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!

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750 BC - war in 2750 BC
2) England - 2270 BC - war in 1950 BC
3) France - 2230 BC - war in 1375 BC
4) Russia - 2150 BC - declared war on us in 1050 BC (normally would have declared in 875 BC)
5) America - 2110 BC - declare in 450 BC
6) Babylon - 1550 BC - declare in 50 BC
7) Germany – 1500 BC - declared on us via MA in 775BC
8) ?????? - ????? - declare in 500 AD

Checking in.

Let's reprise GK1, Sir Bugs.

:wavey: Denyd, G-man, R&L, looking forward to playing with youse guys.

Good to see you again, alerum. Ready for an alley fight?

GK1 was fun, but now we don't have the 5CC limit, just the Xenophobic one.

For those that don't know, we need to treat the early turns as if we're in AW. Because we will be with the first civ we meet.

Edit - Since we will be at war almost immediately, I think that hill our settler is standing on might be a nice place the throw stones down on our enemies from.

Checking in

A couple of items for discussion:

1. Is there any reason to move the settler? (none that I see)
2. Worker to Western BG to mine & road?
3. Research order: writing, bronze working or pottery? (look to trade for 2/3)
4. Try for Great Library to ease research needs?
5. First build is barracks, then vet archers until size 3, then settler.
6. Limited exploration and do not initiate contact if AI unit spotted

I assume we are playing the variant. If not, then these plans are wacko :D

Yes, we're playing the variant.

Agree with 1 & 2, 5 & 6.

Do we want to go for the library, or would BW=>IW be better for us? Remember we can always trade with civs 2, 3 & 4 that we meet. We can also make one initial, no haggling trade with civ #1. After we make the initial contact we need to explore like crazy to lower our research costs.

I would explore in a circle just enough to find a location for city #2.

I'm assuming a tight build?

Checking in

A couple of items for discussion:

1. Is there any reason to move the settler? (none that I see)
2. Worker to Western BG to mine & road?
3. Research order: writing, bronze working or pottery? (look to trade for 2/3)
4. Try for Great Library to ease research needs?
5. First build is barracks, then vet archers until size 3, then settler.
6. Limited exploration and do not initiate contact if AI unit spotted

I assume we are playing the variant. If not, then these plans are wacko :D

Concur on all, on #3, head straight for writing, as I think we can trade for the others. And archers are good until we learn how to work iron.

I suppose with the no haggling rule, the GL will be very valuable. OK, I see the point. Writing on a beeline to literature it is.

Where should we plan on building the GL? Rome is probably going to be a military factory for a long time. Although we'll get some serious shields out of it with 5 BG and all those hills. Probably try and set up city #2 with some strong shield production.

checking in :) welcome to bede and alerum! hope you brought your fightin' shoes :lol: i will be unable to play on the 16th - 17th due to visitors coming for a [party]

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750BC
2) England 2270BC
3) France - 2230BC

First post edited and moved to my second post to make this list easier to see.

sorry, forgot to add that i will be away on business from the 19th thru the 23rd as well. i will probably have a laptop and civ but connection may be spotty. especially on the 19th and 20th as i'll be in vancouver, b.c. and i'm not sure how well our company's isp covers that area.

#1 (from denyd) we'll be able to do +4fpt max at the present location which should be good enough with a granery to do a settler and 2 warriors every 5-6T once we get to size 5. the wine on the hill will act like a bg till we're out of despotism and there are 5bg's available immediately so no need to work it more than roading. we can add the mine later when we have more workers.

#2 ok

#3 beeling for lit is a good long range plan but I would like to trade for techs when we can as horsemen will be really useful in this varient

#4 yep

#5 & 6: as far as contacts go, we should plan carefully since we will have to declare on the 1st person we meet. imho, we should build a few of warriors 1st in case someone strolls by and says hi. 2nd city should be a shield powerhouse dedicated to units, at least till the 3rd and 4th are online, then, being developed, it could switch to a great library prebuild.

@Bede - I've admired your play through lurking in other threads, and of course admired your team of advisors as well. ;) "youse guys"?!? How does an Irish monk living on the cape get a Brooklyn accent? :hmm:

@Alerum - Hail and well met! We who are about to die with you (supposedly), salute you! I haven't encountered you before, but am looking forward to getting to know you in this adventure. Thank you for your kind comment, and welcome to Team Bugsy! :thumbsup:

As for the suggestions, I agree with Denyd's 1,2,5,6, and although inclined to pursue IW ASAP, can see the logic behind doing writing first, and so will agree to that. An archer / horse rush will certainly arrive first. Certainly as you can bet that there will be no iron within 20 tiles, and we're surrounded by (choose one: jungle, mountains, desert, tundra). I see from G's comments, that his passion for equine troops is rising to the fore. Maybe we'll be allowed to have horses (should the greater demi-god M-B look upon us favorably... :D). I also see no issues with the suggested rules of (avoided) engagement.

As far as initial builds go, I'm more inclined to follow Denyd's lead, and go for archers over warriors. We'd get a few more warriors, but given the variant, I think archers are preferable, and more flexible. Also, we won't need the extra units for exploring. I didn't catch a given victory condition. Is Dom acceptable, or is this Conquest? :hammer:

Checking in! I had a great argument for our team taking on the variant, but as the team already aggrees with me, I'll keep my mouth shut on that point.;)
Bugsy, Bede, good to see you two gentleman again. Always an honor to be in the same game with you, even if you do make me feel like a noob sometimes.:p

Denyd, before I answer your question just want to say it's going ot be fun being on your team after all the delurks over in GK:TDG.;)

R&L, Grahm, I haven't played with either of you, but I've lurked games both of you have played, and know you're both solid.;)

With this team, I have a feeling that *I* am the handicap player.:p:p Oh well, will be a learning experence for me.

1. God no! Wines, AND game, on a hill?! Perfect AW opening location IMHO.

2. yep. Game next.

3.
Writing if we're going to do #4. We'll need to beeline for Lit, but most AW games I've seen either rise or fall based on having The Great Library.

4. Going for GL will allow us to focus on nothing but luxury and military. If we're in Monarchy, we should be able to destroy them easily with the GL...


5. Alpha and Warrior Code... humm... seems like a good idea, but we may want to trade for Pottery, if an AI that's close has it. Maybe 'rax, archer, archer, temple for a granary prebuild?

6. Aggreed about limited exploration... nothing beyond our first ring of cities... maybe 2 squares out, and go in a circle until we reach our starting point again. We won't need anything beyond 3 squares until we build our inner ring... and keep it to 3-squares on all cities... this will allow for quick movement...

Wish I could see our location on the minimap... I'd hate to go north and have it tundra... Bugsy, you may want to keep a running total of who we met, and when in the first post... will help for the NOW.
Hope I didn't crosspost with anyone.


Conquest! Conquest! Domination drives me crazy.... "are we there yet? Are we there yet?" On conquest you see that last city and you KNOW.;)

Edited:
Guys, one thing that KILLED us on our last game was the fact that the team had a general idea that we wanted a domination win, and that was about it. We need to plan this out better before we start playing. Are we going for Domination or Conquest... I have a feeling that rest of the team will feel as I do, and we're going for conquest...

Now, are we planning on beelining toward Knights, cutting off research at that point, and just using our Knights to wipe out everyone? Or are we going to just try to stay alive, wiping out cities as we go along?

I wouldn't mind a golden laurel, but just finishing this game will be a challenge... this is very hard variant that is going to require us to keep our capitol on making settlers just to replace the cities we have to raze and rebuild. If we stay in Depsotism until we got Feudlism, would we be able to whip those foreign citizens away, or would the varient rules forbid that? I'm not quite sure on that... of course, it matters on if Resitors are considers native, foriegn, or in a limbo where neither count... Any thoughts on this one? If we can't whip like that, then getting monarch is a priority, and we'll need to keep our capitol on a constant settler pump to replace razed cities.

I hope I don't sound like a moron stating the obvious I just want to make sure the team is not just on the same page, but we're all reading the same paragraph... before we start this off, we need to come up with a basic strategy for this game...

Doc has a great article over on RBCiv I thik everyone should read. It just changed my mind on several items. It is HERE (http://www.lurkerlounge.com/realmsbeyond/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=4&t=121&) I think it could be a great strategy for us.

@ Alerum - I will try to not make you feel like a Noob.

With G-man heading out let's swap G & bede. New roster:

Denyd
G-man
Alerum
Bede
R & L
Bugs

BTW - I'll be off line for most of tomorrow.

I wouldn't worry about where we're at right yet. We don't want to explore much until we have at least two archers.

This is becoming like old home week.

very good article... I really want to try the trick with an army and explorers... 9 explorers with the army.... that's massive attack... clear a "city-sized" swath, then move one and no one is left exposed, but yet 10 tiles are pillaged. The AI won't attack a strong defensive army... wonder if it would work the same with a sword or a spear army?

hopefully we'll have a chokepoint close to us, but we won't find it until it's of no use I think. Does anyone know the world size?

Are we planning on taking this game into the Rifle Age?? I doubt it will go into the IA, but we can drag it out if it's needed.
Bugsy, you haven't been in an AW game in a while... it seems to me, that you used to play nothing but... or am I mistaken?

A little background:
I first met Bugs in GK1, NOWM with 5CC added as spice, and conquest as the only possible victory condition. Let me tell you by the time we rolled over the last of the opponents, starting with archers and spears and ending with Modern Armor, the possibility of a domination victory looked pretty tempting, like a mirage in the distance.

Keep in mind that this will use the Jason scoring system, so a maximised score depends on territory and smiling faces, yet the variant rules do not allow the keeping of towns with any foreign citizens so the battle order is raze and replace, a perfect opportunity to use the "combat settler" and "combat worker". The scoring system also rewards speed, so I think our best approach is kill 'em all and fill in behind.

Having also read Doc's article over on RBCiv I commend it to your attention.

@R&L,
the accent comes from the same place as the advisors: doesn't every Irish celibate have an Italian uncle in Brooklyn with six beautiful daughters?

I wouldn't worry about where we're at right yet. We don't want to explore much until we have at least two archers.

i agree, but don't underestimate the warrior. we can get 4 for the price of 2 archers in the very beginning, giving us some early exploration for our immediate city sites and providing MP duty in our 1st few cities. they also upgrade to swords later.

i agree archers will be important in this one and we should build many, but 1st things 1st, secure our base and locate new city locations. i'm not suggesting a large amount of warriors, maybe 4 or 5 and then other units. that all changes of course if we find iron on our lands. in that case, we will do the mighty warrior -> swordsman mass upgrade.

the article is good and delivers some interesting observations regarding diety games that are on the money. it'll be interesting to see if it applies here but i tend to stay away from pillaging unless i am taking on a far superior opponent. if you pillage too much, it just slows down your war progress by taking away roads.

that all changes of course if we find iron on our lands. in that case, we will do the mighty warrior -> swordsman mass upgrade.

Grahamiam, we're ROME... Of course M-B isn't going to leave a whole lot of iron lying around... Then again, maybe we ALL have a lot of iron, and our closest opponents are the Celts, Persians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Iroquois and Zulu. :)

I haven't read the article yet, but will soon.

I was imagining that we would make the victory a conquest. It's just that I didn't see it in M-B's posts, and wanted to clarify. Of course, a dom win would require a lot of settlers in addition to units, but I'm thinking in order to max the score, we need to do that anyway.

From a look at the roster page, Team Microbe certainly looks strong. It's also interesting that I don't see GK on any of the teams. This seems right up his alley.

Grahamiam, we're ROME... Of course M-B isn't going to leave a whole lot of iron lying around... right! an even more powerful upgrade :) hopefully we can capture iron early enough to make them useful (after we revolt to Monarchy, that is).

From a look at the roster page, Team Microbe certainly looks strong. It's also interesting that I don't see GK on any of the teams. This seems right up his alley.

I think team Microbe picked their own team.

GK has had a bad patch lately... I haven't seen him even post in his training game in about 2 weeks. Did he Graduate from Uni, or did he just finish up a year? If he graduated, we may see a LOT less of him.

Edit: The save has been posted! The save has been posted! Here's the link (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/bugsy_SG003_BC4000_01.SAV)!!

Ok I got the save - I'll be starting in about 8 hours so any thoughts for the first 20 turns let me know.

Let me know your thoughts on where the worker should go.
A. West to the BG to mine/road then to the game to chop/mine/road
B. NE to the BG to mine/road then to the wines to road

Remember this is emperor and I think we only have 1 content citizen to start with, so connecting the wines would help the gold. However, I'll probably be running a 40 turn writing gambit as with just a single city, min & max are probably both 40 turns.

Current plan:

1. Settle in place
2. Worker W to BG to mine & road
3. Research Writing at minimum
4. Start build on barracks then archers
5. Once worker done move to game to chop/road/mine (adjust based on shield needs)
6. Have the first archer spiral away from Rome
7. Avoid making contacts
8. Trade for as much as possible (no gpt deals) then declare war

A question about this variant:

Case:

We meet Persia in turn 15, trade Alphabet & Warrior Code +$ to Persia for Masonry & Bronze Working - then declare war on Persia (all ok so far)

Our Archers head towards Persia and meet a Greek Warrior & Babylonian Warrior on turn 18. Both contact us and we trade some more.

Questions:
1. If we kill Persia on turn 27, when/who is the next war?
2. Can we keep trading with Greece & Babylon until the Persian war is over?
3. At turn 38, if Persia is still around do we have to declare on someone else?
4. If yes to #3 then who or both?

Just a thought, but it wouldn't surprise me to find iron on one of those hills maybe that's why the 2nd wine is gone). They want to make this tough not impossible.

One more topic for discussion: Do we want to delay our Golden Age until we are out of Despotism or once we've got Legionaires, it's full steam ahead?

A question about this variant:

Case:

We meet Persia in turn 15, trade Alphabet & Warrior Code +$ to Persia for Masonry & Bronze Working - then declare war on Persia (all ok so far)

Our Archers head towards Persia and meet a Greek Warrior & Babylonian Warrior on turn 18. Both contact us and we trade some more.

Questions:
1. If we kill Persia on turn 27, when/who is the next war?
2. Can we keep trading with Greece & Babylon until the Persian war is over?
3. At turn 38, if Persia is still around do we have to declare on someone else?
4. If yes to #3 then who or both?

...

One more topic for discussion: Do we want to delay our Golden Age until we are out of Despotism or once we've got Legionaires, it's full steam ahead?
maybe we need MB to clarify but I think we would get the choice of who gets it 1st if we meet 2 civ's at the same time. it'll really suck if we meet someone while building that barracks since we won't have an MP.

re GA -> imho, delay till we get monarchy if possible.

the order of how you do things is up to you as i'm sure your judgement will be sound. looks like you can get a barracks by turn 9 assuming you mine then road, 1st archer in 5T after that and then 1 every 4 or less after that. imho, save the chop for the granery or to stress out the 1st settler and irrigate that game after chopping so we can be +4fpt.

good luck :thumbsup:

I say send the worker west. The luxuries will help but it'll cost a ton of worker turns to get there. I say get the BG, then cut the forrest to speed along our barracks or an archer. Then irigate the game.

Sounds like a good plan, and I'd declare with the civ that has a late age UU so we can destroy them before they're an issue and can start a golden age.

I don't think we'll have much choice in Golden Age... we'll probably have to self-research so will take alot longer to get Monarch then our first Legion battle.

We're not in AW... we can trade with any civ that we aren't at war with.... just have to take every deal at face value. We met 3 civs at once, declare on 1 and trade with the other 2. We could even sign a MA as long as it'll end before we need to declare war.

I say send the worker west. The luxuries will help but it'll cost a ton of worker turns to get there. I say get the BG, then cut the forrest to speed along our barracks or an archer. Then irigate the game.

i disagree with using the forest chop for an archer. we can do 1 archer every 4T @ size 2 (10 turns) by working the mined BG and the forest game (+2fpt, +5spt, mined BG =2f, 2s; forrest game=2f,2s, and city center=2f,1s). if we mine/road another BG after the 1st, we could do 7spt@ size 3 (archer every 3T)!

also, we will finish the barracks by turn 9 so, imho, we should use it to hurry the granery (60s, @size 2=10T with a forest chop or 12 without, @size3=8Twith chop or 9T without) or the 1st settler.

i agree that the wines can come later, when we get bigger. till then, we'll MM the lux slider.

I'd road toward the wine first, as it doesn't need to be worked to make happy citizens. Working the game will increase the growth without the road, and we'll need the happiness before we need the extra 1g. It'll help as we go for city 2 immediately, without having to go back and road to it when we want him doing something else.

Agree with saving the chop - don't waste it on an archer who is only going out a few tiles, and then becoming an MP for city #2/3/4.

As far as your scenario: Technically, per M-Bs notes, whichever you met first (even if on the same turn). If both appear at the same time, then I'd say either your choice, or in the order they appear on the list to initiate contact (but I'm not sure if that just uses the order that they were selected in the set-up).
#3 - yes, we'd have to declare on turn 38 with the first. The way I interpret it, the next would be required at 58, but MB will let us know, I'm sure.

GA - I'd try to delay to get out of despotism. Legions will come first.

@Grahamiam - AFAIK, your +4fpt will still be +3fpt in despotism.

@Grahamiam - AFAIK, your +4fpt will still be +3fpt in despotism.
an irrigated game on a grass does +4fpt in despotism or +5fpt out of it.

@G - Thanks for the clarification! :)

@Denyd - Quoth Mad-Bax: "It would be the order in which you open diplomatic relations - who you open the trade screens with first."

Of course, if they initiate with us, then we lose the choice. I wonder if we can count the barbs as our first opponent... :hmm: :D

ALso, don't forget that you may delay by not opening negotiations (and then getting out of LOS). I'm almost positive that I saw M-B post that in the general discussion!

OFF TOPIC

@G - Hoy'd you get the little logos in your sig?

As you wander around the map you may come across other wandering units and territorial borders. At such times it will be possible to open diplomatic dialogue with those civs in an order of your own choosing. This order should be kept written down, preferebly in the thread somewhere for everybody to reference. This is the order in which war must be declared. From the first declaration of war, you will be declaring war every 20 turns (or sooner if you wipe out the previous civ - or you just want to) until you run out of civs to be at war with.

MB: Is it correct that if we are at war with Persia and have just met Greece, we can sign an alliance with Greece for the 20 turns and then declare on Greece when the 20 turns is up?

You cannot establish an embassy. If they establish an embassy with you then your luck is in.

@G - Hoy'd you get the little logos in your sig?
they are the following smilies (quote to see) :)
[ptw]
[c3c]

FIRST THE SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/bugsy_SG003_BC3000.SAV)

[I hope this isn't jumping the gun, I couldn't find the submission page]

Turn 1 – 4000 BC – For those interested we’ve got lots of company: 11 opponents (Greece, France, England, Babylon, Russia, Germany, Aztec, Iroquois, India, Japan & America) – Eve (Worker) W – Settler founds Rome starts Armamentarium (barracks) – start research on Writing at 20% (minimum) due in 40 (due the same at maximum)

Turn 2 – 3950 BC – Eve starts mine

Turn 3 – 3900 BC – nada

Turn 4 – 3850 BC – nothing

Turn 5 – 3800 BC – still nothing

Turn 6 – 3750 BC – even more nothing

Turn 7 – 3700 BC – Eve completes mine

Turn 8 – 3650 BC – Eve starts road

Turn 9 – 3600 BC – Rome builds barracks starts archer

Turn 10 – 3550 BC – Rome border expands spotting wheat to the east – Rome grows to size 2 – Eve completes road

Turn 11 – 3500 BC – Eve moves to NE BG

Turn 12 – 3450 BC – Eve starts mine

Turn 13 – 3400 BC – nothing

Turn 14 – 3350 BC – Rome builds Archer starts another

Turn 15 – 3300 BC – Orion (Archer) MP in Rome – Slider to 9-1-0

Turn 16 – 3250 BC – nothing

Turn 17 – 3200 BC – Eve completes mine

Turn 18 – 3150 BC – Eve starts road – Rome builds Archer starts another

Turn 19 – 3100 BC – Artemis (Archer) MP in Rome

Turn 20 – 3050 BC – Eve completes road

Turn 21 – 3000 BC – Eve moves to BG SW of Rome

Score 87 points

I managed to make it to 3000 BC without meeting anyone and got a pair of veteran archers built. There is a lot of excellent land around, but I wasn't ready to go exploring just yet. I'm hoping we can get at least 1 more arrcher out before we find our first neighbor (probably either Aztec or Greece, with the two earliest UU is this game, knowing that MB wants this to be tough)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Bugsy_SG3_3000BC.jpg

nice turns Denyd. Looks like we're in the far south, and I think our neighbors our to the north and west of us. We should probably stick to settling towards the south, with only the wheat being settled... unless we see Iron.;)

Edit: Posted the save for you denyd. The link for it for future refrence is on the first post of the thread.:)

Got it.

Will await commentary, then post plans tonight, play tomorrow.

Got it.

Will await commentary, then post plans tonight, play tomorrow.
bede, i think bugs swapped us since i will be out of commision for a week begining Friday.

First thoughts on city 2:
- Given the river delta, we have a coast to the S.
- Wheat to E, but surrounded by plains.
- BG to N with G and H available.
- H & G to W, but no water or BG seen. Needs scout to look from hill.
Given what we see above, I'd think that moving our first settler N to snag the BG on the river would be a better bet than pursuing the wheat first, especially given the expected S coast. (it may just be a lake too.) It wil expand toward our foes, which is best in any case, leaving the wheat to be grabbed later (near future). This will at least help keep a higher pop & growth, while still keeping shield potential up (BG & H).

Since we're @3, we should be building a settler next (before growth to 4 in 10), or at least soon.

@g,
right you are. Didn't read far enough down the first page. Have fun.

I had another thought that arose out of all of that jungle that was in the last game. We had decent-sized stacks of workers (6-8 IIRC) spending 4-6 turns chopping, and then 2 turns roading. The less workers, the longer it took.

What about using a "population bomb" to clear a jungle area? That is, come in with a settler (instead of 2 workers), plant the city, set it to build a worker, and then abandon the city when the worker is built. You are left with rubble on either grass or plains, and with a road already built (in PTW), and upon which your new worker can immediately mine or irrigate. End loss is only 1 worker for the gain of many turns.

You wouldn't want to do it a lot, but it could be used to clear a pretty big area of jungle in a mid game, allowing the central city that you did want to become more productive quicker. For example, the start area in the new GOTM has much jungle. You couldn't use this at first, but after you have 8-9 cities, you could plant one in the now-cleared jungle pretty quick.

That would save turns for sure, but we'll still lose however many turns it took to build the settler, as well as 1 population, and 20 shields. That would be a good stratagy for later in the game, but even up the the late middle ages I see it costing more then it gives... if this was C3C and ruins not having roads I would think that it would be a total loss.

As for city planning, I think you have the right idea about getting the BG for shields in our next city, but I'm very nervous about having AI to the north of us... I feel pretty safe to the south and east, which would mean settling the wheat... but you're right now the BG with it's shields would be a better option. Just remember we have to settle within 3 squares of the capitol or we're screwed on defense.

Nice opening Denyd.

I think we will actually want to start exploring here soon, probably by the end of G-man's turns. We will want to get the AI on a war footing as soon as possible. Need to plan on an archer rush as soon as we meet someone. Nail them early. I think our first leader should be an army.

OK, settle NNNE. You know, it could be that M-B actually gave us a really good start just because of the difficulty of the variant. Then again, to those teams with experienced AW players, this shouldn't be bad at all. It's better to build a little toward the enemy than to have him hit your capital on the front line, and do any pillaging or interdiction damage to your biggest producer.

Yes, I did specify PTW. I agree that C3C wouldn't make sense. Again, i'm thinking for a case where we need to build a jungle city, and get it running quicker. It is for specific use.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Bugsy_SG3_3000BC_Dot_map.jpg

That river to the north is going to be a very nice front. I would plant cities on brown, blue and white dots as soon as is practical. The river and the hills will make for great defensive positions. We might want to pop another worker soon, just to start a strategic road network.

So let's see, we need a worker, a few settlers, a bunch of archers... all right now. That's why this game is so interesting.

Perhaps move the black dot 1 SW? would want to verify that red dot is coastal.

I was thinking that black dot would be on the same side of the river with Rome. I think yellow dot stinks after some thought. And yes we will want to confirm that red dot is coastal. If it is on a river, yellow dot should probably be 2 NW. Another good location is 2 NW of red dot... also on a river. With all these rivers we shouldn't ever have to build an aqueduct in our core.

Depending on what we find beyond it. White dot may be a good location for a Great Library pre-build.

I'd like to get 1 more archer out before starting a settler and that settler should probably go whereever we can get the most shields.

Just to start a discussion on city placement. Since this is PTW, I'd like to take advantage of RCP and shoot for a 4/7 ring set. I've found that an inner ring of 3 is too close (unless going for 100K). A distance 5 ring is ok, but takes longer to set up and is generally better suited to large/huge maps. As for a second ring at 7, that normally works well, though 8 is just as good. Whichever gets more cities on rivers and with resources is probably the best choice.

It seems that production and resources are going to be the key to this game. We should probably try to hit our first opponent with 6-7 Vet Archers, taking all but a final city. Then grow and trade as fast as possible until we reach the 16 turn mark of the war, then start to finish him off while repositioning the troops for #2. Try to time the first kill so that the troops are in place to hit #2.

do we need Rome to get bigger than size 3 right now? as i see it, i should probably do 2 archers and a settler (total of 9 turns of production and we'll be 1 turn till growth) and settle on brown since it will only take 1 tile to road to get there.

the other option is to switch to a granery now (8T) and then build a settler (4T) then an archer (4T) but this doesn't work out quite as nice and carries high risk.

if the 1st layout is agreeable, then i'll probably move the worker N 2x to get the road setup and to start working the other BG for the next town.

edit: x-post :) will review. i don't mind 3 RCP but can look for better land during my turns

G-man - I think you are right about 2 archers and a settler. I think the granary right now is a bit of a risk. That's a long time to tie up our capitol without military production.

@ Denyd - I think you are right about a 4 RCP ring. Moving yellow dot 2 NW would fit in there. A little early to say about a 7 RCP ring, but I think it is probably a good idea to plan on one.

I think we'll also want specialized cities.

Here's my plan:
Rome with it's barracks for attack troops (slip in a settler here and there)
City #2 with a granary for settlers
City #3 with a barracks for city defenders & attack troops
City #4 with a granary for workers
City #5 with a temple for Great Library
City #6 with a barracks for attack troops

If we can somehow wipe out all the AI in one direction, that would be the best course of action. Then we could settle that direction worrying only about barbarians until map making is discovered.

I have no problems with the 2 archers first if the team agrees, but would prefer to see a second city sooner, and brown is workable, even if I prefer blue, but distance 4 sounds better, so we'll need some exploration first.

By stringing out the first (& subsequent) wars, we're going for the "milk" victory, rather than the faster win victory. Does that path suit us? It seems that for conquest or dom, the faster teams always get the higher points.

I have no problems with the 2 archers first if the team agrees, but would prefer to see a second city sooner, and brown is workable, even if I prefer blue, but distance 4 sounds better, so we'll need some exploration first.
If we finish the current archer, then build a settler, then another archer, it will take us ~4 more turns to complete than archer/archer/settler just because we would be building the 2nd archer @ size 1 instead of size 3. another bonus to my proposed order is that we will finish the settler with Rome @ size 2, still able to spew archers out at a 4T clip.

imho, we are probably never going to get the heralded "settler factory". instead, we probably should take a microbial approach and cell divide. this will take discipline as we will need to build settlers starting when the towns are size 2 and within range of finishing a settler by size 3. we would build towns by 1 dividing into 2 (my turns), then 2 dividing into 4, then 4 dividing into 8. we can get a lot of towns this way, but they will be very small. however, with the shield output of Rome as it is, it should be ok. between settler builds, the towns will have to build units.

If we want a "settler factory" then we don't have to look any further than Rome. It could be a size 5-6-7 archer/settler 6T factory if we wanted it to be. irrigate the game and mine 5BG's and your there.


By stringing out the first (& subsequent) wars, we're going for the "milk" victory, rather than the faster win victory. Does that path suit us? It seems that for conquest or dom, the faster teams always get the higher points.
i'm no milkman :) i'd prefer to win as fast as possible, hence my preference for horse units over flatfoots.

I wasn't expecting a settler factory. We're not in the kind of game that would really warrant one in the early stages anyway. I see your logic, and can't disagree. I just said "prefer", that's all.

Do it up, and let's see the results! :thumbsup:

I think our first leader should be an army.just noticed this comment
Really? An archer army? We probably want HE as soon as possible, right? What if the Pyramids are available?

Oooo.... The Pyramids. You are right, that would be nice. I do think that HE needs to be an early priority. Pillaging armies of spears and pike would be nice. I sound like a kid on Santa's lap.

Edit - I don't want to milk it either. I think by delaying contact a little early we are settling ourselves up for some major :hammer: by the middle to late AA.

So the vote is to meet and declare on #1 and start on #2 soon after meeting, even if #1 is still alive.

That works for me.

Only problem with using G-Man's Biology plan is having to support the extra barracks/granaries in cities that don't take advantage of them.

Oooo.... The Pyramids. You are right, that would be nice. I do think that HE needs to be an early priority. Pillaging armies of spears and pike would be nice. seriously, which is more important right now. an attacking army so we can build the HE or the pyramids? i wasn't trying to bring up a counterpoint but was trying to figure out the best way. i'm an AW newbie and need to be babied a little :D

imho, the army is really the best thing but i want to be sure. put only 1 archer in it and let it kill a warrior, then load legions into it later. the amount of fighting in the game coupled with the militaristic trait & the HE could allow us to get every significant wonder in the MA as well as an early 2nd FP core.

Only problem with using G-Man's Biology plan is having to support the extra barracks/granaries in cities that don't take advantage of them. i'm ok with Rome getting big and pushing out settlers too. i'm just looking for direction. if that's the case, then i could build archer/settler/granery (with chop). Archer and settler will be done in 7T from now and then it will take ~11 turns to build the granery for 18T total.

another way is to do archer/archer/settler/granery(with chop) for 20T total.

sorry, but the calculator is clicking right now and can't stop...

i can also do archer/granery/settler/archer which will produce the most in the least amount of time at about 18T. we can then build another archer then settler every 6T till we're blue in the face.

G-man - After thinking about this throughout the last hour (Meetings will do that for you :D ) I think that getting the HE will be the most important thing we can do. Eventually building a military acdemy in Rome would be long term goal. But with the militaristic trait and the HE, we can capture every wonder. Some of that will help us, but denying the wonder to another civ will be more important.

I think I would skip a granary for now and use the shields for military. Do we want three archers or one granary? Long term there is no question, but short term, three archers may make all the difference.

I think if we use Grahms last option we'll be able to get those 3 archers in about 1-2 turns more then before, and still get a granary with a 6T archer/settler option. This seems the most balanced to me... Of course, I'm in my first AW style game, so I'm going to have to defer to a bit more expertise then I have...

I'm going ot let y'all duke it out on the wonder issue.;)

I'm in the no granary camp at Rome if it slows down the production of archers. Could city2 serve as worker/settler farm while 1, 3 and 4 carry the miltary load?

Preflight check: notice barracks are called “Armanentarium”, funny name. based on the pregame talk, I’ll go the 2 archer/settler route.

T1: 2950BC

IBT: archer -> archer

T2: 2900BC New archer takes a peek NE, N to hills and sees a full mountain range.

T3: 2850BC worker roads, archer SE.

T4: 2800BC Archer SE onto hills to peek around the wheat. Sees some river and forests.

IBT: 2 greek hoplites’s come into view of the archer, damn! location is 3T due E of Rome. archer -> archer

T5: 2750BC Greeks want 4gpt & 101g for BW or 100g for Pottery. I decide for pottery as I don’t want to screw up our rep too. Declare war. Archer S to get a better look at the terrain. 1 archer to wine hill.

IBT: hoplites run away (N). Switch to settler.

T6: 2710BC Archer moves W, N, W to hill to see if there’s any good land that way (away from Greeks). Spot a game in a good location so that 1 city could get both. 1st archer SE to mountain. Move archer on wine hill back into Rome due to happiness. Worker SW to road grass to connect new settler. Other roming archer SE to mountain as lookout.

T7: 2670BC Archer near 2nd game moves SW and spots another BG, worker roads grass. Lookout archer SE to mountain.

T8: 2630BC Orion S to hill. Lookout archer SE.

T9: 2590BC Lookout archer SW to mountain to take a peek. Orion N to city site #2.

IBT: settler -> archer

T10: 2550BC Lookout Archer N. Settler is in position to move for the next player. I highly recommend moving him to the location where the archer is standing. With 1 game irrigated and 1 game mined + 3 mined BG’s, we can do a settler pump @ size 5 at this location. I did not move the worker either but I recommend he moves to the NW game to begin chopping.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm3-bugs-2550bc-ptw.JPG

Had a space between uploads7 ans SGOTM3. I believe I'm up next so consider this my got it. Any suggestions on how to take the war? Just keep pumping archers, or should we attempt to do the granary route? Should we build a barracks now? Where is the best place to send the settler? I can't tell from the turn long from which direction the Greeks came from, but it looks like it may be to the southeast.

Also, our second city... should we try and set up something as a GL prebuild there? It looks like about 20-30 turns to lit.

thanks alerum, i'll just delete the image in my post.

imho, let beijing build archers till size 3 again, then let it build 2 more before another settler. the new town should get a granery, not Rome.

i don't think we'll hear much from the greeks till they get archers, and then we'll be in a world of hurt with stacks of hoplites and archers coming at us. I do believe they had WC. for this reason, we should now start exploring to find people. maybe the new town builds a warrior before a granery to do that. we could use BW for spears to help the archers advance.

Yes they do have WC which means those archers are going to be coming fairly quickly. Probably in 5 turns or so... one good thing about that though is that they'll put all their shields into military which they'll end up sending ot us... will absorb some of the AI level bonus.

Also, should I mine and road the northern BG, or road the wines? What do you think about having our second city built on the site where the archer stands now? We loose a forest, but it'll have 2 game. Or should we settle 1nw of that on the grassland? The grassland will have a def bonus for crossing the river.

Exploring has some drawbacks in that we must declare 20 turns after we meet the new civ.

Let's get a stack of 6-8 archers and go hoplite hunting. I like the idea of a GL pre-build, but let's get a military unit or two out of our new city even if they are just paper cut-outs.

Additional thought - if the Greeks are SE, they may have some lousy land.

Alright I got 2 suggestions here... 1 is go for the settler pump in the second city, the other is throwing out 2 archers from it, and then setting it up as a GL prebuild and having the capitol make settlers instead of military.... or should we forget about a settler pump of any kind, and just pop one out when we can?

I'm thinking pop a settler when we can. We're essentially in AW here. Might want to consider a barracks there first.

It appears we have already build a barracks. I think our best bet is to just pop out settlers when we can for now, but as for the first city spot, I could use some suggestions.... the forest spot I said earlier, or 1nw of it to keep the RCP-4 instead of RCP-3?

Edit: Actually I think the forrest spot is RCP-4. I'll run the mapping program on it.

@alerum -> use the forest spot i suggested and yes, it is RCP4. it can access both game, getting us 2fpt and 2spt without doing anymore landscaping for that town till it's size 3.

imho, if we're not going to get our 2nd city building settlers like i suggested, then the worker goes S to the BG by the river so we can work that tile and pull in extra gold. you can then step onto the BG SE of that spot and do more mining.

@ Alerum - I was talking about a barracks in our new city. A barracks in Rome was our first build.

I'll have to do the math, but what kind of settler factory could we get if we used the wheat and the grapes?

Edit - the two game city where the archer is standing, looks like it can be a 5-turn SF with four extra food. The Wheat and the grapes would be a 6-7 turn SF with three extra food. Check my math, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong today.

Going with the Sullla adage that "population is power." A settler factory using the two game is probably our best bet. Chop them trees!

Turn 0 (2550BC)
Looks like Grahm left the settler active for me... graci! I think I'm going to settle on the forest spot with the archer.
Send the worker to the north to mine the BG. If the Greeks are to the SE, then this will give us a few turns of working before we have to turtle up.
Send archer on forest square where Veii will be settled back to the capitol to protect the east.
Change citizen from mined BG to forest game just to keep things away from the east.


IBT
Greek warrior pops into view from the east.

Turn 1(2510BC)
Send archer to the nw mountain. I'm gonna turtle up a bit, and this looks like a good spot to lauch some attacks.
worker builds mine
Archer sent to Capitol.
Found Veii. Set production to barracks.
Rename an archer to Julius. doesn't matter as I fort them all. TURTLE! TURTLE!!


IBT
Greek warrior moves 1nw.

Turn 2 (2470AD)
Fort archer on mountain, guarding the way to Rome.

IBT
2 more warriors pop into view, in a very bad spot 1n of the wheat square that I was going to use to ambus the warrior.

Turn 3 (2430BC)
Vet archer moves 1nw to be on a hill. Hopefully the warrior will attack across the river and the other 2 will be easy meat after that.


IBT
Nope, he didn't attack, but still in nice formation that shouldn't leave us too open.
Rome Archer - > Archer

Turn 4 (2390BC)
Vet archer moves ne and then attacks warrior - we win, 2 dam.
Wake Orion and do the same thing. We die, but he redlines, no promotion.
Wake Artemis and repeat. we win 1 dam.
Vet archer vs reg warrior - We win... barely!

Ratio 3:1

IBT
nada

Turn 5 (2350BC)
2hp Archer sent back to Rome to heal.
3hp Archer left on hill forted to heal.
2hp archer is 2 turns away from healing in Rome.

IBT
Greek Hoplite appears on a mountain to the east.

Turn 6 (2310BC)
archer left sentried on hill outside of Rome, ready to meet the Hoplite when he goes on to the plains.
second archer moved into Rome.


IBT
English scouts appears.

Turn 7(2270BC)
Make contact with England.
BW for 2GPT and 59 gold. Masonry for 3GPT and 59 gold. Won't give the wheel for anything. Can get Ceremonial bruial for 50 gold.
Take the BW deal... spears are very useful in AWE
Can get Ceremonial Burial for 3GPT. I don't see a need for it at this point, so I pass for now... hopefully it'll get cheaper.
Change Rome from Archer to Settler. Will grow and build on same turn.
This isn't good... not good at all!
The odds of us winning vs that hoplite, even though he's out in the open is around 41%... should I chance it? If it was Elite it would be better odds, but this is horrible... I think our best bet is to make spearman to withstand the hoplite 1/3/1 attack, and use our archers to take out their 1/1/1 warriors.
I'm not going to fight with those odds... if I fort up on this hill our odds go to 87% to win, and that's if he attacks.
Fort archer in Rome...

Just had a thought... will we have to break out deal and go to war with England? Do I screw up our rep? You know, I don't really care... I don't think our rep will matter to much in this game... to late now anyhow.

Worker builds road.
I'm debating if I should take the Cermonial burial deal or not... 3gpt for another 8 turns? I'm going to take it. Our rep is trashed anyway.

IBT
Hoplites bypass us, and enter our lands, sitting on a hill. Going to let them attack.
Veii barracks - > Archer

Turn 8 (2230BC)
I'm cutting it sooo close... we're pulling 0GPT with 1 gold in the bank, but we got 2 techs for very cheap.
Go to the Diplo screen and see France. They're up all techs, INCLUDING writing. There went and chance of brokering.

IBT
Hoplite moves so it's 1ne of Rome. Again, not going to attack with the def bonus. He's going to pillage the BG but it's worth it. We're not using it right now anyway.

Turn 9 (2190BC)
Call up Greeks. They're up Masonary but that's it.


IBT
Hoplite ignores us and seems to be going after our worker.
Writing comes in. Research set to lit at min in 40 turns. Is the best we can get even going as high as 90%.
Rome Settler - > Archer

Turn 10 (2150BC)
We need to get our GPT up, so I'm going to use an archer to attack the hoplite... if 2 are needed to get rid of him, it may actually be better for us now.
vet archer vs reg hoplite - SWEET! We win! Now what do we do? We're running over in gold.
worker sent back to rome so it can road the mines if the next leader chooses.
Leave the settler active.


Notes:
On turn 5 of the next leaders turns we have to declare war on England. This will cancel our GPT with them, but will trash our rep, which I don't think will matter to much in this game... at least I hope it won't.

Score is 112.
Here's the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/bugsy_SG003_BC2150_01.SAV)

Didn't have your guys post to go off when I was playing, but did pretty much as you suggested... excpet with the worker... I moved him based on where I figured the Greeks would come from.

We have to declare war on the 20th turn after we met England. That will be turn 7 of R & L's turns. Our rep isn't trashed yet.

The AI considers a hoplite a defensive unit and in vanilla or PTW, the AI won't attack with a defensive unit. The hoplites will be headed for a pillaging campaign. We do not want to turtle with archers. Archers only have defense 1 and your odds of success are better on the attack. You just need to pick your terrain.

If you are consciencely going to make a decision to trash our rep, good SG form would be to let the team discuss it before hand.


Order of civ contact:
Greeks - at war - started in 2750 BC
England - declare war in 1950 BC
France - declare war in 1375 BC

Roster
Denyd
G-man
Alerum - just played
Bede - Up
R&L - On deck
Bugs

Like I said Bugsy, didn't mean to trash it, just feared I did because it was around 2 turns later before I even thought about the variant rules... glad to know that we still have our rep intact as trashing it wasn't my goal, just felt resigned to it after it happened.

Please re-read the explanation of the variant rules in the maintenance thread. Link in my sig.

You have not broken a rule yet... but you will find that you need to declare war on England 20 turns after you declared war on Greece.

FWIW I think hanging on to your Rep was a forlorn hope.

did we get Masonry? if not, next player please buy it. we need to be able to do a palace prebuild if we want the Great Library.

nice set alerum but if you want answers to questions, please practice patience. members of this team live in different timezones so it may take a little time to answer. waiting 1 day is more desirable than just jumping in if your unsure.

now, the next question we need to address is the location of our new settler. anyone got an updated map we can review?

@ Alerum - I was talking about a barracks in our new city. A barracks in Rome was our first build.

I'll have to do the math, but what kind of settler factory could we get if we used the wheat and the grapes?

Edit - the two game city where the archer is standing, looks like it can be a 5-turn SF with four extra food. The Wheat and the grapes would be a 6-7 turn SF with three extra food. Check my math, it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong today.

Going with the Sullla adage that "population is power." A settler factory using the two game is probably our best bet. Chop them trees!
see the bottom of my turnlog:
With 1 game irrigated and 1 game mined + 3 mined BG’s, we can do a settler pump @ size 5 at this location. I did not move the worker either but I recommend he moves to the NW game to begin chopping.
I meant we could do a 4T settler pump. math as follows (please verify):
CC : 2f, 1s
irr grass game: 4f, 0s
mined grass game: 3f, 1s
3x mined bg: 6f, 6s

totals @ size 5: 15f (+5fpt) and 8spt (probably 7 due to corruption). when the city grows (if we set the govenor to emphasis production), the citz should land on a forest and we just MM to a grass to maintain +5fpt.

we could use another worker to get this running quick however, i'm not sure what size Rome is right now, probably size 2 so i'd rather have her continue building archers or spears.

Please re-read the explanation of the variant rules in the maintenance thread. Link in my sig.

You have not broken a rule yet... but you will find that you need to declare war on England 20 turns after you declared war on Greece.

FWIW I think hanging on to your Rep was a forlorn hope.

@M-B: I don't think it was a forlorn hope. I'm wondering if that second paragraph of the 20-turn rule has been edited since the game started. We ALL took the original rules to be 20 turns from the turn of contact with Civs 2+, not 20 turns from the beginning of the war with Civ 1, provided that the war with Civ 1 was still in progress. I don't think that we all would have made the same misinterpretation... It was clear to us what was meant, it just seems now to have been wrong. Did this come up as a problem somewhere else that required the rule to be changed? Was it rewritten because it was unclear? Or did we all misinterpret the rule? If we did indeed misinterpret, then given the combination of variants, our rep would automatically be trashed if we accepted any deal for gpt unless it was with the second civ that we met on the same turn as someone else. And since there is no haggling, then basically you'd have to do no trading in order to keep your rep intact - in which case it is worthless anyway.

Regardless, the rules are the rules, and we must abide by them, but it would be best if they were clear upfront, and never changed after any game started. ((Please note that I am NOT accusing you of doing so - it just may be that your interpretation was clear to you and not to us, and that when clarified, it came across as being changed. Some of us try very hard to play by "ethical" / RBC rules, and would not have made the trade if we trashed our rep. Bugsy's, Alerum's and my posts show this.))

[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.


This is a quote from the game announcement and from the first post in this thread. It has not changed in any way from day 1.

from the 1st page of this thread:
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.
i too interpreted this to mean that we had 20 turns after contact or immediately after the 1st civ was eliminated to declare war. however, as long as all the teams are playing by the same rules (and it appears by his log that Alerum understood MB's interpretation and decided to trash our rep anyways), it's fine by me. All the more reason to go get Mas from someone. the 3rd city will help with gold but we should pull out all the stops to get it for the palace prebuild. otherwise, without the Great Library, we're going to have to research everything ourselves.

edit: x-post :crazyeye:

Yes I can see the ambiguity now. I should have said "after 20 turns of war have elapsed".

Apologies. Commiserations. etc. ;)

Here's an updated map with some color dots, and an orange box to indicate D=4/4.5. Veii is now on the pink dot.

At D=4, our options are very limited on the E to S quadrant. Is the archer in the green ring on a mountain (I'm thinking yes.), or a forest? If a forest, then that is the best city site for that area.

In the S, either the yellow dot or ring, depending on the adjacent area. E of the dot may also work, if we use the yellow ring instead of the dot. Going for the lake shore would put us on a BG - not ideal.

In the N, I like the blue dot best. The blue ring is on a hill, but adjacent to too many mountains for attackers to defend on. The same for the blue X.

Is the red dot feasible, given pink and blue, or is it too crowded?

Talk it up, people!

blue should be immediately accessible due to road so it looks fine to me. yellow circle is better than the yellow dot due to river.

I'm suggesting that the blue dot should be next.

For yellow, we'll really need to see the shape of the shoreline. perhaps the dot will get river credit (I doubt it), and then another city could be 1 or 2 NW of the ring.

I'm suggesting that the blue dot should be next.

For yellow, we'll really need to see the shape of the shoreline. perhaps the dot will get river credit (I doubt it), and then another city could be 1 or 2 NW of the ring.
yep, i was agreeing with your suggestion. gets another BG too :)

i forgot to answer your question regarding mountain/forest: it's a mountain.

Turn 8 (2230BC)
Go to the Diplo screen and see France. They're up all techs, INCLUDING writing. There went and chance of brokering.

@M-B: Another clarification please. On the rules page, you give an example of where the AI attempts to extort you, and say that if the player does not succumb to the demand, then contact is judged to not have been made.

Above, where Alerum went to the diplo screen, and checked their techs, but made no deals, is it still considered contact because he chose to go to the diplo screen?

@TEAM: If so, then we will have to discuss checking the folks who appear on the diplo list, even though we haven't seen them yet (contact traded by AI) before calling them up. (This is how I understood this anyway.)

Also, given the clarified 20 turn rule, we now have ~17 turns with which to make a gpt deal(s) with France, since we won't have to declare on them until 20 turns after we begin war with England. The sooner, the better chance we will have of getting some deals completed without making the rep worse, and still being able to make them at all. I know that they don't currently need anything from us, but we should keep it in mind.

IIRC, Bede is UP, R&L is On Deck.

yep, i was agreeing with your suggestion.

Understood. Just clarifying for everyone else.

Guys since our rep is trashed, why don't we just turn this into a true AWE game? This will cause the AI to go into military production mode, and should benfit us in the long run...

As for Masonary the AI wouldn't give it up for everything we had... I was going to go for it on turn 7, but instead was forced to do the BW + Cerm Burial deal... Trust me, I tried to snag it.

I would have waited Grahm, but that would have caused the game to have been delayed another 3 days or so.

As for Masonary the AI wouldn't give it up for everything we had... I was going to go for it on turn 7, but instead was forced to do the BW + Cerm Burial deal... Trust me, I tried to snag it.

now that we have writing, are we up on that with England or did France already sell it to them?

I don't remember... I try not to look at the trade screen on the turn I hand it off... just to tempting to make so deals. Turn 9 still had only France with Writing though...


Edit: I just pulled up MapStat. It appears we can now meet America and Russia now too. Russia is the only civ that doesn't have writing. If we could call them up, I'm sure we could trade Writing for Masonary. Also most civs now have Mysticism... all but us and Greece in fact.

we might as well meet everyone we can and just start the clock ticking for each civ. glad to hear we can get mas. brother bede has some interesting turns ahead :)

edit: it's ok to look at the trade screen and note the trades available, just bad form to pull them off on the last turn.

Alerum,

I have no problem with how you traded, and understand that you couldn't get Masonry. (Please remember - no haggling. No reply needed.)

Also, our rep is NOT yet trashed. That won't happen for 17 more turns! Also, the NOW variant gives us some flexibility that AWE does not. Personally, I'd rather use a little bit of it anyway, because AWE also forces US into military production mode, and bogs the game down quite a bit. Another example is similar to the gambit used by Team Scout in SGOTM2: If we lose a city to flip, and the AI builds a wonder in it, then when we re-take it, we get to keep the wonder as long as no non-Roman citz's are in it.

Well, I apologize for not reading the rules right. :rolleyes: It certainly changes the way I'm approaching this game. Here are my thoughts:

1. Let's go find everyone.
2. Make as many gpt deals as possible in the next couple of turns.
3. I like blue dot next and yellow ring after that.
4. We are essentially going to be at AW within 100 turns. We might want to consider really packing in our 4 RCP ring with cities. Red dot will work, 2NW of yellow ring, 1 E of yellow dot, green circle. You get the picture.
5. When we played a 3CC AW, you will have a lot of casualities if you don't use artillery. We need to go for math right after we get lit. =>catapults
6. Blue dot might make a great location for the Great Library. Palace pre-build right away?

@ Alerum - sorry if I sounded bossy in that last post.

OK I have updated the contact list both here and on the one I posted earlier. I think it would behoove us to put the pedal to the metal in our war machine.

Order of civ contact:(currently at 2150 BC)
Greeks - at war - started in 2750 BC
England - declare war in 1950 BC
France - declare war in 1375 BC

Roster
Denyd
G-man
Alerum - just played
Bede - Up
R&L - On deck
Bugs

Let's start with the good news:

The only ancient UU that's nearby is the Hoplite, which is not an attacker.

And now on to the bad news:
:wavey: as I was under the same impression that you had 20 turns from contact to declare if you were already at war, I would have done the same thing as Alerun68 with those trades.

We're facing Hoplites with archers, so we need to use a stack (4+) when attacking them in cities. Since we don't expect them Hoplites to attack, wait until they get to favorable terrain to attack them.

We don't know Iron Working and will soon be at war with 2 more AI.

I'm thinking we need to place our cities on hills (red circle) for the added defense bonus. I like the red dot for production, but not for defense and it might be our farthest north city for a while.

I disagree with Bugsy on Mathematics. While catapults would be quite helpful, having Legionaires would be better.

I agree that the Great Library is probably our only chance to stay current on techs.

If we happen to get a GL, I'd propose an army (of legions if possible) and if we get a second GL save him for the Great Library.

@ Denyd - That's a good point. Having legions would be better than cats. Then we go literature=>IW=>math. Hopefully we can trade for one of those two. I think we can plan on writing off a GA.

A better location would be 1 SE of red dot, but that wrecks our RCP.

Edit - If something comes up during your turns that you aren't sure of, let's stop and talk about it. Only one team has played more turns than us and three teams haven't even started yet. This is not a race.

We're also going to have to do a lot of catching up. The lack of clarity on the rule has cost us 30 turns of exploring, and will have an exponential impact on the "culture" / growth component of the base score for those teams who interpreted the rule as we did. For those who understood M-B right off, they'll be ahead in terms of planning ahead, and how they've maximized growth.

Here's another map. I've adjusted the dots per some of the discussion. This still leaves us with serious gaps from blue to green and green to white. I've marked a few at 6 that would work in those areas. We could also bite the bullet, and build on the BG E of the white ring.

We're also going to have to do a lot of catching up. The lack of clarity on the rule has cost us 30 turns of exploring, and will have an exponential impact on the "culture" / growth component of the base score for those teams who interpreted the rule as we did. For those who understood M-B right off, they'll be ahead in terms of planning ahead, and how they've maximized growth.

:gripe: The whole thing has got me a bit ticked off, I have to say. 40 turns into a game your vision of reality is suddenly different, and everything you based your strategy and thinking around is suddenly different. Here it isn't even 2000 BC yet, and we're at a disadvantage. Ticks me off. :aargh:

:gripe: The whole thing has got me a bit ticked off, I have to say. 40 turns into a game your vision of reality is suddenly different, and everything you based your strategy and thinking around is suddenly different. Here it isn't even 2000 BC yet, and we're at a disadvantage. Ticks me off. :aargh: while i understand and share your sentiments, changing stratagy on the fly should be nothing new as we constantly have to reassess where were at in every game. winning this coming out of this hole will be really satifying, even if we get spooned :lol:

but really, not much has changed. build units, buy whatever we can as soon as we can, make babies... I think turtling is the way to go for now unless we decide we have enough units to take on the english. imho, the greeks are out of our league until we get legions. maybe we need to get a spear or 2 on the hills/mountains to the west to chew up their archers as they come at us.

the other thing we should do with england, now that we know our rep is toast, is to buy everything we can from her for gpt just before declaring. even all her cash, just take everything. do the same to France and Russia as well if logical. like I stated earlier, Bede will have some interesting turns and will need to visit his local clergy for all the sins about to be commited :lol:

I agree changing strategy is something we do all the time. It is what makes the human better than the AI. I think the only thing we would have done differently is the exploration side, but it is still frustrating.

Above, where Alerum went to the diplo screen, and checked their techs, but made no deals, is it still considered contact because he chose to go to the diplo screen?

The general rule of thumb that is used in AW games is if they show up on your F4 screen, you have contact. I assumed we were using that protocol. Hopefully MB will make that the rule. Otherwise, you could just not go to F4 or the diplo screen and ignor a civ for a long time.

The way I read the rules, is the clock didn't start until you had your first diplomatic one on one with the leader. You could have seen the Greek Hoplites and gone 10-15 turns before they popped up to say hi and had been at peace for those turns. Of course, once that screen opened you had to make all the deals you could, then declare war before closing the screen.

In theory, if we hadn't contacted France the clock on them would not have started yet.

As for expansion, I favor going W, SW & S. That will save us having to have a large defensive force for the new cities. We should find out who is the weaker of England and France and try to take them out first.

Just a question from a newbee to AW variants. If Greece comes to us with a deal giving something (for example, Iron Working) for peace, can we take it and then declare war before closing the diplomacy screen. Technically we'd have been at peace for a second, yet each turn would have been played as a being at war turn.

The way I read the rules, is the clock didn't start until you had your first diplomatic one on one with the leader. You could have seen the Greek Hoplites and gone 10-15 turns before they popped up to say hi and had been at peace for those turns. Of course, once that screen opened you had to make all the deals you could, then declare war before closing the screen.
If this is the rules, I'm going to be really [pissed] because it flies in the face of conventional AW and NOW thought.
In theory, if we hadn't contacted France the clock on them would not have started yet.
The way I now understand the rules, the clock started on every civ the moment we met the Greeks. Every 20 turns thereafter (or less in case we eliminate a civ) we have to declare war on the next civ in line.
As for expansion, I favor going W, SW & S. That will save us having to have a large defensive force for the new cities. We should find out who is the weaker of England and France and try to take them out first.
We know the Greeks are to our SE, where did the others come from?
Just a question from a newbee to AW variants. If Greece comes to us with a deal giving something (for example, Iron Working) for peace, can we take it and then declare war before closing the diplomacy screen. Technically we'd have been at peace for a second, yet each turn would have been played as a being at war turn.
Once again conventional wisdom says you never get to make peace...Ever...You stay at war until either you're dead or the other civ is dead.

We know the Greeks are to our SE, where did the others come from?

good point, alerum please pipe in and tell us.

as far as I know, this is where attacks are occuring from and where my original contact was made.


http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm3-bugs-2550bc-ptw-battlemarks.jpg

Then more likely than not, the Greeks are due east of us. Getting some units on those mountains may be a good idea.

Edit - I have a great knack today of stating the obvious. :crazyeye:

Incidentally, to add to the pile of obvious statements, Bede indeed will have to declare on England during or before his 5th turn. Then, Bugs will have to declare on France in his 5th turn (or 20 or less turns after Bede declares), or as soon as Greece is eliminated, if sooner.

IIRC, Bede is UP. R&L is On Deck.

the other thing we should do with england, now that we know our rep is toast, is to buy everything we can from her for gpt just before declaring. even all her cash, just take everything. do the same to France and Russia as well if logical. like I stated earlier, Bede will have some interesting turns and will need to visit his local clergy for all the sins about to be commited :lol:

Local clergy, hell, I'm heading for the archbishop's palace and hirong an exorcist.

Got it. Will try to work out a plan tonight. There is a lot of reading to do and Ithink a couple of spreadsheets and maybe a database.:D

From the mini-map, the number of AI we've met and the terrain to the SW I'm guessing we're in the SW corner of a continent.

Probably Greeks to the S/SE and French & English to the N & NE.

Sending an Archer in those mountains is probably a good idea. He can scout, pillage and maybe with a little luck pick off a worker or settler heading out.

I guess capturing a worker and selling him is probably verbotten, too (never mind that last idea).

I've got a question about declaring on the new people we've me. Am I correct that if we are currently at war with someone, we've got 20 turns grace to declare on the new contact as long as we remain at war with someone during those 20 turns. If so, then we probably want to remain at war with Greece for a while and attack the French & English (weaker defenders) as the 20 turn grace expires and we shouldn't care about if we have troops in their territory at the time.

We have to remain at war with Greece until they are dead. 20 turns after we started the Greek war we have to declare on the English. That will be in 1950 BC or five turns into Bede's turn. Then 20 turns after that, about turn 5 of my set, we have to declare on the French. We can never make peace with someone after we've started the war.

ivs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750BC
2) England 2270BC war in 1950BC
3) France - 2230BC war in 1375BC

To summarize the thinking to this point:

Pack in our towns in an RCP4 ring.

Specialize the towns:
Rome: troops and settlers (occasional)
City 2 barracks for attack and defense
City 3 only improvement granary and settlers/workers
City 4 barracks for defense
City 5 temple to GL
City 6 barracks only, build attackers

Settlement order
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/DOTMAP2.png

What I will set out to do is settle the blue spot and start a unit factory. Hunker down and defend the homeland.
Defraud the French, English and whoever else we might encounter Ifind in the F4 screen Declare on England in 1950BC.

England came from the northeast, and the french were in the F4 screen. You mean I didn't have to make contact even though they were in the diplo screen? I read several AWs where this was debated and finally decided that the rules should state that if they're in the F4 screen, you must make contact. But with the lay of the land, the French have to be to the north of northwest of us. I don't think there's to much more to the southwest.

One thing... i think the Greece is due east, not southeast of us. Every unit came from the east, but most were NORTH of our city, not to the south...

Guys all hope is not lost... We're in a much better position the AWE games I've read, and besides the one I'm in, that's about all I read. We have been able to get techs, and when in AW you have no rep... Exploration? WOuld that really help? I say we don't explore anymore and wait for everyone to come to us. Stick to the eastern half of the world, and take out Greece. DO NOT go north. We've met 4 civs... we can always limit it to just those 4 for a while, and kill them before we try and find another... especially since we don't have to call them up if we don't want to.

We have nothing tradable at this time, besides Writing. I don't think we'll make enough contacts in the next 5 turns to be able to use what little of our rep is left.

Bugsy, don't loose hope, you know this game is far from over. Greece is sending defensive units to us... they are hurting already, and their intial gift of units is now gone, at the cost of only 1 of our units. One thing about the varient... we're going to be razing alot of cities... we *NEED* a settler factory, non-stop.

I'd like to hear a few opinions on the green sites: ring, X or settle on the wheat to get the river and keep RCP?

I don't think that all is lost - I just said that we're now behind. I don't mind the exploration idea, because we can then plan ahead since we know what war is coming and when. Failing all else, we then have some tech & map trading possibilities with the further out (in time) civs if we meet everyone early. Given MB-s statement, "if we run out of targets before meeting the next"... I'm guessing that we're on continents, and so may not be able to meet everyone early. In any case, I still think planning ahead and having SOME trade opportuniity is better than taking them as they come, and getting no benefit at all. This is a fairly big strategy item, so everyone should weigh-in with an opinion.

I'm guessing that I already know the answer, but just to ask the question anyway - If someone declares on us due to an AI alliance, but we don't have to declare on them for another 60 turns or whatever due to contact order, can we then have a peaceful interim? I'm guessing no, but it raises interesting possibilities.

Here's another look at a settlement plan (red squares are RCP4, green RCP6):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/RingsView.png

To clarify, I put up a few 6's, only because I could see them, and we were sparce in covering that area. Denyd had suggested D=7 for the second ring.

If we build at 2, the corner 3, and on the BG NW of the small lake to the S, our coverage would be better, but I didn't think we'd want to waste the BG that way.

Also, the 2 should be a little higher, on the end D=4 tile.

Nice map.

I haven't lost hope, I was just ticked off yesterday. I'm over it now.

I like the 4 & 6 RCP idea. I think it will give us a tight build.

@ Alerum - yes we need a settler factory. You are correct. I think with G-man's plan, we can have a nice one at Veii.

Personally, I wouldn't settle on the wheat. We're going to need the food over there. I was thinking that the tile 1S of the wheat was forest, but I can now see that I was wrong. I think we ought to go 1 NE of the wheat so that it is only next to one mountain.

If this map is continents, we'll be in good shape.

@ Alerum - Who is the fourth civ? AFAIK, we've only met the Greeks, English, and French.

I stirred up the pot over in the maintenance thread about when you have contact. MB, had some good points on why F4 shouldn't count. I respectfully disagree.

yes, i read the comments just now. basically, there is no penalty for exploring since contact is defined when you negociate via F4, not when you see them. imho, get an explorer going N to locate the English so we know where the bullseye is located. once he finds them, go E to find the greek border.

in the meantime, we need another worker to get the settler pump setup as well as units.

as for the wheat, the distance 6 city will get to use it as it will be on a river (probably). i think we should forget about letting a distance 4 city use it.

edit: btw, i'm away on July 16 and 17th partying. will be away on business on the 19th thru 23rd. not sure about internet access during the business trip. will check in if possible.

S'right.

Settle 1, build at least one more worker, send a unit north then east, make all the deals I can on turn 4, declare war on the English on turn 5, set up Veii to equip settlers and the new town to produce troops.

"There once was a young lass from Norway,
Who hung by her heels in a doorway.
She said to her husband named Sven,
Get up off that bed,
I think I just found one more way"

I have PM'd MB and Bugsy about a situation I have encountered. So, will not post until I hear a reply.

Not much to report otherwise. Greeks sent an archer against out mountain sentries and founded Thermopylae to the SE of Rome. It appears that our first neighbors north are the French, and the English are north of there. Founded Antium north of Rome per map, acquired Iron Working and we have iron inside the borders.

@Bede - is Thermopylae on or within the 9 tiles of one of our intended sites?

Waiting patiently for the save... :sleep:

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750BC
2) England 2270BC
3) France - 2230BC
4) Russia - 2150
5) America 2110


0-2150
Russia pays an unwelcome call and offers to sell Masonry for Writing. She has no money to add to the deal. Table the deal for now as I see she also has IW

Veii grows and I have to hire a tax collector as there is not enough cash flow or in the treasury to support an increase in the luxury tax or a scientist (both are zero).

Start settler and archer escorts to spot #1

1-2110
Call up Abe to see if there any brokering opportunities and there are none. He has everything we have or can acquire as does France. Call back Catherine and make the deal for Iron. And there is the glint of iron in the hills SE of the Wine.

The Russians start the Oracle.

2-2070 With 1g in the treasury fire the tax guy and hire a scientist. Build Antium at 1 with wounded archer in the garrison and send the healthy archer north. With +3gpt fire the scientist and put the citizen to work on the game tile. Raise the lux to cover the unhappiness and cash flow drops to zero again. The worker moves to road the game. Swap some terrain around between Rome and Veii and raise income to +1gpt.

3-2030 the archer moving north finds another game filled forest and anoher iron hill. With 2g in the treasury, turn science up to 10% with Literature due in 40,

4-1990
English scout comes scooting into view in the north. The new archer in Veii allows reducing lux to zero. Income is now +3gpt. Archer continues north and finds a French warrior.

The French start the Oracle.

5-1950
It is now 1950 so call up the neighbors and complete the trashing of our rep by taking 30g from France for 2gpt, and in a gut wrenching move take 10g from ELizabeth for 1gpt. Then call Abe who doens't trust us at all and won't loan anything. Call Elizabeth back and declare war. Then scurry for the archbishop's palace to beg absolution. He counsels me "Sin bravely" and says no more.

6-1910
Find the French borders to the north and Greece founds Thermopylae SE of Rome.

7-1870
Greek archer scoots into view and lands on the forest east of our archer sentries. He attacks our fortified sentries and dies

8-1830

9-1790

10-1750
Russia is doubtful for Masonry at 60g
Abe is doubtful at 65g
France will entertain a deal for Masonry for 70g.

At +5gpt by the time we road the iron we can afford to upgrade one warrior to a Legion, so start a warrior in Rome due in 4 and a Spear in Veii, both due in 4. There is a worker building in Antium.

Our first worker is mining a BG at Veii. Somewhere in there I produced a worker at Rome who is on the wine hill on his way to the iron. At some point I expect the Greeks to start troops out of Thermopylae, so the archer sentries should move south to the iron, then onto the mountain above the wheat.

Greece still doesn't know Iron Working so Hoplites and Spears are all we need fear from that direction.

The northbound warrior is heading north across French territory shadowing the English scout.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/1750BC01.png

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/1750BC02.png

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/1750BC03.png

Great turns Bede! Awesome job of recovering our economy after my turns... this varient is much more difficult then I thought... not being able ot negotiate is a pain.:(

R&L - Up
Bugs - On deck

I'll save my 'got it' for some time tomorrow, as I'll need both Sunday & Monday nights to play this one.

@Bede - The France trade shouldn't be a problem, since we'll be declaring the turn that the trade expires - 20 turns after declaring on England, unless we defeat England first. I'm guessing that isn't going to happen, especially with France in between us, and a much closer Greece already at war.

Does anyone want to give input for goals here? Otherwise, I'll run with it using the previous posts as indicators.

1750 – 0
reset prefs
America – 4 cities, 47g, have 2 gemma to trade?, up masonry, wheel, myst, know Germans & Babs
Russia – 5 cities, 0g, have 0 valieris to trade, up same, know same
France – 5 cities, 22g, have 0 condimentum to trade, up same, know same
Greece – 3 cities, 15g, have 1 suffimentum to trade, up masonry & wheel
English refuse contact
Rankings: Eng 222, Fra 176, Rus 174, Ame 163, Gre 146, Rom 131
No sign of English scout to shadow.

IBT: Joan asks us to leave, we agree.

1725 – 1
Worker roads wine, Artemis to iron, others rest, Pea Shooter (vet) out of France.

IBT:

1700 – 2
Pea Shooter NW, Artemis SE to mountain.

IBT: Veii goes into unrest :blush:, Russian scout shows 2E of Antium.
Antium worker (Cora) > spear in 7.

1675 – 3
Rus up masonry, lit, wheel, myst. Wants 90g for masonry, 90g for myst, won’t trade other 2. France wants 80g for masonry, 80g for myst, 90g for wheel, won’t trade lit.
America wants 90g for masonry, 90g for myst, won’t trade other 2.
We’ve got 30 turns left on lit – save gold to hopefully trade for lit sooner (through the nose). We should start pre-build now, but only 3 cities, and not building a settler yet…

Hire tax collector in Veii – stay at +6gpt but lose growth. Alternative is to push lux to 20%, drop income to +3gpt. Need team input.

Cora SW to BG, Su Batai N, Bill Tell rests, Artemis rests, Pea Shooter N – almost completely surrounded by pink border.

IBT: Russian scout moves E – mountains may be thin there. Rome warrior > warrior in 4.

1650 – 4
Cora mines BG. Su Batai E, sees valley, but mts on other side, Rus scout to N on gold Mtn. BT rests. Romulus S. Artemis rests. PS NE, sees iron in French border unhooked.

IBT: Rus scout continues E. Veii spear > settler in 8 (or granary in 15?). Americans begin GLib.

1625 – 5
R.Hood (Veii) WNW spots river delta 2SW, fish 3SW, more hills & trees. Cu (spear) to Rome. Julius to Veii. Romulus S spots delta in narrow bay, cow 2S. Su Batai NE spots Rus scout NE & “the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain…”. PS N to mountain, sees gap in Fr border in wide. Artemis SE can now see Thermopylae – no units outside city. BT E. (just exploring, will pull back to cover killing fields.)

Holding for Team input:
- granary or settler (to found on river to S, or river hill NNW of Antium @6.5 to grab control of second iron.
- plan to build warrior > settler in Rome
- change Antium spear build to warrior for conversion? Or 1 spear per, first?
- what to do about lit in 28. Switch to math? Or what else? Still no trade available.

Go for Settler. We can't afford another granary ATM.

How many turns for each to build, and how many to grow to size 2? Will determine my answer.

I think we should keep the Spear build, especially in cities who are on hills.. will be hard to take them.

No idea what to do about the tech trade... I think the AI will go for some other wonders before The GL. I say switch something over to a Palace, our highest shield producer, and do some more turns on Lit until we can get it for cheaper because of our research, and we have some more gold to barter with. Don't loose the turns we already have in Lit... buy our way out if you can, but never ever switch half way through a tech.

settler in 8
granary in 15
don't know growth from 1 to 2, but Veii has 2 game tiles, so it'll be fast.
I didn't register that we already had a granary. If I did, I woujldn't have bothered. Wasn't Veii to be our SF? Antium was to be our unit / wonder factory for now, as is Rome.

The Americans just started building the GLib, prompting th question.

Also, I wouldn't normally abandon a tech, but 30 turns back is a lot. I'll have to check F7 and F11 to see if we can come close to pulling it off with a palace build.

Don't we have to close the deal for Masonry for the Palace pre-build?

If we do we won't have much cash to trade for Lit.

Without a save to look at I'm working in the dark here.

I aggree we really need to look at the save, especially now that England is building TGL... once an AI starts a wonder, it's normally over. We're at war with them, so we can try and capture it if it builds, but I'd rather build *THAT* one. Can we trade to get Lit at all?

Can't capture a city with ANY foreigners in it. We're Xenophobic remember.

I'd say pop a settler without a granary just to get another city on line. I'd also go for the masonry trade, since we need the pre-build. If the English are building the Library, we will just have to go raze some havoc in England.

I'd start a pre-build in Antium (blue dot city?) with whatever we have available.

Do we have a civ who we have more then 20 turns before we have to declare war? Maybe we can ally with them against England? America maybe?

Forgot about not capturing a city with foreign workers in it.:|

I've made no trades since I started, and 90g would have been our whole treasury at the time, so only France was leaning our way. I did note that the price rose accordingly, each turn, as our treasury grew. So, we still lack masonry, thus no palace pre-build (use granary instead). It would take all of our cash to get it (except for France), leaving nothing with which to get lit. In any case, no one would trade lit to me, and only France would trade wheel. As noted, I've been conserving cash to try & get the funds to buy lit at some point. If successful, then a granary prebuild now would be OK. I could switch the spear build in Veii, thus begining the same turn as the Americans, or switch the spear build in Antium, thus starting 3 turns BEFORE the Americans. If their build is in Washington, then we won't beat the anyway. Let me look at that tonight.

Also, I forgot to note that I had to scrap growth in Veii in order to keep up the gpt treasury growth. I'm thinking to keep it stagnant until we do buy lit, and then push the lux to get pop growth back & help the build. I'm guessing that Antium @1 will have less spt than Veii @3, even if it did start earlier. ;)

For those who are rusty on their Latin (like me):

gemma = gems
valieris - not sure here
condimentum = spices
suffimentum = incense

valieris doesn't com up in any on-line latin-english dictionary that I looked in.
http://www.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Latin/

I'm also not latin proficient.

After reading over the last couple of pages, I am a llittle worried about our chances in this one. The parameters for this one are not condusive to a big comeback.

Since the Great Library might be out of reach, I think our best bet might be to shut off all research, try to get 15-20 veteran warriors asap then hook up the iron and upgrade them to Legions and start stomping people. The next military city probably shouldn't be connected so it can keep building veteran warriors for upgrade in Rome. If we can get a SOD of Legions put together, we can probably walk over England & France. That could buy us some time to squash Greece.

I am concerned about the off island AI getting far ahead on tech. Not being able to build embassies makes tech stealing impossible until the IA.

Any thoughts on my grand scheme (also known as plan B)?

I think maybe lone scientist should be as much science as we can afford. I like the legion rush idea. I think if we can start disrupting some AIs, the GL might still be ours. Let's have a pre-build going just in case.

Just wondering if that should have been plan A from the outset. Now which one of us on the team is gifted with clairvoyance? :hmm:

Just a note from Pea Shooter who is headed N to find England, there's a whole lot of France in the way before we get to Liz. Also, Liz and Joan are leading th pack in points and military. We're currently about 1/3 of Liz's power score, with only 1 city difference. Greece, on the other hand is only just ahead of us, equal in power, and close. Maybe Greece was put close by to blunt our early attacks, and use up units, allowing the "soft skins" like England and France to grow.

You know, we have to be AT war, but nothing is forcing us to conclude any wars. It'd be a shame to not make full use of a UU as good as the legion, but perhaps we should focus a little more on the commercial character of our civ. Start to go for growth like rabbits, keeping just enough legions in place for good DEfensive use, with some limited crushing, like Thermopylae, and try to max the advantage of the reduced corruption. The militaristic trait will still help later on in the game. There's bunches of iron close by to help propel us toward mil, and I'm sure that it's no accident that France and England were given room to roam (pun intended) :).
America and Russia in the mix to map out AI maps, making them always more expensive for us, and worse so later; Russia and Greece to feed off of each others tech growth; America and France to consume huge tracts of land.

I would like to suggest a more limited extermination or at least a good pounding of Greece to slow the tech pace perhaps a little, and give us more room for our commercial empire. Given their points, Legions are walking (slow, but walking) pillage machines. Great defense, but still a threat, allowing us to force the AI to react to wandering mini-stacks / pairs. They don't need spears for escort, or at least, spears are worth little as escorts. Perhaps a legion with 2 horse. (legion doesn't pillage, he moves and threatens. Horse A pillages the square that the legion just left, and then catches up for defense. Horse B moves 1 ahead of the legion adjacent to the intended move tile, and pillages. They then reverse roles. or something similar.) The AI will still be concentrating on the threat, and build mil units. The horse should be able to kill many attackers before they reach the legion and cause a GA. Mean while, we are expanding while our 3-4 stacks create havoc.

Just an attempt to think outside the box. This is defeinitely a scenario meant to make it difficult for the most hardened horse/archer-rush player who is used to an early conquest expansion.

I think maybe lone scientist should be as much science as we can afford. I like the legion rush idea. I think if we can start disrupting some AIs, the GL might still be ours. Let's have a pre-build going just in case.

Certainly, I can change the taxman in Veii to a scientist easily enough, and push research to 0%. That might even get our gpt above 6, although it won't resume growth in Veii, which I thought was to be our settler factory.

The more I think about it, I'm liking my ideas above. Hurt the growth, research, etc., of the AI by mass pillaging. We have open season once we're at war. They'll be building workers, since we should be able to capture them easily enough, and they'll need many of them. Since we'll be pillaging so much, they'll be building workers and mil units to try and make up for it, so as to allow city growth. The only bad part is that we can't keep the workers that we capture. :sad:

The American GL is a problem, given that we don't know where they are yet. We'll just have to look for them. Time to build horses, since we won't be trading many maps. We'll need to get our growth going, and get some luxes hooked up.

@R&L,
Flexibility is the key here, and I think the punish but not exterminate while we grow is a sound approach. Horses and legions in stacks would certinly create havoc which is what we need while we get the realm in order.

I aggree with Bede on this one. Take it slow, cripple them, and pillage until they are as back asswards as us. .. R&L has a great tatic to take advantage of there... horseman with legions...the main problem is going to be killing them off before they can repopulate the area we just cleared, since we won't be able to keep cities.

I've never had a game at this difficulty with this much of a bind this early on. I won'der how the other teams are doing...

You guys should read Doc's post over at RBCiv how he pillaged his way to a victory at deity. I think there is much to be said for the strategy.

1625 – 5
R.Hood (Veii) WNW spots river delta 2SW, fish 3SW, more hills & trees. Cu (spear) to Rome. Julius to Veii. Romulus S spots delta in narrow bay, cow 2S. Su Batai NE spots Rus scout NE & “the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain…”. PS N to mountain, sees gap in Fr border in wide. Artemis SE can now see Thermopylae – no units outside city. BT E. (just exploring, will pull back to cover killing fields.)

Hold for Team input:
- granary or settler (to found on river to S, or river hill NNW of Antium @6.5 to grab control of second iron.
- plan to build warrior > settler in Rome
- change Antium spear build to warrior for conversion?
- what to do about lit in 28. Switch to math? Or what else? Still no trade available.

Convert tax collector in Veii to scientist. Drop research to 0%. Income stays at +6gpt.
Note that Antium @1 has same shields as Veii @3 – use Antium as prebuild site.
Convert Antium Spear in 5 to granary in 18.
*** We have 18 turns to get lit, and change the Antium build to GLib.
*** Veii will build settler in 8, and lose the scientist. Antium set to grow in 7, and Rome
in 5. Will need to move the scientist to Rome before settler builds.

Current wonder builds are: American GLib in Boston, but Boston not on city list (still
all capitols).
Russian Oracle in Moscow. French Oracle in Paris. English Pyramids in London.
London @5, Moscow @4, Paris @3. Berlin & Delhi @4, so Germans & Indians are the other continent.
We will need to get wheel in order to see where the horses are for the plan, then HBR for
Building cavs. Maybe not as soon as I had hoped.

Check Prices again:
Lit Myst Wheel Masonry
America -- 90 100 90
France -- 80 90 80
Russia -- 90 100 90

Liz is now up the above 4 plus MM. 5 cities, 39g.
Greece is now up Masonry & wheel. 3 cities, 21g. Have incense.

IBT: Greek archer comes out of Therm to BG at our feet.

1600 – 6
Vet archer -0 kills greek archer, promotes to elite.
Eve finishes mine, begins road. Julius to Rome. Cu to Veii. R.Hood NW to hill, sees vast plains to N & 1 wheat. Romulus SW. Su Batai NE still sees no Greek borders to our E. A careful look past Thermopylae, shows more green borders to ESE of Thermopylae.
Peas Shooter N. BT SE.

IBT: wine road completed. Greek vet archer seen E of Therm. 4 English warriors arrive 2N of Antium (came from tile NE of there). :wow:

1575 – 7
Atremis W, Bev to iron, Julius W-N-NE toward Antium, Cu E-2NE, R.Hood E, Romulus N, Su Batai W, Pea Shooter sees dark blue border NW, PS W sees Russian spear in Bab(?) terr., Bill Tell S.
Note “collis” is hills, ferrum is iron, vinum is wine (I knew that!).

IBT: 4 English now immed N of Antium, across river in forest. Rome warrior > warrior.

1550 – 8
Bev begins iron road, due in 6. Artemis NE, BT SW, SB W, Cu N, forts Antium, RH S, Remus (warrior) W-N-NE, Romulus N, PS sees French worker roading gap from Orleans to Tours immed SE, Rus spear immed NW, PS N sees Bab worker immed NW roading Gems. I DO NOT make contact.
Forest / “silva” offers a +25% def bonus to English, but civ’pedia indicates +0% bonus for river?!?
Julius N to Antium, attacks warriors -3 red kills English Warrior.

IBT: Babs contact us: offers masonry for 80, decline.will sell myst for 70g + Greek contact, wheel for 80g + Greek contact. Decline all.
Cu -0 killing 2 attacking warriors, goes elite on first.
The folks love us, and build a patio around the hut.
French begin the GLib.
Babs begin pyramids.
Greek archer comes NE from Therm.

1525 – 9
<save>
Artemis -1 kills greek archer, but no GL. :cry: :cry:
BT NE in support, Romulus to Rome, Julius recovers, Eve SE-E-S, RH E-S, Su Batai N, PS SW, J.Little (vet archer) attacks last warrior, dies :cry:, but warrior red. Cu N -4 kills warrior, but no GL. :cry: :cry: Remus to Veii.
Notice scientist in Veii turned into clown, change him back. Lit in 24.

IBT: Rome borders expand.

1500 – 10
Artemis withdraws W, Romulus garrisons Rome, R.Hood S, Remus garrisons Veii, Cora finishes mine begins road, Julius (recovered) N, Cu S to Antium, Su Batai NE, Bill Tell SW, Eve begins road to game

*** Pea Shooter is available to move. I had intended to send him W into Babterr, to cross over to other gap, but there are plenty of options. Could capture & kill Bab worker, but don’t see any advantage. French worker likely now roading iron near Tours.

*** Lit now available from: France for WM + 90g, Russia for WM + 100g, America for 130g strait up. I will leave this for our beloved despot, err, leader to decide! :D

French & Bab culture has grown first tics. We’re still 1/2-1/3 of English power, but average military to all except Russia, to whom we are strong.
Score 147.

NOTES:
* Veii: settler due in 3, but drop to 1, losing scientist. Will need to move scientist before then. No growth. Should return to settler factory after scientist leaves.
* Rome: warrior in 1, grow in 10, should get to build another warrior before iron attached in 4.
* Antium: A1, grow in 2. Set to Granary in 13, but should change to GLib with lit buy.
May wish to put scientist here for a few turns to try for a 5th warrior in Rome before iron is attached. Then move scientist to Rome, to keep pre-build high in Antium.
* I don’t think that toward Greeks is best city site until Thermopylae is destroyed. Recommend river port site 2S of Eve / game. I think that this water is a lake, and that there is more land available S, SW & SSE.

We currently have 132g +8gpt.
Our forces: 6 archers (1 elite, 1 out scouting), 2 warriors, 1 elite spear, 3 workers

Go get ‘em Bugs!

Also, don't forget to check that the scientist in Veii hasn't reverted to a clown. You may also want to bring Su Batai back closer to Thermopylae or home.

Here's the map:

Edit: The save has now been submitted.

Edit - Never mind - I have the save.

I'll be playing at lunch. Any input is welcome for the next three and a half hours.

Good job R&L.... no SoD marching towards you I'm hoping?;)

Bugsy, nothing to add besides don't forget an escort for the settler. Good luck with the trade deal... I'd do the 130gold... Always thought it was a mistake, especially with war conditions, to sell WM to soon.

2 thoughts:
- the 4 English warriors attacked Antium in the 13th turn after we declared. Since it is extremely unlikely that they just happened to have a stack of 4 warriors wandering around, or even in the field exploring (all within 10 of each other) between us and them, and since I don't see them having a garrison of 4 warriors in their closest city, then they must be within 13 tiles, probably less, and very likely to the NE. If they are to the NW, then they must be even closer, since they went around to the NE, and I haven't seen any borders to indicate that.
- the french worker who was near Pea Shooter will be done mining the iron by the time that we declare on France, but you may be able to set up to attack the worker on the turn you do declare. If not, then set up to move to the iron after declaring, and pillage the road. Possibly follow up by pillagin road tiles back toward Orleon.

It could be closer then 13 spaces. They may have had to build a unit or 2, which could have taken up to 5 turns... I'm not sure how the AI chooses what unit to build and where, so don't know if they used a quick city or a corrupt city. Tthey may be as close as 8 tiles.... but we do know that they're at least within a 8-13 tile radius of us... I think all the civs are pretty tightly packed.

Nice work R&L :hatsoff:

With our next settler, it looks like the safe directions to settle would be W,S & SW. We could claim that second iron just in case. Just keep pumping out those vet warriors. It would be nice to get at least a TM in any deals we make. That would make attack planning a little easier.

Just so we have a record somewhere:

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750 BC - war in 2750 BC
2) England - 2270 BC - War in 1950 BC
3) France - 2230 BC - declare in 1375 BC
4) Russia - 2150 BC - declare in 875 BC
5) America - 2110 BC - declare in 450 BC
6) Babylon - 1550 BC - declare in 50 BC
7) ????? - ???? - declare in 300 AD
8) ?????? - ????? - declare in 500 AD

Obviously if we destroy a civ, this list will change.

Please note that I said "within 13 tiles". I expect them in the ~9 range, but given that we've seen 6 already, and no borders, they're at least 8 away.

On trading, I did not try offering any trades. I only asked what they wanted for 1 tech each time. We got demands for maps, but I didn't ask about any.

I may not have conveyed it enough, but we NEED that 4th city, just to follow the current plan using 1 scientist & 0% research. Without it, we have only 1 city producing units. Also, IIRC, we can't cut and re-connect our iron.

Bugsy, can you put that list into your first post? I tried at first, but it's not as complete as yours.

I aggree with the city situation, but don't think 4 is enough.;)

I'll have the game completed and posted in the AM. I'm up to turn 8. Declared war on time. We've met Germany. I just built the 4th city. And we have our first legion. I think Denyd is going to get the chance to do some :hammer: on the Greeks.

Edit - I'll post the updated list in my first post as requested - good idea.

The more I look at that Greek border extension off of Thermopylae, combined with the limited looking E that I did with Su Batai, convinces me that Denyd was correct when he initially pegged Greece to be SE of us. Not E.

I still think that England must be to our NE, but have no clue other than the limited troops that we've seen. Also, since they sent 4 warriors the first time, either they have quite a few units, or they're going to quickly be gassed. I'd like to suspect the latter, especially since they only had 4-5 cities during the turns when the troops were sent.

I have some answers coming up shortly.

I have change the thread's second post to our contact post per Alerum's recommendation.

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750 BC - war in 2750 BC
2) England - 2270 BC - war in 1950 BC
3) France - 2230 BC - war in 1375 BC
4) Russia - 2150 BC - declare in 875 BC
5) America - 2110 BC - declare in 450 BC
6) Babylon - 1550 BC - declare in 50 BC
7) Germany – 1500 BC - declare in 300 AD
8) ?????? - ????? - declare in 500 AD

Pre-flight we can get literature for 90G & WM from Joan, so I go for it. We won’t be at peace much longer. Another Latin word to look up Bombyx – it is a lux that Liz has. I sell Literature for Contact with the Germans. We don’t have to declare war on them until 300 AD. Bismark will trade Masonry for Literature, so I take it. That’s all I can trade for now. So two techs plus contact for 90G & WM. Not bad even with no haggling.

I switch Antium to the Library, due in 127 turns. :rolleyes: There’s a total of 11 civs to meet so we’ll be doing this for a while.

I fire our lone scientist for a while.

IBT – Alex begs for peace and asks for writing in the deal. Take a hike. A Greek archer steps forward.
Rome: warrior=>warrior
The English and Russians restart their Library builds.

1. 1475 BC – Bombyx is silk. I spot some to the northeast. Kill the Greek archer with an elite archer who is redlined.

IBT – Two English warriors approach from the north and a Greek archer step out towards our wounded man.
Veii: settler=>warrior

2. 1450 BC – I spot English lands. They are to the west of France. It is interesting that their units approach from the north. Maybe they popped a city from a hut.

Retreat from the Greek Archer hoping to get him in range of our other archer.

Vector to cut of the English pair.

To the south looks like a deep bay off the ocean.

Get 4G selling our map.

IBT – The English step onto flat ground. The Greek archer steps forward.
Rome: warrior=>warrior

3. 1425 BC – Julius kills one English warrior. Confirm that England is west of Babylon. To our Northwest.

Buy the Wheel from Bismark for contact with Alex and 60G. We have horses SW-S of Veii.

Make a whopping 2G selling our map this time.

IBT – Iron is hooked up. We’ll be upgrading our warriors as soon as I get the cash.
Julius kills the other English Archer. The Greek archer runs into a forest (silva).
The Germans complete the Colossus.

4. 1400 BC – Quiet turn. We find out at the bargaining table that Alex has Equinus (horses) Liz doesn’t have a thing. Peashooter approaches England and will try and raze a little havoc up there.

IBT – We lose an archer fortified on a mountain to the Greek.
Rome: warrior=>legion

5. 1375 BC – Yes, we have come to that special time again. First we try and demand HBR from Joan. Nothing. Then I sell her our map for 2G. Then I slap her in the face and declare war.

Found Cumae to the South next to the river on Ocean at RCP 4. Start an armamentarium (barracks).

IBT – A Russian scout approaches from the east.
Veii: warrior=>granarium

6. 1350 BC – Remus finds some condimentium (spices) to the northwest.

Pea Shooter steps next to Canterbury. Spots America to the north of England.

Make 4G selling our map this time.

IBT - The Pyramids are built in London.

7. 1325 BC – Upgrade our first warrior for 40G. Pea shooter continues into England.

IBT – Pea shooter kills an attacking English warrior and promotes to elite.

8. 1300 BC – Start marching on Thermopylae. I ask Hammi, “how much for HBR?” “Contact with Alex, 6G & WM,” says he. “Sold,” says I. I still haven’t started our lone scientist back up again. I’m trying to get the cash to upgrade some legions.

IBT – Two Greek archers step out of Thermo, one NW and one W.

9. 1275 BC – Kill the archer NW with an elite archer (-2hp). Move our other archer and new legion into the mountains.

IBT – Liz pays us a visit.
“I’ll give you a peace treaty if you pay me 30G and 7 gpt,” she pompously states.
“Are you dead yet?” I ask.
“Pardon me?”
“Are you dead yet?”
“Why certainly not.”
“When you’re dead, I’ll make peace with you, not a moment sooner.” I take my new whipping whip that Hammi told us about and whack her across her backside and tell her to get out.

A Greek archer attacks our elite archer a cross a river and wins.

10. 1250 BC – Kill the murderous archer with an archer. I could have nailed him with our legion, but I didn’t want to set off our GA quite yet.

Upgrade another warrior for 30G.

After Action – I think exploration is very important for us right now.

I think we are going to be too late to get the Great Library. When the Pyramids were build several builds swapped to the Library. So figure everyone had a Library pre-build going.

Probably want to pull our two units out of Greek lands until you are ready to attack Thermo. There are at least two Hoplites there, probably three.

I think our next city should go at the blue dot in the following screen shots.

I have a forest chop going on for Veii’s granary. Probably want to chop the other game and get a settler factory up and running. I think we need to just keep building cities.

Save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/bugsy_SG003_BC1250_01.SAV

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_-_1275_east.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_-_1275_north.jpg

I still think that England must be to our NE, but have no clue other than the limited troops that we've seen. Also, since they sent 4 warriors the first time, either they have quite a few units, or they're going to quickly be gassed. I'd like to suspect the latter, especially since they only had 4-5 cities during the turns when the troops were sent.

I stand corrected...

Also, the Greek border to the E is new, only appearing during your turns. It may be a good opportunity to go take out one on the cheap, and it should autoraze. Might also promote a few archers to elite, since they pinched the one.

We'll have to watch for being flanked by the Greeks to the S. just like they are to the E.

Nice turns, Bugs! :thumbsup:

Yes, that Greek boarder to the east is brand new. It wasn't there on turn 1, when I first spotted those silks. I think the original assessment that Athens is SE still stands.

Bugs: Due to the time constraint on this one, I'll play SGOTM 3 before Bugs 2.0 if that's ok?

From the maps, I'm thinking about the following plan:

1. Thermoplyae has to go, probably have to use Legions, so GA will be started
2. Settle the blue dot and then 1 NE of the wheat
3. Further expansion should probably be east and south
3. Probably send the troops towards the Greek silks city (newer so less defense)
4. At least 2 of the French cites are new (size one) and Rheims is probably our first target.

If we can raze a pair of Greek & French cities, that would set them back and make future conquest simpler.

If I did my math correctly, I shouldn't be adding any new wars during my turn set.

I got it.

Absolutely play this one first.

Don't worry about the GA. Figure every team playing the variant will have an early GA. So it equals out. I like the expansion towards the Greeks. The land is good for defense and will shorten our resupply lines. Plus it will eventually give us a nice secure backyard. Settling to the southwest is also a good idea since there is nothing but coastline down there.

FYI, Tours (size 1) is where the French have their iron hooked up (E tile), although they may have another one.

Next war declaration will be by Grahamiam against Russia in his 5th turn.

THE SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/bugsy_SG003_BC1000_01.SAV)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Bugsy_SG3_1000BC.jpg

Turn 0 – 1250 BC – Not much to do – make 5g selling maps

IBT: Spot a pair of Greek Archers – Rome Legionary->Settler – Russia completes Oracle

Turn 1 – 1225 BC – A pair of Legionaries leave Rome heading for Thermopylae – Thor (Warrior) heads west – R.Hood S – Maximus & Su Batai move to the mountains to wait for reinforcements – Julius N – Peashooter N spots more orange borders – Remus NE

IBT: Greek Archers hunting Maximus – Babylon & France start Great Library

Turn 2 – 1200 BC – R.Hood SW spots lots of nice land and some tundra – Romulus & Remus close in on Thermopylae – Julius forts on the hills – Thor to the west coast spots a fish and a plains wheat – Pea Shooter rests to heal – Su Batai (3/5) kills Reg Archer and promotes – Hulk (renamed from Remus) NE

IBT: R.Hood spots a conscript French Warrior – Hulk is now next to a Reg French Warrior

Turn 3 – 1175 BC – Julius moves back to iron – Maximus & Su Batai join up the Romulus & Remus to form mini SOD – Cora finishes mine and moves to help Eve – Hulk N away from pursuer – R.Hood S – Thor heads back to Rome for promotion – Pea Shooter rests again – Brutus upgraded in Rome

IBT: French conscript towards Julius - French warrior chasing Hulk – Greek Archer heading for the core

Turn 4 – 1150 BC – Pea Shooter NE spots American border – R.Hood S – Mini SOD reaches Thermopylae – Cora chops with Eve – Bev completes mine and moves to join the girls – Julius moves to cutoff French Warrior – Hulk NE – Odin (renamed Romulus) moves to Rome – Brutus heads to Thermopylae

IBT: Another French Warrior tracking Hulk – Rome Settler->Legionary – Cumae Armarmertarium->Warrior

Turn 5 – 1125 BC – EBC (Eve & Bev & Cora) irrigate game – Marc Anthony (renamed Odin) upgraded to Legionary – Maximus (2/4) kills Reg Hoplite and we enter a Golden Age – Remus (1/4) kills Reg Hoplite and Thermopylae auto-razes – Su Batai rests – Julius (5/5) kills French Conscript Warrior – Brutus moves to cutoff Greek Archer – Romulus NW spots an iron – R.Hood S finds a game on the tundra – Hulk N finds Lyon – Pea Shooter NE

IBT: Joan asks if we’ll give 10gpt for peace and we ask how she looks in a Toga and she stomps away – Greek Archer heading home – Hulk is getting boxed in - (I have to shutdown to go to the Internet to check where the settler is heading – I’m back)

Turn 6 – 1100 BC – Brutus S – Settler reaches blue dot – Julius returns to his hill – Thor MP in Rome – Su Batai, Remus & Maximus rest – Romulus E – R.Hood W – Hulk NE to mountain spots a pair of French spices – Pea Shooter N - Marc Anthony heads east

IBT: French Sword (1/3) kills Hulk – An English Warrior and scout come into view N of Julius – Cumae Warrior->Warrior

Turn 7 – 1075 BC – Warrior MP in Cumae – EBC complete irrigation & move to road/mine BG – Settler founds Pompeii starts barracks – Su Batai (5/5) kills Reg Greek Archer – Maximus rests – Remus moves away from Greek Archer – Romulus W spots connected Greek horses – Marc Anthony W – Julius moves to cutoff English Warrior – Robin (renamed R.Hood) heading east across the snow – Pea Shooter N finds Seattle next to an unconnected iron – Brutus W

IBT: Abe complains about Pea Shooter and we say no problem

Turn 8 – 1050 BC – Romulus moves to horses and finds incense – Su Batai W finds Reg Greek Archer – Remus rests – Marc Anthony, Brutus & Maximus W – EBC builds road – Julius (4/5) kills Reg English Warrior – Pea Shooter E finds New York and unconnected horses and more Babylonian borders – Mysticism is for sale but I upgrade Claudius (renamed Thor) instead

IBT: French found Chartres N of xxx so we have a new target – Russia allies with France against us – Su Batai (4/5) defends against Greek Reg Archer – Cumae Warrior->Warrior

Turn 9 – 1025 AD – New Warrior heading to Rome for upgrade – EBC start mine – Claudius heads for Chartres – Julius heads for Chartres – Remus rests – Romulus pillages connect horses – Marc Anthony, Su Batai, Brutus move west – Robin W – Pea Shooter NW

IBT: Greek Archer comes into range – Veii Granarium->Settler

Turn 10 – 1000 BC – Julius reaches Chartres and finds it guarded by a warrior – Su Batai has found Athens guarded by a Vet Hoplite and Romulus, Marc Anthony, Brutus, Maximus & Remus head to eliminate it – Robin walking across the snow – Pea Shooter NW finds a fortified American Warrior on Babylonian soil

There is still a deal (WM + 50g) available for Mysticism, nothing else is for sale – We should probably attack Rheims before it can improve it’s defense (Elite Archer vs Reg Warrior) – I’d wait until help arrives before taking on Athens - Not much else to say, we are falling quite behind in technology. I hoping we'll be able to stomp Greece during our Golden Age and use the seasoned troops to take out France & England before they reach pikemen.

We need more settlers, workers, legionaries and spearmen.

Nice turns, Denyd! Thermopylae est mord! :clap:

Grahamiam is up. Do we want to switch him back to his original pot on the roster, since he's still travelling, or wait a few days? It's time to crank on Greece and France, and round that corner on the graph!

Just a couple of random thoughts for discussion:

1.I'm thinking we gather a new SOD and complete the elimination of Greece and then we can concentrate our military to the north. I checked with Alexander in turn 9 and he had 5 cities (Athens +4). With luck the next player might be able to get that to 2 or 3.

2. We should be able to put a litte hurt on France (think mosquito) and raze Chartres & maybe Rheims.

3. That upcoming settler should probably go 3 E of Rome (1 NE of the wheat) and that will complete the 4 ring. Based on a quick look at Crprings, the second ring would probably fit best at either distance 7 or 8.

4. I'd like to expand to the NE first and then to the N. We will need a defenders for these new cities.

5. Cumae is producing a Vet Warrior every other turn. With enough cash those are Vet Legions.

6. I started a barracks in Pompeii to produce Vet Warrior. With Pompeii & Cumae popping out future Legions, we should have a solid military soon. Rome, is alternating between Legions & Settlers, Veii is our settler pump. The big question is do we cut our losses on Antium and switch to something now or hope to get the Great Library (or maybe get enough towns to build the Forbidden Palace). We are currently 40+ turns from the GL and once our GA is over that number will go up.

7. Once EBC (the workers) finish what they are doing they should move to start a road to the next city site.

8. After Veii builds it's settler, we might want a temple there to get a culture expansion to allow for horseman building.

If G-man is away, let's bring Alerum to the plate, and slide G-man to the three hole.

Denyd - Just Played
Alerum - Up
G-man - On Deck
Bede
R & L
Bugs

Well played Denyd! Things are looking up terrain-wise. If Athens is on the coast, that means we will be able to fight in one direction.

I need to look at the rules again, but since Cathy declared war on us in 1050 BC, does the declare clock reset (declare on America 20 turns from 1050 BC) or do we stay on the same schedule and declare on America in 450 BC?

Edit - I PM'ed Mad-Bax on a clarification.

City placement - Is it better to be tighter with a RCP 6 ring? I think those mountains are going to mess us up anyway at 6 or 7. I think a RCP 6 will give us better utilization of tiles. Hopefully we won't even have to worry about building hospitals.

If we do want a RCP 7, maybe we should cram a couple more cities into our 4 ring.

I'll pull the save tonight, look at the rings, and post a few dot maps.

While killing time during a system reboot, I was browsing around the forums and a couple of points were made on other threads that need repeating.

1. Artillery is the great equalizer. We should start researching mathematics at minimum (I think Bugs mentioned this earlier)

2. You should have 1-2 workers per city. We have 3 workers and 5 cities.

3. Attack your enemies weakest point with your strongest units (though I disagree in our game as I think Greece must be dealt with now and they have the strongest defenders), we should consider attacking the newer French cities while they are still weak.

4. The AI has ESP as to where the resources will be. Use that in city placement, so we should settle near/on the ruins of Thermopylae.

5. Trade early and often. I'm afraid this is something we aren't able to do.

I think we can probably set up a worker factory when we settle to the east of Rome over by the wheat. I think one settler factory, one worker factory, and everything else military would be good.

Having a catapult factory would be good also.

The East Map:

The South Map:

The North Map:

The West Map:

When refering to a location, please indicate which map, color, shape.
The dots are @8, the rings and X's @7, and the triangles @6.

For the West map, I like the red dot, the red X7, the light blue 7-ball, the brown dot, the green dot, the white dot, and the black dot.

Too many dots, too little time....

ADDITIONS:
It occurred to me whilst looking at the save that we haven't had a whole lot of war weariness yet. Given the variant, that should be coming up as a major problem soon, so we may want to build a few happy gas improvements. Also, from the looks of what Pea Shooter sees, America and Babylon are at war.

Lastly, with the number of elites running around, we should be due for a GL soon. If we use him to build the GLib, it will cause one heck of a cascade. We would probably want to build a lesser improvement first - library, temple, etc. for WW, and then do the GLib in Antium.

We we're a Despotism, so WW isn't really an issue. We'll also probably want to go monarchy, which shouldn't be an issue either.

If we do get a leader, I would go to the closest town, rush the GLibrary, and change Antium to a palace pre-build for a future wonder.

I can make strong arguments for a RCP 6 or 7. Either way would work for me.

Still looking for Alerum or G-man to pick up the game. Perhaps Brother Bede can jump in.

I prefer RCP 7 as I don't like to crowd cities when I'm commercial. (BTW, nice plan review by R&L :hatsoff: )

I agree on Despotism->Monarchy->Communism (if we ever get to IA)

I'd like to expand to the Greek coast and then north a bit (maybe to Rheems & the spices SW of France) and the fill in all of the southern lands.

As I see it, we have 2 main 'musts' in the short term if we want to make this an easier win.

1. Get the Great Library
2. Kill the Greeks

If we can do both of these we should be in pretty good shape. If we miss either, we'll be in for a long uphill climb.

I agree the Antium probably won't get the Great Library (A GL is are only shot). When I finished all that could be switched to without major shield loss was the palace. There aren't many other wonders we could switch to, given our lack of science. If we get a couple of more cities founded soon, the Forbidden Palace will come available and that would be fine. I thought about switching Antium to a settler on my first turn, but even then we'd have wasted over 80 shields.

Still looking for Alerum or G-man to pick up the game. Perhaps Brother Bede can jump in.

Won't be today. Busy killling Egyptians, Russians and Dutchmen. :p

I prefer RCP 7 as I don't like to crowd cities when I'm commercial. (BTW, nice plan review by R&L :hatsoff: )

That's in a normal game. This is going to be anything but a normal game. I think we need to figure out how we can best optimize the tiles available. Let's figure we won't be getting any aqueducts soon, and we won't ever get to hospitals. If a city is on a river we can plan for 12 tiles. If it isn't we can plan on just six tiles being worked. Cities at six or less will reduce our need for happy buildings.

What do you guys think? :dubious:

Good points Bugs - Packing them in is probably better considering the variant.

Something I was thinking about regarding the team. The personalities on this team are more methodical and calculating. We seem to prefer to plan optimum city sites, build overwhelming attack armies, establish a dependable defense force and develop cities & terrain. We probably aren't suited for win the game as fast a possible (note our results in game #2 going for a fast win vs game #1 when we planned for a longer path to victory). We should probably consider that next game when we choose our variant. This team seems to be one that would do very well in a space/UN type game where we head for the domination limit during a series of limited campaigns followed by a science/production push to the modern age. Just a few idle ramblings from an overstuffed tummy (buffet lunch) on a warm day.

I agree completely. I always love these variants though. For me this isn't so much about winning the prize and playing the game and playing on a fun team. MB will have a variant that we will kick butt in like that first one. In the meantime, I'm just going to enjoy this and learn from it.

I think it was R&L that said after last game that scoring is based on land area and happi population. If that is the case, then a lot of samller cities would help.

When it comes to military, I like to attack with overwhelming force. There is nothing I hate worse than having a 1 hp defender left in a city after pummeling it and not having the one unit to finish it off.

I'll agree that we seem to be methodical, but I for one wouldn't mind trying to have a methodical conquest... :D

The 7-ring did seem to have a lot of options, but I agree with the need for a tighter build. I tried a short test scenario with similar conditions, and I did have a problem with WW in Monarchy. I also got a GL at a time right about now, and grabbed the GLib. B-I-G cascade there...

i can get this tonight so we keep this thing moving. thought i'd be around last night but the RL bug got me again and i had to take the red-eye in last night.

G-man - If Alerum hasn't grabbed it by the time you're ready. Take it.

i have not seen Alerum post a got it so I will take it tonight.

I'm sorry guys, it's been hetic for me the last few days. I did "write" a got it this morning, but for some reason it never posted.:( I probably forgot to hit Post Reply on my way out this morning. Anyway, I'm fine with letting Gram take it, as I'm up in another game. I didn't even know I was up until this morning... sorry again.

Preflight check: Move vet warrior out of Cumae since a vet warrior is due in 1T.
Trades: sell our WM to Babylon for 14g, buy Germany’s TM for our WM and 11g, buy Myst from America for WM and 60g.

Change Veii to spearman as we need this town to grow more before we start pumping settlers. A little patience will go a long way here.

IBT: Cumae warrior -> warrior

T1: 975BC Near Athens: Legion (Marc) kills archer and promotes to elite; Legion dies to vet archer on mountain (2/4); 4/5 archer kills 2/4 archer. Athens is on a hill and will require more units.

IBT: Rome Legion -> legion.

T2: 950BC Position troops for Athens Upgrad a warrior.

IBT: Cumae warrior -> warrior; French warrior is next to our 4/5 archer on a hill.

T3: 925BC 4/5 archer attacks warrior and wins (2/5)

IBT: Pompei barracks -> warrior; an English archer appears near Veii; Veii spear -> spear

T4: 900BC Move warrior and spear to protect the workers chopping the game near Veii.

IBT: English archer moves to hill SE of Veii. English warrior/archer pair is headed down from our N. Looks like Greek units are going to try to utilize the mountains to our East to approach Rome as I spot an archer coming our way.

T5: 875BC Maybe I’m a wimp, but I don’t like our chances @ Athens with 4 Legions and 1 3/5 archer so I move the units to cutoff Athen’s roads.

IBT: Chop near Veii finishes and completes a spear -> settler

T6: 850BC 4/5 archer kills an English warrior NW of Antium in the desert.
Russia come calling but I send them away.

IBT: Pea Shooter (5/5 archer) is ambushed near Canterbury, to the far N.

T7: 825BC Cu (elite spear) kills French warrior near Antium; 3/5 archer Julius dies to English archer (2/3) and a Legion finishes it

IBT: A French sword attacks Cu across a river and kills Cu flawlessly.

T8: 800BC Legion kills Cu-killer sword (2/4) and sees 2 French swords and 1 archer S of Chartres; Legion kills Greek warrior on mountains.
Attack on Sparta: 4/4 Legion dies to Hoplite (2/3); 4/4 Legion dies to Hoplite (2/3); elite Legion kills Hoplite but attack stalls. Move another Legion up but this group is exhausted.
.
T9: 775BC Clautis (4/4 Legion) kills French archer and promotes
@ Sparta: Brutis (4/4 Legion) kills 3/3 Hoplite and we raze the town (3/4)

IBT: France and Germany sign an MA against us. Veii Settler -> settler

T10: 750BC Outside Antium: vet Legion kills French sword; vet Legion dies to sword; vet Legion kills 2/3 sword and promotes, leaving a French warrior.
Settler heads E to claim the wheat.

Settler Pump @ Veii is setup [party] I strongly suggest we use the next settler to claim the spices and horses to our SW (1 tile NW of the spices, on the coast, would be great). We could use another lux and some fast moving troops. Also, the location specified will bring another BG into Veii’s area which can be worked to allow the city to continue to be a 4T settler pump after the GA ends.

The units near former Sparta are healing and should be good to go next turn. They didn't get as many cities as Denyd had hoped but I think that may have been wishful thinking. Hoplites are very strong vs Legions as demonstrated by my attack on Sparta. Don't expect things to get better when we go after France as they are likely to have pikes by then.

Good turns G-man! Feel like they were the most solid ones yet. Did you post to the server?

edit: Looked at the server and yes you did... Note to self... don't compare scores anymore, it's dishearting.

Denyd
G-man - Just played
Alerum is up!
Bede on Deck
R&L
Bugs

I got it, and will play tommorow night.

is 9:30 and just finished another SG. Will play tommorow instead. Post any suggestion on where we're going in that time.;)

is 9:30 and just finished another SG. Will play tommorow instead. Post any suggestion on where we're going in that time.;) I have workers near the GLib building city. I suggest they irrigate the plain they are on so we can continue to grow. You may also want to merge 2 workers into that town to bump up production if it seems feasible. The settler pump can be turned off for 1 round to get the 2 workers back in 4 turns. The most important thing right now is getting the GLib. Otherwise, we'll continue to be very backwards.

Yes, getting the GL is key, merging workers is a good idea.

Hopefully, we can get this thing moving again.

Sorry to go off topic here, but can one of you guys give me a quick rundown on the commands to use for controlling whole stacks? Move, move-to, etc.

Thanks!

Sorry to go off topic here, but can one of you guys give me a quick rundown on the commands to use for controlling whole stacks? Move, move-to, etc.
Thanks!
actually, in ptw, i usually us the mouse buttons above the info panel on the right of the screen. however, if you want hotbuttons, check out this reference guide for ptw under Civilization III Complete Reference File -> http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3reference.shtml

it's an excellent rundown of everything (shield cost, tech tree, unit traits, etc) and the 1st page has the hotbuttons. hope this helps :)

The main ones I use are CTRL-J for moving the all the same unit type and SHIFT-J (capital J) for moving the whole stack and SHIFT-G (capital G) for single unit go to's

A couple of cautions:
1. A busy (working or fortified) unit will not go along with his buddies
2. The group moves until the first unit in the stack runs out of movement poin ts (a cavalry unit with a cannon will only move 1 tile per turn across open plains)
3. If a unit has moved to the stack and has movement left they could be the first to run out of movement.
4. If a unit has just joined the stack and has no movement left, they'll be left behind.
5. Once the path is set the units won't deviate from it even if there is now a new road/rail to speed them along.

I think a stack orders are cancelled when they contact an enemy unit, but I'm not positive on that.

Edit: Cross post & G-Man is talking about a great tool that I use all the time.

Turn 0 (750BC)
*We're running no science... we don't really need math do we? I mean... why do we need to throw stones when our house is fragile enough as it is.:p hehehe... Going to turn sci up to min. 35 turns is better then 0 turns.
*About joining workers into Antium. We can't yet. Or at least not more then 1 worker. Otherwise the city will start to starve.
*Going to send settler to a location 1nw of the spices. This will expand veii's and cumae's borders as well as making it a coastl city. With a temple it will also be able to pull in a fish.;) It's RCP-7 for ya Denyd.;)
*We are VERY backwards. I usually start to wimper and cry in solo games this bad... j/k... maybe.
*Believe it or not all of our core cities can grow to size 12. very nice placement of rivers by MB.
*How much longer on the GA? Who do I declare on? oh yes, Russia declared on us so we're in the free and clear until 450.
*Going to leave Cumae and Pompeii unhooked to keep producing Warriors. If it's cheaper to build legionaries, please let me know? I think PTW is still cheaper to upgrade then build. MM both of them a bit to even things out. Slow Cumae from 5 to 10 turns in growth, it's size 3. Pompeii, size 2 I MM to get growth in 7 and change it from a 3 turn warrior factory to a 2 turn factory, same as Cumae. They should both even at around size 6 or so, but by that point our GA will be gone and this won't be an issue.

IBT
Cumae and Pompeii builds warriors.
German warrior and settler pair move next to our Elite Legionary.
Turn 1(730BC)
Upgrade 1 warrior to Legionary.
Legionary take out french warrior next to Antium. We win, 2 dam, no promotion.
Legionary takes out french warrior out in the plains nw of Antium and Veii. Capture 2 workers from the settler. Workers sent to new city location to road horses and spices.
Worker moved into Antium


IBT
Greek hoplite cuts off our archer. We have no choice but to take out the other archer next to us. Will probably loose our own archer next IBT.

Turn 2 (710)
vet archer takes out regular archer near Athens. take 1 dam
even joins Antium Takes out 6 turns. I think I can squeze another worker into Antium. Have a nice size stack of Legions near Antium, ready to Take out Chartres and march northward. The Greeks are falling fairly quickly, and should be able to take Athens soon.

IBT
As I feared our archer near Athens fell. Should keep Archers with Legions for now.
Irigation finishes in Antium.
Warriors build in the Twin Cities.

Turn 3 (690BC)
Join worker to Antium. Growth in 4, TGL in 15.
Gather forces around Athens. It'll be ours soon.
Upgrade warrior in veii, and in Rome. We're a bit short on gold to pull another one.
Lux has to go up to 30% to make up for Antium being size 6. Have to turn science off now. Net growth of 22 GPT.
Legion in Antium takes out French sword.

IBT
Veii builds settler.

Turn 4 (670BC)
Send settler from Veii towards a spot s of Pompeii.
worker irriagtes near Antium
Upgrade warrior

Combat Calculator says we'll have a 32.3% chance of taking out the vet hoplite with our elite Legionary. Goes down to 22% with our vets. That's because he's forted on a hill. That will have to be our last city to take I'm afraid. I'm going to keep moving north.
We may want to think about limiting assults until we can get some catapults going. That's the only way to win AW. bombard, bombard, bombard!

IBT
French sword leaves Chartres.
Greeks come calling. Denied. Send a warrior out of Athens.
Warriors build in Twin Cities.

Turn 5 (650BC)
Send warriors to capitol to upgrade in 3 turns.
Found Pisae nw of Spices, pulling in horses and keeping RCP-7.
Set production to worker. Wanna squeze one out before the barracks.

*** Battle of Chartres **
Elite Legionary vs Reg spear - We redlined, but win.
Vet Legionary vs Reg spear - We win, Chartres is destroyed.
Elite Legionary vs sword that left Chartres - We win, lossing 2hps. May not have been a good idea as a english archers pops into view.
I think our GA is about to end.

IBT
we lose the legionary to the archer like I feared.:( Our Golden Age did end. Damn, I hate being right.
Antium riots, and GL build goes to 20 turns.

Turn 6 (630BC)
Send Legionary into Antium to quell riot and for MP.
upgrade warrior
legionary moves e to intercept greek hoplite on grassland instead of a mountain.
workers start road on horses.
1hp vet legionary takes out 1hp reg english archer. no promition.:(
4hp vet legionary vs reg spear on mountain.
CRAP! I stop workers building road before they finish. Will disband next turn. Can't belive I forgot to disband them before.

IBT
Order restored in Antium. Paris finishes the Great Library.
English switch to Great Lighthouse
Babs complete Great Wall.
Russians switch to Great Lighthouse.
Germans switch to GL as well
Germans complete GL
Nasty Cascade.

Stopping here and asking for advice. Save is attached.

Shift the GL over to a palace prebuild and hope we can get something out of it.

Press ahead with min science. Can we make any deals?

None that I saw. Not unless we want to sign peace.:p I wonder if there's a way to get the GL by starving the english down before we take the city? Or would that 1 natural citizen prevent it? We need to change our long term plans. I suppose our best bet is to just beating everyone so badly they remain in the AA or early MA? I really don't want to see pikes, but they're close already.:(

no way to go but forward. we'll need to capture the GLib city ASAP, that's all. the good news is that it's on our landmass and we can get it. keep building Legions and cities and press on :).

Forward!!, ever forward.

no way to go but forward. we'll need to capture the GLib city ASAP, that's all. the good news is that it's on our landmass and we can get it. keep building Legions and cities and press on :).

Yeah, but unless we can depopulate it the same turn, we'll have to level teh place, so it doesn't help us directly, it just slows down the AI. Hey, maybe we could give them enough workers that it forces them to add them to their cities. Then we hug the cities so that the pop starves, and when we take it, hope that it's one of our guys left.... Naaah!

Question - You mentiona German settler in the IBT pre-Turn 1. Grahamiam had Germany declaring on us in his pre-turn 10 IBT. Did you kill the German settler, or was that a typo for French?

Also, does the earlier than planned war with Germany leave us at the same date for whoever is next, or does it accelerate it? At least killing off Greece won't force us into an earlier war.

Thanks for the stack commands!

Actually that may worker! If we pop rush and keep at least 1 of our citizens as a taxman or entertainer then when we get down the city will be ours. To do that we'll have to make it so they only have 1 or 2 citizens, and they can't be resisting, and 3 workers. Whatta think? Would someone be willing to run a test on it to see if it's possible to remove all the foreign pop before we leave the captured city screen?

Question - You mentiona German settler in the IBT pre-Turn 1. Grahamiam had Germany declaring on us in his pre-turn 10 IBT. Did you kill the German settler, or was that a typo for French?

Also, does the earlier than planned war with Germany leave us at the same date for whoever is next, or does it accelerate it? At least killing off Greece won't force us into an earlier war.

Glad you pointed that out R&L. I missed it completely. I have updated the second post in the thread.

I'm not sure if that changes our next declaration date. I am getting :confused: :crazyeye: :wallbash: concerning keeping that stuff straight.

Edit - Alerum - How's this going? We probably need to start moving the game forward.

Yeah, but unless we can depopulate it the same turn, we'll have to level teh place, so it doesn't help us directly, it just slows down the AI.
right, forgot about the xenophobic part of this game :(

@Alerum - I really don't see how it could work. There must be something in the code to make it so that starvation is not random, and that they always keep one of their own. Also, how would you force them to add the workers to the city that you want, and not just use them for labor? IIRC, the rules state that if there is even 1 foreign citizen, then we must raze the city. Or maybe it was that we had to raze any city that wasn't one that we founded, lost and recaptured... I'll have to look.

I'm assuming that you did disband the captured workers, as required by the variant. Please don't answer here, just make sure that you did it.

Edit - Alerum - How's this going? We probably need to start moving the game forward.
i agree. we need to get this moving again. at this rate, we won't be done till October :lol:

Get moving again? Today is my 72 hour limit. Fellas, I want you to understand I'm working 50+ hour weeks, and if I'm not moving fast enough for you at the rate I am, then go ahead and skip me and find someone else.

I've been dropping all citizens but our natural workers by doing that. I think there was 1 time where it didn't work, but only one time. The question is I guess, do we have to raze instead of capturing it, or can we take it, and as long as there are no foreign citizens inside, we can keep it? How can we check if we autoraze?

Turn 7(610BC)
Move workers into capitol to upgrade when we get the gold. Move legionary onto hill, hoping to make a trap for the hoplite who's posted on the mountain.
Loose a legionary taking out a spear/settler combo. Finish him after. Disband workers on the spot.
Switch GL to Palace. It builds in 6 turns. Can slow it down only 1 turn by MMing... either that or we can starve it down, but I want growth.

IBT
cool. Hoplite did move onto flat ground with a road so we can attack and regroup. French spear appears in view, and 2 greek archers come from the east.
Veii grew but didn't produce settler?!

Turn 8 (590BC)
our legionary takes out the hoplit with only 1 dam
other legionary moves to intercept archers.
Upgrade warrior. Move 2 warrior south to intercept archers as well.
fort spear in Pisae. All cities are now guarded.
Veii didn't grow because of corruption. Looks like a 5 turn factory unless someone knows a trick to MM so we don't get corruption? Anything to get this back on track?
stack moves outside to Pharsalos. SHould remove them next turn.

IBT
Veii Settler - > Worker in 2, growth in 2. No loss. Is a 6 turn factory if we move from working game to regular BG.
Lot of units approaching us from all sides.

Turn 9 (570BC)
Move settler to Rome.
Fort legionary on Wines.
Fort Legionary on Iron.
Odds aren't great for our Legionary vs the archer, because we're crossing the river and he's elite. The other option is to sacrifice the warrior and let the legionary take him down. That seems the best bet. Was a tough call. Almost just move everyone into Popeii.
We loose warrior, but take him down to 3 hps.
Kill regular archer.
Wish we didn't have all these mountains around us.
Make a small line of Legionary to block spears coming from the north.

*** Battle of Pharsalos ***
Elite Legionary vs reg Hoplite - we win, 2 dam
vet legionary vs reg hoplite - Ouch. Redline hopltie, but loose.
ELite archer vs 1hp hoplite. We win, take 2 dam, but no leader.:(
vet legionary vs reg archer - We win, no dam.
Destroy Pharsalos.
Damn it! The battle against the hoplite near Pompeii produced a leader for them.
Wake vet warrior and attack the 2hp archer. is a GIANT gamble, but I want the leader gone.
We win, go elite, and destroy the leader. Warrior will probably fall next turn, but we have another being produced in Pompeii and no way for it to be attacked without Tanks appearing from the fog.

IBT
Germans come calling. Tell them to go away.
Our warrior falls to the archer.
Cumae and Pompeii both build warriors. Fort the one in Pompeii, send the other to Rome.

Turn 10 (550BC)
Vet legionary vs 2hp vet archer near Pompeii
Move legionary back north to protect our wines.
Move another legionary on mountain top to the east to watch archers coming from Greece.
Skip settler, leaving him active.
vet legionary takes out reg french spear, taking 2 dam
Found Ravena s of Pompeii, again RCP-7. Set production to Barracks
left 2 legions in the mountains to the northeast active... not sure what to do with them.
fort Legion in Ravenna until I can get a warrior down there.

End:
We should sign an MA with Babylon againat as many people as we can. Have another 30 turns before we have to declare on them.
Gotta figure out a way to fix the settler factory in Veii. Build a courthouse maybe? Will stop growth. We can also switch it over to build workers. Was hoping for 2 full rings, but not sure if we need it, and we have a nice kill zone just outside of our current borders.
If we do build workers, (which we badly need, and I already started... we only have 1 right now!) we should connect Pompeii up to the trade network. It's going to get alot of attacks from the east. Cumae we can keep as it is since it's not going to see an attack until things are grim.
Need to figure out what to do with the Palace in Antium. We have nothing to trade to a tech, and unless we want to starve Antium down the palace will move there in 3 turns.
We're running out of locations to build cities on. We may want to send settler to take the hill location that's 3 sw of Cumae. Is highly defendable, nice coastal location, and RCP-7.

Get moving again? Today is my 72 hour limit. Fellas, I want you to understand I'm working 50+ hour weeks, and if I'm not moving fast enough for you at the rate I am, then go ahead and skip me and find someone else.

Alerum, you were doing fine. I think they either got the wrong SG, or they were counting posts, not time. After all, I'M the slow player on this team.... :mischief:
As far as the 50+, well, I'm close, but usually 48-50. I think the others are too.

I've been dropping all citizens but our natural workers by doing that. I think there was 1 time where it didn't work, but only one time. The question is I guess, do we have to raze instead of capturing it, or can we take it, and as long as there are no foreign citizens inside, we can keep it? How can we check if we autoraze?

You just lost me, so I went back and checked the rules:

Quoth M-B:
"The Xenophobic part of the variant runs as follows.
7. You may never own a foreign worker. You must never buy one, and if you capture them they must be disbanded on the tile on which they were captured.
...
10. You will never retain a town that contains foreign citizens. Such towns must be razed and any workers spawned disbanded."

So, no keeping a foreign worker. By my earlier post, I just wanted to be sure, since I wasn't getting the meaning out of your words. Obviously you're on track, and it was my comprehension that was at issue.

Per #10, if we capture a town, and all of the citizens are our nationality, then we can keep it. The only two ways for this to happen would be if we recaptured one of ours shortly after losing it, or if we somehow got the AI to add in some of our workers to the desired target city and then starved it down. Again, I'm guessing that something in the game code would force the last remaining citizen to be of the owner's nationality, provided that he already was there. The only way to find out is to try, but off line. I'll see what I can do. I must admit, having to raze a city containing 9 of our citizens, and 1 foreigner would bug me, and would likely not make the rest of our populous to pleased. We'll just have to be sure to take back any captured cities quickly. M-B would probably justify it under our Xenophobia making us view them as traitors.

An autoraze is an autoraze - we can't do anything about it.

A thought - if a city flips to join us (not that I expect this), be sure to accept the flip, and then raze / abandon the city on our turn, instead of rejecting the flip. I couldn't find anything in the previous discussions that would forbid this.

Incidentally, I was reminded of M-B's clue about the barbs by going to review the rules. AFAIK, we haven't seen any. So, what is the insight that we'll be gaining into SGOTM4? Looking for speculation here.

I'm going to go WAY out on a limb, and guess that all of the barbs are off the coast on 1-tile islands, which we'll need amphibs to take out. THAT will be our insight as to the next game - an archipelago! And the need to use amphibs.

Odds aren't great for our Legionary vs the archer, because we're crossing the river and he's elite.

During my last turns, I looked at the civilopedia for terrain, and it stated that the defensive bonus for a river was +0%. Is that correct? Or is it modified for this scenario? Then again, there were no mods. Can this be changed in the save file via the editor?

The battle against the hoplite near Pompeii produced a leader for them.
Wake vet warrior and attack the 2hp archer. is a GIANT gamble, but I want the leader gone.
We win, go elite, and destroy the leader.

VERY NICE decision and job taking out the leader! :thumbsup:
Definitely something to be done at any cost.

We should sign an MA with Babylon againat as many people as we can.

Did they open an embassy with us? If so, great!

Gotta figure out a way to fix the settler factory in Veii. Build a courthouse maybe? Will stop growth. We can also switch it over to build workers.

G-man can tell us. I don't know who's up next, but G can take a look at the save and tell us. I'm still learning the exact steps for this.

Need to figure out what to do with the Palace in Antium. We have nothing to trade to a tech, and unless we want to starve Antium down the palace will move there in 3 turns.

If we can pull a tech on the next turn, then it may be best to cut our losses, and switch it to an improvement now, saving 2 more turns of shields. Opinions?

Nice turn set Alerun69

I agree that without looking at a city, you can't be 100% sure what the population make up is, so it does make sense to accept the city, review the population and if any foreigners are in the city, you then abandon the city before proceeding.

From what I can see with Greece has 4 cities left. We should make it a priority to eliminate them. Then we only have to concentrate on targets to the north. When we start that direction, we'll be attacking fringe AI cities and should have success. It's the cores that are going to be a problem. We should keep pumping settlers from Veii to fill in all the old Greek lands. There is quite a bit of dirt to the south, southeast and east to fill. It's not that great of terrain, but every city provides us with additional support once we get to monarchy. Keep pumping Legionaires from Rome and Warriors from Cumae, we'll need the troops for the French campaign. I agree that we should pay whatever it costs to get allies at this time. The more targets the AI has to shoot at the better. It will also slow down the tech pace. I don't relish the idea of Legions vs Pikes (or Muskets).

Get moving again? Today is my 72 hour limit. Fellas, I want you to understand I'm working 50+ hour weeks, and if I'm not moving fast enough for you at the rate I am, then go ahead and skip me and find someone else.

Easy now. Don't be so quick to think a finger is being pointed at you. It was a general comment at the team in general. Up until you posted your turns, we had completed exactly one complete set of turns since July 21th. It is meant as a gentle prod to all of us.

Denyd
G-Man
Alerum - Just Played
Bede - Up
R&L - On deck
Bugs

OK, Here is the Civs Met list

Civs Met:
1) Greeks - 2750 BC - war in 2750 BC
2) England - 2270 BC - war in 1950 BC
3) France - 2230 BC - war in 1375 BC
4) Russia - 2150 BC - declared war on us in 1050 BC (normally would have declared in 875 BC)
5) America - 2110 BC - declare in 450 BC
6) Babylon - 1550 BC - declare in 50 BC
7) Germany – 1500 BC - declared on us via MA in 775BC
8) ?????? - ????? - declare in 500 AD

So the question is: Does Germany take America's place in 450 BC, or do we have to declare on Abe?

I don't think the capture a city and starve down idea will work. The code will keep a native in the city above all else. Bottom Line - we need to raze Paris as soon as possible.

Bottom Line - we need to raze Paris as soon as possible.

I'd like to get rid of Greece first. Not having to defend/attack on two fronts would make things 'easier'. :lol:

As for the pace of the game, we're ahead of the Staff Team :D

Got and will play tomorrow after 2:00PM EDT.

I concur that Greece is our #1 priority.

Have not looked at the save or reviewed the posts in detail but in general here's what I am thinking:
1) Take whatever steps are necessary to get the Veii on a settler/worker cycle at six turns.
2) What would be the impact if the place moved to Antium? I'm guessing it would negatively affect the RCP. If that's the case then I guess just bite the bullet on the shield loss and build something cultural, the not so great library maybe.
3) Defend to the north.
4) Move with all deliberate speed on France.

Get moving again? Today is my 72 hour limit. Fellas, I want you to understand I'm working 50+ hour weeks, and if I'm not moving fast enough for you at the rate I am, then go ahead and skip me and find someone else.
sorry, not meant directly at you alerum but in general for reasons bugs had stated previously. there is a "guillotine" for these games as opposed to a regular sg that can last forever (ie, SUL5b :lol: ).

@R&L ->in regards to the settler factory @ Veii... sorry, i have to go out of town for a couple of days and have lots to do tonight so i won't have time. however, bede is an excellent MM'er and i'm sure he'll figure it out.

@bede-> please layout the settler/worker factory @ Veii so all can use it effeciently :) I believe we probably need a mine or 2. probably should set the govenor to emphasize production as well just to make sure we work a forrest during growth.

general comment: we should let Rome get big. It can be a shield powerhouse. We should try to get it up to 10spt asap so we can make legeons every 3T. if we're already @ 10spt, then try to get it to 15spt which should be possible, even in despotism. imho, let Veii and the new city to the east of Rome worry about workers and settlers.

Sorry when I see my name involved, then I usually think it's directect at me.... anyway, moving onward.

1) Foreign Citizens: R&L: The process I'm talking about is using the natural population to rush improvments. We have 4 English citizen in our newly captured town, and we're able to throw a couple of workers into that city to make it 6 total... 4 english, 2 roman. What we do is use those 4 english to rush a temple or barracks. If we set our roman citizens to entertainers or taxman they will remain while the citizens working the tile will be killed off in the construction of that barracks. That will leave it free of all but Roman citizens, which means we can keep it, according to the rules our the varient. We'll need to have 2 workers ready to be joined ASAP, and we'll need to keep a road intact to ensure we can join them in on the same turn that we capture. Bugsy@ I know that it seems like it will keep a native worker, but I was doing that in RaceWars and you'll notice all the cities I did it with are naturual population after.

2) Veii - I'm confident Bede will be able to do something... we're probably looking at a 6 turn factory without a courthouse though. It's set it on my watch to emp. production, and it went to the forest like planned, just lost the shield to corruption. It was only a true factory during our Golden Age.

3) Abe: Russia saved us, but we still have to declare in 450AD. Otherwise I would have had to declare war.

4) Bede: I tried the worker/settler idea. The best I could get out of it was 8 turns. I just can't get those last 2 shields due to corruption. Moving the Palace to Antium would be horrible! We need to switch that to a lib or something else expensive. No trading that I saw.:( The north is where I'm seeing the most units. There are only a trickle of archers coming from greece and like Denyd said I think they're down to 3 or 4 cities. It even seems that taking Greek land will "complete" our empire. We'll have a 1 side front which is idea in AW, and we'll have all those mountains to slow down knights/cav in the later game.

5) Allies: Does the rules state we can't build an embassy or are we just assuming that we can't?

6) Rome: It's growing as fast as possible. There isn't much food around it so it takes a while, but I think it'll need some hills mined to get that 15 spt.

Even though we're in a world of hurt I still have a good feeling about this game.
Oh yeah West Nile Virus has come to my town.... joy! Anyone got some Off?

Alerun69: OT: After living in Palo Alto/Cupertino/Campbell/Santa Clara for 30 years, by family moved to the LA area last year. What part of the Bay Area are you in?

I agree with the Veii=Settler & Rome=Legionary decision.

I actually thought about switching Antium to a library (losing 60 shields) when I played but was hoping for a miracle instead.

We're probably going to be facing defensive values of 3+ for the rest of the game (Greek Hoplites & everyone else Pikes), so mathematics (w/catapults)should be moving towards the top of the research list. I think the really hard part of this game is going to be battling to stay close on technology.

@Alerum:

1 - No, we can not keep it. I was trying to think of a way to get the non-Roman pop starved out before we take the city, but I can't make it work. Rules are clear that any city containing non-Romans when we take it must be razed / abandoned. But it can be re-settled.

5 - Rules state that no embassies may be built by us. We are free to make use of those built by foreigners in our capital.

I concur that we need to declare in 450.

From the Contra Costa County area. Northern East Bay.

Sorry for beating a dead horse but I'm not sure if it stated we have to raze on capture or before we ended the turn. Which is it?

From everything I read in the rules, it looks like unless we originally founded the city, just lost it and are re-taking it, we should be selecting the I don't want the city option when we take the city. We should then disband any foreign workers left behind on the ruins. (Scorched earth policy).

0-550
Switch Veii to a temple :eek:, but we are going to have contentment problems there soon, anyway, so it won't be a total loss. We don't have the tech for anything else. The border expansion in 4 will give access to a game forest so we will have a net 10spt form the town with one more citizen, due in 38. Take a look at Veii and I think we can make a four turn settler farm work by irrigating the game and mining a hill or two. That will give two food bonuses which will keep the growth up when the pop drops to four and the shields from the hill(s) should overcome the corruption problem on the growth turns.

Shift some citizens around to boost gold and the contentment problem at Cumae goes away.

1-530
Kill a French spear threatening the iron hill. There is a French settler team, an English spear and a Russian spear inbound from the north and an English spear in our territory threatening the vineyards at Rome.

Veii finishes a worker and starts another.

Settler from Rome is trekking to coastal spot SW of Cumae.

2-510
Go leader fishing against an English spear in the bowl of Chartres and catch Trajan.

Fresh legion from Rome's barracks kills English spear and goes elite.

Upgrade vet warrior. Set Veii to producing workers

Next settler might want to go to the hill above the Chartres bowl. It has access to two flood plains and lots of hills and is at RCP 7, which was a really good plan until the French build a city there.

3-490
Move the legions and Trajan onto a mountain on their way to Antium to build Trajans' Eagles. Fortify the Greek ExFor on a hill above Corinth to heal and await reinforcement. Greek archers are on the way in from SE and NW. Position legions on mountains to force them onto the grass.

4-470
Destroy Avignon in the mountains and promote a legion.

Kill a Greek archer and move reinforcements towards Pompeii. We are 50-50 on the loss of the city.

Our axe wielding warrior whacks the attacking Greek archer

Germans start the Hanging Gardens.

Russia has four archers and a spear inbound in separated groups

5-450BC
Trajan's Eagles are formed and I go try to extort something from Abe. Renegotiate peace and get his world map and Mathematics for 15gpt. He accepts our gracious offer, then I throw the glove on the floor and declare

The English send a force of archers out of Oxford.

6-430BC
Trajan's Eagles move to cover Veii.

I don't know what I've been thinking of. Our trading rep is shot full of holes, so why not extort tech from the remaining AI with whom we are not at war. If we end up at war, who cares, and we will have to declare before the deal ends anyway. So I dial up Hammurabi and take Polytheism for continued peace, 15gpt and 20g. That is all our income but we will have spices from Pisae soon so lux can go down.

7-410
Building up defense at Veii and along the Ostwall. The germans will build a town in the Bowl at Chartres next.

Elite Su Batai kills Greek Archer outside Corinth. There are five English archers in range of Veii and three Russians between Veii and Antium.

Hammurabi came extorting maps and money, tell him to get lost, he declares and we get our gpt back. I think we need to go find some more friends.

Three English archers offer themselves as sacrifices to Ares at Veii and a Greek archer dies in the plains SE of Rome.

8-390
Fail to take Corinth, lose a legion.

Start forming up for a march on Corinth

9-370BC
Defending at Veii. Kill a Russian and an Englishman.

French swords are now wandering around NE of Antium in the Mountains.

Veii produces a settler which is dispatched to Antium. Move swords out of Antium, raze the German town and found on the hill where it sits. RCP-7

Rome is undefended at the moment but the sword fortified on the settler can move back into Rome when the settler moves into Antium.

There are seven legions on the way to Corinth.

10-350BC
Marching on

There is an English galley nosing around the Pompeii peninsula. Two swords are on their way to provide coverage.

The Heroic Epic and the Forbidden Palace are now available to us.

The Russians start the Hanging Gardens and the Americans.

There are taxmen at Pompeii and Cumae.

The English pillaged a mined grassland at Veii and kind of screwed up the settler farm. Up to that point it was on its way to 4 turn settlers. I think if you irrigate the game preserve and mine a hill that will get the shields and food needed.

Nice Bede.;) I don't know how you can see city managment like you do. Sometime it's amazing.

Got it. I'll look around tonight, but won't be able to play more than a turn or two before Sunday night (unless I suprise myself).

Acknowledge about the tiles at Veii. Where did Trajan go? The team needs to give input here. Save for a wonder, or use for a legion army? Did the GLib get built yet?

GL has been built, not by us. Use the leader to rush Heroic Epic. Whatta think y'all?

Where did Trajan go? The team needs to give input here.
Trajan is leading his army (Trajan's Eagles) in the defense of Veii. Until their first victory the HE wasn't available to us and when he was born there was no wonder, great or small, available to us.

An army is going to help immensely. I would take the army on a world pillaging tour.

I've never played PTW until Conquest... do we get the free pillage ability on PTW or is it just C3C? I aggree completely... a pillager that the AI won't touch for another 500 years.;)

No free pillage in PTW, but it is still very effective.

350 – 0
reset prefs, look around. Looks good.

IBT: Russian archer dies attacking Veii. Antium is in for a world of hurt. Lincoln begins Sun’s. English archer approaches Rome. German settler pair angling in from E.

330 – 1
Vet legion from Veii kills English archer flawlessly at Rome. Vet legion takes out the german settler pair flawlessly and dispatches the settlers misguided by their deceitful leaders. Su Batai -2 kills Greek archer. The army rests, which will allow for the Russian warriors to catch up, but oh well.
@Antium, settler to Rome, vLegion through Antium, -3 kills Fr sword. <save to change diaper> vLegion dies to Fr sword -0. eLegion -1 kills Fr Sword. vLegion -1 kills Fr archer.

IBT: England lands archer in open at Cumae. French sword dies attacking exposed vLegion at Antium, who promotes. German archer coming S, English & Russian archers from NW. A Bab city, Lagash, pops up W of Corinth, NE of Rome.
Veii worker > settler in 10.

310 – 2
The Veii legion from previous -1 kills Rus warrior N of Veii. Legion SE of Rome moves NE & kills Rus spear flawlessly. Vet warrior from Cumae hill -2 killing English archer.
Army -0 kills Rus warrior. vLegion -3 killing Greek archer N of Thermopylae ruins. Legion moves N toward Lagash, sees defending spear.
Settler to wheat E of Rome.

IBT: Ravenna rax > worker in 5. French begin Sun’s. Army -1 killing Rus archer, moves to hill N of Veii. Legion at Veii rests. Veii worker NW to BG.
@Antium, eLegion SE to hill, betting on hill & river to defend against Fr swords on mountain. vLegion dies attacking Gr archer on hill -0.

IBT: France begins HG. Greek galley arrives at Ravena from around S point. English archer & Bab warrior approach Veii, joining Rus archer, with another coming.
@Antium, German sword & archer move into plains instead of woods? Sword & warrior coming down from Nuremberg. vLegion from N of Rome dies taking Gr sword to red. eLegion kills sword flawlessly. vLegion from Rome to Antium. eLegion from SE of Rome toward Antium.
@Cumae, wounded warrior to hill. Fresh warrior N toward Rome.
@Veii legion moves to protect worker on BG. Army forts on hill.

IBT: Americans offer peace for 80g. Use opportunity to see that they are up Phil, CoL, MM, currency, Monarchy, construction.
French offer peace straight up, & would give a tech or 2. They are up the same techs.
Ravenna riots > add clown.
Hispalis worker > rax in 20. Pisar worker > spear in 20, but may want to change to legion in 30 (no rax). Pompeii warrior > warrior in 5.
Greece lands archer in open.

250 – 3
finish road to Hispalis, begin mine. <save for misbehaving child issue>
Wounded warrior @ Cumae -1 kills Greek archer.
eLegion from N of Rome -1 kills English horse. eLegion from Antium kills German archer flawlessly. eLegion from Antium plains & 2 vLegions from Antium join on hill E of town. Lagash Legion SW. Su Batai & Brutus move onto hill S of Corinth.
@Veii, worker returns to town. vLegion -0 kills English archer. Army -1 kills Bab warrior.

IBT: Cumae warrior > warrior. Upgrade warrior in Rome to Legion. Liverpool founded near iron NW of Antium.

230 – 4
Army return to hill.
@Antium: eLegion kills German sword flawlessly, eLegion on hill -1 kills Fr sword, vLegion -2 kills German warrior, vLegion on hill dies, vLegion on hill -1 kills Fr sword, vLegion on mountain -0 kills Rus spear & promotes.
Settler & escort Legion arrive at site of Thermopylae.
SoD of 5 legions arrives on mountain NW of Athens.
Su Batai see Rus settler pair & forts. Brutus E to road.
Workers build mine at Hispalis. Move 1 worker N toward Veii.
<save, end for now. No more trying to play during the day with the kids awake.>

IBT: Aztecs complete HG. Americans begin Sun’s. Rus settler pair ends next to Brutus.

210 – 5
Virconium founded on the ruins of Thermopylae > rax in 20.
2 workers begin mining BG at Veii.
Brutus kills Rus spear, disbands misguided settler / workers, and promotes.
vLegion from Veii WNW -0 & kills English archer.
Move units @Antium.
Army & eLegion fort on hills @Veii.

IBT: Su Batai -2 defending against archer at Corinth. 5 Bab bowmen coming down through Nuremberg. Bowman/settler pair WSW out of Lagash. French begin Sun’s.
Another galley heading down from Oxford. Veii settler > worker in 4.
Antium Legion > HE in 19. Rome legion > legion in 4.

190 – 6
Add third & fourth worker to Veii BG. 3 workers road horse.
eLegion near Veii -1 kills Rus archer on hill at Veii. 2 warriors move to Rome
& upgrade. (Notice that 2/4 units upgrades at full 4/4.) vLegion from Rome to Veii.
Army -5 killing 2/3 Rus archer on hill at Veii. :wow:
Move eLegion to hill NNW od Antium, see 2 more Bowmen & spear/settler pair coming through Liverpool. Keep settler at Veii. vLegion onto hill at Oxford.

IBT: Ravenna worker > spear in 10. Mine completed at Veii.
5 Bowmen 2N of Antium, 3 Bowmen 3N.

170 – 7
Army to Veii to heal. Mine horse. vLegion Rome to Antium. vLegion Rome to hill at Veii. Pillage incense tile at Athens. vLegion takes spear to red,then goes -3 before kill
Spear at Oxford. Now on hill at 1/4. 1 Spear left.

IBT: 1/4 vlegion defends against archer at Oxford & promotes. French galley rounds from S to enter bay at Ravenna. English galley 1 turn out. Bowman/settler pair enters
Plains. 5 Bowmen head E toward Lagash. 3 Bowmen join spear/settler in desert.
German sword S out of Nuremberg. 2 Bowmen now on hill S of Liverpool iron.

150 – 8
2 warriors on hill at Cumae. Worker on BG at Ravenna SE to G. vLegion dies
attacking English archer (1/3) NNW of Veii.
@Antium: eLegion -0 kills spear in desert, eLegion -0 kills Bowman in desert,
vLegion -1 kills Bowman in desert, vLegion -3 kills Bowman in desert &
disbands misguided settler/workers. Will be lost to Ger sword or Bowmen.
eLegion -2 kills Bowman & disbands settler/workers SSSE of Lagash.
Pillage mine SE of Athens.

IBT: French warrior lands at Cumae grasslands. French spear/settler moves out
SE of Corinth. 1/4 vLegion lost at Nuremberg to G sword (promotes). 5 Bowm
S to mountain. G sword to plains. Rus horse to NNNW, Fr sword coming,
2 Bowmen W of Antium. Cumae warrior > warrior.

130 – 9
Road connects horse to game.
vWarrior -1 kills Fr warrior at Cumae.
vLegion dies attacking Bowman -1 W of Antium. eLegion -3 kills 2nd Bowman
W of Antium. vLegion from Antium -2 kills wounded Bowman. vLegion forts
Antium. 4 Legions return to Antium. Army heads to Antium.
@Athens: vLegion -3 kills hoplite & goes elite. vLegion dies perfectly to hoplite.
vLegion -3 kills hoplite & promotes. eLegion dies taking hoplite to red. vLegion
kills 1/4 hoplite perfectly & razes Athens. Dispatches settler/workers.
Greek capital moves to Knossos in N. English scout seen on gold N of Athens.
Rome legion > legion.

IBT: Rus offer peace, are up Phil, CoL, MM, curr, Monarchy, Constr. No.
English land archer on grass at Pompeii. 5 Bowmen to hill E of Antium.
G sword S to hill.

110 – 10
Brutus -3 kills Fr spear & dispatches settler/workers.
vWarrior -2 kills English archer at Pompeii.

AVAILABLE TO MOVE:
Settler at Veii. Legion at Rome (see Fr spear near our iron). ~3/6 legions at
Antium. Army at Antium.

Please verify builds & the pump at Veii, which was just repaired.
Try to always have 1-2 warriors on the hill E of Cumae to deal
with landings. They always go the the same square & so far
only ever 1 unit.

nice war management R&L. the adrenaline of AW seems to suit you well. how soon till the army is back in order? we really need to put a big dent into France or Germany or Russia or whoever our closest neighbor is (no screens in a while makes me forgetful :) ).

From the Contra Costa County area. Northern East Bay.
interesting, i lived in walnut creek, up against mt. diablo, from '97 till April '01. nice place to live if you can afford it :)

nice war management R&L. the adrenaline of AW seems to suit you well. how soon till the army is back in order? we really need to put a big dent into France or Germany or Russia or whoever our closest neighbor is (no screens in a while makes me forgetful :) ).

Thanks! The disheartening things were: 1) all of those elite wins, and no leaders, 2) the elite losses to regulars or wounded units.

IIRC, the army is healed back to full, but maybe did need 1 more turn. At the moment, it is 1 tile outside of Antium, and ready to move. I left all of the units at Antium available to move so that the next player (Bugs??) could get a handle on the magnitude of the defense issue there. We have a load of units bearing down, although they mostly come piecemeal. In this case, it's Bab Bowmen. Last group was French swords. The others send single spears, archers, swords or horse. We haven't seen any Americans yet. A host of Russians and English lately, with France taking a brief rest.

As far as who is closest, we're surrounded in a sea of gnats - a target rich environment, most @ size 1. English, German, Russian, French - take your pick.

If it's still relevant when I get home, I'll post a map.

interesting, i lived in walnut creek, up against mt. diablo, from '97 till April '01. nice place to live if you can afford it :)

Oh yeah, that's really close. I'm actually jsut down the street from Sunvalley Mall.:p

I've got it. I'll start playing during lunch. I'll also try to get some screen shots up for the team.

Great turns R&L. I don't know if it's true or not but it seems that if you attack a 2hp vet unit with a 4hp elite unit, and the elite unit losses 1hp while taking out the vet unit, then you're VERY likely to get a leader from the deal.

Anyway, awesome kill ratio!

size 1 cities are really useless for the AI. if we could raze a couple of the more productive ones near the core, then we'd be cooking!

It appears we are in full fledged AW mode. It sounds like R&L has established a solid defense. We need to start expanding our area of control and number of cities, and we probably need a FP. If we get a leader, I think an FP down in Greece might be a good idea.

How many cats do we have? I guess I need to open the game during a break.

No cats. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

The 3 legions in south Greece could use some reinforcements. There's 2 cities down there, and 2 in the North, including Corinth. As far as the South of the continent being secure, please note that twice now the non-local AI have sailed around that way with a landing party (call it the long way). Why they didn't land sooner and come overland, or land sooner and gather units while unobserved I can't fathom.

I saw that in DI1 (3CC AW). The AI will send one and two unit landing forces into your rear. A lot of effort for a weak landing. It is a good idea to keep a defense in your core for just an incursion.

This has been fixed in C3C and now the AI lands a force of 10-20 units in your backyard. Glad we're not playing C3C.

I think I might be due for another war declaration too. I'll need to check.

I'm quite sue that we're already at war with everyone, but it never hurts to check.

I saw that in DI1 (3CC AW). The AI will send one and two unit landing forces into your rear. A lot of effort for a weak landing. It is a good idea to keep a defense in your core for just an incursion.

i have seen the same many times. the ptw ai just can't handle a good landing with galleys, no matter how many times they try.

however, it is good to keep at least 2 offensive units in addition to the defenders so you can attack spears or swords that land. preferably horses so you can play zone defense and cover as much area as possible. however, in this case, since we know where they are landing, 2 legions should do the trick.

good luck :ninja:

A situation Report at the start of my turns:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_-_110_BC.jpg

Pre-flight – 110 BC – Well not really a pre-flight, we’re flying. Take the legion from Rome and attack the French spear, lose 1hp and promote.
Attack the Babylonian stack with an elite Legion and lose, taking only one hp off the Bowman.
Attack again with an elite and…
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_110_BC_Leader.jpg

I’m thinking I should send this leader off to Viroconium and build the FP. Thoughts?

yep, sounds good. we don't have enough cities for another army yet so FP would be best.

notes:
1. there should also be an rcp4 city E of rome taking advantage of the wheat by now. not sure why we haven't created that city yet but i'm sure there were circumstances dictating the other locations

2. cumae should be hooked up to the empire and it's tiles improved. it looks like it's @ size 5 and only does 2spt when it was doing 5spt at size 2 or 3 during my turns. we have plenty of gold but not enough units so pump out warriors fast there before hooking up or hook it up and make legions every 5 or 6T, imho. it's too good of a city with too low corruption to be wasting away @ 2 or 3spt. also, not roading to the south is making defense tougher than it should be.

Rather than Virconium, I'm thinking that it should be at the ruins NE of Athens, Sparta??? The place with the inncense anyway. That would give us better distance for Athens, Corinth & Knossos, whereas Virconium is in a poor position for effecting other cities. There aren't more than 1-2 build sites near by.

Rather than Virconium, I'm thinking that it should be at the ruins NE of Athens, Sparta??? The place with the inncense anyway. That would give us better distance for Athens, Corinth & Knossos, whereas Virconium is in a poor position for effecting other cities. There aren't more than 1-2 build sites near by.
or just rush the heroic epic and get antium started on making units. we need units, more the better, as we're slipping badly behind in tech. right now only 1 town is making legions and we need to improve that as best we can. This should also hurry the next great leader (in AW we should get quite a few) and then we can rush the FP when we have more towns settled.

Had only the one settler there that I was keeping still for lack of an escort. All other concentration was going into the defense. I agree on the need to build the 4-ring city.

Cumae & Pompeii have been putting out warriors fairly steadily. I've needed to keep 1-2 on the hill for defense, and move them north when time, chance permits. I had also wanted to put Legions down there, but needed them in the North. I did have the one legion available to go after Oxford, but he got gassed too quick. This last 2 turns is the first time that Veii hasn't been under pressure. I would really have loved to go on an offensive, but Greece wasn't it. I must admit I'm very suprised that the legions did so poorly down there. :sad: I expect to be able to take out fortified hoplites on mountains with no problem! ;)