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Grille
17-07-2004, 01:49
Alors, I picked France and Beam took China.
Chef du map is Aggie (standart continents, no SGLs, apparently equal looking starting postions).

I hope the tour will NOT end in Paris this time...:D

I started in the south. Plopped the settler right away, 1 cow will be in radius after the first expansion. Pottery at max, warrior under construction.

Grille
01-11-2004, 16:45
huh, the Beam game is going for quite a while, yet the spoiler is rather thin and needs some stuffing.

The Tour de France started here with a hilly leg:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004111134743_bild01_001.jpg
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quote:
Plopped the settler right away...

[no]
Don't drink and civ![drunk]

Otherwise, this happens when opening the second save:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004111134946_bild03_002.jpg
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Here's the start on the world map:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004111134917_bild02_001.jpg
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Beam moved his settler, which was certainly a good approach.
Because of my miserable opening and due to possible barb thread, I didn't build early military. That would surly delay contacts, but since I live near the south pole, exploration could not be done into all directions anyways.
Second city was founded at the coast next to the cow and built a granny. The cow gets micro-milked (:D), dependent on what town's cuisine needs the trimmings.

Btw, Later, the cow might be used as cat ammo in good old French tradition...[python]

Research put on writing as second aim.


Logically, Beam took over the score lead pretty fast. IIRC he was ~35 points ahead around turn 45. At that time, I finally sent out exploring warriors which were killed by barbs. Surprisingly, one warrior detected a barb camp in a -for me- unexplored close-by area! I haven't had contacts so far. mmh, ivory:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004111144238_bild04_045.jpg
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A bit later, my first neighbour was met: the Babylonians. The founding of Marseilles revealed 25g from the mountain barb camp: my treasury was just big enough for an embassy in Babylon (turn 57). Free investigation showed they were building the Pyramids. They didn't know philo, my actual research aim.
Here's a map overview (57):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200411115213_france57.jpg
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... and some meek demograph data (60) [blush2]:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004111145749_bild05_060.jpg
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In turn 65, I detected a blue border in the north.
Babs still didn't know philo. I could hire some scientists, philo officially due in one turn... set research to lit in 66 and got it for free!
[party]
Set to CoL as next goal.
IBT 66:
Greeks built Oracle
Hittite built the SoZ! [eek]

Ok, my (not-so-serious) palace pre-build could not be used for SoZ anymore. Beam showed some kind of reaction on my info message about the wonder completion, so chances are the Hittites live near Beam. Hehe. Unless he steals it in time...

68:
Blue border=Germany, so I arranged a bazar:
Babs get philo for wheel, WC, 81g
embassy in Berlin
Germany gets philo for BW, 14g
Babs get lit for CB, maths, 37g
Germans get lit for myst

IBT 69:
Babylon built Pyramids!

IBT 72:
Babylon built TGL!!
I checked their techs in 73, they have CoL.[hmm] Apparently, SGL off doesn't work as expected. Agreed with Beam to disband SGLs, just in case we would get one.

73:
Scrapped CoL research, switched to currency.

IBT 73:
Berlin built Colossus.



-to be continued soon-

Plux
01-11-2004, 18:47
That's a nasty starting flaw. Good luck on the ketchup!

Grille
05-11-2004, 07:56
Yup, French cooks are actually working on a new recipe for that delicious sauce. The plan is to make ketchup out of Babylonian ingredients! The F3-chef argues these are still very stodgy, though.



Turn 82, the situation is getting better. I could keep up in score.
At this point, though, I *thought* somebody beamed the Chinese up into the #1 positions (although France has even been ranked top-pop every other turn or so):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200411515641_bild09_082.jpg
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Aggie certainly composed an interesting playground for our game.[thumbsup]
Scientific frenzy and the nasty Hittites have ACs from early on.
[scared2]


About the strategic resources: tour-de-horse starts at... Tours.:)
As for the happy stuff, I have two native luxs, but only one source of each; so there's just the masochist's trade-away option.


The ivory near Rheims has been hooked up for quite a while, but Chartres' dyes were denied by barbs. There was once a barb camp on that resource tile, I plopped it away, but two barbarian buggers refused to attack until their hair got hydrogen-blond. Eventually, dyeing one's hair was completly! out-fashioned.[:o]
Instead of getting a hip hair-cut in "Ken's hot barber shop", the barbies just moved 1 tile (NE of Chartres) and took another break there.[rolleyes]
Ok, ok, next time I'll just attack'em in game and spam less here. Perhaps[:p]. So here's the recent lines of spam and more compressed in a pic (82):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200411515748_bild07_082.jpg
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IBT 82:
Babylon builts MoM

Babylon now has Pyr, TGL and MoM, rather spicy ketchup!
Or the Babs take Beam and me for a 20k-ride...[lol]

IBT 83:
Korean spear/settler combo spotted by an exploring warrior in German territory.
I didn't recognize this at first sight (>colour issues), but got them on the contact menue in the next turn.
84:
Wow, Korea has (at least from my perspective) a monopoly on currency, but lacks some techs. Embassy established; all 3 known AI civs share contacts.
New bazar arranged:
Korea receives lit, philo, 8gpt for currency
Babylonians don't care for TGL :D and receive currency, 7gpt for CoL, IW, 12g
Germany receives currency, 1gpt for map-making, 5g
Korea receives map-making for HBR, 113g

Research set to republic @min rate.
I'm tech-pari with Germans and Babs, ahead of Korea. Poly and construction are still missing for ma, yet the tech pace seems rather fast for demi-god.

There's one source of iron within my borders (near Marseilles), which is, of course, occupied by 2 barbs from the former camp on that mountain tile. The Marseilles barbs are quite funny, too. They keep on moving 1 tile SW and then back onto the mountain since their camp has gone. I'm not going to share the story behind this phenomenon. I would like to, but it's because there just isn't any.[:p]

IBT84:
a promising curragh (located near Zariqum in the above pic) was sunk by barb galleys :(

88:
In recent turns, France was constantly #1 in pop and #2 in MFG and GNP; the score ketchup stagnated, though (Beam was between 20 to 23 points ahead during the past turns).
In this actual turn, France is #1 in pop, MFG and GNP. Checked diplo and F3, Babs know republic and just switched from despotism! This means I'm ahead of Beam in those areas (unless, well you know).


Quite a while ago, Beam reported about serious barb shit. He said he lost 2 workers to a barb horse when I didn't even know what a horse looks like.
Later he reported something a long the lines that barbs occupy his territory/the surroundings (same for me) and that there'd be trouble plopping his 3 settlers he completed that turn (3 settlers in one turn![mad] oh yeah, I've raised my lower jaw again by now[lol]).

It seems like a really tough game; the AIs will surely keep us busy.
To be honest, I avoided -gpt most of the time because I was scared of a tribute demand. Now I fear a SoD showing up at the gates.
Anyways, I'm preparing to build military units; I'm stock-piling some cash for possible tech stealing.

Grille
18-11-2004, 04:12
108:
Accumultating the gold for stealing was hard business. I was finally *be able* to pay for the immediate option in this turn.
After decreasing for a while, the score gap to Beam has recently increased again. Same with F11; stagnation all over the place, to be blamed on despotism (dropped to #4 in GNP this turn!). Babs avoided trading of republic to Korea or Germany, thus it was way too expensive to buy it (research it on my own, maybe just partly, was nearly impossible in considerable time - due to gpt spendings/ lack of native luxs).
So since I have at least built some units to defend myself, I decided to risk a war and spent nearly all my gold (600g) on the immediate steal option:

(almost missed to hit print-screen...:))
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200411182740_steal108.jpg
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[dance]
<s>Vive la Republique!</s>

Ok, not now. In the meantime, we have:

Vive l'Anarchie![coool]


And that will last for 7 turns.[medic] Probably the worst I could get. But I should be happy enough about the succesful steal attempt.:)


An issue, though. 2 Babylonian galleys entered my waters. I pointed to their position in this godzilla-minimap:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200411182139_mini108.jpg
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Got no idea what they want; no space left on the continent to settle for which they'd need a galley. Maybe they're going to drop a unit or two next to an undefended city which would be good for ww-reasons but obviously pretty much fatal while in anarchy.
Or they are indeed carrying settlers and cruising to an island.[hmm]

Edit: I forgot: before revolting, I traded republic and 2gpt to Germany for poly, construction, 8g. Korea only had a mere 15g in their bank (and are even still in ancient times), nothing achieved here.

Plux
18-11-2004, 10:07
Nice stealing. What are the odds that such a thing will fail? I think I've never stole anything in civ before (well, not civ3 that is). I don't do it because I'd hate to see 600gp go down the drain and even get war with it!

Grille
18-11-2004, 22:58
AFAIK the odds for a succes are just 32% for the immediate steal option.[eek] The price was ~450g about 25 turns ago when I shut down research. Could not research republic at acceptable speed then, so I used my spare gpt to fill the treasury. The steal-price went up by time (depends on # techs the other civ has and if their capital is town/city/metro), so I was fearing not to be able to pay for the steal soon enough (Bab's seem to advance fast, they're in rep anyways). OTOH the Babs wouldn't trade rep around in the meantime, thus it stayed too damn expensive to buy. In turn 108, I wasn't even expecting to have enough money for the steal and I went happy-go-lucky assigning worker jobs and moving some horsies around... (&gt;preparing/blocking tiles for a possible sneak sea-invasion by Bab's).
At the end of that turn, I checked espionage to get an actual cost overview and found the immediate-steal button eventually enabled:); despite of lots of my units having moved already and since the Bab's could not threaten towns or units in a first strike (they have no roads at the border, nor units sitting there), I risked the stealing (&gt;must push things due to shocking F11 data). Some war on my continent would have to take place sooner or later. I should have been able to bribe Korea/Germany and to hold (at least) my grounds.

Since Aggie (and recently Oystein) published the espionage probabilities, I got quite used to tech stealing in SP. I favour a shot at republic and at nationalism, when the civ in question has a monopoly and may be 'worth' a war anyways (in case of a fail).
The odds seem not so good, though, but 'on avarage' diplo steal is still MUCH cheaper than buying, especially if the rival's capital is a (nearby!) 'city' at the most (plays a condiderable role with respect to cost for an early steal). Plus, chances are trading the stuff around while the inventor of the tech doesn't get a portion of any gold.:D
(btw: if anyone is quite familiar with the expose mission: I wonder if succes chances are always 80% in case there's someting to expose)

Now in this game, 600g sounds much, but it *is* cheap.:)
Bab's would no way accept 600g and ~35gpt for a republic trade (and even if they would, Hammurabi could gold-plate his nose[mad]). Researching would take money and time.
Assuming worst case scenario, i.e. war broke out:
600g lost, but 35gpt should have been enough to bribe Korea/Germany. Granted, I wouldn't have had the republic (would leave it to lone scientist during war, originally assigned in turn 84), yet the score leading Babs would have been in trouble which is good for me (capturing Babylon w/ TGL, Pyr, MoM would have been totally out of question atm, though).

In consequence, I just couldn't resist to steal at 32% succes chance.


Just played 109, Germans smell anarchy and get a 20g tribute.:(

Grille
20-11-2004, 21:30
interesting (110):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041120194932_demo110.jpg
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The 3 civs I know are not revolting: Korea in despotism, Germany stayed in monarchy despite of republic knowledge and Babylonians are in republic.

Ottos completed ToA IBT110. [hmm] Should pretty much reduce it to Hittite, Greeks and Chinese.

Pastorius
20-11-2004, 21:38
Wow Grille, nice steal in the ancient age. That is something I dont see often (in fact I think it is the first time I ve seen anyone do it)

Congrats man.

Grille
22-11-2004, 00:14
A suicide galley of Beam met my curragh in German waters, we have contact now:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041121224237_meeting111.jpg
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hehe...

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041121224823_diplo111.jpg
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...alas, I should have 'gifted' republic to Korea before.[wallbash]
(I even forgot to check F4/Korea's knowledge at all.)
Beam *could* possibly catch up easily in techs by trading rep.
Plus, with further contacts, he could get ahead on the long run
since techs would get much cheaper for him.


As almost expected, Beam also seeks his fortune in anarchy:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004112122592_ma111.jpg
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Who will get out of anarchy first and open an embassy?
edit(in 109, I was #8 in MFG IIRC)
/edit

And here's the power bar:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004112123140_power111.jpg
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edit:
Babylon cascaded to HG-completion. I *hoped* for SunTzu's

Grille
22-11-2004, 02:50
Seems like Beam's galley drowned. What a pity.:D
112:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004112214015_f4_111.jpg
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[ponder]
although I have to recheck this next turn, because
I don't know if AI make their moves before or after the
galley sank (if it did)

Grille
24-11-2004, 17:01
115:
Republic has been established. I'm actually #2 in GNP, MFG and pop (Babs are probably #1 in these areas).
During revolution, a taxmen-horde squeezed out as much gold as possible, so I could opened an embassy in Beijing:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041124153943_embassy115.jpg
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No granny?[hmm]
Mr Beam has 3 luxs, I wonder if these are native.

overview:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041124154336_overview115.jpg
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Grille
27-11-2004, 20:47
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041127192642_war121.jpg
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121:
Wartime!

Since the Babs refused to demand tribute recently, I declared war on them myself. On the past turns, I used a horsie to inspect the best defender of the nearby city of Nippur. It was a bowman and I didn't want to wait for a pike showing up there.
I bought in Germany and Korea which was amazingly cheap. Germans get 3gpt and Korea poly (well, K certainly made the better deal with this). Korea gets engineering as free tech. I had hopes my on mono or feudalism, but I buy it for 27gpt/republic. They revolt.

I'm not sure if the Babylonians have pikes or even knights (they do have chivalry&gt;Templar construction). Sure thing is that Babs must be hit hard until the pop, tech, wonder (and of course the mineshaft;)) gap increases. Untill now, there's 5(!) wonders in Babylon (Pyr, MoM, TGL, HG, Leo's).[eek]
Anyways, I could score in the first round, Nippur has been razed and 2 slaves will serve for France now.:)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041127192726_raze121.jpg
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Alas, a trebuchet was destroyed in the cause.
On another 'front', which is at the Babylonian-Korean border and featured by a sole brave warrior, a third slave was captured.

Kemal
27-11-2004, 21:00
Looking pretty good Grille, and with uber-city Babylon in your possession (soon...? Hopefully they do not have iron?), things can only get better of course!

Can I ask, does Beam have contact with the Germans now? According to game rules he should have been able to have contacted them (using ctrl-d, not F4), but in my game with Skyfish the same thing happened with regard to being next to an AI border, and not being able to contact them.

Strange thing is, later, in a replay of the chain of events, I was able to contact them, while I'm pretty sure that during the "live" turn I was not (though it is impossible to be 100% certain about that of course).

Grille
28-11-2004, 03:25
To be honest, my military is somewhat weak. Or better: it became relatively weaker than pre-anarchy, though I have absolutely more horsemen around now.
Babylon has indeed iron and horses, it's just that I did not see pikes/knights yet. I figured that time is not on my side with Babylon in peace.
Also, I don't know much about Beam. Except that I'm leading in tech (Beam now has poly and HBR) and possibly slightly leading in pop/mfg/gnp. He has apparently 3 native luxs and based on score (Beam is 50+ ahead) and power (equal while Beam's military is weak), I suspect that he covers more territory with more potential on the long run.
So I decided to better act ASAP; if things work out well, I may secure the Akkad bottleneck (see zoomed out pic in post#12) and then halt there. That's my main goal for this war and capturing/razing Akkad is quite an optimistic estimation (I'll plop a city on the hill south of Akkad in case don't get that far). The city of Babylon is certainly still out of reach (plus, it's on a hill...). The flip risk would be quite high as well, so they should be wiped out in one go if I wanted to keep some cities.
This war is 100% depending on Babylon not having (many?) superior troops now (though respective techs/resources are present) and on my allies causing enough trouble on the northern front. Btw, I figured in that Germany and Korea already had a ROP in place.

Played turn 122 already, caught a worker, no other skirmish to report. I'll launch an attack on Sippar in the next turn.


According to F4, Beam does not have contact to any civs on my continent.
IIRC I had some similar weird instances in SP games: when detecting the first AI by touching their border (no units seen), the 'D' at the info box would sometimes show up and sometimes not.[hmm]

Grille
30-11-2004, 06:00
Sippar is history since turn 123.[hammer]
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004113032215_sippar90bc.jpg
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Note that due to a gfx glitch, retreated redlined horses are not seen in the pic at position x (the bug is somehow always present for me when marching in).
Injured units have meanwhile returned to Chartres for healing. As hinted in the pic, I'm actually pondering about a direct raid on Akkad with 12-14 horsemen while ignoring Shuruppak (see post #12 for pos). It may be too risky spending 2 turns in the field; they could be picked off easily and I should have at least 10 intact horsies available at the gates of Akkad.
OTOH, the Babs are now (125) accepting my envoy and I could theoretically even demand stuff for peace!

So far, I've lost 4 horsemen, a warrior and a galley (should be pretty much balanced RNG results).
Btw, does the AI attack with laden galleys??
3 elite horsies around now (2 from Babs, 1 from Barbs). Now I wouldn't mind a GL...:)

Interestingly, I was #1 in pop after razing Sippar; actually I'm #2 again and Beam is at least officially ahead on F8 (top rival was Babylon before).
Offered him construction [eek] for 480g (or 24gpt), but he denied. Heh, I would have flogged it for 400g counter-offer, I need da moola! Bummer.[cry]

Grille
03-12-2004, 18:49
Babylon has now 6 wonders, KT was completed in IBT 127.[mad]

The buggers showed up with pikes and knights a bit earlier than expected;
a friggin knight doomed 3 horsies (and a spear before).
Tse Germans have signed a peace treaty with Babs in turn 129 :(, so
they will possibly bring along more stuff to France. I'm not sure if I
should bribe Germany again, since I'm no way prepared for a longer war.
(and Babs would actually pay ~320g for peace)
I will try to plunder Shuruppak in the next turn, I have split my forces(130):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004123171443_sit130.jpg
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Further decision will depend on the result of the attack.

On a more positive side, I was listed #1 in pop on F11 during the past turns (Beam is closest rival on F8).

Kemal
03-12-2004, 19:03
Is that horse near Akkad their only source? If so, perhaps you could still fight a longer war once it is disconnected, and pillaging it might be an option? With Babylon becoming more and more a tremendous boon for any empire to have, them fielding knights, and soon crusaders, against you must be extremely frustrating, good luck with the next turn!

Grille
03-12-2004, 19:43
They can back on a second source.[cry]
It's near Babylon, barely visible on the overview map in post 4.
(I do have a shot on HD when I opened the embassy, will dig it up)

edit: here it is.
hehe, dumb me, I didn't know wheel then, but marked the tile where the horse actually sits
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004123185258_babsembassy.jpg

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while looking back, quite impressive that the Babs got 6 wonders within ~60 turns!!

Grille
06-12-2004, 01:48
Here's a better view at the other source I know of:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412601358_pic_01.jpg
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On my side, the attack on Shuru (now on size 7[mad]) resulted in 2 dead horsies (1 elite:(), 3 retreats and two wins. It appeared that Shuru was defended by 2 pikes and 1 spear (1 pike was not fortified! thus likely rushed and no other defenders). 1 pike and 1 spear had been killed.
Since there was no harbor, I pillaged the road to Shuru (cut off iron) and brought the other stack into attack position (131):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412601622_pic_3.jpg
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Elsewhere, a reckoning galley morsed the positon of 2 easy victims working on a hill (no units aboard):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412601517_pic_2.jpg
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Second blow on Shuru, killed the remaing pike and a (rushed) spear at the cost of 1 horse (plus 1 retreat), got 3 slaves out of it (132):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412601750_pic_4.jpg
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133, my galley had picked up a warrior for the obvious naval assault (warrior killed by knight on IBT, but at least robbed 2 slaves:)):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412604330_pic_5.jpg
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Grille
06-12-2004, 02:10
As seen in pics above, Babylon now has muskets!
So any further assaults would be suicidal. I looked
what I *could* get for peace (didn't actually sign untill now (133)).

Quite amazing, since a human with half a brain would ask me for 19gpt (+) given the imbalance of power (I have 12 horsies left, they have Crusaders, Knights, longbows and muskets).
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412605151_pic_6.jpg
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alternatively:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412605231_pic_7.jpg
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that compared to feudalism as it is traded on the free market (that's all my current spare gpt except for 30% lux tax)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412605317_pic_8.jpg
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the bottleneck area under new management
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412605445_pic_10.jpg
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I think I will sign peace on the next turn (but note that Korea took a core city of Babylon!).
Goal of the war has been reached, Babylon is down to 10 cities, I have 17 (18 next turn - resettling on Shuru ruins).

And now to some not-so-meek-anymore demograph data.[party]

I was #2 in GNP/MFG for a long time, now I'm leading for the first time in all important areas. And the gap in spt seems more than 20spt! Obviously some AI GA has just ended. (not Babs, their (peaceful) GA is long gone)
Beam and I are somewhat equal in pop (F8), yet he told me I was his top rival. He's ~55 points ahead in score (still wondering if he has 3 native luxs[hmm]).

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20041260540_pic_9.jpg
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Grille
09-12-2004, 19:23
[dance]
Yippie, a brave horseman killed a redlined knight
and finally spawned a GL (136)!!!
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200412918934_leader136.jpg
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The Babs didn't show up with a stack recently, just single units (not even muskets), thus I lived with
few casulties and didn'T sign peace (which would
break the MA with Korea).
I formed a horsemen-army. Not too great, but it should
be able to pick off approaching units.

other stuff:
Beam caught up in tech, he'll likely get ahead of me.
SunTzu's was completed in Hattusas (apparently on Beam's
continent).

Grille
09-12-2004, 19:26
Also note that the dumb Babs really want a mine on
that hill... yet again 2 more slaves.:)

Grille
11-12-2004, 06:43
quick update (141 turns played):

YES!!!
My furious neighbour apparently traded a horse to
Germany... hehe.
Pillaged the Akkad horse with my army and Bab's troops
could use their feet from then on.[mwaha]
And a tile N of Akkad with spices was revealed.
Also, no left over knight was sent out anymore, just
2 longbows within 5 turns that did not even attack.
IBT 140, Korea signs peace, them breaking our MA in the process.
Weird, in turn 136, I thought I'd only be able to
defend myself with a horsemen army, always looking
for a peace deal in emergency case (which would have
trashed my rep), sort of duck&cover. But nothing to duck from, so I went mad about 'wasting' my leader.
The army attacked a longbow only to enable HE, but the army was not really needed per se.
So what to do with it other than attacking Akkad?
That resulted in nada (!!!) losses; my army killed 2 muskets and another horse took care of the remaining longbow. Very poor garrison.
I dunno, you get *some* (?) army bonus (50%?), but I never expected this outcome. Just checked combat calc,
it says an A=3 unit with 13HP has a winning chance of 94%[eek] against 1 fortified 3HP musket. Shit, I think I missed some opportunities in the past.

Anyways, the situation is really fine now:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2004121125454_akkad141.jpg
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WW just kicked, so lots of stuff to do.
Beam has contact to Korea since 138 IIRC who now (141)
know feudalism...
Re-checked all screens, tech trade costs etc. I was
still lacking any MA tech except engineering. Some gold
has been already invested towards feudalism. Babs would
give it away for 7 gpt within the peace treaty; but mono
for only 4gpt! (compare: @20% science, feud ETA 8, mono
ETA 16; both techs spread on my coninent; hence Beam does
not know feud, but mono).
Babs only had 23gpt spare/2g lump, so I made peace with
the mono option. Beam indeed knew it.
Bought feud from annoyed Korea for 53gpt (cautious Bizzy
wanted 57gpt, WTF?), Beam lacks it. (made a 33gpt selling
offer, but I guess he's about to have it sooner/cheaper)
Babs have a monopol on Chivalry, they would not accept 100gpt. Damn highway robbers.
I then got wines for 20gpt from them. Lux down to
20%, some specialists hired, chivalry in 19 @20% science,
28gpt surplus. The deal should really kick in with spices
hooked up (ETA 10). After ending the turn, research
time dropped to 17... maybe I should trade horses to Babs
ASAP to get 'my' gpt back.[groucho]

A settler sitting on the hill, originaly brought
to plop a city right there, moved on to grab the spices
ASAP (will need a border expansion). Flip risk is quite
an issue, though (4708:962 culture, 11 tiles will not be
owned right after founding spice city).
Rushed another settler to fill the the cleared spot.
(edit: I razed Akkad, of course)


Assuming the continents are somewhat equal, the positon
of the spices lets me guess that Beam certainly has 3
luxs online for quite a while.
The fact that he contacted Korea indicates he knows some
other route, possibly from the western side. But
since I'm still strong compared to Beam and preparing
for the next war, I feel somewhat safe. I will deploy 2
galley watchdogs, though.
Also, I expect the AI are finally not much of a threat
anymore.

Grille
11-12-2004, 20:51
142, I sold horses for 14gpt and 94g to Babs. I really
hope they are dumb enough to renew their German horse
deal. Sure thing I could not buy in Germany vs Babs in
the next war, but their help will (likely) not be
essential anymore.
As expected, Chivalry makes the round, Germans know it.
City of Brest founded, I have now jumped to #6 in land
area; still leading in pop, GNP and MFG (103spt, #2 has
78spt[eek]), gotta love the French traits.

Beam denied the proposed tech trade; instead he knows feud now.
We seem to be equal in tech and AI tech pace has slowed
down seriously. Well, no surprise here on my continent due to the war, but no wonder completion messages from Beam's world.[hmm] I cannot imagine that Beam is involved
into a (hot) war, since China seems too weak. Although if
he controls a similar chokepoint, he shouldn't be in
trouble with a somewhat small military (walls don't
always suck:)).
Chinese culture is on the rise (due to libs I guess) and
I bet he aims for Chiv actually (fits to feud as recent
target). OTOH, from his POV, edu would be very
interesting, too (&gt;put limit on TGL abuse).
Whatever, I must somehow get ~1800g for upgrades.

Grille
18-12-2004, 01:35
update to turn 156:
France & China: [love]

Beam knows all civs on my continent, he's currently admiring the French Riviera.
The Chinese tourists wanted to share a secret!
Yes, we made a deal. I bought theo for 45gpt from Beam. He's still weak, but got ahead in techs, thus he probably accepted. Maybe not for love, but for money (&gt;upgrades, AI catch up).
My motivation here is to get to printing press ASAP (improve chance of contact gaining). Actually noone has it here, so I now research it. My suicide ships all drowned, while the Babs now travel sea tiles with their galleys. Chances are they meet someone, I surely don't want to miss that opportunity to gain contacts before trying the TGL raid.
Education is yet unknown to Germany/Korea, but I'm sure Beam will lastly adjust that as soon as he spots a war on F4 (ETA 10-15 I think).
Doing still very well on F11; after some expansions, I'm even #2 in land area now.

Grille
01-01-2005, 20:11
Weird, I know all civs since turn 159 and I did nothing to achieve that.. Either Beam or someone else traded all contacts around.[hmm]

Of course, techs spread around in the process, which leaves me as the most backwards civ on the planet.
OTOH the contacts are just fine with respect to the nearby TGL. The raid
will be delayed a bit since I dont have enough money yet to do all the upgrades (spent to much on printing press research which now appears to be worthless).

Grille
02-01-2005, 23:43
[wallbash]
I forgot to turn off auto-deal-renegotiation the turn before, thus Hammurabi knocked on the door to renew the peace deal. The deal included a mere 4gpt from my side (I originally assumed the deal should silently go on with auto-negotiation off in case I give the gpt; dunno if this assumption was correct in case I had turned off auto-re-neg?).
Since upgrading has not been done so far, I didnt take the risk to deny the peace deal. Now I have a new peace treaty with Hammurabi in place... d*oh.
(Additionally, I renewed the wine deal with him, but scrapped the horse deal.)
Anyways, now that I punked myself [crazyeyes] (and other gpt-give-away deals ran out), I opened a new tech trading round in turn 162. It appeared that Korea charged the cheapest prices for all techs in question, so I buy invention/gunpowder/chemistry for 43gpt/44gpt/38gpt&horses from them. Except for chemistry (not known by Hittites), these techs were spread all over the world; I exchanged newly gained chemistry for printing press with Hitties (btw, they would have exchanged education for chem).

Beam was quite surprised how it was possible to catch up with 4 techs in one turn, but IMO the deals were not unusual given that almost all techs were known to all civs.

In 163 I noticed that Germans have gems to offer for 24gpt; I still ran 10% lux tax and turning it down resulted in a better surplus than 24gpt, so I bought it; I had to re-adjust some specialists and now I run 100% tax with 50gpt surplus left (4 taxmen are also present). My FP will be ready in Marseilles in 4 turns (delayed by one turn due to clown-hiring - no market there).

Gunpowder says there's no saltpetre within my borders, but there is a source a stone throw away in Babylonian area (city of Nineveh). So it may be possible to first steal the saltpetre, then grade up to cavs and go for Babylon. OTOH question remains if the delayed TGL raid is still worth it, meaning that Beam might finallly decide to attack his neighbour, pumping up his empire in a GA while I sit and wait not trashing my rep (this game *might* very well see a diplo victory).
Anyways, a great TGL abuse with 5(!) scientific civs -possibly all in industrial age at that time- is very tempting. Hence I did not exchange chemistry for education.
Intel suggests that Beam now builds military. Note that he has ROPs with every AI civ![eek]

Grille
03-01-2005, 04:48
Some impressions of tonite's session (actually 168 turns played).

166:
The birds don't see that much of a difference looking at France from above, yet this state of expansion is enough to hit #1 position in land area. The mentioned source of saltpetre is found on Shiny Stardust Hill near Nineveh. Cultural expansion levels may be an issue to grab it at once, but I plan to resettle the area being really in awe of their culture. Speaking of culture, Beam's neighbours, the Greeks, even top the Babs in total culture.[eek]
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325012_pic166_1.JPG
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Here you can see I didnt get the party invitation...[cry] I feel sort of excluded looking at Mr Passage and his network of ROBs (166). Now if only someone abuses the beaming rights.:D Beam seems to squeeze out every possible source of money (safe bet he's bigger in territory than every AI).
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325656_pic166_2.JPG
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The French propaganda department proudly presents cute demograph data of turn 166:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325718_pic166_3v.JPG
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Note that the French propaganda department burried F8-culture comparison in some forbidden place ;)...

...which is not to be mistaken with this one (167 - Yay!:)):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325739_pic167_3.JPG
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It doesn't look like that much of a boost on F11, but after completing the FP, re-joining not needed native workers and constructing some more markets/courts, I now get 130gpt @100% tax. From Beam's surprised reaction on my the tech deals with Korera a few turns before, I guess he guesses (lol!) I'm completly broke. Hehe. Anyways, here's the data after FP-completion (167):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325815_pic167_3n.JPG
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We had quite some conversation recently along with the turn exchange. I told Beam that his (suspected) contact tradings (around turn 159) were quite a good move at a well chosen point of time, because shortly after I gained the contacts, a galley ironically could make it over the ocean (no spoiler during conversation since Beam noticed my galley in Hittite territory arriving anyways). Beam of course confirmed the contact trades, I am eager to know the price he could charge. Here's the galley exploring towards China, it seems that both (?) continents are equal in shape (167):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051325837_pic167_4.JPG
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And, finally, the mini-map (167):
(edit: replaced by enlarged mini-map, since the map is visible in the pic above...[crazyeye] enjoy and get lost in this enlarged one then)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005134136_mini167.JPG
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some other info: Bach's is on Beam's continent. Beam's military is now classified 'avarage', which means he's as weak as I am.:)
Funny game, I delay the next war now and then again, Beam doesn't apparently start any action (maybe soon?) and the AI gets fat. Good thing that both Greece and Babylon compete themselves for 100k, lol.

Kingreno
03-01-2005, 11:29
If you get to cavs it seems a good idea to head for Babylon (the cap is magnificent). Are you allowed to make MA's against the AI? Allying with your other islanders against the babs will certainly kill them.

Good spoiler btw! [thumbsup]

ProPain
03-01-2005, 11:56
Good read! Keep up the good spoiler work!

Grille
03-01-2005, 22:12
Thanks for the feedback, guys.
Concerning the rules, I suggested sticking to Aggie's PBEM rules-set in the opponent finding thread; this means that MAs are generally allowed (and I used MAs already in this game), though slightly restricted (no refreshing a MA deal with the same civ in case the MA broke before the natural 20 turns expiration). I originally thought this rule should mainly avoid MA-ping-pong for human-AI MAs vs the other human every five turns or so with the same AI civs involved (not specifically apply to MA deals vs another AI that get renewed). I reread the rules and noticed that Aggie did not explicitely count out the latter scenario. To be honest, I really thought about renewing the MA with Germany vs Babs as they broke the deal after 8 turns. I didn't do it, though, but wouldn't mind Beam doing such similar (except for the mentioned human MA ping-pong).
FWIW, I noticed that Aggie added a passage about TGL-abuse after Beam and I started the game; however, I think this passage was mainly set up for SGs anyways and maybe for some rare 'pick AI's TGL only, keep it one turn and then abandon it' in a PBEM. Apart from that, for Beam, it should be pretty obvious that I avoid education for abusing the TGL sooner or later (plus he knows I live next door to TGL), so I guess he would have sent a note already. And no way would I disband Babylon just one turn after marching in (yummy Pyramids, Leo's etc).

Whatever, I think we both (maybe silently) agree on most points anyways.



About the MA: Babylon will be doomed of course with Germany and/or Korea attacking from the other side. The advantages would be plentiful. Not only that the Babs may throw their masses against Germany/Korea like they apparently did in the other war and even weaken G/K as well in the process, this would also cut off possible trades (especially saltpetre!), if not avoiding MAs against me.
OTOH, Akkad has Sistine's which could be one of the first targets of G/K. Oh well, at some point, they should get punched, too.
Here's a map of Babylon (173):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200513193627_pic173_1.JPG
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(interesting side-note: the former Babylonian city of Samarra was captured by Korea in the first war; on Beam's continent, the Hitties own the former Greek city of Pharsalos in almost the same spot, as my galley over there just detected - along with the officially first seen Chinese Rider near Athens!)

AFAIK the Babs have only one source of saltpetre which they should lose quckly after the war started. But the peace treaty must expire first (182 IIRC). Good thing the Babs (and Germans) switched to demo already.:D Plus, Babylonian cities of Eulbar and Nineveh are investing shields into Magellan's and Newton's.
Not yet 100% sure if I should start my GA then, but it would of course help for a ToE shot. I don't know if Beam is (or will be) at the gate of the industrial age (then), but I expect he's preparing his GA for ToE. Since he likely now/soon has unversities in his core, he has a good chance to win this race.
Ähem. As I type, I open 175. [hmm] Beam visited a boutique.
That is, he is wearing new clothes!

Kingreno
03-01-2005, 22:18
Well, the trades would stand if Korea/Germany have Navigation and you own a harbor (which you do). So no rep hits in allying them against the Babs then, though I agree waiting till the peace treaty expires.
Oh, and I would not worry about G/K adavncing so quickly they will snatch sistine. AI tends to send 1 to 3 knights atb a time to cities and with muskets Hamurabi can easily defeat that. It will keep him occupied, and that shoudl give French knights more chances. But hey, you know that. get on with it!:D

Grille
03-01-2005, 22:39
Yeah, gotta hurry once the peace deal expired. Rather outdated fashion style I have. Must steal Hammurabi's glasses.[coool]

Grille
05-01-2005, 01:44
One turn to go. Main forces in attack positon, the galley has a settler on board, so I have at least an option to grab stardust hill a bit sooner (will depend on how well things go, cause I have to defend it with uneeded knights).
It'll be tough though, the Babs do know nationalism!!

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051502756_turn181.JPG
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Some stuff has been left south (including the horsemen army) to face possible naval assaults by Babylon. Also, who knows if Beam decides to ship over spoilsports. He just offered a tech deal, though (edu & met at 15% dicount compared to best AI price). The deal was denied, since he would only trade it in a package. Offered 55gpt for met alone. I guess he would have accepted 55gpt for *both* met and edu...

Anyways, I'm now now strong again compared to Beam (and Germany!), avarage to Hitties and weak against the rest; diplo advisor says military is equal in size compared to Babylon, which is of course fine.
Beam trades with Babs. Maybe he gets their wines, hehe.

Grille
05-01-2005, 02:55
[charge]
Nineveh know fits onto a page in a history book!
Took a lot of shots, must still crop them, details later.

in short:
signed:
MA vs Babs plus Met with Germany for ~75gpt
MA vs Babs plus MT with Korea for ~100gpt
(prices just IIRC, have to recheck)

Blow on Nineveh (razed):
Lost 7 knights, 2 retreated. Garrison consisted of 2 rifles and 2 (nasty) cavs. 3 other slaves captured. 2 elites gained.
14 knights (and lotsa horsies) left, settler unloaded and position secured with 4 knights (no counter attack on stardust hill stack during IBT).

Renewed horse deal with Korea (20gpt).
Sold MT to Hitties for WM and monarchy.

IBT182:
Babs & Hitties make MA vs Germany.
Babs & Hitties make embargo vs France. I could care less.

counterattacks:
Lost a horse that captured a slave, killed a longbow with a knight, pike defended against Bab cav (retreat).


Made Beam an offer:
MT for WM plus gold as in tech calc price (7 of 8 know it) minus 15%.

Grille
07-01-2005, 21:55
shot addendum (all turn 182)

The MA/tech deals with Germany and Korea:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517201942_pic182_01.JPG
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As seen, I decided to combine the tech deals. Not to possibly get the techs cheaper in case of deal breaking in the first place, but to ensure the MAs will stay (not too sure if this is almost guaranteed, but it often works well enough). The city of Babylon alone has more culture than whole France in total. So flip risk is quite high and the Babs should be wiped out quickly which is not feasible solely.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051720203_pic182_02.JPG
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In the middle of attacking Nineveh; as the rifles had died/lost enough HP, unfortunately cav(s) showed up as defenders, thus disabling retreat chances.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517202029_pic182_03.JPG
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After razing Nineveh, as roughly implied by the arrows, I captured the workers, moved/unloaded the settler off the galley onto stardust hill and strenghtened the positon with knights.

The harvest, just before razing (8 slaves gained in total that turn):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517202113_pic182_04.JPG
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Actual mini map and the forces left over after attacking, ready for cav-upgrades:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517202138_pic182_05.JPG
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The crisis swapping over to the other continent during IBT:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517202221_pic182_06.JPG
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The Babs reaction on IBT. Apart from some other unimportant battles, only 2 cavs attacked (1 succesfully) and the Babs moved a stack of rifles and templars southwards.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517202243_pic182_07.JPG
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Grille
07-01-2005, 23:50
So how did this go on? Alas, no French flag in Babylon until now (189).
Although the upshowing Babs were not much of a threat, I lost some of my (IMO too rare-numbered) cavs in order to prevent the Babs pillaging horse and spices.
Plus, I diversified forces because the Babs' navy indeed left port and eventually started naval invasions, circumventing the border strongholds.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051722656_pic186_02.JPG
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So I could not deploy enough cavs for a concentated attack on Babylon. I've only seen 2 Templars, so I fear Babylon may be still full of them, thus I'll wait until at least 20 cavs are available (=more money for upgrades needed).
Meanwhile I got muskets (no GA yet!) and moved a defensive stack with a settler to the wine hills (186). It's obvious that the the Babs trade all their wines... possibly even with Beam.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051722439_pic186_01.JPG
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Before and after plopping New Paris on the wine hills, I checked diplo/F4-trade lines. New Paris forced the Babs to break a deal with Hittites and they lost their 'own' source (Babs accept diplo envoy and there's wines on my side of the table). Alas, the Chinese-Babylonian trading was still in order.[mad]
Northern France in 188:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051722322_pic188_01.JPG
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In 189 I noticed someone beat me in GNP and MFG - F4 says Beam is at war with... Germany[hmm], so he prolly launched his GA. No idea why he picked Germany (if it wasn't a tribute thing, but then I should still be #1 in GNP I think). On the bright side, I'm still strong and if Beam really fights Germany, he shouldn't be able to send over stuff to me.
Although an accumulation of stinkin Chinese pirates was just (turn 189) detected near the French coast (1 frigate, 3 privateers)![eek]
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200517223734_pic189_01.JPG
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Got a 300g loan for a frigging 19gpt from Greece for more cav upgrades. Wine was traded for 10gpt and 8gpt to Korea and Germany.

Grille
08-01-2005, 02:36
Beam indeed milfed my galley!! [aargh]

With new cavs deployed up in the north, I waged an attack on Babylon. With streaky results, took me 9 cav rolls to even kill the first rifle.[ponder]
Not that I want to complain about the RNG (Babylon is on a hill), but that was quite daunting at first sight. Then the luck switched side and I got my second leader!
[party]
Was about time (HE in Paris since 390AD or so). I secretly hoped to get one by picking on longbows and other weaker stuff the Babs dropped off of boats in the south w/o success. But this GL is even right at the front line.:)

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051805023_pic191_01.JPG
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In total, I could kill 4 rifles and lost 5 cavs. A ton of cavs (and 1 knight) retreated, rushed the rax in New Paris for healing purposes.
Formed a cav army of course and that should hopefully grind the Babs at last.
Just played 192, my army pillaged the last remaining Babylonian-connected wine resources. Trade line with Beam on F4 still active, but I see on diplo that I could now offer wines to Beam.:D
Hope his rep is history now.:D
This may be very important, because as I said earlier, diplo victory may be very well possible (not for me in the first place, since I already have (and will) raze). His pirating career and a trashed rep may possibly level the AI's attitude towards him.

Grille
09-01-2005, 04:27
198:
Yeah!!!
[dance][band][party]

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051932125_pic198_01.JPG
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Grille
11-01-2005, 21:10
(spammy update, 207 turns played)

So repeated attacks in 195 and 198 with Cav-army and Cav-SoD grinded Babylon's garrison enough. Inbetween attacks, there was a healing pause in New Paris;
The Babs have been in facism for some time, thus they drafted and rushed their pop down. Counted 14 rifle kills in total during 195/198, most of them drafties/regs, plus 2 longbows. French casulties were 6 cavs and 1 knight (older elite).
Grabbed TGL, Leo's, Pyramids, MoM, HG and KT.:)
Inherently a very nice harvest, yet Babylon is tourism boomtown on top of that (apart from KT which is completly useless).


Steam says we have a source of coal.
Btw, reviewing the pic above, I notice the sun in the info box.[hmm]
Weird, since all the techs dropped in at [i]next turn's start; the 'enter-new-age' popped up then as well.


199: "It's raining cats and dogs!"
(btw, anyone knows that golf-themed 'gopher' flipper?[groucho])
France collects the fruits of the great TGL abuse:
education, banking, demo, economy, astronomy, navigation, physics, free artistery, magnetism, ToG, nationalism, steam power, communism, medicine, industrialization, facism.
But.
16 past edu techs in one go *looks* great at first sight (and probably it *is* - from a tech-catch-up or SP-game perspective), but I would have preferred an earlier grab, i.e. short time after the first peace treaty with the Babs expired (fucked that thing up).
I was investing too many shields into military units. These were inferior (at first), thus the casulty numbers were of course higher. Then the needed upgrades consumed large amounts of commerce. Not running a war economy, Beam could meanwhile certainly stuff his core with unis and banks, plus he's eventually got a railroad headstart. He could do that staying cool and calm, because the starting locs offer low AI sneak attack danger (regarding his ROPs, I think he blocked the small borderline at least after RRs came up). Furthermore, he knew I could not cross the ocean safely and he could even guess I was going to be busy enough with Babs. And the latter assumption would have been finally confirmed by my war declaration vs the Babs.
No surprise I lost my formerly very comfortable demograph lead as time went by (199):

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511125438_pic199_01.JPG
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The first drop in numbers (189) was synchronized with the start of the German-Chinese war. A few turns earlier, I had noticed the German ROP vanished (all other civs were almost always ROP'ed IIRC). So I thought a dispensible bunch of Riders were shipped over to Germany for an easy GA start with few risk of any real threat (German's on other continent; plus them fighting, at least officially[rolleyes], Babylon).
I'm not so sure anymore if his GA was really launched.[ponder]
The GNP/MFG boost could have had other reasons as well (commerce stuff, RRs/FP). Although I was ahead of Beam by industrialization in 199 (+communism, facism btw), so no factories on his side at that time.
Got a bit unlucky with these techs, as I could not sell them around. Ai either knew them or were broke. Beam got all these techs one turn later, obviously by trading electricity. Interestingly, every civ knew elec, so Beam could re-skim the (possibly refreshed) AI market on the new turn. At least I got it from Germany for a cheap 68gpt plus iron (captured an extra source N of city of Rennes).

202: Chairman Beam gets fat (French press now calls him "Sofaman":D).
Beam completed ToE. Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Looks like the usual electronics-shot, Beam has HD under construction. Rep-parts seem unknown yet.
Beam also builds US.[hmm]
Bought corp for 166gpt from Otto's (unknown to Beam) and traded it to Hitties and Germany for luxs and half-decent gpt. Beam grabbed it of course in 203.

Meanwhile my party arrived at the lovely seaside town of Eridu. It was struggling, so no need to install a French governor. Razed for 1 slave which is now held captive on a remote sugar plantation. Or so the tale goes.:)
Area resettled. I also plopped New Orleans near old Ashur, my emnemy's new cap. It has Sistine's.

207: heavy losses:(
I had pre-worked Ashur's garrison with the Cav-army and now wanted to make a combined attack with a Cav-stack/army. Possibly not having enough cavs ready for a blitz-raid, I figured that repeated attacks should be again the way to go. Benefitting from retreats, i.e. stealing more HPs than losing own HPs (with fatal results, anyways) and eventually killing some units while not having too many own casulties in total, and then making a healing pause seemed to work well enough when attacking Babylon. Ashur is on a hill, still a city, so chances were the Babs would draft/rush their pop down to town size after the first run.
Note that another Cav-stack sitting near the city of Babylon should originally stay there and react on a flip or the usually upshowing units; Babylon is normally defended by 2 warriors only and therefor needs an offensive defence. This Babylon stack was in Ashur attack distance as well, though. Of course I considered pulling one or another cav out of this Babylon stack helping on the Ashur front, but just as a lucky option in case the Ashur main attack stack would come very close to even capturing the city.
The main attack stack did very well. The army killed the two first rifles w/o taking much damage, so I went for a third army battle which was also succesful. As a result, the main defenders were gone and thus the remaining Babylonian forces (reg and conscript rifles) in Ashur were fair game for the single attack cavs.
If I counted correctly, a 1/2HP rifle, a 2/3HP rifle and a longbow was left over after this first attack. I had been acting very carefully before, usually avoiding any risks. But ww kicked in recently and the Ashur garrison looked small enough, so I wanted to hurry up. I called units of the Babylon stack in. At this point, the shit started flowing into my general directon. I called in the first cav, second... etc. Except for 1 retreat and two succesful survisors, the extra Babylon stack was completly wiped out.[mad] I killed the last rifle eventually, but had only one 3/4HP cav left over ready for an attack vs the still remaing single longbow... Ashur remained Babylonian. Who cares for a spear, the longbow is the devil!![mad]

I had stopped military builds due to factories and banks being ordered, so these heavy losses really hurt. The desaster is well reflected on F3. I'm now weak compared to Beam (and some other civs). Beam might add 1 and 1 planning a spontaneous invasion.[scared]
Well, at least some rail tracks have been built already, so I can push stuff around quicker.
My earlier thought about Beam trashing his rep was of course dumb, since the Babs certainly trashed their rep in the process of pillaging their wines (the advisor says Hammurabi betrayed our Chinses "friends" anyways).[blush]
Beam is very likely the tech leader, avoids wars (peace with Germans for some time), has ROPs with everyone and trades stuff, so UN might very well be another option for him. His tech pace should be well, because it looks like he could almost totally skim the gpt market. OTOH, in the meantime, the AI got themselves involved into wars while some switched to facism and thereby cripple their gpt (and global tech pace, resp).
Actually, these wars are present, agressor (IIRC) stated first:
France vs Babs
Germany vs Babs (originally caused by the MA with me)
Hittite vs Germany (through MA with Babs)
Greece vs Hitties
Ottos vs Hittites (through MA with Greece)
Babs vs Hittites (through MA with Greece or Ottos); this one is a bit strange, since it broke out very recently. [crazyeyes] The Babs should be troubled enough and the Hitties were their former ally vs Germany... Added to that: Despite of this Hittite gang bang, they captured the German core city of Munich (on other continent from their POV!) and hold it for some time now.
Only Korea (signed peace with Babs) and China have no wars. Korea is still in facism, though.

Whatever, I'm not sure what to do now. It seems I must act militarily vs Beam. The trouble here is I have no military nor a fleet for the job [blush2], not even soon. Furthermore, the forces are now even too weak to deal with the Babs effectively (they started pillaging near Babylon during IBT 207 as the responsible cav stack there is gone/damaged).
Also, I'm desparatly waiting for my GA!! - Babs avoided an attack on a musket, whereas I attacked their easy-to-kill longbows with elites hoping for the next GL.

edit: seems I messed up some turn numbers, corrected them

Grille
11-01-2005, 23:33
Hmm, must take more notes or I will confuse too much stuff, especially when doing power seesions in the middle of the night. Greece is no more at war with Hitties, must have missed the peace deal pop-up.

208:
Rats. I'm actually down to 10 cavs.:(
At least I'm still strong compared to the Babs and the RNG gives some compensation::)

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005111215137_pic208_01.JPG
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I could sue for peace with the Babs, they would almost give up 2 towns.
I will try to throw everything fast available against Ashur in 2 turns, hope for a GA trigger, then sign peace with the Babs.
So what. An army or...
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005111215215_pic208_02.JPG
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No idea how this will work out.[ponder] Palace cost was 700, so I guessed my former core isn't ranked too bad.
On the long run, the new core should be more productive and the FP more effective with regards to distance corruption. Or it was the dumbest move ever. At least Babylon would not flip.


continued:
209:
for the record, lost about 80-90gpt @ 100% tax by palace rush

Grille
12-01-2005, 03:07
210:
Ashur with Sistine's captured, plus GA started! [party]
(no peace yet)
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511203830_pic210_01.JPG
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Took over demograph lead except for population. It is to be blamed on settler/worker builds and Beam's cities being larger.
China, as I know it:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511205248_pic210_03.JPG
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Here's the power bar, note the recent developments (China improving, France stagnating).
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511204510_pic210_02.JPG
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Tax is of course still on 100%, because it's more effective than researching.
The GA dramatically increases gpt, so I go shopping.
Greece gets 166gpt and wines for rep parts.
Korea gets rep parts for sanitation, SciMeth, 30g, WM.
(Germany and Hittite wouldn't accept that deal, guess they spent beakers towards rep parts already)
Greece gets 210gpt, 80g for espionage.


IBT210:
Babs and Germany make peace.

Will try to build IA ASAP. If Beam wants to build the UN, I should notice the construction location in time; his current number of cities doesn't allow a 1000-shield-worth palace for a direct switch from the pre-build.
So there would be a chance to sabotage the stuff.

211:
Babs know rep parts. WTF, they were completly broke in 210.
I plan a hill city north of the Babylon horse, then I might sign a peace treaty.

[confused]
Strangely, based on the cap leaving Paris, Beam asked if I would continue the battles on my continent. Not sure if that was just out of interest (.1% sure) or if he had ulterior motives (99.9% sure). He might have deal/trading interests with Babs and/or Germany which I could possibly mess up from his POV (only that my military is too weak).

Grille
13-01-2005, 02:10
213:
My Cav army just died.:( I attacked with 8HP left a 3HP rifle in Uruk (hill town, what else[rolleyes]). I could raze Uruk in the end, but sure thing there's rubber in that tiny bit of land which was once Bab's territory.[rolleyes] Didn'T notice this in 211 at first sight, because it is, of course, on Eulbar's city center square.[rolleyes] By some other chance, Eulbar is one of their last strongholds.(the other one being Ellipi, at least they're still weak in total).

4 warriors in Ashur have quelled this & that, the rest of my mood, plus an amazing amount of 0/4 resistors yet.[mad]

The valium medication *could have* started working, but an evil Chinese leader doesn't stop grinning from that F7 HD pic, which now says 'completed'.
Oh well.

Grille
17-01-2005, 04:37
The following turns were not that spectacular. My new core is progressing well and my old core completes factories, policestations and banks in the first place.
MilAc has been completed in Marseilles (FP city).
I took Eulbar, so the Babs are out of rubber.[:o]
The Hittites took another remote city of them, so they're down to two.

more interesting:
223:
Korea gets 111gpt, horse, wine for refining (2 oil).
224:
IA completed, Beijing spy plant attempt failed.
IBT:
Greece declares on Beam!! Hehe. I hope a huge amount of gpt went down the drain.

226:
Somehow Beam forgot selling steel around.[hmm] Greece has the AI monopoly on it. Plus, even more strange, most AIs have too much gpt. At this point, French salesmen put their feet, hands and other extremeties available into AI's door, unfurling various trade activities.
Buy steel (and renewed an incense deal) grom Greece for 297gpt.
Steel gets resold to:
-Ottos for 159gpt
-Germans for 94 gpt
-Koreans for 61gpt, 652g, WM
Hittite then sell atomic theory for steel and 65gpt.
Very fruitful bazar.:)

I notice that Beam actually only trades with Korea and Ottos. He doesn'T have oil and horse (guess he traded a horse source and Greece pillaged the other, as WM indicates); to deny a road to lux and strategic resources, I sign trade embargoes vs China with Germany, Hittite and Beam's enemy, the Greeks:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051173295_pic226_01.JPG
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Not too bad for an embargo.

Next turn, I will try the next spy planting attempt in Beijing (penalty flag is likely gone then).

Grille
17-01-2005, 21:29
227:
The plant attempt failed again.
Babs are down to their cap, Ellipi.
I rushed an army (to be filled with infs), which will slowly give them the rest (hopefully). Slowly, because I have seriously ignored unit construction recently. Still cavs lead universities by... 3:0.[blush2]
If Beam has a spy, there's of course potential trouble ahead. Maybe he thinks of a bug when looking on F3:D, since my military must even look MUCH weaker than expected.
OTHO, Hittite and Greeks just signed a MA vs China (Hittite also sign MA with Greece vs Korea). The Hitties are no real threat and their declaration will boost his happiness of course, but Greece and Hittite are not supposed to vote for Beam. That is, as the situation looks like now, a UN vote would not be a total nobrainer for Beam.

Beam captured one Greek city so far. But even if he soonish blitzes them down, it would likely take too long making good use of the newly gained territory. I'm playing for time; once my new core reaches full production capacity, I may make serious plans for an invasion; trouble here is that nukes may be around by that time.

No idea how to win this. Hmm, I actually have a histograph head start...[lol]

Grille
18-01-2005, 06:28
229:
Excellent, Chinese walls now have ears! [devil]

The Chinese army (and Chinese ice-cream) has been infiltrated (and fluoridated) by the international subversive French conspiration.[fdevil]

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511821637_pic229_01.JPG
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While Chairman Beam took a seat at his wargame table with the staff, the "UN and Weapon Inspector" took inconspicuously these shots with his spy cam:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511821656_pic229_02.JPG
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200511821717_pic229_03.JPG
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[whatsthis]
And I thought the situation was much worse! No marines present. The 2 armies are annoying, though. Of course, I cannot be sure if Beam got them from the actual war (i.e. state of the art armies).

Greece knows combustion, AI monopoly.:)
I get it for 263gpt.
Korea buys combustion for electronics (wow!), 8gpt, 50g and WM.
Ottos get it for 49gpt, 884g and WM.
Hittites throw in ironclads and 3g.
The Germans have oil(!) and nothing much to spare, get ironclads for a lousy 27gpt and 2g.
With combustion available among the AI, I hope I can trade my extra oil in the near future. (Beam lacks oil and ironclads, btw)

Minimap-time:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/20051182180_pic229_05.JPG
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Considering Beam's transport capacity:
If at all, I'd be yellow if Beam lands stuff near the crosses, as he could totally block land access to those 2 cities by placing two stacks near them. But that's rather hypothetical I guess.

IBT:[crazyeyes]
Babs & Greeks sign MA vs Germany.
Babs and Greeks sign MA vs Ottos.
This game has become a bloodfest!
(at least on the paper)

230:
Sooner than I exptected, the red spot on the mini map above has been removed.:) The Babs are history. Beam had a trade embargo with them against me, maybe now he broke a deal.
GA is over. Except for MFG (#2), I'm still doing well; I think the palace rush was worth it, although a leader-made army instead would have crushed the Babs much earlier, possibly followed by an attack on Germany afterwards. Oh well, kinda ironic my Cav army died shortly after rushing the palace.
Btw, I've asked Beam if we would be allowed to twit the AI hard. He didn't answer in time, so I didn't go for a gpt/MA fuck-up just before wiping the Babs out. But since there's tech-parity, that would have only helped for some resource trade-aways (to Korea and Hittite at the most, Greece had still enough gpt anyways).

Grille
22-01-2005, 01:54
234:
Greece is still doing fast research. Could be it's because they don't have to give their hard-earned money to the evil Chinese anymore, plus they get lots of gpt from me.
They now know Flight! (Beam has it already, as well as bombers, since he has native oil now)
I buy flight for 288gpt and resell it to Germany for all their spare income, which is 87gpt. The other AI are completly broke.

Grille
23-01-2005, 18:36
235:
Beam cut of Greek incense which I got by the combined steel deal in 226 for 297gpt as 7th lux. On the bright side, I spare a lot of money, but many cities slip out of WLTKD in the process, eventually messing up turns-to-completion for their build projects.
Alternatively, I buy silks from Greece for 77gpt.
Beam is still in the industrial age, so I guess he stopped research. Good for me... I think.[hmm]
Could be he scrapped/delayed possible UN plans or he fears I steal his techs. That is, he called me a stealer, so he's prolly not considering that I got the techs from Greece. With Greece denying envoy, he could not have checked for their techs.:D

kinda off topic (gfx glitch):
It'S winter time, the hills are covered with, erm, snow:[crazyeye]
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200512317253_pic235_1.jpg
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Grille
24-01-2005, 00:30
236:
Blah. Now my rep is gone. Beam just pillaged the roads surrounding the Greek capital.[rant]

Rik Meleet
24-01-2005, 02:22
That sucks ...

Grille
28-01-2005, 02:26
update to 243:
Built and rushed a lot of stuff related to shield and gold production. Doing quite well in these areas, my new cap alone makes 160+ gpt.
I almost ignored unit construction, but that'll change soon. Beam is of course seriously ahead here, Greeks doom is just a question of time. And if that little playground isn't keeping him busy anymore...[scared]

Since building improvements is boring for the most part, I thought gaping at Beam's activities might give some diversion (240):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200512803136_pic240_01.jpg
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Peeping tom can travel for free on Alex and Otto's trains.[:p] He reports about a lot of craters in the warzone, guess it would take some time until that mess has been cleared.

IBT240:
A source of oil depletes.[mad]
My other source is sent to Korea (forced to stop bomber builds until ~257!).

241:
The new source of oil is in German territory, could have been worse.

242:
Mass Production is available on the world market. Korea's still at war with Greece, so they don't consider my spotted rep and accept 152gpt.

243:
Beam reduced the (furious) Greeks to 2 or 3 cities, chances are they're history soonish. I have still deals going and decide a spy gamble to get out of those. Plant attempt failed, they declared.
Btw, I think I made ~8 plant attempts here and there so far, only have a spy (yet the most important one, of course) in Beijing (3 attempts IIRC).

-edit(continued)-
244:
Beam had removed my spy. Something to hide me thinks.
Yay, plant worked this time all at once.:)
He is building a fleet.[:o] 1 carrier is in duty yet.

Grille
29-01-2005, 18:16
245:
Greece is history.
My outnumbered navy detects a Chinese destroyer/transport combo which could reach the east coast. Assuming Beam has more stuff behind this combo, I feared he might raid cities at the easte coast and garrison them (spy tells Beam has some marines).

246:
The shit hit me hard. I expected a serious attack soonish, but not *that* soon. If at all, I guessed about a quick raid on my east coast now.
However, Beam launched an assault on my western coast! That area was poorly defended and he caused too much damage. My economy is still very strong, but my resource access is pretty much fucked up, ww is sky-high (razing) and I lost FP, IA, MilAc, HE plus Wall street and Pentagon build (both to be completed in 2).
The situation:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005129165018_pic246_0.jpg
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http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005129165044_pic246_1.jpg
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The main trouble is missing resources and huge unhappiness:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/2005129165124_pic246_3.jpg
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(they were not all unhappy, but that pic was taken after some diplo action which obviously led to happiness probs - still almost all cities were in disorder)

I guess that Beam moved all his bombers to Rheims, so I wanted to try a propaganda flip attempt as last option (I noticed on F3 that my spy is still in place, althoguh IA was gone). However, I don't get that option.
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/uploaded/Grille/200512916511_pic246_2.jpg
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If at all, I could *maybe* stop Beam at Brest bottleneck, but I don't see any perspective on the long run. I give in.

I concentrated way too long on infrastructure, the TGL raid should have happened 20 turns earlier or I should have prepared military build much sooner. I think I need to seriously improve my MP skills.

Congrats Beam, thanks for a really great game![party]
Kudos to Aggie for the map.[thumbsup]

I enjoyed this game very much.:)

Kingreno
29-01-2005, 18:21
Very nice read Grille! It was always good to read this spoiler.[goodjob]

Beam
29-01-2005, 19:06
Thanks for this game Grille! Very nice spoiler.

About the UN. I probably would have build to avoid AI diplo victory but not hold elections. It is a shitty victory and certainly not worthy for this game.

About the techs in the late IA. I decided to stop trading as there was a bulk of cash in Chinese marketplaces (not in Banks as none are ever build). Greek war declaration robbed about 300 gpt away but China still had over 5000 gold end of game.

Finally there was just a Cav army and a Cav in Rheims. Even if you had managed to recapture it losses would not have been dramatic and a huge Carrier / Bomber force soon would show up.

Grille
29-01-2005, 21:30
@UN:
When I got a clearer picture of the WM and the situation as a whole on it, I wondered why you were not going for Greece. When my galley approached your northern border, I noticed that Greece had "milf" as best defender there (while they could have had rifles then IIRC). At that time, I thought you were the tech leader and got huge gpt from the AI, which would oil the research through the industrial age very well. Furthermore, you had all these ROPs, at least these would help keeping good terms with the AI (btw, I indeed feared you had some stuff in Babs terry behind Babylon!).
So I thought you *might* be aiming for the UN, avoiding wars/razing and keep the AI as buddies in the process (you knew by the slaves on F3 that I razed a lot, so AI would be mad at me).
Agree that diplo is sorta lame, at least in MP (and it's sometimes bugged AFAIK).

@Rheims:
Agreed, it would have been just a matter of time.


Interesting that you didn't build any banks![eek]
I made it even to some stock markets, but military would have been the better idea of course.
OTOH, I did not build a single university...[:p]
IIRC I researched only in the ancient age, except for some beakers towards printing press which I eventually got by trade before it was finished; got it within the 4-techs-in-one-turn catchup you had wondered about ;)

stuff I picked up from your spoiler:
-the music theory thingie: you never get it from TGL in C3C, for what reason ever.[dunno]
-MA rep hit if a civ gets wiped out: you don't get a rep hit here. You can fuck the AI hard with that. Put tax on 100%, give huge gpt within a MA to a (backwards & somewhat poor) civ, sell your techs for ('your' granted) gpt to that same civ in a seperate deal, go to the next civ and repeat, then wipe out the target civ (you can sometimes jsut jump a train if it's safe bet the AI will wipe out a rival soon). Kinda exploitive (that's why I asked you before Hammurabi left the stage;), but my question was expressed very poorly IIRC). I did not use it. It would not have helped a lot anyways, because I did not have much to sell.
Not sure about embargoes, though. You had one with the Babs in place, did that trash your rep?

General question: I'm not so used to coal plants, but do they actually need coal for functionality? I know they at least need it as building req, but AFAIK factories would not need iron to give their spt bonus. (&gt;look at Babylon in the pic above, it has a coal plant, but spt seems to be somehow crooked[confused])

PS:
Glad y'all had fun lurking.:)

Beam
29-01-2005, 22:42
Just checked your turn prior to invasion, France is making 1400 gpt [mouth]. No Banks indeed, it is upkeep and there is no real need for them if you don't know where to spend +11,000 in cash. Main reason for maintaining a solid rep was assuring I could pay gpt to the AI if needed and they would pay cash together with gpt for techs etc. Afaik not a single event has hurt my rep.

You only need Coal for one turn to build a Coalplant and that's the turn you start construction. After that it is a matter of building and using it. It's main disadvantage is pollution. That hits very hard on this map cause there are very few rivers so you can't build many Hydros.

The most interesting thing about this game is the fully opposite approach to techs and ending up just prior to the Modern Age with a margin of one tech for the techlead. Although the many surviving AI-at-strenght might be a factor here it also clearly shows there are more competitive approaches getting techs. It's also either way imo. Go Unis and seek max. profit deals or go Banks, SE's and get techs cheap.

The buy / steal approach would have been more difficult in the Modern Age imo if the game had continued. First of all the surviving AI would have suffered the same faith as Babs and Greece making stealing the only remaining viable option. Second there are a number of techs that a techleader can plan and play for where a techfollower can't. Nukes, couple of wonders, completing Space Race etc.

Hm, maybe I should replay turn 245b and resubmit. ;)

Grille
30-01-2005, 00:16
Yeah, agree on the points about aquiring techs.
Of course, my original plan was certainly building up universities. But at the point I could build them, it seemed easier to just buy the techs that had been traded around and improve cash production. Later (Greek war) I was quite amazed that I could still get techs and even resell them. But as you pointed out, that would have stopped now anyways with those shitty AIs.


quote:Originally posted by Beam


Hm, maybe I should replay turn 245b and resubmit. ;)

[lol]
Hehe. If you don't attack, I bet you'd win by space for the above reason.
Although the gpt/spt numbers looked really shiny in 245, there was nothing behind it. Too late to make good use of this potential. By the time I may have had a half-decent army/fleet/airforce, you'd have still much more stuff, a nuke head start or a space ship.

Alternatively, how about submitting some 001 save, i.e. start a new one?:)