CFC TG1: Calling All Settler, Chieftain, and Warlord Players

[Aldor]

Once again, sorry for the long delay. Been RIFTing the last week, also will be offline due to work next week. Please go ahead and play, I probably won't have time to respond next week. I definitely want to conclude this game tho, now that we've come so far! So lets get this finished.

255
- since Singapore is no longer ally of Songhai, I make peace with them
- Washington backstabbed us by denouncing us, so I return the favor and denounce him. This may lead to war, but that's what we want anyway..eventually
- I use our last gold reserves and buy a theatre in Ravenna, pushing us down to -7 unhappy.
- persia dared to build a city on our continent! its at the far south however, so for now we can ignore it. In the coming war we may take the chance to raze that city however!
- there's an american settler in our territory, I'm going to track it.

256
- new policy: Freedom! We go up to +6 happy!
- our great merchant arrives in Rio, and cashes in. We're back up to 735g.

257
- we discover scientific theory, and with it a LOT of coal. We continue with biology.
- I upgrade a cannon to artillery to help firing on Tombouctu.

Here's why we want that city (notice the little buildings to the west!):

258
- Tombouctu is weakened by cannon and artillery fire

In between turns: Washington completes Notre Dame. Too bad, we had only 6 or so turns to go.

259
- Rome starts working on a bank
- Tombouctu falls! Himeji Castle and Chichen Itza now work for us!

In between turns: Songhai denounces America. Looks like they're not so friendly with each other anymore!

260
- Ravenna: work shop finished -> granary

261
- nothing happens

262
- Washington DARES to settle right next to our capital! I call him up and demand he never settle near us again...he ignores it. That city must BURN! But not yet...we still have another target before facing Washington and letting him pay for his aggression!

263
- Neapolis starts on a lighthouse
- shuffling units to get our artillery in place to fire on Gao

264
- we discover biology, and continue with steam power (only option). AND...we discover oil...near Calix! Good thing we kept that city (I honestly didn't know this)!

265
- Rome finishes the bank, and starts working on the Taj Mahal... Not sure we'll get it, but if we do it will be a huge boost for the war against Darius and Washington (especially in combination with Chichen Itza!). Just make sure we stay above -10 unhappy so we don't lose production.
- Ravenna finishes the granary and starts on a temple
- Our artillery weakens Gao so far that our riflemen can take the city. Immediately, I ask Askia for peace, which he agrees to. Also make peace with Copenhagen now.

The situation

Analysis of the situation
One more capital down, two to go. The overall situation has become better for us again. We have our happiness under control now, and some puppets will finish collosseums soon too. We have Himeji Castle, a huge bonus if we start the next wars (let them come and finish their units in our territory!). We have plenty of gold to upgrade units and buy new ones. I lost a few units in the war, but we're still second after Washington.
On the bad side, we have to watch our home continent closely now, as the others are starting to settle there. Washington also has sent some units there, he may intend to attack us in the south. Be careful there.

How to continue
This will be interesting. We have to decide wether to go north or south when attacking Darius...or if we cross the inland lake. Darius has some units in the south. It may be the best course to attack and then for him there, to defeat his army in our territory. Once he has no units left, conquer our way northward from the south. Also his capital is heavily fortified, we may need a third artillery there to take it down.

It may be worth it to annex one of our cities in the new world, so we can buy units there.

We also must prepare to defend our home continent. I'm not happy with the other civs settling there. We only have three units there now, plus one artillery in the making.

Safefile attached.

 

[Aldor]

Btw. I think we skipped Sindri Pink...sorry for that!

 

[eris]

If Sindri Pink is still around, please let us know and pick up a turn set.

 

[MarchandDeBoeuf]

Lurkers:

I'm reading trough the thread, this is an interesting concept.

I have read that on the 8th page :

I did not move the Great General first. It is my understanding that the General would only have helped the Warrior in Antium if they had started the turn within two tiles of each other.

Can someone confirm if this is true ?

Thanks you,
Le Marchand de boeufs

 

[eris]

265 As far as I can tell, the only thing to do is to push hard and push fast before infrastructure and the upcoming patch catch up with us.

I trade Open Borders with Askia. The idea is to get as close to Persepolis as possible. Our fleet is headed over the north of the continent to Persepolis. Everyone is milling about.

266 We are at -10 happy. However, we have a bunch of cities, most of them puppets, building happy buildings. The first will be in 2 turns. I have grown some respect for our puppet city governor choices. Some. Our great merchant does his deal with Rio de Janeiro. We have 2074 gold and no one I want to spend money on. I am nervous with how many troops I find to use in the attack and holding of Persepolis. There are no units heading across the ocean as reinforcements. I buy two Riflemen. Why Rifles? Darius has the Great Wall and strength will matter more than mobility. We can only hope the Wall is centered out of Persepolis. Is there any way to tell that for sure?

267 Neapolis finishes lighthouse and starts Rifle. Cumae is the new dispatch harbor since it now looks to be a shorter ocean journey. Also, the Caravel in the fleet can rush past Persepolis and escort units. Two Rifles embark out of Cumae.

268 We are at -11 happiness. A deal ends trading Silver for Gold to Washington. I renew the deal. We are now at -6 happiness. I missed something in the arithmetic there, but I am not complaining. Troops are lining along the Persian border. I expect a complaint sooner or later.

269 Songhai denounces us. I am not surprised. They are also now protecting Almaty, which is okay because Almaty just gave us a Rifleman. Bless their little city state hearts. Antium finishes Bank. Starts Cavalry. Our Caravel finds a Songhai Frigate stationed out of Sardos. The caravel itself will be insufficient escort for our troops. Cumae purchases a Frigate. The invasion Frigates have made it to Persepolis and could attack next turn. Our “mighty” invasion force sits on the border facing a lone Rifleman. It may be time. I am just worried about the Caravel/Frigate match up. By the way, there is a Great General in Sardis. Does that help the Frigate any?

270 Ravenna finishes Temple, starts a Mint. There are four American Rifles on our soil in the general area of Ravenna, supposedly escorting a worker to San Francisco. We research Steam Power. I could start Electricity for Destroyers, but we don't have any oil. Start Railroad.

The Songhai Frigate has a Caravel friend. I move the two invasion frigates east o Persepolis. If I wait a turn or two, I should be able to swarm his navy with mine.

271 We are now at +2 Happy. Maneuvering into place.

272 Fleet is in place around their fleet. Their Frigate is cowardly hiding in Sardis now.

273 Their Frigate comes out of Sardis. That's the trigger I need. Declare War on Darius. Trades for Iron and Horses end. Our city allies declare war against Darius. I didn't see any cities declare war on us.

Two Frigates take out the Songhai Frigate. Our Frigate and Caravel badly hurt their Caravel. An Artillery takes out the lone Songhai Rifle. Troops move in towards Persepolis. There is a Great General inside Persepolis and a Musket in the general area. Nothing else milirary.

274 Ravenna finishes Mint, starts Bank. There is a barb camp with a barb rifle in it south of Ravenna. A Rifle in Berlin is going to go check it out. We are losing our ally Almaty.

Persepolis fires on one of our Cavalry. Their Caravel hides in Persepolis. Maybe not the best place. All fleet and land siege attack Persepolis. We get a Great General. A Rifle takes out a wandering Musket. Other units concentrate on Persepolis.

275 Persia and America sign a Research Agreement! I am not sure why, but that strikes me as bizarre.

Much besieging and attacking. Persepolis falls! We have a badly wounded Rifle in Persepolis, with a Great General on top. There is a Songhai Musket next door, but we made sure to wound it with some of our bombardment. So, we should be good for a moment on holding Persepolis. There is a very badly wounded Cavalry that was trying to run away from the Musket and found an Infantry instead. It is probably horse flavored toast. The two Rifle reinforcements are ready to swoop into Persepolis area.

We are at +11 Happy, 1222 Gold, and all we have to do is take out Washington to win the game. And by the way, we own the Great Wall. What a difference a few turn sets can make....

 

[Aldor]

Good turnset! Almost done, but we still have some things to do. Things I noticed looking at the game:

- we should not end the war against Darius yet. He has to come to us, hopefully with an offering of open borders. That'll make things a LOT easier for us getting to american lands. If we can get another persian city to weaken him, just the better for us!

- there are seven american units on our continent! Thats a significant amount of their military(probably ~40%). Thats good and bad for us: good because we don't need to fight these units on their own territory, but in ours where we get a combat bonus. Bad, because the five units in the south might conquer one of our cities. I'm seriously worried about Darius' infantry...if he can get them, Washington will be able to get them soon as well! And he can upgrade his rifles in our territory. Now imagine 6 american infantry running around our cities...
We can buy another rifleman, and a second in another turn or so. That should be enough to defeat them on our grounds...hopefully before he can upgrade. The north should be safe enough with only one knight to worry about, and a lone rifleman. So I would suggest to attack Washington immediately and wipe out his rifleman as quickly as possible.

- with Persepolis, we also got the forbidden palace, which helps us with the happiness perhaps we should build some settlers if we find time, and settle our remaining coastal spots to prevent the other civs from getting in there. Would also make use of our merchant policy.

 

[eris]

I am against any more settlers. It is a distraction from our goal of military dominance and it will be forever before any new city starts paying off. As far as I am concerned money and military are the only priorities. Every city we have should be pumping out units. We don't want to economically race Washington; we want to crush him. I don't even care if he takes one of our cities so long as we get his capitol before he gets ours. The second the city of Washington falls, the game is over and how many units America has in our territory becomes irrelevant.

I agree that we are not done with Darius. We do want him to come to us with a generous offer of cities we can raze or at least a willingness to sign an Open Borders.

 

[eris]

Just to be obsessive I decided to try to complete this game. I won't keep a turn by turn, and I am sure it is all different than it would have been with help. But here goes...


I fortify and weather the attack from the infantry, which takes out the severely wounded cavalry that had found it. I had managed to get an artillery in place to cover the tile with the cavalry, so, with the help of the artillery strike, the only fresh rifleman in reach takes out the infantry. I hunker down and heal. Maeanwhile, the fleet is busy bombarding Pasargardae, building up experience points and convincing Darius war is nasty. Another infantry wanders by and falls to two artillery and a cavalry. I am menacing Ecbatana as part of chasing the stray infantry. Darius sues for peace, offering nothing. I probably should have tried to beat on him some more but the infantry scared me. I settle for Peace.


We hunker down and start building units. We get the Taj Mahal. I am working on Replaceable parts to get our own infantry. Happiness is low and I have no more happy buildings to build. I burn and raze three Aztec cities that aren't providing luxuries available elsewhere. I take the social policy Military Caste for garrisoned cities's happiness. I take the first few Rifles and a Cavalry and garrison them on our continent to slow down any American incursion. Workers are building railroads.


When we come out of the Golden Age triggered by the Taj Mahal, we are at -66 gold per turn. We have several thousand in gold, but I am using it for upgrades. I assume this is because of burning the three puppet cities and building all those railroads, which are no longer worth as much. I set citizens to working Gold focus in the cities I control and delete quite a few workers and we are back at +9 gold. Meanwhile, the invasion army has several upgraded infantry in it and a few coming across the ocean. We begin moving towards Stockholm and Atlanta as the entry point into American lands. Confirm sighting of an American Infantry wandering around. No signs of an American fleet.


Washington notices the troops crowding around Atlanta. I have no troubles lying to him about my intentions. Two turns later he denounces me. I guess he wasn't fooled by my lies. Discover Electricity and moving to Flight. I get a great Merchant. That will help pay some upgrades.


The year is 1874, turn 307, All troops are lined up and I can't find anything else to fuss with and delay over. (A habit of builders facing invasion choices) The invasion of America begins. (see picture)


A successful landing. We find an American Caravel and detour the fleet to protect our units. We have two frigates with logistics promotion. We get the Social Policy Professional Military. Our Great Merchant has given us some money to spend. One of those frigates is now a destroyer. (see picture)


Atlanta Falls. Beating back what we have found for an American fleet. Harassing units up north and heading invasion force to Warsaw. (see picture)


Rome is menaced! This looks serious. Units are rushing on the railroads to Rome. (see picture)


Pushing to Warsaw with no casualities on our side. Rome is bombarding the invaders while reinforcements arrive.


Warsaw falls. (see picture) We lose an Anti-tank gun. Rome takes out a couple invaders. (see picture) Songhai denounces Washington. That is an interesting twist.


Boston Falls. (see picture) I didn't really want to take Boston on my way to Washington, but it was funneling troops my way and just couldn't be ignored. Rome has pushed back the invaders. They tried to detour to Si Satchanalai, which was kind of clever, but the railroad system allowed me to fend them off. (see picture) This has been several turns of tough slogging and battle. We have lost two units but they have lost easily a dozen or more.


Washington is about to fall. We got a Great General last turn and don't need one. I started a Golden Age. (see picture)


Washngton falls. We are rated as Augustus Ceasar. All too fitting. (see picture)


To anyone who has read this far, thanks for your kind attention.


I have won a game at Prince, with much help and consideration. It is now time to return to single player games and saner levels of play although I am sure I learned even more than I imagined or realize. Thanks to all who participated. This is the first multiplayer game I have ever finished. Even if I had to kinda take the last part singly, I would have never gotten that far without everyone else.

<something is broken with my screenshots. The forum won't upload the jpg files that Irfanview made from the tga files. Strange. It has worked before. If I can find a way to make it work, I will.>

 

[RoeBear]

I did enjoy following this and glad you finished. I too learned a lot.

 

[Aldor]

Nicely done eris! Good to see the game finished. I really dropped the ball in the end, sorry for that...just could not get myself off from playing Rift =/

It was an interesting game for sure, and quite different from how I would've played normally (as I posted somewhere in between, I would've settled the continent and gone for space). Domination was a nice choice here, and certainly gave me some new insights in how to play out wars

Thanks again for everyone in the game!

 

[Codeman]

nicely done. followed this off and on since it was started. wish real life allowed for more time to play civ. good finish eris!

 

[Ffrog]

lurker's comment:
Well done guys and gals, that was fascinating reading. I used to lurk on the Civ IV succession games; this has inspired me to pick up Civ V again.