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!

Ok, I reserved this post expressly for the intention of keeping a list of our contacts and war dates. I will try to keep continuously updating this post to remain accurate.

I'd also like to make sure I, along with everyone else, fully understands the intracacies of this variant.

Some key points, IMO:

--We may never make peace.
--We may delay making contact with an opposing civ as long as we'd like, but once diplomacy is initiated (by either side) war must be declared before leaving the diplomacy screen. From that point on we will most likely be at war for the rest of the game.
--After war has been declared on the first civ, we must declare war on the second civ no more than twenty turns later, and sooner if the first civ is eliminated.
--We will never keep a worker or city of another nationality. Bombard units are an exception.

EDIT:
Opponents and war date

Greece - Contact/declare turn 14
France - Contact/declare turn 54
England - Contact turn 54/declare turn 74
Germany - Contact turn 56/declare turn 94
America - Contact turn 65/they declare turn 105
Babylon - Contact turn 65/they declare turn 91
Russia - Contact turn 74/they declare turn 120
Aztecs - Contact turn 120/declare turn 140
Japan - Contact turn 121/declare turn 157
India - Contact turn 121/declare turn 160
Iroquois - Contact turn 121/they declare turn 133

Just checking in.

Tallanas reporting for duty :salute:

Actually, the last time I said that, the team won the Wooden Spoon... :hmm:


Tal

Edit - Is it just me, or can you guys see a wheat in that picture of the start?

Edit 2 - Ok, I've now stared at that tiny collection of pixels for so long that they've became a troupe of Balinese dancers. I'm going to bed.

Some basic strategy thoughts:

--We will probably want to bee line for IW and secure a source of iron ASAP.
--I would say we will want to delay meeting any civs until we have at least three cities.
--We will want to enter into twenty turn deals very carefully. We don't want to make a deal that we will be forced to break when that civ comes up for a declaration. Well, at least not early. Since there are twelve civs, we can potentially make several gpt deals before the civ(s) in question are declared upon.
--I foresee bombard units as being very valuable.
--Since we can't keep any cities, we will probably want to get a settler factory up and running, and keep it going.
--It would be nice to be able to eliminate the first couple civs before MM when they can land units behind our lines.
--We will need to keep a vanguard at home at all times to protect against landings.
--Once we get IW, I see MM as being the next very important tech. We can rest assured that MB did not give us a nice easy pangaea to deal with. I imagine that at least a couple of naval landings will be necessary.

Anyone disagree with any of these or see something I missed?

To furthur pad the post count, some procedural things to note:

I would prefer to keep this relaxed, but always moving forward. We will work with a basic 24 hr got it, 48 to post the log after that.

*i will point out that we have approx. ten weeks. At a possible 53 turn sets, that gives us about two weeks to spare if we average a turnset per day. I don't expect it to go that long, but just some food for thought*

I expect everyone knows that GOTM rules are in effect here. That means things like free palace jump, ship chaining, etc are banned.

With the exception of TheNemesis666, who will learn shortly :), I like to post a lot in my games. I feel that through discussion, we can come to the best course of action.

@Tal - where in the pic did you see the wheat? I don't see any....

@all - Anyone have a burning desire to go first? Romeo won't be around till Wed-ish, so I wouldn't mind waiting to start until then, but I'm sure he won't be insulted if we do decide to get going.

EDIT: Lurking in other teams' threads in also banned.

Well since you asked... Yes, I have a burning desire to go first. I can do more damage that way.

:lol:

First come, first served.

I would like to discuss the first move though. Have you considered what i mentioned in our PM's? The more I look, the more I think wasting the worker turns to move one S before settling makes sense. If we do settle on the hill one S, after expansion we would only lose one BG, depending on what the fog reveals.

For all others on the team, the question is settle now, and start the worker on his way 1 west, or use the worker as a scout for a turn going 1 south to see if the starting location might be better another tile over. My feeling is in this case "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" meaning we have a known good starting loc now, and maybe something will be revealed, and maybe not. I'm certainly open to other opinions, but I'm feeling that in what amounts to a near always-war scenario every build turn counts so we should plant the flag now. Plus, since I presume we would agree the settlers are only going to be laid down about 3 tiles from Rome, settler #2 can take advantage of better terrain south/southwest if in fact it is out there. If the team feels otherwise, I'll certainly send the worker south for a look. Also saw no wheat tile BTW.

Hi all, just checking in. Start square looks good for settle but I'm happy to run with the majority.

Nem.

btw - i'm in australia +10GMT, where are you guys? (i've seen your loc's but what timezone?)

Found the answer to my question, if you are all eastern daylight time then I'm +14 hours. I start work at roughly 6-7pm your time and finish 3-4am your time. I'll check here through the day to keep up with whats happening.

Nem.

Welcome aboard Nem. :)

M60 and i are both EDT (GMT -6?). For some reason, i want to say Tal is across the pond, but I'm not sure. I think Romeo is here in the US as well.

Do you have any questions on the variants or thoughts on our initial strat?

Is this gonna be a normal time for you to be posting/playing? If so, I'll probably slot you after me, as I always play rather late at night (3am now).

Since I probably should have mentioned them more in depth before for everyone anyhow:

Don't leave units on goto orders that extend past your turns.
Don't automate any workers
Don't use any city governors
Don't worry about listing every little move you make (except maybe early in the game)
Do list wonder completions, declarations of war, all trade/diplomacy actions
Do feel free to pause and post should you want input on something
Do try to respect our rep, at least early (I know it's not gonna be a UN win or anything)
Do adhere exactly to the variant.

I'm sure I missed some, but we all get the idea. ;)

EDIT: Obviously cross posted regarding time zones.

yeah, now is pretty much when I would normally get home from work and be able to play. Nearly 6pm here at the moment.
I should be able to post during the day at work.
I think i'm clear on the variant, if I find anything that I'm unsure of while playing I'll save and post for clarification.

I'm happy to settle on the start location, but a move south will only lose us a BG and pick up a couple more river tiles. Hmm, not really a clear statement. I think what I'm trying to say is I don't mind both options look good. (doesn't help does it :-)

Nem

I am indeed across the pond, back in Blighty, so that makes three yanks, one Limey and an Aussie. Nice mix!

This morning I can't see any wheat either - I think I saw one of those horrible green dots (or a white one) on a grassland square, and imagination took over...

I'm happy with all the usual GoTM rules, and can't wait to get cracking! I think this one should be fun... :mischief:

By the way, I also post a lot in these succession games. The last time I managed 207 posts - you are warned!


Tal

morning tal, is it just me or did your avatar just change?

Also, I'm decided on the start loc, I think I will cast a vote for a move south. We get another 4 river tiles, that we can see, and maybe 2 more. I have a feeling we are going to be supporting a rather large military so we could do with the extra commerce.
Unless rome is going to be our settler factory, in which case we probably won't work that many tiles for a while and would be better off with the river squares in city 2 and 3.
Hmm, i retract my vote for now, what do others think/feel? (if we find more bonus food near the game then city there could be a better settler factory)

Nem

The save is up, and you're all encouraged to have a look, not that there's too much to see ATM. One thing is, I'm not sure the river actually extends SE beyond the tile directly south. Like Tal, I'm staring at it awhile, but at a 200% bitmap image view, it seems as if there are no blue river pixels beyond a certain point, so the river may just peter out.

Actually, taking a second look, it seems to end, and may well restart :crazyeye: Sesn, doesn't seem there's a strong feeling out there, although we have yet to hear from Romeo.

morning tal, is it just me or did your avatar just change?

Yep it just changed :)

The other one, though I liked it, was a bit fiddly for an avatar of this size, so i went with this sword hilt one. Looks better, I think.

Also, I'm decided on the start loc, I think I will cast a vote for a move south. We get another 4 river tiles, that we can see, and maybe 2 more. I have a feeling we are going to be supporting a rather large military so we could do with the extra commerce.
Unless rome is going to be our settler factory, in which case we probably won't work that many tiles for a while and would be better off with the river squares in city 2 and 3.
Hmm, i retract my vote for now, what do others think/feel? (if we find more bonus food near the game then city there could be a better settler factory)

Nem

I wouldn't get too hung up on the river tiles. As it is we have eleven in the capital if we settle Rome on the spot.

I have attached an image of the start with some coloured squares on. My suggestion is settle in place, then mine and road Yellow, then mine and road Red, then mine and road Blue.

Straightforward, and we may want to throw in roading the game, but there it is. For the record, I hate chopping game squares on forest unless it is essential for a 4 turn settler factory. A two food/two shield/one trade square in the AA is nothing to be sniffed at, and better than chopping it down to a non-bonus grassland...

OK, for the record, I wasn't necessarily advocating moving the settler, but I was advocating moving the worker one tile south to scout. I just feel that it was worth the wasted worker moves, as even a wine on grass would give us a shot at a factory.

At any rate, the majority seems to have spoken, and I can live with that. It probably won't matter in the long run anyhow.

M60A3TTS - If you would be kind enough to play the first twenty when you get a moment?

Also, please include a note in your log that states what difficulty the game is, as I'm still wondering. EDIT: Finally found where it says game will be played at Emperor.

Preferences on research? I can't even think of what techs we start with, so I'm not sure what to go for, but I do know that IW will need to be a priority. The sooner we start churning out legions, the better.

For everyone, please do not initiate diplomacy with the ai's. I would like to wait a bit until we have to declare and get a basic core in place.

Here is the roster as I was envisioning it, please let me know if anyone has a problem with it:

M60A3TTS
Tallanas
SesnOfWthr
TheNemesis666
Romeothemonk

This game is Emperor level. All the difficulty settings are standard Emperor.

[/lurk]Good luck team Sesn! I'll be pulling for you on this challenging variant, and watching with great interest.[lurk]

MB - Did you see my question about what "meet" is defined as? I'm not trying to split hairs, but is meet defined as opening diplomact for the first time? For instance, let's say we see an Iroquois unit in 3500 bc, a mongol in 3350 bc, an Amerincan in 3000 bc and a Spaniard in 2500 bc. We decide to speak to America first. Did we meet them first? And could we decide who to talk to next (like the Spaniards) to setup the next declaration of war. I believe the scenario I have just mentioned is fine, but I wopuld just like some confirmation.

BF - Thanks for the well wishes. :) I had originally hoped to see your warmongering prowess in action for this one, but apparently RL got the better of you right now...

My understanding is first one we decide to talk to is first one we "meet" and go to war with. Onto our particulars:

Threat assessment:

Per F10, here’s the opposition broken out by UU Era:

Ancient

Babylon- BW/CB, sci/rel, Bowman
Iroquois- Pot/CB, exp/rel, Mounted warrior
Aztec- WC/CB, rel/mil, Jag Warrior
Greece- BW/Alpha, sci/com, Hoplite

Middle

Japan- Wheel/CB, rel/mil, Samurai
France- Mason/Alpha, ind/com, mouseketeer
India- Alpha/CB, com/rel, War Elephant
England- Alpha/Pot, com/exp, ManOWar

Industrial

Russia- BW/pot, sci/exp, Cossack
Germany BW/WC, sci/mil, Panzer
America Mason/pot, ind/exp, F-15

There will be 4 scouts on the prowl: America, Russia, England, Iroquois. #1 threat IMO will be Babylon until we get our UU. If they make first contact before we get a # of legions, could be dicey with bows vs. archers. Iroquois is a close second, because they need to hook up horses before they can get their MWs out.

The following are just my thoughts:

Initial goal: Avoid contact by developing south and get 3 cities up with Rome to allow MGL.

Priority techs: BW (spears), Masonry (walls), IW (legions) Math (catapults) Pottery (granary) Wheel and HBR (horsemen)

Priority improvements in no particular order: rax, walls, granary (mil units, settlers and workers of course as allowed)

That all sounds sensible.

@Sesn, I now realise you were saying move the worker south first. I have no objection to that at all, it's always nice to get a view from a hill :)

After that move, I would advise doing my 3 squares in reverse order, blue - red - yellow. That only wastes one worker move, which is fine.

While I agree of that threat assessment to us, I would say that Greece can be a real threat to our plans. Which is why I would expect MB to put them right next to us. :rolleyes:

I can't agree or disagree on the direction chosen, as there is no minimap, but I'll defer to you on that.

Hopefully we can ignore building walls, and just take the fight more to the enemy. I just hate wasting those shields on a wall, when you can get a spear/archer for the same investment.

Also, we should not waste any time or money getting Republic, unless there are trade options available. I don't see us using any govt other than Monarchy for the vast majority of the game. Although we could get some nice unit support with Feudalism...

Am I right in saying our traits are COM + MIL? Our techs are CB and alphabet?

Commercial, Military, for sure...

Techs are Warrior Code and Alphabet, though.

Yes, Monarchy would be best govt, I believe. No Feudalism govt in PTW. I'll send the worker south 1, and if nothing appears to be of interest, I'll start where we are. On the city walls, I almost think it's a matter of survival that we have them. In checking out a lot of these AWE games, masonry is an early favored tech because on the higher level you're outnumbered to a considerable extent, and there just aren't enough archers to deal with multiple civ attacks.

You may see other units and borders as you wander around. It is your choice as to who you contact first, and therefore your choice who you declare war on first. Of course, leave it too long and Greece may decide to contact you :mischief:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM3_Team_SESN.JPG

Well the worker found nothing, but on turn 8 our warrior did. I've backed away, no contact from Alex yet.

Damn you MB!

How did I know he was gonna do that? Ok, so we need iron like yesterday. Assume that Alex is going to come talk to us at any second. Start a couple archers, and hope he doesn't.

I wonder how many teams will be screwed from the get go because they immediately declare on him?

Hey guys checking in. They cancelled my surgery the morning of, so I spent yesterday and today rather aggravated. I would settle on the spot. Whenever we get a chance, do not forget the hilled wine which will really be nice. It will cost ~ 20 worker turns, but it gives a 2/2/2 square with a lux.
Sens, with the variant, I think it just means we have to be at war with someone all the time. I do not think that we must declare 20 turns after meeting, unless they are first or we are not currently at war.
We will probably want 2 settler factories in this game as we cannot capture.
I agree with the iron working as the first tech. I like the idea of pummeling early in the AA.

You must declare war on the next civ in the list if:

a) the previous civ in the list is eliminated.
b) 20 turns have elapsed since the last war declaration.

You may declare war sooner if you so wish.
You may never make peace once war is declared.
If you run out of civs to declare war on (because they are on a remote peice of land for instance) and more than 20 turns have elapsed since the last war declaration when you discover them, then you must declare war on them befor leaving the diplomatic screen with them for the first time.

I hope this is clearer.

Just being at war with "someone" (oscillating war) is a game for young children and debutantes educated at the Sorbonne. :) Nothing wrong with that of course, it just isn't what we're playing.

So that means that once we declare war on the first civ, we will never again be at peace in the game, unless we destroy everyone we've met.

See? Easy when you put it like that isn't it?

If this turns out not to be a pangea map, then you may have a lull if you conquer your own landmass without discovering another.

Turn log-

0) 4000BC. Send worker 1 south. Nothing of note, plant settler in place. Rome founded, warrior in 5.
1) 3950BC. Worker 1NW
2) 3900BC. Worker 1NW
3) 3850BC. Worker starts road
4) 3800BC. Zzzzz
5) 3750BC. Rome warrior>warrior. Move warrior 1 east.
6) 3700BC. Worker completes road, 1 SW. warrior south.
7) 3650BC. Worker chops forest. Continue warrior exploration south.
8) 3600BC. Run into hoplite with warrior moving SE. No diplo contact.
9) 3550BC. Warrior 1NW
10) 3500BC. Rome warrior>warrior. Hop hangs around. Still no diplo contact.
11) 3450BC. Not much
12) 3400BC. Not much again.
13) 3350BC. Rome warrior>warrior.
14) 3300BC. Alex rings us up. Offers BW for WC and 23g. I take it as BW was still 11 turns off. IW in 40 @10% sci. Then tell him we’re at war.
15) 3250BC.
16) 3200BC. Warrior>rax in 5. Forest chop complete, rax in 4. Irrigate.
17) 3150BC. Move warriors a bit
18) 3100BC. Same as last
19) 3050BC. Same as last
20) 3000BC. Rome rax>archer. Irrigation complete next turn. 2 reg Greek warriors and reg Greek hop come in on a hill from SE. Our reg warrior fortified in the mountains directly NW.
Score: Greece (91) Rome (86)

Post turn comments: Don’t know if it’s as bad as it seems, but it could have been better. :rolleyes: I held our scouting warriors close enough in so two of them can join the warrior garrison in protecting Rome assuming our warrior defending the mountains loses or is bypassed. Athens must be to the southeast, that’s where their SOD just appeared from, as did the initial contact. As far as distance, from the known tiles, could be up to 8, based on the turn we met them. Again, 2 of his 3 units are just reg warriors, so we should survive that. I’d suspect he’ll just try to get to the soon-to-be-irrigated tile and pillage it. Not sure that we shouldn’t build more warriors, and try to use the quantity over quality strategy, but started archer anyways. At the moment this is more like a survival phase than an expansion phase. ;) Save will be available presently.

And our current map: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/SGOTM_SESN_3000BC.JPG

:lol:

We're gonna die by 2500 bc!

J/K, but we may want to switch that archer to a spear.

EDIT: we should get at least a spear or two in rome, then maybe we should start churning warriors, hope we have iron close, and upgrade them all.

Very unfortunate we had to declare so early. We didn't even get to build a second city....

And once the save is up:

M60A3TTS
Tallanas
Romeothemonk
SesnOfWthr
TheNemesis666
NOTE: I slotted Romeo in earlier than before since he's now avail

Oh gee, that's the thanks I get, "we're gonna die". :lol: We're ahead of Team Oblivion by 5 points, and the rest by 86. OK, so they haven't started yet, but that's besides the point. ;) Let's just focus on getting through this. If the RNG ends up allowing a couple warriors to capture Rome, it's out of our hands. Otherwise, if we can get Rome productive, there are plenty of BG tiles to work, and excellent city locs north and west. And as MB alluded to, who knows how few AI's are on this plot of land. May just be whistling in the dark, but who knows... To Tal's point on forest chopping, if we were a production marginal town, I'd agree keeping the forest intact would make sense, but where Rome is weak here is pop growth, every 10. With this move it is cut in half to 5, so we more quickly fill the productive BG tiles. My 2 cents anyways.

Uh oh...

We need shields. Lots and lots of shields.

Hmm, I seem to be having trouble seeing save games at the moment, like in our Dixis SG... Is it posted yet, or am I too early?

By the way, since this is PTW, I assume we are going for RCP, right? If so, we may need a tad more exploring. I realise this may mean more wars, but hey! It's all fun... :twitch:

I agree with M60 that we need more food asap. More food = more shields (at least indirectly)

Chop the forest (hopefully with good timing for whatever build - barracks?) and then irrigate that game.

The save is there. if you can't see it, let me know and I'll e-mail it to you. (gonna put submit/retrieve llinks in my sig very soon)

We will absolutely pursue an rcp layout. since we're already at war, then there's no point in delaying exploration any more. Well, except that we may need the troops at home...

I'd like some input on the research pace. Min research is normally fine with me on emp, but I'd really like to get to IW and see how bad MB screwed us with that. I don't cherish the thought of sacrificing our archers to hoplites.

Also remember: leaders can be used to rush Great Wonders in PTW, so think about it before you just arbitrarily build an army (though a sword army or two would definitely be nice) (but then again, so would the GL)

Edit: BTW, Tal, M60 did not link the save, you can access it through the link in the first post, if you can see that one....

Just ignore me, i thought we were in another ordinary SG :rolleyes:

Edit number 14...

@Mad-Bax; in the save form, it says we are not going to do the variant, when we are (more fool us ;) )

ouch, hopolites. :sad:
I'll have a work trip on 27th-29th of July, if it looks like a set of my turns will come up during this time I'll look at taking my civ disks with me and I should still be able to play. I'll know before hand if I will be able to play or not. If not I will request a skip but it shouldn't be neccessary. (heh, and we may be dead by then too)

Nem

Pre-flight - not much to do, just brace myself! Since I can't see us attacking the Greek Hoplites just yet, I switch the build queue to spearman.

IBT - Greek SoD bypass our mountain warrior.

Turn 1 - 2950 BC

Worker starts road... Warriors return towards Rome.

IBT - Greeks move north.

Turn 2 - 2900 BC

Warrior reaches Rome...

IBT - Greek SOD plonks down on our wines.

Turn 3 - 2850 BC

3 Warriors in Rome now, mountain guy moves SE and sees another Hoplite... :twitch:

IBT - The Battle of Rome! Alex attacks with two warrior bands, who are soundly beaten, one of our bands becomes a veteran. The Hoplite moves away [dance]

Turn 4 - 2800 BC

Worker finishes road and starts to mine. I suspect the second hoplite is going for our improvements.

IBT - My one scouting warrior is having the desired effect - the Hoplite is following him, and so Rome is temporarily safe. The warrior is staying on mountains, so should be safe, for now...

Turn 5 - 2750 BC

Not much. Warrior in Rome moves off to scout, spearman arrives in one.

IBT - The Greek Hoplites are in full flight! Maybe they are at war with someone else also, or maybe they have an undefended city that my warrior is near :)

Turn 6 - 2710 BC

Rome Spear>spear - that will enable us to protect both Rome and our improvements, should the Greeks return. Then a settler, I think.

Scout finds Greek borders... By the way, since i can't make a dent in the time left for IW, it stays at minimum...

IBT - nothing.

Turn 7 - 2670 BC

More scouting reveals more food bonuses to the north.

IBT -

Turn 8 - 2630 BC

More scouting.

IBT - :sleep:

Turn 9 - 2590 BC

Same as above - the scouts are reaching the outer limits of where I want them to go, in the north at least.

IBT - :sleep:

Turn 10 - 2550 BC

Lux rate to 20%, as Rome is now size 5. Worker moves onto wines, we will need the luxury I think.

We have found Athens - they have spices nearby, and connected...

And that's it. We're alive and well! Under the circumstances, everything else is just gravy :)

The screenshot contains a few yellow dots which are RCP4 sites - also, the pink circles indicate bonus food squares - as you can see, the majority of those RCP4 sites have bonus food as one of their inner ring squares.

Tal

Excuse the double. I prefer the turn report not to be too full of edits.

As regards next turns, I think that the safety of Rome has been secured for a few turns. Therefore the current spear build can be changed to settler. Rome is size 5 now, and could do with spawning another town. We need the military support and growth potential. As first city, I would be tempted by the towns sites...

1) West of Rome (safer, has bonus food)
2) East of Rome (has bonus can be a forward base for striking at Alex)
3) Northwest of Rome (safer, has bonus food)

In that order. What do you guys think?

West of Rome on your dot, no doubt. That's our settler factory. After the spear, if we get a worker, then settler, road the tile east of the proposed location, then chop the game tile, and irrigate. By combining the Roman irrigated game tile, that puts the food of Veii (next city) at +6, although it only needs to be +5. We can MM that easily enough. Greeks are in a worse position than we are, as Athens appears to be in a poor location for growth. Reminder for next up, after turn 4, we have to declare immediately on next civ, so I'm wondering are we really wanting to make new friends at this point?

Yup, west absolutely. Get that settler factory up and running and just keep churning units out of Rome. Lean towards more spears, with maybe an archer or two for now. That means that after the settler in Rome, build should be a barracks.

Feel much better about things now. :)

There's already a barracks in Rome :)

Although it's called an Armamentarium!

This is another "Roman-isation" that made me laugh :)

keep an eye out for barbs, and/or anything pertaining to them.

I'm kinda curious to know what MB's little puzzle is....

EDIT: I could have sworn MB said he didn't speak Latin, but some of those land types sure look Latin to me.....(I definitely don't speak it)

A roster:

M60A3TTS - declared war
Tallanas - held off those pesky Greeks
Romeothemonk - UP
SesnOfWthr - on deck
TheNemesis666 - waiting patiently

Romeo - please clarify if you can play now. You posted in the Mongol thread that you wouldn't get to that until Friday. If that is the case here as well, then I'll probably slot you back at the end of the roster for now so we can get a set or two in before Friday.

I've just realised that one of the yellow city sites (the one to the south of Rome) is actually RCP5, not 4... That's what happens when you do these things without grids ;)

I'm sure we are all competent enough not to settle there, though :D

I'm kinda curious to know what MB's little puzzle is....



Don't worry about that yet. It's a ways off yet. The original GOTM16 announcement explains the way to solve it. The link is in post 1 of this thread :)

I speak a little latin.
Mare-> horses
Ora -> Iron
Terra Fertillis -> Fertile Earth (Flood plain)
Pastoralis -> Pasture/plains (grassland)
terra Frigia -> Frozen Earth (tundra)
Some are really obvious, but the rest of these are beyond my mental skills at 10:30 PM.
more to follow when I get to take a closer look at work, just glanced through and hit post reply.
I have found time to get the mongols today, but won't touch this one till prolly Sat. Take a look at the attached pics :love: for reason.
I spend a lot of time with her. :drool: :wow: :drool:
(Wedding in 10 months)
Anyway, you can move me down in the roster.

I agree with West, but then I would head east and take north for 3rd. I think our war with Alex will be a containment war, rather than a real fighting war, at least until we get legions and pults. I vote for pillaging and harrasing the poor fool, and mirroring his settler/worker moves. The East town give us a nice base to launch additional troops from. You guys will really have to help me with city placement, as I was a really bad player until C3C came out, I found the SG forum, and I refined my own tactics.

Wow, you're in quite the mood tonight eh, Romeo? :groucho:

Ok then, this is the FINAL roster, I swear:

M60A3TTS
Tallanas
SesnOfWthr - UP -- Got it
TheNemesis666 - On Deck
Romeothemonk

cool, you able to play tonight sesn? (I'll be home in about 3 hours, will check then)

nem

Ok, I can put you all out of your misery (part of my degree was in Latin, and my Masters was mainly Roman History ;) )

Ora - shore, or coast
Mare - Sea
Terra Fertilis - Flood plain (as Romeo said)
Terra Frigida - Tundra, as Romeo said, it's "Frozen land"
Pastoralis - farmland/grassland
Planitia - plains (duh!)
Collis - Hills
Montis - Mountains
Silva - Forests

I'm desperately trying to think what jungle would be in Latin, not that the Romans encountered much, of course...

I've not checked this, but it would be even funnier if Rome were built on one of a range of seven hills!

Tallanas's latin is much above my 2 months that I took for fun. Sorry for the mistranslations. Too much time in territory where Latin means Hispanic, and where learning means math.

I think it certainly makes sense to try and pick off settler pairs where possible, as Athens grows slowly. Checked the diplo screen to talk to Alex, as the rules say no peace, but nothing about talking to the boy. He has Sparta up, maybe north of Athens. Next tech after IW is pottery to get the settler factory running, would that make sense? Unless we get it in a trade with next civs of course.

Pottery should be fine, unless we can buy it, as you say. Actually, I would like to find more civs soon, otherwise we will have even more limited trading opps when we do meet them.

NEM - No, I wasn't able to get to this. I find that when i start playing at 2am I play for hours and then I make mistakes both in the game and at work the next day. That's not to say I'll never be posting turns at 2 am though. Will have it up tonight.

By my calcs, 3 pillaging/fortifying spears and the greeks are on the asheap of irrelevancy. 2 for Athens and 1 for wherever sparta is. After checking the screenie of Athens closely, a protracted seige is in order, IMHO.
Please do not rush turns. Thats why I wanted to wait on the turns, as late night playing meas poorer quality, and we will need tip-top to compete with these rules.

.....and exactly why I didn't play last night, though I seriously considered it.

I'll send a pillage patrol out and see what can be accomplished.

Rush them? :nono:

I took an hour and a half to play turns 20-30... But you know what they say... Slow and steady wins the race :)

I spent half an hour just deciding whether to take Alex's deal for BW!

lol M60

and soz sesn, wasn't rushing u, really just confriming I'd noticed the roster change.

Nem

Pre turn – Everything looks pretty good. Our army is already costing us 2 gpt, and we have a spear due in 1. We definitely need more cities.

IT – Greek archer comes out of Athens and kills our warrior.

2500 ad (1) – Spear -> spear. Spear moves out to cover worker.

2470 bc (2) – Find Sparta’s border N of Athens.

IT – Greece moves an archer out of Sparta.

2430 bc (3) – Checking Tech Calc reveals my odds are significantly better to fortify and wait than to attack.

IT – Warrior wins flawless. Second archer moves in.

2390 bc (4) – Nothing

IT – Now we lose flawless, and also see another archer and hoplite moving in before death.

2350 bc (5) – Spear -> archer. Expect a couple archers and a hoplite to be heading to see us in three or four turns.

2310 bc (6) – Nothing.

2270 bc (7) – Vinum gets a road.

2230 bc (8) – Archer -> settler. Send two spears and an archer out on a pillaging mission.

2190 bc (9) – Now the archers show up, of course. Fall back to defensive positions.

IT – Vet spear wins vs vet archer (-2 hp)

2150 bc (10) – Fall back to the wines. Three archers and a hoplite incoming.

It is up to Nem to decide where to make his stand. I intended to fortify on the wines and let them attack me there, then fall back to Rome if they went around me. I had just finished roading the wines, which is why I kind of wanted to protect them. IW is due in 13, and a settler in 3. I think rome can be MM’ed to coincide growth with settler next turn. Remember that we get an extra shield on growth, so switch from the game to a BG. The settler was headed 3 tiles due W.

Firaxis score 108
Jason score 53

>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC2150_01.SAV)

Roster:

TheNemesis666 - UP
Romeothemonk - ON DECK
M60A3TTS
Tallanas
SesnOfWthr

on tal's dot map the city is actually nw-w-w, you're suggesting w-w-w. which do we want. (I'm easy)

Sorry. :blush:

Tal's spot is the correct one. I stared at the screen so long considering different rcp options my vision must have gone blurry. :crazyeye:

and where do I get the Jason score from? (or do you have a calc. for it)

nem

edit: to make sense :-)

is that an archer under the hop or a warrior? I'd like to hold the wines if I can.

btw: I'm still at work at the moment, I'll grab the save when I get home. (in about 4 hours)

Reg archer and hop to the NE, 2 reg archers to the SE. If you move most of our units on to the wines, they may or may not attack you. If they do, we should be able to hold. If not, pull everyone back to Rome and make a stand there. They may attack then rather than pillage the wines anyhow.

the archers will attack but I reckon the hop will pillage before he retreats, we have no real threat for him while he's on hills.

nem

Just a quick reminder for everyone: We have now been at war for over twenty turns. Therefore, if and when we meet the next civ, make any and all deals you can, and be sure to declare war immediately.

the thing I keep forgetting about is the haggling rule. (Not that I've had a chance though)

what techs are we willing to trade? we won't finish iron working during my turns so I don't have to agonize over giving that away, do we wish to hold back on giving any 'military' techs to our new 'friends' just to delay them getting them. or considering they'll probably get them from others anyway do we want to profit from any techs we have while we can? (means they'll have them from the beginning of our war with them though, instead of having to source them from others)

Pre turn
every thing looks good, i've decided to hold the wines for now.
I can't MM rome yet for 2 and 2 on settler, 2 and 3 or 3 and 2 is all i get.

IBT
greek forces move to hills ne and se of wines

2110 bc (1)
move a v.spear out of rome to wines and fort
v.spear 4/4 fort on wines
v.spear 2/4 returns to rome for MP
r.warrior moves to wines
v.archer attacks greek r.archer, wins and promotes 2/5
worker begins mine on BG
Can't MM rome to settler next turn, 1 shield short if I move the pop on game to BG
ah, i see what you were saying about the growth now, move pop from game to BG (cool, i've learned something already)

IBT
greek forces close in or rome

2070 bc (2)
rome settler>archer (for now, i might change if we lose a spear)
move forces from wine back to rome (thought for a while about leaving a spear there to protect wines but I want 2 healthy spears in rome)
v.warrior and settler w, w (i'll send a spear after greeks attack)
8.1.1 +5gpt IW 11t

IBT
r.archer attacks rome, v.spear wins 3/4
r.archer attacks rome, v.spear wins 3/4
r.hop moves se to wines :-(

2030 bc (3)
v.warrior and settler nw
v.spear leaves rome w, w
7.1.2 +3gpt IW 10t (I'm not sure if I'll get a turns grace when hop pillages so I'm turning up lux now)

IBT
r.hop pillages road on wine

1990 bc (4)
Veii founded >warrior
v.warrior forts in veii
v.spear arrives in veii
7 units of 8 allowed

IBT
r.hop1 on wines sw to hill
r.hop2 appears on mt on se border of rome
(did i mention I have a phobia of hoplites)

1950 bc (5)
v.spear forts in veii
v.spear and e.archer move out of rome s to hill
v.warrior se out of veii to help block hop from our improvements next turn

IBT
r.hop1 w to grassland
r.hop2 nw to hill

1910 bc (6)
rome archer>spear (for now)
v.warrior se to game
v.spear on hill w to worker
v.spear out of rome w to BG
e.archer back to rome (i'll send him and the v.archer along road to game next turn if r.hop1 attacks our v.warrior and wins across river)
r.warrior to hills se of rome (should have done this earlier to force r.hop1 around north side of rome so the archers didn't have to attack across river)

IBT
both r.hops move n

1870 bc (7)
rome grows to pop6
worker complets BG, se to BG with spear escort
r.warrior returns to rome
hop nw of rome is on grassland techcalc is giving me 40.8% chance of winning with v.archer and 53% with e.archer
hmm, do i want to risk/waste a v.archer to poss. give the e.archer 73.1% against a r.hop@2/3 (i'm going for a smoke to think)
whilst outside I realise I should have move the worker back towards the wine. sorry, that mistake will cost us about 6 gold in lux tax. (2 extra turns to get there) :(
v.archer attacks r.hop, wins at 2/4 (looks like he was after some payback for the loss of wine)
v.warrior forts for now on game
6.1.3 +7gpt IW 6t

IBT
r.hop e out of our territory

1830 bc (8)
v.archer 2/4 returns to rome
worker and v.spear n

IBT
r.hop ne to mt out of sight, towards sparta? (i'm expecting him back shortly escorting another archer)

1790 bc (9)
rome spear(fort)>archer (was thinking about another settler but will leave archer as place holder)
veii warrior(fort)>worker? (feel free to change either of these two build orders)
worker and v.spear ne
v.archer 2/4 fort

IBT
Tours founded by the french n-n-n-ne of rome! :twitch:

1750 bc (10)
worker and v.spear arrive at wine
moved the 2 spears and 2 archers to wine if you want to send the off on pillage mission, romeo
if not move them back. If you do send them there are no spears in rome at the moment so you might want change rome's build
6.1.3 +5gpt, IW in 3t, 178g
10 units, 8 allowed
joan hasn't appeared on f4 yet, but expect a visit from her soon


firaxis: 119 (greece 142)
Jason: 58 (answered my q from previous post when I submitted)

OK, done, please post critisisms (constructive prefered but flame if it makes you feel better :-)

How do I post a pic? (or do I have to upload it somewhere first)

Feel free to change either build

orders.>> SAVE << (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC1750_01.SAV)

edit: fixed link for what it's worth. :blush:

That all sounds good, Nem - I like the smoke break before the archer battle :lol:

I think I would have done the same thing there, attacked him with two archers... The main danger of course is giving him a Golden Age, but with only two cities it would be more of a Golden Age :D

As for France, there could be much, much worse alternatives. I don't normally have any major military issues with the French early on, although late on the AI tends to play Joanie well. Not that she'll see late on...

Other points. For the second city, we need to get it up to settler factory status asap, with Rome building units as needed. We also need, as a matter of urgency, to start pillaging the Greek cities. If they can just sit back and produce archers for 16 shields a piece, we are going to be in trouble, unless we get iron immediately. Man, do we need legions now...

In conclusion, good work Sesn and Nem :thumbsup:

Oh, by the way, to get a screen shot, just press "Print Screen" and then open up Paint or something similar and Paste it in. Depending how good you are with Paint, you can then edit it around, put dots on it, resize it etc...

Yes, I have a criticism. You posted the wrong save above! :lol:

The correct one is posted to the link, so ok there.

This is the current situation - Tours has to go, as a matter of urgency! And that stack of ours can be broken into one group to attack Tours, and one group to pillage the Greeks...

heh, I've got the picture, I just couldn't work out how to attach.

edit: now that I open my eyes, I see the manage attachments button down the bottom. :crazyeye:

Ah, yeah, my post rather neglected how to actually upload them... *ahem*

Use manage attachments ;)

Or, even better, use Upload Files at the very bottom of the screen. Once the file is uploaded, open the "View Latest Upload Files" (you'll see where it is) and right-click and copy the shortcut. Paste it into your post and then highlight it. Now click on the "IMG" button above where you type your post, or use the little code thingys, like {IMG} before the link and {/IMG} after it, only with square brackets, not wiggly ones...

The advantage of doing it this way is that you can have multiple images in one post, and you can write around them, whereas with "manage attachments" all your writing is above the image...

Remember that it doesn't matter when Joan appears on the F4 screen, only when she actually opens a dialogue with us. We should not open a dialogue with her right away.

After the road on the wines is done, focus on getting Veii up and running properly.

Roster -
Romeothemonk - UP
M60A3TTS - ON DECK
Tallanas
SesnOfWthr
TheNemesis666

A heads up, guys. Wed-ish may be the only day next week that I can play any SG's. If I'm up here, this will take priority.

cool, ta tal.

Remember that it doesn't matter when Joan appears on the F4 screen, only when she actually opens a dialogue with us. We should not open a dialogue with her right away.

Absolutely. We will need to march the archers and spears right up to Tours without opening dialogue, and prey we don't meet anyone else in the meantime.

After the road on the wines is done, focus on getting Veii up and running properly.

We need to get pottery as a priority, so it should be next after IW comes in in 3.

A heads up, guys. Wed-ish may be the only day next week that I can play any SG's. If I'm up here, this will take priority.

I'm away this weekend, so the absolute earliest I will get to this is Monday, and that's only if Romeo and M60 get their turns in this weekend. I wouldn't worry about delaying us, Sesn, in fact I'm wondering whether we'll manage to hit your window of opportunity ;)

declaring with the archers inside joan's territory will damage our rep. (if we care :-)

This early, I do care. It will be possible to make gpt deals if we can meet a few civs before we have to declare on them. The way thing are going, it may not matter, but I'd like to keep our options open for now.

BTW - posts are flying fast and furious in here this am, huh? :lol:

nearly 10:00am for you? ah, i'm sitting back at 12:15am saturday. :)

Uh-huh. I remind you of something similar when you're going to bed to get up for work Sunday night, and I'm just getting up on Sunday.

Actually, maybe I'll harrass you all week since tomorrow is my last day of work before vaca. :p

lol

if i'm reading your "got avatar" post correctly, I need 300 posts for custom avatar? :(

In looking over the save, first suggestion is change Rome’s build from archer to worker. We don’t want it to grow to size 7 as it’s scheduled to do in 2 turns. It needs to stay size 6 and below. Maybe build settler after that. With only one lux, all towns should probably be size 5, tops. If our intent is to connect the wines again, let’s resolve to hold that tile, as it’s otherwise two regular road tiles wasted. Talked to Alex, and where before he wanted all our gold for peace, now he’ll give us his gold, and the wheel. That’s encouraging as an indicator of how he’s faring. Looks as though Sparta is close to the mountains similar to Athens, so again, growth may be an issue for him. Seems we’re in a survivor mentality at the moment. Even if Rome is sitting on iron in 3 turns, wouldn’t build legions just yet. Do we really want to start our GA with 2 cities? We should be able to hold off the AI if we can continue to grow. Just get the roads connecting towns so we can shift troops as needed, and mine the BGs. Rome itself is a power city, and we have enough experience to win battles with archers as the AI keeps coming in small groups. In fact it would seem that the team with the best chance for a high score is one that can delay their GA the longest, so that it will count for the most. Agree next tech is pottery and masonry probably after that. Like it or not, we’re very likely going to need walls at some point.

yeah, I should have held an spear there to protect but at the time I was worried about giving alex a chance at killing a spear. (either the lone one on the hill or an injured one in rome)
I wasn't sure what to build in veii, we didn't have granary available and couldn't decided between reg warrior (and later reg legion) or reg spear. in the end I decided the legion would be more likely to promote so went with that.
I also haven't played much PTW, I pretty much went straight from vanilla to c3c.
So if you notice me doing anything weird or missing something, pick me up on it.

Well, if we can get a solid core in place, then we can advance on the ai, rather than sitiing and waiting for them to come to us.

I found it amusing to look at the graph of scores and see how everyone took a hard right at the end of the first set, when they had to declare.

Worker from rome, rax in Veii? Attack tours, with possible deals first, and make a new city according to the dotmap. Try and Pillage Alex. Gots it. Look for posts on Sat from me.

If that's the plan, ok. Just trying to understand the criticality of destroying Tours at the moment. Two archers by no means guarantees a victory against a fortified spear, if that's what's there. Esp if the next queue in Rome is for worker/settler. I suppose if the concern is that Alex and Joan will ally at any moment, so we should try and get techs first, ok.

I can't see any other French town. So I imagine that Tours was built either with a popped settler, or with a settler pair that has walked a long way. We should go check it out, and if it's a warrior, we need to get in there. If it's a spear on guard, that is just tough... But currently Tours is ruining 2 inner ring city sites! If France is far away, a war need not be too awful, but losing a third of your inner ring is pretty bad in my books...

Tours must go.

In my humble opinion!

Actually I should have made that a speech :)

"Fellow Senators! I put it to you that... blah blah blah... Tours delenda est!"

I think we're of the same mind from a position of strategy, just differ on the timing. If we attack immediately, it's not a sure thing we win. If we get the next town planted somewhere else in the ring, we could go back to Rome building archers and give us more of a sure thing vs Tours. Just hate the idea of fighting a battle w/2 archers and hoping for the best, even if one is elite.

I agree that tours must go, but we still have other city sites to build and as yet don't have the settlers to build in tours place. With another city or two we'll increase our unit production rate and be in a much better position to not only take tours but hold off the retaliation from joan.

edit: i said take tours, I meant burn tours as our xenophobia prevents us from keeping it.

Uhh guys, Where do I get the save, and do I submit it to the same place, or just post it up?
Edit: Found the save, do I need to post it somewhere special? I think I am on the short bus here.

Romeo, if you'll re-read post #1 by MB, you'll notice there is a link where you download your save.

On the Interturn I found this.
Will head to the northernmost Yellow dot with my settler.

yay, we have iron. (although I agree with what you said about holding off on the legions till we're setup)

IHT: Nothing to do
Turn 1: Move stuff but swap Rome to Settler
Turn 2: Rome grows
Turn 3: Move
IBT: Kill greek archer
Turn 4: Veii worker to rax. Contact Joan. She is up 4 contacts, America, Germany, Babs, Russians. And has Masonry, Pottery, Wheel, CB, and writing and 5 total cities. Soon to be one less. Buy Masonry for 100 gold and pottery for 40 gold. Dang the no haggling rule. Declare. Set research to math, and Veii to granary. (Declarations was outside limits)
IBT: England contacts us.
Turn 5: Raze tours and get back only 6 gold.
Turn 6: Rome spear to granary.
IBT Germans talk to us.
Turn 7: hook up the wines, lux to 10%. Found Antium set to Rax.
Turn 8: Move into greece. Settler pair coming our way
Turn 9: Start pillaging.
Turn 10: Rome grows lux to 20%
The Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC1500_01.SAV)

Got it, although don't know if I'll do anything tonight. May just check out the save and give people time for comments.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_SESN_1275BC.JPG

Went ahead and started as there doesn't seem much to discuss.

Preturn 1450BC- Change Antium build from rax in 7 to walls in 2. With only 1 spear defending, and the surrounding terrain favorable to attack it from, the town needs more survivability.

IBT- Greek archer appears from Sparta.

Turn 1 1475BC- Pillage Athens mine/road tile. Chop forest at Veii.

IBT- Reg Greek archer dies clean vs our vet spear. 2 reg French warriors appear 2 north of Antium. Antium walls>warrior.

Turn 2 1450BC- Pillage Sparta road tile.

IBT- French move adjacent to Antium. Rome granary>worker.

Turn 3 1425BC- Pillage Athens road/mine tile. Trade Bismarck 50 gold for CB.

IBT- French warriors move sw of Antium, defending spear takes off a hp on one.

Turn 4 1400BC- Move our pillaging spears. Not much else.

IBT- Reg Greek archer from Athens dies vs our vet spear, we lose 1hp. Rome worker>settler. French 2hp warrior moves out of zone to heal, other fortifies. Reg warrior harmless at the moment so I prefer to leave it alone until he’s on the move.

Turn 5 1375BC- Pillage 2 road/mine tiles. Lux to 10%.

IBT- Lincoln calls, wants 80g for mysticism. Nope. Hammurabi calls with same deal. How ‘bout NO! Reg Greek archer loses to vet spear, we lose 2hp, promote.

Turn 6 1350BC- Time to heal our 2hp spears. Start to move them out of Greek territory hoping to avoid any new archers.

IBT- New reg French warrior appears up north of Antium, healed French reg warrior moves back adjacent to town.

Turn 7 1325BC- Continue to pull out pillage spears. Lux back to 20%.

IBT- Reg French warrior dies clean vs. Antium, no promote.

Turn 8 1300BC- Pillage spears still on the move.

IBT- French reg warrior dies at Antium, vet spear loses 1hp, promotes. Rome settler>settler.

Turn 9 1275BC- Complete forest chop at Veii. Stop here for 2 questions before finishing. First, where should the settler from Rome go? I’m thinking 3 South adjacent to cattle. Second, we have a potential deal to make. Treasury is 152g, 1gpt and math is due in 25 @ 10% sci. America and England have Math. Germany and Babylon don’t, and all have myst, writing, and wheel. We can get math from Abe for all 152g and 1gpt. If we do the deal, may be able to get myst or wheel from Otto and Hamm. Maybe both if we’re lucky, or maybe neither. I’ve waited a couple turns with this opportunity, but don’t know how much longer the window will be open, especially as it appears Baby just started their GA based on the way the power graph is looking. May be at war with Otto, but this is all a guess at this point.

Do the deal. I would use an escort and settle the other north yellow dot first. It appears that we have the sea to our south, and can backfill easily. I would settle north and then east with a lot of defense on the east side. I think continue pillaging the greeks, leave an archer or two versus the French and Expand nicely and develop.
I would think about legions once we have 6 cities.
Just my two cents, and since it doesn't involve translating, there is a lower possibility of crack smoking on my part.

Turn 9 1275BC continued. Trade America 152g and 1 gpt for math. Trade Germany math and 2 gpt for wheel and mysticism. Trade Babylon Math for HBR. Polytheism in 40 w/sci @10% 6gpt. All peacetime civs now up writing, but map deals possible with England and America, so we know they have MM also. Greeks are falling behind, as are the French. Horses now just outside Veii, but will come within border on first culture pop.

I send the settler south, and here’s why. Normally we expand in the direction of the AI because in peacetime we know their settler pairs will just go off in another direction. In this case we expect multiple civs to attack us and at this point we want to be able to shift troops to different towns within our road network to meet each threat. Now we are focusing worker actions on getting Veii up and running as our settler factory so that Rome can build military. Once that’s done, then we can build roads forward and establish towns in a “forward” direction. Otherwise without roads, our forward towns are more susceptible to being picked off. Plus, I believe more land will be claimed if we build south for higher score. In any event, another settler is building in Rome, and will be available shortly. Move reg warrior forward of Antium to see what’s going on with France.

IBT- 2 reg Greek archers appear by wounded spear at Corinth. Reg French warrior appears vic Antium.

Turn 10 1250BC- Move 2hp spear away from 2 Greek archers, start to heal 2nd pillaging spear. Note that when I broke off, he had only 2 road tiles left between all of Athens and Sparta, so may be a few turns before some tiles worth crunching appear.

Post turn comments. We should keep workers building Veii into settler factory, then can work a road up to Antium. May want to try to squeeze out another worker or two out of Rome after settler. By that time Veii should almost be on-line. Civ scores are:

England: 311
Babylon: 244
America: 236
France: 217
Germany: 207
Greece: 183
Rome: 156

Russia is also out there per F4, but no contact yet. Posting save on the link provided on post #1, and below:

Here is the save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC1250_01.SAV)

Looks like things are going as smoothly as can be expected.

Tal - remember to declare with England on your fourth turn.

Definitely need Veii running properly, and a few legions so we can start hurting someone. Since Greece's growth seems fairly stagnant, we may want to go after Joan first. Haven't noticed if we've been able to get anyone's map yet?

Roster:
Tallanas - UP
SesnOfWthr - ON DECK
TheNemesis666
Romeothemonk
M60A3TTS

Remember that I should be able to grab this Wed, and that otherwise my posts will be minimal for the next week.

Post #2 has been updated with our contacts.

Also note that I have put the submit/retrieve links in my sig. :)

looking good, nice work guys. In your turns tal (if you're up next) we need to declare on our next ai, I think it was england, have a look back through the logs to be sure. Our last war started on turn 4 of romeo's so I think the next needs to start on your turn 4. (maybe 3, it's early here so I haven't really attempted the maths)

edit: ah, sesn posted while I was reading, ta for the maths confirmation :)

Excellent stuff guys, I was madly thinking when to declare, and in what order, so it's nice to have it confirmed.

And some good turns too, I'm glad we've started pillaging, and I'm really glad about Tours going!

This is a got it, and I will play shortly.

Pre-flight...

Check my dotmap for city location - I decide on a slight change to my original dotmap, due to the fact that there was a slight error in the first one, and also it only fitted 2 cities in the south of Rome when there could easily be 3; MM Veii for more shields (growth in 4, granary in 4, but workers irrigating game as we speak...). Hmm. Everyone is annoyed with us. Is our rep ok? Up lux rate to keep Rome in order.

IBT - French and Greeks advance.

Turn 1 - 1225 BC

Workers finish game square, move to BG. Spearman moves onto mountain. Warrior finds Thermopylae, how many settlers have the AI popped from huts?? MM Rome for growth/settler in 2.

IBT - Warrior attacks Antium and takes 3 hp off a fortified elite spear behind walls... :rolleyes:

Turn 2 - 1200 BC

Germany and Russia have discovered Polytheism. Spear fortifies on mountains; warrior discovers Thermopylae has silks. Cumae founded - starts on warrior, then it should be a fine worker pump.

IBT - The Greeks fell for my trap and attacke the elite spear with 2hp which was fortified on mountains, across a river, losing flawlessly ;) Rome settler>spear.

Turn 3 - 1175 BC

I don't know what's happened to our rep, but we can't buy Polytheism at 6th off anyone... :hmm:

IBT - Veii granarium>settler

Turn 4 - 1150 BC

Uh oh, here we go! Strategically, this is a nightmare - we have no idea where other civs are, or even if we are all on one landmass etc. Our World map is hopeless, so I try to trade around a bit to get it looking better.

Germany - TMap, for our WMap and 10g. (next war after England)
Babylon - TMap for our WMap and 5g. (our only likely tading partner for a while)
England - TMap for WMap and 20g (bah!)

I wish I hadn't bothered. That is not good news, England, the world's leading power, are right next door... And we are now at war with them!

Turn science off (no point researching 35 more turns on a tech that everyone knows - we'll be able to afford it in a turn or two) - this move is open to debate, I will pause here to get your thoughts...

hmm, my thoughts... we're dead. :lol:

unsure what to advise though, i've never really played an all war variant. maybe some of the others can suggest something. I'm all for holding on as long as possible and just generally causing trouble. Can we afford an embassy with the bab's and team up with them against england? (maybe germany too if you're not up to turn 5 yet) This will maybe divided the english forces and give us a chance at settling another city or two with out too much pressure. Wait and see what more of the team think if you can.

Greece - 3300 bc (turn 14)
France - Contact/declare turn 54
England - Contact turn 54; declare turn 74
Germany - Contact turn 56
America - Contact turn 65
Babylon - Contact turn 65
Russia - No contact yet

This is my other question -wars. The way I see it, the rules are slightly fuzzy in that they can be interpreted two ways.

Essentially I'm talking about Germany here. They are the fourth civ we've met. So when do we have to declare? My gut feel is turn 76, although a case could be made for turn 80, and even for 94.

The workings behind France are clear; England also, 20 turns after we met since we declared on another civ in that turn.

But Germany? Is it 20 turns after we meet, i.e. 76? Or 20 turns after our last declaration, i.e. turn 94? Or is it a maximum grace period of 20 turns multiplied by Civ Number (i.e. order of meeting) i.e. turn 80 (20x4)?

from MB in the maintenance thread:
"The twenty turn rule has nothing to do with when you make contact with a civ, except when 20 turns have expired since the last time you declared war on someone."

edit: so i'm pretty sure it's 94 (20 turns since our last declaration)

Ha, I hadn't checked out that thread, but now I understand it completely :)

The example list is perfect.

Edit: @Nem, regarding your question about whether we can afford an embassy... We aren't allowed embassies!

edit: so i'm pretty sure it's 94 (20 turns since our last declaration)

This is correct. Germany is on or before turn 94

A few points:

1. There are something like 13 other teams that have the same problem.

2. Aside from Germany we're the only militaristic power, so at this early stage we can get barracks up faster, and our promotion rate should be higher, hopefully spawning a few MGLs along the way.

3. Once we have legions, we have the best offensive unit on the planet.

4. There's always a chance Babylon will attack England without our asking.

5. Although England is nearby, it will take them some time to get serious forces down to our area. We should still be able to manage until then.

A few suggestions individuals can take or discard as they see fit. Rather than settling in a forward direction, we settle backward to the south so they should be relatively safe. Think like the Russians rebuilding their factories in the Urals in WWII. Antium is walled and Veii will need them as well. We will need roads connecting every town to speed up reinforcements to the front. Hopefully we're roading the BG tiles at Veii at the same time we're building mines. Recall the two pillaging spears, we're going to need them defending our territory soon enough. Spears hold the towns and other key terrain while archers and later legions serve as a mobile reserve, rushing to threatened trouble spots. They should be fortified like mid-way between 2 towns. As soon as Rome completes spear, build a worker and road the iron. We have 4 towns down, the settler fresh out of Rome makes #5, so we need one more to make it a nice half dozen. Once town # 6 is down, attack with a legion, hopefully win, and kick off the GA. Only thing I'm not sure of is once we get MGL#1, whether to build Pyramids or army.

How long before our iron is connected? What we really need is to start churning Legions. We leave one town for settlers, one for workers, and everybody else keeps spitting out legions.

Any attack on the Greeks before that is going to be very bloody.

Do we have any idea where the French are?

A from memory quote regarding AW games: "Once you have gotten past the 'can I hold the line' phase, these games are basically won" - Arathorn

Be careful trying to plan strategy around the appearance of MGL's. As I found in SGOTM2, the rng is really not very helpful when it comes to that. When the first MGL pops, we should decide then.

SGOTM3 Rome - Game Thread.


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.


This may be an engineer trying to play with language, but here is an idea. Rule 3 says that we must stay at war with THAT civ until one of us is destroyed. The THAT can only be referring to a previously mentioned ?noun?, in this case, the first civ we contact. Therefor it would appear to allow peace with secondary civs, providing that we play honorably, and redeclare with the highest on our list every 20 turns. In this way we are only fighting 2-4 opponents all the time instead of everyone. I am sure that Joan would gladly give us loot for peace.
Since I totally botched the Latin, yes I'm still kicking myself for that, I am trying to think of stuff to help us.
A Key for AW is to get pults. That is why I went for math. The Rep was fine earlier, as we were able to pull a gpt deal. :)
MB can change his grammar, someone else can shoot me down, or we can wiggle free.

Don't believe we started roading the iron. And unfortunately, outside of Rome and Veii, don't think we have a single mined tile, so even with the GA, we'll hardly be cranking out a lot of them. That's why IMHO we need to buy as much time as we can to develop our 6-city build, so the GA can have an impact. Also wouldn't worry about taking the fight to Greece any time soon, we'll be too busy defending our own lands for a while, the 'hold the line' phase you mentioned. Pretty sure France is due north, how far we can't say.

A few points.

The workers are still improving Veii, and will be for a couple more turns. Then they will all get over to Rome, which needs several BG tiles and the iron improving. Then it's roads.

France is indeed due north. I know you guys can't see the save, but England and Babylon both seem to border the French lands. Obviously I can't get France's map as we are at war. On this point, it is my interpretation of the rules that once at war, that's it. No peace. Ever.

I firmly believe that we will be at war with every other civ in the game before we have destroyed one of them. That will be fun!

I will play the rest of my turns tomorrow, since I'm not really in any rush to meet Sesn's Wednesday deadline... By the way, what did you guys think of my idea to stop with the research until we can buy writing and polytheism? I just think it's a waste of a couple of gold per turn, since we will buy them anyway in order not to fall massively behind, and they won't get any cheaper by pouring in minimum research...

romeo, I checked that peace option with MB last night in the maintenace thread, once we are at war with someone we stay at war.

and oops, forgot about the no embassy rule when posting my response, ta for the reminder tal. :-)

Ok, continuing my turns... Important note: in an effort to get writing, I contacted Russia this turn. I don't believe this will make any difference to when we go to war, as Germany, America and Babylon are all up first...

IBT - another French warrior approaches.

Turn 5 - 1125 BC

This is a tough variant, not being able to haggle. We need to be in monarchy asap, and not in the 75 turns it will take at minimum research. America is the cheapest option for buying Polytheism, at 10gpt and our WMap. I'm torn. :help: To buy it would make it harder to afford to upgrade to Legions in the short term. But knocking 35 turns off getting to monarchy will save us 200 gold easily. And it is actually quicker for us to build legions than upgrade them (we make about 10gpt, so that's one every 4 turns - we can build a legion in Rome in about 3 turns).

So, I have to go for it. I hope you guys agree with this reasoning. If not, I take full responsibility... I then sell our world map around for chump change.

Neapolis is now founded, starts walls. I founded it after I did the deal so that Lincoln couldn't ask for any more gpt, but Neapolis now makes us 2 more gpt... Over 20 turns, that's a legion.

IBT - More troops approach from Greece.

Turn 6 - 1100 BC

Now that Babylon has a little cash, I offer Hammurabi Polytheism. He offers Writing, 15 gold and his TMap. I feel better about the deal for Poly now, as writing alone was a minimum of 6gpt from any of the AI civs...

Rome Spear>spear

IBT - Our elite spear in Antium kills two French warriors, no GL. Our warrior scouting Thermopylae kills a Greek archer. Antium spear>barracks. Cumae warrior>worker. America starts the Great Library, so I guess they have literature now :rolleyes:

Turn 7 - 1075 BC

Turns out it was a bumper year for the AI.

France, England, Germany, America have CoL and Literature.
Everyone but Greece has Map Making.

What price a successful 40 turn gambit on Monarchy?

IBT - London completes the Pyramids, and the English develop Philosophy :twitch:

Turn 8 - 1050 BC

Warrior moves to get early warning of approaching English hordes, spear moves to pillage Greek horses (I've left one spear over here - I have no desire to see the Greeks ever hook up iron, you see...)

IBT - Rome spear>spear;

Turn 9 - 1025 BC

Lux rate to 20%, Rome size 6 now; change Rome build to worker. Workers move towards Rome.

IBT - Spear beats off Greek archer, no MGL. Rome worker>spear; Neapolis walls>catapult

Turn 10 - 1000 BC

Worker moves, some shuffling. Nothing else to report.

Trying to upload the save gets me the following error messages....

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Can't get a list of games

Nice turns. Does someone want to make a new Dot map that shows the best places to settle? I would like to see where they are, and how we can get there. I assume we want to claim the norses but not use them for a while. How is the greek pillaging coming along?? It looks like the greeks may be even smaller than us.

Post in the maintenance thread about the problem, Tal. I saw another post in there that was similar, so hopefully it is being addressed.

Yes we aware. The SQL process is down. Normal service will be resumed ASAP :)

Meanwhile, please post saves into your game threads for now, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ensure that you remember to upload them when the uploads page is up again.

Ta!

There is your answer, Tal. Just post the save here, and I'll try to get it uploaded when I get a chance.

No problemo...

I see it. (unlike some people, I can see every save posted.....j/k)

All I'll promise is that the turns will be up before Thursday.

Until then, any suggestions or updates that I should be aware of?

good work, tal.

I have attached a dotmap :)

The three red sites are the remaining first ring cities I have planned. It brings the total number to 7 cities in Ring 1.

We do not really need to build an expansive core, so a second ring at RCP7 looks very feasible - I have marked what I believe to be a nice selection of RCP7 sites on the map in yellow.

Hmm, actually this is very difficult without further exploration. There are two warrios who could do some map work, they are ringed in pink.

RCP7 seems to work on the east side, nearer the Greeks, but not very well north or west. We can't say about south at all at the moment, so we are better off doing some quick exploration first before deciding. RCP8 also looks good...

Map looks good. It doesn't really look like there is a whole lot of incoming, but I don't see English Iron.

No, it seems that at the moment neither England nor Greece have Iron :) Can't be sure it will stay that way, of course, but we should try our hardest to make sure it does.

A couple more cities are urgently needed, then it's time to go on the offensive. We are falling behind the other variant teams, and the last thing I want is consecutive Wooden Spoons ;)

A couple of points
1.) An early regular score lead means that they probably have 1 more city than us or more happy people, i.e. Wines hooked up early or less infra.
2.) I would use Veii's Settler to settle the Dot beneath Veii, and then use the Next Settler to push towards greece.
3.) We should try to skim a worker from Antium shortly, and possibly from Rome itself.
4.) Encourage the English to come at us with Warriors and Reg archers. I think that they do not have military in the build preference.
5.) Do not build rax in the new towns, but have them spit out pults while getting up to size.
6.) Do not panic. I told sens when I saw the lineup that we would smoke people and I am still very confident that we can.

A couple of points
1.) An early regular score lead means that they probably have 1 more city than us or more happy people, i.e. Wines hooked up early or less infra.
True. I worry too much about points. SGoTM2 we lost by a mile points-wise, but were third fastest. I should remember that more...

2.) I would use Veii's Settler to settle the Dot beneath Veii, and then use the Next Settler to push towards greece.
Yeah, I think that's the right order. Then we can think about ring two, by which time we might be able to make a better dotmap.

3.) We should try to skim a worker from Antium shortly, and possibly from Rome itself..
Definitely need that road network up :)

4.) Encourage the English to come at us with Warriors and Reg archers. I think that they do not have military in the build preference..
Do you guys think England might be a good first target if they have no iron? No swords, no hoplites, no knights...

5.) Do not build rax in the new towns, but have them spit out pults while getting up to size..
Sounds good.

6.) Do not panic. I told sens when I saw the lineup that we would smoke people and I am still very confident that we can.

Awww :) I refer you to point one above. I need to remember that it's speed, not score!

Definitely definitely get the roadnet up. Also, reg archers do defensive bombardments just as well as vets. Always nice to get that free hp chopped off before they strike. Then if it's reg units attacking initially, it's like their conscript vs our vet. And you know how most of those battles will end.

Pre turn – Everything looks pretty good.

975 bc (1) – Veii settler -> cat. Cumae worker -> cat. Workers will have iron connected in 2.

950 bc (2) – Antium RAX -> spear. Give myself a headache trying to decipher what turn we need to declare again. I *think* that turn 94 will be Nem’s fourth turn. Our workers complete the Ferrum road.

925 bc (3) – Several greek archers approach. Pompeii founded. Rome spear -> legion.

IT – Our roaming reg warrior is ambushed by a French sword. He fights valiantly and gets promoted for his victorious effort.

900 bc (4) – Archer move towards Rome and workers.

875 bc (5) – Vet archer kills reg archer, -2 hp.

IT – We lose a vet spear to a reg archer, -2 hp.

850 bc (6) – Veii cat -> settler. Elite archer wins vs reg archer, flawless. Reg warrior defeats rl archer and promotes. Desperate to kill the last archer, I attack with a 2/4 archer and win flawless.

825 bc (7) – Antium spear -> warrior. French complete the Oracle. Upgrade vet warrior to legion. Will try to avoid using him till absolutely necessary.

800 bc (8) – Rome legion -> legion. Move units north to intercept incoming English warriors.

775 bc (9) – Cumae cat -> cat. England completes Colossus. Workers complete road connecting Antium and Neapolis. Elite archer loses 3 hp defeating 2/3 warrior. :rolleyes: Spear pillages Greek incense.

750 bc (10) – Veii riots. :wallbash: Could have SWORN I just checked it! Antium warrior -> spear. Neapolis cat -> cat.

Recap – All things considered, I made some decent progress. I almost connected every city (2 turns for Pompeii and Cumae). I got a few cats built, 3 so far, and 3 more on the way. I also got our first two legions. There are 2 vet warriors headed back to Rome for upg (1 wounded in mtns). We should really try to avoid using them until we get out of despotism, but I’m not sure we can move on the other civs without them. France definitely has iron, but has sent no one our way. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few swords soon. I might suggest the next settler goes 2 W, and 1 NW of Pompeii, to claim both horses and spices. We can really use the luxuries. Should probably peel a worker from Rome after the next legion, as I forgot to do that.

I will not be able to check in after tomorrow until Tuesday, so let’s see what kind of progress you guys can make in a couple of days. ;)

Firaxis score – 209
Jason score – 102


>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC0750_01.SAV)

Ou fledgling empire:

got it. May not get a chance to play tonight, i'm heading out for dinner and will probably be home late. Unless i'm home early I will play tomorrow night. (and have it done and posted in about 27 hours from now)

Nice turns Sesn! Now that everyone can see the map a bit better (thanks!) do we think RCP 7 or 8?

I think I'll vote for 7, myself - I'll post a dotmap shortly showing an example plan.

Ok here's the proposed plan - most cities have their own colours for ease of reference. Highlighted circles of that colour denote special resources that fall within the city's radius...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/RCP750.JPG

Notes

1. RED is the last first ring city site, which I would settle asap. We don't want the Greeks to get that wheat, since we would have to take it from them, and that means hoplites...

2. YELLOW would be next - as Sesn says, it has spices and horses - very useful. I have expanded the size of the yellow borders to reflect the area of land it would grab.

3. DARK BLUE also has an expanded border. It's not remarkable, but it is safe and a nice backfill site.

4. PINK and GREEN - Liverpool must go, same as Tours had to. It's a power city for the English, and we don't need that right next to our borders. I suggest sending a SoD :)

5. PEPPERMINT GREEN (I know, I know... Paint only has so many colours... :rolleyes: ) An important town to slow French expansion towards us. Grabs 2 floodplain squares.

6. GREY shows 3 possible sites, we can take the outer two or the middle one... Important as they grab horses and game, and later on will grab silks

7. PALE BLUE shows the twin cities. Not vital at this stage, as it means an anti-hoplite offensive. They do grab some valuable land as well as iron, however...

8. ORANGE grabs horses and some fresh water...

9. SLATE GREY ( :rolleyes: ) is possibly the least interesting city site in the game. It's a port. Wow.

And that's it! My suggested order would be RED, YELLOW, PEPPERMINT -then we would have to see what the situation was...

Tal

Nice map Tal. Red, Yellow, Peppermint, Greek Iron. BTW how many turns till Monarchy??

Peppermint, ugh! :cry: Nice dotmap, Tal. I agree with your suggested settlement order. And Liverpool definitely should go. Whoever's up, as Sesn suggests, please avoid using the legions to trip the GA. That includes having them in a defensive position that may be attacked, unless a town is in imminent danger of capture. After Rome builds this next one, they should probably not be built again for a while. Still a ways to Monarchy, but doesn't seem the pressure is on just yet.

I think Nem is up and then Me. I will try and get it on Saturday.

25 turns to monarchy, then the anarchy, of course...

Also, after Rome is done with this legion, a settler would be nice. Maybe two. We need a period of expansion during what seems to be a lull in the fighting.

Dotmap and suggested order both look good.

Nem, please remember to declare on your fourth turn, and M60 will have to do the same on his fourth turn.

Keep up the good work guys! :)

I've got a plan in mind once we start rolling with legions. It would be initially against the French using "Pepperminttown" as the start point. Phase 1 is an attack north against Chartres, then northeast to Lyons putting our own towns down in the vicinity. With workers building the roads in behind the advance and a settler or two, we should be able to fill in the area between Lyons and Thermopylae. Phase 2 would be move against Thermo, grabbing the silks, and that puts us in a position to drive s/e into Sparta and the incense. By that time, we should be able to launch from "Reddottown" into Corinth and finally Athens. Getting rid of the Greeks leaves us a lot of space for expansion, where the AI's up north will be running out of room soon. I'll try and do up a map overlay tonight.

Dotmap and suggested order both look good.

Nem, please remember to declare on your fourth turn, and M60 will have to do the same on his fourth turn.

I declared on turn 4 (which was turn 74). Unless I'm mistaken, the next declaration is Germany on turn 94, right? Which is turn 4 of M60's, not Nem's...

Like I say, I might be wrong...

I declared on turn 4 (which was turn 74). Unless I'm mistaken, the next declaration is Germany on turn 94, right? Which is turn 4 of M60's, not Nem's...

Like I say, I might be wrong...

You are mistaken. :)

Tal - turns 70-79 (declared on turn 74)
Sesn - turns 80-89
Nem - turns 90-99 (declare on Germany turn 94)
Romeo - turns 100-109
M60 - turns 110-119 (declare on whomever turn 114)

Ah well, I can't be right all the time :)

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the turnlog! For some reason, I thought Nem was next... :confused:

:coffee:

Just checked the save, and not to focus on the negative, but we can't be making simple mistakes if we're going to make headway. Veii doesn't need a taxman to be happy, just need to take the spear from Rome and put it on MP duty. There are enough units guarding Rome as is. Nem, please do that first thing.

I am next, starting at turn 90. :)
about to head to work will play when I get home and post when done.
Has the submission page been updated yet? Either way I'll post the save in this thread so we can upload our saves in the proper order.

M60 - The taxman was a quick fix to remedy the real stupid mistake, letting Veii riot. :rolleyes:

Nem - the submissions are up to date. I uploaded Tal's before I played, and mine afterwards. Submit and link as per usual.

As promised, here’s a proposal:

First of all, generally we know that before too long we are going to be at war with everyone, so in order for us to attack, at the same time we need to be able to defend. The width of the continent is18 tiles running in a s/e-n/w direction from Liverpool to Lyons. The stretch of hills that run northeast from the coast by Liverpool is 8 tiles long with a forest tile mixed in, 44% of the total frontage, if you will. If we can hold that line with a number of defensive units, with some horses mixed in for local counterattacks, that frees up the legions for a move against France. That serves the purpose of further isolating Greece, and allowing us to grow in that direction. Once we are ready, Task Force Tiber should be able to push from “Pepperminttown” to Chartres in 3 turns (Route Yellow), and then northeast to Lyons in 7 more (Route Blue). This doesn’t include healing time, so we may need to factor in another turn or two. At the same time this is happening, a 3 team road crew with a settler or two (Task Force Rubicon) and covering units move along Route Green and roads the area finishing at D+8. The map says D+10 in error. At that point, plop down a town in the area, and the road crews can work their way north to expedite movement of the legions coming in the opposite direction if desired. With Lyons area secured, we can either choose to move against Thermopylae for the silks (Plan A), or continue against France (Plan B), possibly disconnecting their iron. A final push under Plan A would eliminate Greece as a backdoor threat, and further claim the incense there. The forces look something like this, not including reinforcements.

Defensive line: Spears (defend), archers (defensive bombard), horses (local counterattacks) and 3 workers build a road behind the hills to expedite moves along the chain.

Task Force Tiber (Main Group): 6 Legions, 6 Cats, 2 settlers with defenders for new towns in the vicinity where Chartres and Lyon are.

Task Force Rubicon (2 settlers, 3 workers, defensive covering units.

Group “Final Push” TBD to move against Corinth, Athens.

The trick of course is if we want to wait until Monarchy for the GA, we can’t stage this for about 30 turns (25 to Monarchy + anarchy), but we would need time to add defenders to our line as it is. There will be another new town or two to deal with by then, but the concept is still the same. At the end Greece is gone, we have 4 luxes at least by that point, and quite possibly control or have undisputed access to the largest chunk of territory on the continent.

So what do you all think?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3_SESN_750BC1.JPG

I like it, a lot.

The town that we will settle at the bottom of the mountain range will make a good buttress for our "maginot line" - good proposal :)

But we must time our golden age right, so we have 25 or so turns to build up the Task Forces. Then we unleash hell!

It looks like a good plan to me as well.

Questions: what forces do we currently have available, and how many of each unit still needs to be built? Is 25 turns enough? I don't think we have anywhere near the right troops yet.

Rome can build a legion in 3 turns, so that's 8 veteran legions for starters... The others can probably provide enough defensive troops, whilst Veii continues to provide 4 settlers...

:D

Just don't forget that we currently only have two armamentariums, or whatever.

No problem for the cats, but reg spears? Of course they will get the defensive bonus for hills and fortification.....

Bah! I'm sure you guys will figure it out appropriately.

I'll probably build cats, spears and archers at each opportunity in my turns. I just want to make sure we've got units to defend with for now that won't trigger our GA. (will still build a couple of legions though, just keep them back)

oh, and I love the plan.

M60, I might send the warrior to veii for MP duty, that looks like a greek archer closing in on our iron so I'll send a spear there. if theres a spare he'll go to veii instead of warrior, I can't open the save from here to check. (at work)

Looks brilliant, M60. I totally concur with the gist of the planning. A major note to consider is trashing our rep. I am all for massive reptrashing, as this will degenerated to AWE. Before the next war, I would trade heavily for Tech on gpt, and then bust it wide open. Another thing to note is that the Tech Pace on our continent will be really slow as no representative governments will stand. This could be really good for us.
I am really liking this SG a lot. If I could only get this buy in and level of detail in my other Sg's I'd be a happy man.

I agree on the rep trashing idea but do we want to do it before declaring on Germany or should we keep our rep and maybe trash it on the next war to get some more expensive MA techs rather than the late ancient techs? I also don't want to do something like this without more input from the majority of our team. (I might hold off starting my turns till we get some more input, I'll play this evening reguardless and if we haven't made a conclusive decision I'll keep our rep for now)

edit: I think you'd said you would be able to play saturday so even if I leave it until my tomorrow I'll still be able to play and post before your friday ends.

Very quickly at 3 am ( :rolleyes: ):

Trash away. Just use you judgement on whether we can get better value for our trashed rep now, or at the next declaration.

3am? I hope that advice came from a sober sesn and not a sesn that will be regretting such things tomorrow. we may well hold you to it. :)

I will regret being up, not the advice. Alas I was trying to finish some turns in another game before vacation.

BTW - M60, you get to clean the rest of the map in GCF2. Have fun. :)

Trashing is fine with me. The AIs with whom we are not at war are already annoyed with us, and I don't think anything will change that. Our habit of declaring war unprovoked will see to that.

So go ahead. Like Sesn says, maybe full value will only be possible a little later with some early MA techs, but if there's an excellent deal to be done now, take it.

By the way, don't be afraid to build legions. We need them badly for the coming offensive, and if you stick them all in Rome, the AI won't attack them. I think even the AI can work out that reg archer vs 8 fortified legions is not worthwhile :)

unprovoked?!?! They had it coming. Any more comments like that Brother Tallanas and we'll be sending the inquisition around to ensure you're not an alien sympathiser. :)

When I say unprovoked, I mean "fully justified pre-emptive strikes" :blush:

You wouldn't really send the Inquisition round to question the hero of the Battle of Rome would you? :twitch:

Fear not our reputation amongst the barbarians. Caesar answers but to Caesar.

Senatus Populusque Romanus

OK, my turn four currently:

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

preturn
pull spear from rome to fort on iron
pull legion from rome to MP veii and drop tax man (swap with war next turn)

IBT
England and Babylon sign an MA against us

730BC (1)
Rome legion>settler
warrior arrives in veii, legion returns to rome
see french sword coming from north, move cat from rome towards our northern cities

710BC (2)
veii settler>settler
move spear from pompeii to hill nw everything looks clear
move settler towards yellow site
(settler from rome can get to red site 1 turn later and theres archers near there at the moment)

IBT
English war's take up position on hills near veii

690BC (3)
pompeii cat>rax (cat to cumae)
spear from wine heads for cumae (greek archers heading that way)
send rome archer to veii

IBT
English war dies attacking v.spear 4/4

670BC (4)
rome settler>spear (I need him, our units are now spread pretty thin and I don't want to mobilize the legions)
lux back to 10%
v.archer attacks english r.war on hill, wins and promotes 4/5
settler moves from rome to wheat taking our last resource spear with him (will replace with the rome build)
switch rome to wealth and sci to 0% so our gpt looks larger for phoney trade deal with germans

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


we can get COL or Philo or Lit or MM from the germans. which do we want COL, MM or Lit? (most expensives)

I think it's likely that with only 2 'friends' left after we declare on germany at least one of them might also get roped into the war earlier than we would like so I think we should trash our rep now while we still have trading partners.
Americans have all the german techs plus Construction
Russia only have MM
I'll save and wait an hour for responses.

(and why do I get music in the diplo screen even though music vol is on 0 and I don't get it while in the game screen?)

Go with Lit. CoL/Philo does nothing for us. While MM is attractive, with Lit we can potentially rush build TGL. Also, there's a slight chance you can then pull a 2-fer and trade Russia Lit for MM.

The music vol only kills the era-music file, I believe. The diplo-music file isn't affected.

Yeah, Literature - getting the GL would be very useful indeed :)

preturn
pull spear from rome to fort on iron
pull legion from rome to MP veii and drop tax man (swap with war next turn)

IBT
England and Babylon sign an MA against us

730BC (1)
Rome legion>settler
warrior arrives in veii, legion returns to rome
see french sword coming from north, move cat from rome towards our northern cities

710BC (2)
veii settler>settler
move spear from pompeii to hill nw everything looks clear
move settler towards yellow site
(settler from rome can get to red site 1 turn later and theres archers there near there at the moment)

IBT
English war's take up position on hills near veii

690BC (3)
pompeii cat>rax (cat to cumae)
spear from wine heads for cumae (greek archers heading that way)
send rome archer to veii

IBT
English war dies attacking v.spear 4/4

670BC (4)
rome settler>spear (I need him, our units are now spread pretty thin and I don't want to mobilize the legions)
lux back to 10%
v.archer attacks english r.war on hill, wins and promotes 4/5
settler moves from rome to wheat taking our last resource spear with him (will replace with the rome build)
switch rome to wealth so our gpt looks larger for phoney trade deal with germans
trade Lit from germans for 4gpt, 62g (no haggling)
russia won't trade MM
declare war on the germans
bombard english r.war
e.archer kills english r.war wins 4/5
sci back to 10%, rome back to spear

650BC (5)
Pisae founded on yellow dot
workers hook up horses
bombard 1 greek archer for 1hp
r.war finds more spices to se on tundra

630BC (6)
Antium spear>spear
v.war attacks r.war(bombarded to 1hp) and promotes 5/5
e.archer 4/5 attacks r.war@Neap. (bomb. to 2/3) and wins
Ravenna founded on red dot
r.war attacks r.archer(bomb. to 1hp) at cumae and wins 2/3
even though we have 25gpt russia still won't trade MM (what ever could have made them wary of us :-)

610BC (7)
"our people want the forbidden palace"
rome spear>spear (decided against legion, we still need a couple more troops we can use before Monarchy)
veii settler>settler
return e.archer to rome (greek r.archer heading for our resources there or maybe Ravenna)

IBT
English archer shows up just outside Neap. border

590BC (8)
Neapolis cat>cat
warrior leaves veii for dark blue city site
(couldn't find another anywhere else and I'll replace this with romes spear before second MP is required)
lux20% to keep rome happy

IBT
Greek archer dies attacking our v.spear at Ravenna
Second french sword comes down from north (other hasn't moved from hill outside Ant.)
Berlin completes The Great Library
Washington completes The Great Wall

570BC (9)
rome spear>settler
e.archer kills english r.archer1/3 at Neap, 4/5
move v.spear out to cover e.archer from r.war retaliation
hmm, didn't do the maths properly on veii last growth, 4 and 4 to settler (I lost a turn there on the settler)

IBT
English r.horse and r.archer arrive on Neap border
English galley appears just outside Pisae
(you might want to send a spear from veii to Hispalis as it only has a warrior, you can switch rome from a settler to a spear for next turn if you do)

550BC (10)
Hispalis founded
units outside at Neap return to city


Firaxis: 242
Jason: 118




>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC0550_01.SAV)

Looks nice - 3 cities founded and lots of battles won... By the way, how many elite wins is it now without a you-know-what?

Things are looking ok, heaps of annoying little scrap units keep wandering through our terr. looking to be killed, in the last couple of turns the english have shown up with something other than warriors and there is currently a horse and archer approaching Neap. An English galley has also arrived on our coast. (just outside border)

and the pic, if it works...

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

edit: I think I had 3 or 4 e.wins (haven't counted, just from memory)

forgot to say, feel free to change any build you like Romeo, some of the rax's at the new cities are just place holders for you to decide on.

edit: and we have horses now too, a horsemen or 4 might be useful, the rivers are making responses to enemy advances a pain with 1 movement units.

Very good, Nem. :D A couple more things to throw out here. After the next two settlers are out, I'm wondering if we shouldn't switch to workers. It will keep the population capped at Veii and Rome, and allow us to improve what we have, mainly roads. With 9 towns standing, and 2 more on deck, that will give us 11 going into the GA. Along those lines, also might not hurt to switch the irrigated Rome-Veii game tile over to Pompeii to give it a chance to grow more quickly. Looks like England is the only one serious about this ATM. Galley probably has an archer that will make a try for Hispalis. Romeo can try the trick of uncovering Pisae, still staying on the road to trick the AI into landing there. Then go back in and fortify. Could bring over a second unit from Rome. Definitely need horses so we can cover more ground.

The proposed Pisae decoy could be our best bet, I look for options but we can't get a spear to Hispalis before the troop/s in the galley can attack it. Even if the english don't attack pisae when we refortify it will give us time to get a spear from veii if it leaves in romeo's preturn.

actually now that I look again, the warrior in hisp. can block the landing site nw and buy the spear an extra turn to get there. (it won't have time to fort but it will make it)

WARNING: i'm tired now so I may have missed something with this advice. :)

Alrighty. I should get to this tomorrow. I will play this first in my que tomorrow, and Will carefully reread City placement. I agree with the worker skims. Will try to bring cats up against the English. BTW, where are the cats?
Any You know whats will pause the game for 24 hours or 2 responses. Have our dotmap priorities changed? Should the settling continue apace? I will look for Monarchy deals and such. Should we read the thread on how to use legions to conquer the world (in the SG section)? I will try to continue this brilliant play by everyone without any letdowns.

2 cat in Neap.
1 cat in Ant.
1 cat in Rav.
2 cat in Cumae (was under a little pressure for a bit and it's a long trip with current roads/rivers so left them both there)

Edit:
Northern Border
Antium: 1 e.spear, 1 v.spear, 1 e.warrior, 1 cat
Neapolis: 1 v.spear, 1 r.spear, 1 e.archer, 2 cat
Veii: 2 v.spear
Pisae: 1 v.spear

Southern Border
Ravenna: 2 v.spear, 1 cat
Cumae: 1 v.spear, 1 r.warrior, 2 cat

Central
Rome: 3 v.legionary, 1 e.archer
Pompeii: 1 v.warrior
Hispalis: 1 v.warrior

Yes, we know what. ;) We're sort of defaulting to legion army. Pyramids are long gone to London, TGL just went to Berlin. Settle priority should remain Peppermint and Pink, but please make sure they're well guarded. After that, settle at your discretion.

after peppermint and pink should we maybe look at orange. grey will be on it's own for a bit with all those mt's and I don't know that we have the units just yet to dedicate to keeping it safe. (orange will be slightly easier to reinforce as neccessary and greeks are it's only realistic "threat")

My warning from before still stands. :sleep:

When you get back this should save you some time updating post 2, sesn:

Greece - 3300 bc (turn 14)
France - Contact/declare turn 54
England - Contact turn 54/declare turn 74
Germany - Contact turn 56/declare turn 94
America - Contact turn 65/they declared on us turn 105 (IBT before 105)
Babylon - Contact turn 65/they declared on us turn 91 (IBT before 91)
Russia - Contact turn 74/declare turn 125 (during Tals set after M60)


and the sources so you can check (tired warning for me still in effect, so please check all this)
we met russia on turn 74 1150BC, page 7, post 124
in the maintenace thread I'd checked with MB on civs declaring on us and we just skip past them if they weren't the next civ in the list. if they are the next civ then it's as though we started the war early and our 20 turns starts from then. Babylon declared on us (page 9, post 170) and were not next in the list so we skip them.
America declared on us (page 10, post 189) and were next in the list so our 20 turns starts from there.

hmm, 4:50am, i'm going to bed.

edit: updated after americans declared

Nice work Nem, I think that's all accurate! Good work for 5am ;)

Also be aware that I haven't seen anything from the germans yet, but I would assume they have some units heading for us now. I'd expect their SOD to arrive in the middle of Romeo's turns at the earliest, we only have 2 archers at the moment so you might want to build a few horses just in case they show up with a few swords. I held off on sending our second archer to the southern front but there are a couple of greek archers out there so he might be needed soon. This will leave only 1 archer on our northern front. Antium and Rome will each be available to build horses in 2 turns, pompeii and cumae finish their rax's in 3 turns but are still small and won't build horsies all that quick. (you can swap Ant now but we are also short on spears)

BTW: currently we have the 3rd highest views of all teams, we must be entertaining the masses. (why I noticed this I don't know, must the be the xenophobia playing up) :lol:

Edit: I forgot that we are at war with the Bab's too, they haven't shown up yet either and could arrive anytime soon.

In checking the save, we have 2 potential deals on the table, WM and 120g to Lincoln for Philo or WM, 120g and Lit to Cathy for MM. Understand she wasn't budging earlier, but she is now. We shouldn't be missing those opportunities to at least discuss.

yeah, when I tried earlier we only had about 0g , germans had just taken it all in the deal for Lit. (and when I tried a couple of turns later we only had ~50g, I was really just checking that our rep was trashed and that she would not accept a gpt deal)
I forgot to check later in my turns. :blush:

edit: and don't forget, no haggling. :(

I like thie MM deal, as our ability to hawk a map might give us an extrad gpt or 4.
Got it playing now.

IHT: not much, review the situation. MOve the Pompeii Warrior towards Pisae. Pull the MM deal as Lincoln already has it.
IBT: Babs want us to pay for peace.
Turn 1: Two french swords oustide of Antium just sitting on a hill. Redline an English Archer , but cannot attack. Miss the Greek archer badly. (Cats)
IBT: Greeks want straight peace, Large forces move on Neopolis.
Turn 2: Rome Settler to Archer, Antium Spear to Spear Pompeii rax to spear. Cats redline greek archer and reg warrior flawleesly promotes. Spices online lux to zero. Cats wound 1 french sword, digging in at Neopolis.
IBT: Retreat an English horse at Veii, Kill a french sword at Neopolis.
Turn 3: Cumae rax to spear. English and russians start the Madisson square gardens. Lose elite archer to 2 hp archer. 2nd elite wins, covered by reg spear. Send settler, spear and pult to pinktown.
IBT: Reg archer beats our reg spear in the hills with an archer support. English land by Pompeii.
Turn 4: Veii settler to Settler. Cats redline and vet warrior kills the landed English archer. Vet warrior kills redlined english horse.
IBT: Greeks advance, see the first Babs. French bring more swords. Americans start the gardens.
Turn 5: lux to 10% to help Rome next turn. Rome archer to Horse. Redline french sword but cannot attack.
IBT: More bad news Lincoln tries to extort from us. I say no he declares war.
Turn 6: Neopolis cat to cat, Ravenna Rax to horse. Build Virconium by the french. Elite archer whacks a wounded french sword. Our settler factory is all fouled up due to english wandering over our tiles. Cumae swapped to horse.
IBT: Aztecs build the great lighthouse. Russians advance on us, even though we are at peace, babs move 5 units by Neopolis.
Turn 7: Virconium set to walls. Pults go 2 for 4 at Neopolis wounding two babs. Manuever like crazy to cover from english.
IBT: Killed bab warrior and 2 bowmen with 2 promotions for our side. Kill greek archer with reg warrior fortified by Athens.
Turn 8: Kill English warrior with vet/New elite warrior. Moving settler to the safe/backfill locations. Swap pompeii to horse Rome horse to horse. no one came to our Neopolis killing field. Have 4 units in Pisae to counter 2 english archers.
IBT: Germans want peace. I say some unkind things to him. Lose vet spear fortified in a city to a reg archer, reg warrio kills another greek archer near athens. French advance again German starts Sun Tzus.
Turn 9: Vet horse kills reg archer. Move stuff, redline french archer at Neopolis.
IBT: Kill French sword at Virconium. English really move towards Pisae. And land 2 archers, FROM THE SAME GALLEY.
Turn 10: Veii Settler to pult. Pisae Rax to walls. Bombard some stuff, put Pisae is going to be tight. Almost all non cats are unmoved.

Good stuff Romeo, looks like you managed hold everything against some pretty crazy odds. The battle for Pisea in the next set looks like it will be tough. Whats in that english stack?

2 2/3 archer 2 3/3 archer and 1 3/3 horse. We have 1 4/4 spear, 1 4/4 warrior, and 1 3/4 horse. I sould attack with the horse and warrior, then pray we hold. We also have two cats there, hence the 2 2/3 archers. My cats should play big league ball, they batted around .600 which is a level I normally don't hit even with artillary.

Got it. Abe gets the nastygram turn 4, and prepare for anarchy.

I've updated the contact list above with the americans declaration. They were next in our list so the 20 turns starts from there. (once again it's early hours of the morning again for me so can someone else confirm I haven't stuffed it up :-)

Mad-Bax if you read this, can you confirm the 20 turns. (I think it's right from what you said in the maint. thread)

Edit: M60, Abe pulled a pre-emptive on us, I think Tal will be next to declare.

Right, what did he try to extort on Romeo's turn 5, I wonder? Well, given the distance and time-to-declare, it would seem to have been ok. I believe you're right, Nem. I'm into turn 2, Pisae is holding on for bare life. Kudos to the Neapolis Forward Observer. 4/4 on cat strikes, with 2 less bowmen in the world. More on the way, obviously. Trying to see where 2 settlers can go. They will have to be undefended, we can't spare anything, esp with anarchy on the horizon.

Looks good gents. We can get a WM for a lot of gold from Cathy, or we can try to extort it. Just finished my 4 hours of SG commitments today and am looking forward to some real progress here. We can also trade for Monarchy from Cathy.
Abe wanted a TM and 25 gold, so I told him to bugger off. I thought that the xenophobic was also a defiant, and since he was next in line anyway, it wouldn't hurt us too much. I do not believe he has iron hooked up.

Romeo, is 350 BC my turn 0 or turn 1?

Turn 0 for you.

Thanks, just making sure.

Turn 0 350BC. Elite archer at Neapolis loses hp killing Bab bow.

IBT- Lose spear and warrior at Pisae. Not sure what died for England as preferences were set not to show moves. One or 2 units I think. Please change preferences to default when you’re done? Thanks.

Turn 1 330BC. Hurry walls at Pisae. Neapolis cats 4/4 vs reg French sword, Bab bow. Pisae cats 1 for 2 vs reg Brit horse. Reinforce Pisae with horse from Rome. 4/5 archer attacks 1hp Bab bow, loses a hp but wins. Bring up elite spear to cover archer since he had to advance on Bab kill. Now the big trade. All 323 gold plus WM to Catherine for territory map, Philo, and CoL. Didn’t think there was anything to discuss here, 2 advances for 10 turns worth of gold.

IBT- No attacks, English withdraw to heal. Pompeii horse>archer. Pisae walls>spear, I think.

Turn 2 310BC. Pompeii horse to Cumae. 2 settlers south around Cumae. The northern frontier is just too hot.

IBT- Cumae horse>spear. English bring troops up to Pisae. Neapolis cat>spear. 3 reg Greek archers coming in westerly direction from the east. AI settlers heading into open lands north of Greece. AI settlers appear to want to try south near us.

Turn 3 290BC. Lugdunum founded south of Cumae. Pisae cats 2/2. Neapolis cats redline French archer, finish him with our vet archer. Move elite spear to cover. Kill 2hp Eng horse @ Pisae, vet horse loses 2hp. Kill its twin, lose 1hp to our horse, promote to elite.

IBT- AI still trying to settle as in expansion phase, sending settler pairs around. Bab bows moving south, but the Greek archers move back east. Probably survival instinct here as Greece is vulnerable to other AI players. Reg Eng horse tries attack on Veii vs vet spear, he’s redlined, we lose 2hp.

Turn 4 270BC. Elite 4/5 horse comes out of Pisae and lops the head off the Veii intruder. Vet horse out of Rome clean kill vs second red Eng horse, clean kill, no promote. Kill an English scout by Ravenna. They’re not having a good day. One turn from Monarchy, so I break out the whip in some cities as we’ll be without builds for a while.

Neapolis- spear Antium- horse Cumae- spear Pompeii- archer

IBT- Viriconium virtually doomed as the French and Babs are closing in. Elite spear kills reg bab warrior clean. Reg Bab bow dies, but redlines our vet spear. The English look to have given up trying to take Pisae, but looks like they may try another galley run further south.

Turn 5 250BC. Move the troops a bit as the last of our units report for duty. Go into anarchy and hope for a 5-er? Bugger, we draw the big 7.

IBT- The brave spears of Viriconium fight to the death, killing a Bab bow, but the French swords sweep in next, razing the town, and collect 5 gold. It’s ok, we’ll be back there soon enough. 2 reg Eng archers move up to Pisae again. Eng galley making a run on Hispalis.

Turn 6 230BC. Cats 1 for 2. Vet archer kills #1, Vet horse kills #2, losing a hp.

IBT- French are moving on Antium next. As long as we can shift troops between there and Neapolis, should be ok for a while.

Turn 7 210BC. 2 Veii cats redline Eng pillage reg spear. Elite horse clean kills, nada.

IBT- Reg French sword takes a shot at Antium, clipped by a cat, dies clean vs elite spear, zip. English still pulling in the archers. Babs with more bows.

Turn 8 190BC. Antium cats 0/2 vs sword, Veii cats 2/2 vs arch. Elite horse again vs red arch? Dead and Nope. Come on RNG, baby needs a new pair a’ shoes! And elite archer at Neapolis vs red warrior. And we die? This just isn’t fair. :( Have a pillage spear by Sparta. No, no, no, incense isn’t good for you. Disconnect one, one to go.

IBT- 2 French reg swords die vs. elite sword at Antium. Nothing. His vet sword kills our vet spear, but redlined. English galley lands archer next to Cumae.

Turn 9 170BC. Vet horse dispatches the Cumae archer, loses a point, promotes. Veii cats 2 for 2 vs reg archer. Here we go again. Elite horse does…same as last turn. Found Lutetia, vet spear in garrison right next to 2 reg Greek archers. We’ll see what happens. Bab pillage spears are trying for our iron and wine.

IBT- Lutetia is left alone. No guts, these Greeks. Ship ahoy! Aztec reg galley spotted off Hispalis. I’ll leave contact to Tal. Bad news is by the Score-O-Meter they’re Numero Uno, bigger than the English. None of our antagonists knows them yet. Antium and Neapolis are finally left without an adjacent hostile. Babylon galley off Pisae.

Turn 10 150BC. Another Spartan incense cut. :) 2 turns of darkness remaining. That’s about it. Score 327 (7/9).

Post-turn stuff. 2hp English spear by Pisae will probably try to disconnect our horses. Chose to wait until he’s in the open to kill. It’s interesting to note here, only France has shown swords at this late date, and that’s significant. These other jokers have had ample time to learn IW, find and connect it. There’s a good chance we’re the only ones with it atm, along with France. We want to make sure the 3 unclaimed sources by Neapolis, Sparta, and Athens keep it that way. I’m guessing that’s what these settler pairs are trying to get to. Russia may get to one of them, but without roads, won’t amount to much. There are about 3 cats with which you can try to cut down a settler pairs with in the vicinity of Ravenna. Unless they’re in open terrain, I didn’t want to attack since we’re still not building new units, but we’re almost out of anarchy. Regional threat condition:

Pisae-Veii: minimal. 2 reg English archers, reg spear in area.
Neapolis-Antium: moderate. 3 French swords (2 vet), Bab bow healing outside area.
Cumae-Lugdunum: minimal, but galley landing possible. Bab galley heading s/e off Pisae.
Ravenna-Lutetia: moderate. 2 reg Greek archers in area.
Rome: Moderate. Mostly pillaging spears.

Military Advisor says we’re on par or superior to all but Aztecs. Checked in with Joan, she says “The time has come to end this unfortunate war.” Quite wrong, my dear. This war hasn’t started yet, but it’s about to.


The Save at 150BC (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_BC0150_01.SAV)

Good work M60. America, Germany and Russia all have access to iron and as yet I don't think we've seen anything from them. (i think america just recently stole the babylonian source with a culture expansion) Once monarchy kicks in and we can start using legions we should be able to clear and hold our borders a little easier. Most of the ai on our cont are now republic, with only the greeks still in despotism and the bab's in anarchy.

None of those fools will remain republics for long. Muhahaha.
Nice turns, we have two turns before we unload a can of whoop ---- --- --- ---- ----- on their silly personas. I would upgrade any warriors we have left. Can we play the puppet strings in this game on the AI? That would be way too fun.
Looks like this one is in the bag now. We just have to pay attention to be the quickest there is now.

Nice turns!

Got it, and playing shortly...

If I counted right, when the GA starts, depending on corruption, Veii and Rome should be able to build legions every other turn @ 15+ spt. I'd suggest they be devoted to that task. That would give us a production run of 20. The next 6 towns can build legions and anything in between @ 10-12 spt. Pillaging that French iron is looking to be a priority.

Pre-turns...

Decide to contact the Aztecs, in order to try to use our World Map to best effect... The Iroquis, Indians and the Japanese are their neighbours. I think that our rep is defeating us, since they won't go for any deal at all. And our WM and 70g for their TM is not something I want to consider.

IBT - The Russians save me the trouble of declaring on them in turn 5 by signing an alliance with Germany against us. Fools. This has brought war with the Aztecs 5 turns closer...

Turn 1 - 130 BC

Several catapult bombardments of settler pairs; French pair down to 1hp; horseman finishes the job, and the French slaves are set to work in the mines of Rome.

IBT - Contacted by Japan! We have techs on them, they have techs on us, so maybe we can do something here... Eventually, I settle on picking up Currency, 19g and their TMap in exchange for Monarchy. He wants Lit, WMap and 170g for construction. I'll wait on that one... Now Ghandi comes a calling! Eventually settle on their TMap for our WMap and 2g (damn this no haggling!)... And finally the Iroquis dial us up! Hiawatha offers Construction for Monarchy - I nearly take his hand off... I sell them our WMap for 13g.

Turn 2 - 110 BC

Of course, now the AI has Monotheism, Engineering and Feudalism. Our job just got a little harder, methinks. We are now a monarchy, too, so the legions are on the march! There are so many French units near Antium I'm quite concerned...

Veii starts city walls, due in 1 turn. Safety first. Ravenna changed to Legion from horse, Neapolis changed to cat from rax.

Kill two English archers near Veii, using horses. Horseman captures a Russian settler. More slaves :)

IBT - Veii vet spear redlines vs archer but promotes...

Turn 3 - 90 BC

Not much to do militarily, we are stretched thin, but I do set some traps for the AI...

IBT - Antium elite spear killed flawlessly by French warrior. Elite warrior flawlessly kills a French sword in return. That pesky RNG, huh?

Turn 4 - 70 BC

Bab spear killed by vet horse, promotes; Fr spear killed by elite horse, nothing; legion heads to Antium to reinforce.

Antium has one vet legion; elite warrior; vet horse; vet archer; two cats. LOTS of forces threatening it. I almost daren't press enter ;)

IBT - Youch. Legion wins a battle, Golden Age begins. Then he's killed, the warrior is killed, the horseman is killed... :(

Turn 5 - 50 BC

Kill another spear with elite horse. Reinforce Antium (still looks grim).

Turn science up to get Feudalism in 11 during our GA. This will let us go for either Chivalry or Invention, as required.

IBT - Antium fends off bowman, and the 4 French swords poised to sack the twon retreat... :confused:

Turn 6 - 30 BC

Elite horse kills another spear, nothing. Are leaders turned off, or something? Change Lutetia to walls, as it is threatened by vast numbers of Greek archers...

IBT - Lutetian spear promotes on his first battle, then kills 3 archers flawlessly before falling to the fourth. No leaders from those 3 victories, of course. Lutetia destroyed, 13g plundered.

Turn 7 - 10 BC

Start a settler in Veii... Some minor manoeuvering...

IBT - nothing

Turn 8 - 10 AD

Take an English settler escort near Ravenna down to 1hp, and a legion is menacing...

IBT - Our territory is covered in enemy units. We can't kill them fast enough, despite full military production :rolleyes:

Turn 9 - 30 AD

Elite horse kills Bab spear, no leader... Bombard an english archer, then attack with legion - promotes to elite. Elite horse captures English settler - well, they say the Roman Empire was built on the backs of slaves...

IBT - Elite legion wins 3 battles vs American warriors... nothing.

Turn 10 - 50 AD

More Americans feel the yoke of Roman slavery. Elite horse kills English horse... nothing again.

That is it - there's a trade available with Japan for Feudalism...

Not much to say regarding how I feel the next turns should be played. We obviously need more legions, but I don't think we are out of the woods yet. We are tiny compared to everyone else, and the hordes that they are sending against us are taking up too much of our time and resources.

We are being comprehensively out-settled despite taking several slaves, and there is precious little room left. Any settling we want to do will have to be heavily reinforced enough to make it questionable that it would be worthwhile. Slash and burn the entire continent (if we can) might be better.

A reminder to all, no slaves allowed per Rule #7. Any completed improvements really should be pillaged. As far as next steps, it's essential we get control of those mountains northeast of Antium. That's the high ground where the AI is able to move in relative safety. If we can control it, the attack/defense odds are much more favorable to us. AI has to either move along the low ground by Antium or Buffalo. I'd also take the trade to feudalism so the spears can go to pikes, which might free up some defending legions. Then engineering for upgrading the cats, maybe? Could try invention, but don't know the odds of finding saltpeter in this small area. Mountain 1 north of Ravenna should be fortified by a legion, that's where AI can get best odds against the town from.

A reminder to all, no slaves allowed per Rule #7. Any completed improvements really should be pillaged.

I'm at a loss for words. I can't believe I made this mistake... I can only say that I was concentrating so much on fighting off the gathering hordes that this rule completely slipped my mind. :sad: :blush:

I can only see 3 outcomes of this awful mistake.

1. We get disqualified.
2. I am allowed to play my turns again as close as possible to the original, and this time I disband all slaves immediately.
3. We are allowed to pillage the improvements and pay some sort of penalty for any advantage accrued...

Sorry guys, a real shocker from me may have cost the whole team :wallbash:

MB has to make the call, but I counted 8 workers gained in turns 1,2,9,10. Practically speaking, the 9/10 guys shouldn't have finished anything yet, so they should just be able to go away. The 1/2 workers I figure could have worked a mine and a road tile. I would think if we pillage 1 that has both, that would be adequate. As far as accrued production, shields barely amount to a warrior, so I would think we can let that go, and gold, maybe 5-6? Gift it to an AI we're due to declare on next, maybe?

BTW, we qualify for the spoiler thread, do we not? Volunteers for the write-up?

Tut tut. ;)

Disband all the foreign workers you have immediately and carry on. IMO you have gained little, and your honesty should be used in mitigation.

Besides... the screenshot is soooo scary :D

Thank you MB! :worship:

Apologies all for the excitement, normal service can now be resolved!

What's soooo scary? I call that a "target-rich environment". What does the team think about where we go from here? We have to get an MGL sooner or later, just keep looking for opportunities to put our elites into the fight to improve the odds.

I agree with M60. This is a great time to go leader hunting. I predict rater solid Legion production with a few cats, and just slash and burn for the next 100 turns or so. We can rebuild cities as we backfill. If lux gets to be an issue we should skim workers. I would like to get the HG if they are still availible. (MGL 2?) Then we can aim for Sun Tzu's etc. The massive slash and burn should give us many MGL's.
There might be a minor delay as Sens is up, but gone for a while.

Wow. Lot to catch up on.

I'm actually back as of now, but there won't be any turns before tomorrow night, as I have much catching up to do, both here and in a couple other games.

First off, good job gatting us to Monarchy and triggering the GA.

M60 - took you 15 turns for GCF2? Were you half asleep or something? :lol:

Tal - I might've had to kill you if MB had not taken the path he chose. Alright, maybe not killed you, but something. :nono:

Nem - Thank you for keeping up with the contacts, etc. Will certainly make my life easier. :)

I'm really beginning to think MGL's are turned off here. Is that possible? Has it been done before? Wouldn't that have qualified for a warning?

Would anyone like to volunteer for the spoiler writeup? I'd like to know if anyone else has had these MGL issues, but I can't see myself getting to the writeup before mid or late week....

@ Romeo: If we take Feudalism, legions are gone, and say hello to MI.

@ SESN: OK it took 15, but I didn't get to do an ROP rape either, or I would have had them in half the time. ;) :lol:

Don't think MGLs are turned off, or MB would have mentioned it up front. Since I volunteered to go first, I'll volunteer for the write-up, unless someone else has a real hankerin' for it.

You know, that was the first time I ever actually RoP raped someone, amazing how devastating it was. Gutted their core before Caesar even heard about the war. :D

Since no one volunteered for the writeup when you mentioned it several posts back, I don't think there will be much of a fight for it.

If they're not off, then what's up with the rng? We must've had 50 elite wins thus far...

Sounds good, I'll do it then. As to leaders, Sir Pleb covers it pretty well in his article. A stretch of 50 isn't normal, but not impossible either.

About leaders (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3acad_leaders.shtml)

Tal - I might've had to kill you if MB had not taken the path he chose. Alright, maybe not killed you, but something. :nono:


If MB hadn't let me off, you wouldn't have had to kill me, I'd have auto-euthenised through shame!!


If we take Feudalism, legions are gone, and say hello to MI.

I didn't hesitate to choose Feudalism as the tech to research, since the AI will have Pikes (1/3/1) vs legions (3/3/1) - better we have MI (4/2/1) mixed in with legions to pursue our scorched earth policy. Also, we'll need Knights...

I feel that my enormous snafu has ruined my perspective on this, and I'm over-criticising my last set of turns. Other than the slave thing, though, I hope everything went as well as can be expected.

In looking over the save, 2 things. First, there's a sleeping cat in Antium. Wake it up and chuck a rock over to the French. Second, the shield management can be tweaked slightly in Veii and Pompeii. We can get Veii up to 15 uncorrupted shields to get 30 shield units in 2 turns vs 3 presently. Pompeii can go from 7 to 10 to speed production time as well. We need to squeeze every unit out while we have this level of productivity.

You can check out the spoiler, now that I've posted. You can see how an early MGL makes such a difference, or in this case two.

Beautiful write up, M60! I particularly liked:

A scandal breaks out in Rome itself when it is learned that Emperor Tallanas was capturing slaves in this last set of turns. Rebuked by the Senate for his transgressions, the slaves are ordered to be freed from their existence and sent to the cross.

"Infamy! Infamy! Everyone's got it infamy!"

I actually might have recommended leaving that part out. MB did us a favor, and I'd hate to see him put in a spot because of it. Course it would probably only matter if we were to win something.... :lol:

BTW - MB told me that of the seven times he played through to 1000BC, he only failed to get a leader once. :rolleyes:

I wonder which made more of a difference to Team Smackster: that they got two leaders thus far, or that Greece delayed contacting them for an extra 10-15 turns? :hmm:

I think the 2 leaders. Such a difference when they can rush Great Wonders, particularly early on. Wouldn't worry about MB, it's all out there for everyone to see that we saw a problem and took immediate action to report and correct it.

Nice writeup, but you are not gonna practice Chemistry around me. MGL/=MSG. I think their decision to go horses instead of archers made the bigger difference. Don't hang our heads yet though. It's time to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
I vote for a legion army with first MGL so we can get the Aeneid built, and train more epic leaders. BTW, I just started the Aeneid for fun, and it is quite an interesting poem. We need to have more wine laden feasts in our empire.

I'm sorry if I implied that I was ready to give up. That is certainly not the case. M60 can tell you that I'm kind of stubborn in seeing SG's through to the end.

I think we need to send a task force vs the Greeks. They are now more of a nuisance than a threat, and with them gone, we can concentrate our forces into the north.

BTW - I opened up the save last night, and a little creative MM got me 31 shields (1 corrupt) in Rome, for a vet legion every turn. :D

I'll have to most humbly disagree on this one. Of course have at it, but I'm concerned that without a means to secure the border, we're just going to replace one AI with another in that area. What we can't secure, we can't settle and build on. The Greeks are about a 2 of 10 on the threat scale, and the standard rule of engagement says fire on the most dangerous target first (French swine). Whatever forces finish Greece may be far from Rome when they are critically needed closer to home. But again, you're the better warmonger, so do your worst. :)

BTW, was I the only one to notice Medeival Infantry was modded out of the game? Makes legions effective a while longer.

I would also agree that it is time to take out gaul. There is no pressing need to head after Greece. They aren't growing, and they are nicely protecting our future rear land.
Yes, Legions will be effective till Cavs and rifles. I would much rather have 2 legions than 1 musket or 2 1/3 legions than 1 knight. I vote we only take warmonger research path, i.e. beeline to cavs.
Good luck Sens

Well, I was really going to try to move on Greece, but I was apparently outvoted, so I’ll at least try to assemble some units to move on France.

As I mentioned, I’m able to MM Rome to get a legion per turn. Give the game tile to Pompeii.

I disband four of the ill-gotten slaves. The other four delay their turn on the cross by already having moved.

I’ll try to skim a couple workers, but only our border lands are unimproved, and I don’t really want to lose our workers.

I count 4 bowman, 5 archers, 12 swords, and 2 settlers among the units in the mountains outside Ravenna and Antium.

IT – England lands Archer next to undefended Pompeii. Many units in range though.

70 ad (1) – Rome legion -> legion. Elite horse flawless vs English archer. Elite legion loses to 2/3 sword outside Ravenna. Vet legion wins vs reg archer.

IT – It takes two horses out of the mist to kill our elite horse, across a river, on a hill. Somebody doesn’t like me so far. :(

90 ad (2) – Rome legion -> legion. Veii legion -> legion. Neapolis legion -> cat. Pompeii spear -> spear. Pisae legion -> cat. Ravenna walls -> cat. Vet horse wins vs reg archer. Two more slaves are taken and crucified. These fools will learn soon enough. A vet archer flawlessly retreats our first elite horse, then rl our second before falling. Vet legion loses 2 defeating reg warrior. Elite legion wins flawless vs 2/3 archer.

IT – Several attacks this interturn. We lose one vet legion, and promote another.

110 ad (3) – Rome legion -> legion. Veii worker -> worker. Cumae legion -> horse. Lugdunum walls -> cat. Elite legion wins vs rl sword. Vet legion flawless vs rl sword. Vet legion loses 1 hp and promotes vs rl sword. Vet sword flawless against archer, fortified across a river. Could things be turning around….?

IT – Iroquois sign an MA against us with England.

130 ad (4) – Rome legion -> legion. Veii worker -> cat. Antium legion -> legion. Pompeii spear -> legion. Ravenna cat -> legion. Elite spear flawless vs rl archer. Elite legion flawless vs rl sword. Elite legion gets rl killing rl spear on a hill.

IT – It’s driving me nuts that they won’t attack us, but they won’t get off the high ground either.

150 ad (5) – Feudalism comes in, start min run on engineering. The next useful tech is gunpowder, and that’s a bit off for us. Neapolis cat -> rax. Ghandi got Feud in the interturn, so my only possible trade is gone. Immediately burn through what’s left of our gold upgrading pikes. Vet legion flawless vs hop trying to pillage the iron. Some random bombards.

170 ad (6) – Rome legion -> legion. Only just now realized I didn’t get one last turn…:hmm: Veii cat -> rax. Cumae horse -> pike. Pisae cat -> legion. Vet horse wins and promotes vs reg archer. Elite legion loses 3 vs 2/3 sword. Reg legion flawlessly retreats reg horse. Elite spear flawless vs rl horse. Elite legion wins vs rl sword. Elite legion wins vs 2/3 warrior. Vet legion wins vs reg archer on mtn.

190 ad (7) – Pompeii legion -> legion. Vet legion kills 2/3 sword. Elite legion kills reg bowman. Elite legion attacks rl spear, and FINALLY Sesn’s Slayers ride again. :band:

I’ll point out that it took me an additional 12 tries before Trajan appeared. I’ll also point out that while I have assembled a few troops, I have remained defensive for the vast majority of the time.


I pause here to post what I have and ask for the team’s input, although I think I already know the answer. Our options are pretty limited ATM, Sun Tzu’s, or an army.

I will wait up to 24 hrs, or the for the first two corresponding votes.

ten characters

I agree that the redhead helps you feel good.
Hehe.
I vote Army, and we will handbuild the Aenid after the GA in rome?
We really need a city smasher, and a legion army is a really nice one, even if it doesn't get the conquests bonuses.
By my calcs, Sun Tzus is 10-20 turns off for any AI yet, so we could fish another leader later.
Wonders in order of use to us.
Sun Tzu
Bachanallia
Leo's
Sistene
Any other massive culture wonder so we can 20 K win :)
Scary as this may sound I suggest building any wonders away from Rome, either in Ravenna or Antium.

I agree that the redhead helps you feel good.

I have a whole set of them. I might still have the zip somewhere, if not it's definitely in the C&C forum....

We really need a city smasher, and a legion army is a really nice one, even if it doesn't get the conquests bonuses.

Almost word for word what I was thinking, but still wanted to pause for input, maybe someone can make a great case for ST's.

Any other massive culture wonder so we can 20 K win :)

That's the comment that scares me, not building wonders in Ravenna.

I'll second that motion. Army.

Well then, I guess the "ayes" have it. :)

Thanks for the prompt responses, and the turns'll be up soon.

Well, this all happened a little early for me (5am...) so I will just say I agree with the Army route. And well done getting a leader!! I wonder if our streak was a record, though... :hmm:

I might even be tempted to make the second leader an army, although it depends heavily on timing. With two armies we could perhaps simultaneously attack France and Greece, and so keep all our military planners happy.

Then again, Sun Tzu's is powerful, enabling much more rapid conquest by virtue of letting settlers effectively be field medics...

You can certainly put the army to use right away. Leader to Rome, build army, pull in the legions on the wine tile and 1sw of the two Bab bows, with a 3rd if nearby. Then maybe either knock off the reg English archer 1n-1nw or fire cat @ the bows at Antium and try to bring them both down.

I have the same mod you do sens on the advisors. My advisors are much more attractive than the original. But it has been my experience that one redhead is trouble and a pack of them means run.

Although we're outnumbered, at least we have the AIs "intelligence" on our side. Case in point: Last night I'm doing a game, at peace with China, and his worker's building a road to a horse tile from his town. Now keep in mind the road he's building is outside the border. I had a warrior right behind him, and it was hilarious. Every time he'd build a road and move up to the next tile, my warrior would pillage the road he just built. This cycle repeated itself about 6 times before the worker finally disappeared, becoming a colony on the horse tile which had no road. :p

:lol:

Yeah, that sounds about right. The famous AU (Artificial Unintelligence)...

The spoiler has a map showing Paris and it's environs. Hard to say but it looks like her iron supply may be well north of there. Their capital is 9 tiles from Antium.

Sorry for the delay guys. Was having serious problem accessing the forums at 3 am. The turns are all done, so without furthur adieu:

190 ad (cont) - Elite horse wins vs reg archer. Vet legion loses flawless to reg bowman. Second vet legion loses to a vet bowman. Third vet kills the reg. Found city of Byzantium by the SE horses.

210 ad (8) - Rome legion -> legion. Veii rax -> legion. Antium legion -> pike. Neapolis rax -> legion. Ravenna legion -> legion. Lugdunum cat -> cat. Vet legion wins vs reg archer. Vet legion wins vs rl sword. Fininsh loading the army.

230 ad (9) – Rome legion -> legion. Somehow I let Cumae riot with all the troop shuffling. Elite legion wins vs rl bowman. Elite legion loses 3 vs 2 hp spear. Sloppy AI play nets us six more candidates for crucifixtion. We lost one vet and promoted one vet in the exchanges. I pick up our army win vs a 2/3 spear. Elite horse wins vs reg archer.

IT – An elite legion fends off both a sword and a bowman, losing a single hp.

250 ad (10) – rome legion -> legion. Cumae pike -> legion. Pompeii legion -> pike. Not much doing here. Just kind of tidying up for the next player.


Nem – I have basically MM’ed all the cities to try to get even spt numbers, like 10 or 15. You will need to make sure you go through them after the GA ends. There is a task force worth of troops that can be skimmed off our Northern cities. IIRC, you also have to declare war, perhaps before the end of this turn. I wasn’t sure so I didn’t. After the GA, probably want to get cracking on the HE fairly quickly. Razing a few French cities, especially if you can find her iron, would certainly ease the flow of troops into our land. There is a few brits over by Pisae, but the city should hold with little trouble.

I feel these were far from my best turns ever, and for that I apologize. The army at least makes it for it little, though. :p

Firaxis - 404
Jason - 198

>>>SAVE<<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Sesn_SG003_AD0250_01.SAV)

I vote for two things: taking it to the French, and the pouting foreign advisor. You two can keep your redhead. ;)

You may like your foreign advisor, but you can't tell me you like the rest of the advisors better. Come on, we're talking playmates here!

BTW - Nem, you do have to declare on the Aztecs before you go to the next turn. I wish the last two would just hurry up and declare so we can stop keeping track and truly be AW. I suppose we could just declare now, but you never know when a trading opp will present itself, I guess.

I forgot to mention, I had to deal with real waves of French and American forces, but now everyone is just throwing random troops at us. With the walls, and pikes and cats, we should be able to move most of our legions on France.

I also forgot to mention that I finished upgrading all our vet spears. The only spears left are elites.

Good work, Sesn!

Now that we have an army, the AI will feel our wrath!

got it. will declare on the aztecs before I do anything. (at work now, will play tonight and post it in about 8 hours)

edit: forgot to say, good work sesn.

hmm, our golden age has ended and our economy is in a bad way. I'm really tired from the work trip so I think I'll have an early night and finish my turns tomorrow. Turn log so far:

Preturn
Contact Monty and inform him that we are now at war
move a r.legion out of veii towards pisae to help with the english forces there (legion will be replaced by veii build next turn)
bombard and archer n of pisae for 1hp
notice that we have an aztec city to our se

IBT
Bismark wants to speak with us, I ignore him
lots of english horses move to tile n of pisae

260AD (1)
Rome legion->legion
Veii legion->legion
Neapolis legion->legion
Ravenna legion->legion
v.legion vs r.archer2/3 @ ravenna, promotes 4/5
e.legion vs r.spear1/3 @ rome, on hill, loses :-(
r.legion vs r.sword1/3 on hill, promotes 4/4
(still thinking on what to do about uber spear @ rome, don't want to use the army as I want him on the front)
move legion out of Ant. to mt ne. (potential booby trap for ai's partially injured swords next turn)
army kills the spear1/3 flawless
pike on the way to Byzantium spots Jag warrior se-se-e of lugdunum
v.legion vs r.sword2/3 @ veii, wins 1/4
unsure what to do about english troops at pisae, no decent odds for attacking them, I think we'll hold ok so I leave them

IBT
English horse kills our v.legion in pisae, other than that they lose a couple of archers, their other horses all retreat and our v.pikeman promotes 3/5
jag warrior moves to tundra forrest s of byzantium
aztec galley heading se past hispalis (crossed from somewhere w of hisp.)
french swords on mt west of ant ignore legion and retreat (oh well, they're not as stupid as I thought :-)

270AD (2)
rome legion->legion
cumae legion->legion
lugdunum cat->cat
v.legion vs r.sword1/3 on hill @ Neap, wins 4/4
legion on mt returns to ant

IBT
jag attacks byzan and loses
germans are building Sistine Chapel

280AD (3)
rome legion->legion
Antium pike->legion
pompeii pike->legion
pisae legion->cat
r.legion vs r.archer2/3 n of pisae, loses
v.legion vs r.archer2/3, wins 4/4

IBT
r.horse vs v.legion n of neapolis on game, v.legion wins flawless (i was bringing him back to neap, moved adjacent to horse hoping to provoke him but didn't really expect abe to be so silly)
2 english r.horses move back to seige pisae
4 russian r.swords appear in mt's ne-ish of Antium

290AD (4)
rome legion->legion
veii legion->legion
neapolis legion->legion
ravenna legion->legion
2 v.legions retreat both r.horses @ pisae
2 v.legions from veii finish them off and promote
send v pike out of pisae to cover injured legion

IBT
lots of french and russian swords move in to seige Ant (9 total)
3 greek archers heading for byzan
our golden age ends
bab galley off coast of lugdunum

300AD (5)
ok, our military is crippling our economy, sci0%, lux0%, engineering 30t, -6gpt, 256g
I'm gonna get us some settlers and rebuild pepermint town as a priority, then move on the french
cumae legion->cat
switch veii from legion to settler
switch neap from legion to cat
bombard swords at Antium 1 success, 5 fail :-(
e.legion vs r.spear1/3 @ veii, wins 5/5
v.legion vs r.spear1/3 @ rome, wins 4/4
(this ibt could get bloody around ant)

IBT
abe requests and audience, i ignore
russia lose 2 swords attacking ant

310AD (6)
rome legion->legion
lugdunum cat->cat

Well, it looks like our economy will force our hand sooner rather than later.

You can probably leave something like two pikes, one legion, and a cat or two in each high risk town, and cobble together whatever other troops are available.

We need to get ourselves some breathing room. Take a handful of cats, a handful of legions, and the army, and move on France. We will be fighting this defensive war endlessly if we don't start getting proactive, and soon.

The ai production ability is going to increase the longer this drags out. The odds don't favor us any better down the road.

Hmmm. Perhaps if we can leave peppermint town basically empty, we can create a killing zone there. IIRC, it has flat land around it, and we can use that to our advantage. It will be playing "puppet strings" a bit, but I don't remember that being banned in the rules.... :mischief:

The biggest problem I had was that the ai would not continuously att6ack the same town. If they went for Antium and I reinforced, they would peel off towards Ravenna or Neapolis. Everything gets much easier if we can steer the ai to one spot each turn.

Good call, Sesn. This is just going to be a never-ending slugfest. Far better to do that on someone else's territory than our own. We desperately need another ring of cities, so we have to push back the other Civs...

I think it's important to get the army up near France's cities. If the AI pulls its usual stunt with an army, it will fail to attack it but be so worried by its presence that it stops attacking us directly...

sorry guys, I really wanted to get it played last night but I was just too tired. As soon as the economy went down the drain I just got real demoralized and decided I'd have to found a couple of cities to pick things up. Just didn't feel coherent enough to manage it. I was going to refound peppermint and also the one nw of Neap. I really want peppermint back so the ai will send it's units there instead of the mt's to our ne of Ant. Will try get a worker team (heavily defended) to road up to peppermint. I wouldn't mind trashing liverpool and building our city there too but don't know if I'll get time before the end of my turns.

We are going to kick the AI off our continent. I trust everyone is as sure about that as I am. Now let's get the SOD moving and plow the road.

We are going to kick the AI off our continent. I trust everyone is as sure about that as I am. Now let's get the SOD moving and plow the road.

I know I'm very sure. Moreover, I'm sure we will come out of this with a military victory.

However if we don't get those plows running, it may not be anything near a respectable date...

@Nem - I would much rather the turns sit for a day then you play tired and make a rookie mistake that really hurts. Get them done when you are up to the task, or pass of if that's not going to be in a reasonable timeframe. No biggie. :)

cool, ta sesn. I've flexed this afternoon off work and will be heading home in about 45 minutes. I'll have something to eat and then finish of my turns. I wasn't feeling too tired when I started, I think it was just the concentration and maths work that drained me. :)

Believe me, been there, done that, already lost the t-shirt.

Except I wasn't wise enough to know to put it off, and muddled my way through the turns, making the rookie mistake. :rolleyes:

Ah well, live and learn. :)