Speaker's super top secret thread for the purposes of world domination; Neener Neener

[Speaker]

Sullla, I am going out of town from tomorrow morning until Saturday afternoon, so you will probably need to play this next turn for me. I have left sign instructions in game. Nothing too big is happening this turn. Thanks.

[Sullla]

No problem. You should have a shiny new religion to play with when you get back.

[Sullla]

Well I'm sure it's become apparent that this thread is not getting updated as much as it probably should be. Our team does most of the communication through voice chat, which removes a lot of the need to post things in a thread. I've also been quite busy working on other projects, and this game has not been all that exciting this far, none of which has motivated me to post much in this thread. I don't know if any of that will be changing going forward, but here's some insight into what we're doing right now.



My territory. I'm up to 6 cities at present, which is probably average or slightly below average compared to other teams. Speaker gifted me the most recent settler, which went on the coast to the west, and he will hopefully supply a few more in upcoming turns. I need to settle my north and my southwest next, to block off pressure from Team 4 and Team 3, respectively.



Here is the capital of Requieum, making 194 beakers/turn. Yes, it's pretty disgusting now that it has the Academy. I am probably going to try and build Mausolleum starting next turn, when the city hits size 17. That's a 5t build (with marble) and we are planning on having my civ build Taj Mahal later. If I could get the Mausoleum, then I could shoot for Taj Golden Age + Great Person GA = 18 turns (Quick speed = 27t Normal speed) of enhanced research. And that could be gamebreaking. We'll see what happens.



Our big edge continues to be research, as seen on the GNP bar graph. My GNP is 300+ something, while Shoot the Moon's India (Team 3) is next closest at the low 200s. With Speaker also producing a lot of beakers, we have a considerable advantage over the other teams. Now, the tradeoff of course is that we have fewer cities, less Food, and less Production than Team 3 - as I've said many times already. Team 3 also has a larger army than we do at present. However, this map is so defensive in nature that it's going to be almost impossible for anyone to attack without a tech edge. Therefore, we're pushing to get that tech edge before we making any kind of offensive move. So long as we can settle our fair share of the map, we will hopefully be fine.



Here are the techs for each team on the F4 screen. To simplify, I'll provide the list of what everyone has researched:

Team 1
Music, Civil Service, Machinery, Engineering, Paper, Philosophy, Feudalism
Total Beakers: 9188

Team 2
Civil Service, Theology, Machinery, Engineering, Music
Total Beakers: 6361

Team 3
Civil Service, Machinery, Feudalism, Guilds
Total Beakers: 5654

Team 4
Civil Service, Machinery, Engineering, Paper
Total Beakers: 5478

So in other words, we have 7 techs to the 5/4/4 of the other three teams, we're produced about 50% more beakers than our rivals throughout the game thus far, and we're pretty much a mortal lock to reach Liberalism first. (We have another Great Scientist ready to pop in sunrise's territory soon just to lock down Education further.) As we know from past games, the team with the best tech nearly always wins in Civ4. This one's looking pretty solid for us.

Other teams have recently built Shwedagon Paya, Sistine Chapel, and Hagia Sophia wonders, all of which are nice but not really that crucial. I'm really curious why anyone wanted Shwedagon Paya - were the religious civics really that useful? Notre Dame and Mausolleum seem far more important to us.

Speaker is going to use our Great Artist for a culture bomb in a few turns, which should produce some amusing results. Stay tuned for that.

[Sullla]

Bigtime culture bomb incoming from our team next turn. More details when it takes place. We're all looking forward to the next turn roll quite a bit.

[Speaker]

[kjn]

Hooray for an incoming update bomb!

[Speaker]

Everything went perfect according to my long-term plan. It's great when no hiccups come along, and everything goes smoothly.

Here is the landscape following the military action of T131 (the 49th turn of the game so far):

A more detailed explanation of what happened will follow, but I'm pretty sure Lewwyn never could have seen this coming. If he had had one more turn of preparation, I am pretty sure he would have saved the city. He had 3 more units to move in next turn, and could have upgraded two of them, assuming they had the money. Lewwyn has 150 gold in his pocket right now, so I'm pretty sure he could have upgraded two warriors to maces. Oh well, that's why I planned this attack the way I did. He was only able to see the units staged for one turn, and then they attacked. Imagine if this were pulled off with a "Fast" speed turn timer, and you had just 8 seconds to defend yourself. Welcome to multiplayer!

I have made a few notes on the picture of the map as we now understand it. It is definitely roughly mirrored in some way shape or form, though not perfectly, from what I can tell. We think Lewwyn's capital is just above the land we can see and very vulnerable to an attack in the future. I have identified what I think is one of many rough mirror lines.

I can one move that city of Shoot the Moon's, if I see fit. I'm not sure if it is worth it or not, but it is now very vulnerable as well. This bomb makes me pretty much un-attackable on the East now, so once I clear out that longbow sentry, they will have no ability to keep an eye on me. Lewwyn will find it very difficult to break my huge culture crush at this point, because of the way his cities are already planted. I do have quite a lot of jungle to clear in that area, to make sure it is safe, but that should happen in the near future. I have a lot of workers in the area, and my core is almost 100% developed at this point anyways.

I named my culture bomb after my new favorite League of Legends character, Skarner:



Oh, I also got a great general in the fighting, which I attached to a 5/8 Keshik, upgraded him for free to a Knight, and granted the rank of captain. I can now build Heroic Epic in my super high production city (AP Galio - 24 base hammers).

Captain Teemo on Duty!

[Locke]

OK this is how you make attack with Artist.

We have Great Artist from start of game when we get Music. We have been waiting for a chance to use. This are looked like a good spot. Two other civs have borders close and there are good resources in jungle. We set a trap with units for Lewwyn.



This is last turn. 2 fast worker road on rice tile and move up 3 maces + 2 workers. This reveals archer and spear in Lewwyn city. We also move 2 worker onto hill tile marked Bomb. That is where city will go. There is Artist and settler down in south. We also move chariot to bait Lewwyn horse archer. This gets all units into place.



Start of this turn. Lewwyn does as expected and kill chariot with horse archer. He upgrade archer to crossbow and spear to pike. This is why its really hard to attack teams in this setup. Everyone on team can pool gold for upgrades. Lewwyn probably thinks he has 1 more turn before attack comes. He cannot even see Artist or settler coming.

Now we plant city and use Artist.



Culture bomb is OP on Quick speed. You get 5 tiles in every direction. (Only get 4 on Normal/Epic.) Now workers on tile with maces road jungle hill and culture steal Lewwny's own road to city. Every unit in new city can now attack Bombay. City is hosed.

Mace die to crossbow, mace kill crossbow, mace kill pike. Take city.



We raze city because we cannot safely hold. Not worth the risk and not in great spot for us. But we are not done yet. 2 fast worker move onto gems tile and road. Now spear in TurboScorpion kills horse archer that we bait last turn. We could kill 2 Lewwyn fast worker in north but would have to lose keshik to do it. We did not think that was worth it. If we could save fast worker then yeah but they would have to be delete.

Lewwyn had mace + 2 warriors north of city. He would have 3 maces to defend if we give him another turn. Losing city is not his fault. You could not expect Artist bomb there. For us though it is pretty funny. Best part is Lewwyn's workers go to trouble of connecting gems/dyes and we got them instantly with bomb. LOL

There is overview map. No one can attack from eastern area. It is sealed off. We will expand northwest next. Also got Great General from attack, get unit to 20XP, start building Heroic Epic. I send marble after finish Mausolleum in 2t (I hope). If I get wonder then we probably use Great Scientist for 9t Golden Age instead of lightbulb. GA gets us to Liberalism faster and speed up Taj building for next GA. I try to get 3 GAs for 27t GA research. That will be end of game if we do that.

[Speaker]

Why, hello there Locke. Welcome to our humble thread. Thanks for providing consultation during the attack build up. Your advice came very much in handy.

[Nakor]

Great post!
And good tactics! What can go wrong from here?