Try1 - The Newbies!

[LordKoros]

There are two cities that are left out though, Ephesus and Mycenae, which are NW from Corinth. Both of these cities have a large amount of plantation resources, making them worth keeping them if taken, if not for the commerce, then so another AI civ doesn't move into the space left by a razed city.
Shouldn't we switch to bureaucracy? It would cost a little more in upkeep, but the boost we get the capital in and would be worth it.

Mitchifer - I forgot to comment on these items in my earlier post. I did leave those two cities off my battle plan on purpose. Since neither city has any production value (lots and lots of commerce with all that sugar and dyes) I think we should bypass them on our first attack wave. Both cities are deep in the jungle so let's let Pericles do all the hard work of chopping down the rain forests. Down the road, we can take him out at our leasure once we have eliminated his production cities of athens and sparta. Heck, we may get Pericles to become a vassal state and use him as a buffer zone while we rebuild our economy.

I second the switch to bureaucracy. My guess is that CS was discovered while we were still recovering from the anarchy when we switched to OR.

Also, one more suggestion to whoever is up next. Before we sell off our Great Merchant for a pile of gold, you might consider whether or not we should us him to bulb the Printing Press. We are two turns from getting Paper and I am pretty sure that the next tech on the GM list is printing press. PP gives us +1gp for all our villages and towns and bulbing it would shave off 20+ turns of research which we weren't going to do until after engineering and/or guilds. The trade off of course is that we'd improve our economy going forward at the expense of upgrading our military units for the war. But at a cost of 180g/axeman to maceman, we probably weren't going to convert that many anyway. Just a thought...

 

[Trynthlas]

Unfortunately I think the number of villages/towns we have is fairly small, so the benefit from bulbing PP would be minimal (not counting the skipped research obviously).

As far as upgrading, I only see 2 swords and 2 axes that would cost us money and be worth upgrading (the GG upgrades free). That's a grand total of 668 gold - Unfortunately I would also like to continue funding deficit research, which means we're still short. It's too bad none of the AI's have a big pile of gold (200+) that we could sell them a tech for, because that would save the need to use the GM on a trade mission.

Overall it may be a toss-up...I'm going to warmonger a bit and say that we want the gold to upgrade the 4 units and fund continued deficit research, and then to support our troops (supply costs) when the war begins.
edit: Of course, if the group disagrees then I'll go with the group

 

[endymion]

arrggggg i was almost finished writing the report en playing the game when my pc screen went black my dad didnt now i was home and was fixen some electricity thingie and het cut the power of so now i lost the save and the report. and worse i wont be able to play again until tommorow evening so if thats ok with u guys i will replay my turns then. I will have to replay almost everything hope u guys are ok with that the report will come tommorow around this time

 

[Trynthlas]

Are you sure you lost the save? It should have written to disk when you saved the game.

Either way you're fine - replay the turns if you need to. I'm about to post the city-specialization pics I made, inspired by Koros' post earlier

 

[Trynthlas]

Obviously these are pre-biology farm setups, and we can easily replace some farms needed now with other improvements once biology comes in. Here's our empire...

Paris:

Spoiler :

A hybrid city (production/commerce), Paris is going to be a major science center for us, but will still have plenty of hammers to churn out buildings and units when we want. It will eventually be one of our largest cities and will be able to work every tile in the BFC if we choose (or we can run some specialists). Paris needs some attention from workers to get it configured optimally.

Orleans:

Spoiler :

Orleans is a commerce city, no question. Science or gold, either way - it has enough hammers to build what it needs, and will eventually be able to work 19 of the 20 tiles in the BFC (skipping the desert). However that is a ways off, and the city has plenty of tiles to work as it is now, so it doesn't need attention.

Lyons:

Spoiler :

Hammers? Yes, please. Say hello to our top production city. Plan on building the Ironworks here, and once we get levees, WOW! It needs some attention from workers, but this will be a major factory.
note: I left the plains farm, useless as it is, because there is no point in changing it until post-biology and in any case we won't be working that tile for some time.

Nidaros:

Spoiler :

This is our GP farm. Lots and lots and lots of food - the only reason it isn't working more specialists right now is that we don't want to pollute the GP pool with other types of points. No reason to change anything about this city, and we can build the national preserve here later.

Uppsala:

Spoiler :

Not really the most inspiring city in the world, but it will produce a decent amount of commerce and has enough hammers to build what it needs. The image shows what needs to be built, and where.

Persepolis:

Spoiler :

This city is kind of a pain in the arse - I would strongly consider swapping the plains cow tile to here from Mitch's Folly. That would free up another one of the tiles I have marked as a farm for a cottage, so we could get another tile that is doing something besides making just food. Pic shows what I think we should do with it - just sub one of the non-river grassland farms for a cottage if we swap the cows.

Rheims:

Spoiler :

Another hybrid here - it has some really good production, and with the two silver mines has a good amount of commerce as well. Downside is that it needs a lot of farms pre-biology to work all tiles...pic shows 'em. Thanks to the amount of production, it's a likely site for the military wonders (Heroic Epic and West Point)

Mitch's Folly:

Spoiler :

Hybrid just due to the fact that there's a lot of water tiles, but this is really a production center thanks to the Maoi statues (that we need to build). Also a likely site (though farther from the front lines than I would like) for the Heroic epic and west point thanks to its settled military instructor. Alternative for those is Rheims.

Ligurgian:

Spoiler :

Pretty much a vanilla commerce city, has just enough hammers to not make it reliant on slavery or rush-buy for buildings. Lumbermills on the tundra forests because that's the only thing that can really be built there.

Tours:

Spoiler :

Almost a pure commerce city, weak production - basically enough to get things started and then finish them off with whipping/rush-buy. Lots of cottages to be built, plus the silk plantations will make this a great commerce city.

 

[Mitchifer]

Try looking at your auto-saves - your latest save might be in there so you don't have to replay your entire turnset.

Also, I'm headed back to work tomorrow, so it looks like you all will need to skip me when my turn rolls around. I'll be back on the 5th.

 

[Darth Meanie]

Nice job on the specializations!

 

[endymion]

an uneventfull set of turns build our empire a bit more.

I started with roading the boarders as said ingame its always nice to have that. I noticed a lot of improvements dont have roads on them do u guys never build them on some cause i always road every improvement.

We completed the great libery(i cheated here a bit cause i whipped it the first time and had a feeling then it wasnt nessecary to whip it so i didnt do it this time and it worked)

I build some more miletary units witch are all converted in our sod

i killed of some barbs and a started reasearching enginering for trebs

I did a trade mission in berlin for 1350 it was the most we could get anywhere

sorry for the short report guys yesterday i wrote a nce long funny one but i really didnt feel like doing it again so here is the save

personally i feel we need to build our empire more before we wage another war cause it could use some more infrastructure.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/77181/Try1_AD-1050.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Trynthlas]

Couple of questions/comments:

- Why did we switch to Serfdom? (I also noticed the switch to bureaucracy, that one is fine, but I think we need to keep slavery)
- on the same note, Nidaros' population is a bit large and the city is now working a merchant specialist, which we don't want! Really trying to get a spy or engineer for our next Great person.
- Paris should build the University of Sankore. Science, science, science - tech lead = easy wars.
- I noticed you dropped the tech rate to 50% to not run a deficit; while this isn't really a bad thing, part of the point of using the Great Merchant to run a trade mission was to allow us to run deficit research much longer, so we should be taking advantage of this and running 60 or 70% research.
- Workers! Not picking on you specifically here, but wow we need a LOT more of them. Next person up should build at least 2-3 workers and get them moving.
- I see we didn't get the Shwedagon Paya, did you try to build it?


I would also tend to agree with your sentiment that we need at least one more round (15 turns) of infrastructure building before we declare on Pericles.

Overall, looks good! Pericles better watch out

 

[Rince]

I noticed a lot of improvements dont have roads on them do u guys never build them on some cause i always road every improvement.

What advantage do you get from building roads on all improvements? Apart from strategic considerations (might need to get units fast there) and intercity connections I only build roads on ressources (duh!) and on those improvements which will give a +1 bonus when upgraded to railroads (i.e. mines and lumbermills).

@Trynthlas:

Your city analysis is really great. That's exactly the kind of thing I know I should be doing in my SP games but never feel motivated or inspired enough.

Here is our Roster:

Roster:
----------
Trynthlas
endymion - just played
Darth Meanie - skip until december 7th
Rince - up next
Mitchifer - skip until december 5th
Carneios - (will be inserted whenever he's able to play)
LordKoros - on deck

I will try to play it in about 12 hours.

Rince

 

[Trynthlas]

I like roads everywhere just because I never know what the quickest route will be, and I want alternate options if one road happens to be blocked - it makes for very very easy defense of territory in the event that an enemy stack gets in. That's my basic reason for liking roads literally everywhere.

On the city analysis, thanks As I said though, it was Koros' idea, I just ran with it And yes, completely agree that it's something I also need to do in SP, but rarely bother with

 

[endymion]

the reason i switched might not have been the best one but its connected with another reason we missed the sweydeon cause of a slave revolt. This really frustrated me and cause we said we would be wipping very spearsly i thougt we would be best to revolt to serfdom for the faster building times.

On the sience slider i thought we wanted to use the gold of the trade mission to upgrade units and not to use it on sience. i personally am in favor of running higher sience but if we want to go to war fast we should use it to upgrade to maces instead.

and a very nice job on the citys a rarely see such a good analyses of what to do with a city

 

[Trynthlas]

Well, Caste System would have been a better choice than Serfdom, although I still disagree with the change. Caste System would allow us to work more Spy or Engineer specialists in Nidaros (avoiding unwanted growth and also avoiding polluting the GP pool any further).

On the sience slider i thought we wanted to use the gold of the trade mission to upgrade units and not to use it on sience. i personally am in favor of running higher sience but if we want to go to war fast we should use it to upgrade to maces instead.

This is true, but as I posted somewhere earlier, it would cost us only a portion of the gold from the trade mission to upgrade all the units that are actually worth upgrading, ie: those with 3 or more promotions.

 

[Rince]

I'm currently playing the game, but I won't be able to finish it tonight. Some more patience please....

 

[Trynthlas]

I'm currently playing the game, but I won't be able to finish it tonight. Some more patience please....

No! You will be whipped for your delinquent leadership of the newbie empire!



















...j/k, take your time

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment: very entertaining read so far. told you I would keep coming back for the pictures...

Maybe let the AI build some wonders and then take them away if you want to finish earlier...

 

[Mitchifer]

Hey y'all, I'm back, and it looks like just in time.

Looks good so far...I'll comment more when I take a more in depth look at it later. One question though, how did you make those city set-ups Trynthlas? I'm not familiar where you get the pluses and minuses.

 

[Trynthlas]

+ and - are for the amount of food that the tile provides if it's being worked. 2 food = neutral (0), and the rest follows from that.

As to the images themselves, I just took screenshots of the city and used an editor (I have GIMP, photoshop or something similar works just as well) to place the text over it in layers after resizing the image (I play in 1280x1024 resolution, which is a bit large to post here, heh )

 

[Rince]

I found a good guide about city specialization here:

City Specialization

Btw, I'm still playing. Unfortunately I didn't have time yesterday but today I'll post my report, promised.

Rince

 

[Rince]

Finally, here is my report. I'm really busy at the moment, so I was only able to play 10 turns:

In the year 1060 AD, the French empire prepared once again for war.
Encouraged by a report indicating that the force of Mehmed II was the
only one to match the french at that moment, the emperor ordered his
troops to move against a natural enemy, the Greek, under the reign of
Pericles.

War preparations were going on for several years. The empire was at
that time still exhausted from the great second war and the constant
attacks from barbarian tribes.

But advances in military technology were seen as a key factor for
winning the upcoming war. The trebuchet, a powerful seige weapon, was
being tested at various sites in the empire, but scienctists reckoned
it would take an additional 50 years until the weapon was ready for
deployment, despite the fact that research in this area was taking up
as much as 70% of the total budget.

In addition to the war efforts, the founding stone for a unique
university center in Paris was set. The initiators hoped to centralize
and accelerate research in the capital.

France was in a unusually good financial situation at that time. This
was mainly due to the massive amounts of money gained from merchants,
such as Leif Erickson who left France in 1070 AD to bring further
wealth to the empire a few decades later.

In 1100 AD, the french engineers working on the trebuchet were finally
ready to announce the development of a working model, ready for field
deployment and serial production. The army quickly adopted the plans
and built several regiments. Another unit type became en vogue: The
pikeman. These units were shown to be very effective in countering
mounted units, including the greek war chariots.

Around 1150, the french empire felt almost ready for war. With 3 regiments of
crossbowmen, 2 regiments of swordsmen, 9 regiments of axemen, 11
regiments of macemen and 10 catapult regiments, the french army felt
confident against an enemy who, according to intelligence, only had 4
macemen regiments, 18 longbowmen regiments and some other small
regiments to defend his cities....

To be continued.

Some other facts:

Science: Engineering -> Theology

Theology was finished at the end of my turnset. I would suggest going for horseback riding and guilds next, for the knights. We should also change civics to Theocracy and Slavery IMHO.

1120: Master Blacksmith quest: build 9 forges
1130: Sitting bull wants us to join them in a war against the germans. We decline.
1150: Sitting bull exchanges world map with us.

I must admit that I forgot to start building the heroic epic. I would suggest Rheims.

I also made 2 unit upgrades, giving us two CR3 macemen.

The great merchant is on the way to Istanbul which should be optimal from a city size/distance point of view (or so I hope).

That's all for now. I would suggest the next player to build a few more units and then declare war.

World map:

Spoiler :

Our stack of death in Uppsala:

Spoiler :

Roster:
----------
Trynthlas
endymion
Darth Meanie - skip until december 7th
Rince - just played
Mitchifer - up next
Carneios - (will be inserted whenever he's able to play)
LordKoros - on deck



Greetings,

Rince