Willem V Oranje (EC) - A domination / conquest goal!!!

[Gumbolt]

We'll go ahead and vote for the next 2 days. Remember we are trying for a conquest/domination win but we will still need an economy to do this. What is best going forward is your decision.

Please remember to give reasons for your votes and vote for 3 saves. Remember you cannot vote for your own save!

1st = 3pts
2nd =2pts
3rd = 1pts.

The following saves were submitted.

Gumbolt

Thwump

Greenshift84 is a shadow- Please don't vote for this.

CBPE

Jaybone

Lymond

pnp dredd

Norvin Green


Voting will close when either most people have voted or close of voting on Monday 15th March 6pm (GMT). If we need an extra day to examine/discuss saves please let me know.

 

[Jaybone]

1st: Gumbolt- already has put into place what I would see the endgame being. Take out Egypt, use the foothold to take the HRE lands, then start vassalizing people in overseas war after astronomy comes around.

2nd: Lymond- good tech path and economy, not a lot of military units but can be built up

3rd: Norvin Green- GLH + colossus, only one

Interestingly, while GUmbolt has the best save right now, I think several saves will be better in 20-30 turns since they have yet to attack egypt and are going to get some serious loot from ram's wonderspamming. A lot of us are at the same point with similar saves, the decision is really race for liberalism or go to war (split 50/50 right now). I favor war at this point, especially with a juicy thebes around.

 

[Gumbolt]

1st: Gumbolt- already has put into place what I would see the endgame being. Take out Egypt, use the foothold to take the HRE lands, then start vassalizing people in overseas war after astronomy comes around.

2nd: Lymond- good tech path and economy, not a lot of military units but can be built up

3rd: Norvin Green- GLH + colossus, only one

Interestingly, while GUmbolt has the best save right now, I think several saves will be better in 20-30 turns since they have yet to attack egypt and are going to get some serious loot from ram's wonderspamming. A lot of us are at the same point with similar saves, the decision is really race for liberalism or go to war (split 50/50 right now). I favor war at this point, especially with a juicy thebes around.

It's certainly going to be interesting going forward. The Egyptian land is clearly better than ours. The question is do we wait for a rifles/cannon stage for a late game war. Go in with Mace? I obviously chose axe and catapults.

Did the Egyptians build the GLH in all saves where it wasn't chopped? I know some people chopped it out. In terms of my save I would probably try for infrastructure now. The Egptian capital is a great production base. HE assumed. I was torn if moving the capital was a good idea.

The dangers ahead will be Nappy and Shaka late game albeit I have not met Shaka. Horrible war mongers with high unit probability. HRE is certainly not my best friend now either. (Pleased maybe.) We do have a strong UU lets not forget!!

Can Ai plan wars if you have not met them???

 

[GreenShift84]

For those thinking of a cannon war, remember we don't have iron available on our island. It should be available for trade, though at a steep price.

 

[SilentConfusion]

I did not play this last set so this is not a vote, but I intend to play the next set so I thought I'd say hi to everyone and voice my opinions on the saves.

Thwump's save is the best in my opinion. He has not attacked Ram, but he has settled our available land well with 7 well-placed cities that really take the most advantage of the available land. They're not as good as Ram's cities, but I like the placement of them more than most of the saves. Thwump also has the best tech-rate, close to finishing Education. Even though he hasn't attacked Ram, in this save Thebes is not well defended and Ram doesn't have Feud so he doesn't have longbows as he does in some saves. If a war were dialed up in this one Ram might lose a few cities quickly. If a few of Ram's cities can be taken in short order this save would be the best in my opinion. If not then Gumbolt's save is clearly superior.

In Gumbolt's save it is obviously nice that he has already taken some nice cities from Ram. Since his land is better than ours and now he is no longer an obstacle this is better than just developing our piece of tundra. His tech rate is pretty good too. I would have liked to see an academy, but that's forgivable because of the nice new Egyptian cities. This one will likely garner a lot of votes, and deservedly so. Won't be surprised if this one beats out Thwump's, but if I had a vote I'd vote this one second.

pnp_dread's and Norvin Green's saves are the next best in my opinion.

pnp_dread's tech rate is low, but the very nice thing about it is that he already has the makings of a mace+cat army with galleys. Ram does have Feud and some Longbows, but an adequate army is not far away and then Ram is toast. pnp is the closest to taking Ram out of the non-Gumbolt saves. Also pnp didn't get the GLH, but both the GLH and the Colossus are in Thebes and soon to be captured.

Norvin Green has built the GLH and the Colossus and has already circumnavigated with a decent tech rate, but no military and Ram already has Feud. This save is pretty good, but I think Ram won't fall as quickly in this one. Delaying war is not always a bad thing, but in this case with his land being so much better than ours I would rather it be sooner.

 

[Norvin_Green]

1st place - thwump - teching well, aided by some cities building wealth, but will certainly win Lib with a GS due in a few turns. Downside is BK is in war mode and we don't know Shaka or Nappy.

2nd - Gumbolt - already started the process of taking over the world. Some of the other saves the diplo situation is better because BK and Ram don't share a religion.

3rd - lymond - tough call over pnp, just like the tech rate here better, defenses are low and Shaka & Napster are WHEOOHRN. We could be toast.

 

[Gumbolt]

I did not play this last set so this is not a vote, but I intend to play the next set so I thought I'd say hi to everyone and voice my opinions on the saves.

Thwump's save is the best in my opinion. He has not attacked Ram, but he has settled our available land well with 7 well-placed cities that really take the most advantage of the available land. They're not as good as Ram's cities, but I like the placement of them more than most of the saves. Thwump also has the best tech-rate, close to finishing Education. Even though he hasn't attacked Ram, in this save Thebes is not well defended and Ram doesn't have Feud so he doesn't have longbows as he does in some saves. If a war were dialed up in this one Ram might lose a few cities quickly. If a few of Ram's cities can be taken in short order this save would be the best in my opinion. If not then Gumbolt's save is clearly superior.

In Gumbolt's save it is obviously nice that he has already taken some nice cities from Ram. Since his land is better than ours and now he is no longer an obstacle this is better than just developing our piece of tundra. His tech rate is pretty good too. I would have liked to see an academy, but that's forgivable because of the nice new Egyptian cities. This one will likely garner a lot of votes, and deservedly so. Won't be surprised if this one beats out Thwump's, but if I had a vote I'd vote this one second.

pnp_dread's and Norvin Green's saves are the next best in my opinion.

pnp_dread's tech rate is low, but the very nice thing about it is that he already has the makings of a mace+cat army with galleys. Ram does have Feud and some Longbows, but an adequate army is not far away and then Ram is toast. pnp is the closest to taking Ram out of the non-Gumbolt saves. Also pnp didn't get the GLH, but both the GLH and the Colossus are in Thebes and soon to be captured.

Norvin Green has built the GLH and the Colossus and has already circumnavigated with a decent tech rate, but no military and Ram already has Feud. This save is pretty good, but I think Ram won't fall as quickly in this one. Delaying war is not always a bad thing, but in this case with his land being so much better than ours I would rather it be sooner.

The issue we may face is if Rammy becomes HRE vassel how long will the war last till his stack arrives at our doorstep. In terms of feudalism you will find the minute Rammy or HRE tech this most units will upgrade a turn later. With cats and mace it should be easy enough. I really didn't bother with our land as it was so poor. It will be good to have a new player next round. I think this should play out into a interesting game really.

I am a bit behind on Thwump tech rate. I could really use a GS. I used my only GP on trade trade route. Hence 900 in the coffers. I am more on par with Persians though. Perhaps I could exploit GP later on. In terms of the 2-3 unsettled cities they can be laid/ captured later on.

 

[thwump]

i'll try to look at the other saves in more detail tonight after work so I can vote.

A note on my save that maybe comes from bug or bull interface but I don't know how you would know otherwise. so perhaps actual spoilers (although I'd appreciate if someone could explain this):

Spoiler :

If I mouse over HRE in the diplo glance screen grid (in one of the grids not the portraits on the top or side), then it lists war with shaka. Since I hadn't been able to get a boat succesfully over to meet nappy and shaka I don't know how I would normally know this.

So the fist might mean that he IS at war not that he is preparing.

 

[Gumbolt]

i'll try to look at the other saves in more detail tonight after work so I can vote.

A note on my save that maybe comes from bug or bull interface but I don't know how you would know otherwise. so perhaps actual spoilers (although I'd appreciate if someone could explain this):

Spoiler :

If I mouse over HRE in the diplo glance screen grid (in one of the grids not the portraits on the top or side), then it lists war with shaka. Since I hadn't been able to get a boat succesfully over to meet nappy and shaka I don't know how I would normally know this.

So the fist might mean that he IS at war not that he is preparing.

Hardly spoiler worthy. I think most use bug mode. As for Shaka being at war that is hardly shocking. I bet no actual units landed though. If they did it would be a galley/2 with maybe 4 units landing. The Ai is rubbish at naval wars. Unless you get Alex with 17-18 cities spamming galleons/cavaels and with a stack of units.

 

[lymond]

I think Kossin pointed out in his series that an older bug has resurfaced in BUG 4.3 that reveals info about unmet civs. You may notice in cases that when hovering over a leader you will see a worst enemy that you haven't met.

 

[Gumbolt]

It's clear within next hour we will not have close to 50% of the votes. Lets give this a few more hours or till Tuesday and make a decision by then. This needs to be a group decision.

 

[Jaybone]

It's clear within next hour we will not have close to 50% of the votes. Lets give this a few more hours or till Tuesday and make a decision by then. This needs to be a group decision.

Sounds good. I think all the saves are relatively strong and we are going to start rolling the computer pretty soon.

 

[CBPE]

I think I'll have the time to look at the saves deeply this night (italian GMT)

 

[CBPE]

1st - Gumbolt: ... just can't wait to enjoy all of those juicy egyptian cities!!!

2nd - thwump: 7 very well placed cities (in my eye the best way to colonize our poor piece of tundra), it's still possible to settle the whale/fur city and one 1 SE from the sheeps. GREAT tech rate. It's a pity that the exploration was so poor.... was so expensive to build some more galley?!?

3rd - Lymond: 7 cities, very good tech rate, good diplo situation. I'd researched CS before Astro

 

[lymond]

1st place - Gumbolt

Simply heading in the right direction already. Impressive teching while gobbling up some Egyptian land

2nd - Thwump

Good tech and expansion. Poor scouting. We're setup for some renaissance beatdown with this one

3rd - PNP

The escalation begins....

 

[thwump]

Ok got my votes done. Sorry didn't realize what time today the deadline was. I didn't get home from work till ~8 CET.

1. gumbolt. The early war looks like it worked out better than I would've thought. Too bad there wasn't already a shrine in the holy city you took. Tech isn't so far behind and should be able to expand pretty well and prepare to take the rest of that continent later.

2. norvin green. the wonders are nice and the tech rate is pretty good. there's still room to expand as well.

3. lymond. I don't really agree with the city placement but the tech race to astro is an interesting choice. Not sure about the diplo situation but the good news is most other civs seem more likely to fight each other (or if they do fight us should be able to handle them since they need navy).

 

[lymond]

I think Gumbolt is a Brit, so earlier the better

 

[Gumbolt]

My votes are Thwumps 1st - Strong tech overall.
Lymond 2nd - Strong overall save. Astronomy gambit interesting.
NG 3rd - Collosus + GLH is nice


Gumbolt 14
Thwump 10
Lymond 7
Norvin green 4
PNP 1

As PNP vote won't change the vote we will move onto the next round declaring me (Gumbolt) the British winner. I would like to thank other nations taking part! Okay time to move on. I will post the usual post in a bit announcing the next round.

 

[Gumbolt]

The next round will be played over the next 4-5 days with voting over Saturday-Monday. (This may change on time needs)

The round will finish Saturday 1800hr GMT.

The next round will be played from 400ad-1100ad. Lets get playing people.

Congratulations to me (Gumbolt) who has won this round.

Here is the winning save to be used for the next round:
Gumbolt's save

Please ensure when you post save you rename save with your name.

Round 0: The starting save -
Round 1: 4000 BC - 1500 BC- Completed
Round 2: 1500 BC - 400 AD- Completed
Round 3: 400 AD - 1100 AD- Playing
Round 4: 1100 AD - 1500 AD - upcoming
Round 5: 1500 AD - 1700 AD - upcoming
Round 6: 1700 AD - 1820 AD - upcoming
Round 7: 1820 AD - 2050 AD - upcoming

 

[pnp_dredd]

apologies for not getting my voting in on time. It's likely that I would have voted for Gumbolt's save - it's past time to begin our attack!