New SG - Monarch, Standard Settings, Continents, Large Map

[dazedroyalty]

Looks like a good turn set, Frankcor. Good job getting our power ratings up some. We will need to keep a wary eye out though.

I never figured out the exact meaning of the spy logo myself. I assumed that it meant I had accumalated enough EPs to use in some way or that I positive EP ratio with them. Not sure though.

I agree that Cumae is definitely the production center dream. I will point out to S.ilver and others that Cumae is working cottages because they were built when our entire economy was crap. I thought I had commented that we would eventually want to farm over them but we needed them for money at the time but looking back on my report I must have left that out. The cottages were a temporary solution at the time they were built.

 

[S.ilver]

I agree that Cumae is definitely the production center dream. I will point out to S.ilver and others that Cumae is working cottages because they were built when our entire economy was crap. I thought I had commented that we would eventually want to farm over them but we needed them for money at the time but looking back on my report I must have left that out. The cottages were a temporary solution at the time they were built.

My apologies. I thought you guys were angling towards a specialist economy a lot earlier, as that's usually more conductive to war. Since you landed the GL and the Mids, I assumed that cottages would've been largely superfluous since most income would've been from specialists.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Good progress while I was away liviing it up a wedding


Well guys its great to see the team debating different ideas and defending them as this is the way to learn and this is a learning game.

If the team would like (and other members are very welcome to join in) I will post some looking back thoughts on key things for people to take away from the game so far covering (requests very welcome)

1. Research Order (in particular Code of Laws and where it fits)
2. City specialisation (Hybrid, Commerce, Research and Military)
3. Caste system versus Slavery (If we compare hammers we gained from whipping + tiles worked in Antium & Rome versus Research that we would have had from extra scientists post representation you will see the trade off)
4. Reminder to ignore the wonders we snagged in this game as some of them fell extremely late - Would love to know why!!)..

Thoughts ??

Ralph

 

[Liquidated]

I'm on 3.17 patch btw due to other games. Since one cannot go back to 3.13 I chose not to even touch the game yet.

Seriously believe the world isolated. 3 civs left, 1 or all 3 are on their own island and teching away. If 2 share same continent, then they are obviously coexisting peacefully. Prolly all wonderless leaders.


Cheers!
-Liq

 

[dazedroyalty]

There has been at least one war since there was a great general born in a land far away. I am also on 3.17 due to other games.

 

[scrubkai]

Ralph,

I would be interested in a lesson recap if for no other reason then to make sure I reinforce the lessons in my head. (It's the whole something must be repeated 3 times to be sure the lesson sticks thing.)

Also Liquidated and DazedRoyalty have already flipped to 3.17.
Frank and I have both said we would be fine flipping to 3.17.

All we are waiting for is you to say yea or nea before we proceed with the game.
So do you want to flip or not?

 

[scrubkai]

General Comment.

Doing a quick review this morning it became very apparent that our core cities are VERY under defended.

Rome has an axe and a warrior
Antium has only a warrior
Neapolis (I think) has only an archer
And I believe Cumae is still defended by only an axe.

Plus there are no units that can be moved quickly into any of those cities for support.
Oh and those are all the cities where we have wonders....

IMHO: We have to get some solid defenders over to at least Antium, and we have to do it ASAP!!!!

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Happy for people to upgrade to 3.17 as I will be dual installing anyway and 3.17 is really a question of "sooner or later..."

Ralph

 

[scrubkai]

Ok then we all agree, so this SG looks like it officially moves to 3.17.
I'll be downloading the patch tonight.

Liquidated you are up, feel free to play your turns whenever you can.

 

[Liquidated]

Ok well coming in cold and without able to read the log... hehe well a thumbnail picture?

Can bolster defences np

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[frankcor]

Heh, I rarely build wonders (other than the Oracle and the Praetorian) so I've never met AIs that don't build wonders. The other civs must either be on isolated islands or are engaged in a full-scale religious conflagration.

We could add defense in the northern and western border cities but I wouldn't pour too much into Rome and Neapolis. It might make more sense to build Walls on those coastal cities and station a mobile defense between them. We'll have plenty of warning of any amphibious assault by galley. Walls, Culture and a mobile defense force will stead us well until Astronomy. I'd like to see more roads built to facilitate the mobile defense tactic, though.

This weekend, I tried using the in-game update process and my computer sat for several hours while nothing happened, although Windows Task Monitor showed CPU usage fluctuating between 50% and 90% so I'm guessing it was doing something. I have broadband service and 170 megaByte download shouldn't have taken that long. I tried again this morning before leaving for work and I'll check tonight to see if it worked.

 

[Liquidated]

preturn: ok so hmm no idea what's going on as I cannot see the log, time to get that defence ratio closer to 1.0.

Lot of tundra in this part of the world I see hehe. Well hopfully quiet turns and as I see most towns are on updatesd military, that is good hehe.

One thing I notice is that Rome has a lighthouse trapped in the queue.. I move that to front considering it's a long overdue building.

Also notice that where the fog buster is there's obvious room for a town to work those horses a deer and perhaps the stone. I'll pop a settler for there.


[1]860 AD
I started moving our fog buster south to explore the area we never bothered to scout and find something afoot!!! =)

[2]870 AD
Carthage and Antium grow to 10 and 8 with Antium finishing a barrackless prat... sigh... start it on a barracks in case anyone else wants to build military in this town haha. Carthage pops a prat gets an xbow. lot of x bow gonna come this turnset.

Sending a few troops south to what's inside... the town - 3x swordmen? ok free exp incoming for a few city attack 2's. . That town looks Marginal at best haha. Maybe there's a fishie hiding in the ocean.

[3]880 AD
Hammy comes up with this deal...

really not bad as we can use the cash. I take the deal
greece is 3 turns from currency so grab mono from him hahaha

Forge in cumae lives and can pump out 3 turn xbox 2 turn prats... hmm needs HE haha I set it on stagnant and start to hammmer out a garrison.

[4]890 AD
More towns growing.. Seems rome is already having health issues so slot a harbor after the light house... well after the upcoming caveral

Well see the entirety of that barb town and it's raze time hahaha. There's nothing there.

[5]900 AD

Big turn!

Compass comes while Rome finishes the worlds latest lighthouse...

harbor will have to wait as I slot in a 4 turn caveral for the round the world.

Tech is set to civil in 9... hammy is 13 turns from civil hehe.

Carthage starts a settler as we must plug that center before that creative civ to the north does it for us.

And the big fight!!!

one sword down hurt the prat tho.


[6]910 AD
Naep finishes it's forge set it on a barracks... this town is just ugly, not too sure what its ever going to amount to other than hooking silver up.


[7]920 AD
Barb town is gone and we get a fun 13 gold.. well got a free cr 3 prat out of the deal.

[8]930 AD
Hammy cancels pig deal so health is even uglier for rome and antium... barracks in antium finishes so slot a harbor as it's got health issues.

[9]940 AD
Greece is on a 4 turn machinery... he's teching fast.


and the power of a creative civ...

and a not so creative civ..

This is not looking pretty, we need drama.

So rome finishes it's caveral and moves onto a 6 turn harbor. The caveral shoots east into the uncharted.

[10]950 AD
Not much hehe

[11]960 AD
settler finishes in Carthage, start 2 turn walls since they are so fast and don;t require upkeep.

[12]970 AD

And I'll leave it here as next turn is big.

First Civil service is done so revolt time and tech path discussion not to mention irrigation paths

Second that settler is in the area and we need to plug that hole.. the SG needs to decide where to place the town I say 1 NE of horses (1 SW deer)

Pericles is teching like a mad man with engineering in 8 btw so he's going to be a major rival.

I placed cumae on max hammers to beat out the military btw so might want to mm that place a bit.


power is doing alot better.

Between Franks forges an cumaes hammers, a lot of military last 25ish turns.

Oh!!!!!! and Rome got a light house =p


These civs are killing us in culture imo we need to aim for drama sooner rather than later.


Can honestly say this game isn;t looking so great but I wanna see ralph pull the rabbit out of the hat

Cheers!
-Liq

3.17 PATCHED SAVE:

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Are we in Caste Sytem or am I a broken record on this point??

Ralph

 

[Liquidated]

Ok yeah we sure are.. regardless we are going to revolt to Beur so I figured to wait even if we didn;t have it.

Not a huge fan of multiple revolts on my turnset if not spiritual.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[frankcor]

I too hate revolts but sometimes you gotta take one for the team -- I did the revolt for Caste System late in my turnset, Ralph. I didn't want you going GreyWolf on us, doncha know? It really is the smart way to go to help catch up with the Greeks on science. With Rome's food supply and a few flood-plain cities, once we get some Courthouses up, we'll be able to run a hybrid Specialist/Cottage economy that will permit us to research past the Greeks soon. I can picture Rome with a mob of Great Scientists/Specialists working at Oxford University and we'll be sitting around in 1900 researching Future Techs (well, maybe that's exaggerating a bit).

Great job on the power cuve, Liquidated! So when do we start killing something? Barbarian Swordsmen are not going to keep our Praetorians happy for long and they'll start stirring up trouble in our own cities. I forget, are we far from Cats and War Elephants? We won't have to worry about culture pressure once we capture or raze some neighboring cities. We can work on Drama while we war.

For the new settler, I like the spot halfway between the Deer and Stone, 2 south of Deer. It can get some food that way with an irrigated farm. Othewise, it'll never grow past size 3 or 4.

I'm upgraded to 3.17 now and no problems so far.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Some thoughts.

1. We could have been running 6 scientists in Antium (and still hint hint!!) when it would stagnate so not require the extra health from Harbours. This boosts our research and would have popped a great person by now

2. Similarly Rome could also run an extra scientist (to make 3) although I like the assignment of an engineer if the RNG is kind.

A representation scientist is signifncantly better than cottages (rome) or working a mine, in Antium, which has the infrastructure it "needs"....

3. I actually think we are in a good position as with a philosophy pop from a scientist (unless we can trade with the AI who founded it!!) We can start on the liberalism Path

4. Militarily things are improving. The AI doesn't fight well so with high quality troops and, preferably Trebs but Cats can do, we can take a fight to the AI whilst running for liberalism. It would be nice to knock pericles down a peg or two.. Our good quality unit pump (Cumae) is showing nicely how one good city like that pumping out militarily constantly can take a large opart of "maintaining the Power Curve" strain whilst building wonders / infrastructure in other commerce / hybrid cities.

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

p.s. Got it!!

 

[dazedroyalty]

Ralph, how's it coming?

 

[frankcor]

Ralph, thanks for the feedback on specialists in Rome and Antium. I had those micromanaged quite nicely, I thought, at the start of my turnset. It's amazing how sloppy things get in just a few turns.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Apologies for the slight delay (too much football!) Report will be up tomorrow... We have met some other AI's are they or are we doing fine is the question....

Ralph