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

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

Roster:
Arathorn*
Ridgelake
Coffee
T-Hawk
Justus II
Grimjack (alternate/spare player)

We'll just go in the order Sullla posted, unless someone has a problem with it.

Arathorn

Macedonia. I wonder what our strength is. Everybody else has some nice options.

Persia has the most land and the best early offensive unit (4/2/1 immortals) to complement a good defense (2/3/1 numidian merc available to everybody). Rome has all kinds of benefits -- garrisons, legions galore, citizens. Carthage has a corner start and only one foe to complement their war elephants.

I know we get a 3/3/1, but that's hardly a match for a paired 4/2/1 and 2/3/1. What's in it for Macedonia?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-start.jpg

We have fairly OK opening lands. Our starting army is 1 settler, 11 workers, 3 archers, 6 horsemen, 5 galleys, 1 army, and 23 hoplites. That's a strong military compared to Persia -- that must be our edge -- a starting strong military. That means we're gonna have to hit hard and fast. In fact, we're strong compared to everyone but Rome. Of course, a support cost of 20 gpt isn't going to help matters at all.

Persia has the most land and the most people to start the game. The longer a stalemate is developed, the better things are for them. As I look around, I'm very convinced we're going to need to hit them hard and fast.

Sign Egypt to Alliance vs. Carthage for their worker and 80 of their gold. What a bargain! Anything to distract Hanni for a bit.
Odd. Rome will pay a worker and 317 gold for the privelege of fighting the Persians, but asking for worker and 318 gold is simply insulting. Oh well. I do NOT want a two-front war, so we sign them up as well.

UNITS:
Numidian Merc - 30 shields - 2/3/1
Hoplite - 40 shields - 3/3/1 -- EXTREMELY LAME UU alert -- 33% more expensive and only a bit better on offense? UGH!
Swordsman - 30 shields - 3/2/1 -- a better buy for us, actually
Horseman - 30 shields - 2/1/2 -- just like "regular"
Archer - 20 shields - 2/1/1 -- normal

The unit we'll ultimately want is Heavy Cavalry - 60 shields - 5/2/2.

City management -- they're poorly set up, believe me.

Miletus will be a good worker factory for us. Granted, it's near the front, but we'll need workers there, too. It can get 5 fpt now and should be able to get into a worker every other turn pattern in 15-20 turns. Maronea, too, is designated worker factory.

Lux is turned up to 10% to get everybody to work. Science set on Monarchy, but nobody/nothing is working on it.

Homeland troops shuffle a bit and aim to explore and to defend our meager cities. MUCH WORKER ACTION IS REQUIRED all over the map.

Contact Scythians immediately with an exploring hoplite. Trade them Masonry + Alphabet for worker, 50 gold, and their world map.

Think to check with Carthage before the turn ends. They'll pay worker, 70 gold, and WM for the privelege of allying with us, too. Is this a scenario design problem? A result of our strong army? Or something else entirely? I take the deal, though.

We're industrious, commercial, and seafaring. The last of these does us almost no good at all, as the map is very much already revealed and I don't plan many/any amphibious landings. But industrious and commercial will be very nice.

Our government is an Oligarchy, which is pretty good. If/when we get Imperialism, it'll probably be worth switching, but otherwise we look good to go. Republic is nicer, but it's probably not worth an anarchy to change into.

And, after only 45 minutes, I think I may be done with my zeroth turn.

(I) Persia sends on immortal out towards us. I tremble in fear, NOT!

(1) 345- Move on two Persian cities. We want to hit hard and fast. I also have a couple galleys heading towards them, hopefully they will serve as a bit of a distraction.

The one thing we don't have and could really use is a settler factory. I have no idea where to start one of those, however.

(I) Persia sends out an immortal against a hoplite and...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-golden.jpg

(2) 340 - Re-MM cities for GA production.

Army wins twice and we capture Iconium and a slave. Iconium's been whipped heavily, so it gets a scientist to start a run on Monarchy. And for some odd reason, we have 104 culture in Iconium. Bug? A horse dies attacking an immortal in the open and Persia's GAing, too.

(I) Defend successfully vs. immortal. Athens starts Heroic Epic. We're going to want as many armies as possible.

(3) 335 - Move on cities -- lose a horse.

(4) 330 - Trade galleys with Persia -- losing 6 hps to their 3. Oh well. (NOTE: galleys are 1/1/3 in this scenario)

Capture Ancyra -- barely. Finally hoplite had one hp left when I won. That was close.

In Ancyra's cultural borders, we spot 3 Persians archers and 2 horsemen. Sigh. So much for my blitzkrieg advance. Looks like a bit of sitzkrieg now, while I try to heal and absorb counter-attacks.

But I do kill an immortal and two archers down by Iconium.

(5) 325 - Killing Persians. Healing. Some swords are starting to complete and are moving towards the front. Horses will be connected before too long. One archer is out exploring, but more would be nice.

Make a bunch of cash selling world maps. Nobody else seems to be exploring at all. Cash does us little good at this point, but I imagine it will help greatly to keep up in techs, once the AI decides to learn something.

(I) Volcano by Messana is now active, whatever that means. I hope it means Crete becomes valueless for both Carthage and Rome, but I don't think it does.

(6) 320 - Writing to Scythia for WM and 32 gold. He likes his WM and he's expansionist, so maybe I can get good trade for it. Plus, I don't care if the barbs tech some.

Contact w/Scythia to Rome for contact with Celts.
IW + WM to Celts for WM + 60 gold. IW gives them their UU but they should trouble Rome/Carthage with it a lot more than us!
Sell WM a bunch more times for a bunch more gold. End with 1450 gold and 99 gpt income.

(7) 315 - Sink Persian galley without losing any.

Lose one horse killing 3 archers and an immortal. Start moving on another Persian city.

Carthage now has the world's largest population, taking that title from the falling Persians.

(I) Persia and Egypt sign peace. Then Cleopatra comes offering TM for TM. I accept and then pay her 190 gold to go back to war with Persia! :lol:

Volcano erupts and destroys Roman city of Messana. Carthiginian cities of Syracuse and Marsala appear to be unaffected.

(8) 310 - Little happens. I kill an immortal and an archer. Persia's targetting is shifting. We should be ready to move again in the north soon and the south is already moving.

(I) Rome and Persia sign peace.

(9) 305 - Thebes can do a horseman every other turn, but it needs MM to grow. Put a citizen on the fish for one turn and then on the forest the next. This will give it slow growth and still make 30 shields every two turns.

(10) 300 - I go ahead and capture Antioch. Our culture is still very similar to Persia's and it'll be a nice forward base. Our army is outside the city, but it's still healthy enough that we should be fine. I hope I don't put the next leader in an awkward position....

Resisters, but we have 120 culture there, so no forces can reach the lone sword defending it. Granary, market, courthouse, harbor survived....too bad the barracks didn't.

(I) Pull a Charis and gotta make sure I don't lose the army. Get a Pyhhric victory in the north (elite hoplite offs attacking immortal, giving Pyrrhus!!! IN DEFENSE!)

(11) 295 - Move the army into Antioch and cross my fingers. No fewer than 10 immortals can attack it this turn, with another 8 or so available the turn after. Antioch is on a hill, though, so....

(I) Kill them all but am red-lined. I wonder how many hp the army will recover. There are lots of immortals still nearby. But with Pyrrhus around to replace the army if necessary, I think I will pass off now.

Scythia allies with Rome against Carthage.

(12) 290 - Army recovered zero hps? While fortified in a city? I guess I did move it in last turn. I don't see any way it survives the next interturn. Sorry guys. I would use the sword in Antioch to attack out once, against the stack to the north. And hope.

I guess +1/-1 army isn't TOO bad, though. And we should be good to go in the north.

I'm not entirely convinced Persia will be around by my next turn.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-290bc.zip

Arathorn

Suggestions for Ridgelake:
- Diplomacy -- I slacked my last few turns
- Sorry about the army in the south. Maybe concentrate on the north for a bit
- Watch happiness carefully. Our towns/cities are growing rapidly and we might need more lux tax very soon. I'm trying to connect gems in the south...and silks in the north aren't too far away (colony, maybe?)
- I'd found our next city where the settler is standing.

Sorry for going over, but I stopped before going too long. I think if I'd've watched the army die, I'd've just kept playing for another 50 turns.

Arathorn

Arathorn,

I downloaded the .zip file, but it's empty, no .sav file in it. Can you repost it? Also, sounds like a very fast start, even if we do lose the initial army. BTW, any chance it can move to safety (remember the movement bonus so it moves 2?). Not sure of the positions of the enemy. Might be worth saving the army if we will lose the city anyway. The second army should probably be hoplites also, or maybe 2 hoplites and a sword, cavalry is too far off.

As for the culture, that's a scenario setting IIRC, captured cities keep their existing culture. Not sure how that affects the chance for culture flips, does that count as our local culture, or theirs?

Woo, the Macedonians have started! :hammer:

Thanks for sharing your starting analysis, btw, that was a good read in itself. The rest had a few chuckles...

> Pull a Charis and gotta make sure I don't lose the army.

:rotfl:

So... what do we call it if indeed the army DOES fall on the handoff turn?! :P The suspense is thick in the air...

> Get a Pyhhric victory in the north (elite hoplite offs attacking
> immortal, giving Pyrrhus!!! IN DEFENSE!)
Wow, talk about ironic!

And not that I deny your conclusion, as viewed from the Macedonian point of view, but on our side it was "omg, no, not another hoplite?!?" Before the numes appear, those guys are nasty, coming and going! (Didn't realize it was 40shields though, ouch) I'll stop short of making any tactical comments here, but two general knowledge things to know:

- In this scenario if you capture a city it keeps its culture value, meaning the borders around it are now quite substantial, in favor of the attacker. That's a feature, not a bug
- If you don't move an army at all, I think it heals 50%, or 75% if rax in town. That's a big change from PtW and the utility of the army.

Good luck, 'd'
Charis

I'll be interested in watching this one, as with the others.

I need to beg off for this one... I haven't yet gotten Conquests (although I could remedy that anytime, I'm not really interested with the current bug set), and at any rate I'm going to be short on time and availability through probably around New Year's. Good luck with it though, and I'll be following along.

I have not checked the save, but if there is any chance of saving the army, then do it. Armies are the main weapon we will have against the hordes of Persia.

Grimjack

I have no problems with the .zip. It appears to have a .save file in it just fine. Can someone else verify this?

About the army -- thinking of it a bit more. I'd hoped that the AI wouldn't attack a nearly-healed (13/14 hps) army in a city on a hill. Apparently they will. Killing 9 immortals (one didn't attack for some odd reason) isn't a REAL bad use of the army.

It's possible the AI won't attack it if we move it pretty much straight east and abandon the city. Without the additional incentive of a city, I'm not sure if the AI will attack and try to finish it off or not. I'm also not sure exactly where all the foes are, but I do remember our main line of retreat is cut off by about 7 immortals.

Roster:
Arathorn* -- JUST PLAYED
Ridgelake -- UP NOW -- DUE for "GOT IT"
Coffee -- ON DECK
Justus II
Grimjack

Arathorn

I have a sav in the zip :)

Tommy

If Ridgelake doesn't post I can take it tonight? We could swap.

I agree with Grimjack. I looked at the save and had the same idea as Arathorn. Just not sure that an escape route exists.

Also I would like to start a prebuild in Sparta for the Great Library.

Workers and corruption remain the top problems. Suggest revolting to Republic and not waiting for Imperialism.

Well, I'm not sure what the problem was originally with the .zip, but I downloaded it at work, and the .sav is there. I will take a look at lunch!

Ridgelake was supposed to be back today (I just reread some of his old posts), but I don't care about order. I was just going with what Sullla had posted. Swaps (if we switch, since this is the first round, we'll just make it permanent) are fine by me. Just make things ULTRA-CLEAR if doing that.

As for a GL pre-build, I think the current cascade will eat up that wonder...and let it. After Persia's gone, we'll need to fight one more foe, probably, and acquiring the library by force sounds like a good plan to me. And I'm not really sure we'll need it. 2fers should be fairly easy and with all the wars, there's not much trading except what we'll be doing! :)

Arathorn

I'm ok with that. Will wait and stay with the posted order. Good luck to Ridgelake.

I would suggest a long and hard look at Temple of Artemis. Getting free culture in all cities would be a godsend when we run for domination.
While we do have lots of free culture in the captured cities, I am not at all certain we would get it should we try our hand at building new cities, taking cities from the barbs.

Grimjack

Temple of Artemis? When other civs have 60% cost factor and a 10-turn head start? Ummm... I don't think so.

As I understand the scenario, culture stays in the city when captured, so if we capture a barbarian city with culture, it will keep that culture. New cities will have no culture. And we will want a few cities, but the hard part of this scenario will have to be 50% of the population. We will have close to 20% of the land simply by wiping out Persia, but 50% of the pop will require significant portions of at least two other civilizations. We're at ~31% population now, as I recall (don't trust that number too much -- I've played a solo game since then and sometimes those numbers don't stick the greatest). I really pushed growth in most of our cities.

I, personally, have little doubt that 20% of the land will come long before 50% of the population, and that we will be forced into acquiring more land :hammer: simply to get the population. Capturing largish cities is the best way to increase population percentage, because it not only increases your own pop, but it decreases that of the rest of the world.

And ask yourself this -- would you rather have temple of artemis with the 12-25 free temples it would provide or another 13 swordsmen? I want the units -- with those, I can get the land the temples would provide anyway!

My $.02,
Arathorn

For this scenario, I agree with Arathorn, the Temple of Artemis is not as much of a priority as a normal game. The biggest difference is the fact that newly captured cities keep their culture in this scenario. Getting the temples and culture in new cities was always the biggest selling point on Artemis for me. I would rather go for the units. I'll also go along with his comments re: the Great Library, we should be able to trade for the techs we need. Since Rome and Carthage can never talk, there should be more 2-1 opportunities than usual, and we can broker some of them. About the only wonder I would make a priority at this point is Heroic Epic, to generate more leaders for more armies.

The Epic shoud complete in 3 turns IIRC.

I am back in town. My head is in a very different place right now. I have some plans for tomorrow night. So if Coffee wants to swap permanently in the order, that is fine.

I got it.

I bow to your wisdom.

On another note, is it for certain conquered cities keep their culture, or is it that all nations have an inherent culture in the cities present at scenario start ?

Like when you recapture a city you once have had, you get the culture it had when you lost it.
So, for the four big nations, all cities have 200 culture from the start. This would mean we wont get any culture in newly settled cities.
Hmm, will have to play a solo game to check up on this.

Grimjack

290BC - 0
Set the lone scientist in Cyzicus. Rome has Math. We can sell iron and our last horse around.
Form our 2nd army, 2 hoplites & a sword and move on Zela to keep the pressure on. I have a small SoD at
Sinope also. Whip a hoplite in Antioch to cheer up the future Persian city.
I plan the armies escape route from Antioch into Egypt. I attack a lone Immortal and lose my sword. I change
the escape route into Scythian territory. Our army is safe (for now) in the open.
Send gallies to Athens to run a ferry service.
Sign an MA with Scythia & Goth contact -> wines, iron, wm & 200g.
I've been left in great shape with 10 turns of a GA. cool.

Several days latter -> turn 1

285 BC - 1
Persia regains Antoch + 40 gold.
Capture Sinope but it was expensive. Move the army to a hill, must defend against 1 immortal next turn.
Attack on Zella fails for now.
Maronea courthouse -> worker farm. Maybe a good settler farm.
Trade WM's with the Goth.

280 BC - 2
An Immortal kills my fotified sword on a mntn. grr.
The army escapes again. There is any number of persians, 10 or more chasing it around.
Rome now has Math & Astronomy.

275 BC - 3
Establish the silks colony, complete road to gems.
Interesting our 2nd army recovered points in Persian territory while fortified.
I think our army is safe because of the movement penalty.
The Heroic Epic completes

270 BC - 4
Scythia & Celts sign an MA against Persia.
I was due, the army defends against 2 immortals.
I get 11 immortals and 3 spear chasing our 1st army.
Well Carthago has Tactics ? Should I steal or pay the outrages price of 80gpt & all.
I try the steal. Un real I got it. A safe steal for 1122 gold. WooHoo.
Trade Tactics,wm & 550g to Rome for Math.
Sell Math twice for 270 gold, All civs have math, only Egypt is missing Tactics.

265 BC - 5
Zella is proving difficult to capture.
Two immortals attack our army and it dies.
Establish embasies with Celts & Goth, Goth has iron. The Celts have no resources.
Rome has Construcion, Currency & Astronomy.

260 BC - 6
A single Immortal attacks across a river against a forified hoplite on a hill and wins. Thats how my turns
have been.
Sink one galley lose one galley.

255 BC - 7
Trying to conserve loses and consolidate troops.

250 BC - 8
Same. - 4 imm's kill 4 guys fortified on a hill -> no problem
I'm taking a hit.

245 BC - 9
Capture Zela.
Our alliance with Carthago ends.
Turned up science, monarchy due in 11. Vetoable.

240 BC - 10
Our GA ends.
Luxuries get a boost.
The action is at Zela and Iconium.
Our swords have a modest defense when fortified on mntns.

More latter.

The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d of the Macedonians, 240 BC.zip)

A screen shot

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d.jpg

I see it and should be able to play tonight

About the army
This guy died one tile away from safety. Not all bad as it drew a dozen immortals away from Iconium for several turns. That was enough time to get some sacrificial swords in place.

On hoplites & swords
Some bad rng luck I suppose. The Persian immortals were killing swords and hoplites fortified on mountains without losing any hit points.

The silks colony could use a defender. There are 2 - 2 turn worker farms. More workers are needed near the capital. Galley's can carry 4 units and all are in Athens doing ferry duty. All moves have completed and there are units near Iconium. I noticed that archers don't have bombardment capabilities as in C3C. One to check.

It looks like good progress to me. Very nice effort with the army, Coffee. I'll put that loss squarely on my shoulders, though. I got overeager for blood. I was seeing so few units I thought I could keep Antioch, but tons of immortals showed up immediately after I captured it.

Bad luck happens. We'll just have to deal with it. We can continue to play smart (BTW, immortal attacking sword on mountain is 4 vs. 4, so an even battle) and make the most of opportunities presented to us. We made progress in the north and can continue to keep one reasonably narrow front for a while, I hope/imagine.

It's too bad the area around Iconium is so mountainous. It would make a great killing ground otherwise. Once we get past the mountains, I think/hope things will go faster, both because we won't have as much difficulty defending and because Persia's production will be done.

Both GAs (ours and Persia's) should be ending very soon. That will mean fewer units from them to deal with. Since we've been emphasizing growth so much, our stream of units will be slowed, too, but it shouldn't be as dramatic.

Keep an eye out for 2fers/3fers on techs. We will want heavy cavalry about as soon as possible. Things are looking pretty good at this point, however. Just no more :smoke: like that silly first player!

Arathorn

Another suggestion after looking at the save, we should be able to settle some cities to the north of our core. Coffee mentioned a settler factory in Dyrrechaem, I think one or two cities building settlers to fill in some cities in the Balkans would be good, both for building toward our eventual population goal and to keep the Celts/Goths etc from settling too close to our core.

I havent looked at the save yet. But my initial inclination follows what Justus says. We should push out some settlers to claim lands. The population portion of the win equation is the more difficult of the two. Settling on some of the Greek islands also seems appealing in this regard.

I am not sure what to make of the Persian war front. Getting past the mountains will be a huge benefit. But that will not be easy, unfortunately. The mountains and hills by Ico are not fun to look at either....

If we do it now/soon, yes, it probably makes sense to settle a few towns north of our current position. Later in the game, however, it won't make sense.

It takes quite a while for the pop lost to a settler to be made up. The larger the city, the more shields/commerce it can produce and, often, the faster it will grow. A settler drops the population by 2, that population doesn't grow for x turns while the settler is in transit, and then the new city has to be defended. A few cities settled (maybe one town on a 6-turn settler cycle) might be worth it, but we don't want to expend too much effort in that direction, IMO.

Workers pay for themselves very quickly, comparitively, in that they increase the growth/shield/commerce rate of the town that produced them quickly, while not taking as long to grow back from. We definitely want to keep our two 2-turn worker factories chugging for a while.

I fully expect that whether we settle or not, we'll be warring late in the game to fulfill the population requirements. I'd rather be getting heavy cavs quickly from large cities with good cultural borders to defend than wasting time/effort defending/building small settlements that won't ultimately help much, if at all.

My $.02,
Arathorn

On the war
I'm guessing the front is moving north. The one and first Carthago horse has drawn some Persians away from Ico. Scythia may be in the area with their horse (a 3 attack unit). I saw some moving in that direction earlier. Else there are some hoplites/cats available for defense. I think we need to pillage. Cut and hold the iron/horse asap. Good luck.

Arathorn, I agree with you on taking pop from larger cities can hurt. My thought was to settle only relatively high food sites which will have the ability to grow to a decent size by the end of the game. Getting a handful of size 4 towns wont do us all that much good. Getting some size 8s might.

Coffee, I can't seem to find the save file. Your link leads to a bad extention and I could not find the file in Upload6. Could you please re-load the save?

Thanks

Ridge

Sorry, try these -> bad names

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d240.SAV

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d240.zip

Got it.

As an FYI, the links dont work. But I was able to get it out of Uploads6

RBP3d – Macedonia

240BC (0) MM a few cities for more commerce, shields, or food, depending on the situations. Swap over a few build orders, like Sparta to worker for skimming. The fully-corrupt Salonae swaps to a settler.

Rome has a monopoly on Lit, Construction, and Currency. Several others have Astronomy on us. Everyone is at war with Persia except Rome and the Goths. We cannot bring in the Goths for just excess wines. Not worth it to add gold.

Sell around WM for about 150 gold.

IT no attacks on us. Persia starts the Great Library. The lit monopoly has broken.

235BC (1)
Athens sword to worker (skim)
Sparta worker to hoplite
Dyrr rax to worker (skim)
Thebes sword to harbor

Kill a reg immortal with elite horse near Ico. Vet sword kills 3/5 Immortal. Vet sword kills elite spear.

Move SoD of army and 7 swords towards Trapezus.

IT Lose two swords to Immortal counters. One of them crossed a river and then attacked. Didn’t know that you could do that. Do Immortals get “bridges” as a special feature?

Persians start Artemis. Fine, tie up another city on wonders.

The Scythians razed Trapezus.

230BC (2) Horse kills spear near Zela. Sword loses to Immortal. Sword kills Immo. Sword kills Immo. Sword kills reg Immo. Sword kills redlined Immo and reveals another stack of 4 behind it. Army kills 1 and reveals a second stack of 4 Immos.

I decide to pull back the army to get better terrain for killing their stacks.

Over by Ico, a horse kills an Immo. Vet sword promotes on yellowed Immo.

Nothing new on the diplo front.

IT Persia signs the Goths to an MA against Egypt.

Carthage finishes the Colossus in Olbia.

Lose 2 swords to counters

225BC (3) Thesso sword to worker (skim) Ambrasia courthouse to worker (skim). Dyrr worker to horse. Sardis court to sword. It can do a net 18 spt. I will try to get it to 20 ASAP. Antandrus court to harbor.

Vet horse kills redlined Immo near Zela. Army kills another clearing a path for 3 redlined swords to get back to Zela to heal.

Vet sword loses to spear near Ico. Elite horse kills redlined spear.

Get the Celts to MA against Persia with them giving us 5 gold!

IT Goths and Sythians declare on Carthage and Egypt. Rome completes Hadrian’s Wall.

We kill 2 Immos and lose 1 sword in counters. Immos are crossing rivers without slowing.

220BC (4) Battles near Ico: Elite sword kills vet Immo. Vet sword kills vet Immo. Vet hop kills vet Immo. Vet horse dies to Immo.

Rome has Monarchy now. More importantly, Carthage has Construction. Even @ 3rd, it will cost us 30gpt and 1075gold. Not yet.

IT Carthage finishes the Oracle in Caralis.

215BC (5) There are 18 immortals heading towards Ico.

Vet sword kills vet Immo. Vet horse kills ¾ Immo. Vet sword loses to vet Immo.

As Egypt has astronomy, I decide to gift iron to Cleo so that she can make better attackers to hit Persia.

IT Carthage bring the Goths into war against Persia!

Doh, Persia signs Rome to an MA against us!

Rome completes Artemis in Pisae. Rome and Persia start the GL. Persia also starts the Mausoleum.

215BC (6) Renew our MA with Cleo against Persia.

Forgot to write this turn down

210BC (7) MA with Carthage against Persia for WM and 370 gold. I want to MA with several against Rome, but I don’t want to be locked into 20 turns….

Vet horse kills Immo. Vet sword kills Immo next to Ico. Vet sword kills reg Immo. Vet horse dies to ¾ Immo. Vet sword loses to Immo. Vet horse retreated by Immo. Elite horse kills Immo.

IT Egypt finishes the Great Lighthouse. Carthage finishes the Mausoleum.

205BC (8) Vet sword loses to vet Immo next to Ico. Vet sword kills Immo. Vet sword loses to vet Immo. Vet sword loses to ¾ immo and promotes it. Vet sword kills 4/5 Immo finally. Army kills Immo. Elite horse kills redlined Immo. Elite sword kills Immo. Vet sword kills Immo. Vet horse loses to warrior. Elite horse kills redlined warrior.

Monarchy and Construction are both known by Cleo and Carthage. The only twofer available is on astronomy.

Wines, 35gpt, WM and 640gold to Cleo for Construction. What???? I cant twofer construction to the barb tribes?????????

IT No losses and 3 dead immortals.

200BC (9) Persia’s attack force is down to 3 immortals from the big bunch headed our way earlier in my turn. Two more did show up, but we have withstood the Persian charge.

Elite horse kills 2/4 immortal. Amass forces to go on the offensive soon.

195BC (10) Move a few units back to heal. Bomb down an Immo a bit. I will leave a lot of movement on various units.


The Game (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_of_the_Macedonians-195BC.SAV)

Looks like the Persians are slowing down a bit. Lets hope Rome will speak to us before they arrives with their bothersome Legions.

About the tech tree, the barbarian tribes have an extremely limited tree. I do not know if the Egyptians are likewise limited, but I doubt it. It also feels like it has become much more expensive to buy techs.

Grimjack

What tech allows free river crossing? Isn't it construction? Whatever it is, it's likely Persia had it and was thus able to maneveur their troops more freely.

No cities captured, but it sounds like we crushed a huge horde of immortals, which was going to be necessary at some point. Hopefully we can get back on the offensive fairly soon.

The only bad piece of news I see is that Rome allied against us. We do NOT want to be fighting on two fronts, with immortals on one side and legions on the other. OUCH.

I'm curious why you gifted Iron to Egypt instead of using it as a piece of a deal to get some tech. Iron + ??? would probably have been enough for some tech, not so?

As for techs, I have no problem with the barbs having a limited tech tree, but IT SHOULD BE MADE CLEAR SOMEWHERE what techs they can and can't get. Check Scythia. I seem to recall reading somewhere that they could actually get some of the more advanced techs (maybe it was just Astronomy, though. I don't recall).

Roster:
Arathorn
Coffee
Ridgelake
Justus II -- UP NOW
Grimjack -- ON DECK

The game is almost 1/4 of the way over already. Keep up the good work.

Arathorn

Yes, the Persians are gassed now. We should be able to move forward offensively now. We will be slowed for a bit, however, by the fact that I turned over a number of our cities to aqueduct builds. I felt these were too important long term to be delayed. Getting aqueducts was about the only good thing from the very expensive un-twoferable construction trade I made. My appologies for that one.

We have not seen any Roman units come our way. I hope that we can make peace before we do. If not, then lets MA with the barb tribes against Rome. At the very least, that might slow down the tech leader some. Although in this scenario, with no WW and mostly developed cities, wars dont slow people down that much.

I only built one settler in my turn. It is far to the north. Due to corruption issues, it might make more sense to bring him south for an island location. There are a couple of islands that would be very beneficial. One is due south of Ico. It has dyes, a much needed 4th luxury. I would build the town on the hill due west of the dyes. This will also allow it to work 2 or 3 fish. The other island is near our core. A lot of fish and wheat to help grow quickly. There is also the island with the cow on it in the middle. But the only river on that island is on the cow. Not sure if that is totally worth it. Regardless, be wary of Persian boats. There are around 4 that I have seen.

I would think seriously of going to monarchy when it comes in. Being unable to cash rush is a big drawback.

On the tech side, trading is extremely expensive. It might be worth it to us to research.

Good luck, Justus! Hopefully you can take it to the Persians soon :hammer:

Edit: One More Thing (TM) I did start some ducts in our fairly corrupt northern cities. Probably makes sense to take those guys off ducts and put them on workers. I would let those towns on rivers continue to grow. But dropping 100 shields into a duct in a town that makes 3-4 spt is probably not a good use of resources in this game. Lets let them put their food and shields into workers, even if their worker patterns are only every 3 or 4 turns. Any town on a river should be allowed to grow to max size.

Arathorn, the reason that I gifted iron to Cleo is this: They were only up astonomy on us. That tech is basically useless to us. We would have had to kick in gold to get the tech. She only had about 8 gold in the bank. I had seen no hint of an ability on that front to generate either tech or money. (She somehow got both monarchy and construction a turn or two later. Probably trade with Carthage). My primary concern, however, was that we needed a strong second front for Persia. Attacking Immos with archers was not going to cut it.

One thing that I did consider was gifting her a bunch of gold so that she could pay us for the iron. But that seemed a little exploitive. In retrospect, it would have been best to wait a couole more turns for her to get a useful tech and then add in the ron to the deal. But hindsight is always 20/20.

Got it, I have looked at the save, and will play my turns tonight. I agree with settling the islands, but still think we ought to try and settle more cities in the north. Even though they will be corrupt, there are several wheat locations and rivers, and with 90 turns still to go, these could add up to a lot of pop points. Looking at Dyrracheum and a couple of the other cities building ducts, they could easily knock out a settler each, then switch to workers. My only concern is the current war with Rome, but if we can get a peace deal, I think we should settle some fertile land.

Also, as to the rivers, looking at the civilopedia, it is Engineering that gives bridging, which is the tech after Construction. So Persia is up at least that tech. Hopefully they will trade it to Rome, and it can filter around.

OK, I am partway through my turns, but I have a dilemna, and would like to get clarification/advise. The Romans wouldn't talk for the first few turns, then I see a couple Legion IIs, then a stack of 12! of them moving along our northern border. So, remembering the discussion earlier, I see if we can get any allies, and the Celts will MA for 25gpt. Two turns later, the SOD is continuing to move, kind of laterally along our border, but still 12 Legions would cut through our northern border like butter, we have 2 or 3 swords, a couple horses, and a couple archers. Anyway, after checking this turn, Ceasar will talk, and accept peace straight up! He also has Military Training, which I can buy as part of the peace deal for almost all we have (1100g and 40gpt). But this would give us a 3-fer, as neither Carthage nor Egypt have it (Persia does, but that's a whole other story...), so we could get at least Currency and Monarchy or Astronomy, I'm sure. The problem is, can we accept the peace deal with Rome, since it will break the alliance with the Celts? I have read through some discussions in the other threads regarding breaking an ROP, etc, and re-read the RBC exploits descriptions. As I see it, it's not an exploit, but it wouldn't be considered honorable either. Here is a quote from Charis in the Persia thread, regarding breaking an ROP:

We don't get to 'cancel' that before 20 turns without ruining our reputation -- that's a "may cancel peaceably after 20 turns" deal, and we have other outgoing payments that would also be broken. If we were in an extremely deep hole that would be something to consider, but especially given the lead we have, tarnishing the win with such a deed should not be considered. .

In this case we would be breaking an alliance, but one in which we did not recieve anything else, we are paying them 25gpt for the privelege. We do have two other current deals with the Celts, selling them wine for 6gpt and horses for 5gpt. On the other hand,

Like I said, this is a pretty big decision, so I would like to get some input. I have saved where I am, and will wait to play the rest of my turns tomorrow night.

Its like Charis said. If we break the agreement now I doubt that we will be able to sign future MA's or broker future gpt deals. I can live without the gpt component, thats ok. However losing the ability to form alliances will probably get us into AW. Having said that, I'm not sure that that is exactly what will happen.

How far can they get? I don't mind sacrificing fishing villages. Good luck.

They are 3 tiles north of Salonae, our northernmost city. The strange thing is, they have been moving laterally to the east, either trying to outflank us or else they are on a crusade somewhere else. They couldn't get to our core within the 20 turns, and I'm sure we could slow them up at least, but they are powerful (5-4-1, with 5hps for vets). Of course, maybe the MA with the Celts will eventually pay off and they will pull some back. BTW, Caesar is rich, over 6000 gold, so I don't think we will slow up his research any!

Lets hold off taking peace for now. As long as they dont come to attack, we dont have to have peace. And even if we lose a town up north, it won't be the biggest loss in the world.

We cannot defend against 5-4-1 units until we get heavy cavs. But as long as they skirt our borders, no need to break our rep. Wait and see if they will continue eastward.

I dont think anyone will be materially slowed on research due to war in this scenario. It is WW and lack of infrastructure builds that are the primary causes of research slow-down. There is no WW in this scenario and the core towns are largely pre-built.

Those are my thoughts. I would be interested to hear what the rest of the team says.

I can see good arguments either way. This is not, to the best of my knowledge, an exploit. Dastardly play to sign the peace treaty, but we'll end up paying for that with lack of gpt deals and difficulty in signing alliances.

*IF* we make peace, pay Rome more gpt so we still have cash to complete the 2fer/3fer. Other civs won't accept gpt from us once we break our alliance with the Celts.

From a purely gameplay point of view, I see no need to sign peace while we can still preserve our cities. Maybe the Celts will break our alliance and sign peace early. Maybe the Romans are targetting someone else before us. Play it coy for now. But I would definitely break our rep to save important cities. The ones under threat now? Hard to say....

Arathorn

There are plenty of other problems to deal with right now. But I wanted to put together a tentative dot-map for the islands near our core.

The red dot should be the first founded. It could work 3 fish and 3 BGs. It will need a granery, harbor, and duct. A temple could come later as most of its workable tiles would already be under cultural control.

Pink dot followed by blue dot would be optional. They would require a temple/granery/duct and harbor. Not completely sure they would pay off by the end of the game, however.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-start1.jpg

The other island that we have talked about settling is the one south of Ico. The big draw of that one is the dyes. Depending on how our war with Persia is going, we might be able to capture dyes south of Antioch in the relative near future. That would diminish the value of this island to us.


Edit: A settler factory could be Melitus. It has been doing wonderfully as a worker factory. But taking 10 turns to build a couple of settlers might be a good plan.
Good luck with the Romans and Persians! I can't wait for your report!

Sounds like we have a consensus, I will hold off the Legions, or at least delay them, unless the Celts break their deal. They shouldn't get past our northernmost cities before my turns are up, then we can look again. I have made some progress on the Persian front, and am holding my own against the Scythians in the NE.

As for settling, I agree with those sites, and was also looking at the small island just north of the cow. I had tried to sneak a galley around Sparta to get in position for the red dot, but it didn't make it, there are now at least 6 Persian galleys in our area, so it may have to wait until we can build on on the Adriatic coast. Cyprus (the dyes island) can wait, I think we will capture the dyes south of Antioch before we would ever get there.

The Persians seem to give a new meaning to suicide galleys :(

I sincerely hope the Romans are after the presumably softer targets of the Scythian cities. A stack of 10 Legion II is not something we would want traipsing around in our core. ..

How far away are artillery pieces ?
Would we want artillery pieces considering they will have a hard time keeping up with our Heavy horses ?

Grimjack

Originally posted by Justus II
I have made some progress on the Persian front, and am holding my own against the Scythians in the NE.

Glad to hear about the Persian front. I had hoped that I set you up adequately to progress in that area.

I am curious about your comment regarding the Scythians. We had been in an MA WITH them against Persia. If not, they should be. They razed one Persian town during my turn.

Regarding the Persian boats, we could build our own in Ambracia to ferry a settler and a couple of hops. It would be a 1 turn movement to get there. On a related topic, does the Persian navy mean that we can't ferry troops across from our core to the Sardis area? That would be a significant slowdown in our troop movement if so.

Grimjack, I think that artillery would be helpful against the Romans as we would need to reduce their horde size. But hopefully they will not come our way. And artillery certainly helps until we get cavs.

The Scythians joined an alliance against us with Rome on my first turn, so they are fighting Persia and us at the moment. The persian shipping has not blocked the ferry route yet, we can get across in one turn, and back in another, also our 4-move vs. their 3 helps. If they move their ships north, they could, but now they are to the south, near Sparta. Amrbracia would be a good city for a galley, but right now it is working on swords in case we have to hold off the romans.

@Grimjack: We don't have any cats on the Roman front yet, I am trying to build a couple. Versus the Persians, they are moving in my main assault group, actually adjacent to Antioch at the moment. Unfortunately I don't have any Heavy Cav to keep up with, but the Persians do... :(

Pre-Turn (195BC): I run through the cities, making some production switches. We are week in northern Anatolia, so I switch Sinope and Corinth from Granary to sword, and Cyzicus from Harbor to sword. In Macedonia I switch Nesebur and Dyrracheum from ducts to settler, and Salonea from courthouse to worker. I also micromanage Maronea and Ambracia from 9spt to 10spt. I check diplomacy and sell WMs around, getting 20g. One vet sword kills a wounded immortal on a hill, losing 2hp but becoming elite. (Note: All units are vet unless specified, I will mention regulars and elites). Otherwise just mass forces near the army SE of Iconium, put a hop on a mountain to block 3 immos SW of Iconium. Plenty of workers waiting to be moved, I have them mine some hills in productive cities. Also note that we cannot build marketplaces, strange because we have several already, but I see we need currency for new ones.
IBT: Egypt & Carthage ally vs. Scythia. One immo knocks our hop of the mountain without taking a scratch. Another immo kills a hop on a hill, only taking 1hp. 2 more immos come into view. Scythia and Rome ally against us! :eek: Now we have a third front! Not good, but we still haven’t seen any troops from either.

(1) 195BC: Miletus worker>worker, Thebes Hop>Hop, Cyzicus Sword>sword, Corinth sword>cat. I try to work a galley SW toward Sparta, attack a persian galley and sink it, losing 1hp, but then spot another. Another galley ferries a hoplite to the coast near Miletus, picking up 2 workers from an island on the way. SE of Iconium, I use my cats, who go 2 of 4, taking a hp of an immo and an archer. Sword kills immo, loses 1hp. Elite horse kills yellow archer, losing 2. Sword kills another wounded immo, losing 2 but going elite. Hop finishes the last wounded immo, losing 2. The army and several horses move east one, along the river. My plan is to get them in a blocking position near Melitrene, while our slower stack, with cats, moves to take Antioch.
IBT: Persian galley sinks our wounded one, losing 1hp. A stack of 5 more moves into view near Crete. An immo dies against our hoplite, who loses 3 but goes elite. Another immo dies against our elite sword, who loses 1. Two Legion II appear along the road N of Salonae, one kills a hoplite on a hill (my lookout), going red in the process. They are vets, 5-4-1 with 5hp.

(2) 185BC: I know we don’t want to face those legions, so I see what we can do to distract them. The only barb not already at war with them is the celts, who will ally for wm +480, or 25gpt. I decide for the gpt so we save some money if they break the alliance first (Ironic). Hopefully that will tie up his northern cities and take some pressure off of us. Meanwhile I whip a wall in Salonae, and build Delphi with the existing settler N of the wheat, NE of Dyrracheam. It’s on a hill, could be a good place to defend north of our established towns. I switch our two settler towns over to swords. (Is that what they mean by beating plowshares into swords?). On the Persian front, one sword dies taking an immo down by 3, who gets promoted, an elite sword finishes him off, losing 2. Army is in the hills N of Antioch.
IBT: Scary sequence. Persians and Celts agree to peace. An immo assaults Iconium, killing off our hoplite and getting promoted to elite. Then I see a Persian Heavy cav move into view. Finally, the focus switches north, where a stack of 12! Legion II move into our vision. :cry: Uh-oh.

(3) 180BC: Miletus worker>worker, Maronea sword>sword, Salonae walls>cat, Sardis Hop>Hop, Antandrus Hop>Hop (can produce in same # of turns as a sword). Rome must have been a supplier for the Celts, as they are now missing wine. I trade them wine for 6gpt and map, and horses for 70+5gpt. (I hooked up another source last turn). The Goths will pay us for wine, I haggle to 70+1gpt, so at least there is gpt involved. A Horse dies against his regular Hcav, who loses 2 but is promoted, another horse finishes him, losing 2. The army takes out an immo on the road W of Melitene, losing 1hp. From here I should be able to block or slow their reinforcements while our assault force gets into position. At Iconium a hoplite kills off the wounded immo, losing 1.
IBT: Goths & Celts ally vs. Carthage. Another regular Hcav rides in and kills a wounded horse, losign 1. The Scythians appear, with 3 Riders (3-1-2) near Zela, and a sword, archer, and spear following. Egypt and the Goths make peace.

(4) 175BC: Athens duct>sword, Thebes hop>sword, Dyrracheam sword>sword, Sardicus sword>sword, Iconium Cat>cat, Sinope sword>sword, Cyzicus sword>sword. Elite horse kills the Hcav, losing 1. Elite horse dies trying to finish off a wounded immo on a mountain. Cat weakens a reg spear on a mountain, but sword dies trying to finish him off. Our assault group is on the hill N of Antioch, the Army is on the hill overlooking Melitine. Near Zela, our elite archer kills an elite rider, losing 3. Two swords attack the other two riders, forcing them to retreat, and losing a hp each. Our two horses from Zela finish off the wounded riders, and return to the town, one loses 2hp in the process. Rome will finally talk! They will take peace, straight up. They are also full of tech, with Astro, Monarchy, Currency, Engineering, and Mil. Tactics (Heavy Cav). They have over 6000g. If I put Mil tactics in the peace deal, it would cost us 1100g and 40gpt (we are at 1200g and 45 gpt). Time to pause for “consultations”! ;)

After discussion with the fellow members of our Oligarchy, it is decided to honor our alliance, and hold off the Legions as long as we can!

IBT: An Immo loses a hp attacking our horse, who loses 3 but retreats safely. The stack of galleys continues west, toward Rome? The Roman legions move east again, another one kills an archer picket N of Delphi. The Scythians move some more swords in view.

(5) 170BC: Sparta duct>Swd, Miletus worker>worker, Ancyra sword>sword, Sardis hop>hop, Thebes is in disorder, I must have moved a garrison unit out. Hatra (Persian) completes the Great Library! (Looking at the pedia, it doesn’t obsolete in this scenario, so that could eventually be valuable to us, but it is in their central desert area). The battle for Antioch: Cats go 4 for 4, taking 2hp each off the 2 defending spears (1 vet, 1 reg). Elite sword loses 3hp but kills the vet, another elite sword kills the redlined regular with no losses, and Antioch is ours. The Harbor, Granary, Market and Courthouse survive! Move a hop and two more swords in to garrison. N of Antioch I lose a sword in an even fight against a –1 immo, but a second sword finishes him off, losing 1. My army loses 4hp taking out a Hcav near Miletene. Checking around, Carthage and Egypt both have Mil. Training, and want 1500g and 25gpt, no 2-fer available, so I wait a turn to see if some of the other techs filter down.
IBT: Persia and Carthage sign Peace. A Hcav kills one of our horses on a hill, and 6 more show up in view, near Militene. Looks like they weren’t gassed, just a lull while they switched production over to Heavy Cav. I will have to try and draw them into the open. Their galleys continue west, then turn north into the Adriatic by the heel of Italy. They are either trying to land in Italy, or hit us from behind. The Roman stack splits, most move east, 3 move south. :confused:

(6) 165BC: Athens Hop>sword, Maronea sword>sword, Thessalonika duct>sword, Ambracia duct>sword, Cyzicus sword>horse, Atandrus hop>hop, Nesebur sword>horse, Corinth cat>cat. Check around diplomatically, and both Carthage and Egypt now have the same six techs as Rome (Astro, Monarchy, Currency, Mil Training, Engineering, and Literature) so there are no 2-fer deals in the forseable future, unless we can trade Mil Training to the barbs. (which we can’t, based on the other threads)
I decide to buy Mil Training from Egypt, who will offer it a little cheaper than Carthage, and she is broke, we want to keep her a threat to Persia. It will cost us, she wants 1600+19gpt, but the price won’t get any lower, we are the only ones who don’t have it. I haggle around to make it 1000g+42gpt, saving enough to upgrade the horses we have. Upgrade 5 horses that are in or can get to barracks this turn, leaving one more, and 240g, for next turn. Switch several cities (Athens, Thebes, Sparta, Cyzicus, Antandrus, Sardis) to Heavy Cav, they all produce 12 or 15 or more spt. OK, after all that, time for some combat, cats go 2/4 and wound 2 Hcav. Elite sword kills one off, losing 2hp, and Hector steps forward to lead our troops! Just in time, so I move him back to Iconium to build an army, and next turn there will be 3 Heavy Cav to fill it! Other forces consolidate or heal. Near Zela, an elite archer dies against a spear, then two swords kill both spears, losing 1hp.
IBT: Carthage & Persia ally vs. Egypt, not good news. Worse news I realize on my turn that that broke our trade route with Egypt! :( I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly had more income. Looking back, it was the Wine+35gpt for Construction deal that broke. Good news is although Cleo won’t take gpt, Hanni will, since he is at war w/her. Might be useful later. Persian Hcav swarms north toward Zela, first kills a sword, losing 2hp, second loses 3 and retreats after inflicting 2hp. In the south, another Hcav loses 3 and retreats, but hurts our elite hop for 3. Their stack of galleys now turns south again. A Scythian rider loses 2hp but finishes off our other wounded sword. Legions all turn south, bypassing Salonae.

(7) 170BC: Miletus worker>worker, Byzantium duct>Hcav, resistance is done in Antioch. Hector’s army is filled with 3 Heavy Cav and moved near Zela. Elite sword kills wounded cav, losing 3. Cats go 3/5 wounding 2 Hcav. Sword loses 3 killing one, elite sword loses two and forces the 2nd cav to retreat.
IBT: Persia & Carthage ally vs. Rome, good news I guess. Hcav dies attacking a hop, who loses a hp. Immo loses 2, kills the wounded hop. Immo loses 2, kills sword. Another sword on a hill loses 2 holding off a regular immo, then loses another as a regular Hcav attacks, and retreats, but is finally killed by another Hcav. Rome’s legions continue south, Scythian swords move along the coast road to outflank Zela, headed to Sinope.

(8) 155BC: Sardica sword>sword, Zela Cat>cat, Sardis Heavy Cav >Cav. Zela’s cav wounds a rider, and the Cav Army kills him. A sword loses 2hp but kills a wounded cav. Whip walls in Antioch, as he keeps coming up the road.
IBT: Egypt and Persia sign a peace deal, not good. Immo dies against a yellow sword on a hill, who is redlined but promoted to elite. However, another immo comes in and kills him, losing 2. A stack of Cav approaches our stack on a hill, first one, regular attacks a hoplite, both are red when he retreats. Second one, also regular, loses 2hp but kills our sword. Third, vet, kills our Heavy cav. Galleys continue south, past Sparta again? Another swarm of Scythian riders moves into position, at least 6 of them, and more swords in the north. First attack of the Romans as their lead two legions are on either side of Delphi, first dies assaulting our hop, who loses 2, second loses 3 but kills our sword.

(9) 150BC: Sparta Cav>cav, Miletus worker>sword, (we have plenty of workers), Thessa. Cav>cav, Maronea sword>sword, Ambracia sword>sword, Dyrracheam sword>wall, Antioch finishes wall>temple, Iconium Cat>cat, Ancyra sword>sword, Sinope wall>sword. Whip walls in Dyrracheum, Delphi (which probably won’t last next turn anyway). Check diplomacy, and Scythia will offer peace for 20g! :) I’ll buy that. Then I get them back to war against Persia, and they will for Iron and Wine, that’s a cheap date. I also buy Egypt back into the war against Persia, it costs 18gpt, but at least it gives Persia another front to worry about. Reviewing the front, Rome has 8 legions that can hit Delphi this turn, time to fight again another day. I leave one hoplite and pull the sword and heavy cav back to Sardica. Cats go 5/5, wounding two cav and a spear. Two of our cav kill off their two woundeds, with no losses. Hoplite loses one killing a regular immo, then the Army takes out a wounded vet Immo from a hill. Elite sword loses one, but kills a yellow immo. Sword dies against the wounded spear on a mountain but redlines him, and a hop finishes him off.
IBT: Carthage has a fleet show up off the coast of Sparta, 7 galleys, heading east? :confused: Regular immo loses 1 but kills a wounded hop, Cav dies against our elite sword, who loses 2, another cav kills the sword, and takes our catapults!! However, he moves them under a redlined immortal. 3 Cav then pour down the road against our elite hop and a cav, all 3 die but take both our units to red. Romans lose an archer and a legion at Delphi, but then burn it to the ground, getting 5g from us. Rome also signs a peace deal with Egypt.

(10) 145BC: Athens Cav>cav, Byzantium sword>sword, Thess. Sword>sword, Dyracheum wall>cat. Hoplite attacks the red immo, and retakes our cats. (That wouldn’t have been good). Army loses one hp killing off two spear on a hill, exposing the 3 cav underneath. First our cav kills one off, then our hoplite dies after inflicting 2hp to another, but promoting him. A sword attacks another, who loses 2 and retreats, where one of our wounded cavs kills him. The Cav army then moves in and finishes off the last one. Here is the situation in Persia, I have been trying to fight from the hills, and gradually push on Miletine, maybe now with both armies and the Scythians attacking from the north, we can do it. Note that Antioch has 5 units, but all wounded, so if he attacks with his immo and cav, we could lose one or two, but it doesn’t look like anyone else can reach it. What I had hoped, and would be a possibility for the next player, is to block him at Miletene, and send an assault force south to take Beruit and Tyre. This will not only stop his naval production, but also cut all his trade routes, as he has no overland routes and is fighting on all fronts anyway.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBD3d_PersianFront.JPG

Here is the Roman threat, they now have a total of 23 legions moving on our northern front. I have shown their stacks, and our garrisons. They will still accept peace straight up, in fact will even pay us 50g. We still have 13 turns on our alliance with the Celts, although it doesn’t look like they have done much. I left movement on most of the units in Greece, so the next player can discuss the situation and react accordingly.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBD3d_RomanThreat.JPG

Tech-wise, there is a possible 2-for deal in the works, but we can’t quite swing it yet. Rome, Egypt, and Carthage all have Lit, Currency, Monarchy (which we are 4 turns from), Engineering, and Astronomy. However, Carthage just got Siege Craft, which allows the upgrade to the much more powerful Fire Catapults (8-1-1). Since they are at war with both Rome and Egypt, and so is Persia, we are the only ones that could trade it. We can’t buy it yet, but it seems we are close. He will take gpt payments from us, in fact we could buy Engineering for 300+26gpt. But if we can save up a little more, and buy siege craft, we should be able to trade it for another tech from Egypt and from Rome, if we make peace with them. I would recommend Engineering if at all possible, the river is a real disadvantage vs. Persia. Currency would also be nice for markets. Also, several of our larger cities are having happiness problems, with 1 or 2 entertainers, I didn’t want to bump up the luxury slider for 4 cities. If we do go for Beruit, we get the dyes, which would be a big help. Just something to watch for, if we can get some more cash, or if we do make peace with Rome, that frees up the 25gpt we are paying the Celts. But we need to watch our window carefully, if Carthage makes peace with Egypt, it may get traded quickly.

Overall, a very intense set of turns, getting hit from 3 sides. Especially at Zela, felt like Ft. Apache for a few minutes. Here’s the save:





Save Game, 145BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_of_the_Macedonians,_145_BC.SAV)

Tough set of turns handled well. We need to make peace with Rome. They will ravage our towns soon. I would give it 1 more turn for the Celts to hopefully make peace. If they dont, then make peace with Rome.

I would make a Carthage trade before the Rome peace.

Good luck, Grimjack!

Since our rep is now toast anyway, I would just make peace with Rome for the rebate. We'll get our gpt back, save one front, and allow us to concentrate our troops.

Up to Grimjack, though! He's UP NOW!

Arathorn

Nice turns Justus. We have complete 40 turns so far. Good luck to Grimjack.

I have it.
I am fairly certain I wont have time to complete my turns tonight though. Looks like I may have some work cut out for me here. The roman stacks look nasty.

I will reread Justus turns, which look quite impressive.

Grimjack

Originally posted by Ridgelake

I would make a Carthage trade before the Rome peace.


I think we will have to make the peace first. We don't have quite enough gold+gpt to swing the deal right now, but freeing up the 25gpt will probably be enough. Also, as long as Carthage is at war with Egypt they will take gpt from us, but I think if they make peace with Egypt, then our rep goes down in their eyes, and they won't take it any more. Good luck, if you do make peace w/Rome, there are at least 2 HCav and 3 swords in Greece that haven't moved yet, that could head to the front.

Sorry for taking my time with this, but I didn't feel like this was a time for merely 'ok' turns. I could possibly have been a bit more aggressive, but some early losses made me cautious.

145 BC Preturn: Situation is dire with quite a lot of roman troops menacing our northern central front. It is a bit worrisome that the fast Scythian cavalry has not been seen yet, but I would rather have it continue to be unseen ļ
I start of with adjusting a couple of cities with some small gains to show for my effort. Put a few cities on 7 fpt for growth, and maximized shields and gold in the size 9 city with a taxman. No sense in growing specialists when I can get it to 10 spt instead.
I change a city up north to Cavalry instead of swordsman. If we are going to be dastardly, then we will have more need of a cavalry than another sword.
I take a long think about putting Miletus back on worker duty. It is a long way from our core, where there still needs to be made some improvements. We are working clean tiles in a lot of cities. Not many, but I would say about 0,7 in every city.
If we really wanted we could probably defend Myrrh. Sardis however, is menaced by a lot of Legions, and are much farther away from reinforcements. I will move the spare troops towards the Persian front instead, and aim for a peace deal with the Romans next turn should they menace our cities.
I note that I could buy siegecraft if I spent all our 319 gold and 60 gpt together with both our luxes. This gives absolutely no margin for error, so I will wait until I can be reasonably sure to get a twofer. ( I.E next turn. ) I switch Ambracia to galley, and Dyrrh to settler. This settler will need to be rushed next turn. ( If I still have the money after the trades.

IBT: We lose the top hop on Antioch after redlining the attacking cav. We defeat one cav attacking our hop guarded cat, but the hop bites it to a second cav. Our swordsman in Antioch defends against the immortal. Scythians manages to defeat one heavy cav after losing one of their own. We lose a third hop to yet another heavy cavalry.
Persia signs peace with the Goths. This is bad. Not that the Goths distracted very much, but they could get annoying to our northern parts. We will have to resign them up later. Romans suggest straight peace. I politely decline. I will wait until next turn.
Miletus: Worker->Worker, Sardis Cavalry ->Cavalry, Antandrus Cavalry->Cavalry,

140BC I let Ceasar pay us 80 gold to get peace. We have a very annoyed Celt somewhere. Unfortunately 88 gpt and 491 gold is only close to a deal on siegecraft. Egypt has been busy. Between last turn and this, she has spent 1100 gold on something. Hoping to prevent a new attack on us by the romans, I sign them in against the Persians for 10 gpt and a RoP. ( RoP is mainly to let him move his troops out of our lands quickly. Carthage wants 14 gpt and 490 gold to ally against Persia. I will have to let him be outside that quarrel a little while, hoping Persia wont buy him in against us. Hmm, Goths want 70 gpt to ally. Why is everything suddenly so expensive ƒ¼ ?
Then there is the battle outside Antioch. I switch Antioch to rax. I hope I can whip it up in a couple of turns. Our troops badly need healing. Our regular cav defeats another cav and get promoted. Our cav army takes out an archer, and then waits to see which way to go. Our hop army gets down to 1 !!! hitpoint taking out a cavalry. A cavalry takes out an archer. I move our hop army underneath our cavalry army, hoping the Persians wont have a couple of heavy cavalry available that can chase us out of our mountains.
In spite of me being very anxious to see what the Persians will do, I take time out to re-manage our cities.
I switch tiles between Sardis and Antandrus so that I get a cav in 3 and 4 turns, instead of 4 and 4. I belatedly discover we are in an Oligarchy, and rushing a settler would cost a total of 2+2 citizens. I will hold of on rushing a little while. I discover something funny in Dyrrh. I will produce more if I give it an entertainer so that it goes into WLTKD, rather than letting him work the fields. Weird. I will have to check other outlying cities for this phenomenon as well. Hmm, nope, it is not WLTKD. I rather suspect some supple bug. I will take three screenies, and leave it as unexplainable.

With some trepidation, I finally press ¡¥End Turn¡¦.

IBT: Persian counterattacks is one heavy cav which is redlined while defeating a sacrifical sword. ( Needed to expose it to get back a cat . ) That was a bit anticlimactic. I saw lots of troop movement to the north though. Perhaps he would like to fight soft Scythian riders ?
Scythia wants 300 gold for his world map. I decline.
Maronea Sword->Sword, Ambracia Galley->Harbor, Iconium Cat->Cat, Cyzicus Cav->cav. ( Feels like an Always War game, where you are ever anxious on when and where to get into infra. )

135: One of our cav are yellowed while defeating an infiltrating spear. Our cavalry army takes care of a Persian cavalry and retreats up in the hills again. I am moving most of our troops to the road network, in preparation of taking the Persian harbors.
Sardicia is another town with weird corruption. If I put a citizen as taxman, while I lose two raw shields, I still have the same net shields, and one more gpt than before. I will not sacrifice growth in this city though. In Nesebur corruption is weird as well. No matter how I put my last citizen net doesn¡¦t change. He becomes a taxman then, so I get at least 2 gpt from him. I change Miletus to settler. We could really use the added support from new cities.
I change Maronea to Colloseum. I am hoping that is a prebuild for Marketplace. I change Tessalonika to courthouse.

IBT: Due to me stupidly crossing one river to far, we lose a cavalry in the Persian counterattacks. Sorry about that.
Sparta Cav->Colloseum, Thebes Cavalry->Cavalry, Nesebur Cavalry->Settler,

130BC We start by killing an immortal with a sword, losing one. Our army lose three hitpoint taking out two cavs, but is promoted. A cavalry takes out a third Persian Cavalry. One stack with two immortals and one cavalry left to take out this turn. Three of our cavalry gets the honors. I move a couple of Hops to guard the exposed swordsman and cavalry. We are running out of hops. I will have to start building them again somewhere.
I still cannot get Hannibal to part with Siegecraft. At this rate we will soon have enough gold for a steal. I will have to ponder this for a while.

IBT: Our Hop charged with severing Persian roads is made elite by killing of a cavalry. Luck turn when our hop guarding a swordsman is killed by another cavalry. A third Persian cavalry disposes of our swordsman. Monarchy comes in. Set our lone scientist on Republic. Check with F1 and we can get it in twenty if we notch up research a bit and sacrifice our income. I will wait a while before that though. Could be that I should research something else instead like currency or some such. Egypt grabs one of the harbour cities, and Persia is down to a single harbour.
Athens Cavalry->Cavalry, Sardis Cavalry->Hop, Corinth Cat->Cat,

125BC I bomb down the archer and cavalry that is visible. I will try not to expose any troops this turn so that I can advance next turn with both of our armies and see if I can grab Persia¡¦s last harbour. Hmm, it looks like Carthage is pounding the Egyptians, Cleopatra has four workers on sale. ( I do not buy. ) Republic is of course known in the entire world. I experiment a little, and discover if I run a deficit research we can get currency in nine turns. I save my money though. I am hoping to catch the twofer.
I whip a settler in Salonae. We are in danger of getting surrounded by red.

IBT: Scythia and Carthage signs peace. Bah, lose a fortified hop on a hill without dealing damage. Lose a cavalry and deal one damage. Scythia and Egypt signs peace.
Byzantium Hop->Hop. Dyrrh Settler->Settler, Salonae Settler->Cat, Zela Cat->Worker, Iconium Cat->Cat, Ancyra Cav->Hop, Antandrus Cav->Cav,

120BC I kill off the exposed two cavalry, and the siege of Melitene starts. ( I feel I need to grab Melitene first, as our front will be very long and exposed otherwise. I will send our cats and assorted spare troops to Beirut. I put Sardis on starcation diet for one turn while it completes an MP.

IBT: Price of world map has gone down. Celts only wants 150 gold for it. I decline. Persia move three cavs out of Melitene as my armies are seigeing. I would guess Melitene is guarded by some four spears. Ought to fall this turn then. I will see if I can do something about the three cavalry as well. Wouldn¡¦t want them to instantly grab Melitene back. Persia lands some four spear and a couple of immortals in the southern coast of Turkey. I will have to reroute my reinforcements here, and let them deal with the would be marines. Egypt and Scythia signs against the Goths.
Miletus Settler->Settler, Thebes Cav->Cav, Sardicia Cav->Cav, Sardis Hop->Hop.

115BC(6) Our cavalry army kills off three spears and reveals a horseman army. The army contains a single horse. Some :smoke:. A cavalry do the honors and capture Melitene. I am saving our hop army to guard our wounded Cavalry army. Great we had culture in Melitene, and it comes with Barracks and Marketplace. I kill off the three visible cavalry as well, without incurring losses or promotions.
After due consideration as regards our tough situation techwise, I decide to steal from Carthage. It is not like they could sign up the romans against us.
Success. :band:. I steal Siegecraft from them. Very well, seems to be no such thing as always good luck. Rome must be researching Siegecraft, as I can only get insulted when I try to change the tech with him. Egypt doesn¡¦t want our gpt, so I will have a hard time to get two techs from this. Seems like I will have to chose between currency and engineering. Rome also do not want our gpt. I sell Rome Siegecraft for 320 gold. Then I go to Egypt and sell her Siegecraft and 295 gold for Engineering and Currency and a RoP. ( RoP saved us a few coins. ). Our populace is starting to get unhappy all over the place, so with a heavy hand, I raise lux taxes to 20 % . We could have bought spices from Carthage instead, but I would rather pour 25 gpt into the void than give him the 50 gpt the gold bug would have made of the money Carthage wanted for his spices. I whip a Hop in Sinope.

IBT: Quiet. Last romans leave our lands this turn. I will try to remember to sign them in to a Persian war now. I wouldn¡¦t want them to return.
Sinope Hop->Sword, Cyzicus Cav->Market,


110BC: Whip a Hop in Iconium. Feel bad about this, since it had 8 shields. Need it to be able to defend against the approaching invaders though. I land a settler on one of the small wheat islands. Our Hop army lose 5 hitpoints taking our a regular cav. I do not get a leader when our elite hop takes out an archer. Found Pharsalos on the old spot. This jumps us 4 gpt. I whip a temple in Thermopylae.

IBT: I think Hannibal suspects something. He demands territorymap and 21 gold. I can not say I am happy to give him the dough, but I do not begrudge him. He does go from annoyed to cautious though. Hmm, Persia decides to split their marine stack. They are toast now. The Persians try to mount a counterattack on Ancyra, and they send five cavalry towards the front. This is semibad, as our troops are out of position, and I will have to let them attack.
Athens Cavalry->Cavalry, Thessalonika Courthouse->Cav, Ambracia Harbour->Marketplace, Melitene stops resisting our rule. Iconium Hop->Hop, Sardis Hop->Hop, Nesebur Settler->Sword.Thermo Temple->Walls,

105BC Found Knossos on a small wheat island. After a heavy bombardment, Beirut is ours. Persia ought to be out of trading routes. That gotta be a good thing. Persia comes with most necessary infra. Notably lacking is a courthouse. I think long and hard on whether I want to trade our newfound dyes together with 50 gpt to Carthage for Literature. Sometime I would want us to have Medicine, but I will hold a while and save money in case next ruler wants Monarchy or even Republic.
Reposition forces for an assault on the next Persian city in a couple of turns.

IBT: The Persian Cavalry is rerouted towards Beirut, and they are reinforced by two more cavalry. I have our cats on a hill outside Beirut, and I suspect I can hold.
Dyrrh Settler->Sword, ( Need garrisons for new settlers.) Zela, worker->Sword, Ancyra Hop->Hop, Antandrus Cav->Cav,

100BC I move troops into position to strike deeper into Persian Territory. I will let the hop army rest. It will be responsible along with four vet cavalry to keep the Persian cavalries at bay. Starve and rush a worker in Melitene. In retrospect, I should have rushed a settler instead to instantly get down to size 1. Cannot do right all the time though. I turn Sardis from Hop to Cavalry production. We do not need MPs so much any longer, and I will see if pop-rushing HoPs by the front is a better technique to get them. I check what would happen if I lowered lux one step, but our top five cities would need entertainers, so I go with the higher lux taxes.

IBT: Hmm, The Persians ignore the threat to their city, and move no less than 13 cavalry towards Beirut. They surely must have loved the luxuries growing outside Beirut. Deal territory maps with Egypt just to keep them happy.
Sparta Market->Cav, Beirut resistance ends, Melitene worker->Hop

95BC: Almost lose a cav dealing with two infiltrating spearmen, but it retreats. A swordsman takes out the last spearman. I can count 14 cavalry outside Beirut, and I will retreat back into the city. I also whip up a wall in Beirut. Carrhae is defended only by three spearmen, and it falls quickly. I will keep the city instead of razing it, as we could use the pop to rush a couple of units. Goodie, it has enough culture to keep the Persian cavalry out. Our ship in Ambracia is blockaded. I will walk our settler down to the next ship instead.
Antandrus is stuck at 19 spt, but it works two unimproved tiles, so it will be able to push 22 after the worker stack reaches it. We are at 18 spt in Sparta, but here to we can get better if we just send down our workers. Thessalonika needs a hill mined to reach 16 spt.
I did not sell any maps this turn, feel free to wait or do so. Also, I think we can afford to sign up either Romans or Carthage against Persia now, unless someone wants to rush a tech or two. Tech is really expensive, and I suspect it is because the Barbarians cannot get the techs, they only drive up the price.

Save: here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_95BC.zip)

Grimjack

I didn't have time to crop the pictures, I will upload them after work instead. Beware the corruption thing. Sometimes to get two more corruption for one more shield. I suspect the same holds true for money as well, although I didn't get to check this to closely. This leads to severe MM opportunities, when you can get more money from putting up a taxman.

Grimjack

Great job cutting off their harbor, that should break their trade routes and their rep, if they had any ongoing. Also, since it sounds like they already landed the troops in their stack-o-galleys, and can no longer reload, we should be relatively safe from landings. I know what you mean about the hoplites, they were never around when I needed them, and they do seem to die too easily from hills. There has been some discussion on the wierd corruption/waste, it is in the bug reports forum, something to do with rounding in scenarios with corruption slider in the editor not=100%. So it definitely takes some second looks.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get any new leaders. If we can get another cavalry army, I think Persia is ripe for the taking. As it is now, it goes a wee bit to slow for my taste.
Justus had prepped good though, and I managed to get three of the cities.

I have been thinking while driving to work, and I am fairly certain that lowering luxes to 10% and issuing a couple of taxmen would be a net profit for us.

Also, note that you will soon need to make a colony on the smoke in the desert. Fairly certain we could use that lux.

I also forgot to renegotiate the ongoing lux deals. Since the AIs didn't remind me, I am fairly certain we could make more money out of our luxes than we are doing now.

Also, if you are afraid of flipping, most of our troops in Beirut have move enough to get out of town. I wanted them in town because I thought them safer there than in the hills. I have had way to much bad luck with defenders in hills to dare putting up a force there.

If you are willing to expose our troops, I am fairly certain we could take quite a few cities during the next 10 turns. We will incur heavy losses though. Persia was way good at cutting down my exposed troops. The only stack that was never attacked was our Army stacks. If I put a hop and cav on a hill, they were ruthlessly cut down.

Grimjack

Well, I love nothing more than sacrificing lots of troops to make major incursions into enemy territory. I'm up and "got it" to hopefully play tonight. I don't like to expose troops, but, often, major progress can be made even without exposing troops, especially since we get reasonable-sized cultural borders if we capture Persian cities. I'll see what I can do.

I'm tempted to say "Heck with techs" for now, since Persia built the GL and we will hopefully be capturing it before too many more turns are past. I would like to have the techs, but I don't like paying so much for them. Many of the ones we recently got are necessary, and I would like to change governments, too, but I think wondering them is a better option at this point than buying them. So I may well sign in another civ against Persia, if they'll bite for a reasonable amount.

Arathorn

Very nice turn, Grimjack. Getting Rome off our backs and onto Persia's is a big help. The extra luxes are also very nice.

I look forward to seeing how well Arathorn puts the :hammer: down! :)

I have reread some of the other RBC threads, and I realized we would need Medicine at some point if we want to win.

Depending on how fast the Persians fold, it will give us all the techs we need. Perhaps doublecheck so it isn't the last city we take from them.

Grimjack

The Great Library was in Hatra, which is just SE of Carrhae, NW of Babylon in the desert. Should be one of our next cities to go after, actually, although the terrain is wide open.

OK, it's 95 BC, which seems to be an odd kinda year for a pass-off. I check F8 and this is turn 51, so I'm going to call it turn 1 and end at the end of turn 60 (which I'll call turn 10). That should get us back on schedule. Is this still all a mess because of my first over-turn? Oy. I'll have to be much more careful in the future.

I find a BUNCH of offensive units fortified in cities. I, personally, hate this in SGs. It makes these troops nearly impossible to find and can cripple an offensive. Especially in a scenario with such a short limited time period, PLEASE do not do this. It can only lead to trouble.

As it is, I wake nearly everything in all our cities before proceding, simply to get a good feel for all our units.

I check F4 and see everybody has at least two people they're fighting -- except us! Good diplomacy, all, as we're only fighting Persia. Scythians are only fighting two and everybody else has at least three fronts. That's good news for us.

I note the Goths have furs for trade. Lowering our lux rate would be worth 47 gpt. The Goths want dyes, WM, 30 gpt, and 15 gold. That makes them rich, but I don't think I really care about their wealth. They can't really use it to rush stuff nor can they acquire many more techs. And it's worth 17 gpt to us, so I pull the trigger on this deal. Actually, it costs very VERY few entertainers to get lux tax down to zero, so I do that. Even those cities requiring entertainers are nearly complete with marketplaces, so they'll be able to fully employ their citizens soon, too. That helps our income situation a bit.

HCav army kills two spears in Carrhae. A third HCav captures the city. With our relative cultures so close to the same and us so desperate for population, I continue to capture and not raze. We gain zero gold but a couple of slaves.

I retreat everybody by Beirut into the city, hoping to lure the attackers closer, so that I can kill them all in relative safety. It was not set-up for a pretty killzone, but that often happens in the heat of battle. I just hope they don't reroute somewhere too awkward.

(I) Egypt/Celts come to a peace accord. The world yawns. But Brennus is feeling very peaceful and signs with Rome, too, which is not something I'm particularly happy to see. Persian units do turn tail and run from Beirut, but they're now in striking range of all my Carrhae forces, which were eying Hatra will take a brief turn to crush some Persian HCavs. Carrhae resistance ends, too, which is a happy thing, although it revolts despite having a number of entertainers. Oh well.

(2) 90 BC - We kill three HCav by Carrhae with no losses. The fourth is more interesting, however, as an elite attacks and nearly dies, prompting Ajax to ride to the rescue! He will form another army to be filled with HCav as soon as possible (next turn, probably), as I emptired Beirut to move to the new front. I then promptly mis-click and eliminate any chance I had of destroying the entire stack of Persian units. Sigh. I end up killing all but one HCav, for a total of 13 (I think) Persian casualties, losing no units. One misclick, though, has a HCav who will probably perish on the interturn. Oh well. Still very good odds.

I take that back. I found two more swordsmen hiding in cities and send them out. The first one dies, as does the second, but the HCav is now down to 2 hps. Bummer luck at the end, but it had to be done.

The two marine immortals by Iconium pass near enough a road for me to bombard them and kill them with the HCav left so nicely for me. That's more troops I can now send to the front.

(I) Well, dang. Rome and Persia sign a peace treaty. I really don't want to fight Rome again. Persian HCav attacks and ... loses, making up, sorta, for the two swords we lost attacking it. Goths come offering their WM for WM and 340 gold. I turn them down, politely. Carthage and Egypt sign peace, too. This is getting ridiculous. Where are all the non-us wars from the beginning of my turn?

Thermopylae's borders finally expand, meaning we really have silks, not just a colony on them.

(3) 85 - Rome won't ally against Persia for any money, so I'm afraid they're going to be coming for us again.

Nearly exclusively a healing and positioning turn. We should get another city each of the next several turns, however. Ajax's army is loaded with HCav and ready to rock'n'roll. It will lead the assault against the GL city of Hatra in 80 BC.

(I) Persia's offense rules, as they attack and kill one of our galleys (empty, naturally) with no loss in hps and attack a hoplite on a hill across a river with a HCav and lose no hps. Nothing else of interest happens, though, so X is still in for some hurting.

(4) 80 - 5 spears and a HCav defended Hatra. We lost one HCav taking the city and we now control the Great Library!!!! And there was much rejoicing!!! I was almost out of attackers, though. We'll have to wait and see what the spoils are, but the rest of my turn might be anarchy, I'm thinking. With 145 gpt income, the ability to cashrush stuff would be extremely handy.

(I) Goths and Persia sign an alliance against us. That'll cost us a lux, which will mean I'll have to prevent rioting during the turn. Sigh. I *hate* it when stuff like that happens. On the plus side, it's not like the Goths can really hurt us much.

5 Persian HCavs appear out of the fog and we lose Hatra. I couldn't get enough units in there. We only lost 3 (so far), but... OUCH! I'll take it back next turn, though. Plenty of units on hand to do that, just couldn't get them into the city to defend it well enough.

Persia and Rome sign a MA against Carthage. Not that that really matters at this point.

Athens riots as expected, but I scroll ahead to prevent a major disaster.

(5) 75 - Send Dyes and 19 gpt to Carthage for Spices. I hate to help our largest rival, but we really need that fifth lux to keep our income coming and our citizens happy. I have a plan in place to get incense fairly soon, but it's going to be a few turns.

Re-MM to put everybody back to work.

Re-capture Hatra. It's smaller but has more resistors this time? Odd. Oh well.

Capture Gordium from two spears and a HCav with no losses. Army moves in for defense. Left-over troops from the assault clean up some HCav and archers around Hatra. It *should* hold this inter-turn, but Persia's had a surprising number of units. In general, though, I'm killing more units/turn than they have cities, so their power has to be shrinking. Their total number of units must be falling. And, at this point, I feel comfortable enough with units on hand that I would revolt with little concern, if Imperialism pops from the GL. Even with "just" Republic, I'll have to think a bit.

(I) Nevermind. Rome and Persia sign an MA against us. I'll just hope to hold the line in the north. Reinforcements will all be routed in that direction. I'm so tired of the constantly shifting alliances in this game. Rome also declares on the Scythians, for whatever reason.

We lose 2 HCavs to Persian counter-attacks. I had to leave them exposed to secure Hatra properly. We should be able to pick off their troops safely this next turn, however. GL gives us Literature, Monotheism, Education, Astronomy, ... and that's it? At least, that's all that's reported. I could've sworn I'd seen at least two civs with Republic, but....

(6) 70 - Egypt and Carthage, at least, both have Philosophy. WTH didn't we get it? And, well, according to F6, we have the Republic. If not for concerns about Rome, I would probably revolt right now, but I don't want to lose the north just to get a new government.

Arbela's three spears and HCav defense prove to be quite a challenge, yellow-lining a HCav army and killing a couple HCavs and swords before it falls. But fall it does, as it must. I just had/have too many troops attacking cities. Attacking in lines, I can get ~1 city to fall per turn, with generally low losses, except when a spear ups and kills an attacking HCav due to some PRNG action.

I'm not going to get another city next turn. But I should the turn after that -- maybe two. I'm much more worried about the Roman front at this point, however.

(I) Egypt and Scythia MA against Rome. Good. Anything to distract Ceasar from us.

Philosophy pops from GL, as does Imperialism. Boy, am I tempted to revolt. I even get the "Save a half-turn pop-up" for a revolt. I greatly fear Rome, but I think we need the ability to cash-rush ASAP and to get extra commerce going. I cross my fingers, sigh, and revolt. Many cities get set on high-food diets for the anarchy period.

Romans start Bacchanalia.

(7) 65 - Still 6 more turns of anarchy. I'll see what I can do to hold down the fort/fronts and improve the situation. We're bleeding cash, but we've got enough reserve to deal with that, and we'll get it all back soon enough.

(I) I forgot about the 4-move roads and didn't have Gordium blocked well enough. We lose it. Shouldn't lose it for long, however. Celts and Goths MA against us. That means nearly everyone is now onboard against us while we're in anarchy. But, as long as Egypt remains placid and Rome doesn't actually send units against us, we should be OK. Scythia would worry me a bit, but they're firmly fighting Rome right now (I think/hope).

(8) 60 - More anarchy. Recapture Gordium with no losses. Kill two spears in Bactra easily and then redline a HCav, who proceeds to win the next 7 to kill one HCav and redline another before Bactra falls to our troops. Capture Babylon with no losses. I have tons of troops left over, so I go ahead and capture Ghulaman, too. Persia's fading very fast now.

At least there's no MM to do.

(I) Watch Carthage send at least 3 HCavs against Scythia. What fools! They capture a city, which will soon be ours, I feel. NO attacks against our troops, even though I left them a bit spread out to hit all the targets in one turn.

Lose an archer I had pillaging Roman stuff to a Gothic unit. Oh well. Still no sign of movement in Rome near our lands.

We don't get informed of learning Medicine, but we pop through 3 Ages at once and are now "researching" Future Tech 1. Excellent. Capturing the GL is so nice in this conquest!

(9) 55 - Nothing of interest.

(I) Very boring.

(10) 50 - Capture Hamadan. Ulysses appears in the battle for Susa. He will form YAA to be filled with HCav, but his army might have to wait a bit. Susa does not fall (I didn't really expect it to, but I did kill 3 spears, so it should fall easier next time).

We're getting gassed over by Persia, but he's beyond gassed. Very soon, we're going to need to decide on our next foe(s). Rome, Scythia, and Egypt all have reasonable cases to be made. I'll try to make those cases tomorrow.

We still have 3 turns of anarchy to get through, but once that's over, we should be an Imperialism and be extremely tough. We'll get a commerce bonus AND the ability to cashrush stuff. That should make us a force to be reckoned with, big-time.

We're 60 turns in and 10% of the world's area (1st place) as well as 26% of the population (tied for first with Carthage). I'd not counted on all the new cities being founded to change the amount of land needed for 20%, but since we should continue our a-conquering ways, all those new cities don't matter much.

Coffee -- UP NOW
Ridgelake -- ON DECK

Please play 10 turns and pass off at the end of your 10th turn from here on in. On the F8 screen, the number of turns played should end in a 0.

Things to note:
- Capturing Istakhr and hooking it up with its spices will give us *6* native luxuries, a tremendous help with happiness.
- Persepolis is only size 5. X is toasty toast.
- There should be no discussion of government. Imperialism is THE government in this scenario.
- HCav in the north are between cities playing zone defense, able to rush to whatever city is most threatened at a moment's notice.
- Our alliances against Persia with Egypt and Scythians should be lapsing soon. I'd just let 'em go. They're still fighting Persia and we don't want our rep stained by killing Persia before 20 turns are up.
- I did not do any final MM so if a city grew, it might riot. Hard to care much during anarchy.
- Progress against Persia will probably need to slow for a bit, since we have no reinforcements coming. And I pushed hard on my last couple turns. I'd abandon the effort on Susa until our troops are better rested -- maybe combined with victorious troops after the capture of Istakhr. I would recommend Istakhr and the city in the north whose name I forgot to write down (Ed: Gazaca) fairly early and then Susa and on towards Persepolis middle/late.

Arathorn

The greatly pushed-back front (in a separate post for scrolling purposes):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-50bc.jpg

and the save

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-50bc.zip

Arathorn

Fantastic turn, Arathorn! :hammer: I thought that you might be able to make gains like that.

As for our next target, I think that we should go after Egypt next. Our troops are closest to them and they have no native resources. Lets clean them up and then turn our attention on the Scythians.

BTW, I will be out of town from Wednesday through Saturday. I return on Sunday. If reasonable, I would be interested in swapping in the order for a turn. But if not, I can be skipped this go around.

Ridge

it :hammer:s for you.

As I was trying to go to sleep last night, here were some of my thoughts on next opponent -- the good and the bad.

ROME:
Reasons to attack:
- Already at war with them
- Forced ally of Carthage already
- Celts/Goths make more good allies to distract them
- They will continue to grow scarily fast so we might need to trim them at some point anyway
- Captured cities will not be too terribly corrupt, as they're relatively close to our capital
- Short reinforcement time

Reasons NOT to attack:
- 6/5/1 Legion 3's
- Have to wade through a fair number of auto-raze cities before getting to their core for more powerful cities
- Our main troops are a LONG ways away
- Cheap 3-defense garrisons to kill

EGYPT:
Reasons to attack:
- Catapults and fire catapults on the border
- No visible 3-defense units (archers and spears primarily seen)
- Lots of population available in the floodplains of the Nile
- Narrow, distinct front
- Leads up to Carthage as a next foe
- Troops can be in position fairly quickly

Reasons NOT to attack:
- Current RoP means timing might be awkward
- Opens a front that would probably stay closed unless we open it -- Cleo's been nice to us nearly the entire game
- Not a LOT of land to be gained
- Cities would be as corrupt as the scenario params allow

SCYTHIA:
Reasons to attack:
- Best units available are 3/1/2, 3/2/1, and 1/2/1, so our 5/2/2 way overmatches them
- Lots of area to capture
- Our HCav will be nearly in position to attack after finishing off Persia
- No culture flip worries
- Doesn't extend our front much at all -- still a good corner position

Reasons NOT to attack:
- Two-front war on both sides of the Black Sea and we're only prepared on one side
- Small cities all over but especially at the beginning
- LOTS of cheap 3/1/2 horsies to deal with, which can be a pain
- They're not really a threat in the overall game
- Very fluid front in the east (hard to take advantage of superior tactics) for a while, until we get to their core
- As Vizzini says "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

We do, of course, have other options, too. We can fight two at once, and probably do so successfully, but it seems silly to try. We can fight all three at once, but that's not a voluntary option. We can retreat into a shell and simply try to grow our pop and our land area peacefully, but that's a losing option.

We do, however, probably want to invest a few turns in rushing some hospitals, markets, and such in a few cities to help our overall economy and give us time to position our troops for the next foe. We're not in a HURRY to get to the next opponent, but we shouldn't delay either.

I managed to capture 8 cities and found 7 (2 on islands, 3 in the north, 1 in Turkey, and 1 in the desert) on my turns, but the next player is saddled with the rest of the anarchy and the lack of units as a result, Capturing 3-5 cities and founding 1-2 would be very good play, I think. That might get us close to 30% in population.

By turn 80 or 85, I think/hope we can have Persia eliminated and be in full preparation for the next opponent, whoever that is. My current vote is Egypt, but circumstances may change my mind in the intervening time. Or the decision might be made for us, if Scythia is foolish enough to attack, for example.

Arathorn

Ridgelake, if you can play tonight, and since I've seen no "Got it" from Coffee, I'll make an executive decision and put you up to play tonight with Coffee following.

Skipping you "this go around" would mean you'd probably not see another turn in the game. Poor Justus II and Grimjack were never going to see more than 2 sets of turns, but I'd hate for anyone to only get to play once.

Arathorn

I'll try to play tonight. But since I have to pack, I may only be able to get a few turns in while still getting SOME sleep. A long car-ride with the kids while very tired is not an enjoyable experience......

I second the motion to go for Egypt, from reading the other threads, population is more critical than area, and the Egyptian cities allow great growth, even if they are corrupt. Also, they should be easy to get, vs. Rome, which will be painful every step of the way. I would do what we can to delay/seek peace with Rome, let them and Carthage duke it out. Scythia can always be picked up later, if we need the area/settling room, as they are pretty easy and won't get stronger.

Good luck to Ridgelake.

Edit: I just finished reading everything and I'd like to say WoW. :goodjob:

Arathorn, I generally agree with your analysis. My take is that we want no part of Rome for awhile. They are a very tough nut to crack and our gains against them will be maximum effort for minimal gain.

Even though Cleo has been our best ally this game, she is very weak. I was glad to see that she and Carthage made peace. That will leave more cities for us to easily capture. I did not see any new deals with Cleo during your turn. That means that we have at most 10 turns left on a deal with her. By the time we finishs off the Persians and get into position, our deals should be about up.

I could see us hitting the Scythians next. I know land wars in Asia are not the easiest. But I can see a 2 pronged attack on them on either side of the Black Sea. Our existing troops from the south and our new builds from the north. Yes, it will take some time to backtrack after the Egyptians, but it seems the path of least resistance.

That really what is driving my thoughts. Take the "low-hanging" fruit. If we can get easy territory and population, why bother with the difficult things?

I made no deals with Cleo during my turns. It became evident fairly early that Persia was gassed and that we would be looking for an opponent soon. I didn't to leave us saddled with many deals at all, but the lux deals I did were necessary at the time (to Goths and then to Carthage). It should be relatively easy to have all deals ended with her by the time we're ready to attack.

If I hadn't revolted, I might well have captured an additional couple cities, but the long-term (we'll have about as much of the game in Imperialism as we did as an Oligarchy) need required the revolt. It slowed us for a while, but I think it had to be done.

It looks like everyone is kinda saying what my general gameplan would've been. Finish off Persia. Kill Egypt. Go after Scythians to get the rest of the land/pop we need for victory. I felt it necessary to at least consider Rome, but everybody's right that it's hard work for little gain. I think one of the reasons I had to mention them is that in an epic game, it often makes good sense to deal with the biggest threat first, while the other people can still serve as distraction and cannon fodder. But we don't NEED to hit Rome to win this, so we probably shouldn't.

I even left catapults and/or fire catapults in all our cities (3) that border Egypt with Cleo as a target in mind. While they can't keep up with HCav (and we shouldn't have to worry about it, since 2 defense even doubled by a metropolis is only 4 vs. an attack of 5 (or 7 with an army)) on the offense, they're great for defending territory, absorbing the first wave, and offing offending troops that start in our territory. Egypt still has a RoP (I don't know for how much longer) with us that she's (ab)using, so we might want to shadow her troops when the war declaration gets close (probably 10-20 turns away, though).

Ridgelake -- PLAYING TONIGHT (post as much as you get done -- ignore my little late-night rant about only ending on turns ending with 0)
Coffee -- ON DECK
Justus -- waiting and providing insight
Grimjack -- fairly recently played
Arathorn -- just played

Arathorn

One thought that just popped into my mind: Do we want to rush the FP, perhaps in the middle of the captured Persian lands?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

The FP is broken. It makes corruption worse. It would help the lands in the middle of Persia while killing all of our productive cities in Greece and Turkey.

Don't do it!!!!

I had that option and didn't even consider it because of the C3C bug with corruption.

We definitely do not want a FP at all. There are three current "cases" for the FP.

Case 1: The lucky case -- total corruption changes minimally
Case 2: Standard case -- corruption increases around capital significantly overwhelm benefit from FP and surrounding area, making it a fairly small negative
Case 3: Remote FP case -- total corruption skyrockets and production nearly grounds to a halt. Nearly all cities become quickly "totally corrupt". Only recourse is to abandon the FP city.

PLEASE DO NOT KILL OUR BEAUTIFUL CIV THIS WAY!

Arathorn

Thats what I figured might happen. Best to get such questions out in the open. :)

I would also vote for Egyptians, as that seems to be the softest target.

I would like to explore the possibility of making an MA with Rome against Carthage after that. If we have most of our troops in Egypt, Carthage is not that far away. As long as we can out expand Rome, we are in fine shape.

Grimjack

RBC3d – Monster Macedonians

50BC(0) MM for growth. 3 more turns of anarchy. Very few leaders will talk to us. Cleo is one. We are up medicine on her. We are paying her 18gpt to fight the Persians. We have 7 more turns of RoP. We are giving Temujin wines and iron to continue war with the Persians. I guess renegotiate deal is not on this game.

IT Egypt and the Celts MA against us?!?!? Ummm…ok.

Temujin does decide to renegotiate our MA against Persia. I decline and sell him our WM for 7gold.

Survive 3 counter attacks from Persia, including a HC on a HC. Carthage starts the Bacchanalia.

45BC (1) bomb and kill an Egyptian spear. HC army takes out a spear in Gazaca. Hop army kills 2 spears in Susa.

Move 4 HCs on the mountain towards Ecbatana, sealing that passage.

IT no counters from Persia. 4 archers and a spear from Egypt amass. 3 Legions decide to start heading our way.

40BC (2) HC army kills 2 spears and captures Susa. It comes with a rax and a granary. 3 slaves.

HC army kills 3 spears in Gazaca and it is ours! Comes with a Granary, market and duct. 4 slaves.

4 HC move next to Ecbatana. Hop army moves on road to Persepolis.

IT lose a HC to a HC. Scthyia and the Goths sign peace.

Egypt drops an archer next to the undefended Rhodes.

Rome goes back the other way. They do found a city near Salonae.

35BC (3) Imperialism comes in! Massive MMing. Income is 456gpt!

Rush walls in Eretria, the apparent target of the Egyptian archer sod.

We kill a spear and an HC in Ecba, but retreat with a third.

Rome will talk to us. No need to pay for peace at the moment, however,

IT lose a cav to a cav counter. Rome does bring 5 L3’s to visit.

30BC (4) Rush raxes in Beirut and Eretria. Capture Ecbatana. Rax & granary, 2 slaves.

Take peace with Rome paying WM and 75 gold. Get 20 of that back making peace with the Goths.

Rush temple in Argos.

IT Celts declare on the Goths.

25BC (5) Capture Persepolis with no losses. We meet Pyrrus cleaning up an archer! He will come back home to rush an infirmary.

Capture Sidon with no losses.

IT no counters. Egypt is moving up the set of hills east of Beirut.

20BC (6) Pasagardae is captured, along with a couple of cats. Rush a temple in Sidon to bring ivory in our borders.

15BC (7) Capture Ergili and a couple of slaves. . Capture Zohak and a worker. Make that razed Zohak. Capture Istakr and a slave. Pick off a few Egypt archers.

IT Rome finishes the Bacchanalia.

10BC (8) Kill a couple more archers. Move on the last Persian town.

IT Goths and Egypt sign peace. LOL Persia declares on Rome.

5BC (9) Pyrrus rushes an infirmary in Byzantium.

Raze Jinjan and get this message:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d-PersiaElim.JPG


I sell wines to the Sythians for 3 gpt. I just want to keep them off us for a bit.

Take peace with the Celts getting 20 gold.

Rush a couple of temples.

IT Scythia and the Goths MA against Carthage.

1AD (10) Kill 8 Egypt units without a loss. They will fall very quickly to our armies.

We have 13% of the world area and 27% of the population. Carthage is equal in pop.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d-1AD.JPG

Marauding Macedonians (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d-1AD.SAV)

That was some stomping on the Persians :hammer: :o

Grimjack

Very impressive! I didn't think there were enough troops left in the area for such a display of force. I thought a brief re-grouping would be required. Not so with Ridgelake in charge!!! He put the :hammer: down.

And I guess the discussions of the next target were semi-moot, since Cleo put a big red target on her forehead for us. Crush her -- crush her now! My guess is that Justus will get to administer that deathblow, but I could be mistaken.

From looking at the map, it's very clear that we need more laboreres in ex-Persia. We're gonna want to irrigate that land to support as many people as possible. I would use some of our incredible income and new cash-rush ability to rush a fair number of workers in ex-Persia, with first job irrigating/roading everything in sight and then probably merging into cities/towns later (isovectorally, as Charis put it).

Priorities go to towns/cities needing irrigation to grow (e.g. I put Eretria where I did specifically to get it access to some good flood plains while claiming the incense) and to getting our new luxuries hooked up!! The spices by Istakhr are big there, as we're currently paying Carthage to import those. Also note that ivory is NOT a luxury in Rise of Rome -- it's a strategic resource to build numidian mercs. If the Persian AI were a bit better, they'd've hooked up their ivory ASAP and we'd've been fighting troops with defense 3 instead of 2 and our progress would have been MUCH slower.

BTW, if the leader hasn't been used yet, I'd rather have another army (4th/5th?) and use cash to rush an infirmary. Armies extra move and attack strength, plus healing, just make them too cool to pass up, IMO.

My priorities for cash-rushing would be:
- Infirmiries in ridiculous food cities near home (any at +8 fpt or more)
- Workers in ex-Persia to irrigate
- Infirmiries in other "home" cities
- Aqueducts in stuck cities anywhere
- Settlers in Persia
- Infirmiries anywhere
- Units

We have a number of cities capable of building HCav in 3 turns, and they should probably continue to do so for the forseeable future. I think a good division is to use shields for units (because we'll always need more of those) and cash for building up our population/infrastructure.

Coffee -- UP NOW
Justus II -- ON DECK
Grimjack -- in the hole
Arathorn -- wondering if he's played his last
Ridgelake -- enjoying vacation, we hope

Arathorn

Excellent job, Ridgelake! :P

Ara, I like your comment: "If the Persian AI were a bit better, they'd've hooked up their ivory ASAP and
we'd've been fighting troops with defense 3 instead of 2 and our progress would have been MUCH slower."

It's ironic, as I didn't catch this fact and we spent a large part of the initial struggle seeing hoplites wail on our spears until it became clear that ivory would allow numes. :rolleyes:

Poor Cleo, she has "chosen unwisely" for sure! She was the right choice anyway, but that seals it.

I agree that making another army was probably much preferable to saving one turn of cash, which is all an infirmary costs. Armies were huge when it came time to fight our 'second foe' when we came up against size 13+ "tough nut to crack" cities.

BTW, it's "isovictual" (equal-food). What we ran into in practice was that we were skimming workers off any cities with extremely high food, whether they were size 6 or 12. At the end when it was time to merge, we had a few rounds of aqueduct/infirm rushing, then the native workers went into towns first, then cities, and we used as many captured workers for metro's (from civs we were not at war with) all in order to not be abusive. But I will say it's chaotic to know exactly what is going where and how many of the skim/merges were correct. Even then at the end we probably had 40 to 70 workers+slaves left who were still hard at work irrigating. The irrigation itself had gone better than expected. Basically the large majority of cities that weren't spitting out workers were at the 6 or 12 mark before rush-buying their way up. Bacchanalia let us keep the large cities at the end happy while keeping 0% lux.

Good luck with the rest,
Charis

I think one of the reasons our game has, in some ways, gone better than the three that started simultaneously, is that we've all had a chance to learn from your AHA :eek: experiences! Things like roads give 4 moves, galleys carry 4, numes require ivory, the GL doesn't expire, read the frickin' civilopedia, pop is harder than land area, etc. etc. etc. That's given us a leg up. I'm sure if your team were to play as Persia again, you would dominate even faster, with fuller knowledge of the scenario parameters.

Heck, even with all that, I still learned something new in my turns that I forgot to share. Rivers give no defensive bonus -- 0% according to the civilopedia. Minor point but it made attacking a couple cities just a bit easier to not have to worry about rivers. Seems silly to me, too, as far as that goes.

Isovictual. I remember getting the pun at the time, but I guess I'm still running a bit tired. Anyway, it's a good idea. In practice, I imagine it's a bit more complicated. We could be truly anal and rename each worker upon its completion depending on the size of the original city, but that would remove some/much of the fun for me.

We won't be getting Bacchanalia unless we take it from Rome, which seems unlikely. We might end up running 10% lux, but that's a small price to pay. With 6 luxes, that's 12 happy faces, plus 1 natural plus 1 from temples is size 14 for core cities even without luxes. Adding in luxes makes size 18 or so not unreasonable. And are there MPs in Imperialism? I can't recall. Running a few specialists in ex-Persia doesn't bother me, now that they've souped them up so much.

Especially with the FP bug, it's clear to irrigate everywhere. With the game just half over, if we had a working FP, it would be tempting to make Persia into a production machine, but irrigating everything might actually be faster for domination, with us still needing a zillion people (approximately) for that.

Fun scenario, especially as either the most challenging or second-most challenging position (Carthage isn't clearly stronger or weaker, IMO). This one is more to my taste than Mesopotamia was..... :hammer:

Arathorn

That was a fun turn, indeed. Armies just roll over spears. That is about all that Persia had left. And who cares about MPs when you can attack and conquer?

Spears, swords and archers is all that Egypt has. I doubt they last 10 turns. :hammer:

You are probably right that another army may have been better than the hospital. :smoke: on my part.

We do get 2 MPs in imperialism.

Another big item to rush in former Persia is markets. We will need those happy faces.

There is a settler in the galley near Italy. The settler was planned to go on the island just off our west coast. My dot map from a couple of pages ago shows his intended location.

We can get some easy land area from settling south and east of Persia. An extra lux to trade as well. The settler and temple in open areas claims a lot of land.

IMO, the key to this game has been the capture of the Great Library. In hindsight, I think gunning for that wonder from the start would be the optimal strategy. It is WAY overpowered.

I am not sure who the next target should be after egypt. A good case can be made for either Carthage or Scythia. Scythia has only swords, archers and spears. But our troops are 5-10 turns of movement away. Carthage is nearby, has a lot of population, but has much stronger defense. I am actually leaning towards Carthage, but I don't feel strongly one way or another.

Arathorn,

I didn't realize the river defense wasn't there, and was wondering why I had lost so many hoplite-immo battles when I thought the river should have helped me! In particular, there was a spot NW of Antioch, where I had set up a defense behind a river, where his Heavy Cav would have to move onto flat ground to attack me across a river, and be easier to mop up with my counterattacks. Oh well, like you said, I don't see the reasoning behind that one!

Ridgelake: Excellent job, finishing off our Mortal Enemy! :goodjob: :)

The only thing that would be able to stop us now, would be if Rome gets spirity and sends a great load of Leg3 after our core.

If we let them sign us up against Carthage, we might even earn a buck or two while at the same time drastically reduce the chance of that happening.

Grimjack

Ok & wow. Great turns Ridgelake. My got it. Lots of insights posted today. I don't know if I will complete my turns tonight, I need to see the game first. A really fun game this one. I think Griselda said the same. :goodjob:

I do agree with Grimjack that an MA with Rome would be a Good Thing (TM). They will pay for us to go after Carthage.

One thing that is crossing my mind is a potential palace jump. We really lose a lot of distance in the corruption calculation by having our capiltol so far west. A move to say...Antandrus...might improve our net production in a noticeable fashion. Thoughts on this topic?

An MA with Rome vs. Carthage after Egypt falls might well be a very good idea. Let's see how the chips fall in Egypt before getting too far ahead of ourselves. Taking the land and pop from Scythia would almost assuredly be easier. And our first several Carthaginian conquests would be across the vast stretch of the Sahara, as I remember the map, not getting us much in terms of population.

As for moving the palace, I don't think it's a good idea. Most of our cities near the palace are well built up with barracks, markets, granaries, temples, and the like. They can handle large sizes and get the most out of their small corruption. Moving the palace east, while a good move long-term, would require a significant investment in infrastructure before it would pay off. I don't think we have the time to do that. I don't really have the map memorized, so I don't know where Antandrus is, but my initial inclination is that we're very strong where it is, so why mess with it? Especially since we've only 60 turns left (and I want to see a win in 30!).

Arathorn

Antandrus is across the pond from our current capitol. It is a very productive city currently, one of our "core". That means that our current capitol area will remain strong after a move. Even so, these towns should probably build courthouses before a potential jump.

The benefit of the move would be to the early-conquered areas around Turkey and to the northern areas somewhat.

Sorry, nothing to report. Will have it completed tonight.

1 AD - 0
Check out the situation. Gift Scythia 20g he becomes cautious.
We are making 516gpt

Ibt -> Carthage & Egypt MA against us. We loose our spices.

5 AD - 1
Sparta riots and I scroll ahead.
I turn Carrhae in Persia into a 5t worker farm. I had rushed some workers there last turn, so lots of worker actions
this turn.
The war with Carthage has changed AI attitudes, so I gift 20g around and all are polite except the Celts. I don't want
to ally so I'll see if this works.
Rush infirmaries & aqueducts.
I loose 1-20spt city to the spices. Can get it back as we have spices.
Settle Marathon.

Ibt -> Egypt & Celts ally vs Scythia

10 AD - 2
Capture Edfu, not much warring, just worker actions, mm & some healing.
5 cities at 20+ spt.

Ibt -> Egypt & Celts ally vs Rome

15 AD - 3
Spices hooked up last turn gives much WLKD.
I gift the celts another 25g, Brennus is still annoyed.
Pergamon settled.
Capture Tyre.

20 AD - 4
Continue to heal & rush cavs.

25 AD - 5
Miletos settled.


30 AD - 6
After much irrigating, I'm sitting on the Egyptian choke point for capture next turn.

35 AD - 7
Capture Pelusium & Memphis both at size 11.

Ibt -> Carthage captures Memphis and defeats our army.
I lose a 2nd army to counters at Alexandria.
Cathage lands 4 cavs on an island near our core, I have to abandon the city.
Egypt lands 1 sword on and island near our core, I have to abandon also.

40 AD - 8
Not a good sign when you lose 2 armies, 1 city and have to abandon 2 more.
I should have held at the choke, I got too aggressive on that move.

45 AD - 9
Ouch, lose another army defending Pelusium.
Get one back with cavs. A very small consulation.

50 AD - 10
And what else. Lose our last (4th) army defending. Just like immortals going thru swords.
The remainder of the fleet is in Pelusium.

Scythia & Egypt have made peace. I'm bummed.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d-50AD.zip

I got it. I am going to take some time to look things over, and play tonight (Friday). I did take a look at the save, we are still in the lead. We have 14 % area (Rome has 8) and 30% population (Carthage has 27). But that's still a 20% increase in our share of the population, over and above the average growth rate of everyone else.

I checked diplomacy, it looks like we could still get Rome in an MA vs. Carthage, but we would have to give them dyes. Not a big deal, if it keeps them off our back, it might be worth it. Or, we could try to make peace with Carthage, which they'll do for 120g, but then trying to get Egypt could get messy, as they already took Memphis. Scythia is very friendly, and will sell us furs for Iron, luxs, and 5gpt. On the one hand, they do have a lot of fertile land, but they also have a stream of units running through our territory, and a current deal with 9 turns left.

As I see it, we have two choices:
a) Regroup our forces and push on into Egypt, against both Cleo and Carthage. We still have about 15 heavy cav in Egypt, and another 10 near Gaza, and 10 fire cats. Or we could buy Hannibal out, but accept a big grey city (Memphis) in our midst. If we push on, we should definitely get the MA with Rome to keep them out of our core.
b) Buy peace with Egypt AND Carthage, establish a blocking position at Plesium, and shift forces, prepared to pounce on Scythia in 9 turns when the deal is up. This would also mean getting some more settlers cranked up to settle the Scythian lands behind our army.

Not sure which one I prefer yet, I need some sleep anyway!

Well, good thing I took a fresh look in the morning! We only have about 10 heavy cav near Pelusium, I accidentally counted a stack of 6 Carthage Heavy cav as ours. :rolleyes:

I had some time to look over the current population situation. As I mentioned, we are at 30%. If I understand correctly, it is strictly based off of population points, so a size 12 = 2 size 6 = 12 size 1, its just the number of faces. Counting from the F1 screen, we have 372, so if that is 30% the total is 1240. 50% currently would be 620, or a net gain of 248. Obviously , that is a moving target as population continues to increase, but it gives us an idea of how much we need to look at. Since we have nearly twice the area of anyone else, I think it is a safe assumption that we will outpace everyone in pop growth, given time, but time is what we are limited on.

So, how do we increase our totals? Egypt has about 40 points in visible cities, (+10 if we retake Memphis from Carthage). Scythia has 105 in visible cities, plus lots of fertile ground. There are a couple spots where we could plant cities in our own lands, near food bonuses that are not being worked, but probably not more than 3-4 such opportunities. So our best chance for big gains, IMHO, would be in Scythia. It might be possible to still grab some of the bigger Egyptian cities, and maybe Memphis, if we wait a couple turns to heal/regroup and let them throw themselves against our fire cats. Then I think we should make peace with Carthage and turn towards Scythia, which should be ripe for the taking by Grimjack's turn.

Thoughts/comments? If we go with this plan, we probably can't do the fur deal with Scythia, as I don't think we want to wait 20 turns. Although our rep is trashed anyway, maybe we could still do the deal (after all, if it is per-turn for per-turn, is that considered an exploit if we declare before the 20 turns?) If not, we can get the furs from the Goths, for our luxes, iron, horse, and 65gpt. Also, we can sell Dye and Incense to Rome, which at least gives a little incentive for him to stay peaceful, but I don't think we want to get into an MA.

I've not looked at the save, so take everything I say with that in mind.

It's a big-time bummer we lost those armies. They were really nice for making major progress forwards. Not sure it could've been avoided, though. (e.g. not calling :smoke:, just lamenting)

Carthage has probably been building up troops for a LONG time with no good place to send them, since the AI is so bad at naval invasions and Carthage has been at war forever. Gassing them will take quite a bit of work. If we can snag Memphis and then sue (even paying quite a bit) for peace, that would seem to me to be optimal.

Egypt's cities would indeed be nice, but not if we have to fight Carthage for them. If peace w/Hannibal is not an option (he won't talk to us), holing up behind BIG cultural borders is the way to go. The offense in this scenario kills any defense (5 attack vs. 3 defense is the best for non-Roman civilizations), so absorbing attacks is a losing game. We want to be attacking (and retreating), not being attacked, as much as possible.

Scythia sounds like a nice target. Especially as it appears the bulk of our offensive army has been eaten around the Red Sea, reinforcements will actually get to Scythia faster than to Egypt. Allying with Goths vs. Scythia should distract them, as the Goths will be softer targets than our hoplites (in theory, at least), so we don't have to face the bulk of their military. I would pay reasonably heavily for this, personally.

My recommendation, then, would be to capture Memphis if possible (first turn) and then buy peace with Hanni. If the Memphis capture isn't possible, buy peace anyway. We at least want the choke by the Red Sea from Egypt, if we can. At that point, evaluate Egypt and Scythia as targets. But keep the war period with Hanni as short as possible, regardless! Pay what it takes. Even a few thousand gold isn't worth getting eaten by tons of HCav.

Arathorn

I agree. Getting Memphis back would be great but I doubt the resources are there to do that. A trade deal with Rome would be good. Once peace is made I suspect Romes attitude will change. So yea, peace with Carthage, the conquest of Egypt and then Scythia for the win. A good plan and good luck.

I second immediate peace. With only ten cavalries and no armies, there is no way we could push. Hopefully Scythia will supply us with some new heroes that later could be used to avenge our troops.

Also, remember we may not need to capture all those 240 civ points, as when we get them from someone else, that someone else gets one civ point less.

So, capturing a size 6 city is worth as much as building 2 size 6 cities by ourselves. ( Or am I completely lost in my 20 year old math courses here ?? )

Grimjack

With regards to the Palace jump, remember that corruption isn't based on the proximity to the capitol with this bug. It is based on when the city joined your civilization. The way I understand it, the earlier a city became part of your civ, the less corruption.

A palace jump will just make the new capitol number one on the list and slide everything else down one slot. Just as an FP puts that city automatically in the number two position.

If I'm mistaken please correct me, but this corruption bug is weird.

Bugsy

Thanks for the input/ confirmation. As to Carthage, he will take peace now for only 120 gold. I have to look closer to see if Memphis is an option first or not, I don't remember what their defenses are, it would probably take at least one turn of resting anyway. We still hold the choke (Pelusium), and the only Egyptian units I see are swords, so I think we could still grab most of their cities. As for Scythia, ignore what I said earlier about a trade deal, after thinking about it, if they need iron, why would we want to give it to them if they are our next target. I would rather pay the 65gpt to the Goths for the furs, and give them the horses and iron, which might make them more of a distraction for Scythia.

Very good thoughts, Justus. That looks like a plan I'll be happy with. If those 10 HCavs we have in the area are healed and in range, they might take Memphis. If thye're not, we'll probably lose even more troops/cities to Carthage on the first inter-turn, so I'd make peace ASAP. If we hold the choke, then Memphis will be an ugly blight, but something we'll just have to work around.

And definitely do the Goths trade instead of the Scythians, so we can maybe hit the Scythians late in your turn or early in Grimjack's.

Arathorn

I doubt you can take Memphis & hold Pelusium also. Make peace. Humbles for the loses. I knew going in that the choke point was protecting me from Carthage. I under-estimated their strength and over-estimated mine. Its easy to get cocky when you have 4 armies. My bad, no question there.

-a double post-

I hope this all makes sense, it's pretty late, and I'm trying to get to sleep before my kids wake up! ;)

50AD (Pre-turn) I started with diplomacy, as discussed. There was no way to take Memphis, half the cavs were wounded, so I wanted to make peace with Carthage. I actually checked around with everyone else first, selling Rome Dyes and Incense for 430g and their World Map. Our map must have been outdated, because a big section of land and sea appeared, and our map was worth quite a bit after that. I made the deal for Fur from the Goths, giving Horses, Iron, Wine, Silk, and 64gpt. (Luxury slider would cost us about 50 anyway). Then got 160g from Scythia and 129g from Celts for our WM. Time to talk to Hannibal. The culture of Memphis would cut off Egypt, so I wanted to see what an ROP would cost. I was actually able to get Peace, the ROP, and 45g out of him for our world map! I was a little nervous about the ROP, but as long as we hold the choke (Pelusium), he can’t get past it, unless he lands by sea. And without it, we would be traversing his culture by 4 turns to get to Egypt.

OK, time to make production changes. We lost our island cities, but after looking over the map, there were several high-food areas that weren’t being worked, and much of Persia needed irrigation. I tried to pick towns that couldn’t grow, or that were growing slowly, for workers. For settlers, I looked for fairly corrupt towns without barracks, population 6-8, where the smaller food box would refill quickly to replace the loss. Also, we were desperate for Hoplites in Egypt, all we have is Cav and Fire cats, no defenders. So I started switching as follows:
Hoplites: Pelusium, Gaza-$(Rush), Tyre-$, Beirut, Eretria-$, Susa
Settlers: Ecbatana, Gazaca, Bactra, Arbela, Iconium, Zela, Sinope, Melitone, Mycanae, Thermopolis. (All rush except Iconium). Then most non-barracks cities in Persia did a worker, unless they already had over 10 shields toward something. The rest of our core had plenty of workers. I also started moving some garrisons toward the front, especially elite units.

About half the units in Pelusium still had movement left, so I used the fire cats first, to weaken his swords. They went 5/11, knocking 1-2hp off of each, then I used 3 Heavy Cav to finish them, and get back in the city, one HC was promoted. There was one redlined HC that had no movement left, I couldn’t do much about that one, it wasn’t worth risking more exposed cav.

IBT: Scythia is moving north, they have a ton of units, 30+ swords and a couple dozen riders headed north. An Egyptian War Chariot finishes off the wounded HC.

(1) 55AD: HC are produced at Sparta, Miletus, Sardis, settlers at the cities mentioned above, and Hoplites at Gaza, Tyre. I rush a market in Babylon, to ease unhappiness. Troy goes into disorder, it’s not connected to the road network. I found the city of Artemisium SW of Thermopolyea. Workers start to irrigate like mad, especially in Persia, other settlers move toward the spots I had identified. Use half my fire cats to weaken his attackers, going 5/6 and redlining a sword and a chariot, then use HC to finish them off. Another HC picks off a sword in the open, and 3 more attack Pi-Ramses. One retreats, but the other two kill the two spearmen and it is mine. I start the attack on Alexandria, with 5 HC, one retreats, one dies redlining a spear, and I kill 3 other spears, but he has plenty more so I stop the attack, and move the rest of our fire cats and cav up.
IBT: 2 galleys leave Alexandria? Scythia continues to move.

(2) 60AD: HC produced at Athens, Thessalonika, Sardis, Hops at Susa, Beruit, Pelusium. Settlers found the cities of Megara (N of Perseopolis), Phocaea (SE of Zela), and Sicyon (E of Sinope). Attack on Alexandria: Cats go 3/5, then 5 HC take out 5 spears (no losses, just some hps). Alexandria is ours, we now own the Great Lighthouse, as well as the infirmary, granary, and best of all the barracks survives. More Hops move into Egypt as some of the garrisons arrive. I rush a granary in Argos and an aquaduct in Tyre.
IBT: Celts and Scytia sign peace. Egypt lands a wounded sword outside Alexandria. Susa goes into disorder, I must have moved the garrison after checking the cities.

(3) 65AD: HC in Thebes, Byzantium, Marnae, Ambracia, Cyzicus, Antandrus. Hop in Gaza, Aquaduct in Tyre, Sword in Nesebur, Granary in Argos. I attack out frojm Alexandria to spoil his counterattacks. Cats go 4/4 redlining 2 swords, and 2 HC finish them off. Then an elite HC kills a regular horse, and Hector steps forward, to form a new army. I also move forces near Kahun, SE of Tyre, 2 HC kill 2 archers. I settle Gortyn NW of Antioch and Mytilene N of Ecbatana. Hurry temples in Pi-Ramses, Pelusium, and a granary in Ephesus. (I know we get to keep their cultural border, but I don’t know if we ever got a definitive answer as to whether culture flips are possible or not, so I still rushed the temples. Pi-Ramses actually didn’t have expanded borders yet anyway.)
IBT: Egypt and Celts sign MA vs. Goth, Rome settles on one of our former islands. Egypt counters with 2 swords, who redline 2 HC near Byblos.

(4) 70AD: HC at Sparta, Dyrrachium, Ancyra, Sardis. Temples at Pi-Ramses, Pelusium. Settler at Iconium, Hoplite at Corinth, Granary at Ephesus. Our stacks converge on Khmun, prepared to bombard and attack next turn. An elite HC takes out a spear, another takes a regular sword. I attack Kahun, 3 HC take out 2 spear and an archer, and we get the town, and another leader, Ajax is revealed! He also forms an army, which will head directly for the Scythian front. I build the cities of Tegea N of Maronea, Apollonia SE of Sinope, Apolyton (ironic) SE of Gazaca, and Delphi NE of Arbela.
IBT: Celts and Rome make peace, and our Furs are lost? Don’t know why, somehow our trade route was broken. A sword dies attacking a hoplite.

(5) 75AD: HC at Athens, Thess, Sardis, Hop at Antioch. Alexandria gets a market. Also rush a market at Susa, and raise the luxury slider to 10% to make up for the furs. Rush a granary at Hamadan, a temple at Troy, and found Heraklia SW of Thebes, working some of the tiles our island was using. At Khmun, the big battle begins. Cats go 8/9, which is good, but each shot hits a different defender, not so good! (I counted 5 vet spears, a regular, and a sword). The Army takes out the top spear, then my vet HCs attack, I get a retreat, win, retreat, win, retreat, win, win. My sword kills his sword, and after one elite HC dies, a second kills the last spear. It is size 16 when we take it, with a Granary, Market, Barracks, and Infirmary. I sell WMs around again, pick up another 100g, and check our stats. We are now at 32% population, with Carthage down to 26%, so we are making a net gain!
IBT: Carthage moves some of their troops west, out of our new Egyptian lands. Goth wants us to ally vs. Carthage, no way. Egyptian archer kills a hop, but a sword dies against another hop.
(6) 80AD: Susa finishes Market, Hamadan granary, Troy temple, Thebes HC. I rush an aquaduct at Salonae, and a temple in Alexandria. Khmun needs 9! entertainers to stay out of disorder, but still gains +2 food. I attack Byblos, my first 3 HC kill off 2 spears and an archer and it falls. Another 3 HC take out two regular swords and an archer, one is promoted.
IBT: Nothing much happens.

(7) 85AD: HC at Sparta, Miletus, Cyzucus, Sardis Antandrus, and the rushed buildings complete. I rush a temple in Khmun, a hop at Pelusium, and found Rhodes on the island SE of Miletus (which is, actually, Rhodes, but that’s the name that came up!). Use a couple cats to weaken a counterattack archer and spear near Khmun, then finish them off with two swords. The army charges off to take Busiris, killing 2 spear, losing 4hp, but taking the city. Another 2 HC take out a sword and spear nearby. My HC move to attack El Amarna, and I see the first Egyptian Fire Cat. My first HC retreats, the next two kill 2 spears and I capture the cat and autoraze the town. Looking around, all the Egyptian cities remaining are size one except for Elephantine, the new capital.
IBT: Sword dies attacking my sword.

(8) 90AD: HC at Athens, Thebes. Khmun gets temple, Pelusium a Hop. More Pollution, there are now 3-4 tiles near our core, and it takes a while to clear. Cats only go 2/5 at Elephantine, the Army takes the top spear but goes yellow, so I pull him back. 4 Elite HC go in next, and all win, taking 4,1,2,3 hp respectively, and the city is mine. I can’t see the new capital, I assume it is a city she has on the bottom map edge. I go into negotiations, and can get her 6 remaining cities, and 400g, for peace. Since I can’t really see the capital anyway, and attacking those cities would cause autorazes, I take the deal. This gives me more time to prepare for Scythia before battle handover. I rush an Aquaduct in Eretria, and an Infirmary in Babylon, which is at +14 food/turn.
IBT: Nothing.

(9) 95AD: HC at Thebes, Maronea, Dyrrachium, Hop at Ergli, Fire cats rushed at Arbela, Phocaea, and a sword at Nesebur. I basically just reposition forces, moving our armies out of Egypt. All core reinforcements had been moving to the Scythian borders already, so we have plenty of HCs, but most of the cats are in the south.
IBT: I gracefully end our wine deal with Scythia, selling him our WM instead. The deck is cleared for action.

(10) 100AD: HC at Sparta, Byz, Ancyra, Sardis. Knossos builds Aqueduct, Sicyon granary. Settle Halicarnassus S of Athens to get fish. I did all the worker moves (I have done so much irrigation I think I am wearing out the ‘I’ button on my keyboard!). I also continued moving troops to the front, and tried to make sure there were no ‘goto’s remaining. I have not moved most of the frontline units, as I will leave it to Grimjack to position for his first strike on Scythia. I did try to make sure I woke up everyone who was fortified along the border.

Here is a view of the Western border with Scythia. Our main strike force is in Thermopylea, 19 Heavy Cav, 3 fire cats, a hop and 4 swords. They should have a clear path along the north shore road, but be careful, as last turn a half-dozen riders moved west into the fog north of there, headed toward Rome I assume.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_ScythiaWest.jpg

Here is the Eastern front. As you can see, the remnants of the Scythian hordes are still trekking back from Egypt. There are at least 10 swords near Katanda, , and another group of 10 or more east of Delphi. Our forces are in three groups. Near Tyras, we have a cat, 2 swords, 3 cav and a hoplite along the road. Along the approach to Katanda we have Ajax’s Army (13/13 Hcav), and another 5 HC. One is currently blocking the road, you could try to fight him there in the hills, or let him pass then follow him to his cities. With so many troops there, there is probably no “neat” solution. At least they are north of our cities. Finally, near Delphi we have 3 HC, 2 hop, a sword and a cat. The rest of our forces are en route from Egypt or still at the chokepoint. At Pelusium we have Hector’s army (7/13), 4 hop, 11 HC, and 11 fire cats.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_ScythiaEast.jpg

Population total is now 34%, while Carthage is at 26%, so our lead is increasing. At a net gain of 4% per 10 turns, we would just make it by the time limit, but I think it can start going up faster once we dig into Scythia. I counted over 150 pop just in the visible cities. And our main cities are all set for continued growth, I think everyone that needs an aqueduct has one, and we may be waiting on a few infirmaries. Good luck Grimjack, take it to the Scythians and we will be on our way!

And of course, here is the Save! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_100_AD.SAV)

Looks like a great (and time-consuming!) set of turns. Very good work vs. Egypt and I agree 100% with the peace treaty. There's no need for us to finish Egypt off -- we just wanted Cleo's land and her population. Infirmiries in those floodplain-irific cities will probably help a fair bit with population, too.

Grimjack -- UP NOW
Arathorn -- ON DECK
Coffee -- in the hole
Ridgelake -- on vacation?
Justus -- retired in glory

Don't forget about worker merges near the end to put our population up over the 50% mark. We'll want to irrigate with them as long as possible, but some merges to put us over the limit might be useful. That may well be my job....

Arathorn

I have done so much irrigation I think I am wearing out the ‘I’ button on my keyboard! :crazyeye: I know that feeling. I suppose I should have rushed 20 workers instead of the 10 that I did, some of those cities have tremendous food resources. Its great to have 2 armies back. :goodjob:

Another example of AI stupidity, when I took Elephantine, just two tiles south of it is an Ivory, with no road, even though all the tiles around it are roaded!! So no Numidian Mercs (Thankfully!). I wonder if that's because the AI doesn't recognize it as a strategic?

As for workers, we have a ton, I think nearly 60 native and who knows how many captured. The main irrigation is done in Persia, except for a couple cities in the far south, or if we start to irrigate the vast deserts. We need to assign a few more for pollution duty near our core, but otherwise those tiles are mostly done also. We may need to send some to follow our armies into Scythia, but otherwise they should be wrapping up, ready to retire (merge)!

I am back in town now. It looks like some good progress on the Egyptians. But wow, a whole different way than I was expecting.

The Scythians seem to be our next course. One thing that might help in that fight is a hoplite army. It would be equal defense to their best offensive unit. It would probably serve as a good deterent to their attacks.

Get ready to rush a lot of ducts. I dont think the Scythians can build them.

:hammer:

Great set of turns, and a really good handover. I have it.
I will see how far I can go tonight.

Grimjack

Having re-read the last couple of turns, one thing that I think we need is more defenders. We are very heavily balanced towards HCs instead of defenders. Scythian swords and riders have an advantage over our HCs if they attack. We really need to add in either hops or numers to our forces.

It also might be a nice idea to buy the Scythian map before we go to war with them. Updated intelligence is never a bad thing.

It's hard to justify 40 shield defenders (who only defend at a 3 and will still therefore most likely die to attackers) when you can build 60 shield attackers that:

- get to the front faster
- can attack essentially everything with impunity

In many situations, I'd rather have 2 HCav than 3 hoplites. In this scenario, defending is a losing game. Against the Scythians, I'm sure we'll need to do some defensive maneveurs, but that means using our cultural borders to our benefit and using fire catapults, not letting them attack our units. When our units are attacked, the odds are against us. As the Macedonians, we NEVER have a cheap defensive unit to build and use.

Yeah, I'd like more hoplites, but not at the expense of my HCavs. My $.02,
Arathorn

Well, can't we build NuMes now? Aren't they 30 shields?

Regardless, I am not proposing a large number of defenders. But we have so very, very few at current. There is no question that the strategy of "the best defense is a good offense" works best for this scenario. But there will be SOME counters in all those hills and mountains where our mobility is negated. And losing a 60 shield HC to a sword will cost 20 shields more than the hop.

AFAIK, we cannot build NuMercs, presumably because Hoplites is our UU in the upgrade chain. I thought I checked that we had Ivory connected, I can't be positive, but I know I couldn't build them earlier. I did rush a few of them, and it might make sense to rush a few near the front, but I do agree that our core should concentrate on the H.Cavs, so they can get to the front. The tricky part is the hills/mountains, I debated whether it would be better to pull back and try to draw them out, but that would probably take too long. If we can use the roads as much as possible, and the fire cats for bombard, I think we can still make headway. The main attack, and most of the cities, will come in the west, where we have open terrain. Unfortunately, most of the mountain areas are outside any cultural borders, so unless we pull back to our towns, (or push forward into their towns ;) ) the borders wont help.

The original plan was to hit hard and fast, we've done that very successfully (maybe not me). But anyway, I think we should stick to that strategy. I"m getting ~40 turns left.

Well I certainly got my hands bloody on this my hopefully last turn in RBC3d. I didn't advance quite as much as I perhaps could have, and in the beginning I didn't protect our forces enough.

Here there be tales of bloody murder and hapless numbercrunching. You have been warned.

RBCiv3D Macedonian supremacy. I do my initial survey, and I tentatively reach the conclusion I cannot attack this turn. ( Not unless I want some 13 swordsmen going wild through Delphi. )

I will use this turn to gather troops, and hopefully split up his troops somewhere were they can be dispatched without danger to us. 13 Swordsmen would probably take on our cavalry armies without hesitation.
I get a bit suspicious of the far easter parts of the map. I wonder if there is or isn't a land passage behind the lake.
Note that we are in control of Apolyton. What if they knew :)
I rush a barracks in our northernmost outpost of Troy. It could be that we would want to rush more troops here.
I spend the rest of the money JustUs had thoughtfully left me in rushing two more barracks, a wall and two temples.
I get Egypts gold for our world map. Hmm, Carthage is lacking in Silks and Dyes. He is broke though. I guess he will come and make demands shortly. Make some few changes on cities, mainly to promote growth in our corrupt cities.


IBT: I watch while the Scythians draw back from our vulnerable Delphi. It will take a while for me to chop down all those swords. I also see some ten Scythian riders head west towards Romans. Goth and Rome sign peace.
The Romans are having a Regatta in our coastal waters. Rome is noble today, they sign peace with the Egyptians too.

105Ad (1) We now haev a much more manageable five swords by Delphi, The main southern SoD is by Katanda, where we also have our main army. Scythians have a couple of troops more than us, but we have an army.
There are an unknown number of Riders heading towards what I think is Jerusalem, a roman city. They are probably stuck in the mountains though, and if they should turn towards Troy, things would start to look bad. Our cavalry is mobile though, and although Troy would likely fall, our core would be safe.
Found New Athens on the spot the Settler was on. I demand Scythia leave, but he ignore it, telling me perhaps he will move. His spearman is still outside Troy though. Aa, just map that didn't update. I declare instead. Time to teach the barbarians a lesson.
Lazygia is defended by a single spearman and falls to our first cavalry. I spot a stack with eight riders and two spearmen just outside. It is target practice, call out the veterans.
I kill them all off without losses. Thus far, 3 spear, 1 sword, and 8 Riders. No losses and one promotion. Get my first loss as I fail to take Kelermesskaya. I take out the three defending spearmen without losses, but the third Rider takes out my last attacking Heavy cavalry.
I get two retreats and two promotions while taking out a stack of 11 assorted swordsmen and spearmen in the hills by our southern front.
I am a bit concenrned about our northern front. OUr cavalries are exposed since I couldn't take Kelmer, and Kelmer has an unknown number of Riders, and a stack with seven more riders just a step outside.
This could get ugly.

IBT: We lose five cavalry while taking out two in the counterattacks. I will have to provide a couple of hops as escorts. I smelled blood when I took out the lareg stack, and I had counted on providing cover by taking out Kelmer. Bah.

110AD Lose one cav taking out the two spearmen defending Tyra on the southern front. Scythia has a stack of nine swordsmen going along the mountains. I will leave them for now, and take out the less well defended stack of six on the hills.
We kill off six more assorted swords/spears, while suffering two retreats in the southern front. I had to resort to using the army. I had hoped to rest it to take care of the larger stack of swordsmen.
At the northern front, I retreat some forces to Iazygia for healing. I use a couple of more forces to finally get Kelmerskaya, and capture the two catapults it contained, while taking out 2 more spears, and 4 more Riders. Visible forces in the north are now four wounded Riders, four unwounded, and 10 spearmen.
As I have no hope of defending that city, I will let the SCythians have it back. Hopefully I will be able to take out most of their forces in the next couple of turns.

IBT: See some dozen of Carthage Heavy cav leave Memphis area. In the Scythian counterattacks, we defeat two riders, but lose two swordsmen. We also lose a fortified Hoplite to a regular archer. :( On the southern front, the last swordsman stack splits, and heads home again, with trhe remainder trying to heal.
When they head towards home, they once again pass by our army, which inflicts grevious wounds upon three of the passers by.
The roman regatta continues with lots of galleys heading south. In spite of me looking through every city, I miss Elephantines growth, and it goes into disorder.

115AD(3) In the very first combat on our northern front, Ulusseus appears. I will use him to form a HOP Army, so that I can easier keep what I take.
I will load a heavy cav on him as well, so that I can get use out of the heavier attack value as well.
I take it easy with attacks this round, preferring to heal and regroup. Kill off some four swords, two spears and an archer anyway.
Rush an infirmary in Carrhae instead of rushing military. Hmm, thats weird. Rome does not even have a single gpt to offer for our Ivory. One would think he would have had an excellent income. He has probably sunk his income into maintaining hundreds of galleys :)
The goths are almost gone now, and it seems like it is carthage that is taking the lands.

IBT: We lose two Hoplites standing on a hill to five swordsmen. I am starting to suspect the supplier of spearpoints to cheating us. Also lose a Heavy cav in our city to three riders attacking. I intend to put a stop to this sniping once and for all this turn, when we get a defensive army online.

120AD(4) The mountain stronghold of Chertomlyk falls. I kill off the last couple of swordsmen in the south and advance upon Katanka. I kill off five swordsmen/spearmen before I start seing riders in Kelermes. Unfortunately I am fresh out of troops, ( not counting 2 hp or lower. ) so It will be in Scythian control for one more turn.
Spend my gold rushing three Hops and a Marketplace.

IBT: Scythia and Carthage signs peace. In the counterattacks Scythia loses two riders and a swordsman without anything to show for their efforts. The battle on the northern front is going to be bloody, as I discover 12 swordsmen and 10 spears coming out of the fog, reinforcing the wealening front. I may yet have to withdraw to heal, but I will have this turn to take Kelerm, so I can go there and heal.
Rhodes, a size 2 island, manages to get into unrest. I will have to pay better attention, as if we just count straight pop, going from pop 2 to 3 is just as important as going from 15-16.

125AD(5) Katanda is softened up by Hectors army, and when we go for the archers with a cavalry, Pyrrhus appears. Thats another cavalry army, and I hope we can speed up the fall of Scythia now that the underbelly is exposed. Tanais two spearmen weakens our army some fearsome, but ultimately Tanais falls. Our newest army Pyrrhus army gets bloodied as it clears the way through the mountain pass into the hearts of Asia Central.
I will have to give up the siege of Kelmer, with the imminent arrival of 12 swordsmen, I will feel safer huddling behind walls until I can do the first strike. Unfortunately this means I will have to give up our four firecats. I will not risk our cavalries and army to keep them though.
Carthage wants 110 gpt in order to rejoin the fight against the Scythians. I will wait a turn to see if price drops a bit. I am tempted to take it anyway, since it could be disastrous for us if Carthage struck.

IBT: Scythia ignore our cat stack, and strike at an exposed swordsman. No other losses. Weird.

130AD(6) Lots of worker movement as usual. Find something I have not seen before. Look at screenshot.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_fish.jpg
Both Rome and Carthage wants 110+ gpt for fighting Scythia. It would hurt to pay that much money, but it would be bothersome if Scythia managed to enlist either of them.
1 Rider, 3 Spears and 5 Swords are the casualties on this rest and relaxation turn. Siege of Kelmer still lives, but it is not at full speed, as my army is resting up. ( As is most of my cavalry. )


IBT: Celts destroy the Goths. Bloody turn around Kelmer as we lose one swordsman and two cavalry to counters. Scythians lose three swordsmen as well.

135(7) Kelermersskaya is ours once again. In a bloody battle where we drove out 5 swordsmen, 4 Spearmen and 2 archers, we manage to get a toehold. Time to fortify. Scythians will be able to counter with two riders, one sword, one archer and nine spearmen that I know of. I expect I will be able to take out the Riders during this turn though.
Our garrison would be the hop army, four cats and two more hops, and perhaps a cav or two. Tiflis a small city guarded by two spears falls to our elite cavalry. When we kill off a wounded swordsman in the hills, yet another leader shows up. We will soon be out of cavalry to put into armies :)
Since I cannot get Hector to a city this turn, no need to think about leaderfishing any longer this turn. Get a promotion killing off another sword. Redline a cav as I kill an exposed swordsman. The accompanying archer is more easily dispatched. Trying to stem the tide a bit, I renegotiate peace with Ceasar. I had to think long about this, as I was afraid it was going to get expensive.
In the end, I was fairly certain renegotiating peace would be cheaper than trying to sign them in against the Scythians. And I was right. Caesar paid us 33 gold to renegotiate peace.
I gift Carthage Incense, trying hard to keep him off our back. I get 5 gpt from Celts for our last incense.

IBT: With some nercousnes I press Enter. But I needn't have bothered. Instead of a bloody slaughter in Kelmer, Scythia splits his forces, pillage a road and expose a rider. At the southern front, a single swordsman skewers himself against our hoplites spears. Tanais gets pacified and riots. They get a clown.

140AD(8) On Victory screen we now have 18/38. I expect our next player to rise much further, as it seems like Scythia is finally broken. There will likely only be a trickle of units to put up against our 40 cavs and four armies.
Melgunovs two veteran swords die to our Elite cavalry. It comes with Barracks, Market and Harbour :)
We kill off the top two spears at two cities with our armies. ( I split my forces in the south. One lareg force heading towards the capitol, and one that heads north. )
In the north, we kill off some exposed troops while healing. 7 spearsand one Rider. Visible forces are 2 stacks of single spears, and one stack of a spear and 6 swordsmen. I will take them next turn, when I have rested troops available.
Caesar is at war with the Scythians, and still he wants 130 gpt for an alliance. He must never have heard that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I am sorely tempted to sign up the governor for happines, as it is very time consuming, not to mention quite boring to continuously go through all our cities. It seems necessary though, as I fiddle with 5-10 of our cities every single turn.

IBT: A Sword counter in the south defeats a cav of ours. A second sword is dispatched after sustaining some hits. In the north Scythia reveals another sword stack, but he move the first one up to the walls of Kelmer.

145(9) In the siege of Maykop, we kill off four spear and a sword, while losing a cav before it is ours. It comes with a cat, barracks and market though. Asiopolis is defended by two spears only, but they manage to kill one elite cavalry before becoming ours. Tauris two spears falls to our army, and Tauri is ours together with a cat and a rax.
Kill of an exposed spear. Kill off another exposed spear, and collect forces, hoping for a possible assault on the Scythian capitol next turn.
I lose one cavalry killing of the first 6 swords and a spear. I kill off the top four swords and a spear in the second visible stack. I let the bottom sword live another turn, as I do not want to expose our troops. I rush a worker in Kelmer, which is then changed into a Barracks and rushed. ( This feels like a 'dirty' tactic, as it is something the AI would never do. )
I sincerely hope this was the last turn of endless hordes of troops velling forth out of the Scythian interior.

IBT: OOO, not a single couter in the SCythian realms. Only a single sword and a single spear marches forth. Time to get nasty. :evil:

150(10) in the siege of Ulsky ( The Scythian capital ) we defeat 1 swordsman and four spears with our armies.It comes with barracks, market and Aqueduct. Kill of a stray spear. On the north front I position troops for a quick strike towards the interior, and I detach a battalion heading north to take out any possibility of a flanking movement.
I will leave a slushfond for next player, prime candidate for rushing would be Hamadan, size 12 without market or Infirmary, Hatra without infirmary. I have left four cavalry with movement in our interior, as they are not really needed at the front, and I wanted to give next leader a choice. Either use them to push further into the Scythians, or use them to strengthen our western borders.
I am getting really nervous about Scythia recruiting either Carthage or Rome. I didn't want to renew peace with Carthage, as I look on them as next target if Scythia is not sufficient.
I reccon next leader will go a very long way towards eliminating Scythia.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_South.jpg
This is the southern front. It is wide open, and I have just split up our forces going for the kill. It may be that the two cavalry sent in strike force Alfa is one cavalry short. I hope not though. There are wounded cavalry fortified in the wildernes all over the place. This is due to having lost two hps, it is just as fast to stand and heal as it is to move into a city with a barracks. And for a very long time I did not have a barracks within one move of the front. Since those cavalry healing will wake up once they are healed, I have not woken them up.
I am at a loss as to where to send strike force center. Scythian counters should be a sword or two, so anything guarded by our armies ought to be safe.

Continued....

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_North.jpg
This is the northern front. We did not make much progress here, but I estimate we have killed some 80-100 troops, just now breaking their backs. Last turn was first turn they didn't mount any large troop masses. I sent forward strike force Epsilon for a dual strike on two cities, and strike force gamme is mostly to make sure we do not get outflanked from the north. It is not like we are missing troops any longer on this front.

Ooo, and last but not least, the Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/RBC3d_150AD.zip)

Grimjack the butcher.

PS, I would suggest we statr reinforcing our Egyptian lands, for a possible strike on/by Carthage. We are extremely vulnerable in the south.

Silly double-post bug....

At 18/48 before capturing 4 more cities? With only 20/50 required, I'm a little surprised to be getting a turn at all. Will I need to do anything besides press <enter> once?

Regardless, it looks like a GREAT set of turns. Scythia's back is completely broken and I expect I'd be able to completely wipe them out rather quickly, if it was necessary. I think my turns will be extremely short, though, as victory is imminent.

I had to chuckle reading "on my hopefully last turn of RBC3d..." With only 130 turns possible in the scenario, the 4th/5th players were never going to get more than 2 rounds. It looks as though I'll be the only one getting any part of a third turn, and, due to Grimjack's excellent progress, it looks to be short.

Hopefully tonight. It's been a load of fun!

Arathorn

Oops, a type. We were at 18/38. :blush: Sorry for the confusion.

Grimjack

18/38? Ahhh... Big diffference there. So we need a zillion more population and my turns might be real. Cool. Carving up the remnants of the Scythians sounds like a lot of fun.

Arathorn

Excellent turn, Grimjack! :hammer:

Way to go, Grimjack! Sounds like you slogged through the masses, and now it's time for Blitzkrieg! Looks like lots of unguarded population to me. ;)

Taking lightly guarded populations is one of my favorite things to do. And I'm going to get to do it a second time in this game! I really owe Grimjack for taking the brunt of two assaults and leaving me to the blitzkrieg. Absorbing a large number of population and letting the wet workers in Persia get into dry cities might push us over the limit. We'll see what a bit of the :hammer: can do!

Arathorn

Great turns Grimjack, we're rockin with those 60 workers still to merge. [dance]

I got started on this last night, but we have a LOT of cities, a lot of troops, and turns take quite a while to play.

I'm about halfway through my turns, and no victory yet. I think/hope I might finish tonight, but I make no guarantees. These turns take a LONG time to play and I have to sleep sometime.

Arathorn

(0) 150 - We start with 19/40 land mass/population. The land mass will be easy, but population will be a bit harder. That will be my focus on my turns. Taking over Scythian cities helps in two ways -- to increase our population and to decrease theirs.

Just in case crushing Scythia isn't enough, I start making plans for option B -- killing the Celts. Step 1 is a RoP with Rome, that they agree to for no cost.

The few HCav not moved are sent towards that front, as I think/hope from Grimjack's report that our troops "on site" will be enough to finish off the Scythians. Plus, they basically just move north anyway. Carthage is a threat, but.... Well, if they attack, we're just in trouble anyway.

Blow all our cash rushing infirmiries. We want lots more population!!! Wake hoplite in northwest and take out wounded spear.

(I) Hannibal comes offering to extend our peace treaty. I, of course, accept without hesitation. Brennus of the Celts wants to exchange TMs. As our next target, I want info, so I agree. No big loss either way. Scythia still has a good dozen swords to move around, but they appear to be no real threat. Roman regatta continues.

(1) 155 - Capture Panticipaeum :hammer: first, as it gives us a 7th luxury (furs). We're actually having some happiness issues. The big happiness wonder (Bachh...) would have been nice, but we're doing well with a bunch of luxuries. Capture Solokha :hammer: from 3 spears and 3 swords. Sheesh, they have a lot of troops kicking around. Another 8 spears/swords appear in our new cultural borders. Capture Noin Ula :hammer: in the "south", which I would call the east. Choresmi :hammer: is auto-razed. That's it for this turn. 20/40 at end of this turn.

(I) :lol: Ha-ha! The Scythians sign in an ally against us...the Celts!!! I wasn't quite ready for that snack, but I wouldn't be surprised to see progress in the west before TOO long either. When I checked a turn ago, their military was weak compared to ours. With Rome in the way, too, it will take a while before they will cause me any fear.

I also suffer my first casualty, as a sword takes out a HCav I had positioned by another city. That's about 20:1 so far....

(2) 160 - Capture Chersoneus :hammer: which was size 7. Capture Shibe :hammer: which was size 7 (now size 6, of course), losing a HCav -- my first loss on offense. Maiotia :hammer: is auto-razed upon capture. And that's it. More rushing for higher population, a few worker merges, and the like. Pretty standard stuff. 20/42 is all.

(I) Lose 3 HCav. I must be getting careless.

(3) 165 - Capture Saka :hammer: from size 6. Ajax appears in the battle for Sarsae :hammer:, so another HCav army is formed. Only 21/43 at the end of this turn. Had to off another ~15 junk units Scythia sent at us and some healing time.

(I) Only counter-attack is a single archer impaling itself on a hoplite. Scythians want peace straight up!?! Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

In multiple posts due to smiley limit....

4) 170 - Looks another good chance to make progress. Capture Pazyryk from size 8 to size 7. Karokol has demon defenders that kill an army! *pout* I hate it when swords take 6 hps from attacking armies. Oh well. Two battles later, literally, while cleaning up some more junk units in backlands, Ulysses appears to replace the fallen army. Alania :hammer: goes from 4 to 3 as we capture it. Karakol :hammer: does then fall, from size 8 to 7. 21/45 at turn end.

(I) Lose a sword to a Gallic. Retreat the second. We defend like chumps, losing two hoplites and a sword, all with fire catapult support, to a sword and two archers. Sigh.

(5) 175 - Off the two Gallics and finally move next to a Celtic city. Off a bunch of random Scythian trash and Pyrrhus appears. I guess I'll make another army, although they're starting to become a bit less useful. Hector appears in the battle for Smela, the new Scythian capital. Another army, I suppose. I do have a lot of HCav and they are SO useful at this point. Smela :hammer: then becomes size 7 as we capture it. Kul Oba :hammer: falls and the Scythians no longer border the sea.... We're making progress. Ajax appears as Tabae :hammer: falls to our troops, securing the northern front. More armies, more armies, more armies. This one will take a bit longer to comletely fill, however. Dioscurius :hammer: falls to size 3 as we capture it. 22/46 the scorecard now makes it.

But here, I quit for the night... I've hit some cities, but it's just too late for me to keep going.

.
.
.

Next day -- rush a few buildings here and there -- all with a mind to increasing population.

(I) Celts by north Scythian acquisitions...could get dicey up there.

(6) 180 - Capture Uexellodunum :hammer: from the Celts. Back to the Scythian front -- Tsagan Aman :hammer: falls to size 4 as we capture it. Theodosiopolis :hammer: is next. Massagetai :hammer: falls, too. Kimmeria :hammer: too. Getae :hammer:, the ex-Scythian capital falls, giving us Ulysses...again. He'll become an army, but I might just fill him with one troop for a while. Up to 23/48 now. But the Scythians are running low on cities. And my armies are a bit hurt, so I'll probably need a turn to heal before capturing many more. Even more worker merges planned for next turn, however.

Out of curiousity, I check peace with Scythia. If we could get a bunch of cities out of the deal, it might make it worthwhile, pushing us to/over the domination limit. But they'll only give up a worthless city for peace. Bah.

I raise (raze?) the lux tax to 20% to try to minimize rioting -- probably not terribly helpful, especially as I still go through all the cities manually. Lots to do.

(I) Trade units with the Celts -- their archers attack swords on a hill and we each lose one.

(7) 185 - The prudent thing to do here would be to heal for a turn on both fronts, but we're at 23/49 at the beginning of the turn. I can't NOT attack when we're this close. I should be able to take a couple of cities (probably with heavy casualties) and do merges to get us over the top.

I do a bunch of worker merges. I wasn't completely careful about isovictual, as most merges were into totally corrupt cities anyway, so it barely mattered. And most of my early worker merges were into towns, not cities. I don't think it's exploitive, personally. Still at 23/49.

Capture Minusinsk :hammer: and Pityus :hammer: with wounded armies. I would normally have rested these.

We're at 23/50 when all is said and done. Not many cities are due to grow for us this turn, but we shouldn't lose any cities in the inter-turn. It's gonna be close....

(I) True barbs attack us in the north. Celts run from our stacks. A couple riots due to suppression of people and one starvation (unpreventable) and.... WE WIN!!!!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-185ad.zip

VICTORY STUFF:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-victory.jpg

Leaders say different things -- about alliances and teams and such. A bit different.

For example:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-comments.jpg

Demographics: Taking over the rest of the world wouldn't been INCREDIBLY tough....
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads6/rbc3d-demographics.jpg

Final score (whatever it means in these conquests) was 18219. Two victories down (one not recorded yet) in Conquests for me, so far.

Arathorn

What can I say?! Except of course...

:hammer: !!

Charis :P

:) It was a pleasure to play with such fine compatriots!

:hammer:

Great show. I didn't think we would balloon quite so fast in the end.

Great game guys. :hammer:

Ps, I think the dom limit is quite good in this game, as at this point the game is won, and it would only be tedious to have to grab more people. Perhaps landmass should be 25% instead of 20 to make that an issue.

Grimjack

Congrats! :D

:goodjob: team D
Nice offenisive against an opponent with superior pop/production.

Thanks to the whole team -- you guys really helped make this a ton of fun. We kept the pace up, the pressure on the AI civs, and the :hammer: ever-ready. Great fun!

As for "the game is won", I disagree. We'd've had enormous difficulty taking out either Carthage or Rome, and both together would've been incredibly scary. I saw no less than 50 Legion III's ping-ponging their way between our lands and back towards Spain (I presume) during my turns. Even with all our HCav armies, that's trouble. And remember the HUGE SODs Coffee was seeing from Carthage? Those would only be larger now.

According to our military advisor, we were still weak in comparison to Rome and to Carthage, militarily. Heck, we weren't even first in manufactured goods. If it were an epic game, it would've been FAR from over.

I like the 20/50 mark, personally. If it were 25/50, we'd've been encouraged to found a bunch of junk cities in the Sahara and/or Northern Turkey or other places, whereas the actual goal had us fighting people to get population, which I think is the goal of this Conquest.

And, it looks like the Persian team beat us by one turn....how close is that??? Of course, we had the benefit of learning from their game, as well as the Rome/Carthage games.

Arathorn

Living in the west I'm the last to post. A well executed and fun game. "I love it when a plan comes together" :D

Sorry, Coffee, I'm even later than you! (I was out of town the past day and a half!). Definitely a lot of fun, and a great chance to learn a "new" game with some great players. :goodjob: