[PC] Of Spock and Communism: Civ IV Succession Game

Well damn. Just went from an awesome game to one we might lose at any moment. In 10 turns. Ouch. From the pictures that looks like a good size barbarian swarm. Guess we better be pumping out those archers. Help us Hawkeye, you're our only hope.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Nope, been playing them honest personally. Just have had crazy luck with the huts. I have the save file. However, due to Wed. being my horrible day for having time (damn you Scrabble for always falling on it) I'm probably going to be delayed to tomorrow on taking this.

Also, excellent to hear we're defended, even if they're trying to take out our farm. Just need more troops now.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Continuing in the trend of light posts, I think I'm going to have to skimp on the RP this time as well, as I barely found the time for the turns.

Starting Conditions
- One City
- Barbs have two archers near city
- One is about to raze a farm



- Egypt has founded city to north of us.



- Explorers are basically done.



- Our city is on a crazy product setup for trying to make units. I immediately switch this off of food and let the peasants starve so we can get some troops.



- We have two warriors near the city. I move our warriors up to the left to try and get the attention of the archers before they can raze the farm.



- I also realize that for some reason we still aren't religious, after having founded all the religions to this point, AND having TWO Unhappy faces in Washington. I immediately convert to Buddhism, which will remove one of the Unhappy faces within Washington.



- Our warriors fight, with the archer attacking them first, killing one, and the remaining warrior responding and killing the other one in the open fields, and spitting on his corpse. They have NOT destroyed the Farm. Woo!



- Our archer also proceeds to kick the tar out of the enemy archer.



- The living fighters both get experience level ups.



- We also learn how to add numbers together. Yay for 1+1...



- I send the living warrior over to fortify the hill and kick our worker out of our city so he can start doing improvements.



- Our archer finishes in 3 turns due to the starvation of our people, so I have pity, and swap them around to make a Settler post-haste.



- I send our archer out to defend the spot where our new city will be.



- Our far out explorer has finished his rounds, so I let him return home.



- On his way, he discovers that the barbs have founded a city...oy, in the frontier.



- The last turns are uneventful, and people heal, move to where they need to be, and I think I killed one more barbarian warrior. We have a barbarian archer coming to get us, and the Settler is 2 turns from finishing.



- Sneakily, the enemy has founded a city right next door to us. Crap. We're getting enveloped.



- We have units spread slightly less now, and they are in solid defense positions. The one benefit of having Egypt above us is we don't need to worry about barbs there. But they'll probably try to do something to get the Stone resource.



- We found Iron, but its way the hell out there, and going to be a bitch to get to. And we have NO HORSES on the entire damn continent. Crap.



I have removed the immediate threat of barbs. When the settler finishes, he should run his ass off to the already defended city position, going by the archer if its near, and immediately found something. We are currently going for Theology. Also, I forgot to mention, but the enemy founded Confucism, because we went for Math. We may win the race for Theology. Hard to tell. We also need to get that last Unhappy face gone from Washington. Possibly a Temple, although another Settler might not be bad. We need to get bigger and quick. One either near the Boston marker, or to head off expansion near what I termed Missoura.

Pang Your Turn
- GAME FILE, 200 BC.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

First off, misquote on the prior page about Horses, as I totally forgot we don't have Animal Husbandry. We need that now.

Actually, I think the Missoura one is a better bet, because I think our only chance right now to get out of this hole is to go super aggressive. Due to the fact that our neighbor is Egypt, they're going to be using their special Chariots like they're going out of style. However, that leaves them a pretty exploitable weakness, as we can plan on using crap tons of Spearmen, which will be strength 8 against Chariots.

If we go for Missoura, that gives us a high growth city (+3 food base in many nearby squares) that will press back the borders of their city and allow us to go farther into their territory with slow moving, single step units. Once the bronze city gets up to 3 or 4 squares, it will be a production powerhouse, and we can start chugging out Spears and Axemen at both our lower cities and do a double front attack on Egypt. Up through the Pillars of Heaven, and around passing through Missoura. My worry is with Chariots, they may go for the barbarian city as well, to envelop us further.

My though would be that we probably don't want to start until we've got two stacks of 5 or so apiece.

Also, if we move the two Warriors we still have out to the hills NE of our cities, they'll begin intercepting wayward barbarians, and since hills will make them strength 3.5 + any XP level bonuses they should be able ot take on archers pretty handily. And they'll distract barbs who might attack a city at Missoura otherwise.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I honestly wasn't sure whether Krelian was dropping out for that last turn, or totally when he said it. If it was just for the prior time, then it would be his, otherwise Turbo. I've sent Krelian a message to check.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Have at it, and glad to hear that the time crunch was only a thing for last week, and not a general issue with being able to be part of the game.

FELIPE NO

Must be the case. Hawkeye you're up. I've been on work travel for the last two days, so I haven't had a chance to check it or message him, but that's still no reason for a multi-day drop. Also, excellent on the completion of both Theology and the copper road. That should let us start pumping out the Axemen / Spearmen combo here in no-time. Has anyone moved the Barbarian defenders up a few paces to the tops of those two hills near our border?

Most amazing jew boots

No, its alright, I'm back from travel, so I'll take the handoff turn from Hawkeye and then it will be back to Pang. Have it up tomorrow midday is my guess, and this time with pictures.

Additional Spam:
Turn completed. First off, an overview of where we're starting at.

Culture-wise, we've got a good spread on our main city, to the point its intermingling with the upper ones, but our lower city hasn't grown yet from its religion.


Army wise, we've got defenders in both our cities, and two free warriors, who I will soon move.


The promised movement of warriors. They will be heading north to fortify in the wooded hills (+75% defense) and attract barbarians.


The next major point of note that happens is our mine for the bronze near New Bronzington finishes up, and we immediately set the worker to making a Farm. The Barracks at New Bronzington also finished shortly after this, and I quickly set New Bronzington to making Spearmen.


Next, we finish up Animal Husbandry, and find out that although our people wander the fields every day working the woods, there were in fact these incredibly useful animals right next to Washington, which we never noticed...


Since that is done, I set our research on a rather long path towards Knights and Longbowmen, which others can feel free to break. The only ones I'd really want are Longbowmen for now.


Next up, its time to actually break those fine animals, and make them useful. Pastures ahoy. In addition, our Settler finishes at Washington, and I send him towards Missoura to set up a forward attack outpost for when our assault begins. Washington starts to grind their axes.


Somewhere in the midst of this, a barb approaches our northern defenders...


And is quickly dealt with, leading to upgrades for the troops.


At the end of things, we've got units a bit more spread out, but the warriors should hopefully distract barbarians from our soon to be founded city, long enough for a Spearman from New Bronzington to make it up there and defend it.


Save file for 540 A.D.

Pang, your turn.

How ya doing, buddy?

No problem. I was surprised the damn thing kept giving me a spam post rather than a new one, considering I made it multiple days later, and figured you might not have noticed.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

As its been multiple days since Krelian said he'd take his turn, and there have been no further posts, Turbo can take the turn instead. If he doesn't post relatively quickly, then it will rotate over to Hawkeye so we get some activity going.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I've got the file, so I'll take my turn tonight, and we can keep some momentum for the game.

Additional Spam:
- A starting view of our cities. Both our new cities are growing quickly, while Washington has largely stagnated due to unhappiness and lack of sanitation.



- An overview of our starting armies. We've got two Spearmen to the North, and none to the North-West, although there are a bunch of Axemen and Spearmen in our cities.



- Seeing that Washington is building an Archer, which won't be much use for offense, I swap the just started unit for an Axeman instead.



- Due to the chopping of lumber to build a new cottage, the Barracks at Missoura finish very quickly, and we can shift over to building a new Worker.



- Unfortunately, although we are well defended, an archer comes out of the barb city to the North-East and just barely manages to take out our unexperienced man. I swiftly slay the evildoer.



- Noting that our capital city of Washington had just grown, and then gotten pissed - yet again - I checked to see what civics were available to us and noted that we had both Serfdom and Hereditary Rule available, and Hereditary Rule would make our people happy.



- Washington is now OK, if not stellar. Unfortunately, they're just going to grow again here shortly due to their food surplus, so we'll need even more troops. And they'll start getting unhealthy.



- At the end of the turn, we've got four units at both of our attack points, and we've got even more on the way. There are also two workers now operating in our territory. We're well on our way to being able to attack Egypt.

The turn file at Year 1090 is available. Pang, your turn. Also PMing, since I have been hosed by the multi-day post happy gap again.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Probably not a bad plan. I kind of expected Egypt to try and go after Hurrian, and am a little surprised they haven't. The only reason I'd not want to is that it might weaken us for our assault on Egypt, but at the rate we're cranking them out, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Could probably throw three or four at it and take it. Also, Longbowmen are available too now and Knights are coming soon. Want to hit Egypt before tech jumps a lot.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Fair enough, and thanks for telling us. For now the turn moves on to Turbo then. Also, sending a message out to Rychord to see if he's interested in taking over the spot. If Turbo doesn't get back shortly, then on to Hawkeye.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'd say taking a size 6 (or more) barbarian city is a relatively major thing. What was it taken with? The folks who were in Missoura, or new recruits? Either way, PMing Hawkeye, who is now up. We're going to need to start worrying about our money and research percentage relatively soon, as when I took my last turn, we were already starting to get down there. With extra cities, that's only going to escalate. Plus, you know, no Great People...

Most amazing jew boots

Ok, that's a pretty big reorg of forces, but thank you for the more detailed explanation. We should probably move a Spearman or two up there to hold it against the Chariots which are likely to head that way after we assault Egypt, and then get the Axemen back down to lay waste to Egypt.

Also, Rychord got back to me, and he'll be in the rotation after Pang where Krelian was.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Right, I'll see about taking my turn tomorrow, as I was about to take off and do some face to face gaming when I saw this post. Thanks for the heads up on the delay. I was wondering why you hadn't been on since the 16th.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Obviously, the game is not going as well as we could have hoped, but rather shortly, we're going to figure out whether its winnable. War is afoot.

Starting out the turn, we were in a significantly better position by pure numbers than we had been when I last saw the game. More troops, more towns, and better infrastructure.





I quickly get to work moving our units back to where they can open with a double attack on Egypt's cities, and making our workers do...something. We have more workers than we can actually use now.

As I'm doing this and checking cities, I suddenly notice, we're about to get hosed. Missoura is at the point of cultural takeover.



Time has pushed our hand before we're really ready to open with WAR. Nonetheless, after some pondering, I ask the bitch for her head on a pole (and offer a prayer to Spock to carry us through this)



The first volley's go well, and I take her lower city with losses, but not unacceptable ones. I also capture a worker up North near the now 10 strong fortress.



Unfortunately, the next attack session does not go so well, as we don't have enough axemen to properly do the job, and they end up dying in a blaze of glory which kills three archers, but leaves the town standing....crap.

I quickly start moving units to reinforce Missoura and our new city, and wait for the inevitable retaliation attack, which is not too long to arrive. She ferries them in by boat. We should watch out for future ones going around from the South.



Thankfully, their expeditionary force is pretty pathetic, a chariot, and a horse archer, which we can easily repel. A horse archer also dies against Missoura, and another one ponders attacking.



Overall, the beginning of war hasn't gone all that badly. We need to fill our cities with troops so they stay happy, and then start marching towards the city in the North. We "may" have to sue for peace if things get really bad, but I figure with heavy troop presence in our towns, we should be ok. We just need enough to keep them happy. Build stupid cheap ones if we have to. We may also want to station a spearman on that Farm to the West, as I bet they'll go for it. Anyhow, have fun Pang Your turn.

AD-1440.Civ4SavedGame

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Crush Eqypt like the squirming insect it is beneath the heel of our boots. Reap their lands in a tide of destruction. Bring the shield and the spear to she who would hinder our victory. Hear the lamentations of their land, and sing the glory of our conquest.



*In all seriousness, I think we should remove the barbarian menace above us, steadily march towards the capital of Egypt, while capturing their intermediary cities along the way, and then conquer the she-devil. I think we may also want to start in with boats at Pi-Ramses so we can get that island town. Make sure to keep your vulnerable towns well defended in case she retaliates with a counter-attack. Also, work on shifting our production over to knights/pikemen/longbowmen so we can really kick the tar out of her. Once we've established the solidarity of our continent, then we can start upgrading our production/financial/research base and setting our sights outward. Plus, Egypt had a number of the Wonder of the world, so maybe we'll finally start getting some Great People.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Considering its been two days since Rychord went, Hawkeye, you can take the turn if possible. If I don't hear much from Hawkeye, then I'll move on to my turn tomorrow, as I know Hawk's got some computer repair issues.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Opening the turn, we've just taken the next Egyptian city, and our forces are camped outside the walls. Our culture and borders are still intermingling with the Egyptians, but at least we're no longer suffering from imminent culture loss of cities since they're interior now.





After two turns, we happily arrive at horseback riding and knights .... only to remember we have no Iron, and knights take Iron.



Shortly thereafter, the enemy sends out a boat, and within a few turns I have the happy sight of seeing yet another Egyptian city founded below us on an island. Gotta start in on some boats at some point.



Of course, I don't take my own advice, and instead spend all of my time building chariots and axemen so that we can pillage and take Heliopolis to the North.

Which I then proceed to do to a large degree, which keeps us solvent at 90% research for several more turns, and allows us to get Finance and start in on Construction (heading towards Pikemen).

Ending the turn, we've got a rather large force camped outside the walls of Heliopolis, and I'm going to be leaving it to the next person to make the call on taking the city. We're probably getting close, as they only have three defenders, one of which is an Axeman.



Finally, an overview of where things stand for borders. I've been building Obelisks in several of our cities so that we can finally expand their borders, since they're pretty pathetic right now, and there is Iron right next to our old Barbarian city (good call on taking that) During the course of the turn, we also somehow met Frederick and Elizabeth (both of course who are better than us. Egypt also offered to pay us 130 gold to stop attacking her.



Edit: Forgot to add the save file which is at ML200804573AD-1625.zip

How ya doing, buddy?

No response from Turbo for several days, so Hawkeye, your turn if you want to take it.

Also, great progress on the war effort. While I'm skeptical like Pang that we can actually turn this thing around and win it, due to the horrible location we currently hold in the ranks, we still may be able to advance with some concerted growth here in the next while. We could also try for total Space Race construction if it comes down to it, once we have the continent and surrounding islands to ourselves.

Honestly, I think if we can spend some turns building infrastructure once we take out Egypt, we'll probably progress pretty quick, as we'll actually have quite a few good cities at that point and the Financial trait to improve our efforts. Plus, finally some GP.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Apparently Hawkeye's absent as well, so I'll take the turn tomorrow afternoon if Hawk doesn't do it by then.

FELIPE NO

Starting out, we have bad cultural borders with several of the large Egyptian cities, which are causing several of our towns to be unhappy, which will later on bite us. We also have a massive force just sitting outside the walls of Memphis doing nothing.




I immediately take all of our catapults and bomb the crap out of Memphis doing so much collateral damage to them that they fall without losing a single normal troop. We lose two catapults in the assault. Boo hoo.



Of course, a turn wouldn't be complete without unhappiness and starvation, and Washington is happy to oblige by doing retarded things with their production and making sad faces. I proceed to starve them worse so that they'll stop being pissy and make something.



Naturally, this makes Pi-Ramses mad, which yearns to join the god forsaken Egyptians for some reason, and they go into revolt. Oy.



Then to top it all off, we find out that there's a ginormous city to the NE of our territory which is sending troops down to try and attack Hurrian.



Resisting all of this annoyance, I move our force towards the walls of Thebes and begin reducing them to rubble so that we can march on them. We have our first couple of Knights, several catapults, and more troops on the way. Since there are tons of defenders, taking Thebe's will be a whore, and we're probably going to need a massive number of catapults to turn their bones to sludge, and then at least five or six reasonable troops to do the mop up. I've got tons of catapults building.

Finally, an overview of our new holdings, including the wonderful Memphis, which is completely encircled by Thebe's culture. Its pretty much a lost cause unless we can take Thebes, so I'm not even bothering to guard it well, since the nearly inevitable revolt will just take those troops.



Pang, your turn. Save file: ML200804573AD-1810.zip

Most amazing jew boots

Totally crossed my mind that Pang is up at the meet this week, so Rychord, you should probably just take your turn. If I was hanging out with those folks I know I wouldn't be checking online games.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Rychord

Sure thing. I'll try to take them tonight or tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to take the Egyptian capital and give our civ a good boost!

Hoping for some good luck with that. I've got the defense to 0%, but they've got a lot of folks in there, and at least one Pikeman. Course, there are also nearly every one of their boats, and a ton of workers / settlers / ect... Plus, its damn near necessary if we don't want to just lose Memphis from culture.

There's nowhere I can't reach.