TGOM 02 - The Grumpy Old Monk and the Ancient Crone go to Alpha Centauri
- Thread starter Bede
- Start date
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
Is that a standard military term? I've never heard it before. I'll have to remember that one.Bede said:
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
I don't think it's something written down for you to read and review. It sounds more like something you just learn to know, like having x number of swords for a rush early in the Ancient Age to be able to take a town, or having approximately x number of knights and trebs at a certain point in the MA to ensure a successful war...probably a judgment call coming from experience.C3CFanatic0014 said:
It sounds like a military term and, if it were a RL nation's military plan, it would probably be written down by a Commander in Chief. But I'm just guessing.
lurker's comment: It was a new one on me too so I googled it.
http://www.militaryresearch.org/WhatisTOE.htm
http://www.militaryresearch.org/WhatisTOE.htm
I'll be away from my civ computer until at least the 19th, so a swap would really work out more like stockpiling turns. I'd just as soon call it a skip and perhaps I can fill in if someone needs to miss later. Whatever works best.gmaharriet said:
Congrats on the new computer. They can be frustrating ("I just want my old desktop back!") but all in all I like getting shiny new things, so I look forward to an upgrade. And it sounds like your need is dire. By the way, what is the MTDG forum? All these acronyms and abbreviations!gmaharriet said:My computer has been whining and growling ever louder and the new one I've ordered should be here sometime this week, which means reinstalling the game, Mapstat, CAII, firewall, popup blocker, spybot and maybe reconstructing my bookmarks and address book. Sheesh! As it stands right now, I expect the old machine to die every time I reboot or start up Civ, sometimes getting nothing but a blank grey screen for a minute or two before it finally decides to let me in.I usually post every day either in this thread or in the MTDG forum on the same team as Bede, so if I miss a day, you'll know I'm having computer problems and will need either a skip or swap. I have my fingers crossed.
In my own educational AW game I was also convinced of the power of pillaging armies. And not just for resources and luxes. Eliminating mines and farms means slower production and starvation. It's an especially nice task for an army or outdated units that don't have as much combat value anymore. After some serious pillaging, the steady streams of units from my neighbors trickled to almost nothing, giving me time and room to expand.gmaharriet said:
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
MTDG = Multi-Team Demo Game. Hmmmm, well, it's like a PBEM (Play by Email) game against human opponents, but instead of individuals playing against each other, teams play against each other. It also has a resemblance to the Demo games (Democracy) that are played on this board by a group of members who play against the computer AI's, and they have votes of the members to make their decisions.eotinb said:
You only play one turn at a time and then pass it along to the next team. I didn't join until they were on turn 8, but it's been going on since about the beginning of August and we are on turn 44. As you can see, it's a real fast mover.
I find most of the fun in getting to know the other team members, because I'm one of the least experienced players.There are currently 4 teams of approx 25-27 members each, and it's not too late to join. After all, there are still almost 500 turns to play if the game lasts that long. You can find the sign-up thread at http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=149
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
Thanks, Whomp! That makes it pretty clear, but I doubt if we'll be doing anything quite that complex in this game...at least not in writing.Whomp said:
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
Um, please don't hold your breath. I figure it will only take about 6 months.Bede said:
Ansar
Détente avec l'été
lurker's comment: Bede?Any updates for us story-hungry lurkers?
We have had Navigation for some time yet still don't have a full world map so it's time to play let's trade maps. There are a few rules to this game. You start with the weakest and smallest who do not hold Navigation and offer them your territory map
And this is what you get
Then on to Cleo and only get 9g and her Territory Map.
Abe is a little tougher, for his Territory Map he wants Economics but I give him this deal instead
And this is all I can get out of X-man
And now I am suffering the torments of lost opportunity. If the trading round had happened the very same time we learned the technology, I would venture to guess that we could have had all the money in the world and a full world map by only trading our territory map. Or at the most trading our World Map to the biggest and richest for their Territory Map and lots of their gold.
But anyway now I have a full world view and picked up some chump change.
THis gives me an opportunity to take a closer look at Persia. The one thing I note is the heavy use of irrigation everywhere and that X-man's largest towns are shield poor. So I hold an internal debate about the risks of selling him Economics for about half its beaker value. That suggests that he is very close to researching it himself. He will probably get it from his buddy Hammi soon as Hammi does not put a high value on Economics in a trial balloon peace treaty negotiation, so he must be close to researching it himself, or he can buy Physics, or I can sell him Economics and slow down his acquisition of Physics......then X-man could sell Economics to Hammi for Physics - since the possible outcomes are heavily weighted towards X-man getting a two-fer out of the deal I leave it alone for now.
I then close out the trading round by selling our Territory Map to Alex for 1g.
Then I note that we have shipped luxes to Persia. Two luxuries to the maw of the beast. That almost guarantees that Xerxes will remain the knowledge leader into the Industrial Age.
Looking through the map scrolls again I see that Greece has lost Sparta to the Babylonians, not a good sign. So I take an RoP with Alex and start building an Grecian Task Force to head down there and take it back so that we can return the town to him.
Then switch the Smith's build from HB to Bedeville and set Harriet to building a bank, check the corrupt towns for shield accumulation and order settlers anyplace that has 29 or thirty in the bin. That's when I note that North Pole has an acqueduct....and only three fields capable of producing more than 1 food and one of those fields is stealing production from Cronetown.
Now for a little disquisition on the use of Wealth in the build orders. It is only marginally useful when you are in a town producing more than four uncorrupted shields, then you get 1 extra gold piece. It is also useful when you have a town producing lots of shields and which has all the multiplier buildings. Then you get a real treasury kicker. Other than that it really does nothing in a corrupted and wasteful town. I always think it is better to let that one shield accumulate towards something like a settler or an artillery piece, or a boat in seaside towns. Then if you find you need any of those things you can cash rush the finish, or dump the accumulated shields into something else you really need at that point in time. Occasionally you will waste a lot of shields but you get something you need right now and it's in a town that wouldn't produce anything useful without that accumulation.
Okay, now let's see what's going on.
Lose a crippled knight to a Babylonian bowman in the Greek Territory and the Babs lose a knight attacking Abydos.
Looks like X-man learned Economics then swapped it and his cash to Abe who learned Free Artistry
760AD
Sparta is now back in Greek hands so I retask the cavalry to the seige of Sippar.
Move out across the Egyptian hills and jungles with muskets, cavalry and cannon
The fast moving cavalry move down the peninsula one mountain peak at a time towards Larsa
The Babylonian that killed the knight moves on the Egpytian town and kills a spear, but there is another in the hole
Only a couple of items worth noting in 770AD
And then chump change from the other allies for the World Map.
A dispatch from another land
And Cleo is now broke so she cancels the Iron deal
-More-
And this is what you get
Then on to Cleo and only get 9g and her Territory Map.
Abe is a little tougher, for his Territory Map he wants Economics but I give him this deal instead
And this is all I can get out of X-man
And now I am suffering the torments of lost opportunity. If the trading round had happened the very same time we learned the technology, I would venture to guess that we could have had all the money in the world and a full world map by only trading our territory map. Or at the most trading our World Map to the biggest and richest for their Territory Map and lots of their gold.
But anyway now I have a full world view and picked up some chump change.
THis gives me an opportunity to take a closer look at Persia. The one thing I note is the heavy use of irrigation everywhere and that X-man's largest towns are shield poor. So I hold an internal debate about the risks of selling him Economics for about half its beaker value. That suggests that he is very close to researching it himself. He will probably get it from his buddy Hammi soon as Hammi does not put a high value on Economics in a trial balloon peace treaty negotiation, so he must be close to researching it himself, or he can buy Physics, or I can sell him Economics and slow down his acquisition of Physics......then X-man could sell Economics to Hammi for Physics - since the possible outcomes are heavily weighted towards X-man getting a two-fer out of the deal I leave it alone for now.
I then close out the trading round by selling our Territory Map to Alex for 1g.
Then I note that we have shipped luxes to Persia. Two luxuries to the maw of the beast. That almost guarantees that Xerxes will remain the knowledge leader into the Industrial Age.
Looking through the map scrolls again I see that Greece has lost Sparta to the Babylonians, not a good sign. So I take an RoP with Alex and start building an Grecian Task Force to head down there and take it back so that we can return the town to him.
Then switch the Smith's build from HB to Bedeville and set Harriet to building a bank, check the corrupt towns for shield accumulation and order settlers anyplace that has 29 or thirty in the bin. That's when I note that North Pole has an acqueduct....and only three fields capable of producing more than 1 food and one of those fields is stealing production from Cronetown.
Now for a little disquisition on the use of Wealth in the build orders. It is only marginally useful when you are in a town producing more than four uncorrupted shields, then you get 1 extra gold piece. It is also useful when you have a town producing lots of shields and which has all the multiplier buildings. Then you get a real treasury kicker. Other than that it really does nothing in a corrupted and wasteful town. I always think it is better to let that one shield accumulate towards something like a settler or an artillery piece, or a boat in seaside towns. Then if you find you need any of those things you can cash rush the finish, or dump the accumulated shields into something else you really need at that point in time. Occasionally you will waste a lot of shields but you get something you need right now and it's in a town that wouldn't produce anything useful without that accumulation.
Okay, now let's see what's going on.
Lose a crippled knight to a Babylonian bowman in the Greek Territory and the Babs lose a knight attacking Abydos.
Looks like X-man learned Economics then swapped it and his cash to Abe who learned Free Artistry
760AD
Sparta is now back in Greek hands so I retask the cavalry to the seige of Sippar.
Move out across the Egyptian hills and jungles with muskets, cavalry and cannon
The fast moving cavalry move down the peninsula one mountain peak at a time towards Larsa
The Babylonian that killed the knight moves on the Egpytian town and kills a spear, but there is another in the hole
Only a couple of items worth noting in 770AD
And then chump change from the other allies for the World Map.
A dispatch from another land
And Cleo is now broke so she cancels the Iron deal
-More-
Moving on Sippar uncovers that Hammi has captured Hieracanoplis
ANd since there was only a single Bab Longbow in the neighborhood the response is this
The mountain bound cavalry finally reach Larsa
Intelligence staff report this
Cleo sees the error of her ways and renews the Iron deal but I refuse her lump sum and World Map
That way if she goes down while the deal is still running we won't lose our trade rep.
-More-
ANd since there was only a single Bab Longbow in the neighborhood the response is this
The mountain bound cavalry finally reach Larsa
Intelligence staff report this
Cleo sees the error of her ways and renews the Iron deal but I refuse her lump sum and World Map
That way if she goes down while the deal is still running we won't lose our trade rep.
-More-
General Mayhem
Monarch
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2004
- Messages
- 329
Bede, the reason I didn't make the map trades was twofold: 1st, I didn't realize what's possible by doing map trading like you did, and 2nd, there was no money in the world expcept in the hands of Hammi. I see your point on the wealth, but at the time unit support was rather bad and with ROP's and Cav's I didn't see the point in building more artillery which is all those towns were really good for. The reason I started the Smith's program in HB was I didn't realize we would be able to do 4 turn research in our GA so I thought that since it was coastal Magellans would be a more viable pre-build option than Cop's, even though it wasn't the worlds best shield producer.
In 820 we learn Theory of Gravity but can only make paltry sums by selling it around so I don't even bother.
There is a lot of marching between home and Sparta. Used cavalry to keep the roads open and leapfrogged down the jungle trails with cannon and muskets
The crux of the problem is simple. There are two large, wealthy and scientific nations that are good friends with a large, wealthy and expansionist nation. Between the three of them they are hoovering all the money in the world into their coffers, and making sweetheart deals among themselves. They are effectively sharing research costs by each researching a different line of science, then swapping among themselves. There do not appear to be any niches where we can get into this game, currently, though this may change when we enter the IA as the other nations usually go for the government techs
That generally means we can pick up the knowledge on the bottom branches, though with the unholy trinity in bed with each other even that may not work.
So we need to drive a wedge between them. it is more than past time to foment a little action overseas. The ideal matchup would be Zulu and America against Persia. And we support the Zulu exclusively. Locally we let all deals run out while we pile troops on the borders of Greece and Egypt. Then take out the Grecian cities on the NW peninsula, then the Egyptian towns to our south.
The only problem with this plan is that we have lots of time left on RoP's and trade deals. Let the alliances and other agreements die a natural death then we can evaluate who deserves our support and who deserves to be crushed. The alliance with Cleo is over in a couple of turns, I am not inclined to renew it in order to preserve our flexibility. Keep up the pressure on Hammi by recapturing the Greeks towns and that should keep him occupied in the south and we won't see any red coat dragoons north of Egypt. Shuffle the troops in through the Greek jungles by leapfrogging down the Ho Chi Minh trail using escorting cavalry to keep the roads clear, or by coming in from the west through Corinth.
There is a riot in Clever Springs (we are starting to see some War Weariness) and another in a little fishing camp on the east coast (it is not connected to the network yet)
There are spare settlers hanging out in various towns in the south and one doing a "go-to" shuffle to Bedeville. Add her into the town and cut a couple of turns off the Trading Post.
There is a lot of marching between home and Sparta. Used cavalry to keep the roads open and leapfrogged down the jungle trails with cannon and muskets
The crux of the problem is simple. There are two large, wealthy and scientific nations that are good friends with a large, wealthy and expansionist nation. Between the three of them they are hoovering all the money in the world into their coffers, and making sweetheart deals among themselves. They are effectively sharing research costs by each researching a different line of science, then swapping among themselves. There do not appear to be any niches where we can get into this game, currently, though this may change when we enter the IA as the other nations usually go for the government techs
That generally means we can pick up the knowledge on the bottom branches, though with the unholy trinity in bed with each other even that may not work.
So we need to drive a wedge between them. it is more than past time to foment a little action overseas. The ideal matchup would be Zulu and America against Persia. And we support the Zulu exclusively. Locally we let all deals run out while we pile troops on the borders of Greece and Egypt. Then take out the Grecian cities on the NW peninsula, then the Egyptian towns to our south.
The only problem with this plan is that we have lots of time left on RoP's and trade deals. Let the alliances and other agreements die a natural death then we can evaluate who deserves our support and who deserves to be crushed. The alliance with Cleo is over in a couple of turns, I am not inclined to renew it in order to preserve our flexibility. Keep up the pressure on Hammi by recapturing the Greeks towns and that should keep him occupied in the south and we won't see any red coat dragoons north of Egypt. Shuffle the troops in through the Greek jungles by leapfrogging down the Ho Chi Minh trail using escorting cavalry to keep the roads clear, or by coming in from the west through Corinth.
There is a riot in Clever Springs (we are starting to see some War Weariness) and another in a little fishing camp on the east coast (it is not connected to the network yet)
There are spare settlers hanging out in various towns in the south and one doing a "go-to" shuffle to Bedeville. Add her into the town and cut a couple of turns off the Trading Post.
gmaharriet
Ancient Crone
*whispers* "Got it." Yikes! I've looked at the save file.
I have a gazillion questions, but not sure what to ask in some cases. You had mentioned gifting Sparta back to the Greeks earlier, but now it looks like you want to keep it, right? It's a very high flip risk to the Greeks, and we have no gold for rushing culture or anything else there. If we continue to take previously Greek cities (only one I can see is Thermopolae) from the Babs, I don't think we'd have much military to retake Sparta (or do we even want to?). It would sure be nice to hang onto those dyes though.
Thermopolae is large. Do we have enough forces? Also, once our ROP with Egypt expires in 2 turns, it's going to be harder to get reinforcements down there. Do we just build up troops in Sparta until we have enough for Thermopolae or start with what we've got? I don't recall how long our ROP with Greece has to run, but won't we be trapped in the south when it runs out? We're a long way from home.
Also, if we're building up troops along our current southern border to fight either Egypt or Greece, what do we send farther south and what stays near home? I don't have much experience at wars planning.
The one settler will be joined to Bedeville, but should we try to find a place to sqeeze the other 2 now? or just keep them waiting for a future war with Greece or Egypt?
How do we drive a wedge between the civs on the other continent?
If we are going to research the lower half of the tech tree, I'd like to go for steam power. Our GA will have just ended at that point, and I feel a conflict because our income will drop. We will likely need more gpt AND more beakers. Do we change our current farmer tax collectors to scientists? or are they more valuable collecting gold to pay for research?
I'm sure your answers will generate more questions from me, but I guess that's it for now.
I have a gazillion questions, but not sure what to ask in some cases. You had mentioned gifting Sparta back to the Greeks earlier, but now it looks like you want to keep it, right? It's a very high flip risk to the Greeks, and we have no gold for rushing culture or anything else there. If we continue to take previously Greek cities (only one I can see is Thermopolae) from the Babs, I don't think we'd have much military to retake Sparta (or do we even want to?). It would sure be nice to hang onto those dyes though.
Thermopolae is large. Do we have enough forces? Also, once our ROP with Egypt expires in 2 turns, it's going to be harder to get reinforcements down there. Do we just build up troops in Sparta until we have enough for Thermopolae or start with what we've got? I don't recall how long our ROP with Greece has to run, but won't we be trapped in the south when it runs out? We're a long way from home.
Also, if we're building up troops along our current southern border to fight either Egypt or Greece, what do we send farther south and what stays near home? I don't have much experience at wars planning.
The one settler will be joined to Bedeville, but should we try to find a place to sqeeze the other 2 now? or just keep them waiting for a future war with Greece or Egypt?
How do we drive a wedge between the civs on the other continent?
If we are going to research the lower half of the tech tree, I'd like to go for steam power. Our GA will have just ended at that point, and I feel a conflict because our income will drop. We will likely need more gpt AND more beakers. Do we change our current farmer tax collectors to scientists? or are they more valuable collecting gold to pay for research?
I'm sure your answers will generate more questions from me, but I guess that's it for now.
I'm no master, I just like this element of Civ 3 the best.Bede said:
I just checked the options. Bede will post them shortly.
Hoping for correction if I'm wrong, but I don't see how it ever makes more sense to use taxmen to finanace research. Since scientists make three beakers each and taxmen only make two gold, that's always a losing proposition. And I don't see how we would ever skip Steam Power, regardless of our overall tech strategy in the IA. It's just too powerful both for the movement advantage and the bonus to tile development.gmaharriet said: