Ok, I've been thinking of hosting a game, based on an idea that's been percolating (staff meeting today), but I wouldn't want to play first - hopefully we have a good veteran to lead us off. Here's my thoughts on settings:

Size: LARGE
Map: Tilted Axis - Small Continents
AIs: 11 Random (as opposed to 9 normally on Large maps)
Climate: Temperate or Random
Sea Level: Low
Leader: Kublai Khan (Agg/Cre)
Difficulty: Prince
Winning Conditions: All on. Ya think Aggressive Theocrats could win Diplo?
Rules: None of the variant rules turned on. I thought about Agressive AI, but with 2 extra players on the map, we should get enough tension.

Variant: We're gonna be Theocrats, dammit! 1 religion for us, and everyone else we can spread it to. But it can't be Hinduism or Buddhism, because I'm bored with them. Judaism has a catchy theme.

Thoughts: Since we don't start with Mysticism, we'd be unlikely to get the first 2 religions anyway on Prince, but going for Judaism early could be fun. I think Theocracy comes with one of the religion-founding techs, so if we do get Judaism, we'd have to hold off getting that tech until someone else founded the religion. As a relaxed complication (how's that for contradiction), we don't have to beeline for Theocracy -- but if someone else spreads a heathen religion to us, then we get annoyed and want to be Theocratic as soon as we can (making sure we still only found one religion!)

The map: Should be odd. Crowded, since we added 2 civs for the map size, but a bit bigger due to low sea level. And tilted axis, so remember we have east and west poles! Note that I would like a large map, so people having computer problems with larger maps might not want this game.

No idea how well this might play out, but I'll set up a roster, and we'll see who wants to try it!

Roster:
madviking
Truronian
Grunthex
parachute4u
Eozenig
Rince

Turns: 20 per player for the first round, then 10 each.
Edit: Roster is now full.

Hi Grunthex,

although I have never played SG before, I'd be interested. I like the theocrat theme. How about Confucianism as the religion of choice though? Kubilai was the Khan, that ruled/conquered China, as far as I know. So confucianism would be nice (although the Mongols used to hire Buddhists to do the bureaucrats job).

Some ideas/concerns
Small continents will be hard to manage. Because it is going to need a fleet of ships to get those missionaries out into the foreign lands. Apart from that I have my doubts about the difficulty setting. I am struggling to win on Prince doing a similar theme with the Arabs. Building missionaries is not cost efficient, when you could build catapults instead. And building monasteries in every city, that has coins in abundance, does NOT mean to keep up in the tech race. In Civ4 it is quite hard to make the game go the way you want it to...

But I am up for the challenge. :cool: I'd like to see those temples built!

parachute

I don't think I've ever been Confucian as a primary, we could do that. Anywhere in particular you'd like to be slotted in? I have my own concerns about the difficulty -- Prince seems a lot tougher than Noble so far, but usually a SG plays easier since people think together, and take the time to talk things out.

Just tried a game with mongols today... Did not get confucianism, cause I had to fight an early war and went sort of bankrupt because of getting 5 cities all too quick... But I destroyed the Indians in the process and got my holy city (Delhi) all the same.

Funny thing about the game is, that I destroyed the Indians and beat the Chinese and Genghis-Mongols in a war twice, pillaging most of their economy and destroying some of their cities, but still kept falling back in tech very much (In spite of having biggest GNP and Population). So i got beaten soundly in the middle ages, with no chance of recovery. -- You know you've lost, if you have to fight muskets with catapults, I guess....

Starting is most difficult in Civ4. Religion/War/Expansion sets the pace for the game, so I'd rather not start- Don't want to be the one responsible, in case everything goes wrong :rolleyes:

But count me in, roster >1 :)

I'll be your SG vet :)
I got a comp that plays civ4 well.

May I join? Not much SG experience, but I can just about win on Prince (with a good start). Just finishing a tri-religion game, so the theocrat theme sounds refreshing. My vote is with Judaism, or if we miss that, Christianity.

Well, I've edited the roster in and taken our volunteer sacr, er, veteran to go first! Hopefully I can get a screenshot and the save of our start into this post...

So when you're ready, madv, take her away!

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/723b64d7.jpg

Truronian - my post count should give away I don't have a lot of SG experience either -- we'll figure it out!

My intial thoughts:
cows and horses :D go for animal domestication
found in place, set on worker, warrior, settler, something else.

Whatabout a very early chariot rush? Two or three chariots could probably take out a civ before they can say Archery, and it would give u something to build while we wait for the capital to grow

I've never built a worker before size 2, but with so many usable squares, with just 1 researched tech, it might be worth it (we have hunting, so could use both elephants, the cows and the horses with just Domestication)

Note there's a fish right there too, once we get Fishing.

I think we should look around before deciding if we want an early rush -- if there's no one too close, it's not that practical. If someone is nearby though, it's certainly nothing to discount. Chariots crush fortified warriors. Well, maybe not crush, but they have the edge.

Note that with a few useful techs early (domestication, fishing) going for Judaism might not work. But confucianism is just a bit past domestication...


Roster:
madviking -- UP!
Truronian -- On deck
Grunthex
parachute4u
<open>
<open>

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot0012.JPG
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot0013.JPG
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot0014.JPG
SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Grun01_BC-3000.Civ4SavedGame)
contacts:
Washington 3800 BC, island SE of Grunakarum
Montezuma 3560 BC, in the jungle
Qui Shi Huang 3080 BC, on the edge of the jungle

Units:
scout 1 (woodsman II)
scout 2 (plain)

Truronian is up!

Hi

Been a lurker here since Civilization II times and played the series since more than 10 years :) I always liked to read stories and reports from SG games, as much for tactics as for some nice stories. Now Civ IV is here and I admit that it's quality made me come out from my lurking and wish to take a part in those SG games :D I'd be glad to join that one as the theme and the rule set can make for an interesting game.

Some thoughts about the current status. I'm not sure it is a good idea to build a settler with our city at only size 2, even more with the nice ressources we have around. I'd wait size four until cows, horses and fish tiles are being worked. It means going for fishing after agriculture, and putting a barracks in the queue or build some warriors to wait for the work boat to be buildable.
It would make the city a nice settler/worker/unit factory at that point. It means a later expansion, but a faster and more secure one as we will be able to crank out units quite fast to cover it. And not the least, we would want to get the beakers boost from our fish tile as soon as possible to be sure to stay on course technologically.

Eozen

Edit : Typo

Welcome to CFC SGs Eozenig!!! [party]
(you'll shall be assimilated into the SG community!! ;))

I think you're right about the whole settler thing...

Hi everyone,

Nice to see the game going already.
I opt for building a scout first, not a settler, while growing Grunakorum to size 3. There is only two spots for the second city, I can see ATM.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4Screen_Gruna_dot.JPG

Green spot doesn't have to be settled in a hurry (cause its close), red spot is a bit too far away for my liking. (Apart from that it's in the middle of the jungle :eek: )The rest of the land doesn't look very suitable for horse archers and/or chariots...

After the city has grown, the cow will (nearly) be ready to help building the settler. And with a (third!) scout we may get lucky on a goody hut or two...

Note that it may be better to build roads after improving the tiles. Cause in Civ4 you dont have to build road everywhere like in Civ3.
Don't know about fishing though. Fishes don't give us shields. And we will be needing some shields to tame those animals and barbarians lurking in the jungle.

I've got it, I'll play tonight (around midday America time). I'm liking Green dot more than red, we may waste time in connecting red when it will probably be easier to simply conquer that area later.

BTW, what speed setting is this on?

If the last slot is still free, i would like to sign up!

Greetings,

Rince

0) Switched build to chariot, so Grunkorum could grow to size three. Opted for chariot as it took the same turn time as the expansion (six turns).

1) Worker begins on bovine ops

2) Agriculture done, commence on fishing.

3) NW scout recovers from madviking's abuse ;)

4) Louis finds us. He is beating us, score-wise :eek:

Meet Bismark up north.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Bismarkville.jpg

5) Send worker to elephants. Recently recovered North scout finds three panthers :eek: None of them attacked us though :dubious:. Maybe thats something to do with his woodsman II promotion.

6) Grunkorum expands and finishes chariot. Begins on settler.

North west scout pops a gold hut

7) Fishing discovered. I begin our decent into theocracy with mysticism. It looks like Judaism will fall to an AI, so I think one of the next tier is looking most promising (Christianity would get us theocracy at the same time :thumbsup:)

Chariot pops gold hut and finds potential city site.

8) Some panthers commit suicide by attcaking our chariot (1exp)

9) Our north scout survives lion attack (only just, 0.1 strength !!!)

10) Use a lion as training for our chariot. Looks like Grunthex will get to decide what promotion to take.

Our neighbourhood:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/The_hood.jpg

Grunthrex is now up.

@Eozenig

Sorry, I missed your point about the fish :(. The settler will be done soon, so I think if we imediately build a work boat and use the chariot as a temp defender for city two, we should be on track.

Welcome Rince :D. I believe we have ourselves a full roster.

Eozenig and Rince, welcome! I've added you to the roster. Also this is my "I got it", though It'll be tonight before I get my turns up. Looks like we have some tolerable land out there -- not gorgeous, but a fair amount of it.

Roster:
madviking
Truronian
Grunthex -- Got it
parachute4u -- getting ready to jump
Eozenig
Rince

Whoops, sorry guys. Was given hockey tickets from the boss for last night's game, after I posted my got it. They really will be up tonight, promise.

Pre-Game: I like the city site to the west that Tru mapped out. I plan to get the chariot
moving that way as pre-defense (and scouting), and see what comes up. Looks like a good
production site, probably get a barracks and some units up there asap. Settler finishes in
5, we know 5 AIs but I can't see borders for any of them. Let's do it.

(1) 2560 BC - Louis adopts Slavery, so knows Bronze working. Worker starts hooking up 2nd
ivory. Give the chariot Combat I to be eligible for Cover -- will be a great anti-archer
unit.
(2) 2520 BC - Learn Mysticism. Start on Masonry (due in 7) as the prereq for Monotheism
(though we won't get Judaism, that leads to Theology). Evil Bismarck also adopts slavery.
(3) 2480 BC - Nothing...
(4) 2440 BC - Scout reports some awful nice city sites -- on the wrong side of the
continent.
(5) 2400 BC - Finish the settler. Start on a backup chariot (don't want to build any more
military without barracks if we can avoid it). Scout meets lion in the forest. Looks like
the west end of our continent is one of the poles. Tundra over there.
(6) 2360 BC - Scouts beat lion pretty handily (0.7/1). Decide it's better to keep moving
than heal up. See bears, but hide behind Chinese warriors. The chariot reveals there are
dyes in our up and coming city site to go with cows, rice and sugar.
(7) 2320 BC - Get the chariot, start on a work boat for the fish. More settlers after (at
least 1). Chariot heads northwest towards a potential 3rd city site. Needs scouting.
(8) 2280 BC - Found Keshikville on the planned site. (annoyingly, if you change a cities
name, it keeps suggesting the old name until you use it). Start on a Barracks immediately,
due in 15. Will expand borders in 5, and be useful at that point -- decide the worker will
head over to improve this area first -- can connect cities later. Look here:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun012280BC.jpg

Scout sees Chinese borders over there in the west, looks like China got a horrible starting
place. The other scout (who'd been healing all this time) finds more lions, fortunately
while standing on a jungle hill.
(9) 2240 BC - Flawlessly kill lions -- getting no xp (5 xp max for wild animals).
(10) 2200 BC - Discover Masonry, start on Polytheism due in 10. Obviously this is vetoable,
since we haven't really started on it yet. China-Scout discovers a brand new Chinese city,
still in crappy territory. You can also see the minimap and scores in this shot: We
leapfrogged back ahead of Washington with our new city, but Louis still leads.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun012200BC1.jpg

Apparently I can't even make Dots, never mind dotmaps. But Civ lets me label things anyway.
Here's 2 potential sites in the north: Neither is wonderful, but make the best of the
territory, and by founding on desert squares, make them useful.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun012200BC2.jpg

And here, notice the chariot who was supposed to defend Keshikville is exploring. I
couldn't help it. Maybe some good land northwest of him along that river, but as always
needs more scouting.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun012200BC3.jpg

Overall, we have some good city sites, but awfully spread out. I wasted a number of tiles
between towns #1 and 2, but mostly desert which are never good for anything.
The workboat will be done next turn, leaving Para to decide whether to expand or hammer
things, though no one is close enough to hammer really.

Parachute is up!

We may want to drop a city in between Keshikville and Red dot. The lack of recourses makes it likely that some of the discoverable resourses will apear there later. Plus it will use some the wasted tiles

Got it, playing now.

Sorry, can't play. My computer is crashing whenever I use the worker next
to our new city.
Be it farming or roading or building a pasture. Back to desktop, whatever I do.

Here's my turnlog (1 turn :( )

2200 Hit enter :)
2160 Warrior moves out of Grunakorum to be ready to help new-found city #2
The good thing about our starting position is the capital. It has SIX very productive tiles and I really want to use all of them , so I start a chariot and stay with polytheism while growing the city--- We have quite some commerce in the capital, hope it will be enough to get to mono first.

This is a screen of our capital. If we grow to size 5, we'll get 6 more hammers, 2 more slices, 2 more coins.
I think its worth to let it grow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/grun02.jpg


Scout in the north-west discovers the germans who are about to found a city...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/grun01.jpg

2120 Move scouts to hills for overview, chariots towards the unexplored land. Worker finsihed build roads, but cannot start to work the rice yet, cause the city has still to expand borders, move worker towards the city, hit "r" and... back to desktop.
End of story.

Don't know if it is the game or my system. So I attached the save.

Chute, are you playing in windowed mode when you get that crash? I had it happen to me a few times in the last few days, but I'm rock-stable in full-screen. If that is the case, you may want to re-grab your save and re-try it in full-screen to see if that fixes it for you.

If that doesn't work for you, or you don't get a chance, we'll let Eozenig go now, and try you again after him.

Yes, it was windowed mode. I'll try it again...

edit: just tried it. Still crashing :(

next one's up, I guess...

Got it. I'll play when I get back from work :)

2200 BC - Veto polytheism for pottery
2160 BC - Work boat finished - Change production for warrior (expansion due in 2 turns, so is the warrior) that will defend Keshikville - Improving the fish tile - Scouting
2120 BC - Worker finished road on rice tile, put on him at work on a road to connect it to the city (culture expansion due soon) - Capital grow to size 4 (wanna wait for size 5 to crank out settlers)
2080 BC - Warrior finished, send him to Kesheville - Change production to barracks - Borders of Keshikville expand - Scouting
2040 BC - Scouting
2000 BC - Scouting - Found the french west of us
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/1836/french9eu.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1960 BC - Pottery founded, switch to polytheism - Switch Keshikville to granary - Barracks finished in capital, switch to warrior (expansion due in 2 turns, so is the warrior) - Scouting - Status of science race
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/1919/mostadvanced6np.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1920 BC - Scouting
1880 BC - Warrior finished at capital and it grows to size 5, switch to settler (due in 6 turns). I didn't promote warrior, leaving that to the discretion of the next player. Remember that he is intented for escort purpose of the settler - Scouting
1840 BC - Worker sent to improve the cow tile - Scouting - We found the Aztecs far north west
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/1575/aztec9rf.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Expansion
Here we can see the point to wait to have a well developped city before beginning the expansion phase. Our capital can crank out a settler in 6 turns :) I suggest a worker as soon as the settler is done to improve that new city as soon as possible. The site proposed by Grun, just one tile north of the gold vein seems a good one. Then, I suggest an expansion west of Keshikville, to counter the french as much as possible. A fishing city 3 tiles SW of our capital is also a possibility later on.

Technology
We're quite short on happiness ressources for the moment our capital has only one more growth possible before getting into disorder. We need to get a religion as soon as possible. Perhaps judaism is still possible (polytheism due in 4 turns). If we don't get it, monarchy could a temporary solution. Then I suggets bronze working to check copper ressources on the map.

Production
I'd focus our capital on expansion for a while, alternating settlers/workers and escort there. About Keshikville, once granary and barracks completed, I'd suggest some military to be built there in order to be able to answer to a possible barbarian uprising.

Eozen

http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/5963/kingdom0zy.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Ok, got it. Will play it tonight CET.

Oops, i just lost the log i was writing on my PDA. I'll try to summarize what i remember from the turns i took anyway:

Science: At turn 3 or so, out in the distant world, judaism was founded. We learned polytheism one turn later and i set research to writing which we need for theology.

Military: Lots of scouting. We found wheat close to the french border, quite a few barbarians which were all killed. One ecounter between our scout and some barbarian warrior is still unresolved. Also built a chariot in our capital.

Expansion: Workers have hooked up the cows and are connecting our 2 cities. Our capital built a settler followed by a worker. Both were heading north with an escorting warrior, the settler founded Karakorum and the worker is connecting it to the rest of our cities. Karakorum starts building a granary.

Karakorum:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_1.jpg


Ressource map:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_2.jpg


Empire map:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_3.jpg

We really need to scout in the indicated direction. I realized it too late. Maybe we find some ressource up there.

Next settler will come from our capital in 6 turns.

That's it, i hope i remebered everything correctly and didn't forget too many important things.

Rince

103449

Got it
(blah)

Shall I skip madviking this turn?

Shall I skip madviking this turn?

Wow, and I was worried I'd come back from the weekend to find I was holding things up. I think MadV is on one of the American timezones, let's give him until this evening to check in -- if we haven't heard from him we'll skip.

sorry, i was really usy here is the save

Right, got it.

Not a whole lot going on.

Tech-wise, we are know reseaching Theology, and will likely get it. This has come at the cost of horseback riding which I think should be our next target.

Military has reached a large size, possibly too large. I suggest we hold off now until we have keshiks.

Stonehenge we missed.

No religions have spread to us yet :)

Got it. Haven't even opened it, it's way too late. Will post opening thoughts tomorrow morning, then play probably in the evening.

Alright, no detailed write-up this time, kept crashing on me in Windowed mode. Summary:

Early: Vetoed Theology for Horseback Riding. 38 turns would have been an eternity, and our variant says we don't have to rush for it if no one infects us with a religion. No one on our continent has religion at all -- I know this means no religion for us yet, but first we survive, IMO.

Mid-Early: Scouted the northeast. We can found one more city up here, on the desert east of the wine, but it's not an immediate priority.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun01400BCEast.jpg

Mid-Late: Found Beshbalik. I've turned science down to 90% and we're still losing 5g a turn. Trying a wonder-fail gambit in the capital. Building the Parthenon, we WANT to get beaten to it for the cash bonus. Here's hoping.

There are 2 other city sites near here we'll want eventually. Maybe soon. The ping marker NE of Beshbalik should be first. You can't see it, but there are aztec cities right up there. Next should be one where the chariot is on the coast to the south. More food resources, but get Ping first.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun01400BCSouth.jpg

Late: Keshikville and the gold-city are both churning chariots, and I think they should until we reach the support limit (I have no idea how that works). Our neighbours are France and Montezuma. Both will jump on us if we look weak. Here you can see 2 chariots of ours healing up -- once they're ready, sack and burn that barbarian city, we need the gold. Don't attack across the river.
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c120/Grunthex/Grun01400BCNorth.jpg

Where to from here? Once horseback riding finishes, we need Keshiks. We'll need Iron Working to cut jungle for most of our western cities. And we still need a religion, but I think those 2 come first. I wouldn't put up more cities than the 2 in the South picture until we get currency, our treasury is gonna hemmorhage. Once we have Keshiks, might be worth considering a war against Monty or Nappy just to burn cities for gold. Once we have Iron Working, we'll need more workers.

Save attached.

Bah, my screenshotting skills need work. Sorry for the side-scrolling.

I'll try to play it. Is that ok?

I changed some windows stuff. Might be able to play.

edit: Not able to play. Guess I'll have to wait for the patch. Mongolian Empire is in good shape though...Really would have liked to play.

parachute

Sorry to hear that, Parachute. Was hoping a week would help you figure out what your problem was. Maybe the mythical patch will save you.

madviking
Truronian
Grunthex
parachute4u <encountering technical difficulties - please stand by>
Eozenig - UP!!
Rince -- sharpening swords, fixing up saddles

Strange thing is, this is the only game, that ever crashed...:cry:

I'll stand by, hope there's still something left to conquer, when I'm finally able to join...

Got it, I will play tomorrow morning.

I won't be able to play that turn guys, kinda busy those days :(

OK, then i got it. Will play it tonight or tomorrow morning CET.

Rince

Here we go:


T1
Horseback riding is researched, decide to go for archery next since we need it for keshiks.
The Aztec build Texcoco near us.

T2
Herodotus calls us scientifically pathetic.

T3
Louis want open borders, agreed.
Trade horseback riding for iron working (we can trade because he has alphabet)
Washington also wants open border, agreed.
Archery --> Mathematics (for catapults and trading with french for alphabet).
Keshikville chariot --> keshik.

T4
Confucianism is founded in a distant land.
Destroy barbarian city, only get 19g.

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_4.jpg


T5
Karakorum library --> Keshik

T6
nothing

T7
nothing

T8
First keshik built. Build another one.

T9
Barbarian warrior appears out of fog of war near mad valik. Conveniently a Keshik just finished nearby and is already en route to intercept him and protect our workers.

T10
Keshik kills the barbarian warrior. Need to scout up there to make sure they didn't build a camp.

I also did some scouting since we have open bordes with the French:

They have 3 cities:

Paris, defended by 4 Archers and 1 Axeman
Orleans, defended by 2 Archers and 1 Spearman
Lyons, defended by 2 Archers

They also have a Swordsman running around.

As to iron: We don't have access to an iron ressource yet. 1 lies within the inner ring of Texcoco:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_5.jpg

Another one just outside our cultural borders:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_9.jpg


That's all, here is the ressource map...

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_7.jpg

...and our empire map:

http://pozor.ch/sg/sg2_8.jpg

Note that we still didn't get beat to the Parthenon. It will be finished in 5 turns. Also Math will be researched by then. Still no religion around.

madviking is up next.

Greetings,

Rince

Is this game dead?

Hi...
I think I got it...