14-07-2004 04:17									#31
	More barbarian trouble Put an end to popups!

Not in C3C, for sure. In fact, they won't even attack the spearman because he's not in their NW-SE direction.

On the other hand, Pisae IS in the NW-SE direction of that other barbarian, and I had no time to bring a defender. We'll get ransacked, and we have lots of cash to lose!

Quick, give away the cash! Who wants free money?

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	14-07-2004 04:20									#32
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Of the leading civs, Carthage has the best chance not to have met Greece. We buy Writing from them for 200g, with the intention of getting it back later. No more cash to lose!

We then trade Iron Working and Writing to Egypt for Polytheism plus 30g, and we are caught up in tech even before we discover Currency, and we have nothing to fear from that barbarian.

Actually that's not true. Persia, Babylon, Germany, and Carthage know Literature and we don't. A Greek influence, I'm sure.

	14-07-2004 20:34									#33
	1375 BC Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The Greeks at last!

Alexander is doing very well in terms of technology. Probably better than us, actually, so our bid for a fast tech pace to leave him out of the loop has failed.

However, Evil Caesar now has another plan: Next turn we will learn Currency. We will use this new technology to get everyone's cash, establish embassies, and convince the world to declare war on the Greeks. At the very least, we hope to give Greece a Despotic GA.

Caesar just hopes Alexajshelr doesn't have the same idea and does the same to Rome this turn!

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	14-07-2004 22:44									#34
	1350 BC Tired of ads?

Fortunately not.

Since I had almost no cash, I renegotiate peace with the backwards Celts for 51g. That was enough gold to establish an embassy with Carthage, who if you rememeber from a few posts above, had all my cash (308g). Unfortunately, Carthage had not met the Greeks, so I cannot get them to ally against Alexander. Even worse, I don't have enough cash to establish more embassies. That means that I have to trade Currency to Hannibal to get enough gold to establish embassies.

So I traded Currency to Carthage for Literature plus 308g. That gave me enough cash to establish embassies with everyone else except Greece and the Celts. In addition to Carthage, Greece has not yet met Egypt and the Celts.

It took Currency plus 117g to convince the Germanic tribes to ally with us against Greece. Persia and Babylon were far easier, even paying us all their gold for Currency and the alliance. We then traded Literature to Egypt so that Greece doesn't have much leverage to bring them into an alliance against us when they meet.

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	15-07-2004 01:23									#35
	1250 BC Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Not sure what happened here, but I suspect it was great timing by jshelr to bribe Xerxes from ally to enemy, when a Persian Horseman was conveniently adjacent our vacant town. That will teach me to leave my towns empty...

But what was the horseman doing there anyway? I was hoping he was just after barbs, but there was nothing I could have done about it at that point except maybe woken up the Worker. So it just could be that Xerxes decided to backstab me even though we were allies, with no encouragement from Alexander. You'll have to read jshelr's DAR to find out.

No huge loss, even though I lost the Worker as well in the next turn (don't you hate it when you can't activate workers immediately in PBEM?). It keeps the game interesting. At least I killed that horseman, and enlisted Carthage as an ally to keep Persia busy. Now the only civilizations at peace are Egypt and the Celts, none of which have contact with Greece or Persia yet.

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	15-07-2004 01:46									#36
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

I can just see it now: constant backstabbing as the two humans' cash flow changes, allowing them to buy off each others' allies/enemies and get them to continually switch sides. What a mess that's likely to be!

Good trading, btw. And sorry about that hut thing Surely you used those guys to train your troops (I often find myself deliberately moving my units onto the NW/SE axis so they will be attacked and promoted - if the terrain is right).

-Arrian

	15-07-2004 01:47									#37
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

I don't know it for a fact, I would go with the back stab. They just could not overlook the big target.

Maybe they won't bother to rip up the irrigation.

	15-07-2004 01:53									#38
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Actually, in the particular case of the Persians hitting Alexman's town, I'd agree it was a straight backstab. The AI has real trouble ignoring empty towns.

I once allowed myself to get really comfortable with AI settler teams walking through my lands. So comfortable, in fact, that I left core cities empty as spear/settler pairs walked right past.

This bit me in the ass, HARD, when I lost one of those core towns to the AI's spearman. It was the first time I'd seen the AI break up a spear/settler pair to do that... but it's happened to me at least twice that I can remember, so it happens (though it strikes me as rare, since in the midst of a major war AI settler teams will continue to just be settler teams and ignore the warfare).

Given that, I think this was just a case of Xerxes being unable to help himself. But I still think the humans are going to spend considerable sums buying the AI into/out of alliances.

-Arrian

	15-07-2004 20:25									#39
	1200 BC Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Nooo! Please don't settle there next turn!!

(If he doesn't, I'm plopping New Pompeii immediately, even if it's not on old Pompeii's ruins. If he does, that Persian sneak-attack will have cost us more than I thought initially, since we can't conquer AI cities.)

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	15-07-2004 22:21									#40
	Remove this text

Bastards!

I figure that settler team will move another tile before settling... in which case they might walk right next to your 2 spearmen. 2 vet spears, 1 regular warrior... granted, I typically don't like attacking with spearmen, but you have the firepower to get this done if need be. Of course, then you're at war with both Persia and Carthage... that would suck, I guess, huh?

How long until you have Zeus?

-Arrian

	16-07-2004 03:54									#41
	1175 BC Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

You were right, Arrian, they didn't found the city, so we did. I decided against bopping the Settler with Spearmen, as we don't need another enemy just now.

Even though Rome was not the first to Writing, and several civs even had Literature before we got Writing (!), I decided to go for optional and expensive Philosophy anyway. Maybe Greece will stop research in favor of saving cash to finance their wars. I doubt we will get there first, especially since they will likely enter their GA, but I guess the gambles I don't take militarily, I have to take in other areas. Anyway, for now our economy is #1, so we'll try.

By the way, the SoZ is going to be finished in 10 turns or so (or earlier, if Carthage beats us to it ).

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	16-07-2004 19:37									#42
	1100 BC Get a bigger avatar today!

Jshelr gave some cash to Babylon for peace this turn. Just when some bowmen had finally arrived outside Greece.

But since Greece also met Egypt this turn, we gave Currency to Egypt for an alliance plus all their gold. Good, because we needed some extra gold to keep up the slider for the race to Philosophy.

Persia still will not talk, so we don't know if they're still at war with Greece or not.

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	16-07-2004 20:26									#43
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

No attempts at pillaging jshelr's lands?

-Arrian

	16-07-2004 20:45									#44
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Too chicken, as usual, in this game!
Besides, they're hoping to get some Cavalry help soon.

The warriors are still scouting and spying. I'm sure they will be toast if I leave them exposed to his Archers. Perhaps I'll risk it after I have a better idea of where are his cities.

	16-07-2004 23:43									#45
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Oh, I figured that was the reason... though given the screenie you posted when you first made contact, I might have taken a shot at pillaging the floodplains "3" of Sparta, hoping that my opponent might be caught unprepared for the appearance of my warrior and that he couldn't muster an archer in time to nail my warrior.

But at this point, sending your warriors in is almost surely suicide.

I'm finding reading your DARs fascinating, though I have to be careful not to unintentionally give anything away about jshelr (to you) or you (to him).

-Arrian

	17-07-2004 00:21									#46
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Arrian I might have taken a shot at pillaging the floodplains "3" of Sparta, hoping that my opponent might be caught unprepared for the appearance of my warrior and that he couldn't muster an archer in time to nail my warrior.

Yes, I might have too - if it weren't for the friggin Hoplite and Archer that appeared there in the next turn!
Jshelr is an experienced MP player. Nothing comes easy against him.

By the way, Persia will finally talk to us in 1050 BC, and they do indeed have a military alliance with the Greeks against us. Still not sure if that happened before or after the sneak attack though. We can easily buy peace, but we're in no danger and it would piss off Hannibal, so I'll wait another 12 turns for our alliance to expire.

	17-07-2004 01:14									#47
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Ah, ok, that makes perfect sense. Run A-WAAAAAY [/Python]

-Arrian

	17-07-2004 05:49									#48
	950 BC Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

The statue has been built! This is the first time I have actually built (not captured) this Wonder, so I had never seen the splash screen before. Very cool, and appropriate for the theme of this game.

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	17-07-2004 05:55									#49
	950 BC Support Apolyton

The Greeks have just plopped a city (Argos) on top of an iron resource. I guess Russ couldn't wait for the boders of Pharsalos to expand - that might be a good sign that things are desperate.

Our Warriors try their best to harass, but something tells me they will not last very long in Greek territory.

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	17-07-2004 06:51									#50
	950 BC Remove this text

So what to do now that we have the SoZ?

Well, Carthage is our ally and they have plenty of Mercs running around, so attacking them is out of the question for now. We could get a RoP with Carthage and go attack Persia, but Persia is Greece's neighbor, so we would be doing Alexander a favor. We could also send our troops all the way to Greece, but by the time they get there, they might be faced with Riflemen.

The plan is to harrass the backwards and isolated Celts (they don't even know the Alphabet yet).
We will send AC north as they are produced. We will also send Legionaries as soon as we connect our Iron and switch out of Despotism.

The goals are to 1) stop the Celtic expansion south, 2) get a perfectly timed GA, and 3) hopefully generate some military Great Leaders. A 3-AC Army, or a 3-Legionary Army with free pillaging and healing in enemy territory could do nasty things to Greece's economy.

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	18-07-2004 07:20									#51
	925 BC Increase Your PM Length

A moment of silence. Both our Warriors lurking around the borders of Greece have been killed by veteran Archers.

This is the last screenshot we received from our spies before they were showered by arrows:

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	18-07-2004 08:00									#52
	875 BC Remove this text

On the bright side, we discovered Philosophy first, and used it to get Construction for free. Bablylon already has Monarchy, and Persia has Map Making. Otherwise everyone (except the Celts) are pretty much at tech parity.

We taught Philosophy to Babylon for 287g+15gpt plus a re-declaration of war on the Greeks. Babylon actually borders Greece now, so that might cause Russ a slight headache.

We will switch to Monarchy soon, as soon as Babylon trades it around and it loses value. We're in no big hurry, as unit support will drop to half in Monarchy, since we don't yet have any cities above size 6. Does anyone know whether the SoZ still produces Ancient Cavalry during anarchy?

Actually, I'm toying with the idea of skipping Monarchy and going for Feudalism (reduced corruption in the AU mod), since our cities are quite tightly spaced and we have lots of mountains that will result in plenty of towns unable to grow to cities. We're using a tight spacing because the commercial trait allows it without getting into ridiculous OCN corruption. The downside is that the war weariness might become a problem if we want to harass the Celts, as planned.

Speaking of the Celts, they might be backwards because of their isolation, but they have Iron connected, they already have the most land area of anyone, and they are still expanding like crazy. They are a sleeping giant who definitely needs trimming before he wakes up.

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	19-07-2004 07:23									#53
	825 BC Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

By now, Carthage, Germany, and Egypt all know the secrets of Monarchy. It was therefore possible to make a straight trade of Philosophy for Monarchy with our friend Hannibal. The Roman Monarchy is estimated to take power over the current state of anarchy in 7 turns.

The bad news is that Germany already obtained Construction and traded it to Carthage. We were holding off trading Construction around, using Philosophy to get what we wanted from the AI, and hoping we could do the same with Construction later. So the tech pace is quite fast, which is not good for the lifespan of our Ancient Cavalry. We have decided to slow down the pace and to save some gold for Legionary upgrades.

By the way, don't Ancient Cavalry look good in Roman red?

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	19-07-2004 10:36									#54
	Remove this text

AC looks good in Red, only if your a Roman citizen.

	20-07-2004 03:52									#55
	750 BC Put an end to popups!

This time the Greeks used some smart trading as a middle man between Egypt and Persia to get caught up in tech (they lack only Philosophy now) and to sign a peace treaty with Egypt.

So Code of Laws is the last ancient technology missing from all civs. As soon as Greece gets it, we will be in a tight spot because of the trading power they will have over the AI with their free Middle Ages tech. The scientific trait is very powerful in this type of game. It would be nice to get CoL before Greece so we can gift it to all scientific civs (Babylon, Persia) and hopefully one of them will get the same free tech as Greece, thereby reducing its trading value. The problem is that we will not likely get CoL before Greece, due to our Anarchy situation.

Anyway, for now, let's enjoy our position of power over the AI. Our alliance with Carthage against Persia expired this turn, so we sign peace with them and give them Philosophy for Map Making plus about 150g. Evidently they had a military alliance with Greece against us involving renegotiation of peace, because as soon as we signed the above deal, Persia declared war on Greece automatically. They gave us the rest of their cash (50g) for a military alliance against Greece.

Finally, we gave Egypt 3gpt to re-declare war on Greece. With all the war declarations against him, Alexander must be in war happiness heaven!

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	20-07-2004 18:37									#56
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Lookin' good.

-Arrian

	21-07-2004 20:53									#57
	630 BC Get a bigger avatar today!

The RL pace of the game has slowed down a bit. Russ blames it on the good weather.

In 650 BC Carthage discovered Code of Laws, and traded it to Egypt. This of course triggered massive barbarian uprisings throughout the land. We had sent our Ancient Cavalry north for barb hunting to get some battle experience before attacking the Celts (we want leaders, rememeber). However, facing 16 horsemen is not exactly the type of experience they were looking for - we want them to live to be able to tell about it.

Not much else is new since the last report. Greece is still at war with all their known civilizations, and they are still in Anarchy, so we don't expect them to reach get Code of Laws (and their free tech) just yet. Our peace agreement with Carthage expires in 3 turns, so when we renegotiate, we will get Code of Laws from them, which we will then gift to Babylon and Persia.

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	21-07-2004 21:50									#58
	610 BC Increase Your PM Length

Damn barbarian horsemen came out of the fog of war and killed one of my Ancient Cavalries. This turn they will kill one of my workers too, and I can't do anything about it. I really truly hate barbarians.

In other news, the Germans and Persia joined Egypt and Carthage in the middle ages this turn. Egypt gifted us Code of Laws plus all their gold (16g+1gpt) in exchange for continued peace.

This gift brought Rome into the middle ages, and we could see that the free tech of Persia was Engineering. Good, now we can gift Code of Laws to Babylon, and hope for a different free tech, so we have a better chance to devalue Greece's free tech. Nope, they get Engineering too.

	21-07-2004 22:53									#59
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

You aren't actually starting a marketplace in New Pompeii are you?

Barbs do suck. Restless, eh? I've been playing restless barbs lately (I used to just play roaming), and the double-strength uprisings gave me some trouble (16 instead of 8, big difference. Especially when they split into groups of 8 and go after seperate targets).

Too bad you don't have any legionaries lying around... those are great for absorbing stacks of barbs.

-Arrian

	21-07-2004 22:57									#60
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Been slow to connect my Iron. I should have a dozen Legionaries from upgraded Warriors in 2 turns.

You're right about New Pomeii. It's actually going to build a Courthouse, but I didn't have Code of laws yet in that screenshot.