SG Lurkers, ready?

[Blackluck]

Actually, I did a reversal here:
Usually it's 24 got it/48 played, but I did 48 got it/24 played.
AB=BA, I guess.

At any rate, I believe Sir Toma is an Aussie (crikes!), but it's been 24 hours since his 'got it.'

So, in the interest of a keeping the game moving, if Greggo has the time and inclination, go ahead and take it. Sir Toma, if you've played in the interim, I apologize.

Oh, and let's see:
I've never played a SG, but here I am trying to lead one.
Never played Prince OR raging barbs, and yeah.


If Greggo can get it, then Sir Toma can then switch positions with him or wait until Dec 1 (if indeed that's what he wanted.)

 

[Liquidated]

yah not your fault black, the early religion thing is bad but you were not alone in pursuing it. Hindsight is 93%.

I love this sg for the learning experience. it's honestly not about winning easy, it's about getting smacked in the face and trying to turn it around. If there's no risk of losing well there's always sim city.

but yeah flaming barbs is wild. My bad for slipping it in!

hahaha

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Blackluck]

Well, we both can share the raging barbs.
The initial posts attracted builder types (points to self) and I thought raging barbs would help hone the military skills for said builders

Worst case scenerio here is this turns into a 0CC or 3CC type of game.
I'm looking forward to adjusting strategies as the game presents itself, really.
So, it's all good.

 

[greggo]

So, in the interest of a keeping the game moving, if Greggo has the time and inclination, go ahead and take it. Sir Toma, if you've played in the interim, I apologize.

Hmm... tempting, but I am sleepy now and would probably break things.

I'll go tomorrow afternoon if Toma hasn't had a chance yet.

Cheers,

Greggo

 

[Sir Toma]

Yeah, we're all waiting for Sir Toma. *looks at clock*
However, he does have 48 hours.... the suspense is a killer though.
In the meantime, I'm just amusing myself.
Can't wait to see what kind of rabbits you two pull out of your hats.
Good luck. Just glad it's not me.

EDIT: Oh, and I was just teasing you, greggo.
Of course you haven't done much yet, because you are still waiting for
your first turn! It was a joke, best I could do.
Don't judge me
This game is addictive.

Sorry for keeping you guys waiting but time difference is a killer. Plus i had to go to my brothers carol function thing so it took me a little longer than usual

Anyway here's what happened

[1] 760BC: Nothing

[2] 740BC: Killed 2 barb archers easily. At the moment there are 2 barb warriors to the south, 2 archers to the east and one warrior to the North West

[3] 720BC: Worker was completed, started an archer, reconfigure Athens for hammer production to hopefully get us some archers to retake Sparta. I sent the worker to the wheat guarded by an archer to get us some more health in Athens

[4] 700BC: A couple of barbs attack but are easily fended off. More barbs are coming up from the south. Sparta is defended by two archers one with combat III. Start the worker building the farm.

[5] 680BC: Nothing interesting

[6] 660BC: Barb archer attacks Athens. No damage done. God that archer with the City Garrison III is a barb killing machine.

[7] 640BC: A couple more barbs attack and OMG our archer went down!!!...to 2.7 health. At the moment there are 2 more barbs to the SE and 2 to the NE

[8] 620BC: Animal Husbandry has finished and DANG! No horses in Athens. For what to research next it was hard to choose between Pottery for gold and Iron Working for iron. In the end I chose iron working as swords, spears and axes would make life a lot easier.

[9] 600BC: A few more attacks on Athens “YAWN”. Oh no there is a barb axe man to the north.

[10] 580BC: Archer is completed, give him City Garrison II promotion (he got some experience from barb attacks), queue up another archer

[11] 560BC: There is another axe man approaching from the north, an archer & warrior from the south and another warrior from the North East. All quiet on the Athens front.

[12] 540BC: The worker completes the wheat farm and move to a flood plain to farm it with his guardian archer. I am almost completely surrounded by barbs.

[13] 520BC: More barbs approach. Don’t they ever stop!

[14] 500BC: Our archer takes down an axe man and 3 other barbs without a scratch. More barbs, I just can’t take it.

[15] 480BC: There are now 3 archers in Sparta. Nothing else happened.

[16] 460BC: Once again Athens is surrounded, the super archer (combat III) moves out of Sparta.

[17] 440BC: 4 attacks occur, all victories. 2 more axmen appear. Not good. An archer is finished so I start another.

[18] 420BC: Judaism is founded in a distant land.

[19] 400BC: Nothing interesting

[20] 380BC: We now have 2 City Garrison III archers in Athens thanks to some great victories against the evil barbarian hordes.

As it stands there are 20 turns left in iron working, Athens is producing an archer, and our worker is building a farm (he has 2 turns left). I’d have loved to have taken back Sparta but I didn’t have enough troops to do so and I was flocked by barbarians left right and center. There are currently 2 axmen outside Athens.

I would suggest to the next player that they chop down a few forests to hurry some troops for us. I hope I haven’t screwed up terribly. If I have please tell me what I did wrong. Here's a picture of our (small) empire.

Sorry guys i just read your posts and i am an Aussie. I did play and would have got it back earlier if not for some terrible timing. Next time it'll be better.
The reason i said december 1 is because i ran out of bytes at home and had some trouble finding a way around it.

 

[Blackluck]

First, apologies Sir Toma for jumping the gun on you.
We've a wide range of time zones here (really?!) so patience is a virtue.

I guess raging is just that. Lord almighty.

Good job on getting the worker out; we're going to need to grow Athens here as it may end up being our only city!

Luck, greggo! Looking forward to the next installment.

Turn order:
Blackluck - On deck
Liquidated
Luv_Muffin
Scowler
Percinho
Sir Toma --
Greggo -- UP

 

[Luv_Muffin]

[7] 640BC: A couple more barbs attack and OMG our archer went down!!!...to 2.7 health.

Okay, I admit it. I was a little tense reading your turn log.
You are so bad, toying with a muffin's emotions like that.

Nice turn! Too bad about the horses, but worth a shot. Perhaps if the barbs ever lift the seige of Athens, we will have some breathing space to look for them.
Good work, you were a wall!

 

[Percinho]

Tough turn! Nice to have someone manage to get the worker out and working. A question for those who've raged with barbs before: Are they going to start pillaging? I'd hate to have to keep units on all our improvements just so that they don't disappear within 5 turns of being built!

And has anyone else found themselves hovering the mouse pointer over a tile and wondered why no information on it has appeared, only to realise it's because it's just a jpg, not the actual game?!? Or is that just me?

 

[Liquidated]

yeah they love to pillage. needless to say, horses, sea based resources and bronze/iron are worthy of camping, sea based for lack of looting and horses and metal to help fight the brabs.

gotta keep pushing out cities to shield athens from the barb vectors, once you have a calm area you can sic workers on them.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[Blackluck]

I took a look at the save last night: We are up against the wall.

Without horses, without copper, we can't do much but defend with archers and warriors. The barbs to the north won't clear until our neighbors expand there, while the lands to the south will soon be sprouting barbarian towns.

Thoughts on extracting ourselves here?

Choices as I see it:
1) Build culture aggressively. High culture also helps us defensively.
This may allow us to use our other trait to generate great people to further build more culture/money/techs.

However, promoted archers with defensive bonuses might be able to cover a worker for a while -- they can hold up against an attacking axeman or two, but they have no chance of going on the offensive and will wilt against repeated onslaughts. It will be difficult not only to improve our lands, but keeping them improved.

2) Try to get a second city placed.
The question is, where? Do we settle very close to Athens, i.e., within a couple tiles, or do we try to escort a settler down to the horses south of us?

There are gems NE. A city right on the cows, with a couple turns of cultural growth might claim that copper long before we can liberate Sparta. A city on one of the plain hills will start with some extra production as well as a defensive boost.

(By the way, do barb towns flip? I've never seen it happen, but I've always taken barbarian towns militarily.)

3). Wait for the other Civs to 'liberate' us from the onslaught of barbs, biding our time by building up our forces against the inevitable blaring horns as one or more of our aggressive neighbors decides to take Athens.

 

[Percinho]

There is one possible way to deal with the barbs and buy ourselves some room and possibly time. Given that barbs only spawn from the darkness (no, not the band... ) we could start moving a few units out of the city to bring a little light to the area, in particular the south. We could find some decent defensive positions and try to fight the barbs outside our territory. Once we build a second city we could then move our defensive line further out. I'm not near my game pc at the moment, so can't see on the map this will work in practicality, but it's something to ponder...

 

[Scowler]

There is one possible way to deal with the barbs and buy ourselves some room and possibly time. Given that barbs only spawn from the darkness (no, not the band... ) we could start moving a few units out of the city to bring a little light to the area, in particular the south. We could find some decent defensive positions and try to fight the barbs outside our territory. Once we build a second city we could then move our defensive line further out. I'm not near my game pc at the moment, so can't see on the map this will work in practicality, but it's something to ponder...

I disagree. If we can afford to send units on expeditions of this kind we can also afford to send them NW and park them in the woods outside Sparta. There are only 2 archers in Sparta at the moment, so my inclination is to send a mixed force of archers and warriors (with at least some having the "cover" promotion) and take back the city. Yes, we will lose units, but we should be able to pump out more faster than they can replace them, and our archers in Athens will hold out there while we are busy. Also use the worker to start building a road towards Sparta (under archer cover, of course).

The alternative - waiting for culture or our opponents to deal with them - is simply impractical (in my opinion). If we wait, all that will happen is that the barbarians will keep attacking with better and better units (axemen are already abroad), and we will not be able to keep up due to the lack of infrastructure and resources. We NEED Sparta back NOW, while it is relatively lightly defended. And I will repeat: it will be even worse for us if one of the AIs comes along and takes Sparta while we dither.

We could plant another city, but it would have to be fairly close, and I think that would hurt us in the long run. We need to take the initiative!

Just my opinion, though.

 

[Luv_Muffin]

I tend to agree.

No more Mr. Nice guy. Send in our stormtroopers, and smash this rebellion before any of the other civ's notice. Turn them to the dark side... or destroy them. It's the only way.

Execute order sixty-six.

 

[Blackluck]

I've never been faced with taking a barb city solely with archer/warriors. To that end, what ratio do we need? 2:1? 3:1? We'll also need enough archers left over for a counter attack, two at a minimum would be my guess. Finally, how many troops left in Athens assuming we don't have walls? Given the happy/unhappy status, I do not think we can whip walls there.

 

[Sir Toma]

I thought about the idea of building a road to Sparta but without units to defend it the enemy barbs (i hate them so much ) would just pillage it before we could use it.

I think our best option would be to re-take sparta and use the copper to produce axmen which would give us a chance to settle another city and defend our borders well.

 

[Percinho]

OK, so we're decided, it's time to show a little backbone and take the fight to the barbs! Good show all!

One thing we do need to know before the main assault is how many archers there are in the Sparta. Can they build more in a city that they take over? My instinct would say they can, but I've never faced the scenario on civiv. Assuming they can, is it worth sending a lone warrior up there to have a look? If we take enough units to deal with one archer and suddenly find there's three of them in the city then we're back to square one.

 

[Luv_Muffin]

I think Greggo will have to play this one by ear.
Barb cities do produce troops, but there was a decent plan mentioned that deals with that.
In my experience, attacking a barb city is done successfully in two stages.
1. approach. Bring your troops, park on a defensible square (hill, woods etc..). Not across a river, because that works against you in stage two.
- they will attack you, but the odds are in your favor! They'll usually attack you with one unit (from a stack of three), and on defense we should win easy. This will reduce their odds to succesfully defend their city.
2. attack. throw everything you have at them. No reason to ever hold anything back on the attack. I like overwhelming odds, but you can't have everything. They shouldn't have a culture bonus, so it might be possible to take them out. Maybe.

We'll likely have to keep our super defender archers watching Athens, but if we empty the city of everyone else (inluding the worker/archer stack, just to have an extra bow in case we need him) we should be able to take sparta, and have a worker on hand to immediately get that copper connected.

Then again, maybe Greggo will think of something else to do, or maybe on his turn, barb horse archers show up or something...

Just be ready Blackluck, if Greggo chooses not to risk an all out assault, we will all be waiting for our fearless leader to do it. Or Liq...

 

[greggo]

In summary, there's good news and bad news:


GOOD NEWS: We've discovered ironworking. BAD NEWS: No iron near our city.

GOOD NEWS: We haven't lost Athens. BAD NEWS: We haven't retaken Sparta.

GOOD NEWS: We have an army to retake Sparta BAD NEWS: It may not be enough.

[0] - 380 BC. Athens is at max health and happiness, so I MM and get 3 shields in place of a 1health/2shield. Sparta currently has 2 archer defenders (we can see it from our culture, so don't need to scout.) I'm all for an attack, but we're gonna need a few more units, as the odds are nearly 2-1 for them, even with our best units (I'd say we need minimum 6 attackers for their 2 units + defense afterwards.) If we have iron near us it'll help, but waiting 20ish turns to get it doesn't seem very helpful at all. Since we don't need more food I stop our worker's farm - he'll build a road towards sparta
(under cover). So we can get units there and back for defense faster.

IBT While defending, your archer has killed an axeman
While defending, your archer has killed an axeman
Blah blah, blah blah blah blah a warrior

[1] 360 BC. Promote our archer in the field with cover. Move worker a square up and build a road. Move one archer into the forest to gain a promation against the barb, and the newly promoted one to defend the worker.

[2] 340 BC. Promote the new archer with Drill, and start on a warrior to get another free medic promotion.

[3] 320 BC. Archer in the woods wins. Nothing else to report.

[4] 300 BC. We fought the war and we won! But more war coming our way.

[5] 280 BC. Archer attacks our city and gets killed like the barbarian scum it is. A barb warrior moves around to our farm. Use our archers in the forest to attack and, naturally, win. Warrior is produced and given medic promotion, work started on another archer. We meet Victoria (it may have been last turn) who's the founder of Judaism.

[6] 260 BC. Worker starts on a road towards sparta with 2 archers +medic 1 warrior escort.

Our fighting forces so far (leaving 2 archers + medic warrior to defend):

2 archers, 1 medic warrior, and 2 other warriors.
I don't think it's enough by a long shot.

[7] 240 BC. THE ENEMY HAS BEEN SPOTTED NEAR ATHENS.



WHAT?!?!? WHERE?!? We aren't prepared.


[8] 220 BC. While defending,blah blah blah
While defending, blah blah blah

[9] 200 BC. Archer produces, start work on another one.

[10] 180 BC. We lose a City defense archer to 3 axemen attacks - I thought the comp was supposed to pick our uninjured one to fight in times like these. I guess we'll rebuild him soon enough, but this hampers the war effort.

[11] 160 BC. Archer defending worker gets a promotion.

[12] 140 BC. The barbs seem to be slowing down. Only 2 in sight.

[13] 120 BC. Archer gets produced and new one started. road towards sparta is complete.

[14] 100 BC. Athens' border expands, meaning the forest tile directly east of sparta is now under our control. Worker starts building a road directly into sparta, with defense. New archer moved into woods in hope of getting promotion against incoming barb.

[15] 80 BC. Promotion gathered as expected - given CoverI and moved towards sparta.

[16] 60 BC. Another archer with combat one moved into woods. A barb warrior is coming from the southwest, so I move our medic one warrior towards the hill in that direction. Hopefully he'll be able to win and get medic 2.

[17] 40 BC. Mao meets us. He's buddhist, but not the founder. Another archer given coverI and moved towards sparta. Medic warrior reaches hill.

[18] 20 BC. Warrior wins (barely) and moves back towards Athens - the long way round, to avoid the approaching axeman.

Another archer produced and moved north against incoming barb warrior - with 3 cover archers, and the 2 archers there, maybe sparta will be takeable? Worker sent towards pigs cause (a) it's safe. and (b) we do need health (as well as happiness) eventually.

[19] 1AD. We discover ironworking!!! but the only source is south, near the horses. I put the research to priesthood, so we can a temple for happiness, but the next person can change that. I'll call it quits here to even out the turns. NOTE: Our worker needs direction, and we have an archer just northeast of athens who'll have a promotion next turn. I was planning on giving him cover and moving to the city, but I'll let greater minds work on that descision as well.

Some pics, for your enjoyment:

The location of Iron:


The situation at Sparta:

There's also an archer with coverI coming towards the stack - will be there next turn IIRC.

Turn order:
Blackluck - UP
Liquidated - On deck
Luv_Muffin
Scowler
Percinho
Sir Toma
Greggo -- Surprisingly, didn't lose the game.

Good luck with that whole Sparta thing, Blackluck.

EDIT: Some quick thoughts. In retrospect, maybe an initial attack against Sparta (with 4 warriors/2 archers) may have won it rite away, but I'm a bit (over) timid in times like these. Also, I wonder if a settler, with 2-3 defenders may have been able to make a city near the horse (and keep it). Anyway, looking forward to comments on my game.

And the file:

 

[Blackluck]

Excellent management against the hordes.
I agree with not going after Sparta just yet; we not only need to retake it, we need to hold it.

Good choices for promotions, too.
Also agree on Priesthood; happiness will let Athens grow a bit more, letting us get back on our feet (hopefully.)

The horse/iron town is going to turn into a priority spot ... but that's for the future.

My priority:
Retake Sparta, hold it, then hook up the copper.

Uhm, I would get it but the save's not there.
I won't be able to post my turn until tomorrow evening.
Let's hope I don't live up to my moniker.

edit, but spoke too soon.
Got it.

 

[Blackluck]

Okay, who wants to be the first to string me up?

No, I haven't played any turns yet, I was just taking stock of the situation.

I hovered my mouse over the list of AI opponents and .... 'cannot declare war!!!'.

Uhm, say what?

I look at the settings:

Permanent war or peace.



The check was supposed to be 'permanent alliances.'

Aside from taming the barbs, the game is moot now, unless anyone knows how to edit a saved game file to turn that flag off.

Man, talk about humilation. Very sorry, everyone.
I'll await the verdict from the team before we decide how to proceed.