SGOTM2 Game Thread

Welcome to your game thread for SGOTM2-Germany

Here is the start position.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2-start-position.jpg

Each team has their own save file. Please download and play from the correct save. If you use the wrong save the server will not accept your submission. Also, please make sure that the software version is correct. PM me immediately if it is not.

You can download your save file >>HERE<<. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php)

The Roster
akots
Bruindane
DJMGator13
Pindicator

DJMGator reporting for duty.

akots I have been reading your teams SGOTM1 and I am glad to be on your team. I usually play emporer level on C3C and have notched a few Diety van CivIII wins. I would describe myself more of a expansion/builder who usually held off significant wars until Knights were available. Most of my wins have been either Diplo or Space. I have had a few warmongering type games. I have never played an SG before but I have lurked several and have recently submitted my QSC for GOTM31.

posted by akots
I'd like to go for a short and gory domination/conquest type game without the variant. Or try that insane idea of playing AW with mandatory diplomatic victory... without building the UN. But it might be hard to find at least 3 other players for that brutal variant.


Posted by Bruindane

I would prefer to play a variant to raise the in-game challenge, anyone up for OOC+AW+Diplomatic? As an aside, would achieving such a victory qualify for the Gold Laurel? As a SGOTM novice, I'll be happy to contribute to any team. :eek: :crazyeye:

I have also never played an AW or any xCC games, but I'm always up for a new adventure.

@Bruindane - Just confirming you do not have PTW (if you have C3C than PTW is included)? The one advantage PTW has that would be nice to use is the ability to rename units. Makes tracking troop movements easier.

The thread is started and we can assemble our German warlord council which is supposed to decide on the variant we are playing.

We are not supposed to be lurking in the threads of other teams nor we are going to use some prior experience of people who played this particular GOTM previously. Lets play a fair game. I personally would not lurk and have no idea of GOTM8 (never played it and never read the spoilers).

Usually, experience with SG is not needed to play well. We have a strong team of strong players of which two (me and Pindicator) have some SG experience. Please review the SG ethics and feel free to discuss all issues you find unclear with the team members in this thread.

In terms of strength of play, SG team play quality is usually one level up the normal level of individual players. For example, if a player feels himself comfortable on Emperor, this player can comfortable play a Deity level SG. So, no worries, we will win AW (approximately Emperor difficulty) and even probably OCC AW (between Emperor and Deity). But OCC is not so interesting game though we may limit ourselves to 3CC, 5CC, or 7CC which is more interesting.

So, lets discuss the following option:

1) Straight game for maximal score. Apparently, rapid military victory of Domination or Conquest. Even though it seems that other teams are strong, we can handle the competition and may be have a chance of winning it.

2) Suggested variant (Diplo win without building UN). To be competitive with this variant, we need also early wars to get to Domination limit ASAP to maximize the score keeping high research rate throughout the AIs as well. This usually means leaving 2-3 AIs untouched and do everything to give them the techs and encourage their research so that they are able to build the UN. UN is then captured and winning vote is a piece of cake if we keep our rep intact.

3) AW variant. Challenging and interesting but chances of getting a decent score are not so high. Diplo win is an option but it is hard to tell whether it is possible to do.

4) AW+nCC variant. May be very difficult to win early and certainly, chances of getting a decent score are minimal.

My vote goes to number 3. Numbers 1 and 2 are not enough of a challenge and fun and number 4 may be too much of a challenge to handle with a reasonable game quality.

Please vote for the variants or suggest some other alternative variants.

Please note that first player plays to 3000BC and then it is 10 turns per player.

The order of players in the roster can be also discussed and if I may suggest the following sequence of players:

1. Bruindane
2. Pindicator
3. akots
4. DJMGator13

The way SG works, we need to discuss first the plan and then the player plays the turns.

Independently of the variant, we need to decide the following issues:

1) Build on start or move the settler?
2) Early build order in Berlin?
3) What to research?

We may download the save, take a look at it (to know what are the rivals and if there is anything under the fog) but cannot move units or build cities. However, once the city is built, the player who is playing can hold the game, post a screen shot, and the team members can discuss what might be the best thing to do in the current situation.

Lets start the discussion!

Pindicator signing in!

I remember watching your team scores in the maintainence thread of SGOTM1 with nervous apprehension, as you kept creeping up on my team (Shevek) in the score race. I am very excited to be on your team, akots.

I guess I'm a little competitive, so I would like going for variant number 1. Any challenge that the game itself won't present will be given by watching the scores of other teams and knowing we still have to better our play to stay competitive for those laurels. My second choice would be variant number 3.

Regarding the version of the game, we will play in Civ3 vanilla patch 1.29f since the save file is already provided in this format. However, if we really want to change to PTW, we can try to ask mad-bax to switch the saves into PTW. Bruindane previously stated that only Civ3 1.29f is OK for him, so this was the reason for the decision.

@Pindicator: I would prefer 3 (AW) and 1 is certainly second choice.

So far the vote is even:

1. Straight game, no variant 1 + 1
3. AW with a possibility of Diplo win 1 + 1

Having not played an AW game I'm interested in going with that. As far as limiting it to a nCC game that may be difficult to do on a continental map. We are going to need beachhead cities on the other continents and we do not know how many landmasses there are in the game. Typically there are two large masses and one smaller one. A 5cc would leave us only 3 productive cities during the invasions since we would probably need a harbor city for lux & resources on the other landmasses.

I think option 3 may be the way to go. With the map being standard the odds are high that the civs on the 2nd large landmass will be fighting amongst themselves early as well. Adding Diplo to it could be very tricky, but would allow time for our population to grow and increase our overall Frixas score, but would lower our Jason score (i think).

There are also no bonuses for variants this time around so we don't want to make it too hard.

I would have to vote for #3 (although I am very flexible) with 2nd choice being #1 (straight game max score)

Independently of the variant, we need to decide the following issues:

1) Build on start or move the settler?
2) Early build order in Berlin?
3) What to research?


Item 1 - Build or Move
I'm think we should build where we stand and move worker E to the river BG (+1commerce w/o road). If there are resources on either of the two tiles in my attachment we can claim either or both by staying where we are.

Item 2 - Early Build Order
Based on Item 1 I think we should go Warrior => Worker => warrior or barrack. Our city will start at +2F +2S so we can build 1st warrior in 5 turns. Then we could get a worker on growth turn. That puts our city back to size 1 but gives us 2 worker to start on the forests. We could forest cut rush a barrack in 10-15 turns after that and then either set to settler (city would be size 2 by then) or start producing VETERAN troops.

Item 3 - Research
Based on our opponents ALL 1st tier techs are in play from turn one. The only second tier tech we can go for immediately is Iron Working. However, Russia will be heading for that first also. If we have culture linked start we probably have Russia on our continent. So it could be a disadvantage to let them get it in an AW game. We could be facing swords with only archers. If Russia is not on our continent and we have iron we have an early advantage on the other civs. None of the other civs have an early UU, all are knight replacement or later. Our UU is last and we will need a Wonder build to trigger a GA for us.

Greetings all!

Neither Conquests nor PTW are out on the Mac :(, so Vanilla Civ is my only option.

Based on the Bamspeedy's attitude strategy and forum, it appears technically possible to get an enemy civ to be polite, and then vote for you in the election. According to the data, you get a +4 hit having been at war (each time, but we'll only declare once) and +1 for declaring war against another civ (+2 max), you also have negatives for each city captured (permanent +1 per raze) and units killed but these decay over time. France (-1 for being in the same culture group, -1 for being super passive, -5 if they and we are in Republic) could theoretically vote for us while at war (Vichy France?).

I don't know if we could realistically pull it off. The easy way would be to eliminate every civ, but the one that builds the UN (maybe very late to allow the AIs to intertrade technology since we won't be able to while at war.) Eliminating the last civ's cities (UN last to get the vote as soon as possible), leaving only one enemy settler boxed in on a mountain (or desert?) or perhaps on a ship should allow us to win diplomatically as we get the only vote (a fixed election).

Let us go for always war (#3) and if we get to the point of one or two civs left and they are furious at us, then I think we have a choice to make: Finish them off, or go for the unique AW victory and possible gold laurel. Option #2 would be my alternate.

Good eyes for the wheat DJMGator13. The other spot appears to me as river start/end.

Move vs. Staying Analysis for 1st ten turns

Assumptions:

1) Wheat is E, SE
2) Build Order is Warrior, then Worker.

Stay (2f, 2s)

Worker E, mine (6), then road(3).
Settle Berlin

Turns 1-10

20 food+, 20 shields, 40 commerce (city + bg)
3 shields (mine)
0 bonus commerce (road)
1 shield (new laborer on bg)

Turn 11: 3f, 3s, 6c per turn at expansion

Build Times

Warrior on Turn 6
Worker on Turn 11 (w/ 1 shield loss)
City Growth on Turn 17 (if irrigate before 1st road, turn 16)

Move (3f, 1s)

Worker E, Worker SE, Irrigate (4), road (3)
Settler SE, Settle Berlin

Turns 2-8

18 food+, 10 shields, 28 (4 turn wheat, 3 bg)
2 food (irrigation)
1 shield, 1 commerce (new laborer on bg)

Turns 9-10

6 food+, 4 shields, 10 commerce
2 food (irrigation)
1 commerce (road)

Turn 11: 4f, 2s, 6c per turn

Build Times

Warrior on Turn 9 (w/ 1 shield loss)
Worker on Turn 14
City Growth on Turn 15


Commentary

Building on our starting location will yield a 3 turn advantage for our first three units, while yielding a 1 or 2 turn delay in city growth. Skipping the road build on the bg at the cost of 1 lost worker turn and 5 gold will speed up our city growth by 1 turn.

Normally my first impulse is to build two warriors to establish contact as soon as possible and to take advantage of more goody huts. We do have a surplus of forests, so building a worker second is interesting--- but given the wheat and assuming we have some space & time, I would rather build a quick settler (before granary) to create a new productive city with barracks and then let Berlin produce additional settlers and workers.

Pottery or Iron Working? I think that we should go for Iron Working, and try to trade for Pottery. Though perhaps we should withhold Bronze Working or Warrior Code if no other civ on the land-mass starts with it.

My understanding of the AW variant. Must declare war upon first diplomatic contact with each civ, but may choose to not initiate the contact. Trades may be done, except for gpt, before war is declared. May not declare peace, but may initiate diplomacy to gather information about the civ.

Question

How do you determine your opponents by looking at the save? My diplomatic screen gives nothing but Bismark and six question marks.

F10 - view Space Race

Good, we took the vote and the vote goes for variant number 3 with AW and a possible Diplo win without building the UN.

We have some nice discussion regarding the opening moves as well.

Please note that Aw game have certain specifics to ensure that we do not lose (like team Ankka in SGOTM1 with OCC+AW). We are stuck for some time with 1 city and must defend it well to survive.

The strategies for AW game have been extensively developed by many famous players including such great players as Cartouche Bee and T-Hawk. We can start with some reading of great SGs played previously and I would try to provide for references but it is not that easy with search disabled. OK, found a SG by CB. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=52417)

Just pasting from there:
1. Tight build expansion, no city can be built more than three tiles away from an existing city. Cities may be captured from the AI at a range of more than 3 tiles. Tight build provides excellent defense mechanism and the ability to do virtual shifts of troops to the front lines.

2. No wonders (including small wonders, FP) can be built except by great leaders. The FP has to be built 9 or more squares from the capitol.

3. No infrastructure may be built until a FP has been established, that means settler, worker and military only.
Exceptions - Barracks
- Granary (may be built if city has 5 surplus food)
- Walls may be built if the city is under actual attack.

4. Cities that only produce 1 uncorrupt shield may only build workers, settlers or walls.

5. Cities with more than 1 shield production: when infrastructure is permitted;
- marketplaces (subject to availability) are to be built before libraries;
- when a city goes beyond size 6 it must build a bank (subject to availability) as soon as it can.

The above rules summarized by Cartouche Bee should be followed strictly.

I would also like to add some general considerations:

1) No need to explore with the first warrior too early and too far. If we meet our rivals too soon, we can get whole bunch of trouble. They would rush at us and would delay our early expansion.

2) Before building anything (settler), we need at least 3 warriors (may be 1 spearman) in our first city. One warrior can do some scouting in the surrounding area (not going too far) and two other units stay in the city and protect our worker. We would also need a unit to protect our settler. It can be warrior but better be spearman. All settlers better be protected as well as most workers on tiles close to our cultural borders.

3) If we spot a unit, we don't have to initiate diplomacy with them and can wait for them to come to us. Grab whatever possible to trade from them and declare the war. No gpt deals or other kind of 20-turn deals. We also cannot buy workers from the AIs until at least 1000BC.

We play Germany, which is one of the best civilizations for AW. Germany is militaristic (lost of promotions and Great Leaders anticipated) and scientific (in AW we have to research everything ourselves). Early expansion is very risky and we might want to make it slow but without running into a risk of losing a settler or a city.

To settle on the spot is a good option and we can start producing some military immediately. Moving the settler is a little bit risky.

Top priority for worker jobs goes to mining. Second priority - building roads in the tiles which are worked by the citizens so that our research goes more rapidly. Third priority - irrigation of bonus food tiles. Hence, first move can be worker E to BG. If E-SE is a wheat or cow, we can still settle on the spot. Worker then mines BG and builds a road there. Meanwhile, we build 2 warriors, start the third and get ready for a settler. On turn 10, the cultural borders expand and we get that food bonus in radius. Worker can then go there and start irrigating. But it all depends on which civilizations we meet and when.

In warfare, we don't need to be very aggressive in the beginning. Just defend actively losing as low number of units as possible. After we build on some decent territory and have some decent military, we can start attacking the enemy cities. Actually, the more cities the AI would build for us, the less we would have to build ourselves. There is little worry about culture flips because we would be building some libraries after FP is established. FP city can be disbanded in the future and FP built in some other city. We have an option to jump the Palace with a leader but only prior to 10AD.

The build of cities would be rather tight hence we can master some micromanagement techniques very well. It would be required to switch multiple tiles between a number of cities every turn. It would be certainly a good idea to follow RCP pattern as closely as possible at radius 3 and then at radius 6.

Research path is rather complicated since we have limited ability to trade the techs. There are however some critical techs: Literature (for libraries and Great Library wonder), Mathematics (for catapults), and Iron Working for warrior-swordsmen upgrade (no rush with this but no delay as well, might depend on how many warriors we can get). Other techs we might hope to get from the Great Library if we manage to build it. Catapults might be a critical unit in this game especially for defensive and for leader farming. We would have a good possibility to accumulate some cash if we build the Great Library which would enable upgrades of warriors to swordsmen and of horsemen to knights. With knights, we can do most of the fightings.

Researching first-level techs is not a very good option. We can get most of them by trades. Or, if really lucky, from huts. On Monarch this is quite possible.

Build of early second worker is very risky IMO.

And I would like to emphasize that we don't need early contacts, on the contrary, stay alone as long as possible.

The order of players in the roster can be also discussed and if I may suggest the following sequence of players:

1. Bruindane
2. Pindicator
3. akots
4. DJMGator13



I will initiate the game Monday evening.

Current thinking.
Settle at start.
Build Warrior, Warrior, Warrior(Worker?), Barracks (Settler?)

Yes, my by understanding of AW the only early exploration should be of the immediate vicinity to get a dot map and defensive plan established for when the civs to come in. I haven't read any of the people whom you mention, but I will definitely check out that SG. Also, by what I've seen staying with one city for a while can be dangerous in itself. If we find more than one civ in the early stages, we may find ourselves hemmed in as far as city development; a second early city I think may be worth the production. But then again, if we have an early contact I would definitely say barracks.

However I do not have much AW experience, only from SGOTM1 and with immortals on regent I don't know if even that one counts.

The order of players in the roster can be also discussed and if I may suggest the following sequence of players:

1. Bruindane
2. Pindicator
3. akots
4. DJMGator13



The roster looks fine to me. The only thought I have is it might be better to seperate Bruindane & myself. akots & Pindicator appear to have the most AW knowledge. But with discussing our turn strategies everything should be OK.


Build of early second worker is very risky IMO.

I wasn't sure with the amount of forest around us. I usually never build workers from my capital until after my 2nd city is up and running. So we may want to move worker to an early build in 2nd city.

I wasn't sure with the amount of forest around us. I usually never build workers from my capital until after my 2nd city is up and running. So we may want to move worker to an early build in 2nd city.

Agreed. The return of investment of the early worker (in shields) would break even with perhaps two forests chopped. More critically, the worker delays a settler.

On Research:

I want to build our initial cash reserve to allow us to buy some techs that we may not otherwise be able to trade for. Researching iron working in 40, then going back for the other techs at faster rates.

Don't give my SGOTM experience too much credit (although if my team would have listened to me, we probably would have beat your team, akots--they just had to get monarchy before map making :) ). But with all the forethought and planning going on in this one, I would be reluctant to put myself ahead of you guys in ability. If we can keep this energy and forethought into our actions, we should be fine. I'll even contribute here eventually :lol: seriously, though, I have a presentation due Monday for my Shakespeare so I've been trying to spend less time posting in the forums and more time working on that.

I have to agree on Iron Working for research. Odds are you do not have a settler farm in an AW game (although it seems that in the SG you linked, akots, they did in fact do something similar to that). Although if we do not have any contact by the time our 3rd warrior (or worker, which is tempting with the forests) is built, we could think about chop-rushing a granary and turning Berlin into a settler factory. But this is unlikely, so I doubt we'll need pottery soon.

After IW I suggest we go straight for Mathematics to get cats. Masonry will also get us walls. Unless we haven't contacted anyone, then I'd suggest getting Wheel before Math, so we can locate the horses.

Not very convicted one way or the other, but it's hard to make concrete plans without playing.

I'd give a third cent if I had it. :p

Interesting discussion indeed! Granary in Berlin accelerated by forest chop might be a good option if we can trade for Pottery. IW at 40-turn indeed can be researched first. Even if we have iron, we can delay connecting it to get more warriors for upgrade. By having some cash on hand we may be able to trade for lots of level 1 techs. However, Literature is certainly a top priority after this if the game is not extremely brutal. If it goes the bad way, Mathematics might be a good tech to have IMHO.

As you have probably looked through, Cartouche Bee's game was played on Emperor difficulty with extremely strong team of player who beat Sid level in C3C. Hence, the task of immediate survival may be not so tough in our case but we should play accurately. On the other hand, we would have to be competitive in terms of score at least to a certain extent. Just hope we don't finish last. But it would be very exciting to pull a Diplo win in AW game! Nobody has ever done that!

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> will play on Monday. Good luck!
2. Pindicator -> get ready
3. akots
4. DJMGator13

Turn Year Description
================================================== =========
1 4000 Worker goes east and discovers game in forest and not wheat! City founded on the spot-- wheat spotted on plains to the north-west. Research set to IW for 40 turns. Warrior started at 5 turns. Settler Factory possible in Berlin, but will focus on maximizing initial production for now.

2 3950 Worker begins mine.

3 3900 ~

4 3850 ~

5 3800 ~

6 3750 Warrior produced and stomps off west

7 3700 ~

8 3650 Mine finished, road begun

9 3600 ~

10 3550 Second Warrior stomps off north-northwest

11 3500 Borders expand, spice to the south

12 3450 ~

13 3400 Third Warrior stomps off East, Barracks started. Ivory spotted in the Northwest

14 3350 ~

15 3300 ~

16 3200 Barracks built, Settler started

17 3150 2nd Mine finished, road begun. Silks spotted in the East

18 3100 ~

19 3050 First Warrior returns to Berlin for defense and MP.

20 3000 City Growth, Settler due in two turns.

Nice start, bruindane. 2 bonus foods, 3 nearby luxuries, and a nice pattern of hills to channel enemy forces onto a "killing field" should they come from our west. The jungle may seem like a disadvantage; however, it will most likely serve as an early boundary to enemy civs. By my experience they do not explore the jungle until there is nowhere else to go. Not even when they settle the area will they explore much farther than where they intend to build.

I have a couple of other points that I think we need to address before I take the next set of turns. Most of these were gleaned from the SG game that akots gave us to reference, and if I'm reading too much into that it's from my limited AW experience:

How should we continue to explore?

Now that we have an immediate knowledge of the area, I would say that we should "round out" our map of the area (the warrior in the picture should explore the area around the wheat to determine a future town cite, and if there is a warrior in the far east like the mini-map suggest, then he should head back immediately), and then quit exploring for the meantime. We do not want to trigger first contact until as long as possible, and maps can be bought from the enemy AI (by what I've read from that Cartouche Bee SG, trading for maps from the AI before declaring can be more important than trading for techs, as realistically we will not be able to explore them ourselves. My call is that we should only explore enough to know where I next city should go, so the area around our cities.

For this reason I would advise not pop any huts if we find them! Bringing barbs into the world, especially near our units, will only entice the AI to send troops in that direction. (They have an odd sixth sense about where barbs are, just like unavailable resources like oil and saltpeter.) I would only pop huts the "safe" way, by popping within a cities original 9, at least until we have contacts.

What should we research next?

As for our current research, I think doing a minimum run on IW is a mistake. With only one round of trading possible with each opposing civ, we will have to do most of our research ourselves, and therefore do not want to fall behind too much. Traditional use of monopolies will probably not even help us too much: we will most likely have contact with one enemy civ at a time, and they will probably have other contacts with which they would trade whatever tech we give to them. I think if maxing research will net us IW any turns faster, then we should do so immediately.

I know I mentioned that math makes a good goal to shoot for after IW, but the other choices are good as well: Alphabet gets us closer to The Great Library and cats, Pottery nets us granaries, The Wheel gives us horse resources, and Ceremonial Burial gives us on a track towards Monarchy. Considering we haven't had contact with another civ yet, I would say we should research Wheel at max next. Math is great for defense, but there's no use researching it until we need it (ideally after contact and before inital rush). Although considering all the bonus foods, I am tempted to say let's go Pottery, pop out another worker quick, and chop-rush a granary. This ties in with my next question:

How do we want to expand?
We do not want to start this game as an OCC AW. Getting an early settler before enemy contact out was good; getting a bunch out would be great. If we can get three or four productive cities online and connected before we get contact with the enemy, we could potentially put a granary in Berlin and turn it into a 4-turn settler factory with the other towns providing escorts. As Cartouche Bee mentioned in the link akots provided, most AWs die out because unit costs become too high: they are stuck between the necessity of having enough units to hold off 6 or 7 enemy civs, and having enough money to maintain that army. So I think it is imperative that not only do we expand as much before we find contact, but continue to expand, potentially setting up Berlin as a 4-turn factory throughout the entire game. Besides, with a 3-tile city spread, we will have room for lots of cities.

That's all I can think of for now. I won't be able to play, so I definitely will look for what everyone else says before I do. As of now I am probably going to:

1. Curb the exploration
2. set research to max if it lowers our research time
3. focus on growth, while maintaining the minimum military needed to thwart first contact (Monarchy does not give much for the enemy to begin with, so it will be minimal). Berlin will pump settlers and spears inbetween until we get a few other cities online.
4. research The Wheel next, though I am toying with the idea of Pottery.

Also, I have never gone earlier than third in an SG before. Do I take 20, 15, or 10 turns?


Edit: On second thought, we should go ahead and pop any barb huts we come across, if we consider it safe to do so. Obviously a "safe" pop with a settler is best, but if too far away and we feel the warrior can risk it, I take back my adament opposition to popping. It's because I dbl-checked the game settings and with raging barbarians, the AI will be all over the map hunting barb camp, so we may not be so lucky in avoiding contact.

Are we allowed to download the save, study current position & make screenshot (ie dotmaps) when its not our turn to play? I know it was allowed for the opening play But I want to make sure since this is my first SG and I don't want to be a bad boy.

Definitely, in fact its encouraged that you download and study the save between every turn to help with the discussion.

And a dotmap is probably a good idea, too. Cause I am no good at those :D

Tight build expansion, no city can be built more than three tiles away from an existing city.

City sites
Do we want to use RCP? If so, some of my dots are off. I think our 2nd city should be at #1 (yellow dot). It allows us to share the wheat and a BG with Berlin w/o any other improvements.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/3000BCdotmap.jpg

I based the green dots off of the 3 tile requirement. The other dots are not in any order of preference. Site B & C are in the jungle but they have river access which will allow them to grow w/o an aquaduct (later in the game) and B allows us to grab the spice. Site D is where I would probably build our 3rd city, because it opens up the other wheat and river area to the NE. Site D could also be a strong shield city. Site B, C & E will all have limited growth until major improvement can be done.

Worker action
Do we want to mine or irrigate the Plain wheat the worker is currently on? Its the difference between +2 or +3 food. Berlin at size 4 with the wheat mined would be +2f +10s, while irrigated it would be +3f +9s.

Hey, we played 20 turns, explored our RCP3 locations and did not meet another civilization! What might be better for AW! It is just unbelievably good! Great turns, Bruindane!

IMO, Pindicator has very strong points here. We better stop exploration ATM. There is room for 7-9 RCP 3-3.5 cities and we better start the settler factory running in Berlin to make it work. I'm not good at dot maps, so if someone with drawing skill can make one, it would be really nice. It is more or less evident where to build the cities but we better make sure. Just stick to rivers/lakes and RCP and try not to build on hills before we get IW and know there is no iron there. Hooking-unhooking iron is a great possibility and if we place a city on iron, there might be problems with unhooking it. We need to
1) Irrigate wheat on plains
2) Chop forest on the game tile
3) Irrigate game
4) Research (or trade) Pottery
5) Build granary
6) Enjoy our settler/worker factory.

However, without looking at the save, it looks like there are some problems on this road. Research to IW on minimum might be accelerated and then best choice is Pottery. If we don't go into minus, the gold we have on hand is apparently enough to trade for Pottery and Alphabet with our starting techs and IW.
Also, we might need more workers, at least 2 more or may be even 3. And still we must make some settlers with occasional veteran (!) warriors in Berlin. It feels so good to be protected by a veteran warrior! Not some stupid conscript.

Re Popping huts: It is risky but still worth a try on Monarch. Re The Wheel: The tech is good especially if there is no Japan in the game. If there is Japan, we might be able to trade for it from somebody else later. Still top priority goes to Writing-Literature and Great Library. If we follow RCP 3-6 (3-3.5 and 6-6.5), we can survive without fast units for the beginning because we would be able to shift troops between the cities.

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> Just played, unbelievable luck and great turns!
2. Pindicator -> UP Try not to find them but if you find, kill them all!
3. akots -> biting on his nails, eager to test the full weight of German clubs on the necks of our enemies
4. DJMGator13 ->

Just a reminder: each player plays 10 turns. Only the first one plays 20. (All envy Bruindane.)

Cross-posted with DJMGator13. Well, you certainly have some talent with dot-maps!

The city 1 is a perfect location. Others are also nice and may be discussed but we better stick to RCP to decrease corruption. Hence, if I may suggest:
E is shifted 1 tile SW
D 1 tile NW
C 1 tile NE
C' is 2 tiles SW-SW from C
B stays on place which makes it for total 6 RCP 3-3.5 cities
A is tempting but is out of RCP and may increase corruption in our putative second RCP-6-6.5 ring (if we survive to build that).

The plain with wheat better be irrigated. Mining food bonuses is usually not a good idea unless we are really desperate on shields. But look at all these forests...

I edited my map


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/3000BCdotmapREV.jpg

Fun open. AW has a refreshing scare factor whispering... "turn back now, before it is too late."


What should we research next?

As for our current research, I think doing a minimum run on IW is a mistake... I think if maxing research will net us IW any turns faster, then we should do so immediately.
Maxing the research slider has no effect on the number of turns required for IW :(

The 87 gold (and counting) in our treasury is the key balancing component of researching IW first. We might not be able to leverage IW, but we can spend gold to acquire our missing techs. From a pure science/beaker/gold analysis we should come out ahead, we can support 100% science for an extended period.

The big question IMO is should we research anything before starting Alphabet>Writing>Literature? We do want... Wheels to find Horses, Pottery for the Granary, Masonry for Walls, Mathematics for Catapults. Cheap Libraries, Unit Support costs make the Monarchy track unattractive. A simpler question is, what technologies shall we acquire through trading?


Also, I have never gone earlier than third in an SG before. Do I take 20, 15, or 10 turns?


10 turns

Well, this is great news. After going through SGOTM1 in vanilla without any problem, now the game crashes any time I try to start or load a game. So I tried to load up the Gold Version vanilla (yes, i have both for some reason) and that won't even load. Man, my comp is messed up.

Anyway, I will try to reinstall it all and risk messing everything up later tonight, after I get back from the library. If I can't get it to work, then maybe I could get swapped to the end of the the list.

I just want to :spank: my computer someimtes. Glad I'm getting a new one soon.

Well, this is great news. After going through SGOTM1 in vanilla without any problem, now the game crashes any time I try to start or load a game. So I tried to load up the Gold Version vanilla (yes, i have both for some reason) and that won't even load. Man, my comp is messed up.

Anyway, I will try to reinstall it all and risk messing everything up later tonight, after I get back from the library. If I can't get it to work, then maybe I could get swapped to the end of the the list.

I just want to :spank: my computer someimtes. Glad I'm getting a new one soon.

Are you currently modded for GOTM, does a GOTM sav load correctly and do you have enough room to load Civ 2 times? I have 2 versions loaded on mine and it works fine. Here is a screenshot of my directory (posted here since we can't attach images to PM's).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/load2Civs.jpg

Let me know if you don't need this and I'll delete it.

Cross-posted with DJMGator13. Well, you certainly have some talent with dot-maps!

The city 1 is a perfect location. Others are also nice and may be discussed but we better stick to RCP to


Nice dot map indeed!

-- Now I am going to suggest heresy. Our first cities will be underdeveloped and tightly packed, and ripe for abandonment once we have larger populations (keeping a UN victory in mind). We could plan a tighter second ring, say 5 away from our capital and abandon the first ring cities as we grow.

Outposts should be used to bring our resources in. AI City encroachment should not be an issue, and pychologically I find that I will strategically retreat from an outpost, but pay dearly defending an overexposed, underdeveloped city.

Fortunately, I play GOTM with PTW and these games with vanilla, so never had a similar problem. Can you load some other game, for example, start a random one? or SGOTM1 save? Are you using patch 1.29f?

@Bruindane: I assume you were using 1.29f patch while playing your turns? May worth checking just to make sure...

No rush with anything. It might be good if we try not to skip anyone unless RL really takes the toll. Pindicator has at least 3 days to fix the problem and there is always a possibility to ask help from Ainwood (PC expert) and AlanH (Mac compatibility expert). Just need to PM one of them. They are very nice usually. :)

... Now I am going to suggest heresy. Our first cities will be underdeveloped and tightly packed, and ripe for abandonment once we have larger populations (keeping a UN victory in mind). We could plan a tighter second ring, say 5 away from our capital and abandon the first ring cities as we grow. ...

It might be a good idea in general but in practive these cities would be hard to part with... :) Some sweet memories. We are human after all. Here we got our first leader! And here our first cavalry took off! And so on. We can disband our capital if in position to move Palace and this might do the trick with overpopulation in the core. Also, we have a bunch of mountains and at a certain point, some grassland would be irrigated to work these mountains comfortably. Usually, it is enough to leave one or two RCP 3 cities underdeveloped and may be indeed abandon them. Also note that this is GOTM and we play for score as well. Mostly for fun but trying to keep the score in mind. Abandoning cities is not helping our score. We better think twice before parting even with a single happy citizen.

Regarding outposts: We may need them eventually but now it is too early to tell. Need to know where the horses and iron are. And luxuries are aplenty around.

Just to confirm that the save is OK. At least I was able to load it and everything is fine, no problems.

Also note that this is GOTM and we play for score as well. Mostly for fun but trying to keep the score in mind. Abandoning cities is not helping our score. We better think twice before parting even with a single happy citizen.

Is there any advantage, score-wise, to setting lux @10% to generate a Happy citizen? Currently it only costs 1gpt.

did the drastic deed and reinstalled; everything works fine now, so a file probably just corrupted on me. Which is odd cause I only play vanilla for SGOTM. Ah well, looks like I will play tonight, homework be damned.

Edit: Playing it now, and it looks like that lux might be a good idea. I decided to do a 10-turn experiment on the happy citizen idea, so we can talk about it again afterwards with some data to look at.

Edit 2: A russian scout just came through the jungle to the far east. Have not made contact yet, however it may be only a matter of time now. I think I will leave it for the next player to make contact, unless the Russians contact me first.

Is there any advantage, score-wise, to setting lux @10% to generate a Happy citizen? Currently it only costs 1gpt.

It might be good but also slows our research to IW. Don't know really. These first turns have little contribution to the score later in the game but our score graph would look good and other teams can be jealous. :)

Russia is the best possible civilization to meet. We get Pottery then which enables the Granary!

Inherited Turn, 3000BC
Everything looks okay here. IW can't be run down so I will keep it as such.
Okay, I'm willing to go for the lux idea Bruindane. The rational part of me that reads better players posts and such tells me I shouldn't, but at the cost of 1gpt I'm willing to give my people a little happiness. At the very worst it will be a 10-turn experiment that the next player can turn off. Conversely we can get 2 happy citizens with 2gpt and 3 happy people with 3gpt, but I am just going to keep this as an experiment.

Turn 1, 2950BC
Worker irrigates.
Warrior north of the wheat moves back towards Berlin to be an escort for our new settler.
Warrior by the incense moves north to explore between the incense and wheat.
IBT-
Berlin: Settler -> Warrior. Worker in queue.

Turn 2, 2900BC
Settler moves towards location #1, thanks to our wonderful cartographer DJM.
Warrior in the east moves north onto hill and reveals a coastline in the east. We may have a lot of open land to work with there. Will risk enough exploration to get a good idea of the area.
Happy score: 0.7 (1 happy citizen / 1 total)

Turn 3, 2850BC
As far as our luxury experiment goes, after 3 turns we have gained an additional point in the score. I have not seen any assessments of this on the forums, but it looks like the score gains 0.33 points per happy person per turn, at least on Monarchy difficulty. However, this is only based on watching our score the last 3 turns. I would consider keeping this up if we are serious about score; as our empire grows it could help our score vastly.
Happy score: 1.0 (1 happy citizen / 1 total)

Turn 4, 2800BC
Settle Pindicator's Paradise. Production set to warrior, due in 4.
It's definitely a coastline to the east. This is very good news, as jungle borders us to the south and southeast, mountains to the west, and water to the north and northwest. The only probable spot for an enemy civ to come exploring from would be the northwest. Very good land for us to gather, and hopefully without being disturbed.
Happy score: 1.3 (1 happy citizen / 1 total)

Turn 5, 2750BC
Ha, now that's hubris for ya! As soon as I proclaim ourselves golden, the Russians pop out a scout from the eastern jungle. I will not initiate contact, and hopefully Russia won't either, however we don't want to wait too long or else we will lose our trade opportunities. I will leave this up to the next leader to negotiate, so we can get some team discussion on it first.
Happy score: 1.6 (1 happy citizen / 2 total).
IBT-
Russia contacts us, dang it.
Buy Pottery for 75g. They are also up Ceremonial Burial, but I cannot buy both, so I declare before I close the screen and buckle up for the start of a long, bumpy ride.
Russia has 85g, and only two total cities, just like us. Do not see them as a problem for a while.
Berlin: Warrior -> Worker.

Turn 6, 2710BC
MP arrives in Pindicator's Paradise.
Happy score: 1.8 (1 happy citizen / 2 total)
IBT-
That scout is mocking me, staying two moves away from my warrior at all times.

Turn 7, 2670BC
Sometime back I just automatically told the worker to road without thinking to switch citizens to working the wheat. MM Berlin to do that now; worker will come in at the same turn, I think, due to extra shields on growth.
Happy score: 2.1 (1 happy citizen / 2 total)
IBT-
Paradise: Warrior -> Spear.

Turn 8, 2630BC
Worker completes road, moves towards the Game tile with an intention of chopping and then irrigating.
Happy score: 2.3 (1 happy citizen / 3 total)

Turn 9, 2590BC
Worker to game tile. Warrior in the east has finished exploring and is now heading home.
Happy score: 2.5 (1 happy citizen / 2 total)
IBT-
Berlin: Worker -> Granary. This is certainly vetoable, but I'm thinking we should go with the chop-rush while Paradise pumps spears (and maybe even another settler if Russia doesn't show up soon).

Turn 10, 2550BC
Worker on game tile chops. Worker from Berlin moves onto game tile; should chop next turn.
Happy score: 2.7 (1 happy citizen / 2 total)

I'm for getting that granary up before we have to bunker down. This is because it times well with the chop from the game tile that we want to get irrigated. Paradise can give us spears (although Paradise will need some irrigation or wood cut so it can grow well).

Not much else to say. I thought about keeping the warrior in the east as a scout, however we can't be really sure that the Russian cities are where their scout came from, but my money's on it.

And what's people's take on the entertainment spending? I'm thinking that hooking up the luxuries will give us a better benefit -- the 1gpt doesn't even give us a happy person in each town. (I guess you name a town Paradise and it expects nothing less thereafter.)

Edit: here's a link to the save. Firaxis score 83, Jason score 63.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/akots_SG002_BC2550_01.SAV

1. Bruindane
2. Pindicator -> built our second city and got Pottery. It looks so good ...
3. akots -> UP, got the save, and wants some discussion
4. DJMGator13 -> get ready

I'd like to start some short discussion:

1) Do we continue building granary or make a warrior (spear) in Berlin and time start of granary with forest chop so it is not wasted on unit?
2) Where to build next city? Close to spices?
3) Do we need rax in PP? Or worker? or warrior/spear?
4) Do we attack Russia by moving our warrior in their direction or just wait for them to come to us?
5) Do we continue the experiment with luxury rate? Or try to hook up spices ASAP? Basically it is a waste but we may boost some score a little bit for other teams to envy.
6) Just random thoughts: We are going for tight build and with low population, our happy faces have little contribution to early score unlike the teams which went for wide build (OCP-style). But this is only for the beginning... it is like a spring which is pushed down and then, at a certain point, is released (unleashed) and jumps up, rampaging and capturing all around. Low score at start but then faster advance and larger gains every turn. Just excersising with poetic metaphors...

Can play only tomorrow evening.

Since I hate homework, but need somethign to do still, I decided to analyze your first question, akots

1) the worker just began a forest chop this turn. That means 7 turns to completion -- if we start the other worker on a forest chop next turn that means 4 turns net (and no work wasted; i'll claim that like it was intentional). Currently Berlin has 3spt production, so it wouldn't even get a warrior in before the cut. However, if instead we decide to have the other worker road and not cut trees, then with 3spt we could build a warrior and then start.) Now, I did some number crunching and if we go warrior then granary we can get them both in 16 turns with forest chops. If we go granary then warrior we get... surprise... both in 16 turns with forest chops.

The difference is that if we send the second worker to chop immediately, our chop will come through faster, meaning Berlin will grow fast and end up with 4 additional food at the end of the 14 turns. And we still get the warrior in the 2 turns after the granary if we desire.

So the issue is if we want the warrior immediately, and to that I would have to disagree. We have five warriors, and a spear on the way plus no enemy units in sight (and perceived to be at quite a distance).

I attached my civ-data if you guys want to check my work. I might have some of the nuances wrong as far as city growth and worker chops concerning city production. If I remember correctly, the order is:

Worker actions -> Food increase -> Pop check -> Shield increase.

I know there are others, too, but these are the only ones pertinent to the work.

If I applied myself like this to my homework, I'd be done :lol: only a few more weeks.

I'll answer akots questions when I get home from work. I'll also do a 2nd ring map at 6 & 6.5 (probably w/o dots - leave that open for discussion).

Couple of quick items follows.
1 - Goody huts - make sure we do not have a settler or one in production before popping hut.

2 - Techs - I'd make the push for Lit & GL. We can pick up all those other 1st teir techs from the GL.

3 - Happy/Lux - How were you able to seperate normal score increase from the Happy test?

4 - Our Score - Looks like only 1 team (Kuningas) was slightly infront of us after the second round and we are ahead of a 3rd round team (as of this posting). Looking at Kuningas's QSC from GOTM31 he did a tight 3 tile build. He had 21 cities (2 captured) at 1000BC.:eek: You can check out his Spoiler1 post here (post #14 on page 1)

Link to Spoiler1 GOTM31 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=87380)

It might be a good idea in general but in practive these cities would be hard to part with... :) Some sweet memories. We are human after all. Here we got our first leader! And here our first cavalry took off! And so on. .

<Grin> I am thinking of a fictional future conversation involving the abandonment of Pindicator's Paradise. You are right, we are human indeed.

That city's annoying me even now :devil2:
I mean, i spend 1gpt on them and they won't even get happy for me.
Not to mention that perfectly good wheat I'm letting them use, because once they grow I wouldn't be letting them have any other tiles.

DJMGators13's suggestion and pindicator's implementation to prematurely "milk" our score to befuddle/scare/impress other teams is amusing and it is cheaply satisfying to see our relative score at this point. As for Kuningas, hooking up to the silks, would account for the difference in the score (or is he spending 2gpt on happiness? :rolleyes: ).

Personally, I think we should save every gold penny towards trade (Alphabet, Masonry, or Wheel) and then use it to fund our maximized science run to Literature.

Half the homework is done! Well, the easy half, so now it's time for a break

@DMJ - I have never heard that rule for popping huts before. Can you tell me why, so I may increase my knowledge of civ3 trivia?

@akots - more questions that I will attempt to answer, as best i can

#1) I've been deliberating whether or not we want to granary built, and despite the fact that I dislike spending 16 turns building anything this early in the game, the 4-turn settler factory is something that cannot be dismissed. We should use Pindicator's Paradise to pump out another settler after the spear is built (the growth should be timed pretty close) -- unless russian troops show up first, that is -- because despite the granary we should keep growing as much as we can while the russians are away. Once they come it will be increasingly difficult to do so.

#2) - My first thought was close to the spices to hook them up, however, now I think our next city should be on the cite labed D in DMJ's latest dot map. If the russians come, it will be on an excellent defensive position, and it also is a stepping stone to the nice lands to our east. To the west is also tempting to expand, but we need more worker turns to promote growth in the west while the grasslands and wheat to the east are just better.

#3) - There are currently two warriors in PP and it is building a spear (which I would put in Berlin). I would start a settler afterwards, because by what I understand of AW games, taking an offensive towards the enemy before knights (though sometimes swords) is not the best idea -- shields are better utilized for units that can be upgraded. Until then it should be spears, cats, and horses (if we have any). Of course, if we get a 2nd contact or Russia shows up in force, then the settler idea is definitely rethinkable.

#4) - Definitely do not attack Russia. We are playing for the long run, and one warrior will do nothing for us except possibly pillage one square or capture one worker before dying. Better that he comes to our towns to attack troops that threaten us directly.

#5) - I think the lux experiment is debateable. At the current rate of .2 or so per turn, it will definitely add up; however the issue is if it is worth even 1gpt. My gut reaction tells me no; however, we'll have luxuries soon enough.

#6) - Definitely good points here. Which is why we should highlight expansion early on. The wider our base, the higher our peak can grow.

Can you tell I'm a writer? My posts are starting to look like tomes. Let's just hope it's not an exercise in fictional writing :crazyeye:


Edit: I took a look at the save, and silly me, I did not have PP working the wheat for some reason. Probably cause when it was founded Berlin was doing that. Anyway, have it work the BG for one turn more and then switch to the wheat. I thought about giving Berlin the wheat, but we need a growing PP as well, and while Berlin would grow faster with the wheat PP wouldn't grow at all.

Looking at PP, it should be able to build a settler in 7 after the spear. (Which times perfectly with the growth of Berlin to pop 3 and needing to work the 2nd BG; another reason a settler works well next is because it keeps the two cities from working undeveloped resources. It's almost asthetic to behold... assuming my calculations are right.)

New Dot Map with 3/3.5 ring and 6/6.5 ring

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/2550BCdotmap.jpg


Had to enlarge the Zoomed map - hopefully its not too blurry.

#1) I've been deliberating whether or not we want to granary built, and despite the fact that I dislike spending 16 turns building anything this early in the game, the 4-turn settler factory is something that cannot be dismissed. We should use Pindicator's Paradise to pump out another settler after the spear is built (the growth should be timed pretty close) -- unless russian troops show up first, that is -- because despite the granary we should keep growing as much as we can while the russians are away. Once they come it will be increasingly difficult to do so.
[/I]
We might want to build a second barracks in Pindicator's Paradise before building more troops. Berlin built one in 4 turns (at 5 spt & pop 2) and we could get PP to build one in 5 turns, or in 4 if we mine a plain.

#2) - My first thought was close to the spices to hook them up, however, now I think our next city should be on the cite labed D in DMJ's latest dot map. If the russians come, it will be on an excellent defensive position, and it also is a stepping stone to the nice lands to our east. To the west is also tempting to expand, but we need more worker turns to promote growth in the west while the grasslands and wheat to the east are just better.
[/I]
D does look good. It is on a hill, will protect our improvements, and will support future cities north and northeast. B has lux and a river :) , but is on the wrong side of the river for our road network and has growth/production limitations (but once the jungle is gone :goodjob: ). A city northwest of the ivory next to the floodplains, protected by the river, will be a winner.

#4) - Definitely do not attack Russia. We are playing for the long run, and one warrior will do nothing for us except possibly pillage one square or capture one worker before dying. Better that he comes to our towns to attack troops that threaten us directly.
[/I]
A stack of 3 archers (Swordsmen?) and a spearman could take out a Russian city. How many Civs are on our landmass? What if there are only two or three? I think our warrior should scout more to find Russia's borders-- sure run away from Russian troops, but better map knowledge will only help. Worst case? We make war on a Civ like England to the Far East and get Alphabet.

Here are my quick answers to akots questions.

1 Granary - I say yes. It is vitale to Berlin becoming a settler factory. Having to only recover 10 vrs 20 for growth will allow us to build settlers every 4 or 5 turns.

Question: Once the forest game is chopped how much does a Grass Game tile yield when mined vrs. irrigated?

2 Next City - Either B or D. Site D will be much more productive and allow us to get a prime 6/6.5 site on the river and with wheat. However, we must consider B for no other reason than hooking up the Spice. Please see my following info on score & Happy faces before deciding next city.

3 Rax in PP - It can be built in 5 turns same as the current spear. It will costs us 1 gpt to maintain, however we can produce veteran warrior which will later upgrade to veteran swords. I would probably shange the build on the spear anyway. We can produce 2 warriors for each spear, warriors can ususally handle barbs.

4 Russia - How about a little of both. We could play Cat & Mouse and use our warrior to explorer part of their area while trying to maintain a 1 tile buffer. Their 2mp Scout can't attack so it should be 1mp vrs. 1mp unless they build chariots. But we could always retreat to the jungle if chariots are there.

5 Lux Experiment - see below

6 Tight Build - AW requires a 3 tile build so we must usea tight build pattern.



5) Do we continue the experiment with luxury rate? Or try to hook up spices ASAP? Basically it is a waste but we may boost some score a little bit for other teams to envy.

I think both may be in order. Definately hookup the spice and work the luxury slider. In SirPleb's Scoring Article (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_maxscore.shtml) he states that:

The scoring works by averaging your per-turn scores throughout the game. For each turn a (hidden) per-turn score is calculated as:

(Territory + HappyCitizens*2 + ContentCitizens + Specialists) * Difficulty

The total of all your per-turn scores is divided by the number of turns played so far to get your actual game score. I.e. your actual score is the average of your per-turn scores.

"Territory" is the number of tiles which are within your sphere of influence.
"Difficulty" is 1 for Chieftain, 2 for Warlord, 3 for Regent, 4 for Monarch, 5 for Emperor, 6 for Deity.

I agree with akots that like a spring our score will explode later but why not try to wind the spring a little tighter. SirPleb also created a score calculator but I don't know if it's use is allowed in a GOTM. Territory is calculated by dividing the Land Area square mileage by 100. So at our current turn our per-turn score with the 1 Happy would be 150 ((27 terr + (1 H *2) + 1 C) * 5) vrs 145 with 2 content. All the per-turn scores are averaged so it may have a small effect now but I think it might pay off in the future. I have only tried this once and it is the current GOTM and I noticed that my score at the end of the QSC was higher than some people with more cities, but SirPleb has played many HoF games with this in mind.

@Pindicator - The settler from a goody huttheory I read here on the forums. I'll try to see if I can locate it. But it said that a goody hut will not give a settler if you have one built (ie. in transit to a site), one in production or if you have more cities than the other civs. This may be a C3C item though I can't remember. But I usually change my city production off of settler prior to popping huts.

Wow, I thought for some short notes but we have a little debate going on!

I'll play another SG, then 3 PBEMs and then start on this one.

It looks like some concensus is achieved though.

1) Warrior-Granary or Granary-warrior depends on time the Granary would be finished. If we finish Granary on the turn before the food bin in Berlin is full, we save all the food towards filling the Granary and gain additional population growth because of this. Looks like warrior for 2 turns and then working irrigated plains would do the trick after the game tile is irrigated. Bad thing that PP would not grow ATM because we keep Berlin on wheat.

2) Site D looks very tempting from the military point of view. But the dot map has only 3 additional cities while the plan is to build 5 more making 6 total for RCP 3-3.5 as discussed previously. I'll try to edit the dot map but my drawing skill is very poor. Next preference is site B.

3) OK, looks like rax and then warrior or spear since rax cost is the same as spear. And 1 gpt we gain from decrease in luxury rate.

4) I'll advance a little bit just to be closer to their border so spot some attackers earlier and take chances only if settler/warrior combo shows up. We surely can use 2 free slaves!

5) Guess luxuries go to support the forthcoming rax. It's AW after all.

Dot map (I warned you, it is not Rembrandt :) )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2-2550BCdotmap-akots.JPG

Re popping huts: If we have no settler in production, we can pop a settler from the hut. If we have settler in production, we cannot pop a settler from the hut.

Re GOTM discussion: I'm not sure how appropriate is to discuss the current GOTM in this thread. I myself qualify for spoiler 1 (not 2 yet) but have no idea of the others. To put it short, QSC in that particular game is of little importance. For some time, I also was in position to get that many cities but decided for some other way to develop. As I told you, let the AI build the cities for you and then just come and get these cities together with the citizens. On Emperor, even being very inefficient, AI still grows pop faster than a human player. Also, it is important to get to Monarchy ASAP but during expansion phase, anarchy may be very painful. Hence, in the long run, it is sometimes better to wait to Monarchy (Republic) before starting really serious warfare. This also gives shorter anarchy (with more compact size). Well, Republic is out of options for AW apparently with a non-religious civilization.

Looks like settler in PP is out of agenda since wheat would be worked by Berlin. It might be a good idea to squeeze in a worker somehow though. We also have a cap of 8 units for 2 cities which is very close. Building rax and paying 1 gpt for it is better than building a warrior and paying 1 gpt for it. And we can build a veteran warrior in Berlin prior to Granary.

I hope that we all understand how important these issues are. So, please, if we strongly disagree with some of the above points, post the arguments before I actually play the turns. Then, it would be too late...

Since nobody posted anything, I just played the turns. To put it short, we are doing great. Our warriors killed 3 units (Russian and 2 Barbarians) and Granary goes on schedule. Berlin is at +4fpt and would be soon at +5fpt at size 3. We discovered IW and there are two iron mountains in the vicinity. So, our little cute civilization is in great shape to win this game at the moment.

Here is the log.
Preturn check. Everything looks OK. Berlin switched to work wheat. Luxury rate down to zero. We can have size 4 population without luxuries.

[1] 2510BC. All quiet. Warrior moves S. Worker to chop the forest.

[2] 2470BC. Warrior moves to incense. Russian scout is on the mountain.

[3] 2430BC. Playing with Russian scout.

[4] 2390BC. There is Russian conscript warrior nearby. Russia has 2 cities and is up CB and Masonry. (This is allowed).
IBT. PP grows in size and builds barracks. Switched to spear ATM. Barbarian warrior advances from the north on a mountain. Russian warrior moves to a mountain. Well, guess they are scared now.

[5] 2350BC. We attack Russian warrior and kill him. No damage but no promotion either. Berlin switched to BG (will grow in size this turn anyhow) and PP switched to wheat making 4spt atm. Game saved to download later on.
IBT. Berlin grows in size, forest chop finished, granary ready in 13 turns, growth in 7 but this would change after game is irrigated. Barbarian warrior advances.

[6] 2310BC. Both workers irrigate game. Berlin working game and mined BG, PP working wheat and mined BG.
IBT. Barbarian warrior attacks PP but we win. No hp lost and no promotions either. Another barbarian warrior appears. Our people are so happy, they want to improve our Palace in Berlin. Never had an improvement that early.

[7] 2270BC. Warrior moves S to confront barbarian. IBT. Barbarian attacks and dies, we suffer no hits but no promotion either. This is not so good for a militaristic civilization.

[8] 2230BC. Game irrigated and Berlin is at +4fpt. One worker stays on game to build road and another moves to chop the forest. It might be useful to accelerate production of the settler or to build a spear. Russian has Alphabet and The Wheel. Must have met somebody. Alas, we cannot trade our forthcoming IW to them. Would be a nice session.

[9] 2190BC. Worker starts chopping another forest. Warrior scouts. All quiet.
IBT. We discover IW. Going to Alphabet at 80% in 18 turns. PP builds spearman. Set to worker.

[10] 2150BC. Spear goes to Berlin. Warrior from Berlin starts scouting to the south. We have two irons very close to our core! Both on mountains. Here is the screenshot of our empire.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2-2150BC-akots.JPG

Notes to the next player:

1) It might be a good idea to research Alphabet at maximum but without losing cash.
2) We might want another contact. The third civilization is apparently commercial (has Alphabet) (England, France, India) or Japan (Wheel). May be indeed China (Masonry) or may be Russia got the techs from the huts. Anyhow, this contact would speed our research to Alphabet and that other civilization can be far away and pose no immediate threat.
3) Regarding micromanagement. Please, this is important. I have put governor on "emphasize production in all cities" to ensure that a new citizen from city growth goes to forest and adds some shields. PP will grow in size next turn and would have 3 pop, working wheat, BG, and forest. Worker build would have 4-5-6 shields added (depending on corruption level). We dearly need this worker to irrigate the plains around PP and build roads there. Try to finish that worker ASAP leaving citizen on the forest for another turn if needed to bring production to 5 shields. But if this still results in worker built in 2 turns on the next turn, switch the citizen to lake to get some food in the food bin for PP. Because when Berlin grows in size, it would have to work the wheat. So, PP then will lose some shields building worker. Alas, little can be done to counter that, unfortunately.

Thus, Berlin at size 3 would work irrigated wheat, mined BG, and irrigated game bringing it to +5fpt. Do not work the forest with a citizen in Berlin. The governor would place new citizen on the forest after growth, so make sure to work the wheat, BG, and game. Let Berlin grow and it would finish the settler with the help of ongoing forest chop. The worker which is building road on game can then have a choice of two useful tasks. Go chop another forest near Berlin hoping that BG would be revealed or building road to city D or D’ through the golden mountain. Both tasks are important and would take awhile. Please let us keep our workers separately so that we don’t waste turns on their movement. In case of danger from barbarians, there are warriors in PP and Berlin which can come to protect our workers.

It is more or less clear and would eventually end up with a 4-turn warrior-settler factory in Berlin (size 5-7) if there are enough BG tiles under the forest. If not, we can always share wheat with PP making Berlin 5-turn combo factory. If we need to discuss more, lets do so.

Warriors on our southern borders can now scout a little bit. We have enough units to survive and our military is strong compared to Russia. Almost forgot, PP can build granary as well or continue producing spearmen. The spearmen stay in the cities for defense and warriors then can scout seeking promotion to veteran status in battles against barbarians. There might be a camp in the north from PP (F3 guy tells us).

Good luck!

Our save file can be downloaded from here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/akots_SG002_BC2150_01.SAV)

Well played, akots.

I think my reading of AWE and AWDG games has got me a little more conservative in aggression than most. I tried my own AWM game last night with Japan and found early horses to be very effective. Archers likewly would be too. But I would imagine we would want to know where the russians are first, so good call on scouting with the warrior.

Notes to the next player:

1) It might be a good idea to research Alphabet at maximum but without losing cash.
2) We might want another contact. The third civilization is apparently commercial (has Alphabet) (England, France, India) or Japan (Wheel). May be indeed China (Masonry) or may be Russia got the techs from the huts. Anyhow, this contact would speed our research to Alphabet and that other civilization can be far away and pose no immediate threat.

Researching the "cheaper" Wheel might be a better option. If we make second contact in the next 14 turns and trade for alphabet then we can pursue Writing 4 turns sooner without wasting research time (by buying a partially researched tech). If still isolated, we can follow up with Horseback Riding. Masonry could substitute, but there is no 2nd tier tech to follow up with.

I got the save.

Major emphasis during my turns:
-worker in PP
-Granary then settler in Berlin
-explore our southern jungle a bit, moving more E&W removing fog, not intentionally looking for another civ

I wont play until tomorrow night to give time for any questions. Other than barbs I think my turn will be pretty uneventful.

How far east should I go with our east warrior? Not into Russian territory but should he try to find border?

Also what to build in PP after worker. I could probably get another worker or start the granary or a settler. A second worker is the only thing that would complete in my turn so I could just try to get as much in both bins as possibly and leave it for the next player.

Researching the "cheaper" Wheel might be a better option. If we make second contact in the next 14 turns and trade for alphabet then we can pursue Writing 4 turns sooner without wasting research time (by buying a partially researched tech). If still isolated, we can follow up with Horseback Riding. Masonry could substitute, but there is no 2nd tier tech to follow up with.

IIRC, Alphabet is due in a few turns because it was researched at 80%. Not worth buying it. If we get contact, we might want to trade the Wheel+Masonry+CB for IW+cash. It is very unlikely the AIs would get Writing that early.

This is a very important question indeed. Do we accelerate tech pace or try to keep it low? Not that we can influence it much in AW. But still giving away Writing ASAP might speed up trading contacts between AI and hence tech rate. Which is usually good at Monarch because they are kind of too slow. Hence, we get Chivalry sooner and win sooner. :)

Even if we go for UN built by some AI, we don't want to play to 2000AD to get the diplo victory. If it is not AW, resonable domination date is around 500AD plus minus 200 years. With AW the main problem is slow research including slow research by AI if we get Great Library. Otherwise, it is similar to a normal game more or less. Well, no RoP rape or alliances which is good.

Re Masonry: Have no opinion yet on the subject. IMHO, better to see how it develops.

I have a suggestion. What if we try early domination/conquest to get a decent Jason's score and submit the game. And then and only then continue to play for Diplo victory attemp just for fun and amusement of lurkers. This may partially satisfy Pindicator's desire of being competitive with other teams.

... 1) How far east should I go with our east warrior? Not into Russian territory but should he try to find border?
2) Also what to build in PP after worker. I could probably get another worker or start the granary or a settler. ...

1) IMHO, our core is more or less safe atm, so feel free to raze Moscow if pRNG gods permit :)

2) Really don't know. An extra spearman would not hurt. If one of warriors would get a barbarian camp in the north with 25g, this would pay for spearman maintenance. But worker would be nice. And settler looks tempting as well. Berlin at size 4 would make a good use of the second BG currently worked by PP.

IIRC, Alphabet is due in a few turns because it was researched at 80%. Not worth buying it. If we get contact, we might want to trade the Wheel+Masonry+CB for IW+cash. It is very unlikely the AIs would get Writing that early.



Actually Alpha is due in 18@80% 0gpt. Adjusting the sci slider yields the following 20@60% +1gpt or 24@50% +2gpt.

Is it worth 20 gold in the bank to adjust sci to 60%?

BTW, I pm'd MadBax and it is ok to use the CRpRings util for RPC overlays only. Must be careful using though because it has a toggle for FOW and you need to click on all the "Display Features" to make sure jungle shows as jungle and not grass under it. Make these changes b/4 selecting the map and it is OK to use. It will make our dotmaps easier to make, however I don't know if its allowed under RBciv rules. Let me know if you want to use it or not. I can continue make our dotmaps like I'm currently doing. Here is an example from another game, not our SGOTM2.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/CRpRingsEX1.jpg

Even if we go for UN built by some AI, we don't want to play to 2000AD to get the diplo victory. If it is not AW, resonable domination date is around 500AD plus minus 200 years. With AW the main problem is slow research including slow research by AI if we get Great Library. Otherwise, it is similar to a normal game more or less. Well, no RoP rape or alliances which is good.
Sounds like we should let the AI build the G. Library! Going for UN Victory with AW might, bizarrely, be easier to achieve one level up if you can survive the onslaught.

Re Masonry: Have no opinion yet on the subject. IMHO, better to see how it develops.

On Masonry - I have seen were SirPleb usually gives (not for free, but cheaply) away Masonry to his neighbors hoping they will build the Pyramid and then just capture it. Russia has Masonry so hopefully they will build it for us.

If we are going to try to capture the Great Library later in the game we do not need to rush to Literature now, at the expense of say The Wheel and/or HBR.


I'll play my round in a few hours and post results tonight.

Obviously there are different strategies for using TGL. One is to build it and save up money for upgrades / rushes. Another is to wait on the GL and capture it, hopefully before we learn education. The GL "elevator" as civ_steve managed to do in GOTM 29 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1678822&postcount=23) can be very effective, but to try to pull it off intentionally does seem difficult -- I've only seen that one instance and only heard of a few more. However, one way to leave that option open is to research solely the bottom path once we hit the MA. We'll probably be doing this anyway, as all the military units are found along that track.

I don't know if I would go for building the Great Library or any wonder. I like Cartouche Bee's rules: it establishes a goal (AW = domination or conquest) and "bee"-lines (pardon the pun) towards them. As we want to be conquering we should be building prodominantly military. Another player gave me this argument themselves, though I forget who or from where otherwise I'd link it, but they said that they'd rather have 15 swords worth of shields to capture a wonder than build that wonder themselves.

Food for thought :)

I don't know if I would go for building the Great Library or any wonder. I like Cartouche Bee's rules: it establishes a goal (AW = domination or conquest) and "bee"-lines (pardon the pun) towards them. As we want to be conquering we should be building prodominantly military. Another player gave me this argument themselves, though I forget who or from where otherwise I'd link it, but they said that they'd rather have 15 swords worth of shields to capture a wonder than build that wonder themselves.



No wonders (including small wonders, FP) can be built except by great leaders.
The FP has to be built 9 or more squares from the capitol.

I like the logic, GLs should build Armies and Small Wonders only. Let the barbarians build their "Great" Wonders, and let us reap the fruit of their labor and the inspiration of their leaders.

In-round question for team:

I'm on turn 6 1910bc and have produced 2 workers from PP. The second worker lowered our sciense beakers which changed ALPHA from 9 turns@80 -3gpt to 14@50% 0gpt. Berlin grows next turn so we should gain the beakers back. Should I run a 1 turn gpt deficit keeping ALPHA on track or scale back to 50%.

I'll wait several hours before continuing.

I would say to go ahead and do a little bit of deficit spending, but not too much. Like you said, Berlin will grow soon and we will get those beakers back. Early on there is a bit of jumping around on the science bar because of population differences, but even more important the techs are worth less science, so every beaker is worth more.

What pindicator said :)

Overall I think I did Ok on my turns. Finished Granary in Berlin, built 2 workers in PP, built a settler in Berlin and have both Berlin & PP 3 & 6 turns respectively from another settler. Found the other side of the jungle. Spied but not contacted the English. Killed 1 RUS warrior and 1 barb, lost none and I have a settler ready to found a city next turn.

Preturn – no adjustments made

Turn 1 - 2110BC –
PP grows to size 3, place citizen on forest, worker in 1.
Berlin mm for shields - growth in 1 (would have wasted 3 foods if left on irrigated game).
See another spice by Site B

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic01.jpg

Turn 2 - 2070BC
Berlin grows to size3 – mm off forest to mBG gives grow in 5 Granary in 4 –
Only needed 17 shields for Granary so I’ll use mBG for a turn then wheat – gives +5+4+4+4=17 shield – gives Granary before forest chop. Start a worker on another forest chop.

PP produces worker now size 2 set to make another worker – citizens on wheat & lake, since Berlin did not need wheat.

I spy plain on other side on jungle to our south.

IBT – RUS warrior appears on mt S S SW of PP

Turn 3 - 2030BC
Berlin mm from mBG to wheat – grow in 4 Grain in 3 – Berlin now at +5f+4s
Move warrior from Berlin toward RUS warrior

IBT – RUS warrior N to mt S SW of PP

Turn 4 - 1990BC
Berlin warrior NW to forest to head off RUS warrior (just S of PP)

IBT – RUS warrior N to Plain SW of PP

Turn 5 – 1950BC
Berlin mm from wheat to river forest, growth in 2 Gran in 1 (no loss of growth allows PP to use wheat for 1 turn)

Our warrior attacks RUS warrior – victory :ar15: loss 2hp no promo :sad:

Turn 6 – 1910BC
Berlin builds granary set to settler – Completed Gran before growth. :band: Leave citizen on river forest to max shield no wasted food

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic02.jpg


PP builds worker size 1 now set to settler – citizen working wheat 1 more turn

This is where I noticed the sci rate problem from earlier post. Leave sci at 9turns@80% -3 gpt.

Turn 7 – 1870BC
Berlin size 4 – working wheat, game, 2mBG +5f +6s – Our 4 turn settler factory is set. [dance]

PP switched citizen to irrigated river plain (wheat back to Berlin)
Our eastern warrior spies more Ivory must be getting near RUS border.

Turn 8 – 1830BC
Worker chopping Forest says 1 turn to complete - should come in at end of this turn (not beginning of next turn or wasted shields)- with chop Berlin should make Settler next turn.

Our southern warrior spies even more Ivory & a RUS scout in 1mp territory

IBT – RUS scout W, barb on mt by our eastern warrior

Turn 9 – 1790BC
Forest chop was at end of turn – Berlin builds settler (now size 3 after growth) set to make another settler - working wheat, game & 1mBG yields +5f +4s with a chop due soon.

PP mm from river Plain to mBG for 2 turns – growth due in 1 turn

Settler & spear head from Berlin to Site alt D, other worker starts road towards Site B.

Did not attack barb with reg warrior since barb was on a mt, move our warrior to the next mt tile.

Southern warrior moves W spies ENGLISH warrior right next to RUS scout. I do not initiate contact. Adjust sci to 50% ALPHA in 9turns at neg 1gpt. Reason: trying to save gold incase ENG contacts us.

IBT – RUS scout SW, ENG warrior E, 2nd ENG warrior appears SW W, barb attacks eastern warrior, we win no hp lost no promo :sad: – 2nd barb moves W - NO CONTACT FROM THE ENGLISH

Turn 10 – 1750BC
PP grows to size 2 – citizens on river plain & mBG from Berlin
Spear & Settler to altD site – ready to build next turn.
ALPHA in 5@50% +0gpt

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic05.jpg


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic03.jpg


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic04.jpg


Notes to next player
Site AltD is ready to found city next turn

Berlin
- grows next turn
- needs to take back mBG from PP
- forest chop at end of 2nd turn
Only 26 shields needed for settler, should have in 3 turns with the chop (make sure to mm for shields before ending turn 2 or there will be wasted shields from chop and production

PP
Should have settler in about 6 turns – should pickup mBG or wheat from Berlin after Berlin builds the settler.

I think I may have only cost us a turn towards ALPHA by going down to 50% but was afraid of wasting gold if ENG contacted us. Since ENG did not contact us I can only assume that we have nothing they want (ie techs). Since we know they have contacted the Russians.

Our score 99 Jason 76

Top notch report!

QUESTION: Should we initiate contact with the English, once we finish alphabet-- hoping they have wheel/masonry and want to pay for IW?

edit: I am thinking that we may lose our ability to trade IW and that we will be contacted prior to the completion of Writing.

Good turns DJM! With the settler factory underway, we can hopefully get some cities set down before we see too many troops.

Bruindane, I would seriously think before trading IW. When we do trade, we definitely want that WM. But we do not want to be facing swords before we are ready for them -- but if the English are as slow as the Russians to muster troops, then we may have some time yet before anybody sends us anything. Which is good :D

How many turns does that chop have left? I think we'll get that settler in quicker than 6, which means we have to consider where to put that one next. Either picking up the iron or the spices seem good calls; then again, also settling the grassland to the east and picking up the wheat, or settling to the plains in the west and picking up the ivory are good as well. What does everyone else think?

Sorry, don't have time for an in-depth analysis. And probably wont' be able to post much over the next couple days due to RL. (It's so hard to improve my RL play; civ3 is so much easier.)

And I really, really wouldn't explore much more. Finding the Russians is a good thing, of course, but let's hope we don't find many others. They aren't sending anything now, but when they do we will want to face only one (or two) at a time. In fact, as soon as we get some cities up and productive, we should think about finding and destroying a civ then, if we can. But we seem to be relatively isolated here, and that's something we should take advantage of.

Bruindane, I would seriously think before trading IW. When we do trade, we definitely want that WM. But we do not want to be facing swords before we are ready for them -- but if the English are as slow as the Russians to muster troops, then we may have some time yet before anybody sends us anything. Which is good :D

Scares me too! :eek: My impulse is to stay away, but I started thinking... They will get it (perhaps soon) and we may lose the opportunity to get both Wheel/Masonry and possibly HBR/Mathematics when we meet Civ 3 (with Writing & Gold for Trade).

Very well played indeed, especially timing growth and shields! And we are in great shape!

Roster:

1. Bruindane -> UP Trade or no trade with English? Question of life and death
2. Pindicator -> preparing to take over
3. akots ->
4. DJMGator13 -> just played, calculated and adjusted, so that Great Germany can prosper!

It all looks good for AW. Big question is to trade with England this turn or later. Don't know. Clicking on the tech tree to know the prices for the techs might help a bit but... we don't have contact with the English (or we do have?) and hence, little help there. If a civilization has a tech but we don't have contact it does not count.

After the third city is built, we better make some more military. Just to make sure we stay at the allowed limit of 4 units/town.

Settling first ring RCP3-3.5 goes first usually. But a few cities there would be not so productive because of jungle. So, settling ivory/flood plains is also an option. Alas, there is no Statue of Zeus in vanilla...

we don't have contact with the English (or we do have?) and hence, little help there. If a civilization has a tech but we don't have contact it does not count.

After the third city is built, we better make some more military. Just to make sure we stay at the allowed limit of 4 units/town.

Settling first ring RCP3-3.5 goes first usually. But a few cities there would be not so productive because of jungle. So, settling ivory/flood plains is also an option. Alas, there is no Statue of Zeus in vanilla...

No contact with ENG yet. 3rd city is ready next turn. I think 4th city should be Site B. Need that lux hooked up for happiness in our cities.

@pindicator - Forest chop at end of turn 2, shields will be added to production box at beginning of turn 3.

Here is an updated dotmap- based on akots suggested sites (which is about the only way to get 5 cities in the first ring.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/1750BCdotmap.jpg

No contact with ENG yet. 3rd city is ready next turn. I think 4th city should be Site B. Need that lux hooked up for happiness in our cities.

Here is an updated dotmap- based on akots suggested sites (which is about the only way to get 5 cities in the first ring.

No contact initiation with Tommys- check.

Settle at alt-D- check

alt-D will share improvements with Berlin, good, but city site B needs some development first, and connecting the silks to Berlin will take centuries. Developing PP and placing city site near river&ivory (@6) would be better IMO. The third settler could head for B or C1.

Eastern warrior will start to head home as the Russians appear to be coming from the South and not the far East. I am going to bring our southern scout north-northwest to scout out the west 10 ring, but otherwise plan to keep a low profile.

Bringing science up to 60% will reduce time for alphabet from 5 turns to 4, but going at -1 gpt with 81 in the bank. We need to ~28 beakers as 60% gives us 7 a turn and 50% gives us 6 a turn.

addenum:

Our military advisor says that we are weak compared to the English and that Russia is average. The English are polite, with the warrior being the best unit they have according to our foreign advisor. Russia is annoyed with two cities, Moscow at size 5 with two workers staying inside.

@Bruindane. If you plan on settling near ivory, it might be a good idea to found a city on plains by the river (?is this possible?) at radius 6 and not on flood plains. This would reduce the risk of disease and we don't lose food bonus after irrigating the flood plains. On the other hand, site B looks good as well. It has a forest and grassland to work atm and another grassland can be borrowed from Berlin.

Hooking up luxuries can wait IMHO and we just increase the luxury rate to keep Berlin citizens happy. However, it all comes at expense of research and cash... Really hard to tell at present. Oh, don't forget about barbarians north of PP. Have a safe journey! May pRNG gods bless your turns!

... The English are polite, with the warrior being the best unit they have according to our foreign advisor. Russia is annoyed with two cities, Moscow at size 5 with two workers staying inside.

Hmm... Looks like Russia is at war with England as well.

@Bruindane. If you plan on settling near ivory, it might be a good idea to found a city on plains by the river (?is this possible?) at radius 6 and not on flood plains. This would reduce the risk of disease and we don't lose food bonus after irrigating the flood plains. On the other hand, site B looks good as well. It has a forest and grassland to work atm and another grassland can be borrowed from Berlin.
Yes, that would be the place-- it is 6.5 away from Berlin. It will be a great place to produce workers-- though I grant, shield-poor. B has a productive future, but it is 3 "turns" closer to the enemy with a two-turn border warning, as oppossed to Berlin which will have a four turn warning after it expands. Perhaps I am overemphasizing the strategic aspect, but roads over rivers to B will impede troop movement. Is expanding north-east past alt-d to the 2nd ring a valid alternative?

I think the Site F city [site NW NW N of PP] is the best next city site. Site B will take 23 worker turns to hook up the spice there. The worker SE of Berlin has 2 turns left to finish road, then moving and roading S (4 turns) then moves W and roads (7 turns) then would move thru City B to jungle spice tile (1 turn) and road jungle (9 turns). Thats 23 worker turns. :eek:

Site F, the river plain by ivory, could be established in 5 turns. The worker N of PP is currently unassigned, move him NW to ivory and road (4turns). The worker NW of PP has 1 turn left on irrigation and then road (1+3 turns). Site F would be ready in 4 turns with the Ivory hooked up. Berlin will build a settler at the beginning of turn 3 and could establish Site F city on turn 5.

The worker SE of Berlin can be reassigned. He was roading towards Site B & C1 but both of those cities need alot of preparation work. Site F is a better choice.

I'll do a dotmap for ring 6 tonight when I get home from work. I'll use Site F as a starting point. RCP says 16 cities for ring 6, so if someone sees another must build spot let me know.

As far as trading with ENG I don't know. Would they really be at war with RUS this early when there is still room to expand? I was think since they did not contact us we have nothing they want.

Hmm... Looks like Russia is at war with England as well.
Attitude Analysis.
-1 through -10 = Polite
0 = Cautious
1-10 = Annoyed

Scenario 1: England at peace with Russia
Power lead
0 Average Aggression
+1 You declare war on a friendly civ
+1 if the AI has the culture lead
-1 You are in the same culture group
-1 You are in the same government as the AI
Total 0, Cautious

Scenario 2: England at war with Russia
Power lead
0 Average Aggression
+1 if the AI has the culture lead
-3 if at war with a common enemy
-1 You are in the same culture group
-1 to -3 for each enemy unit (of common enemies) you destroy
-1 You are in the same government as the AI
Total -5, Polite

If England does not have the culture lead, then scenario 1 will total 1, Polite. I know that England has the power lead over Russia and us, but I forgot to compare culture specifically.

edit: Culture shows three vertical stripes-- Blue-Brown-Orange so I suppose culture is equal. England should be polite, war with Russia or no.

Here is a potential ring 6 dotmap. I started with Site F and worked my way around the horn trying to get as many cities as possible. This layout allows for 14 cities, some not very productive.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/1750BCR6dotmap.jpg

Wow, that is a lot of cities to build! May be the AI would help us. :)

It is probably too early to tell exactly, but looks like F, G, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, and S are more or less OK atm.

H and I could be better off moved to be coastal 1 tile NE and J 1 tile SE to the river thus leaving no room for K.

But it is too early to plan that far away, IMHO. However, we might want to review all these options again when the time comes. Is this the Rings utility from CIVReplay?

Is this the Rings utility from CIVReplay?

Yes, it is very nice. You can display up to 3 rings at a time and you can pick your center "0" city. Make sure to select "Civ Installation" textures by right clicking in the map area and selecting Open GL (otherwise your map will be blurry). I usually zoom into the area take a screen shot and then use my paint program to add the dots and labels.

Turn Year Description
==============================================
Preturn

Moved PP warrior west-north to scout explore f site
Increased science to 60% to get Alphabet in 4 instead of 5 turns letting the treasury go at -1gpt.

IBT English contact us. Offer to trade us Ceremonial Burial for 40 gold-- I look for a better deal. Rats! They have Iron Working-- at least we have gold. We bargain for The Wheel at 78 gold. They do not have HBR, but they do have 4 cities: war is declared! Barbarian attacks Eastern warrior and takes him down to 1 hp, no promotion, another barbarian warrior spotted. English Warrior moves north towards us.

1 1725 Berlin grows with only 2 gold in the treasury. Horses are spotted far, far to the south-east at the edge of the known world. Perhaps they might be found west instead. Bellisaxon founded and barracks initiated. Science dropped back to 50% with now 3 turns left at 3 gpt. Pindicator's Paradise switches production to Archer. Russia is still annoyed, but they have HBR and IW (should have checked in the preturn).

2 1700 English warrior ignores southern warrior and moves north-east. English warrior is ten turns from Berlin.

IBT Barbarian attacks and dies upon Eastern warrior, but no promotion. Another Barbarian appears in the far east.

3 1675 Settler Built in Berlin, Archer Built in Pindicator's Paradise then switches production to Spearmen. Science lowered to 30% and 6 gpt. Forest south of Berlin starts chop, for future settler out of Berlin.

IBT Barbarian attacks Eastern warrior, bloodless victory and promotion to veteran. Another Barbarian appears twice northwest of Bellisaxon.

4 1650 Alphabet discovered, research set to 70% towards writing @ 22 turns with 1gpt.

IBT Two English Warriors, 1 Veteran, spotted on hill, Scout spotted by south-western warrior.

5 1625 PP Production changed from spear to warrior for next turn. Workers awkwardly evade English and Barbarian invaders.

IBT Barbarian attacks warrior in Bellisaxon, victory but no promotion. Barbarian warriors appear from the north and west. Barbarian Rider comes from the North, English Warriors move toward PP. Russia builds Kiev, whose borders are visible on the map.

6 1600 Warrior spots northern barbarian camp. Archer kills Barbarian Rider, no promotion, glimpses another Barbarian on the gold hill. South-western warrior spots coastline! Bruin Plains founded, starts worker. Berlin has Ivory! Non-ideal mountain "military" road started near Bellisaxon. Pindicator's Paradise's new warrior kills western barbarian, no promotion. Bellisaxon's warrior moves to intercept northern barbarian's move.

IBT Western Barbarian attacks Warrior, and promotion to Elite. English move right next to PP. Barbarian moves next to Bellisaxon.

7 1575 Bruin Plains corrects waste, reassigned laborer to flood plain. Raised luxuries to @20% as Berlin's troops now protect Pindicator's Paradise. Our archer and elite warrior move back to our roads.

IBT Veteran English warrior attacks Pindicator and dies, our spearman is now elite! The other Warrior fortifies. Barbarian attacks Bellisaxon and losses, but no promotion. Other English warrior fortifies and a Russian archer is spotted spotted s,s,sw of Pindicator's Paradise.

8 1550 Our warrior attacks the barbarian camp, but is killed. Our archer kills the English warrior but takes two hits and no promotion. Luxuries returned to 0%. Warrior from Bellisaxon will now try to take out Barbarian camp.

IBT Russian Archer moves towards Pindicator. No other forces appear.

9 1525 Berlin grows, builds settler, starts another. Bellisaxon builds barracks, starts warrior. Change Pindicator's Paradise's production to archer from warrior. Settler goes to site c1 for pure military reasons as it is defensible, road connected, and can work shared resources around Berlin.

IBT Russian Archer moves towards Berlin. English warrior spotted (fortified, so it must have come the turn before). Barbarian Riders approach Bruin Plains from the north-east and another barbarian horse runs nexts to out west barbarian scout.

10 1500 Berlin expands and exposes a fortified English warrior sw,sw,sw,s of Pindicator. Forces are too thinly spread to optimize. Elite warrior kills Barbarian Rider north-east of Bruin Plains and spots another two spots away from the barbarian camp. Veteran warrior in Berlin attacks Russian Archer and promotes to elite. I leave the positioning of the spearmen, archer, and settler(city name) to the next player.

Post-turn commentary

Both England (Furious, 5 cities) & Russia (Annoyed, 3 cities) have Writing, HBR, and contact with France. I spot additional borders, guessing Moscow but surprised that their borders expanded before ours since we appear to be equal culturally.

We netted 2 cities, 1 warrior, 1 archer, The Wheel, Alphabet, but dropped 60 gold, declared war against England, and are now beset by tougher barbarians.

Killed 2 English warriors, 1 Russian archer, 5 barbarian warriors, and 2 barbarian horsemen but lost 1 warrior. Militarily, we are a shoe string, but we do have three barracks now.

F 113: J:86

10 to 1 kill ratio, not bad. I wish we could keep that stat throughout the game.

Odds are we won't see a SOD from RUS. Military Advisor says we are strong vs. RUS, but weak vs. ENG. It appears that RUS is due south of us. Looks like the ENG troops have come from the SW.

RUS also appears to be about 4 to 5 tiles away from the only visible Horse. Not Good. Should we slow our expansion and start cranking up the military?

I have an idea of where Moscow is. When you look at culture in F8 screen all 3 of us appear to be even. Meaning no-one has built any cultural improvements. Looking at the attachment you'll see a notch in the RUS border. That notch could indiacte a city that has culturally expanded or they could have staggered city location, I'm leaning towards the former. If it was from staggered city placement I think more border would be visible N of the fog.

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

Very well played and strong progress achieved! With such kill ratio, we win in no time.

IMHO, there is no need to rush to the horses. We'll be OK with slow units at the moment. We get them later. Note for the next player: It might be better to settle only the RCP3 ring, we need more military to feel more safe. Please also, do not leave cities undefended. We are baiting the AI with this and endangering our core. If Berlin is left undefended, the AI knows about it and almost immediately dispatches a bunch of units there. They arrive and attack and we don't want to defend Berlin. It is better to defend some other city (B or C or D). These AI units also screw our production in Berlin as well. And walking with settler undefended is also risky especially considering the fact that we would build a city next turn and if some enemy shows up, there is no unit to come and defend this city.

Duplicating research path of AI in AW is a good idea because this makes our tech prices cheaper. Since we cannot trade and have to research everything, this is an important issue. After writing we might want to go to Literature directly and try to get a leader for Great Library.

Roster:

1. Bruindane -> just played, very good kill ratio
2. Pindicator -> UP going to settle more land and build more military
3. akots -> thinking and meditating
4. DJMGator13 ->

In general, the situation is OK for AW and we might want to build some more cheap units for MP. However, Berlin can stay on settlers as long as possible unless situation goes really critical. Barracks are useful but sometimes it is better to get regular warrior now than veteran archer later.

It might be better to settle only the RCP3 ring, we need more military to feel more safe. Please also, do not leave cities undefended. We are baiting the AI with this and endangering our core. If Berlin is left undefended, the AI knows about it and almost immediately dispatches a bunch of units there. They arrive and attack and we don't want to defend Berlin. It is better to defend some other city (B or C or D). These AI units also screw our production in Berlin as well. And walking with settler undefended is also risky especially considering the fact that we would build a city next turn and if some enemy shows up, there is no unit to come and defend this city.
We can build a city in 'preturn' and move the archer & spearmen as well. Our two warriors attacked from cities, being the better choice over defense. The shortage of military is chronic, exacerbated by my decision to build a barracks and switch to a 2nd veteran archer instead of 3 warriors. Since we survived, I will praise the fortune of the random generator, and hope that we now generate many cheap veteran units.

addendum: I think we should develop the area south and southwest of Berlin in preparation for our next cities and have an active buffer zone. City site B is the best open place in our ring. The unexpected quick arrival of the English cost us a few worker turns since they had to scramble as our troops dealt with the barbarians first. Thank goodness for the tight build, I am loathe to place a city to the southwest without having a road for unit reshuffling-- so I sent the settler to c1 (not irreversably).

good turns, bruindane. It's nice to know where our enemies are coming from.

I will be at my mother's for the weekend, cause it's her birthday. So if DMJ wants to play before Sunday night, we can do a swap. Otherwise I will play it then.

Fine with me.

I'm flexible, akots is on deck now so should akots play or do you want me to jump ahead. Move from #4 to #2 for this round, (akots stays at #3)?

Let me know, I'm working on my GOTM31 currently so I'll check back.

I prefer to stay number 3 atm.

Sounds fine with me. I'll play & post today.

Quick Summary
Combat – killed 5 barb horsemen 2 barb warrior & 1 ENG warrior – All with NO PROMO :confused: – lost 1 reg warrior
Cities - Founded Leipzig & Spiceton
Produced – 2 archers 6 warrior 2 settlers

Preturn discussed items:
Settle RCP3 cities – for defense
Need more military – even cheap units for MP
Keep Berlin on 4turn settler factory

Preturn – 1500BC
Changed BP from worker to warrior
Mm Belli & Berlin (Berlin is in danger of wasting the chop)
Found Leipzig on Site C2

IBT – western barb Horse attacks warrior – we win no promo
Northern barb horse ignores elite warrior & moves 1tile NE of an undefended PP

Turn 1 – 1475BC
Berlin grows to size 5 – switch from settler to archer because archer completes in 1 turn, chop will come in at end of my 2nd turn will fill the production box but not produce unit till turn 3 – would have wasted 8 shields w/o switching

Elite warrior takes out barb horse by PP
Adjust Lux to 10 Sci stays at 70 WRIT in 6 +0gpt

IBT – new barb horseman comes for the West moves S

Turn 2 – 1450BC
Berlin builds archer set to settler
PP builds archer set to warrior
Northern reg warrior attacks barb camp (on mt) redlines barb but we die
Lux to 0 Sci to 80 WRIT in 4 +1gpt

IBT – barb horse attacks our fortified west warrior – we win no promo
ENG warrior moves E

Turn 3- 1425BC
Berlin mm only needed 6 s for prod and 2f for growth – let PP get some extra for 1 turn
Forest chop by Berlin comes in as planned a BG is revealed
Western warrior spies a Horse tile closer to us

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DJMpic06.jpg


IBT – ENG warrior E towards our undefended worker – right where I wanted to him to go

Turn 4 – 1400BC
Berlin takes back wheat from PP – keeps food at +5
Belli builds warrior set to warrior
Archer attacks ENG warrior – victory loss 1hp no promo
Lux to 10 (for Berlin) -1gpt

IBT ENG found Coventry to our SW

Turn 5 – 1375BC
Berlin builds settler set to settler
PP builds warrior set to warrior
Sci to 70% WRIT in 1

IBT – RUS contacts us for peace I decline – RUS up 4 techs only 3 cities

Turn 6 – 1350BC
Discover WRIT set to LIT at 80% in 14 +0gpt
BP builds warrior set to worker
Leip builds warrior set to warrior

Turn 7 – 1325BC
Sci to 70 LIT in 13 +1gpt

IBT – barb appears from E to mt SE SE of Leip

Turn 8 – 1300BC
PP builds warrior set to archer
Belli builds warrior set to worker
Found Spiceton (Site B) set to warrior – archer escorted settler so city is defended
Mm Berlin keeping at +5f
Moved reg warrior from Leip to iron mt next to barb
Sci to 80% LIT in 10 +1gpt

IBT – barb attacks Leip warrior – we win no promo
In the north, elite warrior & archer attacked by barb horse out of barb camp – we win elite defended so no chance of promo

Turn 9 – 1275BC
Berlin builds settler set to settler
Vet archer takes out barb camp +25g – no promo ???
Lux to 0 Sci to 70 LIT in 11 (due to settler) +4gpt

IBT – Our people love us and add 2nd story to our Palace

Turn 10 – 1250BC
Moved settler to Site S on RCP6
Sci to 80 LIT in 9 +3gpt
Mm Berlin for settler in 3 turns
Left all other troop movements for next player


Notes to next player
All mm centered on keeping Berlin at +5f & secondly balancing out shield
Currently Berlin has 8s in box will add 6/8/8 next 3 turns to complete next settler
Forest chop should come in the turn after next settler is built
All troops are awaiting your preturn order (I only moved settler)

ENG has 7 cities and is up 3 techs
RUS has 3 cities and is up same 3 techs
Both have contact with France

Everything looks OK. I got it and will play in an hour or so. We need more cities, this is obvious. And more military. This is evident as well. So, I'll focus on these two issues. Site S is good. It gets us closer to the horses.

Preturn check reveals that our military is not that strong. We are allowed to have 5 more units. Most troops are returning to the homeland. Literature due in 9 turns which is very nice. IBT. All quiet.

[1] 1225BC. Hamburg founded, building spearman for now. IBT. Bellisaxon worker-> spear

[2] 1200BC. Luxuries go up to 10% because Berlin grows to size 6. IBT. Berlin settler->spearman with chop, PP archer -> warrior, Leipzig warrior -> spearman, Spicetown warrior->barracks. Wow, many units indeed.

[3] 1175BC. Micromanage Berlin to make 4 shields now + 10 forest chop + 4 shields next turn to build spear +2 shields next turn come from city growth to size 5 because governor puts new citizen on forest. It might be a good idea to connect iron in the near future. But not so soon. It would be great to have The Great Library so that we can save cash for upgrades. Coventry has a warrior and archer around it. We are advancing with elite warrior and vet archer. Well, we did not get promotions for such a long time so may be a leader then? IBT. English units move to attack. Bruins plains worker -> settler for now.

[4] 1150BC. Our archer attacks English archer on the mountain and loses. Alas. Warrior plays hide and seek with English. IBT. Barbarian horseman chases Russian scout and our warrior observes this from the mountain. Berlin spear->settler, PP warrior -> warrior.

[5] 1125BC. Konigsberg founded. It is not on the river, so a good candidate for disbanding later on. As it stands now, it works a forest and produces 3 nice shields and 2 trade. Will build barracks. We can already start on the Forbidden Palace. Our warrior advances to Coventry which is defended by regular warrior.

[6] 1110BC. Killed Russian scout. Spotted Russian archer encroaching towards Konigsberg or Spicetown. Increased luxuries to 10%. I take the chances. Our elite warrior attacks Coventry, takes 2 hp off their regular warrior, then loses 5 times in a row and dies there. Alas. We hopefully get compensated for this bad RNG layout one day. It has been somewhat more smooth in Conquests especially regarding the leaders. But in vanilla sometimes it is terrible.
IBT. Russian archers advance. PP warrior->archer, Belli spear->spear.

[7] 1075BC. Warrior kills barbarian horseman, no promotion. Another warrior dispatched to England. Looks like we better hook up the iron after literature. We can stop research completely and go fishing for the Great Leader. It might take awhile but we don’t need other techs at the moment. IBT. Barbarian horseman attacks our warrior on the mountain, takes 3 hp off him and then we win. No promotion. Is Germany militaristic or what? We learn Literature, going minimal research to MapMaking. Berlin settler->settler. Berlin is set now on the right track as 5-7 4-turn settler factory, just keep it running. If some shields are wasted, the mined BG can be shared with other RCP3 cities.

[8] 1050BC. Virtual troop shift yields 2 archers and 2 warriors to counter the Russian archers. IBT. Russian archers advance.

[9] 1025BC. Our vet archers wins, no hits, no promotion. Well, this is getting weird. May be leader is on the way. Vet warrior kills Russian archer and reveals another which was backing up the dead one. IBT. Russian archers kills our warrior and is promoted.

[10] 1000BC. Attack the cursed archer with regular warrior and we lose. Attack with vet archer and we win but no promotion. Frankfurt founded, building warrior.

Qsc stats: 9 cities, 21 citizen, score 168 (not very good but OK), first in population, productivity, MFG, and GNP but sixth in land area (tight build). 6 workers, 11 warrior, 3 of each archers and spearmen, granary and 3 barracks. 23 units of 36 possible, so we can go for warriors and then hook up iron for upgrade. RCP 3 is settled, now time to go for RCP 6. We are a little bit thin on workers, but one would be ready in Hamburg next turn. He can go then to the core, to help develop grassland and chop forest there. Bruin plains is a candidate for another settler factory is disease from the flood plains spares its citizens. But it might be too corrupt even though should have 5 fpt. There are lots of opportunities to micromanage cities to minimize waste of shields.

Attached is a screenshot of our little empire. Just noticed after uploading that we are not last in score. Ankka is behind slightly.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2-1000BC-akots.JPG

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> preparing to take over
2. Pindicator -> UP continue to build warriors and start to settle RCP6?
3. akots -> just played, we are OK but bad pRNG luck
4. DJMGator13 ->

It might be a good idea to discuss which cities in the RCP 6 should be the first to built.

Just noticed after uploading that we are not last in score. Ankka is behind slightly.

Is our lower score (compared to other teams) a function of playing an AW game. We have had to expand cautiously and the lack of trading leaves us behind in techs?

Is our lower score (compared to other teams) a function of playing an AW game. We have had to expand cautiously and the lack of trading leaves us behind in techs?
I presume it is due to the tight build at this stage. Land Area is a significant component of score. The starting setup looks advantageous to some serious peacemongering and builderitis.

Good play DJMGator13. The empire looked much more secure than the after the 10 hair-raising turns I played.

@Akots. I am perplexed by the attack on Coventry for two reasons. 1) Razing Coventry would depress the slight chance that we could win a non-fixed vote. 2) Would it not be better to go for Moscow with a slightly stonger force, and capture it for our 2nd base (and get access horses?).

1) If we decide drop our quixote UN victory, and we can decide that now, then razing is not an issue, otherwise it is counterproductive.

2) The strategic discussion of which foreign empire to assimulate first is overripe. I am for building and sending a force that can take Moscow and the rest of Russia's cities (perhaps sparing one prior to our Great Library build).

@DJMGator13: Apparently yes. We are expanding cautiously and going for tight build.

@Bruindane:

1) We are not allowed to make peace before voting or we are? If it is AW, we are not allowed. The only way to win is to isolate a settler. Razing cities hurts attitude and since we are at war and are not going to make peace, attitude would be terrble anyhow. They won't vote for us ever even for all the treasures of the world. :lol:

I would not worry about their attitude or our reputation at all. These two things are obsolete in AW game.

2) IMHO, we would raze very many cities in the future... And it was by no means a strategic decision, just to cripple their expansion in our direction with 1 warrior. Besides, it did not work. :)

I would not worry about their attitude or our reputation at all. These two things are obsolete in AW game.
I am with you. Let me give some insight to where I was :crazyeye:

A Civ will only vote for you if they are polite or gracious with you. So a secondary consideration-- how do you get a civ you are at war with to be polite? It might be possible if you kick the butt of a mutual enemy (especially with recent razings). Since this is unproven, and I do not have time to test this theory, it is a little foolhardy on my part to plan for it.

Got it and will play later tonight.

It is probably too early to tell exactly, but looks like F, G, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, and S are more or less OK atm.

H and I could be better off moved to be coastal 1 tile NE and J 1 tile SE to the river thus leaving no room for K.

But it is too early to plan that far away, IMHO. However, we might want to review all these options again when the time comes.

Moving H & I 1 tile NE and J 1 SE would make all three of them ring 7 cities. However, without making those moves we would have built 21 cities with no ocean access.

There are seven potential ocean tiles on ring 9, allowing a max of 4 cities. Three on our northern coast and 1 southwest closer to England.

Ring 9 will be substantially corrupted anyway, so how much additional corruption would there be if we build the ring 7 cities?

Playing now. I want to settle K, but since that seems to be in dispute I will settle R next and play for the defensive position of the mountains.

Ring 9 will be substantially corrupted anyway, so how much additional corruption would there be if we build the ring 7 cities?
The ring 7 cities, would add the rank corruption for being after the ring 6 cities, but would have no additional effect on ring 9.

In my personal games I try feign ignorance of the rank corruption formula (or bug since it was "fixed" in Conquests?), so I will pose this question due to my lack of experience: Will the reduced corruption by building a third ring, overcome the self-imposed handicap of limiting city choice based on environment (aka Rivers, Ocean, Resources, Defense, etc)?

Wow, do we need workers. I'm switching Bruin Plains to a Granary, which we may want to consider rushing. Since the only two food bonus tiles in our territory are working for Berliners, Bruin Plains is our next best candidate. It has ~50% corruption, and currently can do a 5 turn worker factory, maybe a 3 turn with a Granary. If we decide against this, we should be able to switch back to a settler at the end of my turns.
It'd be nice to set up a second settler factory, but I don't think there's a location that is good enough to combat corruption and give us 5fpt + 7.5spt per turn.

Inherited Turn, 1000BC
Couldn't find what the warrior was for, so I had him move south towards the barb camp.
Switch Bruing Plains from Settler to Granary; should be vetoable after my turns if we don't want to set up the worker factory here.
We are currently 13 units beneath our limit; with only 3 spears & 3 archers, I'll make a few more of those, but will concentrate on warriors for the eventual upgrades.
IBT-
English archer emerges 2 tiles west of Spiceton.
Speaking of spears and workers, we one of each IBT.

Turn 1, 975BC
Troop movements
Get the archer out of the jungle so it can safely heal.
English warrior spotted S-S-SW of Hamburg.
Why is that worker mining near Berlin? It's working the perfect amount of shields, and I don't see any towns it can switch a BG tile for.
IBT-
English archer fortifies; warrior advances, now NW-NW-W of Spiceton.
Berlin: Settler -> Settler.

Turn 2, 950BC
More troops movements and worker improvements.
Cats would be nice :)
Settler heads toward site R.
Lux dropped to 0.
IBT-
Warrior and archer advance; spear comes up from the FOW.

Turn 3, 925BC
More of the same
IBT-
For the English:
Warrior fortifies on mountain 2NW of Spiceton, archer joins him.
Spear moves SE of site R.

Turn 4, 900BC
Lux to 10% to prevent Berlin from rioting.
IBT-
English archer and warrior begin invasion; countermeasures have been prepared.
The spear takes their spot on the mountain.

Turn 5, 875BC
Vet warrior kills warrior, -2HP no promo
Vet archer kills archer, flawless and promo to Elite :D
Settler in position at site R.
IBT-
English Spear continues north, now is S-SW of Pindicator's Paradise.
Berlin: Settler -> Settler. MM so others can reap the pleasure of mined BGs, at least for 2 turns.

Turn 6, 850BC
Lux back to 0.
Settle founds 'Nestucca Ridge' at site R. Begins production on worker, tho if the next player wants to switch this to barracks, please do so.
Spear moves into Nestucca Ridge as garrison.
Once again, the best locations are those that are currently "under dispute." Well, I'm going to take the initiative here, as I haven't seen too much discussion on the importance of moving H and I.
...After looking at the map and discussion, I am settling site K. It still leaves the solution of moving H & I one tile NE if we so desire (why do we want to move J SE?) and K gets us the wheat, which is probably the best city site available in the RCP.
IBT-
Barb horseman comes from the NW, I suppose that's why that archer was there. D'oh

Turn 7, 825BC
AUGH, I hate our RNG!
Elite archer redlines spear and then loses 4 in a row -- talk about your Red Sox immitation. To insult us, the spear promotes.
Against my better judgment I send a vet warrior after the 2/4 spear, and it redlines before winning, no promo.
Spy a Russian archer 4 tiles S of Spiceton.
IBT-
Barb horse loses to archer, -1HP
Barb horse appears next to warrior in the north
Barb horse appears 2NW of Bruin Plains.
2 English archers and another Russian archer are spotted just leaving their respective territories.

Turn 8, 800BC
Lux to 10, Swap some tiles so Leipzig gets extra production.
Settler reaches site K.
Worker moves inside of Bruin Plains for protection; nobody to cover it and nowhere else to run.
Spear moves to Bruin Plains to defend.
IBT-
Horse loses to spear in BP, -1HP
Horse loses to warrior in north, -2HP
Another horse shows
French build the Oracle in Paris.

Turn 9, 775BC
Settler at site K founds City 17. Not the 17th city, just a longing for HL2. Set production to worker.
Troops position themselves on mountains to bait AI to attack.
IBT-
Bait works. We lose one warrior 3 of 4 archers die. Our reg warrior and vet archer both get a promo.
Berlin: Settler -> Settler.

Turn 10, 750BC
Will leave the settler in Berlin unmoved for next player.
3/4 warrior kills redlined Eng archer flawless. 2 warriors show up adjoining.

Final notes:

It seems to me that we are still in an expansion phase. I'm not too keen on us researching map-making here. Beakers are at a premium; so let's pick up some techs that are as cheap as possible -- i.e. ones that are already researched and cheaper. Especially in the case of map-making which doesn't help us at all. I guess I'm saying Masonry would help us for walls (though not really yet) and cats would help a ton, especially in our leader hunting attempts.

As far as RNG, no improvement, but then again, not much for a stream of enemy troops. I think we should hook up iron and bring the fight to the other side. We have money for 7 swords right now and plenty of warriors to upgrade.

Score is 188. How many rings are we shooting for? As soon as we fill those rings out, do we settle the rest of the realm with thought to maximizing land area or for setting up a FP in the north? By the looks of the north, that land is all free and open for the taking. We can keep england and russia from it, but I'm sure we'll see some galleys with settlers eventually.

Can't think of anything else; oh, the settler in Berlin has not yet moved. I would pick site J or G.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2-750bc-empire.jpg

Oops, my mistake. Score is 200. Jason is 153.

Here's the save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/akots_SG002_BC0750_01.SAV)

... Why is that worker mining near Berlin? It's working the perfect amount of shields, and I don't see any towns it can switch a BG tile for.

I warned, it is complicated. Berlin was supposed to work this tile instead on another, which would have been worked by Bellisaxon or Leipzig depending on circumstances and build orders. :)

...After looking at the map and discussion, I am settling site K. It still leaves the solution of moving H & I one tile NE if we so desire (why do we want to move J SE?) ...

Site K is great :thumbsup: and we are still able to move H though no room for I and J both (only one is possible then). Anyhow, K is more productive. J better be moved to get the flood plains. And city with flood plains not built on a river makes little sense especially since it would be rather corrupt.

Barb horseman comes from the NW, I suppose that's why that archer was there. D'oh

:)

I'm not too keen on us researching map-making here. Beakers are at a premium; so let's pick up some techs that are as cheap as possible -- i.e. ones that are already researched and cheaper.

Beg to disagree. Since our ability to explore is somewhat difficult to implement, we might want to trade for WM with France once we get the contact. This might be the only way to get any maps beyond our immediate surroundings. Also, minimal research ensures we have some cash (lots of cash) for forthcoming connection of iron and upgrade of warriors to swordsmen. All other techs we can get from TGL but to get TGL, we need a leader.

Can't think of anything else; oh, the settler in Berlin has not yet moved. I would pick site J or G.

Sounds good!

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> UP We need more cities. Question is where?
2. Pindicator -> just played good turns but preparing to play again even better soon
3. akots ->
4. DJMGator13 ->

1 - If we take the citizen off the unimoroved plain in BP and convert him to a scientist, we could set sci to 0% and gain 3gpt w/o lossing any turns towards Map Making. We would net an additional 84 gold in our treasury. This will only work if we keep research at a minimum. It slows BP's growth slightly but only for 4 turns until it expands again. I have never used a Scientist this early in the game before.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/750BCsci1.jpg


2 - If we are going warrior swordman upgrade should we be building archers?

3 - Once we discover Map Making should we consider doing no research until we build the Great Library. Any tech we learn during this time we could receive for free from the GL? Would add more gold to treasury.

4 - Getting Cats have been mentioned several times, but with the mountains and jungle terrain they would not be very productive offensively until we make a road.

@akots
Oh yeah, I spent a good amount of time shuffling squares around, looking for a combination to work. An extra grassland or two would really help out there, tho.

Also, I would probably not do the Map Making strategy, but that is where we differ in styles I guess. I'm thinking immediate terms and you're looking to create a future advantage. The true joy of playing SGs is being forced to play multiple styles.

@DJM
Yes, the cats would be used mostly in a defensive manner. But when the enemy troops can conceal their movement via the mountains, making attacking disadvantageous (especially enemy spears looking to pillage), with a couple cats we'd be able to take these out with a far greater success rate anyway.

As for the archers, we only have 2 right now, and I think the need was immediate for 1 or 2 more. We only have enough money to upgrade 7 warriors to swords (it is 60g a pop, right?), and we can easily make more warriors than money to upgrade them. I don't think we want to make more warriors than we'll have to upgrade.

Then again, if we had horses :rolleyes: , I would make those over archers any day.

Yes, the cats would be used mostly in a defensive manner. But when the enemy troops can conceal their movement via the mountains, making attacking disadvantageous (especially enemy spears looking to pillage), with a couple cats we'd be able to take these out with a far greater success rate anyway.

As for the archers, we only have 2 right now, and I think the need was immediate for 1 or 2 more. We only have enough money to upgrade 7 warriors to swords (it is 60g a pop, right?), and we can easily make more warriors than money to upgrade them. I don't think we want to make more warriors than we'll have to upgrade.

Then again, if we had horses :rolleyes: , I would make those over archers any day.
I will take a look at the game tonight. With only two archers, we are sitting ducks if the English send a small stack of 2-3 swordsmen our way. I am inclined to build more warriors with a mind of hooking up iron. 10 Swordsmen with a few spearmen could be ready for battle to take the fight to the Russians/English.

I like your assessment already, bruindane. When we get those swords up, it would be nice to start conquering our neighbors. Maybe keep tabs of our gold, only make as many warriors as we can upgrade, and use the rest of the production for spears/archers. Hopefully by the end of your turns, we'll have a nice little SOD to take into enemy lands.

I spent some time looking over the game last night, and will carve out the time to play tonight. Here are my thoughts.

1) Our city founding is outpacing our ability to support those cities with tile improvements. Berlin should churn out some workers IMHO, before resuming settler building.

2A) The next 20 turns are critical for our force balance-- as we are both quite vulnerable and on the cusp of a major offensive.

2B) Build as many warriors as possible, on the eye for swordsmen upgrades and the rest being on MP.

2C) Hook up Iron. Equip Warriors with swords.

2D) Attack Russia, and use the first Great Leader to build the Great Library.

3) Bruin Plains needs 39 shields for a granary, if we are to whip (2 pop) I should do it now. I have not worked out the numbers on it, but I am divided over building workers instead though.

4) Nestucca Ridge is one square northeast of site R. I am thinking of starting a settler there, and then abandoning the city when it is ready, and replant at R.

5) On Science, as both Russia and England have Map Making, I presume France does as well (and can therefore give us their maps if we meet them). The extra 3 gold gained by not doing research and getting another swordsmen to ransack foreign libraries for knowledge may be preferable (is this how the G.Library really works?).

@Bruindane

#1 & #3) To help our worker problem, I would rush the granary at Bruin Plains. I would have done it myself, if I had been paying attention. With the granary we will have a 3-turn worker factory at pop 4 with some micro:

3fpt + 4spt (working 1 flood plain and 3 plains)
3fpt + 4spt (working 1 flood plain and 3 plains)
4fpt + 3spt (working 2 flood plain and 2 plains)
--------------
10fpt + 11spt

I'm thinking that we may also be able to set up a 4-turn worker-factory at City 17, because of its wheat.

I don't know about stopping the settlers from Berlin, though; we need to take advantage of all this free land, especially if we want to have a good score.

#2) I like this plan a lot. Hope it works :D

#4) Dang it, I went back between the dot map and the game like 6 times cause I kept getting unsure of myself. I just knew I would screw that one up; ah well, in real life Nestucca Ridge is just a bunch of summer homes -- they can get transplanted.

#5) How the G. Library works is that during the IBT, if there are 2 civs that you have contact with that own a tech you do not, you get that tech.

Go get em Bruin! :goodjob:

Fixing Site R may not be a top priority. Is the Site R city mistake inside or outside of ring 6. If inside it affects all the other ring 6 cities. If outside it only affects Site R until we build in the third ring. I'm at work so I can't check.

I would not turn off our settler city. We habe a lot of territory to expand into. The worker issue can be addressed with the 3 turn worker factory. We can also have all new defended cities build a worker first, thus providing their own worker. Some of the jungle site a constant 10turn worker factory may be all they are good for until later in the game. The additional cities will provide us more gold for upgrades and allow for a larger military.

I like rushing the GLib with a GLeader idea, and yes GLib is based off of "known" civs.

Any thoughts on who to attack first. RUS is growing slowly although they have made a move to the horses in their area. ENG on the other hand is getting very large. IIRC we are average with ENG so I think a strong attack of 1 ENG city with a bunch of defenders to handle a counterattack could swing us into a stronger military position. Lets us destroy ENG offensive units in their terrirtory and not in ours.

Fixing Site R may not be a top priority. Is the Site R city mistake inside or outside of ring 6.
It is at 5.5

I would not turn off our settler city.
No problem.

I like rushing the GLib with a GLeader idea, and yes GLib is based off of "known" civs. Need to remember to add ;) .

Any thoughts on who to attack first. RUS is growing slowly although they have made a move to the horses in their area. ENG on the other hand is getting very large. IIRC we are average with ENG so I think a strong attack of 1 ENG city with a bunch of defenders to handle a counterattack could swing us into a stronger military position. Lets us destroy ENG offensive units in their terrirtory and not in ours.An argument could be made either way--- Personally, I would knock out the weak opponent while we can.

@Bruindane: By no means we should stop producing settlers in Berlin. We are safe from 3 sides to a certain extent and there is a huge area to settle. Some corrupt cities can produce workers and warriors since iron would be connected only for a short time required to upgrade (1-2 turns maximum) and then disconnected again. You still have 24 hours to play and post, so no rush, may be done tomorrow.

akots - Any thoughts on when to correct the placement of Nestucca? It's at 5.5 instead of 6.

It increases rank coruption in RCP6 only by 4% though in many cities. Not worth the effort IMHO at present or near future (40-50 turns or so). I would leave it like it is and try not to improve too much. All these rings make sense only until we have not established the second core. Then, they all get messed up. Hope we either jump the Palace with a leader after building FP in the core or build FP somewhere else rather soon.

Preturn Summary

Workers are sorely needed, but not at the cost of expansion, and more warriors for the upcoming invasion need to be trained.

Minimal science is supported under advisement, but even this is grudged as it detracts resources from sword building.

Two English Warriors and One Russian Archer spotted. Barbarian camp to the southwest.

Preturn Actions:

I whip two laborers at Bruin Plains to hurry the Granary.

City Production changes:

Nestucca Ridge (Worker) > Settler
Hamburg (Barracks) > Worker
Leipzig (Warrior) > Worker

IBT

English Warrior dies upon our ace, warrior promotes to Elite with one hit. Barbarian Rider comes from the west. Russian archer disappears into the fog.

1 730 BP produces Granary > Worker
Hamburg produces worker > Worker
Spiceton(Warrior) > Archer

IBT Russian Archer reappears, Barb rides up to BP. Great Library started by the Russians

2 710
Leipzig produces Worker
Frankfurt produces Warrior
Spiceton produces Archer

Archer attacks barbarian camp, promotes to Elite after two hits.
25 gold added to treasury.
Warrior kills barbarian rider near Bruin Plains.

IBT Russian Archer attacks Spearmen on hill and dies, no promotion.
Barb spotted nw by scouting warrior.
English Archer appears from the south east!
Berlin populace unhappy! Pardons, a family interruption (does girlfriend count?) caused the oversight.

3 690 Raised luxury tax to 10%. Settled Munich

IBT Barbarian rider dies upon far west scout. Barbarian warrior appears to the far southeast English Archer appears from the south.


4 670 Elite archer kill English Archer, no leader.

IBT Barbarian Rider Spotted SE.
Two additional English Archers pop up.

5 650 Berlin produces Settler > Settler
Konigsburg produces Warrior > Warrior

Barbarian camp spotted far west.
Archer kills Barbarian Rider.
Russian Spearmen & Settler spotted, near Horses

IBT Barbarian warrior dies upon elite archer.

6 630 Bellisaxon produces Warrior > Archer
Frankfurt produces Worker > Warrior

Luxuries reduced to 0%.
Elite western scout warrior takes out barbarian camp and nets 25 gold.
Elite warrior redlines regular English archer, but then looses 3 straight and dies.

IBT ~
7 610 Pindicator's Paradise produces Settler > Settler

Veteran Archer kills Russian spearmen, no promotion but captures two workers (Settler). Archer demolishes barbarian camp and collects another 25 gold.
Heidelburg founded.

IBT ~
8 590

Bruin Plains laborer set to Scientist. They have not forgotten the whipping.
Science Slider set to 0%
Archer kills English warrior, promotes to Elite.

IBT ~
9 570

Berlin produces Settler > Settler
Leipzig produces Spearmen > Warrior
Bellisaxon produces Spearmen > Warrior
Spiceton produces Spearment > Warrior

I notice that the Russians are no longer building the Great Library.

IBT ~
10 550
Bruin Plains produces Worker > Worker
Frankfurt produces Warrior > Warrior

Science slider reset to 10%

Post Turn Notes

Iron will be hooked up in two turns and we have 807 gold in the bank.
Some military units are without orders, left for next player.

Moscow is weak to us with 5 cities, while England is average with 9 cities.

Battle Summary:

Lost: 1 Warrior
Killed: 6 Warriors (3 barbarian camps), 2 Barbarian Riders, 1 Spearmen, 2 Archers
Captured: 2 Workers.

Current Units

18 Warriors
11 Spearmen
4 Archers

2 Settlers
2 Russian Workers
14 Workers
(49/52 allowed)

13 Cities

Firaxis 235
Jason 179

Overall, a much more relaxed round of turns than the last time I was up. Keep the comments coming, the team discussion is helping my game, and making this game more enjoyable.

I will be away this Memorial Day weeked, and flying for business the following week. I will not have my Mac with me--- so unless I purchase Civ for PC... ;-) Please skip me in the rotation until then.

Good progress! Let's build more cities and more units!

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> Just played
2. Pindicator -> UP
3. akots -> ready
4. DJMGator13 ->

Will try to get to it tomorrow night, very late -- it's my next free minute :( Will welcome any discussion until then.

Good progress! Let's build more cities and more units!



I didn't see anything to contradict those plans when I reviewed the save.

Build, build, build.

At first glance it looks like you should be able to found 4 cities and have 2-3 settlers either nearing completion or moving to next site.

I'll look at a ring 9 map tonight and see how close we can get to our western horse. I know we can't reach it from ring 9 but it should be in the next level (ie 12).

Any thoughts on the french. Since we haven't met them yet I don't think they are on our land mass. And since RUS & ENG only recently completed Map Making, I'm wondering if they spotted each other across the 1 tile water to our west. Should we try to avoid that area and delay contacting the french?

I'll look at a ring 9 map tonight and see how close we can get to our western horse. I know we can't reach it from ring 9 but it should be in the next level (ie 12).

Don't forget about colonies-- we don't need to worry about rings or wait for their build. Roads need to be built to the resource in any case.

Our western horses would take 21 worker turns to connect once the city is established and connected.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/550BCdotmap1.jpg


The RUS horses are actually closer. Should we concentrate a settler and an invading force towards the RUS horse? We could build a colony there and defend it with several spears while the RUS try to destroy the colony. Would this help in our leader hunt?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/550BCdotmap2.jpg

The nice thing about the the northern horses is that they are practically conflict-free. Aside from defending barbarians, there's nothing to worry about. However, our goal is to take out the enemy civs. As that diplomacy variant looks very unlikely, I think we would be better to take on the Russians. They are the weaker of the two enemy civs as of now anyway; those horses should be a bit easier to defend.

Also, it would be a great stepping stone to conquering some Russian towns. I think we are all getting eager to do exactly this.

Still can't play. Will be able to when I get back from my friend's going away bash. We're taking him to a strip club in Salem, since in down in Cali the clubs can't be fully nude with alcohol present. So expect a write-up either late, late tonight or early tomorrow. (No sleeping yet! what, you expect this to be a holiday?)

There are two settlers heading towards the south-eastern portion of the 6-ring. Building roads to them will help defend these towns and expediate our flow of troops. We can then build more roads to the horse colony or city w/ library on ring 9.

We will get horses faster though, if we build a colony to the northwest since we don't lose time working in jungle.
Very helpful dotmap/screenshot DJMGator13.

... We're taking him to a strip club in Salem, since in down in Cali the clubs can't be fully nude with alcohol present. ...

Just make sure you are sober when playing. And tell us the details... Horses and iron and jungle is all interesting but not much compared to that other stuff :)

Just make sure you are sober when playing.

Haha, nah. Didn't drink that much. Actually, being tired is more of a reason for the brevity of this report than anything else. I was a bit unsure how to proceed with the swords once I got them, and the barbs coming from the north caught most of my attention. But we do have four new cities and Nestucca Ridge's replacement settler is on location.

I left some units to move for the next player, mostly because I don't know hwo they want to deal with the barbs. It might be best just to leave a town open and let them ransack it -- by better I mean that our gold is small enough that it may be better than losing a few defenders.

Also, I contacted France. Bought 4 techs plus their WM so we have the entire continent mapped now. Pic is attached.

I recommend we continue researching, because almost every visible tech can be researched at a 4-turn pace with income still coming in. It's on Philo because I forgot to switch it to Math like I wanted to.

And I'll leave it to the next person to use all our new swords :) Though we do need to hook up that iron again soon. I'll post the write-up tomorrow when I'm rested.

Link to save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/akots_SG002_BC0350_01.SAV)

15 Barb horses on the doorstep of BP. Did you receive the "Massive Uprising" notification? If so, 2 of our unknown civs are now in the MA. I checked ENG & RUS they are still a few techs short of MA.

We can shift some units around (thanks to the tight city placement) and get at least 2 more spears in BP. That would give us 4 spears and 2 swords in defense. Also 11 of the 15 horses will be attacking across the river.

Or we can always back out our troops (strengthen our other nearby cities) and give up the money.

What an empty map! How are we going to settle all that? We need 3-4 settler factories.

I'll wait for your log and then play.

Here ya go, team.

Inherited Turn, 550BC
Finish up some unit moves that were left alone.
IBT-
Eng 4/4 arch loses to our Elite arch, -3HP.

Turn 1, 530BC
Discover Minsk, but even more important, discover that the southern coast. It looks like that if we can keep the Russians where they are now, it is set up as a choke point of sorts... kind of a wide choke point, but we can keep them out of the southeast theoretically.
IBT-
Iron hooks up.
Pindicator's Paradise: Settler -> Spear.
Bellisaxon: Warrior -> Spear.
Spiceton: Warrior -> Spear.
English buildng TGL.

Turn 2, 510BC
The great upgrading: I upgrade every warrior that can be upgraded, and we now have 10 Swords at cost of 400g. Will shuffle some units about to get some more Swords upgraded before I disconnect the iron.
Elite archer forgot how to shoot, dies without doing a scratch.
Settlers move to sites O & N. Settler out of PP moving to site P -- it just fits.
IBT-
Leipzig: Warrior -> Spear
Konigsburg: Worker -> Spear
Munich: Warrior -> Worker
Russians building TGL.

Turn 3, 490BC
Settle Nuremburg at site O. Set to warrior.
Settle Cologne at site N. set to warrior.
Upgrade 3 more warriors for 120g. We still have 9 warriors in our military, however. Will disconnect iron again next turn, I think.
IBT-
Barbs pillage.
Russians and English advance. Time for those swords to earn their keep.
Berlin: Settler -> Settler.
Bruin Plains riots :smoke:
Massive Barb uprising; that means 2 civs have entered MA.

Turn 4, 470BC
Sword kills archer flawlessly.
Sword kills archer, -2HP
Sword loses to archer, redlining it.
Sword kills archer, -1HP
Disconnect iron.
Archer kills archer flawlessly.
Warrior kills archer flawlessly.
IBT-
Archer attacks Nestucca Ridge, losing.
Archer kills our warrior.

Turn 5, 450BC
More of the same, really...
...except we get contact with France! I give them a ring.
We trade our WM + 379g for their WM, Masonry, HBR, Ceremonial, & Map Making. They are still up Philosophy and Code of Laws.
With the world map, this really is a builder's map. France, England, and Russia are all crammed in the southern half of the continent. We have the north all to ourselves.
Research set to Mysticism, due in 4 with 23gpt income.
IBT-
Lose an archer in the south and a warrior in the north, but he took out some barbs at least.
Guess where all the barbs are headed. Yep, us. I guess there are 48 in two waves of 24.
Bruin Plains: Worker -> Barracks.
Frankfurt: Spear -> Spear, cause of chop.
City 17: Worker -> Granary. Don't know what else to build that needs the shields because the chop was due soon.

Turn 6, 430BC
Moving swords and spears north to help against the barbarian hordes.
MM Nestucca Ridge to time growth and settler.
Settle Hannover at site P. Set to Warrior.
IBT-
Bellisaxon: Spear -> Warrior.
Spiceton: Spear -> Warrior.
Hamburg: Spear -> Barracks.
Heidelburg: Worker -> Worker.

Turn 7, 410BC
Kill 4 barb horses, get one (my first) promo.
Archer kills barb in east.
Spear in the south spots a huge barb SOD that will pillage some of France and Russia.
Forgot to MM Berlin last turn, so I have the settler take 5 to keep growth aligned.
IBT-
England settles Dover around RPC 14 or so.
Russians want to talk. They are up Myst, Math, Philo, and CoL (that we can see)
Barbs kill defenders at Heidelberg and ransack ~50g; i think we took out five or so... those spears were pretty useless on defense.

Turn 8, 390BC
Kill some more barbs, shuffle some more troops.
IBT-
Learn Myst. Set to Philo in 8, cause I forgot to change it cause I'm tired... :smoke: oops.
Berlin: Settler -> Settler.
Leipzig: Spear -> Warrior.
Spice: Warrior -> Warrior.
Frankfurt: Spear -> Warrior.
Nestuca Ridge: Settler -> Wealth.

Turn 9, 370BC
Settler Bremen at site M. Set to warrior.
Don't know why i did it, but Warrior beat Eng Spear, -2HP.
Change sliders to get Philo in 4.
IBT-
Warrior in north kills 2 barbs before falling.
PP: Spear -> Spear.
Bellisaxon: Warrior -> Warrior.

Turn 10, 350BC
Barbs are back on the doorstep of BP. Kind of thin on troops, though, and I don't want to just send troops in that will die anyway, so it may be worth it to take the hit in gold. I'll leave that up for discussion / the next person to decide.

Final thoughts:
I left a lot of troops unmoved this turn. We have a rather good number of swords, and some towns are pumping out warriors every 2 turns. If we can hook the iron hooked up and do one more upgrade, then we can take out pretty much everyone on the continent, I believe between that force and our production. I believe we have 14 swords right now.

There are several worker crews in the jungle that have connected sites O & N. I'd connect P with one and have the other go back to connect the iron.

Sorry I didn't do much with the swords, but we had a bit of a surge in the English and Russian archers as well as the barbs in the north. I figured it was better to be a little defensive considering. Russia is starting to expand to our southeast, however I wouldn't attack those towns. What I mean is that when we draw up our battle plan we should go straight for the throat. Take out Russia's core cities, then England's, then France's.

There are a lot of techs coming in a 4-turn research. I think we need to take advantage of this, especially cause the other continent is probably way ahead of us in the tech pace due to our continual war. We need to get a galley ASAP to find the other continent and slow them down with our war declarations.

The biggest thing, though, is that I have yet to see a single sword. Hope it stays that way.

What an empty map! How are we going to settle all that? We need 3-4 settler factories.


Indeed. :eek: :crazyeye:

With our tight build can we get another 4-5 turn settler factory anywhere? :confused: Doesn't look like we have a good combo +f +s city other than Berlin.

I did what my be our last dotmap for a while. Our NW looks good. Our S & SE ring 9 pushes right up against RUS border and there only appears to be one site SW and that is a cattle tile. I started designating the sites with Site T our first coastal location.

BTW, the ENG were nice enough to build Dover on our #9 ring :thanx:


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/350BCdotmap.jpg

The game is kinda cheesy even for AW. It could have been AW+5CCC easily. We must expand if we want to stay compatible in terms of score but we are already falling behind and terribly compared to other teams. Guess the only unit they are building is settler. :)

May be try a rapid Conquest victory. Just need to get some knights then and galleys. Having Pyramids is the only way to settle all that empty areas.

Will try to play today in the evening.

Edited: Roughly, just to impress with numbers, this area would hold about 80-90 (up to 120) tightly packed cities. If Berlin continues to be our own settler factory, we'll fill in the map by around 1900-1950AD. :lol:

I wonder which letters of which alphabet we will use to create a dot map of RCP39 cities... :)

Preturn check. These barbarians are really scary but if we can get a couple of elite units, this might compensate the risk. Decided to keep the ridge town for the next settler. Moving to get the cow and settle on the river. IBT. Barbarians advance inside our territory.

[1] 330BC. All barbarians killed. Almost forgot about Monarch bonus against them. :)
IBT. French horsemen and English archers advance.

[2] 310BC. We play on the defensive for the time being. Moving some swords to Hannover for protection. Bruin Plains switched to settler. IBT. Learn Philosophy, researching Math in 4 turns at 70% making +7gpt.

[3] 290BC. More battles. We mostly win.

[4] 270BC. Decided to chop some jungle near spiceton. Settle Bonn, building galley.

IBT. China built the Pyramids. This is very unfortunate.

[5] 250BC. Kill some more enemies. France sent a bunch of warriors our way.

[6] 230BC. We got our first great leader. Why not 2 turns earlier? Alas, these thing are not predictable. Barbarossa, hmm.. TGL or Forbidden Palace? TGL, I think. Or army? No, TGL in Leipzig. Turning off research. We make 59gpt. Not much but not bad as well.

[7] 210BC. More fighting and healing. IBT. French horses attack but we survive.
IBT. We learn Math, CoL, Poly, Construction, Currency, Monotheism (as a free tech).

[8] 190BC. A few more wins and no losses. Swordsmen are good units is they are able to use terrain advantages. We are even on tech with France and Russia and ahead by Mono against the English.

[9] 170BC. The ridge city abandoned. Incense hooked up.

[10] 150BC. Moving 6 swords to the vicinity of Moscow. I have somehow messed up and accumulated all warrior for upgrade in Hannover but barracks there would be build only in 6 turns. So, we can upgrade and unhook the iron then. This can allow us to accumulate some more cash and build more spearmen. Soon we can start on Markets but better revolt to Monarchy first. Otherwise, we are doing OK since no worries in the near future about the techs. We now qualify for the spoiler and if somebody can volunteer to write up about our adventures (DJ?). Good luck!

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> ready? skipped?
2. Pindicator ->
3. akots -> Just player, Great Library up and running.
4. DJMGator13 -> UP

Spoiler volunteer - if no one else is beating down the door to do it I will. Is it spelled out what to post and what not to?

EDIT: Spoiler rules answers that question and says to post our report before reading the other posts.

Preturn questions

Bonn is at RCP7 - I'm assuming so that we have the coast
Stuttgart is at RCP10 - cattle tile was at 9

If during my round I get a GL do we want an army or a FP? If FP where? Moscow or closer to our core?

It looks like all the warriors can move back to Spiceton in my preturn and upgrade on turn 1. Should we wait on size 1 RUS cities to grow to 2 before attacking?

Nice turns akots! :goodjob: About time we got that leader!

Yes, coast with Bonn to build a galley. Not that we really want these other contacts.

IMHO for this map, RCP beyond 6 is already fully corrupt, so does not matter much. We just have too many cities at RCP6 and rank corruption for them is even but for another ring, they are still counting as many cities not as a single one.

Re upgrade: We don't have enough cash to upgrade them all and at present there is enough force to counter the attacks and do some leader farming. So, 6 turns later sounds about right IMHO. They don't cost us a cent to keep.

Re waiting: Yes, we better not hurry atm, let them grow and whip whatever units they can so that we can get more leaders. :)

We'll build some markets, STAW and get Golden Age but first must revolt to Monarchy. Disconnect iron, connect horses, and upgrade 50 or so of them. Then, we play KKND style. (There was an RTS game KKND - Krush, Kill, 'n Destroy, very enjoyable.) Get the earliest Conquest win and higher Jason's. Just kidding.

I've read the spoilers (assuming you already posted) and noticed that teams with the highest scores had a very luxurious build of cities. Hence, their score. IMHO, the number of cities counts as well after a certain point. It reduces support costs and allows us to keep huge military and prosper at the same time. We would not be alble to improve them all... But what a Great German city needs? Barracks, Market, may be Library, sometimes Granary, later on Bank but we should be rather close to winning at this point.

Edited: Regarding leader, we want an army, load it with something (there is an elite sword which already generated a leader somewhere fortified as MP; do not put him on front lines, he can spoil of the leader hunt) and get a victory. Then, we build Heroic Epic and get some more leaders for knight armies.

I was thinking the rings this far out did not matter because of the corruption, thoughts that why you placed those two.

I'll post to the spoiler in the morning and play tomorrow late afternoon. Let me know if anyone else has any questions of suggestions.

I'll go for Moscow and probably just reinforce elsewhere. If we are building horseman to upgrade to knights do I need to disconnect the iron?

Should I start the revolt? Does anarchy affect GLeader production?

Revolt by all means after getting Monarchy but make sure that we are safe. It is possible to have 3-8 turn anarchy and during this time we would not produce anything but Great Leaders.

We need to connect the horses, build horsemen, and wait for Chivalry. After Chivalry, once we run out of horsemen to upgrade, then we can disconnect the iron.

Good luck!

Yes, coast with Bonn to build a galley. Not that we really want these other contacts.

Hmm... that's debateable. As far as them sending military to us, the AI is horrible about launching assaults on separate continents -- we shouldn't have a problem at all holding them off, especially with horses / knights.

As far as tech goes, getting the other continent to war against us is the best way to keep the tech pace slow so they are not too far ahead. I remember that when teh barb hordes arrived (signifying second civ to MA) not one civ on our continent was in the MA, which means they are probalby still ahead in the techs. Also, getting the contacts would get us more techs from TGL.

However, delaying contact until we have dominated this continent will make sure that we have the continent secure from military. Also, when we do contact the other civs (provided we do not research Education), we could see a huge sky-rocket in techs when we meet the other civs, essentially catching up.

So yeah, after thinking about it, I say we should keep from contacting the other continent. However, we should contact them before we learn Education from France, England, and/or Russia. But killing them before then would work just as well.

Our Spoiler #1 has been posted so we are now able to read the other teams posting there.

From the posting todate we appear to be the only AW variant so far and our tight build is indeed why we are behind in score. Surprisingly though we have enter the MA about the same time as most of the other teams, thanks to the GLib.

Can City 17 complete the granary it is currently building? Do the AW standards require a city that is producing 5 f or is it a surplus of (+5) food?

It wont complete in my round w/o a forest chop so the next player can complete it or change it.

Quick Summary

COMBAT
28 kills, capture 2 workers – some promos – No GL
Lost 14 units – mostly in the Battle for Moscow – including a settler & spear to a barb horse that was ready to found our city near horses

CITIES
Founded Brandenburg & New Berlin – have 3 settlers in route (that damn barb horse cost us a city)

Preturn discussed items:
1 Continue expansion
2 Try to establish BP into a 5-6 turn settler factory
3 Play with Moscow :devil2:

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

PLAYLOG

Preturn
mm Berlin for settler in 1 turn would have wasted 7 shield if built in 2
Changed Bellisaxon from spear to settler
Changed Hamburg to worker
Took 3 warriors from Hannover to Spiceton for upgrade

IBT – 2 ENG archers move to mt E of Stuutgart (2 more trail 1 tile SE)

Turn 1 – 130BC
Found BRANDENBURG
eArcher takes out ENG archer
vSword takes out Barb horse

The Battle for Moscow (turns out to be our 4 vSword & 2 eSwords against 5 spears
vSword losses – no damage to vSpear
eSword losses – takes 2hp off vSpear who promotes to elite
vSword losses – takes 1hp off vSpear
vSword losses – redlines vSpear
vSword losses – take 1hp off rSpear
eSword wins against rSpear
We are out of troops and they have 4 damaged Spears

Russia defeats the German invaders rather easily and I ask myself
"Why are the RNG gods against me… I even went to church today?"
So ends my first turn and I’m thinking of that classic line from Young Frankenstein “It could be worse, it could be raining”

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

IBT – 3 ENG archers consolidate E of Stutt

Turn 2 – 110BC
Nothing exciting although I still hear ringing in my head.

IBT – 2 ENG archers attack Stutt – we win both – 1 spear promos to elite (the ringing lessens slightly)

Turn 3 – 90BC
Disconnect iron – switch some builds to warrior

eArcher in Stutt attacks & losses to ENG rArcher (will someone answer the phone that ringing is getting louder)

A very pissed off vSword takes out that little rArcher and surprise he is now elite.

IBT – Barb horse dies against valiant Brandenburg defender (must have lulled him to sleep with a concerto) – we learn The Republic

Turn 4 – 70BC
Kill a barb horse, eSword kills a RUS spear & settler, and our lone survivor eSword from Battle of Moscow redlines a FRA horse who retreats

IBT – FRA horse runs even further away

Turn 5 – 50BC
Berlin give birth – nothing else major

IBT – barb horse attacks SW sword – we win no promo
ENG moves 3 archer towards Stutt / FRA brings up a horse and 2 ground units near Moscow

Turn 6 – 30BC
Bellisaxon squeeze out a settler – I take out 2 barb camps no promos but 50 gold

IBT – FRA horse dies upon our vSpear who promotes to elite

ENG rArcher takes out our fortified elite spear in Stutt w/o taking any damage :eek: (just when the ringing was lessening it comes back)

Turn 7 – 10BC
Having positioned 2 spears, 2 eSwords and a vSword near Dover I decide to try my luck again. I :worship: to the RNG gods, call my bookie in Vegas for odds and flip on the 700 Club on the religion channel.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2_02.jpg


Dover had 1 spear in defense, our eSword takes him out (no promo) and we have a new ring 9 city. (I feel myself getting up from the canvas, ringing is almost gone)

IBT – 2 ENG archers die attacking Stutt – RUS spear in our territory near some workers – 2 FRA ground units move next to Moscow

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

Turn 8 – 10AD
BP settler => settler
Spiceton sword – will come in nicely against that RUS spear
Found NEW BERLIN

I take out the RUS spear near Spiceton and the 2 remaining ENG archers by Stutt – 3 wins no promos.

For some strange reason the ringing in my head over the past few turns has me thinking of a nice German Oktoberfest and the need for some Beck’s Dark. I have also been busy inviting a few of my loyal servants to attend this party with me, but there is one catch. WE MUST TAKE MOSCOW BEFORE WE CAN DRINK. A have gathered 2 vSpears, 1 eSpear, 8 vSwords, 2 eSwords (1 at 4/5hp) and the 2 captured workers north of Moscow.

Return to the Battle of Moscow (now size 7)
vSword vrs eSpear we die redline spear
vSword vrs vSpear we die -1hp spear
eSword vrs vSpear we die -2hp spear
vSword vrs vSpear we die redline spear
Now Facing wounded spears again
vSword vrs 3/4spear - we win -2hp
vSword vrs 2/4spear - we win -1hp promo to elite
vSword vrs 2/5spear - we win -3hp no promo
saved 4/5 eSword vrs 1/4 spear - we win -1hp no promo
vSword takes out FRA warrior -2hp no promo
vSword takes out FRA archer - no hp loss promos to elite
Switched to the French because I got this message

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2_01.jpg


The ringing has stopped, time to have that drink boys. :beer: :band: [dance] :banana:

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

IBT – Every time I think the ringing is gone I get blindsided. :crazyeye: An unseen barb horse takes out our settler and spear, which had reached the city location (plain tile next to the lake) near our proposed horse colony. Add insult to injury an ENG archer takes out our rSpear who was on a mountain.

Turn 9 – 30AD
vSword takes out ENG spear – no promo
eSword takes out a FRA rSword near mscow – no promo

IBT – nothing major

Turn 10 – 50AD
Berlin settler => settler
eSword takes out RUS archer
Left all other moves to next player

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

Notes to next player
1 Troops are awaiting your preturn order
2 Moscow is out of revolt – can rush a worker or a settler.
3 I’ve reconnected the iron.
4 I started some catapults, you may want to change these, I wasn’t sure what to build.
5 I redirected a spear, warrior and settler to establish our horse colony city and was moving our 2 outpost swords in that direction as a buffer.
6 City 17's granary build is it allowed?

Good turns DJM! For some reason the RNG just has been hating me lately as well. Not so much here, but really so in Ank06 and Ank07.


6 City 17's granary build is it allowed?

Haha, I started this hoping because of an impending chop and the idea of it helping worker production and forgetting the rules, but I told the next person to cancel it if they didn't want it. I think that was a while ago now, so even if it is against the rules, I guess it is wanted cause nobody's changed it yet. I suggest if we keep it (which we probably should now, cause it has too many shields into it), then we keep City 17 on worker / settler production the rest of the game to make up for the shields put into it.

Good turns. Some wasted military and a settler but these things happen, so nothing to worry about. Just stupid pRNG. Otherwise, solid strong development. :goodjob:

We'll wait 24 hours for Bruindane to post something. If he does not, then I will swap with him unless somebody else wants to grab the turns.

We'll wait 24 hours for Bruindane to post something. If he does not, then I will swap with him unless somebody else wants to grab the turns.
Go ahead and skip my turn. I will back late Friday evening-- and I am looking forward to catching up on developments then.

OK, I got it and will try to play tomorrow. Please, lets discuss something. Not sure what though. Just build settlers and military?

I can't look at the save right now -- my grad present is a new P4 which I just set up :bounce: :banana:

So between installing programs and finishing up my last week as a college student (graduation is 10 days away!) I haven't had a look at the save, but I think we would want to produce swords in high production towns (roughly 8-10 spt), spears & barracks in med production towns (4-7), and workers & settlers in low production (1-3). And just stick it to the man (which is Russia in this case)!

Go get em akots!

One the settler issue, I was trying to get BP up as another settler factory by improving it's tiles. We can get the food up (with 3 irr flood plains) but the corruption is killing the shield output. I was having trouble getting shields above 3.

Spiceton is a strong shield city and I have 2 crews clearing jungle there, hoping to improve its food output.

I think with 5-10 more swords and the surviving Moscow units we could probably take out RUS.

I started a wall in Stuttgart because it has been the focus of all the ENG attacks, all archers to date IIRC. I'm wondering if there might be a future resource in that area. Dover has had no counterattack on it since I captured it.

I can't recall off the top of my head but does ENG have iron or horses? I haven't seen any swords from them. FRA has swords & horsemen though.

akots,

Congrats :goodjob: on your GOTM31 10th place finish.

I improved my score from the prior month. This was actually my highest Jason score I've acheived in the 3 GOTM's that I've played.

I need to work on my tech trading and research path vrs the AI.

akots? You're nearing 48, just making sure the English haven't turned you into a POW. :crazyeye:

Edit: I should have given my congrats as well, akots! So here it is: :goodjob: :worship: :clap:

Re GOTM31. Indeed, it was a very tight finish. I have pushed hard but not hard enough. Still, getting into top 10 in this GOTM and top 5 in Global ranking is a good thing. Then, why it feels like disappointment... :)

You guys also did very well. Good solid games and overall improvement. :goodjob:

I'll try to play ASAP but just bought a new laptop and it does not work very well. Civ runs OK but some weird things happen. Guess need to try to play on old desktop.

Preturn check. The situation is somewhat messy. Berlin is at size 3 which should never be allowed. Also, some strange builds noticed like catapult in Munich with barracks. Some vet warriors are running loose which should be upgraded. Some units on goto orders. Otherwise, looks OK. All builds switched to swords or warriors. Berlin builds spear so that it can grow back. Whipped Library in Moscow.
IBT. Some French troops move.

[1] 70AD. Battle of Moscow yields another leader Richtoffen. He runs to Moscow and builds a sword army there. IBT. Our army is victorious and next leader will rush Heroic Epic.

[2] 90AD. More victories. Northern horse town founded.

[3] 110AD. Some more cities built and enemies killed. We still have 3 warriors left and after upgrading them, can disconnect iron.

[4] 130AD. All the same, blood and children (settlers). Nothing ever changes. Cannot keep MP in all cities, some units dispatched to front lines.

[5] 150AD. Lost 3 swords around Moscow. France is advancing with many units.

[6] 170AD. Lost 5 swords this turn. Just another RNG streak. IBT. Moscow lost.

[7] 190AD. Moscow recaptured, Odessa captured. RNG favors us again.

[8] 210AD. Minsk captured. France and England have Monarchy, we get it next turn from TGL, hence, revolting. We draw 5 turn anarchy, could have been worse considering our relatively large size. IBT. We get Monarchy from TGL and can revolt for the second time. IMHO, we cannot risk longer anarchy, 5 turns is OK.

[9] 230AD. Brighton is autorazed. IBT. Our galley is killed by barbarians.

[10] 250AD. Still in anarchy. The whole bunch of units did not move. Many are fortified in Moscow anticipating advance of the French armada. We had a fair number of elite wins since the previous leader, so another might appear soon. Can be used for Heroi Epic or the Hanging Gardens in Leipzig. May be, we start building Forbidden Palace in Leipzig and jump Palace to somewhere else. Or something else. After the horses are hooked, we can build horsemen and only horsemen. Many cities would need micromanagement after Monarchy. The optimization task falls on Pindicator (UP).

Preturn check. The situation is somewhat messy. Berlin is at size 3 which should never be allowed. Also, some strange builds noticed like catapult in Munich with barracks. Some vet warriors are running loose which should be upgraded. Some units on goto orders. Otherwise, looks OK. All builds switched to swords or warriors. Berlin builds spear so that it can grow back.

Sorry about Berlin, that probably happened in Turn 1 of my round when I mm Berlin for settler in 1 instead of 2, but we were going to waste 7 shields at the time. Unless I missed a mm when Berlin grew in a later turn. EDIT: Yep, it happened on Turn 1 of my round when I mm'd for those wasted sheilds. Should have moved to a regular Grass and given another city the mined BG's for a few turns to lower the wasted shields in Berlin. Looks like once Berlin gets to size 5 we can back off the shields and let another city use them. Once the settler is produced we take the shields back for Berlin.

Cats were mainly prebuilds because I didn't want more warriors when we were close to having the horses hooked up (before the barb killed my settler & spear).

I was using a few warriors just as lookouts to see approaching troops or were you refering to warriors that were still in cities that should have been upgraded and sent into battle area?

There should have been NO "goto" orders. That one surprises me. I'll check out my last save and my notes. EDIT: I checked the save and I did indeed have one warrior on GOTO heading into New Berlin. :blush: I must have accidentally clicked it when I was scrolling my map. I know GOTOs should not be used in SGs.
----------------------------------------------------

Were most of the battles around Moscow against RUS or FRA?

@DJMGator13:

You played well, and everything was OK, so no problems at all. I fixed everything and even if I did not, no big deal. Really. We are doing great! Sorry if I sound unhappy sometimes, you can attribute this to a language barrier. :)

The game is easy and AIs don't put much resistance overall. Once we get into Monarchy, it would be easy to win.

There were many battles with English archers and french swords and horsemen. IIRC, it were horsemen who captured Moscow.

akots, I did not take any offense with your comments. Your comments and/or criticisms are welcomed and encouraged. I'm trying to learn to not make those mistakes (even the little ones). If they're not pointed out I can't learn. :)

I think this is the proper order for the rest of this round.

Roster:
1. Bruindane -> On deck after Pindicator (#3 switched with akots)
2. Pindicator -> Up
3. akots -> Just played (in position #1 switched with Bruindane)
4. DJMGator13 -> waiting (working on COTM1 or as I suggested in the new name thread "Gator Challenge1" :lol: )

hey guys, got back from my bro's h.s. graduation in time for work, and of course they wanted me to stay late tonight. So it's 2am and I'm just dead... So I got it and will get to it first thing tomorrow morning.

Good play guys-- just wanted to drop a note that I am back.

Inherited Turn, 250AD
Since we are in ararchy for 3 more turns, I MM all towns for growth, and then hit enter:
IBT-
English want peace. French swords do not enter our territory. Barb horseman loses to spear in New Leipzig.

Turn 1, 260AD
It looks like our latest RCP ring is off in many places. So I will just settle what I think to be the best locations aside from RCP during my turns.
Found New Munich on the northern settler's location then kick myself for not moving it NE first.
We had a sword fortified in the jungle. Didn't want to lose it so I moved it to another square.
IBT-
If we want the Hanging Gardins, all we have to do now is take Paris.
French have an SOD of 6 swords with 3 in reserve near Sevastpol.

Turn 2, 270AD
Wow, we need more cats. Only 1.
Win with a sword, lose a sword.
IBT-
It was republic right? We all wanted republic? Just kidding, we become a monarchy.

Turn 3, 280AD
The great Micro-Managing begins:
Basic rule -- all towns w/o barracks build cats, w/ build warriors. Some towns w/o build barracks.
We now make 67gpt.
Kill an archer.
IBT-
Leipzig begins FP, due in 34.

Turn 4, 290AD
Found New Heidelberg.
For all our hopelessly corrupt cities, I recommend only irrigating. If we get a palace or FP change that turns them useful later on, then we can turn some into mines or whatnot.
Retreat a horse.
IBT-
Barb horse loses to sword in Odessa.
The French baffle me. They keep advancing and retreating. I don't think they even know what they're doing.

Turn 5, 300AD
Kill 2 archers, a spear, and a sword. We burn Norwich.
Moscow's growth is insane. Currently at +10fpt.
I'd advance troops from Moscow to attack Sevastpol and other cities, but I want to take care of that French SOD first.
IBT-
Russians want to talk.
Berlin builds Settler and the factory is back on track.

Turn 6, 310AD
Kill 3 swords, lose a sword. Will lose a sword IBT, but it keeps the French from getting to Minsk before I can bring reinforcements.
IBT-
Our sword goes down with a fight, killing one sword and red-lining another. Another sword I left in the open defeats a sword as well.

Turn 7, 320AD
Kill 6 french swords, the bulk of their army in the east. Only 3 are left visible. The army kills the last sword, blocking the path to Minsk for the French.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2_320ad_french_defeat.jpg

IBT-
3 more french swrods appear, now they are all heading towards Moscow. 2 spears come up further west; maybe pillagers?

Turn 8, 330AD
Found New Nuremberg.
Kill a sword.
IBT-
French settler pair shows up. French swords change their mind and make another run at Minsk.

Turn 9, 340AD
Two workers set on hooking up the iron again, due in 5 turns.
Attack force heading towards Coventry.
IBT-
Looks like a screwed up my defense, and let the french take the mountains. This puts us at a setback, because we cannot ignore 6 french swords headed towards Minsk.

Turn 10, 350AD
Attack force on Coventry set to attack next turn.
Kill a spear and take two workers as slaves. Kill a 2/3 sword and cut off the mountain route for the French.

Final notes

Score: Firaxis - 537, Jason - 410

Settlers: There is one in the north, about where I would put a town (if we disregard RCP this far out, if not then I am sorry for my city placement); there is another settler to the east 2 tiles east of Munich; and a third settler fresh from Berlin is now in Spiceton, headed south to the flood plains rich area between us and the English.

Attacking: All plans to push in the east have been stalled by the constant influx of new french swords. The army has been pivotal in keeping the French away from Minsk and the other weak towns in our eastern empire. I suggest fortifying some units on that mountain ridge for good, or at least until we can push farther south.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2_350ad_french_attack.jpg

Coventry has a force of 6 swords, an archer, and a spear in front of it. I think you know what to do with those.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2_350ad_coventry.jpg

Four swords are located SW of Moscow. I was thinking an attack on St. Petersburg, but now I'm thinking meet up with the other forces in the east and take out Sevastpol and those other towns. Also, there are french pillagers to the north of this, but we have some units nearby. Watch for them in the future.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2_350ad_pillagers.jpg

Finally, our pillagers in the wild west are nearing Oxford. They should be able to take it with no problem.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm2_350ad_oxford.jpg

Resources: Both the northern and southern horses will be connected during the IBT. I agree with akots that we should produce only horses here on out. Once chivalry comes in, we will have a lot of horses and a lot of money for upgrading them. Our iron will be hooked up in 4 turns, and we can debate whether or not to upgrade warriors. I'd keep them around as MPs, personally; we're gonna need a lot of them.

On Cities: Here was the formula I was using. Build warriors or workers on 1, 2, 5, or 6 spt. Build spears or cats on 3, 4, 7, or 8 spt. Whether the city has a barracks is a factor as well. And some cities are situational, but that was the main plan. With horses, what is our minimum spt output for which we produce horses? 3? 4? 5?

On Kicking @$$: Remember to take names.

With horses, what is our minimum spt output for which we produce horses? 3? 4? 5?

Horsemen cost 30 shields, so 5 and 6 spt cities could do them.

After the horses are hooked, we can build horsemen and only horsemen.

This is what I was referring to, DMJ. I agree with it, too; horses are better than swords because of 1) the upgrade path, 2) movement, and 3) retreating for battle. I was wondering if there was a minimum shield count that we wanted, that if we truly wanted only horsemen. If we did do only horsemen, then there would be little point in getting bombard units until Replaceable Parts, and I think we all want this game to be over well before then.

Also for the next player, it is very necessary to get contacts with other civs as soon as possible. All coastal towns should be producing galleys (i think i forgot to do this one myself, even, so no personal accusations are intended), and if need be they should be suicided. We need contacts, because 1) more contacts helps the GL, and 2) declaring war will hopefully slow down the tech pace on the other continent (which is assuredly ahead of us).

declaring war will hopefully slow down the tech pace on the other continent (which is assuredly ahead of us).
The Great Library will keep us par, even past education.

I have the game and will look at it tonight.

You can probably be a little more aggressive than I did, Bruindane. I played defensively with all those swords, but they seem to be slowing down though not quite petered out. In fact, I'd consider bringing that army up with about 6 swords and having some fun.

Good turns. Bruindane is UP then. Good luck!

I played a few turns last night, the rest will keep until tomorrow. Quite a few elite victories, but no Great Leader-- If Great Leader appears, I will build the Forbidden Palace in Moscow to take advantage of its central location and potential to be a second settler factory.

I was looking at the map this morning, before work, for a possible second core and since Bruindane mentioned Moscow I wanted to throw out Hastings as a choice. Its a little more centrally located to include the RUS, ENG and FRA territories. This also lets us know which cities we my just decide to raze vrs trying to defend.

I did a ring map on Hastings and several good cities fall in the RCP5 ring. I need to redo the map this evening because I accidentally have the terrian features turned off (ie not showing jungle, hills, mts & forest). [No extra knowledge is gained from this because the Ring program shows grass & bonus grass the same way.]

I'll be able to update the map around 8pm est tonight. If there are any other cities you would like me to do a ring map based on let me know.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/akots350ad.gif



EDIT: Sorry for the size of the image, i forgot to shrink it before uploading it. Maybe one of the Moderators can shrink it down a bit. Thanks.

Nice idea DJM, except aren't we running a 3-6-9 RCP in our primary site? So wouldn't running a 5-8-11 one for our FP affect corruption in the 6 and 9 RCP towns from our palace? I don't know much about RCP placement, just want to make sure. I guess I'm asking if we have to have the same RCP distances for both the palace and FP locaitons.

We may need to look to akots for guidance. IIRC we can keep captured cities but if we raze and rebuild a city does the rebuilt city need to be within 3 tiles?

As for as the rings go, I'm not sure. I haven't study the corruption aspect as much as I should. You are correct that in our core we went RCP3, 6 & 9 before straying away from the rings. What I don't know is if the second core is treated seperaterly or do both sets of rings interconnect (ie. core1-RCP3 is rank 1, while core2RCP5 is rank 2, making core1-RCP6 rank 3).

That probably needs to be addressed before we build the FP, as it could weaken our initial core. Hopefully akots or a knowledgable lurker might have some feedback on that.

So wouldn't running a 5-8-11 one for our FP affect corruption in the 6 and 9 RCP towns from our palace?
Assuming the two rings do not intersect, the answer is no. Once distance (d) is calculated from the forbidden palace, then the rank is determined by checking how many cities are closer to the palace than that distance (d). The number of cities closer to the forbidden palace is ignored completely for this calculation.

One of the gotm banned exploits is to build a palace isolated from the rest of the cities. All cities were calculated as rank 1.

addendum: as our rank 5 cities around the fp are not closer to the palace then the palace's rank 6 cities, they have no effect corruption in the palace cities. Same thing with rank 11, etc.

addendum 2: In practice, we can have cities of distance 4,5 or 6 from the forbidden palace and they will all share the same rank corruption that our 6 ring has around the palace.

Assuming the two rings do not intersect

We do have some overlap. Dover is a RCP9 city from both sites (Berlin & Hasting). But our second ring on Hastings would be at RCP8 to include Moscow and London. I have attached RCP maps from Berlin and one from Hasting showing the same area. Is Hasting is too close to Berlin for the FP?

RCP based on Berlin

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/350ADakots03.jpg


RCP based on Hastings

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/350ADakots01.jpg

Nice discussion. The FP exploit discovered by Qitai involves Palace jump to a remote location. Hence to use it decently, we would want to build FP in Leipzig and then jump the Palace as far as possible. RCP around FP, however tight it is, is not influenced by corruption as long as the cities around FP are closer to that FP city versus the cities around Palace. For example, if there is RCP 5 from Palace and RCP 3 from FP, all these cities are rank 1. However, if there is RCP 5 from FP and RCP3 from Palace (6 cities for example0, then RCP5 from FP would be rank 7 for all cities. As a general rule, build around FP should be dense and build around Palace should follow OCP pattern. Therefore, we can build FP somewhere in the original core to gain OCN bonus and then jump Palace with a leader to AI-settled core with OCP.

akots,

I've never done a palace jump in any of my games. How often do you use the palace jump in your games? Do you do this in some or all of your GOTMs?

Firaxis score: 636 Jason score: 486
Summary

There was much combat on two fronts: 1) A quick moving front against English in the west 2) a meat-grinding war against France in the East. The kill ratio was 67 : 8, little better than 8:1 but no great leaders produced for Germany. Russia is a non-factor, England is beaten down, and France is about the same.

We have Horses and Catapults starting to make an impact on the war.

5 new cities + 6 captured solidify our hold on the continent. I emphasized settling in the northwest to eliminate the "northwest barbarian front". Our core ring cities have grown past 6, and have built or in the process of building market places. We have over 1000 gold and getting gold at 107 gpt, so we are economically stonger.

Turn by Turn Details

Pre-Turn
Rushed wall in Munich for 8 gold.

IBT
Lose 2 Swordsmen to the French, Kill 1 English Sword
Barbarians appear in the northwest threatening unescorted settler (will retreat in preference to building city and unavoidable sacking)

360 AD, Turn 1
Capture Coventry, overcoming 2 spearmen with no losses
Kill 1 English Swordsmen near Coventry
Kill 5 French Swordsmen in Mountains near Minsk
New Cologne Founded @9.5 out

IBT
Lose 1 Swordsmen to the English
Kill 3 French Swordsmen
Kill 1 English Swordsmen

370 AD, Turn 2
Kill 2 French Swordsmen near Minsk
Kill 3 English Swordsmen near Coventry

IBT
Lose 1 Swordsmen to Russians

380 AD, Turn 3
Our first three horsemen are trained
Killed 4 Russian Archers, 2 Spearmen
Took Sevastopol, captured 4 workers
Spent 92 gold to rush settler in Bruin Plains

IBT
Barbarians kill 1 Warrior & 1 Spearmen

390 AD, Turn 4
Kill 1 Russian Spearmen
Kill 1 English Spearmen
Kill 2 Barbarian Horsemen
New Hannover Founded
New Bremen Founded
Spot 1 French Horsemen East of Minsk!

IBT
Kill 1 English Swordsmen

400 AD, Turn 5
Kill 1 Barbarian
Kill 1 French Swordsmen
Kill 2 English Spearmen
Capture Oxford & 4 Workers

IBT
Kill 1 French Swordsmen
Lose 1 Swordsmen

410 AD, Turn 6
Kill 2 French Spearmen
Kill 1 French Swordsmen

IBT
Kill 1 Barbarian Horsemen
Kill 1 French Horsemen
Kill 1 French Swordsmen

420 AD, Turn 7
Kill 2 French Spearmen
Capture Grenoble & 1 Worker
Kill 1 French Swordsmen
Kill 2 English Spearmen
Capture York
New Stuttgart founded

IBT
Lose 1 Swordsmen
Kill 1 French Swordsmen

430 AD, Turn 8
Kill 2 French Swordsmen
Lose 2 Swordsmen

IBT
Lose 1 Swordsmen
Kill 2 French Swordsmen

440 AD, Turn 9
Kill 1 French Swordsmen
Kill 1 Russian Archer
Kill 1 Barbarian Warrior
New Bonn Founded

IBT
Japan builds Great Lighthouse

450 AD, Turn 10
Kill 2 English Spearmen
Capture Hastings
Kill 5 English Swordsmen
Kill 1 English Horsemen
Kill Barbarian Horsemen and disperse camp
Kill 1 French Swordsmen
New Saltzburg founded

Battle Totals

English lose:
1 Horsemen
14 Swordsmen
7 Spearmen
4 Workers
Coventry, Oxford, York, Hastings

French lose:
1 Horsemen
22 Swordsmen
4 Spearmen
1 Worker
Grenoble

Russians lose:
5 Archers
3 Spearmen
4 Workers
Sevastopol

Barbarians lose:
5 Horsemen
1 Warrior
1 camp

We lose:
8 swordsmen

Very nice work Bruindane! It looks like the continenet will soon be ours. We are sitting pretty now. :lol:

Edit: Here is a pic of our new conquerings. Couldn't quite fit Oxford in on there, but it's to the west.

Edit2: We probably could send a worker team to connect Hastings, which would hook up the furs. Go lux!

Thanks for the screenshot pindicator!

I got it. Probably play Friday night.

Any thoughts on use of a GL if I am lucky enough to get one.

Any thoughts on use of a GL if I am lucky enough to get one.

Hmmm.... There are a couple of things worthwhile. Sun Tzu's and Leo's would be wonderful (pun intended), and we should be getting those techs soon enough. But I think that the FP or a Palace jump would be better. We may want to check the GOTM rules on Palace Jumping -- I know with the palace jump exploit there are some rules that were implimented in the GOTM, though I'm a little behind as to what they are now.

However, on the note of wonders and techs, what is our strategy here? It looks like the rest of the continent will fall to us only in due time, so maybe we should get some priliminary thoughts on what to do with the other continent(s). Two options I can think of are 1) make contact as soon as possible and 2) delay attempting contact until we have our continent wrapped up and secure.

The advantage of #1 is that we will slow the tech pace down of the second continent when they declare war. The sooner we do this, the slower they will go. The advantage of #2 is that we will have more turns to build up money and possibly catapult our tech ahead of Education with The Great Library on getting the other contacts. I'm in favor of #1 as it is the safer approach, however it looks like we will probably have to suicide many galleys in order to do this. And we would probably want to do that starting now. With #2 we don't suicide galleys and pretty much build up infrastructure and cash until the AIs make contact for us (guarenteeing us a leap ahead in tech to at least Navigation). However, we may lose out on wonders this way.

One note on when we do make the contact: Trading for techs is not important as we have TGL. Importance of trade before declaring war would be contacts (to help TGL) and world map. Also, we have to plan ahead for buildling libraries for self-research, but this is down the road still.

Anyone else have other thoughts?

Japan built the Great Lighthouse just last turn. Let them contact us-- we can always buy communication for the last civ (was it China?). I would rather switch the builds to take advantage of our cheaper harbors instead of building boats for suicide missions.

... what to do with the other continent(s)...

Go find them and kill them all. :lol:

Nice turns, we are really rocking and rolling!

Quick Summary
Our units were spread out and in several places. The French attacked constantly from the South coming up between the coast and St. Petersburg (they have an ROP with RUS). I founded 4 cities, captured 3 more, learned Feudalism & Theology from GLib, traded Japan for Engineering and WORLD MAP, got a Great Leader who is 3 tiles NE of Warwick and WE ARE AT WAR WITH EVERYBODY.

Preturn (450AD)
mm'd a few clowns to IRS guys
changed a couple of markets to settlers - we still have a lot of land to settle
rushed a galley in New Konisberg & New Nuremberg for 72gold ea
rushed a galley in New Bonn for 116 gold
all galley costs recovered in two turns at +123gpt

Turn 1 - 460AD
found New Dortmund

Turn 3 - 480AD
Found New Brandenburg

Turn 5 - 500 AD
IBT Japan Galley comes into view - stops in a sea tile - they have the Glighthouse

Turn 6 = 510AD
Learned Feudalism, Theology from GLib
Captured WARWICK (E)

IBT to 520AD Japan makes contact offers ENGIN for THEOLOGY
Japan 18cities, 0gold, up ENGIN, down THEOLOGY, Lux are wine & Gems
Trade THEO & Contact w/ RUS & ENG for ENGIN, WM, & Contact w/ Ind & China

Turn 7 - 520AD
Found Berlin2

Should I contact other 2 civs or wait & see if Glib gives us any other techs first
I decide to wait since I have WM
We are STRONG militarily against the rest of the world

IBT
CHN contacts us down THEO - offer us WM for WM - Trade them our TMap for WM & 53gold

Turn 8 - 530AD
The FRA onslaught has finally slowed, but still coming

IBT - IND contacts us - offers Tmap for Tmap - 12 cities, 1 gold, down REP, THEO, ENG
EDIT - Did not trade with IND just declared war

Turn 9 - 540AD
Captured Liverpool (E)
an elite skirmish with London produced a GLeader
we now have 2 JPN slaves

Turn 10 - 550AD
Found Leipzig2
Captured my third city

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/550ADakots01.jpg


EDIT: Score F 754 / J 576
Notes to next player
1) Bunch of troops are still awaiting orders
2) There is a Great Leader 3 tiles NE of Warwick, trying to get back to Hastings
3) FRA has been persistently sending troops up between St. Petersburg and the coast

Good turns! My first reaction was against you trading tech and increasing the tech pace, but we do want to get to Navigation relatively soon so that when we are done with the French we can go straight after the other 3 civs.

What are thoughts on the GL? I'm going to ask an admin about the rules on palace jumping, in case we want to do that. Otherwise Sun Tzu's or Leo's would both be good wonders for us.

England should be gone during the next player's turns. And Russia is down to just one city as well. Time to take it to France! :hammer:

Edit: For the palace, it looks like as long as we do not do the Palace Corruption Exploit, as long as the palace is still in a significant part of our empire, then we are fine moving it.

Good progress. Looks like Bruindane is UP, then Pindicator and me.

I'm in Florida in Disney World with the family.

Have fun. Your in my neck of the woods. I live about an hour from there. Watch out for the heat, we've been in the mid 90s with humidity.

I got it. Here are my thoughts on the best use of the great leader. The palace jump with the Forbidden Palace at the original core offers the most promise. Switching the FP build to the heroic epic, and using the Great Leader to build the FP in Hastings is also tempting. In retrospect, we should perhaps have built the FP with our 2nd Great Leader instead of the Army, but live and learn.

I'll focus on veteran to elite promotions for a few turns to allow the FP to be completed, if elites must enter battle then I'll do the Heroic Epic-FP build.

@ pindicator. Both Sun Tsu and Leo are nice-- maybe for the next couple GLs? :D

I don't think there is a rush to do the Palace jump until we have taken out the French. Leipzip is only 6 turn from completing the FP and to switch to anything else would waste shields, and the Heoric Epic only increases the GL chances slightly. Since we can't take armies on galleys I think we should go for one of the Wonders. Unless we plan on changing out of Monarchy I vote for Sun Tzu and the barracks. Will came in handy when we start mass producing troops for transport.

We want our second core online ASAP, as the bonus in production and commerce is better than any wonder IMO. What we can do is plan for where we want our second core centered, and as soon as we have that town built/captured, we can rush the FP or palace there. As long as we make in earnest our second core then it is within the spirit of the game, as far the exploit rule is concerned.

I agree with DJM, too, that switching Leipzig off the FP probably isn't the best. It messes up our RCP placement, however we are going to be so large once we have the entire continent that milking that extra production shouldn't matter in the long run--as soon as we research astronomy, the AIs are toast!

I don't think there is a rush to do the Palace jump until we have taken out the French. Leipzip is only 6 turn from completing the FP...I vote for Sun Tzu and the barracks.
We do want Sun Tzu, no question, it will put us in our golden age, but we don't want a golden age until we have two solid cores. I min/maxed leipzig to get the FP in 4 turns, and we'll get our palace in 5 (So only 4 turns of keeping our Elites out of the fight). Next leader goes for Sun Tzu (and our elites will be rested and hungry), and boom Golden Age with two solid cores with the palace being the less dense one!

@DJMGator13 I believe you can take armies on galleys, but only an army of one :king:

IMHO, for our current situation, rushing STAW would be better but I have not looked at the save, so cannot be sure. STAW saves lots of money with barracks and brings GA. On the other hand, we want AI to research education for us. Goal is to discover Astronomy and Cavalry ASAP, upgrade horsemen, and kill them all. If there is an occasional wondering settler, we can try to go for UN.

I two recent GOTM, I've been trying to postpone GA and delayed it almost to the end of the game when it has not been so useful. Actually, in the last GOTM, I won during the last turn of GA. :lol:

If there is an occasional wondering settler, we can try to go for UN.


akots,

How does this help for the UN? (Trying to gain knowledge) I just killed a JPN settler pair on our continent. Should I have left them alone?

I think it's because if there are no enemy cities, but only wandering settlers left, you can vote for UN and the only option will be yourself, since you are the only one with cities.

So if we ever see a settler in our territory we should completely surround it and not allow it to move, or would it simply disband or build a city?

If we are going for the diplo win, then we would want to surround a settler on a tile it cannot build a city on (i.e. mountain, and if this was C3C then marsh as well). Luring that settler onto a mountain that we can surround is another story altogether.

Can someone verify the UN idea, though? If we are the only civ with towns, if the AI has a settler do they get a vote? I remember it being in a screenshot of the day, but I can't remember exactly how it worked. If it does work like this, then we have an out to being AW and using the UN.

It's here.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1834304&postcount=113

It was SOTD #142

Normally when you have an election there is always a second candidate based on population or land area.
I had destroyed all other civs except for an Indian settler on a boat. Therefore there was no second largest Civ and I was the only one on the ballot. Also, I was unable to place a spy in India because it thought there already was a spy there. I guess it must go by capital city or something.

http://www.civfanatics.com/sotd/sotd142.jpg


BTW, in Conquest as soon as you capture the last city all other troops including settlers disappear. Confirmed in SirPleb's "Going for Sid" HOF attempt.

The span of years 550 to 650 were good ones for Germany. Furs imported from Hastings became all the rage in 570, whilst the same year brought the science of Invention from distant shores.

A forbidden palace built in Leipzig in 590 had minimal impact on the economy, but Hengist's new Palace erected in Hastings in 600 would lower corruption, netting the empire an additional 70 gold per decade.

Military history, growing ever longer, would be highlighted by Horsa's exploits in the battle of Canterbury. His doctrines, The Art of War, would revolutionize preparedness and training. Horsa's exploits thereby released a golden age, evidenced by the burgeoning growth of the treasury.

The Russian empire, on the brink for centuries, would surrender St. Petersburg in 580, but would not admit defeat until Smolesk was forcibly annexed in 650.

The English, reeling from the loss of New Castle and Canterbury would see the last free city of Nottingham succumb to German rule in 630.

The French with strength fight against German aggression, but they lose Cherborg and their hopes to recapture Grenoble are dashed as the battleground moves towards Orleans.

Some skirmishes against Japanese explorers and the razing of their camps, has brought armed volunteers to west in hopes of isolating and trapping their next settlers with the hope educating them to the greatness of the Germans.

How long will the French fight? Will the dark age end with a blossoming of libraries and scientific research throughout the continent? We shall see.

Excellent job! How much of a fleet do we have? I'd guess that France will fold quickly now that we can concentrate on just it, so the next stop would be Japan, and we will need a fleet to send our victorious armies towards them!

How's this for a future timeline?
France is wiped from the earth: next 10-20 turns
Invasion of Japan begins: within next 20 turns

For the invasion we will want as many caravels as possible. Also, we will probably want some settlers and maybe a few workers for roads. Are we going for the diplo varient? If so, then we will be razing almost every city we come across in the other continent. If not, then we may have a domination victory within 50 turns at best.

Edit: Assuming we get to astronomy within the next 20 turns, that is.

Going west from Canterbury & Newcastle is only a 5 tile crossing, puts us against IND or CHN first. Here is an example of how to accomplish it. (I saw this done in a recent GOTM.)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/650ADakots01.jpg

Galleys a-plenty are being built, and we should have a nice Harbor for upgrades when the time comes.

@DJMGator13 Good plan, losing a few galleys is acceptable. Let us hope we can secure the beachhead.

I like the plan! We'll ideally want 3 galley for every 2 troops we transport, but even getting a large force over will be good enough.

So for the landing, taking this picture in hand, I would say we should raise Calcutta, bringing a settler along to establish a base on the the mountain, giving our troops a safer place to heal.

Are we going for domination win? Or varient?

And who's up? :p

1. Bruindane -> Just played
2. Pindicator -> Up
3. akots -> On Deck
4. DJMGator13 -> waiting

Gotcha, and got it, will play tomorrow

Good progress but we better have some log at least to get an idea of what happened when during the turns. Otherwise, the next player can have some problems.

IMHO, we better wait for Astronomy. These tricks are wasting lots of galleys which can be upgraded easily. We better build settlers and libraries to gain culture border expansion.

We can go either for conquest or domination. For Domination apparently the time to victory should be less than 70 turns. But this is a very general assumption provided that we only buy settlers and nothing else and upgrade some military. Since we better research to Astronomy, this time can be slightly longer.

The Diplo victory option would greatly depend on a luck. If we get this settler in galley or on mountain which we can block, it would work. Otherwise, just forget about it.

I would be able to play only on Saturday in the best case, so no rush with the turns for Pindicator.

Good progress but we better have some log at least to get an idea of what happened when during the turns. Otherwise, the next player can have some problems.

I'll post my notes on the turn by turn when I go home tonight. After re-reading my previous blow by blow account, I found it a little too dry :sad: and that the tallying of military win-loss distracting from the big picture.

PreTurn

Military Goals- Make England a non-Factor. Hurt the French.

Planning to build Palace in Hastings.
Max production at Leipzig to shave 2 turns off the FP build in Leipzig to 4 turns.

Changed most coastal cities to Galley builds. We'll want want lots of ships soon enough.

560 AD ~

570 AD

Connected Furs
Konigsburg 2 Founded

IBT

We learn invention.

580 AD

Capture St. Petersburg.
Frankfurt 2

590
A stack of 10 French Swords make their way towards Grenoble. A longbowmen in the mix as well!
Forbidden Palace built in Leipzig.
GPT goes to 123 from 109

600

French Stack killed
Razed Brighton
Capture NewCastle
Found Munich 2
Found Heidelburg 2

Palace built in Hastings (using Hengist)
GPT now at 192

610

Great Leader Horsa shows up outside Canterbury
Canterbury captured
Autoraze Poitiers

620

Sun Tzu's Art of War is built (using Horsa).
We enter our golden age (359 gpt).
Capture Cherborg
Found Cologne

630

Capture Nottingham
English eliminated

640 ~

650

Smolesk is captured
Russia Eliminated
Suo, the Japanese encroachment, autorazed
Hannover 2 Founded

Playing now. Let's see how that French Maginot line holds up!

Okay, so the RNG is like the ocean. Never turn your back on it. It'll look peaceful and accomidating, even pleasant at times when you see your 2/1/2 horsemen killing fortified 1/3 pikemen inside 12 pop towns. And then out of hte blue, like a riptide it will suck away your 14hp 3/2 sword army to a 3/3 pike! Never turn your back on it.

Aside from one big stumble, the turns went very well. The metropolises of Avignon, Rheims, and Orleans fell underneath the wrath of the German armies. Horsemen knocked at the gates of Paris, and defender after defender fell. But then in a savage blow the winds of fate, our general tripped over a stone and fell on his own sword, demoralizing the attackers and they withdrew.

However, reinforcements were in pursuit. Two great leaders emerged from these battles, and the people shouted the names of Barbarossa the Builder, and his workshop, as well as Richtoffen the Wrathful, avenger of our lost army. Now our armies knock on the gates of Paris again, reinforced by seigecraft.

A new technology proves to turn the tide decisively and swiftly to the advantage of the German attackers: the secrets of Chivalry were brought in by the Great Library, and until Education shortly followed the German scientists believed that they would not need to do any amount of work ever again.

Now here's the turn-log:

Inherited Turn, 650AD
Lots of unmoved units. we really should be completing the full 10th turn, and if not we need to say why.
Also, towns were not MMed after England and Russia were conquered. Many entertainers fired.
Treasury is 4304g withi 363gpt income.
IBT
2 French longbow killed; a horse unit retreats
We learn Gunpowder from TGL; lucky us - saltpeter is already hooked up.
Now we just need Chivalry to come in.

Turn 1, 660AD
Bremen 2 founded
Kill a French longbow

Turn 2, 670AD
Stuttgart 2 founded
Kill a French longbow
Lose a galley to the Japanese

Turn 3, 680AD
Elite archer kills longbow, and Barbarossa joins our ranks.
Leonardo's Workshop is rushed in Hastings.
Bonn 2 founded
Salzburg 2 founded
Orleans is captured (no losses!) with 3 pikes killed
IBT-
Lose an elite sword that wasn't supposed to defend; the spear was...
Build Leo's.
French are building Sistine's

Turn 4, 690AD
Kill 2 Longbows by Avignon.
Dortmond 2 founded
Brandenburg 2 founded
Upgrade 5 spears to muskets for 200g (only upgraded spears that were near front line)
Rush Market in New Stuttgart for 168g
IBT-
Lose 3 horses, because they redlined the attackers first and so wouldn't retreat... evil.

Turn 5, 700AD
Capture Avignon. Richtoffen joins our ranks as a great leader. Lose one horse in the seige and kill 2 spears during the seige.
Richtoffen creates an army in Avignon. Will be another sword army, because we have 3 Elite* swords available.
New Berlin 2 founded
IBT-
Orleans riots, so I set them on a starvation diet.
Lose a horse

Turn 6, 710AD
Kill a Longbow and a Japanese Galley

Turn 7, 720AD
New Leipzig 2 founded
New Hamburg 2 founded
Taking off animate moves, because it takes too long.
Kill 3 longbows
IBT-
Lose a horse
Discover Chivalry :) :) :) Time for an upgrade or a million

Turn 8, 730AD
Interrupt a work crew nearby the iron and move them towards it.
Super-archer kills 2 horses before finally dying.
Rheims is captured, only 1 horse lost.
Lose 2 horses assaulting paris; kill 3 pikes
IBT-
Education comes in :(

Turn 9, 740AD
Kill a longbow
Seige at Paris goes badly...
WHAT!?!?!? :wallbash: A vet sword kills a 4/4 pike in Paris and the the FULLY HEALED ARMY loses to a 3/3 pike!
IBT-
Kill a longbow, lose a sword. Seriously, why am I bringing along spears if they won't defend? I know, the elite swords have more HP and therefore are the top defender, but it's still silly
China completes Sistine Chapel in Beijing.

Turn 10, 750AD
The workers are moved onto the iron SE of Leipzig. Next turn all of them should be enough to make the road, or at the latest during the IBT. I didn't move the horses into any specific city for upgrading, just because I was thinking of sacrificing many at the gates of Paris until it fell in retribution for the RNG losing us an army. 14/14 loses to 3/3!! AUGH!
There are 3 major SODs that we have on the offensive. One is located north of Paris, another north of Dijon. The third is east of Paris, moving in to reinforce the demoralized troops stationed there. However, once the iron is connected, we may want to upgrade before attacking. We have LOTS of horses, and even more gold, so I suggest disconnecting the iron after we defeat the French so we can build up even more. I think the numbers on our treasury are like 7000g in the bank and about 500gpt income.

Also, I forgot to start research again. We probably want Astronomy ASAP, and then we could probably turn off research for good, or first research to Mil Trad. and then turn it off (or even to steam, if it gets that far).

Here is the save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/akots_SG002_AD0750_01.SAV)

And here's a pic of the battlefront:

Solid turns-- and write-up, I especially like the stripe screensot. Nice.
Lots of unmoved units. we really should be completing the full 10th turn, and if not we need to say why.
1) Bunch of troops are still awaiting orders
For some reason, I was of the impression that it was preferable to leave more, rather then less military flexibility on the handover, but
I won't feel guilty for moving every last troop now :p

For some reason, I was of the impression that it was preferable to leave more, rather then less military flexibility on the handover, but
I won't feel guilty for moving every last troop now :p

Good turns.

I think Astronomy is all we need. As we finish off the FRA we should be mobilizing for our crossing. I'm with akots on the game needing to end in the next 70 or so turns. Two teams have already finished, but they werent playing the AW variant, IIRC.

As for the last turn troop moves if there's an ongoing battle by all means continue the fight. If your just repositioning I would be tempted to leave them for the next player. The main point is to note that "Troops are awaiting orders" in your notes to next player (that's what I do).

I was of the impression that it was preferable to leave more, rather then less military flexibility on the handover

Every other SC I've played (which is a limited few, admittedly) finishing the turn was something people stressed. Flexibility is nice, though, which is why it is okay to change some build orders or some units. A good way to solve both problems is just to fortify troops in key locations, and making note of where.

And I was really hoping to get more of France butchered for my turns, but that fell apart when I lost that army. :cry:

Got it. Apparently, we need more settlers, some libraries, upgrade all horses to knights, research to cavalry and to at least caravels, and all this ASAP while still in GA. :lol:

Hey, if anyone can do it, akots, I know you can. ;) I was trying to keep the settlers built only in low-production towns, like Cartouche Bee's model said, but this means we have to devote more towns to it to make up for the loss of a settler factory.

As for libraries, let's see what our research rate turns into when our GA expires; we may be big enough that they're really not necessary. Then again, we are scientific.

And with knights you should crush the French easily during your 10. (Unless the RNG decides to eat your army as well.)

Preturn check. Looks good overall. All cities adjusted slightly. Research to Astronomy in 4 turns at 80%. We have really many cities. I rushed Libraries mostly on the periphery and coast to gain more land and settlers spending some of our wealth. We need to wrap up this game soon. Some units on goto orders. Some strange worker jobs like clearing jungle in some remote areas whereas there are jungles in our core. But this is all of minor importance anyhow.

IBT. Many Libraries and settlers built.

[1] 760AD. Moving horses and other units to France to finish them off. Canterbury can be a good gathering point for the troops which would be attacking the other continent. Hence, most of the galleys are moving there.

[2] 770AD. Knights moving to Paris and Dijon.

[3] 780AD. Paris and Dijon captured but for a price of 6 knights. Each had only two pikemen defending. We have only 48 knights which is not that much.
IBT. France counterattacks with few units. We discover Astronomy and going for Chemistry in 4 turns. Lots of cultural borders expand.

[4] 790AD. Marseille and Tours captured.

[5] 800AD. Battle for Besanson yields another leader which runs to Hastings to build Copernicus there.

[6] 810AD. Lyons captured. Knights moving to targets.
IBT. Golden Age ended.

[7] 820AD. Leader rushed Copernicus in Hastings. Knights moving to the last French city. Rushed some Libraries to claim more land.

[8] 830AD. Another leader emerged during battle at Rouen. France is destroyed. Alas, no settler in a galley this time. All knights moving to Canterbury. Leader rushes Heroic Epic in Rouen. All catapults disbanded to help build settlers and Libraries.
IBT. Chemistry discovered, research 100% to Metallurgy.

[9] 840AD. More Libraries rushed.

[10] 850AD. We don’t have enough caravels to transport a decent force of knight. It is possible to rush more somewhere around Canterbury and then unload some 15+ knights in Indian territory. During this time we can research to Military Tradition and get some cavalry instead of knights. Large chunks of land are still unsettled and more Libraries can be rushed there as well. We have many units and many cities and control slightly less than 50% of the land. We can gain around 5% just by rushing Libraries and settling cities (a few settlers are in position to build cities). Another 10% can be captured from India with knights or cavalry. Good luck!

IMHO, we can finish before 1000AD or slightly later if we go full pace to cavalry and rush as many caravels as possible rushing settlers and libraries as well. There is still some gold left to do this. May be even disband some units. So far, the earliest finish was 910AD and we cannot beat that. But we certainly should and can beat 1080AD. Our military is strong enough. SOme units can be moved to remote cities and disbanded there occasionally. Golden Age really helped with cash.

IMHO, we can finish before 1000AD or slightly later if we go full pace to cavalry and rush as many caravels as possible rushing settlers and libraries as well. There is still some gold left to do this. May be even disband some units. So far, the earliest finish was 910AD and we cannot beat that. But we certainly should and can beat 1080AD. Our military is strong enough. SOme units can be moved to remote cities and disbanded there occasionally. Golden Age really helped with cash.

Are the settlers are for filling in the holes on our continent or are we razing cities and rebuilding new ones?

Since India's culture is higher then ours are we worried about flips, and how many units should I leave garrisoned in captured Indian cities.

China is short saltpeter (ie no musketmen) so we could probably battle both at the same time. India's only source of horses & iron are within 2 turns of the coast (1 to land & 1 to pillage), actually the iron is in Calcutta our first target city so no need to pillage just capture. Is it worth possibly wasting 3 knights to pillage the horses?

I'll probably play later today.

A Learning Question
Is running a high negative gpt how you get to the 4-5 turn research rate (especially in Monarchy) that you read about in the top player's (akots included in that group) GOTM reports? I see some of them say that from the Middle Ages (usually after switching to REP) on they are on a 4 turn rate, but I have never acheived that.

Are the settlers are for filling in the holes on our continent or are we razing cities and rebuilding new ones?

Filling in holes. Our goal is to hit the domination limit ASAP, thereby winning faster than all those non-AW pansy teams. :p

Since India's culture is higher then ours are we worried about flips, and how many units should I leave garrisoned in captured Indian cities.

This is debateable. What I usually do with flip-risk is only garrison one or two troops inside the city, and keep a token force (2 units usually) outside the city to retake it if it flips. With knights and cavs you can usually have one of these token forces cover more than one city.

Is it worth possibly wasting 3 knights to pillage the horses?

I think it is, but I would only send out 1 or possibly 2. The iron with India is not a priority to pillage. If it wasn't in a city, I wouldn't even waste time on it. Elephants don't need iron to be built, even though they are in place of the knight. GOTM28 comes to mind... But if those are the only horses, and only if you think we can spare the knights, then I say pillage away.

A Learning Question
I see some of them say that from the Middle Ages (usually after switching to REP) on they are on a 4 turn rate, but I have never acheived that.

I wish I knew that one myself. :mischief:

Edit: After checking out the save, those horses are a bit out of the way. I would just use our knights and cavs and mow over the indians, but another way we could do it would be to land by ... oh, i forgot the town names... the two towns that are by the horse, and capture them first. I don't know if it will be worth the extra 2 or 3 turns it would take to get there, though.

I wish I knew that one myself.

:lol: Same for me.

Just get us to cavalry. That is all we need in this game unless we get this wondering settler.

Just get us to cavalry. That is all we need in this game unless we get this wondering settler.

I think I played my last turn in SGOTM2. :eek:

When my round started we were 397 tiles from Domination. We are now only 184 tiles from Domination. I'll post a more detailed report tomorrow, but here is a quick briefing.

We now have 31 Cavalry with 21 of them intransit to the other continent. Two caravels are waiting to load more cavalry next turn. I filled in the holes on our continent by founding 15 cities and I have several settlers within a turn or two of founding more cities. I have also captured three Indian cities and we are on the doorstep of the next city. Have had little to no counterattack from anyone.

Here is a quick picture of our new cities.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/950ADakots01.jpg

You guys should check out the score graph. Remember how akots said that with our RCP placement our score would shoot up past the other teams? Well, if the AI would have put up a bit more of a fight and teams would have finished a little later, I think you would be seeing us in the lead. As is, even at AW we are beating out other teams in score. And our final score should be comparable as well.

How are we doing with rushing libraries? I think that those and settlers are all we want to rush right now, and it looks like we probably don't need to even rush settlers.

Also, unless we desperately need them for something, I think we should join all the workers that we can to our towns, just to give our score that extra umph it deserves.

Bruin is up, right? Make me proud Bruin; I'm lazy and don't want to play, so finish the game off for us. (But I'll do the job if I must.)

How are we doing with rushing libraries? I think that those and settlers are all we want to rush right now, and it looks like we probably don't need to even rush settlers.

Also, unless we desperately need them for something, I think we should join all the workers that we can to our towns, just to give our score that extra umph it deserves.

I rushed a few settlers early in my round and rushed some key libraries. For rushing purposes look at the coastline cities that havent expanded. Most of the interior holes are now filled. I also probably have too many settlers on our continent.

I've managed to take the three cities while only lossing 3-4 knights total, so as soon as the cavalry lands (Turn 1) and gets into the action the finish should be quick. I've only met 1 IND musket & have only seen 2 war elephants, and IIRC CHN does not have saltpeter so no muskets for them.

BTW I was using Mapstat to provide the DOM numbers.

I'm off to the doctors and I'll make my detailed report when I get back (several hours).

Bruindane, if you want to play before my report I don't think there is anything overly important in it or any strategy. At this point it is kill & capture as fast as possible. A little of this :ar15: :hammer: :sniper: will lead to some of this [party] :beer: [dance] :band: :clap: :banana: :rockon:

As promised the details

Preturn 850AD
Mapstat shows 441 tiles needed for DOM limit / Japan 332 tiles / China 261 tiles / India 260 tiles / Unclaimed 408 tiles
rushed 2 libraries/ adjusted Sci to 80% Metallurgy still in 4turns @ +6gpt

Turn 1 - 860AD
Tiles to DOM = 397 we had several cultural expansions
found Frankfurt 3
found Munich 3
found Heidelburg 3
destroyed Suo (J) - autorazed
found Nuremberg 3
found Cologne 3

IBT - JPN sinks 3 galleys (none near Canterbury)

Turn 2 - 870AD
Tiles to DOM = 363

Turn 3 - 880AD
Tiles to DOM = 330
destroyed a second Suo (J) town - autorazed

Turn 4 - 890AD
Tiles to DOM = 319
learned Metallurgy set to Military Tradition 4 turns at -64gpt will leave us nearly broke when discovered - but it’s the last tech we'll need in the game can quickly raise money after that, estimate close to 350gpt

Turn 5 - 900AD
Tiles to DOM = 312
Strange, for some reason even though Sci was set to 100% it still says 4 turns for MT
found Hannover 3
found Bremen 3


Our initial assualt force is ready to cross the ocean.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/950ADakots02.jpg

Turn 6 - 910AD
Tiles to DOM = 294
found Stuttgart 3

Turn 7 - 920AD
Tiles to DOM = 285
found Bonn 3
found Salzburg 3
found Dortmund 3
found Brandenburg 3
found New Berlin 3

Turn 8 - 930AD
Tiles to DOM = 238
captured Calcutta (I)

IBT - JPN landed a spear & sword by Calcutta / India countered attacked with 2 Elephants (killed one of our knights)

Turn 9 - 940AD
Tiles to DOM = 218
Learned Military Tradition set sci to 0% +351gpt
Had enough money to upgrade 21 cavalry / 7 Caravels are awaiting loading of the Cavalry next turn
captured Kolhapur (I)
killed a CHN Rider

IBT – CHN moved a few troops to the hill near Calcutta, no response from IND other than moving some workers

Turn 10 - 950AD
Tiles to DOM = 207
upgraded more Knights to cavalry - now have 31 cavalry – moved 2 more caravels into position to load

founded New Leipzig 3
captured Madras
found New Hamburg 3
Tiles to DOM = 184 at end of my round

Notes to next player:
1 Attack
2 Capture
3 Attack more
4 Capture more
5 Repeat as often as needed

There are several settlers at or near additional city locations on our mainland (I think I have too many settler in our area, may want to join some to other cities). Any city that could not complete anything other than a worker in 10 turns I have set to Wealth. I tried to set all coastline cities that have not culturally expanded to libraries, you should continue rushing them.

There are also several JPN galleys patrolling near our continent but I do not think they have any troops left on them, they already unloaded I few that is why I have some knights in some weird places.

Warning: There may be 1 or 2 knights on automove towards Canterbury but I tried not to have any moves that extended past my round.

Bruindane, if you want to play before my report I don't think there is anything overly important in it or any strategy. At this point it is kill & capture as fast as possible. A little of this :ar15: :hammer: :sniper: will lead to some of this [party] :beer: [dance] :band: :clap: :banana: :rockon:
Saw your report, nicely played as always. Some thoughts that I am pondering.

1) Should we bump the happiness slider again, like we did in the early years of our reign?

2) Is it time for our workers to put down their picks, machetes, and hoes and join the cities?

1) Should we bump the happiness slider again, like we did in the early years of our reign?

2) Is it time for our workers to put down their picks, machetes, and hoes and join the cities?

I say maybe (leaning towards no) and yes. Maybe on number one, because I think that rushing libraries to hit the domination limit is our number one prioritiy. And yes on number two unless they have something really important to do.

Don't think this is important. Either the slider or joining workers. Just finish them off.

Bruin is up, right? Make me proud Bruin; I'm lazy and don't want to play, so finish the game off for us. (But I'll do the job if I must.)
It might be a day or two before I free up the time to play, so if you want to jump ahead, be my guest.

Nah, we're close enough to the end. I say we let Bruin do his own turns, even if it is just a day or two later.

If we capture enough cities it should be the final round. That fleet full of cavalry is about to land. So whoever plays enjoy it.

I got it. I'll endeavor to win it soon.

Domination Victory for Germany, 1040 AD
6019 Firaxis
9368 Jason

Much tougher finish than expected, as both Chinese Riders and Japanese Samurai flooded the area, counter-attacking in force. Cultural defections from Karachi and Delhi decimated our initial invasion force, while the rng did us no favors.

Good game, it was a pleasure to play with you all.

Preturn 184 ttl

Increasing our gpt as much as possible to rush librarires to hasten domination appears to be the order of the day. Assuming short-term victory some unit builds were switched to temples on the though that they will be built faster and may have a marginal effect on score due to culture and additional contentment (shouldn't matter too much).

960 184 ttl, 377gpt
Hydarabad captured

970 164 ttl, 398gpt

980 139 ttl, 397 gpt

Captured Tsingtao
Captured Karachi
Great Leader outside Delhi
Redlined Pikemen left in Delhi

990 110 ttl, 409 gpt
Capture Delhi
Calvary Army formed at Madras
Redlined Longbowmen left at Lahore :-(

1000 82 ttl
Lost Karachi due to Culture
Recapture Karachi
Sword Army dies to Samurai invaders near Canterbury
Our Knights die at the gates of Tatung

1010 72 ttl, 432 gpt
Lost Delhi due to Culture

1020 63 ttl, 450 gpt
Recapture Delhi

1030 16 ttl, 474 gpt
Capture Tatung
Capture Canton
@ -2 ttl!!!!
Switch happiness slider to 100%

1040
Domination @ -10 ttl


Final save from 1030 AD is attached

Excellent job Bruin! And good job, team. It was a good game :goodjob:

Very nice. I've never played a game that ended this early.

It was a pleasure playing with all of you.

Do you want me to do the Spoiler2 write-up, now that we are finished, or does anyone else have a burning desire to do it?

Go for it Gator. Very impressive game BTW :thumbsup:

The next one may test your mettle a little more - If you're up for it. ;)

You did a great spoiler last time DJM. Please go ahead.

The biggest "what if" , imho, is what would have happened if we had used the second great leader to build the forbidden palace instead of an army. I don't think we planned on the Great Leader drought between our second and third, but we could have had a productive second core much earlier on.

Building the Army leads to the Heroic Epic, but we didn't follow that path until much later.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on what we should have done different. In hindsight that is.

Good job. It was a pleasure to play with this team. We played very well and considering that it was Always War, our score and finish date are even better than some other teams which played a normal game.

Cannot tell what we have done wrong, overall looks like a good game. We probably could have finished 200-300 hundred years earlier. :lol:

You did a great spoiler last time DJM. Please go ahead.

The biggest "what if" , imho, is what would have happened if we had used the second great leader to build the forbidden palace instead of an army. I don't think we planned on the Great Leader drought between our second and third, but we could have had a productive second core much earlier on.

Building the Army leads to the Heroic Epic, but we didn't follow that path until much later.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on what we should have done different. In hindsight that is.

In writing up our Spoiler2 (which should be posted today) the GLeader drought from 70AD until 540AD was signficant considering we killed several hundred troops during this time period. The only significant GWonder we lost out on during this period was the GLighthouse, however it did affect our FP & Palace 2nd core situation.

But when the drought ended we excelled in generating GLeaders. In the period from 540AD to 980AD we produced 7 Great Leaders.

Overall, I'm not sure where we could have improved our play much. Would be interesting to see some of the other teams comments once the individual threads are open.

Our Spoiler2 post has been submitted. I hope I did a good job on it.

I hope I did a good job on it.
An amazing job, more like it. I appreciate the effort you put into it.