Ok, here we go.

General info:

We are Portugal, Religious and Seafaring. We start in a Golden Age prior to the first turn, having automatically built the Dias' Voyage great wonder (and get 400 VP for it). We have no Unique Unit.

We start with six cities. Two developed cities in Europe, one in Morocco, and three size-1 island cities with a couple improvements, one with a harbor. Lisbon starts with almost everything already built (a colosseum is the only omission) - it also starts with a useless courthouse that I'll sell unless someone can think of a reason not to.

Most of the available units - swords, MDI, pikemen, knights, longbows - are standard. Musketmen are 3-4-1 and there is a 2-3-1 Swiss Pikeman. Colonists, settlers for 1 population, are available with Printing Press on the first level of the tech tree.

Minimum research is 80 turns; we can get on to the Native American branch that way, but there isn't anything there besides cultural buildings and a couple wonders that we'd never get.

I think we're best off just leaving research off at the beginning - there isn't any tech we can get first, and the tech tree is quite wide, meaning plenty of brokering opportunity at each step.

By "corruption is lowered", the game means the corruption slider on the Difficulty Levels page is lowered to 70% for all difficulties. The standard OCN is 16, but the penalty of it being 50% of usual on Sid is still in effect, so corruption will still be a big problem.

Tundra and desert are impassable, which removes the Sahara in Africa from play. Southern Africa is in play, and has resources to exploit and no rival civs, which gives me an idea...

Proposed plan: Run a settler down to somewhere in Africa ASAP, and have it build the Forbidden Palace ("Colonial Capital", 160 shields, available with a second-level tech). We aren't going to be able to build a FP in the Americas in the short timeframe of this game, and on Sid we can't war for the sole purpose of getting a Leader for it, but we can build it in Africa and make much of that land productive.

Any suggestions on that plan or any other comments?

I'll shuffle the roster around a bit from the last game, so we get folks following different folks. This look good? :

T-hawk << UP NOW
Speaker << On Deck
Jabah
Charis
Arathorn

Map of the starting position in the next post, after making initial adjustments of lux tax to 10% and build order and tile assignments.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/rbc14a-start.jpg

It does feel a bit wasteful building population out of size-8 Lisbon, but we need to start expanding with settlers, and the city doesn't have any space around it to grow into anyway. I peeked in the editor and Madrid starts with 100 culture while Lisbon only starts with 10 :mad: so our city won't get ahead even with Dias' Voyage.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/rbc14a-1490ad.zip

Checking in...

Any chance Lisbon can get ahead of Seville in culture and reclaim some squares that way? I hate seeing our capital not even in control of its first ring....

Other things to note:
- Ocean squares take two movement points to cross, so be wary.
- Lots of units (MDI, knight at least) have amphibious attack, so don't think Azores or Medeira or Cape Verde Islands are secure because they are one-tile islands. Those towns can fall.
- Everyone should read the Civilopedia in more depth -- lots of things change, like some things that are normally luxuries aren't.

Arathorn

Checking in. Looks like a tough situation on the homeland. I hope we can relieve the cultural pressure soon. :hammer:

Checking in as well.

I have no idea about this scenario. Just hope we can convince Spain to follow the 'no war in Europe' restriction.

Jabah

Wasn't there a bug where commerce calculations were wrong when you changed the corruption slider?

anarres, I have no idea what you're talking about, can you elaborate?

Arathorn, yes, Lisbon should get its culture ahead of Seville, so it'll control at least its first ring.

I'll be playing LotR13 first tonight, and will start this one in a day or two, so any more comments or plans are welcome.

Charis, are you out there? Any comments/ideas before I play tonight? Any more comments from anyone else either? :)

What limitations are we imposing on ourselves? I think that's a key question. Lots of things have been discussed and the other RBC14 threads are going in all kinds of different directions.

I feel fairly strongly that if our capital leaves Europe, we should consider the game lost, even if we technically can still win it. Other than that....
- Do we war in Europe? If so, to what extent? Do we instigate war on turn 1 when we can get paid for alliances and the Sid discounts haven't really kicked in?

My answers are "Only if pressed", "To recapture our cities only and/or pillage", "No" in that order.

What other things might we want to be concerned about? Anybody have better options for my questions?

Arathorn

Hi! I'm here... checking in :king:

I think Arathorn hit the main issues I was concerned about, and I lean for the need to maintain a capital actually in Europe, and identical answers
to Arathorn: offensive war? "Only if pressed", when? "To recapture our cities only and/or pillage", war on turn 1? "No"

Charis

I agree on #2 and #3, yes.

On the capital, how about this rule: if it leaves Europe, we may no longer cash in treasures for VPs, but we can still try to fight our way onward from there to a VP victory. That sound good?

I think that's a good compromise, T-hawk. No more treasures but we can try for cultural (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!) victory or a VP victory from fighting. As long as we avoid cashing in treasures in America, I think I'll be happy.

[Needless to say, I think it'll be 400% easier to win by cashing in treasures in Europe, but a back-up plan is always good to have in place.]

Arathorn

And awaaay we go!

As I said, my plan is to focus on Africa initially rather than the Americas. Lisbon starts building a settler immediately to go build our future FP city in Africa.

On the first turn, I send one caravel (movement 8) with a pikeman and explorer from Lisbon west towards North America. The caravel in Cape Verde loads up the MDI that starts there and heads for the Ivory Coast of Africa. The last caravel in Lisbon moves north to uncover some extra map info and will return in a few turns to take the settler south.

Research is shut off as I mentioned.

Selling the newly uncovered map data around gets us 7 gold per civ - a nice figure that we'll probably be able to keep up for some time.

==========

1491 AD: Lisbon's culture did indeed get ahead of Seville. Oporto worker -> explorer. More sailing and selling of maps.

1492 AD: More map sales. I'll keep doing this every turn.

1493 AD: Lisbon settler->worker. Load the settler and pikeman and head south.

Land the pikeman somewhere around North Carolina. Keep sailing around past Florida with the explorer. More map sales.

Dutch demand 48 gold, paid.

Between turns, our pikeman watches a Spanish caravel land a settler pair in North Carolina (already?!)

1494 AD: Lisbon worker->pikeman, to replace the other one. Oporto explorer->settler. Ceuta worker->worker.

Contact the Iroquois; even though there's Iroquois units two tiles away from Spanish units, they haven't made contact yet. Sell Alphabet to the Iros (at monopoly) for their WM + 150 gold. Sell the Iro contact around to all the European civs to pick up about 120 gold total.

Also contact the Maya; sell them Alphabet for their WM + 88 gold.
Also contact the Aztecs; sell them Alphabet for their WM + 101 gold.
Sell all the maps to the Europeans to collect almost all their remaining gold; I don't sell these contacts to the Europeans yet because most of them are now broke.

1495 AD: Two barbarian archers kill the MDI that I had exploring Africa. Oops.

1496 AD: Move pikeman and settler into place to build our Forbidden Palace city in Africa.

1497 AD: Rio de Janeiro founded. City is over 50% corrupt! but a cash-rushed courthouse will fix that. I'll rush a temple first, though.

Contact the Inca and sell them Alphabet+WM for 185 gold. Explorer is exploring South America while the caravel wanders the Caribbean.

Spain demands contact with the Maya, and we cough it up.

Dias' Voyage in Lisbon produces a Colonist! I didn't realize that would happen, but excellent!

1498 AD: Load the colonist + pikeman + explorer on a caravel that returned from Rio.

1499 AD: Cash-rush a courthouse in Rio.

1500 AD: Sell maps for the n-th time.

Notes:
Oporto will grow this turn and auto-pick the iron hill to complete the pikeman; let it do that. (Don't reassign Lisbon to that tile.)

Rio de Janeiro is on top of ivory; rush a harbor here next turn to get that connected, then have it start a Forbidden Palace (Colonial Capital) prebuild. The Colonial Capital is available with Colonization on the second level of the tech tree.

We have 1781 gold in the treasury, but don't get greedy! Keep research off and wait to broker. You can't go paying first-civ research prices on Sid.

Ceuta is a worker farm extraordinaire. Keep shipping workers from here to Africa.

The caravel down by Rio has a colonist-pikeman pair; find some location that looks good. There's a gold mine under the fog at the nearest river to Rio; I'd recommend settling on or near that to have an easy, quick treasure producer. The next colonist after that should probably go inland, near where that barbarian camp is.

I have no idea what to build in the island cities; have fun. :) I also have no idea how much to try to garrison the European cities; Sid Spain could sneeze and wipe us off the map. There's already a Spanish longbow parked in our territory; it's been there since the first turn; I have no idea what it thinks it's doing.

T-hawk
Speaker << UP NOW
Jabah << On Deck
Charis
Arathorn

anarres, I have no idea what you're talking about, can you elaborate?Sorry it took so long, I've been away.

Here is the bug report, it took me over 30 mins to find it in the bugs forum!!!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=69277

It may have been fixed in a patch, it has certainly been reported more than once in the bug forum.

Looks good T-Hawk. Got it.

Off Topic: I watched your alma mater get blown out in the NCAA Lacrosse Quarterfinals the other day, T-Hawk. Despite the tough ending against a loaded team with a great shot at winning the national championship, it was a great season for your school. Easily their best ever. Don't know if you have any interest in lacrosse, but I thought it was interesting.

Really off topic, yeah.... I never paid much attention to school sports when I was at Stevens, and even less after I graduated. I actually was aware of the lacrosse team making the quarterfinals this year -- but only because their doing so meant they needed the school's athletic field (we have only one) to practice, kicking my fraternity off of it when we had it reserved for a softball game with our alumni association on our alumni reunion day. I mostly hated my school when I was there, and don't have any love for it now either. Alpha Sigma Phi (http://attila.stevens-tech.edu/alphasig/) Fraternity (http://www.alphasigmaphi.org/) is the real legacy of my college years.

BTW, congrats on your own graduation too, Speaker [party] :goodjob:

IT- Pick up an extra 50 gold hawking our WM.

Madrid builds Sistine Chapel.

1501AD (1): Oporto Pikeman => Caravel. Oporto mm'd for growth. Horses are connected. Explorers churn up a ton of map. These suckers can really fly. Rush harbor in Rio. Land colonist-pike pair next to the goldmine. Make a bunch of cash trading WM (I'll do this every turn, so no need to report).

IT- France demands contact with the Inca and I give it.

1502AD (2): Ceuta Worker => Worker. I wonder if it could reach 10spt and 5fpt at size 6 for a colonist every other turn. Rio Harbor => Copernicus (prebuild for FP).

IT- France builds Leonardo's Workshop.

1503AD (3): Sao Paulo founded on goldmine in Africa. Starts courthouse. Netherlands now have Printing Press, but no one else has any new tech. Worker and pikeman being sent to Africa.

IT- Some Aztec troop movement (1 jag). Spanish longbow vacates the area near Lisbon.

1504AD (4): Ceuta Worker => Worker. Continue the worker shuffle to Africa. Lisbon Pikeman => Pikeman. Oporto Caravel => Caravel. Caravel grabs pikeman and an explorer and heads to South America.

1505AD (5): England and Netherlands now have Magnetism and Printing Press. France has nothing.

1506AD (6): Colonist produced in Lisbon. Ceuta Worker => Worker. France has Magnetism, so a two-fer is possible, though I will have to buy @3rd. I'm afraid of getting shut out if Spain develops Printing Press next turn, so I go ahead and make the deal (shadowing the next turn shows I would have been shut out, and buying PP @5th would cost around 1600). I buy Printing Press @3rd from England for 1750 gold and trade it to France with 580 gold for Magnetism. I recoup some of our losses by selling Spain Printing Press for 23gpt and 30 gold.

1507AD (7): Colonist is loaded onto a boat with a worker and sent to Africa. Pikeman in Florids disperses a Seminole encampment and we pick up 25 bucks. Two close island cities (Madeira and Azores) switch over to Colonists, with a Carrack and Pikeman due from the homeland next turn (partial rush in Oporto).

IT- Pikeman in Florida promotes against a barb.

1508AD (8): Lisbon Pikeman => Pikeman. Oporto Carrack => Carrack. Ceuta Worker => Worker. Madeira Colonist => Colonist. Damn English Carrack is blocking the one-tile passage next to the Canary Islands, so our Caravel must go around. Disperse a Songhay settlement in Africa near the Ivory.

IT- Barb archer kills our 3/4 pikeman in North Carolina.

1509AD (9): Our first Carrack will be finished loading next turn. I meant to rush the last few shields of the colonist in Azores but forgot, setting me back a turn. Spain now has Gunpowder, which she sold to England for our cash and Magnetism.

IT- Madrid builds Copernicus.

1510AD (10): Navigation School in Lisbon produces an explorer. Ceuta worker => worker. Disperse a Cherokee encampment in North Carolina (or so). I have left some movement on 4 workers on the homeland, since all tiles are improved up there. I have also left movement for a few caravels.

Conclusion- Game is really starting to pick up now with colonists becoming widespread. I suspect we will have to start settling in North and South America to pick up treasure, although there are 3 more unclaimed treasure units in Africa which we should grab as well. I had planned for that unloaded colonist near Rio to settle near the Ivory, but if so desired, a caravel can be brought down to send it to the other gold. We are still several techs away from mining though, so building a few more cities will be more beneficial I think. Watch out for a potential two-fer opportunity, which should happen soon, since Gunpowder is out there. Have fun.

I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your time at school, T-Hawk. I loved mine, and am pretty sad that I had to graduate. I never pictured you as a fraternity member, but then again, my school didn't have any, so I guess that's a portion of college society I don't really know about. I know that my team tried to create as much of a fraternity atmosphere as we could and certainly did enjoy ourselves. Thanks for the congratulations. Now I just have to find a job...

Now back to your regularly-scheduled Civing:

T-hawk
Speaker
Jabah << Up Now
Charis << On Deck
Arathorn

A bit disconcerting to play and have 30 hours go by without a single comment...

I know several on this team (myself included) tend to do most of their reading and posting on this board from work, so maybe Monday morning will bring more comments. :)

Jabah, are you there? Let us know when you've got it.

It's hard to comment, because:
- Your turn looked good -- nice timing on the 2fer -- but nothing spectacular happened.
- Having not played the scenario, I don't know what looks good/bad/indifferent without spending a lot of time studying the save, which I wasn't intending on doing until it was my turn.
- It looks like any kind of a semi-adequate landgrab and not getting overrun in Europe will put us in a good position to win. That's underway, but I don't want to curse it by pointing it out (too late?).

Arathorn

I was not there for the WE, so could not have played then.
Work is quite hell right now (I mean lots of work to do, but interesting anyway), so not sure I can play tonight.
I will post a 'got it' later (in 5 hours) or a 'skip me' if I can't find time to play in an efficient way.

Jabah

Unfortunatly, I am still at work and probably will prefer relaxing than playing civ whenever I will manage to go back home, so please "Skip me".

For a the first time since something like 10years, there is a french football team playing on Wednesday in the final of the European Champions League (with decent chance to win), so I won't be able to play on Wednesday.
I will be away (again) for a long WE from Thrusday night to Monday night, without computer (so no easy internet access and no civilisation).

Well, okay. That would make Charis up now - go get 'em. :hammer:

> That would make Charis up now - go get 'em

He awakens, as if from a great slumber!!
I just got back from a business trip with a VERY delayed return,
getting back home at 3am last night. :eek:
I'm a zombie at work today and will likely crash immediately tonight.

I will however, get to it as soon as I'm coherent. :hammer:
Charis

Man, that must've been some trip. 3 days later and he's *still* incoherent! :lol:

Any news, Charis? How long do we wait, T-hawk?

Arathorn

I'm away myself from about 20 minutes hence until Monday night, so skipping Charis wouldn't get us very far anyway. Arathorn, if you've got time to play and want to swap with Charis, go ahead, but other than that we won't skip past Charis just yet.

Who me? Incoherrent? :mischief:

Alas, it's true. The day after my 'crashing' for an early bedtime I wandered up to bed after dinner and plopped down for the night at 6:30pm (!) Finally sat down to play last night only to find my ISP was on the fritz. On top of everything else, we've got a temporary (1 week) foster child situation, so my wife is needing a few more hands than usual. :eek:
If things are slow for you Arathorn, snag it, otherwise I hope to get to it soon. (That's an ongoing statement this game I'm afraid, do not hesitate to jump in at any point where you're free and I'm not mid-playing)

Charis

Well, I mainly don't want to see it die away from lack of interest. I enjoy reading things. I was kinda hoping for an update.

I'm pretty into my SAW game whenever I have time to play, but I was looking to this as a laid-back game to relax with, when I'm tired :). That and I don't want a feast night with this and LotR13 the same night...which is looking likely.

I think I'll just lay low and wait for Charis to play, having accomplished a subtle reminder (and maybe bought myself some time if/when I'm slow). It's hard to know whether you're "mid-playing" or not, too. The order on this one is kinda crazy already with Jabah having been skipped and it's only a few rotations and....

I don't know. I mainly wanted to bump this up in people's mind. But I think my waiting for my turn is the best plan.

Arathorn

Alrighty... bump and request for feedback duly noted :)

I came in to work this a.m. (ISP at home still down) - so I'll stick
with it and play tonight. I think overall I'm in the same boat, I'm hoping
this is a laid-back game (but not dying!), as I very barely have time for even one SG game in the next few months 8-\

Thanks,
Charis

This game is on Sid difficulty... and getting treated as a "laid-back" game? That's not a situation one sees every day :crazyeye:

Somebody - anybody - besides myself and Speaker please play. Charis, any progress on it since Saturday?

I am back, and if Charis can't play, I can get my turn back :-).

(waiting for everyone to decide what to do, and in which order)

Jabah

This game is on Sid difficulty... and getting treated as a "laid-back" game?

The incongruity of that very thought, and my inability to get to the game in almost a one week period, suggest I face reality here, I'm going to have to back out. :blush:
I spent both Saturday and the holiday at work, and see no let up for some time. At least it's for a 'big opportunity', not fire fighting. (Oh, and we temporarily have a fifth child in the family as a foster kid) I want to see the game progress and so must bench myself. If things lighten up I'll let you know, but I expect the game will be over before then. (I'm planning to continue on in the series, however!?)

Jabah, you're up! Good luck guys! :hammer:
Charis

OK, yes, Jabah, please take it and get us back on track here. Sorry to hear of your RL situations there, Charis, but thanks for letting us know, and hope you have a good time with the extra kid. We'll make sure to bring him a treasure back from Africa :D

'Got it' and playing.

Will finish my turn tonight.

Jabah

I'm out from tonight through June 7. Sorry for adding yet another delay to this game. Feel free to skip me or I can play when I return.

Arathorn

1510AD (0) Reorganise Portugal for better growth in Lisbon and change production to military units (I want at least 2 in each city there). Sell Map (every turn) and buy 4 embassies in the new world (for around 200g total).

IT GA ends and messes with all my MM (reload to check, the cities were all showing a wrong number for total production and tax)

York completed Magellan's

1511AD (1) have to sort out all the mess.
rush a temple in Sao Paulo (to give a 2food shield) before courthouse.
rush a temple in Madeira as we will have happiness trouble there.
found Porto Nuevo NO of Rio to prevent other AI to reach the inside of Africa.

1512AD (2) Oporto MI->Pike, Madeira Temple->Colonist, Sao Paulo Temple->Courthouse

1513AD (3) Lisbon MI->Pike,
Portugal is set on Pikemen and the 'grown up' colonies (Islands and Ceuta) on colonists
Spain and England have Gun but still no good trade possible.

1514AD (4) Cap Verde Colonist->colonist (harbor will take too long), Ceuta Colonist->colonist, Lisbon (Dias) colonist.

1515AD (5) Oporto Pike->Pike,
found Sao Vincente & Bahia in Angola (next to both Gems)
England now has Protestantism (monopoly)

1516AD (6)
found St Helena in congo (mainly to prevent AI from landing there and secure the coast to get the gold further inside Africa)

1517AD (7) Lisbon Pike->Pike, Ceuta Colo->colo,

1518AD (8) Oporto Pike->pike

1519AD (9)
found Belem on river next to Ivory

We have a little problem, England has discovered Banking, so they now have 2 monopolies and only Spain has Gunpower still

1520AD (10) Ceutacolo->colo,

Now France & Netherland are still tech ignorant but Spain & England know Gun, Bank & Naval Ordnance. England knows Protestantism on top of that.

No deal, probably have to/could do that soon (when the 2 stupid AIs learn something).

A few comments

- A few colonists are on their way to Africa, 1 is just waiting for the MI and Lgbow to clear the place to build a city on the river (W of its current position).

- We will need more military units and maybe less colonist. Ceuta is probably the best place to build a barrack and join the military cities (Ceuta need 2 units for MP). several cities are without defence.

- I keep following the Africa plan, we have most of the 'rich' Africa under command. Maybe a few cities in America.


Good luck to the next leaders

Jabah

OK, sounds like good progress.

With Arathorn out for several days and Charis out for good, I'll take it for a turn to keep things moving. I'll play when I get a chance, might not be till Saturday or so.

*Bump* Who's up here anyway? Anybody playing?

Oh wait, that's me. :crazyeye: Got it, playing now.

OK, here we go.

Diplo check: Entire world is at peace. Spain and England are up by three and four techs, France and Holland are even with us.

The flavor tech cost bug strikes again; England is offering her monopoly on Protestantism to us for 12 gold. :crazyeye: Question: do we want to revolt to Protestantism?

Catholic Monarchy is the same as standard Monarchy, except that according to the editor, it has war weariness (the Civilopedia doesn't mention that.)

Protestant Monarchy has the best attributes of both standard Republic and standard Democracy. It has low war weariness and some unit support like standard Republic, but gives faster workers, minimal corruption, and still only 1/turn unit support like standard Democracy. And it has the tile trade bonus of course.

I think the government change is a no-brainer. We purchase Protestantism for the aforementioned 12 gold and revolt. 2 turns of anarchy - hey, that's right, we're religious.

Can't resell Protestantism to either France or Spain. Can resell it to Holland, but they don't have anything to offer right now.

==========

1522 AD: We're a Protestant Monarchy. Income jumped from 84 at the beginning of my turn to 129 now - definitely well worth the revolt.

I agree with Jabah that the city of Ceuta needs to grow up now; but it should be an economic producer, not a military barracks. It starts an aqueduct.


1525 AD: Buy Gunpowder for about 2000 gold total from England, and three-fer it to France for Banking and Holland for Naval Ordnance. England has a monopoly on Colonization.

Little else happened. Just building cities and such.

Notes for next leader:

- Belem had a granary rushed, and can make +5 food surplus. This will be our worker farm. Let it build the current pikeman while it's growing up to size 6, then farm workers. Make sure to keep irrigating its plains.

- The carrack way out west is picking up map information for sale. Remember that carracks don't sink in ocean. There are a few carracks around, fortified, that didn't have anything to do.

- I just realized something. We can cram in multiple cities around every gold/gems/silver resource, and ALL of those cities could then build the appropriate mine. Should we take advantage of this?

- A three-fer is available, Piracy for Fortification for Colonization, but we aren't anywhere near able to afford it. All the Europeans besides us do have Colonization.

- Rio will have enough shields for the Colonial Capital in about 10 turns, but it might be a few more turns after that before we can afford the tech. Just leave it on its Palace prebuild until we can. Once this gets built, we should be in really good shape.

- I accidentally clicked ahead to 1531 AD before saving. Nothing has been done on the 1531 AD turn.

T-hawk << Just Played
Speaker << UP NOW
Jabah << On Deck
Arathorn

- I just realized something. We can cram in multiple cities around every gold/gems/silver resource, and ALL of those cities could then build the appropriate mine. Should we take advantage of this?



I would think that this should be an exploit if the cities are built just for this purpose. On the other hand, I can imagine having 2 cities sharing a resource if there is a good (other) reason for building the second city (river, sea, food ressource, not enough space...). In that case I think we should limit ourself to only 1 mine/camp/whateverthename for 1 ressource.

In a certain way I did the sharing for the 2 'Gems' cities south except that there are 2 gems around so we can pretend each city has it own instead of having 1 gem for both cities.

Jabah

If Jabah would like to jump in and play his skipped turn before I do, that would be ok with me. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it for a day or two anyways.

Jabah was never skipped. Arathorn was.

So Arathorn, if you're back and want to make up that skipped turn, go ahead. Either Arathorn or Speaker please play when you can. :goodjob:

If Jabah would like to jump in and play his skipped turn before I do, that would be ok with me. I'm not sure I'll be able to get it for a day or two anyways.


My turn was never skipped, I came back before Charis decide he finally won't be able to play


T-hawk << Just Played
Speaker << UP NOW
Jabah << On Deck
Arathorn


I don't know where this 'turn order' came from. But since I have just played the previous round, I think Arathorn should play (if he can).

Jabah

See it. "Got it" but there's pretty much no way I can play tonight -- I'm too beat from a day of travel and the vacation and everything. Definitely not in any shape to give a Sid game the attention it deserves. Tomorrow, though, I should be ready to go and will take my 10 turns then.

Arathorn

Pretty boring turns, mainly. I sold maps to everybody every turn. I'd usually get either one or two gold from each other player -- very boring but reasonably productive. Our tech deficit got pretty significant, but I made a bit of a catch-up at the end.

Right away on the inherited turn, I lost a carrack to a privateer. The days of long, safe voyages are over. We need to protect important ships and/or get a fleet out ourselves.

I also disbanded nearly all of our explorer force. They were costing us one gpt maintenance and most of them were serving no purpose whatsoever. There's one who still remains, watching the French city in Africa -- just keeping an eye on our main colonial holdings.

The highlight of the early turns was finally destroying a barb camp defended by an archer. On the inherited turn, I'd attacked with a vet longbow, who only promoted the archer to regular. It took quite a while to get our MDI in Africa to the location and healed. Good thing he was a 5/5 as he lost the first 3 battles immediately before rallying to win. 25 gold didn't hurt a lot either. That was in turn 7...1537. Mostly moving workers and LOTS of selling maps.

1537, too, saw some native civs with some cash. I spared not a single thought about selling them techs for as little as 20 gold and 4 gpt. Once they could scrape up some cash, they got a tech. No questions asked.

Twas a bit worrisome interturn, too. A French privateer came out and sank an English ship, spawning a privateer. The spawned privateer sailed out and caught a carrack of ours who was safe from the normal range of a single privateer. Our guy died, spawning another privateer, who went on and conquered the whole ocean!!! Oh, no, wait, he didn't quite reach the next English ship.

Bunches of privateer battles going on soon thereafter. We avoid as much as possible.

1539 was the big year. I smelled techs but they were going fast. The opportunity wouldn't last very long.

Steal from England gets us Metallurgy for under 800 gold. WM + Metallurgy + 24 gpt + 5 gold to France gets us Fortification. Metallurgy + 14 gpt + 3 gold to Netherlands gets us Colonization. We have Fortification and the Dutch don't. They have Piracy and we don't...but no deal was possible. I couldn't sweeten it enough. Rio de Janerio (however that's spelled) switches to the Colonial Capital, due in 2 turns, so on the passed interturn. It should be quite valuable once it completes.

Mining is out there and a Piracy/Mining twofer once some big gpt deals expire (about halfway into the next rain) will be huge. Mining opens us up for some serious treasures, which we need like 10 turns ago.

That was all the excitement for me. 1540 was uneventful, bar some fantastic map-trading, which is about all dried up, as we're about out of squares to "discover".

I have no idea on the roster....

Arathorn

Good progress, and great trading. Yeah, steals will be the way to go to get tech, I think. The Colonial Capital should go a long way towards keeping our economy competitive. Good idea to disband the explorers.

:lol: at the Privateer chain reaction :D

Africa doesn't have a whole heck of a lot of treasure sources - I think we've got two gold mines and two gems - but that's still 4 treasures every 5 turns once all the mines get going, or only 50 turns or so till victory. At least as long as our treasure shippers don't get smacked by privateers. Do remember that the resources need to be connected by road to build the mines; the gems and western gold already were on my turn; just make sure the eastern gold gets such.

T-hawk
Speaker << UP NOW
Jabah << On Deck
Arathorn

--Got it.--

IT- Mining is out there, so my goal for these 10 turns will be to secure mining and get mines in each of our cities which can use them. I see two resources in South America that could be ours, so I will also try to grab those as well.

Hurry a colonist in Luanda to poach some Incan gems.

1541AD (1): Colonial Capital finishes and our income jumps by around 45 (I think). Pick up a couple workers from the Aztecs for a technology.

1542AD (2): Pretty uneventful. I guess we can't found cities on forest or something, so it'll be a few turns until my towns can be founded.

1543AD (3): Benguela founded on spices.

1544AD (4): Nothing much.

1545AD (5): Deals expire and I've got some money to work with. 100gpt buys Mining from Spain. Sending them some ivory helps lower the price by 7gpt, but I leave it out of the deal just in case some ship mayhem disrupts our supply. No need to risk our rep for 7gpt. Hmm, mining plus 80gpt is doubtful with the Netherlands for Piracy, so no two-fer is possible (they are about to finish researching it themselves, it turns out). Found Santos near gold in South America. Evidently, the civilopedia is wrong, as it says "The city that builds it must have Gems in its city radius," but it looks more like they have to be connected. This will set us back in Seguro since we have to connect the gold. Shuffle a few units to get some more protection and workers in South America.

IT- The Aztec order our lonely exploring pikeman to withdraw or declare and I comply, yet they for some bizarre reason, sneak attack him anyways. :confused: I should have disbanded this unit at the beginning of my turn, but I can't say I've seen that before.

1546AD (6): Found Rio Grande do Sul, poaching an Incan gold resource. Start chopping a forest where we can poach an Incan gems resource. It will be done in 5 turns. Rush two gems mines in South Africa.

1547AD (7): Rush a goldmine.

IT- Aztecs finish off the Pikeman in North America. Interesting sight as one Privateer attacks and kills another Privateer.

1548AD (8): Incan borders expand, so no more poaching is possible.

1549AD (9): Unload a bunch of units in South America, including several workers.

IT- France demands our TM and 27 gold and I give it.

1550AD (10): Nothing much.

Conclusion- Santos is building a Trace Italienne as a prebuild for a goldmine. I've been building carracks in a couple cities in preparation for treasures, but we should definitely build more frigates to protect them. Be wary of the Aztec war. I'd take peace as soon as we can to avoid a dogpile. Another option is to make an alliance with the Inca, which will protect us. There are a bunch of units en route to Santos, to connect the goldmine and found another city nearby. Now the real game starts. Time to bring home as many treasures as we can.

Right, you can't build cities on forests in this scenario.

No two-fer is disappointing, but it was more important to get Mining immediately, I agree. Yes, the resources have to be connected to build mines; I mentioned that in my post right before you played. :p :)

Agreed on ending the Aztec dogpile threat ASAP, even if we have to pay some gold to do it. I'd rather just end the war than pay the Inca just to get ourselves stuck in war for 20 turns.

T-hawk
Speaker
Jabah << UP NOW
Arathorn << On Deck

Good point T-Hawk. I read it a few days ago but didn't totally reread it before I played. Must have skipped that line. Our workers work incredibly fast anyways (build a road in 1 turn on flatland), so it was a non-issue.

'Got it'

Jabah

Good deal on Mining, two bad about the lack of twofer. Did the Netherlands pick up Fortification, too? Wowsers. I was envisioning Mining and Fortification as being plenty to pay for Piracy, but I guess I was wrong. Bummer.

I just now remembered my colonist sitting on an island with spices waiting for a forest chop to complete. Did that city get founded? Did it start a spice "factory" pretty much right away?

I also agree with peace ASAP, trying to avoid a dogpile. If Spain were to declare on us, we'd lose our capital very quickly. Sea battles will be important for winning the game, but we can lose it on land easily enough, too.

Arathorn

Yes, the resources have to be connected to build mines
Note you don't have to connect more than one of each resource, when your cities are connected; no need to road in every city. That's what makes those Carribbean Islands that strong, you can leave most of the Spices alone.

How lucky :eek:

General Strategic observation
If able I think our treasure ship should go slower and safer from port to port.

- With a 9 moving carrack jumping from city to city, there will be only one major place where our ships coming from most of our colonies might be in danger from privateer : around the canary islands.
- South America ship will also be in danger. they might have to take some risk, either crossing to south Africa (hoping for no privateer in south Atlantic) or straight to Cape Verde (probably more risky.

Therefore no need for a huge fleet, just a good task force should be station around Madeira should be enough to cover our ships.

1550AD (0) - cancel all the colonist building in islands since there is no more good spot
Several cities are without temple while having good (better) tiles to work in the second ring, change build order. Courthouse are also extremly cheap (30) so I will rush a few of those in some corrupted colonies..
We also need badly some defence in our new colonies, good thing we can build both pike and musket.

IT throw all our plans out of the windows, Spain and Aztecs signed an alliance against us ...
Olinda (South America), Bengala (Caraibe) captured by a Conquistador
Oporto faced heavy attacks (including invisible ones) and hold thanks to a 1hp MI.
Santos (Andes) is doomed without defence with a spanish coming

1551AD (1) the only positive point is the cash coming back...
Only chance we have (to survive, not to win) is to enrole some usefull allies
Buy France for 72gpt and England for Ivory+gems+wine+40gpt

Change a few build order, try (and miss) to bombard the spanish horse, pray and wait

IT
Our allies did nothing to help ...
Santos razed, Oporto lost (while showing good defence), Madeira lost,
Lots of treasure waiting for us in our colonies...

1552AD (2) War weariness start hard... lux at 20%
Lisbon is produicing 4spt (Spanish troops all around)

IT England buy Iroquois against spain
We lost Lisbon with some unlucky 'rolls' (reg conquistador against vet pike, but anyway they were too much troops showing.)

1553AD (3)

With our rules (no treasure in not continental Capitol) we should not be abble to win. I stop there :
- to ask if we keep this rule (capital is Ceuta now)
- no a lot of time for me this WE to continue (also it is also quite depressing game now)

Comments ?

Jabah

PS I might be able to continue (but not much) on sunday late, but if someone wants to play it (to the bitter end), feel free to play now

Ouch. Ummm...what else to say? Ouch.

I knew that was a concern, but I don't know what we could have done to prevent it. Winning with a capital not in Europe feels like a loss to me, but...

Well, ouch. T-hawk, what's our captain say?

Arathorn

Our captain says that it'd be pointless to continue without cashing in treasures. There's no way we'd ever win doing that, and no point to trying. It's not like we intentionally lost our original capital; it may have been underdefended (especially on Sid) but there's almost no such thing as an adequate defense on Sid.

So play on, and cash in treasures wherever we can. We'll see how much it feels like a win or a loss once we get done with it. :) I don't think there's a such thing as a bad win on Sid...

Jabah, please do go ahead and finish your turn. :hammer:

That really sucks. A lone wandering Pikeman and a nonsensical sneak attack. What could the Aztecs possibly have offered Spain for an alliance? I agree we should play on. I guess we'll have to sue for peace as soon as possible and start bringing back treasure.

Continental Portugal was defended by 1 musquet, 4pikes, 1 MI and a trebuchet at the beginning. 2pikes were rushed (1 never arrived). Not sure what would have been enough to hold.

Cont'ed
1553Ad (3) we still have several undefended colonies are most are weakly defended. Ceuta the new capital is just defended by 2 pikes (1vet, 1reg) and is building a barrack.

Arghh our boats are slower by 3. avoiding privateer might be a nightmare

Have to raise lux to 40% (-55gpt), we gonna go bankrupt very soon, Aztecs and Spain are still not talking

IT Spain sign Netherlands against... France.
We lose Azores (and Wines)
Ceuta finished barrakcs and I use the scroll ahead to prevent 3 riots (due to Azores/Wines lost)
Missed Luanda (still shoving 2 contents ????? is this bug known)

1554AD (4)
Sell feudalism for 28g (Maya) & 14g (Inca)
PEACE with Aztecs for Chivalry (get their 16g and 8gpt)
Spain still not talking

1555AD (5)
Since we gonna break our reputation ASAP (with peace with Spain) and we realy need to give Spain weaker target:
Alliance with Inca vs Spain for Chivalry (get 6g)
Alliance with Iroquois vs Spain for MI (get 12g)
Alliance with Aztecs vs spain for Education (get 11g)
Alliance with Maya vs spain for Chivalry (get 4g)

IT 1 worker is disband because of bankrupcy

1556AD (6)
Spain still not talking

IT Spain sign Netherlands against ... us :-(
Lose a worker, temple in Rio

1557AD (7)
sign all the american civ against Dutch.

IT York build shakespeare

1558AD (8)
Spain accept to speak, of course they want a city and not a crap one. give them Ilheus ('useless' unprotected middle Africa with Iron next to France)
Everyone is furious at us of course...

We should be carefull not to have England with Dutch against us

IT even the american civ dare to blackmail us, give Education to Inca.


1559AD (9) return our first treasure !!!
Carefull, there is invisible (spanish) unit around in South America
sign a lux for lux deal with England to be on the safe side.

IT Netherlands capture Luanda :-( killing an elite pike.
They must be a MI and a pike now. We will have trouble keeping Rio Grande and getting our treasure out of S America
Spain and Netherlands MA against England.


1560AD (10)
Save before playing


Jabah

Just a quick comment.

- Several units are carrying treasure (in the middle of Africa), a carrack is waiting for them so don't send them back to MP/combat/whatever.
- There was no privateer around, I guess Europe at war means the AI prefere normal Man-o-War at this time, so maybe we can avoid building a huge fleet?
- Netherlands is still not talking. Maybe we should attack them somewhere ?
remember that they are at war with everyone but Spain (same for Spain)

Jabah

Lovely. I got it and will hopefully play tonight after LotR13. Looks like a very unfun world. The loss of our two European cities is a big loss -- at least one great wonder and one small wonder. Sigh. Will see if/what can be done. Goal without seeing the save is PEACE and treasures.

Arathorn

Sounds good to me, Arathorn.

Yes, the AI will build Man-o-Wars almost exclusively over privateers. The AI always prioritizies the highest attack value when building units for offense, and the highest defense value for defense.

If Ceuta is still our capital, I'd consider that as still having our capital in an original location. Technically, it isn't Europe, but it was a starting city of ours, and treasures must still go some distance to get there, so strategically it really isn't significantly different than having Lisbon.

The ultimate solution to this would be to be able to recapture Lisbon via amphibious attacks on the same turn that we then make peace. Does that look like any sort of possibility?

Sounds good to me, Arathorn.


The ultimate solution to this would be to be able to recapture Lisbon via amphibious attacks on the same turn that we then make peace. Does that look like any sort of possibility?

Not a chance, we now are at peace with Spain (holding lisbon). The evil AI is Netherlands now :-).

Attacks might be a good idea, but we now have just 1 offensive unit (MI) also carrying a treasure (on its way to Ceuta) and around 2 barracks.

Jabah

I cowered in a corner, hiding our cities behind carracks and generally kissing up to people and praying the Netherlands wouldn't attack us. They did, and it was a single longbow landing. I could barely handle it, needing to attack with a longbow uphill against the darn thing. We were so frickin' short on units.

We had some cash, though, so I rushed pikes, pikes, pikes, and a couple of pikes on the side. Many/most are treasure-carriers, although a few served as MPs and as general minor deterrents against the AI. No city is currently empty, although a good stiff breeze could almost wipe us off the map.

Took me for-frickin-ever to figure out how to tell what units were carrying treasures without having to right-click 'em every single time. If the experience level of the unit has !!! after it (e.g. Regular!!!), then it's carrying a treasure and should head for the capital. I cost us a slew of turns getting treasures back that way, but, on the plus side, it helped defend Africa for us a bit.

By 1565, the Dutch were willing to talk. I entered negotiations with a not insignificant amount of fear. What was it going to cost us? Anything but a treasure city I was pretty willing to give up. I was almost expecting them to ask for a recently-founded city on iron that I was going to give up. I was a bit off. The cost was negative 38 gold and negative 9 gpt...that is, they actually paid US for peace! Strange are the ways of the AI.

I repaid their kindness by safely stealing Piracy from them in 1567. I figured the Dutch were the least threatening and a safe steal was reasonably safe. It worked. No twofer but I knew there wouldn't be. I don't think privateers are quite as safe or valuable as frigates, but the option is at least available, should we choose to try that route.

I also switched Rio de Janeiro to Navigation School immediately upon getting the game. The explorers every 10 turns are worthless, but this small wonder also gives us +2 naval movement points...extremely valuable for getting treasures home. It completed in 1568 with only minor starvation (just food, no people) and our navy is the stronger for it.

I retire in 1570, with the leading VP team being...Portugal, with 11520. Spain is second with 11315. 5 turns ago we were at 3310 and Spain was at 10675, so we're moving right along. I leave the next leader with 11 treasures on boats trying to return to Cuerta. They're a few turns away, but I think you can pull it off. Be sure to check which boats have valuable passengers and which are returning treasure-carriers to the mines.

Also, a bunch of cities are MM'd for food/commerce as they will complete builds this turn. Be sure to MM them back to shields after they complete what they're working on. Check each city that completes something fairly carefully.

I was also using some workers from the farm to build up S.S. de Congo. It's a pretty serious commerce producer and we might even want to rush the bank there. More people are good.

No real advice other than that.

Oh, and the very first interturn the Dutch and the Spanish felt they weren't at war with enough people and declared on each other! Some peace has broken out here and there, but those two nations are still definitely under the gun from most everybody else.

Arathorn

Great recovery Arathorn. Looks like we are in decent shape, all things considered.

Yes, nice recovery indeed. Back in the VP lead! :goodjob: And good call on rebuilding Navigation School.

I'm up. Got it and peeked at the save, can play tomorrow.

We've still got our two gold and two gems mines in Africa, plus still have one city in South America with a gold mine. Our treasure accumulation survived unscathed. If we win with the original city of Ceuta still as our capital, I'll consider that just as much a legit win as if we'd kept Lisbon.

Some tech brokering is available, with England lacking Counter Reformation and the Netherlands lacking several techs. And we can afford a safe steal right now.

But do we even want tech? There isn't a whole lot that's tempting on the tech tree. Man-o-Wars would be nice, but everything else - com-docks, hospitals, mills, stock exchanges - seem too expensive to really pay off in the short timeframe of this scenario. Missionaries seem useless, and the various wonders are certainly unattainable with a cascade in full swing right now. And I think we want to avoid Professional Armies, to continue to build 1-3-1 / 30 pikemen instead of 2-3-1 / 40 Swiss Pikemen.

Do we get tech, or should we just pour all our cash into military for treasure security and defense?

Missionaries seem useless. In the netherlands diety game the missionaries were very helpful in the ground transportation of treasure. I have a feeling your treasures are produced in port cities so you probably don't need the faster movement. Concur on the recovery and look forward to seeing your treasure accumulation continue.

Yes, nice recovery indeed. Back in the VP lead! :goodjob: And good call on rebuilding Navigation School.


But do we even want tech? .....
Missionaries seem useless, ....

Do we get tech, or should we just pour all our cash into military for treasure security and defense?

Navigation School, I was wondering if we should build it or a bank in our colonial Palace, since both were 10t I start one to let the next leader decide (but forget to tell about this choice, my bad).

If missionaries can see invisible units (missionaries) they are far from useless. I can't tell you how stressfull was being attacked by invisible units (especially fast ones) when you know that some of your cities were without (decent) defences.

And if (hopefully) no war is planned, it could just allow us to see them instead of running into it and going back to war due to the sub bug.
--> in SAmerica, since (if) we have to direct access to the coast, it might be a good idea to have a worker 'opening the way' to a 'treasure' pike to avoid this kind of problem.

Jabah

Missionaries do see invisible and so I see them as valuable. Worth a steal and twofer try? Not sure, so I deferred the decision. Now that treasure-carriers are returning, too, we probably have enough for right now, but we still are tragically thin on units.

In South America, I moved 3 treasure-carrying pikes into French territory to try to get access to a boat on the following turn. The French helpfully kicked us out north and a bit east of where I was intending to pick up the carriers, saving us probably a full turn on the trip to Cueta. Something to keep in mind. We have more treasures than units there at this point, but our other spots are, finally, waiting on treasures instead of units to carry them.

To avoid the 'sub bug' as a human, do NOT use goto. If you move manually, you'll get a pop-up and a chance to avoid the war (I *think*), but if you use the goto command, you'll just run into them and declare war with no options. Missionaries to see invis would be better, of course.

We might need/want privateers, which is why I stole Piracy. Beyond that...I just don't know. Man-o-wars might be helpful, but I have this feeling if we get stuck in war again, we might well just lose. We barely have marketplaces and almost no banks, so I don't see how stock exchanges would help. Mills, maybe, I guess, since we could cash-rush them, but it seems more economical to just cash-rush what we need instead....

Do galleons (which I believe comes with the same tech as man-o-wars) have better movement than carracks? Or better stats? That tech might be worth it just to have better transport ships. We're (almost) back up to two frigates, helping defend the long jump past the canary islands, but a small fleet of man-o-wars might be even better. That's the one I would look at most closely. Plus, don't techs give a few VPs even in this scenario? If we could two/threefer, it might well be worth it, just for the VPs. Each treasure we return is worth 200 gold, too, remember.

Arathorn

[/delurk]
in RBC14C, Missionaries were useful in repelling English troops landing in France. They have an attack rating of 3 and a movement rating of 2, meaning they can retreat. They can also produce workers upon a victory. Not the best unit but definitely not useless and, if you make colleges (if you make it there :) ), are produced automatically.
Galleons have 1mp more than carracks and can hold 4, but have the same defense. imho, you'll get more milage out of 2 privateers than 1 Man-O-War (about the same shield cost). You can attack without starting a war and you get new privateers often (well, it seemed often at Emporer).
Looks like a nailbiter. Good luck :)[relurk]

The reason England Can't get counter reformation is that they are PROTESTANT flavor. Also since you went protestant, you can't build Jesuit Colleges. Without checking the Pedia, I am not sure that protestant monarchies can build missionaries. It would be very important to check before stealing into. Since you are a protestant Monarchy, you might have the option to pay around 12 gold for the tech. Nice recovery on this game, but you might not want any more tech and just build temples, markets and pikes, and just sort of slide to the finish line.
Good luck.

We can build Missionaries. Unit availability is never restricted by flavor or government. It's restricted by civ, but Portugal is selected in the list of Available To civs for the Missionary unit. Also, the tech chooser screen in-game shows the unit; it doesn't show units unavailable to the civ you're playing.

I hadn't realized they detect invisible; in that case it probably is worthwhile to get them. They're also decent, cheap regular attackers, and they will serve as better treasure carriers than Pikemen, at least for the city in South America.

You do get a pop-up when moving a unit that bumps into something invisible - no auto-declaration of war. I'm fairly sure you get the pop-up if you bump into an invisible unit even during a goto order. The auto-declaration bug only happens for AIs, not the player.

Good point that Counter Reformation is Catholic flavor and can't be traded to England or Netherlands. That means there isn't any brokering available right now, until Netherlands gets some tech to trade us - and will never be any brokerage involving Counter Reformation since Spain, the only other Catholic civ, already has it. Are missionaries worth acquiring the tech at full price without a brokerage?

We don't get Counter Reformation cheap. Our civ is Catholic flavor (even though we changed governments), so the Catholic flavor tech is full price.

Galleons are 2-3-6 / 60, 5 transport capacity, as compared to carracks, which are 2-3-5 / 50, 4 capacity. A minor upgrade.

I find it facinating that Spain has so many VP when they had almost no colonies prior to the attack on you guys. It just seems un-Spanish.

I'm also curious if the war was caused not only by opportunity, but also by your switch to a Protestant government.

Inherited turn:

Things look good. I decide not to do tech brokering yet. We can't re-trade Counter Reformation to anyone, so the only brokering available is with the Netherlands. The back-end of the brokerage would be Free Artistry or Professional Armies, both of which we definitely have no interest in.

We can sell Iron + Ivory to the Netherlands for a decent chunk of change (36/turn), so I do it.

==========

Hit enter, and Spain makes peace with England. So does Netherlands. Not exactly what we want to be happening. But then France declares war on Spain. (Invisible unit bug with Missionaries, perhaps?)

1572 AD: Cash in two boatfuls of six treasures total. Thanks to Arathorn for that great setup. :goodjob:

I get a couple muskets built in Ceuta; let's try and make sure to keep this city all the way to the win.

1573 AD: England declares war on France, and signs the Inca to alliance.

1574 AD: Cash in five more treasures, the last of the batch that Arathorn left me. VP now 22,520. Aztecs renew our peace treaty, then make peace with Netherlands.

1575 AD: Sign Inca to RoP so that we can easily load four treasure-carrying pikemen onto a boat at Rio Grande do Sul (which is our one city in South America.)

1576 AD: The Dutch got Ship Building, which we do want. A safe steal from Spain (they're the cheapest) gets us Mercantilism and we broker that plus 900g for Ship Building.

1577 AD: Upgrade some carracks and frigates, cash in four more treasures that came from our Africa gold mines. VP now 27,120. I wish we could build some Knights to carry treasures around faster, but we don't have horses.

1578 AD: Two more treasures cashed in, from our southern gems mines. Only six more to go, and I've actually got six on boats within four turns of home. I think I'll just go on ahead and finish this up...

Cash rush a galleon in Cape Verde; transferring treasures from the Rio Grande to this new boat will get us the win a turn sooner.

Three more AI-AI alliances start up between turns, two against Aztecs, one against England -- but it's not gonna matter.

London completes Smith's Trading Company.

1579 AD: Move some more boats around...

1580 AD: Cash in the last six treasures, four from Rio Grande, two from African gold mines, bringing VP to 35120.

"Picture pages, picture pages, time to get your picture pages..."

Uh, what happened here? Why did this scenario end up being so easy? We won with over twice the VP of our closest competitor and 4x those of two European countries. I know we have a good team, but.... :confused: Great job cleaning up the mess Jabah, Arathorn, and T-Hawk.

Good game to everyone.

Having AIs spending most of their time at war definitly make the game easy (at least when we were not on the receiving end), the AIs are not good at doing both war and treasure carrying.

Jabah

BTW T-hawk, how close to 'cultural' victory were the American AIs ?

It ended up being so easy because it IS so easy, so long as you can avoid getting overrun. The AI is very bad at prioritizing treasure delivery (true in Middle Ages conquest, too, just less noticeable there). As long as the human gets treasure-producing cities set up and going reasonably early and doesn't completely neglect the sea, the human will win.

Great scenario concept and some fun units, but the AI just doesn't seem equal to the task. Disappointing in a way.

Anyway, thanks to the team! Big kudoes to Jabah for surviving the roughest turns. And thanks to T-hawk for setting it up, running it, and finishing it off. I think you're right about Cueta serving approximately the same purpose, difficulty-wise, as our cities in Portugal.

Arathorn

Yes, the scenario is easy. I think the AI isn't all that bad at returning treasures; it's worse at producing the treasures in the first place. We had five mines rushed the instant we got Mining tech. The AIs don't know to do that - they don't know to road the resources ahead of time, and can't consider building the mine until the resource is actually connected.

Another cause of easiness is that the AIs don't build any more Privateers at all once they get frigates. They always go for the highest attack value when building offensive units. I saw no Privateers on my turn at all. They're supposed to make shipping dangerous, but we could do it perfectly safely.

The AIs were nowhere near cultural victory. I remember checking the Top 5 Cities list, and #2 was Madrid! Only the Aztec capital was higher, and I think it was around 1600 culture when I checked the victory status screen. Civ-wide was around 6K for someone, the Inca I think.

That's not to say we didn't play well. :) The Africa grab was key. With Portugal's explosive start (Golden Age, Dias' Voyage, and the island cities), we grabbed all that land uncontested, and getting the Colonial Capital built fast kept our economy right up there. Thanks to Gobi Bear for pointing us to Portugal. :D

Good game again, all! :goodjob: :hammer:

I played a solo sid game as portugal and followed your basic ideas. Actually I almost always played portugal the same way, just never on that high of difficulty.
The Cheap Protestantism and Early revolt helped a lot.
I Declared a first turn war on the Dutch and bought everyone in. Europe burned for 30+ turns and the dutch only lost 1 city.
Spain, on abut turm 60 sneak attacked me as well, even though I fed them luxuries. After watching your game, I had 4 defenders around. Lisbon fell, but Oporto held, and I dogpiled all the Euro's against Spain and held Oporto for 30 turns.
For Research rather than 2-fer the way you guys did, I just stole tech and then traded.
You guys played a nice game, and I think that Spain just declares war on Portugal around turn 60 on Sid regardless of the conditions. A full scale sid attack is brutal, kudo's on surviving.
Oh Yeah and I won too :D