RBD13 SG - Cretan Army Variant

[meldor]

1) We have been at war since 550 BC and have not stopped.

2) We have been at war with the Iroquois, China, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, and Rome, IIRC. We have been at war with as few as one and as many as three at any given time.

3) We have had 12, yes 12, great leaders - with 5 of them appearing within a span of 20 turns.

4) We have had at least 6 armies and lost 2. You can re-edit the title back to Cretan Army Variant. With 5 armies in one theater at one time and we have not even got rails!

5) We have done all of this without any culture except the two cities, and without using any exploits. We still have a very good reputation with the other civs (they just don't like us, becasue we weld the Prod).

6) We have all of the money and have kept up in tech by puchaing what we want.

7) I got tired trying to count all the cities we have (OK, I got bored and wandered off). We are probably losing more shields to corruption than most of the other civs build.

8) When last I played we were approaching the 50 worker mark and have probably gone beyond that by now. I am picturing every city connected by rails a couple of turns after we get Steam.

9) It was amazing to me what awesome production power we have in our core cities and how many happy faces we have throughout the land.

10) We have only had one city flip on us. I, among others thought that this would be one of the worst things we would have to contend with in this game. Solution....burn the other civs to the ground, pave over their empire and make Cretan parking lots. You don't get culture flips if they aren't close enough to impenge on your culture!

Very interesting all the way around.

 

[Sirian]

Meldor: yes it IS interesting. A good summary of events.

Unfortunately, it highlights what I now see as the Worst Loophole left in the game: the fact that techs can be acquired at HALF cost with coins vs beakers, at all stages. The more I think about that, the more I conclude that it ought to be the other way around. It should take less work to research than to pay for the techs. This would give meaning to doing research!

Then again, it would also kill the instant one-gets-it-they-all-have-it phenomenon, and if that disappears, the weaknesses in the AI it is currently masking might sink the game by rendering these AI's unable to function. Right now the best thing they have going for them is the ability to keep up in tech NO MATTER WHAT, and to save one another all kinds of resources by instantly selling techs around.

YET... the wise human player can sneak in and outdo the AI's at their own brokering game. So... here we are, by far the biggest economic power on the planet, using AI's as Vassal Researchers, paying them cut-rate after they do all the work to research for us, and using our wealth to rushbuild all kinds of military and infrastructure. It's... broken, I'm afraid.

Is the solution for Firaxis to make tech costs in coin the SAME as in beakers (as opposed to half price, like it is now)? I don't know. I'm SURE that would have major side effects, and those COULD BE worse than what we have now, so it would take a lot of testing. Would the solution be to make tech cost MORE in coin than in beakers, giving everybody reason to research on their own??? Because they'd get more that way than with buying the techs? That might slow the rate of tech tree progress on the higher difficulties, but could have side effects on disturbing the game balance on lower difficulties. Again, would need testing.

Right now, this loophole in the game is like the Size 6 Food Preservation Threshold. The more one gets into buying techs, the more addicted and dependent they become. I can't remember a game I've played in the last month in which I did NOT consider it "weed" to be doing my own research, in general.

WHEN DOING YOUR OWN RESEARCH IS CONSIDERED A VARIANT, something has gone wrong! Don't you think?

I, too, am surprised at the efficacy of this no-culture variant. It was NOT this easy in 1.16 when I tried it, or... perhaps I just did not yet know the most effective strategies to try, as I did not put ALL PRIORITY on making contact with everybody, then riding their coattails at last-civ prices while I waited to build up my strength.

Yet... I look back and that's what I have done in Civ3 from the start. My very first Emperor game, I did that. I was focused on the "free" aspect of a tech every 32 turns, but in reality that was worth little, most of the time. It was the last-civ prices and not doing any of my own research in the early game that propelled me past all the AI's in the middle ages, to where I took command of the tech race, and the game.

I fear that if this "so good you can't pass it up" No-Research loophole is not closed, the shelf life of the game for me is going to run out much sooner than I would hope.


- Sirian

 

[Charis]

It's true... since 1.17 I've basically gone from try-to-lead-research to shutting it off. Scientist optional but not needed.

In my last post in the Vikings thread I look at various prices of techs. For something like Medicine, on a large map, 12 players:

3600 is the price, in gold, to research it FIRST
1650 is the bargained-for price, in gold, to buy it after someone else researches it first (3600/2 * 11/12)
1500 the amount to research it 8th (including, spending 3599 then someone else researches it and sells it to 6 others)
750 is the amount to buy it as 8th civ (3600/2 * 5/12 -- as five of you don't know it)

What I was curious about was... if you research first then sell it to the other 8 top civs, would you: a) break even, b) make a killing, or c) lose money, compared to just buying it 8th.

Well, *IF* everyone has cash for it and are not at war, you can sell to the top 7 other civs for:
2800.

So the NET price is: 3600 minus 2800 or 1200 gold.
That's 60% *more* than being lazy and buying it.

If you're wondering about how I got the 'sell' cost, take a fair trade price the AI would sell to you for then cut in in *third*.
This is the (new??) AI "screw you" factor in 1.17.
WithOUT that factor, however, you research for 3600 and tech ho' it to everyone for 8400 or more, and make a monster killing. In that scenario you get a small tech lead, and the cash lets you 'break away'. So, sad though it is, it's needed if the AI can't trade on your turn (which they can't in 1.17)

What the human can do and AI cannot is know when *NOT* to sell a tech, but to sit on it and gain a production or military advantage.

Here are two thoughts for how Firaxis could help this situation a bit:

i) reduce the screw-you factor to 2 or 2.5 instead of 3.0. Now if you research first, work hard to do diplomacy and barter and see/figure if they can pay top dollar and when, you save money (-240 cost, less than buying it) or make a modest profit (+600)

ii) make tech-devaluation apply only for YOU SELLING (!) or researching, not the human buying or them selling!
Then 1800 would be the flat rate to buy the tech given above, no matter how many AI already had it! Your research cost would be 3600 if you wanted it first, 1500 to research it 8th, down to a mere 300 if you were 12th of 12. The AI would de-value among themselves, to allow "last place" civs to have a chance at catching up

Option one is less drastic, and cuts back on their increase of a us-to-them value of 1.0 or 1.5 down to 2.5 instead of 3.0. It would also make them seem a little 'nicer'. Trying to sell or trade your tech now is downright frustratingly ornery.

Third option: have certain techs get a human-purchase markup, since they don't have the intelligence mentioned: space part techs, Replaceable Parts, Motorized, Mil Tradition, Steam, Electronics...

Also, do keep in mind that buying instead of researching on your own DOES put more cash in the hands of one of your foes.

Fourth option (these aren't exhaustive of course, but I seem to recall this mentioned somewhere): have a 'patent'. Tech researched cannot be sold by other than the original researcher for a set number of turns (10 would be sufficient probably) and no devaluation would apply in these turns.

(Oh and Meldor, very funny stuff! I thought 7 was great)

EDIT - (Actually not, this is RIGHT before I hit post)
Are we forgetting the benefit of libraries and universities here??
If something costs 1000 beakers and you have those two,
doesn't it only take 500 gold to get those beakers????? If so,
aren't buying and researching techs identical in gold cost, and researching doesn't put money in other pockets?!)
This is not noticeable in the Cretan game *AT ALL* (one single library and univ in the whole empire) nor in the Viking game where I brought this up (libraries?? I've never built one or SEEN one in that game!), nor in a recent warmonger game or two where most cities don't see them??

Hmmm.....

Charis

 

[Sirian]

Re: Libraries and Universities? My reply:

Markets and Banks!

That line of thought is a wash. In terms of where to allocate your commerce, it has no impact or real effect on the Half Price for coin vs beaker. If you have all four improvements, market, bank, library, university, then each two commerce allocated produces four coin or four beaker. And it still takes twice as many beakers. Now you can get the equivalent of two extra libraries (or is it only one??) with the three Double Research wonders, but you can also get Big Cash Savings from Leo, Smith, SunTzu, Pyramids, and Hoover, PLUS Wall Street, so even in that regard, the Coin side of it has it better.


- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

It's like having an extra library and university for each double science wonder, IIRC. Libraries and Universities (and research labs) each add +50%. Double science wonders add +100%.

 

[meldor]

First, I understand that some of what I say will be old hat for a lot of you but it is here for those who need the explaination.

I will agree that the way the current trading system is done is broken. It was done because in the human player had too much of an advantage in selling the techs. A fairly competent player could out research the AI and sell the techs around to keep the AI too broke to research, ect. Also, it was too easy for the human to get a tech lead early and keep the lead forever. By buying a tech from one AI and then selling it to the others for tremindous profit, the AI never stood a chance.

With the current system, the AI starts out with a big advantage and it is a while before the human can catch up. Because the AIs are usually a mix of types, the starting techs are widely scattered and I suspect that the initial weighting of research is based on the civ type.

This means that in the beginning the AIs will research down many pathes, share the knowledge with each other and the human does not have enough money to buy all of the techs to keep up with them.

By the middle ages, the human economy has gone ahead of the AI and the human can afford to buy into the tech early. Couple this with the fact the the tech weighting is now the same for all of the AI civs (they tend to research down the same pathes and so it takes longer for them to finish the tech tree. We all know which techs the AI doesn't go for and will research those techs to sell or trade for the more devalued techs. I can't count the number of games I have seen players say "I start Sanitation because the AI doesn't research it and we can make a killing selling it to them".

By the time the game reaches the later stages, the human ecomony is so far ahead of the AI that it can no longer hope to compete. It is either spending all of its capital (both gold, shields, and in many cases population) just fending off each other and most especially the human. Most human players by the end of the game are so far ahead that they are giving tech away to manipulate the AI civs into even worse positions.

That this system fails the farther it goes is a given. The question then becomes, what is truely broken and how can it be fixed? My opion my suprise you.....

Let me say that the tech problem can be easily fixed by allowing the current system to stand with varying penalties to the human to allow the AI increasing advantage with the increase in the difficulty level. Second, would to be to weight the research that the AI does after the first age based on two things. What wonders are available and how many other AIs are researching that same tech.

The first and second AI would start researching a tech mostly based on the wonder it could get. The third and forth AI would research based on the fact that two are already into that tech and it can probably buy it cheaper. Therefore they would go for the second line of tech research and keep the AI research spread out across the board. The AI trading tech around and the increased penalty to buy it for the human would keep the human from outstriping the AI so quickly, and maybe extend the AI research parity into the later ages.

Then the only problem would be the inability of the AI to persecute a war in a modern age.

But, the tech system is not the root cause of the problem, but a bandaid for what is truely broken.....

The AI can not manage its cities worth beans! The AI can keep up with the human at the start because the factors have not begone to multiply, and can be masked by giving the AI a starting advantage. The human will out manage the AI from the start and the advantage will be multiplied the longer the game goes and the bigger the civs get. The question is what can be done to fix it?

Continued......

 

[LKendter]

Well, I don't plan to get to much into the broker AI debate.

However, watch how stupid worker automation is.
Consider all of the AI civs suffer with stupidity like irragate half your grassland in depotism, mine multiple mountiains, for a size 2 city, mine the crap out of plains, even with water a few squares away.

I think this is one of the things that cripples AI developement.
My starting point to improve the AI - improve the logic for the automatation.

 

[meldor]

Almost all of us who sling code for a living have tried our hands at making our own games. The first thing you learn is that it is really easy to make the rules and build the shell, but a good AI is hard to come by. The more complex the game the harder it is to make a good AI, meaning one that can stand up to a human player for any period of time.

The civ3 AI is probably one of the best I have ever seen. The inter-relation of the factors in civ3 make this game more complex than 99% of the games out there. To make an AI for a game that is a 4X is much easier because a lot of it can be done with scripting. See resources, get resources, build units, send them after any other faction. Not so in this type of game.

Because of all of the complex choices tht are made, a give AI can not just follow a script. Plop settler down, build warrior, build worker, build settler, move settler 5 squares in one direction and plop down settler, rinse and repeat.

The choices for the AI have to be weighted in some way that the AI can make some intelligent chioces and not get behind too fast to make the game a no brainer for the human player.

For example, the choice for were the AI should place its next city. The human player can learn to look at the current map and most of us can tell which spots are good and which are weed. Some slower thatn others, but we can learn and keep learning. The AI starts each game with absolutely no idea what happened in the last one.

Each square that the AI can settle in must be weighted in an intelligent manner based on many factors. Wha is the potential for each of the 21 squares for food and shields. What resources and luxes are available. How close is it to the current cities that the AI has. Too help it out the AI cheats a little, it can't use resources untilthe techs are there, but it sure knoows which squares they will show up in when it is weighting where to settle. The AI does a fairly good job at putting its cities in good locations.

Once the good spots are gone, the AI starts to get weedier in where it puts cities and I have never seen the AI place a city just to put pressure on one of yours. Not that I could say didn't have another purpose. We also know that once an AI decides on a spot to settle it will try to get there no matter what. We are all guilty of doing blocking dances to keep the AI from getting the good spot and also slowing its expansion down. We have also seen that if you block a choke poiont the weight of that site ddrops and the AI goes for the next best available spot. Which it should have done as soon as you started the dance. But it can not learn and therefore will always have these faulats. For the most part they do not hinder the AI expansion. Like water, if they can not go through, they go around, if they can not go around they will go over.

Were does that put us for city management. I can only believe that the AIs use the same "governers" that are available to us to use. They also use the same automated worker routines that we could use if we weren't smarter than the AI.

So what is the problem......

The govenor of the city has no control over what is done to the land around his city and really doesn't care. He choses what to build next based on a weighted system of need for that city and factors based on what the needs are of the civ as a whole. If the civ is at peace, then the city factors have more weight and the city gets more infrastructure. If the civs is at war then the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few", and units are built to support the war effort.

It doesn't matter that the AI can build units a lot faster if the put in improvement XXX first and then started building units because it can't do that unless the weighting formulas are very complicated indeed. You won't find that level throughout a simulation without there being government grants behind it....something the DOD just hasn't done for us gamers (we do see some benifits from the prediction models but not to the level that would be nice).

Next, the worker routines are absolutely horrid. Thsi is one area where the designers fell flat. Watching the worker routines build simple checker board patterns across the landscape is beyond the pale. I understand that the designers only had so much time for building the routines, but this is a glaring hole. This is were the human absolutely kills they AI. What do we do that is so devistating?

We mange all aspects of the city together with respect to what our long term goals are for the whole civ. We will look at a city and say, "It needs more irragated tiles to grow", or "I am in despotism and therefore will only irragate bonus tiles that will produce a result". We will starve a city for ten turns to squeeze out extra shields. We will balance out the shields and food to get early advantages (or some of us will). How many games do you see "growth in two settler in three" or "city grows just in time for next settler to pop" We think it would be total weed to let a settler set waiting for a pop increase.

The first turn that I had in this game, Vai was set to build a settler. Disease struct and the pop would not be ready. I looked at what else I could build and would have lost ten shields to switch to another unit. So I was going to waste 5 shield allowing a settler to sit so I wouldn't waste ten. the next turn disease struck again, bad luck indeed. Did I now waste 20 shield to wait for the pop to grow....no I took the 10 shield hit and then restarted the settler after when it would meet the pop. The AI probably can not make complex chiioces like that and will suffer over the long run for it.

However, a lot can be done to fix the routine so that the AI makes a better coice on land management based on what the city needs, and better choice on what tile to improve next based on over all needs. I have watched the AI improve every tile around to two horse town while a town with 12 sat and choked.

The routines can be improved to better wait the AI to look forward when it makes its choices on unit production. The reason it took so long to get a computer to best a good human chess player was because the human can look into the future and determine its need more thatn one turn ahead.

This one limitation extends throughout the AI. Why does the AI send units at you as they are produced? Because it is making the best choice that it can for that trun, and only that turn. When it decides what to build next it goes by what is best at the time it decides. How many times does the AI start a wonder in the last 5 cities it has left when it won't be around to finish it if it doesn't build some troops first? It only looks at the weighting for that turn.

This is a much harder thing to address than the production issues and is probably not going to happen. To add a predictive element to the AI would add exponentally to the complexity of the AI and is probably beyond the capability of a game that sells for $50 (even if everyone paid for it, however if everyone paid for it we would still get a better game).

The humans that write these routines can do somethings to compenste for this lack of foresight on the part of the AI. Cheats built into the game go a long way to help this out. Weighting in resources that aren't visible for one. The AI tech trading for another. Putting in special weights for special situations is another. Putting in extra routines to compensate (don't attack unless you have at least three attackers in a stack). But they all have there limits.

I think the problem with the techs could be eliminated if the AI did a better job managing its cities and therefore could better keep up with human production. then you put a more reasonable tech system in without overdoing it.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great AI. Ther are just some areas that could be reworked that would add a magnitude of improvement to the game. The answer is not to fix the bandaid but to fix the root cause to start with. Hopefully a future patch will correct some of this.

Sorry Charis, no funny.....

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....

 

[Charis]

Got it.

(As for an entire list of what's wrong, I'm not gonna go there. Was just pointing out some sci vs buy economics and that a minor tweak would help a pretty decent amount. But btw...
you're a code slinger too? )

Let the mongering continue!!

Charis

 

[meldor]

My main function is the design of embedded code for implantable medical devices (pacemakers and defibs) as well as test equipment hardware and software for R&D of said devices, even made PCI cards, USB interfaces, FPGA design......but only in Real Life (TM)

[EDIT| BTW, whatever happened to Jaffa, Schnarrd, Warstrike or Xrang. Long time no see....break out the PROD.

 

[Charis]

1150 AD (0) - 85 cities. I have to take off my gloves, my shoes, and find
five more friends to do the same to count them!

Econ? Check. 6K+650/turn.
Mil? Check. Stronger than any other civ.
Culture? Problems! Rome and China have less. We should eliminate them!
Govt? Check. Warmonger's choice... Monarchy.
Diplo? Check. Only at war with two of our seven mortal foes. (See if we can
drag Egypt, Aztecs and Americans into a war, advisor)
Infrastructure? Must be ok, we're 'only' making 38 mil units at the moment (!)
Choke points? Double check. FINALLY proper choking (Muskets sitting in fortress)
Colonization? Check! We even have an expansion island! Rockin!
Also three settlers in place waiting for the Bull dung to hit the fan!

Charis Theseus Minos was thus well pleased. He sorta wished that we were at
war with Rome, but you can't have everything. That's bad news for Russia.
Ow! We have our two best armies on the Roman front, and at peace??

Diplo advisor, front and center!! How much longer on this peace treaty?
Ten turns sir. Good, enough to wipe out Russia - keep the armies in place
near Rome. We do need more garrison by China's capital. Good thing their
culture is so pathetic.

1160 AD (1) - America and Egypt sign an Alliance against China??!?!
Shall we dive in and protect our trusted friends?!?!?! Nah.
(Although that WOULD solve the problem about lack of war with Cleo and Abe)

The Knight Army at Moscow leads the (final??) charge? He retreats with
one hit point. We're getting down to the CRACK troops I see!
Nevertheless, we are too strong. Losing an elite knight, we defeat the
rest and enter Moscow. Glorious Moscow, with its rich tradition and
the most wonderous "Great Library!" It made a great bonfire to keep
the bulls warm! We even roasted some Cretan wienes and s'mores!!
(Ouch, that was painful to raze a Great Wonder city -- Charis)
Krasnoyarsk, way out by Rome, is their new capital. An army heads on over...

1170 AD (2) - The Aztecs want to trade us their Gems for 92 gpt, AND our
Silks. Charis Thesseus can hardly contain his amusement. "When we want
your silks, Monty, we shall send some bull riders to come and TAKE them!"

Metallurgy you have? Now you're talking, would silks do? Yes?! Excellent!
Shift-U updates 22 cats for 440 gold.

The Russians counterattack with all they have. With a knight they...
capture an exposed cat. We see two escorted Chinese settlers. Where are
they going? And why on earth isn't the choke point next to Plakias closed!?
That's where one settler just went through.

1180 AD (3) - This is too funny...

 

[Charis]

1180 AD (3) cont...

"The Loyal Citizens of Sting This have overthrown their oppressors and
have pledged allegiance to us! They YEARN to be with us!"

Could it be?? A city that YEARNS to be Cretan?! Who understands our view
of culture is superior to what the world calls culture? Who understands
the extreme magnanimosity of he-who-yields-the-prod in *returning* the
city unforced back to China?? Charis Thesseus simply cannot turn down
their request for amnesty. He grants citizenship, full and 100%, to the
citizens of "Sting This". Their old name, an insult, is changed to
"Yearn To Be Cretan". Zero culture, no Chinese stench left, pure Cretan.
(Future workers will all be Cretan, yet there is the remaining problem
of current workers don't change their nationality. I propose to build
workers with this city and GIVE BACK the native people who choose to
go back. That is, four citizens now, will make for workers. Any foreign
ones go home. This flip seemed to precious and ironic not to take, if there
are problems with it, it can always be RE-given back, but it made sense to me)
There is a Chinese settler almost right there, near what is now a small
no man zone. I pull workers off a mine to flood and fill the zone

Our Bull Army blitzes, killing both defenders in Sevastapool.
The same fate befalls Yakutz, which is autorazed.

I see, the China settler is heading for Russia. Can we get a neighborhood
watch going? Yes! Just 7 units too.

In lesser news, India builds Bach's cathedral.

1200 AD (5) - Germany lands two knights next to the undefended Sorry Lighthouse.
An Egyptian settler beat us to the spot in ex-Russia... boo...

Tis late and I had one half-turn earlier, so I'll even up with a half-turn
here. Russia gone except for the Roman areas, and a fair amount of settling
and fill in of land in ex-Russia.

Mid of next turn, peace with Rome exipres !?
Will a warmonger, or a peacelover, step up next?

Good luck!
Charis

 

[Arathorn]

Charis wrote:

So the NET price is: 3600 minus 2800 or 1200 gold.

Now, I might do weedy things like pay 210 gpt for a tech that should only cost 2000, but I can at least subtract. 3600 - 2800 = 800, which is only 50 gold more than buying it at last civ price, PLUS it has the advantage of taking away 2800 gold from the other civs -- and not giving away 750 gold.

I think the upshot of this is that it sucks to be the middle purchaser/discoverer or to be first and not sell for full prices.

Being last is safe/easy and guaranteed. Since we humans pre-build, it doesn't really matter a lot. And, like meldor said, our cities are INCREDIBLY more efficient than the AI's.

Back to the game....

Moscow fell? I had INSANELY bad luck trying to get that city. Now, I've had stretches of INSANELY good luck, too, so don't think I'm complaining, but boy am I glad it fell. I simply could not do anything to that !#@$@(*)_ defending musketman.

Sting This flipped? Oh, the irony!!!

Sorry Lighthouse was having problems on my turn, too. Was trying to get defenders up there, but other things were taking prioirity. Probably worth a round of military purchases in old China, just to keep things a bit more under control there.

meldor, Sirian? It seems to be just the four of us still playing this. Who's next? Sirian is in feast, I believe. Go to a set order, as Jaffa, xrang, et al seem to be AWOL?????

Arathorn

 

[Schnarrd]

I'm here, but I've just had too much to do. I'll probably try to grab this game Friday or Saturday, depending on when I finish all my work.

 

[meldor]

If no one else wants it I will grab it after I finish RBD23.

[EDIT] Make that RBD24.....

[RE-EDIT] I have it....

 

[meldor]

Meldor ran screaming into the night. From Sirian's Hamlet he made his way west and south in search of the first town founded, Bull Run. Upon entering the city of Pamplona, Maldor paused to ask directions. Shop Keeper told him "Two streets down and take a left, you can't miss it". Confused Meldor foolwed these directions, thinking to come to a great highway to lead him to his journey's end. Rounding the corner, Meldor stopped short. Some say he broke wind, some say he broke water, it doesn't matter. It wasn't road to Bull Run he found but the running of the bulls!!!! To make matters worse they were headed for poor Meldor with a full head of steam. Before Meldor could do anything, all he was seeing was stars. Local doctors worked hard, but Meldor languished for many, many years.

Finally, just before all hope was lost Meldor stirred and moaned. He could hear the Doctor and nurse talking about him. "He may recover his strength but it is a shame we could do nothing more for his face" "No, Doctor", she replied. "Look at this old potrait of him....that is a big improvement".

The people not recognizing Meldor form previous reigns, foolishly supported him in his rise to power. However, Sirian and Charis were not so easily fooled. They promised to keep the Prod handy, should Meldor reach for the weed before quiting time.

Maybe it was the blows to the head or maybe it was just the fates, but this term of Meldor's would prove to be one of the most boring reigns ever recorded in Crete history. The only thing that kept him from death through boredom was aan old manuscript we found on Micro-managing that Charis left behind.

Meldor ordered that the former Russian land continue to be planted with beautiful trees. In honor of the good read, Meldor proclaimed these new areas of Crete be named "The Charis Artic National Forest". He also notice that the island that he had dispatched a settler to lo those many years ago needed only one more city to have culture lock. Since this place was so loving and warm, like Meldor's mother, he named the last city after her. The people celebrated this event by a loud proclaimation of "Huh?".

A German Knight and Horseman are threatening our shores, there are no offensive units near, so Meldor does the Musket Shuffle and gets second defender in the nearest city. The Knight bashes itself against a city and dies. The horse is content with pillaging a mine and road on a hill. Meldor, laughs as these cities are so corrupt, it can only help. A brave musket charges up hill at the horse. It goes to one HP and then kills the horse.

The Russian's send a spear and settler pair to stand beside Meldor army. Puzzled by this move Meldor captures them and sends them back for forced labor. The Egyptians settle right beside the Army.

Two German gallions werre seen to be headed for Meldor's island. Looking over the defenses there Meldor decide to call up Biz and get peace. He will only give us 2/3's of his treasury but it will do for now.

Meldor spend many boring turns positioning troops to take out China (the ROP expires next turn) and to move the bulk of the Crete forces over to the next theater. Rome will pay for daring to have less culture than us.

After the peace with Germany, the gallions do a u-turn and head away. Meldor can now rest peacefully, as his mother;s retirement home is now safe.

Having Fallen asleep once too often, Meldor decides a vacation is at hand and catches a boat to viist dear mama in her new house. Unfortunately he doesn't understand that with only sailing vessels he will be gone for many years. Thus Crete looks again for someone to lead them forward. Who will step up and finish China and start the conquest of Rome?

We are at the point that we could jack up the Science and start to leave the rest behind. I am suprised at the slow rate of science with us buying everything and the rest at war. Without rails it does draw things out a lot.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/rbd13-cretans-1255ad.zip

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Eeeep! This has suddenly become a large game!

0) 1255AD Let's see, according to the notes stapled to the end of this prod, we're at war with the Russians. And, ummm, nobody else? That will never do! How can we spread our culture-less sprawl across the world unless we go out there and fight, fight, fight!

We have a scientist researching physics. Physics, bah! Let's just buy physics from those horribly cultured Egyptians, and get ourselves some fine Cretan military tradition!

WM+450g to Egypt for physics. While we're at it, let's renogotiate the RoP, too. Egypt pays 7gpt for a new RoP agreement.

America pays 80g+4gpt for RoP.

Japan, despite being furious, pays 18gpt for RoP (!) Guess they must really want to visit our glorious Cretan anti-culture!

Aztecs have no money, but we trade RoP+iron+physics+WM+780g for gems, and cancel our entertainment tax.

Germans pay 9gpt for RoP.

Wow! At 100% science, we're still gaining +47gpt, and get military tradition in 6 turns.

City check. Yes, indeed, we have a lot of cities. And what pathetic, culture-less, low-production, blots-upon-the-landscape they all are. So, everything is proceeding according to plan

After a quick session of training tax collectors in our most corrupt 1.1 cities we're up to +98gpt.

Rome and Egypt sign an alliance against China. Oooooh.

Massive celebration of WLTK throughout the land

1) 1260AD Our RoP with China is now expired. We cancel it, but I believe we have to wait for next turn to declare war without getting a rep hit? Somebody confirm?

Our mighty cavalry army razes Krasnoyarsk, and we have destroyed the Fragile Russians (!)

Cleopatra demands tribute. Bah! The Cretans do not pay tribute to such cultured fools! We await the Egyptian declaration of war, but strangely it never arrives.

The people celebrate by expanding our royal hovel

2) 1265AD We talk to the Egyptians again. "Friend Cleopatra, your beauty never ceases to disgust us. What will you give us for an alliance against the Chinese? Military tradition and 200g? That will be just peachy "

A bull rider kills a Chinese longbowman who's been befouling our lands.

Our knights attack the Chinese musketmen! And die! Oh, ummm. I decide to upgrade to cavalry before doing any more attacking

Our bull rider army attacks the Chinese capital (defended by spearmen!) We lose 9 of 14hp killing one spearman

3) 1270AD Our cannons bombard the Chinese capital! (And then I think about the rules -- does 'army must attack first' mean the army must attack before bombardment? And is there an implied 'each turn'? I did attack with the army last turn, which was, strictly speaking, the first attack).

Our newly upgraded cavalry are victorious against the Chinese musketmen

Settlers establish new culture-free zones in the northern tundra.

5) 1280AD China is down to just the capital city (I think). Our bull army has been reinforced with an extra bull. I didn't attack this turn, since the Egyptians have a group of knights right there waiting to pounce, and I'd prefer for them to get beaten up a bit first

We have lots of cavalry, cannons, and a few armies hanging around on the Roman border waiting to declare war.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

:yinyang:

 

[meldor]

Charis,

Are you swamped?

 

[Charis]

> Are you swamped?

In general? Yes, quite badly.
In SG's? Nope, virtually a famine.

With the forum yo-yo going on I've not been able to see or grab any new saves for the past two days. "Got it" here, will get to it tonight likely, or tomorrow night if not. Same for the other game Jaffa posted and I'm up in (I forget the number)

"Got me a place down in Memphis... rolllin'! Working for the Mughals every night and day..."

Charis