Role Play CHallenge: Joao the Restless [Archive]

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 12:30 AM

my economy crashed so damn hard once I liberated the old world.
The problem are the "colonial expenses". The more cities in your colony, the more you pay, per city, in colonial expenses. It's like an additional, non-distance based maintenance cost for all your cities.
It does not matter how many cities you create on the new world -- as soon as you build the new palace you turn the old world into a colony. So it gets more expensive the more cities you have on the starting continent.
Therefore, it is very important to keep the number of cities on the starting continent small.

Another fact about colonies, and it's not obvious (I found out the hard way): you cannot have a "one-city colony". As long as you have not more than one city per overseas landmass, it's not counted as a colony yet (you only pay distance based maintenance for it and no colonial expenses).
You must have two cities on the old world at least, or the game won't allow you to create a colony in the old world.
You can also use it to your advantage by having only one city on the new world at first to avoid the additional maintenance. If you find several good islands close to eachother, keep one city on each of them to avoid some cost.

In one of my test games, the new world was actually divided into two separate landmasses, and it was freaking me out that I could not colony off one of the new cities (it was on the wrong landmass ;-). (BTW I know that we want to colonize off the orld world, but you get the point.)

I defeinitely like the Oracle slingshot for MC although I am not sure the pyramids are worth the hammers as the GP pool will be diluted with GProphet Points.
The Pyramids generate Engineers, not Prophets. You definitely want Engineers! The prophets points are not such a big problem. Running an engineer on top of the GPP from 'mids and Hagia Sophia will get you plenty of Engineers unless you're really unlucky.
If you get Prophets keep them for settling them later on the new continent (Hammers + Gold!).

You should also seriously consider the Hagia Sophia -- fast workers are important because you have to bootstrap an entire infrastructure at around 1000 AD. It also gives even more Great Engineer points.

With all the seafood the Mids are highly desirable anyway, because you can run a specialist economy early. Growing cottages takes long and we want to get independence early anyway to help with the money (losing our initial cottages). This is an important point I think.

Create loads and loads of Great People and keep them around, they will help kickstart the colonies (especially the Engineers will, but the others are good too, except for Spies and Artists).

I'd advise a oracle shot to MC, and then use the collosus to finish your way to optics.
Good idea. A lot of instant commerce from the Colossus, and it will also help in the new world. The possible Great Merchant is welcome, since we'll be lacking gold at some point in the game.

In my experience it's better to research naturally towards optics, instead of trying some fancy slingshots like using a Great Engineer to lightbulb Machinery. Great Scientists are much easier to get, and it's better to establish an Academy and maybe Great Library and research towards optics the hard way. Keeping what might be the only Great Engineer for building something expensive is better than using him to bulb a technology.
As said above, you should keep as many Great People as you can to use them after you found the first colony. Especially don't settle any of them in the old world, as you'll lose it all when you grant indepence.

My fastest to Optics was when I played it like a One-City-Challenge. Unfortunately you can't turn a single city into a colony (as mentioned above), so you will need at least two cities on the starting continent.
Probably it shouldn't be much more than that! With the seafood you have all that you need to tech to optics quickly and create a lot of Great People along the way. Maybe found a second production heavy city and possibly a third (might be inland) to grab essential resources. You really don't need more than that in my opinion.
Creating a large empire will only bog you down and your economy will TANK COMPLETELY as soon as you move the Palace. It will also be very useless since it becomes an AI civ sooner or later and believe me the AI has no difficulty in ruining what you've built up very quickly ;-).

So, in short, here's what I would do:
Keep the settlement as small as possible. Two, maybe three cities. The smaller your initial settlement, the longer you can afford to keep it around later.
Don't shy away from wonders. Stonehenge is not bad (helps in settling the new lands quickly), Pyramids very welcome, Colossus, Hagia Sophia, Great Library, Great Lighthouse.
Let the AI build the Temple of Artemis, since you can run absurdly profitable trade missions there with a Great Merchant.
Keep as many Great People as possible for later. Try to make Engineers, you can build Versailles with one later on in a pinch on the new world (as well as plenty of other nice things of course :-).
Stay out of trouble. Don't found a religion. Wait for the big religious block to form, then join the club. Staying out of trouble is the hardest thing on terra maps.

Oh, by the way, in the game where I tried the OCC approach, Brennus won an Apostolic victory at around 1000 AD... let's hope such a thing won't happen in this game.

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 12:58 AM

Here's the World Builder save file (scenario) for those who want to play it on a different speed and/or difficulty (standard speed might be a bit too quick for the large map, your mileage may vary).

1. Extract the zip file into your "My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves\World Builder" folder.
2. Start Civ, you can load your favourite mod (HOF Mod or BUG Mod for example).
3. Choose "Single Player -> Play a Scenario". Select the scenario from the list ("joao_rpc_1").
4. Pick your difficulty and speed.

The only drawback is that you will see in advance what other civs we are going to meet in this game, so no spoilers please. We are going to meet them very quickly on the Terra map anyway, however, so not a big problem.
(I've just had a sneak peek at who we're going to meet -- let me just say that it might get interesting very quickly ;-).

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 01:05 AM

About the game at hand: definitely found in place! You don't get FIVE seafood (two of them fish) in the capital BFC every day.

This is almost perfect for your purposes, more than what you could have asked for.

See if you can use the fur with a second city.

Calouste

Apr 14, 2008, 01:18 AM

I'd settle in place and spam workboats. You can get a decent amount of commerce out of those seafood tiles, and they will be excellent to build settlers and workers once you are going to build the fleet that is going to colonize the new world.

Iranon

Apr 14, 2008, 02:09 AM

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 02:26 AM

Colonies are generally an underexplored aspect of the game. I read an interesting Deity walkthrough on a German site some time ago: Joao with a 1-city empire letting colonies (with their Deity bonuses...) do the dirty work.
Wow, that's a brilliant idea. Could you maybe link the article? (I might be able to understand it :-).

I will be following this with interest.
I've played the map until 470 BC now. It is going to be a BLAST! The map is terrific, opening up some nice directions into which to go toward the Greater Goal. Difficult, but not impossible. I'm so excited about what Mad will do with this.

Edit: Some highlights (do not read this unless you've played a shadow game already yourself until at least 0 AD):
Settled in place, built work boat, worker, work boat, archers, settler (chop)
Settled my second city ON THE GOLD MINE (the uppermost of the three), right next to the coast and river, close to the Khmer's second city. Chopped a Monument there, then spammed archers.
Declared on the Khmer, stealing two of his workers in the same turn. This really helped because I needed a lot of them.
Chopped the Oracle for a religion (none had been founded yet around me), I was very lucky there with the holy city being the one next to the Khmer, helping with the border fight (1125 BC).
Third city settled after Oracle in between the first two.
Techs: BW, Hunting, Archery, AH, Myst, Sailing (to connect the remote city), Meditation, Wheel, Priesthood, Writing, CoL (from Oracle), Iron Working. Then revolted into Caste System and ran three Scientists in the capital. Pottery (825 BC, didn't really need it until then, but Granaries were overdue at this point; the Khmer had kindly provided me with a flood plains cottage even before Pottery, I got it after the border flip :-).
IW in 900 BC revealed that the Khmer has it right next to his capital. Sadly for him I'm choking him with three promoted archers at the same time, so it doesn't look like he is going to build any metal troops soon. He doesn't have copper, either. He will die.
I have Iron as well, and it is EXACTLY in between the capital and the second city. Either city will grab it with the next border pop. Since I'm in Caste System at this point already, I run 2 Artists in the second city because that will get me the Iron at the next possible opportunity (the capital would have taken longer and I want to run Scientists there).
Built the Academy in the Capital from the first Scientist (700 BC).
Temple of Artemis in a far away land (800 BC), turns out to be Korea. He is far away, which is good because I'm going to send a Great Merchant into that city, so much is for sure.
Pyramids in a far away land in 675 BC!!, Vicky adopts Representation, so it's her. She must have access to stone...
Status quo: three OK cities, some happy resources (Gold, Fur) and a religion. Iron is being mined right now. I'm going to let the cities grow, then extinguish the Khmer and build the pilgrim fleet, bring those barbs on the new world some Confucianism. Speaking of which, it has spread in the meantime to both Saladin and Vicky, my two next door neighbours, which is excellent! I never thought I would ever give Saladin a religion, and not even an early one, before he got his own. Usually he founds Buddhism ;-).

NintendoTogepi

Apr 14, 2008, 02:35 AM

I've played the map until 470 BC now. It is going to be a BLAST! Difficult, but not impossible.

I played until about turn 150, on Noble and Normal Speed.

Well Mad....get ready for a challenging game :eek:

Spoilers!

Shaka DoW'd me VERY early, I barely survived, and right now the whole continent is involved in war, barbarians have already wiped out the Khmer and one other civ I forget....:eek:, missed out on Oracle, but I did get the Great Wall (which saved me from the Philistines and the Aryans) and the Pyramids (great GP farm capital).

I think the best way to go is to have very few cities on the old world. I only have 2 and I probably won't found a 3rd one.

BalbanesBeoulve

Apr 14, 2008, 02:43 AM

Shaka DoW'd me VERY early, I barely survived, and right now the whole continent is involved in war, barbarians have already wiped out the Khmer and one other civ I forget....:eek:, missed out on Oracle, but I did get the Great Wall (which saved me from the Philistines and the Aryans) and the Pyramids (great GP farm capital).

I think the best way to go is to have very few cities on the old world. I only have 2 and I probably won't found a 3rd one.

I choked Shaka. He's on a tiny little peninsula that only has a 1 tile wide exit. I stuck a couple of archers and a woodsman 2 warrior there and he's yet to even try dislodging them, despite having about 10 archers in his capital

But between survayaman, and saladin, and even victoria i had very little room for cities. only about 5, and only about 2 of them in good spots. If it was a normal game i'd definitely go to war, probably against survayaman, but since you're aiming for the new world 5 cities is more than enough to get you to the new world, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad. I didn't keep playing but it shouldn't be too bad. Shaka will be more busy with Victoria, Saladin isn't that aggressive as long as you're not a different religion, the only real threat is Survayaman.

Everybody else is too far away to be a real threat.

pangu

Apr 14, 2008, 03:04 AM

Hi Madscientist

I was actually inspired by your rpc poll re: Joao and tried it out earlier (different map) on Monarch level normal speed.

The main problem as I see it in settling in new continent and making old cities your colony is that when I colonised 3 cities (I avoided setting a 4th city in new continent to prevent overseas maintenance penalty) and then build palace to liberate the old cities, the maintenance I got for supporting my vassal is huge. Basically, I got around 9 old cities which I liberated and it was very hard to support them with just 6 new cities (I got 3 more up once I liberated my old cities) and immature cottages. Researching anything is almost impossible and I had to build wealth to avoid a strike. I also sold off my map to get more cash which helped a bit. Secondly, my biggest rival in the game ended up as my colony because with my excellent infrastructure in place, his tech speed was crazy. He was researching fission while I struggled with replaceable parts. :sad:

In the end, I got up 12 cities (all cottaged) ran US (to get the structures in place fast - such as national epic, universities, markets etc) and emancipation (faster cottage growth) but I lost the game via space race by 10 turns. He got 3GD, SE, internet... what can I do? :lol: Using spies in my colony's cities in the old continent is very inconvenient. I already delayed him a bit by forcing him to research crap like Mass Media and Laser, but yet the catching up is hard.

I actually forsaw the problem at the start, I farmed GS and so when I set up my new capital, I already shipped my few GS to the new capital and got an Academy in place, but the catching up is still very tough because 9 cities > 3 undeveloped cities with settled GS. :crazyeye: My colony also got a couple of Golden Ages soon after liberation due to the wonders I built in my old capital (stonehedge, mids, GL, SoZ).

With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have settled fewer cities in my old continent, perhaps 3-4 is the right number, so the vassal maintenance is more manageable.

I hope your game turns out more successful than mine, good luck! :)

tycoonist

Apr 14, 2008, 04:06 AM

classic SG with similar variant:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184835

Killroyan

Apr 14, 2008, 05:11 AM

@Tycoonist: That was indeed a classic game which I enjoyed a lot reading.

@Madscientist: Gogo my friend. You have a decent start so this ought to be fun even if it is a rerun of the above mentioned SG. Better a good rerun then a bad self made up game ;)

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 05:17 AM

Update 625 AD:
Researched Metal Casting, Compass, Aesthetics, Literature;
traded Alphabet, Construction, Mathematics, Monarchy. I think I've teched very efficiently, I still have hardly any cottages and often was not running any scientists either (due to war preparations and whipping).
Lightbulbed Philosophy with the second Great Scientist (25 AD), founding Taoism (for Pacifism which I'll be running now that the Khmer is gone); I've got another GS ready and waiting, and I'm now wondering if it's better to keep him for an Academy in the New World or lightbulb Paper. Tough decision.
I'm now 4 turns away from Civil Service, which will give my research another big boost. Shame I don't have the Pyramids...
The Great Lighthouse built in 145 AD by myself
Construction 250 AD (trade with Wang Kong)
Christianity founded in a distant land 295 AD (still unknown to me who it is)
I start whipping Cats and capture the first Khmer city in 415 AD, moving swiftly taking the other two, wiping out Khmer in 655 AD. I've kept all three cities, growing my empire to 6 cities total. Actually more than I had planned for, but those Khmer cities where too good not to keep them, and all of them are coastal. I have the Great Lighthouse so there will be quite a few bucks flowing in from trade routes.
I might not have enough workers at this point to get it all going quickly. I lost two to the Khmer early when I did not properly guard them :-(. Got a few back of course I still might have to built one or two more.
Colossus built in a distant land 625 AD. This hurts a bit, but I did not have Copper and my capital was busy producing other things so I decided not to go for the Colossus. Probably it was a trading partner of Justinian who built it, who I traded Metal Casting to first (or it's him, but the owner doesn't show yet on the wonder screen).
Since I have the Great Lighthouse this is OK. I guess you cannot have both and fight an early war at the same time anyway at this difficulty level.
Two Generals have been born during the Khmer war. The first one I settled in the capital, probably a mistake since I did not end up producing a great many units there. The second one I'm going to keep around, probably settling him in one of the new world locations. I should have kept both, I had enough troops for the Khmer and would not have needed any additional promotions from a General at all.

The war was really easy since I knew I would be facing only Archers, so I promoted the Swordsmen with Cover. Later on he built a few Catapults but nothing to worry about. I also got the random event giving all my Axemen free Shock promoting, actually a extremely strong event but utterly useless in my situation (the Khmer did not build a single melee unit, since he did not have metal ;-).

The south east Khmer city will become a production power house: two ocean resources and loads of grass land hills. The Moai Statues will go here (I'm currently building them in the capital, it's a hard decision but probably this city is better; that way I can also build the Great Library now in the capital).

Lots of wars are going on across the world, Vicky keeps bashing heads with Shaka and Justinian. I'm in a phony war with Brennus (killed one of his scouts and a stray archer, but nothing else. He keeps demanding CoL for peace so I'm not settling. Maybe I should, sooner or later before he'll invade with a dagger stack.

The diplomatic situation is interesting, lots of different religions, nobody really gets along well with each other (hence the many wars). I'm in a good position myself, with the Khmer gone and my two other neighbours having my religion.

I'm going to get Machinery and Optics now and set sails. Two Triremes are built, I've used them to pillage the Khmer fishing nets (actually leaving them in place would have been better, now I have to rebuilt it all...). Those are going to be my first two Carracks.

Soon enough I'll try to generate a Great Merchant and send him to the Temple of Artemis city, solving my gold problems for good.

Maybe I should have made a few screenshots, but we'll have plenty of Mad's when he plays it anyway ;-).

The map is amazing (BTW I'm playing Monarch on Epic speed).

By the way, does anybody know if we can built all the National wonders AGAIN as soon as we liberate our original settlement? Has somebody tested this yet?

Update 1000 AD:
Talking about World Wars:
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.c3f884e865.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?c3f884e865.jpg)
(In case you can't see the picture, since it won't load at the moment: everybody is at war with at least somebody. The whole world except for Wang and Vicky just dogpiled on me (I thought I would not get involved, but that was very naive), but no troops have been spotted yet.
Probably everybody is preoccupied already :-). Actually this would be a great time to build wonders I guess. On that front I've got beaten to the Great Library by Justin, but I didn't really make an effort to finish it quickly.
I've changed from Caste System into Slavery again, probably a mistake, as it seems there is plenty of time to build a defense. I should have continued farming GP in the capital (the food abundance there is riculous, you can run 8 specialists without starvation). I still don't have the National Epic there, I preferred to build the Statues first). If I survive this mess I'll keep farming GP as long as possible after moving the capital.

I'm building my escape fleet at the moment, in case I get crushed I want to have at least one city up on the other continent. Fingers crossed.
BTW it costs 65 gold to upgrade Trireme -> Carrack. Cheap! Trireme is 75 hammers, Carrack 90, so the Trireme is a lot more whip-able than the Carrack. Probably one should build only Triremes and upgrade instead of building Carracks directly.

Update 1365 AD:

Ended all the phony wars mentioned in the last spoiler without fighting a single battle (had to pay a few gold but it was OK). It was a typical AI opportunity dogpile with no real consequences. England has gotten a fair bit smaller due to Justin chewing into her territory. She's also dropped in score considerable. I feared a possible runaway AI due to her living in Cottage Heaven (flood plains galore) and being financial, but apparently she sucks at war ;-).
Explore a good half of the new continent, it looks as expected (not as resourceful as the starting areas with all the artificially boosted city spots, but good enough for a few nice cities).
Lo and behold:

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.ec32ec63c4.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?ec32ec63c4.jpg)

Astronomy from a hut! Again! This happened to me before, apparently Astronomy is the cheapest tech you can get at this point, so any hut that can pop a tech will give you Astronomy. Funnily enough it happened just after I was really close to changing my research to Astro because I suddenly remembered that you can't trade intercontinentally without this tech.
I still don't have Liberalism, I'm currently delaying it because nobody else is even close due to all the warring. I'm also delaying Guilds, waiting for more AIs to get it so Vicky will trade it to me. I won't be able to do this forever, though, since it's on the beeline towards Economy, and we want those Feitorias soon.
Currently I've got a few Longbows, Maces, Missionaries, 3 Settlers and 3 Workers over there. Going to start settling soon, still looking for a good spot.
Probably going to get this barb city as my first settlement:

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/th.62003c1aa0.jpg (http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?62003c1aa0.jpg)
.
I'm also building Courthouses in each and every city right now, because they will be needed after the transition.
A Great Merchant that I've farmed in the meantime netted me 1950 gold from a trade mission to Seoul (Temple of Artemis city). None of the other cities would have given more than 1650, most only 1350 or even less. What a shame that Seoul is not coastal, because the additional harbor would ramp up the profit even more.
Popped a Priest after the Merchant in the capital. I was hoping for a Scientist. I'm keeping the Priest for a new settlement to help with hammers since the shrine is already built.

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 05:20 AM

classic SG with similar variant:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184835
Very similar, but since the idea is not that far fetched it's not surprising that is has been tried before in an online game.

This here is different though, since our leader has a new Unique Unit specially suited for this scenario, and we also have the possibility to explicitely vassalize our old lands. Both did not exist when the abovementioned succession game took place (they had to gift away their old cities, or have them capped deliberately).

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 05:41 AM

@Nintendo:
Shaka DoW'd me VERY early, I barely survived, and right now the whole continent is involved in war, barbarians have already wiped out the Khmer and one other civ I forget....:eek:, missed out on Oracle, but I did get the Great Wall (which saved me from the Philistines and the Aryans) and the Pyramids (great GP farm capital).
Wow that game took a totally different direction from my own. Getting two barbarian uprisings changes a lot, though. The Great Wall was probably the perfect move here.

Did the barbs wipe out the KHMER or was that a typo? You said he DoWed early on you so he must have some defense. He probably has the Iron hooked up now, so you better built some defenses of your own. If you end up fighting him in your own territory you will pop loads of Great Generals. Proably you should save them for later.

Having the Pyramids is amazing here, you can run a strong Specialist Economy and farm Scientists + Engineers in your capital as you go! Make sure you keep them around for later (built an Academy in the capital of course).

I think the best way to go is to have very few cities on the old world. I only have 2 and I probably won't found a 3rd one.
This is one possible direction to go, since the capital is so food rich. I'm not sure if on Monarch difficulty Mad will be able to get the Pyramids, however, making a Two-City SE much weaker (Vicky got the Pyramids VERY early in my Monarch shadow game).

I think you either have to: choke/harass the Khmer early, then kill him, as I did, OR plan for only two cities right away, then turtle yourself in and set sails as soon as possible. The inital position is easy to defend, possibly with a fort further south. The mountain range guards nicely from a Khmer attack.

@Balbanes:
I choked Shaka. He's on a tiny little peninsula that only has a 1 tile wide exit. I stuck a couple of archers and a woodsman 2 warrior there and he's yet to even try dislodging them, despite having about 10 archers in his capital
Well, it's a two tile wide exit, actually, with an opening to the east as well. But choking him early means he's not going to expand into that direction anyway (I've got Saladin sitting there by now in my own game).

I first plunked a city right next to his feet, to grab the gold and other goodness there, then choked him with Archers.

I think it's strange that the AI builds such huge defenses inside their choked cities before even making an attempt to chase you off. I once had a single Dog Soldier sitting in front of a Persian city with 8 Archers inside it when he finally decided to kill it... he had horses right in front of him which he could not access because he cowardly refused to attack the choking unit. But that's a different story (BOTM 02 by the way).

But between survayaman, and saladin, and even victoria i had very little room for cities. only about 5, and only about 2 of them in good spots. If it was a normal game i'd definitely go to war, probably against survayaman, but since you're aiming for the new world 5 cities is more than enough to get you to the new world, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad. I didn't keep playing but it shouldn't be too bad. Shaka will be more busy with Victoria, Saladin isn't that aggressive as long as you're not a different religion, the only real threat is Survayaman.
Turns out this is exactly the case in my game as well. I think what you get if you kill the Khmer (and you have to unless you want to play it as a Two-City challenge) is more than enough. You end up with 5-6 cities ranging from decent to excellent quality. A larger empire is only hindering you anyway after the transition to the new continent -- and it will all be gone anyway soon enough.

Everybody else is too far away to be a real threat.
Yes, manage to hold peace with England/Arabia and deal with the Khmer (either defend or kill), and you're set.

siggboy

Apr 14, 2008, 05:50 AM

Secondly, my biggest rival in the game ended up as my colony because with my excellent infrastructure in place, his tech speed was crazy. He was researching fission while I struggled with replaceable parts.
[...]
With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have settled fewer cities in my old continent, perhaps 3-4 is the right number, so the vassal maintenance is more manageable.
Yeah, what you're saying is exactly what I found in my test games as well. I haven't played any of them for long enough to actually see what my old colony would be doing tech-wise, but obviously if you make it too strong yourself you have yourself a formidable rival there. Vassal maintenance is not the only problem as it seems.

By the way are you sure that you need to found 4 cities for your colony to incur additional maintenance? I'm pretty sure it sets in after the second city already.

I guess we don't have Permanent Alliances enables, which is a pity since that would help (can you PA with a Vassal, actually?).

Probably it would be best to actually GIFT a few of your old cities to a rivaling civ before creating the colony.
I might have to do this in my shadow game. Let's hope keeping all those Khmer cities was not a huge mistake.

Krikkitone

Apr 14, 2008, 12:15 PM

I guess we don't have Permanent Alliances enables, which is a pity since that would help (can you PA with a Vassal, actually?).

No, and in my opinion that is a real disadvantage of colonies. (and of PAs in general, as well as the AIs tech leakage to vassals)

Refar

Apr 14, 2008, 12:26 PM

Uh, i am sure i am outing myself as complete illiterate here. I still going to ask the dumb question:

1776 AD :confused:

madscientist

Apr 14, 2008, 12:27 PM

Uh, i am sure i am outing myself as complete illiterate here. I still going to ask the dumb question:

1776 AD :confused:

Anerican Independence!!! I am an American or Portugese decent!

God Bless America, dammit!

Refar

Apr 14, 2008, 12:31 PM

Hmmm, i even knew that.
But somehow it had no conntection to Joao or Portugal in my mind :lol: (Still hasn't :p)

Sorry about that :mischief:

Calouste

Apr 14, 2008, 02:31 PM

Anerican Independence!!! I am an American or Portugese decent!

God Bless America, dammit!

Having had a quick look at the history of Brazil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Empire), I think you should move the Palace before 1808, and colony off the Old World by 1822, to be historically acurate ;)

And you better get Cristo Redentor quick, as you will need to alternate between Representation, Police State and Universal Suffrage every few years...

r_rolo1

Apr 14, 2008, 06:20 PM

If we are going to discuss Portuguese history.... *adopts sever look and pose of History teacher*....

1808 was when D. Maria I ( that was a little :crazyeyes: at the time ) and her son , prince D. João ( later to be D. João VI ) decided to move to Brazil to avoid capture by French marechal Junot. They stayed there until the Constitutional Assembly formed in the 1820 revolution demanded that the king returned here.... after that and some exorbitant demands from the assembly, the Brazilian masons ( the portuguese heir prince, D. Pedro , Emperor D. Pedro I of Brazil and King D. Pedro IV of Portugal ( not at the same time ) , was a mason and acepted to be the leadman ) decided to force the indenpendance....Techincally Portugal only recongized Brazil indenpendance in 1826 ( with the death of D. João VI and the coronation of the Brazilian emperor as portuguese king :crazyeye: ... he abdicated to his daughter Maria and that would lead to a big and nasty civil war. but that is for another chapter... ), but 1822 is a decent date.

Now you only have to find Napoleon in this map, run away to the new world from him, come back and give independance to the New world :lol:

madscientist

Apr 14, 2008, 07:17 PM

Joao the Restless: Part I

No wonder Joao wants to leave. What a garbage heap of land we have here. Those of you who shadowed and posted in spoilers, no wonder you were laughing. Not only is the land crappy but we have one of the worse leaders RIGHT onTop of some great land.

Well, Joao will not be hindered!!!! For those of you who did not shadow, read on!!!!!

First where to settle. We settled in place. All that seafood, forrests and hills? Makes alot of sense.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0000.jpg

Here is a view of Lisbon

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0001.jpg

Typical start for me, when we have seafood and fishing, build a workboat using the greatest hammer tile.

Our Build order this round: WB/WB/WB/scout/archer/archer/worker/settler/worker/archer/settler/archer

Tech: hunting/BW/archery/AH/IW start the wheel. I am not so happy with out tech order, should have went BW first and we are currently doing wheel which should be mysticism.

Soon we meet the monster of CIV

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0002.jpg

I really hate this freak!!!

And just look where he is and the land right there!!!

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0003.jpg

Gold/floodplains, man we could sail to the new world fast with that city!!! Joao get's a very greedy look in his eyes!!

We meet another couple of AIs

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0004.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0005.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0006.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0007.jpg

MY oh MY!!! OK< I think we will avoid any religions and let those dudes fight it out!

After teching BW and AH we find

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0008.jpg

Well, that is just great. Not only does the land suck, we have no copper or horses nearby!!! We decide to tech Iron, let's find out right away what we need to do.

We settle city #2 (Joao can really spam workers and settlers!)

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0009.jpg

That's right, we'll ram it right down Sury's throat!!!!!!! Get's us deer and gold right away and cows after the border pop.

We meet the last AI of the round

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0011.jpg

2 more left, still a chance for old Napolean Rolo!

After finally teching IW, we have our third settler underway. and

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoA0012.jpg

Iron in our borders!!!!

Well, I saved there. I guess we have to finish the wheel to hookup the Iron.

After it' hooked up what do you all think we should? We, it's not a democracy, I'm going after Sury ASAP. Time to chop, chop, chop Swords/spears left and right. The Alien Freak will Die very very soon!!!!

The question is how much land do we save? We don't need much more, maybe just enough to mine alot of gold to finance caracks!!! OPtherwise burn, pillage, and burn some more. No sens eleaving prime realestate for the next tenant!

Jerrymander

Apr 14, 2008, 07:22 PM

I think the second city location is atrocious, but since you're not going to be keeping any of these cities, it doesn't matter.

BalbanesBeoulve

Apr 14, 2008, 07:27 PM

Amazing, you planted your 2 cities in the exact same spots i did. Definitely hit Survayarman. With your 3 cities, his capital and any extra cities he planted you'll have more than enough land to get to optics in good time. Especially with all that gold. holy moly.

I think the second city location is atrocious, but since you're not going to be keeping any of these cities, it doesn't matter.

Lol what? Gold, deer, cows, and fresh water is bad? Plus the possibility of rice and floodplains if he razes the city survayaman set down?

NintendoTogepi

Apr 14, 2008, 07:33 PM

My shadow game has ended in a loss :(

I was lucky enough to pop ASTRONOMY from a hut :eek:, but before I could send ships over, Brennus DoW'd on me, taking my capital and my third city. I still had my lousy fur city, but then Saladin also DoW'd on me and wiped me out :(

I might retry it. Best of luck to your game Mad!

Some tips:

Don't neglect your military (VERY important)
Try not to make anyone mad at you
Be prepared for an ultra economy crash
Don't make too many cities
Don't make your home empire too good, remember, you'll lose control of it

I learned a lot from my Noble Joao Terra game I did a few days ago, which also resulted in a loss (domination, interestingly enough, Zara was a MONSTER, by the time the end of the game came around it was only me and him, he had ALL of the old world and destroyed several civilizations, including my colony. I had MOST of the new world but Zara took some of it during a fierce war, winning a Domination victory).

Very strange, hopefully the same won't happen to you.

Jerrymander

Apr 14, 2008, 07:36 PM

Lol what? Gold, deer, cows, and fresh water is bad? Plus the possibility of rice and floodplains if he razes the city survayaman set down?

If Survayaman pops his borders, the city is lost. I also really don't like settling on gold resources. D:

BalbanesBeoulve

Apr 14, 2008, 07:43 PM

MadScientist is already sharpening his swords and axes. The nearby city won't get a chance to pop its borders.

madscientist

Apr 14, 2008, 07:44 PM

If Survayaman pops his borders, the city is lost. I also really don't like settling on gold resources. D:

IF his borders pop. Sort of hard to concentrate too much on culture when there's a Portugese Sword in your gut, being twisted ever so slowly!

Also the city is NOT on gold, it's one north!

NintendoTogepi

Apr 14, 2008, 07:46 PM

IF his borders pop. Sort of hard to concentrate too much on culture when there's a Portugese Sword in your gut, being twisted ever so slowly!

Also the city is NOT on gold, it's one north!

Remember though, Khmerfreak is Creative....

madscientist

Apr 14, 2008, 07:59 PM

Remember though, Khmerfreak is Creative....

Creative, Bah!!!

Nares

Apr 14, 2008, 08:35 PM

So I picked up the save and had some crazy luck. I had no less than five positive random events occur. Three populations booms (+8 food in granary), once in Oporto and twice in the third city.

The real fun was the tin event in the hill directly south of the capital. Five turns later, it popped Iron. So much for Sury.

Of course, I have pathetic combat dice, and won maybe two combats total. /sigh

Krikkitone

Apr 14, 2008, 09:08 PM

I would have settled on the gold resource because that gains the city another 2 gold resources after pop (plus it gives instant gold access, and is a plains hill. for more production)

O well, wipe out the Khmer and control the West coast and beeline optics. (you'll get Machinery for Crossbows on the way... maybe pick up Construction for Cats to knock out the New World)

Go for
Wheel

Sailing.. and Maoi Statues probably in the Capital

Masonry..G Lighthouse is a good option

Pottery

if Oracle is open go Priesthood for

Metal Casting (Colossus)

Writing

Math

Construction (in case anyone else needs a whooping)

Currency

CoL (Caste for Capital to aim for the GPs you want to help pop )

Machinery (hopefully you can pop this with a GE)

Compass

Optics

start scouting New World

Feudalism

shut off Science to pay for massive expansion

and Settler/Longbow spam Colonies or send Cat/Sword/xbow/spear to take the New World.

Cottage as much as possible, get FP in the Old World (probably in Gold City) and Move your Capital.

Then focus on totally expanding in the New World, and once you have enough of it, then cut loose the Old world.

NintendoTogepi

Apr 14, 2008, 09:39 PM

I'm currently playing the opposite of this game with the scenario save...

Joao II the Perfectly Content

A one city challenge :D

paulthebug

Apr 14, 2008, 11:29 PM

Creative, Bah!!!

I like your attitute, MS!:lol:
This is shaping up to become a good RPG due to the map! Must follow! Can't wait for your second installment.

siggboy

Apr 15, 2008, 01:02 AM

After it' hooked up what do you all think we should? We, it's not a democracy, I'm going after Sury ASAP. Time to chop, chop, chop Swords/spears left and right. The Alien Freak will Die very very soon!!!!
Start choking him now with your Archers! Don't wait for your own swords and spears. He might have copper/iron/horses and if you allow him access to it your campaign will get harder. Since it's only 1900ish BC you still might have time to deny him any essential resources. After all you've built enough archers.

The question is how much land do we save? We don't need much more, maybe just enough to mine alot of gold to finance caracks!!! OPtherwise burn, pillage, and burn some more. No sens eleaving prime realestate for the next tenant!
If his land is really good, you should keep the cities. Right now you don't have any outstanding cities besides the capital, and you do want your homelands to be at least decent. If you find excellent land at the Khmer and just raze his cities, the next best AI will settle it, making it stronger while leaving you nothing. Better take it for yourself in this case in favour of your later vasall.

This is a large map, you have three cities so far, if you double that you're still a small country. I wouldn't expand beyond size 6 though.

Try not to make anyone mad at you
Depending on who you're facing, and how religions are spread, this might be impossible. It's definitely important to be on good terms with your neighbours, though. But if some random remote civilization doesn't like you for reasons beyond your control, that's OK. They'll probably hate others even more than you for the same reasons they are not a fan of yours ;-).

If Survayaman pops his borders, the city is lost. I also really don't like settling on gold resources. D:
Remember though, Khmerfreak is Creative....
I would have settled on the gold resource because that gains the city another 2 gold resources after pop (plus it gives instant gold access, and is a plains hill. for more production)
Creative is 2:culture:/turn. You can offset this with a monument and a temple, for example (if you have a religion), and the religion itself will give another :culture:, so border wars with creative civs are not lost before they've even started. You at least have a chance to keep things even, and your city actually flipping takes more than a creative trait.

I settled ON the gold myself for the reasons Krikki stated. The instant gold is easily connected to your capital just by researching sailing (maybe not in this case, though, since Khmer borders might block access along the coast...).

With the current city location, the two southern gold mines won't be in that cities fat cross, which is BAD(TM), because he'll lose a lot of early commerce. If he can't grab it with another city it will be lost forever...

shut off Science to pay for massive expansion
A Great Merchant might be better. Easily farmed in the capital with Caste System, and if you know where the Temple of Artemis is, it's a guaranteed 1950 gold if that city is at least size 10 when you run the trade mission. I think one should research with the commerce from the starting colonies as long as possible. As soon as you cut yourself off, your research will drop significantly -- you need some military in the new lands, even with no other AI's around. The barbs upgrade their weapons along with everybody else (very tedious to cap/raze barb cities with Longbows in them unless you've got Maces yourself).

Edit: The gold from the merchant has another big advantage: you can rush-buy infrastructure for the colony. This will require the Pyramids to be available early, though.

siggboy

Apr 15, 2008, 07:31 AM

By the way, does anybody know if we can built all the National wonders AGAIN as soon as we liberate our original settlement? Has somebody tested this yet?
I've found out by now: all national wonders become available again after you've separated from the colony that contains them.

Orzio

Apr 15, 2008, 11:17 AM

Curently shadowing the game. My first try on monarch so not going great but just took suryemans capital :D Terroised him with a warrior for thousands of years stealing 6 of his workers so all he could do was spam archer for lots and lots of years he had like 10 in the end but he still wouldent attak my one warrior :D So now I powned him with my swordmens. Amd got a super city that got all 3 gold mines cow and that last resource forgot what it is :D. Hoppfuly I can advance abit faster now and stay in peace :D

StuntedAzrael

Apr 15, 2008, 11:49 AM

What a great idea for a RPC. I'm gonna enjoy following this one. It kinda reminds me of Pirates!.

This land sucks. I totally understand Joao for wanting to leave this shores. Just imagine your whole life of eating fish and crabs from cold ocean. Short summers and cold, long and windy winters. Joao will not taste bread for a looong time...

Groogaroo

Apr 15, 2008, 12:04 PM

Wow! This game has certainly got alot of interest, alot of shadow games going on.

I like NintendoTogepi's idea of a counter shadow game, Joao the perfectly content!

I hope the conquering of Suly doesn't slow down the overall plan too much, allthough nabbing all those lovley gold mines will speed things up a great deal.

Nares

Apr 15, 2008, 12:31 PM

Two quick thoughts.

Settling on the gold would have been nice, but it's too late now, and this has been discussed elsewhere.

You built three work boats, and used them on the three crab tiles. You're not even working one of them. Why the crabs? Why not at least one for the fish? I would think the +1:food: is worth more than the +1:commerce: at this stage of the game, even with the one turn delay for travel.

madscientist

Apr 15, 2008, 01:01 PM

Three crabs for the 2 commerce. The extra food is not that much of an issue for Joao since he already has a big bonus towards worker and settler production. Since I needed to make that run at IW, looks like it payed off.

LangeGeschichte

Apr 15, 2008, 07:02 PM

I've been playing a shadow recently, and while my play is far from optimal, this is one of the most interesting games I have ever played.

One thing to keep in mind that I wish I knew: Creating a colony does NOT require Feudalism.

I beelined Optics hard, with only three cities, and got my first carrack in ~1AD. I now have about 10 cities on the New World, and still almost no economy to speak of 1000 years later. I'm breaking even exactly. These cottages aren't holding up and I'm behind Shaka's colony in tech. I feel safe diplomatically, and if I can colonize the rest of the continent I might pull out some sort of miracle victory, maybe diplomatic.

madscientist

Apr 15, 2008, 08:19 PM

Joao the Restless: Part II

KILL, KILL, KILL. KILL the FREAK!!!!!

Wait, this is not Monty, some more culture and refinement is required for such a noble leader as Joao!

We mined the iron, built roads, chopped a barrack in each city, then spammed/chopped mostly swords with a few axes and spears for stack defense if not style.

The tech path went: Sailing/mysticism/writing/pottery/masonry/start agriculture.

We met one of the last 2 AIs.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0000.jpg

Well, I am happy it took so long to meet him, indicating to me that he's FAR away.

But back to the matter at hand.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0001.jpg

A decent early stack, although we continued to build swords/swords/swords!!!

Here is the powergraph demonstrating our superiority and the likelyhood that Sury has limited military resources.

The hell with that coastal city, our stack steamrolls directly to where I think the capital is.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0003.jpg

As we moved on, look what we found!!!! An unimproved rion resource. Too bad Sury, a few turns too late!

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0004.jpg

Yes I am very happy to keep an AI capital!!!

We moved onto the city to the east which was built on a desert tile.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0005.jpg

We razed it.

Now we attack that northern coastal Khmerian city. Fresh troops from the east, and a recovered stack from the south.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0006.jpg

And we decide to keep this one.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0007.jpg

Sury was now down to 2 recently built cities that were without resources.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0008.jpg

Kaboom #1!

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0009.jpg

Kaboom #2

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoB0011.jpg

Sury and his creative trait are no more. Sorry Sury, we expected more of a fight from you.

So that leaves us with 5 pretty decent coastal cities, 2 capital quality. I plan to drop one more to claim the two gold and a farmable floodplains for a commerce boost!!!

We did revolt to Buddhism as that seams to be the religious flavor of the time. Brennus is Hindu but he's in horrid northern lands too and we can defend againt him. We can just adopt OR to keep him happy.

OK, so we have good military for a while. Graneries/libraries aplenty I say. Run some scientist specialists and save the first one to bulb compass, save any other GPs for the voyage to the new world.

So what exactly do we need??

Reagrding wonders, GW and SH have dropped, pyramids/oracle are fair game although I don't think the oracle is worth trying as we have no marble and little chance to get it first. Pyramids in the capital???? Sounds good to me.

Now, regarding what we need for Caracks?

Optics
Compass (we have IW)
Machinery
MC

That's it, right?????

Now, do we need math/currency/alphabet/CoL, or can we try and get them from our Buddhists brothers and sister????

One final point, is 6 citie enough for now??? Remember we have a large map, not teh usual RPC standard.

madscientist

Apr 15, 2008, 08:21 PM

I'm currently playing the opposite of this game with the scenario save...

Joao II the Perfectly Content

A one city challenge :D

NT, sounds like a great compliment!!! I would be eager to see the results!

BalbanesBeoulve

Apr 15, 2008, 08:25 PM

Yes! Good job on taking out my worst enemy.

If the great lighthouse is still up for grabs get that. Probably more useful than the mids.

NintendoTogepi

Apr 15, 2008, 09:19 PM

NT, sounds like a great compliment!!! I would be eager to see the results!

It's going surprisingly well.

*spoilers I guess, but it doesn't really say anything specific about the map or anything, nor does it say the AI that you haven't met)

I managed to grab the Great Wall and the Pyramids, as well as the Great Library and the University of Sankore. I have avoided war so far, although the AI that you haven't met yet, is very mad at me, so I'll have to start building my army! They probably won't DoW on me but just in case....

I also won the circumnavigate/whatever bonus with my carracks. I also got the Liberalism race, but I missed out on the Colossus by one turn :mad:

Khmerfreak is doing excellent though....:mad: he even managed to build Angkor Wat! (though not in the city of Angkor Wat...in Yasodurapurahura) Good thing you wiped him out.

Anyway, it's doing good. I think I'm gonna try for a diplomatic or a space race victory. :goodjob: Joao is fine with his cold but comfortable city of Lisbon! :king:

InvisibleStalke

Apr 15, 2008, 11:59 PM

This is the best RPC idea I've seen - a real challenge I think.

Some thoughts:

- Lightbulb great people towards Astronomy. No point in settling them or building academies. Save later great people to take with you.

- Little point in cottage economy for early game - no long term rewards. But go cottage spam on new world.

- Can you build two national wonders? Once you lose a national wonder to a colony can you build it again?

- Does your colony get to keep its national wonders? ie if you build National Epic can you set up your colony with an ultra GP farm?

- A conquest / domination win could be interesting. Colonize new world. Setup cities for max wealth production - ie cottages. Whip / Draft a big army in the old world - do vassals inherit whip weariness? Start conquest war. Liberate colony. Give each city you capture to vassal. Long term goal is that your vassal becomes more powerful than anyone and takes over the war for you while you cottage up the new world. Who cares if your new world economy is crashing - you might be able to ride your vassal to victory!

- How else can you use an uber vassal? Most probably you won't be generating more great people for a long time and you won't be researching much either. Your vassal starts with a clean slate for great people though and might start researching considerably quicker than you. You might be able to request techs from them. Spying on your vassal might be worthwhile as the first step in recoverying your economy.

- One alternative to rushing their quickly is to ignore Astronomy. Let the AI get there first while going all out for Rifling and then State Property. Then invade and capture the new world including any AI cities. State Property will let you run the two together with impunity while you get setup on the new world and then just switch at the last minute.

Gath

Apr 16, 2008, 01:09 AM

looks like a fun game.:)

Krikkitone

Apr 16, 2008, 02:29 AM

InvisibleStalke

Apr 16, 2008, 02:39 AM

This is Portugal, they don't need Astronomy

No, but without it your cities on the new world can't trade with the old. They are really handicapped. And how many carracks will you need to ship across an army to take the barb cities and the 7-8 settlers and workers you will need to setup?

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 02:57 AM

This RPC is definitely generating a lot of interest, four pages already! I'm really glad I proposed the idea :goodjob:

Joao II the Perfectly Content is doing well, I've got the whole world embroiled in war, and I've been in a war with one of the AIs for like 200 turns! (Thankfully neither of us have done much combat...he destroyed my 3 carracks roaming the great seas and I sent one small stack that got destroyed, but otherwise nada. He's never come anywhere near Portugal) Maybe it should be called "Joao II God of War" :lol:

And the spaceship is about 75% done, pfft, the other civilizations have been focused on the new world for hundreds of years...who cares about the new world, when there's SPACE to explore! :king:

Of course, knowing Joao II the Perfectly Content, he'll probably just find a nice sized planet and build a massive satellite orbiting it to house the Portuguese civilization :D Pfft, who cares about exploring these strange and odd planets, orbit in a satellite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat) (with the gravity making machine of course) is just fine! :D (I actually like to think this is what happens a lot of time with my OCC space race victories, it seems more likely somehow...)

But anyway, I'm not used to playing OCC's with a leader who isn't Philosophical or Industrious (the only two good OCC traits, shame there isn't a leader with both). I think I'm doing pretty good considering I'm not used to Noble, and I'm using a leader with two pretty useless traits for a OCC! (Expansive is okay but still pretty meh, only useful at the beginning, and Imperalistic is pretty much completely useless, only good for the very rare Conquest OCC, and even then it's meh compared to Charismatic in that use)

I look forward to finishing it tomorrow (there's about a 75% chance of a win, hopefully there won't be a diplomatic win...and hopefully one of the three major powers won't DoW on me...I'm friendly with all 3 so that seems unlikely) and posting a recap with some pictures.

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 02:58 AM

Edit: On careful consideration I have spoilered some tactical information that might kill the fun in the original game. Feel free to read, there's nothing in there that specifically applies to this map in particular (which I've shadowed already so I'm ahead of the OP regarding information).

KILL, KILL, KILL. KILL the FREAK!!!!!
I'm VERY envious at your early rushing skills, Mad. You killed him 400 years earlier than I did. Your city placement sucks, though ;-). You should have kept that coastal city on the desert, it was the only spot to grab the two seafood while still having access to all the hills for production (it was one of my best production cities in the old world, and coastal as well).
To grab the two missing gold hills, you should have razed the northern of the two last Khmer cities and rebuilt.

OK, so we have good military for a while. Graneries/libraries aplenty I say. Run some scientist specialists and save the first one to bulb compass, save any other GPs for the voyage to the new world.
Don't bulb Compass, it's way too cheap. If anything, bulb Optics (if you have Machinery). I would, however, bulb Philosophy (delay Machinery!) and switch to Pacifism/Caste System, then continue to generate loads and loads of Great People in the capital. Don't forget that you can use a Great Merchant very well too. With Caste System and not many wonders in the capital you can practically generate any GP at will.

Don't forget to run an Engineer along with those Scientists. If you get a Great Engineer by chance that opens loads of options (bulb Machinery or rush a wonder, maybe in the colonies even).

Reagrding wonders, GW and SH have dropped, pyramids/oracle are fair game although I don't think the oracle is worth trying as we have no marble and little chance to get it first. Pyramids in the capital???? Sounds good to me.
Try the Oracle -- the free tech is something you will keep, while you will lose the Pyramids to your colony sooner or later (and never get it back). I think the Oracle is still possible to get first, sometimes it gets built really late even on Monarch difficulty. You can take CoL or Metal Casting with it, both are great (CoL for Caste System and Courthouses/FP, MC on the way to Optics and for running an engineer specialist).

Now, do we need math/currency/alphabet/CoL, or can we try and get them from our Buddhists brothers and sister????
Research Metal Casting and trade it for the rest. With so many buddhists you can probably trade with all of them without pissing off anybody. The AI always, always delays MC so it's perfect trading material (very expensive tech so you get anything you want from it).

One final point, is 6 citie enough for now??? Remember we have a large map, not teh usual RPC standard.
Six cities is definitely enough, maybe even more than enough. Remember that half of the large map is still completely unclaimed, and won't be accessible for any AI except barbs for a loooong time. So don't overexpand on the starting continent now.

By the way, it's definitely a good idea to start colonizing ASAP after you have Optics. In my game I've waited way too long with settling the new lands (fortunately I did have Emancipation, so my economy built up reasonably fast). Every additional turn your cottages can grow adds up to a hefty sum of gold later. That's just common sense of course, but it's easy to get sidetracked on the starting continent and losing sight of the Bigger Goal.

Maintenance cost:
Regarding maintenance burden to expect: it was not as bad as I thought. I built the Forbidden Palace in the old lands, then the Palace in the new world, and my total maintenance cost WENT DOWN! So don't delay building the palace for that reason, it might be even better to do it early. Since your capital is your GP farm anyway, losing a possible Bureaucracy bonus is half as bad as it seems.

- Lightbulb great people towards Astronomy. No point in settling them or building academies. Save later great people to take with you.
As mentioned above, I would not bulb anything except maybe Optics. Compass is too cheap and there are better techs you can bulb that you're going to research anyway (Philo/Paper/Edu/Liberalism).

Astronomy:
Do not bulb/research Astronomy because you have a really good chance to get it from a goody hut!

If you actually manage to get the Pyramids (I would not pursue them, though), building an Academy in the capital might be worth it though. The amount of specialists you can run in the capital while STILL having the city grow is astounding (five seafood resources).

Also keep it mind that while you technically "lose" the Academy when you declare independence, it will still help your vassal with research, and you want to abuse the vassal as a laboratory rat later on (you can tell vassals what to research).

- Little point in cottage economy for early game - no long term rewards. But go cottage spam on new world.
It doesn't hurt to cottage spam now with all the free workers. It will also guarantee that your lands are nicely improved when you hand it over to the AI. If you leave too many blank tiles the AI will overfarm as it always does. We want a commerce AI though, and not a production AI, so we can trade more techs.

- Can you build two national wonders? Once you lose a national wonder to a colony can you build it again?
You can build all national wonders again after you granted indepence to the old colony.

- Does your colony get to keep its national wonders? ie if you build National Epic can you set up your colony with an ultra GP farm?
Your colony keeps everything except for the Feitora bonus (Feitoras become normal Customs Houses after indepence; I've checked this by spying into the cities of my vassal).

You also don't need to leave a garrison in the colony. As soon as you grant them independence they get two garrison units per city for free (e.g. Longbows, Musketmen or Riflemen, depending on what your most modern tech at that point is).

They also get all technologies that you have researched at this point, which possibly matters a lot since they might start to trade techs with your rivals right away (so maybe make those trades yourself before your vassal does it).

You keep all your units, including Great People, so there's no need to evacuate them before gifting the colony.

- How else can you use an uber vassal? Most probably you won't be generating more great people for a long time and you won't be researching much either. Your vassal starts with a clean slate for great people though and might start researching considerably quicker than you. You might be able to request techs from them. Spying on your vassal might be worthwhile as the first step in recoverying your economy.
You can tell your vassal what to research. They switch immediately and don't research anything else unless you tell them. You still need a worthwhile tech to trade to them for what they've researched because they won't give it away for free, no matter how high their attitude bonuses are.

You can also tell them to attack a city while you're at war, but usually it takes them ages to react.
The vassal that will be created (it will be Washington of USA) is not exactly a warmonger.I tried the "attack the city" command in my shadow game a few times, but it didn't amount to much.

In my game I'm using the vassal exclusively to tech side-branches, then trade for what I've just researched. It can be difficult to stop it from leaking "your" techs to rival AIs, though (you have to bribe him into a trade embargo with techs or gold).

- One alternative to rushing their quickly is to ignore Astronomy. Let the AI get there first while going all out for Rifling and then State Property. Then invade and capture the new world including any AI cities. State Property will let you run the two together with impunity while you get setup on the new world and then just switch at the last minute.
State Property is really important, but that's nothing new anyway :-). The AI takes ages before they start to research Astronomy. You will be established on the new world for a long, long time before you see the first rival Galleon arrive.

Regarding Astronomy: it would be very wise to declare independence before you get that tech (might be impossible if you pop it from a hut early). This is because then your vassal won't have it, and you don't want your vassal to leak this key tech to the AI (he will probably trade it to them for Divine Right or some other useless tech).

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 03:00 AM

And how many carracks will you need to ship across an army to take the barb cities and the 7-8 settlers and workers you will need to setup?
It will take a Carrack maybe 10 turns to reach the other landmass on a typical map. If you make five or so Carracks that's more than enough to ship over your people at the same pace that you can produce them. The Carrack has two cargo slots instead of one (Caravel), so it's not as bad as it seems. Galleons are only marginally better (partly due to the fact that they are a bit faster as well).

Mad plays on Marathon speed, so the travel time of the ships is even less of an issue. A handful of Carracks will be more than adequate to do the job.

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 03:01 AM

No, but without it your cities on the new world can't trade with the old. They are really handicapped. And how many carracks will you need to ship across an army to take the barb cities and the 7-8 settlers and workers you will need to setup?

Probably 20 or so....but the Carracks just help him get started with the colonization...after all, Optics is on the way to Astronomy :)

Siggboy, while most of what you said I wouldn't really consider a spoiler (and it's quite helpful), I would spoiler tag who the colony is going to be :)

Also, I just wanted to say that it's definitely good that

Mad took out Savarsureismeandadiayaradarapuraman II so early. He's a beast in my current game, a large empire, TONS of wonders, (more then any other civ, how can a non Industrious leader with no Stone or Marble build so many?!) Sid's Sushi founded, Islam founded, second highest score and Tokugawa as his vassal! The only one greater then him is the mega civ with a colony and a vassal, who I shall reveal tomorrow

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 03:37 AM

Siggboy, while most of what you say I wouldn't really consider a spoiler (and it's quite helpful), I would spoiler tag who the colony is going to be :)
I was wondering if I should spoiler it when I reread my posting and I was sure somebody would bring it up :-). On the other hand, since your first colony is ALWAYS Washington, and the next one Roosevelt, it's not a big surprise in this scenario either. I'm still going to spoiler it.

Regarding the spoileresqueness of my latest ramblings: I'm really not sure if and where I've crossed the line there. Most of the things I've written are general observations that apply to any game that makes heavy use of the colonization feature. The scenario is hard enough to win as it is, even if you can avoid some nasty surprises by knowing certain things in advance.

My apologies if some of my remarks have taken a bit of "surprise momentum" out of the game for some (I don't think they have, however).

Edit: I've spoiler tagged a part of my article now as to stay on the safe side with not revealing too much tactical information.

madscientist

Apr 16, 2008, 05:42 AM

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 06:04 AM

Reagrding Atronomy, I think we need it pretty fast as Inv Stalk says to establish intercontoinental trade routes, uless the UU does this which I don't think. If I recall from Willems game, that means we can bulb astronomy with 2 GS's providing we avoid CoL, CS, and theology (to avoid opening up philosphy or paper). Trying to play this game without courthouses seams like a bad idea, so I think we need to target astronomy via the liberalism Bulb race.
This is something I spoilered, just in case, but as I've mentioned it in the RPC poll thread already, and it's not a huge secret: you can get Astronomy from goody huts, and it's not even a rare event. Apparently the game picks this technology for huts, and with the abundance of unclaimed tribal villages in the new world, your chances are pretty high that you will get the tech for free. It is not guaranteed, however.

So, for that reason I would at least not commit any resources specifically towards Astronomy at least before you've popped a good many huts on the other continent. The intercontinental trade is quite essential, though, so you can't hold back on Astro forever. It's not just about the commmerce, but also about the fact that we won't have access to our resources on the new continent (problematic as we reach the happy cap with the new cities, depending on which civics we are in at that point).

I'd definitely go the tried and proven way of bulbing towards Liberalism (Philosophy->Paper->Education). This also allows you to take Nationalism with Liberalism, in case you discover Astronomy from a hut. Nationalism is on the way to Democracy, and early Emancipation really helps to kickstart commerce in the unclaimed lands. Not to talk about the goodness of early Philosophy (Pacifism) for Great People generation.

Orzio

Apr 16, 2008, 08:53 AM

Rememeber that the barbarian probably have a unti on evry hut to protect it so you may not be abel to open them up with a explorer.

Fun note from my shadow game is that evry civ is now budhist :D We are one big religous familly but sitll tons off wars for some reason.

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 08:58 AM

Rememeber that the barbarian probably have a unti on evry hut to protect it so you may not be abel to open them up with a explorer.
Indeed. Sometimes the "hut guard" will attack your explorer, and possibly die if it's just a Warrior or Archer, but if they don't you're out of luck. It's very tedious to pop all the huts without mounted units, so getting those would be my first priority (currently we don't have any access to horses, so those would have to be acquired in the new world, unless somebody trades them to us).

Nares

Apr 16, 2008, 09:04 AM

They are really handicapped. And how many carracks will you need to ship across an army to take the barb cities and the 7-8 settlers and workers you will need to setup?2-3 to carry explorers to pop what few huts remain unguarded. Hopefully you pop Astronomy.

Groogaroo

Apr 16, 2008, 09:21 AM

Nice! You really just steamrolled Sury. Well played.

I don't know if I would bother with the Pyramids, its a lot of hammers and you can't take it with you when you go to the new world. With all those lovely gold mines you have a pretty powerful output for research. I think its time to focus on getting off this landmass.

Optics is bulbable with a Great scientist, providing you have compass/machinery to open it up to research, you also need wheel/writing/maths/alphabet to unlock the bulb and avoid any techs that open up philosophy (meditation). Although don't take my word for it! Its quite possible I've made a mistake there somewhere.

But if you get those goldmines running you may not need to bulb at all.

madscientist

Apr 16, 2008, 09:49 AM

I reviewed the Willem RPC and here is what I found

To get Optics by 130 BC we teched IW/MC/Machinery/Compass/Optics.

I believe we held off alphabet/math/currency/calender/CoL until optics. In that game we had to backfill alot of techs to get astronomy which was the big tech because of teh Dutch UU. That's not the case here.

Also in this game we have ALOT of good trading buddies, so if we tech along the MC/Compass/Machinery/Optics line we can trade off techs like MC for alphabet, math, calender while saving the first GS to bulb Compass (I think CoL is the tech to avoid, not just meditation).

So here's the paln

Tech MC

Backfill alphabet/math/calender

Tech Machinery

Bulb Compass

That leaves Optics which may or may not be bulbable.

Another questions I have, how does trade routes work for new world cities that do not have access to astronomy. Say I settle 5 cities on the New world, can they trade amongst themselves or do they need access to the capital? I ask because I have had games where I captured several AI cities that were conencted to each other via roads, but not the capital yet and they had no trade routes between each other until the capital got connected.

If this is the case, we may want 1-2 seed New World cities then agressively seek to bulb astronomy in the New World. The carracks will get us faster access to the New Wrodl but Astronomy may very well be they big key here.

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 10:23 AM

Say I settle 5 cities on the New world, can they trade amongst themselves or do they need access to the capital?
I can't answer this question, but how about this: move the palace early and the new world cities will be connected to the capital for this reason alone. If you build the Forbidden Palace in the old world at the same time, you won't suffer a big hit to your economy (it might even lower your total maintenance costs, because currently the capital lies at the far north of your empire, while the FP could be built in a much better position).

In my game, the inland cities on the new world did not generate overseas trade, they only traded among themselves. The coastal cities all had very profitable trade routes with my vassal state. (I got Astronomy from a hut and did not check for trade routes until after I had moved the Palace already, so I would have to edit my game in World Builder to know for sure).

It would not (<- edit) make a lot of sense to me if one of your cities needed to be connected to the capital to generate any trade routes at all. There is a bonus to profits for connection to capital, for me this implies that it's not needed (because otherwise the bonus could simply be worked into the basic calculation without special mention, if you know what I mean).

madscientist

Apr 16, 2008, 10:28 AM

OK, here's another question. How many courthouses do I need to build the FP on a large map? Standard is 6, I do not remember what Huge was.

nbcman

Apr 16, 2008, 10:31 AM

Rememeber that the barbarian probably have a unti on evry hut to protect it so you may not be abel to open them up with a explorer.

Bring a couple of spies along who can open the huts without attacking the barbarian unit. Of course you wont get the more favorable results that a scout/explorer will have if the scout/explorer opens the hut, but at least you can pop the hut without attacking a fortified barbarian unit.

siggboy

Apr 16, 2008, 11:35 AM

OK, here's another question. How many courthouses do I need to build the FP on a large map? Standard is 6, I do not remember what Huge was.
You need 7 courthouses on this map (I've just checked my last save). Huge is probably 8 courthouses, but I don't know either.

You need 8 cities to unlock the FP proper, however. But since you have 6 already, and plan to found another one for the gold, building the 8th one on the other continent does unlock the FP.

Bring a couple of spies along who can open the huts without attacking the barbarian unit. Of course you wont get the more favorable results that a scout/explorer will have if the scout/explorer opens the hut, but at least you can pop the hut without attacking a fortified barbarian unit.
Spies can pop huts!? That's nice, I never thought of that. They also won't die from attacks. OK, forget horses, definitely take spies along with explorers to the Americas first.

As far as missing out on the favourable results goes: you won't get them anyway if you need to attack the guarding unit (you cannot kill the guard and save the hut for an explorer at the same time). Probably one should use the Explorer for the unguarded huts and spies for the rest.

Loknar

Apr 16, 2008, 03:45 PM

I would also pop the huts with spies, but I would wait doing so until other Civs show up to maximize the profit from a technology gain event.

I would also consider making a short detour to Aesthetics and chopping the Parthenon (preferably not in the capital because Artists seem of limited use). It really seems obvious that saved great people could be very helpful for our goal.

(Edit: Actually, Shwedagon Paya could be worthwhile too to help surviving on the old continent while focussing on the new one. But then again, I seem to like shiny things in general.)

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 04:11 PM

Joao II the Perfectly Content

A shadow game done by me. The difference? It's a one city challenge! Forget colonizing the new world, the starting place is just fine! If you'd like to read, just click on the spoiler tag, and it will open up the story of how the game went. : )

And so our intelligent and charismatic leader, Joao II, founds Lisbon and the Portuguese civilization!

Joao II: "It may be cold, but I find this is a wonderful place to live! We shall stay a city state, and live here for 1000s of years! We are blessed with many fish and crabs in our seas and many forests. Truly this is a great city!"

The game starts out good. I beeline Masonry and manage to get both The Great Wall and The Pyramids! :goodjob: I go for Judaism but miss it by one turn! ;(

However, that turns out to be a good thing. Saladin, founder of Hinduism (and Judaism, as I later found out), spreads Hinduism zealously, first to Suryvayarman II and Victoria, and then to me! The game continues to go good as I meet Shaka, Wang Kon, Brennus and finally Justinian I (Who founds Confucianism and adopts it).

Saladin keeps spreading Hinduism and it's the most popular religion, and Shaka adopts it. However, Brennus is the founder of Buddhism and Wang Kon is Buddhism too, and Justinian I is Confucian.

I manage to get the Great Library, but I miss out on the Colossus by one turn! The game is relatively unassuming for a while, I get the University of Sankore and my favorite civic, Pacifism, which I stay in for the rest of the game. I believe there are some wars going on.

Around turn 230 I meet Tokugawa, the last AI. How'd it take so long? He's furious at me for some reason.

Joao II: "Oookay...why are all of these other people so...strange? Uh...I guess we'll tolerate them for now..."

New rule: Portugal must have closed borders with all civs and run Mercantilism by turn 400.

I win the Liberalism race thankfully, snatching Scientific Method with it. I am beaten to the Taj Mahal by two turns (argh...I don't understand how that would work in real life).

Buddhism spreads to Lisbon and I quickly build a Temple and Stupa. (shame it wasn't a few turns earlier, I could have had a monestary) I don't adopt it though, as the only Buddhist civ is Brennus. (Wang Kon went into Free Religion)

Once I get the Forest Preserves, Biology and the National Park, my research increases rapidly! Around turn 280, Brennus DoW's on me. Oh well. I just beef up my military and hope for the best.

I instigate wars between Suryvararman II and Tokugawa. Also, Victoria is at war with Justinian and loses London and York. She becomes a vassal to Saladin.

Sury's war does surprisingly well and he takes Tokugawa as a vassal after taking several cities. The new world is getting colonized.

I keep instigating wars and perusing the Space Race victory.

Many vassals are taken and wars are fought, and also, Charlemagne is spawned as a colony by Saladin. I then, through some clever bribery, caused a massive dog pile on Brennus.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/suckstobebrennus.png

Surprisingly, very few warring was done and Brennus lost only two cities :confused: Meanwhile Shaka got dogpiled really bad and I DoW'd too....Victoria eventually took him as a vassal.

Suryvavaryaman II is doing excellently, with Sid's Sushi and massive wonderspam in Yasodurapurahura. Saladin is also doing great, with Hinduism, several vassals and a great empire.

Around 370 I also got Cristo Redentor...not really sure why a city with only Hinduism and Buddhism would build a giant statue of Jesus.....:crazyeye:

Anyway, I continued to build my spaceship and more wars. I somehow ending up DoW'ing on Victoria, ah well. Pericles is spawned as a colony of Justinian rather late and a fierce war between Saladin and Justinian happens. Shaka broke free from Victoria and DoW'd on her the turn after. Saladin took London and York from Justinian I and gifted them back to Victoria.

Shaka did pretty poor this game, he was way behind and had really bad land. Thank God!

As required, around turn 393 I switched from Environmentalism to Mercantilism, starving Lisbon a little (from the loss of Sid's Sushi) and causing a few hundred thousand people to move away. I also closed borders with all of other civs, to no hard feelings.

Brennus came pretty close to a culture victory, his capital was legendary and his other cities were at 41,000 and 38,000...

And finally, I managed to launch my spaceship! :D

Joao II: "Wonderful! Let us leave behind Lisbon forever, and explore space! I trust that we will be able to build a utopia, as I have picked the finest 5000 citizens of Portugal!"
Crowd of people in spaceship: *Cheers*
Joao II: "I do hope that the leaders I have left in charge of Lisbon take care of the city though...ah well, who cares about them!"
*more cheers*

It arrived in the year 2007, giving me a spaceship victory! :king:

Joao II: "Excellent, we have found a wonderful planet to orbit around! That one to the left of this window!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/robit.png

We shall start building the space habitat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat) that we shall live in!"
Advisor: "Wait...you mean, we're not going to go on the planets and explore them, and establish our civilization on them?"
Joao II: "Indeed, my dear advisor. We shall orbit this planet in a massive satellite! Why should we explore these evil and strange planets when we'll be perfectly happy in our space habitat? After all, the main reason I wanted to go into space is so that we wouldn't be bothered by the other civilizations! Plus, I can finally stop pretending to be Hindu...I became a Buddhist decades ago!"
Advisor: "That makes sense, I guess."
Joao II: "Of course it does, everything I do makes sense! :king:"

Anyway, here's what Earth looked like one turn before victory.

Old World:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/joaosoldworld.png

New World:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/joaosnewworld.png

Lisbon (a Celtic destroyer snuck in and pillaged the fishing boats, hence the starvation):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/finalview.png

Final diplo:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/finaldiplo.png

Lisbon had a life expectancy of 92, the second highest was 67!

Also, take a look at the power graph:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/whoajoa.png

Good thing I never got invaded! :eek:

And finally, the most impressive part:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/Wowwowowowowwowowowow.png

That is BY FAR the highest score I've ever had! The highest before this game was only 17000! (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/Uhduh.png)

So whoa...:eek: :goodjob:

Joao II: "Truly, staying in place as the city state of Lisbon was a wise choice! While those fools were searching for the new world, we had our eyes on greater things: space! And now we shall prosper in our satellite of New Lisbon, an idealistic, pacifistic society, away from those other foolish and annoying civilizations on Earth! :king: :goodjob:"

Wow, Joao II the Perfectly Content was a roaring success! And I must say, even though the loading times between turns got kind of annoying towards the latter part of the game, it was very fun! I can only hope MadScientist's game is as successful and enjoyable! :)

madscientist

Apr 16, 2008, 07:53 PM

Joao the Restless: Part III

Now that the Khmerian is dead and buried Joao begins to concentrate on leaving this cursed frozen land. Sure the Khmer lands are prosperous, but several war amongst the petty leaders has Joao looking over the Horizan, guessing what could be out there.

OK, we teched to optics and saved. Segment done!

Oh, you want a recap on that, OK here we go

We teched off Metal casting/machinery/math/optics. We bulbed Compass using a GS, the next GP get's saved for the new lands and let's hope we can get a GE.

A view of Lisbon while we started the round.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0000.jpg

Pretty good with religion and 2 happiness resources. We basically ran a hybrid eonomy, building a few cottages and running 2 scientists as often as possible.

As I mentioned I settled a new city to claim the 2 gold. Once we mined them and built 2 farms we got some good gold/commerce out of it.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0001.jpg

Apparently Brennus doesn't like this Buddhist block very much and went after Wang.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0002.jpg

Fine by me, I already took out the biggest threat. I should say by the save NO AI has any close borders although Saladin is probably the closest.

And speaking of the devil, er I mean the Arab.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0003.jpg

And to get some extra cash until one of the AIs decided to tech currency

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0004.jpg

Some nicely promoted units we got! I should also mention I settled a GG in Lisbon during the Khmerian war. Needed at the time as I was not completely sure where that was going.

A minor trade with Wang.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0005.jpg

Soon Shaka cannot take it anymore and needs to start pounding someone. Let's hope the English can put up a good defensehere for a while, so far so good.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0006.jpg

After teching math we use our first GS to bulb compass, which opens up optics.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0007.jpg

I have several triems and I am starting to build explorers and crossbows as my initial force. I will follow that by pairs of carracks containing 1 settler, 2 worker, 1 crossbow. Those should be enough to chop out needed buildings and preotect from barbs.

We made a few trades for cash to quickly tech optics and also upgrade our triemes to Carracks (80 gold)

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0008.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0009.jpg

We revolted to Monarchy to max the city populations.

Soon we find both Brennus and Shaka acting like jerks

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0010.jpg

OK, I have seen enough

We tech off optics and have this decision.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0011.jpg

We are actually doing pretty well here. I say three techs we need now, calender/currency/CoL in that order.

We sailed arround alot of the continent, man the large map is LARGE!!!! I was almost wondering if I accidently set a Pangea map but then I remmembered it was shadowed!!!

Ok, a view of the land

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0012.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd118/MSguy_photo/Joao/JoaoC0013.jpg

We have 4 Carracks ready and a few teams set. I think we can completely forget buildings now except perhaps the cheap harbors.

We got optics in 240 AD compared with Willem's game where we got it at 120 BC. Not bad considering we did an early rush, had some weak land, and Willem was financial!

So let's see what's out there!!!!!

Commodore Nate

Apr 16, 2008, 09:39 PM

Can't wait to see what's waiting beyond the horizon!

I would say that, depending on how close the continent is to yours and how many forests/shields your first city has, CoL might be better after calendar, or before.

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 09:51 PM

We sailed arround alot of the continent, man the large map is LARGE!!!! I was almost wondering if I accidently set a Pangea map but then I remmembered it was shadowed!!!

We wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out...:lol:

No really, though, you're on the right track. No more buildings! Just harbors....let your colony sort the rest out.

As for tech path, I would say Code of Laws/Currency/Calender...what do you need calender for?

Loknar

Apr 16, 2008, 09:55 PM

This is a terrific game, I enjoy it a lot. I started a shadow game but did nowhere as well as you.

Just out of curiosity:I say three techs we need now, calender/currency/CoL in that order.I agree on the set, but not on the order. Don't we need the Forbidden Palace somewhere (Oporto?) on the ancient homeland before we can move the Palace? How many courthouses must we build before we can do that in Marathon? Isn't CoL what we need first?

Calouste

Apr 16, 2008, 10:08 PM

We wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out...:lol:

No really, though, you're on the right track. No more buildings! Just harbors....let your colony sort the rest out.

As for tech path, I would say Code of Laws/Currency/Calender...what do you need calender for?

Calendar is a prereq for Astronomy.

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 10:27 PM

Calendar is a prereq for Astronomy.

Even still...

Krikkitone

Apr 16, 2008, 10:57 PM

Well you there are a few possible strategies for how to do your 2 continent phase

1. Capital on Old World, FP in New
basically as soon as you move the Palace you liberate the Old World
disadvantage... you need to get the FP in the New World, but you don't waste an FP build

2. Capital on New World, FP in Old
Advantage... the Old World will build the FP faster, and the New World has to build a palace anyways

The second is what I would do
go Code of Laws, Currency, Calendar

Production Priorities of Old World

First Get courthouses and the FP up in the Old World
Second build units to take developed barb cities
Third build Settler/CG Xbow/Workers for colonization

New World Priorities
Palace in new Palace Location... it should be up just before you have as many cities on the New World as the Old

City Growth

Once you have CoL and Courthouses it may be worth going Caste System... it gives you fast Culture in New cities

NintendoTogepi

Apr 16, 2008, 11:38 PM

What do you guys think about the New World?

I'm not really sure, but there's a lot of random desert tiles....where do you think would be the optimum location for Rio de Janeiro?

paulthebug

Apr 17, 2008, 12:59 AM

To make this game really unique,
I council for moving your capital to the new world and spin off the world as colony!
I have never seen a walkthrough like this!

So I would recommend prioritizing currency & COL.
As for cities, just concentrating on building settle, worker, units and carrack to quickly populate the new world.

ps:Man, the city placement in the old world is pretty bad.

pps: Personally I really hate Joan and find his UU useless because of no intercontinental trade route before astronomy. Only in RPC like that that carrack shines!

grandad1982

Apr 17, 2008, 01:38 AM

Good work mad.

Like everyone else I'd go CoL, Currency, Callende.

Why? Courthouses asap for FP in old world, currency to rescure your economy when it crashs and calender to hook up resourses in the new world etc. In facty you could probably delay calender for a bit IMO.

Gath

Apr 17, 2008, 01:48 AM

Is this just a rock out in the ocean, or is this a tip of an island?

NintendoTogepi

Apr 17, 2008, 01:54 AM

Is this just a rock out in the ocean, or is this a tip of an island?

Well, if you had read my shadow game :lol:, you would be able to see that

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v367/amethystjewel/joaosoldworld.png
its a moderate sized island, one of the many in the southern hemisphere of the old world.

siggboy

Apr 17, 2008, 02:33 AM

As for tech path, I would say Code of Laws/Currency/Calender...what do you need calender for?
Calendar must come next. You can not get Astronomy from a goody hut without it. So it must be known before the first hut is popped.

CoL should come after that, so the FP can be built ASAP. Currency can probably be traded by then (the AI usually researches Currency before CoL, and there are plenty of trading partners available).

1. Capital on Old World, FP in New
basically as soon as you move the Palace you liberate the Old World
disadvantage... you need to get the FP in the New World, but you don't waste an FP build
I don't see the point of doing that. Firstly building the FP in the Old World will start saving you money right away (keep in mind the bad capital location, far away from all our cities). Secondly, you can build the FP again on the new lands after you grant independence (all Nat Wonders become available again).
Since there is a large part of land to claim, we might need another FP on the new world before we get state property (possibly on the southern hemisphere, remember this is a Terra map, so the new world looks similar to the real American continent).

Once you have CoL and Courthouses it may be worth going Caste System... it gives you fast Culture in New cities
Caste System should be on for the fact alone that we want to farm many GP in Lisbon before Independence Day. Especially after the Palace has been moved and Lisbon won't get the Bureaucracy bonus anymore.

Quickly popping the borders of a new city with an Artist would be a plus, but keep in mind that the city doesn't grow if you assign the only citizen to be an artist straight away. It's probably better to send some buddhist missionaries over and spread the religion quickly after settling, that will also pop the borders reasonably fast (and it's what I did before I got to Music and could build Culture directly).

To make this game really unique,
I council for moving your capital to the new world and spin off the world as colony!
I have never seen a walkthrough like this!
Well, that's the whole idea of this RPC, and it's set in the rules anyway (it has to happen before 1776 AD, but I guess it will happen much, much earlier in Mad's game).

pps: Personally I really hate Joan and find his UU useless because of no intercontinental trade route before astronomy. Only in RPC like that that carrack shines!
The UU is very nice on all maps with a lot of water. The Carrack is faster than a Galley and it can settle remote islands that the AI can't reach yet. So for example on an Archipelagos map, the unit will give you a distinctive advantage.
Also, don't forget the Feitoria (replacement for Customs House), which basically is a free Colossus that never obsoletes for all your coastal cities).

Is this just a rock out in the ocean, or is this a tip of an island?
It's the beginning of a large and juicy island chain that will eventually be settled by Shaka. Actually Shaka has probably the best lands of all civs due to these Islands, but since the AI kind of sucks in settling island regions, he doesn't make full use of it (in my game he was still pretty small when he could have expanded all over the place already; it's of course also because he's a warmonger and prefers to jump his neighbours' throats instead of doing something reasonable :-)