SQ1: Google Earth

[Tone]

Also on the subject of a GL prebuild I honestly can't remember the last deity game I played where it was even a possibility. In vanilla the AI DOES put some effort into getting lit. In my last 5 or 6 deity games I've seen the AI go Writing --> MM --> Lit so we really might struggle to get a monopoly on it.

I lack experience in Deity vanilla tech choices. With C3C it is often an overlooked tech but it can be risky. (I played with Team Tao and got it in a vanilla Diety SGOTM though.) With a prebuild I think that the GLib is a possiblity. I'm happy to go with the majority so what do you recommend as an alternative, tupac?

(Your next paragraph appears to be setting me up to be something I'm not!)

Mirc: SQ's the boss so whatever he decides is fine by me.

 

[Andronicus]

MS is on our doorstep and the only land left to settle is in jungle so I think that in our current situation too many settlers is a bad thing. The only thing they'd give us is extra unit support but we'd need to protect them and roads in jungle are very difficult to build. I've come to the conclusion that WE NEED TO TAKE MS OUT ASAP which means going all out to achieve this.

Short version: Stop producing settlers. Develop first ring with more roads/mines. Pump out units. Take the fight to MS. We have the barracks and technology required to do this.

I have to agree - guess I tended to be blinded by the prospect of SF, but as you correctly point out, no point building them if we have no-where to put them.
Perhaps worthwhile next settler going to RCP4 hill to north as other sites on RCP7 will be hard to defend

The workers by our capital are developing tiles that we don't need for our capital yet whilst other towns are working undeveloped tiles. (Why?) I'm going to mine one of those plains so that Menlo Park can have a mined bg later. Then those worker can get Mountain View and GMail up and running. Additional workers can look to connect silks.

Yes I was improving too many tiles in capital.

 

[Sima Qian]

Woah, looks like a lot has happened here. I don't even know where to start.

Perhaps next time I have to maintain +4gpt to make our investors happy

Sure, if you feel like it. Should have no problem doing so if your next turnset is a min science run.

Short version: Stop producing settlers. Develop first ring with more roads/mines. Pump out units. Take the fight to MS. We have the barracks and technology required to do this.

I'd also agree, but at least send that settler over to connect the silks. It will need to be defended against barbs, but I doubt MS will go so far out of its way to harrass us there.

If we trade maths they will have access to currency and construction. How about we go for Lit at 40 turns and get a GLib prebuild set up? BTW SQ: selecting the Palace for a prebuild is doing silly things. Each town values it at 1200 shields(!) and also when it is selected it only has room in the box for 10!

Sounds interesting. I think it's doable, since AOL has just lost a bunch of shields from losing the Pyramids to Linux. They probably built a temple, or even a courthouse.

The red border we see off shore is Yahoo!, and they are the only commercial civ aside from AOL and Microsoft. Microsoft is at war with us, and AOL will have to start GLib from scratch once the tech is discovered. I don't know what Yahoo! is up to but since they are so close to our continent I'm actually suspicious that they are on an island to themselves (or maybe one neighbor), rather than on a big continent with a bunch of other civs. So it's doubtful they're going down the path toward literature.

Linux, Sun, Apple, and IBM are not commercial, so I'd think it would take them a bit longer to get to lit and the GLib.

Just got to be careful not to chop any forests in the city that is prebuilding it, since I did that once like the dumb newb that I am and it cost me big time! But since you're all experienced players, I'd imagine you all know this very well already.

Despotic GA: I'll try to avoid it but I think that we may find ourselves having to put up with it. The swords look dangerous and remember that a Deity AI can get them for only 18 shields.

If you can nab the GLib with a despotic GA, I'd say go for it! (Although with mostly cows and BG's around Menlo, I doubt we'll get much shield bonus from that. Perhaps consider building in mountain view?) And even if that fails, I think it's not too unreasonable to expect we have discovered (or accumulated enough gold to buy) construction. Great Wall isn't *that* bad when we have a dangerous enemy on our doorstep.

I agree that MM is a really important tech but we really need to know where that iron is. It can only be in one of three places if they haven't set up a colony: on one of the hills SE of MS-DOS or under their capital. I'd prefer to trade for IW and see if we can pillage their source as well as get some swords of our own. We can't get MM and IW though so I vote for IW and Myst.

I think I'd agree with you on that point, but I don't know why you want Myst. Shooting for monarchy? I'd prefer to let that wait until both our luxes are hooked up and we can have cities grow up past size 6 without happiness problems. I'd prefer just getting IW now, and then save our cash while doing min research on an expensive tech like literature, currency, or construction.

Which city do you want to try to build GLib in? Since you're using palace prebuild, I'd assume it's probably going to be in Menlo, although Mountain View seems like a possibility as well. I think we'd probably be better off with building in Menlo, and pumping out units from MV and bringing them to the front lines.

Either way though, both are coastal, so if we lose GLib, we can try to grab MM at the last moment and switch to lighthouse.

As far as making contact goes, if Yahoo knows anything about how to play they should put a unit up in that mountain so we can see it, but I don't think the AI is that bright

So you have only 4 players? May I join?

Spoiler Before saying yes, read this :

Although I'm known to dissapear long periods of time without any warning

Sure! Let me know if you can get the mod working, since that seemed to scare away a few other players. The setup instructions are written in Post #7 and Post #10 if you need to go over them again.

I'll probably go by the 24-hours "got it" rule of thumb before any skipping.

 

[tupaclives]

I lack experience in Deity vanilla tech choices. With C3C it is often an overlooked tech but it can be risky. (I played with Team Tao and got it in a vanilla Diety SGOTM though.) With a prebuild I think that the GLib is a possiblity. I'm happy to go with the majority so what do you recommend as an alternative, tupac?

Normally I play pangea and so that could have a significant impact in what techs they choose. If we have the military to handle what MS throws at us then we can risk a prebuild. The alternative (what I've been using in my pangea games) is a run on maths --> currency, if you get maths first its usually worth a bit of leverage (in my most recent game (i knew all 7 other civs tho) it netted writing, philo, CoL, HBR, BW, IW, CB, Myst and then Currency got my construction, lit, Poly, to put me into the MA). But with only 2 civs that we know, and one of them at war with us trading our way to parity would be harder. I'd risk a prebuild, but not in Menlo, if we can at least relatively safely assume that the wonder cascade will be over before the AI get lit.

Also depends what sort of run we do on lit. Not sure (once again due to playing on Pangea probably) about the merits of a min run on it, AOL will probably demand our excess cash away anyway.

 

[Sima Qian]

Hey tupac, I think I might have another idea why things might not be working properly on the Mac port. I think it's because in MacOS, file paths and file names are case-sensitive, while they are case-insensitive on Windows.

So here's something else to try:
- Go to the directory where Civ3 is installed.
- Is the Art folder written as "Art" or "art"? Make a note of that. I'm going to refer to it as the Art folder (with a capital A) from now on, even though that might not be true.

- Go inside the Art folder. Make a note of these as well:
- Is the Advisors folder written as "Advisors" or "advisors"?
- Is the Leaderheads folder written as "Leaderheads" or "leaderheads"?
- Is the Flics folder written as "Flics" or "flics"?
- Is the Civilopedia folder written as "Civilopedia" or "civilopedia"?

- Go inside the Civilopedia folder.
- Is the Icons folder written as "Icons" or "icons"?

- Go inside the Icons folder.
- Is the Races folder written as "Races" or "races"?
- Is the Units folder written as "Units" or "units"?

- Once you have all of that information, go back to the civ3 root directory, then go into the Text directory and open up pediaicons.txt. Do some find & replace:
- Replace all occurrences of "art\" and "Art\" with the proper capitalization.
- Replace all occurrences of "leaderheads\" and "Leaderheads\" with the proper capitalization.
- Replace all occurrences of "advisors\" and "Advisors\" with the proper capitalization.
- Replace all occurrences of "civilopedia\" and "Civilopedia\" with the proper capitalization.
- Replace all occurrences of "races\" and "Races\" with the proper capitalization.
- Replace all occurrences of "icons\" and "Icons\" with the proper capitalization.

- Also something to consider: replace all backslashes "\" with forward slashes "/" since those are used on Mac.

If you still have trouble, you might want to send me a copy of the backup you made of the original pediaicons.txt, and I will try and see if I can patch it from there. I suspect the other folders, like tech chooser, could also cause some trouble.

EDIT: I just downloaded the Mac GOTM files for comparison and it seems like this has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Sorry about that.

 

[Andronicus]

Re lit - GLib prebuild
At deity we may find all avail wonders falling in a cascade.
An insurance policy might be to build 1 more settler than current one being built giving us 10 towns (I think thats enough for FP). Extra town would probably be safe at head of lake.
Min run to lib is 40 turns and Menlo Park can be brought up to 11spt if size 6 using all 2spt tiles (req mining 2 plains tiles and usiong forest)

 

[Tone]

The main thing that concerns me with the GLib prebuild is the problems with the palace prebuild. Has someone else loked at this to make sure that it's not just me?

If we do prebuild the GLib, we shouldn't start too early as our palace should only hold 200 shields and we have no other wonder to switch to beyond this. 200 shields by the time it is available should be enough of a headstart as long as we don't lose out to a wonder cascade. Let's hope that all wonders are build before anyone gets Lit. FP insurance sounds like a good idea but we should be able to get at least one settler out (or capture a town) before we hit 200 shields so I'd rather let the last settler be the one in the very near future. I was not suggesting a complete halt on new towns BTW-just a temporary one until we have more troops.

Backtracking a little, I suggested Myst as well as IW as we might as well get full value for our tech. I'd rather get another tech for a couple of gpt than some of their spare cash as it's better value in the long run.

 

[Andronicus]

I had been thinking we need to head down monarchy path being locked into AW with MS
If we can eliminate MS from the game we are free to be republic with all its commerce advantage

 

[Sima Qian]

@Tone: I don't know if this is also a bug I have here, but it looks like palace costs 1200 shields when I loaded the save. The civilopedia says 400 shields, but 170 turns on a 7spt does take us up to around 1200 shields.

Right now I'd say it's reasonably safe to go for a min run on lit, or possibly try it at 40% science (31 turns, 4gpt surplus). At size 6 we can probably expect 2 corrupted shields in Menlo Park, and if each worker is on a 2-shield tile we'll get 10spt. We'll have 1/3 of a palace by then, ready to switch to GLib.

I'm still of the opinion that AOL is likely the tech leader at the moment, since MSFT had 4 starting techs, all of which they probably traded. CORRECTION: I was wrong in my previous post. I confused myself and said Yahoo was commercial. No, Yahoo is expansionist/industrious.

Apple started with BW/CB, Sun with BW/Masonry, IBM with BW/WC, Linux with CB/Masonry, Yahoo with Pottery/Masonry. AOL was the only civ that started with alphabet. And since they don't have lit yet, I think we can pretty safely assume that the other civs probably aren't close to lit either. So AOL is probably the only civ that will compete with us for the Glib, and the cascade from pyramids was over (see the F7 screen), so they are going to start from scratch.

Now, considering the case of AOL: their capital is only size 2, and from what we can see in the map all their other cities are also size 1 or 2. Assuming they have a granary (and they might actually not), and 3 surplus food per turn, that's 4 turns per growth. Let's consider the worst case scenario, where the city grows next turn, and they discover lit.

Even if it grows to size 3 next turn, it will take 12 turns before they hit size 6. If the citizens work 2-shield tiles, they will accumulate:

6 shields @ size 3 * 4 turns = 24 shields.
8 shields @ size 4 * 4 turns = 32 shields.
10 shields @ size 5 * 4 turns = 40 shields.
TOTAL: 96 shields before they reach size 6.

Two BG's, a cow, three forests (one with furs) and a hill are within the city radius for Welcome Screen. So by size 6 they will be able to get 12 spt with no food surplus, but my experience with the AI is that if they can ever have a food surplus in a city, they will. If that's the case, I'd estimate closer to 10 or 11 spt, depending on corruption.

For deity AI, GLib costs 60% * 400 = 240 shields, so they will build it in 20 turns starting from scratch if they have 12spt, 22 turns if 11spt, 24 turns if 10spt. If they already had 96 shields going into size 6, they would only have 144 shields to go, and will take 12 turns at 12spt, 14 turns at 11spt, 15 turns at 10spt.

Suppose I make the best case for Menlo Park now: we currently have 15 shields devoted to Settler, none of which came from chopping. It is making 7 spt after corruption, but it will grow to size 6 next turn. So after 1 turn, we will have 22 shields. Then let's steal the mined BG from Googleplex, and we will have 12 shields, 10 uncorrupted. 400 - 22 = 378 shields to go on GLib, or 38 turns.

38 turns for us to build GLib versus 24 turns for AOL... sounds kind of bleak. But let's not panic yet. Several things could happen:

1. AOL might not discover lit next turn.
2. Welcome Screen might not have a granary.
3. Welcome Screen could be producing settlers or workers, reducing their growth substantially.
4. Welcome Screen could be building other improvements or units.

So how will we pull it off? A combination of a variety of possibilities:

1. AOL does not discover lit for another 14 turns.
2. Welcome Screen does not have a granary, meaning that they take at least 7 turns per growth, and will only reach size 6 after 22 turns minimum. In those 22 turns, they will accumulate at most 4 + 6 * 7 + 8 * 7 + 10 * 7 = 172 shields, leaving 68 shields for the GLib. At size 6, they can do the rest in 6 turns, so that takes them up to 28 turns for GLib, *assuming they discover lit next turn* Which means that if Welcome Screen does not have a granary, we can beat them to the GLib if they discover lit at least 10 turns later.
3. Welcome Screen produces a settler or worker. They will be back to size 1, and it will take them 5 * 4 = 20 turns to get up to size 6 (with a granary), or 5 * 7 = 35 turns to get up to size 6 (without a granary). Should set them back plenty for us to get the GLib.
4. Welcome Screen is producing an improvement or unit. Depending on how long it takes for them to finish that, it will also delay when they can start the GLib.
5. The tiles around Welcome Screen are not yet improved with mines. If they don't have BG's mined, they won't be able to get as much spt. I don't know how long ago our scout wandered around there, but their workers are not industrious, and remember that we've bought two of them already.
6. Get a Great Leader while fighting MS and rush it!

So, depending on how likely you think these possibilities are, you can make a decision as to whether or not to try for the GLib. Personally I'd give it a go.

Right now it costs 46 gold to investigate the AOL capital. Not enough in our treasury to find out what's going on But keep an eye on their pop and their techs.

 

[TimBentley]

@Tone: I don't know if this is also a bug I have here, but it looks like palace costs 1200 shields when I loaded the save. The civilopedia says 400 shields, but 170 turns on a 7spt does take us up to around 1200 shields.

lurker's comment: Your palace cost is going to range from 400 to 4000 shields (since normal is 100 to 1000), apparently.

 

[Tone]

@Tone: I don't know if this is also a bug I have here, but it looks like palace costs 1200 shields when I loaded the save.

Did you check out the other part? The 'bin' only has room for 10 shields. I'm concerned that if we use the palace for a prebuild it may not store the correct number of shields or even complete the palace early. Also is using the palace beyond 200 shields a cheat?

Right now I'd say it's reasonably safe to go for a min run on lit, or possibly try it at 40% science (31 turns, 4gpt surplus).

The variant we are playing means we must run a positive gpt and I think that when we pump out more units we will only be able to run min research for a time.

I think that your analysis shows that we can give the GLib a try. We might also consider an alliance with AOL. I'll look later and play tonight. I've got a test to write for this morning first.

 

[Sima Qian]

Did you check out the other part? The 'bin' only has room for 10 shields. I'm concerned that if we use the palace for a prebuild it may not store the correct number of shields or even complete the palace early. Also is using the palace beyond 200 shields a cheat?

Yeah I only saw 10 shields in that 'bin' too. But I wouldn't consider it a cheat to use palace beyond 200 shields. I've used it regularly for 400 shields in my solo games (before 1.29 patch).

BTW Tupac let me know if you tried my last suggestion for repairing the mod, I'd like to make it so that your game works so that you can choose tech and check the F4 screen without problems.
EDIT: Doh! I don't think I have this figured out yet. Never mind...

 

[Mirc]

Thank you!
Could you excuse me some days? You know what problem I have.... I hope I will get well soon.

 

[Sima Qian]

Thank you!
Could you excuse me some days? You know what problem I have.... I hope I will get well soon.

I see. Best wishes to you then.

I originally wanted to let you have the next turnset after Tone, but if you're not feeling well and want to ask for a skip, please do so.

 

[Mirc]

Let someone else play this set.

 

[Tone]

1050BC (0)
I wake one plains irrigator and get him to mine. The worker clearing jungle is woken to road instead. Switch citizen from forest to roaded plains for additional commerce. Trade maths, 4gpt and 3gp for IW and Myst. The iron is under Redmond! Switch research to Lit. I then await the sword onslaught on Web Search

IT
The attack starts badly for us with their vet sword killing our defending spear. However our archers then successfully defeat the attacking reg swords I'd be shouting at the screen if the boot was on the other foot! Wounded MM withdraws away from furs town.
MS founds Word in the jungle.

Web Search: walls>cat.

1025BC (1)
I take the cow from Menlo and give it to Web as I said I would be doing. I also hire a taxman rather than up lux for this town. Elite archer attacks the surviving 2/4 sword outside Web and wins (just!).

IT
MM appears outside Froogle
Google: archer>worker
Menlo: settler>worker

1000BC (2)
Nothing much. I keep the new settler in place so that we can use it to replace Windows if we manage to go on the offensive.

IT
Google: worker>archer
M-View: spear>spear
G-mail: worker>spear

975BC (3)
zzz

IT
Menlo: worker>palace

950BC (4)
Vet archer kills MM that dared to enter our territory. Move to road towards Windows.

IT
Contact! A Yahooligan moves onto the mountain.
Google: archer>archer
Web Search: cat>cat
Froogle: walls>settler

925BC (5)
Yahoo! don't have contacts! They don't have maths but they do have MM so we trade maths, getting MM and 70g in return. I hold back on selling contacts just in case a decent tech deal comes up.

We are now at only 2gpt but the plains mine will be completed next turn. Even though we are building the silks town this turn, I decide to hire a scientist in our capital enabling us to switch off science and reduce lux to 10%.

Scholar (galley) is built by the silks.

900BC (6)
zzz

IT
Google: archer>archer
M-View: spear>settler

875BC (7)
zzz

IT
Softy sword appears just as road to Windows is built.
G-Mail: spear>spear

850BC (8)
I withdraw from the sword. He can come to us as I'll be ready to strike very soon.

IT
AOL settler appears in our second ring area. They are spreading fast.
Google: archer>archer
Web Search: cat>cat

825BC (9)
zzz

IT
Our vet spear is killed by a vet MS sword. It is redlined though.
Linux have built the Hanging Gardens in Helsinki.
Yahoo! have researched CoL and still have not got contact with any other civ. Time for a bit of trading I feel.

800BC (10)
Buy Phil from AOL for 163g and then sell it to Yahoo! for CoL and their remaining 32g.
Elite archer kills the sword. Four archers, a spear, a settler and a cat march on Windows.

IT
Google: archer>archer

775BC (11)
The cat does nothing. I move two more archers and a spear outside Windows whilst the spear and archers already there move across the river.

IT
AOL dec war on the Softies.

A couple of Softy archers head for Menlo

750BC (12)
Bombard archers near Menlo and then take them out with our archer reserves.

Bombardment of Windows does nothing but I decide to attack anyway. We need to settle that town. First archer kills MM, losing only one hp and takes the town.

Deity town defended by one unit?!! We also get four slaves.

Menlo has grown so I hire a scientist there and switch Google to a settler. Up lux so that Google will grow in two turns and Menlo can claim the bg.

IT
Softies request an audience but we decline. Softy sword kills a spear as we advance on Redmond. Barb horse approaches Scholar from the West.

M-View: settler>worker
Web Search: cat>cat

AOL have made contact with Apple.

730BC (13)
Build Print SW of Windows ruins. (galley). Archer kills MS sword (just). Switch production in Froogle to a rax.

IT
Google: settler>spear-will need to work forest for 10spt.

710BC (14)
Build Video N of our capital.

IT
Barb horse impales itself on our spear in Scholar
M-View: worker>spear

690BC (15)
zzz

IT
Google: spear>archer
AOL has Poly and Construction. MS has Poly.

670BC (16)
Scout lands next to barb camp.

IT
Scout killed.
Web Search: cat>cat.
MS finally has maths.

650BC (17)
Troops are at the gates of Word and Redmond.

IT
Two swords appear and take out our covering spear outside Redmond.

Google: archer>spear
G-mail: spear>spear

AOL is in Monarchy

630BC (18)
Archers attack word. Fist kills a MM. 2nd loses but the third razes the town.

Desktop is built close to the ruins.

I've just noticed QuickTime in the West. I dispatch a spear to make contact.

I decide against an attack on Redmond with two swords about so I attack them. Both archers win, one promoted to elite status.

610BC (19)
A sword has just left Redmond so I take a chance and decide to attack it with our 5 archers. It's risky but the prize is great. 1st archer redlines a vet MM but loses. 2nd loses. 3rd redlines the defender but loses, creating an elite MM. Sorry! I decide to call off the assault as another vet MM steps up. I think that we need cats for this one guys. Road is currently under construction to get through the jungle.

IT
Linux and AOL have signed an alliance vs MS.
Google: spear>archer
M-View: spear>spear

590BC (20)
zzz

Notes:

I was going to suggest that well sell contact with Yahoo! as they have a galley heading towards other civs but two barb galleys have appeared. We can afford to hold on IMO; they might KO the Yahoo! galley. We will have another contact next turn-maybe that'll bring new options.

Apologies again for the feeble attack on Redmond. I thought that they might be preoccupied with AOL but not enough as it turns out. Once we get that road through the jungle though we will be able to get cats there. It might just make a difference but archers against MM on a hill is still going to be tough. maybe an iron colony is a requirement.

We have a very healthy gpt now. Maybe it's time to up lux and get that extra citizen in Menlo working and mine that horse tile? (We currently have 134 shields in the bin BTW, even though it looks empty!) It'll take 20% more on the lux slider IIRC to get the sixth person working but it's only needed in the short term. We've just moved two workers on the silks so we'll have them connected in 5 turns. It'll be worth keeping a spear there as there could still be barbs around in the area.

I was a little worried about MS swords when I took over but how wrong I was. They are now really up against it with so many enemies. Have fun!

Web Search is up to 6spt so maybe we can build something other than cats there? Just a thought.

The Save

Sima Qian (up next)
tupaclives (on deck)
Andronicus
Tone (just played)
Mirc (skipped)

BTW I'm going to Switzerland for a week or so and I won't have access to the Internet. I leave on Friday so please skip me if (when) I come up. I'll sign in when I return.

 

[Sima Qian]

Well done Tone! Nothing less than what I would have expected from one of the masters. Hope you enjoy your time in Switzerland.

I'm going to tentatively post a "Got it," although there has been some "civil disorder" here in Los Angeles lately (500,000 people in the streets protesting against the immigration bill going through the U.S. Congress). This will probably only affect me as much as worsening traffic and reducing my free time. But it should be over by now.

The AOL expansion is looking pretty threatening now. I think we might have a fight for the spoils of war coming up.

I'll post more once I get a chance to look at the save.

 

[Sima Qian]

Eh, looks like the civfanatics.net server is down. Did anyone else have another copy of Tone's save downloaded that you can post in some other way?

 

[Tone]

My link doesn't work but others on the site do. Try this attachment.

Edit: links are down but attachments work fine for me so hopefully you'll be OK now, SQ.

 

[Sima Qian]

Great. Got that save loaded up perfectly.

Just as a heads up to you people, take a look at this announcement and plan accordingly.