SUL4: Training Day for Emperors

[MingTheMerciles]

Got it, but I won't be able to play tonight. I'll post and report tomorrow night.

Any reason not to trade literature around? Especially since we're not going for the Great Library. I'd love to get code of laws for those courthouses.

Funny about the Babylonians and their culture. With all those cheap temples and libraries, plus with emporer level bonuses, it's no wonder we're admiring their culture. I guess we'll have to beat the everliving &*^%# out of them.

 

[Sullla]

I'll have my critique up before MingTheMerciles is ready to play, so don't worry about that.

 

[Ziggy]

looking good Ridgelake...pit about that island tho

one Q...you say that The Babs have Code of Laws and Polytheism to our Lit.....if they have Code of laws (and mapmaking if they're on islands)...dont they have Literacy as well?

annoying that even with their early war they're doing so well...good thing Sulla put them "on the list" lol

 

[Ridgelake]

Ming and Ziggy, yes, the Babs have Map Making. I was surprised to see that they did instead of Lit. They didnt need to get MM to settle the lands to their East. Out of luck, there were two land bridges connecting their two islands. So they just marched across.

The reason that I didnt trade Lit was that it allows Libraries. I really dont want the Babs to get even more culture and more research capability. I suppose that they are close to researching it themselves. But who knows for sure what they are researching now. Yes, courthouses would be nice. But we aren't losing too much to corruption right now. And we still need libraries and temples in many of our cities, not to mention war effort items.

 

[Ridgelake]

A thought just occurred to me. One reason that the Babs might be so advanced at this stage is that they have had their Golden Age. They were at war with Russia. They probably used Bowmen. Odds are that it triggered their GA. At least it is out of the way now. The Russians won't last long enough to see theirs.

 

[Sullla]

Critique for Ridgelake:

Turn 0: Athens on temple? OK, it's not a bad choice, as we do need some more happiness. And it's a far better choice than a granary. But is this really the best time to build the temple? I say that it's not. I think everyone here can agree on the necessity of having to attack Russia sooner than later, since we just don't have enough land here. Because that's the case, and because Russia is very weak at the moment, we need to strike NOW, before they clear out that jungle and get some decent cities there. With that in mind, building a temple at this point only unneccessarily diverts time away from that goal. A 60 shield temple = 2 30 shield swordsmen. When preparing for war, I'd rather have the swordsmen and attack sooner. Remember, if we stall too long the Russians will have defenders better than spearmen in their cities.

Sparta is the right choice here. We are not going to be researching techs once we find the other civs, and therefore a library is not needed. Swordsman is the best option here. Thermopylae and Corinth shifts to barracks get my heartfelt thanks. I'm not sure what Ihmotep was thinking with the previous build choices.

THANK you for pulling our workers off the useless mining of an iron mountain. Ditto for the adjusting of the science slider. Not trading Literature is a fine decision, but make sure to keep checking to see if Babylon is about to complete it so we can trade it for some real value.

Turn 1: Excellent decision-making skills here on the tech choice. I may not have picked the same tech (I like to follow the AI on the tech tree a lot of the time), but you looked at all the options and made an intelligent decision on what to pick. That's the kind of reasoning that has to be done to succeed at this level. Odessa doesn't present any problem at all; we can easily raze it in a war and it presents no threat. Keep in mind that instead of trying to kick out a settler/spear pair, it would be more valuable to blockade it with three units to prevent it from moving forward. In this situation, I don't think we could spare them, but that's a good principle to remember.

Watch out for making too many entertainers. I agree that in this case going to 40% luxuries would be too much of a cost here, but hiring specialists is never a good policy to follow. Changing Thermopylae to a galley is a good move; while it does slow down the barracks, the prospect of making contact with the rest of the world is worth it. Just so long as we don't build another galley until after we settle with Russia.

Turn 2: Delphi to galley? We really only need one for scouting. And yes, Delphi does need all of those buildings you listed. Which is the most important, though? At the moment, I'd say barracks both so it can build vet soldiers and so that we can use the city to heal our guys in the battles to come. One galley is essentially, but on this sized map and at this stage in the game, we don't need two.

Turn 5: Building a worker is a good decision, because we certainly need them. Sending a warrior into the galley is not. All we need to do is scout around the outside of continents, not explore in them. The goal of our galley is to try and find other civs in the fog; a warrior, which could be used for military police, doesn't help us with this. We may have to try a suicide galley run if we don't find anything, and if that's the case and we fail, then the warrior has been wasted. From what I can see in the game now, that warrior could well be used for MP.

Turn 6: Another specialist hired in Corinth? By my count that's 3 being used in our cities. At this point, it would be more worthwhile to up the luxury rate, even if it does slow down science. We can't have that many people being unproductive.

Turn 7: Delphi to Temple? We can up the luxury rate to deal with unhappiness. We already have a cultural building in the city. At this point, we should either build a granary for growth or a barracks for war. If we were all by ourselves with tons of land to expand to, the granary would be the right choice. With St. Petersburg right next door, a barracks is the right choice. I suggest a switch for the next player.

Good trade; the intelligence is definitely worth it on the map, we get a cheaper old tech, and a large sum of gold at this phase in the game. Mathematics does nothing for Hammurabi anyway. I fully approve .

Turn 10: I fully agree with taking the warrior off the boat for use as military police. And yes, running a taxman when you had a unit just outside the city is . But at least you recognized it.

Comments: We only built one sword during these 10 turns. We need to devote ourselves more fully to preparations for war if we are to succeed shortly. The galley build was a good choice, and let's hope we get lucky and find the other civs. Please, please, PLEASE move the warrior off the galley and into Thermopylae on the first turn. We need to up the luxury tax after that and remove the specialists from our cities. With that additional MP, we should be able to get by with 20% luxuries. We've built up a lot of gold though, so we can afford to go into the red for a little while if need be. Get rid of those specialists! And above all, concentrate on the war with Russia; we will do an infrastructure push after that's finished.

Sulla
OPEN SPOT (anyone interested?)
Ridgelake
MingTheMerciles <<< UP NOW
Ziggy <<< on deck

 

[Ridgelake]

Sulla,

Thanks for the critique. I generally agree with the s that you gave me.

I would like to add a few comments to help explain some of the choices that I made.

The temple in Athens was put in so that we could increase the number of citizens working. That city grows so fast that it needs all the pop control that it can get. So this choice was to help maximize the productivity of our capital.

The warrior on the boat was only going along to scout the island to the north. I also made sure that the warrior was covered for MP duty in Sparta before I sent him out as a replacement. Pharsa did not need an MP at that time. As the island turned out small, however, he should come back for more MP duty.

The temple in Delphi was considered a long-term move. My though was that we could skip on a barrack here. I expect that we will wage more of the war from Corrinth, as it has superior production and borders two Russian towns. Also, since we will be starting the war, and thus choosing to send the appropriate troops in, St. Pete would fall in the first turn of war. The conquering troops would then heal up in Corrinth.

The temple would also permit another citizen to work another tile. It seems, however, that we are effectively going into a full-scale mobilization. With that being the case, then the barrack would be appropriate.

Finally, remember that we can upgrade warriors to swords. Since many of our warriors are on MP duty, however, I am not sure that we do want to upgrade them. But if we do want to, then we must have some gold to do that. Further, 40 gold per might be a bit pricey for these times. But it is an option.

Edit: On changing the luxury rate. It is true that we have 3 specialists right now. One thing to consider, however, is what tiles those people will work if the lux rate takes care of happiness. As it stands currently, those specialists would be working second-rate, often undeveloped tiles. That was part of my reasoning behind going with only 1 lux. We were considerably more productive as a nation with those 3 in specialist positions and a low lux rate than if they were on bad tiles with a high luxury rate. Until we can get more tiles operational, this may continue to be the case.

 

[MingTheMerciles]

The war machine is now cranking out troops. Workers spend a lot of time building/finishing mines and roads around cities. Everything converted to the war effort. A few more swords complete with lots on the way.

This wasn't too tough of a turn, but once again managed to screw up at the end. Happiness takes more management than I'm used to on Emperor.


Pre turn

Switch Purple, Pharsalos, & Delphi to Barracks


730 - Athens completes and starts sword
Corinth finishes Barracks, starts Hoplite for holding captured cities and defending swordsman. This is a trend I like, one city (or two) on defensive units and the rest on offensive units for an offensive war. The opposite for a defensive war. Balance as necessary after the war commences.

710 - Philosophy due in 1, drop science to 20% to get +16 gold, Phil still due in 1

Checked in with Russia and Babylon. They both have Code of Laws over us, neither have literature. Babylon also has Polytheism, but won't sell. I check our cities and corruption isn't too bad. Let the Babylonians rot, they'll have to research literature on their own, we'll beat Code of laws out of Russia.

690 - Sparta completes and starts sword

Science back up to 60%, +1 gold, Polytheism in 9. I'm going for Monarchy, the fighting mans government. We won't get there til after Russia, but we should switch before we deal with Babylon.

Warrior down south trying to move around Minsk to get at russia's iron to block it at appropriate time

670 - Nothing

650 - Corith completes hoplite, starts hoplite (see above). Delphi completes barracks, Sword started.

630- Athens completes & starts sword

610 - Pharsalos completes Barracks, starts sword

590 - Corinth completes hoplite, starts hoplite (see above). Sparta & Thermopylae start swords.

570 - The Warrior trying to sneak through Russia around Minsk is booted and Russia declares war on....... Babylon?

550 - OK, once again I'm a dumb@ss and let a city fall into disorder on my last turn, sheesh.

Also, for some reason I had the workers north of Athens creating roads in the forests seperately rather than having them build together. Not a huge deal, but not correct.

The Game
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads/SUL4-550BC.zip

The Map

 

[Sullla]

Critique for MingTheMerciles:

Pre-turn: Delphi to Barracks is a good switch. Purple and Pharsalos are not good switches, because both are too corrupt to build any units in a reasonable time at the moment. Purple especially is a long-term project that we founded just to "plug the border" so to speak and prevent Russia from settling there. These cities need a cultural building in them, so they should have remained on library.

730BC: Your decision is a good one, as we will indeed need Hoplites to defend cities when they are taken. We also want to send 1 or 2 hoplites with our column of swords to defend them from attack and trigger a Golden Age. One city on Hoplites gets my approval.

710BC: Good management of the science slider. Indeed, we want to continue delaying Literature to the other scientific civs as long as possible to slow down tech. And we should definitely get any techs Russia has that we don't shortly.

690BC: Excellent research choice! Decide where you want to go and pursue it instead of losing focus and falling victim to indecision. We DO want Monarchy, since we will have to continue warring until we control the contient. There's no way around it; we're going to have to fight both Russia and Babylon and remove them from our continent. After that we can go to Republic or Democracy. I like the call very much. Getting a warrior into range to pillage/deny iron when war is actually declared is more smart thinking.

610BC: Pharsalos is too far away and isolated to make much of a difference here. I guess we should let it build ONE sword, but then it needs to go back to a library for culture radius.

570BC: Russia and Babylon at war? [dance] This is great! Russia will send all its forces down to the south, leaving our front, um, exposed.

550BC: Letting a city fall into disorder? Managing happiness on Emperor/Deity is indeed difficult, but everyone needs to get used to doing it for this game.

Comments: Lower the science slider to get more money and still get Polytheism next turn. Monarchy is the obvious research choice after that. We are now at the max possible unit support level, so we can't afford too many more swords before we start the war. I say to start the attack after the swords complete in Athens and Sparta (4 turns), so probably in 5 turns since you have to move them up to the border. Be sure to declare war BEFORE entering Russian territory via the diplomacy screen to avoid a reputation hit (make sure the southern warrior is out of Russian territory too). It's also only fair. 2-3 hoplites should accompany the swords for protection and in the hopes of kicking off our golden age. See if we can get something from Hammurabi for a military alliance, but if he wants stuff from us ignore him. Our galley should continue around the whole island in the hopes of finding a path to the other continent(s?). If we don't find anything, I might try a suicide run on my turn. Russia has got to have all their forces down in the south, where they sneak attacked the Babylonian city of Akkad. I expect Russia to roll over and die almost immediately, just make sure to keep producing more swords in our core cities! Since we don't have any settlers on hand, capture Russian cities, don't raze them. We can always abandon them later. Good luck!

Sulla <<< ON DECK
OPEN SPOT (any takers?)
Ridgelake
MingTheMerciles
Ziggy <<< UP NOW

 

[T-hawk]

I could join in, although after seeing the results of the RBCiv Epic, I don't think I really need Emperor training. If you want another player just for the SG roster, I'll take it.

 

[Sullla]

T-Hawk: From your results in Epic1, you clearly don't need my advice on Emperor games, so you might be better off looking for another SG to join. And that was only your 4th ever game of Civ3? Wow... I played my first game on Chieftan, second one on Warlord, then 3 on Regent after which I felt comfortable enough to move up to Monarch, where I played about 4 full games. Now that I've played close to 3 full games on Emperor and am no longer challenged much by it, I will probably move up to Deity full-time for SP games. But it took me 6 months to get there! And you're almost at that point already after like 3 weeks! Amazing.

 

[T-hawk]

(Apologies for the topic drift; it's probably better continued over at RBCiv)

I'd previously played around 15 full games of Civ 1 and 2 combined, and about that much again of Alpha Centauri, which is a much more complex game with oodles more micromanagement. Civ 3 was cake once I learned to manage the few new ways of doing things (civ traits, culture, follow-the-leader research), which I picked up from lurking the RBD succession games.

Good luck with this game, guys!

 

[Ziggy]

i have the game.....will play and post in a few hours...looks like i get the honor of kicking some russian butt!

 

[MingTheMerciles]

I wonder if we should hold off on using the hoplites to kick off the golden age for a few turns so we can get closer to monarchy. I think the couple of Russian cities will be a snap with a good stack of swords.

That way we can use more of the golden age to build out the Hanging Gardens. It would be a pity to start the golden age early in the war against russia when it would only help us build out swords and some infrastructure.

Just a thought.

 

[Ziggy]

yeah my thinking exactly...i dont plan on hunting specifically for our golden age...but if it happens it happens
time will tell (gotta have breakfast first..no wars on an empty stomach)

 

[Ziggy]

550 bc pre-turn
change purple from barracks to library
some micromanagement of citys...moving corrupted sheilds to make $ instead...that sort of thing...Athens especially moves from plains to water...losing no sheilds and gaining a trade which makes an extra person content....another is putting the taxman in Pharsalos to work in water...giving us 2 happy and 2 content
play heaps with lux slider..finally settle on 20% lux 50% science...with taxman in thermopylae...poly in 1 tunr with +3gpt

Between turns Hammy call us up and offers alliance vs russia and Rop....i counter with asking him to throw in Code of laws and Poly and his map and all his gold....just for kicks....and my advisor says he will agree!...um.hmm...if i delay here we will have Poly next turn..instead of a turn invested in whatever the advisor picks...but the war will be slightly premature...but we have 4 swords sitting in the city on russia's borders...and our advisor had told me our military was average compared to theirs...and they have been at war already with babylon...so their troops should be south...but we also have that warrior in russian territory...after MUCH thought....i decline (expecting major commentary on this one)

Russia then calls up and demands that warrior gets the heck out..i move him (for now)
we then discover Polytheism...start work on Monarchy

530BC (1) thermopylae changed to Hoplite from swordsman (theyre 3 turns faster and he has 2 warriors in there wich i plan to upgrade
watch a BUNCH (3) of workers run along on goto orders! (bad bad bad whoever did that!)
our galley continues to scout the seas
our warrior got kicked out onto the babylonian side of russia.runs to high ground to watch the fights


510BC (2)
Purple produces library...starts hoplite (note this is purely filler...nothing here will complete in less than 20 turns anyways...however it is only defended by a warrior so might actually be right)
luxurys bumped up to 30% due to sparta's growth...we NEED another luxury badly
Between turns...our southern warrior watches the russian horses ride by...russia loses warrior to something (probly babylonian)

490BC (3) Corinth produces Hoplite....starts another
Delphi produces swodsman...starts temple (more troops will take 8 turns so no point)
i upgrade the 2 warriors in Thermopylae to swordsmen
i start moving troops into positions along the russian border

470BC (4) Athens produces swordsman...starts another
Sparta produces Swordsman...starts another
I ring up Hammy...offer alliance Vs. Russia for Code of laws, WM. and 23 gold (all he has)...he accepts...WAR!
Greek troops Pour over the Russian border...capturing 3 workers in the process

Southern warrior spots cavalry do an about face and rush back north
A russian settler runs into St Pete's just as a galley leaves

450BC (5) Thermopylae produces Hoplite...starts temple
Purples border expands
The people show their love for the Holy war against russia by seeding us a new palace lawn
Our Valiant Swordsmen Capture St Petersburg with no losses! it starts a library for now (will rethink when it stops resisting)
Luxurys dropped to 20% as we now have Silks

Between turns...Odessa sees the swordsmen heading towards it and revolts to us bloodlessly! (flips) I start them on a Library but they are hopelessly corrupt so it'll take ages

430BC (6) Our troops advance on Kiev and heal and quell the resistance in St Pete's

410BC (7) Corinth produces Hoplite...i sneak in a temple
One of our hoplites take out the final 1hit point defender in kiev...and our golden age begins!...Kiev is unfortunately auto razed...more slaves captured

between turns...russian horse does end run around advancing troops and ends up next to st petes


390BC (8) Athens produces swordsman...starts Settler (for kiev area)
sparta produces swordsman...starts library
Pharsalos produces swordsman...starts temple (its more expensive than a library so im getting it now while we are in golden age)

between turns....russian horse pillages our silks! (weed on my part...i figured on him attacking and didnt notice he was on them)
our southern warrior take 3 hits off a russian sword before dying

370BC (9) russian horse retreats from a swordsman but to no avail as a hoplite then kills him
our Horde of Death (tm) attacks Moscow...3 spearmen die at our feet...and a swordsman..and we capture Moscow!...and now hold the Colossus!...it is set to build library to bring the other silks online asap ...feel free to change as always
Our subjects build us some stairs for our palace

between turns...babylonin galley unloads settler pair on kiev spot!

350BC (10) Our hordes continue to advance

Beware Sparta just grew and will revolt if nothing is done about it
russia is down to 2 cities on mainland plus the island one
do NOT make peace with them until the alliance with Babylon runs out
you have a settler due up when you hit enter...but the spot was tken by babylon...no clue where it should go now...prehaps it should be changed to something else?

 

[Sullla]

As we expected, Russia put up no resistance whatsoever. The Babylonian settler landing out of nowhere (how do they do that, anyway?) presents a problem, but not too much of one as we will come after Babylon sooner or later. We can live with it; at that distance from Babylon the city will likely flip to us shortly anyway. I'm up next, will critique, play, and post tomorrow morning. It's looking like a good start to me so far!

 

[Ziggy]

Of course we are going after Babylon sooner or later...they're on your LIST remember? (honestly it's a good thing i'm here to remind you of these things )

 

[MingTheMerciles]

Apologies for the worker goto's. My bad entirely. I miscounted turns at the end, I thought I had one more turn which should've had them reach my intended destination. After the turn, I recounted and realized my turn was up. I went back and activated them (even though they already moved) thinking this would take the goto off, apparently not.

Nice work on the war. Shame about that warrior to the south, I had a lot of fun trying to get him through Russia to that iron and getting kicked out several times. Nice to know he went down fighting.

 

[Ridgelake]

I dont have access to the map right now, but would it be possible to send the new settler down to pick off the gems in the mountain? Or have the Babs claimed them already?

And as for the new Bab city, I question whether it will flip as they have such strong culture as a nation......

Also remember that we now can make horses......