Succession Game X: Clueless Nubians

[Maquiladora]

The entire good and units sprites of AoM4 compressed comes to 55mb, it would be easier to upload the specific ones you're missing, but better to download AoM2 Full and AoM4 updates and do a fresh install.

[Tellius]

Hi,

Turn 20-23 : continued exploration, a nomad is finished in Dongola, with which I later founded the city of Tarabulus in the north.

Turn 25 : research of Projectile Weapons finished, new research: Ceremonial Burying. An AI empire started building Stonehenge very very early in the game, so I thought this wonder would be beyond our grasp, so I aimed for the next big wonder, Code of Hamurabi, and set that as a goal (and we need Ceremonial Burying for that).
I also met our neighbours the Byzantines, I immediately gave them 100 gold and offered to withdraw. Byzantines were very happy.

Turn 27 : nomad ready in Misratah, with which I later founded the proud city of Skikda to the east, close to the Byzantine border.

Turn 34 : finish Ceremonial Burying, and going for Writing next (necessary step towards Code of Hammurabi)

I encountered many goodie huts, which gave me up to 800 gold, an Advanced Warrior, a Warrior, and, last but not least, the advance of Domestication, so we can now build Grazing tile improvements.

In the north, I found what promises to be a big mountain range, so my suggestion is we expand to the north as quickly as possible. I sometimes escort a nomad well beyond the empire borders to 'claim' a certain area, calculating where to found the city so that later cities can be placed between this 'border city' and the core of your empire, but that is just me. I did manage to secure important patches of land this way though. In this case, it would prevent the Byzantines from expanding towards the mountains. Just an idea for Portra or E.

Since an AI empire had such a head start with Stonehenge, I didn't start building that one, but if my successor would like to try, you can always change the production of a nomad in one of the cities (damn, forgot which one, it's the most western one) to Stonehenge (I started building this nomad the turn I researched Ceremonial Burying, so no turn would actually be lost), but honestly, I think it's a lost cause, even with rush buying and disbanding other units.

Greetz

Tellius

[Maquiladora]

Did you play 20 turns Tellius?

Also any chance of a picture?

[Tellius]

Hi,

Also any chance of a picture?

Oops, sorry about that, where are my manners?
It will become more and more difficult to give any meaningfull picture in the future though, when our empire grows, we will only be able to show part of the map. I suppose a picture of the 'strategic map' will be of more use in the future?

I also forgot to say, that we really need to keep the Byzantines as our friends. If I remember correctly, Portra hasn't played AOM yet, that's why I'm mentioning this. Most of the time, you end up with difficult neighbours, but when you get a more or less friendly neighbour such as the Byzantines in this case, we need to capitalize on that ASAP. Keep them friendly, and we will be able later on to trade techs with them. Also, as a potential threat, they won't be a problem until possibly from the Middle Ages onwards.

I founded the city of Skikda to the east, at that time, I had no idea yet of the mountain range in the north, and I had partially discovered some mountains in that eastern region. Also, it borders with the recently met Byzantines, and I always place cities close to my neighbours's borders, to prevent them from taking too much land. In hindsight, this turns out to be a mistake, I should have placed the city more to ths north, towards the mountains, and the mountains in the eastern region turned out to be not the mountain range I hoped for, but of course, that's in hindsight, I didn't know all those things at the time.

Portra or E, it's your turn!

Tellius

[HuangShang]

Umm can I ask what is prevalent strategy on city placement? Dongola and Selima look like great places, but not so much Lizi.

O and where do I extract the other files in the tile package? Is it the same folder as the gtset?

[Tellius]

Hi,

city placement. I learned the hard way, that it is not a good idea to place cities too far apart, in my previous AOM game I found the distances between some cities too big, making it impossible - often by one or two squares - to transfer troops from one city to a neighbouring city in trouble. My empire in a whole also was very whide spread, making efficient defense difficult.

So, when placing cities, the 'checkerboard pattern' Maquiladora started and I continued works very well. Imagine for instance that Tarabulus, Lizi and Selima each grow one factor, they nicely match up, wasting not a single square (and Lizi gets those river squares too). I guess this is what Maquiladora took into account and what I continued on. I know there is better terrain more to the north, but you get pretty big gaps (although of course, these too get filled in later on in the game, when the city reaches size 18).

What I sometimes do risk, is placing a city far far away from the main body of the empire, mostly to 'claim' important terrain I just discovered, or to keep an AI in check. I do measure things up though, so that I'm sure I can later fill in the empty space with a number of cities, in a way that won't cause overlaps in these 'filling up' cities. This is of course an early game tactic.

Oh, forgot to answer Maquiladora, YES, I did play the full 20 turns. I only mentioned the important things in my 'report', and the last few turns only saw the completion of a unit and maybe the cracking of a goodie hut (and I summarized the goodie huts).

Huang Shang, the pictures in the first zip file are just some alternative pictures for some of the tile improvements of the tileset. If you want to use the tileset as it is now, you do NOT need to install them anywhere, but should you like to change, for instance, my latifundia with the alternative one I provided, you also need to download the second zip file (with the gtset555), then you can open that one in tileedit and make the changes you want by importing some or all of the alternative pictures provided. The alternatives are pretty close in appearance to the ones I decided to use in the final tileset, so I don't think it's that important.

Who's next?

T.

[Maquiladora]

Oh, forgot to answer Maquiladora, YES, I did play the full 20 turns. I only mentioned the important things in my 'report', and the last few turns only saw the completion of a unit and maybe the cracking of a goodie hut (and I summarized the goodie huts).

Excellent so now onto E or Protra, or HuangShang if he's ready.

Agree on keeping good neighbours for now. Also agree on blocking their expansion while we can do it peacefully.

City placement, Lizi was just put there for speed, it's where I found the settler IIRC and it fit nicely so I put the city there.

For screenshots, just a fully zoomed-out shot of the important area is good enough IMO. Saves us lazy people time in opening the save every time

[HuangShang]

Since they have not replied I will play today.

Sorry guys, I opened the save but when i click on the four inner buttons the messages don't show the right text, I think I have to download the game all over again. I'm going to play Monday US time. If they can, E or Protra should go before me.

[HuangShang]

I believe in my attempt to reinstall AoM I have duplicated E's problem. GG059.SPR

[Maquiladora]

I don't know what to tell you HS, if you installed extracting the AoMII full folder and then updating with AoMIV you should be fine. Check this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=169884

[HuangShang]

The current files on the AoM site are 12MB AOM2 and 36MB AoM4. The game will start but the save won't load.

[Maquiladora]

See this thread: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=168337

for the FULL AoMII & IV update links.

[Tellius]

Hi,

Huang Shang, you are not the first person to have problems with this, apparently only the AOMII update is available on the apolyton files directory, it seems a very good idea that someone high on the apolyton picking order (in other words, someone with administrator access) links to the full AOMII game instead of the update, it's obviously already up there on the apolyton servers, so I don't see any problems there.

Greetz

T.

[Ekmek]

Guys I'm at an internet cafe and probbly won't have access to the 'net for getting ctp2 stuff until the 19th. I jump in then if its possible.

[Maquiladora]

No problem E. I don't think this game is going too far anyway at the moment