I am challenging anyone to a two player game, but not just any two player game. This game will have locked alliances, with each player controlling 4 civs. That's right, no need to read it again, each of us will control 4 civs in a locked alliance. This will be a real strategy tester, some of the most crucial decisions will have to be made before even taking the first turn.

In my eagerness to try this type of game, I will also let my challenger pick all of the settings. That's right, no need to read that again either, you pick all the settings. And furthermore, you can even pick all four of your civs first, and I will even allow you to make changes to your picks after I make my selections should you decide to do so, on the condition that I be allowed to then make changes, but then you'd want to make changes again, then I'd make ... this could get out of hand, but with a game like this, civ selection just might be the most important decision you'll make. One note, should you decide to go random civs you will be handicapping yourself, and I will not go random civs.

Some options to consider if you've never had an alliance PBEM:

turn order, 3 basic choices:

AAAABBBB - fastest
AABBAABB - more balanced
ABABABAB - balanced but slow

location, again 3 basic choices:

(using culturally linked starts and modifying the culture group of our civs we can predetermine how our civs are spaced out)

we can have all four near each other
two pairs each nearby each other
just throw them out there anywhere (culture linked starts off)

i am willing to even prepare more than one map / game to be debated between us to decide which one we would like to go with, can't let you have sole decision over that matter

furthermore, I am willing to consider any other requests for this game as long as it remains 2 player, 4 civs each w/ locked alliance.

I'll take the first player who posts here to accept the challenge and includes their email, my only requests are you try to post all your set up requests within 24 hours of accepting the challenge and you try to take your turns within 24 - 48 hours, i always take my turns w/in 24 hours, usually within 6-8 hours, w/ some minor exceptions when my availability was limited due to circumstances not completely under my control.

any settings not chosen by you will basically be default settings unless otherwise specified before start of game, and furthermore, once the game is set up and before the second turn is taken, if you overlooked something and would like the settings adjusted I would be willing to comply. if you have any questions that's fine, i will refrain from starting the game until it is done the way you would like.

You know I want to play!

okay dogboy, i already have your email, you got a thing for these alliance PBEMs? Go ahead and post settings and civ choices when ready. i'm 90% sure my technical difficulties are over and wont have any delays.

Ok, here is what I want:

World size Large
No barbarians
Continents with 60% water
Climate is normal
Temperature is temperate
Age is 4billion
All victory conditions are enabled except wonder victory
Emperor difficulty (debatable if you want)
Turn cultural linked start off
Enable cultural conversions.

My civs:
Iroquois
Maya
French
Ottoman

Turn order is:
AAAABBBB

Somebody needs to make the map for us. If you make the map, send me the file so I can take a look at it, would only be fair I think. But I think the best way is to have someone make the map. I have someone who might be able to make the map tonight if you can't find anybody.

Let me know what you think.

okay, dogboy, before proceeding i wanna check som eof yur settings, in particular one of your choices will affect my civ selection.

No barbarians

no barbarians means no goody huts, is this the setting you want, this effectively eliminates the expansionist trait, and seeing you dont have any expansionist civs possibly that is what you intended, need clarification before choosing my civs, obviously im not going to pick an expansionist civ with this setting. i kind of like removing this aspect from the game though, it eliminates a certain element of luck.

emporer means one content citizen, which is fine by me, no AI, no barbs this is the only aspect it would affect.

accelerated production, for this type of game i think it's best to keep it off, you did not specify unless i missed it.

Iroquois
Maya
French
Ottoman

you stole one of my civs !!! :mad: :mad:
is this the turn order you want the civs to go, i.e. iroquois would be your first turn, then the Mayan, etc, probably doesn't matter

Turn cultural linked start off
Somebody needs to make the map for us.


fine by me if someone makes a map if this is the way you want to go, but it's not really necessary, if you want all of your civs together all i need is to modify the culture group so that they are all the same (put Iroquois, Mayans, Ottomans, French in same culture group) then turn cuturally linked starts on, my civs would also have the same culture group, but one that is different from yours. The original, default culture group of each civ would be completely irrelevant. We would use a map that is generated just like in a normal game and i wold never get to look at it. Can make several games and after first turn we rank them to decide which map we are going to use, or whatever. A variation is to pair our civs off, two of them in the same culture group starting close together. the culture group is the only change i would make & would be simple to do to set up this game, i suggest we go with this method as opposed to having a map maker, alternatively we could find a third party to set up the game for us with the culture groups method instead of a map, but however you want to go is fine, just wanted to let you know there are other options. The advantage is without a third party the game is a go whenever we are ready without having to wait for someone else to start it for us, of course the disadvantage is there is no guarantee i dont cheat, so another method is for you to set it up w/ the culture groups and go ahead and be the first player, my point of view has always been i dont cheat because it steals from the victory and if my opponents feel they must cheat to beat me, deep down inside they know their victory is tarnished. The point is i dont mind letting you start it.

I will choose my civs a little later and allow you to review your choices to see if they are satisfactory. BTW, like the combination of traits you went for.

No goody huts, yes that takes away the luck factor. And since there are no AIs to meet, don't need the expansionist trait except to scout the land.

Yes, my civs are in order, that's fine.

You can go ahead and make the map. I trust you not to cheat, hope you don't think I implied you did.

I don't want us to be 4 civs in the east and 4 civs in the west. That's why cultural linked needs to be off. True, one of our civs could potentionally get surrounded by 3 or 4 enemy civs, but that's part of the game.

No accelerated production.

I was thinking emperor for the military police issue. If you want to lessen the difficulty, no problem here. If you even want to move it down a notch or two, I don't mind.

Sorry for taking your civ choice:o

I may want to change my civs after I see your choices, but I probably won't. I thought long and hard about what civs to pick.

i think you made some good choices & i might have severely handicapped myself by letting you choose all foru of your civs first, but thats all part of the challenge. i must compliment you overall on the settings you chose, w/ large world 60% water should encourage a peaceful game during the ancient era & even maybe part of middle ages, which gives you an advantage w/ your uu (sipahi, musketeers) i started to choose some civs strictly for their uu, but with expansionist trait all but eliminated it was too hard to get the right combination i thought would do well if for example i took Russia, or another civ which i thought would be handicapped but could benefit from being paired with an expansionist. I'm not complaining about settings, it does limit some options, takes 'luck' element out of game and should make for more importance on strategies. Also, with the settings, it works fine to just throw our civs out there and not use the culture groups because early wars will probably not occur simply do to spacing / lack of early contacts, and then the issue of actually transporting troops to the other civ. Therefore, once we consider war (and who knows, we might even end up w/ strictly a peaceful game :eek: or not, but hope it never really just evolves into all out war, which in time it probably will) all our civs should be of considerable size and have capabilities of not being overly vulnerable to isolation.

I never really thought you implied any cheating, just concerns about unfair advantage. I wont be making / checking any maps, it will be generated just like a normal PBEM map, will be interesting to see how we end up spaced out, big world it will remain a mystery for several centuries.

Well, without further delay, here's my civ choices:

Persia
Sumeria
India
Celts

definitely not my first choices, but the best combination with the settings and remaining choices i can think of. I'm just curious, given what was already chosen, if you were me what would have been your selections? I'll post my original first choices after game starts. Unless you have any other questions / changes, I'll start the game as soon as you post an I'm ready. Sorry it took so long aout choices, but you made it really hard, not the sort of line up I wanted.

One final question, do you want any customization of your tribes? And especially how do you want your name on each of the four civs, if no answer i'll go with French Dogboy, Mayan Dogboy, Iroquois Dogboy, Ottoman Dogboy.

Ok, let's get this party started! I don't want to change any of my civs. The names of my civs can be French DogBoy, etc...Don't need to customize them anymore than that. As for your question on which civ should you pick, well, that's a tough one. Before I asked for no barbs, America and Russia were going to be two of my civs. I was actually thinking of going with Persia as one of my civs, but I just started the Heihojin game #12 with them so didn't want to pick them again. Plus, my Ottomans have their traits (but with a later UU). The Celts were going to be another choice of mine before I scrapped them because I figure with the tech race, some of the low end UUs won't be as important. True, I have two UUs that come very early, but the Mayan with agri and indus is just so powerful, that there are many ways I plan on playing them depending on how the game stacks up. I was also thinking of being India, due to their awesome UU in case I don't get iron, that and the additional hp they get. But I figured the French musketeer with it's 5 defense and bombard of two is just the uber-pillager like nothing else that early in the game (if it comes to that). So you actually have three civs that I was thinking about picking but decided against for whatever reason. Ya, that's 5 civs I just mentioned (America, Russia, Celts, India, Persia). It was a hard decision and guess we will just see what the best combination is. I will have to look at all the civs before telling you what I think would be a good counter (after the game starts ;) Anyway, I think it's funny that neither one of us picked a militaristic civ. Either that means neither one of us plans on doing any fighting, or we thought the other attributes were more important. I think w/o a MGL being able to rush GWs, militaristic trait went down a notch or two. I also like two of your civs being religious. That's always a good trait. Now I wonder if you are going for either a 100k cultural win or possible a OCC 20k! I just thought of that, wouldn't that be something if one of us tried to pull that off and it won? As for this being a peacful or warring game, guess we just going to have to see in game :love:

yeah, i went w/ two religious & two scientific because outside of industrial / agricultural / expansionist i like those two triats best, then commercial, plus when trying to balance my civs to not pick any expansionist it just turned out that way, will discuss more logic about choices later, you made good decision about persia / ottomans, i have to quit or i'll go on and on about these choices, imprtant to just set up game now give me about 30-45 minutes if you're stil going to be up, takes me awhile to set up a game because of double-double checking to make sure everything is right & my first turn decisions are usually long (do i settle or do i move, which direction do i move, maybe i should just go ahead and settle,no i should mopve close to that river ....)

no problem, i will be up until 1:00am eastern time (midnight yours). Then I gotta get some sleep. Really looking forward to this :crazyeye:

it's in the mail

good luck ... er ... i mean extremely bad luck, hope you land in middle of desert, swamps, jungle, volcanoes

if starts are bad let me know will restart

also willing to do a couple setups to allow us to choose, but this one is fine w/ me.

Hey, will you guys post some pics?

I really want to see how this one pans out :cool:

Ya, I can post some pics. Let me upload my starting position pics and post the link here. Ok, here are my start positions at least. I trust Predesad won't go and look at them. Since we haven't discussed anything about posting picks or anything like that, I don't want to post them here. If you want to make a comment about my starts like "wonderful" or "you idiot, you settled in wrong place", then PM me. Please don't post them here. I did notice that both Predesad and I settled two cities on the first turn and two cities on the second turn. I only wish he had settled all four cities on something like the 3rd or 4th turn :lol: Anyway, click here to see my starts.

Alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

posting picks in a link is a good idea, we can turst each other not to view the links i believe and anyone who wants to comment please keep those comments privately directed towards the other player via email or pm, i won't be posting any pics right now, but probably in the future.

Right now a few interesting coincidences:

no militaristic or seafaring civs (expansionists removed due to settings)

both have a civ which is scientific & industrial
both have exactly two agricultural
both settled two civs first turn
both settled other two civs second turn
both have uu's genarally focused for late ancient / middle ages
both agree predesad will win this game :D

for interested observers, like captaincommando, i am now beginning discussion of game strategy, it will not be anything which will allow dogboy to really see what my exact plans are, but since this makes the 5th game we are currently playing together, he's probably going to get a good idea about my tactics anyway.

before discussing any in game matters or posting pics, most of which will be in links to another site, i am going to start with my decisions regarding civ choices.

initially, though undecided, i was contemplating the following civs:
russia, maya, france, ottoman, america, portuguese, inca, germany, japan

what i was going to attempt to do was take 4 civs all with different traits, but in a combination that would be most beneficial, but thought about sacrificing seafaring trait, if i sacrificed the seafaring trait, i would have taken one extra of expansionist / industrial / agricultural, again undecided

then dogboy made an unexpected move and removed the expansionist trait from the game via his desired settings (no barbarians) this is not to be viewed as a complaint because i think it might purify the game, no 'lucky' techs / settlers / cities / gold and no barbarians to build up unit experience or get golden age without going to war. while some view barbarians as a challenge to the game, i think it makes the game easier and always play with raging barbarians, yes it costs me a few units, but i get elite units and if i want it, GA without a war.

Without the expansionist trait i would have liked to have abandoned the sefaring trait and doubled up on agricultural and industrial, naturally the Mayans come to mind and they would have been my first choice, then I would have chosen the french for industrial / comercial and their good defensive middle ages UU. that would have left me needing scientific, religious, militaristic, and another agricultural. I had already scoped out Japan for militaristic / religious plus their strong middle ages uu and they start with The Wheel instead of warrior code, the wheel has a higher research cost over warrior code plus gives you the horses resource. This would leave me lacking the scientific trait plus my second agricultural, naturally the sumerians come to mind and they come packaged with a uu that is basically a spearman at warrior build cost. But then, i also contemplated the germans which have the strongest UU coming in the industrial age and are militaristic / scientific leaving me lacking the religious trait and an additional agricultural, naturally the Celts come to mind.

I am not currently sure which combo i would have taken the Japanese / Sumerian or German / Celtic, but that is irrelevant, however, because with the removal of barbarians, the militaristic trait is also not as attractive, plus with a two player game it immediately sends out the signal that you plan on going to war using that civ and makes it a possible target for early elimination.

Therefore, having eliminated three traits now I think I would have done what Dogboy did with a slight twist, I would have tripled up on the industrial, two agricultural, and one each of scientific, religious, commercial. Naturally, I would again go with Maya and France, then I would add the Ottomans because of their very late middle ages UU and gives me industrial / scientific. Now, I am lacking another agricultural and religious, again that would be the Celts.

First Four choices:
Maya
France
Ottoman
Celts

So you see, Dogboy did not just take one of my choices, as stated earlier, he took three of them, this left me devestated as I had to start from scratch in picking my civs.

Next post: How I chose my civs based upon Dogboy's choices.

When Dogboy kidnapped three industrial civs he left me trying to remake my entire game strategy. Not only did he choose three industrials, but two of the remaining (America & China) were undesirable to me because of game settings. All along I anticipated he would choose the Mayans, but did not think he would take the French because my experience is not many PBEMers ever take France or even want to play with them.

First off, the Ottomans were easily replaced by the Persians at the sacrifice of the better UU. When I was staring at civ choices, this was the only one i was sure of. Given my preferences I only had 7 left to choose from anyway. I wanted to avoid early ancient era UU because they would be useless. India was the lone civ left with a middle ages UU which also had desirable traits, commercial / religious, with the exception of Korea. I pondered Korea for awhile, the lethal land / sea bombardment was appealing, but I decided against going with a UU that I had to provide defense for at all times, even a 1 HP warrior would kill it. To me having your UU as a bombardment unit seems to weaken the effect, but maybe some game i'll try them and see for myself. I really think India's UU is powerful plus you dont need the typical 'knight' resources.

I knew I needed to double up on either agriculture or industrial, or both, would have preferred both originally. Egypt was out because even though they have the industrial trait i needed, their uu is early ancient age and i consider it very weak anyway because of the limits of it being wheeled. This meant there were no industrial civs left with a matching desirable trait. So, naturally instead of taking a civ with a trait i did not want , I just chose to go with double agricultural. I had all the other traits I wanted in my first two choices, which meant I was going to double up on some of those as well.

Let me say here part of my strategy was to get at least one of every trait (except expansionist, seafaring, militaristic which i had ruled out) I am not going to fully disclose why I chose that strategy, but part of it was to get as many of the starting techs as I could. With my choices I managed to start with one more tech than Dogboy, but that tech, ceremonial burial, has the lowest research cost of any tech, except pottery which costs the same. I would have chosen a militaristic civ if Dogboy had also chosen a militaristic civ. I also would have chosen a seafaring civ if Dogboy had chosen one. Again, the no barbarians made militaristic less apealing to me. I kind of like the seafaring trait, but did not want to give up another trait to get it unless my opponent had as well, i agree it is a weak trait, but does have some nice benefits at times in the game. If we ever have a huge naval campaign I will wish I had chosen Carthage because of being industrial or even the Dutch, good UU plus agriculture.

By doubling up on agriculture my remaining choices were simply the Celts and Sumeria because of the before mentioned trait limits, although in a way I still wish I had considered the Dutch more heavily w/ their UU. This was not really what I wanted, but I had put myself in this position by letting my opponent have all the first choices, I set it up that way because I still think my strategy will win out by sticking to my overall plan and I am not going to cry about it. I plan on starting another game as soon as I finish a couple other 'regular' PBEMs and I will again allow my opponent to make all the settings and choose civs first, my only requirement will be not the exact same four Dogboy chose otherwise the second game would lose some of its meaning.

In summary my four choices: Persia, India, Sumeria, Celtic

I have weaker uu in general, but think I can overcome that, would have been much worse if all of Dogboy's choices had been middle age uu. but then that would have left maya for me.

In the end, I am happy to have 2 agricultural, 2 religious, and 2 scientific as well as 1 industrial and 1 commercial. I think my 'plan' will still work, although it has been slightly altered. Cannot give much away here, but given the worthiness of my opponent he is probably thinking along the same lines.

Shortly, if others are genrally interested, I will post some strategies / pics and welcome any advice in this new game. However, I request others refrain from specifically advising either of us based on sensitive information of our opponent. Don't look at his pic then tell me I need to build more units because you can tell he is bulking up in military at a nearby civ. Don't tell me I need to build some galleys because he privately indicates he is about to start trying to island jump, or he posts pics of new island cities. You get the idea.

So, i can understand if you guys don't want to reveal too much of your long term strategy.... but do you think there will be a lot of war in this game, or it be fairly peaceful, i'm just wondering if it's going to be more of a desperate struggle for survival, or a space victory, or perhaps, since you have control of multiple civs, some could brawl while others build.

Damn, this game is so multi-dimensional :D

I noticed the same six things you noticed, except you got one thing wrong. Predesad will NOT win this game. To explain my civ choices, I would first have to start with the game paramaters. Since it was left up to the challenger, me, to pick the game setup and first choice of civs, I figured I had a good opportunity to swing things in my favor. I know Predesad likes to snatch up goody huts. In the other games I'm playing with him he's Inca, Portugal, American. So I first had to eliminate the goody huts, which means, no expansionist trait. That eliminated 8 civs from the pool. I also figured the tech rate would go fast in this game with 4 civs dedicated to researching different paths and swapping techs. That led me to believe lower end UUs wouldn't be very beneficial for very long. However, the middle age UUs would be very beneficial. That helped to either eliminate or at least nullify a few of the civs. For map choice, I picked continents instead of pangaea or archipelago. That would probably eliminate the seafaring trait, but not definately. I didn't want to pick any of the seafaring traits, but I wanted the option to remain open for Predesad in hopes that he would "waste" a choice by picking one of them. I also didn't want to pick any militiristic civs since I don't think that trait is as powerful now since MGLs can't rush wonders. I haven't had too much experience with the new armies so I hope I didn't make a mistake here. And the religious trait just isn't as powerful as others. I don't usually change governements that often, and I "might" not be going for a cultural win, so I didn't want to pick that trait. So now that I had the field at least narrowed down some, it was time to pick my civs. First choice was Iroquois. Even though they have an early UU, it can do well into the early part of the middle ages. A stack of mounted warriors against pikeman or even mustekman can be devasting with that withdraw ability. Plus their trait of agricultural is just phenomenal. Next choice was Mayan. Ya, very early UU, but the combined traits of agricultural and industrious is just too much to ignore. And if war does come early, enslaved workers are just so awesome. The next choice was the French. Once again, an industrious trait is just so good at rapidly expanding. Plus that middle age UU that can pillage like crazy is powerful. A two movement UU can pillage much better, but can be killed easier. Last pick was the Ottomans. Love that industrious trait, plus needed a scientific trait to try and snatch those SGLs. And the late middle age UU just owns until tanks come along for offense, and infantry come along for defense.

Other civs I thought about picking but didn't:
Russia and America before getting rid of the goody huts. I figured I could snatch up a bunch of goody huts and jump ahead, but figured Predesad would do the same.
Persia was another choice but since I just started another PBEM with them, decided against it. Was also the chance they may not get iron that early in the game and didn't want to risk that.
Greece for the early pillage strategy, but didn't think that would work in this huge map.
Germany for that awesome UU late game, but Predesad might focus on them and wipe them out.
China for their "possibly the best" early middle age UU, but I liked the Ottomans better.
Japan for same reason as China.
Mongols for their Keshiks, but no goody huts.


So I narrowed my choices down to what I picked. Hope I picked good ones.

Captain commando to answer your question, I have no idea how this game is going to go. It might be warlike and it might be peaceful. Might go for a space launch with the fast tech, but who knows. The possiblities are endless. It really is going to depend on where each civs are and if they are cut off. For instance, if I have four civs surrounding one of his civs, might kill that civ early. I'm sure Predesad would return the favor for me, and I don't think I'm discussing anything here that he's not thinking. Just going to have to see how this game plays out before making any decisions that lead towards a victory.

Dogboy, that was a very good catch looking at my other games and picking up the expansionist thing, of course remember Portugal I got by random (oddly enough i have portugal in two games and both were random choices out of only three times i have used random) I must confess expansionist is my favorite, then industrial, but now agricultural looks real good and it is simply too hard to decide among them sometimes.

Damn, this game is so multi-dimensional

Why do you think I named it Ultimate 2 player? I believe it is original also because I have never seen anyone else set up a game like this. And of course to keep beating a dead horse (or is it a dog?) dogboy further added to the originality w/ the settings.

do you think there will be a lot of war in this game, or it be fairly peaceful

who knows how it will play out, but i expect a mixture of both. i forsee circumstances where maybe i need one of my civs to remain peaceful, say the Celts, so I sign a peace treaty between all of Dogboy's civs and the Celts, then even though other civs may go to war and technically because of locked alliance Celts would be at war, they would not join the war or risk being attacked, of course that's assuming we remain honorable. But, in a game like this, it is probably going to really make it difficult if you dont honor your treaties, besides the overlap factor in other games, if i'm not honorable in this game then why would i be honorable in another game.
i suspect we will probably both not become set in our chosen victory path until the game is far along, maybe even in the industrial age, and even then may not limit ourselves, but go for 2-3 options. there really are only 3 choices (unless i'm overlooking something) conquest / domination nearly the same thing; culture; space race, obviously diplomatic is out, unless dogboy would be foolish enough to vote for my civ, the vote would be a tie. Which makes me think, what does happen in the event of a tie in the UN vote? Is the winner chosen by other means related to conditions of being a candidate or what?

Oh well, now back to my other post about civ selection.

Note: seven turns in first 24 hours :goodjob:

The Ottoman DogBoy has met the Sumerian Predesad. I have sent this e-mail to him. Now I shall wait to see his reply. The funny thing is, I was going to send him an e-mail this turn joking that I didn't think he was really in this game. It's turn 22 and this is the first we have met. Of course, I don't know if his civs have met each other, just like he doesn't know if mine have met each other.

Hail Sumerian Predesad,
My name is Ottoman DogBoy. It is nice to meet another civilization on this seemingly uninhabited land. I bring good tidings to you and your nation. I also bring a document that when signed shall bring peace and prosperity to our two fine nations. I propose a treaty of non-aggression between our people to last 20 turns. During that time neither of us shall attack one another, violate another one's borders, or impede their progress in any way. Since I have not seen the extent of your lands, and you may not have seen the extent of my lands, it would be hard for us to settle upon boundaries at this time. We will have to meet again in the future to discuss options. My scribe notes that I sent this non-aggression treaty to you on turn 22, which if signed by you on turn 23, shall last until turn 43. I eagerly await your response.

Ottoman DogBoy

I also updated my page to show you where we met.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Contact already, i was not surprised on a large world w/ only 60% ocean and just 8 civs that there had been no contact. I could have gone another 23 turns without contact and been happy. Especially since in this type of game you don't need contact with your 'enemies' and aren't dependent upon them for trade. I haven't even bothered with any pics yet or anything. Is anyone following the game, though, dogboy, have you gotten any response? I am just wondering if it is worth the effort before i take the time to do it. I have all the game saves so I can go back and get whatever screenshots I want, just don't want to bother if nobody's interested.

Well, outsiders interested or not and for occassional lurkers, since contact has been established between one of Dogboy's civs and mine, because of a previous incident not involving my current opponent, i am writing a disclaimer that all of my future comments on this thread are in character and are not directed personally at dogboy but rather at those four foolish leaders he likes to manipulate about 6 times a day and their loyal subjects unless i specificy a post as being "out of character"

Greetings Sir Ottoman Dogboy,

It seems we are in a bit of a quandry, I was looking out over all this land and thinking, "Land, beautiful land as far as I can see, and it's all mine!!" Then you showed up and ruined everything. We are intrigued to learn there are others, are you perhaps struggling for survival? We hope all is well. We receive you into our courts and invite you to dine with us as soon as you are capable of making what must be a very long trip from your homelands.

We agree fully that peace is a wise choice for our young civilization. We are concerned about your desire to limit this peace to merely 20 turns of the astrological forces. Perhaps you merely want time to scout out lands and learn our weaknesses, maybe you are sending an ambush on the way right now. My brothers,most noble rulers that they are, have heard rumors of men on great beasts rushing quickly to attack and retreating before being injured themselves. How can we be assured these rumors are not true and that it is the Ottoman people who are orchestrating such raids?

We wish therefore to offer you a counterproposal, while accepting your initial proposal, of 50 turns of peace. After the aforementioned 20 turns perhaps we can then engage in border disputes or debate other matters. If after the first 20 turns, we have an issue between our nations that cannot be settled peaceably and we feel it is time to don the cloak of war we would be permitted an escape clause provided we had a good reason and gave a 5 turn warning to the other party. That party would then have 5 turns to try to rectify the situation, prepare for combat, or both. If such matters do not interfere with our peaceful dvelopment then we will both enjoy a rather lengthy period of tension free prosperity.

Again, for further clarification, whether my counter proposal is accepted or declined, we sign and return this peace treaty to your kingdom, having chiseled two copies of it, one for ourselves, and another copy right here in the side of this mountain as a memorial for all posterity.

The Noble Sumerian Predesad

A treaty of non-aggression between the Ottomans and Sumerians to last 20 turns. During that time neither of us shall attack one another, violate another one's borders, or impede their progress in any way. The official expiration is turn 43.

I didn't have time to respond to him because I had to get to work. But I agreed to a 50-turn peace treaty.

Predesad, I don't know if anybody is interested or not. I don't have a counter on my web site. Don't know how to do it and don't want to take the time to learn. Guess I'm also doing it just for fun.

Updated my page for a new, albiet still crappy, look.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

no pics yet, but i am setting up my page here (www.geocities.com\predesad) for suggestions / discussion / comments / questions.

The Mayans have found the Celts in game. I sent Predesad this message.

Hail Celts Predesad,
My name is Mayan DogBoy and it appears as if we are neighbors. I bring you a piece of parchment that ensures peace between our two nations for many years to come. I have scouted out a big part of this land and have discoverd two things. The first is that it appears that we are alone on this piece of land. The second thing I have discovered is that there is plenty of room for both of us to live in peace. If you agree to this, then please sign this non-aggression treaty and return it to me. It says that we can co-exist together for a period of no less than 50 turns. During that time we may not attack each other, invade each other's lands, or impede each other's growth in any way. And if one of us should feel that this treaty cannot be maintained for the full 50 turns, we must give a good explanation as of why. If this treaty should become null and void, there will remain a 10 turn non-aggression pact before either one of us is allowed to attack. I eagerly await your response.

Mayan DogBoy

Updated the Mayan section of my page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

The Celts have accepted the deal, there are now identical 50 turn peace treaties w/ 10 turn notice cancellation for good reason between the Mayans / Celts & the Sumerians / Ottomans. NO other contacts have been made between any of the dogboy civs and predesad civs, although contact between our own civs may or may not have occurred.

The Iroquois have met the Sumerians. The Sumerians offered me our "standard" 50 turns" of peace which I accepted. We met when his unescorted settler stepped right next to my warrior. Would have been a perfect opportunity to grab two free workers and hurt him, but no need to shed blood when there is so much free land for us both. I accepted the peace.

Updated the Iroquois section.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

When my unescorted settler stepped right next to the Iroqoius settler, I was certain my peace treaty would be turned down & i would find myself at war the next turn, minus a settler. That must have been a hard decision. My only hope was Dogboy was more interested in building expansion / infrastructure right now than building a military of warriors / archers, unless he already had horses / iron, but slightly doubtful unless one of those resources popped up conveniently inside a city where he already had a road built.

I have taken several risks in the early game, especially in the absence of barbarians and most of my settlers have gone unescorted, which is a real rarity for me. But with so much land available right now a war would probably just have been a nuisance, it would have set me back temporarily, but would have made any future concessions concerning the Iroqouis difficult for all of my civs. Everyone of them would have been angered to learn of this treachery by the Iroquois.

Besides, without giving anything away, there is a little something I know about that area which Dogboy is not quite aware of yet. I think he made a wise choice, because a war at this stage would have had many ramifications for the remaining 500 turns, we have already taken 40+ turns in a little over a week, a week and a day I think.

As my civs reach four cities each, I will cease taking these risks with unescorted settlers, at some point I will just be inviting war for myself, I know there have been several wars I have started simply over an unescorted settler.

If the situation had been reversed would I have done the same? Let Dogboy send an unescorted settler my way and we'll find out. :D

Ya, I didn't want to waste a bunch of resources fighting when it wouldn't have benefit me. I really don't care if it would have hurt you or not, it just wouldn't have done much for me. I'm sure we will have plenty of time to fight later when you stab me in the back. :rolleyes:

The Mayans have met Persia. I offer him our usual 50 turns of peace. Now just to wait and see if he accepts it. This also tells me something else which you can find out on my page on the Mayan page. I have updated it at

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Predesad of the Persians have found my French and offered me our usual 50 turns of peace. It appears now that he has found all my civs, while I have yet to find his Indians. I'm pretty sure I know where they are, just haven't been able to venture over there yet to find them.

I have updated the French section on my page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

All civs have pretty much been located, there is some exception in which actual cities have not been discovered, but that is a trivial matter, currently there are 50 turn peace treaties between every civ which has made contact these include:

Ottoman - Sumeria
Maya - Celts
Iroquois - Sumeria
Maya - Persia
France - Persia
Ottoman - India

DogBoy has spent much more effort on exploration than I have and is responsible for nearly all the contacts which have been made, I have really only begun full exploration efforts. I have concentrated on early expansion and DogBoy has fallen behind, but appears to be quickly catching up. On a world this size, there are often advantages to allowing cities to grow to larger than normal size before building settlers, if you choose the right method of doing this, and I am sure DogBoy had done so. My fear right now is not that he catches up, but that he surpasses me.

Using the above information, it is possible to get a picture of who is located near whom, I am sure DogBoy has realized the same thing I have so I will go ahead and post this information:

The Ottomans have contact with the Sumerians and the Indians. The Sumerians have contact with the Iroquois. This places two of DOgBoy's civs (Ottoman / Iroquois) on the same continent as two of mine (Sumeria / India)

Furthermore, the Mayans have contct with the Celts and the Persians. Persia has ontact with France. This places DogBoy's remaining two civs (Maya / France) on the same continent as my tow remaining civs (Persia / Celts)

Until Dogboy actually discovered India, he could not know this for sure, but I have known this for some time and suspected it from the earliest times of contact, although there was one point in which i thought we were not so balanced, with one of DogBoy's civs on one continent with two of mine, while his other three were on a continent with the remaining two of mine, but this turned out to not be the case, I had merely gotten mixed up about who had contact with who. Of course, there is always the chance, even though we have continents in the game setup, that we are all on one land mass, two continents connected by a small strip of land like North / South America. I have seen this many times in civ and always find it rather annoying in the abscence of being able to build canals.

Predesad is right, everybody has been discovered. I also had figured out that we each had 2 civs each on the same land mass as two of the other person's civ. This is still assuming that we are on seperate land masses. It's ironic that I figured I knew where India was, said somthing about it, moved in that direction, and discoverd them on the next turn.

Anyway, I have updated my page. Updated the main page and the Ottomans page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

The Celts have found my French. Predesad has a curraugh sailing around. We agreed on peace to last for 50 turns.

I have updated the main page and the French page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Four civs each, sounds wild. Hope you keep posting highlights.

Four civs each, sounds wild. Hope you keep posting highlights

i am in th eprocess of building a site for this game, actually multiple sites, the link is not even in this thread, although i started one web page, i have abandoned it to go anothr direction. i will have one main page for the game, at least my side of it, then a page for each of my civs. two pics are being included right now, one of turn 2 and one of somewhere around 2350BC, the 2350bc includes everything i have explored but do not know if i will continue to be able to do this. in addition there is a copy of the 2350 bc scoreboard and a copy of every civs minimap. alo there is a brief write up of the strategy for each civ and their "contributions" to the total alliance as well as a units listing, amount of gold, discovered techs, about anything you can think of, even future city site speculation. right now i have my main site mostly done, persia's and sumeria's are also finished. it is tedious and i have several games and th epst two days i have been limited in computer time, but hopefully by the end of the week i will have all four pages done, with near current updates and pics. i will be using this iste to describe my actual strategies not holding anything back as DogBoy and i have each other's mutual trust we will not access the other player's site ... except for that one time ... okay two times ... maybe three :D relax, i am just kidding, i abhor cheating.

I looked at Dogboy's site and have a good feel for this game--he has pictures and commentary. That's a help for players still learning the game, like myself!

SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT

Rocinante, if you want to learn the game you can go here. http://realmsbeyond.net/civ/ This is a site where a group of people play a specific game (sort of like the GOTM here) and then we post reports about it. Navigate thru the site and be sure to check out the civ forum. On the civ forum you can read everybody's game reports and that is where (IMHO) you really learn how to play this game.

BTW, glad you like my site. I just wish I had more time to post stuff on it like strategy and what each civ is contributing.

.:thanx:

Looks like Predesad doesn't like what I want to do with my settler. Read about it on the Mayan page at:

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Border negotiations have been completed between the Mayans and the Celts, this will be included on my Celtic page when i finally get it done.

Also, the Mayans and Celts have agreed to an ROP for one unit. This deal is chocked full of conditions / restrictions. In addition, the Celts / Mayans have extended their peace agreement, it had reached the halfway point (25 turns) and was extended another 25 turns meaning it will rin at least an additional 50 turns. Also, the Celts and Mayans narrowly avoided a diplomatic incident as the Celts entered their border negotiations in a rather adamant and accusatory manner and the Mayan response was somewhat bitter, the two Emporers have sense smoothed over the incident, blaming the entire thing on inadequacy of their scribes (the emporers could never admit to having made a mistake themselves)

Terms of one unit ROP:

1) unit must move each turn, cannot linger at all

2) no going back and forth and back and forth over the same two squares, must move thru the other person's land

3) may not move towards a settler

4) may not use each other's roads

5) may not have three consecutive turns on a road

6) must take any directions from opponent which prohbit moving to a cetain tile

7) cannot kep unit from ever going to a certain tile for no apparent reason

other conditions are likely to be added, we have begun discussing consequences for violations

Yes, we did work out a very interesting peace, boundary, and ROP deal. You can read about it where Predesad just posted it, and you can see the picture on my page under the Mayan page. I also updated the main page with a major gripe I have about this game in multiplayer mode, although I have no recommendations on how to fix it.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Interesting sutff, keep up the updates guys.:goodjob:

. I also updated the main page with a major gripe I have about this game in multiplayer mode, although I have no recommendations on how to fix it.

DogBoy, as I cannot access your site to read about your gripe, is this something you could share on the thread, i have lotsof pbem gripes, just wondering what yours is.

It's not just PBEM, but all multiplayer games. After talking to you I was wrong in my assumption, but still disgruntled. Anyway, my gripe is he who goes first gets the benefit. I don't have a solution, so I can't say how to fix it. It's the same gripe the computer is authorized to have in single player games. What I mean is let's say two people are building a WoW. Both are due to build it in one turn. But whoever set up the PBEM game, or whoever is first in the turn order, gets the wonder. Doesn't matter they both took the same time to build. I know it's that way in most turn based games, I realize that, but it still irks me. Eagle Games somewhat fixed this problem with their board game called Civilization, The Board Game. It's an awesome game and very fun to play. In that game, players rotate who goes first so you have to be careful how you leave yourself open at the end of your turn. The board game Risk 2210AD also rotates turns based upon how willing you are to go first. In the classic Risk board game, the strategy was simple...pile on, penetrate deep and wound your opponent so he can't build too many units to counterattack, rinse and repeat next turn. But if you don't know you are going first next time, you have to rethink your strategy. Anyway, like I said. I don't have a solution but it's still a gripe I have. Maybe if two people completed a WoW on the same turn the computer rolls a dice and that's who gets it. Rolling the dice in this instance doesn't add luck to the game, it makes it fair I think. Feel free to opine.

so its really a tun based gripe, yeah, i agree its a problem / issue that needs to be resolved, something that takes away form the benefit of going first, there should be no real advantage of going first. i think you had a ggod suggestion, in all circumstances where the turn order gives a special bonus to a player, such as wonder builds, discovery of philosophy, space ship completion, whatever there needs to be another factor such as random determination.

i would actually prefer another method in which the project is incomplete as long as two or more players complete on the same turn, then the next turn whoever builds more additional shields to the projector contributes more beakers to the research or whatever is applicable in that situation for that one turn is the player who is awarded the project / bonus. but then i see pros / cons to that solution as well.

Okay, I am unveiling my new web page now, it is still a work in progress. the celts are missing there last update, hopefully i can get that finished today. i cannot verify all the links in each page work, so there might be difficulty browsing back & forth from page to page. also, there is one link on each page that has yet to be put in, but that can be accessed from the main page. each civ has a pic of starting location (really start of 2nd turn) a pic of 2350 BC, a small write up of about that same turn, 2350 BC, though the actual turn used to get the information varies from civ to civ. there is also a pic of 1575 BC and an update is included with the pic. there's also other information on each page. eventually the main page will contain a lot more stuff, i will be working on that after i finish the celts page and get any / all links hooked up and verified from page to page. this project can be so masive, i will probably never try to update each civ at the same time. right now there's a limited amount of strategy discussed, but i will get to that after i finish the celts. there's a guest book on the main page which can be used for comments / questions / suggestions.

note: old link in a prior mesage is no longer valid

main page (http://www.geocities.com/ultimate2playerpredesad/)

persian page (http://geocities.com/persianpredesad/)

sumerian page (http://geocities.com/sumerianpredesad/)

indian page (http://geocities.com/indianpredesad/)

celtic page (http://geocities.com/celticpredesad/)

all these pages should be able to be accessed from each of the other ones, if there are any missing / invalid links or any other problems just let me know

another note about pics, sometimes when they open up depending upon screen rsolution, pic is very very small, there's an icon that given a few seconds will pop up in the lower right hand corner to enlarge the pic

An interesting thing has developed. I listed it on the main page at the bottom. Read turn 68.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

An interesting thing has developed

that doesnt sound good

This thread & the related pages are better than the novel I'm reading.

The Iroquois have met India. We agreed to a 50 turn peace deal due to so much land being availiable for settling. Updated the Iroquois on my page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

I will be out of town this weekend. I will play my turn Friday night before I leave, and I will be back Sunday night. So basically I will only miss Saturday night. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I will be out of town this weekend.

in the meantime, are the iroquois going to invite the indians & sumerians into there camp for a pow-wow and smoke the pipe of peace?

It looks like I didn't need to send out an invitation. You kind of invited yourself in, then asked if it was ok. :rolleyes:

It has been a while since I posted. You can read about some updates on my page. We have renewed all our peace deals for another 50 turns so it looks like we will be at peace for quite a while...unless Predesad does something to break the deal :) I have updated the:
-main page
-iroquois page
-french page
-ottoman page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

unless Predesad does something to break the deal

predesad is a deal maker, not a deal breaker

Let me rephrase that...

...unless Predesad the Sumerians/Indias/Celts/Persians does something to break the deal.

I know you wouldn't break a deal.

...unless Predesad the Sumerians/Indias/Celts/Persians does something to break the deal

let me assure you, the Sumerians, Indians, Celts, and Persians are all honorable people having no intention of doing anything to break any deal, but neither will they be strong armed.

It seems we may soon have our first international incident as the French and Persians are engaged in a border dispute, apparently there is a misunderstanding as to exactly what defined the border. Persia porposed a line north and south from a mountain between a French and Persian city, while the French claim the scattered mountain ranges were the agreed upon border. I am ont certain how this will be worked out. Add a little excitement into the mix, it seems a French warrior is intent upon denying the Persians their desired city spot, in violation of our noninterference clause in a sperate agreement preceding the border negotiations. Thus, Persia is having to look past the border they felt was laready established.

Surely this situation can be resolved peacefully, and perhaps the Mayans could also find a way to entertain border discusions and persuade the Persians to alter the current French border.

Yes, it seems that a border dispute is indeed underway. The Persians have used poor logic in an attempt to grab what they know is rightfully not their land. They also claim that a French warrior is following his settler which is totally untrue. I have pictures proving that the French warrior was NORTH of the settler when the settler was moving NORTH. Truth be told, his settler was following my warrior! The Persians also claim that since I am denying them their intented upon spot, that they are free to disregard our border agreement and settle where they have to...specifically on my side of the line. To add insult, the Persians have requested that the Mayans interject and persuade the Persians to alter the current border. Hey, how convenient! Let me translate this for you in Persian terms.

"Dear Mr. Mayan King. I made an agreement with the French without properly scouting the land. Now that I have seen they have some sweet land, I plan on settling there. If you would be so kind as to talk to me in an attempt to get the French in altering the current border agreement because I was neglect in conducting proper reconnaisance I would appreciate it. Oh, and please don't tell the French that I take them for complete idiots."

I can't believe the Persians would attempt such an underhanded, sneaky attempt at altering a signed document between the French and the Persians. I should have seen it coming when they sent me this message:

i think there is a lot of trust between us considering the links we are putting on the thread, but at the same time we dont trust each other and hesitate to take anything for granted, studying the exact words for a possible loophole, or maybe that's just my impression

Yep, he found a loophole. That's ok, every plan has a loophole and I just got my shovel out. Time to start digging.

If you want pictures either because you know I'm right, or you wnat to know I'm more right, click on the link below. Check out the French page. Sorry for the size but I wanted the pictures complete. Oh, and if you think I'm wrong, don't say it here. PM me please. :D

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Let me clarify the situation further, i was simply being coy by suggesting the mayans blah balh blah. the border dispute is a legitimate misunderstanding.

the Persians are trying to negotiate with the french to resolve the issue, there is some sweet land in the territory uinder dispute, which is why we would not have agreed to let france have it freely to begin with.

the persians have proposed the french & persians refrain from settling in the area under dispute along with their mutual allies. we are also seeking to divide up the territory under dispute as we are very intent upon settling near where we are, or letting the french by the territory from them.

as far as DogBoy's accusation:


I can't believe the Persians would attempt such an underhanded, sneaky attempt at altering a signed document between the French and the Persians. I should have seen it coming when they sent me this message:

i think there is a lot of trust between us considering the links we are putting on the thread, but at the same time we dont trust each other and hesitate to take anything for granted, studying the exact words for a possible loophole, or maybe that's just my impression

Yep, he found a loophole. That's ok, every plan has a loophole and I just got my shovel out. Time to start digging.


let me just say i was not looking for a loophole, i know what i agreed to and what i wanted, this is a genuine misunderstanding, happens all the time between nations in RL i meant the other player is always looking to see how his opponent has left a loophole, especially since dogboy seems to question my proposals and i question his. i did not mean we were trying to invent loopholes for ourselves.

it is my hope the french and persians can resolve this issue to their mutual satisfaction, if you wanted a loophole i can give you a very big loophole which believe me you would not like at all.

To Predesad, I know real life border disputes happen. But so do false accusations and lies (ever heard a Democrat on the campaign trail?) :eek: Guess I better keep politics out of this eh?

To all, conflict has been avoided. We both agreed that we were both right in our own minds, and the other person was probably right in their own minds. To make it simple, we each knew what we wanted. We each thought the other person knew what we wanted. But where we made a mistake was neither of us said what we meant. We both just assumed the other person was a mind reader. Anyway, we have decided how to split up that little piece of land that was in dispute. Now we have to decide on the rest of the land so there are no more confusions. You can see how we settled this problem but reading about it on the France page. I have updated the:

main page
France page2

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

It's turn 123. I haven't updated my page all week because work has been a killer! I apologize to all my fans who read my site (both of you) and will try to update more often. Anyway, I have updated it today and will try to do a little more tonight after dinner, maybe tomorrow.

Anyway, we have both been busy settling and trying to gobble up the land. Predesad has done a much better job than me at expanding. I think my problem is I'm not use to playing these big maps. Most of my maps are on standard and smaller and I know how much land to grab, how many cities to build for corruption, etc... This big map is a challenge for me and I think I invested too much time in improvements while Predesad spent his time making a lot more settlers than I did. Anyway, the game is going good.

Updated Iroquois page
Updated Ottoman page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Updated the main page.
Updated the Ottoman page to include the sayings page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Turn 131 - The Mayans (DogBoy) have met the Sumerians (Predesad) and it was not a pleasant meeting. I offered our usual 50 turn peace treaty expecting it to be signed. Predesad sent me an e-mail back basicallay telling me he couldn't trust the Mayans because I "violated" the agreement of no galleys in the other person's waters. I told him I never violated an agreement between the Mayans and the Sumerians because they never made such agreement. True, other civs of ours have made that agreement but not the Mayans and the Sumerians. In addition, I sent him a pic which made him eat his words. You can find it on the Mayan page.

updated the Ottoman saying page
updated the Mayan page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

*note to all, this post is completely in character

here is a copy of the exchange between the sumerians and mayans


Sir Mayan DogBoy,
We noted your arrival within Ottoman borders last turn, we are suprised to have lasted so long without seeing you as the Persians have reported long ago about the dangerous journey's across the ocean expanse you were taking off the tip of the Mayan Peninsula. We scold you for attempting such suicidal venture's, do you not realize you cold have fallen off this flat world? How many brave sailor's have lost lives in undertaking such risks just to satisfy the Mayan ruler?
We also are wondering if yu are going to continue to build the Great LIbrary this time, or will you abandon it as before?
We are disturbed by the presence of your galleuy in our waters. The Predesad brother's have had many agreements with the DogBoy brothers which permitted curragh's to pass through waters, but never galleys. In fact, I believe the Celtic's reported you in fact specifically stated "for curragh's only" I could be wrong.
We will not be giving the Mayans any peace agreements at this time. We have decided to observe their actions further while they venture to our great continent. Should the Mayans refrain from doing anything which angers the peace loving Sumerians, then in time we might in fact grant peace to the Mayans, but we would of course first have to consult with the Celts and Persians as they are the leading experts on Mayan activity.
Sumerian Predesad


Sir Tyrant Mayan DogBoy,

We were in fact not accusing you of having violating any ageements, we were just suprised you would place a galey in our waters. It has long been an agreement between the Ottomans / Iroquois & the Sumerians / Indians as well as the French / Mayans & Celts / Persians that curraghs only were permitted in each other's waters. Despite not having contacted us yet, we were observant of the fact you took advantage of the absence of any agreements to go ahead and move your galley into our waters. This was just one way in which we are planning to test Mayan actions.

Surely a peace loving civ would have contacted his allies concerning any deals between his neighbors and would have sought to interact with those neighbors in a similar manner. We would have at least appreciated a polite request before taking such action, you could have remained in Ottoman waters until this request was answered but you chose not to. If the Mayans are not going to consider observing the protocol of their own allies regarding the Sumerians this speaks very loudly to us.

We have contacted the Indians preparing to scold them for such actions as moving their galley in Iroquois waters and we appreciate you calling that to our attention. The Indians, however, claim this incident occurred through no fault of their own. The Indians claim to have moved their galley into an unclaimed coastal square, only to find the very next turn that Iroquois borders had expanded and they were inside Iroquois waters, the galley retreated to neutral waters immediately. If this incident is found to have occurred in another manner we will promptly issue a full apology on behalf of the Indians and they will apologize as well. If the incident needs further investigation, we will assist in these efforts as well.

It is not the movement of the galley in our waters which causes us to deny the peace agreement. Even if this had not occurred, we do not feel it would be wise on our part to restrict ourselves at this time while we are still in the process of securing our lands. We fear no Mayan troops, and if necessary will respond to any unwelcome actions on the part of the Mayans with force. If the Mayans want a peace agreement with the Sumerians they would have to agree to a long list of restrictions.

In the meantime, as long as the Mayans do not set foot or ship inside any Sumerian or Indian borders, or venture between the Sumerian mountains to the peninsula which divides the Indians from the Iroquois, or otherwise threaten the Sumerians or Indians, then they shall be safe from war. These lands belong to the Indians and the Sumerians and we will defend them with everything we have at our disposal. Our workers stand strong with their pick axes, waiting to tear you apart should you misstep.

Yours Truly,

King Sumerian Predesad

Something is going screwy with the e-mails so I'm posting it here also.

Yes, extend the peace treaty. But extend it 50 turns. Do not let the peace run out.

Updated the main page.
Updated the Mayan page.
Updated the French page2.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

peace between french / mayans and persians extended only 20 turns while sumerians continue to monitor mayan activity

Updated the Ottoman page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Updated the Mayan page

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Updated the main page.
Updated the Iroquois page.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Well, now I know why Predesad of the Celts only wanted to extend the Mayan-Celts treaty for 20 turns. He claimed he only wanted to extend it 20 turns because the Mayans were not to be trusted because they sailed a galley into Sumerian waters BEFORE the Mayans and the Sumerians ever signed a peace treaty. His claims may be true, but I think he only signed a 20 turn peace treaty to prepare for war. Predesad has announced his intentions of declaring war on the Mayans using the Celts. He tried to stall me by not answering my requests for extending our peace deal for 2 turns but I told him I wasn't playing the turn until I got an answer. He has also informed me that there may be a way to avoid this war and he will give me his demands in about 5 turns, which if I'm correct, is the turn our peace runs out. I will be taking pictures of what will surely be a bloody and devasting conflict and posting them on my crummy page.

Updated the Mayan page (I'm on Mayan page 2 now)

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

sorry can take turns tonight

Originally posted by DogBoy
Well, now I know why Predesad of the Celts only wanted to extend the Mayan-Celts treaty for 20 turns. He claimed he only wanted to extend it 20 turns because the Mayans were not to be trusted because they sailed a galley into Sumerian waters BEFORE the Mayans and the Sumerians ever signed a peace treaty. His claims may be true, but I think he only signed a 20 turn peace treaty to prepare for war. Predesad has announced his intentions of declaring war on the Mayans using the Celts. He tried to stall me by not answering my requests for extending our peace deal for 2 turns but I told him I wasn't playing the turn until I got an answer. He has also informed me that there may be a way to avoid this war and he will give me his demands in about 5 turns, which if I'm correct, is the turn our peace runs out. I will be taking pictures of what will surely be a bloody and devasting conflict and posting them on my crummy page.

Updated the Mayan page (I'm on Mayan page 2 now)

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

The Persians only wanted peace for 20 turns, not the Celts, and they wanted it to just 20 turns so that the new expiration would be near the Celtic expiration. The Celts declared war this turn on the mayans, and the Perisans announced thier intentions to declare war on the Mayans and French when those peace agreements expire.

Here is a copy of the message:

"King DogBoy of the Mayans-

Our peace agreement currently expires in 5 turns, prepare for war.

King Predesad of the Persians

--------------------------------------------------------

King DogBoy of the French-

Our peace agreement expires in 7 turns, prepare for war.

King Predesad of the Persians

-----------------------------------------------

King DogBoy of the Mayans-

Currently you and your brothers the French are facing war. We have already declared war on you, but have attacked none of your units or even violated your borders. We are willing to hold back our troops and promise to keep Persia from declaring war on you also if yu can meet our terms.

You must gift every city which borders your lands and Persia to the Persians, you will have 5 turns to build any units you desire form these cities before gifting. You must gift every city between your capitol, Chichen Itza, and our lands to us, also having 5 turns before gifting. You are not permitted to sell any improvements in those cities or pillage any tiles in the radius of those cities. You must persuade all of your allies, the French, the Ottomans, and the Iroquios to agree not to attack any of these cities you gift, even if they should go to war with us or the Persians for 50 turns. You must agree to a 50 turn peace agreement. You must empty all units from Chichen Itza and allow us to capture it, our troops we begin moving there immediately. You must disband all Crusaders immediately and any future crusaders which are generated by the Knight's Templar before we capture Chichen Itza. You must also agree to send 5 Javelin Throwers into the open desert on what is currently your side of the mountain range to "sport" with 5 of our Gallic Swordsmen, thus potentially allowing both of our civs to enjoy a Golden Age if you do not have one already.

France I am afraid does not seem able to avoid war, the Persians are intent upon war with them shortly, but we promise our neutrality so long as no other nations interfere in this war.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Should you reject the terms of this proposal and elect to go to war, then I propose we abide by the following code of conduct while at war:

-send via email with the turn a summary of any battles which took place during our turn since they are unseen by the other player

-agree not to gift cities to our mutual allies (although they are permitted to gift cities to the civs at war) which would involve them in this war also, an exception would be Mayan / French & Persian / Celtic with the understanding that even gifting cities between those allies might jeopardize the Celtic / French peace treaty

-because of the nature of the locked alliance, it is very possible all of our civs will end up technically at war with each other. we should agree to continue to abide by the peace agreements and not use this in game quirk to attack or take other action which would normally cause war between these civs since the other player might not be able to know for certain of such action and it would violate the peace agreements

-these clauses are all independent of each other, pick and choose what you will agree to if you cannot humble yourself enough to avoid this war. we believe the war favors us slightly, you have gunpowder, we have gunpowder, we have iron, you have crusaders, we believe the French probabaly have resources which are not hooked up yet in their mountains."

btw- regarding DogBoy's threat to not play the turn if I did not respond about the peace extension. I finally told him I planned war only because of his persistance and the fact I was going to announce it in 2 turns anyway. I have never let a player use stalling a game to force my hand in diplomacy and I never will, I would let a game die first, I say this so other players do not try this tactic, I do not think DogBoy was actually serious in his threat because in the email he said (out of character) he could not play because his wife was making him... I mean politely asked him to go shopping with her and I felt he was going to play the turn when he got a chance regardless.

Here is a copy of the reply I gave to him. As you can see, I think he asked for way too much. What he is basically telling me is you are going to die. Either you don't agree and I will kill you now, or agree and I will kill you later, most likely in 50 turns. By giving up my capitol and more than half my cities, what am I left with? I'm left with about 7 cities that are in no-bonus grassland, mountains with volcanoes that keep erupting, and a lot of jungle I'm still clearing. On another note, I would not have held the game up to find out his answer. The answer was in the game in the form of a stack of pikeman. I really did have to go shopping and the e-mail popped up just as we were walking out the door.

King Predesad of the Persians,
I recognize that you will declare war on me in 5 turns. So be it.
King DogBoy of the Mayans

King Predesad of the Persians,
I recognize that you will declare war on me in 7 turns. So be it.
King DogBoy of the French

King Predesad of the Celts,
Your demands are too much. I might have agreed with gifting you those cities as they are pretty much worthless to me anyway. But your demands of my capitol were too much. If I gift you my capitol, I am gifting you the game. I realize that I might possible, or probably lose my capitol anyway. But now you will have to lose soldiers doing so, instead of just capturing it without sheding any blood. I had heard tales of your legendary diplomacy skills, but frankly, I was not impressed this time. If you truly wanted some of my cities without bloodshed then you would have known where to draw the line, but you stepped over the line. Now many of our people will die.
King DogBoy of the Mayans

King Predesad of the Celts,
I assure you that the French have no plans to aid the Mayans in this war. I approach you only to remind you of the peace our two nations have enjoyed and which shall continue to enjoy. I wish to remind you that peace betweens us shall last until turn 203.
King DogBoy of the French

-------------------------------------------------

I agree to battle reports. It sucks not knowing what went on.

I agree to not having the Ottomans/Iroquois get into it with the Sumerians/Indians because of locked alliances. However, I do see a problem because trade between the Ottomans and the Iroqouis will be cut off if we go to war. When that happens, you should also discontinue trade between the Sumerians and the Indians. Of course, I can't monitor that so it's based upon the honor system. If you do not agree to this, then I must find some means to re-establish the trade between the Ottomans and the Iroquois

Unfortunately, I am afraid there has been an incident in this game which might create tension between the two players, myself and DogBoy. He gifted cities to the French as my troop[s were lined up putside to attack. This was a tactic to prevent / limit the Celtic ability to wage war with the Mayans. I had warned that a tactic such as this would jeopardize the peace agreement. The French, I feel, involved themselves in this war and I destroyed the city, it was a mayan city up until this turn and hopefully this issue will not place a strain between us, but I do not know how he will respond. Especially since he laimed in his email the french would not aid the Mayans. Here is a copy of my answer to him and the battle summary, merely preliminary posturing by the Cetls, most if not all our units which advanced near his territory will be lost surely this turn:

King DogBoy of the French,

I am glads to hear that yuo will not interfere in the war between the Cetls and Mayans, it will assure your nation of peace from us for many many turns to come and we hope our peace treaty can indeed be renewed. However, first there is a certain matter which must be resolved, it seems the Mayans tried to disguise one of their cities as a French city, we simply were not buying it and the city was subsequently destroyed. We found this caused our people to be at war with your people, but we assure you no damage has been incurred by the French people. Mayan citizens, disguised as French naturally, were killed, no French units were present, and we did not loot any gold, therefore since this attack in reality was against the Mayans and not the French we see no reason why there should not be continued peace between our people and extend a peace offer to you.

If however, this was indeed French interference in the war after we warned we could only maintain peace if the French did not become involved and after the French stated they would not aid the Mayans then perhaps the French are wanting to disregard the peace agreement, we hope this is not the case, but if it is, so be it.

We noticed another city disguised as French, we suggest this be remedied immediately and no further incidents such as this occur in the future.

Battle Summary (M=Mayan, C=Celtic, def=defeat)

M city X-something or other (under French disguise) destroyed
Gallic Swordsman def M warrior near Lapurdum
C knight def M crusader @ saltpeter colony
M Spearman def Gallic Swordsman outside M colony
C Knight def M Spear outside M colony
C Kinght def M Spear outisde M colony
M Spear def Longbowman near C territory
Longbowman def M Spear (same Spear as above)
M Galley def C Galley off north Celtic coast

OOC: i expect we will have different views about the French / Mayan trade for a city, I see this as voluntary French involvement in the war.

Yes, we do have very different views on this war. He attacked me without any warning. Here is the e-mail I sent to him.

King Predesad of the Celts,
You conducted a sneak attack against me and destroyed one of my cities. This happened when we still hade 40+ turns of peace left. Your actions are despicable. Consider us at a state of war.

King DogBoy of the French

---------------------------------------------
C knight destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony
M longbomen destroys C knight at saltpeter colony
C knight destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony
C gallic swordsmen destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony
C gallic swordsmen destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony
C gallic swordsmen destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony
M longbomen destroys C gallic swordsmen at saltpeter colony
M longbomen destroys C knight at saltpeter colony
C knight destroys M horsemen at saltpeter colony
C knight destroys M longbowmen at saltpeter colony

As you can see, the RNG was very mean to me this turn.

I have asked DogBoy to back the turn up to the point i destroyed the french city gifted to them by the mayans, here why:

when i loaded that turn the persians are my first civ, i saw the french cities on their map so i knew what he had done before i ever got to the celts turn. i took my first three turns (persia, sumeria, india) then saved the game before taking celts turn. i checked our diplomacy to make sure i had warned him that trading cities between maya and france might result in a cancellation of the peace agreement. the french had stated they were not going to aid the mayans, but this was an obvious interference in the war.

therefore, i felt i had good reason to cancel the deal and had to make a decision to sneak attack or give a turn warning, i elected to sneak attack because i was prepared to wipe that city out that turn anyway and then try to find his units which would surely be in those mountains, which they were right about where i thought they would be. i figured he would probably expect i would destroy the french city.

however, i must apologize because i made a mistake. our treaty was signed many turns ago (it is the same basic treaty signed by the sumerians and ottomans all the way back on turn 23) and has gone through numerous extensions and i have neglected to pay attention to the terms of the treaty in this situation. we clearly agreed to give a 10 turn notice before cancelling the treaty, i forgot about this detail and i must apologize for it as it was not my intention to violate this term of our agreement. when i remembered this i realized he probably gifted the city expecting to get 10 turns which i had guaranteed to him and therefore my attack i feel was dishonorable.

since this is a game and not real life, i would like to erase my mistake, not because i rethought my decision but because i unintentionally neglected to abide by the exact terms. since i had saved before taking the celts turn last time i only had to replay their turn. i played it the same basic way i would have if i had not known for certain about his units location, they are where most players would expect them to be anyway. given that the replay results in my inability to get to those units because the french city was not destroyed and i cannot use the roads, they might not even be there when i do get there, or their might be numerous other units or whatever, obviously he has ample time to change the situation, i think this is what he was trying to do anyway was buy more time so i dont think it hurts him.

if he disagrees to allow me to replay the previous celtic turn and take bakc the oversight, then i respectfully ask that DogBoy accepts my apology for having violated the terms of the agreement and does not accuse me of playing dishonorably (which he has not as of yet) and we will proceed forward from the next turn he just sent, that's his decision. i am glad this is just a 2 player game and i have the opportunity to correct this oversight. i am normally much more careful with treaties and offer no excuses, i should have double checked the treaty when i double checked the diplomacy.

having said all that, here is diplomacy from the replay if he accepts the replay:

King DogBoy of the French:

What trickery is this? You state you will not aid the Mayans in the war, which would be a wise decision as Persia will be more than enough for you to handle. But then you seek to cut off my forces by taking over mayan border cities. I hereby give you 10 turns to rectify the situation or I will be forced to cancel our peace agreement, furthermore, future actions on your part which do interfere in this war will not be given such generous lengthy time periods for correction when my people's lives are at stake. If you do not abandon those cities immediately then we will declare war on you in 10 turns.

King Predesad of the Celts

results of battles

M spear def C longbow near celt borders
C longbow def M spear near celt borders
Gallic Swordmans def M Warrior north celt territory
M galley def C galley north celtic coast

these were the same battles i had fought the previous turn and i was not able to fight anymore battles without wiping out the city and using those roads.

I am virtually ceding this game to DogBoy. It is not that I have given up, I am going to continue to play, but I am certain the victory is his even tough our war is young.

When I planned the war I did not have gunpowder, then about 2 turns before war I got gunpowder and my Persian saltpeter was very near to France. What was to be an invasion force into French territory has now been reduced to saltpeter defensive duty. To make matters worse, my iron is all the way on the other side of my civ, and horses, well they are scatterred as well, it is going to be too difficult to defend resources and fight any war. If I offer peace then I am screwed because I am behind due to war preparations, my only recourse is to hold on and hope DogBoy manages to screw up.

To make matters worse, "The Dog Boy Ploy" of gifting Mayan cities to civs the Celts are supposed to be at peace with has prevented this war from even matarializing. I had intended to harass the Mayans with the Persians as a distraction while preparing the Celtic war machine to steam roll through Mayan lands and this would have been done very quickly.

I cannot do this because I had to wait 10 turns to declare war on Frnace. Then instead of abandoning those cities as I demanded in order to preserve peace, those cities became Ottoman property, now comes a 10 turn wait until they become Iroquois property, then 10 more turns and then The Celts will have to be at war with everyone to prevent these same tactics form being used over and over again.

I am not accusing DogBoy of doing anything wrong, in fact I am commending him for going this route. I tried to get him to agree not to use the two civs on the other continent for this war, but he would not agree to that. Because I will play honorably, my hands are tied, and I think this game is doomed for me.

Irregardless, I hereby challenge DogBoy to Ultimate 2 Player II, to begin as soon as this game ends, with the slight possibility of it starting sooner. Since I allowed him to pick all the settings for our first game and pick civs first, I am challenging him to now allow me to do the same. I await your response.

I hearby formally accept "U2". In fact, I was the one that mentioned this about 4-5 days ago. My idea was to do a 'palegeo map but I will let you pick the settings and your civs first, then I pick civs, then you can re-pick civs, etc...similar to our agreement in this game. We can wait until this game ends or we can start sooner, the choice is yours. You know I'm ready to start anytime.

As for ceeding this game to me, HARDLY! This war is still young and I have seen your forces. I think you are saying that so I will become complacent and lower my guard while you are secretly planning a naval end-around attack. Well, I have planned for that as well. I saw your Celtic curragh off the eastern French coast and I am sure you have galleys that will be loading up with Celtic units that invade my back door. Another indicator of this is your 2 (or was it 3?) galleys near the Mayan-Celtic mountain range is no longer there. Only one galley remains so I wonder what happened to the other two?

I am glad you are playing honorably by the rules, as am I. I can't help but think other people would have broken the rules that we set and attacked me (this has happened to me in other games).

This is getting exciting.

Yes, you did mention 'U2" a few days back, but you never answered my email, i am going to start a new thread for a new challenge, but i am going to give a couple options for the next game, i'm a little burned out on locked alliances and would like to take a break, we can do u2 later and another type of game now where we only have one civ which we could start sooner and play consistently. or we could do u2 now, but start date i am unsure. when i get thread up i will send link.

as far as ceding this game, yes you have seen my forces, and the celts are stalled at the mountians, unable to get through your forces and obligated to abide by agreement with other nations who have used the Mayans as patsies by taking over their cities. as for the persians, they have one very small stack in mayan territory, a minor annoyance more than anything else, and other than that, resource location has us playing defense right now, i have already been forced to abandon 2 cities so i can protect the saltpeter and eventually i will have to give it up, no way around it. in the meantime, france is stripping me of centuries of work with all that pillaging.

and all those celtic galleys sunk in the ocean except for that one who is playing spy.

Lots of exciting things going on. I only wish I had more time to put more detail into my crummy web page. I did update it today with some of the happenings. Check out:

-Updated the Mayan page who are now on a two front war with the Celts and the Persians.
-Updated the French page who are now at war with the Celts and the Persians.
-Updated the Ottoman page who won the "cultural" war against the Sumerians and might soon go to war with the Celts.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Updated the Ottoman page who won the "cultural" war against the Sumerians and might soon go to war with the Celts.

i would not call my pillaging all my tiles in that city's borders and abandoning the city winning, i gave up the fight after you surrounded me with towns.

Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1789410#post1789410) for second challenge, there are a total of 5 games, with variants for some and negotiable settings for most.

Lots and lots going on. Half the world is at war with war possibly spilling over onto the other half. I am doing my part to prevent that, let's just see if Predesad will do his part.

-Updated the main page.
-Updated the Iroquois page.
-Updated the Mayan page 2.
-Updated the French page 3.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

Looks like the French score a minor victory.

-Updated the French page 3.

alliance (http://www.kalikokottage.com/civ3/dogboy/alliance.htm)

This game has been put on hold for a while. Predesad is away and may/may not return anytime soon. I will post here again once the game starts back up.

The game is still on hold. I don't know when it will start up again. Just wanted to let the lurkers know the game is not completely dead. (hopefully)

Game is still on hold.

Game is still on hold.

then let's take it off hold, if you're interested in resuming still, send me an email and a save. i no longer have a save because those idiots who stayed here (in my home) during my abscence to "help out" managed to manuever countless viruses past my antivirus program. basically my computer was so infected i just wiped everything out of the c drive and started from scratch, it's amazing how much disk space i have now.

one disclaimer: i cannot guarantee a turn everyday, but should do most days

Welcome back!!!!! I will send you the save along with what we had for diplomacy.

Welcome back!!!!! I will send you the save along with what we had for diplomacy.

Diplomacy? :mischief: oh yeah, i need the diplomacy, i'll be sure to abide by all those deals, yeah, sure, send that too. ;)

Cool. I'm in the middle of some PBEM saves right now so I will send the save and diplomacy when I get a chance. Prolly 30 minutes or less.

dont count on a turn tonight, i will need some time to sort out what i am doing. no cheating though, what i will do is open each turn and fortify every unit just to give me a chance to check out where every civ is at in regards to each other because i have NO IDEA what was going on.

email in case you dont have it: predesad AT yahoo DOT com

That's cool. I will go back and look at my last turn and all my stuff also just to remember what I'm doing. I'm just glad you are back. I will also send you an updated on all the games that you were in that I found replacements for just so you can reminisce.

we are now @ turn 200, Persia is in serious trouble, the Celts are planning a new tactic as both Mayan & French forces approach their lands. Other civs are enjoying long peace agreements (Iroquois, Ottomans, Sumerians, Indians) as a result of a very long and tedious treaty by which we narrowly avoided WW I.

The Persian capitol has been destroyed! In a daring move that paid off, the French attacked the capitol of Persepolis with cavalry thanks to their 3 movement points. You can image my surprise when Persepolis was only defended by 3 musketman??? Just outside Persepolis was a stack of 8 Persian cavalry and about 15 trebuchets. There was another stack of 18 cannons that my cavalry COULD reach but for some crazy reason the game wouldn't let me get to them. I don't know what kind of new bug this is, but it pisses me off. Anyway, knowing I couldn't keep Persepolis I sold the granary and disbanded Persepolis. I'm also wondering if I'm about to be attacked somewhere because I saw a large stack of musketmen and knights (more than the 8 cavalry I just saw) and immortals about 15-20 turns or so ago. Either he is hiding them somewhere in his lands, or he has about 30 galleys and I'm about to get an unpleasant surprise.

This has got to go down in this game's history as one of two things:
1. The most daring gamble that paid off.
2. The greatest blunder.

This has got to go down in this game's history as one of two things:
1. The most daring gamble that paid off.
2. The greatest blunder.



Definitely #1.

I did not see any cavalry in your SoD's and did not have my defenders in place because I simply didi not think you had any units which could reach the city.

Definitely #1.

I did not see any cavalry in your SoD's and did not have my defenders in place because I simply did not think you had any units which could reach the city.

As I was criticizing myself for sloppy play, not seeing your cavs, when i took the turn I realized you could (and did I am sure) have kept those cavs hidden in your cities until waiting to strike, since your borders now reach to the former city of Persepolis. I have no choice now but to ask for peace, the Persians will be wiped out in a handful of turns otherwise, I am sure you will extort me, but that is my own fault for not going to war sooner when I first realized neither the French or Mayans had Iron, my only problem then was the Persians had the only supply of iron & i needed to trade it back and forth to the Celts, meanwhile the rapid tech pace saw the advent of gunpowder and the abscence of iron was not such a great liability to French / Mayans. Terms of peace are in the email with the turn.

In another daring assault the French cavalry captured the newly formed capitol of Persia at Tyre. We captured the city, sold off all the improvements, and disbanded the city. There is a chance we could have kept the city because I had about 10 trebuchets and 18 musketeers and 15 longbowmen to move into the city, but then I saw the Persian army that has been in hiding. One little bitty step outside of Tyre I found 8 cavalry, 18 cannons, 22 trebuchets, 21 immortals, 1 longbowman, 17 musketmen, 2 pikemen, and a few workers. So instead of keeping the city I abandoned it and moved my forces back into my own borders. I realized that the Persians could use their own cannons to attack me so I pulled back, and now there is no way he can attack my cities. But not to worry, I shall return in a few turns.

DogBoy has conceded!!!!

This announcement may be a bit premature as I have emailed back wanting to make sure he is certain he wishes to concede with no second thoughts. If the concession holds I will soon post a summary of the game as best I can remember, the final stage which has led to DogBoy's desire to concede has been some of the most intense playing I have ever had, and this was with peaceful civs, sometimes spending an hour on one civ just micromanaging.

Yes, I have conceeded. From what I can tell, Predesad has two powerhouse civs which are India and Sumeria. I think each of those civs is researching at 4-5 turns. He is now at least 5 techs ahead of me and he has acquired mechanized infantry. If he wanted to push into my lands with those mechanized infantry and artillery I won't be able to stop him. He has several options now which include getting tanks with those mechanized infantry and rolling over me, he will get nukes before me and bomb me into dust, or he will launch his spaceship before me and I can't stop him. My main method of getting techs recently has been stealing them. I think Predesad knows this because he has mentioned it to me several times. I was beginning to wonder why he didn't attack me for stealing techs, but then I heard that there was a bug in PBEM games where the person you are stealing from won't notice it when you fail. Speaking of bugs, this game has been plagued with bugs. I had the "all my cities went into revolt" bug for some reason. Thank goodness Predesad allowed me to replay that turn. There was the "all my civs went to war with his civs" even though I didn't attack into his lands. That wasn't good for my republic civ. All in all it was a fun game. I made some mistakes in the beginning, Predesad made some in the middle. But once I saw those mechanized infantry I knew it was over. Good game.

Congrats, You guys! It's always nice to see a PBEM (nearly) completed. Especially one that seemed dead at least once or twice.
Whatever happened to Persia? Did it get overrun?
I almost took that game over for Predesad, and things looked bad for Persia (Predesad) then, but he did have a kick-ass Sumeria and India going, which seemed to be the difference.

What follows is a summary of the game from my perspective, which will also answer RJ's questions:

To begin, when I entered this game I felt whoever met my challenge the game would be won in one of two ways: early domination / conquest or space race. I did not perceive one human player being able to get a conquest / domination win over another with this set up (4 civs apiece) once the REX phase was complete and territory had all been divided up, the players would have too many options available to prevent this. An exception would be a serious lack of resources or a great difference in playing skills. Therefore, my goal was to focus on science from the very start. Which is another aspect of PBEMs, a human player in the tech lead is almost always going to beat the other human player unless resources interfere.

With this in mind, I was careful to choose my starting civs to get as many starting techs as possible, the only one I lacked was warrior code because niether of us chose a militaristic civ. DogBoy had not chosen a religious civ, so this gave me a one tech lead over him from the start, it might not seem like much, but it was a lead I never gave up. Also, I chose two scientific civs, while he only had one. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen Greece or Korea over India (gives 3 scientific civs and maintains commercial trait), but everything worked out fine for me in the end.

I started all civs by building settler, granary, settler and following suit in my second city as well. I expanded faster than DogBoy and was able to shut him off on two fronts on the one continent (no promises, but a few pics may follow later) with Sumeria and India claiming an obscene amount of land. India had no corrupt cities, almost every city could be seen as a core city after courthouses were built. Sumeria was very large with several corrupt cities, but had a very good core as well, though this was cut short by the Ottomans border. I wanted peace on this continent at all costs, these two civs were going to win the game for me, I was especially focused on keeping Sumeria out of war.

In my research efforts, I started one civ, I think Sumeria but not sure, on warrior code then writing followed. Instead of going for writing right away at minimum research. Going for writing immediately would have taken nearly 50 turns even at max rate on this large world I was sure. But, by going for warrior code first, I allowed myself to get a few more cities in place and roads built and then managed to get both techs researched sooner than I could have researched writing to start (most of the first turns researching writing form the startwould have been wasted) I ran a negativ ebudget at times going for writing, and philosophy to follow, but I got a free tech out of it (construction, having claimed mathematics with another civ, did not have time to get polytheism before philosophy and I was not going to risk the republic slingshot because I knew Dogboy would beat me to philosophy that way. DogBoy only discovered 2 techs before me the entire game, Republic, and Printing Press. I did not go for either one to much later in the game than he did. My scientific civs really paid off because at each era they both gave me a different tech so I got 2 free techs at the start of every age, for a total of 6 (throw in the one from philosophy, then a later ToE build meant 9 free techs the entire game.)

At the conclusion of the game I think I had motorized transportation, flight, amphibious warfare, computers, ecology, economics, communism, music theory, and espionage over DogBoy (I considered economics, communism, music theory, and espionage to be luxuries I might not have went after had DogBoy kept pace) Also, rocketry was due in about 4 turns, and Fission in 8. India and Sumeria were the only 2 civs researching from the end of the middle ages, and India went once ona minimum research campaign with a scientist. My research times were 4-6 turns per tech, the jump to the modern age caused slower times for my first 2 techs, but India had research labs being built in 2-3 turns. Sumeria was going to head after miniaturization next and prebuild the Internet to get research labs in all ciites, I then expected research to go down 2-3 turns per tech.

Persia and the Celts did not do as well in the REX, France and Maya managed to get abnout equal territory as them, perhaps more because the Celts were small due to the size and shape of the starting location, peninsula with Maya as their neighbor. The thing I did have on that continent was iron, exactly one iron resource on the continent and the Persians claimed it. We had peace treaties in place which were very long, 50 turns, so I built up military, trading the iron to the Celts once, and then went to war against the Mayans and French. By the time the peace treaties expired, however, gunpowder had been discovered and both France and Maya had saltpeter.

From the start of this war, I expected France to run over Persia, while the Celts would do the same to the Mayans. Afterwards, I figured we would be in pretty much a stalemate, but my tech lead would give me an advantage and keep France on its toes. This did not work so well because DogBoy used other civs to block the Celts advance during the war and according to our peace treaties I had to give 10 turns notice before cancelling the peace treaty. Finally I manged to break through and claimed some Mayan land. Twice with the Celts I made invasions into Mayan territory hoping to raze Chichen Itza, and both times nearly all of my units were eliminated which meant I almost lost all my artillery units. The first time was bad planning and I think I just got lucky that I decided to turn back so that I could upgrade my units, meanwhile, DogBoy nearly eliminated my SoD as I retreated.

Persia I did horrible with. I played them very badly going against France and France manged to push me back quite a bit. Then they got military tradition and wiped Persia out, although not entirely because I kept 3 settlers in caravels dispatched throughout the world. At the end I used th eturn order and an exploit to retain all my Persian units, but they never contributed much, only showing up a couple times to aid the Celts by making some suicide maneuvers so I could keep my Celtic units. What I did wasa build a Celtic city in Celt territory which I didn't want anyway, then I gifted it to the Persians, who only had one city left. Persia was the first civ in the turn order, the Celts my last (although that was unimportant, so long as the Celts went after Persia it would work without DogBoy knowing what happened. The next turn I accepted the city, then I abandoned my capitol, now my new capitol was up in celtic territory while all my units were standing on a piule of rubble which had been my capitol. So, I built another city the same turn on the same spot, and immediately gifted that city to the celts. When the celts turn came, I accepted that city, poof all those Persian units were transported to the new capitol in Celtic territory. I then abandoned the other city which the Celts had just accepted. I only kept the new Persian city one turn (and then only to finish off a tech I had been researching at min) The best thing was with no cities Persia could keep all those units (in excess of 100) with no unit support costs, and they would still stick around to grab free techs for me in the future.

I was fine with Persia being "eliminated" the idea behind the war was to distract those two civs from science and infrastructure while my powerhouses focused on science and infrastructure knowing I could outdo DogBoy's other 2 civs on that same continent. I did once set India on minimum research so I couild rake in money to support the war, the tectic could only work if I kept the Celts alive, but with the lay of the land, I had a very small border to defend and no naval invasion to fear, I was more than prepared for any attempts.

I often told DogBoy I was in serious trouble and felt I was going to lose, there was not much hope, etc, etc, I don't think he ever really bought it, but I knew I