SGOTM3 Rome - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

Here is the start position.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM3.jpg

Here are a couple of links you might find useful.

The Original GOTM16 Announcement. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/gotm16_rome.shtml)
The Draft Constitution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=1733966&postcount=61)

This Months' sponsored variant is Xenophobic NOW
The rules are as follows.
1. Non-Oscillating War variant. You keep a list of opponents and the order in which you meet them.
2. You must declare war on the first Civ you meet before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time.
3. You must stay at war with that Civ until one of you have been eliminated.
4. You must declare war on the second Civ you met on the same turn that the first Civ was eliminated or 20 turns has elapsed (whichever happens sooner). This is to prevent sandbagging.
5. After each opponent is eliminated or 20 turns elapse you must declare war on the next civ in the list.
6. If you run out of opponents because you haven't met them yet and 20 turns have elapsed, you must declare war on the next opponent you meet before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time with them

The Xenophobic part of the variant runs as follows.
7. You may never own a foreign worker. You must never buy or sell one, and if you capture them they must be disbanded on the tile on which they were captured.
8. All deals must be at face value. No haggling.
9. You will not establish embassies.
10. You will never retain a town that contains foreign citizens. Such towns must be razed and any workers spawned disbanded.

Also there is a puzzle involving some non-standard Barbarian Units. The puzzle is framed in the same way as it was for the original GOTM16, but the solution is different.

The save will be available from >>HERE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm_submission_list.php) when the timelock is released. All of your teams save files will eventually be available from this link.

When you finish your turn, you may upload your save to >>THIS<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/sgotm.php) link

Have fun, and good luck everyone!

Welcome everybody to sgotm3 Rome. As we will play the Sponsored Variant, this hopefully will be an enjoyable game. I gave some thoughts on how to win and came up with the following:

How to win in easy steps
Frankly: I have no idea. The main problem I see is to balance our military efforts with the necesssary rapid expansion.

How to win an ideal game
This is more easy. IMHO the optimum scenario is as follows:
We start exploring and hope to meet the first civ not too close to our capitol.
We can trade our alphabet for pottery and bronze working (or wheel/warrior code) before we declare war.
We do min research on writing and hope to meet the 2nd (or 3rd?) civ once we learned it and can trade it for iron working.
We research literature aiming for the Great Library.
A very early Great Leader builds us The Pyramids (wishful thinking).
We build the Great Library with a Great Leader.
Maybe we can delay our Golden Age until we are monarchy (more wishful thinking).
Since we are not pangea, contact with other civs is delayed until we have conquered our continent.
The Great Library will give us also lots of Middle Age techs once we contact the off-continent civs,
If even half of this happens, we should win. Easily.

I did not yet look at the save since it is well after midnight local time. This has to wait till tomorrow. Maybe you come up with some more good ideas. ;)

Officially check in. Looking forward to playing with everyone. This will be my first attempt at what is essentially an AW game with a 20 turn cushion. Add in a truly wicked xenophobic twist and this should be interesting indeed.

My thoughts so far and some reactions to tao's list:

1. Great library: It looks like the GL will be a must. At emperor I can usually maintain the tech pace through trading and never try for the GL. But, with the trading restrictions in this game, I think it's critical. A pre-build might be in order instead of taking a chance on getting a leader in time.

2. Contacts: Since we don't have to declare war until 20 turns after we close the diplomacy screen with our first victim, we delay as long as possible. We play the hermit in the early game and do very little exploration. When our first civ is met, let them initiate contact.

3. Techs: We start with alphabet and warrior code. I agree with starting on writing and then seeing where we need to go based on initial trades.

4. Cashflow/units: We're commercial which helps, but our coffers will be plundered by the ai trying to get AA techs since we can't haggle. In essence, mass upgrades will probably be out. Might we want to build early archers instead of warriors until we learn IW? A stack of archers and a couple spears can be a good attack force in the early game. Also it might help delay our GA a little longer.

5. Balancing military/expansion: As I see it, and I could be very wrong, is we go for max expansion before making contacts. We should do this at the expense of military and culture. Hopefully we'll have some time to develop a productive core. Once our first contact is made we take the 20 turns to build troops and position them in strategic defensive positions between us and the first civ. Declare war and pick off troops as they move toward us taking this time to get us up to attack strength at the expense of expansion and culture. Of course all this depends on us not making very early contacts.

Checking in. As I read it, we have to declare on the first contact immediately (not waiting 20 turns)...

2. You must declare war on the first Civ you meet before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time.

So it may pay to keep a sustainable expansion rate to start off. As far as the Great Library, it would be extremely helpful to get an early leader for it, but I think that we can survive without if we can build a reasonable base of cities. Even without haggling, tech trading can still be profitable.

Guys: I have a concern with the 1.29f saves. On my computer and on Alanhs computer the Roman Leader is named Temujin and not Caesar. :p

The reason I am concerned about this is that in the bic it is correct. I feel I need to investigate this and correct it since it may affect all the leader names, and may conceivably be the cause of game crashes later in the game.

I would ask that you delay starting the game until this evening when I have checked everything out and am satisfied with the result.

I apologise for the inconvenience.

The 1.29f saves are fixed and uploaded. The last part of the save name is now _02.SAV

My apologies for any inconvenience caused.

As I read it, we have to declare on the first contact immediately (not waiting 20 turns)...

Your right, looks like I misread that.

We now have a valid sav. I suppose we should wait to hear from the other team members before starting. Has anyone sent them a pm yet?

@tao: I assume you'll be kicking off the first set of turns. Have you had a chance to jot down a playing order?

Another check in.

I too read it that we have to declare as soon as we make contact, however we can delay contact as long as we wish. We can try and delay by not exploring, or by not contacting the civ once we spot them, either way I think it would pay us to try and get some core cities set up quickly, perhaps keeping them tight to the capitol.

Great leaders for the pyramids and great library would be a real boost, however knowing my luck with leaders (only get them when I don't need them), I don't believe we should assume we get one and a prebuild would be a good precaution if we can spare a city for that.

I sent a pm to the team and except for Zarth everybody has shown up already. Looking at the time zones we are on, I suggest the following sequence:

tao
Furiey
Demiurge
Zarth
Zwingli

We will follow the 24 hours (got it), 72 hours (to play) rule. Unless I get any wishes for changes, I will play tomorrow evening.

I intend to keep a list of contacts made and dates we have to declare war.

Do we -- just for fun -- want to keep a tally: number of cities razed, number of workers disbanded?

Some more concrete thoughts on how to begin:
I intend to found Rome on the starting position: on a hill for defense, 4 bonus graslands, wines on hill, and the essential game tile; forest to be cut for extra 10 shields, afterwards irrigation for 3 food.
I don't think we can spare a city for a Great Library (or any other) Wonder pre-build.
I don't think we can afford to delay 1st contact very long, because we want to get something for our alphabet.
Something like archer (explore), warrior (mp), archer (active defense), granary, settler looks like a good build order.

checking in

On the Great Library: a great leader would be very helpfull, but we cant count on getting on. A prebuild might be possible but I think we will have to see how things develop in the game. I've never played such a variant before, so I dont know how many military units we will have to be building.

4000bc (1) worker W; nothing new, found Rome s warrior; min research on writing
F10 shows our competition: Greece, France, England, Babylon, Russia, Germany, Aztecs, Iroquois, India, Japan, America.

3950bc (2) mine

3750bc (6) Rome builds warrior s next; warrior S

3700bc (7) warrior S sees cattle

3650bc (8) mine done; road; warrior SW

3600bc (9) warrior W

3550bc (10) Rome builds warrior s armamentarium; warrior1 W; warrior2 E sees wheat

3500bc (11) Rome' culture expands; pop 2; worker has road done goes to next bg; warrior 2 returns and fortifies as mp; warrior1 W sees condimentum (spices); science to 10%

3450bc (12) worker mines; warrior N

3400bc (13) warrior N sees cervus (game)

3550bc (14) warrior NW

3300bc (15) Rome b armamentarium s settler; warrior N

3250bc (16) warrior N sees wheat on plains

3150bc (18) mine done s road; warrior continues N

3050bc (20) warrior continues NW; F11 screen shows Paris, London, Moscow, Berlin, Delhi all at pop 2

IBT Greek hoplite appears on mountain: bad: the hardest to kill unit in the ancient age

3000bc (21) Rome b settler s archer; road done; warrior sees terra fertilis (flood plains)
I do not contact the hoplite but leave it to our discussion and the next player whether to call him
I do not move the settler
Greece has 90 score, we have 86
F11 shows Babylon has replaced Delhi; they probably also built settler

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm3_tao_3000bc.jpg

contacts:
none yet, but Greece imminent

questions:
move settler aggressively E towards the wheat and Greece (suicidal) or W towards the cervus (safer)?
do we rcp at distance 3 (safer now) or 4 (better in the long run)?
now that we met Greece (sort of), do we continue to explore N or should the warrior continue circle around Rome?

10 turns from now on:
Furiey (next)
Demiurge
Zarth
Zwingli
tao (just played)

Got it.

It's tempting to rush straight in and play on, but these turns could be critical as they could well determine who we're at war with first, so some discussion is called for I think.

Greece, not good for a first meeting, a war against hoplites this early in the game would not be the best choice. Perhaps we should try and meet someone else asap and declare war on them before Greece contacts us - this would mean North with the Warrior perhaps and hope the Greeks don't contact us for a bit.

Rings: a tighter build would give us less land to improve in between cities. With the prospect of no slave labour to cut our worker costs this might be an advantage - get that inner ring up and running quickly. I'll post some rings piccies at distances of 3 and 4. Looking at our best prospects for first sites migh help us decide where we move that settler.

Greece, not good for a first meeting, a war against hoplites this early in the game would not be the best choice. Perhaps we should try and meet someone else asap and declare war on them before Greece contacts us - this would mean North with the Warrior perhaps and hope the Greeks don't contact us for a bit.Yes. That sounds good to me. As this is emperor level, Greece started with 4 hoplites, 2 warriors, 1 worker. The good thing is, that they have no offensive unit and we have the armamentarium. Since they have a slightly higher score then we do, I suppose they have a second city already. If we contact some other civ, get pottery, and cut the forest towards a granary, we can outexpand them. If we manage to build some vet warriors and archers, our military is not hopeless and we will grow stronger as the game proceeds. Hopefully. ;)

PS: Unless Greece makes immediate contact, I'm in favor of rcp 4, building the next city on the river S of the NW cervus.

Wow, that looks like a good starting area. I think our odds of coming out on top just went up a bit.

Perhaps we should try and meet someone else asap and declare war on them before Greece contacts us - this would mean North with the Warrior perhaps and hope the Greeks don't contact us for a bit.
Good idea.

I think RCP4 is our best bet. If we build at RCP3, it will take a border expansion or another ring of cities to gain access to most of the bonus resources.

Building away from the ai sounds good this early. The more distance between us, the better. I second tao's suggestion for placement S of the NW cervus. By sharing Rome's cervus it becomes our most likely settler factory location, given what we can see now. If I counted correctly it will be at +6 food at pop 5!

I also like the idea about keeping track of how many cities razed/workers disbanded. Just a fun footnote.

@tao: Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et respice finem! :)

Roman proverbs...Where do you come up with this stuff.

Taking a look at the save, I see we have contact with Greece. If I interpret the rules correctly that means we have "met" Greece and we must now declare war. MB probably intentionally ensured that Greece would be the first contact to increase the challenge of the game ;)

In this case, I would build at least 1 spearman (If we can trade for Bronze) to avoid losing the game immediately to the Greek starting units. Mathematics and the ensuing catapults will be critical to deal with the tough hoplites, and we should prioritise defensibility in city placement. All of the hills, forests, and mountains will give the hoplites a further defensive advantage so we may need to protect key positions with warriors or spearmen in defense to avoid pillaging.

For the first civ you meet, you must declare war before leaving the diplomacy screen for the first time. You don't have to open diplomacy immediately, and you may wait until you are contacted if you so wish.

This from MB in the announcment thread. So we still have a little time. The clock is ticking though.

Yes, from that quote it appears you are correct. :thumbsup:

In that case I suggest we discontinue minimum research and set science to maximum to prevent our treasury from growing higher. The reason for this is that once our treasury exceeds the value of one of the Greek techs, they will surely offer it to us in a trade and we will have to declare war on them first. If we don't have enough treasury and gpt to buy a tech, they will never have a reason to contact us other than a demand (that would start war anyway). Even if raising science doesn't effect the rate of research, it should only cost us ~100g, which IMO is worth it to fight someone besides Greece.

Roman proverbs...Where do you come up with this stuff.I learned 6 years of Latin in school. :)

In that case I suggest we discontinue minimum research and set science to maximum to prevent our treasury from growing higher.Greece started with alphabet also and masonry, which is worth more than warrior code. I am more in favor of aggressively exploring N and making another contact. In 20 turns, we learn writing and can trade for contacts as well as techs. We need money to get the most. I would suggest to contact as much civs as possible in order to get trading opportunities and lower tech cost for those we have to research ourselves. If we don't do it, the AIs will contact us and we cannot select the sequence.

Increasing post count. ;)

mad-bax just made a very important clarification to the contact rule in the maintenance thread: (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=93900) If an opponent that you have not made contact with yet tries to extort gold, maps or techs from you, then contact is only made if you give in to the demand. If you do not give in to the demand, then we can assume that diplomatic relations have not been established.
Thus no need to increase research, unless we are afraid that Greece declares war on us, which wouldn't worry me so much because of the inverse ww and us being the "good guys".

So looking at our trade options, we’re trying to find someone else to trade with then declare war on before the Greeks contact us. But what if they do contact us?

Option 1: Greece makes demands; we refuse, avoiding making “official” contact and keep trying finding someone else.
Option 2: Greece offers us gold for Warrior Code; we have to declare war
Option 3: Greece offers to sell us Bronze Woking for Gold; we have to declare war
Option 4: Greece wants Warrior Code for Bronze Working; we have to declare war

Option 1 and they declare – fine with me
Options 2,3 and 4 all result in us having to declare war, so although I would be happy to accept option 3, I am disinclined to give them Warrior Code, certainly not for gold, although I am tempted for Bronze Working

This also raises the question of do we want to trade Warrior Code if we contact another Civ first?

Some initial thoughts on city placement:

Ring of 4 with 6 cities, possibly not close enough, the squares edged in blue are ring 4 on a river.
F is on the coast, as is possibly E (can’t tell whether it’s coast or a lake, but there’s water)
B tao’s site?
A Demiurge’s site?

At the moment I think I favour site A

On a chattier note 6 years of Latin in school! They stopped Latin quite a few years before I would have started it at my school, and replaced German with Spanish the year before I would have started it, I therefore just got French, the main second language taught in schools here and dropped Spanish after 2 years. Despite being science orientated myself, I do find it fascinating looking at the commonalities between languages and so very many words have Latin roots.

Option 1: Greece makes demands; we refuse, avoiding making “official” contact and keep trying finding someone else.
Option 2: Greece offers us gold for Warrior Code; we have to declare war
Option 3: Greece offers to sell us Bronze Woking for Gold; we have to declare war
Option 4: Greece wants Warrior Code for Bronze Working; we have to declare war
First of all, let's hope that Alexander wants to keep to himself. Thanks for the education Zwingli, I now know why the ai initiates contact. Just never put 2 and 2 together before. However, I still can't make even a guess as to when Greece will initiate.

My thoughts on the options above:

Option 1: I wouldn't give in to any demands. If ol' Alex backs down, all the better. If he declares...
Option 2: Looks like a no brainer to me. Give him nothing.
Option 3: We need Bronze working to get IW so I would pay what he demands for Bronze Working and then declare.
Option 4: On this one I'm going back and forth. But, in the end, I think I would refuse and declare war. They already have the best AA defensive unit let's not give them access to a better offensive one.


This also raises the question of do we want to trade Warrior Code if we contact another Civ first?
I think we want to avoid doing that if we can. However, at the moment I might do it for pottery. If you meet another civ prior to declaring war on Greece I think its OK to pause in the middle of your turns and get the team's response then. I probably would given the complexity of this game.

I favor site B, because we will want to road/expand in that direction and we will do so including 2 bonus graslands. IMHO B will be a unit producing site getting an armamentarium first.

Since wc is a first tier tech, the AIs will get it soon. IMHO we might as well trade it away to get something for it.

I would go for site B too, as we dont know how close the other AI are and we dont want them to take the land.

quick update (now playing)

Founded Veii on site B, Turn 4 and I have just spotted the French to the N. No "official" contact with Greece, so looks like the French are going to get it.

3000 BC(Turn 0): Do not contact Greek Hoplite. Move Settler N to Site B (on reflection this is where the other civs are likely to be so grab it first, A just has coast beyond it). Worker moves NW. Press button.

IBT: Greek Hoplite moves SE out of view – no contact.

2950 BC(Turn 1): Settler moves NW; Worker roads (ummed and ahhed about whether or not to keep moving to the BG, but eventually decided to continue with the linking road); Warrior goes N (more desert and hills).

IBT: :sleep:

2900 BC(Turn 2):. Settler moves NW; Warrior goes N (desert ends with a row of montis to NE, and collis to NW).

IBT: :sleep:

2850 BC(Turn 3):. Settler moves to site B; Warrior goes N.

IBT: :sleep:

2800 BC(Turn 4):. Found Veii on site B set to armamentarium; Worker completes road and moves NW; Warrior moves N and sees pink borders – the French; A French Warrior stands on the Mountain N of our Warrior; Scores: Greece 101, France 96, Rome 90; Paris is the top city in the World at size 3; Decide not to risk Greece contacting us first, so contact France;

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/tao_sgotm3_BC2800_joan.jpg

Masonry can’t be done, she wants 80 gold for Bronze Working, she has Warrior Code already, Condimentum (0 free), and a total of 2 cities; accept her deal and declare war; so much for her wanting friendship. 20 turns to next declaration.

IBT: French Warrior moves SW from montis to collis

2750 BC(Turn 5):. decide we may need to move troops before either city grows enough to use the BG, so start roading before mining; fortify Warrior on mountain; Greece 104, France 100, Rome 93; +5gpt, Writing in 15. 19 turns to next declaration.

IBT: 3 more French Warriors appear from the N :eek:; the original 1 moves S.

2710 BC(Turn 6):. Wake our Warrior and move S – I’ll attack when they have to move off the hills into the desert. May have to change the armamentarium being built in Veii to a unit. 18 turns to next declaration.

IBT: French Warrior dies attacking our Warrior (now 2/3); the 3 French Warriors move S; another French warrior appears from the E near Veii (2E! :eek: )

2670 BC(Turn 7):. Rome: Archer > Archer; Move our Warrior S; Move newly built Archer to collis 2N of Rome to intercept French Warrior. 17 turns to next declaration.

IBT: French Warriors in N move SW onto desert; French Warrior near Veii ignores our Archer and moves next to Veii.

2630 BC(Turn 8):. our Warrior moves S; Archer kills French Warrior next to Veii (phew) now 2/4; Worker completes road and moves NW next to Veii; switch Veii to Warrior. Paris is down to a population of 2, Athens is the top city. 16 turns to next declaration.

IBT: French Warriors move S

2590 BC(Turn 9):. Veii Warrior > armamentarium; N Warrior S to collis, new Veii Warrior Fortifies; Injured Archer moves to Veii; Worker starts to road. 15 turns to next declaration.

IBT: French Warriors move S

2550 BC(Turn 10):. Our Warrior moves SW; Archer fortifies in Veii. 14 turns to next declaration.
Scores: Greece – 116, France – 112, Rome - 105
Treasury: 47 gold + 6 gpt, Writing due in 10

Post-turn:
With Veii undefended at the time of the declaration I have been fighting a defensive battle, trying to maximise the chance of victory with the units we have. The Veteran Archer will certainly help. The French Warriors are in a stack (2 regular, 1 conscript NNW of our Warrior). I have not contacted Greece as I don’t think we have anything to trade them and we don’t have enough gold to buy anything, this still allows us to possibly contact someone else first so we don’t have to declare on the Greeks next.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_BC2550_01.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/tao_sgotm3_BC2550.jpg

Good to avoid the Greece contact. And to get bronze working. Against the French warriors, we should prevail.

I'm not so happy with you moving our exploring warrior S again. I probably would have continued going N to harrass/pillace France and to make more contacts, but that is easy to say in hindsight. :)

Now IMHO we have 2 options:stay put and hope nobody makes contact for more than 20 turns. I doubt that we succeed.

Or go N again avoiding the French force and aggressively seek contacts, hopefully before/by the time we learn writing. We definitely need pottery (and it should be cheap to get) to speed our growth (and the wheel, and iron working). I would seek more (much more) contacts, hopefully from as far away as possible (expansionist civs' scouts).

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow 2800BC
1990BC: next dow

Demiurge (next)
Zarth
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

I'm not so happy in moving S either in hindsight, at the time time the idea was to pick off the French Warriors on their way S, as it was I got 1 and an injured Warrior. With 3 French Warriors going S and the one coming in from the E at the time it looked like that Warrior would be badly needed to defend or possibly even retake Veii!

I am glad we avoided having Greece as the first opponent since we would have been fighting emperor bonus Hoplites rather than warriors. I agree that the best course would be to aggressively seek contact to the north, and would propose moving the warrior out of Veii immediately to move along the mountains. The mountains will extend the visual range for contact, as well as give a significant defense bonus against any French attacks. Veii may have switch to a regular spearman or archer for defense if the French warrior stack is due to arrive soon.

Veii may have switch to a regular spearman or archer for defense if the French warrior stack is due to arrive soon.I would not favor to do that. IMHO it would be better to switch Rome to a vet spear, which will reach Veil sooner than it can build the regular.

And as much as we need contacts, I would not move any unit out of Veil before repelling the 1st French attack.

And might it be a good idea to send the vet spear (if we switch Rome to it) north to better survive on the quest for contact?

Edit/add: I'm now going on a weekend trip it leave it to you to build the Roman Empire. :)

Get pottery, start settler factory, fend off the French, get Great Leader, get contacts, get iron working, .... :D until I return.

Just to clarify the position of the French Warrior Stack; here's a screenie from the autosave at the beginning of turn 10 while they were still visible:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/tao_sgotm3_BC2550premoves.jpg

They will therefore be able to attack on turn 3, giving insufficient time to produce another unit in Veii. We currently have a 3/3 Warrior and 2/4 archer in Veii. The archer in Rome will be produced too late to fend off the first attack, a spearman would be produced in the same time, but they could be produced next turn if we are prepared to use the whip and drop Rome down to a population of 1.

Originally posted by tao
Get pottery, start settler factory, fend off the French, get Great Leader, get contacts, get iron working, .... :D until I return.
Glad to hear you're not expecting much from us in your absence :mischief:; have a good trip!

Got it.

Just to clarify a couple points. I DO NOT have to declare during my turns since the 20 turn cushion won't expire until 4 turns into Zarth's turns. We still need to avoid contact with Greece until we contact another civ or Greece becomes the next civ on our hit list, correct? If they do make contact, we have to declare on them next but at least I can see what they want for pottery if they have it.

General thoughts on how I plan to play it. I'll wait to play until I hear any comments/feedback:

Build order: Rome — switch to a spear and crank out a couple more prior to timing a settler with growth. Veii — complete armamentarium and start on archers.

Units: Send Rome's lone warrior in the general direction of Zwingli's pic. tao suggests sending Rome's first spear, but I hesitate for a couple reasons. The warrior can go immediately, and I think I'm going to need that first spear in Veii ASAP although not fast enough to justify a whip at this point and delay our next settler. We have three warriors coming in 3 turns or less. We may lose some units and who knows how many are moving in our direction and how soon. Fortify other two warriors and one archer in Veii waiting for French first strike. Worker completes road mines both BG, send toward Rome's cirvus to chop in preparation for settler factory and speed Rome's growth.

My thoughts:
Just to clarify a couple points. I DO NOT have to declare during my turns since the 20 turn cushion won't expire until 4 turns into Zarth's turns.
Correct.


We still need to avoid contact with Greece until we contact another civ or Greece becomes the next civ on our hit list, correct? If they do make contact, we have to declare on them next but at least I can see what they want for pottery if they have it.
Right again. Once we know which Civ is next I suppose we can keep checking for trades with them up to the point we declare.


Units: Send Rome's lone warrior in the general direction of Zwingli's pic. tao suggests sending Rome's first spear, but I hesitate for a couple reasons. The warrior can go immediately, and I think I'm going to need that first spear in Veii ASAP although not fast enough to justify a whip at this point and delay our next settler. We have three warriors coming in 3 turns or less. We may lose some units and who knows how many are moving in our direction and how soon. Fortify other two warriors and one archer in Veii waiting for French first strike. Worker completes road mines both BG, send toward Rome's cirvus to chop in preparation for settler factory and speed Rome's growth.
One thing - if we send Rome's lone Warrior immediately, the French Warriors could decide to bypass Veii and head for the undefended Rome (and our Worker), it might be better for them to attack Veii now that we (will) have 3 units in there for defence. I agree about not using the whip - it's not worth it for 1 turn gain.


Worker completes road mines both BG, send toward Rome's cirvus to chop in preparation for settler factory and speed Rome's growth.
I agree again - those BG definitely need mining and the forest chopping for the Granary, the timing for this will detemine how many units we get out of Rome before the Granary.

I killed 2 Warriors, 3 remain, hopefully they can't have that many more at the moment, although as one of the 3 is a conscript it looks like they found a goodie hut.

I agree again - those BG definitely need mining and the forest chopping for the Granary, the timing for this will detemine how many units we get out of Rome before the Granary.
Although it's early yet and the granary won't be started in my turns, this is probably worth discussing. Might our settler factory be the city on site A, the next city we settle? Thus a granary there and not in Rome. Let Rome keep producing units since it has an armamentarium.

One thing - if we send Rome's lone Warrior immediately, the French Warriors could decide to bypass Veii and head for the undefended Rome (and our Worker), it might be better for them to attack Veii now that we (will) have 3 units in there for defence.
Good point. Given this anyone else have thoughts on whether to send the warrior out exploring now or not?

On the settler factory question, yes site A with the 2 game and lots of forest to chop to speed the granary would be better - I wasn't thinking ahead there. We will of course have to build a Settler to found a city there though....

Yes, timed with growth in Rome as I posted in my pre-turn checklist. ;)

Sorry just thinking out loud here and driving up our post count.

After rethinking whether to send out Rome's warrior given Furiey's comment. I'll wait for two turns, send spear to Veii and send one of it's warriors exploring.

Yes, timed with growth in Rome as I posted in my pre-turn checklist. ;)
Ah yes - goes away to clean her glasses..... :crazyeye:


I'll wait for two turns, send spear to Veii and send one of it's warriors exploring
Sounds a good plan - we'll know what has survived the Veii attack then and sending the Warrior from Veii will make up (a bit) for the few turns delay.

2550 bc (pre-turn): switch rome to spear, hit return

IBT: 3 French warriors appear on hill N of Veii

2510 bc (turn 1): move warrior into Veii

IBT: French warriors move to hill next to Veii

2470 bc (turn 2): Rome builds spear > next; send spear to worker near Veii; worker completes road < mine; fortify warrior in Veii

IBT: French warriors attack, 2 defeated and 1hp warrior left; we lose one warrior, one promoted

2430 bc (turn 2): archer kills French warrior; spear fortifies in Veii; warrior in Veii sent exploring NE

2390 bc (turn 3): archer N to hill on lookout for French; warrior NE toward mountains

2350 (turn 4): archer fortifies to heal; warrior NE

2310 bc (turn 5): Rome builds spear < settler; send spear toward Veii; warrior on mountains moving N; archer heals moves to NW hill;

2270 bc (turn 6): Veii build armamentarium < archer; warrior NE; archer N

IBT: two French warriors appear on hill 3 squares NE of Veii

2230 bc (turn 7): worker completes mine moves to next BG mines; archer moves back toward Veii; warrior NE

IBT: two French warriors move to track exploring warrior, they'll have a long chase, we have a 2 tile head start

2190 bc (turn 8): move warrior NE , archer N again

IBT: two French warriors move S again into fog toward Veii and worker

2150 bc (turn 9): learn writing set research to IW; archer N; warrior NE; Rome grows to pop 3 set lux to 10%

2110 bc (turn 10): archer N to pillage and scout; warrior N

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/world_pic.jpg

post-turn:
1. There are two reg French warriors NE of Veii. I noted on the pic my best guess as to their location. We have an archer due in Veii next turn so you might want to take a peak with him to see where they're at if they don't reappear.

2. The warrior NE is exploring, the archer N on a mission of pillaging and scouting

3. A settler is due in Veii, I would suggest sending it to location "A" from Furiey's RCP pic, noted on mine. Lux can be set to 0% again.

4. I started researching IW, counting on getting pottery from the next contacted civ or Greece, prior to DOW. I believe we have to declare on turn 3 (1990 bc) of the next player's turns.

5. The next player might want to consider at least one worker from Rome or Veii sometime during his/her turns.


Contact List
2800BC: France; dow 2800BC
1990BC: next dow


Zarth (next)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

PS: I just realised I played one turn too many. My apologies. I'll be more careful next time. I suppose we can just continue at 10 until we get back around and I'll play 9 the next time or the next player can play 9 to get us back on track.

Contact is established when you enter the diplomacy (trading) screen with an opponent. Diplomacy may be initiated by either the human player or the AI.

There may be a condition where 20 turns have elapsed since the last declaration of war but you have run out of opponents on your list becuase you have not yet met them. If you find yourself in this situation, then when you make your next contact you must declare war on them at the instant contact is made, as described in paragraph 1.
By these definitions I believe we don't have to declare war on Greece until the moment we "meet" them in diplomacy. Otherwise, we are allowed to go more than 20 turns without a declaration. Hopefully we can meet someone else before Greece calls up, and trade for pottery with an easier opponent.

By these definitions I believe we don't have to declare war on Greece until the moment we "meet" them in diplomacy. Otherwise, we are allowed to go more than 20 turns without a declaration. Hopefully we can meet someone else before Greece calls up, and trade for pottery with an easier opponent.
That's my interpretation as well. We can hold off opening diplomacy with Greece in the hope that we meet someone else first and not have to declare war. Once we have gone beyond 20 turns however we will have to declare War on the first Civ we contact (or contacts us) in diplomacy before we leave the diplomacy screen.

I am not very happy about the settler build, since it will drop us from pop 3 to pop 1. And we don't have an escort to send with the settler. IMHO it would have been much much better to build warrior plus 2 spears first. It might even better to waste 9 shields (2 precious turns of production) and switch to spear now. Opinions?

Min researching on iron working is an option, but I probably would have chosen otherwise: literature or mathematics. IMHO we have to trade for iron working soon and thus min research turns are a nearly complete waste. But other people may have different experiences and opinions.

Our next contact also has to give us pottery; we really need a granary in Rome.

And we want to claim the wheat in order to get a worker factory running.

PS: I agree with Furiey's view on dow.

Hmmm Settler build; we have 9 turns until Rome grows, if we switch to Spearman now (in 1) we could build another Spear (in another 3 turns) and a Settler (in another 5) which times the Settler to complete as Rome grows to 4, so it only drops back to pop 2. This would keep Rome at a productive level, but would delay our next city. With a 2nd war potentially starting in a few turns I'm not sure how wise it is to send out an unescorted Settler (not seen any barbarians yet either). Wasting shields always goes against the grain though.

We definitely need contacts for trade, we must be quite a long way behind in the tech race. We've only spent one turn on IW, so we wouldn't lose much switching now, we don't yet have Masonary so Maths isn't an option yet, Literature is a possibility though and would allow us to get the Great Library if we get a Great Leader. With our slow tech trade pace this could be key.

Since Zarth -- despite having been online -- didn't post a "got it" within 24 hours, Zwingli is free to do so instead.

oops, sorry guys

Got it!

0. 2110BC
switch from IW to literature
I press enter

IBT
Two french warriors appear E,NE of Veii

1. 2070
Rome finishes setler => spear
Veii archer => archer
I move a spear and the new archer out of Veii to greet the french warriors
Settler W W
exploring warrior N
offensive archer NE

2. 2030
Settler reaches site A
one warrior killed, our archer redlined
the other warrior is now on the hill N N of Rome. I move out the spear from veii to protect the redlined

archer. The other spear moves S to protect the worker. Luxuries to 20%
offensive archer N, sees Paris (size 1, regular spear)
exploring warrior N

3. 1990
Redlined archer and spear back in Veii, luxuries to 0%
Antium founded, start warrior
offensive archer W
exploring warrior N

IBT
offensive archer is attacked by french archer. French archer killed, exploring archer becomes elite with

full health.

4. 1950
offensive archer W
exploring warrior NW

IBT
exploring warrior lost to french archer

5. 1910
Veii archer => archer
one archer from Veii moves N, the other SE, luxuries to 20%
offensive archer SW

6. 1870
off. archer N
archer kills french warrior and becomes an elite, spear moves back into Veii, luxuries to 0%

IBT
greeks are building colossus

7. 1830
off. archer N, sees orange borderline.
archer N

IBT
offensive archer killed by french regular archer

8. 1790
Rome spear => worker
Antium warrior => worker
send regular warrior from Rome out to explore

9. 1750
Veii archer => archer

10. 1725
Rome worker => worker

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/tao_sgotm3_1725BC.JPG

I think we need to send out more warrior/archers/spears to explore. I suppose we're far behind in techs.

Sorry to hear that both our explorers got killed.

And: Where is the save?

Now that I could download the save, let me voice some opinions:
Shouldn't we build a settler in Veii instead of the archer? There seems to be no immediate threat and we need more cities in our inner ring. (Wheat.)
After the Antium worker, I would build barracks. We need vet units.
After chopping, irrigating, roading the forest, I would road the wines hill.

Of course, Zwingli may do as he likes. ;)

PS: As we are well beyond the 20 turns, we must declare war on the diplomacy meeting with the next civ.

PS: As we are well beyond the 20 turns, we must declare war on the diplomacy meeting with the next civ.

Hopefully we can get pottery at least from the trade beforehand, our current rate of population growth is painfull. Rome is at pop 1 and isn't due to grow for another 9 turns, which will hold up the Worker due in 4. We therefore need to change the worker to something else which at the moment means a unit. We also need to consider the timing of the forest chop (due in 5 with the one worker currently working) we're unlikely to have pottery in time for this chop but we need to make sure it doesn't go completely to waste. How much of the forest do we want to save to hurry granaries when we get pottery? Lets hope we can get another explorer up to meet the other Civ before the Greeks decide to contact us.

I will get to it as soon as I am able to download the save. Something seems to be wrong with the upload system at the moment.

Edit: I still can't read the download page, but I guessed the link location here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_BC1725_01.SAV)

1725 (0)
I don’t like depending on another contact for pottery, and want to avoid wasting the forest chop, so I switch research to pottery wasting 10 turns of minimum reseach (~10g) and crank it to maximum due in 5 turns. I shuffle the troops so that a spear/warrior pair can do some serious damage to France in a few turns.

1700 (1)
Move the northern archer to avoid confrontation with a French archer and head for the border.

1675 (2)
Avoid French archer again, and a stack of a spear, warrior, and archer head toward Paris. I think we have a chance of reaching the hidden border

1650 (3)
Same troop movement. The forest chop completes and contributes to Rome’s settler (soon to be granary) build. Antium completes worker who goes to the game forest for chopping, and the workers south of Rome begin improving the other game square. Antium starts barracks.

1625 (4)
Veii grows, and needs additional lux tax. Troop movement continues new contact should be in 2 turns, and pottery is due in 1 turn.

IBT- We learn pottery and switch Rome to granery

1600 (5)
Research is started on Masonry to open the possibility of a leader rushed Pyramids, but only at minimum since we may soon trade for it. Veii completes settler who heads south for position F (we currently don’t have the troops to guard a new city on the frontier, and this is the safest). The northern archer should be able to contact “orange” next turn.

1575 (6)
The northern archer climbs the mountain and the border is fully visible, but still no contact. Maybe next turn. French archers have stopped pursuing our northern archer, and are headed south.

1550 (7)
We contact England! :thumbsup: Unfortunately, they are ahead of us by all visible techs, and have contact with Babylon, America, Russia, and Germany. This is the perfect opportunity to set the order of our future wars, broker for tech, and make Greece be the last opponent to face.

Contact #2
I ask England what they want for Territory Map plus Contact with America. They say 90g + WM, and being Xenophobic I accept without negotiation. Upon leaving negotiations I inform Elizabeth that we are at war.

Contact #3
I call up Lincoln putting him on the chopping block in 20 turns, he asks for 70g for contact with Russia or Babylon, but 80g for contact with Germany (unfortunately, we can’t trade maps because they lack MapMaking). Since Russia is non-militarist and has no ancient age unique unit, I decide to buy their contact info next.

Contact #4
Since contacts reduce the cost of tech, I decide to go ahead and purchase all contacts before starting on tech and call up Russia. They are willing to give contact with Germany for all our 29g + 2gpt, I exit diplomacy, and their time will come in 40 turns.

Contact #5
I call up Germany next and ask what they want for they want for contact with Babylon. They ask for 3gpt and I accept, putting Germany on the block in 60 turns.

Contact #6
Next, I contact Babylon and am pleased to see that they lack Writing. I ask them what they will give for Writing, and they give Ceremonial Burial + Masonry + 3g. We don’t trust these foreigners, but grudgingly accept the proposed deal vowing to punish Babylon in 80 turns.

Contact #7
Last of all, I call up Greece for a diplomatic meeting. They won’t give us a price for any of their current techs (Iron, Mysticism, and Wheel), so we simply tack them on at the end of the list in 100 turns.

Meanwhile, we are still at war with France, and we move the archer, warrior, and spearman stack next to Paris. I simply turn off research as I think our best shot at minimum research is Polytheism, and that will require purchasing Mysticism.

IBT- A French archer attacks our spearman near Paris across a river, and dies without doing us damage.

1525 (8)
The stack moves to pillage French silks and cripple Paris (which seems to be whipped already). The northern archer moves to join the stack.

1500 (9)
I move the stack near Paris to join with another archer, and move the settler toward the wheat position now that we know we won’t have to fight Greece for awhile. We have just enough funds, so I purchase Mysticism from Greece for 13g + 4gpt (asking price). Minimum science started on Polytheism, and we have no income or money (but more on the way once we found the city). Veii switches to granery, as the archer due next turn would otherwise bankrupt us (we have 12 of 12 supported units).
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_1500bc_parisseige.JPG
We will have 2 archers, 1 regular warrior, and a vet spear in position around Paris. This is not enough to ensure victory, but we should be able to damage the French economy at least. I only play 9 turns to bring us back on track.

Edit: I still can't access the uploads page correctly, so I'll attach the save for now.

Got it. And had a first look at it.

What I like: We now have the list of contacts and hence know when to declare war on whom.
England is a good 2nd opponent, since they are weak in the AA, likewise America.
We still have an unblemished reputation.
Getting pottery will spur our growth.

What I don't like: We are bancrupt and can't buy iron working, should the need arise.
We don't even know the wheel and thus don't know where horses are.
Greece is last on our list, but we may want to fight them earlier to expand eastwards.
You voided our min research on literature; it would have given us the chance for a good trading. Now we are doomed to research on our own.
The chopped Antium forest will be completely wasted, because the 10 shields will coincide with the regular production.
We can't hope for a Great Leader to give us the Great Library, because we won't learn literature "soon".
The min research on polytheism is assured to fail. I will spend some thoughts on how to continue.
Maybe still try literature.
Maybe switch Antium armamentarium to granarium and make this city our settler/worker factory.

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: dow on America
590BC: dow on Russia
190BC: dow on Germany
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece

Since nobody knows them, it seems to be a safe assumption that Aztecs, Iroquois, India, and Japan are on (an) other continent(s). Should we aim to get map making and use suicide galleys for getting contact and trading opportunities? It would sure give us a boost.

1500BC (pre-turn) research to literature; Antium to granarium, Veii to archer

IBT 2 French archers approach pillaging party

1475BC (1) Veii b archer s spear; Cumae founded near wheat s warrior
kill both French archers, 1 promotion to elite; worker pillages, spear moves

IBT Germans s building Oracle

1450BC (2) pillage
Greece, Russia, Germany, know map making
Germany knows code of laws
Greece gives the wheel for wm, 3gpt, 2g
we are totally broke again, but see horses directly S of Antium: good
Russia gives tm for wm, and we learn about their puny size1 cities
Germany gives tm, 12g for wm
Greece gives tm for wm, 5g and we learn about their territory

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_1450bc.jpg

1425BC (3) pillage
Greece, Babylon, Russia, Germany know map making
Greece, Babylon, Russia, Germany know code of laws
Babylon knows polytheism
all know iw and hbr

1400BC (4) pillage

IBT Alexander extorts our 7g and tm; his time will come :mad:

1375BC (5) pillage, trade some tm, sell tm for 1g to Babylon to cover our 1gpt deficit for next turn
switch Cumae to moenia (no maintenance)

IBT 1 French, 2 English units approach pillaging party

1350BC (6) Veii b spear s archer; Cumae b moenia s worker
pillage and withdraw from 3 English warriors, 1 French archer
Hammu again covers our deficit for wm

IBT French archer dies in promoting our spear to elite

1325BC (7) elite archer kills English warrior; scientist in Antium to prevent riot and balance budget with 0% research

IBT archer(fortified on mountain) defeats French colleague, promotes to elite, looses 2 hit points

1300BC (8) elite spear continues pillage tour; other troops withdraw towards Veii
England knows literature and starts Great Library

1275BC (9) AIs learn/exchange lots of techs; pillage Paris' mine

1250BC (10) continue withdraw pull 3 French warriors behind us; once they are in the desertus, we will attack; warrior detours SW to explore; send spear to Antium.
Ask Greek warrior to leave, Alex says yes, but I doubt he will comply.

My thoughts on how to continue:
Monitor America for them learning map making: trade maps once they know it.
In 8 turns, our gpt deals expire and we have the 12 gpt for trades; a lot will depend on this trading round.
Attack French/English units once they are in the open; hope for Great Leader.
Once Rome is size 4, it can build settlers. Once Antium is connected fire scientist; and it has granary build settlers/workers. We have to claim the land towards Greece first, because we don't want to war with them.

PS: I uploaded both Zwingli's and my save.

PPS: Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: dow on America
590BC: dow on Russia
190BC: dow on Germany
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece

Furiey (next)
Demiurge
Zarth
Zwingli
tao (just played)

Got it.

I note that I have a war declaration coming up in my turns - hopefully I can trade maps with America before then.

Annoying that the Greeks have built Pharsalos where they have. With Alex extorting already and that trespassing Warrior, I can see that we could well be at war on that front before their official time. I hope not, they Americans may be a way off, but we are going to have to start disposing of our opponents or we will have too much to handle at once.

@tao: how far behind are the French Warriors?

@tao: how far behind are the French Warriors?They will appear 2 tiles behind IBT.

Thanks for posting the pics, I haven't been able to look at a sav for a while what with the site problems.

Just opened this one and it looks like we learned a lot about our starting landmass on that last set of turns. :goodjob: We also learned that Greece will have to go far sooner than I would like, we need IW something fierce and Joan is on the ropes. The placement of Pharsalos was definately a blow, losing all that prime beef. Our legioneers should make quick work though of claiming what is rightfully ours. If we declare on the Greeks earlier, can we change the list to the following for example?

Contact list:
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: dow on America
590BC: dow on Russia
190BC: dow on Greece
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Germany

...or do we have to still declare on Germany in 190 bc?

Four elites already! That's good news. Leaders should be plentiful this game if we work it right. Let's keep rotating those vets to the front for promotions.

To throw my two cents in, I would advise caution with Liz. She probably has a good size force by now. You might want to move those elite archers and a spear on the mountain range between us and near enough to Paris to keep an eye on both the English and French troops.

The placement of Pharsalos was definately a blow, losing all that prime beef.The RCP4 position is just N of the cattle. Still available, but ....
If we declare on the Greeks earlier, can we change the list to the following for example?No. The dow list is cast in stone. Any additional wars are just that: additional.

looking at settling sites: the original position for C has turned out to be a mountain, E is within Greek territory. F is still available. C2 and E2 move the sites 1 W, keeping them both on the river still, not sure how much of a good idea E2 would be, we'd need some culture there.

Looking further ahead, the position of the coastline gives a second ring of 7. I've very quickly dropped a load of cities at this spacing as well, I'll update this tomorrow.

With regard to the war declarations, I believe the order is now set, and if we pull one of the later civs forward, we still have to declare on the others at the original times.

not sure how much of a good idea E2 would be, we'd need some culture there.

And it just might tick the Greeks off enough to declare on us. I'd rather time that one ourselves.

Of the RCP 7 sites, "j" and "a" look promising, but I'd probably go for "c" first.

Looking at F11, we are 3rd in "literacy" meaning that two other civs have literature (these are Greece and England). This means that our continent is the first to literature, and with only 4 civs on the other continent it is rather likely that the Library will be built on our continent for us to capture. We could potentially stop buying or researching tech after the key techs of Monarchy, Ironworking, Horseback Riding and Mathmatics, and count on a Library capture (it is probably best to build some research infrastructure just in case). No one on this continent is working on the Pyramids yet, so that wonder will probably be built on the other continent unless we get a leader.

Unfortuntely if the Great Library is built by anyone but us, being Xenophobic we will have to destroy it when we capture and raze the city. If we get a leader, a trade for Literature will be a priority.

Of the RCP 7 sites, "j" and "a" look promising, but I'd probably go for "c" first.The "c" site on a hill with moenia (walls) might become a very good stronghold against enemies coming from the north, provided we put enough defense and counterattack forces in it. Also some catapults once we know mathematics.

I would next settle directly on the condimentum wasting 1g but leaving the tile NW of the river for another RCP7 city without too much overlap. And we need the happiness (emperor = 1 content +2 from mp +2 from luxuries +1 from 10% lux) to reach even pop 6 without spending too much money for happiness.

The (retreating) spear E of Paris might find another good location N of Cumae.

And I agree with Furiey, that the Great Library would be a tremendeous asset, since we are technologically backward. The GL will allow us to cope until we have a big enough research capability in the Middle Ages.

1250 BC(Turn 0): Look around; press button.

IBT: English Warriors follow our withdrawing troops; 2 French Archers appear on montis S of Paris; Greek Warrior as expected does not withdraw and goes N.

1225 BC(Turn 1): Cumae: Worker > Granarium; Continue drawing English Warriors into the desert – they’ll be off the montis on to the collis next turn; Spear moves to Antium; fire scientist, up research to 10%; Spear E of Paris starts to explore S.

IBT: English Warriors continue S, 2 more appear to their N; French Archers move S; English complete the Oracle in London; Babylonians and Germans start the Pyramids; Greek Warrior N.

1200 BC(Turn 2):. 2nd Cumae Worker completes irrigation, first starts road; Antium connected, Worker moves to connect Horses; irrigation on Antium Cervus completed, worker moves NE to BG; troops position themselves ready for the approaching English;

IBT: English Warriors move into desertus; Greek Warrior N.

1175 BC(Turn 3):. Rome Spear to Settler (pop 4, grow in 5, settler in 5); new Rome Spear fortifies to await Settler; troops fortifiy in position – the English get it next turn; Worker starts roading horses, the other mining BG; Cumae Worker joins the other roading; Exploring spear moves S along mountains; America still hasn’t got map making.

IBT: Greek Warrior N out of our territory; English Warriors in desertus.

1150 BC(Turn 4):. Veii: Archer > Spearman; fortify new Archer in Veii; Cumae workers NW to irrigate; exploring Spear S; kill 1st Warrior with Elite Archer – Archer 4/5 no leader; 2nd Elite Archer dies, Warrior redlined; 3rd Elite Archer lost, Warrior 2/3; Our Warrior attack 2/3 Warrior and dies, English Warrior promoted 2/4 – we obviously need to pray harder to the RNG gods.

IBT: Spot Russian Scout several NE of Corinth; Americans are building the Colossus; Injured English Warriors retreat, the 2 fresh ones advance; 2 French Archers appear on the collis 2N, 1NE of Veii

1125 BC(Turn 5):. defeat one English Warrior with remaining Elite Archer, now 2/5; Spear continues exploring from Paris to Cumae, spotting 2 Greek Warriors; send Spear from Rome to defend Veii.

IBT: We complete the road bringing Equinus into Rome; uninjured English Warrior S, injured ones fortify to heal – nothing we can do about it – retreat injured Archer to Veii; French Archers approach Veii, another appears as well;

1100 BC(Turn 6):. Antrium: Granary > Settler; America finally has MM but wants all our gold plus 1 gpt for their TM! If our reputation is going to be ruined might as well wait until just before we declare and pay as little of the gpt as possible; Spearman arrives in Veii; exploring Spear spot a Hoplite following the 2 Greek Warriors – are they heading for France?; Cumae Workers head to start roading to site F in preparation for Rome Settler; Worker that completed road to Equinus joins Working mining BG – should get it finished before English Warriors arrive if they go that way.

IBT: a total of 3 Greek Warriors and 1 Hoplite now appear to be heading for France; Healed English Warriors now also approach Veii; first 2 French Warriors now in attack range.

1075 BC(Turn 7):. Hire a scientist to stop rioting in Veii, adjust so growth and Settler production is better timed; kill 1 French Archer, no promotion, do not attack second as do not want to leave unit exposed for approaching 3rd French Archer. The land N of Cumae does not look that good. We can now afford Lincoln’s TM, buy it for the 28 gold he asks for.

IBT: English Warriors approach Veii and others head for Antrium?; French Archer approaches Veii

1050 BC(Turn 8):. Rome: Settler > Spear; Veii: Spear> Settler; Greeks start Great Library; kill 1 French Archer, promoting the other to Elite (3/5); look around for trade deals, but only 3gpt has expired, still running are the deals with Greece for 4gpt (expires in 2) and (3gpt (expires in 4). For the 6gpt that we have we can get Philosophy (WM, 6gpt, 3g) or HBR (WM, 5gpt, 3g). If we do the trade with Lincoln our reputation goes and no more gpt deals which could make life difficult at the moment. Decide not to trade at the moment, it may be possible to get more when the 4gpt deal expires in 2 turns. Declare war on America

IBT: English Units approach Veii

1025 BC(Turn 9):. Elite Archer dies redlining English Warrior; change Granarium in Cumae to Armamentarium – everywhere is else is growing quickly – we need more units; move Settler to F.

IBT: English Warrior dies attacking our Spearman in Veii, redlining it but promoting it to Elite; injured English Warrior moves off, 3rd English Warrior fortifies; French Archer attacks killing our newly promoted Spear.

1000 BC(Turn 10):. Cumae: Armamentarium > Spearman; kill fortified English Warrior and French Archer with Archers from Veii; found Neapolis, set Armamentarium (for now anyway); move workers (both pairs) to BG.

Scores: Greece 282, Babylon 278, America 269, England 268,Germany 232, Russia 224, France 212, Rome - 208
Treasury: 18 gold + 18 gpt, Literature due in 20

Post-turn:
Not a happy set of turns with the RNG against me – Elite Archers losing to Regular Warriors in the desertus. Antrium has a scientist and Veii has just been given a taxman as the Archers moved out when they killed the English Warrior and French Archer, it may be better to use a bit of lux slider. With our gpt trades expiring we now have 18gpt to play with. I have not carried out any trades this turn – thought it would be better to leave it for discussion.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_BC1000_01.SAV)

America 1075 AD:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/tao_sgotm3_BC1075_America.jpg

1000 BC

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/tao_sgotm3_BC1000_map.jpg

Bad luck is bad luck and there is nothing you can do about it.

On trading. Greece offers the best deal (wm, 18g, 8gpt) for mathematics. And that we can then trade to Babylon. Question: What do we want? horseback riding?
both if we can afford them?
polytheism? or leave that as a next step?
IMHO we should claim the equinus/cervus spot N of Cumae with our 2nd settler (after the condimentum).

Should the settler in Veii be built in another town with a granary? Since Veii is relatively low food and high shields, perhaps it should stay on military while Rome switches to settler. If we raise lux tax (firing the specialists) and shift Rome over to the game tile, both Rome and Antium will make decent 6-turn settler factories (with Rome squeezing in occasional warriors and Antium making occasional workers). Likewise, Cumea can be shifted from forest (silva) to the improved plains tile to increase growth without loss of uncorrupted shields.

As far as technology, I like the plan of buying Math and trading for another tech with Babylon (maybe ironworking to see iron or HBR for immediate better troops?) If we get Math, I would switch Neapolis from barracks to catapult to improve our combat luck. Neapolis can be converted to a catapult/worker factory without need of an additional barracks. Veii and Cumea can supply the bulk of our veteran military needs with their current barracks, and paying support for too many buildings can eventually slow down research.

In the long term, once we have more workers it may be a good idea to start building a road north toward our future opponents to speed the eventual offensive.

I have not checked all the potential trades, but eg: IW is available from the Greeks for WM, 6gpt and 18gold or IW and Lit (or IW and Maths) for WM, 15gpt and 18g so I would guess most of the techs are available if we want them and we may be able to get something for the techs the others do not have. This is going to take some thinking about.

As to who has what available for trade:
all now have IW, Phil, CoL, MM, HBR, Poly
All but France has Lit,
All but France and Babylon has Maths

I wonder what Babylon would give us for Maths

Before the archers moved out of Veii it was set to be size 5 one turn before the settler was produced, so dropping back to 3 wouldn't have been a problem. If the archers move back next turn allowing the taxman to be put back to work the growth to 5 will coincide with the settler production giving a pop of 3.

Cumae - argh - it was on the improved plains tile - must have knocked it when I was going round the cities before I saved.

I will update the dotmap tonight when I get back home from work, with the granaries, the cities are growing very quickly, settling on the condimentum will certainly help keep things in order.

IMHO we should get math from Greece first, and then ask Babylon what they want for iron working. Check whether we get a package deal bonus including hbr or not.

A lot will depend on whether we have iron. OTOH I would very very much prefer to delay our Golden Age (triggered by legionaries) until we are out of despotism. With catapults and horsemen, this should be possible.

We have to claim the condimentum for happiness asap. And next I would urgently settle the free spot N of Cumae, before the Greeks arrive. Thus I would keep Veii on settler build. Rome should build one also after the spear.

After the settler, Antium should be a 2 turn worker factory for at least (!) 3 more workers to improve all our worked tiles plus build the strategic roads needed (connect Veii and Antium over the hills, build a road staight N from Neapolis, towards the new town N of Cumae).

I also want to repeat the suggestion of founding another town on the hill N N NE of Veii as a stronghold against approaching enemies.

I would continue min research on literature, simply because there is no better option and we are nearly half done. We then need some libraries, because we will have to research a lot on our own and the culture will also be welcome.

Got it. Well not really, I'm at work. I'll check in and add my pre-turn thoughts when I get off.

Mark 2, we still need to expose some more tiles.

IMHO we should settle the 3 mauve spots: on the condimentum
claiming cervus (game) and in the future bombyx (silks)
northern stronghold
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/tao_sgotm3_BC1000_rings2.jpg

IMHO we should settle the 3 mauve spots: on the condimentum
claiming cervus (game) and in the future bombyx (silks)
northern stronghold


hopefully the Settlers in Antium and Veii can get spots 1 and 3
spot 2 - I moved site d backwards and forwards between where I left it and your spot 2, and eventually left it at d as with a bit of culture it could possibly grab a bombyx before we destroy Corinth. I'm interested why you picked the mauve spot.

I'll pay what Greece asks for math and ask Babylon what they want for IW, for HBR and for IW and HBR. If we can afford it I plan to pay/trade what Babylon asks for IW and HBR...if not should I try for IW or HBR? HBR will help delay our GA and give us a better unit than archers, but the location of iron could make a huge difference in our gameplan.

As far as settling goes, I too like 1, 2 and 3 in that order. This may change though depending on the location of iron.

I'll leave the settler build in Veii and start a settler in Rome after the spear build. I don't think I'll give Rome the game just yet. Antium will need it to produce the much needed workers quickly. Rome may be able to share the game, but I'll have to see how that affects worker builds in Antium when the time comes.

1000 bc (pre-turn): Ask what Greece wants for math, WM, 15gpt and 18g, I take it; ask what Babylon wants for IW and HBR, WM, +6gpt, I take it; we now are at +3gpt and 0g; we have ferrum (iron) on the hill 1 tile SE of the vinum (wines) near Rome; MM Cumae to irrigated plain; temporarily up lux to 10% so Veii gets growth and settler in 5; leave scientist in Antium. It would grow faster but due to corruption the settler can't come for 3 turns; hit return

IBT: Babylon building GL; redlined English warrior fortifies on hill

975 bc (turn 1): fortify spear in Veii and move two wounded archers in to heal; move two workers near Antium to forest to connect condimentum (spices); 1 worker near Rome mine BG, 1 worker moving to ferrum; spear near Corinth explores some waiting for settler; lux back to 0% since archers are now in Veii; now at +4gpt, 1 gold

IBT: fortified English warrior now at 2hp; Russians, German and Americans are building GL

950 bc (turn 2): Rome builds spear < settler, growth and settler in 5; fortify both archers in Veii to heal; workers start roading forest near condimentium; spear near Corinth continues exploring; MM Veii for growth, settler in 3; Rome spear moved to Antium, Antium spear to workers roading forest

IBT: English warrior now at 3hp; hoplite moves to mountain near worker on ferrum

925 bc (turn 3): Antium builds settler < worker, settler moved to forest near condimentium; worker on ferrum starts road; spear near Corinth explores; we ask the Greeks to leave our territory they say they will; assign scientist in Corinth temporarily

IBT: English warrior completely heals; Hoplite moves NW of Corinth

900 bc (turn 4): Archers in Veii are healed, move spear to hill N of Veii hoping warrior will move off hill before archers attack or die attacking spear; settler moves to condimentium; we are now at +7gpt, 19g, no civ will sell us poly yet

IBT: English warrior doesn't move, more troops coming?

875 bc (turn 5): Antium builds settler < horseman, send settler to meet spear and heading for bombyx (silks); build Pompeii on condimentum < warrior; workers finish roading forest, move to BG near Antium; fire scientist in Corinth, rehire in Antium, worker still due in 1; since the English warrior isn't attacking or moving, move spear back into Veii

IBT: Greeks are building pyramids; hoplite moves out of our territory, heading toward bombyx; Athens completes Colossus; Americans are building GL, they must have switched a build from Colossus because I got a popup earlier stating that they were building the GL

850 bc (turn 6): Antium builds worker < next, sent to join worker mining BG near Neapolis; fire scientist in Antium to get next worker in 2, hire one in Corinth, they just grew to 3 and won't affect the spear due in 1;

IBT: English spear appears N of Antium, probably on a mission of pillaging

825 bc (turn 7): Rome builds settler < horse, settler waits for spear in Corinth; Corinth build spear < spear, spear moves to Rome to join settler; worker pair near Neapolis completes mine, roads; Archer in Rome moves to Antium, it now has spear, archer and warrior to take care of spear; move spear in Antium to fortify on game, now across the river from English spear

IBT: English spear moves across river to unimproved grass near workers mining BG and Antium; Tenochtitlan (Aztecs) completes pyramids

800 bc (turn 8): Antium builds worker < next, send worker to Rome with a goal of starting road toward bombyx; had to cancel the workers mining BG near Antium because of the English spear, I don't think I can kill him yet; no harm of pillaging where he's at; move settler/spear in Rome toward hill between FP to the N

IBT: English spear moves to forest N of Pompeii; English warrior moves to hill N of Veii, English horse appears and moves to game near Veii; French spear appears at the edge of the fog between Veii and Antium; Babylonians and Germans are building GL

775 bc (turn 9): Rome and Antium switched to archers; Neapolis builds armamentium < horse; workers near Neapolis complete road move to next BG; settler pairs continue toward new city sites, worker completes roading ferrum, moves to BG S of Rome; archer in Antium moves to Pompeii; worker pair on hill near Antium move to road; Greece has no iron, they will now sell us poly for almost everything we have, will wait for discussion; I hesitate to hit return with all the troops around but there is no chance we can lose a city

IBT: English warrior attacks Veii, spear promoted to elite; English horse near Veii fortifies; English spear in forest N of Pompeii moves to horses; three French archers move to hill 2 tiles from Veii; English are building the hanging gardens

750 bc (turn 10): Veii switched to spear; 3 workers near Rome start mining both BGs; archer in Pompeii decides to attack English spear on horses, redlines, promoted to elite; workers near Antium move back to BG to mine; settler pair finally reaches hill near game and bombyx (settle site); settler pair headed to N hill moves deeper into mountains to avoid French archers

Our world:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/pix.jpg

Post-turn:
1. There are two settle pairs out. The one near Corinth is on it's city site, the other pair is headed to the hill between the two FPs in the N

2. The bad news is there are quite a few foreign units moving in, the good news is I think you have enough troops on the way to deal with what we can currently see. There are probably more on the way so more military is a priority at this point. We can now build legioneers, but I didn't start building any yet to delay our GA. We may want to rethink this.

3. All civs want poly for WM, +8gpt and 69g, leaving us with +1gpt.

4. Just realised Pompeii got switched from warrior to worker when legioneers became available. Probably should be switched to armamentarium.

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: dow on Russia
190BC: dow on Germany
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece


Zarth (next)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

Good outcome on the trades :thumbsup:
Perhaps Pompeii can work on some catapults since it can't build a warrior? Catapults really help if the AI is sending large quantities of units.

Note: I will be without civ or internet access on Sunday, but if I am up that day I will get to it Monday evening (local time).

Your right, catapults are a better choice for Pompeii.

Revisited the sav and Antium should probably build a few more workers after the archer. I switched it to an archer because it looked like we were going to need some offensive units fast.

I would not make the polytheism deal yet. In case we get a Great Leader (IMHO we really really need it) we must have the money to trade for literature and build the Great Library.

And I would build horsemen in Rome, Veii, and Antium! In 2 turns, Antium will need/should get the scientist to prevent riots and Cumae can increase production.

And I agree that Antium should build a couple more workers after the horse.

Good luck Zarth, we need the Leader. ;)

Edit/add: Thinking again: why not build another settler to go e.g. N-N-W of Veii and defend against any "desert hordes"? Size is power and every town supports 4 units. And we will need a lot of units.

got the game, i'll get to it today!

There was a question about towns flipping to you in the sign up thread. Sorry it took such a long time to respond, but I no longer subscribe to this thread. I need to kill it.

I have to confess to my lack of knowledge here. If a town flips, then do the citizens within it retain their old nationality, or will they become Roman (in this case)?

The test is simple. If a town contains foreign nationals it must be abandoned, otherwise you may keep it.

I'm pretty sure they do not retain their original nationality but we should double check to make certain if, and that's a big if, we get a flip in our favor.

I am sure you have noticed my inactivity in this discussion thread.
I cant find the time to play SGOTM3. Things in real life have a priority over Civ. So I am dropping out. I am sorry I leave you with one less player (though i havent been much help anyway).

It looks like I'm up then. Got it.

>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_BC0550_01.SAV)

Good Timing

750 (0)
Antium switches to settler, Pompeii switches to catapult. Veii and Rome switch to horsemen.

IBT- Russia joins England in alliance and declares war on us. We will probably still be at war in 590 BC. 3 French archers reach Veii.

730 (1)
2 archers in the French stack are destroyed. We have some war happiness from the Russian declaration and are able to eliminate the specialists (min science continues). Found Pisea on the current location.

IBT- French archer and English horse attack Veii and are destroyed.

710 (2)
Move a warrior to guard from pillaging French spear

IBT- Greece moves archers through our territory, and may be at war with another civ.

690 (3)
Elite archer chases off an English horseman. Horsemen continue to be constructed in Rome in Veii. Move a spear out of Antium to prevent our workers from being captured by French spear.

IBT- French spear moves to cover our horse resource, Antium riots due to loss of police.

670 (4)
Elite archer attacks the French spear on flat ground, but loses. A horseman finishes the spear, and another horseman defeats an English horse in the north. We build Ravenna.

IBT- We get the Forbidden Palace message. An English horse retreats to our spear in Veii

650 (5)
We defeat the retreated horse with an Elite archer.

630 (6)
Spears, archers, horsemen, and our freshly built setter advance toward a forward defensive site.

610 (7)
Antium builds a worker. Troops continue to push forward

590 (8)
More horsemen complete, and we inform Russia that the current war will continue indefinitely.

570 (9)
More movement. Settler is almost in position.

550 (10)
Our setter moves into place to form our desert defensive site. A regular English spearman is next to the future city site, and our elite archer attacks...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_550bc_leader.jpg
Literature is 1 turn away, and the leader cannot make it to any city on this turn, so I will let min sci continue. We should found a city where the settler stands and rush the Great Library next turn in the city. The culture from the Great Library will give us a large boundary for advance warning of approaching hostile forces. Assuming no one completes the Library next turn, we will get Monarchy from the Great Library and should trigger a GA soon afterward. I have switched a couple cities to Legions in order to have a trigger ready after Anarchy.

@Zarn: sorry to see you go.

@Zwingli: I just got up at 6 a.m. , looked at the forum, and you made my day! :D ;)

I will play tomorrow the latest.

Another early look in (should be getting ready for work) and

Woo Hoo!!!!! [dance]

I managed to play already:

550 (preturn)
switch Antium to worker, Neapolis to catapult

530 (1)
we learn literature, Hispalis is founded and Trajan hurries the Great Library
kill American warrior; research to 0

IBT
Bismarck wants 27g and we tell him to shove it; he caves in :)
Great Library in Hispalis; Hanging Gardens in Babylon, Great Lighthouse in Berlin
more Greek troops move west; war with England?

510 (2)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_GLib.jpg

IBT
Russia offers peace, if we pay 100g; no way
Great Library gives us philosophy, col, map making, polytheism, currency, republic, monarchy and we revolt

490 (3)
Rome riots; 1 clown, 4 taxmen to keep our cities quiet
we will have only 2 turns of anarchy :)
Babylon gives wm, 12g for republic and we know our continent plus another empty land mass in the East (regionally intense Barbarians?)
incense, gems, and furs will become available once we conquered them all
Bismarck (still despotism) gives his 1g for tm; Alexander 2g for wm
switch Pompeii to galley for suicide runs

IBT Liz offers peace, if we pay 80g; no way

470 (4)
some AIs are in the Middle Ages, some mm
no (known) Great Wonder builds

IBT
GL gives us construction and monotheism
our western horse watches fighting between America and Greece; nice

450 (5)
Roman monarchy established; mm cities
horse kills Russian archer, captures settler, disband 2 workers

430 (6) zzz

IBT French sword attacks Ravenna legionary and starts our Golden Age

410 (7)
mm according to GA
several Greek units die attacking Houston; we watch and enjoy

IBT another French sword dies at Ravenna's walls

390 (8)
send settler south

IBT
English horse dies attacking our's
English galley seen on the coast
Babylon and Berlin start Great Wall

370 (9)
workers work, units move, some mm
Hammurabi gives wm, 4g for wm
Bismarck gives wm, 2g for wm
our horses try to block a Babylonian settler on the northwest coast until our settler from Antium is ready

350 (10)
galley starts north
settlers move

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_350bc.jpg

Notes:
The Great Library gave us a great boost. Now we should be able to win without too much nail biting. We just need to build some libraries in time!
Our Golden Age will help us to expand further. As you can see, we need more cities to pay for our army. And we want our army to grow!

We run 10% lux to prevent Rome from rioting.

I setup a queue in Pisae to build warriors until we can lineup growth with a worker build. The warriors should be moved to Cumae for legion upgrades. Afterwards library to claim the bombyx (silks).

IMHO the southern settler should found on the spot and the town should build a harbor. The NW settler IMHO should settle on the hill NW of its current position (missing the wheat), but it gives better defense and we can put another town NE-NE-NE to build a strong defensive line on the hills.

We still need more workers for both tile improvements and our strategic roads (connect Pisae, etc.).

You may notice, that I favored irrigation over mines, but my philosophy is that growth is power. Thus I also would cut the forest NW of Pompei sooner or later to irrigate the tile.

The Greeks continue to attack Houston, which is fine.

Once we have a little more units, we will visit Smolensk, I suppose.

The galley might move 1 or 2 turns more N before going on its run westward. If we can get a contact monopoly, we are set for the first half of the Middle Ages.

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: dow on Russia (they already declared 730BC)
190BC: dow on Germany
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece

Great Leaders: 1
Slaves disbanded: 2
Cities razed: 0

Furiey (next)
Demiurge
Zarth (resigned)
Zwingli
tao (just played)

I wrote a short summary in the first spoiler and rediscovered ;) what i said in the beginning: 8. Since we are not pangea, contact with other civs is delayed until we have conquered our continent.
9. The Great Library will give us also lots of Middle Age techs once we contact the off-continent civs, Should we start suicide runs or not?

Wow...What a productive two turns. Went to bed last night and it was still 750 bc, woke up this morning and imagine my surprise. Can't wait to get home and look at the sav.

I vote for sending out the suicide galleys. I can't for the life of me see a negative to it.

Got it.

I note that I have to declare war on Germany in 190 BC.

Suicide galleys: the only reason not to could be to delay any further war declarations until later, but we want to get the most out of the Great Library, and if we do have to declare then they're not going to bother us much anyway. Suicide galleys here we come! I don't think we should ignore the apparently unoccupied continent off the coast of Greece though.

Suicide galleys: the only reason not to could be to delay any further war declarations until later, but we want to get the most out of the Great Library,...The reason to delay contact is that the great Library MIGHT give you many more techs beyond education, if you contact civs knowing them all late in the Middle Ages. We would have to research the lower part of the tech tree towards military tradition in the meantime and hope that the civs on our continent are slowed in their research due to the ongoing war, with us and among each other.
I don't think we should ignore the apparently unoccupied continent off the coast of Greece though.Please allow me to disagree. It will be low in production and IMHO is barbarian ridden. Let us conquer our continent first.

We should expand south to not leave any more room for the Greeks while they are busy fighting America and maybe others. We should send an exploring horse, followed by about 3 more settlers. A site covering both games should be very good. And by the coastal fish. And by the cattle.

The next Great Leader will probably build Sun Tzu's, or if he appears early, an army enabling us to build Heroic Epic. But Sun Tzu's would be of tremendeous value.

Our Forbidden Palace might go north of Nottingham or at the current Babylon location to give maximum value.

We should get a Leader flood, once fighting really starts. Hopefully.

The reason to delay contact is that the great Library MIGHT give you many more techs beyond education, if you contact civs knowing them all late in the Middle Ages.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this only works if you don't know education prior to meeting the other civs. Given where we are now I suspect the GL will give us education before we meet them.

Let us conquer our continent first.


On this I absoulutely agree, I was thinking of if we could spare a galley to map the borders rather than settle. Get one through the Greek waters before we have to declare war on them. I don't suppose it will be a safe route through to the other civs though otherwise the AI would already have gone there and we would have met them by now. mind you, they haven't mapped much of the coast there either! If it is barbarian ridden, perhaps we can divert their resources into attemping to settle there while we concentrate on our own continent.

On this I absoulutely agree, I was thinking of if we could spare a galley to map the borders rather than settle..... If it is barbarian ridden, perhaps we can divert their resources into attemping to settle there while we concentrate on our own continent.Them stupid AIs have an irresistable urge to go kill barbarians. (That also was my thinking at first when all the Greek units moved west.) But since we have the Great Library, we should get AI WMs in trades and I see no really compelling reason to send out/risk any galleys. But you may decide on how you play your turns, of course.

Since you are down to four players, I would just like to let you know that I can replace Zarth with an emperor level player if you would like.

You are under no pressure either way, and you can respond be PM if you wish. If I get no answer I will assume you are happy as you are. :)

I'll leave it up to our team leader to officially reply, but as far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier.

350 BC(Turn 0): Look around, note Pisae queue, leave research at zero to at least get the 1st line techs of the GL before considering whether to start the MT research route. Press button.

IBT: Russian Archers approach Ravenna and 1 dies attacking Greek Warrior who goes W; Greeks continue to head for Houston; Bablonian Settler SE; English Archers appear from the N

330 BC(Turn 1): Cumae: Legionary>Legionary; S Settler founds Viroconium, set Harbour; miss-click and move catapult SW out of Ravenna (grrrr); move 2nd Settler NW onto hill (I like the idea of a line of cities along those hills); workers connect Hispalis and start road to Ravenna; Cumae Legionary moves into Rome, allowing 0% lux for a turn; move workers to start connecting the just formed city and next one; upgrade 2 Warriors; move Galley up coast.

IBT: English Archers S; English scout appears S of Rome; Russian Archers W; Greeks continue to Houston; Babylon Settler SE.

310 BC(Turn 2):. Rome Legionary>Legionary; Antium: Worker>Settler; Pisae: Warrior>Warrior; move Cat back to Ravenna; found Lugdunum set Armamentarium; put Lux back to 10%; try to block Babylonian Settler (really need another Horse).

IBT: Babylonian Settler moves into our territory; lose Galley to English Galley; English Archers move S to Veii; Greeks continue to head for Houston.

290 BC(Turn 3):. Veii: Leigonary>Legionary; Neapolis: Legionary>Legionary; Ravenna: Armamentarium>Archer; Hispalis: Warrior>Moenia; ask Babylonian Settler to leave; Legionaries kill English Archers;

IBT: American Sword appears from the N; German Archer appears S of Rome.

270 BC(Turn 4):. Rome: Legionary>Legionary; Cumae: Legionary>Legionary; Pisae: Warrior>Warrior; set Antium to align Settler with growth; start Rome Horse exploring S. remind Hammurabi that his Settler needs to leave.

IBT: American Sword kills Greek Warrior and is redlined; German Archer crosses into our territory; Babylonian Settler turns S;

250 BC(Turn 5):. Pompeii: Galley>Galley; Greeks start Sun Tzu; kill redlined American Sword with Horse; ask Germans to leave; Babylonians are at leave or War, try to block with Horse and Legionaries; send Horse S past cow; protect Iron by German Archer.

IBT: more American Swords appear from the N; Babylonian Settler W, another Bab Settler/Spear appears from N; more Greeks head towards America (and is it Russia as well?).

230 BC(Turn 6):. Rome: Legionary>Legionary; Veii: Legionary>Settler (aligned with growth to 7); Antium: Settler>Worker; Pisae: Warrior>Worker; Antium Settler heads for middle montis site to complete the line; Catapults fail to injure French Spear N of Ravenna.

IBT: more Greek movements, Greek horse fortifies S of Smolensk; more Babs appear another Settler appears to be heading for coast near Condimentum; American spear moves S;

210 BC(Turn 7):. Cumae: Legionary>Legionary; Neapolis: Legionary>Bibliotheca; Hispalis: Moenia>Armamentarium; kill French Spear; forest chopped to Neapolis; Horse explores S – spots Bab Spear

IBT: More American and English Swords appear in N; Bab Settler wanders further in and other to coast; Greeks attack Americans

190 BC(Turn 8):. Rome Legionary>Settler (times with growth); Antium: Worker>Worker; Pisae: worker>Bibliotheca; get Bismark’s WM for ours + 7g, offer our map and get Alex’s WM + 4g (Greeks have a city on the Barbarian Continent with more Bombyx, offer our WM to Hammurabi and get his WM + 6g; kill French Spear promoting Horse to Elite; found Lutetia completing the line of cities on the collis, set Moenia; kill English Galley promoting our to Veteran; try and block Bab Settlers; Declare War on Germany; Legionary kills German Archer; change Ravenna to Legionary now it’s connected;

IBT: American troops S, English W, Greeks W; Babs blocked in our territory, other pair moves to coast.

170 BC(Turn 9):. Veii: Settler>Legionary; Cumae: Legionary>Legionary; Pompeii: Galley>Galley; Settler goes S; block Bab Settler in our territory.

IBT: Greek Horses attack Smolensk; English and American Swords move S; Babs found city by coast.

150 BC(Turn 10):. Rome: Settler>Settler; Antium: Worker>Worker; Lugdunum: Armamentarium>Moenia; Settlers go S; drop lux to 0%;

Scores: Greece 447, Babylon 446, America 441, Germany 379, England 374, Rome 366, France 301, Russia 279
Treasury: 812 gold + 59 gpt, zero research

Post-turn: There are 2 Settlers and 2 Legionaries SW of Rome ready to go S, there is another settler due in Rome in 2. There are 2 Horses fortified in what is now Bab territory which have yet to move, I leave it to the next player to use them as he see fit. The Bab Settler is a leave or War, I have not demanded, but there are Legionaries fortified blocking that could be used to kill it if the next player decides to demand they leave and they declare. We now are strong militarily to everyone.

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_BC0150_01.SAV)

Nice set of turns, Furiey. I looked at the save and my findings and musings are as follows:

Feudalism will come next turn from Great Library.
Hispalis' culture will expand next turn; GLib is just great.
Viroconium should work the roaded hill.
Shouldn't we move them catapults and elite legion from Ravenna to Hispalis, because the Greeks will fight the war N of Ravenna and we have a lot of English?
IMHO we should also start roading (chopping, irrigate first?) from Cumae towards Pisae.
I'm not sure why we road the hill NW of Hispalis. I probably would have irrigated the plains or the flood plains at Ravenna (mine hill afterwards to give it shields).
Cumae needs roads.
Neapolis will riot unless attended to.
I don't know why we chop THIS tile near Pompei; we cant' irrigate it.
We should work the roaded hill at Viroconium.
Until the irrigation is done at Lugdunum, I would work the forest to finish the walls.
We should build some more horsemen; moveable mp for now, upgrade to knights soon.
Should we build some markets (libraries?) while we have the Golden Age bonus?
We still need more workers!

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: dow on Russia (they already declared 730BC)
190BC: dow on Germany; done
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece

Great Leaders: 1
Slaves disbanded: 2
Cities razed: 0

Demiurge (next)
Zarth (resigned)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

I agree on the comments about why road here, why chop this tile, I started playing last night and stopped when I realised it was actually the not so early hours of this morning. When I picked up the game tonight for the final couple of turns I realised I had done some very strange things, particularly with workers. I have been trying not to play into the early hours, but did not realise how late it was last night - it certainly affects my game (probably one reason I'm still playing at Monarch).

Got it. Will play tomorrow.

150 bc (pre-turn): shuffle some troops around to better prepare for incoming troops, prevent riot in Neapolis; do some MM to maximize growth; I need four settlers to settle south if I get to it on time, switch Cumae to settler from legionary, no shield loss, settler in 1; switch Pompeii to bibliotecha; cancel worker chopping near Pompeii (just started chopping), move to better tile for chop; rush bibliotecha in Pisae; hit return

IBT: lose both horses near Samarra moving back toward Lutetia; foreign troops advance on Hispalis; Greeks continue to defend Ravenna; GL gives us feudalism, switch to engineering at 0%

130 bc (turn 1): Cumae builds settler < bibliotecha; Pisae produces bibliotecha < warrior; Hispalis expands again (nice GL placement!); workers near Veii complete road, move to open grass to irrigate; kill two French swords, one French archer, no losses; do some MM; horse sees Greek settler pair in the south near game, probably headed to spices/fish/game site. Will try to delay them with horse but its not likely that I'll get there first, our pair is still 8 tiles away. Need one less city down there, 3 settlers on the way, so Rome switched to bibliotecha; Ravenna and Veii changed to pikes; 5 workers complete tasks near Neapolis, send 2 to road S and the remaining to Cumae to chop/irrigate/road toward Pisae

IBT: English, American troops divert toward Lutetia; more English troops appear moving toward Hispalis

110 bc (turn 2): Veii builds pike < legionary, send to Lutetia; Antium builds worker < next; move horses from Hispalis to Lutetia; Rome grows to pop 7, hire an entertainer to prevent riot, do some MM; 5 workers complete tasks near Veii, move some toward Ravenna to irrigate, some toward Pompeii

IBT: English, American troops continue advance, GL gives us theology

90 bc (turn 3): Pisae builds warrior < next; Ravenna builds pike < legionary; Hispalis builds armamentarium < legionary; kill two English spears near Hispalis, no losses; kill two American swords near Lutetia, no losses; Neapolis grows to pop 6, hire entertainer to prevent riot; do some MM; Pisae expands to claim silks, Corinth expanded IBT and the Greeks claimed them. I rushed the libary in Pisae pre-turn, but we still missed claiming the silks by one turn.

IBT: Greeks defend Ravenna against Russians; 3 English troops near Lutetia throw themselves on pike defending 2 hp legionary, die; GL gives us chivalry; Babylon completes great wall

70 bc (turn 4): Neapolis builds bibliotecha < knight, switch legionary builds to knights. Those legionary builds should have already been horses. (Curses at himself even though we got chivalry IBT) Think ahead!; Lutetia builds moenia < catapult; elite horse attacks English archer, get leader Hadrian, move to Hispalis (closest city) lose all move points, will rush Sun Tzu's next turn; upgrade 3 vet horses to knights, 3 vet spears to pikes; 3 settler pairs continue S; horse and legionaries continue to dance with Greek and Babylonian settler pairs; Lugdunum doesn't seem to be under any threat, switch moenia to bibliotecha to expand to get wheat

IBT: German and Russian settler pairs appear near Ravenna

50 bc (turn 5): Rome builds bibliotecha < knight; Pisae builds warrior < horse (road to horses near Pisae just completed); knight attacks german settler pair near Ravenna, wins, disband 2 workers; rush Sun Tzu's with leader; move knights toward Russian city of Smolensk N of Ravenna, Greeks have been weakening it and just grew to pop 2; settler pairs continue S, continue to thwart Greek and Babylonian settler pairs

IBT: English sword dies attacking pike near Hispalis, Greek archer attacks spear in Smolensk, dies. New reg spear shows up. Probably only two spears, one wounded.

30 bc (turn 6): Antium builds worker < next; Sun Tzu's built in Hispalis < knight; 2 knights destroy Smolensk, no losses; Ravenna changed to settler, growth and production in 4; shuffle some troops around; settler pairs continue S; Greek settler pair slowly moving closer to fish and game. Slowing him down with horse, but probably not enough

IBT: our GA ends

10 bc (turn 7): knight attacks Russian settler pair near Ravenna, disband 2 workers; shuffle troops, do some MM

IBT: Greek settler settles fish in S

10 ad (turn 8): Antium builds worker < next; build Byzantium in S claiming cattle; shuffle troops, do some MM

IBT: Americans offer peace, we tell Abe to shove it; Greeks ask our horse in S to move, we comply; Pharsalos expands, Greeks claim cattle. Curses again! We had the cattle for 1 turn.

30 ad (turn 9): upgrade a couple warriors, move settlers in S to city sites, do some MM

50 ad (turn 10): Antium builds worker < next; Cumae builds bibliotecha < knight; Ravenna builds settler < knight; build Brundisium and Syracuse in S claiming both game; Neapolis grows to pop 7, hire entertainer

Our world at 50 ad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/50ad.jpg


Post-turn:
1. There is one settler pair out, NE of Ravenna, moving to the hill that the elite legionary and archer are on.

2. There are 3 workers on the cattle that were building a road prior to Greece expanding to claim them. I didn't stop them roading. They have 1 turn to complete.

3. I settled a lot of the unclaimed southern area, but Alexander beat us to most of the good stuff. We lost the silks in the east and the cattle and fish to the south, just barely. I don't see any way I could have played it differently to have claimed them though.

4. Other than the 3 English swords moving in, I didn't see much of our enemies toward the end of my turns. I played things pretty defensively, but maybe its time to start assembling an offensive force once some settlers are built to fill in.

5. I built quite a few libraries in our core, taking advantage of our GA and gearing up to turn research back on.

6. I probably should have built Sun Tzu's in another city lacking any culture, but it was the closest city to the leader and I wanted to make sure we got it.

7. Our 2 galleys are moving around to the other side. Once the libraries are completed in the coastal cities they should probably start building more. We're going to need quite a few to ship troops. That depends of course on our ultimate goal which we have yet to discuss. It seems to me that this particular variant is geared toward a conquest though. If we're truly xenophobic wouldn't we want the world to be ours alone?


Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: dow on Babylon
430AD: dow on Greece

Great leaders: 2
Slaves disbanded: 6
Cities razed: 1

Zwingli (next)
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

Good to see we got Sun Szu as that will give us automatic barracks on the front line cities. Since Hispalis is secure, it is probably safe to sell all of our existing barracks for some extra gold. Given the size of our military, it is probably time to make a northward push before the Greek war starts, and we should start some dedicated settler pumps.

Unless we want to pick up an extra player it looks like I'm up. I'll get to it after reviewing the save for a while.

Unless we want to pick up an extra player it looks like I'm up. I'll get to it after reviewing the save for a while.You're up. There are currently no more players looking to join (got a pm from mad-bax). Must be the summer time.

@Demiurge: Very good: Sun Tzu's will greatly ease the conquest of our continent. :D

But I don't understand why you didn't send the galleys on suicide runs westward. Any contacts possible in the east would have been made by the AIs. :confused:

I must have misread some posts earlier. I thought the agreement was to not send out suicide galleys.

p.s. Turn them around, I would have sent them out otherwise. Just revisted the save and markets are probably a little overdue in Veii, Rome and Neapolis.

Northern Offensive

50 (0)
Upgrade all spearmen to pikes for 120g and upgrade horseman to knight for 80g. A few of the builds in the south are changed to workers rather than warriors, and Antium is switched to settler duty (can be a 4 turn factory).
In order to give all of our idle Legionaries something to do, I hike up lux tax to 20% and mobilize the military police (This also allows 2 entertainers to be fired). Since the extra units are costing us 1gpt each, they cost as much as luxury tax to keep around anyway.

70 (1)
Troop stacks advance on Marseille and Chartes. Catapults at Hispalis go ½ and kights kill 2 English swordsmen. Rome completes knight and begins settler duty (it is one of the cities with a granary).

90 (2)
Troops continue to advance, but must go around a trespassing Greek archer delaying the ETA. Meanwhile, the galleys move into position for suicide runs. Some of the builds in large cities are switched to markets (forum) as they complete current assignments.

110 (3)
Greece establishes an embassy with us. Greece is currently at war with America and Russia, and has alliances with France and Babylon against Russia, and with Babylon against America. We upgrade another horseman to knight for 80g, and a large troop stack moves into position at Chartes.

130 (4)
We get Education from the Great Library making it obsolete (it is unfortunate that we didn’t get at least Engineering from it). Research is started on Engineering at a -9gpt deficit, it is due in 23 turns, but will hopefully shorten once we get more cities or other civs research the tech. Rome completes a settler and starts another.

We attack Chartes with an elite legion, kill the defending spear and autoraze the city. Catapults go 2/2 against an English pike and a knight kills it for no cost, an English sword is likewise dispatched at no cost.

Our first suicide run reveals sea tiles west of England and possibly a border just under the fog.

150 (5)
First suicide galley sinks without contact, and a second is sent out. Our elite knight kills a French archer, and the central stack advances on Paris.

170 (6)
England and Greece sign an alliance against Russia (Russia is doomed and down to 2 cities). A French swordsman attacks and kills one of our vet legionaries. Our second galley sinks.

Marseille is razed, 2 spearmen are destroyed, and 2 workers disbanded at a cost of 1 legion. Our elite knight kills another English sword.

190 (7)
Siege of Paris
Elite knight def spear
Elite knight def spear
Elite legion def spear
Elite legion def archer and Paris is razed. 3 workers are disbanded.

Outside of Paris a vet knight and regular legionary destroy a french and english archer.

210 (8)
A french sword kills our redlined elite* archer, but comes off the mountain to do so.

I demand that Babylon remove their trespassing spear but they comply. War is declared anyway. I send a third galley toward the sea tiles west of England.

Our catapult hits the French swordsman and our knight finishes it. We capture and disband a Babylonian worker, kill a Bab archer with an elite legionary, and advance on Samarra, Uruk and Eridu.

230 (9)
A French sword kills our defending regular legion on a mountain, but a second french sword loses to our pikeman.The suicide galley sinks.

At Uruk, 2 spears + 1 bowman are killed at a cost of 1 legion and the city burns (1 slave destroyed).

At Samarra, we kill a spear with a knight, but the next knight retreats to a bowman and the third knight loses.

At Eridu we defeat 1 spear and 1 bowman and autoraze the city.

Near the ruins of Paris our Elite Legion kills an American sword. In the east our catapult misses, but we destroy a babylonian spear anyway.

250 (10)
An English knight kills our legion on a hill without a scratch.

At Samarra our knight loses to the defending regular bowman, and we withdraw the remaining redlined knight and settler (intended to replace the city). We knock off a Babylonian spear/settler and disband 2 more workers.

I found Lunacantorium (reference to an expert civ player) near the former location of Chartes. The English knight threatens this location, and a couple knights and a legionary are send south for assistance.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_250ad_tact.jpg
We have 4 settlers (circled) which can replace some of the currently open space. Antium has been set up as a 4 turn settler pump, and should probably continue indefinitely. The outer cities have been providing workers (we currently own 27) and several workers are completing a road to the northern open area. Hopefully, in the next 18 turns we can stabilize the northern front near the former location of Paris before we begin to take out Greece using knights.


Something to else to consider: Since Greece established an embassy with us, we are able to sign them up to alliances. If we don’t care too much about reputation at this point, we can buy techs for gpt and sign them up for alliances just before declaring war in 18 turns (in fact, an alliance against England would be helpful right now).


Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: Babylon; dow
430AD: dow on Greece

Great leaders: 2
Slaves disbanded: 15
Cities razed: 6

tao (up)
Furiey
Demiurge
Zwingli (finished)

Assessment 250AD:
Rome is at war with everybody except Greece.
Greece and England have a ma vs. Russia; Russia is down to size 1 Kiew.
Greece and France have ma vs. America.
Greece and Babylon have ma vs America. America has 12 cities.

Zwingli switched southern warrior builds to workers; I now switch 2 worker builds back to warriors, because we desperately need cheap military police!
I'm not happy that lots of workers are on individual long time jobs; I prefer gangs, but this is a personal opinion. Micromanage Cumae to speed aquaeductus.
Set research to 0; we will sooner or later contact the West and the trades should give us engineering; we have to build funds for researching invention. Create lone scientist in Pompei.

Lunacantorium is threatened by English knight and defended by lone legion; decide to attack knight, red-line him.

260AD (1) finish English knight

270AD (2) Neocaledonium founded on coastal N hill. Kill Babylonian warrior/settler pair. Destroy newly-founded Oxford and claim 11 gold.

Kiev is gone; Russia probably down to last settler.

280AD (3) kill Bab spear; move

290AD (4) Aesonesium founded at former Paris site.

300AD (5) zzzz

310AD (6) we destroy the American occupied Orleans getting 0g, disbanding 1 worker; now the Greek units will move even further north to fight Abe.

IBT News Flash: Russians have been destroyed.

320AD (7) troops move; workers work

330AD (8) Greece, Babylon, England know astronomy; Greece wants ferrum, wm, 12gpt, 385g; no way
hurry moenia in Aesonesium for 24g

340AD (9) Caesaraugusta founded on coast/river in the north
Samarra razed loosing 1 legion

350AD (10) stupid Greeks found city Ma??on preventing our settler from going there; probably best to park settler in Pisae to replace Corinth claiming the bombyx. IMHO should be our very first goal once we declare on Alex.
Palmyra founded replacing Samarra.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_350ad.jpg

Final thoughts:
There are grey (Indian?) borders visible across the western sea. We have to make contact ASAP!

I suggest continuing min research on engineering, unless the AIs discover it soon; in this case buy it and research full speed towards invention; we want Leonardo's.

The settler N on Hispalis IMHO should settle on his current position. The worker SE of Athens should road the tile to prepare for the attack on Pharsalos.

Greece has a large amount of cash; their cities will give nice bounties. And Alex is stupid enough to not connect his iron; hope this continues.

We might stock some settlers to replace Greek cities: Corinth (settler moves towards Pisae); Pharsalos, Thermopylae.

IMHO we will now defend our northern borders while preparing for a rapid conquest of Greece. This will in the long run ease our position, because we only have to defend the western coast, not fight a full-sized war on this front.

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: Babylon; dow
430AD: dow on Greece

Great Leaders: 2
Slaves disbanded: 18
Cities razed: 9

Furiey (up)
Demiurge
Zwingli
tao (finished)

More final thoughts. IMHO really good ones. ;)

Counting tiles and years shows, that (if the galley survives) we make contact with the grey civ 430AD, the year we have to declare war on Greece.

Let's assume we can make contact and we are the first to do so. Let's further assume, that we know some techs, the new world civs don't know. Because of the xenophobic trading rules, IMHO we have to sell all contacts and maps that turn.

Before we declare war on Alexander, we want to get "his" astronomy and as much more techs and hard cash and maps from him as possible.

He will desperately want iron for his wars; thus we will break the deal same turn. Knowing and accepting(!) that, have to get the most out of it.

Therefore before engaging in the trades, we set research and science to 0%, we might even mm some cities for cash.

Now we have to avoid handing over our nice treasury. And I know how, if the assumptions above hold! We donate our money to those new world civs lacking some techs and making them polite. :D :D :D
Now we make gpt (and ferrum) deals with Alexander, knowing that they will do him no good.
Then we declare war, (hopefully) destroy Corinth to get the bombyx, etc.
And we get the money back form the new world civs selling them old techs. :D :D :D

Then we declare war, (hopefully) destroy Corinth to get the bombyx, etc.

The plan sounds good tao. I've been itching in particular to destroy Corinth since they beat me to the silks.

@Zwingli: Nice to see us finally flexing our muscles and making some room for expansion. :goodjob:

Sounds like a good plan if we make contact with the Grey civ. In the event that we don't make contact before 430 AD (galley sinks), we should probably use the treasury to rush stuff before making final gpt deals with Greece since Alexander will ask for lump sum gold first otherwise.

Edit: Thinking about it further, we will have ~1000g by the time we have to declare war on Greece, and it might not be a good idea to blow it all on cash rushing unless they have more than just Astronomy by that time. If you do decide to go for gpt deals just before war with Greece, you can try to take out loans from Greece by asking what they want for 100g at a time (I think they won't loan more than this in one deal) until you drain their treasury or run out of gpt.

Wow - away for one night and 30 turns get played!

Just downloaded the save, I'll look at it tonight, but probably won't be able to play until tomorrow

Quick update: now turn 3 (380 AD) and have got a Galley across to to India. They are leading with 737 points, we're 3rd with 599. they are dismissive of out culture, but we are strong militarily. We thought the galley would make contact the year we declare war, we are 5 years early. The Indians have no new techs and are short Chivalry, Theology and have no Horses. They have contact with Aztecs, Japan and Iroquois. For any contact they want contact with Greece, for either Theology of Chivaly they will give contact with Aztecs, TM and 16 gold. Having spent most of the evening trying to fix my father's e-mail I will have to complete this tommorow evening.

Quick update: now turn 3 (380 AD) and have got a Galley across to to India.Congratulations to the captain of that galley.
The Indians have no new techs and are short Chivalry, Theology and have no Horses.India does not need any resources to build jumbos.
They have contact with Aztecs, Japan and Iroquois. For any contact they want contact with Greece, for either Theology of Chivaly they will give contact with Aztecs, TM and 16 gold.What about first offering them theology and get contact with Aztecs. Then offer them chivalry and get another contact. Then offer them wm, if it gives the last contact. We should get the new world map from one of the other civs.

Then you can decide on the sequence of contacting Azztecs, Japan, Iroquois.

The main question IMHO is whether we want to gamble for the next turns that Greece does not make contact, whether we want to rip Greece of their techs (after giving away our gold) and keep the deal for up to 5 turns, or do we declare on Greece earlier? Do we have galleys monitoring all the areas where possible contacts might occur?

350 AD(Turn 0): Look around; press button.

IBT: German knights attack Ceasaraugusta killing 2 legions, English knights approach Aesonarium; Alex demands we leave his territory, we agree, his time will come soon… Germany and Greece sign a Military Alliance against America; Greek troops keep running through our territory (annoying how they keep doing that even when they demand our 2 workers on the cow leave); English start Copernicus’s;

360 AD(Turn 1): Cumae: Aquaductus>Legionary; Lugdunum: Galley>Galley; Ceasaraugusta: Moenia>Legionary; found Jerusalem, set Moenia; kill 2 English knights by Aesonesium losing 2 legions; kill German knights by Ceasaraugusta losing a legion, this leaves 1 english knight able to attack either Aesonesium (defended by 1 3/5 knight) or Ceasaraugusta (defended by 2 knights) and 1 German Archer able to attack Ceasaraugusta. Road to Ceasaraugusta from Pisae is blocked by Greek Workers.

IBT: Remaining English Knight defeats our knight and Captures Aesonium! Stealing 11 gold; a Greek Galley disappears across the ocean to the West from Syracuse; German Archer W, German S appears from N.

370 AD(Turn 2):. Rome: Knight>Pike; Antium: Settler>Settler; Neapolis: Knight>Knight; Recapture Aesonesium: no foreigners – down to pop 1 and lost it’s moenia, set moenia; start moving some troops in preparation for Greek declaration; move Galley into suicide position.

IBT: 4 more German Swords appear N of Aesonesium; Greeks as us to leave again, we say we will; England and Greece sign a Military Alliance against America; Greeks continue to move across our territory; Greek galley appears back off our coast again – obviously was in sea out of sight.

380 AD(Turn 3):. Veii: Knight>Knight; Cumae riots, create taxman: obviously missed it last time round :(; OUR GALLEY IS STILL AFLOAT!!!; It’s India who are number 1 in the world with 737 points, compared to Greece at number 2 with 631 and us at 3 with 599. Contact made with India (India DOW 630AD)
Offer Theology and get contact with Aztecs, TM, 16 gold; Aztec score is 931!; (don’t contact them – we are weak!)
Offer Chivalry and get contact with Iroquois, WM; we now have the complete map of the other continent, the Japanese are contactable in 2 turns to the N; the Barbarian continent is a thin strip between the 2 main continents; Iroquios are just ahead of the Indians at 751 as we already have India’s WM contact Iroquois to see if we can sell them the same techs as India (Iroquois DOW 830AD)
Offer Iroquois Chivalry and get contact with Japan, WM, 1 gold; Japan score 786 We cannot sail around the world without careful city placement, which the Aztecs have not done.
Contact Japan (DOW 1030AD) they have nothing we want at the moment (we are up Monotheism) and Aztecs (DOW 1230AD) who also have nothing for us.
From what I can see of the map the minimum gap is 4 ocean tiles, Greeks have astronomy, but do not have the Great Lighthouse so cannot cross without suicide galleys at the moment. Decide to hope that Greece does not make contact until we are ready to declare. As we have got across, change Galley in Pompeii to Pike; change Lunacantorium from Archer to Pike; Change Byzantium from Worker to Legion; cycling through to MM the cities, notice Cumae will no longer riot even without the taxman?! Rushed Moenia in Aesonesium for 39 gold.

IBT: Ghandi asks us to leave, we comply, his days are after all numbered; loads of Greeks move across our lands, English Caravel spotted; 4 German swords approach Aesonesium.

390 AD(Turn 4):. Rome: Pike>Settler; Aesonesium: Moenia>Pike; Cumae: Legion>Legion; Pompeii: Pike>Pike; Hispalis: Pike>Pike; Greeks have not made contact; Move a few troops.

IBT: German Swords run away without attacking; Greeks move around – their Workers are now roading in our montis.

400 AD(Turn 5):. Change Antium to Pike; Greeks have not made contact.; move troops; change Galley in Vironconium to Pike (about to riot) hiring taxman for 1 turn)

IBT: Germans appear to be going home; Greeks move about.

410 AD(Turn 6):. Rome Settler>Knight; Pisae: Catapult>Knight; Vironconium: Pike>Knight; Greeks have not made contact.

IBT: Germans withdraw, Greeks move

420 AD(Turn 7):. Antium: Pike>Knight; would like more than 1 knight to attack Corinth next turn, but that’s all I have with the problems in the N

IBT: Greeks offer Printing Press for 430 gold – we decline; Greeks move more troops into our territory

430 AD(Turn 8):. Cumae: Legion>Knight; Neapolis: Knight>Knight; Lutetia: Pike>Knight; Greeks have chosen this moment to move catapult, horsemen and Hoplite next to Gonzomonium defended by only 1 Pike – grrr; they have not made contact; for Printing Press, Astronomy and Banking they want: Ferrum, Aztec Contact, WM, 27gpt, 871g, we need to reduce the cash; rush Pike in Gonzonium, Knight in Pisae, Gift 100 gold to each of Aztecs, Japanese, Iroquois; temporarily drop lux slider to give more gpt, contact Greece, ask for Astronomy, Banking, Printing Press (all they have), pay Alex’s price of Ferrum, Contact with Aztecs, WM, 60gpt, 271g; Offer Hiawatha Education, get WM and 150 gold, Offer Montezuma Education, get WM and 130 gold; Offer Tokugawa Theology, get our 100 gold back; Offer Greece contact with Iroquois, get 80g and WM (they will not sell us Navigation which they also have now); offer contact with Japanese and Indians, get 170 gold, leaving them 120ish; we have 630 gold and are at 7gpt before we declare war and break the gpt deal. Demand Greece removes their troops or declare war (we can hope) but they move, so Declare War on Greece back to 67 gpt; reset lux slider – now 58gpt; move on Pharsalos, capture and disband one Greek Worker; kill 2 Hoplites, but there is another.

IBT: Greeks move in in force; Greek Horse dies attacking Gonzonium; several galleys/caravels disappear across ocean – several civs have Navigation it seems.

440 AD(Turn 9):. Veii: Knight>Knight; Pompeii: Pike>Pike; Pisae: Knight>Knight; Gonzonium: Pike>Pike; kill French Spear by Jerusalem; Greek Archer and Horse by Ceasaugusta; lose one knight against Pharsolos, one redlined, one still 4/4 more Hoplites remain; Lose 1 knight attacking Corinth, 1 knight and 1 Legion left, 1 redlined Hoplite left in Corinth; rush Pike in Ceasaraugusta.

IBT: Greeks pillage; Greek Horse dies attacking Knight, more Hoplites move to Corinth.

450 AD(Turn 10):. Ravenna: Pike>Pike; Hispalis: Pike>Knight; Ceasaraugusta: Pike>Bibliotheca; Veii Knight Changed to Settler.

Treasury: 657 gold + 59 gpt, Engineering in 16

Post-turn: We have 3 Settlers, 1 in Pisae, 2 in Rome to start replacing Greek cities; I have not dealt with all the Greeks in our territory – something could be done about some of them, there are several worker still to move and a Galley I’ve just spotted

Great Leaders: 2
Slaves disbanded: 19 (1 this session)
Cities razed: 9

Demiurge (up)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_AD0450_01.SAV)

430AD: dow on Greece (declared)
630AD: dow on India
830AD: dow on Iroquios
1030AD: dow on Japan
1230AD: dow on Aztecs

Nice job Furiey on setting our contact list and the subsequent trades. :thumbsup: Got the save. Will post some more after I look it over.

Yes. Now we know our future history of war. Obviously, our core cities need to build knights. And lots of them. It might be good to switch the south to catapults for weakening hoplite defense.

We need a road between Aesonesium and Caesaraugusta. And soon we will irrigate the plains NW of Lutetia.

And we should be able to attack Houston with the forces in Palmyra (send Hispalis pike to Palmyra).

We should attack Pharsalos and Eretria in the south, maybe afterwards Thermopylae.

But of course we want Corinth with the silks. So much to do and so little forces.

At least the AIs are busy fighting among themselves.

Edit/add: Why not use one of the settlers to found a 1st ring town N-N-NE of Rome? Mm Rome will give growth in 5 without delaying the knight.

Edit/add: Why not use one of the settlers to found a 1st ring town N-N-NE of Rome? Mm Rome will give growth in 5 without delaying the knight.
Yes - I'd forgotton we'd left that site

Well it looks like I've got my work cut out for me. My tentative military goals are to reduce our front as much as possible, hopefully taking Houston, Marathon, Corinth, Thermopylae, Pharsalos and Eretria. I should be able to take those cities at least but we'll see with the small number of offensive forces we currently have.

@ Furiey: How aggressive has the ai been in the N? If I send a few pikes up can I afford to move the majority of the offensive troops S?

As much as I would like to get Corinth, it might be better to get Pharsalos and Thermopylae first, simple because that will allow us to found new cities in rings 1 and 2. We might have to increase lux by 10% for a number of turns, but currently we can afford it. I would not reduce the norther forces too much; better wait 5 turns to build more knights for the southern front while killing the northern Greek units and destroying Houston. Once we know engineering and have the road between Aesonesium and Caesaraugusta, northern defense will be more flexible. Currently, we just don't know if/when the AIs stop waring among themselves and again come after us full force.

The AI has been very agressive in the N around Aesonesium and Ceasaraugusta, if you notice I lost one city before retaking it, saying that though the stack of 5 German Swords which approached to attack range then left again - they could however be back. I was trying to pick the majority off with our offensive forces so that the defensive ones we had could withstand the remainder. I agree with tao that it's best to clear up the northern Greek units with what we have, building more knights for the southern offensive. A great many Greek forces are to our N, they could well be back.

450 ad (pre-turn): Change some core builds to knights from pikes, change to some cats in corrupt cities from pikes, switch Lugdunum to settler from aqueduct. Might be better to just crank out a worker or settler when it approaches pop 7. Send pikes from core to N; raise lux to 30% since MPs are headed N. Rush knights in a few cities at critical points.

IBT: America crawls before us begging for peace. We are tempted to part his body from his head, but send him on his way instead.

460 ad (turn 1): destroy all Greek troops in our territory losing 1 legionary; pikes continue to northern positions, start gathering offensive troops to better attack positions

470 ad (turn 2): raze Houston, attack Corinth destroy 1 hop, wound another, no losses, capture 1 cat

480 ad (turn 3): destroy a few Greek archers, destroy French spear N, no losses; continue positioning troops for attack

490 ad (turn 4): Brundisium riots, oversight on my part, they grew last turn and no luxes now; attack English settler pair with knight (disband 2 workers); build Ceasarea N of Rome at RCP4; finally have a large enough force to take Corinth, 4 knights, 1 pike, cat, burn it to the ground (disband 1 worker), we absorb 3 silks; lux down to 10%, have to hire a taxman in Cumae to prevent riot; destroy a couple Greek archers, 3 near Jerusaleum allowed to live one more turn, position troops to deal with them

500 ad (turn 5): Antium builds knight, back to settler factory; Aztec ship appears near our continent, contacts are made, everybody is still pretty broke over there; settle Tarentum near spices; assemble stack near Marathon; the recently settled southern area (western front) is starting to heat up, I have a short stack assembled near Pharsalos, but not enough to take it yet, may have to delay longer to deal with incoming Greek troops

510 ad (turn 6): destroy Marathon, elite knight produces GL Maximus (disband 2 workers). Not sure what to do with him. The options: FP, army, copernicus, sistine or hold onto him for Leonardo's. Since we can't rush Leonardo's decide to use him to create an army since we would waste a lot of elite victories by holding onto him and the FP can wait

IBT: French rebuild Paris near Houston location

520 ad (turn 7): elite legionary attacks Pharsalos, GL Germanicus produced; moving knights toward Pharsalos and Thermopylae; due to growth, lux up to 20%, fire all specialists and entertainers, leave 1 scientist

530 ad (turn 8): destroy Paris again; build Saleucia in the east replacing Marathon; destroy Eretria in the S (disband 2 workers); army has victory enabling us to build Heroic Epic

540 ad (turn 9): destroy Thermopylae (disband 3 workers), capture cat; troops to take Pharsalos, settle next turn

550 ad (turn 10): attack Pharsalos, couldn't take it, left 1 archer

Our world at 550 ad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/550ad.jpg


Wars
The intense fighting basically rotated from the NE to the SE to the SW.

Northern front: In the N the Greeks have been showing up periodically along with the English, the English have been coming a little faster lately, but no knights. I've been successfully holding them off with a small number of offensive troops and pikes and cats. I wasn't able to complete the road between Ceasaraugusta and Aesonesium. It was just too hot.

Southeastern front: It has slowed down significantly. Since settling Tarentum near the silks, I only saw two archers, one left. There are a few legionaries there just in case but very few offensive forces.

Southwestern front: This area is really hot. The Greeks have been pouring in hops, archers and horses. I finally succeeded in getting a number of knights down there. Pharsalos is ripe for the picking and should easily be taken next turn.

Settlers
There are 5 settlers out: 2 near Cumae going wherever you want. Three on there sites. One in the far SW near the whale and fish, one ready to replace Thermopylae in the S, and one ready to settle at RCP4 when Pharsalos falls.

Germanicus
He awaits your orders in Veii. Since he just reached Veii on turn 9, I left him for discussion as to how to use him. The options are Heroic Epic, FP, Copernicus or another army.

Western shoreline
There are three galleys in Pompeii. More than a few enemy caravels have been patrolling our coast, but no foreign troops have landed. The Aztecs finally crossed and made contact the same turn. Despite having ships there, I didn't see them coming. They then proceeded to drop off a settler pair near the spices in the NW. They're still there. We might want to start getting some transport over to the western side of the continent in preparation.


Great Leaders: 4
Slaves disbanded: 29
Cities razed: 15

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: Babylon; dow
380 AD: contact India, Iroquois, Japan, Aztecs
430AD: Greece; dow
630AD: dow on India
830AD: dow on Iroquios
1030AD: dow on Japan
1230AD: dow on Aztecs

Zwingli (on deck)
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

:goodjob: wow 2 great leaders!

another option for what to do with him may be JS Bach's Cathedral. Japan will give a WM and Music Theory for Banking. Pretty much everone is building it, as long as they don't complete this turn....

Yeah, I almost couldn't believe it myself. Three of them so far in my turns, the RNG gods must be smiling on me.

Yeah, I almost couldn't believe it myself. Three of them so far in my turns, the RNG gods must be smiling on me.It's good to have a team member on whom the gods smile. :)

And as much as I like science wonders, Furiey's suggestion on Bach's gets my approval. 2 content citizens in each city is just too good to let it pass. It leads to us being able to reduce lux tax and increase science, IMHO offsetting Copernicus' advantage. And Bach's is 600 while Copernicus' is 400 shields. Thus the wonder cascade might end before Leonardo's becomes available.

It might be a good idea to build it in Jerusalem (or even better but more risky in Aesonesium), once again getting massive 6 culture points per turn in a border city.

If you use the more productive tiles in Rome, it can build the Heroic Epic in 15 turns without reducing growth. In fact it will finish faster, since Rome will grow in 4.

Edit/add: there are 3 lazy sleeping workers in Byzantium and 1 in brundisium: kick them to work. Hard!

Edit/add: there are 3 lazy sleeping workers in Byzantium and 1 in brundisium: kick them to work. Hard!

I did mean to mention those. They sat there my whole set of turns. There were too many Greeks on our soil around there and we had too few units to escort them safely out. I fortified them because I got sick of pressing the space bar. At one point I was actually back to using warriors as offense against horses. :)

I wasn't surprised to see them still there - I had to duck them into a city when the first troops appeared for lack of somewhere they could be put to work safely or troops to defend them with. Hopefully removal of the Greek city down south and founding of our own city by the settler in position will give them somewhere to work relatively safely or defendably.

I've got it, and will probably finish Thursday afternoon. I like the idea of rushing Bach's in a border town to thicken the northern border. :)

Just revisited the sav and I'm starting to think it might be a good time to discuss our long term plans to make sure we are all working toward the same goal. The plan as I see it. Of course subject to change based on reactions to this post.

The home front
A conquest might be our fastest finish. We should finish our continent with knights in about 60-70 turns(?). I don't have a turn to date conversion so I'm not exactly sure of the date. All the while settling to completely fill in our continent. I'm starting to question the decision to not build our FP near our core. If we wait to build it in the N, those cities will take a while to get really productive. By building it near our core we get some immediate benefit in some of the cities that are now at a productive size but are currently corrupt.

The other two landmasses
We may want to get a caravel positioned at the one tile crossing to the small landmass near Knossos once the Greeks are history on our continent. With a small landing force of knights we can start razing cities on the small continent while finishing off our own.

If we build a harbor, upgrade galleys and start moving some caravels N, to crossing near Nara (Aztecs) we can send the leftover troops from the N over. Some caravels in the S near Tamurin (Aztecs) will be needed for new builds. Hopefully by this point we have reached military tradition, we upgrade our knights prior to transport and raze all cities not on our home continent not bothering to fill in with settlers at all.

Builds
We have yet to see if the libraries were a waste, but I'm starting to think they were. From now on we should probably build mostly knights and lots of them. Aqueducts and other improvements are not necessary if we're pushing toward conquest.

Any thoughts, different ideas? Any guesses as to victory date? I don't usually do this so I'm probably way off, but I'm thinking 110 turns(?) conservatively.

I don't know if everyone has seen it but Team smackster has now posted the first date to beat, 1300 ad (75 turns?). How's that for a kick in the butt? Can we beat this?

I am effectively done with my turns, but cannot post the save until I get back from work. I razed 8 cities and founded 6 from 550 AD to 650 AD.

Since the odd middle continent is somewhat inaccessable to us, domination might be faster than conquest. There are ~100 AI cities on the map by the end of my turns, so to win by conquest by 1300 we would have to average about 2 cities razed per turn (counting AIs refounding cities). We may have to be content to shoot for second place ;). The libraries might have been a bit early, but we are currently benefiting from their output (we are researching Invention), and will need the extra research to get to cavalry more rapidly. Once we get a forbidden palace running, we may be able to outresearch the AI civs as they struggle with war weariness.

Using a date calculator (I think I got it from a link in the maintenance thread), 1300AD is 70 turns from 650 AD

550 (0)
Reshuffle a few builds including Rome to another knight, and move the leader toward Aesonium.

560 (1)
Trade Banking to Japan for WM + 3g + Music Theory and rush Bach’s in Aesonium. We destroy 5 units on the northern front without loss with catapult support. In the south we get another leader while razing Pharsalos and disband 4 workers. With the roads south now in our territory, I upgrade 3 southern warriors to legionary and rush the Heroic Epic in Byzantium using the leader.

We found Artaxata, Aurelianorm, and Hippo Regius where the settlers stand.

IBT- We lose an elite legion on defense in the north and complete Bach’s and Heroic Epic. Greece cascades to Copericus and completes the wonder ending the cascade (no further wonder builds besides any Magellan’s in progress).

570 (2)
Lux tax lowered 10% due to the effect of Bach’s. The Iroquois offer Engineering for WM + 90g and I accept to start on Invention and end the road penalty. A French swordsman is killed in the north, and knights are reshuffled in the south. Several civs are revolting toward Democracy (this is good because war weariness will cripple them :) ).

580 (3)
Research is raised to 40% and Invention is due in 20 turns (+29gpt). Another swordsman is destroyed in the north. More knights complete healing and move to new positions while legionaries pick targets in advance.

590 (4)
Destroy 2 hoplites and 1 archer in Herakleia and raze the city along with 1 worker. An elite knight kills an additional archer resulting in another leader. With multiple elite victories per turn and no current wonders, the leader will rush expensive infrastructure. The knight in Cumea is short rushed (rush temple and switch to knight) so that no shields are wasted when the leader arrives. An initial attack on Argos fails costing 1 knight.

IBT- Babylonian knight attacks but retreats from a legionary.

600 (5)
University leader rushed in Cumea. Argos is razed in the southeast along with 2 workers and a captured catapult.

610 (6)
Lose 2 legionary and 1 knight, but raze Knossos and disband 3 workers. Attack Lyons in the North and lose 2 elite Legionaries to kill 1 spearman, we could have taken the city, but I misclick the last knight past the city rather than attacking the last wounded pikeman. Found Nicopolis and Londinium to replace Argos and Knossos.

620 (7)
Destroy Lyons at no cost and disband 3 workers. Our army destroys 2 hoplites in Sparta and destroys the city, giving us insence (lux tax off). The English have landed a horseman in an inconvenient spot, and I have to interrupt 6 workers to avoid losing them. A settler is rushed in Jerusalem to replace Lyons and complete our northern line.

630 (8)
A greek archer destroys one of our wounded knights on a mountain during the interturn, but we finish it on our turn along with the Engish horseman. More enemy units are bombarded and destroyed in the north, and knights move into position to attack Athens in the south.

After selling our WM, we declare war on India

640 (9)
A group of knights and our army destroy 6 hoplites in Athens, but an injured hoplite remains (we lost only 1 knight). We destroy Ephesus and 3 hoplites at a cost of 1 legionary. In the north we found Arretium behind a system of rivers which should give us a defensive bonus. Founding Aretium strands 3 English horsemen within our borders, and all 3 are destroyed by elite knights.

650 (10)
We kill 2 hoplites in Athens, razing Copernicus and disbanding 3 slaves.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_650ad_worldmap.jpg
The northern front is quite stable with only a trickle of enemy units coming south, and sufficient catapults to severely damage incoming troops. We should be able to push forward very soon, perhaps targeting Babylon in the center to obtain the last luxury resource on the continent (Babylon also tends to have weak defense because they build bowmen for defense in the ancient age). Since Greece is nearly finished on our continent, I have begun to move the southern front catapults back north.

I have taken care of the worker actions, but have left most of the military units unmoved for the next leader. With Heroic Epic active, it should be only a matter of time before another leader is available for Leonardo’s Workshop or the Forbidden Palace. After Invention is finished, it may be a good idea to run cash for a couple turns to rush some settlers in corrupt cities, before resuming the path to Military Tradition.

Edit:
Great Leaders: 6
Slaves disbanded: 44
Cities razed: 23

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: Babylon; dow
380 AD: contact India, Iroquois, Japan, Aztecs
430AD: Greece; dow
630AD: India; dow
830AD: dow on Iroquios
1030AD: dow on Japan
1230AD: dow on Aztecs


tao (up now)
Furiey
Demiurge
Zwingli (just played)

Good! Good!! I see some progress Team Tao!!! :)
Here is your target date - 1300AD, try to beat it :rolleyes:

Got it and happy on the progress. :goodjob:

I had a first look and will play tonight. My initial thoughts are:
we need the Forbidden Palace soon. And since we need lots of cities around it, Aesonesium might get it.
I might do some long-term builds (universities, quaestionarium, granaries)
mines in corrupt areas will do us little good
we want cavalry asap; then our domination will only be limited by how fast we can settle
there is a 6th luxury (furs) in the north
we might want a few cities on the strange continent, especially near the cattle to build more settlers
we need a harbor to upgrade our galleys

Had an idea, might or might not be good, but I'm thinking. How about disconnecting Pisae to build cheap horses temporarily? At pop 4 we should be able to produce one every two turns. With a couple MPs, rioting shouldn't be a concern for a while. These horses could be then upgraded and transported to the odd continent. The downside of course is we lose some gpt by disconnecting two of the silks. So it might not be worth it.

Summary
2 Great Leaders (Forbidden Palace, Leonardo's)
3 cities founded
researched invention, gunpowder; traded for navigation, economics
5 cities razed
13 workers disbanded

Pre-turn mm Rome, Aesonesium, Caesaraugusta for growth
Artaxata switched to granarium
Ravenna switched to settler
Viroconium, Byzantium switched to quaestionarium
trigger wltkd in Lunacantorium
Syracuse: fire clown, switch to settler
increase research to 70% at -8gpt to get invention in 3
move troops towards Uruk; knight kills English longbow and promotes to elite

IBT Babylonian knight attacks and dies
Greek horseman lands on hill near Neapolis

660AD (1) Rome forum s knight in 4 after mm; Antium settler, next; Lugdunum worker, quaestionarium
Bede's history of wealthiest nations: English, Romans, Greeks, Aztecs, Babylonians, Iroquois, Indians, Germans
attack Uruk and 2nd elite knight creates Great Leader and he hurries the Forbidden Palace in Aesonesium
capture and raze Uruk liberating 1g and disbanding 1 worker
lux down to 50% at +20gpt

IBT Knight kills our knight near former Uruk

670AD (2) we learn invention and start gunpowder (nobody knows it yet) due in 9 at +6gpt
Forbidden Palace in Aesonesium s settler; revenge our knight; move troops
pay Aztecs 5g for wm exchange and learn about 3 more towns in the north of strange continent; get 8g back from Hia for wm exchange; Japan gives wm, 1g for tm

680AD (3) we raze Delphi killing 3 hoplites, 2 longbows, but no promotion or Leader; 2g, 3 workers disbanded
bombard and kill 2 English pikes getting 1 elite knight; capture and destroy French worker on their iron; move troops from the Greek theater north
pillage French iron

690AD, 700AD (4,5) zzzzzzzz

IBT Montezuma wants tm, 24g; do we want war? no, we still need to trade for navigation, but his time will come; but the treacherous bastard signs an alliance w England and declares war on us!

710AD (6) we attack Nottingham, kill 3 spears, 1 longbow, liberate 11g, capture 1 catapult, disband 3 workers
Agrippina founded

IBT we loose 1 pike to Babylonian knight, 1 knight to English longbow

720 (7) Cyrene founded

730AD (8) our army kills 2 pikes in Akkad and we raze the city disbanding 4 Babylonian workers
we raze the up-to-now Greek capital Mycene loosing 1 knight, killing 3 hoplites, 1 longbow; 4 elite wins, no leader; disband 2 workers; Greece is removed from the continent. but has 6 cities on the middle continent. And they know gunpowder.
gunpowder next turn w 40%; Japan and Iroquois don't know it yet

740AD (9) learn gunpowder; Japan gives wm, 7, navigation for it; now we can invade the other continent without having to research magnetism; Iroquois give us economics, wm
we now see, that Greece, England, Germany, Japan don't have salconfloare
chemistry due in 10 at 70%; +12gpt
don't upgrade pikes yet, as we hope for a Great Leader to build Leonardo's first
move towards Coventry

750AD (10) Tyrus founded; it will be connected in 2 turns giving us gemma
we attack Coventry and first elite knight creates Great Leader Titus, who hurries Leonardo's in Cyrene; we kill 3 more spears an 1 longbow, but fail to conquer Coventry; there is 1 longbow left; next turn

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_750ad.jpg

I suggest to hurry a settler pre-turn in Arretium, but leave it to the next player
there are 2 settlers close to the southeast (former Greece) to claim the coastal positions
Artaxata should be able to build us many settlers also in the future
there is a catapult on its way to weaken the stray Aztec pike escort before killing him

Great Leaders: 8
Slaves disbanded: 57
Cities razed: 28

Contact List
2800BC: France; dow
1550BC: England; dow
1550BC: contact America, Russia, Germany, Babylon, Greece
1050BC: America; dow
590BC: Russia (declared on us 730BC)
190BC: Germany; dow
210AD: Babylon; dow
380 AD: contact India, Iroquois, Japan, Aztecs
430AD: Greece; dow
630AD: India; dow
830AD: dow on Iroquios
1030AD: dow on Japan
1230AD: dow on Aztecs (declared on us 700AD)

Furiey (up now)
Demiurge
Zwingli
tao (just played)

Forbidden Palace and Leonardo's - excellent - just what we need!

got it - I'll play tomorrow evening

Just some probaby interesting thoughts:

There are velieris (furs) near York and the English have no iron ....

I optimized worker usage by looking at when cities grow and need improved tiles. Most of the heartland is done, the south (east) mostly takes care of itself. Workers should progress towards our new lands around the Forbidden Palace.

All cities up to distance 4 around the FP are rank 1, up to distance 7 are rank 2 corruptionwise.

I haven't seen German or American attacks and thus I suppose they are still at war.

It looks like after gems are connected in 2 turns, we won't need police for happiness in most of our cities. In this case, we can employ an efficient nodal defense for the west coast while sending all units in the interior to serve on the northern front. 3 defensive or offensive units on each of the colored dots should be able to protect all west coast cities from naval landing (the cities themselves can be left ungarrisoned). A similar arrangement can be employed on the east coast once more roads are in place (although this side is probably less important to protect).

..., we can employ an efficient nodal defense for the west coast while sending all units in the interior to serve on the northern front. 3 defensive or offensive units on each of the colored dots should be able to protect all west coast cities from naval landing (the cities themselves can be left ungarrisoned). I am not a big friend of this, because 2 caravels offloading knights could cause disaster.

Moving slow troops just takes too long. Once we have military tradition, we might want to give some luxuries to trigger wltkd and increase happiness and production (and score).

What about having 1 unit in each city, but create a honey pot: leave Artaxata without garrison, and the AI will make all thei landing attempts west of Neapolis, where we can pick them up. I also put a catapult in Viroconium for a shot at passing vessels (maybe add some more.)

But Furiey will do what she thinks is best.

PS: The Agrippina worker IMHO should connect eastwards.

I did play last night but couldn't upload due to the forum maintenance.

Summary
1 Great Leader
18 Workers disbanded
6 cities founded
4 cities razed
The Oracle destroyed
Researched Chemistry, Metallurgy due in 5
Declared war on Iroquois in 830 AD

750 AD(Turn 0):. Hurry Settler in Arretium for 76 gold; press button.

IBT: 2 more English Longbow and Spear enter Coventry; English and Greek caravels continue around coast; Aztec Settler/Pike S; We complete Leonado’s in Cyrene start Knight; Arretium Settler>Knight; Artaxata: Granerarium>Bibliotheca; Neapolis: Knight>Knight; Aztecs & Iroquois start Smiths

760 AD(Turn 1): Capture Coventry, raze it and disband 6 workers; found Verona start library. We overtake Iroquois in score. Greeks start Magellan’s Voyage

IBT: Greek Caravel sinks Barb Galley; Antium: Settler>Settler; Cumae: Knight>Knight

770 AD(Turn 2):. Move Army towards England.

IBT: Americans want to talk: they want peace! - we say no way! Babylonian Knight spotted going into Babylon, French Galley appears, Aztecs move S

780 AD(Turn 3):. Rome: Knight>Knight; Aesonesium: Bibliotheca>Settler; Veii: Knight>Knight; Lutetia: Settler>Knight; Syracuse: Settler>Settler; found Corfinium set Worker;

IBT: 2 German Knight approach from Babylon

790 AD(Turn 4):. Lunacantorium: Knight>Knight; Ceasaraugusta: Granarium>Bibliotheca; found Medilanum; raze English city N of Coventry (I forget its name); Aztec Pike/Settler are finally on the plains, catapult misses yet again, but Veteran Knight prevails and is promoted to Elite; disband Settler Workers; move knights.

IBT: More German Knights move in Babylonian territory

800 AD(Turn 5):. Tarentum: Worker>Worker; Pisae: Knight>Knight; Byzantium: Settler>Settler; Ceasarea: Knight>Knight; Veteran Knight kills English Longbow and is promoted; move more knights.

IBT: German Knight redlines Musket in Tyrus before dying; German Knight kills our Knight S of Tyrus.

810 AD(Turn 6): Research Chemistry, start Metallurgy due in 9; Aggripina: Worker>Worker; Neapolis: Knight>Knight; Pompeii: Forum>Portus; Ravenna: Bibliotheca>Knight; Viroconium: Quaestionarium>Aquaeductus; We take London, capturing the Oracle and raze it to the ground; disband 7 captured English Workers; change Cyrene from knight to Granarium;

IBT: Germans move several Knights onto montis by Tyrus; German knight kills our knight that killed one of theirs last turn.

820 AD(Turn 7):. Rome: Knight>Knight; Aesonesium: Settler>Musket; Veii: Knight>Knight; Antium: Settler>Bibliotheca; Neocaledonium: Knight>Portus; Army redlined attacking Spearman in Hastings! – have to take it next turn; found Treveri, set Bibliotheca;

IBT: German Knight defeats our knight fortified on montis, others move S, German Knight Army approaches from N; Cumae: Knight>Knight; Seleucia: Caravel>Portus;

830 AD(Turn 8):. Capture and raze Hastings; disband 3 English Workers; German Knight Army contains 1 Knight, 2 Swords; trade World Maps with Hiawatha the declare war on Iroquois

IBT: Regular English Longbow kills our withdrawing redlined Army!!!!!; German knights move in;

840 AD(Turn 9):. Hispalis: Knight>Knight; Byzantium: Settler>Aquaductus; kill German knights; Avenge our Army.

IBT: our knight defeats 3 German knight before falling to the 4th; another German Knight reaches Tyrus, German Army moves S; German Galley drops Knight by Grodion; Babylonians want Peace – no way; Greeks drop Archer near Verona; Babylonian knight by our Settler (to be Augustadorum)

850 AD(Turn 10):. Hippo Regus: Granarium>Bibliotheca; Pompeii: Portus>Knight; Lugdunum: Quaestionarium>Settler; defeat German Knight by Grodion; defeat Greek Longbow by Verona finally after more Elite victories than I can count getting a Great Leader! Found Simium, >moenia; found Augustadorum, >moenia;

Treasury: 657 gold + 59 gpt, Engineering in 16

Post-turn: I have left Great Leader Trajan where he stands for the next player to deal with. There are several Settlers about: 1 W of Mediolanum, 1 in Rome, 1 N of Rome, 1 N of Nicomedia. There is a French Archer N of Ceasaraugusta I have left for the next player – there is an Elite Legion there, but as I have just generated a leader, the next player may want to use the leader before trying for another Elite victory. We can now upgrade the Galleys in Pompeii. NB: German Army can only move 1 as it contains Swords. The Germans have loads of Knights and decided to have a go at us rather than the Americans. Several of our central cities now have no defenders, although I have not gone as far as Zwingli’s plan – I prefer more mobile troops if we are to do this. The German attacks started shortly after I left the first city undefended – maybe they are going after the easy target. We are weak compared to the Aztecs.

Great Leaders: 9 (1 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 75 (18 this session)
Cities razed: 32 (4 this session)

Demiurge (up next)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_AD0850_01.SAV)

Got it. I may be able to play tonight, but more likely tomorrow.

Nice progress. Some points I noticed while looking at the save:

Japan is willing to give their wm for our wm; we should do the trade.

Aztecs obviously are at war with Japan. And are still democracy: therefore war weariness will hit them.

India is monarchy and they own Kagoshima. Thus they probably are also at war with Japan.

Iroquois are democracy and probably at peace.

America is probably still fighting a loosing battle vs. Germany and Babylon.

Some cities will profit from mm.

Increasing science to 80% will speed metallurgy to 4 turns.

Should Trajan build Magellan's in Verona? It gives us the culture expansion we want plus +1 ship movement, which will be very useful in the future. Smith's will not help us so much IMHO.

I would move to or build some catapults for the east coast to force AI ships back to their harbors.

Pompei should build caravels and not knights to prepare for the invasion.

Arretium should build granary; we need lots of settlers for the other continent.

I don't have much to add this time, although I would definitely crank up the research slider. Each turn closer to Military Tradition is probably a turn earlier on victory. A road between Arretium and Sirmium would greatly help in moving units north, but it looks like workers are almost in place to do just that.

Unfortunately, I got time to play and foolishly didn't check in prior to playing. In other words, while I accomplished most of the suggestions, I failed to get Magellan's (the better choice) and went for Smith's instead. No GLs during my turns and its still being built so we may get it yet.

Pre-turn thoughts:
With Germany's introduction to the northern front and military tradition due in 10-12 turns, I plan to play it pretty defensively in the north incurring as few losses as possible. My goals are to finish off England on our continent and settle the remainder of their territory, solidifying our northern front. Other than that, I'll set research to the max allowable and try to get knights and more of the defensive troops we have to the south, up north for upgrades, for when we learn military tradition.

850 ad (pre-turn): Shuffle some troops around; destroy French archer near Ceasaraugusta, send GL Trajan N to rush Smith's; I need 7 settlers to reach spots in 10 turns to settle current and former English territory so adjust some builds to get settlers there on time; up sci to 80% for metallurgy in 4; do some MM to encourage growth, maximize shield output

IBT: Babylonian knight attacks Augustadoram killing one knight; German army moves to mountaintop near Cyrene, lets see how they like our cats

860 ad (turn 1): Bombard German army, cats go 1 for 3; take revenge on Babylonian knight; shuffle troops; rush 2 settlers

IBT: Iroquois and Japan sign MA against us; German knight and army die attacking Cyrene, 3 more German knights appear near Tyrus; Babylonian knight near Augustadoram; French archer dropped off near Gordion in the S

870 ad (turn 2): French archer destroyed near Gordion; Bab knight near Augustoram

IBT: 2 German knights die attacking fortified scout knight on mountaintop near Tyrus

880 ad (turn 3): Rush Smith's in Tyrus; shuffle troops; sci down to 60%, metallurgy in 1

IBT: Our scouting knight near Tyrus redlines, but defeats another 3 German knights; English settle London in unclaimed territory

890 ad (turn 4): Learn metallurgy < military tradition at 80% in 7; Salmanaca completes Shakespeare's due to wonder cascade; upgrade 5 cats to cannons in critical areas; destroy London, move stack towards Warwick

900 ad (turn 5): Destroy Warwick losing 1 knight (disband 5 workers); move knights toward York; destroy Babylonian settler pair (disband 2 workers); build Trapezos on former English territory, Bagacum near Rheims

IBT: 3 German knights appear near newly founded Bagacum; English settler pair unloaded near future city site

910 ad (turn 6): Upgrade a couple cats in Bagacum; destroy York (disband 5 workers); settle Lauriacum replacing Warwick; shuffle troops

IBT: Germany asks for peace for metallurgy, no way; 2 German knights die attacking Bagacum; English build London yet again; another German knight appears near Bagacum

920 ad (turn 7): Tyrus feels the effects of Smith's, expands giving us a little room; destroy 1 German knight; settle Turenia, shrinking Babylonian borders; settle Curia connecting furs; settle New Rome; destroy London again; destroy Iroquois settler pair intending to settle furs (disband 2 workers); sci down to 70%, still get MT in 4, start banking cash for upgrades

930 ad (turn 8): Destroy German knight, archer and Babylonian archer; shuffle troops to front cities for upgrades when military tradition is learned

940 ad (turn 9): Build New Veii; reposition troops

IBT: 4 German knights appear near Bagacum

950 ad (turn 10): Destroy 2 German knights, set sci to 50%, MT in 1

Our world in 950 ad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/950AD.jpg

Post-turn
You have lots of military fortified and spread out along the northern front cities with full moves left. I pretty much stopped going on the offensive after gaining the furs to wait for military tradition, due in 1.

Great Leaders: 9 (0 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 89 (14 this session)
Cities razed: 36 (4 this session)

Zwingli (off the bench)
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

I see it, and will get to the first half of the turns today. We will have Military Tradition earlier than I expected, and should be able to make significant progress in the upcoming turns. It will be a priority to prevent the scientific civs from entering the Industrial Age and getting Nationalism for free.

Cavalry Rush

950 (0)
Note that we are already at war with everyone.

Move Knights so that they will be available for upgrade on the interturn, and bombard a German knight in our territory for 1 damage. I also move a large number of slow moving troops toward Pompeii to begin an overseas invasion force.

IBT- We learn Military Tradition, and I upgrade most of the knights on the front lines by pressing the “Big Picture” button and going into the domestic advisor screen.

960 (1)
I turn off research at this point to complete the upgrading process and build a treasury for a fortress city on the other continent. About 20 cavalry are ready to move as the turn begins. San Francisco is razed for the cost of 1 cav -5 slaves. Ashur is also razed -1 slave. 9 cavalry attack Babylon, but we lose 3 cavs to pikemen (destroy 5 defenders) and the city holds.

IBT- We defend against a knight

970 (2)
Several more knights, pikemen, and catapults are upgraded.

Destroy Philadelphia losing an elite knight -1 slave. Destroy 3 more pikes in Babylon, but at least 2 more remain. While killing a longbow outside Babylon, we get the great leader Hadrian. Unfortunately, he cannot make it to a coastal city this turn to rush Magellan’s.

IBT- We lose a spear and cav on defense, but defeat 2 knights. The Iroquois complete Magellen’s :( we were 1 turn too late.

980 (3)
I upgrade our galleys to caravels and begin gathering the ships for a westward voyage.

Hadrian builds an army and is loaded with 2 cavalry (so that it can still be transported by caravel).
We attack Babylon and raze the city with the Great Wall and Hanging Gardens at a cost of 1 cavalry -7 slaves. Kill a Babylonian settler pair -2 slaves.

IBT- Defeat 2 knights in defense and retreat a third.

990 (4)
I note that Germany, Iroquois and Azteca each have learned Metallurgy. It will not be long before they enter the Industrial Age and learn Nationalism, so it is important to get as much damage in as possible before this point.

Found New Antium near the ruins of Babylon. Destroy 2 pikes in Ur and raze the city -3 slaves. Likewise Nineveh is destroyed -6 slaves and 2 additional enemy knights are slaughtered in the open.

1000 (5)
I launch the invasion fleet of 5 caravels containing musketmen, legionaries, cannon, and some locally produced cavalry. New Cumea is founded.

Kill an amphibious knight with cavalry in the south. Destroy an Indian settler pair -2 slaves.

IBT- Defeat a longbow and knight in defense, but lose a musketman.

1010 (6)
Kill 2 pikes in Minsk, and the city is razed -2 slaves. The army is redlined in the process and is covered by a musket. Raze Rheims losing 1 cavalry, and the French are destroyed -2 slaves. Raze Tours (Babylonian) -2 slaves. Capture a couple of Babylonian workers in the open -2 slaves.

IBT- Defeat 2 knights in defense.

1020 (7)
Found New Neoplolis. We raze Epilli exiling Babylon to the odd continent (1 scientific civ crippled) -5 slaves.

We also land 6 cavalry, 5 musketmen, 2 elite legionaries, 1 settler, and 4 cannon on Aztec soil. I choose a location on flat ground, but which should benefit from the cross-river defense bonus. This location is within explorer pillaging range of the Aztec capital and their sole source of saltpeter.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_1020ad_invasion.jpg

IBT- Our landing party defeats a knight but loses a musket, another is injured by a retreating knight.

1030 (8)
We lose 1 cavalry razing Tlaxcala and move our stack into position to found a city -5 slaves. The Aztecs must have connected saltpeter last turn as they upgraded to musketmen and we had to resort to legionary attacks to finish the last defender of Tlaxcala. I ship chain a cavalry, musket, and cannon over from our continent to reinforce the stack.

In the north New York and Seattle are razed for -3 and -2 slaves. I use a musketman offensively to kill a barbarian warrior (a camp must have spawned in all of the newly open area). There is a possibility that we could have a barb uprising if 2 civs enter the industrial age :lol:

IBT- 5 Aztec Knights attack, and we defeat 2 of them (others retreat).

1040 (9)
Found “Fort Azteca” on the other continent and rush walls immediately (80g). Our cannons damage enemy troops, and we take out 2 redlined knights. I also ship chain over another cavalry, musket, cannon package to secure the beachhead. The Aztecs have obviously made peace with Japan since their visible cities are celebrating WLTK day in Democracy.


IBT- No further losses on the other continent as we defeat 2 knights and a longbow in defense (with cannon support), but 8 Aztec knights and an Iroquois knight pull up to the city. We lose 2 cavalry on the northern front.

1050 (10)

The northeastern cavalry group kills 3 musketmen in Hamburg and razes the city -4 slaves. Cavalry near Hamburg move on to hit Frankfurt -2 slaves.

The northwestern cavalry group kills an american settler pair -2 slaves and razes Washington -5 slaves.

At Fort Azteca we bombard and kill 3 knights (1 Iroquois, 2 Aztec) and a longbow.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_1050ad_siegeofazteca.jpg

Notes:

1. Hopefully we can wipe out Germany or sufficiently damage their economy before they enter the Industrial Age and get Nationalism for free. They are in Republic, so they must be hurting from all the city razings in the past few turns.

2. Likewise, we should be able to destroy most of the knights on the other continent at the walls of Fort Azteca. This will prevent them from upgrading to cavalry when they learn Military Tradition, and should give the top two civs (Iros and Aztecs) some weariness (the Aztec cities have stopped celebrating already).

3. As soon as Ft. Azteca is secure, shipping over a few suicide explorers can cut off the Aztec Saltpeter supply and isolate their capitol preventing trade for saltpeter/luxuries.

4. The Fort Azteca still has some flip risk due to high Aztec culture, but once we rush a library/temple it should be completely safe.

5. Note also that I drained troops protecting our west coast to set up the invasion, and we are somewhat vulnerable at the moment. The city on the other continent has fully diverted all enemy units toward our landing site, so the threat of naval invasion should subside due to the lack of spare AI units to fill boats. If there is a barb uprising, we will probably lose some gold due to undefended cities in the northwest.

6. We are razing cities far faster than we can replace them, so conquest may indeed be the quickest route to victory. On the other hand, the pace may slow down if the AI gets Nationalism.

7. We are currently researching Physics, but I haven't invested much in it yet and have been running low reseach to improve income. There are definitely useful techs at the beginning of the Industrial age, but I'm not sure we will have them long enough to make further research worthwhile.


Great Leaders: 10 (1 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 150 (61 this session)
Cities razed: 52 (16 this session)


tao (up now)
Furiey
Demiurge
Zwingli (just played)

Pre-turn thoughts
I look at the save and I don't really like what I see, despite the impressive military advances. Mapstat says we are 1500 tiles from the domination limit. I don't know, how the unknown to us map parts are counted. But IMHO we have no chance to get this much territory until 1300AD, i.e. in 250 years (25 turns). And I think it is ambitious to get a conquest victory till then.

I think we should grow our second core and hurry settlers in peripheral cities, micromanaged to maximum growth. We have the cash to do so.

I might have stopped research after mt, but since we are 4 turns from physics, I will continue it. Once we know it, we will learn more about the AI's status. And magnetism might be worth having to build frigates for naval warfare.

Looking at the map, I detect 2 Iroquios saltpeter sources and 1 Aztec. Since India has it, they likely get it from the Iroquois. Of course, we don't know all of the strange continent.

Pre-turn actions
move cannon out of Trapzus, because the city will be raided by barbs IBT; no wait: better to attack barb horse with elite musket from Curia: successful kill.
Hurry settler in New Veii, granary in Augustadorum.
Stop building caravels for now in the west
Shuffle some troops; some mm for wltkd
MM Artaxata to prevent riots; switch to forum.
Viroconium switched to portus.

IBT 3 Aztec knights retreat at Fort Azteca, 1 dies; no damage; 1 cav killed by German knight

1060AD (1) Fort Azteca b armamentarium s explorer.
London was founded by the English on the west coast.
We raze Atlanta killing 2 pikes, liberate 13g, disband 2 workers.
We destroy London killing 1 spear, promote to elite.
Hurry settlers in Teurnia, New Rome.
Fighting at Fort Azteca: kill 4 Aztec knights, disband 1 Aztec worker, kill 1 Iroquois knight, get 1 promotion; hurry explorer for 120g via worker.

IBT 1 cav killed by German knight; Iroquois drop warrior +
mounted warrior near Neapolis.

1070AD (2) kill Iroquois getting elite cav; suicidal explorer pillages Aztec saltpeter; kill 4 Aztecs, 2 Iroquois at Fort Azteca getting 2 promotions.

IBT massive barbarian uprisings near New Cumae; bad :(
India and Babylon land escorted settlers.

1080AD (3) Aztecs and Iroquios are Industrial Times; 16 barb horseman in camp near New Cumae.
2 cavs retreat, but 3rd razes Boston liberating 6g, disbanding 3 workers
Kill 10 Aztecs at Fort Azteca and the last win gives us Great Leader Maximus building an army.
Hurry settlers in Trapezium and Lauriacum.

IBT barb hordes move towards Bagacum; jumbos approach Fort Augusta

1090AD (4) we learn physics; magnetism in 5; Caesaraugusta riots
New Pisae founded
Chicago razed without losses, 1 promotion; setup Bagacun defense; kill 3 barbs; kill 3 jumbos at Fort Azteca, 1 Aztec pike

IBT Aztecs ask for peace (willing to pay 100g); no way

1100AD (5) Miami and Kiev razed, 2 slaves disbanded; bad: Germany is Industrial

IBT raging jumbo kills our cav army in Fort Azteca :(

1110AD (6) we attack Berlin, kill 4 rifles, loose 2 cavs, but 1 2hp rifle holds the city :(
We raze Moscow disbanding 3 workers.
New Lugdunum, New Byzantinium, and New Lutetia founded.
Fort Azteca: 14 Aztec knights, 3 jumbos ready to attack next turn; we kill the jumbos first since India just revolted to democracy; give them some happiness ;)

IBT we kill alot of Fort Azteca attackers, but loose 2 muskets.

1120AD (7) Lots of Fort Azteca killings.
Our wounded cavalries raze Berlin and the Great Lighthouse killing 2 rifles.

IBT we loose another musket in Fort Azteca; the AIs now attack w cavalry; we need a musket army!

1130AD (8) We disperse a barb camp on the eastern peninsula; move towards St. Petersburg; lots of elite killings at Fort Azteca, but you don't get a Leader when you need it ;)

1140AD (9) We learn magnetism and start upgrading to galleons; ToG due in 5 at 70%, +68gpt; we destroy St. Petersburg loosing 3 cavs, disbanding 6 slaves.

IBT Japanese settler/spear land in the east

1150AD(10) Fort Azteca's borders finally expand; 7th elite win gives Great Leader Germanicus, who builds an army.
We kill the Japanese spear capturing settler disbanding 2 workers

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_1150ad.jpg

Notes:
We are number one with score 1709.
Aztecs are in anarchy. Their democracy couldn't stand the losses.
The caravel at the northern island should check Nuremberg's defense.
I have taken Antium of settler build, because it has high potential and we can build or hurry settlers closer to where they are needed.
It may not be obvious, but the sail to Fort Azteca is shortet´r from Pompeii than from Lugdunum.
There are 3 workers in Bagacum to mine the iron.
Leipzig and Munich will likely fall next turn.
Tamuin's culture blocks our sea passage to the homeland and thus Fort Azteca's harbor has no effect yet. :(
Each time an AI vessel passed the Viroconium fish, the tile must be re-assigned!
The galleons in Viroconium should go east; at least that was my intention.
Since the game will not end really soon, I started 4 universities in high-science cities.
In Fort Azteca, The AI often attacks across the river. Don't make the same mistake in counter attacks.

For group discusion:
I did not fill the army in Fort Azteca and leave it to group discussion or the next player whether we want a defensive or offensive army.
What do we research after ToG? I usually do steam, because railroads give such an incredible boost. Or do we badly need nationalism for rifles?

Great Leaders: 12 (2 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 180 (30 this session)
Cities razed: 61 (9 this session)

Furiey (up now)
Demiurge
Zwingli
tao (just played)

I like this playing across time-zones. We sure can get a lot of turns in.

Military: I like the idea of using the army for defense and loading it with muskets. It seems the ai is still sending quite a few troops at us over there. We probably won't be able to push the offensive for a little while yet. While we finish off our continent and beef up our forces in Fort Azteca should we think about getting a foothold on the odd continent? It might behoove us to try and get a foothold in the N on the second continent as well.

Research: I would definately go for steam. The production boost in our cores would be very beneficial right now. It seems to me we are maintaining with the defense we have in Fort Azteca, but I could be wrong not having played the turns. So nationalism isn't really needed yet.

Victory type: If we can't beat 1300 ad, and it looks like we can't, I still like the idea of a conquest given the variant. It would at least add a few style points if we can get the earliest conquest. That assumes of course that smackster got a domination. Given the fact that they got the pyramids, a domination is highly probable with the fast exponential growth rate.

Military: I like the idea of using the army for defense and loading it with muskets. It seems the ai is still sending quite a few troops at us over there.
Yes. And I forgot to re-emphasize my experience: a cav army would also be "on top" and thus never completely heal.

While we finish off our continent and beef up our forces in Fort Azteca should we think about getting a foothold on the odd continent?I planned on sending some galleons from Viroconium.

Research: I would definately go for steam. The production boost in our cores would be very beneficial right now. It seems to me we are maintaining with the defense we have in Fort Azteca, but I could be wrong not having played the turns. So nationalism isn't really needed yet.

Victory type: If we can't beat 1300 ad, and it looks like we can't, I still like the idea of a conquest given the variant. It would at least add a few style points if we can get the earliest conquest. That assumes of course that smackster got a domination. Given the fact that they got the pyramids, a domination is highly probable with the fast exponential growth rate.I agree with all you said. We should build some workers in-between in cities at their pop limit, e.g. Rome, Cumae, Aesonesium.

Got it.

I also prefer to go for steam if we can do so, building a musket army may allow us to avoid Nationalism. Need to make sure we have enough workers to rail quickly, the rail boost and instant travel will certainly help.

I notice there are still 3 Cavs in the Caravel by Fort Azteca.

I noticed the fish reassignment issue at Agrippina when it suddenly went into starvation!

I was hoping to finish tonight, but just too tired.

I'm on turn 7, 1220 AD and have just got my second Great Leader from the fighting around Fort Azteca. The first built a Cav Army (so we now have 1 Musket and 1 Cav army in Fort Azteca) but what to do with this one? Wonder wise we have the choice of Newton's, Pentagon or Military Acadamy. I have Galleons available to chain him back to the home continent if we want to do that. The Musket Army has worker well, they've stopped attacking Fort Azteca itself and are going past it to the city I replaced Tamuin with, making the passing troops easy pickings. Hopefully the Cav Army will help us press forward.

I'll finish off tomorrow evening.

I was hoping to finish tonight, but just too tired.

I'm on turn 7, 1220 AD and have just got my second Great Leader from the fighting around Fort Azteca. The first built a Cav Army (so we now have 1 Musket and 1 Cav army in Fort Azteca) but what to do with this one? Wonder wise we have the choice of Newton's, Pentagon or Military Acadamy. My priority would be Newton's first, then Pentagon. IMHO Military Academy is useless, because we don't want to invest the shields in producing armies. We will build them with Leaders.

Summary
2 Great Leaders
12 Workers disbanded
7 cities founded
7 cities razed
Researched Theory of Gravity, Steam Power due in 2
Score: 1939

1150 AD(Turn 0):. Create Musket Army in Fort Azteca; Pick off Jumbo and Mounted Warrior losing 1 Cav in the process :(; move Cavs out of Caravel just in case it’s attacked; press button.

IBT: Aztec Cav redlines attacking our Musket Army across the river :D; German Longbows from Munich and Leipzig die attacking our musket; Barb Warrior Pillages, Horseman moves in.

1160 AD(Turn 1): Cumae: Cavalry>Cavalry; Ravenna: Cavalry>Cavalry; kill stuff ready to attack Fort Azteca (very easy to forget about that river – I see why you mentioned it tao); raze Munich for no loss; disband 2 German Workers; defeat 4 Veteran Rifles in Leipzig, losing only one Cav, but redlining all the rest, a Conscript Rifle remains on top, Leipzig will stand another turn; change New Antium to Settler.

IBT: Tokagawa wants a Peace Treaty: no way!; Iroquois move in 3 Cavs to Fort Azteca, Aztecs a Cav, a Knight with a Sword and Pike lagging behind; Barb Warrior dies attacking ??, Barb horse moves towards undefended city another 2 Barb horses appear elsewhere.

1170 AD(Turn 2):. Arretium: Granarium>Settler; Palmyra: Cavalry>Cavalry; Nicomedia: Granarium>Worker; Augustadorum: Settler>Settler; found New Syracuse, start Worker; Leipzig survives for yet another day (4 Cavs lost); now we have the Musket Army to handle the defence of Fort Azteca, decide to move a force to Tamuin, destroying it with no loss and disbanding 2 Aztec Workers; don’t want to take too many troops out of Fort Azteca so leave it at that for now; Nuremberg and Heidelburg are defended by Spears. Upgrade Spear to Musket in Fort Azteca.

IBT: Aztecs and Indians move in towards Fort Azteca; barbs attack New Syracuse.

1180 AD(Turn 3):. New Pompeii: Worker>Worker; Pompeii: Frigate>Frigate; Lugdunum: Aquaeductus>Musket; Jerusalem: Cavalry>Cavalry; defeat Aztec and Indian attackers around Fort Azteca; found New Gonzomonium; raze Atzcapotzalco capturing a catapult; our new Frigate sinks a Greek Caravel; disperse a Barb camp in the NE; Corfinium changed to Bibliotheca; can now drop research and still get ToG in 1; Leipzig still survives – how many more Rifles can they have?

IBT: Aztecs and Iroquois move in Cavalry and Indians move in Swords, Longbows and Spears to Fort Azteca; Greek Caravel attack our Frigate promoting it to Elite - can you get a Great Leader from a Frigate? We research ToG and commence Steam due in 9 turns at 90% (-14gpt) We enter the Industrial Age.

1190 AD(Turn 4):. New Antium: Settler>Settler; Sirmium: Longbow>Questionarium; New Pisae: Worker>Worker; Lunacantorium: Cavalry>Cavalry; Caesaraugusta: Forum>Musket (put taxman back to work); Nicomedia: Worker>Settler; found New Lunacantorium, start Armamentum; rush Armamentum in New Gonzomonium; defeat attacking troops around Fort Azteca; found New Neocaldonium, start Worker; move healed Cav Army to Leipzig, will attack with that next turn :).

IBT: Iroquois move in loads of Cavalry, Aztecs loads of pikes etc to Fort Azteca, lose Legion I managed to leave outside the city to the only Aztec Cavalry; German Cavalry approach troops around Leipzig.

1200 AD(Turn 5):. Rome: Uni>Worker; Veii: Uni>Cavalry; Cumae: Cavalry>Cavalry; New Gonzonium: Armamentum>Musket; defeat Cav attacking Fort Azteca; large stack of Aztec Pikes, Sword, Longbows on Wine outside borders; defeat 2 Veteran Rifles in Leipzig, redlining Army, defeat conscript Rifle and Veteran longbow with 2 Cavs, razing the city and disbanding 1 German and 4 Russian Workers; send scout into Konigsburg – defended by Rifles; rush Armamentarium in New Lunacantorum; rushed Settlers in Curia and Augustadorium.

IBT: English Caravel sinks attacking our Galleon; Aztec Catapult destroys road near Fort Azteca, loads of Aztec and Iroquois Cav move in; German Longbow kills scouting Cav near Konisburg;

1210 AD(Turn 6):. Rome: Worker>Cavalry; New Lugdunum: Worker>Worker; New Byzantium: Worker>Settler; Nicopolis: Settler>Settler; Neapolis: Uni>Musket; New Lunacantorium: Armamentarium>Musket; Hispalis: Cavalry>Cavalry; Viroconium: Frigate>Frigate; Gonzomonium: Cavalry>Cavalry; Neocaledonium: Galleon>Portus; Augustadorum: Settler>Settler; Curia: Settler>Settler; Indians have built a soon to be ex-city in the NW; kill all attacking Cavs around Fort Azteca, then go Great Leader fishing on the stack of Longbows and Swords – on the one but last longbow, and with my last Elite Cav get Great Leader Claudius! Form a Cav Army this time.

IBT: Fort Azteca: Japanese arrive in force with Samurai and Cavalry; Aztecs also move in Cavalry as do Iroquois; Barb Warrior dies on a Musket; Aztec Caravel attacks something in the fog by the stray Indian city on our continent; our people want to build the pentagon!

1220 AD(Turn 7):. Aesonesium: Uni>Worker; Lutetia: Musket>Musket; destroy Indus on our continent; found New Aesonesium: start Bibliotheca; change New Pompeii to Bibliotheca; found New Ceasaraugust, start Bibliotheca; raze Nuremburg, disbanding 1 German Worker; attack Japanese and Aztec Cavs and get Great Leader Anthony; ship chain Anthony back to Rome and hurry Newton’s University; hurried Settler in Lauriacum.

IBT: Fort Azteca: Aztecs move many Cavs in, Japanese 2 Samurai, Iroquois some Cavs as well.

1230 AD(Turn 8):. . We complete Newton’s University in Rome, start Cavalry; Treveri: Longbow>Legion; Aesonesium: Worker>Cavalry; Lauriacum: Settler>Worker; Gordion: Cannon>Cannon; Caesarea: Cavalry>Cavalry; Bagacum: Granarium>Bilbiotheca; attack Konigsburg losing 1 Cav, redlining all 3 defending Rifles but only killing 1; just realise – for the first time this game I have no one to declare war on…

IBT: Abe wants a Peace Treaty – No Way!; More Cav approach Fort Azteca; German Longbow from Konisburg kills a withdrawing redlined Cav.

1240 AD(Turn 9):. Veii: Cavalry>Cavalry; Arretium: Settler>Worker; Tarrentum: Longbow>Worker; Cumae: Cavalry>Cavalry; Jerusalem: Cavalry>Musket; hurry Settler in Augustadorum; clear up attacking Cavs at Fort Azteca; nibble at Konigsburg again with no effect – it’ll take the Army.

IBT: Cavalry, Jumbos and Samurai approach Fort Azteca and surrounding cities; Bismark wants a Peace Treaty: no way!; Babylonians found Babylon on our continent.

1250 AD(Turn 10):. Eburacum: Templum>Worker; Hippo Regis: Cavalry>Musket; Neapolis: Musket>Musket; Ravenna: Cavalry>Cavalry; Ceasaraugusta: Musket>Musket; Nicomedia: Settler>Worker; Augustadorium: Settler>Worker; found New Palmyra; kill knight defending Aztec Settler N of Palmyra, disbanding the 2 resulting workers; Bombard Konigsburg yet again, destroying the Bibliotheca and killing more citizens; clear up Cavalry in our territory around Fort Azteca.

Treasury: 267 gold + 102 gpt, Steam Power in 2 (60%)

Post-turn: Fort Azteca: Cavalry are still coming thick and fast, mainly from Aztec and Iroquois now, they head for New Gonzomonium which is the least defended of the 3 cities, allowing them to be picked off as they pass the other 2 cities – many Elite victories, only 2 leaders. There’s a Galleon of Cavalry unmoved in Pompeii – West to Fort Azteca or E to the strange continent? There’s another Galleon with 1 Cav and 2 Muskets unmoved in Viroconium with space to pick up the Settler in Corfinium on the way to the strange continent. The other Galleons are also unmoved this turn. Frigates have picked off quite a few Caravels that were plaguing our coast – looking back over the log I seem to have forgotten to mention this. I have bombarded Konigsburg this turn but not attacked with Cavs as the Army will be able to attack next turn. 8 Settlers are out and about: 2 in Fort Azteca, 1 in Corfinium, and 5 to settle in the North (currently by New Neocaledonium, Cyrene, Jerusalem, New Antium and Augustadorium. Many cities are building Settlers (probably too many) I was rushing them in the corrupt cities to coincide with growth – Curia, Trapezius, New Veii are currently on Settlers and grow next turn. I have not rushed anything this turn. There are still some Workers left to move, I have left them as the next player may wish to position them to start railing in the most advantageous position.

Great Leaders: 14 (2 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 192 (12 this session)
Cities razed: 68 (7 this session)

Demiurge (up next)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_AD1250_01.SAV)

Looks like a good turn of consolidation. I would suggest going for Electricity->Replacable Parts for our research path. After getting artillery, we can probably end research permanently and finish off the remaining civs with relative ease.

I believe our statistics at the end of the last turn should read:

Great Leaders: 14 (2 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 192 (12 this session)
Cities razed: 68 (7 this session)

Yes. And please wake the 2 galleons in Viroconium.

I believe our statistics at the end of the last turn should read:

Great Leaders: 14 (2 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 192 (12 this session)
Cities razed: 68 (7 this session)Ooops - Post corrected

Got the save. I have to leave town this morning. Back tomorrow and will play then.

Pre-turn thoughts:
1. Boy do we need workers. You really start to take for granted all the workers the ai provides. I'll switch a lot of builds to workers even if it costs a few shields, especially in the corrupt cities. I'll also stop any workers that are on projects needing more than about 3 turns to get them positioned for steam.

2. Military: I was a little surprised to still see the Germans N, but I guess most of our strength has been needed on the second continent. I should be able to finish them off in my turns though. I'll also try to get a city placed on the odd continent to start our offensive over there. I'm thinking of the hill near the wheat north of Thessalonica. I'll continue to send forces, both offensive and defensive to Fort Azteca. Although I don't plan to push the offensive much over there.

3. Since steam is due in 2, it looks like this will be another round of consolidation and railing. I'll continue to max research toward Electricity and try to get as much of the north settled as possible.


TURN LOG

1250 ad (pre-turn): Switch builds to workers in corrupt cities; rush 5 settlers in the N; do some MM; move caravel and galleon on our east coast toward Londinium to load troops for odd continent; change a couple bibliotecha builds to templum

IBT: Sure hasn't slowed down around Fort Azteca, 15 troops arrive

1255 ad (turn 1): raze Konigsberg in the N; raze Babylon in the N; kill troops around Fort Azteca; move settlers toward spots in N; unload 4 cavs in New Gonzomonium; steam in 1 at 60%

1260 ad (turn 2): learn steam < electricity at 70% in 10; our people want to build the Iron Works; built 20 additional workers in last two turns; destroy troops near Fort Azteca; unload 8 troops in Fort Azteca

1265 ad (turn 3): destroy Heidelberg (disband 3 workers), the continent is ours; kill troops near Fort Azteca; rush templums in New Gonzonium and New Lunacantorium on second continent; kill barb camp

1270 ad (turn 4): kill troops near Fort Azteca, GL Octavius, create cav army

1275 ad (turn 5): destroy 2 Iroquois settler pairs in the N (disband 4 workers); kill barb camp; destroy troops near Fort Azteca

1280 ad (turn 6): destroy troops near Fort Azteca; destroy barb camp; settle New Jerusaleum, New Ceasarea in N; destroy Greek caravel

1285 ad (turn 7): build New Tarentum, New Nicomedia in the N; destroy troops near Fort Azteca; land 7 cavs, 1 settler near Thessalonica on odd continent, bombard city with frigate, it looks like only 1 hop; destroy troops near Fort Azteca

1290 ad (turn 8): culture expands near Fort Azteca, send one settler out to cut into Azteca borders, narrow front; destroy Thessalonica (disband 5 workers); settle New Saleucia on odd continent; destroy Rhodes — Greek capitol, odd continent (disband 4 workers); destroy Troy, odd continent (disband 3 workers); settle New Ataxia, New Aurelianoram, New Hippo Regius, New Nicopolis in the N

1295 ad (turn 9): build New Cyrene near Fort Azteca; build New Lundinium, New Eburacum, New Arretium, New Gordion, New Aggripina in the N; disband 1 fleeing Greek worker; destroy Sparta on the odd continent

1300 ad (turn 10): build New Tyrus, New Verona in the N; destroy troops near Fort Azteca, GL Titus

Our world at 1300 ad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/1300ad.jpg

Post-turn:
1. I focused on getting workers to rail and more than doubled the number of workers we had from 58 to 119. I laid down a spider web and most of our land is close to being connected except for the new cities in the north.

2. Most of the north is settled. A few more cities could be squeezed in.

3. I got a foothold on the odd continent, but other than burning a few close-by cities I didn't really push hard over there. The Greek cities I did take were very easy. One or two hops.

4. The ai is still sending a good number of troops at us near Fort Azteca. Since settling New Cyrene though they've been funneling between the two cities and you can clean them up pretty easy with the cannons and cavs. There is a GL, Titus in Fort Azteca awaiting your orders.


Great leaders: 16 (2 this turn)
Workers disbanded: 212 (20 this turn)
Cities razed: 75 (7 this turn)

Zwingli (next)
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

Why did you do all the northern settlements? Shouldn't we go for conquest now instead of domination?

Therefore IMHO we do not at all want to continue building these temples.

Leaving empty spaces e.g. instead of New Verona and New Jerusalem would have enticed the AIs to keep sending settlers and found towns which we then could have destroyed.

IMHO it is also bad to railroad mines in hopelessly corrupt areas. We should railroad irrigation!

Should we attack India while they still don't have rifles?

Building those cities in the north didn't affect the number of military units we could produce at all. Except for 1 worker in each of the cav cities, they produced nothing but military. So, it does nothing but increase our score right?

We now have empty space on the odd continent. Won't they now go for that?

Got it, and will post the turns sometime tomorrow.

Apologies in advance for an abbreviated writeup. I do not have access to my home computer for the weekend due to travel and left my notes behind. In order to keep the game going, I have uploaded the save (from usb disk), and will update this post with date specific details on Monday. Here are the general outcomes of this session:

Early
Concentrate on setting up a rail network so that the entire home continent can be defended by a single stack of units. Most temples are switched to more workers to speed the process, and the leader is used to rush the Pentagon in Ft. Azteca. We build another explorer and disconnect the Aztec saltpeter again.

Militarily, we mainly advance with existing cavalry on the strange continent, razing 1 English, 1 German, and 2 Greek cities. The secondary continent sees continued influx of enemy cavalry which are destroyed with minimal losses. I setup for an attempt to invade India from the north, and eventually position the cavalry army to cover an attack on the Aztec capital city Tenochticlan.

Middle
We continue to work on the rail network and ship some workers to the other two continents to improve movement there. After Electricity, Replacable Parts is set as the research goal at a gpt loss (some of which is recovered from city razings).

On the narrow continent, we raze another English and Greek city eliminating Greece from the game (Greece eliminated in 1340 AD).

On the enemy continent, we assault Tenochticlan in 1325 AD losing 8 cavalry (including 3 in an army) to destroy 7 riflemen, but razing it along with the Pyramids, Sistene Chapel, and 8 workers. The northern invasion is repelled by India who had more cavalry in the north than expected (I incorrectly assumed that all their cavalry would be in the south attacking around Fort Azteca). We lose 3 musketmen and 1 cavalry and are surrounded by enemy cavalry before returning the remaining troops to our continent to wait for Replacable Parts.

Late
All cities on our continent are connected by railroads, and we are therefore secure from invasion. Most cavalry and cannon are diverted toward the Fort Azteca front in preparation for a second push coinciding with Replacable Parts.

We raze 1 more German city on the narrow continient, but later fail to take a second as reinforcements are slowed by mountains.

We suffer some musketman losses following the destruction of the Aztec capital since enemy cavalry will attack the front line cities when the armies are removed. However, they will not attack an army in the field, which allows us to cover injured cavalry as they withdraw back to Fort Azteca. On the last turn we learn Replacable Parts but don't have any gold for upgrades yet due to researching at a loss. We raze an Aztec city in the south, during the last movement turn, destroying 3 riflemen, 1 cavalry, and 3 workers at a cost of 2 cavalry (an unexpected 8 cavalry retreat!)

Notes:
Despite numerous elite victories, I did not get a single leader during this session (fortunately, great leaders are less important at this point in the game). Many enemy cavalry show up near Fort Azteca each turn, but once we upgrade to infantry we won't have to worry about defense. I have left some of the cannon unmoved so that they can be upgraded in between turns (by using the city arrow buttons and upgading the units in the city management screen). We can use the settlers in Fort Azteca to push back the extensive Aztec cultural borders and give our artillery easier access to Aztec cities.

I did not skim workers from our size 12 cities during this session in order to save population for drafting infantry, but forgot that we would need Nationalism to draft. It is probably not worth researching any more tech at this point since the AI civs do not have Electricity yet (and should not reach Replacable Parts). We should be able to conquer the rest of the world with cavalry, infantry, and artillery. Now that our workers are working at double speed, we can optimize the mines and irrigation in core cities to get 27 shields per turn (a cavalry or artillery every 3 turns).



Great leaders: 16 (0 this turn)
Workers disbanded: 228 (16 this turn)
Cities razed: 83 (8 this turn)

tao (next)
Furiey
Demiurge
Zwingli (just played)

Edit: Updated with accurate dates and totals

Got it. But today I will try to finsh gotm33 and thus I will play tomorrow.

Summary:
Fighting gave us 6 Great Leaders which all built armies. I optimized most of our cities and merged workers where appropriate.
The Aztecs are significantly weakened, but recently Indian cavalries appeared. But artillery aides greatly in killing them.
We founded Fort Ebur in the north and hope it to give us ebur soon (after we raze Edo), which we need for happiness in non-forum cities.
We have 400gpt for hurrying what we need.

1355AD (1)
Upgrade 7 artillery, 6 infantry; some killing; lots of worker actions; some mp re-distribution to prevent riots or trigger wltkd; musket army protects railroading between Fort Azteca and New Cyrene.

IBT Iroquois land 2 settlers on SC (Strange Continent)

1360AD (2)
upgrades again
Fort Aztecs: artillery redlines, elite cav produces Trajan, builds army; elite cav "knight" produces both its and this turns 2nd Great Leader Hadrian: next army; we need lots of cavs to fill them all
strengthen musket army with infantry and it protects rr westward
kill 2 escorts, disband 4 Iroquois slaves on SC

IBT 10 cavs move towards Fort Azteca

1365AD (3)
Fort Azteca West founded; lots of killings;
start northern expedition again

IBT again lots of cavs at FA

1370AD (4)
attend to Iroquois and Indian cavs first, since they are still democracy and we want to kick them out of it
we see first Iroquois ironclad; we need naval escorts!

1375AD (5)
we need 10% lux to keep some cities without fora from rioting
northern landing on hill near ivory
killing another Aztec cav produces Maximus who builds our next cav army
the move towards Teotihuacan starts
barb camp appears on SC; our worker flees

1380AD (6)
northern corps razes Hyderabad (2 slaves) loosinfg 1 cav but fails to create cultural gap for settling
we fail to capture Nuremberg loosing 2 cavs on the SC
our 4 cav armies approach Teotihuacan

IBT
elite cav on SC is attacked by longbow and produces Great Leader Germanicus (in the mountains far from any city)
samurai appears near undefended New Seleucia on SC

1385AD (7)
SC fighting: cav army attacks German capital Cologne, kills 2 rifles, 1 spear, but longbow survives, redlined by frigate; send cav + 3 legions as barb control units
our cannons redline samurai, our cavs kills
we attack Teotihuaca: bombardement kills 2 citizens (now pop 4; Aztecs must have used a lot of pop rushing and drafting) and yellowline 1 rifle
army 1 kills vet rifle (10 hp left); army 2 kills reg rifle (11hp left); army 3 kills draftee (15hp) and 2hp vet (promotes, 8hp); army 4 kills vet cavalry and captures Teotihuacan (2g, 1 slave); victorious armies return to FA to heal
ironclad sinks Aztec caravel
move towards TzinTzunTzen

IBT barb horse dies attacking New Seleucia on SC

1390AD (8)
SC: army attacks Cologne, kills rifle, longbow, razes city
we raze TzinTzunTzen killing rifle, pike, cav
now we can found Fort Ebur in the north (???) and hurry a temple

1395AD (9)
Germanicus finally reaches New Seleucia and build army
we raze Tula (5 slaves)
fighting at Fort Azteca produces Claudius: next army
we hurry armamentarium in Fort Ebur
we raze Nabur (3 slaves)

1400AD (10)
frigate sinks American galley
we fail to conquer Neayo, but produce Great Leader Neayo building another army in Fort Azteca
we attack Tlatelolco: army 1 kills rifle (1hp left), army 2 kills rifle (17hp left), army 3 kills rifle (14 hp left) and razes Tlatelolo (5 slaves).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3_tao_1400ad.jpg

Notes:
There is an unfilled army in Fort Azteca and 2 settlers for founding new cities are next to it.
There is an empty army on its way to Fort Ebur, protected by an empty elite galleon; we need ironclads here!
There are 3(?) Iroquois ships southwest of the SC.
I started merging workers into productive cities.
The units on the main continent are needed as military police in cities without markets.
Threre are at least 2 barb camps on the SC
The 5 workers in the north are chopping forests to speed temples.
There is artillery with the armies to attack Tyndenaga.

Great Leaders: 22 (6 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 207 (27 this session)
Cities razed: 67 (6 this session)

Furiey (up now)
Demiurge
Zwingli
tao (just played)

Nice to see us finally making some headway on the second continent. :goodjob: Looks like its just a matter of time until we can finish everyone off.

Got the save, will have a look tonight, but have to go out so will be unable to play until tomorrow.

I'm progressing well on all fronts, unfortunately things have cropped up and I will not be able to finish tonight and I will definitely not be able to play tomorrow. I will definitely be able to finish (with the possible exception of fire/flood/military uprising etc) on Friday afternoon. If that is not OK let me know and I will upload where I have got to so far. Sorry.

Now done - will upload everything tomorrow morning

(Should have added power cut to the above list....)

I will be abroad till Tuesday evening, but that does not seem to create a problem ....

Summary
3 Great Leaders
58 Workers disbanded
21 cities founded
16 cities razed
Score: 3032

1400 AD(Turn 0): I know our people said they wanted to build the Iron Works, but I still can’t see where, am I missing something or did some coal or iron expire just after we got Steam Power?
Set New Pisae to grow faster; Leave Settlers for now, they’ll need defending and everything seems pretty much occupied at the moment; decide to let Cavs heal before filling Army next turn; press button.

IBT: Abe wants peace – No Way! Cavs of all nations move into cities on 2nd continent, but none actually attack us, they are getting a long way into our territory by using the unclaimed areas, need more Settlers to slow them; Iroquois Ironclad heads for SC, Iroquois Galleons head away from it; Barbs attack our cav on the SC promoting him to Elite.

1405 AD(Turn 1): Attack Tyendenage with Cav Army, killing one Rifle but redlining Army, THEN remember Arty :blush:; bombard city redlining everything; second Cav Army kills the remaining 2 Rifles and 1 Cav, razing city and disbanding 3 slaves; fail to take Teayo; settle Ironbridge on Iron S of FA West to slow the movement of invading Cavs to New Cyrene; get Great Leader Octavian stuck far from a city by killing German Longbows S of Bremen on SC; Cav promoted in the IBT kills another Barb horseman; not sure what the plans were for the Settlers on heading for the SC, move one S the other N; rush a few Settlers; hurry Port in Fort Ebur; unload troops in Fort Ebur and fill Army with Cavs, move towards Satsuma.

IBT: Cav retreats from more German Longbow near Bremen; far more Aztec Cavs than you would think they could have left move in, Ironbridge slows their approach successfully in the S.

1410 AD(Turn 2): kill Japanese Settler and Escort on SC disbanding 2 slaves; destroy barb camp on SW tip of SC; found Salconfloare Azteca near Aztec saltpetre; kill many Indian, Iroquois and Aztec Cavs; raze Teayo and 1 Aztec Worker; move Cav Armies to next Aztec city (name obscured) and remaining Cavs from Teayo operation to other Aztec city there; bombard then attack Satsuma destroying it and 7 Aztec workers; rush Templum in Ironbridge; sink one of the Aztec Galleons; take more Cavs, Arty, Infantry and Settlers across to New Gonzo, found Southbridge and New Corfinium; hurry a couple of Settlers.

IBT: Germans want a Peace Treaty – No way! Southbridge attacked by Iroquois and Aztec Cavs, Aztec Jaguar Warrior spotted on SC; Aztecs land single Cav by undefended; lose 1 wounded Cav in N

1415 AD(Turn 3): Bombard Aztec city (Malinalco) before attacking with Armies, razing it along with 5 foreign workers; build Army with Octavian as he reaches a city on SC, found New Treveri and New Sirmium (taking Aztec carbonis); raze Berlin (no workers) with Cav Army on SC; found New Augustadorium on SC; sink Iroquois Galleon by SC; Lugdunim riots in the IBT, Longbow moved there to stop it; found New Medialanium on SC and New Trapezus in N, kill more Cavs – the numbers seem to be reducing now.

IBT: Grrrr: miscalculated movement distances and lost 2 workers I thought were safe by Fort Azteca, more Cavs attack, lose Ironclad to Iroquois Ironclad; Jaguar Warrior dies on our Legionary in New Medialanium.

1420 AD(Turn 4): kill invading Cavs, bombard and kill all rifles in Edo, one Cav left unfortunately; prepare for attack on Calix… next turn; fail to take the remaining Aztec city at the bottom of the map S of Ironbridge.

IBT: Cavs attack (we lose one Cav); more troops move in to Edo.

1425 AD(Turn 5): Attack Edo, bombarding all troops down to redline, get Great Leader Titus; raze Edo and 4 foreign workers, getting Ebur; build Army – we need more Cavalry!; bombard and attack with Armies Calixtluaca (about 10 rifles defended) raze it and 7 foreign workers; lose Ironclad to redlined Iroquois one; Destroy Texcoco and 4 Aztec Workers; rush a few temples and settlers; sink Aztec Galleon; found New Bagacum.

IBT: More Cav attack (including several Aztec ones); Indians land a soon to be dead settler in the space we created in the N.

1430 AD(Turn 6): found New Lauriacum; as predicted kill Indian Settler/Escort disbanding the resulting Workers; found New Turnia; finally raze the city on the very bottom of the map and find it is (was) called Chalco; found New Curia; raze Cempoala disbanding 3 Workers; found Rome 2 in the N; sink redlined Iroquois Ironclad; found Veii 2; prepare Arty for Tlacopan.

IBT: still more Cavs move in – I don’t know where the Aztecs are getting them from now, Japanese land soon to be dead Settler in the N

1435 AD(Turn 7): raze Tlacopan and 3 Workers; killing Iroquois Cavalry get Great Leader Trajan – build Army; found Antium 2, kill Japanese Settler/Samurai (very tough Samurai); found Cumae 2; move in to Bangalore; rush a few settlers.

IBT: Cavalry and Samurai attack, we lose 2 Cavalry but kill more.

1440 AD(Turn 8): kill Aztec Settler/Rifle near New Augustorium on SC; raze Bangalore and 4 Workers; found Neapolis 2; move towards Tonawanda;

IBT: More Cavalry attack – even Aztec ones, no losses; Liz want a Peace Treaty (our Cavalry approaches her Capitol – No Way!

1445 AD(Turn 9): destroy Tonawanda and 6 Workers; found Pompeii 2; destroy Oxford, the fledgling English are no more; found Pisae 2; sink a Babylonian Galley (just); raze Huexaolta and 2 Workers; found Ravenna 2; capture and disband 3 workers in the N.

IBT: lots of Samurai movements N & S; Indians want Peace – No Way!; more Cavs move in, only one Aztec one this time though…

1450 AD(Turn 10): Bombard Grand River, but only knock 1 hit point off 1 rifle, so do not attack; raze what I thought was the final Aztec city in the N (losing an army to an Elite Pike :(, but spot another on the W coast; destroy another barb camp on SC – there is one in the unexplored peninsula near the gems;

Treasury: 797 gold + 441 gpt, Nationalism in 24 (0%)

Post-turn: It’s been a long 10 turns. 2 Settlers on SC to settle coast near Bremen. Bremen is well fortified with Rifles, hence the Army in New Augustadorium, one hit point from fully healed and unused this turn; there is another unused healed Army in New Tuernia which was to attack Grand River before the pathetic attempts from the Arty to prepare. Most of the other Armies are in Fort Azteca healing. The pace of attack from Cavalry has dramatically decreased over the last couple of turns, although the Aztecs are still finding some. We need to move on the Iroquois – we could sell them replaceable parts if we were not at war and Xenopobic.

Great Leaders: 25 (3 this session)
Slaves disbanded: 265 (58 this session)
Cities razed: 83 (16 this session)

Demiurge (up next)
Zwingli
tao
Furiey (just played)

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/tao_SG003_AD1450_01.SAV)

I know our people said they wanted to build the Iron Works, but I still can’t see where, am I missing something or did some coal or iron expire just after we got Steam Power?
I looked during my turns and couldn't find it either.

It’s been a long 10 turns.
Just imagine how much longer they would have been if we had to move the other 265 workers we've disbanded. :eek:

Got the save. I'll try to play late tonight.

1450 ad (pre-turn): Germany and Iroquois are close to getting replaceable parts, so I'll go at them hard; shuffle troops; kill one red-lined Iroquois spear; we are 642 tiles to limit, have to keep an eye on that; rush aqueducts in Palmyra, Gonzomonium and Saleucia, they are productive enough to produce cavs and can afford to grow past size 6

IBT: Iroquois beg for peace, no way; Iroquois cav attacks an elite cav, GL Hadrian

1455 ad (turn 1): artillery redlines all rifles in Grand River, burn it down (disband 4 workers); rush settler in Fort Azteca to settle the other choke on the second continent (SC) allowing our ironclads to pass through between the SC and odd continent (OC); cav on SC destroys two Japanese settler pairs (disband 4 workers); join a few workers to some productive cities to get them up to pop 12; Hadrian creates cav army; destroy American settler pair on OC, (disband 2 workers); we seem to have plenty o' cash so up lux slider to 30%, still at +343gpt

1460 ad (turn 2): SC — artillery in the S redline a bunch of incoming troops; Indian front, destroy Kogachuri in the N (disband 1 worker), destroy Indian settler pair (disband 2 workers), disband another stray Indian worker; Iroquois front, destroy Akwesasne (disband 4 workers); Japanese front, destroy stray troops; rush a couple aqueducts, join a few workers

1465 ad (turn 3): SC — Indian front, destroy Karachi (disband 5 workers), advance troops on Delphi; Iroquois front, destroy Iroquois ironclad, destroy St. Regis (disband 3 workers), destroy incoming troops, reposition troops; OC — destroy Uruk (disband 2 workers), destroy Bremen (disband 1 worker), join a few workers, rush a couple aqueducts

1470 ad (turn 4): SC — Indian front, destroy Indian settler pair (disband 2 workers), elite cav gets victory, GL Maximus creates cav army, attack Delhi, leave 1 3hp rifle; Iroquois front, destoy Kanawachi (disband 2 workers), build Lugdunum 2 allowing our ironclads to move to water area between OC and SC, build Lutetia 2, destroy Matsuyama (disband 4 workers)

1475 ad (turn 5): SC — Indian front, position more troops to attack Dephi, destroy several Japanese units; Iroquois front, destroy Kanawagha (disband 3 workers), pre-turn 10 Aztec cavs showed up near Lugdunum 2, where do they keep coming from?, bombed them to submission and cleaned them up, GL Germanicus produced, builds cav army; OC — destroy American caravel; drop 4 cavs on small island in the N; rush 1 aqueduct, join a few workers; we are now 562 tiles to limit

1480 ad (turn 6): SC — Indian front, destroy Delphi (disband 4 workers); Iroquois front, position troops to take Salamanaca; OC — move stack of cavs N continue roading continent; Small island — destroy Babylon (disband 2 workers), Babylonians are done for

1485 ad (turn 7): SC — Indian front, shuffle cavs for healing, softening cities with artillery while I wait; Iroquois front, destroy Salamanaca, reposition troops and artillery; OC — destroy Kyoto (disband 4 workers), destroy barb camp; Small island, destroy Indus (disband 2 workers) GL Claudius, ship him back to home continent

1490 ad (turn 8): SC — Indian front, destroy Madras (disband 2 workers), clean up some Japanese troops; Iroquois front, destroy Mauch Chunk, destroy Tlalmanlanco (disband 2 workers)

1495 ad (turn 9): SC — Indian front, destroy Tenochtitlan :OC — destroy 2 barb camps, destroy Texepen (disband 1 worker),

1500 ad (turn 10): SC — Indian front, destroy Indian caravel, reposition troops; Iroquois front, reposition troops; OC — destroy barb camp, reposition troops

Our world at 1500 ad:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/1500ad.jpg

Post-turn
Most of the healing troops on the second continent are in Rome 2 (in the N) and in New Teurnia in the S. The ai has given up on going on the offensive and I have a feeling the end is near. We are now 546 tiles to domination limit.

Great Leaders: 29 (4 this turn)
Workers disbanded: 322 (57 this turn)
Cities destroyed: 102 (19 this turn)

Zwingli (next)
tao
Furiey
Demiurge (just played)

Got it and will probably complete the turns tomorrow. It looks rather straightforward from this point, and might be able to finish them off during the next ten.

1455 ad (turn 1): artillery redlines all rifles in Grand River, burn it down (disband 4 workers)Glad to hear the Arty did a better job on Grand River after the pathetic attempts last time

1475 ad (turn 5): pre-turn 10 Aztec cavs showed up near Lugdunum 2, where do they keep coming from?I wondered this myself many times, they seemed to be producing far more than they had cities to produce them with - they must have had a huge stock somewhere. With those sort of numbers they could have crushed our invasion if they'd counterattacked in force rather than in dribs and drabs.

Conquest
1500 (0)
I rush a bunch of settlers in larger cities on the other continent, and spend down the rest of our cash rushing additional galleons. Lux tax it turned off to earn maximum income for continued cash rushing (the governor is employed at this point as micromanaged production is less important than transport capacity). The settlers will be “combat settlers” to impinge on enemy culture borders and give our artillery easy access to enemy cities. I set up a good amount of workers on the main continent to be transported to the second continent.

1505 (1)
Raze Allegheny after a massive shelling
Raze Cattaragus -4 slaves
Raze Bombay -1 slave
Raze Okoa? (Japanese)
Raze Tenotichlan

Near the end of the combat phase, Civ3 crashes and I have to reload. Results are similar, but we get a leader who simply rushes another artillery.

The combat settlers move into position and workers are chained over to complete the second continent rail network.

1510 (2)
Found Byzantium 2
Found Brundisium 2
Found Syracuse 2
Found Gobzonmium 2
Found Lunacantorium 2

These settler form pockets of Roman culture which expose the entire Indian and Iroquois front line position to artillery fire and cavalry advance. I continue to use all cash to rush artillery in low production cities with build up shields (ie cities almost done with temples).

Raze Centralia -2 slave
Raze Ixtapulaca
Raze Lahore -4 slave
Raze Calcutta -1 slave
Raze Hanover (middle continent)
Raze Oil Springs -5 slave
Raze another Indian city -1 slave
Raze Chittagong -1 slave
Raze Tokyo -3 slaves (Aztecs Destroyed)

Capture workers in the open -5 slaves

IBT- We lose 3 cavalry and 3 workers to counterattacks, but it doesn’t matter since another shipment will arrive and our armies have healed.



1515 (3)
Raze Niagra Falls -4 slaves (Iroquois destroyed)
Raze Houston (America destroyed)
Raze Izumo -3 slaves
Raze Osaka -4 slaves
Raze Bengal -1 slave
Capture workers in the open -2 slaves

After extending our rail network to the new front lines, I found Aesonium 2 and advance the artillery toward the remnant of India. I ship over a settler and some troops behind Indian lines from a newly build city on the west of the second continent (galleon was rushed).

1520 (4)
Get a leader attacking Dacca behind Indian lines but we let the city stand as the settler moves into position for the final blow (all other civs will be extinct by next turn).

Raze Yokohama -2 slaves
Raze Nagoya -1 slave
Raze Shimoseki -1 slave

The game hangs again, and I begin saving every 5 minutes from this point on (no noticeable change in combat outcome). Found Leasugouta? 2 on the new Japanese front lines and move a last combat settler into position. Cavalry advance for the final assault on Germany, India, and Japan.

1525 (5)
Found Palmyra 2 inside Japanese territory.
Found Jerusalem 2 to access the mountainous Indian interior.

Raze Dacca
Raze Kolhapur
Raze Punjab (India destroyed)
Raze Sapporo -2 slave
Raze Hakodate -2 slave (Japan destroyed)
Raze Hamburg -2 slave (Germany destroyed)

At this point I just hit next turn since there are no civs left.

IBT- We win by conquest. :)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_1525ad_victory.jpg

I have attached the save just before victory (just press next turn).

Final Stats (Adjusted Totals)
Great Leaders: 31 (2 this turn)
Workers disbanded: 421 (51 this turn)
Cities destroyed: 152 (28 this turn)

Impressive Zwingli. While I thought you'd finish it off, I didn't think you could do it in 5 turns. :eek:

It was fun to play with everyone. While it would have been nice to get a pre-1300 win, I think we played a pretty solid game overall. Well, off to wash all this blood off my hands. ;)

ps: Thanks for the pre-victory save. Nice to be able to see the replay. Although for some reason, maybe related to the crashes you had, The summary replay wouldn't work for me. Anyone else have that problem? I push play and it would act like its going to replay but never did. I was still able however to move through the other menus without incident.

Yes - thanks for the save Zwingli - the replay worked for me although there was a long pause before it started (but then I always get impatient and press play multiple times). I meant to post the one for the last game, but forgot - I still have it if anyone is interested.

A thoroughly enjoyable game albeit somewhat bloody, I wonder what the next one will be?

I always get impatient and press play multiple times
It appears that impatience was the only problem after all. I tried again, waited it out this time and it worked fine.

I wonder what the next one will be?
I think I remember a post by MB stating that the next would hit his target of the variant only being winnable by 50% of the teams. :crazyeye:

Congratulations to team Tao with winning this game!!! :band:
Good job and hope to see your team in SGOTM4

I too thought this was an enjoyable game and varient :thumbsup:
Looking at some of the other team threads, it seems like most underestimated (or are in the process of underestimating) the strength of the other continent. It will be interesting to see how the other teams tackle the second continent, and what approaches work best. Our early shoestring invasion with 13 units plus cannon resulted in a mass slaughter of AI knights/cavalry with minimal losses to our own forces. On the other hand, the mass cavalry invasions of some other teams resulted in earlier gains, but much greater troops losses. The fortress city approach is a personal favorite, and I am pleased that we did not resort to resource disconnection to spam cavalry, but relied on old fashioned city production ;).

Team Peanut's game should be an interesting read, if for no other reason than to see how long they stay in despotism :lol:. They must really enjoy :whipped: their people!

...I am pleased that we did not resort to resource disconnection to spam cavalry, but relied on old fashioned city production ;).
While I agree with this and I also try to avoid breaking any deals, declare honorably and etc. in my own games, I'm really starting to wonder if its a good idea to avoid using resource disconnect. I play SGOTM/GOTM for a lot of reasons, but I do play them to compete. If your competitors are employing this tactic and your not, it can make a huge difference in date. The other "honorable" gameplay rules can be compensated for by good planning, but building massive numbers of cheap units for upgrade simply cannot.

The other "honorable" gameplay rules can be compensated for by good planning, but building massive numbers of cheap units for upgrade simply cannot.
I agree that in 90% of situations resource disconnection (for cavalry) provides an overwhelming advantage over any alternative. I enjoy a good challenge nonetheless and would prefer to continue with alternative strategies in SGOTM. If the team decided in advance to incorporate pillaging cycles, however, I would go with the decision. :)

I must admit, this is not a technique I tend to use - on the few occasions I have tried it something goes wrong, I then have no money for upgrades, plus loads of cheap and now almost useless troops that cost me an arm and a leg to support. I obviously need to practice more... (Ah - just found an excuse to play more Civ!)

The fortress city along with combat settlers are techniques I have used to good effect.

Having finished quite quickly, I suppose we will have a while to wait for the next game - I wonder if mad-bax will allow the team to stay together, perhaps if we tackle the variant (only 50% will win!) again...

I've just noticed in the maintenance thread that mad-bax announced that the next SGOTM will require people who play 1.29f to patch up to GOTM25, but PTW players will be able to play unmodded. My PTW is GOTM modded, my Vanilla is not - better start downloading then - good job I've got broadband!

A thoroughly enjoyable game albeit somewhat bloody, I wonder what the next one will be?

Yeah... so do I :mischief:

Was this difficult enough?

The next game will be on one of ainwoods maps. I am playtesting 3 different variants, those being 5CC, OBC (one built city) and Zero Research Space race.

You guys will have to install the GOTM mod in order to play it in 1.29f. I hope that this doesn't present a problem since it would be nice to see this team stay together.

Good game guys. Well done! :thumbsup:

I thought this game was incredibly challenging in the early to mid-game, but by very late-mid to end game we were really just going through the motions. We seem to be a fairly strong team overall, despite being out of the laurels, and it appears that we'll probably place somewhere in the top third. I guess what I'm trying to say is that given the high-caliber of play in this competition and given the fact that I don't think any team will post a loss this month, the level could still be turned up a notch.

Of the variants listed, both Zero-Research Space and OBC sound very challenging and perhaps more interesting than a 5CC only because I've played 5CCs before. Although I suspect an OBC will be a little easier than a 5CC in the long run.

You guys will have to install the GOTM mod in order to play it in 1.29f. I hope that this doesn't present a problem since it would be nice to see this team stay together.
I would suspect since tao, Zwingli and myself are Mac players, the patch isn't a problem and we're already patched up. I assume if we're playing GOTMs currently, we can use that already patched version of civ instead of patching our vanilla to post-GOTM25? Furiey has already posted her willingness to patch and she has broadband too, a big plus. Maybe we can even entice her to start playing the GOTM too. :)

I thought this game was incredibly challenging in the early to mid-game, but by very late-mid to end game we were really just going through the motions. We seem to be a fairly strong team overall, despite being out of the laurels, and it appears that we'll probably place somewhere in the top third. I guess what I'm trying to say is that given the high-caliber of play in this competition and given the fact that I don't think any team will post a loss this month, the level could still be turned up a notch.Despite being the weakest link in the team (this was my first attempt above Monarch) I would have to agree here. At first I really was not sure which way the game was going to go, then we got a GL and built the Great Library gaining Monarchy (et al), revolted with only 2 turns of anarchy, following which we started our Golden Age. It was still not easy at that point, but I would guess that that was the turning point.

I have not attempted any of the possible variants mentioned so they all sound pretty challenging to me…

I would suspect since tao, Zwingli and myself are Mac players, the patch isn't a problem and we're already patched up. I assume if we're playing GOTMs currently, we can use that already patched version of civ instead of vanilla? Furiey has already posted her willingness to patch and she has broadband too, a big plus. Maybe we can even entice her to start playing the GOTM too. :)I would guess GOTM Mac players just use that patched version, I will patch my Vanilla. As for GOTM, I have played a couple before, although at Conquest Level (with PTW) and I never managed to complete in time to submit – in fact GOTM21 (albeit conquest level) was my first ever attempt above Regent. I have been wondering whether I have time to start another game between now and the next SGOTM and have started eyeing CGOTM34, so you never know…

I am playtesting 3 different variants, those being 5CC, OBC (one built city) and Zero Research Space race.
All three of the varients sound interesting, although not extremely difficult :). The challenge will come from achieving a fast victory, which will require unconventional strategy (especially for non-research Space Race). I am thinking that many of the teams will be looking for an easier game after this month's warfest. I expect 2-4 losses this month (at least 1 diplomatic or SR defeat due to tech deficit) and a couple brutally difficult wins.

Edit:
I think the currently unfinished varient teams fall into 3 catagories.

Runaway Victory
Staff
X-team
Peanut

These teams have a dominating position, and are poised to win while the AI is in the early industrial era.

Conquest Loss
Sesn

This team looks to be in a downward spiral and is losing territory with every turn.

Difficult Victory/Tech Loss
All other varient teams

These teams probably won't lose by conquest, but could still lose by UN if they can't make an impression on the second continent in time. Given the difficulty we and other teams have had assulting the second continent, doing sufficient damage against factory equipped AI civs with tanks is not a trivial task. Nonetheless, if they stave off a tech loss they will eventually win.

Yes, the cries of pain have been heard. ;) So at least the opportunity to play a building game next time. It was going to be 3CC conquest, but someone already did that IIRC.

Conquest Loss
Sesn
It appears you were right afterall Zwingli. I hadn't checked all the threads prior to posting. Has anyone tried to analyze our game yet to see where we might have improved? Maybe tao will we he gets back.

@Furiey: Having played after you this game, and being able to get a better feel for your playstyle, I think you underestimate yourself. I don't think you'll have any problem when you decide to play emperor on your own games. I know I've improved my gameplay immensely just by playing alongside everyone and now feel much more confident than I used to.

I'm back and everything is over. :thumbsup: Congratulations to the team. To all the discussion above, I can only re-iterate that IMHO the Great Library was a crucial stepping stone, since without it we would have been backward and might have missed the Middle Age Wonders caused by not having the techs to rush them by Leaders.

Please also note that we did pillage the Aztec saltpeter at least once with an explorer to prevent them from building cavalry.

I also enjoyed the team play, especially noticing that Zwingli prefers a more extremely aggressive style, while I prefer some safeguards.

Re: Furiey's question on possible improvements: IMHO The Pyramids would have helped a lot, but there was very little WE could do for it.
In hindsight, it might have been better to place Greece earlier on the menu, because that would have allowed earlier eastward expansion of our core, while the northern AIs were busy fighting among themselves.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - putting Greece last on our continent effectively gave us the choice of when to fight them - there was nothing to stop us declaring on them earlier than their time. Of course, rather a lot seemed to be happening and it didn't even cross my mind to consider that...

I also noticed Zwingli's more aggressive style - at times he kicked us forward (and a good thing too) when I would have held back a little longer.

Thanks Demiurge, I know my game is improving, I'm learning all the time. Perhaps I need to find the time to play more games by myself to find out how much, but at the moment with the limited time I have for Civ, that doesn't seem likely. I was going to have a go at the current CGOTM as I'm on holiday this week, but so far I've done nothing more than open the save :(