JB1 - Generic Random Deity

[JustBen]

350 BC (0)
I've seen happier situations and I've seen scarier ones. Susa is indeed safe for now (as promised). I see a long march across relatively unprotected Babylonian territory to get to Ninevah or Babylon City; that's the most annoying thing. I find that Korea is willing to pay us 7 gpt for our extra Incense, but it's below market price. Since everyone else is pretty much broke, I want to ship it but decide to hold off to make sure that we can hold onto our new source safely.

IT: "Iroquois and Rome have signed a military alliance against Persia." I'm not going to worry about our west front for a little while. Our Spearman offs a Bab Warrior at Susa, and their Swordsman pillages an irrigated/roaded plains square. A Medieval Infantry creeps into view.

330 BC (1)
Susa Catapult -> Settler
Shanghai Spearman -> Horseman
Babylonians begin Sun Tzu's.
We double-Catapult a lone Warrior north of Susa and a Horse kills it without loss. Beijing's growth to 9 allows a bit of fidgety MMing to get Beijing to 15 spt at 0 growth (any more people will send it into disorder) and Shanghai to 15 spt (with 2 fpt to boot). I go ahead and melt a Worker into Canton; this shaves a turn off of its Horseman production. Korea's up to market price of 13 gpt on Incense. I can't pass up the opportunity to double our income; I pull the trigger.

310 BC (2)
Beijing: Horse -> Horse
A Spearman tries to descend upon our Iron from the north; I fortify one of Shanghai's Spearmen there to nip that potential catastrophe in the bud (a Horse from Beijing replaces it as MP). I send our Elite Sword up in that direction anyway; I don't plan on rushing into Babylonian territory until our Settler is closer to completion, anyway.

IT: "America and Rome have signed a military alliance against Persia." Hey, save some for us!
Susa defends against a Bowman successfully, but is threatened by a MI.

290 BC (3)
Shanghai: Horse -> Horse
I pick off a stray Spearman thanks to more of our fantastic Catapults (did I just say that?).

270 BC (4)
Beijing: Horse -> Horse
Ellipi: Barracks -> Spearman
Canton: Horse -> Settler (New Babylon, I hope)
Gringos start the Workshop. I pick off another Spearman in our territory in a similar fashion. I'm starting to edgy for having deferred serious assault on Babylonian lands, but I continue to patiently wait for my Settler to finish and for our Iron to come back online, allowing our Swordsmen to upgrade to MI and put some serious hurt on the Babylonian army.

IT: Our Spearman in Susa defeats a MedInf, and a Galley lands another one near Beijing. Good thing we have Horsemen!

250 BC (5)
Nanking: Walls -> Barracks
Shanghai: Horse -> Horse
Our Horseman slays the MedInf losing only a single HP. Go, team! I move all our Swords and a spare Warrior into Ellipi in preparation for a big upgrade after our Iron comes back online next turn.

IT: Babylon cashes its check outside of Susa. We kill its Bow, Sword, and MI without loss; a Spearman promotes to Elite.

230 BC (6)
Beijing: Horse -> Horse
I upgrade 5 Swordsmen and 1 Warrior to MedInfs. We still have a single Elite Sword and 6 gold when it's all over. Income shoots up to 36.

210 BC (7)
Susa: Settler -> Granary
Shanghai: Horse -> Horse
Apparently Sun Tzu was Korean; he finished his book in Seoul. Everyone cascades to Sistine or Workshop. Our barbarian hordes (F8 culture check: yup, our hordes are definitely barbarian) begin to descend upon Ninevah, because it's easier for the infantry to get there. Horses have been collecting in Nanking, since the clearer terrain around Babylon will make it easier for them to move there while the infantry march south to finish Ashur.

190 BC (8)
Beijing: Horse -> Pike
Ellipi: Spearman -> Pikeman
Canton: Settler -> Granary
Persepolis builds the Sistine Chapel. Too bad we're not religious. Everyone else cascades to the Workshop.

IT: The force outside Ninevah repels a MedInf. Unfortunately, our elite Sword has to get redlined to make it happen. *sigh*

170 BC (9)
Shanghai: Horse -> Marketplace (due in 7)
Korea starts Copernicus's Observatory. Ugh. We've got a lot of units now, but could use a lot more cash. I hope I didn't wait too long to start this, but I wanted to have a big mobile force to throw at Babylon City. Assault on Ninevah: we lose 1 MedInf to kill 2 Pikes and burn the city to the ground. Tsingtao is immediately founded 1 tile north of Ninevah's remains, so that we can use the food bonus 1 tile further to the north. Set to build a Granary. Our armies march so that they'll be able to assault Babylon City on Darkness's first turn. No one can pay more than 3 or 4 gpt for our new Incense source. A pity.

150 BC (10)
Beijing Pike -> Pike
3 MedInfs, 6 Horsemen, a Spear, and an elite Archer are outside Babylon. Could be better, but it's plenty to take the city. The main problem is that our Settler is a few turns away still. Burning Babylon to the ground would make it easier to use their roads, though.

Summary:
Went a little slower than I'd hoped, mostly due to me not wanting to see a wasteful slaughter of Swords and Horses against Pikes. I would have liked a little more infrastructure, but I'm happier with a comfortable military situation lending itself well to future conflicts. Korea's latest project suggests a pretty grim tech situation. That's part of the price of a Monarchy -- speaking of which, we should be considering a switch to Republic once we've wrapped up the Babylonian conflict. This could be as soon as when Babylon City falls, or it could wait until we've secured Ashur (note that Akkad's presence in the north allows us to capture the whole peninsula and still get a peace settlement from Hammurabi). Try to find a buyer for our new source of "incense"; we'll get another source when Babylon City's cultural radius withers.

Roster:
JustBen
Darkness (up next)
Kuningas (on deck)
Greebley
T_McC

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/JB01-150BC.zip

 

[JustBen]

A look at The Nation Formerly Known as Babylon:

 

[T_McC]

Good job. We're making progress, and we'll soon only have one front to be concerned with.

Originally posted by JustBen

290 BC (3)
Shanghai: Horse -> Horse
I pick off a stray Spearman thanks to more of our fantastic Catapults (did I just say that?).

Hehehe, just wait for the Industrial age. I really begin building artillery then.

Originally posted by JustBen

Summary:
Went a little slower than I'd hoped, mostly due to me not wanting to see a wasteful slaughter of Swords and Horses against Pikes. ... Korea's latest project suggests a pretty grim tech situation. That's part of the price of a Monarchy -- speaking of which, we should be considering a switch to Republic once we've wrapped up the Babylonian conflict.

Yeah, having to do infantry charges before rails can be tedious. But the biggest advantages the human has in combat are patience and knowing how to conserve troops.

I clipped it out of the quote, but the Babs have another city way to the west, so we could take Akkad and still get something for peace. I would argue against this, as it would prolong the war (and delay our entry to a Republic) by at least 10 turns.

Where do we go from here? I think there are two possibilities. (1) Peace with Babylon, and revolt to Republic, trying to use our new-found size to compete economically. (2) Assuming we do not get a GL in the next couple of battles, our GA will be kicked off with a Rider victory. By checking the save, I know Chivalry is in play, and I know we can buy it. We can start the (Monarchy) GA with a Rider victory against some straggling Bab unit. Then use our (Monarchy) GA to prepare for war with Persia, attempting to strike while the dogpile still exists.

I can't see a scenario that allows us a Republic GA at this time that doesn't involve fighting someone other than Babylon, or a GL. If we revolt during this war, I can't guarantee our economy will be able to afford Chivalry and upgrading any units. Not to mention if we get into Republic before the war ends, we'll have some serious issues with weariness, again likely crippling our economy. So I think we have to make peace with Babylon before changing governments, making it rather difficult to kick off our GA against them.

Before Ur flipped I was prepared to have the GA in Monarchy (GL-rushed Leo's) where in addition to basic infrastructure we would build enough horses/riders to blitz Persia on the first turn after the GA ended. We still have that possibility, by buying Chivalry and finding some Bab unit to kill. Make peace and start to mass our forces on the Persian border. A few drawbacks in this scenario: we don't get the full economic benefit of the GA, and we could no longer build horses to upgrade. The latter is only a minor problem, as we already have 12 horses, and I was eyeballing a figure of 24-30 Riders for the initial assault. Beijing and Shanghai could build at least 6 Riders from scratch in our GA. The other drawback is that if we wait until the end of the GA to attack Persia, the dogpile will be gone, and X-man will be sitting on a big stack of battle-hardened troops. If we went early in the GA, to take advantage of the dogpile, Persia will attack us nearly to the exclusion of all other civs, making us fight a defensive war against knights while the other civs steal the outlying Persian cities.

So to (finally) reach a point from the rambling paragraph above: If we are committed to attacking Persia before Gunpowder, we have to strike soon, and can use a few turns of GA (in Monarchy) to lay the final groundwork for the assault. Maybe not the textbook ideal GA, but if the plan works, we'll be the largest Civ in the game, with a fairly narrow border to defend, and can probably run a serious blitz campaign with Cavalry. If we wait until the end of a GA induced by the Babylonian war, we'd very likely be facing an undistracted Persia with muskets.

So what do we want? Hit Persia while the getting is good, or try to use our new-found size to compete economically?

In either case I propose we build the FP in Susa. It is nearly central to the entire southern landmass. I figure we will want to do some more fighting, and will want to jump the palace out of Beijing, likely north and west. (Around Antium) (Yeah, I'm already trying to get us in 3 more wars.)

I swear, I'm a builder.

 

[T_McC]

Took a look at the save, and have a few thoughts.

Chivalry and Invention are both in play, and using the incense we can afford either. So if we get a GL, we can definitely get Leo's. You'd have to figure out whether we could wait the anarchy period to kick off our GA in Republic though.

You may want to restart lone scientist research on PP, as we've put 20 turns in and no AI has it yet. Not something we need, but we may get lucky.

There's a MM opportunity in Canton with the granary completing on the turn Canton grows.

The AI has badly spaced its tundra cities again, we can squeeze 3 cities where Babylon had two. My take on a dot-map.

JustBen left you a settler to replace Babylon (which I moved to redeem a wasted land tile, at the expense of two water tiles and two tile of overlap with a city we don't own (yet ), could go either place). It may not be necessary to raze Ashur, you should be able to disband it by rushing two settlers to fill in the other dots.

Good Luck!

 

[JustBen]

Shutting off Printing Press research was an error; sorry. The dance of troops around Susa kept me moving their laborers around a lot; I kept up for most of my round, but I obviously got sloppy at the end.

I like the dotmap too; Babylon City's current position was wasting tiles, but I hadn't actually decided where I wanted the Settler.

Now, on the the hard question: that of government.

Waiting for Gunpowder to make the rounds is obviously going to be very bad if we want to make serious gains against Persia. I think the key point to realize is that our Golden Age gains us the exact same amount under Monarchy as it does under Republic -- it's not like the Despotism/Republic difference. It's just that we're making a more money overall as a Republic. As a result, the question becomes one of being willing to remain in Monarchy for the next 20 turns.

A Republic produces an extra commerce point in a square that already produces one; that is, we're gaining about 1 gpt per population point. By an extremely rough calculation, that's a matter of 35-50 gpt for the next 20 turns (hard to account for the effects of rising population), neglecting the role of MP on our cities' happiness. That's the cost of remaining a Monarchy.

So what's the cost of going Republican? Time, mostly. You could claim that the Anarchy period is a cost, but we're going to incur that cost eventually no matter what. The effect of our MP is a cost, too. War weariness might be a cost, but it seems "slightly" insane to go Republic before we're done with Babylon.

The benefits of being a Republic are seriously dissipated by the fact that (1) we have exactly 1 Marketplace built and (2) we're going to be cranking out Riders for quite a while anyway. The benefit of staying in a Monarchy is that we get our Riders up in Xerxes's face faster.

Thanks to TMcC for mentioning the Gunpowder issue. Making me think it through like that has now convinced me that we're just not ready for a "tyranny of the masses" quite yet.

Summary: Persia. Remain a . Trigger a Age.

We're China on a small, narrow pangea. I see no reason to not aspire towards a military victory of some sort. We have Rome acting as a buffer state until we've annexed all of Persia, at which point conquering the world will be an exercise, not a problem.

 

[Darkness]

'got it'
OK, I'll try to take out Babylon and resettle their land. Then move on to Persia, and try to get a GA (in monarchy)...

 

[T_McC]

[Edit] I'm getting very good at posting these mathematical analyses about 5 minutes after the next guy claims the game.

I agree with JustBen. Our UU has a fairly short time-span where it can be really effective, and we're nearing the end of it. Also, we can only use the main advantage of the Rider (3 moves) against the Persians, as it can't fight any faster in the jungle than a regular knight.

So if we want to attack Persia after the war with Babylon, we can go two ways: (1) Buy Chivalry before the end of the Bab conflict, trigger our GA, use the first 5-7 turns to amass a force to strike Persia. This would be kind of tight with our economy, as we don't have enough money to both buy Chivalry and upgrade many horses. I figure we would make ~+50 in our GA (we'll grow a little, and add more cities for unit support, but have to pay out for Chivalry), so we could upgrade about 1/2 horse a turn (unless Darkness does his magic and pulls us a leader again). Combined with what we could build from scratch, we'd probably have ~8 riders after 7 turns of GA. Decent stack to go on a burning rampage on Persia's southern cities. (I don't think we should even consider keeping those cities. As JustBen said, we are barbarians.) (2) Hope Babylon had Chivalry to give us for peace, or at least something we can trade for it. Acquire Chivalry on the cheap at the end of the Bab war (which I think will last 5 or 6 more turns), leaving us with enough money to upgrade 3 horses right away, and then 1/2 every turn. After another 5-7 turns, we'd still have ~8 riders to attack Persia and trigger our GA. We'd get more out of our GA this way, both in cash (not paying gpt for Chivalry) and with larger cities. It also means the second wave of riders comes faster, since we should be making enough cash to upgrade a horse every turn.

So I guess (2) is the way to go, unless we get a GL to rush Leonardo. Interesting things for Darkness and Kuningas to decide.

Either way, I don't see how we'll have enough Riders to send them after two targets at the beginning of the war. We could, however, use our infantry stack against Gordium simultaneous to the cavalry rush in the south. And as much as I'd love to hold Gordium, we should have a settler ready to build on the hill NE of the gold hill. We can't afford another flip. "Raze and replace" also allows the bulk of the infantry stack to slog N through the jungle to harass other Persian cities, and hopefully tie their forces down in pointless fights of attrition.

Did you know Susa can hand-build the FP during our GA?
Although I'm not sure that is such a good idea, we're going to need it training troops if we're going to attack Persia.

 

[Greebley]

We are making slow but sure progress against the AI. Go Team!

I think using our riders soon is a good plan. The only problem with getting chivalry for peace is then we can't enter our GA before our war with Persia. It might be bettter to buy Chivalry and go for invention if we make peace with babylon.

Also rushing settlers is expensive. We may want to build them in our main cities? A rushed settler is 100+ bucks so what is that - 2 riders? It might be better in the long term to keep our main cities big, but given our tight window of opportunity, a quick trim of the main cities may make sense. It also may not make sense to move Ashur. True it is not optimal, but is it worth the price?
It will cost rushed settler price or loss of pop in a main city or waiting 15 or 30 turns to found it depending on how we chose to found it. It is never going to be a great city.

Doesn't republic also have less corruption? We are a long thin civ so we may get a bit more than the listed amounts. Also that will cause a difference in our GA amounts. I don't think that we have time to make a switch to Republic, so its probably moot, but I don't think the statement that we will get the same shields in republic and monarchy is entirely true.

Totally off the wall, but is it worth considering a switch to Democracy rather than republic? My guess is no. The worse war weariness offsets the small bonus in corruption and the worker bonus (especially on this small land map). I mention this because we will get PP before our golden age ends. It might be possible to get Democracy not long after.


BTW, we lost 3 turns off our printing press research if it is at 20 turns. I remember it was 27 turns after TMcC's turn.

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by Greebley
... The only problem with getting chivalry for peace is then we can't enter our GA before our war with Persia. It might be bettter to buy Chivalry and go for invention if we make peace with Babylon.

It will work either way, but we have to tie up most of our economy to buy Chivalry now. If Darkness bought immediately, I can't guarantee we will have enough money to upgrade even 1 horse before the war with Babylon could end. I didn't haggle for prices, but it could be close. We'd be making ~50 gpt in our GA even with a payment for Chivalry, so we'd we able to upgrade 1 horse every other turn. The advantage to this is we start GA production sooner.

The alternative is getting Invention from Hammer for peace, and trading it to America for Chivalry. At worst, we'd have to include a little bit of our economy to make the trade. If we could do that, we'd be able to immediately upgrade anywhere from 2-4 horses, depending on how the cash works out on the Chivalry trade. A disadvantage is that we wouldn't have GA production until we attack Persia, but I think we can get to the same number of riders in 6-7 turns of normal production (+upgrades) either way. The advantage of this plan is that we would be making ~25-30 gpt more for 20 turns. That would allow the second wave of riders (upgraded horses) to be ready sooner. It will work either way, I just hope Darkness had a chance to read this thread before he plays, so he can consider all his options.

Originally posted by Greebley Also rushing settlers is expensive. We may want to build them in our main cities? A rushed settler is 100+ bucks so what is that - 2 riders? It might be better in the long term to keep our main cities big, but given our tight window of opportunity, a quick trim of the main cities may make sense. It also may not make sense to move Ashur. True it is not optimal, but is it worth the price?

You're right, straight cash-rushing both settlers will be expensive. The thought of capture Ashur rather than razing was based on it being the last target of the war, and us not having a settler ready to replace. (If we raze, I think one of the AI will float by and poach an oil/rubber/uranium down there.) The city is a minor flip risk at a large size, so we will want to starve it down by some means. I think it can make 2-3 shields a turn, so disbanding via settler is a viable option. Maybe the best solution is to capture Ashur, pop 1 settler out of Beijing in the next ten turns to found on the blue dot (the pop in Beijing could be replaced by native workers), then after sufficient time disband Ashur with a settler. So I think it comes down to whether the improved location for Ashur is worth a couple of slaves that Ashur could produce while being starved to size 1 + ~50 gold (since the settler would need to be built no sooner than the turn that blue dot is founded, this is not a high-priority task). In those terms, probably not.

But blue dot is definitely worth having. That's a fishing village that can pull 16 shields before corruption (without taking any tiles from Tsingtao), so once it gets a courthouse it can probably build all of its own improvements.

Originally posted by Greebley
Doesn't republic also have less corruption?

There is a corruption thread somewhere on this board (Strategies?) (maybe search board for "corruption calculator"). IIRC, republic and monarchy use the same formula for distance corruption [(2/3)*something] whereas Democracy has [(4/9)*something]. Not sure about rank corruption, but I suspect it is not too critical as we aren't too close to the OCN.

I think that once we have control of the southern landmass we will have 4 native luxuries, with extras to trade for more. That should allow us to sustain a Republic in war-time (pre-hospitals), but I don't think that is possible under Democracy. With non-religious civs I feel it is quite important to minimize the number of gov't changes. When we go to Republic/Democracy, it would be nice if we could stay.

 

[JustBen]

BTW, we lost 3 turns off our printing press research if it is at 20 turns. I remember it was 27 turns after TMcC's turn.

Hm... 3 turns sounds believable...

210 BC (7)
Susa: Settler -> Granary

And now it all makes sense. I knew I supposed to be watching when Susa built that Settler, too.

Bah.

 

[Greebley]

You are right - I did get that wrong. I went and looked at the article There is a difference between republic and monarchy but the difference is in the OCN calculation rather than the distance part of corruption. The OCN has a 0.1 factor added to it for republic that monarchy doesn't have.

 

[Darkness]

Inherited turn: science slider to 10% (PP)

IT: Rome builds Leo’s

130 BC (1): Our elite archer spawns a GL (unfortunately there are no trades available to obtain techs leading to wonders, so the GL goes to Bejing and to await wonder opportunities. Babylon is razed.

IT: Persians conquer the Babylonian city of Akkad.

110 BC (2): Movement…

90 BC (3): We capture Ashur. Xinjian founded where Babylon used to be (this is our eighth city, so I rush the granary in Susa, to use the GL to rush the FP the next turn). Only one Babylonian city remains, on the other side of the Persian territory. So we make peace for invention, chivalry, 2 workers and 3 gold.

70 BC (4): GL rushes FP in Susa.

IT: We spot 2 Roman cavalry’s

50 BC (5): Susa completes FP. Chengdu founded.

30 BC (6): 1 horseman upgraded to rider.

10 BC (7): Last settle built to fill the formerly Babylonian lands.

IT: We lose our supply of wines. I renegotiate (and unfortunately Ceasar has incresead his price to WM, 7 gold and 9 gpt) Romans capture Persian city of Gordium.

10 AD (8): Bejing builds rider. Another horseman upgraded.

IT: Rome and America sign an alliance against Persia.

30 AD (9): Nothing…

50 AD (10): Another horseman upgraded. Settler reaches position for city…

We haven’t had a GA yet, but we should be able to trigger that when attacking Persia. I think our main objective should be upgrading as much horseman to riders as possible and then attack Persia, but I didn’t dare that with only horseman and med. Inf. We now have 5 riders, so war becomes increasingly more appealing…


The save:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/JB01-50AD.zip

 

[T_McC]

Great job on the leader and the peace!
Now we just have to get Caesar to play better with others.

Originally posted by Darkness

IT: Rome builds Leo’s

Caesar is getting really annoying. We missed out on the Great Library (although The Hanging Gardens has worked out well for us) and Leo's by two turns!

Originally posted by Darkness
IT: Persians conquer the Babylonian city of Akkad.

When did they start fighting? Looked at the save, they are still at war, so expect Hammer to "leave the building" during Kuningas' turn. Good for us, no more flip risks, and we get closer to last-civ tech prices.

Originally posted by Darkness
GL rushes FP in Susa.

IT: We spot 2 Roman cavalry’s

This is the fastest tech pace I've ever experienced. FP was the best use for the leader, but I'm sorry for talking up Susa so loudly. I based the choice on the assumption that the Persian-Roman war would stay a stalemate, but I've changed my opinion. Not your fault, and our 4 largest cities are now essentially corruption-free. Plus, Susa will work well with our Persian conquests.

Originally posted by Darkness
Romans capture Persian city of Gordium.

Now it's starting to hit the fan for X-man. Given the standard AI stupidity, he will be sending his main body of forces to attack the Bab city behind him, so I fully expect the Roman Cavs to capture Akkad in the next couple of turns, and then we will have to race Caesar to pick over X-mans carcass.

I check the save, and I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that Printing Press still hasn't made the rounds, and we only have 10 turns to go. A monopoly tech with 6 (or 7) live civs would do wonders for our economy, and probably get us back in the tech race. More good news is that Persia is probably completely gassed by this point. Which is also the bad news, and I expect that since the Roman Cavs now have flat ground to run on they will carve the Persians up. (The Persians have also lost Tyre in the north.) We should have a (some) poaching settler(s) ready [we could do that settler-native worker merge trick with Beijing again], although I've noticed the AI is less likely to raze sites that are close to the human.

Bad news also comes with Persia knowing Gunpowder. X-man is broke, so this may do him more harm than good since if he has salt, he'll have to build 70 shield defense units. I'd love to be patient with our attack, but I think we have to go soon if we want to take anything before it belongs to Rome. Hopefully, Persia will re-take Gordium, but I doubt they can. Akkad makes a nice target, especially because those are Bab citizens, not Persians, and we could hold the city instead of razing. It should also be in the line of advance for the Roman troops, so X-man's counter attack should meet 3rd party resistance.

When we do go for the Persians, an MA with Caesar could be considered. Pro: We should get something (cash, discount on tech) for attacking X-man, which we would do anyway. Con: We would have to stick it our until Rome makes peace, which might not be until X-man is dead. This severly limits our ability to hijack tech at a peace treaty. I do not want to ruin our MA reputation, for reasons to be made clear.

We are in a good position to attack a gassed AI, and trigger our GA. It is not unrealistic to think we could gain 3-4 cities is a 10-12 turn war (plus tech with the peace treaty). Our short-term strategy could be to capture Akkad, and raze-and-replace Pasagardae and Antioch, then sue for peace or continue pushing into Persia, depending on the situation on the ground, land is more important than tech@last. I would not expect the Persians to be capable of generating much of a counter-attack. Devote what resources we can spare during our GA to infrastructure, and revolt to Republic at the conclusion. Kuningas can decide on the timing, we don't have to go right away, but I think we do have to go on his turns.

In the medium-term, we should do all we can to get chummy with Korea and America, because we have a war with Rome coming. (Odd to think, but how different would this game be if Greebley didn't have the opportunity to start a 4-fer with Rome on his last turn.) We will need to start a dogpile on Caesar to complete the first ring around our FP, and to narrow our front. This is the primary reason I would argue against an MA at this time. We need to have operational flexibility.

Other thoughts: The timing of our attack on Persia may also be determined by when we can get our workers off the Persian border.

After all the riders are upgraded, the leader-generating Archer should also be upgraded (probably not until Greebley's turn).

We get PP just as fast with a lone scientist as with tech at 10%.

City builds should be carefully considered. I'm not sure we want all of those pikes. Kuningas should decide which cities need real defense, and which just need warm-body MP's. Maybe we do want a few more pikes.

 

[Greebley]

Good work Darkness

Rome must have gone straight up the Mil trad. path to get Cavalry that fast. They are definitely going to be the monster this game.

I think we could get several techs for peace with Persia so an MA with Rome would have to be very lucrative to be worth it. On the other hand if we were planning on extinction of Persia, it would be the way to go.

I am hoping Kuningas knows he is up. We have been flying through the turns.

So is everyone getting Conquests

I ordered mine with "slower but free shipping" so it may be a bit before I get it.

 

[T_McC]

Originally posted by Greebley

Rome must have gone straight up the Mil trad. path to get Cavalry that fast. They are definitely going to be the monster this game.

Yeah, and the other problem is that sometime during Kuningas' turn we are likely to hear "Seoul completes Copernicus' Observatory". Just what we need, the two large AI's going different branches of the tech tree. One game, during the Industrial age when the tech tree has three branches at most points, myself and two AI's couldn't have coordinated research projects better. I think we were effectively discovering better than a technology every two turns. The fourth large civ went from tech parity to ~8 techs behind in 20 turns.

Originally posted by Greebley
So is everyone getting Conquests

Good point, since we have two Yoo-row-pee-ans in this game, and it sounds like Conquests has some significant changes to the game mechanics, I vote this game stays as PTW.

 

[Kuningas]

got it.

 

[JustBen]

Originally posted by T_McC
Good point, since we have two Yoo-row-pee-ans in this game, and it sounds like Conquests has some significant changes to the game mechanics, I vote this game stays as PTW.

I think a change mid-game would be inappropriate even if this were a purely gringo game, mostly due to the mechanics they changed in Conquests.

Originally posted by Darkness
IT: Rome builds Leo’s

130 BC (1): Our elite archer spawns a GL (unfortunately there are no trades available to obtain techs leading to wonders, so the GL goes to Bejing and to await wonder opportunities. Babylon is razed.

I can't believe that happened to us twice in the same game.

IT: We spot 2 Roman cavalry

That's ugly. I found myself in a similar situation once before, but that time I won the war using Ansar Warriors instead of Riders. And this game we may even have the luxury of waiting till we get to use Cavalry ourselves! (Hope springs eternal...)

I think the FP in Susa will work out just fine, but it increases the pressure on us to make big gains on the border with Persia. It may suit our purposes to jump the gun in our war against Persia rather than waiting till we're "ready." We're racing Rome to Persepolis, 1945-style, and a GA is the only advantage we might be able to gain on them.

Do any of the AIs have enough liquid cash that we can take out a loan? This is not something I've ever done before, but I've never had such a desparate need for cash that I was willing to damage my income for an up-front payment. Anything to hurry the invasion of Persia improves our chances of getting to Berlin first. I mean Persepolis.

Edit: Small, annoying typos fixed.

 

[Greebley]

Actually, I was more asking as "Off topic chatting" than an actual suggestion to change to it. I would want to hear that such a change was really good by someone reliable before really doing it. I am also guessing that if it did work, it wouldn't change much in terms of things like unit attributes and cost. In other words, you would get the code changes but the "data" (anything you can change in the editor) would stay the same.

So until Bamspeedy gives it a two thumbs up, the point is moot.

 

[T_McC]

I read a nice report on Conquests from one of the Beta testers.

Sulla's Conquests Review

If I read between the lines, even if we wanted to switch these save files would not be compatible with Conquests.

 

[Kuningas]

0 - 50AD

Trade WM (+7 gold)
I asked a loan from each civs. None were willing to help us.

1 - 70AD

Shanghai Rider ->Rider
Koreans, Romans, Iroquois have PP.

Hangchow founded -> Temple

Susa ->Settler

2 - 90AD
Roman musketeer and cavalry are going without permission through our lands.

Trade WM (+12 gold)
Beijing Pikeman ->Rider
Susa Settler ->Rider

1 horseman upgraded

3 - 110AD

Nanking Pikeman ->Pikeman
Ellipi Pikeman ->Rider
1 Warrior upgraded


4 - 130AD
Romans demands 19 gold + TM. We agreed to give them.

Revolution 5 turns
War declared to Persians

5 - 150AD



6 - 170AD

There it goes. Romans captured Akkad. We're 1 turn late.

7 - 190AD
Win: 4/4 Knight vs Pike (hp 2/5)
Koreans built Copernicus

Win: MI (hp 1/4) vs 3/3 Pike


8 - 210AD
Another lost. Romans took Bactra
Lost: 4/4 Knight vs 4/4 Horse

Lost: 4/4 Horse vs 2/4 Knight
Win: horse (hp 5/5) vs 2/4 Knight

9 - 230AD
Republic formed

Win: Rider (hp 4/4) vs 3/3 Pike
GA started
Lost: Rider 4/4 vs 3/3 Pike
Win: Rider (hp 4/4 vs 3/3 Pike
Pasargrade razed. 2 workers.

10 - 250AD
Tsingtao granary ->settler
Shanghai rider ->rider

2 Horses upgraded

Can't decide were to build city. Left it to next player.
Stopped PP research. We could buy it from Americans for 11gpt, Incense and WM.

At the Dawn of the Golden Age we are gaining 131gpt. Slider 9.0.1.

I went war in the middle of anarchy period. I saw Roman stacks of 3-4 cavalries and knights so I had to do something.

Next player may reorder workers cause can't remember if forest chop -plant -chop -plant cycle produce shields.

Here is my suggestion for city placement:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/jb01-250ad.zip