Succession Game VII: Leemur poo in my shoe.

[Maquiladora]

(intentionally spelt wrong)

RULES
- Turns per player: 20 turns for the first round, 15 for the second and third and 10 turns for every round after that.
- Loose 3 day (72hrs) limit on passing turn on.
- No Razing conquered cities.
- No Farms under cities. (use goods more)
- No Right-Clicking bug use.
- Obviously no other cheats.
- Renaming of cities and armies is allowed, but post it.

SETUP
Mod: Cradle 1.30b ("Cradle 1.30b" option in modswapper)
Civ: Aztecs
Difficulty: Very Hard (5/6)
Barbarians: Bandits (2/4)
AI Civs: 10 (12 with us + Barbs)
Map: Gigantic Doughnut Map (NOT ultra gig option)
Wet-Dry - 5
Warm-Cold - 5
Ocean-Land - 6
Island-Cont- 6
Uniform-Diverse - 5
Few-Many Goods - 7
Pollution ON
Bloodlust OFF
EDIT: Change the line MaxPlayers=0 in your userprofile.txt in ...\ctp2_program\ctp to MaxPlayers=24.

Players
Maquiladora
EPW
Tamerlin
HuangShang
(Gilgamensch)

7000BC Started researching Agriculture since we dont even have farmers.

6980BC Tenochtitlan founded on river and all grassland, Spearman next.

6840BC Spearman built in Tenochtitlan, Nomad next.

6740BC Hut: Nothing

6720BC Hut: Nothing

6680BC continued exploring down river, found a coastline.

Not very detailed i know but all feel free to write how you like but i prefer to get straight to the point. (that and im a terrible writer)

Turn 20 (6600BC) for EPW.

[EPW]

I'm not sure if we are using the same version of cradle Maq, on modswrapper on my version it is shown as cradle 1.30b while on yours its cradle 1.3 beta? Are those the same version?

[Maquiladora]

My version of Cradle was downloaded a while ago (end of December 2003) from Hex's website, and i saw no reason to download it again seeing as the cradle_allfiles04_08.ZIP is named exactly the same still now on Hex's website as the one i downloaded. However, Hex added the LotR scenario to the cradle_allfiles04_08.ZIP, which made it like 10Mb larger, but i didnt bother downloading the same named file again, seeing as i have the scenario already in a seperate zip, and im on 56k and 10Mb difference is alot.

But the only concern is, does the save load and play without any errors at all on your Cradle? If it doesnt, what errors are there and where did you get your Cradle?

[EPW]

The game loads fine but on the third turn when I went into a hut the message said : "Your advisors recommend you reject this proposel" I think your version uses some outdated text files as the updated 1.30b I got from Hex's website incorperates the text files from 1.35. I don't think it will effect game play though so no reason to start over.

[Maquiladora]

Ah, thats crappy I assumed they were the same because the zip name was the same. Oh well, see how it hands around for one round and if its too annoying we can restart.

Meanwhile i will download cradle_allfiles04_08.ZIP again.

[EPW]

6600BC: EPW takes control

6560BC: Hut: nothing

6440BC: Finished Nomad - Started to build another Nomad

6400: Founded Tlacopan east of Tenochtitlan on a river - started to build a spearman

6380: Researched Agriculture- begun writing (prerequisite to dynasty government)

6340: Hut: GOT A CITY!! (Texecoco) The city was located in jungle/swamps so it was disbanded and is now on a journey to a better location.

6260BC: Built Spearman in Tlacopan- Started to build nomad

I received more strange messages, such as "b" when I got the city from the hut. I have no objection to playing on but if we are going to restart we should do it now...

Turn 40 (6200BC) to Tamerlin

[Maquiladora]

Well thats what i was waiting for at the end of your report, if all you get is text errors then i think we should play this one out, if everyone is ok with it, and if/when we start another game ill use the new 1.30b.

EDIT: Also, if Tamerlin gets no text errors (beyond the usual language differences) (which im not sure if he will or not) then ill install the proper 1.30b so you (EPW) dont get these strange messages at least.

Did you try /reload slic BTW just as you loaded the game? Not that i expect this to have any effect, just wondering. So you only got strange messages from entering huts?

[EPW]

No I didn't reload slic when I started. I think all the messages are wrong as I got one during a turn that was probably about an earthquake or a civ starting a wonder but was just gibberish.

[Tamerlin]

I had text errors that were removed as soon as I made a reloadslic.

I have made a mistake (if not more ) and produced two warriors as I thought they had a two-tile vision as in the SAP2 and the original game. I hope this will not have bad consequences though they will help us fight the barbarians out of our territory.

6180 BC - Our nomad sent to the SW of Tenochtitlan stumbled on ruins that yielded nothing.
6100 BC - Xoloc founded
6100 BC - Warrior started in Xoloc for exploration purpose
6080 BC - Tenochtitlan starts Warrior (same motive)
6080 BC - Writing discovered by our philosophers
6080 BC - Our philosophers started thinking about the new concept of Domestication
6040 BC - Brave spearmen mercenaries discovered North of Tenochtitlan by our intrepid explorers, they saw the light and joined our empire
5960 BC - Warrior completed in Tenochtitlan
5960 BC - Nomad started in Tenochtitlan
5920 BC - To the North of Tenochtitlan, one of our brave spearman is savagely attacked and killed by barbarians spearmen.
5900 BC - Tula is founded
5900 BC - warrior started in Tula
5900 BC - Coracle started in Xoloc
5880 BC - Empty ruins
5880 BC - Tula's Warrior changed to Spearman
5840 BC - Our brave spearman exploring the Western coasts encountered an Etruscan Slinger sent by Tyrrhenus their chief.
5840 BC - Our peaceful meek words are rejected by the Etruscans.
5820 BC - Nomad in Tlacopan completed and sent to the East
5820 BC - Spearman Started in Tlacopan
5800 BC - Stonehenge completed by Atahualpa
5800 BC (Turn 60) - HuangShang the Great takes control of our fledgling empire assassinating Tamerlin in the process for his incompetence. One of Tamerlin's heir managed to escape shouting "I'll be back".

[Maquiladora]

I thought we were going for a Dynasty government first? I can see you approached them meekly, Im surprised we didnt get a map exchange with the Etruscans.

The wheat might have been better underneath Tula but its still fine there. I see some other decent city sites around the goods, no elephant though, which is my favourite good, coal seems to be excellent too.

I just noticed something with Warriors too, they cost 2 to support but theyre almost evenly matched with Spearman in combat and Spearman cost 1 support, both have 1 vision range. I guess we should stick to Spearman, because we can support twice as many.

[Tamerlin]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
I thought we were going for a Dynasty government first?

This I realised at the end of the 20th turns, this is something that can be easily be changed by my successor though.

I can see you approached them meekly, Im surprised we didnt get a map exchange with the Etruscans.

This is something I forgot to ask them... again. I am so afraid of making some mistakes that I am making some I never do in my own games.

The wheat might have been better underneath Tula but its still fine there. I see some other decent city sites around the goods, no elephant though, which is my favourite good, coal seems to be excellent too.

I thought you were losing the benefit of the good if you build the city over it.

I just noticed something with Warriors too, they cost 2 to support but theyre almost evenly matched with Spearman in combat and Spearman cost 1 support, both have 1 vision range. I guess we should stick to Spearman, because we can support twice as many.

You are right, now that I know Warriors don't have the two-tiles vision and are thus not better than spearman at exploring we should stick to the spearmen.

[Maquiladora]

I am so afraid of making some mistakes that I am making some I never do in my own games.

Well you normally play SAP so its gonna be difficult at first, same for me, ive had a long look over the Cradle tech tree and still havent figured the best way. Generally we should stick to advancing our governments, or advancing military if we absolutely have to. I havent looked over the wonders yet, but we will surely need a few to compete, we may need to take the wonders cities by force.

[Maquiladora]

Ive downloaded and installed the new "1.30b" version. I tried the 6600BC save and i got the same weird goody hut message as EPW, i loaded it again but this time /reloadslic it before entering the hut and the message was the right one this time.

[EPW]

Its good that we have that problem fixed

Are we allowed to download and veiw other players saved games when its not your turn?

[hexagonian]

I will say this - make sure everyone has the 1.30b setup that is at my site. (I probably should have labeled it 1.36, but the current 1.30b is closer to the old 1.30 version than 1.35.) There are also differences within the 1.30 and 1.30b SLICs that are common to both. And due to space limitations, I needed to merge files into single downloads to cut down on duplicate files.

It's too late to relabel it though.

I'll chime in with some hints...
- Build lots of military...I mean lots!
- The two most important early military units are the Jav Cavalry and the Slinger (range). Javs are needed for a perimeter to track incoming stacks. In fact, I would say they are the most important Ancient unit until you get established. You WILL need a perimeter...
- Create a road network ASAP - even at the expense of other Tile Improvements - so your military can react to threats quickly. Keep your core cities relatively close together, and long-range plan for some outer cities that will grow.
- Slave for pop growth. The AI will...
- Since you will not be razing captured cities, choose whom to prune wisely. The cap can be brutal at times.
- If there is one tech to make a priority, I would say Iron Working. Legions are powerful SOBs. Its a long way off to them though...
- At this difficulty level, you will probably not get Stonehenge. If you need a good early Wonder, go for Pyramids. You will need a lot of gold for upgrade costs.
- In fact, I would make gold generation a high priority. (I just realized that the upgrade costs for Spearmen Militia>Hoplite Militia is incorrect on the readme pdf. The actual cost for them is 1,000 per. But you can get the cash for them.) However, hold off on gold generating building until a city creates 20+ Gold because you will not get any discernable benefit until that point in time.
- Other good Wonders are those that create buildings for you. (Valley of the Kings, Hanging Gardens). Anything that saves you time from building construction...