Bz8 is going to be a glorious victory. I just remembered today morning how Bz3 was an ignominious defeat. That too was a AWE and it was not even a 5CC AWE. Yet we were wiped out before we could reach the middle ages. The main difference was that while Bz8 was a continents small map, Bz3 was a large pangeae. This goes to show how difficult games can become when the map is bigger and all connected. So I decided to try a straight Sid game on pangeae huge and go for a space race victory..

Map Settings:
Type - Pangea (maximum landmass)
Size - Huge
Climate - Warm, Wet
Geography - 4 billion years old.
And of course since this is a Bz game, No barbs.

Game settings:
All victory conditions enabled. However we are going for space only.
Normal AI (not more or less aggresive).

Ag12 (which is also a space race Sid) showed us the importance of alphabet. Just because we did not have alphabet in that game that game is seriously in doubt. Now alphabet is not that important in a pangeae game but even then it is a nice starting tech that has lots of trade potentials. So as one of the first tech I decided to have alphabet.

What about the second tech? I decided on pottery, agricultural combination. The agricultural trait gives a extra food bonus which helps in expansion of the empire. That extra food is huge. Plus with pottery we can immediately start on granaries for our settler factory and on science we can start on writing.

So thinking all these things I decided on the Iroquois. The 11th start throwed up a very good start. We see a lux and we can start up a settler factory and we see hordes of incense that we can trade later.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Bz9_Start.JPG

Can we win this? Can we go to the stars (Ad Astra) thru Sid (per Sid).

Roster:
Greebley
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031
Grahamiam
open
betazed

I have put myself at the end of the roster so that the game can proceed while I am out from tomorrow till 7th of July. In the meantime players can start playing. Remember the first player takes 20 turns and 10 turns from then on.

However, before we start playing let us discuss our Ancient Age overall strategy.

The Start save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Bz9_4000_BC.SAV)

My only experience on a huge pangea sid map was playing AWS and trying to survive until 1000 BC (almost did it with the Sumerians - I was 6 turns away in one game).

One problem I noticed with Huge Sid is the initial tech cost. I think doing min research on writing may be best.

I think we should settle where we are. With two cows and agriculture, we can mine the cows and still get +5 food when we grow to size 2. I think this will get us up and running fastest.

For builds, I think 3 warriors to explore and then a granary.

My thought on overall strategy would be to get a settler factory ASAP and get as many cities as we can quickly; while using the warriors to make contact and try to stay in the running in terms of tech (may not be possible).

How many civs are your opponents? Did you make a custom map?

@Aggie: max opponents. Standard game rules; no customization.

@Greebley: I agree. Min research on Writing immediately is the way to go. After that depending on the situation we can go for a philo gambit or min on Lit and go for the GL.

Woah... Huge map and maximum opponents. I think we'll be down to five turns per player by the middle ages.

I just counted the SG's that I'm in and with pain in my heart I have tell myself not to join this one :(

@aggie: Sorry to hear that. Well, you can at least cheer us along. :)

@steve: if it comes to that we will set it to 5 turns but my turns on huge map do that take that long. But then again I play on a monster machine.

Actually my machine isn't that bad (Athlon XP 2400, 1GB, 9700 Pro - and of course a Dell 2001fp LCD monitor :D ), I was thinking more from a micromanagement perspective, as there will be tons of cities on a huge map.

Still waiting for the motherboard makers and ATI to get their act together. Next gaming rig will be FX53 / 2GB / X800XT-PE. Yes, I have money to burn. Been planning this for the last six months :D

That's a nice rig, Steve. :thumbsup:

Check out mine (http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/area-51_ex.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51EX&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT). :D I have the 3.2 Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM version. I use it for lot of number crunching too so it really requires all that RAM.

Playing Emperor has been a stretch for me. Sid just seems insane. I think A few more SG's under my belt at ~Emperor are needed before I can contribute to a game like this one.

I've already added it to my lurk list.

Too tempting a challenge. I'd like to join. May need a skip or 2 this summer though.

Strategy: This really is a perfect start. We'll need it. I agree with 3 warriors to explore first. I would do a settler then before the granary to get a costal city and currgah's out in both directions. Rapid contacts and trading will be critical and it may be difficult to get warriors through the other civs. My first inclination was to move to the coastal hill to found but I don't think the 2 move delay would be worth it. Obviously then the most rapid land grab possible. Our main problem will be that the AI's will all know each other and so the tech pace will be unreal. The human really benifits from suicide exploration on other maps.

i'd like to give this a go as it is indeed a tempting challange :) not only the difficulty but the time between turns :lol:

i'd like to give this a go as it is indeed a tempting challange :) not only the difficulty but the time between turns :lol:

Time between turns a challenge on a huge map? :lol: Just have a look at AG3 ;) j/k

Regarding the start: You not only have a settler factory, but it's even better. You should be able to build a warrior/settler every four turns!

Welcome aboard mark and grahamiam. :goodjob:

I think we have a quorum. There is still one slot open.

Greebley you can start whenever you are ready.

Greebley ----> Up
Arizona_Steve ------> On deck
Mark1031
Grahamiam
open
betazed ------> Out from tomorrow till 7th July.

Got it. I will start playing it. According to TechCalc writing is 800 beakers. We will be doing a lot of min research I suspect.

4000 BC: Move worker onto E cow (which irrigates both cows a turn faster than NW). I start min research on writing.
3750 BC: Build a warrior who will generally go S following the E coast. Grow to size 2 so Raise Lux to 20%
3600 BC: Build a warrior who will head NWish
3550 BC: Grow to size 3 so raise Lux to 30%
3500 BC: Build last warrior; granary in 12. 3rd warrior will go SW.
3250 BC: That looks like an Ekidu. Hello Sumeria. I trade Alphabet for 11 gold and Bronze working. They have WC too.
3150 BC: Lux up to 40%. Granary works out very well: Growth in 4, Granary in 3.
3050 BC: Sumeria has CB as well.
3000 BC: Build Granary and start a worker.

Notes:
I would build a worker and then a settler. We can get to a warrior and settler in 4 turns faster.

So far we look good :D

Here is a map of the known world so far:

I, too, am tempted to join, but I don't want to be in too many SGs at once (though I'm not nearly in as many as Aggie). Hopefully Sling3 will end soon as it's basically in the bag, so sign me up.

(0) 3000BC
We're already running 40% luxury tax, so I'm going to pop a settler after the worker completes. Gilgamesh is up Warrior Code and Ceremonial Burial.

IBT
Sumaria boots our exploring warrior from their territory.

(1) 2950BC
Luxuries are raised to 50% as Salamanca grows to size 6. It's going to grow in 2 turns, so I swap it's worker build to a settler. Then switch one tile to an incense hill to prevent the city reaching size 7 before the settler appears, as this would be very inefficient in terms of food usage.
Salamanca will do nothing but produce settlers from now on.

(4) 2800BC
Salamanca pops it's first settler and starts another. Drop Luxury tax to 40%.
An Arabian scout appears next to Salamanca, and I note that he has Masonry in addition to the two Sumarian techs. He refuses to sell it however.
I send our first settler North to settle near the forest deer, as a coastal city is a definite requirement for Curraghs and contacts.

(6) 2710BC
Luxuries back to 50% as Salamanca grows. I notice that science can also be turned down to 10%.

(7) 2670BC
Niagara falls is founded next to the forest deer and starts a Curragh. I thought about moving one tile to the east, but it looks like there may be a river estuary further east, which would be worth settling once we block the Sumarians and Arabs.

(8) 2630BC
Another settler pops out of Salamanca. I want to send him South to squeeze the Sumarians a bit, and to get a military factory going.
Lux tax back down to 40%.
Summarians got Masonry before I was able to trade with the Arabs :(

(10) 2550BC
Lux tax to 50% as Salamanca reaches size 6.

There is a settler in transit. He needs to move one tile South (onto the grassland) and settle to lock up the incense there. Once the next settler completes I would switch to two-turn worker farm to get us up to par on workers.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9_2550BC.jpg

Pre turn: No changes

2510: Move settler into position

2470: Found Grand River. Salamanca Set->set. Niagra Falls currgah->currgah. Send currgah west. Arabs start Oracle.

2430: Egypt gets Colossus. Move settler toward river forest.

2390 zzz

2350: See Summerian settler headed toward our land. Dance around with 1 warrior to try to delay.

2310: Salamanca Set->set Maya get Pyramids

2270: Grand River warrior->worker. Niagra Falls currgah->worker. Send Currgah east.

2230 Summeria boots us to the south. :D Inca get Oracle

2190: Salamanca Set->set. Found Allegheny in river forest. Found Cattaraugus.

2150: Summer settler heads further into our territory.

2110: Niagra Falls worker-> warrior


Tried to expand as aggressively as possible into our very lush and well shielded lands. Summeria is getting pushy. I don’t know where the summerian settler is going but try to stop/delay him. We have a settler that I was sending to the red dot on the map. No trades on my turns which is a bit worrisome. I hope we get writing 1st and meet some of the other folks. I think a GL run in Grand River would definitely be worth a try. I’d start prebuild as soon as we get writing and hopefully can trade for Masonry. So far so good but we have a lot of territory to uncover. At least no ones built Sun Tsu’s yet :lol: .

Can I join please? I've tried once to beat Sid on a Space Race and lost when I hit modern era to another civ that took the spaceship and launched the damn thing. Ever since then I have been a lone, wondering boy in search of a space race win.

ok, got it. will play and post tonight (~14hrs). anymore comments welcome :)

edit: i see the warrior/settler 4T pump is ready to roll so I will set it up to run during my turns.

If we are going to build warriors in our capitol, I am wondering if a barracks would be worthwhile? If we switched to one and then built a settler, it would slow settlers our settlers by 2 turns, but give us Veteran units that would be more upgradable if/when we get iron.

[Edit: Thinking on this, it is probably not worth it. I think we need to settle as fast as we can.]

[Edit: Thinking on this, it is probably not worth it. I think we need to settle as fast as we can.]
I agree. I'll just get it setup to do a warrior and a settler every 4T. the one thing i see is a lot of cities without MP's, kind of like hanging raw meat around your neck and walking thru the jungle. hopefully, we won't attract too many tigers before we get the MP's up.

Sounds very reasonable. I think you will be building a warrior, and then doing the warrior,settler, warrior, settler, etc, so that will be 2 new warriors in the next 3 turns which will help the situation.

I am also thinking we will need to fight Sumeria with Arabia's help when we are ready. We will need more land in order to have a chance at competing at the SID level. That will not be easy.

Why not set keep our capital as 4-turn settler factory and another city to warriors/workers. It would be much more efficient as the settler factory would eventually grow more than we want it since it has enough food to be a 4-turn settler factory (rather than just enough to be a 6-turn settler/warrior factory).

I also would keep the settler factory going until we grab as much as possible. New cities warrior/worker IMO.

You can build a warrior AND settler every 4 turns. Sounds like even better than a settler factory :)

EDIT: A warrior takes 10 shields and a settler needs 30. You can easily mine a BG tile and you have your warrior/settler factory on size 5.

I think we are already there. We already get 10 shields at size 5 which is what is required. Since we are going to be size 4 after building the settler, a warrior (takes 2 turns) will get us to size 5. We then can build a warrior in 1 and a settler in 3 forever after. I am sure this is what grahamiam was planning on doing.

I am sure this is what grahamiam was planning on doing. Me too. My input was a reaction on Yom's and Mark1031's remarks.

I think we are already there. We already get 10 shields at size 5 which is what is required. Since we are going to be size 4 after building the settler, a warrior (takes 2 turns) will get us to size 5. We then can build a warrior in 1 and a settler in 3 forever after. I am sure this is what grahamiam was planning on doing.
this is exactly what i saw. another city or 2 can create barracks and start pumping out vet units.

first, the 1750BC save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9_1750BC.SAV)

Preflight check: Verify we are indeed doing 10spt @ size 5 so 4T warrior/settler pump is primed. Looks like a Sumerian warrior/settler pair is about to crimp our land.

Check cities and everything looks a-ok.

Sumeria and Arabia up Mas, WC, and CB.

IBT: We are booted from Arabia; Sumerian W/S pair continue NW; Sala settler -> warrior; Grand River worker -> warrior

T1: 2070BC MM lux slider; Settler heads SE to try to keep Sumeria from settling our area. Curraghs and warriors explore

T2: 2030BC Settler to coast; curragh and warriors explore

IBT: Sala warrior -> warrior; Allegany warrior -> warrior; Cattaraugus warrior -> worker

T3: 1990BC warrior stays in Sala for MP duty;

IBT: the Sumerian W/S pair continue to do the chicken dance near our incense. I think our settler and warrior in the area are making them crazy :lol:

Sala warrior -> settler; Niagra Falls warrior -> barracks;

T4: 1950BC Switch Catta to barracks from worker (1 in the area already and the site has good shield potential). Lower lux slider to 20% thanks to the 2 warriors in Sala. Found Oil Springs to foil the Sumerian W/S pair -> barracks; Found Tonawanda where Mark wanted it.-> worker. We are now making 17gpt.

T5: 1910BC 2 warriors in Sala allow the lux slider to stay @ 20%; MM Sala off BG onto tobacco for extra gold.

IBT: Grand River warrior -> warrior

T6: 1870BC Curraghs keep exploring

Sala settler -> warrior

T7: 1830BC S/W pair move out to river location in the W since that seems to be where the Sumerian S/W pair are aiming towards. MM lux slider to 30% due to warrior leaving.

Tech notes: Sumeria up Mas, Wheel, WC, CB, and IW. Arabs are still down Wheel and IW but I can’t buy either for 246g and 22gpt (lux and sci off). One funny thing I see is that Sumeria is in “Awe” of our culture! All we have as far as culture is the Palace :lol:

IBT: Sala warrior -> settler; Niagra Falls curragh -> worker; Allegany warrior -> worker
T8: 1790BC

T9: 1750BC MM lux slider to 20%. Arabs are still down IW and Wheel to Sumeria so Sumeria. Still can’t pull a deal for the Wheel for all of our gold. Since Sumeria likely knows someone, the dingy from Niagra Falls heads that way.

IBT: Writing -> Lit @ 10% since we can’t improve the rate unless we lower the lux.
Arabs are building Temple of Artemis; Persia completes MoM

T10: 1710BC MM Sala off BG onto tobacco for extra gold

Notes: We can buy The Wheel from Sumeria for Writing and 273g. Recommend we do that as someone else out there already knows Writing +. Arabs are still down IW and Wheel + Writing so we should be able to get a few techs from Writing.

Warrior/Settler Pair are heading 1T NW to river grass for settlement. Looks like the Sumerian W/S pair are heading due W (maybe a horse we can’t see?

We need a town designated a the Glib builder. Currently, all towns are in the process of building something that can be switched to a Palace prebuild (assuming we get Mas from the trades). Cattaraugus looks good to me as it has 5 bg’s, 1 forrest, and 1 hill in it’s current radius and will get 2 more BG’s once the next city is built. Then again, this could be our military city.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-1750BC.JPG

I suggest granary in Grand River (possibly a temple too), then start palace prebuild for Great Library.

I suggest granary in Grand River (possibly a temple too), then start palace prebuild for Great Library.
ok, but it will take 12 turns to build the granery there if we switch now (with growth in 3T increase spt to 4 and MM in 2T and before growth size 4 to forest for extra shield). at size 5, we should make aroun 5spt and 6 around 6spt so a temple will take another 11 turns. we will still be around 50-60 turns (didn't work out all the numbers) till GLib with only 27 turns till Lit.

imho, the next settler can go unescorted to our back country (4NW, 1W) and the warrior from Sala can go to Grand River for MP duty to help with happiness. that way we could forgo the temple (but still build the granery to accelerate growth) and count on 2 warriors and our lux hooked up to help with happiness.

We can get by without a granary by doing worker merges and we can get by without a temple by raising our LUX. The GLIB is probably worth doing both for. Our window of opportunity will be small. We can try a massive drive for the GLib if we so want (workers concentrate mostly on improving Grand River terrain - Other towns build workers, Workers added to Grand Rivers as squares improve).

This is by far the fastest way to get a wonder. Single minded improvement of a single city. We want to trade for masonry for the Palace prebuild.

At SID level, if we want the wonder I think we need to do this. Note that it may be this effort does not net us the wonder (It does get us a productive city however so it is not entirely a waste - just mostly).

We can have size 1 towns produce workers and our capitol too once we get the last lands settled (with perhaps one or two earlier workers?). One big issue will be demands for Lit however. Once we get the workers, we can build military to minimize this, but Lit might be stolen from us.

ok, i have no problem with that. however, i would like to suggest we use Cattaraugus instead of Grand River as it has the following going for it:
1. more shields in the que
2. plenty of BG's around
3. lower corruption (both distance and rank and will be connected via road to the capitol in 2T)

i may be missing something but i looks better to me. maybe less forests?

We can get by without a granary by doing worker merges

Or a settler merge..

I like Cattaraugus and worker merge/lux increase. The GL wil be critical and we should play it as best we can. Palace timed to lit and max shields @ size 12 thereafter. There is really nothing much more important to do now except finish our last few cities and avoid war.

Ya Cattaraugus looks good to me as well.

I think we should then switch Grand River away from a warrior and to a worker. We have sufficient non-veteran warriors already.

I think we may need to wait for Betazed to get back before continuing. Yom would be up next except he mentioned he was having problems with starting Civ and asked for a skip in another game. I don't know if Betazed wants a seventh player so we don't yet know if Foresight is in the game or not (he is past the last open slot filled by Yom), and Betazed would be up after that.

So I think we wait for Betazed to decide who is up next. He will be back on the 7th. Does this make sense?

The only exception would be if Yom gets Civ running again. I think it is safe if he takes his turn.

sounds logical, both switching GR to a worker and waiting for Betazed :)

I got C3C running again, so I can take my turn. I actually wasn't sure if I was in this game :crazyeye: since I never saw Betazed post an updated roster and Foresight had also shown some interest to play.

Betazed is away and so couldn't post the updated roster. I think you (Yom) are safe in assuming you are in the game as you posted first for the open slot he listed and I happen to know you are "qualified" in terms of skill (well at least as qualified as the rest of us :D ).

So you can go ahead and play, or wait for Betazed. I think either option will be acceptable.

Turn 0 - Grand River swapped to a worker.
Writing + 273 gold goes to Sumeria for The Wheel.
Writing and The Wheel goes to Arabia for Masonry, CB and 46
gold (Warrior code would have cost us 6 gpt without the 46 gold,
which is a bit much for such a cheap tech).
Sumeria is up IW, Math, Myst and WC, while Arabia is up Myst
and WC.

Grahamiam was right as there are horses in the West. Luckily,
they're in the first 9 of the city we're founding 2 turns from now.

Hmmm...and was this map edited? I notice Ocean tiles next to
coastal tiles (without the usual sea-buffer) all around our Western
Coast.

IBT - The Sumerian Settler pair heads north, not the direction we
wanted.
Grand River:Worker->Worker

Turn 1 - One of our Southern Warriors notices dark red borders.
Presumably those of the Byzantines.

IBT - We get booted out of Arabia.
The Sumerian Settler pair continues north.
Salamanca:Settler->Warrior.

Turn 2 - I send the settler to our Backlands, but it is doubtful that
we'll get a choice spot with Sumeria being there.

Mauch Chunk is founded on the river, next to Horses and pulling
in 2 BGs for Cattaraugus. It is set to a worker.

I also notice 'Emphasize production' isn't on. It can gain us a lot of
shields over time and is crucial in a difficult game like this, so
please keep it on.

Sweet, our traveling Curragh was teleported across the ocean!
(only 6 tiles wide, so it may just be a U-shaped continent.

We meet the Hittites AND the Incans! What a lucky break :D.
Unfortunately, both of them are far more advanced than us and
have huge empires.
Sumeria just got Philosophy, but the Incans must have already
gotten it and picked MM as their free tech.
Hittites have the same techs as Sumeria - philosophy + MM.

Let's see if we can swing a deal here...Hmm...apparently not even
close. All our gpt + gold (88 gold and 20 gpt) can't pry philosophy
or MM. Damn those Huge map tech prices. Our W. Exploring
warrior enters the red borders but we still have no contact (the
borders just expanded, so I guess the computer checks to see if
you are next to their border before cultural expansions occur).

I continue to shadow the Sumerian Settler pair (hereafter known
as SS ;) ) with a warrior.

IBT - The SS enters our proposed city site.
Salamanca:Warrior->Settler
Allegheny:Worker->Worker

Turn 3 - Our teleported Curragh finds a Babylonian Spearman and
our SW. Warrior finds the Byzantines.

The Byzantines are as advanced as the Incans, but the Babylonians
(surprisingly, seeing as they're usually the most advanced nation)
lack Writing and are only up WC, IW, and Math. I smell a deal
here.

Writing + 38 gold gets us IW.
At first I thought Iron was nowhere to be found, but we actually
have iron right under Salamanca. Say bye-bye to the 4-turn
warrior, settler farm.
Once again WC is very expensive (8 gpt + 70 gold at least) so IW
gets us Mysticism and 4 gold from the Arabs. They are up
Polytheism and WC now.
Since our warrior confirmed that we are on a U-Shaped continent,
I send our teleported Curragh North.

IBT - An arab settler pair appears south of Tonawanda. I'll be
damed if I let them take a city site of ours.
The Sumerian Settler pair moves North Again.
The Byzantines complete SoZ.

Turn 4 - Well that's freaky. Our curragh finds borders with the
same colors as ours. We'll see who it is next turn.
I send some warriors out of Grand River, Catta, Tonawanda and
salamanca to block the settler pair and up lux at a cost of 5 gpt.

IBT - We get kicked out of Byzantine lands. I'm not sure our
Warrior can continue his exploration.
The SS. continues north and another SS shows up from the south.
Grand River:worker->worker (next one may be a temple to pull in
3 more BGs for Catta).
Tonawanda:worker->worker

Turn 5 - We don't quite meet the color theif but we'll do so next
turn. Our SW. Warrior is going to wait a little before he enters
Byzantine land again.

IBT - The Arab settler pair retreats. The southern SS moves W. to
the coast (maybe to settle? if so, Tonawanda needs some culture
soon). The Northern SS, surprisingly, doesn't settle and instead
moves SW. I'll try to block it in time to settle.
Salamanca:Settler->Settler (I figure we can go
Settler->settler->spearman->settler and get as many settlers in the
same amount of time but trading 2 warriors for a spearman).

Turn 6 - Nvm, what I thought was another civ was actually just
the incans.

Still no trades, next turn I will start exploring Byz lands again and
hopefully not get kicked out too soon.

IBT - The Arab pair settles, as expected.
The SS pair....Settles, damnit.

Turn 7 - Where should we settle? We can still settle in the original
spot, but it will be very agressive. I made a tentative dotmap, but I
had a hard time without sea tiles (ocean tiles are 0 food, 0 shields,
0 trade) and there really isn't a configuration that avoids a tight
builds without wasting tiles or the lake.

tough luck with the sumerian settler! took them long enough to find that spot :lol: are both the spots proposed near the settler on a river? if so, then either should do fine. the other spots look good too, though i'd take the freshwater spot 1st to take advantage of our agri trait asap and to secure our border.

Actually, none of the spots proposed are on the river. The only river sites are very agressive (2 tiles from the city). As for settling the lake city first, it is definitely my intention to do so. The southernmost black dot is really a fishing village (and a bad one at that, thanks to the Ocean). The only 'real' cities will be the lake city and the city near the sumerians. Though we could make all the proposed city sites 'real' cities (sans the southern black dot), but they wouldn't be able to grow much past size 12.

Ok guys, I am back.

I see we have a full roster and I see I am up since Yom played last. I will be able to get to this tomorrow night.

I'm actually not done with my turns yet, so you don't have to worry about being up in *ALL* your sgs at once ;).

No one else has something to say about my dotmap? If so, I'll finish this off either tomorrow morning or tonight and follow my dotmap.

@Yom: Of course I did not notice that you had not finished your turns. :) As for the dot map I am unsure since I have not seen the entire map yet. I have not had the chance to open the the save yet.

Roster for everybody's convinience:

Greebley
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom -----> Playing
betazed -------> On deck

@foresight: If you are still there, you can join this game. 7 players is one more than usual but IMHO it is beneficial for all to see new players playing with different game styles etc. Let me know if you are still interested.

@betazed: What you see is basically all the land we have left to settle. I'm going to finish my turns now and settle the black dot 2 N of Cattagarus. It only has 2 tiles overlap with Salamanca (the same as Cattagarus) so, hopefully, it won't affect Cattagarus' corruption.

I like your dot map Yom. For the two dots next to one another, I would go for the one that grabs the fish.

I would be very agressive on building culture in the cities closest to the Sumerian city. If we can keep ahead in culture we will claim more tiles and have a less flip chance because of it.

Turn 7 - Continued. Move Settler SE. I will found the city next
turn. Hopefully, it won't increase Cattagarus' distance corruption.

IBT - The Arab settler pair turns around and tries to get back into
our lands.

Turn 8 - I unfortify our warrior and try to pass through Byzantine
lands. If he gets kicked out again, I would send him East to help
out his counterpart.
Begin hooking up our incense.
Found St. Regis. Set to a warrior.
The Arabs got Mathematics this turn. If we could get Philosophy
or MapMaking, there might be a deal to be had, but we're too poor
at the moment.
I up the lux tax to 40% for one turn to keep Salamanca happy (it
only has 1 MP atm).

IBT - Arab settler pair retreats.
Sumerian Archer/Settler pair appears.
Salamanca:Settler->Spearman.
Niagra Falls:Barracks->Spearman (maybe swap to Swordsman
when road completes or something else).
Allegheny:worker->Temple (also vetoable).

Turn 9 - Lower lux tax to 20% for now. I do some tile swapping
b/w Cattaraugus and Salamanca to get the spearman in 2 (needs a
mined BG since it is size 4).

IBT - We get kicked out of Byzantine lands again. So much for the
western route.
Grand River:Worker->Temple (also vetoable, we don't have
currency or literature yet, so there's not much infrastructure to
build)
Mauch Chunk:Worker->Worker

Turn 10 - Up lux tax to 30% to keep Salamanca happy.
I send our Western worker to go the Eastern route.
No luck on finding more civs with the curragh. Maybe I should
have sent it westward.
The next player may want to swap Niagra falls or Mauch Chunk to
a curragh to explore the Byzantine coast, since there might be
another civ lurking somehwere there.
We are not that far behind for Sid level and might not need TGL,
though it would definitely be helpful. The palace comes in 34
turns (300shields right now) and lit comes in 40. That's without
any worker/settler joins. I would keep our workers improving
Cattaraugus' tiles and only join them if it's necessary. Right now it
looks like we can keep our workers. Incense will be online in 4
turns.

Here's a brief tech overview.
Arabs:up WC, Polytheism, Math
Incans:up WC, Math, Philosophy, Map Making
Byzantines:up WC, Math, Philosophy, Map Making
Babylonians:up WC
Hittites: up WC, Math, Philosophy, Map Making
Sumerians:up WC, Math, Philosophy.

As you can see, there are some deals to be made. Unfortunately,
we don't have nearly enough money. All our gold is 'almost' for
philosophy and 'insulted' for Map Making.

Too late Greebley. I went with the other one, mainly because it's not closer to Salamanca than Cattaraugus. It might have been a mistake, but it ensures that we get TGL quicker.

Btw, does anyone know how many cities we have to build before the Palace costs 400 Shields?

Maintaining cultural supremacy in the Sumerian cities is an impossibility IMO. All of their border cities already have temples up and will get very early culture doublings. The sumerians and babylonians are notorious for their culture-building. We shouldn't have more than 1 or 2 tiles of overlap though. With the exception of the Sumerian encroachment in the North and Tonawanda.

Ok. I see I am up. However, I am also up in three other SGs that I have to catch up.

Greebley, want to swap your turn with me this time? You can go first and then I can take it up. Otherwise I will probably be able to play this day after.

Greebley ------> On Deck?
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom -----> Just Played
betazed -------> Up?

Ya, I can do that. I don't have a game lined up for tonight.

The city in the picture didn't have a border increase yet, it had just settled. I was thinking if we got our temple up first we might be able to stay ahead.

Both spots were pretty good, so I don't think your choice was a problem.

Oh, you mean Kuara. Yeah, we should probably build a temple in St. Regis.

Great. So the roster is

Greebley ------> Up
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom -----> Just Played
betazed -------> On Deck

Early: Settle two towns on Yoms dot map. Block the settlers. Incease spending in lit as we may it sooner rather than later.
Kuara easily beats us to the town expansion.

Mid: Settle another of Yom's dots

Late: I am keeping our Capitol on settlers. The reason is that I wanted to get to the 400 shield palace so we don't have to slow down our prebuild by 6 turns.
I went for temples. I would like to get some Culture given the crowding.

Notes:
We have 2 potential city sites. Both are crowded but getting our palace to up would save us 6 turns on the GLib.

I hit enter in 1250 BC to make sure, but the wonder cascade has been broken! This is excellent news for us. Even if the AI demands Lit from us, they won't have a "prebuild" to cascade to the Library.

Right Now our Palace build is in 16 but we get Lit in 22. That is why I want to build more cities. As Yom mentioned our current palace is 300 shields. If it was 400 shields the palace (and GLib) would finish in 28 turns instead of 16. If the new cities do not help, then we need to slow the palace build to match the research speed of lit. I am running 80% science. . The 80% rate pruned 7 turns off the science build. It was probably unnecessary if we can get the 400 shield palace, and absolutely vital if we cannot. Problem is that I have no idea if three more towns will give it to us. I am worried that it will not as it only gets us to 15. We may want to squeeze in a 16th town in willy-nilly anyway as that will allow the FP and may be the magic number for a palace size increase as well.

I wasn't able to trade techs even at full gold when I checked. We need to meet more Civs to do that. With the cascade broken though, I am hopeful we won't need to trade for techs after all.

Here is a picture of where I was thinking of sqeezing in the 3 cities. One is the last point on Yoms map. The next steals land from Sumeria, and the final fills a gap. It is tight, but we may need to do it for the FP and for an earlier GLib.

Note that if the palace does go to 400 shields, I would then send the workers to speed up the building of the GLib to occur as soon after we get Lit as possible. I would do worker merging but remember that may slow down the speed we get Lit so do it carefully. The AI may get Lit or feudalism and start a build that could compete on any turn.

If we need a 4th city, I would try putting it on the east coast.

As for the new cities, I would build the fishing village on my S. black dot. Normally I would build the Fishing village on your W. Red dot, but for some reason there's no sea buffer in between the coast and ocean. Your fishing villlage will only really get 5 unique coastal tiles and 2 shared ones.

Do we really need to cram in the cities like that? The new city in between Cattaraugus and Grand river doesn't claim any tiles other than the tile it's founded on.

The southern red dot is just a flip waiting to happen and a very agressive site.

IMHO, getting the palace up to 400 shields is not so crucial. We're still 22 turns away from lit, and thus the AI can't demand lit from us until the prebuild is around 300 shields.

In a worst-case scenario (other than the AI researching it themselves) we only have to build 100 shields before an AI city builds 180, which is actually easily done, since Cattaraugus has like 12 BGs that can be mined + a forest and hill.

A fishing village on the east coast actually wouldn't be a bad idea, if not a bit cramped.

If we really need to get the palace up to 400 shields, why not just build 2 extra cities (other than the East coast and W. Coast fishing villages) the turn before the palace prebuild finishes (if we're sure that it will increase the cost) and disband them (preferably by building a worker) as soon as we get lit?

i looked in the editor and I cannot find the flag that links the cost of the palace to the number of cities. i'm probably missing something obvious but I can't see it with my bleary eyes past midnight.

Catta will have 9 BG's with the new city to it's SE so, getting her up to 12 pop and working all those tiles is possible. however, if we can do that before lit is discovered by increasing the # of shields required to build the palace, then we can get the GLib even faster, pulling us closer to the AI wrt to techs. imho, greebly's tactic feels right. i have no problem with tightly packed cities and I don't think greebly's layout is too bad. then again, i'm biased as i tend to do tight builds when cornered like this.

Sorry guys, I could not/will not be able to get to this tonight. Will definitely play by tomorrow night.

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

I request that you please do not abandon this game. Continue without me and someone please take up the roster.

Best of luck to you Betazed, in your times of troubles. We will keep the game alive (and maybe even get a win?? Nah thats crazy talk :D ) while you are gone. I hope things work out as best they can for you.

hope it all works out for you and yours, Betazed. take care.

I think this is the situation:

Greebley
Arizona_Steve - UP!
Mark1031 - ON DECK
Grahamiam
Yom
betazed - on Indefinite skip
Foresight?

(0) 1225BC
So we have the Palace due in 16 and Literature due in 22. I'm going to leave things as they are for now, and see if the next two settlers are enough to increase the number of shields for the Palace.

(2) 1175BC
Kahnawake founded. No change in the Palace construction time.
Three Inca galleys are moving around our shores. I hope they're not planning on starting a war.

(4) 1125BC
Temples whipped at Grand River and Allegheny (both were 19 shields to completion).
Two settlers are in place. I moved one of the dots so that I can secure a second source of iron for us.

(5) 1100BC
Caughnawaga and Oka are founded. Palace remains at 9 turns. I slow it's build to 16 turns (Literature due in 15).

(6) 1075BC
I hire a single scientist in Cattaraugus and am able to reduce research time to Literature to 11 turns.
Bad news. Bablylon and Hittites begin the Great Library.

(7) 1050BC
Scientist hired in Salamanca. Palace build time reduced to 8 turns.
We make contact with the final civ, Germany. Despite having six cities, they are so insanely backward that we are ahead of them by Pottery and Alphabet (they do have Warrior code however, but they started with that).
Inca start the Great Library.
And in what can only be awesome news for us, I see the Arabs and the Sumarians going at each others' throats. Yep, they are at war [dance] [dance]

(8) 1025BC
I get two warriors into Oka for defence. I was a little worried about the number of Enkidus around the city. That was before they started beating up Arabs.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-975BC.jpg

The Save File - 975BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-975BC.zip)

Good turns, but since the other AI have TGL now, we need really build up Cattaraugus. I would move ALL our nearby workers there (basically anything that takes <10 turns to get there). Also, I would Swap Salamanca to a settler. Pop out 2 or 3 of those and join them into Cattaraugus. and mine all of the BGs around it. It has 12 in its 21 and it's sitting on one, so we should get a lot of production from it (26 shields before corruption). Our prebuild is worth about 240 shields, which is only the same as the Sid discout.

Basically, we have a level playing field with all civs building TGL. The way to win the race is by pumping settlers and workers into Cattaraugus and raising the lux tax to get it to about 20 uncorrupted shields. It is essential that we do this if we want to win the race, as our prebuild isn't as much as an advantage as it seems.

got it. will pull out all stops to get the GL

Ya, I would even wake up workers if need be. The GLib will gain us enough to make up for the loss. After the 4? turns to Lit we switch to the GLib and join in workers (keep an eye on unhappiness - too high might cause problems) and make sure the lands are improved. I think we can get it this way We have 100 shields to go after that, so it may be very close.

I think we can keep Cattaraugus happy at size 12. Incense + 2MP makes 4 content faces by itself (including the first citizen). Cattaraugus should make around 20-24 gold after corruption, so we need about 40% lux tax. I think we can sustain this and it is surely worth assuring our building of TGL.

Did we get to 16 towns? [Edit: I count 15] If not, build the last one. That way we have the FP to fall back on if we miss the GLib. I would simply pick the least crowded spot on the coast to do so. It can be a fishing village.

I would change the Barracks in Salamanca to build one final settler first for this reason.

We should probably build the Fishing village 2 NE or 1 N, 1 NE of Allegheny. The former has 1 tile overlap with a sumerian city while the latter has more overlap with Oil Springs.

I think we can still get the GL if we send all our workers to improve Cattaraugus and immediately join in a settler (from swapping Salamanca to a settler from the barracks) and then join in some workers. Remember, we're basically on an even playing field here. As long as Cattaraugus can produce more shields per turn than the leading AI city, we're bound to get it, thanks to our prebuild.

Also, I have a question on the city placement. Why did we place Kahnawake where we did? The city has 6 2nd ring tiles that are ocean tiles. They produce 0 food, 0 shields, and 0 trade. IMHO, I believe we should have settled my black dot. It only has 3 ocean tiles in its second ring and just as much overlap.

I am afraid that was a weed on my part Yom. I was following your dot map, but when I made the picture of where the settlers were going, I somehow pointed the arrow to the wrong place. It was intended to be the same as what you posted. Maybe we can move it after we get it.

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

[Edit: Actually looking at where I place the cities, I was just totally off. I don't know how I did so poorly considering I was trying to follow your plan.

Looking at the map, I misplaced Centralia, and then switched the city from one side to the other because of it (without realizing I was doing so). I apologize for messing it up...

Note: we lost the GL to Persia by 4 turns :mad: . I did the best I could merging a settler and workers. We do not have enough cities for the FP. I got disgusted and stopped but will finish tonight. We will be in a deep Tech hole ala AG12. What do you think. Switch temples to libraries? Prepare for war? I don't know where Persia is but it must be a long way so I doubt if a GL capture is possible.

imho, libraries would be a waste. i'd rather have temples and markets so we can begin harvesting money for steals and deals (temples now, markets when we get currency). and yes, we should prepare for war, especially since everyone still has swords and spears. maybe the arabs or sumerians will give us a tech for an alliance vs the other?

Ya, markets are best I think.

I am kicking myself for not making the suggestion of 16 towns more prominent at the end of my turns. If the palace jumps to 400 shield at 16 cities, then we could have gotten the GLib by building that last city right away. If the palace is still 300 shields at 16 cities then we were probably doomed.

Greebley I'm not sure it would have made the difference to extend the palace size. We were 4 turns away @ size 10 using all improved BG. If I would have used the settler from Sala to found a city I still couldn't have improved the tiles faster or added pop to the city sooner. It might have worked if all the BG tiles were improved and the workers/settlers were ready to add immediately. We'll see how this plays out but it's the third Sid SG that has lost the GL leading to a deep tech hole. The GL is hugely important on Sid and it seems to take a really early and focused effort to obtain even starting with alphabet.

No it would have had to of been during Steves turn when we had to purposefully slow down our growth rate to get Lit before we hit 300 shields. If the palace was 400 at that time we could have gotten the wonder fairly easily. Problem is we still don't know how many towns that would have required (to get the 400 pt palace), and no other civ had started the GLib back then so we didn't know there was a threat.

I like to analyze "Could we have done it a different way and succeeded?" which may or may not be helpful for future games. Sometimes you guess wrong.

Knowing at what city count the palace grows would actually be a very useful thing to know. Then we would have known if adding more towns would be useful. Anyone ever seen a post on it? Or know how to extract the information from the editor or data files? I am guessing it is in relation to the OCN for the map which is the major reason I thought 16 might be a cut-off.

Pre : Switch Trond ->settler. Centraila temple->worker Grand River temple ->worker

950BC-850BC Stop all workers near Cattaraugus not working on that city and get them moving there. Add a few scientists to get Lit in 1 less turn. Add in settler and 2 workers to be working 10 mined BG as soon as Lit comes in but… Persians Complete the GL in 850 BC. We had 4 turns to go-- bummer.

850 Lit + 57 gp to Arabs for Philo. Alphabet to Germany for WC. Writing to Germany for HBR. Adjust a few things and Get CoL from Sumeria for 107 gp and 42 gpt. We are broke. Start min. sci on Republic. Switch a few river cities from rax/temple-> granary for more rapid growth.

825 : Inca demand 12gp. I cave.

800: Meet the Maya. Up all visible techs except republic.

775: Byz Demand 3gp. Gladly.

750: zzzz

Summary: Well the loss of the GL is a real disaster. I somewhat mortgaged our economy to get us at least working on republic ASAP. Quite a few known civs still lack republic but I’m sure that won’t last 50 turns. Things to our advantage: I noticed evidence of quite a few wars. The Sumarians lack both iron and horses. We could trade or exploit this in war, I favor the latter after we build up enough MW and get to republic for a GA. Also, we have at least 1 potential trading partner, the Germans are more backward than us so watch for deals there. I didn’t build the last city for the FP. We don’t have much corruption at the moment and will have less after republic so it wasn’t a huge issue. In 16 turns we get back 42gpt. In 46 turns we get to republic. I’d say we build up cash and military during this time, try a steal preferably from some small distant civ and then try a quick war with Sumeria to get a little extra space and some techs.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-750BC.zip

Help: can't attach file. it tells me there's a 500kb limit and this is like 550 zipped. Have you had this before?
Use the easy upload dystem in the bottom of the screen. :)

Help: can't attach file. it tells me there's a 500kb limit and this is like 550 zipped. Have you had this before?

go to this thread to learn how to upload via the cfc server (this is what ankka was refering to) -> http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=55122 things are slightly different now but you should be able to muddle thru it. i can also send you an email so you can bounce the save to me that way if desired.

Going for republic ASAP sounds correct to me. I wonder if it is worth trying to steal it?

Here is another option. War vs Sumeria. More land will strengthen our position. We could get the Arabs on our side.

Have we built that 16th city for the FP yet? That will also help our economy.

You'd commented that knowing Palace costs would be useful. I just found a link to a thread on that....

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=909828#post909828

There was some question of its accuracy, but it all looks good. Twas a PTW test, not a C3C test, so it may have changed, but I'd tend to doubt it.

Arathorn

OK I figured out the attachment issue so the file is now there. We will have no $$ for 16 more turns but then we should accumulate for a steal. I might just let rep complete and try to steal math and currency. I'm not sure what the steal costs will be on a huge map but they are dependent on civ size so hopefully we meet a small and very distant civ. Keep an eye on Germany. We are up several techs on them but they could research MM or math and we could get a deal.

Thanks Arathorn :)

I think that means we needed 24 cities and were doomed no matter what we did on the GLib. Ah we did.

I may also be wrong on the 16 cities for Huge. It might be 18 which I don't think we can get to. I would have bet good money that the OCN for huge was 32 and lost - MattG looked it up in another thread and it was 36. (I wonder if it used to be 32 once? It has been a while since I played on huge.)

Given my low batting average: It is true that the FP message comes at 1/2 the OCN, right?

thanks mark, link looks good :) will get to this tomorrow night.

are we agreed to prepare for an early fight? i see many barracks/temple builds were changed to graneries so I'm not sure what the focus is right now. i realize the graneries will speed growth to get us more cash but it will also delay our unit production.

Well I went with growth first in all the river cities as they can grow big before construction. I think this will be well worth it. We have really nice land and should use all of it ASAP. We will need a fairly large amount of military to defend such a large front against a Sid AI also I think it would be best to wait for GA until republic IMO. OTOH we will need to strike before sumeria has gunpowder.

I think the Mil route is best. We have two AI next to us so can MA to get half the units off our back. They also already warred so may be weaker.

first, the 550BC zipped save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-550BC.zip)

Preflight check: We have a settler/spear pair and I have no idea where mark wanted to put them. Try to move them and then realize that they’re an Incan settler/spear pair :lol:

Cities are in good order. Cattar can do 16spt so that’s an MW every other turn. Many other MW’s are being built as well. Many civ’s are Republics so they are really gonna really start pulling away from us now.

IBT: already, the game is starting to run slow between turns. Arabs demand we leave. Sumerian now has a ton of troops in our lands. Not very good looking here. Maya ask us to leave.
Sala MW-> MW

T1: 730BC Rotate warrior out of Catta to Caughnawaga to lessen temptation to AI. Move vet sword to Cata to maintain happiness. Germans still don’t know anything.

IBT: Sumerians track down the Inca spear/settler pair and kill it. However, they keep moving units into our territory.
Catta barracks -> MW
Sumerians’ are building Sun’s, Byz are building Leonardo’s

T2: 710BC Meet the Persians. With no gold in our pockets and no tech’s, I just smile :)

Grand River granary -> barracks; St Regis barracks -> MW; Tyendenaga temple -> worker; Kahnawake worker -> worker
Zulu’s finish Sun’s

T3: 690BC Meet the Greeks. They are up Math, MM, and Poly but down CoL. The only deal available is Math for CoL. Done. Bismark: “I know nothing, nothing!”

IBT: Sala: MW -> MW; Niagra Falls MW -> MW; Allegany barracks -> MW; Catta MW -> MW; Akwes temple -> barracks;
Persians are building Leonardo’s & Knights Templar

T4: 670BC

IBT: Tona temple -> barracks; Mongols have completed Leonardo’s Workshop and Persians complete Knights Templar

T5: 650BC Meet Egypt, they are up Poly but down Writing, Math, and HBR but have no money either. I get Poly for Writing and HBR. Bismark still knows nothing.

IBT: Catta MW -> MW; Oil Springs MW -> MW

T6: 630BC Egypt has some cash so I trade Philosphy to her for 155g. Build an Embassy in Sumeria and they have incense and silks, are building archers. Suprisingly, only 4 EW’s, 3 trebuchets, and 1 archer guard the city. Germans are still lagging.

IBT: Sala MW -> MW; Mauch Chunk riots (damn); Caugh barracks -> MW

T7: 610BC MM Sala to do 15spt.

GR barracks -> MW

T8: 590BC Nada, no trades available. Well, I could buy an Egyptian worker for CoL’s but I thought that I’d hold off.

IBT: Hittites demand 25g and Babylon demands 24g; Sala MW -> MW; Niagra falls MW -> MW; Allegany MW -> MW; St. Regis MW -> MW
Persians are building Sistine’s

T9: 570BC Check for deals but none available. If we were to ally with Sumeria vs. the Arabs, we could get about 150g for our trouble but no tech’s. It already costs around 2000g to do a safe steal on the Sumerians.

IBT: Cattar MW -> MW; Sumerians seem to be moving about 25 EW’s to fortify in Kuara.

T10: 550BC landscaping.

edit: note, you can MM a mined BG between Cattar and St. Regis to speed up St. Regis' MW build and keep doing an MW every 2T. However, I was mining a river grass so this will not be necessary soon.

Workers NW of Sala were intented for Niagra Falls to begin improving the land there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/BZ9-550BC.JPG

I think I would rather ally with the Arabs vs sumeria. It is the tougher fight, but we get land that is more useful to us.

I'll be away on a trip starting tomorrow, 7/16, and won't be back until 7/23 or later. Since I'm not exactly sure how long the trip will last, I'll let you know when I'm back. I won't have computer access most of the time, so I won't be able to take part in a lot of the discussion.

Have fun Yom :) Since I have a trip startin the 24th I won't see you until August.

Good work on taking advantage of the trade opportunities, grahamiam. Without the GLib we do well to keep close enough to the AI to make tech deals.

Yom, I assume you will be too busy to play before you leave. If now speak now... Foresight, did you want to play? It looks like there is room now. If so post an "I got it" as you would be up. If you are no longer interested, then I will take it tomorrow.

[Edit: Given that Foresight had to quit another SG due to time, I am assuming he can't play right now. So I got it but won't be able to play until tomorrow]

Greebley Up
Mark1031 On Deck
Grahamiam - Just played
Yom - Away until the 23rd
betazed - on Indefinite skip
Foresight - Not in the game, but showed interest and could be added.

i'm away on July 16 and 17th partying. will be away on business on the 19th thru 23rd. not sure about internet access during the business trip. will check in if possible. hope i don't miss this massive scrum :)

Preturn: I don't like Sumeria sending all these units through our territory. They all have attacks 1 so I tell them to leave. Suprisingly, they do. So no war yet. It is likely during my turns though. In fact they will probably march right back in. I switch some builds to defensive units. Defense is better vs Enkidu.

IBT: Positive signs they are still at war with the Arabs which is good. That is the primary reason to attack early.

530 BC: This time when I tell them to leave they do declare war.

IBT: Milling about by the enemy.

510 BC: Capture Zabalam. I switch over a town to a settler to replace it.

IBT: A few attacks on some Mounted Warrior. A bit of pillaging.

490 BC: My next goal is to get rid of Kuara, the city in the back lands. I have to kill a stack of Enkidu that went toward that town when they were ordered out first.

I had some idea that I could get Byzantine to ally against Sumeria, but the price was Huge (67 gpt + gold).

470 BC: Yow, Yow Yow! We get our first Leader! I go for a sword army.
I get an ROP with Arabia so my units can pass through his lands. They are stuck.

IBT: The greatest threat is pillaging. our fringes are being pillaged.

450 BC: Poor round on attack. Lose a few Mounted warriors.

IBT: The stacks are entering our territory.

430 BC: A second poor round in a row. Our sword army is redlined attacking an Enkidu on the flat. We will be pillaged more because of this.

410 BC: I get leader Number Two! Another army I think I go for the Mounted warrior army this time.

390 BC: Much better round this time. I have finally driven back the Enkidu to Kuara

370 BC: Kill some archers and move on Kuarra.

350 BC: I attack Kuarra with the Mounted Warrior Army. The sword army moves into position to attack next round.

Notes:
So we discussed war and I decided to go with it. It worked out fairly nicely. We have two armies and seem secure against the Sumerians. After Kuarra is Razed (Niagra Falls is building the replacement settler), I bring the armies south and then use them to go on the offensive. Lets try to take a good bit of Sumerian land. We have killed most of the Enkidu they started with. The ONLY two units I have seen are archers and Enkidu. It is likely they don't have horses or Iron.

We are behind in tech by a good bit. Copernicus was built. The techs were too expensive and there weren't really good deals. There is now a 2 for 1 as Greece has Map Making and Currency, but not the rest (and a 3 for 1 if we could get Republic. We are also head of Egypt by code of laws and ahead of Germany by alot. I kept hoping egypt would pick up a tech we didn't have but no luck.

We could probably buy construction and trade it for Currency. It is really pricey, but we may want to do it.
Construction would cost us 61 gpt + most of our 531 gold. I held off to discuss with team.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-350BC.zip)

I appear to have been dropped from the list above, but I know I'm after Greebley. Consider this a "Got it"...

Greebley - Just Played
Arizona_Steve - Playing now
Mark1031 - On Deck
Grahamiam
Yom - Away until the 23rd
betazed - on Indefinite skip
Foresight - Not in the game, but showed interest and could be added.

Appologies Arizona Steve for missing you :blush:

Ya, you are up :) Good luck with the war. I am hoping we can capture some Sumerian cities and make the despot GA worthwhile (and to do so before Sumeria can build real units).

I realized after playing, that I made one big mistake. I should have checked if we could have gotten republic faster at Max research as soon as we entered the GA. Republic would have been a powerful tool for buying techs (and at least a 3 fer) and much better than the "buy construction and currency for 61 gpt", that I suggest. Ah well.

My main reason for wanting construction and currency is to be able to get markets and aquaducts more quickly during the GA in at least some towns. We can slip them in between mounted warrior builds. I think if we build some, we would be able to afford the 61 gpt after our GA ends.

I agree wtih making the deal. Will it get us to the MA so we can possibly get one of the MA techs from Sumeria in the peace. Even if not I think we should do the deal to get those 2 important builds going. Also, sumeria lacks iron and horses. I think we should keep the war going until we see muskets. They may just crumble.

(0) 350BC
A war with the Sumarians. I've never warred at Sid level, so I'm not sure what to expect.
I'm going to go ahead with the Construction/Currency trade, as both are critical techs. A few marketplaces should start to make up for the shortfall and give us a cash cushion when we come out of our Golden Age. 531 gold + 60 gold/turn goes to Arabia for Construction. Construction gets us Currency + 2 gold from the Greeks. We still make 13 gold/turn.
I kill a Longbow with a Mounted Warrior from Borderton. Killing any others would leave our troops exposed.

(1) 330BC
A newly completed Catapult takes a hitpoint off an Enkidu next to St Regis, and a Mounted Warrior finished him off.
Remove one Enkidu and two Longbows from the South, and gain an additional elite Mounted Warrior.
Our swordsman army is at full strength and he removes a veteran and a regular Enkidu at Kuara. A Mounted Warrior takes out the third Enkidu and Kuara is burned to the ground. Now where's the settler. Dammit, there isn't one and none are being built. Niagara Falls can complete one this turn so it is switched.
New units are moved South for the assault on the Sumarian core, except one Swordsman who is moved into Maunch Chunk to avoid a riot there.

IBT
The Inca very kindly remove a Summarian Galley for us.
Summaria requests an audience. I think we can put more hurt on them.

(2) 310BC
Summaria actually gets a decent number of troops to the front this time, and I will not be able to dispose of all of them this turn. Three Mounted warriors cannot even take ONE hitpoint off an Enkidu (two retreat, one dies), so I leave a swordsman exposed to Longbow attack during the interturn. Nothing I can do there.

IBT
Amazing. All those Sumarian units near Borderton retreat, save for one Longbow who redlines, kills our Swordsman and promotes.

(3) 290BC
I get our first catapult into Borderton and redline the Longbow with it. I bring out a 4/5 elite Mounted Warrior and get my first Leader of the turn. He wanders into Borderton and forms Army #3. I load two swordsmen into it (Swordsmen armmies are preferable due to better defence, and the fact that they move at the same speed as single Mounted Warriors). Next leader will rush the Pentagon.
I note that we're paying substantial amounts in unit support, so I disband most of our regular Warriors.

IBT
Summarian troops reappear near Borderton.

(4) 270BC
I take out three Longbows and an Enkidu. We have a lot of units about to reach Borderton next turn, and this should make the city safe.

IBT
Once again the Summarian troops move away from Borderton.

(5) 250BC
I've started placing a few Catapults around our shoreline to take pot-shots at passing Galleys. I've noticed that if a hitpoint is taken off a Galley, it will be attacked by the Incans and the Arabs. Full health Galleys will not be attacked.

IBT
An Inca Galley sinks a Summarian Galley, then lands a Pikeman on a hill between Salamanca and Niagara Falls.
In another part of the world, the Egyptions and the Babylonians are beating the crap out of each other.

(6) 230BC
Gandasetaigon is founded on the ruins of Kuara (it's on a river).
I kill a lone Enkidu in our territory with the Mounted Warrior Army.
I hand over Construction and Currency to Egypt for Monarchy. Monarchy goes to Greece for Map Making (he refuses to sell Republic) and we enter the Middle Ages. Everybody but the Germans, Greeks and Egyptians are up all visible Middle Age techs. Egypt does not have Map Making, and Greece only has Republic and Engineering, so there might be deals to be swung there.

IBT
Byzantines declare war on the Inca. A pity, as the Inca were doing such a good job of mopping up Summarian Galleys.

(7) 210BC
Cattaraugus gets two spears, but I will wait a turn before moving the scientist to Salamanca (which grew to size 11 last turn) as there is a Mounted Warrior passing through there.
Only one Summarian Enkidu is visible, so I decide to go on the offensive. I move the two Swordsman srmies and all available Mounted Warriors out of Borderton to begin the offensive. There are a good number of swordsmen and catapults left in Borderton to defend.

IBT
I see lots of Summarian units running around like headless chickens.
The Heroic Epic completes at Salamanca.

(8) 190BC
Move an attack force up to Marad.

IBT
Inca decides to sneak-attack us. Damn.
The Zulu establish an embassy with us.

(9) 170BC
I'm able to dislodge the Inca pikeman that was about to pillage a mined incense hill without losing any troops (one Mounted Warrior Retreats). Fortunately the Inca are far away and they will take some time to get to us. Plus they're also at war with Byzantine and will probably get burned up by Dromons.
It looks like we have some war happiness, so I push Luxury tax down to 10%. Salamanca needs an Entertainer, but there is an additional Spearman on the way. Scientist is switched to Borderton for one turn.
We meet Russia. They have Fuedalism and Engineering, and opens up a three-fer with Greece and some other civ with all the first level Middle Ages techs. No chance right now, but hopefully the deal will still be there once we get a few marketplaces up.
The battle of Marad begins as the two swordsman armies take out four Enkidus with relatively little effort. A Mounted Warrior kills off the last longbow there and Marad is razed. We get five slaves. Tonawanda is immediately switched over to a settler. A road is pillaged to prevent a counter-attack from the Summarians.

IBT
Sumaria brings up a good number of longbows and Enkidus. They also land an Enkidu on the hill between Salamanca and Niagara Falls.
Zulu begin Newton's University?? Umm guys, we're a little behind in tech.

(10) 150BC
I leave the Enkidu near Salamanca alone as he will have to move off the hill onto flat territory next turn. But I do move a Mounted Warrior and a Spearman into Salamanca and position a couple of Catapults to lob rocks at him next turn.
To the South, I defeat at least ten assorted Enkidus and Longbows with no losses (a couple of retreats though).
Scientist is shifted from Borderton to Salamanca.

Notes:
I have no idea how long war happiness lasts. It will end at some point and luxuries will need to go back to 20%.
Don't worry about the Inca. They have to get through Byzantine to get to us. It's a phoney war that we may want to end quickly, and certainly before we switch to Republic.
Next leader has a choice of Pentagon or Forbidden Palace. I'd go Pentagon first, then place the Forbidden Palace somewhere South of Borderton once we raze a few more cities.
Watch out for the three-fer tech deal I mentioned above. Buy Monotheism from anyone who has it. Russia and Greece both lack Monotheism, but have the other two techs.
The Zulu are probably in the Industrial Age. Not looking good for catch-up.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-150BC.jpg

The Save File - 150BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-150BC.zip)

Well played Steve. I am really glad you were able to get us to the middle ages.

Hmm... I also switched Niagra over to a settler. I must have done that after saving rather than before. :rolleyes:

I agree on the Sword Army. They are generally much better. I wanted one fast one which we already have (the mounted warrior army).

If we can stay an age behind the leaders, then I think we are doing ok for SID. It will mean we have Artillery before they launch which is always good :D.

I think heading to Cavalry before Education is a good idea too. It allows for a GLib capture if we really need it. If we are keeping up, however, then this is not necessary.

Lets establish and embassy with Persia. I don't even see them on the map. Their capitol is where the GLib is.

[edit:
Rembember the Golden Age is ending soon! I wouldn't spend cash. You may want to raise Lux the turn it ends to save us from riots.

BTW, I believe war happiness lasts until it is eroded away by war weariness. Since Inca will be involved with the Byzantines, it probably won't go away. The only danger is if the Inca ally someone against us.

Greebley, I think war happiness expires when cancelled by war weariness (30 points IIRC) or 20 turns, whichever comes first. 80% sure this is correct :)

Interesting. Ya learn something new every day. Thanks Tarkeel, that is good to know.

got it............

Greebley, I think war happiness expires when cancelled by war weariness (30 points IIRC) or 20 turns, whichever comes first. 80% sure this is correct :)

Are you sure about this? It shouldn't go away by itself when you are at war (i.e. the 20-turn expiration).

As I said, 80% sure.. But that's going by an old article I read, and not sure if I remember correctly. I am pretty sure it does go away though. I should check it out sometime..

i'll likely need a skip for this one this week. my work laptop will pretty much choke on this and i dread downloading a 600kb file over the hotel's dialup. sorry, i was really looking forward to this war :(

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-50AD.SAV

Pre. Switch all pult/sword builds. With MW and 3 armies vs spears they will just slow us down.

130: Advance Armies on Agade. Kill a few scattered units. No losses. Persia starts Newton’s. Meet Mongols. Up all visible.

IT: Our GA ends. Sala riots and gets an entertainer. Hire scientist in Grand Rivers. That’s it but also take the opportunity to disband all reg warriors. And switch a few cities to settlers to fill in concurred territory. We are @ -18gpt.

110: Advance on Agade. Fend off troops at Allagheny. Lose 1 MW

90: Continue toward Agade. Kill a couple of LBs. Merge some native workers to save $$.

70: Take Agade with Armies and couple of MWs no loses. Sala Market->settler.

50 Byzantines demand 24 and get it.

30: Take ----. Found Ganogeh. Persia wants 22, I guess so. Zulu completes Newtons. Inca land Pike MI pair near Tonawanda. Take out pike/ retreat on MI but spear survives attack. We get FP notice.

10 Take Kisurra Found Gayagaahe. Inca Buy in Germany against us.

10 Move troops

30 Get leader attacking LB and use it to build FP in Ganogeh .

50: Oh Oh. Sumerians now have muskets. Kill a few LBs and bombard Sumer. No hits so I hold off for the next leader to decide what to do. Get a leader killing a LB. Could be used for Pentagon or Army.

We still cannot get a full tech for peace but can get a good discount. I’d really like to have the silks at Sumer. Also, I wouldn’t make peace until we get the open space colonized in a couple turns, see pic for suggested locations. Arabs lack Engineering so we should be able to get some deal. Also, we can gift Germany into the MA and trade for whatever tech they get. Still haven’t met the Dutch but can buy this contact to see where they stand. I don’t think we can keep up the war vs Muskets. However I notice the Arabs also lack iron and horses so we might switch to them and try to get their silks. Before hitting enter you should decide because we are paying for military and you might want to switch some military builds that are due to complete if we will not continue at war.

We are looking pretty strong :hammer: Well played.

I think we should continue the war a bit longer. Attack 3 armies should be able to handle Muskets. Given that armies heal in enemy territory now, we can just rest until healed then attack again.

[Edit:
I definitely would like to take Sumer and Umma - more if we can get it.

We are going to get Republic in 7; that and the FP will really boost our economy, I think.

[Edit2:
Part of me want to own the entire peninsula up to the choke near Byzantium.]

I just gotta say that this SG is so awesome. I have to give you all credit for taking on the three things in Civ3 that I have absolutely no patience for -- Sid level, the huge map, and a space race (God willing on that last one).
:hatsoff:
I don't know what you're talking about in your last post, Greebley. You know full well that you're going to take over the whole Arabian penninsula at some point. All that desert is your best chance for petrol! (Does saying that make me evil?)

But all those warrior disbands! Sirian must be rolling over in his grave! :crazyeye: But then, the reason I never took on Sid was that all the rules change. How else could you end up with the Pentagon before a Forbidden Palace?

I hope to remember to keep an eye on this one. It'll be interesting reading over the next 3-9 months (depending on how your luck holds out). :lol:

The reason I worded my comment that way, Ben, was entirely due to the original proposal of keeping the game pseudo-passive (no war unless needed).

However, I feel we do "need" more land to compete. Do we need the whole peninsula? Maybe. I am not so attached to the passive part that I wouldn't want to take the peninsula as I am more attached to winning. I would rather err on the side of claiming land given this is all new ground for me.

Greebley - Has a vacation July24 to Aug8
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031 - Just Played
Grahamiam - Up
Yom - Away until the 23rd

So Grahamiam is up!

Hopefully I am correct this time...

Well both Zulu and Persians are in the IA so we have a long way to go. We have really put the :hammer: on Sumeria but still can't get 1 full tech. I don't know why it's so hard to pound a tech out of them/ our kill ratio has also been exe\cellent. I think GL capture will prove to be a no go and we'd be better off heading for Banks ASAP. Also we need to get tech leaders at each others throats soon to slow this down.

I just noticed Grahamiam's message above about problems with his computer. That would make me up. Got it then.

Not back yet, but I just have to say. Wow! You really brought the hurtin' to the Sumerians! :hammer:

I wouldn't worry about technology yet. We're doing great in the Military route. We should probably take out the Sumerians and then the Arabs. By then we'll be able to research by ourselves and catch up pretty quickly.

I'd be inclined to take Summer and maybe Umma and then switch to the Arabs with Summerian help. I don't like continuing with MW against a SId Civ with muskets. Arabs should only have spears. Maybe pikes if they can get their iron hooked up

Preturn: Things look good

IBT: A mounted warrior is killed.

70 AD: Attack Sumer. Our sword army is knocked down to 3-4 hp, but the Mounted warriors raze the city with a single loss.
Use the leader to rush the pentagon.

I think I will hold off on most trades for now so we can go into anarchy with some cash.

I trade for 1 gpt + pocket change for communication with the Dutch

IBT: We lose 2 mounted warriors. We build the Pentagon.

90 AD: Capture Umma. Haven't Solidified my position yet so no peace yet.

IBT:

110 AD: Mostly healing and moving units


130 AD: Build some replacement towns.

IBT: Byzantines declare war on us.

150 AD: Kill Sumerian units.

IBT: A few more Mounted warrior are killed. I just can't gain the upper ground.

170 AD: Destroy Isin. (capture and abandon because I change my mind)

We are about to go into Anarchy so I go for peace with Sumeria for Monotheism.

IBT: A whole lot of Dromon Start Anarchy in the IBT to get republic sooner.

190 AD: 6 turns anarchy.

230 AD: Embargo by Byzantine and Persia. I go for map trading - note we have an incense deal with the Mongols because of it.

250 AD:

Notes:
3 turns of Anarchy Left

The Byzantines with the Dromon are a royal pain in the nether regions. The are also likely to get allies vs us. I would make peace with them as soon as they will talk.

There are deals currently outstanding that are good for us. 3 civs didn't have Theology so with any luck we can get a 2-fer or 3-fer when we become republic. We had some nice cash when in despot so I am hoping we can do some real deals to help catch up.

I like Mark's idea of going for the Arabs next. We probably don't need Sumeria's help as Sumeria and Aztecs have been at war since before my previous turn.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-250AD.zip)

Here is a double size mini-map for your viewing enjoyment:

That was my last turn until I leave.

The turn list:
Greebley - Out until August 8
Arizona_Steve - Up if you want to play before Yom can play
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom - On Deck/Back the 23rd/24th

Good luck to you all. Hopefully when I get back we will own most or all of our Peninsula, and the Arabs and Sumerians subjugated. :D Can someone make sure the turn list is posted now and then to keep things clear?

I was also thinking we may want to move our palace more towards the center once we have an idea of the shape of our empire (or become communist?)

Our map should be up to date. You may be able to earn cash with map trading (depending if the civs with Navigation have the cash to give you).

Persepolis would be awesome to own. It has Smiths, the GLib, and about 4 other wonders. Too bad it is so far away. I think in this game we will be strong enough to not need the GLib, fortunately, to compete.

Stealing from far away civs might become a viable option soon. Careful steals seem the best (Safe decreases chance of getting caught, but doesn't raise the chance of stealing) - They are about 50% chance if the govt of the other civ isn't Communist, or Fascist. (anarchy I think has higher chance of success) - so the average cost of a steal is therefore 2x the steal price + the chance of war. Once we get Espionage, that chance goes up to 2/3 chance for the right kinds of govt.

I have some time, so I'll take the game...

(0) 250AD
Make peace with the Byzantines and start a war with Arabia. OK. Theodora won't talk at the moment, so no luck there. We're in Anarchy right now, so I look for starving cities that I can set to alternately riot and starve to minimize losses. Don't see any though. F1 shows Salamanca about to riot so it's scientist is swapped to an entertainer. All other taxmen are switched to scientists.
Shift some Mounted Warriors around to prevent that big ol' Dromon stack of doom to the South from landing troops.

IBT
The Mongols start Magellan's Voyage.

(1) 260AD
Our lone settler is on a perfect place to plop down a city, and Neodakheat is founded.

IBT
The Byzantines uselessly bombard our shores.
The Inca want 20 gold to renegotiate peace. I hand it over to them.
Salamanca riots inexplicably. It didn't grow and I adjusted it on the inherited turn. Since several other cities are now rioting I can only conclude that a luxury has been lost somewhere. Since there is still one more turn of Anarchy, I'll wait until my turn to readjust.
The Maya begin Magellan's Voyage. The Mongols complete it.

(2) 270AD
I look around the map and am at a loss to explain the rioting that took place during the last interturn. No sign of deals ending or luxuries being cut off. Really weird. I go through and tweak the entertainer/scientist counts.

IBT
Persia declares war on the Zulu.
Order is restored in all cities, and we become a Republic.

(3) 280AD
Byzantine will talk now, and I give Theodora 140 gold for peace. Some of our cities look a little happier, and it occurred to me that it might've been war happiness ending that caused the rioting above.
Time to readjust our cities. All specialists are put back to work. 20% Luxuries is enough to get the majority of our citizens jumping for joy, and Centralia and Maunch Chunk both get scientists. We make 119 gold/turn after the adjustments.
Egypt has done us a service and getten themselves Feudalism. I send 380 gold + 97 gold/turn to the Byzantines for Engineering, then send Engineering + Republic + 10 gold/turn to Egypt for Fuedalism.
I get 8 gold/turn for our excess incense from the Zulu (they're industrial, so their trade route will not be cut off in the event of a war).

IBT
All is quiet, for the first time in a while.
Sumaria requests an alliance vs the Arabs. I decline.

(4) 290AD
I begin war preparations vs the Arabs by moving the eastern half of our Mounted Warrior line towards Arabia. The rest of the line will have to wait until I get a Settler to that cultural hole to the South of our empire.

IBT
Babylon and Zululand sign a Military Alliance against Persia. Babylon declares war.

(5) 300AD
More troop movements. A settler is on its way to plug the hole in our culture. I'll wait a turn before moving the troops there though.
Allegheny gets a scientist. Larger cities are started on Cathedrals.

IBT
Dogpile time...
Sumaria and Zululand sign a Military Alliance against Persia, and Sumaria declares war.
The Mongols and Persia sign a Military Alliance against Sumaria and Zululand. The Mongols declare war on both of 'em.
Babylon independently declares on the Sumarians.

(6) 310AD
More troop movements. I reinforce defences in cities bordering Arabia.

IBT
The dogpiles continue...
Egypt and Persia sign a Military Alliance against Sumaria. Egypt declares war.
Hittites and Persia sign a Military Alliance against Babylon. The Hitties declare war.
Germany independantly declares on the Sumarians. So do the Netherlands.
Zululand and the Hittites sign a Military Alliance against Babylon. Zululand declares war.

(7) 320AD
Time for some fun. I order Arabia to remove their Galleys from our territory. To my surprise he agrees.

IBT
Dogpiles round 3...
The Maya and Persia sign a Military Alliance against Sumaria. The Maya declare war.
The Byzantines and Persia sign a Military Alliance against Zululand. The Byzantines declare war.

(8) 330AD
I tell those Arabs once again that they need to remove their ships from our territory. And once again they agree.
Oiogouen is founded in the cultural hole.

IBT
Dogpiles round 4...
Sumaria and The Byzantines sign a Military Alliance against the Inca. Sumaria declares war.
Arabia and The Byzantines sign a Military Alliance against the Inca. Arabia declares war.
Germany independantly declares on the Arabs.
The Hittites and Zululand sign a Military Alliance against the Byzantines. The Hittites declare war.

(9) 340AD
Still can't get the Arabs to declare.

IBT
Dogpile round 5...
The Maya and Persia sign a Military Alliance against the Zulu. The Maya declare war.
The Inca and Persia sign a Military Alliance against the Zulu. The Inca declare war.
Sumaria and Arabia sign a peace treaty.
Greece declare war on the Byzantines.

(10) 350AD
I was hoping that the peace treaty with Sumaria would coerce the Arabs into declaring on us, as Abu has gone from polite to annoyed. He STILL doesn't declare.
Still cannot trade for Theology. Chivalry and Invention are up for grabs if Theology can be bought.
No change in the map (except for the two extra cities), so the picture in Greebley's post above still stands.

The Save File - 350AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-350AD.zip)

The rioting occurred because we had war happiness with the Byzantines. One thing that erodes away war happiness is bombardment.

[Edit: Reading further I see you figured it out :) ]

Edit2: Can we just declare war on the Arabs ourselves? I don't remember any deals with them.

Sure we can. I was trying to get some much needed war happiness that would allow us to keep fighting a little longer.

Nice job Steve. i believe Mark or Yom can take it. I am back from my business trip so can take my turns again. If Mark takes it, i'll play after him.

(from Greebley's last post) Roster Update:
Greebley - Out until August 8
Arizona_Steve <- Just played
Mark1031 <- on-deck
Grahamiam
Yom - On Deck/Back the 23rd/24th

I'm back. I'd rather Mark take it before me. I'm going to be generally busy for a while and I'm up in another SG (maybe 2, haven't checked back in all my games yet).

Sorry, but I can't take it. my game computer is busted and I need to buy a new one. I've had 2 laptops with irreparable breaks in power supply connection in the last month :mad: a Sony and an HP. Should be back in business in a week so I will need a skip till then.

Sorry, but I can't take it. my game computer is busted and I need to buy a new one. I've had 2 laptops with irreparable breaks in power supply connection in the last month :mad: a Sony and an HP. Should be back in business in a week so I will need a skip till then.
yikes! makes my single hd failure in May look like a game of pick-up-sticks. i will try to get to this one tonight and finish by tomorrow or wednesday.

Preflight check: looks good but we’re behind as expected. Persia definitely looks industrial.
We could get furs for our incense from the Inca but since we’re trying to goad the Arabs into war maybe that’s not such a good idea.

IBT: Mongols declare on the Arabs. I see Inca galleys move on ocean squares and realize they probably have navigation or magnetism so I should pull a deal with them next turn.
2 Inca knights show up near the Arabic town of Bukkara. Maybe they’re at war too.

T1: 360AD Trades: Inca: Gems and Furs and 13g for 20gpt and Incense. Crap, I thought that would help people’s mood and I could lower the lux tax but it didn’t seem to help at all.
We seem to be doing a min research run on Theology so I fire all the lab assistants but 1 which improves the mood of the masses. I can then lower lux tax to 10% (need a clown here or there but it’s not too bad) so we can now make +90gpt.vs +51gpt before the trade.

I demand Chivalry, then Theology, then Invention from the Arabs. They refuse all 3 but are still only annoyed. I then demand the town of Der and Bukkara and they become furious.
I then ask them to leave or declare and they declare.
Attack on Der: Steve’s Horsemen (elite* MW) turns into glue but takes 2hp off the defending elite spear; no more gluemaking for this attack as it only takes 2 more MW’s to take the town (it didn’t autoraze). Move the Sword army’s and the MW’s into town.

Zulu are Industrial already and have rifles but they lack iron and are willing to pay for it. Trade Iron to Zulu for WM, 12gpt, and 30g (max they would give us). We can now buy Chivalry for 81gpt and 299g but I hold off as I want to build up reserves.

IBT: Russia declares on Sumeria. It’s an angry world right now. Watch Incan knights take Bukkara.
Maybe this world ain’t so bad, Persia and Zululand sign peace.
Russia declares war on the Zulu; Byz and Mongols sign an MA vs. Sumeria
Arabs counter by bringing 2 longbows forward :)

T2: 370AD Build an embassy in Cuzco (Inca) and see that they have horses, iron, salt, and 5 lux. No wonder they traded 2 for 1. Can’t get Chivalry with an MA vs the Arabs but I can get it for the new silks +44gpt 282 gold. Hold off and trade WM around to the smart people, netting about 60g and bringing the Inca deal down to 40gpt and 280g. Notice that Babylon has Invention but not Theology or Chivalry. Everyone else except Germany and Egypt are well ahead of us.

Decide to try to get Theology and Invention instead, getting Theology from the Inca for silks, WM, 60gpt and 288g. I then turn around and get Invention from Babylon for Theology, 40gpt, and 73g.
Sell our WM to the Zulu for their WM, 3gpt, and 17g

Near Der: Elite MW kills reg Arab Longbow; vet MW redlines but kills the other vet longbow that the Arabs brought forward.
Troops march towards Najran, capturing 3 workers along the way.
Netherlands and Inca MW vs Byz
Arabs kill a couple of MW’s with Longbows as it appears these units refuse to retreat.
Egypt declares on the Zulu.

T3: 380AD Outside Najran: MW Army kills vet LB; elite MW kills 2/3 LB
Attack on Najran: vet MW kills spear (2/4); vet MW dies to spear (4/4); vet MW kills spear (2/4); elite MW kills LB and we take the city.
There are interesting deals available but only for the Silks near Najran. Need to wait 1 turn so I can settle a new town and raze Najran.

IBT: Germany and Byz sign MA vs Netherlands
Persia and Byz sign MA vs Greece
Arabia and Zulu sign MA vs Babylon
Trade TM’s with Zulu
Sumerians move up some LB’s but I have to check and see if they’re at war with the Inca because they may be going after Bukkara.
Germany declares war on Byz.

T4: 390AD Kill 2 spears, 5LB’s outside Najran. Settlers are in position for next turn.
IBT: Germany declares on Persia
A bunch of civ’s are building Shakespear’s
Persians are building Universal Sufferage

T5: 400AD Raze Najran, found Skannayutenate (try to say that 3x fast :lol: )
Outside Skannayutenate: elite MW kills LB on silk and we get another MGL! I think we should use him for a Knight army if I can pull off a trade or 2 this turn. Run him back to Oka and build an army.
Trades: Egypt: sell her Theology for 14gpt and 62g.
Can sign peace with the Arabs for PP but I think we want more land 1st.

Tired. Need to sleep to look over these deals and get Education, which I can then turn into Gunpowder or Chivalry. Need :sleep: Will continue tomorrow night.

Nice work trading. I'd skip chivalry and all optional techs except MT. MW will do the trick for a while. Banking is the next critical tech IMO.

Nice work trading. I'd skip chivalry and all optional techs except MT. MW will do the trick for a while. Banking is the next critical tech IMO.
ok, but if i can get chivalry for free (ie, 0gpt), i'll do it. it'll make cav's easier to come by later via knight upgrades. i agree that we really don't need them right now since we're only dealing with spears and LB's. that could change if the arabs somehow get salt.

something that was in the back of my mind during these turns was that, since the tech stealing price is based on country size (iirc), it may be useful to drop a civ or 2 (arabs and sumeria) down to 1 city and then steal our way into the IA. does that sound feasible?

that is an excellent idea. I don't think Arabs are too advanced so I'm not sure how much we will get out of stealing from them. Summerians were pretty far along IIRC. carefull steals are 50% chance of success so we can calculate cost of trade vs steal as 2x carefull. Of course chiv for free or even relativerly cheap would be worth it for the cheap upgrade, I just don't think it's urgent. Also, It might be worth gifting Egypt and Germany up to near tech parity to have more potential trading partners.

first, the 450AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-450AD.zip)

T5: 400AD (Cont’d): Note that the Glib is located in Persepolis, in the center of Persia. We’re not likely to get that city anytime soon so, imho, education is the item to get so we can continue towards banking.
Lux down to 0% thanks to War Happiness. MM some towns.
Looks like I may have been hallucinating last night. I’m close but I can’t get Education right now. I’ll save some cash for a turn or 2 and see if it gets better. We have 222g and make +118gpt.
Germany: Sell CoL for 109g

Outside of Skanny (changed the name): MW dies to LB, MW kills LB.

IBT: Russia and Persia MA vs Babylon

T6: 410AD Pump up our WM value by trading it around.
Trades: Go to Smoke (Maya) and buy Education for Silks, WM, 115gpt, and 394g.
Go to Netherlands and buy Gunpowder for Education, Silks, 7gpt and 51g
Babylon: Buy Chivalry and a worker for Education.
Set Min research on Banking but I think we’ll be able to buy it at some point. Right now we are paying 349gpt to other civ’s for techs and other stuff.

Outside Skanny: 4/5 MW dies to 2/3 LB (!); another 4/5 MW; MW kill reg LB flawlessly and promotes.

Move pike so it can take position on a hill next turn. This will be a launch point for MW’s into Basra.

Egypt declares on the Byz.
Russia and Inca sign MA vs Byz
Netherlands and Inca sign MA vs Byz
Inca and Persia sign vs Greece
Sumerian units moving south, probably to deal with the Byz.

T7: 420AD Well, this is bad news. The closest saltpeter is in the middle of Byz. Nothing in Arabia or Sumeria.
Grand River riots but completes the Cathedral build. Funny (not haha funny, but weird funny) since I had equal mad and happy faces last turn.
Outside Skanny: elite MW kills LB, elite MW kills another LB
Move MW Army up so I can start isolating some Arabian towns in their Western area. Move SoD into position to take Basra. We’ll need to take their horsetown just to make sure the Sumerians don’t get it.
Trade WM around for about 50 or 60g. Persia has over 22000 gold right now :lol:

IBT: Hittites and Persia sign MA vs Germany
Hittites and Persia sign MA vs Sumeria
1 pike and 1 MW die to LB’s, 2 MW’s retreat. Only 1 LB is killed.
Persia and Sumeria sign peace
Maya declare on Byz

T8: 430AD Outside of Basra: Sword Army kills spear (13/17); Other sword army kills spear (16/17); MW kills vet LB; elite MW kills reg LB flawlessly; MW kills LB flawlessly; 4/5 MW kills final LB on that tile. Move stack next to Basra.
Outside Skanny: Elite MW kills vet LB (3/5)
Make another 30g or so trading maps.

IBT: Germany and Zulu sign MA vs Russia
Persia and Arabia sign Trade Embargo against us
Arabia declares war on Sumeria

Lakeview unexpectedly flips to the Sumerians :mad:, costing us 2 MW’s, a Sword and 2 cat’s :( We lose 2 silks because of this :( Probably trashed our rep!

T9: 440AD Attack on Basra: Other Sword Army kills vet spear; Other Sword Army kills a spear (7/17); 1st Sword Army kills Reg Spear; Elite MW kills LB and we take the city + 3 g + a slave + cat.
Outside Basra: MW dies to reg spear; MW kills 1/3 spear; MW kills LB; MW kills LB and promotes.
Upgrade 2 MW’s to Knights.
Rush temple in Owego to gain another Silk back.
Trades: Rep is damaged. We appear to have broken our deal with the Dutch :( Damnit!
Germany: Sell them Lit for 147g.
Hittites: 22gpt for Incense
Make 37g trading WM around
Egypt: Sell Chivalry for 5gpt and 166g

IBT: Arabia declares on the Byz.
Salam riots (damn) scroll thru to stop other towns from rioting. Hire some clowns. These can be fired when Owega’s borders expand in 4T.
Persian complete Shakespears

T10: 450AD Sell improvements in Basra and abandon city. I was going to found in the same spot but now I notice that the FP we’re on has a wheat. Move entire stack 1T south.
Trade WM around for candy money.

Grand River is on temporary starvation watch. MM next turn after Knight is finish. I’ve left 1 knight N of the Army, letting the next player decide if he wants to load knights or not. Imho, we won’t have anything else for a while so we should do it.

Sorry about the flip @ Lakeside [pissed] It was totally unexpected as it had all native citz’s. I guess I should have rushed the temple. Once we get the silk back, we can fire some clowns and start making money again.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-450AD.JPG

Ouch, that flip hurts big time. The rep hit is bad but we can do deals by peace renegotiation and with anyone at war with Dutch. At this point I'd say we take the whole penisula. Take Arabs down to 1-2 cities, get tech then do Sumeria. If Sumeria is importing SP can we get an embargo? Is it still only zulu/Persia in IA? We need to slow them down.

Is it still only zulu/Persia in IA? We need to slow them down. no, i believe the byz and Hittites are in the IA as well. however, the world is very angry right now and i think it's because of a scarcity of coal and salt. With all the map trading I was doing, I did not notice a single rail line. However, I was a little tired last night at the end and didn't check during T10. Not that there's much we can do about it anyways.

got it.........

Pre turn: Switch a few smaller cities to settlers and buy 2. We don’t have enough settlers to fill in the spaces we concur.


460: move a few troops around

IT: Well, look who comes a calling the beautiful Theodora offering a rite of passage and mutual protection pact. Well just for fun I see what she'll give us for this and find that she will give us everything she has so I go for. We get banking, astronomy, chemistry, printing press, salt peter and some change for this little deal. I know it will mean major war action but I can't pass up 4 full techs now can I. Well as I suspected as the turn continues we declare war on the Hittites and the Incans. Two industrial age civs so we're going to have to deal with knights vs. rifles and cavs ouch. We also lose furs and gems but no one riots this turn, war happiness. And we're only 4 techs away from the industrial age. Great Little Miss Theo is at war with three-quarters of the world including Samaria.


OK I can’t find my notes so I will give a summary from memory.

Arabs: We beat on the Arabs and take Kufah and Kurasan. By this time we are again at war with Sumeria and will lose a redlined MW army if I don’t make peace with the Arabs so I do for 2 cities. I abandon Anjar which frees up some culture space. I plop down a city to get the extra horses on our peninsula. We are still @ peace with Arabs but it shouldn’t last as they are @ war with Theo.

Sumeria: We declare on them about 3 turns into the MPP. Take our former Lakeview and keep it. It has 1 Sumerian citizen and is a big flip risk but I only keep 2 troops there. Didn’t do much against them. They have horses now and knights. They import everything so I start pillaging to try to cut them off.

Incan/Hittites: Only 1 major threat. They land together 5 cavs. And we take out 4. One survives to attack Sala with 2 spears and we retreat the cav. Watch out for more landings. I have the Knight army defending the core.

Mongols: They were at war with the Summerians and we dealt with about 4 cavs coming from that territory.

Other: We are at war with most other civs but they haven’t done much.

Trades: There was a 3-fer available and I took it. Buy Physics from Theo for about 220gpt. Trade Physics to Myans for Econ. Econ and Phys to Greece for Metalurgy. So we are now 2 techs from IA.

Summary: We have 11 turns on our MPP with Bzyantines. Theo needs iron and we can use it to trade for MT now and get cavs which I think we should do. There is a big deal ending with the Myans in about 3 turns. I managed to build banks in most of the core which greatly helped our Econ but we are quite weak militarily for being at war with most of the Sid world. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten into a MPP so I’m not sure what the rules are for making peace but several civs will talk. I think the trade was too good to pass up and hasn’t hurt us much so far although I think it further damaged our rep. Well I would get cavs now and build up. Make peace with everyone except Summeria when the MPP ends. Pillage Summeria so they don’t have horses or SP and then just wipe them and Arabs out. Then go peacefully to the stars. We have plenty of settlers in fromtline cities to resettle and a GL I got on the last turn that should become a cav army. We are in pretty good shape I think as no one has started ToE and we are almost industrial. Also Persia and Hittites are commie and most everyone else in Monarchy so I think things have slowed down.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-550AD.SAV

I guess AS and Greeb are out for 2 and 1 week. So Yom is up but then we should probably wait for their return.

Oops, almost forgot about this one. Got it.

BTW I've found if we make peace with anyone that Byz is still at war with we break the MPP deal (and lose SP). Persia (42k in the bank) is the big boy and has avoided getting into most wars. You might consider trying to get them involved to slow them down. MA against the Mongols would keep them busy. :mischief:

maybe we need a musket army + explorers tearing a hole thru the persian empire? they are definitely the runaway civ in this game. if we want to do it, it should be ASAP as we won't be able to pillage with the onset of bombers.

I actually don't think they are not too far along as no one has started ToE and are commie. I think war with Mongols who are also big and advanced and on there boarder would really hurt them. Also, Watch for the 2-fer into the IA. When Greeks get one of the last 2 techs the 2-fer will be available. Also, Zulu will be a good steal candidate in the IA. They are advanced but have been really beaten down, Luckly they (rather than Persia) own the 2 science doubling wonders.

Guys, I am back. Although not back enough to play again. Everything is still a bit disorganized and I have to get things organized again. I can't seem to find the CD the computers won't boot etc. etc.

Will be back in action in a couple of weeks time at most.

Thanks for keeping this going.

Hi all,
I am back from vacation and can play in my normal spot. Good to see you back as well Betazed and hope you can play again when RL permits.

Yom did a got it on the 3rd but I haven't heard anything since.

Please skip me, I'm too busy to play :(.

I think that makes me up. I see the order as...

Greebley <- Up
Arizona_Steve <- On Deck
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom <- Skipped
Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope :)

@Greebly -> according to steve's sig, he's out till the 15th so he'll get autoskipped as well :crazyeye:

Greebley <- Up
Arizona_Steve <- Skip until 8/15
Mark1031 <- On Deck
Grahamiam
Yom <- Skipped
Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope

I came back and was up or on deck in every game I am playing. Played two yesterday; this one is next on my agenda. I hope to play it tonight.

I trade with the Netherlands for Navigation, worker and some gold. We get Music theory too. We trade Economics and Physics. I want to be able to trade maps with more backward civs and it makes trading more safe.

Thinking on Mark's suggestion, I go for trading Mil Trad even though it is extremely expensive.

I trade 145 gpt, alliance vs Sumeria, Iron, and 530 gold for Mil Trad. The idea here is that if they make peace with sumeria (or destroy them) we get our money back. I keep a bunch of cash for upgrades and upgrade a few units.


Early: Upgrade both mounted warriors and all knights. I save some money for supporting us if our income goes negative (since we are paying out a large sum from my trade, we do not have a lot of leeway and WW will hit us). Sumeria is getting resources from someone, but I do not know who. Byzantines attack Arabia. We will be fighting both nations now. Babylon is destroyed. War with the Dutch.

Capture Ur - the capitol of Sumeria.

Mid: Our MPP forces us into war vs Persia, the strongest country.
Mongols steal Ur - we take it back and raze it; our settler is almost there.
Capture Fustat (will probably be abandoned in a turn or two).

Late: Capture Bad-tibira, Kutha, and Kish. We are doing well enough that I keep the cities, though Kish flips back on the last turn.

Notes:
Straight forward war turns. Arabia and Sumeria are really hurting and we should be able to eliminate them in the next players turn.

The MPP with Byzantium has expired, but I didn't end all the wars. We are at war with almost everyone now.

We are at peace with the Incans as they landed a unit next to our town.

This landed Incan unit is outside Bakhara and is impossible to tell as it is the same color as us! Be careful, as it is impossible to spot

In 3 turns a deal with Byzantium ends that will get us cash back to get to the industrial age. Also if we can kill Sumeria it will get additional funds back.

The save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-650AD.zip)

@mark -> you ok to take this or do you want to swap since you just went before greebley?

let's swap do ahead and take it.

ok, i'll start tonight.

I must say we are doing plenty good considering this to be Sid. :goodjob:

I must say we are doing plenty good considering this to be Sid. :goodjob:
the kiss of death :lol:

got it.

I hope you can trim the number of wars. I think we are fighting everyone but the Byzantines at the moment [Edit: Germany - the non-entity too, I think]. Fortunately, they hold the entrance to our lands.

first, the 700AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-700AD.zip)

Preflight check: save is almost 1MB, so we’re doing something right :) take a look at the wonders and it looks like everyone is going for US. Wonder if I can swing some peace deals and get us to ToE?

We do not have salt right now.

3T we get 235gpt back, maybe I can make a deal with the Hittites.


IBT: Dutch declare on the Byz; Lose 1 cav and a worker to the Arabs; lose wines as the Maya declare war on us. Seaview riots. I MM all cities to try to limit more riots.

T1: 660AD Take Kish,
Sign peace with Greece getting 12g and 4gpt.
Sign peace with Russia getting 183g and 5gpt for our WM
From Inca: buy furs for incense, WM, and 101g, MM all cities and get an additional 27gpt due to the lux.

IBT: lose another cav to an Arabic LB.

T2: 670AD Take Erech (Sumerian)

T3: 680AD Take Kua (Sumerian) and Arden (Arabs, only 2 cav!)
Sign peace with Egypt getting37g and 5gpt for Music
Renegotiate peace with Byz getting Mag for Incense, 621g, and 160gpt.
Greece: WM and Gems for our WM, Silks, Incense, 8gpt
MM cities, hire/fire clowns and taxman, lower lux slider to 10%, boosting income to +333gpt

IBT: Russia and Zulu sign trade embargo vs us.
Hittites take Mansura and have a large SoD down there.
Hittites complete US

T4: 690AD It’s going to be cheaper to steal techs now than trade for them so I decide to just sign peace with the Hittites, giving them 151g and swapping WM’s. Plus, I don’t want that SoD coming N for us.
Sell Economics to Russia for 338g and her WM
Sell WM to Egypt getting WM, 2gpt,and 12g
Sign Peace with the Zulu for their WM and 6g
Stare at the F1 screen till my eyes bleed, looking for unhappy faces.
edit: forgot, also took Susa (Sumeria)

IBT: Byz and Sumeria sign Peace
Persia and Zulu at war again :)
Mongols land a couple of cav next to undefended Mecca, allowing the Arabs to live 1 more turn.

T5: 700AD Kill the Mongol Cav’s near Mecca. Move in 2 armys and a cav for the last Sumerian town.
Build an Embassy in Hattusus (Hittites)

We currently have 1051 in the bank and make +491gpt. We should be ready for a careful steal in about 4T. We could probably do one every 5 to 8 turns after that. Probably faster in the long run rather than tying up all our gold (~200to230gpt) for ToG. When we want things to get chippy again, we can try quick steals for around 2000g (4-5T). Just keep the WM trade alive every turn and we can make an extra 5 to 30gpt.

Turns are taking really long so I’m going to stop here.
Please be careful about happiness. I’ve tried to go thru every city but my eyes are a bit bleary right now. Good luck :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/bz9-700AD.JPG

Got it........

Pre: Get peace and ToG from the Mongols for 253 gpt. And we are in the modern age.

IT Embargo by Egypt ends. Aden disposed back to Arabs. Don’t know how many troops were there.

710: Take Moscat and Sumeria is gone! We get SP for Bank and Chem.

IT Byzantines take Aden. Damn that should have been ours. :mad:

720: Take Damascus and the Arabs are gone. WW ends and lux can go to 0. Silks to Hittites for 40 gpt.

730: Ok we are done with our wars but I think we need to slow down Persia. So Incense +10gpt to Hittites for MA vs Persia. Try to sign Mongols but they want like 220 gpt.

IT: Production in Akwesasne sabatoged.

740: Big deal/steal year. Greeks are in IA and have Medicine. Maya have Medicine and Nationalism. Let’s see what Germany gets. They are still in the ancient age. I gift them to the IA but keep all the optional techs. They get Steam. :D All optional techs except MT get us steam. Myans get Steam for Medicine + 132 gp. We have enough for an immediate steal. Pick the Zulu’s as they are weak and Democracy. We succeed and get Industrialization. Start Factories in core cities.

We get wines+ivory + MA vs Persia from the Maya for Industrialization.
Make peace with Dutch. Dutch get Magnatism for 347 gp and MA vs Persia.

Switch a bunch of cities to workers for railing.

IT Persia starts ToE :sad:

750: Finish connecting coal and start rails all around.

760-790: Military Rail Rail Rail. I try to start moving the Cav army to Persia to pillage and maybe grab a city or 2 but it is blocked by a worker at the choke. Found a few extra cities to grab spices and extra coal.

Persia try’s some propaganda and steals our military plans for all the good it will do them.

800: Mongols have Electricity so there is a 2-fer available and we have enough for a careful steal. We do and succeed. Try to do the trade for Corporation but people want extra cash and we don’t have it (no one takes gpt, we bad). But Zulus are rich so Electricity to Zulu for 4470gp + 115 gpt. I think this is full market value. This gives enough for another careful steal. Pick the Mongols again because if they declare we get back 250 gpt but…we are successful again.

Corp to Maya for 181 gp and 52 gpt
Corp to Inca for 290 gp and 20 gpt
Indust to Greeks for 71 gp and 33gpt

Summary: We are in very good shape. We make 739 gpt and are still sending 429gpt to other civs. We are at peace with everyone but Persia. We are down SM, Refining, and RP to Persia and SM and Refining to Mongols. Also down Nationalism to most people as it is always way too expensive and I don’t want to waste a steal on it. Also the good news is that Persia lacks coal and has not railed up at all as far as I can tell. Their war chest is down to 37K from a max of about 46K. We could afford to buy in the Mongols for about 200 gpt. This is outrageous but I still think it might be worth it in the long run. They are the two tech leaders and having them at war might be worth 200 gpt. I think the key for us is maintain the balance of power. Persia will get ToE so will shoot further ahead and we should stop/slow them before tanks so they don’t start rolling over everyone. I could have stole SM but I didn’t think we could get ToE and Stock exchanges will really be nice. I’d say we sit tight rail up, factories -> SEs, wall street and we will be in great shape while the rest of the world beats each other up. I’d try to get that cav army down to Persia to help with pillage when the choke opens. Could use more workers. We are at unit limit and I would disband old native units like pults and trebs to keep us under the limit, we want all the $$ we can get, we can upgrade the non-native arty. Also if we play it right I think we can get Hoover unless Persia goes down that path with ToE but I don’t think they will.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-800AD.SAV

those were some great turns mark! :goodjob: i agree that we need the persians and zulu at war with each other as much as possible.

i believe Yom is up?

edit: also, if we're going thru the trouble of sending a cav army to persia, also send a couple of explorers. they can keep up with the army and pillage a tile every turn as well.

edit2: rp would be good as infantry in our southern holdings will keep the byz honest and will allow us to hold steady for most of the IA. plus, we'll also have access to arty's, something we'll need in case of a sneak attack and to send galleons on our coast back to where they came from.

btw, re-read the turn log and now i think those turns were insanely good. now, if we could just steal a spaceship...

Excellent turn, Mark. That was superb trading - I especially liked the one to use Germany as a pole vault into the IA.

I would say that we should only war to slow down leading civs from this point (which you did with the war with Persia). I feel we are strong enough now not to need more land and we did want to play a pseudo-passive game. I think we want to Raze Persian cities without bothering to refill the land ourselves. Replacing productive cities with new ones seems good enough.

I agree that Rep Parts best for our next tech - I think there was a 2-fer available too that might still be good. We can try to steal it next.

Yom, you able to play this? You can play 5 or 10 turns as you wish.

I especially liked the one to use Germany as a pole vault into the IA.

Yes I've seen it used before in a number of SGs. We have 3 scientific civs that are all backwards so we should try it again in the Mod Age. I agree that all war for the rest of the game is purely to manipulate the tech pace. But destroying a Persian city or 2 should also net us some $$$. The more I think about it I think we should spend the $$ to get the Mongols at the Persians. I was hoping the Hitties might do it. We are in MAs for about 15 more turns and might as well get the Mongols in as well. Persia is still the biggest threat but really I think this one is in the bag. Although I've never played a Sid space race (succesfully) so it should be fun.

EDIT: For RP persia has a Monopoly so we need to wait for someone else to get it. When available I'd get SM and try to move toward Hoover as well. If Persia doesn't go up that path with ToE I think we could snag it.

Actually, once we knock down Persia a notch, I think we can go for peace with everyone unless they declare or are going to win.

I forgot we don't have espionage yet. I think we should get that when we can so we can steal when at war. It increases steal success rate and makes it more likely to be able to steal monopoly techs that are much more valuable in terms of trade.

For anyone that doesn't know. I believe a safe steal doesn't have a better chance of success than a careful steal. It just means you have less chance of getting caught. I only use safe steals when a war would be very bad (IIRC, Aggie did a test of the above facts) - otherwise safe steals aren't worth the extra cost.

I got it.

I'll see how long the turns are once I'm actually playing the game before I decide between 5 and 10 turns.

Actually, once we knock down Persia a notch, I think we can go for peace with everyone unless they declare or are going to win.
i'd much rather have the world at war than at peace. i think that is what is saving our butts right now. however, we may only need an MA or 2 to keep things hot as the aggression seems very high in this one.


I forgot we don't have espionage yet. I think we should get that when we can so we can steal when at war. It increases steal success rate and makes it more likely to be able to steal monopoly techs that are much more valuable in terms of trade.

For anyone that doesn't know. I believe a safe steal doesn't have a better chance of success than a careful steal. It just means you have less chance of getting caught. I only use safe steals when a war would be very bad (IIRC, Aggie did a test of the above facts) - otherwise safe steals aren't worth the extra cost. thanks, i was never sure of the difference between 'careful' and 'safe'. however, something i've also never nailed down was how much does it (espionage) increases the steal success rate? is it the tech itself or the intelligence agency. i've never seen it investigated.

if we want hoovers, we should probably get a river town with a factory started soon. or we build a coal plant with the factory and try to get a town up to 50-70spt so we can do it in 12-16T. we should have at least 1 or 2 canidates, hopefully, without needing a hospital.

For anyone that doesn't know. I believe a safe steal doesn't have a better chance of success than a careful steal. It just means you have less chance of getting caught. I only use safe steals when a war would be very bad (IIRC, Aggie did a test of the above facts) - otherwise safe steals aren't worth the extra cost.


Yes I believe it is like .6 for careful and .3 for immediate. I must say my impression is that it is more often successful than that. I had 3 succesful steals these turns with one an immediate. The chances of that happening should be 1 in 10 but I must say in most games I play it feels like it succeds more than Aggie's estimates. Maybe there is a component of where you are in the tech tree or something about your previous relations with the civ that aren;t incorporated into Aggie's estimates.

Edit: We can do Hoover in Sala with factory coal plant and Army prebuild.

To steal techs with a spy you need the intelligence agency. You plant a spy and then use the spy option to steal techs for increased chances rather than the normal diplomatic steal (which is still available, but you prefer not to use it).

I find that the wars usually continue even if you are not involved. War runs the risk of someone pulling in Byzantine vs us which would divert resources. Often I am the only one not fighting during this Era.

To steal techs with a spy you need the intelligence agency. You plant a spy and then use the spy option to steal techs for increased chances rather than the normal diplomatic steal (which is still available, but you prefer not to use it). i get the part about how to steal (done it many times), but i wasn't sure how to quantify it's effects on your chances of being successful. ie, does a steal with a spy implanted get a 10% bonus over a steal with just an embassy?

Oh sorry... totally misunderstood the question :D

It almost certainly depends on govt type (when the AI is in anarchy, it is an excellent time to steal), but aggie got about 1/2 chance with diplo and 2/3 chance of success with the spy.

That would be if both are in republic. Not sure of the chances when you or the AI are in communism, but it almost certainly changes (facism might also be included in this (I have been assuming it has at least))

If you can steal from several AI's its worth checking their type of govt.

I never tested the chances of success of stealing from different types of goverments. I only tested vs a Republic as Commie and non-Commie (Republic). I also never tested while in anarchy.

Here is my test: Changes of success of tech stealing, a basic test (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=63355)

excellent, thanks to both of you :)

I am back from vacation and can play when my turn comes up.

The turns (especially inter-turns) took a long time, so I only played 5 turns. In fact, the file was so big, I couldn't attach the save (www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-850AD.SAV).

Turn 0 - Hit enter

IBT - War and peace declarations.

Turn 1 - Railroading. I'm not sure where all these settlers are
going... I'll settle the spices site, but it would be a cultural push
under RBCiv rules. We can always abandon it if it's a problem.

IBT - Mongols and Persians sign a trade embargo against us. And I
was considering bringing in the Mongols against them this turn,
too...Then the Mongols come to us and propose an embargo
against the dutch :crazyeye:.

Turn 2 - More Railroading. A Settler Automoves to a destination
and stops, so I assume this is where we want to settle. The area's
already crowded though, but I found anyway. Our Army still can't
get through. I also rush a temple in the spices city.

IBT - More embargoes as Persia brings Germany into the cause.
We're lucky he's not signing alliances...but then he does...with the
Mongols against Germany :lol:! So long embargo.

Turn 3 - Same old, same old. RRing and a waiting army. I try a
careful steal against the Mongols and succeed, netting us RP. We
have 2 sources, only one of them connected. With our railnet
practically complete, and Infantry, we are secure from defeat. I
also start railing around Salamanca so it will be able to pull 78
shields in its current state + coal plant, or 82 shields in its
maximum state (borrowing tiles from other cities). Hoover will
be ours 10 turns after we start it :D. RP is still not enough
to get the overpriced Nationalism. No matter, we don't need the
rifles, though we want the Intelligence Agency soon.

IBT - Well that was surprising. Our military plans have been
stolen. Not a good sign. Either Persia is using some of its massive
treasury or someone's going to attack us (maybe the Hittites for
our agressive settlements?).

Turn 4 - RP certainly speeds up our workers. We'll be fully railed
in no time. Also, be sure to use Civil engineers extensively, they
can really cut down on the time to complete projects. WLT Chief
Days are also helpful. Spices will be connected soon to help with
that.

IBT - Damnit, the Incans propose a peace treaty and I can't
negotiate it to get nationalism. Persia signs peace with the Zulus
and Greeks. This will not do.

Turn 5 - Salamanca is now set to do 80 shields per turn and can do
82 with some tile switching. Most of our cities will finish
Factories soon (within 4-10 turns). We're starting to see the
effects of crowding in cities, as a lot of cities can't grow to size 12
and beyond in our core. We are pretty big and our capital is far
from the rest of our cities, so Communism may be the way to go.
A lot of our far out possessions are moderately productive and
could benefit a lot from a courthouse. Most of these cities are
either building Marketplaces or Factories, but you may want to
switch them to courthouses first. Seeing as there are already
communist governments (e.g. the Hittites), we should be able to
go communist pretty soon (almost immediately after we buy
Nationalism, as we can trade RP for it as I believe it is cheaper
than Nationalism). Cattaraugus is currently on military duty
pumping out an infantry every 3 turns. A stock exchange
somewhere would also be good, or perhaps a coal plant (plus
some RRing) to get it to every other turn infantries. Salamanca's
prebuild is going to run out in 5 turns (can be six by simply
switching one BG to a regular grassland), so it would be best to
steal Scientific Method soon (but not immediately, it's too risky).
We might actually have a shot at getting Scientific Method if
Dariush Kabir doesn't finish it in the next 8 turns. Even if it does
complete it, we'll need to only steal the techs towards electronics
if we want Hoover's.

I didn't buy in the Greeks or Zulus into the war against the Persians again yet, so be sure to do that before you hit end turn. The Zulus are already weak, so they most likely aren't worth it, but the Greeks are.

Ok, I think I am up next, so I got it. Steve, I think you are getting back in time to be up after me, so...

Greebley <- Up
Arizona_Steve <- On Deck
Mark1031
Grahamiam
Yom <- played
Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope

Preturn: Minor MMing.

IBT: Persia builds TOE.

860 AD: Somewhere we made a major mistake and broke our ability to form alliances. No more alliances vs the Persian.

870 AD: Continue building rails. We need to remove the hittites. They are too much in the way.

890 AD: Attempt to steal a tech from the Hittites and Fail. We are at war. We take 2-3 Hittite towns.

900 AD: We claim the choke and close it off.

Notes:

The Hittites were really in the way. After going to war, I stretched a lot to quickly grab the choke point. We need defenders in our core again at some point. The hittites are cut off and we should be able to kill them on our side of the choke pretty quickly.

I spent a good bit of coin on upgrades - especially to artillery. I suggest tech steals next though - we may want to start a hoover prebuild.

Persia continues to do well. We can now finally reach them if we so desire. We may be better off buying techs though.

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-900AD.zip)

nice turns greebly. we now have a very nice choke hold on our lands. glad you thru steve into the fire for his 1st turn back :lol:

not sure what happened to our MA ability. Mark was able to sign one during his turns and it seemed like Yom thought he could at the end of his turns, so maybe we're just not worth allying with, considering all the bad blood we culled via the MPP with Byz.

I have it, but won't be able to play before tomorrow (Wednesday). I have no problem with war - look at all the AW games I play in :)

Its actually war-lite. (unless the Hittites come up with a big force in the future). The best they have is a few cav and rifles. I think they are involved in another war so they may not even attack our infantry and we can make peace. We can bombard with Artillery and probably get away with little or no casualties.

The primary purpose was to send our two Cav armies off to Persia. The choke was completely blocked by Hittites. We also can send the artillery under the knight army and other units and do even more hurt to Persia.

We also can send the artillery under the knight army and other units and do even more hurt to Persia.
imagine, war-lite @ sid... show's who's in control right now. :D
actually, i'd prefer explorers to go with the knight army as they won't slow it down and are sure to "hit" everytime. 2 or more (6 prefered) explorers with the army and we'll be able to create a large swath of destruction. or is this too cheesy?

Whoot, guys! :goodjob: You are really doing well. We are secure against a military defeat for sure, and that in itself is not a minor achievement in Sid.

I agree that explorers are a good idea. I have used them and they are quite effective.

I was thinking more of the lines of taking out cities, but pillaging is also very powerful and less risky. Its biggest drawback is you have to do it continuously as the AI in C3C is good at repairing damage. You also cannot see what has been repaired - it looks better than it is (unless you can steal maps).

It's been a busy week, and I don't think I'll be able to get to this before Sunday at the earliest. Mark1031 - If you want to take the game ahead of me, feel free to do so.

got it and playing.

Pre :switch a few builds to stock exchanges.

IT Persians sign in Incans against us.

910: Pick up Nationalism from Dutch for 1300 + Corp+RP+WM. RP to Maya for Espionage + 89 gp. Espionage to Dutch for 1510 gp + 5 gpt. MT to Russia for 312. Pick up some change for maps. Start Intelligence Agency in Sala.

IT zzz

920 : Destroy last Hittite city in jungle.

930: zzz

IT: Wines/ivory deal with Maya expires and sala revolts :mad: . Scroll ahead to stop further revolts. Why didn’t we have renegotiate all deals checked. This delays IA by 1 turn.

940: zzz

IT: Incans land 4 cavs on the mountain near Sala. This delays IA by another turn :mad: .

950: Bombard all cavs to 1 HP but still lose 1 elite cav taking out the 4 cavs.

960: zzz

IT Choke city deposed to byz :mad: . I didn’t notice this was Byzantine, I should have abandoned and re built. Complete Intelligence agency.

970: Plant spy in Persia. 2 tries on Hittites fail. Mongols succeed. Steal Sci Meth from Persia. Atomic Theory showing. Try another steal vs Persia and fail. Not enough for another. Replant spy successfully.

980: Try steal from Mongols. It fails but we get away, still have spy.

990-1000: railing/mining to optimize maxed out core cities.

Well I was 1/3 in steals. We should have enough for another try next turn. We make enough $$$ for a careful steal every 2.5 turns. I think we have enough cavs and arty to defend any landings. Making infantry to distribute to coastal cities in preparation for the onset of marines. Persia could have them by now but I don’t think so just be careful.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1000AD.SAV

Bad luck on the loss of the choke city. I should also have razed it myself. I didn't realize either. Its going to be annoying not having that city.

You don't always want renegotiate deals on... Sometimes that can cost you - the AI is willing to keep a deal going, but renegotiating it gives a worse deal.

Also the resources were payment for a tech. I don't think you get to renegotiate that no matter what setting -there is nothing to renegotiate, they just stop paying (assuming my memory isn't failing me).

The best thing to do is to have renegotiate off, but keep track of when things will fail. I know I have been working on trying to do this myself, but it difficult to remember to do so...

In any case, that is why you will see renegotiate off.

[Edit: I think your decision on tech was a good one. The IA will be key. ]

here's the choke situation, looks well under control to me :) we definitely have some more spaces to fill. we should also not lose focus on trying to get Hoover's. we will need it when the time comes to build spaceship parts, or are we looking to build a bunch of Nuclear plants?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1000AD.JPG

All is quiet and the Mrs is out of the house. Time to get a few turns in...

My concern is not so much enemies getting in as it is our ability to get out. We discussed attacking Persia, but our way blocked.

We may consider a war with Byzantine at some point to grab the choke. Now I agree on focussing on getting hoover. Did we start a prebuild? We will need one as the AI will win the race if we have to start when they got a tech.

Well Sala pulls 80 spt and can do Army prebuilds But we are 2 techs away. I tried 2 steals of Atomic theory but failed in both. No onw has started it yet so we are still in the running but we will need to do better on the steals. Once Electronics is showing we might be able to make peace with Persia and get it for massive gpt which we do make.

I was thinking if we had a city that was prebuilding the palace, and our palace was worth more shields than Hoover (I forget the # of shields it costs), then we could get it in 1 turn after we get electronics. Of course, that may require guessing when we will get it and may risk the shields. Still a single turn losing shields won't hurt us much.

Salamanca would be our backup if the above failed with its army pre-build.

Good idea Greebley. Cattaraugus should be able to get around 60-70 shields with a coal plant. It shouldn't finish the palace pre-build before we steal the next 2 techs (AT and Electronics are all we need, right?). How much is our palace worth? 900 shields? 1000?

I played five turns over the weekend and boy is it tedious. If I get time tonight I'll play the other five, and get peace with Inca/Persia before committing to bashing the Byzantines.

Sorry about the delay, but my heart wasn't really in this game this week (coming back from Arizona into the relative cold of Colorado may have something to do with it). I left it at five turns.

(0) 1000AD
Woah! Lots of cities and plenty of land to be filled up. I take a quick look at our cities, and apart from switching Oil Springs so that it is no longer starving, do nothing.
I successfully go ahead and plant a spy in Inca.

IBT
It's nice to see the Byzantines and the Hittites going at it. Hopefully they'll weaken themselves sufficiently for us to take their land.
Russia and Persia sign a trade embargo against us. They also sign a military alliance against Germany, and Russia declares war.
Inca and Maya sign a peace treaty.
Wall Street completes in Salamanca.
Damascus gets hit by disease.
Someone sabotages production in Seaview.

(1) 1010AD
Mass movement of workers. I like to organize them into groups consisting of entirely native or slave workers, so I begin that process where possible.
Nothing much to do in the way of warmongering, except pillage some Persian land with a cavalry army.

IBT
Inca and Netherlands sign peace.
Inca and Mongols sign a military alliance against the Byzantines. The Mongols declare war.
Egypt and Greece sign a peace treaty.
Zululand and Maya sign a peace treaty.
We catch the Persians trying to steal our world map.

(2) 1020AD
An attempt to plant a spy in the Hittite capital is unsuccessful. I also fail to safely steal tehnology from Persia, but our agent is not caught.

IBT
Greece and Byzantine ally against Russia.
Inca and Zululand sign a peace treaty.
Russia and Persia ally against Zululand.
Maya and Russia sign a peace treaty.

(3) 1030AD
More worker movements.

IBT
Hitties and Persia ally against Egypt.
Inca and Russia sign peace.

(4) 1040AD
Yawn...

IBT
Maya and Greece sign a peace treaty.

(5) 1050AD
Zzzzzzzzzzz...

The Save - 1050AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1050AD.zip)

I think 5 turns is perfectly acceptable when playing on a huge map. Turns can be slow. Play 5 or 10 as you wish.

Greebley
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031 - played before Steve.
Grahamiam <- UP
Yom <- On deck

Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope

Persia is going to go over 100k culture, but there are other AI that are close enough to prevent a culture win (over half persian culture). We need to keep an eye on this. Perisa is up to 72k.

i see it and will try to get it done tomorrow night.

first, the 1100AD save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1100AD.zip)

Preflight check: Check thread to see if any steal attempts occurred last turn. None.

Sign peace with the Hittites, getting 595g from them
Try a careful steal on Persia and we get a tech! Take AT, thank you very much :D
Plant a spy in Zululand for 195g.

Use our Arty to redline all Persia ships on our NE coast

Trade: Maya: Communism, WM, 956g for AT. Now we can get 3 people researching electronics for us to steal.
Egypt: 83gpt and 191g for Nationalism

Use the extra cash to upgrade spears and to rush temples @ the Byz border.

IBT: Persian spy is captured

T1: 1060AD RR. Try to replant spy in Persia but he’s caught. They are the only civ that has Steel and I want to leverage it to get refining.

IBT: Mongols and Persia sign peace. Dutch and Greece sign peace.

T2: 1070AD RR. I’m going to wait 1 more turn to replace the spy to better our chances that it will get inserted.
Can do a steal this turn but will wait as the only tech’s available are Refining and Facism (except Persia, which has Steel).

IBT: Sign an RoP agreement with Byz to allow our units to pass thru and hurt Persia.
Sign Peace with the Inca getting 1008g and 126gpt and WM
Zulu want us to sign an Embargo vs the Russians but I decline
Russia and Persia MA vs Egypt
Byz and Hittites sign peace.

Notice a Persian Airport

Lose Gems

T3: 1080AD Trade: Greece: Gems, WM, 20gpt, 1g for Sci Method.
Try to plan spy in Persia but he’s caught.
Successfully plant a spy on the Mayans.
Try to steal vs the Mayans and fail but the spy lives.

IBT: Hittites and Dutch sign peace
Byz and Persia sign peace
Dutch and Russia sign MA vs Egypt
Byz and Germany sign peace

New Mauch Chunk Flips to the Byz :(
Mongols are building Hoovers :)

Gayagaahe is subject to a propaganda attack (2nd this set)

T4: 1090AD Do a careful steal on the Mongols and succeed. Take Electronics and switch Sala to Hoovers (6T). I can MM to 82spt but it doesn’t improve the time to build.
We can get the Mongols to attack Persia for spices and I do it. Unfortunately, they won’t pay any gold for it but we will renegotiate peace next turn so maybe we can get some more gpt at that time.
Trades: Greece: WM, 22gpt, 397g for the Corporation. This gives us enough money to try another steal in 2T.

Maya will pay a lot for Electronics but I want The Hoover Dam
Investigate Karakorum (Mongols). It will finish Hoover’s in 8T and is doing 42spt.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1090AD.JPG

IBT: lost salt

T5: 1100AD We can get salt back if we want but I haven’t been building any cav, just infantry. However, I’ll leave that up to the next player. Egypt and the Maya will sell.
Also, there’s a lucrative deal with the Mayan waiting for Electronics or we can get refining. I was waiting till Hoover’s was done so we don’t get a cascade.

We also may want to plant a spy in Persia since they definitely have flight (but no bombers :) ) Also, we can still leverage steel for refining.

check the peace deals carefully as the Mongol deal is up for renegotiation and is worth 93gpt.

Yom,
You are up. Hoover looks hopeful!

updated info on espionage -> A study of espionage missions by Oystein (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=97042)

:goodjob: This game looks hopeful...

Sorry I didn't reply. I didn't realize I was up. If you don't mind, I'll get this saturday. If you can get it before me Greebley, then by all means, go ahead.

Saturday is soon enough. I will wait until you play.

Turn 0 - Not much. I see we're down Sanitation, Steel, Refining, and Fascism. I switch a few city builds around. We're going to be researching soon, so libraries and Universities are necessary.

IBT - A deal with the Mongols ends and the Incans kick ous out of their territory, putting us nearer to the Persians :lol:
We catch the Mongolians trying to plant a spy.

Turn 1 - A lot of builds complete. Almost every city is set on a library/university, unless it is almost done with its current build.
Crap!!! Production in Salamanca has been Sabotaged!!! We must sabotage production now if we want to get Hoover! And that damn Foreign advisor is smiling! Luckily, our sabotage of production in Karakorum works, but I'm going to start a Palace Prebuild in Cattaraugus just in case this undeclared sabotage war continues. Actually, scratch that. Cattaraugus doesn't make enough shields to really be a competitor unless there are many, many more sabotages, so I just swap it to a library, along with a dozen other cities. Take out a pikeman with the army, losing a few hp (it was in the way). Also, we fail to plant a spy this turn.

IBT - The Embargo deal with Theodora ends, but we renew peace, give her Iron, Incense and 1580 gold to get Sanitation.
We get booted from Hittite territory. Looks like we'll need to get an ROP.

Turn 2 - We now have an agent in Persepolis.

More MMing. Those Engineers are really helpful. I'm trying to build mainly Libraries and Courthouses first. After that, they'll have Hydro plants and will build a Factory, then the bigger buildings.

BTW, Persia is really getting creamed. We may want to back off before the Mongols become a superpower. Pasargadae and Antioch are nowhere to be found on the map (though there are plenty of ruins around Persepolis) and Persepolis is the westernmost city of the Persian empire. They only haven't fallen back in the East, where they don't have any enemies.

IBT - The Hittites declare war on the Persians. Persia's probably going to start losing its eastern cities soon.

Turn 3 - Not Much. Clearing Jungle, mostly.

IBT - A lot of Persian troop movement on the Hittite front.
Inca declare war on the Persians.
Argh! The Hittites Block our Path to the Persians and the Persian stack is way to big to just run over.
Pollution strikes on a mountain.

Turn 4 - Burning down the Amazon. Also, a propaganda attempt upsets the citizens of Oieiueeoieoieiugououen (or Oiogouen, depending on how long you like your city names). I'm not sure how much it makes citizens unhappy (or if it only changes the [u]nature[/b] of the unhappiness), but 8% of their unhappiness derives from this attempt.

IBT - Renew luxury deal. Bukhara riots.

Turn 5 - Steal Steel from the Persians carefully. We can always trade it for Refining if we want.

Here (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1150AD.SAV)'s the save. To my successor, I advise that you continue my policy of building Courthouses, Libraries and Universities. In the North (our core that is) I would build Universities, Banks, and Stock exchanges in that order, while in the south, I would build Courthouses, Libraries, Factories, Marketplaces, Banks, Universities, and Stock Exchanges in that order. You don't have to follow my advice, but I think it will work out best. By the time the courthouses and Libraries are finished, Hoover's will be ready (which comes in 3 turns save sabotage).

Also, if we do not have an ROP with the Incans (which I don't believe we do), sign one now. Otherwise, our troops will be transported back into Hittite lands. Also, please use the right amount of workers for the job. I found some unoptimized worker stacks and it gets annoying. I usually just move around the workers independent of any stack, but keep in mind that Marshes only require 8 worker turns (8 native workers working for one turn to chop).

Also to keep in mind is the fact that we have sanitation. The South doesn't need hospitals yet (though it has great growth potential), while the Hospital can build them easily but can only grow 1-3 population points in the towns not on the coast.

Finally, we may want to start building Infantry to disband for shields in the south. Jungle-clearing takes a while and disbanding troops could certainly help.

Ok I got it. I will try to play today.


[Edit: Missed the save on first read thru...]

Also to keep in mind is the fact that we have sanitation. The South doesn't need hospitals yet (though it has great growth potential), while the Hospital can build them easily but can only grow 1-3 population points in the towns not on the coast.

:crazyeye: Uh...make that the North can build them easily.

Preturn: I trade Atomic Theory and 1050 gold for refining. We are only down Ironclads and Fascism now excepting the Persians who are still first.
I get the ROP as suggested by Yom.

Game plan: I think Yom's plan is a good one and will continue it. We have all important techs and may be even able to get First price by researching on our own.

Early: Build improvements. Make sure every city has a defender.
1170 AD: We successfully build Hoover.
1180 AD: Fail to carefully steal Combustion from Persia - Spy escapes.

Mid: Since it is more efficent in terms of worker turns to build a road with 1 or 2 units first, I do a massive roading project to get roads for the jungle, marsh clearing team

1200 AD: Steal combustion from Persia. Get enough cash for another steal from selling tech, but the second attempt fails.
Note that Persia has both flight and Mass Prod, but no Electronics.

IBT: Persia pulls the Mayans into the war vs us. We lose some Lux.

Late:
Attack and Raze the Mayan city in the South.

1230 AD: Steal Mass Production. Sell around techs and get enough cash to steal Mech Transport as well.

Note that Persia does not have Electronics yet, but they do have flight.

Pre-1250 IBT: Byzantine is pulled into the war vs us That will be a semi-real war!

1250 AD: I capture and Raze the choke town, the two towns in our interior. I also capture New Mach Chunk.
Another steal succeeds - We have flight.[b]

[b] New Mach Chunk has 2 Byzantine citizens and 4 of ours. I did not raze it. We may want to though.

Notes:
The Byzantines waited until we had tanks to Attack.

Using just tech stealing we are the only civ in the modern age! This is unusual; Persia doesn't have Electronics, but the Mongols did... and they were at war.

We have 1153 gpt income from other civs. We can research modern techs in 20 turns and have 773 gpt income at 100% science. I kept us at 100% income though because as scientific civs enter the modern age they will have techs for us to steal. Maybe building up a big reservior of cash and the scientific civs are in the modern age, then we might consider our own research.

We are building Battlefield Medicine.

I would make peace with civs if you possibly can. We risk losing big gpt income by being at war. I think we should go for peace with the world when we can - we do better by not being at war.

I think we may be able to get our goal of a space ship win :D

Here is the Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1250AD.zip)

:goodjob: Magnificent turns, greebley. I wasn't expecting us to be in the Modern Age this quickly. With all our cities, we should be a researching machine soon. In fact, why not begin researching now? We should have Universities in all our core cities now, and libraries in most of our southern cities. I would research Computers to get Research Laboratories and then go straight for Space Flight.

As for the war against the Byzantines, I wouldn't pursue it any more than we already have. We want a space race win, not a military one. We shouldn't waste too many resources fighting them. I would mainly build military in the Northern cities (that have built all possible improvements) and use the military to be disbanded in the south. If we want to pursue the war further, I'd only take the 4 isolated cities in the Peninsula. Past that, the number of defending troops isn't worth it.

Player order:

Greebley <= Just Played.
Arizona_Steve <= Up
Mark1031 <= On Deck
Grahamiam
Yom

Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope

I would grab the rest of the land behind the choke. We can do this with present units. I agree we don't need the land but it would be nice not to have flip risk; our culture is not high. We can't make peace right away anyway.

I do completely agree to make peace as soon as we can. I would like to get out of all wars so we don't get dragged into them.

My thought on research was to wait until the scientific civs become modern. Otherwise we can put 15 turns into a tech and have some AI get it for free. Research is slow for us: We can steal a tech every 3 turns (if we succeed), but research takes 20. We really could use the internet.

Once the AI's have become modern and gotten their freebies and we have stolen them, then I think we will be ready to self research.

Good idea. On second thought, I retract my earlier statement. However, I do think that we should research miniaturization as quickly as possible with a prebuild in Salamanca or Cattaraugus (our top 2 shield producers). We won't win the space race without research capability. The SS parts are way to cheap for a Sid AI to take that risk.

Persia is probably within a few turns of becoming modern. I think we should steal whatever tech they get.

If they get Computers then lets research Miniturization at max - There is a good chance we will get it first and nabbing the internet will be a huge boon.

If they don't then I would save up some cash 7k or so and then do the trick of gifting an AI into the modern age. We can then trade or steal whatever tech they get and then sell it back. Ideal would be if we could get peace with everyone before doing this (though stealing could lead to war of course). Once a civ gets Computers we go for Miniturization again.

A free research lab in every city should make us more capable of doing self-research. Also remember to switch some specialists to scientists. Scientists in C3C are well worth it in corrupt towns (and one reason why I feel we should irrigate and not build mines near corrupt towns).

Eventually, yes we should irrigate everything in the corrupt towns. But after a courthouse, they can build libraries and universities (Edit:AND Hospitals. Especially with Hoover's. Only after all the research buildings have been built would I advocate completely irrigating the south. We haven't hit the 1/1 limit yet (this being a huge map) so those cities are still capable of building the improvements by themselves. For those that have finished their libraries (oh yeah, AND Hospitals) we should do complete irrigation.

AFAIK, unis and libs won't affect corrupt cities that much. They don't affect the output of scientists, so they will only affect whatever paltry uncorrupted gold we have. Also Hoover doesn't help any city without a factory.

Great job team. Don't forget you can gift the weaker scientific civs Germany, Russia, and Greece into the MA and steal/trade what they get.

Great job team. Don't forget you can gift the weaker scientific civs Germany, Russia, and Greece into the MA and steal/trade what they get.
absolutely, let's remember to do this next turn :) it will also slow down the tech leaders as they will try to buy the little civ's tech's :) Persia will finally find something to do with all that money.

great turns greebley :goodjob:

This is beyond what I had expected. First to reach the MA in Sid! :clap:

BTW. Any concern about a UN loss/or undesired win? Maybe we should snag this or make sure we start a WW against whoever does. We should be the other contestent in a vote.

Actually, there should be 3 contestants (unless Persia builds the UN). Us (most population, I think), Persia (most land, not 100% sure), and the UN builder. We can easily start a prebuild somewhere for the UN. Our palace is worth 900 shields (maybe 1000), so it will last a long time.

Also, Libraries and Uni's won't do much to help the amount of corruption generated, but with courthouses, police stations and WLTK days we should be able to make the cities pretty helpful in researching.

BTW, I've heard reports that Police stations only reduce shield corruption (and the same for WLTK), is this true?

Please skip me this turn. I may have to drop out from this game as real life has taken me over in a big way...

Ok, Steve. Hopefully it is a good busy and not a bad busy.

Greebley <= Just Played.
Arizona_Steve <= skipped
Mark1031 <= Up
Grahamiam <= On Deck
Yom

Betazed <- Skip for now, but there is hope

Mark, you get to use your gift and steal trick. :) If we are lucky, a civ like Germany may not have communism and facism - the both should have the 50% bonus to their value being govt techs. I would still have cash on hand for two steals. The prices might be astronomical even with 2 govt trades - Not sure on that, but I was suprised how much more I had to pay even with electronics on the side. First place tech costs are really impressive on a huge SID map.

Oh it ocurred to me that we can tell how close Persia is to the Modern age by seeing how much they will give us for Electronics. They have to be researching it - I think it is the only tech they can research.

[Edit: I haven't heard that Yom. AFAIK, courthouses and police stations work in the same manner. Not sure on WLTKD.]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1300AD.SAV

Pre: Trade Mongols MechTrans for 320 +225 gpt

1255: Raze Nicomedia, Get leader. Leader becomes tank army.

1260: move some troops

IT: Peace with Maya. Pick up wines, ivory and 500 gp for Mech Trans.

1265: Gift Germany to ModAge. They get Computers and I trade Ironclads for Computers straight up ??? This is weird, they must really like me. Renew Gems with Greeks. Take Prilep and New Ceseara. Persia is now modern and gets fission. Could make peace and trade but I still want to slow them down. Careful steal nets fission. How to keep them from trading? Well I know we were going to go for peace but I would like to wait until we secure the internet. So I sign Germany and Myans (Other 2 modern civs) in against Persia. Also gift Germany everything but fission. Myans are getting a bit too big as well so let them go at Persia. Switch Sala to SETI due in 5. Switch Carta to UN, due in 12. Start Miniaturization @ 100% due in 20.

1270: Take last Byz city on our peninsula and make peace for worker and 500 gp.

1275: Railing. Mongols are Modern. Nineveh will complete UN in 8 we will in 10. Will need to sabotage.

1285 Clear jungle and rail

1290 Clear jungle and rail

IT: Sala completes SETI. Miniaturization in 12.

1295: Careful sabotage of UN production in Nineveh costs us 3400 but is successful. We should now get the UN in 6 turns.

1300: More rails. Somehow Incans got computers. They have a fair amount of cash to buy fission but I would holdout a couple of turns (or until they make peace with Persians) to secure the UN and to try and slow things down.

nicely done again mark :) just so I know, where is the designated internet town?

i will get to this tomorrow.

Well, I would do Sala as it pulls >100spt. You can do Bat. Med Prebuild. Could also just pick another strong shield city and start palace pre if you think that would be faster. I haven't started any prebuild though.

[Edit: I haven't heard that Yom. AFAIK, courthouses and police stations work in the same manner. Not sure on WLTKD.]

I have noticed that police specialists seem to affect shields more than gold but they do have some effect on both.

Great turn Mark. I liked how you kept the UN out of the AI's hands :) Looks like we are well on our way to getting the internet too.

If we can keep our gpt from other civs high, we can research at 100% and still gain money to steal techs. Keep checking with the non-modern civs to see if they have gpt to donate to us. It happens now and then and is essentially "free".

Are we sending the tank army to Persia? One thought I had was to keep our armies near the Persia/Mongol border in case the Mongols become a problem. When we get peace we can get an ROP as well and keep the armies in the area in case we want to bust a capitol. Not that I really think we need it, but it would be nice to have the option.

Greebley
Arizona_Steve
Mark1031 <= Just Played
Grahamiam <= Up
Yom <= On Deck

Go get them Grahamian :hammer:

Great turn Mark. I liked how you kept the UN out of the AI's hands :) Looks like we are well on our way to getting the internet too.


Well the UN probably wasn't necessary as I doubt the Persians could win a vote but why take any chances. BTW I think we are first in land and pop. I think the Persians are pretty much beaten down and we will have other civs to worry about. Myans, Mongols and Hittites are pretty big. Also, the Incans got computers pretty fast somehow. With tech trading these guys could move pretty fast if we don't keep them all fighting each other. But I don't think that will be a problem :mischief: .

started but couldn't finish tonight. will finish tomorrow.

I will be busy until Monday. Steve, if you want to play after Yom, and Yom plays before Monday night, then go ahead and claim the game. I will then play after you.

Preflight check: Things look nice. Switch a couple of the core wealth cities to bombers or fighters.

IBT: Renew RoP with Inca, also sell them silks for 33gpt, and Incense for 34gpt; Lose our Furs and Salt

T1: 1305AD Trade: sell the Netherlands Electronics for Furs, Salt, WM, and 102g; Rush culture (Libraries) in our border towns. MapStat indicates we need a lot of units to prevent flips.
WW is starting to kick in, so I got thru F1 screen.

IBT: WW gets worse as a lot of wttkd’s end. Army in Persia gets bombed and bombarded by arty down to 6hp.

T2: 1310AD Trades: get 29gpt from Netherlands for Spices; get 30gpt from Mongols for same. Sell around WM. Sell Electricity to Egypt for 37gpt and 48g.

Investigate the Persian city of Nineveh and they will finish UN in 4T, we will be done in 3T. Of course, this means that they will cascade to Manhattan Project, another not-so-nice wonder. Since we have so much cash on hand, I recommend we sabotage it before our UN is built.

IBT: Maya and Dutch sign MPP and Dutch declare on Persians due to this. Our cav army in Persia is redlined by bombers and Arty and then killed by an infantry unit; Dutch declares on the Mongols and Egypt
Hittities and Germans ally vs Maya and Zulu; and Hittites declare on both. Dutch declare on Greece; Hittites come calling and they want us to sign an embargo vs Zulu. No thanks. Dutch declares on the Hittites. Egypt wants an RoP and MPP, no thanks on the MPP part.
Gee, it’s not too hard to keep everyone at war, is it :lol:

Start Manhattan Project in Sala as a prebuild for Internet (Mini and Man due in 8T)

T3: 1315AD Landscaping. I merge a couple native workers into core towns to boost pop and production.
Trades: sell Maya silks for 50gpt; sell Dutch Incense for 39gpt

IBT: Zulu and Inca MA vs Mongols; Egypt and Mongols MA vs Zulu

T4: 1320AD Try to carefully sabotage production in the Persian town of Nineveh (5214g, but we have over 13000 in the bank and make over 1100gpt) and succeed :), but the spy is caught :( Not sure if that was worth the price but we shall see.

IBT: Inca and Dutch sign MA vs Egypt; Maya and Persia sign peace, then Mayans declare war on Persians again :lol: ; Persia and Hittites sign peace
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-UN.jpg

T5: 1325AD Borders expand and troop requirements to prevent flipping dramatically decrease so I move some units around.

No one but us is building Manhatten’s so we should be ok pre-build wise. We may want to consider an Apollo prebuild next. We can trade Fission around or wait till Mini is done so we can keep our prebuild in Sala.

With all the hard work we've done in this one, this game is getting a chieftan feel to it now :lol:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1325AD.jpg

1325AD Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1325AD.SAV)

Good turns. But what's with all the destroyers and fighters? I doubt we'll be invaded any time soon.

just building enough ships to be a beakon, and we only have 2 fighters completed atm, thought we could use a half dozen or so. we also have a total of 1 bomber.

3 cities building destroyers and 2 building fighters, i don't think i'm over doing it. however, you are up and are free to change as you choose. i guess i erred on the side of safety for now, and we're not paying any troop support atm so there's no harm.

I'm not against building a minimum amount of troops, but our money is best spent on tanks and Mech. Infantry. I doubt we will face naval invasions or need air defense.

Edit: I was also referring to the airports. They are only useful if we will be engaging in a war or building airplanes (aside from the first which can be used for trade).

ok, no problem. we need more of everything, really, mech's and tanks as well. i guess i didn't think 4 airports was too many but maybe it is. i was just thinking that in case of attack, i didn't want the AI to overwhelm the choke town with bombers. i wanted plenty of fighters there doing air superiority missions, to help bring down whatever they have, and i felt we would probably need more than 1 vet every 2T once it started. i have seen the AI bomb units to thier death, emptying entire towns, and a sid level AI can bring a lot of bombers to bear if the circumstances are right. but have a look at the save and change whatever you believe needs changing.

Turn 0 - I change a number of Airport/Naval/Air Force builds to
either Hospitals, Commercial Docks, or MEch infantries (to be
disbanded in corrupt cities to build libraries, courthouses, etc.)

Turn 1 - Persia's power has been significantly reduced, so I sign a
peace treaty with them for some luxuries and get 191 gpt.
Unfortunately, I didn't notice that we had an alliance with
Germany that still had 7 turns left. Oh well. Speaking of Germany,
they have quite a bit of cash (300+ gpt). Do we sell them Fission?
Or keep the semi-monopoly on it (Persia has it too, maybe 1 more
civ.)?

Also, I've been disbanding newly-built mechs in cities that need the shields and joining indigenous workers back into cities. Does anyone have a problem with this?

So does no one care if I sell Fission to other civs? I'll wait a little more before I do anything.

i was holding off on selling fission till miniturization come in and we no longer need manhatten project as a prebuild in sala. i have a feeling that the ai could build it rather fast. however, deals are starting to run out so it may be best to trade it to get more gpt.

If you think getting the internet is not put in jepardy, then I would go ahead and trade.

I have no problem with the disbanding if we have a guard in every city and several in the choke city as well as some offensive units.

Just skip me and finish this game :(. I have absolutely no free time today, and I'm up in 2 other SGs. I didn't do anything drastic in the 2 (Turn 0 and Turn 1) turns I played, though I did do a lot of MMing and changing airport and military builds to either needed buildings or MI's (if they had all buildings) and using them to speed up outlying cities' builds.

Ok, I got it. I will probably start tonight and finish tomorrow.

Preturn: Make peace with Greece and Persia.
Trades:
Sell Computers for 1000+ gold, amphibious warfare, 181 gpt from Persia.
Sell Computers for 1000+ gold and 213 gpt from Mongols.
Sell Computers for 1300+ gold from Mayans.
Sell Communism for small change to Egypt.
Sell Fission for 1700+ gold and 380 gpt to Germany.
Sell Amphibious Warfare for 91 gpt + change to Greece.
Sell Ambhibious Warfare for 296 gold and 6 gpt to Netherlands.
Sell Fission for 2200+ gold and 74 gpt from the Incans.

We are up to 16854 gold and 1886 gpt at 100% science.

Adjust towns to scientists to finish Miniturization in 5 instead of 6 (building Manhat in 6 as a prebuild)

Early: I do a whole bunch of worker merges - around 100 or so - half foreign from extinct nations. I save around 50 for our use.
I rush some buildings.

Mid: We get Miniturization and switch to the internet. Rocketry is known. I don't go for it right away. I want to get the internet for sure first (Decide to wait on the steal too).

Sign an ROP with Byzantines to help them get of our territory faster.
Get 236 gpt from the Hittites for Fission.

Manhattan project finished by the Incans.

1360 AD: Internet is next turn so I trade Miniturization for Rocketry, 800 gold and 247 gpt. and then back trade for another 360 gpt.

Late: We Don't have any Aluminum! The mayans have an extra so I trade for it.
Yow! the dutch would have 4 of them if they connected them up and knew rocketry.

Notes:

We have greatly strengthend our ability to resarch; Nuclear Power was 15 turns at the start of my turn and is now down to 9, so an increase of over 50% This was due to the the internet (25% of the increase for all core towns), 100+ workers I merged into cities; rushing libs and Unis' and getting corrupt cities large enough to support scientists.

We still have 60 workers to clean pollution. Note that I went for ecology to get Mass Transit. I suggest building these in all large cities when we get Ecology especially in cities that have finished all other improvements. Otherwise, the 60 foreign workers will not be sufficient the the towns get really big.

As Yom suggested earlier, I recommend having towns that have finished all useful builds disband units into towns to help speed up things like factories or cultural buildings.

Persia is about to go over 100k culture. Other nations have over 1/2 thier culture, but I think we should also get to 1/2 ourselves. Currently we are gaining 750 culture per turn compared to Persia that is getting 300 culture per turn(they mobilized), so we will be catching up. If we continue to rush cultural buildings, we can get it up over 1200 per turn (we have 73 towns which can have all buildings (16+ culture) which is 1168+) and will catch up quickly.
The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1375AD.zip)

Great job guys. :thumbsup:

I would be surprised if we lose the game from here.

A cultural loss is a very minor risk; if Persia started to pull ahead culturally or the second place culture was eliminated or slowed down. (This is why I recommended spending our resources on culture). Otherwise, I agree. With our ability to prebuild and steal tech, we should be able to build the last spaceship part before the AI can no matter what. In fact our research strength is good enough to get the last tech first I think.

Forgot to post the turn order:

Greebley <= Just Played
Arizona_Steve <= Up
Mark1031 <= On Deck
Grahamiam
Yom

Its been 24 hours with no "I got it".

So Mark, if you have time to play and Steve still hasn't posted, then go ahead an post your "I got it" and play.

wow, ecology in 4T, research @ 100%, and still making +2000gpt. very nice turns greebly :goodjob: imho, after ecology, we should go get space flight and start getting that space ship built so we can get the hell outta here :)

I sometimes go for nuclear power plants and research labs first. That way your towns have them when you go for the space ship (and one can trade for space flight usually).

It doesn't really matter though. Space to start Apollo works very well too.

OK I can take it.

the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/BZ9-1425AD.SAV)

Not much to report. Cleaned Pollution. Built some infrastructure. Got Ecology in 4. Picked Nuclear Power in 9 for the plants sooner (due in 3). Built some Subs and I would like to build more of a Navy (defensive Destroyers and Subs) just in case someone goes after us but it’s really not going to matter. Persia has lost a number of cities in their core. I don’t think culture loss or any loss for that matter is possible now. Everybody still at war we are peacefully going to the stars :D .
BTW We are rich 33K in the bank and 2.5K/turn @ 100% Sci.

Current political situation

Ya, I am of the opinion we have the game - especially if Persia is losing ground.

Grahamiam is up.

Yom, can you indicate if you want to play after Grahamiam? Your last post implied a skip, unless you stated otherwise. Is this correct?

So Yom or I am on deck.

If we are going for nuclear power then get resarch labs too. We need to anyway for the space part and it will give us higher production sooner.

Then we can go for space flight.

research labs? didn't we get the internet (free labs everywhere?) :D

ok, i see it but i am up in 2 already so this probably doesn't start till tomorrow, Yom can take a stab at it today if he has time.

sorry; Manufacturing plants. I sometimes replace one word with another and not realize it. Those things that give +50% shields like factories.

If you can get it tonight, you go ahead. Otherwise, I'll see if I can get it tomorrow.

I would post an "I got it" right before you start so you both don't end up playing the same turns.

i got it..