We should speed up research, not slow it down.

We should speed up research, not slow it down.
You're right. We must speed up research and the best way for that is peace and GA. We should focus on destroying our continental rivals, whatever it takes. We need to get to that state as quickly as possible. ;)

I see all green lights. Are we interested in what Zamint has for us?? :lol:

:lol:
I know I am :D

I'm at work btw so only in for a few secs at the time to keep an eye on progress. I've got the window open at most times though :)

I'm just looking forward to seeing far less orange and pink on the map. They clash terribly and offend my aesthetic eye. And blue is a much nicer color.

I notice Kuningas is coming up from behind on the score graph, and the Staff seem to have taken a leap up to the DGIT performance level. Let's get these civs off our continent and put our feet hard on the expansion gas.

Did anyone have any thoughts on what or whether we should post in the spoiler thread?

Can we block the potential sea routes with our galleys? If we obstruct the passes then the AI's can't reach us even with the lighthouse. That will take 2 or 3 galleys per route.

Lets build the HG, and then G Lib. Besides we may get another leader after the Lighthouse is built. We can leader farm vrs the Russians.

That's a though, but might it be risky? They could take offence and decide to attack our galleys and get through anyway.

I must say I'm really surprised that the ai haven't completed the Colossus already. Remember that all the time that hasn't happened, and no one else has started a Lighthouse, there's another 100 shields minimum needed for any cascader to build it. Cascades from the Gardens, if any, are very unlikely to compete, as they have not been going for nearly as long.

Here it comes:

50 AD Preflight
Changed production in Nuremberg to Library.
Changed production in Leipzig to Hanging G.
Changed production in Hamburg to G. Lib.
Established embassy with Japan, China and India and signed ROP, I didn’t quite get the money back.
Traded our territory for world maps and almost all their gold.
In some of the slow growing cities I changed from horseman to settler.
Spent some money hurrying libraries in Rheims and Paris, and a settler in Moscow.

70 AD Turn 1 :
GL rushes Lighthouse in Bonn.
Two elite wins, no leaders.

IBT:
French reg archer kills Da Man Who 5 hp, fortified, across a river!

90 AD Turn 2 :
Settlers produced, will move towards our second core.

110 AD Turn 3 :
Troop movement south.

130 AD Turn 4 :
New Leipzig founded, NE of Paris.


150 AD Turn 5 :
We take Nottingham killing two reg spears with two elite swords and capture 3 workers.
Make peace with Elizabeth, I choose Coventry, it has been a pain in my neck for a long time!
I give Elizabeth Literature for a worker + 5g
Suddenly Joan’s got Literature as well.
England got swords now.

170 AD Turn 6 :
We complete the HG in Leipzig, England and France cascade to G. Lib. (France just started on HG two turns back)
Hurry a library in Nottingham, this should take the iron from Elizabeth.

190 AD Turn 7 :
New Hamburg founded NE of Rheims.

IBT : Russia moved settler out of Minsk, I think.
Endland founded Canterbury north of Coventry, I did not see that one coming.

210 AD Turn 8 :
We met our two cats again in Tours, they had no problem hitting our attacking swords. We take Tours with two elite swords one is redlined the other 2/5, no leaders. We’ve got our cats back.
We sell our territory map for around 70 g + WM.
New Frankfurt founded up north.
New Konigsberg founded NW of Moscow.

230 AD Turn 9 :

IBT :
Research Engineering.
Nottingham expanded and we took the iron from Elizabeth.

250 AD Turn 10 :
Founded New Münich SW of Berlin.

Status : Founded several new cities, 4 settlers, the one in Frankfurt can still move, the one south should found a new city next turn on the spot, the one west of Salzburg should found a new city one tile west of its current position.
Had about 10 elite wins, no leaders, lost about 3 elite swords, including one attacking a reg archer in the open, and one attacking a barb camp in the mountains.
I have set research to Feudalism, but I think we should discuss this, maybe we should gift the others into the middle ages and hope they research it for us! We could also research full ahead and have Chivalry in about 12 turns.
Our new friends don’t know Literature yet, we are building G. Lib. in Hamburg due in about 30 turns. Colussos still not completed.
Joan will give us 3 cities for peace, maybe we should take it?
I’ve moved some swords close to Minsk.
We should trade our territory map now and then, they do pay well.
Maybe we should rush the library in York.

Score : 606

I'll bet if we gave Lit to Cathy, she would give it to Liz. Now that would be an interesting experiment?? :p

Sounds like a good idea, too bad I read it now. :p

I'm just looking forward to seeing far less orange and pink on the map.Sorry to disappoint you, but there is more blue. :D

Did anyone have any thoughts on what or whether we should post in the spoiler thread? Let's post our 1000 bc progress as you suggested.

Good progress, Herr General. The colour balance is certainly heading in the right direction, as is the score line :D

Capt Buttkick
leif erikson
zamint3
AdrianE UP
AlanH On deck

I'll draft something for the spoiler and post it here first for comment.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is more blue. :D

Very good progress on two fronts, the battle front and the settlement front. :goodjob:

Just took a quick look at the save. Joan wants to hang onto two cities, will give up the others for peace, and we are peace with Liz and Cathy, although I see you have moved some swords over to visit Cathy. It looks like your intention is to send Cathy packing.

Regarding Joan, I think we should keep up the pressure until she will give up all but her capital and then finish her.

Liz is a little tougher because she is spread out on bad terrain and has the GW. Do you think swords and some cats will reduce London or should we wait for Knights? If knights are the answer, then we should research full speed to Chivalry. If swords and cats will do the trick, then Invention imho.

I hope we are not planning to wait 20 turns before we go after Liz? :mischief:

edit - Good luck with the RNG AdrianE!! :hammer:

I have it. I should be able to play this evening.

We should be able to finish off the 3 on our continent with swords and horses and cats, although I haven't looked at the save to be sure.

I think we should hold off on gifting the Asian civs up to our level until we have finished off the European civs.

From now on I propose that we research only mandatory techs (ie no chivalry) unless there is a good reason for it (ie democracy and economics for smiths).

Adrian

Liz is a little tougher because she is spread out on bad terrain and has the GW.

I don't think GW means anýthing in Civ3-vanilla unless Elizabeth actually builds a wall in a city.

If we all agree that a bad reputation won't mean anything, as long as the AI on the other continent don't have contacts, we might as well play dirty, :devil2: , let's make peace with Joan, and then some ROP-rape. :ar15:

Research : I don't think we need knigts to finish off Liz, Joan and Cath. When the Colossus is finished, we should gift everybody into MA, and hope they research Feudalism, meanwhile we could research full ahead on the upper branch.

Good luck Adrian.

I don't think GW means anýthing in Civ3-vanilla unless Elizabeth actually builds a wall in a city.

If we all agree that a bad reputation won't mean anything, as long as the AI on the other continent don't have contacts, we might as well play dirty, :devil2: , let's make peace with Joan, and then some ROP-rape. :ar15:

Research : I don't think we need knigts to finish off Liz, Joan and Cath. When the Colossus is finished, we should gift everybody into MA, and hope they research Feudalism, meanwhile we could research full ahead on the upper branch.

Good luck Adrian.
I keep forgeting we are playing vanilla. :crazyeye:

I agree with Zamint, we need to finish these wars quickly and by whatever means necessary. No one will know we are truely despots!

I am curious why we want to research the upper branch, what I like to call the culture branch. In playing, it seems that the AI likes to research up there more than the lower, or militarist branch, because of the wonders available I suppose.

Good luck Adrian!! :thumbsup:

Here's a draft post for the public spoiler thread.

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

Here's the first TeamX spoiler. Our censors red pencilled the last few years of our Ancient Age as classified information, but we hope this post will help to fuel discussion about the early expansion and development phase.

Our first worker marched east to see what was what. He spotted some game in a forest and so our settler strolled south east for 50 years, and in 3950 BC we founded the city of Berlin. Herr Kapitan Buttkick decided we needed to learn about iron - slowly, and we all hoped that we would soon meet someone to tell us about pots so that we could store food.

In 3350 BC we met Russia, and they taught us pottery in exchange for Warror Code and an arm and a leg (aka 42 gold+1gpt). By this time we had built three warriors, and we now built a granary in Berlin. With the aid of a well timed forest chop the granary was completed in 2950 BC and we started building our first settler in 2900 BC

In 2590 BC we met France. She had trades available but her prices were a bit steep.

Hauptmeister Erikson delivered our first settler in 2670 BC and she headed north west to found Leipzig in more fertile territory 200 years later, 5 tiles away from Berlin. At that stage we had enough information about the immediate jungly surroundings of Berlin to know that we needed to develop our way out of there :eek:. We also knew that this looked like a large continent requiring a rather distributed city layout. So we tentatively planned a two ring RCP pattern at radii of 5 and 9.

In 2390 BC Chancellor Zamint the 3rd did some neat wheeling and dealing, buying Alphabet and a worker from France for 105 gold and 3 gpt, selling Alphabet to Russia for Ceremonial Burial and Masonry and 16 gold, and selling Ceremonial Burial back to France for 30 gold.

We met England in 2190 BC. She had unleashed Mysticism, which we bought from France and sold to Russia, making a 17 gold profit :hmm: That was the year we founded our third city, Hamburg, 5 tiles NE of Berlin. By this time bararians were starting to become a bit of a nuisance :rolleyes:

In 2170 BC we learnt Ironworking, Kapitan Buttkick's hunch had paid off, and Herr President AdrianE used it in part exchange, plus cash and gpt, to Russia for the Wheel. We then sold Wheel to France and England for all the cash they had. We started research on Polytheism, again at a 40 turn rate.

We continued to pump settlers out of Berlin and we settled further west beyond Leipzig to grab some flood plains, and south into the mountains in the general direction of our known rivals. by 1500 BC we had seven cities, with five of them in our inner 5-ring.

In 1475 BC Herr Kapitan Buttkick bought Mathematics from England and sold it to France and Russia. Net cost to us was 34 gold and 4 gpt. A few turns later in 1300 BC he was able to do some more horse trading (literally) to snag HBR in exchange for our maps, and to acquire our neighbours' territory maps.

In 1000 BC we had 8 cities and 13 citizens and we had three settlers on the move. We had built 6 barracks, 20 warriors, an archer and 10 workers. We learnt Polytheism on that turn, and our ace trader, Chancellor Zamint the 3rd, was able to use this to reach tech parity. By 750 BC we only needed Currency to reach the Middle Ages, we had 12 cities, 24 citizens, 26 warriors, 15 workers and an archer.

... And at that point our censor's red pencil erases history, until the next the next spoiler. All I am allowed to divulge at this stage is that we obtained Currency in 170 BC to enter the Medieval Era ... ;)

My autopilot normally heads down the bottom branch as well. But I understand the logic of moving ahead on Theology in this case, as we can't move ahead on the bottom branch without Feudalism, which is an AI priority and should fall to us from the Library in due course as long as we don't research Education yet. Meanwhile we can push on with some other techs - we need them all! We can always guide the AI to research what we need them to by gifting them into the path we want.

If anyone objects to the above spoiler post on the grounds of errors, omissions, or that I've missed out your coolest move, please flag it up. I'll pick up any corrections and post it in the spoiler thread on Thursday at around 18:00 BST. That's about noon EST, 09:00 am PST.

preturn

Our army is dispersed and sorely lacking focus. We have attackers garrisoning cities. The cats are with fast units. They should be supporting the swords. However its too far to move them!

Change Leipzig to barracks - we need more military. I rush some spears (cheapest option) to relieve horsemen from garrison duty. I rush some barracks as well in the south as we need more military to clean up the continent.

I crank up research.

250AD - have to move out of Russia's territory to honourably declare war

260AD - start massive reorganization and concentration of army, rush barracks and units. I spend almost all our cash.

270AD - Declare war on Russia

280AD - take Chartres, Indians start Great lib

290AD - take Minsk for loss of 2 swords

310AD - destroy Rouen, learn Feudalism start on Invention
Nanking completes Collosus - we won't have the whole set

320AD - destroy St Petersberg, take Beascon
Indians start Great lib

330AD - take Marseilles, accidentally build pikeman

350AD - we have forces closing in on remaining two Russian and two French cities. There are 3 settlers out. I intend for the settler west of Moscow beside the gold to settle where he is. Score is 749.

Watch out for happiness issues. The big cities need markets.


>>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam_350AD.zip)

If anyone objects to the above spoiler post on the grounds of errors, omissions, or that I've missed out your coolest move, please flag it up. I'll pick up any corrections and post it in the spoiler thread on Thursday at around 18:00 BST. That's about noon EST, 09:00 am PST.
Good write up. :goodjob:

I didn't read anything in there about Herr Feld Marshal AlanH's exploits? Surely his diplomacy under pressure and feats of pure logic have made a grand contribution to the campaign. :thanx:

Other than that, everything looks really fine.

350AD - we have forces closing in on remaining two Russian and two French cities. There are 3 settlers out. I intend for the settler west of Moscow beside the gold to settle where he is. Score is 749.

Watch out for happiness issues. The big cities need markets.
OK, Good Job Adrian, keeping us moving!! :goodjob:

Unzipped the save and submitted it. It took and shows in the matrix. :)

edit - The curve is headed in the right direction!! :cool:

Good write up. :goodjob:

I didn't read anything in there about Herr Feld Marshal AlanH's exploits? Surely his diplomacy under pressure and feats of pure logic have made a grand contribution to the campaign. :thanx:

Other than that, everything looks really fine.

I agree with the Hauptmeister :)

:goodjob: Well done, Adrian and :thumbsup: Good luck, Alan.

What should we do about the asian civs cascading to the GLib?

Well played AdrianE. I don't have time to get the save right now, but the progress sounds excellent.

Are you trying to submit the .zip file?

Capt Buttkick On deck
leif erikson
zamint3
AdrianE
AlanH UP

I'll get it tonight and come back if I think we ned to discuss anything, but my guess is it will just be a case of wiping out what's left of France and then grouping for the final fling against England.

We'll need to devote all necessary resources to speeding our Great Lib build, and investigate the Asian builds to assess the danger. If a Leader shows up I'll use him to build it somewhere else and divert Leipzig to another wonder or a Palace if we don't have one available.

I'll post the spoiler as-is tonight unless there are any further comments.

I think Leif uploaded the save from the zip.

My thoughts exactly on use of GLs. I'm thinking that we may just be able to finish the GLib ahead of the AI anyway cause they sure took their time building the Colossus. In case we don't get any more GLs, that is... :rolleyes:

I'll get it tonight and come back if I think we ned to discuss anything, but my guess is it will just be a case of wiping out what's left of France and then grouping for the final fling against England.

We'll need to devote all necessary resources to speeding our Great Lib build, and investigate the Asian builds to assess the danger. If a Leader shows up I'll use him to build it somewhere else and divert Leipzig to another wonder or a Palace if we don't have one available.

I'll post the spoiler as-is tonight unless there are any further comments.
Good Plan!! I have not looked but it seems the fastest road to prosperity is peace. Good luck MM for production for the GLib. Without spies, I don't think there is much we can do to slow our opponent's progress, short of going to war. But I think we want to avoid that. Ahhh, back to the builder :cool: , after we wipe out Russia, France and England!!:p With the good fortune of our fearless leader, I'm sure the RNG God will smile and bless you with a GLeader. :rolleyes:

If we lose the race to GLib, there is always Leonardo's. The next Scientific is Newton's University! Guess we'll just have to get GLib!

edit - And in between all the competing priorities, please don't forget to keep expanding with settlers. The score reflects the upswing in that activity and it sure looks nice.

Good Luck Alan, make a special sacrifice to the RNG God at the altar of hard luck and, perhaps, you will be blessed. ;)

Alan

I have tried uploading the .sav file to the utility and it always chokes. I have given up.

It must be some mac formatting thing unique to my machine/OS.

France and Russia have 2 turns left. Then take 3 turns to deploy the army to the English front. That way we can declare war honourably against the English. There is 5 turns left in the peace deal IIRC.

Also - won't Sun Tsu's trigger a golden age? We are militaristic/scientific right?

Adrian

France and Russia have 2 turns left. Then take 3 turns to deploy the army to the English front. That way we can declare war honourably against the English. There is 5 turns left in the peace deal IIRC.

Also - won't Sun Tsu's trigger a golden age? We are militaristic/scientific right?

I agree on your conquest plan. We'll have to remember that we need bigger stacks for the English towns now they've got the GW.

Sun Tzu only satisfies the mil trait. The problem is getting a wonder with the sci trait in place.

As we fill out our continent we will have many corrupt towns (basically anything outside the 3rd ring). This is what I like to do to maximise value from them:

If not on fresh water - let them grow to size 6. Irrigate so that 2 or 3 citizens provide the required 12 food. The other citizens are set to taxmen (or scientists but usually taxmen). One cultural building is built (usually temple for happiness bonus but libraries are cheap for us). Then set the town to produce wealth. The wealth offsets the maintenance. The net result is a town that contributes 3 or 4 GPT to our economy and 8 to 9 points of citizens and 21 points of territory to our score. Some coastal cities need harbours to get the required food.

If on fresh water let it grow to the maximum self sustainable size without happiness problems. Moscow for example should be able to support 6 or 7 taxmen.

One mistake I've seen a lot of players make is to fully develop (ie mine) the territory arround corrupt towns. It is a waste of worker turns. There is next to no reason to do this unless your workers have nothing better to do. You need to get to 21 shields per turn before you get a 2nd shield after corruption. Just irrigate until maximum supportable size is reached.

Our workers should be concentrated on developing our core. We have lots of jungle to clear.

It must be some mac formatting thing unique to my machine/OS.
Which browser/OS?

France and Russia have 2 turns left. Then take 3 turns to deploy the army to the English front. That way we can declare war honourably against the English. There is 5 turns left in the peace deal IIRC.Thanks Adrian. I'll do it honorably if it doesn't slow us down, but I won't let it hold me up if I can safely go earlier, since we have immunity from war crimes prosecution by the other continent now we have the Lighthouse :D

Also - won't Sun Tsu's trigger a golden age? We are militaristic/scientific right?We need one of each to trigger the golden age. We have the Great Wall, but the Library is the first Scientific wonder, and the next one is Newton's Uni. We really need to time a built Library for the end of our local wars, and that will be a prime objective. If we do get a leader I will take great care on whether and when to use him for the Library. Ideally every turn of GA shoud be in peace time. I'll also look at the competition and check whether it's even necessary to rush the Library, or whether we do better to use a Leader for another wonder.

I've posted our spoiler now, so we are allowed to go and read the other posts in that thread.

:worship: Very nice write-up Alan. :worship:

And we have a lot of blue on the minimap. :goodjob:

I don't think we need more military, the unit cost is getting way too high, :eek:, Russia and France should fall easily, and then our massive forces will march through England, Liz does not have iron nor horses, and I don't think she has built any walls.

We could get Dijon in a peace-deal and then take Grenoble in one or two turns. :evil:

GLib : Did the Indians cascade to the GLib in Kolhapur? Anyway they must be at least 200 shields short, Kolhapur is doing 5 spt and I think the production ratio on monarch is 9:10 in the AI's favor. If this counts for wonders as well, :confused: , we'll have plenty of time. :) , Chinese Hangchow is doing 7 spt but must have started from scratch. The only one that might beat us is Liz, and wouldn't that be nice. [dance]

I'll be out of town for 72 hours.
Go get'm Alan, and good luck guys. I expect to see our continent covered in blue when I get back. :lol:

Alan, I spent some time looking at the map in detail. There is 1 tundra square showing up north, north of New Frankfurt, and I was wondering if you could run a galley up there and see how large it is. Not that we need new territory to expand into, but one never knows if a lux resource might be there somewhere. :)

Sorry if you already played, then maybe the Captain could take a pleasure cruise.

Hope all went, or is going well. :D

Preflight
We have the Great Library in 17. Checking on the competition:

India are building in Kolhapur. It has 4spt max currently and could reach 8spt if mined fully.
China are building in Hangchow. 6spt max currntly and can't improve - its a tundra fishing village.
At these rates they probably can't beat us. But it's important so investigations may be valid. We can't afford to investigate both currently. We have +1 fpt in Hamburg, so we can mine the wheat to increate spt by 1.

Checked cities - all OK.

Next turn ...

IBT
Isolated English troops moving around in the west including a sword - Liz has iron. Three horses completed. Palace gets some neat steps. Japan starts the Great Library

Turn 151 360 AD
Grenoble
2 cats bomb and miss
Vet horse attacks 3/3 spear inflicts no damage and retreats
Vet horse redlines 3/3 spear and dies
Elite horse kills 1/3 spear. No damage, no leader.
Elite horse kills 1/4 spear. 2/5, no leader. Captures city with 1 worker and 2 taxmen

Kiev
regular and elite swords kill 2 regular spears and destroy the city

Build New Salzburg near gold mountains on inland lake
Another settler heads further east towards the incense.
Horses move towards Dijon and Tblisi for the coups de grâce.

Diplo
We are ahead. No one has any cash. Asia is polite, Europe is not happy with us.
Moscow needs an entertainer - we're upsetting its Russian citizens.
Investigate the two most advanced Asian GL builders ... no problem:

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

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

IBT
French galley sighted off south coast - if it's a settler they can't get far.
Builds complete. Start to emphasise settlers and peace time improvements

Turn 152 370 AD
At Tblisi:
Horse attacks Rambo the elite spear and dies. Spear->3/5.
Horse attacks 3/3 spear and dies. Spear->3/4
Horse kills 3/4 spear adn promotes to 3/5
We've run out of horsies there.

At Dijon:
2 horses attack. One kills a spear the other retreats.
Entertainer needed in York
Horse disperses barb camp in the east.

IBT
More builds
Nottingham culture expands and cuts off England's iron :D

Turn 153 380 AD
At Dijon:
A horse kills a spear and captures the city. France is dead.

At Tblisi:
A horse attacks the 4/5 spear and retreats. That's it :(

Build New Dortmund NW of Cologne
Archer wins 25 gold from a barb camp
Sword wins 25 gold from a barb camp

Sliders to 5.5.0 for Invention in 2 turns, +41 gpt. Fire the entertainers as French war weariness ends.

Diplo no change in Asia

IBT Lots of build finish.
Palace gets a third floor

Turn 154 390 AD
Build New Brandenburg near the SE incense
Regroup for attacks on Tblisi and England
Sliders still 5.5.0 for Invention next turn

IBT
Invention completes, start Gunpowder
New Frankfurt riots :(

Turn 155 400 AD
Peace treaty has expired with England. Complain about English troops in our territory, but she doesn't take the bait. Declare war.

At newcastle:
Horse kills spear -> 1/4
2 horses die redlining a 3/3 spear
Elite horse kills 1/4 spear and takes Newcastle with 1 resister, 1 taxman
Troops approach London
Slider 4.6.0 fr Gunpowder in 5 turns

IBT English archers advance on New Hannover. Nottingham riots.

Turn 156 410 AD
Troop build up completed round London
Sell territory map around Asia for Wmaps and 32 gold - all they had

IBT
English archers attack New Hannover and die. Spear is redined.

Turn 157 420 AD
At London:
Sword dies vs vet spear -> 3/4
Sword kills regular spear
Horse kills regular spear
Horse retreats vs regular spear -> 2/3
Horse retreats vs regular spear -> 2/4
2 Elite horses kill the two defenders to take the city with teh Great Wall and the Oracle, 4 resisters and 4 taxmen

At Tblisi:
Vet sword redlines elite spear
Vet horse redlines regular spear
Elite sword kills 1/3 spear
Elite horse kills 1/5 spear. Tblisi is destroyed and Russia is no more.

Review all production and convert remainig military builds to settlers, workers and infrastructure
Rush a spear in New Hannover

IBT
China calls for a Wmap swap. I respectfully suggest they would like our territory map for their worls map and 3 gold - all they have.
The ragged remnants of a once-proud English army attack our troops in the western mountains in and around New Hannover.
An English regular swrd kills a warrior in teh town.
An Archer kills our redlined spear
A sword forces one of our horses to retreat in the mountains
An archer forces another horse to retreat.

Two London resisters change to rioters
new hannover riots -must have expanded without me noticing

Turn 158 430 AD
Four horses take Oxford

Slider 5.5.0 for Gunpowder in 2 turns

IBT London flips, taking 3 or 4 healing units :(
Disease hits New Berlin

Turn 159 440 AD
A 2/3 sword retakes London

Build Berlin2 in SE France

Liz will only give Warwick for peace - no deal
War weariness starts up again. Sliders to 4.5.1, with Gunpowder next turn

IBT
Archer kills horse hnear New Hannover
Barb horse pillages Minsk for a citizen
Gunpowder completes. Start Chemistry. Feel free to change it

Turn 160 450 AD
A horse takes Hastings.
Kill off the straggling wounded English forces.
Trops head for the last two English cities.

We have saltpeter in various places, none of them are hooked up. Workers move to do so.

After action report
There are just a couple of English cities left - Warwick and Canterbury.
2 setters en route. We can probably disband some of our units.
Build orders may need to be reviewed and modified. Workers have been trying to connect everything up.

Here's F3, complete with minimap.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam_450AD_fF3.jpg

Mapstat says we need 880 tiles for domination, and there are 900 unclaimed so we can get close to the limit without fighting.

Good luck Captain !

Capt Buttkick UP
leif erikson On deck
zamint3
AdrianE
AlanH

Wow, I didn't know you guys had been that busy :goodjob:

Got it

I'll play this evening and post tomorrow morning cause I still haven't got my own PC up and working after the crash.

I propose we leave one English city to produce archers that we can use for GL fishing. I don't think that will take too much resources ;)
Any objections?

I've not tried this. Would we make peace and zero out war weariness first so that we can take full advantage of our GA? If that's the case then the fastest way forward is to take Warwick in a peace deal now and stay that way until after the Library is built in 6 turns and our GA starts. Then I guess we'd take steps to keep WW low (don't lose units, keep out of enemy territory). We'd need to kill England before Astronomy happens on the other continent.

Yes, that would prob be the way to go. I might try for some elite wins at Warwick first, depending on how our troops are situated.

Yes, that would prob be the way to go. I might try for some elite wins at Warwick first, depending on how our troops are situated.
Fishing for GL is fine, but I think we should finish England as soon as possible once the GA starts. I'm sure we can keep WW checked, but we really need to start feeding our Asian "friends" techs and get them working with us to climb the tech tree. The last thing we need is the misfortune of England somehow getting a settler on a galley, or finding out that there is an island up north that allows for passage, or some other random act of RNG hell :eek: that allows our "allies" to learn of our cruelty and barbarism! ;) When I weigh the adv. and disadv., I'm nmot convinced the risks are worth the gain.

Great set of turns Alan, we are almost to cruising time!! :goodjob:

Good luck Captain! Now that Joanie has been sent away, there is nothing to hang on to. :mischief: May as well send Lizzie to electron heaven as well. :lol:

Some random comments:

1. I think if there were a passage our Asian friends would have used it long ago.

2. If we leave England with Canterbury they'll be land-locked, so as long as they don't settle another city on teh coast they can't have galleys unless one exists already.

3. I'm somewhat doubtful that our Asian friends are going to do much for our tech progress, as I think the only one that achieved any progress at all during my turns was China, who finally learnt Currency and crawled into the Middle Ages. In spite of being at war and having to spend a bit on happiness we are currently able to research at 5-6 turns per tech. In our Golden Age there will be no problem with 4 turns per tech, and if we build some Universities during that period I think we'll leave the AI eating our dust for the rest of the game. Using the AI to help with research is a part of the game that I'd really love to develop, so if someone knows how to make it work I'll watch with great interest.

4. Yippeeeeee! I just installed a 1 GHz upgrade into my aging 350 MHz Mac and it ROCKS!!![party] :beer: [party] I'll load up Civ3 next and see what it's done for that, but it feels like a new machine already.

Yippeeeeee! I just installed a 1 GHz upgrade into my aging 350 MHz Mac and it ROCKS!!![party] :beer: [party] I'll load up Civ3 next and see what it's done for that, but it feels like a new machine already.
So long as it comes equipped with a favorable RNG!! :rolleyes:

3. I'm somewhat doubtful that our Asian friends are going to do much for our tech progress, as I think the only one that achieved any progress at all during my turns was China, who finally learnt Currency and crawled into the Middle Ages. In spite of being at war and having to spend a bit on happiness we are currently able to research at 5-6 turns per tech. In our Golden Age there will be no problem with 4 turns per tech, and if we build some Universities during that period I think we'll leave the AI eating our dust for the rest of the game. Using the AI to help with research is a part of the game that I'd really love to develop, so if someone knows how to make it work I'll watch with great interest.
Your points are well made and taken. :D

I think that having the AI help is better done at higher difficulty levels, from what I have read. At Monarch, we are pretty much even with the AI. However, we should probably try to get things moving by gifting techs to them and see what they research. Besides, it can't hurt our stellar rep either. :lol: The other choice is that we will do it all on our own, which may happen anyway. But it can't hurt to try. Maybe if we bring them to tech parity, they will begin building infrastructure and become helpful.

edit - I was just thinking that we can't expect our Asian friends to help with research if they are still in the stone age. We need to get them up to Republic, with marketplaces, to make them productive enough to help us. Time to start, and to keep, gifting techs. Let's get them moving and see what happens.

Concerning England, I guess I am just greedy and don't want to share with them. :p While it would be nice to have a leader hanging out in case of an emergency, I don't see the long term benefit of having Lizzie hanging around. Is there a timeframe for how long we are going to bait her, until Astronomy?

There are a lot of non-mandatory techs in the middle ages, and the AI likes them all, so I think whatever we give them they are likely to go off and produce music or chivalry or printing. Maybe we should just accept that we are going to have to do the remaining 9 medieval techs ourselves - 36 turns minimum, then gift them straight into the Industrial to help us there. They might still mess about with the others though. We'll get Nationalism as our freebie at that point, which is useless in my book, but at least we can give it to the others to stop them bothering with it. bt then they'll go off and do Communism and Espionage, two more wastes of time :(

There are 16 more mandatory techs in the Industrial, and then Fission for the UN. So if we have to do it all, and we can get to 4 turn research it will take a minimum of 104 turns to complete Fission, and we're looking at 1350 AD plus the extra turns it will take for our builder to complete the UN.

Now for our next trick :mischief:. We need to persuade our builder to pre-build for the UN. I think that means we need to keep our chosen civ on a cascade path to the UN. it needs a thousand shields - 850 for the AI? If the best an AI civ can achieve is 10 or so shields per turn on average, they'd better start in the next twenty turns or so to ensure that we don;t have to wait too long when we have Fission. So pretty soon we should gift a tech to get one of them started on a wonder. We need to ensure that the wonder they choose is completed - by us or another civ - before they can do so, and that they have an appropriate tech at that point to allow them to cascade to another one. Anyone want to come up with a road map that we can use to drive this process?

Anyone want to come up with a road map that we can use to drive this process?
Done some preliminary work on the problem, and it is an interesting one. The first thought is that we are going to have to get into the wonder building business for this to work.

Now I have a couple of questions for everyone.
If we assume 4 turns per tech, I count 96 turns. This includes 2 free techs with Theory of Evolution. What it doesn't count is getting Democracy and the turns of Anarchy necessary to change governments. To keep up the tech pace, can we stay in Republic or do we need to change to Democracy? I think there may also be diplomatic considerations here as well, if we believe that the relative government status effects the U.N. vote.

There are 13 wonders between where we are and the U.N., including the U.N. The problem we face is that any of these wonders can be cascaded to and built if the civ has the tech necessary. That means that we have to build all the wonders to make sure that the AI civ doesn't empty the sheild bin by building a wonder and setting their city back to zero. Do we agree that we think this can be done? Our success in getting the AI to pre-build the UN, I think, is predicated on our ability to stay ahead in the wonder race as well as the tech race.

We could hold back certain techs but I'm not sure that, as we gift them, they will not fill in the gaps, albeit slowly I'm sure.

I would appreciate any thoughts?

edit - Almost forgot, then it will be a crap shoot because the AI could choose to build The Manhattan Project instead of the U.N. What this means to me is that we need to lead all the AI civs along so that we are pretty sure one of them will build the U.N. or cascade to it when their partner builds Manhattan.

Maybe if we get them all on pre-build programs we can juggle so that if one of them succeeds in building a wonder that just helps us to cascade the remaining ones to the next one. With three civs we only need one of them to reach the UN. And remember we can have them all building multiple wonders. Fascinating problem, but I feel it ought to be possible.

I am pretty sure we can work it out. The problem is coordinating our own build times and tech gifting to maximize the use of their shields in wonders production without allowing them to ever produce a wonder, except for Manhattan and U.N. I suppose, taken to a logical conclusion, we could even build Manhattan to ensure that one of the civs has to build the U.N.

The unknown part of the problem, of course, is how many extra sheilds the AI will develop over time and reduce their wonder build times, even a couple of SPT over 100 turns is significant (1/3 of a wonder on 600 shield wonders - 6 of them). I don't think we can safely assume that their shield production will remain at an average of 10 SPT, can we? It is an important assumption that we have decide upon to work this all out.

I'll sleep on it and see if anyone else has any insights! Meantime, good luck Capt. :cool:

I've slept on it and come up with a couple of thoughts:

1. I don't think there's a problem with letting them produce a few wonders to stop their production in cities that turn out to be building too fast, as long as we get the most important ones. IMHO the wonders we want ourselves, in reducing order of priority, should be:

Must have:
- Theory of Evolution, to reduce our research time
- Manhatten, to stop them going the wrong way.

Highly beneficial:
- Copernicus, to help with research
- Newton's, ditto
- Hoover to hep with everything
- Smiths to reduce costs to help pay for the investigations we shall need

Good for score:
- Shakespeare
- Bach
- Sistine

Not important:
We are not planning any more wars except maybe a final one if we have to take the UN by force, and Panzers are not an upgrade, so:
- Sun Tzu
- Leo's
- Magellan
- Universal Suffrage

Must NOT build, might have to capture:
- UN

2. You are correct when you say that we have a problem accurately assessing how fast the AI will produce shields. 10 spt was a complete guess. I therefore suggest we persuade each civ to start a new wonder every 5 or 10 turns by gifting a new wonder tech. We then monitor these builds and act according to their build rates. We should hand out the techs in the order we want them to proceed, and have our own prebuilds in progress so that we can pre-empt fast builds and provoke cascades. I think they shuffle their builds around each time there's a cascade, probably trying to ensure that the city with most shields changes over to the wonder requiring fewest?

Fortunately the first two wonders, which we can start them off on in the next ten or twenty turns, are Sun Tzu and Leo, both of which we can afford to lose if we get it wrong. The next ones are a mix - Copernicus and Smiths (important), Sistine, Bach and Shakespeare (less important) - none of them are critical. By the time we've orchestrated these ones we should be getting good at it, and we'll have a much better idea of the rest of the road map.

Your tech list and priority looks very similar to mine.

I've been wrestling with how to model their shield production as this is the prime driver behind "scheduling" gifting and our own pre-builds. The earlier we start, the less critical a loss of a wonder is, but the harder it will be to bring them to 1,000 shields at the right time, because if their shield production goes up, then they would be over 1,000 and have to build something else, i.e. returning their shield bin to zero, starting over.

The idea that they may be building multiple wonders at the same time is interesting because that may mean certain wonders could end up in less productive cities and those could actually work out better in the long run because the shields they produce would be "available" longer, if you get my drift. ;)

I think we should start this program as you suggest, with Sun Tzu's and Leonardo's and see how it progresses. We should probably develop a schedule of observation and recording that we can afford and track their wonder development over 30 or 40 turns and see how they do. Key data elements would include shields per turn, population, government type, and food per turn. It will be interesting to see how this develops with our own pre-builds and construction. It will also give us some interesting data on what wonders the AI when. Perhaps we can figure out why?? :D

edit - Got RL stuff today and won't be online for about 12 hours. See you then! :mischief:

I'm guessing we may get to a state where we have two or three wonders in build per civ in all three civs, so we'd be able to choose from 6 to 9 wonder building cities, keep the ones that look promising, and terminate the ones that are going too fast.

It's urgent that we get two or three pre-builds of our own going so that we can control the cascades. We have Sun Tzu and Leo's available right now, plus a palace. We must be prepared to ditch a pre-build (convert to a cathedral/colosseum/university or something) if we ever find we are about to kill a promising AI build and we don't have a tech ready to donate to let them cascade.

Talk about plate spinning! This is going to be the juggling act of all time :eek:

No GL luck, but steady progress I guess...

Sorry to keep you waiting again. I had to get it all on my USB memory and bring it with me to work.

Builds complete each turn so I'll only mention major events. W/r to regards to city placements, I'd rather have productive cities than high score so my first cities are the closest to the two cores.

Preflight: Switch to library in Tours. Worker will follow. I propose harbour after that. Switch Marseilles to Library. Switch Bonn to Harbour, it's only got one surplus food and needs aqueduct to grow anyway. MM New Leipzig to produce settler in 4 (so city grows on production).

IBT: Japan wants contact with the English. I actually :lol:ed at the proposal. He turns cautious. The English want to talk. I wonder what they want? No I don't, so the proposal is turned down :p

Turn 1 - 460: AD Map to the Asian civs for 58 gold. I'm starting to disband units, starting with regs and warriors. Move elites towards England.

IBT: Rheims start a Wonder, prebuild for one of the religious wonders, preferrably Bach.

Turn 2 - 470 AD: Switch Nottingham to Temple. Disperse a barb camp.

IBT: Not much.

Turn 3 - 480 AD: 3 Elite wins after each other, no luck. We destroy the English, no lux. Disperse another barb camp. Leipzig 2 founded. New Heidelburg switch to temple. 60% sci.

IBT: I don't know how you guys feel about cathedrals in this type of game, but I'd rather set Berlin to wealth than build a cathedral. Set to wonder prebuild. The Indians are building Sun Tzu's. All asian civs are into the MA.

Turn 4 - 490 AD: Trade asian civs to tech parity so they start their next tech before we get chemistry.

IBT: Chemistry --> start Metallurgy in 4.

Turn 5 - 500AD: Hamburg2 founded.

IBT: GLib completes and our GA starts.

Turn 6 - 510 AD: Heavy MMing. Disperse a barb camp. We earn + 53 gpt with Metallurgy in 3. I still think we need more workers to get rid of all that jungle asap.

IBT: New Konigsberg riots even though I double checked all cities before clicking enter :angry: I must have replaced the taxman or something :sad: We have barbs approaching a non-defended New Bonn.

Turn 7 - 520 AD: Konigsberg 2 founded. Switch to horse in New Bonn and hurry it.

IBT: Not Much

Turn 8 - 530 AD: Our reg horse in New Bonn promotes fighting a barb. 50% sci is enough for Metallurgy next turn. Frankfurt 2 founded. Munich 2 founded.

IBT: Metallurgy --> Theology in 4 with 40% research.

Turn 9 - 540 AD: Not much.

IBT: Nothing.

Turn 10 - 550 AD: Heidelburg 2 founded.


I did manage to increase our worker count w/o too big military funding. The downside is I didn't manage to group them together. It's time for some serious jungle chopping and we need to have bigger worker bands. 8 workers in each band is optimal imhso.
I realized a few turns after gifting techs to the asians that they would have no chance of beating our tech pace anyway (sorry, Alan, didn't read your post before playing...). We might find we need them for optional wonder techs and in the industrial age, but I don't want them settling our continent so we shouldn't trade them more until we've filled out our continent. Ghandi wants to make us a deal for chemistry, but it's not very good really ;)
W/r to settlers, I think we should continue to buy settlers in Moscow. I think Moscow can manage a settler every other turn for a while if we buy them. At least the food box is filled on one turn at the moment.
On treasury: it's pretty big now (608 gcs with +258 gpt), but we may need the money to keep up with the 4-turn tech pace once we get into the IA and are out of our GA.
On wonders: I agree with letting the AI prebuild for the UN. I started two prebuilds for wonders as stated. In some cases it may be beneficial to use the prebuild for a uni instead and start the wonder anew. Leif, you'll have to look into that one :)
We may look into starting a third prebuild with a palace somewhere.
On city improvements: some of the closest cities to Berlin are building courthouses that may not seem beneficial at the mo. I think as our city count increases and cities grow, we'll need them anyway and I don't think I've ever built a courthouse that at least didn't pay for its maintenance in semi-corrupt cities. But please feel free to change (my reason for mentioning this, really :D)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM2_XTeam_CB_550AD.JPG

There's just a few swords left in the N, one settler-escorting warrior (settle one spot N of the small lake was my intention) and a galley that's scouting the N (not shown on screenie).
W/r to settlers I think at least 2 of them are at the city site I had intended for them so they'll go away next turn. The hike just gets longer and longer though as they have to move further away from our productive, settler-producing areas.

Score is 1136.

<< Save >> (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Xteam_SG002_AD0550_01.SAV)

Capt Buttkick
leif erikson UP
zamint3 On deck
AdrianE
AlanH

Good progress Captain. What a lot of settlers !! That should help to get the map filled up. :goodjob: Now we need to start watching Mapstat.

My take on Courthouses: Build them sooner rather than later in semi-corrupt cities. All subsequent builds will then be more efficient and pay for the shields and time invested.

My take on cathedrals: They would add to our happy faces and therefore to score, but only in large cities, and only with the help of the Sistine Chapel. I doubt if we will divert any research to Sanitation, and it's only 12+ pop cities that really need cathedrals. So I would say we only build them in our big cities when we have nothing else to build.

I don't like setting a city to wealth at this stage in the game - it seems very inefficient when we should still be building infrastructure. What do you get - 1 gpt per 8 spt? Surplus gold doesn't add to score unless you spend it on entertainment. If we are running short of things to build then we should probably learn Education as soon as possible so that we can get some universities built to help the research programs later.

Harbours are good because they will allow us to work coastal tiles for more gold.

I'll have a look at the save and see how we might drive the wonder tree. So far only Leif and I have discussed it, and I think it's going to be critical to our success. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

I don't like setting a city to wealth at this stage in the game - it seems very inefficient when we should still be building infrastructure. What do you get - 1 gpt per 8 spt? Surplus gold doesn't add to score unless you spend it on entertainment. If we are running short of things to build then we should probably learn Education as soon as possible so that we can get some universities built to help the research programs later.

Harbours are good because they will allow us to work coastal tiles for more gold.

I'll have a look at the save and see how we might drive the wonder tree. So far only Leif and I have discussed it, and I think it's going to be critical to our success. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Wealth; as you can see, I didn't set any cities to wealth. I just said I'd rather do that then build cathedrals in cities with no happyness probs. There's one city building a cathedral, however. I don't think we should be obsessing about score. We want to get the earliest possible diplo victory w/o building the UN. Redundant cathedrals means less gold in our coffers to drive research forward. I agree we should build them when we need them.

Harbours: I'm all for harbours, but the cities I switched were very corrupt so I felt they could benefit just as well from an early culture expansion to catch a fish or more grassland.

I agree on your prority list w/r to which wonders we need and don't need. As you can see, I was along the same lines as you and Leif w/o reading your comments in that I started two wonder prebuilds (although the second may seem as I didn't have anything better to do :lol: ).

Edit: I'm pretty certain that at least one of the military wonders will be built in Asia cause they got feudalism before the Glib was built...

Edit: I'm pretty certain that at least one of the military wonders will be built in Asia cause they got feudalism before the Glib was built...The Indians were building the Library in Kolhapur in 450 AD and they are now building Sun Tzu there. They must have switched of their own accord, as your report says they started Sun Tzu at turn 4 but we didn't get the Library until turn 6. But they had Feudalism from during my turns, so why did they switch then and not when they first got Feudalism? Maybe they investigated us and realised they couldn't win the Library? :confused:. In any case, they look as if they will probably complete Sun Tzu first.

The Chinese were building the Library in Hangchow in 450 AD, and Japan was also building it. Hangchow is now building Leo's, Canton is doing Sun Tzu, and Japan has no builds in progress. China didn't have Invention when I last saw them, so I wonder if they managed to cascade Hangchow to Leo's through Sun Tzu, or if they aborted when we finished the Library. I suggest we investigate these three cities and see whether we can/should use their existing builds as pre-builds for the UN or let them finish. Meanwhile I've been thinking about what we do know:

It looks as if China is in a Golden Age. Clicking their tiles you get some big shield counts. Hangchow could be producing 12 spt and Canton up to 20 spt. My guess is that Canton will have a few turns at 15-20 spt in the box and will need maybe 30 more turns to finish Leo's. Hangchow *may* have shields in the box. If not it looks like a candidate as a UN city if we can persuade it to cascade to another wonder.

Kolhapur is probably producing under 10 spt. It may have to be allowed to complete Sun Tzu depending on its accumulated level - and investigation will reveal that for 73 gold.

Since we don't want to spend any time researching optional techs, we should let the AI do them, buy them when they do, and use our pre-builds to control the wonders they allow.

All in all we are going to have to keep a very close log of all tech completions and acquisitions and wonder initiations by the AI from now on if we are to orchestrate this UN build to our advantage.

I ran Mapstat to see where we stand. We need 848 tiles to reach domination at 550 AD. The total unclaimed tiles are 752, some of which are on the other continent. So if we claim all the land and coast on our continent we'll still be well below the domination threshold. We should try to settle that unclaimed island to the north that Leif spotted, before the Asians get mobile at sea, just to maximise score.

I don't think we should be obsessing about score.I agee we must make early victory our #1, #2 and #3 priorities, but if increased score doesn't cost us anything on victory date then we should go for it. We might be in a tight finish, and extra score now may make the difference.

Got it! :D While I haven't looked at the save yet, the turn log sounded first class. :goodjob: Looks like we are pretty much thinking along the same lines.

I am in a RL crunch for the next 48 hours so plan to play this Monday evening, EDT. My internet time will be limited as well, but I will have access and will be on tomorrow evening. I just don't want to play this when I am tired :rolleyes: and I will use the time to look at the save and think about it some.

The next phase we are entering is going to be critical because it will determine our finish time. I think it will require good coordination between us to make it work, so we should all understand "the plan" and try to keep it moving forward. So, to that end, some questions.

1. Do you think we should set up a regular schedule, say every 5 or 10 turns, to check the F7 key for where wonders are being built by the AI, investigate those cities, and create a log of data concerning wonder, time to finish, shield count per turn, etc.?

2. Being the darn fool builder I am, I would probably build cathedrals and banks in all of the core cities, courthouses and marketplaces in most of the outlying cities, and harbors in all the coastal cities. I read and understand that we probably don't really want to do all that so I am looking for a little more discussion on that and what everyone thinks we should try to get built where.

3. The discussion concerning the pre-builds and wonder cascades should continue as well as someone probably will have a better idea than I do on how to manage this. If we can do it, it will pay off big at the end. ;)

4. Capt, in your turn log you mentioned that there were two settlers that you were ready to found with. Can you help me by telling me about where they are?

5. As we fill in the rest of our continent, are we going to do ICS or three spaces or something else? I can understand placement for optimal food development, but most will be so corrupt that shields will not be much of a factor. I assume we should build a library in each of these towns to ensure cultural expansion. After all, we did promise Adrian we would. ;)

OK, Anything else, I am all ears. Thanks. :cool:

Got it! :D While I haven't looked at the save yet, the turn log sounded first class. :goodjob: Looks like we are pretty much thinking along the same lines.

I am in a RL crunch for the next 48 hours so plan to play this Monday evening, EDT. My internet time will be limited as well, but I will have access and will be on tomorrow evening. I just don't want to play this when I am tired :rolleyes: and I will use the time to look at the save and think about it some.

The next phase we are entering is going to be critical because it will determine our finish time. I think it will require good coordination between us to make it work, so we should all understand "the plan" and try to keep it moving forward. So, to that end, some questions.

1. Do you think we should set up a regular schedule, say every 5 or 10 turns, to check the F7 key for where wonders are being built by the AI, investigate those cities, and create a log of data concerning wonder, time to finish, shield count per turn, etc.?

2. Being the darn fool builder I am, I would probably build cathedrals and banks in all of the core cities, courthouses and marketplaces in most of the outlying cities, and harbors in all the coastal cities. I read and understand that we probably don't really want to do all that so I am looking for a little more discussion on that and what everyone thinks we should try to get built where.

3. The discussion concerning the pre-builds and wonder cascades should continue as well as someone probably will have a better idea than I do on how to manage this. If we can do it, it will pay off big at the end. ;)

4. Capt, in your turn log you mentioned that there were two settlers that you were ready to found with. Can you help me by telling me about where they are? Oh, and the one going S of France: I was thinking we could settle on the river with this one and then use another settler for that last spot on the peninsula.

5. As we fill in the rest of our continent, are we going to do ICS or three spaces or something else? I can understand placement for optimal food development, but most will be so corrupt that shields will not be much of a factor. I assume we should build a library in each of these towns to ensure cultural expansion. After all, we did promise Adrian we would. ;)

OK, Anything else, I am all ears. Thanks. :cool:

1. I agree, but 5 turns is too often imhso. Maybe even 10. If people read our summaries I think we can go close to 20 turns in these early fazes by just watching city size and production maximum.

2. I agree that by time most of our corrupt fishing villages should have harbours too. With the massive commerce we get from coastal and sea tiles, the cities will produce some commerce even at max corruption. Like I said, I only changed cause the city would grow faster with a culture exansion (picking up grassland that we can irrigate or game in the S of France).

4. It's the northernmost one, with the warrior escort (settle N of that small lake) and the westernmost one (W of England), on the coast. IIRC, that is. There are two settlers on their way S of Russia. I was thinking one of them to be on the southern coast and the other on the chokepoint creating access to the big, salty lake (not that we want to use the canal, I just think it's a good spot).

5. I think as few settlers as possible while keeping it so the AI won't settle. The AI usually don't settle in cramped spaces, even when they can place themselves 3 tiles from all other cities. That said, I started 4-5 tile spacing. Don't know if you're all ok with that, but it keeps it so the AI won't settle, even if we don't culture expand.

1. We must check F4 and F7 every turn in my view and log every new tech researched and every change in F7. Specific city investigations should take place at critical times after new wonders have been started, or where we are unsure about rate of progress. Remember we are only 95 turns from completing Fission if we maintain 4 turn research. We should certainly investigate Kolhapur right now, and probably the two Chinese cities. We have to work out what is likely to happen if we (a) build Sun Tzu ourselves or (b) let India or China build it. Please can we publish screenshots of every city investigation we make?

5. I'm not as dismissive of score as the Captain. We should enclose the continent in our borders as fast as possible. That means either 3 clear tiles between 9 tile cities so that their culture merges, or four or five clear tiles plus libraries to close the borders. I think we should go for the wider spacing and libraries for speed, because although settlers are a little cheaper, they can only be built as fast as food is produced. We should give priority to coastal development to close our borders and make it more difficult for the AI to reach unfilled territory, if there is any, when Astronomy is completed.

Agree with Alan on the screenshot posting.

W/r to mear score, wouldn't a very tight placement around the coast give us the highest score (higher pop faster)?

I've done a little work and am going to make two posts, one with screen shots and the other with text. First, I opened up the game and started my pre-flight by investigating the AI wonder cities and making screen shots, the cost was 269 Gold for all three cities.

First is India's Kolhpar:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_550AD_Kolhapur.jpg

The second is China's Hangchow:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_550AD_Hangchow.jpg

The third, and most important, is China's Canton:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_550AD_Canton.jpg

I have found several problems with our idea. I think we can compensate for them but it requires us to be vigilant as time is shorter than I thought.

The AI wonders build cost is 90% of our cost. I figured this out because Canton is building Sun Tzu’s Art of War, costing us 600 shields and them 540, please see screen shot above. This means that the U.N. will cost us 1,000 shields to build and the AI 900 shields.

The two wonders before U.N. are Hoover’s Dam and Universal Suffrage, both costing 800 shields for us and 720 shields for the AI. The first thing you should notice is that there is a difference in shield count between the 800 shield wonders and the 1,000 shield U.N. Even if all the AI civs are one turn away from their builds, they will still have at least 180 shields left to complete the U.N. We also have to be sure we have built The Manhattan Project because it is an 800 shield wonder for us, 720 for the AI, and I’ll bet they would cascade to it first.

The second area regards the wonder pre-builds and selection. It is interesting to note that Magellan’s Voyage (Navigation), Smith’s Trading Co. (Economics), Shakespeare’s Theater (Free Artistry) and Bach’s Cathedral (Music Theory) all fall along the non-required tech path. We must be aware of the AI discoveries in order to use these wonders to our advantage.

I have broken this out, by turn, so you can see the timeline more clearly. We have 3 turns left before we discover Theology, which allows Sistine Chapel to be built. I decided to call where we are turn zero.

Turn 3 – Theology – Sistine Chapel available

Turn 7 – Education – GLib ceases to function

Turn 11 – Banking

Turn 15 – Astronomy – Copernicus’ Observatory available, watch out for AI settlers once the tech is gifted to the AI civs

Turn 19 – Physics

Turn 23 – Theory of Gravity – Newton’s University becomes available

Turn 27 – Magnetism – Can begin trading with our new friends

Turn 31 – Steam Power – Hanging Gardens lose effect

Turn 35 – Electricity – Can irrigate anywhere it is allowed without fresh water source

Turn 39 – Medicine

Turn 43 – Scientific Method – Build Theory of Evolution and take Atomic Theory and Electronics – Hoover’s Dam available

Turn 47 – Replaceable Parts – Worker efficiency doubles

Turn 51 – Industrialization – Universal Suffrage available

Turn 55 – Corporation

Turn 59 – Refining

Turn 63 – Steel

Turn 67 – Combustion

Turn 71 – Mass Production

Turn 75 – Motorized Transportation – Panzers available

Turn 79 – Flight

Turn 83 – Radio

Turn 87 – Fission – Manhattan Project available, U.N. available

I have done this because there is not very much time left in the game if we can keep up 4-turn research. The other interesting thing to note is the compressed schedule of wonder builds early in the schedule and the lack of them later. What it means to me is that we are going to have to build wonders quickly, or be prepared to do so, early and slack off on wonder construction in the IA, but to keep a close watch on the AI civs.

This is where we have to factor in the AI production capacity. They will need a city with 719 shields when we gift them Fission and build Universal Suffrage, Hoover’s Dam and Manhattan Project. Then they will still have to produce another 181 shields to complete the U.N., or 900 minus what they have in their pre-build. I would have loved to put some start times in for when we gift them each tech in order to manage their production lines and keep them moving on pre-builds. However, those dates will depend upon how many shields per turn they are producing.

A note on time, the QSC period is 80 turns. That is about how much time we have left to, hopefully, finish. Using Alan’s handy CultureCalc 20K spreadsheet, in 87 turns it will be 1335 AD. If the AI pre-build works effectively, we could finish by 1400 AD.

I hope this helps to focus the discussion and generate some ideas on how we can accomplish this.

Very useful input, Leif. I've realised that they can't be in a GA, as they don't have the right wonders for it (only the Colossus), and their UU doesn't arrive until Chivalry. The extra production we are seeing in Canton is their Industrious trait - extra shields in a city over pop 6. So Canton will continue at that rate, or faster as it grows. Hangchow doesn't have an aqueduct, and as long as it keeps building Leo's it will be stuck at pop 6 and its current 4 spt. It will never build the UN at that rate. Kolhapur is in a similar state.

So of the current wonder cities, Canton is the most likely builder for the UN. At their current rate of 10 spt Canton would need to start pre-building the UN in 15 turns+ to get to 719 shields in 87 turns. In practice they will grow to pop 12 and produce about 50% more shields than they do currently, and this growth will take 54 turns.

If we work back from 719 shields in 87 turns time they'll run the last 33 turms at 15 spt. So their timetable needs to look like 200-ish shields in 54 turns from now, and that means they need start at zero shields in about 38-40 turns. If they are left to complete Sun Tzu my guess is it will take them about 40 turns. So I think the best thing to do is to let them complete Sun Tzu and give Canton a nice new wonder to go for in 40 turns time. Meanwhile we can swap around in three turns time to complete Leo's in Rheims in 18 turns from now and switch to the Sistine in Berlin. Then, if we find other productive cities are joining the wonder race we can try to shepherd a second one along as well, to give ourselves two horses in the race.

Then, if we find other productive cities are joining the wonder race we can try to shepherd a second one along as well, to give ourselves two horses in the race.
I agree, in particular due to the fact that it will ease off somewhat on the need to prebuild for Manhattan.

Btw: excellent analysis, Leif. Looking forward to see your turns. Good luck :thumbsup:

Very useful input, Leif.
Then, if we find other productive cities are joining the wonder race we can try to shepherd a second one along as well, to give ourselves two horses in the race.
Thanks Alan and Capt. I think you are right that we should get several wonder horses in the race! :cool:

After I posted and was half asleep, I realized that I did not include any time for changing to Democracy and the anarchy that it requires. So, the question then become, when Democracy is available from the AI, should we make the switch or save some time and remain in Republic?

Then I got to thinking about gold and how to use it most efficiently. I propose that we use gold for the following priorities:
1. To maintain 4 turn research. That means saving as much as we can while in golden age for use when it ends.
2. To maintain a check on the productivity of wonder cities in Asia.
3. To use for greasing the diplomatic victory machine, although, if we do enough tech gifting, this should not be too large a requirement?
4. To open and maintain trade relations with our "friends".
5. To, very occasionally, rush courthouses or libraries in key locations.

Lastly, looking at the timeline and its short length, we should get to Education soon and get Universities built in our core cities to support that 4 turn research path and save some gold.

I agree on the Sun Tzu's wonder and will change production. Your idea looks good on this Alan. :)

I don't think we should bother with democracy. I think it will cost us as much as it saves in cash, and the lost turns are the killer for me. What does it do for us? A bit of reduced corruption? We should check Bamspeedy's artiicle to see how much effect government has on AI attitude, but my guess is Republics are not heavily disliked by Democracies. The bigger problem may be the cultural difference - east vs west, but therew's nothing we can do about that. We should be able to counter any negative effects by sheer weight of the sustained bribery we intend to inflict on them over the next 800 years. There are only two votes to buy :D

I'd like to add another thing we want to use gcs for, at least early in our GA: buy settlers out of Moscow to fill up our continent asap so we can go all out on tech after that.
I agree with Alan in that we shouldn't bother with Democracy. My only two recorded gotm wins are diplos and I can tell you now that we'll win that vote if it's ever held. We've got such a huge advantage w/r to tech gifting and prob lux trading later on that they'll never be able to catch us. Btw: is China next after us in score? if so, all the better if they build the UN cause it increases the chances of them calling the vote.

With prebuilds, you may even get a few unis in place in our core cities before your turns are over, Leif? ;)

Nice progress guys :thumbsup:
I like the colour on the minimap. :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Settlers_550AD.jpg :goodjob: Captain. :D


I agree in your wonder discussion.
I think we should research Astronomy before Banking, and complete Copernicus' in Rheims in 11 turns and then Newton's in Paris in 23 turns, the timing looks great. :) , this would be nice for research.
We could start prebuilds in maybe Leipzig and Hamburg, they should be able to beat the AI to Sistine and Leo's if we want that.

I agree on 4 turn research to be #1 priority, rushing libraries and maybe courthouses should be high on the list (... and more settlers, that's right Capt. ;) ). We'll have plenty of techs to trade and bribe with.
I agree, we don't need Democracy but the AI will use it if they research it, and the anarchy period may slow down their wonderpace a bit!

:lol: Thanks, guys. I was more content with the progress on the worker front than with the settlers. They just seemed to "happen"...

Usually I like to have both sci boosting wonders in the same city, but here I think we'll benefit from getting them asap, of course in low-corrupt cities so I think your proposition w/r to Rheims/Paris is good, Zamint.

With regard to the governments: what are the favourite governments of China, India and Japan? That should define our chosen government for the vote. Democracy makes our workers faster. I like to be in Democracy before the advent of steam.

I don't think libraries are a good choice for the outlying corrupt towns. They'll cost 1GPT maintenace but gain 0 science. Temples make the citizens happy => score. Yes they cost an extra 20 shields but so what. We are going to rush them anyway and that's only 80 extra gold.

Do workers count as specialists for score? If so that's something we can mass produce. We need many more for the advent of steam anyway.

I really wanted early culture. Late culture doesn't really count IMO.

Note that if we give the Asian civs a lux or two they will be able to increase their number of working citizens. They have entertainers in every city working on a wonder. We will need navigation for that I think.

Every core city of size 12 needs a cathedral for the happiness.

We should also consider whether we need sanitation. It is optional but bigger cities means more people which means higher score if we keep them happy.

Smiths is the only wonder we really need as it will help with cash flow. We might even consider not building Hoovers so that the AI can have it.

When expanding to the domination limit - keep in mind that we may have to take a city or two from the AI in order to take the UN, if we don't win on the first ballot. We should stay 30 tiles or so under the limit.


Edit: 1 more thing - If the AI's have stupidly assigned the tiles in their "wonder cities" we can sign a ROP and go in with our workers and re-assign the tiles to control the build pace.

Thanks for the thoughts Adrian

Favorite governments are all over the place:

China - favours Communism, shuns Monarchy
Japan - favours Monarchy, shuns Republic
India - favours Democracy, shuns Despots

No one likes Republics, and one civ dislikes them. But as I say, I don't think it makes enough difference to justify a possible loss of 6-8 turns of anarchy.

Workers don't count for score at all as far as I know.

We understand you like early culture, but you really haven't explained why for this game and for these objectives, or I'm just being thick as usual :( Culture won't help significantly in the vote. Outlying towns will only get to pop 6 in most cases unless we are also into rushing aqueducts, so I don't really see the need for temple happiness. But I don't feel strongly about it if you think we can afford the extra cash for less culture, and still do 4 turn research.

Time is more important than score, so I vote against sanitation, and I don't think we should research any other optional techs either.

We only have to take a city from the AI if we can't win the vote first time. Mapstat says we'll be almost 100 tiles below domination even if we take every existng unclaimed tile, and we can't even get that close, as some unclaimed land is on the other continent, unless we seriously invade and occupy.

Good point about reworking the AI's tiles.

Here it comes! :D

BTW Thanks for the great discussion. It helped me to set priorities for builds and research. We have Theology and Education and then I researched Astronomy instead of Banking. More on that in the After Action Report. I agree with by-passing Democracy, as long as we can keep the 4 turn tech research pace up. There are several screen shots of wonder cities that I will show in a second post so you won't have to scroll.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_Summary_650AD.jpg
550 AD - Pre-flight
Investigate city of Kolhapr of India, site of Sun Tzu wonder build, for 73 Gold.
Investigate Hangchow of China, site of Leonardo’s Workshop wonder build, for 74 Gold.
Investigate Canton of China, site of Sun Tzu’s wonder build, for 122 Gold.
Moscow is at size 6, growth in 1 turn, so I rush a settler at the cost of 240 Gold.
Everything else looks fine, so I press enter.

IBT
Moscow settler – settler
York worker – worker
Leipzig Courthouse – Palace as a pre-build
Lyons Courthouse – Library
Grenoble Library – Courthouse
Chatres Library – Harbor
New Munich Marketplace – Courthouse

Turn 1 – 560 AD
Move and assign workers
Western Settler founds Nuremberg2 – Library
Northern Settler founds Cologne2 – Library

IBT
Hamburg Aqueduct – Marketplace, MM Hamburg to prevent pop growth
Brandenburg Worker – Courthouse
Hannover Library – Marketplace
New Slazburg Worker – Worker

Turn 2 – 570 AD
Move and assign workers
Move military units out towards unsettled areas
Rush Settler in Moscow, cost 112 Gold

IBT
We discover Theology, research set to Education at 40% - 4 turns
We are informed that Theology renders The Oracle obsolete
London Marketplace – Courthouse
Moscow Settler – Settler
Konigsberg Courthouse – Sistine Chapel (will check next turn)
Tours Worker – Courthouse
Dortmund Marketplace – Courthouse
New Leipzig Library -- Marketplace
Canterbury Worker – Worker
New Konigsberg Marketplace – Courthouse

Turn 3 – 580 AD
In analyzing our cities, the two highest in research are Berlin and Rheims and that is where I think we should build Copernicus’ Observatory and Newton’s University, one in each. Since Education is due in 4 and Astronomy 8, then in Rheims we can keep Sun Tsu’s going as a pre-build for Copernicus. Since we can not pre-build n berlin with the palace, I propose we allow Berlin to continue on Leonardo’s Workshop, to be switched to Newton’s University and the Palace pre-build in Leipzig can be switched to Leonardo’s. We can continue building Sistine chapel in Konigsberg for itself or as a pre-build for something else. Of course, Zamint is free to change any of this.
MM Moscow
Settler founds the city of Hannover2 – Library
Elite Horseman destroys a Barb Camp.
Vet Horseman destroys a Barb Camp
India has discovered Chivalry, so I trade Theology to India for Chivalry, WM and 36 Gold (all he had). I then gift Chivalry and Theology to China and Japan, maybe we will see some wonders started!

IBT
A barb warrior attacks our Warrior and is defeated, our Warrior lost 1 HP
New Frankfurt revolts, damn!, change Tax Collector to Entertainer
New Cologne Worker – Worker
New Hannover revolts, create Taxman (I checked Alan, I swear I did!)
New Bremen Marketplace – Courthouse
Leipzig2 Library – Courthouse
We are notified that the Chinese are building Sistine Chapel, that didn’t take long!

Turn 4 – 590 AD
Check F7 and China is building Sistine Chapel in Tsingtao, investigate city for 108 Gold. Screenie shot, Sistine in 68 turns with production of 15 total and 8 net shields per turn (540 required)
Rush Settler in Moscow for 116 Gold.
Settler founds town of Bremen2 – Library

IBT
Paris Courthouse – Settler
Moscow Settler – Settler
York Worker – Worker
Newcastle Courthouse – Library
New Berlin Library – Worker
Order restored in New Frankfurt and New Hannover.
New Hannover Worker – Courthouse

Turn 5 – 600 AD
Move workers and assign tasks
Move settlers.


IBT
Barb Warrior attacks horseman and loses, no HP loss
Barb Galley attacks our galley and loses, we lost 1 HP
Lyons Library -- Marketplace
Frankfurt Marketplace – Courthouse
Munich Temple – Settler

Turn 6 – 610 AD
Settler founds Stuttgart2 – Library
Vet Horseman 3-4 attacks barb Camp and loses, redlines Barb Warrior
Vet Swordsamn destroy Barb Camp losing 2 HP.
Rush a Settler in Moscow for 116 Gold

IBT
We have discovered Education. Change research to Astronomy and move research slider to 50% to maintain 4-turn research rate.
We are notified that Education renders Glib obsolete.
Paris Settler – University
Moscow Settler – Settler, MM for food
Nottingham Worker – Worker
Heidelburg Courthouse – University
Dijon Harbor – Library
New Berlin Worker – University
We are notified that the Japanese are Building Sun Tzu’s Art of War

Turn 7 – 620 AD
F7 reveals that Japan is building Sun Tzu’s in Kyoto. Investigating Kyoto requires 146 gold and a screenie is taken. Kyoto is producing 12 SPT with Sun Tzu’s due in 45 turns. They have horses and saltpeter.
Settler founds town of Bonn2 – Library
Settler founds town of Salzburg2 – Harbor
Change production in Frankfurt from Courthouse to University
Change production in Konigsberg from Sistine Chapel to University

IBT
Salzburg Marketplace – University
Hamburg Marketplace – Library
Marseilles Library – Harbor
Stuttgart Courthouse – University
New Bonn Worker – Worker, MM for gold.
Munich2 Worker – Courthouse

Turn 8 – 630 AD
Settler founds town of Dortmund2 – Harbor

IBT
York Worker – Worker
Munich Settler – University
New Munich Courthouse – University
New Cologne Worker – Worker
We are informed that the Indians are Building The Sistine Chapel

Turn 9 – 640 AD
F7 reveals that the Indians are building the Sistine Chapel in Dehli. Investigate Dehli for a cost of 154 Gold. Screenie taken and Dehli producing 17 SPT with 16 Net, with Sistine Chapel in 34 turns

IBT
Barb Warrior attacks Vet Sword and dies, no loss
London Courthouse – University
Konigsberg University – Sistine Chapel
Nuremberg Courthouse – Marketplace
Bremen Aqueduct – Marketplace
Cologne Library – Settler
New Frankfurt Worker – Settler
New Hannover riots, create a Taxman

Turn 10 – 650 AD
Vet Horseman attacks Barb Camp, destroys camp, no loss, promotes to elite

After Action Report
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_Domestic_650AD.jpg
Our Firaxis score is 1369. Japan and India are tied at 696 and China follows at 609.
Things were quite peaceful except in our realm. Beware rioting. I have difficulty catching it when there are three content citizens and one angry because to me it looks like three happy and one content on the F1 screen. Beware!!

Please see my wonder layout discussion under turn 3 and use it if it makes sense, if not, do what you think best. I researched Astronomy instead of Banking to get to Copernicus as soon as possible. I would recommend researching Physics and Theory of Gravity before Banking to get Newton’s Univ. in Berlin. I chose Berlin and Rheims because they are free of corruption and have the most research, so doubling it would provide the greatest gain.

There are settlers scattered everywhere. There are also units that have not moved this turn because I had no definite move in mind and leave them to your choice. I think there is one settler and perhaps 8 or 10 workers. Moscow is ready to have a settler rushed if you choose. It works very effectively, good call Captain.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_MilitAdv_650AD.jpg
Other than that, things are going smoothly. I have several universities in the queue and we will need them as I had to move the research slider up last change of research to maintain 4 turns. Astronomy is due in 1. Please remember to change Rheims to Copernicus to allow China to build Sun Tzu’s. There is a Palace pre-build in Leipzig, Leonardo’s in Berlin and Sistine Chapel in Konigsberg.

Good luck Zamint3!!
<< The Save >> (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Xteam_SG002_AD0650_01.SAV)

Our "friends" have begun to build wonders. They are all in the wonder building business, China leads with 3, India is second with 2 and Japan trails with one.

In 590 AD, the turn after I gifted them Theology, China started a Sistine Chapel build in Tsingtao. The screen shot of that city investigation is:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_590AD_Tsingtao.jpg

In 620 AD Japan began a Sun Tzu's Art of WAr build in Kyoto. The screen shot of the city investigation follows:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_620AD_Kyoto.jpg

In 640 AD, the Indians begin a Sistine Chapel build in Dehli. The screen shot follows:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_640AD_Dehli.jpg

Good night and see you in the morning!! :crazyeye:

Looks good Leif. We are moving on. :)
I have difficulty catching it when there are three content citizens and one angry because to me it looks like three happy and one content on the F1 screen. Beware!!
Maybe you should get one of those mods showing smilies in different colours, red is bad! :sad:

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



I would recommend researching Physics and Theory of Gravity before Banking to get Newton’s Univ. in Berlin.
Moscow is ready to have a settler rushed if you choose. It works very effectively, good call Captain.I agree.



Please remember to change Rheims to Copernicus to allow China to build Sun Tzu’s. There is a Palace pre-build in Leipzig, Leonardo’s in Berlin and Sistine Chapel in Konigsberg.


Rheims is already there, I'll see if I can do it on the interturn when we research Astronomy, something I tend to forget. ;)

I don't think GOTM32 is out yet, so I'll play this game right away. There should not be a lot to discuss. I'll not give Astronomy to our Asian friends, I think we should wait until Magnetism, and then trade for lux.

Capt Buttkick
leif erikson
zamint3 UP
AdrianE On deck
AlanH

Good work, Leif. I'm a bit tied up right now with the new month starting and a brave new world of Conquests submissions to deal with, so I might be a bit quiet for a day or two. The key thing we need to do now that we can see more details of AI shield production is to try to put together a road map that ensures a continuous supply of wonder shields for a couple of UN builds.

We're way ahead of the other teams in turns played, by the way, so there's no problem if we want to take a bit of time out for discussions and thinking. It might also give us a chance to let the other teams catch up a bit and see how they do on the score chart. That might help us to decide how much emphasis to place on score.

Good luck Zamint3 :D

Nice turns, Leif :goodjob:
I'm not sure why you'd want to rush the settler out of Moscow on the preflight at double costs... I may have been driving my point across too hard :lol:

Adrian: I think a lib in an all-corrupt city still gives another beaker (anyone know?).

Nice turns, Leif :goodjob:
I'm not sure why you'd want to rush the settler out of Moscow on the preflight at double costs... I may have been driving my point across too hard :lol:
I wasn't thinking of that because I had never done it before. :lol: I have two computers on my desk, I play on one and one the other type the log and usually pull our thread up and have it available to read if I need it. I was so overwhelmed with info I forgot to wait a turn, just not thinking! :blush: This is why I find this so good, because you guys question my stupidity and I get to learn and, hopefully, improve! :lol:

Conquests for GOTM, got to go read about that!! Nice redo on the submission screen Alan, a lot less confusing. Good luck on the Conquests stuff. :goodjob:

Thanks for the download info Zamint, I will go find it right away. I didn't know it existed and will fix it up. Good luck, keep those AI civs building those wonders for us. :mischief:

Here it comes :

650 AD Preflight
Research down to 20%, Astronomy in 1.
Rush a settler in Moscow : 108g
Rush 5-6 libraries, in cities not totally corrupt, to expand our borders.
Change production in New Bremen to university, it’s not that corrupt and it will save some shields.
Change production in Hannover to university, it’s not growing, so it don’t really need a marketplace.
Change production in New Leipzig to university.

IBT:
We learn Astronomy and I change production in Rheims to Copernicus’ wasting 8 shields.
Research Physics 4 turns : 50%, net gain 216 gpt.
Moscow : settler – settler.
Hamburg : library – university.
Rheims : Copernicus’ – university.
Oxford : libray – courthouse (?)
Warwick : library – harbor.
Newcastle : library – university.
Dijon : library – university.
Besancon : libray – harbor.
Tblisi : libray – harbor.
New Hamburg : cathedral – university.
New Dortmund : library – worker.
Berlin2 : courthouse – library.
Hamburg2 : library – harbor.


660 AD Turn 1 :
Brandenburg 2 founded down south : library.
Rush a few libraries and settlers.
Reduce production in Berlin so we don’t overshoot Newton’s too much.

IBT:
Hastings : library – settler.
Minsk : settler – settler.
Nuremberg : settler – settler.
Hannover : university – marketplace.
Bonn : aqueduct – library.
New Leipzig : university – courthouse.
New Frankfurt : settler – settler.
New Stuttgart : library – settler.
New Salzburg : worker – worker.
New Bremen : university – courthouse.

670 AD Turn 2 :
Research down to 40%, net gain 353 gpt.
Rush a few settler,
Lowered our unit cost. ;)
Sold territory map to Asia for WM + 25g, they don’t have much more.

IBT :
Moscow : settler – settler.
Hastings : settler – settler.
Coventry : library – worker.
Canterbury : worker – library.
New Konigsberg : courthouse – university.
New Nuremberg : courthouse – library.
New Hannover : settler – library.

680 AD Turn 3 :
Popped hut on island : deserted village.
Founded New Berlin 2 S of Moscow, in the food rich area : settler.
Worker actions is concentrated on improoving our core cities and roading to our new coastal cities.

IBT :
Paris : university – temple !
New Brandenburg : courthouse – university.
Oxford : settler – settler.
Frankfurt : university – aqueduct.
Grenoble : courthouse – university.

690 AD Turn 4 :
Research down to 30%, Physics in 1, net gain 466 gpt.
New Leipzig 2 founded north of Cologne : library.
New Hamburg 2 founded NW of New Dortmund : library.
New Konigsberg 2 founded SE of Minsk, they will share the foodplains. : library.

IBT:
We learn physics and start researching Theory of Gravity, 4 turns, 40%, net gain 381 gpt.
Rheims : university – cathedral or maybe a prebuild ?
Heidelberg university – temple.
Dortmund courthouse – university.

700 AD Turn 5 :
Land a settler on the island up north, there might be another island up NW.
Rush 2 settlers, Moscow and New Stuttgart.

IBT :
Moscow : settler – settler.
Stuttgart : university – aqueduct (?), is not growing atm.
New Stuttgart : settler – settler.
Golden Age has ended, and we are still doing pretty good!
Bombay started Leo’s, size 12 city with floodplains and forrest.

710 AD Turn 6 :
Research up to 50%, Physics in 3, net gain 121 gpt.

IBT :
Salzburg : university – temple.
Nottingham : worker – worker.
New Frankfurt : settler – settler.
New Heidelberg : courthouse – aqueduct.
New Munich 2 : worker – worker.

720 AD Turn 7 :
Founded New Frankfurt 2 NE of Moscow : temple.
Founded New Munich 2 on SE coast : library.
Founded New Heidelberg 2 west of Nottingham : library.
Founded New Nuremberg 2 west of Canterbury : library.

IBT :
Nuremberg : settler – aqueduct.
New Bonn : worker – library.
New Hamburg : university – courthouse.
Berlin 2 : library – aqueduct.


730 AD Turn 8 :
Founded New Cologne 2 in the north : library.
Popped a hut on the island : angry Allemanni warriors.
Founded New Hannover 2 : on SE coast : library.

IBT :
We learn Theory of Gravity, change Berlin to Newton’s, waste 49 shields.
Research Magnetism 4 turns, 50 %, net gain 133.
Paris : temple – cathedral.
Berlin : Newton’s – university.
Hamburg : university – courthouse.
Lyons : marketplace – university.
Bonn : library – university.
New Leipzig : courthouse – marketplace.
New Munich : university – temple.
New Bremen : courthouse – temple.

740 AD Turn 9 :
New Bremen 2 founded on the island : library.
Popped last hut on the island : angry warriors!
Accidently pressed space! :mad:

IBT :
Riot in two unconnected cities. :mischief:
London : university – temple.
Bremen : marketplace – library.

750 AD Turn 10 :
Research down to 40 %, Magnetism in 3, net gain 261 gpt.
Rush a few libraries, and a settler in Moscow and Minsk.

Status :
Score 1624.
Treasury 2484
There's 6 settlers out there, 5 of them allmost on the spot.
Asia is polite to us, even though I cancelled our ROP with them. They don't have Astronomy nor Chemistry.

We should research Magnetism and trade our tech for lux, we may have to do some roading for them to get wine.

Capt Buttkick
leif erikson
zamint3
AdrianE UP
AlanH On deck

Sounds like good progress Zamint3. I'd like to spend some time looking at the save to see how the AI are getting on with our UN prebuilds, but I have pressing priorities right now. I'll leave it to you guys. No rush AdrianE, I wouldn't get to it for 2 or 3 days anyway at the rate I'm going at the moment.

Looking Good Zamint!! Both Copernicus' and Newton's, that'll help out in the research dept. :goodjob:

I also like the way that curve is looking in Alan's score graph. I think we are setting a good rate for others to try to catch. Now I just hope they can't!! :eek:

Good luck Adrian, keep it moving! :cool:

The AI won't finish any wonders in the next 20 turns, Delhi should finish Sitine Chapel in 23 turns if they don't get their GA, Canton and Kyoto with Sun Tzu around 10 turns later. Maybe Kyoto is a bit ahead.
Delhi cannot cascade to Leo's as the indians are already building that....or can they? :confused:

If Delhi starts Universal Suffrage right after Sistine Chapel they will probably finish it before we can research Fission, it will be close. :eek:
...and how do we make sure they start building the wonder, do we gift them the tech the turn before they finish the previous wonder, that would be my bet! :crazyeye:

I think we should start a prebuild in Rheims, when we can trade for lux, in 3 turns, we don't really need a cathedral, then we can switch the prebuild in Leipzig to Bach's when the AI discover Music Theory. :D
....and New Hamburg should also start a prebuild IMHO.



Originally Posted by leif erikson
I also like the way that curve is looking in Alan's score graph.

Me too. :bounce: :banana: :clap: .

I have it. It will be a couple of days before I play.

BTW - how do I take screen shots on a iMAC ?

One thing we should do is keep all the AI's at the same tech level. That way they have nothing to demand from each other and won't start an inconvienient war. We also want to keep our strength up so they don't try to demand anything from us.

We should also start thinging about building our expeditionary force to take the UN. This is the backup plan but we need to be prepared. I'm thinking 20 to 30 Inf, 40 to 50 artillery and 30 panzers. We would need about 15 transports and several battleships as escorts. So we could start building the appropriate units now. That is galleons, pikes, cannons. Of course these get built if there is no infrastructure required in the city.

Command-Shift-3 puts a pdf document on your desktop called Picture n where n is the number of screenshots you made. You can open it in Preview, and if you are running 10.3 (Panther) you can crop it and Export as jpeg. If you want to do more exotic things like writing or drawing onto the image you need GraphicsConverter or PhotoShop - I use Photoshop Elements which is quite cheap.

Good points, although that sounds a huge force. We only need a hit and run task force to take and hold one or two cities for a few turns. I'd expect to be able to defeat an entire nation with that lot, or the whole continent :eek: But I guess you know best.

One thing we should do is keep all the AI's at the same tech level. That way they have nothing to demand from each other and won't start an inconvienient war. We also want to keep our strength up so they don't try to demand anything from us.

We should also start thinging about building our expeditionary force to take the UN. This is the backup plan but we need to be prepared. I'm thinking 20 to 30 Inf, 40 to 50 artillery and 30 panzers. We would need about 15 transports and several battleships as escorts. So we could start building the appropriate units now. That is galleons, pikes, cannons. Of course these get built if there is no infrastructure required in the city.
I have to do some more work on the progression of wonder builds so far with a timeline. However, it seems from a first quick look that China may be in the best position to build the U.N. If that is so and they are the last place civ in the scoring so far, we may have to begin thinking about ways to help them expand. Just a note to start people thinking, more later when I have time to work on the numbers. That comment has to do with gifting and possibly starting a war, although that could hurt wonder pre-builds. Food for thought.

Re: Force Size. There will be some amount of time, 10 to 15 turns, when the AI have to build between whatever shields they have and completing the U.N. (719 shields up to 900 shields) In that time, we should be able to research Computers and upgrade a small number of Infantry to Mech Inf. I would say about 12 Mech Inf., 20 to 25 Panzers and, maybe, 10 Artillery. The problem with Artillery is that, if there is any distance to travel to the wonder city, they will be way too slow, allowing the enemy to attack us too many times while we wait for the art. If it is a coastal city, a few battleships will do for bombardment. I really don't think we need a huge force. Our objective is to take the U.N. and hold it. I'd be more worried about culture flips than losing it militarily. ;)

Just finished some calculations. I should know better than to speculate without looking at the numbers. :blush:

I believe the cities to watch will be Kyoto and Dehli.

Kyoto is currently producing Sun Tzu's, a 600 (540 for the AI) shield wonder. At 12 shields per turn, it will finish around turn 52 in the timeline I showed earlier, or 1070 AD. The city is at size 12 with plenty of food resources, so if we can send some workers there to increase his shield production, by 1070 AD to 20 SPT, Japan would finish a 720 shield wonder one turn after our 87th turn, or 1335 AD. That would mean another 9 turns until Kyoto reaches 900 shields and the U.N.

In Dehli, currently building Sistine Chapel, complete at 980 AD, or turn 43 in the timeline. Dehli is also maxed out at 12 pop, so the 16 spt rate should be stable. This means that Dehli would finish a 720 shield wonder at turn 88, or 1 turn after we discover Fission. Dehli would have 704 shields built up and require 13 more turns to build the U.N.

This means we should let the AI finish the wonders they are working on now and,of course, all this is dependent upon the AI choosing these cities to build Universal Suffrage or Hoover Dam, both 800 shield wonders. With a little bit of luck and some management by us in Kyoto, we may have a wonder race worth our score. Also, we have to have the Manahattan Project pre-built to finish it on the turn we discover Fission.

I think Alan was most correct when he said that we are racing against the turn clock and the earlier we finish, the better score we will get.

Please question this so that I know my math is right. :crazyeye: I'm not as good at it as Alan is. :confused:

I think we should have panzers only for our invasion force, for speed purposes. What are we likely to meet? Rifles? A few infantry? Cavs? If we keep the AI broke by trading some of the techs that we're otherwise going to give away anyway, they won't be able to upgrade all that much, which means even spears at the bottom of their piles.

As a side note: if we finish Manhattan the turn after the Manhattan is built, won't we be the ones to get it anyway?

I think we should have panzers only for our invasion force, for speed purposes. What are we likely to meet? Rifles? A few infantry? Cavs? If we keep the AI broke by trading some of the techs that we're otherwise going to give away anyway, they won't be able to upgrade all that much, which means even spears at the bottom of their piles.

As a side note: if we finish Manhattan the turn after the Manhattan is built, won't we be the ones to get it anyway?
I was also thinking along the same lines but on wonder building. After we allow Dehli to build the Sistine Chapel, we could hold Industrialization for a turn or two to give us some saftey margin, because if they go directly into Universal Suffrage, it is going to be a nail biter. If they increase shield production only a little, they will complete before we can get to Fission, and that means disaster, unless of course Kyoto comes up with enough. This is the importance of having several wonders going on in the other civs. Althoug, Adrian's idea of a party of workers and a ROP agreement is an excellent support plan and we should probably plan on a couple of 6 to 8 member worker parties for overseas duty. They can pave the way for our troops, if necessary. ;)

On military matters, if we take our "allies" up the path of industrialization, etc. that also leaves them out of Replacable Parts and Infantry. I'm not sure we can keep them from there, but it is possible. We simply don't gift them anything from the bottom of the tech tree until we almost have Fission. Lastly, I don't think we shold even worry about ROP rape at this point and should have some Panzers, at the ready, next to the two wonder building cities, wherever they are!! :mischief:

It is going to get interesting. Time is our biggest consideration at this point, imho. Good luck Adrian, keep us on schedule!! :D

.... we could hold Industrialization for a turn or two to give us some saftey margin, because if they go directly into Universal Suffrage, it is going to be a nail biter. If they increase shield production only a little, they will complete before we can get to Fission, and that means disaster,

And they might get a Golden Age, I don't see how we can control that. :crazyeye:
Maybe we should start a war in Asia and let them all have their 20 turns GA now! :undecide: :D

Whether or not the AI will cast a vote immediately after building the UN must be something we can find out somewhere in the forums, only question is where. :hmm:

We can't control golden ages, but we can predict them. We should be able to work out what wonder combinations will trigger them, and we can also monitor and influence whether they go to war. As it happens, they all have UUs that arrived with Chivalry, so if they go to war from now on they'll all probably be capable of triggering a GA.

ROP rape won't mean a thing as long as the other civs are still warring the UN-building civ when we cast the vote. However in that case, we have to make sure that the builder is the other contendant for the elections.

Good luck, Adrian :thumbsup:


One thing: how will rails influence our calcs?

We can't control golden ages, but we can predict them. We should be able to work out what wonder combinations will trigger them, and we can also monitor and influence whether they go to war. As it happens, they all have UUs that arrived with Chivalry, so if they go to war from now on they'll all probably be capable of triggering a GA.
I agree with Alan, while we can not control whether or not they go to war, we certainly can control what wonders we "allow" them to build and time when they can have most of the techs.

Capt, you are right, I did not account for rails. However, that is why it will be so important to check in on these cities once in a while and see how they are doing. If we need to speed up anything or slow them down, that is where Adrian's idea of worker parties come in. With enough workers we should be able to adjust, through irrigating or mining, how many shield of production they will have.

I know I have never tried anything like this before and if we can pull it off, it will be some feat. Keep thinking about other variables because if we have thought it out, we can, hopefully, counter it and manage it. :mischief:

I picked up the save and checked it out.

I direct your attention to Tblisi and Hamburg2 in the south. Both cities have libraries and are totally corrupt. Assign all the citizens to water tiles (3GPT each). Then set research to 100%. Guess what - the city only produces net 1 beaker with the library which it would without the library.

I believe we would need to net 21GPT from 6 citizens to increase the base beakers to 2. The library would then add 1. We are not going to get 21GPT from 6 citizens unless we have multiple gold in the radius. Therefore the library in a corrupt town gains us nothing. It actually costs us 1GPT for 0 beakers. We would be better off with temples for the happiness bonus.

So unless you guys object I'm going to swap to temples in corrupt towns for our culture source.

My previous comment on temples still stands.
t I don't feel strongly about it if you think we can afford the extra cash for less culture, and still do 4 turn research.It's your call, and I won't change temple builds

I'd like to make a couple of comments about the Temple versus Library builds.

In my mind, here are the key things to consider.
1. Libraries are cheaper to build because we are a scientific civ, so to rush them costs us less gold.
2. Libraries produce 3 culture points per turn while temples produce 2.
3. Happiness, imho, will become a none issue very soon when we trade, or gift, the techs necessary to trade lux and resources across the ocean. What do our "friends" have that is of value to us? Only Lux!! So, when we trade for those lux, our happiness will go straight up. Those corrupt cities will have no aqueduct because we couldn't build them in time, so at pop 6, how happy can they get? :hmm:

So the key considerations here are cost to build or rush and the number of culture points per turn they provide. For me, the libraries are clear winners based upon that criteria. :beer:

My $0.02. Good luck Adrian!! I anxiously await your results! :coffee:

Time for some ZZzzz's :sleep:

My assessment of libs vs temples is about the same as Leif's, with the added point that since we're going for the green laurel, I really don't care about our score. Someone are bound to beat us on score anyway with an early milked spaceship, early domination or whatever. So I think we should focus less on score and more on achieving the objective we set out to achieve :)

I was wrong in thinking libs added a beacon in corrupt cities anyhoo, sorry.

...with the added point that since we're going for the green laurel, I really don't care about our score.
I believe it's the golden one we are going for. ;)


The Gold Laurel will be awarded to the team that achieves victory according to the Sponsored Variant rules in the fewest number of turns.
So you're quite right, we don't need the score. :eek: :eek: :mischief:

The only reason for building libraries (or temples), is to cover the land so that our aisan friends don't try to settle on our continent. The fastest way do do this is to hurry libraries in the coastal cities, after the city borders have expanded we can destroy the libraries again in the highly corrupt cities.

If score doesn't count, we don't need happiness, and with at least 7 lux very shortly, we absolutely don't need any temples.

This said, I do like looking at that pink graph sky-rocketing. :D

:lol: I stand corrected again.

And you make a few very good points imhso.

And you make a few very good points imhso.
I hate to ask dumb questions, although by now you can see I'm good at it! :crazyeye: What does the s stand for in imhso? I'm almost afraid to ask! :eek:

I'm with you Zamint!! :goodjob: And the pink does look good. :cool:

And the pink does look good. :cool:
The pink is now ahead of all last reported positions except Kuningas.

I agree the gold prize is the one we want, but I wouldn't write off the greenery either. If we get close to domination fast, the Jason score system *should* remove the benefits of milking, and we'll then be in as good a position as any to contend for it.

The pink is now ahead of all last reported positions except Kuningas.

I agree the gold prize is the one we want, but I wouldn't write off the greenery either. If we get close to domination fast, the Jason score system *should* remove the benefits of milking, and we'll then be in as good a position as any to contend for it.
Looking at the graph, we have expanded quickly, and this is good. Now if our little scheme can be hatched and we get an early victory, Jason should take good care of us. I agree Alan, but speed is essential. If only there were a way to bribe the AI to research what we want and build the right wonder in the right place?? :mischief:

Preturn
Give China Education so they are equal to the others
Rush temples and workers in various corrupt places
Micromanage several places to improve production

Basically my turns were just worker actions, micromanagement and rushing. I have tried to draw the workers back to the core in preparation for steam. We have 91 of them. We could use another 50 or 60.

I discovered another island off our north coast. I'm not sure we want to claim it. A barb galley redlined our galley in the area. I left 2 settlers up there for Alan to decide what to do.

Try to keep the corrupt cities in WLTKD as it helps with corruption.

Highlights

770AD - learn magnetism, set research to banking
780AD - trade Incense, furs, Ivory and Astronomy to India for Dyes
-trade Ivory, Iron and Astronomy to China for their lux
-trade Chemistry, astronomy, 12GPT and WM to Japan for Gems

790AD - set research to 30% for 4 turn pace

810AD learn banking, enter industrial age, gain nationalism, start on steam - needs 70% (we lose 40GPT)

820AD hire taxmen in corrupt downs to drop deficit to 20GPT
sell Physics cheap

840AD sell banking cheap

850AD steam due this turn, score 1936

We have a lot of banks due in a few turns. That will help with the higher tech cost in the industrial age. We also need more workers. Factories will be arriving soon. We have a lot of cities where the valleys should be irrigated and the hills and mountains mined. Since we are skipping sanitation, we want +24 food per city with as many shields as possible.

We might want to elevate the other civs to the industrial age as well. I didn't do it as I thought we should discuss it.

>>save<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam_850AD.zip)

I discovered another island off our north coast. I'm not sure we want to claim it. A barb galley redlined our galley in the area. I left 2 settlers up there for Alan to decide what to do.

Looking really nice Adrian!! :goodjob:

Unzipped and uploaded the save, the pink took a nice turn further to vertical, excellent. Most of the score, according to the Histograph, is territory; over 1400 points! :cool:

I did a MapStat check and we are 307 tiles under the domination limit, so we should settle the island to the NW, imho. :D

I checked F7 and they are still working on wonders. Perhaps we should think about spending some gold on checking on Kyoto and Dehli sometime during your turn Alan, of course, this is up to you. We'll see how curious you are?? :lol:

All is looking good. Now for keeping AI wonder pre-builds going and keeping up that 4 turns of research. I might even get optimistic!! :eek:

I hate to ask dumb questions, although by now you can see I'm good at it! :crazyeye: What does the s stand for in imhso? I'm almost afraid to ask! :eek:
No frets, man :D It's shepherd. Started out as a joke in another internet community and now I can't seem to shake it :lol:

Looking at the graph, you're in line for a :goodjob:, Adrian. I'll look at the save later.

Capt Buttkick On deck
leif erikson
zamint3
AdrianE
AlanH UP

Good progress AdrianE. :thumbsup:

I've a couple more issues to fix in the GOTM submission process today, so I'll probably pick it up and have a careful look at where we stand tonight. As I've not been concentrating, I may have some questions before I start, to avoid messing up your carefully laid plans.

PS. Did the upload process work OK for you this time, Adrian? If so, what did you change?

PPS. No. I see it didn't. Leif uploaded it. You never did tell me what browser and OS version you are using.

No frets, man :D It's shepherd. Started out as a joke in another internet community and now I can't seem to shake it :lol:

Looking at the graph, you're in line for a :goodjob:, Adrian. I'll look at the save later.
It was more fun imagining what it was!! :mischief: :lol:

I'm :love: with that pink line and its trajectory! :yeah:

BTW Congratulations to Alan and Zamint for the great showing in GOTM 31. And have a look at the Global Player Ranking, Zamint at 8 and Alan at 33. :goodjob: :beer:

Good luck Alan!! Keep up the good work!! ;)

Alan

I posted my machine's stats a while ago when I first encountered the problem. It is an iMAC running 10.2.4 and I use IE. I can't recall the version of IE.

Future growth in the score will come from population expansion/happiness and a little bit from territory.

In terms of my long term plans there aren't many. I would allow the banks to complete and then build factories.
Then build more workers in the corrupt area. Basically we have lots of railroads to build.

Note that in the 3rd/4th ring getting the cities into WLKTD drops corruption from about 80% to 50%. Hastings is one such city. Some of these could be productive if managed right. Right now with 7 luxes a size 6 city has 5 happy and 1 content citizens. A temple or a taxman pushes them into WLTKD.

In the far east I have some workers clearing a jungle so they can bring irrigation to the coastal cities.

Interesting question: would it be faster for us if the AI's build factories and then start on the wonders?

Hmm, I don't recall you mentioning the browser before. Thanks, I'll investigate after I've released the new submissions system for Conquests, and played this round.

I have IE version 5.2.3, probably installed with Panther, so I'll do some tests with that. I only use IE under protest, specifically for Internet banking. I find it slow and clunky and stuck in a time warp compared with any of the newer browsers for OS X.

I've GOT IT. I won't be playing for at least 12 hours, maybe longer.

A couple of questions after a first quick scan of the save:

1. We have London, Munich and Heidelburg building cathedrals. They are currently full of happy people, though as they grow they'll need more happy pills, of course. But that's not critical right now, and they don't have banks yet. Is there any reason to prioritise cathedrals over banks? At the current slider settings they would contribute another 10 gpt or so with banks.

2. Re the UN pre-build process. Are we pre-building yet? Or are we still trying to dump the AI's current shield production ready for prebuilding to start at a future date? I guess we still have about 64 more turns to go to complete Fission. We have Sistine and a Palace as our own pre-builds right now. What are our plans for these?

3. We are currently rated weak vs Japan and India. Should we try to maintain military parity at least, to minimise the chance of attack?

4. We are paying 12 gpt for luxuries currently. We have opportunities to get 4 gpt each from two of the other civs for surplus spices. Any reason not to do so?

I've GOT IT. I won't be playing for at least 12 hours, maybe longer.

A couple of questions after a first quick scan of the save:

1. We have London, Munich and Heidelburg building cathedrals. They are currently full of happy people, though as they grow they'll need more happy pills, of course. But that's not critical right now, and they don't have banks yet. Is there any reason to prioritise cathedrals over banks? At the current slider settings they would contribute another 10 gpt or so with banks.
I am not sure what the answer is. My answer would be banks, if you know what I mean. :crazyeye:

2. Re the UN pre-build process. Are we pre-building yet? Or are we still trying to dump the AI's current shield production ready for prebuilding to start at a future date? I guess we still have about 64 more turns to go to complete Fission. We have Sistine and a Palace as our own pre-builds right now. What are our plans for these?
I believe the plan was to allow Dehli to build Sistine and Kyoto to build Sun Tzu's. We should provide them with Industrialization, for Universal Suffrage, as soon as we can so they can begin building it after they complete their wonder. The problem I just figured out is that we are not scheduled to finish researching Industrialization until about 7 or 8 turns after they finish Sistine, unless we change our schedule of research and do Industrialization before we go down the lower end of the tree to Medicine and Electricity. I think we should consider that seriously. The only other question is how it affects the timing on our pre-builds?

Our pre-builds should be used for Theory of Evolution and, whenever it is available, Smith's (Economics). I would also hope we can build Hoover's, although if everything works out it, won't give us much benefit. Once they become available, we should also probably build Bach's Cathedral, Shakespeares Theater and complete Leonardo's as a way to force the AI to Universal Suffrage, although I am certainly open to suggestions about this.

3. We are currently rated weak vs Japan and India. Should we try to maintain military parity at least, to minimise the chance of attack?
I think it would be a good idea, as long as we can do it and maintain 4 turn tech pace. If we can not, then we will have to fall a little behind and use our lux trades, tech gifts and cash to try to hold together the fragile alliance, imh"s"o! :lol: (Sorry Capt., just a little fun!!)

4. We are paying 12 gpt for luxuries currently. We have opportunities to get 4 gpt each from two of the other civs for surplus spices. Any reason not to do so?
The more trade the better to keep up relations. I can think of no downside to doing this.

If my calcs are close, then Sistines should be finished at nearly the end of your turns Alan. As I said above, I think we have to get Industrialization sooner than planned to make it work. I checked the pre-builds. Leipzig has 30 turns left on the Palace and Konigsberg has 33 turns left on Sistine. Sistine is a 600 shield wonder as is Theory of Evolution, while Universal Suff is 800. We could switch Konigsberg to Universal Suff unitl we get Scientific Method. Use the Palace prebuild for Smith's or Hoover's (Ooops, needs a river). Then we need a factory in Rheims followed by a palace pre-build for Manhattan Project or Universal Suff.

The mechanics are getting complicated, aren't they? I need to sit down with a pencil, with a good eraser, and some paper, and get a better handle on the schedule again. This should not delay your turns, except that Industrialization is now the key tech to get pre-builds going again. Sorry for thinking out loud, but some of those thoughts may help you to help me with good suggestions. :crazyeye: Anyone else?

Hope I didn't confuse you too much, good luck managing and manipulting the AI. Your probably sorry you asked! :D I'll sleep on it and get back to you. :sleep:

Couldn't go to sleep leaving a confusing post, so I checked the save and did some math. The problem is that factories and rails will change everything. So I have decided to give you some things to consider instead of a schedule that would be meaningless.

1. Our rail building effort should focus on the mined squares of Berlin (20 SPT), Rheims (18 SPT), New Hamburg (20 total/19 Net SPT), Leipzig (19 total/17 net SPT), Paris (16 Total/15 Net SPT), Hamburg (16 Total/15 Net SPT), New Leipzig (14 Total/13 Net SPT) and Konigsburg (12 Total/11 Net SPT).

2. I think switching to factories in these cities, or having pre-builds ready for them, when we get Industrialization would be a good idea. Another good reason to research Industrialization before Electricity.

3. Berlin, Rheims, New Hamburg, New Leipzig, Paris and Konigsburg are all on rivers, so should be able to build Hoover's.

4. I don't see how we could possibly get all these wonders built in the next 53 turns. Perhaps we should concentrate on completing Leo's, pre-building for Theory of Evolution (Leipzig) and Smith's, if it becomes available (Konigsburg). By then we should have Berlin and Rheims with factories (we may have to rush them) ready for Hoover's and Manhattan Project. Then we have to hope and pray the AI doesn't waste our plan by trying to build Bach's or Shakes. If that happens, we have to be ready to get the tech and build them before the AI does.

This is going to get exciting isn't it? I'm biting my nails already. :lol:

Hope that is clearer and helps. If not, please ask. I think this is going to be an evolving plan, if you know what I mean. See you in the morning. :coffee:

Off topic:

It's interesting to look at the score chart. I have noticed that each of Adrian's sets has increased our scoring rate significantly. The improvement during his 10 turns from 250AD was particularly powerful, as Kuningas is the only team still above our line, and during that period they have fallen off our rate. They're still above our curve, but by a much smaller margin.

For future reference we ought to look at what's happening during Adrian's turns that is lifting our score rate each time. :thumbsup:

I've just hit next turn after doing a bit of micromanaging, Steam finished, of course and I was all set to start railing like fury ..... and I don't know whether to :lol: or :cry: We have no COAL!!! Not only that but we can't trade for it either. NO ONE HAS ANY COAL!!!!! :eek: I've looked at the map every way I know how, and I can't see any!!! Mad-bax must be sitting on a sunny Florida beach with a very broad grin on his face.

So the bad news is we've just obsoleted the Hanging Gardens, we still need pop growth and productivity, and rails aren't going to give us any.

The good news is that our friends will not achieve any spt increases from here on in. Whatever they are producing now in their pop 12 cities is what we have for UN production, which should make predictions a bit easier.

I also did a little thinking before I started. I think we should delay ToE as long as possible so that we get the most expensive two techs with it. The ideal timing would be to complete it on the turn we complete the next to last IA tech - say Flight. Then we get Radio and Fission for free. All other techs are cheaper than these two except Atomic Theory. Fission is 40% more expensive than the most expensive Industrial tech, so we might fall off the four-turn pace if we have to research it.

NO ONE HAS ANY COAL!!!!! :eek:
:lol: Maybe there is an icy mountain with coal on the island NW, otherwise we should set sail an explore the dark areas of the map. :lol:


I think we should delay ToE as long as possible so that we get the most expensive two techs with it. The ideal timing would be to complete it on the turn we complete the next to last IA tech - say Flight. Then we get Radio and Fission for free. :clap:

Originally Posted by leif erikson
I believe the plan was to allow Dehli to build Sistine and Kyoto to build Sun Tzu's. We should provide them with Industrialization, for Universal Suffrage, as soon as we can so they can begin building it after they complete their wonder..
I think we should give them Industrialization right before they finish their wonders, there might be a slight risk they will start Universal Suffrage in another city.

@Adrian : WLTKD is triggered when your city is at least size 6, is not shrinking, no unhappy citizens or resistors and the number of happy citizens is equal to or greater than the number of content/specialist citizens, so 3 happy and 3 content will do the job in a size 6 city!

@leif : I think Leipzig can build Hoover's as it has a river in its radius.

No coal? That is different. Maybe Mad-bax shifted the discovery to a different tech?

Then let's build some boats to see if there is any hidden in the fog


I thought I swapped all the cathedrals to banks. I guess I missed a few. Banks first then Cathedrals unless the city is going to revolt.

We should not accept GPT from the AI's as it cuts their research budget. For 4GPT we might as well just give the luxes away. We should actually consider granting the AIs GPT as it will increase their research.

Basically the score in my turns came from planting the prebuilt settlers and rushing culture buildings to get expansion. Nothing special. That and buying three luxes made many more people happy.

Adrian

I checked my save and pressed next turn to check on the coal.

Coal spotted, we have 3.

Check the jungle N of Dortmund
Check the hill E of Leigzig 3
Check the jungle 2 SE of New hannover

India has some near Bengal

Adrian

Whew! That's a relief, I thought I was going mad!

Thanks Adrian, I will have to get my eyes tested. The ones in the jungles really don't show very well on my screen. I think I'm too used to the GOTM mod resources - I'm sure coal is more prominent in those. I haven't played past that turn yet as I've been reviewing the wonder situation, though I've deployed the waiting workers. So I'll get the nearest source hooked up asap.

I did the deals on lux. I figure we are going to get zero help from the AI on research. They have too many non-mandatory options as distractions, so if we slow those down we may actually do ourselves a favour and reduce their options on the other wonders [edit] but, as you say, 4 gpt is not a lot of research.

:blush: Guys, I'm really sorry about the false coal alarm. :blush:

I've been reviewing our UN prebuild situation.

When we last investigated the wonder sities we had:

Sun Tzu
Kyoto Japan Started 620 AD @ 12 spt Pop 12 eta 1070 AD
Kolhapur India Started 550 AD @3 spt Pop 6, eta 1445 AD
Canton China Started 550 AD @ 10 spt Pop 8->9 in 590 AD, growing by 1 every 18 turns, eta was 1090 AD

Sistine
Delhi India Started 640 AD @ 16 spt Pop 12 eta 1000 AD
Tsingtao Chine Started 590 AD @ 8 spt Pop 8->9 in 600 AD, growing by 1 every 12 turns eta was 1260 AD
Konigsberg eta 1120 AD

Bombay India - Leonardo's Started 700 AD @ <12 spt?? Pop 12 eta >1150 AD?? No investigation yet
Hangchow China - Leonardo's In progress 550 AD @ 4 spt Pop 6 eta 1480 AD

We can assume:
Delhi should complete Sistine in 1000 AD. They need to have Universal Suffrage available to start at that time. We shall have it in 900 AD.

Canton should complete Sun Tzu around 990 AD, ahead of Kyoto.
My guess is Kyoto will cascade to Leo's and complete it in 1070 AD unless Bombay gets there earlier than my guesstimate. Even if they cascade to Sistine first Delhi should beat them and they will then go to Leo's. Of course they may have one of the other Wonders available by then.

At 16 spt Delhi is our best builder for the UN. They will be able to complete the remaining 180 shields in 12 turns (less with rails) after they cascade to it. They can build Universal Suffrage in 45 turns. Our eta for Fission is 56 turns from now (1335 AD). Working back from that Delhi would need to start at turn 11 from now (970 AD). Their 1000 AD date is probably as close as we want to shave it. If the AI researches Sanitation it will have no effect on wonder spt. As long as Delhi is building a wonder they will not be able to build a hospital to increase population. But now that we know there's coal in India they (or we) may increase the rate with rails.

So Delhi has to be our best bet. What could go wrong?

1. Delhi could start another wonder. They may prefer a 600 shield one if the tech is available. We need to be ready to pre-empt that and get them to cascade to Universal Suffrage.

2. Delhi might decide not to build a wonder. Unlikely, but in case that happens we need to get Canton or Kyoto moving as well.

3. We need to be able to complete ToE in 1335 AD and Manhatten soon afterwards. They are both 800 shield builds. Manhatten will need a Palace or Universal Suffrage pre-build.

We have 520 shields invested in a Palace in Lepzig currently, increasing at 17spt. It will reach 600 shields in 5 turns, so it could be used at any time after that to pre-empt a 600 shield wonder. It will reach 800 shields in 16 turns which is too fast for our final objectives. So we should use them and start another prebuild there or elsewhere. It's too fast for Hoover unless we slow it down - we need five techs (20 turns) to enable Hoover, and six (24 turns) if we do Industrialisation first. We could use it for ToE, but I still like the idea of leaving that until later an using it to get Fission.

We also have Sistine in build in Konigsberg, with 257 shields and 13 spt. That will reach 600 shields in 1130 AD and 800 shields in 1260 AD, though that time will reduce as worker tasks complete and pop grows. We either need to slow this down or use it for something else.

If we started new builds now, with 56 turns to go, we would need two cities with 14-15 spt. Now that we know we have coal :blush: :blush: we have any number of cities that can be relied on to build both of these in time.

We could try to get another AI city on our builder list. How about if we use our Palace build to complete Leo's just before Canton finishes Sun Tzu. Then Kyoto's shields would have to go somewhere else or be dumped. If we then gave them Industrialisation they might start US?

These are all random thoughts out loud, really aiming to continue the debate. I'm concerned that we might miss a trick if we just push forward without a clear plan.

Specific questions:

Do we need updates on the cities that have been growing since we last looked - Tsingtao and Canton?

Should we investigate Bombay - we have no concrete information on its production rate and corruption level?

Sorry I am a little late on this, busy! :(

I've been reviewing our UN prebuild situation.

When we last investigated the wonder sities we had:

Sun Tzu
Canton China Started 550 AD @ 10 spt Pop 8->9 in 590 AD, growing by 1 every 18 turns, eta was 1090 AD
According to my calcs, this is the correct date, 1090 AD and not 990AD as you state below. Therefore Kyoto should win the race to Sun Tzu's by completing in 1070 AD.
Canton should complete Sun Tzu around 990 AD, ahead of Kyoto.
My guess is Kyoto will cascade to Leo's and complete it in 1070 AD unless Bombay gets there earlier than my guesstimate. Even if they cascade to Sistine first Delhi should beat them and they will then go to Leo's. Of course they may have one of the other Wonders available by then.
In summary, I have Dehli with Sistine, as you do, in 1000 AD and Kyoto with Sun Tzu's in 1070 AD. The interesting problem will be if we give Industrialization to India in 990 to begin the pre-build of Univ Suff, will they give it to Japan and what effect will that have? In the end, it doesn't matter because we have to get Delhi off on the pre-build on time. The three turn cushion will be a good thing, imho. My bet is on Delhi or Kyoto.
Specific questions:

Do we need updates on the cities that have been growing since we last looked - Tsingtao and Canton?

Should we investigate Bombay - we have no concrete information on its production rate and corruption level?
I think we should, as I have said, investigate once every 10 to 15 turns or when something happens. I have come to the conclusion that this will hinge upon our ability to have ROP with worker parties on site to make necessary changes to terrain so that we control the finish times of the various pre-builds. Change one mine to irrigation and 2 shields are removed from production. I am convincing myself that this is the only ace we have because we can directly affect outcomes. I recommend we have an 8 or 10 member worker gang ready to go overseas for each civ no later than 1000 AD because minor changes early will have major effects over time.

Another thought I had is that some of these cities with lower SPT, e.g. Tsingtao, may have to be watched. If they stick with their wonders or cascade to new ones as old ones are finished elsewhere, they may cascade and be close to finishing around our target date, 1335 AD. If that, by chance, happens by some mystic fate, then we may see a cascade to the U.N. in a relatively unproductive city. Just something to watch and probably quite remote.

According to my calcs, this is the correct date, 1090 AD and not 990AD as you state below. Therefore Kyoto should win the race to Sun Tzu's by completing in 1070 AD.1090 AD was the date if they stayed at pop 8. But they were growing to pop 9 in 4 turns (590 AD) and at +1 per 18 turns after that. My 990 AD date takes account of the pop growth. Kyoto was at pop 12 so they can't accelerate.

I'm at 900 AD now. India has researched Navigation and started Magellan in Bangalore. Answering my own questions, I've investigated Bombay and Bangalore now, so we'll have more data to chew on, and I'm going to investigate Canton and Tsingtao before I finish these turns, as both were growing. They are now at pop 11 and 10 respectively

The interesting problem will be if we give Industrialization to India in 990 to begin the pre-build of Univ Suff, will they give it to Japan and what effect will that have? In the end, it doesn't matter because we have to get Delhi off on the pre-build on time. The three turn cushion will be a good thing, imho. My bet is on Delhi or Kyoto.
I've tried to keep the AI broke so that they don't have spare cash to buy from each other. That'll reduce the complications. It also pays for our own spending ...

I think we should, as I have said, investigate once every 10 to 15 turns or when something happens. I have come to the conclusion that this will hinge upon our ability to have ROP with worker parties on site to make necessary changes to terrain so that we control the finish times of the various pre-builds. Change one mine to irrigation and 2 shields are removed from production. I am convincing myself that this is the only ace we have because we can directly affect outcomes. I recommend we have an 8 or 10 member worker gang ready to go overseas for each civ no later than 1000 AD because minor changes early will have major effects over time.I've built a couple of galleons (but lost a galley :blush: ) I'll get another couple on the slipway. We have lots of workers, and I suspect they are going to be pretty busy railing up our core. We'll have to peel off a bunch to ship out.

Another thought I had is that some of these cities with lower SPT, e.g. Tsingtao, may have to be watched. If they stick with their wonders or cascade to new ones as old ones are finished elsewhere, they may cascade and be close to finishing around our target date, 1335 AD. If that, by chance, happens by some mystic fate, then we may see a cascade to the U.N. in a relatively unproductive city. Just something to watch and probably quite remote.Don't write off Tsingtao. It was capable of reaching a reasonable spt with pop growth. We can probably make any of the AI cities relatively productive if we have to, with rails and mines. Just selling them luxes may have improved productivity a bit by allowing them to re-employ entertainers. As they are fairly small most of their cities will have low-to medium corruption, and the AI usually builds courthouses.

Thanks for the update. Looks like you have things pretty well covered at this point. :goodjob: Looking forward to the screen shots of the AI cities you checked out.

Didn't mean to get flaky last night. There were almost too many possibilities to count. :crazyeye:

Just checked out the graphs and I can't wait to see Kuningas' next post. Hoping it crosses our line.

Get plenty of rest and keep up the good work. :rockon:

Good work on the wonder-calculation Alan and Leif. :thumbsup:
Originally Posted by AlanH
We also have Sistine in build in Konigsberg, with 257 shields
How do you count the exact number? :confused:


Originally Posted by leif erikson
Change one mine to irrigation and 2 shields are removed from production. I recommend we have an 8 or 10 member worker gang ready to go overseas for each civ no later than 1000 AD because minor changes early will have major effects over time.

Very nice! :goodjob:
Note: Delhi's production can not be reduced, its mines are all in the hills. :sad:
If we could spare some workers, we could road up the Indian wine near Punjab in the north and trade for our last lux. :)

If we can't reduce Delhi's production, we can at least have a worker or explorer (only used for this purpose ever) on each hill to keep them from railing.

I think that may fall into the same category as the banned exploit of scout resource denial.

How do you count the exact number? :confused:In the city screen change production to a worker. The domestic adviser will warn you that you are about to trash millions of shields. Add ten to the number you are given and that's the total in the box. Then very carefully make sure you rescind the change.

In the city screen change production to a worker. The domestic adviser will warn you that you are about to trash millions of shields. Add ten to the number you are given and that's the total in the box.
Thanks. :cool:



Then very carefully make sure you rescind the change.
Do you have a bad experience here? :mischief: , maybe a candidate for BOTM? :lol: :lol:

Note: Delhi's production can not be reduced, its mines are all in the hills. :sad:
If we could spare some workers, we could road up the Indian wine near Punjab in the north and trade for our last lux. :)
Glad you noticed this! :eek: We can chop the forest that gives them 2 shields and irrigate it to drop them 1 shield. The other alternative is to calculate their ending date by using 19 SPT. We could delay giving India Industrialization until 1040 AD, turn 219, and this would give them 717 shields on turn 257, 1335 AD. We could still chop to give ourselves a safety margin.

The downside, they may build something else there that will drive Univ Suff to another, less productive city. However, we can always "modify" the terrain of that city to speed it up where we can't do much to Dehli to slow it down. :mischief:

The other plus is that Industrialization will be out there for less time before Japan and Kyoto can get it. There are lots of mods we can do to Kyoto! :lol:

Alan, if you would check your calcs to make sure you agree with me, I would appreciate it! :D

edit - Check the scoring curve!! Team Kuningas posted last night. Talk about close!! :eek: I hope their curve takes a slight dip as it would be nice to be out front, not that I wish them ill, of course! :p

Do you have a bad experience here? :mischief: , maybe a candidate for BOTM? :lol: :lol:Yes. One of my early GOTM attempts. But I consider that a valid candidate for a mis-click reload. You only do it once :eek:

edit - Check the scoring curve!! Team Kuningas posted last night. Talk about close!! :eek: I hope their curve takes a slight dip as it would be nice to be out front, not that I wish them ill, of course! :pKuningas are tracking us pretty much turn for turn, I'd say. Don't rely on them to blink, Kuningas is a top player. We've just got to stay focused and execute our plan.

Your calculations look OK, though I make 38 turns at 19 spt 722 shields. I may leave it to the Captain to do the checks. We're not making much gpt right now, as the techs get more expensive, so we should leave the checks as late as we dare. They cost 150 gold per big city now.

@zamint3: I now have two candidates for BOTM, both in this set of turns - my invisible coal, and my sunken galley, which I'll confess in the turn log later today.

Your calculations look OK, though I make 38 turns at 19 spt 722 shields. I may leave it to the Captain to do the checks. We're not making much gpt right now, as the techs get more expensive, so we should leave the checks as late as we dare. They cost 150 gold per big city now.

See why I asked for a check. ;) That means the earliest we want to give Industrialization to India is 1050 AD, turn 220. That should put them on the brink!! Again, it also leaves 5 turns where Delhi will have to produce something else and, we have to hope, changes back to Univ Suff when it completes whatever it builds.

As soon as we rail our major shield producing cities, we can recalc them to see about our own pre-builds. We should try to squeeze every shield out of them. We should probably start with Berlin and Rheims because of the low corruption. At my last check, New Hamburg, Leipzig, Paris and Hamburg should be high on the list as well.

I think the checks are important, however, they can not slow the 4 turn tech pace. I don't think the AI reorganizes the squares they use very often. We should be able to count on the production once we know they are building Univ Suff. Our worker crews can then manipulate to whatever outcome we desire. I hope! :mischief:

Preflight
Currently at 4.6.0 69 gpt, Steam next turn.
We need cash and population. MM - Redirected a few citizens in core cities under pop 12 to river tiles, and increased food.
Reneged on promise not to switch any Temple builds. There were a few towns where there was no need for culture increase. Eithr the town was already inside the cutlural borders or an adjacent town would soon expand to fill the gap.
Switched three cities from Cathedral to Bank as discussed.
With these changes we were up to 79 gpt at this slider setting. I then tried changing a few taxmen to scientists, and I was able to reduce the slider to 5.5.0 and +147 gpt.
With a more healthy cash flow, decided to rush a couple of Settlers in Konigsberg 2 and Cologne to try to claim the NW islands. Rushed a library in New Hamburg and sent our redlined galley into New Hamburg to meet an existing Settler and a sword. The other Settler moved to the incense on the north cape ready to build there.
Sold Japan spices for 4gpt + 22gold + WMap
Sold China furs for 4gpt + 17 gold + WMap

IBT
Chinese galley moves north from Hastings.
Steam -> Industrialisation. Hanging Gardens are obsolete.
Paris Bank -> Cathedral prebuild
Grenoble University -> Aqueduct
Newcasstle Harbour -> University
Cologne Settler -> Settler
New Salzburg Worker -> Worker
New Bremen 2 Worker -> Worker
Hannover Temple -> Bank
Konigsberg 2 Settler -> Worker
New Konigsberg 2 Library -> Worker

Turn 201 860 AD
Try to build rails, Can't. Check for our coal. Can't find it :eek: Move Workers around to do other things. Tell the team. AdrianE finds coal in several places. Book an optician appointment.
There's coal in jungles near Dortmund, York, Coventry, and in hills near Leipzig 3.
Settler shipped across to NW island :blush: forgot to load up the sword!
Settler builds Konigsberg 3 on the incense on the north cape, starts Library.
New Settlers move towards NW to trans ship to NW island.
Slider to 4.6.0 for Industrialisation in 4 turns at +68 gpt.
China offers 7 gpt + 9 gold + WMap for incense. OK.

IBT
Chinese galley continues north
Dortmund Unoversity -> Bank
New Nuremberg Market -> Aqueduct
New Brandenberg Harbour -> Worker.
Bonn 2 Worker -> Worker
New Hannover 2 Worker -> Worker

Turn 202 870 AD
Build Frankfurt 3 on the NW island. Move Workers to connect coal near Coventry. We don't have many Workers near the coal. Meanwhile continue mining and irrigation operation, moving Workers nearer to the core.
Redlined galley returns to pick up sword and next Settler.

IBT
Chinese galley continues north, obviously heading to populate the NW island.
Barb galleys still patrolling
Moscow, Coventry, Wawick, New Frankfurt, New Berlin 2, New Leipzig 2 all Worker -> Worker
Bremen Library -> University
Stuttgart Aqueduct -> Bank
New Hamburg Bank -> wealth :hmm: :smoke: Should have prebuilt Factory
Berlin 2 Aqueduct -> Market
Frankfurt 2 Courthouse -> Library
Settler and sword load up onto galley

Turn 203 880 AD
Workers move onto coal near Coventry and near York - belt and braces!
India has Navigation
Sell Metallurgy to India for Navigation + 60 + 12 gpt+ WM
Sell Metallurgy to China for 45 + 18gpt + WM
Sell Metallurgy to Japan for 40 + WM

IBT
Japanese galley appears off west coast
Barb galley appears and sinks our galley with Settler and Sword :eek:
Brandenberg University -> Bank
Rheims Bank -> Courthouse prebuild for Factory
Chartres Harbour -> Galleon
Dijon University -> Aqueduct
New Hannover Worker -> Worker
Bremen 2 Settler -> Settler
India starts Magellan

Turn 204 890 AD
Rush galleons in New Stuttgart (172 gold) and New Stuttgart 2 (216 gold)
Slider 5.5.0 for Industrialisation next turn
Magellan is in Bangalore, Pop 8 with a lot of mines.
Investigate Bombay (156 gold) and Bangalore (110 gold) (see screenshots below, and discussion)

IBT
Both AI galleys continue towards NW island
Industrialisation -> Electricity
Lyons University -> Bank
Minsk, Tblisi, Cologne 2, New Munich 2 all Worker - Worker
New Stuttgart Galleon -> Harbour
New Stuttgart 2 Galleon -> Harbour

Turn 205 900 AD
Fire the scientists, slider to 3.7.0 for Electricity in 4 turns, +8 gpt
All the AI have Navigation. Lux trading? :hmm:
Decide to let Banks finish rather than switch them to Factories. We need the cash. Switch teh other prebuilds.

IBT
AI galleys now moving freely towards NW island.
York grew last turn, and riots :(. Hire a taxman
Hiedelburg Bank- -> Factory
Bonn Market -> Harbour
New Heidelberg Aqueduct -> Market

Turn 206 910 AD
Three Settlers load onto Galleons with Sword and Horse

IBT
Berlin Bank -> University - didn't realise we didn't have one!
Wall Street is now available
Nottingham Worker-> Worker
New Bremen Bank -> Factory
Salzberg 2 Harbour -> Library
Coal finally connected [dance]

Turn 207 920 AD
Slider to 4.6.0 for Electricity in 2 at +136 gpt
Settlers land on the small island and the large island
Hurry Courthouse in York
Start railing

IBT
York Courthouse -> Market
Warwick, New Hannover Worker -> Worker

Turn 208 930 AD
India buys spices for 16 + 9 gpt + 16
Slider 4.6.0 for Electricity next turn
Settlers move to island build sites

IBT
Electricity -> Replaceable Parts - we need the worker productivity
Iron Works is available
Munich Bank -> Factory
Palace west wing gets second floor

Turn 209 940 AD
Build Munich 3 on the small island
Find a Chinese spear/settler just landed on the larger island, and a goodie hut
Slider 3.7.0 for replaceable parts in 4 at +36 gpt
Hurry Library in Frankfurt 3 on the NW island (132 gold)

IBT
China builds on the NW island south coast
Indian galley appears. It's getting crowded
Indian Caravel appears off our SW coast
London Bank -> Cathedral. Feel free to change it - if we can get another lux we don't need it
Hamburg Bank -> Factory
Heidelberg 2 Library (?? where did that come from :confused: ) -> Worker
Franfurt 3 Library -> Worker

Turn 210 950 AD
Rush Library in Munich 3 on the small island

Decide we'd better know where we stand on the imminent wonder completions.
Investigate Delhi and Canton (156 gold each) - See screenshots below

File saved here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Xteam_SG002_AD0950_01.SAV) for next better player.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam-Bangalore-890AD.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam-Bombay-890AD.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam-Canton-950AD.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam-Delhi-950AD.jpg

Capt Buttkick UP
leif erikson On deck
zamint3
AdrianE
AlanH

Don't rush, Captain. I'll write up some after-action notes now and post them very shortly.

We need to review where the Wonder situation stands now, as the next set of turns will see several builds complete one way or another.

After action report

1. Research.
We kept to the 4 turn pace, completed Steam and researched Industrialisation and Electricity. We are currently three turns from Replaceable parts to improve worker productivity. I suggest the following sequence:

Medicine, Scientific Method, Corporation, Steel, Refining, Combustion, Mass Production, Flight, Atomic Theory, Electronics, Flight. Coincide completing Flight with Theory of Evolution completion and we'll have Radio and Fission in the same IBT.

My reasoning is that this sequence gives us relatively low cost techs for the next three, giving us time to save some cash and complete more universities to handle the high cost ones later. The down side of this list is that we get Electronics/Hoover very late, but I don't think it's going to do much for us anyway. We need a couple of high productivity cities to prebuild Manhatten and ToE, but we can plan that to fit our existing production capacity. We aren't planning a massive unit production program, and the main build for our Plan B Panzer force will come late anyway. We could start building some artillery in the core, but as you'll guess, I don't see a need for a lot of Infantry to accompany them.

2. Infrastructure
We're starting to run out of things to build, except cathedrals. We should choose somewhere to build Wall Street. We could build the Iron Works in York, but we'll be finished by the time it completes. We still have a lot of banks and universities to finish. The rest of the builds are workers and harbours and a couple of Galleons for transport.

3. Territory.
Our mainland territory is pretty well tied up now. There are just a couple of headlands where a settler or a culture expansion could add some tiles to our count, but I doubt if the AI would settle any of these spare tiles unless they wanted to be really provocative.

There's a Settler with a Sword ready to build on the NW island. It will pop a goody hut - exciting :D There's another on a Galleon off the south west coast of the island. He's heading for the northern cape where he can exploit a whale and fill in the territory around the new Chinese city. With our current culture lead we could probably flip that city.

I haven't sold off any culture buildings yet. We could start to do that soon in some places to reduce our maintenance costs. There are a few that will give us further useful expansions in the short term and should be kept.

4. The Economy
It's worth playing with the specialists we have to see if a few scientists can allow you to complete the last research turn with a lower slider level. It worked for me on my first turn. The next three techs on my list are 100/140 lower in cost than the last two we researched, so we should be able to run a healthy surplus and build a reserve for later.

5. The AI
They are still waiting to be spoon fed with the mandatory techs by us. They all need Magnetism and Gravity to reach the IA. I didn't see any good reason to gift them to the IA yet - I'm sure they'll just fiddle about with all the cheaper optional techs rather than help us. They all have Navigation but only India has started Magellan. I'll put together a separate update on the wonder situation for discussion.

Nice set of turns. :goodjob:
Sorry about the galley. :) What did the optician say? :mischief: :D


1. Research.
I suggest the following sequence:
Medicine, Scientific Method, Corporation, Steel, Refining, Combustion, Mass Production, Flight, Atomic Theory, Electronics, Flight. Coincide completing Flight with Theory of Evolution completion and we'll have Radio and Fission in the same IBT.
I think we should research Electronics asap, if we can do Atomic Theory in 4 turns, this way if the wonder gamble gets out of hand in the next 20 turns, we can finish Universal Suffrage and let the AI start over on Hoover's. Talk about "belt and braces". :)


2. Infrastructure
We're starting to run out of things to buildWe should let the bigger cities finish their factories and start prebuilding for wonders, Bachs and Smith's could be available any time, and we may want to build Magellans as well.


4. The Economy
It's worth playing with the specialists we have to see if a few scientists can allow you to complete the last research turn with a lower slider level. Note: slider can be reduced to 60% right now. ;)


I'll put together a separate update on the wonder situation for discussion. I'm looking forward to that. :)
It looks like Bangalore is a new contender for the UN, especially because their terrain is perfect for our manipulating plans. :evil: :cool:

I just noticed :

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

Congratulations. :band: ..... I guess? :crazyeye:

As always Alan. :goodjob:

It will be interesting, in the next 10 turns, to see who cascades to what and where. I await your wonder discussion. The timing of gifting techs becomes important now. Industrialization to India in 1050 AD? With a little luck, and some manipulation :mischief: , we might pull it off.

On Electronics, if we can research it iat 4 turn rate, it sounds like a good idea to get a couple of more AI cities on the wonder building path at 720 shield level. Most of the MA wonders not yet built are only 400 to 600 shield wonders, 90% for the AI.

Need to keep our eyes open for Economics and Smith's. We could use the extra gold for research and/or city investigations. :cool:

Good luck Capt. :salute:

I think it's just the "Mark of Cain" to identify Moderators. I believe there's been some discussion about making us easier targets to hit in Site Feedback?

I think it's just the "Mark of Cain" to identify Moderators. I believe there's been some discussion about making us easier targets to hit in Site Feedback?
Let's hope it doesn't have the same curse associatied with it! :eek:

@Alan. As you are preparing your thoughts on wonders and timing I thought of a couple of ideas.

1. To help with cash, we can build Wall Street immediately in Konigburg for the loss of 74 shields. This would do two things for us. It would help with gold right away and allow us to get a bank and then factory going there more quickly.

2. In Leipzig, we could use the pre-build to take away Sistine from Delhi. This would allow us to do the same improvements to Leipzig as in Konigsburg. The part about Delhi is a bit more interesting. Delhi can not, as far as we know, start on a new wonder right away because they don't have the tech. If we take Sistine away, then Delhi has about 10 turns before we give them Industrialization. I'm not sure what they will build, but hopefully it can be finished in 10 turns. What I'm worried about is that if there are only 5 turns, Dehli may be able to use whatever they are working on as a pre-build for Univ Suff and screw up our schedule. The only way I can think of to check this is to investigate Dehli before we gift to see what's in the queue. We may have to adjust the gifting schedule accordingly. It may benefit us to purge their shield bin at this point.

3. This messes up the possibility of getting Smith's right away, but we don't know when right away is. :crazyeye: At least with Wall Street, we can get a quick boost to gold and, with factories going up and rails being built, we should get enough of a boost in production to get some pre-builds going that will not require much time.

Just some quick thoughts for you to use, or ignore! :lol:

If we are running out of improvements to build then it it time for units. Remember we have to take AND HOLD the UN city for the vote.

I like the idea of Wall Street in Konigsburg.

I also like the idea of pushing the completion of TOE out so that we can gain the very expensive techs. Some of the elite GOTM players use this tactic to great effect.

I agree we coul dbuild units, but as you know I'm not a fan of defenders, so I wouldn't build many rifles/infantry. We could build cannon, and then arty in a few turns, but I don't believe we need many of them either. If we have to take the UN by force we'll do it after it's built, and before the next vote is due. That's a ten turn window. We should do it late in that window so that we only have to hold it for one or two turns. With speed 3 Panzers our speed 1 defenders and arty would be left behind unless the UN is in a coastal city. So I think our Panzer force just has to be big enough to hold the city for a couple of turns on its own.

We should NOT use ROP rape to take the UN as that will mess up our impeccable reputation with the other two civs. And, of course, we need the builder to be our rival in the vote, as he won't vote for us if we take it from him. We'd better work out who that has to be - who's got the largest pop? I assume there will only be one rival, as a third contender has to have 25% of world population IIRC, and I don't think any of them have that.

I agree Wall Street looks good, as I don't think it can help us with pruning the cascade tree and it might as well use the shields it has and get some more imprvements. I'd like to look harder at the rest of our options on prebuilds. I've been trying to put together some graphs of production rates and targets. Bangalore actually looks very interesting as a UN prebuilder, if India is the right civ to build it. Its shield production rate puts it right on target at the moment. So maybe we do want to dump Delhi by building Sistine.

Got it.

I won't play until tomorrow as I think we should have some sort of agreement on what to do in Leipzig. I agree that Konigsberg could go for Wall Street. Not sure on Sistine in Leipzig, but I think we might as well. Reason being India has coal which means they'll get to build rails pretty soon. That will throw previous calcs of ETA on wonder building in India askew.

W/r to the scout resource denial variant I brought up; I haven't seen any msgs from MadBax that stated we were to use RBCiv rules or gotm rules this time around. Not that I'm willing to use every exploit in the book b/c the sgotm staff forgot to post the rules this time. It's just that I'm not sure this particular move will even fall into the :nono: exploitation category and then we should discuss it and get a ruling.

Btw: This (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1733966&postcount=61) is MB's link to the ad hoc rules.

Anyway: :goodjob: again, Alan.
It's a very nice challenge for me to be on this team cause I feel like I have to play to the very best of my abilities to keep up with you guys. All of you rock :rockon: (I just :love: that smily :lol: )

Got it.

I won't play until tomorrow as I think we should have some sort of agreement on what to do in Leipzig. I agree that Konigsberg could go for Wall Street. Not sure on Sistine in Leipzig, but I think we might as well. Reason being India has coal which means they'll get to build rails pretty soon. That will throw previous calcs of ETA on wonder building in India askew.
We had figured pretty well when to give India Industrialization for Delhi. However, the calcs may change if we are going to think about Bangalore, although the randomness in the AI will actually decide and we will have to adjust from there. :mischief: Besides, I always like all of Alan's graphs and charts. He works so hard on them! :cool: :thanx:

Regarding rules, which I just noticed. I think MB did say that we were to play by GOTM rules, so resource denial is banned as an exploit. It is stated in post #20,
<< Here >> (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88177) , in response to our own zamint3's question. I think we can achieve the same effect by delaying the gift of Industrialization. :D

It is actually very very difficult to estimate shield production for the AI. Even if the AI's have coal, the order in which they rail tiles is not predictable (well it is stupid but that's the AI for you). We control most of the world's coal ourselves and can use our workers to selectively rail the AI squares. That will give us the ability to adjust the production of any city +/- 10 sheilds. Note that the AI's are likely to demand coal if we don't give/sell it to them. We will need a bigger military to forestall any annoying war.

If we do nothing, in 5 turns Delhi will build Sistines and their shield box will be empty. Any guesses on what they will start building? If we build Sistines, Delhi's shield box will empty as well. So we might as well grab Sistine's ourselves.

With regarding to holding the UN city - remember the AI will have fission and therefore tanks to counter attack with.
We could deprive the UN builder of oil though so they don't have tanks. We should hold off on giving the UN builder motorized transportation until very late so that they have few if any tanks. Personally I think we should plan to have many more units on hand than necessary to secure the UN.

Delhi ran true to their shield per turn rate for most of the Sistine's build between the two snapshots we have. They fell behind by a turn or two because they chopped the forest :smoke:

We do need to improve our relative strength. We are still weak vs Japan and India. I believe the AI counts offensive strength to assess military power. Perhaps we should use some of the cash surplus when we research the cheaper techs to upgrade horses to knights or cavalry (I forgot to mention, one reason I sold Metallurgy was to encourage someone to research Mil Tradition). Perhaps, in this spirit, we should consider getting Leo's for ourselves?

I agree we need an overkill of units for the UN capture, but I don't see the point of building many of them until we can build Panzers. If it's Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore we'll probably want to have an ongoing RoP with China and position our Panzers on their Indian border near to the target city. We won't need a beach head then, and we'll take the UN city in one turn. My experience of the AI is they just don't build many offensive units unless they are planning a major offensive. This will probably be the first war they will have seen ... ever! It will be declared within a few turns of the next UN vote - about 20-30 turns after we gave them motorised transport along with the other IA tchs they needed plus Fission. We can investigate the relevant city to see what defenses it will have in store for us, and if there are any offensive troops. We'll probably have had workers tramping all over it under a ROP until a few turns before we attack as well.

Which reminds me, we'll have to time our RoPs with the UN builder, and their renewals, to lapse shortly after the UN is built. And we should make sure we have ongoing RoPs with the other two - they improve relations anyway.

If we do nothing, in 5 turns Delhi will build Sistines and their shield box will be empty. Any guesses on what they will start building? If we build Sistines, Delhi's shield box will empty as well. So we might as well grab Sistine's ourselves.Looking at their latest city screen, I think they might just cut their losses and build a university with the shields if we take Sistines. Then they'd be looking for something else to build. If we let them complete Sistine they might then take time out to hand build a university.

My guts are beginning to suggest we Complete Leo's in Leipzig and let Delhi complete Sistine.
That reduces our cost of upgrading horses to look more ferocious, and it cascades Bombay and Hangchow. If we do it before Canton or Kyoto completes Sun Tzu then it also reduces the cascade options for the failed Sun Tzu builder(s) at that point, allowing us to pull a puppet string or two if we want to.

Bombay has 190-ish shields in the box and 10 spt so they could get to 720 shields in about 50 turns - less with rails. I think that makes them a UN candidate, since we have 47 turns to Fission, and Bombay's shields come from choppable forest/irrrigable plains :D. So we might want to keep Bombay on the wonder trail by giving them Industrialisation just before we complete Leo's. We need to work out the timing on that.

We don't care what Hangchow does next currently, as it is stuck at pop 6. It will probably drop out of the wonder business and build an aqueduct then more infrastructure as it's been in a time warp for a while.

Here's a graph, as promised. It shows the shield production of each of the candidate cities, and projects them forward if they finish their current wonders a the currnt rate and start another immediately at the same rate. Bangalore and Bombay are the exceptions, we would have to persuade them to cascade to an 800 shield wonder. As the graph shws, Bombay is the city that comes closest to our target (the top right hand corner of the graph) without any changes.

My guts are beginning to suggest we Complete Leo's in Leipzig and let Delhi complete Sistine.
That reduces our cost of upgrading horses to look more ferocious, and it cascades Bombay and Hangchow. If we do it before Canton or Kyoto completes Sun Tzu then it also reduces the cascade options for the failed Sun Tzu builder(s) at that point, allowing us to pull a puppet string or two if we want to.
As I understand it, we are trying to look more ferocious to the AI. In that regard, Leo's and upgrading horsemen is a good idea. Building new ones is a lost cause for us because they can not be upgraded to Panzers. Once we have Motorized Transportation, we should definately start building a Panzer Army and enough transports to carry them to the objective. I still think it would benefit us to build a modest number of Infantry units, less than 12, for upgrade to Mech Inf and transport to the U.N. city. We will have several turns to get Computers, upgrade and transport, after we gift them Fission, and Mech Inf have a movement of 2 so they won't take all day. Between the offensive power of Panzers and the defense of Mech Inf, how could we lose the city?
Bombay has 190-ish shields in the box and 10 spt so they could get to 720 shields in about 50 turns - less with rails. I think that makes them a UN candidate, since we have 47 turns to Fission, and Bombay's shields come from choppable forest/irrrigable plains :D. So we might want to keep Bombay on the wonder trail by giving them Industrialisation just before we complete Leo's. We need to work out the timing on that.
From your graph, it looks like India is the most probable builder of the U.N. However, we should not discourage the other civs participation in the wonder race. After they tell us where they are building it, we might be able to do some contract work for them to get them in the race. The more the merrier I think. Should we fail to get a build in, the other civs could provide back-up. If one cascades to Manhattan and builds it, another must then get the U.N. on a cascade. Without Hoover's, and perhaps this was Zamint's point, only one city per civ may participate. With Hoover's, we could have six cities (2 in each civ), all with some sort of pre-build going on, ready to do our construction. While it would be nice for the number 2 civ to build it, I think it is more important for someone to build it quickly, and then we'll do whatever we need to do.

On Delhi, allowing them to complete Sistine's is fine, as long as you can assure me that once they start building a university, they will complete it before starting on Univ Suff. If that is so, then we could force Bombay into Univ Suff by completing Sun Tzu's while Delhi is building the university, causing a cascade to Univ Suff. Perhaps that is your plan and I missed it?

One last question, only because it keeps buzzing in my head. Does anyone know for sure that once built, the U.N. always goes on the 10 or 11 year cycle? If we take it, does it reset the clock? The affects when we take it, early or later.

Re. the builder cities, I think we are going to have to decide in the next twenty turns or so which two to focus on. We need to devote worker resources to tailoring the terrain for the cities, and we need to set our RoP cycles up to ensure that we can expire a RoP before we have to attack if we need to invoke Plan B. Once we have one or two cities on a final trajectory towards an 800 shield wonder all our efforts need to be devoted to fine tuning the cities and our relationships. I can't see us being able to juggle with more than that. At the moment, India has the three best candidates in Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore.

Bombay is currently building Leo's. If we give then Industrialisation and complete Leo's I'm assuming they will cascade Bombay to US. They are already building Sun Tzu in Kolhapur. There is a danger that they switch Bombay to Sun Tzu instead, and either abort Kolhapur or switch it to US. If they abort Kolhapur then you are right, Delhi might go with US. I don't think the AI ever starts a wonder until it has finished the current build, so if they are building a university in Delhi at the time that will delay them a bit. It's not a great problem if Delhi picks up US instead of Bombay. As the graph shows, they are a reasonable contender if they start immediately after Sistine. If they are delayed then we may need to help them build rails or reforest or whatever to reach our target.

I can't tell you for sure that the 11 turn cycle will continue after capture, because I've never tried capturing the UN before. But my programmer's head tells me that they would run the 11 turn voting cycle continuously for the UN. They'l just cound down from 10 each time the vote is called, and call it again when it reaches zero - the 10-to-0 sequence makes 11 turns, which I suspect was intended to be 10. For some reason I just don't think they would zero the count again when it changes ownership.

OK, I'm with you on all that you have said. I think we will have plenty of time between the start of the wonder and the 720 shield goal to modify terrain as needed. Once we know where Univ Suff is being built, through the F7 screen, then we should begin to concentrate worker resources in that city, do an investigation, and then do whatever modifications that are needed. This takes the guesswork out of where and a screenie will tell us what. Your graph tells the story that, even the fastest producer, Delhi, will require, unrailed, 41 turns to get to just less than 720 shields. That is plenty of time for a 10, or even a 12, member worker gang to make some serious changes, if they are needed.

You are correct in the need to time ROP agreements. We should be able to work that all out once we know who is building what, where and how long it will take, depending on our modification work. Once a civ starts it, we know they are going to continue unless someone else causes a cascade. If, on turn 257, 1335 AD, we get Fission, give it to the AI, and build Manhattan, Hoover's and Univ Suff, then it will be a minimum of 9 turns, and maybe as many as 12 to 15 turns, before the U.N. will be built. We need to plan to use that time wisely as well, and we should know who the builder will be by turn 258, 1340 AD, based upon who is building and their SPT. When ROP renewal comes up, we clear out our workers, maintain ROP with neighbors, parking a nice Panzer force on the border, collect up a few Mech Inf, massage our neighbors that will not be building the U.N. and wait for the vote. :coffee: If it is not called, then :banana: :hammer: 8 or 9 turns later. Then we call the vote and, if the RNG Gods are with us, :band:

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Perhaps I am too simple? :rolleyes:

edit - Of the three Indian cities, the most that can participate will be 2, whichever the AI chooses. then we can focus as above.

BTW, I am not liking Kuningas' curve! :cry:

Don't worry about Kuningas. They're tracking our rate of score increase ten turns ahead of us, that's all. They may have a few more pop, or they've filled out the cultural borders a little earlier than us. Or they may be taking the :ninja: to the other continent, going for early domination or conquest.

Reading the spoiler, it's remarkable that we are doing as well vs the others as we are, considering most seem to have settled in place and had a four-turn settler factory early on.

Don't worry about Kuningas. They're tracking our rate of score increase ten turns ahead of us, that's all. They may have a few more pop, or they've filled out the cultural borders a little earlier than us. Or they may be taking the :ninja: to the other continent, going for early domination or conquest.

Reading the spoiler, it's remarkable that we are doing as well vs the others as we are, considering most seem to have settled in place and had a four-turn settler factory early on.
Read that as well and was surprised the others were not further ahead. It shows that our strategy to get to the domination limit quickly by force was essentially a correct one. While we expanded the north by settler, we also expanded south by :hammer: . Now, if we get this timing down, we should be all set!

Your submission page and graphics are very good aids to facilitate seeing how things are progressing and have added a great deal to the suspense of the competition. :goodjob: I look forward each morning to having a look at what everyone has done in the previous 12 to 24 hours. :cool:

I check the MapStat and we can settler every unoccupied square and not reach the limit, so we should continue to settle wherever we can and, where possible, rush culture to see if we can flip anything.

Good luck Capt. Your turns should be very interesting. Towards the end, you should see some wonders built. :D

Here's a draft plan based on all our discussions so far. Please read carefully and comment. If I've missed anything I apologise - please make sure we include it and resolve any conflicts.

There are one or two elements left to chance - where the cascades will go, and whether the AI will call the vote on UN completion. I think we have contingency plans for these, but we should all cross check this stuff to ensure we have no nasty surprises. The biggest risk in my view is whether the AI will take it into their heads to attack us before we get our military act together sufficiently to dissuade them. However, if it does happen, this will happen sooner rather than later, and we should still have time to sue for peace and sort ourselves out.

It's a 13 point plan, so we really need to add or remove a point if anyone's superstitious :mischief:

1. We complete Wall Street in Konigsberg.

2. We allow Delhi to complete Sistine, and Canton or Kyoto to complete SunTzu, and see who cascades to what.

3. We stop and review the situation at that point, but assuming nothing strange has happened we'll probably then sell/gift India to Industrialisation and then complete Leonardo's in Leipzig. That *should* cascade one of India's cities to US. If we sell/gift the other two to the same tech level at the same time we might get another civ building US . After this we again review where we stand.

4. When Konigsberg and Leipzig are released from wonder building we get them up to date on improvements.

5. We start a prebuild for ToE to complete *precisely* at 1335 AD.

6. We start a prebuild for Manhatten to complete not before 1335 AD, and before any AI city can reach 720 shields.

7. We start a prebuild for Hoover with the same timetable as Manhatten so that it can be used by an AI city as another UN prebuild and we can pre-empt it when the UN is available.

8. We build some more galleons in coastal cities for upgrade to transports when we get to Combustion. We shall only need 5-6 of them to handle my levels of troop deployment, or twice that for the more aggressive levels that have been suggested.

9. We start building some cannon->artillery inland to support our panzers.

10. As soon as we have Leonardo's we upgrade horses->knights->cavalry as fast as our treasury can support it. I think that's only about 30 per unit at the 50% rate, and we have 20+ horses. So we're looking for 600 gold or so. We only need to upgrade to the point where our Military adviser says we are average, I think.

11. We'll grab the rest of the north west island with the settlers we have, and we can fill one or two more headlands using new settlers, perhaps. We can try to flip the new Chinese city on the island, just for laughs. The rest of our territory is pretty well enclosed now, or will be in a few more turns with the expansions that are due. We've known for some time that we are at least 200 tiles short of reaching domination using all the available space, even if we have to execute Plan B and take out a couple of Indian cities.

12. We can start to sell off cultural buiildings that have done their job on our borders. That'll reduce costs and put a bit of up-front cash in the treasury. As long as we have a reasonable number left in our core we'll easily maintain cultural supremacy - check out F8 :D.

13. We can start prebuilding panzers as we head towards Motorised Transport. 20-30 of them should be more than enough in my view, and we can back them up with cavalry as additional cannon fodder plus artillery to weaken attackers. I just can't see India having enough attackers to take down 30-40 units in a city in a couple of turns. But what do I know? :hmm:

Sistine's is much better for us than Leo's. It will double the happiness of cathedrals. All our cities with cathedrals and markets will be in WLTKD which will improve productivity and score.

Leo's is useless for us. We have lots of cash. It is cash flow that drives research. That is a huge difference. Bribing the others only takes 100G each on the appropriate turn. Our tech gifts will far outweigh that. Horsemen to cavalry is a 50 shield upgrade and we have 21 of them IIRC. Total cost is around 2100G. Saving 1050G is NOT WORTH losing sistines.
Saving 2000G or 20000G isn't worth losing Sistines. We have time for upgrades. We can start with a few horsemen to knights every turn.

Leo's is a warmonger's tool and we are not warmongers anymore.

I would like to see all our coastal cities get a rifleman as a garrison. This is strictly to dissuade the AI from a sneak attack.

Leif, all things considered, I think we should have left Russia alone. A scientific trading partner would be most useful right about now. They would have lots of libraries and universities to help with research. There was enough space for two cores without conquering Russia. Two cores is where most of our production comes from. If you read past GOTMs the elite players who get fast diplomatic and space wins uniformly leave the scientific civs alone.

@Adrian: If you would join in during the debates rather than coming in at the end we'd have the benefit of your wisdom earlier. As it is, we are where we are, and Russia doesn't exist, and you didn't advise against attacking them earlier as far as I can recall.

I am proposing pre-empting Bombay's Leo build because Bombay looks to be the very best place we know of to build the UN. Actually, we *are* short of cash. I would have run a significant deficit if I had not sold lux to the AI, and techs are going to get more expensive, and we are going to want to rush stuff and invcestigate cities. I'm asking for a discussion, and would welcome alternative views, but I don't know how you see the whole picture. Please put together an alternative road map based on your thoughts and let's discuss it?

Alan

It is not my fault that you live online and post frequently. It is very frustrating that you have already decided what to do BEFORE I even get to look at the situation, let alone have any input. I also don't have the time to post dissertations on what to do. I can't imagine how you find the time to be as active on line as you are.

The only change I would make or the short term is for us to grab Sistines and not Leo's. Leo's is useless. It is a waste of shields in this game.

I think an AI city with a factory, coal plant and a hospital is actually our most likely candidate to build the UN not some city that has been prebuilding since the early middle ages. It will take that kind of city about 20 to 25 turns.
Let's elevate the AI's to that point and then worry about detailed tracking of the prebuilds.

Basically I think we should dump all the middle ages prebuilds and get the Ai's to factories. Then the management of cascade from universal suffage (started from stratch by the AIs) to Hoovers to the UN is easier and can be accomplished in the last 20 or 30 turns. The uncertainty caused by railroads makes the accuracy of our long term predictions so poor that they are unreliable.

Markets and WLTKD in the 3rd and 4th rings will help with cashflow.

Here's a draft plan based on all our discussions so far. Please read carefully and comment. If I've missed anything I apologise - please make sure we include it and resolve any conflicts.
I'm with you, but may have a 14th point for you. It might save us some gold to set up a pre-build for Smith's, as all economic imporvements, Marketplaces, Banks and Harbors, are free of maintenance. It is a 600 shield wonder. The only problem is that it may never come as we must rely on the AI to research it. We will need to devote one city to it.

Also, after we get Fission, do you think we should continue research; say computers at a 6 or 7 turn rate to save gold for bribes, etc.? Don't know if we'll need it, but what the heck? I like a little insurance. :rolleyes:

@Adrian's comments - I think it will require far too much time to get any AI city with all the improvements you specified. While I agree that our stategy is risky because we don't know what the AI will do, its behavior suggests that once it has shields devoted to a wonder, it will continue to cascade to a wonder to prevent losing them. This idea is designed to get the earliest U.N. build possible! :mischief: If it succeeds, I don't see how anyone can beat us to it. If it fails, so what, then we are back with everyone else that didn't think of this. Alan's idea is a brilliant attempt to get the AI to pre-build for a wonder. All the on-line chit chat has been about how we could make it work. I am convinced that we can do this, in fact, that we are doing it already. Again, this approach will beat the one you presented by at least 20 to 30 turns, and probably more. I am looking forward to reading how the other teams approached this problem.

Leif, all things considered, I think we should have left Russia alone. A scientific trading partner would be most useful right about now. They would have lots of libraries and universities to help with research. There was enough space for two cores without conquering Russia. Two cores is where most of our production comes from. If you read past GOTMs the elite players who get fast diplomatic and space wins uniformly leave the scientific civs alone.
I'm sorry that I don't agree with you. Our research pace is far ahead of any of the AI's. If we were playing PTW, I might agree with you. A weakened Russia might have helped us by getting a different tech at the change of age (if we gifted them all the techs so they could change age), but in vanilla, we all get the same tech, so there was NO advantage to keeping Russia around. They would never have kept pace technologically. In addition, please look at the scoring graph. Our curve took off because of the terrirory we control and the pop we have grown, or captured. To have kept Russia would have been a thorn in our side, besides being able to tell on us! :blush:

It is not my fault that you live online and post frequently. It is very frustrating that you have already decided what to do BEFORE I even get to look at the situation, let alone have any input.I'm really sorry my suggestions and drafts for discussion come across as ready made decisions. That was not the intention, and I don't consider myself a good enough, or experienced enough, player to want to dictate any policies. I thought I was making suggestions and looking for quantified alternative strategies. So I'll keep quiet and let you have the debate. As I've said several times, there's plenty of time. No need to rush.

I don't have much time these days.
Just a quick question:
Originally Posted by leif erikson
While it would be nice for the number 2 civ to build it, I think it is more important for someone to build it quickly, and then we'll do whatever we need to do.
Won't we have a problem if it's not #2 civ that builds it and they don't cast a vote? :confused: :crazyeye: :confused:

Otherwise I think your wonder-discussion is great. :D :goodjob:

@zamint3: Please can you explain that a bit more? I don't undertand :confused: :crazyeye:

Lets take a look at Dehli. They are currently producing 16spt. They could mine the mountain for 2 more spt. We could mine a few plains for them for a few more spt. Then there are railroads. At 16SPT a facory (180 shields IIRC) is a 12 turn build. That puts them at 24SPT. A coal plant is then another 7 or 8 turns. At that point Delhi is cranking 32 SPT minimum. They could be at 50SPT with proper assistance from us. They would then need 18 turns to build the UN. 12+8+18=38 turns. 38 turns at 16SPT is only 608 shields or 2/3rds of a UN. A developed city is a realistic and viable option for a UN build in our timeframe. The hospital would be a 4 turn delay, but would permit 1 additional citizen at 3SPT immediately and more as it grew. Basically we can use US,TOE,Hooversto lead the cascade once the AI has built factories.

IF the AI chose that build order (and it is a big if) we have the UN built for us in 38 turns. Currently we are looking at 60 plus turns to fission right? So there is plenty of time.

I think keeping the middle age wonder cascade going is an interesting idea. However there are other ways that we can achieve the same result. A fully developed AI capital (like Delhi) is capable of putting out 50 to 60 spt which will easily catch up to and overtake a underdeveloped prebuild city. That is why I say our most likely candidate to build the UN is a developed city.

Currently we are taking about giving Fission to the AIs when their prebuilds reach 700 shields or so. That leaves 200 to go before they build the UN. That's 20 turns at 10SPT, 15 at 16spt. If we continue down this path of using the middle age wonders as UN prebuilds then the best we can do is a UN vote 10 to 15 turns after learning fission. If on the otherhand we get a 50spt city to 700 shields with a hoover's prebuild, then get them to cascade to the UN we are only looking at 4 turns after fission until the UN is built. I think it will be faster to kill off all the current cascades and then industrialize the AIs and manage the industrial wonder cascade. The timing will be more difficult though.

Smiths will help us out definately. We should build it if it becomes available.

Those are good points, Adrian. I'm sorry I'm not very bright and needed them spelt out. Do you think we can rely on the AI cities to do the builds we would need for this to work? I guess I'm trying to minimise the number of unknowns, but p'raps I'm just swapping one set for another :hmm:

I do agree on Smith's - we'll have to pre-build and hope they supply us with Economics before hell (or the UN) freezes over.

IF the AI chose that build order (and it is a big if) we have the UN built for us in 38 turns. Currently we are looking at 60 plus turns to fission right? So there is plenty of time.
We are actually looking at 47 turns from where we are now until Fission. At 16 spt, a Factory will require 14 turns to complete (216 shields/16spt), a coal plant will require another 6 turns (144 shields/24spt). Of course, there are shields in the bin to serve as a factory pre-build. This "could" happen relatively quickly. A hospital would require a further 6 turns. It is possible. This improvement would result in the city producing 36 spt plus whatever shields result from pop growth. Over the remaining 27-minus turns, this would produce 972+ shields.

Adrian is correct that there is time to do this, if, and it is a big if, the AI follow the specified building path. There is slosh time if they do something else. A huge dilema would involve when we gift Industrialization because if it is too early, then they will finish Univ Suff before Fission, and if too late, they may not build improvements as Adrian describes and then we miss out big time. The other question is if they will build all the improvements.

edit - I just reread and Adrian suggested using Hoover's as the pre-build. This is possible but I wonder if we can get everything done in just one turn. This would require that we build Hoover's, TOE, get the two free techs, gift Fission to whoever, possibly build Univ Suff, and have everything lined up for wonder cascades. I suppose it is no tougher than before. I would love to hear what others think. :confused:

Of course, when we gift Industrialization to the Indians, they may switch to Factory instead of Univ Suff in our original plan. This may not be all bad as their shield capacity will increase. I need to ponder this some more. My initial reaction is that it builds in a lot more variability and makes predictions extremely difficult. Perhaps I was being too simplistic! :blush:

edit2 -Sorry for all the edits but just checked Delhi again in screenie that AlanH provided a couple pages back. With rails we can improve its current status to 26 total SPT, minus corruption. If they build Factory and Coal Plant, this would mean 58 spt, minus corruption. U.N. is 900 shields which equals 16 turns from scratch. With a 710 shield pre-build, 4 turns. It looks good, as long as everything goes as planned?

edit3 - One big disadvantage to industrializing our pals is that, should we have to take the U.N. by force, it will be much more difficult to hold on to. :sad:

Just finished collecting all my scraps of paper. Alan, please, if you can replicate this on your end, I will know I am correct. :confused: :lol:

This example is for Delhi, I will work back from the target date of 1335AD, which is also turn 257. A reminder, we are currently on turn 210, or 950 AD
Option 1. Adrian's idea of industrializing the AI.
For a 696 shield pre-build of Hoover's Dam at 58 spt (should be a little less with corruption) would require 12 turns. The pre-build should start on turn 245 or 1275 AD.
For a Coal Plant, requiring 144 shields at 39 spt (should be a little less for corruption), would require 4 turns. This build should start on turn 241, or 1255 AD. We should have the railing and any other improvements (mountain needs a mine) done by this date.
For a Factory, requiring 216 shields at 15 spt (1 corruption) would require 15 turns. The Factory build should start at turn 226, or 1110 AD.
The gifting of Industrialization to India, for Delhi would probably need to be done on turn 225, or 1100 AD

Option 2. Univ Suff pre-build at 15 spt, rising to around 26 spt (minus corruption) and no indistrialization.
The pre-builld requires 719 shields, or as close as possible, by turn 257, or 1335 AD. At 24 spt (counting 2 corruption), that requires 29 turns, or turn 228, which is 1130 AD. I count the whole thing as 24 spt because we could have it railed and ready at 24 spt by that time. The gifting of Industrialization to India should be one turn before, or turn 227, 1120 AD.

They look an awful lot alike, until you look at the U.N. build time. For the first option it is 4 turns and for the second it is 9 turns. The only other part of this is how we allow the AI to use the shields in their production bin from the wonder they are now building. Imho, we should not allow them to use those shields for anything in this plan. Allowing them a jump on factories is not a good idea as it allows them to get there too early. I would hate to see them start pumping out offensive military units to start a war with! :eek:

The last issue is ROP coordination. For Fission on turn 257, we could have 40 turns of ROP, which would begin on turn 217, or 1020 AD. If everything isn't set up by turn 257, we might as well give up!

Should we go through this exercise for the other cities under consideration? :crazyeye:

I'm sorry if all your careful planning has been thrown askew. We probably should have gone with Adrian's advice to build more military... :(

Preflight: Set research to 60% for Replaceable parts in 3. Switched a few builds in corrupt cities (I didn't go overboard:)). Switch Konigsberg to Wall Street for loss of 74 shields. Swirch Leipzig to Leo's for 74 shields. Set all tax collectors to scientists.
IBT: Leo's in Leipzig. Wall Street in Konigsberg.
1 - 960AD - Heidelburg3 founded, we got 50 gold from the hut.
IBT: The Japanese unload a vet longbowman next to undefended London :(
2 - 970AD - Nuremberg3 founded. Serious MMing and Scientist hiring gives us RP next turn with 50/50. Move 3 horses into London.
IBT: Despite my efforts, Japanese declare war, but their vet Longbow is defeated by an elite Horsie in London and we have another GL, Hengest :lol: Discover RP, start Medicine. We've got 3 rubber online and at least two others in our territory, (by Dortmund and on the island off the NW coast).
3 - 980AD - Hurry marketplace in York cause with the lost lux it's almost revolting. Switch back to tax collectors. 50% sci is enough. Buy India against the Japs, give them Nationalism for 12 gpt, 53 gold and WM. Buy China in, give them Nationalism for 18gold and maps.
IBT: Mao wants an arm and a leg to renew our silks deal. We give it to him in the form of ROP, ivory, spices, iron, saltpeter, 9 gpt and 2 gold. I'd like to keep my options open and not give him steam power so he can sell it to India. There's even more rubber in our territory, next to Chartres. Palace expands.
4 - 990AD - Trade Steam to India for next to nothing and to China for 21 gpt and 39 gold. Rush Sistine in York.
IBT: Delhi completes Sun Tzu.
5 - 1000AD - Prob something, but I forgot, sorry :blush:
6 - 1010AD - 20% sci for Medicine next turn. Buy some improvements.
IBT: Medicine --> Sci Method. The Japanese are moving caravels towards our island in the N.
7 - 1020AD - Sell industrialisation to India for 49 gpt, 90 gold and maps (should have done it last turn after assuring noone could cascade to US, let's hope India still wants to start a wonder). Semi-grant industrialisation to China. Buy defensive units on northern islands.
IBT: The Japanese land on our two islands.
8 - 1030AD - Not much.
IBT: We loose Frankfurt3 after our hurried rifle takes all but 1 HP off 1 vet and 1 elite sword. A vet samurai retreats after inflicting 1 HP to our reg rifle on the other island.
9 - 1040AD - Cologne3 founded. Another rubber in our territory, outside Nottingham. Kill samurai.
IBT: Japan drop a sword on the NE island.
10 - 1050AD - Hannover3 founded. I've left MMing and Movement of two Ironclads (one on each coast) that was rushed last turn to Leif. There's a couple of builds that I'm undecided on, Paris being the most noteworthy. I think we should limit this war to our own continent. If we are nice in this war, we may even get Japan's vote...

The drop in scoring is due to the turns without gems, the one lost town and probably also the fact that I've been increasing our worker count. The only AI wonder building going on is Magellan's which should complete in Kolhapur in just a couple of turns.

Originally Posted by zamint3
Won't we have a problem if it's not #2 civ that builds it and they don't cast a vote?
@zamint3: Please can you explain that a bit more? I don't undertand :confused: :crazyeye:
Actually I think you mentioned it some time ago.

When election day comes there will be two candidates in our game : #1 civ (us) and #2 civ. (Who ever that is, I don't know how to figure it out :confused: ).
If #2 civ builds UN, they will vote for themself and the rest will vote for us, even if we have to take the UN first, our excellent rep. will give us the votes.

If #3 civ builds the UN, the vote will still be between #2 civ and us.
If #3 civ calls the vote : no problem we will still win 3-1.
If #3 civ don't call the vote, we'll have to take UN from them, and then they will probably not vote for us, :mischief: , the best we can hope is that they will abstain, but we still don't get elected. :eek:
(I guess #2 civ will allways vote for themself.)

I don't know how quickly we can make #3 civ vote for us after the war? :confused:
Maybe we should have left one of our European friends in the game. :lol:

edit: minor spelling problems.

So much for our planning.

I am not sure if the AI's fighting helps us or hurts us. Our potential rivals will damage each other and that will make them like us more. The Japanese would have talked to us on 1030AD or 1040AD and we could have signed peace. Now we absolutely must finish out the alliances. That's another 12 turns of war.

You probably could have drafted a rifleman in London. That might have helped dissuade the attack. However it worked out as we got a GL and Sistines.

So much for our planning.


Lief needs to add another one of Pattons quotes to his signature line.

"no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. - Patton"

BTW, I am enjoying following your teams progress. The in depth discussion on trying to schedule cascades for the UN is very thought provoking. Good luck and superb playing so far. :goodjob:

Zamint3

If it comes to that we may have to eliminate the UN builder completely without exceeding the domination limit. That way there will be us, a number 2 civ and the civ that votes for us. We win 2:1.

We need to be prepared for this eventuality. We have the industrial capacity so we may as well use it.

Lief needs to add another one of Pattons quotes to his signature line.

"no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. - Patton"

BTW, I am enjoying following your teams progress. The in depth discussion on trying to schedule cascades for the UN is very thought provoking. Good luck and superb playing so far. :goodjob:
Thanks Haphazard, and how true it is. The true test of a commander is how they respond and change the plan to meet the realities of what they are facing. They must look for opportunity where others see fear and chaos. :rolleyes:

In that light, I believe we have a great opportunity before us, although I know you will tell me the truth if I'm wrong. ;) Japan declared war on us and our rep should be intact. I think we have three alternatives.

1. To contain the war in our continental area and sue for peace immediately when offered.

2. Attain limited objectives on the Japanese continent.

3. Destroy Japan.

The vote issue, imho, seems to say that we ought to eliminate Japan. They have 18 cities, and we can only take another 150 tilles, + or -, until we trigger domination. If we take out Japan, our rep should be fine, but we will need Cavalry quickly.

The course I am leaning towards is limited objectives. Japan has something we need, gems. There a bunch of them located in Sapporo.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_1050AD_Sapporo.jpg
Even better, there are also wines located just north. We could plant a settler next to the wines, in Japanese territory, and, I think, get both wines and gems. India could get a little upset with us, but so what. We would have to limit our land grab to the area in heavy red. Then, when we make peace with Japan, we can gift them all the cities we have on the western islands to make sure that when culture kicks in, we don't trigger domination. I think Japan will tolerate us because we gave them land and cities. Once we figure out who the civ is that will build the U.N., the sure fire way to win is to ally against them and have everyone at war with the civ. If they don't call the vote, we'll have to do it anyway.

We could also take the limited objectives and destroy Japan, allowing China and India to gobble up whatever they can take. One should get more than the other and a clearer number 2 will emerge. My only concern is getting into a protracted war this late in the game.

Capt, nice set of turns, you can't help it that Japan decided to try to humble us. you made sure they did not! :goodjob:

BTW - Got It! Imho, this does not make all the plans go into the trash bin. We can use what we have learned and apply it when it is clearer what is going on. Capt. already sent Industrialization out there, so, let's watch and see what happens. I do not think I can paly my turns until Friday evening due to kid's end of school year activities. I am all ears! :)

Well held, Captain. Hmm. Well, we knew an attack was a possibility, just hoped they'd give us more time :(

Thanks for the clarification, zamint3. I didn't recognise the #2 civ reference.

There are only likely to be two candidates for the UN vote. If I understand the rules correctly, the qualifiers are:

Initially:
Owner of the UN.
Largest civ of the rest - Germany.
Next largest civ if it has more than 25% of the world population.

If we capture the UN:
Owner of the UN - Germany.
Largest of the rest.
Largest of the rest if they have > 25% of world pop.

I don't think any of the others will have 25% of world population, as even if one of them researches Sanitation I'm sure we can buy it and keep well ahead in pop if we need to. That leaves us and the builder as the candidates. If we have to capture the UN then our competitor will be the largest of the three - could be the same or another. If the largest of the three is not the builder of the UN then, as Adrian says, we may have to eliminate the builder to avoid him voting against us. We'll reduce the builder's pop just by capturing the UN city, or course.

Alterntively, it's possible to get the UN builder from Furious to Polite in just a few turns, and maybe persuade him to vote for us. The fastest way would be, as soon as we know the builder has not called the vote, capture the UN, then declare on the largest civ and make peace with the UN builder along with an alliance against our new rival and a RoP and any other bribes we can think of.

If we just sit out the next 12 turns of war with Japan, and absorb their puny invasions we should be able to sue for peace and get back in business with a reasonable rep. Hopefully by then we'll have some more powerful armed forces and be a less tempting target.

These are all suggestions for discussion ;)

For the record, the Roster:

Capt Buttkick
leif erikson UP
zamint3 On deck
AdrianE
AlanH

Leif

Repeat "We are no longer warmongers" 100 times.

The ONLY civ we should consider eliminating is the one that builds the UN and only if we have to go to war with them and take lots of cities.

As long as we don't take any Japanese cities, when the war is over they will become polite soon enough. They will still vote for us. Taking and/or razing Japanese cities will make them permanently furious with us. We can not afford that.

Basically we should sit out the remaining 12 turns (building our miltary so we are no longer weak with respect to Japan). We might consider mobilization which should be enabled. A dozen vet riflemen plus upgrading the horsemen to knights should suffice. We should then be able to sign a straight up peace treaty (after properly cancelling our alliances).

Planting the settler where you suggest (within 2 of Dacca) will guarentee war with India. The AIs always attack if you settle within 2 of one of their cities .

The war should also be triggering the AI's golden ages (Japanese UU - Samurai, India's - Elephant and China's - Riders
) which are all knight equivalents. That will also complicate our planning.

I agree we shouldn't go after Japan. That would just complicate the diplo situation, and we have enough balls to juggle at the moment. Gems can be bought when we can get back to peace, and there's wine to be had as well if we use a RoP to hook it up for trade.

My understanding is that anything under 3 tiles inter-city distance is considered by the AI to be aggressive settling. We should try hard to be friends with all three civs at the end of this to keep our options open. Antagonising one while we are at war with another severely reduces our chances of achieving that.

Leif

Repeat "We are no longer warmongers" 100 times.

The ONLY civ we should consider eliminating is the one that builds the UN and only if we have to go to war with them and take lots of cities.

As long as we don't take any Japanese cities, when the war is over they will become polite soon enough. They will still vote for us. Taking and/or razing Japanese cities will make them permanently furious with us. We can not afford that.

Basically we should sit out the remaining 12 turns (building our miltary so we are no longer weak with respect to Japan). We might consider mobilization which should be enabled. A dozen vet riflemen plus upgrading the horsemen to knights should suffice. We should then be able to sign a straight up peace treaty (after properly cancelling our alliances).

Planting the settler where you suggest (within 2 of Dacca) will guarentee war with India. The AIs always attack if you settle within 2 of one of their cities .

The war should also be triggering the AI's golden ages (Japanese UU - Samurai, India's - Elephant and China's - Riders
) which are all knight equivalents. That will also complicate our planning.
Does this mean that we can't even take back the city on the island that Japan took from us? :eek:

I think we should take it back.

I agree we shouldn't go after Japan. That would just complicate the diplo situation, and we have enough balls to juggle at the moment. Gems can be bought when we can get back to peace, and there's wine to be had as well if we use a RoP to hook it up for trade.

My understanding is that anything under 3 tiles inter-city distance is considered by the AI to be aggressive settling. We should try hard to be friends with all three civs at the end of this to keep our options open. Antagonising one while we are at war with another severely reduces our chances of achieving that.
OK, I'll crawl back into my cage now! :lol:

The Japanese would have talked to us on 1030AD or 1040AD and we could have signed peace.
I'm not altogether sure about that. Tokugawa won't talk in 1050AD and IME allying other civs against the agressor doesn't change when the agressor wants to talk.

OK, I'll crawl back into my cage now! :lol:
Keep the lateral thoughts coming! Even if they aren't immediately picked up they may trigger something else.

For example, AdrianE points out that our rivals are probably all having their Golden Ages right now, and they are all at war. This may be the one time when they might help us with research. Their research rates may be sufficient to give us one or two techs if we ensure that they kept are up to date.

The AI, except Japan, are up to date with us on the upper branch of the research tree with Industrialization. We should move forward on the lower branch, towards Electronics, as long as we can maintain 4 turns per tech (Shouldn't be a problem). My only fear is that the AI will first clean up the optional techs we left behind, including Military Tradition. That will give them the advantage, for a while. As long a India and China get it, we should be able to trade them for it. Do we want to give up Replacable Parts right away?

The U.N. vote with 4 nations can get tricky as we will have to have two of the three on our side. Genghis Khan discussed a rule change before we all really got going wanting to ban military alliances as a way to make it harder. MB said no, so we can use the startegy if we need to, declaring war on the U.N. builder and making alliance against that civ.

OK, Alan, I'll keep thinking, but in a more peaceful light. :rolleyes:

Some more random thoughts ... As the AI are at war, maybe they'll emphasise research for units, including Mil Trad, Replaceable Parts and the top half of the IA tree. Japan will be at a disadvantage as they can't trade techs with anyone while the dog pile is operating.

Sorry if I've caused some confusion. There will of course never be 3 candidates in our game, I forgot about the 25% rule :blush:, and none of the others will reach that. (without our help! ;) )

It will be a lot easier for us if it's the #2 civ that builds the UN, and safer. :) , I mean : are we sure that a polite civ will vote for us? :confused:

Now that I know that the #2 civ is the one with the largest pop, why don't we just make the UN builder the #2 civ? :cool:

Here's my thought : Shortly before some civ builds the UN we gift them a lot of cities, making them by far the #2 in pop, then we ally the rest against them, move our troops to the UN city, and take the city if they don't call the vote. Then we wait, and call the vote, making sure they are still #2 and our allies are with us. :D


Problems : Why should the AI call a vote if they are at war with everybody. :undecide:, so we could wait and see if they call a vote before we ally against them, but are we sure not to lose the vote without the alliances? :confused: :crazyeye:

Leif
Repeat "We are no longer warmongers" 100 times.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

But we are evil. :evil:

It will be a lot easier for us if it's the #2 civ that builds the UN, and safer. I mean : are we sure that a polite civ will vote for us?

Now that I know that the #2 civ is the one with the largest pop, why don't we just make the UN builder the #2 civ?

Problems : Why should the AI call a vote if they are at war with everybody. :undecide:, so we could wait and see if they call a vote before we ally against them, but are we sure not to lose the vote without the alliances?
Before I type anything, I have to say to myself that we are no longer warmongers!! ;) No longer warmonger?? :p I have to admit that I find it interesting that now Adrian has to remind me not to think about war!! I guess I have passed my initiation as a warmonger. :lol: Is my membership in the builder's association up?

Having said that, when Japan declared war, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to wipe them out and allow the other civs to occupy most of the area, as we would surpass the domination limit if we took very much. This would make the vote strictly a 2 up and 1 down deal, with no complications of having a fourth party involved. Surely, on of the two civs left would have dominance over the other by producing settlers faster. I also figured that this rush may cause them to go to war and then we could choose to ally with the one that wasn't building the U.N. This is what was on my mind, along with some greed at getting hold of some gems and wines! :mischief:

@Zamint-Your idea of gifting them cities is certainly an interesting one. The question would be how many, I suppose that depends upon how much pop they need, and what effect that would have on the final score. If it happens early enough, who cares about score because the Jason bonus should take good care of us. :king:

@Alan-I will keep a sharp eye open for Mil Trad during my turns. I don't want to miss that!! How sacred should Replacable Parts be? I can't see any particular reason to hang on to it, if giving it away serves our purposes. The most sacred tech at this point appears to be Electronics and Hoover's Dam, for use as a pre-build. Don't want to get that out too early. :eek: It will be interesting to see if anything happens with Industrialization soon.

Sorry Zamint, I had to delete the smileys from your quote so I could post, it said I had too many!! :lol:

I looked at the save, and I must say it looks very good. :)

We will be able to research Atomic Theory in 4 turns at 80% with a net gain, or maybe a slight deficit when our spt trade deals expires, so we don't need any more libraries or universities. :)

Score is not important, right? :p , so we don't need happiness, meaning the gems are not that important, and we don't need temples or cathedrals.

I think we should concentrate our production on workers and military. We need to send some workers abroad asap. We might not need the military just yet, but if it will keep the others from attacking us that would be nice, and we can afford it. ;) ( If we sell all libraries and temples in our highly corrupt coastal cities this will bring us 10-20 more spt)

Now we just have to wait and see if, :eek: , or when, :), and where the AI starts on Universal Suffrage. Then we investigate the cities to see if they are any good, at the same time, or maybe a few turns later, we investigate other promissing cities to see if they have started on factories or even coal plants. We can then have a discussion about which plan we should follow :
A: The original , or
B: Adrian's

My own opinion : A is more safe, but B might be quicker :D

We still have a lot of calculations to do, so keep working guys. :goodjob:

Q : Do we know if the AI have started their GA's yet?

....and Leif, please start a prebuild in maybe Paris, I think we should do all the prebuilding that's possible. :)

Sorry Zamint, I had to delete the smileys from your quote so I could post, it said I had too many!! :lol:

Too many? :confused: , sorry about that, but in your 10 turns you probably wont need these anyway :

:sniper: :ar15: :hammer:
(warmongers only!)

Are we sure score isn't important? If score isn't important, then we had no need to expand to the domination limit.

Corrupt libraries buy us nothing, so we can sell them. Keep the temples. However properly managing the corrupt cities and hiring as many taxmen/scientists as possible will yield good cashflow.

Happy cities (WLKTD) in the 3rd and 4th rings are more productive so keep the temples and cathedrals.

Building libraries and universities in productive towns is still worthwhile. It might let us reduce the % of the economy for research.

I agree that emphasizing workers and military is the correct short term action.

Captain - because we signed military alliances with other civs we can not make peace with Japan until the MA's expire without trashing our reputation. Reputation is EVERYTHING when going for a diplomatic win. There is a 6 turn timer before a civ will talk after a war starts so Japan should have talked to us around 1040AD.

As for managing the AIs wonder builds, that will depend on what they do. What wonders are the AI's currently building? Can we manage a Magellan's to US cascade?

Are we sure score isn't important? If score isn't important, then we had no need to expand to the domination limit.I agree. Score is important as long a it doesn't compromise our primary goal. Because we don't know who else is pursuing the same primary goal, and I'd rather back two horses than one.

Corrupt libraries buy us nothing, so we can sell them. Keep the temples. Only if they buy us something. In a corrupt city we are never going to build past 6 then I can't see the benefit.

However properly managing the corrupt cities and hiring as many taxmen/scientists as possible will yield good cashflow.Agreed

Happy cities (WLKTD) in the 3rd and 4th rings are more productive so keep the temples and cathedrals.In those specific cities, agreed.

Building libraries and universities in productive towns is still worthwhile. It might let us reduce the % of the economy for research As long as we can use the spare cash. Cash doesn't add to score unless it's turned into happy faces or territory.

I agree that emphasizing workers and military is the correct short term action. Me too.

Captain - because we signed military alliances with other civs we can not make peace with Japan until the MA's expire without trashing our reputation. Reputation is EVERYTHING when going for a diplomatic win.Agreed
There is a 6 turn timer before a civ will talk after a war starts so Japan should have talked to us around 1040AD. Where is the reference for this? I'm sure I've had to wait longer in phoney wars where neither side has inflicted any pain.

As for managing the AIs wonder builds, that will depend on what they do. What wonders are the AI's currently building? Can we manage a Magellan's to US cascade?Bangalore was such a candidate on my chart. I haven't loaded up the latest save yet, so I don't know where stand now. I'm hoping someone else wants to do some work ;)

As for managing the AIs wonder builds, that will depend on what they do. What wonders are the AI's currently building? Can we manage a Magellan's to US cascade?
I'll try to run some numbers a little later. Based on the calculations I've made up to now in comparing Adrian's proposal to what was planned (i.e. Industrialization vs. Unindustrialized), if Univ Suff starts now it is too early and will complete before we can get to Fission. Even if the civ takes time to build factories and coal plants, it is still too early, unless the city has very few shields to work with or is corrupt. Using Magellan's as a pre-build simply pushes Univ Suff further ahead, so it has no value as a pre-build for the U.N. That is what makes Hoover's so important at this point, it may be the only wonder left to use as a pre-build. We will need to exercise caution in dealing with Electronics, even withholding Atomic Theory to keep the AI from getting to Electronics too quickly. Not that I think they will.

"Remember, we are no longer warmongers!" :blush: That said, I have thought of another idea which merges my thoughts about simplifying the U.N. vote and Zamint's idea concerning how we control AI pop growth. It is very simple and, in my limited view, elegant. :cool: We remove Japan from the game through conquest and, as we take Japanese cities, sell all the improvements and then gift the cities to India, maybe a few to China, as we see India as the most likely builder of the U.N. We remove a problem and, with Military Alliances, promote our diplomatic standing with the remaining civs while setting them up for our victory. :mischief:

We are no longer war mongers! We are no longer war mongers! We are no longer war mongers! We are no longer war mongers! We are no longer war mongers! We are no longer war mongers! ............. :D

I'm out of touch with the wonder building saga, so I may be out of date. But I don't think current pre-builds are irrelevant on the non-industrialised path. If Bombay can be persuaded to continue building a wonder until they complete the UN then they will never build a factory, so they can remain on the graph I drew. The GA will affect their build rate for 20 turns, but we can control spt for that city in every other respect by irrigating their mines, even if they rail up. As soon as they cascade to the UN we can then mine them up to max production. I agree it's not as fast, potentially, as Adrian's industrialised end game, but it may be lower risk.

I have thought of another idea which merges my thoughts about simplifying the U.N. vote and Zamint's idea concerning how we control AI pop growth. It is very simple and, in my limited view, elegant. :cool: We remove Japan from the game through conquest and, as we take Japanese cities, sell all the improvements and then gift the cities to India, maybe a few to China, as we see India as the most likely builder of the U.N. We remove a problem and, with Military Alliances, promote our diplomatic standing with the remaining civs while setting them up for our victory. :mischief:

I like it! :D

We remove Japan from the game through conquest and, as we take Japanese cities, sell all the improvements and then gift the cities to India, maybe a few to China, as we see India as the most likely builder of the U.N. We remove a problem and, with Military Alliances, promote our diplomatic standing with the remaining civs while setting them up for our victory. :mischief:
Now that's evil :evil: :satan: What size force, with what technologies, are you proposing we'd deploy? Can we get there in the time available? Can we orchestrate that while keeping our eyes on the other plates we're spinning?

Now that's evil :evil: :satan: What size force, with what technologies, are you proposing we'd deploy? Can we get there in the time available? Can we orchestrate that while keeping our eyes on the other plates we're spinning?
I am rather surprised by the response, although I must admit that I like it too! ;) I have to go to a function in a few minutes but will work on it when I return. I will try to post details before I retire this evenijng for you to wake up to. If there are any suggestions, I would welcome the assistance. :)

Proposal for the Expansion of India and, to a smaller degree, China.
Japanese Situation
The Japanese currently occupy 17 cities of their own on one continent and one of our cities on our western island, whihc we are about to take back (RNG permitting)
Resources - The Japanese have available to them Horses (Osaka), Saltpeter (Shimonoseki) and will have Rubber when they research Replacable Parts (Ise). They also have two luxury resources, Gems (Sapporo) and Wines (Osaka). The Japanese do not have a source of Iron, and with everyone at war with them, they can not trade for it. I also found no coal resource in their area.
Military-No iron means no Samurai for them. Samurai replaces Knights, so no Knights either. The best defensive unit they can possess, as far as we know, is Musketman (defense 4). Our Military Advisor tells us that the Japanese Military outnumbers us. As we build units, we can judge by when we reach parity how close we are in numbers.
Economy-The Japanese can not be industrialized because the tech is unavailable to them. Most of their cities shield output must be in the low teens or less. They have little capacity to surge a large number of military forces, except by pop rushing. However, they are currently in Anarchy, so we won't know what government they pick until it ends.
Our Situation.
We currently occupy our own continent with no resource restrictions, except enough luxs for true happiness. :rolleyes:
Military-Our military attack assets consists of 16 Horseman and 7 Knights. Most of our military units are workers. :eek: We also have 2 Galleons, capable of carrying 4 units each. The good news is that we have Leonardo's Workshop to allow us to upgrade units at half-price.
Economy-We have a solid economy that is capable of producing anything we need. Our goal is to keep 4 turn tech research pace above all other goals. We also have the income to rush some units if we need them.

Objective-To destroy the Japanese Empire and use their captured cities to build our prestige throughout the world by giving them away to our rivals while maintaining research and helping the AI pre-build for the U.N. wonder.

Estimates-To be quick and effective will require us to have Cavalry. The AI civs do not have Military Tradition and we do not know when they might research it. To do this will require us to take a 4 turn break in research to acquire Mil. Trad. It is a cost of doing the operation.
Build-up.-Not all our units are in places that would allow us to upgrade them. We must therefore produce 35 to 40 knights/cavalry and 8 to 10 galleons to accomplish this operation. Most of our core cities have factories and are capable of producing a knight every 2 to 3 turns. I estimate that we could build 35 units in 9 turns using 12 cities. Knights require 70 shields and Cavalry require 80 shields. Once we ahve Mil Trad, this same rate should apply. The problem area will be Galleons. None of our coastal cities in the NE have enough shields to produce Galleons quickly enough for our needs. Our southern shipyards have the capacity, but the time needed to move the Galleon to the embarkation area is too long. To accomplish this, we will need to pay to rush Galleons, amount to be determined by where we rush and what we give up as a pre-build to rushing.

The proposal for the operation is to proceed in two phases. Phase 1 involves an attack of 10 Cavalry and 2 Infantry at Sapporo. The goal is to capture Sapporo and get the Japanese to respond to it by moving forces in Sapporo's direction. We can then wait on the mountains around Sapporo and take out the approaching infantry at our leisure.

Three to four turns later, we land the main force south of Kyoto. This force would include 31 Cavalry and 1 Infantry, to protect the cav upon landing. The task for this force is to seize Kyoto and then Osaka, splitting Japan in half. Depending upon what we see, 12 cav head north to capture the cities there and 16 head south to capture the southern cities. The 10 that landed in Sapporo can then clean up the eastern cities. The key to success is in speed.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_1050AD_JapanPlan.jpg
We are currently at turn220, 1050 AD and expect Fission on turn 257, 1335 AD. Researching Mil Trad will set the schedule back 4 turns, expecting Fission on turn 261, or 1355 AD.

Looking at Alan's graph several pages back, it is interesting to note that Bangalore will be very close to completing its 720 shields right around 1355. SO Alan, you were correct in what you said about Bangalore. The others I am not sure about because we will have to get some screen shots of city investigations to see what Industrialization and the war have done for their development.

If we use 1355, turn 261 as our new target, we have 41 turns until we get there. The destruction of Japan will be close indeed. Now it is for us all to weigh in on whether the risk is worth the benefit. :cool:
I hope I got it all in, Questions?

Too many? :confused: , sorry about that, but in your 10 turns you probably won't need these anyway :
:sniper: :ar15: :hammer:
(warmongers only!)
What was it I was not supposed to use?? :lol:

I think we can take out Japan in 41 turns and that we prob should go for it.
Just make sure we don't have MA with China or India when we take out Japan.

Adrian: I know we will have to wait before making peace.
Maybe I didn't explain well enough my reasons for MAing. My thoughts were these:
1) We can keep up with research, even at war.
2) We had very low military and we had decided against a military approach, so I wanted Japan to fight this war on their own continent.
3) If the other AIs behave like the AI normally does, we won't even have to wait 20 turns. In most of my games where I've depended on an MA, the AI will break it long before the 20 turns are up.

On the wonder discussion, I think if you read my turnlog you'll find that there aren't much wonder building going on. After all, Magellan's was the only one available when they cascaded and Kolhapur will finish it in the first half of Leif's turns.
You will have noticed then, that I decided to go with Adrian's approach to wonder building. It's not that I haven't enjoyed your work (Alan and Leif) on calc'ing wonder finishes, but I just thought there were too many factors that hadn't been taken into account. Most noticeably during my turns, the asian civs' GAs, but also the fact that they'd get Steam soon enough anyway and that was bound to throw at least Delhi off course (as the discussion went, we couldn't keep Delhi from increasing production by denial).

I'd say : Go ahead with the military build-up, but don't research Mil. Trad. before we know more about the AI wonders.

.....and Leif, yes you can take back the japan city on our island, (and therefore use a small :hammer: ), but I guess the major warmongering, if we go ahead with the plan, will be left for Adrian.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I think we can take out Japan in 41 turns and that we prob should go for it.
Just make sure we don't have MA with China or India when we take out Japan.
Very Goo0d point, this would destroy most of what we are trying to achieve! :eek:
You will have noticed then, that I decided to go with Adrian's approach to wonder building. It's not that I haven't enjoyed your work (Alan and Leif) on calc'ing wonder finishes, but I just thought there were too many factors that hadn't been taken into account. Most noticeably during my turns, the asian civs' GAs, but also the fact that they'd get Steam soon enough anyway and that was bound to throw at least Delhi off course (as the discussion went, we couldn't keep Delhi from increasing production by denial).
You're right, there are many factors at play here. As I have said, it will be interesting to see the effect gifting them Industrialization will have. If the AI is as stubborn as they seem, we could end up with a good pre-build in Bangalore, as Alan has pointed out. However, this would be an unindustrialized city and, thus, slower to finish a U.N. We will have to watch this because it may be almost as fast, as Adrian has pointed out, to let Bangalore dump its shields and have the U.N. start in an industrialized city. We can manage this process to some extent by how we time tech gifts.

@Zamint-I think I understand that you want to keep our research moving forward and onmly go back to Mil Trad when we have need of it? That means that I should continue to Atomic Theory in the hopes of India or China coming up with Mil Trad? That's fine, but if they don't have it by the end of Atomic Theory, then we will have to go to Mil Trad to stay on schedule? :lol:

I know I am supposed to play within a 72 hour window from the "I got it", which is tomorrow night. I don't want to start until we hear from Adrian. He has had some very good points lately and I think he needs to have his say on this one. With this discussion ongoing, if it is not resolved, should I delay longer? :crazyeye: I'm sure Alan is pondering this as well, I would be. :goodjob:

Sure, we've got plenty of time before the other teams catch up so we should take as long as we need to make the right decision. As long as the "up" player is involved in discussion there's no need to hurry it imhso.

I think you'll find Bangalore is no longer in the wonder race. Kolhapur is the one building Magellan's and India had no other wonders available at the time of the cascades.

I think we should delay Mil Trad even more. We're earning good upgrade cash and we've got Leo's so no need to hurry with Cavs until right before the invasion.

@Zamint-I think I understand that you want to keep our research moving forward and onmly go back to Mil Trad when we have need of it? That means that I should continue to Atomic Theory in the hopes of India or China coming up with Mil Trad? That's fine, but if they don't have it by the end of Atomic Theory, then we will have to go to Mil Trad to stay on schedule? :lol:

I would hate to see us 3-4 turns short of Fission when India completes Universal Suffrage, :eek: , so as long as we are not sure about the pace, we should research full ahead towards Fission.
We can start the invasion with infantry, knights and artillery. :cool:

No hurry.

Btw : I know somebody posted it, but what's our free tech in MT?

This is a critical decision. We shouldn't play forward until we've all had a chance to discuss it. I vote we suspend the 72 hour rule until we have a good measure of agreement on the way forward. I certainly don't trust my warmonger instincts to give me good advice in this situation.

We have plenty of time. It's less than a month since we started so we have lots of time to play the last 50 turns. Half the other teams still have 50 turns to play just to reach our date.

What's the rush to research Mil Tradition? If we do take the war to Japan we must make it a short sharp war to try to prevent war weariness. We only need to have conquered Japan immediately before the UN is built. Let's assume that's going to take four or five turns from 1335 AD, the date we get Fission from ToE, and let's allow a total of 16 turns from the date we get Mil Trad to the date we conquer Japan. In my view that's more than enough, assuming we have built sufficient knights and we have the upgrade gold in the bank and we have sufficient transports. Unless my calculations are severely awry that gives the AI 24 turns from now to research Mil Trad. I think that's plenty of time, and I've never known them not to do it. In the unlikely event that they still haven't done it by turn 245 then we can choose whether to wait a bit longer, and use combined cavalry and panzers for an even shorter war, or divert research to Mil Trad at that point ourselves. In the latter case we are no worse off than we would have been starting earlier. We'd need relatively few panzers to roll over their Infantry, leaving cavalry to mop up the inevitable spears, pikes and longbows. Here's a timetable:

Turn 221 1060 AD Complete Scientific Method - ToE available
Turn 225 1100 AD Complete Atomic Theory
Turn 229 1140 AD Complete Electronics - Hoover available
Turn 233 1180 AD Complete Corporation
Turn 237 1220 AD Complete Refining
Turn 241 1255 AD Complete Steel
Turn 245 1275 AD Compete Combustion
Turn 245 1275 AD Latest date to acquire Mil Tradition and upgrade cavalry
Turn 249 1295 AD Complete Mass Production
Turn 253 1315 AD Complete Motorised Transport, start building Panzers.
Turn 253 1315 AD Latest date to start cavalry invasion of Japan - 8 turns from upgrade date
Turn 257 1335 AD Complete Flight, Complete ToE.
- Get Radio and Fission free - UN and Manhatten available
Turn 257 1335 AD Latest date to start Panzer invasion of Japan
Turn 261 1355 AD Latest date to conquer Japan - 8 turns from start of invasion
Turn 262 1360 AD UN Completed and we win .... or
Turn 272 1410 AD Latest date to capture UN
Turn 273 1415 AD Call the next vote and we win

What exactly do we gain by invading Japan? Destroying them is easy but I don't see any gain from it.

If we build up enough military they will give us the luxuries they have for peace. If not we can buy them for tech we would just give away anyway.

Keeping 3 AI civs around until the UN is built gives us greater flexibility at that time.

Consider the following situation: we destroy Japan now. China builds the UN but India has the 2nd largest population. China won't call the vote because it can't win as everyone will vote for themselves. Therefore we have to take it. We take the UN and call the vote. China will not vote for us. If they don't abstain they vote for India. India will vote for themselves. We can not win and might lose to India.

Now if Japan is still around, we can eliminate China and get Japan to vote for us. We win 2:1.

The ONLY civ we should think about eliminating is the one that builds the UN. If we take the UN that civ will be furious with us and will not vote for us. It is unlikely that the UN building civ is the 2nd in population (after we take the UN - most likely in a big city). Therefore it will be one of the other two on the ballot with us. The vote will be indecisive at 2:1 with one abstain. So we will have to eliminate the UN builder for a 2:1 vote.

If we eliminate Japan now, we can lose the game. It is that simple.

@Adrian: That's why we needed the team inputs :thumbsup: I think your last sentence says it all. We won't lose the game, because we can still go for domination or conquest, but we can fail in our primary objective. If we have to take the UN and destroy the civ that built it we need two more surviving civs to provide a majority vote.

A couple of small points: "China builds the UN but India has the 2nd largest population. China won't call the vote because it can't win as everyone will vote for themselves."There would only be two candidates - us and China - as none of the AI will have 25 % of world population. So in this case, *if* China did call the vote India would have a casting vote. China might still call for the vote in this case, but it's too risky to rely on this.

I think Leif's point (and mine) is that by invading Japan we can make sure that the UN builder is (edit) big enough to want to call the vote, increasing the chances that the vote will be cast on the the first possible occasion.
If they don't, we can still go to plan B: wait 5-6 turns while rearranging our troops, make MA with the other surviving AI, take the UN city and call the vote ourselves. (Now the adversory will be the biggest AI civ, which still should be the UN builder).

This is the plan: we take the :hammer: to Japan and we hold all the cards ourselves :coffee:: we invade, knowing by then who our adversary in the UN vote is going to be, gift that civ all the Japanese cities as soon as we get out of them... All in all I'd say that adds up to a surefire early diplomatic victory. AFAIK we haven't taken a single rep hit from the asian civs yet. Even eliminating Japan won't do much to our rep in such a case, but I'd of course much prefer to MA with the AI and leave Japan a single city for the AI to take.

Btw: I know diplo victories. Every time I move up a level, my first win is a diplo :)

The situation after deleting Japan would be that there are two AI civs left - India and China. One of these builds the UN. If they don't call the vote we invoke Plan B and capture the UN. We can't delete the UN builder at that point as that would only leave us and one other civ - stalemate. We therefore have to ensure that the builder stays alive and that they are bigger than the other civ so that they are our opponent in the vote. We can do this by gifting them cities just before the vote in 1415 AD. To achieve that we have to take the UN far enough in advance of that date so that we have enough time to get them back to the negotiating table by 1410 AD.

True, Alan and we should keep that in mind.
But I can see you take the main point here: we'll have a bigger chance of a vote being called on the first opportunity if we eliminate Japan and manipulate the UN builder into 2nd place overall.

But I can see you take the main point here: we'll have a bigger chance of a vote being called on the first opportunity if we eliminate Japan and manipulate the UN builder into 2nd place overall.Yes, I'm being a bit slow today. The weekly supermarket trip does that to me :eek: So it's taking some time for these points to filter into my skull :confused:. As long as we know who our UN builder is going to be during the Japanese invasion we can, of course, give that civ lots of Japanese cities to ensure they are our opponent when the vote comes, whether they call it or we do. If we leave the invasion until late in the schedule, as indicated in my timeline, we should be confident about who the builder will be by then. How does my timeline look for this exercise?

If we do it this way, note that we should vacate each city before we give it away, otherwise our garrison troops all get teleported back to our capital. This is not what we would want, as we would need them to complete the destruction of Japan, and to remain available on that continent in the event that we need to capture the UN. We also need to ensure that the stupid AI that we donate them to doesn't promptly lose them again to Japan :eek:

How does my timeline look for this exercise?
Excellent, imhso. And I agree that the AI is bound to research Mil Trad before that time.

If we do it this way, note that we should vacate each city before we give it away, otherwise our garrison troops all get teleported back to our capital.
M, like I said, as soon as we get out of them :D

We also need to ensure that the stupid AI that we donate them to doesn't promptly lose them again to Japan :eek:
I think, until there's only 1 or two Japanese cities left, that we should try to keep the AI out of that second war with the Japanese.

As for the weekly supermarket trip :lol: I try to avoid those, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do :cool:

M, like I said, as soon as we get out of them :D
Yes, you did say that, and I missed it, which probably makes it a good point to emphasise :D

I think, until there's only 1 or two Japanese cities left, that we should try to keep the AI out of that second war with the Japanese.That may not be under our control, as even if our own MAs have expired long before that, the AI might decide to dog pile on Japan themselves. Our best bet is to ensure that our MAs are all expired before we eliminate Japan. It's a bit risky to rely on civ #2 to take Japan's last city in time if we're leaving it late.

Btw : I know somebody posted it, but what's our free tech in MT?
It is Ecology, pretty lame, huh? :rolleyes:

I'm glad to see this discussion with everyone participating, thanks.

@Adrian-I think you have made some good points concerning locking ourselves out of opportunities too early.

The reason I wanted to go to Mil Trad soon is that Japan has no unit now that can defend at greater than 4 defense. I was hoping to get Japan finished, but this also meant I was counting on India to be the builder of the U.N., which I still think will happen. But, I could be wrong and so Adrian's point is well taken. However, I think the concept is still a valid one.

@Alan-I like your timeline. Later is better because we have more time to assess where the civs are relative to U.N. build possibilities. In that light, I think we should then only build military until we are just ahead of the other civs, up to the point where we go from being average to being stronger. The reason is that we can not upgrade Cavalry to Panzer, so we shouldn't build Cavalry to excess. Panzers will do the job quicker anyway. In your figuring, please don't forget that we have to transport the units to Japan. I just counted the squares and, with Galleons at 4 movement, it will require 4 turns from either coast to get to the landing zones. Waiting gives us transports which we will need fewer of and they move faster, so that time may be only three turns.

To do the job later means to me, perhaps, 10% higher level of panzers, depending who we give what tech to. The tasks now then are to maintain 4 turn research forward, get our cores fully industrialized, sell off uneeded improvements in the outlying areas, get military built to a reasonable level to stay ahead of the AI, keep an eye out for Mil Trad., watch for AI wonder builds and screen shot any changes and get our own wonder pre-builds going for Smith's, Hoover's, Univ Suff and Manhattan Project. I know how to get a pre-build going using the palace, and we can use Univ Suff. What else do we have to use as a pre-builds? :crazyeye:

It is unlikely that the UN building civ is the 2nd in population (after we take the UN - most likely in a big city).We'll have to make sure they are. :)
My original plan was to grow our island cities to pop 12, and then gift all of them to the #2 civ, that would give them about 100 in pop growth and that should be enough. :D


Originally Posted by AlanH
If we leave the invasion until late in the schedule, as indicated in my timeline, we should be confident about who the builder will be by then. How does my timeline look for this exercise?
Looking good. :goodjob:


Originally Posted by leif erikson
The tasks now then are to maintain 4 turn research forward, get our cores fully industrialized, sell off uneeded improvements in the outlying areas, get military built to a reasonable level to stay ahead of the AI, keep an eye out for Mil Trad., watch for AI wonder builds and screen shot any changes and get our own wonder pre-builds going for Smith's, Hoover's, Univ Suff and Manhattan Project. I know how to get a pre-build going using the palace, and we can use Univ Suff. What else do we have to use as a pre-builds?
You got it. :rockon:

In that light, I think we should then only build military until we are just ahead of the other civs, up to the point where we go from being average to being stronger. The reason is that we can not upgrade Cavalry to Panzer, so we shouldn't build Cavalry to excess. Panzers will do the job quicker anyway. In your figuring, please don't forget that we have to transport the units to Japan. I just counted the squares and, with Galleons at 4 movement, it will require 4 turns from either coast to get to the landing zones. Waiting gives us transports which we will need fewer of and they move faster, so that time may be only three turns.Iwas assuming we would not build any cavalry, only upgrade knights we have at that point.

To do the job later means to me, perhaps, 10% higher level of panzers, depending who we give what tech to.10% higher than what?

The tasks now then are to maintain 4 turn research forward, get our cores fully industrialized, sell off uneeded improvements in the outlying areas, get military built to a reasonable level to stay ahead of the AI, keep an eye out for Mil Trad., watch for AI wonder builds and screen shot any changes and get our own wonder pre-builds going for Smith's, Hoover's, Univ Suff and Manhattan Project. I know how to get a pre-build going using the palace, and we can use Univ Suff. What else do we have to use as a pre-builds? :crazyeye:Don't forget we have to time a ToE build as well. That needs to come in precisely at 1135 AD, and we have Scientific Method next turn.

This feels like it minimises risks and maximises the chances of #2 (India, probably) going for a vote as soon as they build the UN. But I'd still like to hear again from Adrian. Are we missing anything?

If we take out Japan we have to be *VERY* careful not to exceed the domination limit. We will have to give away captured Japanese cities before we know who will build the UN.

I still think we have more flexibility later by keeping Japan around. I really HATE the idea of giving away our people. It seems so exploitive. It is just plain wrong.

We are talking about 20+ turns of war to remove Japan. We could have peace in 12 turns. Peace is good because the AIs will build more improvements not units. Improvements are what they need to build us the UN faster.

Fair points. Let me see if I have any answers:

- We are well below domination currently, so I think it should be feasible to stay below it during the war in Japan.

- The war in Japan doesn't need to start until within 4 turns of completion of Fission, later if we use panzers. We really ought to know which civ is going to build the UN by then. Our decision will be final when we start giving Japanese cities away.

- We don't need to involve the others in the war. Let the current MAs expire in 12 turns. They are the ones we want to build improvements, not Japan.

- Maybe that extra flexibility actually increases risk. We have more chance of an abstention causing a stalemate.

- We wouldn't be giving our people away. They would be Japanese people. If we don't invade they'll never be our people. If we kept those cities we'd prolly starve them to death - my normal policy with captured cities.

- We have 12 more turns of war with Japan now. We need about 6-8 turns of war later to destroy them. Purely by chance, the date for a cavalry invasion in my timeline is 32 turns from now. So we *could* make peace in 12 turns time (less if China and India renege early) and then declare war after 20 turns or more to invade and destroy them. Does an honourable declaration of war (no one inside their borders, no ongoing 20 turn deals) do any damage to our rep?

Iwas assuming we would not build any cavalry, only upgrade knights we have at that point.
Sorry, I should have written knights. As I thought Knights, my fingers typed Cavalry. :blush:
10% higher than what?
10% higher than the estimates in the proposal. Instead of 35 to 40 units, we will probably need more like 45 or, perhaps 50.
Don't forget we have to time a ToE build as well. That needs to come in precisely at 1135 AD, and we have Scientific Method next turn.
Absolutely! TOE is a 600 shields wonder. With some of our cities pushing out 40 to 50 shields, this should only require 12 to 15 turns, unless we want to find a backwater city that can just stay on it for a long time, bringing it in at exactly 1335 AD. That would keep our productive cities building Panzers and other necessities. Between 1060 AD, turn 221 and 1335 AD, turn 257, there are 36 turns. We would need a city producing 17 spt to have TOE on time. I'll look around for a suitable candidate.

@Adrian-Last time I checked, we had about 150 squares of float on the domination limit, that should be plenty of margin to keep us from topping out. Additionally, when we take a city, or cities, we must gut them and immediately gift them before the change of turn. That should also protect us from breaking the limit.
I really HATE the idea of giving away our people. It seems so exploitive. It is just plain wrong.
From a pure moral perspective, I agree. But this is not any succession game, it is a competition, and we must use all the tools available to us to accomplish our objective because it is a game. If I thought of this as real life, I could not bring myself to go to war, but one must go to war to play this game and be competitive.

10% higher than the estimates in the proposal. Instead of 35 to 40 units, we will probably need more like 45 or, perhaps 50.I don't see why we'd need *more* panzers. Surely we could destroy Japan with considerably fewer panzers than cavalry. Panzers are going to suffer far fewer casualties against infantry than cavalry would, and aren't they capable of taking down two weak defenders in one turn?

I don't see why we'd need *more* panzers. Surely we could destroy Japan with considerably fewer panzers than cavalry. Panzers are going to suffer far fewer casualties against infantry than cavalry would, and aren't they capable of taking down two weak defenders in one turn?
Yes, that's true. However, you are compressing the time allowed to complete the destruction of Japan by attacking later, and they should have greater production capabilities by then and better units. The RNG will not be kind enough to keep our Panzers green after every engagement, especially if we are blitzing (two attacks per turn). Some will need time to heal their losses in HP and we may not have enough time to do that. The additional units may be needed to keep the pace of the destruction rapid. The Japanese are the only civ to exceed us in military, and even if they have spears in their cities, it still requires us to attack with enough units to clean out each city. Perhaps it is simply insurance, but it defeats our purpose to have Japan around when the vote is called. ;)

edit-Ooops, didn't entirely answer your question. The estimates were made based upon Cavalry facing defense 4 units or less, not Infantry and having 41 turns to work with.

TOE is a 600 shields wonder. With some of our cities pushing out 40 to 50 shields, this should only require 12 to 15 turns, unless we want to find a backwater city that can just stay on it for a long time, bringing it in at exactly 1335 AD.
If we are running it so close, (and it is a competition :cool: ), that we want the AI to cascade to UN on the same interturn we research Fission, ToE must be completed in a city that comes before the city completing Universal Suffrage in the city-cycle. :eek:

I don't know how my stomach will react, if I'll have do all that IBT-action, one mis-click and we are "toast". :suicide:

- The war in Japan doesn't need to start until within 4 turns of completion of Fission, later if we use panzers. We really ought to know which civ is going to build the UN by then. Our decision will be final when we start giving Japanese cities away.
I agree.
By then we'll have a lot of infantry, artillery and maybe cavalry waiting in transports just off the Japanese coast, and 3-4 turns later our panzers will be all over the place. :hammer:
(We'll prebuild the panzers and when we research Motorized Transport, IBT, we'll switch production, and on the next turn they are half the way to Japan. :cool: )
After Atomic Theory we'll be making a lot of money, so we could rush as well if needed. :)


- We don't need to involve the others in the war. Let the current MAs expire in 12 turns. They are the ones we want to build improvements, not Japan.
I agree.

I've added player names to the timeline I published. See below. If all goes to plan it appears that I am in the hot seat on the turn when we complete ToE.

Let's review the sequence of techs and wonder completions we need to get the UN built.

1. We decided to change the tech order so that we'd be able to use Hoover as an AI prebuild, but I'm not sure how we can do that. To start Hoover we have to give them Electronics, and that means we have to give them Scientific Method as well, and that is likely to mean that the civ will start ToE. We therefore have to wait until it is impossible for them to complete 540 shields by 1335 AD, otherwise they will beat us to ToE. That means they can't accumulate more than 540 shields for Hoover either.

2. Therefore, unless I'm missing something, I think Universal Suffrage is the only AI prebuild that can get us to 719 shields by 1335 AD, and Hoover is too dangerous until about Turn 240. We must not let the AI start on ToE too soon.

3. We have given the AI Industrialisation and rails. They could start Universal Suffrage any time from now. We need to monitor any US builds that start and work out how to ensure that they can't finish before 1335 AD but that they get as close as possible.

4. I doubt if we can time the AI's 719th shield, AND our 800th for the US build to happen exactly on 1335 AD, and as it will be my nails that are being bitten to the quick, I'd prefer that we target it for one or two turns later :)

5. An off topic comment: Leif's battle plan ignores that fact that we'll probably have a RoP with India at the time of the invasion. Assuming the borders remain where they are today, we can take Shimonoseke and Nara, and maybe more, in the first turn of invasion using troops prepositioned in Indian territory. We can also take out at least three cities with troops prepositioned near Punjab in the north. A seaborne invasion of the Japanese mainland could occur on the same turn, and we could close in on them from three directions and clean up in three or four turns.

Turn 220 1050 AD Leif Erikson
Turn 221 1060 AD Complete Scientific Method - ToE available
Turn 225 1100 AD Complete Atomic Theory
Turn 229 1140 AD Complete Electronics - Hoover available
Turn 230 1150 AD zamint3
Turn 233 1180 AD Complete Corporation
Turn 237 1220 AD Complete Refining
Turn 240 1250 AD AdrianE
Turn 241 1255 AD Complete Steel
Turn 245 1275 AD Compete Combustion
Turn 245 1275 AD Latest date to acquire Mil Tradition and upgrade cavalry
Turn 249 1295 AD Complete Mass Production
Turn 250 1300 AD AlanH
Turn 253 1315 AD Complete Motorised Transport, start building Panzers.
Turn 253 1315 AD Latest date to start cavalry invasion of Japan - 8 turns from upgrade date
Turn 257 1335 AD Complete Flight, Complete ToE.
- Get Radio and Fission free - UN and Manhatten available
Turn 257 1335 AD Latest date to start Panzer invasion of Japan
Turn 260 1350 AD Capt Buttkick
Turn 261 1355 AD Latest date to conquer Japan - 8 turns from start of invasion
Turn 262 1360 AD UN Completed and we win .... or
Turn 270 1400 AD Leif Erikson
Turn 272 1410 AD Latest date to capture UN
Turn 273 1415 AD Call the next vote and we win

Quote:
Originally Posted by zamint3
Btw : I know somebody posted it, but what's our free tech in MT?

It is Ecology, pretty lame, huh?

Actually I have been running a testgame very similar to ours, and now I'm finally up to date. :)
It's with 3 scientific civs and most of the time we all get Rocketry, but on one occasion Russia got Ecology while Babylon and we (Germany) got Rocketry. :confused: :confused:

I tried the cascade from Universal Suffrage to UN, and it worked pretty well, but Russia cascaded to Wall Street (cost 300) even though they had more than 654 shields in the box. :eek:

Shortly after that Russia started UN in a size 12 city producing only 10 spt. :rolleyes:
I investigated a lot of cities and factories are not a high priority with the AI, so I'm leaning more and more towards our plan A..... and those workers improving the AI terrain really rock. :D

@Leif : Remember to send workers to India and China. ;) (8 each I'd say)


I my testgame I tried allmost everything, including gifting all my cities and declaring war on everybody, but I could not get the AI to cast a vote. :mad:

Excellent work, Alan. Just add the dates for when we have to start and negotiate deals so we can all print it out and go to autopilot :p
Seriously, this is a very good reference for us and we should keep an eye on this timetable while acknowledging that random events may throw this askew. It's not certain the UN will finish exactly at 1360 for instance. I know you know that, Alan and I feel like I'm repeating myself here. Guess I just need to keep my back covered cause the last time I played all of your previous good work was thrown overboard :blush:

I've added player names to the timeline I published.
Looking good Alan. :goodjob:

1. & 2. : Good points, I agree.

3. Those workers can do magic. ;)

4. I doubt if we can time the AI's 719th shield, AND our 800th for the US build to happen exactly on 1335 AD, and as it will be my nails that are being bitten to the quick, I'd prefer that we target it for one or two turns later :)
OK, you can delay it one turn. :lol:

5. : I agree.

I'd say we are ready. :cool:

.... should keep an eye on this timetable while acknowledging that random events may throw this askew. It's not certain the UN will finish exactly at 1360 for instance. I know you know that, Alan and I feel like I'm repeating myself here. Guess I just need to keep my back covered cause the last time I played all of your previous good work was thrown overboard :blush:
Well, it was hardly your fault that Japan attacked, Captain, and I haven't noticed that it has put us off track at all yet. I should have built some military, but given that Japan is militaristic and we are aliens in culture and so on it was probably inevitable that they would attack.

Sure, once we get past 1335 AD we just have to hope that the AI builds the UN as fast as possible, and help them all we can. If they don't get started on it fast we'll have to review the situation then.

Keep up the good work on testing, zamint3. We need to find out what the hot button is that will provoke the AI into calling a vote. Otherwise it's another 11 turns and our panzers back in action :hammer:

Yes, I do recall that Rocketry is the most likely free tech for 1.29f. I don't play that far very often. I don't imagine we'll continue research after we get to Fission. Just spend all our spare cash on happy pills for the population and a few bribes for the remaining civ.

Excellent work, Alan. Just add the dates for when we have to start and negotiate deals so we can all print it out and go to autopilot :p
Just checked the ROP deals and we have one with China that began in 980AD, turn 213, and we have none with India. If we continue China's, it will expire in 1180AD, turn 233, and then, if renogiated, 20 turns later in 1315AD, turn 253. India can be timed for anything we want now. I think the Capt is correct that we need to try to figure out when agreements need to be worked out as they are less flexable, being 20 turns in duration. I assume they should end on U.N. completion to allow us to attack and take it with no rep hit should the vote not come. We also need it in order to "visit" our friends to do some terrain modification for them. Working back from turn 262, 40 turns, means signing with India on turn 222, 1070AD, which is my 2nd turn. Is this what we need to do? Sorry, but this is getting very interesting and I want to check allthe timings to be sure I am correct, can't afford too many mistaken clicks now! :crazyeye:
Seriously, this is a very good reference for us and we should keep an eye on this timetable while acknowledging that random events may throw this askew. It's not certain the UN will finish exactly at 1360 for instance. I know you know that, Alan and I feel like I'm repeating myself here. Guess I just need to keep my back covered cause the last time I played all of your previous good work was thrown overboard :blush:
While random events have thrown us a curve or two, I wouldn't exactly say that all our work was thrown overboard. I think we continue to build on it and have to make some SWAGs (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess), but we have not changed the basic direction of our efforts. The closer we get, the more complicated it seems to become, but, that is the fun of working the problem and trying to manage an outcome, no? :D

@Zamint-Since I will have to start the TOE build during my turns, and I have chosen New Konigsburg as the probable site for that build, could you please explain to me the significance of having Univ Suff in a city that is higher in the city list than the one for TOE? New Konigsburg is producing 18spt and in 34 turns, would produce 612 shields and thus TOE. I plan to start it in 1080AD, which is turn 223. 34 turns later is 1335AD. Doing this means no pre-build and New Konigsburg is in a less productive area so we can leave it alone. That means no more rails there. :cool:

Turn 250 1300 AD AlanH
Turn 253 1315 AD Complete Motorised Transport, start building Panzers.
Turn 253 1315 AD Latest date to start cavalry invasion of Japan - 8 turns from upgrade date
Turn 257 1335 AD Complete Flight, Complete ToE.
- Get Radio and Fission free - UN and Manhatten available

@Zamint-In your testing, have you been able to complete ToE at the same time as you move into Modern Times? I was wondering if getting the free tech interferes at all with completion of TOE? I guess I'm asking if we get to choose the tech, because we will essentailly get two free techs as we move into the age.

I find it interesting that your testing has shown that Rocketry is the free tech on age change. All of the other age changes provide the tech that was in the uppermost left corner of the tech tree. From AA --> MA it is Monotheism, from MA -->IA it is Nationalism, I wonder why it is not Ecology?

Thanks. :goodjob:

The free tech you are most likely to get is the first one in the BIC file for the era. In the earlier ages that also happens to be the one in the top left of the chart, but Rocketry is the first Modern Age tech listed in the BIC.

I don't think changing era should affect the free tech situation. They will be two separate decisions in the software, and the ToE one will just count two tree techs and then stop. Civ3 has been around long enough that I suspect we'd have heard about it if there were a bug in this.

Working back from turn 262, 40 turns, means signing with India on turn 222, 1070AD, which is my 2nd turn. Is this what we need to do?
Sounds OK to me, maybe we can delay #2 with China a bit if we need to. :)
@Zamint-Since I will have to start the TOE build during my turns, and I have chosen New Konigsburg as the probable site for that build, could you please explain to me the significance of having Univ Suff in a city that is higher in the city list than the one for TOE?
It only matters if we want them completed on the same turn. (...and Alan is not very keen on that. :lol: )
If the city completing Univ. Suff. is first of the two on the list, then Univ. Suff. will be completed before ToE, and I thought this would kill the cascade because Univ. Suff. is completed before we can give Fission to the AI. But I just tested, and it does not matter as long as it is all done in the same IBT. ;)

@Zamint-In your testing, have you been able to complete ToE at the same time as you move into Modern Times?
Works just as Alan described it. :goodjob: , (Rocketry pops up before Fission)

The free tech you are most likely to get is the first one in the BIC file for the era.
So we can get different free techs? I thought it was lack of sleep that caused me to imagine things. :crazyeye:
(I haven't been able to reproduce this though. :rolleyes: )

I believe it's a programming bug. It was intended to select the freebie from the available techs with equal probability using the pRNG. Somehow they managed to weight the first one to have a much higher probability then the others, but it's not 1.00, and the other free tech probabilities are not zero. I can't really think how they managed that programming faux pas, but that's software for you!

Re. the US completion. If we can be sure that it will not complete prematurely then I'm prepared to bite my nails. I guess we don't *have* to complete Manhatten on the same turn, as if the AI cascades to Manhatten from US we can cascade them again.

I started last night at 8 PM and by 12:30, I had not yet completed 5 turns. I have decided to post what I have finished to let you see how it is going and to make any comments you would like before I finish this evening.

Here goes:
Pre-flight 1050 AD.
We will get Scientific Method in 1 turn and are currently earning 1065 GPT. As discussed, I am going to go to the outlying, corrupt cities and eliminate all cultural building, as long as the city has grown to expanded size.
Sell Libraries in: New Munich 2, New Konigsberg 2, Tblisi, Hamburg 2, Besancon, Warwick, New Stuttgart, New Dortmund, and Munich 3

Sell Temples in: New Hannover 2, Stuttgart 2, Brandenburg 2, New Dortmund 2, New Salzburg 2, Nuremberg 2, New Nuremberg 2, New Stuttgart 2, New Hamburg 2, New Leipzig 2, New Brandenburg 2, and New Bremen 2.

As a result of this, we have gained 21 GPT. In one city, one citizen changed from happy to content, all others were unchanged.

Ironclad from New Hannover moves to the north to cover he area closest to Japanese territory.
Irondclad in Dijon moves W to engage Japanese Caravel.
Change Univ Suff build in Rheims to Palace. Rheims as to finish Univ Suff in 14 turns, far too early for our purposes.
Check F7 and only Magellan’s is under construction in Hangchow by china and in Kohlapur by India.
Hope I have everything done, press enter.

IBT
We discover Scientific Method and it recommends we research Military Tradition next, but I bite my warmongering lip and change it to Atomic Theory in 4, research slider set to 80%. We are earning 42 GPT.
London Cathedral --> Factory
York Temple --> University
Hamburg Factory --> Knight
Konigsburg Bank --> Universal Suffrage. MM Konigsberg so that Univ Suff is due in 37 turns, that makes it turn 258, or 1340 AD. That gives you 1 turn grace period Alan. No more rails or improvements here!
Heidelburg Factory --> Knight
Nuremberg Harbor --> Galleon
Disease strike Dortmund (jungle).
Besancon Harbor --> Marketplace
Stuttgart Knight --> Knight
New Berlin Worker --> Worker
New Hamburg Barracks --> Knight
New Slazburg Worker --> Worker
Hamburg 2 Harbor --> Galleon
Konigsberg 2 Worker --> Worker
New Konigsberg 2 Worker --> Worker
Konigsberg 3 Worker --> Harbor
Munich3 Worker --> Harbor
Wow, I’m exhausted!!!!

Turn 221 – 1060 AD
Ironclad moves N of Dortmund.
Southern Ironclad chases Japanese Caravel.
Continue to assign worker tasks.
Elite Horseman attacks Frankfurt 3, retreats after doing 1 HP damage to enemy sword.
Elite Horseman attacks and dies, redlining the enemy sword.
Veteran Knight attacks sword, capture Frankfurt 3 with no loss, install new Governor, Harbor.
I find that China has Economics and wants Medicine for it. I ask what Mao wants for Medicine and he is willing to give us Economics, WM, 48 GPT and 84 Gold for it. I don’t want t give up anything that will move the AI too close to Scientific Method. I ask for a straight gold deal and he wants 1180 God, too much. I decide against it, he should trade it to India soon and the price will drop. We are pre-building and if we are about to waste shields, I can deal then.
I also find out that we are weak compared to India, got to get military moving.

IBT
Paris Knight --> Knight.
Berlin Knight --> Knight.
Leipzig Bank --> Factory.
Grenoble Harbor --> Marketplace.
Dortmund Bank --> Factory.
New Konigsberg Cathedral --> Barracks. This is where I would like to build ToE. It says ToE will require 32 turns here. It will start on 222 plus 32 is turn 254, too soon, so we wait 3 turns to start it.
New Bremen Factory --> Barracks.
Bonn 2 Worker --> Courthouse.
We are informed that Kolhapur has completed Magellan’s Voyage!! The Chinese are building Univ Suff, and so it starts!

Turn 222 – 1070 AD
Check F7 and Univ Suff is being built in Hangchow. I spend the 74 gold to investigate Hangchow and take a screen shot. Hangchow is pop 6 and needs and aqueduct to grow. It is producing 12 SPT gross, 8 net (4 to corruption), and will complete Univ Suff in 52 turns or turn 274. That put China out of the pre-build business!
Ironclads patrol coast.
Change barracks in New Bremen to Cathedral.
Try to work specialists, no dice.
Japan will now talk, but we have 11 turns left of MA with China and India.

IBT
Hamburg Knight --> Knight
Heidelburg Knight --> Knight
Coventry Worker --> Worker
New Berlin Worker --> Factory. MM for shields.
New Hamburg Knight --> Knight
New Konigsberg Barracks --> Knight. Improved enough so that ToE requires 30 turns, have to wait until turn 227, or 1120AD.
New Heidelburg Marketplace --> University
New Cologne Courthouse --> Marketplace. MM for shields.
New Berlin 2 Worker --> Worker
New Leipzig Worker --> Harbor

Turn 223 – 1080 AD
Southern Ironclad attacks Japanese Caravel and is sunk after redlining the Caravel!
We are now losing 13 GPT, so I decide it is time to get Economics as China is willing to pay 70 GPT, give us Economics and 103 Gold for Medicine. I take it. India trade us 11 GPT plus 32 Gold for Medicine.
MM specialists, no avail.
We now have average militaries with all other civs.

IBT
Paris Knight --> Knight
Berlin Knight --> Knight
Lyons Bank --> Artillery
Tours Harbor --> Marketplace
Chartres Worker --> Worker. Sell Library in Chartres.
New Leipzig Factory --> Knight
New Nuremburg Library --> University
Berlin 2 University --> Factory
Bremen 2 Barracks --> Marketplace
New Bonn 2 riots. Recruit citizen as tax collector.

Turn 224 - 1090 AD
Upgrade 2 Horsemen to Knight for 40 Gold.
Change production in New Bremen to Harbor and spend 136 gold to rush it..
Change research slider to 70%, income now 204 GPT.
Take citizen in New Bonn and put back into production with new Harbor build in New Bremen.
Checking in Japan, they are ready to talk but now outnumber us again.
Check in with Ghandi as our trade deals expired but he has no gold nor GPT to give for them.

IBT
Japan lands a Reg Spear on our island near Frankfurt 3.
We discover Atomic Theory and set research to Electronics, 4 turns with research slider at 70%.
Salzburg Cathedral --> Factory
Hamburg Knight --> Knight
Heidelburg Knight --> Knight
Stuttgart Knight --> Factory
Tblisi Worker --> Worker
New Hamburg Knight --> Knight
New Hannover Courthouse --> Marketplace
New Brandenburg Worker --> Worker
Cologne 2 Worker --> Worker
Stuttgart 2 Harbor --> Worker
New Berlin 2 Worker --> Marketplace
New Bremen 2 Harbor --> Galleon
Order restored in New Bonn 2

Turn 225 – 1100 AD
Change Rheims from Palace pre-build to Smith’s Trading Co. in 5 turns.
Vet Knight attacks Reg Japanese Spear and defeats him, losing 1 HP and promoting to Elite.
<< The 1100 AD Save>> (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Xteam_SG002_AD1100_01.SAV)
I have provided the save so you can have a look to answer any questions you may have. Again, I will finish the rest tonight. :D

This is the screen shot of Hangchow, the current, and only, builder of Univ Suff. As you can see, they are not going to help us in our quest to build the U.N. with this city. Perhaps they will industrialize another and be in the race to U.N., but I am not confident. Now we must rely on India.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_1070AD_Hangchow.jpg

Good write-up Leif :thumbsup:

I think we should be building some more galleons for upgrade to transports. This is something we can build now ready for use later. We have three in build currently, but we'll need lots to provide the logistics for the invasion, as we want to be able to pre-position cavalry in India. We shall also need some to get some workers into position to help the UN pre-build when it happens. Once we have a few galleons I suggest also make use of them to get some knights over to the islands to complement the rifles we have already. Knights are effective as invasion defenders because they get the chance to attack invaders first. They have the same attack strength as rifles plus retreat, and they are much cheaper for us (using horse upgrades or using and replacing the ones we have) than rushing more rifles on the corrupt islands. We don't need any defence on the two tile island as the worker and the city are enough until marines appear, and we shouldn't see any of them in this game.

We need to prioritise rail links to New Bonn. That's our nearest point to the Japanese heartland, and we shall be able to land troops there in one turn from New Bonn with transports. So the turn when we build panzers we'll be able to land them on Japan's shores. In 2 turns we can be at Kyoto's gates.

Hangchow is a write-off as a prebuild city. Even if we increased their production to 10 spt by railing, they wouldn't finish the UN until turn 280 or so and we can hope that India will do better for us than that. Our only hope for China is if we can provoke them into a cascade. It's my impression that the AI seems prepared to review its wonder assignments when cascading.

While we are fine tuning production schedules, remember ToE plus our US and our Manhatten prebuild only need to beat India's US prebuild. If we are lucky enough to get that set up for 1335 AD (actually 1330 end-of-turn) then we'll need all those builds to complete on the same inter-turn :eek: If, as is more likely, India's 719th shield comes later than that, we don't have to finish anything precisely on the 1330 end-of-turn. After Flight we can set reesearch to Radio and one scientist and complete it and Fission when ToE does come in.

I've been tracking back looking for what happened to Bangalore and Bombay, my old favourites about 15 turns ago as slow prebuilders. I guess we pre-empted them with Leo's and Sistine and we didn't let them cascade? I hope India give us a fast UN builder :hmm:

PS Kuningas' score is beatable, but only if we keep up the pressure on dates and high score. Our score rate has dropped off by about 10% because of the loss of lux. Maybe we should spend a little on entertainment until we can get some more lux on line?

I've been tracking back looking for what happened to Bangalore and Bombay, my old favourites about 15 turns ago as slow prebuilders. I guess we pre-empted them with Leo's and Sistine and we didn't let them cascade? I hope India give us a fast UN builder :hmm:
All I have to say is :p to all those who doubted our discussions on wonder pre-building!! WE ARE BACK IN THE WONDER BUILDING BUSINESS!!!! :banana: :clap:
I say :salute: to Alan :worship:

Here are the second half of my turns:

Turn 225 – 1100 AD
Change Rheims from Palace pre-build to Smith’s Trading Co. in 5 turns.
Vet Knight attacks Reg Japanese Spear and defeats him, losing 1 HP and promoting to Elite.
Go to Meet with Ghandi, and we decide to conclude a Right of Passage agreement between our great nations. 40 turns from now will be turn 265, which according to Alan’s schedule is the approximate SWAG for U.N. completion. It had to be done sometime, so this was as good a time as any??
Just read Alan’s input regarding Galleons. The most productive areas for shipyards is in the south, near Rheims. As soon as some of the current builds are over, we can start cranking out Galleons there.
Wake Knight in Berlin, New Hamburg and New Leipzig and move them to New Hamburg for embarkation and movement to our islands.
Upgrade Horseman – Knight for 40 Gold.
Change lux slider to 10% for score. We are now netting 36 GPT, down from 194. Our coffers have 2751 Gold.

IBT
Paris Knight – Palace for pre-build, 24 turns, that will complete at turn 250, too early. Change to Knight.
Berlin Knight – Knight
Brandenburg Bank – Factory
New Leipzig Knight – Temple
New Dortmund Worker – Worker
Leipzig 3 Worker – Worker
Hamburg 3 Harbor – Library

Turn 226 – 1110 AD
Move Knights to New Leipzig for movement to Northern Island.
Galleon from New Hamburg to Frankfurt 3 with 4 Knights aboard.
Galleon from New Leipzig to Cologne 3 with 3 Knights aboard.
Check score, it is up from 2757 to 2789, mostly because of lux increase, I think. I decide this gain is not enough to justify expending 162 GPT on and change the lux slider back to 0%.
I checked Konigsburg and Univ Suff will arrive one turn early, so I MM to slow down production by one turn. Have to remember to revisit this in a turn or two.

IBT
Moscow Library – Marketplace
Nottingham Worker – Worker
Hamburg Knight – Cathedral
Heidelburg Knight – Cathedral
Bonn University – Bank
New Hamburg Knight – Knight
New Konigsburg Knight – Theory of Evolution, due in 30 turns, that means turn 257, or 1335 AD. No improvements here either.
Munich 2 Harbor – Galleon
Salzburg 2 Worker – Worker

Turn 227 – 1120 AD
MM New Konigsburg to ensure Univ Suff in 31 turns one after ToE. Alan, I am not sure if you want this completed with ToE or the turn after. Need to MM for timing.
Unload Knights in Frankfurt 3 and Cologne 3.
Visit with Ghandi and he has discovered Mil Trad. He wants Furs, Incense and Electricity. After a good laugh, I check to see how much in gold. He wants around 750 Gold. I check with Mao and he wants more. Go back to Ghandi and trade Furs, Incense, Ivory plus 337 Gold for Mil Trad. We have Cavalry!
Upgrade cost Knights – Cavlry is 10 Gold. Upgrade 8 Knights where possible. We have 21 Knights and 12 Horsemen scattered about.
We are Strong versus Japan (Monarchy), Average versus India (Republic) and Strong versus China (Republic). I think we can slow military build at this time.

IBT
Japanese Caravel attacks our Galleon and is sunk while redlining our Galleon, Galleon promotes.
Paris Cavalry – Infantry
Berlin Cavalry – Cavalry
Warwick Worker – Worker
New Leipzig Temple – Cathedral
New Munich Cathedral – Factory
New Bremen Cathedral – Barracks
I am notified that the Indians are building Univ Suff, the moment of truth is here!!

Turn 228 – 1130 AD
Adjust research slider to 60%, Electronics in 1 turn.
Forgot to start the screen shot program, save and exit, and restart. “Dumb”
OK, back again, press F7 and find out that the Indians are building Univ Suff in Bombay
Investigate Bombay for 156 Gold. Bombay is producing 28 SPT Gross, 25 SPT Net (3 to corruption) with 12 pop and will complete Univ Suff in 29 Turns, or on turn 257, 1335 AD. Alan, this is unbelievable, so much for our work going out the window!!!! :beer: I suggest we get our workers to Bombay and do a little landscaping to try to bring in Univ Suff in one extra turn, 257 is just too close, or is it? If we both build it on the same turn, don’t we get it? I think so. Oh well, there is time to figure it out. At 25 SPT, they will require 8 turns to complete the U.N. Yahoo!! :hatsoff: :clap:
Upgrade some Horsemen to Cavalry for 50 Gold.
Upgrade some Knights to Cavalry for 10 Gold.
Rail line completed to New Bonn.

IBT
We have a Japanese Galleon cruising along the north coast of our northern island!
We discover Electronics, Hoover’s is available, and we research The Corporation. Research slider set to 40%, 4 turns, now making 720 GPT income. I decide to boost lux slider to 10%, changing income to 552 GPT.
It is we love the chancellor day all over.
Munich Factory – Cathedral
Newcastle Aqueduct – Factory
Dijon Marketplace – Factory
Bremen Bank – Factory
New Hamburg Cavalry – Cavalry
New Bremen Barracks – Infantry
New Dortmund Worker – Worker

Turn 229 – 1140 AD
Upgrade more Horseman and Knights to Cavalry
Disband Elite Sword in Tours and replace with cavalry from Paris.
MM Konigsberg to produce Univ Suff in 26 turns, 1335 AD.
Need to find a home to build Hoover’s in 26 as well. Can’t find a 31 SPT home, so I will look again next turn.
Nothing on the diplomatic or trading fronts, so we move ahead.

IBT
Berlin Cavalry – Hydro Plant
We have completed Smith’s Trading Company in Rheims – Hydro Plant
Frankfurt Factory – Cathedral
Marseilles Temple – Marketplace
Nuremberg Galleon – Galleon
Leipzig Bank – Galleon
New Frankfurt Library – Marketplace
Our palace gets an addition
The Japanese galleon continues to circle our Northern Island

Turn 230 – 1150 AD
MM both New Konigsberg and Konigsberg to bring wonder builds back into proper turn. I think they are affected by WLTK Day, less corruption, and their completion time keeps changing. Need to watch this so that we get to turn 257, 1335 AD.
Note: If this affects us, we should go back and check Bombay to make sure that isn’t also speeding them up, because I recently gave them three lux!! There are 20 workers working near New Bonn, waiting for Galleon transport to India.
Upgraded some Horseman and Knights to Cavalry.

There, finally finished 10 turns, intense!
After Action Report
Wonders – We have two wonders, ToE and Univ Suff scheduled for completion on turn 257, 1335 AD, which is 27 turns from where we are. Please watch this carefully, check every turn, as the numbers keep changing with WLTK Day happenings, and maybe some other things I am not aware of. I had to adjust them several times in the last 2 to 3 turns. We have to schedule Hoover’s and a Palace pre-build for Manhattan Project in the next several turns. We also completed Smith's.
India is building Univ Suff in Bombay, screen shot next post. They are scheduled to complete it on turn 257, 1335 AD. There are 20 workers working near New Bonn that can be available in 2 to 3 turns to go to India, we have an ROP with India. There are also 2 Galleons heading southeast towards New Bonn to ferry the workers over to India. I recommend that we investigate the city of Bombay every 5 to 10 turns to make sure they are on track and that the changes workers make have the desired effect, but that is up to whoever is playing the turns. I have been amazed at how many times I have had to adjust our builds. We should probably discuss when we want this to complete as Alan is going to be sweating big time if it all happens at once, actually, I would love to see it, if it all works out!!

Diplomatic – We have 3 turns left in our Military Alliances against Japan. Japan is ready to discuss terms. The diplomatic screens, where we can trade, all say we are the same size military as the other 3 civs. The Military Advisor says that we are average with India and stronger than Japan or China.
Our ROP with China ends in 3 turns, along with the MAs, and we still have 15 turns left in our ROP with India.
There are some deals made with China and India that expire next turn. Heads up Zamint!

Economy and Military – Many of our cities have factories now, and in some I have started building Hydro Power. The sliders are at 5.4.1 and we are earning 630 GPT with a treasury hat stands at 3,134 Gold. We will get The Corporation in 3 turns at this rate. I have upgraded many of our units to cav; we have 7 Horsemen, 10 Knights and 28 Cavalry. We have 160 Workers, plus slaves, and are paying 213 GPT maintenance on military and worker units.

Any questions, please let me know. As always, please feel free to make any changes you think are needed. Good luck Zamint!

edit - Got so excited about wonder building, I forgot to post the save!! :eek:
<< The Save >> (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm2/Xteam_SG002_AD1150_01.SAV)

Alan, I have to give you credit, you called Bombay a long time ago. :goodjob:
Please note the date of the screen shot is 1130 AD, turn 228. 29 turns plus turn 228 equals turn 257!! Incredible!! :cool: Just need to discuss now whether we want turn 257 or 258? Going to be very close!!:eek:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/XMEN_1130AD_Bombay.jpg

Got to check the score graph when I posted the save. Kuningas team finished, at least I think that is what the red score means! :eek: Can they have done the variant? Wow, it will be interesting to find out what happened.

Go Zamint!! :cool:

Well done, Leif! :goodjob:
Excellent set of turns! We need to get our workers to Bombay asap though. It looks like they haven't RR'ed their mines yet, but they're in a GA. If we can RR their mines when they come out of the GA, we can keep it on track :)

Edit: As for the roster.... I have to ask for a skip cause with comp trouble at work, the budget process has been bugged down. With the time needed to play this to perfection, I won't be able to play it until ~ 2 weeks from now :cry:

That's great, Leif. Hard work, and well rewarded with great news from Bombay.:goodjob: And you brought in Mil Trad to gladden the heart of a reborn warmonger. So we have all the ingredients we need. Bombay is a good site for the prebuild. It has a forest we can chop, irrigation we can convert to mines, rails we can build. The bad news is they are working the flood plains currently. Maybe if we give them some more mined tiles later they'll switch :hmm: As the Captain says, their GA will end and we'll need to keep on top of that, if there's any extra capacity once we get past 1335 AD, we can increase their production again.

I note you were looking at using Hoover as a Manhatten pre-buid. Can we use a Palace, and just build Hoover fast?

Kuningas finished with a Domination win in 980 AD with Firaxis 6836. That gives them Jason score 10028 according to the calculator. I've done some sums to see if we want to go for score:

If we can win with India calling the vote by, say 1380 AD - Turn 266 then a Firaxis score of 7700 will beat them. That's a base score of about 5000. We are currently at 2913 at turn 230, so we would need to score at a rate of 583 per 10 turns. That's almost twice our current rate.

If we have to wait another 11 turns until 1435 AD and call the vote ourselves then we need a score of 8000, base score 5400. That's still a rate of 532 per 10 turns. We're currently at 311, down from a peak rate of 335, so I doubt if it's possible to get to that level. Even so, we should try to get as high in the score table as possible - get some more luxuries on line, maximise our own territory when we take on Japan, and continue to plan for a minimum length war with Japan to avoid war weariness.

Here's a combined roster/to-do list, taking account of the Captain's request for shore leave:

Turn 220 1050 AD Leif Erikson - Just played
Turn 221 1060 AD Completed Scientific Method - ToE available
Turn 225 1100 AD Completed Atomic Theory
Turn 229 1140 AD Completed Electronics - Hoover available
PLUS Mil Tradition acquired, Bombay started US :thumbsup:

Turn 230 1150 AD zamint3 - UP
Turn 233 1180 AD Complete Corporation
Turn 237 1220 AD Complete Refining

Turn 240 1250 AD AdrianE - On Deck
Turn 241 1255 AD Complete Steel
Turn 245 1275 AD Compete Combustion
Turn 249 1295 AD Complete Mass Production

Turn 250 1300 AD AlanH
Turn 253 1315 AD Complete Motorised Transport, start building Panzers.
Turn 253 1315 AD Latest date to start cavalry invasion of Japan - 8 turns from upgrade date
Turn 257 1335 AD Complete Flight, Complete ToE.
- Get Radio and Fission free - UN and Manhatten available
- Complete US, Change Palace prebuild to Manhatten, complete Manhatten
- Gift India to Fission
- Hope that Bombay cascades to UN
Turn 257 1335 AD Latest date to start Panzer invasion of Japan

Turn 260 1350 AD Leif Erikson
Turn 261 1355 AD Latest date to conquer Japan - 8 turns from start of invasion
Turn 265 1375 AD UN Completed and we win .... or

Turn 270 1400 AD Capt Buttkick or zamint3
Turn 273 1415 AD (approx) Declare war on India and take Bombay
Turn 275 1425 AD Latest date to capture UN
Turn 276 1430 AD Call the next vote and we win

Very nice Leif. :thumbsup:

It looks like Bombay is the city for us. :D Indias GA should last at least 3 more turns, but it could be more, it must have started shortly after the war with Japan. :confused:
I don't think Bombay's got any mines yet so it will be easy to speed up production with mines and rail. :)

I looked at the save, and here are my thoughts:

1.
In 3 turns we can make peace with Japan, and as it looks now they are willing to give us Dacca, right next to Sapporo, in the peace deal. :D , and if they don't make peace with India or China before that, we should be able to trade for both gems and wines. :)
Q : Are we putting all our money on Bombay, or do we gift Japan Industrialization, to see what they can come up with?

2.
The idea of having Hoover's as a back-up cascade wonder, won't be needed, so I'll start building it in Rheims asap (15 turns) and I'll prebuild for Wall Street in Berlin.
I will also start another prebuild if Bach's should become available, and then there's only Shakespeares left, but I don't see that coming in the nearest future. :)
I don't think we need to run those wonderbuilds too tight, I prefere to time them a little early, as it's very easy to slow down production, but can be difficult to speed up in a fully developed city, not to mention WLTK day ending, pollution etc.

3.
I'll hurry a few galleons so they'll be ready to sail the peacefull waters in 3 turns. :) , shipping workers to Bombay and military to our new city in Asia.

I won't play just yet, so please correct me, what am I forgetting. :crazyeye: :lol:

edit : spelling!

Here's a combined roster/to-do list, taking account of the Captain's request for shore leave:

Thanks Alan, it really helps to have this updated! :goodjob:

...maximise our own territory...
How close to the domination limit are we comfortable with. :cool:
(coastal squares count, but sea squares don't. Right?)

Sounds good zamint3. That's correct, sea tiles don't count. Use MapStat to judge the domination limit, but it won't be an issue until we are in a position to take Japanese territory. That will be another 23 turns if we make peace in 3.

1) I don't think we need any other prebuilds as long as we keep an eye on Bombay.
2) I built Wall Street, ME. Don't try to take credit for that ;)

I built Wall Street, ME. Don't try to take credit for that ;)
:blush: :blush: .....Ooooops..... I'm looking at this PTW-chart! :blush: :blush:
I guess I'll build something else then. :lol: :lol:

I looked at the save, and here are my thoughts:

1.
In 3 turns we can make peace with Japan, and as it looks now they are willing to give us Dacca, right next to Sapporo, in the peace deal. :D , and if they don't make peace with India or China before that, we should be able to trade for both gems and wines. :)
Q : Are we putting all our money on Bombay, or do we gift Japan Industrialization, to see what they can come up with?

I am not sure what a pre-build in Japan would accomplish if we are going to take them out.
In Dacca, I think it might be benficial to rush Library and University. That gives us 7 culture there and, as we are so far ahead culturally, may get us a flip, which could give us Sapporo or the Indian city north of Dacca with wines. We have plenty of Gold right now and it may be worth the chance. It certainly can't hurt? Having the additional lux will save us a lot on lux slider. I did start a number of Cathedrals in our larger cities to prop up sagging happiness, probably some very light War Weariness. Of course, that will stop with peace.
There are 2 Galleons almost to New Bonn to help ferry workers, they will get 8 moving.
In Berlin and Rheims I started Hydro Power. If you are going to build Hoover's in Rheims, you should probably change Berlin to something else as Hoover's will do that job. :cool:
Only advice is watch those numbers in our wonder cities! :eek:
Good luck!!

Turn 250 1300 AD AlanH
Turn 253 1315 AD Complete Motorised Transport, start building Panzers.
Turn 253 1315 AD Latest date to start cavalry invasion of Japan - 8 turns from upgrade date
Turn 257 1335 AD Complete Flight, Complete ToE.
- Get Radio and Fission free - UN and Manhatten available
- Complete US, Change Palace prebuild to Manhatten, complete Manhatten
- Gift India to Fission
- Hope that Bombay cascades to UN
Turn 257 1335 AD Latest date to start Panzer invasion of Japan

Turn 260 1350 AD Leif Erikson
Turn 261 1355 AD Latest date to conquer Japan - 8 turns from start of invasion
Turn 265 1375 AD UN Completed and we win .... or
Just noticed this bit, sleepy eyes! :eek:
You like living dangerously putting the mouse in my hand for this!! I'll have to make sure I have plenty of sleep!! :lol:

I am not sure what a pre-build in Japan would accomplish if we are going to take them out.
If, as in my testgame, Bombay should cascade to something useless (to us!), like Wall Street, Battlefield Medicine, Intelligence Agency, who knows, we might have to rely on Japan after all. If we don't want to invade Japan anyway before the cascade, it wont hurt to have them building Univ. Suff. as well. Our invasion force will be huge and we should be able to take out Japan quickly. (Watch out for the settler on a galley ;) )


I'll have to make sure I have plenty of sleep!! :lol:
Someone might consider this as cheating! :lol:

If, as in my testgame, Bombay should cascade to something useless (to us!), like Wall Street, Battlefield Medicine, Intelligence Agency, who knows, we might have to rely on Japan after all. If we don't want to invade Japan anyway before the cascade, it wont hurt to have them building Univ. Suff. as well. Our invasion force will be huge and we should be able to take out Japan quickly. (Watch out for the settler on a galley ;) )
The only thing I was thinking about this is that, should Japan become useful in the wonder building process, then we might have to consider taking out China and giving her cities to Japan in order to get that first time vote going our way. As we see different things happen in the game, then we need to be ready to react and have an understanding of what it does for us, or worse, against our goals. I have no problem with your idea to see what Japan can do for us, I just want to make sure that we have a back up plan should they become, suddenly, indispensible.

This game has had so many twists and turns, I have begun thinking that our planning seems crazy. Yet, look at what happened in Bombay. :cool: Just have to keep trying to think ahead and try to see what is going to happen and try to think of how to make it positive for us. So far, I think we have done well, but there is still a lot going on. Half of the time playing I was checking and double checking to try to keep things in line with the 1335 AD goal. I was quite surprised how many variables come into the equation requiring changes and adjustments to be made.

Someone might consider this as cheating! :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :goodjob:

Interesting turns.

Note that Bombay must have built a factory. They have 19 base shields (9 of which come from golden age) and have 28 post factory production and lose 3 to corruption (10%). After their golden age ends they will have 10 base with 15 post factory and will lose 2 to corruption. With mines and rails we can probably get them to average 30 after corruption. Note that bombay has 7 desert, 6 flood plains, 5 plains and 1 forest in range. At least 4 of the 12 citizens will get assigned to floodplains by the AI. That leaves 8 to work mined/railed plains/desert at 3spt each. That will give base shields output of 24 (plus 1 from the city) which would be 37 after the factory. After 10% corruption they should be at 33 spt.

Since India's GA will end soon we know that their US will finish after 1335. There will be some slack in the schedule.
We can predict more accurately after their golden age ends.

China may indeed become the target of the war, if Japan builds US. Will taking a city from Japan during peace talks influence their attitude to us?

Once we have finished railing out continent we can consider rejoining some workers to our cities to boost score.

Since India's GA will end soon we know that their US will finish after 1335. There will be some slack in the schedule.
I'll have 12 workers over there in 3-4 turns, let's see what they can do! :)
We can predict more accurately after their golden age ends.
Yes, I'll start checking Bombay in 3-4 turns.

China may indeed become the target of the war, if Japan builds US. Will taking a city from Japan during peace talks influence their attitude to us?
I allready pressed enter, and Japan is no longer willing to give up Dacca, and I don't think there's anything we can do to pursuade them. :( .....but I don't think it will influence attitude.

Once we have finished railing out continent we can consider rejoining some workers to our cities to boost score.
I agree, there is not much left to do on our own continent.

Note that Bombay must have built a factory. They have 19 base shields (9 of which come from golden age) and have 28 post factory production and lose 3 to corruption (10%). After their golden age ends they will have 10 base with 15 post factory and will lose 2 to corruption. With mines and rails we can probably get them to average 30 after corruption. Note that bombay has 7 desert, 6 flood plains, 5 plains and 1 forest in range. At least 4 of the 12 citizens will get assigned to floodplains by the AI. That leaves 8 to work mined/railed plains/desert at 3spt each. That will give base shields output of 24 (plus 1 from the city) which would be 37 after the factory. After 10% corruption they should be at 33 spt.
AT 25 net SPT Bombay's US build would arrive exactly on 1335AD. Please remember that is the goal, or a turn or two later. It doesn't matter how many SPT we can ramp them up to as long as they hit 1335AD. I agree we may have to get to 33 to meet the goal if we fall a little behind in improvements. We can always take some shield production away as well. :mischief: In your testing Zamint, does the AI shift citizens as a reaction to our meddling?

If we have a little float on Bombay's build, and Japan doesn't give us anything closer than Bombay, should we give ourselves one extra turn for Univ Suff to complete? Less chance for mistakes, although Alan will be holding the mouse, so it should be up to him.

Too bad about Dacca, it would have been nice to have it.

BTW - If China may be the victim, we need to watch ROP status because they are out of sync because of the Japanese war. Since China is out of the wonder pre-build race at the moment, there is no real need for an ROP with them. No need for :mischief: Perhaps we should not renew it when it expires.

In your testing Zamint, does the AI shift citizens as a reaction to our meddling?
Only if they were starving, so it's pretty easy to control when you can afford to check the city every turn. :)

BTW - If China may be the victim, we need to watch ROP status because they are out of sync because of the Japanese war. Since China is out of the wonder pre-build race at the moment, there is no real need for an ROP with them. No need for :mischief: Perhaps we should not renew it when it expires.
I think we should wait with the ROP with China and get it into sync with the next Indian one in 14 turns. I will sign ROP with Japan when this war is over!

I guess I'll build something else then.Sounds like we'd better build the other wonders as soon as we can then, so that Bombay only has one available to it. They won't do our score any harm either :D

But we can't do much about the small wonders, except pass the tech around when it's available, and hope they start building it somewhere else. Do the AI use prebuilds and change production? :confused:

True of small wonders. We just need to minimise the options we can do something about.

I don't believe they use prebuilds at all. It's my impression they switch production around only during a wonder cascade.