Aussie Group Week Night MP Game

[Master-Mike]

Game started on the 25/10/06 at 8pm.

Players are :

Major Ball
Vile
Grater
Deity
Trev
Mike

Map is a terra world, large with balanced resources on marathon speed.

Good start last night, no connection issues at all so we jumped staight in with no disconects. That must be nearly a first.

Egypt started off in not the best land close to tundrea and other powers. Egypt was annoyed other powers beat it to a few wonders, but the large gold stockpile has allowed for increased expansion and science to remain at 100% long after it would have decreased.

The only wonder Egypt built was the oracle, mainly to stuff up anyone else trying to do the slingshot : )

With little land to expand into, Egpyt has only a few cities outside of tundrea and alll the rest will be in tundrea. There are some nice resources that will benift the empire once these cities are fully up and running.

Egypt is a Jewist nation with the religion slowly spreading throught the empire.

No wars this session, besides one brife one between diety and vile, i think it lasted 1 turn.

Good session. Maybe we can all think about any other nights we can play and maybe fit it into next week.

[deity]

Yeah, good going there on the technical front.

My start (Korea/Deitians) wasn't too bad but lots of jungle; and the Inca (MBall) very quickly jump expanded and took the nearby floodplains. This ensured they had an expanse of floodplains on a terrific river system all the way North to their cap.

The Mali (Graters) are also on this same river system in the South East. Their cap is called "Best start Ever" so that says it all...

Rest of us have crap and will be in trouble I think...

[trev]

For a so-called balanced map, this had only one major river system which 2 civs have taken advantage of, and I have been left building in the northern tundra and working south a little. This region will not be giving me much money, but fairly good hammers, so I am hoping that with a few wonders and the Great People that they generate I can overcome the disadvantages, apparently with Mike getting large cash payouts each time I build a wonder. My use of a Great Wall to generate an engineer and build the Pyramids will apparently be neutered in the very soon to be released patch, but I have made the best of it while I can.
While Mike may be annoyed with my completion of some wonders, I am angry that he has built a city 4 squares from my capital and 3 squares from my 2nd city, stealing a needed food resource as well.

[Master-Mike]

That city is also only 5 squares from my capital and the only good land i could build a city on besides tundrea.

So we either get along or we fight for it.

[vilemerchant]

Ahh balanced that explains everything. I've found balanced to be pretty broken in warlords. One SP game I started had 5 squares in a big group all with coppers! You're also likely to start 2 squares from another civ's settler. Balanced is some stuffed up crap!

[Toni]

Just one solution Trev cut Mike's throat

[deity]

I thought we agreed to not do balanced anymore?

There was a lot of posting about it and the consensus at Polly seemed to be to not use Balanced.

[Master-Mike]

Sorry i did not know balanced cause such issues.

Is there any interest to add a monday or tuesday night for this game? I know myself and major can make most of those nights.

[trev]

Tuesday is unsuitable for me, I think deity is restricted on Monday and Tuesday also from his previous comments, maybe you have a better chance going for a Friday.

[Blake]

As some of you know, I also go by the name Grater. I am Grater.

I go Random and it naturally gives me Mali because random always gives me Mali, mainly because I complain about Financial and Spiritual, I think, altough taken together those traits are great and the skirmisher is fun.

I discovered it was Marathon speed (curses! trickeded again!) and whined and *****ed for a while it's not like there's anything better to do on Marathon speed while waiting for the worker to train (30 turns of hitting enter). I also vow to name every single military unit I name, possibly multiple times, it passes the time.

My capital, named "My Capital", because I'm creative like that, was okay, I'm on a peninsula which is nearly entirely grassland, some jungle, a few resources, little production prospect. I scout out an EXCELLENT city site with oasis and floodplains and river rice and more stuff... on a fresh water desert hill! So I sent a risky fast settler off to it and settled it, naming it "Best City Ever" (It is NOT my cap!).

I continue to spam out settlers at maximum speed with no regard for defense, trusting in my skirmishers (which I hadn't actually built) to keep anyone from attacking me, that and when provoked I have this nasty habit of whipping out a zillion units...

There was one tense moment when a deity Archer scouted around my most western city (founded very aggressively without real defense), then a deity Axeman also turns up and starts snooping around. Now bear in mind this poor city is garrisoned with a single lonely warrior (not named "Dies Horribly", thankfully) and right on the borders are a potentially hostile Axeman and Archer, in other words, it's toast if they attack... fortunately deity can't actually see into the city (due to lack of hills or other visibility modifiers) and his archer and axeman go home... possibly fearing skirmishers, or maybe deity just isn't a bloodthirsty pyschopath and just wanted to scout before my culture blocked off the sliver if land (it didn't go anywhere).

A little later my Skirmishers arrive at this city and I move them onto the outskirts to watch for any incoming invasion from deity or MB plus block the forest route to my city, these units end up on the border of a deity city and so he matches them with an Axeman and Spearmen, all these units being fortified in forests and having a nice staring match. Later the Deity Axeman moves away so I pull the skirmisher back (happy to avoid an arms escalation), leaving just the Spearman and my skirmisher named "Touches Spearmen" to continue the staring match.

Since I was on a river system one religion soon spreads to me, I think it was Hinduism, and it spread to my capital, which had no garrison, since it's on a peninsula which I'd walled off with interlocking cities such that any hostile unit would take over 8 turns to reach my Capital. I'm spiritual so I switch to the religion. Later Buddhism spreads to me and I switch, since it was in Best City Ever, which badly needed happy (since everyone wants to live in Best City Ever). But of course I explain the switch as Buddhism being cooler than Hinduism.

I discover I have a large island under me (this is Terra) and promptly wall it off via culture from a new city, preventing anyone elses galley getting to it without a fight. Alas this island is not a full Malaysia style island chain, it's just a single moderately large island.

At the end of the session I'm #1 in soldiers (don't worry, I don't intend to use them, I just like to carry a big stick for intimdiation purposes), I'm #1 in GNP, #2ish in most everything else and I still have some peaceful expansion prospects and a barb city to kill. No wonders built and none attempted. I think most people know my prefered method of acquiring wonders , but in this case it is because "Mali don't need wonders!".

Since I like to name everything I eventually come up with a decently pretentious & arrogant name for my civilization, naming it The Graetorian Empire.

Oh and btw I always like documenting the games I play .

[trev]

Conversations between most players in this game indicate that a 7pm resumption of this game on Sat night is possible, vile, can you let us know if you can make it please?

[vilemerchant]

Sorry guys, I always work Saturday's 4pm until midnight.

[Master-Mike]

Godamit, well all turn up anyway. Maybe we can play our own game.

For those that are more free on a few weeknights or a saturday nigt, we might be able to start up a big game with a bunch of AI on hard level. Me and toni did that all the time, was good fun.

Either way me and major ball will be here and playing.

[trev]

We started a game of 4 humans, 4AI on Sat evening.
From my point of view, I had a total mismatch between my traits and the terrain I was given. I had the aggresive trait believing that would assist in the almost certain AI wars. However a total lack of copper or iron meant tha trait was wasted in the war against Monty who I wiped out, gaining the Hindu and Jewish holy cities in the bargain. Also I have the philosophical trait, but a total lack of luxuries has meant a low happy cap on my cities seriously limiting the effectiveness of this trait as cities have not been able to grow sufficiently for large numbers of specialists or produce enough hammers to gain multiple wonders as an aid to GP creation, and the war and the need for military techs has also meant that religous techs have been bypassed limiting what I can achieve from that front in happiness also. However with the cessation of the war which drove my GDP down to -10 at one point because of too many cities I am now slowly recovering the economy and game, soon plantations will add to my happiness and city growth will ensure a strong future economy.

[trev]

On Wednesday evening I will be on a 7+ hour drive to Pt Lincoln for work and therefore will not be able to play.