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

[scrubkai]

Research. The team seems to have an Allergy against Code of Laws!! Not sure why as at higher levels over expanding can damage your economy badly and as we assimilate Hannibal Courthouses will be useful. Confucianism hasn’t been founded yet so with the Beakers in Aesthetics we would have had a good chance of snagging it ( may well not get it now). Aesthetics is a good tech but we can’t really leverage it for quite a while unless an AI researches Alphabet and is prepared to trade it.

That actually raises a question that I had... I didn't want to play in a shared game but...

Is there A cost associated with switching research mid tech?
I wasn't sure if we would have just started researching a new tech, or have lost all the beakers put into the tech when you started working on a different tech. That's actually the reason I didn't reset the research, I wasn't sure what the results of doing that would be.

Looking back probably not the brightest of moves...

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

You dont lose accumulated research if you switch research, it sits there until you return to complete the tech.

Not a problem Scrubkai, we will want to research Aesthetics fairly soon as it is on the Great Library path so certainly not a disaster.

Ralph

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK have advertised for extra people in the Registration Thread but I will play now to keep things moving

Ralph

 

[frankcor]

ps. Unless JButler, Gigi or Tycoonist check in (in whihc case post a got it and take it awaY) I will advertise for a new player or two in the Registration thread and will Play Monday if all else fails to keep the game moving

Ralph, I saw your advertisement. Due to medical issues, I've been away from Civ and CivFanatics for around a year -- some of you may remember me. I just picked up Civ 4 again this past week and I've played two Warlords games at Prince level, winning the second one. A year ago, at my peak, I could win at Monarch in single-player but struggled dearly with it. A succession game would really help me brush up on my skills if you'll have me.
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edit: ooops, I posted before reading through the thread and realized this was a BTS game. I don't own it yet and would probably mess you up if I went out and bought it and tried learning all about it under pressure. Gotta pass on this one.

 

[dazedroyalty]

Ralph, let's add Frankcor. If no one else comes after that, four is fine with me. It will mean we get turns more often which is fine with me. I'd welcome a fifth too if interested, but would stop there.

 

[scrubkai]

Take a look at Frank's Response...
Looks like he pulled out due to not haveing BTS.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

frankcor, If you get BTS (you know you want to) we will slot you in as the basics of a lot of the gameplay is the same as warlords and it will be a cool way for you to learn the differences in BTS.

Will have a report up tomorrow evening.

Ralph

 

[frankcor]

You're right, I want it. I'll let you know when I have it installed.

 

[r_rolo1]

lurker's comment: Good to see a face.....

Welcome back , frankcor.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Well a little bit of has to be applied this time I am afraid.

Somehow The Avoid Growth button had been turned on in Antium which is why the city was stuck with a full food box at size 2. Now lets be clear this is a big in SG’s so please avoid it. Luckily I spotted it before playing.

No we will soon see why we should have researched code of laws and not meandered through Aesthetics. Our economy looks Ok at the moment with a decent research rate but when we have taken two of Hannibal’s cities it will be a different story!!

The two cities I will keep are his capital as they are always good sites and Hadrumetum as with Flood Plains it will be a nice little commerce city plus we need the happy from elephants.

So after pressing enter its time for war

At the same time I sign OB’s with Hammurabi to have a trading a partner and something for our exploring warrior to do.

I had kept an Axeman back for rounding up stragglers and we found one!!

440BC Aesthetics comes in (it was so close to finishing it seemed worthwhile) and we star down the C of Laws line. I didn’t trade away Aesthetics as we want to keep the AI’s away from Literature for a while.

With killing off defending archers we popped Ivan The Terrible who became an instructor in Cumae our Military city.

About this time Confucianism was founded in a distant land followed by this.

I am not sure but it looks like someone may have taken Philosophy from the Oracle. If so we have a runaway AI somewhere and no prospect of a religion on our continent. This will make things potentially very interesting and the game possibly a bit harder!!

Hadrumetum and Carthage fell easily enough but unfortunately without the workers we desperately needed to capture (lots of terrain to improve) so we pressed on..

At last snagging a couple (please take care of them on they way back as we need them!!).

So what do things look like.

Razed two cities + captured two and we need to decide do we put him out of his misery. Don’t let his escorted settler (marked) slip through please.

Now this shows you our financial situation once we return our troops to our territory (and disband useless ones to use axes as garrison if necessary) we will still be a bit cash strapped until we get some Cottages going and eventually courthouses. This is the reason to unlock courthouses in time to support stealing AI cities!!

A settler is being built for the resettling site to grab silver (we need the happiness but look at the economic situation before settling him please.

 

[dazedroyalty]

I got it and can play tonight, post in the morning.

Yeah,courthouses would be nice to have right about now. I should take responsibility for selecting the Aesthetics research originally.

If we still have the troops, I'd saw we put Hannibal out of his misery. He'll never recover, but he may get in the way of our future expansion plans. Eventually we'd be taking him out anyways. So might as well now. We have other tech trade partners.

On the other hand, I can't remember if Hannibal builds wonders or not. If he does we could let him build them for us. But iirc he doesn't build them a lot.

Have the turn numbers been evened out yet? Should be the last turnset in the BC years? So then we'll switch to 10 turns each?

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

IIf we still have the troops, I'd saw we put Hannibal out of his misery.

We defintely have the troop sto tkae him out with 5 or 6 Partes and afew axes by his last city.

I must confess I am not a stickler for turn numbers and just played through researching Polytheism and Preiesthood as it seemed a good place to stop!!

10 turns per set should be a good idea as it lets us improve our MM (needed at higher levels!).

We need libraries + cottages + scientists + reduce Unit SUpply adn Upkkep costs basically

 

[scrubkai]

Wow.... Avoid growth was on at Antium?
I wonder how I missed that....

My thought finish Hannibal, disband the army and try our best to get our economy back on track.

 

[dazedroyalty]

The Report:

(158) Hammurabi comes calling:

I say sure as it may improve relations tho health isn't a large concern for us at the moment with our low happy cap.

Our axe captures another worker that Hannibal left out in the open.

(159) Another worker falls. These peasants seem very pleased to become a part of the glory of Rome.

Praets move into position.

(160) The battle for Utica begins.

Attack with a Praet at 66.9% and win!
Attack with a Praet at 73.6% and lose but take the archer down to 0.2 health
Attack with a praet at 66.9% and loses, but take another archer down to 1.7 health
Attack with Praet at 72% and wins.

But then I try to open to turn log and CRASH! Forgot about the BUG issue. Fortunately random seed is the same so I can re-do it all with the same results. It also allows me to get a picture of this:

William the Conqueror born! Woot!

Attack with Praet at 70.9% and lose and archer is only down to 2.3
Attack with Praet at 94.4% and wins.
Attack with Axe at 95.3% and win
Attack with Axe at >99.9% and:

Utica gets razed. We got around 100 gold!

Battle pics:

Spoiler :

(161) Whip granary in Neapolis. Our exploring warrior gets killed by a barb archer.

(162) I start a cottage at Cumae. Long term we will need farms here to be able to work max production, but with our economy the way it is and our low happy cap, that will have to wait. I also settle William in Cumae as we aren't planning and immediate wars that need medics. In fact, we're going to be downgrading military. Later we'll replace it and the 2 extra XP will be helpful.

Archer in Carthage gets disbanded and replaced by axe. Saves us 2 each turn.

(163) Archer in Hadru gets disbanded as well for more

(164) I had research at 50% after the war in order to balance money lost with research, but then realize I can go to 100% research to complete CoL in 8 turns at -31 gpt. We have 309 gold in the bank. So I switch to full science to get courthouses in play sooner than later.

(165) Monument complete in Carthage, starts Granary. Granary complete in Cumae, starts library.

(166) I am moving units back to the core in order to replace warriors and save money if we decide we need to.

(IT) Pericles:

He won't trade Masonry or Sailing because "We have our reasons." Meditation for Polytheism doesn't gain us anything we immediately need but it's a fairly even trade and may boost our relations, so I say sure.

(170) I replace the archer who is on barb watch with a Praet, saving more gold.

(171) We are now at +7 gpt at 100% gold and I only have to run 40% science to finish CoL in one turn.

An axe goes out to explore the still largely unexplored north.

Granaries in Carthage and Antium get whipped.

(172)

I select Literature next for our Great Lib run.

Carthage, Antium and Neapolis all start courthouses.

(173) Whip Lib in Cumae and Hadru for overflow into Courthouses.

(174) We enter AD and:

We get our Great Scientist. We have a couple options:

1. Lightbulb math.
2. Build a second Academy
3. Settle in Rome

The second academy may have longer term pay off but for the short term pay off settling in Rome seems better and that would be my choice though I will flex with the team. I have not moved the scientist so we could decide together what we want to do with him.

The other decision we need to make is that our settler is in place to build a new city that will hook up gems for higher happy cap. Our economic situation is still less than stellar, so I left that decision to the team. At 30% science we're still losing 7 gpt. We have more units we can disband to save on unit upkeep. I refrained b/c 1) don't want our power to drop too low and 2) I probably wasn't brutal enough with our units as a the glorious troops of Rome deserve a death in battle, not a retreat into obscurity.

Roster:

Ralph_Jackson
dazedroyalty (just played)
scrubkai (UP)
frankcor (needs to make a run to GameStop or Amazon for BTS)

The save:

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

Looks like good work to me and definitely agree with Literature next. Post that unlocking forums would be useful from currency (+1happy from Ivory and + 25% GPP make it a tasty UB.


Another option for GS would normally be saving him for Philosophy lightbulb for Liberalism race but as we will get another in time for this I would also settle in Rome.

The settler will be able to work the silver fairly quickly so the city wont kill us on upkeep costs so I would settle him as soon as a couple of on courthouses come on stream to maintain our economy now we have C of L

Cheers

Ralph

 

[scrubkai]

Ok, I'll try to play and post tonight.

 

[scrubkai]

Ok, I took a short set of turns to get us back onto the even turns again.

It was a quiet time so this should be quick.

AD 25 - Barbarians came and sacked the camp on the deer south of Rome (city name escapes me for the moment) They were promptly killed by our Axeman. I also settled the great scientist in Rome for a nice bonus in research.


Lots of worker maintance and hitting enter.

85 AD: More Barbarians arrived and were promptly removed from our land by our pretorians.

100 AD: I whipped our first Courthouse in Cumae before we grew into unhappyness.

And that's it... We are back on our turn cycle, and next turn should have our first courthouse.


A couple observations:
1) I still have not settled the newest city due to not having any courthouses.
2) Pericles has settled most of the good sites due north of us. So marble seems to be a bit out of reach for us right now. That means we will have to do the great libary the hard way.

That's it... Either Frankcor is up now, or if he does not have the game yet, then Ralph is up again.

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

OK Got it , obviosuly as soon as Frankcor gets BTS we will slot him in.

Ralph

 

[frankcor]

Roster:

Ralph_Jackson
dazedroyalty (just played)
scrubkai (UP)
frankcor (needs to make a run to GameStop or Amazon for BTS)

The save:

That's it... Either Frankcor is up now, or if he does not have the game yet, then Ralph is up again.

I just returned from Circuit City and the box is out in my car. But please allow me to skip this round. I'd be extemely uncomfortable playing my first turnset -- this is Monarch level and I haven't even read the list of new features yet. I'd prefer to wait until my turn comes up the next cycle if that's okay. Thanks!

 

[dazedroyalty]

Frankcor, next round is great for you to join in. How did you manage to leave it in your car is my only question! When I get new toys, the challenge for me is to do anything else before I start enjoying them!