Civ 5: GMR part 4 - Needs salt!

[thirsting]

Spoiler: To Morocco

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Spoiler: Byzantium

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Most excellent! We believe there is at least one barbarian camp between us, as they have been harassing our northern-most city. I have knights and archers en-route to clear them out as we speak.

Our troops located a camp of raiders, just behind the forest and river North-East of your city Ouarzazate. One group of archers already eliminated. We probably need, and request your help clearing the camp itself, which is occupied by what seems to be horsemen.

~ Message from the Commander of Byzantine Cataphract unit

Spoiler: To Specatators - Turn 145, large pictures

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Getting religion and my first wonder seems to have pushed my score all the way up to the top. This is not good, I was planning on being the unnoticeable small guy who no one finds threatening. Oh well..

Yeah, no. It's getting hard to fit the whole empire into a single screenshot.

Spoiler: Clearer view?

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Things might look good, but if any of the others decide to form a coalition of any sort against me, I'll have a hard time trying to defend all these cities spread over such a large chunk of land area. Heck, someone could probably manage conquer a city or two all on their own in a sneak attack, before my forces could react in any meaningful way. The others have been been very cooperative so far though, despite Byzantium occasionally stepping on almost everyone's toes, one way or other.

In other news, trading (caravans) have really kicked off finally. No more fear of bankruptcy! The next big project I'll have to concentrate on is getting road to Golden Valley and Ironside, both for increased revenue and, more importantly, allowing faster movement of troops if the need suddenly arises. Also, getting my scouting Cataphracts back from the distant lands to defend our homelands. Tried to find some natural wonders for city state quests with them, but managed to catch only one, and am afraid to send them too far away.. for some reason. Overcautiousness perhaps.

Otherwise, everything rolls on it's own weight, no big problems in sight. Ah, there, now I jinxed it, didn't I...?

Stealth edit:

Spoiler: Secret projects

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I have a spy in other nations' city. I thought it best to not pick the target based on science lead, and not place the spy in anyone's capital, to minimise the chance for them to be found out/killed. Not sure how to respond if the spy get's caught anyway... Deny everything?
Edit edit: Oh dang, Indians caught my spy. Rest in piece, Euphrosyne. See details few posts down.

Are you @$#&*%# kidding me!? I lose two full wonders just because of my place in the turn order? Really? How is that even remotely fair!?

I hope they completely renovate the wonder building system somehow for Civ 6, or even get rid of it. The current way indeed does suck, especially in multiplayer. (but then again, creates more incentives for "interaction between players" )

[banthesun]

@thirsting (not quoting because I don't want to see those spoilers full of goodies):
Yeah, I'd love it if the next game really let you sculpt your civilisation instead of just mashing together pieces of history to get the biggest bonus. Something where you could set production towards a large work of a certain type, and at the end it told you what wonder you got would be a good thing. You can build the Leaning Tower of Piza in this game. What, do your engineers stand around figuring out how to make it lean just as a giant expensive art piece?

Spoiler: To Morocco

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To the honourable Lord Al-Mansur.

We would like to discuss your proposal to the world congress. While we feel it's important to encourage universal scientific growth and unity, we worry your proposal would have the effect of stifling scientific innovation.

While it's likely we will be voting in opposition to Lady Theodora's proposal, we would rather your proposal not be passed, and wish to offer you a counter proposal. Should we not have to support a scholarly presence at the world congress, we would welcome scholars of your nation to take up a position of residence in one of our cities to ensure the flow of information between out empires.

We also have an interest in potentially establishing further research aggreements, though this would not be dependant on your current proposal before the world congress.

Spoiler: To Rome

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Honourable Caesar.

We are interested in strengthening our diplomatic ties with our neighbouring nations, including the noble Roman Empire. However, we are aware that you have had unfavourable relations with Morocco in the past, and we wonder as to the state of your relationship now. While we aim to encourage prosperity within the region, it would be a shame to see this prosperity turned towards fueling old eminities. Hopefully, your old eminity with Morocco can be cosidered truly of the past, and as such, we can enter into a new era of unity in our region.

We are also interested in your opinions on Byzantium, if you have had notable dealings with them so far, but this of lesser concern to us.

[OrcusMcP]

Ahmad al-Mansur, after conferring with his righteous brothers and consulting That Old Black Magic, is willing to concede his position on the scholars in residence for the time being, in the interests of peace and cooperation this congress represents. However, he is still vehemently opposed to the Byzantine proposal of cultural heritage sites. Should that be passed, al-Mansur will be expecting a resolution to improve the lot of those less fortunate, not just the most fortunate, or there will be consequences.

Spoiler: Byzantium

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Noted, thank you. Troops are en-route.

Spoiler: India

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Very well, we are pulling back our position at the congress, but as we mentioned in our address, we will be expecting support for the lesser of us before long.

As to your other offers, we currently have our researchers devoted to another project, but once they are free or more graduate we will send them to you. A more general agreement would indeed be welcome as well.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Got that old bug, load up my turn and it says its the Maya. Can't remember if I should revert the turn or not.

[thirsting]

Should revert. I just did that for you though, and redid and sent my turn. So try again now!

[OrcusMcP]

Seriously? Every time I go on vacation mode the AI decides to completely re-arrange my troops. THEY'RE STANDING THERE FOR A REASON!!!

[The_Snark]

Queen Dido is pleased that the honorable Doge has chosen to concede this point. Certainly, we would like the Grand Conferences to be profitable for all involved (albeit not at our own expense). She therefore suggests that the Doge, and others who feel slighted by the resolutions currently on the table, draft a short list of resolutions which they feel would benefit their people, for the chairs of future meetings to consider. Communication is key if our fledgling attempts at international cooperation are to bear fruit.

[thirsting]

The Byzantine Empire would like to apologize the nation of New India for the behaviour of one of the members of Byzantine Merchant's Guild , who, on her own and without the consent and knowledge of Byzantine authorities or even her own guild, has tried to gain profits through questionable means.

Byzantine authrorities refuse to comment on this subject any further, but want to assure the New Indian regime that reforms necessary to prevent similar situations from ever happening again in the future are being implemented, and sincerely hope these unfortunate actions of this one rogue invidual do not ruin the profitable relationships between our great nations.


.......................


The Byzantine Empire would also like to express approval of the proposal put forth by Queen Dido of Carthago, regarding the preferred resolution lists, whether it be in public or through more discreet means conducted directly between invidual nations.

[OrcusMcP]

I reverted, as I was getting some kind of bloat crash. I really hope I can fix it if it happens again, I don't want to have to abandon the game.

EDIT: Crap. I will have to dig back to how I tried to fix the bloat last time, hopefully this time it will work. If not, I may have to abandon this game. Not ideal, but you may want to see if someone else is interested in stepping in.

[thirsting]

:( Have you tried contacting the GMR people? I could, but you would be better able to describe your relevant hardware and how exactly the bloat bug manifests..

[banthesun]

If it gets around to my turn, I could try running the antibloat mod again. My computer's on its last legs though, so anything on top of regular civ5 is pushing it a bit much... (also why I haven't done spectator updates)

[The_Snark]

Civ V is crashing when I try to load this save, as well - don't think this problem is just you, Orcus. Could someone contact the GMR people? I'm not getting any more information than "Civilization V has quit unexpectedly" when I try to load the save. (If I try to reboot the game afterwards, it crashes during loading, but that can be fixed by restarting Steam. Other saved games load just fine.)

[thirsting]

Sent a message to them again, and tried to detail the problem the best I could. Also reverted it back some more, as that's likely their first answer/solution..

[OrcusMcP]

Okay, the last revert seems to have let me load up my turn this time.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Reverted due to "its the maya's turn, surprise" bug.

[Driderman]

It will continue to be the Mayan's turn until we precipitate the apocalypse

[Closet_Skeleton]

So for some reason my turn gets skipped despite being sure I'd checked that day, half my army dies and the other half gets put into harms way where I can't even move them due to some annoying bug

[thirsting]

Weird... reverting.

The unable to select units -problem, there's a fix. Really tedious fix though, if you have lots of units.

You have to open units list (the one found from upper left side of the screen, where the next science is shown normally. Change Info Panel or something like that). Click one of your stuck units, and quickly press the "cancel mission" button (backspace by default). This should allow you to give it new orders (but it likely has already used up it's movement points that turn). Then do the same for every other stuck unit.

Or wait, did I misunderstand? Eh, did the revert already. Just one step, back to you, Closet_Skeleton.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Or wait, did I misunderstand? Eh, did the revert already. Just one step, back to you, Closet_Skeleton.

I didn't need a revert, since there's nothing I could do without reverting everyone's turn which isn't fair since I messed up.

The AI moving your units at the start of the turn thing is definitely a bug since orders don't work that way between turns when players give them. That's what's put one of my units in range of an enemy city and a great general out in the open. It was just a few workers back in my homeland that I couldn't move.

I'm just annoyed.

[thirsting]

Oops. In that case, sorry! You might have to do what I described in my last post though, or the units keep moving on their own. At least that's how it went in my case earlier.

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The Byzantine Empress, after becoming positively exhausted with all the related duties and arrangements, has declared her support for Morocco as the new host of World Congress. In these economic times, in fear of losing their steady occupations, or possibly something more, only a very few of the byzantine government members have had it in them to oppose this out-of-the-blue and seemingly nonsensical declaration. After a moment of confusion, it was decided this move actually seems like a carefully orchestrated and rather ingenious deliberate act of joviality towards our neighbouring lesser nation, who might have felt slighted by us in the past. Good move, all in all, considering diplomatic savviness. Plenty of back patting commenced.

[Driderman]

I surrendered all my games.
I have a major crisis in my life and will need to re-evaluate a lot of stuff, and taking GMR turns wasn't one of those things. I can't even be bothered to post in all the threads, either. Sorry to all those affected, maybe we can start a new game at some and build it from the learning experiences we've had concerning GMR but right now I need to figure out and stuff, and probably cut back on things that tie me to the computer for non-studying purposes.

[The_Snark]

Sorry to lose you, but RL takes precedence. Best of luck sorting stuff out.

Edit - have reposted in other game threads, although I might not have gotten them all (just the recently active ones).

Should we look for a replacement player?

[thirsting]

Yes, and the sooner the better, so that AI has as little time as possible to do stupid things. Humans doing other kinds of stupid things is much preferable!

Thanks for letting us know Driderman. I admire the backbone required to make such a decision.

[Driderman]

In case anyone wants to know more, I vented a bit about my problems in the Friendly Banter/Relationship Woes and Advice thread.

Also, for anyone taking over the Maya:

Spoiler

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The Mayans are in a pretty good position to build a industrial/scientific power civilization through Order, with the added bonus of having sprawling lands. The dip into Patronage is useful, especially for subverting the city-states later on to dominate the world congress, but I would probably focus on finishing Rationalism, or at least get the most useful ones (with all our jungle, science from trading posts is a must) from it.

Militarily, I would probably stay on the defensive. Maybe start fortifying the already pretty defensible Mayan lands, and make sure to keep a powerful and modern army to dissuade attackers. Since we're not in the lead, we're not as an urgent target as those who are, so if you goad someone else into war, with the point lead, it would be great. Being placed squarely between 3 other powerful civs any offensive is risky as others may take advantage of your troop movements.

[OrcusMcP]

The Great Consul is humbled and honoured to receive the chairmanship for the world congress, and promises to use his position to help those less fortunate!

[thirsting]

Mayan empire has now fallen into the hands of Illven. May an (pun) anew start prove fruitful .... Argh, couldn't make that sentence work, but didn't want to waste the pun...

[Illven]

So took my first turn. Would have been quicker, but wanted to get acclimated, and there was the movement bug that took time to fix.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Mayan empire has now fallen into the hands of Illven.

There goes my plan for guilt free lebensraum.

Spoiler: to Maya

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Greetings new ruler of the Maya, condolences for the loss of the previous ruler.

Your predecessor recently signed a friendship agreement between our nations. As a sign of trust I would appreciate if you dealt with a barbarian camp between your southern border and my city of Ecbatana and returned any captives you find within to us.

Darius of Persia

[Illven]

Spoiler: To Persia

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Assuming I retain control of my units.

Stupid bugs.

[thirsting]

Spoiler: Grand Conference of Marble Wharf results - NOT a spoiler

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Both votes were very close calls, but in the end reason prevailed. Empress is pleased with the results, and sends her condolences to the new host for all the burdens that follow from arranging the next great conference.