HNDY03 - AWDG C3C – Tiny map as the Overlords.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
How soft your fields so green, can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war. We Are Your Overlords (http://www.tocherburn.co.uk/kittens/)

On we sweep with threshing oar, Our only goal will be the western shore.

So now you'd better stop and rebuild all your ruins,
For peace and trust can win the day despite of all your losing.

The ever changing rotation as of 6-3-04

Slinger
T_McC
Greebley
Handy

YOM - C3C down again.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_BC4000a.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_BC4000b.JPG

Level: Demigod
Variant: Always War
Civilization: Overlords. Who knew Ivory was indigenous to the land of ice and snow. :lol:
Continents: 70% Water
Size: Tiny
Age: 5 Billion
Temperature: Temperate
Climate: Normal
Barbarians: Sedentary
Rivals: 3 Randomly Selected (Byzantines, Mongols, Arabs)
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: All are enabled.
Culturally linked starts: Off
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On
Patch: 1.15 C3C

Always War as described by Greebley (minor edits by Handy)
The game is an Always War game. You may only trade when you first meet a civilization, and must declare war on the same turn after trading is complete. If you see a new AI unit, you must make contact & declare war that turn. Absolutely no GPT trades allowed. If you see a new face on F4, you are obligated to declare war that turn (after trading). Players must declare war if they are exploring and see AI units, but are not required to actually attack the units they come in contact with. No peace treaties, ever. You may check F4 as often as you like to spy on the AI's tech, resources, luxuries & city count. We are not allowed to build embassies.

Discuss any move that seems exploitive before doing it with the team. Although there are not too many exploits available in AW, we’ll follow the forbidden blatant exploits banned by GOTM and RBCiv such as no "Free Wealth". Other normal game exploits such as "Baiting the AI" with an empty city to create a kill zone are an AW tradition and are allowed. Also, you ARE allowed to initially keep a city, move a settler to the same spot as the city, and then abandon and immediately resettle. This is considered an exploit in RBCiv rules, but is okay in this AWE game. In addition if you need to build a city one square deeper into enemy territory just to move borders to steal a resource, go for it. We may keep or raze cities, and can keep slaves. You may whip captured cities or cities where all citizens are unhappy. This is not a popularity contest, this is war.

SG Stuff
This is a low pressure SG, so you have 24 hours for an "I got it" and 72 to play. If you need a one day extension, then mention this before the 72 hours are up. Players can work out skips between themselves, just post a message to the thread. If you can't play within 72 total, the team players can switch places, or you can ask for a skip. We will play 10 turns at first, and possibly fewer later (5) if the turns begin to take too long.

Tips & Tricks for Lurkers interested in AW
In earlier games we learned how strong the new army pillaging abilities are. Pillage early & often. At least one pillage army per Continent will be the key to victory on a tiny map. Bigger maps require more pillaging armies.
Major game priorities (The higher the level, the more important these tips are):
1. Build the GL if you can.
2. Get a pillaging army to the other continent ASAP to cripple their production.
3. Pillage AI Iron & horses so your team faces a steady stream of archers & later longbows for leader fishing.
3. Build cities on hills whenever you can. The defense bonus of cities on hills helps out spears immensely. When you settle, try to use rivers to your advantage for the defensive bonus. Also be aware of the movement penalty caused by rivers before engineering. This can really impact your ability to reinforce. Spears on a city on a hill with walls supported by cats can kill a lot of AI units. We are likely to wind up with an ICS type build outside our core ring on this teeny tiny map. Corrupt cites are useful as “specialist farms” and to increase your city count so you can have many armies in the field.
4. Build walls in all front line cities. Build barracks in any city you plan to build military units in. Build cats in a city without barracks.
5. Try not to build a city more than 2 moves from the nearest city. If a city is 3 tiles away, it cannot be reinforced on the same turn. Two tiles between cities also allows you to "chain" units built in productive cities to the front lines on the turn they are built, without leaving any cities exposed or short of police. If you are unable to shuffle units & reinforce, it's a killer for front line cities. You want a dense build anyway for the free unit support offered by despotism & monarchy. The exception to the 2 tiles between cities rule is late in the game you are going for domination.
6. The kill ratio goal is 10 to 1. This is done early on playing mostly defense using spears, cats, hills and keeping your cities tightly packed. Avoid attacking unless you have bombarded your opponent down first. You can't afford to waste units on offense on AWM or especially AWE.
7. Don’t attack the last unit in an AI stack if it means you will be exposed to counter attack by another AI unit on the IBT.
8. Don't underestimate archer armies. They work fine early on against size 6 & under cities guarded by spears.
9. If you want to win, pillage first & expand second. If you fail to pillage, you'll face the AI's strongest units (swords in stead of archers) and the AI numbers will overwhelm you. You can deal with 6 archers, 6 swords or 6 MDI is another story.
10. Set up a kill zone. Induce the AI to attack you from land where he has no defensive bonus to offset your counter attack (flat lands with no forest or jungle).
11. Build a lot of cats, trebs, cannon.
12. Avoid building regular units. They lose too easy. Build barracks & veterans.
13. Learn how to leader fish if you don't already know.
14. There is a big difference between AWM & AWE.
15. Learn to play on a continents map. Pangaea maps are much harder since you'll be fighting everyone all game long at the same time.

What to expect:
Your team will be way behind in tech. Higher levels means further behind. The GL, pillaging & specialists will help you catch up.
Don’t be surprised if at some point you are running 0/0/0 on the sliders with a lone scientist doing 50 turn research. Unit support will cost a lot of money.
Stay in despotism for a while until you get a decent city count for the lesser free unit support of monarchy, then bite the bullet & go to monarchy and stay there.
Notes and observations on pillaging:
1) It takes a long time for armies get out-dated, so 3 spear armies can pillage for centuries.
2) Cutting off the capitol will eliminate AI trade deals, so finding & isolating the capitol is always a good idea.
3) If you can, capture AI workers. Kill them if they can’t get back to your lands safely & quickly.
4) Remember that in Conquests an army can pillage as a free move, and gets +1 movement over the base units used.
5) If you get an army to each continent to pillage, you can usually win the game, so leader fishing is important

I say we head west and settle on the hill. :D
We'll need the hill bonus to survive the initial AI onslaught, and we won’t need to be building ships for a while.

HNDY03_BC4000 (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_BC4000.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/vikingkittens.jpg

Ready to rumble. I'm thinking that if we get early contact we're hosed for both Zeus and GL. I'm almost hoping we're alone on this island.

Agreed on moving to the hill. We could be losing a trade by not having the city be coastal, but it looks like water to the west as well. Maybe set the worker to chopping the grassland forest to start with Barracks, then build nothing but vet troops. I think we start with Alphabet and WC, probably best to head for Bronze first, as Spears are better than Warriors behind Walls.

Oh, having that set of opponents could be tricky. Two expansionist civs (quick contact if we share the continent) who each have Iron-less Knights. A 2nd Seafaring civ to possibly bridge the continents. Oh, and hope we aren't sharing our continent with the Mongols. They get free Archers to start.

I would say definitely to the hill. The extra defense worth it at this level.

That ivory is from Mammoths (Can you guess what adventure game I have been playing?)

My two year old son wouldn't let me stop playing your viking link there. I think we saw it 7-10 times :lol: He is big into trains and boats at the moment (I can't tell you how many times he has seen the train starting up in the adventure game mentioned previously. The mind boggles. Fortunately, he has recently learned how to use a mouse and click on things...)

Checking in.

I don't see anything wrong with moving on the hill to settle. Starting tile is pretty good too, but maybe the hill will reveal some food bonuses.

Agreed on moving to the hill...
Oh, having that set of opponents could be tricky. Two expansionist civs (quick contact if we share the continent) who each have Iron-less Knights. A 2nd Seafaring civ to possibly bridge the continents. Oh, and hope we aren't sharing our continent with the Mongols. They get free Archers to start.

The hill it is, and Bronze for Spears was my thinking too. Chop a barracks. We get Alphabet & WC to start.
Mongols -> Exp. & Mil. | WC & Pots |UU is 4.2.2 knight with no iron required, requires ponies
Arabs -> Exp. & Rel.| Pots & CB | UU is 4.2.3 knight requires iron + Horses
Byz -> Sea & Sci. | BW & Alpha | UU is Dromon fire boat - remember them from T_Mc01?

IIRC the AI sent 8 warriors in the first wave on my solo AWDG. On the bright side, I got a leader on defense from promotion during the first wave of 8 warriors last time, but it took a few centuries to scrape together 4 cities & 3 spare units to build an army.

Greebley Glad you liked the link - I thought it was pretty funny too.

My 2nd post has a 4000bc save in case you missed it.

Ready to rumble. I'm thinking that if we get early contact we're hosed for both Zeus and GL. I'm almost hoping we're alone on this island.

I don't know. In the AWDG I never completed because of the PC problem I managed to build the GLib & Zeus (in that order) after contact while at war with only 1 civ. There may be no other Ivory on the tiny map.

Let's hope it's two equally size continents with 2 civs on each.

Where is the Water?

Turn 0 4000 BC
Settler moves to hill. We have a COW after border expansion
Geez I hope we have fresh water somewhere. In the excitement of seeing Ivory on the first roll I didn’t notice the lack of H2O. :(
Worker moves to FG to begin a chop.

Turn 1 3950
Build Trondheim. Work the forest to get barracks in and begin a chop due in 4.
BW due in 17, 0 GPT

Turn 2 3900
:sleep:

Turn 3 3850
:sleep:

Turn 4 3800
Move citizen to grassland. We need 11 shield for barracks & get chop + 1 shield from the City so rax should come in on the IBT.

IBT
Barracks - warrior

Turn 5 3750
We are working the grass with ivory now for the cash. Worker is building a mine on the ivory.

Turn 6 3700
:sleep:

Turn 7 3650
:sleep:

Turn 8 3600
:sleep:

Turn 9 3550
:sleep:
BW due in 4 losing 1 GPT with 5 in the bank.
Warrior due in 5 and we grow in 3.

Turn 10 3500
:sleep:
BW due in 4 losing 1 GPT with 5 in the bank.
Warrior due in 5 and we grow in 3.

Turn 11 3450
Border expansion. Working the cow now.

Turn 12 3400
:sleep:
IBT
Warrior – archer (spear pre-build)

Turn 13 3350
:sleep:

IBT – ivory hooked up.

Turn 14 3300
Move NE to the BG to mine them.

IBT
BW – Masonry

Turn 15 3250
Switch archer to spear
Warrior goes S for a stroll.
Worker begins mine.
The spear will complete before we need any MP duty.

Turn 16 3200
Warrior moving towards the southern mountain. No water. Ugh.

IBT
Spear – spear

Turn 17 3150
Spot gems on mountain to the south. We should control those by, oh say 100 AD.
See yellow border to the east. I’m turning around.
I’m of two minds here. The sooner we meet them, the smaller the initial stack they will send our way. Delaying ensures a larger stack to T_McC to deal with. We will have 2 spears minimum before they reach us.

OTOH, it would be nice to have some walls.
I decide to head east next turn, away from the yellow border.

Turn 18 3100
Spot 2 oasis tiles to the east.

Turn 19 3050
It appear there is a narrow 2-tile land bridge due S of the cow.

Turn 20 3000
Explore the mountains a little.

Notes:
Soon we will have to face the first wave. I hope they are regulars (and warriors).
The save is attached as a zip per Thunderfall's preference for us to use attachments in lieu of uploads for save file. You have to zip it first, you can't attach an .sav file.
A screen show one post below.

3000 BC

Roster:
Handy
T_McC IS UP
Yom
Greebley
Barbslinger



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_BC3000.JPG

Wow! Early war a coming. Would archers be a viable option? Is it Mongols or Arabia? With my colorblindness I can't tell. That 1-tile land bridge looks good later for our ships, a town there. I would hope there is land further north too. It may be better to settle north until we can see what is happening with our first opponent. It looks like the AI may be straddled with some desert.
Does DG give 2 towns to start?

I got it.

We have our wish, the Mongols and their starting Archers as neighbors.

@Slinger - Yes, DG gives a 2nd settler to the AI to begin.

I'm thinking about targeting the plains forest S of Trondheim for chopping. No defensive terrain for our opponents.

Good idea to get rid of that forest if you can. I'm surprised we did not get contact in the first 20 give how close they are.

HNDY03 - Fine, Have it Norway!

3000 BC (0)
Well, thems be the Mongols. Don't think I can get us killed off in 10 turns, but you never know.

We are 1 under our support limit, nice that we do have a backline to expand into to keep our economy solvent.

We're good for another growth without raising the lux tax.

Working the proper tiles, so we're off ...

<Return>

2950 BC (1)
Nothing happens except mine finishing.

2900 BC (2)
Spear completes, I'll go for an Archer next.

2850 BC (3)
We'll be happy for another growth after this one as well. Start bringing Warrior back to cover worker on the forest chop.

2800 BC (4)
Well, the Mongols are in the house. Good news is that they are leading with a Scout, so we'll have a few more turns.

Trade Temu's ugly self Alphabet for Pottery and his 35 gold, then declare war.

2750 BC (5)
Build Archer, struggle with what to do with the forest chop. So I'll build a Warrior and use the 10 shields towards the next unit.

2710 BC (6)
Nothing happens.

2630 BC (8)
Warrior completes, move on to a 2nd Archer.

2590 BC (9)
Three regular Warriors come into view. Forest is chopped, worker heads north to build a path to our 2nd city.

2550 BC (10)
We have 2 Spears, 2 Archers, and 1 Warrior defending Trondheim. Set to build a Granary. Next leader gets the first combat, as I'm content to let the reg Warriors do the attacking.

Final Notes:
There is no way any of those Warriors should win a battle. :lol: Famous Last Words.

The worker is set to chop a forest to speed the Granary along. Actually, Masonry is due in 2, so one could switch Trondheim to Walls, then re-start the Granary and get the forest chop credit. Use the F1-"Look Ahead" trick to build the walls on the same turn that Masonry comes in, if you are so inclined.

Not sure where to go with research. Either Iron Working or Math, I guess. Also check to see if you can turn down science when Masonry is due in 1.

The World as we know it.

Fine, Have it Norway! :lol:

Not much hope for Iron anywhere we can claim it early in this game unless there are hills to the north, or the lone hill N of the oasis has iron. Perhaps Math over IW since the Acav are our best hope for an attack 3 unit.

Three archers is pretty good luck. Maybe we’ll get a spear promoted to elite out of that.

That was a very shrewd play to chop the forest next to our city. :goodjob:

This map is far more challenging than HNDY02.

What is the "F1 look ahead trick"? :confused:

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <- is UP
Greebley
Barbslinger

I would look at least a little bit north. There might be a lake up there.

I assume you mean when you are picking your next science tech, you use F1 to go to the town menu and switch the town to walls before going on to the builds? (and so can get town walls the same turn you get the tech?)

I wonder if we could sneak out and destroy that one Mongol town? That would destroy his free settler and put us on a more even footing.

Perhaps Math over IW since the Acav are our best hope for an attack 3 unit.

Three archers is pretty good luck. Maybe we’ll get a spear promoted to elite out of that.

What is the "F1 look ahead trick"? :confused:


Agreed on Math, although we should get IW soon so we know where to pillage.

Actually, three Warriors. The Archers come next turn. (Not that I've played ahead 2-3 turns and gotten an 8-0 kill ratio, burning all of the Mongols starting units. :mischief: )

The "F1 look ahead trick" is as follows:
Masonry comes in, click on Big Picture from the Science Advisor pop-up. (so select from the tech tree screen, not the drop-down menu).
Click on the City Manager head from the tech tree screen.
Select Trondheim, change production to Walls.
Exit the city screen.

The walls then insta-complete, because you changed the build orders before the production cycle.

Thanks for the explanation.

Typed archers - meant warriors. :blush:

I really like taking about 5 archers to the Mongols too. It looks like a great choke.

Going on the offensive against the Mongols would be an interesting choice. I think we should get a 2nd city settled behind our lines (N of Trondheim) first, though. We need the unit support, and a place to build the SoZ.

If we can squeeze in a 3rd city, S-S-SW of Trondheim gives a nice forward base for the attack. Either way, we should have sufficient offensive force in the area to keep the Mongols from productively settling E of that choke.

I wonder if we could sneak out and destroy that one Mongol town? That would destroy his free settler and put us on a more even footing.

Maybe. Let's see how big the 2nd wave is. I wonder if the 2nd tile in the 3 tile choke is a hill. If so perhaps we could defend that. Holding a flatland city with only walls & spears in DG this early would be difficult. We have no cities to build reinforcements in.

My $.02
I think instead of an early archer rush we would be better served to settle, get Zeus and GLib, and then go offensive. We'll need Glib to win, and Zeus will certainly help a ton. IMO destruction of 1 Mongol town is not a game tipper in the long run. Let's spend the shields on settlers & spears, not an archer rush. Patience grasshopper. :D

Well going that tact will provide us with plenty of slaves because they will try to sneak settlers past thier choke city once their land is full. Once that starts happening we'll be able to see how many cities are down there. Once we get an army I would really like that city.

Have you guys seen the C3C Communism Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82268)? I just found it, and it sounds pretty good for making war. Not sure how wee it works on a tiny map, but it would give you quicker temples in front line cities in a pamgaea regular size AWM game.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <- is UP
Greebley
Barbslinger

Patch: 1.15 C3C

Greebley

It's May 15, so Yom's 24 hours are up. Feel free to grab it unless Yom posts an I got it before you see this message. If we hear from Yom & he wants he can play after you this round.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC <-posted turns 5-13-04 @ 10:28pm
Yom <- MIA - maybe out celebrating the end of AP exams. :lol:
Greebley <- free to grab & play
Barbslinger

Yom posted something about computer problems in one of the threads. I will assume they are not yet fixed and take the game.

I got it.

Preturn: Nothing changed

IBT: The two Warriors that attack do not even injure our now Elite Spear. 3 archers and another warrior appear.

2510 BC: The land above us looks dubious. Too much tundra. Unless it is bigger than it looks, we will have 1 good town.

IBT: We get Masonry. Debate between Writing, wheel, and Iron. - go for Iron. With 3 archers incoming, I do the wall switcheroo.
Valhalla: Walls->Granary

2470 BC: One of our archers attacks a warrior and loses.

IBT: Our spear do their job and hold off a warrior and 2 archers. The last archer fortifies and the last injured warrior retreats.

2430 BC: I use the archer to attack the archer and again lose. The warrior wins with 1 hp.

IBT: Their 1 hp warrior attacks our 1 hp warrior. We win and become elite with 2 hp. A regular and conscript warrior show up.

2390 BC: We retreat our injured warrior. Sure enough the north is very disappointing.

IBT: Warriors advance.

2350 BC: There is a hut to the north. Forest is cleared speeding the Granary.

IBT: The regular warrior attacks.

2310 BC: Our Elite warrior attacks the Conscript and is back to 1 hp. No leader.

IBT: Nothing

2270 BC: Actually we have an OK fishing village up north. There is a tundra deer and 2 whales.

IBT: Nothing

2230 BC: Warrior fortifies in town. Other warrior is going to pop the hut.

IBT: Nothing

2190 BC: I wish I had some archers for that city :D

IBT: warrior shows up.
Valhalla: Granary-Settler

2150 BC: I pop the hut and we get a single angry Barbarian. I always thought you got more than one.

So not a great turn. We lost our two archers don't have any water or places to settle. We may need to push to the choke whether we want to or not. I want to settle at least the one good town first though.

I always like to rename the first viking city when I play them :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Hndy3_BC2150.JPG

PS: Handy did you want to play in Sling3? one of our players couldn't join us. We could slip you in at the end.

PS: Handy did you want to play in Sling3? one of our players couldn't join us. We could slip you in at the end. Will get the next town up on the one tile choke and then build some archers in Valhalla and walls in new town.

We'd love to have you in there Handy!

:lol: Actually I was about to grab it Greebley, but you're fast! If you don't mind, I'll take it tonight Slinger.

I am pretty sure you are up next Yom as we essentially swapped. I would go ahead and play it. Just keep us updated if you can't play for some reason.

Glad your computer is now fixed :)

Actually, there's nothing wrong with my computer. Since about December though, my PC has refused to recognize the C3C disk in the drive, and thus won't let me play it. I've since used my laptop, but sometimes it doesn't recognize it either. I really don't know why it happens, it seems to just come and go (unfortunately, my PC NEVER recognizes it anymore, so it has become tedious to switch computers every time I want to play civ3).

PS: Handy did you want to play in Sling3? one of our players couldn't join us. We could slip you in at the end.

I'd love to play Sling3. Slot me in whereever you like. :D :D :D

YOM - consider this a switch with Greebley and play on.

Yom,

Have you tried cleaning the CD? It may be a scratch or gunk on the CD itself. There was at least one game this worked for me (and another where it didnt). Be careful when drying the CD though to not scratch it.

@Greebley: I've only tried cleaning it with my shirt, isn't there some sort of cd cleaning fluid? If so, would you recommend a particular brand/type?

I used soap and water on the shiny side and dried it right away.

Yom, Do want to play this round, or do you need a skip?

I'm playing it tonight.

Edit: Actually, I didn't have as much time tonight as I thought I did. I'll get it tomorrow night with Sling3. If Barbslinger wants to take it before then, it's fine with me. Otherwise, I'll get it tomorrow night.

Turn 0 - Nothing to do.

Turn 1 - ZzZ...

Turn 2 - Rather than attack Fortress Valhalla, the Mongol warrior fortifies in front of its gates.
I take a chance and attack with our elite warrior for a leader and... no dice, -1 hp.

Turn 3 - Valhalla grows and needs the lux. tax raised. I mm to get the settler in 1 rather than 2.
I'm not sure if they had it last turn, but the Mongols now have Iron Working and we get the tech. in 8. I raise science rate to get in 6 at -3 gpt and 13 gold in the pot.
vet warrior kills conscript barb flawlessly.

Turn 4 - Valhalla:Settler->Archer.
I send the settler to the northern forest 3 spaces away as proposed by Barbslinger.

Turn 5 - Kitten Warriors is founded (I'm sure Handy will think of a better name). Set to barracks in 10.
Decrease science rate. Iron Working in 6 at +0gpt and 6 gold.

Turn 6 - ZzZ... I'm keeping the vet warrior North to keep barb camps from popping up, but you may want to bring him back soon.

Turn 7 - A Mongol archer appears on the forest tile 2 South of Valhalla. Perfect timing, our archer will be ready to attack it in case he doesn't want to risk attacking Fortress Valhalla.

Turn 8 - Valhalla builds an archer and the Mongol archer moves East. Set to another Archer, then Settler (maybe a curragh in 2).

Turn 9 - Mongol archer moves onto Ivory forest tile. Decrease science, IronWorking in 2 at +1gpt.

Turn 10 - It looks like the Archer is heading for the undefended Kitten Warriors. I'll leave it to the next player to decide what to do with him, but I'd let him live a turn, just in case he wants to impale himself on Valhalla and give us a defensive GL:D.

Iron Working is due next Turn. Hopefully there'll be some in sight. If there isn't, I would recommend a curragh to scope out Mongol lands and prepare an archer rush.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_BC1750.SAV)

Edit: Apparently you can attach a .bmp but not show it as an image. Sorry for the small size, but .bmps take up a lot of space.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <-just played
Greebley <-swaped with Uom
Barbslinger <- UP

An undefended town in AWDG - very bold. :lol:

Well I nearly grabbed the game, but Barbslingers earlier error in the other game made me check and saved me :lol:

I went before Yom, so I think Barbslinger is up.

[Edit: Cross posted with Handy, so I would have been saved anyway :) ]

[Edit2: And Barbslingers cross posts both of us. ]

I think I'm up? Please verify. If so I got it.

Yom, do you mean only .bmp's show up as images?

Iron could be a real problem. We have only 3 mountains and a hill that could have iron in them.

I wonder if it would be worth sending a unit to the south. We run the risk of running into another civ which would be bad, but it could also be that land is emtpy.

Yeah, Barbslinger. You are up (in case you didn't see the crossposts).

Barbslinger is definitely up.

Next turn is a biggie since Iron comes in. If by luck there is iron in the mountains to the south, we'll want to settle in that direction in hopes of claiming it. That would mean placing the archer rush on hold to build spears to hold the iron town. Then we can take the choke with swords.

If there is no iron down there, we may want to settle to the north, get 4 cities down, & pray for a defensive leader. Once we have an army we can pillage their iron and start to push then back like we did Abe in HNDY02.

Archer rush just seems a low odds play to me.

PS - If you have not started yet - switch that archer in Valhalla to a spear. We'll need spears to escort settlers.
PSS - research Math next for Zeus.

Yom, do you mean only .bmp's show up as images?
I've had no trouble showing .jgp files. Will play when I get home tonight after work. I'll play this first before SGOTM2.
Hoping for iron.

...Hoping for iron.

The lucky iron candle is burning. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY02_luckycandle.gif

How do you do attached images so they are displayed? I didn't see an option to actually display it in the thread. Did I miss something?

It's displayed automatically. My theory is:
1. if you have multiple attachments they won't display
2. if it's too big it won't display

Handy03 – 1750BC –

Preturn – Swap the mined ivory tile to not waste a shield. 7+7+6=20. I really don’t think the archer will attack Valhalla and if we wait to kill him the moguls may send units and I’ll be late healing. E warrior kills him losing 2hp. No leader. Save a couple nickels lowering happy juice to 0%. 1-2-1 on the faces.

IT – There is iron on the closest mountain to use. That lucky candle of Handy’s is working again. Set research to Math in 23 @ 80%, 0gpt. Valhalla - Archer > Spear
[1] 1725 – Leave the tiles alone because the growth in 3 should use ivory tile to pop spear due in 4. 6spt in Valhalla. Northern warrior isn’t as afraid of barbs and would like to go elite so he heads S. Gengis is up wheel, CB and writing. Has spices.

IT – Sure enough an archer comes in from the SE. Need some more workers.
[2] 1700 – Mining completed road in KW.

IT – Archer moves 2 tiles SE of town onto ivory.
[3] 1675 – I was just thinking that the governor will choose 2food instead of ivory now that archer is on it. Re-MM to get spear this turn.

IT – Spear > Archer in Valhalla. Another archer comes up.
[4] 1650 – E Warrior wins losing 1 hp. No leader. Lux to 10%, losing 1gpt.

IT – KW gets its Rax > Archer. Ther are 2 archers hanging about now. Warrior back to heal for another leader go in a few.
[5]1625 – MM to get 10spt with only gathering 1fpt. 2 turn archers. 3 more and it may be time to go hunting. We need a settler too.

IT- The enemy stacks up to get bombard. They’ll come into range next turn.
[6]1600 – No camps up north yet.

IT – They jump on the ivory and another archers shows up.
[7] 1575 – That messes up the 10spt in Valhalla. Back to growth. Research to 50% since we lost the ivory tile gold.

IT – Byz complete colossus. Archers move forward, KW mine completes.
[8] 1550 – Kill one of the archers with an archer losing 1hp. Will wait for the other archer to come up so as not to be exposed. Worker come back 2 squares and will begin road to iron and for next city after archers are dead. Re-do MM for 6spt with 12 shields still needed.

IT – Archers group for d-bombard when I attack, another duo comes up from the south.
[9] 1525 – Archer wins losing 1hp and E warrior goes down to 1hp vs 2 hp and then wins spawing Slingers hero. Now to get 4 cities. The leader fortifies in Valhalla.

IT – New archers move north, 2 tiles from us. Archer > Settler.
[10]1500 – We can get settler and growth in 5 but it kills us not using the ivory gold. With pop growth we have to raise lux and research is down to 10% Math in 41. I really want the growth so we can go for another settler pronto and get an army rolling. I set worker to mining SW of KW but there may be better use for him. He’s only one turn in.

Iron in them there hills, and a leader! :D Very Nice. We needed a break since we have not found water yet.

So - since we want to use the leader - I'll be building spears to fill the army instead of archers. And another quick settler for a 4th city.

Quick Pillage will allow us to catch up & really hurt our enemy and control our continent. (I'm in too many SG's - I can't remember who we are fighting :lol: )


Roster:
Handy <- up Planning to play Tuesday night.
T_McC
Yom
Greebley
Barbslinger <- just played


It's displayed automatically. My theory is:
1. if you have multiple attachments they won't display
2. if it's too big it won't display

Thanks for the tip. :goodjob:

(I'm in too many SG's - I can't remember who we are fighting :lol: )

I think the bigger problem is the same roster of people playing 2 AW games, in different orders. :crazyeye:

Depending on how many Archers we have, one can also use the Spear army to cover an offensive force. I think the pillaging route is more promising, though.

Are we attempting to pre-build Zeus?

Are we attempting to pre-build Zeus?

Good question. We should get it something (Glib or SoZ) started pretty soon. That's one reason I'm not a fan of the archer rush. We don't have a lot of cities. If we have one dedicated to Wonders, and one tying building settlers every so often, we don't have a lot of cities left to build reinforcments in.

Glib - Do we want to build this before SoZ? I pulled this off in a solo AWDG game (Glib & SoZ in the same city in that order). Downside is it delays our offensive push quite a bit. OTOH, if we build Zeus we may well miss out on the Glib, which means Bezerks will come way later than we would like.

So which do we value more - SoZ or Glib? I tend to think Glib is more important in the grand scheme. I'm not sure we win without the Glib. We can win with SoZ coming later, just makes the game longer.

With regards to ARMY, I think pillaging long term would be better than covering archers with the spear army. We pillage them to reduce their output while we improve tiles and enhance our output. We can go offensive when we get some swords (& Acav if we build SoZ first). These 2 units have much better attack odds than archers do. This worked well in HNDY02, should work well here.

With it being demigod it may not be possible to build the GL if we don't dedicate to it right away. Even with the AI ignoring lit it won't be long before the other continent zooms right past us. I would go with GLib 1st. We control the ivory and will get Zeus for sure.
For the army I was even thinking a 2-spear,1-archer combo. It would be a 90% pillager but while it is down there it would be nice to pick off the occasional archer or sword be fore he even gets to us. I might even use him to aid in an archer rush on the choke city. If we can get that town and reinforce with other spears then we will be sitting pretty in taking out Genghis.

Agreed on pre-building the G. Lib. Maybe once we get a 2nd city in the north. City #3 goes to the Iron, city #4 goes North, we form an Army and get to pillaging the Mongols down a peg. Might work better if we build city #3 in the north, then send a settler, a handful of spears and the leader to the Iron. We could then form the army upon founding to help with initial defense.

A two spear + archer army would suck. It would be defense 2 and offense 2, yielding no bonus above the loose units. It could attack twice in the same turn, but once it lost 5 HP it would be attacking at 1.

Check out how many cities Temu has. Last I saw he had 4 (and that was a while ago), so burning down a jungle outpost isn't really going to take much wind out of his sails. If the next stop is his capital, I might be more optimistic about this approach. I think I'm with Handy on this one, an archer rush is high-risk, low-reward.

[Edit: Temu has 6 cities, so its going to get worse before it gets better. Bright spot so far is that he doesn't have Iron. A sword rush could be rather profitable after we build up our side of the continent.]

A two spear + archer army would suck. It would be defense 2 and offense 2, yielding no bonus above the loose units. It could attack twice in the same turn, but once it lost 5 HP it would be attacking at 1.
Point taken, that would suck! My only thoughts were even without the defense bonus it is still 12hp and would not be attacked while pillaging. If it could also take out a few archers for us it would help.

I got it. Plan to build red circles with black borders. I'll check back before I settle, so post objections - but hurry. :D

Okay - I'm waiting for input before I play. Should I change Math (due in 41 to writing, then Lit so we can build the GL? maybe build 2 more spears in Kitten Warrior, then start the GLib / Palace prebuild? If we research Math first, we may miss the GLib I fear.

I'll wait to play until we decide.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_1000BC_S.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_1000BC_N.JPG

Math is only due in 41 because of the lux required to keep 6 citizens happy. If we go for settler in 5 you'll be able to increase research spending when lux drops. I think it was due in 18 at 50% about 3 turns prior. I would wait it out because there are quite a few beakers in there. It would be a waste because it was on the last turn I dropped to 10%. The prebuild will take enough time to get to 400 shields regardless. We'll have the time for all 3 I think.

What about a sword army? It might be worth the wait.

I think a mini-rush may not be a bad idea. Move our front line troops to that city and raze. Bring a settler and settler. We now have a 1 city front. That is probably his additional settler city so razing it might still be a gain. It is probably guarded by only 2 spear. I wouldn't want to hit his capitol yet, but that town should be easy to remove and gives us clear control of the choak point.

I think 1 on 1 we can do better than we have with the many on 1 and it might be worth taking advantage of that - sword army; build up some swords, push the mongols back.

Thanks for the input on math Barbslinger. As we build cities we can pay more.

Do you agree on keeping research to math Greebley? Not much room for error in this level, so I don't want to go down a wrong path. Let's hash it out until we all agree. We miss the Glib, we probably lose.

Swords may be a good play here. How many turns to scrape together 3 swords?

Pros: Can take the choke, then pillage.

Cons: We wait to start our pillage, so they have the chance to send swords at us before we pillage their iron (if they have any)

It can't take that long to build 3 swords. We can finish settling while we build the road and set things up to get them and then use the sword army to lead the charge. It can easily take out a jungle town.

Math is fine to me. We want cats soon. We can probably get Math, writing and lit before our future prebuild is forced to switch.

Handy, I think the sword army can take out more than just the choke. It can waltz thru enemy territory and take out cities - it is a bit slow as it goes attack, heal, attack, heal but I have no fear of attacking a single spear. Sometimew we can attack twice, sometimes we heal twice. We avoid the capitol and its heavier defenses. I would love to go for the towns before they get to size 7.

Ok - I'll leave research alone. We won't have 4 cities by the end of my turns.
Swords sound good, and we can change later if we feel we need to.

Handy, I think the sword army can take out more than just the choke. It can waltz thru enemy territory and take out cities - it is a bit slow as it goes attack, heal, attack, heal but I have no fear of attacking a single spear. Sometimew we can attack twice, sometimes we heal twice. We avoid the capitol and its heavier defenses. I would love to go for the towns before they get to size 7.

I agree with this. If we build a sword army, we need to raze (or capture if they won't flip).

Playing now

Double Trouble

Switch KW to spear for the army.
leave research on math

IBT
Another regular archer comes into view. That’s 3 in the borders now.

Turn 1 1475
Borders expand.

IBT
KW – spear - spear

Turn 2 1450
Kill 2 archers. No promotions.
Now at +0 gpt

Turn 3 1425
Move stack towards lone archer. Don’t want him to stack up with others.

Turn 4 1400
Kill the lone archer. I can see 2 units on the Iron. Veteran Archer & Regular Warrior.

IBT
AI units move off the mountain
Valhalla – settler – spear
Losing 1 GPT

Turn 5 1375
Move units into forest S of Valhalla so the AI can’t get defensive bonus. I’m hoping to kill these guys on the way to Irontown.
Drop lux a notch since settler drops pop. Math in 36.
Kill the veteran archer. Don’t attack the warrior since I want to keep our stack together

IBT
Mongols ask to talk, a good sign. :D
They have 6 cities and Wheel, CB, Writing.

Turn 6 1350
:sleep:

IBT
New archer moves to the iron mountain
KW – spear - worker

Turn 7 1325
Settler arrives at the site of Iron town.
Mongol archer on mountain dies attacking sword.

IBT
Valhalla – spear – settler (due in 5 grow in 4 to pop 6).
Mongols have warrior on flats & mountain

Turn 8 1300
Found Copenhagen ->walls
We really need some more workers.
Kill 2 warriors near Valhalla.
We own the mountain – for now. I think spears can hold the mountain against archers. Swords are tougher.
The worker is S of Valhalla building a road.
Lone archer approaches Copenhagen. If they keep coming in 1’s and 2’s we can handle it.
Crank sliders to 40/10, Math due in 27 +2 gpt.
That was a good turn for us. :D

Turn 9 1275
Now 2 archers fortified in the jungle east of Copenhagen

IBT
2 archer stack moves to forest W of Cope. 1 vet & 1 reg.
KW – worker – spear (5).

Turn 10 1250
We now have 6 spears.
Our archers are 3 to 1 favorites against the veteran unfortified archers on a forest, so I will attack.
Kill both archers – 1 promotion to elite.
Crap – we have neighbors to the east the Byzantines
I guess they settled IBT.
I can see their city, but they do not show up on F4 – yet.
They will be coming at Copenhagen from both sides soon. I wonder which civilization came over on a galley.

Notes:
Math due in 25.
Spear escort & worker are on the forest N of Copenhagen. The additional worker is in Valhalla & can join them next turn to build a road & chop walls.
Copenhagen is working forest to get walls quickly at the cost of slow growth.
The Byz showing up so soon complicate things a bit. We can’t really afford it, but perhaps we need a dinky boat to map our continent. You could switch Valhalla before you hit enter & waste no shields. This would delay the settler though, and we could use the cash from a 4th city to bump research.

Being the less aggressive of the bunch - I’m leaning towards 4th settler and a spear army ASAP to map & pillage since we now have 2 opponents on our lands. Talk me out if it – or overrule me. :lol: I just don’t want to fight a sword war if we can help it. We’ll have plenty of chances at a 2nd leader if we can make sure we face only archers.
T Should we start the Glib pre-build after the spear comes out of KW?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_1250BC.JPG


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_mongols.JPG

Ah well. Thems the breaks.

I still think the sword army is the way to go. Until they have pikes, it can do damage to towns and it can pick off archers and such.

Looks like our first "goal" is to hold both chokes. Won't happen right away though/

The point is that is we can knock out some cities we will have less units coming after us. The sword army can still do some pillaging before attacking cities if we want.

If too many units are streaming toward us we can fall back to the sword army defending our cities. One problem with spear armies is that the troops can just go around the city with the army making it nearly useless. The sword army can pick off units as they go by. I would like to hamstring the AI if we possibly can though. Our territory is poor and just sitting there while the AI builds up with us waterless could easily be a loss.

There is one benefit. There is a 2/3 chance we can get to the GLib without needing a boat if we miss it ourselves. A good way to catch up.

Wow! That means dromons! Lets NOT go take a look at them. The later we get a two front war the better. They must be to the east and it will take a lot of cat,buckets and cannons to ding the dromons up.
Looks like T gets the pleasure of getting the roads down, securing iron and building a city and an army. Then we have to rock Genghis. I think we can take him at the trickle rate he is giving us. I hope this trickle we're getting isn't an indication of crappy lands down his way. I'm thinking the sooner we can get a sword or a spear army pillaging, the better. I don't think we have to worry about Byz attacking from the town for a while. Let her live in her dormant state for a while.

I hope this trickle we're getting isn't an indication of crappy lands down his way.

The trickle from the Mongol's is unusual. Either the monglos have crappy land, or they came over on a boat - or both. It really shocked me to see that Byz city so soon. Would be really unusual to have 3 of us on this continent with a tiny map. Now I'm second guessing my map settings - but it looks tiny based on the mini map. I wish F8 showed all the game settings.

I got it, and will play tomorrow.

After the settler, I'll build Swords to put in the Army. Upgrading our Warriors is not really an option, we can't make enough money.

I kind of suspect the Byz came by boat. If they didn't we might be on a Pangaea. (Could have a 3-1 split on Continents, though.) I'll aim for the hill that pulls an Oasis. Might as well have a strong defensive front against the Byz.

I also wonder whether that city of Temu's didn't come from a hut. Unless there's much better terrain that we can't see, it looks like a lousy place to build a 2nd city. Or it could be claiming rubber for 2000 years from now. :rolleyes:

So I joined Betazed's 5CC AWE :lol: Fortunately, its not on a huge map (actually its on a small map which I think is the right size to try this).

We have four players; if anyone else is crazy enough to be in 3 AWE at once there is probably room :D

(Actually, with one on a tiny map and one a 5cc, it should be no more load than 2 normal AW games. My SG schedule is definitely full again however)

So I joined Betazed's 5CC AWE :lol: Fortunately, its not on a huge map (actually its on a small map which I think is the right size to try this). Yes, I saw that. :crazyeye: I thought about it for a moment and knew I had to get cracking on GOTM31. I'm working on a personal deity and a conquest DG too.

So I joined Betazed's 5CC AWE :lol:
We have four players; if anyone else is crazy enough to be in 3 AWE at once there is probably room :D


I thought about it, but I'm in 3 SG's already. It is very tempting.

HNDY03 - The Scourge is Set!

1250 BC (0)
No units in sight, and the settler will auto-complete on growth to size 6.

1225 BC (1)
Three Mongol Archers approach, I retreat our Archer.

Theadora is not on F4.

1200 BC (2)
Arabs complete Oracle.

Settler completes, Valhalla set to Spear.

I'll let the Archers attack Copenhagen against defensive bombardment.

1175 BC (3)
Win 2 on the IT, and the third archer fortifies.

Walls complete, Copenhagen set to Barracks. No defensive bombard for him, I'll attack. We now have an Elite Archer.

Adjust lux tax to 0%. Math in 17.

1150 BC (4)
Settler moves to hill, accompanied by elite Spear. Mongols approach with another archer, but don't attack into the woods.

1125 BC (5)
Valhalla completes Spear, goes to Settler as a pre-build for a Sword. Scratch that, the Pyramids as a pre-build.
Kitten completes Spear, goes to Granary as a pre-build for a Sword. We need to get the Army out now!

Found Reykjavik on the Hill, set to worker. We need more, and we can cover the city from Valhalla.

Build empty Army. Turn research off to accumulate 60 gold.

We still don't know the Byz.

1100 BC (6)
Kill two Mongol Archers, and reveal that the choke point city is defended by a regular Spear, and contains Spices in it's radius. I'm wondering about an Archer rush now ...

We start roading the Iron. Will be online in 5. We can complete two Swords soon, and have enough cash to upgrade a Warrior for the third.

1075 BC (7)
Slide Lux to 10% to keep everyone working in Valhalla.

1050 BC (8)
The Mongols have a boat. Didn't drop anything off, though.

1025 BC (9)
The Mongols have settled another city N of the choke. I suspect a settler pair is on board the boat. Win w/Elite archer against Mongol Archer in the south.

1000 BC (10)
Mongols drop another archer off up north, and the Byz complete the MoM.

Thank you, Ctrl-R. The Iron comes in. Valhalla will complete Sword next turn, and I upgraded Slinger's Hero to a Sword. We now have 2 gold remaining.

Vet Warrior in Kitten kills archer. Elite Archer barely wins in the south. That was so much fun I kill another Archer in Mongol territory. Move Spear over to cover and lo and behold, we're right next to the choke point city. If we capture that, we have a garrison already in place. :)

Final Notes:
Well, the timing on all of that got completely screwed up. Kitten will complete it's Sword on turn 2, then it's time to rock-and-roll. The choke point city of the Mongols should fall easily to a Sword army.

Remember to turn research back on. And once our cities are connected, chop the forest in front of Copenhagen, so we don't give a defensive bonus to attacking units.

Final Kill Ratio: 9-0. We still don't have contact with the Byz.

Sounds great T. Whoever is next should have a hoot.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC

Yom <-Up but laptop has problems. Hey Yom www.dellauction.com :lol:
Greebley <- go ahead & we'll swap Yom to after you (if his laptop ever gets fixed)

Barbslinger

Greebley & Yom - First one of you to post an I GOT IT is up the other one can follow.

Sword Army :hammer:

To whomever plays next:

Check the MM of Kitten. I can't remember whether I saved before or after I configured it to complete its sword in 2. Giving it the extra shields does not prevent Valhalla from building its sword on turn 1.

I am going to play sling3 first and then this one tomorrow if we haven't heard from Yom. That will give Yom time for his I got it - Yom; post a got it if you want it

[Edit: Actually a silly statement, I know you want it; a better statement would be if you can get it :( I take it cleaning the CD was not sufficient. You may be able to get a replacement disk without needing to rebuy. Not sure how that would work though. In any case, good luck on it]

Ok, I got it. Will start playing now.

Preturn: Science is turned on - math in 10 turns. I Let Kitten have one of the squares of our capitol. It will now make the sword in 2 turns instead of 3.

IBT: A mongol archer appears.
Valhalla: Sword->Settler

975 BC: Archer is killed.

IBT: An Archer attacks our spear and unfortunately wins. I pull back our archers for now.
Kitten: Sword->Sword

950 BC: Army complete. Unfortunately, I have to lower science to keep Valhalla happy and because of new units. Math goes from 8 to 16 turns. Hopefully we can speed it up again soon. MM Valhalla and kitten so Valhalla can grow in 5 turns.

IBT: Archer that attacked us before is seen.

925 BC: We kill the archer. Army advances. I decide to take the defender off the Iron mountain. It makes it more likely to spot Byzantium.

IBT: No real movement

900 BC: Things go well. Tatu grew to size 2 last turn so we get to keep it. Additionally the Mongols had a LOT of workers in the town. Well 5 but that is a lot for 900 BC.

IBT: Archer from boat lands near Tatu instead of our homelands and another archer appears.

875 BC: Kill landed archer with army.

IBT: Other archer fortifies.
Valhalla: Settler->Sword

850 BC: Our army attacks Hovd (Hozd?) and wins auto-destroying the town and takes out the boat as well.
Going to settle the tip of our continent - err actually that is not a good idea as that town requires culture to be useful.
Tatu lowered unit costs so we can raise science again.

IBT: Two archer move into our lands.

825 BC: We have a winner! Our elite archer gets a leader. Decide to settle that town after all. I also decide to change Valhalla and Kitten to settlers to get to 8 cities ASAP.

IBT: Whoops, forgot to check happiness last turn and we get rioting.

800 BC: Not much.

IBT: Two archer show up.

775 BC: Attack both archers. Army Attacks Almarikh and kills a spear.

IBT: We get a Palace part.

750 BC: We capture Almarikh, though our Army is badly injured. Since we have another town I switch Valhalla back to building a sword first.

Notes:
Three Mongol towns are gone! Only 4 remain.
We have a leader for another army and 6 of 8 towns.
The fortified spear is defending the injured archers. They can go back to Tatu if they want.
Once the two workers North of the gems finish, send one worker onto the gems and build a colony.
No contact with the Byzantines!!!! Amazing.
Another sword army could help. We can then destroy the Mongols and move immediately on to the destruction of the Byzantines :hammer: :hammer: :hammer: One can play AW defensive or offensive. This is an offensive situation in my book. Kill the AI before it gets big and strong. With 2 armies we qualify as stronger than them.
All in all the turn went very well for us.
This start is starting to look like a Pangea start. I can't tell for sure but there is land very near by. Astronomy looks like it won't be needed. It is still possible the two pieces of land won't be connected, just very close.
There will be a picture next post.

Notes on Map.

The red arrow is where I would send the settler already on its way. That point gets 2 whale and a deer which is not bad for a fishing village.

I would send the settler from kitten to one of the two spots indicated by the green. The SE one gets a whale.

We are getting our 8 towns earlier since we own Almarikh so I would switch Copenhagen to a sword to fill the second sword army faster. I also forgot to set Almarikh's production and it is building a regular spear.

I would grab the gems in the blue circle using one of the Mongol workers (colony) currently building the road to the mountain.

This start is starting to look like a Pangea start.

If this is pangaea, all the more glory for us! Boats - we don'tneed no stinkin' boats. :p

I played a quick little Pang map solo before this game, but I thought I changed the setting when I rolled the start. :mischief:

EDIT This SG is the last game I started. I pulled up C3C and selected "New Game" and it came up continents 70% water, tiny map, vikes, DG. So I'm pretty sure we are playing continents.

Anyone lurkers included know how to crack a save file to see what map type this is?

Great call on the sword army. :thumbsup: I am unworthy.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <- Surfing www.dellauction.com
Greebley <- great call on swords
Barbslinger <- UP (unless YOM posts he's back in action)

I like your map. If we ever get a leader for the Pentagon (or Heroic Epic) we could rush it in the city farthest north to get the culture to pull in the 2 whales.

Oooohhh, I'm up! I'm up! I'm up!

What do you mean it's not my turn? :cry: You NEVER let me have any fun. :suicide:

:lol:

(The amazing thing is, I'm the one in the group who doesn't have kids.)

Have to d/l the save, but sounds spectacular. Two sword armies should see the Iron-less Mongols off, and then we can lead with the armies against the Byz. Unless she brings a nice stack upon contact, I think we are best served to have our two armies work together against the Mongols, rather than sending one to each front. Get Temu out of here ASAP.

Don't we have 3 luxuries now?

@Handy: Any lurker could easily tell the landform by watching the replay. I don't really care to know, but whatever.

Peeked at the save:

Valhalla can complete its Sword next turn with a little MM.

I don't think Mining the Cow (that sounds kind of dirty :cringe: ) at Valhalla does us any good in Despotism.

The fastest way to get 3 Swords may be to turn research off and use the cash to upgrade a Warrior. We can make 15 gpt with research at 0%. We can get Valhalla to 10 spt, and have the third army ready in 3, if we can get the Warrior from the Peninsula into a Barracks that quickly. Doesn't look possible, so probably shouldn't turn research off.

The city to the SW of Ta-Tu is (obviously) Karakorum, so I'd expect some heat from there.

Handy03 – 750BC –

Preturn – Looks nice! I don’t think mining a cow does anything either. So I stop and will send worker elsewhere. Get the sword in one in Valhalla by swapping to ivory one turn. Move up to pillage mine and road on hill near their obvious capital.

IT – Valhalla – Sword>Settler. KW-settler>He prebuild for GL. I don’t want to miss it on demigod.

[1] 730 – Notice that there was a settler active going for north tip. Do I get rid of the settler build in Valalla? I do by swapping to sword. Looks like the army will be built late. I don’t want to miss GL letting KW spend time building up from pop2 to get a sword.

IT – Army gets some healing done.

[2] 710 – Change copenghagen to sword in 6. Move elite towards Almakar? See Krackatorium defended by a spear.

IT – 2 archers are now outside of Almakar.

[3] 690 – Found Oslo. Army kills both archers without a scratch. Swords in 4.

IT- FP message. Ta-Tu-Walls>Rax.

[4] 670 – Gems are in. 6 pop Valhalla still needs the lux but it gets a taxman since sword is due next turn. The pillaging begins at Krackator. There is an elite spear and a sword near renamed Alky.

IT – 1 archer comes out of Krackalaugh. Sword builds in Copenhagen. Set to spear. This sucks without water. Krackator has water. Byz have the lighthouse. It won’t be long now.

[5] 650- Oslo founded and army has 2 swords in it heading to pick up its 3rd. Valhalla is going to starve one turn to get a worker now.

IT – Byz get artemis.

[6] 630 – Army is nearly loaded near Alky. 1st army is getting ready to pillage the mines on the hills but I’m second guessing thinking we may want this town for an FP. Science adjusted to get writing in 4.

IT – Reykjavik-Rax>Sword with 2 forests chopping.

[7] 610 – 1st army takes out 2 spears, one of them reg, from Krackky. Next army attacks next turn. A leader shot at Ta-Tu on a lone archer goes nowhere, we win though.

IT – Not much. But coming.
[8] 590 – Krackytown is captured with only one pop remaining. Genghis is down to 3 cities. Workers being sent to bring up water.

IT – Writing>Lit. Valhalla-Spear>Sword. Copie- Spear>Spear. Wishing we had HBR.

[9] 570 – Kill an archer that had showed up at Kracky. There is an archer on a hill and the army in Kracky is 6/14. Will he attack?

IT – No, he pillages. Byz build the pyramids and sail a boat by Oslo.

[10] Peek at F4. Yup. L. Try to get CB for 45g. No deal. It’s war. Clear all visable Mongols. Well, I have a group of workers going for water. It will take two jungle chops to get it to Ta-tu. Then more work. I would also improve the BG for KW to use when it grows for GL building. GL has only 43 shields to it. I might consider merging a worker and getting those mines down a priority with lit due in 9. The picture was taken before I played turn 10.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Handy03-550Byz.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Handy03-550BCa.jpg

Anyone lurkers included know how to crack a save file to see what map type this is?
Use Ainwood's Seedbeast (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87973).

Are we prepared for the Byzantine assault?

Ideally we want to continue our asault on the Mongols, it is probably ony a short while longer to their destruction, but not if we will lose cities.

Prehaps splitting the armies, if we feel we are not ready. One continues the assault and the other helps vs the attacks from Byzantium.

Ideal though might be going all out with the armies vs the Mongols to destroy them now. while the archers and spear hold the defensive line and then bring the armies back and start the assault.

Bad would be to send both armies back. We lose all our momentum and advantage. and allow the mongols to recover.

Are we prepared for the Byzantine assault?

Ideally we want to continue our asault on the Mongols, it is probably ony a short while longer to their destruction, but not if we will lose cities.

Prehaps splitting the armies, if we feel we are not ready. One continues the assault and the other helps vs the attacks from Byzantium.

Ideal though might be going all out with the armies vs the Mongols to destroy them now. while the archers and spear hold the defensive line and then bring the armies back and start the assault.

Bad would be to send both armies back. We lose all our momentum and advantage. and allow the mongols to recover. I think for the GL to work we're going to have to keep the mongols around. We're going to have to let them keep a city.

There are 2 AI left other than the mongols, correct? We may want to allow them to keep their last city until we finish the GLib, but can then destroy them as they will fall behind.

So let them keep their weakest city - Agreed.
I want to destroy their capitol before we let them alone :hammer:

I aagree that line. Once GL comes in they are dead. Capitol is gone. Karatorum, or whatever it is, I was calling it Krackator was killed last night.

I might even think about gifting them the marsh city and taking the others if the others are better land. Oh wait a minute, can't gift unless we're at peace. Can we give straight peace, give the city and then redeclare during same turn?

I think the Mongols might have another city on an island, but I'm not sure. I don't think it would be any problem to leave them with 1 city. Even if a city flips we'll have more than enough military to quickly re-claim.

I nominate Karakorum for our FP. We have such a weird shape that I think this will just about get us a 2nd core.

If we do keep the Mongols around, they will be useful until we are even in technology. The minute we have to research at anything but last, they have to go. We should also keep researching even though we are trying to build the G.Lib. We don't have any use for the money in Despotism, unless we want to really gamble and have a big wad of cash waiting to upgrade Archers to 'Zerks.

Which brings me to my next point: Maybe we should build some boats and find the 4th civ?

Roster:
Handy <- UP
T_McC
Yom
Greebley
Barbslinger

Boats sound like a good idea. We are seafaring after all. :lol:

We're a Steamroller baby, and we're gonna roll all over you...

Pre flight looks good.
We need a boat – but it needs to avoid Dromons
Irrigate

IBT
Alky – walls – boat (15)
Reykjavik – sword - sword

Turn 1 550
Moving

IBT
Mongols want to talk.
He has 3 cities left, has no iron & is up W, CB, COL, MM

Turn 2 510
Kill archer
Kill 2 spears & Capture Kazan

IBT
Oslo – worker –walls.

Turn 3 490
Kill an archer with army. Other Army rests.

IBT
Spot 3 fireboats in various places. No sign of Byz troops yet.
Valhalla - sword – settler (pop 6)

Turn 4 470
Army kills archer. Other Army rests.

IBT
No fireboat attacks – I guess they are mapping.
Stockholm – worker – walls.
Arabs finish Hanging Gardens.

Turn 5 450
Kill 2 archers & spot furs.
I’ll take the southern city & pin Mongols in the north of their little Peninsula.
Citizen @ Alky finally ready to get to work.

IBT
Byz start Sun Tzu

Turn 6 430
Move next to Fur City – home of discount furs.

IBT
Literature -> The Wheel
Byz start the Glib

Turn 7 410
Hostile Take over of Fur City nets us 2 furs and 2 employees.
Mongols are down to 1 city, so we’ll stop here. I hope the only horses on the continent don’t wind up under the other city. :lol:
Offer Theodora a fur if she’ll show us her….no dice. :p

IBT
Fire boats attack fur city and wound the army garrisoned there quelling resistance. :mad:
Karakorum – walls – barracks
Valhalla – settler – sword
Copenhagen – spear – spear

Turn 8 390
Pop spear in Fur City to get Pop to 1 and to free up the army.
Army kills archer & moves to mountain to peek at the Mongols lone city.
Still no units from the Byzantine city. Could be their only city on this continent. Army moves out next turn to find out.
52 turns to the Glib.

IBT
Fur City – spear – walls

Turn 9 370
Armies begin the march to the Byzantines.
Fur city is pop 1 and has a spear & archer fortified. You can chop a temple (after we get CB) so it does not flip.
Wheel in 2 +17 GPT

IBT
Byz start Leo’s

Turn 10 350
Mine in KW drops the Glib to 42 turns. May want to join some workers here to speed this up.
:lol: The Mongols drop what is probably their lone archer from a Galley next to Fur City and we attack with our lone Elite and get this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_350leader.JPG

Leader is sent towards Karakorum. FP I guess. He can reach Karakorum next turn. The citizen in Karakorum will get happy when the road brings in the luxuries in 6 turns if not before then.
We have 11 cities and can found one next turn.
*Fur City has an archer & a spear as a garrison. There is a sword headed that way you can park on the mountain next to the Mongols lone city as a spy & to kill settlers that wander out.
*Jungle chop chain gang finishes next turn. You can then irrigate over the mine to get Valhalla water.
*Wheel is due in 1, then maybe CB in 4 running a surplus.
*May want to join worker to KW after they mine the grass to hasten the Glib. KE is size 4 and grows in 6.
*The Byz started the Glib in 430BC, and we don’t know how big their city is.
*Dinky boat due in 6 in Alky.
*Park a sword on the mountain S of the Mongol capital & workers will not leave the city to improve tiles.

350 bc

Roster:
Handy
T_McC <-up
Yom
Greebley
Barbslinger


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_350BC.JPG

BYZ START GL! That's not good at all. :( Well, we can attempt to get some workers to merge and mine but I think we're shot. I had 43 shields when I handed off, you probaby put in 65-75 shields for 100-110 total. Even if we can get it to 10 shields it would be around 30 turns. I know that DG AI get a discount so it may be a lost cause. I'm still hoping though.

BYZ START GL! That's not good at all. :( Well, we can attempt to get some workers to merge and mine but I think we're shot. I had 43 shields when I handed off, you probaby put in 65-75 shields for 100-110 total.

yeah - we have 43 turns left, and we are pulling 7 shileds, so we lack about 301 shields (43x7=301). That gives us a 25% head start discount, but @ DG the AI gets a 30% discount IIRC. And we have no idea how many shields they are pulling in that city. Mine & merge may get it for us, but it will be close if we do get it.

That means if there building in a 7 shield city it will take 40 turns. 400*70% = 280 shields. It's a little farfetched but we could disband some units in it. That might shave some turns. It's really a tough call. I would do everything I could to get it. If we don't we will be left in the dust. I would use the workers bringing water up to do a tile per 2 turns and send the rest to GL build to mine then merge. If we have spare units I would disband. Byz is building and has built wonders. They switched the SZ build once, so it is now in one of the better cities. The GL could be being built in a crapper city. Let's do all we can.

@Barbslinger: Disbanding units and chopping forests don't help wonder builds, remember?

I wouldn't worry too much about losing the GL. We can't get production in Kitten Warriors that high due to a lack of fresh water, but have we forgotten the power of our armies? We should be able to get our sword army over there and pillage the hell out of the city they're building the GL in. Granted, it may take 20 turns to get there, but by the time we're done, it'll be making 1-3 spt, tops :D.

I am also not worrried. We can take the GLib city if they build it with our two armies. It wasn't the capitol was it (even if it was 2 sword armies can probably get it eventually.

I think we should go for Byz Iron to prevent pikes and take cities if we can. Even if it is Attack-heal-attack-heal, we should be able to deal with pikes. Ideal would be to seriously damage them before muskets.

Our window of opportunity is not huge. I would continue the assault and take out at least some of the weaker Byz cities.

Our window of opportunity is not huge. I would continue the assault and take out at least some of the weaker Byz cities.

Yes - the 2 armies are on the way towards the Byz. There is an archer, spear & soon will be a sword @ Fur City.

We need max research I guess the wheel on MM to build galleys to get to the other continent. We'll need more leaders for that since our 3 sword armies are too big for galleys.

We need to get there before they get too far ahead. If they have too many strong attack (MI) nearby, they will kill the army on the insertion turn.

I think we could just take out a town direct from sea with our berserkers and then assemble the armies that same turn by moving the boats into the town. There IS no insertion turn with the vikings.

FP is probably worth building immediately, but the next leader we may not want to fill the army as you say.

I suggest concentrating workers on kitten and merging in workers to get our production up now if we do want the GLib. We may also want to switch tatu to a worker. We seem short.

I think we could just take out a town direct from sea with our berserkers and then assemble the armies that same turn by moving the boats into the town. There IS no insertion turn with the vikings.

FP is probably worth building immediately, but the next leader we may not want to fill the army as you say.

I suggest concentrating workers on kitten and merging in workers to get our production up now if we do want the GLib. We may also want to switch tatu to a worker. We seem short.

yeah - I was hoping to get an army over there sooner rather than later. Bezerks are a long way off if we miss Glib.

Still - we are in good shape for this game. :D
We should control our continent in the BC's if the Byz don't have too many cities down.

There is a 6-pack of workers chopping jungle near Tatu. The Tatu barracks is due in 4, so we should finish that before we switch to worker builds. Also, after the boat is done Alky can build some workers. We have a lot of roads to build & irrigation to do.

I got it. And will play tomorrow morning.

Don't read further if you don't like spoilers!! Info about your current game....


The world your playing on is 2 large contients with 2 tiny islands. Those Dromons are nasty aren't they?!?

HNDY03 - Purple Menace

350 BC (0)
Our leader's name is HUBBA ?!? Boy, that inspires me. :rolleyes:

We have 4 lux on our continent, so we are good for Happies. We are way behind in tech, and I think the G.Lib is an exercise in futility. At least it will turn into the SoZ. In fact, I just switch over now. The Byz are building the Library in Constantinople. No shot for us.

Swap Ta-Tu to a Settler. At least a couple of more spots to drop in, and the city really doesn't grown at any bigger than size 1 right now.

I do tend to believe that is the lone Byz city on this continent. Sliders are proper.

330 BC (1)
The Byz are going to drop something in the south, keep an eye on them.

The Wheel comes in, set to CB in 4 at +16 gpt. Then will run deficit for another tech on my watch.

Found Birka, start on a worker.

Leader will rush FP next turn.

310 BC (2)
Byz just wander around. Rush FP in Karakorum, let's see what effect that has on our economy. (43 w/14 corruption).

290 BC (3)
We now get 48 w/17 corruption. I think that's worse?

270 BC (4)
Turn down research and get CB with just Scientists.

250 BC (5)
CB in, set for Mysticism in 4 at +7 gpt. I'm beelining for Monarchy, then we should be able to research faster.

Oslo takes an 18-shield whip towards a Temple.

Kill a Mongol Archer.

230 BC (6)
Byz drop off a vet MDI next to our Wonder city. This could be interesting.

Our Sword wins and goes Elite.

We burn Sardica to the ground, but get no money or slaves. :( There is another Byz city further south.

Dinky boat built, runs like Hell away from the Dromons.

Lux tax goes to 10% to accomodate Valhalla at size 6.

210 BC (7)
I think there are only two Byz cities on this continent, so with two Armies we should be safe until 'zerks.

190 BC (8)
Moving both settlers to their intended destinations, approaching the last Byz city on our continent.

Again, can get Mysticism on turn 4 w/just Scientists.

170 BC (9)
Mysticism in, set for Map Making in 6 at -6 gpt. We'll have the cash to upgrade a couple of Dinkys, so we can find the other continent.

Army wins 1 vs. Byz Spear, will have to fortify and fight another day. The city is size 1, so Byz will have to spend some cash to build another unit.

150 BC (10)
Found Aarhus and Stavenger, each set to Workers.

Our empire is connected, and we have an irrigation path through the jungle.

Final Notes:
We are starting to research techs that Temu doesn't have. Soon time for him to go.

I leave Kitten set for the SoZ, it is due in 4 turns. We could always switch back to the G.Lib. The worst-possible case scenario is that we spend 100 shields too much on the SoZ. I just think we cannot out-build Constantinople. Since we don't have any Horses on this continent, AC are our only possibility for mounted units. With free military we are fairly safe from the Byz invasions, and can concentrate on building infrastructure. The good news is that we are only 9 above Monarchy unit support, despite having no fresh water.

The Byz are definitely based overseas. We can hack our way through the jungle and own our continent rather easily. Problem is, we have only 1/3 the pop that the Byz do. They must be throwing down with the Arabs as well, and winning.

Tech
Beeline @ max to MM so we can try to insert an army on the other side?

We also need to try establish a kill zone so the AI will land near the same location. KW, the Wonder city, or Fur City may is a guess @ where they will want to attack.

No word from YOM, so Greebley can go ahead.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom
Greebley <- UP
Barbslinger


FWIW - we are playing continents according to.Seedbeast (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=1857550#post1857550) Thanks Gogf for the tip. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_350BC_seed_beast_fixed.JPG

Some more FWIW from the OCN Calculator (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=1839084#post1839084)

no FP

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_350BC_OCN_noFP.JPG

With FP

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_350BC_OCN_wFP.JPG

I guess I'll go start a solo game & quit spamming the server with jpegs. :p

Not much to say, keep pushing workers. We have a lot of land but most of it is kind of lousy.

I think once we find the Arabs, Temu has got to go. No War Weariness from his citizens will be nice.

We are fairly safe, even by AI sea-invasion standards since our two Armies can each cover 1/2 the empire. So we can push infra much earlier than usual and are better able to afford an early swap to Monarchy.

I did find that the landmass west of Alky is an island. Nice terrain, but will be horribly corrupt for us. We are already above our OCN for a Tiny map, and should be able to place 3-4 more cities on our landmass that can be more lightly defended than can cities on another island.

We may have 1/3 the population of the Byz, but we have more cities! We could catch up pretty quick!

I checked, but someone should confirm, that the SoZ would not trigger a Despotism GA for us. I think for our traits there is no auto-GA wonder.

----

I'm moving to a new job, and will be off-line until at least Thursday the 27th. Swap or skip as appropriate.

Unfortunate the Byzantines are not on our continent.

I got it and will start playing now.

Preturn: It may be incredibly stupid, but I am going to try for the GLib since we can easily fall back to the statue of zeus, The AI doesn't always build mines. It is possible to outrace the AI if you boost your shields to max.

Early:
Dyracchuim (however it is spelled is destroyed and only the Mongols share our continent.
Switch several towns to Catapults. We have to stop these Dromon

Mid:
The dromons are tearing us apart. we lose our connection to the furs. Get Map making and start on Construction (we need aquaducts!). To many cities not on rivers.
I destroy the Mongols. They are pests. If the long shot works and we get the GLib we need to meet the Arabs.

Late: Sure enough we don't get the Great Library so I switch to the statue; we get it next turn. You were right TMcC, we missed by 17 turns and couldn't have gotten it no matter what we did.

Notes:

Exasperating turns with little to do other than get bombarded... We are still reconnecting the furs. We have plenty of units. I would get monarchy or currency and build up infrastructure - Libraries, Markets, workers, and especially aquaducts, and settle the rest of the island. I think we should avoid too much military for now, so we can keep science high.

Not sure I played well. Poly might have been the better choice over construction (but our core cities are really hurting with the size limit so maybe not). Not sure killing the Mongols was right either. Well done is done.

Well, I think we can still win. If we can build up our infra enough to get some real research going and get to a point of having 4-5 pillaging armies. It's going to be a long haul and the Byz navy will be a pest. Plenty o'cats. I'm wondering if it is possible to plant a dromon bait city? A city with weaker defense that they can just bomb to their hearts content.

Ya, we own the whole island and can (hopefully) win as you say. We will need time to build up our economy and will be the underdogs for a while. Our nation feels pretty pathetic at the moment - mostly I think due to the lack of fresh water in our core.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <- skip till laptop works
Greebley
Barbslinger <- UP

We'll need some luck to get armies over to the other continents past all the Dromons. With cats & galleys perhaps we can bomb & sink some.

We also have to figure out how to get leaders/armies with noone to fight :lol:

Pre-turn 50AD – Change the Stockholm temple to harbor and thought about changing the oslo one too but then I remembered the whales. It will get a pop rush for the good of all at 20s left. I then thought the the whales weren’t worth it until I realized the blubber is worth a few shields. So, let’s go whale hunting with a temple to make sure it’s OK by the people. I’m really not quite sure what the galley in Valhalla would do except die by the dromon cannon fire. Are we going to search for Byz? Cruise there sealane? Once we see where they are coming from we’ll know where to find them. I certainly would not put troops in it. However on introspection, we need to get armies there soon! I’ll let it complete and then try to sneak it city to city until it can get to where it needs to be. Looks like the fur road near Karakorum will be hooked in one. Need some defense to protect the road. Kara goes to rax. I’ll steer the road N to keep it from enemy fire after it completes. A couple of galleys go to cats. Ulaan (renamed) needs food so it goes to temple. Water can’t get there fast enough. Nice to see the plains in the core irrigated. The worker in the jungle. Copenhagen goes to a future zerk. Wish I knew what the upgrade cost was. Tech path looks like const>curr> poly> monarchy > head to zerks. KW is one 1 to zeus and then a settler.

IT – Dromons do there thing and ding the army. KW-ZEUS>Settler. Stockholm-Harbor to grow>temple like before. Maybe it can be a market when the time comes.

[1] 70AD – Get 2 hits on a dromon near Karakorum. Notice Theodora is ahead a bunch in tech. We’re up in cities 15-12. Maybe someday, not today we will punish here for her dromon attacks. Swap spear for archer on fur road. Send workers to make a better road to fur. Move a few workers and fortify troops. Decide on harbor for Ulaan. There is one sea tile it can grow off of. Swap KW and Valhalla tiles for less waste and growth. Was going to swap Valhalla to HE for a duct but saw the waste. It will go HE after this galley.

IT – Valhalla-galley>HE for duct. Kazan-cat>wkr, Copenhagen – Archer>Settler to coincide with growth in 8. Byz wanted to talk, I hung up and she fired only twice and then took off east. Is she at war with Arabia?

[2] 90AD – Galley goes to choke city to cross to eastern sea. Aarhus road done going to raze site to mine. BTW, sci-sli makes no diff on 80-100%

IT – Dromons fire 4 times but continue a move eastward. Looks like tey can shoot and run.

[3] 110- Move a spear out from Aarhus to guard road from bombs. Also bait.

IT – 2 MDI’s land on mountain N of Ulaan which is now renamed Ugone due to the odds.

[4] 130-We’re 34.6 attacking and 29 defending. Sword army moves to protect fur city. I’m attacking. Valor is my middle name. Hold on…. We win the crucial first round losing 2 hp. Now I can move the other sword in to be sure we don’t lose the town, erring on the side of caution. Galley moves out 2 tiles to make it to Reykjavik next turn. Spear in fur city moves to help Ugone.

IT – MDI wins. It’s 2 hp to 2 hp. I saw our sword crap his pants looking to the future. Dromon fire. KW – Settler>Walls requiring a MM to do 6-4. Byz start Copernicus. I don’t even have a prebuild going yet.

[5] 150 - Spear makes it to Ugone and asks swordsman what the funny smell is. Swordsman, grabbing his drawers, sheepishly squeals below his breath, “What smell?” Spear grimaces sniffing the air and looking at the obvious new born package in the settled on the swords backside says, “Step aside, soldier and fortify yourself, will ya’ ”
Settler heads to 1st ring Karakorum, 6 away.

IT – MDI comes off the mountain onto a mine. Dromons do a lot of eastward shuffle but not one shot fired. Karakorum-Rax>Sword. I really want archer but invention is quite a bit away. Ta-tu-Rax> Sword. Alky-Cat>Worker

[6] 170 – Sword, feeling deflated after a restroom break, smirks back at the spear and gets an elite promotion killing the MDI with the Army watching. Spear is ordered to go back to minding his furs. An AC makes an appearance. Everyone in the kingdom wonder what strange animal is this? Oslo gets a ,oops, 19 shield sacrifice to the whale foundation. Tile swapping everywhere with grassland irrigation completed back to mines in the core. We have food now. DUCTS is what we need. Construction goes to 60%.

IT – Dromons are back at it. Construct>Curency in 7. KW-Walls>Colloseum Prebuild for market. Oslo-Temple>Harbor.

[7] 190AD – Galley fortifies in Aarhus. Settler still heading S. Valhalla goes to duct in 6. I thought about settler but thought I’d let the workers catch up. Maybe Byz will settle a city for us. :lol: She’ll have rifles by then.

IT – Dromons again. Birka-Another not so useful cat> Harbor.

[8] 210 – Workers heading S to help the FP core. AC heads into SE jungle looking to scout around.

IT – Dromons. Copenhagen-Settler> Prebuild. Reykjavik-Harbor>Duct. It may need a temple first. Next leader can see.

[9] 230 – Workers doing their thing.

IT – Theo lands 2 MDI N of Aarhus. Aarhus builds a worker> Rax. Stavenger-Wkr>Wkr.

[10] Short rush 16 shields for a temple in Alky. Moves spears into Aaurhus and have army kill one MDI. Still one left. There are 2 settlers ready to plant. I know the one is nly 2 tiles from Alky but I was thinking the cow can help alky out. You can certainly move him.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Handy03-250ad.jpg

Looking at the picture, I assume Kitten (and copenhagen) wants to be an Aquaduct rather than a Colosseum?

The route to the other continent appeared to be East of the southeast point where Byz put their cities. This makes sense - they had cities there befoer the lighthouse, so I am betting we can get across. I was thinking of having the Galley city hop around and then try it. If they Byz ships have troops or are guarding ships with troops, they don't attack I don't think. If we can do a hit point damage to each of the attacking boats so they go back and heal, that would help.

We also have to figure out how to get leaders/armies with noone to fight :lol:

Do we want to leave some crappy corrupt land somewhere for the AI to send settlers to? We can get some slaves & perhaps leaders that way.

Roster:
Handy <-up
T_McC
Yom <- skip till laptop works
Greebley
Barbslinger <- just played

Well - at least harbors are cheap for us so we can build veteran galleys. Perhaps they'll avoid attacking a stack of boats. When moving the army by seas, we can move 1 less sea tile and fortify on the last move to help defense. Galleys seem to do pretty well on defense.

Looking at the picture, I assume Kitten (and copenhagen) wants to be an Aquaduct rather than a Colosseum?
I was thinking markets, but we need both.

Pre Turn 250 BC
What crappy jungle lands.
Karakorum is building Archers for a Zerk upgrade I suppose. I hope the Glib is in a coastal city. May have to peel workers or settler from here soon.
Mm Ta-Tu for 3 shields. Look boss, it’s de plane, it’s de plane.
Eventually we can irrigate these corrupt cities to farm scientists.
Army has 1 move left, so I kill MI @ Aarthus.
Dromons are 2 on offense & defense – ugh. That is really bad luck – to be fighting the Byzantines with no Glib.

IBT
Karakorum – archer – archer
Byzantines begin Knights Templar
Found Odense

Turn 1 260
Not much

Kazan – worker - worker

Turn 2 270
workers

IBT
Valhalla – aqueduct - harbor

Turn 3 280
Drop F1 top get currency in 1 & make some cash

IBT
Currency – Poly – due in 6 @ zero GPT
Change coliseum builds, and the FP & Valhalla to markets.
We need libraries too.

Turn 4 290
Found Haried ->walls then it needs a harbor
Adjust for Poly in 5 losing 4 GPT (fastest we can get it)

IBT
Dromons are very interested in Kazan for some reason. Bomb it every turn.

Turn 5 300
May want to improve inland tiles first where possible. Dromons can pillage the tiles next to the sea.
Aarus needs walls after barracks.
Slow Karakorum growth to get the market faster. Speed it back up after Market finishes.
Valhalla’s market finishes before the city grows.

IBT
Nothing

Turn 6 310
The Acav in the jungle is moving around looking for landing parties.

IBT
Ta Tu sword - sword

Turn 7,8 320 & 330
Roads and mines

IBT
Bark – harbor – library (for whale)

Turn 9 340
Slider gets Poly in 1 +29 this turn. Net we made some cash & got poly in 5, the fastest we could do.

IBT
Poly – monarchy (due in 9 @ -11) will get better when Markets come in.
Fur city – worker – can chop temple here to get fish.
Stavanger – worker – worker

Turn 10 350
Did not see any Dromons the last 4 turns. I’m guessing the Byzantines are @ war & called the Dromons home.

Notes:
Does Stockholm really need a temple? Maybe Library, aqueduct, market.
Karakorum is set to grow in 6, market is due in 5.
Alky is @ zero growth to get temple in 15. Needs MM after temple comes in.
Did not see a single AI landing during my 10 turns, and the Dromons left about 4 turns ago.
I selected markets over aqueduct in KW & Copenhagen to boost cash. Switch if you like.
We do not have any Libraries. :(
Lone slave building a road to nowhere in the jungle mostly to keep the area lit. The Acav in the Jungle has wandered looking for AI landing parties.

Roster:
Handy
T_McC <- up
Yom <- Tell us when your laptop works, on auto skip till we hear from you.
Greebley
Barbslinger

EDIT The zoomed JPEG as an attachment looks crappy. Upload server not responding. I'll try to load the Jpeg later.

Handy,
FYI if you post a picture as a single attachement, it will display in thread. My advise it to post the picture seperately with any comments on the picture in the second post. It probably has to be 800x600 or less as well.

[Edit: Oh and TMcC, don't worry about giving me the bulk of the Anarchy turns. I think we should go to Monarchy right away. It is the only way to grow our towns quickly to catch up. Even if it slows things in the short term, we need it badly due to the fact all our core cities needed aquaducts and got stuck at size 6.

In fact I would start switching grasslands from mines to irrigation to speed growth. We can switch back after we grow.

I'm moving to a new job, and will be off-line until at least Thursday the 27th. Swap or skip as appropriate.


Roster:
Handy
T_McC <- off line until Thursday the 27th.
Yom <- Tell us when your laptop works, on auto skip till we hear from you.
Greebley <- UP
Barbslinger

We are down to 3. Greebley, you are up. We can each play 1 round this week and stop after me to allow T to pick the game up on the 27th if he is back by then.

Thanks for the tip on the screenshot Greebley.

Ok, I got it. I guess I will go play it then.

Preturn: Things are pretty good, but I change a few things. I go for a galley (what happened to the last one - I missed that part)? Switch a town with little food to a harbor. Nothing major. Try to reduce the time to monarchy. 100% is still 9 turns, so I raise it a bit more to get it in eight (either our tax collector goes to 11 or I hire a scientist in fur city - your guess).

360 AD: Wow our boat moves and we can see an Arabian border already. I am amazed we haven't met them. Do we want to meet them? I am not sure. We could use more leader fodder (just not too much).,

IBT:
Valhalla: Market->Library

370 AD: Actually we can see both civs. That means I can cross without meeting Arabia right away (it might be worth waiting for Monarchy to meet ppl.

IBT: Several units are landed including a knight. Heraclea (byzantine) builds Sun Tzu

380 AD: We cross over to the Byzantine side.

IBT: Quiet.

390 AD: Think again about meeting Arabia (for faster Monarchy), but decide my impulse to wait until after the Anarchy is better.

IBT: See the Byzantine Dromons returning with the boat.
Kitten: Market->Aquaduct (I actually like to switch the order. i.e. Aquaduct first myself).

400 AD: Not much.

IBT:

410 AD: Need to raise Lux for our FP city until it finishes the market.

IBT: Byzantine complete Copernicus and Leo. A knight is dropped off

420 AD: Destroy the knight. I use the army due to its high defense. Good thing too as we lose 5 hp. We get monarchy next turn. I will switch in the IBT.

IBT: I revolt and adjust Lux. Going for HBR which will complete in 6 turns during anarchy :lol:
Knight Templar is complete.

430 AD: Major lightning storm going on. I save my game. 6 more turns of Anarchy. Byzantines start Shakespeare. We had better grab the GLib or we are going to be toast.

440-450 AD: Anarchy. No attacks

Played last night but the lightning storm meant I didn't post

We are behind. The AI is building shakespeares

Roster:
Handy
T_McC <- off line until Thursday the 27th.
Yom <- Tell us when your laptop works, on auto skip till we hear from you.
Greebley
Barbslinger <-UP

Let's hope we get to Bezerks while they can make a difference.

If we can pillage the other continent, we may yet pull this out.

I think we have a very good chance of winning still if we do things right. One real prize would be grabbing the Great library. That would guarantee the win I think.

One nice thing: pillaging will be even stronger on a Tiny map. You are pillaging a much greater percentage of the world :hammer:

If you had got the GL I would have written this game off as already won. Now seeing you control the whole island you are 100% secure against a military defeat. The AI can never launch a off continent war successfully.

Any which way the outcome is going to be interesting. Will be lurking with great interest.

best of luck. :goodjob:

Agreed, Betazed. I am still pretty hopeful that we can keep the resaearch up and/or take out the GLib. If we can get to artillery by the time the AI gets into the modern age, then I think we can win.

Sorry about the delay. I've been with friends in Los Angeles watching the LAker-Wolves game. Just got home. I'll try to play tonight. Sorry about the delay.

Sorry about the delay. I've been with friends in Los Angeles watching the LAker-Wolves game. Just got home. I'll try to play tonight. Sorry about the delay.

No Problem. Good Luck :thumbsup:

Again I want to apologize for the delay. A friend from San Jose came down with Laker tix Tuesday and it was a 2 day extravaganza. I'm back on track and will be completing all my SG's tonight and Sat morniing. If anyone wants to swap that would be a nice option too. I'm up in about 5 different SG's.

No problem - it's a holiday weekend.

I'm heading to the lake Fri. & Sat., so I can play Saturday night at the earliest.

If T_McC is back online he can step in.

Oh yeah, I'm back.

So am I up?

Just a question: I must have missed something, but if you were hot for GLib, and had just gotten leader "Hubba", why didn't you change kitten to ToZ, and rush GLib in another city with the leader? Maybe C3C has some rules about not using leaders that way?

Exactly.

You can only rush Buildings and Small wonders with great leaders.

You need a scientific great leader (gotten by being first to tech and getting lucky) to rush great wonders.

Armies are a lot stronger to make up for it.

OK, I Got It!. Will play tomorrow morning, once I figure out what's going on.

HNDY03 - Do I Know You? :confused:

450 AD (0)
So, it's 450 AD and we don't know how to ride Horses yet. The Byz have a shot at going industrial on my turns, so we are very likely to have 'zerks vs. Rifles when we get to attack. If Monarchy sufficiently screws our economy, maybe it will be Infantry. We are also in Anarchy for 4 more turns. I seem to recall having a game forceably passed to me in Anarchy before ...

Well, this should be quick. The hilarious thing is that we will discover HBR entirely in Anarchy.

I actually intend to build no military except for Galleys. I think our plan should be to build 12 Galleys, 12 'zerks, and 4 Pikes. We have 4 empty Galleys for cover, and we set sail for Constantinople, home of the Great Library amongst other goodies. The Byz are Seafaring, so their capital should be coastal. We hold for one turn, then burn the place to the ground. I figure 12 'zerks can handle the expected 6 Rifles we'll find.

<Return>

460 AD (1)
Well, we know the Byz have Saltpeter. They also have Horses, so we can expect to see Cavs fairly soon.

470 AD (2)
We meet the Arabs next turn. I could have met them this turn, but I overshot their Warrior and he disappeared.

480 AD (3)
We must have made contact on the IT, we just discovered HBR a turn early. Set to Philosophy in 4. In Anarchy. :crazyeye:

119 gold is not enough to buy Philosophy, so just declare War on Abu. In other news, the Byz start Magellan's.

490 AD (4)
Byz drop off a couple of Knights, and we form a Monarchy. Philosophy in 3 at +8 gpt. Will see how far we can drop the sliders later.

Army and an AC dismiss the landings.

Make a few adjustments, particularly canceling some Spear builds in favor of infra. Philosophy now in 3 at +16 gpt. We need another couple of cities for unit support.

500 AD (5)
Karakorum completes Market, goes to Library.

Hey, the Arabs have a city on our continent! Not for long.

510 AD (6)
Valhalla completes Library, goes to Harbor.

Guess who completes the Sistine Chapel?

We gain Philosophy next turn.

520 AD (7)
We win on the IT against an Arab MDI that used an invisible road to attack one of our ACs. Relieve Arabs of their city, but get no money.

Philosophy in, Code of Laws due in 4 at +5 gpt. Turn down lux tax, everyone can still be working and bump take to +17 gpt.

The Byz now have Caravels, so no more Dromons may be built. Of course, they are just shy of Frigates now.

530 AD (8)
Kill Byz Knight that just landed. Found Molde in the South.

540 AD (9)
Constantinople completes Shakespeares.

Valhalla builds Harbor, goes to Galley.

550 AD (10)
Whack two more Byz Knights.

Adjust Sliders so that CoL is due in 1 at +30 gpt. We only have 3 techs to go for 'zerks.


Final Notes:
Valhalla will riot after it grows on the IT. Move another unit in for MP. I think we can configure the city for 15 spt at size 10, so that would speed the Galley building.

The Archer --> 'zerk upgrade is 150 gold per. Currently we could make 63 gpt at 0/0. We have 5 archers, so I wouldn't count on the mass upgrade option. The nice thing is that we have pre-builds available (Library, Market, 'duct), so we should be able to get 4-5 fresh 'zerks in short order after Invention.

If we capture the G.Lib, we may be able to revolt to Communism immediately. :lol:

The last few landings have come by Karakorum.


This isn't impossible, but we need a big score with our initial 'zerk assault. A well-timed GA and the G. Lib may have us set up to win the game.

Since I am after TMcC, I am going to play now and hope to finish by tonight so others can play today too.

Nice turns T. What would be really nice is a pillaging army in Theodoras backyard.

Preturn:
Reykyavik needs culture or it will be forced to use desert. I am going to switch to a temple. Otherwise things are good.

IBT: Knight is landed. The island off our coast has a city now.

560 AD: Kill knight I decide to switch Aarhus to a temple before the harbor. It has only 1 water square without border expansion.
We get currency and are in the middle ages. I am going to head for invention. 70% research will get us Feudalism in 7 (-14 gpt)

IBT: Whoops, I let Valhalla riot. I hire a clown to keep science rate up.

570 AD: Always war is not supposed to be this quiet :lol:

IBT:
Krakorum: Library->Heroic Epic (for army on other continent).
Valhalla: Galley->Temple
Kitten: Aquaduct->Harbor

580 AD: I am setting up sending units over to the island to take out that city.

IBT:
Alky:Galley->Aquaduct
Oslo: Harbor-> Aquaduct

590 AD: Raise science to get Feud a turn early. Whoops! I nearly missed the fact that a knight had landed last turn. I bring the army over to defend.

IBT: We get two more landings this turn a pike, warrior MDI and another knight.

600 AD: I almost lose the army attacking the knight. A weed move on my part the knight was on the hill. I was thinking I was ok with max hp. I won't do that again.

IBT: Warrior attacks and we become elite.

610 AD: No landings this turn.

IBT: We get feudalism and start Engineering.

620 AD: Oh that doesn't make me happy. The AI has Cavalry. That probably means they are researching the last techs of the middle ages. This game is going to be tougher than I thought. The cavalry is going to be a real problem because it is on the mountain and thus 6 attack and 6 defend. I send the army around to help out.

IBT: Fortunately, the cavalry loses to our spear. a new knight and Cav are landed.

630 AD: I build Alesund on the small island. I also have several troops to take out the enemy city.

IBT: Cav wins and knight loses.

640 AD: Army finishes of cav. Units are put on the two hills. Other army starts back around in case now the AI lands elsewhere.

IBT

650 AD: Kill a spear in the town.

Notes:

Lets finish filling our island with towns. Noone landed during my turn, and we need the unit support.

It is getting rough riding. We may lose a town or two in the upcoming years. Our island is not well shaped for defense.

We have to keep our research high until we get Invention. Fast research and we have a (small?) chance of getting our force ready before Rifles. Most likely though we will be facing rifles and will need a lot of Berserkers.

Lets get a town as close to Byzantine territory as possible.

Here is a picture of our assault on the GLib. Since it is in a capitol we should be prepared for 6-8 rifles I am guessing.

The Arrows are our fastest attack. We miss making it in 2 turns by a single square.

I was thinking a town on the red dot a good idea for storing boats.

Barbslinger or Handy,
Either one of you can probably grab the game now.

I'm routing for you guys! If you can take Constantinople before infantry, I think you've got it. If not, it's going to be exremely hard.

I got it. Saturday 7:33 PM CDT. Will play & post tonight.

We throw a Hail Mary :D

The Hail Mary For those lurkers from across the pond, a Hail Mary in American football is when a team throws a desperation pass far down the field in hopes of a quick score to catch up from behind. High Risk, High Return. See turn 6


Pre Turn
If we turn lux down to zero, we have to hire scientist in Valhalla & taxman in Reykjavik.
Does not slow down either build, and shaves a turn off Engineering, now due in 5. So I do it. Due in 5 +7GPT (have to go to –11 to get it in 4)
Also hire 2 taxmen in food rich Oslo to bump our GPT.

IBT
Valhalla – pike – pike
Stavanger – worker – galley
Arabs start Magellan

Turn 1 660
Sword dies attacking Yamana
Sword dies attacking Yamana
2 Acavs win & take Yamana.
We own the little island.
+10 GPT E in 4.

IBT
Fortified Acav defends against crusader coming down the invisible road
Copenhagen – duct – library
Kazan- Byz drop a cavalry
Arabs drop off Pike, Warrior, Ansar

Turn 2 670
Acav loses to cavalry
Army redlines killing a pike. :mad:
2ns Acav kills cavalry
We will lose at least 1 city on the IBT, and maybe a workers. I’m hoping we can get them back.

IBT
Lose undefended Kazan and 1 gold
Reykjavik – temple – library

Turn 3 680
Kill Ansar – will recapture city next turn.
Byz have 2 caravels circling like sharks. Can’t tell where they are headed. Horses would be so helpful in defending this continent.
Arabs have a town near where we want to launch our ships.

IBT
Byz drop 3 cavalry on the island of all places, must be after uranium.
Valhalla – pike – pike
KW – library – galley
Odense – temple – barracks
Turn 4 690
Recapture Kazan
Kill MI near Aarhus.
Drop slider +24 this turn so I upgrade a pike.
Well, this is interesting. I attacked the cavalry on the island & got a leader. Erik Bloodaxe – a little more inspiring than Hubba. How would you like to be calling the roll as a teacher & see you have Erik Bloodaxe in your class.
Anyway – I put him on a galley parked in Alesund & got him safely to the main continent. A pillaging pike army sure would help us, so KW switched to Pike.
Next island Acav loses to a Byz Cav. We could lose both towns next turn. :(
Yamana is undefended, so I’m going to abandon it.

IBT
Byz cav raze Alesund.
Engineering -> monotheism
Err, how about invention instead. :lol:
Fur city – temple – pike

Turn 5 700 AD
Moving towards the Arab town on out land with an army

IBT
Our people want to build the Pentagon
Ta Tu Pike Pike

Turn 6 710
The Hail Mary
For better or worse I’m putting 3 galleys together with 5 pikes & an army to make a move on the Byz lands. If we make it across the ocean, and IF the pikes survive the IBT, we'll have a pillager in business.

IBT
2 cav get off @ Ta Tu
Valhalla – pike – pike
KW – galley – Galley

Turn 7 720
Raze Muscat & prepare to settle Greebley’s departure spot.
May lose Ta-Tu on the IBT, but I hope the Army can get it back.
Hire Taxman in Karakorum.
BTW, Valhalla has a clown.
Woo – Hoo. We were +4gpt, so I checked to see if 2 scientists would drop Invention by a turn and it did. Now due in 7.

IBT
Byz cavalry capture Haried killing its lone archer defender.

Turn 8 730
Found Bodo
Handy’s hail Mary pillaging army sets off. 3 galleys, 5 pikes & the army loaded with 1 pike. I hope 3 pikes survive the IBT Ai attack to load the army.

Turn 9 740
Stockholm – temple – pike
Army kills 2 cav @ Haried. Can retake the city next turn.
Galleys are in position to drop off the Pikes next turn.

IBT
Cav drops off next to undefended Copenhagen
Valhalla – Pike – Galley
KW – galley – galley
Aarhus – temple - galley

Turn 10 750
Valhalla has 2 MP so it’s back to taxman.
Acav retakes Haried & sinks a boat.
Army redlines killing lone cav near Copenhagen
Five Pikes & Army drop off into Arabia. The Army has a lone Pike loaded. If this pillager survives the IBT we have a chance.
FWIW, the galleys were never threatened during their journey.
Invention is due in 4.
The attacks are becoming much more frequent, and it’s always in a different place.
Perhaps you could leave Ta-Tu (Spices) empty to create a kill zone, or Copenhagen (Iron & Gems)

Let’s hope the Army & a couple of Pikes survive. If extra pikes survive, you can put them back on the boat. I decided to land in Arabia since I have not seen cav from them yet. Pikes have a decent chance against Ansar. We’ll see what happens IBT.
I'm gonna hit enter to see the IBT after I post this since the suspense is killing me.
I'm guessing each team member will be doing the same. :lol:

BTW We should irrigate corrupt cities to support more taxmen & scientists.

Not sure who playes next. :confused: We kinda got out of order. I think Barbslinger has been away the longest. T played, then Greebley, then me.
Roster:
Handy
T_McC
Yom <-laptop problems
Greebley
Barbslinger <- UP

Finally home after another party for my kids marine bootcamp graduation. Will play tomorrow. What happened with the pikes.

BTW, the army survives! I played 2 turns before I went to bed. The pillaging has commenced. A game plan for pillaging? I'm thinking iron on a beeline and then capitals 21. Berserkers coming up!

Finally home after another party for my kids marine bootcamp graduation. Will play tomorrow. What happened with the pikes.

[cross-post with Slinger]

You'll have a pillaging army after the IBT - barely. :D
Lucky for us, you are right next to the Arab capital.

Pillaging will eventually slow down the AI landings a little. The Byz cav are becoming quite a problem since our defense is so sparse. Many towns defended by a single unit. The cav are starting to come in stacks of 2 and 3. Zerks for homeland defense will help deal with this.

Next 20 turns are critical for us. We'll get invention & can start our GA (we didn't already have a GA did we? Too many SG's :lol: ) with a Bezerk win. Would be nice to eventually get the Pentagon after we assemble a stack of Zerks for the GL aquisition.

If we get astronomy from the GL, we can build a couple of explorers to place under the pillaging army. Explorers with a pike army can cut a wide pillaging swath in a hurry. Two to four explorers would inflict alot of damage, and they are cheap to build.

FYI - you have an army & Acav W of Ta-Tu to deal with the Arab landing @ Copenhagen on the IBT. Also a sword in Valhalla.

We just might pull this out. ;)

On another topic - are we still on hold in Sling3? No big deal, just want to make sure you are not waiting on me. :lol:

On a pillaging plan: I would suggest Saltpeter, but we can't see it. So instead, get horses before Iron. We have to stop the Cavalry landings. Then go for whatever is on the way to Constantinople.

How close are we to Invention? Since I assume we are spending down all or our money, do we have well-timed pre-builds for 'zerks in place?

We definitely want to pillage all of the roads around Constantinople before our assault. We can't afford to lose the city back on a counter before we get techs from the G. Lib. No Roads=Minimal Possibility of units being able to reach the city on the single IT we hold it.

Even if we are spending all our money, we can lower our science after getting it and do upgrades. I know we have some archers but more might be a good idea. If I remember correctly it is an exensive upgrade.

I think we were waiting for Cuivienen who had a huge work load until Tuesday. We can go for a swap if she can't play this wkend if ppl would like. I personally don't mind giving her until wed. to try to play. as I have several games to deal with.

On a pillaging plan: I would suggest Saltpeter, but we can't see it. So instead, get horses before Iron. We have to stop the Cavalry landings. Then go for whatever is on the way to Constantinople.

How close are we to Invention? Since I assume we are spending down all or our money, do we have well-timed pre-builds for 'zerks in place?

We definitely want to pillage all of the roads around Constantinople before our assault. We can't afford to lose the city back on a counter before we get techs from the G. Lib. No Roads=Minimal Possibility of units being able to reach the city on the single IT we hold it.

I agree on the pillage plans, especially the Constantinople part. We need to hold & raze the Glib. Getting the slaves home would be a bonus.

We were 4 turns from invention on my last turn. We had 4 galleys IIRC, but were getting at least 2 more before invention. I like the 12 Zerk attack plan. Better safe than sorry.

If we get then raze the Glib, I like our chances. Zerk army wouldn't hurt.

I agree on the pillaging plan. For one, the Arab iron I can see is at the far N end and I would like to get to Byz central Asap. I'll take out the Byz horses and whatever else is on the way there and head towards Constantinople. Handy left some lib prebuilds and I set up a couple more. I will finish it up by early evening PST. The family is leaving in a few hours and then I am free to play to my hearts content.

Is 12 zerks enough? If they have rifles, then probably not. Even without rifles, if they have 7 or 8 units we may not be able to take the city first turn and land the boats.

I would say 14 or 16 and we still may not get the city first turn.

Is 12 zerks enough? If they have rifles, then probably not. Even without rifles, if they have 7 or 8 units we may not be able to take the city first turn and land the boats.

I would say 14 or 16 and we still may not get the city first turn.

12 may not be enough. More is better. Slinger can look for rifles on the way to the Byz lands. I At least Constantinople is not on a hill.

Since the order got a little skewed, perhaps we could follow the most recent round of turns (unless anyone objects).

The new rotation would be
Slinger - Playing
T_McC
Greebley
Handy
YOM - MIA

Handy03 – 750AD–

Preturn – Not much to do except await the outcome. Also I lost the turnlog for the first 2 turns I took last night.

IT – I remember the pike army made it with damage and lost 2 pikes. Arabia drops off 2 ansars and a crusader.

[1] 760 – Killed all 3 Arabian invaders and adjusted cities for MP. Adjust all specialists required to taxmen. Valhalla gets the lone clown. Pillage 2 tiles and fortify army.

IT – Karakorum completes heroic epic. Byz drop off a cav right where the Arabians died. Karakorum goes to prebuild for zerk.

[2] 770 – It’s invention in 2. Prebuilds in place. Bomb and kill the cav with sword army. Return units to heal and MP. Adjust cities. Army pillages 1 tile and is on Arabian horses to pillage next turn. Adjust Valhalla for 14 shields which is a zerk every 5 turns. Cash is at 12g 0gpt. I have moved some of the workers doing southern duty on 1 shield towns back over to Karakuorum to try and get it to 14spt.

IT – No landings but a Byz frigate and galleon are rounding our northern horn. Hopefully they will land near Copenhagen again. Odense – Rax>Harbor in 15.

[3] 780 – Pillage Arabian horse but he still seems to have them. Does it show up right away. Heading by Mecca to pillage and clear fog on my way to Byz. Invention next turn and I think Guns for salt location next.

IT – Kazan-Wkr>Ct. It’s a 1 shield city. No landings. Invention>Guns

[4] 790 – We have 6 towns that can viably build zerks. We get 2 next turn and 3 more in the next 3-4 turns and another in 6. I think I’ll concentrate the workforce on improving the times on those towns. Karakorums new mine gets it to 14spt. Leaving sliders where they are for guns in 10. GA will help. Arabia is still showing they have horses so I’ll have to bust some fog.

IT – 1 cav is dropped off in the same spot as always. They must have a hidden port there, or they fancy our gems. The galleon is still inbound. Copenhagen-Zerk>Zerk, Birka, after a long prebuild, Zerk>Zerk, subject to change. Byz finish Magellans so they can get to us quicker. Arabs start Smiths.

[5] 800 – Is it time to trigger a GA. No time like the present. Copenhagen Zerk beats the cav after a cat shot and GA jumps income to +44. I adjust to guns in 8 and +71 for some upgrade cash. MM to get 3 more zerks this IT. Birka swaps to Temple. It will never be a mil producer and its citizens are 3-0-3. Still no sign of Arab horse site. I hope it isn’t in the north 5 tile fog.

IT – 2 cavs land. Valhalla – Zerk>Zerk, KW-Zerk>Zerk, Aarhus-Rax>Court to improve shields and clear some more jungle. It can do Zerks someday. Reyjavik-Zerk>Zerk, Stavenger-Galley>Walls. Not much on shields there. Changed it back to another galley.

[6] 810 – MM around looking for optimization. 14 or 18 is good for zerks; 5 or 4 turns. Some of the others go to Pikes. Reyjaviks 11spt is a pike build. For muskets in 7 turns. Lose an E AC and a zerk to one cav after a failed cat shot and then the army and a zerk finish them off with the zerk going elite. All but the upper 5 tiles of Arabia is uncovered and no sign of the horses. I’m heading to Byz. We can send another army to Arabia on the short route when we score another. KW is trimmed for 4 turn zerks while Valhalla and Karakorum are 3 turners.

IT – I’m contemplating swapping Ta-tu to a Duct. I’ll wait until after the Zerk and we can clear some jungle. An ansar and a cav are dropped. Cash set for having 150g. Kara-Z>Z, Ugone-Pike>Aque. Mecca completes JS Bachs

[7] 820 – Kill them both, little help from the cats going ¼. Upgrade an archer. We have 6 zerks. 2 scientists drop guns to 5 and cash is +62 or 2 upgrades every 5 turns. New pike heads to Karakorum for MP to release the army from duty. I’m mining over some irrigation on grass around Ta-Tu.

IT – No landings. Ta-Tu-Zerk>Z, Alky-Aque>Temple. Byz town Varna starts and then builds Newtons. SGL?

[8] 830 – Fiddle with the MM for less waste. Copenhagen is a toughie. Send boys to heal.

IT – Valhalla-Zerk>Z. No wonders completed from the ememy?

[9] 840 – Not much. A little MM and trying to get another galley around past Byz to our launch area. More pillaging.

IT – No landings. Kara-Zerk>Z, Hareid-Walls>Harbor. A galley heading for Hareid.

[10] Galley made it. Everyone is healthy and no cities lost.

Watch the MM. It is not perfect optimization yet but the shields are going up in some cities. I have some court builds and you can decide to keep them or not. Our cash went down to +55gpt due to unit costs so when guns come in you can jack it up. We have 11g so another archer can upgrade. The GL assault is nearing but I would get some more zerks for home MP first. We’re probably 4-5 turns from Constantinople. There is a Zerk elite in Copenhagen. Well, no towns lost but I think I would get a couple Zerks moving towards our launching town. I would hate to lose all those galleys.

I got it.

Looks like I get to launch the fleet, but not engage the enemy at her gates.

The new rotation
Slinger
T_McC <- playing :thumbsup:
Greebley <-on deck
Handy
YOM - MIA

HNDY03 - Anticipation!

850 AD (0)
I immediately switch 4 cities to Galleys. We want to have at least a couple of empties escorting the troop ships to Constantinople.

We have 10 'zerks + 3 Archers. The Archers will require 450 gold to upgrade. When we get to 16 'zerks + 10 Galleys, it's go-time.

Have to shuffle tiles at Copenhagen next turn, but build up some more food this turn.

We have the cash, upgrade an Archer to a 'zerk. Now we have 11.

Create an additional 3 Scientists from cities maxed out at size 6.

Gunpowder in 2, at +54 gpt.

IT - The Arabs unload 3 Crusaders and 3 Ansars on the same spot. The Byz add a Cavalry to another spot.

860 AD (1)
Game on pause, Wife makes the booty call ... :love:

That was a great 7 minutes. Now where was I ...

Oh yeah, I have to hand it to the AI in this game, they are actually building vet troops. :goodjob:

Lose an AC, then 2nd AC does in the Cav. Each of the Crusaders takes a Cat shot. Then the axemen go 3-for-3. Sword Army scores two Ansars, then reg. Zerk gives a shot, wins and promotes. I think I inadvertently had blocked all the possible retreat paths for the Ansars anyway. 7-1 ain't bad.

Turn down sliders, now at +70 gpt for final turn of Gunpowder research. I think we need to get to 22 'zerks before we set sail, so we can leave 8 on the homefront.

870 AD (2)
Gunpowder comes in, there are 0 saltpeter on our island. Kind of glad we have a resourceless UU.

Science to 0%, we're going to live or die with the G. Lib. We make +133 gpt. I'll start by upgrading the remaining Archers, then our Artillery.

Byz drop off a Cav, we hit with a cat shot. Lose Elite 'zerk attacking a 3-defense unit. Kill with 2nd 'zerk. The pRNG can kiss my hairy white :blush: .

The Byz have Rifles. Change my mind and upgrade 5 Cats first, the Archer will come in a couple of turns, we're not in a hurry.

880 AD (3)
Lose vet Galley trying to run to our point of disembarkation, because the AI knows where all of our units are, all of the time. Upgrade another Archer, and start the migration to the port. By the end of my turns, we should be able to sail. We will deny the Byz a lux next turn, and are approaching Constantinople with the Pillaging Army.

890 AD (4)
Lose another Galley en route. Have another queued up and running. Constantinople is size 20!

Forget what I said about the Saltpeter, one was hiding under a Spear.

900 AD (5)
Byz drop off a Cav, dismissed by Sword Army. Constantinople completes Smiths, starves to size 19. Can we get it below 12 by the time we attack? Galley survives transit to port.

There are 6 'zerks in port, and at least 6 more in transit. Upgrade final Archer to 'zerk. We have 7 Galleys in port, with 2 more probable.

910 AD (6)
Whole lot of stuff dropped off. Four Cavs, and a Pike/Ansar combo are dropped off. Army kills two Cavs, 'zerk dies horribly against Cav. Then 'zerk kills Pike, AC kills Ansar. AC blocks retreat path and 'zerk kills Cav. Finally AC kills Cav. 6-1.

Constantinople is size 18. Pillage a mined hill and an Irrigated Grass, so starvation should continue.

We have 8 'zerks and 7 Galleys in Port. I don't think I can launch by the end of my turns.

920 AD (7)
Lost turn.

930 AD (8)
Constantinople is size 17. We can definitely starve it. It appears as though the Byz went broke and had to sell the Harbor.

We now have 11 'zerks in port, with 3 more in transit. I want 3 Galleys for Cover, so we need 10 total. Rush the 8th in Bodo. A 9th is on the way from Stavenger, but I'm not optimistic. The 10th is being built in Reykjavik, and only has to survive 1 turn at sea to reach port. I rush that as well.

940 AD (9)
We are even with the Byz in land area, and trail by 2% in Pop. Once we whack Constantinople, we'll be the biggest.

The Byz land a Cav and our crack Trebuchet brigade gets nothing but air. An AC can only redline the invader, and the Sword Army covers their collective asses.

Constantinople is size 16, and isolated from the rest of the Byz empire. We cut their lone saltpeter next turn.

Our money can be well used to rush (or short-rush) a few Courthouses. Will allow us to keep some shields post-GA.

I anticipate a Byz landing next turn.

950 AD (10)
Boy, was that an understatement. The Byz land 7 Cavalry. Kazan is a lost cause, so I might just abandon it. At the same time, the Arabs landed 2 MDI and a Crusader slightly north.

Before I try to deal with that, I pillage the Byz saltpeter. So no more Cavs for her. We could lose 3-4 cities to that number of troops, since we aren't in great counter-attack position. Once again the AI gets lucky and has coincidental attacks.

Kill the Arab invaders without loss. Now what to do with the Byz ... Bomb a few, and kill 2. Can't justify an attack on anything else, so fortify the Army in Kazan and hope for the best. I'm going overtime to fix this.

960 AD (OT)
Win 4, lose 1 on the IT. Byz drop off one more Cav, the Arabs 2 Crusaders and an LB.

Kill all Arab landings, then use an Elite 'zerk and the full health Army to finish the Byz cavs.

I have done nothing else this turn, so I hand off to the next player.

There are 9 Galleys and 13 'zerks in our port of Bodo. The 14th 'zerk is under the AC, one tile outside of Bodo. A 3rd Galley for cover is approaching from the south. All is prepared, and I've waited a large number of SG's to say this ...

"You May Fire When Ready, Greebley!"

Here's what we're after. The city should be under size 12 by the time the fleet arrives. Pollution is even better than pillaging. That is the only saltpeter the Byz have.

I am feeling much better about the game now that the Byz should be out of Cavalry, and that Constantinople is starving. I'm sure Greebley will figure this out, but our glorious fleet can only move 1 square on its first move, in order to stay in a coastal tile. It's three turns from there to Constantinople. Easiest way to get the escort ships correct is to move 2 vet Galleys out of port first, then load the rest of the ships. I actually haven't checked, but we might have more than 2 vet Galleys in port. In that case, we might lose troops anyway, and sail some empty Galleys to Constantinople. On the 2nd move we need to move all 4 tiles. After that, we may be able to move 3 and fortify the escort boats to ensure they are the ones attacked first.

I'm thinking about waiting until they have no more cavs and also putting all troops in 3hp galleys with 4 hps covering. Perhaps 2-4 4hp galleys. Make sure all troops are in 3hp galleys. Greebley I know you know this. It's for lurkers. It's a pain in the a$$ but it helps.
Loved your report T. I must have been lucky because I didn't have that many landings . I tried to spread the zerks for posssible landings. It looks like you brought them forward. As previously stated I think we need to protect our country with zerks that are within 2 moves of an enemy landing. Even if we get the great lib it it tough to do anything with it if we have lost cities.
I'm confident that Greebleys experience in conquering SGOTM1 with Persia will help us in knowing the amount of zerks needed to take Constantinople. Did I spell that right? Personally, I would keep building during the GA and have maybe 20-30 Zerks and galleys to match

The new rotation
Slinger
T_McC
Greebley <-UP
Handy
YOM - MIA

Well done T!

I'm starting to feel better about this one as well. If we get the Glib, I think it is just a matter of time. Lucky for us we have a 6 attack UU that does not require horses. Couple of explorers paired with the pike army should be able to keep the other continent pretty well pillaged.

If we get rifles, we can place a city on a hill with walls on the other continent. This will stop the landings on our home turf. We are a ways off from that yet, but we look pretty good. :thumbsup:

Very happy we have salt so we can build cannons.

Sounds like we are ready to strike soon.

If we can get the town below size 13, I think 16 bezerks would probably be enough.

Lets see:

Size 12 or less would be defense of 1.85*6 = 11.1 which 2 berserker/spear + RNG insurance

Size 13+ is 2.35*6 = 14.1 which is 5 berserker/2 spear + RNG Insurance

They probably have 8 rifles or less. If we say 4 Berserker for RNG insurance (and to handle other random troops) then we get 20 zerks. This is to kill them the first turn. About 1/2 the zerks will survive until next turn (but be pretty battered).

The other case would require 24.

So I may go with 20. I don't want to wait too long either.

Anyone see any mistake with the above?

So I got it. Will try to get to it today.

The numbers sound alright. You can have 20 'zerks afloat as fast as you can build the boats. We have about 9-10 not committed to the invasion, so you can probably move some of them towards port if we truly believe the Cavalry attacks are over. Of course, the Arabs might soon start landing Cavs of their own.

We have 5 turns remaining on the GA, and since we don't require a lux tax we won't have riots upon its completion. We may still have some Swords that can be upgraded, but I think the Spear --> Pike upgrade would be a waste of money. Either is fodder for Cavs, and we want to attack with 'zerks instead of defend with anything else anyway. Odd note: Because of the Army rules, even a 1-zerk Army gets an attack bonus (it is a 7.2.2 unit).

I think Pikes do have value. Not every unit is a Cavalry and a Pike has a decent chance to win.

Fortified and behind walls it has a defense of 1.85 on flat. Thats a defense of 5.55 vs 6. Almost but not quite a 50% chance to win.

Preturn: Fur city looks vulnerable. I decide to rush a pike. Switch a few things to get the 20 zerks faster (actually to replace the ones I steal).

IBT: Single Cav Lands

980 AD: Cav is killed.

IBT: 2 MDI land
Krakatorum finished a temple and starts the Pentagon (we may lose an army so I want to be building it).

990 AD: MDI are killed. It looks like our force is 19 berserks and 12 boats.

IBT: Cav and a Longbow land (the longbow is a good sign).

1000 AD: The boats are all lined up for next turn.

IBT: Our golden age ends. Karakorum riots to celebrate this fact.

1010 AD: The ships are launched. 2 ACav go along for the ride. Constantanople is down to size 9

IBT: The fleet survives. 2 longbow are dropped off

1020 AD: This turns Elite victory gets us a leader. I think we want a berzerker army. I build the army right away so that the next Elite victory has a chance too.

IBT: Longbow dropped off. We survive another turn.

1030 AD: And now the moment every one has been waiting for: the epic battle.
Z1: Kills a rifle and becomes elite (3hp)
Z2: Loses doing a hp to a Rifle (Rifle at 3)
Z3: A rough battle that we lose but take the rifle to 1 hp.
Z4: Kills a rifle taking only 1 hp.
Z5: Kills a rifle taking 2 hp.
Z6: Kills a rifle taking 2 hp. The 3 hp injured rifle is on top.
Z7: Loses, redlines rifle which promotes (Rifle at 2).
Z8: Kills a 2 hp Rifle
Z9: Dies pathetically doing no damage.
Z10: Kills a 2 hp Rifle.
Z11: Kills a 2 hp Rifle and becomes Elite (5hp)
Z12: Kills the elite Rifle.
Z13: Kills a 1 hp Rifle taking no damage
Z14: Kills a 1 hp Rifle taking 2 hp damage. Longbow now revealed as top unit.
Z15: Kills the longbow and we take the city.

We get Colossus, Lighthouse, GLib, Shakespeares, Smiths, and The Mausoleum of Madness.

IBT: We get:
Republic, Monotheism, Theology, Chivalry, Printing Press, Education, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Democracy, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Free Artistry, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism (We are now Industrial), Military Tradition (Yay!) and thats all folks. The arabs must not have Nationalism yet.

We get a palace expansion for it

We are 1/9 the Byzantine culture have 12 squares overlap 5 citizens and 4 resistors, less local culture, and are about 4x the distance from the capitol. Me thinks that staying in the town would be unwise. On the other hand, Smiths would be nice to have some day. To Raze or not to Raze.

Byzantine has Steam Power, Nationalism, and Medicine. Arabs have none of those (of course).

Boy, we are really far behind on Aquaducts. We really need them. In fact only 1 town didn't need to build one. We came SO close to having no water at all.

There is a single river for Hoover on the other continent.

Still haven't decided the razing issue. We can probably take it back... I will let it live for now. It is no longer the capitol at least.

Two turns to Sulfur. I may upgrade the Trebuchets.

IBT: Byzantium takes back the Empty city.

1040 AD: Longbow lands and is killed

1050 AD: Cav and Longbow are landed and killed

1060 AD: Again Cav and Longbow.

1070 AD: And yet again.

1080 AD: No landings. Will round off the year to 1100. I want to deal with Ceasarea.

1090 AD: Two Longbow land and I finally get a leader. I rush Pentagon.
Dangit! I was going to raze this city and replace it. Except It has leo's. I guess I will keep and starve it.

Now that we have finished upgrading we have Leo's (and Magellan). I really have to remember to check cities for wonders before I take them.

1100 AD: Longbow and Cav dropped off. I lose a (healthy) elite berserk trying to kill a longbow :rolleyes:

Notes:
So far they haven't attacked the boats.

Our science rate is truely pathetic. I don't know how we always end up so money poor :cry: We are building aquaducts, markets, and banks where we can.

I couldn't think of anything else to do with the boats.

We have trapped a dozen or so in our bay. The AI isn't smart enough to use the Frigates so far.

Woo-Hoo! Success. Now to make some money. Pillage the daylights out of them and this game is ours! Nice work Greebley!

My thought was to use the Berzerkers (esp the Berserk army) to destroy the city near the horse and grab them for ourselves. Cavalry's high movement it worth the tiny risk of losing our Berserker army. With 4 units now, it has enough hp to take out cities armed with rifles.

Once we get Steam power, I think things will improve. We will be able to more easily defend our homeland and boost our shield output. Getting to steam may be longer than we like though.

The pike army can do the pillaging.

Also there is a settler over on the other island.

Good luck, Handy. See if you can get us Cavalry :)

IBT: We get:
Republic, Monotheism, Theology, Chivalry, Printing Press, Education, Banking, Astronomy, Chemistry, Democracy, Economics, Navigation, Physics, Metallurgy, Free Artistry, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism (We are now Industrial), Military Tradition (Yay!) and thats all folks. The arabs must not have Nationalism yet.

Once we learned education via the Glib, isn't the Glib obsolete? If so we should Constantinople.

edit I see now - you kept it for Smith's. Still, I'd raze it just to deny the shield output and benefit of Smith's to the Byz. Ruin their economy, and slow down the tech pace.

I would like to find a nice hill on the ocean to build a city that we can easily reinforce. Then the AI will attack on the other continent, and not on our homelands.

I'll play when I get home. :D

I opened the save this morning to have a quick look and with the AI having rifles and soon cav until he knock the horses out I would be inclined to hold off on a beachhead and try to destroy both Ceasarea and Constantinople. Then get the pike army up north to pillage the arabs and use the zerk army to pillage the Byz. Send the settler home along with the zerks. We will need more military, zerks and cannons, when the ships start landing 6-10 units all at once. Once the AI's are pillaged into the stone age and we are sitting on rifles we should be able to easily hold a city to get horses. Trying to hold a city now will be next to impossible. Both AI are bound to send every thing they have to get the city and an army won't be enough and we can't get reinforcements there easily.

Excellent work! It sounds like we only lost 4-5 'zerks so far on the other continent, so we still have lots of killing power remaining.

Odd thought: Since Abu only has Muskets right now, are we better off putting some of the 'zerks back on boats and burning down a few of his cities? Thea won't be getting Infantry, so I don't think we have much to lose by being patient in attacking her. I'm thinking of toasting Najran and Fustat (maybe Damascus) before we see Rifles there.

Lots of MM possible on the IT. Look for opportunities to add an MP so we don't have to run a clown, and for cities with excess food at size 6 to create scientists without increasing build times. I think I got Steam down to 32 turns at -2 gpt by doing this.

A rushed Harbor at Caesarea would bring a very helpful 5th lux to our cities. Varna can definitely burn, we don't have any Cathedrals so Sistines is worthless to us.

Since we can now build Galleons, our 3-Member Sword armies will fit on a boat. Or we can build an AC army and ship it to the Arab lands. Either way, we aren't too far from really stunting the attack potential of our opponents.

I also think we should aim for Communism as our research target. It would dramatically improve our economy, and I think we can get there before the end of the game.

How long have the Byz ships been stuck? We can really tee off on them with Cannons, maybe try to slip a Frigate or two in the build mix?

Both AI are bound to send every thing they have to get the city and an army won't be enough and we can't get reinforcements there easily.

Yes - I wouldn't try build over there until we have rifles, or several muskets at least. Muskets are 65% winner on a hill town with walls versus veteran cavalry. We would need some cannon too.

The Extra Lux (wines) and horses is big enough to see if we can keep a town. If a bajillion units show up, we disband the town and hide under the berserker army on a hill. I personally think that the Byzantines will not have sufficient units to really hurt us. Look how few cities they have. In fact I was hoping to be able to takke back and keep Constantanople in the next 20-30 turns which is why I didn't raze it.

So why don't we wait and see on retreating and start to see if we can grab the horses.

The boat blockade has not been up long. I was trying to line up cats to bomb.

[Edit: It is not hard to get troops across??? We will have rails soon so that is a 2 turn delay. Remember our boats move 5 now with magellan so we can start the boat in the town and land our troops in one turn. [edit2] actually with rails we can get units across on a single turn from any city. ]

I have to agree with you Greebley. Let's keep it as long as we can. However, the Arabs are bound to show up at Ceasarea soon too. It is a prize city. Hold it as long as possible and reinforce. The pike army should get to Arabian lands ASAP though. If we can get another sword army and add a musket to it when there it would make a fine pillager too. I would send both sword armies if possible. With 4 armies pillaging it would not take many turns at all to waste them down to no roads at all. Is the pentagon in the works?

Pre Turn 1100 AD
Move zerk out of Caesarea so we don’t lose him on a flip. :lol: Check out our culture graph. :lol:
I can’t believe those frigates are just sitting there trapped by galleys. :lol:

Switch these builds:
Fur City – from duct to explorer
Kazan – court to explorer. 64 turns to a court, explorer is done in 4 and will increase the Pike Army’s pillaging to 4 tiles per turn from the current 2. Zerk Army can work on razing cities.

Fiddle with MM the specialists to get Steam ASAP with decent cash flow
Note to self: Check these next turn: TaTu,
Irrigate these corrupt cities to farm specialists: Kazan, Bodo, Karasjok, Molde, Fur City,.

Hareid Will not grow now, but the duct comes in 25 instead of 75. Adding some Byz slaves would get it to pop 6.

Ok, now what do I do with Caesarea? T_McC mentioned rush a harbor for the wines. Greebley seems to want to go for cavalry, which would necessitate razing Caesarea since holding both is a long shot. Either wines or horses would require rushing a harbor, and we have zero cash. I do kinda like the horse plan though. Barbslinger seems to prefer neither, leaning perhaps towards razing & pillaging. He seems inclined to do neither of the above since he wants to wait for rifles before establishing a beachhead. How do we ever get so far in these games with such a variety of styles and plans? :lol: :lol: What can I cook up that is none of the above? :hmm:

I think I’ll abandon Caesarea so we don’t have to park a bunch of units there to hold it, and move towards Varna with the settler. Say goodbye to Leo’s, it’s history. Sorry Greebley. I’m off to burn Varna & then the new capital. After that it should be safe to settle the horses. The horse town settle will likely be after my 10 are done.

Since we’ve pretty much got this one won, I guess these decisions will only have an effect on how quickly we win. Short of losing both armies, we win this.

Well, I got us to steam in 30 losing 2gpt, before the death of Caesarea. Now it’s 35 to steam –1gpt. Losing a city hurt the unit cost. Irrigation of corrupt cities will help along with Valhalla’s bank.

IBT
Arab frigate blows a hole in our line so ships can get through.
Byz drop off a LB.
Valhalla – bank – university
Ta Tu – duct – market

Turn 1 1110
Fiddle with specialists, steam now due in 29, 0GPT.
Kill LB, AC promote to elite.
Move zerks to neutral land to heal.
Bomb some ships.
Start some irrigation

Turn 2 1120
Acav kills LB on other side.
Lots of rifles heading towards our zerk stack. Maybe they are after the settler?
Create a galley stack, I can move around quicker for attacks by boat.
Steam 28 +3gpt is best we can do.
Vallhall switch to Frigate. Maybe we can sneak thru ta Tu & pick these guys off after cannon redline them.
Can Bezerks heal on a boat at sea, or do they need to be on land? Doing experiment with 1 to find out.

IBT
Arabian Frigates attack our galleys. We trade a gelley for a Frigate. Must have attacked because there was 1 zerk on a galley?

Turn 3 1130
Large Rifle & LB stack heading towards out healing Zerks. When they get closer w will sail around them.

IBT
We lose another galley
Fortified Zerk beats rifle
Kazan – explorer – settler
Alky – market – zerk
Fur city – explorer – settler
Birka – duct – market (50 turns, ugh)

Turn 4 1140
Fur city gets another scientists to drop Steam to 24
Valhall has 28 food, could use some mines up there on plains to get to 20 spt.

IBT
Valhalla – frigate – university

Turn 5 1150
Zerk army kills 2 rifles
E zerk beats rifle
V zerk beats conscript rifle
2 V zerks beat LB’s & we raze Varna & Newton’s
Zerk attacks rifle standing next to Varna & loses.
IBT
Byz Rifle stack near wines turns around to chase our zerks that escaped by boat. :lol:
Constantinople is down to size 3.

Turn 6 1160
Have seen zero Byz cav & no Arab horses yet on any of my turns. I think we can hold a city on the horses after we raze 2 more Byz cities. Maybe sooner. If horses were next to a hill I would settle now for sure.
How come we got no slaves from the raze? :mad:
Pillage some silks
Frigate sinks a wounded Byz Frigate, it’s now elite, but will need to heal.

IBT
Well, sinking a Frigate stirred the pot, and the Byz blew a hole in the galley line to escape. Pity since there were several red-lined waiting to be picked off.

Turn 7 1170
Moving towards the next victim.

IBT
No landings, lots of bombardment.

Turn 8 1180
Bomb & sink Byz Galleon near Molde.
Drop off explorers.
Steam in 18 +7gpt.

IBT
Karakorum – Bank – University
Stavanger – aqueduct – 50 turn market. Needs some irrigation to get growth & work the mountain tile. Moving there now.

Turn 9 1190
Explorers hook up with Pike Army.
Steam now 16 +0gpt

IBT
Reyjavik – market – musket (for future horse city)
Odense – aqueduct – market
Byz drop three rifles near Kazan.

Turn 10 1200
Steam in 14 +0gpt.
Zerk kills rifle @ Kazan
Sword army kills rifle
Zerk kills rifle.
All three are down.
Pike + explorers pillage 4 tiles. :D
Byz have no salt, and no horses since both are pillaged.
Arabs have horses hooked back up.

Notes:
The army has an attack left if you want it, I fortified thinking it was best to attack next turn with the whole stack.
Arabs will drop something off the galley near Ugone (Saltpeter) next turn.
Stavanger needs to irrigate the BG it is working so it can then work the Gem mountain and still grow.
After you raze Adrianople, you are probably safe building a city with horses. You can use the slaves from Adrianople to build a road to the horses since we have to build a coastal city. Karasjok finishes a harbor next turn. Rush one in the horse city and we are in business.
The frigate could escort galleys (in Bodo) to reinforce the city with muskets, zerks, & cavalry).
Valhalla will soon pull 20 shields after the mines complete. Another mine, and you can perhaps give a tile to KW and let Valhalla work a coast tile & still pull 20.
Be careful with the explorers. Pillage counts as 1 turn, all terrain treated as roads. It is best to move the army first, then let the explorers catch up. After the army moves, move the explorer to a tile contiguous to the army, pillage & then move under the army. If the explorers little information box says they have 0.0.2/2 moves left, you are safe to pillage. If it says 0.0.1/2, don’t pillage, you will be stuck & a sitting duck. Using this method, you can zig-zag and will be able to pillage 4 squares per turn, and wipe the continent clean.

1200 AD

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY03_1200AD.JPG

The Extra Lux (wines) and horses is big enough to see if we can keep a town.
I have to agree with you Greebley. Let's keep it as long as we can...

Well, I abandoned before I read this. :mischief: There was a stack of rifles & LB's headed toward me, and I just decided to let it go and play offense with the zerks instead of defense.

The settler is under the stack of zerks, and I think we can defend a horse town after we raze Adrianople. We'll have the cash for a harbor rush (or close to it) by then. I thought once we have cav, then we can go back & settle the wines, and protect it without fear of a flip. The culture graph just made it look like we were doomed to lose the wine city to a flip.

Well, just to pile on with some math: The Wines would have meant that we could have eliminated the lux tax, saving at least 15 gpt. Since we get 30-shield Harbors, the cost of rushing the Harbor would have been paid back in a maximum of 8 turns. I also believe that it was Magellan's Voyage that would have allowed us to move between the continents in 1 move, avoiding the possibility that our boats could be attacked. Now we have to spend some money to upgrade Galleys to Galleons to accomplish that task.

Oh well, it just means we have to peel off a few settlers and claim an additional lux that way. Keep burning Byzantine cities in the meantime.

I was advocating keeping it but not at the risk of losing the zerk army. I got it and I'll see if Adrian will die. I really would hate to lose the army. Does anyone know the least HP it could be down to to be safe from attack. I'm definately letting him heal first. Probaby, kill-heal, kill-heal. The pike and explorers will pillage the Byz while heading towards Arabia. I would like to get over to Arabia quickly and get a sword army working on arabia too.
Steam is coming soon, so that will be nice.
BTW, nice turns and this game is looking closer to being quite winable.

Well, just to pile on with some math: The Wines would have meant that we could have eliminated the lux tax, saving at least 15 gpt.

I just felt it would be a constant drag to see it flip and have to retake it aginst a regular rifle. If that cost us a zerk we would be worse shield wise than than sending over a 30 shield settler. We have to rush a harbor either way. Why not rush it in a city with a low chance of flipping. Either way, I think the fat lady is warming up offstage. :viking:

I really would hate to lose the army. Does anyone know the least HP it could be down to to be safe from attack.

Better safe than sorry, so take your time. Yellow line should be okay. If you are redline they will attack. You might want to ship over a couple of muskets to protect the army when you can.


BTW, nice turns and this game is looking closer to being quite winable.

I think we have tipped this one. It's just a matter of time as long as we have the pike army pillaging. If we lose the pike army, I'm not so sure. BTW - you can add a musket to the pike army now.

Handy, I read recently that resistors don't give you workers. So if you raze a size 5 city and if keeping it would have been all resistors, then you won't get any workers.

We can pretty much expect not to get any workers from any Byzantine razing with our culture ratio.

Lets keep Constantanople. Byzantine has few cities so smiths is not much of a benefit for them. It will be a big benefit for us. At size 4 pillaged it is not like it is generating many units either.

We can back-fill to the wines when we feel more secure.

Handy, I read recently that resistors don't give you workers. So if you raze a size 5 city and if keeping it would have been all resistors, then you won't get any workers.

Thanks very much for that info. I always wondered about that.

With hindsight I kinda wish I would have settled & hooked up horses after razing Varna instead of making a move with the army towards the new Byz capital.

Don't see how we could have managed to keep the wines and make a move on the horses, and the horses seemed to be the immediate priority.

Looked at the save last night but no time to play. Looks like KW can be MM'ed to get the bank in 1 and Alky is building a pike with no Rax that I want to swap to galleon. I also am thinking of swapping Valhalla to MilAcad in 19. I am really feeling that with the AI's demigod production we will start seeing boatloads of invaders that we are not really prepared to handle. I'm thinking about leaving Odense? (E of Karakorum) empty as a bait city to force all boats and landing to that area. 1. It will take longer for the AI boats to get there. 2. We'll see them coming through our bay and can prepare. 3. We can move more of our offensive units to that area and keep the fighting right there. With Karakorum at 20spt we can do 2-turn cannons. If we could get 20 cannons or so there and keep em landing in one area we should be able to hold out until the pike army, or a sword army on the Alky galleon, can get to Arabia.
My biggest priority though is to get Steam to begin railing. That's huge for defense as we all know. If I can decrease the turn count on steam, stopping growth or even starving a city without losing pop, I think it is important. I'd like to have Steam by the time I turn it over.
Playing tonight.

Good news! I've finally gotten my conquests CD to start working again. Though I won't be able to play tonight, I'll be able free to play tomorrow and most likely regularly after that (TGIS - Thank Goodness It's Summer, well, almost :D).

That is great news Yom. Perhaps, if SG rules allow, you can shadow my turns on your own to get a "warm fuzzy" as to what we are up against. Or go back 10 turns prior to replay those. I'll do mine tonight.

That is great news Yom. Perhaps, if SG rules allow, you can shadow my turns on your own to get a "warm fuzzy" as to what we are up against. Or go back 10 turns prior to replay those. I'll do mine tonight.

Funny you turn up when the game really starts to swing our way. As punishment for going AWOL, you have to play all of T_McC's anarchy turns for the next three games. :lol:

Welcome back. :viking:

Sounds like a good idea for Yom to try to shadow your turns. Yom, just make sure you start with Slinger's save when you "play for real".

Handy03 – 1200AD–

Preturn – MM KW to get the bank in 1. It was 1 shield short. Valhalla swaps to MilAcad in 18 to go zero growth at 12. Birkas, now 41 turn market, goes to explorer. Karakorums 20spt goes to cannon in 1 and 2 turn cannons for a while. Stavengers market goes to court and growth. Get another scientist in Ugone using the fish to drop Steam to 12 turns. I also pull the AC from Odense to bait the AI. Hopefully they will all start going there.

IT – Reyjavik and Bodo get bombed. A cav lands N of Karasjok. Karakorum-Cannon>same, Alky-Galleon>Rax, KW-Bank> Musket, Copen-Bank>Zerk, Birka-Explorer> Temple, Karasjok-Harbor>Explorer ( I want it to get to size 7 before going worker.)

[1] 1210 – Cannons and Viking take out the cav. Army pillages 3 tiles sneaking through between the mountains. Steam in 11. I’m sending most of the workers to Copen to mine the mountain and irrigate a grass to improve shields. They will also be in the vicinity of our capital when steam comes in.

IT – A rifle lands near Kazan. I saw a Byz settler running towards the wines site.

[2] 1220 – Bomb and kill the rifle with an E Zerk. No leader. Zerk Army is healed. I’m heading to Constantinople to knock it off in stead of the 12 pop Adrian. New mine in Valhalla gets the Mil ACAD down to 15. I have a Frigate moving town to town towards the galleon in Alky. Hope to load a sword army on it. Got steam down to 9 by pulling a 2 food tile from Aarhus and it is starving but won’t lose pop for a while and also setting KW to no growth. Hurry the market in Ta-tu for 48g to get on some more military. Army pillages the cattle in Nicaea.

IT – A cav and a LB are drooped N of Kazan. Karakorum-Cannon>same, Tatu-Market>Zerk, Aarhus>Market>Zerk.

[3] 1230 – Cannon go 2/3 and then Carl takes out the cav. E Zerk beats the LB. No leader. More pillaging. Steam in 8. Need a couple more units near Karakorum before I send the sword army to Arabia.

IT - 3 LB’s and a rifle show up E of Kazan. Don’t they like the bait? Aabia has 3 frigates and a galleon headed there.

[4] 1240 - Berzerker Bob handles the 1hp rifle. Vet Ac goes elite against a LB. Carl takes out a LB and the 3/5 zerk births Berzerker Barb! What to do what to do. I was going to finish off the MilAcad which is due in 12 but decided on an army. Valhalla now makes a clean 20spt at zero growth from newly mined plains. Steam in 7.

IT – 2 cavs, crusader and a LB land next to Odense (the bait).

[5] 1250 – Load 2 zerks into army. It takes almost all available units but all 4 intruders die with no losses. That puts my move the sword army to Arabia on hold. It takes every man at Constantinople but it FLAMES!!! Collect 3 slaves for the caravan. No losses and 2 3 of 4hp zerks finished off the last 2hp rifle and LB. I still had one shot left with the zerk army but I wanted to either cover or heal. That will slow those ships down. Steam in 6.

IT – No landings for once. Karakorum-Cannon>Cannon.

[6] 1255 – 5yr increments now. Zerk army loads another and fortifies in Kazan. Will leave only 3 zerks in army until I get a couple more zerks down there. A 4 zerk army is good but still only 3 attacks. The other zerk I have down there can still attack. Byz horses and iron are gone near Trebizond. The pillaging Zerk army forms up with all the others and fortifies. It will pillage again. Byz have the wine site back again and are roading towards Adrianople. Steam in 5.

IT – KW – Musket>MDI in 4 instead of zerk in 7.

[7] 1260 – Swap Alky to Galleon when I realize that I need 2 to go across. Both the galleon in Alky and the Frigate in Kazan can get there in 2. Damn, I’m going to lose an explorer. The pike army moved 1, pillaged, moved one and could not move anymore. No rivers or hills. WTF! Copenhagen is now at 10spt with the mountain mined and the grass irrigated.

IT – The ships are heading to the bait in droves now. A rifle is dropped but I fear more. There are 5 galleons/caravels in the channel heading north to bait city Odense. Lost the explorer.

[8] 1265 – Cannons go 3/7 and elite AC finishes him off. Was hoping for another leader. Move the zerk army up towards landing area. Now that I got nearly 100% confirmation they are targeting the bait. I move 2 cannons from our SE territory towards Odense and a never used AC too. An MDI in Copenhagen rallys towards Odense also. Steam in 3.

IT – Arabia lands 2 LB’s and an MDI. Byz land a LB. Looked like 2 more galleons landing next turn. Karakorum-Cannon> MDI, Copenhagen- Berzerk>MDI.

[9] 1670 – They all die with no leader generated. More troops are on the way. Steam in 2 @ +2gpt. Just noticed Ta-tu could use a worker merge to get to 10spt.

IT – 2 rifles and a LB next to Odense from Byz.

[10] Cannons go 4 of 8 knocking rifles to 1 and 2 hp. Kill them all with no leader generated. Steam is in 1 at 30% instead 40% and +22gpt.

I have that galleon and frigate that can get across in 2. I was thinking of loading the explorer, pike and army into 2 galleons and having the frigate escort to the southern tip of Arabia. It can get there in 2. Perhaps upgrade the pike before disembarking. The Byz galleons seem to coming in from the West. Arabia from the east. They are all headed towards Odense, the bait. I have the pike army headed towards Arabia and with the musket led sword army they can make short work of pillaging Arabia out. The Zerk army is hanging a round the capital, healing this turn, and then can take out the mines and road SW of Adrian.

Good luck boys!

The rotation chages - again.

Slinger
Yom <-UP
T_McC
Greebley
Handy

Not sure razing Constantanople was worthwhile. With no buildings in the town and not improvements it was of little value to the Byzantines. Smith had a small value, but not alot.

We need to go for the main core cities IMHO. Its those towns that are generating the units.

So what is our main plan? We all seem to have different ideas. My thought was to grab Byzantine lands for the horses, wines, Smiths, and Magellan. I get the feeling that Handy and Barbslinger are going for the quick conquest win and just raze and destroy all the cities now.

Given that we have destroyed the wonder cities and have started down the quick conquest path with Handy's and Barbslinger's turn, we should just continue in this vein; go for the main core cities with the Berserker army and try to generate a second strong attack army. We can use the Sword armies for the occasional attack; but more importantly as cover in case our berserk army loses hp.

It seems worthwhile to make small outposts for the wine and horses so we can get the happiness, and make the next army Cav instead of Berserk which has the speed advantage. We should do that now as we may get a leader at any point. I think Muskets shouldn't have any trouble keeping the towns vs longbows if we rush walls.

After we get steam, I feel we should lower science to go for the kill. We can start to work on Nationalism or Indust, but I don't see it making much difference.

Oh and we should send scouts out if any unexplored spots exist so we don't have the single lone city problem blocking our conquest victory (or find a size 1 island and know we are going for domination).

I think Muskets shouldn't have any trouble keeping the towns vs longbows if we rush walls. Perhaps if it is 2 or 3 LB's. I would think at demigod production you would be looking at more like 12-15 LB's combined with rifle coverage.

I want to re-emphasize my thoughts of getting the sword army with the musket and explorer over to Arabia. We have to pillage these guys into the stone age.

Remember this is a tiny map. This means production is a lot more limited. I suspect we would get an initial barrage from the the Arabs that we could bombard. I can't see the arabs sending more than 5 or 6. With Musket defenders, some cannon, and a some berzerk, they will become trivial. Basically the units landing on our shores would be attacking the town.

We could wait until we got rail backbone that would free up our troops in our own lands - however my personal opinion is that we would be getting the exact same number of enemies we are getting now - the units would go by land rather than water being the only difference.

[Edit: I guess the other point is that we can simply fall back if it doesn't work, so it doesn't cost us much and we get wine and cavalry if it works.

@Greebley: We're the vikings, remember ;). One-tile islands tremble at the mentionning of our greatly feared amphibious beserks! :D

I would agree if we can settle on the horses and on the wine. The rifles will pillage any and all roads in the town so getting on the wine hill, though better defense, will not assure the wines. Rush a wall after disbanding a foreign worker to save cash and then have 4-5 muskets in each town. Perhaps it will hold then especially when a rax is rushed. I would certainly favor the horses over the wine for the 1st town. Also I would put the zerks under the Zerk army and go pillaging and destroying. If the AI give up on our home continent to concentrate on the new towns we could send the other zerk army that I have only 3 zerks in to Pillage and destroy too.
The sword army with musket and explorer is ready to get to Arabia. The Byz sea lane is S of where we will be traveling. I don't think they will even see our galleons and frigate heading over.

Greebley, your post describes a great plan for our path to victory.

I was of a mind to raze a couple of Byz cities, then settle the wines and horses. By then the pillaging army would have reduced the Byz & Arab shield count to the point where we could hold horses & wines. I didn't think I could hold the wines and get horses with just zerks after I saw rifles & LB's headed my way. Zerks are not too great on defense. I feared I could not get muskets across fast enough to support Zerks. Lots of AI ships around.

So basically I just felt it a little early to try to hold both horses and wines, and I thought the horses were more valuable at that point, so I dumped wine city. Flip risk also was a consideration.

I thought we were going to try to go back & take Smith's, so keeping that city alive was okay by me - that's why I didn't attack it on my turns. But razing it is no big deal.

So I think I was in pretty much in agreement with Greebely's original thoughts with the exception of the wine wonder town.

Also, in hindsight, I wish I would have gone ahead & settled the horses, and shipped a musket over. Oh well. I think we win this unless the AI kills the Pike ARMY. Even then we have lots of tiles with no roads where we could easily land a replacement pillager.

Very good Idea Greebley :thumbsup: to use a sword army to cover the Zerk Army while it heals. A few cannon paired with the Zerk Army would also be a big big help.

I agree next leader needs to be held in reserve for a cavalry army.

Now I'm headed home to upload the Sling3 save file. :D

Just when I thought I had gotten conquests working again, it turns its back on me! I'm really sorry for this guys, but I've got to drop out of this and all other SGs until I order a new conquests cd. Good luck on becoming overlords of the planet and reach for the eastern shore!

Just when I thought I had gotten conquests working again, it turns its back on me! I'm really sorry for this guys, but I've got to drop out of this and all other SGs until I order a new conquests cd. Good luck on becoming overlords of the planet and reach for the eastern shore!

The ever changing rotation as of 6-3-04 is now:

Slinger
T_McC <-UP
Greebley
Handy

YOM - C3C down again.

Alright, Got it. And trying to play now.

HNDY03 - No, I'm the Leader!

1275 AD (0)
Why is Kazan empty? Not a bad point of disembarkation though, and there is a Galleon present.

The Byz were nice enough to build us a city on the wines, with a harbor. Somehow it's already size 4?

Stavenger has an Aqueduct and is sitting at size 5 with 0 food surplus. Change that.

Whole lot of changes, net result is +3 gpt.

IT - Some shore bombardment. Only a LB dropped off.

1280 AD (1)
Steam in, set for Nationalism. We should be pressing to go Commie, I don't think this will wrap that quickly. Plus we want to be able to Mobilize.

We have an Iron Works location! [Copenhagen, 1st ring to Capital.] I know what the next leader is going for ...

Win three battles, but I'm not optimistic about our chances at Adrianople. We only have 2 semi-healthy 'zerks besides the Army. May have to move on out of Byz territory to continue. Another reason why this game won't end quickly.

Start on 8 rail segments.

IT - Just noticed, the Byz are Fascist. Couple of more LB's dropped off.

1285 AD (2)
Trouble. A super-Rifle took the 'zerk army down to 5 HP. Need to fortify for a couple of turns.

Have killed 5 Rifles in Adrianople in 2 turns. Leave a Worker out as bait and hope for the best.

2nd 'zerk Army is heading for port, we need it on the Byz continent.

IT - Lose 2 'zerks and have the army drop serious HP. Retreat! Also glimpse a few Arab Cavs. Nothing got dropped.

1290 AD (3)
Sword Army sets sail (w/Explorer) for Arabia. 'zerk Army heads for port, 'zerk Army in Byz territory runs like hell. Other 'zerks are left to fend for themselves. (Actually, not in much danger.)

IT - The good news is that our Economy perked up. The bad news is that we lost 5 'zerks on the IT, as the Arab Cavs could reach them. Had to save the Army, may still be able to do it.

1295 AD (4)
Dispose of 4 Arab units that landed. Army in Byz lands fortifies, can only be reached by a conscript Rifle next turn.

Nationalism in 11 at +0 gpt.

IT - Arab Cav can reach army, attack and lose. Then the Army fends off the conscript Rifle. Bunch of trash deposited.

1300 AD (5)
Kill 4 units.

How many HP does the Army have? It has 5, and runs away. I expect to lose it to the Arab Cav next turn. A replacement Army lands on a coastal Mountain in Byz territory. A sword Army lands in Arab territory, so we won't be seeing Cavs from him for too long.

IT - The ignominy. Kill the Arab Cav, then lose to the only Byz LB in reach. New 'zerk Army was one turn away from the rescue.

1305 AD (6)
Just to make it more painful, the Military Academy completes this turn, which would have boosted the slain Army's defense by a point.

Kill two LB's that landed, set up to whack a Byz city next turn.

IT - Nothin'

1310 AD (7)
Kill 4 LB's that the Byz landed.

Army kills 2 at Ancyra, and burns the city. No way we try to hold that until we are sure the Arab Cavs are gone. Get 79 gold for our troubles.

Cut what I believe is the only Saltpeter the Arabs have, and then head for the coast. A Musket will be along shortly to join the 3-Sword army.

Both AI know Ironclads, but neither has coal, so no shore bombardments from those units.

1315 AD (8)
I don't think anything landed.

Pillage a bit more, slowly advance the 'zerk "stack" towards Iconium.

Nationalism in 7 at break-even.

1320 AD (9)
Kill LB that landed, pillage some more. Can attack Iconium in 2 turns. Military Railnet almost complete.

1325 AD (10)
Nothing landed.

Final Notes:
This isn't over yet. Unless we get Horses, we're doomed to a slow struggle against these AI, and that means we likely have to get to Artillery to finish them off.

Nationalism in 5, then we can think about building a Rifle Army to claim some Horses. An Army with a base defense of 12 should hold up pretty well against LB's and Rifles. We can occupy the choke on the Byz continent with two Armies to keep the Arab Cavs bottled up.

The Arabs should be put back in their cage soon, their lands are pretty lousy without improvements. I don't believe they have another Salt, so no more Cavs from either of these guys.

The railnet is almost complete, then it is on to Communism. I think our economy would be just about doubled by the gov't switch.

Karakorum might want some more 1-turn Explorers. Two are already waiting for a ride to the Arab homelands.

The Byz have a lot of money, so we should get some when we burn Iconium.

Never even considered the nationalism route. Your right though, A group of those guys behind walls should give us cavs for quite a while. We need to keep the pillaging going. The AI will probably get infantry before we are done and we will have no idea where the rubber is. Keeping the roads pillaged will minimize the infantry pain. If we can get 4 armies over there pillaging and clear the landscape we should be able to easily finish this off with cannons and cav and rifle support.
Too bad about the zerk army. I'll miss him.

Tough luck on the Zerk army. It happens now and again. Is the sword army around to cover the Berzerk army? Two armies is way more powerful than 1.

I don't think we are going to lose. The human player is too strong in the industrial age for the AI to compete. With a whole contient we are probably producing as much as the AI. The only question is: When will we win?

Edit: Guess I am up.

My plan: Get the sword army, berserker army, and a bunch of cannon in one stack. Use the cannon to weaken defense; use the berserker army to kill units resting when needed, and use the sword army for defense. Their mission will be to raze core cities.

I will look into whether I think we can grab the horses myself. We only need them long enough for 4 cav for a cav army. It may have to wait until we do more damage, but I WILL happen :D

HNDY03 - No, I'm the Leader! :lol: :lol:

The ever changing rotation as of 6-3-04

Slinger
T_McC
Greebley <- UP
Handy

I agree with Greebley. I think it's over, just a matter of how long it will take, which depends on how quickly we get Cav.

Bummer on the zerk army. Confirms we need some cannon support for our armies against rifles.

Once all AI roads are pillaged, I think muskets can hold the horses against the occasional rifle & LB that will show up. Rifles are even better. That's definitely worth researching. They will come in small stacks, and we can probably kill then before they attack us with cannon & zerks, and then cannon + cav after we build some.

It will be interesting to see if the AI makes it to infantry give their crappy research budget. Even so, we will never know if they made it unless rubber is under a city, or on an island. They will soon be roadless for the rest of the game.

Multiple 2 turn cannons from Vallhalla & the Iron works city hooked up with a Zerk army and later cav army can raze even the big cities. Slow & tedious, but decisive in the long run. I guess the capitol is building armies if it has the Military Academy. How many turns for an army after we rail that city?

Once the initial pillage is complete 2 pillaging armies with 2 expoleres each will be plenty. One for each AI. After a while, we will have a hard time finding anything for them to pillage.

When the AI no longer has roads, and we have rails eveywhere, we will be outproducing the combined AI. It's just a matter of time.

Well done team. :goodjob:

Next up - Micro-AWD as the what?
Place your Order
I vote China with a river & ivory. :D

For AWS, I have a strong opinion that Sumeria is the civ to choose. Since I woudn't want to play the same civ twice that means not Sumeria for AWD.

China is a decent civ to try. Rome or Greeks maybe.

The other alternative would be Babylon on a pangea map for that extra challenge. :suicide:

Preturn: Make a few changes - Mostly to set some town to workers. We want to get our shields up quickly.

IBT: A fairly large force lands.

1330 AD: Attempt to kill the force without the army (As a test - I want to move the army across). I get a leader which becomes an army.

IBT: More units Land

1335 AD: Kill the latest attack force. Move the army over. I did not yet fill the newest army. I am hoping to have cav at some point.

IBT: No landings.

1340 AD: I am in a position to attack Brusa with the armies next turn.

IBT: Some units land. Only 3 unit this time.

1345 AD: I capture Brusa and land units to get horses

IBT: Some units head toward Brusa. None landed. Byzantine knight seen.

1350 AD: Brusa Abandond. Aravbic capitol is disconnected

IBT: No landings

1355 AD: Still working on the horses.

IBT: Many units land.

1355 AD: Enough units landed that I will need to defend. 4 Arabic Cav and 2 longbow, 2 Byz Rifles and 4 longbow. Attack Cav/longbow group and get a leader (rushes ironworks) and nope - I was wrong we have sufficient units to kill them all without loss.

IBT: :lol: I found the Musket with the forces in Arabia too slow so I fortified it on a mountain. The number of arabic units going for it is impressive. I can imagine them saying: "Umm, guys? Where did you go? guys? Oh, *&^($&%^*#!"

1360 AD: Take out a settler near the horses.

IBT: Some Byz units appear as I had units not under the armies.

1365 AD: Settle next to the horses which have been roaded, disband an explorer and rush a harbor.

IBT: Interesting. I have an army on the town and on the horses and Byzantines don't even seem interested in going after the town at all. The musket on the mountains meet a horrible and bloody fate. A statue is built to honor their sacrifice.

1370 AD: Switch main towns to cavalry including some pre-builds I set up. I move a musket out of the town to bring back those Byz units. I want to kill them.

IBT: A single rifle lands.

1375 AD: I ship over a present for the next player shown in the picture below. :D The far continent units are unmoved so the next player can make the decisions.

Notes:
This time I have left you with four armies, 2/3 of our cannon, and some Berserk and 2 Muskets in the new town on the far continent. Don't you dare go disbanding it on me or I will replace all your beer with warm milk :lol:
(The above is a j/k - disband if you need to - I seriously doubt you will unlike last time where keeping the town would have been "challenging")

The last Cavalry is on its way for the Cav army (under the frigate). I couldn't get it there in a single turn - not enough Galleons. Note that I technically "single-chained" to get it across. if that "exploit" bugs you, then just hit space (I could have had the cav use its movement to still get across in 1 turn by jumping from boat to boar - it just wouldn't be able to move once in harbor).

Check out what you think of our "home defense". We probably need more cannon. A good bit crossed the seas. We will also want rifles across seas when we get them.

I set science high to use some of the money I saved and get Rifles next turn. If you want the cash, then just lower science. The cash was a buffer for building the town and harbor, but this slowed our research.

Question for the team: Do we want to get Espionage next? Tech stealing is a very viable way to go in the general case as success rate for careful (the best bargain) steals can be 2/3 and be cheaper than researching ourselves. I am unsure whether steals are worth it here as research is faster on a tiny map.

I would do the following for the new continent...
1) Kill the initial assault of Byz units. I wouldn't hide every unit under the armies so they come at us.
2) Use the Berserk army and Cav army to take Adrianople They may be able to hide under the sword army so you can use both the fullest.
3) If the Arabs show up then smite them righteously as well. Use of unnecessary violence has been aproved by Odin himself.
4) Grab the wines if you possibly can! It will be worth serious cash/research if we can get them as we can lower the Lux rate which is quite high.
5) The Berserk and Cav combo can continue on to raze Byzantium cities. Cav can also start attacking cities, perhaps with cannon support.
6) I would fill the lands with towns and go for domination. That way we won't have to clear the islands. If we want to consider conquest then we should send boats to explore and not have to play the "find the missing island" game.

Well done Greebley! I scrolled to the picture and did a double take when I saw the Cav Army. :D

I can't see the save though. Did you upload it?

I realized I had forgotten the save when posting Sling3. Here it is

Couple of things: Check how far along we are on the Iron Works. I though the next leader could have gone to rush that, we were only about 25 shields into it when I passed. If I'm remembering correctly, there should only be about 5-6 turns left on a natural build.

Secondly, that stray Musket was meant to be the 4th unit in the 3-sword pillaging army in Arab territory. I thought leaving the unit and army on the same square would make that obvious.

We are going for Communism after Nationalism completes. This game will last long enough for the Anarchy period to be worthwhile. It will be worth wonders to our economy. After that we have a decision to make, Espionage requires us to research Industrialization, or we could try to run for Replaceable Parts. Having Cavs available makes it less necessary to have Artillery, but loose Cavs charging against Rifles with our meager production capacity isn't going to be a quick either, I don't think. I'd lean towards Communism --> Replaceable Parts, there won't be too much worth stealing from the fully pillaged AI's.

Ya, you even mentioned the musket in your report and I missed it. I haven't been thinking very clearly today. I was thinkig the army had been there a while and wasn't thinking in terms of unit count.

I rushed iron works too. We have had it for a few turns. It is part of the 1355 AD comment and easy to miss.

Communism probably is better than monarchy though no rushing with cash will hurt. We couldn't have done the instant harbor to get the horses for example.

I got it.

Lots to do today, hope to play & post before the day is over.

Got three turns in before I headed out for the day.
We have another leader, but needed 2 more towns to build another cav army. I rushed 2 settlers & we will settle wines & a jungle town next turn. :D
Can rush a harbor either next turn, or the turn after for the wines.
Minimal AI landing on the home continent, easily killed with cannon & zerks on rails.

RE: Communism

True, loss of cash-rushing will be painful. But our total production will skyrocket. We'll get less units from Valhalla (or anyplace else we could conveniently short-rush) but many more units from the hinterlands, and we'll have much more capacity to research in case we do want to go for Espionage or Replacable Parts after a gov't swap.

We'll have to see how Handy does at whacking enemy cities. I was figuring 4 cities in 10 turns would be rather ambitious, so the game has plenty of turns remaining for a gov't swap to be worthwhile. Of course, every Cavalry Army further accelerates the end of the game. Handy can already make a 2nd, so maybe this is a moot discussion ...

Oh, and Handy, I wouldn't be afraid to disband any of the non-'zerk armies to form Cavalry Armies. I think Greebley indicated that the Arabs had been fully pillaged, and the Byz were fully pillaged by the end of my turns. So the only limiting factor I see is a lack of available Cavs. Can the IW site do a Cav/3 turns? This also tells me that Valhalla should concentrate on building Cavs, and let the Armies come from leaders.

Quick reply, I'm still where i left off earlier. Wife's beast of burden all day today. :lol:

I started to disband an army, but then I counted & we only needed 2 more cities, 1 of which was needed on the wines anyway. So I just decided to go for settlers this time. Next I think we'll need to disband a sword army. There is still a good bit of Arab land in the north to pillage.

One problem is you cannot select to build an army in Valhalla until after you disband one. You need 4 extra cities to even start the build. It's 20 turns to get an army in Valhalla, and maybe we can get them quicker by elite wins. What do you think?

With respect to Communism, the options were: Due in 37 losing 8GPT; Due in 49 +12; Due in 50 +53.
I picked due in 50 +53. Once wines are hooked we can lower the lux tax, so I'll check it again. The above stats were even after I hired a bunch of specialists in towns that had no ducts, but lots of extra food. I'm using cash to rush harbors, then I'll upgrade muskets to rifles we can park on the wines & horses.

Well - I'm off to the next set of stuff the honey has scheduled for me. Should get to play about 7pm central. Comments welcome.

Grapes and Wrath

Pre Turn
Nice work getting the two pillaging armies, Iron Works, Cav Army.
Vase looks very well protected.
Pike had not pillages yet – so I do that.
Rail system looks great.
Copenhagen has too much food (28) I’ll mine some Plains
Valhalla needs 2 more shields to get to 20spt for 4-turn cav. Swap some Copenhagen & Valhalla tiles. Temple still in 2, now 4 turn cav in Valhalla.
Switch Kazan to more food & hire scientist. Switch Build to settler.
Tromso loses 1 food (still 2 extra) hires specialist.
Fur city has 15 food no duct, so hire specialists switch to settler.
KW – need to plant a forest on its ice tile.
Haried goes to settler.
Bodo hires 3 specialists
Karasjok hires 2.
Vadso – settler
Cav Army kills LB

Hit Enter

IBT 1375
Musket on hill kills LB goes Elite
Nationalism – Commie
Karasjok – worker – worker Each time a worker is build, you have to re-MM to get the specialists.
Commie options are: Due in 37 losing 8GPT; Due in 49 +12; Dues in 50 +53.
I picked due in 50 +53. Once wines are hooked we will do better.

Turn 1 – 1380
Start fortress on horses.
Pillage
Set off to get the wines.

IBT
Copenhagen – temple – cannon (1 turn)
Palace grows
Kazan Bys drop 2 rifles, LB, warrior

Turn 2 1385
Bomb LB, kill with elite and get a leader. :D
Switch Copenhagen from cannon to 2 turn cav to fill the army.
In 2 turns we will complete 4 cav for the army.
Well, we have reached our limit on armies. I’ll rush some settler with our cash to put some cities in the jungle. We have 22, can fit 2 more in the jungle area.
Kill the Byz invaders easily. Did lose an MI to LB :mad:
Crap – the wine city auto razed. That’s where the next rushed settler goes.
Rush Settler in Haried and Molde

IBT
Where are the Byz getting the cash to pay for all those ships?

Turn 3 1390
Valhalla – cav – cav
KW – cav – cav
Reykjavik – cannon – cannon
Haried – settler – settler
Molde – settler – settler
Settler lands on the wines
Other settler to the jungle
Adrianople down to size 7. Burns pretty soon.
No attacks on the horses to speak of from either Byz or Arabs. Byz economy has to stink.
Moving our second frigate to where the action is.

IBT
Big stacks from Byz head to the horses
Karakorum – cav – cav
Ta Tu – cav – cannon
Tromso – walls – settler
Copenhagen – cav – cannon (1 turn cannon here)

Turn 4 1395
Decide to move wine settler to the hill for extra defense, so we get those next turn.
Rush barrack in Vadso (horses) so I can upgrade muskets to rifles next turn.
Move some muskets from the home from to boats to ship over the pond.
Kill rifle & LB near horses.

IBT
Byz drop a lone rifle on our homeland
Ugone – temple – gee 3 spt I guess I’ll build courthouse?
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon
Vadso – rushed barracks – walls. Oops should have checked that preturn.

Turn 5 1400
Build Wine town
Lots of reinforcements arrive @ horse town.
Kill rifle on our lands, bomb Frigate & Galleon.
The battle for Horse Town
Upgrade 2 muskets to Rifles. This cash is coming in very handy :D
Zerk loses to rifle
Zerk loses to rifle
Cav army 1 kills 3 rifles
Cav Army 2 kills 4 rifles
Now 7 rifles left next to Horse town + 9 LB’s. Wish we had walls.
Pull sword Army guarding the horse tile into town. We can retake the tile with armies if we need to.
2 more zerks lose to rifles, than a lone cav wins.
Sword army if fortified, so he gets the first assault on the IBT. Could use some more cannon here.

IBT
Well that went pretty well. We killed 11 units on defense and lost none. The 2-cav armies redlined but did not die. A rifle went elite.
Bys drop 2 rifles, 2 knights, LB on our homeland.
Arabs have a bunch of ships moving towards the horses.
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon

Turn 6 1405
Lose 1 zerk in the homeland battle. Eventually we could use a couple of cav on the home front.
Hurry walls in the Horse town of Vadso
Kill some rifles near the horse town, and bomb the rest. Only 4 healthy LB and 1 MI can attack on the IBT versus rifles. I think the battle for horses is over and is won. Byz likely have burned their big stacks. I do expect Arabs to drop some off via boat on the IBT.

IBT
Kill 4 LB and the MI near Vadso
Arabs drop off
Valhalla- rifle – cavalry
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon
Vadso – walls – temple

Turn 7 1410
Cav army kills 4 redlined Byz Rifles
Moving cannon & rifles to the wines from homelands.

IBT
Rifle defeats crusader near horses.
Karakorum – cav – cav
Ta Tu – cannon – cav
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon
Reykjavik – cannon – cavalry
Odense – granary – cavalry
Bodo – walls – settler

Turn 8 1415
Rush wine harbor
Kill 3 rifles @ Adrianople
IBT
KW – cav – cav (KW is almost to 20 spt. Needs a little more work. It has extra food)
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon
Wine Town – harbor – walls

Turn 9 1420
Wine town gets reinforced
Elite cav kills redline musket @ horses
Raze Adrianople
Workers begin a road to connect Wine Town with the horses.
Swap some tiles. Now KW and Valhalla have 20spt for 4 turn cavalry. :D
We have 3 cities doing 4-turn cav + the Iron works doing 1 turn cannon.
Drop lux to zero. Now commie shows due in 14 +4gpt. You have 95 in the bank to upgrade the musket on the way to guard the horses.

IBT
Some Arab LB & Rifle come out of the fog by land.
Copenhagen – cannon – cannon

Turn 10
The 2 red lined armies arrive back in Vadso to heal.

Notes:
Reykjavik is to 10 spt now. KW & Valhalla are at 20spt
Birka can pull 2 spt if you plan a forest for it to work.
The settler builds are with a domination win in mind. If we get conquest sooner, that’s okay too.
With some work Karakorum can get to 3 turn cavalry. It’s 25 net spt now.
Musket N of Vadso on the Saltpeter is on his way to Vadso to be upgraded.
There are now 2 Frigates guarding troop ships as they move over.
There is a settler in Vadso you can use to settle the silks to the East.
When it heals, you could send the sword army guarding the horses out to pillage to make sure the horses & SP do not get hooked back up.
Steady diet of LB’s now. Should get a leader soon.
May want to ship the elites on the home continent over to where the action is.
Homeland Defense – Stack of cannon N of Molde, Zerks to the N of the cannon.
The cannon, rifles, and cav armies should handle the Arab hordes pretty easily @ Vadso. After you upgrade the musket on his way there, you have rifles behind walls that are 88% favorites versus vet LB’s. You can probably bombard & kill a bunch before they attack.
I think after we deal with the big Arab stack on the way to the horses we can go on offense with the 2 cav armies. The sword army can cover. Bring some spare horses to kill LB’s and we’ll get another army.

EDIT - You should have 3 rifles in Vadso. After looking at Vadso, before you hit enter I think you should pull 1 rifle from the hill, and 1 from the horse tile into the city. Move the musket onto the hill to guard the workers. If we lose the workers, no big deal. That would give you three rifles behind walls. We don't want to risk losing the 2 cav armies.
2nd EDIT - I moved the 2 rifles for you & attached a new 1425 save. You should see 3 rifles in Vadso.

Barbslinger <- up
T_McC
Greebley
Handy

Well played handy. It sounds like our beach head is well and truly established. Hopefully on the next players turn we will see the fall of more Byzantine cities. I don't think they have long to live. :hammer:

Good luck Barbslinger (I assume you are up...)

Well played handy. It sounds like our beach head is well and truly established. Hopefully on the next players turn we will see the fall of more Byzantine cities. I don't think they have long to live. :hammer:

Good luck Barbslinger (I assume you are up...)

Thank you. :)

I think we are very well established. Cannon & rifles in both cities. Soon a road will connect the two beachheads. Should be able to go on the offensive with 2 cav armies & a sword army for cover after we deal with the incoming arab wave. Rifles are an 88% favorite, so we should hold on easlily.

Slinger Check the sword army that is on the horses, it may have room to load a rifle. That would offer better protection is you use it to cover the raging cavalry armies.

Check your specialists frequently. If you build a worker or settler in a specialist city, all specialists get reassigned to work food tiles that you do not need when the build completes. Then, you wind up with 17 food in a city with no aqueduct.

I think the Byz have shot their wad & will fold pretty quick under a dual cav army assault.

Got it. Playing tomorrow. Check that. This is 1st up tonight!

Handy03 – 1425AD –

Preturn – Do a little MM’ing in Copenhagen cutting it’s total shields to 44spt giving Ta-tu the high shield coal tile to cut it’s cav times. Karakorum gives up a few tiles to Odense to cut it’s time to cav build to 9 from 14. Karakorum makes 20spt now.See our sout isle scientists are doing the work to keep commie coming in at 14. On the war front I move the vike army onto the wines to keep the rifle from going to that square. Looks like we may lose a couple ships on the IT but the reinforcements had to come in. Pillaging looks nice. Hope I don’t get a monster Arabian SOD any time soon. I rush the walls in wine town for 36g. I’m not quite understanding the need for the road between the 2. I know the mobility to get from town to town is nice but the AI will pillage it sooner or later.

IT – The frigates get attacked and luck is with us as they lose 3 to our 1 and we get elites out of the deal. Byz want to see me before their turn. I hang up and…nothing from her.
Valhalla-Cav>Cav in 2, Cope-Cannon>Can in 1, Birka-Temple to grab the whale>Explorer, Karasjok-Worker>Explorer, Winetown-Walls> Rax in 20. 11 LB’s, 3 rifles, 1 musket and a crusader are out side Vadso.

[1] 1430 – I blast the 1/ 4 frigate with an elite nad retreat the stack back home after dropping off the cannon in WT. The Vadso cav armies are not healed :eek: The cannons only get 3 hits on the rifles. I kill one rifle with an elite and the army goes down to 1 hp killing the other rifle. It doesn’t look good for Vadso. Do some pillaging and move the new cannon and cav to coast. Complete the road the workers south of Vadso wanted to do. The musket is on top of the hill covering the workers. The LB’s may go for him instead. Well, my fingers are crossed.

IT – It was close with one of our rifles going to 1hp on a single LB and then he fought back. No losses except for the Zerk I was fishing with on the prior turn hoping for a rifle army. Karakorum-Cav>Cav, Cope-Can>Can. Palace gets some trees.

[2] 1435 – Send the zerk army over towards Vadso. He will play zone. The musket gets upgraded and we have 6g @ 0gpt. A vet rifle jumps in with the sword army. I bomb the single LB that killed the zerk and use the 2 / 5 cav to get a leader. Looks like the leader is costing 1gpt. We have 22 cities and need 2 more. Turn Valhalla 2 a settler in 1. Play with the spcialists to get commie in 12 still and back to +1gpt. I merge a worker to get to +2gpt. All is clear at Vadso. 4LB’s and 2 rifles are coming up next IT. I saw a MDI earlier too.

IT – No attacks but units move up. Kazan gets a visit from a single LB. Valhalla-Settler>Rifle. Our horse port is blocked for cav. KW-Cav>Rifle, Cope-Cannon>Rifle.

[3] 1440 - Settle Fauske just south of Kazan and set to worker. We are at-1gpt. A few cannon shots and a vet berserk take care of the Kazan intruder. No eliteness. The workers complete the road between towns and horses are open for business again. Swap builds. Kill all but 1 LB outside Vadso. Want the army to heal. 1 3hp LB won’t dent us and he’ll probably run off. Send 2 full galleons 2 tiles out of port to make the big trip next turn. The zerk army kills a rifle in Iconium. We’re at commie in 11 and +1gpt. Valhalla still making 20spt. Do some MM to get to +9gpt. I think the cav army push starts next round.

IT – No attacks. Ta-tu-Cav>Harbor, Stavenger-Ct>Market.

[4] 1445 – The troops make it over and are in port. Kill a rifle that was creeping on the towards the wines. Iconium goes up in flames due to the zerk army. The cavs and 1 cav army go to work and clear every enemy within 4 tiles. I fumble the Vadso settler behind the lines. I think I’m going to put 4 cannons I just brought over under the zerk army and go bomb Niceae. Wow, I must of got some gold from the Iconium sacking because we have 152g now. Making 13gpt. Commie in 10.

IT – All ships sail away. Looks like clear sailing home. Karakorum-Cav>Cav, Cope-Rifle>rifle, Aarhus-Bank>Lib.

[5] 1450 – Knock off a rifle with a settler heading for the silks. 2 more slaves. Ships ar 2 from port. Picking up 2 rifles to bolster defense when we settle silks. After looking at Cpenhagen I opt for a library instead and swap Valhalla to rifle. +10gpt, Commie in 9.

IT – No attacks but a rifle dropped off on the wines. Ta-tu-Harbor>Bank, Alky-Bank>Cav, Reykjavik-Cav>Ct, Hareid-Settler>Ct. Another SOD is coming.

[6] 1455 – Move the settler out with 2 rifles to settle on the silks. Workers will have a road to it next turn. Bomb and kill the rifle and put the AC on them to prevent landings there. There are 7 LB’s and 3 rifles coming. Swap Cope back to rifle again to get him on board this next turn.

IT – No attacks. Not even by ship. Valhalla-Rifle>cav, KW-Rifle>Cav, Cope-Rifle>Cannon.

[7] 1460 – Start railing the new lands. Prepping settlers for next turn. Pillaging continues. Commie in 7 @ +4gpt. Move the cannons out of town to bomb the ships to 1hp. No attacks while coming over with reinforcements.

IT – Ships hightail it but drop a rifle near the Ac on wines. The SOD is right next to the cannons and workers undefended. Good thing they only move 1 tile at a time. Karakorum-Cav>Cav

[8] – Settle silks with Silk Town. Bomb like crazy. I hurry the Molde settler for 60g. that will make 28 towns. Drop off all in Wine Town. Kill everbody but a Lb in the 2nd group that can have a go at a rifle. Moving zerk army and cannon towards Niceae. Will have marsh cleared for 28th town in 2.

IT – Lost a cav I left fortified on a hill when I did a “join” and he didn’t follow. Byz drops a rifle and LB 1S of our horses. The rifle/sword army is still stationed there though.
Cope-Cannon>Cannon. Molde-Setler> Explorer.

[9] 1470- Kill off a few boys heading to our new lands. It’s starting to feel like home. Rush the walls in Silk Town. Pillaged the Arabian salt again. Commie in 5 at 28g and +5gpt. Bring one of the galleons around from Alky.

IT – No attacks. Silk Town-Walls>Rax, Cope-Cannon>Cannon, Aarhus-Lib>Frigate, Odense-Rifle>Galleon.

[10] 1475 – Hammerfest and Sarpsburg are founded and 7th cav army is formed up. Next leader is ready to rock. Zerk army is poised to bomb and perhaps score a few kills.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Handy03-1475ad.jpg

:goodjob: Nice job.

We pick up an extra lux and kncok off the Arabs big assault wave. Byz & Arabs have now each burned a big offensive stack against us @ the Vadso. Our defense is well established, so those cities should be safe. LBs & conscript rifles will still come @ Vadso, so we'll get another leader there from elite cav leader fishing. Build settlers to get our city count up so we can get another army.

I count 20 towns to go from the Mini map.

We are fast approaching mop up mode. :thumbsup:


I’m not quite understanding the need for the road between the 2.
My reasons for the road (& then rails) between Vadso & the wines were:
1. They will have to blockade two cities to deny us wines & horses.
2. I expected some Arab ships to land troops near the wines, road/rails allows rifles to zip between the cities to the hot spot.
3. It’s easier to get troop ships to the wines, then move troops over land to Vadso. We can park two frigates to cover troop ships while in transit.

We'll want to get rails to the silks, and then keep railing as we advance so we can move reinforcements up to the front in 1 turn. :D

I am unsure if you have noticed but there are Byz borders to the S of our main continent. This means there are at least 2 islands. Is the plan to clear the main continent and then go for domination? I am in favor of this as it is fastest. If we want conquests as an option then we should start to explore.

@Handy - My road comment was when I thought that they would be tougher to knock around. I was fearing stacks of rifles. Obviously, I felt differently after a few turns and have started railing myself.
@Greebley - I vote conquest. They feel so more decisive. Also, my new city only raised the land total from 40% to 42%. That would be a lot of new cities which would also need defense. I have a feeling that the new cav army coupled with the other cav army are going to look like a butter knife soon.

I see on the OCN calc that our OCN with SPHC will be 71 without SPHC and 107 with it. Does this mean we don't really need the SPHC? Or we could rush one with a leader I guess. It would be nice in either the marsh area, once cleared, or Silk Town for a new core. Though I don't think it affects the towns around it that much except for the distance variable.

I am unsure if you have noticed but there are Byz borders to the S of our main continent. This means there are at least 2 islands. Is the plan to clear the main continent and then go for domination? I am in favor of this as it is fastest. If we want conquests as an option then we should start to explore.

I vote fastest so we can move on to AWD. :)

My road comment was when I thought that they would be tougher to knock around

Oh - okay. I thought maybe you were looking for an answer. :D

Barbslinger,
Domination won't be slower than conquest. When you added the city, you placed it so only 9 new tiles entered our territory. You can place towns to get 16 towns so that is almost double. we need 24% with each town adding either 3 or 4% so that is 6-8 towns. They would be easy to defend - as we clear the island we build them as we go. This would occur once we felt things were fairly secure. We would never take our troops off the continent, just fill it with settlers and win.

On the other hand, your other point (Conquest is more satisfying) is very valid. I don't think domination is that much faster so if you have a strong preference, I would say we go for conquest. We need to start searching the waters now rather than later in that case or conquest could be several turns longer. The length of time extra would be the time it takes to get our troops to the islands (I think we could do domination at about the same time we clear the continent). This would be less than a player turn on a tiny map, so it wouldn't delay deity.

This would be less than a player turn on a tiny map, so it wouldn't delay deity.

I really don't have a preference either way.

How about we do it like we did last game and each player changes the win goal & overall direction on his 10 turns as he sees fit. :lol: :lol:

Seriously - I really don't care conquest or domination is fine. So, if someone does care, I'm with the gang. :)

I got it.

And possession is 9/10ths of the law.

HNDY03 - Vikings of the World Unite, and Throw off Your Oppressors!

1475 AD (0)
Communism in 4, then I get yet another turn filled with Anarchy. :gripe:

We are way over our unit support, but will be under when the proletariat assumes control. I wake up 2 Galleys to explore the southern island. I doubt we'll miss them.

After mucho MM, still due in 4 but now at +9 gpt. But I think I got about 12 more lightbulbs.

IT - Lots of running around, some crap dropped off.

1480 AD (1)
Kill two landers, then two Rifles at Nicea. Then another. Then an LB and burn the city, gaining 228 gold.

Sink an Arab Frigate, and bump up science rate to get Communism 1 turn earlier.

IT - Ignore Apu.

1485 AD (2)
Adjust sliders ... Commie next turn, with a profit.

Move pair of Cav armies out to burn Smyrna next turn. Other Cav army and 'zerk Army are healing. If I pop a leader soon, I'll probably disband the Sword Army to form another Cav Army.

The island in the south has at least 3 Byz cities on it.

IT - Get Communism and revolt. We could muster 67 non-scientist light bulbs at break-even before the gov't swap. A tasty (but expected) 7.5 turn Anarchy. :(

1490 AD (3)
I'm going to play until 1550.

pRNG is cruel, but we still win 4 without loss at Smyrna and flame it up! 225 gold and a scuttling for our troubles. Kill a couple of landings by the Byz, no leaders.

Industrialization in 22, just with scientists.

IT - Nothing special

1495 AD (4)
Everyone is still eating.

IT - Byz land settler pair. Next to a Cav army. :rolleyes:

1500 AD (5)
Kill an LB, trade Frigates with the Byz. Advance on Chalcedon and Heraclea. Oh, and score the slaves.

IT - Lose 2 Cavs I had put out on a mis-click. Game owes me a leader.

1505 AD (6)
And right on cue ... Canute II appears. :cool:

Burn Chalcedon and get another 145 gold. I say we go for Conquest.

IT - Whatever.

1510 AD (7)
Kill a few.

IT - The Arabs have an Ironclad! It just shot at our Pike Army. I want some of those.

1515 AD (8)
Get in position to burn Heraclea next turn. Will have 1 Cav Army, 1 Zerk army, 4 Cannons, and another Cav Army in a pinch. Should be able to hit it in 1 turn.

IT - See the Ironclad move again.

1520 AD (9)
Kill 1 LB. Lots of Arab Rifles wandering about. No real threat.

Assault on Heraclea will wait, lousy bombardment round. I also want to have a 2nd full Cav army available.

IT - We finally go Commie.

1525 AD (10)
Form Government, whack Heraclea. Gain 216 gold, 7 slaves and 1 native worker.

Now at break-even we generate 193 light bulbs before specialists.

Research to 100% on Industrialization, due in 4 at -86 gpt. The Byz will cover it. :)

IT - Nothing Special

1530 AD (11)
Disband Sword Army to rush a Market in Silk Town. Build fresh, 3-Cav army. Not to pick on Slinger, but I remind one and all that only armies with 3 members or less can be transported in Galleons. This will be the force that goes asea in search of adventure.

1535 AD (12)
Kill a couple of LB's.

Move 3-member Army to dock for transport, and land on a target on the same turn.

1540 AD (13)
Kill 4 Arab units, then on another front burn Fez. Only worth 5 bucks.

On the Byz front, kill off Naissus and get 138 gold for the bother. Also get a Trebuchet. The Byz are down to 1 city on the main continent, and three Cav Armies are poised to turn the corner into Arab territory.

By the way, we are under out unit support limit.

1545 AD (14)
Industrialization comes in, set for Espionage in 5 at -92 gpt. I think that is the last Tech we have to research, as the game will be over by the time we can get to Rep. Parts. The Byz have a Destroyer, and the Arabs had a Cavalry. (had)

1550 AD (15)
Kill 6 Arab units and hide the Galleon carrying the Army in Vadso. Can't quite make it to the Byz island in 1 turn.

Final Notes:
If we have 5 players, this shouldn't get back to me. In the next 10 turns the Byz should be eliminated, and then we can turn 3 or 4 Cav armies loose on the Arabs. I'd think about sliding some ships to our west coast and getting the 'zerks involved against the Arab island. There were zero landings on our continent.

I do think that Espionage is the last tech we need. We might have to steal plans or a world map if someone disappears on us. If we get a leader, the SPHQ can only help, but not as much as another Cav army. Our pillaging armies ran out of things to do, and I'd consider disbanding the mixed Rifle/Sword army when we get the next leader and replacing it with another Cav army.

Here is the Byz' little corner of the world. From here, these guys turn north and head up the choke to abuse the Arabs. Abu has a lot of stuff wandering around our territory, but it can't even get close to taking a city so I didn't go looking for it.

The entire map has been revealed, so the Byz have only the small island remaining after Trebizond, and our 3-member Cav army in on the way. Next may want to send some of the loose Cavs from our continent that way as well.

I am now up by the latest ordering so I am off to play it.

Things look exceptional! Nice work T! It looks to be in cleanup mode now. I like the idea of using an amphibious landing with zerks on the NW island if those cavs are still standing on the shore.

Well Done. The fat lady is singing. :viking:

Barbslinger
T_McC
Greebley <- UP
Handy

Slinger & T want conquest, so conquest it is.

GreebleyWhat do you think of Summeria for AWD as practive for AWS? Anyone have a problem with back to back games as Sumeria?

Back to back? Isn't this the Vikings?

Preturn: Move a few units. use the cannon on the boats.

IBT Archer lands.

1555 AD: Lose 2 elite units (Cav, ACav) attacking 1 hp rifles; gain 1 Elite.
Capture Trebizond Byzantines now only own that little island.

IBT: Nothing of note

1560 AD:
Kufah is Destroyed.
Yar Mateys land on Byz isle.
Land units on the island off our coast.
Trebizond armies fortify to rest.
Rush a Galleon.
Lower Science to 50%. Same 2 turns on Espionage.

I take it Yar Mateys is our only army that can cross seas. That adds extra challenge to winning in 10 turns :D

IBT: The Two Byz Cav on the Western Isle both win taking out a Pike and a Cav (should have gone with 2 pikes).

1565 AD: Our two Cav kill the 2 Byz on the Western Isle.

We attack Burkhara. We almost don't capture it but "Madman Bernie and his Bagpipers of Doom" (sic) assaults from the sea and takes the town with no injuries. The last sound the defenders hear is the sound of badly played bagpipes.

Attacking a longbow on the other continent gets us a leader.
Attack Septum on the southern Island (Byz) and kill a defender. Stop after 1 attack as I take 6 hp.

IBT: Finish Espionage start Electricity.

1570 AD:
Secret police HQ can be built in 5. I decide to see what it will do and start it up in Copenhagen.
Disband sword army for Cav Army. The former Byz lands are now clear of foreign troops.

IBT: Boat movement. Build a 4 unit army on the Byz island (it is stranded there, but I don't think it is needed elsewhere.

1575 AD:
Madman Bernie and his Bagpipers of Doom take out Mansura. It is hard to fight with your hands over your ears.
We now own the western island.

IBT: An MDI is landed near trebizond

1580 AD: Kill MDI mentioned above.
Final assault on the Byzantines is begun:
We Attack and Capture Nicomedia with our new army.
We Attack and Capture Septum with Yar Matey army.
The Last Byzantium town of Amoriam is attacked by normal cavalry but the Cav fail to take it losing 2.

1585 AD: Fail to Take Amorium. Have to wait for armies to heal.
Damascus is Razed. We are now entering Arabic territory.

1590 AD: Do more pillaging of the arabs. Armies are healing.

IBT: Trebizond Deposes us (Even worse I forgot to but the units next to the city instead of in. Lose 2 cav and rifle)

1595 AD: Build the Secret HQ.

IBT: Another flip this one is under control

I think I can finisht this quick: going to run a few turns over - Apologies if I am wrong, but it is straight forward mop up.

1600 AD: Take back Byz Flip.

1605 AD: Destroy Byzantines Kill some cav that got created when Saltpeter was reconnected.

1610 AD: Attack Najran. Armies healing. Cav should be dead now.

1615 AD: Raze Narjan. Attack but do not take Fustat. Really bad RNG Means all armies need to rest.

1620 AD: Healing.

1625 AD: Raze Fustat, Attack Khuras.

1630 AD: Dangit! Loose a Cav army. The odds must be worse than I think.
Raze Khurasan. 5 towns left.

1635 AD: Raze Basra and (forgot to write down name). 3 towns left.
Spy fails.

1640 AD: Attack Medina
Spy fails

1645 AD: Destroy Medina
Finally plant a spy. Arabs have 3 rifles, 3 frigates, and 3 workers, and 1 galleon left.

1650 AD: Take out another town that I missed the name of fail to take Anjar by a single longbow.

1655 AD: Raze Anjar and we win.

Notes:

I mis-estimated how long it would take to take out all the cities. One of the biggest problems was the complete lack of roads :lol: I apologize for running over so long. It was simple mop-up work mostly.

Well played all. It was a good game. We are now officially ready to lose at Deity :D.
China was it?

Here is the final save. Just end the turn.

Yee-Haw! Well done team. DG AW win in the books. Had my doubts in the early going but it came together nicely down the stretch. Like Greebley I am leery of diety AW on conquests too. We'll see. Corner start and some nice grass with food maybe we do some magic.

1655 AD: Raze Anjar and we win.

[dance] [dance] [dance]



Back to back? Isn't this the Vikings?

Meant ADW & AWS back to back as the Sumerians. :D

EDIT Oops 1 "m" in Sumeria


Madman Bernie and his Bagpipers of Doom take out Mansura. It is hard to fight with your hands over your ears.
We now own the western island. :rotfl:


China was it?

Do you want to try Sumeria as a warm up for AWS? Sumeria or China are fine with me. Celts are a fun tribe too. Celt swords are 3.2.2 like Acav.

Yes, Both of Greebleys bagpipe jokes had me rolling too.

What do you this of this Sumeria AWD start?
>> Sumeria 4000 BC Save << (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Gilgamesh_of_the_Sumerians,_4000_B_4.SAV)
The Sumerian team colors certainly will strike fear across the world.
Settings are the same as HNDY03 we just won.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/HNDY04_AWD_Summeria4.JPG

Food, lux (ivory - the uber lux). The water to the E of the settler is 1 food, so it's saltwater.

We are in the SW corner of the Minin map, so the AI is to the NE most likey.
3 randomly picked AI's are Babylon, Germany Spain.

We start with Pottery & BW, so what do we research first?
IW for swords? <- my pick.
Alpha for boats?
Wheel for ponies?

Lets go for Iron working [Edit: Or masonry? See below]. If we get good iron placement we may be able to do damage to the enemy civ & keep it small enough for us to kill. Sumeria's advantage is very early - we get a 1 city GA very often and have half price spear. We should send out the Enkid warriors to do some pillaging early on - stacks of 2 taking advantage of terrain could do serious damage. Even if they just fortify near the capitol on a mountain or hill and keep workers from building improvments, this can slow the AI expansion.

One primary advantage of Sumeria; the +1 food when on fresh water is not in this start, but I say we do this start anyway. Even if it doesn't work out it will be a good learning experience.

We also have ivory for Zeus - another strong strategy would be going for walls/masonry followed by Mathematics->Zeus.

I would try something like E Warrior, E Warrior, Granary (switch to barracks if we meet someone). Settling on the hill and we can survive even archers with 2 E Warriors as that is a defense of 3.5 if I am calculating right - going to 4.5 with walls. We may also consider roading the BG. We get early contact we get a GA and the BG do not gain anything by being mined. Once they have roads we can go back and mine them without loss of worker turns if we don't meet anyone quickly.

The choice between iron working and Masonry is tough. I am thinking Masonry-Math may be better because we know we have Ivory but are unsure about Iron. What do you all think?

The choice between iron working and Masonry is tough. I am thinking Masonry-Math may be better because we know we have Ivory but are unsure about Iron. What do you all think

I came to the same conclusion in the car on the way to work. We know we have Ivory, Iron is a crap shoot. The Math path is probably the better play. Of course if we decide on Math, & then settle on that hill, you know that hill will turn out to have iron. :lol:

I would go ahead and start a Handy4 thread with this start. It looks good enough to play.

Wheres the water? Though I like the grass, bg's, hill and especially the shiny white stuff.

I would go ahead and start a Handy4 thread with this start. It looks good enough to play.


I started a New thread for HNDY04

HNDY04-AWD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=90672)

:D