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.