Spoiler for Single-player PBEM - China

[AutomatedTeller]

Ronnie is moving a settler to get the horses (oh, btw - there are horses north of the jungle.

I assume he'll plop the settler right where he is - it gets the cow, and is on a hill. if so, I'll let it be - if not, if he moves it further south, I'll end up having to kill it. I think I can do that with archers, if he doesn't have archery or copper hooked up.

 

[Krill]

I think he'll settle on the horses; it gets more hills, ivory, flood plain, cow and rice.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

if he settles there, I guess I'll end up killing the city sooner, rather than later. There is a chance that Ivory is the only military resource I have...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

He settled on the hill, so I should be able to get the ivory if I build my city reasonably soon - he takes 50 turns to get his 2nd expansion without another building and a lib in a city up there will get me an extension pretty fast.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well. That sucked. Someone else researched polytheism, making my sojourn into the religious techs more useless.

I suspect it's Memphus, cause you need polytheism for Literature.

So.

No copper.
No horses.
No oracle.
No hinduism
Way behind on the tech race to the Glib, so won't get that, so my having marble isn't all that useful, either.

Wonder if there is another way I can screw this game up?

 

[dutchfire]

Wonder if there is another way I can screw this game up?

Well, you could lose your capital to a quecha

 

[Viva_Chingon]

Cold as ice!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Ok - my first archer rolled off the line. I'm way up in military.

I'm 3 turns from Judaism, and I'm building stonehenge. We'll see what happens with that - I suspect no one else is building it.

One more settler, then another worker, then another archer in the cap. Barb warriors are showing up, so we will need to do some fog busting.

No reply from the general on tech trading. Ronnie is fine with not settling further south.

I'm a little worried that he founded hinduism and it's in his 2nd city there, which might allow him to expand to that ivory. We'll see, I guess.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

ok - got judaism. Converting now, which will let me get to size 7 in the cap.

Also, will convert to OR and slavery - it's a risk to switch to slavery, but it will be useful, particularly with OR (a pop rush will give me 38 shields)

Organized Religion will give me a boost along with protective archers, I'll be able to build infrastructure fast.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Memphus hasn't built Oracle yet - what is he waiting for?

Well, I'll have priesthood, so I'll build on it a turn or two and maybe pop rush it - either I'll get it, which is ok, or I'll get some gold for it, which is ok, too.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Attached is a screen shot of my northern city.

Yes, Ronnie's culture has taken over the ivory. that's a holy city up there, too, with a creative leader, so I'm guessing he has has or will have a lib there.

I don't think culture wars work the same way in Civ IV as III, so I don't THINK I get a big advantage for that being in my fat cross and not in his.

I'm about to finish Stonehenge, which will help some, but I have a real big problem now, which is that, unless I have Iron, I have NO strategic resources, at all!!

I definitely made a mistake in sidetracking to Archery, instead of finishing polytheism.

Well.

After I finish pottery, the plan is to go for Monarchy - the General has said he's willing to make deals which will get me IW and Alpha.

And, without metal, i'm vulnerable to horse archers.

 

[dutchfire]

There's an article on culture mechanics somewhere, but the bottom line is that tiles that are closer to you (in terms of rings) usually get an advantage. You effectively get +20 culture/turn on all tiles in your second-outermost ring (so the 9 tiles around your city if your culture encompasses the entire BFC, only the city tile before your city expands etc.), and +40 for all tiles in your third-outermost ring (the city tile in case your culture has expanded to the BFC).

So you'll lose the ivory unless you manage to expand your borders twice before he expands them once again.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

hmm.

Well, he's at 100, probably expanding at 7 cpt.

I'll be expanding at 1, soon two.

So, I'll get to 100 in 50 turns, and he'll get to 500 in 34 turns - I need to give that city a temple and a lib, I think.

A pavillion will help.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

well, finally he built it.

I'm thinking of sending a couple of archers up to pillage ronnie, who I'm kind of worried about - he's right on top of me, I know he has horses and I don't know that I have iron.

The General is a worry, but it takes him a long time to walk over to me - though, of course, Praetorians are pretty dangerous.

that should give me a boost to research, actually, since I did put in a turn on the oracle, so I'll get some coin for the lost shields.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I got a note from the General - i asked him if he saw any iron in my land while his scout was around. Frankly, it's a little dangerous, but I figure that if he decides I'm a target, there isnt' a lot to be done about his praetorians.

anyway - he said he saw some up north, but on ronnie's side of the jungle.

I'm beginning to think that a harrassment war of archers is the first thing while I research fuedalism and try to conquer ronnie with longbows

There is, in fact, no honor.

I cannot believe I let memphus pull off a civil service slingshot. Geez...

 

[dutchfire]

catapults and archers would be better than longbows IMO.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

true. Maybe I can get construction from elsewhere.

On the other hand, feudalism gives me vassalage and with the prophet I can get theology, if I want to go that way. And longbows will probably make me pretty safe until maces.

Well, Monarchy first to get my wines up. Then see where we are.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Land is better than I thought.

I have not one but two sources of iron!!!

I'm getting a 4th settler out, will send him south to get corn, iron and gold.

I'll connect the pigs, then chop out another worker. The worker who is finishing the wineries will go connect the iron

Something odd - the general doesn't seem to have copper or iron hooked up - this is odd, cause I am certain he has copper in his fat cross.

I wonder if he's going to build a bunch of warriors and upgrade.

 

[dutchfire]

Warriors upgrade to axes/spears, not to swords.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

ooh - haven't updated here for awhile. I noticed that Memphus did, so what the heck.

Lot's of things have happened:

Diplomatic
Ronnie General_W and I have formed the "anti-memphus" league, which apparently came around from what seems to be inadvertant brilliant diplomacy on my part. In my discussions with the General, he had seemed less than willing to make trades that seemed to help both of us and he seemed kind of unwilling to talk. Now, the General is an honorable sort of guy, so that kind of made me suspicious - it turned out that he thinks he's in a really bad position, stuck up next to memphus, who has stabbed him in other games.

So, I sent him this email:

Let me ask you something – this is a game, after all.

What would make this game FUN for you? I mean, what are you at heart? You are in a bad spot, but you are expanding effectively. Is that what you want? Expand, build an empire, then take out the world? I don’t think building a SS is much of an option

I think you like the diplomatic aspect – and losing the 5th player changes that a lot, of course.

While I want to win, my main goal is to have fun, more than anything. I’m also a bit of a builder and I’d love to be safe enough to take advantage of my traits and resources - ie, build wonders

I know what you mean about right up next to each other – Ronnie and I have borders right next to each other now.

From that, we got the triumvirate alliance, where we share research among the three of us and both Ronnie and I send the general military support - 125 hammers worth up front and 5+ hammers worth per turn as we go - until we decide that Memphus (who, at the start, is up 5 or 6 techs) is no longer a threat. Oh, and I don't get run over with Praets

This is great for me - I'm sending archers to the general and I'm building wonders and I'm a happy guy

Right now, I have Stonehenge and The Great Lighthouse in AT's Resort and The Great Library in AT's Palace and I figure I'll try for Parthenon and ToA in AT's resort, as well. I'm researching Music and will go for Engineering after that, with a GA fueled golden age, so I'll be able to build castles and courts and upgrade my espionage. I think I'll probably send some spies memphus's way, as well.

Ronnie used a GS to get machinery, for us, so we are up compass, aesthetics and lit over memphus, which is good (since he's up CS, CoL and Currency, plus whatever else he's researching)

Civ
I'm up to 4 cities, which is smaller than anyone else, but I'm also 2nd in GNP (mainly cause of my wineries, gems and gold) I'm hoping to expand to 6-9 in the next 20 turns or so.

oh - I understand why the general showed as not having copper - he's been trading it to memphus for iron to attack me with So now I'm going to trade him iron for copper so he can defend against Memphus (since Memphus cut him off)