CBob04 Achtung Panzer!

[TheOverseer714]

Are we going to attack the Vikings for their Incense and maybe their Horses? I'd say if we are, the sooner the better, maybe even in this turn-set. How about research? Finish PP and then a slow burn on Education, like 30 turns or so? Then Metallurgy. I guess I missed the strategy meeting....

 

[CommandoBob]

You didn't miss that meeting; what you overheard was just conversations in the hallway.

Viking War
At times I like the idea of getting our 4th native luxury and at other times I'm not sure.

No, wait, the idea was that we would expand out to 12, then 20 cities, and then just live with what we got. That was the original idea. So us starting a war with Scandanavia right now would be out of the question.

We could engineer a war, let the Vikings capture/raze a city, and then we would be within our rights to regain our former size and glory. We would not be forced to recapture our lost city (not as I recall the game pre-conditions, but I really need to go back and check what I said!)

Techs
Education will kill the Temple of Artemis. I'm okay with that. Our small cities have gotten their initial culture border expansion so they have plenty of tiles to work. Any second expansion is at least 30 turns away. After Printing Press we can take Education quickly.

Metallurgy kills The Statue of Zeus, which may or may not be important. As you pointed out, we don't have Horses, and won't have any fast units for about an Age and a half, so Ancient Cavalry will have to do. We have enough to fill our open army, if we need to (ie., some AI attacks us in the near future).

We will learn Combustion (Transports) before we learn Motorized Transport (Panzers) so we don't have to worry about our boats being too small to send an intact Army overseas.

We may have to buy some techs along the way, but that is no surprise.

International
Babylon and Egypt are at war. How do we want to exploit that? We could MA with one of them, declare war on a third party, and then drag our MA buddy into that war. That would slow down their research, which hurts our research but will help our conquest.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I think it may be time to go into fast research/manipulate the AI time. We have 3 luxes, that is plenty for now, so maybe we should work on getting to the IA fast. Since we don't want Metallurgy fast, how about we go for Astronomy, Banking, and any other useful techs before getting Metallurgy? Just stick to the upper tech tree right now and try to get really really rich, which can buy alliances overseas and get the pot stirred up. I think we may want a brisk tech pace and not worry about ease of Conquest, we'll do fine there. So I guess I'll start disbanding our catapult stack, make some trades and go into fast research. No wars except defensive until we get panzers is in the spirit of the variant, so I'll settle down and become a smart builder.

 

[CommandoBob]

I like leaving Metallurgy until later; more ACs that we don't have to build. We'll need some time to get our Navy built up, anyway.

Do we need Miltary Tradition? We might want it; we could always buy it. Lots of time to discuss that point.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I like leaving Metallurgy until later; more ACs that we don't have to build. We'll need some time to get our Navy built up, anyway.

Do we need Miltary Tradition? We might want it; we could always buy it. Lots of time to discuss that point.

We'll definitely want it, should a real war occur, 1 victory allows HE and the MA. We can then build armies(Military Academy), and also make armies more effective. Once we build 3 armies, we can then build the Pentagon. But there is plenty of time before any of that comes to pass.

Edit: Are we okay with the Chemistry deal with Arabia for 110 gpt? Thats alot of gold we could use for research and buying alliances, etc.

 

[CommandoBob]

We'll definitely want it, should a real war occur, 1 victory allows HE and the MA. We can then build armies(Military Academy), and also make armies more effective. Once we build 3 armies, we can then build the Pentagon. But there is plenty of time before any of that comes to pass.

I tend to forget where I build the Military Academy. And the times I have built it, like in CBob03, we built Armies we didn't use.

On the other hand, we are Germany, and MIL and we have the Heroic Epic about to be built in Leipzig. I sorta figured that we would build our Armies by promotion from Elites.

Edit: Are we okay with the Chemistry deal with Arabia for 110 gpt? Thats alot of gold we could use for research and buying alliances, etc.

If we have their gold, then they don't and I like that. I like the deal, but I wasn't going to make that trade on the last turn.

 

[Spoonwood]

Metallurgy kills The Statue of Zeus, which may or may not be important. As you pointed out, we don't have Horses, and won't have any fast units for about an Age and a half, so Ancient Cavalry will have to do. We have enough to fill our open army, if we need to (ie., some AI attacks us in the near future).

I guess no one local has an extra horse. What about the other continent? Oh wait... someone does. Get horses in a tech deal when they can only afford N gpt, below the max, along the way perhaps?

I wonder how many panzers you guys will *cash-rush*. As an offhand, haphazard guess, I'd say at least fifty. Fifty by cash-rushing a worker and then a panzer on the same turn maybe.

 

[ThinkTank]

I think postponing metallurgy, and do a fast burn on the upper half of the tech tree is good. ToA has done it's job. Chemistry deal is fine.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I have finished a very standard, very quiet turn-set. Everything is in order, our tech rate is improving with every university built. The Arabs have a tech-lead, but are now involved in the furball over there, so we can soon pass them. I researched Music Theory and have JS Bach's in 18 turns. Next turn, we get Banking, but the Arabs beat us there, so it has limited trade value. At least it lets us build banks. Here is the turn-log:

Spoiler :

Pre-Flight: CivAssist 2, Word running. Open the save, look things over. Everything looks fine. Do the Chemistry trade with Arabia for 110gpt. Raise tech slider to 90%, lux slider to 10% to get Printing Press in 2 turns. Risky, as we will need to renew the Incense trade to not get riots. Dump 10 catapults into Marketplace build at Hannover, Join settler to Cologne to reduce unit costs. We are now at +21 gpt.

Civilian units:
Workers 17
Slaves 27
Military units:
Archers 2
Swords 6
Pikemen 8
Musketman 1
Catapults 2
Trebuchets 6
Galleys 1
Armies 2, 1 MDI, 1 Empty
Medieval Infantry 20
Ancient Cavalry 3

Press enter=>

IBT: Leipzig, Munich, and Nuremberg riot due to lower lux tax. Worker gang finishes jungle chop.

Turn 1, 560 AD: Assign taxmen at rioting cities. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Viking deal ending, that can continue until it needs renegotiated.

IBT: Viking Incense deal ends, I trade them Theology for another 20 turns.
Printing Press finishes. Go to big picture, boost lux to 20%. Trade it to the Arabs for Education and 7 gpt. Trade PP and 60 gold to Egypt for Chivaly. I decide to research Music Theory for JS Bachs, It’d be nice to have that wonder so we don’t lose the shields in Leipzig to a cascade.
Hannover Marketplace=>University.
New York finishes Knights Templar, Vikings begin Sistine Chapel.

Turn 2, 570 AD: Arabs now have Astronomy, I will wait a few turns to check on a trade there. Change lots of builds to Universities. Send our galley on a suicide run.

IBT: Munich Marketplace=>University.
Our people love us, add an east wing in the meso-american style to continue the really ugly palace theme.
Galley survives.

Turn 3, 580 BC: 3 worker group builds road, 6 worker group moves to mine a BG. Move galley 3 more east.

IBT: SoZ produces an AC.
Cologne Courthouse=>University.

Turn 4, 590 AD: Mine BG near Hamburg.

IBT: Who needs to stir the pot when the pot is stirring itself? Arabs DoW Egypt.
Workers finish jungle chop.

Turn 5, 600 AD: Water Spices tile. Our galley has made the crossing, hopefully our visit won’t upset our Arab friends.

IBT: Music Theory arrives, next is Banking. I can see making a trade for Astronomy rather than researching it.

Turn 6, 610 AD: Switch Leipzig to JS Bachs, due in 23. When we get Astronomy, perhaps build Copernicus’ Observatory in Berlin?
Chop jungle, road jungle, chop marsh.

IBT: Babylon warns us.
Frankfurt University=>Palace(Smith’s pre-build?)
Heidelburg University=>Musket.
Bremen Aqueduct=>Marketplace.
Our people love us, add a west wing in the Greco-roman style to continue the really ugly palace theme.

Turn 7, 620 AD: Pretty much not a dern thing to do except worker moves.

IBT:

Turn 8, 630 AD: Worker moves, galley maps Arab coast.

IBT: Berlin produces ACav.
Hamburg University=> Musket.
Konigsberg University=> Musket.

Turn 9, 640 AD: Move into Babylonian waters. I’m seeing much troop movement.


IBT: More of pot stirring self, Egypt signs alliance with America vs Arabs.
Stuttgart Marketplace=>University.

Turn 10, 650 AD: All is well in our quiet empire, Universities are really boosting research, but the damn Arabs are beating us badly in research.

Cities:20
Berlin: Size 12, growth stalled, Sun Tzu’s in 1 turn.
Leipzig: Size 12, growth stalled, JS Bach’s in 18 turns.
Hamburg: Size 9, growth in 1, Musket in 4 turns.
Frankfurt: Size 9, growth in 16, Palace in 33 turns(pre-build for wonder, can be cancelled any time).
Konigsberg: Size 9, growth in 1, Musket in 4 turns.
Cologne: Size 12, growth stalled, University in 1 turn.
Heidelburg: Size 11, growth in 5 turns, Musket in 3 turns.
Munich: Size 10, growth in 1, University in 1 turn.
Nuremberg: Size 12, growth stalled, University in 9 turns.
Hannover: Size 7, growth in 26, University in 2 turns.
Bremen: Size 7, growth in 6, Marketplace in 22 turns.
Stuttgart: Size 7, growth in 19, University in 12 turns.
Niagara Falls: Size 4, growth stalled, Harbor in 1 turn.
Bonn: Size 3, growth stalled, Harbor in 5 turns.
Akwesasne: Size 3, growth in 5, Library in 7 turns.
Salamanca: Size 4, growth in 7, Courthouse in 10 turns.
Allegheny: Size 3, growth in 2, Courthouse in 28 turns.
Grand River: Size 3, growth in 2, Courthouse in 28 turns.
St. Regis: Size 3, growth in 2, Trebuchet in 19 turns.

Civilian units:
Workers 17
Slaves 27

Military units:
Archers 2
Swords 6
Pikemen 8
Musketman 1
Catapults 2
Trebuchets 6
Galleys 1
Armies 2, 1 MDI, 1 Empty
Medieval Infantry 20
Ancient Cavalry 3

Contacts: 7
Iroquois-Eliminated
Mongols-Peace
Vikings-Peace
America-Peace
Arabia-Peace
Babylon-Peace
Egypt-Peace

Research
Banking, 1 turn at +334gpt

Sliders
7/1/2

One picture, as little as changed.

Spoiler :

The save:

 

[CommandoBob]

@Doug.Lefelhocz: First off, let me apologize for not responding to your post earlier. I've wanted to but haven't had the time to do so.

First off, I think it would work out easier to play pangea with this sort of variant (what level of aggression here?). After all, you want to use all those panzers and having to transport some by ship slows the game down.

It would have been easier to play this on a pangea map. No doubt about that. I had three reasons for not going pangea. First, CBob03 was on a pangea map (huge map, not standard like this game) and my own solo games have been on pangea. CBob03 had some very long turns, not because of warfare but because of MMing. I was the game host and I was getting mildly upset with how much time it took me to do a turnset. I did not want this game to repeat that experience.

Second, I didn't want to make the game too easy. And I felt that a pangea map would not be a challenge.

Third, I wanted to play with the naval elements also. The focus was/is on Modern Era warfare. The navy played a big part in WWII, and on a pangea map that aspect would be lacking. Sure, I know the AI doesn't do much with their navies, but they can still land a lucky punch.

Remember, 5CC players have found out that most production and commerce comes from 5 cities. More cities implies more corruption for everybody but the capital, so 10 vs. 12 doesn't seem like too much of a jump... at least in terms of commerce.

I haven't played a 5CC game. This is the first one where I've had a maximum city limit. In a normal Conquest game, where the warefare is rather constant, 5 cities might be enough, but given the limitations on our warfare, I don't think a 5CC would have been a good choice. Even with Panzers, someone could pull off a Diplomatic victory. But maybe in CBob05....

The whole game... so far as I see it... pivots on getting to the "blitz era" *as far ahead of the AIs as possible*. Not necessary as fast as possible, but as far ahead of the AIs as possible. When I saw the Literature slingshot I saw hope for this game. When I saw no build for the Great Library, I felt saddened. When I saw a SGL hope came back. But, when I saw the Pyramids built instead of the Great Library, I really felt like screaming. Maybe you guys can still build it, I don't know... but it seems late to me. Let me explain...

Yes, this game does pivot on us doing a 'Barroom Blitz' on the AIs.

As for The Great Library, well, I'm not impressed with it. In a game like this, it is a great wonder, up to the point that 2 civs know Education, and then is just a relic of wasted shields. With The Pyramids, The Statue of Zeus and The Temple of Artemis, we control how long their effects will last. Can't do that with The Great Library.

At this point in the game, for The Great Library to work for us we would need to shut down all research and wait for two AIs to learn the techs we need. Then we capture it, learn a bunch of stuff, and then have to scramble to get our cities up to speed. All the while the AIs get further ahead. I would rather self-research, improve our core with rails and factories, and be ready to rock-n-roll when the time comes.

In the AW games, The Great Libary is critical since money for research is very small. Here, we were facing an early war or two and then a period of peace and quiet while we focused on research.

So... I guess I mean to say that the whole idea behind this game seems VERY feasible... and I'd guess even with 10 cities. Even if you only have a few turns of a tech-lead when you get motorized transportation, you might manage a tech-lead for when modern-armors come around. But, I sort of feel you guys have early warred too much, and well... you see the Great Library strategy all over here... so you guys have a rather different game here in my opinion. I think you'll still win and probably handily at that... but not as much as perhaps you could have. If only cavalry upgraged to tanks or panzers the strategy here might come out rather different. Best of luck... and I apologize if I seem harsh.

This is my first game to host at Emperor. While my arrogance tells me that this is almost a slam-dunk, my caution tells me that since I haven't played at this level before (and never in a solo game) the AI may have some tricks up it's sleeve to wreck our plans.

I think we will win (75% win vs. 25 % lose) but I don't think it will a walk in the park.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The honest answer for me... I think this game was won when we got 12 cities settled. With Civ 3 there is a tipping point, and I think we hit it about 500 BC. There are other SGs I'm in that haven't reached that point yet, but this one has. There will be struggles and some wars, but the danger of losing to anything besides incompetence is past. Our team is small, but there is no incompetence to be found at this level. If this was Deity or Sid, there might be a problem, but even those levels aren't totally out of reach for a focused group. Not going to be a cakewalk, but we will win this.

 

[Spoonwood]

I haven't played a 5CC game. This is the first one where I've had a maximum city limit.

The master turn-logger hasn't played a maximum city limit game? Or have I confused you with another CBob? If you have time sometime... try an OCC on Monarch, or if you somehow think you really can't handle it, try Regent (I've done all my OCCs on Monarch and won them all so far that I've tried to win... one I gave up when The Germans started on The Manhattan Project, but I think I still would have won that one... don't know though). I haven't done an elimination one, but other than 100k, I'd think all victory conditions on the table. A cultural or diplomatic game should take something like 2-6 hours to win... maybe longer if you check your helper program like a hawk. A military game I'd think will take signficantly shorter time than most military games. I'd suggest archipelago 80% water. Sirian has a very old 20k OCC Vanilla cultural write-up here http://www.warpcore.org/~sirian/civ3/game7.html I think Sirian actually freaks out a bit about the stacks attacking him. If you trade for rubber at some point (you can usually shut research off and forget tech after replaceable parts), I doubt you'd have many defensive problems at the end whatsoever.

I have a 20k OCC massive desert start write-up here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280918 and of course many others lay around somewhere. Having won an OCC diplomatic cultural game now and seeing some of the OCC space write-ups (I started my own also), I look back a few days and see that if I traded tech in the Sumerian game and researched in the early middle ages, I might have actually had a tech lead the entire game. Of course, if you choose to do this, you'll pick a better start... a coastal one probably with a river... but strictly speaking you don't need the river even. Almost surely, you'll want a coastal start for The Colossus... if you try this.

I agree that The Great Library doesn't make any sense anymore for your succession game. I've rethought that actually... maybe you wouldn't want for this sort of game on Emperor. Although, it could give you economic benefits that create a wider technological gap later on... although perhaps not with skillful trading. It would slow the overall pace down... but the technological gap matters more than that I'd think, and you might have actually had more of a technological gap by forgetting it.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

Hi guys I would like to emerg (sp?) from my "luking" stage... but only if you guys want me back I had computer problem for a long time and when I fixed them I got into a civ 3 slump and didnt play since (you wouldnt think that was possible) so I would like to helpthis game out if you guys want me to. Ill be lu(r)king and seeing what happend so far im glad to be back

 

[TheOverseer714]

Welcome back, Tad, we missed you. Had a case of the civ-blahs, eh? Well I'm glad you have emerged from it. I'm sure we can slip you back in, especially if we lose another player.

 

[CommandoBob]

Glad to see you are back, Tad. I understand about Civ blahs; sometimes I even take refuge in Mystery Case Files!

Roster:
TheOverseer714 - just played
Tad Empire_0_o - UP!
ThinkTank - on deck
Cerenkov - lurking
Sasquatch - lurking
ommandoBob - warming up

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

ill wait to play this game so that I can get tips and strategys the team wants me to take... also ill be using this time to catch up on the action thats happend while I was gone.

 

[CommandoBob]

ill wait to play this game so that I can get tips and strategys the team wants me to take... also ill be using this time to catch up on the action thats happend while I was gone.

Right now, things are pretty quiet. We've expanded out to 20 cities (the revised city limit until The Big War) and eliminated the Iroquois. We've met everyone overseas (I think) and they are helping us out by fighting each other. We just built our Forbidden Palace, so all of our cities should have low corruption. We have an empty Army, which we are sortof holding for Panzers. We built the Statue of Zeus, but we do not have a native source of Horses, which means that the Ancient Calvary from the SoZ are our only fast units. Right now that is not a problem. We have, I think, about 5 vACs.

Even with only 20 cities, the AI warfare helps us stay a tech leader.

I know that is just the high points, but this is like an Alexander Dumas novel, exciting beginning, with a slow middle section that slowly builds up to a great climax. I'm thinking of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo; both have that pattern.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

ok so when we resurch Banking im asssuming we will trade that for astronomy or resurch it and after that tech we will be going for PHISICS and wait to resurch Metalgurdy so we get quicker units.

 

[CommandoBob]

We want to reach the next age as soon as we can. If we can trade for a tech we need (like Astronomy) I think we should, unless, of course, the cost is too high. I don't see a best research path, but Banking -> Astronomy -> Physics might let us trade Physics for Metallurgy.

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

sry guys wasnt able to play today as I went to the beach today =) it was almost 100 degrees today so I didnt stay at home... will have it done Tomorrow