AG8 -my first Sid SG- ended with a win. I now want to try out a Space Race on Sid.

The type of map and preferred civ are all up for discussion. I am thinking about:
-standard sized map, wet/warm 70% land, archipelago (archipelago sounds like the best shot to have a decent portion of land at the start AND it allows trade options at the very start with seafaring).
-England, Spain, Carthage (seafaring with a good 2nd trait, agricultural and scientific might not be that strong at an archipelago Sid map)

OR:

-standard sized map, wet/warm, 70% land, continent
-Maya, Celts, Dutch.

VARIANT RULES, ETC...
-Space Race is the only victory type that counts as a win, but all standard victory types are enabled.
-Sid level
-C3C 1.22

BANNED TACTICS
These are the exploits that I want to avoid in the game:

"Phony Peace Treaty": Making Peace Treaties without having the intention to stay at peace, just to get cheap techs or money.

"Palace Jump"; Jumping the palace by disbanding the capital. Rushing a palace or building it brick by brick is OK.

"RoP Rape": Using Right of Passage to move whole armies into attack position.

"Throwaway Cities": It is possible to go everywhere by settling, moving a setter one tile further in, abandoning the old city, founding a new one, etc...etc... A city shouldn't be abandoned in the same turn as it is settled.

"Resource Piracy": Sitting on resources or deny a civ access to a tile inside the borders of the rival while at peace.

"Seed Corn": It is not allowed to buy the LAST TWO workers from the AI before 1000 BC.

"Negative cash research": The penalty of negative cash is only one unit/improvement. So there are cases where this can be worthwile. Science spending must be lowered when the cash would go below zero.

I got rid of the dogpile exploit.

OTHERS:
Things that I didn't name but are in the spirit of what I mention above I would like to have discussed.

ROSTER
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom
open

There are 2 more open spots. People who join should either have beaten Sid or difficult Deity variants. This isn't going to be a walk in the park.

24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 48hrs after that to finish and post your turns. I will start with 25 turns. Next up can take 15/20 turns, and the next leader 10/15, then 10 each turn after that.

Checking in. I was thinking of a huge, pangeae with scientific, commercial. That map size would make it tough and the traits are ideal for a space race. ;)

We know Sid can be beaten, but nothing like beating it at the hardest map combination in one of the harder ways to win the game (space IMO is always harder than conquest).

Hmm. Looks tasty but I will have to watch on this as I am over committed already.

Why is Space harder than Conquest? If you can beat all the other civs then it is very easy to just leave 1 AI city each and sail to the spaceship. :confused:

Why is Space harder than Conquest? If you can beat all the other civs then it is very easy to just leave 1 AI city each and sail to the spaceship. :confused:

yes, but I do not think of that as space. That is essentially conquest. Ideally when I think of a space game I think a game where you go to war for a resource or a lux etc. and not with the intent of wiping out all AI civs.

of course this is a personal preference. It is not more or less logical than your viewpoint. Just different.

The reason I said it was harder this way is because if you let AI civs survive; then the strategy of the game gets focussed into making spaceship parts and excelling in science which is immaterial in a military victory to a large extent.

The way I see it, if you are not going to have competition in science and building SS parts then why play for a space victory?

I'll be lurking :).

Is it ok if I play in all your new games Aggie? :D

Reading between the lines, it sounds like Betazed is advocating a Quasi-Passive game (only fight when needed) as compared to a Quasi-Conquest/Domination game (destroy your opponent sufficiently to win the victory condition of your choice).

It might be worth deciding if we are aiming for one of the other above or some shade of gray between so we are all working together toward the same goal. If one player builds barracks for troops and the next player builds temples and libraries rather than troops, we will end up wasting resources.

We probably cannot know for sure what the game will be as I feel one should adjust to the position one finds oneself in; we can discuss this if it comes up.

Greebley, you're always welcome :) I like to try a Quassi-Passive approach (only fighting when needed). But you're entirely correct that we have to react on the position we will be in. We must make sure to get a decent core for instance.

I would like it very much if we have a same sort of discussion in between turns as in AG8. That worked out perfectly.

Regarding the traits:
I really think that scientific isn't the way to go. I can't imagine that we would actually profit from free techs and we won't be building any scientific improvements until much later.

Regarding map shape:
Sid is hard enough as it is and I don't want to make it even harder by choosing the most difficult landmass. That's why I like archipelago most and continents as a close 2nd.

I was just posting my personal opinion in what I think a space race game should be like. Of couse I am willing to play whatever the majority decides. :)

But I am glad Aggie too is thinking about the Quasi-Passive approach.

If we are going to play space in Archi then I guess I vote Aggie's choice of English. Commercial with seafaring looks good to me for this variant.

I would also prefer the quasi-passive approach otherwise the space restriction is meaningless. I think Sid Pangea would be an interesting additional challenge. :mischief:

I think we are in agreement then, as I think quasi-passive is better for spaceship.

I think I prefer all random over pangea I think

Hmmm. I'm the only one afraid of being overrun in the first 50 turns? Greebley, do you mean random map AND civ? Sounds kinda brutal :eek:

Hmmm. I'm the only one afraid of being overrun in the first 50 turns?

If we lose we lose. Nobody is keeping score here. :D And if we lose we can always try attempt 2 and be spectacularly successful like AG7. :D


Greebley, do you mean random map AND civ? Sounds kinda brutal :eek:

Very brutal to say the least.

What is the worst that could happen, we lose. It seems to me that the majority of these SGs are won. In my opinion the ideal would be about 50% wins. The most exciting game is one where you're always on the brink of disaster and need some gambit that you're unsure will succeed to pull the game out. I'd love to see a space race that goes to the wire with tech stealing, sabotage, and modern age wars. All random also sounds good to me but I would prefer standard size map simply to keep playtime more reasonable.

OK! I will generate a map at random, but with the following fixed:
-standard size
-no barbarians
-wet planet (edit)
-decent to good start
-civ with at least DECENT traits

Meanwhile I patiently wait for a 5th player before I start :)

Out of curiosity why wet/warm? Doesn't that just mean that there will be lots of jungle? If we start in all tundra just try again...

-----------------------------------------------
The only trait that is not decent is expansionist???

The rest all offer their own advantages.

OK, I deleted 'warm' and only left wet. Expansionist is really the one I rather not like to have indeed.

Aggie, I think warm, wet and age are either all random or not random at all.

You could just specify that there is some fresh water nearby. Having none is fairly rare and would become obvious during the first 20. If you get it then abandon and try again.

I would be curious on how many rerolls we do end up taking

I created the following map.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG12-start.JPG

Five rerolls... 4 other attempts gave us either expansionist or jungle or space for 3 cities due to AI expansion. I took the first save where I got the idea that we could settle at least 4 cities :p I suggest to have someone else start the game, since I played 30 fast turns to see how it would go.

We are Persia and have one BG, a lot of plains, a river, a gold hill and a wheat on plains. How shall we continue? Worker to the north, probably settle on the spot if nothing nice is revealed? Pottery at min science? Or Iron Working (We have BW naturally)?

I'm still waiting for the 5th player. I think that a team of 4 to start with is too small.

EDIT: What about this roster? Meaning that Greebley will start.

ROSTER
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
open
open

I also included the 4000BC save

Roster seems fine.

Should I wait for the fifth before taking it?

Greebley, you can play it if you want. People that are interested may be persuaded to play if they see the starting turns. But I like to discuss to first steps before you play. I like to stick to the succesful AG8 style :)

My pre-game discussion: I hate not being on the coast so I would be inclined to start the worker irrigating in place and move the settler southwest across the river to found. Then curggah for faster contact --> warrior, and farmers gambit. See if we can get pottery from someone before first settler completes and switch to granary unless we're really hemmed in. Hope there's the iron in those hills. For research I don't know, I guess I would go for mysticism at minimal or just turn it off completely until we get alphabet and go writing--> lit. The GL would be huge but I find it much more difficult to get on Sid than Diety. I often lose it to a cascade from Sun Tsu's. It would depend on the tech pace whether we go for it.

I agree with the farmer's gambit (if possible), but I'm not so sure about the settler move. I'd like to see the wheat in the first nine. However, I understand the need for a curragh.

Switching off research sounds logical.

My 2 cents.

I wouldn't move the settler either. It is in a good spot so let's just build there. As for research I agree if we do research at all we should research Writing and Lit otherwise let's just turn it off.

Yes you're right, it pains me to be just off the coast but it would probably be foolish to delay growth so much for that.

EDIT: Stupid me we don't start with alphabet so early currgah is out anyway. I'm so used to starting with alphabet. My current view. Found in place, research off, farmers.

Ya, I would at least wait for discussion. :D

[Edit: So we do start with alphabet? For some reason I have troubles remember what is what on the techs vs traits. In that case ignore what I said below]

Don't we need alphabet for a curragh? Do we start with alphabet

I am not sure whether we will not be able to build a Curragh for a long time in which case the second city could be coastal and we can settle right away.

Aggie I just noticed a small problem with the roster - Betazed snuck in and stole your turn when you weren't looking. :lol: I am guessing the second Betazed is really you.

Changed it! And indeed, it looks like we have to explore with warriors for some time.

Any preference on number of warriors? For me I think it depends on whether the direction to the North is a real direction. For that reason, I would send the first warrior N, and then build 2 if it dead ends and 3 or possibly 4 if it goes somewhere.

I am ok with that Greebely :)

PS. We start with Masonry and Bronze working. Not with Alphabet!

Preturn: I hit F10 and hit the Launch button. It buzzes at me. Hmmm, we seem to be missing something. This may be harder than I thought...

Move worker as suggested. Settle in place.
I realize the posts on what to research all were based on us having alphabet. Pottery is 40 turns (this is what I always go for first myself - it usually drops in turns to a reasonable amount for everything a huge sid map), but the general consensus seems toward no research at all. I do this and hope we are not alone and can trade for pottery and alphabet.

Early:
I irrigate and road the wheat
At first N looks dead endish, but it seems to go E then N. I start a 3rd warrior.
There are 2 forest deer that will be useful (+2 food, +2 shields is nice for 2nd and 3rd towns)

Mid:
I road and mine the BG
Our piece of land is narrow. There exist "boat shortcut" city locations.
I MM a single turn of +2 food / +4 shields to get the third warrior a turn earlier
I stop at 3 warriors. The fourth has unit cost and I am not at all sure he would be needed.

Late:
I irrigate and road some plains.
The way N is a dead end that can hold several cities.
No contact so we build a settler. Start Barracks.

Notes:
I hope we are not alone. Our no research strategy requires meeting someone. We still have good possibilities to the E to do so.

We have saved 82 gold for when we meet someone. No research done.
The settler is on the square I felt was worth settling. It is coastal with a whale (when we get culture) and is next to the first deer.

I am going to try an initial dot map. The north especially is hard to decide.

We should also discuss whether the worker should irrigate his current square; chop forest on deer and irrigate. I feel it is.

Here is a map of the North. I put comments on the map itself. It is difficult to fill this area with towns. I think it worth discussing as I am not at all sure I got the best spots on the first try.

We appear to have enough room for expansion to the north. I opened the save and see some excellent (edit: better than the north) spots to the south as well. Do you have a dotmap for that Greebley?

Here is a map of our southern lands. This terrain is more flexible in terms of placing towns. I marked some sites I thought worthwhile in the relatively near future.

I like the green town for an FP. The FP will lower corruption and thus make use of the shields. I was unsure which of the two green dots I liked better. There are alternate high shield spots to the north, but those are closer to the capitol and thus don't need the FP as much to have decent shields.

The Yellow dots I was unsure on as well.

A full dot map may have to wait until the next player does some fog busting.

[Edit: Yep :) I do. I agree the south has the better land and is thus higher priority than much of the north.

He he :) I was too impatient! I would start settling in the south and then go north. We have fresh water and grassland in the south, which we should exploit. Also, an expanding AI could take these spots away from us easier than in the north.

Agreed.

One reason I said the 3rd town to the NW was that the forest-deer gives +2 shields at size 1 and is thus a very good spot for early on. It is also coastal and start cranking out Curraghs if need be. I would go for a barracks to have it produce units and Curraghs - a deer forest + 2 other forests would be 6 shields probably with 1 corrupted and thus build warriors every 2 or spears/archers every 4 to provide town defense or curraghs every 3.

After the third town, I would settle the next towns to the south as you state and then turn to the North.

I can agree with that Greebley. It certainly depends on what we see under the fog in the east though.

ROSTER:
Greebley--- just played
betazed--- up
Mark1031-- on deck
Aggie
open
open

Got it. So the plan is basically to expand in the south, right?

I suspect we might be alone if we haven't met anyone yet. Might be worth starting research. Pot or alpha

Ya, I think I agree with that. I am not even sure on my third city spot. Do we need military and curraghs more than cities that can grow?

[Edit: Since we are playing a builder game, I woul grab the best city-sites first.

I feel we still have a chance of meeting an AI as the lands seems to extend east. I agree though we should seriously consider research as it may also be the case there is no civ to the E.

One thing Nad taught me is that the number of resources roughly correspond to the number of civs on the continent. If we find 2 resources, it means it is more likely we will find another civ on the continent. If we do not, then we are more likely to be alone.

One other thing about the southern green dot is that it grabs the one Lux we have seen. It is a bit far away so shouldn't be immediate, but I would settle it soonish.

My priorities:
1. Grab as much good land as possible. We have a a great opportunity now!
2. Meet other civs. We have enough scouting warriors imho. Our 2nd city could build a curragh (the one that we are about to settle).
3. Discover/trade for techs. We should grab every opportunity (although for now we haven't seen other civs) and probably should go for Pottery at minimum.

If we go for pottery, I would vote for Max research and not wait 50 turns. That is too long. Pottery is only 120 beakers.

If we go for alphabet, I would say min might be better as it is expensive.

True Greebley. I'm undecided about which tech is best...

Turn 1 : Settle Pasargadae. Start Warrior.

IBT: Korea finished Colossus. already :eek:

Turn 2: Worker finished Road. Moves onto the game. I have to increase lux by 1 notch.

Turn 3: zzz. Worker starts roading the game.

Turn 4: Our first contact. A Scandinavian curragh travels by. They are up Alphabet, CB, IW, WC and the wheel. Crap they do not have pottery. I need Alphabet to start on Writing and to make curraghs. But they will not give Alphabet for Masonry and everything we have. What crap! I am torn here the most I can get out of him is CB. Oh well! So we get CB from him.

Turn 5: zzz

Turn 6: zzz

Turn 7: zzz

Turn 8: zzz

Turn 9: Pop increases in Persepolis. Warrior from Pasargadea moves to Persepolis to increase happiness.

Turn 10: We finish Barracks in Persepolis and start on Warrior. Contact Germany. They are up WC and IW and do not have Masonry. Unfortunately no two fer's are possible. They are willing to trade either of them for Masonry. However I wanto get both. So Masonry, 130G and 2gpt for IW and WC. Unfortunately I do not see iron in out territory and a iron is right beside the german town.

Germany is connected by an isthmus which they have settled.

We need to contact a civ soon to get pottery and alphabet. I am hoping the trade decisions I took are correct.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Ag12_2550BC.JPG

We have to block that isthmus!! Look at the picture and see that we have two warriors there that can block that settler pair. This is a big deal imho!! Well worth the warriors.

I think you did well with the trades betazed. I'm happy to see that we got 3 techs!!

IMHO, our warrior can stand right where he is and block all German incursions into our land. That will buy us some time for settling. What do you think?

EDIT: x-post. It seems Aggie and I are on the same page here. :)

I'd go with pottery @max for growth then alpha at min and just let the AI come to us. We will be massively behind in tech and I think the GL will be beyond reach. That means we will have to steal/research our way along. I'd say steal. I don't think scientific trait will help much as I would not build libraries/univs at all. The research/steal differential is skewed much in favor of steal.

IMHO, our warrior can stand right where he is and block all German incursions into our land. That will buy us some time for settling. What do you think?

We need two warriors to block the Germans...

I'd go with pottery @max for growth then alpha at min and just let the AI come to us. We will be massively behind in tech and I think the GL will be beyond reach. That means we will have to steal/research our way along. I'd say steal. I don't think scientific trait will help much as I would not build libraries/univs at all. The research/steal differential is skewed much in favor of steal.

I agree 100%. EDIT: We must first make sure that we are big enough. We appear to be able to build a very nice empire here.

We are playing very fast. I'm very happy about the enthousiasm, but let's take time to discuss as well.

I will continue this game (naturally), despite the fact that we are still only with 4. But I can imagine that our first few turns sparked the interest of one or two players :)

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031-- up
Aggie------ on deck
Yom
open

Since you guys are still short on players, I'd be willing to join if you'd take me, but I haven't beaten Sid before.

BTW, you guys can block the site before the Germans settle. Next turn the settler pair will move NE - Move your warrior NE to block them from going north and move your 2nd warrior E. On the next IT, the settler pair will move NW - Fortify your S. Warrior and move your other warrior 1 tile W and the isthumus is blocked with the settler pair on the Iron hill. It is, however, possible that the germans would settle on this tile, having nowhere to go. This would mean you would need 3 warriors to complete the choke rather than 2.

Edit: :lol: Looks like Aggie is clairvoyant.

Yom, you are welcome. All I ask of the team is that we take extra care, discuss a lot and play to the best of our abilities. I'm convinced that this is the only way to win this one. I updated the roster in my previous post and at the start of the thread.

Don't worry about me playing to the best of my abilities - even a set of ancient turns take me about 2 hours to play ;).

Next turn the settler pair will move NE - Move your warrior NE to block them from going north and move your 2nd warrior E. On the next IT, the settler pair will move NW - Fortify your S. Warrior and move your other warrior 1 tile W and the isthumus is blocked with the settler pair on the Iron hill. It is, however, possible that the germans would settle on this tile, having nowhere to go. This would mean you would need 3 warriors to complete the choke rather than 2.

This is the way to go :) I think that the Germans will retreat, because the settler pair would be too close to the other city, according to the AI. If they do we should follow them and tighten the knot even more (both warriors should then south and fortify).

@Aggie: Do you think you could put me at the end of the roster for now? I'm having a little difficulty getting my conquests CD to work (I got it working a week ago, but it stopped working yesterday).

Got it. Can't play till tonight California time. This looks like trouble. The iron is lost as the germans will get through. I can keep them from founding on the hill though. I'd say we just go for a standard land grab toward the germans and back fill the north. No iron will be tough. hopefully there is another civ behind the Germans or I think we're toast. Fighting the Germans alone on Sid without imortals wil be suicide.

@Yom: I will skip you this round, OK? You already were last omn the roster, but the first turns will go quickly.

@Mark1031: Yes, this is trouble. But let us just see what happens. We might be able to trade for iron. Or even conquer it if we succesfully block the Germans. The last remark is very optimist I know. This could also be a 60% water archipelago with a lot of land connected like this.

Welcome Yom, It is good to have you on board :)

I don't think we are playing too fast. We had reasonable discussion before Betazed played.

I think we can block the choke in time:

The spear will move NE.

We move the warrior on the iron NE and the other warrior E

The spear is now forced NW onto the iron

Moving the second warrior E a second time closes the gap.

------------------
On blocking the gap; I think the AI will sometimes attack if a way is blocked (i.e. I have had the AI attack me when my block severely limited the AI's land). What I do is unblock the gap when noone is next to it and then close it again. Sometimes I let a unit or two through if they are not settlers, just beware that the AI can hold open the gap with a steady stream of units.

I am unsure if this strategy benefits us, but it certainly doesn't hurt. My limited experience trying it did make me think it might help.

If I had to guess what causes the AI to attack it is that he has settled all the lands he can reach, but can settle more if he wasn't blocked. If the way is open much of the time then maybe he won't attack.

We are almost certainly risking war by blocking the gap even with keeping it open part of the time. I think they are far enough away that the risk is acceptable.

Once they have map making they will of course simply sail around.

Greebley, I know that it will only hinder them for a brief period. But this may just be enough to get a decent core for ourselves. If we would allow this settler pair to pass, then we would see a gigantic expansion very quickly.

I don't think we are playing too fast.
Well you are posting to fast. ;)
I refresh and keep finding more posts...

I am all in favor of blocking them as well. Just exploring pros and cons.

I also agree with your statement that we will get little of the southern lands if we don't block and that this is the major argument on the "pro side"

[edit: lol, Lee, that is almost certainly true :)

You're right Greebley I can get a block. As far as avoiding war I will see what I can do. What will they do if I block for a while, let one settler through to found a city and then block again. It would then appear to them that they have the ability to expand but could only do so with the output of the one city in our territory. Any ideas on the response of the AI to this situation?

No I don't. But I don't like the sound of that. Not for a while anyway. We don't know where the German capital is, so we might allow them to build a core city. And I'm not convinced that the Germans will declare war because we block their route to the north. And why should we bother? When they attack the blockade it is still a long way to our core, allowing us to make peace again...

@Greebley: I think I've seen that happen before, I think, but the risks outweigh the benefits. I would temporarily leave a gap every once in a while though. We don't want to be stuck at war with them this early, especially on Sid (at least they're far enough that their units won't reach us before they'll talk).

@Aggie: Ignore what I said to you earlier. I just got the CD working again. Hopefully it will stay that way.

Pre turn: Switch Persepolis to settler. Sci to break even Pott in 22.
2510 Move warriors for the block
2470: Block in place, Persegrade worker- warrior
2430 : German settler/spear retreat.
2390: zzz
2350 zzz
2310 Persegrade warrior -> rax , Persepolis settler->settler
2270 zzz
2230 zzz
2190 found Arebela
2150
2030
1990 Persepolis settler -> temple (granary)
1950 Arebela warrior -> warrior
1910
1870 Found Antioch

We have relatively nice land with lots of BG if we can take it and hold it. Tentative dot map attached. Can switch Persegrade from rax to temple (granary) if you’re not worried about military (pottery due in 4) also switch Persepolis when pottery comes in. Arebela would make a better military city. Germans have 10 cities and iron and are up wheel, myst, pot. :(

Hey, we wanted a random map and random civ. So we have to try to make the best of the situation. I actually dare to say that it is good to see that Germany doesn't have all techs that the Vikings have. Why is that? They surely must know each other?

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie------ up
Yom------- on deck
open

I have a few comments on the dotmap. I think that we should have the cities closer together. I know that our goal ultimately is to win the space race, but I think it is important to use as many tiles as we can until Sanitation (size 12 cities). I also like to have the cattle in the SW in the first 9 of a city with fresh water.

I will not play today, so discussions are welcome :)

I prefer my dot map to the North. For example, you do not settle on the hill to allow irrigation to the to the northern plains.

For the south, I agree with aggie we want a denser city distribution. Since we are stuck at a max of size 12 for so long, utilizing more squares early on is better.

[Edit: I don't think Germany will attack the blockade if they have room to settle. There is a good chance they do have plenty of room and we will thus have no inclination to attack us (I have NOT been attacked when there was more land to settle.

If we get the opportunity to scout their lands with a boat, it is worth doing. It can help us determine better if an attack is likelier.

Also as the borders expand, we may need more units blocking. Aggie, you should look at this and see if we do need more. Also we may be able to have a blockade that is always open, but a stack of enemy units cannot go through it. This is done by opening one end and then the other causing the AI to go back and forth. Do we have the ability to set this up with more units?

Aggie, I will be travelling from this wednesday thru Monday. If my next turn comes up before Tuesday of next week (6/29), then I will probably need a swap or skip.

If I can play, I will post a statement to that effect before my normal turn. I am posting here, but this of course is true for Ag10-12.

I am visiting a gaming buddy who is getting married. Will I be able to play? Who knows? :crazyeye:

[edit: I am also thinking of taking a trip near the end of the month of July where I definitely won't be able to play. Your games will probably last long enough that this will affect them].

IHT: Science from 70% to 80%. Pottery in three now.

Turn 1 (1830 BC) :sleep:

IT: Arbela: warrior->warrior

Turn 2 (1790 BC) Science to 30%. Pottery in 1.

IT: Pottery->Alphabet.

Turn 3 (1750 BC) Persepolis to Granary (in 12). Science to 10%.

IT: Pasargadae: barracks->settler.


Turn 4 (1725 BC) Luxury to 20%.

IT: A German spear appears. What's the plan Otto? Arbela: warrior->settler.

Turn 5 (1700 BC) :sleep:

IT: Antioch: warrior->worker. Scandinavia starts the Lighthouse :eek:

Turn 6 (1675 AD) :sleep:

Turn 7 (1650 BC) We can now see the borders of Scandinavia to the west. Our warrior cleared a bit of fog there. There is a real danger that they will settle on our island, now they have Map Making.

Turn 8, 9, 10 (1625, 1600, 1575 BC) :sleep:

Germany still doesn't have Alphabet. Unbelievable!! The Vikings won't give us the tech for 9 gpt and 50 gold. All we have. Actually, with everyone on taxmen and sliders to 0% I see that 24 gpt and 50 gold still makes him doubt the deal! I am very worried about our slow expansion and therefore I had other cities on settler as well.

The red arrow points to the Viking empire. We may be lucky. This could be a point that can be crossed by a curragh.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/ag1575BCterritory.JPG

ROSTER:
Greebley--- on deck
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom------- up
open

I got it. I'll play this sometime this afternoon/evening when I have time (still have to set up the dual install though). In the meantime, we should discuss where we want to settle. With a forest chop of that game tile, irrigation, and a granary, Parsagadae can become a 6-turn settler farm at least and possibly a 6-turn settler/warrior farm.

I'd choose Greebley's yellow dot north of the capital as a next city. And then build towards the cattle, fresh water and spices south. I have no time for a dotmap :( But I'd like a tighter build than Mark1031's suggestions.

BTW, why didn't we chop the forest on the deer and irrigate it? Pasargadae could have then been at +4 food and grown twice as fast. I would still consider doing this; we need more workers and fast growth will get both workers and settlers.

I'm definitely going to chop ASAP. With one BG it can produce 1 warrior and 1 settler every 6 turns (as long as corruption doesn't eat more than 1 shield). But we'll have to settle in the jungle or build a temple to bring that BG within range, so I'll set up a 6-turn settler factory. I'm leaning more towards a granary now rather than a settler in two as long as no one has any strong objections.

Hmmm, I may be very wrong. But I get nervous about 15 turns without a new city and us building granaries. These are very important but cost 2 settlers in shields. The Vikings have map making and are close neighbours. They can take our land. What about settler now and granary immediately after that?

I am up for play. I can beat diety and have actually tried SPACE RACE by myself on SID but I lost. Actually, I lost bad because I had just researched Space Flight when a computer won it.

I prefer to play earlier in the game rather than later but it is up to you AGGIE if I even get to play at all. I can usually get 8-12 cities (2 are usually junk cities) with most starts on SID, but then again I usually play Pangea.

EDIT: my email is keenan2k2@hotmail.com and I have never played a SG before. I am by no means a noob to this game. However, I do understand all of the rules associated with this type of game play and discussing everything will be fun.

@Foresight: Thank you for your interest to take part in this one. But in this SG, were the chances of success are not very high (Sid level simply is very difficult) I like to have people in the team who's level I can judge. I have a fairly good idea of the skills of the current team.

I certainly like to see new CFC-members in my SG's. There's also a spot open in AG11, a difficult deity variant. I could put you at the end of the roster there and you could join the discussion. That way you could show your insight and skills and then we can see if you are up to it. I hope that I didn't discourage you with my reply. That is certainly not my intention. :)

No thanks Aggie. I like games where I can use as much strategies as possible. Variants to games such as AG11 is just like choosing Chieftan and saying you can only attack with hoplites throughout the entire game.

As for this game, if you are doing Space Race, you generally need 3 power-house cities. At one time, you will most likely not be able to produce more than 3 three spaceship components. That being said, you guys should be packing your cities closer together.

Advantages of doing this. Cities count towards POWER. A computer won't attack you as easily if you have 20 cities even if they are junk.

Not sure if you guys agree with my selection for cities, but I think this is somewhat you guys should do for a tighter city placement.

Two cities will have to be CLEARED by workers because of the marsh first.

Not sure if you guys consider this an exploit or not, but I like to use this trick sometimes. Where I have a RED DOT, you place a junk city there for one turn, use it so you can continue irrigation, then you abandon it.

Sorry I couldn't get it tonight :(. I'll play this tomorrow.

Go ahead and skip me after Yom plays. I will be traveling and not able to play.

:mad: Just when I find time to play this, my conquests CD refuses to cooperate!! I think I'm going to buy a new copy tomorrow, unless it's still $10 on Amazon.com. Please skip me for now. I'll let you know when I get a new cd/get the cd working again.

:mad: Just when I find time to play this, my conquests CD refuses to cooperate!! I think I'm going to buy a new copy tomorrow, unless it's still $10 on Amazon.com. Please skip me for now. I'll let you know when I get a new cd/get the cd working again.

You should have done so a couple of months ago..

@Microbe: I know, but every time I was contemplating buying a new one, it started working again.

Two skips means betazed is up.

ROSTER:
Greebley---skipped
betazed---up
Mark1031--on deck
Aggie
Yom-------C3C issues
open

Got it. Will play tonight (13 hours from now).

Early: Not much.

Mid:
Scandinavia lands a settler near the cow on our continent. :( I manage to block it majorly every which way and manage to prevent it from grabbing the spices. My settler gets the spices.

A major cascase starts. Otto finishes Hanging gardens and ToA. Vikings complete Great Lighthouse.

Late: We settle another city. I have managed to drag irrigation to the game tile. I have also chopped that tile. Settlers should be churning out faster. Scandinavia has landed another settler on our continent and built a city where they landed. I am afraid we are going to see lots of scandinavian settler.

Germany still does not know Alphabet. And Scandinavia will not give it to us for anything. :(

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Ag12_1325BC.JPG

Got it. Will play tomorrow. Will go for denser city placement than my dot map but will also try to grab the iron while we can.

Yes, these Scandinavians are very annoying. But I was afraid that would happen. We will have two more cities very soon. So that's good.

ROSTER:
Greebley---skipped
betazed
Mark1031--up
Aggie------on deck
Yom-------C3C issues
open

Pre: --Switch Arebela settler ->rax, Antioch granary->rax, Bactra-rax-> worker. Move warrior to block Vik settler from iron site.

1300: Persepolis settler->settler. Pasargadae settler->setttler
1275: zzz
1250: zzz
1225: Otto complete SoZ
1200: Found Sidon
1175 Arbela rax->warrior,
1150 Antioch rax->warrior
1125: Otto completes MoM. Found Tyre by the iron, start walls.
1100 Meet Korea and Bab’s up all visible tech’s. Germany has Alphabet.
1075 Antioch warrior-> warrior Arbela warrior-> warrior . Viks start Sun Tzu’s :eek: Bab’s start Sun Tzu’s. Found Sardis.


We are in a deep hole and so far behind in tech that there are no 2-fers. No way we get GL. We do have an iron city if the Germans don’t attack us. I’d say we do an ICS build up military and $$ and fight and steal our way to techs. Our UU is actually useful until nationalism. I’d try to buy in Germany since I don’t see us fighting them off for quite a while. That’s all I can think of but I don’t think it looks very good. Hopefully the Ais will go at each other soon. Also, having Viks as obvious first target is bad as they will have Zerks soon. :cry:

Viks start Sun Tzu’s :eek: Bab’s start Sun Tzu’s.

:eek: Wow :eek: I mean...WOW :cry:

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie------up
Yom-------C3C issues - on deck?
open

Yeah, WOW, you are an age behind..

Still, good job Mark1031. I'm amazed to see that we have the iron spot. All wouldn't be too bad, if it weren't for those berserks.

Pfft, you guys aren't in that deep of trouble. You have extra spices to sell. You can put your science down to 10% and gain a lot of $$$ so you can then buy more. Hopefully, the vikings and the germans have a lot more cities than you so the spices will sell for maybe two or even three techs. If you don't have horseback riding yet, there looks like there is a few spots that would have a horse. The jungles are guarenteed to have rubber and coal. Oil could be in the marshes.

The only resources I don't think you guys will have is uranium and saltpeter. If you attack the vikings and take over their two cities, you should be able to hold them off before they can get a good # of zerks to your empire. Since they are all so ahead of you, you can easily get a few techs out of them with a peace treaty.

Yes, I looked into trading with the Germans but they have spices. Others will have to wait until MM and then harbor and then costal route. Long time @ this pace. This really makes me appreciate the importance of having Alphabet to start on Sid to get boats out for early contact or for GL run. I haven’t played a Sid game without it. Well we wanted a challenge. Germany is probably still relatively backward as they just got alphabet. If we go to war with anybody they will probably be able to buy Germany in so watch out.

Things look tough, but more Sid-like than AG8 or MM1. At least how I see Sid :) I will play tomorrow-morning CET.

Question from a lurker if you don't mind? Are you sure you can bring irrigation over a hill through a city? It seems to me that you could only do that in Vanilla Civ.

BTW, thanks for playing these games and posting them. Nothing gets me through a long day at work like reading about some Civ :)

[delurk]I'm not 100% sure on this fact, but it seems that the AI never sneak attacks unless attacking one of your cities (or bought into an MA). Therefore, as long as you keep all German units out of your territory and give in to their demands, they shouldn't bother you.

@inudog: You can irrigate through cities on hills (I'm actually not sure about tundra though. It should work, but I've never seen it myself). I think it was in Vanilla that you couldn't but then that was changed in PTW. I'm not sure when it was changed, but I'm pretty confident.

IHT: I decide to buy Alphabet from Korea for 52 gold and 10 gpt.We need to do something and send a curragh out. All civs, including Germany, have at least 4 techs over us :( Arbela is switched to curragh (in 4).

Turn 1 (1050 BC) :sleep:

IT: Germany demands 28 gold and I give in. Babylon finishes the Great Wall.

Turn 2 (1025 BC) :sleep:

IT: Persepolis: settler->settler. Antioch: warrior->warrior.

Turn 3 (1000 BC) Babylon built a town on our continent.

IT: Arbela: curragh->settler.

Turn 4 (975 BC) Curragh goes east and spots that we can cross the sea tworads Viking lands.

IT: :mad: Korea placed a city north of our empire!! Sardis: warrior->worker. Sidon: warrior-> settler.

Turn 5 (950 BC) I don't know where Korea's empire is, but that city in the north should be ours!

IT: Antioch: warrior->settler.

Turn 6 (925 BC) Samaria founded. Starts with warrior. Pasagadae needs lux at 10%.

IT: We get our FP message. Pasargadae: settler->settler. Gordium: worker->curragh. Bactra: worker->warrior.
The Vikings start Leo. And can build Berserks now :(

Turn 7 (900 BC) Luxury to 0%.

IT: Our iron is hooked up. We can build our UU. :)

Turn 8 (875 BC) Our curragh sees the blue borders of Korea.

IT: Babylon starts Leo.

Turn 9 (850 BC) Hamadan founded. Starts with warrior.

IT: A German saettler pair is dropped near the south of our empire. Persepolis: settler->settler. Sardis: worker->warrior. Arbela: settler->settler.

Turn 10 (825 BC) Antioch requires 20% lux tax.

Well, nothing special to mention. Except for the fact that we are pumping settlers. Let's just try to get a few more cities and mentally prepare for our first war. I'm afraid that we will have a despot GA...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG12-825BCland.JPG

I'd like to see either Yom or Greebley play now. Otherwise this will be a 3 player SG. I have no problem to wait a bit.

ROSTER:
Greebley-------------- on deck
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom-------C3C issues - up?

(delurk)
How many cities do the other civ's have at this point?

I've never attempted SID so I was just wondering how badly out paced you are in settling you are.

Good luck and keep up the great work!

(Activate cloaking device)

Babylon has 17 cities, the Vikings 16, korea 13 and Germany only 10. It appears that we did a good job with the blockade. We have 1 city more than Germany. But then there's the Sid production advantage...

I'll see if I can get my CD working. If so, I'll get this after HNDY04.

No dice on the CD :(. Looks like it's time to get out my wallet. I'll buy it today and play later tonight.

It looks like HNDY04 was more time consuming than I thought, so I'll get this tomorrow.

Turn 0 - A quick diplo check shows that everyone is in the Middle ages, while we're still researching writing :eek:. To top it all off, we can't even purchase any techs if we wanted to (we'll be able to buy them again at the end of my turn when a 10 gpt deal expires, though). F7 shows that the AI is up to Invention (and most likely chivalry, though not yet Theology), but doesn't have Literature yet, as no one is building TGL. With a palace prebuild, we might be able to get TGL and shoot us into the middle ages (around banking/astronomy or even physics by the time we finish) but we'd have to start it now. What does the team think?

Edit: Also, where are the settlers heading? One seems to be heading to an agressive spot next to Hareid, while the other one is heading to the far east.

Well, Germany and according to F7 the Inca are not in the MA yet. I think that nr 1 priority is settling, but I don't mind a TGL gamble. However I doubt or chances.

This is actually about the time the AI begins to research it, so I'll hold off on it. You're right about Germany not being in the Middle ages yet, but the Inca may already be there. You can't see wonders being built by civs you don't know, it only shows wonders they've already finished building.

True, but according to the leaderhead the Ottomans are in the MA. The Inca leaderhead is from the Ancient Age.

Ahh...nice trick ;). But I'm still not sure where the settlers are going.

There are spots SE of Viking Hareid and east of spices and Bactra

IBT - Germany settles Stuttgart in an agressive location on the hill south of Bactra
Samaria:warrior->Curragh

Turn 2 - I swap Sardis to barracks and begin chopping its game forest. At size 5/6 with an irrigated game, 3 forests, and 1-2 irrigated plains, it should be able to pump out imortals in 5 turns for defense (both for its 2 defense and counterattacking in case an AI gets greedy).
I move a settler towards the spot near hareid and spot a fortified viking sword.
Bah, all the AI lacks spices except for germany (who is the only one we can trade to, so there isn't a coastal route), so I mine around Bactra rather than hook up the second source.

Turn 3 - Not much.

Turn 4 - Aha! We now have a trade route to the Vikings. 3 turns from now I'll hook up the extra spices and trade it to them.

IBT - Game forest chopped
Antioch:settler->Forbidden palace (with 7 BG in range, it should complete it quickly once it grows).
Ottomans complete Sun Tzu's, their 4th wonder!

Turn 5 - Found Ergili, 2W of Sidon. Sort of squished in there, but it allows Antioch to work 2 of its 7 bgs without an expansion.

Antioch's drop in population lets me abolish the lux tax for now.

Turn 6 - Another one of our city sites has been poached as the Vikings founded Fauske in our north.

We don't need that many settlers now, but there's no infrastructure to swap to.

IBT - Ottomans complete Leo's!!! This sounds like a case of a runaway AI. Let's hope he slows down.
The Vikings are building Sistine's chapel, so they've discovered Theology now.

Turn 7 - Not much, begin roading the spices.

IBT - Ragnar demands 30 gold. Sure, whatever you say.
Persepolis:Settler->Temple (vetoable, as soon as we get some infrastructure options, I would swap).
Bactra:warrior->Curragh.

The Vikings complete Sistine Chapel.

IBT - Pasargadae:settler->Temple (hopefully library or marketplace prebuilds)
Tyre:walls->Barracks

Turn 8 - Road on spices finishes, so some trade opportunities present themselves.
Move Settler in position to settle next turn on Hill west of Tyre.

I decide we should trade our spices for writing, as that lets us see the most techs.
Spices, 4gpt, and 86 gold gets us writing from the vikings (which should also discourage them from attacking us with their beserks).
As I thought, the AI doesn't have Literature yet. Also, Germany has CoL, Philosophy, and Map Making, so we can't make any trades :(. A bit disappointing. 2 turns from now a 10 gpt deal will expire and we should probably get mathematics.

Bah, buying a tech updated all of our builds, so I swap Hamadan off immortals to a worker in 1.

Tyre can't make more than 1 shield anyway, so I make one of its citizens a scientist to get literature in 50.

IBT - The Vikings are building knights templar (This tech pace is crazy! The AIs must all be researching different techs and getting them in 4 turns!)
Uhoh...bad sign. Germany moves a swordsman out of Stuttgart...
Samaria:curragh->Curragh
Hamadan:worker->worker.

Turn 9 - I really don't trust the Germans, so I swap Sidon off a temple to an immortal (reg) in 1, without waste. Antioch can be swapped to a vet immortal, but it would be due in 5.
I also whip a spearman in bactra.
Arbela swapped to an immortal (vet) in 2.
Pasargadae and Persepolis can be swapped as well if the swordsman really is going to sneak attack.

Dariush Kabir founded on hill east of Tyre, set to warrior.

Our settler in the jungle finds a babylonian swordsman.

I hit end turn and hope the german sword returns to its home.

IBT - Wow! I am met with a pleasant surprise. The Vikings drop off an MDI and warrior next to stuttgart and take it with an amphibious assault from a beserk (why wasn't it razed? did it grow that quickly?) ! The AIs are at war :D!
The German elite swordsman kills an unseen defender, losing 3 hp but not taking the city

Bactra:Spearman->Curragh.
I swap Sidon back to a temple by using the scroll ahead as it has no barracks and isn't very happy.

Turn 10 - Our 10 gpt deal with the Koreans expires this turn and we can trade again.
Wait a second...no we can't!!! Our gpt is useless!!! Those damn vikings ruined it by attacking the Germans and cutting the trade route! Argh! This is a serious setback! Only the Germans will trade with us.

I'm sorry for making such a :smoke: move. I should have known not to trust the trade route. Hopefully we'll be able to recover, but it's starting to look bleak :(.

Edit: Attached correct save.

Hmmm, my 2nd Sid SG with a broken rep :( We won the first by renegotiating peace and stealing techs.

Yom, you attached an old save-game.

Yikes! a blazing tech pace and a broken rep. This game is getting harder by the minute! :(

I think Firaxis should really fix this broken rep not owing to your fault issue.

Edit : BTW, should I play or should we wait for Greebley. I suggest we wait for Greebey since he comes back tomoroow and I cannot play before tomorrow anyway.

It's ok to wait for Greebley, but he might have a lot of games waiting for him. The save is the correct one now by the way.

I don't know about the temples. We didn't build them in AG8 either. And that worked fine. I think that it is not only unlucky but also too risky to trade through an AI harbor. We shouldn't have done this I'm afraid. But all is not lost. We can use other trading tactics.

If you are getting culture at all, surely it should be Libraries?

Of course, but we don't *have* any techs that allow the building of infrastructure. IMHO, this is our biggest problem. The cities are on temples only because there's nothing else to build (you may want to build granaries instead). We can only build barracks, granaries, temples, walls, and units right now, with Antioch working on the FP (as it grows, the time should go down, as it has a lot of potential shields. Actually, if the AIs continue to ignore literature, we may consider swapping the FP over to TGL when it comes in.

War is our only hope. I would go with only barracks and immortals. Upgrade warriors and attack Germany. I don't want to face Zerks. Hopefully they will be gassed by Vikes and we can hurt them enough to get some techs. I would not plan on doing any research other than 50-turn. We need $$ and military. I would focus on getting currency and of course Republic. How much is an AA steal? Can we get anything for a MA with Vikes? Can we get enough military in place to at least make sure we don't loose iron city? If we can take out germany enough and nobody else gets too established on our continent then we can steal/war with most of the world and only have to fend off amphibious assalts which will be much to our advantage. I don't know but it's a plan. Obviously we will have to build up a bit before attacking. I think GL is a very long shot. The AIs will have it long before us at this tech pace. They won't ignore Lit into the IA. I would switch 50-turn from Lit to something toward Rep or currency. anyway that's my $.02.

I began 50-turn on lit already. War with Germany is definitely a possibility with them having no defender better than spears, but we'll need some preparation before we can execute the war. Actually, since they're the only ones that'll accept our GPT, we may want to trade for Math or CoL from them (math to show the tech currency, CoL b/c it's on the way to republic and gives us courthouses) and build up our forces during those 20 turns. When the time to attack comes, we might be able to squeeze a tech from Ragnar if they're still at war (and we have enough gold on hand, they won't accept gpt, and mixing MAs with peace treaties is just suicide since the AI will probably break the deal and the peace treaty at the same time).

OTOH, if we can actually get TGL (which is still a possibility, though remote, the AIs would take only 10-16 turns to build the 160-shield wonder). We have a chance of catching up through infrastructure without executing a war which prevents us from building infrastructure once we get it (since we'll have to keep our promise on the MA or wreck our rep even more). IIRC, MA rep isn't the same as trading rep. If this is true, we may be able to pay straight gpt + MA for a tech and save on some money if the vikings sign peace early.

Greetings from LA. I actually have some time now. So I got it and will start playing. I may or may not finish tonight.

[Edit: I now have 1.22 version up and running on my friends computer so I am good to go. I may have to post an intermediate save so I can pick it up again when I get home. Something the new upload system is good for].

Preturn:
Hmm... As discussed we have two routes. A more peaceful one in which I build temples, or the more normal warpath where I build barracks and immortals. I feel the warpath should be taken only if we are fairly certain it is the only way to win.

Can we get the Great Libary? It is probably a long shot. What is the cost to try? I would want max research on Lit. As far as I understand it, the beakers I put in reduce the cost of the tech. Only question is: Do we need lit? I would say yes as a passive game will require more culture than war. There is also the shields put into the Wonder. We have a strong need for the FP, so up to 200 shields we waste nothing and a strong push is not a waste. As we go past that we will waste some shields.

The only thing that makes it remotely possible is that the faster tech is being researched, the less likely the AI is to choose Lit. Max science gets us lit in 25 turns. I might at least start trying for it and see how it goes. If we do get the GLib our position is totally turned around.

Note that the variant of going for a space victory in a pseudo-passive manner plays an integral part of this. Without this, I would choose the military route as more a sure thing.

The other reason is that failure builds the FP faster and gets us lit for cheap culture. This is not entirely a bad thing.

I open the flood gates. German units can now go forth and destroy Viking towns.

IBT:
Arbella: Immortal->Temple (may change my mind on this).

590 BC: I have a settler up north without a good place to put it. I don't like Sardis' placement at all. A town at the tip of the land to get the large number of coastal tiles means a distance of 2. This is why I placed the town one square south on the dot map that I made. On the other hand, the other options clash with AI cities, so I think building the city on the point anyway is still best. I just dislike putting cities that close together.

IBT:
Gordium: Curragh->Worker

570 BC: Build Ghulaman. Join 2 workers into Antioch - I need to get the FP completion to match the time it takes to get Lit. Scandanavia knows Lit already, which means the gambit has probably failed. I will see if they start building it or trade it. I want to meet the last two civs so I can know the cascade potential as well. Since Alesund might be razed in the Viking-German war, I switch Sidon to a settler just in case this happens. I will still push for the FP as I think we really need it. Corruption is close to 50%

IBT: I must admit I am impressed by the number of German units streaming toward the Viking City.
Sidon: Settler->Temple

The Ottomans finish knights templar. This may have broken any cascade. No city we know about has a wonder under construction (the vikings haven't started the GLib as they are at war).

550 BC: I add another unit to Antioch which lowers the FP to 24 turns. Lit in 18
Build Zohak to the South. The settler to the North is also on hold in the hopes that a city gets Razed.

530 BC: No GLib yet.

IBT: I am glad we didn't attack Germany. They has a LOT of units. As in one stack of 11 units. One stack of 23 units. One stack of 60 units. One stack of 14. One stack of 2 units. That is aproximately 100 units. Over 1/3 is swordmen.

510 BC: Shave off 2 more turns off the FP. Still no sign of the GLib. Lit in 15, FP in 20.

IBT: a dread Berserker shows up. He must be pretty darned scary looking as the 99 german troops have gone into flee mode.

Sardis: Barracks->Spear.

490 BC: The german units that could over run every viking city on our island are all going back. The AI stupidity is stunning sometimes.

470 BC: More the same. Two berserkers have somehow successfully been killed :rolleyes:

450 BC: Two swords actually make it to next to the Viking town. Will they attack???
Most civs have Lit, but noone we know has started to try to build it.

IBT: The two German swords actually kill the 2 spear and capture the town.

430 BC: Not much to do.

410 BC: Temples are finally coming on line.

IBT: Someone finally starts the GLib and it is Germany.

390 BC:

IBT: Copernicus is started.

370 BC:

IBT: One of the two unknown civs rears its ugly head and completes the GLib. This means we won't even be able to get it via war without tremendous effort. I was hoping the other two were isolated and behind, but this was clearly not the case.

350 BC: Nothing to switch.

Notes:
We almost have Lit which will give us the ability to research if we so choose and culture. If I remember correctly, it is actually cheaper to research than to buy even at Sid level (In 5 turns we wouldn't have had sufficient cash to buy it if I saved all our money). The advantage of cash is that you can "borrow" by using gpt to get techs earlier and get 2 for 1's...Except when your rep is wrecked and the AI is an age ahead of you. Feel free to argue this point. The view that "cash is always god" seems prevalent, but I don't see why in this situation that would be true (also see the point below).

The corallary to above is the question: Do we want to run full science? We will have libraries but not Markets (and Libs are much cheaper to build), so we will be 50% faster at gaining techs with science over buying them. Stealing is probably not cheaper at this low level and I don't think we are ready to fight 40 odd swordsmen any time soon if we fail.

One can renegotiate peace to get around the broken rep, but the more I play it, the more I think that is a major exploit, possibly one of the largest in conquests. Peace deals should only be used after wars IMHO. It certainly seems much worse than ship chaining or buying workers. It is an exploit because it makes a major part of the game (reputation) meaningless. Who cares if you break your rep if there is a way around the consequences of your action?

I reduced the FP time from 46 to 12 turns. This I think will be a huge benefit for us. Corruption is terrible at the moment.

My vote is to go for republic at full research and get libraries up in our main towns ASAP.

The other big question: Is a military solution the only way to win from here? My opinion is no (otherwise I wouldn't have played it this way). If yes, I think our better option is to attack the vikings and Korea to claim our island than a direct attack vs Germany.

It occurred to me as I played that my choices may have been too major for the conversation we had and I should have posted the "Notes" section for discussion first. I apologize for not doing this. I got a bit carried away with having free time to play tonight. I don't think the push for the FP was controversial, so really it only the type of builds (which I initially felt our pre-game discussion was sufficient to cover, but grew more dubious as I wrote the notes) and the research vs cash issue.

Anyway, now it is late so I need to go to bed. I may be able to comment Tues night...

Ok. I got it. Should be able to play some turns tonight after finishing Bz8. However, I guess some discussion on our future course of action is in order.

BTW, Greebley that was a nice try to get the Glib.

Well, we despertaly need Republic and Currency. I think that markets are priority number one now. We're only 5 turns from Literature and the whole world knows it already. It was a brave but desperate attempt to go that route. We lost 10 turns doing so.

The peace route appears to be more realistic (looking at all the German troops and knowing about the berserks). But 30 more turns to get to Currency is a killer. We can drop the prices by meeting the other 3 civs though.

If we decide to go for that Korean city, then we need to get MA's with Germany and the Vikings AND enough troops to fight an invansion force Sid style.

Oh...welcome back Greebley :)

Here is my thoughts on what we should do:

Get Lit first and then CoL, Philosophy and Republic. After that go for Currency and Construction to get to the next age. We build libraries so this phase goes as quickly as possible.

As we get into the Middle ages, we will have markets. At that point we can switch over to a cash based economy by either stealing or by buying techs.

In the near term though libraries are cheap for us and more important than markets. Republic (and the FP) are the most important of all in terms of getting our economy going.

Imho markets are crucial to make money. Money is needed for trade and steals. Stealing is cheaper than investing in science imho.

Remember steal price depends on the size of the civs. I am fairly sure stealing won't become worthwhile until we get to the middle ages. Libraries job will be to get us there.

Republic is the better choice over Currency. +1 commerce gets us increase in cash like markets instantly without spending the 100 shields.

That is why I think the order should be Republic, then currency with libraries supporting us until then.

The final reason is that I feel we don't want to risk war at this stage of the game. Stealing will require substantially more military than we have now, IMO.

In other words, it will be a while before stealing becomes viable, Libraries will maximize the usefulness as we prepare.

[Edit: Can't we actually check this? Republic is the most expensive Middle Age tech. How many beakers does it cost in Sid on a standard Map? We can compare that to a steal cost. Personally I would pay more for no risk at war (We can have less troops that will mean no troop support when we enter republic).]

Sounds reasonable...

Ok. Then if Lit finishes within my turns I will drive towards Republic and build libraries as I go.

I think the strategy sounds reasonable and we can survive longer but I'm not sure how we win. We are going to need a beaten down trading partner at some point to at least get 2-fers out of steals or self research. If everyone is in the IA by the time we get to republic (at this tech pace quite possible) it's over. This is why I advocated taking on Germany as soon as possible. It would have risked a quick loss but could have positioned as a bit better if it was successful. I guess at this point we have to hope that the AIs go at each other and stalemate and then maybe make up some ground with a well timed GA. Also, we are going to have to instigate wars soon and throughout the game to achieve this goal. We just are not going to have a chance peacefully trying to dig out of this hole IMHO.

There is a lot of truth in your reasoning Mark1031. But I saw the German troops and we simply haven't got a chance there. And the Vikings with berserks is also out of the question. Korea and Babylon ARE possible targets though, but imho only with MA's.

Yes, of course I haven't seen the German troop movements. Haven't the Vikes taken them down a bit. I guess we haven't got that many options. I think Korea is really just for a GA trigger as I don't see that it gains us much. It certainly wouldn't beat Korea down very much to take one or two cities. We could put a bunch of spears and archers with immortal backup in a fortress on the iron hill, pillage the road leading up to it on the German side and hope they gas themselves on our spears. This assumes of course that they still have only horses and swords and that we have the Vikings signed up. Oh well it looks like we're going the peaceful route anyway, we shall see.

I do not want to sound pessimistic, and I will be the last person to give up (I almost always take a game to its bitter end - the AI has to yank the sword from my dead clenched hands before it declares a win) but IMHO, this game looks like a loser if the AI gets to IA before we get to Middle Ages. But no qualms there; we learnt a lot from this game.

We learnt the importance of Alphabet! :D

Inspite of that I would say let's continue with the original plan that we had (and not just because of the massive amount of troops that the AI can throw at you on Sid). A passive/scientific approach that we decided on at the beginning of the game. Let's see how far we can go!

I fully agree with betazed :) I know that we all -deep in our hearts- want to fight the Germans to gain some territory and wear them down. But that won't be possible for a long time. We would need at least 30 immortals imvho. I'm torn between an almost impossible peaceful road and an almost impossible war road :)

I think Greebley has the right idea. There's no way we can defeat the Germans, and they were in the Ancient age not too long ago, so we can trade with them once we get into the Middle ages. Plus, if the AIs *just* got literature, that means they haven't built any unis yet. If we build libraries in all our major cities (and even minor ones if they have nothing better to build), build the FP and get into republic, we might have a chance of catching up. Also, are you sure we want to run all cash once we get into the Middle Ages? Remember, we're scientific and Universities come before Banks. If we research Monotheism, Theology and Education, we can build cheap universities and might have a chance at catching up (since the AI wouldn't be that far ahead of us in University production thanks to their ignoring of Literature). 100% bonus in research is better than 50% bonus in cash, which the AIs can extort.

Also, I've read somewhere (I think in Cuban Iceolationists?) that the cost to buy is 1/2 the cost, relative to researching. Does this still hold true? If so, we may want to buy once we build markets.

Once again, sorry for ruining our reputation :(. I should have known not to trust that trade route, I was hopeful that we could resell it every 20 turns to catch up (I wanted to sell to Germany, but they already have spices).

BTW, as long as Germany is at war with the Vikings, we can trade for techs with them.

If we get up courthouses and libraries and into republic I guess we might be able to catch up a bit researching @ last. I'v played a few Sid games but never seen this level of tech race. It's really unbeliveable. In MM1 I went 10 turns without a single AI tech advance. Go figure.

The issue is not the tech pace. It is not uncommon these days to be in the middle ages at turn 75. Especially with a couple of scientific civs. We are now at 110. The biggest problem is that we can't take part in the tech brokering. The prices are so high on Sid.

I am not yet pessimistic. We haven't gotten our economy up and running; we don't know yet if an assault to take the Great Library is possible; An AI may fall behind to give us a leg up, etc.

We are researching at last place and so have that benefit to offset some of the SID costs (it would be nice to meet the last civs before we complete republic). We have a nice number of cities that right now are tiny, but will not remain tiny.

Now if the AI reaches the modern age and we have barely gotten out of the ancient and can't get to the GLib - At that point I will be officially worried :D

350 BC: Settle Istakhar. I make a suicide run with a curragh and see the incas on a mountain.

IBT: The babs are at war with Korea! And how many trrops does the germans have! I count at least a hundred in our territory. Germans take Alesund.

330 BC: Nothing much.

IBT: Vikings are definitely in GA because I saw a berzerker take out a sword. We learn Lit one turn before for some reason.

310 BC: Contact the Ottos. They have landed a settler on our continent. Start Philosophy at -7gpt.

IBT: Germany wants 21G. Ach! Obviously I concede. That means I have to cut down research for at least two turns to make up some money.

290 BC: Stop research to gain some money.

IBT: The babs are building copernicus.

250 BC: Our worker cannot even move because it is surronded by german troops. :( Start research again.

230 BC: Nothing much. Otto has 2904G in his treasury. All other civs have less than 100. We do have a runaway AI!

IBT: Otto finishes Copernicus! Now how many wonders has he got till now? :lol: It looks like Germany really has very fertile lands.

IBT: Vikings take Salzburg by amphibious attack. Babylon kicks out out.

190 BC: zzz

170 BC: We contact the Aztecs! Of course they know everything

IBT: We get Philo. I turn off research to get some money.

150 BC:

IBT: Otto is building Js Bach. Vikings are building Magellan! :eek:

130 BC: zzz

FP finishes next turn. We should get a boost of income and should start full on CoL. Well at least we met both the remaining civs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG!2_130BC.JPG

:goodjob: Good turns. With Libraries coming in (and markets a little later), we'll be able to slowly catch up. Once we get up to Otto's level (van Bismark that is. I was confused when you called the Ottomans a runaway AI b/c I thought you were talking about Germany :crazyeye: ), we'll hopefully be able to catch up faster through trading. BTW, is he in the MA yet? If we both enter the MA and get different techs (especially if we get Feudalism), it could help us out a lot. Good job on finding the last 2 AI too. That should help us out tremendously in our research and buy prices. What age are they in? Are the Incans still Ancient, and are the Mayans on the same level as the other AIs (as far as we can tell by wonder building)?

Edit: BTW, why is Samarra building a temple? Has it already built a library?

BTW, we may consider building Immortals in our core to transfer shields to 1 shield cities. We have no use for military (if we're attacked by Germany or Vikings, we're dead no matter what) and the cities that have completed Libraries have nothing to build till Currency (and CoL, if corruption is significant).

I don't know why Incas always get ripped off so badly in games. I haven't played a single game where they have become a super-power. One time, I found them stuck on a tundra island where they only had 3 cities. Poor, poor Incas.

We may want to go to war with the Aztecs and MA with several civs against them. [Edit: Not right away perhaps - Republic and markets are needed, but after that...]

We want them to be in the basement if we can manage it. The Glib is in Tenochtitlan which I think is their capitol and will be more heavily guarded. If they have 3-4 cities and are behind in tech, we may be able to capture it more easily. We may not take the GLib route, but I would at least like to prepare the way.

If the Aztecs are destroyed then the city will be owned by a civ that does not value that city as much and it should have a lesser guard.

I would also establish an Embassy with the Aztecs. Lets see where they live and send the Curragh (or wait for galley) to explore to see if there is a decent route to them. Several turns needed at sea may nix that option.

[Edit: Ya, Samarra can be changed to a Lib without loss of shields in the preturn and will then build it immediately. I recommend this as well. ]

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031---up
Aggie-------on deck
Yom

@Mark1031: you're up!!

OK will get it an play tonight or tomorrow @ latest.

Pre: Change Sammria to Library

110: Sammria library-> temple, Antioch FP-library. Drop lux to 20. Sci ->50 CoL in 8. Switch some cities to max commerce to get that to 7.

90: disband immortal in tyre. Trying to rush lib to avoid flip of the iron city.. Find Incans and Ottomans. See muskets in Bab city.

70: zzz

50: zzz

30: Whip lib in Tyre.

10: Tyre lib->Temple. Whip Libs in Bactra and Ghulaman.

10: Bactra, Ghulaman Lib -> temple

30: CoL -> Rep. In 18 @-4 gpt. Rangar demands 20gp and map. We refuse NOT. In more disturbing news. I see Ottoman Saphi. They must be almost to the IA. :vomit:

50: Wang Demands 20. We of course cave causing us to sell the barracks in Parsagrade :mad: . Switch some cities to wealth.

70: We find the Aztec border.


Spent a bit of time watching the Vikes and Germans battle it out using foolish AI tactics. Germany slogs about 100 troops thru the jungle to take a size 1 city that required 2 swords then starts moving them all back while the Vikes raze the city with a sea assault. I think you should be required to use this tactic in AG11. We are in deep do do. I really don’t see any path to victory. The GL in a Sid Capitol is not really possible IMO. Incans are small and far away so they are potential steal/trade partner but I think the Otto’s are running away with it. Once we get a military up I think we should try to get the world at war with the Ottos although I don’t know what we’ll have to offer to do this. Maybe a better mind can come up with something. I've certainly lost Sid games badly but this is the roughest I've seen.

Maybe we can Ally the whole world against the Aztec. A SID capitol is probably beyond us, but a corrupt city of some other civ, or a capitol of an nCC for small n IS doable. I think the GLIb is probably the only tactic that will work at this point. Unless someone else thinks we can do things another way?

Do you think we have enough to get MA's vs them?

How much have you ever gotten from the GL before edu pops? I just wonder if it will be worth it. We can research the first level techs in 4 now even in despo. We would probably be well into the MA by the time we can put together that kind of plan. I suppose if it could get us to physics it might be worth it but it will take a long time to put together. I think our best hope is WW to slow everybody down. get the econ up and research steal to trading level. I think Incans have only 5 cities so they shouldn't be too far along. Also, small civ=cheap steal. Might be worth focusing on getting them into a war to keep them down. Although I think the Aztecs might wipe them out if they got in. Tough situation.

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie-------up
Yom--------on deck

I say let's go for that crazy plan to capture the Great Library :) I have never seen a tech hole this big. If we could build 10 galleys with 20 immortals, we should be able to capture the city once it is not Aztec anymore. I don't see another option...

EDIT: the key word is GALLEY :( But should we be able to capture the city and hold it for a turn, then we will get ALL techs that are known by two others. This could in theory even be techs of the Industrial Age. I assume that this was what Mark1031 asked?

I have gotten Mass Production from the GLib.

You can go past Education... that is the whole point. If 2 AI are into the modern age, then we will be too. Of course the turn after you have education and the library expires.

The crucial point though is that it doesn't expire UNTIL after it calculates every tech that 2 civs have.

Here is an SG that I was in that does what I am talking about:

From that thread:
The Plan (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1690730&postcount=173)

Successs! (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1730461&postcount=226)

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

Here is the whole thread (Revenge of the Babylonian Settlers C - GOTM 14 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=78782)

Wow. I've never tried that. That is definately the way to go. Instant tech parity. :D

Wow. I've never tried that. That is definately the way to go. Instant tech parity. :D

The key is it must be close, and you hold the city for a turn. One of the AW games in the LK series got up to Nationalism thanks to the GL.

I will play tomorrow morning CET and steer towards:

A. Republic
B. Alliance vs the Aztecs with the world
C. 20 immortals
D. Currency and markets
E. 10 curraghs, to be upgraded to galleys
F. Map Making

A, C and E should be possible during my turns (to start with it at least).
B could be difficult before markets and more gpt. I think it should be the whole world vs the Aztecs if we want to take no risks.
D, E and F are worries for later in the game.

Should we succeed in our plan (let's say between now and 50 turns), then we have to continue as follows imho:
-Build markets, courthouses, aquaducts, banks
-Try to maximize the free tech slingshot to the Industrial Age

Sounds reasonable?

I think in terms of tech, my list of priorities would be:

Republic
Currency
Construction
MapMaking

On the assault:
It looks like the chances are excellent that we won't have to cross sea squares to get to the Aztecs. We may need ROP's however with Germany and probably the Incans to get there. We may need more than 10 galleys though. Hopefully the war with Aztecs will keep them from getting infantry before we get there. We can assume we will be fighting at least rifles and Cav I think. It depends on how the war goes. Buying the world map seems worthwhile. Can we do so yet?

I agree with your statements Aggie though I don't know what you mean by maximizing our slingshot into the Industrial means. You mean when we take the GLib? We maximize that by being slow :lol:

I would get our infra up and running and then see where we are in terms of what units to bring. Knights would be better than immortals if we could reach them. A mixture of knights and immortals would also work well given the knights higher defense. A few pikes might work if we can't get to knights.

I mean that we get a free tech when we enter a next age (Persians, scientific). If we are really lucky we could use that to sell around.

IHT: Persepolis is on wealth. I keep it that way, but maximize gold production without hurting growth.
Pasargadae can grow a lot faster without slowing down the immortal build.
Sardis can grow a turn faster and still get a temple in 4.
Specialist of Antioch changed from clown to scientist. The taxman from Gordium: the same.
Samaria can whip a temple next turn, speeding up this build with 5 turns. I will do it to counter cultural pressure of Korea (Manpo'o).

We now get Republic in 14 turns instead of 16.

IT: Pasargadae: immortal->immortal. The Ottomans finish Magellan. This is of later concern, but how do we stop them from winning a cultural victory?

Turn 1 (90 AD) Temple in Samaria whipped.

IT: Samaria: temple->granary.

Turn 2 (110 AD) Nothing much.

IT: Antioch: immortal->immortal. Hamadian: library->courthouse.

Turn 3 (130 AD) The Aztecs have a settlement in the north, close to the Ottomans. I really hope that they are not alone on an island with the Inca, who are even more pathetic than us (except for the tech situation).

IT: Babylon wants tm and 10 gold (all we have). I agree to do so. Running at a 1 gpt deficit I ask them to pay us for world map. They pay the one gold we need. Germany gets Stuttgart back. When this city expands the borders, we will lose the spices. Sardis: temple->courthouse.

Turn 4 (150 AD) Why didn't I think of this before? We can make deals with the world now they have Navigation! Babylon, Scandinavia, Aztecs and Ottomans can trade for world map. I can't get more than 8 gold for it. Enough to run a deficit. I could sell spices to the Ottomans, but as long as we haven't got a harbor I think this is too risky.

IT: Pasargadae: immortal->wealth.

Turn 5 (170 AD) We get 5 gold and the Korean tm for our wm.

IT: Antioch: immortal->wealth. Babylon builds Bach. The Ottomans start and finish Newton!!

Turn 6 (190 AD) The Ottomans are in the industrial age. We don't have The Wheel yet. :cry: We get 4 gold for wm.

Turn 7 (210 AD) Wm gives us 5 gold.

IT: Stuttgart is Viking again.

Turn 8 (230 AD) 5 gold from wm. I up the tech pace one notch to get Republic in 4. We make -10gpt and have 14 gold.

IT: The Ottomans kick our curragh out of their waters. The Germans raze Stuttgart :D

Turn 9 (250 AD) I close the isthmus to Germany. The intention is to prevent them from settling the former Stuttgart site easily. One of our cities should produce a settler asap to grab this spot. Ergili? I get 3 gold from selling wm. I have no choice but to lower the science rate again.

I end my turns here. At a nice round number. Obviously our chances are slim. But we are not dead yet! We are able to sell our lux and iron, but without our own harbor, I want to discuss this first. We will have a road to Korea soon. That will make sure that we can trade through either their harbor or one of the harbors of Germany. Speading our risk, allowing us to trade? We have a broken rep though :(

Red arrow points to former Stuttgart, razed by the Germans.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG12-250ADourland.JPG

ROSTER:
Greebley----on deck
betazed
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom--------up?

:lol: I made myself 'up' again after my turns. Yom is up, but appears to have posted that he couldn't play in another SG...

I can play now. As I posted in Sling3, a couple restarts and reinstalls (patches and conquests) did the trick.

Things aren't looking too good. Just look at all those German units in our land :eek:. I'm going to work on getting more units and setting up the next (or next player after that) player for the invasion.

@Aggie: How would Stuttgart have stolen the spices? It was in our first ring and their 2nd ring, making it impossible.

Great that you can play :) I hope that you followed the discussion to go for the Great Library and our plan towards it.

Before I start my turns, we have an interesting opportunity. Ottoman will pay *28* gpt for our spices (should be a secure route b/c of Navigation unless a bunch of wars break out) or Incense + 17 gpt.

Do we take it?

On one hand, it's much-needed GPT that will allow us to research faster (maybe even 4-turn research in MA?).

OTOH, We're helping out the biggest civ and we really want to avoid a Runaway AI (TM).

What do you guys think?

When we finish the road to Korea we will have two routes towards the other civs (the other is through the Geman harbor). I indeed think that the Ottomans are the runaway civ of choice. I'm in doubt if we should help them. Won't we be able to deal with others once we are connected with Korea?

The only other civ with Gpt to trade to us is Scandinavia (who has 20 gpt ATM). We'll be connected to them via the Korean Harbor in 2 turns.

Edit: Guess I'll wait the 2 turns.

Actually, if no one objects in the next 10 minutes, I'm going to trade with the Ottomans.

We are barely keeping our cities happy in Despotism. With the loss of MP in Republic, we'll be hurting for Happiness. The Ottoman incense could really help.

Keep in mind that we already saw the trade route destroyed before. The Germans and Scandinavians are still at war. I would wait 2 turns!

I did wait the 2 turns. We have a trade route through the Koreans now.

Turn 0 - Tiwanaku is Aztec, doesn't look good for the Incans
I swap Ergili from a temple to a settler, wasting 6 shields (2 turns of production).

IBT - Well that was unfortunate. A privateer comes out of nowhere to destroy our Curragh near ottoman lands (most likely Ottoman, and at least it wasn't the one near the Aztecs).
Look at those germans go...

Gordium:Library->Courthouse
Sidon:Temple->Courthouse.
Ergili:Settler->Temple
Ack! Should have checked the cities before I ended my preturn. Zohak riots :smoke:.

Turn 1 - WM trading gets us 5 gold. Apparently Germany doesn't have Navigation yet.

I up our science to 70% to shave a turn off Republic research (we should barely have enough money by next turn).

IBT - Our road to the Koreans completes

Turn 2 - Our settler is blocked by the german units, but should be able to move next turn. Unfortunately, there's a huge pile of injured German units on Stuttgart's ruins. Let's hope they move soon.
Our WM will leave us 1 gold short of researching republic this turn, so I trade our WM first, then I build a road that turn to get more gold. We have 9 gold and are losing 9 gpt to get republic next turn (the rest of our research goals will gain us cash, so we can afford to do deficit research now).
Our Curragh shows that the Babylonians do indeed have a land route to the Aztecs.

I MM some to cut the bleeding to -7 gpt.
Spices + 6 gold to the Ottomans gets us Incense and 18 Gpt :D.

I will revolt next turn.

IBT - Republic comes in, set to Math in 4 (50% science) at 21 gpt to get Currency and Construction faster. Map Making is of high priority as well (need galleys for the invasion and harbors would be helpful).

Revolt.

Persepolis riots and will have to alternate between rioting and starvation. I MM all other cities to prevent riots. Arbela and antioch will also have to alternate to prevent the loss of a building or a pop. I set Arbela and Antioch to riot this turn. Next turn they will be happy but starving. Oops, a citizen of Gordium got hidden by the terrain, causing me to MM it wrong, and it riots as well.

Turn 3 - Ouch, we drew a harsh 7 turn anarchy. Antioch and Persepolis won't starve but Antioch will (maybe even twice).
Math will come in 12 with our scientists with 18 gpt.
??? I am confused. Apparently, there already was a settler in Gordium and the pop loss in Ergili was unnecessary.

Hmm..our curragh actually didn't confirm anything. It looked like there was a land connection in the blackness, but there's actually a 1 tile separation. There's still a possibility of a land connection though.

I found another way to squeeze some more money from our cities. Cities that will not riot, but are stuck at 0 growth can be set to 1 turn of rioting and more science and then switched back to no growth.

I do this to Sidon and Zohak this turn (actually, I will leave Zohak rioting until the road connecting it to the rest of the empire finishes, since it has no buildings and isn't growing). Next turn, I'll start the process in Gordium.

Mathematics is now in 9.

IBT - Great, another Privateer destroys a curragh. At least it's not the all-important Curragh exploring Aztec lands.
The German horde takes Hareid.
Sidon riots (on purpose)
Ghulaman riots (not on purpose, apparently it grew). It gets a scientist.
Zohak riots (on purpose) and is set to riot until it is connected to the rest of the empire.

Turn 4 - The Babylonians are industrial and pulled Nationalism (saw rifles). Not sure of the Ottoman's free tech, but they probably have it by now.

Bah, no dice. The Babylonians and Korean island is separate from the Aztec/Incan one.

Also, the Aztecs have Musketmen. I'm not sure if this Gambit will work. We'll need an overwhelming force, and the AI is notoriously incompetent at naval invasions. Not to mention the distance.

Since the happiness status of a city is calculated before food, I set all the cities set to riot with as many scientists as possible without being happy.

IBT - The vikings drop off 2 musketmen and 2 MDIs by Hareid.
Persepolis riots, set to starvation.
Arbela riots, set to starvation.
Antioch riots, set to starvation.

Turn 5 - Jinjan founded on the ruins of Stuttgart, set to a Library.
Sidon set to riot.

Crap, I forgot to Hawk WM last 2 turns (no worker improvements have been done since then, so it has no effect, luckily).

Hmm..Ollantaytambo falls to the Aztecs. The Incans still lack iron but will die soon. IIRC, once your rep. is ruined it can't get 'fixed' nor worsened, so we may want to consider selling them iron for a couple techs (using Peace re-negotiation) before they kick the bucket.

IBT - Sidon riots, set to no growth. WTF? the governor has gone crazy. When I click on the center square, rather than just assign one entertainer instead of one scientist, all the citizens sans 1 become taxmen!

Turn 6 - Persepolis, Arbela, and Antioch set to riot next turn.
Hamadan now requires a scientist and is at 0 growth.

IBT - Persepolis riots, set to starvation.
Arbela riots, set to starvation.
Antioch riots, set to starvation.

Turn 7 - Sidon set to riot. Sardis grew, so it is set to the riot diet as well.

Still no sign of Tenochtitlan.

IBT - A privateer comes out of the fog to destroy a Korean caravel. Nice to know we're not the only ones targetted by them.
Sardis riots, set to no growth.
Sidon riots, set to no growth.
Zohak can grow now that the jungle road is completed.

Turn 8 - Persepolis, Antioch, and Arbela set to riot.
Actually, we can get math next turn if I keep the scientist in Zohak and hire another in Pasargadae (it will lose 2 food but it is stuck at size 6 with no aqueduct and a full granary).

IBT - Math comes in. Research set to Currency in 10.
Persepolis riots, set to starve.
Arbela riots, set to starve (will go down to size 6).
Antioch riots, set to starve.

Turn 9 - Zohak, Ghulaman and Pasargadae send one scientist each to working in the fields. Sidon and Sardis set back to normal

Currency now comes in 18 turns and we have 128 gold.
Hawk our WM to get a few more gold as some worker improvements finished.
Our Curraghs find Teotihuacan, which should be the second Aztec city, so we are nearing Tenochtitlan.

We come out of Anarchy next turn, so I run a risk and set Arbela to riot again to prevent starvation.

IBT - The Gambit works, Arbela doesn't starve and keeps all its buildings. We are now a Republic.

Turn 10 - We have to run 20% lux tax, but, with the exception of Gordium and Antioch, none of our cities need entertainers or scientists. We can get currency in 6 at +2 gpt.

Ragnar has also joined the Industrial club, so Osman isn't running away with the game just yet.

Hawking our WM gets us ~10 gold.

Our curraghs have just about found Tenochtitlan, but it will take 1 or 2 more turns before it is revealed.

I kept all of our cities on wealth for now, but the next player can switch to Immortals if he wants.

I would switch them to courthouses as prebuilds for Marketplaces (that's what Sidon and Sardis' courthouses really are).

As to the Iron deal with the Inca, they don't seem to be that far advanced, so we may be able to trade with them if the Aztecs don't kill them completely. I checked how much iron is worth to them, and they will give us Myst. + The Wheel, OR Map Making (we give like 10 gold) OR construction/Currency with us giving a lot of gold. They only have 3 Cities right now and will probably lose 2 pretty soon. Actually, I can see the borders of Andhuala, their 3rd city, on mainland Germany, so they will almost definitely survive. That is, unless the Germans are bribed by the Aztecs to declare war.

We have an extra settler in Gordium, but I'm not sure what to do with him. Another city is out of the question, so it should be joined into a city. Not sure which city would be the best candidate, though.

Looking good (your turns...). Indeed, it is sad to see that the Aztecs will own their own sub-continent soon :( But it appears that there's a landbridge between Babylon and the Aztecs lands at least!

The problem with the Inca trade is that they might lack a road to other tribes in their last city. We COULD gift them a city and then do deals, but that is truly desperate. But would it work?

ROSTER:
Greebley----up
betazed-----on deck
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom

I didn't notice a landbridge. As to Incan city, it's right next to the Germans and a Viking colony, so it should be connected. Maybe we should wait until that's their last city before doing any deals, though. If we do a deal now and Cuzco gets captured, there may not be a harbor in their other cities yet (we shouldn't need a harbor to trade to Andhuala though).

I think that this is an isthmus between the Aztecs subcontinent and that of the Babylonians. But we should reveal more of the map to be sure.

I see.

Thanks for proving me wrong.The gambit may yet succeed. The question is: When do we strike?

P.S. I would move the E. Curragh south before exploring the isthmus as that could be the location of the Aztec capital.

One thing I noticed: we should allow the Germans to return home! They will probably send them home when we move the immortal.

Doh! So that's why they all fortified.

WTF? the governor has gone crazy. When I click on the center square, rather than just assign one entertainer instead of one scientist, all the citizens sans 1 become taxmen!

Actually, that's quite common when autoassigning under Anarchy, especially in cities that would starve.

Greebley, you know that you're up?

I agree with Yom that capturing the Great Library will be tough, but let's stick with that unless we see other options (I don't see them yet though).

EDIT: Some other thoughts:
-We can renegotiate peace to make gpt deals. This will probably mean that we have to pay up to 5 gpt extra, but that's worth it imho.
-Germany is very weak, according to the histograph. They have obsolete units, lack horses and there may come a time for war... I believe that we judge their power pretty well. I bet that 70% of the military is in our lands.
-I don't know if it is going to help us, but we have a free tech in the MA as scientific civ... 3 tribes are backward and can't trade maps yet.
-No tribe started Universal Suffrage yet and we are almost in the MA.
-Yom already said that we should prebuild using courthouses to get markets. We should do the same with harbors. Once we have markets we should be able to catch up pretty quickly.
-I don't mind risking another possible rep hit. Let's sell horses and lux to the Inca for tech and a route to the MA.

Oh right, I am up. I got and should have some time to play tonight.

Early: I purchase Aztecs and Babylon territory maps. They are not connected after all.
Since we are getting currency in 6 I switch cities to market prebuilds right away.
I open the door for German troops and they bring a swath of pikes through the gap. That would imply that they have more troop on their side than on ours and are now bringing in defenders for their city.

Mid: We get currency. I set most cities to Market places.
The Aztecs make Peace with the Incans The Incans are down to a single city on another island. The Aztecs own their continent

Late: Smiths is completed. I renegotiate peace with the incans. I buy the 4 techs we can buy for 60 gpt and change. We really needed construction and Map making will also help. Looking at the aztec situation, I would really want chivalry for our attack vs the Aztecs. I build aquaducts in the two towns that need them. Shakespeares is completed.

Notes:
We need horseback and Polytheism to reach the middle ages.

3 markets have been built.

I am guessing the units we see in our lands are half or less of the total German forces. This is based on the fact they brought more into our lands and not less when I opened the gap.

I didn't declare war on the Aztecs. I didn't think we had the funds to do so.

I have no desire for a useless war with Germany. They have too many units. We should concentrate on building up our infra, and building knights and boats when we get chivalry.

I feel we need knights to attack the aztecs. The reason is because there is a mountain 2 squares away from the Capitol. This means we can defend at strength 6 with knights before attacking instead of strength 2.2 for immortals. I would dedicate our resources toward getting knights. As long as we do our attack before tanks I think we have a chance.

Here is the Aztec situation:
I think would rather attack with knights than with Immortals, even if it means waiting, provided we don't have to wait too long. What do the rest of you think? I am just very worried what will happen to our immortals out on the plains.

Knights would be nice, but Immortals are much cheaper. We might be able to build an overwhelming force to minimize casualties in the field. Besides, IIRC, aren't we lacking in the horse department? If so, buying Horses would cost a fortune (especially since we'd have to renegotiate peace). I think a better solution would be to research Feudalism (or get it as our free tech, hopefully, since it's the most expensive) and bring a 1 pike for every 3 Immortals. Both to defend a little better in the plains and hold Tenochtilan a little easier.

Added to that: we have a lot of immortals/warriors atm, but no horses at all. And how can we possibly land on their shores without a ROP? Wouldn't we be constantly kicked out?

Hmm...we'd either have to ruin our reputation futher or risk the lives of our immortals in our fleet :(. Either way, I don't like the outcome.

We DO have horses, but couldn't see them because we didn't have The Wheel :) I think it is indeed a good idea to go for Knights. Could we discuss the pros and cons a bit?
What about a well-timed ROP? We get just outside the Aztec seas with a ROP (about 6 tiles NE of the capital) and declare war before we enter their territory to attack. It then would take 2 turns to land the units... We would also need ROP's with Germany and Babylon.

The AI still isn't building an IA wonder yet, which isn't saying everything. But is is comforting. The Germans and Inca still don't have Navigations and can't trade maps. Especially the Inca are a glimmer of hope to get a few techs. The Aztecs are still Medieval. The Ottomans don't have twice the culture of number 2.

I wasn't suggesting to attack the Germans now, but there may come such a time. They DO lack horses. Once we have knights we should seriously think about this option imho. It is another way to get techs, maybe around the end of the Middle Ages?

We are making progress now and we are getting richer. Imho the situation is not as desperate anymore as 30 turns ago. Remember to renegiote peace when making deals.

I assume that the only pre-industrial improvements we want to build are markets, courthouse, aquaducts, harbors and banks?

EDIT: Is is really worth it to buy HBR? We get this tech in 3 with 20% science.

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed-----up
Mark1031---on deck
Aggie
Yom

Ok. Got it. Will read thru the last couple of pages to see what's up before I play my turns.

Pre turn: I am not sure we want to do min research to HBR. It seems to me that the sooner we get to the middle ages the better. So I start HBR at 20% science running a loss of 4gpt. HBR now due in 6

460 AD: Sardis Aqueduct -> Market. WM nets us 6 G.

IBT: Otto starts Universal Suffrage.

470 AD: zzz... Nobody wants to buy our map.

480 AD: Why are we building a granary in Antioch? Switch that to a courthoouse.

490 AD: I start a suicide run with a curragh.

500 AD: Reduce science to get HBR next turn. I start a Colloseum in our capital. With this when the capital grows to size 12 we do not have to increase lux.

510 AD: We get HBR. Our curragh dies. :( Start Polytheism at 20%. Due in 15.

IBT: Viking demands TM and 19G. Obviously I acquiesce.

520 AD: MM cities that have grown in the last few turns so that I can hire a few scientists. Poly now due in 9 turns.

530 AD: Two cities riot. :smoke: Some more mm.

540 AD: Our WM again nets us 6 G.

550 AD: Poly now due in 6. Scandinivia is sending some troops to Otto territory. Looks like there is going to be a war.

Researching HBR is probably a decent idea. I am not sure our ratio of Markets to Libraries, but they are probably fairly even right now making resarch still worthwhile.

Note that I chose the Incas for our tech purchase in the hopes they may get in a war and pay the ultimate price for their folly. We don't take a rep hit for gpt deals when a civ dies (and our rep is bad anyway).

I think I would prefer to wait until after we get the GLib before Germany. The assault will take a lot of resources and a war would slow down our build up.

I agree on the ROP idea. We can even get a pure per-turn ROP with the Aztecs so we can break it just outside their territory even if 20 turns isn't up.

Questions for the assault:
How many knights and galleys? For this I say we get "a whole lot" and then investigate the capitol/establish a embassy and see how many rifle/infantry we are talking about. I would say 10 galleys and 20 knights may be a minimum with 15 or 20 galleys and 30 or 40 units probably necessary.

Do we want to take pikes? They would keep any counter attack vs the stack to be against cheaper pikes rather than our expensive knights. I would say yes to this.

Are artillery units worthwhile? They would be hard to use as they require galley space and only move at speed 1 so are limited to attacking the second round. They also cannot land on the mountains, so would probably be dropped off only after the first round of attacks.

I think the artillery (and immortals) should only be used if we feel the number of knights needed is prohibitive AND the counter from the Aztecs would be reasonable. Since they own the whole continent, I think they will attack us with what they have got.

Some artillery units might help the round after we take the city.

If they are not completely railed it might even make sense to drop units on away from the capitol first; give them a turn to move toward those and then land. The AI will move more than it needs to kill the few knights and without rails, fewer units may be able to reach us. If they have rails then this is less useful, though it could be a use for knights produced while sailing our main fleet to the right spot. They may absorb attacks that are then not on our main force.

I would say they might have 10 rifles fortified in a size 12 city. I think that would mean we lose approximately two knights for every rifle we take down plus a few longbows to take out. So I would say we need 30 healthy knights attacking on the second move after landing. Now how many cavs will they bring at our landing force? Maybe 20? I'd say we land 40 knights and 10-20 pikes on the mountain where we will be 50-50 vs. Cavs. Then attack from the mountain and move all the injured retreated knights into the city and hope they don't have enough of a counter to take them out. Definately also do diversion force if they are not well railed. Forget immortals/arty

I think artillery will be crucial. If we get to Feudalism, we'll be able to build some trebuchets and pikes. All we have to do is land a huge force of Trebuchets/immortals and pikeman one tile away. The defensive bombard will help in the initial counterattack (though not as much as landing on a mountain). I'm just wary of attacking riflemen with Knights, no matter how huge the force. 10 rifles in Tenochtitlan is definitely an understatement. I've seen Sid capitals with 20+ spearmen before. We should bring 30 Trebuchets, 50 Immortals and 20 Pikemen to be safe. Getting that many units is going to be tough and we'll realistically only get about 20 trebuchets, 40 Immortals and 15 pikemen, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. I don't much trust the RNG anymore (after HNDY04 and my most recent turn in Bugs2.0). Plus, we have to hold the city for one turn to get the techs. We can't afford failure. Let us make sure the invasion is successful and uses too much force rather than too little.

Edit:If we are to go the Knight route. I would suggest 70 knights (or even more). Artillery will be useless, as will pikemen. Pikemen have the same amount of defense, plus they won't be able to make it to Tenochtitlan the turn after the landing. When we take Tenoch., the other Aztec cities' borders will surely cover Tenoch.'s 2nd ring, leaving our pikemen stranded and useless.

The problem with knights is that we can't build as many of them for two reasons: They cost more, and we have to wait till chivalry (upgrading horsemen at 120 a pop is basically out of the question in large numbers).

Actually, I would see if we can establish an embassy to get some feel for how many units the Aztec capital has. We don't want to take a shot in the dark and miss completely.

BTW, are the Aztecs even industrial yet? I was the impression they were only slightly more advanced than Germany (late MA with Navigation, but not yet in IA).

Also, I think I read somewhere that there's a program that tells you how far ahead a civilization is in techs (specifically). Are we allowed to use that?

I have to read up a bit here. I can give my input in about 5 hours.

ROSTER:
Greebley
betazed
Mark1031---up
Aggie-------on deck
Yom

Its not too hard to calculate how many knights we would need. A rifle in a size 13+city fortified on flat has a defense of 6*2.35 = aprox 14 defense. 4 attack vs 16 defense means you take 4 hit points for every 1 you do, so you need 4 times the number of knights as rifles. You can add a few for the RNG gods to munch (we actually already did by rounding up to 4 knights instead of 3.75 knights)

If we are talking infantry then we get 23.5 defense or 6 knights per infantry.

One reason I think we should ally the world vs the Aztecs is that they will use some of the 20+ units they might have lolling around in peace time and their cavalry as well. The AI is not totally incompetent at invasions now, so some landings will ocur on Aztec shores using their units with extras being landed on other shores. Yom's non-knight idea would absolutely require it IMHO as sufficient cavalry could kill off our attack force before it could attack. (they may be more reluctant to attack a SOD of knights in the mountain)

The problem I see with this is floating our fleet of galleys past enemy territory. Maybe we should fight, make peace, launch and set up, declare war, land.

Might as well establish embassy now to get a baseline estimate.

============================================

Writing this I thought of a cool way to figure how many units you need. What you do is multiply hit points and attack for the attacker and hit points and defense for the defender. If the numbers are the same, then you have a 50% chance of winning in 1 turn (it does not take into account troops that survive to attack again).

So if there were 2 regular infanty, one vet infantry and 5 vet rifles you get
23.5* (3+3+4) + 14.1 * (4 * 5) = 517 Vet knights are 16 each so 33 would be 33*16 = 528 and your chances of winning taking the city is greater than 50%, for 32 knights you get 32*16 is 512 so your chances of losing is greater.

So the formula is 23.5 * (sum of all the infantry HP) + 14.1 * (sum of all the riflemen hp). If there were cavalry as well, their defense is half a rifle, so you would add 7.05 * (sum of all the hit points of the cavalry), etc. Once you have this sum you divide by 16 to give you the number of knights.

I think this all works.

Got it but there are a number of things I would like to discuss first. I'd say that looking over the situation I would change my view of what the plan should be. First I would like to disband all reg warriors and maybe chariots. When markets finish go with pure military of immortals, galleys, pults and spears to be upgraded to pikes. after poly go for Feudalism at a modest rate to build some cash. When Feud comes in upgrade where possible, build pikes and turn off research. Aztecs are still in MA so no RR for them for a while. I'd say we land about 10 pikes on the mountain farthest from capitol. Next turn land a force of about 15 pikes, 15 trebs and 40 immortals next the capitol and try to take it. This will require 40 galleys and the assorted troops. Just want to get a consensus. I think knights will be too expensive and take too long. Also best thing abouts knights is upgrade and retreat ability but this is a suicide mission so not really important there and attack is same as immortals. Maybe more troops depending on what's in the capitol. We can check when we are about ready to launch our ships and adjust accordingly. Let me know what you think.

The thing about putting the Aztecs in war mode now is that they will build up huge numbers of troops. More I think than they lose to sea invasions making our invasion more difficult. As they are still in the MA we may get to them before RR and certainly before sanitation. Also we have nothing to offer the world to start this war.

We can't really decide whether or not to ally the world against them now. Once we build an embassy we'll have an idea of how many units they have and if we can handle it or not. If they have 30+ units, then maybe we want a global alliance. If they have fewer units in their capital (10-20) then we definitely don't want them in war mode producing nothing but riflemen.

I agree with the general direction of the discussion. An embassy definately is needed. I also agree that we probably don't have the money to MA the world vs the Aztecs. The big drawbck of immortal is that the are slow and take two turns after our landing to attack the capital. Knights do it in 1. I understand that knights are expensive and postpone the invasion though.

I agree that we can sign pure gpt rop with the Aztecs, like Greebley suggests. Landing a distraction force is a great idea as well.

I have read a lot of great ideas, but we have to agree upon an approach. My idea at this moment:

-30 Immortals, 20 knights, 20 pikes pikes
-gpt ROP with the Aztecs that we break when we are outside of their territory and ready to attack (we could include a peace deal here)
-send in a distraction force to lure the Aztecs to the other side of their empire
-attack within 30 turns. We might be too late otherwise (when they have rails).

I like to discuss it however. I can imagine that there are a lot of pros and cons and I like us to all agree.

I agree with the overall plan, Aggie. Sounds good. Only thing is that within 30 turns we will not have 20 knights. IMO, We will not have chivalry in 30 turns or have the money to upgrade all the horses.

Hence, lets attack with Immortals and pikes. All we need to do is hold teh city for 1 turn. 20 pikes should be able to do that.

I agree with Betazed. You said that Immortals need 2 turns to attack while knights only need 1. This is not true. The point of using immortals instead of knights is their cheapness. We can build a ton of Immortals/pikeman/artillery (it will be a strain on our economy but necessary) land them 1 tile away from tenochtitlan. Lose maybe 8 Pikemen and then take the city with our huge force. The artillery will mean we lose all the units that bombard that turn, but I don't want to attack a fortified vet. rifleman with an immortal only to promote it. We need to injure the defenders as much as possible.

You said that Immortals need 2 turns to attack while knights only need 1. This is not true. Sorry for my :smoke: comment. I agree with a fairly swift war and therefore agree with betazed and you.

So I see that we are generally agreed on the the issues. Immortals, pikes and trebs will be our attack force ASAP. It will be markets->military. And get a peek at the capitol soon.

Mark1031, I agree with your approach, but don't forget aquaducts. They net us a lot of money as well when cities grow > size 6.

I agree as well if they don't have rails yet. If we see signs of rails though we may have to rethink. The problem with rails is that luring away military won't work. We may need a substantial number of knights and pike in that case.

I would trade territory maps now and then to look for rails (once they are industrial that is).

Yes I think the key to success will be to act as quickly as possible. Before rails and maybe even before rifles but that's not likely.

I think we try very early and if that doesn't work out we try very late. The absolute limit in my mind is when the Aztecs get Tanks. Before that we have a chance.

Early is better than late though as we may lose thousands of shields in the late attack.

good news. Will finish/post tomorrow but teno is weakly defended :D The quicker we get over there the better.

Absolutely marvelous news :)

I second that :D. We could take the city right now without even building up our forces! Just send over 20 or so immortals right next to the city and throw their bodies against it :D. We should only lose about 5-10 immortals and will be able to hold the city pretty easily. Things are definitely looking up :).

pre turn: switch some markets to courthouses. Higher some taxmen for happiness. Disband a bunch of regular warriors and a couple of chariots which speeds up a couple of builds and saves us a lot of money.


IT: Aztecs want 19 gp plus territory map, we comply. Biz wants 11gp. More than happy to oblige.

560 Bactra courthouse-> galley

570 Viking start suffrage.

580 building immortals, galleys, etc. Egrili riots (sorry don't know how I missed that as I was checking everything each turn)

590 Arebella builds relatively unneeded courthouse -> galley. Korea's start suffrage. Established embassy with Aztecs. Teno is only defended by four muskets and two catapults [dance] .

600 zzz

610 Poly comes in and we get engineering as our free Tech. Everybody has all visible techs except the Incans who lack engineering. :D This is quite nice as we can renegotiate peace in 2 turns and hopefully get feudalism. Join settler into samaria.

620 Aztecs are in the IA :( .

630 renegotiate peace with the incans and trade engineering plus 257 gp, plus 27gpt for feudalism. Invention started with one scientist, should probably just switch off science since we are 2 techs from anything useful and are finished if we don't get the GL. Sardis Harbor -> galley

640 a couple of courthouses complete. Aztecs and Ottomans signed an alliance against Vikings. Aztecs are now at war. Up lux to 30.

650: Ottomans have 15K in the bank :cry: .

Summary: Completed a number of courthouses and marketplaces and switched almost everything to military. We are up to 23 immortals and about eight galleys. I haven't built any treb/pults as we can think about whether we need to bring artillery. Arebela should be able to pull in 15 shields with mining a few squares. I forgot to sell maps for the first five turns but have done that since I remembered which nets us about 5gpt. It's a pain but we need everything we can get at the moment. I think we are in good shape for our plan. We have the economy to support the troops we need and I would not really worry about any infra until we have our invasion force ready. We can switch back to infra once they're on their way. The Aztecs are now at war, I hope this doesn't cause them to put more military in the capital. Built-up troops are fortified in their city of origin. The galleys are on goto to Tyre which is where I assume we will launch from. We could start moving troops up there as well, I was just too lazy. The question of whether to bring trebs is a difficult one. Realistically, it will still take us about 30 turns to get our troops into position and by then the Aztec should have nationalism so we will be facing fortified rifles. In that case I think we will need to bring about 10-15 trebs. The main thing will be to strike before they have rails up. We can launch our strike force as as soon as it is ready and follow-up with a diversionary force of pikes which I think we can launch about three to four turns later to draw off their cavs from the capital.

will post save tonight.

A critical misfortune has fallen on my family and I have to go away for a while, do not know how long. :( I am extremely sorry that I have to leave like this. Please skip me indefinitely.

It is hard to say on the Aztecs, but I don't think if they stayed at peace they would stop building units. Usually it is a civ that hasn't fought at all that has the biggest initial assault in my experience. I am not sure how being alone on their own continent will affect that.

We should probably investigate again when we think we are ready.

If we really want to slow their tech, then eliminating trades by putting them at war with the tech leaders might keep them from rails and rifles. (don't want them to get their R & R). If we could afford it that is. The additional landing might even tax their resources a bit more.

Sorry to hear that betazed. I wish you all the best.

ROSTER:
Greebley-----holiday from July 24th to August 9th
betazed-----skipped until further notice
Mark1031
Aggie-------up
Yom--------on deck

Aggie I also have a vacation coming up. We finally settled on the dates. I will be out from July 24 to August 8th or 9th

Mark1031, do you suggest to sail to the Aztecs now? I agree that it is tempting. But I'm almost sure that they will have rifles when we land. Which means that 25 immortals is probably not enough. And we need a couple of turns to group or forces.

I will play my turns after a new discussion.

At least no AI started ToE yet.

Getting the whole world at war with the Aztecs is an interesting idea, but I doubt we have the money. If we can find a way to scrounge up the money to do so and not totally ruin our economy (wouldn't it all have to be in cash since our rep is trashed - w/a peace treaty is out of the question since making peace with cancel it) I'm for it.

As for when to sail, a lot of those 25 immortals are regular, so I would wait until we got 40-50 of them and then set sail. If we get Feudalism before then, maybe throw in a couple trebuchets (cata's probably won't be worth it), but I believe speed is of the essence. Even if the Aztecs just have 6 riflemen in Tenochtitlan by the time we get there, it will still be assured that we take the city and still have a sizable force left over. We only have to have more warm bodies than they have attackers, no matter what the casualty rates (I imagine we'll lose almost every immortal we land).

By Greebley's reasoning:
14.1 * 6 * 4 = 338.4
4 * 40 * 4 = 640 (this is assuming we send 40 vet immortals)
4 * 50 *3.75 = 750 (approx. 13 regulars, 37 vets)

This would leave us with either 300 or 410 left after the attack (rounding the riflemen's number up and -1 for a catapult hit).
300/4/4 = 18.75 immortals, so let's say 18.
410/4/3.75 = 27.333 so 27.

Either way, the only units that can reach us are the units that came out the turn after our landing to attack our invasion. Fast units will fall short since no city is 3 tiles away, and thus will use 1 movement point moving to the edge of their borders and 1 more to enter our borders (after the capture of Tenochtitlan). We can be attacked by slow units from Atzcapotzalco on arrival, but Teotihuacan's slow units will fall short and will be the only units that can attack us after we take the city.

Yes, I will use my 10 turns to build up more military and position the troops for the trip. If we want to make the best of this TGL capture, we should have all our important cities on prebuilds to switch to banks when we get the free techs. I will play tomorrow morning (CET).

Yom we have feudalism. I would try to bring about 15 trebs 30 immortals and 5 pikes if possible. Also check city just before landing to see if this will be enough. Then 4 turns after launch send the diversion force to the mountain on the other side of the continent (at least 10 squares from capitol). Land deversion force. Then next turn land strike force and hope for the best. We could go without trebs but I'm afraid we might just promote a lot of rifles. We could go with whatever we have in about 10 turns and check the city before landing to see if it's enough and wait for reinforcements if it's not. We will also need a ROP with Germany and Aztecs.

I thought the real problem was a shortage of boats. Do we have the 25 boats we need already?

I don't think we have any boats. I wouldn't bother with building too many pikemen. We really just need warm bodies to prevent a capture for one turn. Immortals are the same cost and can attack too. Actually, since Trebuchets are also 30 shields, we may be better off just sending only immortals.

Actually, since Trebuchets are also 30 shields, we may be better off just sending only immortals.
You should send at least one bucket for the defensive bombard. It may save a few units and be the difference if you pull this off.

I don't think you guys realize how many forces may start spewing out of the cities when you land. I was testing a few things out on sid, made my own map, made myself have infinite gold, on my own island, etc. At each era I checked to see how many men the computers had. At the start of Middle ages most had over 100 offensive units and they only had 10-15 cities. I know this is your guyses SG, but bring along the trebs and pike.

The thing is, very few of those units can get to us the first turn. The majority of the Aztec forces are in the former Incan lands (preventing flips). Depending on our final landing square, the only slow units that can attack us will come from Atzcapotzalco or Teotihuacan. In addition, fast units from any of the core cities can attack our landing. This will mean a maximum of approx. 20 attacks upon landing and a minimum around 5 units. Trebuchets may help weaken the defenders inside Tenochtitlan, but they will not be able to enter the city upon its capture. We will already have used their movement to bombard, so, along with the winning Immortals, they will be stuck outside Tenochtitlan.

As I stated earlier, once we have taken the city, the next turn we will only be faced with very few units. The only units that can reach us that turn are Fast units from Atzcapotzalco/Teotihuacan (depending on the tile of landing - not from both cities) and units that attacked us on the first turn of landing. Assuming that 75% of the attacks were successful (arbitrary number), there would be 15 units left to attack. The majority would be injured in some way so let's say 5 were redlined and wouldn't attack. That would only leave 10 units and 2 or 3 fast units from Atz./Teot., which we could fend off easily.

Pikeman may actually be worth it, but I wouldn't bring too many. It really depends on how advanced the Aztecs are and how many troops they have in their core cities. If their core cities are as weakly defended as Tenochtitlan, then we have nothing to worry about. If they are chock-full of units, I would bring along a lot of them (doubtful since the capital is so pitifully defended). The issue of Technology involves Cavalry. The investigation of Tenochtitlan showed that they have saltpeter AND horses, so they are capable of building Cavalry. The question is, do they have the technology yet? If so, bringing along pikemen will probably be unnecessary. Cavalry can rip through any defense we put up, so we would probably be safer by having a lot of units.

However, I don't think they have cavalry yet. Having said that, I believe 10 will probably be ideal.

We have 8 galleys and a curragh. 10 galleys will be ready in 5 turns. We also have 23 immortals, 6 warriors, 2 spear and 2 pikes...

I am starting now. I can buy ivory from the Ottomans for 22 gpt. I think this is a good price and it surely won't help the Otto's THAT much. They are already absurdly rich.

EDIT: No, I can even make a better deal with them. So I will go for one lux for ivory, incense and world map.

I would prioritize ships and immortals, building only a few pikes. We'll need 25-30 ships.

IHT: I renew the lux deal with the Otto's. Instead of giving me a lux and 18 gpt for one lux I now get Ivory, Incense, world map and 14 gold for Spices. Since we have a ruined rep, this must surely mean the the Otto's are at war with the Vikings.
I lower the lux tax to 20%. We make 101 gpt.

I decide NOT to make a possible 2fer for a lot of money (renegotiate peace with the Vikings to get Invention and then trade with Germany). The reason is our TGL-gambit. Therefore I also fire the scientist.

IT: Babylon demands tm and 29 gold. I give in.
Persepolis, Antioch: pike->immortal. Harmadan: galley->galley. The Ottomans start ToE!!

Turn 1 (660 AD) I start moving troops and galleys to Dariush Kabir.

IT: Sardis, Samaria: galley->galley. Ergili: treb->treb.

Turn 2 (670 AD) The Germans have Invention now. Babylon has infantry.

IT: Persepolis, Antioch: immortals->immortals. Arbela: pikeman->immortals, Zoha, Gordium: galley->galley.

Turn 3 (680 AD) The Vikings appear to have lost a few cities to the Ottomans. It good to see them at war. They are the biggest empires on the planet, with the Aztecs.

IT: Pasargadae: galley->galley.

Turn 4 (690 AD) Nothing much.

IT: The Inca join the Vikings in the war vs the Ottomans. No more Inca soon? :( A viking berzerk attacks Chalco of the Aztecs. Babylon and Korea fight within our borders. Persepolis, Antioch, Arbela: immortals->immortals. A curragh tried to get home, but sinks :(

Turn 5 (700 AD) The Aztecs now know Nationalism :(

IT: Gordium: galley->galley. Sidon: market->barracks. Tyre: galley->harbor, Hamadam, Bactra Ghulaman: galley->aquaduct, market. We have quite a few galleys now and need the vital improvements.

Turn 6 (710 AD) The Vikings are hurting seriously. And the Babylonians win the war vs Korea. The Ottomans are now not only the most advanced, most cultural and richest. They also have the highest population. We can now trade world maps every turn and until now I see no Aztec railroads. I have seen Aztec rifles on our continent though.

IT: Persepolis, Antioch: immortals->immortals, Sardis: galley->galley, Samaria: galley->aquaduct,

Turn 7 (720 AD) Map trades.

IT: Pasargadae: galley->harbor, Arbela: immortals->immortals, Ergeli: treb->treb, Istakrh: galley->harbor.

Turn 8 (730 AD) More map trading.

IT: Persepolis, Antioch: immortal->immortal, Gordium: galley->aqueduct, Zohak: galley->temple.

Turn 9 (740 AD) I build an embassy in Scandinavia for 56 gold. The only have one lux and are starving the capital. I also build an embassy in Berlin for 62 gold. They have an enormous amount of troops in the capital and only appear to have iron. Germany is at peace with the world, but Scandinavia is at war with the Ottomans, Koreans and Aztecs.

IT: Antioch: immortals->immortal, Sidon: barracks->immortals.

Turn 10 (750 AD) :sleep:

Well, we are in the position to make a 2fer. Get a tech from one civ and then trade it with the Inca for Monotheism. However, I decided against it, because we are going for the TGL. The Inca deal is gone in 8 turns. We should probably make a deal then, because the Inca may go soon, giving our money back. The Aztecs have rifles, but no rails yet. This is where our troops are atm:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG12-troops.JPG

And all our troops plus world map:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/AG12troopsandaztecs.JPG

I think that we should be able to sail to the Aztec lands soon. We have a couple of immortals in fortified cities and other galleys are on their way to the meeting point. Our home continent will have almost no defense for a couple of turns when we sail away. But otoh we can't defend ourselves atm anyway :p

EDIT: We need 16 turns to sail to the Aztecs lands. I guess we have to leave asap. PS: Jinjan is about to riot.

EDIT2: There are a couple of interesting developments. The knowledge of the AI tribes are spread over 1.5 ages. We are almost level with the Inca, the scientific Germans are in the middle of the MA, the Aztecs and Korean should be somewhere at the start of the IA and the Vikings, Babylonians and Ottomans are ahead. This could give us the opportunity for trades in the future. Especially when the Viking and Korean advance is slowing because they are crippled.

ROSTER:
Greebley-----on deck (holiday from July 24th to August 9th)
betazed-----skipped until further notice
Mark1031
Aggie
Yom--------up

Looks good aggie. If we think the forces may be sufficient, we can launch now, but continue to build galleys and immortals and especially pikes to send off. If in 16 turns we don't have sufficient troops then there will be more on their way. If we do have enough then the units on their way land on the Aztec shores and basically are sacrifices. They land maybe 2 turns before our main attack and will draw most units away. If the Aztec have rails by then, I think we will want to land all units simultaneously. The Aztecs will go for the weaker stacks first (If we did the 2 turns before, they kill the landing units the first turn and can still attack our main stack too).

I would buy the Aztecs territory map every few turns (or do map bartering for fun and profit with all civs). [edit: The reason it to find out when they get steam]

I got it.

I won't set sail just yet. Maybe in 3-4 turns when we have 40+ immortals ready to sail. We have enough ships though.

Too bad on the Aztecs getting rifles, but it's not like we weren't expecting that in the first place. It looks like Greebley/Mark will get to launch the TGL offensive.

BTW, how are we planning to get to the Aztec lands? ROP with the Germans? We might be able to get an ROP with the Aztecs and Babylonians, go through Aztec waters to the Babylonians and then (when the ROP runs out) declare war on the Aztecs. What do you guys think?

I think a ROP with Germany and Babylon are absolutely required. Otherwise we will get booted to who knows where.

It was 15 turns to the spot that is closest to the capitol and 2 to attack (the 15 turns are from the current location of the ships)

We certainly need the ROP with Germany and Babylon. And afaik we are allowed to decalre war while having a ROP with the Aztecs as long as we declare outside their borders.

EDIT: If we sign a ROP with the Aztecs, Germans and Babylonians NOW it will expire when we are ready to attack the Aztecs. That might be the best way to go now. I would personally not wait more than 4 turns before sailing off.

Turn 0 - We have 23 Immortals Fortified by Dariush Kabir, under 5 pikes and 2 trebuchets. I move some veteran immortals from the cities they were guarding to go towards the Galleys. It looks like the vikings did well in their war with Germany as they own Hannover and Cologne on the German continent (Beserkers are deadly even in the hands of the AI it seems).

We have 2 regular immortals but I decide not to take them. 1 is too far from the front to get their in time, while the other is protecting a city surrounded by German units. It wouldn't make a difference of they wanted to attack us, but they might be less tempted if we had a unit in the city. Unfortunately, Germany isn't at war with anyone, so they may be tempted to attack us.

I swap Sardis from a galley to an Immortal. The galley will not make it to the front in time.

IBT - Persepolis:Immortal->Immortal
Sardis:Immortal->Pikeman (for homeland defense)
Arbela:Immortal->Immortal
Jinjan riots :smoke:. I even saw Aggie say to MM it.
Istanbul completes the Theory of Evolution. Whatever techs they get, I hope the Babylonians (most advanced after Ottomans) get it by the time we get TGL.

Turn 1 - Not much to do other than moving Immortals and giving Jinjan a taxman. I will probably set sail 1/2 way through my turn.

IBT - Babylon declared war on the vikings.
Antioch:Immortal->Immortal
Edrine completes Universal Suffrage

Turn 2 - Same old.

IBT - Germany signs an Alliance with the ottomans against Korea. That should keep them off our backs. The Inca make a peace treaty with Korea.
Persepolis:Immortal->Pikeman (for homeland defense, the other immortals won't make it to the front).
Sidon:Immortal->Immortal

Turn 3 - The same...

IBT - A privateer comes out of the fog and sinks one of our Galleys on its way to the rest of the fleet. This is another danger for our invasion force that we didn't expect.
Germany signs an alliance w/ the ottomans against the Vikings. Germany signs another alliance w/ the Ottomans, this time against the Inca.
Pasargadae:Harbor->Barracks
Arbela:Immortal->Pikeman
Antioch:Immortal->Pikeman
Ergili:Trebuchet->Aqueduct
Dariush Kabir starves and Tyre is now starving too. Did Alesund overtake them in culture or something?

Turn 4 - More waiting. If only Immortals had move 2 or if our core weren't so far from the docking point. Actually, the departure will be a little later than I had thought.

IBT - The German units finally unfortify and head north.
Persepolis:Pikeman->Pikeman
Bah, in my sloth, Ghulaman riots.

Turn 5 - I will disembark in 3 turns. Unfortunately, I am short a galley (and a half) thanks to the privateer attacking. I will have to leave behind the trebuchets.

IBT - Scandinavia signs a peace treaty with Korea.
Sardis:Pikeman->Pikeman
Antioch:Pikeman->Pikeman
Sidon:Immortal->Pikeman

Turn 6 - More waiting. The departure is tantalizingly close.

IBT - look at those germans go...
Persepolis:Pikeman->Pikeman.
Arbela:Pikeman->Pikeman

Turn 7 - We set sail next turn with 5 Pikemen and 41 Immortals. It should be enough.
I sign an ROP with the Germans for a mere 17 gold. I get an ROP with the Aztecs for 61 gold and our WM.

IBT - Pasargadae:Barracks->Pikeman
Antioch:Pikeman->Pikeman
Tyre:Harbor->Marketplace.

Turn 8 - Our glorious Army sets sail. Wow. Which Galley to board? I name all of our galleys "Regular Galley" or "Veteran Galley" so that I can put the pikemen on the Veteran Galleys. If we are attacked by Privateers, these will be the first to go. I buy the Aztec territory map for 2 gold and confirm that he has laid no rails. I move the Galleys manually. We don't want a ship to block our path and force the Goto pathfinding the wrong way.

IBT - The Inca want to extend the peace treaty. I accept. Soon we won't need to renegotiate peace with them.
The German army heads north.
Persepolis:Pikeman->Horseman (we can build a lot of these in our main cities and disband them in 2nd and 3rd ring cities for shields)
Gordium:Aqueduct->Harbor
Sidon:Pikeman->Pikeman (then maybe horsemen).

Turn 9 - Not much. The fleet advances. 13 Turns to the square where we declare war, 15-16 turns to Tenochtitlan. Korea seems to be headed for the history books as it only has 2 core cities left, thanks to the Babylonians and Ottomans (let's hope they're even tech-wise with each other so that we won't still be behind a bunch of techs. This is a very war-torn planet as Heidelburg is apparently Aztec and Cempoala and Tamuin are Ottoman.

IBT- Arbela:Pikeman->Horseman
Antioch:Pikeman->Pikeman
Samaria:Aqueduct->Harbor

Turn 10 - Still not much to do. I switch JinJan from a Courthouse to an Aqueduct. Some Persian Horseman/Cash-rush can speed it up. I swap Zohak from a temple to a Harbor to be completed next turn. After that it needs an Aqueduct so that it can grow.

I haven't signed an ROP with the Babylonians yet, though the next player should before entering their territory (we don't want to get booted out. Once we enter the tile from which we are going to launch our war, I would wait one turn until the galleys have full movement and then declare war the next turn. Otherwise, the Galleys are at risk for 2 turns at sea rather than just 1.

Looks like Mark1031 is going to have all the fun, or tragic :)

Korea is almost gone. Should we renegotiate peace to get a cheap tech or do we not bother and wait for the capture of the Aztec capital?

ROSTER:
Greebley-----up (holiday from July 24th to August 9th)
betazed-----skipped until further notice
Mark1031----on deck
Aggie
Yom

Ok, I got it.

I will send off a few more pikes in boats for the "lure" attack to try to pull their units out of position.

Why can't I get that image of captain Ahab out of my head? :p Good luck though. We have a decent chance here. Greebley, you are right about the lure attack.

We don't have any boats left, though we can make tons of units. A couple of Vet. Galleys out of Tyre should do to transport some pikemen and the 3 Trebuchets I left behind.

Preturn: I wake some units. to send as lures. Rush a galley.

Early: Build galleys with an occasional rush move some pikes into the galleys to send off. Attempt to defend all my towns.\

The Koreans have been destroyed.

Aztecs and Scandanavia are at peace.

Ottomans demand tribute
Ottomans establish an embassy.

Mid:
Germany and Inca sign peace.
Germany and Vikings at peace.

Vikings demand tribute

If we ever need money we can just attack an Ottoman town. He has 17k in the bank. Ottomans have nearly 50k Culture.

Late:

Babylon and Ottomans sign an alliance vs the Inca. One of the ships is sunk by a Privateer.

Notes:
Ok we are not in our official spot but we are 3 turns out from the capitol same as the spot we were going for. I think We can declare war on the very next turn. Land our 4 decoy pike and start our fleet in

Zohak will have 7 units in it as it is near the aztec town on our island.

The germans have blocked off our town and are pretty annoying.

Not sure why the Ottomans sent their ships in. Perhaps they are after the Germans? Ottomans are pretty strong.

We are just in time. I traded maps with everyone and see the Aztecs first rails [note that there are more not in this picture]

I suggest we declare next turn. We are 3 away which I think is as close as we can get.

Good luck.

Next player, don't forget to send that "lure" stack in. And it also may be a good idea to investigate Teno first.

EDIT: I vote to have an MA with Babylon or another close neighbour that could spread their troops. Our lure attack is too small to scare them I'm afraid.

ROSTER:
Greebley (holiday from July 24th to August 9th)
betazed-----skipped until further notice
Mark1031----up
Aggie--------on deck
Yom

I believe the plan was to go 3 SEW and then 1 South to stay in Babylonian Lands. I'm sure an ROP won't cost anything over 100 gold, so we can easily afford it. I wouldn't want to put our units at risk 1 turn more than we had to. It looks like the Aztecs got Steam.

Lucky Mark gets to take the Great Library (hopefully) and then the hard part starts ;).

I'm not sure about how many Galleys it takes for an AI to boot you out of their waters, but I wouldn't want to risk getting kicked out into Aztec lands the turn we were planning to attack.

Edit: For instance, take the stack of Galleons/Frigates the Aztec have next to our fleet. We wouldn't want to lose ships to those units. My proposed path doesn't delay the attack, and, at the same time, only exposes our fleet to attack for just one turn.

The only thing is that the lure stack may lure units out of the capitol. We can investigate the city, but still may not know whether we should attack our not. I do agree we should investigate however to give us some idea.

[Edit: I think we want to take land on the 3rd turn. That will give units two turns to move away toward the lure so they cannot attack us. we could start back further though.

It will also take 2 turns do line that up which means 2 more turns of rail. I think we should attack from where we are.

We of course already have a ROP with Bablyon else we would be booted back home on the inter-turn.

@Greebley: It's not quicker, it's just that the Aztecs only have 1 turn to attack our ships using that pathway, rather than declaring war now, and exposing our units for 2 turns.

I guess I am less worried about boats and more worried about land units. We can see what other think.

I don't care about the boats, it's what's in the boats that I care about. Until we land our immortals, every boat we lose is 2 immortals down the drain.

An advantage of war now is that we can ask other tribes to join. Maybe the Babylonians can land a few troops?

EDIT: If nothing else I would not land that lure stack all at once. If we land a few every turn more forces may go to the west.

I doubt anything the Babylonians land in the next 2-3 turns will be helpful. They will most likely attack the colonies of the Aztecs. Remember, the Babylonian troops are still in Korea after whiping them out and now they are quelling resistors.

If we go to war next turn as opposed to 2 turns later, there are 2 advantages. For one, our ships (and therefore our immortals) are exposed less. Secondly, the Aztecs have less time to shuffle troops to Tenochtitlan in response to our naval threat. The first is rather important, but I feel the second is downright necessary. The more time the Aztecs have to move units to their capital, the harder it will be to take AND hold. My path simply makes the attack more of a 'sneak attack' and doesn't risk the immortals as much.

Alliances with Any civ may be able to draw attention from the battlefront, but do we really want to be at war for 20 turns? We are in a republic so War weariness will be substantial after capturing Tenochtitlan (especially with the high casualties, the fact that it is enemy soil, and the fact that a lot of our units will have to defend to hold the city). I think that peace ASAP will be in our best interests after we get the Great Library. We'll gain a lot of new techs and have a lot of infrastructure to build; thus, we won't be able to prosecute any war (even if we wanted to, there's no good land to be had and we would only be able to take the Aztec colony on our island).

Your reasons for a sneak attack are strong. Regarding the MA's: I was thinking that any help we can get to distract the Aztec forces and capture the TGL outweighs the war weariness. I understand that this WW is a big issue however. We will be helped by the Golden Age though. The game is probably lost without TGL.

Mark1031: If you succeed in capturing and holding the Great Library (and get us level in tech), then I like you to stop and post the results and save for a discussion. We then have to come up with a plan to go to space :) Things that we haven't discussed will then be of the highest importance.

OK. I like Yoms view of the landing. I wouldn't declare just yet to minimize boat risk. As far as alliance I actually would like to ally with the Germans and maybe the Vikes. If the Aztecs buy Germans in we are finished and Zerks would be trouble too. In fact, if they buy almost anyone in it will be trouble. We have no home defenses and very little $$ for upgeades. I won't play tonight so post your thoughts.

If you buy in one you just as well may buy in all of them. That would mean 20 turns of war anyway. And if you would choose to go for a dogpile on the Aztecs, then I think you should do it asap. Only then will there be an opportunity for the AI to land on Aztecs territory.

I'd say: either buy in all of them now or don't bother and make it a solo action now or within 2 turns.

Whatever happens as long as you take the city you are fine. If Germany joins the war oh well. In one turn you can give the capital away to one of the civs that is against the aztecs, your men will all be warped back to the capital and you can fight on the home front while building up needed infrastructure. That is just my point of view. Oh almost forgot to say LURK DELURK hehe.

Note that whatever happens, we will be in a GA. So money is less of an issue than it would be otherwise.

I am unsure on an alliance. As Yom pointed out WW will be very large. Every unit we lose every time our lure is attacked (whether it wins or loses) increases WW. We could start with 50% WW.

Well I landed and did get an alliance with Germany and Babs. The stack survived with 27 immortals and one injured pike. The problem is we were attacked out of Teno with, if I counted correctly about 10 rifles and I saw a few more move in. There is no way we take the city. We had 1 immortal win so we are in a GA. This is looking very bleak. I would offer as plan B what someone previously suggested. Retreat, Get a dogpile against the Aztecs and hope someone else takes Teno and then move in. We could continue producing military and get a bigger stack overthere to be ready. The Ottomans have tanks btw :eek: I will wait for your responses.

:(

Well, I guess we have to go that route. Our chances of winning just were reduced from 10% to 1%. :(