GOTM23 Succession Game [civ3]
- Thread starter ControlFreak
- Start date
smackster
SGOTM
Note I start my travels today, so there is a chance I wont get on line again until Friday. If you haven't heard from me by Saturday skip my turn.
Smackster.
Smackster.
@Smackster: If Alweth plays tonight, I'll probably play Thursday. Your 24 hours will then expire late Friday, Boston time, but I won't be around until early Saturday morning GMT to bump you. So if you can just post a "got it" sometime Friday night you should be good to go over the weekend.
smackster
SGOTM
If you don't here anything from me Friday then I probably failed to get my new modem to work. I'll be back in old blighty for most of the trip so we'll be time zone synched.
Alweth
Chieftain
Well, here I am. I only played five turns. I hope that's okay.
Preturn
Take a look around--things look good.
I get a peace treaty from France for 57gp, Territory Map, and a RoP. They have Theology and Gunpowder.
Note: be sure to get Gunpowder from France before we attack them, so that we can immediately cut off their salt-peter.
Make peace with Zulus in exchange for Ngome.
IBT:
Persia wants us to move our troops away from Bactra???
Our galley is attacked by various barbs (I think), takes no damage and becomes elite.
Some stuff is built, I just keep them building more of it.
Turn 1
Egypt is on our land. I tell them to get off. They declare war. Let's see if I can fight them while I'm setting up to take out India, France, and maybe Spain.
Fight some battles against Egypt, lose a Cataphract.
IBT
Two Cataphracts gain Elite.
Turn 2
Found Tufyah.
Nothing much else to report.
IBT:
Lose an Elite Cataphract
Turn 3
Lose:
1 Veteran Cataphract
1 Veteran Persian Mercenary
Gain:
4 Elite Cataphracts
Capture Avarice
Destroy some tiny Egyptian village.
IBT:
Lose an Elite Cataphract to a very lucky attack by a Veteran Horseman. (Only took 1 damage, and against a city no less.)
Lose a Galley with a Settler and some other unit in the ocean because I was stupid enough to leave it there.
Turn 4
Smackster's Revenge's Revenge takes Alexandria, producing a Hero.
Lose:
2 Veteran Cataphracts
Liberate Lisht
Liberate Zimbabwe, with the Oracle
Liberate Giza
Liberate Buto
IBT:
Lose another Elite Cataphract to an incredibly lucky Archer who attacks him in a city and kills him without taking damage.
Turn 5
Filler founded.
Well, I think I'll end here because I'm getting a little tired and I feel like I've played enough.
Summary
We're making good progress against the Egyptians. I'm making an army in the west. We should be able to take them out fairly easily in a few more turns. (Be sure to get Theology out of them.) However, I should point out that I've left a few important positions/units vulnerable in the west. I don't think they're likely to be ambushed immediately, but you should keep an eye out for that.
I'm moving a few troops into key posiitons in France and India, but I have to say that I don't like where India's going with their troops, perhaps we can get them involved in the war with Egypt, if they're not already.
The prices for Theology and Gunpowder are steep, but we can probably afford them, if we need to get them.
We could probably pick up a decent amount of territory by rush-building a few temples in conquered territory.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that our RoP with India is almost up and soon after that our one with Spain. Might want to renew them.
Preturn
Take a look around--things look good.
I get a peace treaty from France for 57gp, Territory Map, and a RoP. They have Theology and Gunpowder.
Note: be sure to get Gunpowder from France before we attack them, so that we can immediately cut off their salt-peter.
Make peace with Zulus in exchange for Ngome.
IBT:
Persia wants us to move our troops away from Bactra???
Our galley is attacked by various barbs (I think), takes no damage and becomes elite.
Some stuff is built, I just keep them building more of it.
Turn 1
Egypt is on our land. I tell them to get off. They declare war. Let's see if I can fight them while I'm setting up to take out India, France, and maybe Spain.
Fight some battles against Egypt, lose a Cataphract.
IBT
Two Cataphracts gain Elite.
Turn 2
Found Tufyah.
Nothing much else to report.
IBT:
Lose an Elite Cataphract
Turn 3
Lose:
1 Veteran Cataphract
1 Veteran Persian Mercenary
Gain:
4 Elite Cataphracts
Capture Avarice
Destroy some tiny Egyptian village.
IBT:
Lose an Elite Cataphract to a very lucky attack by a Veteran Horseman. (Only took 1 damage, and against a city no less.)
Lose a Galley with a Settler and some other unit in the ocean because I was stupid enough to leave it there.
Turn 4
Smackster's Revenge's Revenge takes Alexandria, producing a Hero.
Lose:
2 Veteran Cataphracts
Liberate Lisht
Liberate Zimbabwe, with the Oracle
Liberate Giza
Liberate Buto
IBT:
Lose another Elite Cataphract to an incredibly lucky Archer who attacks him in a city and kills him without taking damage.
Turn 5
Filler founded.
Well, I think I'll end here because I'm getting a little tired and I feel like I've played enough.
Summary
We're making good progress against the Egyptians. I'm making an army in the west. We should be able to take them out fairly easily in a few more turns. (Be sure to get Theology out of them.) However, I should point out that I've left a few important positions/units vulnerable in the west. I don't think they're likely to be ambushed immediately, but you should keep an eye out for that.
I'm moving a few troops into key posiitons in France and India, but I have to say that I don't like where India's going with their troops, perhaps we can get them involved in the war with Egypt, if they're not already.
The prices for Theology and Gunpowder are steep, but we can probably afford them, if we need to get them.
We could probably pick up a decent amount of territory by rush-building a few temples in conquered territory.
That's all I can think of at the moment.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that our RoP with India is almost up and soon after that our one with Spain. Might want to renew them.
Alweth
Chieftain
Alweth
Chieftain
If you want a screenshot, just imagine the last screenshot with more Cataphracts, less Egypt, and more of us.
Thanks Alweth. Got it.
Sounds like we've got some work to do now Gunpowder's about. I'll review the save tonight and try to play my ten. If I feel energetic I might play fifteen, as I'm concerned that our two last five turn stints are slowing us down a bit, and Smackster may not get it quickly.
Roster:
AlanH (playing)
Smackster (on [flight] deck)
Karasu
MacBaldrick
Alweth
Sounds like we've got some work to do now Gunpowder's about. I'll review the save tonight and try to play my ten. If I feel energetic I might play fifteen, as I'm concerned that our two last five turn stints are slowing us down a bit, and Smackster may not get it quickly.
Roster:
AlanH (playing)
Smackster (on [flight] deck)
Karasu
MacBaldrick
Alweth
Indian troops *should* be going towards the Zulus -if I'm not missing something, they should still be at war.
But I would really like to see them gone soon, so that we can concentrate our troops on the west.
Mi first impression is that we should hammer Egypt as long as we can conquer smallish cities with not too much effort. In the meantime, try to get as many Cataphracts as possible in French territory and sneak-attack them. If the attack is brutal enough, we may not even need to go for their Saltpeter...
After that, the remains of Egypt / Spain / anyone else should be easy to mop up.
But I would really like to see them gone soon, so that we can concentrate our troops on the west.
Mi first impression is that we should hammer Egypt as long as we can conquer smallish cities with not too much effort. In the meantime, try to get as many Cataphracts as possible in French territory and sneak-attack them. If the attack is brutal enough, we may not even need to go for their Saltpeter...
After that, the remains of Egypt / Spain / anyone else should be easy to mop up.
smackster
SGOTM
I'm back on-line, things are a little slow on the modem but I should be able to play as soon as you post a save.
Well done, Smackster. Welcome back from the colonies.
I haven't played my turns yet, but I've had a good look around, and I reckon we'll be doing badly if we need more than my next set and yours to finish this off. My current thinking is that our fastest route to domination is to take out Egypt and India and fill up the spaces we already have available. JMapstat tells me that will be enough - we need just over 500 tiles to finish, and there are 200-ish available without fighting. India and Egypt between them have 400. This avoids confrontation with France now she has musketeers, and gives our Cataphracts a softer set of targets on flat ground. We can avoid fighting on three fronts that way, and I'd rather spend our cash on temples and unit rushes than on buying Gunpowder (1600 gold) now to find and deny saltpeter to France. We might need to spend a bit on keeping France in alliances and on our side.
India will be easy meat as they don't have Chivalry yet - no Dumbos. We only have two more turns of RoP with them, so I'll probably just hit them as soon as I have all the eastern troops in place. If that takes longer than two turns I'll try to renew the RoP and then rape it as the road system into India is a bit primitive.
We should be able to mop up Egypt fast if we focus our western divisions on them.
Any thoughts before I wade in?
I haven't played my turns yet, but I've had a good look around, and I reckon we'll be doing badly if we need more than my next set and yours to finish this off. My current thinking is that our fastest route to domination is to take out Egypt and India and fill up the spaces we already have available. JMapstat tells me that will be enough - we need just over 500 tiles to finish, and there are 200-ish available without fighting. India and Egypt between them have 400. This avoids confrontation with France now she has musketeers, and gives our Cataphracts a softer set of targets on flat ground. We can avoid fighting on three fronts that way, and I'd rather spend our cash on temples and unit rushes than on buying Gunpowder (1600 gold) now to find and deny saltpeter to France. We might need to spend a bit on keeping France in alliances and on our side.
India will be easy meat as they don't have Chivalry yet - no Dumbos. We only have two more turns of RoP with them, so I'll probably just hit them as soon as I have all the eastern troops in place. If that takes longer than two turns I'll try to renew the RoP and then rape it as the road system into India is a bit primitive.
We should be able to mop up Egypt fast if we focus our western divisions on them.
Any thoughts before I wade in?
Sounds like a good plan.
Let's keep alive the RoP with France as long as possible, in case we need it later on.
In addition to Egypt and India, the Zulu lands should be another easy pick; that gives us some margins in case we still need some tiles.
Other than that, just roll over them and win this game!
Let's keep alive the RoP with France as long as possible, in case we need it later on.
In addition to Egypt and India, the Zulu lands should be another easy pick; that gives us some margins in case we still need some tiles.
Other than that, just roll over them and win this game!
We have 14 more turns on the France RoP, and if I play fifteen I'll try to remember to renew it before I hand off.
I suspect we'll reach domination before we completely wipe out both these targets. But yes, there are some smallholdings in Zululand and Carthage we can add into the mix at low risk once we have broken Egypt if necessary. I'll try to avoid confrontation with Spain, though. The secret of a fast finish here will be to maintain foocus on the two primary targets in the south west and north east, and not to have to divert any troops to the north west quarter.
Popultion shouldn't be a problem. We aren't at 2/3 yet, but we'll be over 3/4 by the time we take out Egypt and India.
I'll probably start in about three hours, as I have some chores to dispose of first.
I suspect we'll reach domination before we completely wipe out both these targets. But yes, there are some smallholdings in Zululand and Carthage we can add into the mix at low risk once we have broken Egypt if necessary. I'll try to avoid confrontation with Spain, though. The secret of a fast finish here will be to maintain foocus on the two primary targets in the south west and north east, and not to have to divert any troops to the north west quarter.
Popultion shouldn't be a problem. We aren't at 2/3 yet, but we'll be over 3/4 by the time we take out Egypt and India.
I'll probably start in about three hours, as I have some chores to dispose of first.
Well done team, we finished in eleven more turns, end-of-turn 760 AD. Our Firaxis score is 7077.
Team picture: [dance] [dance] [dance] [dance] [dance]
Sorry for the delay, but I'm just writing up my timeline notes after an all-night session, and will post notes and screenshots asap. Here's the picture that matters.
And the icing on the cake .... I just looked a th PTW result: 1160 AD and 6002 Firaxis points. Go Team Civ3!!!
Team picture: [dance] [dance] [dance] [dance] [dance]
Sorry for the delay, but I'm just writing up my timeline notes after an all-night session, and will post notes and screenshots asap. Here's the picture that matters.
And the icing on the cake .... I just looked a th PTW result: 1160 AD and 6002 Firaxis points. Go Team Civ3!!!
smackster
SGOTM
Fantastic effort, I didn't realise we were that close to finishing. Our Jason score was 10103. It would be good to compare our games and how we managed to win quicker than the PTW team. Also compare with the GOTM games, when the results come out for that.
Look forward to seeing the map and final save. You must have captured some significant ground in your turns.
See you in SG24
Look forward to seeing the map and final save. You must have captured some significant ground in your turns.
See you in SG24
It's 650 AD. Sheik Al Anh ascends to the sumptuous Arabian empire throne in Rome, clutching the scimitar of office from the drained hand of Sultan Al 'Weth, his comatose predecessor, sleeping the sleep of the just among his loyal concubines following his return from personally supervising events in the killing fields of Egypt.
Al Anh's first action is to call for a complete situation report from all his field commanders, thus putting off until tomorrow the decisions needed today. Our objective is nothing less than world domination, and we intend to achieve it in less time than our dastardly alternative-universe neighbors in PTW-land.
The first report was therefore the world geopolitical map, presented by Sheik Ar Asu to identify what we need to do to achieve our objective. We own 1213 tiles, and we are currently 512 tiles from world domination. The rest of the world is divided up into:
Approximate populations:
We have been steadily reducing the number of tiles required by about 100 tiles every 50 years, so if we maintain this rate another 250 years (25 turns) should see us reach the goal, in about 900 AD. We must be able to reduce this time by careful selection of our targets and judicious use of our existing potential to expand. Current estimates indicate that we could add up to 200 tiles to our current size just by extending our cultural borders for an investment of around 1500 - 2000 gold for new temples. The balance of our land needs could then be met by aquiring India and Egypt, and we would then have a dominant population level as well.
The second report came from the Military advisor, Grand Visier Macbal 'drick:
We are currently at war with Egypt. Cleo's pen slipped while trying to sign a trade deal and she signed a declaration of war against Arabia instead. It could have been a freudian slip, with Cleo (aka Liz Taylor) subconsciously wishing to avenge the destruction of her beloved Anthony (played by Richard Burton) when Rome fell to our merciless armies. But it was a costly mistake, Cleo. You might yet fall on your asp as a result of that faux pas!
Current manpower:
We have an Army of two units, one is none other than the redoubtable Smacksters Revenge. It is red-lined outside an enemy city, so we are not optimistic about its future. However, it must have been victorious to be so grievously wounded, so we expect to be able to start on an Heroic Epic soon to teach new leadership skills.
Our defensive forces are deployed around our cities, and may need minor adjustments to move to protect newly captured border towns.
Our offensive forces are dispersed around our frontier regions, enjoying the customary rape and pillage after their recent victories. There are some pathetic excuses coming back about wounds healing, but a call to arms is clearly needed to get these men out of their warm beds in Carthaginian villages and onto new battlefields in Egypt and India. We also have troops chafing at the bit on our eastern frontier, ready to take over valuable real estate in India.
Having been appointed for a term of up to 150 years, should he survive so long, Al Anh decided his target should be to get Arabia to within 100 tiles of world domination, retaining the military might needed for his heir, Sheiks Mack'ster, to complete the final victory well within the following 100 years. So his first task had to be to round the Cataphracts up and get them to the front lines, pointing in the right directions.
The third report, from Sultan Al Weth's chief scribe in his capacity as Domestic Adviser, detailed the boring balance sheets of the production centres of Arabia. After a long presentation involving papyrus flip charts, and pin-hole projected spreadsheets with the rows and columns all upside down, Al Anh concluded that there were probably some minor adjustments that could be encouraged by some carefully selected floggings in market places around the empire, but by and large we were doing "all right".
The foreign advisor showed up late, parking his corporate chariot illegally on a double yellow outside the Palace, and gave a glowing sales presentation that nobody believed, as usual, then slipped his multi-page expense report into Al Ahn's in-tray and went off to a "business lunch" - yeah, right! His report did include a few nuggets of useful competitive intelligence however:
There are three civs worth worrying about, the rest are cannon fodder.
We are already at war with Egypt, they have the Great Lighthouse and the Great Library in Thebes, and they have Theology. The Library could be a useful aquisition to keep us up to date for a couple more techs, which is all it should take to reach victory, but this will be a bonus. The main target has to be their territory.
India still doesn't have Chivalry, so no War Elephants yet. We need to make a take over bid sooner rather than later. We have 2 turns left on the current RoP deal.
We have a RoP with France for the next 14 turns, so we could manoevre a lot of troops into place during that time. However, France has Gunpowder. Assuming she has a supply of saltpeter we are up against musketeers - musketmen with an extra attack point, and the French UU, so if we take them on we will trigger France's golden age. France will sell us Gunpowder technology for 1600 gold.
The Cultural and Scientific Ministers droned on as usual about our appalling lack of investment in key areas of science and the arts, while Al Anh chatted up a particularly neat little Carthaginian slave who had been pouring altogether too much Chianti into his goblet.
The Recommendation:
To achieve the fastest victory we can, we should wage total war against Egypt and India, buy alliances with France and Spain to keep them off our backs, and expand our borders now and as we take more foreign territory.
Al Anh slept on this plan, aided by the wine and the slave, and didn't see any major flaws. We do need to make sure the Indian archers wandering about our territory aren't in any position to make a mess of any of our empire when we declare war on them. But taking those out while they are away from home will reduce Ghandi's counter attack strength.
Before next turn:
Let's try to save the red-lined army. We have three cataphracts in range of it. If we could take Hieroconpolis (sp?) with a couple of them we would establish a fast route for the third to reinforce the army.
2 cataphracts kill spears without injury. But there's a longbow as well. So we have to use the last available cataphract to take Hieroconpolis. No one else can reach the army, so I think we'll lose it. Sorry, one of the units is Smacksters Revenge
Rushed temples, moved reinforcements towards Egypt. Switch workers from improvements to roads. We need roads. Rushed some cataphracts to deal with wandering Indians in our territory if/when we declare war.
Hit next turn.
An Egyptian longbow kills the army. Smacksters Revenge will rise again!
His legacy and memorial will be the Heroic Epic we can now build after his glorious victory under Al 'Weth's general-ship.
Turn 1 660 AD
Take Byblos. 2 cataphracts, no losses
Take Memphis. 1 cataphract, no losses
5 cataphracts attack Bapedi, 2 die
Take Asyut. 3 cataphracts, no losses
Build Smacksters Revenge, the city.
IBT: Egyptian longbows counter-attack. 1 cataphract dies, 1 retreats.
Turn 2 670 AD
Take Bapedi. 2 cataphracts, no losses.
Exchange world maps just to keep up to date and keep the AI poor. Ghandi needs 70 gold plus ours to show me his. I recouped all that on sales to the others.
IBT: The Indian stack that's been heading west takes Ulundi from the Zulus.
Turn 3 680 AD
Attack Heliopolis. 2 cataphracts die, one Rambo spear left alive, just.
IBT: Memphis flips back to Egypt and our Palace gets three extensions.
Turn 4 690 AD
Recapture Memphis with one cataphract.
Take Heliopolis. Lose 1 cataphract.
Take Thebes, with Great Library and Great Lighthouse. Lose 1 cataphract.
Take Isandalwana (sp?) Lose three cataphracts to four pikes!
Hurry a settler in Bapedi to fill a big Egyptian gap by the flood plains.
India has Chivalry. I've been holding off declaring war to try to get some roads in place, but we can't afford to wait now. Declare war on India.
Take Punjab with 1 cataphract.
Destroy Bengal with 3 cataphracts.
Take Dacca with 2 cataphracts.
Rush some more temples.
Destroy an Indian stack of archers near Oea.
Buy an alliance with France vs. India. Thay accept 110 gpt + wines + incense + wmap!
IBT: Great Library gives us Theology.
2 cities riot because the Oracle is obsolete. Asyut riots because I borrowed its MP cataphract.
Turn 5 700 AD
Sliders to 9.0.1 to avoid having to worry about several cities near the edge of unhappiness.
Take Kolaphur (India)
Take Pi-Rameses (Egypt). Lost 3 cataphracts to another Rambo spear.
IBT: A war elephant appears and kills a cataphract.
Turn 6 710 AD
Take Elephantine (Egypt) lost one cat. We've had umpteen elite battles and no leaders!
Take El-Amarna. Egypt is history.
Take Grenoble (India)
Take Madras . One cataphract lost.
Take Lahore. No losses.
Kill the wounded war elephant
Kill some Indian mercenaries and archers near Zimbabwe and ... a Leader at last!
Rename the victorious cataphract Smacksters Revenge 2.
What do we do with the leader now we have it?
Options are:
Leo's? Only good for denial, we aren't going to be around long enough to use it.
Sistine? Doubles cathedrals ... what are cathedrals? Some infidel plaything?
Army? Well, our only significant fighting is the other end of the continent. An army should be redundant by the time it gets there.
Heroic Epic? OK. Move the leader to Abha, safe from flipping and not too far away.
France has Education, but has no one to sell it to.
IBT: Zulus and India sign peace.
Indians attack near Zimbabwe and die, and near Lahore and die.
Turn 7 720 AD
Take Jaipur
Take Delhi. lose 2 cataphracts.
Build Tufayh in the Egyptian flood plain.
Ziyad ibn Abihi writes the Heroic Epic in Abha, single handed.
IBT: Carthago Delenda Est ... finally. France put them out of their misery.
Longbow kills a cataphract.
Turn 8 730 AD
Take Hyderabad
Take Calcutta
Take Bombay
Take Ulundi, near Zimbabwe
Renegotiate peace and RoP with Spain for 24 gold and their map.
Turn 9 740 AD
Take karachi lose 1 cataphract
Take Bangalore lose 1 cataphract
Build Abu Dhabi somewhere.
Rush more temples.
Turn 10 750 AD
Slider back to 10.0.0 as we now have luxuries galore as a result of our victories.
Spain has Gunpowder, so we will get it from the Great Library. Big deal. We only need about 30 tiles to finish.
Turn 11 760 AD
Take Chittagong, no losses. India is history.
Move towards Persia's only city in case we need more territory.
IBT: French knights who were starting to move towards India head back home.
Borders expand ... and ... Domination Victory! Yeah! [dance]
The end game was beautifully set up by the entire team, and was a pleasure to play. Well done guys! Our superb production centres just worked, with no intervention from me, so I could concentrate on killing Egyptians and Indians. In spite of my occasional fumbles that cost a few more cataphracts than necessary, we were continually producing more than I was killing.
Firaxis score 7077. Jason 10097.
Here's a zip file containing the end of turn 760 AD so that you can all savour the victory ceremony, plus the 770 AD save after the victory:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD0770.ZIP
Here's the minimap and headcount:
We also have about 90 guest workers.
Great job, team
Onwards and upwards to SG24.
Al Anh's first action is to call for a complete situation report from all his field commanders, thus putting off until tomorrow the decisions needed today. Our objective is nothing less than world domination, and we intend to achieve it in less time than our dastardly alternative-universe neighbors in PTW-land.
The first report was therefore the world geopolitical map, presented by Sheik Ar Asu to identify what we need to do to achieve our objective. We own 1213 tiles, and we are currently 512 tiles from world domination. The rest of the world is divided up into:
- unclaimed - 424 land, 199 coast
- India - 229
- France - 225
- Eqypt - 181
- Spain - 72
- Zulus - 18
- Persia - 17
- Carthage - 9
Approximate populations:
- Our total is about 368
- France 74
- India 57
- Egypt 52
- Spain 28
- Zulus 4
- Carthage 2
- Persia 2
We have been steadily reducing the number of tiles required by about 100 tiles every 50 years, so if we maintain this rate another 250 years (25 turns) should see us reach the goal, in about 900 AD. We must be able to reduce this time by careful selection of our targets and judicious use of our existing potential to expand. Current estimates indicate that we could add up to 200 tiles to our current size just by extending our cultural borders for an investment of around 1500 - 2000 gold for new temples. The balance of our land needs could then be met by aquiring India and Egypt, and we would then have a dominant population level as well.
The second report came from the Military advisor, Grand Visier Macbal 'drick:
We are currently at war with Egypt. Cleo's pen slipped while trying to sign a trade deal and she signed a declaration of war against Arabia instead. It could have been a freudian slip, with Cleo (aka Liz Taylor) subconsciously wishing to avenge the destruction of her beloved Anthony (played by Richard Burton) when Rome fell to our merciless armies. But it was a costly mistake, Cleo. You might yet fall on your asp as a result of that faux pas!
Current manpower:
- 68 Cataphracts
- 24 Persian Mecenaries
- 4 catapults
- 57 pikemen
- 1 Galley
- 1 Army
- 25 Workers plus 57 Guests
- 3 Settlers
We have an Army of two units, one is none other than the redoubtable Smacksters Revenge. It is red-lined outside an enemy city, so we are not optimistic about its future. However, it must have been victorious to be so grievously wounded, so we expect to be able to start on an Heroic Epic soon to teach new leadership skills.
Our defensive forces are deployed around our cities, and may need minor adjustments to move to protect newly captured border towns.
Our offensive forces are dispersed around our frontier regions, enjoying the customary rape and pillage after their recent victories. There are some pathetic excuses coming back about wounds healing, but a call to arms is clearly needed to get these men out of their warm beds in Carthaginian villages and onto new battlefields in Egypt and India. We also have troops chafing at the bit on our eastern frontier, ready to take over valuable real estate in India.
Having been appointed for a term of up to 150 years, should he survive so long, Al Anh decided his target should be to get Arabia to within 100 tiles of world domination, retaining the military might needed for his heir, Sheiks Mack'ster, to complete the final victory well within the following 100 years. So his first task had to be to round the Cataphracts up and get them to the front lines, pointing in the right directions.
The third report, from Sultan Al Weth's chief scribe in his capacity as Domestic Adviser, detailed the boring balance sheets of the production centres of Arabia. After a long presentation involving papyrus flip charts, and pin-hole projected spreadsheets with the rows and columns all upside down, Al Anh concluded that there were probably some minor adjustments that could be encouraged by some carefully selected floggings in market places around the empire, but by and large we were doing "all right".
The foreign advisor showed up late, parking his corporate chariot illegally on a double yellow outside the Palace, and gave a glowing sales presentation that nobody believed, as usual, then slipped his multi-page expense report into Al Ahn's in-tray and went off to a "business lunch" - yeah, right! His report did include a few nuggets of useful competitive intelligence however:
There are three civs worth worrying about, the rest are cannon fodder.
We are already at war with Egypt, they have the Great Lighthouse and the Great Library in Thebes, and they have Theology. The Library could be a useful aquisition to keep us up to date for a couple more techs, which is all it should take to reach victory, but this will be a bonus. The main target has to be their territory.
India still doesn't have Chivalry, so no War Elephants yet. We need to make a take over bid sooner rather than later. We have 2 turns left on the current RoP deal.
We have a RoP with France for the next 14 turns, so we could manoevre a lot of troops into place during that time. However, France has Gunpowder. Assuming she has a supply of saltpeter we are up against musketeers - musketmen with an extra attack point, and the French UU, so if we take them on we will trigger France's golden age. France will sell us Gunpowder technology for 1600 gold.
The Cultural and Scientific Ministers droned on as usual about our appalling lack of investment in key areas of science and the arts, while Al Anh chatted up a particularly neat little Carthaginian slave who had been pouring altogether too much Chianti into his goblet.
The Recommendation:
To achieve the fastest victory we can, we should wage total war against Egypt and India, buy alliances with France and Spain to keep them off our backs, and expand our borders now and as we take more foreign territory.
Al Anh slept on this plan, aided by the wine and the slave, and didn't see any major flaws. We do need to make sure the Indian archers wandering about our territory aren't in any position to make a mess of any of our empire when we declare war on them. But taking those out while they are away from home will reduce Ghandi's counter attack strength.
Before next turn:
Let's try to save the red-lined army. We have three cataphracts in range of it. If we could take Hieroconpolis (sp?) with a couple of them we would establish a fast route for the third to reinforce the army.
2 cataphracts kill spears without injury. But there's a longbow as well. So we have to use the last available cataphract to take Hieroconpolis. No one else can reach the army, so I think we'll lose it. Sorry, one of the units is Smacksters Revenge
Rushed temples, moved reinforcements towards Egypt. Switch workers from improvements to roads. We need roads. Rushed some cataphracts to deal with wandering Indians in our territory if/when we declare war.
Hit next turn.
An Egyptian longbow kills the army. Smacksters Revenge will rise again!
His legacy and memorial will be the Heroic Epic we can now build after his glorious victory under Al 'Weth's general-ship.
Turn 1 660 AD
Take Byblos. 2 cataphracts, no losses
Take Memphis. 1 cataphract, no losses
5 cataphracts attack Bapedi, 2 die
Take Asyut. 3 cataphracts, no losses
Build Smacksters Revenge, the city.
IBT: Egyptian longbows counter-attack. 1 cataphract dies, 1 retreats.
Turn 2 670 AD
Take Bapedi. 2 cataphracts, no losses.
Exchange world maps just to keep up to date and keep the AI poor. Ghandi needs 70 gold plus ours to show me his. I recouped all that on sales to the others.
IBT: The Indian stack that's been heading west takes Ulundi from the Zulus.
Turn 3 680 AD
Attack Heliopolis. 2 cataphracts die, one Rambo spear left alive, just.
IBT: Memphis flips back to Egypt and our Palace gets three extensions.
Turn 4 690 AD
Recapture Memphis with one cataphract.
Take Heliopolis. Lose 1 cataphract.
Take Thebes, with Great Library and Great Lighthouse. Lose 1 cataphract.
Take Isandalwana (sp?) Lose three cataphracts to four pikes!
Hurry a settler in Bapedi to fill a big Egyptian gap by the flood plains.
India has Chivalry. I've been holding off declaring war to try to get some roads in place, but we can't afford to wait now. Declare war on India.
Take Punjab with 1 cataphract.
Destroy Bengal with 3 cataphracts.
Take Dacca with 2 cataphracts.
Rush some more temples.
Destroy an Indian stack of archers near Oea.
Buy an alliance with France vs. India. Thay accept 110 gpt + wines + incense + wmap!
IBT: Great Library gives us Theology.
2 cities riot because the Oracle is obsolete. Asyut riots because I borrowed its MP cataphract.
Turn 5 700 AD
Sliders to 9.0.1 to avoid having to worry about several cities near the edge of unhappiness.
Take Kolaphur (India)
Take Pi-Rameses (Egypt). Lost 3 cataphracts to another Rambo spear.
IBT: A war elephant appears and kills a cataphract.
Turn 6 710 AD
Take Elephantine (Egypt) lost one cat. We've had umpteen elite battles and no leaders!
Take El-Amarna. Egypt is history.
Take Grenoble (India)
Take Madras . One cataphract lost.
Take Lahore. No losses.
Kill the wounded war elephant
Kill some Indian mercenaries and archers near Zimbabwe and ... a Leader at last!
Rename the victorious cataphract Smacksters Revenge 2.
What do we do with the leader now we have it?
Options are:
Leo's? Only good for denial, we aren't going to be around long enough to use it.
Sistine? Doubles cathedrals ... what are cathedrals? Some infidel plaything?
Army? Well, our only significant fighting is the other end of the continent. An army should be redundant by the time it gets there.
Heroic Epic? OK. Move the leader to Abha, safe from flipping and not too far away.
France has Education, but has no one to sell it to.
IBT: Zulus and India sign peace.
Indians attack near Zimbabwe and die, and near Lahore and die.
Turn 7 720 AD
Take Jaipur
Take Delhi. lose 2 cataphracts.
Build Tufayh in the Egyptian flood plain.
Ziyad ibn Abihi writes the Heroic Epic in Abha, single handed.
IBT: Carthago Delenda Est ... finally. France put them out of their misery.
Longbow kills a cataphract.
Turn 8 730 AD
Take Hyderabad
Take Calcutta
Take Bombay
Take Ulundi, near Zimbabwe
Renegotiate peace and RoP with Spain for 24 gold and their map.
Turn 9 740 AD
Take karachi lose 1 cataphract
Take Bangalore lose 1 cataphract
Build Abu Dhabi somewhere.
Rush more temples.
Turn 10 750 AD
Slider back to 10.0.0 as we now have luxuries galore as a result of our victories.
Spain has Gunpowder, so we will get it from the Great Library. Big deal. We only need about 30 tiles to finish.
Turn 11 760 AD
Take Chittagong, no losses. India is history.
Move towards Persia's only city in case we need more territory.
IBT: French knights who were starting to move towards India head back home.
Borders expand ... and ... Domination Victory! Yeah! [dance]
The end game was beautifully set up by the entire team, and was a pleasure to play. Well done guys! Our superb production centres just worked, with no intervention from me, so I could concentrate on killing Egyptians and Indians. In spite of my occasional fumbles that cost a few more cataphracts than necessary, we were continually producing more than I was killing.
Firaxis score 7077. Jason 10097.
Here's a zip file containing the end of turn 760 AD so that you can all savour the victory ceremony, plus the 770 AD save after the victory:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/SG23C_AD0770.ZIP
Here's the minimap and headcount:
We also have about 90 guest workers.
Great job, team
Onwards and upwards to SG24.
Thanks, but it all went according to plan, and I was just lucky to be there at the end. Egypt and India were all the territory we needed, and we had such a great treasury and running income, that in spite of giving France 110 gpt to keep quiet and buying temples like a drunken bishop we still had over 1000 gold in the coffers at the end.
I'm never sure whether the date for the Jason score is the date before the victory or the date afterwards. I suspect it should be the one before, as that's when the actual events take place that trigger it. It only makes 6 points difference anyway. And whichever way you count it, we thrashed the socks off the PTW team, which is what counts
[Update]
I had a quick look at the PTW timelines, and I think our earlier date may be a result of fighting near to home throughout. The PTW team took on Egypt early on, and were focused on the western end of the continent with difficult terrain and long lines of communication. We were able to build up the road infrastructure as we expanded by and large, and so we probably had quicker wars. I also noticed a lot of foot soldiers being produced at a time when we were totally focused on horses. They also went to Republic, and I think they stayed there, although I may have missed a government change. They captured Su Tzu, we built it with a Leader. I doubt if there's much difference, since either way you have to build a significant number of barracks first in order to wage the war that snags you the Wonder.
I also checked out the Spoiler 2 thread for GOTM 23.There seem to be four main groups of players:
- The likes of SirPleb who play to different rules and get silly domination dates in the range 200 AD to 500 AD.
- A group in the range 600 AD to 800 AD, which matches our performance. Those who posted Firaxis scores do seem to have come in with lower scores than us for similar dates.
- A group around 1000 AD to 1200 AD who match the PTW team's performance.
- The rest, who were still playing at the end of the Medieval Age.
smackster
SGOTM
I didn't notice any peace renegotiations, I loaded up one of their saves and just when cash was short there was a lot of money on the table. Also their FP was built much later, actually not far off when we won, I think an early leader really does help.
In my GOTM23 I actually left Rome alone, as they had their iron I decided not to attack, then noticed a while later they still hadn't hooked it up, I then traded some iron to them and they continued to pay me lots of GPT until very near the end of the game. They never hooked up their iron.
Also I note that we never found the little island to the north. In my GOTM it seemed to take forever to get the domination so I settled every space I could find, including every coast space of the island.
Anyway excellent overall team effort. Look forward to the next. Actully I'm just loading it up now so wont be able to look at this game again. Well OK I could but I wont. One benifit of PTW is that you don't have to keep shuffling files around.
Smackster
In my GOTM23 I actually left Rome alone, as they had their iron I decided not to attack, then noticed a while later they still hadn't hooked it up, I then traded some iron to them and they continued to pay me lots of GPT until very near the end of the game. They never hooked up their iron.
Also I note that we never found the little island to the north. In my GOTM it seemed to take forever to get the domination so I settled every space I could find, including every coast space of the island.
Anyway excellent overall team effort. Look forward to the next. Actully I'm just loading it up now so wont be able to look at this game again. Well OK I could but I wont. One benifit of PTW is that you don't have to keep shuffling files around.
Smackster
Congratulations to the team!
As a neophyte player who has (had?) no strategies for winning the game I have some observations:
1. The settler farm was a key idea that I now will use in my own games.
2. The diplomatic arrangements were THE key to keeping control of the game.
3. The use of the Forbidden Palace was a great insight for me.
4. I usually have poor results at war and now I know why.
5. Patience, patience, patience.
I never could totally replay the games with the exact same results and my own efforts playing revealed where I was going wrong - no diplomatic agreements, not using large groups of forces to attack a city until it fell, not keeping track of who might be ready to declare war on me and detouring them with diplomacy.
So I thank you for your insights. Maybe one day I'll take a turn or two but not until I feel I won't mess it up!
Onward to GM_24!
- Keath
As a neophyte player who has (had?) no strategies for winning the game I have some observations:
1. The settler farm was a key idea that I now will use in my own games.
2. The diplomatic arrangements were THE key to keeping control of the game.
3. The use of the Forbidden Palace was a great insight for me.
4. I usually have poor results at war and now I know why.
5. Patience, patience, patience.
I never could totally replay the games with the exact same results and my own efforts playing revealed where I was going wrong - no diplomatic agreements, not using large groups of forces to attack a city until it fell, not keeping track of who might be ready to declare war on me and detouring them with diplomacy.
So I thank you for your insights. Maybe one day I'll take a turn or two but not until I feel I won't mess it up!
Onward to GM_24!
- Keath
Great team effort, and a great score. I think we would be very close to the top ten of GOTM23, if not right there!
I haven't had a chance yet to look at the PTW Team thread, but I concur with Alan's summary -especially when he talks about thrashing socks
I'm looking forward to doing the same in GOTM24! P.S. Keath, feel free to join 24 if you feel like it!
