Goz-1, I left my wallet at home, but...

[JohannaK]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I also placed some units near Hiawatha.
And sell resources to some people. (To buy another Colosseum).
So yeah, the Greek cities are good choices.

 

[gozpel]

Ok, tough situation, but since JK brought the general back from the west, I'd say burn him on a golden age...8 turns for some money to play with. We still have another general, so in that sense we're alright.

Buy Hanoi for 250g, it will give us 4 less unhappy for 10-12 turns. Only city to sell right now would be Corinth, I like to keep Knossos for now or we would be walking forever to get to the west. But still, if you feel it's a better option to sell it too, do it...A few moves lost with a huge army isn't really a big thing. But those are the only 2 cities I want to sell right now, we have to check on it later.

Or Printing Press for theatres?

maybe even Printing press for Theatres?Amazing, Athens doesn't have a single building! While Corinth have a library and I would've sold Athens right away, if it wasn't for the marble.

We have 3 workers ready to connect Cumae and the other cities, Rome doesn't want to give OB even for a lux, so it will take a few turns.

No need to build walls or castles in our cities, if there's nothing happy to build, just go wealth.
We are researching Fertalizer, the worst tech ever in this situation . Either go banking and we try for Forbidden Palace or Compass/Astronomy for the later conquest to the west. Sailing Songhai-units can take a dint from galleys and stuff, plus we have the Great Lighthouse, which will move them a tile quicker. This is something to really think about as we're close to end the game within a few turnsets.

Athens will come out of resistance in 4 turns and Corinth in 3, this will shave off the unhappiness too, slightly.

Do NOT sell luxes to someone you are going to invade in less than 30 turns, but everyone else is fair. Just that they are either dead or flat broke.

And I think Alex should be able to talk in a turn or two.

We have a MASSIVE army, we might need all the horses for the rest of the game, but some stuff can be sold for a few coins. Btw, there's a barb archer south of Cap, get that camp!

 

[gozpel]

Printing Press might be a pressing tech, for us!

What a lagging comment, I couldn't see it when I edited it the first time, not the second....now you'll know what my preferred tech is, I guess.

 

[JohannaK]

I see!
BTW, No units lost in the attacks to both cities

 

[gozpel]

Anyone interested to win this game? Or should we consider it won already...

 

[Sparthage]

Anyone interested to win this game? Or should we consider it won already...

lurker's comment: Do it. Wipe them all out.

 

[JohannaK]

Jeffah is up! Get us on our feet again, and let's steamroll whoever is left!

 

[Optional]

Lurker's comment: Especially the communication about war and peace hasn't been great in this team over the last couple of sets. Declare on Greece, then without taking the capital accept a peace deal with lux, then a few turns later declare war again, taking a big happiness dip due to loss of the lux. It's messy play. I don't think you would have done this if you had spoken these things through a bit better.
But you're still okay for the win, it's just that you need to do a bit of repair first. I haven't looked at the most recent save, but -18 happy sounds bad, and something that needs to be sorted out. Steamrolling is okay, but you can never ignore the economical side of the game, maybe Jeffah or whoever is up is a bit disappointed that that has been ignored. But please stick together for this, and learn from your mistakes.

 

[JohannaK]

Well, I usually go far more peaceful in my games, so I always have either an economic cushion that makes war's cost ridiculous or I calmly rebuild after war. I've been told to go for Greece, and that's what I did.

 

[jeffah3539]

I am playing today. I was going to play yesterday but I thought there might be some more comments last night so I waited.

I think part of the issue has been that we decided very early on that we were going to go for Domination but not all of our team members were very experienced with that playstyle. I was a little surprised with this thread to discover that most players get Science victories rather than Domination. That tells me that a lot of players are passive and allow victory to happen rather than pushing for victory from the first turn.

Playing for early Domination requires a very aggressive playstyle with a high attention to detail. You have to make full use of all of the game mechanics to get the most , , and while also relentlessly expanding. I used to play more passively when I first started playing Civ 4. I used to think it was impossible to war in the Ancient Era or to win on the highest levels until I discovered these forums, the War Academy, and the Hall of Fame.

I think with this team, because we ran two games at two different difficulties, attracted the players who weren't as confident in their decision-making or argumentation. Even I (despite my long posts ) struggle a bit with that, which is why I chose this game even though I probably would have been better suited to the Immortal game. I thought I would rather be a strong link in a lower difficulty game than the weak link in a higher difficulty one. Just my personality.

Anyway, I will get the turnset up soon.

 

[jeffah3539]

Turn 160:
-I sell Corinth to Darius for 45 which boosts us to 10 from 16.

Spoiler :

-Gift 250 to Hanoi which gets us to 6 .
-Start healing wounded units near Athens and moving healthy units north to Grand River.
-Sell luxuries to Darius for 281 and 7 gpt.
-Change production in cities to Wealth except where building buildings.
-I don't push to even happiness because we don't need the growth anyway.
-Switch tech to Printing Press.

Turn 161:
-Darius gets antsy about the units around Corinth but I calm his fears.
-York and Jenne love us for getting them some Pearls.
-I elect not to burn the Great General for a GA, I am going to send him west to lead the invasion of Persia as soon as the Mandus near Athens heal up. Should be ready for the next player hopefully.

Turn 162:
-Genoa is about to declare war on me for moving our army through their land but they are allied to Hiawatha anyway so no biggie.
-Move units nearer to Iroquois, will declare war next turn (although Hiawatha may dec first).
-Discover Barb camp but it has a Pikeman that I can't beat with a Madu so I leave it.
-Mandus near Athens start healing so I start sending them west for Persia.

Turn 163:
-Silver finishes, giving us +4 and sending Knossos, Rome, Cumae, and Tomboucto into celebrations.
-Taghaza finishes Stable and I start a Trireme to lead our troops to the shores of Persia.
-Hiawatha taunts me so I declare war on him. He taunts me again about preying on the weak. 6 CSes declare war on us but meh, not afraid.

Spoiler :

-Initial Iroquois invasion kills a couple Mohawks and captures a Worker while also enveloping Grand River. Great Wall is annoying.

Turn 164:
-Hanoi gifts us a Longsword.
-I make an even peace treaty with Alex, no point fighting him anymore and he wouldn't give us anything.
-Road connecting Cumae, Moscow, and St. Pete finishes and we have some more happy and a bunch of gpt.
-Fighting with Hiawatha goes ok, but we may lose a Longsword after an unlucky loss against a Mohawk (6-4 odds in our favor resulted in a 3-7 loss ).

Turn 165:
-Alex taunts us and I tell him to shove it.
-Sure enough the Longsword dies to the Mohawk but our other LS kills a Mohawk.
-Grand River falls, we get 351 , and I puppet it. We are still happy however because it has Silk. It also has Machu Picchu which gives us a nice gpt boost.

Spoiler :

-Onondaga will be a tougher nut to crack with 25 strength and a catapult and GG garrisoned.

Turn 166:
-Belgrade gifts us a Longsword.
-I let the Mandus heal up before moving on to Onondaga.
-Trireme finishes in Taghaza, start another.
-Colosseum finishes in Rome, I begin a Mint.
-Continue moving army west.

Turn 167:
-Trade Cotton to Alex for 109 and the same deal to Rammy. Also get 109 :c5gold from Darius for Silk.
-Try to start moving towards Onondaga but get blocked by a stubborn Mohawk and mountains.

Turn 168:
-Kill the annoying Mohawk and move towards Onondaga.
-Continue moving army west.
-Start building road from St. Pete to Grand River.

Turn 169:
-Lose a Mandu to Onondaga, Catapult, and Mohawk attacks.
-Printing Press finishes, start researching Compass with an eye towards Astronomy to allow our units into Ocean tiles.
-Start building Taj Mahal in Gao, might not get it but it will be nice if we do.
-Kill a newly spawned Iroquois GG but they have another in Onondaga.
-Western army is near Jenne with some stragglers on their way.

Turn 170:
-Hiawatha asks for peace with our Mandus around his capital but I refuse.
-We lose our alliance with Hanoi which drops us to 1 .
-Onondaga survives my assault with only 1 (maybe 2) hp left !
-Taghaza finishes Trireme, leave build to next player.

Here is our army attacking the Iroquois:

Spoiler :

And here are our forces moving west:

Spoiler :

And here are the Demographics:

Spoiler :

Some Notes:
-We should get a Great General soon that we can burn on a Golden Age.
-We are at 1 but capturing Onondaga will tank us. But we have plenty of gold to work with . I think we should look to annex some bigger puppets and buy Courthouses.
-We are going to have trouble getting units into position to attack Darius until we finish researching Astronomy in about 7-9 turns. The plus side of an amphibious invasion is surprise and going directly to his cap however. I think we have about 25-30 turns left to take Persepolis and Sukhotai and end the game.
-We are back up to 73 gpt so we will have gold to work with.
-We aren't allied with Hanoi anymore but we can always buy them again for their Pearls if things get rough.
-We get a Social Policy in 6 turns which will give us Organized Religion for a massive boost!

Good luck to the next player, you get to finish Onondaga and start heading towards Persia!

 

[gozpel]

A very impressive turnset, jeffah!

Going from -18 to -1 unhappy is godly. And we can still buy Hanoi the 250g, which is very little at this stage, so we should do so. I'm glad you took my advice on how to sorting out some of the problems, but the rest was your own work. And finally, you got some blood on your hands, a pity you couldn't take the Iro Cap, you deserved that!

So we have Compass in 2 turns, then Astronomy in maybe 6 more...let all horses jump into the sea and move towards Persia, so in some 8 turns we can grab their Cap. Just stay out of their sight/borders until we get Astro.

"edit" : we have galleys that can't go anywhere, the thought was nice, but non OB's stops us to go further than that pesky Siamese city close to Persia, so we either delete them for a little gold or use them as bait.

Next SP is of course OR, it will gain us some 12 happy, with a couple of more to come, so we should be alright to endgame with happy. If not after buying Hanoi, we "can" buy Tyre, another hostile CS, but they have whales and we don't. But after looking at the map, Siam's ally Kathmandu might be a better idea, they also have whales and are right east of Rammy, so yes, we rather take that CS later.

We can sell some stuff, like a couple of luxes to Greece for 75g and 6gpt, I think.

Most important! We will sack Hiawatha's Cap next turn, get peace for whatever you get and then burn the general for a golden age. We are 21xp from the next general, he can burn too, as he won't ever reach the frontlines. Then we'll get Taj Mahal in maybe 12-13 turns and we end the game in golden age.

 

[jeffah3539]

A very impressive turnset, jeffah!

Thank you very much

Going from -18 to -1 unhappy is godly. And we can still buy Hanoi the 250g, which is very little at this stage, so we should do so. I'm glad you took my advice on how to sorting out some of the problems, but the rest was your own work. And finally, you got some blood on your hands, a pity you couldn't take the Iro Cap, you deserved that!

It actually wasn't that difficult. The situation wasn't as bad as it looked. Selling Corinth was a big drop and then we only had to wait a bit to connect the Silver and build a road to connect those cities.

So we have Compass in 2 turns, then Astronomy in maybe 6 more...let all horses jump into the sea and move towards Persia, so in some 8 turns we can grab their Cap. Just stay out of their sight/borders until we get Astro.

Is Astronomy like Sailing where units have to be in friendly territory to get the promotion to go into Ocean? Or can they get it immediately while outside our borders?

"edit" : we have galleys that can't go anywhere, the thought was nice, but non OB's stops us to go further than that pesky Siamese city close to Persia, so we either delete them for a little gold or use them as bait.

I saw a Persian Caravel sailing around which is unfortunate. Luckily with our trait it isn't a big deal. Too bad the Triremes can't upgrade to Caravels .

Next SP is of course OR, it will gain us some 12 happy, with a couple of more to come, so we should be alright to endgame with happy. If not after buying Hanoi, we "can" buy Tyre, another hostile CS, but they have whales and we don't. But after looking at the map, Siam's ally Kathmandu might be a better idea, they also have whales and are right east of Rammy, so yes, we rather take that CS later.

Yeah, I think we will be all set for happiness soon. We only need to capture 3 more cities to win: Onondaga (which will fall next turn), Persepolis, and Sukhotai. We can also capture another Siamese city on the way to Sukhotai but it isn't required. If we do, however, it won't be a big happiness drop because it will have Gems.

We can sell some stuff, like a couple of luxes to Greece for 75g and 6gpt, I think.

Most important! We will sack Hiawatha's Cap next turn, get peace for whatever you get and then burn the general for a golden age. We are 21xp from the next general, he can burn too, as he won't ever reach the frontlines. Then we'll get Taj Mahal in maybe 12-13 turns and we end the game in golden age.

We should be in permanent GA until the end of the game now. We re already making 73gpt now so we will have plenty of gold to work with.

 

[SomeoneLikeHim]

Very nice! Who's next?

 

[JohannaK]

YOU ARE!

Or Gozpel?

 

[gozpel]

Very nice! Who's next?

You are, I always forget to write down the roster.

SLH -> UP
gozpel -> next
JK
jeffeh

 

[SomeoneLikeHim]

Ok, I will play today.

 

[SomeoneLikeHim]

Turn 170: I give 250 gold to Hanoi and Belgrade to keep up the happy.

Turn 171: Onondaga falls and celebration echoes throughout the mighty songhai empire. A great general is born and instantly sacrificed for the happiness of the people. Hiawata refuses to give us anything but we are mercifull and give him peace anyway.

Turn 172-175: Moving and healing, lots of it.

Turn 176: Organized religion gives us a huge bonus to happiness. (+16)

Turn 177: Astronomy finishes. I buy a caravel to discover Persepolis and scout ahead for enemy ships.

Turn 178: Let the assault begin! I decide to take a chance on the earth being round and set the iriqois invasion force to sail east from onondaga. The plan is to take sukhotai from the sea in a quick and merciless attack. The western attack force sets off towards the yet undiscovered Persepolis.

Turn 180: Banking finishes. Gozpel gets to do the great invasion!

 

[gozpel]

Nice idea of earth being round! Didn't think of that.

No pics, so I have to check the save to see what's going on.

IF we have enough money, I'll probably waste a 1000g on the CS next to Persia and Siam...is it Singapore?

Looking at jeffah's pics, the world is probably round, but it might be rounder than we think? Meaning, more water for the army going east. Doesn't matter anyways, it's a good plan, IF we have enough units going both ways.

Will be playing soon.

 

[Optional]

Lurker's comment: You guys are probably faking the confusion about the earth being round, do you? A fractal map always has X-wrap, all ocean maps do, some all-land maps even (I need to hurry up with my War Academy article about maps, so I can check these things in my own article ).