Ok, thanks, and welcome to the forum!

I am debating on whether to take another turn or let the warmongers get in the last few turns of combat in the first English campaign.

I'd love to pick it up, but I can't at the moment and I played just before you anyhow.

Neither Shoe nor CVN can grab it?

It's tempting to play more turns, but SesnOfWthr and I have each played 4 turns. Somebody else grab it and go!

Priorities for the next player:

1 - Make contact with Japanese and trade contacts, techs
2 - Continue barb patrols
3 - Defend against English forces hovering around 25
4 - Take Coventry and York, if possible
5 - Make peace for Monotheism, gold and any decent cities
6 - Research toward Astronomy

Turns Played
------------
SesnOfWthr - 1,6,11,14
Alamo - 2,7,12,15
bradleyfeanor - 3,8,13
Cuivienen - 4,9,
Shoe35 - 5,10,

I'll take it. I'll have turns posted tomorrow morning.

460 AD (IT) -- [I'll play 9 turns to even us out.]

Looks good.

470 AD (1) --

07: Sword - Horse
08: Pike - Pike

Kill the Archers around Canterbury, losing a single Horse.
Our Army heads towards Coventry along with a few Horses for backup.

480 AD (2) --

01: Sword - Sword
17: Pike - Sword
02: Sword - Horse
25: Temple - Market

Found 30_Magdeburg on the northern island.

Overrun a barb camp to the SE.

We meet Japan. They are down Feudalism and Engineering and know both the Indians and the Chinese, our remaining rivals.

Contact with France, Russia and England to Japan for contact with China, their World Map and 13 gold.

Contact with the French to the China for contact with India and 16 gold.

Contact with Russia to India for 27 gold, WM and 1 gpt.

No one else has anything worthwhile to offer, but I give contact with Russia to China for 10 gold and their WM.

Japan is the most powerful nation on the other continent, followed by China with the weak Indians pinned between the two.

490 AD (3) --

14: Pike - Horse
26: Pike - Library

We lose a Sword attacking Canterbury, but kill two Spears. Reinforcements head to the front.

500 AD (4) --

We kill a Spear in Coventry and the city is ours! Now named, as is the German fashion, 31_Coventry. Begin starvation policy at 31. Our troops ready for an attack on York.

510 AD (5) --

01: Sword - Sword

Destroy another SE barb camp.

520 AD (6) --

01 riots. Oops, I missed that it had grown.

02: Horse - Horse
05: Pike - Sword
07: Sword - Horse
29: Pike - Pike

530 AD (7) --

20 riots.

06: Pike - Horse
08: Pike - Sword

540 AD (8) --

17: Sword - Sword
09: Library - Court
10: Horse - Horse

Ruin a barb camp in the far north.

550 AD (9) --

A barb appears out of nowhere near 08 and kills 5 Workers *gulp*
04 riots.

01: Sword - Market
07: Horse - Horse
13: Pike - Sword

There are two forces near York. The one in the south, originally intended as the amin force, received bad RNG luck in the previous few turns and lost about half of its number. Therefore, the northern force, still quite strong, is the main force designed to attack and capture York and should be able to do so next turn.

There is also a settler ready to plant north of 29_Amstel.

Minimap:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Minimap550.png

York and the Settler Pair:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/York.png

>>The Save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Alamo_SG002_AD0550_01.SAV)

Looks good, cuivienen. No longbows, whew!

We are the tech leaders!? I guess it's good we're not trading much now.

Leave it to the pesky French to march a settler into our combat zone!

Shoe25 or bradleyfeanor - take a turn.

I'm back, sorry about the absence guys. I will play as soon as I can today. Have to take care of some returning-home errands first though.

@ Sesn: The new GOTM is a COTM (in conquests) so you don't need to download any packs. I hope I have time to play it later this month.

I have read through the threads, but I would love one of your point-by-point priority summaries Alamo :) It looks like this is the situation from reading the posts:

Research toward Astronomy, but slip in Chivalry ASAP.

Take the English cities around our new FP. I really think we need to do that before starting our GA. Otherwise it will not be nearly as effective. If we rebuild our military, then we can eliminate the English threat and have a force large enough to take the Pyramids, for a full strength GA under a Republic government.

Priorities for the next player:

1. Take York.
2. Muster forces for final English offensive (London, if possible).
3. Continue barb patrols.
4. Build pikes/settlers for land-grab.

We should wrap up the English campaign sooner rather than later - we are running out of troops again, Liz will have longbows soon, others are expanding into our available territory, we need to build Copernicus (waiting on Mono from peace treaty), and knights are coming.

I'm not sure if we should attack France. We can probably get to our optimal city number w/o attacking anyone. We will need to be at peace with everyone by the end of the middle ages for sure (for diplo rehabilitation).

Got it.....................................

550 AD, turn 0 Preturn. Joan will give us Monotheism (+maps and all gold) for Engineering which everyone else has anyway. I trade her, and then I trade maps around to everyone for a few gold. Set research at full on Chivalry, due in 5 turns. Switch all military builds to horsemen. Stop the workers from roading the second Iron. I wish someone had pillaged Englands Iron, now London will not fall until our knights arrive.

On my turns I will be concentrating on building a force of knights large enough to take any cities we want from the English and also capture the pyramids. I will not be building pikemen because their usefulness is very limited at this point in the game.

IBT An English sword kills a pike on a mountain, but we have many more where he came from. We get the most powerful nations message: we are 1, Japan is 2, China is 3 and French are 4. Only the Russians are weaker than the English.

560 AD, 1 I attack an injured English sword (2hp)on a grassland with our fully healed army and he does 4hp of damage to us before dying. The attack on York goes poorly (lost 3 swords and 1 horse, 3 troops redlined) but we barely take the city.

570 AD, 2 Reposition and heal troops. Continue building horsemen.

580 AD, 3 See above.

590 AD, 4 Turn down research because Chivalry is due next turn.

600 AD, 5 Upgrade 13 Horsemen to Knights (all except those en route to cities and three elites). That is 80g apiece. Since that wipes out our bankroll, I switch all knight/horse builds to infrastructure/settlers, etc. Found 33_Warsteiner. Disperse two camps and get an elite sword. I was going to unhook the iron, but that would only be useful if we turned off research for a while to raise money. Since that conflicts with the Astronomy goal I will not do it. I only hope we will have enough troops to take the pyramids. If we do not get them before our GA I think we will continue to fall further behind. I do turn off research for two turns in order to raise enough cash to complete the existing horse upgrades.

610 AD, 6 The AIs discover Chivalry, Theology and Invention in one turn and now they all know them. Well, except Ghandi. I trade him Invention for Theology. Glad I turned off research. A few libraries finish.

620 AD, 7 We lose four swords and 2 knights killing the 7 pikemen in London. 4 elite victories but no leader. That makes about 12 elite wins on my turns, so hopefully a GL will be arriving soon. All Liz will give for peace are Oxford and Leeds. We get happiness from the Hanging Gardens. Disperse another camp. I think the two French settler pairs near Canterbury were killed by barbs, but I am not positive. A market and another library finish.

630 AD, 8 Rush a library in London and kill a few barbs.

640 AD, 9 I position the last of the troops to leave the next player with a big, happy present.

650 AD, 10 I didn’t move anything on this turn because I didn’t want to commit the next player to war with the French without their consent. However, I do dearly hope you go to war, because that is what I spent my turns preparing for.

The Agenda

1) There are nine knights ready to attack Paris if you declare war on them. The border towns are also defended with swords, pikes and our sword army which is healing.
2) There are four knights and two pikes ready to take the English town of Brighton. The back of the English is broken and I doubt you will see many troops in any of their cities.
3) The ten troops in London are all healed so you can attack the city of your choice. However, if you move most of them out of the city I would rush or partially rush another build in London. Don't forget to pillage their Iron if you do not choose the iron city!!!
4) I was planning to found on the spot with the settler to the Northwest, but the settler to the east you can send wherever you think is best.
5) We are researching Education at max right now, but feel free to slow it down if you want to unhook the iron and build one more round of horsemen for upgrading. I think that would probably be all the military we would need for the rest of the game if we can avoid attacking the other continent.

Here is the save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD0650_01.SAV

Good turns, bradleyfeanor! That was a bit more ambitious than I expected. A good catch on that tech trade.

Looks like we dipped below team Handy - my pop-rushing probably contributed to the slowdown.

Comments:

1 - 23 is unguarded with a russian warrior knocking at the door.
2 - English spear near 08 to cause trouble
3 - A lib can be hurried in 32 by hurring pike first.
4 - New barb camp near 19 (get Joan's Wmap).
5 - Galley has been sleeping awhile.
6 - The french settler took the spice!

I would consider holding off on the French offensive to use the troops to get Nottingham, Hastings and Liverpool. It looks like Joan can't put up much of a fight, anyway.

Shoe35 take a turn.

I considered using the knights I sent toward France to take the English cities you mentioned, but I decided on striking the French because there were so many French archers running around--I spotted at least 8 during my turns. Now that she has better tech, money and iron though, that will change very quickly. I thought we might be able to get the Pyramids with little loss if we struck quickly. Then take one more city and get peace. The downside of that strategy is that we will probably need to build a few more knights quickly to plug up our fronts.

Pressing the attack on the English and waiting on the pyramids is a more conservative approach, but it is probably also good a choice. Our military movements would certainly be less stressful during the next 15 turns.

One more thing for the next player that I forgot: there is a sword to the west and a wounded English spear is two squares north of him. Be sure to kill that spear because a settler is hiding under him.

@Alamo: I didn't even see our galley, he has indeed been asleep awhile :(

I fortified the galley to give the settler an escape route when I popped the first hut. I forgot to undo that before the last save.

Not a big loss. He should hang around that island for a water-taxi anyway.

okay got it.

What the hell is going on with TeamX? They're only 20 turns ahead but have approx. double our score. I had hoped it was due to a GA, but they have kept the pace for some 40 turns now. :(

Maybe a more pertinent question is: where did we go wrong?

The wooden spoon could still be ours yet! :lol:

TeamX may have some ringers - AlanH, Erikson, Zamint, Kapitan Buttkick, AdrianE.

According to their spoiler, they spent the ancient age expanding and tech trading like mad. They had 12 cities at 750BC (we had 10), and hit the middle ages at 170BC (vs our 190AD). We started the Russian campaign in 250BC. They didn't say what they were doing from 750BC to 170BC. They could be conquering, or expanding and building.

We're not last, yet. Our score is suffering because we haven't developed the towns we posses. I expect that to be remedied once the wars are over (eventually).

The new turn rotation:

SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

GOMT31 results are out - I placed 114th, Cuivienen placed 68th, and bradleyfeanor placed 17th! :goodjob:

Yeah, and it only cost me 90 hours, my job and my girlfriend! :cry:

Just jokin'. Actually, it took me about 45 hours, which is how long my games typically last unless I am milking or playing Sid. How in the heck do you play so fast Alamo?

TeamX is completely out of hand. I can only hope getting our FP core established, nabbing the pyramids, getting into republic and kicking off our GA will close the gap. I have no doubt we will be doing 4- or 5-turn research from that point until the end of the game. If we can do a good job of predicting what the AIs will research, I think we will pass up several of the other teams. I am hoping and praying we can start our GA on either Alamo's turn or Cuivienen's.

BTW, did you guys notice that "tech cost bug" in this months GOTM? That makes a pretty huge difference in game strategy I think. I feel sorry for those guys that started the game without knowing about it.

Yeah, I can laugh b/c I don't have conquest, yet. The start postion was desert! Also, SirPleb has gone to school on that game. Not much chance of catching him, I expect.

I play fast by not micomanaging, as much as possible, and holding shift most of the time. If worker automation was not so bad I would use that, too. I'm lucky to get a couple hours free to play. I'm also trying to play the Homeworld2 campaign, too, but it's pretty frustrating. I hate to do the save/reload thing.

Can't say I am surprised by Sir Pleb's performance: his strategies and implemention are flawless. I would love to look at his posts, but I am thinking I might be able to play later this month.

What is Homeworld2 and how does it relate to saving and reloading?

Homeworld2 is a real-time strategy game. The missions are getting so hard that you have to play to see what happens, then go back and restart (or reload) so you can use the right strategy to beat it. Each mission usualy has 2 or 3 tasks. Sometimes you have to try a particular task several times, which is why saving part way through helps. Right now I'm trying to capture a destroyer that will help me get through the next mission, but it's taking 6 tries so far!

Homeworld was the first 3d rendered space fleet game. Then they put out Cataclysm, which I actually liked better. Homeworld2 is the new version. You can get the old versions for peanuts now.

650AD Turn 0: Decided to gamble on kicking the Russians out of our territory.
Liverpool and Brighton have both joined our empire. Set to Library. Both in resistance
Decided to take the conservative approach for now. Moving.

IBT 29 Library -> Pike. Vet knight near Liverpool defends himself and is promoted. Vet pike near barb camp defends and is promoted. One resistor in Brighton quelled, starvation in London.

660AD Turn 1: Vet Knight takes out English spear and promotes, no damage. Remove English pike capture workers. Lose one knight attacking Nottingham, remove one pike with other knight. Moving.

670AD Turn 2: Hasting joins the empire, we now control the great wall. Moving, no trades available.

IBT Chinese building the Sistine Chapel. Resistance in Brighton ended, starvation in Brighton.

680AD Turn 3: Nottingham joins the Empire. Pop rush Library in Brighton. Give peace to Liz for Oxford, Leeds and 16gp.

IBT Resistance ends

690AD Turn 4: Pop rush Library in Nottingham. Declare war on Joan. Moving. No trades. Take out spear.

IBT we lose a sword to a French archer. Sword defends workers against horse. French horse leaves the world.

700AD Turn 5: Destroy Aimes. Army defeats archer, captures settler. Lose Sword Attacking Archer. Destroy Archer with Sword. No trades available. Moving

IBT Indians start Sistine Chapel. We research Education -> Astronomy

710AD Turn 6: Rheims joins the Empire, capture more workers. Vet Knight takes out French Archer. Moving

IBT Japs building Leonardo’s workshop. Lose Sword at Paris to Archer.

720AD Turn 7: Knight destroys Pike at Avignon, Sword Army redlines against spear. But we convince them to join the Empire. Vet Knight easily removes a spear at Grenoble . Moving. China, India, and France have Gunpowder, but the first two aren’t dealing and we at war with Joan.

IBT Vet Pike gallantly holds off one French archer before falling to the second.

730AD Turn 8: Japan now has Gunpowder, but still no one is dealing. Grenoble has decided to join our Empire, capture 1 worker. Remove two pikes from Paris but redline two knights in the process. Picking off Joan’s Archers. (4 or 5 this turn no casualties on our part.)

IBT lose Elite Horse but he redlines the knight that attacks him.

740AD Turn 9: Destroy Pike in Paris. Spear near Paris. Knight that attacked our horse. Moving. Still no talking on the gunpowder tech.

IBT We lose a Knight near Paris to a French Knight, but take out two French Archers.

750AD Turn 10: Haven’t check on willingness to trade. Russian warrior near 23. Forgot to number the cities (sorry). Joan has lost a lot of troops.

Score is 1072

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Alamo_SG002_AD0750_01.SAV)

Nice turns, Shoe. Certainly more progress than I had dared hope for.

This can be my "got it" but I won't have turns for a day or so.

Nicely done, Shoe! Way to give Liz the :hammer:

I am not sure your save uploaded. I tried to click the link but it didn't work. Also, the graph still shows us at 650 AD.

I hope Sesn can get Gunpowder quickly. If the French have saltpeter, we have to pillage it or Paris will tear our Knights to shreds. It would be nice to capture a few French cities, but I think Paris is all we need before going to Republic and starting our GA.

If it looks like it will take some time to take Paris or get Gunpowder, we may want to consider pillaging the roads around Paris.

I wasn't able to upload through the submission page, (again) I will check and see if the upload worked when I get home tonight.

Thank you.

the link should work now. I had a typo in the url

I have tried to up load my save to the submission page but this time as previous I get the following message.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ERROR
There was a problem with your submission:
Your entry has not been recorded. Please correct the items marked * and resubmit it.


* Your name is not in our records for this team and game. Please check your spelling and file selection.

If you are unable to resolve the problem, please send us a PM or email us with your submission information.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have sent a PM to AlanH, he has uploaded it for me in the past. wish I could figure out what I am doing wrong.

Nice way to wrap up the English campaign, Shoe35.

About the submission - it is case-sensitive. I was able to do it with "shoe35".

Here is the expanded German empire!

Some quick questions:

Astronomy in 3 turns, pre-build for Copernicus will complete Copernicus fairly soon. Do we switch to Republic before GA? Do we switch before starting Copernicus? How do we do it, and fight the French campaign?

That unguarded worker in French territory - is he bait, or are you sure he won't be picked off?

Are we going for sprawl or are we restricting to an OCN?

It looks like the worst scenario for UN is to be in the middle of China's land. We could get the other continent fighting while mending fences with our neighbors.

That unguarded worker in French territory - is he bait, or are you sure he won't be picked off?

he was a captured worker, and he did assist in the divide and eliminate French Military units. Also I thought it was worth the risk rather than just having him sit and do nothing in the captured town.

It looks like the worst scenario for UN is to be in the middle of China's land. We could get the other continent fighting while mending fences with our neighbors.

If we could pull this off I think it would be good.

Are we going for sprawl or are we restricting to an OCN?

I don't know enough about the differences to help on this.

Ooooohhhh, ahhhhh. That map is looking better.

We need to take Paris, end the war and become a Republic before our GA.

I think we have ample time for that before Copernicus is built. It would be nice to take Lyons also, but I don’t feel it is critical. We can go ahead and revolt to Republic the turn after we take the city(s). Just before the anarchy period is over we can get peace with the French. We shouldn’t make peace before then because we may get a few flips.

We should definitely not worry about the OCN, as more territory leads to a higher score. Once we have enough workers, all our corrupt cities should build a settler now and then to spread our borders over the continent.

Our policy regarding the other continent should be to leave them at peace in order to hurry the tech pace. However, that will leave us with a dilemma in the modern age. At present, Japan and China are both strong, so either one could be capable of building the UN. In a worst-case scenario, they would both be at war and building the UN. If that happened, we would have to ensure that at least two AIs were at war with each of them. It is the only way to ensure that the appearance of a leader does not lose the game for us.

I am not concerned with where the UN is built. We will have a large enough force of Panzers to take it, wherever it appears.

One question: Do we have enough military to take Paris and/or Lyons in the next few turns, or will it take several?

We have several troops in the area but most if not all are injured. AFAIK Paris has only 1 knight (as that was all Joan had moved into Paris) and spearmen left to defend it. Taking Paris shouldn't take too long if Joan doesn't get muskets before we take it.

Wow. Another thread I missed a bunch in through a single day (you should have seen LK69 though :rolleyes: )

Paris, Lyons, and Orleans(furs) should be the extent of our objective here. As soon as Astronomy is in, I will start a revolt. As soon as the revolt ends, I will try to finish with Joan, if it is still my turn.

As BF said, pop is more important to score than corruption, so I would build as many cities as possible.

Regarding the UN, will an alliance partner vote for you even if they are not at war with the other candidate? EX: We have MA with Russia vs France. Japan builds the UN. Can we be assured of Russia's vote, due to the MA?

Crap. That is a really good question Sesn. I don't know, and unfortunately I just cleaned out all my old saves, so I can't run a test. Alamo, didn't you just win via Diplomatic victory? I don't suppose you have a save with which you could run a test...

Nope, I'm midway through another game, though.

It comes down to whose reputation is better. It is impossible to repair a reputation quickly. That's why peace is better sooner than later.

The effect of a MA is to temporarily increase attitude towards us and decrease attitude towards the object of the MA.

I'll see if I can find how long it takes for attitude to recover from a military campaign.

Edit: No mention of it in the AI attitude article. I thought it was something like 1000 yrs. One interesting tidbit is that gifts have a maximum benefit of 1000g.

Well, if we can't improve the AI's attitudes toward us, I know getting the AI's at war with the other UN candidate will make them abstain or vote for us every time. So if the MA's are ineffectual, we can just make sure they are at war. Then it doesn't matter how evil we are.

Another random thought: Can we keep an eye out and try to get civs to damage their own rep? IE: sign MPP's so they'll have to break deals, etc?

BTW, playing now.

EDIT: you did mean rep and not attitude, right?

Pre turn – Let’s see if I can avoid mucking this up as bad as my last turns. ;)

There is a settler pair wandering around NE of Yakutsk.
Everyone has gunpowder except us and our two victims. No one has any desire to part with it, either.
Did anyone else realize that there is another civ still out there somewhere?
There is a Russian warrior just outside undefended 23. Actually, we have about 8 undefended cities.

Umm, where’s this Cops prebuild we’ve talked about? I see 04 building Leos, but that is some 56 turns away. :hmm: Even though there are about 200 shields invested, it will still take about 23 turns to complete Cops. We could build it from scratch in 01 in approximately the same amount of time.

There is also a large patch of land that is unsettled to the east. It’s all jungle now, but will make great land when cleared.

The first couple turns should be very telling. If Joan has any saltpeter, she’ll be able to build some muskets before I can heal and attack.

Hit enter.

IT – Vet knight defeats our 2/4 knight.

760 ad (1) – Army kills reg longbow in the open. Moving/healing troops.

IT – Knight takes Shoe’s “bait” and grabs the worker.

770 ad (2) – Not much. Vet knight falls to elite knight, -4hp. Elite knight finishes the job. I also take a moment and rename our cities (had to google “german beer brands” :lol: )

IT – Astronomy comes in, set for banking. We lose a 2/4 vet in counters.

780 ad (3) – Army kills reg pike in Paris, -6hp. Elite knight kills reg spear, -1hp. Elite knight gets redlined attacking reg spear. :eek: You know, they say great men are made in times of peril (or maybe just I say that), and that’s what happened with my man Horsa. Ideally, I’d like to finagle Sistine and Cops here, but let’s see how it can work out.

Ok, I want to use him up ASAP, as I’m not done fighting, and have a few more elites licking their chops, so here’s my plan: between Sistine’s and Leos, there are five other 600 shield builds in progress. I figure, if I rush Sistine, Leo’s will be close for someone in the cascade. We switch our build to Cops, and try to hold the monopoly until Leos completes somewhere. The gamble will be if someone else discovers Astronomy before Leos, and they cascade to Cops, a 400 shield wonder. However, we could also sit on the leader for several turns and rush Cops after our anarchy, a span of some 6 or so turns, with fighting going on. If I end up screwing this up, you guys can kill me, I swear.

What am I, psychic? We draw six turns of anarchy. :sad:

IT – We lose an elite knight and our army in counters from the French longbows.

790 ad (4) – Kill reg pike and reg spear in Paris. Prepare for assault on Lyons.

800 ad (5) - We lose elite knight on reg pike in paris, -2 hp. Vet knight kills reg spear, flawless. I’ll have to regroup before Paris can fall. Reg pike retreats our vet knight in Lyons, -1hp. Elite knight kills reg spear, -2 hp. Ditto. Vet knight kills 2/3 pike, and Lyons now speaks German.

IT – reg pike in Smolensk wins and promotes vs a longbow I never even saw. :rolleyes:

810 ad (6) – Not much, healing knights for assault on Paris. Elite knight kills vet longbow in the open.

820 ad (7) – Elite knight kills vet longbow on hill, -3hp. Ditto. Well, it wasn’t the EXACT same battle, since this one did it flawless, and we see the re-emergence of Barbarossa. :D I guess that solves my little dilemma, huh? I’ll go rush Leo’s, let everyone drop their projects, and sell Astronomy around.

IT – Japan demands Astronomy. Normally, I might cave, but with my convoluted little scheme, I can’t afford to. Bah, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t cave anyhow. Bring it on!! The wuss backs down.

830 ad (8) – Elite* knight loses flawless to reg pike. Vet knight wins and promotes vs now promoted pike. Reg pike retreats vet knight, flawless. Vet knight kills reg pike, flawless. Vet pike defeats reg spear, -2hp. Paris is once again German property. Do me a favor though, no burning the Louvre or anything, OK? Elite* knight defeats reg knight on hill, -4hp.

840 ad (9) – Republic comes in, and the people immediately build a new wing on the palace. I won’t make peace just yet, to insure Paris can be starved down. Elite knight kills reg knight flawless.

850 ad (10) – WW immediately rears its ugly head, and lux rate gets a bump to 30%.

Some notes for the next better player:
I didn’t make peace so we could assure ourselves of keeping Paris.
French counters are barely a trickle.
WW is getting very costly.
Once GA hits we should focus on aqueducts, temples, cathedrals, markets.
Once we enter milking mode, irrigate everything in sight.
We still have Astronomy at monopoly, this should be traded soon.
Joan will give us the world (minus cities) for peace.
I have one settler built, and another started in the french cities, should probably send these to the east.
There are two barb camps about: one near Yakutsk, another north of the barb patrol north of Yakutsk.

>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD0850_01.SAV)

Nice job Sesn. Wow, two leaders! :eek:

Ooops, in my previous post, I did mean attitude and not reputation (I changed it). Our rep is untarnished as far as I know.

We have met all Civs according to F10.

:rolleyes: My two cents on the next several turns and the future build order for cities: :rolleyes:

I am a little worried about getting Copernicus. Some of the strong AI cities could still outpace the slow city we have building it. We need workers built for the Copernicus city: four can join the city and six more can build two mines in the hills. We need to do that as quickly as possible.

As soon as we have peace with France, our lux rate will drop to 10%--without building temples--so I think they should be low on our priority list. If we trade for two luxuries, we won’t need cathedrals until hospitals are built, if even then. As soon as our GA ends, we should try to build workers wherever the population can be spared, and any city reaching size 12 should immediately build a worker. The best build order for cities IMHO, depends on corruption. The following build order excludes workers and barracks/military, which should be built as needed. It also doesn’t include wonders, improvements that come late modern age or power plants, the latter because the human player usually gets Hoover.

Max corrupt cities
Harbor if needed to grow.
Aqueduct if needed.
Marketplace
Library if borders need to expand borders
Cathedral or Temple depending on happiness needs


Partially or non corrupt cities
Harbor if needed to grow.
Aqueduct if needed.
Library, but only because we are scientific. (this should be first in a flip-risk city)
Marketplace or courthouse (market if corruption low, court if high)
Cathedral if needed for happiness
University (only due to being scientific again)
Hospital when available
Mass transit if needed and when available.
Factory when available (if the city has several of the above improvements to build, it can be best to build this earlier)
Bank or police station when available (police if needed, otherwise bank)
Recycling plant if needed and when available

Now that we are in Republic, we don’t need MPs (military units) in the middle cities of our empire. I would move some of them to the frontiers, some to the unsettled areas and let others escort settlers.
After we switch to peace mode, our non-elite swordsmen should be disbanded in corrupt cities for the shields.
We can switch military builds and temples to other things.
We need lots of workers. If a city is working undeveloped tiles, consider building a worker there.
We need libraries in Paris and Lyons to prevent flips. I would build those after building a settler or worker in each.

Points/counterpoints

I agree on the Cops city adding workers, but I still doubt that we'll miss it.

I disagree on your city builds. According to the formula SirPleb devised for score, happy citizens are worth two content or specialist. That is why I listed those happiness improving builds as the priorities. Regardless of our strat going forward, we want to maximize score, as we have quite some time before the UN can be built.

We don't need to build barracks, ever, as we have Sun Tzu's.

If someone has the patience, they could go through and sell of any granaries that we have built.

On the F4 screen, one leaderhead is still a question mark.

We have many cities frozen at size 6. We should peel workers from there and build aqueducts ASAP.

I think that's it, for now.....

I agree on peeling from size 6 cities. I also noticed the question mark on the F4 screen, but I am pretty sure there are no other civs. You were right about Barracks too, so I deleted it.

If I am wrong about the following, then I will happily learn a better way and build in any order the team chooses! :)

You are right about happy citizens = two content or specialists. However, I think SirPleb seldom ever builds Temples or Cathedrals unless going for a culture win. To paraphrase from his hall of fame game, "you build harbors, markets, granaries and aqueducts in corrupt cities." AFAIK none of the elite players build happiness improvements unless they know luxuries will be hard to come by, or a city gets very large. I don't think we will have that problem in this game because we will have techs to trade for luxuries. If we end the war, trade for a few luxuries and build markets, I will be amazed if we need happiness improvements until cities get larger than 12.

So you got 2 MGL's and rushed Sistene and Leos? :banana:

I started the pre-build. At the time it was the 2cnd highest shield city. I neglected to mention the needed improvments - sorry.

I'll take a look this evening - got it.

Just for clarification, reputation for deal-breaking, sneak attack and attrocities will indirectly or directly affect AI attitude, but other things can affect AI attitude (like MPP's).

@BF - I guess the point I'm hedging on is need vs want. I realize that we probably won't NEED the happiness improvements to avoid riots, but why don't we WANT those same improvements to increase score? We will have quite some time after Alamo's ten before we'll need to do anything but build and expand, so what am I missing? Please note: I will be the first to admit that I am not an Elite player, and one of the many reasons I love SG's is because I learn so much. Please don't take this as a pointless argument from me, but just help me to see the logic you're using.

I guess my problem is that while all of those builds listed facilitate growth, only markets increase smileys. If none of the top players use those builds, is that because when they are milking they already have all 8 luxes?

I also think we'd be crazy not to take advantage of Sistine's.

If I'm still going around in circles, let me know and I'll try to clarify more.

@all - A new thought for the endgame. We just keep on our path of destruction and leave one AI largely untouched. We gift them, and only them, up to fission, and sign a bunch of MA's a few turns before the build completes. That negates the MGL concern, right? I realize it may be a bit late to change horses, but I imagine we'll be doing lots of strategizing, and not so much playing for a while here, so what the heck, right?

*end of rant* :rolleyes:

@Sesn - Seeing your need vs. want arguement, I think I may have given the wrong impression regarding cathedrals. I want them too! What I was trying to say was that I think the growth improvements and the markets (with luxuries) yield higher scores. When Markets are fueled by luxuries, they can generate an amazing number of happy people. Once those are built, we should build Sistene-Powered Cathedrals by all means!

If I get a chance, I will test the difference in happiness generated by Markets with Luxuries and Cathedrals with Sistene. I think that is what our debate basically boils down to. And to be honest, I'm not positive that my view is the correct one!

Re: milking with all 8 luxuries.

I think that is the case more often than not. Another reason they seldom need hapiness wonders is because they typically build cities close together, and thus few cities get large enough to need them.

Re: Endgame
I could go for a cavalry or panzer blitz to weaken all foes except one. Turns would take a bit longer, but its a nice, straightforward approach!

Preamble: Need workers at 02 ASAP, so 01 switched to worker. Demanded Russian warrior leave. Barb camp near 33 threatens English workers - knight from 03 will head there next turn. Russian warrior may find them first. Got Russian Wmap for Wmap+5g - 3 camps. Moved workers out of Paris. Paris flip chance high w/riot+pyramid, so 4 knights moved out. Start galley on trip around island. Fire clown in 30.

IT: Russian warrior fights barb, Joan wants peace - will give Dijon! No flip - whew!

860AD(1) - 01 builds worker, starts pike. Paris resistors quelled - still riots. Lyons builds settler, starts lib. 03 builds knight, starts pike. 08 builds market, starts pike. Move knights back into Paris. Sci.Lux to 30/30 for Bank in 3.

IT: Order restored in Paris. Moscow riots - more beet soup!

870AD(2) - 09 builds courhouse, starts pike. 13,23 build courthouses, start pikes. Kill longbow at Paris. Hurry libs in Paris and Lyons for culture ASAP. Clear camp.

IT: Tade Liz maps. Russian warrior got the camp, but another appears in SE.

880AD(3) - 01 builds pike - starts settler. Pike to 04. Paris, Lyons start courts. Switch Avignon to court. 32 builds pike, starts worker. 07 builds knight, starts worker. Clear camp. Paris looks secure - make peace for gunpowder+banking. Give Joan ivory gratis. Sci/Lux to 50/20 for Music in 4. Switch 15 to court.

IT: French start Copernicus. (why does this pop up so late?)

890AD(4) - 17 builds temple, starts settler. 26 builds pike, starts settler. Landscape palace. Trade Wmap with everyone. Hurry court in Colossus city - still no culture there. Not a huge flip chance, but an easy thing to fix. Sell barracks and granary and establish embassies for better relations.

IT: Japan, China start Copernicus.

900AD(5) - 01 builds settler, starts HE (bachs prebuild). 32 builds worker, starts pike. 22 builds pike, starts market. 02 builds temple, starts worker. 21 builds court, starts lib. 07 builds worker, starts market. I finally realize I need to hook up saltpeter - doh! Clear camp. Sci/Lux to 30/10.

IT: Trade maps with China.

910AD(6) - 02 builds worker, starts univ. 25 builds knight, starts settler. 03 builds pike, starts temple. 08 builds pike, starts temple. 19 builds lib, starts worker. Send settlers and escorts to SE.

IT: Nada

920AD(7) - Sci/Lux 50/10 for chem in 4. 17 builds settler, starts pike. 16 builds settler, starts court. 23 builds pike, starts lib. 01 switched to Bachs.

IT: Nada

930AD(8) - 06 builds temple, starts settler. 09 builds pike, starts temple. 13 builds pike, starts worker. 29 builds pike, starts temple. Palace addition. Paris safely size 1. Get saltpeter hooked up - need 1110g for u/g (30g/pike) even w/Leos! :(

IT: Nada

940AD(9) - 25 builds settler, starts musket. 12 builds lib, starts worker. 14 builds temple, starts worker. 26 riots - ??? I checked F1... 30 builds harbor, starts worker. Finally have mined hill at 04 - Cop in 7. Barb camp near 33, in SE wilderness.

IT:

950AD(10) - 34 builds knight, starts settler. 32 builds pike, starts settler. 05 builds aquaduct, starts temple. 38 riots - what the @#$! - it just grew! 10 builds aquaduct, starts court. 13 builds worker, starts temple. 26 builds settler, starts another. Establish 49_Steinlager. Sci/Lux to 30/10 for chem in 1.

Summary
-------
At peace
Copernicus+Golden Age in 6, hopefully.
4 settlers walking, 4 in progress
Everyone furious or annoyed (can only trade w/Joan)
Settler building in 06 should go N
You have to watch for discontent closely or get riots
2 barb camps (just traded map)

"make peace for gunpowder+banking"

how in the hell did Joan get banking when she barely had a leg to stand on?

Joan could have traded to get banking, but the AI typically goes for smiths and shakespear, for some reason.

Those workers near 06 should mine next, though it may not matter by the time they're through. Send that team to 01 next for wonder-work.

We probably have enough settlers once the next 4 are complete. The settler going to 33 is intended for that gap the English snuck through. If you have an extra then send it over to our island.

We could probably get another wonder - Newtons on top of Copernicus would be nice for a super-science city.

I tried to get enough settlers and workers to take us through the GA. That way we can concentrate on building improvements.

So what to do with the GA? We definitely should build courthouses in the non-ring cities. After that, I generally go for mood-improving buildings so it is feasible to get WLTLD. With 4 native lux that should be easy.

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

Maybe I should clarify my question then: How did our monopoly on Astronomy get broken AND banking get discovered in some four turns?

As far as the buildings, that's basically the whole discussion BF and I have been having. I've decided what BF may be trying to say is that the growth buildings translate to more people, which translates to higher score over time. Still not sure if it's the right strat for this situation, but there it is anyhow.

Very good turns, Alamo! I am curious though: What is your strategy in building pikemen?

Here is the breakdown on the marketplace w/ luxuries vs. cathedral w/ Sistene debate. I ran a test to do a comparison.

Expected Results
A market with 6 luxuries yields 12 happy faces (in addition to the extra money). A cathedral with Sistene yields 6 happy faces. When you add in the same number of luxuries (6) for the cathedral, it should give 12 happy faces (the same amount). That is what I expect to see in the test.

Test
The test city has a temple, and with no market or cathedral it has 6 happy citizens and 6 unhappy. There is no luxury tax.
With a cathedral, Sistene and 6 luxuries it has 9 happy and 3 unhappy.
With a market, Sistene and 6 luxuries it has 9 happy and 3 unhappy.

The happiness benefits of both are equivalent. So the difference comes down to three things:
1) the market costs two less in maintenance and adds 50% to money generated (better economy). The cathedral gives a better culture.
2) the market costs 100 to build vs. 160 for a cathedral.
3) the effectiveness of the market is dependent on luxuries. If you have less or more than six, its power changes dramatically. (4 lux = 6 happy faces; 6 lux = 12; 8 lux = 20)

Well, that was fairly predictable, but good job nonetheless. I suppose the question then becomes: How many luxes can we be assured of having? Obviously 4, and I would imagine we could regularly trade for 1 or 2 more. At times we can have four, and at other times we may have all 8.

I guess I can concede that the market is more powerful, in that many markets would also allow us to bump the luxes as needed. We really need to decide on a priority for build orders.

Aqueducts must be first, where needed. After that, I guess it's kind of a decision for the player.

As you say, Aqueducts first. The only reason I had Harbors listed above them is because sometimes a city needs one to grow above 6. I should have clarified that.

The way I see our game right now, I believe there are four things that will have the biggest impact on our score. In order of importance, they are:

1) Win as early as possible (In this game, that means rushing through the tech tree to the modern age, taking the UN, then stacking the deck for the vote).
2) Increase the land under our control
3) Make our population happy
4) Get more people

These last three have to happen early, of course. If they occur near the end of the game they will have no noticable impact on score.

Do you guys agree with those, or would you prioritize other factors for score? Maybe if we can come to a concensus regarding factors that impact score, getting our build priorities will be easier.

About those pikes: We needed town defenders and pikes were the cheapest troops to build. I did expect some of the builds to convert to muskets. I didn't expect such a high price for u/g - 30g/pike compared to a mere 20g for knight to cav w/o Leos. I don't usually leave my towns undefended - I was feeling exposed. We do get 1 happiness from garrison, right? Maybe it was a waste. They will upgrade to inf, tho.

I usually build a courthouse sooner than later to recover some lost commerce.

We do not get happiness from troops under the Republic government. Troops can get very costly under a Republic as well. Usually it is better to build fast, attacking units, because you only need about 1/3 to 1/2 as many in order to defend yourself. Also, if the AI decides he wants to pilage your roads, it is much better to have something that can attack. Finally, defenders give you war weariness. When an AI attacks you, you get WW whether you win or lose. If you attack them and win, however, they get all the WW and you get none.

I generally put attacking units in all my frontier and coastal cities and leave all the cities on the interior of my empire empty, except for a handful of knights or cavalry to serve as reserves. This works well for me, but some players prefer a unit in every city because they believe it makes the AI less likely to attack. AFAIK, this has never been proven.

I usually only build defenders this late in a game to support an invasion force, and I keep a few around to put in front of the enemy if he builds up troops on my borders (for a sneak attack).

I might drop #2 down to #4, because land itself only indirectly influences score (more cities). The other problem is that you have to decrease pop to get more land, to eventually get more pop. What a wacky game, huh? :crazyeye: IIRC, Alamo said he had several settlers in production/en route, and that should be enough.

Agree with attackers vs defenders, and with no core defense. Unit upkeep can indeed get prohibitive in Republic, especially with no unit support.

On another note, depending on our economy/research rate, we may want to consider keeping lux rate higher than we otherwise might.

@Alamo - I just found all your graphs for GOTM31. Most impressive and interesting! :goodjob: What program do you use to make those?

Offensive troops only: Interesting strategy. I didn't realize the WW implications. The last time I considered garrison strategy I was recovering from a ROP-sneak attack. BW, we should sign ROP's w/our neighbors.

So do you build Infantry or Cav? Does infantry def of 10 may make up for not having 3 move and retreat?

Empty cities will influence AI tactics in war, but I believe it is overall strength that deters attacks. Once I did get a pre-emptive attack when I massed troops on a border, though. I guess an unguarded city could be a tempting target for an AI on the fence.

About those graphs: I made the graphs using Spotfire, which also has fancy interactive features to the graphs.

I think territory makes up a large portion of the score rather than number of cities. From SirPleb's (there's that name again! :rolleyes: ) "Maximizing your score" article:
(Territory + HappyCitizens*2 + ContentCitizens + Specialists) * Difficulty = score at the end of each turn.

For the end-of-game score all these turn scores are averaged, and the early victory date bonus is added in.

So, if we could pick up around 80 more tiles of land or so, it would be the equivalent of having 40 more happy citizens.

That being said, your moving #2 to #4 is still a better idea I think. We can definitely increase our pop and happiness right now, but we really can't grab more land effectively until after cavalry at the earliest.

I also think your idea to raise the lux rate might be a good idea (if we can afford it).

@Alamo - I agree 100% on overall strength deterring the AI from attacking.

I usually build loads of cavalry and have just enough defenders to cover each stack of attackers (3-4 defenders per stack of 8-12 attackers). The one exception to this is when I know the AI has a very large military and I need to deplete it. Then I will put defenders on mountains or something and let the AI kill himself trying to get them out. But I seldom ever do that in a Republic because of the WW.

Wow, this is practically a chatroom! Got it.

I agree with droping #2 to #4

IT --

All looking good. Russia is growing again -- we may want to clip them at some point.


960 AD --

Some barb attacks.

Chemistry --> Economics (due in 4 @ -4gpt)

Why did I choose Economics? Because we want Smith's more than we think we do. A large income is key to a diplomatic Victory, since we'll likely be giving away huge amounts of GPT near the endgame.

Anyway:

31: Library --> Market
21: Library --> Aqueduct
19: Worker --> Aqueduct
14: Worker --> Aqueduct

The Chinese begin Bach's.

970 AD --

Russia asks us to leave their lands. I sign an RoP with Russia.

06: Settler --> Settler
27: Courthouse --> Temple

980 AD --

18: Knight --> Temple
12: Worker --> Temple
23: Library --> Temple

50_Augsburg and 51_Wurzburg founded.

990 AD --

17: Musketman --> Cathedral
25: Musketman --> Cathedral
03: Temple --> Cathedral
08: Temple --> Aqueduct
11: Aqueduct --> Temple

Science to 10% to pull a 290 gp profit (Econ due in 1)

52_Naumburg founded.

1000 AD --

Economics --> Physics (due in 4 @ -6 gpt)

34: Settler --> Courthouse
32: Settler --> Temple
26: Settler --> Temple

Japan must have discovered Economics the same turn -- they begin Smith's, as do the Chinese :( I guess Smith's will be our fall-back for Bach's.

1010 AD --

02: University --> Cathedral
04: Copernicus's Observatory --> Temple

We don't get a GA from Copernicus's Observatory. Erm... huh? Sun Tzu's + Copernicus's should have triggered our GA. Wait... NO!!! Copernicus's Observatory IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC WONDER! Damn. Expansionist only. That sucks. That really sucks. We have no Scientific Wonder yet. I guess we'll be trying really hard for Newton's. 25_Canterbury's Cathedral is rushed -- we'll prebuild for Newton's there.

53_Kiel founded, along with 54_Hildesheim.

1020 AD --

22: Market --> Temple
25: Cathedral --> Heroic Epic (Newton's prebuild)
05: Temple --> Cathedral
06: Settler --> Cathedral

55_Alsace founded.

1030 AD --

Russia offers her World Map and 4 gold for our Territory Map.

Science lowered.

56_Danzig founded.

1040 AD --

Discover Physics. Physics to China for Metallurgy, 41 gpt, 30 gold and their World Map. Start Theory of Gravity, due in 4 @ +34 gpt.

29: Temple --> Market
30: Worker --> Temple

1050 AD --

45: Musket --> Temple
28: Market --> Temple
09: Temple --> Worker

57_Bergstadt founded.

Summary:

GA begins next turn. We now have lots of infrastructure and our cities are almost completely happy. Still need a few more cities and lots more workers, but we should only build them in corrupt cities or cities that cannot grow until after the GA ends.

Initial Thoughts:

Boy, by score, it doesn’t look good for us. Hopefully I can get Newton built on my turns, or close to it. A GA soon is the only thing that might help a bit. Does that red score for team Kuningas mean that they finished the game?

1050 AD, preturn We have 51 defensive units and we are building 20 temples. Man that’s a lot. We also have more workers though, and that is wonderful. Note that China has Military Tradition already. Send the boat to get a sword that can pop the GH on the island—got nothing better to do. Maybe we can pop Fission. :) Switch a few size 6 cities that can’t grow to workers, will be followed by aqueducts. Switch lots of temples to aqueducts and markets. Switch some completely corrupt cities building Courts to other things (courts don’t help max corrupt cities prior to C3C). Switch some size 5 cities to aqueducts. The only cities I leave on temple are the ones that might need to build cathedrals later. Rush two markets in very unhappy but large cities. Switch Leipzig to Palace as a prebuild for Suffrage or Darwin.

1060 AD, 1 Notice we have no knights near Japan: if we get attacked, that is the direction it will probably come from, so I send some up. I send some swords to corrupt cities to disband and move some pikes from the core to the frontiers. I can’t move many because of the English city of reading. We can free up about a dozen troops by eliminating the English, so someone should do that once we have a few more knights or cavalry.

1070 AD, 2 Sign a ROP with India for 38g and 3gpt. Sign an ROP with China for 74g. Sign a ROP with Japan for maps because he has nothing else to give. I don’t sign ROPs with France or England for now, because we may want to attack them.

1080 AD, 3 Get TOG, Magnetism due in 4. Switch Bach prebuild to Newton, switch epic to bach, switch palace to smith’s. GH pops barbs. Since everyone is building bach and smith, I don’t feel safe trading TOG until we build Newton. Too important. Trade Liz Education for a worker. Give Cathy education.

1090 AD, 4 Founded 58 (didn’t feel like researching German beer names)

1100 AD, 5 Found 59. I think the Russians are about to sneak attack the Japanese. LOL.

1110 AD, 6 Russians do attack Japanese. Found 60. Pop another hut and get a map. Accidentally end the turn. :(

IBT We get Magnetism, start Steam due in 7. Thankfully, I am able to scroll through cities to fix happiness. Nationalism is our free tech. Yet another :(. I trade Japan Magnetism, Ivory, Incense and Spice for Military Tradition, Dyes and Gems. Trade China Magnetism and Ivory for Silk and 177g. Trade Ghandi Magnetism for Navigation, his maps and 19gpt. We now have a seriously happy empire. Steam is now due in five because Lux goes to 0%. I wanted to gift Russia into the next age, but I fear they will trade TOG around to the others so I don’t do it.

1120 AD, 7 We get the Military Academy message, China starts Magellan in Chengdu, many of our cities start celebrating. I don’t think we can beat China to Magellan because we don’t have any powerful coastal cities, so I do not start building it. Guys we don’t have even CLOSE to as many workers as we need with Railroads coming. But I can’t build them now except for in corrupt cities. We don’t want to pull population from our core right before or during our GA. I start moving some workers back towards our core because it is more economically beneficial to build railroads inside to outside. I Upgrade our knights for 180g. :) I upgrade as many Pikes as I can to Rifles.

1130 AD, 8 The Chinese start Newton!!! I found 61. Well, I can gift Russia into the next age now. She got Nationalism. No help.

1140 AD, 9 I found 62.

1150 AD, 10 I found 63. Newton is due next turn so we have it in the bag thank god. Let the Golden Age begin. Finally.

I concentrated entirely on infrastructure (with a bit of expansion) on my turns and we got a lot of markets and libraries built, along with a few temples and cathedrals. I build some settlers in corrupt cities to fill in the gaps, and cavalry here and there just in case we get sneak attacked. I started Universities in most cities that can produce a lot of beakers.

For the next player:

Most of our core cities with low corruption are very happy now. Try to use the GA to finish Universities in them. That way we can easily do 4-turn research for the rest of the game. After that, cathedrals if they don’t already have them and then maybe cavalry and banks.

Speaking of Cavalry, please don’t build more Riflemen.

Try to get three settlers up to the small island if you can before the AI. Territory = better score. There are also a few more places for settlers on our continent. Remember, coastal tiles count for score as well as land tiles.

I doubt we will get Bach or Smith, but the builds may come in handy for Suffrage and TOE.

I do not envy you the task of setting all the workers to railroading during your turns! Uhgh. Try to railroad the mined squares in our cores before others, especially around the cities building wonders.

I would get Industrialization for factories, then make a beeline for TOE.


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1150_01.SAV

I'm just catching up - Cop is just expansionist and not scientific - talk about lame! Colossus covers 3 traits, why just 1 for Cops?

GA next turn! Good job, bradleyfeanor. Next player should be careful to avoid riots in GA, as growth will be faster.

I guess the score is lower relative to others due to territory. It is just the Firaxis score. All the wonders will give us credit in the Jason score. We should definitely grab the space that's left.

There are french settlers going for the few free tiles left - on coast near 41 and 42.

Japan will obviously be our main competitor for chairman, if not the UN builder. We should prepare plans for annexing the Japanese territory.

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

okay thanks for the advice. got it

1150AD: Turn 0 Things look good.

IBT: 01_Berlin Newton’s University -> University; GA begins 06_Heildelberg Cav -> University; 08_Cologne Cav -> University; 43_? Library -> Worker; 49_Steinlager riots hire clown for now; Japan building Mag Voy; Indians building Mag Voy

1160AD: Turn 1 Hurry Library 57_Bergstadt, and 50_Augsburg, to put a little cultural pressure on the English. Disband pike in 51, move idle workers toward core.

IBT China and Russia sign a MPP; ROP to Russia; Steam Power -> Industrialization rendering Hanging Gardens obsolete. (forgot about that) Nottingham riots, hire clown; Hamburg Cathedral-> University; Minsk riot hire clown; Oxford riots hire another clown, we need to get Oxford hooked up to the road network. Bonn settler-> Settler; 52 riots clown; 53 riots clown; 57 Library -> Harbor;

1170AD Turn 2: start workers on railroads; Hurry Library Steinberg; 04 University-> bank?; 29 aqueduct -> Market

IBT Steinlager Library -> worker (rush); Minsk change market to settler; Moscow Uni->Bank; Lyons Court->Market; Coventry Uni->bank; Minsk Settler-> Market(with help); Grenoble Library -> Harbor (feel free to change.); Frankfurt Aqueduct -> Court; Oxford Worker -> Worker; Bremen Uni -> Bank; Becks Aqueduct -> Market; Steinlager Worker -> Worker; Wurzberg is rioting hire clown; China, Russia MA against Japan; Russia declares on Japan

1190 AD Turn 4: oops some of that happened between turns 3 and 4 sorry.

IBT Berlin Uni -> Bank; 45 Aqueduct -> Market;

1200AD Turn 5: Found 64, laying RR Tracks. No trades yet. MM science to not over spend in that are. (Save have to run an errand)

okay Back
IBT England, China sign MA against Japan. England Declares war. Japanese demand Nationalism. Japan is at war with China, England, Industrialization -> Medicine. Science to 50% due in 4. London court -> University; Paris Court -> Market; York University -> Iron Works. 22 University -> Bank; 17 University -> Bank; 07 University -> bank; 28 Aqueduct -> University; 13 University -> Bank; 43 Worker -> Worker; Chinese finish Smith’s; 02 Smith’s -> Universal Suffrage

1210AD Turn 6: Laying RR Tracks. Trade Japan, get Printing Press, World Map, 50 gp, 41gpt, for Nationalism. Trade Printing Press to China for WM, 9gpt, 70 gp. Trade Printing Press to Russia for 200 gp, 1gpt. Lux to 20% (happiness for score)

IBT 05: Lost gems: 35 Market -> Worker; Minsk Market-> Worker; Munich Cathedral -> University; 21 Market -> H.E. not sure what to build here so change to suit; 08 Cologne University -> Bank; 14 Market -> University; 26 University -> Bank; 51 Library -> Worker; 52 Library -> Worker(rush); 30 Library -> Worker; 64 Library -> Harbor; French building JS Bach; Japan building JS Bach; Japan building Mag Voy; Indians building JS Bach;

1220AD Turn 7: Laying RR Tracks

IBT 03 University -> Bank; 06 University -> Bank; 46 riots hire clown; Oxford riots hire clown; 52 Worker -> Worker; French building Mag Voy;

1230AD Turn 8: Laying RR Tracks; science 40%; Ivory to Joan for WM and 30 gold; Gems from Japan for Ivory, spice, Incense, wm, 27 gpt. (steep but)

IBT 36 Market -> Worker; Bonn Settler -> Settler; 23 Aqueduct -> University; 41 Market -> Worker; Add to Palace

1240AD Turn 9: Laying RR Tracks; Science to 30%; Trade WM around

IBT Medicine -> Electricity ( in 4); Science 60%; Berlin Bank -> Factory; 04 Bank -> Worker; 20 Market -> Worker; Chinese complete JS Bach; Change Canterbury to Palace for pre-build for TOE;

1250AD Turn 10: Found 65 -> Library; Med to China for Dyes, 80 gold, 65 gpt, WM; Med to Russia for 490 gold, 45 gpt; Med to Japan for 150 gold, 57 gpt

Score 1933

:mad: having trouble with my home connection uploading. will do it in the morning.

Nice turns Shoe! Good job on trading for the luxuries. The price is high and will only get higher, but it is worth it for score.

Does your post actually say York > Iron Works??? :eek:

Woohoo! [dance] I can't remember the last time I was able to build that.

The next player should make developing that city a priority: it will be a wonder/army building machine! :D

"the next player" is me, I believe. :D

I can (hopefully) play tonight sometime if Shoe can figure out his upload problems. Alternately, he could just e-mail it to me.

Thanks Sesn.

I brought the wrong disk to work so I will either upload the save, e-mail it to you or both. As soon as I get home from work

Sounds good, shoe35 - looks like a good building spree. York gets IW - :cool:

Sorry, SensOfWthr, you get the end-of-GA frown first off.

Ok, maybe you milkers should give a brief course in managing mood. I thought we got a turn of grace to manage mood w/o governors, but we keep getting riots.

So how is this suppose to work? When pop grows is the gov is just putting them on the best shield tile? I the gov technically 'on' in some way?

In the F1 screen a town can have the name in red - that is just when in riot, right? So do you have to scan the faces to make sure the happys outnumber the sads?

AFAIK, you do get one turn before disorder, the turn the new citizen is added. Therefore, you must scan the F1 screen at the end of every turn. If you use the mood badges, this task becomes MUCH easier.

If no preferences are set for the governer, the new citizen will be added to the most productive square. Productive=food+shields+commerce. We may have the governor still set to "emphasize production", which would put it on the best shield square. If there are no free tiles, the new citizen becomes an entertainer.

Can anyone confirm these things?

Sesn, everything you just said is correct AFAIK. The governor was not on during my turns. I think the main turn that Shoe got riots was when the HG went obsolete. That is a tough turn to manage: either you have to "prep" the cities on the turn before, or when you get steam power you have to scroll through every single city and fix them. The same thing can happen on a turn that a luxury agreement ends. I think most of those riots were in tiny corrupt cities, so not big deals.

When I check F1 at the end of each turn, I usually sort the cities by population. It helps some, but I will have to try out the mood badges. Which one do you use Sesn?

Originally posted by Alamo:
Sorry, SensOfWthr, you get the end-of-GA frown first off.

Actually, I think you will be presented with the big :( on your first turn Alamo.

The thread for the mood badges is HERE. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9362)

Be sure to scroll down to the 8th post or so for a C3C version, if applicable.

HTH.

Oh, yeah, GA is 20 turns - I will get the big frown. Hopefully most core towns will have RR by then.

Those mood badges are great. The F1 screen should have a big blinking red dot for cities out of balance!

So these are the priorities?

1) Win as early as possible (rush to modern age, take UN, stack the vote)
2) Make our population happy
3) Get more people
4) Increase the land under our control

We should have unit-building capacity by my turn. Do we build cav, inf, or wait for tanks?

Some cav, primarily as a deterrent then wait for panzers.

I like the priorities and agree with Sesn on primarily Panzers.

However, we need to make sure there is no doubt who the second strongest civ is. If Japan and China run neck and neck, we may have to build Cavalry to "prune" one of them. My girlfriend just finished a game in which it looked like Germany was the strongest, but the other candidate in the vote turned out to be the Zulu. This led to stalemates in the UN vote for hundreds of years. That would be a disaster for us.

good point, as a side note China is now at war with Japan, and has MPP with Russia and I believe England.

Unless something changes, Japan is more powerful and more populous than China. If we really want to, we could use MapStat to find out how much land each has exactly.

good point, as a side note China is now at war with Japan, and has MPP with Russia and I believe England.

Then I suppose we could build some cavs, and perhaps prune two for the price of one?

I think that leaving only one large civ is the way to go, because if we prune the others soon enough, there will be no doubt about who is building the UN. Especially if the other civs have nothing to trade to get to fission and be able to build the UN, even with a MGL.

Okay this should work if not it seems I was successful uploading in the maintanence thread

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Alamo_SG002_AD1250_011)

I agree in part with Sesn's proposal. Using cavs to prune all civs except one is a fine plan, and if China gets stronger it is the only safe plan. The increased territory would also increase our score.

I have one delimma though: If a civ that is the third most powerful civ (or less) builds the UN, are they a candidate in the vote?

I don't think they are. I recall games where a weak civ built the UN and they never held a vote. I am presuming this was because that civ knew it would not be a candidate. I am not 100% sure on this, but I think that is the way it works. And it is a very important distinction.

If a weak AI that builds the UN is not a candidate in the vote (need a team opinion on that!), here is my proposed strategy:

Make sure Japan does well in their war so we do not need to worry about China. We can even help them a little by gifting them a few workers, some techs and a bit of money--although this may not be necessary at all. There is no doubt that we can make China and India vote for us since we have not been at war with them. France and England on the other hand, will quite likely abstain in a vote no matter what we do. If possible, I think we should leave China alone and put France and England out of the game. That way a UN vote could go something like this:

3 votes for us (Germany, India, China)
1 abstention (Russia)
1 vote for Japan (Japan)

I am much more comfortable with that scenario, than with a free-for-all vote that could result from having 5 civs we have attacked voting (France, England, Russia, Japan, China). Not only would it be expensive to keep them all at war with our primary foe (probably Japan), but most of them would likely abstain even if we timed the dogpile perfectly.

Therefore my plan would be: 1) eliminate France and England with Cavalry, 2) make real nice with China, India and Russia, 3) Help Japan economically if they need it in their war with China (gifted workers might even help them build the UN faster).

This way we would not need to time a dogpile. We will be fine if a vote is held, because we will have been at peace with the voting civs, and they will have been at war with one another (they already are).

One final note to this ridiculously long post: Regardless of our strategy, we should start building our force of boats in the cities that can build them.

Any civ who builds the UN automatically gets a free nomination, IIRC. That's why I was thinking of "pruning" well before that, so that we could gift one civ Fission (Japan) and no one else would have the tech to build ther UN. Preferably, we would want to be 3 or 4 techs ahead at that point, so that no one else can even buy the appropriate tech, especially if they only have a few cities.

Yep, builder gets name in the hat, which is why there can be 3 candidates.

I'm not too woried about Liz and Joan. They will be annoyed at best, but the old diplo dogpile will do as long as we don't loose the first vote. We definitely need them MPP'd into war vs the builder.

I just finished a game where I was pretty rough with 3 civs and still won diplo via the dogpile. I even had to make a MPP and wait to be attacked to get one civ to declare against my competitor instead of me.

BTW, classic GOTM32 is out. That is another reason I may be slightly delayed on my next turn.

Building boats is a good idea.

Ok, then it is Sesn's war path for sure. Queue up the cavalry!

I am playing the new COTM1 for this month instead of the GOTM. It is by far one of the best games I have ever played and hopefully I will place high. I drew a one turn anarchy this game for a Republic in 1100 BC. :D

I guess SesnOfWthr is playing classic GOTM32, as am I. I should be finished in another day, though.

I seem to always wind up shooting for the diplo victory. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Oops, did I ever post a "got it"? Here it is at any rate. BTW, I have never played GOTM, but I hope to try COTM2 when a couple more of my SG's end. :)

Well, that’s a nice sight – all of our larger cities are mostly happy faces. Rush a couple markets to make it all happy faces.

Cavs and boats and RR’s, right?

1255 ad (1) – We get another palace expansion, only 1 left. I imagine most of my turns will include many builds and a lot of railroading. So forgive me if I don’t detail everything.

1260 ad (2) – The three big civs each come asking for a RoP. Unfortunately, none of them make it worth our while.

1265 ad (3) – China and japan make peace. Start rounding up cavs, staging them north of Berlin.

1270 ad (4) – Electricity comes in. Start SM in 4 at +462gpt.

1275 ad (5) – China and japan decide peace is boring. France completes Magellans. We’ve got about 20 cavs available right now.

1280 ad (6) – Nothing noteworthy ….

1285 ad (7) - :wallbash: Just realized I haven’t been giving extra attention to York, the IW city. Sorry guys. :sad: Our silks trade ended IT, so I renew it using Electricity, get silks, 205g, WM, 69 gpt and a worker. I don’t know how to calculate “market value”, so maybe someone can elighten me. Also ship japan some saltpeter for 45g, WM, and 46 gpt.

1290 ad (8) – Palace prebuild in Canterbury is perfect as ToE will come in next turn with about 10 shields still needed. Turn science off and set for AT. We’ll gain 1205g this turn.

1295 ad (9) – ToE comes in, getting us up to Hoover’s. Rush a few builds here and there.

1300 ad (10) – Nothing big. Start Hoover’s build in Berlin. We may want to consider swapping builds with Leipzig (US).

Well Alamo, you may get the frown first off, but I did leave you a couple grand in the bank to play with.

We have about 30 cav outside Berlin, and 7 or 8 galleys outside 52_Naumbaug.

And the save...

>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1300_01.SAV)

Short post, great turns Sesn! I agree on switching Suffrage to Hoover. If we make taking a few luxuries a first priority when we declare war on the other continent, WW shouldn't be much of an issue.

How are we on boats? Would it be a good investment to use some of our cash to rush build them? It would be nice to have a navy on both sides of our continent.

France completed Magellans?!? [dance]

I didn't expect that one. My vote goes to reducing France to OCC before attacking the other continent!

@Alamo = I can't believe you will be finished with the GOTM in another day. The speed at which you play is infathomable to me. And here I was pleased that I might finish mine in two and half weeks... :rolleyes:

We have 7 or 8 galleons ready and waiting. Started building a couple clads for protection. I rushed a couple galleons every two or three turns, also rushing harbors in those corrupt coastal towns. We have few, if any, boats on the western side of the continent. I figured if we hit India/China right between their two nations, we can get silk and dyes.

I didn't expect France to get Magellans either, they built it in a poorly developed size 6 town no less! Would be nice to have before we start shipping units across....

York completed IW, and will have factory in 4, I think. IIRC, it was making some 54 shields, so factory + hydro should put it around 108 shields, right? And not all appropriate squares are RRed there either. I could see 125+ spt from the city. Convenient placing too, as I believe it's first ring of the FP, and I saw minimal corruption.

Switching sufferage? What did I miss?

Um, if we attack India and China then basically everybody will be furious with us at the UN vote. China will vote for us if they don't build UN, since they were just fighting Japan. What was India doing during that war?

I'm not sure I would like to get rid of England, France and/or Russia. They should accept a MPP/ROP eagerly. We should secure that now.

My proposal:
- Figure out the guaranteed UN candidate X (Japan or China).
- Gift/trade techs with civ X to Fission, so they start the UN first.
- Sign MPP's with everyone else.
- Plant spy with civ X (war ok if MPP's in place).
- Watch UN progress so we can declare war just before UN is completed.
- Wait for attack to trigger MPP's.
- Capture UN.
- Call next vote and Win!

Got it.

@bf: I put in some extra hours on GOTM, but it should still be <12 hrs. BTW, I discovered that the mood governor is necessary to keep newly captured towns from rioting (lessens chance of flip)!

OK, I'll field these.

First, we had discussed swapping the Hoover's/US builds as that will give us Hoover's first, which is the more valuable tech for us. No one else has even started US yet.

The problem with your course of action is that there is no "clear" UN candidate. If the game ends now, then I believe Japan gets the nod. However China, and to a lesser extent India, are both fairly close and could build the UN, given the tech and a MGL. My thinking was to launch a couple wars, probably on China and India, net some techs, and cripple them. My thinking was that it would allow us to gift Japan up to Fission, with no fear of a "back door" candidate. It would also get us a couple more luxes to boot. If we then monitor, as you say, we can ally everyone against Japan a few turns before it is built. We go in, snatch the UN, while still allied, and call the vote.

This what I see:

We're at peace with everyone, no diplo agreements.
Japan and China at war.
Japan and England at war.
Russia has MPP with China (so should be at war with Japan soon).

Attitude with us:
Russia/England/France furious
India annoyed (not trading right now)
China cautious
Japan cautious

Everyone will accept a MPP with us right now.

We are tech advanced, with about 40 turns to Fission. US in 9, HD in 14 - no competition.

Mapstat tiles/pop = pct:
Germany 1098/455 = 45/52
Japan 382/121 = 16/14
China 296/135 = 12/16
India 255/93 = 10/11
France 165/46 = 7/5
Russia 48/12 = 2/1
England 38/6 = 2/1

UN nominee has to build the UN, or have 25% of the world's tiles, or have 25% of the world's population. So unless a major change occurs, the only UN candidates will be us and the builder.

We can get silk and dyes from Indian territory alone. How about just attacking India? Ghandi doesn't even have steam power yet!

Edit: Just submitted GOTM - a bit longer than I expected.

Game: GOTM 32
Date submitted: 2004-06-17
Software Version: PtW 1.27f for Windows
Entry class: open
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for Aztecs
Game date: 1880 AD
Firaxis score: 4170
Jason score: 5249
Time played: 15:00:52

Wow, now that was a post. You just told me a lot about Diplo victory that I did NOT know! :thanx: I looked and looked for that kind of info but could not find it anywhere.

Could I have some more please? :) Theoretically, if we built the UN on this turn, who would be the other candidate? Would it be Japan or is the other candidate chosen somewhat randomly when none of the other civs have over 25%? I'm not suggesting this for our game, I am just curious in general.

Congrats on GOTM 32! I should be done with COTM1 in 3-8 turns.

Alamo - you're right, I hadn't even considered the 25% floor limit. That does alleviate some of my worries. India would be nice, right in the middle of the other two for staging purposes ..... :evil:

BF - IIRC, the candidate would be the civ who came closest to the floor limits if none meet the requirements. However, that would leave an interesting question of who it would be. China has more pop, while Japan has more land. :hmm:

It's in the civlopedia - next highest pop is the candidate when only 1 qualifies.

I'll build toward an India campaign, and try to get the invasion force on it's way. How many infantry should we have?

@Alamo: Oh yeah, the civilopedia. Forgot to look there. :rolleyes:
Number of infantry depends a lot on the terrain, but I don't have the map to look at right now. I would take 3-4 infantry and >8 cavalry for each stack you plan to attack with. Thats more Infantry than I normally use because War Elephants can be nasty. I like to attack in at least two locations simultaneously because it screwes up the AI so bad. So 2 stacks minimum, more if we have the military/boats available.

@Sesn: Thanks for the info. I guess the question of who the other candidate will be may come into play after we take the UN...unless, of course, we assimilate one of them. :)

You and Alamo definitely have more experience than me in Diplo victories, so I am going to defer to your judgement on which path to take. I do have a few questions though. It seems to me that the "Alamo plan" and the "Sesn plan" both have drawbacks--although I am probably just not understanding something.

Re: Alamo's plan
Possible problems:

1) AI MGL could lead to a loss. This is basically the same thing Sesn said/asked earlier: If we leave China and Japan alone right up until the UN is built, couldn't we still lose if a UN builder gets a Military GL?

2) Majority of AIs may abstain in the votes for many years, leading to a long game and a low score.

We have already been at war with 3 civs, and the UN builder will make 4. Wouldn't we be better off not attacking India or China so we can be assured of their vote? I understand not killing England or Russia because they are/will be at war with Japan and might be more inclined to give us their vote down the line. However, will not France be more likely to abstain rather than vote for us? It seems we could improve our vote percentage by eliminating France (the last civ we were at war with). Especially if we never declare war on China and India.

Sesn Plan possible problems:

1) Same as #2 above. If we attack everyone, aren't they more likely to abstain in the voting for many years?

Again, I have so little experience with Diplo victories, my worries may be irrelevant. But it would be very educational for me to know how you guys see the vote playing out.

Well, to be honest, my form of diplomacy is usually something like: "give me this or be destroyed!!" :ar15:

The entire game my "plans" have been based on the assumption that a MA partner was GUARANTEED to vote for you, regardless of the past.

If that's not true, then we certainly should leave the warpath as much as possible, with the exception of India's luxes. We should start gifting, and signing Rop's to increase attitude.

If true, then I'm back to beating up China/India, gifting Japan up to Fission, monitoring UN progress, and signing many MA's about five turns from completion. Capture immediately, and call the vote.

So I guess it boils down to my big assumption. Alamo, I guess you're the man with the answers (hopefully).

I agree with you on both plans, although on your "peaceful" plan I would also prefer to leave India completely alone (assured vote), and to eliminate the French (assured abstention otherwise).

I am hoping Alamo's answer leads us down the warpath route: much better score, and far more to my playing style also! It would also eliminate that pesky MGL issue.

Did any of you peak at the score for the two teams that have finished? If they went with the variant, those are most impressive dates. Hopefully they went for another victory condition. Our graph seems to be getting a bit steeper compared to some other teams: that is promising.

A MA/MPP partner is not guarateed to vote for you, especially if you have been a bad boy. We have conducted our wars honorably, haven't we? If so we should not have a problem, assuming we can get MA/MPP with everyone else against the UN builder.

China rushing UN with MGL will be problematic any way we go, since China seems to have better relations with our neighbors than Japan. We can best remedy this situation by giving Japan any tech known to others. If we keep the tech lead and bring Japan along then there will be less incentive for Japan to trade techs around. That is no guarantee, though, as the AI trades techs liberally among themselves.

I think we can count on the MGL option being unlikely. I'm not even sure how the AI chooses to rush wonders vs build armies.

What would be ideal is to have Japan start taking Indian cities, then we go in and take them from Japan. Once we have what we want then make peace and gift techs and wait.

In the GOTM I had to gift one of my cities to Ceasar to save him for the UN vote. That is very convienient to get your buddies nestled inside your empire where you can protect them.

I also had a very early war with Hiawatha, which was completely forgotten after about 50 turns. I sacked one of his unguarded expansion cities - the 4th or 5th.

@Alamo: From what you just said, it appears we will get the votes of France, Russia and England. That being the case, it seems we should just attack India and China until they are completely eliminated. That way their abstention votes can't keep us from getting a majority, and the MGL problem will not be an issue.

Is that a plausible plan or am I missing something here?

Yes!! KILLKILLKILL!

:ar15: :evil: :spank: :hammer: :sniper: :drool:

:joke: (kinda)

Well, it makes more sense to eliminate France than India, but India has something we want.

I will see if the war widens and if Japan makes any headway. We should be close to invasion by the end of my turn.

Sign ROP with Joan,Liz and Mao. Sci/Lux to 50/20 for RP in 3.

Japan has taken a Russian city on our continent - excellent!

IT: Russia declares war on Japan. GA ends.

1305AD(1) - RR work. RP in 3, again. HD in 19, US in 13 now.

IT: Japan takes Yokohama.

1310AD(2) - RR. Start rifles (infantry)

IT: Japan takes Matsuyama.

1320AD(3) - Corp in 4. We've got a ton of money - u/g 29 pike, 13 rifles, 2 muskets to inf.

IT: India declares on England - MA with Japan. England wants embargo - we sign.

1335AD(4) - More RR network - connecting cities first.

IT: No boundary changes.

1340AD(5) - Start refinery. Sci/Lux to 80/20 for RF in 4. RR network almost complete. Gift ivory to Cathy and Joan. Need to surround Liz's 2cnd city - Jap Longbows approach.

IT: Japan renegotiates - Ivory+Incense+Indust=Gems+Wines+Wmap+90g. China razes Omi.

1345AD(6) - RR. Decide to stage troops for India campaign. 5 inf+27 cav on 8 galleons set sail.

IT: French want MPP - declined. Dyes lost - from China.

1350AD(7) - RR. Jap longbows out of English territory. Troops 1 move away from landing.

IT: Japan takes Nagasaki - China out of mid-continent.

1355AD(8) - Expanding roads to resources, railing factory cities. Troops ready to land - declare war on Ghandi! 32 troops land to overlook Karachi defended by spear! Sci/Lux to 40/20 for Refining in 2 - want 2000g for Wall St interest next turn.

IT: China wants MA vs Japan - sorry! Fend off 3 cavs - 2 elite inf.

1360AD(9) - Loose 1 cav capturing Karachi.

IT: US complete! Karachi pacified. Warrior approaches...

1365AD(10) - Hurry lib in Karachi to get dyes in border. Need to hurry harbor next! Sci/Lux to 50/20 for Steel in 6.

Summary:

Japan at war w/Mao,Cathy,Liz.
We're at war w/Ghandi.
We should protect Reading from Jap Longbows, in case Norwhich gets sacked.
Hurry harbor in Karachi to get new lux items.
Keep treasury ABOVE 2000g to get the full benefit of Wall St (200gpt)
Hoover in 5 - Berlin should build military academy next.

SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1365_01.SAV)

Nice turns Alamo! I believe Cuivienen is next, correct?

@ Sesn: :rotfl:

I can so relate to your philosophies...

I finished COTM1, and in under 40 hours. My actual playing time was around 26-30. [dance]

Final stats: Domination in 770 AD.
Firaxis score 5266
Jason score 10720
Play time 37:32

That's a really good game for me. The bad news is that Megalou finished with domination 2 turns before me, and darkness finished 1 turn earlier. If I hadn't made a few tactical errors I could possibly have had a medal. :aargh:

Oh well, my goal was to break the top 10, and that is still a possibility (fingers crossed).

Looks like a :goodjob: is owed to each of you.

Three techs down the line, and some dyes to make pretty clothes. Looks like we'll be waiting around for Japan to finish their UN build if things keep moving quickly.

I didn't get to play COTM1, but those certainly look like some good numbers to me.

Thanks Sesn. I look forward to your competition in COTM2! I have a sense we will both be leaning heavily toward :ninja:. What do you think?

We need to start planning one of the most difficult things in all of Civ: a wonder cascade. If we can get Japan started on a wonder, and then time our own build of the same wonder, we could flop then to the UN and shave many turns off our vicory date. It is difficult to do, but could add a lot to our score if we can pull it off.

First, we need to determine exactly when fission will become available. Second, we need to decide which is the best wonder to use for the ruse. Third, (and I expect Sesn will like this part), we need to position our troops outside the city that will flop to building the UN.

Hey, the way I see it, there is no greater victory than complete and utter decimation. Forgive me if I go a bit over the top sometimes.

As far as the wonder cascade, that's quite an intruiging proposition. The problem is which wonder to use. Which ones are even available? Hoover's might otherwise be a good one, but we're almost done with it. I can't even think of another one that would help us before SETI and the UN. Has anyone discovered Free Artistry yet? Is that even a tech/wonder in PTW? I would say that if we figured an average of five turns per tech, that would give us some room, as we're running 4 turns now.

I think you are right. If we can set up a cascade it will probably have to be using Shakespeare (which is in PTW).

China has Democracy, and is probably working on Free Artistry. Shakespear is a 400 shield wonder. Japan does not have a big shield city near the capital, so the cascade would probably work well.

Good job on COTM1, bradleyfeanor!

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

Player priorities:
1 - Good relations with everyone except India
2 - Protect Reading from Tokugawa (easier than Norwich).
2 - Grab additional lux from India (need harbor).
3 - Eliminate Ghandi, if possible (friendly with Tokugawa).
4 - After steel, trade Demo to Toku (if needed) - trade Mao Spice+Saltpeter+SciMeth = Demo+??g
5 - Reseach Free Artistry and trade to Toku, then back to Motorized
6 - Keep treasury above 2000g for Wall St income (+200g)
7 - Secure borders at home and abroad for eventual war w/Japan

Thanks Alamo. Congrats to you on GOTM32 as well!

Those Player Priorities look good to me, but I am a little confused on #4. Is that simply a trade to speed up Japan and make China like us more, or is there a more subtle reason behind it?

That was to get Japan started on Shakespears ASAP. China has Demo, which is needed for Free Artistry.

Edit ii: If Cuivienen doesn't post first then go ahead and beat on Ghandi, bf.

I thought bradleyfeanor was before me... Anyway, I would have had time had i seen this sooner, but I don't. Take it away, bf.

I won't be able to play until tomorrow (Monday) after work. If someone wants to slip in a turn before then (pending Alamo approval), feel free.

Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

Whoever grabs it first can go.

Looks like we're actually ahead in turns, but there are 3 teams that have finished already.

Sorry team Alamo, but I didn't get off work until late. I will try to play tomorrow morning, but it might not be until tomorrow evening. If you can grab it Cuivienen, please do so!

Brad

Okay, then, got it.

Rename Leipzig to 67_Hugelkuste and Karachi to 66_Karachi. Did anyone notice that the Indians have two island colonies near our coast? It'll take longer than expected to remove Gandhi from the world.

1) --

The Indians counterattack with... War Elephants :lol:
The French begin withdrawing Workers from our territory (don't sneak attack us, Joan!)

Lots of builds, no point in going into them all... Karachi finishes its Library, starts Harbor.

Kolhapur has ONE Spearman in defence... We take it. Renamed 68_Kolhapur. Begin starvation.

York starts the Military Academy.

2) --

Take Calcutta, this time from two Riflemen, two Cavalry and a Spearman. I guess India is getting its act together. Renamed and starved.

Take Jaipur from a Rifle and Spear. Renamed and starved.

3) --

Take Madras from a drafted Rifle, a Cavalry and three Spears. Renamed and starved.

4) --

Trade Spices, Saltpeter and Scientific Methid to China for Silks, Democracy, World Map and 25 gpt.

We get a GL attacking Hyderabad. I'm not sure what to do with him, but he heads back towards Karachi. Both Delhi and Hyderabad will fall next turn (Unless the Indians draft the hell out of both, which they might.)

5) --

We get Steel. The bad news? Japan already has Democracy. Where they got it from, I have no idea, but they have it. *sigh* Begin research on Free Artistry. Due in 4 at 30% (hehe)

We complete Hoover Dam in Berlin [party]

Bengal, one of the Indian island-cities, falls. Renamed 72_Bengal.

Delhi falls with only token resistance (drafted Rifle, Cavalry and Longbow).

After putting up an admirable defense, killing three Cavalry, Hyderabad's single Rifleman dies and the city is taken.

6) --

Just an aside -- we have solid, verifiable proof that the AI does, in fact, build Armies:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Japan-Army.png

7) --

China offers 7 gold and 4 gpt for an RoP. Agreed!

Capture Bombay, rename, starve, etc.

8) --

Discover Free Artistry. Trade to Japan for World Map, 12 gpt and 61 gold.
York finishes the Military Academy. York is currently at 71 spt, but still needs a lot of Worker attention to reach full potential, which may well be over 100 spt.

We take Chittagong, the other Indian island town. Renamed.

We lose two Cavalry and an Infantry attacking Lahore and have no more troops in the area. I guess I bungled the invasion of India...

9) --

Well the above is really both turns 8 and 9... Kinda got mixed up.

10) --

Hyderabad flips :( We retake it.

I'm out of time, so I left a lot of units unmoved.

Nice turns, Cuivienen. I don't believe I have ever seen an AI army outside of a scenario. Cool!

I wouldn't say that was a bungle, CVN. I count about a dozen cities taken. Seems pretty good to me.

Regarding the leader: Unless we have a bunch of elites available to try for another one, I say sit on him until we can gift fission to Japan, then rush Shakespeare's so they cascade to UN. We are rapidly approaching our endgame, and everyone needs to be on the same page for how this will play out.

Good moves, Cuivienen. RoP with China is good, though we'll get Mao's vote anyway.

I agree on using the MGL to hurry Shakespear (after Japan gets Fission). We can build our own armies soon.

Japan is probably researching FA itself, but we can go ahead and give it to them. That cav army is going to fight Mao, right?

Culture flips are inevitable, if you play long enough. I gave up my last game after my belated continental campaign stalled due to a culture flip. I was probably going to loose anyway - Spain on an island while Jerxes runs away with the tech and military lead on a continent with backward wimps.

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

Discover Free Artistry. Trade to Japan for World Map, 12 gpt and 61 gold.
York finishes the Military Academy. York is currently at 71 spt, but still needs a lot of Worker attention to reach full potential, which may well be over 100 spt.

They should have already started it. Now we just need to get to Fission before they can finish.

Yes, I see now. As we get closer to Fission we can start spending the seed money on research.

We should start building infantry, and Panzers when MotoTran is done. Having 3 armies and the pentagon would be nice, too.

We will have to wait for the vote to come up again after we capture the UN town, so we should be prepared to hold that town. Of course holding every town we capture will improve our score.

The vote will be after 11 turns or 20 turns, depending on whether Toku calls a vote right after completing the UN.

BTW, Team Akots has really shot up. They must be taking the second continent.

1415, preturn Everybody looks quite happy. Good. It looks like Japan probably got FA from the French, because Joan is building Shakespeare. We are losing 230+ gpt. I think I will let it go until we get Combustion, but we will fall below 2000g in the bank.

We do not need all those cavalry around England because we have an ROP with her, so I keep 5 around the city and send the rest to the fronts.

Man, I am in a tight spot militarily. We have 78 infantry and are building more, but they are all fortifying our cities on our old continent. We really only need about 20 there since we have railroads. Our new Indian cities stand empty next to Japanese troops. That’s an uncomfortable situation at best. Also, all our boats (only 9!) are up by the little island. It would take them 13 moves to get troops to the new continent, so there is nothing I can do in the short term. We are defenseless in the single place where we are vulnerable. Our leader is stranded there, and Japan has 12 cavalry and an army next to our undefended cities.

I know we needed a few boats to go get the island cities, but I am not sure it was a wise idea to send all of them. There are troops onboard the ships, but I am not sure where they are going. I am about to spend a whole lot of money rushing galleons, because I can’t see any other option. Rush 3 galleons on the East coast and 3 on the west coast.

There are a lot of our non-corrupt cities building military that still have no university or bank, so I switch them over. It is too early for building lots of military because the unit support will just slow us down. We still have plenty of time to amass troops to take the UN from Japan, and we have more than enough units to defend ourselves if we can get some transported to the new continent.

Too bad we don’t have Sanitation, but I suppose it is a bit late for that now. We could have done 4-turn research and had a lot of money left over. I notice that our Lux deal with Japan will expire in 5 turns. Since it would be unwise to renew it, I look for any city with an unhappy person and set it to temple or cathedral.

<Enter>

IBT Our galleons to the north automove. I decide to let them because I am quite curious as to where they are going. 4 Jap Cavs and one army fortify outside the empty city of Calcutta.

1420 Kill the drafted Rifle and the spear in Bangalore and we take it. Discovered a fortified Galleon in Rheims!?! Move troops into mountains near Japanese on our continent (our troops were on the plains), load up boats to send to new continent, rush a library in Bombay.

IBT The troops outside Calcutta move elsewhere. Whew!

1425 Build lots of stuff, move stuff. Combustion due next turn. The galleons stopped by the northern town of Bengal. I don’t know if that was their destination or if they stopped because a Japanese ship is next to them. The mystery remains.

IBT Get Combustion, Mass Production due in 5 at -7gpt. We have 1535 in the bank.

1430 Switch almost all coastal cities to either Harbor or Destroyer. Killed the Indians last city and took Lahore. The other troops are going to fortify the other cities and the border with Japan.

1435 Switch all military builds (in cities that need no more improvements) to cavalry, because we simply don’t need any more Infantry: if we pull the Infantry from our cities to attack Japan (which will be perfectly safe, I promise!!!) It will also save us the unnecessary support cost. We don’t need cavalry either, but I will use them to rush the Destroyers and Harbors and such. We will be able to build Panzers soon, and the war with Japan is going to be a joke. Japan has communism and China has Sanitation. They are both a bit expensive right now so I wait. China has Replacable Parts, but they lack rubber and I’m not giving it to them. The Japanese city of Fukushima holds Japan’s only source of rubber, so we may want to keep that in mind.

IBT We get the final palace expansion.

1440 Begin setting up a chain of ships to reach Japan in one turn…when the time comes, of course. First I will upgrade them to Transports.

1445 Upgrade some Galleons (and our old galley) to Transports.

1450 Russia starts Shakespeare. You know guys, at this rate we might not be able to GET Japan to build the UN…

IBT The Chinese capture Fukushima, the only source of Rubber the Japanese have!!! This could be bad, I think I sense a shift in the balance of power. China has been researching very rapidly during my turns—much faster than Japan. China also has much stronger cities (albeit less) than Japan.

1455 Disband lots of new Cavalry, etc. etc. Trade China Industrialization for Sanitation and Maps.

Japan demands Coal. Oh damn. Lets see, a 20 turn agreement with Japan. That should expire right before we get Fission. If I say no and they declare war, we can destroy them, but that isn’t what we want right now. I am afraid if I say no, we will be forced to kill many of Japans units, and China will pull definitively ahead of them. I hate to do it, but I give in. China is looking too strong in comparison to Japan. Since we now have an agreement, I go ahead and trade them for a luxury.

1460 More of the same.

1465 More of the same

I was setting up a line of transports on either side of the continent so that we could transport troops to Japan in one turn once they get the UN. I was using the cavalry builds to rush a few temples and lots of destroyers (disbanding them in the destroyer-building cities). I didn’t want to build up our military before we need them, because all that does is slow down our research. But feel free to do whatever you want with them. We have an army, but I was saving him for Panzers, which we should have in 3 turns.
We also have an available leader. We were saving him to build Shakespeare and flip the Japanese to the UN, but I am thinking that will not happen now.

We now have a 20 turn agreement with Japan.

There is oil near Canterbury but don't hook it up. It is the only source we have on the main continent, and we don’t want it exhausted.

China is getting very strong. We may have a problem.

Japan is a no-wonder-building #$%@$%#!!! How are we going to get these jokers to build the UN for us?

>>SAVE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1465_01.SAV)

I wonder if it might have been better to deny the demand and destroy Japan? Then there would be no doubt who the other UN vote would be. Also, what are we going to do to insure China doesn't get to Fission before Japan can get the UN?

They do look like a solid set of turns though. I have to admit, I always forget about disbanding units in corrupt cities. One of many strategies I have yet to use very effectively.

Sesn, I completely agree on destroying Japan instead. Here is why I didn't: when they demanded coal, I immediately alt-tabbed out of civ in order to launch my browser, intending to ask for a team vote on the matter. Instead I got a computer freeze. :( I rebooted, and found my internet connection was down. :aargh: At that point, I decided that a paradigm shift in strategy (like attacking Japan and pushing China toward the UN) might not be appreciated by the team, so I didn't declare war. But I really, really, really wanted to. In the back of my mind I was also still worried about the vote though. Not having much experience with Diplo victories, I was slightly afraid that killing Japan and attacking China--the only civ that I KNOW will vote for us--might make it impossible to win by a vote for hundreds of years. If I had not had that fear I would have definitely destroyed Japan.

So what say you Mr. Diplo-victory (Alamo), could we still have won the first vote if I had declared war on Japan?

As far as the disbanding-units strategy goes, it is more economically sound than setting cities to weath in this situation. The drawback is that it is UNBELIEVABLY TEDIOUS! Say 10 Cavalry were built in a turn: for each one I had to go to F1 and find a city that needed some help: then I would have to go to Find City in order to locate dang thing, then move, then disband. :shakehead

Doesn't exactly make for an exciting game, to say the least. But it did get us quite a few happy people and a few destroyers.

Bad luck with the PC - good thing you had autosave, eh?

Giving Japan coal is ok - it will help them build the UN, right? I bet Toku would have backed down, as he was already having trouble with Mao. Having a short, defensive war with Japan would have been ok, though. We don't have to worry too much about breaking a trade deal with them in the final war.

We absolutely need Japan to build the UN, as Toku is the bad boy of the work while Mao is the saint. Mao is obviously tech trading with our neighbors and is still allied with Liz, right? We should be prepared to take Mao out quickly if he gets near UN completion.

We need to intervene in the Intra-Sino war. There are a couple of options.

We could give Japan RoP immediately to counter the China RoP, and give them rubber if they can't retake their rubber town. Hopefully Toku would prevail and beat down the China menace.

Alternately, we could form a wall across the continent and slow down the military campaign (and help Japan retake their town). Hopefully that would lead to a peace treaty and Japan's wonder build, but it is also a risk of provoking Toku to attack.

Those boats must have been heading for Ghandi's last towns.

I must say that disbanding troops still gives me a queasy feeling. If the AI was smart they would al suddenly dogpile on us and deal a fatal blow. Keep in mind there are a few Japanese towns on the home continent to take, also.

BTW, hooking up resources does not affect the depletion, or so I have read.

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

I think both your ideas are good ones. I prefer the second option (because I detest attacking fortified infantry in a city), but giving Japan rubber and an ROP may be necessary given China's growing strength. If a wall of troops could encourage a peace treaty, though, that would be ideal. Was anyone else on the team able to look at the save, so we can get a few more opinions/options?

You need not worry about an AI dogpile delivering a fatal blow. We are far, far beyond their ability to hurt militarily: we can bring around 50 infantry to bear at any location on our home continent, and we can produce several units per turn. In a few turns we will also have panzers, which we will not be disbanding :). The only thing we need to be careful of is that our palace and FP are defended in the case of ROP rape.

I thought someone did an exhaustive experiment on resource exhaustion, but I can't remember who. I tried to google it but failed. IIRC, it showed that a resouce cannot expire unless it is connected by road.

It will not add a significant amount to our score to take any Japanese cities other than the one that builds the UN, so I wouldn't take any unless we need to, even after we declare war. If we take a bunch of their cities away, wouldn't we end up facing China in the second UN vote rather than Japan?

Got it,

great turns

hope I do as well

If we take a bunch of their cities away, wouldn't we end up facing China in the second UN vote rather than Japan?

Oops - that is a very good point! We want Japan to have the next highest pop for sure!

I just took a look at the 1465AD save. Here are some observations:

Japan has Fukushima again, apparently.
Japan also has rubber near Echizen, on the island near home.
We have oil near 30 already hooked up.
We need to trade some lux to Joan and Cathy.
Liz is down to 2 towns, and likely to be down to just Reading soon.
Japan has pop of 162, while China has 107 (we have 664).

It appears that Japan is on the offensive against China, as there are Japanese cav visible but no Chinese troops.

I'm not sure that any special attention will be needed. A RoP with Japan may be helpful to beat down Mao a bit.

Wow, Japan must have been very busy in 1465 (I didn't check that turn). China killed more Japanese cavs than vice versa during my turns, but all the fighting was done in China's territory.

That is all very, very good news though! How did you get those population numbers?!?

MapStat?

Anyway, just from my experience during my turns, China was losing badly for a long time as, despite our RoP with them, Japan seemed much more capable of pouring troops south through former Indian territory (admittedly, this is because ours borders had yet to expand in the area). I seriously doubt that China will be able to inflict any real damage on Japan -- Japan is much stronger.

1465AD Turn 0: looked things over

1470AD Turn 1: Builds, start hospitals. Disband new cav in unproductive cities

1475AD Turn 2: More of the same: Trade The Corp to Russia, Japan, China for 320 gold and 80 gpt plus world map. I thought we could use the cash flow.

IBT: China takes Izumi from the Japanese. Japan and China each lost cavs in battles. Motorized Transport -> Flight (4 at –76)

1480AD Turn 3: More of the same.

IBT China destroys Japans Army.

1485AD Turn 4: Trade replaceable parts to Japan for 80 gold and 27gpt. It also brings them to tech parody with China. Building Panzers.

1490AD Turn 5: Trade refining to Japan and China for gems, wm, 21gpt and a lump sum that I forgot. More building

IBT Japan attacks Liz, Liz suffers no losses. Japan and China trade shots.

1495AD Turn 6: Nothing exciting

1500AD Turn 7: Flight -> radio Research to 80% Lux to 0% Markets and MM to minimize impact. Radio in 4 at –74, 01 Berlin Battle Field Med.

IBT: China give ROP +5gpt for ROP, ROP with Joan and Liz

1505AD Turn 8: Moving, building, RR and cutting Jungles, other improvements

1510AD Turn 9: Same, Trade Communism to Joan for WM, 20gold, and 12 gpt.

1515AD Turn 10: More of the same.

Score 3192


http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1515_01.SAV

It looked as if Japan was taking the bigger beating during my turns, it also looks as if the fight is shifting North. China also took one of Japans cities during my turns.

Sounds good, Shoe35. Time to arm to the teeth for the blitzkrieg!

We're getting close to Fission, but China is not far behind. Methinks we will have to prepare for a China campaign.

RoP with Japan may help even out the war.

Next Player
------------
SensOfWthr
alamo
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

Great turns, Shoe!

I assume neither China nor Japan started building a wonder on your turns Shoe?

I hope we can avoid attacking China. Would giving Japan a corrupt city or two (in a secure location) tip the balance and help us avoid going to war with the Chinese? It is a distasteful idea, but I think it is preferable to war with Mao. I fear we may end up in a vote stalemate if we go to war with him.

Panzers should be fun: too bad we only need to defend and take one city with them. We should be sure to have many Panzers in the Japanese city that builds the UN in order to avoid war weariness. Whenever possible, we want to attack to keep the Japanese out of the city, not defend (which gives War Weariness). I expect we will also need a ton of them in order to avoid a flip, because we won't be able to reduce cultural pressure by taking the surrounding cities.

An outside possibility is developing for our endgame. It is only a slight chance, but could be wonderful: Joan has been building Shakespeare for a while. Wouldn't it be sweet if we could get HER to build the UN for us? If we let our agreements with her expire, we could wipe her off the map in one turn...

Could you investigate the city that is building Shakespeare Sesn, to see if it is even a possibility?

@Cuivienen: Mapstat! I forgot we were playing PTW and could still use it--I have gotten too used to Conquests. Do you happen to know if CrpSuite is legal to use for GOTM/SGOTM?

Well, I see the save, but I'm up in two other sg's and I have an Aerosmith concert to attend tonight, so if Alamo is bored before Friday evening .....

Interesting idea about the French. We should probably investigate the city first, but if viable, twould be nice. It does look more and more like China will be our opponent if we don't trim them down...

Ok, I can take a turn tonight. Have fun, and watch out for the dude that looks like a lady ;)

Joan building the UN would be great, if it doesn't take too long.

Got it!

1515AD State of the World

Joan and Cathy building Shakespears - investigate for 125g. Due after 14 turns in Besacon / 59 in Novgorod - both size 5. We could have it in 1 turn (more happies)! I will decide when to grab it by the end of my turn. Sci/Lux to 70/0 for Radio in 1. China is clearing Japanese from our continent - maybe we'll get a culture flip. Sign RoP with Japan - Toku is polite now (the fool). I go ahead and give him steel for 20g. Any reason for Advanced flight? It was selected as the research target. Japanese longbows no longer threatening Reading - whew! :lol: Richtoffen is safely at home. Looks like water crossing should be from Hastings to Hyderabad. Move a couple of troops off a mountain to move to island. 2 panzer armies created, and another due next turn! :goodjob:

IBT: Get Fission for free! Start computers. Trade maps w/Cathy.

1520AD(1) - Can build pentagon now! Move transports to designated crossing - rename for boat hopping. Gift techs to Fission to Toku for a song - Atom +Combust +Elect +Flight +MassProd +Radio +Moto +FISSION. If he doesn't build then I'll form a panzer line to slow the war. Shakespears is pointless, so I'll just build it and we can rush SETI. Berlin has Shakespears in 3.

IBT: Joan wants MPP - not yet! No wonder build :(

1530AD(2) - Switch a bunch of size 12's to hospital. Form Panzer line between Japan and China.

IBT: Last few troops fight. Berlin completes Shakespears - starts Battlefield Med. No wonder build.

1535AD(3) - Pollution starting to be a nuisance.

IBT: Still no wonder.

1540AD(4) - Gift lux to Joan and Cathy. Trade lux to Mao. 1st Channel crossing complete - 8 panzers from forge to battle in 1 move (if there was a battle)!

IBT: Mao wants MPP - how about a map instead? Pentagon complete - 4 panzer armies! No wonder.

1545AD(5) - Sci/Lux to 40/0 for Computers in 1.

IBT: Start Ecology - Mass Transit for pollution towns!

1550AD(6) - Sci/Lux to 80/0 for Ecol in 6. Richtoffen hurries SETI in top sci city - Berlin.

IBT: Nada

1555AD(7) - Berlin builds SETI - starts Lab. Will build labs as panzers complete.

IBT: China takes Norwich. Japan wants more for wines - no more techs! Just trade Ivory.

1560AD(8) - Sci/Lux to 70/0 for Ecol in 3.

IBT: England makes peace w/Japan, finally. Whole bunch of WLTLD's end - not sure why now and not last turn.

1565AD(9) - Berlin starts Battlefield Medicine, again. Sci/Lux to 60/0.

IBT: Japanese warrior attacks - why bother?

1570AD(10) - Some temples/cathedrals build for more happies.

I should have given Fission to Joan instead of Toku! Still no UN building - what's the deal? Japan has had Fission for 9 turns! Should we just take out Mao? At least in SMAC you could arbitrate a peace treaty. Mao has a MPP w/Russia, so he may be waiting for that to expire.

The channel crossing is from Hastings to Hydrabad, across the map boundary. You should be able to move all new panzers into battle on the same turn.

German troops separate the warring factions.

Nice turns Alamo, but OH I wish you had given Fission to Joan before building Shakespeare. :(

What are the land/pop numbers for Japan and China now? Do we need to adjust our plans accordingly?

I've got it, and will *hopefully* get to it tonight.

Yep, I didn't dream that Japan would dawdle with wonder building. Maybe if we started the UN it would light a fire under Tokugawa.

China just captured some piddling towns, so I bet Japan is still second in pop. I'll check later.

Hope Aerosmith was great, Sesn! It would be nice if you played tonight, but, heaven forbid, don't let it interfere with any Friday night drinking!

Alamo, I noticed you replied in the GOTM32 forum regarding Sir Pleb and his diplo/AW victory goal. His statement to the effect of "once you take enough of an AIs cities they will NEVER like you and will block you in a vote" has me more than a little worried, to say the least. So what do you think about that "capture a settler" idea? Looks pretty cool to me: being the only candidate in the vote would certainly solve a few problems!

Never like you is true, but they will still vote for you under the influence of a MPP. I think we're ok in this case. If we were careful to declare war and not pillage too many towns or disband workers, then the attitude will be poor but salvageable.

Even if we're the only candidate they could always abstain.

I don't quite understand the captured settler concept. You somehow trap a settler? I thought they would commit suicide if they could not settle.

Hmmm, I didn't catch the suicide part. I will have to do some more reading. In any case, I hope we don't need to resort to that strategy, as it would take forever. I was hoping that we could finish this game off in the next round of turns, but now I am not so sure.

Here is an excerpt from Bamspeedy's article:

+20 min for furious AI
-5 If you trade or donate a resource.
-5 If you have a Right of Passage with the AI.
-10 If you have a Mutual Protection Pact with the AI.
-5 if you sign an alliance and go to war with that enemy.
-----
-5 Polite :D

We razed an English town, but that is only and additional +1.

BF - Actually, Aerosmith kinda stunk. I've been to about 8 or 10 of their shows now, and this is the first time I walked away disappointed. They sounded good, but they were filming for some movie, and they did about 4 "false" endings to a song so they could get good shots of all of us cheering. Then they sang "Crazy" three times with some blond, who although hot, added nothing to the performance. By the time they actually got around to really playing, the show was 2/3 over, and it was too late to bring it back. :(

Enough of my whining though. The reason I said I'd try to get to this is that because of a strange confluence of forces, I'm up in nearly all my SG's today. The one drawback of being involved in six or seven at a time. :rolleyes:

What do you guys suggest for the game? Should I start the UN and see if that will trigger Japan to start building? What is the most efficient course of action from here? Do we need to formulate a contingency plan? Every turn Japan waits to start building is costing us score.

Options:

Bait Japan by starting UN
Wait a few turns to see if peace comes with expired MPP
Cover the Japanese coast with Panzers (to stop bombards)
Surround Mao's boats with transports the next time they come by
Take out Mao (but don't attack Cathy)
Give Joan/Liz/Cathy a good city to build UN then give her Fission

Unfortunately, because we have the power lead, all of those positive effects are cut in half. Also, a furious AI can be as high as +100 (although I hope to god these guys are not!). Giving them a gift of 100g value will also give us another -5.

@Sesn: Sorry about the concert, that would have really cheezed me off.

Starting the UN sounds like a good idea. My vote still goes to peace with everyone unless China is getting too strong (I think Alamo is checking on that). If China gets Fission, I would give it to Joan immediately just on the off chance she could finish.

As for contingency plans, I would say we wait to see who abstains in the first vote. All who do get obliterated by our Panzers. :evil:

If a vote happens to approach on your turns:

Yup, I will also:
o Purchase embassies
o Give each one something (100g or a tech)
o Take ROPs and MPPs with each (after trading for Nationalism, which I won't research)
o Trade maps
o Make sure I have a luxury/resource trade with each

A quick note: IIRC, the attitude bonus from gifts is a one time thing. If you'll recall, one of things I did way back when we had those barb problems was to gift Joan and Cathy. Maybe that part is out then?

Wow, you are right! I never read that part carefully enough. I have given Cathy, Liz and Joan something as well. How about Mao, have we given him anything?

The only other thing I see in Bamspeedy's article that might help would be to check everyones "preferred" and "shunned" governments. If we can make more people happy by switching governments, it might be worth it.

I would check, but I don't have the game with me right now.

Mapstat says:

Population
-------------
Germany 741
Japan 166
China 100


japan and china are commies, france and russia demos, others republic.

If no UN by mid-turn then I say take out Comrade Mao.

Just wondering... Why don't we build the UN ourselves? Japan would be the other candidate, and I think China and Russia would both vote for us, enough to win since England will almost certainly abstain (just finished war with Toku).

The variant was to win diplo w/o building the UN.

Taking out Mao makes sense because he's the one that could beat us, if nominated.

If you say take him out, then I'm with you.

You heard the man Sesn, release your inner monger: you may :ar15: when ready!

I'm ready. I'll give Japan the first couple of turns to start it. Otherwise, Mao gets the honor of seeing panzers in action first. :evil:

Very sorry for the long delay, basically I'm just an ass. I'll have turns up in a few hours.

Looking over the map, I get a bit worried about the dom limit, since no one has mentioned how close we are to it. I DL and use mapstat, and taking every tile China has would put us EXACTLY over the limit. Curious, huh?

I start assembling more panzers to send to the Indo China region, as I’d like to make short work of China before WW kicks in. I’m able to get approx 35 panzers, along with three armies, staged and ready to go, or at least en route.

I notice we have many research labs in progress. Will these have any effect if we already have SETI? I’ll take note of a couple that will be done next turn and let you know.

I investigate Beijing to see what resistance I should expect. 5 rifles. This is gonna be a slaughter. :evil:

1575 ad (1) – The research lab does indeed still have an effect. I round up the 15 or so inf in Indian cities and upg them all. I think next turn is go time.

1580 ad (2) – Doublecheck to make sure we don’t have any units inside Chinese borders. That done I call Mao and tell him he has foiled our plans for long enough. He asks about the three deals that we currently have with him. Hmm, what to do? I’ll give Japan one more turn to start the thing.

1585 ad (3) – Well, no UN build, and now, no rep. :( I refuse to wait another 12 turns. I have no doubt that once China is battered down a bit, that Japan will make peace and begin the UN. I hope. I declare. Cathy is unwilling to break her MPP with them, so it’ll have to be a two for one deal.

Krasnayorsk (Russian), Izumi, Canton, Tientsin, and Beijing fall. We lose three panzers at Beijing. No other losses to report, except an elite cav I was leader fishing with. :shrug:

1590 ad (4) – We lost two vet cavs in counterattacks. We also lost our supply of gems, so I renegotiate for gems, wines, 45g and 35 gpt and ship Japan Ecology.

Krasnayorsk (Russian), Tsingtao, Anyang, Xinjian, Shanghai, and Nanking fall this turn. We lost 6 panzers total. Interesting to note that I was trying to press an attack with a 2/4 panzer in the Russian capitol, and it lost flawlessly vs an elite spear stationed there.

1595 ad (5) – Suprisingly, there were no culture flips. Sevastopol is captured, mercifully ending the Russians pitiful existence. We take Hangchow and Macao, but get our butts whooped at Chengdu, losing three panzers, with the last running out of movements.

1600 ad (6) – Berlin completes battlefield medicine. City-whose-name-I-forget is autorazed. Chengdu is captured, but the Chinese are not yet eliminated. They must have a stupid settler on a boat somewhere. :mad:

1605 ad (7) – Liz and Joan both ask for an RoP. I don’t see any harm, so I agree. Synth Fib comes in, start on Mini. I think I see the settler in the boat sailing by. Japan finally begins the UN. the bad news is they start it in Tokyo, a 19 spt city. They’ll be done in 53 turns at the current rate.

1610 ad (8) – I guess that wasn’t the right galleon, as I didn’t get a elimination popup. Will need to find it soon, as WW is creeping into the empire.

1615 ad (9) – Nanking flips back to Chinese. Load strike force onto ships. Force consists of two armies, 9 elite panzer, 24 vet panzer, and 5 MI.

1625 ad (10) – Retake Nanking. Pollution is becoming problematic. The task force is sent on a goto order to the water outside Tokyo.

We are still at war with China, only because I couldn’t eliminate them and didn’t want them to be able to vote when the time comes. This is becoming an issue due to WW. Not sure what the best solution is for that. We just made an army, which I have not moved, since I didn’t know if we would want to load it with mech inf, or perhaps wait for MA. I zoned out and went for Minituarization rather than Rocketry, which would have shown us the aluminum. We need to be very careful going forward as Mapstat says we are only 42 tiles from the dom limit.

I have no idea what impact my actions will have on the upcoming vote, I only hope I didn't ruin it for us.


>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1620_01.SAV)

...I was trying to press an attack with a 2/4 panzer in the Russian capitol, and it lost flawlessly vs an elite spear stationed there.
:spear:

Sesn, you can't let those brilliant smiley opportunities pass you by!

I don't know how big an impact breaking our trade agreements will have on the vote either. I guess we will find out. Do you think we should try to capture that Chinese boat rather than kill it? Then we could just kill everybody after we get the UN, and we would be the only civ voting. Can't lose that way!

Since we are 45 tiles below the domination limit, we need to use MapStat frequently. We may have to sell off some cultural improvements around our borders at some point.

Tokyo is only 19spt? That's with factory?

Breaking a deal hurt a bit, but it's probably not a deal-breaker.

Well, Mao will not be a candidate, but he certainly won't vote for us. There are plenty of transports to use as ocean scouts. Peace would not be bad while we locate the errant settler. We just have to find him and follow him for 20 turns, or UN completion.

So how does that capture work? Do they get a vote or not? 1 for and 1 against is victory?

Good point about domination. We should start disbanding the low pop cities, like the island ones. Build workers or settlers. The empty land may attract the wayward chinese settler.

SETI was changed from labs everywhere to double science in city. I started some labs because I was afraid that if I built too many panzers then someone would disband them. ;)

Do we get some bonus if we get through the tech tree?

Next Player
------------
alamo
SensOfWthr
Cuivienen
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35

I didn't see a factory in Tokyo.

He would not get a vote since there is no city, but it would allow us to call a vote.

I continued to build labs in cities, along with other improvements.

There is a miniscule bonus for each future tech that we research.

Some of the Chinese borders will be growing soon, so we'll probably have to check dom limit nearly every turn, but I don't think it's time to abandon cities yet.

I wonder if Tokyo is poorly developed in typical AI fashion: too much irrigation and not enough mines. If so, it might not be a bad idea to sign an ROP so we can send in a team of workers to get the city up to speed. We already have numerous trade agreements with Japan, so one more probably wouldn't hurt.

That is exactly right, BF. IIRC, they are also working 4 coastal tiles, and I'm not sure that they have a harbor! I did notice that there was certainly a surplus of food though.

I'm behind in a couple of Sgs and hurrying my way through the COTM before the end of the month. Can I be swapped with bradley?

Fine by me.

Do we have any priorities other than:

1) Speed up Tokyo with a work team.
2) Finish off China.
3) Build military and wait.

Watch the domination limit - only 42 tiles to limit, according to mapstat. I use Mapstat 3.1 alpha 2.

After Tokyo go ahead and build some rails from Tokyo to Calcutta - we will use them later. We may have to raze Yokohama.

There are several transports waiting in Hastings.

You could make peace with Mao if WW kicks in - Japan will still be at war.

I just peeked at Orleans - it is making 26spt and will have a factory in 5 turns. Maybe we should just give Fission to Joan! In this case I suspect that Japan would want to declare war on Joan to stop the build, so we may have to defend her against Japan! :wallbash:

I think #3 is all set BF. I have a strike force of about 40 units (including two armies) en route to a launch point near Tokyo. I actually had stopped building units due to increasing cost.

there are still about 30 units stacked outside Berlin, and more in China's land.

1620, preturn Looks good. I leave everything the way it is going.

IBT Disease hits 5 cities. :rolleyes:

1625, turn1 I consider gifting fission to France, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of her and Japan both building the UN at the same time: a great leader surprise could be ugly. I sign an ROP with Japan and begin moving workers toward Tokyo. I also put a lot of our troops in cities (to avoid a sneak attack). Upgrade a few infantry to Mech. Infantry.

1630, 2 Rush an Airport in Delhi. I will also build a few on our mainland. They can come in handy sometimes if a unit slips by or something. Miniaturization is due so I turn down research.

1635, 3 Begin researching Genetics, due in 7. Start York and Konigsberg on Wonder prebuilds. I notice there is no Aluminum on the map. Hmmmm. Japan starts the Manhattan project. I investigate Kyoto. He has 5 infantry, is generating 24 spt, and will be done in 30 turns…before the UN! We are 23 tiles from Domination. I stop all library builds on the new continent and abandon one city, Macao.

1640, 4 I spot a Chinese Ironclad and Caravel outside Tatung, so I rush a Destroyer there. It was expensive, but I felt it was worth it.

1645, 5 Teach Toku how to develop a city.

1650, 6 kill the Chinese.

1655, 7 Japan demands coal and I capitulate.

1660, 8 Reduce science, Genetics due next turn. Put a few cities on wealth, because I tire of building and disbanding units (plus, I don’t think Alamo likes it when I do that :))

1665, 9 I go ahead and upgrade all our Infantry (740g). We drop below 2000g in the treasury (sorry, but I didn’t want to go around doing one at a time).

1670, 10 Tokyo is generating 22 spt and will be done with the UN in 35. The reason it is still taking so long is because the dolt went into anarchy at some point. :mad: He just formed a democracy this turn. I begin railroading southward toward our Indian colonies. Mapstat says we are 36 tiles from the Domination limit.

I detest moving workers in the late game. :wallbash: I still don't comprehend how you finish so fast Alamo.

The save is here: >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1670_01.SAV). Our Jason score is 3037. Does anyone recall what it was last turn? Are we dropping now? :cry:

On a lighter note, what do you guys think of the start position for COTM2?

For the next player:

The navy is waiting outside Tokyo.
There are lots of units on our mainland near Berlin. If you need more, I put a few in Canterbury, Berlin and York for sneak attack protection in those important cities.
We have airlift capability to our Indian colonies. Japan has been moving lots of units around our borders and he has ships around the coast. You might want to airlift a few units over there.

There is no Aluminum on the map because some idiot (ME!) forgot to research rocketry before going to minituarization. My only excuse is that I haven't played many modern age games recently....

IIRC (and who knows if I actually do) our Jason score was around 2800 last turn. Does that seem right?

I haven't looked at the start position for COTM2, but maybe I can actually find time to try that out this month...

Regarding the COTM start position: prepare yourself for the worst!

I don't have any experience with modern warfare either, and what I do have was in Civ Vanilla. This was actually the first time I saw a radar tower in a game :), so I didn't catch the rocketry thing either.

I hope that is correct on the Jason score. That would be a nice healthy increase.

Considering you and I are modern-age illiterate, I guess I will direct this question to the others: how much do we need to worry about nukes given that Japan will have the capability when we attack?

Ok, Mao is history! Japan builds Manhattan before UN? Stupid !#$* AI! :gripe:

Considering that Tokugawa can't build a wonder, I doubt that he can build a nuke fast enough to threaten us.

Next Player
------------
alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Cuivienen
Shoe35

Cuivienen, shoe35 - whoever is free can go ahead.

We are waiting for Tokugawa to build the UN. Be sure to watch border expansions - 23 tiles or less to domination. We need big metros with lots of happy faces for score.

From what I can tell from the calculator page our Jason score is pretty flat at 5600. The diplo time benchmark is at 800AD.

The calculator was acting funny, though. It would not accept the input for turns before 1400AD.

Just looked at the start for COTM2. Very interesting. Obviously the worker move is going to dictate the rest of the game. It seems likely that a palace move will be necessary ASAP. I find it hard to believe that Ainwood would stick us on a small island to start, when you wouldn't be able to expand until MM. But what do I know? Assuming that the color has not been altered, Dutch seem like the most probable civ.

@Alamo: Well, I guess holding steady in score is better than going down. The wooden spoon is hovering dangerously close though...

@Sesn: I am hoping that it isn't the Dutch. It seems a terrible waste of their Agricultural trait. The English would be fun, as I haven't played with them in Conquests yet. The Man-o-War looks quite interesting. There are several options for the worker and the initial build sequence on this start, and I agree, they could lead to a great or a terrible game. The early palace jump is definitely going to be important, and I suspect such a big early strategic move will lead to a great disparity in the scores. Those who move the palace quick: high score, those who don't: low score.

The real question will be where the palace moves to, that will dictate how difficult it is to do. I would guess that the start is on a peninsula, making the jump "potentially" easier. In fact, an early war might be nice to secure land/pop an MGL for the jump, right down our alley, huh?

Yes, :hammer: AI good, :love: AI bad. Down with diplomacy. Down with modern ages. An early palace jump into/next to an AIs territory would be sweet indeed! I am glad DaveMcW published that article on the finer details of the palace jump: I did not realize that number of nearby cities was a factor as well as population.

I think we're over the limit for waiting. Anyone want to go?

I have guests today, so I can't go.

We are waiting for Tokugawa to build the UN. Be sure to watch border expansions - 23 tiles or less to domination. We need big metros with lots of happy faces for score.

I can't play, because I will be at an outdoor jazz concert tonight. Plus, I just played...

Well, I'm up in two other SG's but if no one else has picked up the gauntlet by then, I'll grab it......

Who is supposed to be up?

By the last full round of play, it would be Cuivienen.

alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Cuivienen
Shoe35

There may be some confusion of original play order versus current play order. I assume that the last order was the best, but apparently that's not always true.

We can just wrap this turkey up, though. Hopefully UN victory is no more than 30 turns away.

bradley only posted yesterday. I know the game is approaching the end but it won't hurt to have a breather for a few more hours. :)

Breathing is good...

It's a whole new month - is everyone playing CGOTM?

So what to do now? It has been well over 48 since BF posted his log, and no word from Shoe or CVN. Do you want to pick it up again Alamo?

Personally, I just want this thing to be done. We've been analyzing and strategizing for so long, I'm anxious to see our result, and where it stacks up to others.

Oh, and yes, I'm actually gonna play COTM this month, if it's a difficulty (monarch or emperor) that I can play leisurely. If it's DG or higher, I won't have the time to give it all the attention it deserves.

I'm currently in 8 SG's, but three of them (including this one) are very close to conclusion, so that puts me at my limit of about five. I can play more than that, but not if I want to keep my GF around. ;) :lol:

Edit - Dutch, Monarch, raging barbs. Looks like much blood will be spilt in the name of William!

Personally, I just want this thing to be done.

Hear Hear!!!

8, did you say 8 SGs??? If I did that I wouldn't have the time to sleep or eat!!!

I think this months COTM will in reality play more like emperor than monarch, because of the lay of the land in the screenshot. If you choose to play "predator" class, then it may well play like Demigod. Although, if what looks like a little island turns out to be a nice continent with cows and wheat aplenty, these level increases will not apply.

I am very, very fortunate in the GF department: she plays GOTM/COTM too! :queen:

I may be able to grab it tonight, if nobody else does.

I may consider giving Fission to Joan if Kyoto is still 30+ turns away and Joan can get there sooner.

As I implied before, my vote goes to whatever gets us to a resolution the quickest. Actually, if we can get Joan to build it, I would think that Japan would be very likely to vote for us as we haven't been bad to them at all.

Yeah Toku should be fine. Surviving the first vote will be the tricky part if Joan builds the UN, but I'm sure a few MPP's would make that doable.

Cuivienen, Shoe35, take a turn if you wish.

okay got it. sorry for being away. looking for a new job

Job, schmob, where's your priorities man!

But seriously, I didn't know you were looking. I hear there's a big software company in your neck of the woods.

Good thing somebody got it - I got tied up installing a CD changer.

More than one actually, not sure which may be hiring

1670AD 0: Look around Japan 30 turns from UN

1675AD 1: Numerous builds complete. Working on increasing production for Tokyo, building RR and cleaning up Pollution.

IBT Global warning removes jungle.

1680AD 2: Same as above.

IBT Recycling -> Rocketry;

1685AD 3: switch wealth to recycling plants

IBT Lost gems and wines

1690AD 4: trade computers for gems and wines.

1695AD 5: more of the same

1700AD 6: ditto

IBT renew ROP with Liz and Joan, MPP with Joan

1705AD 7: Rocketry -> Space Flight: busy work

1710AD 8: busy work

1715AD 9: same

1720AD 10: Same, hire clown in Canton, Japan has UN due in 17 turns. (unless he converts some of the mines to irrigated fields.)

Score 4260

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1720_01.SAV

Excellent, a mere 2 rounds left.

Next Up
---------
alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35
Cuivienen

Don't be so quick to assume, Alamo. 17 turns to completion. At that point, they won't call a vote since we'll be allied against them. So then we have to capture it, and wait another 11 or twenty turns, right? We might all get another turn before it's all said and done.

Very true, my bad. 2 rounds 'till the UN complete (hopefully).

Sorry I missed this earlier. Got it, will play tomorrow.

Okay, I've now delayed this twice, but for some reason my computer's CD drive refuses to open (I've no idea why), so I need to be skipped. Sorry about the delay!

Ok, no problem. I highly recommend a no-cd patch.

Got it.

It is ONE TURN TO UN! [dance]

The next player needs to declare war on Japan and sign MA's with Liz and Joan. The invasion force should be sufficient, but just in case there are several MA's in the former Chinese territory. There are 25 tiles to domination, so do NOT capture any extra towns!

It may be better to wait a turn before landing the invasion force. Japanese units could be lured into the former Chinese territory and taken out of the way for the landing turn.

HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1780_01.SAV)

I went ahead and played 20 turns, since it was pretty boring stuff. I could have added more to the invasion force, but there are 48 units waiting offshore. It was mainly pollution watch and milking chores.

I accidentally hit return one too many times, so the next player picks at 1780AD. Sorry.

Turnlog:

1720AD: Japan is working all the mined tiles, so UN in 17 turns. Invasion force waiting offshore. Moved forces into Chinese cities. Disbanded some cav. Sci/Lux to 50/0 for space in 2. Hurry harbor in Sevastapol. Misc building assignments from wealth.

Mapstat: 36 tiles to domination limit.

1725AD(1): builds, workers

IBT: RoP with Japan expires - no renewal. @#$% japanese working irrigating Tokyo!

1730AD(2): Sci/Lux to 60/0 for Satellites in 4. Riot in chinese city - need markets! Hurry 3 markets.

IBT: Expelled from Japanese territory. 11 workers stranded on tip of NE Japanese continent.

1735AD(3): builds, workers

IBT: Borders expand, but 37 tiles to dom now?

1740AD(4): hurry another market.

IBT: Another expand - 29 tiles to dom!

1745AD(5): builds, workers

IBT: Barbs approach Tsingtao! Stranded workers in Jap territory now. Jap settler on southern tip.

1750AD(6): builds, workers. Sci/Lux to 20/0 for Espionage in 4 (need market/hospital money)

IBT: Japanese city of Bizen flips to us - 9 additional tiles, but on our continent - ok.

1752AD(7): Mapstat says 20 tiles to domination. Collect some stranded workers. Hurry 5 markets. Decide to disband 76_Chittagong to increase our tile cushion.

1754AD(8): Hurry 2 hospitals.

IBT: Apollo complete.

1756AD(9): Hurry several aquaducts. All stranded workers on transports.

1758AD(10): Sci/Lux to 70/0 for Nuclear in 4. Hurry some markets/aquaducts. Mapstat now says 11 tiles to limit!

1760AD(11): builds, workers

1762AD(12): builds, workers. Sci/Lux to 60/0 for Nuclear in 2. Hurry worker in 76 to abandon city. Investigate Tokyo - 13 turns to UN! Only 5 tiles mined.

IBT: Jap tank appears. Borders expand again.

1764AD(13): Mapstat says 15 tiles to limit. Target Bengal for next downsize. Divert workers to revisit Tokyo. Hurry 2 hospitals.

IBT: Lost wines and gems - have to give Rocketry to get it back.

1766AD(14): Sign another RoP to send in workers. Sci/Lux to 70/0 for Laser in 4. Hurry a hospital.

1768AD(15): Remined 2 Tokyo tiles. Hurried 2 aquaducts.

1770AD(16): Remined more.

IBT: RoP's with everyone else renewed.

1772AD(17): UN in 5 turns! Native workers flee.

1774AD(18): Sci/Lux to 30/0 for Amphibious in 4 - more money for markets/aquaducts/hospitals. Hurried 2 markets.

1776AD(19): Hurried some markets. Bengal disbanded. Mapstat says 25 tiles to limit.

1778AD(20): Hurry markets. Check Tokyo - 2 turns to UN!

1780AD - Ooops, too far! Nothing moved so far.

There are some foreign workers stuck in Japanese territory that were there to prevent complete irrigation.

I went ahead and played 20 turns, since it was pretty boring stuff

Thank you, thank you Alamo!

@#$% japanese working irrigating Tokyo!

I only know a bit about programing, but I am pretty sure it would be easy to program the AI to develop his tiles more efficiently. It's just simple math for Pete's sake. I think this is one of my biggest disappointments in Civ3.

Great turns, we could possibly put this game to bed on Cuivienen's turn or Sesn's! :)

Another thing (or two):

You will loose 2 lux after declaring war - you will have to deal with unhappiness one way or the other. Japan will loose a lux, too. Hopefully that will not cause any delay.

Joan will probably be able to take the Jap cities on our continent, if you clear the way for her.

Calcutta is poorly defended - don't loose it!

Next Up
---------
alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35
Cuivienen

OK, I see the save. Not sure if I can get to it tonight, but I'll certainly try.

Looks like you signed another RoP with japan on turn 14 or so. What kind of affect will that have on the cost of MA's with everyone when I break it to declare war? Hopefully, we're ahead in tech enough that I can still buy them for some ungodly prices?

Right on both accounts.

We have a RoP AND a trade deal - nobody will want to make a deal with us again, unless there are free techs involved!

I had to go back in and re-mine Tokyo after the first deal expired. After that, I renewed a trade deal to get back those lux, just because I was easier than re-mooding all the cities.

Maybe you should just turn on all city governors for the next few turns, then straighten it all out at the end of your round.

I may well turn on the governors for the first turn. The problem with breaking a lux deal is that you don't get the free turn to catch the happiness issues. I'm sure I'd have quite a few riots on the ensuing turn. Alternatively, I may just jack up the luxury rate, and lower it as appropriate the nex turn. That may be the better way to go since we're technically not supposed to use the governors.

Sorry guys. didn't make it through this tonight. My comp crashed on the first interturn twice, and I'm too tired to try again. I'll fiddle around with it again tomorrow.

OK, as noted in the thread, this is my third (and final) attempt at this. I have occasionally had these problems before with wars in the modern age, so if I crash again, I will probably request a skip.

A thought I had: I should probably save at the end of each turn in case there is a vote at the start of the next, right? I think I will, as I’ve never had to submit a diplo win save and I’d rather be safe than sorry.

1780 ad (1) – Declare on Japan. Invite Joanie for SciMeth and ivory. Invite Liz for Nav and incense. The luxuries were unnecessary, but I felt it would add some incentive to keep them at war. Ratchet luxury up to a pre-emptive 40%. Land forces on either side of Tokyo. Pick off a few stray units on the home island to try and help out the French. Wait for the Japanese response.

IT – Actually see a few Japanese bombers. French take Yakutsk, but are entirely unsuccessful at Suo. Japanese move about 20 cavs, tanks, and MI into our territory.

1782 ad (2) – Still have about 8 riots, even with the huge luxury rate!! Oops. Accidentally capture Suo. Oh well, bring on the torches!! Echigo gets a similar treatment. In the process of eradicating the invading Japanese forces, Hengest appears for the third or fourth time. Use him to rush Intlligence Agency in Kolhapur. UN didn’t finish this turn? Maybe Japan went to war time mobilization?

IT – Lose a couple MA’s in counters. Japan finally completes the UN.

1784 ad (3) – Capture Tokyo, losing 2 elite panzer in the process. Fortify with 40+ units, except for 2 MI that protect a radar tower I built. This puts us a mere 5 tiles from the dom limit. :eek: I scroll through and see that only Paris and Liverpool are anywhere close to threatening that limit. I can sell Liverpool down, but the best I can buy is 12 turns w/o selling off the church in paris, which I don’t want to do.

1786 ad (4) – WW is running rampant. We had better hope for a vote sooner rather than later. I am seriously considering abandoning a couple of towns in order to capture japan’s two luxes.

1788 ad (5) – I burn through most of the treasury buying markets and police stations. So far, japan has sent a settler pair into our lands on every turn, even though normal attacks have dried up. :shrug: I also get another leader in Tokyo, he is used for an MA army.

1790 ad (6) – Seems WW is back under control. Japan is willing to talk. HA! After all this hassle? I realize exactly how shield poor our empire is ATM. Not much to be done about it now…

1792 ad (7) – Japan completes the Manhattan project. Switch many core cities from wealth to ICBM. I swear if they launch at me, I will wipe them off the face of the earth and we can go against Joan in the vote. Japan also seems content to continually bomb the roads around Tokyo.

1794 ad (8) – I start sending units out on pillage missions. In doing so, I discover three sleeping armies in York. Surprise!

1796 ad (9) – I see the first Japanese MA during the IT. Upgrqade nearly all the panzers in Tokyo.

1798 ad (10) – We won on defense vs to MA’s during the interturn. Liz also asked for, and received, an MPP. Why can’t armies pillage? Is this something they added in Conquests? That makes things more annoying.

Well, we may want to consider razing a few core cities for Japan. They are starting to be able to make MA’s. I have two units on top of one of their sources of Alum near Osaka. We have enough MA in Tokyo to quickly wipe out a few cities, but I was afraid of altering our borders.

Here is what I suggest. We raze Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Kagoshima. That will put Japan at a pop of 98. France only has 79 now. That will allow us to claim a wine colony, and seriously destroy Japan’s core. Then we put it on cruise control and just click through the turns. It's kind of at an akward point between a war and just worker turns right now. I basically amused myself by leader fishing and destroying radar towers.

Firaxis score: 5109
Jason score: 3901


>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1798_01.SAV)

Why can’t armies pillage? Is this something they added in Conquests?

This quote fills me with dread. Please tell me you didn't play with conquests :shakehead

Don't worry. I suppose the non-pillage-capability of armies may be a gotm mod. I noticed it also in gotm32 w vanilla civ 1.29.

Nice turns Sesn! We’re getting close now!

So does this mean the next vote will be in 1806 (11 turns after UN build), anyone know? I prefer the following strategy for the next few turns, because it will leave Japan with a big population, but will cripple their military to the point that it is a joke. I think doing the following is important in case we end up in a vote stalemate, and long-term it will give us more happy people:

1) Use modern armor Army to pillage Japan’s oil and aluminum near Edo as Sesn mentioned. Leave that army nearby so that they stay pillaged. Use other units too if you need them.

2) Roll back our defensive forces to a line behind 66_Karachi, then sell its improvements and give it to Liz. Let the Japanese capture it to give them a few more tiles and pop. They might need it because of what we are going to do in #3. This will also get us away from the Domination Limit.

3) Use Tokyo airport to bring military units (and two settlers) to our navy stationed outside the city. Send that Navy to Japan’s NE peninsula, and do three things there: a) pillage uranium by Sapporo, b) pillage rubber by Fukoshima. c) raze and replace Shantung (wine) and Ise (gems). Rush harbors in them.

After we establish each of these cities, check the domination limit. If we get too close, we should give 64_Herman (sell improvements first) to Liz. It has expanded borders but is only pop 6. If we need to get rid of more tiles, consider giving Liz Lahore, Anyang or 30_Magdeburg as well. The reason for giving cities away, rather than razing them, is because we don’t want Joan to settle there (she has a boat nearby). Also, if they belong to Liz, Japan might try to capture them, and that would work in our favor.

Good work, Herr Field Marshall SesnOfWthr.

Sorry, I forgot to mention those 3 armies I built for fun. I should have moved them to the other continent, eh? :rolleyes:
Toku did not call a vote, so it will be another 20 turns - 1784AD+20 turns = 1824AD.

Armies not pillaging sounds strange. Add something to the stack. You cannot airlift anything useful like a worker, settler, or leader - but you can airlift a massive MA unit.

Sounds like a good plan, bf. Go ahead and get more luxes to keep the good german citizens happy! Pillaging resources is good, also. If you can stop all pillages it will help with WW, too. Deploy jets to take out the bombers, and put an iron curtain around the borders.

Just be sure to keep Japan in 2cnd place in population, and keep the war alliances active for the vote in 1824!

Next Up
---------
alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35
Cuivienen

So I am up and not Cuivienen? If so I will try to play late tonight.

I have a diplomatic win question. If we call the vote and we get two votes for us, one abstention, and one vote for Japan, is that a victory or a stalemate?

OK, a few things to respond to here, I guess.

First off, I did NOT play with with Conquests, but I was still unable to pillage with the armies. :hmm:

It looks like BF's plan is far more coherent and plauible than mine.

I would think that in your example, BF, that we would get the win, as we got the majority of votes cast. But I'll defer to Alamo's expertise on that one.

Ok, looks like Diplo-Master Alamo hasn't checked in since my last post, so I will continue with the plan. The only reason I asked about the votes, is because if 2 votes for us, 1 abstain and 1 against results in a stalemate, we might consider killing Joan.

Anyway, got it, but I will check in during my turns.

I almost forgot: I would hereby like to present Sesn with the Ronald Reagan Most Prepared Warmonger Award :ar15: :hammer: :evil:.

He has 9 ICBMs in production. :lol:

A simple majority is needed, so 2/1/1 is not sufficient.

Joan should vote for us if the MA/MPP is still active.

I hope those ICBM's are strictly a deterrent!

I almost forgot: I would hereby like to present Sesn with the Ronald Reagan Most Prepared Warmonger Award :ar15: :hammer: :evil:.

He has 9 ICBMs in production. :lol:

ROTFLMAO!!

When Japan finished Manhattan, I immediately took a defensive step. I had considered rushing them, but figured I'd wait for Japan to make the first mistake.

BTW - Has everyone looked at the new SGOTM? Are you interested? Thoughts on the variant? I haven't committed to playing it yet, but thought I'd bounce it of you.

@Sesn: I love the sound of the variant. I kind of have a feeling you like it to. :) I know I will be pressed for time next month though, so I can't sign up.

Here is the scoop:

1798, preturn: All looks good. In concordance with the plan, I go hunting airports and airlift all the units I can to Tokyo. I then load up three transports and send them toward Toko’s NE peninsula. I also send a few more units toward his oil and aluminum, just in case.

I am afraid that I switch some of our ICBM’s to modern armor and fighters (to slow all the bombing around Tokyo). I also switch lots of wealth to the same.

Sell improvements in Karachi and give it to Liz. That puts us 25 tiles below domination. I make entertainers in many, many cities, because unhappiness can’t be solved in them with luxury rate. This took a very, very long time. I also switched some city builds to Temples, but only in areas where they would not expand our borders in less than 140 turns. So we need to win before then. :)

IBT Several Jap tanks attack and kill units trying to reach his oil. I will have to send more.

1800, turn 1 Airlift and load. Pillage Japan’s aluminum.

1802, 2 Pillage Japan’s oil. Load more transports and send them off to claim luxuries. Jets arrive in Tokyo, as well as SAM defense.

IBT The Japs take our gift city from Liz with a longbowman. I think I will retake it and give it back. :) No bomber attacks on Tokyo :)

1804, 3 Japan has a fortified infantry protecting his uranium and battleships in the water nearby, so I go for the wine first. I attack the battleship with a destroyer, do 2 HPs of damage to it. Move two others into position. Give Liz her city back.

IBT Bombers switch to bombing our Indian colonies. I will send fighters there too. Jap battleships kill two destroyers. Need more of them now. A VOTE IS HELD FOR SECRETARY GENERAL!!!. Both Joan and Liz abstain. :( :( :( :(

Ok guys, so what do we do now???

1806, 4 I take Shantung, but redline our army in the process. I took the city because I couldn’t get a settler there in a reasonable amount of time. We will just have to take and starve these two luxury cities. I switch many coastal cities to destroyers because I fear we may need them to capture a “settler on a boat” to win this game. I suppose we could kill Joan and try to get Liz to vote for us, but at this point I am certainly not going to do anything to further damage their opinion of us. Our alliance with Joan against the Japanese expires in 7 turns. I will put some troops in position so that the next player can make that decision.

IBT The Japanese bombers are quiet.

1808, 5 I pillage the Japanese Uranium. WW hits with to a degree I have never before seen, so I again spend lots of time fixing cities. We will lose significant population on this turn. I am hoping that my military will crush the resisters in our new city and that I can get the luxury on line soon. If not, I am not sure what we are going to do. I think we just have to lose population until our alliances run out.

IBT Tuko impales many cavalry on our Mech Infantry and modern armor. :) I get 5 revolts in spite of my efforts.

1810, 6 I rush the Airport in Shantung (wine city). I consider making workers in most of the towns that will shrink (use them as a “holding tank” for population), but I don’t’ think any of us want to engage in that level of micromanagement.

IBT England asks to renew ROP and I say yes (because if we kill anybody it shouldn’t be her). Joan asks to renew MPP and I say no. I will let the next player decide whether to renew or not. I get a few “We love the Chancellor” celebrations, that could be good…Japan’s battleship forces me to duck for cover with part of our navy. I am going to build some bombers to put an end to this nonsense.

1812, 7 I put a lot of people back to work, but several cities will still starve. I have to get the last luxury ASAP. Rush a few markets.

IBT A sub kills two destroyers.

1814, 8 Sink Japans battleship. I abandon Herman (dom limit), because giving it to Liz wouldn’t do much good at this point.

1816, 9 Bomb another battleship. Kill a sub. Take Ise (Gems city). One resistor, so we should be able to rush an airport next turn. Abandon Hangchow because I want to build temples/cathedrals in the huge southern Indian cities. It will give us more points in the long run, given the war situation we are in.

1818, 10 Rushed the Airport in Ise.

I think the next election should be in 1832, but I am not sure on that. We need to decide what we want to do before then: Option 1) make all the agreements we can with Joan and try another election, Option 2) Kill Joan and try another election, Option 3) Try to capture a settler/settler boat and kill everyone, Option 4) Just forget the variant and kill everyone.

I think my vote goes for #1 at present, but it may change as the game drags on.

For the next player:

Be sure to keep shrinking Shantung, Tokyo and Ise. We have troops all over this area, so you should have all you need and more.
There are troops on the French border and fortified in York if you decide to attack France.
You will need to scroll through the cities and put clowns back to work on your next turn when the airport in Ise is done. I put most of them back to work, but there are many more.
We are 27 tiles from the domination limit. Be sure to check often or we will go over. You will likely have to disband a few cities on your turns, because I built temples and cathedrals in a few southern Indian cities.
We have fighters running air superiority missions in cities near the Japanese. If you need them to look for ships or something, be sure to wake them up.
Our navy has been decimated, so if you want to run any naval missions, you need to rush some destroyers.

The save is >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1818_01.SAV)

Man, this thing is really dragging out. :(

I think all of our rep hits are biting us, rather then the actual wars.

I guess my vote goes for #1 as well, but I feel less than confident about our chances. The fact that Liz abstained worries me more than anything.

A vote was held in 1806? That is wierd - that is 11 turns after 1784, so there must have been a vote, or those rules were wrong. Now I assume it is every 11 turns even if not vote is called.

Joan and Liz abstain, even with MPP's? I guess we simply did too much damage to them in those early wars - my mistake. I still don't understand how some early wars are forgotten. My apologies to the team for the dead-end.

Capturing a settler is the only option now, isn't it? We have 5 more turns until the next vote. We probably can't be ready by then, but maybe in 16 turns we can capture a settler and rid the world of all foreign cities.

Pillage all the Japanese towns and rebuild the navy to scour the seas for settlers!

Next Up
---------
alamo
SensOfWthr
bradleyfeanor
Shoe35
Cuivienen

[/lurk] It's always been 11 turns between votes. My guess is Firaxis meant it to be 10 turns, but forgot they were counting down to zero ;) [lurk]

...those rules were wrong...

...I guess we simply did too much damage to them in those early wars - my mistake. I still don't understand how some early wars are forgotten. My apologies to the team for the dead-end.

Where are these rules? Civilopedia? I would like to take a peek at them.

I think we were all guilty of giving the AIs a bad attitude, not just one of us!

Can we try to make nice with Joan for the next vote, and see if anyone changes their mind, or would that be pointless?

PS: Thank you Alan. I don't suppose you might have any other tips for the Diplomatically challenged team that we are? :)

The vote timing is mentioned in the General/FAQ thread, which leads you to a 70+ page thread that says 11/20 vote/novote. I see now the second link goes to the 71st page, where someone says it's just 11. It would be nice if the FAQ would just give a definitive answer.

At this point I don't think that anyone will change their vote for the better. Our last option may be the settler trick, but I make no claim of getting that to work.

Only that Bamspeedy wrote the bible on AI attitude. But when you get to look at the results you'll find that we were beaten to the variant prize as well :(

Since someone has already grabbed the variant, I think we should just trip the dom limit and be done with it. The only other option would be to do a quick space launch, which might possibly keep us from the dreaded wooden spoon (but it may be too late for even that to help).

I'm shocked you guys didn't get the variant Alan. I thought you had it in the bag for sure!

I was thinking alond the same lines.

There is no longer a point in pursuing the variant, or delaying victory for any longer.

Let's be done with this mess.

Sorry we couldn't get an award for your team, Alamo. :(

No problem. I was not expecting an award. The next player can just trip domination.

If you care about score then you should probably make peace and let the WW settle down before tripping the limit.

Otherwise, just grab as many cities as you can in 1 turn and go out in grand style.

If you want fun, then you could probably complete Conquest in 2-3 turns too....

I'm shocked you guys didn't get the variant Alan. I thought you had it in the bag for sure!
Nah! A couple of trip wires kindly supplied by the RNG, and vanilla's free tech problem were probably enough to do most of the damage. Plsus the usual human errors, of course ;)

but I'm just sorry if I spoilt your fun, guys. I guess it just didn't occur to me that you thought the variant prize was still up for grabs :( Maybe you should shoot for a high scoring happy ending in the stars now?

Nah! A couple of trip wires kindly supplied by the RNG, and vanilla's free tech problem were probably enough to do most of the damage. Plsus the usual human errors, of course ;)

but I'm just sorry if I spoilt your fun, guys. I guess it just didn't occur to me that you thought the variant prize was still up for grabs :( Maybe you should shoot for a high scoring happy ending in the stars now?

I think if we had really thought about it, none of us would have really thought we had a chance at a prize.

And a spaceship? I doubt it. I think we're all just waiting for some kind of victory screen to be displayed. (at least I am.)

I agree - we have other games to play now (or will soon).

I'm not exactly sure how much additional happy faces are even worth. The Jason score-a-lyzer probably has us pretty well pegged by now.

Somebody please finish this game!

I know it wasn't my turn, but this was just killing me, so ask and ye shall receive...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Alamo_Dom.JPG

Final Firaxis: 6286
Final Jason: 6736

>>>FINAL SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Alamo_SG002_AD1820_01.SAV)

Woo hoo!!! It is good to see that screen.

Thanks for putting it to bed Sesn.

Thanks for the game team! I learned more than a little about Diplo victories in this game!

Now to go peruse some threads to see how these other teams did so remarkably well...

I just posted a "summary" so we can participate in discussions.

SGOTM2 Team Alamo has completed its service!

Thanks to the team for all your efforts. I hope each of you learned something, hopefully by good example, though there were a few bad examples.

I got some better insights into early wars from the team warmongers - thanks.

Thanks for the final turn and summary, SensOfWthr.

See you in the spoilers.

Well done Alamo. You made it! :goodjob:

Thanks teammates I did learn quite a bit.

good game all