SGOTM3 Rome - Game Thread.

Hi everyone, and welcome to your game thread.

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

Here are a couple of links you might find useful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have fun, and good luck everyone!

Welcome fellow Generals ! We stunned our competitors (and quite frankly ourselves) with our SGOTM 2 variant win ! Well done folks.

However - we must not rest on our gold laurel because this variant is a killer. This Xenophobic variant has a high probability of crushing us into Peanut paste. By the way, we ARE attempting the sponsored variant, aren't we ?

I suggest that we map out our strategy,particularly for the ancient age period, as I believe this period will make or break it for us. Let's just throw our ideas in and see what insights we all have.

I have to go out now but I will post my ideas this afternoon or tonight.

civ_steve checking in. It looks like SGOTM3 is up, and Team Peanut is assembled (minus one, unless planetfall reconsiders)!

PTW 1.27 worked well for us, so I'm assuming we'll stay with that version of civ.

And everyone seems ready to follow our leader into the grinding house and try the variant. Why not? What's the worse that can happen? OK, let's don't think too hard about that!! We had a grand victory in SGOTM2; let's see what 3 brings.

Peglegasus: I'm curious to see what your investigations have uncovered. I've never played any of the AW or similar variants, so this will be somewhat new for me. Playing as Rome, it makes sense to me to beeline up BronzeWorking and IronWorking, locate Iron, get it hooked up and get Legionaires out and GA going as soon as possible. Probably need to get 3 or 4 good production cities going as fast as possible, with barracks, and build up the military; lot's of Veteran Warriors, maybe some Archers although I'm not real fond of them. Unless we get a chance to do a real quick killer thrust, do more harassing attacks on the first civ we contact, kill exposed workers, do in any military that comes out to engage us, until we have a large force concentrated to finish them off. Take advantage of the 20 turns to take out the first civ before declaring on the 2nd. Not sure if we should be actively scouting for civ1, or just hanging close to the core.

Anyway, I'm off to get the save, to check out the start location. Who will be up first?

(edit: oops, saves not available yet)

I have played several AW varients at Regent level and have had no trouble winning. The key is to let them come to you piece meal (the AI is so stupid and predictable) and chew them up in defensive battles until you are strong enough to go on the offence. At the point the game moves very fast as you steam roll across the map. I have only played a half way through first ancient age at high levels, but the initial attack by the AI is tough! They come at you in waves. Therefore I would suggest the following.

Delay contact as long as possible. Make bronze working and iron working our first techs. We also want to get to Math ASP to get cats. The only improvements we need are barracks. We should go for a close build of cities at first and make roads a priority. Believe me we will need the mobility and mutual support at first. In addition, we will only want to mine to get our cities to 5 shield per city level each. This will give us the most bang for our worker buck during our early golden age.

Well I'm no expert at this but I did find a few things that were useful in my games. I didn't get very far... only about halfway into the Middle Ages. So here are my thoughts.

Walls. I never build them normally. But when you have enemies coming in every few turns on your little pop 2 and 3 towns they really help. They aren't needed in every town but definitely border towns and any town that has important resources in its radius. They really help tons with barbs too, and we will have lots of barbs around since we will be torching all the AI cities and leaving lots of empty space. Walls for me meant having elite spearmen all over the place! I used those guys to defend my attack stacks and even got a Great Leader from one on guard duty. Walls are quick and easy to build and don't cost any maintenance.

I was building archers first for the extra punch. They take down the enemies scouting units very easily. Once I located the nearest enemy civ I would have a couple archers roaming around their territory watching for settler pairs to knock out. This was before I had a proper attack force to move in. It seemed to help a bit. Kept the AI from expanding as quickly. Also a good way to get elite units. I suggest waiting until there are a couple barracks in place to build warriors.

As far as tech progression, this is what worked best for me. Go for bronze working first for spearmen defenders. Or pottery if we don't want to wait and hope the first civ we meet has it for trade. After bronze, iron working is 40 turns, so i would go for the wheel instead. After the wheel we should have a couple new towns built so iron working is a little quicker to get to. We need masonry to build city walls. Now, since we will be doing a LOT of self research we need libraries asap. Go for writing and then literature. We need to be researching at the MAX we can afford at this stage. Speed is essential. After that, horseback riding. At this stage it's tricky what to research. Of course we hope to be able to trade for a couple techs but it's hard and unpredictable. We needn't bother with Republic since that government type simply will not work for us. Perhaps a good path at this stage would be Polythesim to Monarchy. Monarchy will be a good tradable tech too, if there is anyone available to trade with. With Monarchy I was able to get all the other essential techs except for construction.

edit: oh, as Keith said... Math for catapults! we need to fit that in early somewhere. they help immensely.

Wonders. Can you guess which wonder I'm going to talk about? Of course. The Great Library. It was essential in the games I played. Some may disagree with me but I strongly suggest building it by hand if possible. Here is what worked for me. Once I had a moderately good settler pump and at least 2 other towns building units and workers, I dedicated my next town to a pre-build. There are lots of things that this can be used for. One of course being a pre-build for the library. If we start building early this should work out for us, even on emperor. If we get a leader around the time that Literature is available we could use the leader to rush the library somewhere else and hold the pre-build for something else like Sun-Tzu's or Leonardo's. If we really luck out with leaders early we can rush the library somewhere else and use our pre-build for heroic epic. I may be crazy, but this worked out for me. And remember, we can't capture wonders so if we want one, we need to build it ourselves.

Neighbors. Let's hope we have some pushover neighbors. One of my unsuccessful experiment games had me start adjacent to Carthage, Greece, and Persia. The crushed me. The hardest part was overcoming those tough defenders of Carthage and Greece. If we find ourselves close to Persia they need to be taken down before they get immortals. Same thing probaly with the Celts. I took down Persia in my game when they only had three towns, using only archers with a couple spearmen to defend the stacks. Carthage and Greece crushed me though, but I wasn't using the 20 turn "grace period" like in the variant. I was just declaring on them as soon as we finished our first encounter.

Golden Age. I suggest delaying it a bit if possible. Build archers, spears and horsemen first. The Golden Age can be very useful in this variant and a Golden Age with 3 towns kind of blows. Exception: if we need to take down a tough neighbor like Greece or Carthage, or even the Minoans (actually I don't think they will be available, never mind) we need Legions.

The Start Scout only the immediate area around the capital to look for good city sites. Remember to take terrain into consideration for city defense when building cities. Once we meet our first civilization, no unprotected settlers! And with workers, make sure there are defensive units close enough to move in to protect. Our workers will be very valuable. After we declare on our first enemy, we need to find their cities. Mustering our first assault force will take a bit of time, but that doesn't mean we can't go and harrass them. 2 archers and a spear grouped together and sitting on a mountain or a hill somewhere between us and them will give us warning of incoming troops and will be able to take some of them out before they get to us.

That's it for now.

Played a test game using the variant rules and this is what I learned. The path of BW, IW, Masonry, Math is a good one because by the time the AI gets writing they will trade contacts and be eager for your Math. The key is not to accept their offers at the beginning of the turn. At this point we will have contact with everyone and the only nation we can’t trade with is the first to contact us (which we are now at war with). Even with straight up trades I was able to trade for everything the AI had. This put me in the position to start researching Lit at which gave me the Great Library. Which is KEY to stay in this game. Here is why, 20 turns goes very quickly in the early game and there were no more trading opportunities after this. Without the GL we will have had to research every tech on our own!

Another lesson I learned is not to explore so aggressively. All we need to know is next city sites and explore for iron. Once iron is found pull back. I think I could have delayed contact for a few more turns if I had only done this. I also feel I built barracks too quickly. Most of the early warriors are need for police work duty anyway. I should have built only one barrack at first and this is the city the will build the vet warrior for upgrading. Besides I ran out of money before for I ran out of warriors in the first upgrade cycle.

Speaking of upgrade cycles with the GL it was possible to hoard gold, connect and reconnect the iron and upgrade vet warrior in waves.

To insure we get the GL I suggest we dedicate our second or third city for the pre-build. The key is to get this city to population 4 before the GA and have four one shield squares so that this city will produce a minimum of 10 shields per turn during the GA. This will give us 200 shields which is halve of what we need for the GL. During the golden age I would make sure this city always has a one shield (doubled to two) to grow into. Once there are enough squares to grow into, then I would turn the worker to mining the bonus grasslands so that at the end of the GA these will remain at two shields.

Sight criteria: By the sea so we can use the Colossus as a pre-build for the Palace. By a fresh water so it can grow past 6 and as many bonus grasslands as possible. The only reason I would build a temple in this city is if expansion gives two or more Bonus Grasslands or a needed resource of luxury. I think temples will be a waste of shields in this game.

After reading Peglegasus post I think we need to work out as a team what our early research path will be. I STRONGLY disagree with researching the Wheel. By the time we finish IW the AI will have the wheel and we will have nothing to trade. There are three techs in PTW the AI is slow in researching Poly, Math and Lit. Math is the easiest for us to get to early. Remember, I will have one and only one trading opportunity. Lets use it well.

Peglegasus' suggestion on walls and raiding archers is a good one.

I would not be too obsessed with delaying the GA. The Legionair is our greatest single advantage. The longer we wait the less of an advantage it will be. I suggest, using the GA for a the goal of building the GL. Grow this city as large as we can before the GA, make sure every square produces a sheild. Here are the numbers: Pop 4 (1 shield corruption) will produce 180 shields during a GA, Pop 5 will produce 220, and a Pop 6 will produce 260. As you can see an early GA is far from a waste if we use it well. The GL will give us much more that a GA every could in gold. Consider the value in gold of all the techs we will gain? If we dely the GA it is just for the purpose of getting our GA city to a high enough population.

Sounds good, Keith. So our desired tech path at the start (unless there are other suggestions) will be Bronze working, Iron Working, Mathematics. We then hope to trade for Writing, the Wheel, Masonry, and whatever else we can get our hands on. Then we need to research Literature right away. If we can get the Great Library we shouldn't need to build any libraries for self research (well... maybe later for the path to military tradition).

We need a spot picked out early to start the pre-build. Maybe by the time we have 3 or 4 towns.

What should our first builds consist of? In my games what worked well were 3 archers (with my worker that means max units with no cost) and then a settler. Then I would build a couple spears for defense. Then barracks in one of my two towns. Town with barracks builds mostly warriors for later upgrades and occasionally a spear or archer. By the way, are we modded for archers having defensive shot? I can't remember. My test games were in the Gotm random scenario so of course mine did. It sure is helpful against those early attacks.

edit: And what about the start position? I'd be tempted to drop the settler right there. Or maybe one move only... to the hill south or southeast to see what else might be near. Otherwise it looks good. All those tiles on the river will be much needed for cash once they are roaded.

Remember, I will have one and only one trading opportunity. Lets use it well.


Why do you say that?

Masonry is needed to get to Mathematics. I agree about libraries. Culture is not an issue in this game as we have to destroy every city we take anyway.

I think our first builds should be warriors. That way we can get a lay of the land sooner. When our sheild yeild is 3 per turn then we might want to think of an archer or spearmen as you only waste one shield, instead of two with a warrior. Even at this I still lean towards warriors early on. The way combat works in Civ a fortified warrior is a better use of sheilds than a fortified spearmen. Warrior is 1 + .5 FRU = 2, a spearman is 2 + 1 =3. Plus you get 2 units the enemy has to fight threw rather than just one. In saying this I am still for building a FEW spearmen, to place in the most threatened areas, but the bulk of our defensive force can be warrior. As for the archers I don't think they will have the defensive bonus so they will be far less valuable. Hopefully we can delay war until Legionairs are on line.

I am for settling on the spot, link up the wine (don't waste time mining until after the GA), roading the BG by the river, then roading the game in the woods. This will give us a road to our first city sight on the SW bank of the river. Then move the worker across the river to road the two BG on the other side of the river.

What do you guys think about cutting the forest down with the game to get more food?

I am for roading Bg only at first, and roading and mining none BG only to connect cities and resources until we run out of BG to road. This way we can get the most from our early GA.

Mad-bax,

Why do I say we will only have one trading opportunity? The AI sells contacts like hot cakes. By refusing all AI initiated offers as I am suggesting you will experience a string of AI initiated offers the first turn you have a tech they want. In one turn you will meet everyone your continant, be at war with the first contact, and trade at the end of the turn with the others. Early in the game it is unlikely that you can research a tech within the next twenty turns that they will be interested in buying. Even if you could manage another trade it will probably be only one more.

keith: there's no trade of contacts until Writing so I'd think, at least initially, there will be some gap between contacts. Also, the announcement page says the map is not Pangea; we might have a situation where we contact a few civs, then have to find another continent, contact a bunch more, etc. Since the AI doesn't do suicide galleys, if the other continents can't contact us, it will be up to us to do suicide galleys (in which case we're at war before we can do much about it) or do research up the Astronomy-Navigation path (in which case the Great Library only helps us with Techs on our initial continent). Or, we clear off our continent, building the Great Library, research up the lower path and sit there with hordes of Cavalry, waiting for the AI to contact US, give us every Tech that two of them know, and then we go to war! :satan: That might work, maybe. (After all, with limited trades available on our continent, we should be well behind any other continents; this should catch us up.)

So, Research wise, do BronzeWorking (trade if available), Ironworking, Masonry (trade if available), Mathematics. After that do we do the Wheel and Horsebackriding, or go up the Religious path to Monarchy?

GA: Early GA may be unavoidable. Monarchy is a long way away from where we are, and our path is not direct. I agree that Monarchy is much more important at this phase then Republic. In an early GA, roaded Rivers spaces will not generate any additional Commerce (3 - 1 = 2), and mined BG's do not produce a 3rd shield, either. Still the Legionaire is so valuable, it is hard to imagine not using them.

Rome placement: in a normal game, I'd move the Settler SW, to the bare Grassland, and have access to the Game space immediately; the Worker would go West and work that river BG right away. If we move the Settler S or SE, the Worker has less desirable moves. A Settler move S, means 2 moves to get the Worker to a river BG to improve; a Settler move SE means no game (very bad) and Worker goes NE to a non-river BG. I think Settler should found in place for hill defense bonus, and Worker go West to Mine, then Road the river BG.

Game Space: we should definitely chop it, and fairly soon. Shield production is a bit awkward to determine the best time; maybe after we have Pottery and are building a Granary. We could build a Barracks first; then some Vet Warriors. If threatened, we could convert to Warrior, or finish Archer. This would incur a 1 gpt cost early on, however. Reduce our research a bit. Just a thought.

Production: assuming Worker mines and roads the BG to W, then the next one South (2 SW from start), Rome will produce 77 Shields at turn 20 (Then 84 on turn 21, and 91 on turn22). Assume we pop a Settler out on turn 22, that give us 60 useable shields. Could be a Barracks, 2 Warriors and an Archer, or 3 Archers. Something along those lines. In general, I like Warriors, to upgrade later to Legionaires, but in this game we might want more initial punch. Maybe even do an archer rush after some development.

Steve,

I was speaking of only trades on our continent and assuming the map and opponents are essential the same as the original GOTM as last month's was.

I guess we will find out soon. Who starts?

and they're off ... saves are available, and two teams have completed round 1!!

I'd recommend we keep the order we were in before. Only question is where to start? Peanut finished off SGOTM2, so Peglegasus might be a good choice to start us off. bigchief hasn't checked in yet. And are we set up for initial moves?

Generals - some suggestions :

Growth : We need to grow as fast as possible. That means a settler factory, and Rome on the start position is ideal. Irrigated game gives loads of food, with mined BG for production. Plus wine for happiness. We should research Pottery fast, chop the forest and start building more Romans.

GA : We should delay the GA until we have a decent ring of productive cities to benefit from it. It will be in Despotism but the more cities we have the better.

Workers : We will need lots of these - fast conquest will depend on our famous Roman Roads for legions to trudge along. We will also need luxuries hooked up to reduce troops needed for MP duty and to save on lux cash.

Defence : Avoid spears for the ancient age. Legions have better defence and can attack. Plus they upgrade from warriors.

Techs : We will run out of trading partners quickly - once they have writing they will build embassies and sign alliances against us. We do not have this option. So we should build the GL to keep us at tech parity into the Middle ages.

Strategy :
1) Settle at start. Pottery at max. 2xWarriors for defence then granary prebuild. Road W BG, chop forest then irrigate & road game then mine BG.

2) Pump settlers and workers from Rome. Settle like crazy in a ring around Rome. Build only warriors (& barracks ?) for legion upgrades. Perhaps a few archers for early offence.

3) Ignore other civs for as long as possible. Perhaps send a warrior out to explore after a while. War when we are ready if possible.

4) Research (or Trade for) :
@max : Pottery(for granary)-
@max : BW-IW(for legions)
@max : Masonary(for prebuilds if needed)
@max : Writing-Lit (for GL)
@min : Maths (for cats)
@min : Wheel-HBR (possibly - horses are very useful and upgrade to Knights)

Then shut off research and save cash.

5) If we get a leader - rush GL if possible, Pyramids if possible( for growth acceleration).

Roster suggestion (on CS's suggestion) -
1) Peglegasus (20 turns to start)
2) Bigchief
3) Civ-steve
4) Keith Larson
5) Peanut

We should get started soon, so lets focus on our tactics for the first 60 turns (one round each). See Strategy point 1) and 2) above for my thoughts.

...

Strategy :
1) Settle at start. Pottery at max. 2xWarriors for defence then granary prebuild. Road W BG, chop forest then irrigate & road game then mine BG.

...

4) Research (or Trade for) :
@max : Pottery(for granary)-
@max : BW-IW(for legions)
@max : Masonary(for prebuilds if needed)
@max : Writing-Lit (for GL)
@min : Maths (for cats)
@min : Wheel-HBR (possibly - horses are very useful and upgrade to Knights)

...

I agree with most points. Point 1 is shield poor in my opinion. Not mining the BG means that Rome gains only 2 shields/turn for turns 1-9 (18 total), than 4 spt on turns 10-15 (+24) when the game space is in play. Worker chops on turn 15 adding 10 shields (total of 52 to this point), leaving Rome with either 2 shields/turn production and a cleared game, or 3 shield/turn using an unroaded river BG. You need 80 to build 2 warriors and a Granary, so that is not until turn 27 using the game right away, or turn 25 using the unroaded BG. And Rome is still just a 3 shield/turn city, 2nd city is not built, and there's probably at least 1 civ at war with us sending stacks of units our way (ok, 2 or 3 warriors most likely)

I'd suggest following the steps I spelled out earlier: move Worker West, mine and road BG; move Worker South, mine and road BG, then move to Game space, clear, irrigate and road. The first two spaces take 10 turns each to develop, and give a 5 shield/turn capability even after the game is cleared. And Rome pops out a Settler on turn 22, so a 2nd city is built allowing more research and a capability to build units while Rome is building it's Granary. We also would have an army of 3 Regular Archers, or a Barracks with 2 Vet Warriors and a Vet Archer (or some combination of Vets and Regulars). This also allows us to research BronzeWorking first, giving us an opportunity to trade for Pottery if available; I don't advocate building a lot of spearmen, but it's nice to have the capability if needed, and the sooner the better. (Building Granary right away requires a start on Pottery ASAP.)

I also noted point 4; I'd suggest researching BronzeWorking first if following the scenario I've laid out.

I like settling on the start spot. Probably best not to scout at all until we have established a 2nd city; let the AI come our way first.

I agree with Great Library, if we get a GL and Know Literature. Otherwise, Pyramids are quite nice.

Big Chief checking in. I have been on a mad dash to finish GOTM32. There was never a chance at a good score, but it could have been one of the best comebacks ever, however I had my heart ripped out at the end when I suffered a humiliating defeat. Now that that one is over, I can concentrate on this game, and I am ready to play when my time comes.

I agree with most of the suggestions posted above. I do think The Wheel and HBR are important. Leigons are great, but they take forever to get to the battle. If we meet a couple of expansion scouts early, their home countries could be 20 turns away before we can even get there, putting us at war with 2 civs before we can even attack the first one.

We must keep building settlers, since we can't keep any cities, and we need to build as many workers as we can stand. They will have to go along with the first wave of leigons and build a road to our enemy, so more can follow quickly, and leigon armies are useful up until cavs.

I agree with not exploring too much, and delaying contact as long as possible.

We are militaristic, and barracks are cheap. I think we should build them in as many towns as possible. I don't think we can afford to have only one or 2 towns producing units.

As for the wonders, I agree that the Great Library is a must. If we can get a leader early enough for the Great Library, The Pyramids, or Lighthouse that would be nice. Otherwise I think we should for sure use an early leader to build an army. Militaristic + Hero Epic = many leaders in this game, if we survive. The AI will almost never attack an army in the open, so if our troops, settlers, and workers are escorted by an army, they won't get attacked as they trudge slowly towards their target.

Let's hope we are on continents, and the other is too far for the AI civs to reach. Maybe we can keep our rep intact, if we can wipe out the civs on our landmass before contact is made with the others.

We won't be able to extort techs for peace, and may not have much of trade value to get any techs. We are pretty much going to have to do all of our own research, so we must build libraries and universities.

It is going to be a struggle from the very beginning. Even though we are going to be playing a war type variant, we can't afford to neglect any other part of the game.

It is going to be a challenge to defend our title. I think the winner of the of the gold laurel, may well be the only team that survives.

Or ... Option 3. Move Worker West, Mine, Road, then move to Games and chop. Chop finishes at end of turn 21 (so effectively turn 22.) Rome gets 2 spt for turns 1-7 (14), 3 spt for turn 8-9 (20), then 5 spt for turns 10-19 (70); at size 3 it gains 6 spt, so turn 20 (76), turn 21 (82), turn 22 (98, with chop just finished). 3 Warriors and a Granary would waste 8 shields (might as well not chop at this point); but 2 Warriors, an archer, and a Granary would finish on turn 23 with only 2 shields wasted. Rome is back to 4 spt, so in 8 turns it would spit out a Settler, turn 31 (maybe a turn earlier as it is gets at least 3 food / turn and with the Granary.)

This option would suggest researching Pottery first and gives us an extra unit.

(edit: hi bigchief! I read your post; nice comeback attempt, but the 2nd place civ snuck in a spaceship while you were taking care of the 1st place civ. Ouch!)

So should I go first as suggested? If you all think we are ready I can play it tonight. Last minute suggestions anyone?

(edit: hi bigchief! I read your post; nice comeback attempt, but the 2nd place civ snuck in a spaceship while you were taking care of the 1st place civ. Ouch!)

They were the 2nd place civ in the space race, but actually I was first in score, and had been for quite a long time, I was just so far behind in tech.

So should I go first as suggested? If you all think we are ready I can play it tonight. Last minute suggestions anyone?

I think we have hashed out our opening plan pretty good, so I say go ahead and play when you are ready. We can spend some more time planning after you play and we get a better feel for what we are up against. And, it is within the rules to stop during your turns and discuss if needed. After reading some of the other teams threads from the previous games, they tended to do that some.

All right, I need to go re-download a screen capture program (I just set up a new hard drive) and then I'll get started. Last minute question: should I go straight for bronze working to iron, or go pottery first?

My vote is still with the BW/IW path.

Ok that's the direction I was leaning so that's what I'll do. Here goes.... ;)

Save has been uploaded. Pretty tame so far :crazyeye:

1) 4000bc settled on spot. worker west. bronze at 100%
2) 3950bc worker roading bonus grass
3) 3900bc roading
4) 3850bc roading
5) 3800bc road done. now mining.
6) 3750bc warrior complete. milling about the town.
7) 3700bc nothing to report

8) 3650bc nada.

9) 3600bc nothin.

10) 3550bc not much

11) 3500bc Rome size 2, mine and second warrior complete. worker south across river to bonus grass. warrior 2 exploring southwest. expansion reveals wheat on plains east.

12) 3450bc worker roading. warrior west to hill. sees river to coast, forest with game, and 2 bg's. nice spot.

13) 3400bc my weak micromanaging skills are revealed! we have 3 warriors and a worker, our max without upkeep. settler build in 6 but growth not for 8. i could have built an archer. oh well. building another warrior in 2 and then settler in 6.

14) 3350bc warrior 2 s. warrior 3 se. drop science to 80% without effecting research time.

16) 3300bc warrior 4 complete. settler and growth in 6. worker now mining. warrior 2 east. warrior 3 north.

17) 3250bc warrior 1 east to hill. sees cattle on south coast. lakes near cattle.

18) 3200bc warriors pulling back towards town.

19) 3150bc 1 turn to bronze. warriors heading back.

20) 3100bc bronze working completed. growth and settler in 2 turns.


And there you have it. Will post a screen in a minute.

edit: oh, bother. screen capture program not working and i gotta go to bed. will try again in the morning. anyway, the save is up

aaaaand we're off! Peglegasus: you shorted yourself 2 turns! (I don't see a turn 15 on your turn log, and 4000 BC is sort of a freebie.) Doesn't matter; bigchief can play 12 turns.

Not bad at all; we do have an extra Warrior which is costing us 1 gpt; an archer is probably a better idea, but once we have our 2nd city the cost is no more.

Here is a main image screenshot to ponder:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/PEANUT_sg3_bc3100Main.JPG

And the list of our opponents:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/PEANUT_sg3_bc3100F10.JPG

Settler in 2 turns. Where to found the next city? Ideally I think the next site should be able to share the game space near Rome and one of the improved BG's, that way it's productive immediately, and can benefit 1 turn in 3 from the increased food that the cleared game space will provide. Perhaps the hill space 4 moves SW of Rome; it shares the GAme and one of the BG's, it is on the river so no aquaduct needed, and it is a hill space for defensive purposes. Another Hill space 3 NW and 1 SW move from Rome also shares these characteristics. In either case, be sure to escort the Settler with at least 1 Warrior.

We just researched Bronze-Working, so the Iron-Working has no research put into it yet. We've done a good job of hiding so far - no contacts. Perhaps we should research Pottery next to get a Granary going in Rome shortly. We want something to build to put the shields gained from chopping the forest into.

We're off to a good start.

Roster and status:

bigchief <--- UP!!!
civ_steve
KeithLarson
Peanut
Peglegasus -- just played

civs contacted and dates: NONE


(edit: I just checked our F4 diplomacy screen; no other faces and our advisor is saying "Make more friends!"; Ha Ha, he is definitely not with the program yet!)

I've got it. I will play this evening or early in the morning. What about putting the 2nd city where it is shown in the attached image? It's on a hill for defense. It can immediately share the game tile with Rome. It will have 2 BG tiles of it's own from the start. If we can get CB and Pottery, we can chop the 3 forests to help build a temple and granary (temple first if possible, then we can chop another 1 or 2 forests for the granary). After the border expansion, we can have 2 irrigated game, 4 BG tiles, 4 hills, and maybe still a forest or 2. This will be a super factory. We may even be able to do the 4 turn settler & warrior combo. Of course, it is not on fresh water, and we would have to share some tiles with Rome, and it very much depends on getting CB and Pottery early.

What do the rest of you think about this?

I don't know what happened with my being short 2 turns :confused: was late I guess. Was wondering why I ended at 3100 bc.

I scouted south initially because of our map position. Figured it was the least likely direction to meet another civ. There are lots of options for good city sites as you can see in the screenie.

I have a question for the micromanagers in the group. I was using the roaded and mined BG tile and the game/forest tile while Rome was pop 2. If I had used the second BG tile which had been roaded but not mined yet we would have had one extra gold for research but would have been 1 less shield. That would have meant extra turns for the settler. I felt that the settler was a priority so I went with the extra production from the forest/game. What would you have done? I realize now that if I had used the roaded tile instead I probably wouldn't have ended up with an extra warrior. I swear I learn something from every turnset with you all.

Also at this point in the save research is at 80% with Iron in 36. Moving a worker to the roaded and newly mined BG will speed the way to iron... but in 2 turns our settler pops out. Won't that drop research back to a 40 turn deal basically? I think in my save I left the citizen on the game tile so they should probably be moved. After I uploaded I moved the citizen and increased research and found that Iron could be shortened to 30 turns.

And this morning I realized my screen capture problem. I downloaded a trial version that doesn't let you save any shots! What's the point in that? "yippeee it actually took a picture of the screen and I can't do anything at all with it! Joy!" Wonder where I downloaded my other one from that I used before.

Bigchief, I like the location of your suggested city. I think a three square ring is the way to go anyway. I makes sense to share improved squares in the early game.

I can't help but note that the map is very different from the original GOTM 16. I wonder what else will be different?

We need to talk some on how we will handle first contact. The way this varient is set up is different than the way I have played before. I always assumed you had to declare war at first sight. The first deplomatic screen opens some possiblities. One being purposely staying one step behind in the tech race and having little gold. In this way no one will have any reason to contact us. I know this sounds radical, but if we are going for the GL, we will catch up anyway.

Of the F10 list of nations the Greeks are by far the worse case scenario, followed by the Iroquois. An early war with either could be tough. I think we all need to agree to stop when we see our first opponent and map out a plan appropriate for that nation.

What do the rest of you think?

bigchief: that's a good location for a city; I think a better spot is the hills space 1 N 1 NE from the hills you indicated (I'll load a picture later). This hills space is on the river, has both game in its expanded radius, accesses 3 new BG (that we know about; more spaces come into play in the black unscouted zone), is distance 3 from Rome (the hills space you indicate is distance 4), and has lots of river spaces in its radius.

Peglegasus: in this case, with river spaces already generating 1 commerce, I would have mined the BG's first then built the road. (Often I do it the other way around, which allows the Worker to run away if need be.) 2nd Settler is important, so production is fairly critical. An archer in this situation is probably a better way to go. The Settler build will drop Research momentarily, but it will jump back up once the 2nd city is founded; we should definitely maintain a fast research clip currently.

Keith Larson: I thought the map looked different; I didn't go back to check though. It seems that we need 3 Techs currently: Iron-Working which we are researching, and Pottery and Ceremonial Burial. I think I count 4 Expansionistic and 5 Religious civs, so I'd be surprised if we can't trade for both once contact is made. (The Iroqouis could provide both!) I'd suggest we keep with the Iron-working research.

First contact Trading: this may be our only chance to trade for Techs, so I think we have to do so. I have no problem trading away any of our existing Techs - Warrior Code, Alphabet or Bronze-Working. What if we finish research of Iron-Working and then make contact with someone? Chances are it will be a 2nd or higher contact. If so we have a little time to gain a more valuable Tech. In that case, I'd reserve Iron-Working for Writing, Mysticism, Math, etc. I could probably persuade myself to trade it for Masonry or the Wheel (or both); probably not for Ceremonial Burial or Pottery (but maybe as part of a 2 for 1 deal - like Iron-Working for Pottery and Wheel.)

To summarize: I suggest we trade any of our 1st tier Techs for other 1st tier Techs, and whatever Gold we can get (remember, no haggling), and reserve Iron-Working for multiple 1st tier Techs, or a 2nd tier Tech, if we have the option to wait.

Also, Greeks would be tough with their 3 defense unit. We could lose a lot of units attacking those; best to do harrassing and wait for Legions and Cats. Iroqouis aren't bad until they get horsemen; perhaps try for horse denial as a strategy if they are nearby. Babylon and Aztecs have early UUs and GAs; they're not very strong units, but the GA will make them super productive meaning a lot of effort on our part to hold them off. The Aztec Jag in particular could be bad for harassing us - pillaging spaces, killing Workers, then withdrawing.

civ steve: My point was not so much about trading, but about delaying war. I personally feel that the cost of being in an early war is greater than any techs we may gain through trading. If we can stay right on the heels of our opponents until we get to Literature (which we will be the first to research) they will have no reason to open a diplomatic screen and thus no war! Just think what with means. While all the other teams are fighting desperate wars of survival, we are quitely expanding our empire, building our SOD and the turn we get Literature the first diplomatic screen opens, we declare war and our SOD heads for our enemy!

Keith: What is your proposed research path? To stay behind we would probably have to avoid IronWorking right now. Forging straight on this path we should now do Writing, then Literature, trying to finish GLib right at that time. However, that would mean no Granaries, no Temples, and no knowledge of Iron or Horses at this time.

Maybe a better way is to research Pottery now, to allow Granary builds. Then do Ceremonial Burial to allow culture where needed. After that, do Writing. The delay should be enough that we don't research Writing first (triggering a possible trade), but we wont be far behind either. Then Literature at full tilt, trying to time a GLib build to finish about that time.

This is just a thought on how to implement your strategy. It seems a bit risky, but with several developed cities and sufficient Spearmen, Archers and Warriors, we might be able to pull it off (just in case they contact us anyway). Is this along the lines of what you were thinking?

Maybe a better way is to research Pottery now, to allow Granary builds. Then do Ceremonial Burial to allow culture where needed. After that, do Writing. The delay should be enough that we don't research Writing first (triggering a possible trade), but we wont be far behind either. Then Literature at full tilt, trying to time a GLib build to finish about that time

I think on emperor difficulty we will get too far behind if we research ceremonial burial and pottery ourselves. I think it's probably about time we made first contact and try and trade for pottery and whatever else is available. I think that if we stay on track for Iron Working by the time we finish it the AI will already have writing, the wheel, etc. Or we should research writing ourselves and trade for Iron Working.

Generals - looks good so far. Your points are good CS and others. I would not be keen on researching CB but Pottery is a must for faster growth. We should not need much culture this game and we can get happiness through connecting luxuries.

I would urge delaying war as soon as possible, which means delaying contact as long as possible. If that means being ignorant so as to avoid AI initiated contacts then ok. Growth is the key for us at this stage - the more cities we can plant then the bigger armed force we can muster and the better value we will gain from our GA.

Once we get IW then in Legions we will own a powerful offensive and defensive unit which will serve us well until Knights appear.

So is the concensus then to reseach Pottery (avoiding the trade), and enable faster growth, then research Writing and on to Literature? Plan for a GLib build? Meanwhile, build up empire, expand cities, get Barracks going, build up a force of Vet Warriors (and Vet Archers with some Spearmen); once we learn Literature save up money for upgrades.

An issue is not knowing where Iron is. We have to plan for building GLib quickly!!

I am for sticking with Iron Working. There are 12 civs in this game. If it's like the original GOTM game, there is more land than normal, but the civs are still likely to be packed in close together. We can't afford to not have iron. It would be really bad if the first two civs we meet are far away, and we also have to declare on a nearby civ to get Iron.

I also think there will plenty of trade opportunities early on. Whether we like it, or not, we will be contacted by someone and at war soon. But, with the number of other civs out there, we will be able to trade some before having to go to war with some of them. CB and Pottery are too easy to get from trading or huts to take a chance on loosing Iron, even if it means we go to war a few turns sooner. I say we go Iron, Writing, Lit. and count on getting pottery and CB from a hut or trades.

I will be playing in the morning. That is about 12 hours from the time of this post. I will read back through the thread before playing, but hopefully we will have some agreement as to the direction we are going to go in.

I realize that what I am suggesting is very risky, but it would give us a chance to build up before we go to war. As long as we don't have any techs the AI wants, a strong military and not enough gold to purchase a tech the AI will leave us alone. In a normal game trading for pottery is a no brainer, but in this game the cost is war either immediately or in 20 turns. That is a steep price for a tech that can be researched so quickly. I say Pottery, Masonry (to start pre-build), Writing, Literature, Iron Working. I doubt we will be able to trade for IW without giving up Literature which we don't want to do at all costs. The hard part will be fighting a holding action until we get IW. It may make sense to move IW up before Lit as we will be doing a pre-build anyway. I also suggest after about 10 more turn to agressively explore the map. I doubt we will have anything of value the AI will want and researching known techs will speed our research up.

keith: two questions. 1.) If you don't contact a civ immediately after meeting one of their units or cities, do you still have the ability to initiate diplomacy in F4 later? Even if one of their units or cities is not currently visible? (I don't know; I've always initiated diplomacy at first contact before) 2.) If you haven't officially contacted them, are you sure we still get the research reduction for known techs?

Estimating Tech research turns: Pottery (10), Masonry (25), Writing (30), Literature (20) is 85 turns from now. (These might be a bit pessimistic). Roughly 450 BC. If we get reduced research costs, this might take 15 turns off or so, making it about 750 BC. Everyone else will be Middle Ages for sure; if we don't get GreatLibrary we are totally hosed!! I assume the upshot of this is to build a big Knight Army and stomp around; at this point we don't know where Horses or Iron are; the AI will surely have them connected and be producing units.

Rome could build a Granary, and then Great Library, in about 55 turns from now. (It's almost the same time with or without the Granary, and I'm assuming for this example that Pottery is researched next.) Another city, assuming it gets some Joined Workers to help it along, might build it in 60-65 turns from date of founding (assuming size 6 with 2 MP's, 1 Luxury and about 20%Luxury tax to keep the city out of CD.) We're right at turn 20. I don't advocate using Rome or city#2 to build the GLib, so it will be about turn 40 before this city get's built. Say Turn 100 to turn out GreatLib, or about 550 BC.

IMO, this is too much delay. For every city we build, every local AI will also build one. I think the key to this game is learning IronWorking, finding the Iron and controlling it. That way, we build our Legionaires, and the AI gets Archers/Spearmen/Warriors and Horsemen (although we can try to control horses too.) I don't mean hook up every source, but make it real hard for the AI to do so. Start the wars soon (but not too soon, and in order; I'm not totally masochistic :) ), just to harass the AI, slow their research down, make them waste units coming to us. Then build up to take the war to them. After we control our continent, then we really develop it, saving up for future invasions. (It would really suck if M-B changed the GOTM to be Pangea!)

I'd suggest research of IronWorking (say 30 turns to do), maybe trade with them then or shortly before (getting Pottery), set up city#2 as the Settler factory (2 games within radius, eventually) and Rome as the military builder (Barracks, then Vet Archers/Warriors for a while.) We are Militaristic; I'd set up city #3 or #4 to pre-build for GreatLib and see if we can generate a GreatLeader to make the job easier. Assuming we can control the local AI, don't take them all the way out; leave them a city or two, still at war, which will generate an occasional Archer that we can try to get a GLeader from. At that point (if we get to that point) we can take them out anytime, and we might get to rush a bunch of Wonders that way.

Civ-Steven: To answer your questions, yes they will show up on the F4 and yes our research will speed up even if you do not make "official contact."

I realize that what I am suggesting is risky. I am not opposed to still going IW next and hope for the best. I just think IW has a high chance of initiating the "official contact" and thus war. If this is the case we need to be ready for war in 30 turns.

Keith: thanks for the answers! I didn't know that would be the case.

I agree with the "ready to be at war in 30 turns", also, if we go IW next.

Turn 0 3100BC - Nothing

Turn 1 3050BC - A Hoplite walks past (no contact)

Turn 2 3000 BC - Rome: Settler -> warrior. Worker moves to connect wines. Hoplite moves next to our warrior (no contact)

Turn 3 2950BC - Warriors Explore

Turn 4 2900BC - Veii founded

Turn 5 2850 - Warriors explrore. Worker starts roads on wine hill.

Turn 6 2800 - Rome: Warrior -> Barracks

Turn 7 2750 - Warriors explore

Turn 8 2710 - Veii: Warrior -> barracks

Turn 9 2670 - Warriors Explore

Turn 10 2630 - Warriors Explore

Turn 11 2590 - Warriors Explore

Turn 12 2550 - Rome: Barracks -> Archer

Here is the Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC2550_01.SAV)

I saw that a save file had been uploaded, so I downloaded it and got a sneak peek at bigchief's final save.

No contact with the Greeks; this feels so wrong :) Oh well. Upon looking at the save I moved the Warrior out of Rome to fortify on the Wines space. (It would be very bad if the Hoplite moved there, then Alex contacted us!!) I also bumped Research up to 90%, reducing the time to 13 turns.

We're at turn 30 now, with no contacts. Except for possibly Warrior code, we match Techs with Greece; unless they've made other contacts or researched something else, they have nothing to offer for it. Greece's Hoplites are a worse case scenario; we'd lose a lot of Archers against them. I think the best strategy (when war comes) is to block their Hoplites with Warriors, letting them attack at 1:1 odds; any Archers we make are more to counter other Greek units that aren't protected by Hoplite. Following this path we should build more Warriors (perhaps run a slight deficit at times), and cities as fast as possible to support the army.

So, we can hurry along, learn IW as fast as possible, probably trigger earlier contact and earlier war, and have better chance to trade IW, and know where Iron is earlier.

Or, we can proceed to where we almost know it, say 2 turns away, then turn research to minimum, adding say 10 turns delay in possible contact. We would gain a little more time, but might lose any trade possibility.

(I'm leaning towards the 1st path.)

Here is another screenshot of the greek border area. From what we can see he has at least 6 mountains in his capital border. I lightened the area that we couldn't see, and it looks like there is a hill for sure, and possibly a hill or forest also. The first tile of tundra that we can see to the SE of Rome is far enough north that if you take a direct line east, he may have tundra in is capital borders as well. He may not have much to work with. Unless the rest of his hidden land is really good, we certainly have 2 cities that are much better than what he has.

Greece is the worse case scenario! I definately believe that warriors defending against pillaging Hoplits is the most economical path. Without capapults the archer to hoplit lose ratio would eat us alive. The added benefit of this stratagy is we will have plenty of warriors to up grade to Legionaires. I reality attacking Hoplites will be attacking at worse than 1:1 and we will have the attrition advantage. In fact, I think our early strategy is to fight an war of attrition: Bait the AI into making stupid attacks, pillage their homeland, pick off workers and settlers. All the while we are building up for a Legionaire and catapult rush.

Thus the following build priorities:
1) Enough warriors to cover every improved threatened improve tile, city and worker with 2 warriors. We don't need to cover non-threatened tiles. In fact, I have found such tactics leads the AI to move around trying to get to the uncovered tile (which of course we cover once they are in range). The other thing we need warrior for is to explore in hopes of an IW trade or better yet our first war with someone other than the Greeks.
2) Archers to pick off their archers. Typically the AI does not think about defending attackers with spearmen, rather they use the spearmen exclusively for pillaging and city defense. What we don't want to have happen is the archers getting near their frustrated pillaing Hoplits. They will pair them up at that point. So the key is to get them on rout to us.
3) Spearmen for pillaging, defense of key areas, stacked with archer killer stacks.
4) Settlers and workers to expand and improve. This is just as much a part of a war of attrition as attacks against the enemy. We will lose the war of attrition if we get too far behind in cities.
5) Walls only as needed (of course we need masonry).

As for slowing down I think two factors come into play. 1) Have we found any other nations who we can trade with? 2) Do we want to save gold for immediate Legionnair upgrades?

All very good points! Maybe we research at full, and see how many potential contacts we have. If we only have 2 (Greece and ???), or only just Greece, maybe at that point we decide to delay finishing IW until we have 3. If we have 3 as we're nearing our research of IW, perhaps we finish it off, and get ready to trade.

If we do have multiple potential contacts, who do we choose to contact first? If we choose someone further away than Greece, this will give us more time to prepare, both for the far off civ and for Greece. OTOH, if Greece appears weak and vulnerable to being harassed and pillaged, they're probably the better choice.

It would be nice to meet an Expansionistic civ; that would get us Pottery (potentially), and they may have picked up other Techs from huts to trade for.

hehe. i had a dream last night ...

"The Great Wall has been completed in Athens"

doh! I wonder who our other neighbors are. Please not Carthage too!

Clarification on the "contact issue." I did some testing and the way it works is this: IF you walk up to the border of a country the contact is remembered on the F4 screen. If you see a unit but don't open a screen that contact is NOT remembered. This is different than I thought. It this point it does not impact our game as we have been to the border of Greece, but we will have to decide as a team what we will do with the next sighting.

I thought that was the case for a sighting of an AI unit. Makes sense that a border sighting would persist as an available contact, I guess.

I think we'd like at least 3 civs for initial trading, so if we've found a 2nd civ's city radius, and see a 3rd civ's units, and have just learned IW, that's probably a good time to make contact. Otherwise, I think I'd rather find their cities, and not contact their units. (Unless we're already at war, I guess.)

(Recently I've been having these odd thoughts about Galley exploration and how the changing map gets back to the home area, especially in the case of suicide galleys!! I'm imagining these ships loaded up with cages and cages of homing pigeons; every 40 years (or 25, or 20, or 10) the descendents of the original crew open a cage and send back a pigeon with the latest Map knowledge. Just a random musing I remembered due to the odd happenings within Civ3.)

Peglegasus: I don't believe Carthage was on the F10 space race list. Greece should be the only 3 defense unit we see until Feudalism is out.

BTW, I've got it and plan to play tomorrow morning.

Keith - I read your last post, and I thought I remembered Alexander being on the diplo screen after seeing the hoplite, but well before I saw the Greek border. I wasn't 100% sure, so I went back to an auto save, but it was too late for me to test. I then went back to the original save and played the first 3 turns the same way I played them before. Alexander is on the diplo screen, and we are not near, and can't see, the Greek border.

Here is a save to look at it:

No further inputs posted - I'm off to play the turn sequence.

Perhaps the sighting mystery has to do with who see who first. I both cases in my test game I sighted the AI because of my move. The very next AI move they moved out of my sight. Now if it were the other way, perhaps "contact" would have been made. Another possiblity is that a line of sight has to be maintained for a full turn. Not just one player half. No wonder why there is confusion on this issue!

You may be right about the one full turn thing. On my first turn, I just caught a quick glimpse of the hoplite as he passed by, and at the end of the turn he was no longer in sight. The next turn I saw him again as our warrior stepped on a mountain. Then he came towards our warrior. The next turn our warrior and the hoplite were standing side by side. It was at the end of that turn that I saw Alexander on the diplo screen.

Alright Peanuts! Please buckle your seat belts and remain inside until the ride has come to a complete halt. (This wont be for at least 100 turns!!)

Turn Log:

Turn 0, 2550 AD
One of 'them' is next to our Wines. We will fortify our Roman MP (not needed at this point due to Luxury) on Wines; our Stone Axe will convince this 'Hoplite' to move on.
Tell Scientists to increase their investigations into this 'Iron' concept. (90% - 13 turns)

Turn 1, 2510 AD
Wisely, the 'Hoplite' goes North. Sure, they act friendly, like they're one of us; but we know better.
Rome's Barracks is set to build a Warrior next.
North Warrior sees another Luxury (Silks)
NE Warrior sees outline of 2nd Greek city (more of 'them')

Turn 2, 2470 AD
Rome fin Warrior, starts another
Veii grows to size2; 1 turn to Barracks, 10 turns to IronWorking
NE Warrior sees Sparta city from Mtns; they have Incense

Turn 3, 2430 AD
Veii fin Barracks - Warrior next
Adjust Science to 80% to pay for maintenance on Barracks
S Warrior locates a source of Spice nearby
Work goes to River BG near Veii

Turn 4, 2390 AD
Rome fin Warrior, beg Settler
NW Warrior finds a large collection of Spice (3 more tiles)


Turn 5, 2350 AD
N Warrior sees another 'Hoplite' further North, and a hint of a cultural Boundary (pinkish)


Turn 6, 2310 AD
Veii fin Warr, beg Settler


Turn 7, 2270 AD
Euuugh! There are aliens everywhere. That silly looking 'Hoplite' is still to the North; N Warrior sees the Pink Culture; they call themselves the 'French'. N Warrior also sees a scout from some people that call themselves the 'Russians', and NW Warrior sees an 'orange' civ just ahead.

Taking deep breath (this scout guy smells bad!!!) we decide we need to see what else is going on in the World

Russia:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2710Russ.JPG

for Alphabet they offer 20 Gold (nyet!!)
what do they want for Masonry - no offer
what do they want for Pottery - no offer
what do they want for Ceremonial Burial - no offer
what do they want for IronWorking - Alphabet + 4 Gold (Bingo!!!!)

She was SO pleased we could come to a deal. We don't like her attitude - Declare War!!!

What do you know, there is Iron very close to Rome! (We dedicate a shrine to mad-bax, the new god of resource location)

Gearing ourselves for a trying visit, we seek out an emissary from Greece

Greece:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2710Greeks.JPG

Alex has the Wheel! We've met our War Quotient for this Millenium, so we decide not to rid the earth of him and his 'Hoplites' ... for now. You just wait until turn 57!!

Somehow the 'pink' culture seems more inviting -

France:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2710France.JPG

After, ahem, some 'negotiations', we ask Joan what she wants for Masonry and Pottery, just IronWorking and 16 Gold

(I think we're getting to like 'contact'), we bid adieu

We go back to Alex's court:
"what do you offer for Iron-Working", he gives us Wheel and 8 Gold

Set Research to Mathematics, at 10%, +6 gpt

Turn 8, 2230 AD
NW Warrior sees a Blue Warrior near the coast; he says he owes allegiance to Hammurabi of Babylon

Babylon:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2230Babylon.JPG

no trade at this point

Turn 9, 2190 AD
NW Warrior finally contacts the 'orange'; it is the English

England:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2190England.JPG

no trade at this point


Turn 10, 2150 AD
Rome fin Settler, beg Warrior
Settler off to found at River Delta, to South of Rome

fini
END OF LOG

In 2270 I could see that we had 3 cultures around us, Greeks, France and England. It appeared likely to me (still not 100% sure), that East of France was a coast. So when I saw Russia's scout, it seemed to me that Russia was likely to be 'beyond' France and England. Before it ran away, I decided it was the best time to do initial contact; if I'm correct, it will be at least 20 turns or so before Russia can get her forces near us (they haven't seen our core cities yet!!); by that time we should be Legioned and quite ready for whatever she sends.

Our research of IW paid off; the reduced cost of IW due to our reseach investment, coupled with Russia not having gotten Alphabet yet, formed a golden deal.

I chose to contact Greece next. Again, in 20 turns we should be ready to start operations with our Legions, and I don't think Greece will be able to stop us at that point.

I contacted France next. Not because I thought Joan should be the 3rd civ we go to war with, but I wanted to see what deals were available for our recently acquired IronWorking. I was able to get two important initial technologies, Masonry and Pottery. I then went back to Greece and got Wheel, gaining us the Horse locations.

I'd almost contacted England, when a Babylonian Warrior happened along. Since they are 'beyond' England, it's probably useful to have them in the queue before Elizabeth, so I contacted them. Finally I contacted England.

Several civs have Ceremonial Burial (the only Tech we don't have so far), but we only have gold to offer for it. I think it's time for a minimum research of Math to save up gold for Legion upgrades; so I didn't trade for it.

Here's a zoomed image of our map; Light Blue circles are Iron deposits (1 just 2 spaces from Rome!), Dark Blue is where I contacted the Babylonian Warrior; Light Brown is where I contacted the Russian Scout.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/Peanut_sg3_bc2150MainZoom.JPG

The Iron near Greece will be difficult to get to, especially for Greece. Unless there's another source near them, we should be knocking on their door with Legions before they hook it up.

A future city should secure the iron to the North (between us and England/France), probably sooner than later.

I recommend forming the next city at the Red Circle; this is distance 3 from Rome, it's coastal and on the river. It's not on a hill, but this should be an interior city eventually which shouldn't require the defensive bonus. I'm thinking it should spit out a Worker, then start on a pre-build for Great Library. (I just realized it was unaccompanied; I reloaded the game and moved 2 warriors out with it, so that escort will be in the official upload.)

Veii is working on a Settler; now that we have Pottery it might make sense to switch to a Granary. I'll leave that decision to Keith, with input from the team.

I checked F3 advisor; with our 9 Warrior army (3 Vets), we are Strong compared to France, and Average to everybody else. Not bad, Peanuts!!

Finally, England is really taking off. She has 5 cities at the end of this sequence! They might be spread around; likely if she got them from huts. (In fact, it would kind of suck if the orange culture is due to a hut and not her native core; that might put Babylon and/or Russia closer than I thought.)

Okay, team roster:

bigchief
civ_steve -- Just Played
Keith Larson <--- UP!!!
Peanut
Peglegasus

and civ contact status:

Russia, contact in 2270, at WAR
Greece, contact in 2270, must be at War by 1575 BC
France, contact in 2270, must be at War by 1075 BC
Babylon, contact in 2230, must be at War by 610 BC
England, contact in 2190, must be at War by 210 BC

I'll be gone this weekend, be back Sunday night. Enjoy! next!!

(edit: here's the 2150 BC Save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC2150_01.SAV))

Requesting team input before my turn.

First of all great set of turns Steve!

I am all for Civ-steve’s GL pre-build location. What do the rest of you think?

The Veii Settler vs. Granary choice is harder than it seems on the surface. Normally I would switch to granary, but one of our short term goals (amass gold for upgrading) will be hampered by a granary. Not only will the granary cost us 1G per turn, a new city will give us 4 more free support. We are currently supporting 3 units as it is. A settler would also secure the northern iron or the SW horses. With this being said the long term benefits of a granary are amplified by an early build. I have had games literally turn around for me because I built a granary. Their power is a wonder to behold! One final point Veii with it’s two bonus games is the most logical choice for a granary. I think I have convinced myself to switch to granary unless I hear otherwise.

Next worker job? If I build the granary I think I will chop the woods to get the food flowing into Veii. I think we will want the shields to go to Veii so we will have to make temporarily switch Rome to a Wonder (the new city will have finished it’s work and have started it’s pre-build).

Granary would be nice, but there is not that much room for expansion anyway. By the time it's built there may only be room to settle 2 or 3 more places. By the time we can build a granary and then produce a settler from that town, we could have 2 or 3 settlers built, and would be in much better shape with our military.

In a normal game, I would say granary for sure, but we can't think or play like we normally would. This is an entirely different game. We really are going to have to play this like a 5 to 8 city challenge, then worry about expansion after we eliminate some of the others.

Thanks for the input bigchief. I agree that we will have to play it different, but not at the expense of the bigger game. Because of the more rapid growth rate a granary does make up its cost over time. With our tight build we have much more than 2 or 3 city sites left. What do the rest of you think?

Veii is definitely the place to build a Granary; this will have many eventual long term benefits: we can't capture cities with foreign citizens in them, so we will need lots of Settlers, and we need many more Workers than we currently have (both to improve the land, connect resources, etc, and to bulk up our existing cities.)

For me its almost 50-50; a 4th city means we can get up to 16 free unit support, just about enough, and if we place it right we can bring both the 2nd game and the horses into our cultural radius.

A granary would take 8 additional turns past the 4 more turns to turn out a Settler (maybe less if we can chop the game), so 12 more total, but after that a Settler would probably take only 5 turns.

Well, I'm leaning now towards - build the Settler in Veii and found a 4th city, properly placed to gain Horses and 2nd Game for Veii; have Rome crank out Vet Warriors, Veii then works on Granary (after Settler), and city 3 do Spear, Worker, then pre-build for GL, city 4 do Spear, Worker, then whatever.

Probably should have some Warriors out as an early Warning system, as our forces build up.

I like your suggestion Civ-Steve. This is the best of both worlds. We DO need a worker/settler factory for the reasons you state. But to do this propery we need two bonus food tiles, while this build order will give us. I also like the idea of horses as they can give us some offensive options without the Legionary to delay the GA. If this is the case I will move the worker after he complete the road to the new Bonus Game and start choping to speed the Granary.

Here's my first three turns. Will be at a friends until later tonight.

Turn 0: 2150 BC
Nothing

Turn 1: 2100 BC
More exploring.

Turn 2: 2070 BC
English are building the Pyramids. Antium founded and starts Spearman. One of the escorting Warriors heads to Veii to lend his services again. More horses sighted to NE in the mountains. See Russian Scout again. Worker completes road, rather than chop Bonus Game, he starts road to horses. We may be in need of then soon. Income up to 10 Gold per turn!

Turn 3: 2030
Veii complete settler, starts granary. Nothing else of interest.

In my opinion we should be constantly building settlers with at least one city, even if it appears that there are no more city sites. Every time we send an assault force against the enemy we should have settlers (under close guard of course) following closely to claim the land the razed cities will leave. I'm not suggesting we put down a city everywhere we torch one... more like setting up a chain of cities as a supply line of sorts. And of course we should claim any and all resources we can.

Great set of turns by the way! Exciting stuff.

Here is the rest of my turn.

Turn 4: 1990 BC
Rome builds warrior and I start another. I would recommend we start a worker next to link up the iron before our war with Greece gets too hot. As it is it will be 4turns for the warrior, 3 for the worker and 7 to mine for a total of 14 turns! This being the case I believe Veii must bear the burden in the near term of being our armory. We have too few units to defend against both Greece and Russia in less than 20 turns. Thus Veii switches to warrior. At F4 I learn that France now has writing and there are two more nations on our little piece of the world: America and the Germans.

Turn 5: 1950 BC
From F4 I learn that Russia is still at only two cities. This makes me think that Cathy has got herself in another war. Another piece of evidence is that with 9 warrior we are strong compared to her. I think we picked the correct first war! France is still the only one with writing. It is now much safer to move Veii back to granary, but the shield hit on Rome in building a worker will really leave us without much military production in the short term. I will keep the warriors coming.

Turn 6: 1910 BC
Cumae founded! Starts spearman. We gain one more bonus game, horses, spices and or tiles in radius of our wonder pre-build city. Very good! Find our first Babylonian city in the far NW. F1 tells us that we are at +11 gold/turn. F4 tells us that Greece now has horses on line (great!). Alex still has nothing to trade. I wish he would hurry up before our 20 turns are used up. Cathy wants peace bad! In a normal game we would have gotten CB.

Turn 7 1870 BC
Veii completes warrior and starts spearman. If I figure it correctly because of growth we will not waste any shields in this build and have it in only 6 turns! The next player can switch it to archer or chariot as the worker starts roading the horses. I found more iron south of Greece. It will still be hard to get at, but we should keep an eye on it so that Greece does not get iron.

Turn 8 1830 BC
Rome completes Warrior and starts worker. Will move the new warrior to Veii and one of the Veii warriors NW to scout out any Russians that might be coming. F4 tells us that France must have sold contact with us for horseback riding. I would love to get this tech!


Turn 9: 1790 BC
Antium built spearman and starts worker. Opportunity knocks! A stack of two Greek workers on a hill south of Athens. I will move next to them next turn. Do we want to attack early?


Turn 10: 1750BC
We have horses! And all our towns are connected. Moved the worker back to the previously roaded BG and started mining. Alex must have read my mind and moved a warrior to protect his workers. We should have enough gold in 7 turns to upgrade 5 warriors!

Parting advice: Because there is a good chance we will be in a GA soon we want to have the following worker priorities.
1) Make sure every city has a shield and gold producing tile to grow into.
2) Improve tiles with the GA bonus and Despotism penalty in mind. As long as you do not violate #1 feel free to improve BG for the pre and post GA world. But if mining a BG causes a city to work a non-shielded tile don’t do it.

Here is the saved file: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC1750_01.SAV

Generals : checking in after a bit of an absence and lo ! It's my turn already.

Progress looks good - war with Russia is a good choice to start us off. Great write-ups CS and KL.

I have got the file now and will try to fit in my round in the next day or so. Depends how exhausted I am after being "on duty" at my son's preschool tomorrow.

Alright, I'm back in town from a weekend out with the family at a campsite. (I come back to a pretty good sized fire threatening the general area; it's about 3 miles from my house right now, and there's squadrons of water-dropping helicopters and airplanes flying formation over and around it.)

I've reviewed the save file. We're well on our way - good set of turns, Keith! And a great spot for Cumae, too.

We can support 16 units for free and we have 14 in the field now. I would recommend that Rome keeps building Warriors until it can finish a Settler (2 or 3 more Warriors then the Settler); building a Worker would put that off 10 more turns, and be another unit to have to support. Veii should switch from Spearman to Granary, get that built to spur future growth. Antium's Worker (once built,3 maybe 2 turns) can either help chop the 2nd Games Space with Worker1 (this chop goes to Veii; chopping the 1st Games Space will go to Rome), or move to the Iron hill near Rome to connect it. Cumae will eventually finish it's spearman (6 more turns), then be able to do 2 Workers, back to back (I think.) Following this path we will be paying 2 or 3 gpt for extra units, but finishing a Settler in Rome will put us in the black again; building a Worker in Rome puts us further away from a 5th city and gives us another 1 gpt unit cost.

I'd try to keep the Vet Warriors near Rome and Veii, for fast upgrades; use the Regular Warriors for Scouting (2 are out scouting, and 1 appears to be heading back), watching the Iron space between us and France, and general look-out duty. The spearmen should be positioned between us and Greece, on hills or mountains, to give lookout and to form defensive positions if Greece moves forces against us.

We have 6 Regular and 6 Vet Warriors now; I'd like to be up to 10 - 12 Vet Warriors before we connect Iron (more is even better!), and ideally have 400 - 480 Gold in the treasury. We have 117 at 12 gpt, so we're still about 20 turns away from this position; we will be declaring War on Greece in 7 turns I think it is, and they need about 10 turns to move on us with any sizeable force, so we just have to delay them a few turns, do a mass upgrade, slaughter their lead forces and turn the tide on them. We can connect earlier if we get the sufficient number of Warriors, or maybe plan to start connecting about the time we declare war.

Keith, did we actually make contact with Germany or America? I saw Bismark on the F4 Screen, but didn't see Abe. Could you provide us an updated civ contact status list, similar to what I posted at the end of my turn log.

Here's a screenshot with remaining distance 3 city sites. I recommend the one with the 5 in it for our next city; we need to control the Mountain spaces next to it with Spearmen and Warriors to form this city, however, since we will have just declared War on Greece. Let's get some units there first.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc1750Main.JPG

The pink circle is a non distance 3 city site that will position us towards France when the time comes.

One more thing: if our GA is going to be starting soon we should just build Roads on BGs; the extra Shield from Mining them will not be seen during the GA. I'd recommend not mining any more BG's until our GA is about to finish. The Worker is currently Mining a BG so I'd reassign it, maybe to start chopping Game Space #2.

As I said England must have traded contact with us to the Germans for horsebackriding. As of yet Germany is not in que for war.

So this is our civ contact status:

Russia, contact in 2270, at WAR
Greece, contact in 2270, must be at War by 1575 BC
France, contact in 2270, must be at War by 1075 BC
Babylon, contact in 2230, must be at War by 610 BC
England, contact in 2190, must be at War by 210 BC

Looks like we're momentarily stalled here. Everything all right there, Peanut?

Peanut: it's coming up on 72 hours since your post. Are you able to play?

(BTW, I'm on travel to Texas for a couple of days, so I'll check in periodically but have no access to the game.)

Generals – sorry about the delay, but I have finally had some time to tackle this. A combination of two active children, a busy weekend and semester 2 starting this week.

A risky set of moves here but I believe that population growth will be critical to our success. So we are building granaries in Rome and Veii in lieu of more troops, and setting them both up for fast growth. The calculated risk is that Russia is too far away to send troops yet, and Alex will need a few turns to organize himself to invade once we declare war in 1575BC.

If the risk turns bad, then at least we will be front runners for the Wooden Spoon this round.

Pre-turn : Change of plan. We need more Romans – and fast ! So – Rome and Veii switch to Granaries. Cumae switches to Barracks. The worker is rudely interrupted so he can sharpen his axe.

IBT : Wandering foreigners – ah, let them wander. Soon they will taste Roman steel, eh what ? No Russians coming to meet their doom as yet. The French start the Oracle – will it foretell their demise we wonder …

1725 BC : S warrior ventures in to spy out Greece’s terrain. Our warriors move to give warning of Russian troops.

IBT : Alexander objects to our “visit”. Ok, we will leave for now.

1700 BC : A French settler approaches from the north ! We might play some games with them. Oh, and S warrior “forgets” to leave – he might try to get closer to Alex’s horses.

IBT : Alex gets cranky. We are expelled.

1675 BC : Three warriors position for a dance with Joan’s settler party.

IBT : More wandering foreigners of little consequence. Joan’s settler tries to sidestep us.

1650 BC : We dance with Joan’s settler party. This is fun !

IBT : Nothing of note.

1625 BC : More French dancing. Good exercise for the troops.

IBT : The French try a little step to the right.

1600 BC : Cumae starts on veteran warriors in preparation for legion building. We step to the left.

IBT : The French reverse their earlier strategy with a step to the left now. Alex starts the Colossus – is there no end to the ego of these foreigners ?

1575 BC : N Warrior parks on a mountain near Ninevah to watch for Russians. We step to the right this time. Oh yes – Alex’s time has come. He has denied us a fair price for Writing for too long now. he must pay the price – his extermination. We are at war. S Warrior moves along the mountain range to attempt some pillaging.

IBT : Nothing much – more futile French moves. Still no Russians.

1550 BC : Nothing of note. We continue to play a game with Joan.

IBT : Nothing.

1525 BC : NW warrior spots a blue city with the barbarian name of Atlanta. More foreigners to annihilate. N Warrior moves and discovers Russians on the next mountain peak Two archers ! Wow !

IBT : N Warrior embarrasses himself and all Rome by falling to the first archer he meets. An ignoble end.

1500 BC : S Warrior moves further into Greece – a suicide mission to pillage Alex’s horses.

Gratuitous advice : Rome finishes a Granary in 1 turn, Veii in three. Each could then start on some troops then a settler, or vice versa perhaps for Rome. Each will get a forest chop boost in a few turns, although I may have got the timing exactly and precisely wrong for Veii. :blush: The workers can then move to road the iron. Alternatively each could spin off a worker to help irrigate and road the deer tile faster before moving to the iron. Remember – the Russians are coming ! Two archers just south of Ninevah.The 1500BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC1500_01.SAV)

All right, I've got it. Will play tonight or tomorrow morning.

Got to it sooner than I thought I could. The save has been uploaded. I'll post my log as soon as I can.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC1250_01.SAV

Yay, two sets of turns in since I last checked!

Peanut: pretty gutsy building two Granaries while being at war with two civs! Of course, one of them is pretty far away.

Antium is our Wonder city, right? Is it pre-building for GreatLib now?

bigchief: you're up! You have a sensitive set of turns coming up. I believe you'll learn Mathmatics at the beginning of the turn you have to declare War on Joan, so there should be one chance to trade Math for some of the Techs she has before we declare war (unless she knows it already).

I like the dance with the French units; this keeps her away from this iron, but I think she has a source already up north. We will have to plan to remove that fairly soon after declaring war. If we capture the Settler (generating two Workers) we will have to disband them immediately; that's part of the variant we are playing. (Similarly, we will have to raze any captured cities that have any foreign citizens in them.)

Not sure what the unit status is; we have almost enough gold for 6 upgrades. Should probably disconnect the iron after upgrades - allows us to build more Warriors and saves the Iron from disappearing on us.

I'm flying home tonight and will be able to check out the save then, or tomorrow.

My turn log.

1475 BC Rome completes granary, starts archer. 3 warriors harassing French settler to the north. Bold Roman warrior moves onto Greek horses.

1450 BC Veii completes granary with help of forest chop and begins archer. Antium builds a warrior and begins archer. Worker at Veii irrigating game tile now. Warrior pillages Greek horses and issues some verbal taunts.

1425 BC Rome builds archer. We are in serious need of workers so Rome will build one and immediately send it to road the iron deposit. Archer and warrior move from Rome to iron. Worker irrigating chopped game tile by Rome. Pillaging warrior heads back into the hills. Going to head north and west through the mountains to pillage their incense.

1400 BC Greek Hoplite appears next to French settler to the north! Must be a scout returning from the north.

1375 BC Hoplite heading south towards us. Roman archer and warrior approach Thermopylae through the mountains. Pillaging warrior approaches Sparta... their incense isn't even hooked up yet.

1350 BC Rome builds worker and sends him off to road the iron. Second Hoplite now approaching from the north. I think briefly about sending those 3 warriors against them but it's a bad idea all around. They head south to help defend the homeland and to hopefully procure some new equipment that will soon be ready. Russian scout appears on the coast to the north west. Probably not a good sign. Veteran Roman archer attacks Greek warrior from a mountain position and is killed! These Greeks are inhuman and must be destroyed! Roman warrior is redlined finishing the job.

1325 BC Veii produces archer and begins walls in 3. Antium produces archer and begins a warrior.

1300 BC Rome completes warrior. Walls in 2. Move units to iron, including 2 additional workers. Greek warriors and archers approaching from west and southwest.

1275 BC Greek archer attacksour units on the iron. Roman spearman is redlined defending and is promoted. Veii completes walls. Greeks demand 240 gold for peace... the gall of these barbarians!

1250 BC Rome completes walls. Greek forces moving around to the south. 3 warriors moving off iron tile towards Rome to prepare for upgrade. The road to the iron will be complete in 1 turn.

We have 14 warriors, 2 archers, 1 spear, and 3 workers. Rome and Veii are working on settlers. We have 21 units and are allowed 16 so we need some more cities for sure. Those granaries will help quite a bit. I forget how much gold we have.

Antium needs to be switched over to the pre-build for the Library, and after the iron is hooked up the 3 workers should probably improve tiles around Antium. When I saw Hoplites coming from the north as well as that Russian scout, and then the units coming from Greece proper I started to panic and had Antium building units instead. In hind sight that was probably a bad idea. I should have started the pre build at the start of these turns.

There is one hoplite now inside our territory. My guess is that he is moving to pillage our horses. I suggest leaving him alone until we can bring Legions against him. No sense throwing warriors on his big spear just to make him an elite. His partner is just north of our territory heading in as well. The French settler last I saw was moving towards that iron north of us. I decided to leave him be because we are about to declare war on them anyway. Their new town will be the first French city to fall.

Remember: we must declare war on France in 1075 if not sooner.

I haven't loaded the game yet, but I'll make a few comments based on the recent logs. Rather than Archers, we should be building Settlers in Veii and Warriors in Rome!! The Archer doesn't help us offensively against the Greek Hoplites, better to have 2 Warriors which will become Legions soon; our plan was to block them from moving in on us, occupy the high ground and force THEM to attack US at bad odds or no worse than even, we need a lot of units to do that. That Hoplite near Veii is bad news!! We can't afford to let him move onto ANY of our improved spaces, not our Roads, and certainly not the Irrigated Games space!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To do this will require us to move 3 Warriors out to defend our territory (leaving at least 2 units in Veii to protect it from the adjacent Hoplite!); far better to have blocked him out in the first place. And I'm not happy with building Walls at this point; I'd much rather have units in the field preventing him from attacking Rome, than defend Rome directly at this point.

The lack of a 5th city, providing support for 4 more units, is really hurting us right now.

Good critique, Steve. I replayed those turns just to see how playing them differently would change things. I founded a fifth city as quickly as I could and didn't build walls or archers. Was able to block the hoplites from the north (I really didn't think that would work! Jeez I learn something every turnset). The only drawback to this was defending Rome. I really had to scramble to do it and get the iron hooked up. I was successful but it was really close, and nearly lost the workers on the iron, and had to pump entertainment spending up and leave one defender in the other cities.

You're definitely right about the settler situation. I needed to have one city constantly building them... Veii as you suggested would be the best choice. And didn't I say myself in a previous post we needed one city constantly building settlers? :crazyeye: Didn't even follow my own advice in my scramble to defend.

With incoming enemies my goal was build a strong defense. I didn't want any cities lost and as few units lost as possible. And definitely no workers. We only have 3. I truly felt that for a strong defense the walls were a good choice. Veii's took 3 turns and Rome's only 2. A small price to pay in my opinion, and there is no maintenance cost. I could have built units instead but that would leave us even more over our limit. I know you are opposed to using archers. I only built a couple as I felt were needed. I was hoping to employ them successfully against attackers not defended by Hoplites but of course the first died all too quickly. Darned random number generator! :mad: Here I am hoping to have a situation where my archer build is justified and well timed... vet archer regiment attacks from mountains, raining arrows down on regular warrior regiment in plains below. Who should win? Even Steve will love it! But no, it is not to be.

(Peglegasus: you posted before I posted the rest of this post, so I'll comment on your post first :) . I didn't realize Walls were just 10 shields and didn't incur maintenance (I've NEVER built ANY, so I've definitely learned something as well!) In that perspective, that's not much of a resource cost, so I retract any comments regarding Walls. Don't get me wrong though; I'd much rather fight in the other civs territory than defend my cities, and that should be our focus as much as possible. Besides, if our cities are being beseiged that means we're probably being pillaged as well, which is really bad.

Regarding Archers: they're really only useful against Warriors and other Archers, or massed early against a city. (It IS bad luck to lose against the Warriors in this case :( ; if I had an Archer I'd probably take the shot as well.) Since we're really close to Legions which are a much better unit at only 10 more shields in cost, and can be upgraded to from Warrior, and the Greek Hoplites are in play which negates the early Massing idea, I'd prefer two Vet Warriors rather than 1 Vet Archer - they allow me to block better, they upgrade to Legion, and the 2 Vet Warriors together have a better chance to defeat the Reg Warrior (and any Archers as well) than the 1 Vet Archer by itself! Only downside is the extra gpt cost, so we can't build Warriors all day.)

rest of post:

OK, I've taken a look at the save, and gotten a good night's sleep. I looked at the F3 Military Advisor: we have 3 Workers, 15 Warriors, 2 Archers and 1 Spearman; 21 total with 16 Allowed so we are spending 5 gpt on our army. We also have 2 Granaries and 4 Barracks, so our maintenance cost is 6 gpt. We are still earning 5 gpt for Taxes, so our Treasury is still positive. The extra cities will definitely help.

According to F3 MilAdv, we are strong vs most other civs, average against a couple, and weak vs the Greeks. I'll read that to assume that Alex has been pop-rushing, and wont be able to do much more of that now.

I also checked the F4 Diplo Advisor. Of the 5 civs we've made contact with, no one else has Math yet, so chances are we will have a very good opportunity to trade Math, getting several Techs we are missing, and lots of gold. I also noted that France hasn't connected Iron or Horses; maybe we should try to hold Greece in place, and take advantage of France's lack of resources first.

Here is a screen shot of our Main screen:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc1250MainRes.JPG

First things first: we have just over 300 Gold and Iron will be connected next turn, so on the next turn we can upgrade as many as 7 Warriors (Vets only, please) to Legionaires. That's good!

I've placed red dots on the 4 improved spaces near the penetrating Hoplite adjacent to Veii. I think these 4 spaces need to be defended for at least 1 turn; otherwise, the Hoplite could decide to pillage one of them and we'd have no way to stop it. The following turn we will have some Legions, so if the Hoplite does move onto one of these spaces we could possibly attack it at decent odds. The two Orange dots are hills adjacent to Veii; if we block them, also, we keep the 2nd Hoplite at arm's length, allowing us to deal with one Hoplite at a time, and we keep him off of Hills spaces which offer decent defense. We can't afford to lose ANY of these red dotted road spaces; we're about to connect Iron, and losing a road means no upgrades in cities that have been cut off!

To occupy all these dots (4 red and 2 orange), we would need to move both Warriors in Cumae to nearby red dots (one to the Games space and one to the roaded BG), 1 Vet Warrior in Veii W to the Roaded/Mined BG, 1 Archer in Veii NW to hills (orange dot), and 1 Warrior in Rome to red dot on road between Rome and Veii. (I tried moving the units; discovered that the Warrior on the hill had already moved so one Orange dot is left open; still I'd do these moves to keep the Hoplites from linking up.) Veii needs 2 defenders, so a 2nd Warrior from Rome would travel to Veii. In addition to these moves, I'd recommend moving the Reg Warrior from Antium 2 spaces North over the river; from there it can help defend our territory, and the Vet Warrior in Antium can be upgraded for defense if needed. These units have a 1 movement left (except the Hills warrior and one of the Veii warriors) so these moves can be done immediately if desired. Cumae loses both MP's so be sure to check it's contentness; might need an entertainer (or Taxman if possible and needed).

Antium is our pre-build city so it should start pre-building! It is secluded so we need to be ready to shift forces to its defense if needed. It has a Barracks, so warriors in Antium can be upgraded.

I've placed a big Green Circle around the mountains spaces SE of Rome. These are critical spaces that we have to control to mount our offensive against Greece. Holding these mountains means we have the defensive advantage, and we can move forward to attack Greece while keeping the most direct path under our watch and control. Unfortunately Greece holds these mountains now! Fortunately, it's only with Warriors and Archers, which we should be able to displace with Legions. If Greece gets Hoplites in these mountains, we're going to need Catapults to expel him or lose lots of Legions doing it.

Finally, what is our contact status? Have we opened up any negotiations with America and Germany? After every log the person completing the turns needs to post the contact status, listing the order we've contacted civs and the year by which we need to declare war against that civ.

bigchief: I believe you're up!!

I've got the save. I will probably play tomorrow. Any further input is welcome. I will post some of my thoughts later today.

I believe the hoplites can probably be herded through our territory without letting them do any damage. I really feel bad having let one in now that I've seen how easy it is to block them :( .Those greek units to the west were originally north of those positions. They tried to move on the iron first but I had too strong a force there and they gave up. The last couple turns they moved south. I think the walls in Rome plus all those units defending the iron was too much of a deterrent. My guess is they will move around south towards Antium.

With walls now in Veii, one Legion will be a strong defense. Of course better to be safe than sorry so 2 units is better. But after seeing how I could use the 3 warriors to block the Hoplites I don't see how even the random number generator could make a Hoplite go for a walled city with a Legion defending.

In my inexpert opinion, the units to upgrade will be the ones in Rome and on the hill next to Rome, one in Antium and perhaps one in Veii.

As our Golden Age is fast approaching, would it be worth it to build a couple extra workers and add them to Antium? Because my paranoia delayed starting the pre-build we may need the extra boost.

Just a quick observation. We are not playing as a team right now. With the difficulty of this variant we can not afford to not have a unified plan. I did not mind the shift to the two grainaries, that was a risky but still according to our plan. I do think moving Antium away from a pre-build was a mistake and my gut feeling is that we lost our opportunity to build the GL. I am now for putting the shields into Legionaries and taking it or generating a great leader. I also think we had laid it out pretty clear that our military plan was to build warrior first as blocking units and other units only as needed. I was building a spearman only for the purpose of protecting the iron. With iron so close to coming on line there is no need for archers.

Finally, what is our contact status? Have we opened up any negotiations with America and Germany? After every log the person completing the turns needs to post the contact status, listing the order we've contacted civs and the year by which we need to declare war against that civ.

Ah how could I leave that out? Germany and America both made contact trying to sell ceremonial burial on my first turn. Made contact in 1475BC

Russia contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Greece contact in 2270bc, at WAR
France contact in 2270bc, at war by 1075bc
Babylon contact in 2230bc, at war by 610bc
England contact in 2190bc, at war by 210bc
Germany contact in 1475bc, at war by 190ad
America contact in 1475bc, at war by 420ad

You're right, Keith and I apologize. The pre-build may turn out to be a huge blunder. I don't think we should give up on it though.

I did use your spearman for exactly the purpose you intended, and he was great at it too.

Now the archers... I never intended to switch our army over to archers. It seemed like an "as needed" situation. I know that we need warriors to upgrade to Legions and that will be our primary unit. But in my situation in that turnset I was trying to match some of the greek firepower I knew would be coming. I think I only built 3. We didn't have iron hooked up yet and workers were vulnerable out there while trying to build the road. I never intended to take archers against Hoplites. Only to have some firepower until the iron came on line, and to save the vet warriors for upgrade.

Next time I'm thinking of doing something even slightly different I'll stop and post. I'll establish a build list before I begin as well.

Keith: I agree with your comments; I think we've been over that and now it's time, as a team, to discuss the next steps.

Antium: I still think we need to pre-build here. It's likely that the AI will cascade through all the available wonders, leaving them no pre-build for GreatLibrary, so we should still pre-build here. And I like the idea of adding some Workers to Antium to assist it's production during the GA period; perhaps after some more have been built by Veii or Rome. Definitely want to connect the Spice near Cumae soon.

bigchief: in this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2028004&postcount=77) I lay out most of my thoughts. Most important is to prevent the interior Hoplite from occupying any of the red dots; we can't kick him off if he takes any of them and he would really hurt us if he pillaged any of them.

In this other post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=2017707&postcount=65) I identify where I believe the next few cities should go. I think that red circles 5 and 6 are still the best places to put the 2 settlers that are being built.

So, Iron is going to be connected next turn. Before you press enter to start the next turn, I'd move the units around as I describe in the first linked post above to prevent the Hoplites from linking up, and the interior Hoplite from occupying an improved tile of ours. Next turn I'd upgrade a Vet Warrior in Veii, the Vet Warrior in Antium, and 5 in or near Rome. I think our near term objective is to keep the Hoplites off our improved tiles, keep the various Greek forces from linking up, and to destroy first the 1 Archer and 3 Warriors (currently in the Mountains SE of Rome). That Archer is the only offensive unit Alex has in our cultural radius right now; get rid of it (do not let it link up with one of the Hoplites), and all he'll have is strength 1 Attack vs our strength 3 defense. The 5 Legions upgraded in Rome have the duty to destroy the Greek Archers and Warriors, and anything else that comes from Alex's direction, first. Keep an eye on Antium; it's actually closer to the Archer/Warriors than Rome is right now.

After our GA kicks off, be sure to micromanage Veii for best effect. Not sure what that sequence is right now, but it should be able to grow in 2 turns consistently. BG's on the River will get the extra Commerce and Shield that our GA will give us; they need no improvement right now, so plan on Mining plain River-adjacent Grassland, and Roading non-river BG's for maximum effect. Veii should probably pump out Workers, and an occasional Settler, to help improve us for/during our GA.

We learn Math in 7; you should have one chance to trade with France. We definitely want Writing first to see what else is around, CerBurial and Mysticism if available, and HorsebackRiding (we have no Chariots, but this may be one of the few opportunities to get it), and whatever else is available - Literature, Map-Making, etc. Also, get whatever Gold is available, especially from France; we need the money for upgrades, and we don't want Joan to have any.

Next Tech to Research: either Currency at Minimum, or Literature at some amount. Problem is we need to get all our upgrades done first, so it might be awhile before we can start serious research on Literature. But if we get it sooner than later, we can use any GLeader to build it right away. Otherwise, we have to save the GL; definitely recommend we save any GLeader we get for Great Library; at that point we should research as fast as possible to get it. So, I guess I'm most interested in Literature, maybe start at Minimum and increase Research% later.

I think we will have to reduce Greece considerably before we can take on France; after France comes Babylon, so we don't want to fight a rear action at the same time we are moving Northwards in force. Maybe take Alex down to 1 city; or maybe take him out entirely. We'll want to conect both luxuries he's got. We might want a few Catapults to help us put some hits on those Hoplites before our Legions attack. In general, with all the attacking we are going to be doing, especially with Legions, we want a decent amount of catapults to do some damage to the AI Defenses, and to defend our Legions against Archer/Swords attack as we approach.

Do we want to pillage the Iron space after we've completed most/all of our upgrades? (I'd recommend to do so.) If so, we can start on a few extra Legions while the Iron is connected, then switch to Chariots/Horsemen/Catapults afterwards, with some more Warriors being built for eventual upgrade. Catapults are a good thing to build in cities without a Barracks; they don't need to be Vets.

Those are my general thoughts. Remember, we can't capture any cities with foreigners in it, nor can we capture Workers. (But I believe we can capture any catapults we happen to take.)

Do we want to continue to build the settler in Rome? I think not.

What I am thinking is:

Change Rome to warrior/legion, and have Rome continue to pump out military units and maybe an occasional worker to get the population down for happiness reasons, if it becomes necessary.

Change Cumae to worker. Have new worker connect spices first, then improve tiles around Cumae and Veii. Then Cumae can alternate between legions and workers for a bit.

Veii continues with settler, and then continues to pump out settlers.

Change Antium to pre-build.

One of the 3 workers from the iron hill will continue to improve around Rome and the other two will improve around Antium.

In the round of trades for math (assuming that we get it first), I definitely want to get HBR. A few horses can cover our entire area and help protect the workers and do clean up on injured units, so the legions can do the real fighting.

I don't like disconnecting the iron. If we had stacks of extra workers, so that we could connect and disconnect fast, it might be different, but we have so few workers, and can't really afford it now. And, there are 2 more sources of iron nearby. We should have at least one of them soon.

I would like to set up a city at the pink circle in Steve's pic as soon as possible. This gets us the second source of iron puts us towards France.

bigchief: I think that will work. We are not making much money right now, so we do have a need to get Settlers out there; however, I believe we will get to trade Math and there's enough Gold out there to make up the difference if we delay our 6th city by switching Rome to Warriors/Legions. We definitely need more Workers; almost as much as we need to get rid of the Greeks that are infesting our lands!!

We can disconnect the iron later if we need to, or if it makes sense.

I think France has settled on that city site; might be their first loss! Maybe we should plan to build out that way and take it as the first action of our upcoming war; prevents Joan from having a base to operate out of, and we can finish off Greece after taking her outpost.

What are your thoughts on research after Math?

As far as the research after Math, at this point, I would say Lit., but I think what I will do is stop after the trades and come back here and post what the status is. What we research next will depend heavily on what we get in the trades, what everyone else has at that point, the outlook on the Great Library, and probably many more considerations. We can discuss it at that point, then I can finish my turns.

I agree; I think I've convinced myself that Lit is next. I just don't trust the AI to research it for us in a timely fashion, and if a GLeader pops up, we want to use him for GLib sooner than later.

You wont get Math until your 7th turn; unless you get enough Gold in trades to upgrade all the Warriors to Legions, we'll probably still need money for that so you can probably start out at Minimum for 3 turns to finish your set. But if all upgrades are accomplished and our Military is capable enough to hold its own for the time being, start at Maximum while maintaining an even Treasury. That would be my suggestion.

Generals :

I believe that we are still on track, or at least heading generally in the right direction. I support researching Lit as fast as possible - we may get a GL to build the GL. We probably won't get tech parity through trades as we may soon face some alliances against us once the AIs get their embassies with eachother. So the GL will be a big bonus. Hopefully once we reach Education we will be big enough with two productive cores to fund whatever research we still need to end the game.

Legions should be all we need for some time to come given their offensive and defensive strengths. We don't need archers, although horses may be good for some hit and run fighting or pillaging and in preparation for knights.

The trick with the hoplites is simply to occupy our strategic tiles. They only have an attack of one and are rarely used for attacking.

Workers and Settlers are still essential even with a war going on. Each city gives us some extra cash and production, and ups our free unit limit.

I'm not sure about pillaging the iron - we may be better off building legions rather than periodically mass upgrading warriors. My gut feel is that the cash will be more useful in the longer term if we do need to buy techs or improvements and for our upgrades for next offensive unit (knights). Has anyone done the sums on which is the more efficient option ?

I believe that our strategy should be to generate legions, throw them against the greek core, and pillage greek communications and resources to reduce their production. Then raze their cities. We also need military roads to get our troops into action quicker. The greeks need to be crushed or at least crippled before the next war - a two front war is not fun. The Russians can wait a while. Don't forget that the greeks will have their GA while we have ours unless we can guarantee that we defeat every hoplite we meet in combat.

Hopefully we will spawn a leader soon enough that we can build the GL, otherwise I suggest an army so we can get the Epic built. If we get a leader drought then an FP may be better first if we have enough cities to justify a second core - but now this is getting rather speculative and a little optimistic.

I agree with Keith - we need to clarify our strategy as a team. However once we have done that it is up to each player to make their best judgements in play during their own turn. It's in watching eachother's turns and in constructively critiquing eachother (and ourselves) that we pick up new ideas and approaches. Or at least an amateur like me does.

Here's my input:

First Priority: Protect our workers and improved tiles. This means having enough blocking units in the short term and Legionaries long-term. Consequently, I am for building at least on more warrior in Rome before it builds a settler. An additional reason is that we would be hard pressed to protect tiles, take the mountains to the east, exterminate the invading hoplite, AND protect two settlers with the number of units we have currently.

Next Tech: Lit for sure, unless we get it through trade. Get Antium back to pre-build ASP, but watch the F7 status carefully. With so many nations on our continent the AI has a much greater chance to research Lit early. I have not tested this, but the AI seems to pick what it researches based in part on what other know nations are researching. Thus we can’t count on getting the GL first any longer. In fact, I think the AI has a very good chance to get a GL pre-build.

War Priority: I am all for knocking Greece out early. This we give us an ocean on our back door rather than a hostile nation.

Gold, Iron and Cities: Because of the number of nations on our continent the speed of AI advancement will be very fast. Let us pray that Math will give us trading opportunities. I really don’t think we can afford to play the minimum research game with Lit. It may give us our last trading opportunity (if the AI has no pre-builds). Because we can’t hoard gold for upgrades we are going to have to build Legionaries and that means iron. With the abundance of Iron in our area I am not as worried about losing it as I normally would be. In addition, because we need gold for researching Lit ASP we need cities to support our troops. I suggest using Veii as a settler factor and spit out workers and settlers from Rome and Cumae only to keep the population from getting out of hand. I think sending some worker to join Antium is a very good idea as long as these two conditions are met: 1) The new citizen will have a shield producing tile 2) we can afford to keep the new citizen happy. Past 4 we will have to use the slider.

Turn 0 - 1250 - Changed Rome to Warrior. Changed Antium to Palace. Changed Cumae to worker. Moved warriors to block hoplites.

Turn 1 - 1225 - NW Hoplite moves away. Hoplite next to Veii moves S to Hill. Greek warriors move towards Antium. Shuffled warriors around to cover improved tiles. Upgraded 8 vet warriors to legions.

Turn 2 - 1200 - Russians want to talk - No thanks. NW Hoplite comes back our way. Hoplite in our territory moves SE towards Antium. Greek warriors continue to move towards Antium. More shuffling around of units to protect improved tiles. We are dancing now, but there should be some dead Greeks next turn.

Turn 3 - 1175 - Hammurabi demands 11 gold (all we have). I give it to him. We need to be able to trade with him until we declare on him. Greek warrior attacks Antium. Legion kills warrior and we are in Golden Age. Kill another Greek Warrior. Up lux slider to 10% to get everybody back to work. 16 gold + 13 gpt. Can't get math in less turns. Liz now has Math, but has not traded it.

Turn 4 - 1150 - Greek warrior attacks Antium & is killed. Legion in Antium steps out to kill archer and is promoted to Elite. Legion is defeated trying to kill hoplite NW of Veii. I am tired of dancing around with these guys. I need to get rid of the hoplites soon. Greek archer is headed our way.

Turn 5 - 1125 - 2 Greek archers are in mountains SE of Rome. Legion kills hoplite in our territory. Veii produces settler. Upgrade another vet warrior to legion. 2 legions move towards mountains. Abe and Hammurabi are the only ones without math.

Turn 6 - 1100 - 2 Greek archers in mountains move to flat ground and are killed. NW hoplite is being chased away. Settler and Legion move into place.

Turn 7 - 1075 - England completes Pyramids. Germans complet Oracle. Neapolis is founded - starts on barracks. NW hoplite is killed at the cost of 1 legion. No more Greeks in the area. We learned math. Traded math + 8 gold to Abe for writing. Traded math + 7 gold to Hammurabi for CB & HBR. Traded Abe HBR for Myst. These trading rules may be harder than the war part. I think I could have gotten Philo in the trading, or at least some gold if I had been able to haggle. Hammurabi is up Philo on us. Bismark and Liz are up Philo, CoL, and MM (that's all I can see, anyway). We are even with Abe. Declared war on France. She is up Philo, CoL and MM.

Turn 8 - 1050 - Liz demands TM and 6 gold. I give it to her. Greeks move a hoplite and archer next to Neapolis. Units move towards Marseilles. Rome builds Legion.

Turn 9 - 1025 - Greek archer kills a warrior on mountain next to Neapolis. Our units are near Marseilles. 2 hoplites and an archer in mountains near Neapolis.

Turn 10 - 1000 - Our legions kill a hoplite and an archer. One hoplite left near Neapolis. Veii produces settler. Settler and escorting legion move N to head towards Marseilles. We have 2 units next to Marseilles. An elite legion can be there next turn, so I waited to attack to give him a chance.

Nobody has Lit yet. 3 are building the colossus. Let's hope someone finishes it before anyone learns Lit. Our military advisor says we are strong vs everybody we know. Veii needs to take back 1 or both game tiles next turn.

Here is the save:

The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC1000_01.SAV)

Here is a screen shot:

Civ-steve protect our iron at all costs! I sure hope there is a unit in Rome that can move. If not abandon Neopolis. The iron is worth much more to us than one city. Guys let's not let blood lust loose this game for us. Killing a hoplite and archer was not worth the loss of iron. We can always kill units.

Well, well. We are quite engaged now, aren't we? Just loaded the save file to take a look; I've got it!

Not to worry, Keith; there are 3 units in Neapolis that haven't moved; I will move one of the Legions onto the Iron and fortify it. That Hoplite isn't moving there! (BTW, I wouldn't care to lose the town even if it meant losing the Iron; we can rehook it later and that town is generating 4 Shields and 4 Commerce a turn, and supporting 4 of our Military Units!)

Here are snapshots of our F3 and F1 screens:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc1000F3.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc1000F1.JPG

We are up to 9 Legions, roughly half between Veii and Marseilles, and the remainder near Rome/Neopolis. Rome and Cumae will finish 2 more Legions in the next two turns; we have 5 Warriors, one is way North and effectively out of play. Of the other 4, 1 is Vet. So in 2 turns we can be up to 12 Legions.

Immediately, I'd suggest that we level Marseilles (turn after next), and leave 2 or 3 Legions to counter any French/Russian moves from the North. The remaining 9-10 Legions can regroup and head into Greek lands, taking out Thermopylae and on to Athens. My concern is that we will lose lots of Legions to the Hoplites. We can help out by getting a handful of Catapults to take a hitpoint or two off the Hoplites as we attack. (And provide defensive fire vs any attacking Greek units.)

To that end I propose changing Neopolis' build from Barracks to Catapult; we already have 3 Barracks (1 is in Veii, which probably isn't building any Military anytime soon, but Rome and Cumae can keep us at or above our Military support limit.) Then keep it building Catapults.

On the F1 screen, I show us moving down to a minimum research on Literature. Here's my reasoning: Antium has 50 Shields stored and is gaining 7 spt, which means another 50 turns before GLib can be built by hand. Even at size 6, and assuming no waste, Antium would need another 30+ turns to complete GLib. There is no hurry, but we could very much use the money for Upgrades to Legion. Doing Minimum on Literature boosts us to +20 gpt, or 1 Legion upgrade every 2 turns. This will get better as we build more cities. If we get a GLeader, I would switch this around and maximize the research to Literature, but without the Military, there isn't likely to be a GLeader.

I also HIGHLY recommend that we pillage the Iron. Rome is a 12 spt city right now (I plan to build a worker soon; 12 spt or 10 spt is the same when building 10, 20 or 30 shield cost items, and we need more Workers!) Rome can spit out Vet Warriors for 10 turns (10 more Warriors); saving 20 gpt means we can upgrade 5 of them immediately upon reconnection. Keeping it connected means 3 more Legions built in the same time. I'd rather have 5 than 3, with 5 more still to upgrade!

I also recommend that we finish building our our distance 3 cities before we branch out towards France. We are in our GA and we need more productive tiles with less corruption, more so than setting the Stage to go North. There are 3 or 4 distance 3 sites to occupy yet.

I plan to play sometime tomorrow, or early Sunday. Let me know what you think. BTW, several of the civs know Poly already, too.

CS : In short, sounds reasonable, especially our distance 3 cities. We have to get our core city ring complete to get that production maximised. Looks like the iron pillage sums work out ok so do it. Go teach those upstart foreigners a good lesson.

Thank God we have units in Neopolis! As I thought about the situation more, even with Neoplois having one unit in it we have enough units in the area to retake the iron tile, but probably not without much Rome blood.

Civ-Steve, thanks for doing the math on the iron disconnect. I say go for it! I am in total agreement with switching Neopolis to catapults. We already have one unnecessary barrack sucking up gold in Antium, why add to this list? Bombardment is the single greatest advantage we have over the AI. The catapults we build now will pay off throughout the game. I agree with your city placement. Let’s get our first ring completed.

The only downside to the min Lit research is that it may be our last opportunity for trades. But I could go either way. The min research may be wiser. Speaking of trades, it may be too late to get anything good because we gave our maps away under treat, but see what we can get for maps. As long as we continue improving tiles we should be able to get at least 1 gold every other turn. The AI already can see everything, so hiding our maps gains us nothing.

As we enter into the military phase in earnest let’s remember the basic rules of war. Remember, the Romans where able to take over the known world because they exercised military disciple. Our opponents are even more inept than the barbarian hordes the Romans faced. As a crusty old wargamer from the golden age of wargaming (the 1970’s) let me share two simple rules with you. Wargaming 101

Rule 1: Know your opponent. In this cause we are facing Gomer Pile, not Alexander the Great no matter what the F4 screen says. The AI is predictable and single minded. It will throw away its army piece-meal time and time again. Therefore, risk is unnecessary. For example: You would think that the AI would flood a threaten city with defenders, but no the AI does not think, it is programmed to defend cities with 2 to 3 units and send the rest out pillaging and attacking. Therefore, don’t attack a city with just enough forces to win. Wait a turn, wait two. Until you have what you need to guarantee victory. Time and time again I have watched in amazement as the AI sends out defensive units on pillaging missions as I was amassing my attack force.

Rule 2: Make only 2-1 or better attacks. The idea here is that you will have bad luck (Warriors do kill Legionaries), but you always have follow up forces attack the wounded enemy unit. In this way we insure we never have a unit die in vain. For example: We have a stack of 4 Legionaries with in attack range of 4 spearmen in four separate tiles. We attack the first spearmen in the most important tile because we have a 4 to 1 advantage. The first attack wins! We move to the second and win. We can still risk the third attack because we have a follow up Legionary. But if we win the third attack don’t make the forth attack. Why, because there is always NEXT turn, when we can again attack with the odds in our favor. The only time we need to make 1-1 attacks is when we are placed at great risk by that unit, which because of Rule 1 this is almost never.

This approach may seem unnecessarily slow and methodical, but in a long war like ours it will actually speed the game up, because over time we will grow stronger and literally eat the AI armies up. The body counts will be so much in our favor that it will not matter how many opponents we have our how large their production advantage is we become an overwhelming tide that sweeps everything away in its path.

I am sure you all know this, but it is so fun killing units that it is easy to forget at times. I know I have to remind myself of these two rules every game I play.

The spices will be online in 2 turns. That means we can lower the lux slider back down to 0, or we can support a size 6 city with 2 units garrisoned there.

The greeks have a road that leads straight to the mountain that is next to Neapolis. They will be constantly coming in from that direction. If we are going to pillage the iron, I would wait until we have another road connected to Neapolis. We need to be able to get there quickly, and we need to start to push forwards into the Greek territory.

I do agree that we need to finish our first ring core, but I still think we should settle on, or near, the site where Marseilles is, first. England is pushing out our way, and even if we can keep Joan from resettling there, Liz may do it soon. That site will be a good settler or worker pump with the game tile and the flood plains.

As for dropping the research rate, I think we should keep it up. Our golden age will be over in 13 turns. We won't be able to up it later on. Our militaristic trait will have our units upgrading to elite often, and I think we can get a leader fairly soon. The cascade from the Colossus is what worries me.
Liz was building it before I started my turns. Germany switched to it when Liz built the pyramids. They are building it in Berlin. I'm pretty sure they already had shield lead on us at that time, and I would imagine Berlin is a much better city than Antium, even with the golden age.

I still would like to build a couple of horsemen. With war on 2 sides of our territory, they will be very useful.

Keith: I generally agree that we need to have the odds in our favor when we attack, and I try to make sure that I have the better of the situation, but that needs to be tempered some by the need to move forward. I used to wait until I had massive forces and greatly superior odds before I attacked anywhere. Many times it ended up that I waited too long. I am still trying to get over this. This is why I have scored so poorly in the GOTMs. I understand all of the fundamentals of the game, but have lacked the courage and the aggression to attack with even odds or inferior odds. If you read the spoilers and logs by the better players (like SirPleb), they just keep moving forward. Each turn we wait in this game means that the enemies have one more turn to regroup, or build more units, and that we are one turn closer to being at war with another civ.

Civ-steve,
Why is East sight 7 not one more tile east? Your orginal sight is not next to a river and it is only 2 tiles from Rome, breaking the 3 tile first ring.

Actually, the East site 7 IS distance 3 away from Rome! The distance is calculated as follows: going only NW, NE, SW or SE from Rome, count # of spaces; this site is 2 NE then 2 SE from Rome; add Largest # and 1/2 of Smallest number, so 2 + (2/2) = 3; this site is distance 3 from Rome. :) (And you drop any .5's that occur, so 3 and 3.5 are equivalent.)

This is very good commentary and advice. My time to play is limited this weekend, so I've finished my set of turns. Here's the turn log:

Turn 0, 1000 BC
Send Legion from Neopolis to protect Iron supply from Hoplite.
Set Tax rate to 80%
Change Neopolis build from Barracks to Catapult

(IBT Hoplite goes South to Mountain)

Turn 1, 975 BC
Rome finishes Legion, beg Worker
Upgrade Vet Warrior in Cumae to Legion
Clumsy Legion, ended up destroying the road to the Ore!! :mischief:
Advance on Marseilles
Legion Settler head East to River/Hills city site
Adjust Veii for fast Growth (alternate using both game, or only one and letting Antium use the Game for a turn); Rome for better Growth (Iron to River BG, gives +2 food and growth every 5 turns instead of every 10)

(IBT: Greece moves Horseman into Mtns near Neopolis; several Legions in area start salivating 'hmm, Horsemeat ... Haven't had that in a while ...')

(Also, at long last, 2 Russian Archers show up near Cumae; 2 Vet Legions await them)

Turn 2, 950 BC
Cumae fin Legion, beg Catapult
Rome fin Work, beg Worker (grows back to size 5 this turn) :cool:
Spice Connected! Luxuries to 0
Move Cumae Legions to counter Russians
Vet Legion kills Greek Horse, with no damage; we own these mountains except for that Hoplite :scan:
Marseilles Assault: Elite Legion defeats Spear, 4/5 left; Vet Legion loses leaving 2/4 Spear; Vet Archer kills Spear, 2/4 left; they have an extra Warrior in there!
Legion/Settler head East to Hills
Roman Worker out to Road BG, connect Neopolis

(IBT: Greek Hoplite heads North, the Mountains are ours!)
(Russian Archers move adjacent to Cumae, to bad for them!)

Turn 3, 925 BC
Rome builds Worker, begins on Catapult
Neopolis builds Catapult, begins Catapult
Legions make Kindling out of Russian Archers, we get a promotion to Elite!
Elite 4/5 Legion kills Warrior at Marseilles, 3/5 Left; It is destroyed and we get 3 Gold; Archer fortifies; Legion in Veii sent up to protect this direction
Pompei founded 2NE/2NW of Rome (not quite site 6, but it leaves space for an additional distance 3 city SE of site6), starts on Catapult

(IBT French Horseman advances on Archer; French Warrior heads S near Pompei (what is he thinking? :crazyeye: ))
(Greek Hoplite goes South, back into Mtns; I have a Catapult now Mr Hoplite!)

Turn 4, 900 BC
Darn, Catapult misses (bet he's scared now!)
Near Marseilles Ruins, retreat Archer to new Legion; retreat 3/5 Elite Legion too

(IBT French Horseman advances on Legion/Archer stack 'hmm ... more HorseMeat')
(Greek Hoplite goes further South, adj to Neopolis)

Turn 5, 875 BC
Rome builds Catapult, beg Warrior
Move Units to Block Hoplite from going West
3/5 Elite Legion does in French Warrior
Vet Legion does in French Horseman, 2/4 left

(IBT French Warrior Advances ... really, he does)
(Greek Horseman comes into Mountains; Hoplite heads back North)

Turn 6, 850 BC
Rome fin Warrior, beg Warrior
Veii fin Settler, beg Settler
Drat, Vet Legion loses 2 HP attacking Greek Horse, and it retreats! Move 2nd Legion to defend
Bombard Hoplite in Mtn with 2 Catapults; he is now a 2/3; surround him leaving just a path to an open Grassland
Fortify French Defense Units

(IBT French Warrior Advances)
(2/3 Greek Hoplite takes bait and goes into Grassland!; Horseman retreats; Hoplite near Thermopylae

Turn 7, 825 BC
Rome builds Warrior, beg Work
Cumae builds Catapult, beg Warr
Catapults Reduce Greek Hoplite to 1/3; Elite Legion finishes him
Fortify Legions in Mountains
Elite 4/5 Legion kills French Warrior

(IBT English Settler/Warrior show up near French zone; Elizabeth wants the Iron too)
(NW Warrior is sneaking through Babylon Territory; Sees another Russian Archer (1) heading our Way :lol: )

(English start on Great Wall, so they have Construction)

Turn 8, 800 BC
Rome fin Work, beg Warr
Fortify in Mountains
Pisae founded 3SW/1NW of Rome; beg on Catapult

(IBT nothing Much; Greek Hoplite is moving along base of Mountains; our Legions taunt him from the Heights)
(English form Liverpool on the desert side of the Iron, ha!)

Turn 9, 775 BC
Rome fin Warr, beg Warr
Neopolis fin Catapult, beg Catapult
Move Catapults to Iron Hill (4 there now)

Turn 10, 750 BC
Rome fin Warr, beg Warr
Cumae fin Warr, beg Warr
Pompeii fin Cat, beg Cat
Start Rolling Cats and Legions towards Greece

End Turn Log

Here's a screenshot of our area:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc750Main.JPG

We have a stack of 4 Legions and 4 Catapults just East of the Iron space; and there are another 4 Legions in the Mountains ready to join them as they roll towards Thermopylae.

Rome has popped out 3 Workers during this time; at size 4 it Generates 10 shields, so I built a Worker every time it was about to grow to size5. We should be able to do this one more time during the GA (after 2 more Warriors)

Those 3 Workers, in addition to improving tiles around our empire, are now back on the Iron space, and can hook it up in 2 turns.

Veii is about to finish a Settler; I'd HIGHLY recommend building the site 7 city 2NE/2SE of Rome; this will start our road network moving towards Greece. After connecting the Iron, the 3 Workers, with appropriate guards, can start roading to the East past this city and connect to the Greek road network. That way we can eventually move Settlers and reinforcements through, and claim the Greek Luxuries for ourselves.

We have 4 Vet Warriors in Rome; 2 more can be built over the next 2 turns, then Iron should be reconnected. There is over 240 gold in the Treasury; enough to upgrade all 6 Warriors on that turn. 2 more Vet Warriors will be in Cumae for future upgrade. I've reset the Research Rate to maximum as we most of the money for upgrades already and we'd like to get Lit to take advantage of any GLeader. Lit in 7; our GA expires soon, so it might take just longer than that to research.

After we learn Lit (which none of the AI have yet), we have to decide what to do. It is a valuable trading tool, but not trading it protects the GLib for us. The pre-build is still at least 20 turns from gathering 400 shields (Palace is currently worth 300, so we need 100 past the Palace amount). I think the AI has 2 civs working on Colossus; 1 will finish, the other probably tumble over to GreatLighthous; England is working on the Great Wall. Maybe GreatLib is still safe for us, but it'd sure be nice to get a GreatLeader! If we get one, I'd say we should finish Colossus in Antium, and use GL to build GLib there or elsewhere.

Roster Status:
bigchief
civ_steve -- Just Played
Keith Larson <--- UP!!!
Peanut
Peglegasus

and civ contact and War status:

Russia contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Greece contact in 2270bc, at WAR
France contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Babylon contact in 2230bc, at war by 610bc
England contact in 2190bc, at war by 210bc
Germany contact in 1475bc, at war by 190ad
America contact in 1475bc, at war by 420ad

Keith: you will be declaring War on Babylon during your set of turns.

Here is 750 BC Save File (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC0750_01.SAV)

Just notice Civ-steve posted his moves. I wrote the following before. Looking at Civ-steve post I think my points are confirmed. We gained nothing for the death of one Legionaire and now England has founded a city next to the iron.

Looking at the saved file I have some more comments on city placement. The second city sight Civ-steve identified with a 7 should not be placed on that tile. We want the two worker to improve that tile for our wonder building city, once they complete their work next to the river. BTW there was no need for he workers to build the road by the river during a GA. Without the Legion protecting the settler the attack on Marseille is iffy. The French probably have their original warrior and two spearmen fortified on the hill now called Marseille. That means every unit of ours must win its battle which is unlikely. This is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier. What we gain from razing Marseille is very little unless we plan to move the legionnaire and his settler up there to claim the hill. If our intention is to found that city elsewhere do we want to risk losing all three units? I am all for moving forward as Bigchief said, but what do we gain from razing Marseille if we don’t plan to found a city there? The AI will not make the garrison any stronger. Because it already has 3 units garrisoned there it will build archers or spearmen (most likely archers) and send them towards our territory. The three units we are risking in this attack can easily handle anything Marseille produces (which will not be much because of they are a high corruption city for the French). Besides, killing archers is a great way to generate GL’s. Then when we are ready to found a city on that hill, we attack it with overwhelming odd and guess what? There will be two spearmen and warrior (maybe a freshly produced archer) defending! The AI is so stupid.

Turn 0: 750 BC
Good job Steve.

Turn 1: 730 BC
French warrior moves into view SE of Liverpool, good, more GL bate! Hoplite moves next to iron and grapes and horsemen into the woods SE of our infant SOD. Rome completes warrior and starts another. Veii complete settler and starts another. F4 shows that no one has Lit yet. Cat in Rome and one in the SOD red line the Hoplite. Two other cats redline the horseman. The elite Legionaires in the SOD take care of them and the balance of the stack move into vacated woods. Workers start road on iron. Units near French warrior move to channel him into the open. Warrior in the far N will shadow the Russian archer for a while. The intel he provide is too valuable to risk him to the Russian.

IBT: The stupid French warrior took the bait and will die this turn. Two more French warrior appear to the N, looks like they are moving to attack the worker near Pompeii. Mycenae send out hoplite on a pillaging mission. We will be waiting for him!

Turn 2: 710 BC
Rome builds warrior, start worker.
Cumae builds warrior, starts warrior.
French Warrior killed, Romans now next to Thermopylae.
Still no one has Lit.

IBT: GA has ended! Hoplite moves into hills N of Rome.

Turn 3: 690 BC
Rome builds worker and starts Legionary. Bombardment of Thermopylae with one cat fails. Next turn I will attack in force. Iron is on line again and I upgrade all five warriors in Rome. The two French warrior in the north change direction and head south. The our elite Legionary on the ruins attacks and dies to a stone throwing barbarian! I judge the risk of the attack worth it. But this is again an illustration of what I have been saying. With no follow up units near by his death was in vain. Ravenna founded two tiles due east of Rome. Starts Cat. Workers move to bonus wheat. We are at +2 gold and Lit in 5 turns. No AI has Lit. Next turn another warrior will upgrade in Rome.

IBT: Hoplite move to tile NW of Ravenna. Germans complete Colossus in Berlin. English, Americans and Germans start GLH. A French horseman kills our northern warrior.

Turn 4: 670 BC
Neapolis builds cat and starts another.
Pisae builds cat and starts another.
The cat in Rome and Neapolis move to Ravenna and Hoplite takes one hit. The four cats next to Thermopylae all fail. Looks like we will do this the hard way! At the cost of one Legionary we kill two Hoplites and destroy Thermopylae taking 0 gold, but one worker whom we kill. Wounded hoplite near Ravenna is killed. Archer kills wounded French warrior that killed our elite. The archer is promoted to elite. So I don’t feel to bad about last turn's attack.

I have a wedding to go to this afternoon so I will not be about to play again until tomorrow afternoon. I am posting the 670 BC save for your viewing pleasure and look to your advice. There are a number of units that can still move this turn, but we need to decide on our next target. Mycenae or the Greek heartland? If we go for Athens we can’t take the cats with us. Based on your input I will finish tomorrow.

Keith: thanks! Regarding your post just before your turns - I understand what you are saying about the risk of attacking Marseilles; in my mind there are good arguments both ways. The point of attacking in my mind was to get some Elite Victories in an attempt to get a GL, and to remove a possible French base. The Elite Legion got two victories in two turns, and two more over the next few turns (but no luck with GL). And by leaving him on the space until England founded Liverpool, we kept the AI from founding on that good space (the AI wont found any cities there now, since they'd be adjacent to Liverpool's culture.) Liverpool's location is pretty marginal, and if England tries to hook up this iron, we can pillage their road through the desert with no loss of prestige and no need to declare.

In my mind the three things we haven't done well are: 1.) manage Antium for GLib pre-build; 2.) get Catapults built earlier to support our Legions; 3.) (most critical) didn't control the Mountains SE of Rome. It took us 20 turns to kick the Greeks out of those mountains; we can't move in force to Thermopylae until we assure that Greeks wont come out of the mountains and harass our cities. This delay will cut into the time we can use Legions effectively. As a critique, these are the things I would most like to have changed.

And regarding losing the Elite Legion - against 1 warrior, you have better odds of defeating him if he attacks you, but a smaller chance of getting a GL; not clear if he was moving past you (in which case you have to attack), but sometimes its worthwhile to just fortify on a hill and see if he suicides on you!

OK, I've loaded the file, and here are my suggestions and a screenshot (it's nice to see there's a Greek city that's NOT on the map anymore!) (and we're really taking turns quickly right now, too)

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_bc670Main.JPG

I'm really leary about sending stacks of Legions to impale themselves on Hoplite Spears without Catapult support. So, I recommend the 3 Workers move to the Forest labeled with a 'ROAD' on it (1 turn), road it (2 turns), move to one of the mountains with a 'ROAD' over them (1 turn), and road that mountain (3 turns). So in 7 turns we will have a road over a mountains space that will allow our catapults to follow the red trail to Athens. Meanwhile, our Catapults and Legions take out Mycanea (should take about the same amount of time as the 7 turns that the Workers need, to move up, Bombard and Assault, heal, and move into position.) Of course, be sure to protect the Workers while they build roads for us. Our easternmost Legion should scout a little bit to see if there's a Greek road through the mountains just out of our sight; it might make sense to use that more direct route, if we can secure it.

We have one more distance 3 city site, which I've noted with a red circle.

I think we need to have about 10 catapults or so initially. That would allow 2 stacks of Legions with 5 catapults supporting them. I'd start transitioning some of the larger secondary cities (Neopolis, Pompeii for example) to build Barracks, and either Legions/Warriors or Horsemen. We will need the Horsemen for Knight eventually, and they do make great fast defenders in the meantime. And after we upgrade a few more Warriors to Legions, I'd pillage the Iron again; following the advice in the next paragraph will build up our Treasury for more upgrades again.

Finally, Literature. None of the AI know it yet. I'm thinking we should get down to about 2 turns left, then minimize research on it. There's no point in us researching it first if we can't build the GreatLib; this will just make it easier for the AI to research it ahead of us. And if we don't get a GLeader soon, I'd like to see the GLight built before we learn Lit. Also, by leaving some turns left to research it, if the AI learns Lit we will know by the sudden drop in turns to finish it.

Have fun at the wedding!

Finish of Turn 4
Thanks for the input Civ-steve. I was thinking along the same lines as you about Lit. It is very dangerous right now to learn Lit, as it might speed up one of our opponents. I am worried about America’s and England’s Colossus pre-builds. One will get the GLH, but the other might be able to switch to Lit. The GW build in London is not as much a concern. I don’t think that city can catch up with us. As for our next builds and disconnected iron. I am one mind with you there as well. I notice I are starting to garrison cities with offensive units. This is a waste of shields. Not only do we need more warriors for upgrading, but also as policemen. Warriors are always a good investment, but in this game they are even better. Because we will be constantly at war, we will be in governments that allow garrisons for happiness. The 10 shield warriors we build now will still be useful all the way to the end of the game. I too would like to have a few horsemen, but right now warriors upgraded to Legionaries is the “Best Buy.” Legionaries will be useful as offensive and/or defensive units all the way until the Industrial age and after that they will make fine policemen. I just can’t see us investing too many shield into horsemen right now. I am switching Neopolis to a barracks because we need more units. These seems to be the best choice because the land around it is most developed. I will continue with Cats in the other cities until they have a higher shield output.

I am sending one Legionary forward to pillage and explore. The AI tends to ignore high defensive units and the path to the horses is through mountains. Others move towards Mycenae.

IBT: French conscript warrior moves forward. English shift the GLH to York. Cumae completes warrior, starts Legionary (will switch this to warrior when the iron is disconnected.)

Turn 5: 650 BC
From F4 I learn that no one has Lit. Newly created warrior moves towards Veii to free the archer for more productive duties. Forces converging on Mycenae. The pillaging Legionary finds horseman fortified in Mt. next to horses. Legionary kills conscript French warrior. Because Veii grew to size 6 I had to use the slider. Through micromanagement I found just enough shields to complete the settler next turn.

IBT: Veii completes settler and start another. Two vet Russian archers show up two tiles NW of Veii. French spearmen looks to be moving toward us. Two Russian spearmen and one archer are seen N of Pompeii. The Greeks are sending a lone warrior at us N of Mycenae and an archer comes out of Athens to greet our pillaging Legionary. Dover founded next to fish to our south.

Turn 6: 630 BC
F4 still no one with Lit. Pillaging Legionary move to mountain W of horses and finds it undefended! Looks like Greek horse meat will not be on the menu much longer. Warriors move to hills N and NW of Veii to bait the Russian archers into the open tile W of city. The two legions in Rome move to Veii with one cat. Able to move units around to keep Rome happy. Workers start road NE of Ravenna. 6 cats and 7 Legions are next to Mycenae to attack next turn. We are at +27 gold. Rather than waiting for another turn I trade maps for gold. This is also the last turn we can trade with Babylon. Babylon give us 9 gold for our WM. Germany gives us 7 gold. America 3 gold and England 2 gold. With this money I upgrade a vet warrior at Cumae.

IBT: Rome builds Legionary and starts a worker. Pompeii completes cat and start another. Russians do not take the bait but attack regular warrior instead. The first Archer dies to Roman stone and the second is redlined as arrows overcome axes. The French continue to move forward, a horseman joins the spearman. The Northern Russians are now 2 tiles from Pompeii. Greek warrior moves S, looks like he has his eye on our three workers. The Greek AI not perceiving the danger to his horses moves the horseman and archer E to attack us.

Turn 7 610 BC
Newly created cat moves out of Pompeii and attack Russian archer. And takes him down a notch. The six cats next to Mycenea take both spearmen down one. One of the spearmen must have just been created. Mycenea is razed with 0 gold. One Legionary dies. Pillaging Legionary is now on the Greek horses. Legionary in Veii kills the redlined Russian archer. The cat and the other Legionary join him. The warrior goes into Veii to be upgraded, next turn. Units in Rome move to block Russian spearmen, with our spearmen also protection settler. We are running short of units real fast. If the need to upgrade warriors was not so great I would disconnect the iron right now. We need warriors bad. F4 shows that no one has Lit, but England is in the Middle ages. I declare war on Babylon. I get 3 gold from selling world maps

IBT: Our elite archer dies to a French horseman. The French spearman seems to be moving towards our kill zone.

Turn 8 590 BC
Kill Greek horseman, and start road to Athens. Pillage horses. Move to attack wounded French horseman next turn. Redline Greek warrior with cats. Elite Legionary kills him. Pillage iron.

IBT: America demands TM and 19 gold. We give in. I got distracted by a child and Forgot to cover a worker and wounded French horseman captured him. Sorry team. Rome builds worker and starts warrior. French spearman moves into kill zone.


Turn 9: 570 BC
Cat hits French spearman and one Legionary dies trying to kill him, a second finishes him off and becomes elite in the process. Archer kills French horseman. Hispalis is founded and starts cat. 3 cats attack Greek archer taking it down one. Following Legionary kills archer and become elite.

IBT: Cumae builds warrior and starts another. Neopolis completes barracks and starts warrior. Russian spearmen reverse direction and we will match, their archer moves to join them. French warrior on our border, two horsemen approaching from the west. Samarra founded to our NW


Turn 10: 550 BC
F4 no one has Lit. Kill another Greek archer and pillage another tile.

Remember to micromanage the game tiles. Cumae is 6 from Rome and I think this would be a good distance for our second ring. We need numbers! We are having to use offensive units defensively which is not good. Pompeii should start a barracks soon. Again sorry about the worker. At least he had finished his job and we did not lose any worker turns.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC0550_01.SAV

Very Interesting stuff, Keith! I like the wall of Legions keeping the 'hordes' outside of our territory. The loss of the Worker hurts; we can not be too careful!

I see that England has founded Dover to our SW. There is room to our SE as well; this means that we will have to maintain a defense for our backside! Right now the only thing we have there is the 2 regular Warriors in Antium. Please be careful not to get in a situation where a Horseman or two shows up with not enough defenders around to handel them!!

Slow and steady has to be the theme. We have a wonderful offensive/defensive unit with the Legion! I think the only way to keep up our defenses and still push on is to constantly pillage our Iron, build Warriors and Treasury, reconnect and upgrade; Repeat. Catapults will be the friendly companion to the Legion; they get a defensive shot, and can counter the advances of AI offensive units by shooting at them as they advance, then getting a defensive shot if we are attacked. I can not stress this enough - proper positioning of units EVERY TURN is critical. We can not leave Workers or Catapults undefended, and especially cities! If you are contemplating an attack, first consider what units are required to defend and where they need to be. Whatever is left over can be used for attack, not one unit more! We can not afford to be sloppy, and we will need defensive units, and catapults to support them, on every front where an AI can come at us.

We are also VERY SHORT on Workers. Except for Antium, which is our GLib city (hopefully), no city should ever be above size5. This means 1 MP for our distance3 cities will be enough to keep the city in order (probably need 2 MPs for distance 6 cities). (Eventually we will get Greece's Incense hooked up). Plan for the shields they need - if Rome is building Warriors, they don't need more than 5 shields/turn. Shift the citizens around so that other towns can get the shields. Rome should kick out a Worker when it gets to size 6. Our distance 3 cities seem to get 4 shields before Waste takes the 5th. So if they can't get to 6 shields, there's not much reason to be producing 5; consider building a Worker. As cities get to size 2 or 3, build a Barracks if they don't have on already. We will need a constant stream of Vet Units (mostly Warriors for upgrade). Cities without a Barracks should build Catapults, occasionally a Worker.

I like distance 6 for the next ring. The former Marseilles site is distance 6, and should be our next city, with appropriate Legion and Catapult protection.

Learning Literature is another tricky subject. We can turn research off entirely, and will still get credit for the research already done on Literature. This may need to be done to prevent Literature from being researched too soon. However, watch the Palace pre-build in Antium; we don't want to build it! At some point the value of the Palace will increase, which will give us more time to delay the Literature research. It would be so much easier if the AI would just finish off the other Wonders so we wouldn't have to micro-manage this so much!!

Veii need precise micro-management to generate a Settler every 5 turns. After kicking out a Settler and being size4 with no food stored:
Turn1 Use 1 Irrigated Games space; generate +4 food
Turn2 Use 2 Irrigated Games Spaces; generate +6 food; grow to size5
Turn3 Use 2 Irrigated Games Spaces and Forest; generate +5 Food
Turn4 Move 1 Games Space citizen to BG; generate +3 food for 2 turns
Turn5 Repeat for Turn4; this should build a Settler as Veii grows to size6
We have to keep the Settlers coming. (Edit - this is critical; if Veii needs to borrow a space from an adjacent city, it should get priority!)

It's late; there are several distance6 city sites, but the key one is the former Marseilles site. After that, maybe near Thermoplyes site. Anywhere else is getting close to the AI, so we need to be prepared to project power. At least a couple of the AI don't have Iron (I think Babylon and England fall into this category), so they should be easier to combat when the time comes.

Good Luck General Peanut!! You don't have to declare any wars during your turn, but you will have lots of units coming your way to beat up on. Be careful and marshall your resources! You should be able to block those Russian Spears until you can get some HPs off with Catapults and finish them off. Otherwise, keep roading, and pushing on to Athens I think, while building up for the former Marseilles site.

bigchief
civ_steve
Keith Larson -- Just Played
Peanut <--- UP!!!
Peglegasus

Russia contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Greece contact in 2270bc, at WAR
France contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Babylon contact in 2230bc, at WAR
England contact in 2190bc, at war by 210bc
Germany contact in 1475bc, at war by 190ad
America contact in 1475bc, at war by 420ad

Goodness me ! Around to me again already ? Ok, here's the "got it", I should be able to post by this time tomorrow - after I digest recent events and the large amount of good advice. This is turning out to be an interesting game.

I knew I'd forget something! (I did say it was late) Luxuries are at 20%; looking at the F1 screen and lowering them to 10%, the only city that would go into CD is Rome. I'd recommend lowering Lux to 10% and moving the 4/5 Elite Legion in Ravenna to Rome. This leaves Ravenna open, but there is no AI unit that can reach Ravenna this turn, and Rome pops out a Warrior next turn so it can be covered and Lux left at 10%.

I don't think we need to worry too much about the Great Library. 3 are building the Great Lighthouse. Berlin did not start building it until it completed the Colossus. Abe did not start building a wonder until later into my set of turns. We already had a shield lead on him when he started, and we went through 20 turns of Golden Age. Boston is the 3rd American city. Boston must be on the coast because it's building the Lighthouse, and probably doesn't have that many shield producing tiles. York switched to the Lighthouse when the Colossus was built by Germany. London did not start on the Great Wall until recently.

York should build the Lighthouse, given it's headstart. Unless there is something very strange going on, there is no way that any of the other wonder producing towns have as many shields stored as us.

Antium is already size 6. We need to move the citizen worker from the game tile to the forest tile. This will net 9 shields per turn. If my count is correct, we have 210 shields stored. At 9 shields per turn we will build it in 22 turns.

I hope you're right, bigchief! Still, there's little point to completing our research of Lit until our pre-build is ready, or we're going to be forced to build Palace if we don't have GLib available, or the AI has it already, or we get a GLeader.

Two small tactical items that may be of use soon:

1.) I talked about being sure we have defensive troops available to protect Workers, Catapults and cities. In general, they should just defend. However, if they are adjacent to a red-lined stack of AI units (assume the Catapults have done their job), then defensive units can be used to pick off some of these 1 hit point AI units, and not be moved out of their defensive position as long as at least 1 AI unit remains. (By defensive unit, I'm mainly referring to Legion(s) assigned to protect Catapults, Workers or cities.) I'd be sure there's a back up defender, just in case that 1 hp Archer gets really lucky!

2.) If an attacking AI moves a Horseman forward such that it threatens a city from 2 spaces away and we only have 1 unit to counter it but more are 2 turns away, AND the Horseman has only one way to attack the city, through a grassland or plains perhaps (maybe there are hills, forest, mountain, or other units, that block any other way for it to attack), there is some risk to place our 1 unit in the city. If the Horseman attacks and wins, the city falls. In this case, if possible, the unit can be placed in the intervening plains or grasslands space; the Horseman can not attack the city directly. If it goes around our unit, the reinforcements can help dispose of it, and if it attacks our 1 intervening unit, it will either fail (saving the city) or succeed, in which case it can't attack the undefended city because that would be a 2nd attack. This is most useful when the only defender is a Warrior; we may be encountering choices like this when our main force of Legions is out on the frontlines, and a Horseman comes at us from the side.

A very quick post describing a mixed result from General Peanut's tour of duty. The save (see below) will tell more, and I will post a fuller account in a day or so (it's my son's 6th birthday party tomorrow).

Firstly, my mistakes. I messed up production timing on Veii's settlers, and did the first in five turns. I also forgot to check happiness and both Rome and Veii rioted. What's worse it was on separate turns. Oops. Serves me right for playing when tired but I wanted to pass the game on.

I also lost one warrior to enemy attack, and lost two elite legions due to my less than outstanding warmongering efforts. However no workers, cats or cities were lost. Fortunately.

On the more cheerful side, we now have :
1) About 360 gold in treasury and a swarm of warriors (17 actually) ready to upgrade when the iron is reconnected.
2) Our southern strike force of 6 cats and 5 legions is sitting outside Athens ready to attack.
3) We have a northern strike force of 5 cats, 3 legions and 2 road building workers just north of the old Marseilles (now Viroconium). With reinforcement these can start to seriously annoy the French and/or the Babs.
4) We researched Literature and now own the Great Library in Rome courtesy of Trajan.
5) We know Monarchy, are in the Middle Ages, and we know Feudalism, and Engineering.
6) We are 2 turns away from the Lighthouse in Antium, and we could switch it to the HG if we want to.
7) Hadrian is heading back from Greece to Rome under escort and we could rush SunTzu's next turn if we wanted to. Or maybe build an army so we can build the Epic ? Should we dive into Monarchy soon ? Hmmm ... decisions, decisions ...

So, fellow Generals, a mixed bag of tasty nuts for you all to chew on. Think hard and then flood General Peglegasus with your excellent advice. I'm off to bed and then to party 6-year-old style tomorrow night.

The 350BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC0350_01.SAV)

Peanut,

Thanks for the quick report. Don't feel too bad about the oversights. Who knows if those two events were the very things that made the GL's possible. I replayed my moves yesterday to see what would have happened if I reversed the series of events that led to the loss of the archer and worker. Interesting enough it resulted in France forming an allience with Germany against us and the loss of two additional Legionaries. The nice thing about these game logs is they provide an opportunity to compare results of a different course of action. What came out loud and clear to me is reloading is not worth it. There can be a silver lining even in our mistakes!

Now for my input on the next few turns. Because of the varient rules the GLH is not as valuable as it normally would be. Early contact will only get us into war sooner. By the time we find the other continent we will not have anyone no our to trade contacts with. Since we are on the continent with the most civ's I doubt the other continents will be more advanced. My vote goes to the HG. The happiness is great to have and we are on a large continent so the effect will be widely felt. My vote is also for SunTau's. We are no such a large continent, in time we will have lots of cities. Not only will it be helpful to have all of our cities with barracks, it will save us a ton of gold. Until I look at the save I can't say if we should go to monarcy. Unless we have enough workers to improve tiles, it probably is not worth it right now.

Wow!! :eek: 2 GL's!! :D (I usually plan not to get any; this is really great news!) I'm very much looking forward to your post, but I totally empathize: your son's birthday party is much, much more important. (I have a 3 year old, so I'm in the same boat :) )

I think SunTzu's is the right choice for the Leader; and I'd vote for Hanging Gardens to be finished in Antium. I don't think we'd want GLight anyway; our continent is quite big, we have most if not all the contacts here, and I'm pretty sure we're not going exploring for other continents anytime soon.

Changing to Monarchy would allow faster growth at Veii and Rome, and decrease our overall Corruption, but we'd probably earn less gpt (less support at Monarchy until cities are size7) and lose several turns during the Anarchy period. With GLib in our hands, we don't want anyone on our continent learning Education, so I don't think we can delay at all. We must strive on and prevent the AI from getting Education, so I'd recommend staying in Despotism for now. Also, with Feudalism out, we'll have to target Iron sources to limit the amount of Pikemen and MedInf we will be facing.

Great Job, Peanut!

OK, I took a quick look at the Save file. There is a Russian Vet Spear adjacent to Pompeii, which has only a Regular Warrior defending. I'd suggest moving the Legion from Veii, or a Warrior from Rome, over to bolster the defence, just in case the Spear attacks. And there's a Greek Archer 2 spaces North of Lugdunum; if it decides to move South and be Adjacent to Lug, there's only a 3/5 Elite Legion available to defend it; I'd suggest moving a Warrior over from Ravenna to provide additional defense.

Checked our opponents: France is MidAges but doesn't have Feudalism yet; might be nice to deprive her of her Iron before she gets Pikes and MedInf. However, we will be declaring on England in 210 BC (take note, General Peglegasus), and they already have Feudalism, and have gotten a source of Iron. Elizabeth will be tough. Babylon also has Iron and Feudalism, so we will have one, and shortly two, opponents with that potent combination. Thankfully the AI doesn't have Monotheism, so that puts Education further away; however, Russia and Germany are still Ancient Age so that could change at any time!

One other comment: we have 4 Workers on the Iron space. Either 3 or 4 will make the connection in 2 turns, so the 4th Worker would be better off doing something else.

And I like the Legion keeping watch over Dover! He's ready to serve notice (probably should get a buddy or two and take it out soon after the war is declared). Just noticed the cultural boundary on Dover; looks like the English have another town further South in the Tundra! We should take out Dover, and put a couple cities down there, but I think I'd leave the far South cities for a later time and leave a defense in place.

We researched Literature and now own the Great Library in Rome courtesy of Trajan

What a relief! Great news indeed. "mixed results"? I don't think so. I'd say that's a huge bag of primo cashews right there. Nice work, mate.

So... Peglegasus' pre-flight check, phase 1:

-Remain in despotism for time being.
-Rush Sun-Tzu's with our great leader.
-Adjust defensive units per civ steve's suggestions.
-Give new work orders to 1 worker on road-to-iron crew.
-Switch Antium to spearman *cough* I mean Hanging Gardens.

I can play either tonight or tomorrow morning, so chime in if you've got anything to add. I'll wait until we are satisfied with my flight check before proceeding.

Questions: Any ideas about future city sites? Suggestions about how to deploy the legions we are about to upgrade?

Regarding the leader: I had a potentially evil thought! I don't usually make many armies so my experience with them is limited. What if we made an army, loaded it up with 3 Legions, and sent it Northward. If it stayed primarily on Hills/Mountains its virtually untouchable. The intent would be to work behind the enemy lines, pillage roads so their reinforcements to the front are delayed, and I think the PTW Army has Zone of Control which would inflict some damage upon occasion. I wouldn't use it to do too much attacking because of how long it would take to heal (being far from a friendly city.) Once we had a victory, Antium could make Heroic Epic which should make Leaders occur more often. And after we've peeled back a city or two, the Army could make a dash for France's Iron, denying Joan that critical resource. That would probably be the best use of the Army; delay reinforcements, pillage roads and deny Iron to our enemy.

The C3C army gets a +1 movement, which I don't think the PTW army gets. What if we made an army with 2 Legions and a Horseman, what would its movement be? Just a thought.

Peglegasus: just a cautionary note; Athens probably has 4 or 5 Hoplites in it, and we only have about that many Legions near it. I'd say we need about 10 Legions to even think about attacking. And ideally our assault should wait until that magic moment when we get several Catapult hits on Athens' Hoplites, 3 or 4 or so. These units are all by themselves, several turns away from friendly territory; a failed assault means we might lose everybody and that would be the end of our attempt on Greece. I'd dedicate several of our upgrades to taking Athens; we've got to be sure Greece is done before we can fully concentrate on the North.

City sites: after you declare on England (Turn 7) and remove Dover (plan for this; move some Legions down to join the one down there), there's room for 2 or 3 cities down here; at least 2 at the distance 6 ring from Rome. If we can clear the area between France, England and ourselves, I'm sure there's some nice sites there. And if we can destroy Athens, I'd like to claim the Incense as soon as possible.

It occurs to me that we're kind of flying blind here; see if you can get anybody's maps, maybe TM for TM if we're not at war. (Or WM for TM and whatever Gold they wish to offer; I'm not too picky). Don't put out too much gold for this; we need the upgrades. I don't know if I'd trade any Techs right now; certainly not any required Techs, but some of the civs don't have Literature which might get us a WM or two. We're about to go to war with England; it might be a good time to spoil our reputation by doing a gpt for Gold, or gpt for WM, or some such. I think we'd have to ask what they want for X, to be consistent with the trading rules. Since they'd probably ask for Gold before gpt, we'd have to do our upgrades before trying this and be down close to 0 gold.

NOTE: Some of this was written before Steve posted.

I agree with building the HG in Antium instead of the Lighthouse.

I would rather use the new leader to form an army. We can build the HE and will get more leaders. We are militaristic, so barracks are cheap to build, and Sun Tzu's won't help us that much. If we do build Sun Tzu's, we need to sell all our barracks on the turn before, unless it will put us in a bind in a town that is about to be attacked.

I have never had the AI attack an army in the open. They will attack an army in a city. The army can protect artillery, workers, and injured units, and can go deep into enemy territory and pillage without fear of attack.

Steve: IIRC it won't matter if we put a horse in the army. It depends on the slowest unit in the army.

I think we should trade with England, America and Russia. We are up Lit on England, and up a few techs on the other two. Hopefully we can get all their gold, but I would also like to get some maps. It would be nice to see what is hidden, and what we will soon be up against.

We really need to start building some horses. Chivalry will be coming up before long, and we will need knights to help deal with Pikes and Longbows, not to mention cavs when they are available.

And, we need to be thinking about our defenses in the future. IIRC, Legions upgrade to Med Inf. I would hate to be using them to defend against knights and later cavs, and scrambling to build muskets and rifles when the time comes. We may want to start building some pikes.

Also, we do need to keep with settling our rings, but we should settle on the site of Athens after we destroy it to get the incense, and getting the silks city would be good too. We will need the happiness as we grow and expand.

Until the AI gets knights we can pillage just as effectively with Legionaries. The AI will rarely attack a 3 defense unit. In fact, the three units in an army could pillage 3 times as fast as an army could. If this was C3C, the pillaging army would be a no brainer. The Epic would be nice, but I still think the Art of War is better.

As for pillaging I was going to suggest it anyway. Just not with an Army.

The pillaging army is an interesting idea. If it were coupled with some catapults they could bombard the surrounding squares after the army has pillaged a tile. Or would the "artillery bombardment failed" make it too inconsistent to be worth it? I'm no expert with catapults so I'm not sure.

We are in the Middle Ages now. One of us needs to post a summary in the spoiler thread. This time it doesn't have to be the team leader. It can be anyone nominated by the team. Peanut certainly is very good at the story telling, and my vote would be for him to do it, but if he lacks the time, does anyone else want to do it?

bigchief: after your post I feel pretty good about building the Army; resource denial and pillaging will really help out in our future battles; this first army should only attack once, just to get an Army win, and its off to harm the enemy's war potential. And no Horseman.

I think a better solution than building Pikes is to not upgrade all our Legions. They have the same defense as a Pike, have 3 times the attack, and use 1/3 the shields to produce (building a Warrior and upgrading to Legion). We are at +30 gpt, so we can almost upgrade a Legion every turn; we can't say the same for building Pikes!

I agree about getting some Horsemen built. As newer cities can take on the task of building Vet Warriors, and we get more Luxuries, the older cities that can be put up to 8 shields/turn (10 is better) should start building our future Knight force. Rome should be able to switch to this task. (BTW, we need more Workers to start building Mines in hills, too.)

(I see Keith's post: I still like the Army build; we gain little immediate benefit from SunTzu's - most unit building cities have barracks already, and we can't keep the enemy's cities to gain a forward Barracks capability. The Army allows HE, hopefully more GL's to gain SunTzu's at a later date, and provides a dominating unit with ZOC.)

More posts!!

It is frustrating to bombard with catapults, and keep getting the 'bombardment failed' message. It would be interesting to see if that worked well enough to do: imagine an army with several Catapults under it, bombarding everything that went by! (and trying to pillage when nothing is available.) If the AI doesn't attack that army (and even if it did, the catapult throws in a defensive shot), that could be decimating to any reinforcements trying to sneak by. Quite intriguing, Peglegasus; I'd vote to try it (we'll need more catapults). (Edit - this stack would not be able to enter unroaded mountains, however.)

I (and many others) like Peanut's style. I'd vote for Peanut first, but if he's unavailable, I could do it.

I think a better solution than building Pikes is to not upgrade all our Legions. They have the same defense as a Pike, have 3 times the attack, and use 1/3 the shields to produce (building a Warrior and upgrading to Legion). We are at +30 gpt, so we can almost upgrade a Legion every turn; we can't say the same for building Pikes!

What I was getting at with the Pikes is that they will upgrade to muskets - rifles - infantry, and the legions will be stuck at med inf. and then guerillas. If we stick with building warriors - legions, we will have lots of obsolete units, and will have to build the other defensive units from scratch.

I'm not suggesting that we build a bunch of them, but if we build enough to have at least one in our border towns, we will be able to upgrade them to the best defensive unit when the time comes.

bigchief: I understand your argument, but I can't agree with it. We're at a crucial phase of the game, IMO. We're knocking on Greece's door and should be putting a serious hurt on him by the end of Peglegasus' turns; we'll be at war with our 5th civ (England), and should be putting serious pressure on France, also by the end of his turns. This is the time to keep the offensive pressure up; we need to push through and put these two civs out (or make them inconsequential), and start to hurt Babylon and England. I can't say that we're better off, right now, trading the build of 2 Warriors for 1 Spear! By the time Muskets are out, we'd better be mopping up our continent, and building Spearmen isn't going to do that. I think there will be plenty of time, after we've put our continent down, to disconnect Iron, build Spears, and upgrade them, but only to provide a safer beachhead for our eventual invasion. By that time we wont need any defense in our home continent.

OK. I will go with the pillaging army. I am a big fan of pillaging. Let's not limit ourselves just to the Army however. Use the Army to knock out the iron and horses. Fortify a Legionary on top and use other Legionaries to speed the pillaging. As I said the AI seems to be coded not to make attacks against pillaging units that have a defensive advantage. Once the AI is reduced to archers, Legions can walk around freely. Even better, the Army will never get attacked. We will send the AI back to the stone age. :lol:

I agree that Legions are still the way to go. As I said in an earlier post we will still need policemen. By the time the Legionaries are no longer useful for front line duty there will still be plenty for them to do.

Ok here's my plan for the next turn. I am going to see if I can get some maps. I'm going to see if I can determine how many defenders are in Athens by using those cats. I will switch Antium to Hanging Gardens and move our defenders around. I'm going to stop and post after all that and let you know what's going on before playing the rest. Do we want an army then with our leader?

Question: after we have feudalism can we still make legionaries? Also, isn't it really expensive to upgrade horsemen? Like 80 or 100 gold or something? I'm thinking we may need to build some marketplaces. The way I've built marketplaces before in war time was to do it sequentially. For example, build one in Rome first while continuing with units in the other cities. When Rome's is nearly done start one in the next core city, and so on. It takes a while but the extra income sure would help.

We haven't heard from Peanut yet (nor have we seen his turns), but I think we've swayed the general concensus to "build an army with the leader", then use the army to pillage and wreak havoc on the enemy's territory (maybe do one attack somewhere against an archer or other 1 defense unit to let Antium build the Heroic Epic.)

Horsemen cost 80 gold to upgrade to Knight; that's twice the cost to upgrade a Warrior to Legion. We will need larger cities and more income to really support the switch from Legion offense to Knight offense. You may have a point about the marketplaces, especially since we should be adding a 3rd and 4th luxury soon! Still, I think its a bit premature; I'd like to see Greece and France taken out and Babylon and England put in their place before we start building up our infrastructure, that would give us a little breathing room.

A little more about the AI and pillaging. The AI will attack our Legionaries with swordsmen, but will avoid them with attack 2 units. I notice there are lots of mountains. Use these at the rout of the pillaging Legions and cut roads in the mountains. If there are not attack 3 units in the area, decend down to attack workers and improvements. Legionaries in mountains near cities will cause the AI to pull workers. In fact, we don't need to fortify on the tile of the Army pillaged iron or horses. Just keep a Legionary near by in the mountains.

As I look at the map, both our Eastern (Greek) and West (France) strike forces are too small. I suggest giving priority to the Eastern and keep the Western near to home to defend and take our the near English cities when war begins with them. In fact, we also need a homeland defense force of Legionaries and cats. The idea is to cover all cities and improvements in good defensive tiles and bait the AI into our open tiles to be greeted by a killer group of Legionaries and cats. Finally, switch some of those cities producing regular warriors to cats or barracks.

A quick note - I agree on the HG (for happiness) and army options. Who knows - we may fluke another few leaders soon and get SunTzu's for free, but I think the army followed by the Epic is a better option.

Strategic pillaging is now essential to slow down AI production and research, and to limit their Pikes and MedInf (and soon Knights). However we should keep as many roads as possible, as we will need them for military roads.

I agree with Keith & Steve's views above, and I suspect we will need markets and maybe even a few libraries eventually. But some good old slaughtering should come first ... and uninterrupted settling especially to connect up luxuries.

Peglegasus - we should always be able to make Legions as they are our UU.

I'm all partied out - but at least the newly-six-year-old is fast asleep now. Go get'em general Peglegasus !!

We may be able to build Legions, but it will be interesting to see what our upgrade options are, now that we know Feudalism! If we have to upgrade to MedInf, then send 5 of those to Athens; that will surely finish it off!

Peanut: when you get a chance, we will need to see a log of events during your turn.

If I did my job properly then MI will not be an upgrade option. This would have meant impementing an equivalent for the 1.29f version, and that means downloads (which I wanted to avoid). Sorry.

Peglegusas,

Looking at the save again. Be sure to move the archer near Samarra to safety. He is an offencive unit. Don't use him like a defensive unit. The Legionary NW of Samarra is in a good position to move W to pillage. He will also give us intel (don't waste gold on maps). As long as he remains in the mountains he will not be attacked. As Peanut said don't pillage every single tile. We don't have enough units for that. Cut main roads (one tile so we will have a road of our own in the future) and lux, iron, horses. Get more cats and Legions east ASP and lets finish off Greece. Looking forward to your report.

We can get a small amount of gold and world maps from England, Germany, and America if we like. They really don't have much to trade. For Literature England will give W.map +30, Germany W.map +40, and America W.map +15. Not much but the maps will be useful. Other option would be to trade map for map. I didn't try that.

Athens is defended by at least 2 hoplites, but we could have guessed that anyway. Only got a hit with one catapult.

I have the Russian spearman boxed in in the hills. He can't get to any impsoved tiles from where he is. Will try to herd him until some legions are ready to play with him.

I need some strategy tips for the incoming units. Here is a screenie.

Yellow: 2 pairs of Babylonian bowmen. Pink:A pair of Russian archers. Green: Stack of Babylonians including spear, settler, and 2 warriors. Red: American and Babylonian settler pairs.

None of the units in and near Viroconium have moved yet. I'm wondering if I should move in with them and let the soon to be upgraded units handle the incoming foes... or pull them back for defense. The archer and legion by Samarra have not moved yet either.

Let me know what you think and then I'll dive in.

Something else I thought of that I'll throw out there: since the AI doesn't like to attack our high defense legions they seem to instead send their units right past to head for our cities. What about building some weaker units (just a couple :p ) to use as bait to draw attackers away? The first time I saw this was when I re-played my last turnset. After pillaging the greek horses I moved the warrior into the mountains, away from the roads. NONE of the units we saw enter the Roman territory showed up at our doorstep. Every single one of them chased that warrior through the mountains. By keeping away from the roads they were always one step behind. Of course they eventually took him out but he defended successfully against an archer 3 times. This might be worth trying with a horse or two.

Consider the screen I posted a minute ago for example. If a horse or two were in the desert just SW of Avignon, might the AI see them as easier targets and send some of those bowmen after them, diverting them from our cities?

Peglegasus,

As I said earlier get that archer out of there. The Russians and/or Babs will kill him for sure next turn. The units near Viroconium need to stay were they are for at least as long as it takes to finish the road. Speaking of roads it looks like you wasted one worker turn at the iron 4 workers can only accomplish what 3 can do. Were is the GL? Get him to Rome so he can load the newly upgraded Legions. The Bab warrior/settler pair is probably heading S. Get a Legion near by to pick him off. As I suggested earlier send the Legion next to Samarra off pillaging. Even by walking next to cities in the mountains the AI will pull workers from their jobs, which will slow them down. As long as you keep him in the mountains the AI will not attack.

A better use of a horseman is to put one under the Army. This way the Army alway gets to move every turn. Heres how. The horseman move out from under the Army and pillages. Then the Army covers the horsemen. The next turn they repeat. In mountains the horseman pillages then moves, the Army covers! Switch one of our high sheild cities to a horseman and it should be ready by the time our Army is.

The turn is not finished... have not moved leader yet and moved one worker off of the road job after that screen shot. Good tip about the horse/army pillaging. I will get a horse going somewhere. When Antium finishes Hanging Gardens what should I build there? Pre build for heroic epic? There will be a settler up in one turn... where should I send him? And finally the Literature trades- should I do it?

I am not for giving the AI Lit. It is to our advantage to keep advancement slow right now. We don't need the maps right know. Our pillagers can give us the intel we need for the short term. Long term the maps will be outdated anyway. Pre-build Heroic Epic at Antium. There is a nice ring 6 sight next to the lake and cows S of Neopolis. This would also protect our S flank. You might want to think about walls in some of those N and W cities.

Here is link to artical on how to pair Armies and cavalry. http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_pillage.shtml

Keith: nice tip about the Army/Horseman pillaging team! One other suggestion: be aware of any mountain roads that we will need later to move Catapults through - I'd probably keep those, if there are any and there's no other way around.

We need to protect Virconium; I wouldn't move anybody out of there until Reinforcements arrive. The forward Legion stack should move in on Samarra. I wouldn't be too concerned about the Bab Bowmen stacks; they can be blocked off with Legions, and pelted by Catapults until they are safe to attack. I wouldn't attack them until they are down to 1 or 2 hps. That Bab Warrior/Settler is fresh meat once we can get to him.

You've got a bunch of catapults in a forward position that are well protected. Ping on anything you can; weaken them down, take them out as opportunity presents.

And obviously don't attack the American stack yet; block them off if you need to.

I'd like maps, but it probably is a bad idea to give the AI Lit. Who has it now? If some of the AI have Lit, then they'll be trading it soon; until then, maybe we should hold off.

This will not apply for a while, but once the pillaging Army gets deep into enemy territory the benifit of perserving roads will not equal the value of hindering the AI movement and economy. As I invision things the Pillaging Army will be on the move and workers will be repairing damage in its wake. It will be a long time until we are in the French iron mining area up N so while we are there lets make a mess of things so iron remains off line as long as possible. I am thinking we want to head towards the French horses first, then iron, then Bab's horse or tear up the French economy around her heartland cities.

Man this was a rough turnset for me. LOTS of Babylonian bowmen all over the north east mountains. I spent some time trying to occupy the mountains and block them but that meant having to divert units from the offensive. In the end I think trying to block them in the mountains was a waste of time. Who knows... maybe it wasn't. I think they will have swords coming our way really soon. The French and Russians already do.

I lost very few units, but the Greeks converged on Lugdunum with archers. Fought most off all but one and of course he did the dirty deed. Closest reinforcements were around Athens and they couldn't get there in time.

The catapults at Athens got a total of 3 hits the whole freakin' turnset! That was really frustrating! I think we may have to just suck it up and go for it. The alternative is try and deprive them of iron and wait until knights. Another option would be to leave Athens isolated and try their other towns. Or maybe the next player will have better luck.

We have a legionary army now. I know they are meant to be a pillaging force but their first job for me was to crush Samarra, which they did beautifully. They can rest up a couple turns and then link up with our horse, who is resting in Viroconium after assaulting an English settler pair.

It's funny that a bunch of the units that were on the hill north of Viroconium at the start of my turnset are back in the same spot again. Believe me, they haven't been sitting on their laurels there. Just coincidence that that's where they ended up.

I built some walls and saw something I've never seen before. I'll try and illustrate with a screenshot.

There were three stacks of Babylonian bowmen, with a couple of spears thrown in for good measure. They first were approaching Viroconium, but when walls were completed there they moved Nw around my blocking units and then south towards Pompeii. Then Pompeii completed its walls and they moved NW around the blockers again. Then came south towards Hispalis and Hispalis completed its walls. They moved back again around to Ravenna. I didn't build walls there and that's where they attacked. Elite spear and Elite Legion killed 5, taking almost no hits themselves. The last one bugged out. The whole maneuver sure was interesting to watch.

I'll have to post a turn log a bit later but the save has been uploaded.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_BC0150_01.SAV

I haven't had a chance to load the game and check it out. Losing Lugdunum is bad news! Perhaps there's a way to form a city in the hills just South of our approach to Athens to give our Legions there some mobility (one of the reasons I drew our line of advance along these hills); that way they can camp out or sally back to provide protection. (Needing 2 turns just to get out of Greek culture is a killer!)

I don't understand the bombardment failure. Catapults have a bombardment value of 4; Greek Hoplites defend at 3, and get a 25% bonus for Fortifying and I think Athens is on a hill which adds an additional 50%, so effective strength is 3 + .75 + 1.5 or 5.25. I'd think the Catapult would hit about 40% of the time. If so, with 6 catapults we should get 2 hits consistently, and occasionally 3+.

My turn log.

1) 330BC Move defenders around and box in Russian spear. Move one worker off of iron. Antium switched to Hanging Gardens. Legion by Samarra heads north to pillage... aiming for French horses first. Hadrian builds army in Rome. Army moves to Pompeii to await Legions. Archer near Samarra moves south. Greek archers moving in mountains between Athens and Lugdunum. Move one Legion away from Athens towards Lugdunum. Cats pound Athens getting one hit.

2) 310BC England and Babylon building Sun Tzu's. Antium completes Hanging Gardens and begins pre-build for Heroic Epic. Lots of Babylonian units incoming. They are all in the mountains north east of us so they won't be easy to take down. Will have to try and block them or make them attack across the river at least. Viroconium switches to walls in 3. Veii builds settler. Pompeii switches to catapult after building regular warrior. Cats pound Athens again. There are at least 3 Hoplites in there. Cats by Viro redline a french sword- vet legion finishes him, becoming elite. Lots of defender shuffling in prep for upgrades.

3) 290BC Cats by Viro redline Babylonian spear. Elite legion finishes him. Upgrade 9 warriors.

4) 270BC Russian archers cross river by Pompeii. Attack with 2 cats I have moved to assist blocking units north of Pompeii (under guard of course). One hits one misses. I think they will probably think twice about attacking. Lots of unit shuffling as I move out legions and put reg warriors in place as mp's. Army loads up.

IBT: Russians and Greeks ask for peace treaty. What means this "peace treaty"? Legions defend against Greek archers at Lugdunum.

5) 250BC Pompeii and Viroconium complete walls. Sure enough the Russian archers run for the hills. Babylonian units moving SE to less protected cities I guess. Move a couple units into the mountains as blocking units. Vet legion finally gets that Russian spear that was wandering around our territory. Vet legion in Lugdunum kills Greek archer and is promoted. Workers from the road to Athens crew return home and find new tasks. Legion pillages french horses.

6) 230BC Worker moves and unit shuffling. Army moving north. Able to turn lux rate to 0% for the time being.

IBT: Russian sword attacks legion in France (pillager). Legion defends losing one hit. Babylonians want peace. LOTS
of bowmen moving in through the mountains now. There are also some scattered french and Russian swords out there. Russian archer attacks Hispalis. Pretty bold move there. Legion defends successfully.

7) 210BC Scrambling defenders still. Enemies have to either attack across the river or attack legions on mountain tiles to get through. We demand 5 gold and map from Liz. She refuses and we declare war. (We have to on this turn anyway).

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

Vet legion outside Dover attacks warrior on the hill and becomes elite. Things are about to get REALLY ugly with all these incoming units. Lux slider back up to 10%.

IBT: Russian archer attacks Hispalis. Spear defends and is promoted. Germany and Babylon form alliance against us. Walls completed in Hispalis.

8) 190BC Time to use the army. Cats wound spear defender. Army pounds bowman defending. Of course there is a third defender hiding in there. Elite legion takes him down. I have two legions that can attack and finish the job, but they have to cross a river to do it. Will wait til next turn and hope they don't get reinforcements in there. Vet horse takes out English settler pair. American settler pair wandering though our territory, completely oblivious to the fact that a world war is going on around them. We tell Lincoln they need to move or they're going to get hurt. He submits. Lutetia founded by lake and cows to the south, dist 6.

IBT: The Library nets us Republic and Monotheism. Our people want the Heroic Epic.Berlin completes the Light house. Greeks are building Sun Tzu's. Greek archers getting bold and moving on Lugdunum from north and south. One attacks. Legion defends with no hits taken.

9) 170BC Army crushes Samarra, taking a settler. Vet legion kills french archer and is promoted. Elite legion takes out Russian sword after cats work him over. Try to move reinforcements to Lugdunum but no one is clos enough.

IBT: Elite legion in Lugdunum defends against 2 greek archers. Third takes him down and razes city :( Babylonian bowmen attack Hispalis en masse. Elite spear and elite legion slay 5 with ease and the sixth runs for the hills.

10) 150 BC Elite legion takes revenge on archer who razed Lugdunum. Cats and legions moving jsut north of Viroconium to counter incoming french and russian swords.

Time for bed. I'll post some of my thoughts tomorrow.

I've got it, and I will be playing it today. After looking at the save, if only this were possible:

(Just saw your post bigchief! :lol: Maybe we should suggest it to Firaxis!! Unfortunately, the only cease-fire we'll get is when every extra Babylonian unit is toast.)

I've had a chance to review the save file. I'd say the Walls have paid for themselves!

It looks like the Bombard Athens plan has failed; if we can't bombard Athens down a bunch of hitpoints, then we'll either have to chance a Legion Rush, or leave them for units with more power (Knights). If we decide to leave them for now, we should send a few Legions out on pillaging duty to harass Greece as much as possible.

There's a lot of things we need; we're currently paying 24 gpt for our units, so we need more cities, desperately. I'd suggest that Antium, which is using two Grassland tiles with no shields being generated, switch those to the two forests it has access to and finish HE quickly. Then have it spit out a couple of Settlers. We also need more Workers; perhaps Pisae, which is finishing a Barracks, should build either a Settler/Worker or Catapult/Worker. We have many tiles to still improve and we'll never control the Mountains to our North without roads for our Catapults to travel along. Lutetia should build Workers; with access to a Cow but only generating 1 Shield, this would be a good use for it.

We are up to 29 Legions, with 10 more Warriors to upgrade (although these seem to be all Regular Warriors). I'd propose that we not build any Legions, instead build Horsemen. With Mono being known now, by ourselves and at least 2 AI, you can bet that Knights are coming very soon. We need to have a number of Horsemen ready to upgrade. Any city with a Barracks that's building a Legionaire, should switch to Horsemen. Build the Treasury for these future upgrades (using it when needed to upgrade the Regular Warriors). Any city without a Barracks (Hispalis and Ravenna) should build Catapults, or a Barracks; we will need Vet units (Horses/Knights) for our attacks.

The enemy has been pouring through the mountains to our North. I see two ways to go about this 1.) defend in our cities, 2 or 3 Legions each in Virconium, Pompeii and Hispalis, with Cats, and mobile Cats and Legions to shift defenses as necessary (PROS, uses our Walls and interior mobility, CONS, not very aggressive, possibility of being Overwhelmed at one or more of the spots; 2.) Take out Rouen, and establish a solid row of Legions across the Mountains (PROS, more aggressive, gains ground, forces enemy to attack us in Best defensive positions or go around where they are more vulnerable and safeguards our Northern cities CONS, lack of Roads means little Cat support, lack of mobility, would tie up 5-6 Legions in Picket duty)

I'd say I'm more in favor of 2, but I'd be very happy to hear arguments or other suggestions.

England is in the war now (and Germany too!). Trashing Dover has to be a priority; probably need 3 Legions minimum to do that, and all at once, not staggered. Liverpool has to go soon too; otherwise we will be hip deep in English WITH this city still in play. And we're pretty vulnerable to an attack from the Brighton area; in fact, there's one spot on a hill that if it had a Horseman on it right now could capture two of our Workers! I'd like to add Brighton to the Hit list, and get us at least a couple Warriors on the Hill Ridge to our NW looking out to see if anything is coming our way (a city with a couple Legions would be even better.)

That's my thoughts for now.

I've never had a game where I had to fight on multiple fronts like this. Usually in this situation I would simply make peace with the more isolated civ (the Greeks in this case) so I could concentrate on the tougher opponents. I found it really difficult trying to make sure I had sufficient defenses AND offensive capability at the same time. I think I emphasized defense a little too much... except of course Lugdunum. I was really disappointed with myself for that loss :blush: . If only it had been size 2. I could have gotten it back on the next turn. Backup was one tile away after stepping out of Greek territory.

After my frustrating turns on Athens' doorstep I've thought of postponing the Greek assault too. I think there are two sources of iron down there... if we can keep Greece from getting to them we may be able to keep them under control for the time being. Plant a legion on each iron deposit, build cities down there wherever we can, and leave some legions down there to cut roads. As long as Athens has no road connection to a harbor they can't trade with the other civs, right? So the worst they will be able to throw at us will be archers and then longbows. The civs to our north are a much bigger threat right now.

Trying to block all those units in the mountains took a lot of units away from better things. Eventually I moved almost all of them out of the mountains and up around Viroconium to send them out on the offensive. There are still quite a few bowmen in the mountains out of visual range. Probably moving east and then will come back south but who knows. I say let them come and throw themselves at our defenders. By the way, not a single legionary on a mountain tile was attacked by anything. Not even swords.

Very soon we will be seeing a lot more swordsmen coming. The pillaging Legion up north has seen a couple Babylonian swords even, and has been attacked by french and russian swords. I'm curious to see what they will do. Will they be like the bowmen and go for the non-walled cities like the bowmen did? If they do, we can choose where to do battle in some instances.

Steve you have a good point about the north west cities and the English towns just beyond. I was looking at that as I finished my turns. Our towns out there just have one warrior each. With the forces we have massed at Viroconium I think we should move west and crush those two English towns. At that point they should be able to see what may be coming south through there. Hopefully they don't have anything about to knock on our side door there because we aren't prepared for that.

Yeah, I think we've just about reached the point where Legions will not allow us to push up, just hold our own until we can get Knights.

As far as the mountains to the North go, if we don't have a solid line across them, the AI will go through the gaps and head towards our towns. So there's little point to have a Legion here and there in the Mountains; we should commit to one or the other options I spelled out. I do prefer the 2nd; we have to use our Army intelligently, and our Legions; the army by itself could hold Virconium, inflicting losses on units going by (but don't actually capture that last unit in a stack!, we'd want the army to maintain its defensive position); this would allow the Legions to defend our other cities, and push the line back when opportunity presents. Minimize our losses, and maximize the AI's. Attack when we have good odds; defend otherwise, block them in good terrain, funnel them into death traps. And AI units in the open will definitely lose hitpoints to our Catapults. Use any Regular Legions for Defense; hopefully they will get upgraded; use Vet or Elite Legions for offense, when desired. Eventually we should be able to establish the picket line, and take Rouen.

Turn 0 - 150 BC - Moved some units to protect workers & border towns. Moved another unit to Rome. Dropped Lux slider to 0. Swapped some citizens around in Pompeii & Rome. Moved citizen workers in Antium for no growth and HE in 13 turns. Changed some productions to barracks & horses. Changed Lutetia to worker. Traded Abe construction for WM & 6 gold.

Turn 1 - 130 BC - All 7 cats fail in bombardment of Athens. I will try again on next turn, then give up. Moved NW cat stack to iron hill next to Liverpool. Babylon now hs 6 bowmen, 2 warriors, 1 spear, and one settler between Rouen & Hispalis. Elite Legion attacks spear in Dover and wins. Another Legion moves next to dover.

Turn 2 - 110 BC - Babylon settles Lagash next to the former site of Lugdunum. We destroy Lagash. 2 Cat hits out of 7 agains Athens. They have at least 3 hoplites there, probably more. Start withdrawal from Athens area to head back and defend what we have. Our legion near Paris is killed by a swordsman. 21 foreign units are next to, or one turn from being next to, our towns.

Turn 3 - 90 BC - Elite Spear in Ravenna defends against bowman and produces a leader.

I have stopped here for input on what to do with the leader, and what to do about our whole situation. We can use the leader to rush Sun Tzu's, rush the Hero Epic which is due in 10 turns, or build another army. We are being swarmed by foreign units. I think we need to pull back and defend until the waves of foreign units dwindles down quite a bit. We are in a dire situation, and it's going to be tough to just hold on. I really haven't even started playing the turn yet. I made a couple of moves. Here is the save, if anyone wants to look:

Here is a screenshot:

This is what the majority of my turns were like so I know how you feel ;) I know it looks ugly but we have a couple things going for us. The walled cities are forcing Babylon to focus their attacks in predictable places. I've never used walls like this before (usually only in 1 or 2 key positions) so I really don't know what effect if any it will have on swordsmen and their targeting choices.

I am so pleased that spearman generated a leader! He has been working really hard the last few turns.

I would suggest putting one more unit in Ravenna to defend. I would expect that after losing 2 or 3 bowmen in their attack the last couple Babylonians will retreat or fortify in place. One of the other things we have going for us is that the different civs units are not working together. Good thing that civs with alliances can't stack units.

Something that I saw a couple times was when archers and bowmen crossed the river and I didn't have enough units to take them down without a lot of risk, if I could wound them with catapults they would cross back over the river to heal. I think swordsmen might still try to move in to our territory but it worked well with the archers.

I vote for Sun Tzu's with the leader, for a couple of reasons. We don't have all that much income and getting free barracks will give us 16gpt or something like that. Also it will deprive one of the other civs of a useful wonder. AND no one has invention yet so by swiping Sun Tzu's they have no chance for a pre-build for Leonardo's, which we also might think about in the future.

It looks like Babylon and Russia are just getting their forces to us about the same time that France is getting up to speed, so we have a real big wave of units right now. Hopefully we will put this wave down before England and Germany show up!!

Our border towns should have at least 2 defenders in them; the Legion in Rome looks like he'd like to help out Ravenna :)

Yay, another GL! This time I think SunTzu's is the thing to get, especially since some cities are building Barracks right now. (I like taking the pre-build for Leo's away, too.) I would suggest building it in Virconium or Veii!! If we can get some culture being generated in our front towns, we will gain more Territory to control, and get earlier warning of what's coming our way. Virconium is a critical crossroads, which we have to keep anyway or we are toast, so I'd suggest building it there. (Next Wonder in Veii; let Antium finish their handbuild of HE.)

Turn 3 - 90 BC - (Cont.) - One French sword killed and one redlined attacking Viroconium. Russian sword moved south of Hispalis. He was bombarded then killed by our horseman. Killed an English archer near Liverpool.

Turn 4 - 70 BC - Leader Rushes SunTzu's in Viroconium. Four Babalonian bowmen killed attacking Ravenna. Russian settler pair killed near Ravenna. Babalonian bowman killed next to Viro. English warrior killed near Veii. Elite Legion dies trying to kill spear on our wheat tile next to Ravenna. Follow up horse finishes the spearman.

Turn 5 - 50 BC - Sun Tzu's built. English archer attacks Byzantium & is killed. French & Babalonian settler pairs killed near Sevastapol. Babalon bowman killed near Viroconium.

Turn 6 - 30 BC - Four Babalon units in our territory killed.

Turn 7 - 10 BC - Elite legion defending in Viroconium produces leader. Rushed Hero Epic. Founded Brundisium.

Turn 8 - 10 AD - More foreign units killed.

Turn 9 - 30 AD - Dead foreigners are starting to smell up the place.

Turn 10 - 50 AD - Rushed mass burial pit to deal with all the dead foreigners.

I didn't make any headway with moving forward or pillaging, but I was able to defend everything and even expand some. We can probably start to make a move forward in the next set of turns. I probably killed around 40 units during my set of turns, and lost only 5 or 6 units. We have a settler in Rome ready to head to a new home next turn. The english are the big threat now. The others are just sending units one or 2 at a time. The last turn was the first time I have seen a German unit, and it is a settler pair. Bismark and Abe are still behind in tech, and I don't think either poses a threat. The english are starting to come strong from the Liverpool area. They are also sending an archer from Dover every couple of turns. I was concerned early in my set, as to whether we would even be able to hold on with the onslaught, but we have managed to gain a couple of units and cities during the turns, and all units have been upgraded.

Here is the Save. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0050_01.SAV)

Our military:

Good job, mate. I was hoping our defenses would hold :) . Hopefully when the swords come they won't be in the quntities those Bab bowmen were in! Those bowmen mini stacks were intimidating at first but seemed rather easy to kill.

I'm interested to see what governments the civs will choose. I think 3 of them were in Republic but I see England is in anarchy at the moment. Going to monarchy you think? When should we consider switching?

Unrelated to our game: How do you make the link to the save appear like this "The Save" instead of mine which is always just "http://blah/blah.blah"?

There is a button above the reply window:

Peglegasus: when you make the link, using the 'Insert Hyperlink' button (world with a chain link below it), it give you the option to enter the text to show first, so type in 'My Save' or whatever, press enter, then paste in the shortcut. That's how you get personalized text to represent the link.

Wow, what a lot of action. The piles of the dead bodies must be a terrifying sight to see for any new AI units approaching us!! Good job, bigchief!!

I'll say I've got it, but I wont be able to load it until tonight. Since we are already at war with Germany, I don't believe we have to do any declarations until the original scheduled DoW against America. (In other words, if a civ declares on us, we don't have to move the rest of our timetable up.)

If I were to get any GL's (not likely with my luck), should I form Armies with them, or hold it for Leo's?

I wouldn't hold the leaders. I certainly want to get Leo's, but nobody is building it, or has any other prebuilds or wonders going. We should be able to get plenty of leaders as we go. I would think it would be a minimum of 30 turns before anyone else can build it (unless they get a leader).

We may want to use the next one for the Forbidden Palace.

Good point! With HE in place, and lots of upgraded units due to all the successful warfare going on, we should be able to generate lots of GLs (even me!). Use them as we go along. FP is a good idea to; we may want to be able to move our capital in the future, so we'll want the FP near the core.

Good set of turns Bigchief! I agree that we should never hold leaders. At the rate of combat we are experiencing we should generate a leader every ten turns or so.

I have been thinking about the last several turn sets and I think we really hurt ourselves by trying to take Athens. Unlike normal games the only thing we gain by attacking enemy cities is 1) a future sight for one of our cities 2) weaken the AI. We can’t capture cities. By allowing ourselves to siege Athens for over ten turns the AI was actually weakening us!

For the balance of the variant I think we need to follow the “Honest Abe” plan. Think of the AI is the forest, our settlers as the seed and our military units as the Axe. We cut down trees not for the purpose of taking over the forest (we can’t eat wood), but to plant our crops (cities). The most important unit we are producing is our settlers, they are the whole reason the Axe exists. The Axe is used first and foremost to protect our current crops from the encroaching forest (no more lost cities). Then the Axe is used to widen our clearing to make room for more crops (Thus AI cities that are closest to our crops get chopped first. Just think of all the trees we could have cut down with those 5 legions and 6 cats!) When and only when our Axe can accomplish these first two goals do we need to worry about chopping to extinction certain varieties of trees (we don’t want biodiversity, ours will be a monoculture farm!). When we march into the heart of forest to cut down the mother trees, we need to do so with overwhelming force (SOD. No more Athens). Of course, there are other ways of killing the Indians in the forest than by direct assault. We can send them fire water and small pox infested blankets (pillaging Armies) until they are so drunk and sick they can’t defend the forest any longer. Until we have seed (settlers) we don’t really need to worry about making the clearing too large, because the forest always has lots of seeds (settlers) and they will plant new trees in the clearing anyway. As we cut the forest down we will gain fire wood (Great Leaders) which will help us grow our farm ever larger.

As long as we can keep on planting new cities and protect them the AI can’t win. We don’t need any blitzkriegs, just a sharp axe and plenty of seed!

I hope all this makes sense. Just picture yourself as a homesteader facing the virgin forests of North America and I think you will get the idea.

That's a pretty good analogy, Keith. If that's so, then the other teams have been doing a better job of planting more trees - our score has been falling in relation to the other teams, and the biggest part of that is happy people, which you first need people for, and then to make them happy. (They might have taken out Greece, and connected their Luxuries, too; we do have the Hanging Gardens.)

It seems like the wave of recent AI attacks has been pretty fierce; I wouldn't have wanted to have any fewer units than we have. Our Greece plan may have definitely hurt us; we didn't take them out and tied up a lot of units in the meantime. I guess we'll have to make up some ground.

Any thoughts as to when we should revolt, if we should? Until we get several cities at size 7 or higher, we will lose a lot of unit support when we do switch over. And Monarchy does not add commerce, so we'd gain some Food and reduced Corruption/Waste; that would be it.

I also agree that we wasted time with Athens, and that's why I pulled out. I wasn't sure that pulling out would be very popular with the team, but it was the only move that made sense to me. I wasn't sure we had enough units there to take it, and we were being swarmed in our own territory. We couldn't afford to send more units that way, and the guys at home needed help. It's just a shame that the cats are so crappy. I never build them in my own games for that reason. But, it would have been great to get that incense. We really need another luxury or 2.

I think we should just concentrate on defending and building up until we can get Knights. Right now we are low on money, but everyone has been upgraded, and we can start saving from here. We are gaining about 50 GPT now, so we should be able to have a pretty strong Knight force when we get Chivalry.

The way they are coming at us, I don't think we can stop and build markets, temples or other improvements, until we are more in the driver's seat in this thing.

We are going to have to stay in Despotism for a while longer. We may be able to afford to switch after we get Chivalry and upgrade our horses. By then, we probably will have settled a few more towns. It's too bad we're not playing C3C. Feudalism would be a perfect government for us now. We are currently only loosing 15 GPT to corruption. Even with switching to Monarchy and building the FP, we would probably only lower that by 5 or 6 GPT. We are spending 18 GPT on units, and we still need more military units and workers. If we switched right now, it would cost us 22 GPT more in unit support.

If we switched, we will get another unit for MP duties, but the way things are going, we can't count on having 3 units sitting around in a town. The ammount of unit shuffling I had to do during my turns was amazing. I have been in Modern Age wars, owning a whole continent, and didn't have to make as many unit moves per turn as I did during that last set. It was like ship chaining - OK this uint can make it to there, which will allow that unit to move there, and then the other unit can kill the spear standing on our road.

I agree now is not to time to switch. Corruption will not be lowered that much and we will lose lots of unit support. As long as we are expanding we are doing OK. We will get those luxuries.

Good point about Feudalism. There is so much I like about 3C3 and so much I hate. If we were playing 3C3 we would have been able to rush all those wonders. At the rate we will be generating them, we should get about every wonder. I would like to see in Civ 4 many more ways to generate GLs (religious acheivements, expansion, diplomatic, ect.) but all leaders would be able to rush improvements, but each would have a specialized option: Military=army, Religious=Religious Golden Age, ect.

OK, I actually have the save file now. If I have any further questions (we've had a lot of discussion), I'll post them. Otherwise, should be able to play tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning.

Sorry for the delay; I'm halfway through the turns this morning. I'll finish tonight and post (family activities call!).

FYI, things are going well!! (Great setup on bigchief's part! :goodjob: )

OK, turns completed; here's the turn log:

Turn 0, 50 AD
Status: 2 Greek Archers to SE, not an immediate Threat; move Legions in Brundism to MtnRds to protect this vulnerable point; 2 Babylonian Swords to NE, immediately adjacent to 2 Roman cities, all catapults have been used and defenses are sound, let them come, also German Archer pair, and 2 American Warrior/Settlers (they look PUNY, but we leave them alone ... for now), and a Russian Sword are more remote; to N, French Sword, Babylon Spear (hah); to NW English Archer is adj to Veii (big deal), and Liverpool has a Warrior, 2 Archers and a 1 hp Horseman (I debate taking it out, but don't want to weaken the position on the Iron, move one Legion from Virconium to support)

Lots of cities to South, Dover in particular. Operation "Flush them out" is planned and begun; Settlers and Legions will be required, Antium switched to Settler (hate giving up a 10 spt city, but we will need more cash soon and city support is the way to do it)

Set Rome to 10 spt (down from 11), giving Iron Hills to Ravenna, making it a 5 spt town

In general, change any town building Legion to Horseman, except for Cumae (that Legion is part of "Flush them Out); move one Legion from Cumae adj to Byzantium to South

(IBT - My SpideySense was correct, 2 more archers from Athens were heading this way, had to divert off the road into adjoining Mtns; they are 2 turns away from Brundisium; 2 Greek Archers and 1 Hoplite show up to NE, near Sevastopol, another Gr Arch moves adj to Brund;
American Warr/Stlrs retreat
Baby Swords adv into our Territory; a 2nd Russian Sword coming through mtns;
English: 4 more Horses, an Archer and an Spear are in the area now, and Dover Archer advances (to his death, ha, ha) )

Turn 1, 70 AD
Antium fin Settler, Cumae a Legion, both start on Horsemen
Elite Legion in Byz kills Dover Archer (no GL, down to 3/5); it and 2 Legions/1 Horse (from Antium) take space)
4 Cat hits on 2 Babylon Swords take them to 1 hp each; 2 Vet Legions take them out (no promo)
1 Cat in Brund hits Greek Archer (now 2/3 in mtns), Vet Legion kills it, and gets promoted, now 5/5
3/3 Legion in Rome kills Eng Arch in Woods near Veii; Pike from Pompeii goes to Rome for MP duty
Start moving some Cats towards Veii; set up Legion stack (3 high) to confront Eng Horsemen near Veii (didn't want to give him an opportunity to pillage this key roaded/mined/RiverBG)
(adv defending Legions towards Heraklei in S; part of "FTO")
Army (13/13) to Virconium

(IBT, closest Russian Sword heads E (disengaging)
(More English, but my Legion Stack has sent them SW one space)

Turn 2, 90 AD

Cumae goes in CD (Bahh!, Horseman in Pisae sent over!); Neapolis fin Horse, beg Horse; Byz fin Work, beg Cat
Sentry Legion kills 1 Eng Horse (stays in position, still 4/4);
Stacked Legion kills 1 Eng Horse across River (now 2/4)
Elite Horse trys for Eng Arch across River (in Woods), but Retreats back to Veii
A Vet Legion does in Eng Arch, now 2/4; we move 3 more Legions into this Woods space across the River; there is an Eng War/Arch/Horse adj
3 Legions/1Horse now adj to Dover; Settler from Antium in position to found next turn
3 Legions adj to Herakleia
1 Cat hit and 2 Legion attacks does in 2 Gr Archers in Mtns (1 Promo to Elite)
Army now in Iron Hills adj to Liverpool; switch NE Legions to NW one Mtn and Hill, (hill to take away defensive terrain from 2nd Russian Sword, if they want to attack Virc)

(IBT, Eng move 3 Horse adj to Veii; War/Arch 1 space NW of there in Woods, 2 Horses in Hills 1 space NW of Woods space; and Army ZOC puts a hp on a passing horse (yes!); Babylon Spear in Fldplns adj to Virc (death spot); French Arch, spear and Sword visible to North, but spread out; Greek Hoplite/2Archers on Road to Brundisium now, must remove them!; German Arch/Stlr adj to Ravenna saying "Kill me next, please"; Babylon Warr adj to Herakleia in South)

Turn 3, 110 AD
Rome and Ravenna fin Horsemen; Rome starts a Settler
Cat misses Greek Hoplite in Woods; Ravenna Horse takes it down to 1 hp before dying (but Hoplite promotes, so 2/4); Vet Legion finishes it off; 2 more Legions from Brund finish off 2 Greek Archers; Greeks down to 1 Visible Archer
Legion in Ravenna dispatches German Arch/Settler pair; no Mercy, no Quarter!
Cats reduce Babylon Spear in Fldplns adj to Virc to 1 hp and Horse (the only defender by the way), finishes the job
Vet Legion in Veii kills 1 Eng Horse; 3 Cats get 3 Hits on remaining Horses; Vet Horse from Rome does in 2nd; Reg Legion attacks back across River to finish Stack off
Vet Legion attacks Eng Horse in hills, drives it off; 1 Horse in Hills, Eng War/Arch in Woods remain near Veii, no units adj to Veii
Assault on Dover! Kill 2 Spears, losing 1 Horse/1 Reg Legion; Dover is razed!!
Syracuse founded SW of Antium
1st Assault on Heraklei loses, so we back off, lost a Legion
Assault on Liverpool succeeds, no losses, doing in 3 Spears and capturing a Settler; all are put to the Sword; Remaining English Forces are mostly surrounded

(IBT, lots of motion on English Front, 2 1hp Horse retreat to Hills, directly adjacent to stacked Legions!!!; some move forward, some move back, they are in disarray; Franch has a few more units in Hills to North

Turn 4, 130 AD
Lutetia fin Walls, beg Cat
Horse from Lutetia clears Babylon Warrior from Hill to South (a future city site)
2 Legions finish off 1hp Eng Horses to NW
4 Cats take 2 HPs off Russian Spear adj Virc; Reg Legion finishes him off
2 Cats take Eng Spear near Veii down to 1 hp; Reg Leg does him in and gets promo
Legions and Horse take care of Eng Arch/Horse stack between Virc and Veii
Another Eng Arch and Warr are disposed of; Eng down to 1 Arch south of Liverpools ruins, and 1 Arch near Brighton

(IBT, a couple more Eng Horses show up near Brighton, and Archers ADVANCE!!,
A Babylon Bowman drops off from a galley between undefended Antium and Syracuse; Horses are close enough, and a returning Dover Elite is right there too!
France has 3 Swords, an Archer and a Spear to North; 2 units in death spot Fldplains adj to Virc)

Turn 5, 150 AD
Pisae fin Horse, beg Horse
2 Horses retreat, before Elite Legion does in Babs Bowman near Antium
Elite Leg kills Eng War/Setlr near Sevastopol
Elite Leg kills Gr Arch in Mtns
Reg Leg kills Gr Arch in Woods near Lutetia
Gonzomonia founded in Hills SW of Lutetia (an outpost), begins Walls; Pike has accompanied the Settler, and assumes MP duty
3 Cats hit on French Arch/Sword in death spot; 1 Leg hills Arch; Vet Horse kills 1 hp Sword, retr back to Virc; death spot is open for more inhabitants!
Kill Eng Arch near Liverpool Ruins; Reform Leg Stack in Hills to NW; can we entice 2 Eng Horses to come adjacent! (We are hiding just over the hills
Army provides defense for 3 Workers constructing North Road

(IBT, Eng Horse do commit, are in Hills adjacent to 4 Legions and 2 catapults; more Horsemeat; Babylon had 3 Swords coming from North; France does not enter death spot (darn!)


Turn 6, 170 AD
2 Settlers (Veii and Rome) and 3 Horsemen generated
Vet Legion from Veii kills Eng Arch in Woods (now 1/4)
2 Cats in NW Legion stack take 1 hp off adj Russian Spear; Vet Legion finishes job (now 2/4)
2 Vet Legions attack 2 Eng Horsemen; 1 retreats and 1 dies; 1 Reg Leg Advances so we occupy 3 tiles just 2 spaces from Brighton
Elite Legion does in Babylon Spear near Liverpools Ruins; We control and have vision over this entire Valley
Shift defenses a bit; strengthen position on Hill just East of Virconium (3 Legions and 4 Cats) to put Pressure on French units sliding by in Mountains; Horsemen placed centrally to respond wherever needed

(IBT, we gain Invention as 2 of our Enemies, England and Babylon, have learned this Tech;
Eng advance 1 Longbow, 1 Archer and 1 Spear (ooh, we're scared!);
French place sword in death spot; Spear/Stlr in Mtns adj to Pompeii
Babylon Swords advance, lead one 2 spaces from Virc (and 1 tile from death spot)

Turn 7, 190 AD
Brundisium finishes Walls; 2 more Horsemen are finished
Lunacatorum founded 2 Tiles West of Veii; in hills, begins Walls; Outpost Legions retire within its walls to heal
Cats put 1 hp on French Sword in death spot (2/3), and Elite Horse finishes him off, retreating back to Veii (Next! Don't jostle, the Babylonian Sword is next, I believe)
Cats put 1 hp on French Spear; Vet Legion deals death blow, and captures/destroys Settler in progress
Elite Legions do in Eng Archer and Spear
Cat misses but Elite Legion kills Russian Sword near Sevastopol
Russian Spear near Sev kills 1 Vet Legion, but loses to 2nd
Army and Workers adv 1 space for next road

(IBT Eng Longbow crests hill and spies Lunacatorum, for the last time
Babylon Sword claims his ticket to death spot (now serving #23, #23 ... I've got #23)
2 more Babylon Swords show up (so 4 more in the queue for the death spot
French Spear decides to try his luck, moving to fringe mtns between Pompeii and Hispalis
Greeks send Archer towards Brund; Hoplite has been moving North out of Heraklei, is in Hills space just NE of Lutetia)

Turn 8, 210 AD
2 More horsemen built
3 Cats get 2 Hits on Vet Babylon Sword in death spot; Vet Horse does him in getting Promo
2 Cats get 1 Hit on Eng LongBow; Vet Horse kills him (meant to activate Legion, duh); Healed Legions advance to protect Horse
Bruce kills Greek Archer
Vet Legion blocks off Hoplite (he can't retreat); Cats move down to help in his demise
Another Road space to Chartres is built
Adjust some defenders to South

(IBT, 2 Babylon Swords enter death spot, 2 more following; 4 Babylon Swords/ 1 Bowman show up near Chartres,
Greek Hoplite, given choice to move into Clear territory or defend in hills, move into clear grassland!!
French Spearman advances to Hills adj to Pompeii and Hispalis
Eng Spear and Babylon Spear/Stlr crest Mtns to far NW

Turn 9, 230 AD
2 More Horsemen; Ravenna switched to Worker
Neocaledonium founded in Hills near Liverpool ruins, begins Walls
2 Cats put 1 hp on Hoplite; Elite Leg finishes him (2/5 left)
2 Cats put 2 hps on French Spear; Elite Leg finishes him (2/5 left)
7 Cats put 6 hps on 2 Babylon Vet Swords in Death Spot; 2 Elite Horses finish them (clear for more in-coming)
Move Army to forward Hill North of Virc; adjust; position for Brighton and Herakleia

(IBT, 2 more Babylon Swords enter Death Spot; other Babylon Stack advances South of Chartres;
German Sword/Archer appears to North (Might be about to get a bunch of Germans)
2 French Swords Advance to Fringe Mtns between Pompeii and Hispalis
Russian Sword enters Roman Space from NE)

Turn 10, 250 AD
1 Horse; Cumae fin Work, beg Horse
3 Cats put 3 Hps on Russian Sword; Vet Legion finishes the Job
Move Legion from Mtns to Hills adj to Pompeii to restrict the choices of the French Swords (they can enter Hills near Hispalis, where I have 3 Cats in Ravenna that can reach them, or Plains near Pompeii where they have poor defense); Add Cat and 2 more Units for defense here
Army kills 1 Babylon Sword in Death spot (lost 5 hps, now 8/13)
3 Cats put 1 hp on remaining Babylon Sword; Reg Legion does him in, no hps lost, and gets promo
Elite Legion kills Eng Horse in far NE Mtns (still 5/5)
Send 6 Horses against Herakleia, mixed in with 2 Legions; Lose 3 Horses, 1 Legion but destroy Herakleia
Reg Legion kills English Horse near Lunacatorum
Advance on Brighton

End of Turnlog

Sorry if its a bit blow by blow.

Brief recap: we've got 4 more towns established, 2 at distance 6 in the Hills to the NW, 1 at distance 6 SW of Antium, and 1 off South on a hill securing us from advance from that direction. Dover and Liverpool are no more, as is most of the English field army, and Herakleia to the South has been overwhelmed by Horsemen with Legions to mop-up. I did lose 3 Horsemen and 1 Legion at Herakleia; I feel we should be between 15-20 Horsemen, and additional units inside/above this number can be used to soften a city for takeover. I wouldn't recommend doing this if our # of Horsemen falls below 15 or so. And we picked up Invention from the Great Library. True to my form, I didn't get a single GL.

Here is a screenshot of our North and West zones:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad250Main.JPG

I had a blast with the floodplains space I call the "death spot"; placing Legions in the Hills North and East of Virconium funneled several sets of AI units to these floodplains (big red circle) where Catapults could weaken them and Horses could kill them then move back, leaving it open for the next stack of units!! In the last set of turns I used a Regular Legion because there are no more AI units adjacent to it.

Points of Interest: 1.) I've set up several Legions, 2 Catapults and 2 Horsemen ready to attack and destroy Brighton next turn (shouldn't be a problem). 2.) Stack of Babylonian units (4 Swords /1 Bowman) will probably move onto the end of our road; there are 7 Cats in Virconium, along with lots of Legions and Horsemen to welcome them to our territory. 3.) 2 French Swords have been advancing, I've got a Cat, 3 Units to met them; and 3 more Cats in Ravenna if they move into the Hills space between Pompeii and Hispalis (more fun)

There's a scattered units here and there around the map. I'm thinking that if we can start moving Northwards, destroy Chartres and control the region just East of it, we can block off access to our territory from the North, just leaving Greece to deal with at home.

Here's our current military:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad250F3.JPG

bigchief
civ_steve -- Just Played
Keith Larson <--- UP!!!
Peanut
Peglegasus

Contact/War status:
Russia contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Greece contact in 2270bc, at WAR
France contact in 2270bc, at WAR
Babylon contact in 2230bc, at WAR
England contact in 2190bc, at WAR
Germany contact in 1475bc, at WAR
America contact in 1475bc, at war by 420ad

250 AD Save file (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0250_01.SAV)

Great set of turns Civ-steve. I got the file. This is a busy week for me so I will need all of my 48 hours to play my ten turns. If I can't complete my ten, Peanut will get a few bonus turns!

Great progress, fellow Generals. Sounds like a good strategy, CS.

I have been unwell recently but I should get my delayed turnlog posted soon. Sorry it's taking so long.

Team, I just got free and I feel I am too tired to do a good job on my turn set. I am going to pass on this round. The rest of this week looks like more of the same. Hopefully the next time around I will have more time and energy. I hope you are feeling better Peanut.

Peanut: I'm sorry to hear you were feeling unwell. I hope you feel well enough to play next.

Team: I posted a report on our Ancient Age in the 1st spoiler thread so feel free to review the Spoiler1 thead and participate in any discussions there.

Keith - Sorry you can't fit in your round this time. I will pick it up but it may take me two evenings to play it through. Stay tuned.

CS - thanks for doing the spoiler post. I would not have been able to do it justice.

Peanut: you're welcome, but I know I didn't do it justice as compared to your style! :) Good luck with your set of turns!

I've been thinking about the use of Horsemen to take cities. I said that as long as we have 15-20 or so, that it makes sense to me to start pushing the AI back and using Horses as a sort of bombardment unit works ok. In my attack on Herakleia, I used 6 Horsemen: 3 died, 2 retreated (that's the real effective bombardment use, and I'd rather have had more retreats) and 1 was victorious. We're building a lot of Horsemen now, so we should make up the difference pretty quick, and the Horsemen can travel to the fronts very quickly.

My thought of maintaining a number of 15-20 Horsemen built is due to the cost to upgrade those Horsemen to Knights; we would need 1600 Gold to upgrade 20 Horsemen to Knights, and at 65ish gpt, that would take another 15-16 turns from where we are now. But, if we get a GL and are able to rush Leo's, the gold to upgrade 20 Horsemen is cut in half to 800, which we will have in 3-4 turns. So, if we get a GL, and rush Leo's (which I think is the next thing to do with a GL), that should push the number of Horsemen we wish to have available to upgrade to about 25-30 or so, and in reality even higher. So, in this case, I'd hold off using Horsemen in city assaults so that we can have an overwhelming Knight capability once Chivalry is known.

And regarding Chivalry, if we get to 20 Horsemen and 1600 Gold with no Leo's, or 30 Horsemen and 1200 Gold with Leo's, I think we should research it ourselves. At that point we can have a strong Knight contingent, and we want to start using it to take out the AI.

How does that sound?

I think we need to start pushing into French territory, if it is possible to do it and still maintain defense at home and keep up with our expansion. Gunpowder is coming soon, and I would rather have Joan beaten down a bit before she gets her Musketeers and Golden Age.

I agree. We're on her doorstep with our North Road ending just shy of Chartres. After we've taken care of a few of the troops menacing us, and Brighton, we should heal and head North. Thinking about it, Rouen isn't a threat; after we've taken most of France, all the action will take place up there; it's kind of a crossroads. We can pick off the local isolated cities (and eventually Greece) after we take care of France proper, and maybe even later still.

After we take Brighton, I'd suggest we lay some roads through the plains/desert to facilitate us attacking anything that England sends over the mountains. A few Legions with Horse backup and road access should secure this open area. The most of our forces can concentrate North.

When I posted, I believe only England and Babylon had Invention. They are the civs most likely to learn Gunpowder earliest, so once we control the French region, I think we need to put a hurt on England and Babylon.

Rush of enthusiasm. Claudius builds Leo's. Chartres, Kish, Brighton, Rouen levelled. Gunpowder known. Lots of longbows about. Chivalry in about 10. Around 23 horses waiting upgrade. Turnlog coming. Must dash off. Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0350_01.SAV)

Peanut: I'm looking forward to seeing this turnlog (unlike the last one, ahem :)) IIRC, Rouen was at distance 6 from Rome. We should found there and call the town 'Rouen's Ruins' :lol:

... mad dash from home ... kids dropped at school etc. ... writing from university ...

CS - you will get both turn logs soon. The earlier I wrote by hand and have to type up. Last night's I typed up as I played and it just has to be formatted. Trust me ...

Rouen's ruins is settled IIRC but you have a much better name for it !

... mad dash ... next lecture ...

A bit late (well ok a lot late) but better perhaps than never for those who just gotta know ...

Pre-turn check : Looks good ! Switch Rome & Ravenna to Legions, Lux up 10%. Lets go …

IBT : French approach from north. Hmmm

530BC : Target practice on a French warrior, then put him out of his misery – elite promotion. Pompeii guarded, settler heads for Marseilles’ ruins.

IBT :Greek archers appear and a Greek boat near Antium.

510BC : Target practice on the French Sword and Horse, then Horse killed by legion, then sword killed, and Lo ! Trajan emerges from the dust of battle ! Right lads – get those scientists into overtime ! Literature in 1 turn! Athens road gang works on …

IBT : Greeks land a horse near Antium. Two Russian spears head for our vineyards. A Russian archer suicides on a Legionary’s sword.

490BC :Trajan rushes the Library in Rome. We will leave our prebuild for something else I think. We guard our vineyard and iron mine.

IBT : Another French sword arrives. The Russian spears split up – 1 south, 1 north.

470BC : London builds the Great Wall ! The Library completes. Our elite legions are unlucky this time – 2 losses.

IBT : Another French sword. We learn 5 techs from the Library.

450BC : Viroconium settled on old Marseilles. Rome riots – oops I forgot to check ! Antium switches to Lighthouse. Minor skirmishes with Greeks.

IBT : Minor enemy moves. Nothing significant.

430BC : Poop poop. Veii riots this time. I must remember to check. I must remember I must remember I must remember …

IBT : More minor enemy moves.

410BC : Really dull ! Nobody to kill, more road building towards Athens.

IBT :French swords suicide against Viroconium.

390BC : Target practice against stray Greek archers, we blood a sword or two and Lo ! Hadrian emerges ! Two in one round ! Peanut is drunk with pride in his mastery over the RNG !!

IBT : Bab Bowmen are appearing in the north. Took them long enough to appear !

370BC : Hadrian awaits his escort service. A Greek archer killed just to keep the Legions in practice.

IBT : Greek Horses suicide against Ravenna. Wow ! Somebody has being doing some serious trading out there somewhere … we learn Monarchy, Construction, Feudalism and Engineering in one burst !

350BC : Hadrian heads home under escort. Northern strike force building up near Viroconium. Southern strike force camps outside Athens. Iron being reconnected for the next upgrade.

Ok back to "the present day" ...

A burst of enthusiasm and a little window of opportunity and look what happened … I got up to 330 AD with Claudius poised to do something, and I decided to consult with the team first. I got on line and found that CS recommended exactly what I was going to do from there – rush Leos and research Chivalry. So that’s what I did. I was a bit careless and reckless at times, and lost a few legions that I probably did not need to. On the other hand, the attack that spawned the GL, and the taking of Chartres and Rouen were impulses or decisions to try it a few turns early that worked well. You win some, you lose some … read on …

Pre-turn check : We will try to follow CS’s strategy of “let ‘em come and enjoy our catapults and then impale themselves on our swords” plus “occupy the high ground”. War with America will wait until 420AD (unless they are keen to die earlier, that is). Various Swords approach from the North … hahaha bring them on. We buy WM from Abe for Republic. There are glimpses of mysterious lands across the water waiting to be conquered.

IBT : Swords approach closer– French, Babylonian and German.

260AD : Our Legions occupy mountains in south to block a Greek archer. We rest up our army. Brighton’s destruction costs us two legions but gains two elite promotions. We head our settler off to resettle on the rubble of Brighton. An uneventful turn.

IBT : We lose two legions and a horse to attacks. An English longbow leaves a minor scratch in a Legionary before perishing miserably.

270AD : Yippee !! Some Catapult practice !! First – the Hoplite blundering about near Ravenna … he just needs three shots and one sword blow. Second – those Babs near Viroconium … and it’s 3-nil to Rome. 5 Elite victories, no leader this time. Hmmm.

IBT : The Germans are retreating East ! Eh what ?? What has Otto been drinking this time ? Nothing else of note.

280AD : We advance East through the mountains to hold the high ground. Time to send the army and a legion off to pillage and destroy. Oh, and we might just take in the sights of Chartres on the way. A Horse expedition heads for Kish in the South.

IBT : Ah, that’s more like it. A few French swords appear in the distance – and a Bab settler party appears eyeing off Brighton’s ruins. “Hahahahahaha” (a direct quote) the local military commander says as he sharpens his sword in anticipation.

290AD : Aesonesium settled on Brighton’s ruins. Oh look ! A Greek archer has strayed too close to Brundisium just when some catapults arrived for the hunting season. Byebye archer. 1 elite win. We take out an injured English spear. 2nd elite win.
More target practice in the north – the Bab settler party, 2 bab swords and some Germans. Lousy swordsmanship though – we lose a legion in combat.

IBT : Nothing of note – Swords milling around.

300AD : Kish is flattened by our southern horse force. We advance forces slowly to Chartres. Not much to note.

IBT : A few more enemy swords move up.

310AD : Minor skirmishes, a few losses (more on their side than ours). Chartres can wait as the Catapults were distracted by German and Bab swords.

IBT : More swords arrive. More Longbows arriving – what a pain. We learn Gunpowder - very handy but where’s Chivalry when we need it ?? There’s Saltpeter in the hills beside Pompeii.

320AD : We take out a Russian sword lurking near Rouen and Lo - Claudius appears ! And to relieve the boredom, our Army starts in on Chartres. One spear down. Just on impulse, a horse then tries his luck. Bingo ! He takes out Spear no 2 and Chartres is now rubble. 4 French workers hiding in the ruins are sacrificed in honor of Mars. Inspired by these reports, 2 brave Legionaries take out Rouen with no loss. A French settler perishes in the ruins. The road to Corinth (and fresh Luxuries) is open ! And Paris lies before us ! Lots of fun for all concerned (except for the Russians, Babs, French, Germans and Greeks that is).

IBT : Uh oh ! Lots more Bab and German swords appearing in the distance.

330AD : What will Claudius do ?? Hmmm … Rush Leo’s in Hispalis - that’s what ! Also a few minor skirmishes. We start research on Chivalry.

IBT : We are looking a little weak on the East front. Bab swords approach …

340AD : We settle Caesaraugusta on the ruins of Rouen. Norwich is in trouble (we hope).

IBT : The Russians want to talk. No, sorry. Too busy. The Babs also want a chat. Yeah, right.

350AD : Poop. The English captured two Cats besieging Newcastle. This shell-clad clod of a general forgot to bring up a second defender for the mini-stack. The cats defending Viroconium failed miserably. Zero out of four shots. That’s Zero. Against swords out in the open. At last Norwich is flattened. Horses come to the rescue and bravely reduce the threat to Viroconium but we are running short of Legions for defence !

Gratuitous Advice : I think we need a few more defenders (legions ? pikes ?) squatting on the mountain approaches to the East. My legions were too tempted to run down the slopes and pick off weak enemy units. We probably should settle to the east, taking out Corinth and getting those silks. A pillaging party (Army & a horse or two) should head off to disconnect Saltpeter and Iron. The next leader should go to an army for our Knights when they are available. We wil need to think about our second core soon. Perhaps to the NorthEast – somewhere between Corinth and Paris maybe ??

Best of luck, General Peglegasus !

Alright, 2 sets of turnlogs and 3 Leaders total - pretty darn good, Peanut! And another set of AI towns flattened. We're up to 21 Horsemen; with Leo's we want to keep that number on the higher side of 20 (preferably closer to 30) for a massive upgrade, so be risk averse for the next set of turns (we're far better off with a live Knight than a dead Horseman).

On the negative side, we're down 10 more Legions (21 from 31), and our forces are more scattered so we have no concentration of force right now. Here's a screen shot showing our North - NorthEast border:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad350Main1.JPG

We have way too many units in the NE mountains!! We built all our catapults to wound enemy units coming through the mountains; by moving forward like this we have reduced our mobility and eliminated the defensive use of these catapults (that's part of the reason why we've lost 10 Legions; they don't have catapult support on offense or defense). In watching the combat over the last few sets of turns, it's best to let the AI come to us through the mountains - it takes them longer (no roads), we can funnel them to focused attack zones (the death spot), and we can move our units around on internal roads quickly to counter their units slowly plodding through the mountains. I strongly recommend that we regroup these units back to our territory, perhaps leaving 1 or 2 Legions in forward, mountain positions as an early warning system.

I've noted two locations with circles where single horsemen are performing guard duty; this is inviting disaster! Especially the Horseman on the road north to Paris; he is guarding 2 catapults, on a road(!); a French Horseman could overrun this position easily. Fortunately there are units in Virconium that can be moved up to strengthen this defense; its very bad form to leave a Horsemen guarding any of our Catapults/Workers/Cities, especially on a road!! The other Horsemen is guarding 3 Workers build a Road through the mountains; there is a Pikeman adjacent to this position. The odds are in our favor if he attacks, but I'd prefer not to trust the RNG; I'd shift the Horseman in Rome to this mountain space, and one of Pompeii's defenders to Rome. Two defenders can not be overcome by one potential attacker.

We also have a lot of our legions doing MP duty. Somebody has to do it, but I'd prefer it to be Horsemen at this stage. We also have 3 Legions in our NW towns, with no threat visible from the English over the Mountains. I'd prefer to put Horsemen in 2 of these cities, with a Legion in the center city available to shift around as necessary. And the Workers in this area are doing essential work, building the connecting roads; but with 2 Workers only, I'd have them working different spaces if Grassland, Desert or Plains, or the same space if Hills.

Our Greece front is very weak. There's only 1 Legion here with 3 Catapults; if Athens has a pile of Longbows to send at us we have no counter.

Rather than occupying the Mountains to the NE, we need to concentrate on France's core. A city located on a hills space near the red X (at the top left of the screenshot) would help facilitate this, but only after we've organized our troops better. If we raze Paris, we will have moved the battle ground up to this region; the Mountains to the NE are then a moot point and whatever handful of units haven't suicided themselves on our units will disappear quickly without support from their respective homelands. (Except Greece, of course). England and Babylon are the one's who know Gunpowder; most of the rest don't know Invention yet, so we have to take this Battle to England and Babylon ASAP. England has no Saltpeter, but Babylon has 2 sources within their territory. We can decide to focus on England before they trade or get a source of their own, or on Babylon to remove the two sources available to the AI.

Gaining the additional Luxuries near Corinth does the following: we could then have a size 5 city without a MP, or a size6 city with 1 MP. Considering the Worker turns to do this and the force requirement, I'd rather focus on Paris and getting rid of the AI's ability to build Muskets.

Luxuries in the Save file are at 10%; my screenshot shows them at 0%. The only city that needs Luxuries at 10% is Rome. A 2nd MP can be moved over from Veii (at size4 it doesn't need a MP, and it finishes a Settler next turn) and I could reduce the Lux to 0%, taking a turn off the Chivalry research time. I also set Rome to build a Settler; we may or may not want to actually do that in the formal save, but we will certainly want to do it about the time Rome turns size 7.

Short term: regroup, adjust defenses (especially add some stuff to Greek frontier), push North, keep building Horsemen, get Chivalry (on the way), upgrade lots of Horses (yee hah), then disconnect Iron (pillage, pillage) and set our Research to 0 (regrow the treasury). At that time we should build more Horses, but also lots of Warriors. I'd like to see a Warrior in every city doing MP duty; it's the cheapest MP we have, and if we are threatened we can upgrade to Legion easily (lots of Treasury and Sun-Tzu's).

OK, Peglegasus - you're UP!! You need to declare War on America on turn 7 (420 AD, I believe). You might want to get one more WM from them right before that.

Super cool! Love those Great Leaders. Wish I could get one. Ok, I've got the save... will probably play tomorrow (Friday). Let me know of any other suggestions and strategies.

I think I've covered most of it already. 2 MPs for Rome, Lux to 0, Research to 100. Add Horseman to Horseman in Mountains. I'd add at least two of Virconium's Horsemen to the Horseman on the road to Paris.

We should complete a road to the new city to the NE (CaesarAugusta?, on the former Rouen's locations). That's about all I'd do up there. Follow the rest of the advice regarding upgrades, research, on to Paris, etc. You're going to need several turns to consolidate the Roman forces to push up towards Paris; don't forget about bolstering the Greek frontier, and we may want to make sure they haven't reconnected Horses, or done anything with their Iron source. Good Luck! There's more to do than we have units or time to do it with.

Perhaps we should use half of our future Knight force to sweep through part of Greece, just to really take them off balance. Maybe take Athens and parts North, or sweep South to East to Athens. Basically, put them on ice, gain a Luxury or two, and some space for more cities. This is more a bigchief operation though, based on how long it will take to get Chivalry (although, you don't know - 2 of the AI might be about to get it so we should be ready.) I'd suggest cleaning out the South up to Athens or so; that will eliminate their access to any strategic resources, and give us space and a Luxury. If highly successful, we could finish the job, just continuing up the coast until we rejoined our other forces.

Well, I don't see any other discussion, so I've been thinking about it and can make a good case for using our future Knight force to focus on the North, going after France, then Babylon finally England. France because they're the next civ North of us; Babylon because they know Gunpowder and have Saltpeter; England because they know Gunpowder. In this case, Greece can wait because they don't know Gunpowder (I don't think they know Invention either), and don't have Saltpeter; we have to focus on the bigger picture and the biggest threats, and we've been holding Greece off for a while; without Iron or Horses (we should check on that occasionally), we can hold them off for a long time.

I don't like Greece getting a free shot at us with longbows as we sit on the Mountain Roads near Brundisium. We may have to pull back into the city, and pelt them as they approach, giving them the roaded Mountain space. We definitely need more defenders in this area, and not all should be in Brundisium in case it flips.

It has been a very hectic week for me. But let me jot down a few of my observations for the team to consider. I agree with CivSteve that we need to concentrate our forces and set up kill zones. Use horses rather than other units for MP duty and don’t unnecessarily risk horsemen.

I am also in agreement with the Paris plan and the disconnecting of Iron after the upgrades and building lots and lots of warriors. As we are finishing off the French I will get back to my pillaging theme. The team seems to be in agreement, but as of yet it really has not been implemented. I believe we are at the point we can’t ignore the power of pillage any longer. Two areas it will be especially helpful. 1) Disconnect AI saltpeter. This will keep our knights effective longer. 2) Keep Greece without horses and economically weak until we can turn our attention to her again. We really have to make this a team effort if it is to be effective. 10 turns is not enough time to move the pillager to the place we need. The only effective pillaging we have done is my disconnecting of the Greek horses, but look how much pay-back we have gotten for that! I was only able to do this however, because the horses were reachable within my turn set.

The temptation is always to use the pillaging unit for something else. The tyranny of the urgent has kept us from the important. For example, our pillaging army has never left our territory. The waves of swordsmen seemed urgent, but what was really important was to deny the AI iron so that we would have been facing archers instead. If we had done this we might have some of those Legions we lost still with us.

May I suggest we rename any unit we send on a pillaging mission a name like “ACME Demolition,” clearly state the target tiles and the rest of the team honor those plans and follow through.

I can agree with you Keith, subject to pop-up emergencies (which a deep pillaging unit shouldn't be able to respond to, anyway.) Right now we are really short of units, but we should at least keep Greece from connecting either Iron or Horses. Pillaging Saltpeter is more of a problem; Babylon has a city on one source so we'd have to pillage all roads leading to this city. To compound the problem, this one city is sitting in the middle of English Territory.

With a large Knight force, pushing North, and reasonable favorable RNG results, we should be taking territory almost as fast as we can pillage it. Definitely plan to drive forward. BTW, there is a post in the Maintenance thread where its revealed that Armies can't pillage!! If we send it to an AI interior, it would have to be acccompanied by other units to do the actual pillaging.

Oh, bother! I'm going to have to pass my turns as I have a full weekend ahead of me. I'm building a fence and trying to get the house ready to sell so I'm not going to have much time. And in the time I DO have I'm probably going to be worn out and not focused enough to really do a proper job. Sorry all.

OK - I've got it, and I will play tonight or tomorrow.

bigchief: just a reminder, America is due to be declared on in 420 AD, the 7th turn of the next set of turns

Peglegasus: its a shame we can't set some Workers on 'Automate - Build Fence' for you! ;) (but then again, the resulting product might not be what you want, knowing the way these workers do their job)

A brief report from the Scores and Downloads screen:

- Team Smackster has finished the variant in 1300 AD. So we have 100 turns to wrest the Laurel from them! (No sweat, right!)

- OTOH, we are 4th from the bottom for the Wooden Spoon; right now Team's Sesn, Microbe and Bugsy are in better position to receive that 'distinction'. We've hit a bit of an upward trend, and are gaining on Team Mistfit

- Except for Team Smackster, who's Pyramids-fueled performance has outdone all, the next group of games are all non-Variant games, followed by a spread of Variant games, in terms of score performance. This makes sense as not having to declare these early wars allows your empire to get established more quickly. Within the Variant games, the top-games are probably those who are doing OK vs the AI AND have changed to Monarchy, then those doing OK vs the AI but are still in Despotism (us), followed by those who are not doing well.

For score purposes and faster growth, we might want to switch to Monarchy at some point soon. Problem is we've fielded a pretty big army so the support cost will be high, about 30-40 gpt at our current rate; and I'm leery to do the change before we've gained the upper hand against the AI. We'll need to discuss this more.

Wow, I guess ALL of us were busy this weekend! I figured someone would be itching to play some civilization. My fence is done except for the gate, and I am sore and tired.

How's it going, bigchief?

Sorry, I've had a bad weekend. I am playing today. I'll have my turns posted by this evening.

I am sorry guys, but things have been rough in real life this weekend, and there is no way I can play today. I thought I would be able to get it in. Please skip me this time.

bigchief: I'm sorry to hear about your bad weekend and rough real life right now. I hope things turn around for you real soon.

I'll post a got it for now and (hopefully) get a turn in by tomorrow morning.

Well I'm a few turns into the set, and I've gotten a GL!

I can make an army, or rush the Forbidden Palace. If the FP, where? Close by to increase the productivity of our distance 6 cities (in one area)? I've got the Settler Veii created up in the Hills just south of Paris; I could build FP up here; the culture would help to jam up the AI trying to come through, but there aren't any towns nearby right now.

Any suggestions?

Both options have their + and -. I am leaning for the new city however.

Another core will be essential, it may as well be now as later. On the other hand, another legionary army may be handy to send off as escort for a pillaging party. A hard call. Once we get three armies we can build the Pentagon, can't we ? Would that be a useful objective ? I think I lean towards starting our second core.

Perhaps we should build the FP close to our core, and use a future GL to move our Palace to a 2nd core. We don't really have this 2nd core established yet.

I've finished the next set of turns. We got Chivalry from the GLib on turn 7, upgrading all our Horses. Paris fell the next turn :D. We've built 4 more cities, 2 up North, 1 on the Southern Tip and 1 to finish our distance 6 ring in NW. I rushed FP in Veii; it's pretty central to our current core, and will allow us to use a future GL to move our Palace to a new core, once established. 2 More Settlers have been generated and are heading North to assist the future invasions. Most cities are building Warriors for MP duty and future Legion upgrades; we had 30 Knights to start with (down to 26), and have built 6 more Horsemen for future upgrade.

Turn log:

Turn 0, 350 AD
Moves: 3/5 Elite Legion moved to Horseman/Worker Stack
Horseman in mtns (with Germ LongB/Sword/Spear stack adj!!!!) retreated
Elite Legion in Neocal. moved to protect 2/4 Horse in Hills adj to Virc
4/4 and 4/5 Horsemen in Virc moved to Horseman/Catapult stack
MP from Pompeii moved to Rome; MP from Veii moved to Neocal.
Research to 100%, Chivalry in 9

(IBT German Sword comes down road, but loses to our Horseman/Catapult stack
German units shift Right; Pike move South to Forest near Ravenna
English Sword, 3 LongB's come over mtns towards Aesonium)

Turn 1, 360 AD
Veii fin Stlr, beg Stlr
- 2 Greek Longbows done in by Horseman/Legion after Cats take 2 HPs off; another Longbow in mtns
- German Pike gets Catted, taken out by Bruce (5/5 Elite, down to 3/5)
- Regroup in Virconium; Army takes position in Hills just South of Paris, with Cats and some Horses


(IBT, Greek LongB kills Legion
Engl advance on Aesonium, another LongB appears in hills, Galley heading South
Germans - Sword/LongB adj to Ravenna; 2 Pikes/2 Stlrs adj to Army
St. Louis founded in Hill zone NE

Turn 2, 370 AD
Pisae fin Horseman
- 2 Legions kill 2 Eng LongB's; Vet Horse does in 3rd, retreating to Aesonium; Elite Horse does in Eng Sword; No losses for us; 1 Eng LongB all for this zone
- 5 Cats put 1 HP on German Vet Sword in Mtns; Elite Legion does him in; Vet Legion does in Germ LongB
- 3 Cats put 3 HPs on German Pikes; Army does in 1, but down to 5/13 (!)
- Greek LongB done in by Horseman
- reform in NE zone

(IBT Eng LongB heads towards NeoCal.
French Swords show up near army
German Spear, followed by 2 Germ Swords Advance, Germ Pike retreats
AND ... GL generated in Mtns by Horseman defending against Greek LongBow!!!

Turn 3, 380 AD
Rome and Cumae fin Horsemen; Lutetia fin Catapult
- Horse Pillages Mtn Roads near Greece, then retreats (no more LongBs getting the first shot); Anthony comes along and is adjacent to Brundisium
- Horse does in Eng LongB (2 more in Mtns, 2 turns away though)
- Advance towards France

(IBT Germans advance 1 Spear, 2 Swords; start on Sistine Chapel, so Theology is out!!
English LongB's advance, joined by a 3rd on the Mtns)

Turn 4, 390 AD
Antium builds Settler, back to Horses
Ravenna fin Horseman
Germany learned Theology, traded to England for Gunpowder; England also knows Chemistry
Palmyra founded in hills South of Paris, begins on Walls
- Cats reduce French Swordsman near Palmyra to 1/4; Vet Horse finishes
- Cats reduce Germ Spear to 1/3 near Pompeii, Reg Legion does coup de grace

(IBT we learn Theology
2 German swords adv adj to Pompeii and Virconium; 2/3 Pike retreats
5 Bab LongBs appear near Paris
Russian Settler/Pike and French Russian/Pike appear
Greek LongBow)

Turn 5, 400 AD
Virc fin Horseman
Jerusalem founded on Dover's ruins to South (by Antium's Settler)
2 Germans Swords done in by Legions (only 1 Cat hit)
Greek LongB killed by Legion
2 English LongB's done in by Horses near NeoCal
2 Bab LongB's Catapulted (4 hits in 6 shots), then taken out by 2 Legions; add defensive legion in Mtns

(IBT, Eng retreat; Babs Advance; Russians have 2 Settlers they are trying to maneuver around Palmyra; 3 French Swordsmen as well; our exposed Legions did not get an attack

Turn 6, 410 AD
Rome fin Settler, and 3 Horsemen added to the Ranks
Light Action near Palmyra; 1 Russian Spear and 1 Bab LongB done in; Legions returned to Roman soil

(IBT, lots of movement around the empire, from the East:
Sev spits out an Archer
Greek Hoplite advances
Babs have a healing Pike, a Sword, a 3LongB/1Sword/1Stlr Stack, and a lone LongB in the NE
Germans have Spear/Stlr and a lone Sword
Russians have 2 Pike/Stlr stacks, and a lone 1 hp Spear
France has a lone Pike, and 3 Swords
Eng has a lone LongB


Turn 7, 420 AD
Veii finish Settler, start on FP
Trade Engineering to America for WM, 14 Gold and Gems (his offer); Declare War!!
Rush FP in Veii with Anthony
3 civs hav Chivalry, so reduce Research to 0
Army takes 1 hp Russian Spear near Palmyra (exposed position, but I think he's safe)
3 out of 4 Cats hit on Germ Spear; Elite Legion kills him, generating Octavian (2nd GL!!)
Build Army in Palmyra with Octavian
1/3 Cats hits Russian Archer; Elite Legion finishes up

(IBT, the rest advance of course; Eng adds 3 more LongB within Visual range
We learn Chivalry; 30 Knights are instantly upgraded when Veii finishes FP
We lose 2 Legions; 1 Outpost Legion is overrun by Bab LongBs, and the Elite that generated Octavian also falls to a Bab LongB)


Turn 8, 430 AD
- 1 HP Bab LongB near our North Road is dispatched by Legion
- Bab Pike gets 1/3 Cat bombards; Knight gets first win against Pike; Legion takes accompanying LongB and kills off Bab Stlr
- Knights charge out of Palmyra, intent on destroying Paris: 4 Wins, 3 Losses, 3 Retreats, and Paris is put to the Torch!
- Cats put 1 HP on French Sword; Army finishes him, and is back on Roads
- Cats put 2 HPs on Eng LongB (Threatening North Road), 1 HP on Bab LongB (adj to Palmyra)
- Knights clear 2 Bab LongB's in Mtns near Palmyra
- Lose 1 Knight, while Killing 1 Russ Sword, and redlining a 2nd
- Pillage Iron, start on Warriors and Horsemen
- 2/3 Cats on Greek Hoplite; Knight does last HP

(IBT, lose 1 Knight to French Sword)

Turn 9, 440 AD
Several Horsemen are finished
1 HP Russian Sword finished
2 out of 3 French Swords done in
2 Cats put 2 HPs on Eng LongB; 2 Knights finish and return
Cats put another HP each, redlining, an Eng LongB and Russian Sword near Palmyra; Legions finish
Horses replace Knights as MP, where possible

(IBT Muskets (Babs and English) are starting to show up)

Turn 10, 450 AD
3/6 Cats hit Bab Pike/Musket/2Stlr Stack; Army finishes Musket (9/13); Knight takes Pike, and does in 2 Settlers
Tarentum founded on former French Plains; begins Walls
2 Cats hit Eng Musket in NW Plains; Vet Legion gets last HP
Elite Legions goes mano-a-mano with Bab Pike near Ravenna, and gets the last laugh
1/3 Cats hits Greek LongB near Ceaser Augusta; Knight finishes
Legion takes out Greek LongB near Brundisium

End of Turnlog

Picture of Empire:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad450MainZ.JPG

We're at war with everyone now; I traded Engineering to Abe for one more WM. Once healed our Knights should have no problem cleaning the rest of the Northern French cities out, making France a government in exile. The action has definitely shifted North, with some harrying side attacks; I've left some forces and catapults all around the empire, but our primary force is shifting North. If we get Chemistry from the GLib, we might want to consider reseaching Metallurgy and MilTrad, to get us Cav quickly; OTOH, losing 3 Knights assaulting Paris (pikes only) wasn't too bad. Could plan to lose 5 Knights assaulting Musket defended Capitals, and 3 to other cities and just build the forces up to compensate. And we'll probably get more armies as we go along, giving us a good initial shock attack with Knight armies.

BTW, we have an empty army sitting in Palmyra; I didn't want to fill it up (Knights I'd say) until we had a decent amount of other units; maybe I should have for Paris, this might have save a Knight or two to take out the first defender immediately (we hope).

bigchief
civ_steve -- Just Played
Keith Larson <--- UP!!!
Peanut
Peglegasus

450 AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0450_01.SAV)

I can't believe how bad the timing is. I am leaving on a trip early tommorrow and can't get to the game tonight. This is two turns in a row! Could I ask the team skip me for now, but allow me to play the first turn set that become open Sunday or Monday?

Maybe it will be your turn by then ;)

I'm fine with postponing your turn set to next Sunday or Monday. In any case, I believe that brings General Peanut up for duty!!

Excellent progress CS. A hard act to follow. I like the MilTrad research path - the extra mobility and firepower are worth it.

Tough missing out twice Keith. I vote we slip Keith into the roster when he announces he is back on deck. Any objections ? Please speak up if you are unhappy with this.

In any case - it's a got it I suppose for the notoriously reckless General Peanut.

In retrospect, I should have loaded 3 Knights into the Army prior to assaulting Paris; however, I have had at times excruciatingly terrible RNG results with Armies, losing them on their first assault even though the odds should have been overwhelming in my favor. Peanut: the wounded Knights in Palmyra have spent a turn in the city, so on your first full turn they'll be fully healed; that would be the time to load the army in Palmyra, if you are so inclined.

I haven't seen any fast units from the AI recently, just lots of LongBows and Swords. However, with Chivalry starting to be common knowledge, we might start seeing Knights here and there, so be sure to keep some defenders in our frontline towns.

Most of the towns are finishing at least one round of Warriors each; these can replace most of the MPs, freeing up the Knights to move forward. I'd still keep a Knight or two in most zones for point defense, and a couple of catapults in these zones as well. I've seen about 4 Galleys floating around our Southern Tip, 3 English and 1 French, so either they're trying to reach undefended cities or looking for land to grab.

I founded Tarentum so that Lyons can be reached in one turn by our Knights; otherwise Lyons culture would require 2 turns by Knights and 3 turns by Legions to reach. Penetrating the AI culture with our cities like this is a good way to speed our forces forward.

England is the Tech Leader; they know Chemistry by themselves. Next is Germany and Babylon. Greece is missing a couple Techs, Russia, America and France are further behind. I'd suggest clearing the French away, leaving some Legions, Cats and a Knight or two to handle incoming from Babylon, Germany, Russia and America (we just declared on America so we should be seeing a wave of American units soon), and send the bulk of our Army against England. This will weaken our strongest opponent and protect our NW side reducing the amount of defenses we have to maintain there.

After building Warrior MPs, the core units should be building Horsemen. We're going to need more Settlers, so I'd keep building them in Veii, popping them out from Rome and Antium at size 7, and any other city that stops growing should pop out a Worker (size 4 or lower) or Settler (size5 or higher). Lutetia is also a good city to build Settlers with the irrigated Cow they have; we might want to get them a Granary.

That's my strategy thoughts. Keep the units tight and supporting each other; stacks are better than single units, and defense is pretty critical; if an AI unit wanders off, just keep track of it, don't chase it; eventually it will come back and then we can attack it (so it's the one that lost lots of turns), or it will be of no consequence; focus on moving forward against the AI cities; make plans for each assault, including a provision for defending wounded units, and execute your plan; and if attacking will leave vulnerable units exposed, don't make the attack unless your are certain that the AI can't reach the units; be wary of roads, and at the same time use them. Match potential attackers with one more defender (2 AI attackers, use 3 Defenders). We can't afford to give up any cities, or any of our zero defense units, and we'd like to minimize losses to our offensive units. With Knights, the Cats and Legions are at best followup units. Still, I'd have them following; that way you attack with a pile of Knights, raze the AI city leaving several 1HP Knights vulnerable in a stack, then several Legions and cats move in along the road (hopefully there's a road), providing a solid defense for our wounded Knights. Cats have worked pretty good in open ground to wound AI units, but not as well against cities, so I wouldn't delay a Knight assault to move Cats into position if I were reasonably certain of taking the city. (In fact, I wouldn't attack the city at all unless I had Overkill - it took 10 Knights to take Paris with 4 Pikemen, I had 14 Knights available.) Use the Cats more to defend stacks and ping on approaching AI.

Good Luck, General Peanut!

A mixed bag from General Peanut – no leaders this time, sorry (not for want of trying though). Joan is in trouble, Alex just lost Corinth and Lizzie is feeling some pain on her home front. Abe is making his presence felt in a minor way, but his swords are starting to filter through now. A bit haphazard again from me but overall progress has been made. At least there were no towns lost.

Pre-turn check : Economy looks good. Lizzie knows Chemistry but is not telling anyone about it yet. Lots of warrior MPs in training.

IBT : Longbows are all the rage amongst the more militant leaders these days. Everyone but poor old Rome has them ! Those persistent Russian settlers are trying to get through. We might leave them be for the moment.

460AD : We are going to send a harassing force into England. Their economy is a bit too strong and Lizzie needs to have her wings clipped a bit. We raise a Knight army and send it off, with a Knight, via Hastings towards London. We take potshots at some nearby troops and then finish them off. Perhaps soon we might also “visit” St Louis on the way to “seeing the sights” of Corinth and then send some souvenir silks home.

IBT : More of Lizzie’s longbows heading for Caesarea, and the occasional sword/pike/musket heading our way. Joan lands an archer near Aesonesium. Lizzie settles Birmingham on the spices near the site of Paris. Lyons is now rubble – only a pike and spear defending !

470AD : We drop rocks onto two English longbows silly enough to come in reach of our cats near Caesarea. Knights and a legion finishes them (and Joan’s foolhardy archer).

IBT : More English Longbows ! We lose a Knight & Legion to Longbows. Poop. Lizzie lands a warrior near Cumae. We are panic struck.

480AD : A Knight picks off the brave lone English warrior. Cats redline a passing Russian pike/settler pair near Hispalis and a legion finishes them off. A Knight tries his luck in St. Louis but alas the spear was too strong. RIP Knight. More Longbows to flick rocks onto near Caesarea to soften them up – now two less bows to bother us. We squash a German settler party near Avignon.

IBT : More bows move up.

490AD : Avignon is rubble – one knight lost. St. Louis is naught but a memory now. A few enemy pikes wandering in to pillage are dispatched.

IBT : Lots of settler pairs wandering about – English and Russians following our Knights through the remains of France. The French settle Grenoble near to where Lyons used to be.

500AD : We settle Nicomedia beside the ruins of St. Louis. A Greek Longbow is interred beside Brundisium. Two more English Longbows in range for rock-throwing practice ! More work for the gravediggers. An elite Legion Loses to a German 2hp Sword on floodplain ! Poop !

IBT : Nothing of note really. Tarentum is a magnet for German and Bab swords and Longbows. Loads of fun really.

510AD : Corinth is scared but not yet taken.

IBT : Lizzie wants to talk. Yeah right ! We learn Chemistry at last !

520AD : Lizzie has Metallurgy already. Hmmmm. What is she up to ? Our Knight raiding party is near London. If she is aiming for MilTrad then we might just pillage her Horses and generally plough up the ground around London for the fun of it. We retreat from Corinth in shame – there are too many Greek bows annoying us.

IBT : More enemy troop movements – English and German bows, and some German Knights. Not a pretty sight. Joan wants to talk. Sorry darling, no time.

530AD : We connect iron and upgrade 11 horses and some warriors in border cities. We bombard the enemy approaching Tarentum and pick a few off. Our Legion army and some cats head off for some pillaging fun around Hastings. Corinth attempt 2 starts off from Nicomedia. Rome gets a bit big. Time for a clown and a settler.

IBT : Abe wants to talk. Not likely mate ! More Longbows, a few Swords and some German Knights show up for some fun. Spineless cowards ! Only one attack – a Greek Longbow out of Corinth !.

540AD : We upgrade a few more horses and pillage iron to build some more horses. We gather for the next assault on Corinth, and a settler waits to fill the gap. We settle in the desert valley south of England. Just a staging post city. We move to start a road in the mountains to get to the south of England faster.

IBT : More swords from Abe heading our way and more of Lizzie’s longbows. One weakened Knight lost. Some pillaging around London.

550AD : Some annoying enemy bows and swords buried outside Tarentum. Some fun catapult pillaging around Hastings. Corinth is taken with no losses. We kill a German settler party heading past near Tarentum.

Gratuitous Advice : We have 3 settlers heading for places to camp – one in the hills near Viroconium, one heading for the Greek /French border area we are busy clearing, and one ready to rebuild on the ruins of Corinth. There are workers moving to complete the road to Corinth. There is a legion army and 3 cats merrily pillaging their way around Hastings, and a Knight & Knight army ploughing the land around London (they can move & pillage). Lizzie and Otto are up Education and Metallurgy on us, so we will pick them up next turn and then that’s it for the Library. But just think ... Cannons !Then we must rush for MilTrad – we may need a library in some key towns perhaps. Everyone else is on par or behind us. Hopefully if we can cripple England soon, that will be it for tech for a while to come. Joan has not got Invention yet let alone Gunpowder, so she won’t get her GA.

Best of luck, General Peglegasus (or Keith if he is back in action I suppose …). The 550AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0550_01.SAV)

Alright, a set of turns! I think Keith said he would be available Sunday night, or Monday. I'm assuming Peglegasus is up, assuming he can play in the next day or so.

It's going to hurt losing the Great Library effect. We'll probably have to research Military Tradition ourselves, and as soon as possible, I think. We have enough Warriors around, enough to double the number of Legions we are currently fielding, so unless we need more MPs, I'd probably stop building any more warriors.

Our large military is making it hard to change governments. We have 117 Units, with 100 free support, so 17 gpt in unit support. Under Monarchy the support would drop to 50, so 67 gpt lost in unit support. I don't think the decreased corruption will help enough.

I believe the operations against Greece and building a city to the NW are distracting us from assaulting England proper, the leading AI. I would have preferred to see all continental French cities and at least Hastings off the map, and Corinth still on it. The new city requires defense, and supports an English assault, but taking the French cities would have supported an English assault while leaving a very defensible NW border. I'd rather have used the Knight army to take cities; at 7/12 and several turns within Enemy Culture, I don't think it will make it back out alive. Where it is now, I'd at least move forward and pillage the English horse supply.

Alright General Peglegaus, you are up!

I am back and can play the game if Peg has not already started. Is that OK with everyone?

go for it, keith! I have a busy day today.

Got the file and will play today!

It is my turn 9 (640 AD) and I have created my third GL. We lost the one knight army as Civ_steve predicted. I have built another which was key in the defense of Just A Staging Area and the sacking of Newcastle. I used another GL to rush the Pentagon, which I thought was more useful to us than the SC. But I can't decide whether we should go for another army or the SC to deny it to the AI. The English Cav are killing us. Legions and Knight just can't defend against them. Because of this I am leaning towards another army and use it to take out England ASP. Civ_steve was right on about the Corinth front. It has tied up badly needed units and England is killing us. I have really been frustrated during this game set. I feel like I am treading water. The 3 GL are a sign of how badly things are going for us. We are being swamped by a flood of units. I have been reacting to the enemy, not taking the war to them. I sense this is a turning point. Any advice generals? :confused:

Oops sorry folks. I went for Corinth for the silks and to reduce Greece's capacity to raise units to harass us from the south. I misjudged the speed with which England could churn out Cavalry when they got MilTrad especially as they had no Knights to upgrade. My reasoning with the NW city ("Just a Staging Post) was to give us faster access to England's south (hence the mountain road to the NW), and a barracks close by for healing units faster.

I think we need another army to cover a pillaging party. We have to cut England's lines of communications, and pillage her production tiles and her resources. Is that legion army with the Cats still alive ?

BTW KL - the Pentagon was a good choice. Sounds like you have had a lively time. If we haven't lost any territory while chiselling away at England, in the face of Cavalry, then you have done well I reckon. And 3 leaders thrown in for good measure. My oh my.

Ah well, one learns something new every day (or at least I often do).

Pre-turn: 550 AD
I moved Knight to protect Palmyra. Attacked wounded Bab Musketman with Knight in Just a Staging Place and created the GL Titus! And create an Army with him as there are no Wonders worth rushing right now. Legionary finishes off wonder pikeman. Upgrade Brother Ray to Musketman. Move two knights to the west to load in Army.

IBT:
Took a beating around Tarentum, losing an elite knight and legionary. Legionary defending settler beat off a swordsman and became elite. The English must have MT because they kill our elite knight with a Cav. I will move to take out their horses ASP.

Turn 1: 560 AD
Killed Bab knight near Tarentum. Moved workers to iron to upgrade for upgrading. Move Legionary Army towards British saltpeter to take it out, on the way cats will move into Tarentum for upgrading. Artaxata founded on the former sight of Corinth. Aurelianorum founded on former Bab city NE of Virconium. Remove two Greek long bowmen, Anthony Horse becomes elite. Much healing and movement to prep the attack on England. Started researching MT. It will take us 20 turns, too bad. Rome and Veii switch to Library.

IBT: Just a Staging Area is soon going to be a major battle ground. The English and Americans are converging on it in force. 5 Greek LBs are converging on Brudisium in force. Our first knight army just survived a Calvary attack.

Turn 2: 570 AD
Workers road iron. Upgrade priority goes to at risk areas.
Elite knight out of Tarentum creates Trajan as it kills wounded English Cav. Will us this leader to rush the Pentagon in Tarentum. I don’t consider the SC worth having as we can afford to build temples and cathedrals. Disconnected English horses.

IBT:.English Cav kill the pillaging knight. Several English LB die attempting to take JASP. Greek LB move into attack position. Barb LB and French Settler/Pike move next to Terentum.

Turn 3: 580 AD
Bab LB near Terentum redlined and then killed by Knight, which become elite. Same fate for French Settler/Pike pair, but attacker is not promoted. Killed lots of stuff around Brundisium and other scattered units. Building up around JASP for defense and then attack. Need upgrades NOW. Will slow science until the two Libraries are completed, then max out research.

IBT: Americans beat themselves up attacking JASP. Pillaging knight Army dies.

Turn 4: 590 AD
Kill some more bad guys. Will be ready to take out Newcastle soon. English must be trading for horses and saltpeter. Can you imagine cooperating and trading with another nation!

IBT: Lots of Babs around Terentum.

Turn 5: 600 AD
Kill more Americans and English around JASP and Greeks around Brundisium. Legionary Army takes out Barb Knight. It is now needed for the defense of Palmyra.

IBT:.Lost Legion to counterattacking American swordsman.

Turn 6: 610 AD
Newcastle is dust at the loss of one elite knight. Killed lots of other units, no more losses, but no GL. Two promotions.

IBT:.English Cav takes out elite horseman who dusted Newcastle. Lost Legion to American swordsman.

Turn 7 620 AD
Army takes out Cav on dust of Newcastle. Settler moves to tile and we will found city next turn. Lost Elite knight trying to kill redline Bab knight. Follow up attack takes him out. Horseman dies attacking Greek LB, follow up attack takes out LB. Lost more kill. No more loses.

IBT: Rome builds Library.

Turn 8 630 AD
Hippo Regius founded on dust of Newcastle. Lots more killing. Lost one horseman. No leaders or promotions. Rome start settler. One more turn of min. research and the most important upgrades will be done.

IBT:.Lost knight and Legion to English Cav. Veii builds Library.


Turn 9: 640 AD
My third GL! Hadrian was created attacking a redlined American. I create a new Army in prep for taking out Nottingham. Things quieting down around Brundisiusm, move all the knights W to fight off the English. Upgraded my last units and disconnected iron, moved research up and we will be at MT in 14.

IBT:
A Russian and American swordsman move to attack Palmyra. A wounded elite knight single-handedly fights off two Barb knights. Greeks all round Artaxata up north.

Turn 10: 550 BC
Legion kills Barb archer in Mt. Elite Legionary kills redlined Russian Swordsman. Legion army kills wounded American Swordsman. Only one American left of the blue tide!

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0650_01.SAV
As you will see in the saved file I am building several Musketmen. Legions just can't stand up to Cav. We may want to switch some of these to Libraries to speed up research. I thought I would let the team decide. We also have the option of disconnecting the saltpeter and doing a spearman upgrade, but Gold is in short supply and we need to start researching some techs ourselves. I think the best use of the Knight armies is to take out English cities. The AI places a priority on building offensive units, which means the English are using their shields to build Cav. I would think their cities are lightly defended and we can take them out faster than we can pillage all their roads. They are trading for everything they need now. I have striped the Greek front of almost every knight in the gamble that Legionaries and horsemen can hold out there. The knights are needed to take out England.

Peg,

Add another defender to the stack up by Artaxata. There are two LB and only two defenders. We don't want to lose all those Cannon! In my hurry to get my turn set posted I forgot to do this.

Keith

Keith: an exciting set of turns, and well-played! We actually have more cities, about the same number of Knights, and more Legions than at the beginning of your set of turns.

If we hold at Tarentum (and other parts) and push up out of Hippo Regius, we should soon have just a 2 city front and a combined set of forces. A city 1 space diagonally North of Richmond will give us 1 turn access to Hastings and control of the visible roads in the area (there's probably more road between Nottingham and Hastings, so we may have to found a 3rd city somewhere North of where Nottingham is to form a solid Roman front.) The Jungle is probably still a good barrier, unless the English have roaded it.

I see 3 Greek Galleys on our Western coast; have they been landing troops? Or are they up to some other task? I'd consider switching some units forward to Artaxata; there's two Greek LongBows adj to a 2 Legion/Cannon stack, and I'd hate for them to get lucky! (I see Keith just recommended this as well!)

Researching MilTradition is a priority right now! Then we can save cash and start upgrading tons of Knights (and some Horses) to Cav. The game will really start rolling along then (I hope!)

I'm not in favor of building Muskets. I'm willing to lose Legions all day long if I take out the Cavalry with a Knight counter!!! Look at the ledger: we lose 10 Shields and 20 Gold, they lose 56 shields. (70% of 80). Muskets are not going to do much better then Legions (4 defense vs 3 defense) and will cost us 20 Shields and 40 Gold, or 60 Shields if we build them outright. We don't have to defensively defeat the AI Cav; we just have to destroy the attacking unit, and replace our lost Legion; and occasionally we will defensively defeat them! I'd plan to keep building some Warriors for upgrade and replacement, and switch the current Muskets to other builds: Libraries maybe, or Horsemen, or Settlers.

Germany and England are the only AI with MilTrad (England also has Banking and Printing Press.) We should at least finish off this nearby corner of England while finishing our MilTrad research. With Cav we can sweep around the Jungle, putting a bit of a hurt on Babylon, then finishing off England. Germany's going to have to come later, after we make a corridor through the other civs (but Bismarck's time will come!) Many of the other AI don't have Gunpowder yet, so they should fold fast. Cavalry will be the key.

And I wouldn't even bother with Sistine Chapel!! (Good choice, Keith!) It's tying up the production of 4 large AI cities right now, so fewer Cav for us to face. And we really can't benefit from it anyway. Leave it out there for the AI to sink shields into.

General Peglegasus: you are up!

...

I think we need another army to cover a pillaging party. We have to cut England's lines of communications, and pillage her production tiles and her resources. Is that legion army with the Cats still alive ?
...

We have the force and the upper hand; we can't afford to dilute it. In the near term we should focus on removing Nottingham, Richmond and Hastings in that order (maybe Oxford, too). We are 14 turns away from Cavalry; the AI will fall fast after that. Besides, Canterbury has a harbor, so you'd have to take it before you can even consider cutting England's lines of communications!

Greece landed one LB, from their behavior so far the other boats seem to be carrying settlers. They have had opportunities to land and have not.

I had to leave iron connected so long to do all the upgrades, that started the musketmen with the idea that most could be switched. I see Civ_steve's point about the cost of the Musketmen, here are the numbers for fortified behind walls: Legonary=6 defense vs. Musketmen = 8. Perhaps one or two would still be worth it. An 8 Defense backed up by a Cannon will win most of the time against Cav.

As I said earlier and Civ-steve repeated, knocking out English cities will be easier than cuting their trade routs. They very well may have more port cities. Newcastle was only defended by two units. With two Knight Armies and backed up by Knights we should be able to take out the three English cities Civ-steve outlines. We have two settlers on the way and I would recommend switching one of the Musketmen to a third.

BTW: walls really saved us a few times during my turn set. I recommend they be the first build for every new city.

Sorry my report was not as detailed as it should have been. I was killing so many units it would have taken forever to write it up. I am surprised that we have more Legions. We really weathered a storm.

... I see Civ_steve's point about the cost of the Musketmen, here are the numbers for fortified behind walls: Legonary=6 defense vs. Musketmen = 8. Perhaps one or two would still be worth it. An 8 Defense backed up by a Cannon will win most of the time against Cav.
...

BTW: walls really saved us a few times during my turn set. I recommend they be the first build for every new city.

...
Well, in this example, vs Cav, no Cannon free shot, the Legion hits 50-50 (6/(6+6)), and the Musket hits 57-43 (8/(8+6)). (Both scenarios benefit from a Cannon shot). The Musket costs at least 100% as much as the Legion in shields and Gold for a 14% increase in defensive hit performance (and a 50% decrease in base offensive value.) I'd rather consider this a war of attrition than a "put up the best defensive value". Besides, one of our Armies provides even better point defense than the Muskets; hopefully, we'll be getting a few more.

Totally agree with walls; I'm a convert for this game; any new cities (on the border) should start building Walls first.

Here are my recommendations for Musket switches. Neapolis, Antium, Lutetia and Necomedia all Library. Cumae Horseman. Pisae stay as Musketman.

Tactical Advice. In the defense of JASP I was able to not risk units to counterattack by redlining the first wave. These would retreat and the second wave advanced. I then redlined the second wave and attacked the retreated units from the back side. Then I took out the second wave units. If I would have attacked the first wave on the turn they were redlined my attacking units would have been exposed to counterattack from the second wave units. I am sure you guys all knew this AI behavior, but just in case I thought I would pass it along. No need to lose units when you don't have to.

Great progress KL.

Communication cutting : by way of clarification, I mean cutting England's cities off from each other (or from London) so that they become more corrupt and are denied resources. It makes it harder for her to produce Cavs in high volumes. If it is faster to just knock the cities over, well OK.

Peglegasus: it's been a bit over 24 hours; do you 'have it'?

Yep. Got it.

Hopefully I can play and post tonight.

Boy, that was fun! Nerve wracking, but fun. Keith, you set me up nicely. Defenses held against everything they could throw at us with minimal losses. We have 2 armies awaiting cavalry. I thought it would be a waste to fill them up when cavalry is only a few turns away. Nottingham and Richmond have fallen and there are three new Roman cities in our empire. Military tradition is 5 turns away, though we could push it to 4 at a slight deficit. I ran a small deficit (like -2 or -3) most of my turns to keep research up, but had to drop it by 10% at one point. With our three new cities though we are now at +20 gpt. Pushing research up would get us MT one turn earlier but put us at -4pgt. Don't know if that's worth it. Only about 50 something gold in the coffers right now. Will post my turn log and some advice later along with some screen shots. Uploading the save now...

And here it is (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0750_01.SAV)

Turn Log for 650AD to 750AD

Turn 0: Add defender to stack near Artaxata as suggested. Neapolis, Antium, Lutetia and Nicomedia are switched from muskets to libraries. Cumae is switched to horseman, Pisae will complete a musket. I notice Gonzomonium (what a name!) is building a musket in 59 turns. Switch to warrior.

IBT: Greek galley drops longbow near Aesonesium next to worker. American pike approaches Tarentum. Babylonian longbow approaches JASP. Bab knight moves into mountains nearby. Greek longbows by Artaxata move west towards Caesaraugustus.

Turn 1: 660AD: Cannons by Artaxata redline hoplite and work on longbows in the mountains. Knight finishes hoplite. Elite knight attacks wounded hoplite and loses. Elite legion finishes hoplite. Knights and cannons move out towards Nottingham. Move knight to protect worker from longbow (should have just attacked him).

IBT: Greek longbow attacks knight and knight retreats! Lose worker. Greeks drop off 2 more longbows in same spot.

Turn 2: 670AD: Legion takes down the dastardly longbow. We approach both Nottingham and Richmond with knights and cannons. A few more enemies approaching JASP through the mountains.

IBT: All hell breaks loose and I get pretty scared for a moment. Everything holds together miraculously and no units are lost. 1 English cavalry is defeated and 2 greek longbows are killed as well.

Turn 3: 680AD: Cannons bombard Nottingham with little effect. One citizen killed. Cannons bombard Richmond and reduce it from pop 4 to pop 1. Vet horseman practices some guerilla warfare. Rushes out of JASP and kills wounded Bab longbow, then sneaks back into town. I'm scared to hit 'enter' :eek:

IBT: American and Babylonian knights attack Tarentum. We defend with no losses. Silly AI attacking a walled city from across the river. Greek longbows attack and are defeated. Antium finishes library.

Turn 4: 690AD: Ninja horseman steps out of JASP again, this time finishing off a wounded Bab knight. Steps back into town. Cannons in Tarentum take 2 Bab knights into the yellow. I decide to risk one vet knight in the attack because he'll retreat into town if he wins. Crosses the river and finishes one of the bab knights and is promoted when he returns to town. I bombard Richmond one more time and give up. I have no idea how many muskets are in there and haven't been able to injure any. I'm afraid that I"ll lose too many units in the attack. Going to move this force to join with the force at Nottingham for better chances of success. Knights move to mountains NE of Nottingham. They are within striking distance next turn. Move legion army to cover cannons. Have to turn research down a notch. MT in 10 turns.

IBT: The Greeks appear to have imported some iron. Greek knight joins longbows on the southeast frontier. English cavalry attacks our knights on the mountains! We defend successfully but not without injury. Longbows attack Caesaraugusta unsuccessfully. Remaining longbows retreat into mountains. Bab knight kills knight protecting wounded elite legion.

Turn 5: 700AD: Bombard Nottingham finally with some results. 1 citizen killed , temple destroyed, musket redlined, spear in the yellow. Veteran knight kills spear and is promoted. Veteran knight kills musket. Vet knight is redlined killing longbow. Nottingham is put to the torch and an english worker is dispatched.

The bombardment of Richmond resumes. One musket takes a hit. there is at least one more in there and another one tile away moving in to reinforce. No time like the present! Knight army attacks, killing musket and taking 3 hits. Vet knight kills second musket, taking 2 hits and is promoted. Elite takes longbow and 2 hits. Elite takes longbow and one hit. Elite takes down one last longbow and Richmond is razed. 2 English workers are destroyed.

IBT: There is an English galley moving into the bay SW of Antium. Can't be up to anything good. American knight and Bab longbow attack knights on mountains and are defeated. But then the english cavalry move in, killing 2 wounded knights.

Turn 6: 710AD: Cannons redline english long bow and cavalry, knights move in to finish. Knights and armies healing up to prepare for assault on Hastings and to keep area clear for incoming settlers. Cannons in Tarentum redline Germans knight and elite knight finishes him. Elite knight leaves Tarentum to dispatch French sword. Get creative in blocking potential landing sites for the English galley. The last thing I need right now is a couple cavalry dropped off by Antium. Will post a screenie to illustrate. :crazyeye: So in the screen below you can see that there are lots of workers in the area, and some of these cities are really close together. "Hey everyone! Come down to the seashore and watch the regatta!"
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/theregatta1.jpg
So with a little juggling of units, all landing sites are blocked.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/theregatta2.jpg

IBT: Darned English cavalry take down 2 wounded knights. I wasn't careful in stacking them with the others. But of course I can't see the cavalry coming! The AI is doing a pretty good job of moving them in from unseen positions and moving them back out to heal. English galley moves back out of the bay.

Turn 7: 720AD: Elite knight takes out wounded Babylonian knight. Nothing else of note.

IBT: English cav attacks legion from across the river. Legion kills him without taking any hits! As he does a little victory dance a second english cavalry tramples him. American knight dies to legion. Bab knight finishes wounded legion. English galley drops longbow off by Byzantium. Thankfully it's not cavalry. Greek forces moving through Sevastapol area into SE frontier. Yikes.

Turn 8: 730AD: Elite legion kills redlined Bab knight and generates a leader! An army is built and held for cavalry in Tarentum. Vet legion kills english longbow that was dropped at Byzantium. Cannons from Caesaraugusta bombard greek knight on mountain. Vet legion finishes. There is a vet cavalry in the woods who is in the yellow... I think seriously about taking him down but decide against it. Too many units healing up in the area and no one really available to back up my attacker. We leave him be.

IBT: Russians ask for peace. Ummm, sure! Oh wait. No, thank you. Now that cavalry I mentioned... I thought for a long time about attacking him and decided against it. He goes and does the dumbest thing I've ever seen. He rushes past some healing knights, past an army that takes a shot at him as he passes (redlining him), turns east and rushes into our territory to attack a musketeer who is 1 tile south of Tarentum. Our musket finishes him with one shot and is promoted! "Hey guys! I'm your reinforce-- What the?! BOOM! Uh, like I was saying, I'm your reinforcements. So how's it goin' out here?"

Cavalry attack Tarentum, killing one legion. French, German, and American settlers already moving into the open fields where Richmond and Nottingham once stood. Babylonian and American knights attack our well defended settler party. 2 enemies redlined and one killed. First time I ever had to defend a settler with 1 musket, 1 knight, 1 horse, 1 cannon, and one legion.

Turn 9: 740AD: Hammer of the Russians pillages Saltpeter in greek territory. Elite knight kills German knight. German longbow approaches from Cologne. Elite knight takes out redlined american knight.

IBT: German longbow attacks Aurelianum and is defeated. Another coming in from Cologne.

Turn 10: 750AD: Nicopolis founded NW of ruins of Nottingham. Lundinium founded NW of ruins of Richmond. Ebaracum founded between Hippo Regius and Caesarea. Cannons redline french settler pair. Elite knight finishes. Elite legion kills wounded German knight and we get another leader! Build another army, this time in Lundinium.

Greek forces in the southeast force a real scramble of units.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/grecoromanscramble.jpg
Cannons in Brundidium redline longbow. Vet legion finishes and is promoted. Cannons move out of Caesaraugusta and get 1 hit each on 2 longbows and 1 knight. Vet legion attacks knight. Greek knight is redlined and retreats to longbow stack. Stack is adjacent to Ravenna so vet legion attacks from Ravenna. Greek knight is slain and legion returns to Ravenna. Elite legion from Caesarea kills 1 greek longbow. Brave horseman races from Neapolis to finish off second longbow.

The empire in 750AD:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/empirein750b.JPG

So here is some more info and my thoughts on the current situation.

We currently have 18 knights, 21 horses, 3 muskets, and 29 cannons in our military. There are 2 armies waiting for cavalry. One is in Tarentum and the other is in Lundinium. 3 settlers are out in the field currently. One is near Tarentum. I was thinking about putting him by the saltpeter right by the Babylonian knight that is lurking closeby. There is a second settler just west of JASP. Careful with him because I think there is a Bab knight or two healing up in the shadows north of there, and he is currently escorted by a lone horseman. For the same reason, don't move that musket out of Hippo Regius just yet. Settler 3 is SW of Lutetia. I was going to put him SW of the horses near there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/watchout1.jpg

There is a greek longbow in striking distance of Hispalis. Hispalis has 2 warriors defending. As you can see I really had to juggle units around down here, and simply couldn't find a way to reinforce Hispalis properly. Anyway, if they attack they still won't be able to take the city and Hispalis can be reinforced next turn, at a loss of one warrior. Maybe I'm missing something but that's what it looks like to me.

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

I was building horsemen in cities with good production but anywhere that it would take 30 turns for a horse I built warriors. I built libraries in the suggested cities and there are more under construction now in Ravenna, Pompeii, and Pisae.

For the next player, be careful with Tarentum!! Defense there is strong but it's still scary to see those cavalry rush in out of the fog. Even knights can get in and attack from the north in one turn. Tarentum though is in a great spot. The AI keeps attacking from across the river so this helps us greatly. What I would like to see is the roads pillaged just north of there so incoming units stall out on the other side of the river and have to wait for the next turn to attack, allowing cannons to soften them up. We could take the French cities north of here, but Tarentum is highly defensible for now. I say we keep the front line there for now. In this shot you can also see the easy access to Hastings.

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

I sent two lone legions down into the Greek mountains to try and pillage some resources. One was able to pillage saltpeter and I was going to move him to cut off some roads leading to their western towns, Thessalonica being next.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/outapillaging1.jpg

Bruce is out there too, actually sitting right on top of the greek horses. I know it's a long shot but I thought trying this was worth it. Having Greek knights to contend with now is a real pain for the Southern towns. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Bruce will survive long enought to cut the horses off, then move back into the mountains. There is an iron source close by in Russian territory that I"m hoping he can get to also. I think the Greeks are importing their iron, and they only have a port in Sparta. Would be worth cutting off from Athens if possible.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/outapillaging2.jpg

Something else I just thought of: Lutetia has a tax collector. City got to size 7 when I wasn't looking. Currently building a settler so that will straighten things out there. Also some of the units in and around Londinium have moved and some haven't. Take a look and see if you need to shift things around up there. Just be careful not to leave any cannons unprotected... some of them used their turn firing to soften up enemyies. Everyone should be healed up or nearly so in the next turn so they could prepare to move on Hastings perhaps.

General Peglegasus, excellent work !! Those English dogs will soon be on their last legs eh what ? I like the road pillaging idea near Tarentum, although those roads will be handy when we push on to raze the neighbouring towns.

General BigChief - come on down ! Duty calls ...

Great Job, Peglegasus :goodjob:

I've been up so late watching the Olympics :) that I was too tired last night to respond; I crashed early. So here's my thoughts:

Londinium is well placed! It has same turn access to Hasting for Knights rushing out of it. Placing forward towns to gain control of useful roads or spaces can really accelerate an attack. I've been thinking about a similar city site to help us against Ashur and Uruk:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad750MainRes.JPG

The Red Diamond square gives us same turn access to both Babylonian cities from a city formee within any of the 3 spaces covered by the Red Oval. I favor the Forest space (with the Red X), because it also give us control over the mountiain with the Road; this will provide a barrier to Babylonian forces coming from Tours and give our future Cavalry same turn access to Tours itself.

I also put a Red Circle around a vulnerable Knight/Settler stack; the Babylnian Knight to the SW can attack them this turn with nearly 1-1 odds. Most units have moved already, so I can only suggest moving a Warrior from Tarentum over to add to the Stack; that way if the Bab Knight wins, he doesn't get our Settler, and we keep it unless there's an English Cav in the fog that can reach it.

I'd also attack the Greek Longbow near Caesaraugustus with the Legion in the city. If we don't take out that Longbow, then we will lose the wounded Legion just South of it; I'd use some of the Warriors around if the Legion doesn't do the job.

I like the Legions pillaging the Greek (and Sevastopol) resources; they're close by and will completely hinder them from building advanced units. I'm not as much in favor of pillaging the roads near Orleans; this will tie up units, make them vulnerable to attack, and we will want some of these roads in the future when we push on past France to Russia and Germany.

I was concerned at how many Knights we lost in counter attacks. Looking at the save, we have a total of 2 Legions and 1 Legion army in the Northern Front. This is not enough; the Legions should be providing the primary defense up there; without them we lose Knights on counterattacks. Also, after we raze a city leaving some wounded Knights vulnerable to attack, a Legion or 2 should be ready to move forward and provide defensive cover to our wounded offensive units. Without this combined unit operation, we lose many more offensive units and our attacks will stall. I know money has been tight, and research on MilTrad is a priority, but in the next set of upgrades we desperately need to get some more Legions upgraded and in place on the Front. They are much easier to replace than Knights or Cavalry.


BTW, I was incorrect about Germany having MilTradition; the only Tech they have that we don't is PrintingPress. England is the only one with Cavalry capability; Germany, Babylon and the Greeks are one step behind (although we can prevent Greece from building any Cav by resource pillaging.)

Alright bigchief, you are up! Can you give us a 'got it'?

[QUOTE=civ_steve]I was concerned at how many Knights we lost in counter attacks. Looking at the save, we have a total of 2 Legions and 1 Legion army in the Northern Front. This is not enough; the Legions should be providing the primary defense up there; without them we lose Knights on counterattacks. Also, after we raze a city leaving some wounded Knights vulnerable to attack, a Legion or 2 should be ready to move forward and provide defensive cover to our wounded offensive units. Without this combined unit operation, we lose many more offensive units and our attacks will stall. I know money has been tight, and research on MilTrad is a priority, but in the next set of upgrades we desperately need to get some more Legions upgraded and in place on the Front. They are much easier to replace than Knights or Cavalry.
[QUOTE]

Yeah, this was a big problem for me. Especially since I divided the attack force between Richmond and Nottingham at first. I should have kept them together for sheer power. Then I put knights on the mountain to heal thinking the AI might leave them because of the defense bonus. Not so. I didn't have the funds to upgrade any units at all. I think I started with around 20 something coins and it really didn't grow much because of our research rate. I was also afraid to pull too many units out of Tarentum. I'm curious to see if Tarentum remains a hot spot or if the action will shift to our new cities to the north.

It's also tough to pull legions out of the southern cities to assist because we never know when they will be needed down there for city defense. Man, keep your fingers crossed that Bruce can cut those horses! I think that will really help. The Greeks having knights is a real pain.

Man, keep your fingers crossed that Bruce can cut those horses! I think that will really help. The Greeks having knights is a real pain.

I just realized that if I had sent a horse instead of Bruce they could have stepped off the mopuntain and pillaged those horses already! Hindsight is...
yeah, you know. C'mon Bruce!

Yeah, sheer overwhelming force is good. Plan for one offensive area, put the bulk of the units there, and leave holding forces everywhere else with overlapping support. This way, after you take your offensive objective(s), you should have additional forces to cover your weakened attack units and prepare for the next attack. Meanwhile, your 'holding the line' forces elsewhere have some mobility to respond to AI attempts.

I suspect that England and some Babylon units will attack through the Hastings area, while France, Russia and Germany will attack through Tarentum. America could come either way, but more likely through Hastings (I think). It makes sense to me to wipe England off the continent first, then Babylon. We should take Hastings with Knights (and armies), but probably hold off our further assaults until we have Cavalry (they're just so much better!)

One thing I forgot to mention: I really like using the GL's we get to make Armies, then hold them for Cavalry. Two 4-Cav Armies will really make a powerful 1-2 punch as we assault the AI's main cities! :D

I want to add my Amen to not diluting our offensive force. I should have taken the time to lay out the plan of attack I had set up at the end of my turn. My plan was to immediately move the two knight Armies and two or three knights to Nottingham and attack on turn two. I figured there was not need to wait for cannon to move up since the Armies could take out the top two defenders. Out of curiosity I played out the first few turns of Peglegasus’ turn set using this strategy and things worked out beautifully. Nottingham fell on turn two with no losses. I even generated a GL with a knight that took out the LB! I am sure if we had kept our forces together like this we would have taken out Hastings as well.

I also think we have to be more careful with exposing our knights to counterattacks and unnecessarily attacking units in mountains and hills. The loss of the knight protecting a worker is a perfect example of this. Here is what I would have done: Abandon the job and move the worker to a tile which would bait the AI to move the LB to open ground. Then take out the LB. There is something in the AI code that places a high priority on attacking undefended workers, scouts and settlers. I love using scouts like a carrot on as string to lead the AI into death traps. Clearly we don’t want to waste too many worker turns doing this all the time, but when the opportunity presents itself it works very well.

I suggest we only counterattack where and when we know we are safe from AI counter attacks. I killed hoards of units dashing out and then back into the walls of Tarentum.

Peglegasus, great job in pillaging! Greece is especially vulnerable to this because of how close it is to us and the great defensive terrain our units move through. I have to agree with Civ-steve however that the pillaging of the roads north of Tarentum unnecessarily exposes units to counterattack.

bigchief: it's been over 24 hours; are you able to take it? I hope things are OK in your neck of the woods.

Team : Bigchief was obliged to miss his last round in spite of his wish to play then, and has not posted for six days now. I suggest unless he posts soon, CS takes the command chair and play to keep things moving. CS - I reckon if there's no news when you are able to play next, then post your "got-it", fire up the game and play on.

I am happy to slip Bigchief back in for a make-up session when he becomes available, assuming RL events are keeping him away from this pleasant little pasttime of ours. He has been diligent before in letting us know when he cannot play.

Sounds good. We should consider this a postponement until we hear from bigchief. It's well over 24 hours, so I 'got it'.

Good luck Civ_steve. I really enjoy playing after you as you set things up so well.

I don't think Bigchief will mind if we skip him. If we keep the turn around time fast it really is not that long until the rotation comes back to you when you skip. I believe we will all be better served if we stick to the rotation and only depart by request only as I did a last week.

Thanks, Keith! bigchief does a good job of setting up for me, and I carry that through my turn as well. I was hoping to hear from him first; I know he had a bad weekend a little while ago :( and we haven't heard from him since. Hope things are improving for him.

Quick status: I'm 5 turns into the set, and should finish tonight or tomorrow morning. We learned MilTrad and Cavalry are appearing on the field. Our first Cav army has participated in razing Hastings, and a new city formed in that area, so we control this East-West crossing. A Knight army with some Knight support was sent off to raze Grenoble and Cologne; I think there's one American pikeman wandering around this area, otherwise it's clear of AI and ready for city planting. (I've also been building a LOT of Settlers!! :) ) I also got a GL, which I used to form an Army. I figure Cav Armies will crush all opponents, so we want as many as we can form. The Military Academy is available, but IMO Armies built by GL are more important than the ability to build them, which would take forever.

An odd event: just as I had a Legion/Cannon stack about to raze Sevastopol, they Flipped to us! I wasn't sure what to do! Tao asked this question in the Sign-up thread, but it was never answered. I accepted the flip, saw that they were still tagged as Russians (even though they wore Red Roman clothes), so I ordered the governor to line them up and run them through, including the free Spearman we got, so I figure the net effect was nil. For future reference, we should rebuff any offers to flip to us.

One other thing I learned that I don't think I knew: wounded units when upgraded are healed! So a Knight can attack out, kill an AI unit, return to a city, get Upgraded, and you've got a fully healed Cavalry unit available for duty the next turn!

I'm also starting to build Galleys in our border, coastal cities. I figure we go 10 turns, then pop-rush the remainder, and we should get a pretty good navy going soon. We will need a large navy to cross over to the other continent(s). Germany does now know MilTradition, and England knows Astronomy; still, I don't think they have a shot at leaving the MidAges before we run them over.

Full report later.

Sorry for just disappearing, everybody. I have been taking care of my grandmother. I have no computer access there, so I haven't been able to do anything online. And, to top it off, my computer at work was screwed, so I couldn't use that.

The work comp is fixed now, so I can try and catch up with what has been happening in the game, but I won't be able to play at work, as I am way behind on my work because of the comp mess.

My sister is coming Sunday, and will be staying to take care of my grandmother, so I will be home sometime Sunday evening. I should be able to get back into the game after that, if it's still going on.

Once again, my apologies, and I hope to be back to playing in a couple of days.

Out of curiosity, what is our per turn income like now? I never turned it down to see in my turns. Also I've never played an always war game like this so I'm wondering... is cavalry the end of research for us? I was building a couple extra libraries but I'm thinking they probably became those setllers you mentioned. It doesn't look like the channel crossing is much of a problem but I could see how one might need astronomy on a different map if the water crossing were a bigger distance.

Edit: Good to hear from you, Bigchief. Hope all is well.

More questions: Did Bruce make it? I have a feeling he didn't. With cavalry having three moves, could one step off a mountain, pillage, and then return to the mountain?

bigchief: I'm glad to hear from you, but I'm very sorry about your grandmother. I suspect it will be almost back to you by early next week.

Peglegasus: I think we're at 100 gpt after I turned down the research, or 2 Horsemen to Cav per Turn (I have one scientist in an outlying city working on Astronomy). Unless there's a big channel between us and the other continents we need to get to, I don't think we need anything other Techs. Yes, it is amazing how a partially constructed building can suddenly gain wheels and become the center for a new city!! :lol: Since we might not research anything else, and our cities are 6 or lower, and we might never leave Despotism at this rate (makes Galley rushing very easy), Settlers seemed more valuable than libraries. And, yes, Cav could step off a mtn, pillage and step back all in one turn.

I regret to inform you that Bruce didn't make it. :( A Greek Knight came upon him as he was preparing to pillage. Our Xenophobic fears were realized as we heard reports of what they did with the remains of Bruce (it's too horrible to report! :cringe: A massive rage has encompassed our nation, :mad: and streams of Settlers, Warriors and Horsemen have surged to our front lines with 'Remember Bruce' as their slogan. :scan: Their plans for Greece are :evil: , whuh, huh, huh!

Bigchief, good to hear from you and we all wish you well. We will be glad when you can help us out again. But we all understand that life is not a game and you definately have your priorities straight.

Civ_steve, I find it is interesting that you did not know that upgrading a wounded unit brings it to full health. This just show how many "little" tricks there are to this game. I really have learned a lot from you fellows and I think this is a reminder too us all not to hesitate sharing the "tricks of the trade" we have learned. We can't assume the other players know these tricks.

I can sure tell playing with you guys has improved my game. I think I am going to start submitting my GOTMs. I have been one of those shadow players. I have good starts in both the classic and the Conquest games this month. Our current game has taught me not to fear early golden ages and it has paid off big time in the new classic game. Impi's are pillaging animals. The irony of the situation is I have used the Impi's mobility to avoid a GA. I so dominate the situation that I am just GL and city farming (only taking the new captial after it has 10 culture).

Keith: I'd probably encountered the 'upgrade means healed' effect before, but seldomly. I'm usually upgrading a bunch of healthy units just as I learn the required Tech.

Here's the turn log:

Turn 0, 750 AD
Warrior added to Knight stack in North
Legion kills Greek LongBow
Ravenna citizen moved to Irrigated Plains
Several builds are changed to Settler

(IBT - American Sword attacks JSP and dies;
- Babylon Knight attacks Knight stack near Londinium and dies
- Tragic new: a Greek Knight emerges and tramples Bruce! (This MUST be avenged! Remember Bruce becomes our slogan!!
- 1 American Knight and 1 German Knight enter our Culture
- Russian LongBow says 'kill me' as he leaves Sev)

Turn 1, 760 AD
Several Settlers and Horsemen are built
2 Knights near Tarentum are severely Cannoned and then run over (1 Knight becomes Elite)
German Longbow near Aurelium is Legioned (2/4 left)
Russian LongB is Cannoned and Stabbed
2 Pikes Cannoned and run over; 1 Settler captured and disbanded
Arretium founded on Hill to South
Road to Thesalonika pillaged
Mass movement of MPs toward the fronts

(IBT - lose 2 Knights guarding Settler; 1 to German Knight, 1 to Eng Cav;
- Russians move in 2 LongB and a Pike near Tarentum
- Germ LongB from Cologne
- American Knight enters from North
- French Spear from Grenoble)

Turn 2, 770 AD
Cannons Redline Russian Pike near Tarentum and run over
Cannons Redline 2 Bab Knights and 1 Eng Cav near Londinium; Legion army takes Cav (unroaded forest)
Cannons take 1 hp from American Knight; Knight finishes him
Stack of Legions and Cannons advances on Sevastopol

(IBT - Russian LongB's advance Ha Ha
German LongB from Cologne advances
French spear from Grenoble trying to reach the mother ship
American Knight approaches
English Cav attacks a Musket at Nicopolis, and stumbles!
!!!! Sevastopol senses the coming attack and FLIPS TO US!!!!
Not sure what to do here; I review the threads - Tao asked about this but never got an answer
so I accept, open the city, They're just Russians wearing Togas; I order the Governor to handle this
Sevastopol is razed and the free Spearman is disbanded
Since they didn't become Roman Citizens, for future reference we should not accept the Flip)

Turn 3, 780 AD
Horseman does in German LongB from Cologne
After Bombardment, 2 Horsemen do in 2 Russian LongB's adj to Tarentum
Knight Army leaves Tarentum for Grenoble, it is Razed (only 1 defender, Army is 14/17)
More movement to the Front

(IBT Eng Cav attacks Nicopolis, and retreats
1 Amer, 1 Germ and 1 Babylon Knight advance near Tarentum
Another Germ LongB from Cologne
Amer Sword near Palmyra has healed and is heading South)

Turn 4, 790 AD
Knight Army and Knight Raze Cologne, 2nd Knight Kills Germ LongBow (Germans are evicted from NE)
Knight finishes off 1 HP Cav, retreats to Heal in Nicopolis
Bab Knight taken to 2/4; Amer Knight Killed by Legion/Knight combo
Push a Settler/KnightArmy/Cannon/Knight stack adj to Hastings
Gordinium founded S of Londinium; completes Road between Londinium and Nicopolis
Mil Trad in 1!!!

(IBT - another Eng Cav tries agains against Nicopolis, dies, and our Elite Musket give us another GL!!
Amer Knight and Pike/Stlr near Hastings
Wounded Bab Knight Retreats, Germ Knight Advs to East around Tarentum
Another Germ Knight Approaches Tarentum
2 Greek LongBs approach
Amer Pike and Sword are converging on Aurelinorium)

We learn Mil Trad, upgrade 3 Horsemen in Londinium

Turn 5, 800 AD
Join 3 Cav in Londinium to Army
Form another Army in Nicopolis
Cannons in stack near Hastings RedLine American Pike and put 3 HPs on Eng Muskets
Hastings falls to Cav army (7/12), Knight Army (15/18) and Elite Knight (2/5); 4 Workers disbanded
Agrippina founded 1 SW of Hastings ruins
Elite Knight finishe Amer Pike; 2 Workers disbanded
Cannon from Tarentum move East 2 Spaces, bomb Germ Knight in Mtns to 2/4
Knight Army finishes off Germ Knight
Do in 1 Greek LongB, losing a Legion (Greek Knight as follow up; add another Legion to Mtns space)
Begin minimum research on Astronomy, using Scientist

(IBT, 1 Amer Knight penetrates near Londinium; a 2nd approaches
1 Bab and 1 Germ Knight near Agrippina
Greek Knight Advances around our Legion stack
Greek LongB to South heads towards Brundisium)

Turn 6, 810 AD
We upgrade 1 Horse and 4 Knights (wounded Knights become healed Cav!)
Do in American Sword near Aurelionrum, losing 1 Horse
Cannons redline 2 American Knights; 1 is done in by elite knight
Upgrades, 1 Horse, 5 Knights
Move units forward (we have 10 Settlers in the field right now!)

(IBT - Wounded Amer Knight Withdraws
- 3 Babylon Knights in North zone; a Bab Musket/Stlr as well
- Greek threatens with a Knight and a LongB
- Russia lands Sword near Lunacatorum

Turn 7, 820 AD
Horsemen does in Russian sword near Luna
Move Cannon/Legion stack adj to Knossus
3 Cannons redline Bab Musket; Cav finishes, with promotion
1/2 Cannons hit closes Bab Knight; its tough, takes out a Cav, Legion before succumbing to a Horseman
4 Cannons do 3 Hits on Bab Knight in Mtns near Londinium; Legion finishes
Cav fin 1 HP Amer Knight, trying to escape
Cannons redline another Bab Knight, killed by Cav; Legion Army covers Cannons
Upgrade 2 Knights and 1 Horse

(IBT - Eng Cav kills our Jungle Cav
2nd Bab Knight engages; and a Germ Knight North of Agrippina
Russian Pike/Stlrs from NE, with a LongB
Germans land LongB near Cumae
Greeks have 2 LongB, a Knight and a Hoplite scattered about
1 Amer Pike making a run for Hispalis through the mtns

Turn 8, 830 AD
Legion does in Germ LongB
Cyrene founded to NE; connects roads to Former French zone
Cannons put 1 hp on Greek Knight; Cav finishes
4 Cannons miss Hoplite in Knossus; Cav, 2 Legions raze Knossus, and another GL is formed (Rename Elite Legion, Bruce II)
Make another army
Cannons wound Eng Cav to 1 hp; Cav does him in; Legion/Musket moved in to cover Cav
Two Bab Knights at least partially wounded before Cavs do them in; Legion Army covers
Knight Army runs over Germ Knight; Settlers and Cannons advance with Army
Upgrade 5 Warriors

(IBT - Well the North was pretty clear, but not now!
- French: 1 LongB, 1 Spear/Stlr
- German: 2 Knights
- American: 2 Knights, 2 Pikes and a Settler
- Russian:2 LongB's to join their 2 Pike/Stlr stacks
- Greeks add a LongB to their disorganized units
- Amer Pike is on our Road going North from Ceasaraugustus; he must be removed
At least no one was dropped off from a Galley!

Turn 9, 840 AD
1 Russian Pike/Stlr is redlined and charged over
Knight Army runs over Amer Cav and Russian LongB near Tarentum
4 Cannons under Legion Army put 3 hps on Amer Knight, and 1 on Bab Knight
3 Cannons in Agrippina put 2 more hps on Bab Knight
5 Cannons near Londinium put 2 hps on 2nd Bab Knight
hmm, Cav dies attacking 2 hp Bab Knight; 2 Legions finish the job after it retreats
2 Cav take care of other 1 hp Knights, no problem
Cav Army does in French LongB
Vet Legion kills Amer Pike on our Road
Another Greek LongB bites the dust
Settler/Knight army stack advances to Forest space

(IBT - Germans add 3 Knights to north
- Americans add a Knight and a Pike
- Eng Cav attacks our exposed Legion, and loses!!

Turn 10, 850 AD
Tyrus founded in Bab Territory,starts on Walls of course
Verona founde to NE, connecting road systems
Corfinium and Mediolanum founded on NE coast, start on Galley
We have 0 unit support cost (!) and are gaining 115 gpt
Bombard Knight Units where adjacent
Kill 2 Knights, and force one to retreat
stupidly, move Elite Legion into open
Cav Army and 3 Cavs attack Uruk, and raze it losing 1 Cav (cover)
2 More Greek LongB's disappear to Legions; we get another GL, Octavian
Adjust defenses

End of Turnlog

Our Empire for the most part:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad850MainZ.JPG

Just to point out, Hastings and Uruk are gone now. As are the AI cities in our near NorthEast, and Knossus, and Sevastopol. We have 7 new towns.

Our units:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad850F3.JPG

I've been upgrading Warriors to provide some defensive support, and of course Knights and Horsemen. We have 7 armies - 1 Legion, 2 Knight, 1 Cav and 3 empty (I believe they are in Londinium, Tarentum and one's coming up the NE coast towards Tarentum.) The Cav that have been upgraded to have been busy fending off the AI, but that tide should turn soon (I hope) so we can get more Cav Armies in the field.

We still have 15 Warriors and 16 Horsemen for upgrade, so I haven't seen a good reason to pillage our resources. Some of our key cities are about to finish made-from-scratch Cavs.

We have 9 Settlers on the board. Several are up in the North region and are there to facilitate attacking the AI. One is under the Cav army, and can found a city next turn, making it easier to move our attacking units together, or to move more units to them. I've been founding cities on the near NE coast, and starting them on Galleys. We can pop-rush a Galley after 10 turns, and we're going to need a good sized navy to invade the next continent.

Most of the forces are in the North; both fending off the AI and trying to push onwards towards England. I've also accumulated a Legion/Cannon force, which can use some Cav support, in Artaxata. I figure this force can roll down the Greek flank towards Athens from the north; they've already done in Knossus, and after some healing, are one turn away from attacking Pharsalos. This will give us more real estate to build more cities to form our navy.

One more thing: we got another GL, Octavian. He's the only active unit. I'd probably form another Army out of him, but I'm leaving that decision to Keith and the team.

That's it. Here's the save. Keith: you're up!

850 AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0850_01.SAV)

Got it. Good work CS. Will get to my turn set tonight or tommorrow afternoon.

Pre-turn: 850 AD
I turn Octavian into an Army. I still can’t think of a wonder or SW worth building yet.

IBT:
Bab knight attacks Agrippina across river. The Musketman is brought to 1 HP yet manages to kill the knight and is promoted to Elite.
Three Greek LB move into view S of Artaxata.
Other AI movement not worth noting.

Turn 1: 860 AD
Redline an American pike next to Agrippina. Finish him off with Cav.
Redline an Barb knight near Agrippina with cannon. Finish him off with Legion Army.
Treveri founded in open space NW of JASP. Starts worker.
Sirmium founded on the NE coast. Start galley.
Kill Russian LB with Cav. Cav take no hits and is promoted to Elite. Hide behind Tarenium’s walls.
Upgrade 5 warriors. Every on else healing.

IBT:
Elite Legion left in open near Agrippina dies to Germ knight.
Barbarians coming out from up north.

Turn 2: 870 AD
Cannon redline the Germ knight near Agrippina, elite Cav finishes him off.
Augustadoum founded, starts walls.
French spear/settler redlined near Terenium.
Reg legion kill barbarian near Corfinium. Cav sacks camp and become elite.
Lots more upgrades.

IBT:
Greek LB are now next to Ceasaraugusta..

Turn 3: 880 AD
Tapezus founded just SW of Orleans, starts walls. Orleans is Razed to the ground by three cav.
Bagacum founded NE of Oxford, starts walls.
Take out two of the Greek LB with no loss.
More upgrades.


IBT:
Bab cav kills Brother Ray in Tyus. More English and Bab cav heading our way.
Knight army kills American knight. Greek LB, knight and Hop are dispatched.
More upgrading and healing.
Attack force heading for Pharsalos.

Turn 4: 890 AD
Kill some more bad guys. Will be ready to take out Newcastle soon. English must be trading for horses and saltpeter. Can you imagine cooperating and trading with another nation!

IBT:
One Legion dies in Tyrus to Bab Cav, one Legion redlines English cav at Nicopolis.
Two Russian LB closing in to die next turn.
Greek LB moves in to die.
Rome went into disorder. I forgot to check F1.

Turn 5: 900 AD
Legion takes out redlined English cav. Cav army takes out one of the other English cav. Lose one cav on the other and finish it off with a second.
Kill wounded Bab cav with cav, who become elite.
Form cav army at Artaxata and kill LB with it.

IBT:
Legion in jungle fight off English cav.
Greek knight foolishly walks past my invasion force, thinking he will make it alive to one of our weakly defended cities. Think again!
American knight want to die and move next to Tyus.

Turn 6: 910 AD
Oxford is toast. Only defended by two spearmen and a wonded cav. Took 51 gold and killed 6 workers. Looks like England is hurting.
Pharsalos was defended by only one reg musketman. Took one gold.
Elite cav takes out Greek knight.
American knight is redlined and cav finishes him off, becoming elite in the process.
Starting a new cav army in Tarentum.

IBT:
Greek LB foolishly walks past Army and takes a hit.
Germ knight and Bab cav move next to Agrippina, American settler/musket next to Trapezus. Germ knight next to Tarentum.

Turn 7 920 AD
Sparta fell at the lose of one legion. Took a few gold and killed 4 workers.
Lauriacum founded and starts Galley.
After two cannon hits, cav finishes off Bab cav and becomes elite.
Germ knight next to Agrippina dies to cav. Germ knight next to Tarentum is killed by cav, who become elite.
Cav army killed Am settler/musket, then takes out Russian LB. An elite Cav takes out the other LB.



IBT:
Not much to note.

Turn 8 930 AD
Two knight armies raze Asher.
English Cav killed.
Next turn I will have upgraded everything and will pillage the iron and salt.

IBT:
London builds SC and Hamburg CO.
Germ Settler/pike moves next to Tarentum.
Greek LB move next to army and takes a hit.
Elite Musketman takes out Bab cav with a little help from a cannon.
Greek navy looks to be preparing to land someone in the bay of Antium.

Turn 9: 940 AD
Curia founded NW of old Asher
Lumgdunum founded NW of old Oxford.
Discover Greek musk/settler pair as I move on Athens, kill them with cav taking no hits. Also take out Greek horses.
Kill wonder Greek LB with Legion.
Elite cav takes out the Germ Pike/settler.
Cut iron and salt after upgrading last two units.

IBT:
Lutetia went into disorder. Sorry!
Greeks move up what has to be their last knight and LB.

Turn 10: 950 BC
Built Seleucia on the ruins of former Sparta.
Elite cav takes out Greek knight taking no hits. Other Cav takes out LB. Takes no hits.
There is one more Greek knight. Athens looks ripe for the picking. Remember the Bruce!
Built Teurmia in the former British jungle on river.
Elite Cav dies attacking Bab cav.

Athens is toast next turn and there will be a couple healthy armies up by England to take out London in one or two turns. I played my ten turns very aggressively and we need to build up our homeland defense. I switched everyone I could to horsemen or warriors. I am moving a settler with two legions through the mountains towards what will be the former Athens sight. I wonder if this will disrupt the Olympics? I am keeping our research at min. At 50 gold Cav upgrades are expensive. We need the cash. I didn’t fully load some of the armies because we are getting low on units.

Here is the save:
http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD0950_01.SAV

Crikey ! I spend a day working outside around the house and you Generals rush through two rounds. AT first glance it looks like excellent progress, after I read the logs I will probably have to revise my opinion upwards.

Looks like my turn again already, so "got it". And remember Bruce !

Good job, Keith! The pressure is on England, and especially Greece. I wouldn't be surprised if Peanut just about eliminates both of these Nations from our continent.

All the new cities on the coast should be building Galleys, and pop-rushing them as soon as they are able. We should try to get an initial landing over there very soon; I think Rhodes would be a good target once Athens and a couple other Greek cities are razed. We need to find out where the other civs are; if they're on the Eastern continent, that would be great. We should save a couple empty armies to be transferred over, then fill them up on the other continent. So I'd leave maybe 4 or 5 Legions to clean up the remaining Southern Greek cities, and send a force of 4-6 Cav over to see what's going on.

When we make contact with the first foreign civ, we'll have to declare war on them as we leave the diplo screen. Be sure to get by whatever means possible at least their WM, and probably all other contacts as well. We need to find out how far behind they are and whether we'll need any other research to handle them.

Babylon is starting to put out a bunch of Cav. We need to finish England quickly, and show Babylon where they fit in OUR world order. Right now we have a lot of border to defend, and several border cities; try to limit the number of vulnerable cities we build until we can eliminate England and Babylon. At this point cities should be built to form barriers that the AI will find hard to penetrate, and to project power and support towards our future victims. We have lots of territory that we're taking from Greece to form cities to support our army, build our navy, (don't forget to pop-rush when you can!!) so don't think of building cities in the North as a means to grab territory. And if our cities are going into CD, they are too big; build a settler.

Good Luck, Peanut!!

You are right Civ-steve. I should not have built so many new cities up north. It was getting hard to defend them all. It would have also encouraged the AI to build settlers, which at this point is a waste of shields for them. Too bad they don't have new wonders to throw they shields away on.

Is there a target city we want to move our new galleys to? I was unsure.

A mixed bag again from General Peanut. In summary : 3 Leaders (all armies) but I managed to lose two armies (1 Knight, 1 Cav) in assaults against England. Those muskets are tough ! I also lost two border towns but recaptured or resettled them shortly afterwards. Enemy losses – Athens, London, Delphi, Argos, Canterbury, Thessalonica, Tours. Alex has one city left on the continent. Oh, and we have a world map and a new enemy – Japan. read on …

Just read your comments CS. Oops - I forgot to pop-rush some galleys but we have 5 now and some caravels coming in a few turns. England fights on but not for too much longer. I haven't started to marshal boats yet as there were a swarm of English, Bab and Greek galleys about along our west coast and I didn't want to lose any.

Pre-turn check : Our economy looks great and there’s a lot more of the Roman Empire that I remember from my last turn in the captain’s chair. Great work folks. Here we go …

IBT : What at start ! A Bab cavalry attacks Trapezus. Our musket defender is so inspired by the awesome legend of Bruce’s heroic last stand against the Greeks that not only does he fend him off, but Titus emerges from the gunpowder haze. We name the musket “Hammer of the Babylonians”. Then he fends off TWO more cavalry, who retreat in shame. (Of course, the cannons helped a bit). Trapezus must really get up the nose of the Babylonians. A Greek knight then hurled himself at the defenders of Seleucia. Splat ! His remains are hosed away with little effort. And apart from a few boats, that’s it ! Where is everybody ? We will have to go in search of them …

960AD : Some MPs built to keep the peace. Titus builds an army and advertises for volunteers. First, Athens. We must sack the cannon commander. 0 out of five shots ! Three Hoplites later, one legion lost, a redlined Cav army, and Athens is rubble. Bruce is avenged ! Four Greek slaves are sacrificed to Mars. Our army retreats to Seleucia to recuperate. Next London – A desperate gamble. Three Cavalry Armies take out a musket each. Two extra cavalry are called up – one redlined, one takes out another musket and Trajan emerges ! Our Cavalry takes on the mantle of “Hammer of the English”. And there’s still at least one blasted musket left !

IBT : A cowardly English Cav skirts our massive army and takes out Augustadorum including 2 cannons. Poop. Reckless old Peanut strikes again – forgetting to reinforce. An optimistic English Cav lands near Aesonesium.

970AD : That foolish English cav sightseeing is dealt with. Augustodorum is avenged and the cannons recaptured. Back to London : Three more muskets taken out and now London is rubble. Six English slaves go to spend some quality time with Mars. Our armies retire to recuperate. “Bruceopolis” is settled, re-using the rubble of old Athens. Delphi is defended by one rather panic struck Greek Knight. Our Cavalry gently assure him that his passage will be swift and relatively painless, and then proceed to demonstrate to him. Delphi is now just a memory.

IBT : Crikey ! Foreigners ! Tokugawa is furious with us, yet he wants to trade ! Hmmm. He offers Printing Press for Chemistry. What a useless technology. How about Astronomy, we ask ? He asks for WM and Chemistry and 260G. We accept. Now, how about selling us your Map ? We will need it in order that we can find you and kill you, we mutter under our breath in Latin, knowing that this barbarian cannot understand. He asks for Condimentum, Suffimentum and Metallurgy. Well, you’ll get Metallurgy anyway I guess, so OK. Bye for now, Toku. Oh by the way, by order of the great god Madicus Baximus, we are now at war. So sorry. Those Babs must really hate Trapezus. A Bab Cav finally kills Hammer of the Babylonians (but we will remember ol’ HotB as we called him). Another Cav succumbs to the sword of a Legion. The Greeks land a Knight right next to the sun-bleached bones of that sightseeing English Cav. What a dummy !

980AD : Seems that the Aztecs and Indians also know about us but they have not dared contact us yet. The Greek Knight’s bones now lie beside the English Cav’s. A Cav dies attacking Argos. Ah well, it was worth a try. Other units are mostly recuperating. Augustodorum’s Revenge is settled.

IBT : A furious Ghandi wants to trade with us. We decline. We do not want these barbarian goods. Your clock is now ticking, Ghandi. Commence trembling. Is there no end to these vermin ? Now some fool named Montezuma thinks he can trade. Has he not heard of the might of Rome ? Go and hide. Your number will soon come up – long before you want it to ! An English Cav dies outside Augustodorum’s Revenge. A Greek Longbow lands looking for news of that Greek Knight, who apparently has not yet reported in.

990AD : More MPs are finished. Argos is now history. Three more Greek cities on our continent. The Longbow is sent after his Knight, but he also will have troubling reporting back unless he finds a handy medium. Our armies are still healing.

IBT : Some futile attacks. Nothing to write home to Mum about though.

1000AD : Ok – the march to Canterbury commences. Three cavalry armies camp at the front door. Our Cavalry continue their march along the south coast – Ephesus is now in ruins. We move to rebuild the mountain road to Bruceopolis.

IBT : The Bab Cavalry pound Tarentum with little success. Just love them walls ! Some American Knights appear over the horizon near Trapezus. Lizzie wants to talk – Not likely darling.

1010AD : Canterbury – Three muskets wiped out by 1 Cav army (still 7HP left), 83 gold captured ! On to Warwick. An 18HP Cav army, wiped out by a musket. Poop. The next army takes out a musket at a cost of 5hp

IBT : No attacks of significance. Some boating about.

1020AD : Bring the troops back for some R&R. Not much action this round.

IBT : Well well. This foreign clown in a feathered hat just appeared wanting to trade with Rome ! “Great Hiawatha” he calls himself. We laugh him out of here. These Bab cavalry are getting annoying – They captured Tyrus. Curses !! --- Must --- remember --- reinforcements ---

1030AD : We start off with something fun – the assault on Eretria. Hadrian emerges from the smoke and dust of battle. The next Cav dies. Ah well. Next time … We recapture Tyrus with no loss.

IBT : Lots of settlers wandering past Trapezus. 2 Russian, 1 Bab, 1 French. And the Greeks are trying to resettle the south coast. Sorry, no, Alex. That’s Roman land now. The Babs land a Knight in the SAME spot. It’s getting a bit crowded there amongst all the skeletons of foreign troops past.

1040AD : The sightseeing Bab knight dies. Swiftly. A Knight Army hurls itself against Coventry – unsuccessfully. Sorry lads. Bit optimistic. Hadrian builds an army.

IBT : A few unsuccessful attacks.

1050AD : Thessalonica is rubble. We eliminate the two Russian and the French settler fouling up the landscape near Trapezus. A Cav Army takes a guided tour of Tours. They proceed to tear Tours to tatters. Ta ta Tours. They may well be in trouble, however as they have 2 HP left. But we slide a nearly-healed cav army up from Tarentum to give some cover. Iron reconnected and all horses upgraded to knights. Some frontier warriors upgraded to Legion. A Cav army is nearly filled with cavs from slower producing cities and sent to the front. Salt wil connect next turn.

Closing comments : We have two armies waiting to be filled. We are at war with Japan, and should declare on India no later than 20 turns after 980AD. Then the Aztecs, then the Iroquois. The English have 3 mainland cities left, the Greeks one. Warwick might be a good target next, and Eretria should fall next turn, kicking Alex off the continent of Greater Rome ! We have 4 settlers in transit, 3 in the south and one heading to repopulate former English territory. We should ponder on a palace relocation soon to get our production improved. We still have no army costs, and can handle another 17 free units, and another 16 when our settlers find homes. 855 gold & 135gpt coming in. We bought Astronomy from Japan, and we could think about speeding up research on Navigation and rushing Magellans (if we get a leader that is).

Best of luck, General Peglegasus … The 1050AD Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Peanut_SG003_AD1050_01.SAV)

A good set of turns from a (normally) peaceful Peanut! Greece is on the ropes and the referee is counting, France is cowering in the corner, and England is looking very bloody indeed. I said before that the game would go quicker once we learned Cavalry; 3 sets of turns in 3 days is a record for this team. :)

To lessen the loss of armies, I'd recommend that they not be used in attack once they are half damaged. Learning Astronomy now is a bit of a mixed bag: Caravels can carry 3 units, but they still only have 3 movement so even with Sea spaces being safe for us, we don't have a safe crossing. And they cost 40 shields to produce, so we have to go 20 turns before pop-rushing or use 2 citizens. If we get Navigation, we will have a safe crossing; however, there are only 30 turns left to win the Laurel so we have to do things to try to accomplish this.

Here is the best crossing in my opinion:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad1050Crossing.JPG

This is the Drazek technique. The fleet is assembled at location 0. 2/3 of the Caravels move over to position1 while the remaining 1/3 get loaded. On turn 2 the loaded ships move to position 1, transfer their loads to the survivors of the first group and these newly loaded at sea Caravels continue on to position2. We will lose a number of Caravels, but we wont lose any of our land military. On turn 3 the Caravels drop their load on the Hill space, which provides the best defensive position. Assuming we bring at least one settler with us, we can form a city the following turn and begin offensive operations.

Here is the F3 minimap:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/Peanut_sg3_ad1050F3.JPG

Right now only the English, Babylonians and Germans know Cavalry on our continent, and unless the Japanese know it, no one knows it on the other continent. We should push our forces West, then North, to finish off England, then continue East along Babylon to take them out. This will place our main units adjacent to Germany, which should then be next. The Russians and Americans are fairly behind, so they should be done in last. Along the way to Germany, France will find herself placed in exile. By doing this (going East through Babylon, North through Germany, and then back West through Russia and America), we will take care of the Civs that have the strongest units that can hurt us, and place our forces near the loading zone for our ocean crossing.

We need to get a good crop of cities built along the English coast to support our navy builds; these cities are probably the highest priority so I wouldn't place too many more in Babylon or Greece until we get these English coastal cities built.

I have a sneaky idea regarding our Palace; it's called the Palace teleporter! Once we place our new city on the 2nd continent, we use a GL (either transported over or generated there) to rush the Palace in a 2nd continent city. We then load a ton of military units into a border town on our continent. Armies, Cav, Cannons, etc. Finally, we gift this border town to one of the 2nd continent civs we are not at war with yet, and all these units are instantly teleported to our Capital ... on the 2nd continent!! This is obviously exploitive, so I'd like to see some discussion on this first, and determine whether it's allowed under Gotm or SGOTM rules (under Gotm rules, a Palace Jump is allowed if a core group of cities is or will be built around it.)

Finally, what are all those Knights and other units doing on Holiday in our interior cities! This is a fighting army!! In my set of turns I moved all interior units to the fronts or borders; warriors and horsemen alike. That way, when I upgraded them, they were immediately ready to be used. We need NO MP's in our interior cities. With 4 Luxuries and Hanging Gardens, we can have a size6 city be content with 0 MPs, so get these units to the Front. Any size6 city should build a Settler before it becomes size7. Most everything should be at the front, or one city behind it, waiting for upgrade. The Knights would be really helpful taking out AI units allowing our Cav to attack cities. For the non-front border, space Warriors/Legions about 5 spaces apart, with a Horseman/Knight/Cav near every other Legion; that should allow us to respond to any incursions. And if we place a couple of cannons near our Northern border on each coast, we can bombard any AI Galleys going by, making it likely they will retreat so we wont have to deal with dropoffs.

Now that the map is fully revealed, it looks like the continents are switched, with the long dividing continent still in its place. And the AI have been switched from continent to continent as well; Rome was originally where the Aztecs are in Gotm16. Only place a few units on the long thin continent to clean out the remnants of our AI; the bulk of our units have to use the crossing or the teleporter to take the fight to the 2nd continent.

We only have 30 turns left to wrest the Laurel from Team Smackster; a lot needs to get done and quickly. I'd suggest forming little Army groups - a Cav army supported by 3-4 Cav, with follow-up Legions and Cannons to move in and protect the wounded. Target individual cities with one of the Army groups; target Capitals with two Army groups (they will be more heavily defended); each one should take down a major city every 1 to 3 turns, then rest at a city to heal quickly.

I will be out of town on Monday and Tuesday; I should be able to check in though, and post any suggestions.

Good luck, General Peglegasus!!

Well lads, I'm still learning the tricks of this game. The holidaying Knights were just upgraded, I remembered later in the round to send the horses to the front for their upgrade but I missed some. I admit I forgot that we had happiness under control with the extra luxuries & the HG. I had in the back of my mind that we needed MPs in size 5&6 cities. In the immortal words of the philosopher Homer, D'Oh ! That explains why the top rankings are a quantum leap (or three) in skill above my level.

The sea crossing point looks good, CS. We should start gathering our ships soon. I am not sure the palace teleporter gambit is quite ethical - I would rather not do it. What do you all think ?

If we pump up research we will get Nav faster, especially if the 2nd continent civs get it first. We may even be able to risk buying it.

Peglegasus : there may be a few horses and workers scurrying around on the last stage of a goto. I think I got them all but if any slipped through - sorry. I had to rush the last few rounds a bit. Go forth and slaughter !

30 turns... can it be done?

I have the save and will look it over tomorrow. I'm sure I'll have questions so I'll post hem before proceeding.

I'm with Peanut in regards to the teleporter. I've never heard of that trick and think I'll try it in a solo game I'm playing just for kicks, but I don't think it's right in this case.

I agree that the Teleporter is questionable in general, and maybe, since we are supposed to be xenophobic, it would seem odd that we'd give away one of our towns to the 'aliens'. On the practical side, it's the only way we can transport any of our 4-unit Armies (which count as FIVE units) to the 2nd continent prior to Transports being available.

That being the case, it would make sense to use a GL to move our Capital elsewhere and pick up some increased shield and commerce. Veii holds our FP, and we're still in Despotism (which at this point we may never leave), so perhaps near the NE corner (maybe Ceasaraugusta) to form a 2nd core. Or maybe up the Western coast to add a few more shields to our Caravel building cities. (If we can get them to 2 shields per turn, we could generate twice as many Caravels, and I think getting a large navy ASAP is the key to how quickly we finish this game.)

30 turns is really fast. How much time will it take to do in 4 fresh civs with all their units? (OK, more like 3 civs; the Iroquois look like the weakling of the bunch.) I'd like to be landed on their continent within 15 turns to give us 15 turns to do some damage. I don't think that will be enough. We have 5 Galleys now (which need to be upgraded to Caravels; I think Jerusalem is our only Harbor, so they need to go there.) We need a minimum of 10 more Caravels to have a good shot at landing 5 ships worth of stuff (15 units) at the landing spot. That's a pretty spare beginning (which was why I was suggesting the Teleporter in the first place.)

Peglegasus: your key job is to get the Caravels rolling out of the Western coastal cities (along with wiping out most of the continental civs and starting the process against the exile cities on the long continent.) We need at least 10 more Caravels ASAP; 15 or 20 would be much better. We will lose a bunch of them during the crossing, so they have to keep on coming. (This is an area we have neglected :( )

To expand on the army group idea above, I believe we have 5 Cav armies; maybe maintain 2 of them with 6-8 supporting Cav, and Legions, to take out the English and work on the Babylonians. Send the remaining 3 with 10-12 supporting Cav (I haven't checked to see exactly how many free Cav are available so these numbers are approximate) to take the last French city and move on the Germany proper. I think this is a faster way to do in Babylon and Germany than focusing on just Babylon first; but please be mindful of how damaged the Armies are, and be sure to heal them when they need it. All areas will need supporting Legions, Cannons and Settlers.

Good Luck!

Is victory in 30 turns a realistic goal? I don't think so. I suggest we now go for knocking every nation down to few unproductive cities (pillaging all their improvements). Make sure we get as close to 66% pop and land as we can and that every citizen is happy, then milk until 2050. To pull this off I think we would have to periodically "gift" cities to the AI. I personally don't think this is against the spirit of the varient as long as we think of these "cities" as "reservations" or "hunt clubs." If we kill off all the alliens who how will our young Romans develop that ruthless fighting spirit against? :lol:

Generals - I say we work as hard as possible to finish this game off as fast as we can. Follow the variant rules (in spirit as well as to the letter), wipe 'em out, play to rid this Roman world of all those irritating others. (now is that xenophobic or what from this mild-mannered Peanut ?).

Whether we finish in 30 turns or 90 - so what ? This has been an enjoyable game and to me will remain so whether we finish first or we get that coveted wooden prize. Besides, if we grab the spoon we can hang it on the wall beside the gold laurel from last game to remind us that we are in this for the fun of it.

Is victory in 30 turns a realistic goal? I don't think so.


I didn't think so either ;)


Make sure we get as close to 66% pop and land as we can and that every citizen is happy, then milk until 2050.
Milking??? are you guys going to play this game till Christmas???? :crazyeye:
You will definitely miss next SGOTM :)