OK Sid can be beaten. Now can we add a variant. AW no thanks. 1, 3, 5 CC too much for now. Looked over Arathorn’s list and the most interesting and doable seems to be defiant.

Defiant: You must never give in to a demand from an opponent, that is, you always reject demands for tribute. You may never ally, sign a Right of Passage, MPP, or embargo with another civilization. You may never pay for peace (a peace treaty must either be straight-up or the opponent gives a concession to you. A deal where a tech costs 20 gpt normally and you pay 10 gpt for that tech as part of a peace treaty is fine). Any troops on your soil must be given a boot order every turn. No capturing foreign cities or demanding them in diplomacy. No foreign workers merged into existing cities.

No more AI boot licking. We will be a proud and independent people that stand up for ourselves in the face of AI bullying.


This will not be easy but if we make it past the 1st AI contact and the Ancient Age it should play pretty normally. Biggest issue will be AI dog piling us since we can’t make alliances. Also, we will need to put enough hurt on the AI to get at least straight up peace.

I’m open to discussion on the all start conditions but I would suggest:

Level: Sid
Variant: Defiant
Civilization: Vikings
Archipelago: Max Water
Size: Standard
Age: 5 Billion
Temperature: temperate
Climate: normal
Barbarians: Off
Rivals: Random
AI Aggression: Normal
Victory Condition: All are enabled.
Culturally linked starts: Off
Respawn: Off
Preserve Random Seed: On
Cultural Conversion: On
Patch: 1.22 C3C

The early game might play a bit like AW since we are likely to provoke war with our defiant attitude and our weak position. I therefore picked pelago max water to keep us with minimal early opponents.

RBCiv exploit rules apply. 24hr got it. 48hr to play.

Team

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie
anarres
akots
open

Hey, sign me up. If you haven't already generated the game, I might say that I've been getting really good maps lately with the climate and temperature set to arid and cool (my $0.02).

Welcome Homeyg. Any thoughts on civs? I like Agri trait for quick early expansion. and commercial or seafaring for early curgah and possible GL run but I've played Iro and Dutch a lot.

Hmm. We're nearing the end of AG8 (Sid), which was much easier than expected since we managed to keep the AI's in Monarchy/Commie.

This seems extreme though, maybe too extreme for me to join. Put me down as a maybe. :)

BTW - what odds do you give yourselves of winning?

Well I play tested this a bit last night and I would say <1% if we share an Island with another civ. There is invariably war before we are ready. So we will proceed with the first game in which we start isolated. Should be apparent in the first 20. Bit of a cop out but the defiant restriction should still give us trouble. I'd say with isolated start 75% chance to win depending on resourse distribution and whether one civ starts to run away with it before we can take him down. I actually played these settings as AWS. Made it to 1500AD but I don't think I will win as I couldn't get an army out to pillage soon enough and it will be tanks vs muskets/cavs soon. Anyway, I hope defiant will feel a bit like AW but with opportunities for tech trade/steal to keep it within reach.

Welcome Homeyg. Any thoughts on civs? I like Agri trait for quick early expansion. and commercial or seafaring for early curgah and possible GL run but I've played Iro and Dutch a lot.

How about the Aztecs? Agricultural and Militaristic, so-so UU, one of my favorites to play in multiplayer.

archi with max water makes agricultrual less appealing. You really need rivers to go for them :)

I'm thinking about joining this one by the way. I'm ready for something insane :p

Aggie hope you join. I don't think this will be that crazy. We will have to start on our own island. Homeyg, I tried Aztecs with a few starts where we shared an island thinking that the early UU might help fend off the AI but they just have too much of an early advantage. And they invariablly come waltzing through your territory leading to war and a crushing early defeat. If we have to start isolated then I'm more inclined to go with something with a later and better UU. I was leaning toward the Vikings. I've never played them but their UU seems great for a archi map.

Any CIV is fine with me...

scandinavia sounds cool. I will join this one :) Any civ is fine btw.

OK looks like a team is shaping up. I'll wait for 1 more commitment and start with Vikings. Would like 5 or 6 players.

It would be nice to play another game with anarres groucho

Hmm, ok then. :)

I am not the most available player, but I always give my turns the attention they deserve when I do play them...

Great, welcome aboard anarres. We will definitely need careful play. War will be frequent I expect and difficult to get out of as we will need straight up peace or better and may get dog piled. We can start with this gang of 4 and hopefully pick up 1 or 2 more before going through the rotation. I’ll try to start tonight. Will go with whatever isolated start I get, unless it’s ridiculously bad tundra/jungle. Plan: Since we start with alphabet I would make a run for the GL writing min then straight to lit @ max. seafaring curgahs should get us good early contact/trades. Should make sure to get Masonry for GL prebuild. Any thoughts let me know.

I will start with 20-25 turns. Next up can take 15/20 turns, and the next leader 10-15, then 10 each turn after that.

24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 48hrs after that to finish and post your turns.



mark UP
hoemyg ON DECK
aggie
anarres
open
open

Mark, I can't always make those deadlines. :(

I know everyone says them, but some people are more strict than others. I simply can't guarentee a 24hr then 48hr deadline, so please remove me from the lineup if you want to be strict on your times - I wouldn't mind. You can check the AG8 game to see how often I get to it and how long it takes.

:lol: What a nice company. Can I join?

Welcome akots. anarres please stay. Those are just the typical parameters. As long as people maintain interest in the game I don't care about skips or strict time limits. I have 3 little kids and a demanding job so civ basically comes out of my sleep. a relaxed pace is fine with me.

Well after about 10 starts of either total crap or having another civ on our Island we get this. A bit too good but I play it anyway. All the food is OK but we could fill up our little Island without it. Not as big of an advantage as if we were in a competitive land grab.

4000 BC: Found Trondheim start currgah
3950 BC: Science to min on writing. Meet Japan trade WC for CB+10gp. They are across the straits from us.
3900 BC: zzz
3850 BC: zzz
3800 BC: zzz
3750 BC: zzz
3700 BC: Trondheim to size 2 lux to 20%.
3650 BC: Trondheim currgah ->warrior. Send Currgah North.
3600 BC: zzz
3550 BC;zzz
3500 BC: warrior-> settler lux->30 send warrior South
3450 BC: zzz
3400 BC: Meet Egypt. Alphabet + 40 gp +2 gpt to Japan for wheel. We have 2 horses. Alphabet + wheel to Egypt for Masonry and 10gp.
3350: zzz
3300: Trondheim to size 4 lux to 50%
3250: zzz
3200: Trondheim settler->worker
3150: Meet Mongols. Pottery+Bronze+10gp for wheel and Masonry. Pottery to Japan for 55 gp. Switch Trondheim to granary.
3100: Trondheim to size 3. lux to 30%.
3050: zzz
3000: Found Bergen start currgah

Mark Just Played
Homeyg UP
Aggie On Deck
anarres
akots
open

My pic has a rather cramped dot map. there may be a land bridge in the dark. Otherwise we start on a rather small island with 2 horses but no lux.

Wow! This looks difficult. I'd be suprised if we wouldn't have lux though.

Interesting start Mark. Wouldn't delaying contacts help you because you won't have to turn down a demand (so, why the Curragh first?). From my archipelago Sid experience (3 full games and a half-dozen games played until the end of the AA), I have found the best start, in a food-rich environment, with a non-industrious tribe is a worker followed by a granary. Like you said, if you share an island, you're dead anyways, so no need for any early military. I have usually built my exploring warrior from the second town, as the first few sites are generally revealled without exploration. And I have not found a dire neet to trade in the early going because the Great Library is easy enough to procure. Are you planning on going that route?

This appears to be a great map, as the Egyptians and Japanese will beat each other up, allowing you to swoop in and grab their cities with ease, once their offensive units are spent.

Looks like you've assembled a great team. Best of luck to you. I'll be cheering for you.

Interesting idea speaker. I hadn't thought of hiding in the same way as AW. We have until MM to get a military up. I wanted to at least get a few of the early techs through trading in case we don't get the GL and to have some important things that I don't want to wait for like IW, HBR, Mas, Pot. Early currgah was to get out while starting techs were still tradable. Close civs will find us soon enough anyway. Distant civs will not be able to mount too much against us. We will be reachable long before the GL and if we hide we will be way behind in tech on Sid. Anyway that was my thinking.

Fair enough. I suppose that an early declaration will give you war happiness which will offset any lack of luxuries, and you won't see more than a half dozen units or so. I have not seen galley production to be a high priority for the Sid AI, and your most immediate threats (neighbors) will have more important matters to deal with than you.

The SE red dot needs to go 1 W IMO.

It would share 2 tiles with the capital instead of 1, but that extra shared tile would be a 2.1.2 tile, providing desirable early production.

I got it, I will play later today.

I would be willing to join if you'd let me. I'm an ok player (Emperor/Deity) but I'm looking for a challenging game. Btw, what's your goal, military victory or Space (since culture & diplo will be out).

Edit: Nevermind, this is on 1.22.

Looking this over I'm starting to get a bit worried about our chances :( . We have three civs so far that can reach us and each other. Egypt and Japan are just across the Straits of Doom which will almost be like having them on the same continent once MM comes in. Their proximity to each other will mean the Tech pace will be fast. Not good for us; hopefully they fight each other early to a long and bloody stalemate. If they dog pile us I don't think we will be able to hold out. I've tried these map settings as AWS and it's been a disaster with this many civs this close. One civ can be held off, three can't. Any ideas on how to hold off demands, establish embassies?, empty the treasury?, GPT deals? Anyway, I suggest we don't expand too fast without focusing on military.

Don't worry, the AI is pretty lame at invading other continents and islands.

I only played 10 turns due to time constraints, sorry.

Turn 0: Nothing to report.

IBT: Nothing new.

Turn 1: I notice new coastal waters near Mongols. I decided to wait until next turn to attempt a suicide curragh until I realized I would be able to reach it because we are seafaring (stupid me).

IBT: Mongols start Colossus.

Turn 2: Worker finishes roading cattle, I start building a mine on the cattle. Curragh travels across some time of strait to a new landmass (might be connected to Mongol landmass, though).

IBT: Due to my stupidity, I forgot to check Trondheim the turn before for happiness, so it slips into civil disorder (sorry).

Turn 3: I raise luxury slider to 40%. Curragh finds black borders, to far to contact them yet.

IBT: Nothing new.

Turn 4: Black borders turn out to be the Zulu. I contact them. They have no techs on us but we have 3 techs on them. Egypt is now up mysticism.

IBT: Zulus ask us to leave their territory, I agree.

Turn 5: Nothing new.

IBT: Egyptians start The Oracle.

Turn 6: Granary in 2 turns, growth in 1.

IBT: Nothing new.

Turn 7: Raised luxury slider to 50% due to growth. We really need MP.

IBT: Trondheim granary -> settler. Bergen curragh -> warrior.

Turn 8: Worker finishes mining cow and is sent to adjacent BG. Spot blue border with curragh.

IBT: Nothing new.

Turn 9: Contact America, we are ahead in tech (they have nothing on us). Worker begins mining BG. I make a string of trades:

I traded Zululand alphabet and ceremonial berial for horseback riding and 10 gold.
I traded Japan horseback riding for writing and 13 gold.
I traded Egypt horseback riding and 21 gold for mysticism.

Mongols have iron working but won't trade. The problem is that they don't have alphabet yet so I can't give them writing as part of the trade unless I gift it to them. Our chances of getting iron are low because right now (we still haven't explored the whole island), we only have 2 mountains and a hill on our island. Instead of alphabet, I gifted them ceremonial berial so I could possibly trade mysticism, but they wouldn't bite. I offered them alphabet, HBR, mysticism, 104 gold and 1 gpt (with science at 0%) for iron working and they didn't accept it (mistake on my part for gifting them ceremonial berial). I start research on philosophy at 10% (that's what we can afford) for 50 turns.

IBT: Egyptians start Colossus.

Turn 10: Capital grows in 1 turn and settler is completed in 2 turns. Warrior discovers our island isn't as big as we thought. A part of it looks to be broken off.

Here's a screenie of our island:

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

And the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-2550BC.SAV).

Good job on the trading and contact homeyg :goodjob: . no biggie on the capitol riot but if we are going to win this we are going to have to play pretty carefully ;) . I hope we can extensively mm the cities early, at least until we get established. Also, I think we have 0 chance of getting Philo first on Sid @ 50 turn research. Aggie I would recommend you switch to Lit. right away. We are only 1 turn into Philo so again not too bad. Finally, I would get barracks/military going immediately in new cities. I probably shouldn't have started a 2nd currgah but rax.
Aggie take 10-20 whatever you like. We can do 10-20 for the whole first round and then 10.

Roster

Mark
Homeyg----> Just played
Aggie-----> UP
anarres-----> On Deck
akots
open

Got it... for tomorrow.

Also, I think we have 0 chance of getting Philo first on Sid @ 50 turn research.

If we could put some MP on Trondheim, we could lower the luxury slider and could research faster. After that settler is built, I recommend building some kind of unit to keep on the capital.

Going for literature may not be such a bad idea but it might be tough to get the GL. We don't have any sort of prebuild started yet...

The SE red dot needs to go 1 W IMO.

It would share 2 tiles with the capital instead of 1, but that extra shared tile would be a 2.1.2 tile, providing desirable early production.

Wouldn't it share 6 tiles with the capital? Instead of 2 now? I like a decision on the spot SE of the capital, because I now have a settler ready for it...

Sorry, I meant the dot on the tundra in the SE, and it would share 2 tiles with Bergen instead of 1. :)

Good :) That's a relief!

IHT: I switch to Literature, because this looks to be the best bet for a min science run. I MM Trondheim to get more gold and still have a settler in 2. Luxury can now go to 40%. We still can't buy IW from the Mongols, even with 4 gpt, two techs and 104 gold.

Turn 1 (2510 BC) At size 6 luxury has to go up to 50% again. Egypt and the Zulu have IW, so it will be cheaper to buy from the Mongols. Alpha and Myst gives us IW from the Mongols. We have iron on the mountain N of the capital [dance]

IT: Trondheim: settler->settler.

Turn 2 (2470 AD) Lux to 40%. Settler goes to spot north of horse.

IT: Bergen: warrior->worker.

Turn 3 (2430 BC) Bergen's warrior goes to the capital. For MP.

Turn 4 (2390 BC) :sleep:

IT: The Mongols complete the Colossus.

Turn 5 (2350 BC) Copenhagen founded. Starts with barracks.

IT: Trondheim: settler->settler.

Turn 6 (2310 BC) Lux can go to 30%. A settler goes SE of Trondheim. A curragh goes on a suicide run to the east.

IT: The curragh sinks :(

Turn 7 (2270 BC) Lux goes to 40%. Trondheim is size 5.

Turn 8 (2230 BC) Reijkjavik founded, starting with a warrior. The curragh that's left sees pink borders. With growth and a settler next turn I can emphasize the captial on more gold and lux tax goes down a notch again.
Egypt has Philosophy AND Map Making. They are the only one with a tech over us.

IT: Trondheim: settler->settler.

Turn 9 (2190 BC) Settler goes north. We meet Arabia. A backward nations with only 39 gold. I'm not going to gift them a tech like Alphabet for this amount. Size four Trondheim can handle 20% lux tax.

IT: Japan finishes the Pyramids.

Turn 10 (2150 BC) Bergen alone (size 3) would need 50% lux tax, so I hire a scientist there and lower science tax to 0%.

Turn 11 (2110 BC) Size 5 Trondheim needs 30% lux tax. Science tax to 10% again, now Bergen is size 2.

Turn 12 (2070 BC) :sleep:

IT: Trondheim: settler->curragh. I think that the capital needs to be bigger to profit more from the unique growth/production potential. Reijkjavik: warrior->worker.

Turn 13 (2030 BC) Lux tax back to 20%. Settler goes south.

Turn 14 (1990 BC) :sleep:

IT: Trondheim: curragh->warrior. We have a 4 turn warrior/settler factory here. Copenhagen: barracks->archer. This can be changed into a fast unit once the horse is connected.

Turn 15 (1950 BC) Oslo founded, starting with a warrior. Lux tax goes to 40%, needed for Trondheim.

I included a picture of our current empire.

Nice expansion Aggie. One worry is that Egypt has Map Making. That means we will be at war in 10 turns or less and we have no military. Sid civ this close can mount a pretty good assalt. This could be trouble. Good luck anarres. I'd go with building warriors in every city and put a colony on the iron when war comes. If we have the $$ for upgrades that is. If not horses.

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie----> Just played
anarres-----> UP
akots-----> On Deck
open

We can build horses as from next turn. And Trondhiem can build a warrior and settler every four turns. We should be allright.

got it, but maybe no time until tomorrow night to play.

I want to let the team know I will be out of town (and without a computer) Wednesday through Sunday. If my turn(s) come up during that time, just skip me. I'll still be here today and tomorrow, though.

homeyg, I suggest you swap with me this turn then, since I can't play until tomorrow at the earliest. :)

@homeyg: keep that warrior/settler factory running! We have plenty of shields and food, so you only have to make sure that we make 5 food per turn after growth or settler build :)

Okay, so I'm up now, right? I'll have the turns posted tomorrow (not leaving till Wednesday)!

OK. current schedule.

Mark
Homeyg ----> UP
Aggie----> Just played
anarres-----> On deck
akots
open

Guys, I'm sorry but you're going to have to skip me (we've been having problems with our internet and I simply don't have the time to play my turns).

Out of curiousity do you have to give the boot orders if a boat enters your coastal waters? I am guessing no since the word soil was used.

In the Defiant Nationalists of China game (RBP7), we treated our borders as the demarcation point of sovereignty, which included giving boot orders to foreign ships.

Oh great! We get to start wars on AI ships that want to piss around in our waters. :lol:

Oh great! We get to start wars on AI ships that want to piss around in our waters.

OK . . . maybe you only have to give boot orders to the ships that have little gold colored patches in the waters around them?

I took the rules from Arathorn's list of variants here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=85350. It does say soil. I play tested it a bit and was doing the boot order for being within our waters but never got the leave or declare war option. Will it give you the leave or declare option for ships in your territory 2 turns in a row? I stopped doing it since it appeared to be a non issue as it never started a war. I’d say we just do it for troops on our land.

Alas it does but not sure of how it works in 1.22 patch. In vanilla, it depended on how long the boat was present and how close it was to a city and did not depend on whether it is transporting troops or not IIRC.

Just out of curiosity... is anarres up now?

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie----> Just played
anarres----> UP
akots-----> On deck
open

I am up, I will do my very best to play it tongiht.

My best wasn't enough, this will have to be tomorrow now. :(

No rush there, I can play only on Saturday or late Friday night.

A quick question: If we are in AI waters and get the boot order do we have to say no and declare war?

Hmm. Gutted. I have played several turns but I need an answer before I can continue.

This will have to wait until tomorrow now, sorry. Possibly I can finish it later on in several hours, but it will depend on how drunk I am.

A quick question: If we are in AI waters and get the boot order do we have to say no and declare war?

No. And we don't have to give the boot order for boats in our waters either. :)

1950BC (preturn): Trondheim switch from warrior to barracks. Copenhagen switch from archer to warrior. Oslo warrior -> barracks.

America gets Alpha for 49 gold, Arabia gets Wheel for 48 gold. At 200% trade bonus we have to sell cheap.

1910BC: :sleep:

1870BC: Trondheim builds barracks -> warrior.

AI: Zulu complete the Oracle. Egypt start Great Lighthouse and Mausoleum.

1830BC: Trondheim builds warrior -> warrior. Reijkjavik builds worker -> barracks. Drop lux to 30%.

1790BC: Trondheim builds worker -> warrior (It was growing to size 7).

I build our last city on this island: Stockholm. I actually put it in the original suggested location, not 1 tile W as I suggested. This is because it has a games on forrest (on tundra) that wasn't easily spottable from the pic earlier.

Now Tronheim has expanded culture again and we can use a forrest from the NW island I use one of the cows in Reijkjavik. Trondheim now gets +3 food, but it can grow every 3 if we emphasise production.

I check the governors and every one is set to emphasise food? Can anyone explain that to me?

I set all cities to emphasise production so we get the extra shields when they grow.

1750BC: Trondheim builds warrior -> warrior. Copenhagen builds warrior -> warrior.

****. Looks like I jumped the gun with the American trade earlier. I now buy Poly from them for Writing, HBR and 183 gold.
Hmm. I could pay 83 gold (with Poly) to get CoL from Egypt, but instead I get Phil and 63 gold from them for Poly.
I get all of America's gold (196) for Philosophy.
The Zulu give us Map Making, 54 gold and 1 gpt for Poly.

We are totally up in tech (or ahead), with only CoL known by Egypt. I could have bankrupted us to get it, but there is no point as we have drained the other AIs of their cash.

The bad news is that the Zulu, Egypt and Japan now all have Map Making too. :(

Switch Reijkjavik from Barracks to galley.

AI: America starts Mausoleum.

1725BC: Trondheim builds warrior -> warrior. Copenhagen builds warrior (from chopped forrest) -> warrior.

AI: Japan starts the Great Lighthouse.

1700BC: Trondheim builds worker -> warrior. Switch Stockholm from Barracks to Harbour.

AI: Egypt completes Mausoleum and the Great Lighthouse!

1675BC: Trondheim builds warrior -> worker.

AI: America starts ToA.

1650BC: Trondheim builds worker -> settler.

1625BC: :sleep:

Summary:

We need a city on the SE corner (on the horses), and also a couple on the NE island.
Trondheim is back on settler production for this.
2 curraghs are heading towards the unknown to get our last contact.
Egypt still has CoL as a monopoly.
Most other civs are lacking at least 1 tech we have, so a deal could appear for CoL at any time now.
We have 9 warriors atm, enough to hold off an invasion.
We have 6 workers and could do with more, although I would let Trondheim get 3 settlers built first.

MM1 1625BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-1625BC.zip)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1_1625BC_map.jpg

I always make sure that it's emphasise prodcution. I really don't understand it :(

Nice job. tech parity good expansion. I'm surprised we're not @ war yet. Maybe the AI is afraid of our mighty army.
Mark----> on deck
Homeyg
Aggie
anarres----> Just played
akots-----> UP
open

So, what is the plan? Is there anything that I should try to accomplish during the turns. I don't like the placement of few cities but overall the game looks more or less in good shape. IMHO, building a city on tundra adjacent to horses would be better than straight on horses. And we are terribly short on workers.

Please discuss something. I might be playing on Tuesday.

Looking at the date I would say that our worker situation isn't a disaster. We naturally need a few extra, but we needed a bit of a military more. anarres says that we can hold off an invasion. On Sid? With 9 warrriors? We CAN build horses. We can also build archers, which can be upgraded to zerks. I do agree with building the settlers in Trondheim now (as anarres suggests) and the galley in Reijkjavik. We need to be fast to settle on the island NE.

The last city on the island imho would be better SW of the horses, but we then would miss out on the fish after border expansion.

Personally I'd worry about military as opposed to the Island. I'm surprised we are not at war yet. Remember we must turn down all demands. Get our last city down on the home Island but if the AI populates the other island we can probably take their cities. In fact it might be better to let them found and take them out at the first war to help get something out of them in the peace. It will be difficult to take out cities on there home islands until Zerks. I'd go with a few horses and be ready to plop down a colony on the iron and upgrage warriors when war comes. That's my 2cents.

Normally I hate swords, but on an island this small they seem to be a good choice. The extra attack point is great for us, and if we invade anywhere we can land next to a city, so they are actually better than horses. Oh, and of course we can mass upgrade from a 10 shield unit to 30 (war -> sword), instead of a 20 shield unit to 30 (chariot -> horse).

Regarding the NE island: We can get 2 or 3 galleys between them and then ship enough units to stop a single turn landing from the AI. I would definitely try to colonise it before the AI.

When Trondheim has built it's settlers it can get 10spt and churn 2 warriors (with +3 food), then get a worker on the third turn with +4 food (getting the forrest on expansion to size 7). This frees a cow for use by Reijkjavik, which it can do with.

I also still prefer to settle on the horses. After a harbour we lose only 1 shield from settling on it, yet we can gain that back and more from using the fish and a forrest tile. Also in the long run it is much better for us to settle on the horse as it allows the city to grow more. Please can we discuss this before any decision is taken.

I'm back, guys. I've got 3 SGs to catch up on, so I won't say much...

Any chance I can play? My email is keenan2k2@hotmail.com

I can beat this game on diety. The furthest I have made it on SID is to the MODERN ERA and a computer won the space race.

EDIT: Why don't you guys take that WINE Lux? If the computer's city is only at 100-999 you can put a warrior on the lux, pillage the ground, plop a city and mass all of your defenders in the city. Wait a good 20 turns and make peace. I guarentee that this game won't last long when you have no lux's. You will be paying heavy to keep your cities happy and will continue to fall incredibly far behind in techs.

Foresight, welcome to the SG community you'll find its a lot of fun. I must say I agree with Aggie that your first SG should not be a Sid variant. It's not that I doubt your ability, I've played this game for years but just started SGs also. It's just that it would be nice to get a feel for your style of play and consistency of interest first. My goal in starting SGs was to get into a difficult Sid game but I joined a couple others first just to get a bit of a record (you'll see I have a very low number of posts so people accept you very quickly and some very good players joined my first SG). I wouldn't discount some of the variants, I find a lot of them quite fun and most people here play by a self-imposed set of restrictions on exploitive techniques anyway that can be found here http://www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/etactics.html. Anyway please stick around and I hope to play with you in the future.

I agree with settling on horse for anarres reasons.

Apart from swords we have to stockpile on archers a but as well. IIRC they can be upgraded to zerks later on. And getting TGL is a must. I'll take a look at the map again and decide where to build the city. May be, on horse is OK as well. Settling the NE island is a priority ATM.

Any progress Akots?

Cannot call this a progress but we are doing more or less OK atm.

Preturn check. Nobody has anything to trade. Egypt has CoL. We need TGL prebuild. The only city which can do it atm is Bergen. Hence, Bergen switched to ToA (ready in 486 turns). :lol:

IBT. Animations are off, so not sure what happened but Zulu ask us to leave their waters. We happily agree. Copenhagen warrior -> archer. Zulu are building SoZ.

[1] 1600BC. Actually, just noticed. We are playing on Sid and have 3 workers improving the same tile. I spilt them in 2 teams. We still have no contact with Xerxes. Wonder where he is. And we have no Embassies. Playing Defiant game, so no Military Alliances. However, we are willing to know what is going on in the world. Defiant does not mean ignorant. Built Embassy with America for 91g. They are building ToA in Washington which would be ready in 18 turns. Washington has 4 spears, archer, and 14 warriors plus granary and temple. Also built Embassy in Kyoto (31g) which has 6 spears, 3 archers and warrior and is building spear. Barracks, granary, and pyramids as well. America has no other contacts but with us. Japan has only contacts with Egypt and us. Embassy in Karakorum costs 77g. The city is building galley (3 turns) and has 6 spears and 1 archer plus Colossus and temple. Mongols are at war with Zulu and at peace with Egypt.
IBT. Some Egyptian and Mongol galleys sail. Trondheim settler-> warrior.

[2] 1575BC. Settler goes to horses. I don’t like the city placement absolutely. There are huge areas which are not used. We don’t have lots of room to expand and wasting these areas might be not a good idea. Traded Phylosophy to Zulu for Mathematics + 31g. It might be a good idea to speed up research towards Literature but we have no decent TGL prebuild. So, I leave it like it is now.
IBT. Trondheim warrior -> settler.

[3] 1550BC. Warrior goes to Stockholm which is building harbor and is undefended.
IBT. Mongols come and ask for alliance against Zulu. Since we are defiant, the deal cannot be accepted. We send the Great Khan away.
IBT. Oslo rax->archer.

[4-5] Not much. Trondheim settler->warrior, Reijkjavik galley ->galley.

[6] 1475BC. Birka founded on horses building temple. Settler/warrior combo loaded on galley and sail towards the eastern island. Mongols have CoL as well. Traded Math and Poly to Mongols for CoL + 35g.
IBT. Trondheim warrior -> settler.

[7] 1450BC. Settler/warrior unloaded.
IBT. Japan declared to Egypt.

[8] 1425BC. Aarhus founded. Building temple or harbor.

[9] 1400BC. IBT. Trondheim settler -> warrior.

[10] 1375BC. Settler/warrior loaded onto galley and ready to unload on the island next turn. Did not check diplo screen. Good luck!

The workers were on the same tile because they finished jobs at the same time, and to mine 3 tiles individually would mean that in 6 turns we got 3 extra shields. To all mine the same tile we get an extra shield in 2 turns, then a second extra in 4 turns and a third in 6 turns.

It just makes sense to group workers on roads when they can complete an action without wasting worker-turns as you always get improvements earlier.

Mark----> UP
Homeyg ----> On Deck
Aggie
anarres
akots----> Just played
open

Got it will play tomorrow.

1350 Cop Arch->horse, Trond war->worker
1325 found stavanger start worker
1300 Trond worker->warrior
1275 zzz
1250 America builds ToA Trond warr->worker
1225 Zulu build SoZ, lost suicide curgah
1200 trond worker->archer
1175 Find Persia. They are isolated and down 4 techs.
1150 zzz

This is going amazingly well. I really can’t believe it. Not a single tech advance by any civ during my turns on Sid! Japs and Egypt are still beating each other up. Japs took Heliopolis which is good because Egypt is bigger. No AI demands yet. In test games I always had demands by now. There is a big Island that we should try to grab near the Persians. It will be crappy and corrupt but better than trying to take it later. I think we almost have enough military to defend any attacks with the upgrade to swords. Only disadvantage is no lux (America has 3 on their island).

Seafaring has got to be one of the strongest traits on Sid. It's all about contact!

One thing I don't understand: Your capital is distance 4 from Kyoto? :confused:
Can't remember to ever have seen something below the minimal distance, except for those buggy maps where some Civs start adjacent...

I've seen maps under the minimum distance before. OT: Isn't that really distance 5? (3x1.5+1, rounded down).

Mark: do we have a settler on the way to the NE island for our last city? Also, why is Bergen pre-building Palace?

We haven't got settlers and no settler is being beuilt. That island in the NE isn't that small and has intresting terrain (marsh, desert, hills, mountains). This could mean oil, saltpeter, etc... I think that we should build more than one city there.

EDIT: Persia is living close to that island and can land settlers there already.

Mark
Homeyg ----> UP
Aggie----> On Deck
anarres
akots
open

From what I can see Persia cannot reach the Island since there are 3 ocean/sea squares seperating them. Egypt should be the only one with the GLH. The palace is a GL prebuild. We may not need it but I still think we should try to get it. I agree with Aggie that we should try to grab as much of the new island as possible. We have no settlers at the moment. Maybe switch Trond to settlers.

I got it, however I won't be able to play until tomorrow.

Sorry for the wait; I'll have them posted sometime today.

Please skip me, I'm having some computer troubles at the moment. Sorry.

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie----> UP
anarres----> On Deck
akots
open

I probably won't be able to play today. But tomorrow should be ok.

IHT: The Zulu are up Construction, but the rest of the AI is backward or level. Reijkjavik switched to harbor.

IT: Trondheim: archer->settler. Copenhagen: horseman->settler.

Turn 1 (1125 BC) The Persians CAN land on the island we talked about...

IT: Oslo: horse->harbor.

Turn 2 (1100 BC) Nothing much.

IT: Japan asks us to join the war vs Egypt. I say no. America lands a spear and warrior on our 2nd island, one tile north of Aarhus!! This is where it starts...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-1075BCamaericaninvasion.jpg

Turn 3 (1075 BC) I demand the Americans to leave, but they declare WAR. I ship a horse and an archer and sail to Aarhus. Vet horse vs reg spear: 1-3. Horse retreats. I decide to await an attack now.
Egypt learned Monarchy.

IT: American reg warrior redlines our vet warrior, but is killed. Trondheim: settler->harbor.

Turn 4 (1050 BC) Vet archer vs 2 HP spear: 2-2, spear killed. We can lower the lux tax to 10% due to war hapiness. Temple in birka whipped.
Forest near Trondheim chopped.

IT: Copenhagen: settler->harbor. Stockholm: harbor->courthouse. Birka: temple->courthouse. Egypt starts HG.

Turn 5 (1025 BC) Settler and horse go to the 3rd island in a galley.

IT: We discover Literature and I start Republic at min science. Reijkjavik: harbor->archer.

Turn 6 (1000 BC) I upgrade a curragh in Reijkjavik for 45 gold. Settler and archer move to Reijkjavik to start the journey to the 3rd island.
Bergen swapped to TGL. It still needs 60 turns to complete. Lux tax to 20%, for Trondheim.

IT: Trondheim: harbor->settler. Iron connected.

Turn 7 (975 BC) We can trade ivroy for horses with the Zulu. But the trade route would go through the coastal tiles of a few other civs. So no deal :(
The settler and horse on the first galley land on the 3rd island.

IT: Egypt demands horses and I refuse. Egypt declares war.I am happy that I didn't make that lux for horse deal with the Zulu. That trade route is now gone. Reijkjavik: archer->archer.

Turn 8 (950 BC) Odense founded on the 3rd island. Starts with a worker. Size 7 trondhiem doesn't require more hapiness tax.

IT: We get the FP message.

Turn 9 (925 BC) :sleep:

IT: Trondhiem: settler->settler.

Turn 10 (900 BC) Lux tax to 0%. Our 2nd galley has a settler and archer that can be dropped on the 3rd island. Monarchy and Construction are known by a few civs.

The 3rd island:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-900BC3rdisland.jpg

Good Job Aggie. Well it has begun, I think we are in a pretty good position to defend the 2 homefront Islands. Distant Island may be more difficult. Good move on not trading :goodjob: . I think that we should avoid all trades that could trash our rep until ocean routes are available. Experience shows how easy it is to trash your rep with these kinds of deal and especially in defiant mode. We should be able to trade with Egypt and Japan IIRC.

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie
anarres----> UP
akots----> On Deck
open

Got it, I can play tomorrow.

Any advice for the wars? :D

Purely defensive I would say. No :hammer: until Zerks. Then I'd say we take out at least Japs and Egypt. We should probably get some pults and try to keep our kill ratio high to get something out of the peace.

I'm playing atm.

Mark - do you want a third city on the second island? Stavenger is badly placed if we don't expect a third city...

We could but I would not make it a high priority.

preturn: Some MM is done to Aarhus and Stavenger so that Aarhus gets 3 shields and can complete the harbour in 3 turns. It only has to sacrifice 1 food per turn to do this.

Hmm. I know the AI is stupid, but is it stupid enough not to attack and capture our workers on the coast? I am not sure, so I back up our workers with warriors.

AI: America wants peace but at a price, I tell him to jump off a cliff.

Egypt is building the Hanging Gardens.

875BC (turn 1): Oslo builds Harbour -> archer.

Lux goes up to 10% for Bergen, and it switches to forrest to get 7 shields per turn. There is absolutely no way we will build TGL IMHO - it is still 39 turns away. :(

AI: 4 American Galleys appear on the N of our main island. Next turn they can land on our second island.

America completes hanging gardens and starts the great wall.

850BC (turn 2): Reijkjavik builds archer -> archer.

I upgrade 9 warriors for 540 gold.

825BC (turn 3): Trondheim builds settler -> archer.
Copenhagen builds harbour -> archer.
Aarhus builds harbour -> galley.
Stavenger builds worker -> worker.

Found Hareid on the third island. I ****ed this one up a bit - it should have been founded last turn but I disembarked on the wrong tile...

Another warrior gets upgraded, only 6 warriors are left now.

AI: America lands 8 units (4 spears, 3 wars and 1 archer) on our second island.
Persia land a settler/archer combo on our third island. I think we are going to have to share this one...

800BC (turn 4): Trondheim builds archer -> archer.
Oslo builds archer -> sword (it can't build archer since a forrest is going to be chopped).

2 more warriors get upgraded. Stavenger is reinforced - I think our chances are about 50/50 of holding it. :(

AI: Zulu complete the Great Wall. America attacks Stavenger: they kill 1 warrior, but lose 2 themselves.

Another couple of American spears land next to Aarhus which is now undefended. Fortunately there is a Galley there.

775BC (turn 5): The Galley manages to transport 3 units to Aarhus by moving 1 tile, sending units on to it from the coast, moving back to Aarhus, unloading and then repeating. Of course all the units are without movement, but they are in the city ready to defend.

I manage to kill 2 American spears on the second island, but we are looking very shaky. America has gone from "insulted" to "I doubt it" for peace.

I hit enter again and prey...

AI: America shuffles it's units about our second island but there are no attacks.
Japan and Egypt sign peace treaty.
Holy ****. Persia lands 3 archers and a horse next to an undefended city on the third island. [mad]

750BC (turn 6): I demand Persia leave and they declare war.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1_750BC.jpg

First our Archer next to Samaria attacks and wins! Oh well. Perisa will damage us, but at least we have damaged them too.

Now I take out 3 American spears on our second island, but we lose a horse and sword doing so. :(

Copenhagen changes from archer to sword, the shields just fell that way (it is 1 more turn to get a sword than an archer).

Egypt will take straight peace, and since they have a galley visible and in range I take it.

To stop Persia taking Odense I decide to gift it. Arabia is the weakest civ and across the other side of the world so I establish an embassay (105 gold) to check they are not at war with Persia. From F4 it appears they don't even know Persia yet so I gift it to them.

Arabia:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1_750BC-2.jpg

AI: American galleys sail away apart from 1 new one that is presumably on route to deliver 2 more units.
Persia moves towards Hareid.

730BC (turn 7): Trondheim builds archer -> worker.
Haried is now given to Arabia as well. These cities will be easy to take back whenever we want.
The 2 remaining American units are fortified on our second island, 2 tiles from Stavenger. To un-fortify them I move all our military there next to them, leaving Stavenger undefended.

AI: The stoopid Americans take the bait and unfortify and move towards Stavenger.
Mongols want MA against the Zulu and an RoP, I decline.

710BC (turn 8): Trondheim builds worker -> archer.
Copenhagen builds sword -> archer.

Our stack of 2 swords and 2 archers cut the Americans to pieces, and there was even 2 more units in Aarhis in case they failed.

I sell Code of Laws to Japan for 70 gold. I know this is cheap, but I get the feeling that soon we would lose the chance. I have already held off for quite a while.

690BC (turn 9): Reijkjavik builds archer -> archer.

There is a tough call for the archer/horse combe we have on the third island:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1_690BC.jpg

Unfortunately the galley to get them home is about 4 turns away. They can run to the NE edge of the island but they will be caught before help arrives. They could be disbanded to avoid giving Persia the WWP, but that is too much of a waste of shields. After all, we have destroyed a Persian city, and made sure they start the turn in our territory, so I don't think 2WWP from losing 2 units in neutral ground will do too much harm.

I decide to stand and fight. Already the archer has been drawn from the Persian stack, and we have just the 3 horses, so we may still come out of this alive.

AI: ************WankBollcoks! The Zulu demand Literature. I say no and... ...they declare war.
Just to rub salt in the wounds the Persian horses take our 2 units for no loss. I guess hindsight and all that.

670BC (turn 10): Trondheim builds archer -> worker.
Oslo builds sword -> galley.

Molde is founded on our second island. It's very cramped in there!


Summary: We seem to be in a bit of a tight spot....

* America still wants cash for peace, but that is of minor importance (unless they invade with 8 units again!).

* The third island is temporarily gone, although we can take it back with relative ease (and a couple of new settlers, since I doubt the cities there will ever grow).

* Our unit support is slowly but surely becoming an issue. ATM we have 42 units with 40 allowed, costing us 2gpt. This can only rise however until we get more cities.

* 10 archers and 14 swords is woefully inadequate to stage ANY kind of invasion of the island to our NW. Not even a city will fall IMO (just check the pic of the Arabian capital!!!)

* To back up our TGL plan (which I was scathing of earler) no-one else has Literature yet. Only Japan and the Arabs are still in the ancient age with us. Well, I am still sceptical, but I want to believe. [;)] This is a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak and desolate world.

* Bergen (TGL build) has 30 turns to go at 7 shields per turn (plus 3 corrupted). There is a cleared forrest tile that is currently being mined (BG), and when that is done we can get to 8 shields per turn. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, AND MUST NOT BE MISSED OR FORGOTTEN!!! Sorry to caps that, but it really is of utmost importance, since it will save us about 4 turns from the build.

* Republic is in 36 turns. If TGL fails I guess this is our backup.

* MM is VERY tight atm. I know this is preaching to the choir, but I am spending about 20 mins a turn just making sure our 10 cities are making the best use of food/shields/commerce. On Sid we can't **** around, and even 1 city riot or a couple of missed shileds ever couple of turns could make the difference.


>>> MM1 670BC <<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-670BC.zip)

Edit: I just noticed all my swearing ****'d out. I guess I forget about the sensitivites of CFC, but I can't be ****ed to change it now. :p

Maybe it was too optimistic to settle on a 3rd island in a game that can turn in an always war.

Surely you were. We would have been better off using whatever little space we got on the home island by tight city placement. It looks rather hopeless atm. Any suggestions?

IMO, just build more cities. Then, really try to get TGL moving. And make peace ASAP. Defiant is a very tough on higher levels.

Surely you were. I don't mind taking the blame, but I did settle there after a discussion and saw no objections posted in this thread...

Well, there is no blame IMO. We are (after all) playing this as a team. There are however more areas we have not played optimally on including city placement, where we have missed out on a few more cities.

Personally I think we are doing ok, even if I did sound pessimistic in my report.

Our short term goal is to get TGL if we can. I think it's fair to say that if we don't get it now then we are in deep trouble. Apart from that we need to build our army ready for invasion. When (if) we get to beserks, as long as we acutally still have some cash left we are fine. Even if we don't have cash for upgrades we can send in the swords first to lower our army costs, we should still be OK.

Wow 8 units in 1 landing. Is the AI learning how to play :lol: . I don't think it sounds too bad. The third island would be nice but not critical. As long as we can defend our core 2 islands we should be OK. The GL is maybe a bit more important and we should put more effort into securing it. Worker merge to size 12 and max shields in that city. we should also get more arty going IMO once the crisis subsides. Once we have stacks of pults/trebs we should be OK on defence.

Instead of each catapult I would prefer an archer. After all, they upgrade to Zerks!

... Personally I think we are doing ok, even if I did sound pessimistic in my report. ...

Surely, I can understand you. It looks very scary atm. And there is certainly nobody to blame. IMO, being optimistic is a great feature of a defiant Sid player... ( :lol: ) which I'm obviously lacking...

I'll try to do whatever possible to survive and build TGL. Cats might be absolutely useless on Sid if the AI decides to go really hard on us and there is lots of warfare. We need them in huge numbers and they would substantially add to the military upkeep cost. Their build up makes sense if there is a hope of surviving to atrillery which is the first decent bombarding unit. I'd prefer archers kept away from the frontline to accumulate and swords for active counterstrikes. Archers also have some defensive bombard that may be handy sometimes. Will play tomorrow or on Tuesday. Please post your suggestions...

I could go either way pults or archers because of the upgrade but I slightly still prefer pults. The archer only gives you the shot on defense and I hate to leave troops attacking cities. I think it increases WW and the defensive units still have to be cleared anyway or they will pillage so if you want to increase your % you will still need pults. I don't think we win before arty so they will upgrade.

Preturn check. First, there are 3 additional city sites on our home island. I’m going to try to settle these. Second, Trondheim had a scientist. IMO, we better have scientist in some other city (Mulde for now since it is growing slowly anyhow). Settler goes to the northern tip of our continent. Nobody knows Literature yet.

Press Enter. Japanese and American galleys sail around. Trondheim worker -> settler, Copenhagen archer -> archer.

[1] 650BC. Alesund founded, building harbor atm. Trondheim has to build another worker to get on track for settler production. Workers spreading out from Aarhus. Worker joined to Bergen and TGL is due in 26 turns. There might be a room for another worker there but the luxuries would have been adjusted to 20% then.
IBT. Mongols and America allied against us. There was nothing to be done about it. Trondheim worker -> settler, Reykjavik archer -> sword at 5 turns and 6 spt.

[2] 630BC. Joined another worker, TGL ready in 22 turns. War happiness helps to keep the balance.
IBT. Galleys sail but mostly Japanese. Stavanger harbor->cat. Americans building TGL!! Washington is size 12 city!! Most of the plains around it are irrigated but looks like they would build TGL in about 10-12 turns. We are not going to make it.

[3] 610BC. TGL is 19 turns away from us due to another worker joined to Bergen. Persia demands Lit for peace. Zulu and Mongol do not want to talk yet. America is insulted by straight peace offer.
IBT. Copenhagen archer ->archer.

[4] 590BC. Japan has Monarchy. We cannot afford it though. Can trade Currency from Egypt for horses+26gpt+279g. Wonder if this would be enough to buy Monarchy. Anyhow, even if we revolt, there is no way to build TGL faster than America. Not my fault here.
IBT. Trondheim settler -> settler.

[5] 570BC. Just workers working. IBT. Mongols joined TGL-builder club.
[6] 550BC. Workers sail back to main continent from Aarhus. IBT. Copenhagen archer ->archer, Reykjavik sword -> sword, Oslo galley -> galley, Aarhus galley -> courthouse. Egypt building TGL.
[7] 530BC. Galley from Oslo kills American galley. America needs 120g for peace. IBT. Trondheim settler -> sword.

[8] 510BC. Bergen hits pop 10 and TGL is ready in 13 turns. IBT. Persian galley sails around. Birka Courthouse -> harbor. We get extension to the Palace because our people love us. Heh, there would be a very expensive Forbidden Palace in Bergen apparently.

[9] 490BC. Nothing much, all quiet.

[10] 470BC. Zulu ready to talk peace. We make straight peace because purchase of Currency would be too expensive and this peace is not worth much. Luxuries increased to 30% and income dropped from 31 gpt to 22 gpt. TGL ready in 12 turns. IBT. American galley attacks our glorious galley and dies. However, Persian galley unloads archer/spear combo and sinks our heroic galley. Vet sword redlines but kills Persian spear. Elite sword finishes Persian archer.

There are some possibilities for transfer but they are very expensive. Really, don’t know what to do. May be worth a shot but not sure. We had a chance with TGL but without it the game might be lost. Don’t know why no effort has been put in TGL prebuild. It is still 11 turns away. Guess, we’ll still have to struggle for a while. The score is not that bad, slightly lower than Japan and Arabs.

Wow so much pessimism. I think we're doing fine. Check out some other Sid games, they're not easy. Not getting the GL will be a setback but at least we're in the trading game. Once we get to Republic, with markets, we will be in the running. Change Copenhagen to catapult hit enter.

450 Trondheim sword -> pult.

430 America signs up Egypt against us. Persia lands warrior and spear near Aarhus. Vet sword beats spear loses 3HP. Elite archer takes warrior loses 4 HP no leader.

410: America completes great library starts Sun Tzu's. :sad: Switch Bergen to forbidden palace lose 121 shields. Persia will take straight up peace. I'll wait, the the war happiness is useful and they lack iron so no immortals.

390 Bergen forbidden -> harbor.

370 zzz

350 America lands 2 horses at Oslo. Both taken losing one archer. I should've covered the last landing spot up their which is now done.

330 Bergen Harbor -> temple Birka Harbor -> pult. Egypt lands one sword at Bodo. Bombard to one HP and take out with sword. (I've been building catapults).

310 zzz

290 zzz

270 Egypt lands 2 swords near Bodo. America lands archer spear pair. Bombard and take out 2 swords with no losses. However, I lose three swords, an archer and a horse taking out the American troops :cry: , 2 losses against a 1 HP spear :mad: . This was bad RNG luck but it indicates IMO a need for catapults.

Well this was not a very good set of turns and we did not have much RNG luck. We can buy currency but I was waiting for Japan to get either currency or construction for a 2-fer. I think we need to build up a good number of catapults and set a landing site trap (i.e. empty city) probably on the north part of the island. I was doing this with Egyptians at Bodo where we have 4 pults but the Americans haven't seemed to notice. We can certainly not afford to take the kind of losses that I took this turn. Also, the Americans and probably Egyptians will soon be landing pikes. Haven't seen anything from the Mongols. Persia will take straight up peace but they're not much of a threat and the war happiness is allowing us to run 10% lux. Hopefully we can make peace with others once there MA runs out. I would say the goal now is to first survive, get a currency construction 2-fer, get peace, get to Republic. Again as far as survival I would say we need to control where the troops land and build up a good set of catapults to reduce our losses. That is, for the moment we should play this just like AW. I'm not sure what the reluctance to catapults is. The archers IMO are useless and are just sitting around waiting to upgrade at a very high cost to zerks. I don't think we can wait for troops that land to attack us to get the archers 1 bombard. If we do the pikes and spears will just pillage us into the Stone Age. Will post save tonight.

I got it, I'll have to play tomorrow.

That's good homeyg. I like to see us discuss a couple of things first :) Mark1031 is right. I've seen more hopeless SID SG's lately.

Also, I haven't posted it yet. I'm at work but will post in 6 hours.

My bad, I usually wait to pick up the save until I'm actually ready to play! :lol:

Hmm. Without TGL I presume we will start stealing techs?

Yes I would say a combination of steals, trades and outright purchases, no research at least for at the foreseeable future. Expensive techs like feudalism are definite steal material. Once we get Zerks I would go for Japan as that territory is very close to our capital and we can get some very nice cities going there. We may also want to take Egypt out of the running at the same time if that's possible so that we don't share the island. If the tech pace gets going too fast we could switch to an AW footing with pillaging armies on the leaders until we can catch up, or just wipe out a few of their biggest cities with Zerk assaults. Our biggest advantage will be the sea assault capability of Zerks and only having to defend against sea landings on the home front.

After reading Arathorn's Sid AW game armies seem to be very powerful for pillaging, although I've never found the need to before.

IMHO, the game plan was to build TGL, save cash acquiring techs meanwhile, upgrade a bunch of archers, and go rampaging and leader hunting over coastal cities. It could have been worked and very nicely indeed. Now it would be rather tough considering the defiant flavor. Setting a trap indeed would be nice. However, mass upgrade of archers would be hardly possible.

Also, I should have stopped building TGL in Bergen as soon as America started it. The only hope was that they somehow would stop building it but they did not.

My point is that SG must have a good plan. Even decent players who micromanage a lot but fail to stick to a plan can defeated on Sid. Even if they don't fail, the game is not of great interest. It can be dramatic and interesting to read but it lacks ... thought ... turning into a sequence of turns.

Let's try to discuss a plan. Cats or archers, upgrade or not, attacks or defend, etc.

Yes I agree we had a reasonable plan that was thwarted in the middle of your turn akots, no ones fault there. I suppose we could have managed the GL attempt better but I’d have to go back and see how. I think we all agreed with the various moves that were made, at least I did. I was mostly neutral on the archer/pult issue but I just got disgusted losing 2 swords to a 1HP spear and that frustration made me reassess the value of pults in hindsight (always 20/20). Anyway, I’ve laid out my view of priorities and I guess we should all weigh in and come to a consensus on a new course.

I like to see us being relatively passive until berzerks. Once we are able to build them we can start hurting the AI by taking out non-core cities, hoping for a leader. When we get this leader we can make a pike or musket army to pillage the lands of our opponents(s). I think that in general we would do well with this tactic. Pillage the AI to cripple them and use the berzeks to soften them up and pointy stick.

Turns:

Turn 0: zzzz

IBT: Egypt tries to contact us. I tell them to go away. This is turning into a dogpile (as if it already isn't)! Americans and Zulu sign military alliance against us. Americans land a horse and a sword near Aarhus. Trondhiem: sword -> catapult. Copenhagen: sword -> catapult. Zulu begin Sun Tzu's. Americans begin Sistine.

Turn 1: I get rid of the new American troops with catapults and swords, not getting a leader or suffering any casualties. Our land is clear of invaders. No trades available.

IBT: Reijkjavik: sword -> catapult. Birka: catapult -> catapult. Damnit! Stavanger riots.

Turn 2: I raise luxury to 30%. Nothing much else.

IBT: WLTKD in Trondheim. Our palace can be expanded. Egypt starts Sun Tzu's.

Turn 3: zzzz

IBT: Egypt lands warrior near Bodo. Trondheim: catapult -> sword. Bergen: temple -> barracks. Bodo starves.

Turn 4: I easily destroy Egyptian warrior with nearby catapults and swords. No casualties. Just some other worker movements.

IBT: Copenhagen: catapult -> catapult. Reijkjavik: catapult -> sword. Stockholm: catapult -> catapult. America starts Knights Templar.

Turn 5: Just some unit movements.

IBT: Mongols land an archer near Trondheim. Bergen: barracks -> sword. Birka: catapult -> sword.

Turn 6: I take out Mongol archer with an elite sword. It's time to make peace with some of these people. We need to catch up in tech. Sign peace with America for 140 gold. I buy Construction from them for 888 gold and 11 gpt. We don't have enough gpt and gold to buy currency. Hopefully someone who is still in the ancient age will discover currency so we can trade. I went to the military advisor, and our military is weak against everyone except the Egyptians and the Mongols, who we are strong against!

IBT: Aarhus: courthouse -> sword. Bodo: harbor -> temple.

Turn 7: zzzz

IBT: Trondheim: sword -> galley.

Turn 8: Change Reijkjavik from building sword to building and aqueduct.

IBT: WLTKD in Trondheim ends. Copenhagen: catapult -> catapult. Oslo: temple -> courthouse. Japanese galley approaches our 3 city island.

Turn 9: zzzz

IBT: Bergen: sword -> sword. Zulu start Knights Templar. Mongols start Knights Templar.

Turn 10: zzzz

Well, I built up the military (especially the catapults) a bit. There weren't any fierce invasions. We should just continue what we were doing and try to get into the Middle Ages as quick as possible. We are getting farther and farther behind.

homeyg, you made peace with America while paying cash. That is NOT allowed in a defiant game! We can make straight peace with the Mongols and Egypt...

EDIT: I don't think we are that far behind. I am up I believe but like to know if I should make peace with the weak Mongols and Egyptians...

I see our lux tax at 30% while 0% is also ok ??? We are throwing away money!

EDIT2: I'm sorry to be so negative, but we can make deals with Japan! They lack Constrcution but have Republic. I am almost sure that we can also make good deals with the Mongols and Egyptians...

S***! I knew something was fishy about us not making peace with any of those guys! I'm sooooo sorry! I could replay my turns?

Edit: I had it on 30% to stop civil disorder in one of the island cities.

homeyg: An island city can never be good enough to spend 20 gpt...

Yes Homey, why don't you replay essentially the same but no peace except straight up or we get something. We will not be pushed around.

Okay, thanks for giving me a second chance! I'll get my act together and get right on it.

Yes Homey, why don't you replay essentially the same but no peace except straight up or we get something. We will not be pushed around.

I don't know about this Mark1031. I understand that we profitted from this peace treaty, but I'd say that we move on now.

EDIT: you're the boss however ;)

I think you should do everything you did before except the peace eventhough I agree with aggie that some of the moves were :smoke:.

Well, its not that big a deal. Can you replay today homey? otherwise we can move on.

I can't replay today. I all flustered because I'm trying to get ready for this football camp I'm going to and I'm trying to get my sg turns done. I guess it just slipped my mind that we weren't allowed to pay for peace.

I could switch turns with aggie, since he said he was next. Then it wouldn't really be 'reloading' because a different person would be playing it.

Anyway, I apoligize for the inconvenient time for me to lose my mind (j/k). But really, I am sorry.

OK np. Have fun @ football camp. I just noticed you're only 13. Listen to your mother and stop wasting so much time playing civ :lol:

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie----> UP
anarres----> On Deck
akots
open

I got it. Probably for tomorrow, so a discussion would be nice. I want to make peace with the Mongols and the Zulu (not the Egyptians, in contrast to what I said earlier they want money...). I also will see if I can us in the MA with Republic. It looks like I have to play a few anarchy turns...

sounds good but don't forget about war happiness. The mongols haven't sent anything during my turns. The Zulus on the other hand are always a pain with impi. It would be nice to keep a managable trickle of troop landings to leader fish. An army would be very useful for taking out Jap and Egypt when Zerks come in.

homeyg, since you're not going to replay the turns, could you put your turnlog back? :)

IHT: We can get straight peace with the Zulu, but instead I include 33 gpt for Currency.
This allows me to buy The Republic for Currency, Construction and Literature from Japan. I stay at war with the Mongols, for war hapiness.
There are a few trade opportunities (not all AI in the MA have all the techs and a few of them is still backward). But I revolt instead. We naturally draw a terrible 8 turns.

Turn 1 (50 BC) Anarchy.

IT: The Egyptians drop two war chariots and a sword. The Mongols offer peace, but I decline. Egypt start Sistine.

Turn 2 (30 BC) I redline the sword and wound a war chariot with our pults.
-Vet sword kills war chariot
-Vet sword killed by war chariot
-Vet sword kills redlined sword and promotes
-Elite sword kills redlined war chariot

IT: Egypt starts Knights Templar. Mongols start Sistine.

Turn 3 (10 BC) Anarchy.

IT: The Mongols drop two archer. America starts Copernicus.

Turn 4 (10 AD) Catapults bring the archers to one and two HP. Two elite swords don't promote while killing the archers :(

IT: America finishes Sistine.

Turn 5 (30 AD) Anarchy.

IT: America and the Mongols MA vs us. That's the drawback of keeping wars going :( At least we are at war with America again, which we should have been anyway.
The Mongols drop two archers and a warrior. The Mongols start Leo.

Turn 6 (50 AD) All three Mongol units are now 2 HP. One vet swords and two elites kills the troops. No promotions :(

IT: Egypt finishes Knights Templar. America start Leo.

Turn 7 (70 AD) Anarchy.

IT: More tribes start Leo, America also starts Bach. We are a Republic at last [party]

Turn 8 (90 AD) I switch a couple of cities to markets.

IT: Stavanger: courthouse->aquaduct. Mongols finish Sun Tzu.

Turn 9 (110 AD) Nothing much. No money to trade and no units to kill...

IT: :eek: The Egyptians now send a knight to us. An American cavarel comes into view...

Turn 10 (130 AD) Catapults only get the knight to 3 HP's. Elite sword redlined, but kills the knight.

We are at war with America, Egypt, Mongolia and Persia and aren't allowed to make peace. I haven't been in trouble, but also got no leaders. However: Egypt sent their first knight and America comes with a caravel now. We might need to ship catapults from Aarhus to the main island when a major threat comes.

Good Job. Finally we are a Republic and in the MA. To bad about the Americains but we should have still been at war with them anyway. I guess we should try to get peace all around so we can focus on other matters. Is it best to wait until we can get everyone at once so they don't buy each other back in?

Mark
Homeyg
Aggie
anarres----> UP
akots----> On Deck
open

Well, I would take peace when we can. MA's are no certainty and getting them all to sign peace is a gamble. At the moment none of them is willing to sign for straight peace. I'm sure that America ruined their rep while agreeing to break the peace deal with us.

homeyg, since you're not going to replay the turns, could you put your turnlog back? :)

Sorry, just got back from camp. Do you still need me to put my disgraceful turns back? I can't believe I did that! I still feel like a moron for forgetting the variant.

I could still put the turns back, though.

homeyg, we all make mistakes. So don't worry too much about that. And since we decided to continue it is imho important to have the turnlog back :)

Anarres you're up.

Got it! :)

Okay, I'll put the TL back in the reserved post on the 6th page.

Edit: I put the 70 BC save back also.

130AD (preturn): Mostly ok, but why are there 5 fortified workers on the main island when Oslo has +2 food at size 6 (no aqueduct yet), and irrigated plains? Also Aarhus has +2 food at size 6 - it is using a game tile that Stavanger (size 4) could be using to grow twice as fast. I also just found an unimproved tile on the second island, where we have 4 fortified workers! :confused:

I also change several Markets to Aqueducts, getting to size 7 will save us 4gpt in upkeep for each city. Some heavy city management is required.

AI: America and Zulu sign MA against us.
America(?) start Bachs
Egyptians start Leos

150AD (turn 1): zzz

AI: An American caravel and Zulu galley appear.

170AD (turn 2): zzz

AI: America land 3 Knights on the main island.
America completes Leo's.

190AD (turn 3): Thankfully at the start of my turns I started moving all the cats on the main island to a more central location. Now I can use 10 of them on the American knights - we have 1 knight at 3hp and 2 at 2hp.

Vet sword attacks the 3hp knight and dies, taking the knight to 1hp.
Elite sword attacks and kills 2hp knight.
Elite sword attacks and kills 2hp knight.
Vet archer attacks and kills 1hp knight.

AI: Mongols start Bachs

210AD (turn 4): zzz

AI: America is building Mallegans.

230AD (turn 5): zzz

250AD (turn 6): zzz

AI: Japan demands 29 gold, I say no and they back down! groucho
America lands a sword and archer.
The Zulu land a lone longbow, but have 3 more galleys in the area.
Mongols complete Bachs, America cascades and completes Cops.

260AD (turn 7): I easily kill the units without loss.

270AD (turn 8): zzz

AI: Japan and America sign MA against us...

280AD (turn 9): zzz

AI: Egypt lands a crusader, Mongols land archer and longbow, Persia lands archer and spear.

290AD (turn 10): 12 cats only take 2hp from the crusader!! Fortunately the Elite sword finishes them off.

Map of empire (1600x1200) (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1_290AD.jpg)

>>> MM1 290AD <<< (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/MM1-290AD.zip)

Summary:

2 cities have aqueducts, several more are on the way.

We are at war with everyone but Arabia, and they are backwards and on the opposite side of the globe, so essentially we are playing AW atm. No-one is close yet to peace, especially with all the MA's they signed against us.

I think we can hold off all of them for the moment, so there is nothing to bad to worry about. When we can we need to steal to Invention, but I guess we will get Feudalism@min before we need to start stealing (39 turns left).

I have been skimming workers off Trondheim every 4 turns, and it is probably worth adding them in to our size 2 cities that won't grow. We desperately need lux, but there is nowhere to get them from, apart from taking it by force from Japan, and that should probably wait for Beserks.

We are very unlucky with leaders so it seems...

Yep, I had several elite wins these turns, as I did on my last set of turns. :(

Zerks would be nice unless they would face infantry. Still, there would be a chance but rather slim indeed. :)

I have to finish with GOTM, so cannot play to 14th-15th. @homeyg: If you want to grab the turns, please do so. IIRC, you have not played in this game. :)

akots, homeyg played his turns before me. So if you can't take it I'm sure Mark1031 is up...

OK I'll take it. So we are at war with everyone as I expected. Will try to fend them off and get some more infra going and hopefully a leader, we are militaristic after all.

Mark----> UP
Homeyg
Aggie
anarres
akots----> On Deck
open

@homeyg: If you want to grab the turns, please do so. IIRC, you have not played in this game.

I've played in this game once; I had to be skipped a few times, though.

:lol: Indeed you played. Just confused since turn log has been appearing, disappearing, and re-appearing again.

akots, homeyg played his turns before me. So if you can't take it I'm sure Mark1031 is up...

Wait, I don't quite understand. We went ahead with my mistake turns after all?

Apparently yes, judging by the date of Aggie's turns. We are defiant after all, so defying our own defiance should be OK. :)

Notice we have a number of workers with no work and merge some to cities.

300: Bergen Market – sword. Egypt lands 1 warrior and we get our first leader from our heroic elite archer. He quickly forms an army. Since we won’t be invading anything for a while I will load him with swords for defense of the main island.

310: Mongols land 2 arch, 1 spear, 1 warrior. Egypt lands 1 Knight. Bombard Knight to 1HP but lose a fully healthy elite sword. But I am repaid the next attack when an elite sword wins and we get our 2nd leader. I make him into an Army. We will wait on loading this Army. A Zerk army could be devisating.

320: zzz

330: America lands 1 horse,sword,spear. Np.

340: zzz

350: Arabs demand HBR. We are now at war with 7 Sid civs. Shouldn’t be a problem. Zulu and Mongols land 5 troops. Wiped out no loses.

360: We can get peace with the Mongols they pay us 120gp. We turn around and try an immediate steal for 850 gp and we get Engineering. Dispatching 3 zulu and 3 Egyptian troops leads to our 3rd leader. I use it for the Heroic Epic.

370-390: Upgrade pults fight off few landings effectively. America starts Smith’s.


No real problem with the landings they are landing right in the heart of our kill zone. The war happiness is amazing. No lux and we are running only 10% tax. I’m a bit worried about America. They have like 900gp and seem to be ahead in tech. I would like to just keep them at war and get a pillaging army up there. We could land a bunch of pikes or even swords now on the northern forest and get an Army established. Maybe wait to get peace with the others so our boats get up there safely, I think we can play this essentially like AW with occasional peace for tech stealing/trading. There is a trade available with Japs if we could get straight up peace. We can wait for Feudalism to come in while accumulating $$ to steal invention.

Finally armies! This is a big break. But we can't ship any armies until we get Galleons though.

No, we can ship empty army in a stack if we have enough troops to survive the initial assult and then load troops into the army. I have done this many times. You just need a good landing spot that cant be reached by their entire army and of course a large enough stack to survive.

True, that is always possible.

Cool! At last!!

Mark
Homeyg----> On Deck
Aggie
anarres
akots----> UP
open

Note to next leader. Don't load the empty army until we discuss what to do with it. Once loaded we will not be able to transport it for a long time.

I'm expected to be done with GOTM soon and can play on 16th or 17th. If somebody wants to jump ahead, no problem. We can load army with a single unit and still be able to load it onto a galley. The main anticipated problem would be that we will run out of cities to support new armies. What to do with the leaders then?

I'll gladly take it! This is my 'got it'.

Any progress Homey?

Sorry for the wait; I'll have the turns posted in about an hour.

Turn 0: I examine the situation: We are at war with everyone except the Mongols. Nothing much to do now. We can load any armies onto galleys, so we won't really be able to attack anywhere but our mainland. There is a way around this but I'm not going to take any chances with our unloaded army in a galley. We can only buy Monotheism from the Mongols :(

IBT: Trondheim: sword -> galley. Bergen: sword -> galley. Alesund riots, change one of the citizens to an entertainer. Mongols start building Smith's Trading Company. They also start Magellan's Voyage. Americans complete Magellan's Voyage. Americans land 2 medieval infantry and a musketman next to Copenhagen.

Turn 1: I bombard the 3 units with nearby trebs, redlining them. I attack with 3 swords, destroying all and losing none of my own. I upgrade 3 cats for 90 gold. Fortify all remaining units, as they have nothing to do.

IBT: A ton of AI naval movement. Bergen starves. Birka: marketplace -> barracks.

Turn 2: We have enough to try an immediate steal on the Mongols next turn. I may try that. Anyway, not much else.

IBT: Still, tons of naval movement. Japan lands two sets of troops. One set on our smaller island and one on our larger island.

Turn 3: I bombard the troops on our main island. I easily destroy them. Same goes for the ones on the smaller island. I suffer no losses. I bombard and destroy Japanese galley that landed troops on our main island. I reposistion some troops to prevent landings next turn on our small island. I try the steal but it failed. Our agent didn't get caught, though. Maybe next time.

IBT: Still heavy naval movements in our waters. Trondheim: galley -> sword.

Turn 4: No troop landings, so their isn't much to do.

IBT: Mongols and the Americans sign military alliance against us. We're now, once again, at war with the world. Reijkjavik: sword -> sword. Stockholm: treb -> marketplace. Birka: barracks -> sword. Bodo: courthouse -> marketplace.

Turn 5: I bombard American caravel and destroy it with a galley. That's pretty much it.

IBT: Zulu request audience. See what theu want. They want peace so I tell them to go away. Bergen: sword -> sword. Copenhagen: marketplace -> galley.

Turn 6: Not much.

IBT: Americans unload 2 knights and various other units. This one ought to be tough. Trondheim: sword -> sword. Americans finish Smith's trading company. They ought to be in the Industrial Age soon.

Turn 7: I bombard all invaders. Destroy all of them without any problems. Stockholm seems to be having hapiness problems so I make a tax collector.

IBT: Japan unloads two MI on our small island.

Turn 8: As usual, I destroy the invaders without a problem.

IBT: Japan once again unloads troops. Reijkjavik: sword -> sword. Birka: sword -> sword. Stavanger: aqueduct -> sword.

Turn 9: Destroy invaders without any casualties.

IBT: Egypt requests audience; I tell them to go away. Japan lands more troops next to the capital. Trondheim: sword -> sword. Copenhagen: galley -> sword.

Turn 10: Destroy invaders without any problems.

I have no time for a debreif or commentary because I'm being rushed off of the computer right now. Sorry.

Wow. We are at war with the whole world! But we can at least make straight peace with Japan... And trade tech for tech and gpt. Feudalism for Engineering and 56 gpt. We have a lot of income!

EDIT: I would certainly make peace with Japan and make that deal. We then can go Invention @max (10 turns and we will be broke) or min science (+98 gpt). We have an empty army. Should we fill it or wait unit berzerks? We could land an army plus pikes on the mainland, fill the army there and then pillage away... We could do that now! If we would have pikes that is.
We could only land on the Japanese/Egyptian continent though. But pillaging Egypt and maybe Japan looks very profitable.

EDIT2: We have money to carefully steal techs. Might be worth it to make the deal with Japan and try a steal after that. If it fails we get our gpt back. If it works: we get Monotheism or maybe even Invention.

homeyg: looks like you did a good job :)

Comments?

Got it. Will play apparently tomorrow.

The only way out may be unloading the army on some territory controlled by the country with which we are at peace. Assemble then the army there and move to the territory of the country with are at war with. Pillage the hell out of them and slow down their tech rate. The problem is that it might be too late already. I'll try to do something like this.

Can I play 20 turns straight? It might take awhile but IMHO can advance the game slightly. I'm due after Anarres anyhow.

Peace with Japan sounds good. Tech trading sounds even better. And I don't understand, can we accept straight peace deals or we have to have something in return? May be discount on techs is sufficient? Apparently we need more cities to support more armies and units. Any ideas of how to get these cities? What about zerks? Are they going to face riflemen or even infantry? America should be already choked with their own units but still somehow they hang on. This is surprizing.

We can accept straight peace. Go ahead and play 2 turns if you like. If we keep the advanced civs @ war it is almost as good as pillaging to slow down their research. They will build tons of units and wreck their economy. Although they don't know how to use these units for an effective sea assult. I would do this with the tech leader America and maybe a couple of others. I would get an Army on the Jap/Egypt continent. You can do this in our territory after peace with Japs. We should try to get zerks and then try to take this continent IMO.

Be careful about WW it would be nice to stay republic so if we don't lose to many battles or allow attacks on our defensive units we should be OK.

akots, I think we are doing VERY well at this point. I don't understand why you are so negative. We are not too far behind (this being Sid) and berzerks are not too far away (giving us a GA!). I don't think that we will face infantry immediately. And probably also not rifles eveywhere. And if we have to face rifles, well it's 6-6.

Aggie, you are very optimistic. I'm naturally pessimistic and regret greatly of lost opportunities. But tend to forget it very soon because start to worry about new lost opportunities. There are so many of them lost after all. :)

OK, I'll try to play 20 turns then during the next 2 days.

Preturn check. Cannot say we are in good shape. On the small island there are only archers. Hope that enemies do not unload some units there. Cannot make peace with Persia, Zulu, Mongols, America, Arabs, and Egypt because of defiant rules. Can though make peace with Japan. Peace made trading Engineering +56gpt for Feudalism. Army loaded with elite sword (with *) and transported to our territory overseas. Press Enter.

IBT. Nothing much. Just ships sailing and sailing. Egypt lands knight and some other units. Oslo builds market. Starting on archers. America is building Newton’s.

[1] 500AD. America is in IA.

[2] 510AD. Troops unloaded and army ready to be filled. IBT. Japan declared war to Egypt. Mongols are in IA as well.

[3] 520AD. Japan has Invention. It is steal time apparently. We steal Invention! Each upgrade to zerk is 150g, btw. Production switched to zerks everywhere. Game saved. Army (2 pikes + sword) was sent to march for Egypt. Apparently Japan would ask us out. Do we then agree and humbly return to our small chunk of land or be defiant and independent and wage a war against evil Tokugawa? This would ruin our reputation but do we really care? There is not much to trade in this game anyhow but techs during peace negotiations. IMHO, lets kick them hard and pillage all over the place. Please speak up of what to do, I’m holding the save.

There is another issue on the agenda. Do we settle some towns on the Japanese continent? We cannot protect them properly but can launch amphibious assaults from galleys against offending Japanese troops. Also, what to build during GA? Zerks and galleys? Another problem is how to transport army to America. There is little possibility for us to sail there with galleys. It would also be very nice to capture Washington somehow though it seems barely possible even if we throw everything in there.

I don't see anything about us having to deny the request of Japan. AFAIK we are allowed to comply to their wishes. This could mean that we can't reach Egypt by the way...

About what to build: I would build berzerks and galleys only in cities that have all infra. But I would use the GA to build infra in other places (markets, courthouses, aquaducts, harbors).

I don't know if it makes a lot of sense to build a city on the Japanese continent. We can do it, but I'm afraid that it will become a prime target. Otoh we have to expand. I'm very interested in the POW's of the other players.

I don't see anything about us having to deny the request of Japan. AFAIK we are allowed to comply to their wishes. This could mean that we can't reach Egypt by the way...

We are allowed to comply, certainly. But do we want to? There is a little conflict between RBC rules and defiant variant in this case. The spirit of defiant variant demands us to declare. The RBC rules call for withdrawal. But we can declare as well. Would just trash the reputation. Though this rep thing is of no greater use in this particular game so far.

IMHO, if we can assemble another army and build a city on our own territory on Japanese continent under the protection of this army, chances are the city would not be attacked. However, I'm not sure. It would be really nice to have a canal city so that we can get to inner Japanese cities on the lake (sea) with zerks if this is possible.

I am sure that an army will be attacked when it is positioned in a city. Archers would attack a Modern Armor army when it is located in a city. I've seen it happen (in AG3). It's the worst place to keep and army.

Is the GL coastal? Maybe we should try to take it with Zerks.

Washington is non-coastal. But tbh I'm getting weary of these TGL capture plans in a lot of my SG's. It was needed in AG12, but I highly doubt the value here. You have to sacrifice a lot for such a plan, like postponing building banks and getting better ships (which can carry armies).

Mark, could you answer Akots question regarding a possible boot order of the Aztecs?

Sorry, I didn't notice the question. We do not have to force war, we can agree to leave. However, no ROP deals allowed. As far as the GL forget it. If it was a costal city it might have been worth it. OK as far as what to do next that is difficult. The AI will attack Army in city no matter how bad the odds. I'd say we have the following goals. 1) to expand our territory and get some lux. Preferably by going for useful Jap territory. 2) to slow down the tech leaders so we can catch up. 3) to get Banks. For goal 1: I would not ruin our rep just yet. I suspect that Japan might be bought back in by someone anyway. And it will take awhile to build up forces. I would say that we might consider taking back the third island that we lost earlier and maybe some other weakly defended outposts with zerks while waiting for the Jap deal to expire or they declare. This will get us extra cities and potential SP. I think we will need muskets and cavs. As soon as Japs declare or in 20-turns we first weaken Japs by burning down a couple of major costal cities. Pillage an area around our territory, then plant a city and rush rax/walls and load it with pikes/muskets For 2) I would Keep the Americans in AW state. For 3/techs in general, we will need to ossilate into peace and get something out of it. Maybe if we take some Egyptian cities we can get something from them. Lots of possibilities but I would focus on weak targets until we get built up.

Alternate plan. Slow down big guy America by burning a few cities. Negative: might lose a fair number of ships unless make peace all around.

OK, let me ask it straight. Do I 1) trash the rep and declare war to Japan or 2)do I withdraw the loaded army?

Please answer 1) or 2) and I would like to know the opinion of anarres and homeyg as well. I've asked a question so please answer it. I've read through the posts of Aggie and Mark and cannot understand the answer.

@Mark: I wodn't even try to play on Deity or Sid with this strategy that you suggested. It might be good for Monarch or Emperor. And is definitely good for Regent and below. :)

2) for me. I hate trashing a rep.

2) IMO. Deliberately trashing our rep on SID feels somehow not quite right to me. At least not this early.

I vote no to trash. We don't have to anyway as we don't have enough troops for assault yet. Just Keep army in our territory on Jap island until we are ready. As far as strategy. Arathorn has won a Sid AW with these map conditions and I have a game going that I will probably win. Keeping AW when you own an island is quite doable even on Sid and quite productive. I'm in 17-- AD and the AIs are all still in the MA. In fact AW might be easier than the varient we are playing but you must get the GL.

OK, point taken. So what should I do then? How to build more cities? We are being choked with our own trebuchets and units. How to attack Egypt or somebody else? Do we want GA now or later on? I can certainly do whatever I feel is right but it is SG after all and it might be better to discuss. Besides, I cannot play today anyhow.

I would first fight off the invaders and get us in a GA. Imho it is too dangerous out there to sail to Egypt now. We need more ships and more berzerks. I keep saying that 90 gpt isn't that bad.

The fact that you want to play 20 turns makes it a different story. That is a relatively long time in a SG. You may want to post a turnlog after 10 turns, so that we can discuss tactics. As in a normal situation.

Yes I would take the GA as soon as it is available and use it to build up Zerks and boats, a few Pikes and 2-3 settlers. Then I would go for the Arab/Persian Island that was ours previously.

I would try to cross Japan with the army. Why not try that? That army is not going to get better in time. If we get kicked out, well that's a shame. But keeping it on neutral terrain doesn't sound good to me.

We could go for that island that used to be ours, but zerks appear to be more useful to destroy core coastal cities. Are we able to hold the remote island without a lot of troops?

Well we want to start spreading out and I think we wouldn't need to devote too many troops to that island and it should be relatively easy pickins'. After 20 turns we make peace with Egypt and take out Japan.

Yep, going for the Arabs seems to be a good choice. They are not supposed to have many units. And attacks on these cities would not be very fierce. Persia is not very advanced as well. I'll try to play the remaining 7 turns today and post a log.

I will be able to play after akots (I'm up then am I?). But I weill not be able to post a 'got it' in time.

[3] 520AD. Continued from previous log. Our army is in Japanese territory 2 tiles away from Osaka. Double-checked all cities and press Enter. IBT. Toku demands we withdraw. We humbly retreat. Can trade Monotheism for 70g+99gpt from Toku. That’s too much but may be worth it because he can declare again any time soon. Mongol frigates appear. Egypt lands a crusader near Trondheim.

[4] 530AD. Crusader killed with army. No peace deals on the market. Army tries to march through Tokyo. IBT. Mongols bombard Oslo and injure a galley which heals.

[5] 540AD. Japanese army fears our berserk. IBT. Army booted again from the suburbs of Osaka. America moves two stacks of ships each containing 3 frigates and galleon. Where they are going to unload?

[6] 550AD. Another archer upgraded. IBT. Crap and crap of craps: America unloaded 3 cavalries and MDI on the small island near Molde.

[7] 560AD. 3 zerks transported to the island. First kills cavalry and we have Golden Age. Second redlines cavalry and dies, third kills cavalry and promotes. MDI and redlined ca