SGOTM2 Game Thread

Welcome to your game thread for SGOTM2-Germany

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

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

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

The Roster
bigchief
civ_steve
Keith Larson
Peanut
Peglegasus
Planetfall

Who shall start us out?

If I understand the rules correctly we are not allowed to give any hints as to “what is out there” if we have played GOTM 8.

One thing I am a little unsure of is Ring City Placement. Is it allowed or not? Is there any penalty associated with using it or bonus for not using it?

Since we are going for the variant we need to maintain good relations with others. That means no broken deals! It will also be to our advantage to avoid war. To do this we must be seen as powerful by the other nations. As far as I can tell power is based on the number of units and how much land area we control. Along that end let me suggest the following build priorities. Warriors and archers over spearmen. I have found you can get by with less spearmen if you use them as a mobile fire brigade which you rush to threatened areas. The other duties of spearmen in the early game is to escort settlers and archers as the barb activity increases. Finally we will need a few to place in exposed cities.

As for land control, granaries are key. Even if we can’t pull off a settler factory, a granary or two is well worth the investment. We want to expand peacefully as quickly as possible. War only makes people mad at us.

As for tech trading we should be aggressive. Hording techs only invites war. If we can get a decent price, lets sell.

For our game goals I cannot think of any Great Wonder that is vital to our mission. In the early game maybe one city at most pre-building. Anymore than that is a waste of shields and population.

Hello all. This is my first succession game and I'm really looking forward to it. I've checked out several SG threads so I understand how it all works. Just to make sure we are playing PTW correct?

I will be unable to play from may 27 to june 4 but will have internet access and can check in with the forums once a day or so to give input.

I consider the early game to be my strength but am willing to play anywhere in the roster. One thing I was thinking about was trying to trigger a Golden Age before we get panzers... that's a long time to wait. Obviously we would need a couple wonders. What do you all think?

That's all for now! Looking forward to the game.

Peglegasus

Peglegasus,

At Monarch level we don’t need a golden age to win. Remember we are going for a diplomatic victory without the UN. During the end game we are going to have to work very hard to avoid a domination or cultural victory. I think it is a mistake for us to build our strategy around Wonders, lets build them when the opportunity presents itself, but only when they don’t take away from our larger goals and are a very low risk.

We are going to have our hands full in the early game fighting off barbs and expanding. If you haven’t noticed we are in an area with lots of mountains and jungles, great land once it is cleared and developed, but very unproductive in the early game.

A tightly spaced city pattern makes sense at first as it will allow us share defenders and maximize the use of cleared and productive land. Later in the game we can raze the some “temp” cities to make room for the permanent ones. Temp cities build no improvements just defensive units, catapults, workers and settlers. To distinguish them I name them something like “Shantytown East” or “Berlin North Trailer Park”.

Hello all,

I'm looking forward to playing with such a distinguished group. We are up against some strong competition, but that only makes it all the better. I don't think we have to totally change the way we play early in the game, just because of the victory condition, but we need to keep it in mind as we consider our strategy.

Greetings Team Peanut!

Research speed is paramount to a fast finish with this variant; of course along the way we need to do a lot of building, and some Warring. Reputation needs to be kept up, so no deal breaking, no ROP rape, no War declaration with our units inside the enemies terrain, etc. Some warfare is good, once we can form alliances; in my experience, current and former allies are the best supporters for a UN victory.

I agree with Keith; in fact I rarely build Spearmen early; the PTW barbarian is usually controlable with Warriors, and the upgrade to Swordsman gives the same defense and triple the attack of a Spearman.

RCP should be fine, I think.

Initial research - maybe minimum on IronWorking? Look to see if we can get Alphabet and Pottery by trade, then IronWorking will be a good 2nd tier trade tech. Also allows us to build up the treasury.

Wonders - maybe build none initially (definitely do NOT build the Great Library!) Look to capture (or use a GL for) a militaristic wonder, then pre-build for Newton's to trigger GA just entering the IndEra.

Unless we have a food bonus, I'd stay away from Granaries initially and build cities.

I'm here through Monday, then on travel for at least 4 days, maybe 8 or 9 if we extend it. I'd like to play first or second, to get a turn in before this indeterminate length trip.

Whoever starts don't forget to check F10 for who our neighbors are. Pottery and Alphabet can usally be had for trade. Next to Ironworking, the Wheel is a good choice as well.

Why stay away from Granaries? I have found that not only do your cities grow faster, their average size stays larger during the intial stage of the game when population goes up and down because of settler building. This higher average city size really pays off in research and shield production.

If everybody hasn't seen it there is some discussion concerning the use of a "Diplomatic Dogpile" (as GK puts it) in the main SGOTM thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=79841&page=8

Everyone might want to take a look and post their opinions on the matter.

bigchief,

Are you going to get us started or would you like someone else to start?

Keith

It doesn't matter to me when I play, but since we haven't even heard from our esteemed leader, Peanut, we should probably wait and set the play order at that time. It doesn't look like we are going to get started before late tonight or tomorrow US time, so Civ_Steve might want to go first.

Peanut is in a different timezone I think. If it were me I'd let Steve kick it off, and then you will all have something to discuss for when peanut hits the boards.

Go for it Steve! I am ready to play.

Alright, I'll take first turn, and I've got the download. I would like to hear from Peanut before playing though.

I check F10 first always. If 3 of the civs are expansionistic, I'd say we should do minimum on IronWorking, or Wheel. If 2 or less, perhaps we do fast research of Pottery, followed by Minimum. What says the team?

How about 1st turn movements? Terrain to NW doesn't look promising; I'm thinking a move SE will still keep the 2 BGs within expanded city radius (along with the gold), keep us next to the river, and exchange 6 unknown tiles into our city (to the SE), taking out 2 Unknown to the NW. Worker goes E to work BG, initially.

A Granary is a must if we get a food bonus. If we don't have a food bonus I'd rather get a 2nd city out there; scouting should see if there are any food bonuses nearby that can take full advantage of a Granary. (And it might be good to get a 2nd city before the Granary, anyway.)

According to F10, there are 6 other civs, 2 of which are Expansionistic (Russia and England) (I think).

Any comments? I can start later tonight (9 or 10 pm, West coast time); or wait until tomorrow to let all thoughts come out.

Move worker first to the East BG before you move the settler. If things look promising to the E then move SE.

I would take the risk that you can trade of Pottery. Either go for Wheel ASP or Iron Work Min. The Wheel does not last long and you rarely get it first if you try the minimum research trick.

Good idea about the worker move first. We definitely want to keep the 2 BG within Berlin's initial radius. It looks like there's coast to the NW, so a move SE would also free some room up for future coastal city.

I think I saw Japan on the list of civs, too. So Wheel is already in the game somewhere. Tends to lead me in the direction of IronWorking at minimum, saving up the treasury.

AlanH's upload and game status sheet is Awesome! So far 3 teams have done the first step, and 1 (Team, Tao) has completed two.

I'll follow Mad-Bax's suggestion, and play and post tonight (hopefully). I'll check one more time before.

Ok, I've started the first set of turns. Worker move East reveals Game!! (See Image below). Settler moved SE, and Berlin founded in 3950. I'm working out what goes next, with this revealing.

We have one (quite well known) player who is interested in playing the variant. I would like to place him in this team if there are no objections.

Peanut checking in ... it's been a hectic weekend here. Yes, Civ_Steve, I live in Brisbane, Australia at 10 hours ahead of GMT (and 16 or more ahead of the Americas)

I don't know why I am honoured with a team name and nominal leadership - I expect we will run this as a sort of democracy where key decisions are agreed to by all.

I hope we can get our strategy nailed down quickly, particularly our ancient age plan, then trust each of us to play the game as best we see fit when we are at the wheel .

The golden rules in my opinion are :
- pick up and play the game roughly on time, or let us know if you will have a short delay.
- be prepared to pass on your turn as soon as possible if you can't make it - your turn will come around again quickly anyway.
- respect the decisions of others made during their turn playing, and expect others to respect yours.
- express your ideas freely, constructively and positively, so that we learn from eachother.

So - some strategy thoughts to chew over :

If we are to win without bulding the UN then we can 1) either capture it from whomever builds it before they hold an election, or 2) be big and loveable enough that we are the other candidate and that we get most of the votes.

I think that working towards option (2) is safer, however if we can bribe our way to a dogpile on whoever is likeliest to build it then that might work.

In any case a quick finish means fast research which means we need to be big and loveable anyway. I suggest that we aim to take out our neighbours as soon as practicable, and get two productive cores running, then be sweet and generous to everyone to push things along until Fusion is invented. Then we strike.

Ancient age strategy - I suggest that we get our settler factories running (with granaries) as soon as possible to expand as fast as we can. I like the idea of a tight ring of cities that we can abandon later if needed. Research IW at minimum, build only warriors and the odd worker or settler in our satellite city ring, and accumulate cash for a massive swordsman upgrade and then take over our continent. Rapid expansion should also mean we put our foot on more luxuries and resources. Hope we can trade for pottery fairly soon.

Roster - looks like civ_steve is ready to go, and the ideas for the first few moves sound ok to me. How about we just follow the roster from there, so Keith follows civ_steve, then Peanut and so on.

A last suggestion - when we write up, emphasise at the end any deals done in your round so the next player doesn't inadvertently ruin our reputation. I think our rep is going to be important to us this game.

By the way - we are playing PTW aren't we ? Speak now or be really confused when you try to load the game up ...

MadBax - sounds ok to me unless anybody objects. The more the merrier. Can you edit your first post to update the roster please ?

By the way - Who is it ?

Sorry Peanut! You ARE in a different time zone! :) (I'd always assumed you were from Georgia; obviously not)

I figured out how to get PTW 1.27 installed from my Conquests disk and still maintain 1.21 to finish off Gotm31. So, yes, we're using PTW 1.27, which should be advantageous for research based games.

Here's my Turn Log:

Turn 1, 4000 BC F10 List: Russians, French, English, Japanese, Indians and Chinese
Worker East (Game in Forest!); Settler SE

Turn 2, 3950 BC Berlin Founded; -> Warrior (4 turns)
Research Pottery at Maximum (decide Granary is quite desirable)
Worker ... hmm, start Road on BG; plan to MM for Science as available

(I really pondered this turn for a while; I came up with 4 basic scenarios, and felt 3 Warriors, then a Granary with Chop of Game forest was best; This requires Pottery, so Maximum Research on it)

Turn 3, 3900 BC Our score goes from 0 to 20 (yay!!)

Turn 4, 3850 BC MM Citizen to BG (Warrior still finished in 2; road will add +1 commerce)

Turn 5, 3800 BC Road completes (actually at the end of last turn); Pottery time drops from 12 to 8 turns
Worker - mine BG

Turn 6, 3750 BC Berlin fin Warrior; -> Warrior (4 turns)
MM Citizen back to Games
Warr1 W (more mtns ahead)

Turn 7, 3700 BC Warr1 NW (hey, there's Wheat on this side; on Expansion, original placement gets Wheat and Game)
Oh well, a bonus food for a future city

Turn 8, 3650 BC MM back to roaded BG
Warr1 W (mtns; lots of Plains on this side of things; possibly a Lake near Wheat)

Turn 9, 3600 BC Warr1 W

Turn 10, 3550 BC Berlin fin Warrior; -> Warrior (5 turns)
Leave citizen on BG, about to be mined
Warr1 NW (mtns; lots of hilly, mountainy terrain ahead; Floodplains to North)
Warr2 N

Turn 11, 3500 BC BG Mine finished; Worker SE (Game)
Warr1 W (into the rough zone)
Warr2 N (more Gold)

Turn 12, 3450 BC Berlin is size 2; Culture expands; Spice visible to South; our score is 41
Worker starts to Chop
Warr1 W (meets English Scout, with 1 turn to go to Pottery!!!)
Warr2 NW (yup its a lake)
Elizabeth: capital only, 10 Gold; Alphabet, Pottery; CerBur to our 10 Gold, BrzWrk and WarCode
She wants 10 gold for Pottery; Research only costs 2 so nope; reduce research to 30% (4 gpt avail)
Make deal, trade BrzWrk, WarCode and 1 gpt for Alphabet and 7 Gold

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/cvst_SG2_bc3450EngCrop.JPG

Turn 13, 3400 BC Learn Pottery, start on IronWorking at Minimum; (I'm assuming England has already begun on Writing)
Berlin fin Warrior, -> Granary
Warr1 S (lake and Cattle)
Warr2 NW (2 Ivory in the plains!!)
Warr3 NE

Turn 14, 3350 BC Warr1 S; Warr2 N; Warr3 NE

Turn 15, 3300 BC Warr1 S (Spice, another Lake); Warr2 N (sea coast ahead!); Warr3 NE (Wheat and another river)

Turn 16, 3250 BC Warr1 S; Warr2 W (check out Floodplains); War3 SE (circle around)

Turn 17, 3200 BC Warr1 SW; Warr2 W; Warr3 S meets the Russians!
Catherine, 10 Gold, 2 cities; no Techs; we have 36 Gold and Alphabet; no trade

Turn 18, 3150 BC Warr1 SW; Warr2 W; Warr3 fortify in Hills (let's see what the Russians are up to)

Turn 19, 3100 BC Warr1 S; Warr2 W (met Eng Scout again); Warr3 remain fortified (Russian is heading North)

Turn 20, 3050 BC Warr1 SW; Warr2 NW (largish Lake); Warr3 S
MM BG cit to RiverForest (to complete Granary while size2)

Turn 21, 3000 BC Warr1 S (wheat and river); Warr2 NW (desert); Warr3 N (back to hill; Russian is back)

Basic situation: 2 Warriors off Exploring; 1 hanging around, checking on the Russian Warrior. (Sometimes I gift the civ 1 gpt just to send them off happy; not sure what Catherine's intentions are; she's Cautious currrently); Minimum research of IronWorking is moseying along; only Tech we're missing is CerBur, and we're paying 1 gpt to England for the Alphabet deal

Worker will finish Forest Chop at the end of this Turn; as placed, the Granary will be finished in two turns, with 1 spot open in food bin (at size2); I'd recommend a Settler next, with the Game space being Irrigated and Roaded.

What we know of the world:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/cvst_SG2_bc3000mainRes.JPG

Here's the game save; I'll add pictures in next. (done) Who's Up?


Team Peanut Save - 3000 BC (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC3000_01.SAV)

Anyone want to switch places with me this round? I will be unable to get to the game for at least 5 hours and I thought someone else would like to get going.

Keith

Sounds good civ_steve. Alas the closest I've ever been to Georgia is New York. Not very close at all I suspect. Might be nice to visit it one day, though.

Keith Larson - we await your expert leadership. Go get 'em !

Shall we pump out settlers for a while eh lads ? I think We will need a few workers as well. They are a good investment early on, and I believe worth buying if the opportunity arises. What do the rest of you think ?

Welcome aboard Planetfall. Looking forward to learning from your experience.

Edit - just read your note Keith. I think we can wait for you to pick it up - a few hours won't make much difference. I am next on the roster and it is pushing midnight here now so I probably could not do it justice. From my modest experience it is best to keep to the roster so that we remember who normally follows who.

Let's reflect on the strategy and hear some more opinions before we get too deep into the game - so a day's wait is probably not a bad thing.

Yes, go for it Keith!

A Settler from Berlin should be next; any other unit will cost us gpt until we get a 2nd city. After that, Berlin should continue building Settlers; with the 2nd BG mined and a cleared Forest space we have a 6 turn Settler Factory going, at sizes 3 and 4.

Perhaps we should recall the Warrior in the far NW to the Wheat/Lake area 3-4 tiles NW, and plan a 2nd city adjacent to the Lake at distance 4 or 5. The Jungle to the South and the general mountainous terrain are limiting.

Also, I didn't do this (leaving it to the next person) but I would serously consider gifting 1 gpt to Russia at this point. IF Russia gets antsy and attacks our Warrior and succeeds (or even moves into our territory forcing a response), we become very vulnerable. An insurance policy of 1 gpt should allow us to form our initial empire in peace. Any thoughts on this?

is the ai l;ikely to attack this early in the game on monarch diff? i havent seen that happen much but then again i haven't played as long as you all.

i'm thinking settler #1 should go for the wheat to the ne, and settler #2 should go for the ivory and the flood plains to the nw. my 2 cents.

Peglegasus

Hi guys, will be able to play but not for about 7 hours.

It's been awhile since played a PTW game. All we have to do is
1. put in PTW disc instead of C3C, and
2. put save in PTW saves.

Is that right?

PF

Game Log

Turn 1, 2950 BC. Renamed all warriors to follow Civ-Steve’s names. Warr1 S sees furs to the S and English border to the W, Warr2 SW, Warr3 E. Wrk1 Irrigate. F3 Weak to Russia and Average to England. F4 nothing new.

Turn 2, 2900 BC. Granary in Berlin. Production to Settler. Warr1 SE, Warr2 W, Warr3 E finds spice to the SE.

Turn 3, 2850 BC. Warr1 S, Warr2 E, Warr3 N to scout out area around wheat. F1 Lux set to 10%. Berlin will produce settler and grow in 5 turns.

Turn 4, 2800 BC. Warr1 (York has been founded to the NW) move S, Warr2 N, Warr3 N sees woods and flood plains to the NE of the wheat.

Turn 5, 2750 BC. Warr1 SW, Warr2 W, Warr3 N looks like I found the ocean, Wrk1 road. Berlin will now grow in 2 turns! Russia now has two cities.

Turn 6, 2700 BC. Warr1 S and see huts, Warr2 N, Warr3 N and wets feet in the ocean.

Turn 7, 2670 BC. Warr1 SW, Warr2 NE, Warr3 W. Berlin at pop 4, Lux slider at 20%. F4 sell Alphabet to Russia for Masonry and 6 G, sell Masonry to England for Ceremonial Burial and 19 G. Russia is now polite towards us. MM 2 citizens to G to get more food as we only need 3 shields.

Turn 8, 2630 BC. Settler produced! After much thought will move to the wheat to the north for the following reasons: First with 1 BW and two BG it is immediately productive without any worker improvement. The wheat to the will require improvements and the Ivory will not get to us until the roads are built anyway. Will send wrk1 that direction however in prep for settler2. I suggest founding the city in the G to the NW of the wheat. It is tempting to go for the river, but we do not need to go beyond size 6 for a long time and during that time those 2 BG will pump out lots of shields when we need them the most. Of course this will be Peanut’s choice. Second Warr3 is close by to help if needed.
Settler moves SE to game. Wrk1 moves NW of Berlin to build road in forest. Warr1 S onto hill with Goody Huts, gets 25 G and see pink to the S (French?), Warr2 NE, Warr3 NW. F1 Lux to 0%. Production set to warrior.

Turn 9, 2590 BC. Settler NE to Mountain, Wrk1 builds road, Warr1 S, Warr2 E, Warr3 W. F3 we are now weak to the English as well. F4 the English have the Wheel and a worker to buy. Purchased the worker because the Wheel will go down in price once everyone else has it and workers are worth so much in the early game. EngWrk1 moves to help the other worker. This will speed the road to the Ivory.

Turn 10, 2550 BC. EngWrk1 builds road, Settler mover N to hill, Warr1 S to pink line see GH to the W, Warr2 N, Warr3 NW. 10% Lux. MM citizen to G by river for more food. Should Peanut change production to another worker or settler? Do we continue risking a weak military? Also give Peanut suggestions on the first city placement. This was fun!

Keith: You need to upload your saves to the GOTM Server for scoring purposes. The "Upload to Server" link is in my sig.

It is not strictly necessary to provide a link to the save in your game thread since once you have uploaded it, the next player can download it from the "download and scores" link in my sig. :)

Sorry about the upload. It has been done. How do you add the link and how do you add screen shots? While not new to the game I am new to this Forum stuff. BTW is their any way to change your Forum name. I kind of feel silly using my real name.

Keith

To change your nick ask Thunderfall. If you go to the main site frontpage his name is on practically everything and it is always linked. Ask him nicely and I'm sure he will oblige.

There is a thread on uploading saves and screenshots. You can ignore the uploading saves bit, but the rest is OK except for minor differences due to recent server software upgrade. You'll find that >>HERE<< (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=55122)

If you find it confusing ask me again and I'll go through it. I need to go to bed now, but I can find the time tomorrow.

Too tired to play tonight. was trying to complete an epic game I started.

What's the play order?

Is UN the only victory condition?

tommorow

PF

Ok, I peaked. PTW 1.21 right? or do I need to repatch it. I thought PTW was at 1.27.

Game looks ok. Settler is moving to best 2nd city location by wheat. Next should be by lake and ivory. Don't go for spices yet, it is way too early for that.

Our world is not friendly, there are way too many mountains and jungles for a fast start so we need to be careful.

Biggest competition will be:
1. Russia
2. Chinese
3. French
4. Indians

France is a late game competitor, but Russia and China are usually aggressive soon. After the third city, we need some fort cities for building up the military.

Are we trying for RCP or not? It looks difficult on this map, but if going to do RCP we need to agree on the spacing of the rings. At least the first and second ring, after that it is moot.

How did we meet Russia? I don't see Russia on the known world, did they send a scout by? If so where was the scout coming from, east?

Later

This time off for good for today.

PF

Planetfall - Welcome to Team Peanut! We're playing in PTW 1.27f. I got my version going by doing a fresh install of the Original Civ3 disk, then a full install of my Conquests disk. (I renamed my existing Civ directory to save the existing install, which is good for GOTM, and I'll join the two together later.) Anyway, I was able to play PTW 1.27f with my new install by using the CSC disk, and selecting the Civilization application in the Civ3PTW sub-directory. Key thing is it only works with the Conquests disk.

At this stage, Team Peanut is trying for the Variant, which is a UN victory where we did not build the UN.

A Russian warrior was contacted just off our Eastern border.

RCP would be fine, if we can set it up. This terrain is tough for setting up a very organized civ.

Keith - Great Trade on Turn 7 :goodjob: Didn't cost us anything, and we got two more Techs, additional gold, and a polite neighbor. Also, I didn't even think to rename the Warriors, good idea! I also like the purchase of the English Worker; you didn't say how much it cost (usually just over 100 Gold), but the free upkeep and extra improvements make up for it in the long run.

I'll check out the save game and see if I can get an image up. It's about time to decide on city sites and whether RCP will work.

Alright Team, I'm attaching an image of the immediate area around Berlin. I've marked a few decent city sites at distance of 4 (blue X's) and 5 (red X's). There's not many, and they will require tons of Worker turns to improve.

To the NE (where the Settler is heading), Red X has immediate access to 2 BGs and the Wheat, no river access so eventual Aquaduct. Blue X has 1 BG and Wheat, and river access. Also, Settler can move and found safely at Blue X, if there are any Barbs in the Dark.

To the E, both X's have river access. The blue X can share the Game with Berlin. The Red will eventually have Incense within radius.

To the NW, both have Lake access, Ivory and Wheat. The Red X has more River tiles to the East (not shown). The 2nd Blue X can share the Wheat with the other X's, and is Lake accessed.

It occurs to me that it might be better to have small towns (size 2 or 3) closer in for a while. Working a Grassland, and 2 Forest spaces, this type of city would be a good Military producer, and you could get rid of it fairly later. Two good spaces for this are the Grassland WSW of Berlin, and the Jungle SSW of Berlin. They'd be easily connected and protected as well.

Berlin - I'd rather see a Worker or a Settler come out of Berlin, but I can understand building a Warrior at this time.

(As for the Blue or Red X's, I have a slight bias towards the Blue. For the Settler, not having the 2nd BG immediately available isn't a penalty for 20 turns (until it's size 3); by that time I'd hope to have a Worker up there to compensate, and the BG will be available once its culture expands. I also like that the Jungle Blue X to the ESE can share the Game space with Berlin; every 3rd turn Berlin can give it up so that food isn't wasted. I'd probably build the close in small cities first before filling out the Ring, though.)

my vote is with distance 4. i'd like to see whats immediately south of us too when the opportunity arises.

Peglegasus

My fellow generals : looks good so far. Great trades CS & KL, and the foreign workers will be very useful. Good, thoughtful advice from everyone as well.

Planetfall : Welcome. The roster is in MadBax's first post. You follow Peglegasus who follows me. If you have C3C then you should automatically have PTW1.27 - as per civ_steve's post. It works for me - any problems then post and we will work on a solution.

RCP distance of 4 to 4.5 seems good to me - close enough for foot troops to move between towns on roads in two turns, less for mounted troops. It also gives room for growth. A good compromise in my opinion.

I will now study your collected wisdom and slide into the driver's seat ... stay tuned folks.

Peanut,

Thanks. The C3C disk did not work with PTW, I had to use the PTW disk. I used to be at 1.27, but somehow it was downgraded. I will patch it. How long is each turn? I have not played a succession game before. It looks like 20 or 21 turns.

RCP of 4 seems best, we need the core building soon.

I'm not sure about the strategy of sword upgrade. We have few civs and they are far apart. Too far apart for archer strategy to work. What about a chariot to horseman upgrade, or a mixed upgrade mostly horse, some spears, swords and catapaults.

I had to calm down, it has been so long since I played PTW. Ivory != ancient cavs, ivory != ancient cavs, ivory != ancient cavs. Ok, got it.

We need 3 luxuries for Republic to work. I see only two. I wonder if hanging gardens is possible?

Question-- it has been a long time since played PTW, I forgot how military strength is calculated in this version. In the early versions it was primary by unit count. Is this the same or is it weighted? I know C3C is weighted but I don't recall where PTW was.

Wait, I see the 3rd luxury. We're in good shape.

Later.

PF

The English worker cost 106 Gold. A 4 to 4.5 RCP sounds good to me. There is not enough good land to support a closer ring. If this is the case then the settler should head for the red X on the river and build a warrior ASP. Barbs will be coming in force soon.

@Planetfall,
C3C *should* allow you to play PtW 1.27. I have different installations, so I have never tried it -I know that the problem has been solved for the GOTM: I can look for a reference for you if you want.
If -from what I understand- you have already got and patched PtW, even better... ;)

And, in SGs the first players usually gets 20 turns, then it is normally 10 turns each. It is of course up to the team to set their own approach -i.e., you may drop to 5 or climb to 15 depending on the stage of the game and the length of each turn.

The English worker cost 106 Gold. A 4 to 4.5 RCP sounds good to me. There is not enough good land to support a closer ring. If this is the case then the settler should head for the red X on the river and build a warrior ASP. Barbs will be coming in force soon.

Agreed we can't set any closer. I think a 4 RCP for the first ring would work better, I haven't looked ahead to the second ring yet.

PF

@Planetfall,
C3C *should* allow you to play PtW 1.27. I have different installations, so I have never tried it -I know that the problem has been solved for the GOTM: I can look for a reference for you if you want.
If -from what I understand- you have already got and patched PtW, even better... ;)
.

Mystery solved. I have both 1.21 and 1.27 PTW installed. One exe uses PTW disk and runs 1.21 the other exe used C3C disk and runs 1.27.

Back in ages long ago and far away I must have compared the 2 versions.

PF

...

RCP of 4 seems best, we need the core building soon.

I'm not sure about the strategy of sword upgrade. We have few civs and they are far apart. Too far apart for archer strategy to work. What about a chariot to horseman upgrade, or a mixed upgrade mostly horse, some spears, swords and catapaults.

...

Question-- it has been a long time since played PTW, I forgot how military strength is calculated in this version. In the early versions it was primary by unit count. Is this the same or is it weighted? I know C3C is weighted but I don't recall where PTW was.

...

RCP 4.x it is, then.

Not only are we too far apart for an Archer Rush, we also want these known civs doing research for us. Taking a civ out will reduce the collective research by 25% (I'm assuming we're about to contact France.) I'm not sure if I'd recommend building any archers: I don't think the Archers get a defensive bombardment shot (like they do for recent GOTMs), and we can potentially field twice as many Swordsmen for the same amount of shields. I'd recommend building only Warriors until we get the Wheel; then, with a town capable of 7+ shields and Horses connected, I'd recommend building Chariots for eventual upgrade to Horsemen (I usually hold off getting HorseBackRiding until I have a few chariots for upgrade). The new town to the NE should be a good unit developer; once we get a few more Warriors built, it should build a Barracks; likewise any other unit producing towns we develop.

I think we should scout, build, develop for quite a while. Once our primary core cities are in place and functioning, we should have good intel on our opponents. We can pick the best one to take good terrain from to form a 2nd core, and we're replacing their research capability when we are ready to. Usually late Ancient Age, before Feudalism is learned, is a good time for this. Either a Swordsman steamroll, or a combo Swords/Horseman push, would do the job.

PF - I've seen some threads on the military advisor's strength ratings, but I'm not an authority. I believe non-combat units like Workers are counted, but not as highly as combat units. I believe there are some other weightings as well (upgrading 10 Warriors to MedInf seems to increase my rating). I think Weak is < 80% of the other civ's rating, and strong is > 120%. Ballpark numbers.

Peglegasus - Occasionally an AI will take a pot-shot; it doesn't happen often. I'll sometimes gift an AI 1 gpt just to make it less likely; for 20 total gold I've established a trade relationship, made them Polite and given them a reason to leave me alone. Just an insurance policy, that's fairly cheap. (I think in one game they took the shot, and my Granary build became a 40 shield Spearman. That kind of threw my game off-track!)

Sounds ok, but since this is PTW and not C3C, we might think about creating at least one spear and one archer along the way. As I recall the way PTW worked was it counted if strongest type of units were available, and then the total count of units. Thus 1 archer and 50 warriors would count the same as 1 warrior and 50 archers. It was because of this type of error, the military weighting wzs changed for C3C. But it it works to our advantage to keep peace longer, the cost is very low.

This time before we have at least 5 cities is always boring to me. Important, but boring as there is so little that can be done.

PF

Ok ... into the driver's seat. Buckle up, clean the glasses, let's go.

Pre-turn Checks. Warr2 is having a grand northern tour. Warr3 is lurking around in case he is needed. Warr1 is very excited - a hut to visit, and some pink dudes to the south. Bring 'em on ! Settler is heading for a legendary huge blue X he had a weird dream about. It's somewhere beside a wheat and a river.

Berlin will build a warrior in 1. But hark ! The populus are becoming restless and some want to move out ! OK - swap to settler, and put those lazy folk to working the BG tile.

Nobody has anything worth trading.

Ok, here goes ...

1) 2510 BC Settler E to that blue X. Warr3 W to mountain - nothing in that dark spot after all. Warr2 N across river - boring, nothing new. Warr1 cannot decide ! Visit the hut, or check out the pink dudes ? Hut, Pink, hut, pink ? Pink it is. There may be a useful tech trade available. Warr1 South. Nothing but grass - where is everybody ? Let's see next turn ...

In Between Turns Aha ! It's Joan and the Frenchpersons. Warr1 ponders on the sheer absurdity of her horned hat, but says nothing. She wants us to push off. Ok then. However she will pay 35g for CB, so Ok. She will buy it from someone else anyway, may as well be us. At least now she is being polite.

2) 2470 BC Settler has arrived. No big blue X but we will settle anyway. Leipzig founded on plains beside river and wheat. Let's have a warrior just in case those nasty barbarians come visting. Warr3 heads NW towards the darkness. Warr2 (on his northern adventure) climbs a mountain and sees - spices, deer, forest and ocean. Ho hum. Warr1 heads back to visit the hut. Nothing to trade - Lizzie won't sell TW for our pitiful treasury.

IBT - nothing interesting.

3) 2430 BC Warr3 NW - nothing. Warr2 NE - gosh a mountain in the distance. He barely holds his excitement at the thought of climbing it. Warr1 knocks on the door of the hut ... Poop - the Hun family lives there - 3 angry yokels. Lizzie will "accept" 74g+7gpt for The Wheel. We fall about laughing at her naked greed and tell her to go soak her head. Berlin hits 4 and is unhappy. Lux to 20%, and work the grass to keep the food up.

IBT Warr1 is humiliated by the very first yokel he meets. Curses.

4) 2390 BC Workers head to BG to mine it. Warr2 heads to that mountain. Warr3 wanders along the coast and is bored.

IBT Russian warrior wandering about near Leipzig - seems harmless.

5) 2350 BC Settler done. Let's have another please my dear Berliners. This settler has also had a crazy blue X type of dream, this time to the northwest and a lake. What would Freud think ? Warr3 continues his coastal journey, and meets a cow. He gets so excited he needs to have an aspirin and a good lie down. Warr2 climbs that mountain and lo ! Fish in the distance - and another mountain ! He has an aspirin and a lie down as well. Lux back to zero for the moment. Catherine the Great (but great what I wonder) sells us a worker for CB+50g. Bargain eh what, seeing as she would get CB from someone soon anyway. Our new worker (RussWrk1) sets off to join the work gang.

IBT - nothing interesting.

6) 2310 BC Warr3 N - sees an English scout on a mountain. Poop - no useful huts around here probably. Warr2 sees deer, forest, grass and more mountains. His head swims with the giddy excitement of all this new and interesting scenery. Those busy Berliners have grown - better entertain them. Catherine now has TW as well and the price has dropped. Let's wait until Joan has it as well and then it will be dirt cheap !

IBT - nothing interesting.

7) 2270 BC Leipzig warrior (Warr4) done. Lets have another. Warr 4 will explore the jungle to the south. The work gang starts mining the BG.

IBT - nothing interesting.

8) 2230 BC Settler still looking for his blue X. "Should be right about underfoot ... now ... he mutters to himself". Warr4 sees jungle - no surprises. Warr3 sees a mountain to climb. Warr2 could not resist - he climbed another mountain and sees the east coast ! Nothing to trade.

IBT - nothing interesting.

9) 2190 BC Warr4 climbs a mountain and sees - wait for it - more jungle ! Hamburg settled right where a blue X could well have been drawn if some clever person had gone and drawn blue Xs on the map. Those Hamburgers start building a warrior. Warr3 climbs a mountain and sees boring plains. Better than black I suppose. Warr2 climbs - you guessed it - a mountain. Incense to the north ! Nothing to trade. Egad ! More Berliners - up the luxuries to 20% !!

IBT - nothing interesting.

10) 2150 BC Warr4 heads south into yet more jungle. Work gang scrambles to Hamburg wheat. Warr3 heads south again - that darkness to the west may be worth looking into. Warr2 reaches what looks like the northern tip of the continent. Yep - there is a mountain involved again.

Closing gratuitious advice Berlin will have a settler next turn. I suggest we keep pumping them out until the population dips too low, then build a warrior for sentry duty. Hamburg could do with a temple perhaps to capture the ivory. Leipzig could maybe build a worker next to irrigate the wheat. I believe that the short term priority is to grow as fast as possible, to build or buy a few more workers, and build warriors ready for a sword upgrade.

Looks like we are going for RCP at 4-4.5 distance. CS, PF and others - I agree with the warrior->swords and chariots->horses upgrades when the time is ripe.

Here's a link to the Save File (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC2150_01.SAV)

Here's Peanut World at 210 BC :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=54980&stc=1

As Capt. Kirk would say - Mr. Peglegasus ... please take the con. Let's boldly go where no Team Peanut has gone before.

Peanut,

Good play. Loved the humor! I would like to suggest that it is not necessary for Hamburg to build a temple to get the ivory. A city along the river to the NW will bring the ivory into our control. I would suggest settlers are a better use of shields than temples at this stage in the game. Perhaps this is the time to decide on the distance of the second ring.

BTW it was not necessary for you to cross Joan's pink line in the sand. If you had checked F4 you would have discovered you had contact. No need to upset a lady, especially one with horns!

Keith

Ok played my turns but have to take the kiddos to story time at the library... have to post save and turn log when we get back! :p

Peglegasus

Please skip my turn today. It's my wife birthday and birthdays and civ don't mix well.
The earliest I could play would be tomorrow evening.

Interesting in looking at the save, have fun. I'll catch up next time.

PF

Ok here's my turn log. Man you guys are bold... undefended cities! I'm already nervous as this is around the time that barbarian activity starts up.

1) 2110 BC ugh! I hit the enter key to begin my turn and sure enough a barb pops out of the fog next to Hamburg. Berlin builds a settler and begins work on a doorman/ bouncer to keep out the riff raff. Will complete in 4 turns. lux back to 0 for the moment. I'm trying to figure out where to take this settler... the rough terrain makes me sad. I'm going for the blue x east since there were no objections to the city placement suggestions made earlier. The work crew is irrigating the wheat by hamburg.
warrior4: east- jungle.
warrior3: SE looking for barbs. lights up wheat 2 tiles from the cattle square found earlier. nice.
warrior2: SE- nothing interesting

2) 2070 BC Liepzig completes warrior. Fortifies as guard/ MP. There's a Russian warrior loitering around and I'm not so sure about him. Liepzig begins worker.
settler: E
warrior3: S- nothing interesting. just lighting up some dark spots on the map
warrior2: S- as above
warrior4: NE onto mountain to get a better view. Good thing too. 2 barbs 2 squares from our settler, one square from our planned city site.
Berliners need a little entertainment. Lux to 10%. That other barb is going to raid Hamburg on the next turn, which means we will lose 1/3 of our treasury. I'd rather spend that money on something than let him rob us. No one has workers to sell and no one has anything new. Joan is offering the best deal on the wheel: 80 gold. I talk her down to 69. Naughty. Nearest horses I can see are on the northwest shore of the little lake NW of Hamburg.

3) 2030 BC Warrior completed in Berlin- fortifies. Lux back to 0. Barb raids Hamburg for 10 gold. Would have been a little over 30 if I hadn't spent some of it. Workers roading irrigated wheat at Hamburg.
warrior4: NW to protect settler.
warrior3: S- nothing interesting
settler: S- to avoid barbs and rendezvous with warrior
warrior2: SW- nada

4) 1990 BC Hamburg completes warrior. Begins temple in 30. I'm thinking we will probably switch to something else though. Have to discuss it. Barbarians move away from the settler... settler moves into position.
warrior4: NW again to protect settler
warrior3: S
warrior2: SE- lighting up shoreline north of us

5) 1950 BC The barbarians move in. EEK!
warrior 4: NW onto new city site to protect
settler: unpacks, founds Konigsberg- warrior in 5
workers complete road at Hamburg wheat. Entertaining Berliners at 10% rate. Didn't realize that was another grass square immediately south of Berlin. The jungle was kind of hiding it. Send the work crew 1 tile north of Hamburg roading next to the duck pond.
warrior3: W to mountain
warrior2: S

6) 1910 BC Suspicions about the Russian possibly confirmed. He enters territory moving towards Berlin. I'm not going to say anything to Catherine. He might just be passing through. Another barb west of Hamburg
warrior3: SW
warrior4: fortifies in Konigsberg
warrior2: S

7) 1870 BC Liepzig builds worker and starts barracks (I change build to another worker later) Worker sent to wheat tile.
warrior3: SE- finds barb camp I suspected was west of Hamburg in the mountains.
warrior2: E
Hamburg crew finishes roads and begins irrigating next to pond. Hamburg size 2, temple in 18. The Russian moves further in to our territory. I still don't complain to Catherine about him.

8) 1830 BC Barbarian attacks Konigsberg. We defend successfully. Berlin grows to 5. Settler in 1 turn. Entertainment to 20%
warrior3: moves next to barb camp in the mountains. There are 2 barbs up here so I think I will fortify next turn. One of them is likely to attack after that.
warrior2: W
Russian moves in next to Berlin. If he attacks it will be from across the river so we should be fine, unless he gets lucky.

9) 1790 BC Berlin builds settler. The Russian moves away to the SW. 2 Englsih warriors appear to the West of Berlin. Growth in 2, settler in 6. 2nd barb moves away from Konigsberg.
settler: N from Berlin. I thought about sending him west to take the ivory, but with the russian, the 2 new brits, and barbs out there, I'm just going for the location east of the pond ( last blue x on the city discussion screenie).
warrior 3 fortifies next to barb camp.
warrior2: SW
lux back to 0%. Iron working in 3 turns.

10) 1750 BC Barbarian attacks warrior 3 and dies. Warrior then attacks barb camp and is successful. Konigsberg builds warrior. Fortifies as MP and sends warrior 4 back out scouting. Barbarian approaching again. Konigsberg begins barracks. Konigsberg will be a slow growth town, but after a barracks can turn out vet warriors for us.
settler: N
warrior2: S
workers have irrigated plains next to pond. moving them 1 tile SW to do the same there.
Russia and England now have writing and iron working.

Well I had fun with my first turns in my first succession game! I checked in with the other civs every turn to see if they had workers or new techs, except I think I might have forgotten on turn nine. Russia and England might have gotten IW and writing on that turn. They haven't traded to France yet and we are due to get IW on our own in 2 turns. I think we should wait it out and see if we get it before they trade to France, then we can sell it. The Russian looks like he's leaving so I'm glad I didn't complain to Catherine. I think the AI will do that sometimes just to see if you'll get uppity.

As for new city sites, I think the second ring should go at 8-8.5, but of course i'm open to suggestions. I usually do rings at 4 and 8 or there abouts anyway so that's one reason I'm leaning towards that, but it also works out quite well on this map. I'll post some screenies in a bit to show you what I think. Hamburg is still building a temple but I would like to see another city just beyond it at 8 or 8.5... that will give us the ivory in our territory and we wouldn't need the temple for it.

here's the save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC1750_01.SAV

ok here are the screenies. the red x's are city sites at distance 7-7.5 (if i'm figuring this correctly) and the blue x's are at distance 8-8.5. and since i'm still the newb, we can scrap these ideas completely if you guys see a better setup. note the horses on the west side. and there sure better be iron close by or i'll be upset.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/westsidev2.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/eastsidev2.jpg

Oh I forgot to mention, I meant to scout to the south of us in my turns but didn't get a chance because of the barb situation. we need to do that soon and plan the rest of the inner ring, so maybe i'm jumping ahead with outer ring plans.

Sorry, I haven't been participating in the discussion. I have been real sick the last few days. I don't know what I caught, but it has kicked my butt good. I am starting to feel a little better today, but with this cold and the medications, I don't think I can concentrate to do my turns right now. If we wait for Planetfall to play tomorrow, I will probably be OK to play after that, but if you guys want to keep it going, I don't mind being skipped.

Once again, I apologize for not doing my part for the team.

BC

I vote for a 8-8.5 ring. The Flood plain just NE of 3 is another good location and is on a river. Also don't overlook the square just SE of 4 for a 8-8.5 location. Why don't we take up bigchief's offer and keep going. We have a long ways to go and the game will slow down when we have more to move and report.

Keith

I like the 8-8.5 distance also, and agree with Keith, let's continue! I would like to see us grab that ivory soon. I marked position 15 instead of the square sw of it because it leaves all of the flood plain open for irrigation. we can get quick growth there and share some of the flood plain food with 14. other than that, I really want to see more of the terrain south of us. So who can go next?

Wow! This is quite exciting! Two turns in the last 24 hours. I'm on travel through Friday, so I'm unavailable to play until then (but I'll check in occasionally). If we skip PF and bigchief, I'd have to be skipped also, passing it on to Keith, I think. If PF is able to play tomorrow, I'd have no problem waiting; but if you want to forge ahead, it looks like Keith is up.

I like the 8.x ring, also; especially the space to the NW that brings the Ivory into our domain. If the only horses we have access to are to the far NW, we probably better start expanding that way. And I'd really like to see what's to the South of us.

IronWorking in 2? We'll know where Iron is soon, also. We definitely need to start getting some Vets out soon.

I'll check in tomorrow morning (PDT.)

@Peglegasus,

How exactly to resize pictures depends on the software you use. Anyway, they all have a Modify -> Resize or an Image -> Resize command (or the like) that you can use.
The most convenient width is 600 pixels.

Peglegasus - great work and an entertaining write-up. Yes, sending unprotected settlers off is a daring and perhaps somewhat foolish move, but once they settle the city is there for keeps no matter how many barbs come a-pillaging. Spending our treasury was a great way of minimising the pain.

I think 8-8.5 for ring two sounds good - a decent compromise between grabbing territory and keeping up with connecting cities together.

BTW Peglegasus - newb or oldb makes no difference. You are on team Peanut and every opinion counts. Keep the suggestions and insights coming !

Keith L makes a good point - if we settle blue-x # 16 on Peglegasus's map to grab the elephants then we should probably switch Hamburg's temple to something more ugly like a barracks ?

The guidelines for SGOTMS suggest around 24 hours to pick up so a day's delay for Planetfall is no problem for me. My feeling is let's keep to the roster so everybody gets a go in the early stages. For now, once you pick it up it's pretty quick to play 10 turns so things will keep moving at reasonable pace. I suggest that we only pass up our turn if we know we will have a longer delay.

However Keith if you have already taken up the various suggestions and played then - well - c'est la vie. We'll just move on.

If things slow down too much (or if folk want) I will float a suggested protocol for game handovers and pickups but things are going fine so far so we won't make it too formal if we don't need to. What do my fellow generals think or want on this ?

Bigchief - Hope you are improved real soon and that you can play this round after Planetfall.

@Peglegasus,

How exactly to resize pictures depends on the software you use. Anyway, they all have a Modify -> Resize or an Image -> Resize command (or the like) that you can use.
The most convenient width is 600 pixels.

Thanks, Karasu! I figured out how to do it. Was super easy.

I am convinced, lets stick to the rotation. There is no way I can play until after 9 PM Central US Time.

It sounds like you want me to continue playing as originally scheduled. I should be able to start re 7pm Central. Naturally this conflicts with Enterprise. But at this early stage 20 turns should not be too hard, especially since 20 minutes of an hour show are boring commercials.

PF

Plantfall,

You only have to do 10 turns. Only the first player on the first round does 20.

Keith

Thanks. Like I said at the beginning this is my first succession game.

I actually caught this error in reading Peglegasus' log.

PF

I've lost my copy of the Ring Placement diagram. What are the locations for next city?

PF

I've lost my copy of the Ring Placement diagram. What are the locations for next city?

PF
Planetfall - see civ_steve's map (post #34) and Peglegasus's two maps (post # 49). However it's your turn at the wheel, then steer us where you see fit - there are always unforeseen factors that arise as you play.

A quick question for you all - would you please post your timezone ? We may be able to reshuffle the roster to have quicker handovers.

I am in GMT+10, living in subtropical Australia. It's nearly winter now but that doesn't mean much here as our sunny winter days are often short-sleeve weather.

Upload is complete. Here's the link. Next!!!!
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC1500_01.sav

1750bc previous player
__preturn_ Reviewed file and there is a smidgen of room for optimization.
ANALYSIS
Civ is 4 cities in size and we have 3 workers. It looks like those policing warriors are setting a bad example and the people think they don't need workers. We will have to correct that horrible situation, what is Germany without great industrious workers? We seeded our civ with guest workers, but the cities are still sloffing off.

Well, what can we do. We need to focus on Leipiz as the example of a good model city 1 citizen, 1 improved tile, growth in 2, new worker in 2; perfect timing just when we will need a new improved tile.

Hamburg- 2 citizens, 2 improved tiles, 3 food and 2 shields, looks like this city has great potential

Konigsberg- 1 citizen, 0 improved tiles. 15 turns for citizen growth, barracks in 10???

Berlin-- 3 citizens, 3 improved tiles, but growth in 1, food is only 4 and shields is good at 5

WORLD RELATIONS
The Russians have such a grand delusion of being a great power. They know how to write but they don't know how to play poker, heh, heh, heh. They want French Contact and 36 of our hard earned gold. But they lust for pompus court dances with the French. They are willing to pay 18 gold and give us Iron Working for the priviledge of dancing in Paris. Stupid Russians, there is no way they can compete with the snobbishness of the French.

The English have graciously offered us writing for only 33 gold and French contact. Let's see France has 2 cities and nothing to trade yet. Hummm..

MOVES
1. Hamburg: changed build queue from temple to granary. We need growth and workers much more than we need a temple.
2. Berlin: changed queue to worker. We need to get Berlin's food up asap, and this is a good time to do it. There is only one turn of food and shields in the bin. Worker and growth in one.
3. Konigsberg: changed queue from barracks to warrior. Barracks would be good but we need a back up warrior and worker first.
4. England: traded French contact and 33 gold for writing. We may have gotten it cheaper later but with the gold Russia is giving us writing is only costing 14 gold. That's one turn of research.
5. Russia: gave us 19 gold for France contact. England would have sold this anyway so 19 is better in our treasury than in Englands

__AI turn__
1. Oh, oh, England is "polite" but 2 warriors moved with stricking distance of Hamburg. Too bad we can't send them back to their island.
2. barbarian moved between Konigsberg and Leipzip

__TURN ONE _ 1725 bc
1. Policeman1 sees barbarian and decides to chase away the barbarian criminal. Success.
2. War4 moves south, nothing new. So boring...
3. War2 moves SE
4. wrk2 is really really hungry and so starts nourishing the wheat
5. settler nw 1
6. police1 towards hamburg
7. worker3 along road also
8. war 3 towards hamburg
9. Berlin: queue warrior
10. lux slider to 1

__AI turn__
1. England declares WAR
2. Policeman 4 deserves a metal, he repelled the criminal attack of England

__TURN TWO _ 1700 bc
1. war3 moves towards hamburg for extra defense
2. police1 moves to hamburg, we just can't lose this city
3. work3 starts clearing land
4. war4 moves towards mountain, he sees iron and downs a keg
5. war2 moves south
6. wrk4 is hungry and craves wheat, so goes to work in the fields
7. pol2 moves back home and rests
8. settler wants to feel gold so rests on mountain top
9 foreign workers start laying water pipes

__AI turn__
1. police1 beats off upstart English criminal and is awarded a bullet proof vest.
2. English scout runs home

__TURN THREE _ 1675 bc
Just parted units. Not much to play with.
As feared, Russia is expanding in strength. The lost of 2 warriors to our police We gamble and police gets English scout. We are still weak and we hear there are more barbarians near hamburg

__AI turn__
Found barbarian camp and see some more iron

__TURN FOUR _ 1650 bc
Just slowly moving south, not much to do.

__AI turn__
no sign of any movement

__TURN FIVE _ 1625 bc
War6 and War7 passed initiation rights and are now working a full adults. We now have an average military and the same power strength with the English

__AI turn__
no sign of any movement

__TURN SIX _ 1600 bc
Good news bad news. We planted Frankfurt on Red X #11. Bad news we lost a mighty warrior to barbarians. They have a warrior and horseman. They are too close to Frankfurt

__AI turn__
Here comes barbarian horseman

__TURN SEVEN _ 1575 bc
workers retreating to Hamburg, just enough time. Moving warriors back to cities.

__AI turn__
Now there are 2 barb horses and 1 barb warrior

__TURN EIGHT _ 1550 bc
Workers run away from horsemen, warriors move back to cities, Takes forever without roads.

__AI turn__
Barbarbians are moving closer

__TURN NINE _ 1525 bc
Moved warriors in defensive position.
__AI turn__
One barb warrior died.

__TURN TEN _ 1500 bc
1. Peace with England for Mysticm and 2 gold

We need at least one barracks built and a couple archers for Barb horsemen.

Images coming in a bit. Harder to do on XP.

PF

Here's the image.

Planetfall - excellent play & an entertaining writeup. Smooth trading and a well fought war. Curse those English dogs - we will remember their foul treachery in years to come eh what ?

I admit to being a little optimistic by not keeping troop building to match settler production, figuring to risk barb attacks but it gets tempting for AI civs at times.

If we can have Hamburg churning settlers as well as Berlin then we should get onto a rapid growth curve and leave those other teams quaking with terror in our dust as we surge towards victory ! Or something like that ...

You are right about the workers - they are crucial to pumping our economy. I reckon we should buy them whenever they are on the market as well as training our own.

Bigchief - your time has come. Gird your loins and plunge into the fray. We will be cheering from the sidelines.

Good trading and Good defense, PF! It looks like we have a 7.x 2nd ring. We got IronWorking in the initial trades; I can't load the game right now, so what are we researching and have we sped up the reseach rate? With Writing under our belt, Literature would be a natural for us Scientific Germans. Good performance on the variant will require rapid research, so I think we should boost the research rate up to whatever is sustainable.

I can see a couple more city sites to the South (in the Jungle Zone) for our inner 4.x ring. (4SW/1NW is a jungle-river site, which would have access to a BG to start with; 3SW/2SE puts a jungle-river city right on the spice with no great tiles to work with, maybe a forest near Berlin, or 3SW/3SE is just across the river and maybe there's something nice further South.) South still looks to be a lot of work; terrain kind of forces us in the upper half of the space we know about.

Barbs are definitely encrouching. Even though they're on the Mountains, it's probably better to attack; we get an Offensive bonus vs Barbs, and they only have 2 hps.

I live in California; that's -8 relative to GMT, I believe. bigchief, I hope you're well enough to take it.

Going for Monarchy. If lucky we might get Hanging Gardens. This path is not the first researched in PTW and we should be able to make good trades for Monarchy if we can get it first, it is usually near the last tech in Ancient world for PTW. In C3C it is about first, but this is PTW variant.

PF

Forgot to mention, if we are going to get Monarchy to trade, we need to increase research rate.

Frankfurt and Hamberg are both to be settler creator cities. I don't know if we can make settler pumps out of them yet. I think so but have not analyzed it yet. The entire NW quadrant looks like it must belong to Germany. We need to expand that direction early to get horses.


I forgot how long it takes to do the write ups. As you noticed I got tired partway thru the turns.
It will be most interesting to see how the rest of you all play this.

PF

I'm starting to do a little better, but I am far from well. I need to be skipped this time. My apologies.

BC

Edit: I am in US Central Time Zone.

Peanut,

Is this correct for you?

Order Player TimeZone Location Relative Time
1 bigchief GMT-6, Central Lake Superior 06:00 PM, Th
2 civ_steve GMT-8, Pacific Ca 04:00 PM, Th
3 Keith_larson GMT-6, Central Lake Huron 06:00 PM, Th
4 Peanut GMT+10, Aus Aus 10:00 AM, Fr
5 Peglegasus GMT-6, Central Texas 06:00 PM, Th
6 PF GMT -7,Mountain Colorado 05:00 PM, Th

Well, BIGCHIEF is ill, CIV_STEVE is out til Friday. So it looks like either Keith plays today or we wait until tomorrow for Civ_Steve.

Either works for me. Sounds like your call Keith.

PF

I should be able to do my round this evening. BTW I live off the shores of Lake Michigan, not Huron. Lake Huron is in the Eastern Time Zone. I have found Barb Hunter Killer Groups of 1 Spearman and 1or2 Archers works very well at this stage of the game. Continue pumping out warriors for crowd control and protection. Does this sound good to everyone? I am also going to claim the silks even though the land is poor. The Russians have grown large enough that they may send a settler to claim it before we do if we wait too long. Other than that I am going to continue moving us to the NW. I will read everyone's thoughts before I start this evening.

I should be able to do my round this evening. BTW I live off the shores of Lake Michigan, not Huron. Lake Huron is in the Eastern Time Zone.
I'm surprised I got that close. You and Big_chief did not share your location so I just assigned you to a Great Lake.


I have found Barb Hunter Killer Groups of 1 Spearman and 1or2 Archers works very well at this stage of the game. Continue pumping out warriors for crowd control and protection. Does this sound good to everyone?

Sounds good. The other alternative later will be spear and horseman.


I am also going to claim the silks even though the land is poor. The Russians have grown large enough that they may send a settler to claim it before we do if we wait too long. Other than that I am going to continue moving us to the NW. I will read everyone's thoughts before I start this evening.


I don't see silk. I see ivory, spice and incense. Ivory we're going for. Incense would be ok as there are at least a couple of normal tiles there. Well actually hills but that's ok.

If you mean spice in south, towards Russia? I would hold off awhile. Here's why:
1. Look above Blue X 15 and 16. A wheat and cattle combination.
2. We want to expand with more productive cites than AI and not just more cities. Konigsberg is a good example of a marginal city.
3. It would be cool to have 3 good cities pumping out settlers: hamburg, Frankfurt, and New city NW of 15/16.
4. We don't really need the 3 luxuries yet. We are still in despositism.
5. Horse are more important to our survival than spices.
6. If we settle in NW and NE, the barbs could be pushed down to France and Russia, ah shucks.
7. Who cares if Russia grabs spice. It is all poor land and takes much work to become productive. It is more effective to let Russia grab the spice, clear some land and then conquer the city. We are going to be having to have war with Russia fairly soon jus tto slow down their expansion. From the mini-map it looks like Russia might be East of France.

If the barbs settle down, it would be nice to know what is to the East and South.

Have fun, I'm sure you will do well.


PF

Game Log

1500 BC Pre-round Housekeeping. Increased research to 70%. We will go full blast for Monarchy. Moved citizen to plains at Berlin to grow one turn sooner, settler will still be built in 3 more turns.

1475 BC Warrior next to horseman on gold wins and becomes a vet. Rename him War8. War6 is attacked and wins as well! Berlin’s influence expands! Warrior protecting worker next to Berlin renamed to Police5 and moves to Berlin to do crowd control. War6 moves W. War8 NW. War3 N. War4 N. Wrk1 starts road on hill, Warrior on the same hill renamed Police6 and fortifies to protect all those juicy workers. EngWrk1 and RusWrk1 join in the roadwork. Move lux slider down to 10%.

1450 BC Thanks to a cleared forest Berlin completes a settler one turn ahead of schedule, another is on the way! Wrk3 starts mining (until it is completed I will sift a citizen between forest and the newly cleared square to complete the next settler in 5 turns). Police5 fortifies in Berlin. Settler moves west. Newly created Warrior in Leipzig renamed Police7 and fortifies. Leipzig start producing a worker. War7 moves S to escort settler. War 3,4 and 6 continue NW to clear barb camp. War8 moves N to protect the northern flank. Lux slider down to 0%. Science at 100%. England and Russia both have Math. I will wait until France has it and buy it cheap.

1425 BC Hamberg has produced a Granary; starts a worker. England has started the Oracle (what a waste of shields and population)! Moved Berlin citizen to forest, pop growth still in two turns. Warrior army passes through Frankfort on the ways to destroy barbs. The people of the city give them a warm welcome. The young German girls are impressed by their stone clubs! War8 continues N and sees no bad guys. War7 and settler visit Hamberg.

1400 BC Horseman sighted riding in the plains to the NW of Frankfort. War3, 4 and 6 move NW to bait the horseman to attack across the river. Settler and War 7 will wait it out in Hamberg until the battle is over. Wrk 2 and 4 have completed road on Mountain, move NW of Leipzig to develop BG. Wrk 1 and friends move off hill (no point in mining it yet because the added shield will be lost to corruption) to the south to connect Iron. Here is my logic: Unconnected cities can still pour out cheap warriors, Berlin and Hamberg are our worker and settler factories, Leipzig is switching to barracks will be become our armory and Konigsberg will alternately produce workers and spearmen until its land is developed. War8 moves W into woods to temp horseman to attack. Policeman6 moves south to protect workers on Iron hill. Policeman3 moves NW out of Leipzig to protect workers.

1375 BC Horseman did not take bait and moves toward Hamberg. War1 moves out of Hamberg to do battle and wins becoming a veteran! Warrior stack moves NW into woods in preparation to the attack on the Marcomanni camp. War8 fortifies in woods in prep for the settler coming from Hamberg. The settler move out of Hamberg to the woods to the N. Workers on Iron Mountain start their road. Police6 fortifies. We will have iron in 5 turns! Konigsberg completes War9 and starts another warrior. A new horseman has appeared to the NE of Leipzig. War9 moves to hill W of Leipzig to help in the defense. Wrk4 and 2 start road on BG. Policeman 3 moves back into Leipzig. Berlin is now at 5 pop. With two citizen in woods we will have a new settler next turn! 10% Entertainment Tonight.

1350 BC War3 attack Marcomanni camp and easily wins! 25 gold added to our coffers! Won’t those blond girls back in Frankfort be impressed now! War6 moves to the east to the woods so War8 can move to Leipzig to get upgraded to Swordsman. (This is an honor that only vets receive in peace time.) War 4 moves NW to join up with War3. Hamberg has produced Wrk5 who moves N to link to new city at the woods. Settler moves into woods. Hamberg will produce a new settler in 8 turns. War5 and new settler in Berlin move the first ring city sight 4.5 squares to the SW. Police3 fortifies in Leipzig. War9 moves S on Mountain. From here he can add is strength to three cities if needed. Vet War1 start moving towards Leipzig to get upgraded. Newly created Police7 at Frankfurt moves towards Hamberg and Berlin to report of duty. Frankfurt starts a new warrior. Wrk 2 switches to mine. EngWrk1 stops road work and moves W to clear jungle mine so Konigsberg can start another warrior before iron starts rolling in. Science 100%.

1325 BC EngWrk1 starts clearing Jungle. War5 and settler SW. Munich founded in woods. Starts producing Warrior. Wrk5 starts road. War 3 and 4 move back towards our civilization as we are pumping out settlers so fast now. The Magyar (Headless) horseman foolishly moves next to Leipzig thinking it can attack our workers. War9 comes rushing down is Mountain post and kills him. Everyone else follows their previous movement orders. War 8 starts moving towards Leipzig. Science moved to 90% to save a little gold.

1300 BC The French are now foolishly building the most worthless wonder the famous Oracle. Our people are not impressed! Road complete, Wrk4 adds his effort to Wrk2 in building a mine. War9 moves back to his mountain perch. Wrk3 has completed his mine, moves SE to start road in woods. War 3 & 4 move towards Munich. Police7 moves toward Berlin. Everyone else continues their orders. Entertainment Tonight at 10%, Science at 90%. Poly in 8 turns.

1275 BC. Two Alemanni horsemen ride out of the west and stop next to War 3 & 4. They quickly dispatch them. Wrk3 begins road. Angle and Pheonicians show up in the south. Ent down to 0%. Science stays at 90%.

1250 BC. Our workers have completed a road to bring Ivory into Berlin. This will make our citizens happy! Leipzig has completed Barracks, starts Warrior. Konigsberg builds Warrior (War10) and start another. This will be her last warrior. Wrk2 and 4 move SE to improve plains next to river. Police3 moves to protect them. War10 joins war9 as a reserve. War4 join war 3 as a barb killing stack. Wrk5 SW to connect Frankfurt. Heidelburg founded, starts producing warrior. Barbarians are at the gate, but iron is due next turn and two vet warriors are positioned for upgrade. Settlers are pouring out almost faster than we can protect them! Life is Good! Poly in only 5 turns.



http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC1250_01.SAV

Good set of turns! Poly is very valuable, and we should get good trades for it. I generally prefer Republic over Monarchy; the extra commerce is the key to faster research, which is a requirement to do well with this variant. War Weariness usually isn't a problem, if you hit them hard and fast!! :D We're can only afford one Anarchy period (not being Religious), so I'd recommend getting to Republic and changing as soon as we can afford to. (Army costs usually help dictate this.)

Leipzig, with a Barracks, would be a good Vet Warrior producer; once it has 5 useable shields, one every 2 turns. Konigsberg, with ability to use irrigated Games space once every 3 turns (with MM) makes sense to produce Workers (and Warriors) until its terrain is developed. The far-off Wheat/Cattle space wont be productive unless the FP is put up there (our palace moved). I'd definitely keep moving to the NW to get those horses; but we still need to know what's present to the South and further East, too.

I'm a big fan of connecting Iron, upgrading Warrs to Swordsmen, then pillaging the space. This way, all cities can be connected, which give them access to Luxuries and allow them to grow fully.

Maybe, as a Team, we need to decide which Government and which Tech paths we should pursue. (Obviously the player with the current set of turns has to respond to whatever opportunities or hindrances pop up, but there should be a general approach decided upon that we would all try to follow.)

I've already said we should go to Republic as soon as we can financially. The only true advantage that Monarchy has over Republic is no WarWeariness (even that isn't a big issue; in Gotm25 as the Mongols I was at war with successive civs for a thousand years as Republic.) Since we're going for the variant, we can't afford a lot of wars, so I see no advantage to being a Monarchy. (Like Peanut said, we want to be Big and Loveable.) What does everybody else think?

If we decide on Republic as our next government, then after finishing the Poly research, I'd suggest we move quickly towards Republic by researching Philosophy, Code-of-Laws and then Republic, next. Poly is an expensive Tech, and I'd hope we could get more than Math for it. Perhaps learn Phil, and if something else (like Map-Making) doesn't pop up, trade Phil for Math and see if we can't trade Poly for Construction or Currency down the line.

Another thought - Forbidden Palace placement. We haven't built a city yet on that hill just NE-E of Hamburg. This is fairly central, and maybe would be a good spot for the FP (planning to Palace Jump later). Berlin is near the edge of things right now, and unless there's some great territory just on the other side of all that Jungle to the South, we'll likely want to move our palace later. If so, a nearby, central FP is a good idea.

It's late, and I'm afraid I'll start to really ramble. What does everybody else think about these topics?

Not quite awake yet, but great writeup. Just a couple of quick points:

1. monarchy research is only for 1) trade value and 2) possible Hanging Gardens.
2. We should go to republic as soon as we can.
3. This is not C3C, we should have 2 sets of 2 ring cities. Atter that they can be anywhere. I would suggest to NW somewhere in the neighborhood of the 2 lakes. We can then have 2 full rings around both the FP and Palace.


and the girls oogled at the stone axes as the warrior army paraded thru.

GREAT!!

Time to make coffee.

PF

Peanut,

Is this correct for you?

Order Player TimeZone Location Relative Time
1 bigchief GMT-6, Central Lake Superior 06:00 PM, Th
2 civ_steve GMT-8, Pacific Ca 04:00 PM, Th
3 Keith_larson GMT-6, Central Lake Huron 06:00 PM, Th
4 Peanut GMT+10, Aus Aus 10:00 AM, Fr
5 Peglegasus GMT-6, Central Texas 06:00 PM, Th
6 PF GMT -7,Mountain Colorado 05:00 PM, Th
Yes, thanks. Looks like we just stick to the roster as it stands. I was just checking to see if we had anyone from GMT +-1 or 2, but alas no.

Well, the kids are in bed now, I've had a coffee, and I am next on the list. So, I'll strap on the armour and wade in. Stay tuned folks ...

Looking good, all! I'm glad the iron is so close. A consolation to our rough terrain.

Peglegasus

As for goverments I am for Republic all the way. Planetfall had already started us on the path to a Monarcy trade. As soon as we get Poly I would suggest we move the slider down to 10% and use the gold to upgrade warriors. If we hold on to Poly for a few turns we may get a few more techs and we will have a head start on Monarcy. I like the double lake region for the sight of a second ring. The area S of Berlin may be jungle now but once it is cleared jungle tends to have a higher ratio of BG. So we might want to think twice before palace jumping.

Keith

Polytheism has been a pretty useful research path in my games too. I would expect around the time we finish that the AI will have horseback riding and possibly map making or literature, and of course they already have math. So we should be able to get most of those with polytheism. I think we are all in agreement about going to republic when its available... it's my understanding the monarchy research path was for trade purposes. I've found this very useful in my ptw games too. By that time code of laws and philosophy should be available for trade, and possibly construction. Which of course would launch us into the MA's.

I'm doing much better today. I will download the save after Peanut plays, and catch up with what is going on. I should be able to play my turns when they come up again.

I'm back, and checking in. Bigchief, I'm glad to hear you're feeling better. That must have been some illness to knock you around for so long!

The general feeling seems to push on towards Monarchy, even though all want to eventually change to Republic. Monarchy does give you trade ability, but so does Republic. BTW, not only do I think we should go to Republic, I think all our neighbor civs should go there as well!! (If we decide to isolate one of them and attack, maybe not that one.) Getting everybody up to Republic is a great way to increase the research rate. I'd want to time the trade to get the remaining AA Techs, and whatever free Tech Russia gets, but that time is coming quickly. (And we'll probably have to trade off or gift the two free MidAges Techs to everyone else so they'll research new stuff for us.) We can not afford another 40 turn research for anything, not if we wish to be competitive; we can get all the free gold out there with the trades coming up so we don't really need to do minimal research to be able to afford our upgrades. And Hanging Gardens is nice (and I do want to build it), but I don't want to delay the direct path to our goal by researching one optional government tech, and then have to research the other or wait for the AI to do it. IMO and experience, that's too much delay.

If the team wishes to pursue the Monarchy path, I'll say no more. And I have no doubt we will achieve a good result regardless (this team has solid players), but I think we'll be out of the running for the Gold Laurel.

Time & family press so a just quick summary here. Sorry no time for maps yet but we can see all of our continent now ... read on. The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC1000_01.SAV)

Pre-turn Checks. Economy fine. People happy. Treasury excellent. Scientists sweating and working overtime in their laboratories. Nothing worth trading. Keith has passed over a finely tuned game. Let's hope I don't foul it up ...

IBT Iron connected up. Barbs approach Heidelburg.

1) 1225 BC Another band of Berliners is ready for new adventures. They head due south, and a War10 moves to join them. War8 and War1 are rewarded swords for their valour, becoming Sword8 and Sword1. More plains being watered beside Leipzig. War5 successfully practices his axemanship on the barbarian outside Heidelburg. The road to Frankfurt is commenced.

IBT Dull dull dull.

2) 1200 BC War5 returns to his station. Sword1 heads to join the southbound settler. Nothing to trade.

IBT Dull dull dull yet again.

3) 1175 BC Leipzig builds warrior who is fitted out with a new sword. Another sword started. Sword1 bloods his blade on an Angle horse foolish to enter German territory. A short, sharp lesson for that upstart tribe !

IBT Even duller, but a barbarian horse came up to greet our brave northern warriors on border patrol.

4) 1150 BC The Hamburgers outfit a settler party. They will head into the hills north of Berlin. Frankfurt connected, now to irrigate those flood plains. Nuremburg settled in the jungle, a worker is first on their priority list. War4 shows the horseman the business end of his stone axe. The horseman is briefly interested before heading off to Valhalla or wherever it is they think they go. And somebody, maybe Joannie, struck it lucky ! Everyone has Maths and Maps now ! Except us.

IBT Boring in extremis !

5) 1125 BC We are Polytheistic ! Now we aim to be Lawful@max in 10t. The road to Heidelburg under construction. Let's trade - Joan gives us Maths & Maps & TM & 75g for Poly. Lizzie gives WM & 50g for Poly. Cathy gives WM & 80g for Poly. We buy Joans WM for 60g. Nobody has any of our maps though.

IBT Nothing at all.

6) 1100 BC A settler from Berlin. These are keen on incense so they head that way. A Leipzig swordsman moves to join them. Cologne settled N of Berlin, they start building a worker.

IBT Another horse visits in the north. Boring otherwise.

7) 1075 BC Another barb horseman gains intimate but short lived experience with a fine German stone axe. Joannie got lucky again - she can now ride horses, but she hasn't shared this knowledge around yet.

IBT Dull dull dull yet again.

8) 1050 BC. Nothing of interest. Joannie hasn't sold her horse knowledge yet.

IBT Dull dull dull yet again. Barbarians wandering about but we scare them I think ...

9) 1025 BC Hannover founded on the Incense. They start a warrior. Joannie still hasn't sold HBR - she only wants WM&120g. Sorry.

IBT Dull dull dull yet again.

10) 1000 BC Workers move to build road to Hanover. A warrior and sword built. Cathy and Lizzie know Philosophy. Cathy only wants WM for it ... nope not yet.

Closing gratuitious advice A settlement by the sea may be good to get an exploration galley out and about. Otherwise - I think we should plot a course for Republic and build up a sword force for some "foreign relations". Not a very inspiring turn. Over to you Peglegasus. Glad to hear you are improved Bigchief.

Couple of things this am:

1. Glad to hear BigChief has beaten off the nasty bug
2. Rethought need for Hanging Gardens. It might be better to let one of our continent sharers to build it and then just acquire it. There are 4 luxuries on this continent, not just the 3 as initially thought.
3. Since we are switching to self research, we need to build towards having 5 good production cities.

Finally, I suggest we all have 2 goals, particularly as we review the turns.

A. Discuss how we are going to play this game going forward, and
B. Offer suggestions to the person who just played.
-- what was really good about their play [if anything that turn, some turns will be boring]
-- other alternatives to playing the turn that might help that player in the future.

Check in later.

PF

Interesting to see the full continent finally. Anyone up for an early little war? I'm looking at the Russian territory because they are so close. Moscow looks like an easy target and it would really hurt them to have their capital and best producing city taken out so soon. They are also expanding north towards us, albeit slowly, so if we take moscow and maybe another city we could fill inbetween with settlers of our own. Also it doesn't look like they have iron hooked up...

And since I've opened the subject of war, how much of this continent do we want? How much territory do we need to have a fast research rate? If we want the whole continent we should start working towards that now. I think the English will be our toughest competitor. Russia looks like it could go down easily. I think if we want it, we can have the continent by the middle of the next age. I know we are going for a diplomacy win, but if we take these other 3 civs out we will be in great shape to compete with the other continent.

What do you think?

1. I think we want the full continent and then stop expansion. It is so much easier to play if have full continent.
2. England won't be toughest. It will be either Russia because of UU, Cosack, or France, because it will be ahead in techs.

I haven't looked at the latest save, whenever you think it is wise to go for war, I have not objections.

PF

I think we need to set up a coastal city soon, and send out galleys to meet the other civs. We can speed up the tech pace quite a bit, if we get all the civs involved in the trading.

I am in agreement with going to war soon.

Indeed the Russian cossacks are tough, but we should be done warring before they ever get them. At this point the Russians have no iron and no horses. In fact they seem to be the least organized of our three rivals. The English have iron hooked up already so we will need a well prepared force to go against them. Horses will be available to them too as soon as one of their towns expands. The french have iron within 2 squares of one of their cities and horses inside their territory already. Looks like the English are about to build a city right on our border.

I'm getting ready to play my turns now. There is a settler due on the next turn and I think I will go to the coast with him to get some galleys started. Several swordsmen are being built and I will group them in preparation for a strike south.

Edit: All right I started my turn and haven't done anything yet. We have a target of opportunity here. I can hit this English spearman escorting a settler with our swordsman on the mountain. Would give us two free workers and prevent England from settling this nice spot. Would also start a war of course. The other things you can see in this shot are the proximity and vulnerability of the russian capital and another source of horses right on the border of Smolensk. Should I take this shot at the spearman? It's really tempting.

Again, your call. You probably have a good chance of success in getrting 2 workers. I won't take on both England and Russia now. Do you want 2 workers or Smolensk, or bide your time?

FHI- I usually have difficulties with AA and don't start taking off til near end of Middle Ages, so I don't want to say do A or B.

PF

Russia is a much better fit for our first war. As you said, England already has Iron, and may soon have horses. If we try to take the fight to them, our forces will be sitting ducks, as we trudge slowly across the jungle and mountains to get to them. We could sit and wait for them to come to us, but I doubt we can do enough damage that way to get anything useful in a peace settlement.

My 2 cents.

Does this game use standard rules? Corruption seems high and tech race seems a bit too fast for Monarch.

PF

Research seems fast because of all the River spaces being used; that's a lot of commerce to put into research! Corruption - well, we aren't commercial, and we do have 10 cities (I think that's what I counted). Need to think about FP very soon.

Taking on Russia would give us clear control of 1/2 the continent; most of the open space is around us and Russia. We can't effectively run an Empire larger than 2 cores, so I think it's better to let England and France control a reasonable kingdom each, contributing to our Research.

Peglegasus: Seems like good odds to take an unfortified Spearman in the open; the two workers would be useful. If you decide not to, wherever he eventually settles will be vulnerable to us in the future; it might even flip. If you do declare war and attack, I'd suggest getting a couple Catapults built; they're great for reducing the hitpoints of in-coming Swordsmen without risking our own.

Thanks, it has been so long since I played PTW, I forgot all the changes C3C made.

Naturally if we leave France full strength, we will fall behind them in techs. That is not necessarily bad. Is that what you are suggesting for a long range strategy?

PF

Couple of things this am:

1. Glad to hear BigChief has beaten off the nasty bug
2. Rethought need for Hanging Gardens. It might be better to let one of our continent sharers to build it and then just acquire it. There are 4 luxuries on this continent, not just the 3 as initially thought.
3. Since we are switching to self research, we need to build towards having 5 good production cities.

Finally, I suggest we all have 2 goals, particularly as we review the turns.

A. Discuss how we are going to play this game going forward, and
B. Offer suggestions to the person who just played.
-- what was really good about their play [if anything that turn, some turns will be boring]
-- other alternatives to playing the turn that might help that player in the future.

Check in later.

PF
PF - I agree with your two review goals. I would personally welcome any critical feedback that points out mistakes I have made. So anybody - feel free to start with my last effort (1250BC -1000BC).

I believe this game will be won for us on two points :

1) fast research and manipulation of AI research to get to Fission quickly.

2) being large enough to be #2 in a UN vote, and likeable enough through trades and generosity that we gather most of the votes.

Goal 1 needs lots of markets, libraries, universities etc. possibly built with a late middle ages golden age through Wonder build/capture.

Goal 2 means owning resources & luxuries to trade and/or give away as well as being dominant on this continent.

These goals mean two productive cores running to sustain our research, requiring that we occupy the major portion of our continent. That probably means reducing Russia to a small outpost, and trimming English and French border regions that we require if resources & luxuries are accessible. We must be scruplous in keeping agreements, and probably not eliminating anybody.

Your thoughts my fellow generals ?

I agree with nearly all your points, General Peanut. We definitely want Russia around, even if trimmed or greatly reduced, for the Free Tech she gets upon entering each Era. However, I'd prefer not trimming England or France if we can avoid it; maintains better relations and better AI research. Also, I'd rather plan to capture the UN from the AI that builds it, eliminating any guesswork as to who the primary candidate is. As mentioned in the Discussion Thread, use of the diplo dogpile makes it highly likely that we would also win the vote. This simplifies the variant contest down to whomever can push the AI into building the UN fastest.

Definitely plan on a builder strategy after determining our core locations. I'd suggest building Libraries first (once we have Literature), then Marketplaces or Temples, followed up by Universities. Having Techs to sell will compensate for loss of the income we'd get with Marketplaces.

Peanut: I liked the set of trades you did with Poly. I've been used to recent GOTM's where Map trading isn't done until Navigation, so that's been something to unlearn. You also got most of the Gold, and two other Techs. I usually don't worry about getting HorseBackRiding until the last trade to leave the AA; I'd like to get some chariots for future upgrade, if possible. Only other comment is I like to quickly upgrade as many Warriors as I can, then pillage the Iron source. It's really bad luck if the Iron runs out, and it only does that if it's connected.

PF: I don't agree with your comment regarding France and research. We should be able to maintain a very comfortable Tech lead once we get our research institutions built and cities over size 7. (The Terrain is definitely rough, and will delay us, but I'm sure we'll take the Tech lead most of this game.)

Where's the diplo dogpile thread? This is not a concept I am familar with. This seems to be key to your strategy.

PF

Ok finally played my turns. I decided not to attack the English spearman... the settler founded warwick in the tile south of our swordsman. My notes aren't very detailed this go around.

1) 975 BC Hamburg builds settler, starting on worker. Code of laws in 3 turns.

2) 950 BC Workers 2+4 irrigating plains near liepzig. Police 3 moves NE towards new coastal city site. Berlin builds settler, settler moves NE. Police 4 and worker 5 move N in flood plains by Frankfurt.

3) 925 BC Warwick founded by English directly south of our swordsman on the mountain. Swordsman politely vacates the premises. Police 4 attacks horseman... becomes veteran. Swordsman 1 leaves Cologne momentarily to slay a barbarian. Science dropped to 40%... Code of Laws in 1 turn. Upgrade warrior 9 to swordsman.

4) 900 BC Code of Laws traded to England for Philosophy and map. (they're broke). Russia is broke too. We trade for a map. (probably a bad move). We get Horseback riding and 55 gold from France. Pump science back up. Republic in 23 turns. Nuremburg builds worker, begins warrior. Workers 4+2 roading at Lepzig.

5) 875 BC Bah! Horseman steps out of nowhere and kills settler! Had a warrior one tile away. Barbarian activity REALLY picking up now. Hamburg builds worker who begins irrigating near munich. Settler moving WITH ARMED ESCORT west from Heidelburg. I'm still fuming from losing the other settler. Police 3 takes revenge on that horseman. He is now a veteran. Move swordsman from Liepzig to protect workers.

6) 850 BC Barb attacks Hannover, sword defends. Cologne builds worker. Starting barracks there. Liepzig builds sword, begins settler. Russians have construction and won't sell. If I had waited a bit before trading Code of laws I might have been able to get it. Oh well.

7) 825 BC Konigsberg builds worker, now building sword. Worker begins mining hill next door. Hamburg MP leaves his post to smack up a barb threatening workers. Hannover builds warrior and sends sword 8 east to look for barbarians. worker chopping forest near cologne to speed barracks.

8) 800 BC Sword 8 attacks horseman... now elite :) . Bremen founde in mountains SW of Hamburg by a nice alpine lake. Building a worker. Berlin builds settler... heading for our coastal site again.

9) 775 BC Hamburg builds worker, now building settler. Frankfurt builds sword, now settler.

10) 750 BC Warrior 4 fortifies in mountains to north next to barb camp. One of them is bound to attack on next turn and I'm hoping def bonus will save him.

The first screen I've marked where I was moving the settler to. 2 workers are already up there ready to work the flood plains and such. In the second there is a swordsman wounded in the upper right. I was going to send him out to the barb camp near there. The worker near Heidelberg and Berlin will need to be protected from that horseman, or moved. In the third shot you can see the placement of Warwick, our 4 swordsmen readying for a possible assault, Smolensk size 3 now and Moscow size 7. I wouldn't attack warwick or sevastapol because they would get auto razed. Not good.

Building several workers right now and a couple swordsmen. Our treasury is about 300... didn't know if you guys wanted to use that to upgrade warriors or hold onto it for a bit. Also, should we disconnect our iron for a bit? I thought about doing it but kept it connected because of the pesky barbs. I wanted to build a couple swords before disconnecting.

all right here's the save
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Peanut_SG002_BC0750_01.SAV

Any suggestions on things to try to accomplish or not do during next 10 turns?

PF

Any suggestions on things to try to accomplish or not do during next 10 turns?

PF

Well at first I was really itching to go to war on someone. But after playing the last 10 turns I'm not so sure. I think we should position our swordsmen so they are ready for defensive duty or a strike if soemone else declares on us. The other thing I've been thinking about is all these dang barbarians. I think there are a lot of camps out there and when civ's start going into the MA's there are going to be some crazy uprisisngs. I say expand expand expand and guard those settlers, man. Normally I'm into early wars but it just doesn't feel right in this scenario right now. We hit Republic in 14 turns. I think we should switch as soon as we get it, aim for a golden age soon after, and then worry about whether or not to take on some of our rivals after we have some good infrastructure established.

Edit: Been thinking about the switch to republic and I'm wondering if we're not ready. Shouldn't we have marketplaces built for citizen happiness before we make the switch? And I usually find myself hurting if I switch with lots of small towns... seems to work better for me if my cities are at least size six on average.

Good, you got the save. I'll play tonight. With raving Barbs it's like fighting a two front war. I would expect to see about 40 barb horses to attack at many fronts in the very near future.

PF

Peglegasus: bad luck with the Settler attack. I try to post Warriors out in advance of where I want to build cities, on hills and mountains, to keep an eye on the Barbs. Escorts are a good idea, especially when the barb activity picks up. Is there two defenders in Hamburg? The wounded warrior may be easy pickings for the Barb horseman on the mountaintop. Temporary shuffling may be needed to address this threat, but I can't see what's happening further NW.

I would recommend upgrading several Swordsmen, then disconnecting the Iron; any Swordsmen that are started will still be able to finish, and we get a faster buildup by building Warriors and Upgrading anyway. We don't have to convert to Republic immediately upon learning it (we still might; a good rule-of-thumb is #of citizens > 1.5 to 2x #of units), but we will be able to trade it. I expect that someone will learn Currency soon, and trade for Construction causing the massive Barb uprising to occur. PTW Barbs don't concentrate like Vanilla Civ; still, you can expect 4-6 horsemen to be constantly harassing you until they're put down. (Another reason to do the upgrade now and reduce the treasury.) Once we have Republic, we should be able to trade England and France for Construction and Currency (assuming they both have those Techs; might get both from one with one trade), then trade Republic and our free Middle Ages Tech to Russia for their free Tech (if we don't match their Tech; they might also trade it straight up for our freebie.) And get all their Gold, too. :)

PF - diplo dogpile was discussed in one of the support threads. Basically, we keep tabs on who's building UN. Turn before they build it, we declare war and get everyone allied against that civ. Of course our army is ready, and captures the UN city shortly after it's finished; since they're at war with everyone, they have no opportunity to call a vote. We call it at first chance, and with everyone allied with us we will proably win (because we've been big and loveable the rest of the game.) Ghenghis Khan wanted to outlaw it for the variant; it was decided not to, since some other teams wanted to do the Variant with an Always at War option. I think allowing it makes pursuit of the variant much cleaner: fastest research to Fission, then convince a civ to build it.

Another thought - if Russia is to be a potential near-term "victim" of German aggression, we should locate and make plans to neutralize any Iron or Horses they have access to. I haven't loaded the Save yet, so I'm not sure what Russia has in this area.

Another thought - if Russia is to be a potential near-term "victim" of German aggression, we should locate and make plans to neutralize any Iron or Horses they have access to. I haven't loaded the Save yet, so I'm not sure what Russia has in this area.

actually this is one of the reasons russia is such a tempting target right now... they don't have iron anywhere in their territory, or even close by. well, something i didn't think about is that maybe they have a city built on some. didn't check that. they have two sources of horses close but won't be available until their cities expand or until they build colonies, which i doubt they will do. they have done very little roading between their cities. tempting indeed.

Ok, so Diplo Dogpile is just alliances vs UN. Nothing big. I was going for a long range strategy of:
a. owning entire continent.
b. teaming with other 3 civs vs UN civ.
I figured odds would be better with 3 unknown votes vs 6 unknown votes.

I can play either way. Hate to saw it but this is kind of interesting to see different approaches.

Here's my play:

_PreTurn__ 750
Heidleburg_ move warrior to mt to either defend worker mining by Berlin
or attack barbarian about to attack

Gambled and attacked Barb camp. Defeated barb warrior and warrior
is regular but lost a hit point

Moved warrior by Munich one to west to add early warning
Moved swords by Sevastopol back towards Nuremberg. Horses
are a bit away and we might as well use barbs to upgrade them first.
Changed Heidelburg build from sword to spear, to increase happiness.
Left Munich without warrior and moved warrior to Hamburg for protection
Since Munich has no defense, changed build queue to spear in one

Nuremburg is in wrong location, but don't want to move it. It is 3 from capital
instead of 4, 4.5
_AI T[urn]__
Gamble lost, Barb horse killed warrior. But we were outnumbered 3 to 1 anyway.

_Turn1 _ 730 bc
Got Spear in Heidelburg, and settler
Moved spear towards worker and moved warrior on mt to worker tile.
More defensive moves. Moved 1 settler in position for plant next turn
Moved other towards Munich. Barb horse on iron mt by Frankfurt
No other changes
Oh, Russia has construction. Bought worker from Fr for 100g. England has nothing
_AI T__
Barb horse killed warrior and worker

_Turn2 _ 710 bc
Planted Stuttgart at ring 2, 7.5 out War7 is now vet thanks to Barb Horsie
England has worker but since they are last don't want to spend 100 for it now
Killed Barb horse that killed warrior and worker pair. Net loss 1 worker.
_AI T__
Boring

_Turn3 _ 690 bc
All 3 civs had construction and no one wants to trade.
Moved settler out past Frankfurt, trying to make room so can get horses.
_AI T__
horse on mts by munich

_Turn4 _ 670 bc