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Post by hornet on Jan 22, 2009 15:49:51 GMT
DIPLOMACYPWND! Excellent stuff. You just have to hope he doesn't find the islands you're skulking around and crush you like an ant.
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Post by Moo on Jan 22, 2009 15:50:07 GMT
That's pretty cool. Nice work on the coin flip. Does this mean that the two members of the OverCouncil can't go to war with each other? I mean, if I were the head dude of the other lot, I'd be a bit pissed that you're screwing him, his wife, his cute sister Delilah, three of his maids and also cutting off their trade routes. In summary, KUTGW! :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 22, 2009 15:59:54 GMT
I think he'd have to drop out of the council to attack me. Eventually he could become leader of the council; he just has to put forward a resolution that we elect a new leader and have it voted in.
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Post by coffers on Jan 22, 2009 16:12:28 GMT
By a coin flip again. Oh hang on, you win I'll get my coat.
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Post by coffers on Jan 22, 2009 17:17:23 GMT
How does this Civilization thing compare with Rise of Nations, is it a similar sort of game?
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 22, 2009 23:57:48 GMT
I haven't played Rise of Nations because, if I understand correctly, RoN is a RTS - real time strategy - while Civ is turn based, so there's no rush.
The only RTS I've played that I enjoyed was that World War II one Company of Heroes because I'm just not that fond of them, (mainly because I'm crap at them), so I can't tell you how it measures up to Civ, just that I'm really enjoying the pacing in Civ.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 2:09:01 GMT
With the Island of Awesome ticking over nicely and the Barbar island settled in our hands I wasn't sure of what to do next, (aside from messing with the Dragon boys by voting for them to tie their own shoelaces together), so I started building banks and carnivals so that I could tax people for more cash, but then distract them from that fact with candy floss. At the same time I had my Privateers tooling about looking for opportunity to break stuff.
This would be about the point where I discover that the world isn't flat.
With a Privateer swinging past the lost swordsman in the north I decide to keep sending him west into the fog and eventually he appeared behind my Island of Awesome, triggering a neat feature in the game where the map turns from a flat representation to a spinning globe.
He also found the Clan of Embers, finally, who much like us had a medium sized island all to themselves after killing the Illians. You can still see former Illian workers slaving away building roads and such - forcing opposing workers to slave on your island is terrible!
This discovery of the Clan gives me an exciting opportunity to expand my borders and gain some revenge for the last game I played.
Getting ashore on Clan island is going to be very difficult as we're pretty much going to have to declare war before we get there because otherwise we can't cross the borders with out troop ships, but eventually my Privateers working as a pair find a single corner of the island that hasn't officially been claimed by the clan and that will be my way in, for what should turn out to be a serious war.
With such a serious business afoot I have to strategereee-orise properly and it's important that I put together a properly strong attacking force too. The most unit I'll be able to carry over in one go is nine and it'll take about 14 turns for the ships to get home and back, but they won't all be able to go as I'll need to keep the Frigates back for their ability to bombard the coastal towns to knock down their defences.
The force I put together starts with the hero horseman Valin Phanuel backed up by two Champion units in their full armour with shields and longswords, a unit of swordsmen, a unit of Nyxkin cavalry mounted on mountain lions, some basic warriors, a Hunter scouting unit, a Confessor who's primarily along to heal people but also has a small chance to convert defeated units to our side and then an Adept who's along to cast his magic and can do things like enchant swords to make them more powerful and call forth smoke to hide us and stuff.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 2:50:59 GMT
Time for our grand plan.
Our fleet of two frigates, a privateer and our new "Queen of the Line" galleon make to the east to the Clan island, sails past two towns and parks off the south coast within sight of the town of Lakis. After waiting a couple of turns to see if any Clan navy sorties out to watch us, the fleet moves to the south east corner and drops out nine units.
The army can't move anywhere because they're pinched between two clan borders, but I can get them to fortify their position before declaring war so that they're as safe as possible. They spend a few turns improving their defensive position and then it's time to phone up the Clan Piggy and let him know we're going to have bacon for tea.
The Clan aren't going to play ball and venture out from their city, so our army moves west into a forested area just short of a river so that anyone who attacks will have to cross the water first. The wisdom of this is shown when the first of the Clan Lizardmen show up from somewhere in the dark area to the north and are easily dispatched.
With the army established I move in my Frigates and start bombarding the defences in Lakis until they're reduced to nothing. This forces the Clan to send five more units down the road from Garduk to the northwest.
Which is exactly what I've been waiting for.
I wait for the Clan soldiers to move down the road and then my army is gone. The ships sail in, everyone loads on and the ships sail out again. They head west, hook around the end of the island, sail past Garduk to the now empty castle just outside the city's walls and everyone climbs back off the ship again.
It takes us a couple of turns to organise everyone for a concerted attack which allows a couple of Orc axemen time to get back into the city, but that still means we're only facing four units instead of ten and before the rest of the Orcs down in Lakis can even move we're assaulting the city, the Swordsmen climbing to the head of their seige engines and breaching the walls.
With the defences aside Valin Phanuel storms into the city and cuts through the defenders without breaking much of a sweat. With most of the Clan's southern forces sat in Lakis, we're ashore and have our first town without losing a unit.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 23, 2009 3:38:37 GMT
Nice work on the Diplomacy front. Could you have ordered their naval units to the other side of the map before declaring war?
Speaking of which, nice start ion that front too :thumb:
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 3:59:41 GMT
I don't have diplomacy with the Clan. I'm in the UN with the Kuriotates who have their empire a way west of my home island.
There's no way I could take them on yet as they're the most advanced civ and they have civs pressed to either side of them too who could get shirty if they saw an opportunity, or even come in on the Kuriotates' side.
The Clan are on an island to my east and they're the only civ on their island, (apart from a handful of Barbarian forces, but the Barbars and Clan are cousins anyway and the line between them is blurred), which means that although they're going to be a tough nut to crack, they are safer to take on because there's a vanishingly small chance of any other civ being pulled into the conflict.
If I win over the island, eventually, then it'll give me a real island empire with cities across five islands and none on the main continent, but that has some benefits to go with the logistical difficulties it provides.
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Post by Sonic on Jan 23, 2009 4:24:07 GMT
Well that shows how much I've played Civ; never. I've seen it in action though by some good players. It does sound like your about to reach an intriguing stage of your Nations growth. So, tomorrow is the next installment?
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Post by Narcizo on Jan 23, 2009 8:07:29 GMT
Map of the empire or the Clan's island please. I hated history books with no maps.
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Post by Moo on Jan 23, 2009 8:29:10 GMT
I'm with Nark. I want a spinny globey thing!
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Post by hornet on Jan 23, 2009 9:57:26 GMT
I haven't played Rise of Nations because, if I understand correctly, RoN is a RTS - real time strategy - while Civ is turn based, so there's no rush. The only RTS I've played that I enjoyed was that World War II one Company of Heroes because I'm just not that fond of them, (mainly because I'm crap at them), so I can't tell you how it measures up to Civ, just that I'm really enjoying the pacing in Civ. More-or-less ditto. I've not played anything but the demo of Company of Heroes, but the only RTS I've really gotten into (unless you count the Total War games) is its stablemate Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War. Because I am a MASSIVE NERD. I enjoy being able to have an army that's Dark Angel space marines except painted ivory, and then smugly point out to passersby that I'm playing as the Deathwing. Actually, my favourite DoW army is the Imperial Guard. I just like the notion of fighting power-armoured super-humans, space-elves, regenerating robotic death-loonies and twenty-foot-tall demons using a bunch of poxy squaddies armed with laser tickling-sticks and protected by a saucepan on their heads and a tin tray up their shirts. I cracked last night and started a new Civ 4 game. I've sprinted out to a nice early start with a few quick settlers that should, in about 50 turns or so, give me enough of an economy advantage over the other civ I'm trapped on the world's southernmost continent with that I mass-produce troops and crush them beneath my booted heel. Damn you, Stu. DAMN YOU TO HELL! Also, nice work on the bait-and-switch city-capturing maneuver.
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Post by coffers on Jan 23, 2009 10:53:02 GMT
I had another crack at Rise Of Nations over the last two nights and sort of like it but then again there is a niggle taht I don't like. Whilst it is RTS in one sense ie. The battles it is also sort of turn based.
At the start you are asked which territory you want to invade from your starting territory. It has to be an adjacent one. Once picked you are given a map, mostly blacked out with a starying city and some buildings resources etc. Frome there it becomes RTS and you are given 90 minutes to achieve your objective, which seems to be capture the enemy Capital.
You have to build your economy and armies and add cities to get to a position to realistically attack your enemiwes. you also need to make advances in Civic's Science, Military and commerce. You also want to try to advance from to various ages like Classical, Middle and so on. This is only achievable with the aid of knowledge, reasearch in Universities and temples. All this is done, real tome and enemies can attack unexpecetly.
If you achieve your objective or fail, you jump back out to a sort of turn base scenario, where you can pick who you want to attack or ally with, or buy bonus cards to be used in a future batlle. These involve tribute being paid, which are gained from holding territory or demanding tributes from other civs wanting to make a pact with you.
I'm finding the turn based stuff a little annoying, maybe because it wasn't what I was expecting. However I migh get used to it if I start over.
I started as the mayans and destroyed teh Aztec's in my first move/turn. Then mucked up completely by making allies with the inca's thinking I could attack the unclaimed territory to the north of teh former Aztec nation. It seems I couldn't attack for some reason and I passed over the tun and the next figuring out what I was doing wrong, I'm still not sure at this poit what is wrong, by the time I declared war on the Incas and got my army to teh adjacent terriory they inveded me. So it looks like I go back to the Save I had just before destroying the Aztecs to get back to pre second turn. I can then try to figure out if I can attack the incas before they take over South America.
It all feels a bit weird at the moment.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 12:15:40 GMT
Yes, yes, various map are coming.
Having captured Garduk, the next eight turns are the most dangerous because the city has no defensive bonus and is filled with unhappy bunnies because they're all Clan people who suddenly live in an occupied city. It'll take many years of occupation for the counter to swing so that the population is mainly Elven.
I tried to use this to my advantage too however, hunkering down for the expected onslaught in Garduk, but sending my Frigate south again to loiter off the coast of Lakis, ready to move in when called.
When it came the Clan attack came in from two directions, which thankfully doesn't give any sort of pincer bonus because Civ isn't that sophisticated when it comes to the combat model. The attacks were still serious though, with a large number of axemen charging the walls of Garduk, which were thinly defended right now as a large number of our garrison had to keep an eye on the population.
Even though individually the Axemen were weaker than all of my forces save for the basic warrior, their sheer numbers were causing a problem and it wasn't long before my strongest units in Garduk were my Confessor and my Adept, both of who stepped into the breaches and slayed many Orcs.
The Adept was particular impressive, calling up a blur incantation that hid all of the wounded units making them difficult to assault, he then started cracking skulls with his staff.
Eventually the first attacks petered out and although all of my forces had suffered considerable damage, none had been completely lost and even though a small number of new Orc forces appeared, that attack was almost certainly the biggest provided we didn't allow the Orcs enough time to move any siege equipment south.
So at this point we moves a Swordsman unit and our Hunter out to the abandoned castle just outside of Garduk. Either they would be attacked there, forcing the Orcs to divert from their main attack, or they'd be left untouched and could recover fully.
As it turned out the Orcs ignored out smaller force and continued to go after Garduk until a couple of turns later when the Swordsman pushed out destroying a unit of Orcs and the Hunter used his speed to push around the main Orc force and attack some weaker units in the back.
To coincide with this attack our forces in Garduk sallied out and hit the Orcs in the face trapping them between our two groups and smashing all of them.
At this point we sent the Frigates in to Lakis and they started knocking down the walls there and our two forces at Garduk combined, marched down the road and caught the much reduced garrison before they could be reinforced.
The Orcs tried to divert an army they were sending south, moving their march from Garduk to Lakis, but they couldn't get there in time and we had our second town!
Coming up, maps.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 12:19:45 GMT
This is the Orc island. You can see the foothold I'd made in the south west. My first move was to land east of the souther city, wait for the Orcs to reinforce it, then I swung around the coast, landed north of the south west city and captured that, before pushing back down the road to get the southern city. Somewhere in the fog is the Orc capital, which should be a jape to capture.
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 12:39:30 GMT
It's not easy to get a screenshot of a spinning globe, but this is pretty much everything. Due north of number 1 is my home island - the city with a 9 in a star is my capital and original city. The 13 is the Elohim's original capital, which is working out quite nicely for me, thank you. North of number 2 is the Barbarian island that I finally captured, with the two cities there. The one in the south is growing very slowly because there's not much food there, but there's gold, fish and furs available, so it's a useful economic base. Number 3 is Crazy Town, captured by the Swordsman who fell into the Star Trek transporter and appeared in the north. Number 4 is named Falkland Island, because it's in the middle of nowhere and no one really wants it. It has a single tile of Iron on it which I use to build, err, irony. It would be very, very easy to blockade, thereby cutting me off from my one source of iron, but appropriately my empire is turning into a facsimile of the British Empire, as it's based on an island and projects through world-leading naval strength, so I should be able to deal with anyone who thinks it's funny to cut the Falklands off. Though to be honest, I don't think anyone else knows it's there. 5 is the Clan island that I'm fighting over at the moment. The purple-ish coloured horizontal string of cities is the Kuriotates who do everything I say in the UN. They're the number 1 civ, but they're having more and more border clashes with the vertical orangey coloured people who are underground dwelling dwarves. Far west are the green Hippus who are being squeezed out by the stronger civs and the bright yellow, err, someone or other, who I haven't paid much attention to. Not shown south of the yellows and west of my Barbarian Island are the red team - the Calabim vampires - who were in a big war with the purple Kuriotates, barely survived and have been licking their own wounds ever since, which is a fitting image for a vampire.
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Post by coffers on Jan 23, 2009 12:40:06 GMT
Nice work again. Are those numbers in the circle defensive capability?
It looks as if it is a game I could have fun with. Will it work on a laptop or are the graphics high end somewhere in the game play?
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 12:43:42 GMT
I'm playing it on a laptop with a 32mb on(mother)board graphics card. It gets slow if you alt-tab in and out a lot or if there's a big battle on, but otherwise it's running ok at lowish graphic options. The numbers in circle are the town population. Each person who lives in a town can be put to work collection food (bread), production (hammers) and research, (coins) or they can be put in specific jobs, like scientist that increased hammers and research, but doesn't collect any food. Food is needed to increase population, so you're left to balance your choice between growing your city by having everyone farm and researching stuff which slows your population growth.
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Post by hornet on Jan 23, 2009 12:48:18 GMT
Not shown south of the yellows and west of my Barbarian Island are the red team - the Calabim vampires. Where's the "Attack At Midday" button on this thing?
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Post by Boony on Jan 23, 2009 12:52:01 GMT
This is getting interesting; nice work s1ut.
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Post by coffers on Jan 23, 2009 12:52:43 GMT
I'm playing it on a laptop with a 32mb on(mother)board graphics card. In that case I guess my onboard 128k graphics should be ok then.
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Post by Moo on Jan 23, 2009 13:00:02 GMT
Excellent stuff, fella, you're making it sound almost playable. And I've never played anything like this before.
And that includes Risk.
KUTGW!
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Post by Mr Bismarck's Electric Donkey on Jan 23, 2009 13:02:43 GMT
Oh, and... Damn you, Stu. DAMN YOU TO HELL! My work is done. I can quit playing now.
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