Rise of the Machines

[IceLion]

IT- We should be ok as far as the dotmap is concerned, we actually gain an additional workable square while losing one to border crowding, and the Hammer man is right, the borders will expand and we will get the copper, though the additional production would be nice to have right now. Research was already set to 90% we're getting +1 to our treasury. Not much else other than looking around to see what's happening.

1st - 1150BC - Delhi finishes worker> workboat, new worker sent to Madras and opened up a little bit of fog... no stone and our warrior is 18 turns away from Madras.

2nd - 1125BC - Nada

3rd- 1100BC -

4th - 1075BC - Monty sends messenger for Open Borders, messenger is inserted into the Matrix, kept screaming something about *The One*.

The wheel comes in and I stare for 5 mins at the Tech Tree, Sailing can be done in 14, Math in 35... I go with Sailing.

5th - 1050BC - Warriors find... but it's too far away!

6th - Ceasar asks for open borders, messenger made to watch clips of Jar Jar Binks... over and over...

7th - 1000BC - Delhi completes Workboat>Library

8th - 980BC - Nada, slaves beaten for good measure.

9th - 960BC - More slave beating.

10th - 940BC - Mansa for Open Borders, messenger dragged back to Mansa by his teeth.

 

[IceLion]

MY FIRST DOTMAP!!

"It's the end of our world as we know it..."

And the save...



Roster:
Vovan - Up
Hamtastic - On Deck
IamSid
IceLion

-IceLion

 

[vovan]

Got it. Will be playing shortly.

Vovan

 

[vovan]

[0] 940BC - Taking stock of the nation. Bombay is still size 1? How can this be? I look inside and notice the city governor is turned off. On goes the governor, and Bombay will grow in 6 turns. It would appear that we can't rush anything anywhere, so nothing much else I can do at the moment.

[4] 860BC - Delhi grows to size 5.

[6] 820BC - Bombay grows to size 2.

[7] 800BC - We get sailing. Start research on Mathematics. After that, if construction takes too long, we should start on Pottery so we can get some Granaries going. Will improve our growth. I also whip the library in Delhi so it can get started on that lighthouse.

[8] 780BC - Library built in Delhi. Starts on Lighthouse.

[10] 740BC - Delhi grows to size 4.

So this turn was sort of uneventful. Several observations:

1. I disagree with your blue dot. I'd say move it one tile West, because then we would lose the three unworkable tiles in the city radius (two deserts and a mountain), and gain instead the wheat resource. The city would then grow better.

2. I connected all cities with a trade network, and started building a road towards the next city site, but of course, the turn did not go without a moment - I forgot to actually hook up the gold mine to the trade network! Of course, we haven't had any unhappiness problems yet, so that might not be too bad.

3. Go kick some ass!

Vovan

 

[IceLion]

1. I disagree with your blue dot. I'd say move it one tile West, because then we would lose the three unworkable tiles in the city radius (two deserts and a mountain), and gain instead the wheat resource. The city would then grow better.

Fine with me, I was just excited to make a dot map!

2. I connected all cities with a trade network, and started building a road towards the next city site, but of course, the turn did not go without a moment - I forgot to actually hook up the gold mine to the trade network! Of course, we haven't had any unhappiness problems yet, so that might not be too bad.

Ooooh... sparklies...

3. Go kick some ass!

What he said, can't wait til we can actually start building some kind of military. I think by the end of this we are all going to have a new and profound respect or hatred of siege weapons, what was I ?

-IceLion

 

[IamSid]

[4] 860BC - Delhi grows to size 5.


[10] 740BC - Delhi grows to size 4.



Vovan

What the lhell!!!

 

[IceLion]

He whipped the library, which likely cost him 2 pop points. It is funny to read though.

-IceLion

 

[vovan]

He whipped the library, which likely cost him 2 pop points.

Indeed.

Vovan

 

[hamtastic]

Hey! Figured I'd be sneaky and play my turns without letting you know I was going to. Still no laptop, though - just using other people's pcs.

BT (740):
Switch Delhi & Madras to Emphasize Commerce, turn off growth. Turn science to 100% (at -3 gold). This drops Mathematics to 8 turns

720: not much

700: Turn Delhi back to growth & commerce, drops Math time to 7 but drops Delhi's growth time by 2. Send worker back to start mine

680: nothing

660: nothing

640: start another farm 2N of Delhi

620: Monty offers open borders. I refuse for now, although I'm not sure why... Probably because I don't trust him at all.
This brings up an important question - although we're not allowed to offer trades, can we negotiate when we're offered them?

600: My brilliant advisor suggests we need a warrrior! Ha! We machines need no humans to protect us!

IBT: "You have entered the Classical era!" - Discover Mathematics! Woo!

580: Start construction (done in 14 supposedly). Switch advisor on Madras off commerce, so we can get a bit more production there (construction down to 15 now). send worker to connect mine

560: Caesar offers open borders. I get the feeling people want to walk around in our territory. I refuse again... But I feel like I should say yes sometime. If Bismark asks me, I'm gonna say yes.
great, great, Alexander wants open borders now also. Screw off, foolish messenger. Barracks finishes in Madras, I start library - after thinking about settler for a while. Figure maybe Delhi will be good for a settler build, with all its food and whatnot. Turn science down to 90%, since we're almost out of money. Turn Delhi on to emphasize food again, all changes result in construction in 17

540: Move warrior N, end of turn.

Sorry no maps or anything this time - the PC I'm using seems to have no "print screen" button. So oh well. But I can tell you that Madras and Bombay have grown to 3, Delhi to 5, and that we've blazed a trail through the fog to the north. Beyond that, not much new to see. I think the commerce/ growth endeavor I did during my turn worked well - we can crank up the production once we have units to make, and we'll have tons more production if we have giant cities then. After we get construction, we should send a bunch of catapults after someone. I'm voting for taking out Montezuma - he won't know what hit him! Plus, he's in our way directly to the north.

 

[IceLion]

Great turns Hamtastic. The reason we are avoiding open borders is to ensure that we don't get religion, but if someone has a good reason to open them then do so. We can not negotiate trades or iniate them, we CAN accept or decline trades offered by other civs. We can iniate diplomacy for one reason only... WAR! This means we can declare and ask the AI to declare against someone, but that's it. We can not ask for peace once we are at war, but can accept a peace offer if someone asks for it.

Vovan asked about building a galley, I'd say it's up for vote. Catapults require slaves to operate as well, but I really, really want to restrict the number of "human" units we can build.

It's now time to start deciding what and who we are going to do for war. Are we simply going to raze every city? If not, we need to be aware that we will need to be whipping units to fortify with, cats get no defense bonus and you can't fortify with them. First things first, we need to get units into our existing cities, we are starting to get unhappiness due to lack of military prescence, not to mention the fact that we have 3 aggressive civs around.

So I'd say before IamSid plays, we need to put together a strategy; no doubt about it, we need to go to war soon. We will need a headstart because of the lack of units.

My initial suggestion would be to get at least another 2 cities up, and then keep 2 cities constantly producing catapults at all times. We should pump up on workers and setters getting ready to settle conquered territory.

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this SG is because it's not like others where you can just build an SoD of archers and swordsmen, we have to carefully plan every single city attack. We have to have a seemingly endless supply of catapults and we need to whip units for fortification. Keep in mind that unhappines for whipping is kinda harsh, it stays for 10 turns per whip and it's cumulative.

What say the rest of the hive?

-IceLion

 

[IamSid]

About the gallies..... No.

I say we attack Monty as he is just to crazy and unpredictable. We attack him with a sudden wave of catapults. I imagine he will be building up axemen which have no real affect vs the catapults..

And I vote for razing the cities which would get rid of the problem of resistence and culture flips.

 

[hamtastic]

A few comments:

I agree, blue dot should be moved west one. If we're going to settle there, we should send a worker back out to that spot to chop that forest down so we can get some shields from it. Pink dot looks awful - maybe the best idea would be to just not settle it for now. I could see settling red dot, mostly because I think it'd be a nice little bridge to attack Monty.

I'm totally for attacking Monty (you know, when we have an army) When we attack, maybe we should send a strong def. unit over to the other side of his city to hang out in the woods and draw attacks over that way. AIs (on noble, at least) always seem determined to kill random units hanging in the woods and stuff.

Building galleys: I vote no building.

We should keep some cities at least. Particularly, I'm thinking if we attack Monty, we should keep his cities. They're not that far from us, and more cities do provide production, and, eventually, gold. Maybe these could be some ok rules of thumb:

1) Is the city next to AI cities with massive culture that we're not going to capture soon? If yes, raze!

2) Is the city more than 9 spaces away from our closest city? If yes, raze!

3) Above can be nixed if city gives us great resource positioning or other extenuating circumstances.

Anyway, we probably won't legitimately be in that position for another 40 turns or so - we have to build the mighty machine army first, after all.

 

[IamSid]

Got it...

Any plans.

Will play tonight.

 

[IceLion]

Would like to hear from Vovan, but if he doesn't chime in, go ahead and start making preparations for war. Settle two more cities one tile west of blue dot and at red dot. Once Mathematics comes in... start building catapults. Monty will soon feel the wrath of the hive!

-IceLion

 

[vovan]

I don't think there's a lot for me to say past what's already been said. Settle some cities, and as soon as Construction comes in, start massing some serious cats. Of course, we will need to whip some defensive units as well, not only to man the taken cities, but also to defend our catapult stacks.

I also agree with taking on Monty first... He's the closest, so why not.

Vovan

PS: Also, no to galleys is fine with me. I guess machines don't like to be one water much any way.

 

[IamSid]

Should I declare during my turns or just build up the army?

 

[vovan]

According to the save, construction comes in in 16 turns, so you really can't very well build the army, since we will only get it in the middle of IceLion's turns.

Well, you *can* probably whip a defensive unit or two, if the opportunity arises, but I would say we can go to war on my turns at the earliest, but probably not till next time hamtastic plays.

Vovan

 

[IamSid]

Alright then I am playing now..

 

[IamSid]

Preturn: Decide to whip in lighthouse in Dheli.

Turn1: Start building settler in Delhi it will arrive in 11 turns.

Turn2:Zzzzz... Library built in Bombay start building settler.

Turn3:zzzzzz... Delhis borders expand get cows in borders!

Turn4: Zzzzzz..

Turn5: Zzzzzz...

Turn6: Zzzzzz....

Turn7: Zzzzzzz...

Turn8: Other civs convert to Judaism...

Turn9: Zzzzzzz.....

Turn10: Zzzzzzz... Settler in 1. Construction in 3 good luck.

 

[IceLion]

IT- Whipped Library in Madras, not much else happening. Checked the status of the Empire, starting to take shape.

1st - 300BC Mansa asks for OB, sent packing. Bizmark asks trade Furs for Cows, we have 2 active furs, so I got for it. Settler completes in Delhi>Worker.

2nd - 280BC Moving the exploring warriors around not much else.

3rd - 260BC Construction complete>Iron Working 8 turns. Bombay Settler>Cat.

4th - 240BC Chop rushed Lighthouse in Madras. Bangalore settled at red dot. I settled blue dot (Calcutta) one tile W and one tile S of where it was on the dot map, the reason; it has only two unworkable tiles now and is right next to the river. I think the hive would approve.

5th-7th - 220BC-180BC Nothing going on.

8th - 160BC Madras completes Library>Great Lighthouse 75 turns, change governor to production, GL now due in 33.

9th - 140BC Alex asks for OB, nup. Delhi completes Worker>Worker. NO MORE WHIPPING DELHI!! The unhappiness is killing us in production.

10th - 120BC Bombay completes Cat>Cat in 9 turns.

-IceLion