TJS1 -- Going on the Pill-age

[choxorn]

Well done! We've just about got this in the bag, just a bit more and we'll have all the tiles we need.

How do y'all feel about, just for the hell of it, capturing Moscow and seeing how many techs we get from the Great Library? We should easily be able to get enough tiles to flip the domination limit in the next few turns even if we don't have free temples everywhere.

 

[tjs282]

Wow! I would not have predicted the end of the game so soon. Nice going, Lanzelot!

Turn 198:
429 tiles left.

Capture Tenochtitlan (Oracle, finally!), Chiconautlan, Ankara, Sinop and in a peace deal with Byzanz: Prilep, Ohrid, Vidin, Rusuccuru, Trebizond.

Turn 199:
328 tiles left. We have now 66% of the world's population!

Capture Tlatelolco, the Aztecs are no longer.
Capture Brusa, Caesarea, Kafa.
Found a few towns.

Interturn a Byzantine AC captures Constantinople.

Did I understand this right? Dora signed a PT on your turn, and then broke it 2T later? Or did you redeclare?

Sign a RiP with Carthage, cancel our RoP with Osmania and declare war. Take Konya.

Nice typo! Or was it deliberate?

 

[Toxicman007]

well done guys! this went a lot faster than I expected. Out of curiosity Lanz, what was in the goody hut?

 

[Lanzelot]

How do y'all feel about, just for the hell of it, capturing Moscow and seeing how many techs we get from the Great Library?

I think we need 2-3 more turn for the last crucial culture expansions in Byzanz, but then why not? Perhaps we'll have Bach's Cathedral by then in order to compensate for the missing happiness.

Dora signed a PT on your turn, and then broke it 2T later? Or did you redeclare?

I redeclared, as with 5 old Wonders built by the Byzantines, I feared the flip risk for some of the towns would be too high.

Out of curiosity Lanz, what was in the goody hut?

I meant to mention, but then completely forgot yesterday: 2 barbs of course. And they didn't even promote the Knight to elite...

Nice typo

Hehe, I haven't practiced my Latin in quite a while... We'll see what robbus makes of it... There is quite a lot of wumms at the Carthaginian border (7 or 8 full-sized Armies!), so a RiP may well be possible to administer to at least part of their empire... (if the game isn't over before that...)

BTW: I forgot to mention: some of the Settlers are on auto-move, on the way to their best location. One of them is going to settle on the swamp tile in the far north east. A couple of Workers are currently clearing the swamp and should be ready by the time the settler arrives. (Some will finish a road and can then join the others in the swamp.)

 

[Elephantium]

Grr, I thought I said "No backstabbing".

 

[tjs282]

Grr, I thought I said "No backstabbing".

If keeping a clean trade- and diplo-rep was still important to us, then I'd agree -- but at this point in the game, preserving our rep is no longer a real concern.

That said, (sorry Lanz) the following still doesn't seem (to me) like a reasonable justification for the

I redeclared, as with 5 old Wonders built by the Byzantines, I feared the flip risk for some of the towns would be too high.

Then why sign peace with them at all? Why not just (let Robbus) finish them off? Because it seems from your turnlog that the Byzzies' towns were already falling like dominoes: if any had back-flipped during the extra turns needed to conquer their last stronghold(s), (why) would that have been a major problem? Were you/we running so low on units, that re-taking the flippers would have been difficult/impossible?

And once the Byzzies were no more, wouldn't the flip-risk have pretty much disappeared anyway? Any remaining resistance could have been quelled pretty quickly (e.g. by garrisoning 3-4 fast-units -- or 1 Army -- per resisting town per turn, as they made their way back to the Carthaginian front); and with the ToA-Temples (plus the AI's tendency to found towns at Cxx(x)xC), the captured towns (on our continent) would have popped their borders 5T after capture, so few if any of them would have been left with BFC-tiles (still) controlled by Carthage.

Was unhappiness becoming a problem? We would have lost war-happiness following the demise of the Arabs and Aztecs, but we should still have had some from Dora's DoW? Could we not afford the (extra) LUX%-spending we would have needed to keep everyone happy for the last couple of turns of Byzzie/Otto-conquest?

If it was just a question of racing for the finish, well, the game has effectively been in the bag for at least the last 20-30T, and there are no prizes for finishing it a couple of turns sooner rather than later (you do remember, that we're not playing a GotM-/ HoF-game, don't you...? ). I don't think anyone else would have objected to taking another turnset if necessary, and sharing in the glory...!

Still not saying that backstabbing was the wrong thing to do here, mind you, but it's not what I would have done, so I'm interested to know why you chose that course of action rather than any other?

 

[Lanzelot]

Still not saying that backstabbing was the wrong thing to do here, mind you, but it's not what I would have done, so I'm interested to know why you chose that course of action rather than any other?

I have to admit that I got a bit carried away here in my attempt to finish it as quickly and as "cleanly" as possible, and just followed my "usual procedure" from dozens of GOTMs without thinking too much about it.

At that point I had taken every Byzantine town except for the current capital, these five size-1 towns (which could not be taken, because they would auto-raze) and 1-2 more which were still out of reach that turn. (Military-wise it would not have been a problem to capture all of them within 2-3 turns, but I skipped all the size-1 towns in my conquest, as I wanted to avoid the auto-razes.) 50 tiles is an important step towards victory, so it's "important" to get them, and the two alternatives are not very appealing:

• Raze them and then create Settlers somewhere else where there is enough surplus population, ship them there and re-settle the land. (Takes a lot of time and is tedious.)
• Wait until they grow to size 2. (Also takes a lot of time, and at that point the Byzantines had already suffered so heavy losses, that their war weariness was probably already through the roof and consequently these towns would consist only of a "lone entertainer", meaning they would never grow... And all the while the flip risk would be looming.)

So I applied the "proven method" to this kind of situation: take the uncapturable size-1 towns in the peace deal.

So far everything should still be complying with our code of honor, but the "backstab" was then, that I broke that peace deal after 2 turns and administered the "coupe de grâce" by taking their last two towns? I plead guilty. But I figured that 5-6 turns before the end of the game we would no longer care for our reputation, and also that - before we can turn our Armies around and tackle a formidable opponent like Carthage - we should get rid of any possible flip risks in our back. (Especially with a couple of nice wonders at risk.)

This was basically my reasoning leading up to the backstab, if I have to spell it out consciously (though it was more or less "auto-pilot reactions" while playing, not really conscious thoughts). If you think it's against our code of conduct, we can replay from the auto-save from 2-3 turns back.

 

[Nathiri]

I see no issue and we should just continue.

 

[Elephantium]

If keeping a clean trade- and diplo-rep was still important to us, then I'd agree -- but at this point in the game, preserving our rep is no longer a real concern.

I just think that backstabs in this game are cheap shots, and I prefer to play "honorably". We can win easily without them -- particularly Lanz, with his extensive Civ 3 experience.

I agree with continuing despite the betrayal (not that it matters; I don't expect to see another turnset in this game).

 

[tjs282]

I just think that backstabs in this game are cheap shots, and I prefer to play "honorably".

Fair enough. That's the way I generally prefer to play as well, but having never yet successfully progressed past Emp (I've played a couple of Small-map, all-Random DG-games where I managed to survive a lot longer than I expected to, but not won one yet), I wondered if maybe I was missing something.

I don't have a problem from playing on from this point either. So, Robbus, according to the roster posted just before Nathiri's and Lanz's sets, it's time to get your out. Take us to glory!

 

[robbus]

Thanks t o President Lanzelot. He will be immortalized in the Viking saga.

My preflight is as follows:

Use the fleet positioned around Istanbul island to invade from northwest to take out 3 ottoman cities.

Send armies to heal in Constantinople for eventual engagement with Carthaginian stack of knights.

Our homeland is producing berzerkers every 3 turns turn and they will likely be needed to engage carthage in the north. We are not really set up to ship weapons north as fast maybe knights would be better

 

[choxorn]

Remember: We're taking The Great LIbrary, for the fun of it, and we need the Ottomans to have at least one other city when we do that to get any benefit out of it. Plan accordingly!

 

[robbus]

Remember: We're taking The Great LIbrary, for the fun of it, and we need the Ottomans to have at least one other city when we do that to get any benefit out of it. Plan accordingly!

Please explain. We get free techs? Why does ottomans have to have another city.?

 

[Nathiri]

Please explain. We get free techs? Why does ottomans have to have another city.?

The Great Library requires two other civs with the same tech in order to get any techs at all.

 

[robbus]

The Great Library requires two other civs with the same tech in order to get any techs at all.

so we get either education or chemistry?

 

[choxorn]

We get every tech the Ottomans and Carthaginians have that we don't have.

 

[Elephantium]

It's technically possible to go into the IA because of the GLib! Just rare...it requires this kind of game, where we turn off research early in favor of war.

 

[robbus]

Playing after a "LANZ-KRIEG" is pretty straight forward. Lanz had left very powerful military and amphibious force.

Thanks to all of you for playing as I learned so much from this.

Spoiler 860-910ad :

860ad turn 1

IBT

Carthage cav stack retreats towards Naussius, units around Constantinople retreat towards Naussius.

carthage Frigates and galleons appear.

carthage start Newtons Uni.

870ad

fortify armies in nicomedia. Move zerker fleet east towards carthage west coast for operation overlord. Frigates around vidin moving south.

Settlers fill in gaps in aztecia.

Recruit mainland zerks to verge on moscow.

IBT

Carthage continues to retereat towards Naussius. Ottoman med inf attacks knight on mountain which retrets then killed by LB.

880ad

take Izmit r musket/2 r spears. Take out damaged LB and Med inf with zerks.

Operation overlord continues to stage.

Hills around Naissus hold 12 numid mercs. Where are the Knights?

Zerk army positioned outside naissus, more on the way .

IBT

zerk killed on istanbul island.

890ad

Moscow under siege by zerks, attack next turn.

Naissus expeditionary force will attack next turn.


IBT


frigates and galleys converge off coast of carthage. Island of Tacape reinforced.


900ad

Moscow falls. 9 tiles to go according to civ II.

Naussiusattacked and 10 knights and numid killed, it is then occupied

cirta attacked 8 zerks lost to 4 muskets.

Hadrumentum attacked defended by a cannon and 2 muskets. Lose 4 zerks.

I attack galleys off cirta and do badly (unsurprisingly).

Aztecia undefended carthage city occupied.

It is over...


BTW: Library gave us education, banking, astronomy, metallurgy, navigation

 

[Nathiri]

We came, we saw, and we conquered.

 

[choxorn]

Well done, everybody! It only took us, what, 5 months, but we conquered the world and didn't even need to hit the Industrial Age to do it!