NCSG2-Team 1-Lincoln!

[S.ilver]

Yeah, I think it's at 3 cities that the new landmass is considered a colony (so maintenance roughly triples). A second city should be ok, especially if it grabs much needed luxuries.

Not a huge problem on Lit, since our tech rate is pretty decent. We were kind of forced into a TRE instead of an SE due to getting the GLH. We still obviously want to run an SE eventually to leverage Phil though.

All that is a bit further down the road though, post-Mehmed.

 

[grandad1982]

I played but I can't report or post the save till tomorrow.

The city location wasn't a problem in the end. By the time the escort arrived my turns were up. Someone else gets that pleasure!

Going along ok. Got a spy mapping Mehmeds lands. He's teching engineering at present and we have HBR with the first HA on its way along with a stables in Boston (its got some good hills and the rice is up). He's got a strong millitary. We need to act soon or consider a different stratagy to deal with him.

One possible bit of is I opened borders with Mehmed. I was thinking about the extra commerce. 14/15 IIRC. However I just realised that if he takes a barb city in our back yard it will be a right pain. pros and cons.

Ummmmm.....

Oh yer I like the silk city location.
We should get another unit on Justinians land to explore with. He shrined the Buddist Holy city..... nice.

Ok thats it I'll report and post the save tomorrow. Good night.

 

[grandad1982]

Ok. Here we go.

Pre-flight Checks

I switch our EP to Mehmed


Turn 1

I tap Mehmed for £60 and he gives it to us.

I also OB with Mehmed this turn. Heres our trade routes.

As I said in my last post I think we should close borders soon. Even though he probably won't send a settler behind us he may capture a barb city (I'm sure there must be some down there somewhere).


Turn 3

Lit> HBR. Got to counter those possible xbows some how.

Washington, Cat> Worker.

Boston, Cat> Cat.

NY whips the settler.


Turn 4

NY, Settler done> Spy.

Mehmed comes by and is an . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ( I can't belive the site automaticaly edited the rude word out - it was to do with bums).

Turn 5

NY, Spy> Lib. Prevent hammer decay. I send the spy to investigate Mehmeds land.

Washington, Worker> Archer. I hire a scientist and drop the sci slider to 80% to conserve our cash.


Turn 6

Blah blah blah.....


Turn 7

HBR> Compass.

NY, I swap the libary for a HA.

Washington whips the archer.

Boston whips cat. Man what a great news headline!!! Hahahahaha....

Anyway.


Turn 8

I think this screen belongs here. What our spy show about the iron city.

Washington, Archer> Cat.

Boston, Cat> Stables.


Turn 9

I hire a second scientist in Washington


Turn 10

Not much going on here.

Archer reaches NY, so settler and archer can be loaded into the galley and sent to silk site.


Here's some summery screens.

Spoiler :

Our cities

What we can see of Mehmeds land

Glance

Tech

Demo. We are doing suprisingly well in terms of GNP, but very poor in food and production. I guess thats the whipping. Also we're not bottom in power!!!

We'll pop a GM or a GSci soon. If GM then I reckon we should bulb CoL with him. We would get Conf and court houses. Settling would also be nice for the GPT. Dessisive or what?

Wahsington needs Buddism.

When the stables in Boston is done use it to crank HA. Washington and NY can knock out foot troops. mining the jungle hill here ATM.

Whip the granary in Philly and put the overflow into a WB.

ROSTER
1. Krick19 >> Skipped till the 13th <<
2. S.ilver - up now (fast turn around isn't it?)
3. Bleys - on deck
4. grandad1982 - about to enjoy his first day off in 3 weeks!!!!
5. gigi_muschi >> MIA << (do we want to look for a new player?)

The save

 

[S.ilver]

Got it. I think we should be holding off on the whip in the bigger cities unless we are exceeding the happy cap. We have a lot of 3 hammer (or more) tiles that we can work, and whipping people working those does nothing for us. Also, it may be costing more than 45 food to grow our citizens back, meaning that it isn't as efficient in converting food to hammers for us.

 

[S.ilver]

310AD (194):

Turn 194? Uh... ok...

Whip the granary in Philly. We need a workboat out here ASAP, so overflow will be for that.

Our power is still pretty pathetic, and we've whipped away huge amounts of our population (I see two unhappy faces each at NY and Washington). That has cut into our industrial base because it means mines we are not working. We'll be waiting for this whip anger to fade for at least 2 turnsets. Let's not whip the big cities anymore.

Dial science down 10% to break even. Mehmed is making us money with the trade routes, so I'll keep OB with him unless I see settler or boat movement. I seriously doubt he's that interested in settling that far south though.

325AD (195):

Mehmed founds a city on the desert island in the channel between the two continents. A clear attempt to poach our fish.

Spoiler :

Granary done in Philly, dial up a boat.

Settler boat is on its way south. 6 or so turns.

340AD (196):

Nada.

355AD (197):

Stable done in Boston. I dial for a worker. I think we're too late to rush Mehmed, as I see a crossbow in his island city now.

370AD (198):

Washington Cat is done. We have an extra health here, so go for a forge.

385AD (199):

We get Ibn Battuta (a Great Merchant) in Washington. He can bulb CoL, which is only 10 turns of research, or we can settle him and get 6gpt, plus the extra food. A quick punch of the calculator shows that after 130.5 turns, he will have made the cost of CoL in gold (not even counting the extra food). Settle him as a no brainer, as we don't need courthouses just yet.

400AD (200):

HA done in NY, it wants to finish the library. Worker first, as we are running out of improved tiles here.

The boat is done in Philly. Yay! Queue up a lighthouse.

415AD (201):

This is not encouraging.

Spoiler :

Found Atlanta.

Spoiler :

The city appears to be costing us 4 gold. Luckily, we unlock harbors in 2 turns. Granary first, hoping that we get free culture here soon.

430AD (202):

Justy comes looking for literature as a gift. No. We get a rep hit, but the same turn, Justy gets the American fugitive event and gets a +1 relations bonus with us. No damage done.

445AD (203):

Compass comes in. Machinery gets us crossbows and Watermills, which are both very nice (and is a prereq for Optics), but I'll go for CoL, because I acknowledge that we'll need it soon if we plan on continuing expansion. 8 turns.

460AD (204):

Memhed wants clams for furs. Sure.

Worker done in NY, go for a no-brainer harbor. Go look at Boston, and discover something quite unpleasant...

Spoiler :

Ok, so Justy has been settling our land all this time, just as we've been settling his. Great...

Harbor not worth it in Boston, and it appears we must race Justy too. Go for a settler.

As to prove that point.

Spoiler :

Ok, so we're in a bit of trouble in the expansion department it seems. Any ideas? We can't fight both these guys... We may want to whip out some settlers, as CoL is coming up and we can support yet more REXing...

I'm really stumped at the moment.

 

[grandad1982]

This gameis getting harder and harder. Whats wrong with Justinians land, thats what I want to know!!

Its a good job we have that iron in Philliy.

I guess we settle what we can and then take it from there. Not like we have much chioce ATM, since millitary power isn't our thing (yet).

Could be a chance for some espionage fun. Get some spys on the go, pillage, steal, poision, support unrest. This should slow down the AIs a little.

Edit: New city on Justinians land and one on the southern islands is ok since we have TGL.

 

[Bleys]

OK got it, will play and post first thing in the AM. No whipping, let pops grow and anger fade sounds good. I am not overly concerned about the expansion, we can expand around Justy if needed, maybe even culture-squeeze him. Later, we want to kill him anyway, I think. His continent plus ours is enough to win easily.

Right now we must destroy Mehmed. He is the thorn in our side. He gives us at least 3 decent cities (his 2 coastal ones near us, and his Cap). Once we have the Mids, we can start some stronger teching. I will keep it very simple and basic this round though.

 

[grandad1982]

How are we going to take Mehmed? He'll have pikes and trebs soon. He has Xbows and may get Maces before us.

All I can think of is to hit Gunpowder before him and nail him before his UU shows up. Or am I too pesimistic?

I'd recormend another spy as well so we can pillage his iron on rotation - stopping his access to decent units.

 

[Bleys]

OK played my set. You are right grandad, we are screwed. Mehmed is not going to go down easily, however, perhaps we can consider grabbing a couple of his cities, as Justy has really hammer-REXed our southern lands.

We may want to consider bailing on this one. I blame myself, the GLH idea was poor, we should have went STRAIGHT for the Mids and we would be in very solid shape. I dont know, here is my report, though. Up to you guys, I have no problems trashing this, and re-generating us a new game. No shame in trying a gamble play like the GLH-Mids combo, if we HAD pulled it off (and we were just unlucky, I think) then we would be golden, but it didnt work, and now we are left with some serious problems.


Logging by BUG Mod 2.30 [Build 742] (BtS 3.13)
------------------------------------------------
Turn 205/750 (475 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:32:47]

After End Turn:

Other Player Actions:

Turn 206/750 (490 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:36:15]

After End Turn:

Other Player Actions:

Turn 207/750 (505 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:42:54]
A Mine was built near Philadelphia

After End Turn:
Washington grows to size 8
Judaism has spread: Atlanta

Ugh, we needed to get Buddhism here, for a culture pop. I switched to a Monument shortly after, its quick with a 3 hammer tile (11 turns).

Other Player Actions:

Turn 208/750 (520 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:43:25]
Tech learned: Calendar

Made a trade with Mehmed. I dont care if he builds the GL, we needed the cash and Calendar wouldnt hurt in the new area.

After End Turn:

Other Player Actions:

Turn 209/750 (535 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:47:18]

After End Turn:
Whip anger has decreased in Boston
Whip anger has decreased in Philadelphia
Philadelphia grows to size 3

Other Player Actions:

Turn 210/750 (550 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:48:06]
Atlanta begins: Monument (12 turns)

After End Turn:
Whip anger has decreased in New York
Tech learned: Code of Laws
New York grows to size 8

CoL comes in, I go for Machinery. Maybe should have gone CS first, I dont know.

I also pillaged Mehmeds Iron.

Other Player Actions:

Turn 211/750 (565 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:53:23]
Research begun: Machinery (17 Turns)
A Mine was built near New York
A Mine was built near Boston

After End Turn:
The whip was applied in New York
The whip was applied in Boston
The whip was applied in Philadelphia
New York finishes: Harbor
Boston finishes: Settler
Philadelphia finishes: Lighthouse

Since whip anger was gone, I whipped a bit here, get this stuff up and some overflow.At some point through here, MoM gets built in a faraway land. Bah, my only real mid-game Wonder target other than Taj, but with no Marble, we wouldnt have the hammers anyway.

Other Player Actions:

Turn 212/750 (580 AD) [03-Jun-2008 09:58:59]
Boston begins: Horse Archer (13 turns)
Philadelphia begins: Harbor (20 turns)
Boston begins: Harbor (18 turns)
A Farm was built near Boston

After End Turn:
Washington grows to size 9
New York finishes: Library
Boston's borders expand

Other Player Actions:
Civics Change: Justinian I(Byzantium) from 'Slavery' to 'Caste System'

Pretty self explanatory through here, nothing special. I did check out the fog with the Archer in Atlanta. Found a Barb city.

Turn 213/750 (595 AD) [03-Jun-2008 10:06:14]
New York begins: Swordsman (4 turns)
Washington begins: Worker (6 turns)

After End Turn:
Washington finishes: Forge
Boston finishes: Harbor

Other Player Actions:

Turn 214/750 (610 AD) [03-Jun-2008 10:11:09]
Washington begins: Swordsman (5 turns)
Boston begins: Swordsman (10 turns)
Washington begins: The Colossus (18 turns)

I decide on the Colossus, but it may be , but at this point . . . well we dont have much, other than all our cities are coastal and we have a lot of seafood tiles.

I also sent the spy to Mehmeds city on our NY border, and here is his stack:

After End Turn:
Boston grows to size 4

Other Player Actions:

Turn 215/750 (625 AD) [03-Jun-2008 10:17:00]

Justys cities on our continent:

Played 11 or 12 to get an even number. Here are some city-screens.

Spoiler :

At this point I saved. Decision time. We CAN slog it out, try to REX out Justys southern lands (he has another settler headed down there, man this guy has some killer production). It would be a total grind, and we NEED a war, perhaps we take 2 cities off Mehmed if possible?

Or we start another, us 3, plus whoever we want to grab. I do blame myself, we tried to do too many things at once. We should have gotten faster settlers out and REALLY boxed Mehmed in hardcore. We could re-start this one, but I dont like that, a new game would be better, even with Lincoln again if we wanted. Your call guys.

 

[grandad1982]

Ummmm. Nice set considering. Don't blame yourself Bley's, we're a team so its a collective responsibility.

Could we fight a defensive war? Once we have Xbows - whip and chop them out - we could lure Mehmed with a weak city then spring a trap on him. Possibly.

We can also use more espionage to slow him down and cripple his economy a bit.

We should consult with team 2 if we ditch this. ATM I can't see a happy ending but we could just try some stuff and go out in a blaze of glory!!!!

To stand a chance we need to take the city treatening our horses and the iron city. With out those resourses Mehmed is crippled. Pillaging would be good too. And tanks.

What do you reckon S.ilver?

I won't post a real got it till we're agreed here.

 

[S.ilver]

Yeah, this is looking pretty rough, and I wouldn't be opposed to bailing on this game. Mehmed's stack in that one city has more military units than our entire Civ. We are doing ok tech wise, but we're severely boxed in, and fighting is no longer an option due to outdated units and because Justy and Mehmed are best buds. We would likely get dogpiled and lose our cities on Justy's continent, because we cannot reinforce them.

I'll echo grandad, it's not your fault Bleys. We kinda ran it into the ground as a team. The GLH/Mids combo would've been great, but after that fell through and we were left with the GLH, we sort of lost focus. We should've been REXing like mad for the TRE. Instead, we built city improvements to run specs, and built military units in the misguided belief that we could handle Mehmed and his army (which, from your screens, we clearly can't).

I would say keep playing it... except that Justy had REXed all of our land in the south, so any further expansion would be lousy, or on Justy's continent and thereby incur far too much maintenance at this stage in the game.

EDIT: And I suppose we should check in with Team 2 and let them know our plans, since we are basically forfeiting and therefore lose .

EDIT2: Is that Longbows I see Justy strutting around in the screenshot of the barb city?

 

[grandad1982]

Yer its longbows.

Looks like we forfit then.

Can is suggest a pangea map or a continents map with Shaka as our next leader or something similar. We can work out our frustration that way.

I might play on from the save a bit just to see what might happen but if you guys want to ditch this I'm happy to. A hard slog isn't fun and this is a game after all.

I would say that I don't think its our weakness compared to Mehmed thats killed this but the fact that Justinian is REXing our lands like a . .. .. .. .. .. Why? He's got all his coninent left to go of his own!

 

[grandad1982]

I thought I'd be able to play today but I've got to go to work so I can't.

This is a skip. Sorry guys.

Are we ditching this or carrying on? If we are carrying on then we need to work out a plan before we make another move here.

Also if I put up a new game would you guys be up for it? I'm thinking Shaka or maybe Gilga on a continents map. I like their UUs. What say you?

 

[Bleys]

Bail, start another, you pick the leader and map Grandad, PM us when you get it up and started, call it NCSG III, explain our bailing mistakes in the opening, congratulate the other team for winning.

I am good for either Shaka or Gilga, no preference, love them both. Sound good to you Silv?

 

[S.ilver]

Sounds good. I think we were in the deep end a bit with jumping to monarch and running no cottages at the same time. If we want to aim for the Noble's Club crowd, I think we should either run Prince/No Cottages or just straight monarch.

At any rate, no preference for leader, as this is a learning game of course.

I'm gonna run on over to the Team 2 thread and concede

 

[schwartz]

I just saw S.ilver's concession post, but I encourage you guys to keep playing because our position is not looking too hot either. If you guys do indeed start NCSG III (saw that mentioned while I scrolled down here) and need another player (silver said some of you had to skip on this one??) I'm willing to play in both @ the same time.
IMO this start was very difficult to play out well

 

[grandad1982]

Hello shwartz! Long time no see!!!

It'd be a pleasure to have you play along in another game. I just realised I can look at your game now. I think I might let this once rest a while. My time is very limited at the moment so I'd rather not spend my time beig frustrated and despondant (I'm not really despondant...)

Ok I'll roll the game tonight and PM you guys. Also Krick if your hovering I'm sorry we dropped out while you were'nt playing. If you want to plug on then I'm happy to join you. Also please come play with the new game!!!!

 

[Bleys]

I just saw S.ilver's concession post, but I encourage you guys to keep playing because our position is not looking too hot either. If you guys do indeed start NCSG III (saw that mentioned while I scrolled down here) and need another player (silver said some of you had to skip on this one??) I'm willing to play in both @ the same time.
IMO this start was very difficult to play out well

I dunno man, I think we COULD have pulled it out if we had broken the "no cottage" rule, but as it is, we cannot tech our way out of this hole, and we have lost any chance of ever being able to use a military to get it back. I wouldnt mind grinding it out alone, but in this kind of format, I would rather play a more "fun" game.

No harm in just moving on IMHO. We did have 2 drop out, so we would welcome a 4th, at least until Krick gets done with school in a few weeks and can play again.