The One Built City Space Race Idea:

Civ: Babalon

Difficulty: Demigod

Map: Between Small and Medium (90 X 90)/Temperate/Flat/Pangea/ 20% land

Barbarians are Raging

Opponents 6 - The 6 Expansionist civs with no cheap cultural buildings (Zulu, Mongols, Americans, Hittites, Inca, Portugeese)

Varient Rules:

We may only build One city ever.

We may obtain up to 5 more cities maximum (with an exception noted below) and must propaganda/flip/capture them. They must be capable of joining boarders with one of our current cities on first boarder expansion (or upon fist boarder expansion by a recently captured city so we wouldn't have to sit arround 5 or so turns waiting to capture a city in rapid succession) which must be done asap by rushbuy or whip of a culture building, even if it isnt ordinarily a prudent thing to do (we are allowed to let it get 1 shiled in the box first to save the double price rushing), and the city may work no citizens until it has a trade route and joined boarders with the capital.

Once we take ownersip of a city, it is our city and may never be abandoned or replaced. If it is razed, then we just have to plug along with no more than 5 total cities the rest of the game. If it is captured, we must make every reasonable effort to recapture it.

I know this doesn't sound too tough, but the kicker is that we are going for space ship victory, with all but culture and domination enabled. (Yes, this means we have to build the UN.......)

Note: Space race now needs Robotics (and Uranium) for Stasis chamber

Also, to keep this from becoming a milking effort, we may only declare war under the following circumstances.

1) VS a civ that has a city boardering our capital, or is at least closest to our capital and touching boarders with our "core" we may declare war at any time IF it is being done as part of the core expansion. The first time we declare on a particular civ in this way, we may accept alliances from other civs IF we do it on the turn we declare. ROP's may be made IF they are made as a part of the alliance deal (so that the instant the alliance dies they die too). For this first war we may do whatever we want to that civ for 20 turns, afterwhich we must make peace. We should be prepared to take whatever cities we need from a civ in one war if at all possible (its allways been easily possible in my testing). Reason for this change is to allow for a little "pointy stick" research. In a couple of my tests we fell HOPELESSLY behind w/o this.

IF we have to declare war on a civ a second time for core expansion, we can NOT get alliances and MUST make peace as soon as they'll talk to us after we have reached our objective.

After we complete the Apollo Project and have discovered Fission we may declare war on a civ IF it is the only feasable way of obtaining a needed space ship part resource (Aluminum, Uranium or Rubber). Razing and colonizing is the prefered. If the only feasible way to get the resource is to capture a city, then we are alowed to. Those cities may build ONLY the following buildings and never any units: Temple OR Colosseum (to expand boarders for flip prevention or to bring the resource in range), walls, and Civil Defense. RoP can be obtained with neighbors for this if necesary (sailing arround seems kinda silly :lol:)

And last, If appears we are HOPELESSLY behind on our ship, we may declare war on our leading rival for the purpose of razing the capital or denying aluminum or uranium. No alliances allowed, we have to do this on our own, and we have to make peace as soon as we have crippled their ship building ability. Again, vital RoP's allowed.

MPP still allowed, but we may not attack enemy units on their territory if we declare via this triggering.

If war is delcared on us, we can still do our worst to whoever declares on us, and we may make alliances and rop riders with anyone as long as its done the first turn after war is declared on us.
Scoring: THREE points for keeping our capital the #1 city in the world at all times after its temple is built.

One point for for each part we finish ahead of our closest rival (maximum 3 parts), only if we dont declare "spaceship sabotage" war on anyone.

TWO points for not having to declare war on anyone as a "spaceship sabotage".

Note: The sabotage production espionage mission would NOT void these points. Keep that in mind.

One point for conducting all our wars "alliance free."

One point for avoiding all RB "dastardly" actions other than war declarations.

Turns will be 20 turns for the first round (you can take 10 if you want, but are allowed 20), 10 turns after that.

Our cultural mindset is we just want to be left alone to live in peace and happyness in our little shangra-la, but these other civs keep crowding in on us. Finally, we can take it no more and sweep out a nice path arround our capital . Later on, even this isn't enough, so we seek refuge in space away from these barbarians.

Roster:
Maniac
Ridgelake
Charis
Matt_G
Meldor
Skyfish

I tried to slot people according to what I percieved to be their best "time window", though somehow I doubit I'll have guessed right on everyone. :lol:

Rules for this series are simply that we avoid any of the Realms Beyond listed exploits, and also avoid the Negative Science exploit and Multiple Demand exploit. I'm sure everyone signed up allready knows these and knows where to find them so I won't elaborate further

Game will be at a relaxed pace because of C3C induced SG overload on some of the crew and with the holiday season uppon us. 48 hours to "get it" and 96 hours to complete. (Thats almost a week in total there. If you need longer than that I encourage you to swap rather than ask for a skip (unless you really need a skip). Swaping is fine and dandy by me. I probably don't even NEED time rules with this group of battle hardened SG'ers, but.....

Here is our start. Low on hills and BG but high on Ivory and on rivers....

[4000] Move worker SE along river to check for Food Bonuses but find none. Move settler due west to the river/ivory and...... The water is salty.

[3950] Babylon founded. Work started on Warrior for scouting. Research set to Warrior Code, NOT pottery as we know all our rivals are expansionist and start with this tech. Our worker pops the hut and we get...... A scouting warrior. Could be huge, could be meaningless.

[3800] We find the Mongols (blech, not exactly the civ I wanted
to meet first.) who are about to found their 2nd city next to a patch of wines.
They want BW 1gpt and 8g for WC. Or we could trade them both our techs for WC and 35g. I decline for now.

[3750] An Inca scout walks next to the capital from the NW. They Lack BW, but have Pottery and Masonry. I smell a broker opportunity.

Bronze and Burrial to the Mongols for WC, Pottery, and 31g. Hmmm. Inca's aparently know people with WC and are researching Bronze or know somone with it. It would take almost 90g Plus WC to nab Masonry, and they value bronze even less. I'm sure they will meet the mongols in a turn or 2 so I trade both techs for Masonry and their 10 gold. Not as good as I hoped, but still.

This is probably weed, but I set research to Mystacisim, due in 29 in the vain hope we can pull it first and maybe get a sci leader or a broker. This will probably be our only shot at one for a few thousand years.

[3700] Babylon - Warrior -> Grainery. Warrior sent scouting.

[3550] Hittite scout wanders by. They have Alphabet, but lack bronze and masonry. Their asking price for Alph is out of our range though. They want both our techs and over 90 gold :(. Bad news is they will either meet or have allready met the Sapster.

[3550] Aparently the Sapsters techs were worth more than ours. Inca have Alph and Hittites have Bronze and Masonry :(

[3450] Babylon grows, boarders expand.
Mongols now have Alpha and Masonry

[3400] Zulu boarders spotted. Our eastern scout heads over to take a look.

[3250] Zulu contacted. They have Alpahbet and The Wheel. Mongols also now have The Wheel.

[3150] Babylon - Grainery -> Warrior (for MP)

[3100] Our eastern scout finds a Portugeese scout. They have Alpha but lack Masonry and Burrial and they WILL cough Alpha and 20 them. With their scout about to find the Zulu I figure we better take it.

[3000] State of the game. We have parity with both Portugal and Hittites, down only The Wheel to the others. Mysticisim due in about 16 turns. Probably weedy research but we'll see. The capital is in a nice 4-3-3 micro manage for food when the game is irrigated (done in 1 turn). Make sure to remember to MM for all its worth! We really really need annother worker. I hoped one would show up for purchase, but no dice. IMHO, the warrior I just completed should be our last. I'd suggest building worker, bowman, temple, wonder, especially if no one starts a wonder before then. IF they do, we might have to skip something and just run high lux tax. We can't go wrong with either the Colossus or the Pyramids.

Good Luck Ridgelake.


The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-3000_BC.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac13000BC.JPG

OK... I just discovered that there are 2 REALLY serious problems with C3C.

One, the FP doesn't work (which won't affect us in this scenareo anyway), but Two, the civ getting gpt payments recieves DOUBLE the ammount of money (the paying civ doesn't pay double). I'm really not sure what to do about this if anything. Clearly we really will need to make gpt payments from OCC style..... any suggestions?

Edit: If anyone hasn't taken time to read the bugs forum, I'd suggest you take a look there. A lot of it is fairly cosmetic, but some of it is REALLY serious in nature. The corruption and gpt bugs (this one comes from Arathorn, not from the bugs forum) are ALMOST enough to make me put C3C away and go back to PTW till they get them fixed. For whatever it wasnt, PTW at least did deliver on its SP upgrades and fixed things rather than broke them :(

I see it and should get to it tonight.

-Looking at the map, the Incan town to our west sure looks yummy for its spices.

-We are going to be tremendously shield light.

-My initial build plan is worker, bowman (to give the AI something to "fear"), then colossus. As I stated in the discussion thread, this wonder will be absolutely critical for our economy.

-There is nothing that we can do about the double gpt payment bug. All it will do for us is quicken the science pace.

-The number of nearby civs will make our war-declaration decisions complex. It is all together possible for there to be 3-4 different civs bordering our capitol. One major implication of this is that numerous wars against different civs will hurt our relations. This will cause us to have to pay more gold for techs, among other problems.

I'm hoping we only have to go to war with the Mongols and the Inca, but we'll see. I expect demands to start soon. PLEASE CAVE right now :lol:. I'd try to squeeze in that temple before the wonder. We might even get a flip out our cultural dominance, though it seems pretty unlikely they way the AI has settled :(.

Wonder stratedgy path suggestion: Colossus, Zeus, Library, then Sistine or Bachs if we can get it. Once we get a better guage on the AI, specifically how many cities they have, we can decide if it is possible to do our own research. If looks possible, we'll want CoP and/or newtons in the capital. If not, we want Smiths. Don't discount building Shakes anymore. The free hospital effect and massive culture is a dern good thing

Also, DONT build spears before we approach invention. If we have iron, building a FEW pikes is ok.

In despotisim, I don't mind paying gpt if we have to to keep up.... hopefully there will be a patch VERY soon. If one IS announced to be coming very soon (rumors are arround that there may be one by next weekend) we might put a hold on turns till its out. As of now though, just procede like that isn't going to happen.

Also, don't forget we are the only scientific civ, so look for slingshot if we can't get the library.

I have the game and am playing now. Realistically, Charis will decide whether to build a temple or the Colossus. 10 turns goes fast at this stage of the game.

I do agree with the wonder path. I also recommend the one the ancient one that gives 3 happiness (not gardens). That will save us a ton on lux tax. I also strongly recommend Shakespear to get the early hospital effect.

Anyway, Ill be back soon.

Ridge

Ridge, you get 20 this time arround because of the OCC nature :)

Edit: MoM is indeed nice and doesn't expire I think, but I've never gotten anywhere close to it. It's so cheap the cascade usually eats it quickly.

Ahh...20 turns...ok.

Well, after 10, we are down 4 techs. Our Myst run came up 3 turns short.

Ill be back with 20...

Maniac1

3000BC (0) Look around, a couple of civs are up a wheel Babylon will finish its worker in 3 and grow in 3 with the irrigation that finishes next turn. As Maniac alluded to, this will start a 3-4-3 food surplus growth cycle.

2950BC (1) irrigation completes, start road.

2900BC (2)

2850BC (3) finish worker, start bowman. We are over the allocated amount of units already.

2800BC (4) Zulus show up with writing. Mongols have a worker. Our entire economy cannot afford him.

2750BC (5) Zulus have 2 workers available. Our entire economy with MMing can barely buy it. I decline as that will kill our chances at Myst.

2710BC (6) An American warrior stops by. I say hello. That should be all of the contacts. They, like several others, are up horses.

Portugal shows up with Ironworking.

We grow to size 4 this turn. Bowman due next turn. Adjust slider to keep peace.

2670BC (7) Bowman completes. Start on Colossus. Due in 34 depending on the MMing (and growth). If Charis wants to swap to temple, he can.

2630BC (8) MM. Mongols now have writing. Iron is still a monopoly portugese. We have 4 more turns to Myst.

2590BC (9) Dang it, America get Myst and traded it for IW. IW and writing have been passed around a lot. I will try to twofer/threefer next turn when we get Myst.

2550BC (10) Get Myst. Only the Hittites don’t have Myst. And they won’t trade either horses or iron for it straight up. Can’t buy into writing either. That is twoferable/threeferable.

We can buy wheel and 8 gold from the Hitties for Myst and 2 gpt. IW would cost us Myst, 3 gpt and 2 gold. I will leave this decision up to Charis and the team.

I decide to take IW as it leads to construction. We will want a coliseum.

2510BC (11)

2470BC (12) Mongols, Portugese and Incans start Oracle.

2430BC (13)

2390BC (14) Hittites start Colossus. It is due in 15 for us.

2350BC(15)

2310BC (16) We reach size 7. Luxes up to 30%. Colossus due in 11.

2270BC (17) Portugese start Colossus.

2330BC (18) The demands start as the Incas want 23 gold. Help yourself!

2190BC (19)

2150BC (20) Colossus due in 7. Babylon is size 7 and can make 11 net spt. We are down writing and the wheel. They can still be twofered.

Good luck, Charis, we are going to need it.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-2150BCmap.JPG

The Babbling Babalonians (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-2150BC.SAV)

Looks like a good set of turns. Sorry about my Myst :smoke: but with the Sci Leaders arround now I just thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up to go after a tech that is usually slow to get researched.

I really doubit anyone beats us to the colossus :).

It is unfortunate that the AI is settling so loose to our capital :(

We basically allready know what 5 cities we will have to capture. The 2 Incan cities to our west, the Mongol city under the fog SW of the gold hills, and the mongol city under the fog NE of the capital will make 4. The 5th will be from whoever founds the gap over near the iron mountian SE of us, probably the mongols. Looks like we WILL get iron which is very good, and also spices which should help.

I'm not worried much about being down 2 techs at this point. The Inca's will probably cough up everything they have when we wax them soon :).

The doubled income when the colossus gets built and we start working those ivory soon will help a lot too.

My priorities would still be the same. Build Colossus, buy math asap and build Zeus (maybe with a temple first. we may turn out to be the only ones who can build Zeus *note build a rax immeadiately after Zeus*), buy Lit asap and build the Library. Until we have some military, cave to demands. Once we get a 2nd city (and spices?) build a rax and bowmen out of it (for defense and GA if we took it with cavs, or if we havent set it off with the library).

Good Luck Charis!

Charis <-- UP
Matt_G <-- On Deck
meldor <-- In the Hole
everyone else <-- sleeping for a while

Edit: actually, we are probably down 3 techs as HBR is probably widely known. I probably would have taken the whell just because it uncovers HBR, but with Construct being the more expensive tech that might have been better since it was similarly priced. No real way to know. Would be nice if we could trade our ivory to somone, but thats probably a long way off :(. btw: I dono if we wana build a colosseum. I usually don't. 2 maint for 2 happy

Got it, should be playable tonight.

Looks like a good turn, Ridgelake. Babylon looks like a powerhouse compared to the puny little cities next to us. And as for their settling near us? Yay! Lower corruption when WE own them, or heck, one or two might flip without a battle if we do well with culture. :P The wonder list mentioned seems ok, albeit ambitious.

Charis

Maniac, I would generally agree with the build orders. I do think that I would go temple next. It will only take 3 turns to build. The happiness and culture will help. We probably will have time to build a rax next. Then start on bowmen as we wait for math to come in for Zeus. We won't have much to use as a prebuild, though oracle is out there.

As for the wonders, after we finish colossus, the Library is the most important one available. I would wager that we will be able to wait to get Zeus if we had to chose between the two. Lets also not forget about the Mausoleum. It will provide 3 happy faces for the rest of the game, not to mention tourist revenue.

As for our targets, I like hitting Ta-Tu in addition to the Incan cities. When our borders expand a second time and Ta-Tu's borders expand, they wouldl merge if we owned both cities. A third lux will be yummy.

Things went fairly well, nothing too major (so took full 20 turns)

[0] 2150 BC - Looks like Incan and Mongols have 'our cities'

As our corruption shield occurs between 11 and 12, I squeeze one more food
out of the capital. I hate the fog surrounding "our" cities and so I send
our units out to explore some more. Since we're in "auto-cav" mode and plan
no new units for the next 500 years, there's no reason not to. (Well, duh,
we DO have two units out exploring already, there is that)

IBT - Shaka establishes an embassy with us? What a diplomat :lol:

[1] 2110 BC - Abe is the last one w/o writing, and our chance for Wheel twofer is
about to slip away. I *really* like knowing where my horses/iron are...
Oh no, no Charis, you're not, are you? Yup, re-arrange squares
to max commerce, push down sliders and go into hock :P The Hitties are weakest
civ next to us, so they get 10gpt+6g for Writing, which we swap with America for
the Wheel+19g. We also see the (gasp) tech leading Zulus have Map Making.
Everyone but Inca has HBR. 'Our' city of Olla will have horses, cool! Ok, so we
have a little (cough) deficit now... we'll deal with that.

[2] 2070 BC - Bowman turns around to get back for MP duty, given the costs.
We see 'Kazan' is the city to our NE, and it's smack next to an iron hill.

[3] 2030 BC - zzz
[4] 1990 BC - Almarikh is the Mongol city to our south on the Gold Hills.
With an MP back and with some rearranging tiles, the hemorrage is down to -4gpt.

Looking around the map, it does seem the five most likely cities
are: Tiwanaku(Incan w/spices), Ollantaytambo(Incan), Mongol-gold-fog city,
Ta-Tu(Mongol, iron near), and the Mongol one NE in fog. That makes it look
like two civs will see wars with us, and the others possibly unscathed.

[5] 1950 BC - Three Incan warriors that scared me moving last turn seem now to
just be on random patrol (phew - did the return of the bowman help?)
Colossus is due in 2, come on...

[6] 1910 BC - One step closer...

[7] 1870 BC - Woohoo, the Colossus is ours!! (Portuguese and Hittites swap to Pyr)
With this wonder... income is +3gpt! Considering after my crazy trade, we were
-11gpt with about 50 in the bank, this is a good thing :P
No change really in tech, all civs have HBR, half of them have Map Making.

I do think we can and should slip in a temple here. At 10spt that's 3 turns.

[8] 1830 BC - There's a hittite settler pair floating through our lands for some
reason. There is also a mongol warr-settler very nearby, I would guess likely
to fill in the gap between Ta-Tu and Kazan - we shall soon see.

IBT - Ouch, did Zulus pop huts? They have CoL, Math, and Polytheism now.

[9] 1790 BC - POACH!! Ulaanbaatar is founded *3 squares* from our capital,
major overlap. Although tis major flip-bait, we wouldn't want it even if they
wanted to revolt, just way too close. Our five desired cities remain intact,
and Ulaan isn't one of them.

The Portuguese and Americans have CoL and Poly, Mongols have CoL, and the
Incans are on the short end of the research stick, up only HBR. If we had
more cities/more income, this would spell a fourfer, but can't do that here.

[10] 1750 BC - Temple done, so we start prebuild for next wonder. (Oracle for now,
but Zeus would be top choice, and Mausoleum not bad)

[11] 1725 BC - zzz
[12] 1700 BC - Our capital borders expand, firmly locking with Olla, Tiwa, Ullan,
and Kazan.
[13] 1675 BC. Now at 28g+4gpt, still they won't sell a tech even for 10gpt.
Our second MP is back in place, having explored around sufficiently.
[15] 1625 BC - Take a close look at tech again. All have HBR. Above that,
Incans have nothing, Hittites have MM, Mongols have MM and CoL, Americans and
Port have MM,Col, and Poly. Zulus alone have math. So can't we buy Poly?
Nope, just out of our league. CoL? Portuguese will sell it for 36g+11gpt.
(Nevermind that we don't have 11gpt!!!) We do it! Then sell CoL to Inca's for
HBR+35g. Alas, can't reach MM 8-\ So CoL to Hittites for 90g. Just a twofer.
We're at 129g-3gpt after this.

(IBT) Zulus start Temple of Artemis. Henry wants 25g for our friendship (curses,
the downside of having to take cash instead of gpt for payment). We cave.

[16] 1600 BC - zzz
[17] 1575 BC - Our roving warrior runs into Hattusas, the Hittite capital.
[18] 1550 BC - zzz
[19] 1525 BC - zzz
[20] 1500 BC - Portuguese are building the Great Lighthouse.
The tech is moving on ahead, still in stratified groups. The top four civs (Zulu,
Mongol, Portuguese and barely, the Hittites) have four techs on us (MM,Poly,Philo,Math)

while America MM, Math, Poly, and Incas only have MM. There should be a good twofer
for Math and MM soon, just not yet.

Babylon is size 9, growing in 6, Oracle due in 16 (buy Math before then!)
Our first tech purchase payment expires next turn, so our income will go up
around 10gpt. Remember, cave if tribute is demanded, and keep eye out for more trades,
lower the lux slider first for higher gpt for payment if you need to, to swing a deal.

Here's our map,

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-1500BC.jpg

Maniac
Ridgelake
Charis
Matt_G <-- UP
Meldor <-- On deck
Skyfish

Save file 1550BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-1500BC.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Nice playing, Charis!

You guys realize that with our 5 chosen cities, we will have 4 luxes!!!! [dance]

Not to mention iron and horses!

I see it, but it will be about 24 hours before I play it.
I did look at the save and we can have Zeus in 8 or 9 turns since it's only 200 shields versus 300 for the Oracle. I will be sure and get Math soon enough to not waste any shields, then I will build a rax so our AC are vets. :)
If you guys have anything else you want to point out, please do.
I will check the thread before I play tomorrow night.

Matt

Only have a minute, will post more detailed analysis tomorrow. In all my playtesting I NEVER had an AI bold ennogh to poach my capital like that so I never considered it. Then again, I allways built an early temple so the AI wouldn't/Couldn't poach like that because of our culture and expansion. (this isn't a critisism of not building the temple because I never considered this implication either). According to the LETTER of the rules that city would have to be one of our five, but by the spirit/intent of this scenareo.... That city needs to burn. It's that simple. We had a great setup in that we COULD have gotten 20 shields AFTER corruption at size 12, now the only way we can do it is to build a courthouse, which we might wana do.

Nice job on the techs. Agree to buy math for zeus. Problem is, when Lit is discovered is going to make a HUGE diffrence. If we are left with nothing to prebuild with, the cascade could steal the library, which was a rare occurence in my tests. :(. If nothing else after the rax is avail to prebuild with, try to get city to size 12, build a court, then with mining some plains be can get the magic 20 spt, aka 1BPT (bowman per turn). The wonder diffrence between Emperor PTW and DG C3C is staggaring. In PTW I build Colossus, Pyramids, Library all from scratch with no problem. Thats impossible in C3C on DG.

The absolute BEST thing about the library for us now would be. We build, we get GA. Next turn we pull Republic and revolt and we get a Republic GA. Well, thats the ideal fantasy anyhow.

Actually, we will have 5 luxes and and extra iron if we can find somone to trade it to.

It occurs to me that buying into MAP (after math) might be a great idea so we can build a harbor. Then we could export all that ivory for tech instead of gpt.

No matter what, I see us going after the Inca first. They are the bottom dog tech wise, so they wont be able to buy alliances as easily. Heck, even if we only got ONE city out of them it would help a lot. WE might wana oscilate between Inca and mongol, or we might not.

I generally agree with Maniac's assessments. The Great Library is critical. So much so that we should look into researching lit at max rate instead of buying into Math. I am not saying to do that, only that the option should be looked at. My thought is that there are very few, if any cities that can build Zeus. Every city can build the GL. And it can be rushed with a scientific greatleader from any civ.

I was also trying to decide which civ to attack first. The Mongols have superior lands to the Incans. But it will be much more dangerous/difficult for us to take out 4 mongol towns. I think that I agree with Maniac that the Incans should go first. Lets get 2 more (Incan) towns for some critical mass, then fill out our lands with Mongol sites.

I just looked more closely at Charis' map. I cannot believe the Mongols poached that close to our capitol. They stole some of our actively-worked tiles! Has anyone else noticed that the AI settles far more aggresively in C3C than PTW? Wow!

Regardless, I would not be surprised to see Ula flip. If it does, we should probably abandon it, as much as I hate to do that as we need the critical mass. But the other towns are just so much better for us long-term.

I disagree with Maniac about the timing of the harbor build. Those shields should go into either a GL prebuild or bowmen. The AIs are typically slow to build a harbor. So even if we do build one, it is questionable that the AIs will have one connected to their capitol in the relative near future. Yes, the harbor would allow us to get an additional food from the fish, allowing us to work another mined plains. And to that end, I would prioritize a harbor over a courthouse. But either of those builds is premature to getting the GL or enough troops to claiming cities. Remember, the sooner we get more cities, the better those towns will be for us.

Alright, I have blathered on long enough. Who is next to step up and pontificate upon our desired strategy?!? :)

Harbor would be better yes, but we dont have that tech. The comment about building harbor or court is a based on a presumption we might not be able to build anything wonderous for lack of tech at some point.

-Maniac

I would like a consensus on which direction we want to go before I play.

After looking at the game I see we will be getting back 10gpt next turn. Even with this income figured in, the fastest we could research Lit is 25 turns roughly. (give or take a couple of turns)
Right now at -14gpt (-4gpt after next turn) it is 26 turns to research Lit. We have 89 gold in the bank. Of course we get another 11gpt back in 15 turns..............

I see a couple of options.
1) Go ahead and get Math and build Zeus and a rax.
Then start the Oracle as a GL prebuild and hope to God someone researches Lit (and that we can afford it, or the cascade doesn't take it out) before the Oracle completes.

2) Let Babylon stay on the Oracle, build up some cash, hope Lit gets researched before it completes which will be in 16 turns (or less due to growth and mines completing etc.)

3) A better option that I haven't thought of. :lol:

One more point. I think there is a good chance that Ridgelake is right and no one else will be able to build Zeus due to lack of ivory.

I will wait until I see some feedback to play, so speak up! :)

Well, I see that this game is following in the footsteps of our MoW/Defiant roots, in its level of discussion :goodjob:

Definitely not a 'clear' winner here, Matt_G. I think that since the city radius doesn't need ivory but just the civ, we will NOT be the only contenders for Zeus. So I'm more prone to a Zeus now then prebuild (with Pyramids) while waiting for Lit. In terms of wonder disappearance, Oracle is usally pretty early to go, and Lit is late for the AI to research.

But the main reason I would go for Zeus now is that with what it produces we can simultaneously be building up another wonder AND an attack force. (Slip in rax first, as that will make the Ancient Cavs vets) With a half-dozen Ancient cav and some bowmen support we can take our Incan cities. If we get a GA it will help snag the wonder or will provide a new attack force to take the mongol cities. I like this route which gets 'our' cities in our hands sooner rather than later.

> 1) Go ahead and get Math and build Zeus and a rax.
> Then start the Oracle as a GL prebuild and hope to God
> someone researches Lit (and that we can afford it, or the
> cascade doesn't take it out) before the Oracle completes.

There are enough ancient wonders now I don't fear losing shields too much.

> 2) Let Babylon stay on the Oracle, build up some cash, hope Lit
> gets researched before it completes which will be in 16 turns
> (or less due to growth and mines completing etc.)

There's no way (imo) Lit will show up in 16 turns.

So I favor #1, but would not object to other options if that's what others thought, due to the benefit of the GL. Just a preference.
Charis

PS I hope the Incans survive as a civ after we take our two cities from them. They will make an excellent two-fer trading partner with us, behind the pack, if the GL doesn't come through.

PPS I'm with Ridgelake, the AI is so lame at building harbors, and the path is so easily broken before Astronomy that it's of almost no value to us in the next millenium.

PPPS My re-read of the rules suggests there is no problem whatsoever in razing the poaching city, or rebuffing a flip request. We 'may' declare war and take a city that is adjacent but need not. We may not raze a city once we *take possession of it*, but there's no prohibition to razing enemy cities that encroach our workable squares. That city is going up in smoke! :hammer:

I agree with Charis.

My hope was that Lit could be researched before our prebuild would complete. That is why we needed to look at that avenue. But it does not seem open to us. So lets go for Zeus and rax, then start back on another prebuild. The Mausoleum might be available too, which is not a bad wonder to get.

We do need to be aware that we will be losing 1 gpt for each unit that is built. We already are over our support limit. We might want to disband the scouting warriors if support costs get too much.

Good luck, and have fun! :hammer:

Zeus it is.
I will play tomorrow morning.

Maniac1

Preturn:
Looks good. Change nothing.

(IBT) Abe demands 23 gold. I cave. Portuguese build the Oracle and start MoM. Inca cascade to Pyramids.

[1] 1475 BC - Switch Babylon to Pyramids.

(IBT) Hittites extort 22 gold. :mad:
Zulu & Mongols start ToA

[2] 1450 BC - Not much. Incas still don’t have Math. I am going to wait a little while longer.

(IBT) Mursilis kicks our warrior out. I disband him. He’s not really doing us any good and he’s costing us gold.

[3] 1425 BC – Crap, Incas got Math this turn. I am going to let our meager treasury grow for a couple of turns and see if I can get Poly.

(IBT) Inca start the Lighthouse.

[4] zzzzzzz
[5] 1375 BC - Time to get Math. I’m going to have to go into hock to do it. :p
12gpt and 30 gold to Abe for Poly. Poly to Incas for Math and 1 gold. (All he had)
I was hoping I could get Map Making also but just couldn’t swing it. I think he was close to researching Poly himself. <shrug>
We are now at -4gpt with 42 in the bank. :o
Babylon will grow next turn though, so that will cut the bleeding in half. Of course I will have rax maintenance to worry about shortly also. If I get extorted in the near future this could get ugly.
Swap Babylon to Zeus. Due in 2.

(IBT) Henry buys an embassy with us. Inca start ToA. Incans complete the Pyramids.

[6] 1350 BC – 1 of the 2 gold from our new citizen is going to lux. So the bleeding is at
-3gpt.

(IBT) Cascades: Zulu to MoM. Portuguese to Lighthouse. Hittites to ToA.

[7] 1325 BC – Babylon SoZ->Rax. [dance]
Mongols, Zulu, Hittites and America show up with Construction.
We are down Philo, MM and Construction to those 4 Civs.
Down Philo and MM to Portugal.
Down MM to Incas. 8 turns till the 11gpt deal to Henry is done.

(IBT) The Hittites and America were at war! The Hittites sign an alliance with the Zulu and the Zulu declare on Abe.
:saiyan: Shaka extorts 20 gold. I have to cave. I’m going to be screwed now.

[8] 1300 BC - We only have 12 gold now and are losing 3gpt. I disband our conscript to get us to -2gpt. So we will be at zero in 6 turns. Our payments to Henry run out in 7 turns.
Because of this, we can’t build a rax now (would have finished in 2 turns) because we will go bankrupt. :mad:
I switch Babylon to Wealth, losing 15 shields and to get a positive cash flow for just a couple of turns. Then I will be able to build the rax.
To bad this isn’t a bloodlust variant. I want to kill them all now. :lol:

(IBT) Temujin jumps on the extortion bandwagon and takes our last 12 gold.
Looks like I will be building wealth for a while. :mad:

[9] zzzzzz

(IBT) Hittites and Incas start MoM.

[10] Christ!!! I don’t even get my lousy +1gpt this turn because a barb galley is sitting on the fish tile.

Post split due to image count.

(IBT) An American galley sinks that pesky barb. Reports of a massive uprising near Babylon. Film at 11.

[11] 1225 BC - Citizen reassigned to fish tile. There’s not much to do when you have to build wealth. Abe, Mursilis, Henry and Shaka have currency and are in the Middle Ages.

(IBT) Of course all 8 barbs from the uprising are ignoring everyone else and coming straight at Babylon.

[12] 1200 BC – We get our first AC. Ummm, I didn’t know you have to pay maint. on Ancient Cav’s. I still can’t start a rax. If I took Babylon off of wealth, I would be at -3gpt with only 2 gold in the bank. :p

(IBT) 4 more barb horses come into view for a total of 12. :eek:

[13] 1175 BC - Our AC is in position to try and take a couple of barbs out if they cross onto our side of the river. 2 more turns till I get a positive cash flow going.

(IBT) Wow…All 12 barbs turn around and disappear into the fog. I guess our Ancient Cav scared the bejesus out of them :lol: Mongols complete ToA. Hittites cascade to and complete MoM.

[14] zzzzzzzz

(IBT) Zulu and Portuguese start the Great Wall.

[15] 1125 BC – Finally our deal with Henry runs out. Babylon switched from Wealth to a Rax. We are down Currency, Philo, MM, Construction and Monarchy to the leaders (America, Portuguese, and Hittites) at this point. Down 4 techs to Shaka, he doesn’t have Monarchy.
Down Philo, MM and Construction to Temujin.
Down Philo and MM to the Incas.
I turn the sliders down to see if we can get anything. No way.
Everything we have will not buy Currency, Construction, or Monarchy. With no twofers available, I forget about tech for the time being.

(IBT) Portugal and Mongols sign a MA against America. Portugal declares. Hittites start the HG’s.

[16] zzzzzzzz
[17] 1075 BC – Our second AC is produced. The last one that will be a reg., albeit a 4hp reg. Babylon grows to size 11 this turn also.

(IBT) Incas demand our 18 gold and I cave. Screw the spaceship. Let’s kill all these b#@^%*$s. j/k
Zulu finish the GW.

[18] 1050 BC – Barracks completes. Start a courthouse (vetoable). There aren’t any prebuilds available. Even with a courthouse we can’t get to 20spt until that Mongolian blight is toasted. We will only get 19spt max until we get back that mined BG they stole.

(IBT) America starts the HG’s.
[19] zzzzzzz
[20] 1000 BC – nada.

Summary:
The tech situation has not changed since my last status report above.
I didn’t try to make any deals this turn.
I thought about building a boat to bust some fog, but I was hoping something would become available prebuild wise before the courthouse finished.

Screenshot and save in next post.

Good Luck Meldor.


Maniac <-- In the Hole
Ridgelake
Charis
Matt_G
Meldor <-- Up
Skyfish <-- On Deck

Here's a screenshot for the lurkers.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-1000BC-screen.jpg

Here's the save. (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-1000_BC.zip)

The was a brutal turn of spelunking, Matt, So many caves :P
(Not too much choice though, np)

With barb uprisings, other civs are in the Middle Ages. Feudalism
will come very soon, meaning MDI's and Pikes. We have to plan to hit Incans *VERY SOON*. The courthouse choice was questionable, although we don't have many good options available. We're too far behind the other civs in shields to catch something like HG (and too far behind in cash and tech to even buy it), so it will have to complete. With no more than 3-4 Ancient cavs, we'll be ready. I sense Meldor will lead us to a turn of great glory and arse-whooping! :hammer:

With a bowman victory (if we so choose), we would spark a GA, ending short-term cash woes, and putting Babylon over 20spt, meaning we'll crank out one more bowman EACH round for the next 20 -- this and Zeus will be sufficient fuel for the war. The lil cavs can be positioned in immediate one-turn striking range of Tiwa, and that should fall the first round of the war. They'll throw what they have at us, loose due to Meldor's superior skill (and our better hp and choice of terrain), and we can take Olla. If things go as envisioned, the Incans will **beg** for peace, and will pay... who knows, maybe all or most of the remaining ancient era techs. While still despots, rush a temple in the new cities.
Then our support cost will look staggering, and you know what that means? Put units in position and when rdy, declare (honorably) on Mongols - raze the blight town, and capture as many of 'our' cities as we're able. Ideally that would mean all 3 citeis, ending up with no units over support costs due to casualties, then charge them either a Middle age tech and/or Monarchy for peace. Pointy stick parity?!? This is of course, a bold vision... can our bull riding bow-shooting Meldor bring this to pass? (Or perhaps he has an even better plan?!)

Things are looking rosy I would say!

Charis, wearing his rose-colored glasses

Got it

:hammer:

Originally posted by Charis
The was a brutal turn of spelunking, Matt, So many caves :P
(Not too much choice though, np)

It can only get better from here. With AC being generated every 5 turns we won't be weak in their eyes for much longer.
It really sucked having to cave to all those demands, but they had units within 2-3 turns of us most of the time. A bad RNG roll and we would have been toast.

[Edit] You're right about the courthouse. I should have built a bowman instead. My bad. :o

Meldor of the Minoans once agian picks up the sacred Prod :whipped: and grasps the Holy Veto Hammer :hammer: in his hands...

"Sir..Sir..Sir, wake up!"
"Huh, whats the deal, I was just about to put it to that Charis ghost once and for all!"
"Sir, you were babbling, which isn't bad for a Babylonian, but we are holding court right now."
"Oh, yeah...OK"

1000 BC (0)
I don't see much use in the courthouse right now. I would rather be building Bowmen to move us forward. Even though it costs 10 shields I swap to a Bowman and we are off. (Hehe, got to use the old veto hammer anyway!)
(I)Bowman->Bowman

975 BC (1)
Start road over mine.
(I)Free Ancient Cav. Zulu start Sun's

950 BC (2)
Positions troops to have something to do.
(I)Bowman->Spear. Americans start Hanging Gardens.

925 BC (3)
Fortify units in place.
(I)More start the Hanging Gardens. The Portuguese complete the Hanging Gardens in Lisbon. Everyone who can decide that they really wanted Sun's.

900 BC (4)
Start road under archers who are one square away from Ollantayambo.
(I)Spear->Bowman. The Portuguese complete the Great Lighthouse in Guimaraes. More cascade to Sun's.

875 BC (5)
The spear allows us to free up the Bowman that was on MP.
(I) The greedy Portuguese start Sun's.

850 BC (6)
Hey, three Bowman and three AC.
(I) Bowman->Bowman, Free AC.

825 BC (7)
Start Building road under AC who are for some reason one square away from Tiwanaku.
(I) Hittites and Zulu ally angainst America.

800 BC (8)
I get to fortify an AC.
(I) Bowman->Bowman.

775 BC (9)
I get to move a Bowman. Start irrigating under the AC.
(I) Not much.

750 BC (10)
I get to fortify said Bowman.
(I) Bowman->Bowman.

730 BC (11)
Get to move Bowman and workers.
(I) Free AC.

710 BC (12)
The AC Moves and it will be time next turn.
(I) Bowman->Bowman

690 BC (13)
We lose the first AC but then win two and the city of Tiwanaku is ours with 2 resistors. The remaining AC move in. It does come with a free marketplace. The Bows move next to Ollantaytambo. Start a Rax.
(I) We quell a resister.

670 BC (14)
The first bowman dodges a large rock from a cat and kills a spear. We begin our Ga and we can now get 22 SPT. Our second Bowman takes out the second spear and we get a second golden age..., OK maybe not. We do get a Cat and 2 workers though. It also has a prebuilt Rax. The Hittites get ivory and 66g for Literature. America gets Literature and 112g for Mapmaking. had to grab the twofer while it only meant gold straight up.
(I) We are now producing a Bowman a turn so I will dispence with repeating it. Hopefully things will be more exciting than that anyway.

650 BC (15)
Kill an Incan Sword outside of Tiwanaku. Workers building road to connect Ole' to the capital.
(I) Not much.

630 BC (16)
Ok, maybe it isn't that exciting. All the AC should be helaed shortly and we can go back on the offensive.
(I) The Hittites build an embassy in our capital.

610 BC (17)
Since the Incans seem to be less than a total scare I swap Babylon to a harbor, due in three. Finally the citizen in Ale' decides to go back to work, greatly shortening the time to build the temple. Unfortunately, there is only one of them so no whip.
(I) Not much.

590 BC (18)
The Inca cave to talks and give us Philosophy, Currency, Construction and 16g for peace. Unfortunately we can't get his maps. In that case I swap Tawy to a temple. We get Fuedalism and only Lincoln and the Inca don't have it. We send it to Linclon with 145g to get Monarchy and Republic. The AC leave Tawy and head back towards the capital.
(I)Talk about getting in at the right time, the Zulu take out the Americans.

570 BC (19)
Workers start building a road to our future horses. The Portuguese get spices for 70g, if we are going to hit the Mongols we don't need them getting any allies. Positon the troops.
(I) Finish the harbor go back to Bowman. That can be changed.

550 BC (20)
The troops are ready when you are. They haven't been moved this turn. You should have 5 AC ready to hit Ulaanbaatar this turn and raze it and 6 Bowman that can get to Almarikh in two turns. have fun with the next victim.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/Maniac1-550BC.zip)

BTW, the Zulu were the only one with Engineering, and the Incas the only ones down Fuedalism. We are essentailly even in tech now.

What can I say??!

:hammer:

Just five turns? Wowza :D

The sacred prod worked wonders! :whipped:

Indeed, excellent timing on the Americans. And fortunately for us, avoiding the gpt bug (ie paying straight cash) saved our rep, well done! And good job dishing out the pain, I was hoping for those remaining ancient techs, but wasn't sure how much Incans would pay with as few units as we did (good veto, btw)

Skyfish is in the enviable position of having 14 GA turns to prosecute a war of 3 cities+1raze against the Mongols, with 1.2 units popping out per turn. (Just remember our gpt will drop to levels we're more "used to" when GA ends)

Good luck man! Let 'em have it! :hammer:
Charis

PS to any anti-warmongers lurking... note how much gain there was from that precision war - nearly full tech parity from last place, two more nice cities, all prosecuted with a non-military nation with a total force of non-MP military units of... about 6. Tis verily the power of MOW (mounted oscillating war) :P

They were to the piont that one of their 4 remaining cities plus the three tech and all their gold was close. If we hadn't been play this variant I would have taken one more city and gotten a forth as booty. All within the next two turns (Machu Picchu was in two turn range of the AC).

Looks like good turns by both of you. I'ts pretty much going accourding to schedule. The only bad thing is that we areent going to get the library, which I knew wouldn't be a problem for catching up the ancient techs, but could be for getting those more expensive middle age ones :p. Plus the bonus income from ancient wonders can be unbelievably helpful in this varient. I dont know if we can do 4 cities at once on the mongols. They are pretty strong and we are taking cities that are fairly near their core. Depending on how our mil looks we can consider not caving to demands soon too. Remember, we can pointy stick them as much as we want if they declare on us :).

Good turn, Meldor! Any chance of starting the Library? It seems like everyone is building Sun's. If we can get the GL before Sun's finishes, no one would cascade. That is a risk, though.

Thoughts?

Why are we still in Despotism?
We have Monarchy and Republic, and we are Religious.
I would revolt during the preturn.

Just my nickels worth.......which is worth about 2 cents.

I thought about revloting but it didn't matter for the harbor or the bowman and so I left it for the next leader to decide what flavor they wanted to go with. Maybe Monarchy for the war and then swap to Republic when we are done.

btw: religious do NOT automatically get 1 turn anarchys now. They can get 1 OR 2 turn (kinda like a deity AI). Still, even with the possible 2 turns, revolting a couple times isnt really a problem.

Edit: do the math on them both. I suspect Republic is the way to go. Whatever generates us the most commerce (after upkeep and lux tax). Depending on how many troops we have, it might be time to look at building a few spears so wa have some defensive upgrade options. I would consider building a wonder again soon. Any wonder would help, but either Leo's or Sistine or even Knight's Templar would help (we can allways disband extra mil for shileds). Sun's would probably be the least useful. Saving 6gpt wouldn't be a game breaker.

Edit: Actually, since we'll have 5 lux native, sistine won't do much till hospitals. Leo's would help the most. If we can't get the Library, which i assume we cant, then maybe try for Leos. While Knights would be nice, it isn't a required tech so we prolly won't be building that. The next wonders I see as really useful after Leos are Smiths and maybe Shakes.

Swaping govs would be good. Perhaps monarchy first until we defeat the Mongols. Then Republic for awhile. We should probably go after the Mongols sooner rather than later while our troops are not obsolete. Some upgradeable spears would not be a bad complement to our cavs.

Good luck, Skyfish. :hammer:

Ancient cavs vs pikes = not too bad because of retreat and the freebie hp. Ancinet cavs vs muskets = :(. Lets try to go after them before muskets :).

Skyfish <- UP NOW
Maniac <- On Deck
Ridgelake <- In the hole
Charis <- On the bench
Matt_G <- In the runway
meldor <-`Asleep in the Clubhouse

Guys I still dont have the game, it still has not reached Amsterdam..feel free to skip me for this round !

No problem, we'll wait a while. I couldn't play till thurs night anyway. If you don't have it by friday or so then maybe we'll skip. Just keep us posted.

Oh I am pretty confident I can get it before Friday, I have a US friend buying it and sending it to me ASAP !

:D

Will keep you posted for sure !

You guys will have to skip my next turn, then. I am out Thursday through Sunday.

In looking at the map, I think that we should go straight to republic. We could possibly finish the Mongol war in 7 turns, or the amount of time needed for the Bowmen to march on Ta-Tu after taking Almarikh. Hopefully the cavs will be able to raze the blight, return to heal, and then march on Kazan. That should take maybe 5 turns. With luck, the continued stream of units from Babylon will also make a nice attack force to join with the marching Bowmen. :hammer:

Anyway, my point is that a relatively quick war would likely not require us to go into monarchy. Particularly given the luxes that we will be acquiring.

BTW, I could play before Thursday if we wanted to swap around the order this turn. As I mentioned, I will be out from Thursday until the following Monday.

Ridge

@ Ridgelake - We'll wait for you too if needed. I'm not in any hurry to get this game over. LLets see when Skyfish gets his copy and we'll work it out from there. That goes for everyone. Just fit the game in where you can. Communicate delays and if extended we'll swap. It's a relaxed pace so you dont have to stress over getting the turns in here if in feast mode.

Edit: depending on army size etc. I don't think Monarchy is worth it. We need a math wiz to do the math (remember 2 gold per unit support) to make sure, but I think republic is all we need. I'm not even remotely worried about WW.

The only downside to Republic is the unit cost, really. If we have a large build up of two dozen units in the next 20 turns, that's -50 gpt to our income. If our losses are significant but we reach our objectives, Republic is exactly where we want to be. While I would normally avoid a swap mid-GA, I had actually forgotten we were religious, which makes it likely worthwhile to swap to one of the two. Being relig, democracy is a no-brainer swap later on, whichever way we go.

The other factor is... at 20spt we have no compelling reason to interrupt the GA for a gov swap. It would mean a few more gpt, but I don't think it will offset the loss in 1-2 turns of income and a pair less bows. Actually... won't we want to whip one or two things (temple or rax) in our new cities anyway? So I would be prone to stay in current govt for the Mongolian war -- then take our cities and peace, whip a temple in each (to lower their population as well as get culture there), and only then swap to Republic. It's a close call though, either way will work.

I agree with Ridgelake that this skirmish with the Mongols need not be a long drawn-out affair, and should run 7-8 turns unless we run into worse-than-expected resistance.

Charis

Originally posted by ToddMarshall
They must be capable of joining boarders with one of our current cities on first boarder expansion (or upon fist boarder expansion by a recently captured city so we wouldn't have to sit arround 5 or so turns waiting to capture a city in rapid succession) which must be done asap by rushbuy or whip of a culture building, even if it isnt ordinarily a prudent thing to do (we are allowed to let it get 1 shiled in the box first to save the double price rushing), and the city may work no citizens until it has a trade route and joined boarders with the capital.

So we do need to whip temples ASAP, and maybe take some citizens off of tiles??

Also don't forget we also get some unit support in Republic. That needs to be factored into the decision. :)

The one city was size one and couldn't whip anything. Both were joined to the capital via culture the turn we took them. The size 2 city was hooked by road when we took it the size 1 took two turns to link up.

I forgot about having to whip the temple asap. My bad. It can be done in the size 2 city (Tawy) but not in the other.

Ok I got the game so I will grab it after LotR10, should have it back by Friday for you Maniac !
:)

ps : I agree with Charis on govt swap.
Could you guys write a "things to do" list for me as I jump in at a crucial moment it seems...

To Do:

1) :hammer:
2) :slay:
3) :rocket:

:rotfl:

Seriously,

You should have enough troops on hand to start a quick war with the Mongols. I agree with Charis that it isn't worth the production loss to switch government until after the war and by then there probably won't be enough turns left of the GA to make the switch worth it until after we finish.

I got the harbor in so we might look at reworking the capital it see if we can get more shields.

Need to get the temples into the two new aquisitions (that I failed to do :spank: ).

I quick and hopefully painless war with the Mongols should raze the blighter city and capture the other three on the list. One thing that may slow it down is that everyone was dog piling America the last time. The trrops may have returned home be now, or you may want to keep some reserves back in the capital in case a SoD or two show up in the middle of the war to take one of our southern cities. The Americans were to the southeast so that is the direction that the returning troops will come from.

I built one spear (I know, :jump: ) but we probably need at least two each in our cities and if it seems we have enough offesive power at some point, I would sneak in a couple of spears to cover the southern reaches, especially Ole', before too long (before the returning troops get there).

Edit: Decided my turn-by-turn instructions were a bit too much direction for a SG.

Meldor is on target with his instructions.

In addition to those, make sure you bring a good size force to take the eastern Mongol town that is closest to their core. It is above size 6 and defended by pikes. All their towns are defended by pikes.

I would suggest building embassies with everyone.

I also point out that we can whip a library just as easily as a temple in despotism. Both are two pop points with 1 shield in the box. So a library would be a better use of mongol citizens if we are able to choose. I know the rules say a temple rush is required. But I believe the intent is to get instant culture and a library does that better than a temple.

Have fun! :hammer:

List?

:hammer:

Thought I would clarify a few things --
The 'blight' city to raze is Ulaanbataar, poaching our capital.
Since we can reach that on turn one with Ancient Cav, that's like the first target in the war, and should be gone the same turn we declare (while we're outside their territory of course)

The 'three' Mongol cities to capture that we want as part of our
core are: Almarkh (S of capital), Ta-Tu (SE), and Kazan (NE).

If we had enough move two units, Almarkh could also be hit (captured) first round. Looking at the geography with the Zulus south of us and Mongols to east, the 'natural' sweep of cities to take would be CCW, Almarkh then Ta-Tu. I think Ta-Tu is sufficiently far out that it might not touch core -- which means Almarkh would have to be captured first - then Ta-Tu would merge borders with it.

If we had enough forces, one good plan would be a two prong attack, hitting Ulaanbataar with prong A on turn one, which would then move forward to take Kazan, which would fall on turn 3. Prong B would be to capture Almarkh on turn one (from ACavs based in the forest on our side of the border at Olla.) This prong would continue NE to be the one to assault Ta-Tu. If ACavs were in too short supply, concentrate them in one spot. E.g., use a slow force for prong B, moving from our forest to theirs right next to the city on turn one, and taking it with a bowman assault on turn 2. I would expect Ta-Tu to fall last, around turn 6. Hold in counterattack for one turn and/or give them more pain, and on turn 7 or *at the point where we would get more pain than we give*, take peace.

The worst case side-event would be for the Zulus to ally with the Mongols. They're big, they're nearby, they're tough, and they would be coming from our rear at a time where we had a fair part of our force north and east. If it's economically feasible, we might want to get them to ally vs Mongols - embassy first if needed. I think the rules are fine with an alliance in our first expansion war with a civ, but not the second, so do this is we have the cash. (We won't need the cash right away for tech anyway, as we'll get some from Mongols with our pointy stick)

Good luck,
Charis

Yes, the rules are ok with an alliance vs the mongols if needed. It loses one bonus point but it may be needed. I'd rather get 9/10 than 0/10 because we got piled on.

I have two major concerns with an alliance with the Zulus. First is that they might take Ta Tu before we can get there. It would be a big set-back if we are not able to get Ta-Tu and the Zulus do. Second, we would be locked into 20 turns of war against a civ that is stronger than we are. Not getting an MA would allow us to hit quick and fast and get peace. No messing around waiting for them to send SoDs our way.

Also, if the Zulus do MA against us, we can pull in the Portugese, Hittites, and Incans against them. Portugal and the Hittites particularly would love a piece of the Zulu lands.

Realistically, the Mongols only have gold to offer the Zulus. The Zulus are the tech leaders.

If we do choose to MA with the Zulus, we should probably take Ta Tu after razing Ula and capturing Almar. Take Kazan last. If we don't MA with the Zulus (my recommendation), take Kazan before closing on Ta Tu.

Have fun either way! :hammer:

Good points Ridgelake,

A key in my comments above was that the war shouldn't take more than 7ish turns, locking into 20 would be BAD, and if the Zulus actually ate up the Mongols it would not be a good thing. I do like the 'pull in the rest of the world vs Zulus' however, if the Mongols draw them in.

If the Zulus were pulled in, we might not have time (or defenders) to take and hold all 3 Mongols cities, but if just one were left til next time it wouldn't be hard to go to war again for the one.

Charis

PS EDIT - Depending on cash situation, buying a tech from the Zulus for gpt might be a good dis-incentive for their trying to dogpile us. Gpt payment has the added bonus that if they DID go to war, we still have cash (and the cancelled gpt) to buy other alliances.

Wow ! Thansk guys :D

I really regret not seeing Ridge's turn by turn instructions now :cry:

You want my turn by turn instructions? I'll put them together if you really want them.....

Ok I got a slight problem :sad:
I left my C3C cd at work and wont be back there until Monday... :wallbash:

I really messed up on that one, if you want to take the game Todd I can grab it Monday and play the same day :(

Sorry guys!

Well, as I'm busy and ridgelake is out of town you have till monday night. I'm not worried about the pace of this game, especially over Thanksgiving weekend here in the states. Remember, you get 20 turns, then it goes to 10 each.

Just a bump to keep this on the front page an a reminder:

Skyfish <-- UP NOW (has till midnight GMT Tue/Wed to play) 20 turns
Maniac <-- On Deck
Ridgelake <-- In the Hole

If skyfish hasn't played by then I will grab it and play TEN turns and then he can play 20 after me.

I got big problems guys ! I was not able to play today....
Terribly sorry for making you wait so long.
I hope I can take it after Todd plays 10 turns I will know tomorrow for sure.. :(

not sure if i can get to this tonite or not. i will try. if i dont and you can get it before i post im playing you go ahead, otherwise ill have turns back within 48 hours.

I got it!

Wasn't able to finish last night. Finishing now :)

Preturn - The build orders all look good :lol:.

Militarily we are -_-. I was hoping I'd have more Cavs to work with, but 5 will just have to do. I'm inclined to go to war sooner rather than later. We need to get our cities and get them growing. With our religious nature and our tiny towns, I'm seriously considering using Feudalisim for a short period. This will allow us to pop rush those temples and rax before switching to republic. As for war, I decide to adopt a "no time like the present" stance :hammer:.

Diplomatically I'm almost stunned we somehow avoided meeting the Americans (I do know enough of the shape of the land to have a rough idea where they are). I note that Zulu are up Engeneering (strange choice), Inca are down a couple techs, and everyone else is at parity.

We have an extra spice laying arround so i ship it to the Zulu for what they'll pay, which is 7gpt and 8g. They had cash but I don't consider taking gpt an exploit here because we've pumped up the AI coffers plenty by paying it out. FYI, as long as we aren't trading gold for gpt we are allowed to take gpt payments. Besides, these allways come with a risk of the deal being broken by war declaration.

As far as the temple whips, the one completes next turn anyhow, and the size 1 city will finish it before it grows. Nothing we can do about that, so it's fine.

I move a bow next Almrikah and see it is defended by a vet SPEAR!

[1] Capital - Bow -> Bow
Tiw - Temple -> Rax

Diplo - Nothing

I move the bow out, I dial up Temu and declare war.

Battle to raze Ulan.
Vet AC vs vet pike redlines but wins
Vet AC vs reg pike wins 3-4
Reg AC does zero but retreats
Vet AC vs reg pike wins 3-1 and Razes Ulan capturing 2 workers and a cat.

Clean out a maurarding Archer

Our bows moving next to Almrikah reveal it is still defended by a vet SPEAR!

IT - Zulu declare war on Hitites :) Hopefully they'll be too busy to mess with us now! Annother Ancient Cav is born!
A small counter attack force shows up. I believe we can handle it. One MDI dies to a Bow w/o a scratch on the bow.

[2] Capital Bow -> Bow

Battle for Almrikah
Cat hits vet spear revealing a reg spear
Vet bow vs reg spear does one, dies, promotes it
Vet bow vs 3hp vet spear does 2 dies, promotes it
Vet bow vs 3hp vet spear wins 3-2
Vet bow vs 2hp eliete spear dies 0-4
Vet bow vs 2hp eliete spear wins 2-2 and the city is ours! and it has horses and furs hooked up! Lux tax back to 10% saving us a bundle.

Take out a counter attacking sword

Diplo - Spare Furs to the Zulu for 7gpt and 8g

IT - Nothing

[3] Bab - Bow -> Bow
Ola - Temple -> Spear

Nothing. We are "gassed" and resting, repositioning.

Diplo - Nothing

[4] Babylon - Bow -> Bow

Battle for Kazaan
Cat hits Reg Pike revealing a reg pike below
Vet AC vs Reg Pike wins 3-2
Vet AC vs 2hp pike wins 2-3 capturing Kazan and a Mongol slave!

Clean out an archer, Lose a cav cleaning out a spear but a bow finishes it off.
Our first Bow arrives at Ta-Tu and, as expected, sights a vet pike.

IT - Nothing

[5] Bab- Bow -> Spear

Zulu, Portugal, and Hittites now have Engeneering and Monotheisim. Everything we have isn't enough to pry either lose :(. The mongols will now chat and would be delighted to cough up Monotheisim for peace. They do NOT yet have Engeneering. We haven't finished our little land grab yet anyhow.

IT - Mongols and Zulu MA vs Hittites :lol:

[6] Bab - Spear -> Spear

Battle for Ta-Tu
Cat hits Vet Pike revealing annother
Vet AC vs Vet Pike Redlines but wins
Vet AV vs reg pike does 1 and dies
Reg AC vs 2hp pike wins 2-2
Vet bow vs vet spear wins 4-0

And.... that's it till more help ( three bows and an AC) arrives next turn. Dang. With that city issuing FOUR units out to counter attack I didn't expect it to have FOUR MORE defenders :(

Mongols are now willing to cough up Monotheisim AND Engeneering. Maybe this "library" thing is overrated (actually it isn't because of the bonus income, but still)

Nothing shaking Diplomatically.

IT - Annother AC is born

[7] Babylon - Spear -> Spear
Ola - Spear -> Spear
Ola expands boarders giving us a Horse to trade

Amlarika ends resistance, whips up a Temple.

Battle for Ta-Tu. Part 2
Cat hits reg pike and it still shows as the defender. :) IT's probably all that is left there now
Vet Bow vs 2hp pike wins 2-2 and, yup, thats all folks!!! Ta-Tu is OURS :)

We are allowed to continue the war if we want since this is the first expansion war with them. I search for any reason to do so and find none.

I dial up Genghis and take everything he has for peace, which turns out to be Engeneering, Monotheisim and 8g.

I note the Zulu now have Invention... Man this could get Ugly with the Zulu running rampant. Zulu lack horses, but only offer 150g for them. I decide not to sell yet. Zulu are powerful enough w/o horses. Hittites also lack horses but offer next to nothing.

I could revolt now, but I decide to hold off until I can rush the temple in Ta-Tu via pop

IT - Mongols complete Great Library :(

[8] Tiw - Barracks -> Duct
Almirikah Temple -> Marketplace
Resistance in Ta-Tu ends. Temple rushed

I do some math and decide that right now Republic is roughly = to Feudalisim, therefore there is no sense going Feudalisim. I pull the trigger and revolt. We draw 2 turns :(.

Diplo - Nothing

IT - Portugal competes Sun Tsu's

[9] Ta-Tu - Temple -> Grainery

Diplo -Nothing

IT - Zulu cascade to Leo's

[10] We come out in Republic. Income is now 80gpt and the Capital is now cranking 32spt. Zulu have started winning vs Hitites, razing one of their core cities. This could get ugly with the Zulu as a superpower im afraid. This is NOT what we want to see this early. If the Zulu, or anyone else demands us, do NOT cave. We may need to work out a way to nibble off the Zulu at some point. Good thing domination is off.

Good Luck Skyfish!

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-350BC.SAV)

Nice set of turns, Todd! Glad we got OUR lands now. :hammer:

Lets get libraries sooner rather than later in our northern towns. It will be very helpful to get those borders closed. I was a bit surprised that you whipped temples instead of libraries as they cost the same pop. Regardless, lets get the strong culture going to close those borders ASAP.

I might have made a mistake with the last whip, but Amlarikah cost only one pop point because they had amassed 10 shields while in resistance. On the other hand, Tatu is our largest city, it had SEVEN resisters out of SEVEN when I took it and it is first ring to Mongolia so I considered we wanted Temple/Cathedral there. It is also more corrupt than I expected. It really needs a Courthouse :(

Edit: actually, I dono what I was thinking. We have 5 lux (or will when Kazaan gets roaded up. BTW, kazan needs to rushbuy its temple now. Couldn't whip as it was size 1. Remember not to work the citizen till it gets roaded up to Babylon) so with markets/temples we'll be content to size 11. We should look into getting one lux of somone like the zulu, then we wouldn't need cathedrals at all till hospitals. We are now bigger than Inca and Mongolia, probably bigger than America, and I'm willing to bet bigger than the Hittites before long. I think ridgelake is right that we want to be doing self research asap because right now the Zulu are running away with it, however we definately need marketplaces first in the north, then probably library/uni. Ta-Tu and Tiw came with markets intact so that is a big help. I was building a duct in Tiw, but thats definately Vetoable to Library. Babylon need that market NOW though, don't take it off that build.

Well, since we are in republic now, we would need cash instead of population to rush things. So the temple rush in Kazan could probably happen in the interturn.

Lets be very wary of trading a lot of lux to the Zulus. They are the top dog and giving them lots of productive citizens is not going to help everyone catch up. Also, be very careful about trading to a civ that is getting rolled up. If the Zulus are bowling over the Hittites, dont make a 20 turn trade with them. We will need our rep.

Biggest problem with not trading with the Zulu is that everyone else is basically broke or won't offer much. It's a catch-22.

As an example, the Zulu offered 7gpt and 8 g (which works out to 288g with the bug) for the lux. no one else would offer more than 60g. I couldn't see trading them anywhere else right now :(

I got it !

Almarikh : switched from Rax to Library for culture, both it and TaTu need expansion to get common borders.
Kazan : Rushbuy Temple for 104g.
Tiwanaku : switch from Acqueduct to Library.
I send a bowman to explore teh South we need to find the Americans.

1 : Kazan -> Library (we are under cultural pressure from Hovd).
Oho our scouting bowman sees a huge Mongol SoD coming our way ! Could it be for us ? Their ennemy is in the SOuth ?
Certainly going after Hittites.

2 : Move forces towards Olian. The Incas get dragged into the war. They ally vs the Hittites with teh Mongols and Zulus.

3 : Incas now have money so I grab it and sell Engineering for 123g and 1 gpt.
The Hittites need horses and have 2 workers available, after a long hesitation I decide to sell it to them hoping they wont get
destroyed within 20 turns and that it will help them survive.
I ask Mongol to leave our territory in order to slow the war vs Hittites down.

4 : Market completes in Babylon, Library in Tiwanaku, a deal ends and we make 104gpt :D We approach 1000g, I decide to get a haed start
and make full use of our GA, I rush the MP in Olian, the lib in Almarikh and Kazan, the courthouse in TaTu !

5: All buildings complete we get major border exapansions. Moving Cavs out of TaTu in order to form a moving wall vs settlers.
At least an attempt..we have a gap between Kazan and TaTu

Our Golden Age ends and we go from 110 to 76gpt, with some post GA mm it climbs to 79gpt, not bad :D

6: Quiet turn we have an ancient cav watching the Mongol SoD by the Hittites capital. Babylon Lib -> cathedral

7 : a huge Zulu SoD of MedInf takes out the Hittite capital after the Mongol SoD of elite swords and archers fails.
We perform a preventive block of Cavs in front of the new capital.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC1-Block.jpg
The SoDs turn away...
Lib in Olian rushed. Lib in TaTu rushed.
Chivalry arrives Zulus and Portugal let themselves buy in to the Hittite war and are now up Invention and Chiv. Mongols have both to.
I get an RoP with Hittites for change.

And then this happens :
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC1-Shock.jpg

8 : :eek: Zulus declare on Mongols, that's great news. Kazan is finally connected giving us Iron and 5th lux !
I can get some lux deals but next turn the Cath in Babylon completes so we wont actually need that 6th lux, I pass for now.

9: :sleep:

10: I spot a Zulu Musket, they are racing up the MilTrad tree...Our luxes go down to 0% we make 100gpt :D
Buying Invention is still outrageous, it would cost us 2 luxes, 20gpt plus our whole treasury of 540g !
So I crank up science and choose Theology, we might get a 2fer for it later but more because we want Unis and banks, it s due in 9 at -4gpt it can go down to 7 at -35gpt, up to next leader to choose.
Babylon has only Collosseum to build, I go to Galley first as we need more map knowledge.

We have Libraries everywhere, I chose Granaries as our build order for the small cities, we have a size 3, a size 4 and a size 1
-> we need growth and fast.
Tiwa is on Acqueduct and will complete before growth to 6 I would leave it there, a Cath can be rushed after it completes, as there's Cultural pressure on it s border.
We have Markets in 4 out of 6 cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC1-150_BC.zip
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC1-territory.jpg

Nice turn, Skyfish. :) Particularly blocking off the Hittite capitol. I about screamed when I saw that you traded them horses. Blocking off the capitol hopefully will save our rep. Lets hope the Incans dont take it out.

I got it. It may be Monday before I can get to it though. Its in the queue behind LK56.

We can quit trying to find the Americans. Hit F10. There are no americans there. Looks like the Zulu swallowed them whole and we just didn't get a popup that they were gone.

Then hit F4. Look at everyones cities. Hitties 1, Inca and Mongols 4, Babylon and Portugal 6, Zulu SEVENTEEN!!! Thats Zulu 17, Rest of World 21. This IS going to get ugly and thank god domination is off.

In my tests and in my one completed game of this ages ago, I've never had an AI become anything like this dominant until well into the next age. And it definately wasn't a max aggressive AI either. In hindsight, I should have taken advantage of the new aggressivness setting and made eveyone minimal agression.

Check out the power graph also. If we aren't 2nd in power, we are close to it. It's about a dead heat with the Inca and Portugeese. Conclusion here is we ARE going to get attacked soon, most probably by the Zulu. We don't have a whole lot of options here. We can't declare on them by our rules. When they come for us, we need to raze as many cities of theirs as we can, and probably try to get them under dogpile. I think we should wave the RoP restriction and just allow us to get them. I'm also going to throw out this idea. Maybe we should allow city captures provided we immediately gift them to somone else. This game isn't going to reach the modern age if the zulu arent slowed down somehow.

As for the Hittites horeses deal, it scares me. The Inca will probably eliminate them :(. One thing I see we should do is move a unit from Olla on the IT to expand that wall. Otherwise the Zulu will just try to go arround.

I'd like to hear everyones input on the city gifting idea.

GL Ridgelake

A zulu dogpile will help more than anything. They will definitely come for us in time. But if they are already with muskets, we will have a hard time attacking them. From looking at our lands, I doubt that we will have saltpeter to make our own muskets. Fortunately we can get pikes and longbows. Trebuckets will help a lot too. It will most likely be a defensive war against the Zulus for a long time.

One of the best things that we can do to slow down the Zulus is to not trade them luxes. They are getting a ton of productive citizens from our luxes. Remember, the AI does not raise the lux tax to keep peace, only hire clowns. Much of their population will come offline without our luxes.

I hope to play tonight. Mrs. Ridgelake was grumbling about needing the computer. So I can't guarantee my availability tonight. Will try.

Well as I said it is a catch 22. Everyone else is too broke to pay for all those lux. We are kinda damned if we do and damned if we dont :(

I agree with Ridgelake on the dogpile. That is the one thing that will slow them down.....that and cutting off the luxuries.
As for the gifting of cities, I vote for sticking to the variant rules as originally posted. If we lose, so be it. :suicide:
Changing horses midstream doesn't trip my trigger. <shrug>

If the majority of the team wants to do this though, you won't hear any whining from me. :)

My .02 cents worth

Maniac OBC – 150BC

We now have our beloved lands! All of our cities, except Babylon, need many improvements. We also need many workers! Meanwhile, our trade rep is in grave danger. I wake a bowman in Olla and send him to help block off the only Hittite city. There are about 10 Zulu units going after it. Can I save it in time?

We badly need workers. We have only 2 native workers and about 8 slaves. We need more. The only realistic place to build them sooner rather than later is in Tiw. So I swap its duct over to a granary. Due in 2.

Olla and Almar need granaries as well. Fortunately they are on rivers and don’t need ducts. I will rush those when they get close to their growth. Ta-Tu will continue with its cathedral. Babylon will go to military. A couple of pikes per city will be a start.

The Incans will pay 4gpt and 16gold for Ivory. Done.

I notice that Babylon is at an obscene 95gpt income pre-corruption.

IT Shaka wants 7gpt to renew our Ivory deal. Uh….not right now, amigo. I want you to meet my friend, Bozo. He is a great guy!

The Hittites lose a spear to an Incan MDI. The pike moves southeast onto the road and blocks my approaching troops from further walling off the town. The Hittities counter with a LB and kill a MDI. Most of the large contingent of Zulus go east to help with the Mongols. But the Incans move more troops in for attack next turn. I doubt that it the city will hold.

130BC (1) Get a couple more troops to surround the Hittite city. I now have 6 tiles blocked around it. The problem is that the Incans have access to it. And the Zulus have 4 more troops behind them if they somehow move out.

IT The Hittites survived against the Incans. And the Incans moved away and provided an opening for the Zulus. The Zulus put 5 MDI next to the town. It will fall next turn, taking our rep with it. Nothing that I can do to stop it.

110BC (2)

IT Shaka wants to renew our furs deal. Uh…..again…meet Bozo, won’t you? Shaka takes out the Hittites.

They also move 7 units next to Olla. The Portugese have 5 units coming that way too.

90BC (3) I swap Olla to walls, flushing 5 shields. It is too late for next turn, however.

Indeed, our rep is toast. Shaka won’t accept gpt. So I cant wrap up Shaka in a long term gpt deal. And he won’t pay for a lux with straight gold.

The Mongols want 6 gpt for horses. I would do this except we may lose 1 of our horses next turn if Shaka attacks. I am too late for the walls in Olla.

I pray, as I hit [enter] that Shaka does not attack next turn.

IT He does not. But he is marching into our territory.

70BC (4) Tiwa builds worker, starts a horse. We have GOT to have more military. Olla finishes walls, starts on a pike. Rush granary in Almar for 120 gold.

IT the Zulus pull the Incans into an MA against the Mongols.

50BC (5) Almar finishes granary, starts walls. It appears that the Zulus are merely marching across our lands to get to the Mongols.

IT Portugal declares war on the Zulus!

30BC (6)

IT Incans join the Zulus against Portugal.

10BC (7) Shaka has 3 workers for sale. We have 274 gold. That isn’t enough for 2. So I buy 1 for 144 gold. He won't take gpt or luxes for them.

To help the Mongols, I send them horses and wines for gems. The gems helps keep us completely happy.

10AD (8) Almar walls (with lumber help) to rax.

Theology due up next turn, I reduce slider to make 18gpt next turn and still get the tech.

Ta Tu Cathedral to Granary. Tiw pike to worker.

30AD (9) Theology to the Mongols for Invention, Chivalry, 2 gpt and 66 gold (all he had). To Portugal with 135 gold for Gunpowder. Shaka has Chemistry beyond it @ monopoly. So Theology to Shaka for Saltpeter and 370 gold. (We have no native salt.) Invention to the Incans for 70 gold.

Research on Education, due in 14 @ 15gpt. I want a bit of gold to help rush things and upgrade.

Ouch, it is 90 gold to upgrade pikes to muskets. I decide to upgrade 3, or enough to border the Zulu lands.

50AD (10) Get a ROP with Portugal so we can continue scouting.

Chops to help granaries in Olla and Kazan should finish next turn. Right now, we are ducking under the radar. We are the strongest culturally and are sitting back letting the world march on by. The iron that completes roading in a couple of turns should fetch a decent price.

I realize that I forgot to improve the BG next to Almar. It should probably be irrigated to help with growth.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-50ADmap.JPG

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-50AD.SAV)

Ouch on the Hittite fiasco. We'll manage, but that's gonna have long term implications that aren't pretty. Then again, the Zulu situation is quite far from pretty as well :P

Has anyone noticed that overall, in just about every SG game running, the rep is trashed or has come this close -->| |<-- to being trashed? Either folks are downplaying the risks associated with trade deals or aren't aware of the consequences of letting an active trade go sour.

Got it, but won't get to it until tomorrow night at the earliest.
Charis

Just wondering, but how did your reputation get trashed? I was rereading the logs and couldn't find out why. :confused: Where did a connection get broken?


Edit: Never mind, figured it out. Harran. Stupid reason to get a trashed reputation, but..c'est la vie. Now I'm back to lurking. :)

Smellincoffee, our rep got trashed because we made a 20 turn deal with a civ that did not last the full 20 turns. Because we did not "deliver" the good for a full 20 turns, we lost our rep.

This is a flaw in the trade system. We did nothing to break our deal. But it was broken so we lose our rep. It is not fair and this "feature" is a detraction from the enjoyment of the game.

Firaxis knows about it, but they dont have the manpower to fix what is actually a very difficult programing task to correct.

Originally posted by ToddMarshall
We have an extra spice laying arround so i ship it to the Zulu for what they'll pay, which is 7gpt and 8g.
These are the kind of deals that kill reputations. If the deal was spices for 7gpt, straight up, you have no problem. Both sides are per turn and if one gets cancelled, so does the other. But throw in the hard goods, in this case 8g, and now you are breaking a deal. I don't think the 8g or a TM (as it often is) is worth the threat of the ruined rep. Of course the destroyed Civ is a different topic all together, but it's so tough to tell who will be around in 20 turns. Anyways, just this lurker's $.02

Well Charis I was fully aware of the risk on that trade of course but I had to take my chances, the Hittites were still pretty strong (stronger than many other civs) and the dogpile was non-existent; in those extreme games we have to take more risks than in a normal game.
As Ridgelake pointed out we desperately needed the workers but more importantly we need to keep the other civs alive in this game and getting them horses was an attempt to that effect.
I took a risky gamble and it failed, I know that many other players would have not taken it so I apologize to the team for such risky play :sad:

Skyfish, no problem on the outcome or the taking of risk. I"m just pointing out that, on a whole, the rep smash or threat of rep smash has come up in almost every SG I'm in or even watching right now. Folks need to be more aware of this possibility, I just don't know if there's something Conquest specific that is causing this to happen more often. If you wanted to let them have horses to survive, just gift it to them. Speaker is dead-on-target with his general comment - tossing in a tiny 'hard' item along with a gpt item is what is playing fast and loose with ones rep. If you say we want the workers, we can pay in cash for one with a separate deal, and still give away the horses. The cash might help them rush something.

We'll deal with it just fine, the risk was your call and a reasonable one at the time, so let's not see any more "boo-boo lip" taking it hard posts, eh? What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. :lol:

Charis

Skyfish, I would not sweat it too much. You made a conscious, rational decision. Hindsight is always 20/20. As it turns out, we will be the tech leader in this game and everyone will be paying us gpt to keep up.

On another subject, I would not be surprised to see Charis bring the world into a dogpile on the Zulus. They are already at war with the Mongols and Portugese on diametrically opposite fronts. I suspect that the Incans could be brought into a dogpile with some tech...... Now if that big Zulu stack of about 10 MDIs moved away from Olla.....

Just a note. I don't often take chump change with gpt but when the civ im trading to is 50% of the world and would probably not only survive a full AI dogpile but win, then I don't think twice about squeezing them for everything they will pay.

I also thought about suggesting a full dogpile vs the Zulu now, but there are 3 problems.

1) We cant declare on them, though im fairly ceartian they declare on us if we aske them to get out

2) If we ask them to get out with that huge stack sitting next to our city we are in serious trouble

3) The Inca are currently allied with the zulu in a war and may not join us vs them period.

As for us being the tech leaders, I dono about that. I expect the Zulu will be the tech leaders. Their core lands are pretty crappy, and their acquired lands underdeveloped, but that will improve. Nevertheless, it does appear we are going to have to do our own research, especially if Portugal gets in trouble. The Inca and Mongols are in really bad shape with only 4 cities, and I'm sure will lag in tech (the only reason the mongols are caught up is because they own the GL). If a way appears for us to build Cop or Newtons in Babylon, we should do so.

The dogpile is actually quite a tough question. If the Zulus were significantly more peaceful and not in any wars, one could let them coexist for a while and let them bear the brunt of front-line research while we have good trade opportunities.

The problem with them being BOTH very large and so aggressive is that brining in a nation into a dogpile runs the risk of seeing the Zulus swallow that nation and becoming more of a monster. I agree with Todd's analysis -- the Zulus will surely be the tech, score and power leader for the game.

Why does one dogpile?
i) Because your army alone is so puny that you hope a few serious contenders can distract a bigger foe so that you can win a limited war against them.
ii) Because you fear the big foe brining in significant allies against you as you fight them
iii) Because you plan to be at war for a full 20 turns anyway and want a little extra help as your decently strong army puts a real hurting on the big foe.
iv) You hope war weariness will throw a leading foe into Communism where he self-implodes

We see situation 2 in many games, but not this one. There is no credible foe to the Zulu. We're closest at this point to situation 1, except there is no other big-stick to pull in. We're not at this point in time in situation 4. And we're certainly not strong enough 'now' to see it as situation 3.

In other words, I'm not sure the time is right. Given the one-dominant foe style of game, the right time would seem to be:
i) in an era of defensive-dominance, so that the Zulu do not in fact swallow up another civ but instead beat their head against a brick wall (if instead we called for a dogpile when Zulu cav go against a civ and take their saltpeter, that civ is *toast*)
ii) right after they get Communism
In fact, i and ii combine in the age between infantry and tanks.
The span after muskets become common, and knights are the attackers, is at least an equal strength period.

Any other comments? It will be interesting to see the saltpeter situation once we get gunpowder -- that might impact our course.

Charis

Well, I wrote up a nice lengthy discussion and my computer ate it. :grr:

Shaka has no horses. So no cavs. He has a lot of salt, and is probably the only nation that can export it. He is sending us some now as part of a tech deal.

We are sending the Mongols some horses. So they can make their UU and start their GA. Their iron got pillaged but we can ship them some in a couple of turns when our second supply is hooked up.

The portugese have all resources I believe. At least iron and salt.

Not sure about the Incans. I would be surprised, however, if a couple of techs would not bring them into a dogpile against the Zulus.

Are we ready to fight Shaka right now? No. We need more prep. Can we get into position to fight a defensive war fairly soon? I think so. With movement advantages of fighting on your own terrain, knights and longbows can chew up MDIs, the Zulu unit of choice. Even if protected by a musket or two, we can win a majority of those encounters.

There is a window here where we will can have knights on muskets and MDIs. Neither us, nor Shaka will get cavs. So the window is open until rifles.

My main concern is that Shaka will cut into either the Mongols or Portugal. That would severely cripple either. So getting a war with Shaka sooner rather than later would be done to protect the other nations. Alone, they will probably fall. Together, we might set Shaka back.

I start by looking at the score histogram. The Zulus don't look like
a gorilla. Then I look at the power graph :eek:
We're actually strong compared to Mongols and Portugal? Too bad for them!
Avg with Incas, weak to Zulus. The whole world is a Republic. We've got 12 Bowmen,
6 pikes, 3 muskets, and 9 Ancient Cav. (Zeus expires with Metallurgy)
The Mongols lack Iron, and are down to 4 cities. They're toasty toast. Portugal has six cities
and lacks BOTH horses AND iron. They're toasty toast. Incans are down to four cities.
They're toast. Zulu have 17 cities. Er... *ALL* civs except us and the Zulus are toast!!
That's whether or not we do anything. There's one think I notice however...

The Zulus lack horses!? No offensive unit better than an MDI. The other visible horses
are with the Incans, who are not fighting the Zulu at present. Another issue. We have no
saltpeter, but we're importing it for the next 19 turns from the Zulu!

Tech? We're only down Chemistry.

Given that we lack our own saltpeter, I don't want to hit Zulu now. By end of turn I might
have more rax done and all cities started on Knights which would at least give that option
to the next leader.

[0] 50 - MM tiles at Kazan so its granary will complete just before it grows. Ditto Tu-Tu.
Olla considers swapping from granary to Knight, but instead MM's tile to complete granary
quicker. Babylon swaps to Knight to give us at least one to be 'feared' :P

IBT Lisbon of Portugal completes the Knight's templar! Thank goodness it's not the Zulu.
Can this save them?! Incas swap to Sistine. The Zulu SOD moves away from our cities.

[1] 70 - Tiwa worker-->aqueduct. Kazan granary-->rax. IBT lots of ZUlu movement.
[2] 90 - I think almost every one of our cities just expanded a border, nice.
That salt in Zulu land just outside Almarkh mocks us. T'would be nice indeed if *Zimbabwe*
itself could be razed!!! That would really sting for the Zulus, and would get us saltpeter
back. One turn one we could put ALL our fast units on a mountain next to Zimbabwe, and
raze it the next turn, re-gaining use of saltpeter. I would make that our objective if we
ever did go to war with Zulu. If we're going to hurt them, what better way than to raze
their capital! IBT Zimbabwe finishes Leo's! If we razed the city it would destroy both
the workshop and the Great wall too!! :) Portuguese shift to Sistine.
[3] 110 - Babylon Knight-->Musket. Olla granary-->cth. IBT Lagos of Port falls to Zulu.
[4] 130 - I upgrade three pikes to Muskets while we have the salt. Should be enough for a while.
[6] 170 - Babylon Musket-->Longbow. Ta-Tu Granary to rax. Tiwanaku hits WLTKD.
[7] 190 - IBT It's painful to watch the Incas and Mongols slug it out while Zulus fight Portugal
unhindered. The Zulus capture another Portuguese city this turn.
[8] 210 - zzz
[9] 230 - More zzz.
[10] 250 - Education is due next turn. Portugal (like Incans and Mongols) are down to four cities.
Zulus have two dozen MDI and longbow heading for Guimares, it will fall next.
That's about it. We're due for infrastructure improvements to finish soon, with an option
for our next leader of Universities next all around, or knights/muskets. Lots of good
choices next for Tech at 10-15 turns each, and a possible Education-Chem trade with Zulu.

Matt_G <-- UP NOW
meldor <-- On Deck
Skyfish <-- In the hole
Maniac <-- Betwixt the warp core
Ridgelake <-- On the bench
Charis <-- On the mend

Maniac1-250AD Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-250AD.zip)

Good luck! :hammer:
Charis

PS Ridgelake - didn't see your comments til after turn. Good idea for iron to Mongols,
now that the extra just got hooked up. Just don't take hard goods for it :P
It'll be an option in around 10 turns to go to war with ZUlu. I would still advocate a
turn-two razing of Zimbabwe for maximum punishment. If we do go to war, it would be to save
Portugal, and specifically, the Knights Templar. GOod luck, Matt_G.

Well, that turn went about like I thought it might. Now that education is coming in, I think that I would cut back on research to make gold for rushing things. Both pikes to muskets, bowmen to longbows and improvements.

It would not take too many turns for us to get enough money to rush unis everywhere if they are worked while building cash.

It sounds like we are too late to save Portugal. On the other hand, a lot of Zulu military is over there. Do we dare use the opportunity to catch the Zulus with much of their forces many turns away? Hit quickly (Zimbabwe) and make peace before they can respond in force? If so, we better swap over to all knights. Attacking fortified muskets in a town that is on a hill (I think) will require a LOT of attack units.

Edit: Charis, sorry that I didnt make a bigger note regarding the MMing of the towns on the last turn. I noticed that you re-allocated Kazan and Olla. They were arranged based upon the chops completing next turn. My bad for not pointing that out better.

Regarding hitting Zimbabwe. It might be a good idea to investigate the city. It will be a hell of a fight if we bring 9 ACs and about half a dozen knights on to it..... Investigating will give us a clue about whether that would be enough force....

It also might make sense to skim workers from Babylon. IIRC, it is at a net 21 spt. Moving to 1 additional food should still leave it at 20spt. And we will need more workers.

> Now that education is coming in, I think that I would cut back
> on research to make gold for rushing things. Both pikes to
> muskets, bowmen to longbows and improvements.
> It sounds like we are too late to save Portugal. On the other
> hand, a lot of Zulu military is over there. Do we dare use the
> opportunity to catch the Zulus with much of their forces many
> turns away? Hit quickly (Zimbabwe) and make peace before
> they can respond in force?

Yes indeed, if we wait for the 2, 3, 4? dozen *slow* units to come home and then decide to declare war, it would be daft. And yes, I like the idea of investigating first. If so, it's still a tough question on dogpile. I would strongly consider *NOT* dogpiling them for two reasons: i) we would love Zulus to make peace with Portugal asap, not in 20turns; ii) we might very much need to make peace before 20 turns, so no alliances at all would give us freedom to say when to stop. If the Zulus stopped their assault, ran back home too late to stop us from razing Zimbabwe and maybe 1-2 core cities, we got salt, and if as a result the Zulus never end up getting horses, what a glorious coup that would be. Mil Tradition would be payback time in a huge way for them.

> Charis, sorry that I didnt make a bigger note regarding
> the MMing of the towns on the last turn. I noticed that you
> re-allocated Kazan and Olla. They were arranged based upon
> the chops completing next turn. My bad for not pointing that
> out better.

Actually, I MM'd, wrote the notes, then saw the chopping, saw it due, and re-arragned again. For example, got the NW granary with no shield waste on the next turn.

Charis

I see it, but it may be Thurs. or Fri. before I can play it.

Work is being a b**ch right now.

One thing to remember. We CAN NOT declare war on the zulu. Our varient rules prohibit it. If we want war with the Zulu, we have to induce them to declare on us. They currently have no units in our territory so we can't demand them out to kick it off. Unless they wander in in the next turn or 2 I think we lost our window for war with them for a while, because I'm guessing that 4 dozen is the closest guess to the size of their "spare units"

Hey guys, sorry about this but I have to drop from this game.

Work gave myself and 2 of my co-workers a nice Christmas present today. :rolleyes:
They laid my co-workers off and then told me I have to do their work in addition to my own.
These people are out of their tiny friggin minds. :saiyan:

As a result, I'm not going to have time to play Civ at all. What little time I have, will now be spent looking for another job.

Apologies to all concerned.
Matt

:eek: Lovely 8-<

Sorry to hear that Matt. I wish you luck in finding a better company and job where your effort is challenging, fun, and valued by the company!

:)
Charis

PS The Zulu are in for trouble now, as meldor is up next, followed by Skyfish.

It is in the queue after MLDR004.

My flu doesn't want to go away. I'm not going to be arround till at least sat afternoon.

By my thinking the Zulu are now too powerful for us until we get rifles, or a big stack of cannons, but hey, I'm a builder more than a warrior so I could be mistaken in that. I honestly think that as far behind as all the other civs are we can win this game w/o having to go after the zulu, though FOR SURE we need to be able to defend ourselves. No other AI civ is going to be able to research worth a darn, and the AI doesn't do very well when faced with researching alone. Plus the Zulu will spend ages chasing all the wonder techs that we can ignore. Combine this with researching the ignored techs (medicine/sanitation/clads) and with ToE and we should be fine at least till the modern era.

@Matt - That sucks. Been there, done that. GL and hopefully you will be able to find annother job swiftly.

@all - Regarding the forthcoming patch. Do NOT patch this game until I'm sure the patch works for whatever version Skyfish has and until we have a couple days to make sure that this patch doesnt screw up something even more signifigant than the gpt issue (FP being mostly a non issue in this game since only the Zulu will ever be able to build one).

I investigate Zimbabwe. It has 11 muskets and 1 trebuchet. I don't think all our 11 AC and 1 Knight stand a chance. So I resign myself to 10 builder's turns.

The Zulu have 30 units near the last two Portuguese cities. The Portugal and Inca sign peace. We get Education and start Astronomy.

Portugal makes peace with the Zulu when they are down to on OCC. The Mongols get horses and Iron for Gems, maybe they will stick around.

The saltpeter deal with the Zulu is over. I don't have enough cash to buy it again and I decline giveing them Lux.

We can't buy Chemistry for love nor money. We are five turns away from Astronomy. Babylon has been building Sistine as a prebuild. Uni's are about to build or have alreay been built in all cities except the Capital.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-350AD.zip

Skyfish is up now. Please let us know you got it.

Got it !

Looks like progress is being made. Cops will be a very nice addition to Babylon. If the Mongols and Incans are still at it, perhaps sell education to the Zulus. The Mongols will get it from the GL and can then sell it for peace with the Incans. We need everyone at peace or fighting the Zulus.

Lets build up knights. The Zulus will have a hard time against them when we have a defensive war. They also upgrade to cavs.......

Indeed Zimbawe being so close it is a shame we can t jsut quickly raze it [aargh]
Loads of Zulus are busy pounding the Mongols and are thus close to us. I cant see us not losing a city if we declare now.

I veto the galley in Tiwanaku : it is under cultural pressure from Huamanga and it s badly needed.
We're still working tons of un-improved land with such a small empire its a shame really, will try to solve that...
Wow we only have 4 workers [eek]
Portugal lacks Education but has Chemistry, lets hope we can get Astronomy soon enough to do get Chemistry for it.

370AD : Zulu extorts us Wines [sad] No way I could not give in right now with Unis almost built everywhere, no cash and
literally hundreds of Zulus units around...Since our rep is already trashed we could maybe, pillage our roadss soon :evil:

380AD : Olia completes Uni, its 7 turns for a Knight and 8 turns for a Cath, I go for Cath as we are also under cultural
pressure here.


390AD : WOW ! The Incans complete Sistine :wallbash: and we are 1 turn from Astronomy ! I keep Babylon on Sistine and
change it in the interturn to Cops, due in 9. That was close...
By the way Portugal is at peace with Zulus, we have no embassy with Mongols or Incans which is not convenient, I see Incans at war with Mongols, I buy Embassy with Incans for 47g. Its got Pyramids and Sistine and defended by 6 muskets, 6 luxes and building Uni.
I want to trade Astronomy on the interturn too. I have a plan to try to keep Mongol alive, I trade Chemistry to Mongols for Astronomy. Hopefully they can give it to Zulus for peace , desperate attempt yes I know...[sad]
Zulus have Metallurgy at monopoly :(

400AD: Almarikh completes Uni and goes on Mil production : Trebuchets will be very useful for our defensive war.
My maneuver works too well : Zulus sign Peace with Mongols and move tons of troops inside our territory...guess what ?
We make preparations for war, get our units to the South.

Notice that the Mongols have Metallurgy but cant buy it.
All our attacking untis are in Almarikh and I now ask Zulus to leave or declare. They declare.
We lose 3 AC but take out 7 MedInf and 2 Lonbows.

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

410AD : No attacks from Zulus they retreat back to their lands :)
We lose 2 AC but take out *all* Zulu units in our territory, bless that wonder !
I rush a knight in Ollan.

420AD : no counter, the lack of fast units from Zulu is just bliss, they are now moving away from Almarikh, since none of
their units cant reach us next turn, I give our troops a well deserved rest. We have 3 knights and 6 ACs in Almarikh...
The Zulus have one SoD with 4 longbows and 5 MedInf and another one with 3 Elite longbows and 1 Elite MedInf. They have a lone musket between both SoDs.

430AD : Our lone Bowmen scouting in the south pillages Zulu roads, he survives a Longbow attack ! Gotta love those lil buggers :D
We can now rush a knight a turn between 3 cities and 1 turn out of 2 we can rush 2 knights.
The large SoD moves West again, its going towards Ollan which is less defended, we will have to puppet string them for a while here while we might be able to take the initiative soon to build a devastating raid towards Zimb ? ;)
The Elite SoD is now next to Almarikh for an attack next turn, we lose a knight but take out the whole SoD without further loss.
Situation is stabilizing.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/ZulusRetreat2.jpg

440AD : Lone Bowman dies to a musket :aargh: Try leader fishing with a 6HP Ancient Cav ;), win vs reg Longbow but no luck. Start moving untis towards Ollan where the Zulu forces are gathering.

450AD : There is a problem tile by Ollan, it s a forest and would make a goog base for the Zulus, I move defence on that
square and leave other tiles defended too in order to force Zulus onto a plain tile where we can hit them the best.

Cops is due next turn so is the acqueduct in Kazan (much more needed than a Uni I felt).

The ACs are in Almarikh, our elite has just taken out a musket over there. I would strongly advise my successor to let the Ollan front has it is since it s a puppet string maneuver, I am pretty confident we are OK for next turn.



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1,_450_AD.zip

Well I must say you did a good job smacking down a huge number of Zulus. I do think if they had horses, the game would be over! :eek:

It's unfortunately Zimbabwe was so well defended, war on our terms and time and a razed capital would have been SO much nicer than as their choice, but you're right, that city wasn't about to fall.

Important question - do Zulus have more than one saltpeter? If just one, we could ride right onto their salt next to Zimbabwe and pillage it that same turn. The Horsie would die, but it would mean an end to muskets.

Another key question - what can we hope to get from this war?
- Survival?? Is it THAT bad? Is this our goal? :P
- Keep our cities and let their slow units die painfully in our land as we cut their huge standing army way down to size?
- Gas them as best we can and take out one of their less well-defended cities to force good peace turns?
- Nothing less than the sight of Zimbabwe in ashes?!?!??! (I'm guessing this is laughable. If we couldn't do it via a suprise attack instantly, we'll not be able to do it now)

Final key question - alliances?
If I didn't miss something the war is early enough that the Zulus did not bring anyone into the war against us. That's nice :P I wouldn't expect it to last, unless by some odd happenstance they had near 0 gold. Who if anyone do we want to ally? As our most helpful potential allies have what - 4 cities max - would bringing them into war just spell their doom? (similarly do NOT sign Portugal up :P ) Would it be any help to have friends? Would it be much worse if the Zulus brought them in vs us? Very importantly, will we need to end this before 20 turns, or are our goals loftier and we're drawing a line in the sand, the Zulus must be brought down to size and now, expecting 20-30 turns of war?

Here's my two cents, though I hope to hear everyone chime in:
- If the Zulus will overwhelm us, we absolutely don't want to bring in an ally who would be eliminated. Rather we would want to continue to kill far more than we lost, and buy peace ASAP.
- If the Zulus have only that one saltpeter, pillage it, and take down this huge elephant NOW while they have no salt, no fast units, rather then let them reach Mil Tradition after they conquer an opponents horses. BTW, is their source(s) of iron exposed to pillage? With iron cut, they would be in for a WORLD of hurts!
- If we are in for a long haul, I would be prone to absorb as much of the units over the next few turns as we can, to avoid another civ being wiped off the planet. When the Zulu forces slow down, bring on a dogpile (except for Portugal) and hammer them mercilessly until Zimbabwe is no more.
- Fight an offensive-defensive war! Build mostly knights, let their slow units wander well into our territory, then cut them down. Do not carry the battle to their territory at all until they are gassed. Hole up and heal up.

BTW, careful on the shifting. Legitimate shifting of troops to save a crucial city that is in danger of falling is one thing. Pulling defenders in one irrelevant far away place merely to jerk around the AI is a huge no-no!! I couldn't quite tell how Skyfish was using the term in relation to what he was doing. Since he knows it's an issue I assume he's trying to point out "dont be abusive" rather than recommending it :P

Maniac <-- UP
Ridgelake <-- On deck
Charis <-- On call, wondering what mess we'll be in by then

Good luck Maniac -- you better get some rest for this, you're not gettin' skipped bud!! :hammer:
Charis

IIRC, the Zulus have multiple salts. There is some in the former hittite area at least.

My thoughts are to keep fighting a defensive war to absorb their huge numbers. I think we should keep pushing them hard. My fear is that they will bring in the Incans. We will be in a world of hurt if we get a second front opened up. So I think that we should MA with the Incans. I hvae less worries about the Mongols as we are sending them both horses, iron, and luxes.

Knights will be our future. Keep building those. Mobility will be our key.

Please chop that forrest by Olla.

Skim workers from size 12 cities. In time, we can hope to get workers from razed Zulu towns.

Good luck, Maniac!

I will confirm that they do have multiple saltpeter. However, I don't knopw if they have more than the two and both may be pillagible with a fast unit.

1) Leader fish, get an asrmy asap. Pillage as much of zulu territory as possible.
2) The Incans have a lot of units they paraded through our lands on the way to hit the Babs. Get them in the war with Zululand on our side and let both get gased.
3) Instead of hitting the core Zulu cities, trim them at the edges and let the Babs and Incans settle those lands (and build back up).
Ideally, if we can trim the Zulu down to 10 or less cities and let the Babs/Incans get back up to 6-7 each, it will bode a lot better for us as the Zulu won't be as strong from here on out. Maybe even sneak a galley or two of units to raze some of the older Protugal cities and let Protugal replace them.

If we get an army pillage, pillage, pillage, especailly in the core, don't leave a single tile untouched.

Ok, I got it. It will be a couple days before I can play this one. Without looking at the save, here is my general plan.

1) Buy the Incans in. It seems like no lose, and if a doomsday scenareo arose, we have no rep to worry about trashing anymore and can make peace anyway.

2) Leader fish for a Pike army. Musket would be better but IIRC we only have seven muskets and no way to make more, so maybe one musket and 2 pikes would be good.

3) What meldor said in his #3. I have been contemplating this for ages anyhow.

4) IIRC the Zulu have like 4 saltpeter and also have the world monopoly on it. I'm much more concerned with Cavs showing up eventually than I am about muskets. The Zulu DO have some horses outsie some of their unexpanded conquested lands, so they WILL eventually get these. I'm actually praying we get Nationalisim for our freebie tech for a change. Usually I prefer to draw steam but not this time.

Edit: Despite saying it has data, I get an empty zip folder. Can you post the save again sky?

Todd, the file is there you just need to open it with something besides windows default internal. WinZip will get you there.

Only thing I would suggest, Todd, is a knight army instead of a pike army.

Fight an offensive-defensive war! Build mostly knights, let their slow units wander well into our territory, then cut them down. Do not carry the battle to their territory at all until they are gassed. Hole up and heal up.

I believe this is the better option !

Meldor' idea of trimming at the edges is a great one too.

Next turn a lux deal comes up with Incans IIRC Todd so you can use that opportunity to get an Alliance, we have to take the risk that the Zulus will shift their forces to the Incans and should be ready to do everything to save them, wonder city Cazco will be a magnet for the Zs.

And about puppet stringing Charis , yes you are right I was a bit quick with my report I wrongly used the term : what I mean is that the Zulus are targeting the weaker city out of Ollan and Almarikh, the 2 cities are quite far apart and with their slow units the Zulus take 3 or 4 turns to go from one to another.
Having said that the string has only gone once into action and only 1 direction, let me explain : the Zulus concentrated their forces in the South because our units were equally shared betweeen Ollan and Almarikh (peace time). When they declared, I took most of our forces to Almarikh (fast units) since they have slow units only and are in enemy territory, it s easy to leave some of our cities almost empty (only slow units) and still be in control, I also asked Incans to leave every turn to prevent back stabbing.
When the Zulus saw our forces in Almarikh, they partially retreated to go towards Ollan, thats where they are now, and so are our forces too. So I have only attracted them one way.
The exploit is literally letting an SoD move from right to left, left to right numerous times, having them " hang in there in a loop" : thats not at all whats been happening here, I just wanted to make that clear my use of "puppet string" was over-enthusiastic ;)

Well, if we had a choice, I would rather them go after Almar. It is a much better killing zone than the hills and forrest outside of Olla.

Indeed ! My actions were not to purposely make them move to Ollan, it was just their reaction to my moving our troops to Almar that created this shift. Hopefully we can get them to move back to Almar now and then finish them off ( I already halved their force in the battle of Almar last time).
As Charis says we should not "rinse & repeat" this ad aeternam of course ;)

Todd, how is the game coming along? It has been about 4 days since we heard from you. You are making me nervous that something is wrong....

I have a problem. I have no net access till monday from home since Verizon screwed up my DSL somehow. I had to get permission from work just to access this site to post this :(. The game is going abosolutely wonderfully however. Can you say we are on the offensive :). I HOPE I can borrow a friends access to get the save file up sunday.

It has been eight days since a turn was taken on this one...are we going to consider it dead, hold our collective breath until The Maniac returns, or carry on in his stead and hope he returns soon?

Well, I cant get to it until Friday at the earliest. So waiting a couple of more days for Maniac would not upset me too much. But I agree, Meldor, this thing is REALLY dragging out.

The holiday season is always difficult for SGs , I really dont mind the gaem draggin on as it is still quite interesting and full of suspense :D
Lets see how its goin start of January OK ?

Well, Todd hasn't posted since the 19th, 7 days ago. I know that this is his SG, but it is a little rough to have a turn take over a week with no word.

I certainly hope everything is OK with him.

Yes, I hope all is ok as well. He did mention DSL problems, so hopefully its nothing more serious than that.

Well, If he does not post by tomorrow, I will play the turn. Unfortunately, Charis is on vacation for a few more days. So it will sit again unless we really move around the order.

I decided to wait for Charis to return. I will play one way or another once he is back. I do hope that Maniac returns to us soon.

Woo, that was a good vacation!

:jump:

The grandparents and grandkids had a wonderful time with each other, and they did FAR better in the car travelling than I did as a young lad!

I see this one hasn't gone anywhere :P I would have said to skip for sure except for one thing - it's clear from Todd's post that he has played most (all?) of the turn and the difficulty is in posting it. I'll continue to wait til he can post something go/no-go soon since there's plenty of stuff to catch up on. But upon his return this puppy needs to be reigned in, big time.

Happy New Year all :hammer:
Charis

Maniac 1 – OBC

450AD (0) Picking up a turn after the game has sat for a couple of weeks is not easy. But reading through the notes, it appears that we want to bring in the Incans against the Zulus. Fight a defensive war to absorb their masses. Trim the edges to allow the Incans and Mongols some more lands.

Sign up Incans for silks and 11gpt.

MM some cities. Swap Ta-Tu to a worker for skimming.

Set science @ 30% on printing press. Due in 12 turns.

The Zulus and Incans are up banking and metal on us. The Mongols are up banking. We are up education on Portugal.

The Zulus have horses in the New York radius. Unroaded according to our last map. Well, let the killing begin.

5/5 AC kills MDI
5/5 AC kills MDI
5/5 AC kills MDI
5/5 AC kills MDI
5/5 AC kills LB
5/5 Bowman kills LB
5/5 LB kills LB
5/5 AC kills last LB and retreats back to safety.

IT Incans want to renew our Ivory for 5gpt. I talk him up to 6 gpt.

We lose a musket in forest covered by a bucket to a MDI.

460AD (1) Babylon completes Copernicus and swaps to worker for skimming.
Ta-Tu worker to knight.
Kazan duct to university
Almar knight to knight

Attacks:
4/4 Knight dies to musket.
5/5 AC dies to MDI
5/5 AC kills MDI
4/4 knight kills MDI
4/4 knight kills MDI
4/4 knight kills MDI and promotes
4/4 knight kills MDI
4/4 knight kills ¼ musket
5/6 AC kills LB
4/4 knight kills LB
3/5 AC retreats to LB
3/5 AC kills LB


470AD (2) Babylon worker to knight.

Attacks:
Bucket hits musket
4/4 knight kills musket and promotes
4/5 knight retreats to LB doing no damage????
4/6 AC kills LB
4/4 knight kills LB
4/4 knight kills LB

Incans give us 7gpt for spices.

480AD (3) 5/5 AC retreats to MDI
5/5 LB kills MDI
4/4 knight kills musket
4/4 knight retreats to MDI doing 1 damage
5/5 AC dies to same steroid-enhanced MDI
5/5 AC finally kills it.

I think that is it for the major Zulu offensive.

IT 8 more Zulu units come to say hello.

490AD (4) Trebucket hits musket
5/5 knight kills 2/3 musket
5/5 knight kills MDI
6/6 AC kills LB
¾ knight retreats to musket, doing 2 hp
5/5 LB kills 5/5 MDI
¾ knight kills 2/4 musket
5/5 AC kills MDI
5/5 AC redlines to a MDI, but kills it and promotes.
6/6 AC kills LB.

IT Ollan’s borders expand versus Isand, giving us a full 21 tiles. Cheap culture buildings sure are nice.
No Zulus in our territory, but 8 more move around on the edges.

500AD (5) Healing turn. Buy a Mongol worker for 135 gold. Sell wines to the Mongols for 3 gpt. Increase science to 50% to get PP in 3. Still make 44gpt.

510AD (6) trebucket hits 5/5 musket.
4/4 knight retreats doing 2 damage
4/4 knight kills 2/5 musket
5/5 knight kills MDI
5/5 knight kills MDI and WE GET OUR FIRST LEADER, AGUM!!!! Can you say knight army???
5/5 AC kills LB

IT an exposed 5/5AC kills an attacking MDI, then dies to another.

520AD (7) Babylon university to knight. Ta Tu knight to knight. Adjust slider for PP in 1.

4/4 Knight kills LB
4/5 AC kills LB and promotes
¾ knight kills LB
13HP army kills musket
5/5 AC kills MDI

IT Renew our horses and Iron to the Mongols for Gems.

530AD (8) Almar knight to courthouse. Babylon switches to the Epic, due in 9.

PP 55 gold to the Incans for banking. PP, banking, and 30 gold to the Mongols for metal.

The Zulus have both Physics and Mil Trad

Research @ 50% on Democracy, due in 9.

IT Sell furs to the Incans for 9gpt. INCANS AND ZULU SIGN PEACE

540AD (9) Olla bucket to knight. Ta-Tu pike to worker (skim).

Sign the Incans back up against the Zulus. Form an embassy with the Mongols. It costs us a lux and 19 gpt to sign them in against the Zulus. I pass for now.

IT Mongols and Incans finally sign peace!

550AD (10) A stack of 20 units, including a knight army descends upon Harran! Good luck, Charis! Use this force wisely. :hammer:


Charging Charis Time! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-550AD.SAV)

That's some MAJOR tush whipping Ridgelake!! :whipped:

I'm left with a huge stack and a Knight army?! :jump:

'Got it' (prolly not tonight if Mrs C has her say) :hammer:
Charis

One thing that I was probably :smoke: about was my last tech choice. We should go all out to Nationalism. The Zulus have only to hook up horses to have cavs. And then we will be in trouble. I would push hard to raze a couple of Zulu towns to open up our own source of salt via colony. That should be manageable in Charis' turn, assuming no cavs.

Lets pray the Zulu's continue their :smoke: and don't hook up their horses.

General Charis 'the Charger' Murabi was called forth to lead the nation
in battle against a fierce and aggressive foe, the Zulus. At first glance the
general mutters "their saltpeter is still connected? Zimbabwe still stands?
They could access horses?" He takes a closer look at our situation, after the
nice campaign by Ridgelake. We've seen just a small dent in the 'power' of the
Zulu, but at least have stopped the bleeding the other civs were seeing.
Our culture is tops. Sadly, we're second in land area despite being 6CC.
Sadly for other neighbors we're strong to all except weak to Zulu, and we're
spending out the wazoo for our high unit count. We're just seven turns from
Democracy and we could use that! Actually we're just 4 turns away with higher sci.

I see our main army is at Harran and will likely sack it next turn. They have saltpeter
out the wazoo, and just one horse - unhooked outside New York.

[0] 550 - A little shield reconfiguring to get an item or two done a turn early.
Hmm, there's movement left. Attacks left actually, at Harran. We continue the
attack. We lose an elite knight (ouch, was leader fishing) but a followup fish
pays off with the great leader Sumabaum. Too bad we can't support a second army :P
Nor can we use it for a FP. Letting the old army die and replacing with Cav would
be one idea, otherwise a Small Wonder rush like CIA or Mil Academy. At 400 shields
and one tech away, that's not a bad choice at all. One more knight and
Harran is razed. IBT We renew RoP with Portugal to keep them polite.
A Zulu MDI dies vs our AC.

[1] 560 - Kazan starts bank. In the open outside Ugarit we hit 2 LB, 3 MDI.
The Army hits Ugarit and is shocked to see it had but 2 defenders. Down it goes,
into ashes, netting seven slave workers and two trebs!? Hmmm, that's an opportunity
for a temporary saltpeter colony. We hit two more open MDI.

IBT One Knight sent as a decoy to protect weaker exposed troops had gone to a
mountain. Two MDI's died before killing it, and no other attacks mid-turn.

[2] 570 - Our slow moving forces head to Hattusha for some trimming, our army
heads to a rax to heal, and our fast forces gather on a hill outside Isha.

IBT Our worst fear. Zulu cav appears. They've hooked up the horses. That's gotta
stop 8-\

[3] 580 - LB beats lil Musket, and a classic UU battle, Bowman vs Impi goes down to
both red, then we win and the city is razed. A knight kills the lone cav.
IBT LB beats our knight. Democracy comes in and I revolt immediately, for 1.5 turns.

[4] 590 - We lose a Knight but Isadhwala falls.
IBT Vilcas is founded by Incans in one of the gaps.

[5] 600 - We're now a Democracy. For the worker benefit and the reduced unit cost and
better research power, it's our must-do govt. The downside of course is increased
war-weariness, which we don't welcome at this point. The General is looking now to
hit harder faster which means... Zimbabwe! (Via Hlobane) We're researching Physics
now, btw. That will help us move toward Rifle, and if for some reason we really pound
Zulus it will open up two more techs to sue. However I would go after Mil Tradition
next or buy/trade it, since our saltpeter supply may be limited.

IBT Ow that cav reaches far into our territory to kill an elite AC.

[6] 610 - We cut down that cav and two MDI and get some units in range of Hlobane.
IBT Cav out of fog kills a backrow healing bowman.

[7] 620 - Crud. The ingrateful Incans have sent a settler right next to our saltpeter
colony and it should disappear next turn. 8-\ Can we trade for MT? The Mongols have
it and lack Democracy! Same for the Incas, except the Mongols have Physics too.
They'll give us all three for Democracy, so we do it. All cities but Babylon swap
to cav. The upgrade of Knight to cav is only 30g, so all available knights head
to a rax. IBT The settler steps forward, so we'll have one more round of salt.

[8] 630 - Army attacks Hlobane killing two, but is lookin' kinda hurt. Cavs up.
IBT - Nada??? No counter attacks?! Nice. The Inca settler moves *BACK* and didn't
settle yet again. We lose an AC but raze Hlobane, which was settled smack on TOP of
saltpeter. We can afford a Zulu slave to colonize it for now.

I was going to have Sumabaum rush the Mil Academy now, but it's close enough to
next turn to let leader decide. In the meantime our capital can work profitably
on a cavalry (if the plan is to push our army to its death then fill a new one with
cavs. The downside there is that 3 cavs individually are quite nice too.)

IBT - Oh well, the Incans settle next to the salt, and our colony is gone.
A Zulu cav comes out of Zimbabwe and kills an AC.

[9] 640 - movin'
[10] 650 - healin' and movin' and even better, pillagin'
We renew the Ivory sale to Inca, who can now pay 9 gpt.

Notes/thoughts: The longbow in neutral territory is blocking a mongol settler pair.
The cavs around Zimbabwe have pillaged its iron and several tiles. They were
thinking about striking all together when the army has healed and moved to join
them. The new saltpeter colony will be connected in 2 turns. You should almost
certainly move some units surrouning it and the road back home otherwise that
mongol settler pair will found on it and destroy our colony!

IMHO, the key objectives over the next turns are: i) raze Zimbabwe, ii) try to
safeguard the colony if possible, iii) march the army and cav all the way
down to New York and pillage the horses and/or raze the city. That would end
the cav supply semi-permanently. Making peace with the Zulu still in possession
of horses could almost be a death sentence to our allies.
Remember, leader sitting for Mil Academy or if army dies for a new cavalry army.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-650AD.jpg

Zimbabwe may not be easy. There are no doubt a min of five muskets, perhaps 7-8
although they seem too gassy for that much. It does hold Leo's and Great Wall,
so it's a very worthy prize to raze. With the army and cavs working together though,
I bet we can take it.

Maniac
Ridgelake
Charis
Matt_G <-- UP
Meldor <-- On deck
Skyfish

Save file 650AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-650AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Fantastic turn, Charging Charis! :hammer:

Keep up the good work, team!

Originally posted by Matt_G
Hey guys, sorry about this but I have to drop from this game.
Apologies to all concerned.
Matt

Looks like Meldor is up now. Until we hear from the missing parties, the play order is:

(Maniac)
Ridgelake
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor <-- Up Now
Skyfish <-- On Deck


As for the leader, I would use it to rush the Military Academy in Babylon. That will allow army prebuilds for wonders. And I would love for both Newton's and Shakespears to go in Babylon. :)

Skyfish, feel free to take this. I have no idea where Meldor is. :(

Ok hopefully I can take it today ..but not quite sure yet....

OK I got it guys !

IF we have to declare war on a civ a second time for core expansion, we can NOT get alliances and MUST make peace as soon as they'll talk to us after we have reached our objective.

OK I believe this Zulu war is the 2nd one we wage right ?
What do we decide about this rule point :
1- We follow it blindly and must make peace with Zulu ASAP.
2- We just raze Zimbabwe and take peace.
3- We do not bind ourselves by the rulesbook anymore since we are far from "running away" with the game here and if dont hurt the Zulus big time now it could be 'game over'.

What shall we do ?

The rule you quoted is regarding if your first war doesn't get you enough cities and you have to go to war again for city capture. We're beyond this and must look at the 'so when CAN you declare war after you have your core' section of the rules.

1) VS a civ that has a city boardering our capital, or is at least closest to our capital and touching boarders with our "core" we may declare war at any time IF it is being done as part of the core expansion. The first time we declare on a particular civ in this way, we may accept alliances from other civs IF we do it on the turn we declare. ROP's may be made IF they are made as a part of the alliance deal (so that the instant the alliance dies they die too). For this first war we may do whatever we want to that civ for 20 turns, afterwhich we must make peace. We should be prepared to take whatever cities we need from a civ in one war if at all possible (its allways been easily possible in my testing). Reason for this change is to allow for a little "pointy stick" research. In a couple of my tests we fell HOPELESSLY behind w/o this.

Note that, on your turn back in 400 AD, the ZULUS declared war on US

Basically I see no restriction in the rules about how much pain we can inflict on a massive bully who thinks he can own the game. Regarding the spirit of the rules, Maniac doesn't want a "slaughter everyone then milk-a-space-win" approach. We're not near this regime either. We're trying to set up a situation where min 2, better 3, civs are at some kind of parity and no one is a thread to beat us by domination.

In other words...
- Raze Zimbabwe and break their back :rocket:
- Lay down the hammer!! :hammer:

Good luck!
Charis

Like this Boss ?

:D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-zulu.jpg

:rocket:

:hammer:

That's just... brutal! :p

It's quite ironic that with such a 'catch' we must raze it
due to our city rules, hehe.

Keep up the good work!
Charis

Just a quick note:

Sorry, I forgot to drop a line in this SG thread. I am in the middle of a move from Texas to Oregon. Due to the wild weather they have been having here the household goods won't get here before Friday, and no telling when I will get I-net access from home. I will keep everyone posted though. I am very much looking forward to getting back to playing in tis and the other SGs.

Great work, Skyfish! :hammer:

Meldor, great to hear from you as well. Hope the remainder of the move goes well for you. We will keep your spot warm and you can jump right back in when ready.

Ridge

I am almost halfway through my turns and in the best Maniac Discussion Tradition, I would like to ask a question to the team.
We have razed Zimbabwe and still have a decent amount of units (7cavs+2 next turn), there is a 2nd salpeter in the open now.
Our Knight army is still alive, everybody is healing before going towards the Zulus horses. The Zulu counters are not deadly, just 1 or 2 cavs here and there.
What shall we do with our Leader ?

Is this a military leader? Remember they can't rush wonders!

Indeed LK thanks for the reminder :)

Early turns : moving units into postion towards Zimbabwe without leaving our flank open.
We get Mag and go for ToG, its available in 7 turns at +15gpt.

army v musk : win
army v 2nd musk win
cav v musk : win
cav v reg musk: win
cav v reg musk: retreat
cav v reg musk: dies
army v reg musk : win (army down to 2 hp)
ac elite v 2hp musk : retreats, no damage done
3hp cav v same musk : win
ac elite v longbow : win

Zimbabwe is razed, we get 7 workers and a treb.

Second Salpeter comes free. I am blockading the mongols to salvage at least one colony.
Luxes need to go from 10 to 30% to avoid WW event though we have not lost that much previous round !

700 :
Start building banks when Cavs are finished.
Deal Magnetism to the Incas for Silks, 16gpt and all their gold.
We can now have only 20&% lux and finsih ToG in 5 turns at +32gpt.
Our Longbow kills a Zulu cav !

710 : Zulus land 1 MDI in our backlands but we have a Cav for zone defense available.

720 : Ouch we lose 2 cavs : one to an MDI...still healing before heading for the NY Horses
we renew our deal with Incas : furs for 10gpt.
Mongols finally settle on a site which does not take out one of our colony, for now.

730 : Lose a Musket defending our colony from 2 cavs but we still hold it.

740 : Zulus just got ToG and are Industrial. I do not renew our alliance vs Zulus with the Incas,
perfect timing.

750 : We get ToG and are Industrial, Nationalism is our free tech.
We attack New York with 2 Elites ACs, 4 cavs and the Knight Army : we barely raze it,
losing most of our forces including the Knight Army, I immediately make a Cav army to replace it.
I then go ahead and make peace with the Zulus : I thought long and hard about getting RoP from them
and sit on the Horses to prevent them from building cavs again but its an exploit and the chance the
Zulus could RoP rape us soon is strong so I decide vs it, even though it would have given us more control
over the game. There is a Portuguese settler pair right by, am hoping they will settle it next turn :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-sit.jpg

The Zulus give us a worker, all their gold (128g) and all their gpt (56) to end the war. This should
get them quiet for a while I hope.

As we end the war, every single citizen in Babylon is happy and we the whole empire goes into we love Charis Day !
We could go to 0% lux and shave 1 turn off our research but its better to use the good production boost we get to build our banks quicker.
We can research Steam in 8 turns at +10gpt.

There is a lux available from Zulus but we dont really need it (we have 7) and dont want to make them too powerful...
Portugal RoP is up next turn, we should maybe help them and give them techs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-Maniac1,_750_AD.zip

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-happy.jpg

Good turn. I got it.

Couple of thoughts after looking at the save.

I'm not sure why we need banks. We are running 90-100% research. We do have a couple of towns that need cathedrals and courthouses. We also can build Newton's and Smiths. I will swap over a lot of the bank builds.

You certainly left the Zulu spread out. Driving right through their core broke them up. But outside of the Incans, none of the other civs can settle in areas that would not be rather corrupt. It would have been nice if we could have opened up good areas for the Mongols and Portugese to settle before we ended our war with the Zulus. But what is done is done.

I hope that we can keep the salt colonies for awhile. The NE one will be gone with a border expansion by the Mongols. But that might take awhile since that new town will be highly corrupt. We better pray that no one settles the SW one. I will try to block it off.

You did a great job persecuting the war, Skyfish. :hammer: I don't mean to sound overly critical. I just wish that you had not ended the war on your last turn. That decision should have been left up to the team. Charis just made a lengthy discussion about SG hand-offs in his open game thread. It is something for all of us to consider.

Identical comments... a very well played turn, let's block off the western colony, and... if there's ANY doubt as to whether the next leader would like peace or war, puhleeeeeze, let THAT person make the call! I know we like to leave things tidy and in order at the end of our reign, but there was no compelling reason to stop, especially in a game with restrictions that limit our ability to wage war.

Way to go on Zimbabwe and especially NY! :hammer:
Charis

Well it seems that lately I mess up every single SG I am in ! :(
I am inclined to drop of every one I play in, that would be the best thing to do for both myself and the team.
I am just letting everyone down.

I have purposely not reacted to any of the criticisms directed at me up until now...but just on this one I would like to explain myself :
Banks are absolutely needed in order to fund research in the IA with only 5 cities, nobody can deny that.
I think a Civ that has 100% happy faces at 10% lux does not need Cathedrals before Hospitals Ridgelake, I totally disagree with you here.
Only Almarikh needs a courthouse (the other cities have only 2 corrupt shields out of 20 !) and that would gain only one or 2 uncorrupt shields.

As for the peace deal, well there are 2 reasons :
- first off in order to raze NYC I have had to stretch our forces to the max and we lost units to the Zulu counters they are not gassed yet, by continuing war we would lose a good deal of our forces (all majorly wounded) in the next few turns.
- also I thought the objectives were clear , at least I totally agreed with them :
IMHO, the key objectives over the next turns are: i) raze Zimbabwe, ii) try to safeguard the colony if possible, iii) march the army and cav all the way down to New York and pillage the horses and/or raze the city. That would end the cav supply semi-permanently. Making peace with the Zulu still in possession of horses could almost be a death sentence to our allies.

- My feeeling was that it was in the "spirit of this SG" to wage limited wars in order to avoid a runaway military win from a very agressive AI. Of course we could have gone on and on with crippling the Zulus, but wheres' the challenge in that ?
- Also I feel there is now empty space where the AIs can settle and develop. There is for example a Portuguese settler pair ready to poach an ex-zulu site, possibly their Horses !
- Finally I am surprised by Charis' comment on leaving decisions for the new Leader : I can find *multiple* examples in previous SGs where important decisions are made on one's final turn, its not always the case but it happens and I had never heard that it was "not done", my apologies !

In short, I disagree on every single point you guys make and the future looks pretty bleak for me in this team :sad:

Skyfish,

Please, do not drop out. You are a valuable teammate and I enjoy playing with you. You, me, and Charis have been in numerous games together. No need to stop that over a simple disagreement.

I really do feel sorry if you took offense at my comments. I appologize to you for causing offense. I can tell you that I was not trying to put you down, but to help explain an alternative line of thinking.

To that end, lets debate the merits of cathedrals and courts versus banks in our current situation. Maybe we can all learn something from it. Here is my viewpoint:

We are running 90%-100% science. The other 10% is for luxes to kick off WLKD. We are running 0% income tax (revenue generation). This is fact. We will likely be running 80%-100% science for the rest of the game. So we will almost certainly not be running more than 20% income tax (if that much even) for a very long time.

Banks only increase income tax revenues (by 50%). They don't increase science or luxes. Since we are not running any income tax currently, the banks will only cost 1gpt each in maintenance. Now if we can get Smiths, then building banks would make sense for the times when we do start running income taxes.

In contrast, a courthouse in Tiwa will likely redeem 1 shield and 2 commerse. Not major improvements, but they are positive additions, not negative ones. Further, once we do get rails and hospitals, we will see even more benefit from the courthouse.

The cathedrals will allow us to reduce happiness and also generate culture. I agree that it is debatable whether we need them before hospitals. But with most culture buildings, it is better to build them early rather than late. I also suspect that they would have helped with WW. Heavan only knows when we will get attacked again.

Now lets talk about the peace deal. Under a normal game environment, the peace deal would have been a good call for all of the reasons outlined in your post. We were beat up and were losing units to counters.

My difficulty with the peace deal is that it may have been our only opportunity to apportion the lands as we saw fit. After regrouping for a few turns, we could have likely taken out the Zulu towns near the mongols so that we gave the mongols a boost. We could have opened up a couple more sites for the portugese to fill. I'm not talking about sites 15+ tiles away from their capitols that will be largely corrupt. But sites 5-10 tiles away that will be productive for them. These moves would have left the Zulus with areas in former America and Hittite. Doing these moves would have left all of the nations roughly equal. But now, the Zulus are still the top competitor, the Incans next with the Mongols and Portugese significant followers.

Just thinking about it, I don't think that it really matters. This game is basically won. No other civ can really hurt us if we keep our borders well defended. We will be the tech leader for the rest of the game. The only question is whether we will have resources.

Regardless. I appologize to you for making you upset. I need to remember that this is a game that we play for fun. An escape from all of the real troubles that we have to deal with. Can we shake on this and go forward with no hard feelings? Let's raise our glasses for what will be a successful game and what already is a good friendship. :beer:

OBC-Maniac1-750AD (0)

Ridgelake takes over as President of the fine Babylonian democracy just as we have completed a wonderful campaign against the evil marauding Zulus. Let by such fine generals as Skyfish and Charis, the mighty Babylonian armies pushed back the evil ones and razed their capitol to the ground!

We are, naturally, the most advanced and cultured nation in the world. The un-bathed masses of foreigners must all respect the superiority of Babylonian knowledge and culture!

Looking over our cities, we are building many banks. As we are not running any income tax, we don’t really need those right now. Babylon is building the Military Academy. It is swapped to Newton’s to couple with the Colossus and Cop’s, due in 12. I swap Ta-Tu over to Smiths, though Karakorum is already building it. Due in 28 for us. Almar and Tiwa swap to courthouse. Kazan to cathedral and Olla to rifle.

4 muskets are upgraded to rifles.

IT Portugal does not want to renew our ROP. I kick in our excess iron and they do agree to renew. Incans take Vitcos.

760AD (1) Tiwa court to rifle. Olla rifle to rifle. I donate salt and ivory to the Portugese. Then I sell them metallurgy for all their gold (42). Donate banking and astronomy to them.

770AD (2) Almar court to cathedral. Damn, the Incans start Shakespeare. The idiot portugese have bypassed the horse and want to settle in the open area by the salt.

The Mongols become industrial and have Free Art. Same with the Incans.

IT Portugal offers an MPP. Uh. We can’t do that, can we? I decline. Instead, I give them democracy.

Mongols start Newton’s. .Zulu recaptures Vitcos.

780AD (3) Kazan cathedral to courthouse.

IT the Incans demand dyes. I would normally tell them to shove it. But I will give in because I don’t want to take away their power.

790AD (4)

800AD (5) Mongols are trying to get another settler to the open area.

Tiwa and Olla both make rifles, start more.

810AD (6) Our monopoly on Nationalism still holds.

820AD (7) Steam is due next turn. Adjust slider. Workers are ready around Babylon.

IT The portugese settle to claim silks and can get horses upon expansion.

830AD (8) Steam comes in, we have 1 coal, on the hill between Babylon and Tiwa.

Incans have 1 source. Zulus have 4, including 1 under Philadelphia. I don’t think the Mongols have any.

Industrialization due in 7 @ 100% science.

Tiwa’s borders expand versus Huamanga, giving us a full 21 tiles.

840AD (9) Railing….

850AD (10) Newton’s completes next turn in Babylon. Factory prebuilds have been started in Almar and Kazan. Babylon and Olla could probably skim workers before starting on a pre-build. Much to my chagrin, I don’t think that Babylon will be able to get Shakespeare. .That would have been wonderful to get with this scenario. We could probably research Music after factories and put Bach’s in there. Pre-railroad help, Ta-Tu is 17 turns to Smiths. Karakorum has a head-start on it, but won’t get rails. We are up Nationalism and Steam on the world.


Have fun, Charis!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-850ADmap.JPG

Bountiful Babylonians (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-850AD.SAV)

Missed the post when it first came up, just saw it now. Will finish RBC6 game tonight then start this one. "Got it"

(Wow! Our tiny nation is up Nationalism AND Steam on the whole world?! :p )

Charis

General Charis was simply delighted with the recent progress of his
Babylonian comrades, as they dealt a righteous blow in the belly of
the Zulu giant, razing Zimbabwe itself!!! Not only that, we cut deep
into their heartland and liberated New York (and their horses!)
Now we're actually on prebuilds for factories and trying for wonders,
so life seems good in the Babylonian nation. Lovely rails were springing
up across the nation!

It seemed good to try to carry out the following in this reign:
- Protect our saltpeter colony
- Take a building breather while keeping vigilant defense
- Move us forward in the wonder department

Regarding Shakespeare... Ridgelake is right, it doesn't look bright.
With our Smith work in Ta-Tu we have 271 shields toward 600. Shakespeare is
450 shields, and that city is 20spt (Babylon is 26). Newton truly complements
Babylon, so letting it finish there next turn makes total sense. However,
if we got Free Artistry in the next 8 turns, it would finish in Ta-Tu on the 9th.
Given research on Industrialization is done in 5 or 6, and Free Artistry would
take 4 (or just buy it) - we just might have a shot. Hopefull Smith and ST will
finish before others get Industrialization, as that will break the cascade.

[0] 850 - I push sci to get Industrialization in 5. Swap two cities on rifles
to factory prebuilds. Tis tempting to sell our salt to the Incans, but the
chance of losing it too high.
IBT we renew Incan ivory. Newton completes.

[1] 860 - Railin'
IBT Karakorum completes Smith's. Hrm...

[2] 870 - Ta-Tu swaps ok to Mil Academy for now, I just hope ST isn't wiped
out by a cascade. IBT Renew spice deal with Incans too, since they're at
war with Zulu still.
[3] 880 - Railin' . IBT tis quaint for our cav to look over and see MDI and longbow
slugfests.
[4] 890 - Military railnet is complete, now back to key production squares!
Industrialization due next turn.
IBT - Incans sign Portual up in alliance vs Zulus. (Ruh roh) Then the
Portuguese bring in the Mongols vs Zulu. The dogpile continues! :P
While all these clowns fight, we're going to have factories and coal plants
done while they knock themselves senseless.
[5] 900 - Lost our silk supply with Incans, let's renegotiate it. At 17gpt it's
much less than a lux slider notch. Now... tech choice. We can self-research
Free Artistry at a leisurely rate and still make it in 4 turns (with +141 gpt to
boot), at a cost of 560g. Alas, with our tarnished rep, no other real choice,
as for credit we could only buy it for several thousand gold (which we don't have)
Four turns it is. Cities all swap to factories except Ta-Tu, due 4 to 9 turns from now.
IBT - We renew sale of cheap wines to Mongols. Tiwanaku borders expand, alas so
does borders of Dalanzadgad which now engulf our eastern saltpeter colony.

INTERESTING NEWS! Saltpeter colony on our west dries up, BUT it moves
into our territory - though perhaps not ours for good. It's now in the mountain
to the direct North of Ta-Tu. Actually, I don't think a Tabriz expansion could
take it, so it looks to stay ours. (Good thing we didn't sell the colony salt :P )
Tis unconnected, so I send a few workers to hook it up.

[6] 910 - The General Charis had read the memoirs of a infamous economist by the
name 'Ca-Ching'. Although we could not exceed 4 turns to research Free Artistry,
but could get 4 turns with 40% slider, he nevertheless kicked it up to 90%.
(Anytime one spent over double what one 'seemed' to, it was known as a Ca-Ching
maneuver!) Indeed, it paid off!! Though this did not break the 4 turn cap, it
gave us almost all the beakers needed to buy the tech, and so now the AI will
part for it for about 260g rather than over a thousand. Not a bad savings for one
turn of Ca-Ching research. We buy it from Incans for 264g.

With that brief diversion we can now get back to 'real' research, Corporation
due in 6. How is Ta-Tu looking for Shakespeare's now? 3 turns! Two with some
roading next turn! :goodjob:

[7] 920 - Gift FA to Portugal. Actually... Physics too. Railroading at Ta-tu so that...
... IBT Shakespeare's completes in Ta-Tu :P

We see a stack of Portugal crusaders come up to Lagos, the other saltpeter city
of the Zulu, and they kill one musket and move more up. We have to renew our
Horses for Gems deal with Mongols, and have to add RoP to get it.
Mid-world, there's a big struggle near Vilcos for the Zulu salt city, but
the Incans keep dribbling up one or two knights at a time, never sufficient force.

[8] 930 - With Shakespeare in hand, the happy city of Tatu starts Factory, due in 9.
IBT We renew sale of Furs to Incans for 10gpt.
The Portuguese capture the southern Salt city of Lagos :hammer:

[9] 940 - Babylon finishes factory. Since we're a shoe-in for Hoovers, we
don't necessarily need coal plants everywhere, but Babylon can use one so it
can spit out Suffrage. Tiwanaku will start one too, vetoable.
IBT First pollution hits two cities working on coal plants, ironic. We
definitely need more workers, but nothing seemed higher priority than factories first.

[10] 950AD - I was about to say we're STILL up Nationalism and Steam Power, but the
Mongols and Incans have shown up with Nationalism. Woo! Definitely do NOT sell this
very pricey and useful tech to the Zulu!! Note that Portugal's power now rivals the
Mongols! It would be interesting but not without risk to gift Portugal all the way
up to our era AND Nationalism. But that's more a call for the team or our next
leader. Corporation is due in 2 for us. Probably want Electricity next.
Our one cav on mtn down south is just an observer. I woke him up this turn
just so you know he's there, but feel free to re-fortify or to bring home.

Note, the Zulu peace treaty is coming due. I would renew for free for sure, as
we have no quarter to be getting into a fight right now. Likewise, Portual RoP+Iron
deal is something you probably want to renew for their sake.

Overall, a solid building turn (nice for a change after my recent set of
carnage after carnage games), and a suprise wonder for us.

(Maniac)
Ridgelake
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor <-- UP
Skyfish <-- On deck

Save file 950AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-950AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Good turn, Charis. Glad that one of our towns got Shakes. But it is a bit anti-clamictic being in Ta-Tu.

I would like to see us put Bach's in Babylon. Music hasn't been researched. It is probably 4 turns for us. A nice diversion to add more culture and happiness to our superior cities!

Suffrage should also come aboard. :) Really, we should get the rest of the wonders :hammer: ;)

Skyfish, why don't you play the next turn. I read in another thread that Meldor is out for another week.

I am back and ready to be put back into the turn order...let me know when to go...

Take it now Mel ;)

A reminder to all

(Maniac)
Ridgelake
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor <-- UP and Overdue for an "I got it"
Skyfish <-- On deck

BTW, I will be away from the computer from Sunday through Wednesday.

Ok, I see it and will try and get it out of the way tonight or tomorrow at the latest...

950 AD (0)
I look around, not much has changed since I last held the reigns except the fortunes of the Zulu and Mongols. There doesn't seem to be much for me to do. I would like to get us some more workers, all of our cities could stand a worker skim. I don't see why we don't put coal plants in all our cities as it will boast them until we get Hoover's. I will contemplate it.
(I) The Portuguese want to renew the RoP if we give them Iron, set let it be. The Zulu's come to beg us not to join the Dogpile for an additional 20 turn, done as well. So it seems that if nothing funny happens I should be really bored.

960 AD (1)
I get to mine a hill and fortify the Cav to the south.
(I) The Portuguese take Boston! Kazan Factory->Bank.

970 AD (2)
Turn Science down to 10%.
(I) We get Corporation and start Electricity. Babylon Coal Plant->Worker, Almarikh Factory->Worker. Forgot to skim a worker in Kazan.

980 AD (3)
I get to rail one more square!
(I) Babylon Worker->Bank, Tiwanaku Coal Plant->worker, Almarikh worker->Coal Plant.

990 AD (4)
I turn Science up to get Electricity in 12 after keeping it at minimum for one turn to get the money to run a negative balance. This shave one turn of research off of getting it.
(I) Tiwanaku Coal Worker->Bank, Ollantaytambo Coal Plant->worker.

1000 AD (5)
More worker madness.
(I) The mongols come looking for a trade embargo, instead I sell them dyes for 5gpt. Ollantaytambo Worker->Bank

1010 AD (6)
Did I mention that I dislike non-industrious workers, and non-industrious slaves are even worse.
(I) I don;t think we have to worry about the Porteguese anymore, they have taken two more Zulu cities and now the Zulus are on the verge of hitting the slippery slope that they once had everyone else on. Babylon Bank->Stock Exchange, Ta-Tu Factory->Worker.

1020 AD (7)
I like playing with stacks of workers.
(I) The Zulu lose two more towns, one to the Mongols and one to the Porteguese. Ta-Tu Worker->Coal Plant, Kazan Bank->Worker

1030 AD (8)
Oh look, pollution! I get to do something besides rail. With the Banks coming online, I turn science up another notch and shave another turn off.
(I) Tiwanaku Bank->Stock Exchange, Kazan Worker->Coal Plant,

1040 AD (9)
Working the rails...
(I) Almarikh Coal Plant->Worker, Ollantaytambo Bank->Stock Exchange

1050 AD (10)
Holy Smokes, is it the end of my turn already!

Man, while not very much excitement we are streaching out the lead. The Zulu are down to only three cities witht he Mongols and Porteguese eating them up. I can' say as I want to see them go, but I won't mourn them either. They have served to keep the others occupied long enough to allow us to build up our infrastructure.

I was thinking Banks->Stock Exchages->Wall Street. Then maybe get ready for hospitals by putting in the rest of the happy infrastructure and maybe adding harbors. It was too soon to start prebuilds and no one is in danger of snagging US from us. We still can use the Palace, US and MilAcad.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1050AD.zip

Glad to see the lil guys getting back at the Zulus...and glad we did not hit them harder than what we did last time ;)
:D


Regardless. I apologize to you for making you upset. I need to remember that this is a game that we play for fun. An escape from all of the real troubles that we have to deal with. Can we shake on this and go forward with no hard feelings? Let's raise our glasses for what will be a successful game and what already is a good friendship.

By the way I forgot to thank you Ridge for this and apologies accepted of course, I was in a bad mood on that day apparently :(
:goodjob:

Hey I did not realize I was up sorry :(

I got it now !

Glad my appology was expected. I think we both over reacted a bit.

Look forward to seeing your next turns.

Ridge

:eek:
It wasn't "expected"... but its definitely accepted ;)
:lol:

Game sure looks good, I agree with Coalplants everywhere. I will start some prebuilds I want ToE and US.

1060 : Ivory deal renewed with Incas for 7gpt instead of 9
With 100% happyness across our huge empire at 10% lux I dont feel the need to invest in happiness infra yet..
Except maybe in Ta-Tu. Baylon completes StockEx and goes on prebuild for WallStreet. Nah lets get a collosseum first
in 2 turns sicne we might not have 5 StockEX soon enough for the prebuild to last.

1080 : Babylon is on US (prebuild or not) Electricity found, Medicine possible in 8 turns at +2gpt, the AIs seemingly all went for Communism/Fascism
(only Mongosl have it) or Steam.
I doubt very much they will have Medicine before we get it.

Am busy re-organizing our cities to both maximize shields now before Hospitals and also prepare food rich tiles for post-hospital era.
Ta-Tu gets a whole revamp!

1100: We renew lux deals for same prices. Skimming workers out of Almarikh still, we dont need a StockEx there for WallStreet.
Talking of it Ollia goes on prebuild for it (or something else will see how this pans out)

1120: Ta-Tu reaches size 13, with hills, mountains,grass and plains the MM choices are indefinite, you can set to min shields necessary and
max food growth.

The Zulus are now down to 1 city, time to put a stop to this!
I cancel our RoP with the Mongols and also the Gems for Ivory+horses deal [eek] I then go to Portugal and trade ToG for their Incense.
I then give the Horse and Ivory to the Zulus. A desperate move to try to keep Zulus alive...

1130 : Gracious Portuguese come and threaten for Nationalism :eek: Ungrateful git ! I refuse they back down.

1140 : 5th StockEx completes in Ta-Tu, jsut in time for the prebuild of Babylon, US is switched to Ollia ready in 13 turns.

1150 : Wall Street completes, we only have 116g so we dont get much money from WallStreet Tiwana has all improvements so it goes on Wealth
We now can get Medicine in 2 turns at 88gpt.
I did not have time to finish Ollan reconfig it could use a mined plain (I RRed it first)
We dont really need 2 prebuilds but worse case scenario MilAcademy can be used for a hospital, anyway its totally vetoable.
Next I would say Sanitation and Hospitals, then race to ToE...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-1150.jpg

There you go Ridge !
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-OBC,_1150_AD.zip

Originally posted by Skyfish
:eek:
It wasn't "expected"... but its definitely accepted ;)
:lol:

Doh!

Thats what I get for replying to a message after riding in the car for 8 hours listening to a near-incessant medley of Elmo, Raffi, and Thomas the Train videos..... :rolleyes: :cry:

Anyway, I got it.

Maniac 1 – OBC1:

1150AD (0) The fine Babylonian nation is the most advanced and the most cultured. We are, however, “weak” militarily compared to the Incans and Mongols. On the tech side, we are up Steam, Indust, Corp, and Electricity on the world. The Mongols do have communism at monopoly.

I decide that we no longer need to section off the open area SW of Almar. I move most of our units back to our lands and leave a couple on high ground for observation purposes.

I do not like being weak against the Mongols and Incans. I swap Tiwa and Ta-Tu to military. I also disband some bowmen. They served us well but their time has passed.

Medicine is due in 2. It could be 1 if we had enough gold to handle 100% science.

IT Mongols and Portugal MPP

Our iron for RoP expires with Portugal. I let it lapse as they now are strong. I sell them iron for 10 gpt instead.

1160AD (1) Move workers, including some on to our forests in preparation of discovery of rubber. I doubt that we will have rubber, but hopefully we will on one of our few forests. I also start railing and fortressing our salt mountain.

IT The Zulus’ capitol dropped from size 12 to size 9. They showed up with some conscript rifles. They obviously got nationalism.

1170AD (2) Medicine comes in, start research on Sanitation. Due in 6 at +33gpt.

Sell Nationalism @ last to Portugal for 17gpt and 6 gold.

1180AD (3) More of the same, maximizing, railing. I do slow down Babylon building the Military Academy so that Sanitation will come in before it completes.

1190AD (4) Workers skimmed from Almar and Kazan, start on hospital pre-builds.

IT Zulu and Portugal sign peace.

1200AD (5) Mongols and Incans show up with Fascism.

IT Renew our dyes sale to the Mongols for 5 gpt.

1210AD (6)

IT Mongols found a new city in the open area SW of Almar. I sign an RoP with the Zulus so that we can more easily keep track of their defense. They have continued to hang on and now have a couple of elite rifles.

1220AD (7)

1230AD (8) Hospitals come in. I start research on Music Theory (for Bachs). Due in 4 with 50% science. The Incans and Portugese now have Navigation.

Prebuilds will have hospitals built next turn in Babylon, Almar, and Tiwa. Due in 2 in Kazan.

1240AD (9) Native workers merged in. Babylon now makes 374 commerce per turn!

IT Ulundi finally falls to the Mongols. Incans and Zulus make peace.

1250AD (10) Incans can finally make an offer on Medicine. Navigation, 63gpt, 70 gold, and a full WM head our way. The world map shows several islands, including one that holds the Zulu capitol.

Prebuild for Bach’s is due in 4. It is conceivable that we swap over to Magellan for the culture and denial. Up to Charis.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1250ADmap.JPG

Bountiful Babylonians (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1250AD.SAV)

Nice turn, Ridgelake.
I can't believe the Zulus are gone apart from an island capital?! Wowza! Nor can I believe Portugal's "demand for tribute" after we literally saved them from extermination.

"Got it"
Charis

--- Notes in EDIT
- First, I remembered I have plans for tonight, so probably no turn post til tomorrow.
- Second, Ridgelake had some forum access issues but wanted to make the following comments:

"I am concerned about the Mongols attacking us. The Incans too, for that matter. I would like to see us have about 4 rifles per city on our borders. Also, I would put at least 1 rifle on the mountain next to TaTu. Probably build a fortress there for that matter. I would also put rifles on the hills near Olla. It is also probably time to disband our ancient cavs. With enough disbands, we can get some rifles or cavs in 1 turn.

I think that I would swap Babylon over to Magellan's. We might want a navy at some point. The Incans and Portugese have started it. But we will clearly get it first with a maxxed size city with rails and factories. Then we can build Bach's.

I would suggest tying up the Mongols with a gpt trade. Lets buy Communism, using medicine and navigation as bait. We will have to add some gpt to make this happen, though. Thats fine, its an additional deterent to their attacking us.

All for now. We should have this game in the bag. But something is bothering me that its not a complete gimme still...."

Hehe, I agree in the last comment, even though we knocked the superpower on its rear and booted them square off the continent, this dog is a long way from lying down! -- Charis

(In posting this, I re-read the comment that the peace didn't seem quite... stable, and that we could not neglect military... will these concerns turn out true or groundless?!?

I like the idea of a little bit beefier military, but won't neglect improvements
for it (if any). And I like tying up Mongols with trade deal, but not to be a way overinflated
govt tech. We're avg military to them, so if they want to start something... bring it!
It's odd being capital plus 5 captured and yet other civs barely have any more cities
than we do! If we keep the balance of power maintained, it will stay that way.

[0] 1250AD - 90spt??? Yowza! I swap Babylon to Magellan's. I try disbanding an
Ancient cav in Ta-Tu. Tis worth ten shields, not enough to speed up the
cav, so I do one more there, and another in Almarikh to speed up Stock one turn.
I cover the unprotected worker stack with a rifle, and hit return.
Incans ask about renewing the ivory deal for 6gpt? Forgeddabowdit!! Why supply our
new main rival with 3 lux for 6gpt when we're making almost 400?

[1] 1255 AD - Railin, cleanin' pollution.
Rather than trade away tech, I decide to use RoP's to earn some good will. It
costs about 4gpt per civ, no biggie.

IBT - Suffrage completes in Olla.

[2] 1260 - Music Theory is done, next is either Replaceable parts in 6 or so, or
Sci Method in about 4 turns. Others are SO behind in tech it doesn't matter,
while normally Sci meth would be automatic. I'll go with the cheaper one for
now, Sci Method.
IBT - Incans deal for Spices expires too. So much for YOUR happiness, bub!

[3] 1265 - Tatu start Mil Academy. IBT - Magellan's completes in Babylon, start Bach.
Portugal declares war on Zulu.

[4] 1270 - Being the multicultural nation with rails almost done, I pull back in a
few workers to get the cities a little larger a little sooner. Each city will want
to be optimized for size 20. Babylon is awkward, with +1 food at 20 and -1 at 21.
It will need to peel a worker off every 20ish turns or it will just starve.

IBT - Once again the Incans show their face, not wishing to renew sale of silks for
17gpt. Well, once they talk we're fine, renewing for 17gpt. We could have saved cash
by selling them lux but that helps them far more than cash. Mongols wines purchase
deal expires, so be it.

[5] 1275 - Sci Method is done. TaTu swaps from Acad to ToE, due in 6. Tiwanaku takes
over Mil Acad work, and we'll leave Battlefield Med unbuilt for a while, in case it's
needed as a prebuild. With ToE due in 6, I choose to go for Rep Parts, also due
in 6, just before the wonder finishes.
With pollution showing up, I couldn't mine-over-irrigation at Ta-Tu and it hit
size 21. After ToE it can peel off a worker.

[6] 1280 - zzz.
[7] 1285 - We lose incense supply, then re-buy it from Portugal.
[8] 1290 - We were selling Incans a THIRD lux which now expires? I let it go,
and hope he doesn't get so hot and excited that he goes to war over it. Another
leader may veto this choice, but our 'biggest rival' will be less big if he's
denied three lux. That is, of course, unless he comes to 'get some'. Infantry
due in 3 (if we have rubber)

[9] 1295 Quiet. IBT - HA! They DO get upset, and sneak attack!! My bad, or my good, depends how the war
turns out, eh?! :lol:

Out of came a cav for our rifle stationed on the hill. We win. A second comes,
and promotes our rifle. No more?? A stack of *11* rifles steps up next to us,
no more cav to be seen? Two rifles next to Babylon both attack and die, what
a unrighteous RoP rape they're attempting?! Right on our capital!

Meldor, things just went from very quiet to very dicey for your next turn.

[10] 1300 AD - Hmm, options? The Mongols, not at war with anyone else, would
take an MPP for just 3gpt. Or an alliance for Furs, Wines and Music Theory.
It wouldn't be my first preference to ally with the Mongols, but a two front war
against us would be ugly. We actually have to be somewhat careful not to hurt
the Incans TOO much, lest we setup the Mongols (or even Portuguese as the next
superpower). Whittling the Incans down to where they are only avg with us in military,
without much of a swing in power, would probably be best. Razing Vilcas would be
about the only other option, but they're 6CC like us.

I upgrade Babylon's muskets, and to visualize what we have for offense, and since
we're on rails, I wake up all and move the non-defenders to one square. We've got
32 units for attacking (Army, rifles, cav, cannons, longbow)

Seems to me the best approach is a death-trap war. Kill all units we can who move
into our territory, keep out of harms way (ie use fast units mostly), and
try to inflict a high pain level (kill ratio). If they gas, we can if needed,
hit Vilcas after absorbing their units. Looking at their territory, there is
something crucial -- they have no salt. I think we may have seen nearly all the
cav we're going to, and that rifle stack is programmed as half-offense and half-
defense. Is this any way to run a war, Sapa-Pachacuti?? :lol:

Bach's is due in Babylon this turn, and ToE in 2. We'll get Replaceable Parts
before the wonder finish kicks in, so on picking new tech, go for Atomic Theory
and we'll get that and the next one we choose (Electronics I would think) for free.
Tiwanaku is due Mil Acad in 3, which will help give a boost in attack values for our
lone Cav army. Kazan and Almarikh each have a unit due next turn, and every two
thereafter. (With Rep parts will come artillery too, and I did make a few more
cannons in prep for this)

Just 13 targets in our lands. We soften them up with rifles first with cannon
(not very effectively I might add, then the Army blitzes four, then cav go in.
We lose two vet cav, and the hurt go to Tiwa to heal. Can we get any fishing opp's
for our elite? Ancient cav, cav and longbow? Well, enough anyway, as the cav rider
was Ashurbanipal! :P Too bad we don't have enough cities for a 2nd army.
He'll be in Babylon for next leader to do what he wants with.
Some rifles return to cities, to ensure three rifles per city on defense.

Not keen on paying support for longbow, and not keen on letting the stack of now
nicely wounded rifles getaway, I press on with longbow then a few rifles. We do
lose the bows and a rifle, but do kill all attackers.

That's it, our next chief is up. I just can't see Incans doing much to us, unless
they pull in Mongols, and frankly, if they do so AFTER two turns and we have rubber,
that would only let us gas the Mongols as well. But if you feel better allying,
that's completely fine. (With no salt though, remember Incans could get swallowed
up. Hmmm, do the Incans even have iron? No MDIs...)

Good luck, sorry about the war, but I'm thinking it's vindication that Incans without
lux are Incans we don't have to worry about.

(Maniac)
Ridgelake
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor <-- UP
Skyfish <-- On deck

Save file 1300AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1300AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

Good turn, Charis. Twas not a surprise that someone attacked. An RoP rape? Ouch. The AI seems to be doing that more and more in C3C. Kinda makes you hesitant to sign RoPs unless you really need to move through their territory.

Anyway, the only real threat would be the Mongols and Portugese as they can make cavs. The Mongols would dearly love to get TaTu and Kazan back. Be careful :)

:hammer:

The first thing I thought when I saw you signed the RoP's was...here comes the rape...

It seems the AI guys picked up at least one trick. Unfortunately, most of the time you can see it coming a mile away. And they don't move all their troops into place before they attack!

OK, I have it. I may swap the MilAcad to Hoover's (you didn't mention a prebuild running) and then use the leader to rush the MilAcad in another city. No sense in letting it go to waste.

Just thinking about it, it probably isn't a bad idea to sell our luxes. If we were going for domination/conquest, then no trades makes sense. But we can benefit from a more-efficient AI, either from more gpt available to buy our techs, or potentially some parallel research. We have a lot of techs to research before we can launch. Getting more gpt will only help us speed things up.

1300 AD (0)
Things look just as Charis descibed it. The only little tidbit not mentioned by him were the three Incan rifles on the mountian (outside our territory) southwest of Almarikh. I think that maybe both Vilcas and Huamanga maybe targets as both of these would allow our cultural boundaries to reach out even farther. I don't cut a deal with the MOngols. I think that if thay join, I will bring in the mighty Porteguese to keep them busy. That and Hovd and Tabriz could be raised to allow our cultural influence to spread out on that side as well. Ther is a single coal in the Incan area and it is tempting to go pillage it and then I look and no one has steam yet...too bad.
(I) The three rifles move off the mountain and into our lands. A rifle ventures onto the hill next to our stack and a single Cav attacks and then retreats. Babylon completes Bach's and starts a Rifle, isn't nice to be able to build one a turn. Kazan Cav->Cav, Almarikh cav->rifle

1305 AD (1)
Oops! I can't use MilAcad as the Hoover prebuild as we don't have freshwater within its 21! I swap Kazan to BattleFieldMed to get a few shields as prebuild. I change Ollantaytambo to a rifle from a Cav just to get in one more upgrade. After we get the upgrades to infantry, I will consider going on the offensive against the Incans if thing stay this boring. I bomb all four Incan units in our lands and then run them through. I exchange the rifles with more than 1hp damage for fresh troops in the cities. Drop science to the minimum to still get RP this interturn.
(I) The Incans bombard T and retreat. They send in an MDI and several more Rifles. I see a lot of Mongol Cav headed in the Incan's direction. We may not have to worry about the Mongols joining aganst us! We get RP and go for AT, drop science to 0%. Babylon Rifle->Cav, Ta-Tu ToE->Cav. I got for Espionage next at 4 turns. I love planting spies and keeping an eye on the others. Ollantaytambo Infantry->Cav.

1310 AD (2)
I set Kazan to build Hoover's due in 12. I bombard the Incan units and get only 3hps damage. I should have just pulled them all into cities and upgraded them for all the good they did. I army was healing so I wanted to bombard before attaking. No matter, we kill the invaders with only a few retreats and no losses. We will have Hydro Plants for short pre-builds so I set Ollantaytambo to BattleField and use the leader to rush it. That will give us the max shields out of the guy. Maybe the next one might be saved to let us disband the army and build a tank, Mech or MA army in its place. I upgrade all infantry in all the cities. Exchange the rifle in the mountain fortress with a fresh infantry and upgrade it. Pull in extra rifles and upgrade them. We still have 8 rifles left to upgrade next turn and all of the cannon.
(I) Hmm...The lone Incan Cav retreats after failing to take out a rifle. They move a couple of Rifles in to attampt to pillage. The Babs move several units into our territory. Babylon Cav->Cav, Ta-Tu Cav->Cav, Tiwamaku Military Academy->Arty, Almarikh Infantry->Infantry, Ollantaytambo BattleField Medicine->Arty.

1315 AD (3)
I upgrade all of our rifles except the elite. I then upgrade a single cannon as I don't want to drop below 1000g and it would take all our gold to upgrade the rest. They will have to wait until after Espionage is finished.
(I) The Incans do absolutely nothing. The Mongols come demanding wines. Last I checked their military was average to ours so I refuse and....they declare! Oh boy, I get to take out Hovd! They begin the war (and RoP rape) by withdrawing the three rifles the had in our territory that could have pillaged. They then move Cav around and it looks like they are going after Kazan. Babylon Cav->Infantry, Ta-Tu Cav->Infantry.

1320 AD (4)
I attempt to get the Portugese to join us against the Mongols, but they won't do it for anything! I bomb and take out the city of Huamanga sinking the Incan ships that had been pestering us. That brings the Incans to the table quickly were we get peace communism, 4gpt and 15 gold for Sanitation. Not being able to make a deal with Henry means we would have Portugal on us as well as the Mongols...I hold off direct assualts of the Mongols. I would dearly love to nail Hovd. It will wait until we gas the Mongols and then we won't care if Portugal come calling as well. I move our extra Infantry to cover srategic entry points the Mongols may try to use to move in and attack our cities on the same turn.
(I) The Mongols advance their armies. Lots of Cav enter, we will see how many leave. Babylon Infantry->Cav, Tiwamaku Arty->Arty, Almarikh Infantry->Cav, Ollantaytambo Arty->Arty.

1325 AD (5)
The beginning situation is as follows: 1 Cav at Ollantaytambo, 1 Cav at Almarikh, 1 Cav just inside the border between the two with some rifles on a moutain beside it. It is out of pillage rande for anything important. 8 Cav are strung out between the border and Babylon trying to reach the city. Two more Cav are inside their borders and well as assorted rifles and one longbow. They evidentally watched us fight the Zulu and decided they liked the idea of a capital strike, but they forgot the part about bringing enough units to do the job. We use our Arty and Cannon to take most of the units down. We then hit them with our Cav and the Army takes out the last two untouched units. We lose 1 Cav in the process but they lose 9 Cav. That is all of the units in our territory and I refrain from attacking and trippping the MPP.
(I) The Mongols move in 4 Cav, a rifle and one Longbow. Are they scrapping the bottom of the barrel already? We get Espionage and start on steel. Our scientist are so brilliant that we get a SGL. We also get the message to start the IntelAgency. Babylon Cav->Infantry. Ta-tu Infantry->Infantry.

1330 AD (6)
I had set steel to complete in 12 turns and then start a Scientific Age. This allow us to get Steel in 6 turns and still get +244gpt. As it turns out Portugal will now join the war against the Mongols for Communism! Most good, we let them break their MPP and join us! Our Ancient Cav takes out the Longbow. We then use the cannon to pound the Cav and take them down. The arty I saved for bombardment of Hovd. Hovd only had two rifles on defense. Yes the word is HAD. The city no longer exists, I am afraid. We do capture one more cannon to upgrade while getting rid of the city. Again, there are no Mongol units left alive in our territory at the end of the turn, although the army will have to take a break to heal. Our culture border expanded to fill the rest of the area were Hovd had stood, so no one will be rebuilding there. We do lose two Cav this turn so it wasn't perfect.
(I) The Incas and the Mongols sign a trade embargo against us! I guess we will just have to take what we want. I knew I ended the Incan war a turn or two early. I guess Portugal is distracting the Mongals as all of their units head that way. I see two Cav and a rifle leave Tabriz. Hmmm...Babylon Infantry->IntelAgency, Almarikh Cav->Cav, Tiwamaku and Ollantaytambo Arty->Arty.

1335 AD (7)
The Mongols left an exposed worker on their border? Not any more. I put some arty on the Mountain outside Tabriz and cover it with Infantry. I then bring in some Cav to rush down the mountain and assualt the city next turn.
(I) We get no action out of the Mongols except one more Cav leaves Tabriz. They do move in one Rifle to do pillage work. Ta-Tu Infantry->Police Station.

1340 AD (8)
We red line the three Tabriz defenders and then red line the one pillager. The Cav rush down off the mountain and we raze the city getting a single worker. It leaves three coast squares were someone can settle so I move in some infantry and park them. I move some workers in to give us a fortress on top of the mountain as it is now on the border. This makes our Slat more secure, altough we just about don't need it anymore.
(I) "The rampaging Mongol forces have destroyed the Zulu". I guess the Mongols weren't totally distracted by Portugal. I didn't cover the worker leaving the former site of Tabriz and the Mongols expose a Cav to get it back. normally they would disband it but they send it back towards their lines without an escort! Tiwanaku arty->Police Station. Almarrikh Cav->Police Station, Ollantaytambo arty->Police Station.

1345 AD (9)
The army kills off the intruding Cav and we recapture the worker. He gives us four perfect pollution clearing stacks, although the most we have gotten is 2 in one turn. I move the arty up to the border were it can just reach the Mongol Capital. I cover it with Infantry and even send a couple next to the city as forward observers. I then start to poiund the city if for no other reason than there is nothing else to do. There doesn't appear to be a RAX in the capital and I leave it with a 2hp rifle as its strongest defender.
(I) Can it be! The Mongols expose two more workers on our border! Ta-Tu Police Station->Wealth.

1350 AD (10)
I grab the two workers and bomb the capital again. It is probably hiden below the city name. I upgrade the last cannon to arty and move the Science slider up. We will havae Steel in three with +121gpt. The Police Stations can be vetoed in a couple of the cities as it is borderline if we will need them. Hoover's is done in 4 turns and the ItelAgency in 2. All our Cav is healed or will be next turn and is sitting in a stack. We have three infantry in every city and are defending all critical approaches to our cities. You can have fun bombing the Mongol capital. I didn't see much use in doing anything else to them. Our military is strong vs. everyone else so we are sitting pretty good. The cities can be switched to wealth if we want as this will boost our science as well. Remember, we are in a Scientific Age so we are getting +25% science out of every city! Have fun.

I hope that helps to speed up science Ridge!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1350AD.zip

I know I should have taken the other Incan city! I wass afraid to hurt them too much more with the Mongols on the move. Sorry Charis. Maybe you can clean it up next time.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/map1350.JPG

About the only thing to say is: WOW!

:hammer:

So much for that threat. Glad to see that we have rubber. I doubt that we have oil, however. Might be worth a razing to our south to bring in more desert.

Tis nice having warmongers... er, I mean "capable generals" follow me. I didn't fear war at all (and the good results showed why), but it was awkward to throw that on the next fellow. But heck, he went and pulled in Mongols rather than have Incans sign them on, and proceeded to raze Tabriz! :hammer:

Oh, and I'm glad we have rubber :goodjob:

Very nice turn - I think the only thing I would have done different is to raze Vilcas, as it really crimps our borders. Zulus are gone... and no one will mourn. How far we have come (strayed??) from our roots of peaceful leave-us-along Babylons, to basically a nation that by our whim alone decides the fate of every other nation. Going to space race, our ultimate goal, will be I'm afraid anti-climatic. Still, with so few cities, turns are moving very quickly, even in wartime.

Skyfish <-- UP
Ridgelake <-- On deck

Good luck,
Charis

Wow, I now realize how much I have missed those great meldor turns :goodjob:
Got it !

(Apologies only time for a short report)

Early : Mount an expedition to raze the Mongol Salt city in the desert. We still have quite a few turns of alliance
so we cant make peace, its hard to limit oneself as we could just destroy the mongols right now.
polics stations complete and I go for wealth, it allows to make 533gpt, run 40% science and still get Steel in 4 turns, neat :D

Middle : Hoover comes online Coal plants get sold (they're just not environmentally friendly arent they ?)
Steel come in and we go for Refining...Wow it takes 100% science to get it in 4 but we still make 65gpt researching it.
We're not fighting right now but we're getting right on the edge of WarWeariness though, take a look at our capital.

Gotta love the "off the Richter scale" science beakers:D :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-babylon.jpg


Late : the Incas join an allliance vs us with the Mongols (1390) :crazyeyes: We raze Vilcas in repraisal with almost no casualty.
Borders are now clean General meldor !
I do a round of Infantries to beef up our defenses, stopping wealth make us go from 450gpt to 200gpt with no change to science rate.
The Incas respond by sending 3 cavs towards Tiwanaku who easily get killed, we also take out 4 riflemen and a settler of theirs.
Neither Mongol or Inca offensive is any danger (the mongols plainly dont send anyone) : I left units with movement so the next leader can decide what to do regarding the desert, I quite liked the idea of blocking the desert to get a chance at oil...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OBC-cleanborder.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-OBC,_1400_AD.zip

Incans ally with Mongols vs us?! :lol:

Nice job Skyfish. I especially like that Vilcas is gone.
It's kinda hard to limit yourself when we're up so many techs and they won't have infantry in the next 40 turns. Is anyone else feeling an urge to invoke the following...

If war is delcared on us, we can still do our worst to whoever declares on us, and we may make alliances and rop riders with anyone as long as its done the first turn after war is declared on us.

Thoughts about just wiping out anyone who declares war on us? The rules against us declaring war were to make sure we weren't "milking" a military win, but now we're in the opposite situation. By not laying down some more serious smack we're pointlessly prolonging the game - there's not even a small shred of doubt that the space race is ours.

Actually, if they live on an island, so be it. Incans are 4CC, we could smite them. Portugal is a WEAK 8 cities, half of them tiny. Mongols are a painfully *spread out* ten or so cities. Our cav army could likely do it with minor help, and if it died, a tank army
would do it for sure (especially if we could deny all rubber)

If you guys prefer to let this war blow over and go peacefully to space, that's fine too, but I wanted to point out another option that is legal and effective. Thoughts?
Charis

Well, I could play either way. It has pretty much been a foregone conclusion since we razed the Zulu capitol. My slightest tendency is to go for space (51% vs 49%). But whichever the team wants.

I know that I am up, but I will wait until we hear from the others to play.

Excellent turn, btw, Skyfish ;)

It depends if we want to stick with Todd's original desires or finish it quickly.

I would suggest that we finish it as a space race but expand to 20-25 turns each with shorter reports. Then we can get this over with and go on to something harder...like fighting in the modern era when someone has disconnected your tanks!

I agree with meldor to keep it the way Maniac intended (which does not mean we can't reduce anyone attacking us to smitherens as Charis suggests)
I also wanted to play 20 turns but am real busy atm with 3 others SGs needing attention..

Alrighty, mercy it is for our continental neighbors :P
(BTW, if anyone else liked the concept of the game but not the deviation it took, a new rule saying 'Defensive War ONLY' after the war to capture your core would fix that. In this case, it would mean Zulus owning the continent and us trying to survive AND beat them to launch, much closer to as-intended)

I can only hope then that they stop declaring war on us. Good suggestion on 20-25 turns as well. I literally had that typed into notepad around turn 7 of my last turn, then erased that on turn 9 :lol:
Charis

I got the game. I will play 20 turns. It will be tomorrow night before I can play, however.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention this. Skyfish, I think that you should submit the science picture to Screenshot of the Day. That thing is a riot. :)

I can't imagine that it is realisticly feasible to get greater science than that. About the only way would be to have our GA going right now. Unfortunately, the Colossus will expire before we can get the modern science enhancing buildings on top of it.

Originally posted by Ridgelake
Edit: I almost forgot to mention this. Skyfish, I think that you should submit the science picture to Screenshot of the Day. That thing is a riot. :)
Did you read Aggies OCC under Stories and tales?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/OCC_1974_city.jpg

Well Aggie's in 1974 when we are in 1380 :groucho:
:lol:

Sorry, I only had time for 10 turns.

Maniac 1 – OBC

1400AD (0) The world is ruled by the superior intellect and culture of the Babylonians. We decide who lives or dies. Only by our whim do the Incans, the Mongols, and the Portugese live.

I decide to plant spies. Success with the Incans and Portugese. We get caught on the Mongols.

We will see where oil lies next turn. We will secure some and block off the area.

There is a fair amount of shield optimization that needs to occur in our outer cities. Workers woken up to go mine a lot of irrigated tiles.

Infantry is sent down the road towards Vilcabama. A rifle/settler pair is observed. It takes 3 cavs, but we have a couple more slaves now.

Just for Ha-Ha’s, I decide to bomb all the resources of the Mongols.

IT we lose a cav to a counter that I forgot to cover. The Incans and Mongols sign and MPP.

We have oil in Almar’s culture borders, but Ulundi must be razed to ensure its continued availability. Also some in neutral territory between us and the Incans.

Research @ 100% on combustion.

Sell a couple of luxes to the Portugese.

1440 (8) Scientific age ends. I think that it wasn’t working right. It seemed to not have the correct number of turns - as if there was no bonus. I think Aggie had a similar experience.

Anyway, Combustion is researched and start on Mass Prod. Commercial docks will help some.

1445AD (9) The Portugese raze a Mongol town and open up a big area. I find a barb camp defended by warriors in the gray area. Our cav army deals with it just fine.

Form a silk colony down near the portugese. It will go away if they build culture. But why not?

1450AD (10)Kill a couple more LBs. All I have time for tonight.

Have fun, Charis. The rest of teh world still lacks electricity and the Corporation.

Bursting Babylonians (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1450_AD.SAV)

The AI has been really scrappy here lately, let's hope for some peace and quiet.
As simple cultural and scientific Babylonians, we just want to be left alone.
But at present, we're at war with both Mongols and Incans (allied even).
And we're... making wealth and cruisers?!?! :hmmm:

We're strong to all though, and don't want to overdo unit support I suppose.
We have 14 cav, 49 infantry, and are 1.5 techs from Tanks. May as well tow the
line until then? Incans have ZERO offense and 22 rifles. Charisurabi cannot however
let our foes go unpunished. The dogs who oppose us will pay with their capitals.

[0] 1450 AD - Here we go...
[1] 1455 - Bombard Karakorum, kill six rifles, lose a cav, another rifle, a longbow,
then we raze the ex-home of the Temple of Artemis and Smith's Trading Company.
Will anyone weep for them? On the Incan front, four loose units killed.
[2] 1460 - Shift left.
[3] 1465 - Hmm, our recent advances have led to a breakthrough! Scientific GL :P
I use him for an Age of Science, poor though that might be. Motorized Xport in 4.
[4] 1470 - Four rifles killed at Cuzco, five.. six... boom! The ex-home of the
Sistine Chapel and the Pyramids now lays in ruin. Sniff. (You know, if they hadn't
have been SO ingrateful after we pulled their lifeless husk of a corpse out of the
grave vs the Zulu, the present leader of the Babylonians would not be so unhappy
with these guys, but they chose unwisely.)
[6] 1480 - zzz. IBT Portuguese cav strike Dalandzadgad but can't take it.
[9] 1495 - The first tanks roll off the line. Flight due in 5 but may take longer
with age of sci bug.

The Incans finally beg for peace. Has this gone on long enough? I think so.
As Ridgelake put it, they exist only at our whim and pleasure.
Good grief, they're both 'doubtful' for Fascism???? Do they need another capital
razed?! He would sooner give up 2 cities than this splendid technology? Sigh.
We make peace with Incans. Now with treaty broken, Mongols will give the tech+544g.

[10] 1500 AD - Things are so quiet and peaceful. Let's go, as suggested for another
10 quick turns, if it stays peaceful.
[14] 1520 - So far so good. Failed spy plant attempt on Mongols, but no consequences.
Flight "says" due next turn we'll see...
[15] 1525 - Nope. Maybe next turn?
[16] 1530 - Indeed. Airports up. Radio in around 6. Spy planted on Mongols.
Their entire army is 16 rifles! Incans only have 15, plus 3 bows. Portugal 31+8 cav.
Portugal wants to renew buying spices, then dyes. Forget it bub, and don't start
thinking like the Incans did. I have a SOD of Tanks now, and they're on idle, ready
to rock on a moments notice! IBT - Hatussas holds off SIX cav before being razed.
[20] 1550 - Two more turns til Radio, we'll finish after that. (hmm, turns out to be 3)
[22] 1560 - Inca and Portugal come to peace.
IBT Portugal demands wine?????? COME GET SOME!!
"What??? You REFUSE?? Well..." is all he can say. No declaration.
[23] 1565 - We're in a new age, waaaaay ahead of others. Fission could be due in 7
at 100% with deficit, or 10 turns at small surplus. Adjust as needed.
[25] 1575 - Even enough, time to turn it over. Take 15-25 as desired if it stays peaceful.
Our Scientific Era (as such) ends. Fission is due in 11.
We're selling Portugal Iron, and have an RoP. Up to our next leader, but I would
cancel both, give him the boot, and roll them over if any lip. Or of course you
could play nice and have a calm turn :D

A map, as requested...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-OBCBabs-1575AD.jpg

(Maniac)
Ridgelake
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor <-- UP
Skyfish <-- On deck

Save file 1575AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1575AD.zip)

Good luck,
Charis

What is that purple smirch on our lands near Almar?

That thing must be erased!

Nice turn, Charis.

BTW, I won't have access to the game until Monday.

I see it and will get after RVB8

Early - I turn science up to 100%, we can afford the 2K extra to get Fission 4 turns early. Next we should go for research labs to speed this up. I amuse my self by cleaning up all the bomb damage we did, we must be environmentally friendly after all. Once we finish all the Mass Transists and Civil Defenses, we go to wealth and we are only losing 21gpt at 100% science. When fission get to four turns, I start a solar plant in Babylon, due also in four.

Middle - We get Fission and the UN is due in 9. I start us on Computers due in 9 as well. I amuse myself by railing squares we can't use. The Incans settle a city in the dessert and take one of our oils. I am sorely tempted to swat them from existance, but I find no reason to do so in the rules and so stay my hand. I run out of squares to rail, so I amuse myslef by sorting the slaves by original nationality. We have 19 Incan workers, 14 Mongols workers, 6 Zulu, 3 Hittite, 2 Portuguese and 1 American. We only have 4 native workers left.

Late - We build the UN and it amuses us to refuse the vote, although plainly we would win. We get Computers and go for miniturization next, due to 10. We start the Seti progect in Babylon which should finish in 12. With 400 beakers a turn now, that should prove amusing as well.


Miniturization due in 7, Seti due in 9. Once we get the Internet, it should speed things up with the instant research labs. Or we can build them by hand.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1675AD.zip

Current play order:

(Maniac)
Ridgelake <-- On deck
Charis
(Matt_G)
Meldor
Skyfish <-- UP

Got it !

Oh my ! There's pollution near Ta-Tu, thats real bad, how sloppy of my predecessor ;)
Incas are at war with Portugal, who happen to have 545g available not too shabby so I take it
for Rep Parts which Mongols and Incas already have : we dont want to give them an uneccessary advantage do we ;)
Where do all those craters come from anyway ? I can t remember seeing a vulcano or hearign about one erupting...
Mongols and Protugal sign peace, nice one guys !

In 1710, we get Miniaturisation and start Rocketry available in 8 turns. Incas rebuild and throw us out of some positions.
In 1720, we get SETI and rocketry drops to 5 turns, not a huge leap. Babylon set to Internet ready in 12 turns.
In 1725 we do not renew our RoP with Portugal. We also started a prebuild for Apollo with Manhattan Project.

In 1745, we get Rocketry and start Space Flight. I mis-timed the prebuilds so I switch the cities from wealth to research labs
they will be ready sooner than the Internet : I had rather build it because we can use the wealth from the cities.
With no Wealth we go down to -240gpt at max research and have 4750g.

In 1754, we lose our Silk colony to the Portuguese but do not need to high up luxuries...just...
I have 3 prebuilds finishing in 4 turns and Space flight due in 4 :D

After much juggling around on the interturn we complete Apollo in Babylon in 1762 along with 2 other parts : Engine and Docking Bay.
Cockpit completes in 3 turns.
I have chosen to go towards Satellites in order to have ICBMs for prebuilds, at the moment we still have Manhattan
and Internet as prebuilds.
I let the next leader choose which prebuids where.
I wont be seeing this one anymore : it was a great one,
I love relaxed SGs ;) even though I miss Maniac I really hope he is all right...:(
We thoroughly beat this poor variant, lets play some more Sid games guys :evil:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-_1762_AD.zip

Got it. Since Charis isn't due back for a few days, I will not be rushing to play it.

Maniac1 – OBC

1762 (0) Typically, we are by far the most cultured and advanced civilization. They have nothing to offer us of consequence. Satellites are due in 7 @ -169 gpt.

1774 We get satellites and an SGL, Jabir Ibn Haiyan. I think about rushing something with him. But we have labs in all cities. So we don’t need the Internet. Maybe an offshore platform in Babylon. Why not?

Start on Synth Fibers.

1778 Get to turn down elections for the UN.

1782 Henry demands wines. I don’t feel like spending time fighting him. So I give them to him.

1790 Synth Fibers comes in, start on Superconductor. Accidently merge in an Incan worker to Almar.

1800 Decline UN elections again. These turns are going by in seconds. I am going to keep playing.

1806 Superconductors come in, start on Nuc power.

1820 Nuc Power comes in. Start on Laser.

1822 Decline UN elections again.

1834 Laser comes in, start on Robotics. That is the last tech that we will need.

1842 Mongols ask for MPP and ROP. Uh, no.

1844 Decline UN Elections.

1850 Robotics comes in, swap Babylon over to Stasis Chamber. Hit enter, launch and then

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-victory.JPG

Babylon was easily the top city. As a nation we were #1 in all important categories, though 3rd in land. Our score was only 2625, but we achieved our objectives. The AI ended up several techs from the modern age.

Twas a most fun game, particularly in the first half. I was honored to play with such fine team mates.

Here is the save of the game on the last turn.

The Final Turn (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/Maniac1-1850_AD.SAV)

Until the next game,

Ridge

Great job finishing that up Ridgelake, and good call on not letting it drag on for the return of Carribean Charis :goodjob:

Well done team, that was so well played that it turned into a runaway game. The once proud Zulus are now only a small blotch in the annals of history, and the rest of the nations can only wave as our glorious spaceship soars to new heights.

I'll echo the hope that ToddMarshall is doing well :mutant:
Hopefully Matt_G has recovered into better balance as well.
Ridgelake, Meldor, Skyfish, thanks for sticking it out and expeditiously bringing us into space.

Tis time now to go backwards from Alpha Centauri to the ancient era of the rise of barbarians and fall of Rome!
Charis

Great game and finish guys. I'm sorry for dissappearing on everyone for a 2nd time but first my computer got sick, then I did.... They tell me I'm going to recover. I hope they are right. I probably won't try signing up for any SG's for a while because I still feel awful, and because I'd hate to have to dissappear on people again. I feel bad that I left all of you in the air like that. If you all pm me what if any games you are in, ill try do some lurking though.

-Maniac

Todd, I was lurking this game and was concerned when you suddenly disappeared. It's great to see that you're recovering and posting again - all the best to you.

Great to hear from you Todd !
Really hope you get better and we can have some more great discussions soon ;)