send out a few more settler to claim more land.

Regrouping units on the Yellow boarder.

10 AD (2): Zela builds a duct starts a market. Samaria a temple starts Heavy

cav. Found New Sardis. Found New Samaria. Found New Hamadan. The fire cats

are almost ready. Formup stack to hit Gaza next turn. Retreat Aray to asyut

to kill advancing archers.

15 AD (3): Sucessfully bomb and capture Gaza but it took almost all our units

to do so leaving Asyut unprotected. Rome joins Egypt against us. Quick

victory up date. Population at 31%, Land at 18%. Buy a few more ducts.

Advance a small party on towards the Roman town of Luna.

20 aD (4): Rush an infirmary in Babylon. Moving stack of fire cats to hit

Pelusium before the Heavies arrive. They are healing at the moment. Kill a

Legionary III but at 6.5 they are tough. Bacchananlia is ours in 2 more

turns.

25 AD (5): Interturns are taking a while :(. Lose a wounded Heavy to 2

Egyptian archers. Babylon completes an infirmary starts HC. Few cities

complete military start on more. Found New Darius Kalibar and New Ghulaman.

Moving units slowly South and West toward Egypt and Rome. Sell wines to

Sycthia for 200 gold.

30 AD (6): Bacchanalia completed in Susa. [party] Start infirmary. Kill 2

nuMercs at Pelusium but fail to take the last. It will fall next turn. Rush

the Infirmary at Arbela. Moving to take Kahun and Mendes next turn.

35 AD (7): Captured Kahun. Bombed Luna, we want to have nothing to do with

those Legionary III :(. Capture Pelusium with no loses and without using the

army. Send Army to single handedly take PIRamesse. Hurry Pasargadae's

infirmary. Sit tight in Pelusium. Will move toward the the capital with the

stack next turn. Sell Carthage Dyes for 525 gold. Rush the infirmary in Susa.

We are sitting at 19% territory and 33% population.

40 AD (8): Join a couple workers to fledling towns. Raze Mendes. All wounded

units are in Pelusium. The rest move toward Alexandria to cover the fire

cats.

45 AD (9): Attack Alexandria but fail to kill the last NuMerc. Kill 5 others though. Continue to move units to the North to face off with Rome. It is slow going. Spend some more gold for a couple ducts.

50 aD (10): Take Alexandria and the Great Lighthouse. See a sea of Gray Carthage units and decide to hit Memphis now before they can. I manage to capture the city easily. Will look to make peace with Egypt now to see if we can get a couple cities. Sell Scythians silks for 180 gold. Use the gold to rush the infirmary at Hatra. Rush a couple temples on the Roman boarder to claim a few more tiles. We are currently sitting at 19% territory and 36% population.

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3b-50AD.zip

http://civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3b50ad.JPG

:goodjob: Hotrod!

One note of caution. I've played this scenario again (since this isn't going to come around to my turn again), and found that the Population target isn't quite as easy as it seems, since it is a "moving target" - you're in affect trying to outrace population growth with the rest of the world *combined*. We will make much greater progress if we remain on the warpath as much as possible rather than trying a peaceful buildup. (since conquering theoretically gets us there more than twice as fast than normal population growth.)

Sorry if I was stating the obvious, but I tried a peaceful build towards the end and it took forever to get from 42% to 48%. (Then I declared war and very quickly got the rest.

Excellent point RJ!

Our infrastructure is ready to go back into full on military build but we have to chose our target wisely.

ATM we are at war with Eygpt and Rome but Eygpt is all but finished and Rome is a tough nut to crack. Perhaps the best target would be our closest rival Carthage. They may be strong but they are still at war with Rome and if we can somehow get Rome to talk peace then maybe we can focus all our attentions to the southern path.

Because we were pressing into Macedon early we were short units in the south making the war with Eygpt take longer than it would've otherwise. Now the same issue is true. Almost all our forces were finally in the south but Rome declared and some had to be redirected to the North to protect or new holdings. Fighting on 2 fronts is not the answer. We need to pick a horse in the fight between Carthage and Rome and Press hard into either of them to win.

Hotrod

OK Team,
I've got the game, but I think we are approaching a crossroads and a little discussion would be a good thing. Egypt appears to be breathing her last.

Rubberjello has an excellent point in that the population requirement is probably the most difficult victory requirement of this scenario. Staying on the warpath makes a lot of sense.

The question is: who do we make war against?

My initial inclination would be to go after our weak neighbors to the north. While that would certainly gain us territory, it won't stop the growth of Roman cities.

Fighting Carthage would mean a very narrow front and may be tactically very simple. Perhaps we could get peace with Rome for an MA against Carthage.

I think no matter what we are going to need to fight Rome. While our Army is out of position at the moment, if we can fight a holding action until the bulk of it is shifted from the Southern shore of the Med to the Northern shore, we could gain significant ground towards the population requirement.

I will hold off for at least 24 hours until the team voices it's opinion.

Bugs

I took at look at the map and victory screen, and here are some approx numbers on population (as you note, %area is in the bag):

Persia ~ 425 (after we swallow Egypt, that is)
Rome ~ 200
Carthage ~ 315
Each barb is another 100, for a grand total at present of:
Total ~ 1200

It's RATHER clear that our main rival and the one that we have to go after is Carthage. If instead we ask the question, what are the largest cities we could capture, that answer too is, in Carthage.

Since we have our main armies up North at Rome, by all means take another city or three, until peace makes sense. Let's say thats about 15 pop pts worth (take cities in tribute, not cash or tech). What then is our goal? 50% of the world population means we would still need to capture about 160 pop pts worth of cities.

What role does growth 'rate' play? If each civ is growing in pop at the same rate, the relative %pop won't change, so we either need to grow at a higher rate, or continue to go on the offensive.
How do we compare in number of cities? We have 83 cities, and Carthage has 43. That's 5.1 avg pop size per city vs 7.3, so actually there is some room to push harder our growth (ie, irrigate more, build more aqueducts, etc, use less shields) Plus with Bacchanalia we can get higher size than other civs.

What would it take to capture 160 pop points? Well, the Carthaginian islands of Sicilly et al represent a whopping 90 pts, and are a prime target. The overextended part of Carthage near Egypt is 18 pop, so the remaining 50 would require us to press west through Egypt to their core/capital and a few of its surrounding cities.

What would I recommend then? Crank enough galleys that we can carry all the troops we need to capture and hold all three islands, while we swallow Egypt and put our final hurting on the Roman outskirts. Then load up the Northern armies and troops around Salonae or Ambracia. Send a moderately strong task force and the one Southern army to just below Memphis. *while still at peace* sail the fleet over within one-turn striking range of the islands. Declare war and on turn one, take Khmun in the south, and sweep around to take the other four Carthage cities there. Also on turn one, land all troops on the island, right next to their cities and/or on mountains/hills. Depending on how many troops we can bring to bear, you might have one army per island. If the seas are swarming with Carthage ships such that safe transport is a big problem, then hit all three islands the same turn with three brigades, since they can travel during peace. If instead the seas are calm and you want to avoid splitting forces, then start with Messana island and sweep north. I would lean toward the three brigade approach myself.

Expect 4 defenders (vet Numes or Hops) per metro, 3 per city, 2 per town (some cities may have more, but this will be nominal). So for an island of two metro, I would probably bring a hvy cav army, 4-6 numes, and 4-6 heavy cav, and a few cats, at a minimum.

Hit them fast enough and they'll get no reinforcements to the islands. After we capture (not raze!) the cities, the AI will likely be ineffective in bringing enough units on any one turn to seriously counterattack - we should kill any landed units in one turn with a zone HvyCav defense. In Egypt, they'll have 12-24 roaming units, since they are on the attack there. Consider sending the defensive army down there for this reason, rather than have it go to Aleria island which has just one city. 5-6 cav and 2-3 numes alone should take that one easily.

Timewise, end of Roman actions and Egypt should take half of Sir Bugsy's turn, and.... holy cow, we have *ZERO* galleys???? To get the units suggested to the island will take *12* galleys, ie 2, 4, 6 for the top, middle and bottom islands. The rest of his turn will need to see these produced, and the troops start to assemble in place. It will take 7-8 turns for the ships to get in position (preferably during peace unless you want to make 12 MORE ships to cover these), which makes gormdragan's turn one of a big naval and troop movement, and the next bloke will see most of the fighting. (Eep! That's... Charis!)

From now til the end, all low shield cities should go into full food mode, irrigate and try to grow. High food cities should crank out workers for isovictual merges, and high shield cities should crank out the galleys and heavy cavs we'll need to finish this off. Speaking of galleys, we only have six Greece-sea cities, all with low shields, and 12 galleys to make. They're so corrupt, we'll need to cash rush most (or... disband junk units!) That's at 116 gold each, for a 1-shield box. Dyrrhachium is set on Aqueduct which is due to finish 14 turns after the game ends. :lol: That's one galley (or rush the 'duct, then in two turns rush galley) Re-evaluate the build-order for any city that has nothing due for >30 turns. Try to continue to build up our income so we can spend on rushing as needed, for example may want to sell Scythians incense, for what amounts to 2 free galley rushes. (Speaking of Scythians, they're the only other ones not fighting Carthage. On the turn we go to war, ally with them if possible)

Does that sound like a plan? Remember, we only have 50 turns left, so if the ships aren't *in place* one turn off the coast of the Carthage islands within 20, time will be running very short. If things go well, that leaves Rubberjello setup to start the assault on the very core of Carthage and hotrod to end it. Can we do? (And all the Bob the Builder fans say... Yes we can!)

:hammer:
Charistrategist

Well. That plan is certainly more entertaining than my plan.
---Which was:
1.) Make peace with Rome as soon as possible.
2.) Concentrate on growth as much as possible except for some Military builds (of course).
3.) Finish off Egypt. Pause for 5-6 turns for reinforcements and Carthage units to maybe head back through North Africa. Declare on Carthage, ally with Rome and Scythia against them, and then do a reverse Rommel and roll westwards along the coast of North Africe with 80% of our military. We should hit the core Carth cities about the same time we would need to get the jump in population from the low 40's to over 50 percentile.

Charis's plan will "probably" work if we assume Rome and Carthage have been sinking each others' galleys all game and that there is no overwhelming navy near the islands. I have my doubts though since I think Carthage is doing pretty well on the sea wars. As he pointed out though, this is a one-shot mission and we aren't expecting our armies to come back. I just don't like spending resources on building galleys for a semi-risky (but more fun!) move when we could slog our way towards nearly the same goal on land.

Wow!!

Once again I learn something that I would never have considered, yet once it is explained seems so obvious. Now I know how Dr. Watson felt after Holmes explained the solution to a crime.

If the seas are safe, I'm thinking it would be best to start at least one armada towards the furthest island (Corsica?) as soon it is loaded and sea worthy. Although, that may not be during my turns.

Bugs

The seas are safe when you own the Great Lighthouse :D. The extra movement will speed things along as well.

Sounds like a plan to me. Push growth in the outskirts. And military and galleys in the core. As far as getting Armies to the front near Rome they were already somewhat in the north and are the fastest units we have available. They may be able to hit rome and take a few outskirt cities.

Carthage is also accessable by road and can be gotten to with our forces in Egypt. All the while building up for a naval attack.

Pre-flight – 50 AD – Romans won’t talk to us. Egypt has 5 cities left. Change the coastal cities to galleys. Can’t rush any yet since we only have 6G.

Sell Incense to Scythia for WM, 2G & 14gpt
Sell our WM to Carthage and the Goths for 46G total. Celts have over 4600G and won’t part with a cent.

Rush our first galley for 32G.

I go through our cities. We are going to get a bunch of archers in the towns that only produce 1 spt, but were more than 10 shields. My thought here is that with only 50 turns left in the game, some production is better than no production. I normally wouldn’t build them, but I’d also hate to waste the shields. Say worst case it takes four archers to kill one Legion III, that is still better than not having anything to show for our shields. I MM to increase the growth rate on several cities. Workers are ordered up in several locations. Military just about every where else. Dyrrhachium is switched to a galley. I waste 5 shields. We’ll use that to generate workers.

After about 45 minutes of study I finally hit enter.

IBT – Carthagians have a lot of units in Egypt.

1. 55 AD – Siege of Luna: Fire Cats go 1 for 4.
13/13 Hvy Cav Army kills 5/5 Legion III (-6hp)

Rush four galleys for about 290G.

Caesar will give us 40G for peace. Not yet.

We have to stand in line to attack the Egyptian city of Byblos. Carthage has four elephants standing in the way.

IBT – Byblos falls to Carthage.

2. 60 AD – In order to get our troops over to the rest of the Egyptian cities, I sign a straight up ROP with Hannibal. WE WILL NEED TO CANCEL THIS BEFORE DECLARING WAR.

We don’t have much of a force up by Roman territory. Luna has at least three Legion IIIs in it. Our Fire cats only had two hits, and they still have a full strength Legion III on top. Caesar will now only pay 20G for peace. He has three legion IIIs heading toward our Greek cities. I decide to take peace now and complete the Egypt campaign, and Carthagian build up.

Rush four more galleys.

3. 65 AD - Get our forces to the gates of Elephantine and hope the host of Carthage doesn’t take it out.
Rush some more galleys.

IBT – Elephantine withstands at least 10 attacks from Carthage. They only lost 1 NuMe.
4. 70 AD – We now have 15 galleys. While we will still produce some. I won’t rush anymore. Now we will rush vet heavy cav to go into our lovely Navy.
I position most of our forces at the gates of Elephantine. If it withstands the Carthagian attack, we’ll take it.

Start rushing Heavy Cav in Asia Minor

IBT – Elephantine is razed.

5. 75 AD – Siege of Athribis: 4/4 HC killed by 4/4 Spear (-2hp)
5/5 Immortal kills 3/3 Spear (redlined)
4/5 HC kills 2/4 Spear (-1hp)
Athribis joins the Empire.

Siege of Egyptian city on the edge of the screen that can’t be seen.
4/4 HC kills 3/3 NM (-2hp)
4/4 HC kills 3/3 NM (no loss)
The city of Lisht is ours.

IBT – Nada

6. 80 AD – Siege of Hieraconpolis: 4/4 HC kills 4/4 NM (no loss)
5/5 HC kills 4/4 spear (-2hp)
Hieraconpolis is ours and the fragile Egyptians have been destroyed.

We presently have 17 galleys, 37 Heavy Cavs, 14 fire cats, and 54 NMs. I am moving the NMs toward any threat areas. Compared to Carthage we are still weak.

Continuing the military build up. As galleys are filled, I am prepositioning them in Greece. At the present rate we may be able to sail our armada early in gorm's turns and launch the attack by turn 7-9 of gorm's turns.

More to follow,

Bugs

Very well done down in Egypt, Bugs! :goodjob:

Looks like you're on-board with the "island invasion" plan. Rubberjello's plan is a 'safer' one that would also work (requiring more cities captured since the highest pop ones are on the island), but the path we're on will be fun.

One minor problem, you have two incompatible statements/thoughts going on in your post:

1> At the present rate we may be able to sail our armada early in
> gorm's turns and launch the attack by turn 7-9 of gorm's turns

2> 60 AD. I sign a straight up ROP with Hannibal

We don't get to 'cancel' that before 20 turns without ruining our reputation -- that's a "may cancel peaceably after 20 turns" deal, and we have other outgoing payments that would also be broken. If we were in an extremely deep hole that would be something to consider, but especially given the lead we have, tarnishing the win with such a deed should not be considered. If making that RoP got us 2-3 extra Egypt cities, good call. It did sound like a race with Carthage to finish off Egypt.

The only chance for war with Carthage on gorm's turn would be if
Carthage were to declare on us, although... with an RoP in place we can't even give them a 'get out!" warning. This gives us a few extra turns of building.

Let me clarify you didn't do anything wrong... you're not talking about the RoP abuse exploit - breaking a deal isn't an exploit, and isn't 'illegal' for this game, but it's something we don't do casually in RB games. (An 'honorable' game is one where you never break a deal, but that wasn't part of the mentioned rules.)

As long as we make no further deals with Carthage, this will only set us back around 5 turns, and we can take that time to assemble a better force and get them in position, and hopefully Carthate will take that time to send their troops elsewhere where they are at war. Actually, if they're at war with Scythians, they will use the RoP to send dozens upon dozens of troops through our roads up to Scythia. Turn 20 will be interesting indeed :P

Good luck with the rest of your turns, you're doing well so far!
:hammer:
Charis

Further note: Since we signed that trade deal with Scythia (and Carthage will likely take them to the cleaners), we need to keep an open trade route with them or else face a trade rep hit. Make sure Carthage can't get through the Constaninople choke point. and that way the road north of the Black Sea may not get cut off before they make peace.

Good point. I will also use the Suez canal chokepoint to restrict their movement also. I'll set that up immediately.

Bugs

6. 80 AD (con’t) check our cities. Move a strong force into Byz-town. Also a strong force is already in Suez city.

IBT – Hannibal wants an MA against the Celts. Sorry, we’re unable to comply with your request at the moment. A mass exodus of Carthaginians from Egypt begins.

7. 85 AD – Lots of maneuvering and worker assignments.

IBT – Another mass movement of Carthaginians from Egypt. I count 32 units in view. Lots of Elephants, NuMes, and Swords.

8. 90 AD – I have been moving full galleys to Sparta. I’ve also been naming the galleys with their respective destinations, i.e. Aleria I, Aleria II, Sicily I, etc.

IBT – Nada.

9. 95 AD – More building, maneuvering, and worker assignments.

10 . 100 AD – Same. I didn’t rush anything, so the cash is still available for the next player.


After action report: I have several forest chops going on. In those cities, I have something like Heavy cav selected. My intention was to rush the build, after the chop completed so we didn’t waste the shields.

Some of our cities are starting to get to the point where they will be unhappy in the next few turns. Babylon and Tarsus I think are two that just grew and so will be unhappy very soon. Next player can decide whether to make some tax collectors or raise the lux tax. I’d go with the former.

I have been sending archers and immortals to the Roman front to stand as paper cut outs. They won’t be able to accomplish much against Legion IIIs, except they might slow down an attack long enough to get some help there.

I have been rushing heavy cavs in Asia Minor and Greece in those cities where we have a barracks. Most of everything built in the heartland has been heading towards Egypt. I have been loading up galleys in Miletus and then sending full galleys over to Sparta to await deployment.

We are now over our land requirement for victory. Population is at 38%.

We are still weak compared to Carthage’s army. Given the number of units I saw exiting from Egypt, I’m not surprised.

We have 43 workers and that’s not counting slaves. There is still a lot of improvements to be made so I have not started merging the workers back into cities yet. That will probably need to start at about the same time as the Carthaginian war begins.

We now have 18 galleys, 56 Heavy Cavs, 57 NuMes, two HC Armies (on galleys), one NuMe Army (in Egypt), one Immortal Army (on Roman front), 18 fire cats (6 in gallys or awaiting loading in Greece), 12 in Egypt. Note: I may have made an error in the allocation of fire cats however, with the lighthouse, it is only three turns from Greece to Egypt and a galley could be sent to Egypt to pick some up.

Two of our cities in Egypt are right on the edge of the map and are very hard to see. I presently have HCs in them, but you'll probably want to move some NMs in and free up the HCs.

We are making over 400 gpt so rushing required units in Asia Minor isn’t difficult.

Count on seven turns to get to Aleria. Six turns to Olbia, and three turns to Sicily. So the first two armadas will need to sail soon. The next player (gorm?) will want to check my loading of galleys to ensure that we have a balanced force ready for each invasion.

Since this will be my last set of turns in this game, I’d like to say that it has been a lot of fun playing with the team. I’ve learned a lot and hopefully I’ll get to play with all of you again soon.

Bugs
>>SAVE<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3b-100_AD.zip)

Preturn:
I am going to take advance of our ROP with Carthage to move our galleys closer to their respective landing sites.

Renamed Sicily galleys to Marsala.

I am also stripping all garrisons from the Eastern portions of our empire. (Who is going to attack us there???)

I am using these 10 turns to achieve the following objectives.

(1) Position our galleys.

(2) maximise all city growth (and hence lowering our victory bar). Clear forest and start mass irrigation project, especially for corrupt cities (best for making babies).

(3) We should realise that we can join our workers to achieve the population target. So instead of making archers, I am switching to workers. Especially so for cities that cannot grow anymore. We can make workers out of those and join to cities that can support more population.

(4) We have 40 turns left so any production requiring more than 40 turns will be either rushed, swapped or "timber-assisted".

105:
Athens makes worker, starts worker (it's hopelessly corrupted and is at the transition between 6-7 so I say we keep it at 6 to take advantage of the 20food bank instead of the increased 40food bank).

Persepolis makes HC, starts HC. (An infirmary is an option, but only after more of the forest is cleared).

Babylon makes HC, starts HC.
Thessalonika makes HC, starts worker.
Hatra makes NM, starts HC.
Ghulaman makes worker, starts worker.
Minusinsk makes worker, starts worker.
Asyut makes HC, starts worker.
Charsadda makes worker, starts worker.

I mobilise all archers to be cannon fodder at Suez Canal. Personally, I feel it's useless any where else.

110:
Scythia and Rome sued for peace.
Susa makes HC, starts HC.
Byzantium makes worker, starts worker.
Perlusium makes worker, starts worker.
Gaza makes worker, starts worker.
Sardica makes NM, starts worker.

Pop % drops to 37 (don't worry, it's the workers i'm making like no tomorrow).

115:
Alexandar makes worker, starts worker.
Memphis makes worker, starts worker.
Thermopylae makes worker, starts worker.
Pasagadae makes HC, starts HC.
Sidon makes infirmary, starts HC.
Hamadan makes granary, start HC.
Sardis makes NM, starts worker.
New Sardis makes NM, starts worker.
New Ergili makes temple, starts worker.

120:
Persepolis makes HC, starts infirmary.
Ecbatana makes HC, starts infirmary.
Tarsus makes market, starts worker.

Pop % back to 38.

125:
Susa makes HC, starts HC.
Gazaca makes HC, starts HC.
Dariush Kabir makes market, starts HC.
Dakyanus makes worker, starts worker.

Too many productions, basically, for corrupted cities, i make either workers or archers. For cities near 12, i make infirmaries. Core cities make HC, coastal cities near our staging cities make galleys.

I mainly concentrate on irrigation for corrupted cities, mine hills for producing cities.

130:
Pop % up to 39.

135:

140:

145:

150:

Summary

(1) Aberia island = 3 galley assault group

(2) Olbia island = 6 galley assault group

(3) Marsala island = 8 galley assault group

(4) We still have about 4-5 galleys to fill up.

(5) Remember we can re-join our workers to make the population requirement so we can do so if we did not achieve our target by our last turn.

(6) As with Sir Bugsy, I am honored to have the chance to play with you gentleman and I hope our paths will cross again.

Next better player.



The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3b-150_AD.SAV)

*bump* If anybody hangs out at Realms Beyond, could they try to find Charis and punt him over here to finish off this game?:D

I missed that, thanks Rubberjello. We need to do two things to avoid this --

i) At the very end of the post, say who's up and on deck.
ii) Don't "edit" your turn to post the log and the save, it doesn't show up as a new post and no one will read it.

Got it -- the attack is underway as we speak!
:hammer:

Charis

EDIT - and now it's done, many small sessions (family permitting) later :P

Sir Bugsy started moving the Persian juggernaut toward their new objective, extensive
war with Carthage, and also cranked out the galleys needed to bring our
troops to the required islands. The signing of an RoP set the probable timing.
Gormdragan followed up with a strong set of turns, with the objectives of
Position our armada, maximizing city growth, and skimming workers from capped cities.

The armada consists of... (City, number of galleys in assault group):
1. Aberia(3). 2. Olbia (6). 3. Marsala (8), with 4-5 galleys still waiting filling.

Things look to be in great shape. The Persia generals say even a FOOL could lead
such a well-designed force to victory, so to prove themselves... Charis comes to power!
Seeking 50% of a total population of 1200, our goal is to capture about 90 pts on the
islands, and sweep West to the Carthage core for the remaining. Sometime when we
get closer the workers will be added back in to cities to raise our pop score.
We now officially have the needed 20% of land area. Only 30 turns to go!!!

Let's take a closer look... omg! We have 75 workers?!?! And 39% pop? Wow, you guys
did very well to grow the population peaceably. The island conquest plus a big
merge-back is going to get us very close. (This round takes me quite a while btw, and
I break it down into several segments so I stay fresh :P )

[0] 150 - A few more tile swaps (eg forest to grass in ultracorrupt cities) and we're good to go

[1] 155 - Byzantium rushes an infirmary. Many workers move.
We designate two of the extra galleys for New Utica.
A huge stack in Egypt gets in position for next turn. Tons of foreign movement
and naval movement IBT, glad we have the freedom to get in position during peace.

[2] 160 - We end the RoP with Carthage, and get his latest TMap. It's time.
Rome is at war with Cartage, so we offer our help, and he throws in his gold.
Goths and Celts are also at war, so we pull them in. We're not stopping before 20.
Brennus is so glad he throws in 348g. Scythia too, to make it a full dogpile, for 10gpt.

The war officially commences in Egypt, with a HC capturing two loose workers.
Abydos is the first city to fall, after its two Nume defenders are trampled.
Khmun is next up, with a huge HC stack ready. Two wins, two retreats, a loss to
a sword. We then beat him, and the last nume, and the city is ours! The expanded
borders let us hit Byblos the same turn, and by defeating three numes, it's captured.
Not enough units left to hit Avaris hard enough, though we kill one defender.

The Aleria ships land on a hill. The Olbia force lands also on hill (a bit
heavy on hvy cav btw, could have used two numes) On the larger island, we land
three assault groups, each one deadly. The army is amphibious and captures a
worker as it lands. The later mini-fleet just build a few turns ago with extra
numes can't reach shore, and hopes those nearby gray galleys don't come for them.

IBT We lose one empty ship at Marsala, then another and a third. They lose one.
At Avaris we see a half-dozen units stream in. Two heavy cavs run through and kill
a loose immortal and archer. Two swords promote a nume to elite, and another one
then creates a leader for us, Antiochus?! Will he survive the round?! For a brief
moment we think we will, as a brave HCav fends off three swords. But then a second
half dozen move up, and yes, brave Antiochus falls. Then ANOTHER 6-10 more move up
to Avaris, holy cow! This city is the 'cross-roads' city, the one on the main path
to Carthage's homeland, and it's a vital one strategically.

Outside Marasala wwe lose 3. Outside Caralis a nume goes on offense and wins?!
We see a ton of counterattacks - as feared there were too few numes on the armada,
and we lost some extra HC on defense as a result. Still, not TOO bad losses.

[3] 165 - Around Avaris we're reeling from the number of units they brought, and
must pull back several units. Kill ratio is good, but their counter may hurt.

Starting up top, we *barely* have enough to take the city, with a nume actually
giving the last blow vs a 1 hp HC defender. I was thinking we had almost double
what we needed in our invasion force, but with double defense of metro's, it's
going to be REALLY dicey!

Onto Olbia island, we do fair damage and retreat several cavs, then loss, win,
win, loss, win vs HC, win vs hurt Nume and Olbia is ours, along with the
Mausoleum of Mausollos. Not enough force to hit Caralis this round, but we set
up, including getting the army in position.

Or Marsala island, we were lucky they didn't have one more attacker. A sole HC is
left alive on top of seven fire cats. That city unfortunately is one ship-move
off Carthage's coast. At Marsala our army kills two, and moves to the hill to
protect the cats. At Massana, W, L, R, W, R, L, W, R, L, R, W, WvsHC, WvsArcher,
wvsHC and its ours. Sheesh, that stack of HC I thought would take Syracuse was
needed at Massana, so Syracuse is untouched. Settler was caught in Massana.

At New Utica, last IBT saw it move a nume and two HC *out* of the city to
try to attack the Roman city of Lugdunum, leaving just *spears* to defend
New Utica. We're too heavy on numes, light on HC on that task force, but with
a 2-def in size 5 city, our numes attack also, killing two of the 3 spears, plus
a jumbo. Though we lost 2 numes, we took the city.

Three FULL galleys of our reinforcements arrive just outside Syracuse! :P

Sonofagun, just now I realize we're short a front-deployed army, where is our
immortal army? Darius is asleep back home at Salonae??! :nono:

Three Carthage galleys are sunk. I sell lux to two barb tribes and rush some
extra Hvy Cav for the battle royale in Egypt.

IBT - A fair amount of movement, but not much counterattack (phew). They do
sink a few ships, and bombard but do not attack our nume army. LOTS of HCav
move into our territory from Avaris towards Khmun.

[4] 170 - Several resistances have ended. We're now at 43% of world pop! Let's rock!
(That's from growth and capture of 41 pop pts in cities.

At Syracuse, R, R, W, W, W, R, R, L, L, L, L (ow!!!!), W, W and the city falls.
At Marsala, the army chews up 3 hurt numes, then hvy cav wins, and the island is
now fully under the control of Persia.

At Caralis, our army did very well, as did two HCav with it. Then two retreats,
and another win, and... doh, close - one defender left! We move yet more up from Olbia.
At New Utica we kick the remaining Carthage troops off the island.
At Khmun we count 17 Carthage Heavy cav in the area, but they only a few could reach
our city. Since many cav are hurt in town resting we withdraw everything to the city
to heal up, and hope to counterattack next turn.

We start phase one of the great worker merge. This results in pop of ... 46%!
Egads, still 62 workers left?! Time for them to all head to towns and cities
next turn!

IBT - Interesting turn in Egypt. No attacks anywhere on our troops except one
spot - Abydos, our Northern prong. Fortunately we had some fire cats on hand,
as the enemy heavy cavs did a retreat then 3 losses (phew). That mini-assault
wan't their main force, those dozenish HC's all skirted past now-pumped Khmun
to the East. They also split their stack, and their Numes can't keep up! This
should be a nice attacking round for us.

[5] 175 - We start with the KEY attack... on Caralis. It now had one nume and two
HCavs, which were dispatched with a HC and our army. We've captured the city of
Caralis, 20 pop pts, and the Colossus.

We've sent a settler to the island just off our own coast, and now found New Zohak.

The capture of the 20 pop pts kicks us up to 48%, suggesting a merge will bring us
over the top, so workers are woken up wherever possible and sent to the nearest city
that can feed them. Up to 49%... can we find any more? Yes, a few more. Still 49%.
We should hit 50 within two turns I think.

At Abydos we kill four of those pesky HC's left out in the open.

Around Khmun it's NOT a pretty sight for Carthage! Heavy cavs alone on defense
in enemy territory we can strike from beyond their range AND still return to city...
it's brutal :hammer: We win about eight in a row. What's even funnier is...
Avaris is now not as strongly defended, and we could go after it. Dare we?
No, it's just not smart - we continue smashing the HC's in the open rather than
try to press forward and let those guys counterattack. Five more die, and on our
very last cav, we lose one. Decent kill ratio :P

Final act, short 80g for an infirmary rush, is to get 80g from Brennus for 6gpt.
We're at 49% pop and 22% growth, and I max tiles for food.

IBT - Not much directly. Only two HC hit Abydos, and both lose. Many more are seen
to move in the area, but they stay clear. Near Khmun we see more marching East.

[6] 180 - With a few more irrigations and tile swaps, we can now safely add in
another 6-8 workers, and... voila!! 50% pop!! All we have to do now is to hold
our cities through this turn! :P

Darius arrives at the isle of Syracuse-Marsala, a symbolic gesture at best.

Around Khmun it's time for the slower units to meet their doom out in the open.
At least they put up a better fight. Even an archer scores a kill though.

This 'final' push on my turn went very well. Our luck was probably on the plus side --
there was so much fighting and our cav assaults went to well it's not hard to imagine
failing to take one of the islands, and not having a safe sea to bring in more.
But the armies helped there immensely, and once we took them and had barracks,
there was no losing them back. Egypt was another story - they greatly outnumbered
us and had reinforcements streaming in, but we deftly let them separate their fast
away from slow, fought on the timing and squares we chose, and beat them down
against their higher numbers. The previous several leaders did a fantastic job
setting up this final round, grazi!

IBT - (Byzzantium, Gaza and Carrhae had growth which led to riots, oops.)
Abydos comes under *BRUTAL* counterattack, yet though most of our defenders
die, we have enough that the city survives! This means...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3B-Persians180AD-DomVictory.jpg

A Domination victory for Darius and the Persians! :goodjob:
69 hrs, 5 min, 27sec. The replay showed the Scythians doing fairly well, I'm glad
we never fought them. The Celts too did well, and Rome was in trouble early. Poor
Egypt was sandwiched by us and Carthage at the very same time. Carthage was the top
city, with Athens, Perseopolis and Alexandria 2,3,5 and Rome as 4. We ended up with
22% land area, 50% pop, victory pts 11874, with Carthage second with 6930.

We were at turn 107 out of 130, so there wasn't a ton of time left.
Final score: 21,373 (holy moly batman!!) Economy around 500g+500gpt.

RBC3b-Persians-180ad Pre-Victory Save File (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3B-Persians180AD-PreVictory.zip)

Extremely well done team, Thank you!
:hammer:
Charis

Talk about some outstanding military execution!

Charis that was a great job!

Thanks to all for a lot of fun.

Bugs

Congratulations team B, very well done! :thumbsup:

Now let's hope you won't win our A game as well... :lol:

-Kylearan

[party] Very nice indeed !

[dance] [party] :band: [dance]

Good job everyone! What a nice climax! Its been fun and a pleasure playing with you all.

:thanx: Charis, for setting this up and all your time and effort into making it an enjoyable SG.


Personally, (since I played this solo with Rome once), I think Rome is waaaaay overpowered. I was able to win on Diety with not much suspense, and had the luxury of building 5-6 Wonders. (Not to take away anything from team C, of course!) Because of these imbalances, I don't think this scenario would make for a good Multi-player scenario, but it is fun to play solo or SG.

Congratulations on a game well played! I hope that our Macedonians can be as successful. :goodjob:

Well done folks! That was great fun to watch. :thumbsup:

Hmmm...I'm noting a disturbing thread running through these four threads.

In the Rome game, the Romans are beating up on Carthage, while Persia is a monster, having swallowed Macedonia.

In the Carthage game, Carthage is slowly eking forward, while Persia is a monster, having swallowed much of Macedonia.

In the Persia game, Persia is THE monster, having swallowed Macedonia and taking Carthage from the Rome/Carthage stalemate.

In the Macedonia game...well, I *hope* Persia doesn't turn into too much of a monster! But from this small sample size, it looks like the scenario design gives Persia a significant advantage over Macedonia, while the Med. between Rome and Carthage requires a human to successfully cross.

Very well played and a fun read. I just hope we other three can be somewhere close to as successful.

Arathorn

Ummm...this was a post that got mis-directed. It can be deleted or ignored freely. Just chalk it up to too little sleep. Now, who ever heard of that in regards to Civ3? :rolleyes: :D :rolleyes: :mad:

Ignore this...nothing to see here. :crazyeye: :crazyeye: :crazyeye: :crazyeye:

(Psst! Aragorn! Wrong thread! In this one, Persia already wiped your annoying little greek butts off the pages of history!)

AAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! That's what I get for posting after my bedtime.

Arathorn

Did you know that "AAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH"
spelled sideways is "Har G!" :lol:

I only know about the post because I read it at 4:23am when I finished my own SG turn. Fearing I would post drivel however, I saved the report to disc instead of attempting a post at that hour. (Mrs C wasn't fond to hear how late I was up btw, but holy cow, I coullda SWORN it was only 1:30 or 2, how time flies when you're wrecking an economy!)

:rolleyes:
Charis

Originally posted by Charis
(Mrs C wasn't fond to hear how late I was up btw, but holy cow, I coullda SWORN it was only 1:30 or 2, how time flies when you're wrecking an economy!)

:rolleyes:
Charis

:lol: Mrs. Ridgelake feels the EXACT same way ;)

Mrs. A has similar reactions when I drag to bed a few hours before I need to get up... "But, honey, I couldn't have slept anyway, knowing that I only had two more turns to take our the heart of ..." She doesn't buy that excuse, but it's the only one I've got.

Arathorn

What playing to 3:00 isn't a good idea?? Well Mrs. H. isn't too fond of the game either. When I do manage to get to bed early I am only a guest and have to mind her rules ;). "What you actually sleep in this house?" and on days I play til 3 its "by the way its your turn to get up with our daughter for breakfast at 7:00 tomorrow? see you at 10:00"

Mrs. Bugsy's favorite line: "YOU NEED TO DECIDE WHETHER YOU WANT TO PLAY THAT GAME OR BE MARRIED TO ME!!"

Sweetheart, somedays you don't want me to make that decision. :D

That's why I stopped playing private games. :D

Mrs K.: "Stop playing this damn game!"

Me: "I'm not just playing a game - I'm hanging out with a lot of nice people! That's called 'having a social life'!"

*cough*

At least playing civ is quieter than playing D2 with friends using a headset. The wife nearly went crazy about the occasional outbursts like "A LEB! Back up - I have to change jewelry!"... :mischief: