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!

Hi, team. I'm not going to pm anyone like mad-bax suggested. Just little time to show up for everyone.

We are playing the variant in PTW version 1.27. If someone cannot play in this version, please tell so. If someone has signed up to play the variant by mistake and does not want to, please also say so and we may try to seek a replacement then.

The following team members would be playing with this team in the following order:

1. Samildanach
2. Cuivienen
3. jhigham
4. akots
5. Sir_Ortin

Please speak up something to confirm your participation and if there are objections against the order of play. We have the following topics to discuss:

1. How we get the award.
2. What are the strategy for the starting moves.
3. Do we all understand the variant rules correctly.
4. I personally have not played this GOTM and have no idea of the map. So, if somebody has played and has some hint, please post them. However, we should not discuss this extensively. Just post that "I have played the game and have a certain knowledge of the surroundings" (which are edited by mad-bax IIRC) or something like this.

Obvious strategy would be similar to Always War IMHO. However, there is a great UU (needs iron) and a possibility of early Golden Age. Don't know how it would work, but I hope to win by Domination or Conquest prior to 1000AD.

Lets start the discussion!

Hi akots. I don't remember if i played that gotm. Anyway, even if i played it, I do not remember anything about it. :(
As to discussion about starting moves - it seems a good starting location. I vote for immediatelly settlement.

Hi Guys! :)
I'm going to be out of town for the next two days, although I will try to make it back for the evening of the 14th. I guess we will still be deciding on what we are going to do for the next few days. I haven't had any thoughts on how we should approach this game as yet - I'll hopefully have had some ideas by the time I get back. Cheers

OK, three players are here, waiting for the other two to show up and start the discussion.

I can only reiterate my earlier advice. PM them. I know it's a chore...

In any case - you don't have to wait. you can start without them if you want to.

I'm going on vacation thursday afternoon, not back until 7/26. You may want to get a replacement :-/ There is a good chance that I'll be able to play on turn around 7/22 or 7/23 but other than that I'll be in the woods.

As for strategy, heck if I know. I'm a builder, and have only tried early wars a couple of times, with fairly mixed results.

I'm not 100% clear on where the 20 turns applies. Does this mean that 20 turns after meeting civ #2 we must declare war on them, or 20 turns after meeting civ #1 (immediately if we meet after 20 turns)? In other words, we'll be pretty quickly at war with most of the world... correct?

OK, still Cuivienen has to show up.

@jhigham: Is there anything else unclear to you? I'd prefer to answer all questions at once. Are you sure you want to play the variant? The difficutly is fairly close to Deity game IMHO, unless the map is really cheesy. So, you may still re-consider. We cannot play with 3 players in the team but with 4 it would be possible for a couple of weeks. Later on you may join but you'll miss most of the fun.

We have to declare war on the first civ we meet as a last step in the first diplo screen. Then, we can stay in peace with other civilization but only for 20 turns after the war was declared to the first. Basically, we have spotted a Greek warrior on turn 10 but have not initiated the diplo. On turn 15 Alexander comes to us and we can then buy something from him or sell something to him without gpt deals and haggling. Then, we must declare war. On turn 25 we meet some other civ, for example Egypt. We can stay at peace with Egypt for 10 turns till turn 35 when we have to declare war (and never make peace). Untill this, we can trade but cannot haggle.

Anybody else is going to skip in the near future?

IMO, we should try to follow the AW build with RCP3, 6, and 9. No improvements, only occasional rax but mostly units including settlers, workers and warriors with few spears. No undefended cities and settlers early in the game. We have to hook-unhook iron a few times and upgrade warriors to legions. With legions we can win the game early on with some occasional horsemen support. Horsemen are then upgraded to knights and very soon there would be cavalry running around. Then, winning would be not a big deal if we can survive and expand to this point. I would suggest going for Conquest victory condition since we would not be able to settle huge areas required by Domination victory condition.

Getting TGL would be top priority. We'll research Literature and go fishing for a leader then. Being militaristic means should be no problem with that.

If it goes really bad, we can try to build some cats but in this case we cannot count on getting the award because the game can be won without a singe cat. Hence, we can build cats only if really-really desperate.

Starting position has only a single food bonus in despotism which is game. We need another food bonus to create a settler factory. But may be it is OK. I'm not sure.

I also assume that all team members have previously played AW game and are familiar with basic principles of the strategy. :) If my assumption is wrong, please lets discuss more general issues.

... my earlier advice. ...

First, please stop lurking. Second, I thought you are too busy playing your turns with the staff team. We'll get this going somehow. If not, I'll pm you. No offense please. :)

None taken. I was just trying to help.

I have no problems playing the game, as long as you guys are cool with the fact that I'll be your handicap. My biggest downsides are that I always want to build improvements, and I don't like overlap space, which keeps my personal games in the monarch-emporer range.

I understand how this affects my game, and have no probem playing differently if needed, as in this situation. Having sessions limited to 10 turns will also help a bunch, as I can't get stuck going down the wrong path, and answering to other people will help, since I'll pay more attention to detail.

One question that I've never figured out, is how to make a beeline for certain techs (literature and iron working in our case) and also have money for upgrades. Do we go 100% (or whatever non-deficit), then go 0%, or just research at slightly under top rate with +2/t or whatever surplus. I never end up with remotely enough money to do significant upgrading, but I may be limiting my upgrade window too quickly. I tend to want technological superiority, not numerical superiority.

What's the story with cats and the bonus?

Checking in.

Wellcome, Cuiveinen! Good to see you on the team!

@jhigham:
Don't know about research. It might depend on the number of goody huts on the map. Quite possible that when we meet some other civ, they already know Iron Working. So, we may want to trade for that with cash and our starting techs. We also don't need to hurry too much with Literature and may try to trade for Writing then going at minimal science. But to tell the truth, it is very hard to know in advance.

Bonus you mean food bonus or something else? We need +5 food/turn to create settler factory. We desperately need it because we have to raze all enemy cities and hence need huge number of settlers to cover the empty areas of the map.

I'd like to see some more discussion on how to proceed with the first moves. Sam would apparently show up soon. Let's hear what he says.

Yes. Like AW we shouldn't be rushing out to make other civs aquaintance. I agree with the 3,6,9 RCP build. As far Armies and leaders are concerned depending on the map we may be able to get to chivalry/education with trading. If we are on a panagaea I suggest legion army first, heroic epic second and forget about the TGL. If we are on islands/continents we will probably need to go for the TGL first. If we are on islands what is going to be our strategy for armies? Do we build any? Given that we won't be able to move them off island until we get galleons. Having a third of our legions tied up in armies would really bite if we attempt to invade another continent early.

Since I've just become aware that when you extort a town from a rival civ the citizens are immediately naturalised can we extort towns from a rival civs on the turn before we wipe them out. That is we park our legions outside the enemy capital and extort their remaining towns in return for peace then immediatley break the peace treaty and wipe out their capital. If we can do this this should help our score against the competeing teams especially if they're not doing it :mischief: I personally think its within the spirit of this variants rules what do you guys think?
I also agree that we should go for conquest producing the settlers for domination will just slow us down.

Yes, you are certainly right. But if it is continents, we still would need at least one army. Just to get Heroic Epic and even more leaders. After all, it is Emperor level. Certainly, we can try a 20K game rushing wonders with leaders?

Hi guys! (sorry my terrible english)
As I can see, the saves are ready for downloading and playing. :)
Let's go!

To Samildanach:
I personally think its within the spirit of this variants rules what do you guys think?
I'm not sure, but it looks like some trick. According to rules:
3. You must stay at war with that Civ until one of you have been eliminated.
To me, if we plan to use such strategy, we should ask SGOTM staff if it is possible to make a peace treaty and break it during the same turn. I think, the answer will be NO. :(
But the idea is, mmm..., a candy! :) (as we say in belarus&russia = perfect).

Sir_Ortin is Correct.

In my experience this tactic is not permitted in AW or standard NOW either.

The difficulty I have with this, apart from being technically at peace with a civ you should be at war with (even for a nano-second) is that the AI does not handle it properly. If you do it to one Civ, fine. But the next Civ will also agree to part with towns too.

It is an exploit.

As to initial moves, IMHO the next: settle on start position, worker E, road, mine, worker w,w, road, mine.
After that worker make improvements according with the explorations.
I think that we need to connect luxuary resource as soon as possible.

Worker east first seems a bit of a waste, as it will take a long time to build a road and mine on the hill. I think the Worker should go west first, road and mine, then head east. We can afford to have Lux at 10% for a while, and this way is more shield-efficient (we'll have the extra shield earlier).

I would like to move the settler SW and settle there. I'm not sure what I should do with the worker. Put him to work roading and mining or use him to scout around before settling.

I'd like to use worker for scouting at least for a single turn. Settling place is very important.

And once we are at war, we cannot make peace ever even for a fraction of turn. :)

Pumping out settlers is important in any case. It would improve the score, income, and unit and army support since we would be in Monarchy apparently.

@Sam. IMHO, we are ready to start, just use your own judgement and IIRC, you play 30 turns but I'm not sure, may be 20. ANyhow, with AlanH's submission system, it is not a problem. Good luck then. :)

1. For scouting we should use our first warrior, not the worker. Even for a single turn.

2. Settling SW is a good place, but we will loose 1 turn. :( And connecting a lux. resource could not be done so easy and early. And again, during the endless wars, towns placed on hills receive an additional defensive bonuses.
I vote for immediatelly settlement.

3.Worker W first, and then E is good too.

to Acots:
I thought we will play by 10 turns each. Or someone will skip his turns and Sam will replace them?

Anyway, Samueldanach, go ahead and start this game!!!

Thanks I'm going to play now. Hopefully, I won't drop the ball too badly.

The first player plays at least 20 turns but in SGOTM 30 turns. The next play 10 turns each. We then can go to 5 turns/player if turns start taking long time.

Please make yourself familiar with SG code, Sir_Ortin. :)
The most common SG rules you can find in the SG forum and SGOTM forum.

Just to remind of some of them:

The issues are not decided by vote. It is the player's call and player can do whatever pleases him during his turns.

Other most important issues:

24 hours to post "got it" then 48 hours to play.
No GoTo orders.
If you changed some builds set up by the previous player, discuss this before your turns and then listen to his objections if any, unless there is some trivial micromanagement issue.
You can load the save any number of times but cannot move anything or trade.
No reloading during the gameplay.
No re-playing of the already played turns before the game ends and especially no posting of their results.
If you are unsure of what to do, save the game and post a note to other players asking for help. If nobody is around (I'm around usually two times per day), proceed using your own judgement.

There are a few others, just those are the most commonly violated.

Re: scouting with worker. We need a food bonus at start. If we get one by just settling there, it is fine. But if it is a single tile away and we miss it, we can lose the game just because of this. To help you undertsand the importance of these issues, go browse through the SG forum looking for lost AWE games. There are a plently of them out there. It is usually a very short thread. :)

Thanks. I was just interesting. I never played in team before. But I hope you will not exclude me from team becouse of this. :)

We all supposed to learn something new, Sir_Ortin. At least I'm trying to learn during every SG I play from every player. :)

Just wondering, where is Sam? Still there is a plenty of time to wait.

I think Imay have been too conservative here. I've never played this variant before and i played it pretty much like an AW game.Heres the damage-

4000 BC Moved the worker S onto hill –nothing of interest. Moved the settler south –west onto grassland.
3950 BC. Rome founded. Pottery research began at max. building warrior. I chose not to move the worker onto the wines on the first turn in the hope that there would be another bonus tile to the west. There wasn’t hopefully this doesn’t turn out to be a major mistake.
3900 BC. Worker roading BG tile.
3850 BC. ZZZ
3800 BC. Zzz
3750 BC. First warrior built – garrisoned. I may be misunderstanding this variant but the longer we delay contact the more time we have to build up for war against an emperor level opponent. I hope this isn’t a mistake either. Now building barracks- I would like vet. Units for future upgrade- hopefully the upkeep costs won’t screw our research rate up too much.
3700 BC. Zzz.
3650 BC. Zzz.
3600 BC. Zzz.
3550 BC. Zzz.
3500 BC. Zzz
3450 BC. Barracks completed. Worker has finished roading and mining BG tile. Begin second warrior.
3400 BC. Worker begins roading BG tile.
3350 BC. Warrior2 built. Begin Archer as prebuild for granary.
3300BC. Pottery due next turn – research turned down to 30 %.
3250 BC. Pottery researched. Taking a risk here and I am researching writing at min. So far no contact with other civs. We might be stuck on an island alone for all I know but if not we will need the gold for future upgrades.
3200 BC. Zzz.
3150 BC. Zzz
3100 BC. Zzz.
3050 BC. Zzz.
3000 BC. Zzz.
2950 BC. Worker finishes roading and mining BG. Debatd whether or not to chop down game forest but it will not be completed in time to help with the settler.
2900 BC. Worker begins roading and mining BG.
2850 BC. ZZz
2800 BC. Granary completed. Warrior3 begun.
2750 BC. Zzz
2710 BC. Warrior3 completed. Settler begun.
2670 BC. Zzz
2630 BC. Zzz.
2590 BC. Zzz.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/akots_SG003_BC2590_01.SAV

go browse through the SG forum looking for lost AWE games. There are a plently of them out there. It is usually a very short thread. :)

Now you're making me feel bad. Two AWE SGs in a row, lost... But Isabella is finally getting her revenge! ...After fighting a single, iron-less enemy for a huge continent at the beginning of the game... *heh*

Anyway, what's the play order?

Edit -- nvm, found it. I'm up? Okay, got it. I can't play until tomorrow, though.

Another Edit -- We aren't alone on our island if this is the same as GOTM16. We share a continent with the Japanese, Germans and Americans with the Japanese close by and the others beyond a choke point.

Yep, you are up.

IMHO, we go min to writing saving cash and then try to trade for Iron Working during the first contacts. Then, min again to Literature and go fishing for leader to rush TGL and FP. It all looks more or less OK, we got granary and have solid defence on the spot. Initial expansion might be slow but this is OK. We can discuss the city placement just to make sure we pick the best sites. But for RCP3 it is clear more or less. Guess, Cuivienen knows where to settle best. No more discussion of these delicate subjects please. :)

Good luck and please post some screenshots after your turns!

Sorry for the delay. I'm almost done; I'll have turns posted tomorrow.

1 - zzz
2 - Complete Settler, send it NW. Start another Warrior.
3 - zzz
4 - Complete Warrior, start another Settler.
5 - zzz
6 - Found Veii.
7 - zzz
8 - Finish the second Settler, start an Archer (can obviously be changed).
9 - zzz
10 - zzz

The Settler should found where it is. The city site is less than optimal, but it is in an RCP location. Since we hadn't explored, I didn't know what to expect.

>>SAVE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/akots_SG003_BC2150_01.SAV)

The Settler should found where it is. The city site is less than optimal, but it is in an RCP location. Since we hadn't explored, I didn't know what to expect.


I don't know if I did the right thing or not by not exploring. But I didn't want to risk an early war with an emperor level opponent. My understanding of the variant rules is that we have to declare war on the first opponent we meet after leaving the diplo screen. It might have been smarter to go and find someone early and bleed them and hopefully get an early GL but I felt that was too risky for a team game.

It is all OK. We just follow the RCP and everything will be fine. Why we need to explore? No need to explore. :)

jhigham is up. If he does not show up within 24 h, I would be next. But I cannot play until Saturday, so lets wait and discuss... something. May be just about life. How are you all doing? I had my family visiting with me and they are leaving back to Russia this Saturday. Hence the reason for not able to play earlier.

Ok. Let's talk about life. First of all, I'm from Minsk, Belarus. I want to congratulate you and wish you to spend a good time till saturday, because I know what it mean to live far away from a family. This is defenitely a good reason not to play. As to about my going, I plan to go to USA with my family (wife and daughter) soon, so it is going not bad. :)

What do you guys do for a living? Actually, we are not supposed to spam too much but may be the skills we have in RL can be useful for the game. :)

I'm scientist. Researching in Biology and Pharmacology.

I'm going to be a student again. :) I have finished Belorusian State University, Physical Department 3 years ago. My speciality is "Laser physic and spectroscopy". Right now I have received admission and fellowship for post-graduate study from university in USA.

OK, jhigham is still missing like he warned us. I've got the save and will play tomorrow. Hope we don't meet anyone. :)

Preturn check. We are supposed to be building AW style at RCP 3 and 6. However, our first city, Veii, is built at RCP 4.5. Second settler is also moved to RCP 4.5 which is not good. For this variant we need a more dense build IMHO. Otherwise, we are doing OK. But need to chop forest and irrigate the game tile.

[1] 2110BC. Settler moved closer to Rome.
[2] 2070BC. Antium set to build worker.
[3]-[4] all quiet
[5] 1950BC. Veii finished worker, Rome finished warrior set to archer, another archer exploring.
[6] 1910BC. Archer spotted green border but nobody there.
[7]-[10] all quiet.

We really messed up with RCP but it might be OK. There are places for the cities to be placed. I’m not good at drawing but somehow came up with a dot map for the cities. I guess, 7 cities at RCP 3 would be enough.

Apparently, Sir_Ortin is up. Good luck then! Just try to avoid that first contact. Ideally we would be doing great if we have 2 contacts simultaneously. We can then broker some techs and choose against which civilization we can wage a war.

Here is the dot map:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3-ak-1750BC-dotmap.JPG

1725 - Worker start to chop forest with game
1700 - Rome build settler. Settler & warriog go to site-6. Start to build warrior. Antium build worker, moved N to build road & mine. Start to build barracks.
1675 - Nothing much happen.
1650 - American scout come to our empire from NE. Americans already contacted 6 another civs. So we all are on a same continent. Trade "Ceremonial Burial" & "Bronze Working" for 264 gold. Declare them a war. Killed scout. Rome build warrior, start to build settler. Cumae founded at site-6. Begin work on barracks.
1625 - Discovered "Writing". Start "Literature" at min. Veii built barracks, start on Spearman.
1600 - Nothing much happen.
1575 - Contacted with Greece for exchanging with sciense. Discovered that American trades our contact with England and Russia. Our trading is not successful because of a lack of gold. But good news is that after 18 turns we will have a wide choise for war opponent.
1550 - Contacted with France. I meet their worker to the N from our empire. Also they have the lowest cost for trading.
1525 - BAD NEWS!!! America & Greece sign an alliance to destroy us!!! Someone trade our contact to Babylon & Germany. Rome build Settler. Settler and Warrior go to site-5. Rome start work on Spearman (can be changed to Archer). Trading is not good, because every civ have the same set of 4 techs. Trade with France, take "Wheel" for 71 Gold. We have one Horse resource nearby to W.
1500 - Worker start to build road to site-4 and after that to site-3.

Do downoad sav file:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/akots_SG003_BC1500_01.SAV

Have not looked at the save but turn log looks OK. :goodjob:
We have to figure out when we must declare and to which civ. :)

Sam is UP.

1525 - BAD NEWS!!! America & Greece sign an alliance to destroy us!!!


:lol: Well, we know america is on our continent since it was their scout Sir Ortin bush whacked. Hopefully, Greece isn't.

@ Akots. Yes the placement isn't ideal especially if it turns into a full blown AW and we get dogpiled by everyone. But on the upside we might not end up at war with everyone and the placement of the cities is getting us extra points as we speak.

Got It!

Good luck then! Hope you can keep track of all the contacts. If there is a problem, we'll try to figure it out.

IMHO, before legions come to play, we just have to survive not worrying much about the score. Hence, dense city build might be essential. As well as other AW tactics.

Bad thing about declaring on some remote civ (America?) is that we end up in war with them for a long time before being able to eliminate them. We then would be declaring on other civs and will end up in an AW game which on the Emperor level might be rather unpleasant. Not being scientific does not help at all. But we can always snatch a diplo victory. :)

TGL is a must to have IMO.

Sorry. Guys you are going to have to skip me. I'm currently playing GOTM33 and every time I try to move or fortify this poxy cavalry unit my game crashes to desk top. I've tried reinstalling civ and PTW and I have I have taken conquests off but it still crashes. I'm going to uninstall the GOTM mods now to see if that helps things. I don't know why my game is corrupted at the moment it may be a virus I've picked up so its better that I don't send you any saves at the moment.

You still have 2 days to figure out the problem, so no rush there. We can wait. We have already jhigham skipping or dropping (have not seen him around) and it is not a good idea to play this game with only 3 team members or break the sequence of player. If you can reinstall the whole thing, it might be just easier. I've had a similar problem with vanilla earlier and could not figure it out. But may be it is something else specific to GOTM 33? Have not started on that yet.

Keep us updated then please. :)

At the moment what I think that has happened is that I remember using mapstat ( the old one not dianthus's) prior to the crashing and that this has corrupted a save that I've played on with while decompressing it. At 840 AD the game crashes to desk top, if I load from the 840 AD autosave it crashes, if I load from a save within the 840 AD it crashes. The only way I can get to 850AD is by hitting enter and when I get there it crashes. :)
I've went back to the 830 AD auto save and played on with that and that seemed fine till 970 AD then it crashed. I've stopped playing for now and I'll see this evening if the problem continues - if I get the same phenomenon with repeated crashes then I'm going to abandon it. Hopefully that was just random though and not due to the game being corrupted. I've sent the 840 AD save to Ainwood but I don't think it has anything to do with the GOTM mods as I uninstalled them and the 840 AD still crashed.

You then can play our save and see if it goes OK. If it does, we are fine, if your PTW crashes again with our file, then I don't know. It is only 10 turns and we don't have that many things to do, so hopefully will not take a long time. IIRC, I played my turns together with a log within 40 minutes or so. Another IIRC, but this problem happened to me when I installed de novo everything but did not patch vanilla Civ3 to version 1.29f

O.k playing now I will post the results in an hour. :salute:

1500 BC. Pre- flight checks . O.K.

1475 BC. Neapolis founded at RCP 3.5. Changed build in Antium to colossus pre-build for GL. Spot greek warrior/ settler combo two tiles away, hopefully I can catch up. :mischief:

1450 BC. Spot French workers to the north-east. It appears at least the Americans are not next door to us which is good.

1425 BC. I knew the Greek settler warrior/ combo was heading for the horses to the south of us and our archer just hung around on a mountain waiting for them to arrive. Two slaves-sweet. :cool:

1400 BC. Germany and Babylon contacted us IBT to ask to exchange territory maps. I took up Germanys offer. Rejected babylons. Traded WM to Babylon for their territory map and 11g.

1375 BC. Veii builds spear –now building worker. Germans have built the colossus. There doesn’t appear to be an option to build a palace as a pre-build. I’m going to keep on with it but building a granary now – is this a standard sized map if so we need a couple of new ciites so we can use the FP as a prebuild.

1350 BC. Finished irrigating and roading game.

1325 BC. Moved vet. Spearman from veii to the south – see greek archer on the move. Our archer is currently above Thermopylae – I’m going to have a tilt at taking it.. This city will eventually serve as the hub through which greek attacks will come might as well try and kill it now.

1300 BC. Almost….redlined hoplite. :cringe: But our archer died. French have started GL, we need to keep our pre-build going.

1275 BC. Greek warrior/ archer combo move in from the south.

1250 BC. Veii builds worker. Pompeii founded at RCP3.5. There is a settler due in cumae in four turns. Well three but we will have to wait till the city expands to size three before the it will pop a settler. The granary in antium needs to be delayed so we can switch to the FP when our seventh city is founded. Be careful there are greek units near our southeastern cities. I’ve moved the archer from the north back down to help in case.

The SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/akots_SG003_BC1250_01.SAV)

Seems like we are doing OK. Instead of prebuild, can we go leader fishing? It's Emperor, after all, and we are militaristic. There is one BUT however. We have no attack 3 unit atm. Or would we prefer to waste our Golden Age in Despotism?

IIRC, Cuivienen is UP. @Cuivienen: Do you need help with RCP? Looks like also we need to keep track of turns we are at war with America. For now, we can make peace with Greece if they accept it. They have Golden Age since their hoplite won against our archer. Hence, we better be careful. Besides, during their GA they can build some good wonder for us to capture later. But don't know really. Good luck!

Yes I'm lurking again. ;)

Are you guys playing the variant? If so you cannot make peace with anyone once a war is started, and you cannot capture towns that contain foreign citizens. :)

Yes I'm lurking again. ;)

Are you guys playing the variant? If so you cannot make peace with anyone once a war is started, and you cannot capture towns that contain foreign citizens. :)

Oh poop! We have to disband those greek workers I captured. They haven't done anything yet - I just moved them back to our core M.B. so that they could be fed to the lions in the arena ....Honest! :) Can we still play the variant?

Akots yes you are right we will probably get beat to the GL using the pre-build anyway as the French switched to the GL after the Germans built the colossus.

The Greeks have a settler/hoplite combo making another attempt to claim the horses do we let them? I think we should try and stop them from claiming them again even if we can't keep the workers.

You are the fourth team to capture workers. Yes disband them and pillage any improvements they have made. :)

These rules are indeed confusing. Xenophobic part does not allow capturing workers and Non-Oscillating War does not allow making peace. :lol:

It might be worth trying to kill that settler IMO. But it would be a while before they are able to hook up the horses.

I'm alive, will pick up after cuiv...

Good to have you back!

OK, looks like we have to skip Cuivienen. Hate to do this though. Hope he is having a good time in Bolivia. :)

jhigham is apparently UP then.

@jhigham: Is it clear what to do? We can discuss then.

:lol: that one gone as well. Is there anybody around?

Come on now, give me a chance. It was over the weekend, after all. Picking up now, think I have things covered, will give it a go.

Pre-Flight check.

We can't build palace until we get masonry, have 4 turns until granary is finished. I can get it for WM + 30g.

French have literature, no one else does at the moment and that's the only tech differential I can see. All others have Masonry, Map making, Philo, Horseback, Iron, and Mysticism.

1225: Neapolis builds Barracks, starts archer.
France: WM + 50 for Masonry + Territory Map
Traded WM around for territory maps for everyone + 47g. Now I get to decide who to declare war on when the time comes.
Some unit swaps to protect workers with warriors (from a lingering english warrior) and bring the archer over to cover the greeks. Lone warrior walking the mountains in greek territory to keep them occupied and map the terrain.

1200: Greek archer moves back (probably to defend against my warrior :-)
Two warriors perched on the doorstep. Change prebuild to palace.

1175: Greek warriors move next to Cumae and Neapolis. Attack with the archer and lose, promoting greek warrior :-( Spearman produced in Rome, changed to settler. Warrior fortified in cumae, and second warrior moved in and fortified. Workers start mining near rome and cumae. Spearman in Neapolis should be safe. Greek archers chasing my warrior.

1150: Section of the palace built. IBT the warrior in cumae defeats a warrior and is promoted to elite. The other greek unit retreats out of our territory, no archers available to finish him off, and not worth attacking in the mountains. Cumae produces a settler (changes to archer) and pompeii produces a warrior (changes to a barracks). Another greek. archer and horse join in to chase my rogue warrior.

1125: Warrior moves and reveales athens and incense within reach. An archer is squeezing from the other side, though, so the warrior is in perilous territory. Moved settler onto the hill to found SW of Rome.

1100: Veii builds archer, changes to settler. Pisae founded on hill, reveals spices to the south. Warrior moves south from greek territory; no chance to cut off incense. Pisae starts on barracks; workers will chop some forest to speed that progress.

1075: IBT warrior loses to greek archer. Greece will negotiate peace for 220g; we have to declare on them or England or Russia; I'm pausing now to see what you have to say. IMO the hoplite will eat us up, better to go after england with archers. I'm pausing now to ask for opinions, will finish turn tonight if I haven't heard anything. BTW the cost for peace went down from last turn (was 280g).

Also if we do decide to go to war against the english, and considering that we will be at war with most of the continent in not that long, should I try to get some things for gpt? Is that against the rules and/or a bad idea?

We cannot make peace to Greece. Once war is declared, we must stay at war. These are the NOW game rules. Otherwise looks OK. We need to build some settlers btw in the meantime. :)

I think I must ask Mad-bax or anybody else a question about present war conditions.
This is about our game. We should keep track an order of civs while we meet them, and then with gap of 20 turns declare a war to them. But if next civ (Greece) declare a war to us sooner than 20 turns after starting another war (with America) what we should do?

The timeline:
We meet Americans. Declare them a war. (0-th turn).
We meet Greece, England, Russia on 3-rd turn.
Greece declare a war to us on 5-th turn.
1. Should we declare a war to England or Russia on 20-th, 23-th or 25-th turn?
2. May be we have to declare a war to Greece on 20-th or 23-th turn (but we have already have it), so next we have to declare a war to Eng. or Rus on 40-th or 43-th turn?

Please, anybody, make it clear to me, please...

The date you meet an opponent is not important. The only important date is the date the last war started. The next war must start within 20 turns or less of the last war.

In your case, you must declare on England on turn 25 or before.

Maybe I understand, maybe I don't. If I do, I think it sucks, but whatevah :-P

It sounds like you are saying that 20 turns after the last war (of any sort - not just NOW mandated war) we must declare on the next opponent in line. So because Greece attacked us on turn 5 of the American war, we 'lost' 15 turns of peace.

If this is correct, team, I figure that we should basically maintain a holding pattern vs Greece and go after England. I think any offensive vs greece needs to wait until we have stronger units. I'm not good at early wars, though, so any recommendations are appreciated.

The only way to survive is to defend. We must survive, no offensive assaults. Just build up the settler and more cities. Manage workers and try to protect our holdings. We should not attack actively anyone atm.

Build more cities and defend them, pop-rush as needed but try to grow a little bit. Cities without rax build spear/archer (they will promote) and cities with rax build warriors for upgrade. Cities with good food income (Rome) should build settlers. It might be not so easy since it is Emperor and tech pace can be insane.

Try to connect horses and we can then start building occasional chariots but only for upgrade to knights. Settling RCP3 is a priority atm. We are already behind the schedule (if one exists). I'd go for England regarding war.... but really don't know.

Ok....more info.

1075: Declared war on england. Not sure whether it was legit to do a gpt agreement before doing so...didn't do it.

1050: Rome builds settler, leave at settler. Move a warrior over to cover the english direction.

1025: Found Ravenna at site 4, move worker to develop there. Swap warrior and spearman in cumae to hopefully lure greece in and try for a leader.

1000: Finish warrior/spear swap. We can build FP now, and Germany started building the GL. Need to get shield count up in antium. Worker moved onto horse.

OK, got it.

@jhigham: Can you please download the save to the Submission page? Any comments? Something in your plans I should know?

Have those Greek slaves been garrotted for the mobs amusement? If it hasn't been done you need to do it Akots or we will get bounced from the variant. Pillage the improvements as well we can't have shoddy greek workmanship tainting our civic projects as M.B has said.

OK, I have uploaded the save file. And I'll check about the slaves as well. Will play today at night.

Preturn check. We are really in bad shape. Whole world is up on us a bunch of techs, of which we really want Monarchy but we have not yet mastered the secret of Mysticism. Enemies are everywhere and we have only tiny 7 cities. We also have 2 Greek workers which were promptly disbanded. Don’t know which improvements did they built though. Apparently, this would be rather difficult to find out. We really need Monarchy badly at all cost. Traded Literature from France for WM+160g. Traded Lit to Russia for Mysticism + TM + 20g. Yep, they don’t have Polytheism. Traded Iron Working from Babylon for Literature+WM+23g. We have iron in between Neapolis and Ravenna. All remaining civs are even in techs, so no possibilities of x-fers. Set research to Polytheism at 100% ready in 11 turns. This might be our only chance to survive. There is nothing else to be done because all cities were micromanaged very well.

[1] 975BC. Polytheism is ready in 9 turns. Hope we can make it. IBT. London completes the Oracle and most of the civs switch to TGL. Two Greek archers advance but do not enter our realm. Rome finishes settler due to forest chop and drops to size 2. No more settlers from there for a while.

[2] 950BC. Settler goes to the last RCP3 site. We cannot afford to lose the Polytheism race IMHO. Switched Neapolis to walls. IBT. We have elite spearmen who bravely defeated Greek warrior and then archer. Another our archer there lost to a horseman. Veii finishes settler.

[3] 925BC. Hispalis founded and starts producing warrior. Polytheism jumps down to 6 turns which means somebody has already discovered it. But still nobody has it, so may be England.

[4] 900BC. I’m thinking of abandoning Veii. It messes all the RCP3 and 6 as well. IBT. Another spearman of ours kills 2 archers trying to defend Neapolis. America allied Russia against us and we are at war with them as well. English warrior shows up near Hispalis.

[5] 875BC. Settler/warrior march in the direction of an RCP 6.5 site. Our archer kills Greek archer. Cumae switched to walls. IBT. Two Greek archers kill our elite spearman. Russians start TGL.

[6] 850BC. We kill two Greek archers. One with our archer which is now elite and another with our elite warrior. IBT. Our elite warrior heroically defends against a horseman. Two Greek hoplites show up for the feast.

[7] 825BC. Hoplites advance intending to pillage. Can do little about that. IBT. English warrior dies trying to attacks our warrior.

[8] 800BC. Another glorious victory by our elite archer. IBT. Greek hoplites move to our core with obvious intention to wreak havoc there. Poor us! We discover Poly. Traded it +WM + 100g to Babylon for Mathematics + WM. Traded Poly+WM to France for HBR, Philosophy, their WM and 18g. They also have Currency and Construction. Traded Map Making from Bismark for Poly+WM+12g. Research to Monarchy at minimum for now.

[9] 775BC. Hoplites continue to advance.

[10] 750BC. Killed English warrior with our warrior. I don’t really know what to do with these hoplites. They are on hills, so not much a chance of attacking. If they move inside the Rome radius it would virtually paralyze the city. Blocked partially with warriors but hence had to increase the luxury rate to 10%. Will stop now for the next player.

A few notes: We can start building catapults or horsemen. Do not really know. We can research to Monarchy at full rate or at 10%. Also do not know. We should obviously defend against Greek attacks trying to fish for a leader. We can even connect the iron (which Greece obviously does not have) but then have to build some archers (Pompeii) instead of spearmen. Another unclear point. Here is our current situation, which looks rather grim:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3-ak-750BC.JPG

If I understand correct, there is my turn to fight and hold our positions...
OK. Got it.
In a few hours I will send results of my president's term. :)

[-1] 750BC. Made some micromanagement. It dobles the speed of walls in Ravenna (2 turns instead of 4), and increased our income by 2g.

[0] 730BC. Greece Hoplites went to the north. Veii build Worker, start another Worker. Worker went N to build road to Viroconium and Iron. Production on Hispalis changed from Warrior to Barracks, because we have Spearman going there from Veii, which will be abandoned soon. Pompei production changed to Horseman.

[1] 710BC. Two spearmen in Ravenna killed two greece archers. Blocked hoplites moved to the north. Ravenna build walls, start on Horseman. Rome build Settler, start on Horseman. One Hoplite stand on plain. I planed to fight him with our elite warrior and then finish with elite archer, but fortunately warrior already killed it. This is luck which will not be repeated with another hoplite, so wait for larger forces.

[2] 690BC. Neapolis build Spearman, start on Horseman. Cumae build Spearman, start on Horseman. Try to made a trap for hoplite (mean he stand on plain and have around a lot of our units).

[3] 670BC. German build The Great Library, Japanese build Pyramids.

[4] 650BC. French build Great Wall. I really do not know what to do with the prebuild in Antium. See 3 american Archers and england scout coming from the north. Looking to teh minimap I ask myself if we should build Lighthouse and explore orther half of
ocean? Not clear yet.

[5] 630BC. Another 2 english Warriors coming from north. Greek hoplite coming from south. Need to block him. Found Lugdunum, start barracks.

[6] 610BC. Rome build Settler, start Spearman. Trade our world map +299g for Construction with french.

[7] 590BC. Germany declared us a war.

[8] 570BC. Our spearman killed 2 american archers and become elite. Last american archer I killed with our elite archer. Pisae build settler (with chopped forest), start spearman. Pompei build horseman, start spearman. Neapolis build horseman, start spearman. Trade my 139g for Code of laws with french.

[9] 550BC. Two greek horsemen tryed to attack Ravenna, both not successful. Cumae build horses, start spearman. Ravenna build horseman, start spearman. Trade my WM +24g for WM with babylon. We really need to know what is going on the dark part of the planet. Trade my WM for WM with france. There is a kind of another continent or big island and germany already have at least one sity there. Not goodat all... :(

[10] 530BC. France declare us a war. I think babylon will also declare a war some turns later. :( American swordsmen approaching our empire from the north. Rome build spearman, start spearman. Founded Lutetia, start warrior. Founded Byzantium, start warrior. Killed two english warriors with our horsemen, no upgrades.

Sorry, guys, for the delay.
Also it seems that i have played 11 turns instead of 10... It's my fault.

Let me write some ideas about game.
1. Veii should be definitely abandoned. I have started building a settler, after producing it Veii should be abandoned.

2. Try to build Lighthouse.

3. At the NW of our empire there are some new enemy towns. They could be easy target for our horsemen. But american swordsmen should be killed first.

4. Do not move spearmen from SW border of our empire. Two greek horses escaped for healing and increasing in numbers.

I've downloaded the save. And I have looked at your turn logs. By my calculation it has been over twenty turns since we declared war on the English. I'm not sure what we do now. We have had two declarations against us by both the French and the the Germans. Unless we declared war on one of those civs then its my guess that I should declare war straight away on one of the remaining peaceful civs.
Is this right? I intend to play in the next few hours. If I'm wrong put me on the right track. As it is I will probably declare war on the babs as sir Ortin thinks they are going declare on us anyway.

Yep, declare! Let's kill them all. How's about Monarchy? When can we revolt? and have our legions finally? Looks like we missed that magic Lbrary and the leader, hence, situation is very grim and we should hold for dear life. AWE with that many civs is not a fun. Not a fun at all. :)

In log it is written that Germany declared us a war on turn 21, that is right. My calculations were wrong and I missed the date for starting a war, but Germany really saved us. Technically they declare us a war on turn 20, becuase after hitting 'press enter for the end of turn" all new events I have been writing under the next date. So, we did not brake the rules. As to the next war, it should be Babylons on turn 20 after my last turn, when war with French began.

I've lost a bit of this post thanks to the stupid pop-up adds. :(

530 BC. Pre-turn flight checks. Woo-hoo we are still alive :) . Trade Babs currency for gold and gpt and then declare war. Don’t know if this is by the rules but I would like to leave the AA at some point.
510 BC. IBT our warriors in Lutetia defeat two French warriors one promotes to vet. Our Elite archer attacks French reg. Warrior/settler combo and loses. Vet. Horse kills them :) and workers disbanded :( .
490 BC. Our first legion- upgraded for 40g ( most of our gold)
470 BC. IBT American swordsman attacks Virconium loses to our spear. We attack Miami with vet horse, wins, Miami auto razes :D . Upgrade another legion.
450 BC. 4 American swords and 3 archers attack Virconium. We lose one elite spearmen – kill all the Americans. Legionary attacks hoplite/ 2 horsemen stack above capital – kills hoplite- our golden age begins. Legionary attacks horse – wins. Warrior attacks horseman – loses.
430 BC. IBT Mistake – I didn’t notice greek archer sidling up beside two of our workers – both lost. Legion kills greek horse is now elite. Legion kills greek archer is now elite. Legion kills English archer is now elite. Horseman kills English archer is now elite.Horseman kills English Archer.
410 BC. Elite spear kills greek archer trying to cut our iron. Legion kills hoplite trying to cut our horses. Legion kills French archer.
390 BC. IBT English warrior attacks city -dies. Russian archer cuts Veii and virconium from grid. Legion kills hoplite. Legion kills English spear. Legion kills greek archer. Horse kills Russian archer.
370 BC. IBT 4 civs ask for peace. English warrior kills legion. Greek horse loses to legion.. Legion kills greek horse. Legion kills Russian warrior/settler combo :) –workers disbanded :( . Legion kills greek archer. Horse kills French archer. Horse kills English warrior.
350 BC. IBT French warrior loses to horse. French archer kills elite horse. Legion kills Russian spear. Legion kills American spear. Spear kills French archer. Legion kills French warrior /settler combo :) – workers disbanded :( .
330 BC. IBT French warrior loses to spear. Legion loses to hoplite. Legion beats Russian warrior. Legion defeats Russian archer. Legion defeats English archer.

We now have 12-13 legions. There are another couple of warriors to be upgraded once Veii is hooked back up to the iron.

The Great Lighthouse is almost complete.

There is a settler in Veii. Once Veii is hooked up again we can send it out with legion escorts.

Looks like a messy set of turns. Could not we go to Golden Age faster then and had a better chance of leader if we hooked up that iron earlier? Never mind, just have to survive. The save looks very grim however.

jhigham is UP then.

The iron couldn't have been hooked up any sooner. I only had 5 workers to begin my turns. And i would have need gold to upgrade even if it had been hooked up - which I didn't have :)

We killed 50 enemy units including 3 settlers, we lost 5 military units ( one of which was a regular warrior). We razed one enemy town. Given that my first legion came on line in turn three the kill ratio is about as good as could be expected. We were unlucky not to get a GL as we had alot of elite combat wins.

The loss of our two workers was slack play and we could ill afford it. Our worker situation is very poor. The xenophobic part of the variant is a real bind as I captured six slaves but had to disband them to stay within the rules - that was what the frowns were for. ;)

Our position I feel is stronger. Our core has been cleared of enemy units. A number of our legions are now elite - we should get a GL soon. The americans and greeks have been given bloody noses and we are in the MA at last.

I suggest we don't build new workers until our GA is over. And keep churning out the legions.

Yep, the variant is brutal indeed. Lets build some legions. But we should not go on the offensive yet IMHO. Lets defend. Build up the forces. We need the settler factories.

Do we need atrillery? I hope not. Have not built one in ages. Kill ratio is good with legions.

Do these legions upgrade to MDI? Or we are still able to build them after Feudalism?

Legions do not upgrade to MDI.

OK.

Preflight check. Looks ok, france has two archers and a warrior on our doorstep. Looks like our rings are at 3.5 and then 6.5 - maybe fit cities closer at 5?

Not certain if I should do anything this turn, so I'll wait, but will disband veii and move that settler in one to complete our 3.5 ring. Will go defensive and build up forces for now. Russian archer fortified on our doorstep should also have been killed, ends up getting reinforced with a spear.

I do micromanage neapolis and rome so that neapolis can grow (was shrinking).

310 BC: IBT turns we hit an archer for one pt ZOC damage. Several countries move some archers in, a babylonian settler/spear combo heads towards our land. Neapolis produces a Legion. Move settler to replace veii. Has the added advantage of rebuilding our road network without worker input. Move a legion south towards lugnudbum, in case troops land by sea. Shift most offensive troops from Veii to virconium, which is our most isolated city. It has walls and a good number of troops, and maybe three archers encroaching. Not much else going on, fortification and a few minor moves.

IBT many troops movements towards our cities, an aggressive move to our southern cities by France.

290 BC: Found Brundisium from the settler, it replaces what was veii. Babylonian settlers looked to be trying to settle near there, so prevented. Upgrade two warriors to Legion. Three russian archers on our doorstep, Elite legion kills 1 (takes 1 pt damage), Elite legion kills 1 (takes 1 pt of damage, at 3 now). Elite legion kills hoplite trying to cut our wines, takes 1 pt damage. Vet legion almost kills horse that was sitting on our wines, loses 2 pts damage - vet spear does the last point of damage to kill the horse. All troops are heading south past our well defended northern cities. Shuffling some troops to provide better coverage. Upgrade another warrior. Vet legion kills greek archer and is promoted. Vet horse kills french archer and takes 1 pt of damage at virconium, retreats to safety in the city.

270 BC: English archer moved to cut our virconium road link, elite horse kills it with 3 pts damage (was on hill) and retreats to city. Russion settler came next to virconium with a WARRIOR escort, dispatched by elite legion with 2 pts damage (workers disbanded). Vet legion kills russian spearman coming from the north, and is promoted (no damage). Elite legion in Pompeii attacks archers (across the river) and wins with 1 pt damage. Vet legion takes the other archer out. Spear moves to cover our wines; probably doesn't need to remain, just make sure a horse doesn't perch there.

250 BC: Elite legion attacks babylon spearman and settler sitting in the middle of our territory, wins with no damage, workers disbanded. Vet legion takes out french archer to the south. Elite horse attacks conscript warrior (on woods) and takes FOUR damage but wins.... and a leader is generated! The horse is renamed to Narses, after a quick Google search reveals info about the Battle of Casilinum. IMO save the leader for Sun Tzu or Leonardo's, or possibly Sistine. The only wonders out there are the lighthouse and hanging gardens (we still don't have monarchy). We're going to be tied up on our continent so I don't think that the lighthouse is important. Possibly also use it for a FP; not sure where to build that though. Elite legion attacks fortified russian archer and takes three damage but wins. Discover a russian horse within range, so another elite legion moves out to protect. Russian spear and settler are within range of Neapolis, but a greek archer sits above on the mountains for a counter-attack, not worth the risk since we can't take the workers.

230 BC: Rome produces a legion, change to a settler and micromanage for 2 turn build (10 turns+ to grow). Will help with happiness as well. Lutetia produces armamemtarium and starts on Legion. On second thought the leader is turned into an army. We have a bit of time until other wonders are available, and plenty of elite legions. Elite legion kills greek archer outside of Neapolis (2 damage). Lugdunum produces a warrior and changes to a settler. Notice Antium is producing palace, switch to GL - lose 1 shield could have produced it last turn :-/ I should have paid more attention. Legion at Pompeii kills archer and takes 1 damage.

210 BC: Lots of units moving towards us but no combat (keeping our units protected). Build the lighthouse, switch to armamentarium in Antium. Byzantium builds worker and starts on legion. Warrior upgraded. Worker starts mining; leaving Lugdum disconnected to produce warriors for upgrade. Elite legion attacks Babylonian archer outside virconium and wins with 1 hp. Elite legion attacks and kills sword in same place with 1 damage. Vet legion attacks and kills sword with 1 damage. This leaves an exposed legion, so kill nearby babylonian archer with vet legion, 1 damage.

190 BC: IBT Greece and England start on Sun Tzu's. Several legion produced, settler built in Rome. At Pompeii an elite legion kills a greek archer with 2 damage, and an elite legion with 4HP kills an archer taking no damage. At virconium an elite horse attacks a damaged english spear in the open and kills it, 1 damage. Retreats to city. Vet legion loses to a french spear in the woods. I should have waited a turn for it to move into the open. Elite legion kills a Bab swords taking 2 damage. Elite legion kills Bab warrior (no damage). Settler moves to settle the cattle to the south (near Pompeii) at 6.5, worker heads over to build road network. Vet horse at Virconium kills english archer in the open (1 damage) and retreats to the city. Cumae starts on settler, micromanaged to build in 5 just as city goes from 4->5.

170 BC: Hispalis set to settler in 5 turns. Elite legion kills french archer near Virconium. Regular legion kills french archer near hispalis and is promoted (no damage). Regular legion kills another french archer with 2 damage. Veteran Legion kills greek horse that ventured near, 1 damage. Vet legion kills english warrior near hispalis taking 2 damage.

150 BC: IBT Germany builds the Gardens. Many troops move near virconium. Vet legion loses to american swords, sword is promoted 3/4. Vet legion kills sword, 3 damage. Elite legion attacks american sword again, dies without inflicting any damage! In the open (plains) unfortified, but I've been doing pretty well I guess that's my tough luck :-( Elite horse kills bab archer taking 1 damage. Vet horse kills bab swords with 1 damage. Vet legion finally kills the american sword taking 2 damage. Elite legion kills bab archer taking 3 damage. Unveils english horse in attacking position, reinforced with the horse and spear (virconium is unreachable but weakly defended). Moved legions into position to reinforce, and possibly draw off english troops. Antium micromanaged to build settler and grow in 5. Elite Legion in Neapolis kills greek archer taking 1 damage. Worker connects spices next to lutetia. Set lux to 0 (ok now, but watch). Research left alone, 9 turns and +54/t -- need gold for upgrades, other option was 7 turns and +18/t which seemed too big of a hit.

130 BC: IBT legion loses to english horse at virconium. Elite horse kills that horse with no damage, all units retreat to virconium. Vet legion kills french spear at lutetia. Elite legion loses to french spear near cumae, another elite legion finishes the job. Syracuse founded south of Pompeii and starts armamentarium. Did some micromanaging and switched Rome to settler.

Status: Well defended to our north and east, west got it a bit rough when a combo of american/english/bab troops came in, but is reinforced. 4 settlers due out in the next four turns; you can change the builds if you think that's too many; it'll keep our troops busy but give us important expansion.

Important:
1) Change prebuild if 4 is too many settlers
2) We cannot reinforce virconium in a single turn (river) so PLAN AHEAD
3) Leave lugdunum connected for warrior build
4) We have an empty army in Rome, do with it as you will
5) English archer and 2 horse ready to enter our territory. No troops this turn to attack, and across a river, but positioned to take them out once they enter.

Uploading

My name isn't connected to this game, can't upload save via the mechanism.

OK, seems like a lot of fighting. And great write-up! Since we have RCP, rushing FP with the leader would be not so good idea, corruption is low anyhow. We better load it with a couple of legions, win a fight, and use the next leader for Heroic Epic. Legion army can be handy in pillaging iron of the AIs. STAW would be very nice but we don't have the tech and cannot trade for it atm. :sad:

Regarding settlers: we certainly need them, but for now, I'll stick with larger cities so that we can make more legions. We need them to survive through Aharcny. There is also no point in accelerating research because we should not revolt while still in Golden Age. Though not for long. It would be nice to dispatch a galley to find the other continent before the others.

Since Cuivienen is still in Bolivia apparently (hope he's getting a good time), I'm UP.

The save has been submitted. This is probably a spelling error in your nick by AlanH or mad-bax. :)

Do we have Monarchy? What middle age tech are we researching or are going to research? I would go for engineering as it will help our troops move around. There doesn't seem to be much point in going for fuedalism first as the legions don't upgrade according to M.B.

I think we should research the bottom part of the tree at min. initially and use the legions to conquer this continent. We will be able to get the techs on the other side up to education when we take the Great Library.

I would like to check out the spoiler thread but we need to be researching a middle age tech. Hurry up Akots and good luck! :)

Sorry Sam, we cannot capture TGL. We would have to abandon the city same turn even if we do. No freebies in this game. :)

Engineering seems fine. There are lots of rivers around.

Sorry Sam, we cannot capture TGL. We would have to abandon the city same turn even if we do. No freebies in this game. :)

Engineering seems fine. There are lots of rivers around.

Aw man! Yes you are right no TGL for us. We are really in a hole tech wise. Hopefully the other continent will be able to help us out.

Would not count much on that. There are few civilizations there. Probably, they are still in the Ancient Age. Do we try to dsipatch a galley over there?

We are not scientific, it would be tough to make through in Monarchy and without cheap Libraries. :sad:

Also, armies cannot pillage. So we should apparently dispatch a horseman with the army when going for iron. Also, armies do not heal in enemy territory IIRC and they can be attacked in PTW.

Hmmm..perhaps we should delay trying to meet them. If they are backward it might give them a chance to get into the MA and research something useful for us. I'm not sure how we should approach it.

Preturn check. We are in a strong position. Our military is good, we have 29 legions atm and an army. Obvious need is more cities and workers. But this would be easier to achieve in Monarchy. Our east front looks good but reinforcement are certainly needed to the west. A few legions dispatched in this direction. Switched Antium to galley. Rome remains on settler, Cumae switched to legion, Lugdunum switched to warrior, other builds remain intact. Swapped a few tiles in the core to accelerate some builds. Some troop shuffling also to strengthen the weak points. Killed Greek archer near Ravenna. Army crossed the river and can be loaded with 2 legions next turn.

IBT. Killed 2 English horsemen.
[1] 110BC. Army loaded. Killed a number of Russians, Greek, and French. An elite legion dispatched over mountains in a suicidal mission of pillaging Greek iron.

[2] 90BC. Army won its first battle! Some more kills.
IBT. A number of enemy troops advance to our realm.

[3] 70BC. Some more slaughter. Lost a horse against English horse. More troop shuffling.

[4] 50BC. Golden Ages ends. Monarchy ready in 4 turns.

[5] 30BC. So, Golden Age ended. Killed very many enemies. But lost two legions. Both against archers in the open. Probably, another leader is on the way.
IBT. Lost another legion to archer. Our galley was killed. Building another one.

[6] 10BC. The great battle of Cumae begins. German SOD of 4 swords and 2 archers has been disposed of with only one causality of a legion on our side. Gonzo founded, building barracks. Another legion lost against archer in the open. We are having about 4 or 5 elite wins every turn. Yet, no leader. In C3C it is more organized than this bizarre pRNG behavior.

[7] 10AD. Had 8 elite wins this turn. It is a dry leader spell. In anticipation of the Monarchy, whipped settler in Pompeii and galley in Antium.
IBT. We draw 5-turn Anarchy. Set Governor in all cities to manage happiness.

[8] 30AD. Another 6 elite wins. I just stop counting them. Settler dispatched to settle on horses near the lakes. IBT. Another galley dies to Greece and redlined elite legion to English horse.

[9] 50AD. OK, not so terrible, we got another leader. Rushed Heroic Epic in Cumae. The city deserves it IMO.

[10] 70AD. Lunaca founded. Our heroic legion pillages Greek horses. Some more victories. IMO, it should be easier with the leader now. But luck has been really bad considering we are militaristic. Revolution would be finished in 3 turns.

Note to Sir_Ortin. After we get into Monarchy, please micromanage all cities so that we can produce some settlers, do research and make more military. Forbidden Palace would be nice to have. But most important is more settlers. We can then start expanding, razing cities and so on. Survival for 3 remaining turns should not be a big problem. And may be try again with the galley. We just have to get out of this harbor where Antium is and failed two times already. May be trying to build the galley in some other town would be an option. We desperately need workers and with lots of hills, may be some grassland can be irrigated and hills mined to increase productivity. But workers better to be built in fully corrupt cities or cities with Granaries. Workers are chopping forest on a game tile near Gonzo, so may be build a granary there or in Hispalis and use a city for worker factory. But Hispalis is very productive, so may be Gonzo is better. Rome can certainly be used for occasional workers but should produce settlers mostly IMO. We can pillage some tiles near Athens if our legion is left undisturbed there. We need to get rid of Sverdlovsk and two Greek cities to comfortable settle RCP6. More leaders should be on the way. We can always use them for empty armies. And soon we need to consider Palace jump. Areas around Paris or Babylon look very good. There is also elite legion which generated our last leader. He is one tile NE of the army so can be loaded in it in the next 2 turns. Good luck!

And if Sam, please-please, can you write something in the spoiler? So that we tried hard to please the pRNG gods but failed. Thanks. :)

Here is our situation:

[0] 70 AD. Preturn check: all seems ok.
[1] 90 AD. Killed:
Germany: 2 horses.
English: 1 archer.
[2] 110 AD. Killed:
English: 2 horseman.
Greek: 1 archer.
[3] 130 AD. Monarchy at last!!! Killed:
French: 2 archer.
English: 1 swordsman, 1 archer, 1 horsemen, 2 spearman, razed Liverpool.
Germany: 1 swordsman, 1 archer.
Greek: 1 swordsman.
Lost: 2 our legions (el. & vet.)
Research at 50% (28 turns).
[4] 150 AD. Killed:
American: 1 swordsman.
[5] 170 AD. Killed:
French: 1 spearman, 4 archer.
American: 1 swordsman.
Lost: 1 elite legion.
[6] 190 AD. Killed:
Americans: 1 spearman.
Greek: 1 swordsman. 1 archer.
Babylon: 3 swordsman.
[7] 210 AD. Killed:
French: 2 archer.
[8] 230 AD. Killed:
English: 1 horseman.
French: 3 archer.
American: 1 swordsman.
Babylon: 1 swordsman.
Germany: 2 archers.
Greek: 1 horseman. 3 swordsman.
Russian: 1 spearman, 1 settler.
[9] 250 AD. Killed:
French: 2 archer.
[10] 260 AD. Killed:
Babylon: 1 spearman.
French: 1 archer.
Greek: 1 swordsman.

Mycenae (greek) should be conqured and disbanded, elite legions are coming to help this. After that there must be founded our sity (settler is following our forces).
Also, guys, I wonder: why you found Gonzomonium there? It is RCP 6, but not our 6.5. ?????

Gonzo is OK, RCP 6-6.5 has the same corruption. The distance is rounded down to integer while calculating corruption. See the alexman's thread.

IMHO, we can start expanding then. For this, we need settlers, workers, and legions. Don't know about markets and libraries. Libraries are expensive, markets as well. We can start buidling them in some RCP 6 cities with low shields. High shields should go to legons.

Sam is UP! Let's move this game!

It would be nice to check all cities every turn to see if builds are optimized. There is lots of opportunities to swap tiles in the core to accelerate the builds.

WTF WTF WTF do you mean it's rounded down. Damn I hate life.

Got it! Will play when my hangover clears. :)

Bad hangover eh? :-P

0. zzz
1. Lousy RNG luck a vet legion loses to a vet German horse while attacking from a hill onto a plain. Legion defeats French archer. Legion defeats American sword. Horse defeats German horse generates great leader. Legion defeats Babylonian bowman,. Army defeats French archer. Legion defeats English sword. Legion defeats English sword.
2. Greek City destroyed with the loss of one elite legion.
3. Neocaledonium founded. Elite legion generates GL while attacking Babylonian sword. Knossos destroyed.
4. Loses legion army while attacking French spear in town- RNG screwed me. RNG makes it up to me by giving another GL. It makes me even sweeter as it gives me another GL next combat – Pentagon rushed. I didn’t think that was available to later but its nice to get now. Spotted the easter egg Grahamiam.
5. Lost a few legions this turn. Going to start stacking our armies with them.
6. Loaded up two of our armies with legions one with veterans and one with all our legion heroes.
7. RNG sucks we lose a couple of legions on favourable ground.
8. The killing is better this turn.
9. zzz
10. I am moving a couple of vet legions north to join with another army. We now have three and we have 35 legions in total.

jhigham is UP then! Looks like a bloody set of turns you had.

We can try to set priorities with expansion but makes little sense atm IMHO. Just build more cities would be fine apparently. At some RCP. :)

I suggest moving the legion armies from the North and destroy the Greeks. At the moment they are using up combat turns that could be used to generate further leaders. We have two settlers sitting idle, we need to destroy some cities so we can found new ones -the Greeks have silks and incense.

Preflight check looks ok. Need to get FP built, looking for a good location. One English sword left next to Gonzo, that'll hurt, but not too bad. Next city to build will be next to marseilles at our RCP6, and that should be a good location for FP (central for northern directed ring).

370 AD: IBT English regular sword defeats our Elite legion at Gonzo. Nothing else except movement in our direction. Bab has pike coming into play now. At Viro elite legion kills regular english sword, 1 pt damage. Elite sword dies attacking vet american sword (deals 2pts damage). Army kills Regular sword. Elite legion kills regular sword. Unreal -- army takes 7 pts of damage killing a vet german sword. Legion army kills the english sword at Gonzo, no damage and Elite legion kills Bab archer with 1 pt damage.

Move units for various attacks. Eliminate the settlements in the southeast, take thermopylae so we can build RCP6 there. Move a few legions so they have better coverage. Change Antium production to worker; we need to get roads developed so that we can cover our far flung cities.

380 AD: No combat IBT. Kill two greek longbow with elite legions at Rave. Vet legion kills hoplite with no damage outside thermopylae.

390 AD: No combat IBT. At Viro army kills american sword, elite horse kills french longbow in the open (after taking 4 damage!). Elite legion kills american sword (1 damage), vet legion kills american sword with 1 damage. Elite legion kills spear near Cumae, vet legion dies to longbow, vet legion kills longbow. Elite legion kills russian spear south of luna, elite legion kills spear and generates a leader, taking city in the process. Vet and elite legion each kill a longbow at thermopylae, vet legion loses to a hoplite. Two german swords killed outside viro, army took 6 damage :-(

400 AD: IBT a vet french longbow with 2 damage attacks a vet legion; totally unexpected, but the legion survives and is promoted. A greek longbow loses to our legion at thermopylae.

410 AD: No combat IBT. Kill german sword near neapolis. Vet legion kills bab sword. Elite legion kills greek hoplite. Kill english longbow near lutetia. Killed a russian sword, a french spear and 2 french longbow at Cumae.

420 AD: IBT an elite legion falls to a russian sword. At viro our elite horse takes 4 damage and retreats, dealing no damage to a french longbow. Three russian swords killed outside cumae with no losses. Vet legion attacks vet bab longbow in the open, wins with 3 damage. Elite legion kills the other longbow.

430 AD: IBT a vet legion loses to american sword near Viro. Elite sword kills american sword. Vet legion kills bab spear and settler, and is promoted. Vet legion kills french spear with 3 dmg. At lutetia a pair of legions kills an english sword and longbow.

440 AD: No combat, Germany builds the Sistine Chapel. Engineering is discovered, we are running a big deficit. Researching at 10%, switching builds to marketplace in core cities. Bad combat round. Three elite legions lost to a russian sword. I decided to cut my losses at that point (it was still 3 hp). Elite legion loses to german pike. Vet legion loses to an english pike. Vet legion lost to spear outside Viro. Legion and army killed american sword and longbow.

450 AD: No combat IBT. Vet legion kills english sword and is promoted, move army and elite to attack brighton next turn. Elite legion loses to german pike, 2nd elite finishes the job. France has caraval, not a good sign.

460 AD: Army kills pike at english city with 8 damage, 2nd army kills a spear and takes the city. At viro an army kills a vet american sword, and samy the horse kills a french longbow. At lutetia an english longbow is dispatched. Syracuse went into disorder; I moved a unit out after checking happiness (forgot about MP with monarchy :-/).

We are at 55g running a -6/t deficit with 10% lux and 10% science. We need to rework finances.

We are not very happy, and don't have the money to fund luxeries. We have 2 unused settlers, one in Brund and one in ravenna. The one in ravenna can build at RCP6 as soon as we dispatch thermopylae. I backed my troops out because I was too weak, but have reinforced and sent an army.

Oh, and we're far behind in tech :-P

Sounds like lots of fighting you had. We obviously need more cities. Defend on one direction and build up of the other. Greek territory is not that very fertile, might be better to expand to France. Got it will play today in the evening. We can always start building markets (and we should) and may be even libraries. If there are too many leaders, we can use them to rush markets. :)

Preturn check. It does not look good at all. We have 29 (!!) spearmen. Just mostly for MP I assume. And very small team of 11 workers. And since I last played, only one town settled. (???) I will try to do what I can but it does not look good. Hope we can survive. Did slight micromanagement and we are making +8gpt. Moving three settlers in positions. We just need to take it one thing at a time. Bring a decent force in one direction (France) and try to survive in the others.

[1] 470AD. Troops advance. Some kill, others get killed.

[2] 480AD. Blood bath continues.

[3] 490AD. Got another leader. Finally, Thermopylae is razed and Caesaraugusta is built on the ruins nearby.Titus rushes to Hispalis to build FP there. We can always do a palace jump later.

[4] 500AD. Marseille is razed and Palmyra founded.

[5] 510AD. Another leader. Where you all have been, guys, when we started? We build the last possible atm army with the guy. Need another 4 cities for another army.

[6] 520AD. Hey, another leader. Will rush market in Ravenna.

[7] 530AD. Ierusalem founded near former Marseille, building workers. There is a bit of happiness problem and it might be better to go for Greece. They have silks and incense.

[8] 540AD. Many troops shuffled, Rome goes to the settler factory mode.

[9] 550AD. Rome can be a great worker factory. May be we need workers more than settlers. IMO, good idea would be to go and try to raze Besanson. We can have a firm grip on Greece and attack Corynth with silks.

[10] 560AD. Not a pleasant surprise. Oxford has a musketman defender.

Note to next player: Please, build more cities. Financially we are doing OK, making +50gpt researching with a single scientist and running 10% luxury rate. But we need more unit support. Don’t look much for RCP now when both rings 3 and 6 were settled. Also, it looks like we might need some artillery. And keep sending suicide galleys to another continent to the west. I have sent two and both were lost. Unfortunately, we cannot rest with them on a sea tile because there are lots of enemy galleys around. Good luck!

Just reminding that Sir_Ortin is UP. It is already over 24 hours for got it to post.

I've just noticed Cuivienen showed up in the SG forum.

@Cuivienen. Please feel free to grab the save and play, Sir_Ortin is skipped then. Hope everything is OK with him. Just a reminder, you have 24 hours to post Got it and then another 48 hours to post the save and turnlog. Please also read the discussion and logs of turns which were played while you were in Bolivia. And act accordingly. How's there in Bolivia BTW?

Sorry guys for delay. I got the save, will post reply in some hours.

[0] 560 AD. Pre-turn check. Comp: some battles, 2 our legions died.
[1] 570 AD. Lutetia grows and goes disorder. :( Some battles.
[2] 580 AD. Got a leader.
[3] 590 AD. Damn!!! We lost Aesonesium, english knight made a stealth ride. Used leader to rush Colloseumin Rome. We

need more legions lo load all our armies!
[4] 600 AD. Founded Caesarea instead of ruined city. Got another leader. Rushed marketplace in Paimyra. cOMP: Japan

contacted us. Traded our world map for territory map. Declare them a war. Contacted by Idian. Traded our world map +

121g for feudalism (saved 24 turns).
[5] 610 AD. Ruined babylon city. Start research Monoteism. Comp: Iroquois contacted us, Atztec contacted us. Some

battles.
[6] 620 AD. Some battles, some loses, some victories.
[7] 630 AD. Ruined french Rounue, founded Tarentum. Battles.
[8] 640 AD. Battles...
[9] 650 AD. Got a leader, rushed marketplace in Gonzomonium. And battles. Comp: lost 2 pikeman in Viroconum. :(
[10] 660 AD. Found Nicomedia. Endless battles...

We have a huge losses due to the knights... :(

I thought I would pick up the save since cuivennen hasn't shown up yet.

660AD Pre-flight checks. It looks like we will lose CaesereaAugusta to the Greeks in the IBT. They are about to attack it with knights and LBW …there are no active units I can get to it. I have moved pike and spears to cover exposed injured legions where possible.

IBT we do lose CaesarAugusta – the Greeks take it without loss. We lose two exposed legions to knights. There were no troops I could cover them with.

670 AD. IMO the Greeks should have been dead by now. We had the fire power to take them out earlier – now we are being flanked by them. Our injured legions have been left out in the open as easy kills for knights. We have over expanded and not secured the areas prior to settling. Our peripheral cities are lightly defended. We have no offensive capacity. This game is as good as over when the AIs get cavs. I’m not wasting any more time on it. I’m resigning. If the rest of you guys want to play it out – well good for you.

Sorry about not showing up to this -- I kinda forgot about it. If we're losing so badly that we don't think we can recover, there's no point to continuing, but is it really that bad?

At 560AD game was left in a decent shape. According to my poor humble judgement. :)

@Sam: you are certainly free to do whatever you want. But it were you, who decided to trigger our Golden Age in Despotism. Hence, we have some consequences now. Please, continue with your turns. If you firmly decided to drop, please post that clearly and we'll seek a replacement then. IMO, signing up for a game and dropping half-way to victory is not the most bright idea. :)

@Sam: you are certainly free to do whatever you want. But it were you, who decided to trigger our Golden Age in Despotism.

IIRC you wanted it even earlier


Hence, we have some consequences now.

We have consequences now because of over expansion. Which was your idea. The shields that got wasted on settlers and spears would have helped us crush the Greeks if they had been spent on legions.


Please, continue with your turns. If you firmly decided to drop, please post that clearly and we'll seek a replacement then. IMO, signing up for a game and dropping half-way to victory is not the most bright idea. :)

How exactly are we supposed to win? We have exactly the same number of legions as I left the team with on the previous set of turns, 35 to be exact. Or 33 if you count the two lost in the IBT between 660 and 670 BC. Which means even with the benefits of armies our kill ratio sucks. We are now playing AWE - with our kill ratio as it is and an over expanded empire being attacked from two sides there is only one possible result and it isn't victory.
Good Luck! If you win I will eat my hat. But I'm out.

Heya -
I've been lurking around, and while I wouldn't claim to be nearly as good a player as Samildanach, I would be willing to pick up his slot if only to see where this game goes. The only real problem I see is that I am spoilered out as I have also been following the other threads.

I played GOTM regularly up till about 8 or 9 months ago. If the rest of the team is going to abandon, just ignore this offer.

Heya -
I've been lurking around, and while I wouldn't claim to be nearly as good a player as Samildanach, I would be willing to pick up his slot if only to see where this game goes. The only real problem I see is that I am spoilered out as I have also been following the other threads.

I played GOTM regularly up till about 8 or 9 months ago. If the rest of the team is going to abandon, just ignore this offer.

Hi Jeffe
Thanks for stepping into the breach. I haven't played too well in this game so the team won't miss me. I remember you as a quality player and you are a definite upgrade over me. Good Luck!

If the team is happy to accept Jeffe then I am happy too. When I get a response from the team captain I will change the uploads page.

EDIT: As a side note, I have been in far worse positions than this and won. In one particular game it was knights vs infantry and we still won in the end and I was playing an even tougher variant.

As I have stated in previous posts, I play tested the game to make sure I could reach steam with my core in tact. I assumed (and it is my opinion) that from there the game would be winnable.

I expect this team to win this game, though my prediction of only 50% of the variant teams winning looks to be a reasonable guess ATM.

Yes I know, I'm lurking agian akots ;) I just can't help it... and no, I am not going to ban myself either. :)

Okay, then, I guess I'm up. Got it.

Just a quick note. Please let me know if you want me to play or not. If not I will go back to lurking in the various other threads.

Thanks either way.

Jeffe. I'm sorry you are not getting a response. Please be patient just a little while longer. :)

Sorry, you can play first if you want. I forgot to play this today anyway, but I can play tomorrow.

@Sam: We have to learn to use terrain and other stuff and manage the game with low number of units. I've learned a great deal about it playing RBC games and reading and discussing these things with Charis. How big is your hat? :)

@mad-bax: I have not determined the initial players of the team nor am I going to interfere with replacement player. You assume a role, you play it. Please feel free to appoint anyone including the Honorable Donsig. :)

How's about me lurking the staff thread? Looking for some new great "secret" tactics to learn? :lol:

@jeffelammar: Please pm mad-bax and ask his decision in writing.

@Cuivienen: OK, then jhigham is UP. I would advise you to subscribe to this thread or avoid signing up for SGOTM in the future. It is not a cake walk, it is a tough dirty bloody game which should be approached seriously.

@jhigham: You're UP, man!

@Sam: We have to learn to use terrain and other stuff and manage the game with low number of units. I've learned a great deal about it playing RBC games and reading and discussing these things with Charis. How big is your hat? :)


Both you and charis are great players. I have won a number of AWE games but in those I have managed to carve out a better position at this stage. Winning from where we are is beyond my abilities as an individaul with the exception of a very slim possibility of a space race win.
If you feel you can martial the troops to a historic victory then good. :) I disagree. I don't think I will have to eat my hat and I hope that I don't have to as my cat tends to sleep on it when I'm not wearing it. :) My cat is a filthy flea bag BTW :(

Sam, you're such a big lazy dog... Eating hats should be fun for dogs. :)

I do fully understand you decision. If I were a dog, I would do the same. Including great overestimation of my playing skill. :)

Roster updated, unless mad-bax has objections to this. :lol:

Order of players:
1. jhigham is UP
2. jeffelammar on deck
3. akots ready
4. Sir_Ortin reading RBC SG threads
5. Cuivienen subscribing and getting serious

Everybody are occupied, so we can relax now.

Heya -
Since it looks like you guys didn't object too strenuously to my taking Sam's place, I wanted to make a few observations about our situation.
1. We are surrounded and our opponents have better Attack units than we do.
2. We still have peace with 3 opponents (When is our next required Declaration, and who?)
3. Our Forbidden palace is nicely set for an eventual palace jump.
4. We don't have fast units.

Given these observations I have some ideas of strategies to use to put the AI where it belongs.
1. I think a major priority should be to make sure that Greece is not a threat. There are a couple ways to go about this.
a. Kill them. I'm not sure how viable this is in the short term.
b. We have several armies. If we can take two of them out of the fight, we can use them to pillage Greece's resources so we don't have to face Greek Knights. Once that is the case, we can build Horsemen and use them to take out the Greek Longbowmen that will follow. Also they will be availiable for upgrade when we get Chivalry.
c. I think you already know this, but chivalry would be my highest priority tech now.
2. I additionally like the idea of pillaging to make remove our opponent's ability to build the good attackers.
As a note in this version of GOTM (I played it way back), Armies cannot pillage. If we send a Horseman with the Pilaging army, we can use the horse to pillage and move, keeping it covered with the army, I would suggest horses as the highest priority, since we can't see where the saltpeter is yet.

3. I would jump the palace north sooner rather than later. With the amount of war we are fighting, we should continue to get leaders, so we can keep moving the palace to keep it near our combat zone. This will allow us to produce units at the front rather than having to move them. The original core can produce the settlers we need to fill in the razed territory.

4. As the current legion builds complete, I would suggest starting some horsemen. They would be good cleanup units now, and in the near future could become knights, which are probably the unit we will be using for a long time.
I would also suggest a supply of catapults so we can increase our kill ratio.

I know that akots was against artillery, but I think they would help. I will go with the team decision on this, so won't build artillery unless others agree with me.

Questions, comments, flames?

OK, jeffelammar is in and Samildanach is out. The uploads page has been amended.

Sounds good, jeffelammar. Remember, though, this is PtW -- Armies still suck at pillaging.

A couple things.
I have never played C3C, so I am not used to the super armies that exist there.
I played GOTM 16, which is the basis for this SGOTM, and there are a couple observations to make.
1. Armies have been modded so they can't pillage. I opened up Sam's last save to look around and verified that this is true. That is why I suggested the Army as coverage for a horseman pillager.
2. Since there were some questions along these line earlier in the thread, There are no Medieval infantry in this mod.

One last note. Please don't take my suggestions wrong. They are just my first thoughts when I look at the current strategic situation.

We just cannot jump Palace onto a border line city. This is against the rules. The Palace has to be surrounded by at least 4-5 cities. Otherwise, we might need some arty is upkeep costs permit. :)

Ok, I will do a preturn check, then ask for opinions and direction before proceeding; can't waste these turns.

I believe I'm pretty good at managing terrain and position for combat benefit, but need to determine a direction (I think we need to take someone out; can't just keep fighting on all fronts). I also am not that great at determining builds, so recommendations about what to prioritize and what to ignore would be good.

Can we palace hop? What are the rules involving that (and where would we, if we could)?

We just declared on Japan, so we have about 20 turns before needing to declare again.

Ok, Preflight:

Lots of units (knights and otherwise) in our territory; I'll definately be attacking some before hitting go. Our biggest threat is babylon, with 4 knights in good shape in our territory, America and England also have a strong knight presence. Greece isn't looking strong; I don't like them on our flank, but we don't have the strength to devote an all-out war against them at this time.

Sams does have a good concern; our eastern cities are very weak -- we do not have the units to cover them. With some fancy footwork I should be able to defend, and hurry walls so that we have better coverage at those locations. We are short on units in general, but builds are coming up.

We need to build our cities on hills if possible; Nico would be in much better situation if that were the case.

It'll be tough to get an army out of the east; we are pretty hard pressed there, but it's possible if we want to do that. Talk amongst yourselves and give me direction :-)

My $.02

I agree that we need to take somebody out. Either Greece or France.

I vote for Greece for 3 main reasons
1. They have Knights, and we want to stop that.
2. France does not appear to have horses in their territory, so they will be building mostly Musketeers as attack units. These are less threatening than Greece's knights.
3. Getting rid of Greece will consolidate our front line so all real fighting is in the north.

I also noticed that we have a couple legions and a few spears in cities that are not in any immediate danger. I would suggest leaving 1 or 2 legions in the area to react to any amphibious assault, and then bringing the rest of those units up to the front.

Good luck Jhigham.

Going for Greece seems very reasonable. They also have 2 luxuries. However, route to Athens from our core is all mountains. And this means we need to dispatch decent force which would be essentially inactive for a number of turns while moving there. So, we better try to crack them from the north.

Try not to let the AI units deep inside our territory. Bait them if needed with undefended cities. Just move the troops out and then move in when the danger comes.

Palace jump rules are exactly as in GOTM. We can jump with a leader but to some place surrounded on all sides with at least 4-5 cities.

IMO, increase the luxury rate if needed because these units are left mostly for MP purposes apparenty. And try to upgrade spears to pikes while moving.

I'll try to keep that army in the eastern front.

Noticed that many cities need hard micromanagement to optimizhe for builds. For legions, horses, and pikes the cities should be at 5 or 6 shields. And we need more workers!

The game requires some consolidation of the cities and units on the border. This might be hard to achieve. Just hang on for 10 turns and try not to lose the cities and roads which is also very important. :)

France is pretty much gassed as well as Greece. Taking them over is a matter of time which is not on our side btw. Certainly, Babylon, Germany, and America are in better shape. Well, little we can do about that. :sad:

Kill ratio might improve with catapults to a certain extent but they are more effective in C3C. In PTW, it all starts with artillery which is very far away. Really, don't know.

Pillaging is an option but only for Greece and France, not other AIs, they are just too far away.

Any progress there, jhigham?

670 AD (Was saved at the start of the turn):

Killed a Greek knight and longbow, and german pike sitting on our road. Lost Legion to english spear, and 2 legion to american musket deep in our territory.

Moved pikes to cover our wine, musket has nowhere to go. Started moving units to mobilize against Greece. Sent army against Bab knight, who retreated. Changed several builds, optimized for legions and gained 2g/t. Upgraded a lot of spears; interior first so I left a spear un upgraded on the front :-( Couldn't trade for the extra 7 gold, and barracks only give us 2 gold.

Lots of units on the western front and not much to attack with. Against knights I think in most cases we are better off defending; attack of 4 against fortified/walls/hill better than defense of 3...tell me if I'm wrong. One army at 2/9 will try to move towards the eastern front, but we might need the firepower. Armies heal to slow.

680 AD: IBT German knights retreat rather than attack! Very good news. Greek hoplight moves deep into our territory; no combat. One city goes into disorder; I meant to fix it after the fact and forgot :-(

Jerusalem builds walls and starts on barracks, Palmyra builds barracks and starts on legion. Byzantium builds a cat for us; I think that it'll be important on the eastern front as musket start coming into play.

Upgrade more spears, fix attitudes in a few cities. I don't want to increase lux yet because we really need the gold for upgrades. Kill a french spear and longbow, and the american musket. Kill a greek knight (takes two units) and cover with pike. Kill the hoplite.

690 AD: IBT our 3/18 army barely defeats french bow. I wish you had better control over which units defend. Lose a pike and legion to the greeks; I exposed them :-/ Several more legions come online. Kill a greek bow, rearrange units. Work on builds a little bit, some upgrades from spear.

Kill greek knight, and greek hoplite (losing 2 legion :-/). English landed a longbow quickly dispatched. Kill American knight, fortify army nearby. Kill english musket.

700 AD

**** **** **** ****. Left brunsidium undefended, but overlooked the english knight within range. Burnt to the ground. Killed the knight. Settler in jerusalem comes down to resettle (bruns was only size 1, but lost barracks)

Army damn near dies killing english knight, and legion loses to longbow, dealing only 1 pt of damage. Not my turn for combat, another army loses 9hp attacking a knight, and is now exposed.

720 AD: IBT the RNG makes up for the previous combat; exposed pike in several locations win (3-4). One kills american knight without losing an HP. Another forces two German knights to retreat (with only 1HP loss) before losing to bab Knight. Armies intact. English knight moves into position to attack caesarea, and I cannot reach it in time to defend (spear in place).

730 AD: IBT Iroquios(sp?) ally with Americans vs us. Aztecs and Japanese start on Smith's. Spear holds off first knight, but 2nd one takes ceaser; size 2 though so hopefully I can take it back. Legion fends off Bab knight. Hmm, ceaser lost a pop point when captured? Better to take it though, than leave it in english hands -- hmm it lives even with 0 culture and size one. Maybe because it was mine originally? I'll take it.

Artaxa founded to replace Brund. Kill a bunch of knights left in the open, take out three russian longbow. Lotsa kills and a nice RNG. Moving more units to prepare to take on Greece; Army still hasn't been able to move that direction.

Again almost lose an army to a knight (on hill, but not fortified), and do lose a legion...it's a rough life.

Founded Selucia in the southeast at some point in the past; just discovered this note beneath my insert cursor :-)

740 AD: IBT Japan starts on Magellan's. Pike on hill loses to knight, only inflicts 1 damage. Bab land knight amphib in the middle of our empire, but have legion nearby ... unbelievable. Knight defeats two legion before being taken (open ground).

Take out some greek longbow, move some legions around. Elite legion loses 3HP to a german longbow but takes it.

750 AD: IBT Greece lands a knight on our shores near where the babs did, defeated by a single legion this time. Two dead english units, longbow almost defeats legion yet again.

760 AD: IBT lose a pike to english, defeat a greek knight. Units move inward, lots of production. Elite legion loses to longbow, and next one is redlined before winning. Cover my units fairly well, full army now headed towards greece with several legions tagging along.

Things to note:

Oxford is a thorn in our side, we may want to wipe it out. Lots of units from that direction, but england might send them that route anyway.

We are weak to the southeast; legion lost to a longbow, but at 2hp I have to hope our pike can take it. Bonn and Dover should go, though, since they tie up a lot of our units.

I've fortified several units near Jerusalem in hopes of defending the territory; or at least making it hard to take. Knights on those mountains suck; if we don't take them out they'll land right on that flood plain and snap our line of transportation.

You should be able to raise luxury now; we don't have many units to upgrade. Not much MP presence, but it'll release some of the entertainers.

We need artillery; currently only building in one location, but they have a good hit potential against units (not against cities) and bringing knights down a notch or two is a big help.

Good luck.

Huh. Upload worked for one turn, now didn't again. My brain is mush though so I might be doing something wrong.

Looks good Jhigham.

Downloaded it before leaving for work this morning, but didn't have time to load it and look.

I'll be playing tonight at about 8pm Mountain time (GMT -7:00)

If you have any suggestions based on the current situation (Besides Jhigham's good suggestions), then please post today.

One thing I would like to discuss is research. IMO we need to get Chivalry ASAP. Since we can't get gpt deals, we either need to save up enough cash to buy the techs, or we need to start doing our own research. I like the idea of trying to buy Monotheism and Chivalry. We will need to start our own research soon, because we are not far from AW.

Just to be sure, The Iroquois war is new, so I think we don't have a DOW till 20 turns after they declared on us. Is that right?

No, this is wrong. We still have to declare.

The turns look good. May be we did not expand much but survived and did not lose any ground.

Certainly, some research is required once we get into AW mode. For research, we need some free income apart from what we have since that is pathetic. Either connecting luxuries or building more cities or combination of both might be good.

And we can always buy techs for gtp, just have to renegotiate peace.

Sorry for all the questions. Just want to make sure I don't mess up your game :)

I went back and looked. Our last DOW was 600AD Vrs Japan. That means that our next one is in 800 vrs India. (I couldn't find any mention of the Aztecs earlier than when we contacted india)

Is my analysis correct? Sorry to be so slow, but as I said I don't want to blow it :)

Quick Update.
It is 800 AD. I am waiting to make sure that I have to declare on India, so will wait to finish up for a bit.
The Good News. We just got Monotheism from India
The Bad News. On the 760-770 IBT, we were attacked by English Cavalry. I haven't seen any other Cavalry, but it is only a matter of time. We do seem to be holding our own.

If I don't hear about the war thing before tomorrow, I will declare on India and finish my 10 turns.

This is a bad news about cavalry. :)

Otherwise, with India, seems OK.

Eeeeeeekkkkk.

That is definately some of the most skin of the teeth set of turns I have done in a while.

Ok I'll start with a quick summary.
The Good.
1. I got us Monotheism
2. I Raized Sparta

The Bad.
1. As mentioned, England has Cavalry (I haven't seen them from anyone else)
2. German and American Knights are overwhelming our defenses.
3. I lost more legions than I wanted, but don't know what I could have done better.

760 Pre-flight
Artaxata -> Catapult
Rome -> Horseman

IBT Kill 1 German LB, Lose 1 pike to German knight (they get a leader)
English CAVALRY kills Pike in Caesaria

770 - Kill Several English Troops
Rush wall in caesaria

IBT - Lost our galley. He wouldn't have found much more anyway
- Kill 1 german knight, lose a pike and a legion to english troops

780
Wall in Caesaria -> Rax
Legion drives cavarly to retreat
kill 2 german knights, 1 Bab Pike, 1 French LB, lose 1 legion
Syracuse -> Settler

IBT - Kill Greek LB, Lose 3 legions :(

790 - Lose 3 legions (2 to american knights, 1 to a longbow(ARGH))
- Kill Russian Knight, Greek LB, Babylonian Knight

IBT - Lose Worker to Am knight
Lose Legion to Greek knight
Pisae Forum - Horse
Nicomedia Rax -> Pike

800 - Kill Babylonian Knight, American Knight, German Knight
Buy Monotheism for 260 Gold + WM from india
Declare War on India

IBT - Kill 1 knight, cause 3 to retreat
America lands troops near Antium

810 - Kill 4 knight, musketeer, spear and pike but the pike takes our army from 13 to 5. It can't be covered. Crap, I really blew that one.

IBT - yep Germany kills the army

820 - Kill Musketeer, Am Knight, From here on out I got too wrapped up in juggling units.

IBT Lost 2 legions to England (1 knight, one cav)
Got Defensive leader. Will create army, but did not get to fill it

830 - I'm starting to be over-run I am really scraping the barrel to get enough units to stop the enemy landings and encroachment in the north

IBT - Japanese land 2 Samurai and a Swordsman. Near Antium

840 - Try to clean up. The Samurai knock out a couple legions, and I decide to defend instead of attack them. Found City in ruined area east.

IBT - 3 hp Knight kills fortified elite Legion guarding new city. Crap. City is razed. So much for that ploy. Americans land 1 cavalry by antium

850 - First good news in a while. I successfully raze Sparta. Only lost 1 legion to do it. Execute 2 greek workers. Note: Sparta was only defended by Hoplites, but I have seen greek musketeers. They are probably trading for Saltpeter.

IBT - DISASTER STRIKES - Crap a combo of the sustained pressure and some bad RNG causes the following cities to be captured. Selucia, Pisae, Gonzo.

860 - I retake Pisae and Gonzo. May even be able to hold them. I left a couple troops to move as I really needed to go to bed.

Thing could have gone a lot better. I don't know our best bet right now, but the big thing seems to be stabilizing our borders. Sorry I failed at that.

The next thing to say is that there is a settler being built in the south, you may want to switch it to a combat unit.

At this point, I'm not sure what I should have done better, I was able to red line and kill a lot of enemy troops with the catapults.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/akots_SG003_AD0860_01.SAV

Got it, I'll see what can be done.

Must admit after looking at the game that Sam's hat would prbably remain intact.

I'll take a closer look at all saves after my turns and will try to diagnose what has been done wrong. But looking at the current save I can see 2 cities in disorder with clowns. There are 6 extra clowns which would be earning 6gpt for our treasury. Don't know for how many turns they were sitting there. Also, very many cities are not optimized. For example, Rome is running at 12 spt which absolutely makes no sense. At least 4 tiles in the RCP 3 cities are not worked. The question is did this really contribute to what we got and how to deal with that. Cavalry looks scary though and knights are moving in from everywhere. Hope we can defend with artillery but it does not look good.

And where the crap is market in Ravenna? I remember rushing it with a leader but don't remeber anybody reporting that the city has been captured...

Guys, if we are not going to look at each city each turn and optimize them, this game cannot be won. It is apparently beyond saving in its current shape. This is a time-consuming task, that is why we play Succession Game. It appears that the game has been played akin to a single-player game and this is not acceptable. You can screw a bit, then the next player comes and fixes a bit. But if you screw a lot of things, at a certain point it becomes unfixable.

I can understand Sam now completely. It just feels wrong like wasting time. There are certain issues that even a strong player cannot correct. :)

If you don't know what to do, we better discuss. If we think we know but are doing this in a wrong way, we must learn. I'll study the files and post some comments.

I can understand Sam now completely. It just feels wrong like wasting time. There are certain issues that even a strong player cannot correct. :)


I'm sorry to hear that. My poor play is big part of why this game is so bleak. I had hoped that by withdrawing it would cause the team to pull together much in the same way as when High Desert withdrew from roster C. On that occassion it seemed to raise the the remaining team members focus. That game had been drifting for a while ,like this game, once HD pulled out it seemed to shock players into more focused and determined play.

:lol: Here, it seems to be the opposite.

Never mind though. I'm not going to edit the two preceding posts of mine unless a moderator does edit them but IMO, these comments should not be taken very seriously either. :)

Still, I would like very much to know where did a marketplace go from Ravenna. It is a big thing after all, whole square of merchant tents. :)

This is a difficult game. It was meant to be difficult, and I said it was difficult in the announcement. Probably plays more difficult than deity. For people who have never played and AW game before it is certainly a tial by fire. I don't know whether you will win from this position, but you can have fun trying. In any case, for some people this will be their first experience of playing a game that they are actually in real danger of losing. :)

@everyone - I have to say I have been kicking myself for the last 24 hours. I really thought I could do a better job for you, and was unhappy with my performance. Sorry about that.

@akots - I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you saying that there used to be a Forum in Ravenna and now there isn't? I can check my records. I made some mistakes, but losing Ravenna wasn't on that list.

Just as a note, my style was to optimize for production as I went. Rather than try for 6 every turn, I would get it to 7 and then modify the citizens to finish exactly and try to eke out more commerce. If you think this strat was a mistake, please let me know. We are all here to learn.

One last thing, don't spare my because you are worried about feelings. I may have a bigger ego than I can back up, but I am always willing to take the criticizm and try to learn from it.

As for the clowns, they are just there from this turn. The loss of the cities last IBT caused the unrest. At least I thought so. I was going to fix it after re-taking the cities, but I felt I had caused enough damage and figured that I would let the next player make the adjustments as needed. Plus I was just pissed off that those cities had been lost at all.

OK, never mind, I'll conduct some investigation of "the disappeared marketplace case" by trying to dowload the saves from various time points and inspecting them. The most likely thing is that I posted in the log that I rushed it with the leader but may be changed my mind afterwards.

@madbax: Yep, looks like this. It does not play like Deity AW though, still somewhat easier and certainly, we can win, little doubt about that while the core is stil intact. The problem is to mobilize the team and try to improve the gameplay.

@jeffelammar: It is always possible to scroll forward and adjust the cities and clowns so that only one city is in disorder thus minimizing the losses. :)

OK, found that market. I guess, I've been loading the wrong save. Sorry about that. Just getting somewhat nervous. Pray forgive me. :)

@Sam: where did the dog go? And what is about this axe? Why it is fuzzy? Does it need sharpening or what?

Sorry for holding the game, I will try to play the turns tomorrow.

Any luck? I'd suggest we move on, but you are probably the best bet for playing this set of turns :-)

Sorry, I don't have time atm due to some RL issues.

See, you just aren't doing it right. When I have RL issues, I avoid them and play games. Come on now, what were you thinking? :-P

Best of luck, I'm in no rush although we might miss the time limit. If the others want to skip that's fine, but I would like to see us recover and win, which IMO akots would be a big part of.

ciao

OK, I'll try my best.

OK, finally I got me some time. I have previously looked at the save and it looks grave. Many cities had clowns and were building pikemen (instead of legions). Some cities switched to cats. And these knights are everywhere.
IBT. Gonzo is lost to a German knight, many exposed units died.

[1] 870AD. There are many knights and some cavalries arouns and few troops to repel them. Pillaged Greek horses. The only civ we are at peace is Aztec.
IBT. We lose Jerusalem, Syracuse and Cumae.

[2] 880AD. Syracuse is recaptured. Japan lands samurai and pike near undefended Lutetia. By some miracle we defeat 2 musketeers with 2 legions and recapture Cumae. Some units won, some lost.
IBT. Gonzo is lost and razed. Palmyra is lost to German cavalry, Nicomedia is lost.

[3] 890AD. We lost a 7-hp army to a knight who won without any hp lost trying to recapture Nicomedia.
IBT. We lose another redlined army to American knight. Viroconium is lost as well as Caesarea.

[4] 900AD. That is a brutal game indeed.
IBT. We lose Hispalis, Pisae, Artaxata, Lunacantorium, Lutetia, Antium, Cumae, and our army trying to invade Greece.

[5] 910AD. There is nothing to wage war with.
IBT. Syracuse captured, as well as Byzantium.

[6] 920AD. Just will play to the end, so that we can submit the save.
IBT. Pompeii falls, Lugdunum is captured, Rome falls.

[7] 930AD. Rome recaptured but apparently not for long.
IBT. Rome lost again.

[8] 940AD. Ravenna still stands by miracle.
IBT. Ravenna captured

[9] 950AD. There is nothing to move.
IBT. Neapolis captured, Tarentum captured, we are down to Neocaledonium which is our only city.

[10] 960AD. I will finish this up.
IBT. OK, the last city is lost, game over. Score 697. We are Caesar the foolish!

Good thing, we made it to the end. Another good thing, we are not the last, only number 14. The Misfit team beats us to the award. Another good thing, we tried and no matter what, should be happy about it.

Just to summarize, IMO, we had bad luck with early leaders, failed to get Great Library and Pyramids, triggered our GA in Despotism, and did not research what had to be researched. Not so strategic, especially the leaders? But if we want something really strategic, we can always play chess. That is what I'm going to do now. It was fun playing with you all and it was a difficult game, we fought but were defeated. :)

Thanks a lot.
I think that it was a good game which teach all of us a lot. At least me. :)
Hope that next SGOTM game will be more resultative.

Bye everyone and see you in later games.

It is tough when playing as a militaristic Civ when you don't get leaders within your first 25 elite wins. For this game it was almost necessary in order to win. A realistic chance of winning IMO needed either the pyramids or the GL. With either of these the game is a challenge but still a certain win.

I did not weigh carefully enough the possibility of not getting a leader, because in the 7 times I played to 1000BC I always generated at least one, and mostly two. The effect of this is that luck had a bigger part to play than I would have liked.

Thanks for finishing up, I enjoyed it and learned more about how effective war can be managed even with weaker units. I good change of pace.

Team akots - your demise was as swift as ours (Mistfit) at the end. We went from something like 16 cities and 4 armies to out of the game in about 15 turns once we started seeing some cavs. But most damage was still done by the knights. We managed the Great Library but even then we misplayed our early advantage. When I looked at your 850AD save I thought your game looked eeirly similar to ours at the same point.

I haven't read your whole thread, but justed wanted to say that this was a very tough game. I can't remember the last time I lost a civ game. Hopefully we will all play better in SGOTM4.

I just wish that mad-bax improves his playtesting skill. :)

The game variant has been not so excellent choice for SGOTM. Playing Xenophobic AWE with that many AIs is really a bad idea because to kill the attackers you have often to expose your own units. It could have worked on a smaller map though with fewer opponents even for us or for DJM's team. I wonder if any of the teams who did not build TGL and/or Pyramids would be able to win.

Yes, we did. X-Team had very bad luck in the early game with no leaders. We got neither the Pyramids nor the Great LIbrary and still managed to win the game. But it was a tough go for quite a while.

You don't have to kill to finish of the last unit though. Knock of a hp with a cat, and it will most likely retreat to heal. We took good advantage of that in our kill zone when we were low on troops. 4 cats managed to hold of 2 legions for a few rounds, without any problems.

Indeed, Xteam had a very well played game with good strategy planning! I've read half of it already.

I'm not a good strategy planner. Just see it - kill it, all what I usually use and in most cases it works. Also, we have not decided to build lots of arty at the beginning of the game. Later on it could have been already too late. Apparently, in this particular game just sum of skills of individual players was not enough to win and some good strategy should have been devised with tips for all players on how to handle the particular combat situations. But this is not the GOTM-playstyle and more of SG-win-it-somehow style and is completely different from what people (me) expect in SGOTM. Good, some teams were able to adjust to this rapidly. :)

Well, I want to say thank you for letting me jump in at the end there, even though I didn't do so well. It was a new experience for me. I had never played in a succession game.

As I said before, I feel that I let people down on this one. This weekend I confirmed it. I went back and re-played my 10 turns. Ending with about 14 more legions than I did in the REAL one.

Lesson learned for SG's. One TAKE MORE TIME.

Lesson learned for fighting with legions vrs more powerful knights.
1. More Patience. What got me in trouble in my turns was that I kept losing units in attempts to get rid of knights in our territory. In my re-try, I only killed them when they actually threatened cities.
2. See #1
3. I'm not as good as I thought. :(

As a note, on the group planning issue, I thing that is a good thing to mention. Notice that the number of posts in this thread is a fraction of the size of other threads played. In the case of team Misfit (Another team that lost, and in about the same time as we did) they had twice as many posts. In the case of the winners, they also had twice as many at the same year.
The winning teams, discussed a lot of things, like FP placement, Leader use, and other strategic decisions. They even would pause their turns for discussion. It is food for thought.

You might be better than you think. I just noticed, teams Handy and Sesn also lost (not much better than we are) and these teams have lots of good SG players who play Sid and manage to win somehow. Don't really know how they do that, probably strategy...

IMvvvHO, strategy is applicable for either very tough game or very inexperienced/weak players (certainly, strength and experience of players compared to the difficulty/setup of the game). Normally, no strategy is needed, this things are somewhat evident. :)

I guess I'll stop playing SGOTM with mad-bax assigned teams in the future. Though I might consider forming a team to appear at his eyes with an already formed team for the next SGOTM. It is just so much hassle... And IIRC, staff team was not assigned any "casual" members. They should have won, after all. :lol:

I am quite surprised that you haven't already formed a fixed team akots to be honest. I appreciate that you have not opted to till now because it gives me an elite player to team with less experienced players, and players whose standard I am not sure of, but you are under no obligation of course, and I look forward to seeing who you choose to play with. With a team I form it is pot luck because most of the time I have very little to go on in terms of ability, style, personality and particularly turnaround time.

Yep, it was a great fun to play with new people. I really enjoyed that. And that was one of the reasons I did not affiliate myself with any particular team. But looks like I've had enough for the time being. :)