RBD 4: Introduction to Emperor

The game's been posted for 24h, and no word so far from OneInTen. I know he was going to be mostly unavailable this weekend, so I'll give until tomorrow morning (15 hours from the time on this post) to post "got it" or "skip me" before I take my turn.
 
Executive Summary - Founded 2 more towns, built lots of immortals, Babylon and Aztecs declare war on each other.

Turn By Turn:

(0) 750 BC: * Babylon predictably complains about troop buildup.
* Delphi finishes settler, begins library (placeholder for immortals)
* Persepolis finishes catapult, begins settler

(1) 730 BC: * Started settler towards westward dyes - I figure we're going to take out the indians in the medium term anyway, so we should be more worried about establishing our other borders

(2) 710 BC: * Second iron connected, immortal production can begin :D

(3) 690 BC: * Whip temple at arbela

(4) 670 BC: * Aztecs want our territory map and 13 gold for their territory map, we refuse
* Arbela finishes temple, starts on worker (in retrospect maybe not the best strategy, but it wasn't much chop as a town and I thought the worker could improve it)
* Discover code of laws, start on ploytheism, drop science to 70% (losing -2 still though :()
* Change Delphi to immortals

(5) 650 BC: * Delphi completes immortals, starts on more
* Change Flora from spearmen to immortals

(6) 630 BC: * Antioch formed near dyes, the escorting spearman becomes the garrison

(7) 610 BC: a lot goes on but nothing happens

(8) 590 BC: * Flora completes immortals, starts more

(9) 570 BC: * Start clearing forest around dyes at antioch

(10) 550 BC: * Arbela completes worker, starts on immortals
* Germany completes pyramids in Berlin

(11) 530 BC: * Persepolis completes settler, starts immortals
* Pasagrade completes temple, starts settler

(12) 510 BC: *Start settle towards east of our map
* Connected up the dyes

(13) 490 BC: * Delphi completes immortals, starts immortals

(14) 470 BC: * Polytheism is at one turn - but by backing right off and taking 2 turns, we change a -3 deficit to a +7 profit, so I take it, our bank is close to empty

(15) 450 BC: * Babylon declares war on Aztecs! What a nice stroke of luck, hopefully they keep each other nice and busy and leave us alone
* Flora finishes immortals, starts more
* Get polytheism, start monarchy (19 turns at -2 gold per turn, hmm)
* Get monotheism as our free end of era tech, this puts us in a tech lead!
* France completes great library in Paris - guess we know all our opponents now

(16) 430 BC: A lot goes on but nothing happens

(17) 410 BC: * Delphi completes immortals and starts on some more
* Aztecs complete great wall in Tenochtitlan
* Battle a barb camp with immortals, win but dont take it, pretty badly hurt

(18) 390 BC: * Burlington completes harbour, starts immortals

(19) 370 BC: * Defeat barb camp this time around at the southern tip of our land mass, get a much needed 25 gold
* Tarsus is formed, starts on temple

(20) 350 BC: a lot goes on but nothing happens

-----

Well, I wont claim to be a master civ 3 player, but given the position we're in, with two of the civs we know at war, and india pretty much hemmed in (and now our deal has expired, no iron), we seem to be in an OK position. With the number of immortals we now had, plus several more being built (none of them whipped btw, so the population could take more whipping if needed), we should probably look to roll over the top of the indians fairly soon to get them out of our way and claim some more land.

After that we're going to have to take a look at our economy - we're going along nicely enough at 70% tech, but it's costing us -2 per turn, which isn't sustainable in the long term. We're on our way towards monarchy and will probably be best off switching to it as soon as we get it.

Oh well, I've never played at this difficulty before so I only hope I didn't stuff it up too badly. :)
 
Turns should be posted sometime tomorrow morning (or evening, depending on your situation). I actually hadn't noticed One's post as it was down to the bottom of the front page already by the time I had woken up.

One, you seem to have put us in a fine position by your description. I haven't taken a look at the state of the game yet, though, but I guess there is still plenty of room for me to mess it up (like I did in the Infantry game, what a rube I was in there! :spank:).
 
I don't know about putting us in a fine position ... I just plodded along, it was a stroke of luck that our two rivals to the west decided to fight each other, and that we have India contained and without much in the way of resources to the east. :D

We must remember to pillage that horse they have though if we go to war with India!
 
I had a very productive turn. No war so far with India, but we might not need it now. Remember, starting with me, it's 10 turns apiece, up to 15 if you have some business you really want to finish.

What we really need to work on right now is getting troops West to Babylon, we are so paper thin there it's hard to believe. I have constructed walls in both Susa and Antioch, but walls themselves do not a defense make.

350
-Flora finishes Immortal, starts Immortal, sends this troop over to Antioch

330
-Antioch and Susa whip temples
-I check on our foreign relations, Babs, Aztecs, and Indians are all annoyed with us. I decide to work on this. The Babs will only trade their things for Iron, and in light of their war against the Aztecs, I think it would go a long way in securing our relationship as well as helping them prosecute their wars versus Azteca if we traded them for it. I get Republic for 20 turns of iron, and that gets them to Polite.
-I then start to work on Montezuma, I give him a free territory map, but he's still annoyed. I leave India alone for a while.

310
-The graphics on the Bab towns change, they entered the medieval era.

-The settler in Pasargadae is complete. I don't have a military escort for it, so I send it south.
-We start losing 4 gold per turn, I throttle science back to 50% and break-even

290
-W00T!!! Bombay flips to us! I set Delphi and Flora to producing Horses and begin to regarrison our troops in Bombay. The city starts on, of course, a Temple.

270
-Pay Babs 30 gold for a worker
-Whip walls in Susa

250
-Ockley founded south of Pasargadae
-Trade territory map for 1g to Aztecs, 1g to India, and 4g to Babylon. Aztecs are now cautious

230
-India demands Iron. We refuse...no war.
-Aztec Jaguar warrior enters our territory...through India. Now I really want to get my hands on their world map, but I don't want to give up Medieval tech to get it. We, of course, demand he get out of our territory. He, of course, ignores us. I let it happen since we're in no shape to fight in the west.

210
-Burlington finishes Immortal, starts horse
-Antioch whips walls

190
-Persepolis whips barracks
-Unit movement

170
-Indian settler pair enters our territory bound for southwest of Pasargadae. I tell them to scram, but they'll just go forward one space instead of back. Oh well, that will be a very corrupt little town under pressure from Pasargadae, I don't really fear it. If we want to get evil, we'll send a settler north in that gap between Indian towns and cut those two towns off completely.

Zed, I turn this over to you. We need a lot of things, but mostly we need some security in our west, I'm afraid that either the Aztecs or the Babs will want to take out their pent-up aggression on us if they decide to give peace a chance. The Babylonians have about 12 turns of iron left. As long as they're not fighting us, that gambit for better relations should pay off after it runs out.
 
We need libraries in Arbela and Pasargrade to put cultural pressure on Madras and Calcutta, or our cities will eventually flip to the Indians (especially Arbela.) We should also put Libraries in our good towns since we can build them cheaply. Also, we need more workers, we only have 5 for all 11 of our cities!!! Most of them are also way behind in infrastructure.

170 BC (0): Flora micromanaged to finish horseman sooner. Arbela and Pasargrade, and Burlington changed to Library, and Arbela whipped. Susa and Antioch canged from Barracks to Granary -- we should be building military in larger cities and letting our border towns build infrastructure. Persepolis switched to worker.

150 BC (1): Arbela completes Library, starts Courthouse. Tarsus almost rebels, worker changed to entertainer to compensate until military arrives to suppress unrest. Flora completes horseman, starts worker. Delphi completes Horseman, starts Library. Right of Passage traded to Aztecs for 60 gold & improved relations.

110 BC (3): Indians found Punjab south of Lahore and east of Pasargrade. Flora completes worker, starts horseman.

90 BC (4): Aztecs & Babylonians make peace.

70 BC (5): We complete Monarchy and start Theology. It'll take 29 turns at 50% science, which is the most we can afford without running a substantial deficit! Aztecs start building the Art of War. We're starting to lose the tech race... Perseoplis completes worker & starts catapult. We trade Monotheism and Monarchy for Feudalism and the Aztec world map, and we trade Monarchy to India for their world map and 35 gold.

50 BC (6): Burlington completes Library, starts Pikeman. Delphi completes Library, starts Cathedral. We may want to start building up shields instead in preparation for Sistine Chapel or, failing that, Bach's Cathedral. We don't have any of the ancient era wonders; we really need to grab some of the best Middle ages ones.

I wanted to end my turn on a round number & I'm out of time, so time for the next batter to step up to the plate. I didn't build a lot of military but we seem to be more-or-less on par with the other civs for the moment; more to the point we *really* need infrastructure in our cities, and I don't mean more barracks! I'll leave the decision as to whether to switch governments to the next leader. We might be able to get away with it if we pump lux up a bit, relying on increased trade to make up for it.
 
(Yes, it is my turn, for Those With Short Memories.) ;)
 
"May You Live in Interesting Times"

I sold iron to the Indians, not so much because I wanted to, but because our financial situation is kinda bad, we have the troops to deter them, and with me adding more structures all over the place, our surplus is disappearing.

So my plan was simple: whip some libraries :whipped: maybe a courthouse or temple, peaceful revolt, hand the keys off to Jaffa. That was the plan.

The Aztecs had other ideas. :splat: I'm a turn from my last whippings, and I see a couple Aztec troops march up to their border with us. My gut says "uh oh" but... it could be some of their "patrol" activity.

OK, now THAT many archers :arrow: (next turn) is not "patrol activity". :nono:

I look and find... a warrior in our front line city? That's ALL? Who's military plan was that? Oh boy.

ASP implemented. (A$$ Saving Program). Pike whipped in Persepolis, troops shuffled in the direction of the front. The revolt is delayed.

Hum de dum, the Aztecs pass up a chance to attack Silk Town. Reinforcements are recruited and arrive at Persepolis. Yeah, come get some.

The Aztecs bypass Persepolis? Um... I guess they're heading for Bombay. Neither Babs nor Aztecs have horses. And speaking of the red devils, they too are mobilizing and moving into our lands. This is "Not Good" (TM). Bombay switched off to walls.

Well I've done all the shuffling I can, just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I send us into revolt.

A turn passes and we are not attacked. Another turn passes. Then another, then another. Revolution leads us into Republic, in which we are doing quite well except, for the time being, we can only afford 10% science. (But don't worry! This will improve. We really need some courthouses, though).

Advance Aztec units have reached Indian land, but wait! They have now turned around and are heading, uh, in the direction of Susa. I send another troop down there. Babs pass our silk town, then Persepolis. Are they heading for Bombay? I've beefed it up now. Delphi has nearly finished its much-needed Cathedral. Once that's done, I'd love to see it build a marketplace, as we are so crunched for cash, but um, while we happen to have about 30 enemy troops wandering hither and thither through our lands, with all our troops holed up behind walls and consuming much deodorant, I kinda think it might be prudent to crank pikes and immortals from Delphi every other turn (it can reach 15 per), until either it hits the fan or people stop with the maneuvers and declare actual war on somebody.

I took the 15 turns. Didn't exactly want to hand off in the middle of revolution with two massive AI armies marching on us with unknown intent and our defense, well, unprepared. I'd rather play another ten, as well, but either we were never the target to begin with here, or the AI's have been deterred to alternate targets. Walls suck, except when you need them. And by now I kinda have a good sense when to bother with them, and when not to bother. Even so, I don't much like our position in this one.

It's possible, perhaps even likely, that the Aztecs are headed toward Shurrupak, as I kind of doubt they are that eager to throw even that many archers up against five fortified units on a hill behind some walls. Don't quote me on this, though. If they burn Susa to the ground, remember, I didn't bet my house or anything. I am more worried about the Babs, but it could be the AI's found India attractive, while more turns of iron and more swords built for India may have changed something.

Rather than do anything rash, I suggest we stay cool and let the AI's make the aggressive move. No sense buying trouble we can't handle if it's not necessary. And if we are the target, I at least have us in a position to defend ourselves. As for wonders, I knew that was a pipe dream the moment I looked over our position. We frankly have too many cities, too widely scattered and underdeveloped, for a small map. Might even have been whipping potential for full despotic aggression, but I didn't like our position for that, either. The only place we could have built a wonder is our capital, and that's Bad, because we can't swap out to Palace placeholder if we get beat to the item, and I didn't like our chances. As many troops as we have, we also have widely scattered cities, too much frontage, and too many pressured cities that are begging for larger garrisons to deter flipping.

Selling iron to the Indians until they wise up and bring that one in their back lines online should help some, maybe even get some tech for it. I intended to build a galley and go looking for the other two civs, but the turn before the ship would have been built, the Aztecs made their move, and I swapped to a pike. Now I see a peek of french border north of Azteca. Maybe still possible to build a ship and sail all the way up there before the others do it, but seems unlikely, and we have been invaded. I wouldn't recommend trying to suggest they leave our land, either. Not unless you are ready to go to war.

All I know is... the AI's are on the warpath big time, and it's not yet clear who is gonna get some. What is clear, that it's going to be somebody, and it's going to be pretty darn bloody, and we're in the middle of it.

Welcome to Emperor. :rotfl:


- Sirian
 
Summmary: Aztecs have gone into hiding. Babylon at war with India.

0) 250AD Switch Flora from marketplace to pikeman. Aztecs request territory map swap. We, ummm, accept their offer. The Aztecs sacrifice 50 warriors on our honor, but I bet they aren't the ones sitting outside our cities :)

1) 260AD Looks like Aztecs are going for Susa. Rush a pikeman there, but the Aztecs are standing on the road so I can't get any other reinforcements in. Indians are building Colossus.

2) 270AD Aztecs divert around Susa (or maybe they want to encircle it first?) Babylonians are heading due east.

4) 290AD Send reinforcements to Pasargadae, and switch to walls, in case Babylonians are going there. I think they must be after the Indians, though -- yes, they are turning towards Madras.

5) 300AD Babylon demands tribute -- territory map + 19 gold. Ummm, okay. Babylon declares war on the Indians :hammer: Madras falls. Aztecs finish Hanging Gardens. Everybody is building Sistine Chapel, Colossus or Art of War.

7) 320AD Renegotiate RoP with Aztecs, they give us 7 gold. Not sure if we want to have the RoP, but just cancelling it would bump them down to cautious, which I don't think we want. They have communicated with French and Germans.

8) 330AD Lahore falls to Babylon. We gain a new source of silks :)

9) 340AD Our galley sets off from Burlington in search of new civilizations.

10) 350AD Workers start bringing irrigation down towards Tarsus.

Madras should culture flip to us sooner or later.

The iron trade with India expires next turn. A possibility instead of renewing it would be to see what the Babylonians will give us for a military alliance against India.

The settler is en route to Pasargadae. From there, my idea was to settle the one silks square inside our territory (if the Babylonians ever get off it), to make sure it stays in our territory and put pressure on Lahore. Or could settle in land cleared by the war.

Our cash-flow is pathetic.
 
Terrible cash flow is an understatement! I resolve to try to do something about it.

0) 350AD: Rearange what production I can to get us in the black. Change focus from military to infrastructure - fighting a war in this bankrupt state would be suicide I feel.

1) 360AD: Good news as Madras flips, helping our treasury a little. We're now actually making money instead of losing it.

2) 370AD: Pubjab falls to the Babs. Indian take back Lahore, thus reclaiming the tile we wanted to settle. I decide to wait a turn or two to see if the Babs take it back again. Theology discovered, switch to Engineering. Aztecs complete great lighthouse. Persopolis goes into disorder - apparently early whipping doesn't sit so well with it, it's now not growing when I add a specialist. :(

3) 380AD: Optimised Delphi for zero growth at 11 pop, another population would jut make it unhappy at this point, and the production is more worthwhile.

4) 390AD: Tarsus completes its Library, so I start a harbour.

5) 400AD: Lahore once again falls to Babs, like I thought it would. Delphi finishes marketplace, starts Sistine (I don't expect to finish Sistine, but I think we can get another wonder if we stockpile our shields, and Delphi is the only place with enough production. Unfortunately, being the capital, we can't start a palace).

6) 410AD: Science cranked up to a whopping 30% :p. Settler moved into position on top of silks. French complete the Colossus.

7) 420AD: Gordium formed on the silks spot.

8) 430AD: Nothing much really

9) 440AD: Trade Silks for Dyes and 13 gold from Babylon. Decide to drop luxury rate in favour of 40% science. Unfortunately this means I have to use a specialist at Burlington, putting it into negative growth, but I felt it was worth the trade off. Engineering discovered, start on invention.

10) 450AD: Just the usual moving of workers and such.

Well, there you have it. I didn't build any more military at all (changed production on all queued units too), as it seems the other civs are busy with each other, and more units would have just made our cash flow problem worse. With a few more marketplaces due to come online during the coming turn, we should be able to get our cashflow problems mostly fixed, and even possibly look toward becoming the tech leader.

We still don't have contact with the other two civs, I didn't feel like we could afford them, but we should get them as soon as we can afford to (or get that dinky little boat of ours up there).

Anyway, I hope my gambit of not worrying about military to focus on economy pays off. Or if it doesn't, I hope you don't hate me too much when we're crushed by another civ's military. ;)
 
I'm not going to skip my turn in my own game. Would have signalled having it earlier if I could have, but I couldn't so I didn't. Expect a writeup tomorrow night.
 
A pleasantly quiet turn. We discover Invention, start Education, buy chivalry, and make contact with France (comparable to our civ according to the histograph) and Germany (dead last, though India will be sinking in a hurry). A couple markets got finished, a couple of aqueducts got started. We're finally digging ourselves out of our hole, right now I think we're almost to tech parity with the AIs, and we've surpassed the Germans by buying Chivalry off them (for 56 gold, compared to the mountain of wealth Babylon was asking for it) and researching Invention.

I would have started us on some sort of building exercise for a current or upcoming wonder, but there just aren't any cities yet that have the shield output in place and could go a few hundred years without an improvement. Flora probably could start prebuilding once its aqueduct is done and some more infrastructure is in place. Everybody right now is polite with us, and Germany/France didn't even need any prompting to get them polite.

We have the German territory map, and our galley is currently circumnavigating the (larger) French portion of it. It may want to backpedal a bit to clear the shroud around Amiens, I think if it does that, a trade route will open, though it's not as if any of the AIs has anything worthwhile to sell us. Embassies were too expensive to buy during my turn, but we may want to look into it in our copious free time.
 
Ok, got it. Will play tonight or tomorrow depending on whether I have time tonght after doing my RBD5 turn.
 
550 AD (0): Switched Burlington to worker. We have 7 and need more...

560 AD (1): Germans are building Leonardo's Workshop. Burlington completes worker, starts another.

570 AD (2): Aztecs ambush the Babylonians and take Ashur, on our border!

580 AD (3): Babylonians take and raze Calcutta. Aztecs want us to join their war against the Babylonians... we give them a gold to make them go away.

590 AD (4): The Babs are rushing all kinds of swordsmen back through our territory to defend against the Aztecs. Of course, the few Bab defenders in the area don't seem to need much help. Aside from taking Antioch, the Aztecs are losing a lot of units and don't seem to be doing much damage. Something about attacking troops in hilly and mountainous terrain... even the ones that are fighting Babs on the plains (on *our* side of the border, I might add) aren't doing well. Burlington completes a worker, starts another. Arbela completes Granary, starts Aqueduct.

At which point, my wife commandeers the comp, so my turn is cut short. Next batter up!
 
Inherited Turn: liked the Burlington Worker idea, vetoed the implementation. A couple turns of delay can have it cranking workers every other turn at the size 7 threshold. So I set it to build a pike and catapult first.

Increased Luxury to 10%, save two turns off the Sistine Chapel, fire all entertainers. Prime Minister Sirian shifts focus from science rate to food/shields. Cities without granaries are changed to build them. Bombay has no library yet? This shall be corrected. Pasargadae swapped to settler.

610-620AD: Babs march through our land. Atzecs and Babs fight, Babs lose this round.

630AD: new city founded in desert to pressure Lahore. Learn Edumacation, attempt to broker only to find everyone who didn't have it yet now has it. Blah.

640AD: Babs win this round.

650AD: Wines agreement up for renewel, Hammurabi wants my firstborn. :( We sell him silks for world map (including french lands) and ~100g. Luxuries increased to 20%.

660AD: Aztecs win this round. I buy two Indian workers for 41 gold and some map info. RoP gets us back some of that gold.

670AD: Punjab displays its wisdom, joins our Empire. Babs offer RoP and Alliance vs Indians, one round too late. I'm not breaking my word to India NOW, sorry. Early bird gets the worm.

680AD: Babs win this round, moving in for the TKO now as their stacks are almost home.

700AD: Major map brokerage back and forth, crossreferencing all civs up to date on known maps. We net rest of the info for ourselves plus ~50 gold. I rushbuild rest of courthouse in front line city west of Flora with our gains. Having had enough of running 20% science and paying through the nose, I cave in and agree to sell Hammurabi my firstborn after all. We buy gems for a whopping 14gpt (NOT lump sum, therefore if he attacks, he loses the rest of the cash we would be paying), which as costly as that sounds, is LESS than the difference between 10% and 20% lux by a goodly amount. Back up to 30% science now.

SISTINE CHAPEL IN ONE TURN. This baby is ours! Astronomy due on next player's turn, which OUGHT to allow us to start trading via ship. We have lots of iron just lying around, which the weak civs (India, Germany) would pay us THEIR firstborn to get. We can get techs and other goodies, perhaps, and at this point we do not want them to be run over by Hami/Monty/Joanie, so that ought to be good deal for us. We also need lots more infrastructure, especially markets and cathedrals, and then some universities in our core cities. Nobody wants a piece of our military, and with the two major powers blunting themselves against one another for so long, we should be able to grow in peace for a while longer.

I expect Aztecs to lose control of their captured city soon and that war, perhaps, to finally end.


- Sirian
 
Wow, we're going to get the Sistine chapel? To think I only set the city onto it as a placeholder ... guess the AI got a bit slack in their wonder building. :D
 
It was one worth waiting for Enterprise and West Wing to end to see ;p . I know I will feel a lot safer when the Babylonians and the Aztecs burn off all that military they've been stockpiling. I find it funny that, when I started my last turn and saw all those Bab soldiers crossing our territory lengthwise one square at a time to fight India, I offered them a straight-up Right of Passage just to get them out of my land faster, and they rejected it, not only did they reject it, but we'd have to pay almost all our current treasury plus some per turn (IIRC, I didn't note the specifics) to secure such a deal. :eek:

Karma is so much fun, isn't it? :D

Oh, as an aside, I don't often plug but I was quite entrigued by something I saw today: a site that I came across via Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com , one of the better webcomics, if I am allowed a nested plug). It's called the San Diablos Chronicles, the site is http://www.sandiablos.net and it is the home of a short fiction writing experiment that is quite...words fail me right now, but "unique" probably seems to encompass the experience. It may or may not suit your tastes, depending on how fond you are of cyberpunk and/or experimental writing, but it was different enough from anything I've read in a long time that I'm plugging it.
 
Not much to report. We finished Sistine Chapel, and watched the AIs cascade through the other middle age wonders (Babylon got Art of War and Copernicus, India got Leonardo).

War between India and Babylon is over. Babylon and Aztecs still at war.

We brokered astronomy to Aztecs for 20 gold + 6 gold/turn, and sold iron to Germans for 50 gold + 9 gold/turn.

There's more silk now in our territory we could connect and sell.
 
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