World Size: Small
World Type: Pangea
Rest random (including barbs)
Civ: Aztecs -- DISCUSS PLEASE!
Version: 1.22
Opponents: 31
Variants: Always War

I am also considering the following rules for armies:
- Armies may not pillage (too easy to take advantage of the fact that the AI will not attack them)
- Armies may only be stacked with other armies (again, an army and a stack of artillery = certain death to a city because the army won't be attacked) except inside cities

I *think* this will limit the overwhelming power of armies, while still making them very cool back-breaking units to rally around and fight with/for. Pillaging is still allowed, but not by indestructible armies.

Probable roster (not necessarily in this order):
Arathorn
Kylerean
Reagan
T-hawk
Speaker

Before starting, though, I want some discussion of initial moves. I'm thinking I'll only take 10 to start with, as this game will be all about the early years, I imagine.

Questions:
- Join the worker immediately for more immediate shields? Doing this, we can crank out a few jags ASAP and maybe eliminate a couple foes right off the bat, hopefully even capturing a couple slaves to make up for the lost worker. I'm leaning in favor of doing this.
- Aztecs and jags are the "natural" choice for this, I think. Do we want to go with that option? Or try something different/more challenging?
- Since I'm modding anyway, I'll do the shields killed thing again, as I found that interesting, and, of course, no lethal bombers (not that I think that has even a remote chance of mattering). Any other requests?
- Do the proposed limitations for armies make sense?

Other comments:
- I want a bit of discussion before actually starting this. I also need to make myself doing something besides the SAW game at the computer… :) I'm thinking/hoping to start about Tuesday of next week.
- What am I forgetting?
- Everybody still in?

Arathorn

Thanks for including me, Arathorn. This looks like it will be a fun and challenging game. Here are my quick thoughts about the game's parameters. They are just that -- quick, off the top of my head ramblings.

- small world size - Wow! Will there be room for any civ to have more than their initial city? If not, then the worker merge makes sense. Rushing a neighboring civ or two will maybe put us in a dominant position within the first fifty turns or so. We'll immediately enter a golden age, so we can afford to go a few turns without a native worker because of the despotism penalty. We should snag enough slaves in the early going to be able to do make up for the loss of our initial worker.

- civ choice - I agree that the Aztecs are one of the top alternatives. Greece would certainly be up there, too. What about the Babs? Bowmen could be a useful multi-purpose unit in this scenario. I'd rate them in that order. The Aztecs' jag warriors will be good for an early rush and for contacting a lot of civs early. Greece would be good if we think we'll be swamped with opposing attackers early. On Regent level, though, that should be less of a problem and defense through offense will likely be better. Let's just hope we're not close to Carthage, Greece, and/or Rome at the beginning.

- armies - I agree that we should limit our use of armies for pillaging. Maybe we should allow them to pillage one tile per turn or only pillage resources/luxuries, though. Limiting their ability to stack with other units is conceptually OK, but I think we should be able to (in good faith, of course), stack units with armies temporarily when it is the most efficient thing to do (e.g., there's only one open tile next to an enemy city, etc.). We're all RB participants and are used to playing within the spirit of such rules.

I'm looking forward to this! :D

Checking in.

Worker merge - it'll depend on the initial terrain. I'd say to get a cow or wheat irrigated first if we get one, but then merge the worker.

Civ choice - Aztecs are clearly the best, but the Jaguar changes the dynamics so much that it becomes a different game than with any other civ. I think the Zulu would actually make for the best experience. Babylon and Greece have good UUs, but the civ traits are mediocre at best. Any UU that requires a resource will come too late, and the Carthage and Mayan UUs are too expensive.

Armies - I like Arathorn's rules as written.

Checking in.

Pretty much agree with T-Hawk on all points, although I'm not so sure about army restrictions. On a small map I don't see us amassing enough cities to have more than 3-4 for most of the game, so I don't have a problem with unlimited pillaging, however, I don't care enough to make an issue about it. Whatever the team wants is fine by me.

Hi,

checking in - after managing 160+ cities, I'm looking forward to this. :)

Civ choice: Don't have a strong opinion on this, only that I agree that it should be one with a very early UU that doesn't need a resource to be built.
Reagan wrote:
The Aztecs' jag warriors will be good for an early rush and for contacting a lot of civs early.
Why would want to contact a lot of civs early?

Early worker merge: Wow, very counter-intuitive idea - I'm not sure if I like it or not. We would gain an extra worked tile equalling an extra shield in the beginning compared to the rest of the civs, but still would need a lot of turns to amass our early army to rush the nearest AI and get slaves. During this time, their workers will have mined at least one tile, so we might actually lose the advantage then. But if we keep the worker, more intelligent use of it (like not irrigating grassland, for example) would give us the same advantage anyway but more long-term potential. It might need some time until we will have captured slaves and escorted them back, depending on the number of early contacts we have to defend against, so I'd vote against the merge.

Armies: I like the proposed limitations.

How do we want to set the AI aggression setting? 32 civs on a small map probably means every civ will get only one city, maybe even with overlap in some cases. So I expect several AIs starting ultra-early wars among themselves. This would make the game a lot easier for us - do we want this? I wouldn't mind setting AI aggression to the lowest possible setting to prevernt too many AI-AI wars.

-Kylearan

Why would want to contact a lot of civs early?

So I expect several AIs starting ultra-early wars among themselves. This would make the game a lot easier for us - do we want this? I wouldn't mind setting AI aggression to the lowest possible setting to prevernt too many AI-AI wars.

I'm operating on about four hours of sleep, so I may be missing something here, but I think you answered your own question, my friend. It seems like dragging the AI into a war early forces them to enter almost single-minded military mode. Given that there's going to be a ton of enemy territory between each remote civ and us (they won't have ROPs until Writing), it's going to take them a long time to reach us. On a pangaea map, we should be able to drive a jag to the opposite side of the map from us and start working around the edges of the map contacting and warring with civs that will not be able to reach us for quite awhile.

The idea of merging the worker is directly connected with getting the Golden Age. With that, bonus grasslands produce 2 shields instead of 1, and with the despotism penalty, mines on BG squares would be irrelevant. Then the idea is to get slave workers going by the time the GA ends. Of course, if we have few BG or several food bonuses, the worker labor will be necessary.

It occurs to me that Greece (and Carthage) have the advantage that they can park a hoplite/numidian on top of workers, which the AI probably won't attack. And hoplites can go pillaging as well. Not sure if that'd be a good thing, or again if it'd skew the game to do something like that that only one civ can do...

Sorry I've been so slow responding; I've been dealing with a lot of family health issues. Just very time-consuming and tiring and things like Civ3 get left behind in such cases. Add in a fairly heavy load at work, and my time to think about this game has been much less than I'd hoped.

I want to talk a bit more about an early worker merge. If we put two citizens working forests and the center square, we'd get 5 spt. We could have a regular (endiku) warrior out in 3900 BC. No other civ will be able to stand against that -- we don't need to build up an army -- a single unit is enough. On Regeant, there are no AI starting units, remember? A jag could be made in 3850 BC. Yes, it essentially completely sacrifices growth, but isn't an extra city or two or three WORTH that in the early going? I have to think yes.

Do the immediate merge and build two or three units and THEN pop the worker back out and start growing? We could have 3 or 4 cities before anybody else has more than one, plus, potentially, a slave or two, if we can capture the workers right. I think speed is more valuable than the 2 defense at this point.

Aztecs or Sumerians are the way I'm leaning. Bowmen would be good, too, but they need a tech. I'll admit some fascination with the 3-man chariot, too. I'd love to get a couple guys out EXTREMELY early to go a-conquering before the AI even gets its first unit built.

Reasons for Aztecs:
- FAST unit early.
- Militaristic and religious are both incredibly useful.

Reasons for Sumerians:
- 10-shield spear? Hello, defense!
- Agricultural, so some growth possible even if working two forests.

I think we'll go with the army rule as written. Slight bendings as forced by terrain might be OK, but let's not go with "spirit of the rule" stuff, as that just gets messy. Armies are essentially independents for us -- they work on their own schedule and location.

The other option is to take a completely random civilization and pop out a couple regular warriors and see what happens. I'd be fine with that, too.

BTW, I got 1.22 downloaded and set up, but I haven't made the mod yet. No time! Hopefully, tonight, so get your final civ votes in.

Arathorn

If your roster isn't already filled, I'd be willing to play.

Hmm. I see Arathorn is thinking in the shorter term than any of the rest of us. An AI capital that doesn't have a 2-food 2-shield square (forest-game or plains-cattle) can't have a warrior until turn 5 at the earliest. If such an AI capital is within 4 squares of ours, a jaguar that comes out on turn 3 could conquer an AI capital on turn 4 without the AI being able to do a thing about it.

I think that seems kinda unfair to the AI, although it'd certainly be a great position for us. More to the point, though, I think that's actually fairly unlikely. Even a small map can fit at least 60 cities worldwide... that's enough space that it's unlikely there'd be any AI capitals within four squares of ours. More than four squares and the AI will get a warrior up for defense by the time we'd get a jaguar there. (An AI capital with no bonus grassland or other 2-food 1-shield tiles at all would need 10 turns for a warrior, but we can't count on that either.)

Combat will be necessary to conquer a city, and we don't want to risk our one and only jaguar in a 1-on-1 fight for such a combat. The best window might be when we have 2 jaguars, before the enemy can get a second warrior on defense. This would happen between turns 7-9. (The first jag can venture out and look for an undefended target to hit solo, but he's unlikely to find one.)

Or, the better approach might be to play defense early as in a standard AW game, going on the offensive once we have a stack capable of hitting a city. With the Sumerians, we'd keep the worker working and the city growing, defending both with Enkidus, then attack with 3-4 archers or swords. I'd prefer this approach over an Aztec ultra-rush.

BTW, would the 31 civs parameter also mean the map would have a quantity of resources (both strategic and luxury) for 31 civs?

Yom, I think the roster is indeed full.

Assuming a careful approach vector, it should be possible to capture a worker (slave) with an attacking Enkidu, and then pillage any already developed tiles in the vicinity. This will render that particular Civ useless since they will have no tile improvements, and will not build a worker in their single city for a long time, while at war.

I vote for the Aztecs, however, only because I have used the Sumerians in several solo games I've played since C3C came out and I'd rather play a more offensive game with the Jag than defensive with the Enkidu.

I tried to get this started tonight, but I must've done something wrong when I was editing the rules and I got some seriously funky techs for the Aztecs, as well as a bunch of incorrect build possibilities (including regular warriors).

I'll try again tomorrow night.

In the meantime, I think T-hawk's assessment is accurate but flawed. I don't expect the AI to build a warrior. What's the first thing an AI capital builds -- pretty much every time? A settler. And it's extremely unlikely to change that build -- especially if we can manage to attack from outside its borders.

I'm going to go Aztecs and probably a worker merge, depending on the terrain. Bold and different....

But I gotta figure out the problems with the modifications I made first.

Arathorn

as well as a bunch of incorrect build possibilities (including regular warriors).
Play a normal game as the Aztecs. Warriors are a valid build now, and Jags cost more.

Play a normal game as the Aztecs. Warriors are a valid build now, and Jags cost more.

Thanks. Yeah. I had figured that out. And that Aztecs are now Agricultural instead of Religious. But it doesn't explain how/why the Aztecs ended up starting with Bronze Working and The Wheel in my first attempt.

I think I got it all figured out with my second mod attempt, so I will be hopefully posting a start tonight.

Arathorn

The AIs always build a settler first on Emperor and higher because they've got the free units to protect the capital and settler. On Regent, they start by building military first. The AI doesn't send out settlers unescorted.

Go with the Aztecs if you must, but I stand by my assessment that we won't capture any enemy capital uncontested (unless we find one with no 2-food 1-shield tiles that would take 10 turns to build its the first warrior.) Two attacking jaguars against one warrior on defense is the more likely scenario; that may well happen.

The AI doesn't send out settlers unescorted.

This is not true - I've seen just that occasionally. Not often, but it happens, at least in mid-game. But I agree that they probably won't do this in the beginning.

I'm also still sceptical about the ultra-early rush; too much dependant on the dice for my taste. Although I have to admit it would be interesting to see if it really works...

Interesting thought regarding the number of resources. Nearly every capital starting with nearly all resources would be funny. :crazyeye:

-Kylearan

OK. I'm attaching a bunch of pictures, but they'll all be at the end. I included a picture of our starting location.

I do join the worker and work two forests for 5 spt. I start BW @ max.

By 3900, I can see borders to the NE and to the SE. The first jag completes interturn and I order another, due in 3 turns.

In 3850, I move two south and get no contact.

3800 - I'm faced with a decision. Eliminate England or try to get a slave and risk them building a unit. See picture. I go for the slave. Half the initial worker has been reclaimed. Oh, and, well, I didn't contact Lizzie to try to trade. Excitement of the opening and all that. We'll probably meet lots of people, but I do feel bad about wasting the opportunity multiple times.

3750 - My earliest date for a destruction, but England is GONE. See picture. A second jag completes in the interturn and I order up a third at 5 spt and then we can think about growth.

I was hoping a bit of culture would get us a city to keep. London would've been very convenient, but it autorazes. Bummer.

In 3700, I capture an Ottoman worker (two slaves. Back to a full worker value!) past England, but Istanbul is defended by a warrior. 3 hp attack at 1 vs. 3 hp defense at 1.35 is not my idea of a good plan. I'll continue to explore.

In 3650, I find that our Northern neighbor is Greece. !$!@$(@& and I capture a third slave. Athens is defended by a warrior. Attacking there is a bit more enticing, as it wouldn't be auto-razed after a cultural expansion and I hate the prospect of facing hoplites, but I want to wait for a second jag to arrive.

By 3550, I see a scout -- a Russian scout in odd colors east of Greece. Cathy gives us BW and 20 gold for Warrior Code (hey, I remembered to trade!) and we declare on her as well. OH, and borders are every-frickin-where. We have room for a city or two, but it is CROWDED.

In 3500, I move a couple jags next to Athens, but it's now defended by a hoplite. They must've whipped it out. Mega-bummer.

Only 10 turns, which is short for a start, but things are already hopping. We have 3 slaves, but we're a bit behind in general improvements. We have an unmet neighbor to the NW and the borders east of Greece are definitely a different color from Russia, so LOTS more neighbors to meet and greet.

Oh, and luxuries do abound. No idea on strategic resources, though, yet.

Roster (I'm shaking up the order some):
Reagan -- UP NOW
T-hawk -- ON DECK
Speaker
Kylerean
Arathorn

just to give us a bit different perspectives from some of the other games (I think).

Arathorn

Looks like a nice start Arathorn. 1 foe down, 30 to go. :hammer: Go get 'em Reagan.

England is GONE.


OK, color me wrong. :crazyeye: I would've thought we'd get to keep the city, but I guess 1 culture isn't sufficient to prevent an autoraze; it needs 10 or more...?

By the time we get jaguars anywhere else, the AIs will have at least two warriors or a spear on defense; it'll take at least 4-5 jaguars to hit any more cities.

Reagan, if you could get it back soon or swap with me so I could play Thursday, it'd be appreciated, as I'll be away from my Civ3 computer for the holiday weekend Friday - Monday.

Let's go ahead and swap, T-hawk. I may have some time to play on Friday and definitely can on Sunday.

A capital that is auto-razed is not something you see every day! :lol: So the worker trick actually worked, amazing. Great to hear that we already have our worker force back, and with no upkeep cost at that! :hammer:

Now that I've got confirmation that I'm up now, and have taken a look at the image, let's discuss future plans.

- We've got 3 jags, but it'll be a few turns before we can get a 4th. If we find an enemy capital defended by only a warrior (likely two warriors), should we hit it with the 3 jags or wait for a 4th?

- When do we build a barracks? I'd suggest right now, or after the 4th jag if we decide to wait for that before attacking. After one more city attack, the AIs will have spears on defense and it'll take more military to make an attack.

At this point, I'm not sure we'll be able to get another capital, at least not easily. Since they will see us coming (unless we can road up to a direct compass direction of their capital), they will whip a spear as soon as we're in range. The Greeks already whipped a hoplite out of Athens, and while that slows them down a LOT in the long run, it doesn't make it any easier for us to acquire a second city. If/when we see a warrior-defended capital which can't whip, I would assault with as few as two jags, if we had them in the area. Definitely would with 3. You might try sending everybody NW towards the purple border and hit them with the 3 jags....might work if they didn't start with BW.
- Alternatively, we could try to found a second city (probably about where London was) and send our jags out on a jag...send them cross-country, pillaging, capturing slaves (who might make it home or might be disbanded), putting people into war mode (maybe even whipping their capital), and generally causing as slow a start as possible for as many civs as possible. As I think about this, I like this idea, to be implemented either immediately or after a try at one more capital. Send our jags to the 3 winds (coast to the east).
- Barracks need to come soon. As I think about it, I'd probably do it even before the fourth jag warrior. The time for extreme speed is pretty much past and we need to focus a bit on quality as well now. Once we can get a stack of 6-8 vet jags, we can start taking a few capitals for real.

My $.02,
Arathorn

Given an enemy capital defended only by warriors, I'd vote for attacking it right away and not wait for a fourth jag. Delaying the attack might ruin the opportunity as the AI could build/whip a spear. If we fail to capture the city, we still will be able to defend alright, but if we win, the captured city would be huge. The possible gain clearly outweighs the risk IMHO, and fortune favors the bold. :p

I agree on the ASAP barracks issue; although if we attack and lose all jags, we might be forced to build one or more jags for defense...

Inherited turn: Nothing to do just yet, will see what develops.

Hit enter, and a Greek warrior from Athens attacks one of our jaguars, knocking 2 HP off it before it retreats.

3450 BC: Retreat damaged jag into our territory. Other jag moves onto Greece's mountain (the safest spot available) and contacts the Inca in purple. They have Alphabet and Masonry but we have nothing to trade them. We declare war.

3400 BC: The Greek warrior is at 2 HP and is chasing our damaged jag. No choice but to attack it with our healthy jag... and that starts the Golden Age.

A Mongol scout showed up. We sell him Bronze for his 10g, and declare war.

There's also an Ottoman warrior incoming. I need to build one more jag this turn before the barracks to defend against him.

3350 BC: Meet a Portuguese scout, and trade Warrior Code + 10g for Alphabet, and declare war.

Max research started on Writing. We can quite possibly get it first with our Golden Age, and follow up with the Philosophy free tech.

Have to attack the Ottoman warrior with our new jag.. and we reduce it to 1 HP but lose. :cry: Workers have to evacuate the irrigated flood-plain tile.


3300 BC: First turn of mine with no new contacts. No combat either. Chase the 1HP Otto warrior with a 2HP jag of ours. Tenochtitlan now at size 3.


3250 BC: Damaged jag knocks off redlined Otto warrior. There's incoming warriors from both Inca and Russia, though. I hate to do it but I need to delay the barracks again to build an archer.


3200 BC: Tenochtitlan finished archer, starts barracks. Newly minted archer attacks Inca warrior but LOSES and promotes the opponent. :cry:


3150 BC: Damaged Incan warrior retreated. Russian warrior now in a forest next to Tenochtitlan; I'd rather fight it on defense with a fortification bonus than on offense.

Between turns, the RNG finally swings our way; our jag promotes in beating the Russian attacker.


3100 BC: We have a stack of three fully healed jags and no impending threats. I decide it's now or never to attempt a capital capture and send all three towards the Inca capital.


3050 BC: Another Incan warrior shows up, in a place where our jags can't reach it this turn. I *hate* to do this, but the barracks gets delayed yet again by building another archer...


3000 BC: Get up next to Cuzco to find out the city does have a spear on defense. Not a percentage play to try attacking. I split up the jags, sending the two regulars out exploring while the vet will stay at home for combat and defense.

Still no barracks yet, but the coast looks clear now to build one. Next turn, please MM Tenoch from the plains to a flood-plain to get growth to size 4 then.

Roster:

Reagan -- UP NOW
T-hawk -- already played
Speaker -- ON DECK
Kylerean
Arathorn

Things are awfully tight right now. I hope for some breathing room before too long. At least the area is lush with luxuries, if we can capture some cities to get them for ourselves.

Arathorn

Things are awfully tight right now. I hope for some breathing room before too long.
With the number of first contacts you are making did you really expect it to be easy? You need a breather from new contacts.

I see it and should be able to play tonight or Sunday. I'll make a sacrifice to the pRNG gods and hope to use smilies other than the green crying ones in my report. My intent is to send our scouting jags on a straight line towards opposite sides of the map such that our future contacts will have a long way to go before reaching us. Please let me know if you have other thoughts before I play.

My intent is to send our scouting jags on a straight line towards opposite sides of the map such that our future contacts will have a long way to go before reaching us.

I am curious - is this mandatory per the variant rules? This goes so counter against the standard AW logic that contact is to be avoided.

I have to agree with Lee here; as I said earlier, I still don't see the value of early contacts. Why is putting the other civs into war-mode so important in this game? It's not that we have to slow down the tech pace (we will be the largest civ soon), nor do we have to stop other civs from amassing culture, so...?

In AW, whether you want contact depends on how well you can handle what's being thrown at you. If you're having trouble holding your ground and expanding, you do want to delay contacts. But if you're in a solid position, in the long run you do better to contact more civs and get them into war mode, building units for you to slaughter rather than building up their civs.

Arathorn's planning for fairly extreme aggression and optimism in this regard. I do think exploring and contacting right now is slightly premature, but not extremely so, and was going along with that plan. It could certainly be reversed and the jaguars brought back home - before exploring, perhaps we should focus on expanding ourselves to a few more cities.

Some of my rationale (besides just being extremely aggressive and optimistic):

- The biggest threat with any single civ is when you first meet them and they send their stocked-up horde of troops at you. If that horde consists of a single unit, who cares? Trickle mode is almost always easier to deal with.

- Getting them early DRAMATICALLY stunts their growth. A single jag next to a capital will very often make the AI whip a spear. That has a tremendous impact on their ability to generate units later. Beyond that, we're stealing workers as our slaves. Free workforce is good. No workforce for the AI is good. Now is about the only time we'll able to get those slave workers so easily. A whipped capital size 1 with no improved squares is no threat -- even 20 of them are no threat.

- It's not so much about war mode as it is about destroying their capacity to wage war. The fewer grown opponents we face in 50 turns, the easier it will be. Although some war mode and fewer swords to face doesn't break my heart either.

- If we can catch some civ building a wonder or a settler and they for-whatever-reason don't change to a defensive unit and whip, we might be able to grab a cheap city. With merciless whipping, it might be a strong focal point for other civs to come die on...or it might be a productive part of our empire. And it's one less city's production we have to face....

Of course, it's up to Reagan, as he's playing. But that's why I was thinking contacts and early oppression....

Arathorn

I was trying to take a compromise position by getting other civs into the act but making sure they were far enough away to not be able to hurt us early. I agree with Arathorn's more aggressive approach in this game because the Regent AIs won't be able to hurl a ton of troops at us like Emporer or higher level civs could. I won't play for another couple of hours (at least), so feel free to keep the discussion going.

I'll be of town for about a week or so. Please skip me until I return. Thanks.

2950 – Well, part of our discussions about early scouting are mooted when an Incan archer picks off our northern jag during the IT. Our vet jag wins 4-2 over the Incan warrior and promotes to elite.

2900 – We skirt around local borders in search of further off neighbors. Our elite jag returns home to rest.

2850 – nada

2800 – The rax completes and an archer is ordered.

2750 – There’s an archer and a warrior approaching, so (much as I hate to) I whip a spear. Sumeria gives us CB for Alphabet, then we steal their worker. I’m going to keep him alive and see if he can return to our territory safely. If he’s ever threatened, I’ll disband him.

2710 – Our elite jag loses to the Incan archer. The archer is dispatched with our archer, though.

2670 – Our spear takes out an attacking warrior and promotes to elite. We pillage Sumeria’s incense.

2630 – Writing comes in and Masonry is started at 90%.

2590 – I went a turn or two without checking the diplo screen, thinking “what’s the point?” Ooops, sorry. Now we know Korea, China, Rome, and the Dutchies. How can we know people without seeing their units? I extort 8 gp from the Dutch, 5 gp from Korea, nada from Rome, and give China Writing for Masonry, Wheel, and 45 gp. We have horses hooked up, but it appears everyone else has ‘em too. Start research on Philo.

2550 – Another archer completes. I saved without doing anything to/about the two archers and warrior next to Teno.

P.S. About the colors in my screenie -- I downloaded a team color mod, so the colors bear little resemblance to the stock colors.

Got it.

Judging from all the horses on the screenshot, it looks indeed like everybody has nearly every resource available. :)

I'll give you really good odds that we don't have iron in our territory. :sad: We're going to need to get a second city settled in the near future, particularly if iron is available on one of the mountains/hills just outside our borders.

Yeah. I think resettling down towards where the English were is a good plan. Finding 30 shields to devote to a settler might be a problem, but it's probably better odds than sending two jags to go capture a second city (which is, of course, the other option).

Roster:
Kylerean -- UP AND PLAYING
Arathorn -- on deck
T-hawk
Reagan
Speaker - skipped until about 7/9

Arathorn

Inherited turn: We have an elite spear and two veteran archers in Teno, and two enemy regular archers and a regular warrior are outside the city, one in a forest and one across the river on the hill. I decide to let them attack instead of exposing our archers.

(I) First, the regular warror attacks our fortified elite spear across the river and eats a defensive bombardment from an archer...and manages to redline our spear! :aargh: Then, one of the regular archers attacks, eats the defensive bombardment from our other archer and kills our spear. :mad: And then, the other archer attacks and kills one of our archers. :gripe:
A warrior attacks our jag near Rome and dies without doing any damage, promoting our unit to veteran.

(1) 2510AD: Because we only have one archer left in Teno, the city riots. :wallbash: Oh that's just great: One lone archer of ours in a rioting city vs. one 1HP and one 2HP-archer. I raise the lux slider and will have to wait until next turn to whip another spear, hoping the archers won't attack and turn this into another short LotR game...

(2) 2470AD: Phew, both archers have retreated to heal. Additionally, two Ottoman warriors have appeared and will be able to attack Teno in five turns. I really don't want to whip Teno again, so I slow down growth a bit to get a new spear built faster.
Our Jag scout meets an Arabian warrior. We sell them the wheel for 9 gold and declare war.

(3) 2430AD: Our golden age has ended, and I have to rework tiles to complete the spear in 2.

(I) We get contacted by Persia! They get the wheel and ceremonial burial for iron working and 6g, then war is declared. Uh oh, let's hope they don't have iron connected...

(4) 2390AD: Well well, as expected we don't have iron, and the ex-London site doesn't have iron either. Athens and Istanbul have some, though, so we should try to capture Istanbul ASAP. But first things first, let's focus on surviving the next few turns.

(5) 2350AD: Yay, we now have a spear and an archer defending our capital against the two warriors and a 2HP archer who is moving towards us again, both able to attack in two turns. I would love to set Teno at deficit food and 10spt for walls in 1, but the enemy units most probably will move on the forests and ruin that plan, so I order up another archer instead.
Also, say hello to America and Babylon. Both have mysticism and Babylon lacks alphabet, so I make a straight tech deal before declaring war.

(6) 2310AD: Greece has whipped something in Athens or built a settler, as it is size 1 again. Our Jag captures and disbands a Babylonian worker. Our captured Sumerian worker on his valiant dash to Tenochtitlan has to enter Incan territory to avoid being recaptured.

(I) Cool, our Sumerian worker is a nice decoy for a Dutch warrior and the 2HP Incan archer and draws both away from our capital. The two Ottoman warriors attack, though, but only manage to promote our spear to elite.

(7) 2270AD: I have to disband the captured Sumerian worker. A Greek archer is on our incense hill now.

(8) 2230AD: The Greece archer is no more.

(9) 2190AD: Chinese and Korean warriors move towards us. We now have an elite spear and two archers again - uh...wait a moment, that's exactly what we had when I started my turns.:undecide:

(10) 2150AD: Believe it or not, nothing special happened this turn...

We've lost our Jag somewhere inbetween against a regular warrior; I forgot to note when. Too bad we lost him because I wanted to look for and pillage Persian iron.

When micromanaging Teno, try to anticipate where the enemy units will move to so they won't screw up our production.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/lotr14-2150bc.jpg

Roster:
Kylerean
Arathorn <-- UP NOW
T-hawk <-- on deck
Reagan
Speaker - skipped until about 7/9

-Kylearan

Oh, err...got it. Looks quite challenging. Hope the PRNG is with us....

Arathorn

Better to be lucky than good....

Nothing to do on the inherited turn but hit enter and hope. The one warrior attacks Teno and dies.

(1) 2110 - There's an archer near Teno with no one else near it. I can attack it completely safely. I do so, with a vet, and win.

(I) Spear completes. Settler ordered for now.

(2) 2070 - Two Chinese warriors are now next to Teno. I move the archer from last round back in and attack with the other (better promotion chances). Our archer wins and promotes.

Spain shows up on Shift-D and they have nothing -- no gold and no techs (down 3 of ours) but two ciites. I declare war, of course.

(I) Second Chinese warrior attacks Teno and dies. Spanish warrior fortifies outside our borders.

3 - 2030 - Heal. Rest. See Edrine founded on old London site in the interturn.

4 - 1990 - Switch Teno to archer, as there are few places to settle. Elite archer takes out Spanish warrior without a scratch and is joined by another archer and the vet spear. I'm eying Istanbul.

Then Philosophy comes in. Oh, err...what did we have in mind? I can't imagine putting a city on the Great Library, so Literature can wait. I take Mathematics as a fairly expensive tech and one that helps us out. Catapults can help with city-breaking significantly. We get Math for free and start on HBR, which is relatively cheap and reasonably valuable. Archer -> archer.

5 - 1950 - Move towards Istanbul. Watch a Roman warrior suicide against Teno. Good ole defensive bombard and 5 hps vs. 3 hps....

6 - 1910 - Move. Switch archer build to jag, who can move enough to help with Istanbul. After he comes in, start a catapult.

7 - 1870 - Move next to Istanbul. And see two Persian warriors there, who can attack my mini-stack. $#@)(*& I hope they don't. Jag also moves into position to strike next turn.

(I) Persians move SE instead of attacking. Cheer!

8 - 1830 - Will my turn be a huge success or a disaster? I cross my fingers and attack Istanbul's showing regular spear with our elite archer. I only lose one hp, destroy the spear, and capture Istanbul! Whatdya know? The other archer and jag weren't needed. Spear moves in, too, and fortifies. Resistor, but he'll go away soon.

(I) Persians come back to play. Catapult -> spear.

9 - 1790 - Two archers each kill a Persian warrior by Istanbul. In the interturn, two Chinese warriors move next to Istanbul, which has only a vet spear right now.

10 - 1750 - Maneveur a bit. Archer for defensive bombard in Istanbul. I think it'll hold. Edrine should probably be the next target, but we should wait for it to expand its borders -- about turn 7 or 8 of the next player's turn.

Roster:
T-hawk -- UP NOW
Reagan -- ON DECK
Kylerean
Arathorn
Speaker -- skipped 'til July 9, approximately

Arathorn

I'm glad you had better luck than I did. :goodjob: Now let's see when swords and even uglier things will advance upon us...

Then Philosophy comes in. Oh, err...what did we have in mind? I can't imagine putting a city on the Great Library, so Literature can wait. I take Mathematics as a fairly expensive tech and one that helps us out. Catapults can help with city-breaking significantly. We get Math for free and start on HBR, which is relatively cheap and reasonably valuable.

This is precisely what I intended when I started Philo research. In fact, I initially started us on Masonry before Philo so we could get Math for free, but was able to quickly swap to Philo after swinging a deal for Masonry. We're likely to use 'pults (and other artillery units) aplenty during this game.

I see it, not sure if I can play tonight, can tomorrow at the latest.

Enemy swords are no problem if we've got enough catapults, so I'll try to focus on that.

I would also focus on hooking up our iron. Istanbul has iron and it's not THAT far for our workers to go. I'd finish their current work on the incense hill, though...at least roading it.

MM possibilities abound in Teno. It can do 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 shields with various levels of food (and commerce -- you can actually change the lux slider depending on the configuration in the city). I recommend watching it like a hawk. I know I did.

BTW, I guess I made the swap between T-hawk and Reagan permanent. :crazyeye: We'll go with it, though.

Arathorn

Apologies, but stuff came up today and I couldn't get to it. Can tomorrow, which is still within the 72-hour window for LotR games.

Thanks for the update, T-hawk. No worries but it's always nice to know what's going on.

Arathorn

OK, here we go.

Inherited turn: Change Tenoch to catapult, leave Istanbul building barracks but I may switch that later.

Between turns, both warriors attack Istanbul, but our spear holds and goes elite. :goodjob:


1725 BC: Just consolidating.

1700 BC: There's a Sumerian settler pair near Istanbul. Move an archer, cat, and spear to go after them, but I don't think we can catch them.

We can, however, disperse an undefended Chinese horses colony with a jaguar. :hammer:

Tenoch catapult -> catapult.

1675 BC: Yeah, the Sumerian pair moved away. Two American warriors showed up. Attack one with a catapult and an archer... and lose dealing no damage. :cry: WE NEED CATAPULTS...

1650 BC: Kill American warrior with our elite archer. The other one can and does attack Istanbul but the elite spear holds.

Horseback Riding came in. Nothing else we need immediately, so set research to max on Polytheism to go towards Monarchy.

Tenoch catapult -> warrior which it will build in one turn while growing.


1625 BC: Bump off orange archer by Tenoch. Bit of a situation at Istanbul, with two Babylon warriors that can attack the city, but we've got a 4/5 elite spear and a jag on defense, and the spear holds.

1600 BC: Maneuvering. Tenoch grows to size 8 and warrior -> horse. Tenoch is producing a nice 10 spt with +3 food.

1575 BC: Our 3/5 elite archer kills an Ottoman archer that was bombed to 2/3. Also bombard a Spanish settler pair that wandered onto Istanbul's hill, but I don't want to risk attacking uphill this turn when I can bombard it to 1 HP next turn.

1550 BC: Hmm, the damaged Spanish settler pair moved away - I didn't think it'd do that. I chase it...

Tenoch horseman -> horseman.

1525 BC: It's the Year of the Catapult. Bombard an Incan archer and kill it with the new horseman who promotes to elite - but not before the horseman redlines. Also bombard that Spanish settler pair that finally fortified to attempt healing, and nab two slaves.


1500 BC: An Arabic settler pair moved onto our iron. Bombard it twice and kill it, and the two workers start right in on roading the iron. :goodjob: There's also a 3/3 Roman spear guarding a settler. I can attack it with a 4/4 archer... and we win and promote!


Total on my turns: one unit lost, four built, two promoted, six slaves acquired. Also, we have a road complete from Tenoch to Istanbul. Edrine has expanded borders but we haven't had the units to go for the city yet.

Tenoch is due to complete an archer this turn to counterattack one of the two incoming archers. It's a no-brainer to keep Tenoch in a 10spt configuration right now. :D

Istanbul can complete a 20-shield item this turn; I'd recommend a catapult. Three catapults plus the jag can defend against the incoming Spanish warrior and then maybe go after Edrine.

Just wanted to give you guys an update on my status: after graduation I went home, having not yet secured a job. After 5 weeks at home, the most time I've spent there in 3 years, I desperately needed some time away, so I packed up some clothes and hit the road to visit some friends and return to my version of sanity. I've been gone a week now, and don't see myself going back for another week at least. Basically I'm asking to be placed on indefinite skip until I ask to be reinstated, and I wouldn't be insulted if you decided to replace me. I have been following along, and would prefer to stay benched until I can play again, but I'll understand if you guys feel like four players is too few for the next week or two.

Nice turns, T-hawk. More slaves is a very good thing. If we can keep up with improvements in our cities and fast movement between them, I'll be very happy.

Roster:
Reagan -- UP NOW
Kylerean -- ON DECK
Yom -- if he wants in...I'll PM him
Arathorn
T-hawk
Speaker -- on indefinite skip

I prefer running with 5 than with 4. I'm fine with six, too. Although the game is fairly quick right now, with only a couple of cities, it might get much hairier later. Since Yom expressed interest, he's in if he wants (I'll PM him). Otherwise, we'll run with four until Speaker is back.

Speaker, as long as you give me warning, you'll never lose your spot. Whenever you feel like returning, just let us know and you'll be back in the rotation! (Now, if somebody just disappears for a couple weeks with no warning, I'm generally a bit less accomodating...). Good luck with sanity.

Arathorn

Thanks Arathorn. I'll keep you updated.

I believe I have typed the requisite ten characters in order to say "I've got it." I should be able to play/post by Sunday afternoon.

1475 – Teno: archer->cat. Istanbul: cat->rax. Ummmm . . . we’re not at war with Joanie?! I ship her HBR for all her 49gp and then declare. Our elite archer then draws his bow, fires a few shots, and punches three successive holes in France’s settler’s warrior escort. What could be better than getting two more slaves? How ‘bout this . . . .

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=61534

Our Teno cat strikes a blow to a Portugese archer, which is dispatched 2-0 by our new vet archer. Our Istanbul cats go 2-1, knocking an opposing warrior to 1hp, then our vet jag wins 1-1.

1450 – After our cat misses, our elite horse goes 3-3 to take out an Incan archer.

1425 – Teno: cat->horse. Our cats go 2-0 against a Russkie spear, which is then dispatched 1-0 by our archer.

1400 – Swap Istanbul to settler and Teno to sword. We need four cities before we can form a sword army. :hammer:

1375 – Bomb a Sumerian archer 2-0 and whack him 1-1 with our jag. Bomb an Ottoman archer 2-0 but can’t attack because our “victorious” unit would end up in an unattractive position next to Edrine.

1350 – Teno: sword->sword.

1325 – Go 2-0 bombing the Otto archer again and take him out with our new sword, who promotes to elite (and gets covered by our elite spear).

1300 – Go 1-0 bombing an incoming archer, then win 2-0 with our elite* archer. Bomb another Otto archer 1-1 but don’t attack him (it would draw us back into Otto territory).

1275 – Teno: sword->spear (for now – we could leave it as a spear and spend 60gp to upgrade a warrior or we could build another sword and delay our attack on Edrine by a turn).

1250 – Istanbul: settler->rax. Cats go 1-1 versus a Sumerian archer, then our elite archer takes him out 2-1. The Otto archer moves within range of our horse, and is thumped 1-0. I’m going to stop here with a lot of units left to move because we have some choices to make. There’s a warrior-archer pair in the red circle approaching from the east. The green archer is fortified, but the yellow spear is approaching from the west. There’s a settler in Istanbul that could follow the orange arrows to build another town in three turns. If we can take out Edrine and found a new town, we can build an army and return to leader fishing with our elites. The workers by Istanbul are out of projects for now and could chop the forest to the west of Istanbul in order to have the barracks done in five turns and begin connecting our new city. The downside is that it’d leave Istanbul woefully underdefended. We have two archers, two swords, a spear, and two ‘pults on the river side of Teno, with a spear due in one or sword (if swapped) in two. Two workers are mining the incense hill and three more could move there in one more turn. We could also chop a forest by Teno to boost unit production by one turn. Decisions, decisions.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=61535

edit: Tinkered with the images.

Got it.

Regarding images: If you attach them, they will only show automatically if the whole post has only one attachment. So either you will have to split up your report into several posts, each with one attachment max, or you have to use the old method (upload them on the server, link to them with an IMG tag pair).

I just went back in and tried pulling one of the image links out but the first one still doesn't show. I have it tagged in the message as (img)http://forums . . . (/img). The tags are in brackets, of course, but I put them in parens in the example so they wouldn't be triggered. What am I doing wrong? Does the .zip file count as a second attachment in addition to the image?

Don't think your link is wrong, but the file is not valid. What kind of image is it) Jpg, gif? IIRC nothing else works.

Arrrrgh! My tinkering must have messed up the links. I just fixed it (I think).

Roster:

Kylerean -- PLAYING NOW
Arathorn -- on deck
T-hawk
Reagan
Speaker -- on indefinite skip

Yom is too busy to join us. We'll run with 4 until Speaker gets back. Any chance we can go conquer another town or two to add to our empire? Looks good, though.

Arathorn

Any chance we can go conquer another town or two to add to our empire? Looks good, though.

We should own Edrine by the end of Ky's turns and Tiwanaku can't be too well developed (I don't think it's connected to its capital).

Does the .zip file count as a second attachment in addition to the image?

Yes, I believe so. That's why I use the attachment feature only for the save, and the old-fashioned "upload file" and IMG tags as you've described for the pictures.

I haven't looked at the save yet but will be able to play in about 12 hours. You think I should be able to conquer a city? Sounds good! :hammer:

Reagan,
The way to get the pictures in the post rather than as links is to have only 1 link per post. I usually put the save in the main log and post each picture seperately afterwards with some kind of short description above it and any features I want to point out in the picture. It does mean more posts, but works well enough. Not sure why we have that limitation...

I won't describe every single move I made during my turns - I think we know how to play AW by now. ;) Highlights of my turns:

* Captured Edrine and destroyed the Ottomans in 1200BC.

* Teotihuacan founded in 1100BC, not on the spot Reagan suggested but one tile NW to have all neighbouring cities in 3-tile-reach.

* Second lux connected.

* Swordman army created. First enemy hoplite and first enemy legionary sighted, both dispatched using the army.

There's a sword advancing on Edrine who will be on a hill and across a river next turn - sorry that I didn't manage to get some units on the hill myself in time, but the last turns saw a lot of units to defend against elsewhere.

If we manage to get another leader, I suggest to rush the Heroic Epic in Istanbul with it.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/lotr14-1000bc.jpg

Roster:
Kylerean
Arathorn <-- UP NOW
T-hawk <-- on deck
Reagan
Speaker -- on indefinite skip


-Kylearan

Should be able to get it and play tonight. Looks like we have quite the conglomoration of different forces around us. We'll see how many forces are brought -- maybe/hopefully I can go a-conquering with the sword army, but I'll have to see.

Arathorn

I think you all have this game won. Regent civs with one or two cities will research slowly and you should be able to pick them off one by one fairly quickly. At least that is my guess.

I agree that we won't have the usual AW research problem and that we will soon have a tech lead in fact. Upkeep alone will kill the AI research this time. But it won't be easy until we can turn a potential tech lead into a military advantage, say by getting pikes/MDI or knights first. Essentially we face 29 cities without corruption producing units, and I was surprised about the amount of units I had to face during my turns.

I only hope no AI will be so stupid as to set its only city on building a wonder. Or even worse, *all* AIs decide at one point or another to try to go for a wonder... :crazyeye:

-Kylearan

Well, at least one AI was building a wonder. A second is under construction close to us. The Carthaginians (whoever/wherever they are!) completed the Colossus very early in my turns. That's a big boon to them. The Greeks keep starting the Statue of Zeus, but they never seem to make any progress on it (I was getting the start message every couple turns).

I slipped a temple into Teno's build queue right away and got us a little bit of culture going. I expect to capture a lot more than raze in this game and some cultural superiority will be very helpful. Even a single temple NOW will be very beneficial. It also let me dial down the lux tax a bit.

Teno is also running a scientist. We can get 10 spt even with the scientist and can't reach 15 spt without starvation, so I thought it valuable. I could turn down science, too, so we didn't go broke and still get Monarchy in reasonable time. I'm questioning a little whether Monarchy is worth it, but then I look at all our freshwater access and I believe it is.

I decided the sword army needs to go after capitals. Border cities (like Sumer of the Sumerians due south of where the sword army started) will have no culture and will whip away any size they may have. It's now approaching Cuzco and I think it should be able to siege the city over the next 2-4 turns and capture it for the greater good of the Aztec people.

The only real downer of my turn was losing a vet horse to a 2 hp archer, with me attacking onto flat ground doing no damage. That necessitated some interesting force adjustments, but I think we're OK right now. Catapults in the south are positioned to reach as many locations as possible in 2/3 MP so that they can move and fire the same turn.

I killed a whole bunch of units, but probably no more than 3 from any one civilization. The problem is lack of stacks makes attacking with slow units kind of dangerous. And once you kill one civ's attacker(s), another civ steps up to take their place. There are serious units flowing our way...I probably averaged 3-4 kills/turn and it's only 750 BC.

All the fronts were fine, though, and I never risked a pillage. A regular archer won't attack an elite spear with catapult support fortified in a city, if you're curious. At least, I never had that happen, despite numerous opportunities for the AI.

Pretty standard AW stuff, but our unit support costs are starting to get to us. And the flow of troops is neverending. No corruption and LOTS of trading opportunities has the start to this game, at least, pretty exciting. Many some of the 10+ civs we've not contacted yet are also growing into monsters. One can hope we survive to find serious competition later in the game, too, although it's probably unlikely.

Suggestions:
- Use the sword army to take and then defend Cuzco (maybe whip a spear or two, too, if/when the opportunity presents itself)
- Keep Teno on 10 spt until it grows to size 11 and then maybe try for 15 spt
- Wait until the spear to the east of Teno moves onto an actual good square for us before killing it. You should be able to ping it with 'pults and use the newly-produced horsie to attack NOT across the river (probably moving S, SE across the river and then N to attack or something).
- Have fun!

Roster:
T-hawk -- UP NOW
Reagan -- ON DECK
Kylerean
Arathorn
Speaker -- on indefinite skip

Arathorn

I see it. Again, not sure when I can get to it but will eventually.

No rush, T-hawk. I'll be quite happy with one turn per week or so. With only four of us, the rotation will turn over pretty quickly.

Let's try to stick to the 72 hours. The game is still pretty small at this point, so it shouldn't take long. If we start going much more slowly than that, I think it'll be really hard to keep up our interest in the game.

If there's concern about too fast turn-over, I will try to find a fifth (and then run with six when Speaker returns). But I don't want to start letting turn-over times get lax. That leads to nothing but a mess. Or a SUL5B situation. :lol:

Arathorn

I wasn't advocating a change to the seventy-two hour rule. I was simply saying, as the player following T-hawk in the rotation, that I'm not in any rush to receive the game. Speaking solely for myself, I am much more likely to get burned out by having to play a lot of turns in a short time period, especially in a more intense game like always war, than I am if the game goes at a more leisurely pace. With that said, I don't think any of us are likely to drag this game into a SUL5B fate. :cringe: That would both suck and blow!

OK, here we go.

Preturn: everything looks good except that I'd rather have a sword than a horse at Tenoch. We don't need mobile units; we need durable units. The army will be an uber city-capturing engine.

Also tweak Edrine for growth in 2 and change its build to a granary. We've got plenty enough military to hold our own in the short run, and we'll need some serious economic producers in the medium (Monarchy) term.


730 AD: Bombard the spear who's now next to Tenoch, and hit him at 2/3 with our new 4/4 sword, but we lose. :cry:

710 AD: I lose a 4/4 horse in the south attacking a 2/3 archer. :aargh:

But our All-Powerful Army (tm) captures Cuzco this turn. Incans aren't eliminated.

Also this turn, our elite archer at Tenoch pops another Great Leader! Since we can't support another army, the Heroic Epic is the obvious choice. I'll do it in Istanbul to get that city a free cultural expansion.


Between turns, our elite spear on a hill beats two attacking Mongol swords.

690 AD: Got a situation in the south - a pair of veteran Roman Legionarys showed up. Our catapults get busy but it'll take some time.

Whip a spear in Cuzco - it's going to starve due to unhappiness as the army stops policing the city anyway, may as well get some use out of the population.

670 AD: My crappy combat luck continues as a 4/4 sword fails to beat a 2/3 sword at Istanbul.

650 BC: I had two slaves NE of Tenoch that could only be covered by an elite sword, and a Mongol horse came out of nowhere and killed the stack. :mad:

630 BC: Catapults finally get enough advantage to let a sword attack the Roman legionary pair, and kill one.

Hey - why don't we have any walls in our cities?? Teo and Istanbul both swap to and will build them this turn - but not before a Babylonian sword gets to attack Teo and kill a spear.


Next few turns, more units get killed on both sides, nothing important. We lose the elite spear that was defending our iron hill to a Persian horseman that knocked it down to 1HP before retreating and then an American archer kills it.


550 BC: Our army attacks Athens twice, killing its two hoplites leaving a 1HP archer showing. We'll have this city next turn!

Also this turn, we have a road complete to Cuzco and its Wines.

Also this turn, we retake our iron hill (it didn't get pillaged) and park our remaining elite spear there.

Also this turn, Monarchy is due. If we revolt - and I think we should - I *highly* recommend whipping 30-shield units (swords or horses, your choice) in each of the three southern cities. Each whip will get almost exactly 20 shields, and we'll need the units during anarchy.

Pay attention to the three workers NE of Tenoch (they're under the archer right now). They're on Ctrl-R so they can finish the road a turn sooner, but if they get threatened you'll need to wake them *before* the game cycles around to them so you can move them to safety.

Also note the Babylonian units by Teotihuacan. They're no threat to the walled city with spears and catapults, but make sure to leave 2+ spears in the city.

Picture attached.

I see it but it may be Sunday before I get a chance to play/post.

T-hawk, in my games when I have workers on Ctrl-R they wake up when an AI military unit (friendly or otherwise) moves adjacent to them. Did the Hoplite next to our archer not wake the Teno workers? If not, is there a trick to keeping them from waking up automatically?

Reagan, you might try to switch off the "wake up on friendly unit" / "wake up on enemy unit" options in the preference menu... :p

That's it, Kylearan. It's a good option in theory (interrupt a unit if it's threatened), but the computer can't determine whether an enemy unit is actually a threat or not. (I do hope that hoplite won't attack our damaged archer - I don't think it will.) So I always leave those preferences off so that my Ctrl-R workers never wake up when I don't want them to.

After an amazing two week vacation, I'm finally back. Would love to fit in a turn this weekend because I may have to go on the road for a few days next week. Thanks for putting up with my respite, guys.

I have time to play a few turns tonight and should be able to finish tomorrow, Speaker. Welcome back!

Thanks for the tip, Ky and T-hawk. I thought that option was a warning that you were about to attack a civ with whom you were at peace. I am constantly learning new things about this game even though I've been playing it for years.

Welcome back, Speaker, and good luck on your job hunt!

Roster:

Reagan -- PLAYING NOW
Speaker -- ON DECK (WELCOME BACK!)
Kylerean -- bumped back
Arathorn
T-hawk

If Reagan can finish tonight, that should dovetail nicely into Speaker playing this weekend. Glad you had a good vacation, Speaker, and I hope it keeps you refreshed for a long time.

Arathorn

I played about seven turns last night in a somewhat disjointed fashion (I was interrupted a lot). I should be able to finish tonight. As a preview, I can tell you we have one less opponent and two more cities, we're now a Monarchy and are about to finish Map Making research (it was almost fully passed around to the AIs, which made it an easy choice, plus it'll let us sneak out a galley or two and try to contact the remaining civs), and we've only lost two or three troops. It's getting hairy, though, in the south and at Cuzco in the west. We need more units. We now have ivory and Teno can swap to Zeus, due in fourteen turns. I'll need to check to see if anyone else has started it. Trading the production of five swords for a dominant wonder like Zeus seems like a pretty easy choice unless we think someone will beat us to it. I do know there's a pretty healthy cascade possibility because the Pyramids, Oracle, etc., have not yet been completed. Playing on Regent creates a whole new mindset (self-researching for a tech lead, having a shot at ancient wonders, etc.).

On SoZ, I saw Greece start it about 4 times on my turns, but noone else to my knowledge. Carthage did complete Colossus, so there are some civs out somewhere working on wonders. We might get beat, and we might lose all cascade options, but I tend to think the risk is probably worth it. Heck, just having another lux hooked up (what is that now, 4?) is pretty valuable.

There's no doubt SoZ has the greater long-term payoff. The question is, will we survive to see it? If we really are desperate for units NOW, investing in long-term SoZ isn't necessarily the best option. I'd rather have four swords NOW to keep Cuzco than 20 ACav later.

I'm happy to see military pressures and some different technology concerns. That was the hope. I doubt it can last a whole lot longer than another 50 turns or so, but that's a pretty good run for a single game -- from the beginning through the whole BC period.

Arathorn

The unit situation is not so bad that we won't be able to take care of it in the next two players' turns. I shut research off for two turns to build-up cash. If we were to do that a few more times, we could rush enough units to get ourselves well-defended. Popping another leader and building another army would allow us to more than adequately defend ourselves. If we research Currency next (someone's already taken the monopoly edge off of it), we would have a marketplace as a consolation prize if we were to lose the SoZ race. Alternatively, we could go with Construction and have the Great Wall as a cascade option.

I say go for Zeus. Remember that it's tough for the AIs to cascade to because they need ivory, of course. And denial of Zeus could actually be significant. And yes, make sure we have a decent fallback if we miss it - I like the Currency option.

550 – The crack of the whip is heard throughout the land as military units are rushed in every city but Cuzco in advance of our impending revolution. Edrine is tweaked to get growth one turn faster and Cuzco’s scientist is put back to work. Everything else looks cool.

530 – The Dutch drop off a chariot next to Cuzco and the Mongolian sword actually retreats during the interturn. We revolt and have four turns to Monarchy. Teno riots as a result. All else is quiet on the happiness front. We go 4-0 in combat this round. Athens should fall next turn. Map Making is well known, so our scientists start researching it.

510 – Athens, 6gp, and four slaves are finally ours. We go 4-0 in combat and lay some ‘pult fire on those we don’t attack.

490 – 1-0 combat, otherwise quiet.

470 – 1-1 in combat, with the loss a vet horse against a regular archer. :cry:

450 – We are now a Monarchy. 1-0 in combat and chase some AI units away with cats.

430 – 1-0 combat, move next to Tiwanaku. Teno: chop-aided spear->spear.

410 – Cuzco’s horses are pillaged. I was defenseless to stop it. We need more units! I had to use the army to attack two Russian regular units, rather than take the city. I shut down research (save for a lone scientist) to raise cash for a few turns. 4-0 combat, including one promotion.

390 – Our Cuzco spear redlines but defeats an attacking horse. Teno: spear->sword. Cuzco: walls->spear.

370 – Athens: walls->rax. Tiwanaku is ours and the Inca are toast. :hammer:

350 – Istanbul: sword->horse. Edrine: spear->sword. Teo: rax->sword. Teno swaps to Zeus. Feel free to swap any/all of these except for Teno (unless you want to rush another unit before starting Zeus). We need everything, pretty much.

This has been one of the most disjointed sets of turns I’ve ever played. Between distractions and problems with my game crashing, I don’t think I got in more than two consecutive turns at any one time. Ugh. Thankfully I make it a habit to save quite often each turn (which saves some headaches with lost moves and preserves the random seed). Anyway, there are still some military strategy decisions to make that will impact Speaker’s future turns, so I’ll pass the game along with some movement points left on various units (workers that can either chop or irrigate, units that can attack or move into another position, etc.) and some cash in the bank. Welcome back and have fun, Speaker!

Got it. Thanks for the welcome Reagan.

Forewarning
I accidentally skipped the final IT with a keyboard/mouse error. More about this later.

Final unit tally: 42-4

FYI: Reagan's file was misnamed as 550BC but was actually (correctly) 350BC.

IT- There are a ton of troops threatening our southern cities. I would like to get us up to 8 cities so we can build a second army but I'm not sure that will happen on my turns. We desperately need to grow our cities. Thanks to Reagan for leaving me some active units.

Teotihuacan gets an extra spear shuffled in.
Attack the horse threatning Istanbul, but he escapes as redlined. No unit left exposed to enemy attack however.

Shuffle a few tiles around Istanbul and Teotihuacan now that the horse is gone.

*Enter*

Two horses and an archer die against us. For some reason Tenochtitlan riots when it was definitely not set to. Two archers moving on its tiles disrupted the commerce and lux tax. I fix it. [3-0]

330BC (1): Drop science with MM due next turn. Knock off one spear near tenochtitlan with elite archer. Sword army redlines but kills sword. Elite Jag kills archer. Bombard legions near Istanbul. Redline and chase away horse near Istanbul. Kill spear near Athens with sword. Move spear off of Horse near Tenoch to lure opponent spear. [7-0]

IT- As expected, spear moves onto horse tile.

310BC (2): Kill spear and Tenoch is clean now. Bombard and kill spear near Edrine. Istanbul sword eats archer bombard and kills his partner and elite sword cleans up the last archer with no attacking troops in range. Start research toward Currency, due in 8 turns at a loss of 6. Set of Legions is making the Istanbul region a little hairy and I hope to stabilize it in the next few turns. [11-0]

IT- No attack between turns. Legions are trying to move toward our core.

290BC (3): Athens Barracks => Spearman. 2 elite swords kills 2 spears. Athens sword kills spear. Shuffle troops near Cuzco to remove archer threat. Shuffle horse to Tiwanaku so we can bring army back. [14-0]

IT- Archer dies on Cuzco's walls. [15-0]

270BC (4): Germans are now on Diplomacy screen, so I contact them. We are up Monarchy and they have 1 city besides their capital. I declare war. Cats bomb Archers and Elite Jag and Sword kill them. Kill archer near Tenoch. [18-0]

250BC (5): Bombard Archer and kill him with elite Jag. Kill spear, redlining elite sword. Mongols may pillage a tile near Tenoch next turn. Forces in that area are healing. [20-0]

IT- Spear does not pillage and just moves on.

230BC (6): I think maybe the Mongols were running a big deficit because the spear is gone. I check in through diplomacy and they have 20 gold. No idea what happened to the spear. He didnt attack or pillage but just vanished. :confused: Build Swords in Istanbul and Teotihuacan. Healed elite sword kills spear near Tenoch, and he is no ordinary ranger. I name the victorious unit Aragorn, son of our fearless leader, and send him to Istanbul awaiting an eighth city. I will hopefully have one by the end of my turn. Sword kills spear near Teotihuacan. Cats bombard, but little action this turn. [22-0]

IT- Kill 2 archers and a sword on defense. [25-0]

210BC (7): Tiwanaku Walls => Barracks. Sword army advances on Berlin, which I will capture to build an army and then abandon. It is dastardly for sure, but this is always war. Jag kills archer. [26-0]

IT- Kill horse and Sword on Tenoch incense hill and kill horse defending Tenoch (didn't notice he could attack and got lucky). [29-0]

190BC (8): Bombard and kill 2 spears. Bombard horse so he will retreat to heal and then decide to whack him with Jag. Army sits next to Berlin on same side of river, ready to attack next turn. Finally lose a unit, an elite sword attacking spear near Tenoch, though the spear is redlined. [32-1]

IT- Lose a spear in defense of Athens, redlining Sword. 2 Legions move into range of Teotihuacan. [32-2]

170BC (9): Complete Currency and start Code of Laws, due in 4 at a deficit of 8. Finish off sword near Athens. Sword army kills single Spear and captures Berlin. Form second army and fill it with 3 swords in Teotihuacan. Kill archer with sword. Kill Legion with army. Kill redlined spear with spear, redlining in the process. Raze Berlin. Hurting a bit for swords on the front now with the army taking 3 of them. [37-2]

IT- Sword army near Berlin takes a little damage but wins against sword. [38-2]

150BC (10): Move army back from Berlin ruins. Two Spanish horses come out of the fog near Cuzco which is now threatened by 3 horses. This might get a little tricky. Tiwanku is now connected to the road net. Lose Jag attacking yellowed horse near Istanbul. Warrior kills Spanish horse but is now exposed. Aragorn moves to help Cuzco. Kill redlined horse with elite spear, and cover him with 3/4 spear (no attacking units in sight). [40-3]

Conclusion- Slight misclick sends a spear from Teotihuacan to Istanbul instead of onto iron hill, so I have to shuffle the other spear there. Might take a few turns to figure out the proper unit placement down there, but most of the action was at Istanbul. Cuzco should hold with a spear coming in next turn (can be changed to Archer if so desired), but it looks like a stream of swords is starting to head that way, so the original army, which is near Tiwanku should head to Cuzco for support.

Um, I meant to hit spacebar in notepad but accidentally had brushed my hand against the touchpad of my laptop, causing Civ3 to suddenly be on top, and the IT played out. Very sorry.

IT- Exposed warrior near Cuzco kills 2 horses (!). He's quite the hero. Roman Legion comes out of fog to kill spear, giving me a thrill as he redlined, but holding on for the win. [42-4]

Conclusion Part Deux- I have not touched any of the cities or builds this turn. Very sorry about the spacebar mixup, but didn't feel that replaying the turn was necessary or proper.

Good luck to the next player! :hammer:

Got it, and no worries about the spacebar incident!

130BC: We have the Iroquois on the diplo screen now, who have only one city. I declare war.
There's a regular swordman on the hill at Athens, which is only defended by one sword of our own. The only unit able to reach the city this turn is a horse, so I'll reinforce Athens with it. [3:0]

110BC: Our sword defending Athens has indeed fallen, but a new one is produced there now which gets rid of the offending enemy sword. [6:1]

90BC: Oh man, a lot of units are advancing on our cities: Four swords, a horse and spears towards Teno; three legionaries, two swords and spears towards Istanbul; and two swords and a spear towards Tiwanaku, not counting several warriors in the mix. We need more units...good thing the SoZ will be completed next turn. [8:1]

70BC: We've lost a spear on defense at Tiwanaku. SoZ completes, and the Iros get the Pyramids - quite an expensive granary in this scenario. :lol: CoL comes in, and construction is looked into next, in 5 turns at -17g. [12:2]

50BC: [17:2]

30BC: Argh, we've lost a spear in a walled city on defense against a horse. France completes the Great Wall, the Celts the Great Library, the Hitties the Mausoleum of Mausollos, and Babylon the Temple of Artemis. Wow, what a cascade! :eek: [25:3]

10BC: [28:3]

10AD: [31:3]

30AD: We enter the medieval age, and set research on feudalism. Our first ancient cavalry is produced, and now that Teno has repelled the advnacing hordes of swords and spears, one of our army leaves northwest to capture the Russian capital. It looks like it's on the coast, and could remove one front for us if we get rid of it. [35:3]

50AD: The army reaches the mountain near Moscow and can start to attack next turn. [40:3]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/lotr14-50AD.jpg

After I had no units to spare to make any offense during my turns, now it's a bit quieter again, and together with the SoZ we should be able to expand again during the next player's turn.

Roster:

Reagan
Speaker
Kylerean
Arathorn <-- UP NOW
T-hawk <-- on deck


-Kylearan

Looking good. Got it.

Arathorn

Early: Capture Moscow and lose a TON of units -- probably 7 or so. Elite sword attacking redlined spear in the open? Dead sword. Follow it up with vet ACav? Dead ACav. Etc. etc. etc. Defend with walls, elite spear, and defensive bombard vs. an attacking regular sword? No chance. I can't even scratch him. UGH! At least our unit cost problems are getting under control.

Middle: Nearly lose our southern sword army. Silly me. I attacked a 2 hp legion on flatlands with only 10 hps. I had 2 left when the legion died. What was I thinking? :crazyeye:

Late: Think St. Pete will be a capture, not a raze, for some reason, and destroy the Russians. Lose more units, but at least I'm getting them replaced now. Try to keep some cities on infra builds, so we don't get too far behind. Complete Feudalism and start Monotheism at 50%. Pikes and MDI might help the casualties, but knights help lots of ways.

Feels like poorly played turns. Not sure if it was me or the PRNG, but not a casualty rate I'm proud of -- I didn't keep track but it was probably like 45-10 or so. I started a few more 'pults for that reason, too. Next player really has his pick of direction(s) to go.

Roster:
T-hawk -- UP NOW
Reagan -- ON DECK
Speaker
Kylerean
Arathorn

Good luck (not that you really need it),
Arathorn

I see it, can play today or tomorrow.

Has anyone built or started the Great Library? Could we try to capture it to get our techs?

We're pretty much running even with the tech leaders at this point. No one has completed it (heck, we don't even know Literature yet!), but we'd probably only get a very few techs out of it -- Monotheism, Republic, Theology, Engineering, and Education is my best guess. We can research reasonably well, even with our small nation, and the next MGL can build the FP if we want. I don't think Great Library is a requirement in this game. I'd rather see shields go into units/marketplaces/libraries (once we get Lit) and the effort of our units into shrinking our fronts and defending our cities.

We're just getting trickles of units from all kinds of competitors to all kinds of different places, making defense still ... interesting. When we focus on a spot, we can take it, but maintaining our defenses is a bit stickier. Pikes will help, of course.

Arathorn

How 'bout this -- once we get knights, just shut down research. Alternatively, shut it down once we've researched through Mil Trad. Depending on how far away its home is, we well may get a lot of free techs once we capture the Great Library. Except for Banking, from which we are quite far away, none of the upper techs seem to be vital enough to research on our own (especially not when we could use the cash we'd save as a way to rush military builds and complete our conquest quicker). Just a thought . . . .

I agree with Reagan. The only other tech we might want is Gunpowder but I suspect we will not be defending much longer. If we choose to go ahead with research, we should be able to keep up since it is only Regent and most of the AI have 2-4 cities to our 8 and growing.

OK, here we go.

We have 8 cities and are in the lead by quite a bit; on the power graph we're at triple or better of every other civ. Except America, but we're still ahead of them by about double.

Tenoch can make 20 shields for an MDI every other turn if it runs -1 food; we'll do that once the current horseman finishes. I do a few other MM tweaks, nothing major.

We could also use a Forbidden Palace, which sounds like a job for the next GL.

==========

260 AD: Wish and ye shall receive, Axayacatl pops on my very first attack!


270 AD: Rush the Forbidden Palace in Istanbul. Pretty much a toss-up where to put it; our southern cities are older and more developed so I went that way with it rather than north.

Western sword army kills two units in Lagash. Eastern sword army kills two units in Salamanca.

And ANOTHER GL pops on my next elite attack! Well, nothing else to build at the moment, and at the rate we're going we'll have enough cities for another army in about five turns, so he'll wait for that.


280 AD: Kill three more units in Lagash but the city still doesn't fall.

Kill two more units in Salamanca and that city does fall - and we get The Pyramids!!

Also capture Sumer in the south to help consolidate our front there, although we lose a 6/6 elite ancient cav in the attack.

Contact Carthage in the east, refuse to sell him anything for his piddly 16 gold, and declare war.


290 AD: Finally capture Lagash.


300 AD: The army from Salamanca attacks and auto-razes Utica. Two turns from contact to a city capture. :)

Lose a couple units in a skirmish against a pile of units from several civs around Lagash, but the army is fine so we're fine.

Yay Regent combat bonus against barbs! I use a spearman to attack a camp and clear it out up north of Athens. :)


310 AD: Eh, oops - a Carthaginian galley landed two Numidians next to undefended Salamanca. Fortunately, the army can *just* make it back to the city this turn to defend it.


320 AD: Tlatelolco is founded north of Athens, giving us our 12th city. The last GL forms an army which we load with two MDIs and will soon find a third.

Three Carthaginian swords came overland and joined the two Numidians at Salamanca. This is bad - I don't have any backup within a hundred miles of the city. Our army attacks two swords and kills them, but is down to 2 HP defending against the last sword and one Numidian.

And between turns, our army valiantly defends against the sword, but the Numidian overwhelms it and we lose Salamanca and the Pyramids. :(


330 AD: Building and positioning.


340 AD: This turn we get back on the right track. First we capture Amsterdam to eliminate the Dutch. :thumbsup: Then the one unit I had in the northeast area, an elite horse, gets to Salamanca before the Numidian managed to heal, and recaptures the Pyramids. :goodjob:


350 AD: Our stack of 6 catapults along with the MDI army (in separate stacks as per the variant rules) is in position to capture Ur within a turn or two. The cats have revealed that there's at least six Enkidus in the city, so even the mighty MDI army might need a bit of help here.

Our eastern forces are sorta disorganized right now, but next leader should be able to pull them together and go for the Greek capital there. I'd recommend sending the next couple Ancient Cavs this way, as it's the one front lacking an army at the moment.

Monotheism is due this turn.

Totals for my turn: 5 cities added, two civs eliminated, two great leaders, one Forbidden Palace. One army lost and one gained. About 50 units killed, about 10 lost.

Got it. I'll have to play one or two turns at a time again, but I should be done by Tuesday night at the latest.

I actually found time to play eight turns today/tonight. We are already in mop-up mode. We have captured four cities, razed a fifth, eliminated two civs, and are ready to rid ourselves of a third (and gain another lux). Before I play tomorrow night, I have two questions:

1. Do we want to build the Knights Templar? It costs 300 shields (eight MDIs, four knights, or ten horses/pikes) but will spit out five-attack/bonus HP units from its completion until the end of the game (we'll likely never get to Steam Power). The units only have a movement of one, though, which will make them tough to get into play as our fronts start pushing away from the core. Alternatively, we could build Sun Tzu's and save a ton of barracks costs.

2. Do AI settler pairs ever pick-off unguarded workers? There are two of them next to worker stacks. I don't want to waste offensive units guarding the workers nor do I want to wake the workers, but I obviously don't want to lose the workers. I've never been in this situation before because I've either killed the AI units during war time or been at peace with them while letting them take their Deity RoP.

I'm going out of town again next week, possibly Tuesday but more likely Wednesday. So if possible, please try to play tomorrow Reagan. If it's a hassle, don't worry about it and I'll just take a skip.

FYI I wrote that message before your update. I wouldn't waste time with Knights Templar, the units will be more flexible. And I'm pretty sure a settler pair will never attack.

And I'm pretty sure a settler pair will never attack.
Well I actually saw one take an empty town in a sneak atttack. I never noticed them bother with workers.

1. Do we want to build the Knights Templar?

Sure, why not? It's a fun wonder to have. :) BTW, Crusaders don't have an extra HP.


2. Do AI settler pairs ever pick-off unguarded workers?

Only unintentionally. They won't try to go for the workers, but if the unit pair happens to be moving to the square that the workers are occupying, they'll get captured by the military unit.

350 – MM Cuzco to shave a turn off its MDI build. Everything else is cool (as should be expected in a turn inherited from the king of micromanagement).

360 – Mono comes in and we start researching Chivalry at a -12gpt deficit. Teno: MDI->MDI. Our pults hit 75% of the time at Ur, but there are still uninjured spears in the city. The army attacks twice but is now yellow lined. T-hawk’s right – we’ll need backups to take the city. Stomp a legion escorting a settler and get a promotion and two more slaves. Portugal drops a sword next to Moscow. There’s no local support, so our walled pike will have to defend next turn. MM Cuzco back to five surplus food. Swap Lagash to rax and Sala to settler.

370 – Cuzco: MDI->MDI. Edrine: MDI->MDI. The Portuguese sword fortifies. Egypt drops a settler on us from out of nowhere and founds Memphis right next to one of our MDIs. It’s only Cleo’s second city. I fail to extort any cash from her, so we declare. Our MDI “unfounds” Memphis. We also knock off a Greek archer. Swap Tlat to a rax. Move Edrine’s spare spear to Teo and fire the scientist.

380 – Successfully defend in the IT, with a promotion. Teno: MDI->MDI. Istanbul: MDI->MDI. Athens: horse->horse. Troops finally arrive at Ur.

390 – SoZ produces an ancient cav. Amsterdam: walls->rax. Knock off four spears from Ur. It should fall next turn. Whack a Chinese settler pair.

400 – Teno: MDI->pike (to rebuild the food box). Lagash: rax->pike. Ur, 13gp, and a slave are now ours. Sumeria is no more. Our armies move next to Beijing and knock off two spears after arriving.

410 – One successful defense in the IT. Athens: horse->MDI. Sumer: pult-pult. Edrine: MDI->MDI. Tiwan: pike->pike. Teo: MDI->pike. Kill two more spears at Beijing, but redline the sword army and have to pull it back into friendly territory for protection. Pyongyang is ours after two successful ancient cav strikes. Kill a Bab settler pair.

420 – A sneaky Portuguese sword steals two workers in the IT and Spain lands an archer next to Tlat. Teno: pike->starvation MDI. Tlat: rax->pike. Cuzco: pike->MDI. Istanbul: MDI->MDI. The Spanish archer is trampled by our horse. Beijing is now ours. We meet India, fail to extort his 4gp, then declare (and kill a settler pair in the process). Meet the Celts, fail to extort any gold, then declare (and kill a settler pair in the process). See a pattern here? :)

430 – Sparta is ours without casualties. Greece departs this world. Meet the Vikes, sell them CoL for 15gp, then declare. They are out of reach this turn. Kill a German settler pair. Knock off three spears from Seoul. It should fall next turn. Athens reaches the magical 15spt level and will swap to Templar next turn.

440 – Chivalry comes in, Engineering begun at +1gpt in eight turns. Successful defense in the IT earns a promotion. We gain another ancient cav. Teno: MDI->knight (with no more starvation). Moscow: pike->temple. All MDI production swapped to knights. Lose a MDI to a French settler pair. Kill one of two potential pillager spears near Salaman. Ugh. Lose an ancient cav against a Mongol pillager. Seoul is captured with only one ancient cav lost. Kill one spear in Madrid and move other units into position for next turn. Kill a settler pair. Lux tax can drop to 10% (with the addition of two inconsequential scientists) after we add Seoul’s furs.

450 – Interestingly, the Egyptian spear decides not to pillage. The settler pairs by our workers do U-turns. Kill a settler pair and a stray sword and spear. Madrid is ours with no casualties and is set on a starvation diet. Some units move into barracks-equipped cities for healing.

I left you some units with movement on our eastern front. We’re close to forming a nice SoD up there. A knight army would be nice. :hammer: Have fun!

Here's a pic:

Got it. Will play when I wake up tomorrow. Something for the team to chew on before then: when do we stop capturing and start razing? It seems to me that that time is near, to avoid spreading ourselves too thin with mostly-corrupt towns. Thoughts?

when do we stop capturing and start razing?

Ummm...never? Our relative culture is pretty good. Those outlying towns provide unit support, more potential armies, and population for workers/settlers/specialists as needed. The sooner we can get our productive cities OFF the frontlines, the happier I'll be. Having a pike behind walls defend against a sword is good odds for us, but I'd rather the penalty for losing be a corrupt 1/1 city rather than a core producer.

I see no need to raze rather than capture. Yes, we're fighting on two fronts, but I'd rather fight on two fronts with our cities and our culture around rather than two wide open fronts where everybody can use every road and we need to dedicate units to watching open space. Might as well get some benefit from those areas....

My $.02,
Arathorn

I'm in the same camp as Arathorn on this one. We certainly won't be in pure-raze mode anytime soon. We need to get our mobile units up and running first, which is a process that just started. There are a lot of AI settler pairs drifting around just looking for a home. We'll be able to shut down research in a few turns and will have enough cash available to rush defenders in outlying towns. As Arathorn noted, a walled city defended by a pike will hold just fine against swords.

Unless and until we get enough troops to cover all the open ground that a razing strategy would produce, we're going to be missing out on the free unit support and the cushion for our core that we are currently enjoying from a capture-and-hold strategy. Take a look at the space just east of Tiwanaku, for example. There have been three cities there and I have killed at least three other settler pairs there. That's right next to one of our first-ring cities. We really need to continue to push the fronts out before we start razing.

Hmm.. can we build or capture the Temple of Artemis to pull all the captured ground within our borders right away? groucho

IT- First thing I want to do here is check in with each of our known enemies and see how many cities they have:

Rome: Capital only
Spain: Capital Only
Egypt: Capital Only
Carthage: Capital Only
Germany: Capital Only
France: Capital Only
Persia: Capital Only
China: Capital Only

Babylon: Capital + 1
Arabia: Capital + 1
Mongolia: Capital + 1
Portugal: Capital + 1

America: Capital + 3

Would love to knock off several of those capital onlies on this turn, especially Rome and China, who are right next to our southern border. I would also love to push down to Babylon, who has built the Temple of Artemis.

Make one or two micromanagement changes and shuffle a few troops but everything looks great!

*enter*

Moscow pike holds off Portugese sword. Redline ACav is killed by a spear.

460AD (1): Advance both southern armies on Rome. Eliminating them will rid us of the strongest unit out there. Whack the Legion/Settler pair as well. Mostly healing troops this turn and consolidating.

470AD (2): Two armies combine to kill two legions and Rome is dead.

480AD (3): First knights come off the line and we start on more. Add two workers to get Istanbul up to the magic 18spt line for a Knight every 4 turns. Stacks almost ready to go in the south and east.

490AD (4): Knights do not impress in their first action, losing to a 3/5 unfortified Swordsman on level ground. Southern MDI Army moves to disconnect Arabian Iron. Sword Army kills a spearman in Shanghai.

500AD (5): Engineering is complete and I shut off research for now. Capture Leipzig and Germany is dead.. Pillage Arabian Iron and advance the army on Medina. Kill both Spears in Shanghai. Advance on Barcelona.

IT- Of all the targets, Mongols sword attacks our worker stack recently brought in to build a road. :smoke: on my part leaving it alone.

Zulus make contact and offer Literature for Monarchy. I make him throw in 80 gold with Lit and give him Monotheism instead. He has 4 cities in addition to his Capital. War is declared.

510AD (6): China has removed its archer, leaving Shanghai completely undefended. I capture it and China is dead. Capture Medina, killing two spears with the MDI army. Capture Barcelona and Spain is dead.

520AD (7): Meet the Hittites and declare war. Troops advance on new targets.

530AD (8): Capture Mecca and Arabia is dead. Capture Hattusas from the Zulu.

540AD (9): MGL is formed in an attack on Persepolis, but it does not fall yet.

550AD (10): Kill the two redlined horses defendingd Persepolis and Persia is dead. Kill two Babylonian units, but a spear still defends. Remove the leader from the front and move him back next to Ur.

Conclusion- The leader is next to Ur and I would recommend building an army in Istanbul and adding the Knight which will be completed next turn. Cuzco and Athens may be able to get to 18 spt with some worker attention. There are a few troops in Tiwanaku which I was keeping around to kill pillaging spearmen. Troops in Hattusas are now healed, so you can choose your target this turn. 6 dead rivals on my turn and an ever increasing amount of territory. The troops are ready to take Babylon and with it, the Temple of Artemis. I doubt this one will make it back to me. Thanks for a fun game Arathorn.

It's been a while, so here's a current roster:

Reagan
Speaker
Kylerean <-- UP NOW
Arathorn <-- on deck
T-hawk

Wow, Speaker! Six civs eliminated? That's gotta be close to an SG record. Granted, the set-up was ideal for it, but... wow! Even 31 regeant foes aren't enough to provide a significant challenge..... Too bad.

BTW, as part of my preps for some comments in your Reminiscing thread, Speaker, I've been looking for some of my favorite turns and old games. I'm mid-rereading the original AW game (LotR2) and it's amazing how far we've come in AW since then! :lol: Great fun rereading, but I'm not paying much attention to build up my SG Reflections.... ;)

Good skill Kylerean,
Arathorn

I didn't really think of it that way. Now that you mention it, 6 Civs is a lot. That would only leave 1 rival in any "Standard" game. It definitely could have been higher had I extended more and taken more chances. I didn't really attack for 3 of my 10 turns and the only city I attacked with less force than I really should have was Babylon, which was only a "problem" because it was defended by a pike. I think there are something like 15-17 rivals left, so I wouldn't be surprised if my "record" falls in the next turn or two as our army continues to grow.

Re-reading old games is a lot of fun. I find myself doing it at 2 in the morning more often than I should, but there are just so many great games out there so beautifully recorded.

-=> got it. <=-

F8 shows 15 rivals are still alive, but we have contact only with 12, so three are still missing. I'm too lazy to find out who that is, though. ;)
I love the sight of Leptis Magna: It has been founded near no less than three ruins! :lol:

On the first interturn we get the message that the Zulus have destroyed the Japanese...hey Shaka, you stole a kill from us! :crazyeye:

Captured Leptis Magna, New York and Babylon in 560AD, and we now own the Temple of Artemis.
Captued Ugarit and destroyed the Hitties in 570AD.
Karakorum was captured in 600AD.
610AD saw massive border expansions everywhere, and the capture of Boston.
Knight's Templar were completed in 620AD.
Washington and the Hanging Gardens were captured in 630AD - but America isn't dead yet. Boo! Hiss!
640AD saw the demise of the Celts and the Mongols, and we now own the great library (and got republic with it).
And last but not least, in 650AD Babylon and Carthage left the game, and we are in control of the Great Lighthouse and the Colossus.


We nearly control the whole continent now, and once we control it completely, it might be sufficient for a domination victory - or not. Since Washington and Boston still had intact harbors, I rushed two galleys there just in case we need them.

Cuzco and Athens now make 18sp, albeit at -1 food. But a warning to the next player: I haven't micromanaged much except our main knight producing cities - it isn't necessary anymore IMHO.

Damn, only five dead civs during my turns...too bad America had a city overseas... :mischief:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/lotr14-650ad.jpg


Roster:
Reagan
Speaker
Kylerean
Arathorn <-- UP NOW
T-hawk <-- on deck?


-Kylearan

Feel free to finish it off all the way, Arathorn. Make your (temporary?) exit from the SG scene in style. :cooool:

Got it. Will see if I can finish it off tonight. Probably greatly depends on how much land there still is east of what I can see in the north. Heck, there might be land east of what we can see in the south, too, but that seems less likely.

Took quite a while to get rolling and it looks like the final stages will be quick and painless. Not too bad of a game. I wonder who's left to kill, besides America....

Arathorn

It's perfectly fine with me if you want to finish the game, Arathorn. This has been fun!

Despite poor play on my part, I finished off the French in 670, the Americans in 690, the Portuguese in 710, and won in 730. Not much interesting to really say about these turns -- just pushing forward with overwhelming troops.

There was a LOT of land east of Portugal yet. I was working my way through the Zulu and could easily get to the Indians, too. We could've probably hit 80% of land total just on our pangea.

I sailed west after the destruction of the Americans, too, and managed to go around the world and make contact with the Byzantines. The capture of Adrianople might have put us over the top. No total destruction, but we were unstoppable.

Two more MGLs became a knight army and the Pentagon. In case anybody was curious.

So, we see....

Of course I finished it off. With over 60% of the land already in hand, it was trivial. Didn't even come close to needing overtime. OK, so I stretched thinner than was wise, but it just didn't matter at this point. Oporto on a hill was a pain and so on, but....

Our final score was 4570. Zululand was second with 185. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of score differential before. England, somehow, managed to end with 1 point. Why not zero?

Replay was interesting. We started slowly. Somewhere around 400 AD, though, the pace accelerated and the green carpet started expanding 2-3 cities/turn. Huge jump when the ToA temple expansions kicked in. Zimbabwe, though, ended as the #1 city, not Tenochtitlan. Oh well.

Twas a fun game. Beginning was certainly interesting and different and exciting. Fewest workers built in any SG in a LONG time. Only very few settlers, too. That's something different.

Final save attached, too. Thanks for the game all!

Arathorn

It was an interesting concept Arathorn. Thanks for a fun game. Not that the game was ever really in doubt, but I think we each got at least one turn where it was a "struggle," and as far as SGs go, you can't ask for much more than that. Achieving 50-100 difficult turns without playing Sid or Deity is pretty impressive for a variant, especially one on Regent, I think.

That was a nice game - as Speaker has said, everyone had at least one exciting turn, and I even enjoyed the last few turns rolling over so many civs at once with out superior forces. :)

Surprisingly, the additional rules for armies didn't change much. I don't think we would have used armies for pillaging much in this kind of scenario, where pillaging one resource would only have stopped one, at most two cities from producing swords/pikes/horses. And the armies were still powerful enough to capture cities on their own, even without stacking them with other units.

Thanks to all for playing! :king:

-Kylearan