RB12 - Roadkill

[Torello]

Ok playing 15 turns I guess, and then we'll go down to 10 each? Don't know.... anyways.
Cottages, yes we need them please. I'll see what I can do.

Turn 1 Nothing
Turn 2 Nothing
Turn 3 Farm on Wheat Finished, moving to chop forest for obelisk and another worker.
Turn 4 Nothing
Turn 5 Nothing
TUrn 6 Nothing
Turn 7 Obelisk Completed, Start Worker. Settler Completes in Madrid, I load it onto the ship and head for Mr. T.
Start Another worker in Madrid. We'll need 3, and as long as it's a good time to not grow in Madrid I might as well get them built now.
Turn 8 Lighthouse finishes in Barcelona. Start Warrior 5 turns. The citizens fear for their safety. Commerce has increased a little.
Turn 9 Nothing
Turn 10 Cordoba is founded on Mr. T. Starts Obelisk 15 turns. Worker completes in Seville, starts Lighthouse with a big headstart, 8 turns.
One worker heads north to build a cottage near Barcelona, one heads south to build a cottage for Madrid. At some point one of the three workers will need to be transported to Cordoba to chop Jungle and plant cottages there, but not yet.
Turn 11 Great Lighthouse was built in a distant land.
Turn 12 Nothing
Turn 13 Barcelona finishes Warrior, builds Granary. Nothing important to build, Granary could be used here in conjunction with whipping.
Turn 14 Confucianism FIDL. Madrid finishes worker, starts Granary. Time to grow here. Worker starts cottage.
Turn 15 Cottage completes near Barcelona, I start another one. Worker starts a cottage near Madrid.
And I'm spent. I did not end turn after turn 15. So the next player can see the IBT. Iron Working is still 6 turns from completing.

NOTE TO NEXT PLAYER: Barcelona grew to its Happiness and Health Max, 5. So I pulled a worker off the fish and on to a coastal, stagnating growth and increasing commerce. When the next cottage completes it may be wise to move back onto the fish to feed working that cottage, but obviously we don't want the city to grow until we up the happiness, so the 'Avoid growth' button may be in order. Of course if we use that, make sure to let everyone know that you are. Also, after the Lighthouse in Seville finishes, I suggest reviewing the tiles worked there.

General Suggestion: A temple would be useful in Barcelona, maybe it could be whipped after the Granary is done.




Xenikos UP! Good luck.

 

[Maksim]

Just a thought - it might be a good idea to pop-rush granary in Barcelona and switch to high-food tile once again. Then maybe pop-rush a temple as well.

 

[xenikos]

Maksim -

That was definately the plan for the Barce. Turns will be played tonight (and yes, it is 10 apiece from here on out).

 

[xenikos]

Round goals: more defense (we don't want to invite attack), strategic whipping, build up our main cities.

500BC - There's nothing to move, but I whip the granary at Barcelona.
475BC - Seville's borders expand
450BC - Lighthouse finishes at Seville, start production on a granary. Whip the temple at Barcelona


425BC - Temple built at Barcelona, start on a 2nd warrior for a wee bit more protection (England already has longbows, yikes).
I ask England for open borders. We're currently in something of a relations pickle here - Japan, England, and Alexander all have their own religions that they've founded, and that's making them not like us very much. Conflict with Japan is probably inevitable (they of course won't sign OB) but every little thing we can do to keep England off of our backs will make our lives far easier. The OB should help with that (plus it allows our galley to go west).
The workers that have finished their cottages near Madrid - one of them I sent up to build a quarry on that stone near Seville, and the other doesn't have much to do except wait until iron working shows up so we can finally get a 3food square for our capitol!

400BC - Granary finishes at Madrid. We'll need a lighthouse there soon, but that can wait long enough to build another warrior.

375BC - We meet Kublai Khan. And, unlike in many other games, this is a blessing. For one thing, he opens borders with us, which amps up our trade routes. Also, Kublai is just west of England, and he doesn't have a religion yet. We can see the tip of his borders because Buddhism spread to Hastings (English not doing a great job of spreading their own religion)


If we can spread Buddhism to Kublai and get him to adopt it, then we have a big, strong friend that can possibly check England. Or, it might even sway England to adopt Buddhism herself (not horribly likely, but we do already have one of her cities - spreading it to the rest might just net us the conversion). I'd be a lot happier if we were sitting on top of a religious block to our west. Otherwise, we might have to switch to Jeudiasm if it ever spreads in our lands.

Meanwhile, the Pyramids are FIDL, and the worker up by Barcelona starts on the camp for the deer.

350BC - Iron working! There are two iron spots nearby -




the first one is on "our island", but bluey is a vastly better city location. Plus we wanted that island anyways (up north is the spot with the incense + clams). We need to settle on that spot, and soon.

Near Madrid, the worker starts cutting that jungle. Also, we're evidentally very cultured:

Good to know that we are ahead in something!

Cordoba finishes its obselisk, and I start her on a granary. I queue up Writing and Alphabet as our next tech moves.
Another thing to take note of: Japan has iron:


325BC - finish Madrid warrior, start lighthouse. Finish warrior at Barcelona, start on a settler.

275BC - Seville finishes its warrior and is switched to a galley. The nearby worker starts on the quarry.

Overview of our empire:



Madrid's city screen - I'm running high food (no mines) for now. We're going to have to micromanage the citizens well; when there is something we want to build (library, etc.) we can shift to high production, but we should try to grow madrid as well as possible so it can help our commerce situation.


Final thoughts: The workboat that was exploring down south is heading back north, to reach Cordoba by the time its borders expand so we can use that clam resource. We should build a mission at Barcelona so we can build a few missionaries to take to Mongolia and England, to benefit our diplomatic situation. Also, we should make a priest specialist at Barcelona soon to get us underway on our first great prophet to build that shrine.

The galley is on its way to Barcelona, so it can pick up the settler and extra warrior there to take it to the iron location. Then we can shore up our defenses some.

Tech wise, I think we need alphabet badly to hopefully remain alive in the tech situation. After that - calender is a big priority (that sugar resource kicks in once we get it) and then currency.

We had some early mistakes (my deciding to move our start one east being one of the biggest - I was so freaked out about arranging our cities to capture resources that I made an unwise gamble), but I think we can recover. If we can use our religion to gain us a few allys, and build up a naval defense (which the AI is not so smart at) to compensate for our poor city defense...then we should be able to hang in there long enough to start turning the tide. Most prince level games just turn way too easy during the Renaissance or so....so this one will be more a nailbiter, but I am confident!

Save is on 250BC but nothing has been moved/done yet. Good luck! Zed is up.

 

[xenikos]

One PS -

I don't use citizen automation until the very late game, so y'all are going to have to keep an eye on what those citizens are doing.

 

[Clovis]

Can you hook up resources at all without roads?

 

[xenikos]

@Clovis:

Yeah. Either (a), a resource is on a river that is also connected to a city, which in turn has trade routes open to every other city (i.e. if every city was along the same river), or (2) we found each city on the coast to ensure trade connectivity, and then found a city directly on a resource.

 

[Zed-F]

Ok, got it. Let's see just how badly off we are...

 

[Zed-F]

The work boat near Toku can't get to Cordova in a reasonable amount of time. I set Cordova to build its own. Otherwise no changes. Looks like there is another good site for seafood just south of Crodova.



Well, we got beat to our Iron site. I think Toku's galley is going to beat us to the incense & crabs further north up there as well.

We have a second galley (ready for missionaries) and a whipped Barracks out of Seville, it's working on a 3rd Galley right now until we get Iron & can build some real troops. Barcelona finished a settler and whipped a Hindu Monastery, it should start on missionaries next. Madrid is slowly building a Lighthouse. Cordoba built a work boat and a Granary, and is starting on a worker (it'll take less time to build one than ship one down there.

We have a settler on a boat, but it will take a while to get anywhere and if there's a race, it'll probably lose. There is, however, some unexplored territory to the NE, we could gamble on metals up that way. I don't think the Iron on our home island is in a lot of poaching jepoardy, but if we want real military soon then we'll need to settle it now.

There is also a work boat still exploring in the SE. Try for Magellan with it if you can. Writing came in and Alphabet is in progress.

The save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/RB12_AD-0001.Civ4SavedGame

 

[xenikos]

Zed -

Thankee-sai. Looks like we're going to have to go with plan B on that iron. Thankfully we can get that hooked up and start producing some axemen next turn.

Perplexity - Cordoba currently has a worker queued up. We do need a worker there, but that 1 warrior sitting alone makes me very, very nervous - we're practically inviting attack. I would switch to a warrior, and then whip an axeman once the warrior is done. I'd rather whip cities into temporary ruin than start losing citise!

 

[Zed-F]

There are no turns invested on the worker, so the next player can switch to whatever they like.

 

[Perplexity]

I have to drop out of this game now. Sorry. RL intrudes.

 

[xenikos]

sorry Perplex! Maksim, that puts you up...and means that we have a spot open, for anyone reading.

 

[Maksim]

Excellent! Got it. Will play today.

 

[Maksim]

Gentlemen, three turns into the game, and we are at a crossroads.

Have a look at the images attached. The "Nasty Person Tokugawa" one shows the settlement of our eastern island by Tokugawa. This does not preclude us form settling on the top incense, if Iread the map correctly, but it does mean that our galley with the settler will have to go over the far side of the island. ETA - 12 turns or thereabouts.

The crabstick village offers a nice spot south of Cordoba, grabbing two crabs for food, and some mountains and plains for shields.

Finally, we can also plonk down a city on our desert mountain iron, which will be a fishing village with no bonuses whatsoever.

Frankly, I am at a loss as to what to do, and welcome any and all opinions.

I will resume playing either tonight or tomorrow night, depending on the responses I get.

 

[xenikos]

Maksim - my vote is to put the city on the iron on our island. I know it is a craptastic site, but, frankly, I am surprised that no one has declared war on us already. We're doomed unless we can get axemen out asap. (the japs could have samaurais soon!) I like both of those other locations, but we can't risk it yet, I don't think.

 

[knupp715]

sorry Perplex! Maksim, that puts you up...and means that we have a spot open, for anyone reading.

I'll be happy to join the game if you'll gave me. Looks like a very interesting ride you guys are on.

 

[Maksim]

Gentlemen,

Life sucks. Your worst hunches are correct. The executive summary – things looks bleak.

We lost a city. Cordoba, reinforced by a second warrior built there, still fell to two axemen sent by the vile Tokugawa (cursed be his name!).

Listen now to the sorry tale of this poor Spanish dynasty.

Spoiler :

Turn zero (1 AD). We begin.

Turn one (25 AD). I notice that when Seville will grow, it will become unhappy. Fortunately, Barcelona can provide us with a Buddhist missionary.

Turn two (50 AD). Tokugawa (may his name be spat upon for a thousand years!) settles on our eastern island, as per my previous report. I redirect the galley to the iron hill.

Turn three (75 AD). Alexander has Alphabet, as he shows up offering Archery for Meditation. I agree to this transaction.

Turn four (100 AD). That son of an ill-mannered dog and an incontinent livestock animal, Tokugawa, declares war, pillages our fish near Cordoba, and lands two axemen on its beautiful shores.

Turn five (125 AD). Two brave Spaniards fight valiantly but futilely against the technologically superior invaders. Cordoba falls. Foreign news are dire - Kublai Khan converts to Judaism.

Turn six to nine (150-225 AD). Archers are ordered across the empire. Barracks aren’t built in most places, presenting a conundrum – get some defenses now, or wait until the barracks finish.

Turn ten (250 AD). Kublai Khan, despite being Jewish, shows up and demands we cancel deals with Elizabeth. I tell him to buzz off – he’s further away than she is. Unfortunately, this diplomatic faux pas does not go unnoticed, and relationships drop.

I built a city on top of the iron sometime during my turn, so we can now produce axemen and swordsmen (the latter being useless against Toku’s axemen).

This is without a doubt the worst turn in my (admittedly short) SG career. In-game, the last representative of my dynasty probably committed suicide after raving at an uncaring, cruel and mad world surrounding him.

So, Tokugawa presented his rights to Cordoba in quite a forceful manner. Our island is pathetic. Our military is outdated (warriors just don’t cut it in the Anno Domini years!).

I now proceed to hang my head in shame, keep a stiff upper lip and start whistling "Always look on the bright side of life!"

My apologies.

 

[Zed-F]

Well, we knew we got a craptastic start. I for one am not terribly surprised. Guess we'll see what happens next.

 

[xenikos]

I'm not sure why axemen weren't whipped in droves...I've been screaming that we needed that iron hooked up on turn2 of this round, and axemen whipped immediately after that. There should have been at least one at Cordoba - or at least an archer, since that also came before Tokugawa declared war.

But hey, that's ok - we all wanted a challenge, right? Now we get to shore up defenses, take back that city, and bludgeon the japanese into peace.

One bit of good news I saw during that turn - Kublai is evidently hating on the English. He clearly only became jewish because that was the first religion to spread to his borders - if we can spread to buddhism to any location (especially his capital), then he's likely to shift to that. And if there's any luck in the world, Alex and Tokugawa will develop tensions down the line. Let's all look at the save and come up with strategies on how to deal with this short term crisis.

Knupp - glad to have you on board. How about you go after Torello? So roster would then become -
Xenikos
Zed-F
Maksim
Torello
Knupp715