I guess you've also had a ton of fun with colourblindness tests.
"What number do you see in this mosaic?"
"Err - it's a letter, no?"

Some colours are all Greek to me. Just like the civ I just met, it's Greece. They don't know the Zulus in their neighbourhood and lacked of masonry (maths) and even pottery. So Aggie either doesn't know them or he didn't trade pottery.

In total, the trading round got me BW, Wheel, WC, CB and IW plus some gold. Zulus and Greeks got masonry, maths (and pottery). I'm now on tech pari with them. Due to the gold, I can afford researching writing at 0% tax rate (I pay 2gpt for grannies).
On my not fully discovered continent I can now see 2 (of each) sources of horsies and iron.

The canoe won't sail to Aggie's suspected position. Like anarres said, it would be worth a lot to have an option for an unexpected surprise attack. Especially if there's no barbs and (as far as I can tell...[scared]) no rivals on our starting continents, so early unit construction wouldn't generally be that important.


Here's the demograph (turn47):
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...616_demo47.jpg
33.03*KB


:)
I met the Sumerians in turn 50. They don't know masonry. They have no contact to Greeks (though they're just a throw of a stone away), neither to Zulus. They have 22g and know HBR & mysticism. No deals made.
The Sumerians are score leaders and seemingly #1 in pop atm, as F8/F11 observation shows. I'm currently listed as #2 on F11 and F8 tells that Sumeria tops me. FWIW, I know that Madrid just sent a settler, so I'm guessing Aggie and me are almost equal in pop. So I think he was #2 in the demograph pic above.
Edit: d'oh - note that I was listed #3 in pop in turn 48 or 49. I think Aggie was listed #2 then.

In my game with KR we are both on isolated islands, and if I had found a route a galley could have made it through I would have invaded for sure.

No rivals = no defense force = big opportunity...

The plan is indeed to bring a small force to Aggie's island. I really hope he almost ignores unit construction due to the missing rival/barb threat.
Heck - and if my invading guys just pillage here and there. Good thing my UU has D=3.:D

Make sure to take max. benefit of your GA, Aggie will try to trigger it for sure. ;)

Here's the situation:

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...4128_AG_51.jpg
Z=Zulus
G=Greeks
S=Sumerians
A=Aggie's suspected position

For a seafaring civ, sailing to Aggie's island takes about 6 (galley) turns, regarding the route marked as a white line in the mini map and regarding one *possible* point of disembarkment at Aggie north-western coast. I marked the latter on the main map view with a white X from 'my' perspective.
Leptis Minor and Hippo will produce lumber-accellerated canoes which get upgraded in some harbour city. I'm not sure how big (err, small?) the force will look like...


some other stuff:
Aggie built a temple in Madrid at some point. Bah, "culture"...[mad];)

Greece just got mysticism (no contact to Sumeria, though). Still no trade.

turn53: Contact to Celts. Sumeria now knows maths:( Celts get it for cheap 32g before they aquire it elsewhere in no time.

turn56: Contacts seem to spread among the AI. Zulus got 3 techs within 2 turns, they beat me to writing by 1 turn. I could sell writing to the Celts for HBR, mysticism and 5g. Sumeria gets writing for 42g. I open an embassy in Athens, the Greeks could be an ally vs Aggie later on (1 MA every 20 turns is allowed according to Aggie's rule-set for PBEMs which we want to follow).
I plan to send a small force of 3 galleys to Aggie. It looks like I need (roughly) 30 fucking turns to fill them. This is such a loooong time that I decided to research philo (9 turns) before map-making (17), hoping the price for mm drops meanwhile.
The Celts appear to be too close for comfort.[scared]
They are my neighbours to the west and there's a safe route to me... I hope they hold their gosh.

61:
I met Aggie!

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...49_AG_61_1.jpg
12.3KB

His canoe was detected here:
http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...17_AG_61_2.jpg
10.94KB

Seems like Aggie won the philo gambit.

update 67:

Aggie opened an embassy right after meeting me, so he
-knows my capital's position/continent
-knows that I know his capital's position.
I hope he doesn't get me when I wanted to get him...
Anyways, I have stockpiled some gold to upgrade my canoes, I'm pre-building a harbor (map making is due in 8 IIRC).
The more or less 'distant' luxs on my continent (silks and spices) will be online in about 7-10 turns.
Incense is on that island (coastal trade route) in the east.

Meanwhile, I have all contacts. So does Aggie. He's at war with Germany, most probably due to denying tribute (so he's got WH bonus). I dunno about Germany's exact position yet, because I just met an archer near Dutch territory.

Zulus declared war on Greeks at some point.
The neighbouring Celts are the first AI to know map making. This means there's risk they spam my continent with cities any time soon. OTOH, they got the Pyramids (Entremont), which is just located close by - along with some wine resources... Alas, they have iron hooked up (got an embassy).
The Dutch (in the north) built the Colossus, but they seem to be very small (only 5 cities or so).

72:
Good news:
The military advisor says we're strong compared to Spain (just to adjust that info: I was on avarage before and I only built 1 warrior last turn). To be honest, I think my military is weak overall [eek] Chances are my surprise party expedition will cause some trouble in Spain.

In this regard, I cannot understand why I'm catching up in score. Aggie took over the lead, then the gap improved, but now his per-turn-score is in decline. I have no luxs hooked up yet, no wars, no temples, run just the lux tax that's needed and had slowed down expansion due to unit constrution.[confused]


I traded philo for map making (from Dutch) and *gifted* it around for a few gold pieces - the nearby Celts had it already anyways. Now Aggie's foe Germany could build galleys as well as his neighbour Sumeria... I used the gold to open embassies there.

Aggie is actually inspecting my coast line. Not a biggie, but his canoe is annoying the fishes and stuff near my selected harbor-building city (ready in ~5, so is the load and gold for upgrading the canoes). No fun when the small expedion fleet gets caught while leaving port.

Bombs away!! Just kill him before he spots you [tank]