PBEM3 Spoilers - timmy827 of Khmer

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Thanks.

Maybe I can use the knights to pillage the roads in that region on my way back to my cultural borders.

[Square Leg]

Also - you can only draft a city that has a certain %age your people as inhabitants - I forget the number I'm afraid though...

[Shoot the Moon]

Also - you can only draft a city that has a certain %age your people as inhabitants - I forget the number I'm afraid though...

Considering a couple hundred turns of his culture in it, he'll be able to draft it (unless you were referring to us, in which case we GA bombed it and can whip. Ugh, wish we had not GA bombed that in addition to not razing it, but oh well).

[T-hawk]

10%, and culture from dead civs doesn't count. If a city is 90% dead civ / 9% other / 1% yours, you can draft.

[Sullla]

Right, but there is no such thing as dead civ culture. One a civ is gone, all culture that they ever produced in the game vanishes (yeah, this isn't exactly realistic!) This is probably the biggest incentive Civ4 offers for killing off other civs entirely, along with eliminating "we long to return to the motherland" unhappiness.

At least it's not as bad as Civ3, which practically forced you to commit mass genocide of foreign cultures.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Yeah, definitely a mistake keeping the city and artist bombing it. Honestly, I am just learning a lot from playing this and making mistakes. I hope my absolutely insane first week didn't completely mess up this PBEM.

If I had to do it all over again, I would've gotten a more detailed plan from Timmy and tried to follow through with whatever he was doing, just to keep the disruption to a minimum. When I took over, I thought of it more as a new CEO coming into a company and trying to execute new ideas, but I think given how many months the other players put into the PBEM, I should've just stayed the course with whatever Timmy was doing before. Not sure what the correct answer is to this situation.

Anyway, I fully expect to get invaded, and probably in ways that I cannot counter. I left myself open to it by openly antagonizing the leading Civ when I could've had peace. But this has been far more educational for me at least. Not sure if I have made the PBEM "better" overall though.

Oh well, time to screw up the task of defending my own Civ.

Got this from SM earlier today:

Guys, I have agreed to a short term NAP with Sandover, that can be cancelled relatively quickly, and with the added provision that he will vote for me if any AP elections come up. GES noted that Sandover seems to have withdrawn his forces from our shared border, so for now it looks like the Knights are headed towards Rome at least.

Anyway, the NAP doesn't forbid me from supporting you during the war and I'm planning to continue to do so.

Regards,
-SleepingMoogle

If true, hats off to SM. He could've made a deal which would've made his Civ much more safe in the future.

I don't plan on the leaving the city in draftable shape. Assuming we still have it this turn, I will draft it, and then whip the hell out of it. Here is a question. Let's say I did a bunch of one-pop whips and drove the unhappiness sky high, would that carry over to the Civ which captures the city later? My gut says no.

[Shoot the Moon]

Anyway, I fully expect to get invaded, and probably in ways that I cannot counter. I left myself open to it by openly antagonizing the leading Civ when I could've had peace. But this has been far more educational for me at least. Not sure if I have made the PBEM "better" overall though.

I'm not entirely sure about that. Defending in general is much, much easier than attacking. In terms of the land war, we're not in terrible shape to defend. With Cavalry (perhaps we should upgrade some knights to cavalry, maybe after getting frigates online) and enough collateral damage, defending isn't that terrible when you can move 3-6 tiles compared to 1-2 for an attacker. It will admittedly be hard to defend our coastal cities at least until we have frigates online, but we already knew that.

Also, once we start getting some infantry from scooter, defending should become just that much easier.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

So some thoughts about the game at the moment.

I am knocking out 1-turn Optics and Compass to get to 2-3 turn Astronomy.

Assuming I actually get different kinds of GPersons, I get one in two more turns, and another in 3 more turns, so I may be able to go into a GAge within 4-5 turns.

I continue to draft.

I've mostly removed my troops from Overwatch. I have drafted and whipped it down to size one so that it will be mostly useless. Not sure if I should withdraw my remaining rifles or not. I left them because unless Rome uses combat-workers to get some roads, they could not be hit with a cat stack last turn.

I didn't realize that one of my completed universities was at Loon Lake, so now I am delayed to Oxford which I thought I could start this turn. That was a stupid error on my part.

The western front:



Sandover is really damaging my Heroic Epic city with that stupid coastal blockade mechanic. That is one of the dumbest additions to the game:



The blockade of Eroica:



One of Sandover's Galleons and a Roman Galleon are unaccounted for. Probably going to try to strike somewhere. I think I should be OK up north, especially in another 1-2 turns when the western front reinforcements arrive in the north.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Continued reinforcing the north.

GPersons due in 2 and 3 turns.

Running some cities at slight starvation to speed up important stuff.

Started my sixth university. May whip it out to speed up Oxford.

Sandover's galleons moved away, ending what I expected to be a long-term choke on Eroica, which helps me get out my GPerson on time.



If am him, I am keeping my galleons on that fogged corner tile to allow me to hit Eroica if I move troops out.

Or he could have them in this area:



Or that Roman galleon is still unaccounted for, so they might all try to hit/choke this city:



I really need to get some workers into this area to get some roads up into the NW corner. If I am Sandover/Rome and want to make a land invasion, I start there due to the lack of roads.



Finished a settler, moving to replant the Loon Lake city one tile east:



I found a bunch of back-fill spots that I am considering plantings cities at. None of them will be great, but they all can share tiles to grow faster and should have 7-10 workable tiles per city.

Planning to plant on the river desert tile. Getting workers in place to chop jungle:



Will still try to plant the old Victory Mines spot I think:



Considering planting on the hill tile 1 east of the worker. Can share some tiles that are wasted by my Globe drafting city:



Considering planting on the desert one east of the rice tile:



I emailed my played save to StM for him to make some comments. I am moving siege and some more troops to the north, but I am trying to leave a lot back in the west to reinforce my current and future cities. I still haven't withdrawn from Overwatch. So far, it would still take combat workers to hit it with a cat stack. If StM thinks we should withdraw, I will do that. Or reinforce. I really need some advice on this. I just know that those cultural borders are bad and I now understand why you have to rip down those cities in multiplayer unless you can fully eliminate the rival. Lesson learned.

[Shoot the Moon]

I think the number of rifles you have in it feels about right for now (once Sandover is here in a couple turns, I would probably fully evacuate). Yes, Rome could probably kill that stack. But I don't think he would have enough to be able to take the city next turn, but I don't think they would have enough to hold it. We could then have a chance to raze the city and then hit their cata stack on the tile 1NW of the city with our knights, which needless to say would be nice.

That being said, I would adjust where you are currently keeping our knight stacks. I would move the one currently 1W of Prague 1NW (although I would leave those catas where they are). That way, it can for sure hit the tile 1NW of overwatch if they attack and have catas stranded there.

The knight stack 1S of Ankor Wat I would move to 2NW of Rhenish. That way, it can reach both the overwatch front and Ankor Wat in 1t. Remember, mounteds have 6 tiles movement inside our borders, so you can (and should) place mounted stacks to be able to defend more than one city at a time -- no sense in having them 1S of a city when they could just as usefully be 5 tiles away and be able to also be protecting another city.

Small note: I would move the two axes in the desert hill stack into prague, and two rifles out of it. Prague won't be threatened immediately (it's culture means it would take at least two turns to hit it) so might as well use axes for hereditary rule happiness instead of rifles.

I like the backline cities idea. Resettling victory mines I'm not totally hot on as it is another city we have to defend, but I think we could possibly do it once the scooter and SM armies get over. I might actually consider settling it 1SE of the mountain to guarantee that the city cannot get hit in 1t and thus allow us to place zone defenders between the new city and prague instead of having to keep everything in the city.