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!

Just signing in, and to let you know that I don't intend contributing to the discussion much unless it's in general terms, and I will need a good line up, so that I know what you want me to do on my turns. If we get to steam, then I will become more involved as I haven't been past that stage myself.

I should go last in the order I think. Who should go first? What about reverse alphabetical?

That makes it Zagnut who's up first. :)

Looking at the screenshot, I don't see a lot of incentive to move. My only suggestion would be to consider the worker south, to see what's there. But we most certainly won't work that hill for a while, so it will waste 1, possibly two turns.

Agree with reverse alphabetical order, so I won't be screwing up Space's turns any more -the other way round, actually... :p

Regarding settling -I know it will sound like a spoilered thought, but that deer really did get stuck into my mind... So, what about settling 1SW? That will enable us to use 2 food and 2 shields right from the start etc. etc.
Otherwise, I do not see reasons to move either.

With MB with us, I guess we are indeed going for the variant. Confirmed?

Yes - we must play the variant.

The variant award is for the fastest finsish relative to Jason best date. Which victory condition do you think we will pursue?

Yes, not even sure it is winnable under those conditions at all, so yeah, let's go for it. :lol:

edit: X-post, good question MB. Some military option seems obvious, especially if it's the date that's gonna score. Domination? :yawn: ;)

:hmm: ... :hmm: :hmm: ...diplomatic? :D

Diplo? definitely doable IMO. I'm not joking.

OK. So lets ask the obvious questions.

1. City spacing?
2. Research path. Pottery at max, writing at min, IW at max or Zero research? How early will we need Mathematics (cats)?
3. Build orders. Will Rome be a settler factory? Does it need a Granary? How many explorers?
4. As Karasu says, is it worth moving the settler to get the game immediately?

1. Depends on the goal. Since it's an AWE in disguise I'd say at least as close as CxxC.
2. We need a Granary for the settler factory, a well timed chop could make life good. :)
3. Oh, ansered this, I think. ;) Conservative exploration, I'd say.
4. Hmm, how long does it take before the first expansion? Rome need to grow first anyway.

Sorry I am a little late in discovering that the game began. I thought it was going to start on the 15th.

I do not have my notes from GOTM 16 as I had a computer problem several months ago and had to reinstall Windows. BUT, Karasu has awakened some of my old brain cells. I believe this is the game where chopping the forest on the game square was the big difference in getting off to a good start.

Perhaps we could delay discussion of the victory condition until a little later so that we see how things go initially. I would propose to settle on the start hill and move the Worker to the BG to the W. By the time he is finished mining and roading, the borders will have expanded and then he can go to the game square and start chopping.

I don't have access to the game now and can't remember the Romans characteristics. Can anyone tell me?

Militaristic is definitely one of them. The other? Hmm, can't remember, but it is not scientific. Culture is always a problem playing Rome, so I am fairly sure they are not religious either.

It's commercial (and I never understood why. I mean, shouldn't it have been industrious?)

I think that MB modded the starting location so that it won't play just as in the original game.
So I am not sure that chopping the deer *will* turn Rome into a settler factory, even though the advantage of the food bonus is undeniable.
The tradeoff between moving or not moving is in fact, in my opinion, that of a 'wasted turn' against being able to use two shields right away, without having to wait for the mine (6 turns, right?).

The mine is 6 turns and the road is 3 turns. This start position seems pretty good to me. We have a luxury, the deer in the woods and 5 bonus grasslands. Why move?

Since barbs are raging, I would also propose to build 2 Warriors. One for defense and one to explore. Then a Worker, or possibly a Settler?

Research Pottery at max. We will probably get Pottery in about 15 turns. Then research Iron Working. Any objections?

If you move you get more shields in the first 12 turns. If you stay you keep the hill position. For AWE that is helpful.

Either way, are you going to scout with the worker, mine and road the BG or chop and irrigate the deer?

What would be a safe exploration radius. 12 civs on a standard map??

As for research... Do we want the Great Library? IMO no. We will get a flood of leaders in this game. I believe we will get 2 AA wonders.

I am not offering an opinion. I just think that one of the greatest mistakes made by AWE players is putting 400 shields into an AA wonder.

We we stay put we can share the deer with th second city. You guys are right, I think a Wine has vanished that served as a futher food bonus. It'll take a while before the cities will grow anyway so sharing is good.

I agree with Mad about Leaders and Wonders, since we will be self-researching mostly we will trail the others (certainly in the beginning), so 'instant' Wonders will help, also for letting the AI dump their shields in the deep well of oblivion.

I'd say we scout 3 city radii so we can plan a decent RCP ring (non known in that time... ah ... memories. :) ).

I think we should limit our scouting to only 3 deep.

As a really random thought, why not move the settler south to the hill? Any attacks are going to come from north / east directions, but the AI will most likely follow the hills. It might be nice to make them attack across a river. I consider this minor though, because I don't expect the AI to get close to the capital anyway! :D

I can't remember much about this map, except that I think we are quite a long way south, and there's coast nearby (of course, this might have been changed :hmm: )

Overall, I think settle on the spot. the other side of the hills on all sides looks flat, so perhaps a move to the hill with the worker (maybe even the wine?)

I think we should limit our scouting to only 3 deep.
Sounds good to me.

Overall, I think settle on the spot. the other side of the hills on all sides looks flat, so perhaps a move to the hill with the worker (maybe even the wine?)
My feeling is that we should move to the BG to the W. That can be developed faster than the Wine. The Wine won't be needed to prevent unhappiness right away. We can also delay its development by building a Worker and keeping the pop low. I think it best to go to the BG, then the Deer, then back to the Wine.

I agree on the development of the BG first. I just thought that the wine would give us a better view. Actually, sending the worker south would be even better. :)

Since the variant requires us to declare war on the first civ we meet, perhaps we should build 3 Warriors instead of 2. That way one can stay home and 2 can go in the same general direction to have a better chance of success against the first civ we meet.

Here is my start plan so far:
1. Send Worker W to BG and have him mine and road it.
2. Research Pottery at max. Then Iron Working.
3. When Worker is finished on BG send him to Deer square to start chopping the forest.
4. Build 3 Warriors. Send two out to scout no more than 3 city radii from the capital. This would be about 6 squares on the diagonal, if I am counting correctly.
5. Build a Worker.
6. Build Granary.

OR do you think it would be better to develop a second BG instead of immediately chopping the forest?

Well, I'd be interested in the timing of pottery relative to the chopping. Seeing as we are commercial, we'll get an extra gold, and the river will help to. Does this mean that we could potentially have pottery in 12 turns? If so, then the chop will speed a granary, which would be the best use IMHO. We can tailor the other production (warriors) to make sure that the granary gets completed one or two turns before the city grows to (say) 3 or 4. Quite a bit of planning required though...

That sounds good. I will try to do that. Will keep you advised with an intermediate post. I will start playing tomorrow night about 20 hours from now.

Sounds goot to me too :thumbsup:

Of course, we will have to research BW before IW: we should probably build an Archer or two in the meantime, just in case we meet someone before we can pull out a few Legionaries. This also means that we risk being forced into a very early despotic GA... thoughts?

IMHO the Legions are too powerful to not use. If this triggers a very early GA, so be it.

Well, we might want to build a nice cheap barracks at some point. And we might not have iron. :( With hills around, it might pop-up though! :D

No Iron.. :eek: not even MB is cruel enough to do that to us! Or is he? :cringe:

No Iron, no horses and no arrows for our Archers... we'll have to fight our way into history with bare-handed warriors :eek:
At least, MB has joined the team :p

EDIT: Hmm, about ten hours to go... I had better go and do something useful in the meantime...

I guess I will have to look at the Romans characteristics and free techs before I start. The way MB was talking in one of his posts I assumed the Romans must get Bronze Working as a free tech. I had better review the Romans later on today. ;)

Romans are Commercial and Militaristic, so they start with Warrior Code and Alphabet.

And thanks for giving me a chance to come back to the forum :D

Just a tought about techs I'd like to share: it is very likely that we'll need strong defence soon. So how about Math(Cats) and Construction(Walls) as our primary goals. Also we might need to think how we best can setup our cities. Would it be very odd to try and play this as a 1CC? We'll be a Monarchy troughout the game which should help dealing with the unit costs, policing our city will not be a problem. This will rule out domination (and probably space) as goal but will allow conquest or diplo.

Edit: Remember that great game by Zwingly in the Celts GOTM? :thumbsup:

Would it be very odd to try and play this as a 1CC? We'll be a Monarchy troughout the game which should help dealing with the unit costs, policing our city will not be a problem. This will rule out domination (and probably space) as goal but will allow conquest or diplo.
The variant will make this game pretty hard. Do you think 1CC will make it easier to win with the variant? I can't imagine that could be possible.

Is defence really a problem? Legionaries have 3 defence, and I see us attacking more than defending anyway.

This will play as an AWE, we have 12 civs coming from all sides at some point, so yes, defense *is* a feature of this type of game. What you need to be doing is trying to keep the survival rate of the troops as high as possible. For each of our units at least 5 of the AI will have be killed. And remember that the AI can trade at Emperor rates, so we'll be facing strong troops. Artillery is of utmost importance to soften those strong units up before attacking.

12 Civs? :confused: And I thought that we didn't have to declare war on the second civ until the first was wiped out?

12 Civs? :confused: And I thought that we didn't have to declare war on the second civ until the first was wiped out?
That's true but if you haven't eliminated the first civ in 20 turns then you have to declare war on the next one. So after awhile we could very well be at war with a large number of civs. Hopefully many of them will be on other continents.

I am starting the game now so wish me luck.

I guess I should read the rules properly! :eek:

Good luck! :D

The saved game is HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC3000_01.SAV)

The trading rules are complicated in practice. You should read through my comments at the end of this post and then go back and read the sign up thread for a number of other interpretations. The concept sounded easy, but it surprised me when I tried to trade with Greece.

4000 BC - Turn 1 - Found Rome on start square. Research Pottery at 90% in 15 turns. Worker goes W to BG square. Build Warrior.

3950 - Worker starts to mine.

3900 - Still mining.

3850 - Ditto

3800 - Ditto

3750 - Warrior built. A strong lad named Augustus. He goes up on the Wine hill to look around and lo and behold he sees Triticus. Now those of you in New Zealand may not know what that is, but I recognized it instantly as Wheat. And what’s more, it is on a river. Too far east to share the square with Rome but a gift from our God - MasterBoxius. Start another Warrior.

3700 - Augustus heads N and sees a large range of mountains to the NE.

3650 - Worker builds mine and starts road.

3600 - Constant checking of our progress toward Pottery reveals that we must still maintain 90% science. Now due in 7 turns.

3550 - Second Warrior built, named Tiberius. He heads S. Augustus swings W to avoid the mountains. I do not want to meet another civ too soon. I build another Warrior.

3500 - Turn 10 - Our borders expand, our population increases to two and the Worker finishes the road. Tiberius moves S to the hill and sees coast to the S with a cow between the deltas of two rivers. Another good location for a city. Pottery is due in 4 turns. Going up to 100% does not reduce the number of turns. I can reduce science to 80% and keep it at 4. That is good because I have to increase luxuries to 10% to keep our second citizen from rioting.

Augustus is now NW of Rome and sees another Deer in a forest just across a river. Worker moves into the forest.

3450 - Worker begins to chop forest.

3400 - Third Warrior built. Name him Caligula. He stays in Rome. Start Barracks. Will be complete in 4 turns. Earning 5 shields/turn. Reduce luxuries to zero.

3350 - Turn 13 - Pottery in one turn. Reduce science to 60%.

3300 - Discover Pottery. Switch to Granary which will be complete in 10 turns. The forest will be chopped in 7 turns. Therefore, the Granary should be completed in 8 turns instead of 10. I then inadvertently stop the Worker from chopping the forest. This was a true mistake and so I reload from AutoSave.

Rome will grow in 6 turns which may speed up the production of the Granary even more.

The next question is how fast to research Bronze Working. Normally I would prefer to research a second level tech at 40 turns. However, since we need to declare war on our neighbors immediately and may not be able to trade for techs, I think it is important that we self research to Iron Working so we can get Legionaries as quickly as possible. I therefore elect to research BW at 90% which gives us +1 gold and discovers it in 18 turns (vice 15 at 100%). I hope you agree with that decision.

3250 - Science reduced to 80%.

3200 - Turn 16 - Augustus discovers Spices on the west coast.

3150 - Turn 17 - Warriors moving.

3100 - Turn 18 - Tiberius who is exploring SE of Rome sees a Greek Hoplite on a mountain. That is someone with whom he does not want to mess. I open the diplomacy screen and review the rules for Xenophobic trading. Greece has Bronze Working. We have Pottery and Warrior Code. Since I can’t haggle, I can’t risk offering him Warrior Code or Pottery because he might come back with an offer to buy my tech for only gold. I would then have to take it and he may not want to trade BW for my other remaining tech. Since I really want Bronze Working I ask him what he wants in trade for it. Good grief!! He wants Pottery, Warrior Code, 1 gpt and 17 gold. That is everything we have!! But wait, the 1 gpt is nothing because we have to declare war on them this turn. I guess the 17 gold is okay to give them because it will save us 13 turns to get to BW. I accept.

In reviewing the trading rules, I want to pass on a couple of rules that I did not know when I started this trading session. I went to the sign up thread and read through it to confirm these. 1. I did not have to contact the Greeks as soon as I saw them. I could have waited for them to contact me. (Page 10) 2. I could have offered Pottery for Bronze Working. If they reject it then I could offer Pottery and Warrior Code for BW. If they reject that I can add resources or luxuries if I have them. However, I cannot add any gpt or gold to the offer to make it more enticing to them. This sounds like haggling but is apparently permitted. (Page 3)

I then declare war on the Greeks. I don’t know how this is going to work. The Greeks are apparently to the east or northeast of us. We only have 3 Warriors. I will bring them back to protect the capital. The only offensive unit we can build is the Archer and if we switch from a Granary we will lose 10 shields. I am going to play a defensive game and hope we can complete the Granary before they invade.

I research Iron Working at 40 turns as 80% and 90% only get it in 36 turns.

3050 - Turn 19 - The Hoplite moves away from Rome.

3000 - Turn 20 - The Hoplite retreats into the fog toward the SE. Tiberius goes onto a mountain but cannot see the Greek borders because another mountain blocks his view to the SE.

The pop increases to 3. I increase luxuries to 10%. The forest will be chopped on the next turn. Then that square should be irrigated. There are currently 19 shields still needed for the Granary. 10 from the forest chop and 6 from the next turn means that only 3 more will be needed. Therefore, the Granary will be completed in 2900.

I would suggest that you put Augustus and Tiberius on the mountains near the Wheat in order to be lookouts for any Greek troops. Then build a couple of Archers to give us some offensive punch. Good Luck. This is not going to be easy.

Well, Greeks are interesting. They have strong defence, but there offensive capabilities will be less than ours (once we get iron working).

To slow them down, perhaps we can go annoy their workers. I know we can't capture them, but either stopping them working early-on or capturing and disbanding them could cripple Alexander.

Very good suggestion. There may also be a line of mountains that lead to their territory where our Warriors can get some extra defense. The problem with them now is that we still have a long way to go to get Iron Working. Until we do we are inferior to them.

Here we go... and the variant kicked in already :ack: -I hoped we would be able to build at least another city; I mean, when one plays normal games contacts seem to never arrive :p

In any case, they would have knocked at our door in a few turns, I think. So there was nothing you could do to prevent this war from starting. Good trading for BW, instead :thumbsup:

Regarding the trade, I read the rules too: you are right that offering techs for techs seems to be permitted, but every other option is excluded. So I think you have done well to play it on the safe side.
My feeling is that MasterBoxius will ban that too, as it does seem against the purpose of his rule. Care to confirm, oh SGOTM Deity? :p

I agree trying to harass the Greeks rigth now. They only have warriors or Hoplites right now, so the timing is right.
We may even want to consider loosing a warrior against a Hoplite in order to trigger their GA now.

Build order: I guess we are letting the Granary complete. After that, what about an Archer or :eek: a Spear? Then Settler?

A barracks is only a few shields. Might as well make one of those first (after a warrior / spear).

I'm thinking we should harrass rather than attack until we get legionaries - archers v hoplites can't be much fun. :(

A reg archer has 28% chance of beating a hoplite, and a vet one has a 41 % chance -> still not great. :(

Agreed on the Rax build.

Was it a 'got it'? :D

It MB up next reverse alphabetically-like isn't it?

Well, I don't know...

Right... "A Space Oddity"... ehm... or "Space"?
Your pick, milady :)

I also remember that MasterBaxius wanted to be last in the starting lineup (which is not reverse alphabetical, admittedly :crazyeye: )

To be honest I should take it I think. Let's stick to "proper" forum names. I think spoiler info will be worse in turn 40 to 60 then now.

Now we have met someone, are we still going to avoid contact, and hope noone finds us in the next twenty turns, or are we going to explore as much as possible so that we can choose who to be at war with next.

If the latter... which directions should I explore in?

Please take it MB, I'm much too busy now anyway.

And you're right, the first turns are the ones to use for exploring and trading when our first adversary is known. Does our Xenophobia prohibit military alliences BTW?

I'm not sure... right now, I would rather not so much explore as I'd try to found a couple of cities and -if possible- to do something with the Greeks.

We are certainly not going to have IW in 20 turns, and we risk being at war with two civs by that time.

@Space, I think we can sign MAs only with those civs that will open an embassy with us (we are prohibited to do that ourselves). Of course, the MA is at risk since we may have to declare on that very civ before 20 turns have passed.

We'll know exactly which civ we'll have to declare, don't we. So it might be a consideration rather than a risk.

On contacts: what are the odds of having none of the civs around us stopping for tea within 20 turns? What is it were playing: pangaea, continents?

Good point about having to declare war on the second civ 20 turns after meeting them. Perhaps we should not explore for awhile and see how the war goes with Greece. Just harass Greece and build up our civ. If they are not aggressive and don't attack us then send out some explorers.
If we meet another civ we can trade for 20 turns while we are at war with Greece and that may be very valuable. Once we discover IW we should strike hard and fast. Of course, a lot can happen in 25 or 30 turns, so that plan may have to be modified.

We'll need the Iron (if we have it...) connected and hopefully have some warriors to upgrade. Another good use of a Rax, BTW.

So. We are going to avoid contact. Get to IW, mass upgrade warriors. Won't be pretty with legionaries vs Hoplites. We'll need cats to take hit points from them first. So we need maths. If we research Maths - how do we get the money for the upgrades? How much will it cost to research Maths vs how many warriors can we upgreade for that money? Would it be worth taking bigger losses (without cats) just to be able to strike earlier, and maybe get rid of Greece altogehter?

Keeping Greek workers in their cities will be good obviously. Let's do that.

I guess we need to get Rome building a vet warrior and a settler every 6 turns, so the rax will allow it to get big enough for that. But we need another site for settlers and workers and that needs to be somewhere safe.

I'm kind of rambling, but the game is already way different to the way I played it in testing, so I genuinely don't know the answers here.

Maybe an archer rush might be possible - and take the losses. What are the odds of a vet archer beating a fortified regular Hoplite? 20 shields a pop, we could have more on the ground, wouldn't need the cash for upgrades, and they wouldn't trigger the GA? Taking out Greece means dealing with fewer units because we only need to kill the ones in towns, and not the explorers.

The other possibility is to turtle. We can build spears - lots of them. Downside, we don't get rid of Greece. Upside they upgrade to mech inf. Again no cash upgrading, we can get maths and cats.

Any thoughts?

No.







:crazyeye: Well, too many actually. :) I don't think play turtle will be an option for this particular group of players, so we might have to go for the Archers afterall.
Cats are a definite must to keep our cities, if we loose an early city this game will be so much harder, we just can't afford it.

Good discussion.

I don't know, of course.

I agree that turtling is not too appealing ;) Besides, I like to take the initiative.

An Archer attack is tempting: would give us something to do while we wait for IW and Maths, and if we get lucky we might even be able to pick a city from the Greeks.

So, maybe something more like a raid with 4-5 units than a 'real' rush?
At the same time, should we build a spear or two -at least to protect our initial expansion?

We'll have to decide what to do if we manage to capture a Greek city. It'll be next to impossible to defend it so my vote is to always raze. That's why a one city option came to mind, it will enable us to attack without having much trouble defending. We might want to use fortifications to heal units and draw enemy troops away from our citizens.

Unless we build a lot of Archers now we are in no position to attack the Greeks. Our problem is the same as every government in the world. Too many things to do and not enough money to do them.

I think if I were playing the game by myself, I would lay low for awhile. It is important that we get another city founded as soon as possible. That way we can have one producing military units and the other Settlers, etc. I would take a chance that the Greeks will not attack and finish the Granary. Then build an Archer, then a Settler. Put the Settler in an area near Rome where it can share some of those bonus grasslands and have it build an Archer, Barracks and then all military units.

Beyond that I cannot plan intelligently.

We'll have to decide what to do if we manage to capture a Greek city. It'll be next to impossible to defend it so my vote is to always raze. That's why a one city option came to mind, it will enable us to attack without having much trouble defending. We might want to use fortifications to heal units and draw enemy troops away from our citizens.
I don't favor a one city option, but think it might be wise to consider a small number of cities that could develop into a very strong core and would be easy to defend. We have good land all around Rome. Maybe 5 or 6 cities would be good.

That's what I was aiming at, a small strong core, circular if possible with the outer cities on hills preferably.

Well, we would have to raze anyway under the Xenophobic rule... ;)

I like the idea of developing a small core.

And, yes, building a few Archers for raiding purposes is most probably pointless.
If we choose not to do that, a few Spearmen will be more useful than Archers to defend our developing core right now.

I would still consider the idea of triggering the Greek Golden Age.

(0) 3000BC: Pre-turn.
Pre-flight checks OK.

IBT:
Forrest chop to granary and MM to get granary in 1 turn.

(1) 2950BC:
Since we are not looking to make any new friends for a while I decide to send Augustus back to Rome for MP duty, to save gold. The alternative was to put him on the SE Mountain as a lookout.

Tiberius continues SE to try to find greek workers.
Decide to increase science. We don't need IW for a while, but IMO we can't wait 80 turns for Maths, and we don't need a treasury to tempt contact or extortion. Poor and miserable, with nothing to sell, and no means to buy. That's the ticket.
Also I think it would be a false economy to build units in cities without a rax - so rax next.

IBT:
Rome Granarium - Armamentarium in 4.

(2) 2900BC:
Reduce lux to zero because we have 2 garrison in Rome.

(3) 2850BC:
Tiberius ends up next to a Hoplite and warrior pair :eek: he's on a mountain though.

(4) 2800BC:
No attack - So Tiberius continues to the Greek Core.

(5) 2750BC:
Archer arrives nest to Tiberius. Do I run away or stand my Ground. Hmmm.. Warrior fortified on mountain.

IBT:
Archer attacks Tiberius who is promoted.

Rome: Armamentarium - Settler

(6) 2670BC:
Another archer appears next to Tiberius. Again he fortifies.

IBT:
Greek archer commits suicide.

(7) 2630BC:
The Hoplite warrior pair head for Rome. ETA 6 turns - should I change to spear?. Big decision. The change would be shield wasteful, OTOH a conquest defeat in 5 turns time would also be a bummer. ;)
I stay with settler. If worst comes to worst we will have to whip a spear.

(8) 2590BC
Athens is size 1. Reg Hoplite on guard. No sign of any workers.
Lux to 10%

(9) 2550BC
Possible pillaging opportunity. But if Athens has another archer, Tiberius will be slain.
Switch governor to emphasise production, remove citizen from game for the extra shield. Doesn't affect growth. Then realise it won't make a blind bit of difference.

(10) 2510BC:
I leave Tiberius active for the next player. To Pillage or not to Pillage? That is the question.

Obviously Rome needs to operate 7-5 to get settler and unit in 6 turns, but since we haven't worked the land yet, the earlier settler seemed best. Of course we have some Greek units that will appear in 3 turns, but I'm betting the hoplite won't attack a city.

Iron working in a predicted 15 turns

So, once the warrior pillages the spices and the mine, he can suicide on the hoplite and trigger the Greek GA if that is the plan.

Seems like I stole a turn. :blush:

It's at the beginning of the turn really though.
Scores a bit low, probably because we built the rax and I delayed growth a turn too in order to get the granary and rax a turn earlier each.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm301.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/sgotm302.jpg

I presume the Greeks are advancing on Rome along the mountains. Perhaps we should put the two defenders in Rome on the hills or mountains to block the Greeks from maintaining the high ground. Try to force them to attack us while we are on the high ground.

We could move a warrior to the mountain to the SE, next to the wheat. But I think they would just drop down onto the grass. We would have no response to that. The Greek warrior needs to attack a spear, or a warrior on a hill, and die in the attempt. The hoplite might try to pillage us to death. We may have to "spend" an archer in order to either kill it or drive it away. We don't have time to put a unit on all our worked tiles.

Also we are running a defecit. If the warrior leaves, then lux goes up. We have to finish IW, then Masonry and Maths before we can begin to breathe a little easier.

Personally I would build two spears and an archer before the next settler. 1 spear to escort the settler, and the other for garrison in rome, until we can get some offensive capability together.

Where will the settler go?

Here is a ring picture. I would like to build on the hill just to the W of our deer. But that is on ring 4 and I think it may be better to build on ring 3 in this game. That way all cities will be within one turn of the capital. I might just say the hell with it and not bother with rings if I were playing by myself, but I have to think about what is best for the team. Unfortunately, I am not sure. I do feel that our first city should be either south or west of Rome.

Good progress :goodjob:


I'll think about this game during the useless meeting we're having today: people in ESA all arrange meetings with us when their holidays draw near. This month I'm having "monthly" progress meetings about twice a week. On two contracts... :lol:
And it's like this every year -they are so predictable :rolleyes:


EDIT - Incidentally, I've been reconsidering the 'few cities' approach. I still think it is the way to go for some time, but the reduced military support can become a major problem later on.

The hill is not wet, but I agree that it's a good site. The way I see it is that we have these considerations.

1. 5 food bonuses in our immediate vicinity. We need to grab these as soon as possible. (1 game we already have)

2. We need wet locations since we cannot afford aqueducts for a looong time.

3. Defensive bonuses. The AI will turn up at our doorstep, so we need to settle on hills and by rivers.

4. We need towns that are reinforceable quickly.

There is also the question of RCP distance. RCP 4 gets us the two game to the north, but it's difficult to settle to the East at RCP 4 also it's 2 turn reinforcement distance.

At RCP 3 we have to wait for cultural expansions to get the game tiles in use but we can reinforce in 1 turn, except... the rivers prevent that sometimes.

I will try a couple of dot maps at 3 and 4.

The other possibility is to ignore RCP altogether. We can plan to build 8 cities around our present location with a tight build around our leader generated FP location, and plan to jump the palace somewhere later when we can afford a more open city planning.

I think my preference at the moment would be to identify all the wet hills at 3 and 4, then look at the power of each of those locations and settle them in order. Being commercial may mean the lack of RCP won't hurt as much anyway, and the second ring - should we develop this core that far will not be affected anyway.

We may have no choice but to settle further in order to bring the food bonuses into play. We have to balance between creating extra settlers, building temples and waiting and building libraries.

I might have to do some sums :p

Without being able to substantiate my reasoning at all, I am inclined towards the 'other possibility' approach: being commercial, we can probably afford ignoring strict RCP for our first core.
On the other hand, we will need to build quite some workers in order to develop it as quickly as possible -and to defend those workers as well... things do get complicated.

Additionally, if we build our FP as soon as possible, we can enjoy a larger core with less worries about city placement. This may be good, and we could found slightly more cities so that upkeep costs will be felt later on. Of course, the surrounding area has to allow this.

For the second city, the wheat is the most attractive location, although it is in the wrong direction. The plains 3 E of Rome seems a nice place, but has it got access to the river? Unfortunately, not only is it not on a hill, but is also next to mountains...

And -btw- am I up? :crazyeye:
If so, then I got it and the roster is:

Zagnut
Mad-Bax
Karasu
Ainwood
A Space Oddity

Otherwise, just let me know... :)

Should I take this silence as a confirmation that I am up?
And is there any majority on where to settle next?

I'll try to connect again tomorrow morning before I go to the beach ;)

Sorry Karasu. I misread "Am I up" as "I am up".

Yes, take it away - And Good luck. :) Not that you need it champ. ;)

As for where to settle - I'm not sure how much I can say.

There is obviously a site to the NW that allows a city to use both game tiles, and it is on the safe side of Greece. I don't think you can build such a town on a hill though because you need the river. Still, if we are ever in a position where we are defending that city, then I think the game would be pretty much over anyway :D

Yes, I thought you were going ahead.

As for where to settle - put your left index finger in your right ear, close your eyes, take a deep breath and choose a place. None of us know any better than you. Gooooood luck.

Ok, I'm on it. Played it actually -it's just that I am locked in the seventh useless meeting of the last two weeks. :suicide:

I'll try to post something if our guest leaves in a reasonable time...

Tell him he has to buy his own lunch. Always works for me :D

We went to lunch together... :ack:

She's just gone. BTW, your support in deciding where to settle next reminds me of our PA people, which usually goes like this.

Karasu: Do you think that we use this component? It is not space-qualified, but our experts say it's ok.
PA Guy: What is it?
K: It's this and that
PA: I have not enough evidence to accept it or reject it. You can use it based on your experts' experience and confidence. This by no means imply that we are approving of its use in the project: as soon as the PA plan is accepted and the tests done, we will let you know whether it is acceptable or it need to be qualified.
K: By that time, of course, it will be too late to change it. The design will be complete and the hardware in production.
PA: That is none of our responsibility. It is yours in fact :D

Pre-turn
To pillage or not to pillage... Hmm... Ok. let's give it a go :mischief:

Press Enter, and...
... an Archer approaches from north.
Rome builds the settler, set to Spearman. Luxury slider can go back to 0%

Turn 1 - 2470 BC
A turn of decisions.

Number 1 is Tiberius: pillage, fight or retreat to the mountains? This is an easy one. Fight :D and kill the Archer, getting promotion to Elite. We see Sparta's walls.

Number 2 is tough: Where should we settle?
I feel a strong inclination to the eastern wheat. But there is no wet tile closer than distance 5. Besides, it is on plains rather than grasslands.

Talking about distance: 5 seems too much, but 3 -in spite of the obvious logistic advantage- seems too little if we want to develop our core cities somewhat. We would also loose the cow to the south.
Therefore, I think I will go with a distance of 4: it will allow our core cities to grow large enough, and will enable to settle wet locations towards the deers (if they do not fall within the initial city radius, they will be acquired by settling a second ring city).

In spite of my previous statement, I will not go towards the wheat. The greeks are close and the bonus is not enough: it would take long to connect and improve those tiles, which would remain at risk of pillaging from our neighbours.

The cow to the south is also tempting, but it too will take time to connect -and I am not sure that the water there is not some malicious sea branch.

So, I'll go to the northern game, settling just on the other side of the river. It is a bit far, and the river lies between the two cities, but there is Game and BG immediately available. Moreover, improving in that direction seems more efficient. At least I hope ;)

If you don't like it, blame it on the sun of the Maremma beaches... :crazyeye: and give better advice next time :p


IT
Another Archer comes out of Athens, attacks Tiberius in the open and dies! Time to go back on the mountains to heal
Our treasury is running dangerously low, we are reminded

Turn 2 - 2430 BC
As promised, Tiberius climbs a rocky cliff.
The Settler marches north

IT
Our treasury keeps on running dangerously low, but who cares.

Turn 3 - 2390 BC
Tiberius fortifies as a greek warrior approaches.

IT
Tiberius is attacked by the hopeless warrior and wins unscathed. I am starting to like this guy :D

Turn 4 - 2350 BCAD
Veii founded. Armamentarium.
Worker starts roading the tile he just finished mining. This allows completion of the Spearman one turn earlier.


IT
Rome: Spearman (Cincinnatus) - Worker
A greek archer leaves Sparta. What will he do?

Turn 5 - 2310 BC
With Cincinnatus in Rome, Caligula moves to Veii.

IT
The Archer attacks Tiberius and duly dies. You know what, this war is suggesting me new ways to play the early game...

Turn 6 - 2270 BC
I need to reduce science funding, loosing two turns on IW.

IT
Rome: Worker - Worker

Turn 7 - 2230 BC
Caligula reaches Veii.
Workers move (misclicked)

IT
Nothing

Turn 8 - 2190 BC
Tiberius, believing himself immortal, goes for his pillaging mission. Actually, he reasoned between himself that the Greek should not have produced any more Archer in so few turns, so he takes his chance.

IT
Rome: Worker - Archer (just to set it to something)

Turn 9 - 2150 BCAD
Tiberius does pillage that very tile he meant to on his first turn, having murdered two Archers and a Warrior in the meantime :clap:

Workers are finally in position to work a new tile :blush:

I thought I would leave it here to round up the number of turns, but I want to see if Tiberius makes it back to the mountains.

IT
No, he doesn't. An Archer kills him.

Turn 10 - 1250 BC
Nothing. I changed the Archer to Spearman in case we want to send another harassing unit to fortify in the Greek mountains. That seems to be distracting them quite a bit.

Notes

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3-2110BC.jpg

Hail Tiberius! I think we should commission a statute in Rome. Seriously, that harassing tactic certainly did pay off. Not only did Tiberius kill their units, he also kept them away from Rome. We really needed that as the war came a bit too early and while we were underdeveloped.

Perhaps we should concentrate on Archers for awhile as we want to try to eliminate the Greeks as soon as possible. In about 10 turns we have to declare war on any other civ we meet, so the sooner we can get rid of Greece, the better.

3-1 Kill rate and additional pillaging! Well done, Karasu!
We could repair the 'cxxc' pattern later if we settle W,W,NW of Rome. I dunno what that'll mean for our RCP, but I'm sure someone is gonna tell me. ;)

Looks good to me! :D

The other benefit is the shields that greece has wasted on producing the archers and warriors.

Ainwood: Was it a 'got it'? :D

:D

Have now ;)

Anyone want to throw a few suggestions in the air?

What about settle W,W,NW of Rome? It's wet, has a game, and it gets us easy defense sharing (when we've roaded the hills). We need another worker, since we're not allowed to use slaves we'll need to build them all ourselves. One of the little extra's that will make this variant so hard to win.

Having a unit in Greek territory kills their game stone dead. They cannot work the land. This is IMO the most important thing. Pillaging is nice, but a couple of warriors forted on well selcted mountains will keep their workers AND settlers at home. They will pop rush archers to get rid of them. They will commit national suicide. Lets send another unit that way. It's an eye opener for me.

Having a unit in Greek territory kills their game stone dead. They cannot work the land. This is IMO the most important thing. Pillaging is nice, but a couple of warriors forted on well selcted mountains will keep their workers AND settlers at home. They will pop rush archers to get rid of them. They will commit national suicide. Lets send another unit that way. It's an eye opener for me.
I like that idea. Also, we should avoid sending any units N as we want to delay meeting other civs as long as possible. I met the Greeks on turn 18. Then M-B took his 10 turns and Karasu took his. Therefore, it has been more than 20 turns since we declared war on the Greeks. If we meet anyone else we will have to declare war immediately and be fighting on 2 fronts.

If we do build another Settler I would vote for it to be on the hill to the west of the irrigated deer. It is on ring 4 and will immediately be roaded to the other cities.

Yes, the harassing unit was an eye-opener for me too. It is amazing how it kept their game stalled! In this regard, it was probably a mistake to risk it (and loose it) it on the pillaging -even though that means 9 worker turns, 1spt and 1gpt lost to them.

I was really troubled by Veii's location. RCP 4 seemed in the end the best compromise between easy unit movement, access to bonus resources and buildup of a well-developed core around Rome (assuming we are not going to expand significantly for a while).
Zagnut's next city site is one of the two I had in mind too, the other being the hill 2 SW of Veii: it is at RCP 4, on a hill, along a river. It will have access to the westernmost Game if we build a second-ring city farther downstream (say, RCP 6) or if it builds a Temple. It is also good that workers won't have to travel around to improve our territory.
Then we have the Cow 3 S, which seems a good place (if the water is not sea).

Another totally useless suggestion that I can give is that we research The Wheel as soon as IW is known, hoping to find horses nearby.

Pillaging the Greeks is necessary IMO. But I think we now have a method of keeping the Greeks quiet and dealing with them later.

Building at RCP4 is more aggressive, improves our power rating quicker, and makes this core more productive long term.

As for research... I cannot comment because I know too much. Things to consider would be whether or not we would use our first leader for the Pyramids, which will require masonry, how soon will we need cats and therefore maths, whether we can trade 2nd and third tier techs for first and second tier techs, and whether we will go for a mass warrior upgrade, which will require gold. 500g for a dozen Legionaries. I'm not trying to influence, and I don't know the best answer.

Your turns were beautifully played as I would expect Karasu. :goodjob:

OT: Are you making another young lady pay for lunch today? :mischief:

She was not a young lady, although she does have a charming personality.
I actually managed to drop her in the capable hands of a colleague of mine, so I should be meetings-free *at least* until tomorrow ;)

I thinks the dependency on cats will be linked to us having Iron or not, if not, yeah we'll need cats soon otherwise it can be postponed for a bit. A dozen Legionaires is a dozen Warriors too. Acquiring gold will be hard if we meet a too small amount of AI. Goody huts will be too far away to be any use, normally they would be a good source of income at this stage.

If the map is at all like the original then after MM this could change...

She was not a young lady, although she does have a charming personality.


Anything above half-your-age + seven years is fair game, so I figure that give you free license on anyone 22 to 50! :lol:

Re harrasment: A spearman may be the better option than a warrior. Given that the AI will attack immediate threats rather than our cities, we only need it in one place. :)

Weeeeell... I won't say here what *my* age requirements are for a lady to be fair game :D -let's just say that they are somewhat more relaxed :mischief:
Although I must say that at times I have had the subtle feeling the 'game' was not really the lady :hmm:

In this case, however, we enjoyed a purely professional relationship -And she did pay for her lunch :D

Ainwood: Do you need a skip? Space might be able to squeeze in a set before her holiday. :)

Nope - played it just now!

As found:

All looks good. Will concentate on getting spearman over to harass the greeks. Needed for happiness at the moment.
MM Rome so that we won't waste food, and <should> be able to reduce spearman to 2 turns (incl. shields from exta citizen on growth). If I wait until next turn to adjust rates, then bonus citizen will go on irrigated wheat, and we won't get the shields.

Turn 1: 2070 BC
MM Rome to get growth / spearman next turn (remove wasted food surplus)
Move worker to start roading wines. Will take a few turns, but we are wasting at lest 1GPT on luxuries, and this will gain us an extra commerce as well. Still have two workers for Veii.
Drop tax back by 10%: Will still get IW in 4, but now make an extra 1 GPT.

Turn 2: 2030 BC
Rome builds spearman ("Decoyus Targetus"). Starts settler.
Adjust luxuries to 20% to prevent riots

Turn 3: 1990 BC
Veii Connected. Cost of IW has dropped - we get it next turn! (presume this means Greece has it)
Drop tax back to make +7 GPT.
Start mining BG in Veii. Spearman off down hill range.

Turn 4: 1950 BC
Veii finishes barracks - it has iron one square outside the boundary! Rome has iron IN the boundary!
Veii starts spearman.
Spearman moves down hills and encouters fortified hoplite & warrior on a mountain. :(
Tempted to research the wheel, but since we have iron I decide to go for masonry in 15 at 0 GPT.

Turn 5: 1910 BC
Rome grows - need luxs up or can't finish settler next turn. Hoplite fortifies, so will risk bypassing it.

Turn 6: 1870 BC
Settler finished. Will settler to north-east. Little difference in masonry in 15 at +1 or masonry in 14 at +0, so go for former.
Priority is getting iron hooked-up, so send workers thataway! Hoplite / warrior still fortified. Rome starts another warrior (happiness), ans can use spear for defense on mountains and of workers. On second thoughts - with growth a warrior in two wastes a lot of shields (6). Go for spearman in 3, with loss of only 2 shields.

Turn 7: 1830 BC:
Hoplite and warrior advance, and archer appears on plains! Move cinncinitus out to protect workers.

Turn 8: 1790 BC:
Hoplite and warrior fortify. A second archer appears. Wines connected.
Bad news: An orange scout is seen. :( I won't contact it.
Found Legendary City to get 2xBG, river and game. Send workers off to connect to it, and keep them away from the greeks! Decoyus Targetus carries on towards athens. Cincinittus fortifies on hills.

Turn 9: 1750 BC:
Scout moves-on with no contact. :D
Archers move in, and hoplite moves to protect.
Rome completes spearman, starts archer. Move out to stack with other spearman - if archers move towards rome, then it can retret to defend. If they attack spearman, then a wounding will leave a fresh defender.
Decoyus finds hoplite / settler pair leaving athens. Hopfully he will freeze them...

Turn 10: 1725 BC:
Archer and stack march on rome. Retreat both spearmen.
Veii spearmen - spearmen.
Hoplite & settler not deterred. Move next to athens.
Greeks may be headed towards the (undefended) Legendary city. Spearman from Veii can cut bat them there, but I switch to spearman anyway - we can always change back!

>>Save<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC1725_01.SAV)

Hopefully these archers will hurt themselves on our defence quickly, and we can get back to expanding again. :(

Good news about the Iron! I'll try to play tonight (in about 8 hours), but I can't promiss anything. Post any thoughts, advice, do-s or don't-s before that, plz.

How many turns have passed since we met the Greeks? I suppose we have to declare the orange (English?) tribe during my turns.

The turn you make contact you will have to declare. Good luck and have fun!

Good turns ainwood.

What are we going to do about our GA.?

Wisely played :goodjob:

Now the oranjes too... our agenda is going to get busy... ;)

I don't know about the GA. As things are, it looks like we *may* stall the Greeks without using Legionaries, but not defeat them.
We may consider a more offensive approach with the other ones, again with Archers only -but both approaches appear rather weak. We may actually have to build a few Legions, swallow our GA and try to improve our warring chances. Not sure, though.

Without contacts we delay war, but we fall behind in the tech race. So the choice is between war later but a delay until getting to monarchy, or a faster tech rate with the risk of a dogpile we can't handle.

If we delay monarchy, then our legions may be facing muskets. :(
If we make all the contacts then we will need a huge kill ratio :(

:D

Without contacts we delay war, but we fall behind in the tech race. So the choice is between war later but a delay until getting to monarchy, or a faster tech rate with the risk of a dogpile we can't handle.

If we delay monarchy, then our legions may be facing muskets. :(
If we make all the contacts then we will need a huge kill ratio
What good news :(

Aren't we going to fall behind in the tech race no matter what we do? At this point we can only trade once with the civs we meet and then have to declare war. If we meet a lot of civs then we don't have to declare war right away but have a big trading disadvantage because we can't haggle. It seems to me that we should plan to build techs ourselves and if we get some in trade, so much the better. I thought we were going to develop a strong core, not only for defense, but also to be able to research our own techs.

On the issue of our GA, I don't see how we can possibly get to Monarchy before triggering it. We need to build Legionaires for both offense and defense. It seems to me that we should just accept the inevitable and charge ahead.

I've opened the save. Looking around the F screens I found: the orange are indeed the English (start with Alphabet and Construction). The French (Alphabet and Pottery) appear in the screens as well. Both are building the Oracle, which means they both know of Mysticism (2-tier).

Our kitty is almost empty, and the only 2-tier tech we know IW, which I guess we do not want to sell. Soooo... what do you think, contact or not? According to the power screen they are perfectly balanced and both ahead of us and the Greeks.

It doesn't seem as if we will have any trading opportunity if we meet England or France. With only IW, which they probably already have, and with no money we have nothing to trade.

I would recommend we delay meeting them. In the interim we should build up our military and our gold. If possible keep one city producing Settlers.

We'll need to produce as many defenders as we do settlers, but I know the importance of (rapid) growth. :) Maybe it's good we don't have too much, this hopefully will keep the AI from starting negotiations themselves.

pre-turn
MM legendary city to steal the deer that Rome doesn't need to grow this turn.
Check the F screen and stop to ask diplo advice. I agree that we don't have much to gain by contact and will refrain from making it.
Press enter.

IT:
The two Archers and the warrior die attacking Rome. 1 Spear promotes and wins again, another notch on the Elite win tally.
The other Spear is redlined.
The Hoplite moves onto the Wines and will pillage is since the Archer will only be ready the turn after the next. :(

turn 1 - 1700BC
We can return the lux-pillage favour, so I move the Spear near Athens.
Pre-emptively employ a taxman. :sad: I prefer it over the lux slider because of the need for masonry and money. And we can't afford Rome to grow anyway.
The workers road first, will mine next turn.

IT:
Sure enough the Wine gets pillaged. :( And Greece founds Thermopylae.
Rome Archer -> Settler

turn 2 - 1675BC
Decide to leave the Hoplite until he steps from the hills.
Decoyus Tergettus moves on the Suffimentum.

IT:
The Hoplite moves away, the Archer and Elite Spear follow.

turn 3 - 1650BC
Pillage the Greek Incence.
Both 'city and Veii will gro next turn with no loss of food.
Move back the science slider to make a bit of a profit for no loss of turns (Masonry in 3).

IT:
The english scout moves in sight again.
The Hoplite moves onto the mountains.

turn 4 - 1625BC
Switch the Spear build in 'city to Granery as a placeholder, we might switch to Walls or Settler depending on the situation.
Decoy moves onto a mined grass, as I think he's no unit save the Hoplite in Athens.

IT:
Veii completes its Spear, and starts another.

turn 5 - 1600BC
Decoy pillages succesfully.

IT:
A Hoplite arrives to protect the other mined grass.
Masonry is in, start Math.

turn 6 - 1575BC
Switch 'city to Rax, since it already has too many for a wall. :blush:
I have to leave it there, guys. I really must get packing. :o

And the save is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC1575_01.SAV)

Thanks, space. I will take it from there. Have a nice trip.

Should I finish Space's 4 turns and then take my 10, or should I just take 10 from 1575?

We're a turn off-cycle anyway. Doesn't worry me how many you take. Perhaps 13, 14 or 15 to get us back on-cycle?

From AlanH's post in the maintenance thread:

These are the turn numbers taken from the save files and reported in the SGOTM upload lists and graphs:

Turn 0 => 4000 BC then 50 years per turn until ...
Turn 25 => 2750 BC then 40 years per turn until ...
Turn 50 => 1750 BC then 25 years per turn until ...
Turn 90 => 750 BC then 20 years per turn until ...
Turn 140 => 250 AD then 10 years per turn until ...
Turn 240 => 1250 AD then 5 years per turn until ...
Turn 340 => 1750 AD then 2 years per turn until ...
Turn 440 => 1950 AD then 1 year per turn until ...
Turn 540 => 2050 AD

SG change-overs:

Turn 0 => 4000 BC
Turn 20 => 3000 BC
Turn 30 => 2550 BC
Turn 40 => 2150 BC
Turn 50 => 1750 BC then every 250 years until ...
Turn 90 => 750 BC then every 200 years until ...
Turn 140 => 250 AD then every 100 years until ...
Turn 240 => 1250 AD then every 50 years until ...
Turn 340 => 1750 AD then every 20 years until ...
Turn 440 => 1950 AD then every 10 years until ...
Turn 540 => 2050 AD

So I will play until 1250 to get us back on the proper turn cycle.

I thought I would try my hand at a dot map for establishing cities. Do you agree with the location and order?

If we can keep Greece from expanding by scaring them with spearmen, then I wonder if 3 should not be first? That is where greece are looking to expand. I guess if we have to raze their cities anyway, its not a big issue, and possibly not expanding that way is the better option, so that greece will head for the better-defended cities.

5 is poor produciton-wise, but excellent defensively. I think that's where the english came from, so perhaps thats a good one to grab early?

Weighing it all up, perhaps 1 then 2 for production gains, then reassess. Depending on what the english and greeks are doing (or even other civs), then we might want to tweak the order a bit.

1 in particular is a great spot for the productivity in the mid game.

OK, I will play in about 12 hours.

Yuk, this is really getting complicated. I wonder who came out with this idea for a variant... :mischief:

On the settling order, I agree with 1 and 2 first (I had considered 2 for Veii actually), but they will need a few dedicated workers.

3 and 4 may be good to stop the Greeks from entering our core, then 5 to close the ring. 5 could indeed be founded earlier, having also some access to our 'main tile improvement area'; but it is as easy to defend as subject to pillaging with all those hills and mountains around. So, yes, we will certainly have to reassess the situation.

I am also starting to believe tha we definitely have to use our GA for some kind of offensive. But there will be time to discuss that too -the original purpose of this post was in fact simply to tell Zagnut and Mad to take their time, I won't be able to take this game before Monday or Tuesday at the earliest... :D

It is getting complicated. We will soon have to go to war with another civ and that will be difficult. But, hey, it's only the AI we are fighting.

It did take a long time for the english scout to appear. They might be far enough away that a war is no big deal anyway - we can just harras and ignore them. :)

For Mad-Bax (or anyone who is sure they know the answer):

I am playing the game now. On the second turn the English contacted me and wanted to trade their TM for our TM plus 9 gold. I am going to accept that because we want to know where they are if we are going to war with them. I realize that before I close the diplomacy screen I must declare war on them. However, if I accept their initial offer can I still offer tech trades with them. I think I can, but don't want to run afoul of the rules so early in my turn. I understand I cannot haggle with them over terms of trade, but I want to make sure that I am not limited to just one trade offer before I have to declare war.

Yes you can trade zagnut. What can we get?

We can get nothing. They have Ceremonial Burial, Wheel and Writing. They will trade nothing because we only have 3 gold to trade. Plus they have contact with Babylon, Russia, Germany and America.

Back to the game.

Crumbs. I hope all those other civs are overseas....

I finished Space's turn and played until 1250 BC. The saved game is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC1250_01.SAV). A picture of the current map is at the end of this post.

Take game, no changes.

IT - Hoplites move into Thermopylae and Athens. That means there are now 2 Hoplites in each. English Scout moves S into the fog.

1550 - Legendary builds Barracks. Start Warrior. Rome builds Settler send him S to the cow, escorted by a Spearman. MM Rome. Leave production on Settler.

IT - Archer leaves Athens and moves toward Rome.

1525 - England comes to trade. They want TM for TM and 9 gold. I give it to them as I want to know where they are located if I have to declare war on them. They are located to the NW of us. They also have Ceremonial Burial, Wheel and Writing but will not trade anything. Probably because we only have 3 gold.

Workers complete road to Wines. Go to Iron to road. I decide to reduce science to 50% so that we can build up our treasury. We will not be able to upgrade any Warriors when the Iron is connected because we have very little gold.

IT - zzzz

1500 - Spearman built in Veii. Start Archer. Send Warrior to the hills to scout for English units coming from the NW. Decoyus Targetus at Athens moves onto mined road. Hopes to pillage next turn. MM Rome and Legendary to grow both in one turn.

IT - Archer heading for Rome turns around and moves back to Athens, presumably to attack Decoyus. At same time another Archer comes out of Sparta and lands on the square next to Decoyus.

1475 - Turn 1 - The question is: should Decoyus attack the Archer or pillage the mine/road and wait for the Archer to attack next turn? My combat calculator tells me that if he attacks he has a 61/39 chance of winning. If he pillages and waits for the Archer to attack he has a 70/30 chance of surviving. I decide to pillage and defend.

Found Cumae on the coast, next to the cow. Rome grows to pop 5. Use tax collector instead of increasing luxuries in order to keep gold at 4/turn. New Settler in 2.

IT - Decoyus survives and only loses one hp to the Archer. Rome goes into unrest. I thought I had set it up so that would not happen, but I guess not. Iron is connected.

1450 - Workers to BG to road toward Cumae. Switch production in Legendary and Veii to Legionary. Decoyus retreats to hill and sees more pillaging opportunities at Sparta.

IT - I am sorry to report that Decoyus, on a hill, with 3 of his 4 hit points, was killed by an Archer. Another Greek Archer starts heading toward Rome.

1425 - Turn 3 - 2 Warriors now in place on hills to NW to scout for the English.

IT - France contacts us and wants to trade her TM for our TM and 16 gold, which is all we have. I decline in order to preserve our gold. France also has the same techs and contacts as England. Will not trade any techs.

1400 - Turn 4 - Settler built in Rome. Send him to city location #2. Reduce luxuries to zero. Greek Archer moves from mountains to forest on his way to Rome. I attack with a veteran Archer and kill him without loss of hit points.

IT - zzzz

1375 - The Archer and Spearman pair that have been scouting the Greeks split up. The Archer goes back to his mountain and the Spearman continues on toward Sparta to take up Decoyus’ pillaging. Veii increases to pop 4. Put tax man into business to stop unrest.

IT - 2 Archers appear around Thermopylae.

1350 - Settler arrives at city location #2. Legionary produced at Veii. Start Settler. Vet Archer attacks Regular Archer and loses. Now that Archer has an open path to Rome. Fortunately, the Legionary will be there first. Spearman advancing on Sparta sees another Archer. That makes 3 headed toward Rome, but they are far away. Warrior in Cumae, Start Worker.

IT - Yet another Archer headed toward Rome. That makes 4.

1325 - Turn 7 - Legionary built in Legendary and sent toward the Greeks.

IT - zzz
1300 - Turn 8 - Legionary arrives at mountain on path that Greek Archers are taking toward Rome. The Legionary will fortify and wait for the Archers to get closer and attack them when they are on the plains or grassland. Spearman in Greek territory sees no further development around Athens which is still at pop 1. There are many developed squares around Sparta.

IT - The 4 Greek Archers are now all in view.

1275 - Turn 9 - Opposing the Archers are 3 Legionaries on a mountain. They will wait for the Archers to advance so that they do not have to attack on hills or mountains or across a river.

Legendary increases pop to 4. Increase luxuries to 20%. Still do not have enough money to upgrade a Warrior to Legionary.

IT - America visits us on the diplomacy screen. Lincoln offers Ceremonial Burial for 38 gold, which is all we have. I agree because that will start us on the road to Monarchy. He also has the Wheel, Mysticism, Mathematics and Writing, but will trade none of them. I also notice that maps are available. He will also not sell either of his maps.

The English complete the Oracle. Another Archer leaves Sparta for Rome. 2 of the Archers advancing on Rome move onto plains, but the Legions would have to attack across a river. While this would probably result in a victory for the Legions, I decide to wait one more turn when they will be on plains with no river in between.

1250 - Turn 10 - Neapolis is connected to our road system. Worker completed in Cumae and moved to the cow. Barracks started.

I visit France on the diplomacy screen to see if she will trade maps, but she will not. It’s a bummer to have no gold. The diplomacy screen also shows us the Babylonians. I do not contact them.

Here are my notes for you, Mad:
1. I expect the 2 Archers on the Wheat to move to the NW onto the plains square. They should then be attacked by the Legions before they can move onto the hills.
2. The other 2 Archers will probably move onto the grassland, but may move onto the Wheat. Either way one can be killed and the other taken care of the following turn.
3. The Warrior in Rome could be sent NE to the mountains to see what is on the other side, since we have met 2 other civs already and know of the existence of Babylon.
4. The 2 Warriors acting as scouts to the NW have seen no sign of the English.
5. The replacement for Decoyus is on a mountain near Sparta and in place to pillage their Incense and Mine. The Archer is moving away from him toward Rome.
6. Once the Greek Archers are destroyed (hopefully) you can use the Legionaries to move on the Greek cities. I believe Thermopylae is defended by 2 Hoplites. All of the Greek cities seem to only be producing Archers at present.
7. You may want to switch the production in Legendary and Veii to Settlers. If you do we could produce 3 Settlers in 4 more turns and complete the circle of towns on ring 4.

Looks good! We have got a few cities, so at least our golden-age will be reasonably productive.

Should we consider hooking-up the spices fairly quickly? Unfortunately that will mean a city over there or a colony (preferably the former), but it will help the happiness, and mean more money / more points.

I presume we are at war with the english. When do we have to declare war on the others? Are they far away?

We are at war with the English. They are to the NW of us, fairly far away, with some jungle in between. Since declaring war in 1525 we have heard nothing from them. The scouts to the NW have seen no English units. However, I would expect to see some fairly soon. One of my suggestions to Mad-Bax was to switch Veii and Legendary to Settlers. I think at least one of them should keep producing Legionaries for the expected English attack.

We met France in 1400 and America in 1250. We do not know where either one is located. According to my calculations we have to declare war on France by 900 BC and America by 750 BC.

I think connecting the spices is a good idea. We certainly need more money. I think continuing to build the core is important. Even now we are reasonably productive in our ability to produce Legionaries. We will need a lot of them to fight a 2 or 3 front war. I don't think we should think about expanding too far until we are able to eliminate the closest other civs.

Yep. :)

In the early game, fighting a 'war' against distant civs shouldn't be too much of a problem. If we can get rid of greece fairly painlessly fairly quickly, I think it will make life mcuh easier!

OK I will play over the next two evenings. Once again I find myself away from home, only this time I travel with my executive director who will no doubt require entertainment in the evenings. :(

I haven't openend the save yet.

As I see it, my instructions are to connect the spices, develop the core, and begin to put a stack together to deal with the Greeks.

How are we going to cope with our tech situation?

I'm back from a very wet weekend on the mountains -but you should have seen the mist rising from the valley floors coloured in red at sunset under a grey sky... :D

Very well played, Zagnut. I think we cannot delay our GA any longer. Pity we have to face 3-defense units, and we cannot keep the Greek cities... but I agree that we need to get rid of them as soon as possible.
I would probably leave both Veii and Legendary on legionaries, as the ones we have won't probably be enough to wipe the greeks. After the next couple of cities, we can focus on improving tiles for a while.

Techwise, it's a mess... The Great Library comes to mind as a Great Shortcut, but it won't be easy to make it to Literature. We may even stop research in order to amass enough money to buy the next few techs?

Techwise, it's a mess... The Great Library comes to mind as a Great Shortcut, but it won't be easy to make it to Literature. We may even stop research in order to amass enough money to buy the next few techs?
It seems that the tech race is the biggest problem we face at the present time. Turning off research will certainly enable us to accumulate more money and will probably enable us to buy some techs, so I would be willing to try it.

The Great Library also seems to be the answer. Let's go for it.

Then we need a pre-build, and a way of cutting off the wonder cascade. I'll give it some thought.

I think we need to take a few risks, and expand a little quicker. I too think we cannot delay the GA.

When I decided on this variant it was not my intention to play, otherwise it may have been a little easier. :p

Now that we have Legionaries we can afford to go on the offensive. While the Greeks have a good defender, the other civs do not. If we are able to take out Greece fairly quickly we might be able to "roll up" the other nearby civs.

This is just a bump to let everyone know I'm playing. Unfortunately I am babysitting my executive director in Paris, and rather like an SUV being unable to pass a gas station, he seems to have the same problem with bars.

Just as a flavour, our GA has been triggered, and was unavoidable, literature is widely known and without some serious trading and a leader we won't get the Library, and Liz has shown up in bigger numbers than I anticipated. I think it will probably get more difficult before it gets easier. 4 elite victories so far without a GL, but no units lost yet.

I think we may have to risk a higher rate of settler production to allow more units and research. The number of units we look like needing will kill our research anytime soon.

The folks here at home are behind you 100%.

That is, the folks here at home and your executive director... :p

(0) 1250BC: Pre-turn
I think the GA is unavoidable, but try not to trigger it yet.
Change Legendary to granary. With both game irrigated this will be a good settler factory.
Change Neapolis to barracks. Building units withour a rax is not good IMO. Outer ring cities can build cats w/o barracks later.

IBT:
Oh dear. The English arrive to our north. 3 warriors only, but more will follow. The fortified warrior will not survive, so I will retreat him.

The French start the Library. So we won't be able to build that either.

(1) 1225BC:
Kill three of the four Greek archers and trigger the GA. :(

IBT:
More English Warriors appear. Veii is under threat - but not critical. Opt to defend since rate will be better.

(2) 1200BC:
Kill remaining archer with elite legion. Another greek archer appears.

(3) 1175BC:
Send new settler to the wheat. It's the best visible tile, albeit risky.

(4) 1150BC:
Kill a greek archer and an English warrior.

IBT:
Babylon call up, and demand tmap and 21g. I'll refuse, since a few turns either way in DoW doesn't concern me and anyway, I'm having a bad day.
Hman backs down. Which means we haven't officially made contact yet.
Two English warriors suicide against Veii.
Learn mathematics research currency. It is our only chance to get something to trade. Can be vetoed.

(5) 1125BC:
Found Pompeii - rax (maybe not, we'll see).

(6) 1100BC:
Kill another two English warriors and another Greek Archer. Where are they all coming from?

(7) 1075BC:
With our eleventh elite victory Trajan arises from the ashes to lead us. I know you can't tell from the tunlog, but I have killed 8 English units and 7 greek units, nearly all with just two elite Legionaries. Ahem - I vote for the pyramids. Assuming we agree, I switch Legendary from granary to temple so as not to waste the shields completely.

(8) 1050BC:
All quiet.

(9) 1025BC:
Still quiet

(10) 1000BC:
Almost boring.

For the next player.
Trajan is still active in Rome. We can build the pyramids and sell the granary in Rome. Or we can be greedy, create a legionary army, build HE and hope for lots of leaders. We could also build the Colossus I suppose but I doubt that is a consideration.

A couple of greek archers are slipping into our SE quadrant. There is a spear covering the worker there. This worker is cutting the trees and then irrigating to allow the cattle to be irrigated.

There is a settler heading up north. I've renamed him to where I think he should go, which is at RCP6, on the hill by the river.

Legendary is being set up as a four turn settler factory. By irrigating the other game we can share the middle game with Rome and get another settler every 6 turns out of Rome I think.

We are beginning to feel the need for more workers, but ATM I think we should just peel the odd worker from towns here and there, and try to keep populations fairly even in our cities.

There are some tribes in F4. We have nothing to offer them in trade otherwise we would have been contacted. But maybe we can get to currency quickly enough to be able to make some trades. We need to get to Monarchy ASAP IMO.

There are two elite and two vet Legionaries outside Thermopylae. It is defended by 2 Hoplites I think.

The Spearman in the Greek core is doing a wonderful job just wandering up and down the mountain range. Being a spear means that the pop rushed archers are not attacking him. :( but otherwise it goes to plan.

There is an English warrior to whack in the north, may get the Legionary promoted. IMO we need to promote Legionaries and fish for leaders like mad. Next leader for army as a city breaker and for HE. We need a leader for the GL and the FP too.

Good luck and have fun! :)

Sorry for the lack of screenies and such, but I am under scrutiny at the moment. Hopefully someone else can do the honours.

I can't do any screenshots at the moment, but it sounds as if you have set us up nicely for the future. It seems our best shot is to use our strong Legionaries to take out as many enemy units as possible. If we can somehow trade for Literature, then we should be able to get the Great Library from a Leader.

I have a feeling we may be behind the other teams at this point, but we also seem to be on the verge of really taking off and becoming an offensive powerhouse. We have a strong, productive core and strong units.

I would estimate we have around 20 turns within which to get literature and a leader. We only have two elite Legionaries ATM and one of those is asterisked. We produced a settler last turn and another on the next turn, and with the pyramids our score gradient should change. We should be able to produce the equivalent of a settler every other turn soon. I think we should do this even if we can't place them immediately. We cannot keep cities, so eventually we will need a shed load of them to backfill.

I think we are set up to play a powerful game too. The only fly in the ointment is tech ATM.

Wonderful job, Mad. If I were your CEO, I'd be proud of you... ;)

And it really looks like we are through the hard set-up part. If we remove Greece from our back, we can safely expand and only care about one front. That would be another step towards taking control of the game.

Getting the Pyramids is always a good idea, but an army at this stage is also very tempting. I was about to write that I favour the wonder, but I am not very sure actually.
The Great Library is indeed another temptation, but we can only hope to get another leader in time -freezing this one would make no sense.

So, my goals are:
- obliterate Greece
- cover the world with roman cities
- use the great leader for... what?
- Produce another couple Great Leaders

For me the Pyramids are preferable. Doubling our rate of population growth doubles the rate at which our economy and industry grows. It outweighs an army IMO. Let's build a pike and a knight army in 40 turns. :)

Agree.
BTW, I got it of course.

Remember to declare war on France next turn Karasu. :)

You did well to remind me. I wouldn't remember on my own... :D
That was France by 900 BC and America by 750BC, wasn't it?

Yes.. France BEFORE 900BC. 900BC is turn 21.

Great stuff! :D

As a random thought, what would happen if we sent a legionary down to join decoyus' replacement? Might draw out a few more suicide attacks and let us get on with our expansion. However, if we are taking thermopylae, then perhaps it is just best ignored as we can then wipe-out greece. What terrain is Athens on? Hills? Seeing as they have a fairly crappy core, perhaps just containment is the best option - keep them confined to the crappy terrain so that the expansion is slow. Rather than have a potentially expensive war against the greeks, why not maintain a peace-keeping force and concentrate on the english? We can wait until Knights to take the greeks.

The pyramids sounds like a good idea - we have some good productive land, but I think that the growth spurt needs to be balanced with getting the spices hooked-up. With 2.5 settlers / 6 turns, then I think we can afford to waste one. Perhaps once the granary is going a worker factor is a good idea too?

I think that between them, Rome and Legendary can make all the settlers and workers we need for a good while. with only two luxes in the part of the world that we can see, it may be necessary to keep populations down in other towns so that the lux slider is at 0. This is why I suggested peeling workers off all towns. If we can get more luxes then it is obviously more efficient to dedicate production somewhere.

I swapped the granary in legendary for a temple which is now built, assuming we would build the pyramids. If we do not rush pyramids, then obviously a granary must be built. There is another game tile and the cattle tile in our core remember. Lots of bonus food actually.

Killing hoplites will be expensive. We have England, france, america and babylon as possible expansion targets and it is likely that an offensive against these would be more efficient and quicker. Containing Greece until Cavalry even would not be a bad idea IMO. I wish I had thought of it in playtesting actually :blush:

Thermopylae needs to go though, if it hasn't already, and of course our asterisked legionary can join the spear in the Greek core. They will not be able to release a settler - ever.

Containing Greece is a good idea. I haven't had a chance to even start Civ yesterday evening -how far is England for a Legionary expedition on them?

We don't know. We have only explored 100 of the 5000 tiles on the map. :p

How many turns did it take for the warriors to arrive after the declaration of war?

They arrived on the first turn of MBs, and Zagnut declared war on his second turn of his stint (and he got the terrotory map apparently, so you can stop being coy, MB ;)) A rough count is 11 turns, so they're fairly close. :)

Edit: About 20 tiles - we might want to road it. :)

Pre-turn
Move Trajan to Legendary, which is completing a Settler. Pyramids next turn.
I must remember the war declarations: France before 900, America before 750 BC.

Ops. I almost checked the other Civs in the diplo screen... :D
Ok, then. Not much to do. Let's go.

The Greek Archers are marching back towards Thermopylae. I agree that Thermopylae must go. Let's hope it doesn't cost us too much.

Legendary builds settler. Pyramids

Turn 1 - 975 BC
Trajan makes a gesture and voilà, the Pyramids are built in less than 25 years.
The Settler moves towards the Spices.
Madus-Baxus and a Veteran Legion approach Thermopylae, while the other elite steps back towards Pompeii to intercept the two Archers together with Gazpachoandalus from Cumae, just in case the two have something silly in their mind.
As soon as I have four-five Legionaries, I will assemble a small expedition towards England.

IT
Pompeii: Armamentarium - Spearman (waiting to be connected)

The two Archers do have something silly in their minds and proceed towards Pompeii.

Turn 2 - 950 BC
Gazpachoandalus kills his archer, loosing two hps. No promotion.
Elite Legionary kills the second Greek Archer outside Pompeii, unscathed. No leader (not that I *really* expected it; still... :D ).
Caligula kills English warrior, looses 1 hp. No promotion.

Thermopylae. You know what, I have been there...
Madus-Baxus kills Hoplite, is redlined.
Veteran Legionary dies against second Hoplite, but redlines it.
Veteran Legionary kills redlined Hoplite and burns Thermopylae to ashes.

Cincinnatus walks along mountain tracks in Greece between Athens and Sparta. So it must be the Peloponnesos... Wonderful landscape.

IT
Rome: Legionary - Settler
Cumae: Legionary - Legionary

A Hoplite sneaks out of Athens, moving towards us.
It is true that a war with Greece now will be painful with all those Hoplites, but let us hope they don't start using them to pillage us...

Turn 3 - 925 BC
Aquileia founded. Armamentarium. Guess what, Civ wanted to call it Pisae... :rolleyes:

Ok. It is still 'before' 900 BC, but we can't wait any longer. I knock at Joan's door and try to extort her something. No way. It's war then (not that it would have been any different, as she should know if she took care to read about this variant...).

IT
The Hoplite keeps on marching towards us.

Turn 4 - 900 BC
Found Ravenna on the Spices. Armamentarium, of course.

IT
Veii, Neapolis: Legionari - Legionary
Our populus wants the Forbidden Palace. Already.

Turn 5 - 875 BC
A small Legion is being assembled in Veii.

IT
Rome: Settler - Legionary

Turn 6 - 850 BC
Caligula spots a Spearman - Warrior English pair approaching Aquileia from the north. He moves to intercept them together with Caius Detritus.

We can afford 0 luxury this turn.

IT
Legendary: Settler - Settler

Turn 7 - 825 BC
Caligula kills the English warrior, and still does not promote. The Spearman has taken another direction, strange.
Bad news: a French warrior appears from the north.

IT
Pompeii: Spearman - Worker
The babylonians have started the Great Library.
The greek hoplite has reached our border. An archer will follow.

Turn 8 - 800 BC
Hispalis founded to close our first ring.

IT

Turn 9 - 775 BC
Spices are connected.
Lux to zero, research to 80%, Currency due in 3 at +3 gpt
I send the workers to improve between Veii and Aquileia

Our five-Legionary stack climbs down a hill into a forest and bumps into a French warrior. Things are getting crowded over here...

Oh, my. Next turn is 750 BC. I must declare on America!
I buy their territory map for WM + 15 gold -straight deal, no begging, no negotiating. They appear to be on our very continent, although somewhat to the north. I declare.

IT
Rome, Veii: Legionary - Worker
The hoplite has entered our territory. I prevented him from reaching our Iron, but I have to attack him now that he is in the open.
Our veteran Legion gets immediately redlined, than survives the fight -I almost didn't ;)

Turn 10 - 750 BC
The French warrior is left alone by our stack -he is moving towards Veii anyway, and Legions are waiting for him there. The stack itself keeps on moving.

A Settler has moved south of Cumae to grab those bonus grassland tiles without having to build a Temple.

Notes
There is some archer movements in Greece. I have planned to leave at least a Legion and a Spear in each city, but it would be wise to leave a few more Legionaries behind: I would expect to see at least three or four Archers coming our way, along with one or two Hoplites.

I also am starting to have the impression that our continent is somewhat more crowded than the original GOTM17 was... :hmm:

Currency is due soon. Assuming it will be good for trading, we are going to build up a nice queue of future war declarations this way... :ack:
Also assuming that we do the trade and get Mysticism out of it (which is quite likely, I believe), we should probably start Polytheism -both for its likely trading value and to get to Monarchy eventually.

There is a settler south of Cumae to grab those Bonus Grassland tiles. I haven't really thought of an optimal location -just 'around there'...

Now that I think of it, did I really have to declare war on America? Well, I didn't have internet connection yesterday night to check the variant rule, so to be on the safe side I did it. I mean, they are far away, and you won't complain for a little of extra challenge, will you? :D :D

Well, that was it for my SGOTM. I'll be on holidays for a few weeks and I really hope you win the game before I'm back.
I'll still be on the forum till Monday, though, if you want to throw rotten tomatoes at me... :p

Our world:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/SGOTM3.jpg

Looks pretty good to me. Probably can't play myself until tomorrow night. Any suggestions as to strategies? I was considering keeping Rome and Legendary on settlers, and the rest on legions. Contain greece; skirmish france and attack england. I don't think we have any more wars to declare, do we?

No, you don't have to declare in your turnset ainwood.

Because we can't keep any captured cities I think we have to keep a couple of settler factories going all the time. I think it will be the rate we can build settlers rather than the rate we can build military that will determine how long the game lasts.

As for who to attack... well Greece can wait. So I would just attack the nearest from the opponents we are at war with. Generating loads of empty space that we cannot backfill with towns could give us a problem though.

Good turns Karasu. Have a good holiday. :wavey:

<<Save>> (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC0550_01.sav)

Aims: Continue to expand, whilst containing the greeks and skirmishing the french. Attack english core if possible.

As found:
Decrease tax. Still currency in two, but get +7 GPT.
MM Rome for worker in one, growth in one.
Try to MM Legendary city for growth in two, settler in 2, but dones't look possible.
MM Cumae & Neapolis to complete Neo legionary in one.
Send madusBaxus off greek-hunting.
Hit enter....


Turn 1: 730 BC.
Rome worker -> Settler
Veii riots. Veii worker -> Legionary
Neapolis legion->legion.
Americans building Great Library.
France found Beasacon next to our legionary stack!
Various archers & warriors advance.
Reduce taxes further (currency next turn).


MM Legendary city again for settler next turn.
MadusBaxus will go harras the greeks.
Advance on beasacon with stack of legionaries, and find it has a cultural link north.
Ravenna is on second ring at distance 7. Decide next ring should be 7 as well, so move settler back towards Cumae.
Move spear onto hills near Veii, to block french warrios and make them attack legionary, or more likely go to plains after worker.

IT:
Golden age ends!
Cumae Legion - Legion
Germans start Great Lighthouse.
Berlin finishes colossus


Turn 2: 710 BC
French warrior destroyed by Veii.
Destroy another 3 warriors and an archer in destroying beasacon (and taking surrouonds). One elite ictory, no leader. Three vet victories, no promotions.
Looks like GA end stuffed-up currency. Make scientist in Cumae (to prevent riot), and with 0 tax it will take 3 turns for currency. We will need taxes at 10%, so go for taxman in Cumae instead.

IT
Bismark contacts us! He wants TM +21 gold for TM. I accept and find he is up near america (on our continent).
Discover currency, and decide we better make progress towards monarchy. I go for myst, and can have it in four at +10 GPT.
Greek archers have diverted towards MB on a mountain.
LC Settler -> legionary (let it grow past size 3).

Turn 3: 690 BC
Spy Chartres.
Fortify MB. Shadow two english spearman - will let them get on flat ground then attack.

IT
Catherine contacts us. Wants currency for wheel. I don't think I can open the table then ask her waht she wants for currency, so I turn her down.
Aquilea barracks -> Temple (not connected yet)
Ravenna barracks -> Legion
Greek archer were only feinting -> they march on towards pompeii (we have 3 legions and a spear to hold them off ;))

Turn 4: 670 BC
Found Coldus Lakius at distance 7.
Defeat english spear, no loss, no promotion.
increase luxuries to 10% so I can sack a few entertainers.
test the water:
Bismark will give us writing, the wheel, world map & 70 gold for currency. You betcha!
Catherine will give us literature & Philosophy & 2 gold. Done.
Seems we are on a busy little continent - babs here as well, but no contact yet.
There are silks within coo-eee.

Turn 5: 650 BC
Found Fishum Chips (worker)

Turn 6: 630 BC
Rome settler -> Legionary
Chartres destroyed. Worker sacrificed. No leader (elite victory).
Promotion defeating archers "threatening" pompeii.
Legendary City revert to Settler, ditto Rome.

IT:
Finish Myst, starty poly (10 turns, breaking even).
Veii Legion-> legion
Neapolis Legion-> Legion

Turn 7:
Two more victories over greek archers, no promotion, no leader.
Two french warriors dispatched, no promotions.
Advance on warwick.

IT

Turn 8: 590BC
Hispalis barracks -> legionary
Lose one legionary and two red-lined attacking warwick. Nasty troops are so annoyed that the raze warwick to the ground before I hae a chance to intervene. Not hat I would have stopped them ;)
Move to block greece hoplite from mountains near workers.

IT
French complete Great Library in Paris! That's only 7 days march from a stack of legionaries! :D
Russia starts great lighthouse,

Turn 9: 570 BC:
Destroy pesky french warrior and an english spearman. Troops regroup in ruins of Warwick.


IT
LC settler -> settler
Cumae riots :blush: Hire scientist (speeds poly by one)

Turn 10: 550 BC:
Lose legionary to annoying hoplite.
Elite legion beats english settler / spearman. No promotion.


Summary:
2 settlers, 7 workers, 14 legionarys. We have two legion battalions: One marching on Paris (5 turns away), the other regrouping in warwick (two turns min to heal, 4 turns to paris. Suggest we'll take paris in about 5-6-7 turns. It is size 8, so might be a bit tough.... Should kick-us up the tech tree quickly though.

One settler will settle where the warrior is fortified - settler is on 'goto', and will get there next turn. Other settler has legion escort, and is in final position at distance 7. We'll need a temple, and then we will have silks. Four workers are roading that way - will be slow going as its through mountains.
Greece aren't going anywhere.
France is #1, but is still attacking with reg archers despite having horses connected. Wiping out france will also give us access to gems.
Unfortunately we are #7 - only greece is behind us! However, we're easily #1 in power, and holding our own culture-wise.

Rethink: Doesn't matter about the GL, because we have to raze paris the minute we capture it -> can't even hold it for one-turn to catapult-up the tech tree. :(

Still, they are the logical next-choice to attack (to open-up the continent).

Rethink: Doesn't matter about the GL, because we have to raze paris the minute we capture it -> can't even hold it for one-turn to catapult-up the tech tree. :(

Still, they are the logical next-choice to attack (to open-up the continent).
That is bad luck. I had forgotten all about that. This is a tough variant. We have to do everything ourselves.

I haven't had an opportunity to look at your save. However, as MB said previously, we will need a lot of Settlers to fill in the blank space that results from all of these razed cities. That seems like a fairly important issue given that you have already razed Warwick and Besancon. It seems we should be pumping out Settlers at a fairly rapid pace.

Marvellous stuff ainwood!

Our rate of expansion is tied directly to the rate at which we can produce settlers. Laying waste to vast swathes of land that we cannot backfill is not the best policy IMHO. So now (so ably demonstrated by ainwood) that we have the ability to take out enemy cities it might be a good idea to set a rate of settler production to equal the rate of carnage :evil:

Just to reiterate.. I think it is the rate of settler production that will determine the speed of victory.

FWIW I have only played past this point with the variant once, and I did it as a 10CC basically, just to make sure I could get to steam, so I actually have no idea if the settler theory is valid or not.

I agree that Paris should go. Since The French are still in despotism, perhaps we can persuade them to pop rush a spear or two to take them to size 6?

This is going to be a good game I think (hope).

Just to reiterate.. I think it is the rate of settler production that will determine the speed of victory.
I think we should pay particular attention to the words of our wise sage. Methinks that perhaps the other civs will try to backfill the areas that we work so hard to conquer.

I think we should pay particular attention to the words of our wise sage. Methinks that perhaps the other civs will try to backfill the areas that we work so hard to conquer.
Yep - the english popped-up by beasacon with a settler/spearman pair, and unfortunately for them I'd left an elite legion there to heal! :D

I think we are a bit short on legionaries at the moment - have only 7 that are positioned for a fight. Lots in production, but at circa 8 turns each. Still, we should be producing two every three turns or so empire-wide. My real concern is that we may spread ourselves too-thinly, if we take a few french cities and then try to fill-in the spaces. Its only a matter of time before Ham contacts us, and therefore within about 15 turns we could be at war with the entire continent. Not being allowed MPPs and alliances could hurt us if we find ourselves attacked on several fronts.

I'm sure that Rome & LC can be better managed as settler factories as well - seem to be a tad short on shields and a bit out-of-sync with each other in terms of tile sharing.

More workers could be useful, especially because I sent half of them off to build a mountain highway - some of our legion cities are getting a bit big, and hence luxuries are going to be important for happiness. I also figure that if we're going to be researching everything, then we will want minimum spending on luxuries (the gems near the france/bebyllon border look good!)

I almost went on to build a library or two, but resisted. My thinking was that we should continue with settlers virtually ad-infinitum from at least two cities; perhaps even three. We can continue our expansion phase until we have at least made a sizeable dent in the french, and by that point I think that we will be basically founding completely corrupt cities. If we get a leader, rushing an FP can get a second core up-and-running. Seeing as it will have granaries from the pyramids, we can start by building libraries in it while the cities grow, then turn it into our settler factory (its also closer to where the cities will end-up). The first core can then remain our military core, althogh perhaps sneaking a library or four could be a good option there as well).

In terms of the trading, I understand that its perfectly allowable to sign massive GPT deals then break them. We will go to war with Russia and America in Zagnut's turnset, and seeing as we can generate approx 30+ GPT on zero research, perhaps some dodgy dealing is the fallback from us not being allowed to keep the GL?

As another random idea (along the lines of our 'harras greek' strategy (units from there have largely dried-up BTW)), perhaps some horsemen to run and continually pillage AI resources? Last thing we want is for the AI to be running horses at us, and if we pillage they are normally useless at reconnecting.

In terms of the trading, I understand that its perfectly allowable to sign massive GPT deals then break them. We will go to war with Russia and America in Zagnut's turnset, and seeing as we can generate approx 30+ GPT on zero research, perhaps some dodgy dealing is the fallback from us not being allowed to keep the GL?
I didn't think it was permitted to offer gpt. There was some discussion in the thread leading up to the game and I thought the result was that you could never offer gpt or sweeten a deal with gpt.

You can say "what do you want for the Republic?" and they can say "478g + 32gpt" and you can say "OK then, BTW we're at war" I don't really feel the need to destroy our rep yet though. If we do, then lets wait for the opportunity to broker lots of techs around and do it in a really big way. We're commercial, and once in Monarchy we whould be able to self research at a catch up rate. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to work out how many civs there are on other continents, and therefore how fast their research rate is likely to be. I don't think we're in tech trouble.

BTW are we going to research straight to MT or will we do the Chivalry + Astronomy/navigation thang?

Thanks for the clarifications about the tech trading.

I'd like to see us make some serious gains through chivalry. Given that we'll be researching our own techs, MT will be those extra few turns off - lets try and do some early middle-age damage! :D

One thing about being behind in techs is that the 'well known' ones are ridiculously cheap, and we should be able to research them in 4 with a GPT surplus. Maybe we should consider a horse army that we can upgrade later? Given the distances to cover to attack the north, horses might not be such a bad idea anyway.

Zagnut: You need to declare war on America somewhere during your second turn.

If we are going to conquer with knights, then maybe half a dozen horses will be in order. Very important to keep opponents iron pillaged IMO to limit the number of pikes we face. I mean ALL rivals, and not just the ones we are going after.

Have we given any thought to victory condition?

Since we have to build all our own towns and therefore settlers, it might be easier to get close to the conquest best date than the domination one.

I will post a list of opponents and DoW dates as soon as I have the opportunity.

Zagnut: You need to declare war on America somewhere during your second turn.
What year would that be? Space is up next and not me so I want to make sure the declaration date doesn't fall during her turn.

I will post a list of opponents and DoW dates as soon as I have the opportunity.
What is DoW? :confused:

We should really try to pick up the pace. There is only one team that is behind us (in years, not score) and smackster's team has already finished.

What is DoW? :confused:

I was guessing "Date of War".

DoW = Declaration of War.
In two turns time it will be 510BC.

Space is on Holiday. Zagnut, you should play if you can, and then I will play after you. If you have the time then you can play 15 turns, and then I will also play 15 turns. In this way You get to declare on one civ and I will declare on the next.

Yes, it would be good to pick up the pace a little. We have around 150 turns to play in 5 weeks.

EDIT: I've just been through the thread, and we declared on America in 750BC. Therefore our dates look like this.

Meet england 1525BC
Meet France 1400BC DOW 1250BC (turn 70)
Meet america 1250BC DOW 750BC (turn 90)
Meet Germany 690BC DOW 350BC (turn 110)
Meet Russia 670BC DOW 50AD (Turn 130)

I cannot find an entry for meeting Babylon. Is this the case. They made a demand from me which I refused, so that doesn't count as contact.

OK I will play later today. Didn't realize I was up.

@MB:

The babs didn't contact me either - I purposefully didn't contact them when I was trading with everyone else, because they were too close and I figured we didn't need yet another war!

Take Game: MM Rome to get Settler in one and pop increase in one. Give irrigated Deer to LC to give it 5 food. It is weak on shield production. I think I will try to increase Workers during this turn. Make no other changes.

IT - Wounded Hoplite moves onto mountain. French Archers disperse toward England.

530 - Rome builds Settler > Settler. Cumae = Legionary > Worker. Found Lutetia in the east to get the Silks upon expansion. Building Temple. Move Legionaries toward Rome. Try to channel the Hoplite down off the mountain by blocking other alternatives.

IT - France asks for peace treaty. I spit in their face and call them rowdy rabble. The Hoplite takes the bait and moves onto grassland.

510 - Veii goes into unrest. I give them a tax collector. That settles them down.
I ask Russia to trade World Maps. She agrees but all we learn is that Germany has an island off its east coast. I ask Babylon what it will give me for Currency. It says WM and Map Making. It has COL, Horseback Riding and Map Making. I reject that deal. I then ask it what it would want for WM, Map Making and Horseback Riding. It says Currency, WM and 80 gold. I accept. That still doesn’t tell us the location of the other continent, but gets us Horseback Riding which I really wanted.

The Hoplite on grassland with 2 hit points is attacked by a veteran Legionary. The Hoplite loses no hit points and kills the Legionary. Curses. That poses a problem because I do not have a fully healed Legionary to attack. I wait until next turn.

Found Byzantium on the hilltop at ring 7. Reduce science by 10% and increase luxuries by 10% to put a tax collector back to work. Settler is moving to old site of Thermopylae to found new city. Which reminds me I have not checked Greece. I find they have connected Horses so I move the Spearman off the mountain and onto the Horse square in the hope of pillaging it next turn.

IT - America wants peace. I spit in their face and call them warmongering pissants. 2 English Horsemen show up outside Paris.

490 - Turn 3 - Finally the pesky Hoplite advancing on Rome is garroted by one of our trusty Legionaries, who is promoted to Elite. The Spearman near Sparta pillages their Horses. But 2 Greek Archers appear in the mountains. One is killed by a Legionary. One of the 2 English Horsemen near Paris is killed and the Legionary is promoted to Elite. Paris’ pop is down from 8 to 6.

Reduce science to 50%. Poly still in 5 turns. None of the non-warring nations have it yet.

IT - Another English Horseman shows up.

470 - Turn 4 - Cumae = Worker > Worker. Coldus = Worker > Warrior.
The attack on Paris begins. 3 of the 4 Spearman in the city are killed. But one kills a Legionary. As night falls our valiant Legions are camped outside the city for another attack in the morning. One of the English Horseman is killed and the other retreats.

IT - Babylon Settlers show up heading for the open space around Warwick. I will be unable to beat them to it.

450 - Neapolis = Settler > Worker. Ravenna = Legionary > Worker. Fishum Chips = Worker > Warrior.

Found Old Thermopylae on the ashes of old Thermopylae.

Capture and raze Paris. It pained me to destroy the Great Library, but these bureaucratic rules must be obeyed. 4 French citizens are beheaded. Unfortunately, there is a Babylonian Settler 2 squares away and he will probably seize the location.

At this point an observation is appropriate. It is going to do no good to capture and raze these cities without a group of Settlers with the troops to immediately found new cities. If we do not then the other civs will just fill in the blank spaces we are providing for them. Therefore, I am going to stop the attacks until Settlers can be moved to the front.

IT - French Archer kills Legionary weakened in the attack on Paris. Miscellaneous units from France and England are advancing on our heartland.

430 - Turn 6 - Rome = Settler > Settler. Legendary City = Settler > Settler. Discover Polytheism. Start research on Monarchy. While we still have a monopoly on Poly I try to trade it to the non-warring civs to get Construction and COL so that we can enter the Middle Ages. Germany will only trade COL and 4 gold. Russia will trade COL, WM and 2 gold. Babylon only has COL and will give it along with WM and 2 gold. I accept that deal in the hope that I can then trade Poly to Russia or Germany for Construction. However, they will not part with Construction.

IT - French Archers advance on Byzantium and my Legionary is one square behind. It is only defended by one Warrior. A problem. Babylon trades Poly to the Russians and Germans and they are all in the Middle Ages.

410 - Turn 7 - Destroy American Horseman and redline another. Kill American Archer. Kill French Archer.

IT - French Archers attack Byzantium and destroy it. Sorry, dumb move on my part.

390 - Legions kill another 3 Archers and a Horseman around the ruins of Paris. That has become the battlefield. England, France and America are advancing through that area. So far I have held them off.

370 - Kill 3 more French Archers. I think the key to this game is to get a balance between offensive troops and Settlers.

IT - English land a Horseman in the desert to the north of our core.

350 - Turn 10 - Rebuild Byzantium. Kill a French Archer. 2 Settlers are moving north to found cities in ring 10 in the next 2 turns.

Well, it is time to declare war on Germany. He won’t trade anything, so I just declare war. What’s one more enemy.

Suggestions: MadBax, please take Space’s turn and your turn. I don’t feel I played these turns well and would like to give you a chance to do better.

The 2 Legionaries N of Veii are accompanying Settlers. The one on the right is going one square to the NE to settle on the hills next to the river. The one on the left is going to the ruins of Besancon. Both are on ring 10.

The units milling around the ruins of Paris have been very successful in preventing enemy units from getting to our core. The American, French and English all sent units that way and they all died with the lose of only one Legionary who was redlined in the fight for Paris. There are now 6 Legionaries in the area.

I would not attack any more cities without Settlers being immediately available. You can see that Babylon has already filled in 2 cities around the ruins of Paris and Babylon.

The Save is HERE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC0350_01.SAV)

Is there any problem with me following more than this thread? I am not playing in any of the games, and I read through this one, then saw the post about not reading other team's logs. I wasn't sure if simply following more than one might violate the spirit of that somehow, especially if I asked questions in more than one. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have asked these questions? If not, I might as well tell you now, the game looks really interesting, and you seem to be handling Xenophobic NOW really well. When thinking about joining a team, the variant scared me off. I was also curious about "Granarium" and "Armamarium" or whatever the barracks were called. Where did the names come from?

@bed_head: If you're not playing you can (and should ;) ) read all threads, as long as you don't comment and share knowledge about the other games. It should be great fun to follow all the games and see where the strategies differ.
The names are a legacy of Cracker's great games, he modded the game to add an even more Roman feel.

@teammates: I'm back. I need a bit more time to read all the reports but it seems we're doing great. (I was a bit surprised to find it still running :mischief: )

Just don't mock us too much Bedhead. ;)

@Zagnut:
Suggestions: MadBax, please take Space’s turn and your turn. I don’t feel I played these turns well and would like to give you a chance to do better.
By my count you killed at least 19 units for the loss of three! I certainly think you're being a bit harsh on yourself if you call that 'not well'! Looks pretty good to me - Paris was by far the French's most productive city, and I think that will have cripled them. :goodjob:

Thanks for your kind words, ainwood. I just couldn't seem to get a coherent strategy going. Also, I made a couple of tactical blunders such as leaving Byzantium inadequately defended and founding Old Thermopylae when I should have been sending the Settler to the north to fill in the blank space.

But I am glad to see that Space is back. I think she should take the next turn, followed by Mad. That will get us back into our normal rotation.

Got it. I'll try to play this tomorrow.

Great turns Zagnut. Like ainwood, I can't see anything to criticise The kill ratio was impressive, you sacked Paris which effectively does for the French, and you got some settlers out. Exactly to plan I'd say. :thumbsup:

Welcome back Space :) Good holiday?

It sure was, MB. But it's good to be back too. :)

I've played 8 turns, but can't finish tonight.
The bad news is that I've lost 2 Elite Legions, the good news... a fellow named Hadrian appeared. :) What about an Legion army?

Yes a legion army is a good choice as a city buster. Loosing a couple of legions is no biggie.

Maybe we can use the army to break the Greek cities, and get rid of Greece with minimal losses. It will help with the tech rate.

The leader is up north getting it south is a long walk esp. since the northern cities aren't on the road network yet. The leader will soon be joined by 6 Legions and 2 Settlers, so we can bulldozer and fill up the empty spots where ever we like. I the long run it'll be a good pillaging force.

We have to stack a unit (horse?) with the army. Armies cannot pillage in the GOTM mod. Keeping iron and horses disconected will be a big task. Let's get a map together that shows a tour of duty for the army shall we?

...Armies cannot pillage in the GOTM mod. ...

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. A few Horses are available already, I'll send them there. We'll need some Horses at home too, to get rid of the pillagers without risking the home-units too much.

I'll add a picture to the report tonight, to see if we can agree on a route for the Army stack.

"I love it when a plan comes together" :D

goals:
Hopelessly out of form after 2 weeks cold-turkey ;), I'll try my best not to botch things too badly.
Build workers, workers, Horses and workers.

pre-turn:
My, we have grown even under the difficult circumstances!
Everything looks good. After some tought I'm switching the warrior build in Coldium Lakius to worker, hope you don't mind too much, Zagnut.
Sell the Granarium in Rome, since we're the proud owners of the Pyramids.
Press enter.

IT
More settler pairs move in.
Veii Settler -> Legion

330BC - turn 1:
Vet Legion kills French Horse, no hit, no promotion.
Decide to send the new settler west, to fertile and relatively save lands.

IT
Rome Settler -> Settler
Legendary Settler -> Settler

310BC - turn 2:
Disconnect the French Horses.
Kill English Horse.
Found Gonzomonium, start Armamentarium.
Move up the slider to get Monarchy in 10 turns at -9gpt.
A French Spear is going to pillage our Horses at Lutetia, but we can't risk a Legion attacking in on the hill. We have other sources but it still hurts. :(
Change Neapolis' spear build to Horse.

IT
American Archers move in.
The Babs complain about our forces being on their land, oh oh rule scrunity time. I guess this counts as contact. :(
Hispalis Legion -> Legion

290BC - turn 3:
Kill English Horse and Hadrian appears. [dance]
Found Lunacantorum under the nose of a Bab settler pair. :) That spot is so looked for that it wouldn't surprise me if it had Saltpeter.
Sack Lyons, with no losses.

IT
Pompeii Legion -> Legion
Ravenna Worker -> Horse
Hispalis riots :(
Coldium Lakus Worker -> Worker
Berlin completes the Great Lighthouse

270BC - turn 4:
Kill 2 American Archers, leaving 1 Elite Legion redlined in the range of a French Archer. :smoke:
Walking Hadrians to a city to form the Legion army is proving difficult through all the Bab and Russian settler pairs. :mad:

IT
The Archer attacks and kills our Legion.
Cumea Legion -> Legion
Fishum Chips Worker -> Worker
Old Thermo Worker -> Worker
The Russians start the Great Wall.

250BC - turn 5:
Kill the French Archer, and attack a Vet French Spear. Although our Legion is Elite and the Spear is in the open we lose the Legion.
Slider to 90% to shave another turn of Monarchy (due in 6 at -10gpt, 83 in the kitty)

IT
American reg sword attack our Legion, and is killed.
The Greek send another Archer.
Veii Legion -> Legion
Cumea riots

230BC - turn 6:
Regroup the Legions, Hadrian has reached LunaCantorium safely.

IT
Neapolis Horse -> Horse
Aquileia Horse -> Horse
English start Hanging Gardens.

210BC - turn 7:
The Vet Legion that kills the irritating pillaging French spear is promoted!

IT
Rome Settler -> Settler
'City Settler -> Settler

190BC - turn 8:
Found Neocaledonium near the Bombyx, start worker.
Move the Horses to LunaCantorium to meet with Hadrian.

IT
An English Horse attacks one of our new cities, and retreats leaving our Legion (on hill) wounded 2/4.
The Greek want peace, tell them no.
Pompeii Legion -> Legion

170BC - turn 9:
Kill French Horse.
Upgrade a warrior to Legion to help defense.
Monarchy due in 2, slider back to 50% for +15gpt.
One of the new Setllers is going south to another ring-10 spot.

IT
Cumae riot again, sorry.
Lakius Worker -> Worker
An English Archer promotes our defending Legion to Elite.

150BC - turn 10:
Kill 2 Horses and 2 Archers, no losses, 1 Horse now Elite.

The stack-to-be-Army is in LunaCantorium, 2 Horses are nearby.

Our lands:

The save is here. (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_BC0150_01.SAV)

Who's Up? MB??

'think so. Zagnut and I changed places this rotation. So it's MB who's up, you're 'on eck', Ainwood.

I was sure I posted a "got it" this morning. :hmm:
Any road up, I'm on the case.

Legion army
Pillage iron and horses
Connect silks
found as many new towns as possible.
Kill everything in sight - Particularly France.

Which victory condition are we shooting for?

Conquest?!
As mentioned before Domination is hard in these circumstances. Diplo or Space will take much too long given our 'blistering' tech rate. :rolleyes: Culture, you say? Why not 20k? We'd need some truckload of leaders...

Conquest seems like the one.

OK I only had time for 5 turns so far. Sorry.
In that time I have generated 2 leaders. I built Hanging gardens with one and will build the great wall with the other. I hope this will end the wonder cascade and force the AI to dump shields. HG will also enable the jump to monarchy.

I am not killing enough units since they are travelling at the moment. But I hope that I can get rid of the Greeks (though I may run out of turns) and I should be able to sack a Russian city and a French one too. We have half a dozen settlers wandering around and they will found cities by the end of my turn.

I paused on the turn I need to declare on Russia, and hoped to have the army positioned to take a city on this turn, but I was forced to use the stack to take out an increasing trickle of enemy units. We are not in any trouble in this respect, but it is slowing us down. Ainwood was absolutely right that we need to get Chivalry ASAP. For this reason I have started library builds in Rome and Legendary (our settler factories) to allow them to grow. Because they will grow they should be able to catch up in settler production terms, and we need to clear some space for towns anyway.

The Babylonians are filling the space to our north, and this is a pain.

I will complete my turns today.

...
The Babylonians are filling the space to our north, and this is a pain.
...

I know. :cringe: The funny thing is that it makes you want to declare the next enemy ASAP, instead of a late as possible. :lol: I we feel strong enough we could do this within the rulez, couldn't we?!

edit: The HG will help our score. :thumbsup: The Great Wall would be good too. Too bad this isn't C3C, in which case it would be better still, oh well.

(0)150BC: Pre-turn
Build army with leader. Load it with 3 vet legions.

IBT:
Learn Monarchy, research construction (in 11)

(1)130BC:
Can't revolt to monarchy yet in my opinion. We need the silks first.
4 elite victories. No Leaders, no losses

(2)110BC:
No Elite victories. Am setting up a foray to the north with army and settlers, A foray to the west with 4 legions, and a visit to Greece with three legions and a spear. The closest AI are the two we are not at war with. No losses

(3)90BC:
Kill a french Spear/settler pair.
Found Zaggus Nuttopolis

(4)70BC:
Elite victory produces a leader, which I will use for HG I think so we can revolt painlessly.

(5)50BC:
Another leader appears this turn. Bit embarrasing really.
On the downside, I forgot a bout a French spear wandering around our core, and he pillages the iron.
So I'll build horses for a while. We are not likely to have upgrade money for a while.
Just fount a fortified settler in Veii. Where shall I send him?
Beginning to think I might be overstretching.
Trade Monarchy to Russia for Construction and loose change.
Declare war on Russia

(6)30BC
Yikes. American swords turn up. May have to turtle a little.
Raze Athens for the loss of one Legion.
Revolt and we draw 5 turn anarchy.
:blush: The Great Wall is already owned be Russia.
The leader can build an army in Veii. I will leave it empty for now.

IBT:
Babylon start Sistines.

(7)10BC:
Not much happened
Founded Ceasaraugusta

IBT:
Germans request an audience. No

(8)10AD:
Found Palmyra
Kill a Russian settler pair
Raze Rouen
Raze Yakutz
Found Jerusalem

(9)30AD:
Found Caesarea.
Army loses half its hit points taking out a single english archer :eek:
I really screwed up this turn. Sorry

IBT:
We lose a vet legion in a northern city to an american sword.
England want an audience. No
Will anarchy ever end? <nervous laugh>

(10)50AD:
Found Tarentum
Kill two spears in Nottingham, leaving an archer.
Whack to settler pairs, but lose another legion in the process.

So we're done.
Anarchy ends in another couple of turns.
I have left the game in a mess - but then I always do.
I won't add any more, except to say we need settlers and knights pretty quick I think.



http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3a.jpg

Well played, MB, the anarchy was always going to be difficult, but you've seemed to have sailed though it! :thumbsup:
Ha, it looks like Greece is gone next turn, this'll make our backyard nice and quiet. :)
I see that the AI is still drawn to our Horses-in-the-Hills. Major pain-in-the-you-know-where!

I can feel the momentum switching.

Looks good MB! :thumbsup:

So what's the plan now? Build-up horses and gold for a mass-upgrade to knights?

I presume we are still fighting mainly spearmen - do we have horsies out pillaging iron? If we can delay the AI getting pikemen for a while, should we concentrate a bit on skirmishing and filling-in the spaces, and try and get Leos? Or will that simply delay us too much?

Are we at war with the babs yet? If not, when do we declare?

The babylonian declaration is in 15 turns time. (I had to declare on turn 5 of my set). So 15 turns after 50AD - whatever that is.

I definitely think we should be as aggressive as possible, so long as we can average a settler every couple of turns and then a settler a turn until we have our continent covered. I think 10 horses to upgrade to knight would be enough. It would be difficult to fund more, and anyway, we need units to fight with in the meantime, so building a few more legions would not be a bad thing. Legion armies will be useful for the entire game.

There are a couple of horses with the army. Once Nottingham falls, then the stack can reassemble and just push north.

I havent seen a pike yet, and I don't want to either. Disconnecting everyones iron is a major task though because of the distances, and I don't think unexcorted horses would last 5 minutes.

Just my thoughts :)

Start game: One turn from Monarchy! :D
See units moving towards gonzo - so move a legion toward to defend.
Attack french spearman on our road - win, no leader.
Other spearman likely to pillage our horses, which will cut-off silks. Raise taxes to hold-off riotting. We will get monarchy next turn.

IT: A large number of american swordsmen appear. Evil french pillage our roads, and we lose silks. We go to monarchy. Veii riots, but other riots prevented.

Turn 1: 70 AD.
Attack Nottingham - elite win and raze city (12 gold).
Army beat russian archer.
Move empty army toward luna. Various wounded legionaries fortified to heal.
Vet legion beats pillaging french spearman.
Elite horse bets german defending lutetium.
Note that will soon have forest from neocaledonium - switch to settler.
Feudalism in 11, breaking-even. Change to in 14 at 12 GPT (upgrades).

Turn 2: 90AD:
Regrouping. Stack two legionaries and elite horse in lutetium - two german swords and two archers will attack next turn - at least they are on a hill, and across a river...

IT: American Sword dies attacking Caeseraugusta, and legion gets promotion. One sword and two german archers die attacking Lutietium. We get a promotion. France found grenoble next to three legionaries!

Turn 3: 110AD
Grenoble raised (no leader)
Russian archer / settler pair destroyed.

IT:
Army redlined but fights-off two american swords.
French horse beats wounded elite legion.

Turn 4: 130AD:
Legion redlined dispatching american swordsmen


IT
Lose red-lined legion to american sword.

Turn 5: 150 AD;
beat french spear / settler pair, but no leader and we get redlined!
Silks reconnected, so luxuries dropped. Feudalism in 9 at 20 GPT.
Elite legion beat american Sword.
Lose vet legion to american reg spear in the desert. Vet legion mops-up and is promoted.


it
Lose ANOTHER legion to american swords.

Turn 6: 170 AD
Elite legion beats american sword. Army forces english horse to retreat. Elite horse beats other english horse.

IT: Elite horse beats english horse. Lots of frenchies on the move.

Turn 7: 190AD:
zzzz

IT: German sword loses attacking legion in the desert. Promoted.

Turn 8: 210 AD:
Beat french horse. No promotion. English horse appears from the south! Mobilise horse to defend.
Vet horse beats french archer

IT:

Aargh! Greek archer take old thermopolae! :blush:
Horse fiights-off english horse.

Turn 9: 230 AD:
Interrupted by lunch, so forgot a lot of it!
Took-out two germans threatening Tarentum.
Rheims razed (no promotions).

IT

Turn 10: 250AD
Elite horse beats french archer.
Elite Legion beats reg american sword.



Summary:

In terms of forward-progress, I haven't made much. :( Got too caught-up in skirmishing stupid little stacks of two or three units that were threatening cities defended by a horseman or two.

However, I have regrouped and built up forces again. I didn't form a legion army, because I didn't want to put elites in it. Seeing as we're still a way from chivalry, might want to form the army now - I've grouped some vet legions nearby. We now have our original army fully-healed (that took a while! It was down to two HP at one stage), plus 12 legions in the north. We have two legions poised to retake old thermopolae.
I haven't attacked sparta yet, because I didn't like the odds. I healed the first legion, and am bringing another down - should get there in 3 turns.

We have on settler in neocaledonium, and will get four more in the next three turns. I started the heroic epice, but it would be nice to rush it. I note we still don't have a FP - that should be a priority as well. We have four or five horsemen dotted around as well.

>>SAVE<< (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_AD0250_01.SAV)

I also see that there are 5 misc. military units from the civs with which we are at war in the northern area. In addition, there are 6 Babylonian units. Ainwood mentioned that he used a lot of turns eliminating units such as these. That has to be done. We can't just conquer cities without destroying the roaming enemy units. But it looks as if we have built up a good supply of offensive units for the job.

Perhaps, as Space said, we should declare on Babylon when it is convenient instead of waiting for the deadline. We have a lot of Settlers coming on line in the next 3 turns. What do you think about using them to build after conquering the Babylonian cities that are on our northern border?

I would support Zagnuts suggestion. we don't have to wait for Babylon.
I think that our priority should be developing a second core now. Perhaps we should discuss a suitable location for the FP and map out a suitable city placement scheme?

Once we have a second core developed, and since we will go for conquest, we can change the rate of settler production so as just to keep unit support costs reasonable.

I'd still like to keep pumping out settlers, purely for points!

But yes - lets get a second core going ASAP. :)

I only just realized I'm up again already, so eh.. got it, I guess. I'll try to play this tomorrow morning.

I also think that very soon we are going to be in a position where the other civs will not be sending too many Settlers our way. We may not have to fill in all of the blank space on our continent because at some point we are going to exhaust our opponents and then just have to mop them up. At that point we should start building ships and units to conquer the other continent, wherever it may be.

On the issue of the FP, does anyone know the optimal distance for the FP from the capital so that each one provides the ideal core without too much overlap?

Looking at the shape of the continent, the position of the offshore cities and the fact that we'll want our second core soon-ish, I'd say we should build our FP somewhere between Sverdlovsk and Orleans.

The better lands are either around London or Svastopol, but it'll take longer before we've cleared those of those xeno-types, AKA the AI.

Guys, I didn't have time to read all the way through the thread, but it certainly seems like your best move was getting rid of me for this game! ;)

Great going indeed. I will be with you in spirit as you achieve an impressive victory... :thumbsup:

Good to see you, Karasu! :) How's the trail?

I'm sorry, but I didn't get to this today.
Perhaps it's just as well, gives you guys more time to post your thoughts about the FP location. ;)
I plan to play this in 20 hours time (tomorrow evening, CET).

Sorry again, guys, but it's not going to be tonight either. :(
If you could take it Zagnut please do, otherwise I'll try again tomorrow.

I just saw your message, Space. It is 8:30 AM here and I have just arrived at work. I won't be able to take the game for about 12 hours. If you haven't started by then I will take it. Will check back later.

I have downloaded the save. If zagnut doesn't get to it for some reason then I'll play, and then Space can take it after that.

I've started but I'd like your opinion on the empty Army.
We need a fast Army but we're not going to get Knights for a while yet (13 turns to go on Mono, and God knows how many on Chivalry) so how do you feel about a Horsie Army?

It has been three turns since I last played and so I am a little far away from the current game. I think you raise a good point. I don't think the other civs have any really powerful units and so it might be good to have a mobile Army. I don't think I would use it for attacks on cities though. More for eliminating the miscellaneous units that seem to be all over the place.

Yes, that was more or less the idea. I should have played on yesterday, because I won't be able to tonight. RL has a bad case of being there this week. I'll attach the 280AD save.

Goals
Build Horses
Declare Babylon
Grow

pre-turn
All looks well. :thumbsup:

IT
2 American swords redline our elite Legion but die anyway.
French Archer attck outr Horse, it retreats in a city.
Veii Settler -> Legion
Neapolis Horse -> Horse
Coldium Lakius Settler -> Settler

260AD - turn 1
Reclaim Old Thermo and I think it'll have no foreigners so I keep it. Indeed the 2 citizens of Roman nationality clebrate their liberation. :)
This game is about restraint more than anything else, so I just replace the troops to ensure a good attack next turn.
I look around for short rush opportunities, but I find none.
Trade our WM to Babylon for TM and 1g (remembered not to haggle, just in time)

IT
Russian Horses attack Legion in city and retreats.
The next kills an elite horse that was also in that city. :(

270AD - turn 2
Kill Greek Archer, Russian horse and American Sword at no losses.

IT
French Archer suicides.
Feudalism comes in, start Monotheism.
Rome Lib -> Settler
Neocaledonium Settler -> Worker
Zaggus Nuttopolis Settler -> Worker
Americans start Sun Tsu's.

280AD - turn 3
Found Nicomedia, start horse

Space, do you intend to finish or do you want me to pick up from 280?

Well, I can't play tonight, at least not with the attention this game needs, tomorrow is difficult also. So yes, if you can, please take it. I'll throw in some extra turns somewhere when needed, I hope to have more time next week.

I also had to be out tonight. It is now almost midnight in my small part of the world. Finish it up if you can. I will check in tomorrow. Good Night.

Good night, Zagnut. It's 5:40 AM here. I'm up because my husband is leaving for Budapest at 6:00. :cringe: When the kids are to school I might be able to squeeze in a few turns. Sleep well. :)

IT
Babs ask us to leave, I will. I feel we're not in a position to strike yet.
Veii Legion -> Legion
Cumae Horse -> Horse
Neapolis Horse -> Horse
Pompeii Legion -> Legion
Palmyra riots.
Fishum Horse -> Cat
Germans start Sun Tzu's.

290AD - turn 4
Kill German Spear, 2 Russian Horses and an English Horse, no losses.
Pillage Sparta's mine.

IT
Byzantium Horse -> Horse

300AD - turn 5
Kill German Spear.
Found Seleucia, capure the English undefended settler that was down there. It is still very paibnful for me to 'disband' those slaves. :cringe:

IT
Oh oh, a Russian boat nears an undefended coastal city.
Rome Settler -> Settler
Palmyra Spear -> Worker
Ravenna Horse -> Horse
Hispalis Legion -> Legion

310AD - turn 6
Move Legion in the undefended town.
I finally have a Horse in the east to successfully fend of the tricle of annoying spears.
We have four Legions around Sparta now, so maybe it's time to risk attacking those Reg Hoplite(s).
Our succes at keeping casualties low is costing, we are running at a deficit.
after some more thought, I've decided to make it a Legion Army after all. This being PTW, it would mean to much waiting for the relatively weak Horses to heal each time. Had this been C3C I would've used the Horses, as it stands I took vet Legions.

IT
English Horse attacks a wounded Legion and dies.
Russian boat moves away.
Veii Legion -> Legion
Neapolis Horse -> Horse

320AD - turn 7
2 Elite wins.
Here goes for Sparta and elimination of Greece:
4/4 Legion vs 3/3 Hoplite: Legion wins and promotes to 4/5.
4/4 Legion vs 3/3 Hoplite: Legion dies, not even scratching the Hoplite.
3/3 Legion vs 3/3 Hoplite: Legion wins taking Sparta!!!!

The city is razed, 3 workers disbanded, A settler is near to claim the Suffimentum. The Russian boat is still around but we take the hills leaving only grass to land troops, if there are any.
Hispalis needs a taxman.

IT
The Russian boat sails on.
Many Settler pairs around.
Cumae Horse -> Horse
Pompeii Legion -> Legion
Aquileia Horse -> Horse
Our Palace gets a new entrance.

330AD - turn 8
Attack and kill an English Settler pair, 1 Elite Horse is lost. :(
2 Elie victories this round.

IT
Coldium Lakius Settler -> Settler
Fishum 'pult -> 'pult
Lutetia Horse -> Horse

340AD - turn 9
Block a Bab pair walking through our land.
Germany soon will have 2 vet Swords next to Gonzo, send some Horse to help defend it.

IT
The Swords move away.
The Russian boat nearly get drowned by a barb boat. Sadly it survives and promotes.
Rome Settler -> Settler
Veii Legion -> Biblio
Neapolis Horse -> Horse

350AD - turn 10
Found AinArborum where Sparta was, start Worker.
Leave movement on the troops near the Bab pair, I'll leave it up to the next better player to decide to request they leae or just straight out declare.
An Army and settlers are ready to bust-and-found when needed.
The other Army protects a settler ready to found a new Northern town.
Feel free to switch Veii back to Legion, I don't really know how much 1 extra Lib help in research.

Good going, Space. I will try to play in the next 12 hours.

I have the game. It is getting complicated and takes a while to absorb all that has taken place since my last turn.

My goal is to try to eliminate the problems we are having with units on our flanks, especially to the east. If our flanks are secure we can advance northward, possibly in a two pronged attack, one to the NE and one to the NW. To accomplish this I am going to move military units from our core cities out to our flanks. I will only leave military units along the coast to protect against random enemy landings. Settlers and Workers will accompany the military units so that they can form new towns and connect them ASAP.

Sounds like a plan. :thumbsup:

Although it must be said that defending the east is easier than it now seems. It are mostly settler pairs trying to get through to the south. A bit of pressure in the North is needed to slow down their progression.

Maybe we should try and expand into the south for now - that might encourage the AI settlers to stay-at-home. At this point, they would come for newly-razed city locations, and our healing troops can mop them up. :)

But I completely agree about moving the troops out of the core. :)

Preliminary: Rearrange units to be able to attack enemy units on our flanks.

IT - American Swordsman attacks Horse on mountain and kills him. Other enemy units move around, some off the hills and mountains where I tried to force them. Good Grief, it seems as if every city we have produced something during this interim turn. I couldn’t possibly catalog all the things that were built. I produced Horsemen in the productive towns and Workers in the corrupt towns.

360 - Turn 1 - I have 5 Babylonian units on grassland and so I demand they leave our territory and they declare war on us. The old habit of preserving our reputation dies slowly. Here goes with the attacks.

1. Elite Legion kills vet Bab Swordsman
2. Vet Legion kills vet Bab Bowman protecting Settler. Two Workers killed
3. Vet Legion loses to French Spearman protecting Settler. Horseman finishes him off. Two Worker killed.
4. Army kills American Swordsman.
5. Army defeats Bab vet Bowman and captures two Workers who are killed. Next turn the Army will attack Uruk.
6. Vet Legion defeats vet Bab Bowman.
7. Vet Legion only just beats Russian regular Horseman. Is redlined and another Legion is sent to protect him.
8. Vet Legion kills Russian Archer protecting Settler. Two Workers killed.
9. Vet Legion kills Bab vet Swordsman. Is promoted to Elite, but yellow lined.

Final tally is 9 enemy units and 8 Workers destroyed at a cost of one Legionary.

Move a stack of 3 Legionaries and 4 Horsemen on Samarra, the Babylonian town which intrudes into our northern border. Hopefully in two turns it will be ours.

IT - Bab Swordsman kills Legion yellow lined from last turn.

370 - Army attacks Uruk and defeats Spearman. Bowman is left to defend.
Legionary attacks French Horseman. Redlines him and he retreats.
Elite Legionary defeats Bab Elite Swordsman who killed our yellow lined friend.
Elite Legionary defeats Russian Archer protecting Settler. Two Workers disbanded.
Legionary defeats English Horseman.
Elite Legionary redlines English Horseman, who retreats.
Elite Horseman defeats regular Bowman.
There are now no enemy units wandering in our territory or on the flanks with the exception of 2 English Spearmen who I am waiting to leave the mountains.

Legionary attacks and captures Nippur on the east coast. Destroy one Worker.

IT - One new Bab Swordsman shows up.

380 - Turn 3 - Legion defeats French Horseman.
Elite Legion defeats American Spearman. When will I get a Leader????

Attack Samarra which is on a hill and intrudes into our northern border. It is only defended by one Spearman but he puts up a valiant fight and kills 2 of our Legionaries. The third one gets him and produces a Great Leader. Two enemy Workers are disbanded.

A debate then occurs between the top government officials about what to do with the Leader. Should I use it to rush Heroic Epic which still has 11 turn, Sun Tzu or save it for the Forbidden Palace. I reject the FP because we still need to push a bit further north to reach the place that Space identified. I elect to build Sun Tzu. Send the Leader to Lunacantorium.

Attack Uruk with Army. It is defended by one Bowman who gives me a heart attack by dying when the Army has one redline left. Reduce luxuries to 0%. No adverse effect.

Legion attacks English Horseman with 2 hit points on mountain and loses. One of our Horsemen finish him off. Another Legionary loses to a Russian Archer!!

MM Legendary to get HE in 9 turns.

IT - Bab Swordsman defeats Horseman.

390 - Turn 4 - Settler produced in Rome -> Settler. Gonzo doesn’t like the reduction of luxuries. I give it a tax collector. Found Odditorium on the ashes of Samarra.

Attack Bab Swordsman who defeated Horseman with a Legion and Swordsman wins. Dispatch him with another Legion.

Attack Kish on the east coast. Defeat one Spearman, but another remains and he redlines my Horse. I bring up another Legion for next turn. Capture Lagash on the west coast. One Worker disbanded.

IT - Bab Swordsman attacks Legion and dies. We build Sun Tzu. The other civs are building either Leonardos or Sistine.

400 - The race is on with the English to see who can settle in the area where Lagash used to be. I am where I want to found a new town but the English may found there town before me on the next turn. I attack another English Spearman protecting a Settler on plains. He defeats my Legion. Another Legion dispatches him. Two Workers disbanded.

Capture Kish on the east coast and get another GL!! I will move him north to use for FP.

Capture Shuruppak on the east coast. Now there are no foreign cities on our flanks and we can concentrate on thrusting north. I move one of our Armies toward Eridu, which is the last Babylonian city between us and France.

Upgrade 2 Warriors to Legionaries.

IT - American Swordsman kills Horseman. Babylon founds a new city (Zariqum) next to Shuruppak. Lots of Horsemen and Legionaries produced. Discover Monotheism. Chivalry in 8 turns at -8.

410 - Turn 6 - Found Karasuvius on the west coast. I notice that the English snuck in a city on the southern coast. An English Spearman has also positioned himself to pillage one of the roads on the next turn. I don’t want to lose a Horseman to it so move other units into place to kill it after it pillages.

The new Babylonian city of Zariqum has to go. It is defended by one Swordsman. I have 7 Horsemen within striking distance this turn, but no Legions. Next turn I would only have one Legion that could strike. I decide to attack even though the odds are 40-60 against me. I hope not to lose too many Horsemen. Amazingly enough the first Horseman defeats the Swordsman who was fortified in the city on a hill.

IT - German Swordsman defeats Horseman. Russian Swordsman defeats Horseman. Many enemy Swordsman and other units are showing up in the north. I count 11 units. American Swordsman attacks Karasuvia and defeats the Spearman. Several towns go into disorder. I will raise luxuries to 10%. English Spearman pillages road to Lutitia.

420 - Turn 7 - Legion attempts to kill pillaging Spearman and loses. Another Legion dispatches him. Increase lux to 10%. Attack Russian Spearman on plains with Legion and Legion loses.

Army kills French Horseman.

IT - French offer a peace treaty. Unfortunately I tell them that is against the rules. They are angry at Mad-Bax but they understand. Rome builds Settler, switch to Marketplace because we have a lot of Settlers now.

430 - Turn 8 - Decrease science to get gold down to -1. Chivalry in 7. The GL is causing me a problem. I was going to use him for the FP in the north. But the pillaged road and the flood of enemy units from the north has made me rethink that plan. Heroic Epic is discovered in 4 turns and it will take the GL 2 turns to get there. So it doesn’t make sense to use it for that. I will use it for another Army.

Legion defeats Russian Spearman.
Horseman defeats Russian Spearman.
Legion defeats French Archer.
Army defeats American Spearman protecting Settler. 2 Workers disbanded.

Found BaxaMadamus on the east coast. Found Ainwoodium in the south.

IT - American Swordsman attacks Legion in Karasuvius and loses. Our people want to build the Pentagon. Should we? OH NO - A German Knight shows up.

440 - Legions kill a German and Russian Swordsman. Army kills a Russian Swordsman on mountain and is weakened by half.

IT - American Swordsman attacks Karasuvia and kills Legion. Only a Spearman defends it now. Russian Swordsman dies attacking Legion. German Knight kills Spearman on mountain but is redlined. Russian Longbowman dies attacking Legion in Caesaraugusta. German Swordsman kills Horseman.

450 - Turn 10 - Found Randolph. Move units to the northern mountains.

Veii in unrest. Give them a tax collector. Army kills Knight on mountain but is redlined.

Here are my suggestions: The most important thing to do at present is to get Legionaries on the northern mountains to prevent them from being occupied by the enemy. Once they get on the mountain they have a mountainous roadway directly to the heart of our civ. We must prevent them from doing that by killing them while they are on the low ground. All of the other civs except France have Chivalry so you can expect Knights soon. I sent some Workers to road one of the mountains.

There is another Army in Palmyra. There is a Settler in Old Thermo which you can send south where you would like. The town of Karasuvia on the NW coast is at risk.

I was able to protect our flanks and rid our territory of the infernal infidels. However, the push north will be tougher than I anticipated. Good luck.

IT - French offer a peace treaty. Unfortunately I tell them that is against the rules. They are angry at Mad-Bax but they understand. :rotfl:

Your write-ups always reflect how hectic the game is! :goodjob:

The knights are a worry. If we have chivalry in a few turns, then perhaps the first order of business of us would be a knight army that can go-forth-and-pillage. We really need to limit the number of knights that we have to face / dispatch.

Well done, Zagnut. :thumbsup:

Re knight armies: remember that Armies can't pillage in this game, there'll need to be seperate fast units to do the actual pillaging. I agree with the urgent need to do this, save from the French all the AIs left have a intact core.

Am I up? If so I will have to play tomorrow, unless someone can take it in the meantime.

What will be our research plan after chivalry? I'm guessing straight to MT?

Good play zagnut. :goodjob:

RE Knights pillaging - knowing me I would have sent the army all the way to russia and got annoyed when it wouldn't pillage.... Lets take two more knight with it. :)

Research going forward? Yes - MT is my vote. I'm more worried about getting a second viable core up-and-running though.

At this point I don't think we should focus too much on pillaging the core of the distant civs. In the short term the other civs are able to pump out a lot of units and send them south to challenge us. Many miscellaneous units keep showing up. They are not operating in a coordinated attack plan but they have to be dealt with and that takes time. We can't let them get to our core and wander around doing damage.

At this point the Legionaries are still a lot more useful than the Horsemen. Of course, that will change with Knights, but we don't have a lot of cash to upgrade a lot of Knights.

:hmm: When's the deadline for this? Should we try to kick it up a notch or two?

Well, MB said he would play tonight, which is about now (local time ;)) so feel free to take it up immediately after him and play it tonight, your time. :D

I realize I've lagged playing my turns, sorry for that. :( But it was always going to be tight, even with MB in the team.

(0) 450AD: Pre-turn.

Changed a couple of builds to settlers in towns that would otherwise be difficult to keep happy. Otherwise left everything alone. :)

IBT:
Germans want an audience.

(1) 460AD:
Just begin to regroup. 4 turns to Chivalry, so all legionary builds scheduled to finish later than this changed to horses.

(2) 470AD:
Silks and incense come on line. Thank goodness.

IBT:
Babylonians want an audience.

(3) 480AD:
Not a lot happening is there? :eek:
Still moving stuff around. I'll try to raze Eridu and Buffalo in the next couple of turns.

IBT:
The first Babylonian knight appears.

(4) 490AD:
An elite Legionary loses flawlessly to the knight but an elite horse wins flawlessly :hmm:
The push is happening now. I'm getting units north in some numbers. I get to play with knights next turn. :D

(5) 500AD:
Do Knights really cost 80g to upgrade? :eek:
I can only upgrade 5. :(

Can't buy a leader this round. I have just had my 14th elite victory. Heroic Epic :p

IBT:
Russian Sword takes on a yellow lined army and wins without a scratch. I don't think I'll bother buying a lottery ticket this week.

The Russians have knights too. Think I'll set about promoting our knights to elite.
Yikes! The Russians are coming. May have to turtle a little on the next round.

(6) 510AD:

I've stalled. Had to take out a lot of American and Russian units. Now I'll have to heal up. This is more difficult than I expected.

(7) 520AD:
Lose my first knight attacking a sword that would have captured a city.
Raze Eridu, but my stack going for Buffalo finds it defended with pikes. The stack had also been attacked in the IBT and a horse was red-lined. I can't even think about taking that city now until I get reinforcements up to the front.

IBT:
This is turning into a nightmare. Lose 2 knights and an elite legionary to knights jumping out of the mist.
England lands a longbow next to undefended Neapolis.

(8) 530AD:
Lots of skirmishing, but no real headway. Too many units coming our way.

(9) 540AD:
Heck. Lose an elite legion and an elite horse.
Generate a leader to build FP in Goddius Almightius.

IBT:
English build Sistines. Big Cascade with Leos and then Copernicus being built.
We need soooo many units. :D
It was supposed to be difficult.... repeat the mantra.

(10) 550AD:
Reinforced the fron line. Killed a few units. Nothing much else.

First. Yes I know I only killed one town, but it was an important one.
Once Buffalo, Sverdlock and Orleans are gone, things will change I think. The AI are not fighting amongst themselves in this game, which is surprising and difficult for us.

Caesaraugusta will probably be attacked by 5 knights on the IBT. Hopefully at least one of ours will win since there are only 5 units defending. There is a loose elite horse near the FP city. I've just realised he is in range of the knights. Perhaps he can be covered with a legion or two.

All the legionaries from the core are going north. If there are legionaries that want to move next turn, then send them north. We may as well use them up, and replace them with knights once they die. Better that than eat our money on MP duty. Happiness isn't a problem ATM.

We have to try to get a little infrastructure. We have to improve our research rate. Other than that, build knights and settlers, and try to take out the 3 above mentioned cities. I have two armies destined for Orleans. But they need to heal first. We can now upgrade a knight every other turn. We only have 7 knights, because I lost 5. I had a really rough 5 turn stretch in the middle where the AI managed to send a lot of units in one go.

Everyone except France is in republic. We need to do something about that.
Overall, now the AI has knights things have become a little tougher, but the tipping point for this continent at least approaches now we have the FP and our income is 30gpt higher than previously.

Sorry no screenshots, I forgot to do it and I can't very well fire up the game where I am sitting right now. ;)

Have fun ainwood. We are due some leaders I think. :)

So far as speeding up the game is concerned, perhaps we could try to play 15 turn rotations? Or at least allow people to play 15 turns if they want to? I would say we have around 100 turns left in the game if we play well, and the next game is due to start in the middle of September.

Because this is a long game for everyone I may delay the next game by a week or so, the turn rotations tend to take longer when teams are in difficulty. :)

Well, I'll play 10 now (no time for 15, but 10 is OK, I think). :) Any other words of advice! :D

MB sounds like you had the rough ride you were looking for when designing this game... :goodjob: :lol:

With an FP built, we can only improve. I haven't looked at the save yet, so more detailed comments will follow.

Well, I'll play 10 now (no time for 15, but 10 is OK, I think). :) Any other words of advice! :D

Sure: Don't eat yellow snow.

Well, I did get 15 played...

Aims: Survive. I see the pretty united nations of knights about to strike on CaeserAugusta...
Cumae is building a library, but only making 5 commerce / turn - figure the shields are better spent on a knight, and I'll find another city with more commerce for a library. Pompeii (net 9 commerce / turn) and Neopolis (net 10) are better options.

Protect the horsie
Start mobilizing the reserves...
Change a couple of cities from temples to settlers.

IBT:
Knight attacks legion defending horse, and legion destroyed. Knight attacks horse, and horse destroyed.
Knight attacks CaeserAugusta - we win and Caeser Baxius Emerges! :D (I thought you said getting leaders was hard?)
Two more knight redlined but successfully defend against knights.
England wants to talk.

Turn 1: 560 AD:
Will use leader for knight army - add one knight only and will let others join next turn when healed.
Upgrade a horse for it as well.
Army forces a knight to retreat. Finish it off with a knight.
Elite Horse beats french spear / settler.

IBT:
Fight off about 3 knights, but lose one. More enemies appear

Turn 2: 570 AD:
Vet knight promoted dispatching reg knight threatening Tarentum.
Army loses 6 HP beating a reg knight in open terrain.... Good thing I didn't send him against the one on the mountain!
It then follows-up with taking out a spearman. I like blitz!
Sacrifice a yellow-lined knight to take-out a red-lined knight.
Army forces knight to retreat; finished off by horse. Horse reveals three knights in striking distance!
Flipium Riskius appears to be a key defensively.
Rush walls in godius Almightius (can't lose our FP! :eek: )

IBT:
Elite horse beats knight, but not the second one. Lose red-lined knight to bowman. Four more knights completed. Two german knights bypass our army, so I'll mop them up.

Turn 3: 580 AD;
Army forces knight to retreat. Elite horse mops up. Our leaders must be drunk - they are throwing promotions around willy-nilly. Drunkius Horsius promoted. Egnineering next turn, but no wonders to rush, but can get the pentagon. Sounds like a good option!
Vet legion attacks english longbow in the deep south

IBT:
zzzz

Turn 4: 590 AD;
Dispatch two longbows and a knight.
Elite Legion redlined attacking newcastle, but because of great gallantry! :D
Destroy another pikeman (after bombarding it), and upgrade a couple of elite* horses.

IBT
Lose horse. :(

Turn 5: 600 AD:
Mass troops to start push towards Orleans & Buffalo. Two knights and a archer in sight.
Move elite legionary to defensive forest to force dodty AI attack.

IBT
Lose one legion, destroy one knight.

Turn 6: 610 AD:
Build army in ravenna
Kill knight, pike and spear to raze buffalo.
Clean up a few miscellaneous archers.
Two armies camped outside orleans, others marching on sverdlovsk.

IBT:
English start bachs. Knight redlined but earns promotion beating longbow in ruins of buffalo.

Turn 7: 620 AD:
Two more german knights weakened by catapults and dispatched.
Orleans defended by 4 spears and an archer - taken without incident. New Orleans founded! :D


IBT:

Lose elite knight defending New Orleans.

Turn 8: 630 AD:
Intense fighting sees Sverdlosk razed to the ground. And this leader generation is getting embarrasing :blush:


IBT
Russian Musketman appears. Evil babs found city where sverd was. 4-knight army down to 1 HP by longbow! :eek:

Turn 9: 640 AD:
Found Treveri at RCP 3 from FP.
Mass legions for assault on Sippar


IBT
Two cities riot.

Turn 10: 650 AD:
Sippar destroyed (knight and spearman).
Mass troops to attack Marseille.

IBT:
Lots of random AI troop movements....
Finish invention, Gunpowder in 6.

Turn 11: 660 AD:
Take Marseille for no loss.
Kill bab pike and knight (for loss of a knight).
Kill english spear sneaking into coldium lakiyus


IBT
Elite knight redlined but beats german knight.

Turn 12: 670 AD:
Four knight threatening our cities. One destroyed, another retreats and is mopped-up.
Troops march on Akkad.


IBT:
Legion fights-off knight. We will lose arettum (size one) to pesky longbowmen next turn. Knights too late :(

Turn 13: 680 AD:
Found Sirmium to give us Gems!
Have to near-suicide legoin army against a pikeman on a mountain to stop gems being pillaged. We survive....
Akkad taken with no losses (6 workers disbanded!)


IBT:
We lose arretum. :(
3 or four rearguard won (two knights and two longbow). We lose one legion.

Turn 14: 690 AD:
Nothing special. Upgrade a few horses.


IBT:

Turn 15:
Arretum recaptured.
Massed for attack on Asher.
Attack oxford.

Thirty odd knights, 5 armies, poised to take out the babylonian core and researching at 80%.

What can I say :worship:

Will we build the pentagon to increase the usefulness of our armies, or will we disband them later to build markets?

Have we built a boat yet? No hurry here BTW, but we'll need a fleet ready to go in 30 to 40 turns.

Quelle vitesse! :eek: I didn't even have time to look at MB's save. :thumbsup:
I'll see if I can put some turns in tonight!

Boats an Armies are usually not too good a combination, so maybe MB's market plan has some merit here. :thumbsup: I still haven't seen the save so more on this later.

I rushed the pentagon already - some of those armies alreay have 4 unit in them, but at least two don't. :)

You're way too fast for us, Ainwood, for me certainly! I finally got time to look at the save... Flipium Riskius? :lol: :thumbsup: I don't know whether I can play all the turns tonight, but I think I can manage a few.

Goal
Build a few boats.
Continue the pressure North.

pre-turn
MM a bit for growth.
Upgrade another Horse

IT
German Knight kills one of our Elite Knights out in the field. :(
Rome Knight -> Knight

710AD - turn 1
Raze Oxford, upgrading a Knight in the Army in the process. We get an extra 21g.
Move units to be able to strike at the American Knight that is threatening Treveri. It is defended by 1 Legion so fingers crossed, I can't get any units in to help defending it.
Kill the German Knight.
Raze Ashur, at the cost of 1 Knight. Disband 4 workers.
Gunpowder is due next turn, we manage a whopping 102gpt. A pity that it'll be for 1 turn only.

IT
Treveri is attacked but the legion defends well and the Knight retreats.
A couple Longbow attack and fail.
England lands a longbow near Ainarborum, which is undefended ATM.
Gunpowder comes in, start Chemistry.
New Orleans (has Gunpowder) Walls -> Settler
Neapolis Knight -> Knight
Ainwoodium Settler -> Legion
Zaggus Nuttopolis Knight -> Knight

720AD - turn 2
The map looks like someone wanted to make sure we got Gunpowder, the stuff is all over the place.
Killed the Knight attacking Treveri, and one threatening Goddus Almightius.
Move Elite spear into AinArborum, switch Nicomedia from Temple to Legion at the cost of 4 shields. I don't know whether it'll be enough to save it. All Knight are a million miles away.

IT
A German Knight turn up from under the fog and kills one of ours.
The English capture AinArborum. Hopefully the legion will be able to recapture.
Legendary Knight -> Knight
Some rioting due to losing the Incense
Lutetia Lib -> Legion
God.Alm. Knight -> Knight
Nicomedia Legion -> Legion

730AD - turn 3
Attack the German Knaight and Germanicus sees the light of day. :) He'll be an Army soon too.

IT
It's mainly settler pairs that are coming south now, with the odd Russian Knight.

740AD - turn 4
Created another Army. Move more settlers North.
Recapture AinArborum, promoting our Legion, we can keep it too, no new citizens were born. [dance]
Sight the first Russian Musketman.

Gotta stop and get some sleep, more will follow tomorrow.

Wow, you folks really did pick up the pace. I go away for a day and all of you play. I will have to take some time and look at the save. Seems you all did well, however.

BTW, I no longer have access to the Staff Forum. Have I been fired? If not, and I hope not, can ainwood please grant me access.

I looked at the 700 AD save. Great going. We are pushing north at a rapid pace. There are few enemy units in our territory and our strong units are poised for even more mayhem. :)

Flipium Riskius? :lol: :thumbsup: MB or Zagnut chose that one. ;)

It must have been MB.

BTW, I no longer have access to the Staff Forum. Have I been fired? If not, and I hope not, can ainwood please grant me access.Not sure what happened. TF controls access on this, so I have PMd him about it (well, I'm pretty sure I did, but can't find the PM receipt :()

Let me know if you don't have access back in the next day or so.

I can't play tonight. I have to be sensible and protect myself from me and go to bed in time. :sleep:

So I'll attach the save, and if someone feels like it, post a 'got it' and play. :)

I got a copy of your PM to TF. I have access now. Thanks.

750AD - turn 5
Start pillaging Londen, it riots! :)
Babylon has Saltpeter that needs to be pillaged as well, the Russina source is rather close as well.
The new Knight army deals with the vet German Knight.
Kill an American settler pair (the defender was a spear, good news).

IT
France lands a Horse in the south.

760AD - turn 6
Found Bagacum as our next Northern most city.
Liverpool is razed and can be replaced next turn.

IT
The Americans offer peace, and attack and kill 2 Knights on English soil when we refuse. :(

770AD - turn 7
Kill the 2 American Knights.
Raze NewCastle in the south.
Move science up a notch to get Chemistry in 3 at -3gpt.

780AD - turn 8
The Germans send 3 vet knights, manoever troops to be able to attack them.

790AD - turn 9
German Knights killed, they need pruning soon. They are a Democracy so they are pretty far ahead of us.

IT
Two Russian Knights attack a stack that had a Cat in it. They both die. Another attack one of our Legions and dies too! Good round for us this time.
Chemistry in the bag, start metallurgy.

800AD - turn 10
Raze Tours, the French are down to 2 cities, one off our continent.
Two settlers are ont their way to fill some gaps in the south and the east, more are being built to fill the empty spots that we create up north.
There's an Army of three Knight guarding a pillaging Knight near London, when the time is right the Knight can be loaded in the Army. It will then no longer be able to pillage, so pick the right time.
I haven't seen any other units than longbows from the English, but you may want to disconnect their Horses.
The Bab Saltpeter is still disconnected. I checked with the Knights currently holding the mountain range.
Good luck!

Looks good! :D

Take game. Make one change. Move Army to mountain next to Nineveh.

IT - No new enemy units appear.

810 - Russian Musket goes from mountain to plain next to two catapaults which bombard him to yellow. I hope Knight will finish him off but the Musket wins and redlines another Knight before dying.

Destroy Nineveh. No losses.

IT - zzz

820 - Attack London. First Pikeman dies at hands of Army. Second Pikeman follows him to the promised land. London is ours. Unfortunately the Oracle and the Sistine Chapel are accidently sacked by our marauding troops. A note of condolence is sent to the British Ambassador in the new capital of Hastings.

Attack St. Louis on our south coast. An elite and veteran Knight are killed by the two defending Spearmen. One is killed by a third Knight, but we will have to wait until next turn to take it.

French Settler/Spearman killed and disbanded.

IT - American Knight kills a Knight at London. German Knight and Russian Musket show up in the east.

830 - Move units to Babylon.

IT - A couple of enemy Knights show up.
840 - Kill 2 German Knights and an English Longbowman. Our Armies are healing slowly in neutral territory. Settlers are rushing to the front. Forgot about St. Louis. A Knight dies trying to kill the lone Spearman defending. This town is a problem.

IT - Russian Knight dies attacking out Knight. English land a Longbowman near Fishum Chips. A Knight destroys him.

850 - Turn 5 - Attack Babylon. Knight kills Musketman. Musketman redlines Knight. Knight kills Musketman and Babylon is ours. Leonardo’s Workshop is destroyed and the town is left in flames. 3 Workers disbanded.

Found Teurnia on ashes of French town and Curia on south coast.

Destroy Avignon and create another GL. That clears the last French city from the continent. But they have a town elsewhere. Use GL for another Army as there are no wonders to build.

Attack Coventry. Defeat 2 Spearman and redline a Pike but lose one Knight and do not succeed..

Reduce science, Metallurgy in 4 turns.

IT - German Knight kills one of ours. 2 Russian Knights move up. One English Spearman appears to challenge an Army??

860 - Coventry is destroyed. 2 Russian Knights killed. English Longbowman killed. German Knight killed. I have 7 Settlers but can’t get them to the front fast enough to keep up with the ability of the military units to destroy cities.

Attack Ur, but lose 2 Knights and do not succeed. Kill 2 Muskets, but a Spear and Musket remain.

IT - Kill Bab Knight. French want to talk. Decline.

870 - Turn 7 - Kill Russian Musket. Lose one Legionary. Kill English Longbowman and Spearman. Found Old London on the bones of London. Now we can heal units more quickly in that area.

Lose 2 Knights attacking Ur which has an indestructible Spearman. Capture Ur.

IT - Germans and Russians want to talk. No dice. American Knight kills redlined Knight. Russian Knight kills Knight. Legion redlines another Russian Knight. Americans build Baltimore midway between the ashes of Babylon and Ur.

880 - Turn 8 - Legion kills the redlined Russian Knight. Science reduced. Metal in one. Move units to Baltimore to try to destroy it next turn. Kill 2 German Knights. 2 Knight Armies move on Frankfurt. One Knight Army and some Knights move on Hastings.
Found Pisae.

IT - American Knight kills Knight. Another Knight successfully defends against English Longbow attack. We discover Metallurgy. Start Military Tradition.

890 - Upgrade one Catapult to Cannon. Attack American Knight with Knight and lose. A Legion finishes him off.

Destroy Frankfurt and Hastings. In Hastings I find another of those invincible Spearman. He defeats my half wounded Army and 2 other Knights before he is finally dispatched. Destroy Baltimore.

Found Viroconium.

IT - Russian Knight attacks Knight and dies.

900 - Turn 10 - Knight attacks Musketman accompanying Settler and loses. Another Knight finishes him off and 2 Workers disbanded.

Lugdunum founded in north and Brundisium in the south. St. Louis is finally captured. A Settler is there to found a new city.

Advance units on York and Seattle.

Make big mistake. Leave 2 Catapults undefended NW of Pisae with a Russian Knight on a mountain 2 squares away. I have no choice but to attack the Russian. Fortunately, I win. However, the Catapults should be defended ASAP.

Notes: I have used New Orleans as a staging area. Any units produced in the south are automatically sent to New Orleans. That way I don’t have to make a decision about where they are needed until they get near the front.

There is a Settler/Knight pair west of Viroconium in the north. Several Settlers are headed toward London to settle the English lands.

Save is here (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/sgotm3/Staff_SG003_AD0900_01.SAV)

7 settlers, 43 knights, 6 armies, 23 legionaries; France removed from the continent, and England and Babylon about to suffer the same fate. We can pillage Russia's only horses and set-about erradicating them as well - you've made great progress, Zagnut! :D

Getting those cities built will help decrease our unit costs, 'cause we're also bordering on getting quite a few more in the next few turns. ;)

Thanks, I was happy with the results. I destroyed 9 cities and founded 7. I think we can progress pretty quickly now as the other civs are in disarray. Its just a matter of getting units to the other cities. It takes time. I don't think they will be sending too many Settlers to try to fill in the blank spaces. Not many showed up during my turns. I would suggest we just get to the other cities as quickly as possible and worry about filling in the blanks later.

It does look good. :) Very nicely played indeed!
Does this make me up?

Yep. ;) Get to it! :D

Well done Zagnut, the save looks great! Every remaining civ has it's own destructive army waiting for them. :thumbsup:

Maybe it's time to take to the waters and find out where the others are, maybe we can trade a little before declaring war. Extra funds will help upgrading our Knights to the much awaited Cavs. :)

900AD: No Changes.

IBT:
English Longbow drops of at Fishum Chips. How apt is that? :)

910AD:
Raze Seattle (German) and an English City.

920AD:
Raze Ellipi and The Babylonians are dead.

930AD:
Razed Philidelphia
Razed Canterbury
The English are dead.
Russians horses and iron are disconnected forever.
Send 2 suicide galleys out. I want to trade to astronomy or navigation.

940AD:
A barb appears in the empty space. Do I rush a unit to stop him pillaging a city? Yes I decide.
One suicide galley sank, but the other (although still at sea) has made contact with...
The Aztecs.

I buy theology and contact with the Indians.
Wow. The Aztecs and the Indians are really backward. They don't know a single tech (other than republic) that we don't. Wish I hadn't bothered.

IBT:
Japan dials us up and wants PP for chemistry. I don't think that would be a great idea.
2nd suicide galley sinks. That was 60 shields well spent. :p

950AD:
Gee Whizz. The Germans have been busy. They have colonized most of the landmass to the West.

960AD:
Destroy a German town. I was distracted by someone so I forgot the name.
Raze Atlanta.

970AD: Learned Military Tradition on the IBT. Upgraded the wounded knights.

980AD: Razed New York

990AD:
Razed Sevastopol, and a german town.

1000AD: Position troops to sack Washington.

The turnlog is very brief. I just cut and pasted directly from my notepad notes.

The game is over in the north. We don't need any more units up there. Once the continent is cleared then what is left can be transferred over water to the West to clear the Germans off that continent. For that we will need half a dozen boats.

The Indians need to be declared upon on or before 1140AD, then the Japanese and finally the Iroquois.

The other continent is more backward than I expected. If we can get over there quick enough we may not have to face muskets even, at least for a while. Try to keep them skint so they can't buy chemistry. Easier said than done I know.

Barbarians are poppin up in the spaces now, but I wasn't really concerned since I was short rushing Cav with muskets and so we don't have a lot of money.

Does anyone feel we can switch off research after Navigation? or must we continue to steam?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3a1.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/sgotm3a2.jpg

Just finished going through the thread. Great game, mates :hatsoff:

I know Mad said that I should be up, but I am going back to work tomorrow and the impact is certainly going to take its toll on my mental health. Why don't you play one more round of turns while I recover... :D

Welcome back, Karasu. Hope you had a great holiday.

The newly discovered continent is big. Just getting over there and defeating all those cities is going to take some time. How did mauer's team ever finish by 1070?? I had forgotten about that string of mountains that divided the continents to the east. Now that I see it I remember the game. Perhaps we should have expanded a foothold on that string earlier and then used it to invade the other continent from the western side. Now we have no safe passage across the ocean.

I haven't looked at the actual save yet. I would suggest we all look at it and decide on the best way to invade the other continent.

I had a brief look, and think that going west requires four-moves to cross the ocean. Not enough detail to see the east passage well enough. East might be 'safer', but its also much further - we really need navigation! :(

Navigation is probably only 15 turns or so. We can build a fleet of 8 - 10 galleys and upgrade to Caravels. We can then transport 30 cav and an empty army to make a start while the northern forces clear the middle continent.

Short rushing cavalry with muskets is definitely the way to go IMO, particularly once we can switch off research. We don't really even have to settle anymore now, on this continent anyway.

Do we need to clear the middle continent? As I recall it was mostly mountains. I don't know whether it would be practical to try for a domination win instead of a conquest win. However, if we did build cities on the new continent then we probably could just leave the cities on the middle continent.

I don't think that a few more settlers is such a bad idea. If we don't build them in the core (let that carry on with cavalry for now) but in the 'middle-cities', then we can claim a lot more land => points. We are still a LOOOOONNNNNG way from the dom limit!

:bump:

OK guys... who is up?

Well, I was waiting for Karasu. :)