It came to me yesterday - totally extreme SG

Civ: t.b.d.
Map: Terra
Globe size: standard
Oceans: high
#AIs: 16
Difficulty: Monarch

Game start: now!

Terra continent has the size of small pangaea. Why not small pangaea then? On the small map tech research is faster, I wanted to avoid it.

This won't be the easy game! We could easilly got wiped before 1AD. We will call ourselves lucky when we manage to build 4 cities, 3 should be to manage.
Any experienced volunteers?

Please give your comments about Civ and Diff. I have my favorite regarding civ, but want to hear your comments first.

Players
ucel
chriseay
colony
[empty]
[empty]


friskymike (?)
ndthsmdy (?)

Sounds good, i'll play.
We'll probably only get 2 cities in early on or 3 if we're really lucky. I know because i'm playing a large terra, 14 civs and i am struggling to get more than 3 and that was with low oceans.
For civ i'd say an agressive civ with a good unique unit for a bit of early conquest. I would say the Romans but if we don't get iron then we're stuck with 2 useless traits. The Aztecs would be okay as Jaguars don't need any resources. Also the Incas maybe? We could take an enemy city in the first few turns. What type of difficulty would we be going for?
For the difficulty i'd like prince as at the moment i'm only playing on noble.:(

Actually, this wouldn't be too difficult. The AI won't expand much beyond three or four cities either, and they don't handle small empires well.

One successful war later, and you've doubled your land area.

See our game - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144964 - for a more extreme example.

Not sure I have time for this but put me down for now, I'll check out my time situation come January. I can win most Monarch games with an early chop rush strategy followed by destroying my closest neighbour. I think thats what we would have to do here to have a chance.

So, looking at civs which have an early (ancient or classical) UU...
- Persian (exp/cre) Immortal 4/2/25, req horses, replaces chariot, 30% chance withdraw from combat, +50% vs archery units
- Aztec (agg/spi) Jaguar 5/1/40, no req, replaces swordsman, 10% city attack, +25% jungle defense
- Mongolian (agg/exp or agg/cre) Keshik 6/2/50, req horses, replaces horse archer, 1 first strike, no defensive bonuses, ignores terrain movement costs, +50% attack vs catapult
- Greek (agg/phi) Phalanx 5/1/35 req iron or copper, replaces spearman, +25% hill defense, +100% vs mounted units
- Roman (org/exp) Praetorian 8/1/40, req iron, replaces swordsman
- Incan (agg/fin) Quecha 2/1/15, no req, replaces warrior, +25% city defense, +100% vs archery units
- Mali (fin/spi) Skirmisher 4/1/25, no req, replaces archer, 1 first strike, +50% city defense, +25% hill defense
- Egypt (spi/cre) War Chariot 5/2/25, requires horses, replaces chariot, immune to first strikes, no defense bonus, withdraw from combat (20% chance)

Looking at the list, a lot of UUs require special resources which we may not necessarily get on such a crowded map. The ones that don't are Aztec, Inca, & Mali. (And the Arabian Horse Archer, but that comes in medieval times with guilds)

Of these I like the Aztecs. The jaguar is a bit sucky being 1 str weaker than a swordsman, but their traits of aggresive & spiritual work well. Spiritual should get us an early religion which would be very useful. Aggresive + barracks and theocracy and/or vassalage would make for some pretty strong jaguars...

Edit: spiritual is also sweet for lots of civics changes for short limited wars

Actually, this wouldn't be too difficult. The AI won't expand much beyond three or four cities either, and they don't handle small empires well.

One successful war later, and you've doubled your land area.

See our game - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144964 - for a more extreme example.

Try it. Especially on the higher Difficulty level where AI get some extra units for the start. Therefor I'm leaning towards Monarch

Ucel, Sir Toma requested a drop due to connection issues.
Thanks.

So one player till now. Any more. About diffculty I'm leaning toward Monarch.

Maksim: you play noble and you play duel. That has some consequences. Duel means faster research. Noble means even chances and no initial military. On Monarch AI starts with some warriors (3 ?). Lucky AIs will get some money from huts, another some metals. Initial wars will eliminate some Civs making us strong opponents. I see it tough and funny.

I'm in on trying this, though I haven't even tried a monarch game yet. I am able to beat prince relatively easily, though most of my games on that level have been peaceful, which this one obviously could not be. I'm in if you'll take me.

On civs, I think Mongolia with agg/cre (kublai?) would be a great choice. At least on noble and prince, it is relatively easy to run over an ai or two with archers and keshiks. The only gamble is will we have horses. The creative helps because with such limited area to expand, we won't need anything to get the culture pumping and our borders where they need to be.

During the weekend I've tried to replay "City State" Scenario: 16 AIs on Duel pangea, Noble and it was suprisingly easy.
The main point (I started with Aztecs) was to catch two religions and culturally squash the neighbours (also those creative ones). This game showed me clearly, that creative trait means not much on such scenario.
Funny was, that there was neither single horse nor elephant on the continent :).

Cultural expansion will be important for us, so I suggest a spiritual civ for early religion or two (+5 cpt for holy city). Aztecs seems to be OK, but I wait for other suggestions.
And I'll set the difficulty to monarch, we'll see :).

Good point with the creative versus spiritual. A couple few religions, without state religion especially, will help our cultural expansions much more than the +2 cpt from creative. Aztecs seem like a good civ for this too, though I'm not sure how difficult we want to make this game. A civ with a pretty early UU, and not resource dependent, sounds pretty darn good to me.

I'll join, if you'll have me.

I reliably win at Prince and am getting a feel for Monarch, so I'm fine with going Monarch.

I wish I could say something against the Aztecs, but I'm not sure I can--if your preferred civ is different than that, then I'd be interested to hear your reasons.

I hope I didn't forget anyone. Probably we start next monday or tuesday, so my first question is if roster is OK?
The second question is the civ. I vote for Aztecs or Random. I see that this civ is also popular amongst you. Our choice?

Is the roster the one at the bottom of the first post?

On civ choice, we could do random, it would be a surprise at least, though aztecs may be good too. I have no preference.

Yes, this is the one.
Oh, and I forgot: we are playing 1.52. Is everyone upgraded?

I think I like Aztecs or Incas (Agg, Mysticism, resourceless UU--Incas are Financial too), but I'd be up for Random if we decide to go that route.

I'm patched

Hello everyone! Are you still alive? It's time to start Ucel03!

I have rolled 3 full random starts and one start for Aztecs. So let me introduce:

Number 1: Hungry Saladin
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Ucel03-1.jpg

Number 2: Rich Isabell
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Ucel03-2.jpg

Number 3: Cyrus: Master of Clams
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Ucel03-3.jpg

Aaaaand Number 4: Cornered Monty
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Ucel3-4.jpg

What are your thoughts, which one should we start?
I will play first 15 turns tomorrow evening, then 15 turns for frisky and then 10 turns for each player.

And I think we still have a place for one player...

If you still want another player I'd like to join. I can win regularly on Monarch, and am starting to get the hang of Emperor now.

Wow, those all look like ok starts. I think I like either the Saladin or Monty the best....Saladin because it would be whipping heaven, and Monty because it just fits in with the nature of this game. Being cornered like that would make it even more interesting.

Not too much answers till now, and I wanted to start it tonight :(.
Izzy looks for me interesting - much comerce, and terrain granting us some more cities (extern terrains are always good in such games)

Izzy's and Saladun's locations both look good to me, but having two early game luxuries, as well as the food to work them would give us a massive edge in early research. On the other hand Saladin's starting point would let you constantly whip out troops. I've never even seen 5 food resources in one city before:crazyeye:

Of course the Spanish start does look like your're surrounded by ice and tundra. Cyrus' start with the grassland gems also looks good.

On a crowded map we're going to be forced to grow big cities, or to go for conquest early. Because of this I think Cyrus' position looks like it could be very good. Being creative will give us slightly more tiles to work, and if we get lucky with horses then Immortals will completely decimate archers early on. We'll have good early commerce from the gems and plenty of food.

Overall though I think I prefer Cyrus' start, because of the luxury, and not being surrounded by ice and tundra from the start, it looks like it could end up being a nice commerce city later on if the game gets that far

1 for Izzy
1 for Sal
1 for Cyr

frisky, ndth what are your oppinions?

Hey, guys, are you still interesting in this game? I need at least a confirmation, especially from frisky who is the next in the roster.

Has there been any news on this game yet? Or are you still waiting for people to confirm they're still playing?

I think, if the won't respond today, I'll start the game today evening with Saladin and we'll have to look for two more players.

I hoped for the answer, but got none. Since my fav was Izzy before Sal I will start Sal today evening.
Settling in place will give us all 5 food resources. Any suggestions considering techs and units?

My considerations:
I dont know now if Sal knows already Fishing.
If it's not the case we should go the path Fishing->Mining->Bronze to identify copper mines nearby.
If we know fishing then I suggest Meditaion->Mining->Bronze. With working Clam we should get Budd first with no problems.

Considering military: Warrior->Warrior->Boat->Settler.

I'll play 20 turns, then chriseay and colony both 15, then 10 turns for each player.

frisky, ndth - please confirm the participation or I will have to strike you.

Saladin starts with Mysticism and The Wheel, so I think an early religion from this position would probably delay Fishing and BW for too long.

Warrior, Warrior, Boat, Settler sounds like a good idea from here. Ideally we'd also need a worker, but with all that food it might be able to wait until after the first Settler

We have practically no chance for early religion since have no accesible commerce fields. I give 100% that someone would beat us with Med and about 70% for someone beating us with Poly.
So we have to start with fishing. We could try to point to CoL later or just conquer a holy city or two :).

To remind.
Our starting position:

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Ucel03-1.jpg


And our starting save

That site is heaven for the whip or specialists (or both). That is an amazing amount of food. If my calculations are correct, we should have 16 excess food from fishing all the seafood + lighthouse. 8 specialists or all 3 hills mined and worked with still 5 specialists and 2 grassland forests (which could be cottages, but we'll probably need the health). Plus, if we get colossus, each sea tile is 3 coins. I am excited to see what we can do with this capital.

1) 4000 BC
Mecca found. Started Warrior and fishing.

2) 3960 BC
3) 3920 BC
We got a scout from the hut.

4) 3880 BC
5) 3840 BC

Met Asoka.

6) 3800 BC
Cathy looks for a CLOSER relation with us. Does she like Arabs?

7) 3760 BC
Fishing->Mining

Meet some more people: George Not Bush But Washington, Hotsy and Talkugawa

8) 3720 BC
9) 3680 BC
First Warrion completed. Started the second one and moving production to clams. Mining jumped from 6 to 5.

10) 3640 BC
Buddhism is FIDAL

11) 3600 BC
Found Vicky

12) 3560 BC
And Cyrus

13) 3520 BC
Our first warrior has been eaten by the bear :cry:
Found Mansa Musa: he's already pleased to us!

14) 3480 BC
Mining->Bronze

15) 3440 BC
Found Izzy.

16) 3400 BC
And Louis.

17) 3360 BC
Hinduism is FIDAL

18) 3320 BC
This "Distant Land" was Paris...
Mecca started Work Boat.

19) 3280 BC
Found Bismarck

20) 3240 BC
21) 3200 BC
Hotsy converted to Bud, it must be her neighbour who found the religion.

Our map for now:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Map3200BC.jpg


The wandering warrior should be the protector of Medina. Mecca will grow up in 3, I suggest then using the hill to speed up the boat production and then start the settler.
Considering the next techs: Agri->Ani to find if we have horses. And then Priesthood for Oracle: we've got Marble!

Chriseay, you're up.

Ok, I can't play till tomorrow night, but it looks like to the east is where we want to settle. I think if we can get one east, one south, and possibly one southeast we'll be set. There are too many AI's for much else. I think using the amazing food of the capital to run a ton of specialists is a great idea....especially considering we are philosophical. Let's try to get pyramids somehow so we can make those specialists count.

Pyramids sounds like a great idea here, no stone unfortunately though, and we're not industrious, so it will take a lot of time away from our military, which could be fatal on a map this crowded. Izzy might actually be a good friend to have here if we can get her to spread her religion to us, she loves to torture and "cleanse the souls" of the heathens after all:devil:

Maybe capturing the city with the Pyramids in could be an option? I'm not a fan of early wonders at the best of times, so personally I'd prefer a military build up.

Ok, I can't get the save to load. Anyone else want to try. I get an error message that says "the save file you selected is protected to ensure that the assets in your mod folder have not been changed." I have no mods installed, so possibly you do Ucel? I don't know what's going on.

I have only Blue Marble. Could that be a reason?
In that case I have to restart the game without 'no cheating' flag. But that means regenerating map and civ :(

Blue Marble is so easy to install and un install. I'll try installing it later today and see if that's it. I can also try a complete reinstallation of civ. I'll check back in later today after I try again.

No answer from chriseay means probably that he couldn't magage to load the game. I'll try to restart the map today without "No Cheating" option. If I won't I'll just generate three new starts to choose :(.

Ahh sorry about that, I tried and couldn't load the game. I had thought for sure I posted saying as much. My apologies. :blush:

Unfortunately :(
There is no way to activate World Builder after you start the game.

So I have rolled three new starts:

1) Kublai from the North:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Civ4ScreenShot0092.jpg

2) Cyrrus on the Hill
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Civ4ScreenShot0093.jpg

3) Washington on Rice
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c222/ucel/Ucel03/Civ4ScreenShot0094.jpg

Your choice?