Hegemon! Of the Classical Greek World!

[King Coltrane]

AH! I forgot to mention the victory movie?! I loved it! An excellent decision made on your part! My sort-of girlfriend is part greek and absolutely loves that song; we dance to it quite often in fact. so yes, i was excited when it started up!

And you're right. I'll give an anatolian minor civ a try soon. I might even go for Thrace... not sure, but i'll let you know where I end up and what I do.

I'm a bit short on time now due to the degree and also the game FTL (which is also amazing), but I'm sure sooner or later I'll get around to one of the other guys.

again though, great job.

 

[iPwn]

I take back my statement that harbor is needed for Naxos wonder, that was probably a coincidence that it became available on the same turn I finished harbor. BUT - I played a bit with korinth and cyclades and phokis to see what their wonders do... and they did not become available after all prerequisites were met, at least not immediately. For some reason it takes time for them to finally show up. Same thing with local games small wonder - it does not always become available after gymnasium is built.

 

[King Coltrane]

well for the local games small wonder, you need 3 gymnasia. make sure you have that. and for naxos in particular you cant build it in the capital as it has the reduces corruption flag checked. in fact, upon examining the editor, none of the big colony wonders can be built in the capital. make sure you're not trying to do this...

 

[iPwn]

Thanks, did not know about 3 gymnasiums. As for other wonders - I am doing everything right and they do become available - just not immediately. With Kyklades I had to wait aprox 50 turns until Kyrene finally appeared.

 

[King Coltrane]

my guess? you didnt have enough cities. since the colony wonders function as a forbidden palace (ie reduce corruption tag, cant be built in capital etc) you need a certain number of cities in order to build them. i dont remember what that number is off the top of my head, but maybe 8? its just like how you cant build the imperial retreat or synedrion before you have a sizeable enough empire. thats the only explanation i can think of that involves not being able to build them for a length of time

 

[Takhisis]

In the late 380s, almost into the 370s, the Lydoi have declared war on us, just as we go into Anarchy (carefully timed so as to build a Temple to Athena, Herodotus' Histories, Plato's Academy and Ctesibius' Workshop all within 20 years) and now into the East we shall fare…

Edit: the anarchy is over, but during such a period our gallant forces conquered the southern half of Chíos from the Asiatic hordes.
Now that Democracy's established, we see that the 'pedia lacks one detail: the Long Walls may be built only in Athens, yes, but only after a Port has been built (which was one turn away anyway, so no harm done).

 

[Keroro]

Keroro:

Amazing turn around in your game there. Kudos to you. You are indeed a worthy statesman. Looks like Asia Minor is no longer in the lap of the gods, but in your own lap. I'm curious as to how you'll play / have played it out thereafter. I'd certainly punish Troy for their treachery, cowardice and deception - after all, vengeance is an eternal dynamic in the hearts of mortals and immortals alike - and then shoot for a Tribute Victory. Though I note you're yet to meet your Greek brethren across the sea, some of whom may well be giving you a run for your money on that victory condition. The Arbitrator can surely help you extract the required tribute and the likes of Phrygia, as per history of course, don't have anything in them come the mid-to-late game.

Tribute looks most likely here.

Good suggestion about the Leader being a foot unit. I've made that change (with the Vuldakonista too) and will look into doing the same with other battle created units. Amazing that I never encountered such an issue in all the test games I played.

You don't necessarily need to make all enslaving units into foot units, BUT if an enslaving unit is a foot unit the the unit it enslaves should also be a foot unit. Hope that makes sense! The leader unit is a particularly important example as it can be created from any elite combat unit.

For any players picking a new civ to start as - Asia Minor is an interesting one, a fairly different game from the mainland Greeks and Macedonians I've played as before. Aiolia was interesting, Ionia would be likewise. Troia, Karia, Bithynia and Phrygia a little underpowered for taking on Lydia. Lydia will be too easy for most players I suspect.

News from Aiolia below. This missive was received shortly before the hostilities between Phrygia and Aiolia were begun. Sadly the ambassador has not been heard from since the Phrygian declaration of war.
__________________________

News from the Aiolian ambassador in Phrygia:

Your Highnesses, I report news from Gordion, which now styles itself the 'free' Capital of Asia Minor.

As your majesties shall be aware, our realm has seen great progress and strides forward since our eventual triumph over the Lydians and the annihilation of the final Trojan island colonies. Our poleis grow at a huge rate, fed and provisioned by the slave labour of those captured during those wars. Our miners and artisans ensure our armies and poleis are furnished with the very best in modern equipment, and of course the embodiment of this is the newly founded Temple of Hephaestion in the northern lands of the Kingdom.

It is a matter of Aiolian pride shared by us all that our philosophers at the agora and gymnasion discuss daily the state of our civilisation and how it may progress. And, yes, it is another point of pride that our thoughts can even turn to the possible ways in which our dominance of the region should translate to some sort of eventual triumph. It seems quite possible that our continual devotion to the Gods should bring about an undoubted pre-eminence. Others argue that we should concentrate our military might to dominating adjacent lands to spread our progress to others. Some even suggest that the only way to leave a lasting print on this world is to reach out to other peoples in lands over the sea and gain wisdom and resource from them. They think that we can attain some sort of hegemony over the Hellenes should we do this.

However we should yet not feel ourselves invincible.

The progress made in civilisation and philosophy in the Aiolian borders are not shared equally with our neighbours. They grow jealous of our power and culture, and resentful of our efficient and, yes, sometimes deadly arbitrators.

In short your majesty, I fear that the people of Asia Minor will rise up against us if our prosperity is not shared. I am sorry for presenting this to your majesties, it may be a knot of unfathomable proportions, even rivalling the famed one to be found here in Gordion, but whatever happens in the future I did not wish Aioloa to be unprepared.

Yours with honour and respect.

Kerolis of Smyrna, senior arbitrator.
Gordion.

 

[Rambuchan]

I've had a look into the mystery regarding the building of those colony wonders (Rhegion, Syrakousai, Naksos etc) and have cracked it...

King Coltrane is absolutely right. The issue is down to the fact that the 'reduces corruption' check box (in the Wonders not the Improvements column) is set for virtually all of the Colony Wonders. The reason for doing this was so that these wonders couldn't just be built in your capital city. That would be too easy and too overpowering.

However, when this check box is ticked it effectively makes a wonder, whether small or large, function like a Forbidden Palace --- and therefore subject to the Optimal City Count (OCC) requirements that Forbidden Palaces have. Some detail on those requirements below. That's why some players have seemingly met all the requirements for some Colony Wonders but still haven't been able to build them. They don't yet have the requisite number of cities.

That wasn't a problem for me when I test played the Colony Wonders because I had already created large enough empires, with enough cities, before building the Colony Wonders with each of those civs. So the problem never crept up for me.

The truly tricky thing with this setting is that the OCC requirement is dependent on too many variable factors, so it would be impossible to explain the requirements in the Pedia for players. In vanilla CivIII it's 8 cities and in C3C it's 10 cities which must be built before any Forbidden Palace type wonder can be built. Further, once it is built, the OCC number changes! Yet further, those city numbers only apply on a standard size map and under certain governments. This isn't a standard size map. Indeed it's a large map that's been cropped, so it doesn't fit a conventional size. And players will be operating various governments.

The solution is simple. Uncheck the bloody 'reduces corruption' box in the wonders settings. However, there will be side effects, namely:

(a) Those colony wonders can then be built in the capital city. This isn't actually a problem because all the colony wonders (except those available to Ionia) have a requirement for the 'required goods to be available within the city radius'. I've had a detailed look at all of the colony wonders and none of them have the required resources in the city radius of any of the capital cities. So it still won't be possible to build the Colony Wonders in the capital. No side effect problem there.

In terms of the Ionian colony wonders: They will be able to be built in the capital if the 'reduces corruption' box is UNchecked. But I'm fine with that. Two out of three of their Colony Wonders, Pantikapaion & Phasis, need the Thracians resource in the trade network (not the city radius) and that isn't very easy to achieve. So it will still be a good challenge to build those two Colony Wonders, especially with Lydia breathing down your neck. The third Ionian Colony Wonder, Trapezous, requires Silver and Ionians in the trade network. But I will set it to be 'in the city radius' to confine it a bit more. There will consequently be three possible city sites for Trapezous to be built, including the capital.

(b) The colony wonders will not benefit from such generous corruption reduction effects. This can be mitigated by checking the 'reduces corruption' box in the Improvements column (not the Wonders column), so that they give benefits like a courthouse. The benefit will be there but it won't be as great.

Long story short: I'm now able to confidently fix those Colony Wonders. Thanks for the feedback and input guys. Fine community work

 

[King Coltrane]

just a note:

I think that although the OCC changes when you build a FP type wonder, the number of cities required for a FP does NOT. Once you hit that threshold (assuming you dont lose cities) you can build all FP types at once, forever. This number (lets call it the FP number) is not dependent on government type either. So you can keep the colonies the way they are, but a) make a note of how many cities are required and/or b) lower the number under the "world" tab in the editor. (For option B i can see how this might unbalance some civs [ie lowering the threshold for getting a FP] but you can easily fix this by tying those small wonders to resources or technologies or governments to prevent them being built too early.)

Im not home at the moment but I can do a quick test to see what that number is and then see if i can change it. I like the colonies the way they are. It wont be too bad to get them working as originally intended.

 

[Rambuchan]

If you recall, the only reason for checking the colonies with 'reduces corruption' was to prevent them being built in the capital. That can very easily be achieved via other, far simpler means, which don't introduce any side effects and which don't require messing with the OCC, FP, World or whatever settings and which don't unbalance other aspects of the game. So I don't see the point in bothering with all that jazz, other than it being a learning exercise.

 

[iPwn]

Kyklades can research like crazy with all those coastal tiles they have. A single city probably earns more gold than all towns of Thrake combined. I will `launch` soon.

 

[Takhisis]

If you recall, the only reason for checking the colonies with 'reduces corruption' was to prevent them being built in the capital. That can very easily be achieved via other, far simpler means, which don't introduce any side effects and which don't require messing with the OCC, FP, World or whatever settings and which don't unbalance other aspects of the game. So I don't see the point in bothering with all that jazz, other than it being a learning exercise.

Yeah, just preplace a couple resources and make it certain that you need to get to a place far-off to do so. Including SIcily and Southern Italy would be too much, I'm afraid.

 

[iPwn]

So I have two questions - why is city with Kyrene doing 20 shields even though nobody is working and why is it happening after I have researched hard iron, which supposedly makes it obsolute?

 

[Rambuchan]

My guess is that a combination of things is magnifiying the city tile's base 2 shields by a factor of 10. It'll likely be the Smithy, Temple of Hephaestus and Hephaesteoin plus anything else all stacking their production effects on top of each other. Though I'm wondering how the hell you managed to build any of those wonders and improvements in that city. Being a classic isolated island city, it wouldn't be able to access any of the required resources for them.

 

[iPwn]

No it has just smithy from Hephaestus, but that is built in capital. I think it just multiplies pruductivity by at least 10 for some reason, just like Rhegion. Water tiles don`t count so I did not notice earlier.

 

[Bowsling]

I just tried this scenario out, and I must say, I was blown away! The soundtrack, graphics, civlopedia, interface (and did I mention the soundtrack?) all work together beautifully to create a true masterpiece of a scenario. Hats off and a hearty congratulations to Ram and everyone who worked on this!

 

[Takhisis]

The Athenian Democracy has been attacked by the barbarous Asiatic hordes, as we have told. All of Chios has been taken, and a coastal Lydian city has also fallen to our armies, the city was under attack by the Aioles and we helpfully entered the arena to help, we hope we can cut off the access to the sea which the Lydoi have. We have captured a Siege Engine, which is a fancy name for a shed on wheels with a battering ram underneath that these Asiatic peoples have for the latter device.

 

[Rambuchan]

Takhisis:

You give us all these little game reports but, you know what they say, don't you?

Spoiler :

Screenies or it didn't happen!

iPwn:

I'm not sure what else to say on the matter. With your keen eye and extensive experience of the scenario, maybe you can find out more. But it seems pretty cool if you ask me

Keroro:

Many thanks for the enslaving foot unit tips. I believe I've now made all the necessary changes. One thing I'm uncertain of however is what happens with the immobile treasure units. Many of those are created from enslavement, but I'm unsure whether an immobile can be flagged as a foot unit without anything weird happening. Any ideas?

Thanks also for the as ever wonderful game report. Some really good observations of the game over in Asia Minor. I think other players would do well to read your game report to gather some handy tips for when playing over there.

Did the people of Asia Minor rise up in the face of your superior culture, wisdom and power? Or is it now too late for them?

 

[Rambuchan]

Oh whoops, just seen this.

I just tried this scenario out, and I must say, I was blown away! The soundtrack, graphics, civlopedia, interface (and did I mention the soundtrack?) all work together beautifully to create a true masterpiece of a scenario. Hats off and a hearty congratulations to Ram and everyone who worked on this!

Thank you for posting. That's what I like to hear!!

If you find the time, do please let us know which civ you played as and how your game went / is still going. We'd be happy to offer tips and insights if you need them, or maybe other players will benefit from your insights.

 

[Virote_Considon]

This would cause bad effects (when the AI tries to unload immobile units from a ship, it causes the game to hang).

The trick: Remove the immobile flag. This will also remove the AI strategy for "Flag Unit", but as El Justo's AoI shows this means less than diddly squat in terms of AI hamperment (meaning he found that the AI still very well knew to cash them in. Probably because the offensive/defensive units still have it in their program to secure a unit flagged as "flag" in the abilities section, whether or not that flag unit also has the corresponding strategy)