TGOM 02 - The Grumpy Old Monk and the Ancient Crone go to Alpha Centauri

@scoutsout - I'm delighted to meet you after having followed your great posts in GK02 and Clive1. Glad to see you're back! :)

Only played the first 2 turns and it's time to evaluate our income, research and what to do with our specialists, not to mention the upcoming battle for Eridu.

Turnlog: Preturn - 850ad - Move settler in Caughnawaka to south for settling. worker move. Press enter.

IT - Bab musket moves next to Sparta. Salamanca cavalry -> cavalry, Smelly cavalry -> cavalry, Niagra Falls harbor -> cannon (because I don't know what to do with it. can be changed later.) Kawauka harbor -> cannon for the same reason. Greeks start Shakespeare's.

1. 860ad - send military south and one cannon escorted by cav can't move due to greek unit in the road. Move cannon into Sparta redlining Bab musket and finish him off with cav. Move several units and 1 cannon S, but leave LB, musket and 4 cavs to guard the other cannon in Sparta. Found Waystation -> worker. worker moves. Move galley near Abydos, but outside border, to watch what's they're doing after ROP expires. Join settler to Bedeville, reducing Smith's from 11 to 9. Magnetism next turn, but cannot lower research. Currently 219 in kitty and earning +203.

IT - Our military S of Athens attacked by Bab cav who retreats. Change of Age and select Steam Power in 6 at 90%, but end of GA will likely reduce that next turn. HB cav -> cav, Eotin Bay cav -> cav. Babs and Persia are up Nationalism, Medicine and Music Theory. Abe has only Music and Hammi has almost all the money at 144g.

2. 870ad - Larsa unhappy, so change taxman to clown to make the other citizen content. Kill Bab cav with our elite cav, but no leader and a couple of hit points lost, so send him back to Sparta to heal. Garrison heads S within 2 tiles of Eridu. various worker moves, including moving a musket and 3 slaves out of Egyptian territory. Send units south. We've not received a notice that our GA has ended, but with Steam Power still in 6, we have 424g and -87g. A check of F4 shows that our ROP with Cleo has expired.

Most recent Mapstat trade screen
870ad_trade_screen.jpg

Our southern front
870ad_SoFront.jpg

Near Uridu there are 6 cannon, 8 cavs, 1 musket. S/W of Sparta are 2 cavs, including 1 wounded elite. Inside Sparta are 1 LB, a wounded musket, 2cavs. At various points en route (shown in above pic) are 3 cavs, 2 cannon, 1 musket.

Have discovered I cannot spell in turnlogs, but have made all 20 or so corrections...I think. :rolleyes:

Edited to add the save.
 
lurker's comment: wow!X-man and Hammi have reallly taken the tech lead, well, mostly because of Nationalism...ouch, who doesent hate Rifles?:mad: , why are Greece and Egypt so backwards?war?jungle?
 
Rik Meleet said:
I'm no master, I just like this element of Civ 3 the best.
I just checked the options. Bede will post them shortly.

Rik was kind enough not to include my grade for this trading round but after looking at his results and comparing them to mine I wouldn't give my outcome more than an "Adequate".

Spoiler Here is Rik's sequence :


I really encourage everyone to open the game at that point and walk through the steps; it will give you a real good feel for the process and you may begin to discern the reasoning and intuition):

T1 with Americans:
Contact Babylon <-> Contact Spain + Printing Press + 1 gold

T2 (possible with Zulu and Persia, but Chose Persia as they are weaker
in Power):
Contact Persia + Printing Press <-> Chiv + Invention + 8 gold.

Gunpowder is known to Greece + Babylon + Persia + America + Zululand.
Babylon is the best trading partner now as they are the only nation we
have a tech up on.

T3 with Babylon.
Gunpowder <-> Contact with Zulu + Persia + Spain + 62 gold.

Chemistry is at monopoly with Babylon. This would be a great thing to
buy, as it will drain the treasury of all when sold. Turning lux to 0%
+ offering the only silks nearly gets it. First get some cash from
Egypt.

T4 with Egypt
Invention <-> 2 gpt + 16 gold + worker.

As America is completely bankrupt already;
T5 with Egypt:
Contact America <-> 2 gpt.

Now America + Egypt (and also Greece) are bankrupt, so I use them in
contact trades.

T6 with Zulu:
Contact Greeks + Contact Egypt <-> 9 gpt + 16 gold.

T7 with Persia:
Contact Egypt <-> 2 gpt + 16 gold.

Babylon doesn't want to sell Chemistry if we offer the world for it.
And noone has gold any more, so we stop trading. We still can sell
techs to Spain + Egypt and contacts to Greece + Egypt + Spain +
America, but since they are all broke I don't. We won't loose anything
if they get it in the IBT, but if they don't we can still make a buck
out of it.


Endresult (after turning the lux slider back from 0% to 10%) :
Bede: 116 gold, +125 gpt. Has no Chivalry
Rik: 53 gold, +143 gpt. Has Chivalry.

Lesson: Get techs. Pay for them with contacts or other techs. Contacts
are "pocket money" and used as such, not a goal in itself.




And a big howdy and salute to the lurking scoutsout. If you want to know how to fight a war there are four people to talk to: Charis (who has been known to destroy an opponent with a single horseman), Sirian (who knows more about the way the opponent thinks than anyone), Sir Bugsy (who is a careful and thoughtful strategist and tactician) and scoutsout (who is a most accomplished campaign planner and tactical genius).
 
@Ansar - Note that the Babs and Persia have Nationalism and Medicine but not Steam and Babylon has all the money. I would guess that Babs got Nationalism as their bonus tech on the age change and Persia got Medicine. Next thing you know these guys trade one for the other.

Greece especially got hampered by terrain. I'm not so sure about Egpyt.

@GmH, if you see this jump on MSN and let's chat, then we can post the trasncript for the team
 
lurker's comment: Your GA has just ended (but not yet reported), right? Make sure no cities riot due to the last turn bug (the game doesn't tell you your new income, so some cities will spend less on luxuries than reported). A quick look in Civassist II (nice to not have to scroll through every city now) shows Salamanca would riot, for example.
 
C3CFanatic0014 said:
:confused: - Where may I find such masters? I would talk with them before seeing if there are any Training Games open.

:confused: - Wouldn't those numbers state that Rik did better? after all, a higher GPT, an extra advance... sounds good, IMHO.

:goodjob: - Nice tech denial for Greece and Egypt!
b

Do a Forum search for SG's that include posts by any one of those guys. That's the best way.

And yes Rik did way better
 
This isn't monarch, this is emporer, but I'm still not totally sure how the tech hole happened so quickly. Greece still exists because we went after hammi and used greece as one of the meatshields.
 
Own said:
Even on emperor this is a mystery.
There were two main early game factors. First, we started far inland and didn't make inter-continental contacts until later than usual. Second, we've got three scientific rivals, and the Babs got a particularly nice start (check out Babylon and Ashur). And the fact that Greece got stuck in a jungle only gave the Babs more room to grow. But I agree that the tech position is worse than I like to see at this point.

Oh well, the game is still easily winnable.
Absolutely. We have the land and we have the military strength.
 
Let's get one thing straight: THERE IS NO TECH HOLE.

We are at the beginning of the Industrial Age and the only nations with useful IA techs are the scientific ones who got them as their bonuses. We have a good shot at getting Steam, Industrialization and then SciMeth and ToE and its goodies.

It is 870AD and we are on our way to space and I project an 18th or 19th century launch date, if not sooner, though 1350 is probably impossible.

And the technology drag, if there is one, is my fault because I delayed the revolt to Republic.
 
I don't really agree with where we're headed right now. The early IA is not a great time to fight a war, especially when we have no hope of holding on to any important resources and are far away from being able to raze core Babylonian cities. Yes, we're behind in tech but at least now we're down to two competent scientific rivals instead of the three we had at the AA/MA transition. The AI's will undoubtedly spend their energy researching Communism and Fascism before going deep in the IA tree. During that time we can beeline to RP, set up a rail network, and work on our infrastructure. We need granaries in many towns, at least one worker pump (Clever Springs can be a 11-12pop 1 turn pump once we have rails), and more unis than what we've got right now if we want to keep up in research. Once we have artillery (we have a good start on this already) we can roll over the rest of our continent if we feel the need to. The AI is terrible at fighting wars after the early IA - that's the time to make a move, not when we're throwing cavs against rifles via a road network.

As for the other continent, screw `em - Persia only looks strong because he picked up his bonus tech and traded it, but he mortgaged most of his economy in order to make the trade. Pull at least one of the luxes out from him when that deal expires and make sure the Zulu get Nationalism as soon as possible. The Zulu already have a stronger military than either America or Persia, and are positioned right between both of them. If Shaka manages to figure out which end of a rifle you point at somebody, he will almost certainly start a dreadfully inefficient slugfest where the AI's throw endless streams of rifles against each other's heavily fortified citied, dragging the whole continent into Fascism and economic stagnation. By the time they come out of it, we might be ready to take better advantage of tech brokering.
 
Bede said:
And the technology drag, if there is one, is my fault because I delayed the revolt to Republic.
I don't think the revolt timing was a problem from what I remember. We had a ton of small cities after spreading out over such a large area and a horde of angry barb defense troopers looking for paychecks - switching earlier would have destroyed us on unit support. It would've been a nice time to be Religious and run with a Monarchy or even a Feudalism for a while...
 
Here's an interim report after turn 4.

Just before our GA ended our gold dropped drastically. Bede and I had an IM conversation and he told me how to balance the specialists to get Steam in 6 at 80% sci and ~-54 (or was it -34?) per turn. Anyway, during the IT we were notified that our GA had ended, and then the beakers dropped also, leaving us at ~-54 and Steam in 7. I had to go back and look at the previous turn to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me that it HAD been down to 6 turns. (very time-consuming!!!)

Anyway, at the end of turn 4 we have just burned Eridu after losing a couple of cavs, and the rest are left with either 1 or 2 hit points, and there is a Bab cav on one side of the stack and a crusader (I think) on the other side. I'm too tired to hit enter and find out if we're going to live through the counter attack. It's almost 1:30 am and I must go to sleep. Next installment will be tomorrow night.

Edit to add save for anyone who's interested.
 
@Harriet,

Took a look at the map and diplo and I would say Hammi is ripe for the plucking. Before pressing enter pillage the 'peter with a cav then end the alliance and the RoP with Cleo and take a pile of gold from Hammi, including all the gpt you can squeeze (and his maps), for a peace treaty. Give Sparta back to the Greeks and try and buy his dyes, then move the troopers to the north to waystation, and crush Cleo. She has lost everything but the three cities in the north and is ripe for the plcking and her industrious workers have done a wonderful job of improving the terrain. You should be able to keep the cities as the war won't last long before she calls for her asp.

Use the troops at The Sticks to finsih the Cleo job. Hit her hard and fast. Don;t forget about her little burg in the northern mountains. and she may have troopers wandering around.
 
Will do tonight. May even need nap first. Not very awake this morning. :p

Attack Cleo on next turn? I haven't checked our troop locations near her or even her city locations. I want to be sure I have our stack together to hit hard enough. I found out the hard way last night that I couldn't leave much military in Sparta while attacking Eridu, and I think even the salt pillager will have to come from Sparta, as the stack troops have no attack or pillage power left.
 
Also, you probably better make sure we have no units of any kind in her borders before declaring unless you want to blow our rep.
 
@harriet: A pleasure to meet you and your compadres as well. It appears you did some good MM'ing after the GA ended. I'm reminded of a certain insane variant Bede hosted at Demi-God level in which we all did some seemingly impossible research with careful attention to micromanagement. (All I managed to do was torch the Great Lighthouse...)

@Bede: I appreciate the compliment - that was... I'm not sure I quite deserve to be placed in the same paragraph (let alone the company) of the likes of Sirian or Charis... but since Bugs and I have enjoyed a few slugfests together I know I'm good with him. :D I need to surf some more of that 'Magnificent 7' game... what a CREW!

@Team: You are doing some interesting maneuvering here. I like it. :thumbsup:
 
cleverrhandle has the mid term strategy right. Once we get Steam we can look at the worker situation. Pull a bunch out of the corrupt towns and use them them to build the milnet while the old standbys concentrate on the core cities. Luckily we don't have to run a milnet the length of the continent as we have a nice compact front against our bigest rival and cav can reach pretty much anywhere else in time to be of some use against any landings.

@gmH, take another look at F1 before hitting enter. You can recover the two turns lost on Steam with a little MM. Don't worry about the deficit, as the beaker overrun should take care of it.
 
Back
Top Bottom