4x4 CIV *Spoiler*

[akots]

IIRC, flood plains are treated like desert for worker jobs and these jobs take an extra time compared to other normal tiles.

[Kemal]

I see, thanks... I did expect the job to take longer than expected, but really no more than 5 compared to the regular 4. Kinda messes up my pig-stop at the hills W-SW since I will research Animal Husbandry in 5.

[Kemal]

Love to do an update again some time, but still struggling with the screenshotsize... is Irfanview suggested by Paal still the best way to go, or do people here use other methods? (I still only have Paint, and wasn't able to succesfully change the screenshotsize in the .ini).

Things aren't looking very good btw in the game for the long term as it seems some things work out as I feared....

[Socrates]

I haven't used Paint for some 1.5 year now. I'm using a nice free (as in beer, can't remember if as in speech) program called PhotoFiltre, developed by a Frenchie, which you can easily find on the Net. Since the auto-saving of screenshots in Civ4 seems unstable (some ingame screens seem to forget to save the image), this is what I do :
- press PrintScreen ;
- alt-tab to PhototFiltre ;
- paste image ;
- resize it to 800*600 for forum purpose ;
- save it, with a 90% jpg quality ;
- alt-tab back to Civ4.
Works wonders as long as you're no later than the Renaissance or on a small map, otherwise alt-tabbing in full screen takes an awful amount of time. Alt-tabbing in window mode should be OK, it seems. I never seem to have images weighing more than 200k, but if that happens, a simple step down in the jpg quality does the job.

Hope this helps.

[BCLG100]

i just print screen and then upload that straight from the civ4 screenshots thing, naturally this makes them a bit bigger but everybody likes to see lots

[Kemal]

Okay, time to bring you up to speed on Mali and the surrounding empires. I will have to skip some of the less fundamental things that have happened otherwise I'd have to write a 30 page essay, considering that since the last time I posted there was just little Timbuktu, whereas now there are glorious empires sprawling all over the map (all empires are glorious of course.. some are just more glorious than others).

Starting off, here's an overview of what each empire looks like atm. You might notice some things right off the bat, but more on everything later, for now it is just pics:

1:


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2:


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3:


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4:


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5:


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6:


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As for a quick recap on some of the major events that have happened in the past (now at 250BC):

- My war with Rome wasn't the only war that has taken place so far. Matrix refused to give writing to Montezuma, which was not a good idea it turned out.

Monty of course declared war, and somehow, somewhere they managed to obtain Iron Working, and jags started pouring Matrix's way. Even though they are 1 strength short of swords, their non-resource advantage plus combat 1 meant Matrix was always fighting a defensive war here.

He gained nothing from the war in the end, except that both suffered a huge setback in development, which after Caesar's shenanigans with me early on in the game resulted in Mali being the most advanced and developed nation in this part of the world.

- With grs most likely having grabbed all 3 early religions, one of the key projects for Kemsa Mumal was to get at least one religion for himself. Not only for the happiness bonus or a possible shrine, but more importantly for the production bonus from organized religion.

Therefore, it was decided that, especially considering my advantage with the early worker, Timbuktu would be committed to the Oracle fairly early on in the game, to be able to grab Confucianism via Code of Laws. Not a very expensive tech to get using the oracle indeed. However, it also denied the Oracle to others, and I might get a great prophet in the future, so I'm happy with it nonetheless.

It turned out that someone else (I thought Darkness first because of scoring values, but it must be grs now considering latest developments) built the Stonehenge at the same time, obviously grs was aiming for the shrine there.

- Finally, some unsettling stuff in the latest turn which leads me to believe I might be going down despite the current state of my empire, which is passable/solid.

Between 400 and 325 BC (IIRC), 3 great people have been born on the other continent. First was a great scientist, then a turn later Homer appeared (the Music artist), then another turn later a great prophet was born and the Mahabodhi built.

Well, easy explanations you might say, Darkness uses library-specialists and gets great scientist, might use it for music (or created academy and invented Music himself) and get Homer next turn, which in turn invented something else himself. Grs obtains prophet a turn later from Stonehenge and creates Mahabodhi, case closed.

True, but the unsettling thing is that during these 4 turns, the scores of both grs and Darkness skyrocketed massively, with my hundred point lead over grs and even larger lead over Darkness being reduced to almost zero in a matter of a few turns...

This of course feeds speculation that grs and Darkness might have been sharing their techs freely, and could be on their way on a continent vs continent battle.

So what is the problem Kemsa, you have a human ally too!

Well yes, but that human ally is Matrix, and he is - with all due respect - *very* weak due to his scuffle with Monty, and is not able to provide much - or any - support for a long term research and development plan. That would ultimately lead to a 2v1 vs grs and Darkness, and I know enough about civ4 to understand that this would be an unwinnable situation for the 1, even with superior production and/or technogical advantage.

We'll see how things will turn out, I know from experience (DDPP) that even the most rock-solid alliances start to see cracks once the expansion phase is over and an arms race begins.

In the meantime, I;ve agreed with Matrix that he will be able to buy techs from me at 60% cost, and he will be playing 100% tax from now on. This save him building libs and allows him to focus on markets, since I've basicly given him currency for free to allow him to buy peace with Monty and get some trade routes and markets online. Unfortunately my expenses will grow faster than Matrix's economy I fear, so that source of free money won't be very reliable I fear.

On the other hand, I will be honest and say that I think I have little to fear from Matrix military wise, especially considering the lay of the land near Antium, where a bottleneck can be found. I'm not intending to attack him either btw, too much upkeep cost for too little gains.

Back to the pictures and some more optimism now though:

As can be seen on Pic 3, I've recently engaged the Romans again, and have captured Rome! Since they had connected their iron 3 turns ago in Cumae, I felt the time to strike was now, so I sent my 4 horse archers, 1 axe and 1 skirmisher (ranging between level 2 and 3 in exp) to Rome, and captured the city without losses (some luck, as each horse archer had a 66% chance of winning vs the 3 archers in Rome).

Antium will follow quickly, but there is an adder in the grass here (dutch expression only I suppose). As can be seen on the pics, Caesar, with his gnp of 15 or so, managed to invent Theology first and got the holy city in Cumae.

While it is a bother that the holy city is in Cumae and therefore out of my reach (I contacted Matrix and said he may have it if he wishes, only means more money for me if he gets the shrine later on), a key point now is to somehow trade or extort theology from Caesar.

Gonna need Matrix help here I fear, as Caesar no like me. Would be a very nice bonus, and I'll give Matrix any techs he needs to get it... but there is a slight problem in the form of that stupid Monty again.

Since Cumae is next to Aztec lands, and I'm in the process of annihilating the Romans from <s>their original soil</s> my soil, a sneak attack with all those vets from the Matrix wars might mean the end for Caesar fast. What a shame that would be... still, I will capture Antium asap, as I think Matrix might want to profit from my war and capture Antium himself now that Rome is broken. (A logical assumption after the ISDG, where I learned from a certain overly vocal team leader that all Dutch people are war profiteers, that's in their blood and they enjoy making profit on behalf of other people's efforts).

Finally, back to domestic builds, you may have noticed I'm also building the Great Library in Timbuktu, after the Oracle. This may cost me my prophet, but the gains are too good not to create it, as I was fortunate enough to get marble nearby (at walata).

Timbuktu will be having a 10 gpp/t output once it is completed, giving me quick access to either a few scientists or a scientist and a prophet at no costs. Still, an even better location for GP would be Rome, the Uber-commerce city with a plethora of food resources available, and a lot of forest still hanging around. Number one candidate to create the National epic and rush a market and lib there, for another 24 gpp/t there in the future.

And once things settle down, I might convert to pacifism and double those figures, if I can convince Matrix to stay out of an unwinnable arms race with me, and the other continent is at galleon range. That's mostly musings for the future though... as it stands I will continue to build up my economy first, get some more workers online now that the war is basicly won, and expand towards some extra stone and corn resources in the east later. Current demograhpics are solid, though the gnp suggests an academy on the other continent (or maybe a few gold resources, as those got to be around on this world somewhere too):


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On the tech front, I've just researched calendar for some much needed spices and incense, allowing for more pop, with Civil Service being next, and Metal casting coming afterwards. Especially Civil Service will be of great use if Timbuktu gets the Great Lib, and manages to hit size 12 or 13.

As for grs/Darkness... time will tell I suppose.

[Pastorius]

quote:We'll see how things will turn out, I know from experience (DDPP) that even the most rock-solid alliances start to see cracks once the expansion phase is over and an arms race begins.

Yes, then teh Kemal stabbeth teh Erikk and teh Propain in teh back

[Kemal]

Yay... Guess who missed the Great Library on 1 turn...

[BCLG100]

wooops, surely you got quite a bit of gold though?

[Kemal]

yeah, 328g... I don't need no stinking 328g, I wanted all those free scientists.