Kemal vs Skyfish THE REVENGE *****SPOILER****

[ERIKK]

Sky, dopnt place your cities on shores, remember Kemal is the Vikings...

[Skyfish]

Yes I know that Erikk, I made my dotmap in order to have only 2 shore core cities.
However it would be a huge mistake not too have any shore cities, I would simply lose the game if I dont.
My take on Berzerks is that they need to be carried by boats, one needs to strike the Zerks before they even get to your cities
The best defence is the offence !

[ERIKK]

hehehe...

I would like to see some Naval battles!

Carry on Admiral Skyfish but be sure where to strike at Kemals fleet, you will need to know
where his fleet is when the time is right...

[Skyfish]

Long due update.
The game is progressing great, its quite intense. I have to apologize I did not knwo take notes recently and have been real busy.
In short my max sci on Math worked out perfect, the AIs had tech and money, I had 2 huge trading rounds and now the sprint towards Republic has started.
Both Babylon and Korea are absolutely great for complemeting each other with techs, they have nice lands and are strong AIs, hell they even blackmailed once each
America also did its bit by getting a tech from hut and thus contributing to 2 huge trading rounds ! All techs are known and I share everything so we can outresearch Kemal (like that would ever be possible )
We just need Currency and Construction (since 1600BC!) to be in Middle Age, then 3 of us will get a free tech hopefully letting the other continent in the dust

I am building troops to take out those nice Industrious Americans who just built the Pyramids in honour of their great Ottoman neighbors

I am producing 2 vet chariots per turn right now.

Here is a view of my strategic position, America will make a great second core but I have this belt of shitty lands separating me from the rest of the continent
My second ring is at distance 8-8.5 so I can stuff the FP ring nicely.



It's been a real nice game until now and I have not made too many mistakes. The only blight in the plan has been the US settling that 2nd ring coastal site under my nose They will pay dearly for this atrocity.
I could have 20 cities by 1000bc but I will keep the settlers to fill the second core. All will hang on how long do I have to wait for a GL

[Aggie]

So thoase Americans weren't very close after all They were just very quickly near you with their scouts. Looks like a great game so far

[Skyfish]

Well as you can see with San Francisco, the Americans are much too close for comfort. For a large map with less AIs than normal I feel they could have been further away. Of course it s not a problem at all and the map is turning out greeat so far ! Its just that I did not expect it so I had not planned for it.
I am very happy it's the "no UU, no GA civ" and now that they have the Pyramids its turned out into a great advantage.

[Skyfish]

We are now at a crucial stage in the game for me :
- I am 1 turn away from Republic
- Korea has Currency so we only miss Construction now !
- My forces are ready to be upgraded in Aydin my border city and attack 'en masse' the Americans : just need HBR and 100g to upgrade my 20 chariots to Horses
- I have 4 or 5 settlers ready to re-settle the US.
- With Rep at monopoly (I hope) I will be able to synch our passage to the Middle Ages and maybe use the "Big Picture" screen so that the 3 of us get the 3 first MA techs.
- I have one galley going round but I dont expect any contact yet...However that galley has allowed me to sell my WM every other turn to the AIs for almost exactly my deficit of research
- Kemal has overtaken me in score in a very drastic way: he must be expanding like mad but I have stopped my expansion in order to build free settlers for the second core. If I dont get a Leader am dead but I have to take risk if I stand any chance vs the Master himself.
- I have stopped my mil build up to start Libs in my core so that I can research fast during MA in order to take adavantage of the free Sci techs me and my neighbours will get.

Notice on the picture how Washington is at size 1 : imagine the Pyramids get auto-razed

[Lt. Killer M]

overkill

I just hope you have better RNG luck that I usually encounter....

[Skyfish]

Its never overkill ...because even if I get "your" RNG, I will still be OK

[Skyfish]

I have just played what was my biggest turn ever since I play Civ3 ever !

I was expecting a big turn with Republic coming in, declaration of War on America and the possibility of getting into the Middle Ages...
but first lets take you through the turn as it happened :

I open the save and first thing I get is this :



Those Americans are visionaries sometimes arent they
Well guess what ?
I tell him to Fuck Off hoping he will declare and I can get the happiness
But of course no such luck :



Then I get the screen telling me I found The Republic, having heard of that last exploit of using the Big Picture screen
and having 16 cities I though I would put that trick to good use.
So when the screen comes up I go to Big Picture and
decide to check my AIs to see what I can trade for Republic before one of them gets it :
Korea has Currency and Babylon has Contruction, perfect
So I trade Republic to Babs for Construction+HBR (more expensive than Curency) plus all their money (326g).
I then try to trade Construction for Currency to Koreans who actually will not accept it !
I want to keep Republic to trade for their first MA tech and since the price of Currency is so high and also they have 220g+
that I want I decide, after long hesitations to wait,
I can always close the deal during my turn
and still lost in my thoughts... I quit the F4 screen instead of going to F1 to revolt
I'll never get used to some of those tricks

Feeling really disgusted I get into the game, mechanically moving units and workers
to finally get to my galley which I had actually forgotten and then this happens :



The other continent ! I need to suicide it but hey if I could get contact this turn that would be absolutely awesome no ?
Well I move straight towards the pink line and here is what I see



BINGO !


The Arabs are actually up Currency but have no Republic, Literature or Construction. I ask for everything they have :
- Comms with Scandinavia (Kemal), India and Carthage (the rest of the AIs)
- All their money (146g)
- Currency
- World Map !
Well Republic does not pay for it alone of course but Rep+Literature does !
If not it would take my whole treasure (aro 750g ?) but I need money for my Chariot upgrade
and I want to run def research asap in MA.
Also I believe Kemal is already in Republic since he got that huge boost in score recently so I got no qualms with selling Republic to the other AIs.
Of course it could help him getting it faster or making it affordable to him if he is not researching it
but I very seriously doubt it, I am sure he already has it at this point, I ahve studied his gaems very closely.
With luck if could prevent him from a major deal which would also be nice

So I accept this deal described above and suddenly discover the whole map and more importantly Kemal's territory.
Well I must admit Continent maps are just amazing for this ! After playing 85 or so turns "in the dark" having no idea
what your opponent looks like or is doing and then finally with one click of the mouse discovering *everything* is just an amazing feeling !
The adrenaline rush you get from it beats some of the best drugs,
I love the Mystery but I love the Discovery of the Mystery is even better
Its too bad we will lose that feeling a bit with C3C...

And what a spectacle do I get !!!!!!!
Kemal has a huge Empire with a loose ICS.
Even worse he has ALREADY jumped his Palace and must already have an FP and 2 productive cores !
Un-fuckin-believable ! He has 22 cites to my 16 !
I have never seen such developped Empire so early, it just looks frightening...
and that was me thinking I had played not too bad up to now
I might as well resign right now, it wll save us all valuable time !

Take a look at his lands, notice no Trondheim anymore, you can compare it to his start postion in the open thread :


And the MiniMap :



Now a bit of good news, a quick check on the F3 screen shows him in Despotism.
Even better the F4 screen shows him lacking The Republic, Literature, Currency and Construcion !
Yeeha ! Even more unbelievable than his lands ! Just for that F4 screen I dont care if I lose the game now

He must have been really close to Republic and expecting it to trade it for the 2 missing Ancient Tech with the AIs. Or he went for Construction...who knows?
There is a ton of information to process so at that point I left the turn open ...
and went to bed, I had some serious thinking to do on how to turn this lucky break into a major advantage...
I already had some ideas of course

(To be continued very very soon)