Warm Up
Bend Knees - Crack Neck - Get Beer - Get Pepsi - Get Coffee - Get chips
Put out 'Do Not Disturb' sign
Wife: "Sorry, I cannot do that - I have an important meeting"
IRS: "You will have to wait for your taxes!"
Dog1: "No walk for you until later"
Dog2: "OUT!"
Get ipod - put on 'Whatever (I Had a Dream)' Lyrics by 'Butthole Surfers'
Opening lyrics ...
...peace.
I hate the word,
As I hate hell,
All Montagues
warm up continues ...
Crank up machine code
Oil things that need oiling
Don't oil things that don't
Turn 0
If you remember, 5 revolutions ago, we received a status report from the military subroutine that the catapults where having more difficulty slaying the humans. After simulations showed that this was due to improved human strengh (a result that was checked and rechecked), we issued instructions to the research robots to develop methods of delivering bigger rocks further distances.
Today, we received an update on this project. The rebots (research robots) wheeled out a demonstration model that they called the 'spitter'. We instructed them that robots do not spit, we crush, rend and distroy. We then recalled from our static memory that some of us do, in fact, spit - having specially installed lips but that we only spit in salads - whatever a salad is.
Anyway, the spitter prototype was demonstrated. They installed it in a suitable field and suggested, (they mentioned safety reasons) that we should move the farmers from the next hill. We instructed them to continue as there were no precious machines there. They set up the spitter and flipped the switch, or pressed the button, it wasn't obvious and to be honest, it wasn't important. Anyway, there was a great deal of smoke and the spitter shot out backwards, knocking down a wall or two and not doing much throwing of anything anywhere. I instructed them to keep researching but they had to change the name of the object to 'cannon' as all I could see it doing was cannoning all over the place.
On other research fronts ...
I fired up Civ IV to do some experimenting with catapults and cannons. I started a completely random game and ended up with a scout right next to a hut. I popped the hut and got ... a settler!!!!
(Edit: no big deal - I thought it was a noble level game but it turns out it was Chieftain). Anyway, I set up the conditions where my cities were building cats and I was researching steel. I had two cities, one with a cat at 23/40 (13 hammers) and the other with a cat at 17/40 (17 hammers) with steel to come in one turn. After I had researched steel, it automatically changed those cats to cannons, one at 26 hammers and the other at 34. This means that it changed from a cat to a cannon and just added the production as per normal.
The upshot is that we need to time our cat production so that we are as close to 40 hammers as possible on the turn before we finish researching steel.
Info on cats and cannons ...
A cannon is str 12, movement 1, cost 100, bombard at 20% per turn
A catapult is str 5, movement 1, cost 40, bombard at 15% per turn
cost to upgrade a catapult to a cannon is 205. We have 45 catapults so it will cost 9225 to upgrade them all.
City Review
At the start, steel was 15 turns away. I looked through the cities and concentrated on commerce instead of food (no starving) and hammers. I got that down to 12 turns after my city review.
I renamed Tokyo to J6 and Piasia to R1.
Round 1 - 1305 AD
Bombay Cat -> Cat
A2 Cat -> Cat
Bank is at 461 @ -16
We lost two cats taking Antrium but plundered 165gp.
Antium renamed to R2.
Let Cats heal for future push.
Scout with Knight
Round 2 - 1310 AD
J3 Granary -> Courthouse
JC makes peace with Bismark - cluck cluck
Wadan distroyed
Contact: We have met the borg -
I guess that this game does re-sporn
If I had emotions - I would shudder at this. A machine with biological parts, or is that an animal with machine parts. Abomination! I recall that we have just fitted our communication devices with a 'hold' feature so that we could do offline research and the like. I put the queen on hold - please check if she is still there later.
Round 3 - 1315 AD
Delhi Colossem -> GOLD
GP @ Delhi ... merchant (sigh) - put him to sleep at Delhi
Round 4 - 1320 AD
R1 out of disorder but with a total of 22 unhappy (more than are happy) and not all squares being worked. Hmmn, what do here - I whip a musket. Hey, city happy and more productive that pre-whip - just goes to show that these humans know who the boss is.
What have we here! I wonder where he is going?
(It turns out that he is heading to J4 to spread religion to our workers. Hmmn - how do we feel about that? I compute that it is satisfactory as it helps keep them working!
Round 5 - 1325 AD
(Steel in 7)
J1 Forge -> Library
J4 Granary -> Courthouse
R1 Musketman -> Granary
Find Rome (see later)
Round 6 - 1330 AD
Bombay Cat -> Gold
J6 Granary -> Courthouse
IBT: JC attacks and losses to our mighty cats
And now this? With a settler on board - is that I future fast worker I see?
Round 7 - 1335 AD
Calcutta Granary -> Gold
A2 Cat -> Gold
J2 Granary -> Library
R2 out of revolt, happy but can only work 6 tiles. We whip a musket
Bombard Awlil - which is defended by two longbows.
Round 8 - 1340 AD
R2 Muscket -> courthouse
Bombard Awlil (down to 0%)
Send main force around Awlil to illuminate future mech territory
Find Manny's capital
Round 9 - 1345 AD
A1 Cat -> Cat
Round 10 - 1350 AD
A3 Granary -> Library
Manny tries to slip a protected (HA) settler pass our mechs. We get another fast worker!
Summary
I suppose that I was a bit cautious on these rounds - I had been presented with an empire in a great situation and I didn't want to set us back. Also, with Steel now in 2 (
Steel in 2!!), these rounds were marking time. I looked at the battle odds for Awlil - we had a 0.3% victory chance. Even if I withdraw, how much damage could I do - so I decided to by-pass Awlil (wait for cannons) and illuminate the northern region.
Important Notes:
Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and A2 producing GOLD!
Don't forget to switch these to something more useful.
We also have a GP merchant asleep at Delhi
Some cities are MM to commerce for steel research - review needed in two rounds
We also have another missionary at A2 and the boat with our future worker is at Delhi.
Here is the position at Rome.
And the Save.