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[choxorn]

Pre-Flight Notes/Plan:

City Count: We have 13, Japan and Korea also have 13, Vikings 12, China 10 (one of which is on our continent, to the north of the Vikings), India 8, Mongols 16, England 19.

Diplomacy: We're at war with the Vikings, China and Korea are at war with the Mongols. There might be other things going on on the other continent, I'm not sure without having more embassies. An embassy with Japan costs 58 gold, India 47 gold, Mongolia 90.

Military: We have 2 Settlers, 18 Workers, 1 Warrior, 1 Archer, 1 Spear, 1 Horse, 2 Pikes, 1 Galley, 2 Curraghs, and 4 Medieval Infantry, 2 of which are in an army.

We for sure need more units than this. 10 military units on land isn't going to cut it. We're average compared to Scandinavia and weak compared to everyone else.

Technology: We're at the same level as everyone else, except Korea (They have Invention), Scandinavia (They don't have Engineering), and Japan (They're still in the late-Ancient Age and 8 techs behind us)

All of Gold to Korea for Invention is "Insulting"

Were researching Invention at 40%, due in 11 turns. We've already spent a fair amount of gold towards researching Invention, so I think I'll continue researching it. After that, Theology and Education would be the best choices, and they are currently queued up on F6. Astronomy is queued up after that- I'd say that whether we go for that, Banking, or Gunpowder depends on what the AI decides to research.

Economy: As already mentioned, Science at 40%, Luxury at 20%.

Why the hell is there a clown in Fischburg? He's actually happy when he's not a specialist!

We have a weak military and we're fighting a war, we can't afford to have only 4 cities build military units, especially not when they're building 2 Pikemen and a Horse. At the very least Goldstadt's Courthouse can wait, and I'm wondering if we might be better off using Konigsberg for something other than a Worker factory, at least for a couple of turns, because we really need more units. And don't worry about screwing up the Worker factory when we get back to it- I can do this without it growing at all with a bit of MM.

Plan for the turnset:

-Build military a bit more, and build some stuff in Oasenstadt. I'll have to use our meager cash to rush a few units.

-The settler on the peninsula can settle in place, there's a few locations I could send the one in Wilhelmshaven to- either the chokepoint, the hill near the Whales on the peninsula, or between Neu-Oslo and Liverpool.

-I'll have the Workers do Worker things, improve the land in our South.

-Fight the Vikings. Copenhagen must burn for daring to rebel against us, and Trondheim has a wonder we very much want. After that, I'll see what they'll offer for peace (At the moment, they'll offer us all 3 of their gold plus any 2 of Aarhus, Odense, and Hareid (except for Aarhus and Hareid- that's "Getting Close to a deal here," probably because they're both size 2 and Odense is size 1. Interestingly, they won't offer us their seemingly worthless size 1 and 2 tundra cities- one has Dyes, but the other has no resources, so there's probably Oil up there)).

 

[Lanzelot]

Regarding research I still think, this is the best/fastest for now:

Here is a third idea: just abandon Invention now and switch to Theology immediately. How many beakers have we currently invested into Invention? Probably around 300. Anyway, let's just "write them off" as the price we payed for a (hopefully) well-learned lesson... We have already wasted so much gold in this game, these 300b don't matter much anymore... In any case, it doesn't make sense to sink more beakers into a tech that is already known. (And which more AIs are currently researching.)

With O'stadt and K'stadt now growing quickly and making good use of their libs, we can do Theology hopefully in ~10 turns and then trade for Invention. (And even if Korea and all other civs that might have Invention, get Theology before us, we'll get Invention for Education, because no AI will beat us to that tech: they usually favor Chivalry and the lower branch techs.)

We have already wasted enough gold in this game, why waste even more on something we can get for free in a few turns?

Diplomacy: We're at war with the Vikings, China and Korea are at war with the Mongols.

In case no one noticed: here is a great opportunity for us! Is everyone familiar with MAPT deals? It's a nice trick to fish for War Happiness. I'd like to set up MAPT deals with both of them, but Korea is scientific and we want their Invention eventually, so naturally we want to stay friends with them. So only set up one MAPT deal with China against the Mongols.
Also I suggest to build more embassies now, so we can recognize and then take advantage of more opportunities like this. With our meagre supply of luxuries, MAPT deals are our best chance for sustaining big cities at 0% lux tax. (And consequently fast research.)

We have a weak military and we're fighting a war, we can't afford to have only 4 cities build military units, especially not when they're building 2 Pikemen and a Horse. At the very least Goldstadt's Courthouse can wait, and I'm wondering if we might be better off using Konigsberg for something other than a Worker factory, at least for a couple of turns, because we really need more units. And don't worry about screwing up the Worker factory when we get back to it- I can do this without it growing at all with a bit of MM.

Plan for the turnset:

-Build military a bit more, and build some stuff in Oasenstadt. I'll have to use our meager cash to rush a few units.

Don't let that war interfere with our domestic infrastructure build-up! All our towns are still small, have meagre shield production and no research output to speak of... We need to get the jungles cleared and our cities pumped up to size 12 asap, or we will never take off. That means:
- please don't mess with the worker pump. Workers are the most important for now.
- don't burn any cash on units unless in real emergency situations. The embassies and more MAPT deals are more important for now. The war against Scandinavia can certainly be won with the units we build normally now. They are already beaten, and our Mace-Army alone will suffice to capture Trondheim. Just heal it and join the third mace. After Copenhagen and Trondheim are taken (which should not take that long any more), we can take a peace deal for two more towns, and then we can concentrate on consolidation/domestic build-up, so don't build too many units now! 2 Maces should be enough for re-capturing Copenhagen, and then the Army and 1-2 horses can siege Trondheim until they capture it, while our remaining units fend off the occasional archer the Vikings might throw at us. In less than 10 turns the war is over. So don't panic...
- leave the courthouse in Goldstadt. A single unit every 15-20 turns won't make any difference for this war.

-Fight the Vikings. Copenhagen must burn for daring to rebel against us,

Don't raze it, it'll give us a severe rep hit. Also I think it won't flip a second time, we'll soon have more culture than the Vikings. Let's stay with the original plan of settler-disbanding it. A free settler in that area is quite valuable, so don't resort to such irrational actions as "taking revenge" against a dumb computer program...

Assignment for everyone for tonight: read SirPleb's great article about "Leader Farming": http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/leaders.php
I noticed that we are waay too careless with our elite units, e.g. eHorses attacking units on hills and dying, eHorses being left wounded and unprotected in the field and getting killed in a counter-attack, etc. This has to be avoided. We'll need another leader soon for the Forbidden Pallace, so
- use elite units only, if they have a fail-proof chance of a win, e.g. against a red- or yellow-lined archer on flatland
- in case there is a risk of a counter-attack, protect every elite unit with a pike (or keep it under cover of the Mace-Army). If it can't be protected, don't expose it.


PS: I also found the article that explains MAPT deals (though not very detailed, so please let me know if you need more instructions on how to set it up):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246590
If you study some of the experts' fast research games, you will find that all of them rely on war happiness to speed up the research effort during those times until enough luxuries can be connected (which is usually quite late in the game, late MA/early IA). And with "speed up" I don't mean peanuts, I mean 30-40% faster research times than what could be had without the WH!

 

[choxorn]

Is the rep hit for razing cities really that high? How does it work, exactly?

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, I didn't remember all the details, but I found it again in Bamspeedy's study: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/ai_attitude.php

So I was wrong: it doesn't affect the reputation, it affects the attitude. The Vikings' attitude will worsen by +12, which is huge, but that probably doesn't matter, as we don't expect much from them anymore anyway...
All other nations will add +1, which is not that much, but -- it is permanent! Meaning we can't get rid of it for the rest of the game. 2-3 more (auto-)razed towns and it will make the rest of the world "annoyed" even with a trade or two going on. And this would indeed be a disadvantage, as we hope on getting some more good deals (luxuries, techs and gpt for techs) from them in the long-term.
I guess we can afford razing a town or two during the course of the game, if it is really necessary, but why do it when it's not necessary (and when not razing it even gives us a benefit).

BTW, @all: when reading SirPleb's article, please keep in mind that it was written at the time of PtW, which had a couple of important and fundamental differences to C3C:
a) Armies were virtually weak and useless (while in C3C they are very powerful and useful)
b) MGLs were able to rush great wonders (which they no longer are in C3C)
c) The Forbidden Pallace was extremely powerful (whereas in C3C it is only moderately powerful)

But I trust that you can make the necessary adjustments to his recommendations in your mind, while reading the article.

 

[tjs282]

Why the hell is there a clown in Fischburg? He's actually happy when he's not a specialist!

Certainly not because I wanted/needed a Clown there. That civizen was working the fish tile on previous turns, as you'd expect (and as you can see from the food-box), so Fischberg* was accumulating food quite fast, and will grow quite soon (2-3T?).

*

Spoiler :

Incidentally, in German, '-berg' = 'hill/mountain' whereas '-burg' = 'castle/fort' -- although historically 'Burgs' were also frequently built on 'Bergs'. So is this town going to be called 'Fischberg' (= 'Fishmont'), 'Fischburg' (='Fishfort'), or maybe 'Fischbergburg' (='Fishmontfort') ?

Thing is, I don't have all the new (to me) C3C resource values memorised (yet), and I also usually build my cities more CxxxC than CxxC, so extensive BFC-overlap isn't usually a major feature(/problem!) in my games to date. Prior to complete tile-improvement (per my food map), it's still quicker/easier for me to move civizens around on the city screens and see what happens, than trying to figure it all out in my head. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I was experimenting with tile assignments between Fischberg, Catan and W'haven just before I saved the 270 AD game (on Wednesday evening/ Thursday morning) to figure out where it would be best to put all the civizens -- including Fischburg's imminent second, which ought to be put on a tile with shields, if possible.

All three of those cities can work the banana-tile near W'haven (where I think I sent 3 Workers to clear/mine the Jungle?), so I guess I'd temporarily moved Fishberg's civizen there to see how much food it would get before improvements, realised it wasn't worth it, taken it off again to give the tile to one of the other cities, but forgot to send the default-Clown back out fishing again. That was careless, sorry about that

I didn't actually reload the save myself in C3C before writing the handover stuff and posting yesterday evening, I just looked for what I thought was the most pertinent information using CAII (which loads a lot faster on my machine!). My turnset was pretty much done, after all. I wasn't going to move any more units (I didn't have many left to move... ), the only question was what to do with the treasury -- whether I should leave the gold there for deficit research, rush those unit builds myself (and then re-save) so you'd have them after the first IBT or let you do it, or whatever.

But given what Lanzelot (quite rightly) pointed out yesterday about waiting for team input on important decisions, I now felt that spending our gold shouldn't be at my sole discretion anymore, considering I'd cocked-up so badly

@MRG:
I owe you an apology too. I was unfair regarding your conduct of the war, especially given my own subsequent unit wastage. So, sorry.

 

[Lanzelot]

Incidentally, in German, '-berg' = 'hill/mountain' whereas '-burg' = 'castle/fort'

And more on that topic: I'm quite annoyed (or even "furious"? ) that Fireaxis misspelled the name of my hometown so badly! "Heidelburg"! Oh yeah, guys, right! Trying to write a game about mankind's civilization and can't even correctly spell the name of the most beautiful town on earth...

So please, whoever gets to found that town, please do me a favor and rename it to Heidelberg... (BTW: shouldn't it already have come up? We already have 13 towns, and it's not that far down the list, iirc.)

@MRG:
I owe you an apology too. I was unfair regarding your conduct of the war, especially given my own subsequent unit wastage. So, sorry.

Don't worry, guys, you are doing great. There is a German saying, which roughly translates to: "Making mistakes is the best way to learn." By the time you are through this game, you'll beat Demigod with your right arm tied behind your back...


I had a look at the save, so here are some more tips for MM:
- Kolossusstadt is size 7, so can now use the hill and plain for decent shields. With only +2fpt it'll grow in 17 turns, and we are certainly not going to wait that long: we'll join 2-3 workers over the next handful of turns. Otherwise Copernicus will not be done on time.
- Once Oasenstadt has grown one or two more times, give Hamburg the floodplain so it can quickly recover the lost citizens that the Vikings killed. It finally has its aqueduct, but is only size 4, what a waste... Once back at size 7, also join 1-2 workers.
And: I guess we have enough unit-producing towns for now. Perhaps Hamburg should now build a library instead of barracks!
- Goldstadt can use a mined hill instead of the forest. (1/3/3 instead of 1/2/2). Speeds up the courthouse from 18 to 12 turns.
- Two towns are currently building pikes and they are far away from the front, while Eisenstadt is building a horse close to the front. For one, I think we don't need that many more pikes, we already have 3 (once the last remaining spear is upgraded), and secondly, the slow units should be built close to the front. So I would switch these towns around: let Catan and Wilhelmshaven build horses, while Eisenstadt builds another pike.

A tip on warfare: when attacking Copenhagen from Eisenstadt, we attack uphill and across the river. That explains the heavy losses we had. (And horses are not really suited for targets on hills.) So for the next attack I recommend to first move the units onto the mountain NE of Copenhagen and then attack a turn later. It'll be slower but avoids the river malus. A pike and three maces should be plenty for that job.
The leftover archer can protect Hamburg against another D-Day... And the eHorse in Hamburg can stay in the Eisenstadt area trying to pick up wounded archers hoping for another leader, and as a reserve in case the archer fails to beat back the next Viking D-Day. The Army heals and protects Bergen in the meantime.

Once the maces have captured Copenhagen, they can join the Army coming from Bergen (plus the two horses from W'haven and Catan) and then capture Trondheim, after which we'll call it a day and take Aarhus and another town in the peace deal.

 

[tjs282]

Assignment for everyone for tonight: read SirPleb's great article about "Leader Farming": http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3/strategy/leaders.php

I have read it, a long time ago -- and it was written for Vanilla. Although the 'leader-generation' mechanics are (I assume) unchanged in C3C, you can't build wonders with (M)GLs any more, so I kind of got the impression that leader farming's really only worth doing for Palace jumps, FP/SmW-builds, and (primarily) Army production in C3C... Although obviously we do need an FP soon -- we're already over half the Nopt for a Standard-size Emp map. But we won't be able to get MGLs if we're using our Army preferentially, and Armies don't retreat...

I noticed that we are waay too careless with our elite units, e.g. eHorses attacking units on hills and dying,

If you're referring to my turnset, your example conflates at least two separate incidents. Apart from the Copenhagen debacle, the only other (e)Horse that died on a hill during my turnset was the 1HP vArcher-killer that got us Barbarossa (and his Army, which I hope you're not too unhappy about...? ) And it only died on the IBT because (at the time I didn't realise that) the Hill was unroaded, so I had no MP left to retreat it after the victory. It did however have 4 HP left, so it didn't immediately retreat when the next rArcher(?) attacked it -- and then the rArcher got redlined too, and our Horse lost the last combat round.

And I have already acknowledged my stupidity in attacking Copenhagen with the 2 vHorses. That said, even though they both got redlined before the defending rSpear, neither of them retreated -- which was unlucky. And the first Horse did actually injure the rSpear before it was defeated, otherwise I would not even have considered sending the second one in -- but I was annoyed about the flip, and I let myself get suckered.

@Choxorn: I did not want to raze Copenhagen when I first captured it because of the rep-hit, and also because at the time, I anticipated taking Bergen and Trondheim in fairly quick succession using the Army, which would have significantly reduced the flip-risk in all 3 cities (I figure R'vik will become the next capital when Trondheim falls).
@Lanzelot, re. Settler-abandonment: Isn't it the case though, that if you abandon an all-foreign city later, you still take the hit, as if you'd razed it? So the only way to avoid a rep-hit is to get at least as many of your own civizens in it first, i.e. starving/enslaving the city down to Pop1 -- which I think I read somewhere on here is also unpopular with the AIs -- then Settler-abandoning ideally just as it grows back to Pop2 (which can take an awful lot of turns, depending on size at capture)? Is that what you were suggesting?

eHorses being left wounded and unprotected in the field and getting killed in a counter-attack

I'll put my hand up to being guilty of that at least twice, first with Barbarossa's Horse (although it was still in the green), then later with an Archer approaching Hamburg shortly after I'd retaken it, I think -- although that would have been mostly desperation in the Hamburg aftermath.

On which subject, if I'd known that peace deals were based on total losses rather than current assets, then yes, I would have tried sueing for peace before I lost Hamburg in the first place. But based on my past games, I'd assumed you could only make 'peace treaty for tribute' demands of the AI from a position of significant strength, which we never had (and I'm also surprised to hear that we're still 'average' against the Vikings after all their unit-losses).

It didn't even occur to me that the game logic would work any other way, so that's also why I didn't ask about it. I was resigned to losing Hamburg temporarily, but I was 99.999% sure it wouldn't be any longer than 1T, which is another reason why I didn't pause and ask if it would be possible to stave off the invasion/city loss. (And thinking about it now, my worry that it would get razed was unfounded, since the Vikings hadn't hit their OCN yet).

- use elite units only, if they have a fail-proof chance of a win, e.g. against a red- or yellow-lined archer on flatland

I would argue that healthy v/eHorses can pretty much always(?!) beat D=1 units on the flat. And while leaving a damaged fast unit out in the open is risky, it's 'only' 50% risky -- because that's the retreat probability...

in case there is a risk of a counter-attack, protect every elite unit with a pike (or keep it under cover of the Mace-Army).

I would have done this if I had had sufficient defensive units to do this. Buuut... I also seem to recall someone saying before the war began, that we didn't need defensive units anywhere, so long as we just kept attacking...

If it can't be protected, don't expose it.

On my turnset, that would have meant keeping _all_ our fast units in one or two cities (if under the fortified city-Pikes), or a long way from some of them (if under the Army) -- or leaving cities undefended (if taking Pikes out into the field) ... and look how well that last option turned out for Hamburg...

 

[tjs282]

Incidentally, in German, '-berg' = 'hill/mountain' whereas '-burg' = 'castle/fort' -- although historically 'Burgs' were also frequently built on 'Bergs'. So is this town going to be called 'Fischberg' (= 'Fishmont'), 'Fischburg' (='Fishfort'), or maybe 'Fischbergburg' (='Fishmontfort') ?

No, even better: 'Burg Fischberg' (Fort Fishmont)

There is a German saying, which roughly translates to: "Making mistakes is the best way to learn."

The saying is not exclusive to Germany. I think 'humanity' might be more accurate... And I'm with Charlie Brown on this one:
"THAT MAKES ME THE SMARTEST PERSON IN THE WORLD!!!"

By the time you are through this game, you'll beat Demigod with your right arm tied behind your back...

Well, assuming I/we've actually learned anything from my/our mistakes, anyway...

 

[tjs282]

- Kolossusstadt is size 7, so can now use the hill and plain for decent shields. With only +2fpt it'll grow in 17 turns, and we are certainly not going to wait that long: we'll join 2-3 workers over the next handful of turns. Otherwise Copernicus will not be done on time.

Using 1 Hill and 1 (irrigated) Plain will only get +1fpt, not +2spt. But if we want more SPT there, and plan to grow it by worker-joins anyway, then using the Hill, the irrigated Plain and the mined Plain (as in my foodmap) would be better: it will only get 0fpt, but it will also get 2spt more. The ex-Worker civizens will be sent out to sea, where they'll each then bring in just enough food to feed themselves.

- Once Oasenstadt has grown one or two more times, give Hamburg the floodplain so it can quickly recover the lost citizens that the Vikings killed. It finally has its aqueduct, but is only size 4, what a waste... Once back at size 7, also join 1-2 workers.

Good idea

And: I guess we have enough unit-producing towns for now. Perhaps Hamburg should now build a library instead of barracks!

You think four towns is enough? And while I'd like to claim that I planned it, actually the only reason we have the 4th Barracks in W'haven is because the (imminent) loss of Hamburg distracted me, and I forgot that I'd intended to switch the Barracks-build to a Lib. What a happy accident, eh? W'haven's really not ideally placed (and nor is Catan) for unit production, but I guess we need to make the best of what we have now...

- Goldstadt can use a mined hill instead of the forest. (1/3/3 instead of 1/2/2). Speeds up the courthouse from 18 to 12 turns.

That mine only just got finished on the last IBT, and I think I'd kind of lost heart by that point. I moved the Worker-stack to the Marsh for roading/draining, but didn't think about MM-ing the city... So Choxorn (and Lanzelot), you might want to double-check I haven't left anything else obviously undone/unoptimised. And sorry again.

- Two towns are currently building pikes and they are far away from the front, while Eisenstadt is building a horse close to the front. For one, I think we don't need that many more pikes, we already have 3 (once the last remaining spear is upgraded), and secondly, the slow units should be built close to the front. So I would switch these towns around: let Catan and Wilhelmshaven build horses, while Eisenstadt builds another pike.

I must have been tired after all, because if I'd really been paying attention, that's what I would have done (I advocated exactly that in an earlier post -- fast units from the back, slow units from the front)...

In fact, I think that's sort of what I did do initially -- started a vPike in E'stadt to go to Hamburg while it rebuilt its Barracks, so I could move the eHorse to the front (Catan and W'haven's Pikes were vaguely intended for K'stadt, to protect the Colossus, and Bergburgfischburger, because there is/was an English Archer in the vicinity). But then I lost another Horse to the Vikings, and wanted a replacement on the front immediately, so I switched Estadt's shields to a Horse. And then I wondered if it would be better to (rush-) build Maces everywhere rather than Pikes or Horses. And then I realised that that decision should really be made by the team anyway.

I think I might be a bit indecisive, but I'm not sure...

A tip on warfare: when attacking Copenhagen from Eisenstadt, we attack uphill and across the river. That explains the heavy losses we had.

Oh no, you're kidding me!!! Really?? Copenhagen is EAST of the river? Maybe I need to change my terrain graphics pack -- or get a new pair of glasses -- because I never noticed that at all! GodMANNit, no wonder those Horses got slaughtered! Is that possibly also why they didn't retreat, because they would have had to cross both a river and a border? Or was that just bad luck?

 

[Lanzelot]

I would have done this if I had had sufficient defensive units to do this. Buuut... I also seem to recall someone saying before the war began, that we didn't need defensive units anywhere, so long as we just kept attacking...

I did write that, didn't I...
Well, when I wrote it, I was still thinking we were up for a nice and easy Emperor game... Usually on Emperor I don't build any defensive units and fare very well with it. On Deity of course even I build 2-3 defenders... And this game turns out to be a bit more difficult and the AI is putting up a bit more resistance than expected...
So I guess having 4 pikes is ok...

 

[Lanzelot]

Using 1 Hill and 1 (irrigated) Plain will only get +1fpt, not +2spt.

No, you misunderstood: I meant the hill and the mined plain for 0fpt. (Ok, like you described in the following sentence. Yes, when growing via worker-joins, there is no need for surplus food any more. The city can just go for max production and 0fpt.)

W'haven's really not ideally placed (and nor is Catan) for unit production, but I guess we need to make the best of what we have now...

For 1-2 horses it's ok, they will reach Trondheim in time for the final attack.
And the next war will be on the other side, so they are perfectly located then...

Is that possibly also why they didn't retreat, because they would have had to cross both a river and a border? Or was that just bad luck?

I can't remember ever reading anything about this, but it could be?! Interesting question. A little test should show.

Anyway: sometimes it is indeed really hard to see on the map, where exactly a river runs along. City graphics hiding the bordering terrain graphics etc. Sometimes it is possible to deduce the course of the river by right-clicking all tiles around a city and noticing which tiles have +1 commerce. This is, what I did in Copenhagen's case. (The NE mountain I suggested as starting point for our attack does have +1 commerce, but that's due to the river floating along its western edge. The tile SE of the mountain does not have +1c, and from this we can deduce that the river cannot flow between the mountain and Copenhagen.)

 

[choxorn]

Fair enough about the Copenhagen rep hit, it's too small to give us any slaves or anything for razing it now. I think my tendency to raze rebellious cities out of spite carries over from situations where I had enough power to not have to care what the AI thought about me.

I'll just Settler-Abandon it, then.

The River by Copenhagen runs in such a way that every tile but the three SE, E, and NE of it are across it. It's a really good city location to defend, in that way.

 

[tjs282]

Anyway: sometimes it is indeed really hard to see on the map, where exactly a river runs along.

And of course, I remembered just after I wrote that last post, that in Conquests you can set the 'clean map' to hide Hills and/or Mountains. So it is in fact possible to see exactly where rivers run, without the terrain obscuring them. I just booted up Conquests (any excuse, right?), and Copenhagen has rivers on 3 sides, like a castle moat -- only the NE tile border is clear (I don't think I've ever seen that setup on a CivIII map before, BTW...).

So as Lanzelot surmised, attacking from the NE mountain (or the eastern hill, although that won't give as good a defence boost to our units) is the only way to avoid giving the defender the 25% river-defence bonus. Obviously we can't avoid the 50%(?) hill bonus, but we can at least ensure that the defenders won't be 75% stronger.

This adjustment of the clean map was/is not possible in Vanilla, as far as I was aware, so it's not an established habit of my play. But since I apparently should not trust my CivIII assumptions, now I've got to go and try it out ... aaaand no, that feature isn't in Vanilla.

 

[choxorn]

Like I said, it's also safe to attack from the SE or E.

 

[choxorn]

Well, okay, no, as I discovered over the course of completing my turnset, it actually does wrap around that far- but no matter, I still captured it anyway.

Continuing in that note, I totally kicked Ragnar's ugly face this turnset. I got Trondheim a bit later, then a few more cities when signing peace with the Vikings. They have about 7 left up in the north, all fairly small with few improvements as far as I can tell, no resources, and weak units. They should be no threat to us, even when they do start building Berzerkers.

And, not to brag, but I managed a 14-1 kill-death spread, with the only loss coming from some bad RNG luck (our elite Archer attacked and lost to a regular archer on flat ground- obviously, I was trying to leaderfish). To be fair, I never fought anything but archers and spears, and most of them were regular, so it would be expected that I won most of my battles.

 

[choxorn]

270 AD (Turn 0):
-Tinker with some tile assignments. Send the clown in Fischberg to work the Fish, move someone in K’stadt from Plains to Hills for more Shields, give Hamburg one of Oasenstadt’s Flood Plains for faster growth, and move people in Eisenstadt and Goldstadt from unroaded forests to mined, roaded hills. Change the Scientist in Munchen to a Taxman- it doesn’t have much effect on getting Invention done faster, I’d rather have the gold at this point.
-Spend 195 gold building embassies in Kyoto, Karakorum, and Delhi. Karakorum is size 10, making 13 spt and 12 turns from completing Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and I doubt anyone else will beat the Mongols to that. My new improved diplo screen shows that nobody other than China knows about our continent yet, despite the easy passage between the two continents.
-Send the Spear in Neu Oslo to go fight the resistance in Bergen.
-Have the vPike in Eisenstadt fortify on the Iron Mountain- I don’t want the Vikings to get any units on that tile.

IBT:
-The Viking rArcher Northeast of Copenhagen retreats.
-England building the Great Library, India building Sun Tzu’s

280 AD (Turn 1):
-Send the Army to the Mountain 1 SE of Copenhagen, and a vMDI to the Mountain 1 NE of Copenhagen.
-Found the city of Westenburgberg.
-A couple of units auto-move. That makes me sad, you shouldn’t have units assigned to move somewhere that will carry over into the next turnset.

IBT:
-Vikings have 2 rArchers headed to the general direction of Bergen. I’m not worried, at least not yet, and a rGalley appears near Aarhus.
-England boots our Warrior. Thanks, you saved us a turn!
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker

290 AD (Turn 2):
-Mongolia has Chivalry, which means they have Keshiks, which means that they’re probably going to be in a GA fairly soon.
@Copenhagen: Barbarossa’s Army kills a Spear, but falls to 2 HP doing so, though a promotion brings it back to 3 HP (1-0), vMDI kills Spear, leaving only an unfortified rArcher in the city (2-0). That’s weak enough for me to risk sending our elite MDI in Eisenstadt across the river to fight it- and we are victorious, Copenhagen is captured (3-0). There are two resisters, but I’ll settler-abandon it about as soon as I can once the resistance is dealt with.
-Load up as many units as I can in Copenhagen to quell the resistance- cities never revolt on the turn you capture them.
-Between Trondheim and Bergen, vArcher kills one of the two rArchers that seemed to be heading towards Bergen and promotes to Elite (4-0). I cover it with a vPike.
-vGalley sinks rGalley near Aarhus (and hopefully whatever units it was carrying), and promotes to Elite (5-0).
-Vikings now willing to offer 3 cities and 2 gold for peace. I’ll see what they’ll offer after I take Trondheim.

IBT:
-Japan declares war on China. Doesn’t appear there was any MA involved.
-Viking rArcher between Trondheim and Bergen heads towards Copenhagen, is joined by another rArcher.
-Hamburg: Barracks -> Medieval Infantry
-Catan: Pike -> Library
-Both of Copenhagen’s resistors are quelled.
-Korea is building Sun Tzu’s

300 AD (Turn 3):
-eHorse kidnaps a Viking Worker that for some reason left Aarhus.
-Hill east of Copenhagen: eMDI kills rArcher, eArcher kills rArcher (7-0)
-With the Viking Galley dead, I send our Galley to go pick up the Settler in Wilhelmshaven and take him to the area with the whales on the peninsula.

IBT:
-The Workers connect the Dyes near Oslo.
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Neu-Oslo: Worker->Worker
-Japan building Great Library

310 AD (Turn 4):
-England has Chivalry now, too.
-Finally join a 3rd MDI to the Army.

IBT:
-Viking rArcher comes out of Aarhus
-Bergen quells a Resistor, and Worker->Worker
-Eisenstadt: Horse->Library
-Wilhelmshaven: Pike->Library

320 AD (Turn 5):
-eHorse kills the aforementioned rArcher (8-0)
-Galley arrives at W’haven, Pike and Settler board it
-Upgrade Spear to Pike

IBT:
-Mongols are annoyed about one of our Curraghs. Just passing through.
-A few Viking rArchers appear in the North.
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker

330 AD (Turn 6):
-Army finally healed. I send it to the Mountain near Trondheim. It spots an rArcher on a nearby tile- could have attacked it if I had known it was there. Oh well, my vHorseman can attack it, and it is victorious (9-0).
-The Pike and Settler reach their destination, thanks to the Galley.

IBT:
-The Viking Archers head towards Trondheim.

340 AD (Turn 7):
-Barbarossa’s Army kills a vSpear and an rSpear in Trondheim, goes down to 9/14 HP (11-0)
-Upgrade Warrior to MDI.
-Found the city of Walstadt, on the hill near the whales.

IBT:
-Some rArchers pass by the army. His Zone of Control weakens one of them.
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Bananenbucht: Worker->Worker

350 AD (Turn 8):
-Near Trondheim: eHorse retreats vs. rArcher, failing to damage it, eArcher dies to rArcher, dealing only one damage (11-1), rMDI kills rArcher, eMDI kills rArcher (13-1)
-In Trondheim: Barbarossa’s Army kills rSpear, city is captured! (14-1) It has 4 resistors. The Viking capitol moves to Reykjavik, a bit to the North.
-I sign peace with the Vikings for Aarhus, Odense, Hareid, and all 1 gold that they had.
-All 4 of our new Viking cities are making 1 spt, have crap land, and can’t really do much right now- I’ll leave doing something useful with them to the next player or two.

IBT:
-Barbarossa quells the resistance in Trondheim, and Bergen’s resistance also ends.
-Oasenstadt: Market->Barracks

360 AD (Turn 9):
-Not much- move military around a bit, have the Workers continue building roads and mines and clearing all that wetland, and the Curraghs continue finding little interesting, although I have now mapped out basically all of the other continent’s coast and most of that large island to the Northeast of the other continent.

IBT:
-Korea is annoyed at one of our Curraghs.
-Research Invention- begin work on Theology, due in 12 turns at 50% science, running a small budget surplus.
-Konigsberg: Worker->Worker
-Hamburg: MDI -> Library
-Munchen: MDI -> Library
-Catan: Library -> Market
-England’s building Knights Templar. I really hope they don’t get it…

370 AD (Turn 10):
-Mongolia will trade us Chivalry for Invention and 232 gold; England will do it for Invention and 80 gold. I’ll leave this up to the next player. Giving that much gold to Mongolia would leave us with none to upgrade the Horses, and I'm also reluctant to give England any more research help than I have to. On the other hand, if England decided to attack us, them having Knights and us not having Knights would kind of suck.

Handoff Notes:
-I’m not sure if all of cities are assigning their citizens in the best way- you might want to tinker with things a bit.
-Copenhagen is stuck at size 2, 6 turns away form building a settler. It can be rushed for 64 gold. I'd suggest taking the Settler from it and putting it near that unused fp+wheat tile between Trondheim and Bergen.
-Military Count: 2 Horsemen, 5 Pikemen, 7 Medieval Infantry (3 of which are in an Army), 1 Galley, 2 Curraghs, 25 Native Workers, 2 Viking Workers. We’re now Strong compared to Scandinavia and China, average compared to India and Korea, and weak compared to Mongolia, England, and, for some reason, Japan, despite our large tech advantage.
-Mongolia appears to be winning the war on the other continent- China and Korea have both lost a few cities, and the Mongols have a large number of captured workers, especially from China. I also bet they're either in a GA or will be in one soon, and they should be very close to completing Sun Tzu's by now.
-England’s getting pretty tough on our continent- I think it will be a while before we can actually hope to successfully fight them, especially if they manage to build the Knights Templar quickly enough.

 

[CommandoBob]

Got it.

Strategy post coming soon.

 

[Lanzelot]

I have to repeat my critique from a while back: this is not exactly my notion of "playing as a team". I'm wasting hours on giving input, and the next player just ignores it. If you think you have a better idea about something, then present it here. Or if you think the one or the other of my suggestion is bad, then bring counter-arguments. But I'm not used to being consistently ignored, so I won't waste my time any longer.

In this case, there are at least four important strategic decisions on which nobody posted any objections, so I took it for granted that we had agreed on them. But nevertheless you completely ignored them and didn't even deem it necessary to drop me a line as to why you decided otherwise:

1. I posted at least twice, that we should abandon Invention and switch to Theology immediately. Instead you wasted another 10 turns of research output into that tech, a tech that is already know to 4 AIs! If you had switched to Theology immediately, it would be finished in 2-3 turns from now, and we could certainly get Invention from one of these AIs for free. So your mistake has cost us a full tech.
2. What happened to the MAPT deals? You established more embassies, which is very good, and even discovered a second opportunity for a MAPT deal (Japan vs. China), but not a single MAPT deal has so far been set up?! With a bit of luck we could by now already be running 0% lux tax instead of 20%.
3. tjs282 and myself stated repeatedly that Hamburg should now switch the barracks to a library. You let the barracks finish, built one single unit and are now building the library. What is the effect of this? Now the barracks is eating our gold and not providing any benefit, all the while we build the library. Had it been done the other way around, the library would already have provided its benefit during the time the barracks and the unit(s) were built! (That single vet unit didn't make a difference in the war against the Vikings. As I predicted and as you confirmed in your excellent conduct of the remainder of the war, the Vikings now fell apart rather easily.)
4. No workers have been joined to Kolossusstadt yet. Instead a total of 15(!) workers are building improvements for crap 3rd-ring towns, while prime 1st-ring towns are still lacking improved tiles (W'haven, Catan, Eisenstadt, Aarhus).

I'm not talking about slight errors in MM or an unlucky move in warfare, which everyone of us commits once in a while -- I'm talking about severe strategic errors, which have been committed deliberately after other team members (not only me) have pointed them out.

As I said, I'm not used to wasting my time like this, so I have to reconsider if and how I want to continue contributing to this game.

 

[choxorn]

1. I posted at least twice, that we should abandon Invention and switch to Theology immediately. Instead you wasted another 10 turns of research output into that tech, a tech that is already know to 4 AIs! If you had switched to Theology immediately, it would be finished in 2-3 turns from now, and we could certainly get Invention from one of these AIs for free. So your mistake has cost us a full tech.
2. What happened to the MAPT deals? You established more embassies, which is very good, and even discovered a second opportunity for a MAPT deal (Japan vs. China), but not a single MAPT deal has so far been set up?! With a bit of luck we could by now already be running 0% lux tax instead of 20%.

Those were both ideas worth discussing, but nobody but you was actually talking about them, as far as I could tell. Sorry, but I'm not going to switch a tech we'd already put some gold into researching or do a MAPT deal like that without more input. Speaking of which, we could really use more discussion from everyone- other than you, we're not really talking much about what we should do and it's leading to mistakes like this one.

Also, Invention is known only to 1 AI (Korea), not 4. It seems like some of them went for Chivalry instead. We can still get something out of it by trading for Chivalry from England or Mongolia, as I mentioned at the end of the turnset. It's not like it was a complete waste.

1. tjs282 and myself stated repeatedly that Hamburg should now switch the barracks to a library. You let the barracks finish, built one single unit and are now building the library. What is the effect of this? Now the barracks is eating our gold and not providing any benefit, all the while we build the library. Had it been done the other way around, the library would already have provided its benefit during the time the barracks and the unit(s) were built! (That single vet unit didn't make a difference in the war against the Vikings. As I predicted and as you confirmed in your excellent conduct of the remainder of the war, the Vikings now fell apart rather easily.)

Yeah, I must have missed that. My bad, I screwed up.

1. No workers have been joined to Kolossusstadt yet. Instead a total of 15(!) workers are building improvements for crap 3rd-ring towns, while prime 1st-ring towns are still lacking improved tiles (W'haven, Catan, Eisenstadt, Aarhus).

As with the MAPT thing, I wasn't really sure what the plan was for joining workers. They were almost all in the South when I started my turn and weren't really coherently working on anything in particular, so I just ended up assigning them to build roads to connect all of the cities in the south to our network and to each other, hook up the resources down there, and make some other improvements (mostly clearing wetland) as long as they were already down there.

 

[CommandoBob]

Monarchy
30% Tax
50% Science
20% Luxury

242 gold, +4 gpt

Theology in 12 turns.

City Builds

1. Oasenstadt (9) barracls in 1, grows in 9.
2. Bergen (5) native worker in 1, zero growth.
3. Konigsberg (6) worker in 2, grows in 2.
4. Kolossusstadt (7) Heroic Epic in 36, grows in 24. 58 of 200 sheilds collected.
5. Copenhagen (2) settler in 6, zero growth.
6. Hamburg (5) library in 2, grows in 2.
7. Aarhus (2) rLongbow in 38, grows in 2 (not connected).
8. Eisenstadt (5) library in 2, grows in 7.
9. München (6) library in 6, grows in 7.
10. Die Siedler von Catan (5) market in 15, grows in 17.
11. Neu-Oslo (1) worker in 4, grows in 4.
12. Wilhelmshaven (5) library in 3, grows in 2.
13. Goldstadt (2) courthouse in 7, grows in 8.
14. Walstadt (1) harbor in 27, grows in 7 (not connected).
15. Odense (1) rSpear in 18, grows in 18 (not connected).
16. Hareid (2) rPike in 28, grows in 18.
17. Bananenbucht (1) worker in 8, grows in 8.
18. Fischberg (3) harbor in 15, grows in 20, one taxman (not connected).
19. Wesenburgberg (1) harbor in 21, grows in 1 (not connected).
20. Trondheim (5) vPike in 13, zero growth.

Resources
01 Horses
01 Iron

Luxuries
03 Wines
01 Dyes
02 Silks

City Count
21 England
20 Germany (Acronym01 People)
20 Mongols
13 Japan
12 Korea
09 India
08 China
07 Scandanavia

Military
25 Worker
02 Slaves
02 Horeseman
05 Pike
01 Galley
01 Army (Mace)
07 Mace
02 Curragh

Current Units: 43
Allowed Units: 24
Support Costs: 38 gpt

Compared to England (Republic) we are Weak.
Compared to Scandanavia (Republic) we are Strong.
Compared to Japan (Despotism) we are Weak.
Compared to Korea (Republic) we are Average.
Compared to China (Republic) we are Strong.
Compared to Mongols (Republic) we are Weak.
Compared to India (Republic) we are Average.

We are at peace with everybody.


Worker Tasks(NW to SE)
Three workers 1SE of Wilhelmshaven, mining grass, 2 turns.
Two workers 1NW of Catan, no movement (road, then clear jungle ?)
Five workers and 2 slaves 1NW of München, mining a hill, 1 turn.
Five workeers 1NE of Bananenbucht, clear jungle, 1 turn.
Three workers 1W-1SW of Neu-Olso, mining Dyes, 1 turn.
Three workers 1NSW of Neu-Olso, roading a mountani, 2 turns.
Four workers, 2SE of Bergen, draining marsh, 3 turns.


Notes
No settlers in production.

We need three workers to connect Walstadt and Westenbergberg by road to Fischberg. We need to road three jungles to do this and then we don't need three harbors.
Walstadt needs to be building a library to expand its culture and claim the two whales. Then use the whales to help build a harbor (maybe).
We also could use some sort of unit (Pike/Spear) on tha choke point between these three cites and England.


Trading
We can sell Invention to Mongols for 20 gpt and 186 of 186 gold. Should we vs. can we.

Theology is unknown to everyone; we cannot buy it.

We can buy Chivalry from England for Invention and 80 gold.


Apparent/Possible Strategic City Tasks/Goals

• Oasenstadt: Military units.
  • Pikes are 30 shields, Longbows and Maces are 40. To be avoid wasting shields, we need to decide what units this city will produce and adjust worker allocation accordingly. If Pikes, we either need to build them in 2 turns (15 spt) or 3 turns (10 spt). If Longbow and Maces, then either 3 turns (14 spt) or 4 turns (10 spt). At the moment, if we follow the barrack with units at 13 spt, we build 3 turn Pikes and waste 9 shields on turn 3 or 4 turn Longbows/Maces and waste 12 sheilds on turn 4.
• Bergen: grind out slaves and then build back up; will take about 30 turns.
• Königsbeg: Five turn worker pump.
• Koloossusstadt: emphasize growth over production; faster growth for more commerce from The Colossus; new citizens become fishermen, not miners or farmers.
  • Swap Heroic Epic to Forbidden Palace? Or is this a University pre-build? 58 shields invested so far.
• Copenhagen: settler/abandon and then move somewhere else. Where exactly?
• Hamburg: no special plans.
• Aarhus: no special plans.
• Eisenstadt: no special plans.
• München: no special plans.
• Die Siedler von Catan: lots of jungle to clear; two workers allocated to this task.
• Neu-Oslo: border city with no units; a bit scarey.
• Wilhelmshaven: no special plans.
• Goldstadt: 5 mountain, 4 jungle and 2 marsh. Great potential but a lot of work to get there.
• Walstadt: no special plans.
• Odense: needs to be connected; pitiful location.
• Hareid: no special plans.
• Bananenbucht: jungles and marsh and bananas.
• Fischberg: no special plans.
• Westenburgberg: no special plans.
• Trondhiem: All Viking citizens, great place for slaves but we are building a vPike.

Diplomacy
What is meant by MAPT? I think I am missing something or not understanding how to work this to our advantage.