Sorry, we cannot hear you over how enlightened we are (Civ4 BTS succession game) [Archive]

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 10:10 AM

Got it, Murska. Added to the list.

And now it is time for...

The first steps on the path to enlightenment

4000 BC: In the mists of time our ancestors, the first Tibetan people came to rise above their clouded ways to seek enlightenment together. Traveling to the shores of the great sea, they settled down, founding the holy temple city of Lhasa. There they studied the secrets of nature so that they might understand the ways of samsara and bring order to the land, incidentally also finding useful ways of feeding themselves. Some also ventured forth to find their brethren scattered across the land, so that they might return with them and share in the wisdom that was found in Lhasa.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0010.jpg

Turn 1: Founds Lhasa on the spot and begins building a warrior. I also begin studying agriculture on the path to Animal Husbandry, seeing as how we want to be able to work tiles quickly. Our warrior heads off to scout.

3960 BC: A small tribe had been left behind during the journey to the sea was found by the questing warriors of the Tibetan people. Though their means were meager they gave what little wealth they had for the cause of their fellows.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0011-1.jpg

Turn 2: Yeah, got some gold. Not much to say, but this early every event matters so thought i should mention it.

3760 BC: Another group that had been left behind was found. Poor in material wealth, they brought with them the knowledge of the lands they had traveled through, revealing the lands of those less enlightened to both the east and the south.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0012-1.jpg

Turn 6: Only got a map from this hut, but it reveals that we have Mongolians to the south and Brits to the east. This should be interesting. Also we appear to all be quite close together here.

3640 BC: The meditations of the monks have finally born fruit. As the secrets of samsara revealed themselves it became clear how to control the plants of the earth for the benefit of the people so they could rest assured in following the laws of dharma.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0013-1.jpg

This year also brought news from the scouts who had went ahead into the world. They found another people, but instead of a lost tribe of Tibetans they found a people lacking in understanding of the ways of samsara, led by a red-haired woman known as Lizzie.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0014.jpg

In yet another turn of events word came that a people far away has founded a religion they call Buddhism, a strange perversion of the true ways of samsara and the demons. Though it might seem like enlightenment, it is clearly a snare to lure the unwary to stray away from enlightenment.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0015-1.jpg

Turn 9: Yep, three events this turn. First we finish a research project and begin on what we were really after in this path of research. Secondly we meet Lizzie who is as friendly as always, though declaring war would be overkill. Finally Buddhism is founded by...someone.

3560 BC: The scouts sent word back that they had met the people behind this false path to enlightenment. A nasty little man wearing feathers on his head and rambling about sacrificing people was the one behind it, further proving the foulness of this false enlightenment.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0016.jpg

Turn 11: Soooo...we live near both the Mongolians and the Aztecs? Interesting times ahead for what will eventually be a group of peaceniks.

3520 BC: Not willing to let the land go unexplored and more of our brethren be left in the dark, another expedition of Tibetan warriors headed out from Lhasa to search the world.

Turn 12: And the warrior is finished an work begins on the worker who is what we really need. Should get another warrior soon'ish, i guess. We need someone to garrison after all.

3440 BC: The scouts met another leader of an unenlightened people. While this fat man with a suspiciously thin, poorly groomed beard insisted on the friendship between the Tibetans and his people, something about him seemed off and dangerous.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0017-1.jpg

Turn 14: And our natural enemy appears: China! And not the cute, unfortunate, redhaired version, i'm afraid. Also we seem increasingly surrounded, i somehow get the impression that the old world is kind of small.

3200 BC: The same meditations that taught us how to tame the plants of the earth, have also taught us how to control the beasts of the land. Thus our enlightenment shows itself, by attaining harmony with the land, the land becomes one with us.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0018-1.jpg

A small enclave of our people living in the farthest northern reaches of the world taught our scouts the secrets of how they managed to survive in even this barren land. While stalking and killing beasts is out of balance and not something that most people should concern themselves with, it is part of the spiritual meditation of the warrior caste and thus a sacred pursuit even so.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0019-1.jpg

Turn 20: And we have Animal Husbandry. I somewhat wonder if i shouldn't have gone for bronze working first, but that is too late now. Also got Hunting, which is kind of a shame, it is probably the tech that will be of least use to us.

3160 BC: The wild beasts of the north ambush our holy seekers of lost remnants of our people, but strong in their pursuit of their dharma, the warriors stood firm and repelled the beasts.

Less well did it go for the monk who worked with the redhaired woman to the east. In a moment of imbalance he let slip his thoughts on her lack of progress on the path of enlightenment. He has been fasting in penitence ever since.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0020-1.jpg

And another foul perversion of samsara and the laws of dharma has been concocted in the mind of an unenlightened person, inspired by demons. This person turned out to be none other than the very same Lizzie who had been insulted by our monk. His concerns being so clearly founded, he has been absolved of the guilt from his deeds.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0021.jpg

Turn 21: So we kill a wolf, our ambassador screws up and Hinduism is founded. All small events, but events nonetheless.

Turn 24: Our worker is done and begins pasturing the cows. I also cannot find any fun way of saying it, so you just get basic narration like this.

Turn 28: The cows have been pastured and the worker heads on to the pigs.

Status:

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0023-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0025-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0024-1.jpg

So our stats are pretty terrible and the map is kind of inconclusive. Not pictured here is the Mongolians in the south, across the strait, and Montezuma somewhere to the northeast.

And our course from this point on should be obvious. Get Bronze Working and Fishing asap and get some expansion going as quickly as possible. I've actually probably delayed that for too long already. But those should be our primary concerns.

Save (http://www.filefront.com/16505939/Dalai%20Lama%20BC-2800.CivBeyondSwordSave)

xp194

2010-05-21, 10:15 AM

Good thing I got Civ 4 when it was in a sale. Looks fun, I always like playing pacifist/going into SPACE. So sign me up in the queue!

I accept no responsibility for running our country into the ground, so you know...

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 10:20 AM

No worries. As long as you have a fully patched version of BTS you are in. Will always be fun to try and pick up the pieces should you be as bad as you claim. We might want to organize the order so that not all newbies come right after each other though. Would anybody complain if i slot you in between happyturtle and Eldariel?

We might also want to discuss when we close for new interest, to prevent it from just growing and growing. At the latest i would say when it becomes my turn again, but if people have other views let's hear them.

happyturtle

2010-05-21, 10:22 AM

6 people is probably enough. If there are more people interested, I'm sure someone can start another game.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 10:23 AM

That works for me as well. I really just wanted to make sure we had some time we said it was enough. So let's keep it as it is.

xp194

2010-05-21, 10:45 AM

Let me clarify slightly. I'm okayish at the game, I just have a tendency to go towards shiny stuff like wonders and things instead of useful stuff like soldiers and civic buildings. In this playthrough, the military isn't going to matter as much though, so I think I'll be okay...

Are we going to try for a Diplomacy victory or a "Screw you Earth, we're going to the STARS!" victory?

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 10:50 AM

I don't think we have decided yet. And in that case you seem about on par with many of the rest of us. Though Murska goes for soldiers instead of anything else, no matter the context of the situation. :smallbiggrin:

Murska

2010-05-21, 11:13 AM

My plan is to finish a conquest victory before we ever reach Pacifism. :smallbiggrin:

happyturtle

2010-05-21, 11:17 AM

I'm a Prince level player. I think Murska is too, though he denies it. Not sure about the rest of the gang.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 11:32 AM

I mostly only play in these succession games, lacking the patience to come up with any sort of plan for how to win on my own. But i'd imagine that prince is a reasonable level for me. But when we get together we all try our hardest to not let the others down and spend time debating strategy, so we do better than i at least would on my own.

happyturtle

2010-05-21, 11:52 AM

Yeah. If I played as carefully on my own as I do on succession games I would probably do better. But then again, it does help when someone follows after you who has a different skill set and can build up the parts of the empire that you usually overlook.

Succession games in general definitely improved my play. Particularly when Winthur was around.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 12:06 PM

Yeah. I guess we could run to him crying for help should things go too poorly for us. I guess we should get a Winthur signal to call for him, i doubt that just shouting "Tasukete, Winthur!" while flailing our arms is going to help. Especially not if he doesn't know Touhou.

Murska

2010-05-21, 12:44 PM

Oh, Winth will know. :smallbiggrin:

He's a pop-culture expert, not to mention a cursed Porean.

happyturtle

2010-05-21, 09:03 PM

I played through Turn 4, when Bronze Working came in.

That chortling you hear is future WarPeacelord Murska, plotting his axerush metal assisted diplomacy.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t04-copper.png

Potential dot mapping:

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t04-dots.png

White dot is better if we intend to persuade Lizzy to surrender her capital to us.

Purple dot blocks extra copper from China and has flood plains.

Also, I have slotted in fishing for research next. Is that best, or should I go for roads and pottery? Or writing to chop out a library and improve our research that way? Though whipping Llasa is going to make it hard to run specialists.

Three imminent decisions makes me a SleepyTurtle, so I will let people in different time zones chime in with input before I play the rest of the turnset tomorrow.

The barracks in Lhasa is just for one turn to grow to size 4, and then I'll put the settler on.

Save (http://www.filefront.com/16510231/Dalai%20Lama%20BC-2640.CivBeyondSwordSave) if anyone wants to look closer.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 09:09 PM

Can't see the dotmap, you accidentally put the same screenshot up twice. But i'll look in the save.

happyturtle

2010-05-21, 09:15 PM

Fixed now.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-21, 10:58 PM

I see. Looks reasonable enough to me. I would also suggest that we go ahead and do something about England at some point. They are in the way in a way that neither the Mongolians or the Chinese seem to be and i don't really think it would be nice to be forced to sit around on a narrow strip of land to the west of everyone else.

Eldariel

2010-05-22, 04:56 AM

Our Settler is way late. We really needed to cut them off our land to secure early expansion. Ah well, Axes will fix this; we can make Axes in no time and we've got lots of food and whips so we can make a lot of 'em fast. And then we can get Writing and Libraries to get some Specialists going as we aren't looking that hot on Commerce (though the Flood Plains city looks alright). We'll probably want Caste System come time.

As an added bonus, this'll get us some nice resources. But yeah, we really want to secure ourselves at least a 6-city area so we can construct Oxford University, Globe Theater and Wall Street come time. As such, it'll probably involve a hostile takeover of at least one competitor.

But yeah, our capitol is quite perfect. The Flood Plain city seems fine (though we should consider the coastal location for future trade too), and the rest we'll probably have to take from others. Cities without resources aren't too exciting, especially for non-financial leaders.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-22, 09:22 AM

And i must admit to having played on in this for a rather long while. I don't intend to spoil anything about the layout of the map, but one concern that came up is that Montezuma is a raving psychopath out to kill anybody who seems weak. So i propose a change to the pacifist rules we have, letting us have an army but not being allowed to deploy it outside out cultural borders, because otherwise a freak bout of anger from that guy might end all of this for us. And where would the fun in that be?

And if we need more city spots we can always take them from Lizzie, she's right nearby after all. :smallbiggrin:

Murska

2010-05-22, 09:26 AM

Naaaah, we go with the original challenge. After all, where's the challenge if there's no challenge? :smalltongue:

For example, if we have six cities we have all six units be artillery, then we suicide them at the enemy invasion stack and whip/draft six defender units to be placed into the one city the enemy is aiming for. Suicidal units standing on forested hills to block enemy advance. Sending out a two-move unit to destroy enemy roads to slow their stack. Funny stuff. :smallsmile:

happyturtle

2010-05-22, 09:40 AM

And there's also diplomacy... give Monty everything he asks for while bribing him to war in other directions. But that means not adopting a religion until his spreads to us, which might take a while.

Warring on Lizzy seems ideal by way of expansion.

Eldariel

2010-05-22, 09:47 AM

Yeah, we don't need to stop Monty from attacking, we just need to give him enough other targets to hit. And we might just gift his opponent some tech so that Ol' Monty bites more than he can chew. Monty can even declare on Friendly, I think, but he generally hits neighbors first, so we can utilize that. Or we can blitz him after Lizbeth and just raze his entire empire. But the challenge must stay; else, where is the challenge if we only follow it when convenient?

And I vote we go for culture. I mean, c'mon now, what else would Tibet dominate the world with? We could even go for a medieval culture win right after Philosophy if we feel like it; once we get the Cathedrals and Hermitage and so on, it's eminently doable. But let's see that down the road. You generally don't want to decide how you're gonna win until middle ages anyways, since that's when you see what's gonna work best.

happyturtle

2010-05-22, 12:49 PM

The Annals of the Ever So Enlightened reign of Dalai Turtle

T0: In the first year of her reign, Dalai Turtle looked about her enlightened lands and saw that it was not good. In order to spread our wisdom to others, we must take more land. Our first work crew, Speedy 01, is so fast, that I decide we can delay production of Speedy 02 in order to build a settler.

T1: Our warrior Big Stick meets Kublai Khan of Xanadu Mongolia.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t01-kublai-1.png

Walk Softly is surrounded by barbarian animals. He tries to commune with them. The lions walk away in peace, but the wolves attack.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t01-animals-1.png

T4: Bronze Working is discovered, as well as a source of copper nearby. The use of Sharp Metal will surely assist in our diplomacy!

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t04-copper-1.png

T7: Montezuma adopts Slavery. Judaism is founded.

T8: Lizzy adopts Organized Religion. Which means that London is the holy city for two religions and ripe for taking! It also means she's been neglecting non-religious techs, so probably won't be too difficult. Er, I mean, the English are finding new ways to unenlightenment.

The people agree to work night and day, shedding their own blood and laying down their lives willingly to complete our first settler. With enough hammer overflow to finish Speedy 02.

T9: Fishing is discovered. Moving on to the Wheel.

T10: Enemies burn down a forest. I pay the 10 gold to save the hammers.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t10-fire.png

Ohai... it's Lizzy's settling party. Let's hope she picks a nice location for us. :smallwink:

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t10-settler.png

T11: Eeep! There's a lion hanging out right next to purple dot. I won't have enough move for the settler to get to purple dot and settle, so I stop him one space short. Hopefully Walk Softly will prevail!

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t11-lion.png

T12: Walk Softly slays the unenlightened beast! We settle Diplomacy and Lizzy settles York. I send Speedy 02 to Diplomacy to farm and pasture.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t12-diplomacy.png

T19: Our copper is hooked up, barracks finish, and we start on our first axeman.

T20: Oh look, Qin Shi Huang is sending out a settler party. And looks like he has copper. I suggest we stay friendly with him.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t20-settler.png

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t19-culture.png

At this point, Dalai Turtle, weary from her labors, entrusted her duties to Dalai Expy and passed on to her next life.

Save Here (http://www.filefront.com/16515537/Dalai%20Lama%20BC-2000.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Rhydeble

2010-05-22, 01:05 PM

Game2 of the last succession game totally died down so can I join in this time?

Terraoblivion

2010-05-22, 11:19 PM

The Moai Heads city looks good, it will also grab horses for us. So does the white dot city from before though that will only get us rice and wine. Other than that it looks like most of the area will be filled out soon, but we can go either up or down the coast if we hurry, i guess. The spot south of the lonely mountain to the south has Fish and Clams and there are some gems down in the jungles that we might try to get.

If we have time in our production queues slotting Stonehenge in might not be bad either, it saves us a lot of time in our new cities to get them to grow their cultural borders. We shouldn't go for it if it takes too long, though.

xp194

2010-05-23, 04:09 PM

Baton picked up, preparing to run with it. See you on the other side!

Murska

2010-05-23, 04:38 PM

After a short multiplayer game today which ended up in a religious victory for Eleventhhour(with my votes, she won with one vote and I had 11 :smalltongue:) one turn before she would've been conquered by Charlemagne, whom the map generator gave 80% of the land area of the world and even more of the resources to...

Well, I managed to keep a giant tech lead, keeping to the role of Mansa Musa as I was playing with. I delayed liberalism until I got assembly line out of it, and such. Managed to keep ahead the 20-city Charlemagne with my four cities in GNP for the entire game, although in nothing else. And with my modern army, was slooooowly pushing away the other AI, Sitting Bull, from landlocking me into my tiny peninsula.

So, there's just one picture which sums up all this pain in one shot...

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0001-15.jpg
Note: The city was reinforced with seven longbowmen, nine catapults and six macemen the following turn.

xp194

2010-05-25, 08:38 AM

Well, my turn was surpisingly uneventful. And I'm in before the deadline too so that helps

Turn 1

Not much to talk about here, just Speedy 1 working on a road between Lharsa and Diplomacy, and Speedy 2 working on a farm at Diplomacy.

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2511-51-44-6.jpg

Turn 2

Not much happened here, other than Diplomacy growing in size

Turn 3
http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2511-57-04-2.jpg
Pottery is researched. I am treated to Leonard Nimoy quoting from the Bible. Yay!

Axeman are built, and designated "Convert This!"

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-02-34-7.jpg

Those.... those axes are HUGE.

Turn 4

The Great Wall is built by the Chinese

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-06-04-1.jpg

This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't go through or future back garden. Have they not heard of Planning permission there? :smallfurious:

Turn 5

Turn five sees the Completion of Farm and Road and sees the start of construction of Mine and Cottage at Diplomacy

Turn 6

A lot of nothing happens

Turn 7

We've finished conscripting Settlers at Lhasa and have kicked them out of the gates with instructions to go to one of the sites suggested by the earlier administration.

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-14-10-4.jpg
We also learn how to put bricks on top of each other, and decide to learn something more productive, like sailing.

Turn 8

Turn of Boredom waiting for things to happen.

Turn 9

Lhasa is unhappy due to being overcrowded. I have no idea how to fix this so it is promptly ignored.

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-19-10-0.jpg

Turn 10

The Cottage and Mines are complete. Speedy 1 and 2 are set to automated improvements.

Turn 11

Took a nap.

Turn 12

We finish building Walls in Lhasa, and begin work on a Granary. Also, a new city, Maoiville, is founded. My new retirement home is located there.

Also, we've hit sea.

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-23-37-6.jpg

"My gods... it's full of blue..."

Turn 13
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Turn 14
Speedy 2 begins working on a road to Maoiville from Diplomacy

Turn 15

We get beaten to building Stonehenge, unfortunately. The Chinese have adopted Bhuddism as a religion. All else continues well.

http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm442/xp194/Civ%204/Civ4BeyondSword2010-05-2512-32-16-7.jpg

Dot map of our, and surrounding, territory.
Save game here (http://www.filefront.com/16542667/Dalai%20Lama%20BC-2000.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Not too bad, methinks.

happyturtle

2010-05-25, 08:53 AM

How do you deal with unhappy citizens? You http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/whipped.gif http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/whipped.gif http://forums.civfanatics.com/images/smilies/whipped.gif them until they're all happy again. :smallbiggrin:

Terraoblivion

2010-05-25, 09:00 AM

There is one, simple thing we can do about the whiners thinking that there are too many of them. Crack the whip over them and let them have it!

We can also use Lhasa as the place to get our workers and settlers from, instead of making them in the cities that haven't reached happy cap yet.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-25, 09:25 AM

I also just noticed that you uploaded the wrong save, the one you put up there is the one you started from, not the one at the end of your turnset.

Apparently i was wrong and the save is just mislabeled for some reason.

Winthur

2010-05-25, 09:33 AM

Oh, Winth will know. :smallbiggrin:

He's a pop-culture expert, not to mention a cursed Porean.

Actually, I don't. All I know about Touhou is that it's a series of games, to be honest and that there are many artists who like interpreting the characters in arousing positions. :smallredface:

Succession games in general definitely improved my play. Particularly when Winthur was around.

Awwwww... :smallredface: That made me feel better after a stressful day :smallsmile:

Since I still have no idea why Civilization 4 doesn't like me on this computer, don't count this as a sign-up (there are already 6 people, which is like a company!), but actually... this concept feels a bit more interesting for a succession game, maybe because of scrapping the Marathon speed, which just... kinda doesn't work for Civ4 SGs. I hope you will succeed on this Monarch endeavor. :smallbiggrin:

Actually, you're better off without me. If there's anything I learned playing on Emperor is that a Philosophy Great Scientist slingshot is a vital strategy. It might be hard to dust off the habit and not use the Scientist just for that, negating all the future wars. :smalltongue:

From what I can see, Diplomacy is a decent spot for production given the food and high-hammer tiles.

There isn't much room for Cottages... it might just turn out to be the kind of game where you hog Wonders, run Specialists and you end up with supercities and a late win, obsolete (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=312862) style. Only that I don't see any Marble or Stone nearby. That, unless you conquer somebody and gain enough space - which sounds like the plan, but watch out for Chinese's Protective trait and Cho-Ko-Nus later on! You can't really go too far without Philosophy, since you want that Liberalism first, so the time is slowly running out.

Not much room for cities either. And since 6 is a bare minimum for all the essential National Wonders... let me say that Dalai Lama will have a lot to regret if he wants his people to prosper. :smallamused:

Terraoblivion

2010-05-25, 09:41 AM

Well, we are going to be crazy warmongers at first. And i vote that "at first" doesn't end until we have conquered Lizzie's land. Not sure what a Philosophy Great Scientist Slingshot, is though.

Also the Touhou joke i made is that in the fandom Kaguya is portrayed as a helpless NEET who needs Eirin to do everything for her. The usual way she calls for Eirin's aid is by raising her arms to either side and then sweeping them in front of her until they are crossed before her chest while shouting "Tasukete, Eirin". The actual line is just Japanese for "Help me, Eirin" which is essentially what it is asking for. Also another important thing to know about Touhou is that the games are, well, really hard. Beyond that we have a thread about the series if you really want to learn about it.

Eldariel

2010-05-25, 10:10 AM

Well, we are going to be crazy warmongers at first. And i vote that "at first" doesn't end until we have conquered Lizzie's land. Not sure what a Philosophy Great Scientist Slingshot, is though.

Get your first library up ASAP and start producing Great Scientists by working two Scientists (more with Caste System). Then you bulp (the act of using a Great Person to discover a tech) Philosophy and profit (it's an incredible trade tech, among other things). You get tons of beakers from fast bulped high trade worth techs and it's easy enough to win Liberalism at this point, putting you to huge tech lead (not to mention Pacifism for Turbo Bulping). Great Scientists can also be used differently since the present an immediate tech reserve, should you discover that you are not winning Liberalism.

My most common hull for a tech pattern on Monarch and higher (tried some games on Immortal now) is something like:
1. Worker Techs+Bronzeworking
2. Straight into Aesthetics, trade for Alphabet, Iron Working, Monarchy (if available) and something else depending on where exactly I am (start research of Alphabet to make computer more willing of the trades; AI values it by how much you have left - also, Aesthetics because it's a tech AI never researches early making it a great trade bait; the lower difficulty, the slower AI researches making it progressively better to go for Alphabet)
3. Get to Philosophy (with some distractions like Literature, Currency, etc.)
4. Get to Liberalism, pick another trade bait (often Nationalism as it's always available and most costly of the bunch). Important to note that bulping into Liberalism requires you to not research Machinery that fast as that'll make your bulps go towards Printing Press instead of Education.

Of course, things diverge depending on win condition one is going for but generally winning Liberalism gives you enough tech to more or less win the game. Be it Riflemen (going Liberalism -> Nationalism immediately sets you up for the Draft-city provided you built Globe Theatre already [in a foodrich place]), Infantry (can also be drafted but costs 2 citizen making it less efficient), Nuclear War, United Nations, Space Race or whatever.

Eldariel

2010-05-25, 12:18 PM

Chronicles of Warlord Eldariel I

Turn 65
The newly promoted Warlord surveys his surroundings and despairs. The environment is barely worked, there is an undefended city and infrastructure barely exists. He orders more workers to be trained, forests to be hacked and granaries to be built.

He does not save the whip, killing fully half of the population of the land. Then again, since said half was not doing anything, this is good.

Turn 66
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/5855/civ4screenshot0034.jpg
We discover we can tow boats over water without them sinking! Yay! We immediately begin figuring out what the heck these strange symbols others have been making for the last millenium are about.

Turn 67
http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1852/civ4screenshot0035.jpg
The Oracle and Stonehenge are built somewhere out there so we decide to stop wasting our time. To be fair, Stonehenge was filed under "at a later date" in the production queue already last year anyways and we don't even know what this "Oracle" they're talking about is, so Eldariel does not really care.

Turn 68-75
Cottages and roads go up around Diplomacy, while Lhasa is done churning out Workers and gets on Lighthouse and then Library. Diplomacy finishes Barracks and begins producing Axemen. Maoiville builds its Monument and begins on Granaries and all that. Eldariel is bored but sees the necessity in all this. Writing is also discovered.

Turn 76-79
Lots of woods are hacked it is good. Conan the Barbarianslayer is reaping fame slaying Barbarians in the north. He decided to double up as the sentry of Maoiville too.

Turn 80
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/3922/civ4screenshot0037.jpg
Elizabeth the fair dumb signs Open Borders to ensure we know precisely what manners of defenses she is running. Turns out, not much. Few Archers and that's about it. This'll be yummy! Also, Hinduism spreads in Diplomacy and it is good. Spiritual people convert quickly and thus we begin worshipping hundreds of Gods and being happy!

Save here (http://rapidshare.com/files/391483065/Dalai_Lama_BC-0875.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Future plans:
- There's a lot of production queued in Lhasa so I decided to queue up the Great Lighthouse. We really want to start working specialists in there, and thanks to the immense food resources, it should be possible to get ~4-5 in there rather quickly, as soon as we solve happiness.
- Aesthetics is being researched; hopefully we can trade it for Alphabet with someone and then get Monotheism & Priesthood for Temples and Organized Religion (which will let us quickly spread whichever religion seems the sanest throughout our area and produce some Temples to up our cap), which would really help with the happiness cap.
- Health won't be an issue for the foreseeable future so I've mostly hacked down woods, and as our happiness cap is pretty low, I have not upgraded that many squares around our cities as they won't be workable for a while yet. I have however seen to the following list:

Never work unimproved tiles.
Have a Specialist City (Lhasa), Commerce City (Diplomacy, probably Moaiville) and Hammer City or a few (none yet, but Lhasa and Diplomacy will do in a pinch)
Build roads between cities to get trade routes started.
Have about 1.5 Workers per city.

- We should probably, after hacking out Great Lighthouse, just mass Axemen. I'd imagine 15-20 should easily be able to roll over Lizzie. As we have a Library, we don't have to worry about going bankrupt as it'll get us Aesthetics, which will get us Alphabet, which will get us everything. While Stonehenge was pretty meh, the failcash was really nice.
Few pointers:
- We'll soon gain the ability to produce Research and Wealth in cities. While at first we'll have to do Research due to lacking Commerce, once we get it, we should usually build Wealth as Research improvements are available earlier and thus we get more mileage out of our beakers that way. As a corollary, we'll probably want more Libraries and Monasteries than Markets (though Market producing happiness shouldn't be overlooked, of course).
- We'll want to work two+ scientists in Lhasa for the foreseeable future. Our first Great Scientist should probably build an Academy, but with the second one, we'll already want to see if it should bulp something or if we want a second Academy (and once we get more infrastructure, we can work other specialists too) or just join it to our research city.
- Binary Research Is Good: Generally, you'll be building research improvements over time. As such, it's advantageous to put research to 0% when gathering money and then 100% when researching. This "tranfers" your research from earlier turns to the latter ones which then gets multiplied by your new improvements.

Too bad we'll miss out on the Fur in north. Ah well.

happyturtle

2010-05-25, 12:22 PM

Go Murska! Take down Lizzie!

Murska

2010-05-25, 02:14 PM

Warboss Murska

And now I'll stomp... wait. Where's the army? Gah. Okay, I'll prepare us for someone else to stomp Lizzy.

Turns 80-95: Improvements and mainly roads are built, I take one tiny break off axeman pumping to build a workboat on our fish(two turns), otherwise after the Lighthouse was done I only built axes. Whipped the cities a few times, whipped the granary at the Maoi city for 2 pop because it had 2 angry people anyway and it'd have taken like fourty turns to build. Move Conan back into the city some time soon, a few archers already tried to sneak past and unhappiness for not having a military unit in the city is dull.

Aesthetics came in, started researching Alphabet since nobody has it yet. We should have a Great Merchant rather soon. Lizzy is sending out a settling party from York. We'll have a total of nine axemen in one turn once the two finish. They're not upgraded yet but they all have one promotion, feel free to either use 'em to heal or add them to give higher chances at city attacking if necessary.

Someone had built a cottage at a location which we could use to spread irrigation to the plains of Diplomacy later and a farm on the location which we can't use for that, so I intend to switch those around. The city hasn't worked the cottage for a single turn yet, so it's no big deal.

Someone else can go over, point out my no doubt numerous mistakes and put up some more microing tips.

Major Events:

The Great Lighthouse
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0004-14.jpg

Aesthetics
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0003-13.jpg

Watch out for the settling party
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0005-13.jpg

This graph worries me somewhat
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0006-12.jpg

And the save is here. (http://rapidshare.com/files/391518275/Dalai_Lama_BC-0500.CivBeyondSwordSave.html)

Eldariel

2010-05-25, 02:18 PM

Hm, yeah, we don't have that many hammers so we'll need to cut and whip out our army (well, I mean, we have great resources for it but still, we're more food and commerce-geared than hammer). We are working the Scientists though, right? 'cause we'd really want the Great Scientist for early academy over Great Merchant for...nothing much.

As for the army...sorry; I had to build Granaries and Barracks and Lighthouses and Workers and a Library as we had pretty much nothing at the start of my term so I only got to the Axespam at the very end (srs, city of 7 and Slavery and 2 sad guys?! C'mon now!).

EDIT: Hey, EleventhHour, I suggest we convert to Judaism. It's in all our cities while Hinduism is in only one and we're Spiritual so it costs us jack to do it (I picked Hinduism since we got it first and during my term, we didn't have Judaism yet). That extra happiness should enable something sane in Lhasa, like working Copper + Fish and 2 Scientists. And growing it immediately when we get extra sources of happiness like Wine, Fur, Hereditary Rule or even Colosseum or Temple.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-25, 11:16 PM

If we conquer Lizzie we will border Montezuma. If we want to have a shot of this we need to find a way to keep him distracted and mollified. Having a different religion than him might not be a terribly good idea under those circumstances. We will look weak and tempting enough as it is once we get to Philosophy.

However, we should be able to take Lizzie out soon and can then consolidate with some better cities as well. At least we should manage to get some good income for the size of our country going once we have consolidated. Also once we do go peaceful, we can at least save money and production on not having to make any more military.

Eldariel

2010-05-26, 07:31 AM

Terraoblivion

2010-05-26, 07:33 AM

Do we have the production to maintain a military strong enough to beat Monty before we reach Philosophy? That is what i am not quite certain about.

Eldariel

2010-05-26, 08:09 AM

Do we have the production to maintain a military strong enough to beat Monty before we reach Philosophy? That is what i am not quite certain about.

Lizzie will make for a yummy addition to our small Empire. We won't get much of anything else, but our military will be quite formidable thanks to 3 extra cities; it will screw over our economy something severe (so we'll have to Specialist + Produce Research it until we reach currency and can produce Wealth), but we should be able to maintain military for long enough to swat Monty. We can then convert our hammers into other resources and proceed to win.

Though if we hit him, we gotta kill him as with the -3 relationship penalty, we'll probably be his Worst Enemy for the rest of the game and he'll hit us at an inopportune time. But yeah, it should be possible to steamroll; we can most likely outproduce him especially with Elephants and religion from Lizzie added to our humble empire to gain some happiness and thus larger cities.

xp194

2010-05-26, 08:12 AM

I'm pretty sure the whol point of this enlightenment stuff was so that we don't have to hit other people with sticks?

Then again... we could use privateer vessels and spys a lot. technically still pacifisitic, if no-one can trace it back to us...

Terraoblivion

2010-05-26, 08:21 AM

That doesn't come until Philosophy, XP. Until that we are crazy warmongers. We are playing Tibet, not some random pacifists after all and Tibet used to have quite a fierce warrior culture.

xp194

2010-05-26, 08:35 AM

Ah. In that case I may have screwed us over by devoting 15 turns to civil engineering. Sorry about that. :smallredface:

Flickerdart

2010-05-26, 08:38 AM

Ah. In that case I may have screwed us over by devoting 15 turns to civil engineering. Sorry about that. :smallredface:
Your reign will be cited as the period of antiquity amid long stretches of barbarism. Problem solved. :smalltongue:

Eldariel

2010-05-26, 08:41 AM

Ah. In that case I may have screwed us over by devoting 15 turns to civil engineering. Sorry about that. :smallredface:

If it makes you feel any better, there were still no buildings during my era and we were about 3 workers short of what we needed to get anything done so it took my turn too to get the production underway, so I basically had to spend my term getting things up too.

Also, we may want to consider teching Construction before going Montezuma; we'll get War Elephants and Lizzie has Ivory for us. But Lizzie must fall soon. I'd say 15 Axes must do it. I propose periodic whipping-of-two-people in Lhasa as our biggest source of hammers is our food right now, and whipping two guys at a time saves in the unhappiness.

EleventhHour

2010-05-26, 09:11 AM

And so began the reign of Ellycat the Bloodthirsty (Also known as The Confused)
(Forgot to take screenshots! D= )

Turn 1 : According to ancient scripture, giving a fellow glasses and some green bottles makes them think harder. And there were many green bottles to be found, so a lucky citizen woke up one morning to discover they were assigned to be a "Scyintest." Many axes of troop were moved. Noone is sure what mad stratagey this is.

Turn 2 : A libarary had begun being built at Diplomacy, for storing more books... And more soldiers were sent off. (At some point the library gets pushed back into the queue, as axemen were needed.)

Turn 3 : A new religon has taken root in our nation, "Judaism". Much discussion over what is "kosher" made the citizens much happier, to the confusion of beaurocrats. A farm was replaced with a small village, seeing as the cropland was poor but the children enjoyed the fields much more.

Turn 4 : To the surprise of our nearest neighbor, Ellycat ordered a change of tune in the diplomatic structure. That is, letting a bronze axe do the talking. Noting the need for a worker, a small group was gathered for training in fieldworks.

Turn 5 : Aha! The first military victory, slaying the barbaric English settlers who sought to steal our land. The hero, Conan, slew a great number of the English archers, becoming a terror of the icy north. At some point, despite the vigilence of Conan and our encroaching armies, an English archer sought away with one of our workers.

Turn 6 : More news from within the English lands, the marauding thiefs with thier bows were caught and put to the axe, our poor workers saved from whatever treachery was planned.

Turn 7 : The "alphabet", many squiggles that are representing noises, is complete. Some are finding it interesting, but the creation of a curious wheeled score of troops was more interesting to the reigning lord, a "chariot" as it was called, quickly proving it's worth by running down archers that had gotten around our own armies. And a letter from the General was published ; York was no longer in the hands of English barbarians, coming to see the light of our own empire.

Turn 8 : Very little happens during these years, only a few notes about new mines and roads.

Turn 9 : Reports of our troops in the English lands say that they are nearing the capital, London.

Turn 10 : Conan slays an English scout, but the world is in quiet awe today, as a strange trader, Marco Polo, decided to settle at our capital and open a shop of exotic wares.

Turn 11 : Our sages have discovered the secrets of Iron! There does not seem to be any currently within our boarders, but surely it will help at a future date... The idea of Plays and Drama is something that pleases our ladyship, and the foundations of it are begun.

Turn 12 : Once again, our chronicals report little of interest...

Turn 13 : They continue to be vague about what is going on in the wide world, though roads are reported in the census as being maintained, including notes of new highways.

Turn 14 : News of nearing victory comes home today, though it seems there has been a great loss of life. Many sons may not be coming home after this bloodshed...

Turn 15 : The great bells are rung, the bittersweet celebration of a war completed, the home of our religon, London is in our hands, the English Queen put down and is no more, and a great General Sargon, risen from the ranks of the victorious army, comes home to our capital. Unforunately, or prehaps for the best, the reign of the Confused comes to an end, on a high note at least.

That was great, though I had the urge to set the workers on auto every time they asked me for something to do, instead they ended up making roads everywhere and mines on all the hills. Wasn't sure which research to get, so I picked whatever looked alright at the time. Hope I didn't mess stuff up too badly! Will remember the screenshots next time. (Sargon is idle at the capital city, since I wasn't sure what to do with him.)

Save here (http://rapidshare.com/files/391755338/Dalai_Lama_BC-0150.CivBeyondSwordSave.html), I may have accidentally taken an extra turn, since in the middle I lost track of wether it was turn 10 or 11. :smallredface:

Edit:: Oh, and Murska had left me some captions. Feel free to ignore and erase them. :smalltongue:

happyturtle

2010-05-26, 09:44 AM

Nice! Lizzy made a valuable city out of London. Stonehenge, Pyramids, and the Hindu shrine. :smallbiggrin:

I propose we rename it Elledinium. And also swapping to Representation asap.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-26, 10:13 AM

What a nice woman she is. Has she also properly died for our benefit or does she still have one city left that i need to take out?

Also it is nothing major, but your turnset was actually only 10 turns EleventhHour. But no worries, just to remind you for the future.

We need to discuss what to do about our Great People, though. Especially Sargon, since our military career will not last for very long, likely only until we slay Monty, so we want to get the most benefit out of him fairly soon. I don't know how we would do that, though.

I'll download the save and have a look at it now. I won't post until tomorrow since i'm going to bed soon.

happyturtle

2010-05-26, 10:16 AM

About Lizzy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MIwzPOWHbw)

I vote for using our Great General to make a super medic.

And watch out... China has a settler just south of Diplomacy!

Terraoblivion

2010-05-26, 10:32 AM

Another thing we need to think about is what the hell to do about the Chinese settler. I don't really fancy China cutting out a chunk of our land as it seems likely he will. While it might be possible to squeeze it out with cultural borders, it will still take a while and cause us trouble, as well as harm our diplomatic efforts. I also think that we should focus on getting a couple more cities up in the land that is unclaimed now to get as much of the world pie as possible, before killing Monty. Any suggestions for where? Maybe the spot between the gems and the spices. Mostly grassland, lots of rivers and has two hills. Need us to chop a jungle to get to all that grassland, though.

Eldariel

2010-05-26, 11:56 AM

I propose we rename it Elledinium. And also swapping to Representation asap.

I cordially support these suggestions. Especially Elledinium. It has a nice ring to it.

Also it is nothing major, but your turnset was actually only 10 turns EleventhHour. But no worries, just to remind you for the future.

My mistake there. I took 15 turns since I counted that's how long it should be, somehow missing the fact that there was the "10 turn limit" in the OP which probably lead the others to understand it's 15 turn sets (from two consecutives of such length); I guess it's alright as all of the rest of us (Me, Murska and Elly) took 15 turns in the first round, so it sorta evens out. Meh. Sorry. Reading comprehension was never my strong suite.

As for the rest...I'll take a look at the save later. And yeah, we want to spread Hinduism. A lot. And London will be a commerce city, including Markets and all 'cause they multiply Shrine income.

As for Great General...settling him in city would provide us science for the rest of the game from Representation (and with complete multipliers), so it's something to think about.

Murska

2010-05-26, 12:01 PM

Settling great generals in a military city is what I often do to get that second promotion right away, but since we won't be producing much military at all we can either go for that representation 3-beaker bonus or, to make it easier to rip apart Monty, turn one of our units into Medic 3 March or something similar.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-26, 12:58 PM

Actually looking more closely at the save i am starting to get seriously nervous about how to save this. We have four cities and borders pressing us on all sides and soon the Chinese will grab a chunk of land that we will be in eternal conflict over. And a ton of workers are off doing random stuff that isn't going to improve any of our cities and we are planning to head on to fight Monty amidst all this? So, yeah, kinda worried about screwing it up for everyone. :smalleek:

Tasukete Winthur!

happyturtle

2010-05-26, 01:19 PM

Slightly off topic:

I don't play multiplayer civ for various reasons, but Elly and Murska do, and all three of us (as well as lots of other playgrounders) are on msn messenger. My ident is in my profile, so if any civ players want to add me and say hi, I'll introduce you to the MADNESS.

Back on topic:

Help us Obi-Win-Thurnobi! You're our only hope!

Eldariel

2010-05-26, 03:36 PM

My take on our present predicament:
We can deal with China through Religion giving us good relationships and just...culturing through. We should be able to trounce Monty as long as we don't get into war with China. First order of business is to stop them from expanding...which should be doable.

Just cancel Open Borders with him and he'll pull it away as computer doesn't expand past our cultural borders and we'll get York up just in time; he won't found the city with closed borders. Believe you me, it works. Next, hurry with the settler for the city I marked and we should be able to close in our cultural borders so as to avoid problematic cities from China. Then we'll really want Buddhism to avoid huge relationship penalties with China, or get China to Hinduism/Judaism.

And we should be aiming for Construction > Currency; Currency will send our beakers through the roof with trade while Construction will get us War Elephants, which should enable us to crush Monty easily. We also want to trade for the religious techs, with Kublai if nobody else, so we can spread Hinduism now that we have the shrine. Gift some tech to China and if makes demands, heed to them if possible. We should also gift him some resource we don't need like one of the health animals; costs us nothing and we'll get the "we appreciate the years you have provided us with resources".

We want to keep him as friendly as possible; getting him to Pleased would be optimal. I do think we lost a lot of beakers in not trading Ironworking and company from Lizzie before taking her out, but it's not a lethal handicap yet.

EDIT: We could also build our dear Qin Shi Huang a city in the glacier near all the fur, gift it to him, have him take all the upkeep penalties and such while being happy for us for building him a city and trading us Fur in the future.

EDIT#2: Oh, and Mongols seem to have the Spice/Gem city we were looking at. Good news is that we begin to reach the optimal city number for the long game; 6 is plenty good (once we get the "City Here"-city), for manageable upkeeps and is plenty to win game with. It's the threshold to be able to build Nationals like Oxford University and such so...yeah. It's good.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-28, 02:24 AM

Actually, i see that you only took 14 turns, EleventhHour, which means that i will take eleven to make it fit again and then everyone takes ten before handing it over to the next one. Also if i may ask, Eldariel, why not place the city to the east of the rice and take advantage of it having hills and at least a little bit of production?

Records of the second Terra Lama
Turn 0: As the second Terra Lama ascended to the throne of rulership of the Tibetan lands, changes came about. Cities are renamed to more fitting names such as Elledinium, Moaiville and Gensokyo. Workers are also put to more constructive tasks rather than mining hills deep in the hinterlands. The imperialistic Chinese hordes were also headed off and kindly told to stay away from Tibetan lands.

Turn 1: The zeal with which the Lama wanted to spread enlightenment to the people around her showed itself in that many of our people took up the axe and began marching to war. The lands of the mad Aztecs to the east, mired in the passions of their bodies as they were, would soon run with blood as this great threat to the Tibetan people was to be addressed.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0027-1.jpg
Turn 3: However, the Lama was not just a figure of war. Under her guidance the arts flourished in Tibetan lands as the art of storytelling grew and the people learned the ways of taking the roles of the characters of the stories, bringing much joy to their lives.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0028-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0029-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0030-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0031-1.jpg
Turn 5: A wild man came out of the east, offering trade with the people of Tibet. While unenlightened in his ways, he brought much knowledge of how to organize our temples so that our people can study well. He also brought the knowledge of how to shoot small spears at creatures far away. All this he taught the Tibetans in exchange for learning the secret of the arts, showing the superiority of Tibetan culture.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0032-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0033-1.jpg
Turn 8: Further reinforcing the enlightenment of Tibetan civilization the great master of trade and money, Rinnosuke grew up in the city of Lhasa. In his time he came to conceive of a system by which symbolic tokens represented real objects, making trade much easier and faster.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0034-1.jpg
On the border between Lhasa and Gensokyo also came the city of Eientei, home of the most famous rabbitbreeders in the world. Coming down there it also served to block Chinese expansion once and for all. Tibetan lands had been made whole and safeguarded against foreign encroaching.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0035-1.jpg
Turn 9: Angered by being stopped like this, the barbarous Chinese demanded that the Tibetan people divulged its secrets. Though shamed by these demands, the Terra Lama was too far above the petty ties to worldly goods to anger her neighbors by refusing their base demands, that would not have been the path to enlightenment.

When the foul Aztecs came to try and steal the sacred treasures of the Tibetan people on the other hand she stood firm. This people would never listen to reason, would never be willing to work with others and pursue enlightenment. They were told to be off and never threaten the Tibetans again. (Sorry, didn't get a screenshot of this one)

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0036-1.jpg
The wisdom of the Tibetan people grew further, once more showing the way of enlightenment that it had as it learned the secrets of numbers. With this knowledge in hand the pursuing the dharma of the civil servant became easier than ever before, allowing for more production in Tibetan lands.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0040-1.jpg
Turn 11: Approaching the wild man from the east, Hannibal, once again the Terra Lama learned more secrets about how to organize the pursuit of enlightenment. While the man had of course not used his knowledge for such worthy goals, the ways he had organized the worshippers of false paths still held value that could be used in the pursuit of the truth.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0042-1.jpg
She also spread the knowledge of the arts and the knowledge of finding peace to pursue the truth and approach Nirvana with the southern barbarians. In exchange the barbarians were gracious enough to teach the Tibetan people the ways to mount the beasts of the land and have them bear them to war. Surely that would be valuable in the coming fight against the unenlightened Aztecs.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0038-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0037-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0044-1.jpg
We are overall doing fairly well, however, there is one area where we have somewhat of a dip in efficiency and that is in regards to our military and our production. While i will readily admit to having reduced the priority of this during my turn, we still need to get it back up if we want to face the Aztecs. I just believed that getting a new city up, as well as barracks and happiness structures too precedent.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0043-1.jpg
And our lands are kinda weirdly shaped, but i think they are in a better state now than they used to and that is what matters. We still have a long way to go before our lands are truly great, but i guess we just have to live with that. As long as we can get rid of Monty we should be relatively well off.

Also i am sorry, i forgot to switch religion when i received my turn and we have to wait for a bit before we can become Hindus. Hopefully it will be nothing more than a temporary annoyance, but even so. We should probably also scout out the east some more. Just to be safe and avoid bleeding money from trade to quite this degree.

Le save (http://www.filefront.com/16573003/Dalai%20Lama%20AD-0125.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Eldariel

2010-05-28, 03:55 AM

Also if i may ask, Eldariel, why not place the city to the east of the rice and take advantage of it having hills and at least a little bit of production?

Eh, mostly because it's going to be a commerce city no matter how you slice it (we are in a prime position to use Colossus Coasts) and that square would have few more river squares and few more empty squares, period. Given we'll probably want to Cottage the surroundings, that seems like it might be beneficial. Ah well, it's not that big a deal. As long as it's coastal and can work the Rice, it'll be fine.

This may be a good time to point out that food resources tend to be the most valuable. All three major city types (Production, Commerce, GP farm) require large food resources to maximize the squares they can work, other than Trade-based Commerce-cities. Not only that, but you get the same returns with less squares when benefiting of food resources meaning you get to keep cities smaller and thus less upkeep. As such, the seafood city we see now two squares down from Eientai might have been the most optimal (we didn't have vision of that area when I made the sign), but we'll manage.

Humm, issue: Lhasa is not working Scientists (or any other specialists for that matter) right now. This is going to cut into our Great Person-pool greatly. Also, I suggest we add all happiness buildings and such there; even Market needs to be considered. It has ridiculous food, which is all we want for a GP farm. We might also want to consider the Parthenon as we're going Great Person-crazy with Philosophical leader-trait and Pacifism.

Random notes:
- We should be able to trade for Monarchy right now, to get our Wine going (gonna at least produce happiness for Lhasa). Also, I suggest we gift China with Rice. We have excess Rice, they have none and we'll get +2 Relationship-bonus from it eventually. I'm thinking we should force Elledium into Commerce-city due to the shrine in there; we'll want all monetary improvements there anyways so Cottaging it up will probably get us best returns for our beakers.

- Note that Diplomacy is a Commerce-city so we should build Commerce multipliers like Library & Monasteries there too.

- By the way, it may be most efficient to just whip out our elephants, particularly from Lhasa (and hack some woods in other cities; we want the army fast). It has ridiculous enough food production to maintain a whip every couple of turns way outstripping all other cities we've got production-wise.

- We might need to go to No State to avoid relationship penalties for a while. We can get buddhism once we hit Monty.
What an enlightened turn you had there. :smallcool: Things are beginning to look so clear now.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-28, 04:11 AM

And while i agree that commerce is what that city is for, i just think that maintaining enough production to at least be able to get commerce and research buildings up in a vaguely timely manner might be a good idea. The alternative would be whipping the city to hell and back and would still most likely be slower.

And while i do think the seafood square might have been good, it would run the risk of the Chinese settling in the middle of our lands again and i am pretty sure we wouldn't want that. Also we wouldn't have gotten it, they would have settled on the square Eientei is settled on the next turn if i hadn't settled first. They literally had a settler standing there when i settled.

Eldariel

2010-05-28, 04:15 AM

Winthur

2010-05-28, 06:02 AM

Tasukete Winthur!

Ahem? But everything works fine. You went to war and won, your tech rate is stable, your cause is just, and your army has the potential to be very, very large!

You should, however, go after Civil Service sooner rather than later, and, if you want to take out Monty soon (which is, as I take it, the plan), there are a few ways with an empire such as yours:
-whip a ton of Catapults and get a lot of Macemen;
-tech up, get Cuirassiers (unless you don't have horses...) and use the Nationhood/Slavery combo, which, by circa 1100 AD, should give you quite an edge;
-Caste System workshops for massive production (you have the workerforce for quick... err, workshopization.)

There isn't much to do without Slavery. Set up a Globe Theatre in a high-food city and whip away while Shakespeare is rolling in his grave. Remember to always whip in a 10 turn cycle, don't use the whip before the happiness penalty from the previous whip wears off.

I can't say I see any problems with your game without looking at the saves, which I can't do. :smallannoyed: You are prospering fine, though.

Also, do you have Monarchy? Because getting your population higher should also be put on priority.

Eldariel

2010-05-28, 02:02 PM

Also, do you have Monarchy? Because getting your population higher should also be put on priority.

It's available as a tradable, but we got Pyramids from our dear English patrons so we don't really need it yet (though we should get it anyways for the Winery; extra happiness never hurt anyone). Indeed, we are running happy on Representation right now, and going for War Elephant-based military since it's available a bit earlier than Macemen (we lack both, Machinery and Civil Service - we don't even have Metal Casting yet).

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 09:00 AM

The Enlightened Second Reign of Dalai Turtle

T0: After my reincarnation, realizing that neither Judaism nor Hinduism is the path to enlightenment, I order that no religion be endorsed by our empire. I order scientists to work in our capital, in hopes that they may prove the foundation for an Academy that my successor can found. I set up some trade deals as well to improve relations with other empires in hopes of assistance against the seemingly inevitable war against the Aztecs.

T1: Qin asks for a trade for Aesthetics, which I agree to. I try to see if Hannibal is willing to gift us Monarchy, but he is not. However, we get a good deal from Kublai.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t01-aesthetics.png

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t01-monarchy.png

Horray! With our newfound skills in winemaking, all our speedy guys rush over to the vinyard to start harvesting grapes.

Gensokyo starts working on a stable to be oliphant hq.

T2: Diplomacy starts making a spy to send into Monty's land.

T3: Start a Market in Elledinium to multiply shrine monies.

The first bottles of wine began to flow, and there was much rejoicing! Surely this is the secret to enlightenment!

http://www.nightcruiser.com.au/wa/perth/venue_guides/wine-tours.jpg

T5: Qin settles a city next to our horses. We'll have to pump culture out of Moaiville to keep them, but the Moai statues should help with that, conveniently.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t05-qin.png

T9: We found the religion of Confucianism in Moaiville. Hehe... poor Qin has no chance at all of getting those horsies.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t09-confucianism.png

Hammie BigNose says "Ohai, nice to meet you. BTW, you're totally our worst enemy now! Grr! Since he's worst enemy to Kublai, I don't think we'll trade with him.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t09-hammie.png

T10: Lhasa needs health, so I cancel the fish trade with Kublai. I'll let Eldariel decide whether he wants to gift or trade copper to him.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/dalai-t10-culture.png

Forgot to screenshot graphs and stuff, but it's all in the save (http://www.filefront.com/16595639/Dalai%20Lama%20AD-0375.CivBeyondSwordSave).

Notes:

There isn't much for the workers to do until workshops are available, so they're roading the hell out of our empire. I'm keeping escorts on the worker stacks near Monty, of course.

I didn't whip all turn. Wanted to get the population up for war whipping. Diplomacy and Gensokyo are set up with stables for war elephant production, and cats are coming online. Our spy is ready to explore Monty's lands for us.

Murska's our best warmonger, so recommend building the army up for him!

Careful not to accidentally Philosophy everyone! We'll be sitting ducks for Monty if we don't take him out first! :smalleek:

Terraoblivion

2010-05-30, 09:13 AM

Hey, remember that it is XP before Eldariel, though. That leaves him and not Eldariel with the choice of what to do about Kublai. But you are right, not much to really discuss at while we are doing war preparations like this.

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 09:15 AM

Forgetful Turtle is forgetful. :smalltongue:

Finn Solomon

2010-05-30, 09:24 AM

I'd just like to say I'm a huge Civ 4 fan, and I've never seen a succession game being played before. I find this thread fascinating, I'm learning a lot about how to play the game. Keep it up guys!

Murska

2010-05-30, 09:37 AM

Great. I hope you have fun and maybe join in once we finish this one.

In other news, your sig is very interesting. :smallbiggrin:

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 09:39 AM

Gauging interest for a second succession game here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8592715#post8592715)

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 10:04 AM

There isn't much for the workers to do until workshops are available, so they're roading the hell out of our empire. I'm keeping escorts on the worker stacks near Monty, of course.

Hm, the surroundings of Elledium and Gensokyo have few unimproved tiles, and I think we should hack some woods for Elle to get infrastructure in place. That could occupy our workers for a while.

Winthur

2010-05-30, 10:06 AM

Acquiring Hangzhou would be nice because, as worthless as this city is, it's still a fishing village with furs for your furry citizen. Maybe you might be able to flip it.

BTW, have you actually met every empire in this game? It looks like you did not. Because your intel on the map outline is... baaaad. Maybe a scouting Galley or Workboat could help? Remember that the Terra map script often cuts up the mainland to have islands you might be able to settle with just a Galley. Plus, finding out that last civilization is a good idea. And the Galley might kill something on the way.

All the problem being, I have no idea whether you have open borders with either Mongolia or China and Aztec, which, for the coast-hugging galleys, is necessary.

Also, why the 10% on the culture spending? :smallconfused:

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 10:17 AM

There was some unhappiness in Lhasa and I didn't want to whip when I could have a Colosseum up in a few turns.

Open Borders are with everyone but Monty and Hamm. I don't know if we've met all the civs yet or not. I forgot to check how many we are starting with.

Winthur

2010-05-30, 10:22 AM

Open Borders are with everyone but Monty and Hamm. I don't know if we've met all the civs yet or not. I forgot to check how many we are starting with.

On a standard game, there are 7 civs, one of them being the player.

Therefore... yeah, you know every civ now.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-30, 10:30 AM

And as far as i know, Monty cuts the continent neatly in half making it near impossible for us to get around him without going to war first. And yes, Hangzhou would be a nice little fishing city if we could get it to flip. Not sure what we would do to ensure that and prevent Qin from holding on to it. Not worth going to war over, to say the least.

Also how much do we want to steal from Monty and how much do we want to burn? Taking over his entire empire might be just a little bit excessive, to say the least.

Murska

2010-05-30, 10:53 AM

Taking over his entire empire would kinda surround China. Which is... well, not too great.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-30, 11:04 AM

Yeah, there is that too. I was more concerned with whether we take over anything or not. Though given how little we know of his lands it might be hard to make a meaningful decision at this point. Keep us updated XP and Eldariel.

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 11:09 AM

Hopefully his capital is close enough to keep. Maybe another city or three if they are good, but if we're going for culture win, 6-9 cities will do just fine.

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 11:12 AM

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 11:13 AM

9 lets us build three cathedrals for each religion though. Of course it shouldn't be hard to flip Hangzhou if we make Moaiville one of our three culture cities, which would give us the 9th.

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 01:46 PM

9 lets us build three cathedrals for each religion though. Of course it shouldn't be hard to flip Hangzhou if we make Moaiville one of our three culture cities, which would give us the 9th.

Speaking of which, we should probably decide if we are indeed going for Culture, or something else like UN or space.

xp194

2010-05-30, 01:56 PM

Space. Space space space spacespacespacespacespacespace.

Also, godammit, I'm going to have to play war monger, aren't I? :smallfrown:

Here's hoping I don't screw up.

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 01:56 PM

We can get culture way sooner than space or UN.

AP victory might be had sooner, assuming Hammarabi (who just teched Theology) builds it Buddhist, but it would be pretty hard to get elected with our small land mass and hard to get a diplo victory without knocking more heads first.

@XP: All you have to do is build units (war elephants in cities that have stables, and catapults in cities that don't) and use the spy to explore Monty's territory. We're not ready for a war in ten turns. :smalleek:

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 02:03 PM

Space. Space space space spacespacespacespacespacespace.

Also, godammit, I'm going to have to play war monger, aren't I? :smallfrown:

Here's hoping I don't screw up.

You'll want to build up some more military before we hit. We want ~10 Elephants and Catapults to go with, in addition to our axes; you can leave fighting to me if you want, and it might actually even pass forward since 10 turns is a short time to build military.

We can get culture way sooner than space or UN.

AP victory might be had sooner, assuming Hammarabi (who just teched Theology) builds it Buddhist, but it would be pretty hard to get elected with our small land mass and hard to get a diplo victory without knocking more heads first.

Aye, but the question is if we want it quick and efficient or nice'n'slow. We can play Diplomacy to keep good relations (once we get to Buddhism, it'll be easy enough) to win UN and if we build it, we'll have guaranteed slot in the elections. But yeah, if we want to, we can Culture immediately after Philosophy; it just so happens Great Artists are very easy for us to generate and insanely useful for culture win too.

Terraoblivion

2010-05-30, 04:18 PM

I'd love to see a quick victory. Never experienced that before and it would be interesting to see.

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 05:38 PM

Hm, alright then, as soon as we get the Philosophy-gear going, let's isolate our third Culture-city (Lhasa and Ellidium are obvious), Artist up the place, get Cathedrals going and...well, we obviously need to tech to Free Speech, but other than that, anything goes.

happyturtle

2010-05-30, 05:42 PM

So Elledinium, Moaiville, and ?? with Lhasa as the Great Artist farm?

Eldariel

2010-05-30, 05:51 PM

So Elledinium, Moaiville, and ?? with Lhasa as the Great Artist farm?

Lhasa will be a culture city. All the artists serve to do more than just Great Artists. Moaiville has kinda poor overall output in terms of hammers & commerce; we'll be converting both to Culture when "going off". Though I guess if it grows a bit, we might as well. Still, I'd almost be inclined to use Diplomacy and the masses of Towns instead.

Eldariel

2010-06-02, 07:31 AM

Heya, xp, dare I ask if the turn is coming around yet? Not to pressure you or anything, but it's been a while.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-02, 07:43 AM

He still has an hour and 20'ish minutes, but yeah, i was wondering as well.

xp194

2010-06-02, 07:58 AM

Apologies, I left this quite late so I'm just going to do a straight copy pasta of my notes. They have all the important information in them and hopefully I'll get around to embellishing them a bit with screenshots and narrative when I get the time.

Turn 1

Elledium finishes Market, begins War Elephant
Finished workers started on Trade Routes

Turn 2
Stable Completed in Diplomacy, began working on war elephant
Lighthouse completed in Eintei, working on War elephant

Turn 3
Collesuem done in Lharsa, Construction began on the Parthenon
War Elephant Trained in Genyoko, work started on another War Elephant

Turn 4
Metal Casting Finished, researching Music for great prayer bell playing skills
Population of Tibet is now over 2 million souls. Noice.

Turn 5

Not much to report. Gathering forces on the Aztec's border.

Turn 6

Elledium Finished war Elephant, working on another War Elephant

China beat us to the Parthenon.

Turn 7

Approached for a deal by Hannibal, Calander for Code of Laws and 40 gold. Accepted the offer

Lhasa Begin War Elephant

Diplomacy finishes War Elephant, producing another War Elephant

Great Scientist produced in Lhasa

Turn 8

A Tibetan Revolt happens in Hangzhou

Turn 9
Gensyoko finishes War Elephant, builds War Elephant

Turn 10
War Elephant trained in Lhasa, Working on War Elephant
Catapult built in Moaiville, working on Catapult
War Elephant trained in Elledium, working on War Elephant
Horse Archer trained in Eientei, Working on War Elephant

Save File here (http://www.filefront.com/16627111/Dalai%20Lama%20AD-0600.CivBeyondSwordSave)

happyturtle

2010-06-02, 08:03 AM

A Tibetan revolt already? Nice. I think it takes two revolts, and then the next time is a culture flip.

Eldariel

2010-06-02, 08:51 AM

I uhh...kinda didn't take screenshots since there was precious little to do. And I'm in a kinda hurry today so I decided to play this rather fast. Sufficient to say though, I spent the turnset filling in on our military. I'll cover a few events of interest though:

Turn 1
Eientai was unhappy. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me her garrison unit was missing and she couldn't find it. I looked at the matter and lo'n'behold: it's true! Luckily, Diplomacy had an extra garrison warrior lying around and so I simply sent that Eientai's way, with a passer-by Elephant keeping her company in the meanwhile.

Also, some whipping occurred in pretty much everywhere, in order to generate a new army a bit faster. Men where fed to Elephants, so to speak. And shot off Catapults.

Turn 3
We discovered Music. We decided books are cool and discovered Literature. Also, Eientai's new warden made it there.

Turn 5
Montezuma declares on Hammurabi. Excellent. Quite perfect, indeed!

Turn 6
Literature is discovered and Great Library goes down in Lhasa. Intent is whipping it as soon as possible due to Lhasa's insane food, and some happiness issues.

Also, lots of health issues so I trade Stone to Hannibal for Deer. We ought to pick it back when building our Cathedrals but given how much infrastructure we lack as of yet for that, I'm not worried.

Turn 9
Hammurabi asks for our help against Montezuma. Normally I'd never agree, but as we're turn or two away from our own DoW, hey, why not pick up a free Diplomacy point?

Also, Hangzhou has a second Tibetan revolution and jumps over. While it pains me to do so since it hurts our economy, I accept it anyways for the happiness.

Finally, Ling Lun, a great artist, is born. Doesn't hurt our future plans at all. I first thought of bulping Theology, but then I remembered that if we're going for culture, a Great Artist is worth its weight in gold.

Turn 10
Our troops march on Monty. Unfortunately, one of our Warriors is stuck amidst his culture and will most likely meet a gruesome end, but c'est la vie. Our stack is still waiting for some reinforcements, but I decided to capture a worker and go for the first city already before the remaining Catapults and Elephants join up.

Save here (http://rapidshare.com/files/394428427/Dalai_Lama_AD-0800.CivBeyondSwordSave)

ObadiahtheSlim

2010-06-02, 09:00 AM

Always nice when the NPCs ask you to do something that you were going to do. You get the free helping them bonus and the mutual struggle bonus.

Anyway, why not throw me down there for the list of players if you are still taking them. I'm a bit of a novice. I have the game over Steam so I should have the latest version of BTS.

Winthur

2010-06-02, 09:51 AM

A Tibetan revolt already? Nice. I think it takes two revolts, and then the next time is a culture flip.

That's not actually quite how it works. I remember that the only thing that prevented Sullla from genociding the Japanese in his Always Peace Domination (http://www.garath.net/Sullla/pahatty_1.html) game was the vast garrison that couldn't go anywhere but station in Edo, preventing any flips despite many, many revolts. I haven't ever put any interest to know such inherent, mathematical workings of the game, but the rules aren't set in stone and depend on certain variables that I'm not 100% aware of.

Just pray that the city never starts generating its own culture in any substantial amounts and that the AI doesn't get too many units there, and you might be able to flip.

EDIT: Of course, I didn't read Eldariel's report before I wrote that post... :smallredface:

Terraoblivion

2010-06-02, 10:44 AM

That actually looks like it could be a fun game to try. Though i think that it would give Murska a heart attack even thinking about it.

Murska

2010-06-02, 10:53 AM

Heh. I'm not good at building stuff, I just like planning strategies. I find I can often kill gigantic amounts of AI units with small amounts of mine, especially in multiplayer with simultaneous turns which gives me even more options, such as reinforcing a square midway through an attack or retreating wounded units while leaving one defender there.

Anyway, got the save and will play probably some time after exam week stops harassing me. That is, in two days. If that isn't okay, I could possibly do it faster or just skip my turn.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-02, 11:13 AM

It is of course alright. It is within the time you have to do your turnset. Besides if i get you to skip, i am guaranteed to participate in the warring. :smallbiggrin:

Murska

2010-06-02, 11:25 AM

Okay, any comments on what cities we're keeping?

Besides that, China seems to be the only worthy competitor we have, which is sad, since he's also someone we don't want a war with. Or maybe I could DoW on the rest of the continent and leave Elly to sort out the mess? :smalltongue:

Terraoblivion

2010-06-02, 11:33 AM

I'd say the three southern-most cities that he founded himself and burn the Vandals. Taking over Tenochtitlan seems like it would be too likely to cut Qin off completely. And we don't want to provoke him more than necessary.

happyturtle

2010-06-02, 11:45 AM

A screenshot, for Winthur or anyone else who can't download the save at the moment.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0011.jpg

We haven't uncovered the capital yet, but I'm going to guess it's just east of China, near that spice, based on how early we saw his culture borders.

Unfortunately, neither of the border cities are great, but we'll need them if we want to keep the capital. Looks like the only wonder Monty has is the Buddhist shrine, which is presumably also in the capital.

So I would say take Tlatclolco, Calixtlahuaca, and the capital, and raze the rest.

And Tlatclolco should be renamed to That Lolcat. >.>

Edit: Murska, you should rework our trades. Cancel the free rice to China, and trade it for the sheep, and trade Copper for Spice from Kublai.

Edit2: Eldarial forgot about the Great General. He's still hanging around in Elledinium. I'm sure Murska will want to put him to better use.

Eldariel

2010-06-03, 07:05 AM

Edit2: Eldarial forgot about the Great General. He's still hanging around in Elledinium. I'm sure Murska will want to put him to better use.

I left him for Super Medic or something; as most of our forces were already built, it didn't seem prudent to join him to a city anymore.

happyturtle

2010-06-03, 07:20 AM

Ah, I thought you'd forgotten him, since you sent the army on without him.

Winthur

2010-06-03, 09:11 AM

It's... ALIVE!

I managed to get my Civilization IV to work! With patch, no less! And I have better graphics than ever in the past!

Ohohohohoho! This is delicious! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs)

So, I can't really say much on the screenshot (because I didn't check up on the save). You might want to cut down that Iron supply in Tlatelolco's fat cross to prevent Monty from whipping any Spearmen.

Good luck. :smallsmile:

And Tlatclolco should be renamed to That Lolcat. >.>
Hahahaha. :smallbiggrin:

happyturtle

2010-06-03, 10:03 AM

And with the return of Winthur, there was great rejoicing! :smallbiggrin:

I believe there's enough demand to populate another succession game, if you want to start one. I think the 'two copies of the same game' concept has been proven a failure, but there seems to be interest in something warmongering.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-03, 11:41 AM

And if it comes to that i could be in both of them as well, i wouldn't mind learning some warmongering here. Being able to do the basics of a war is one thing, having actual skill at warmongering is another.

happyturtle

2010-06-03, 11:55 AM

An early rush game is a great way to learn warmongering. Have the first person start as Cyrus and tech animal husbandry. If there are no horsies accessible, start over with a new map.

Eldariel

2010-06-03, 02:41 PM

An early rush game is a great way to learn warmongering. Have the first person start as Cyrus and tech animal husbandry. If there are no horsies accessible, start over with a new map.

Hm, if you want to learn tactical warfare, it might actually be preferable to:
1) Be the defender, not the aggressor (this will ensure that AI has the stacks to wage the war). Play a game where you are near some lunatic AI like Monty, Boudica or Shaka (or some tactically superior AI like Bismarck), deny all his requests avoiding his religion and he'll declare real soon - maintain production- and technological parity to ensure it comes down to strategy.
2) Let the game develop to a scenario where the various unit types give the combat a bit of versatility (classical era war with axes, swords, horse archers, elephants, catapults, spearmen and archers works quite well; medieval is otherwise fine except Longbows and Pikemen are a pain and industrial era gets messy).
3) Strive to retain not only your cities but also your improvements. This is something easy to practice against Barbarians, for example. There's tactical movement that tends to lead opponent into preferring attacks over moving to pillage.
4) Play on Normal; AI is bad in war on normal, but absolutely sucks on slower speeds as it just doesn't have the means to rebuild a stack after the first one inevitably gets obliterated.

Early rush is a great way to learn the ratios you need for conquering cities (1.5 times the forces that give you ~50/50 chances of victory tends to be safe), threat assessment and order of conquest (as well as when to DoW to minimize the number of extra units that get whipped out; generally especially harder AIs whip a unit a turn when your stack crosses their borders, which you can account for), but how to best defeat stacks and defend area, and how to abuse the AI's poor grasp of military, how to upgrade units and such doesn't really come up in rush games as as a rule, the AI is completely unable to put up a fight and just gets steamrolled.

Murska

2010-06-04, 03:16 PM

Era of War

Turn 150: First things first. Our doomed warrior moves over and captures a worker who is promptly disbanded, since it's not like we're ever going to get it back to our lands anyway.

Trades are reworked and Sargon the Great of Akkad heads to our army, since a great general who's standing in a city not doing anything is not as useful as a great general killing our opponents.

Turn 151: The Great Library finishes in Lhasa, which is grand. A chariot is pwned by a Spearman, which is less great. However, I feel as though the great things overweigh the less-great things here.

A few units move, and our Warrior sneakily captures another worker, who is also disbanded. I realize we'd probably capture these once we kill Monty off, but it's a principle thing.

Turn 152: A horse archer of ours is killed by an enemy horse archer without the enemy horse archer taking a single hit. However, a spearman is killed by our war elephants. Suddenly, Aztec forces unexpectedly show mercy on our wounded soldiers, giving us a chance to earn a relations boost with him. Of course, no good deed shall go unpunished and the soldiers proceed to attack.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0000-18.jpg

Our epic warrior captures another THREE workers. I don't disband them this time, since they're one tile from Kublai Khan's borders so I think just maybe they might even make it back home safely.

Turn 153: Somebody builds the Buddhist Apostolic Palace. Our heroic Warrior flees from Monty's lands and gets a honourific 'The Raider' added to his name since he takes with him three new workers. Our spy finds Monty's capital.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0001-16.jpg

Turn 154: Archimedes the Great Engineer is born in Elledium. Meanwhile, our elephants crush the defenders of That Lolcat and thus take out Monty's iron.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0002-14.jpg

Turn 155: This turn marks the first ever hostile incursion on Tibetian territory. An Aztec scout crosses the border near Elledium and is promptly crushed by an axeman.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0007-12.jpg

Turn 156: Our regrouped army continues towards the next target. We kill a few units here and there, not much really happens.

Turn 157: The bulk of our army reaches Calixtlahuaca while some of our forces keep killing random enemy horse archers. After a brief bombardment, we take the city with the negligible losses of one axeman. Sadly, our entire army is wounded in the affair so we will have to recuperate for a while.

Turn 158: A large amount of chariots and horsearchers throw them at the walls of That Lolcat, resulting in lots of corpses(of theirs) and another one of my favourite Great Generals, Gustavus II Adolphus. (He was a badass.)

We kill a bunch of remnant horsearchers while Gustavus heads for our army. I'm running out of things to do with my workers, and it appears everything in our lands is cottage and road already.

We trade Music and 299 gold for Machinery with Hannibal.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0008-14.jpg

Turn 159: A yet another horsearcher actually manages to kill one of our wounded War Elephants recuperating at That Lolcat. This saddens me. The culprit is, of course, summarily executed by Sargon of Akkad.

A great scientist is born in Lhasa. More marching and recovering of troops occur.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0009-10.jpg

Turn 160: Hannibal demands Compass. I refuse since he's nowhere near us. I attach Gustavus to an elephant and leave the rest of the turn for my successor. The stack near the capital is nowhere near big enough, but bring over more elephants once they finish healing in the other captured cities. Meanwhile you can bombard the enemy and perhaps lure him to waste his units.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww213/Bestrafer_fin/Civ4%20screenies/Civ4ScreenShot0010-9.jpg

So, we now have a great engineer in Elledium and a great scientist in Lhasa on hold. Feel free to suggest what to do with 'em. Engy wants to speed teching of Engineering while Scientist wants to bulb Philosophy.

We also have a worryingly large number of negative modifiers to relations with China, who's ahead of us in, for instance, tech and culture, though not, say, power. However, he has longbowmen. Protective longbowmen. I feel like that nation will be trouble in the long run.

Save's over here. (http://rapidshare.com/files/395307146/Dalai_Lama_AD-1000.CivBeyondSwordSave.html)

happyturtle

2010-06-04, 03:29 PM

Time to convert to Buddhism? That should improve our relations with most of the world.

And bulbing Philo would be bad. Don't do that! :smalleek:

I'm feeling a bit queasy tonight, but might take a look at it tomorrow to give more opinions.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-04, 10:59 PM

Yeah, no time to shine a light on your love for Sophia. But really once this war is over do we have anything we need to do other than rush to Democracy as fast as possible while spreading religions and temples to get our cathedrals up and running? Because if there isn't then we might want to use the Great Engineer to grab a quick wonder in the city that is the most lacking in culture, while the Great Scientist can grab Education once we have Philosophy.

EleventhHour

2010-06-06, 04:32 PM

Sorry, I can't manage to play though this turnset, and sorry about waiting so long. I sort of forgot this was here, and when I got started it just feels like I'm messing everything up.

*pushes the big button labelled Skip This Turn*

Terraoblivion

2010-06-06, 05:06 PM

Sure, no worries. That means it's my turn now. I'll try to see if i can get it up tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest, but we'll see.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-07, 08:43 AM

And now it is time for me to take my turnset. Now with one hundred percent less lame jokes about enlightenment!

Turn 0 - Looking at the front it appears that things need to wait for a bit until our units recover from their wounds. Monty is still too strong and too close to tech parity for us to be able to take him down with wounded units after all. I also get stuck with a stack of three workers that i am not sure what to do with other than move them to the east to get ready to improve on the land around Calixtlahuaca, which i'll refrain from renaming due to sadistic glee over having the rest of you suffer under writing that name too. Things mostly looks good, though it appears that we are set for ending this quickly since we are only building infrastructure to at the moment. Our forces look sufficient if we are careful to not suicide too many catapults. I still order the construction of some more, however.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0045-1.jpg
Turn 1 - Curse you Kublai. Curse you so much! :smallfurious:

The very turn that Calixtlahuaca comes out of its initial unrest we get a Mongolian revolt there. Kublai has 5% of the population of the city and there is an enormous garrison and we still get a revolt. Hopefully we will be able to get some culture there before it flips.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0046-1.jpg
Monty also tries to sneak a small force around to take That Lolcat, but needless to say it is nothing before our elephants. Our workers also finish their projects and i realize we don't have much left for them to do at the moment.

Turn 2 - The bombardment of Tenochtitlan ends, just as our elephants get into position to attack the city. I am not quite sure we have enough of the tusked animals on hand to actually take the city next turn, though our catapults should definitely be able to utterly demolish the defenders with collateral damage. Monty again tries to sneak some units out without any success, but hopefully this ends once we take his horses at Tenochtitlan.

More interestingly Civil Service finishes researching and i decide to head for Paper. While we will still need Philosophy to research Liberalism, Paper is on the way there, so we can just as well get it done with already. Being able to buy maps might also allow us to bleed less money to the eastern AIs.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0049-1.jpg
Turn 3 - The turn begins with our catapults all attacking Tenochtitlan in an effort to weaken the defenders before our elephants move in. Total losses? Nothing whatsoever. City raider is just awesome for cats it seems. Inspired by this i break off the military build-up i had started. We dominate the field even more than i had expected. Instead i set Elledium to begin building the Sistine Chapel. Not only will it only take 13 turns, but it will also be an excellent support for our efforts at achieving a cultural victory.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0050-1.jpg
Then follows the elephants. There are too many defenders in Tenochtitlan for us to take it this turn, but there is no way that Monty can hold on to it after next turn. This will also cut off his supply of horses meaning that we should easily be able to prevent his retaliation when it is only slow, wimpy archers.

No news from the south, however, as the units there are still recovering before marching on Vandal.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0051-1.jpg
Turn 4 - And as expected Tenochtitlan falls. Take that Monty. We no longer need to worry about you pushing us around and bullying us.

In an effort to improve our economy i remove the culture rate we have been running and check our cities. It turns out that the only one where war weariness is felt is Lhasa and that is nothing that a quick whipping can't handle. I also have us run at deficit research for a while, since the one we had was just pathetic. Still we need to try and wrap this war up quickly and get rid of some of all the units we have. We also need infrastructure ASAP.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0052-1.jpg
Turn 5 - And Monty makes another attack between turns, this one actually dangerous. Two horse archers attacked That Lolcat, killing the axeman in the garrison and redlining the archer. The screenshot shows the surviving horse archer ready to pounce. Thankfully the archer gains a level and is promoted with City Garrison I, so the crisis is narrowly averted.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0053-1.jpg
And our troops are finally getting close to Vandal and the city is lightly defended too. Just bombarded, attack and burn. Should be over in two turns or so.

And Elledium takes a one turn break from the Sistine Chapel to whip a Jewish temple. Hopefully that will not cause us to lose the wonder.

Turn 6 and 7 - Nothing much happens except for Lhasa finishing the National Epic.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0054-1.jpg
Turn 8 - Vandal Burns! Take that Monty!

Unfortunately it costs us two catapults. :smallfrown:

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0055-1.jpg
But the siege of Texcoco also begins and the city should burn next turn. I hope that Qin enjoys our giving him a bit more space.

Turn 9 - The turn starts with me foolishly forgetting to screenshot the trade i made with Kublai. I sold him Compass and Music in exchange for feudalism. The big things about Music that can make it a risk for the AI to get quickly are them stealing the free GA and the Sistine Chapel which he cannot realistically compete with us at getting. Especially since he has neither the Pyramids nor the Hanging Gardens pretty much ensuring that he doesn't have a Great Engineer to rush it. And why would we want to hang on tight to Compass? In exchange we get the means to keep our defenses up for quite a while once we go peaceful.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0056-1.jpg
http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0057-1.jpg
Also Texcoco burns. Sucks to be Monty!

The war isn't quite over though, he still has Tlaxcala and one other city. We can get him to sign up as a vassal if we want to, but why would we? No need to pay to have that loser hanging around.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0059-1.jpg
Turn 10 - **** you, Kublai! That city was ours! :smallfurious:

Nothing to do about it. We don't even strictly need it after we got Hangzhou from China. We still have our nine cities which is all we need. But still, having him come and just take the city like that really sucks.

In better news we have the ability to upgrade to longbowmen now. At least once we dig ourselves out of the financial hole we are in. Our research isn't exactly stellar at the moment and we are still losing money. We also have what we need in order buy and sell maps, though everyone seems to consider our map worthless.

I also needed to pull an elephant away from the northern frontlines to address this latest example of aggression by Monty. The guy sure isn't willing to just take it lying down, despite how completely we have roughed him up.

Finally i switch away from Decentralization and adopt Bureaucracy instead. Lhasa is not terribly awesome as capitals go, but it is still one and that is worth a fair amount. Just as it definitely won't hurt to be able to squeeze temples in there faster.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0060-1.jpg
In general we are doing well demographically, however, we need to do something about our economy as this shows as well. We are only third in GDP, which just isn't good enough. Hopefully getting That Lolcat and Tenochtitlan developed will help address this issue, as will getting courthouses up.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0061-1.jpg
This graph on the other hand isn't good. The Chinese are actually beating us in being cultured. We can exceed them of course, but it is still quite frutrating to see.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/kk233/terraoblivion/Civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0062-1.jpg
And this maps should show just how awkward our land looks. We completely encircle Qin and have an incredibly long border. It is also quite stretched out making our money issues worse, though it is small enough that this doesn't matter too much.

We have a few things in front of us to think about what we do. One of the most important of these things is deciding what to do about Monty. I am in favor of killing him, rather than leaving him as a vassal. We cannot really afford to keep him around and we have sufficient military to kill him without any real incident.

The other major topic is what to do to keep Qin from slaughtering us in the future. We could of course declare a preemptive war, but with our huge borders, his longbowmen and our weak defenses that sounds like a great risk. Declaring a religion is hardly tempting either since that kills the culture gained from any other religion we have which cannot be said to be very appealing either. If anybody has any good ideas i'd love to hear them.

Finally there is the question about research. As you can see i am researching Guilds at the moment for the simple reason that they lead to Banking and with Banking comes Mercantilism. As the demographics screen showed, we are just bleeding money on trade so shoring that up could be a huge help. The other option i see is beelining for Liberalism and try to get Democracy as quickly as possible. This option obviously disappears if we want to go after Qin, though. Lacking Philosophy will kinda do that.

Anyway, enough rambling, here is the save (http://www.filefront.com/16675911/Dalai%20Lama%20AD-1100.CivBeyondSwordSave).

happyturtle

2010-06-08, 01:40 AM

I've played my 10 turns, but I'm 4 or 5 turns from finishing Monty completely. Shall I continue?

xp194

2010-06-08, 05:56 AM

Yeh, because it's me next and I'd likely frak up completely an'd get counter invaded and yeh...

Terraoblivion

2010-06-08, 09:10 AM

Not sure Monty is in a position to counter invade us. I mean it is Monty so he can still make jaguars, but even he should be incapable of counter invading us from one or so cities. At least if we remember to actually keep city guards like i almost forgot to.

happyturtle

2010-06-08, 09:20 AM

So should I go ahead and finish it, Terra? He has two cities left.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-08, 09:23 AM

Sure, just go ahead if XP has no problem with his turns being delayed. Although...where did he found the last one? Or have you taking neither Tlaxcala or his other city yet?

happyturtle

2010-06-08, 09:36 AM

Funny story... I'll save it for the update. :smallbiggrin:

Jonzac

2010-06-09, 08:14 AM

You know...for being a "peaceful" game...there hasn't been much peace.

Except for the peace of the grave.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-09, 08:52 AM

Well strictly speaking it wasn't meant to be a peaceful game per se. Though we have been a lot more brutal and violent than i think anybody had planned.

Eldariel

2010-06-09, 09:03 AM

Well strictly speaking it wasn't meant to be a peaceful game per se. Though we have been a lot more brutal and violent than i think anybody had planned.

We can thank Monty for that... Otherwise there would've been no need for that, but that madman would've been the end of us had he survived.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-09, 09:16 AM

Yeah. You cannot really be peaceful with Monty on the same side of your continent as you are. He just doesn't allow it.

ObadiahtheSlim

2010-06-09, 09:29 AM

Yeah. You cannot really be peaceful with Monty. He just doesn't allow it.

Fixed for you.

happyturtle

2010-06-09, 10:31 AM

Update coming this evening, hopefully. Monty be dead, and I'm starting to think we'll have to take China and Mongolia. We'll need to rebuild our army though, because China has pikemen. It also has Chichen Itza and the Statue of Zeus, though fortunately they are in cities that are near the borders. Hopefully we could just take a city or two and force him to capitulate.

As for Kublai, everyone hates him for being the only non-Buddhist on the map, so we can get someone else to finish him off.

BTW, fast workers make excellent scouts of civilized lands. Most of the continent is visible now. :smallbiggrin:

Terraoblivion

2010-06-09, 10:53 AM

Eldariel

2010-06-09, 01:24 PM

I'll be honest, i think that holding off on researching Pacifism in order to kill those two off would be quite a bit against the spirit of things. It is one thing to delay it to finish an ongoing war, it is something rather different to start two new wars while delaying it just because it would be convenient.

Agreed, I think we want Philosophy now and we'll deal peacefully with the rest. We could gift some non-Chinese some cities near China so he'll have another target and then make amends to best of our ability, trading tech in deals that are favorable to him and otherwise trying to get him to Pleased or even Friendly. We can talk others into defending Kublai. Let's bulp Philosophy, spread the word and maybe go for Democracy.

ObadiahtheSlim

2010-06-09, 02:12 PM

Spread some Buddhism to Kublai. Don't you have the shrine for it? Should solve the problems with him not getting along with the rest of the world and add some money to your coffers at the same time.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-09, 03:56 PM

If we are going for a cultural win we should definitely go for Democracy. That double culture from Free Speech is hard to pass up, after all.

happyturtle

2010-06-09, 07:01 PM

T0 - renegotiate some trades, send Conan to finish scouting that black area, look over our cities.

Hmm... our economy is a wreck, but nothing a few markets and harbors can't fix.

As for Qin, he has Cho-No-Ku crossbowmen now. Not fun. But the decision about him won't come during my turnset, so I won't worry about it.

I convert to Buddhism, as there's no disadvantage to doing so, and start making some missionaries.

T1 - 2 courthouses come online, and now we have a cash surplus at 40% research and 10% culture. The Sistine Chapel is completed. A great mercha\nt is born, and sent to Diplomacy to settle.

T2 - I rename Tenochtitlan to Shigatse, giving it a Tibetan name since I can't think of anything silly.

T3 - The AP wants to return Chixy to Monty. I vote yes so we can take it again and hopefully not lose it to Kublai.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0012.jpg

T4 - The vote succeeds, only because we voted for it. xD Kublai gives us a -2 'you voted against us' penalty. Dun care. We were already mad at you for taking OUR city!

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0013.jpg

We're now worst enemies with Kublai, so I demand tribute to keep him from vassalizing Monty. His gems just came available, so I grab those. While I'm add it, I go ahead and beg gold off of everyone just to be sure.

T5: Teotihuacan falls, thanks to Monty helpfully sending one of his longbowmen off to Calixwhatever, costing us 4 cats and an elephant. I keep the city. Meanwhile our northern army is headed for Monty's northern city that's currently fogged up. Luckily caught a settler that he tried to sneak out to the south as well.

T6: Upgrade some of our City Raider axes to Macemen, and get ready to move south.

T7: It's about this time, when I'm looking for things for workers to do, that I decide to send them out scouting. :smalltongue:

Or rather: Our numerous workers formed a union and pointed out that almost every tile in the empire was improved, and demanded vacation time. I agreed, on the condition that they report back on the layout of the lands they visited. (And holy cow... Fast Workers with 3 movement exploring roaded up civilized lands... feels like cheating!)

I also had them chopping forests outside our cultural borders or inside borders but outside city fat crosses for extra hammers.

T8-15... and it's about this time that I forgot to keep notes. >.<

I took Calix and razed Tlaxcala. Calix's culture reverted to 2% Indian 98% Mongolian, so I sent our Great Artist to create his Great Work. This so impressed the citizens, that they changed citizenship en masse, converting the city to 95% Indian.

Elledinium is building the University of Sankore. Everyone else has paper too, so we have competition. Globe Theatre is upcoming in Lhasa so it can grow grow grow.

Engineering, Theology, and Philosophy are up for trade. I was too tired to work out what deals would be best, so hopefully someone else can come up with it.

Also, we have a Great Scientist and Great Engineer doing nothing. We should probably make a decision on those.

Also, we have a lot of cottages that aren't being worked at all, and should probably be converted to workshops or farms. It does no good to have every tile in a fat cross cottaged up if your city can't support a population greater than 10. :smalltongue:

Also, we can change over to Mercantilism now.

Culture view:

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/werewolf/civ4/Civ4ScreenShot0020-1.jpg

Save (http://www.filefront.com/16701851/Dalai%20Lama%20AD-1250.CivBeyondSwordSave)

I wanted to write up an in character narration about how enlightenment was spreading through our lands as the Buddhist monks taught the ways of peace, but I have run out of energy.

Also, I am about to go on vacation, so I probably won't make my next turnset. I'll still be checking in occasionally, but don't think spending a few hours playing civ will be happening.

On to you, xp.

xp194

2010-06-09, 07:15 PM

Warning in advance, may run a bit late due to exams and such. Hopefully not but... yeh, you know... work and stuff beats Vidja games... :smallmad:

Eldariel

2010-06-09, 08:03 PM

T0 - renegotiate some trades, send Conan to finish scouting that black area, look over our cities.

Hmm... our economy is a wreck, but nothing a few markets and harbors can't fix.

I'm thinking we'd rather want Libraries and build Wealth from few good Hammer-cities going to 100% research (with or without some loans and selling of resources; computer pays handsomely for even outdated strategic resources). By the way, it sounds like you really know the game when reading the commentaries; playing Emperor yet?

Oh, our situation. Right. We really need to get Mao Zedong to our good side somehow. Alternatively, we need to make him capitulate fast. Or we could try and bribe him and the rest of our brethern into war with Kublai. I'm sure they would, for the right price.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-10, 04:05 AM

It isn't Mao, it's Qin. Which is honestly a good thing since that mean we can more effectively use religion to get on his good side. Getting him involved in a smackdown of Kublai might work, however, though we would risk getting attacked too from it and that would be kinda bad to say the least.

I will also have a look at the save and the tech trades possible. If we are really lucky we can get all three of them relatively cheaply, possibly even for the same tech, though i wouldn't quite put my faith in that.

In the larger sense i think we need to figure out what we want to do at the moment. I won't claim to be an expert in Cultural victories, but i do know that we need to get cathedrals up and get to free speech. We also need to figure out which of our three culture cities get the Hermitage.

And for this our Civics should probably be Representation, Free Speech, Caste System, Mercantilism and Pacifism. They seem to give us the best cultural growth, thanks to how many artists it allows us to run. In that vein i also propose that we keep our Great Engineer sitting around until we research Democracy so we can get The Statue of Liberty for another free specialist in every city.

Eldariel

2010-06-10, 10:44 AM

I suggest Free Market: The trade routes should give us more beakers than the free specialist, and since we'll put 100% in Culture anyways, it'll result in larger gain.

Terraoblivion

2010-06-10, 10:56 AM

An artist is 5 culture a turn, plus 3 beakers some gold and several points towards getting Great Artists. Unless we somehow manage to reach a good enough economy to run 100% culture fast i think that comes out clearly better. However, being Spiritual we might also choose to go with Mercantilism for a while before switching once our economy improves.

xp194

2010-06-10, 07:19 PM

Yeah... I think I'm going to have to skip this turn. tomorrow's an exam and stuff and I was revising/idling Sims 3 today and eh. Also the situation at the moment looks rather complex and I don't want to screw up.

*mashes Turn Skip plz button*

Aron Times

2010-06-10, 08:37 PM

Hey folks, just found out that there is a Civ4 community here in the Playground. Is this game close to a victory? I'm interested in trying some PBEM with Beyond the Sword 3.19.

happyturtle

2010-06-10, 08:39 PM

Not sure how close this game is, but it's not really PBEM anyway. Why not start a new thread to recruit people?

Of course the real place to go for civ multiplayer is http://forums.civfanatics.com/index.php , but I enjoy doing succession games here. :smallsmile:

Terraoblivion

2010-06-10, 08:57 PM

Yeah, this is really just us doing a succession game, not a general thread to discuss Civ4 in general. Or for any other multiplayer or succession games for that matter.

And that's fine XP, which means that it is now Eldariel's turn.

Eldariel

2010-06-11, 11:26 AM

Alright then. I'll see what I can do. To-do list:
- Tech Philosophy > Liberalism > Constitution (into Democracy)
- Ensure peace with our immediate neighbors for the foreseeable future
- Setup our cities for cultural victory (our second city should probably have Hermitage to catch up, with our best firing all cylinders and our third mostly working off the Great Artists)

Since we lack Workshop-techs, I guess Cottaging our lands is the only real option. We'll have Emancipation anyways, and it's only Monarch so we should be way fast enough. Alternatively, we could go Chemistry>Communism before winning but that'd be a much slower victory.

happyturtle

2010-06-11, 12:08 PM

Eldariel

2010-06-11, 12:22 PM

Trade for philosophy, engineering, and theology if you can.
Finish converting all of our cities to Buddhism for the state religion bonuses.
Change civics over to Caste System - Pacifism - Mercantilism for the pumping out of Great Artists in Lhasa.
Workshops are somewhat viable under Caste System, though we still should check that we have enough food to support city growth.
Lots of temples to be built!

Thinking we want Slavery for some more time to keep whipping the Temples and other infrastructure. As such, not switching to Caste yet. I'm not sure if we really want Theology, but I'm probably getting us Philo and Engi from trades. 3-production Workshops aren't that inspiring; they're basically Grassland Mines. I'll...dwell on this for a bit longer.

happyturtle

2010-06-11, 12:24 PM

Hmm... yeah, probably right about slavery. And with Globe Theatre about to come online for Lhasa, that gives us more GA points there.

Also, since we've got a spare Great Scientist and Great Engineer, maybe spend one of them on a golden age to give our our economy a good boost and represent our national turn to pacifism?

Winthur

2010-06-12, 08:03 PM

Also, since we've got a spare Great Scientist and Great Engineer, maybe spend one of them on a golden age to give our our economy a good boost and represent our national turn to pacifism?

Well, you know, the Pacifism boost doesn't stack with the Golden Age boost to spawning Great People, and you're already Spiritual... :smalltongue:

(It sure is good to be back home... in Poland! :smallbiggrin:)

Eldariel

2010-06-13, 12:29 PM

Alright. I just played the turn, but I'm eating now. I'll give you a full write-up later. Our diplomacy is pretty good now, I got us Philo+Engineering and Liberalism, began building infrastructure for the Culture-win, spread Buddhism to our cities (except for the one we got from Chinese; I kinda forgot about that one), switched civics to more Culture-friendly and disbanded our standing military almost entirely (no worries, the heavily upgraded guys are replacing our garrison in the south; also, I left Conan there 'cause he's friggin' Conan and you don't disband Conan).

But, as I said, more once I've eaten.

Eldariel

2010-06-13, 01:25 PM

Journals of Eldalama - The Day We Went "Huh?"

T1 - Knight production is abandoned, building queues rebuilt, but first and foremost, we chat. Hammurabi gladly welcomes us to his house, and we discuss. He suggests we trade some information. More precisely, we teach him about the needle in the water and that stuff you write on, and he teaches us to ponder. Fair enough! Little did we know this day would change our lives forever...
http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/479/civ4screenshot0040.jpg
What have we been doing all these years?! Killing, oppressing, conquering... No! That is wrong. We see it all so clearly now! Eldalama immediately orders disbanding of most of the standing military (with most experienced units sent to cities for peacekeeping), acquisition of greatness-cultivating principles and Monkhood For Everyone! Oh, and some more specialization:
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/97/civ4screenshot0041.jpg
Off our spree of enlightenment, we also visit our once-friend-friend-no-more Kublai Khan and trade Guilds for his Engineering, earning some of the trust back again; he didn't even throw us out!

T2 - Our exiled Workers return home with information of the far reaches of the galaxy continent. They're immediately ordered to put up villages everywhere and hack woods for our Forges (used to build Temples), Temples (used to build grander Temples), Monasteries (used to build Missionaries) and Courthouses (used to...uhh, afford this stuff).

We also turn research slider up to the maximum and profit. Soon we discover the secrets of Printing Press.

T3 - Kublai Khan comes asking for a gift:
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/3105/civ4screenshot0042.jpg
Fair enough; he's blind to enlightenment, he doesn't really understand so all we can do is try and help him on on his path. We get another Worst Enemy Trade-penalty with Hammurabi (though not the other way; the trade we did with Hamm was even so it doesn't count as a Worst Enemy Trade), but this pushes Kublai Khan momentarily to Pleased, while Hamm still remains Pleased in spite of the -4.

T4 - Enough woods are hacked to fuel Buddhist missionaries for our remaining cities (except for Hang Zhou; sort, I sorta forgot all about it). Other missionaries must wait.

T5 - Printing Press is discovered. We are quickly headed for Liberalism with a bulp (from our Pacifism-provided Scientist on Education).
http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/5737/civ4screenshot0043.jpg
We also go all-out Cottage economy from now on forcing the discovery of Constitution after Liberalism to grow them in due schedule. Cottages are built everywhere; our Workers who supposedly didn't have anything to do are overworked (also, we can convert our Farms to Cottages once the cities have grown enough).

T6 - Forges are hacked up in the remaining cities and some Temples begin to be finished. Also, Education is finished and Universities are queued in few cities. We renegotiate a deal with Hannibal. We also renegotiate a deal with Qin Shi Huang pushing him to friendly.

T7 - Most of our military is now disbanded. Conan the Barbarianslayer is exempted as he is Conan, but otherwise only few ancients remain with our standing military taking posts keeping order in cities instead.

T8 - University of Sankore finishes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE7UVK4lFs4) and our science skyrockets:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7131/civ4screenshot0044f.jpg
T9 - Liberalism finishes and Nationalism is chosen as our tech du jour; it goes straight towards Constitution and Democracy. Now we need to spread the word of freedom and enlightenment!
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4761/civ4screenshot0046.jpg
Also, Elledium has a slave riot costing some population. More is lost to whip some buildings; the city has infinite infrastructure to build, needing economic buildings for the Shrine, tech buildings for...tech and Temples, Monasteries and The Hermitage for Culture:
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/9438/civ4screenshot0045.jpg
Finally, Free Speech is immediately adopted to bolster our culture ratings.

T10 - Most units and improvements are in place. Infrastructure still needs some whipping building. Qin Shi Huang goes WHEOOHRN but he's Friendly to us. Chances are, he's going after Kublai Khan which will cost us some unhappiness to...maintain our sublime peace (we can try to negotiate between the two too and buy peace) and stay out of the war, but we have good relationships both ways so it's alright.

The people are so...blind! They just don't understand what they are doing! Our sublime culture must assimilate the world so we can bring them to light!

Stuff:

Our diplomatic situation is now excellent
Cottages need to go up everywhere
Hermitage in Elledium ASAP
Our immense tech lead should allow us to buy any techs we might need once we go 100% Culture
Specialists need some adjustment; I've been working Engineers and Scientists mostly in this setup phase (outside Lhasa which is trying to produce a Great Artist)
Soon it's time for Caste. As soon as we have all our religions in all our cities and Cathedrals and Temples in play, we'll switch. Right now we still want efficient whip.
I cut down almost all of our woods since they can't be converted to Culture directly so I'm utilizing them to turbocharge our start-up to the culture game instead.
Don't Golden Age before we can switch to Universal Suffrage; the hammer from Towns will mean all our squares produce a hammer and every square with hammer produces an extra hammer during Golden Age meaning huge gains in terms of hammers which can directly be converted into Culture.
Everybody but Kublai Khan is Pleased with us (Qin is Friendly!). Just keep an eye out for Kublai's possible WHEOOHRN and accept his demands and we should be golden. Though careful, any gifts we give to Kublai are -2 from Worst Enemy-trade with Hammurabi and the other way around so we can't really juggle between the two any more than I have without dropping one or the other to Cautious; just hope for events and longterm scores there. But note that demands tend to give more bonus than the Worst Enemy-penalty due to Fair Trade and +1 so it can be profitable diplomatically in the long run as long as we don't hit the +4 cap on Fair Trade.

Save here (http://rapidshare.com/files/398661192/Dalai_Lama_AD-1350.CivBeyondSwordSave)

Terraoblivion

2010-06-13, 02:06 PM

I have a couple of questions. Specifically, what does WHEOOHRN stand for? The sound of war declarations? And which cities are we going to make our big culture cities? Lhasa, Elledium and what?

In general things are going quite well for us and i find the Diplomacy screen amusing. The only one who has a negative modifier to anyone is Hammy towards Kublai and the only one at 0 is Kublai towards Hammy. All in all this should be good for us as it reduces the risk of getting dragged into any wars and having to pick sides, that would be rather bad when our borders touch those of everyone. If we get Kublai to convert to Buddhism it might be even better for us, though i think that is unlikely as he has already spread Hinduism in all his cities.

Looking on further i think there isn't really much that needs to be done. Spread religion, get temples up, get cathedrals up in our big culture cities and avoid our economy imploding on itself seems to be just about all there is to it and those things should ultimately be pretty simple. So to be honest, i think that if we can get Kublai to join us in our Buddhist fellowship the rest of the game will hold little excitement.

Eldariel

2010-06-13, 02:13 PM

I have a couple of questions. Specifically, what does WHEOOHRN stand for? The sound of war declarations?

It means he goes "We have enough on our hands right now" if you try to ask him to war with someone; that means he's picked a target and is preparing to start a war. But as I said, we were at Friendly when it started so it's not us.

And which cities are we going to make our big culture cities? Lhasa, Elledium and what?

I'd say Diplomacy can be the third one; it has quite high beakers-per-turn from all the towns, and enough hammers to whip up the infrastructure rather fast (though it's worth noting that due to the lateness of this transition, we'll miss out on the "1000 year bonus" on culture; buildings over 1000 years old have their culture value doubled). But the third one will mostly be done with Great Artists anyways; we'll just mass Great Works there to go over the limit in one turn. With Philosophical & Pacifism, we should get plenty of Great Artists.

In general things are going quite well for us and i find the Diplomacy screen amusing. The only one who has a negative modifier to anyone is Hammy towards Kublai and the only one at 0 is Kublai towards Hammy. All in all this should be good for us as it reduces the risk of getting dragged into any wars and having to pick sides, that would be rather bad when our borders touch those of everyone. If we get Kublai to convert to Buddhism it might be even better for us, though i think that is unlikely as he has already spread Hinduism in all his cities.

Looking on further i think there isn't really much that needs to be done. Spread religion, get temples up, get cathedrals up in our big culture cities and avoid our economy imploding on itself seems to be just about all there is to it and those things should ultimately be pretty simple. So to be honest, i think that if we can get Kublai to join us in our Buddhist fellowship the rest of the game will hold little excitement.

(Un)fortunately, Qin Shi Huang is already on WHEOORN so there will be at least one war unless he waits until we win. So the game should get exciting yet :smallbiggrin: Good news though is that Qin Shi Huang should hit Kublai which would in turn keep Kublai occupied so we should be safe from immediate aggression.

EDIT: We have the holy city of Buddhism! We really, really, really want to try and get one Great Prophet ASAP; Buddhist Shrine would have us set for a lifetime. I suggest we produce one Great Artist and immediately switch to mass of Priests in Lhasa to get us a Great Prophet. That'll allow for a 100% culture slider.