RBP3 - "Living by Faith" :jesus: - A PtW, Arab, Large Map, Emperor game seeking 100K Culture win

Abu Bakr, a expansionist religious zealot, is out to domainate the world, but
under the banner of culture, empowered by the devout faith of the civilization. :love2:

Civilization: Arabia Difficulty: Emperor
Foes: 11 total (8 Religious Japanese, Indians, Aztecs, Iro, Egypt, Bablyon, Spain, Celts,
plus 3 non-lambs: Persia, China and Scandinavia)
Map: Large 60% Continents (high land), other conditions rnd
Barbarians: Roaming (lowest setting where they still exist as wanderers)
Victory condition: All enabled, but we must win by 100K Culture
Other: Turned off AI respawn, kept culture flip and preserve rnd seed

Variant Rules

- The first build in EVERY city must be a temple (Temple rule)
- No non-cultural bldg can be started if there is a cultural choice
available in that city (Culture rule)
- Luxury slider permanently set to 10% (Tithe rule)
- No razing or intentional starving (Mercy rule)
- Until Chivalry we may not build military other than at Medina,
except when at war (Farmer gambit)
- We must declare war or be at war upon making our first Ansar when Chivalry is reached.
That war cannot end until capture of a capital or wonder (Crusade rule)
- If any AI razes one of our core cities, we will never make peace with that AI and must
eliminate them ASAP (Jihad rule)
- Mecca may provide teachers of the law - warriors for military police duty (MP rule)

Here's the starting position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-StartingPosition.jpg

For background material and the original ruleset, see this link -
Background (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=660855#post660855)

To fast forward to the actual start of the game, go here...
Game Start post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=660866#post660866)

Enjoy,
Charis

If only I had PTW... Maybe I'll be able to grab the game sometime after Christmas (if it hasn't been finished by then...)

JMB

Do those rules sound too much?

YES - I couldn't play a game where every move I have to read down a check list. :rotfl:

I'd like a spot in the first round, though hopefully once again towards the end of the first round. ;)

Just to clarify- cities outside the Holy Land can also build workers and settlers between cultural projects?

-Griselda

Ermmm...

If this was a closed SG, I wouldn't see a problem with the rules you laid out, but this is an open grab-the-game SG, playing by a laundry list of rules like the Musketeer game (IMO) is going to cut way down on the number of different people willing to pick this game up. I can play either way, but my advice is to trim down the rules list to something that people can absorb in one pass (for example, under the current rules, somebody who picks the game up for the first time in the Middle Ages will have to spend a non-trivial amount of time before even being able to play just to determine which cities constitute the "Holy Land").

I'd have to concur with Carbon. For an open SG, may I suggest setting up the rules on the basis of the KISS principle? :)

You expect K.I.S.S. from Charis??? :eek:

OK...

RBP3B - "Extolling the Faith" - A PtW, Arab, Large Map, Emperor KISS game

Abu Bakr, a expansionist religious zealot, is out to dominate the world
by conquering the heathen who would oppose his rule! All shall taste
the pungent sting of death at the hands of the mighty Ansar Warriors!

Rules: Just win! Trample all foes underfoot! :hammer:
Win by a military condition, conquest or domination, although the
weakling AI have diplo, space and culture enabled.

Map: Large, Continents-HighLand. All conditions rnd.
Foes: You'll see.
Barbarians: Roaming (lowest setting where they still exist)

Format: *OPEN* Succession game - Anyone can post got it, and within 12 hrs of that
must post their new save file. No 'roster', just grab it. Game will start Monday.
I'll provide the map, but will need someone to start it off. We might try a greater numbers of turns in the ancient age.

We'll get to see which is mightier, the pen or the sword!
RBP3(A) is switching to closed Roster, myself and Griselda so far, two-three more would be good. It will be a comparison game, same map, two highly different approaches. I'll start another thread for B, and will need someone to play its first turn (I've already done so for the A game)
@JMB - It certainly won't be done by Christmas, hop in when you get the game

Does that sound more like it, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Charis

(PS Nod... 'open' format and "Amazon-like ruleset" is too much - RBD folks know that I mean by that :P )

Heh, well, I wasn't thinking QUITE that simple, that's more like an all-or-nothing proposition! :p How about something in between? :lol: I just thought you might be able to condense your original ruleset into a single paragraph comprised of the most important ones. Adding flavour text all around it to justify the rules is fine, so long as a concise and easy-to-follow summary is there too! :) Especially in an open game, a quick summary may be as much as people care to read and try to follow.

I wouldn't think it ought to be too hard to distill a summary paragraph, since a lot of your rules follow one from the other, or are not even rules but just commentary/speculation/advice as to how to proceed. For instance, concerning the rule regarding no early war: if no military built other than at Medina, then of course we wouldn't get too frisky! :o As another example, the whole holy land/not holy land distinction is somewhat moot anyway since anything that's not in holy land will build stuff so slowly that they will probably never run out of cultural buildings to build. Just treat the entire empire as holy land!

For instance, you might choose something like this:
- Empire wide, cultural buildings must be built before other buildings (culture 1st rule)
- Until Chivalry, we may not build military other than at Medina, except when at war (farmer gambit rule)
- We must declare war with or be at war with at least one AI civ when we reach Chivalry. To end this war we must capture a wonder or the capital city from the relevant AI(s). (crusade rule)
- If any AI razes one of our cities, we will never make peace with that AI and must eliminate them ASAP (jihad rule)
- no intentional starvation (starvation rule) -- NOTE: here I would expect people would be more likely to cashrush foreign workers rather than poprush as the cost of poprushing lots of culture buildings would be too expensive in terms of govt swaps (even if religious) and in terms of endless unhappiness
- lux tax set permanently at 10% (tithe rule)

Does that look like a fair summary/simplification? It's your ruleset, adjust to taste and serve!

One question remains, what's the policy on cash rushing? As much as you like? Common sense suggests that one wouldn't rush a lot of infrastructure in overly corrupt towns anyway, but you did make some mention of hand building culture in non-"holy land" cities, so I wanted to clear that up.

Zed, that's a nice job of simplification. Actually, I made such a mini-summary before I started! (I need KISS too?)

Here's an edit of that summary plus yours:

- The first build in EVERY city must be a temple (Temple rule)
- No non-cultural bldg can be started if there is a cultural choice
available in that city (Culture rule)
- Luxury slider permanently set to 10% (Tithe rule)
- No razing or intentional starving (Mercy rule)
- Until Chivalry we may not build military other than at Medina,
except when at war (Farmer gambit)
- We must declare war or be at war upon making our first Ansar.
That war cannot end until capture of a capital or wonder (Crusade rule)
- If any AI razes one of our core cities, we will never make peace with that AI and must eliminate them ASAP (jihad rule)

We might consider adding 'Mecca' to the military producer list, depending on the situation, purely for MP reasons.

I didn't want the start to be delayed too long, so I've actually made the map and started the game. Let's just say that what is/isn't Holy Land is crystal clear! I would prefer 'one' game too, to not tie up too many folks, so if this simplified set works, we'll go with one game, open SG. BTW, there's no problem with cash rushing per se, but it's definitely part of the intention to use devoted followers, not cash, to rush as many items as needed, outside the Holy Land. It's one of those touted pluses of communism, and a tip from 'strat' pages that I just have never tried and am determined to here :P

Thanks for your help,
Charis

Glad we got this sorted out. Boiled down to just that list, it looks pretty nice.

I keep forgetting to suggest this until it's already too late, but could you (or whoever generates the map for a SG) change the leader name to RBP-# like we do in the Epics? It makes it SO much easier to distinguish which save belongs to which game and which entry in your HoF corresponds to which game.

I agree with Carbon. That condensed list of rules is considerably easier to understand than that monster first post. You were approaching "Sirian" length in that first one Charis! :)

I like the idea and the format. At some point in time over the holidays, I'll probably play through a turn or two when not much is going on for me. Not this week though - finals time for this student.

I agree, one game with those rules would be fine. Agree on Mecca being able to produce MP as well. Chivalry is a LONG way off, we will need more than 1 city producing military or we will get walked all over; besides which, once we get to Chivalry and start a Crusade we will want to have SOME kind of offensive forces with which to do it besides our first Ansar! :lol: Probably we will have to make an effort to do the old horse->knight rush trick, but I'm a bit concerned as to how well we'll be able to pull that off with only 1 or 2 cities building military.

Communism? :confused: You DO recall what happened in RBD5 with Communism, right? :lol: We can't stay in Communism or Despotism, and swapping back and forth between governments just for the sake of being able to poprush cultural buildings seems both costly for our core due to lost income/shields/culture and unworkable long-term for our colonies due to nigh-permanent unhappiness from massive whipping. You might want to try that out, but I think that's one "tip" we can safely live without exploring. The cost/benefit on that one is telling me the only way this might be worthwhile is if we're halfway to a domination win already (relying on the sheer number of rushed buildings to make an impact) in which case the game's already won anyway.

I'd like to go last in round 1 if possible, if these rules are the final ones. I've actually played along these lines before with the Egyptians and it was one of the most fun games I've had.

I'm glad the short list makes sense!

Glad to see your interest, Marshall, and Sulla, we'll look for you post round 1.

Zed, by NO means do I expect to stay in Communism, boy that sure was nasty in RBD5! The govt-swap-poprush-swap are for a few reasons -
- I need to 'experience' it firsthand :D
- We want gobs of temples, I imagine seeing them sprawl over a whole conquered continent. Rather than pay a gazillion gold to rush a temple AND cathedral and Library in every city, it will be quicker and cheaper to swap govt about every 40turns (if that much conquering is going on)
- The people LONG to throw themselves into such a worthy project as the building of a temple or mosque and make a sacrific
- Besides, cash rush isn't off the table, if we try it once and it's leaves us with the deep sense of "ewww!!!" it won't be done again :P Obviously it wouldn't even be a thought if not for being a relig civ

Carbon, oddly, I **hate** having the leader name be RBCiv-nn, since you are referred to that mid game by other leaders in diplomacy. It wrecks "immersion" for me. Now "leader title" rather than 'name' might be a workable slot that lets the savefile be distinguished. As far as future games, if I'm alone in this view, I'll change. In any case, sorry, unless it can be done mid-stream, the first round is already done.

Charis

Regarding Civ leader names... I'm from both camps. It was a bit of a shock to play CFGOTM14 and have "Hammurabi of the Babs" cluttering my save folder. :lol: As far as that goes, for me the immersion has long since worn off. I can still get immersed into a game, or play it clinically, but either way the leader names are irrelevant to me now because I've had enough turns at the game with the default names that they are just as meaningless to me now as "ABC123". I can only play as "Bismarck of the Germans" so many times before I think, "Yeah yeah, get on with it". So I'm in complete agreement with Carbon: for tourney games, there are only plusses (in my view) to using the leader name as a game label.

There is another way, though. I also use nicknames, or alternate names. I've run a Marie Antionette at the head of France, for example, and the RBE games I ran were led by "X-man" and "Monty", making them stand out in the save game folder (filled as it is) as much as a clinical label would have. You do the same, as there has only been one game led by "D'Artagnon". :shotgun:

I'm sorry to hear that the convention is a pet peeve of yours, Charis. The mysteries of Mr. C, eh? What I don't quite grok is how that one little bit would shock you out of immersion, while dozens of other (to me, equally) absurd things in the game would not. Oh, for example, transmuting a nearly finished "palace prebuild" magically into Magellan's Voyage, or buying your way to a unanimous vote to become ruler of the world by giving away a couple of techs. Since you see past those artificial tidbits, I'd think you could get past a useful-if-antiseptic game labeling device, but... perhaps not. Whatever works for you.


I read through the thread from the start and felt... a little upset after wrapping my brain around the first rule set to find they had been replaced by several other rule sets in succession. (I'm notably short-tempered with things that create useless work for me lately, and I was left wondering why I had to read through now-obsolete rule sets to get to the real thing). If I may make a suggestion, cut all the extraneous iterations from the thread. If that doesn't appeal, then post the current (final?) rule set in the first post and earmark the others as "optional background info". If the intent is to relieve brain cramp, it will only work if folks know not to cramp themselves with the now-obsolete info.


As for "you expected KISS from Charis" :lol: ;) :hammer:

The irony is, "Sirian Length" in terms of rules tends to be pretty trim. Functional symmetry. (The Epics rules swelled in reaction to need to close down problems, not out of any desire on my part to extrapolate). But pick up the rules for Ember, and they barely fill a paragraph. Then compare to AMZ rules. Of course, Sulla wouldn't know about those items yet.

I do tend to prattle on, don't I? :) But there are many ways to be wordy, and I am champion of fewer of them than the cultural myths and good-natured teasings would indicate.


- Sirian

Shoot, you're just a TAD early reading the thread -- I fully intend to put the final rules up in post 1 and make what was there 'background' that didn't get in the way. Sorry 8-\ It also highlights my own breaking of a rule - I prefer to float game rules in a 'ideas' thread, then post the final ones and the first save and avoid the clutter. I imagine some readers will be lost when the first turn doesn't show up til page 3 :rolleyes:

I like the nickname idea for the leader names myself, and yes, D'Artagnon came to mind, and I recall it being both helpful for role playing AND to find the save files!

I probably overspoke it too, not a pet peeve, but the 'first' time I saw it I did almost choke. I'm almost used to it now actually, and it had NO adverse impact in epic 19, for example. But then again, I wasn't Joanie at all, I was Napoleon! Not to mention, last week I was stung by playing two Celt games at once and overwrote the wrong game file.

I was amused by the "Sirian length" comment!! I think you're the ONLY one who would smack me down in a length contest! I had what was for me a "tiny" post over at Apolyton, where I'm pretty much unknown, and the folks had a cow - "Holy ***** that was a loooong post!". I'm thinking, oh my, I didn't even get warmed up! :lol:

Thanks for the input, and pardon the extra work - it'll be fixed at save post tomorrow. And in the first post I'll have a "fast foward" link to the game start. Phew, we're still one page.

Charis

I just copied those existing rules cause it looks like an interesting challenge and didn't what to lose access to them.

I kind of like culture victories and this looks doable on emperor. Deity would be a stretch I think. :)

The new set of open SG rules sound fun too! :)

I really do love those Sirian - Charis dialogs, they really are an integral part of Civ3 in the forums !

from Charis :
I imagine some readers will be lost when the first turn doesn't show up til page 3

Remember your Minoan Bull SG ?
I think it was more like 10 pages before the game even begun !

You are so different and yet manage to keep on the edge of respect so that no hard feelings are ever shared...but some times it seems like its just, just , just...

Keep us entertained please !

Hard feelings? Nah. None show because there are none. We are at opposite poles in how we craft game situations, but you know they say opposites attract. :lol:

Charis likes cooking up these elaborate stews with loads of ingredients and many spices. I mostly stick to simpler recipes and just cook more of them. I can get elaborate in terms of scoring options, but tend to limit the actual gameplay rules for a scenario. Because he's juggling more ingredients, it sometimes takes him longer to find the right balance -- and with a game like civ3, he can't go through as many iterations as quickly as in other games. So I may get impatient and gripe a little, wanting a refined stew when he's still sorting out his recipe, and he may gripe a little if my soups fail to hit all the flavor buds he's itching to have stimulated. Sometimes we just need to run off to our separate kitchens and cook what we want without worrying about the other guy, but there are also times when either of us cooks up a fine dish that should not be missed.

Now whether that makes ANY sense to anybody besides Charis, I have no idea. :lol:

I might a jump in for a turn or two here, if I hit a famine period with all my other commitments.


- Sirian

One thing I just thought of that might discourage revolution back and forth between Communism is the fact that you generate no culture in anarchy, in addition to no gold and no shields. So if our rounds of whipping don't save at least two turns on the culture victory (once to flip to Communism, once to flip back to Monarchy or whatever we're at), we're better off not doing it. Now, I imagine we can get at least two turns' closer to 100k from our first few rounds like that, but the closer we get the less benefit there is to doing that (we wouldn't want to lose 2 turns' worth of culture to anarchy to rush temples that would only shave 1 turn off the victory date, not to mention the lost gold, beakers, and shields).

Here is the original background material and ruleset, which feedback suggested was too complicated for an "Open" SG :)

It's preserved here in case anyone is interested - the actual game starts in the next post. (I was really hoping this would be the close of pg 1, but someone snuck in an extra post :P )

Charis
--------

"Living by Faith" :jesus: - A PtW, Arab, Large Map, Emperor game seeking 100K Culture win

Abu Bakr, a expansionist religious zealot, is out to domainate the world, but
under the banner of culture, empowered by the devout faith of the civilization. :love2:

Variant rules center around three main areas - land, military and culture

[ Note in EDIT - Rules have been modified! Final rules will be here in the first post very shortly, once we 'start' the game, along with a link to the start! ]

* The Holy Land and city placement :cooool:
- The 12 cities closest to the Palace and the 12 closest to the Forbidden Palace
constitute the "Holy Land". There are different rules and priorities that apply:
* Inside the Holy Land...
- No non-cultural bldgs may be made when there is a cultural choice available
- Spacing must be 3 tiles or greater between towns
* Outside the Holy Land...
- No non-cultural bldgs besides an aqueduct (ie no hospitals, mktplace, courthouse...)
(Exceptions: a harbor or airport for islands, and see below for barracks)
- Fully corrupt cities should irrigate fully and use taxmen to support themselves
- Workers and settlers may be built in between cultural projects. The most common
build order will probably be temple-worker-library-settler.
- The first thing built in ANY new city must be a temple. This is to show their
great devotion to the merciful one, who must always come first.
- Razing of a city in the Holy Land city will result in a jihad, and the total
elimination of the insolent foe who would do such a thing!
- Medina, home of the Ansars, is a special city - this Holy City is the only
training ground for troops, for national defense. It should make an early barracks.
Any type of mil unit may be made in Medina, at any time. Horsemen are common early on.
* Crusades and Military :rant:
- Our 'opening' will be a massive farmer's gambit, with zero military other than
those produced by Medina (which must come after it's temple of course)
- No early wars of aggression against a civ who has never declared war on us
- The period of chivalry is one in which the pride of the Arab military is
trained, the Ansar warrior. From this point on, Arabs will deny tribute demaands.
- With the advent of Chivalry, Holy Land cities may produce Ansars in times of
peace when they have no cultural building available to build.
- The first war that starts (or is progress) at the time Chivalry is learned
becomes the First Crusade.
- During wartime, *ANY* city may build barracks and/or *ANY* kind of troops
- The Crusade cannot end before the capture of a capital or wonder, although
it should not dally on without reason as a loophole to build more troops
- If a civ has previously declared war on our civ, or is currently at war, they
will be the target of this Crusade. If we've stayed out of war, the Holy Land
cities may start to build/amass an Ansar horde and declare on the biggest
'threat' (military or cultural threat)
- A Crusade ends when we're at peace with all civs
- Should other civs show arrogance or be a threat, there may well be additional
crusades, especially as our Ansars learn to fire rifles as true Cavalry.
To get 100K culture we'll want to spread our glorious faith all over!
(Whether that's as a cultural borg or with military might, is yet to be seen!)
* The Forbidden Palace and Culture :borg:
- It's expected to have a very large number of cities, each with all the cultural
buildings they can make, but without spending CASH to rush them. This means they
will need food, and lots of it, both for the purpose of a govt swap-pop rush,
and to take as many workers off the field to be taxmen, to pay for these buildings.
- As the 24 cities in the Holy Land will be the only productive one, the Forbidden
Palace and its placement are crucial! Use the scouts and expansionists traits
wisely to get an early feel of what our long-term territory and Holy Land will look
like, and choose an FP spot which minimizes overlap of the 'rings' with the Palace!
You'll see by city number twelve if we have room to build it ourselves or whether
a currently foreign city is best suited. (Raze such a site unless it has a wonder)
** No intentional starving! Instead, introduce the foreigners to our culture
by letting them participate in a glorious pious project after the Crusade.
Our own people too, should be willing to sacrifice themselves for the advancement
of our faith and culture (e.g. govt swap and use pop-rushing for culture bldgs)
Usually... cities should be captured not razed, but judgement should be used for this
** Our religious buildings and our faith shall be sufficient for our happiness!
The so-called lux slider is not used! It is to be set permanently to 10%,
to represent a tithe of offerings given back to our provider. The blessing
of giving will no doubt bring some happiness to many cities.
We prefer the terms mosque, ampitheatres, and joyful-giver,
to what the westerners call cathedral, colloseum, and taxmen!

Do those rules sound too much? I hope not - the bottom line is:
- The rules about cultural bldgs are all to help us focus on the 100K condition
- The rules about the military give us the power to knock down a civ > 1/2 our culture
- Plan on several post-crusade govt swaps to Communism or Despotism to poprush
(I'm not sure if I have *ever* had a 100K win, and certainly not on Emperor,
so input from others who have would be helpful!)

Format: *OPEN* Succession game - Anyone can post got it, and within 12 hrs of that
must post their new save file. For the *first* round, folks expressing interest
in response to this post will get put in a definite order, and the game will become
fully after this first round. There should be opportunity in the game for many
types of players, expansionists, warmongers, builders, and role-players :p

If you have any questions or comments, or want a reserved spot in the first round, please
respond. The game will start on Dec 16/17, after the close of RBCiv Epics 19 and 20.
(It may take some folks until this time to read the above rules!! :lol: )

:hammer:
Charis

RBP3 - "Living by Faith" :jesus: - A PtW, Arab, Large Map, Emperor game seeking 100K Culture win

Abu Bakr, a expansionist religious zealot, is out to domainate the world, but
under the banner of culture, empowered by the devout faith of the civilization. :love2:

Civilization: Arabia Difficulty: Emperor
Foes: 11 total (8 Religious Japanese, Indians, Aztecs, Iro, Egypt, Bablyon, Spain, Celts,
plus 3 non-lambs: Persia, China and Scandinavia)
Map: Large 60% Continents (high land), other conditions rnd
Barbarians: Roaming (lowest setting where they still exist as wanderers)
Victory condition: All enabled, but we must win by 100K Culture
Other: Turned off AI respawn, kept culture flip and preserve rnd seed

Variant Rules

- The first build in EVERY city must be a temple (Temple rule)
- No non-cultural bldg can be started if there is a cultural choice
available in that city (Culture rule)
- Luxury slider permanently set to 10% (Tithe rule)
- No razing or intentional starving (Mercy rule)
- Until Chivalry we may not build military other than at Medina,
except when at war (Farmer gambit)
- We must declare war or be at war upon making our first Ansar when Chivalry is reached.
That war cannot end until capture of a capital or wonder (Crusade rule)
- If any AI razes one of our core cities, we will never make peace with that AI and must
eliminate them ASAP (Jihad rule)
- Mecca may provide teachers of the law - warriors for military police duty (MP rule)

Here's the starting position:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-StartingPosition.jpg

[0] 4000 BC - Near cow, lake, two BG. We'll move one square NW to get on the
coast and still have access to fresh water and cattle.

[1] 3950 BC - Our scout finds not one, not two, not three, but FOUR cows at
a site to the SE! Wowza, have we found a good "Medina spot" or what?!

Mecca is founded, and we dutifully start on a temple, and demand tithing from
all in our civilization. (Lux slider set *permanently* to 10%)

With no warriors or settlers, we hit the goody hut, and get... Bronze Working.
Praise be! This enables a GA-firing Colossus, if we sought that early (boo).
Of more value would be Oracle.

[2] 3900 BC - We're looking to be in a Florida like penninsula, or (hopefully not)
on an island. Over the next few turns our scout follows along the eastern shore
to see.

[7] 3650 BC - Another goody hut seen, and with no military, we fearlessly pop it
(actually, expansionsists don't get barbs from huts anyway). In any case...
a Settler!! Excellent!! It's so far from home, and our Medina needs to be
in a good production spot, it's a tough call whether to found near where we
are, or head back to the cows. The scout takes his second step to see if any
bonuses in sight, and we see a river just North. With river, plains, hills,
and a lot less distance to walk, Medina shall be founded not far from the goody
hut. (It might even be FP someday?) We can use the cow spot as a settler factory
rather than a troop factory anyway, especially since it's not on a river.

[8] 3600 BC - Scout moves further and sees a wheat, confirming our choice!
We'll pick the spot that puts it in outer tiles but keeps the hills, since
our temple will expand to hit the wheat soon enough.

[11] 3450 BC - Nothing but shore, finds our scout. Mecca expands and sees either
an island or a jutty to the NW.

[NOTE! The first round was played WITHOUT the MP rule, which was added because
it would really just get too ugly without any MP]
With Mecca now size 2 we see the first effect of our variant rules. With no MP
or lux past 10%, the people of Mecca are unhappy. No wonder!! Their glorious
temple is not yet complete! We teach the joys of giving and have one worker rest from
his labors and spend time learning about this wonderful creation, contemplating
the subject of Mysticism.

[15] 3250 BC - Our first temple is complete, and we start the first of several settlers.
Our worker prepares the cow area already.

[17] 3150 BC - Masonry from our next hut. Granary... not bad choice after temple.

[22] 2900 BC - Our settler is done at Mecca. The cow site is SO lush I can't delay
it for a granary, but we can start one now.

Alas, our scout confirms it... we're ALONE on an island. The merciful one has
chosen to protect us from harm, so that we would rely on him and not on
military might! This should mean unhindered expansion and temple building.

[23] 2850 BC - Damascus, o fertile Damascus, is founded.
Next turn Medina finishes it temple and starts a much-needed worker. Those troops
we thought we would need aren't as critical.

[28] 2630 BC - Damascus is booming, and requests the honor of helping to research
Mysticism, to keep the people happy while the temple is under construction.

[29] 2590 BC - Medina worker complete, and it starts it calling as training center,
beginning a barracks. We adjust Mecca to make sure granary done before growth.

[40] 2150 BC - Mysticism is due next turn, Mecca settler due in 4, Damascus in
6. Both may need a taxman on last round, the latter may prefer granary swap,
or even go for Oracle. The problem is, with NO luxuries on our island, and 10%,
we're unhappy at far too small size. Medina will need to crank warriors just for
MP purposes VERY soon. [again, with MP rule, Mecca can do this too] Damascus may
have gotten too much irrigation given it's fixed at size 6, may need to mine over
one at some point. The scout is finishing his 'second loop' to try to de-fog a
few squares here and there.

Roster: None, it's open! Anyone can post "got it", and within 12 hrs, play and
post their new save file, taking 10 turns. (For the next turn only, take 20)
Griselda, Carbon and Zed pre-signed up and no one should grab it a second time before
they've got it at least once :P

Save files for 2150 BC and 4000BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-Arabs-2150BC-and4000BC.zip)

The game is open... have at it! :hammer:
Charis

Some initial thoughts after the first turn...

One idea given our isolation is to put Damascus on palace placeholder
for literature and Great Library. What tech to pick next is up to our next
leader as well - Map Making, head to Literature, or head to Monarchy. (Since we
can't adjust slider, forget Republic anytime this millenium)

The other thing that comes to mind is FP. By the game's original concept,
it has to be in the "Holy Land", ie on our starting island. Although most
of those ideas have been dropped, I definitely still want a largely populated
homeland with FP present there. Medina sure looks to be in a great spot. It
also has a designated role as troop producer. We do have an interesting option,
however - put Medina on Palace placeholder for FP, have Damascus crank out
settlers and Mecca crank out MP warriors (or later, chariots/horses). Getting
one more city going on a wonder would be nice too, but probably too optimistic.
If we put Medina on early FP placeholder, we'll want to found some of the cities
PAST it, to keep corruption low in Medina itself.

Below is a possible dotmap with two distinctive features -
- Spacing is a tight 3-tile layout, only city 20 would be 2-tiles
- That leaves us four cities to fill up a small island, or else we may end
up considering this island itself as "The Holy Land" (simpler, and fits 'role')
- The order is relative, but the odd numbering show is for a reason - if we found
the spots FAR away, past Medina first, after the 12th is built it can self-build
the FP. What I'm not sure is, although it would not be ultracorrupt, would it
still be SO low in shields that self-building FP won't work. Keep in mind too that
for every city closer than Medina, that will increase its corruption and troop
making ability, even if it doesn't go for FP. Going this route, it might even
be good to forsake all for this goal - swap off barracks to palace placeholder,
and when the 12th city is build, switchover to FP.
(Looking for another spot, none is nearly as good as Medina)
- I hope some other civ is near, or it will be not only slow getting to Chivalry,
but a REAL challenge to capture a capital or wonder in our first crusade!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-ArabDotmap.jpg

BTW, another reason the MP rule was added was that I really hadn't counted
on having *NO* luxuries whatsoever available in our starting spot 8-\

Charis

That's quite a dense build! What was your objective, to try to fit as close to 24 cities as possible, to try to get all cities 12 worked tiles, or something else? That will leave each of our cities short on shields, but will give us lots of cash. I would suggest to eliminate city 20 and move 18 one tile NW, I think we're a bit too close to ICS for comfort there. Especially with all that desert not providing any food, we need to ensure all our cities have enough food-producing tiles available to grow to a respectable size. Anyway, our starting island is sufficient for the holy land. I don't think it's likely we'll ever have to invoke the Jihad rule now... :)

Growth-wise, what do we need? We have to keep all our cities at or below size 6 or we'll never be able to keep them happy without specialists (thus slowing their growth), at least until harbours are built and the AI starts being able to trade us lux. However, Medina is on a river; moreover we need it to be building MP even to keep size 6 cities. A really early FP might be possible at 200 shields before we have too many cities getting large enough to need lots of MP, but I don't think we can afford a big wonder there or unhappiness will get out of control and stunt our growth too much. A couple regular MP warriors and then Palace/Oracle prebuild for FP would be better. Something that naturally caps at 6 due to lack of fresh water might be a better candidate for a long wonder build. At least if we keep Mecca and Damascus on settler duty (with Mecca also on MP) then we can be pretty much guaranteed to grab our island before the AIs come to grab a piece, so if we waste one or two cities' production on wonders and can't get them we won't miss the production that much. If we do go for wonders, Pyramids and Great Library strike me as way better than Oracle, especially with our enforced delay on starting granaries until after temples+libraries (if possible) are complete. I would rate our chances at Pyramids as dubious but Great Library (with Palace prebuild) as quite possible if the cascade breaks our way.

In hindsight, Mysticism probably wasn't what we wanted to research. We need literature quickly so we can get early libraries going, but we need mapmaking first for contacts/luxuries and to be able to build harbours in coastal villages before they are forced to build a library. In many cases, harbours would rate more highly than granaries.

In my experience, the game always starts each civ within reasonable reach to a luxury. On island settings like this, the "nearest lux" might be on a small island a couple tiles across the water from somewhere near the capitol, I wouldn't be surprised if you find there's a very nearby island, inhabited or not, with your luxury on it.

Very good comments Zed, tnx!

> That's quite a dense build! What was your objective, to try to
> fit as close to 24 cities as possible, to try to get all cities 1
> 2 worked tiles, or something else? ... I would suggest to
> eliminate city 20 and move 18 one tile NW, I think we're a bit
> too close to ICS for comfort there.

The goal was to get as close to 24 cities as possible in our Holy Land... er... island, without having any with a spacing of 2. Elimiating C20 would be fine. [EDIT] Also, in my mind, 3 spacing is "dense", 2 is "ICS". Or as T-Hawk put it: "no pairs of cities at 6-tiles or more of overlap(which is a 3/0 or 3/1 distance on the grid) except to fill in along a coastline. That gives each city right around 12 tiles, which is optimal."

I think there's a bit too much aversion to 'ICS' - first of all that 'I' stands for "Infinite" and we're only talking about our core :P
I'm figuring that very early temples in cities built asap in the core is the best start - we don't need huge shield production.

> Especially with all that desert not providing any food, we need
> to ensure all our cities have enough food-producing tiles
> available to grow to a respectable size.

Abu-Charis says "It is the matter of the heart that is important not the size. A city of size one can have a temple and be faithful!"
(Ok, actually, not enough concern given about desert - we don't want our people to be without food)

> Anyway, our starting island is sufficient for the holy land. I don't
> think it's likely we'll ever have to invoke the Jihad rule now...
Hehe, yes, if so we're doing something wrong.

I think you're probably right in that we can't afford a wonder city given our other needs. Warr-pair then prebuild for Medina seems fine too.

As you point out, a foreigner settling in the Holy Land would be most distasteful.

> In hindsight, Mysticism probably wasn't what we wanted to
> research. We need literature quickly so we can get early
> libraries going, but we need mapmaking first for
> contacts/luxuries and to be able to build harbours in coastal

Abu-Charis eschews your heathen-like comment decrying glorious Mysticism and the wonder of double-force temples in our temple-rich land! What need have we for mapmaking and learning the ways of the evil world?!?!

[ Zed, your comment was a kind way of saying that "Mysticism sucks!", and you're right of course! You'll see similar such role-inspired semi-weed as the game progresses, although I'll try to keep it not TOO detrimental :D ]

falsfire, wow, I hope you're right! Another island with space for 4-6 cities would be a great boon, and would relieve the need for overcramping our starting island. That just highlights the already obvious need for mapmaking asap!

Does anyone have any idea how many culture-focused cities we'll need to hit 100K before the AI launches, on Emperor, large map?
Knowing whether that number is 16 or 48 would have a huge impact on the game plan. (The Great Library with its high culture value would help a lot, in any case)

Charis (with help from Abu-Charis :jesus: )

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27108

might give some helpful clues on city numbers. I know they did it, but I missed half the details, as I was way busy during the heart of the game and haven't read it carefully.

My experience with 100K culture is that the culture of wonders is way overrated vis-a-vis shield cost and that early temples/libraries/cathedrals/colosseums/universities are much more important. But, I've not done 100K in a LONG time, so that's partly experience but mostly "just theory" speaking.

Arathorn

@falsefire

While your lux comments were right on the money concerning Vanila Civ3, I'm finding more variety on that front in ptw. In vanila, the only time you wouldn't start with a lux as far as i could see was on tiny 20% land pelagos as far as i could see. Aparently it couldn't fit all the lux in on those sometimes. In fact, I once generated a map with no lux anywhere on the entire planet (8 horses/iron, 4 of the other strategic resourses was all there was period).

In fact, on standard size maps, i NEVER saw one where the lux/civ stat locations was not exacty the same

The other day in an SP ptw game I had this situation. I shared an island and one lux with Rome, Egypt had an island to themselves with one lux. China started on an island alone with no lux. The other 4 civs had 5 lux on their island they shared. The eighth lux, gems, was on a very big, 95% jungle island about as far away from chinas no lux island as possible. This was on a standard 40% land map no less.

It generally does start you with a lux, but its not nearly as reliable about that as vanilla was.

OK, I'll pick it up and follow the build plan to move this forward.

2110 Mysticism discovered, Alphabet started, science raised to 80%.
2070 Scout on to lookout duty to watch for barbs
2030 Mecca worker set to scientist to save disorder.
1990 Mecca produces settler and will build warrior under the MP rule. This settler will proceed to build spot 6. [speed rule :)]
1950
1910 Damascus builds settler starts another. Settler heads for build spot 4. science 90%
1870 Mecca builds warrior, starts another. Baghdad founded start temple.
1830 Najran founded start temple. Medina switches to palace, The Medina gambit commences ( dislike coastal palaces and we know we need a good center for military later). Has to wait for MP from Mecca.
1790
1750
1725
1700
1675
1650 Settler on route to spot 5. science down to 70
1625
1600
1575 Discover alphabet on to writing. Mecca starts another settler.
1550
1525
1500


Pretty basic except for the Medina gambit, two settlers about to come on line, writing still 20 turns away, working on connecting roads.

Abu Bakr of the Arabs, 1500 BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-Arabs-1500BC.zip)

Good to see it moving, tnx CB for picking that up.

The Caliph, as also advised by holy zed, affirms the wisdom of movement toward libraries, where we can gather to read and study the wisdom of the ages, and to use writing to preserve our glorious culture! It is good that the holy cows of Damascus can both provide new settlers and provide income for a hefty research budget.

"Caliph Abu-C is somewhat puzzled by talk of gambits. One surely does not mean the movement of our Palace itself from the holiest of all cities, Mecca??! The very pilgrimage (Haj) site for all the faithful! This is... strictly forbidden!!! In fact, only a Forbidden Palace could be built in the city founded by the settler-granted-by-fate, Medina! If this was the gambit spoken of, having a second center of government to reduce corruption, this seems a wise albeit unusual course of action. Surely we will found 12 cities by the time Medina has assembled the brick and mortar needed to put together such a wonder."

I've been taking a close look at TH2 SG, the only other 100K one I've seen, also fortunately on Emperor. They were using a more restrictive ruleset - we have the advantage of a Crusade to aide our goals. The bottom line is that a solid 20-24 cities very focused on culture should be enough to reach 100K by about 1940 AD. The problem they faced was a civ with more than half their culture and they had to accumulate 200K (!) to win - with about 80 cities, many founded or taken early enough to be useful culturally. This should give us both incentive to have some nice combat with the Ansars, as well as not let us get TOO worried about having enough time or cities to win - there's slack to 'play around' some :P Later in the game I'll post more technical details and some charts on culture progress based on this analysis.

Charis

PS - This post almost started with "Technical problem - I can't seem to load the save file you posted" - until I realized I was trying to open it under vanilla Civ3 :P

Fear not Caliph Abu-C this construction at Medina will never reach the magnificence of our palace at Mecca. But it should serve well to deliver your guidance to all the surrounding lands and aid the spread of holiness far and wide.



Without the MP rule though this building at Medina would not have been practical at all.

My last deity 100K culture win had about 60 cities, not more than 20 cities in the main core, so I doubt this will be much of a problem. ;)

Quick question, what was Medina doing until 1830? Building MP for itself, building the barracks, or something else?

Zed-F, when I picked up the game it was already building barracks. It would have completed those barracks next turn (1790BC). Perhaps getting a leg up on the Forbidden Palace was pretty weedy but corruption will be a major problem even before the FP is completed. If we had not been alone and fairly secure for at least a while I doubt if I would have gone down this path. Hope it's not a break from the intended rules, at least it's a culture building. :) Probably by the time it builds the FP it may have to build a library (if we have literature by then) before it can produce a barracks so it will have it's work cut out for it.

No, I was a proponent of the early FP as well if you take a look at the discussions, and that's perfectly fine under our rules. It sounds like at the start of your turn it was building a barracks, but when the barracks was almost complete you swapped to Palace? I was thinking of a swap to 2 regular warriors for MP at Medina at the outset and then start the FP, still skipping the barracks. This would have provided the MP to allow Medina to grow for a bit while building the FP, while still getting a quick start on the FP, and with less MP-production stress on Mecca. However, I don't know how many shields Medina had built up before your turn started, so maybe that wouldn't have been a prudent move. Anyway, it's water under the bridge now. :) As things stand, I would just let the FP complete, and hope that Mecca can keep up the pace with MPs for Medina as well as everywhere else.

Side note: how embarassing for Medina though that Mecca will have to provide them with MPs, when they are the military focus city! They're going to have a tough time living that one down anytime soon... :)

Nope, didn't build barracks, not warriors either :(, just switched and saved all the shields for the FP. It was a long wait for that first warrior from Mecca to get there but I had made the mistake already. Mecca was pumping warriors every 2 turns (so got six) and Mecca's natural sheild production went over 5, I changed over to settler.

Ok, no problem, I didn't read your post correctly to begin with, and looks like you replied before my edit came in. :)

I'll have to check the save later, but it sure sounded like he swapped OFF barracks, as Zed hoped. [ JUST before submitting I now see CB has answered - no rax. That was definintely the smart move! If it's building the FP it won't be making troops and a rax would just delay the FP for several turns for no reason - good job ]

The fact that the Medina settler was a "gift from above" (aka goody hut) makes it somewhat special, and a from-the-start shot at Forbidden Palace is both nicely in character and something I can't say I've ever tried. Rather than a bonus settler doubling the growth rate of a civ (it's usual impact) - in our game the effect will be a free quasi-early FP. It would probably make sense as soon as we can spare a worker to start it improving/mining tiles around Medina.

But yes, it is quite ironic that Mecca will supply our barracks-less military town with MP units :lol:

BTW, I read in another thread where a city hit +10 food surplus and 8 shields per turn, and since it grew every turn, it pulled in one more worker to make it really 10 spt. That's a worker *EVERY* turn! omg, what a worker factory! I wonder with all those cows if Damascus can hit this golden number?? Forget granaries elsewhere when you can send workers to join the city. Our pop score would be very nice indeed :P

Not looking at the map so silly question, but... any chance of Baghdad taking a shot at a wonder? (Getting two of the three GLib, GLthouse, Oracle would be a miracle, but quite a boon. I know though, that's crazy talk)

Charis

Charis, I don't think the 10 food/10 shields number can come before railroad. You may have a 5 food/5 shields situation in your sacred cow city, giving you a worker every 2 turns.

This is an interesting SG, I guess I will be followingit closely. :)

I just looked at Damascus and it's *9* surplus food at size 4, and that's using a tile mined instead of irrigated and we're in *despotism* :eek: Four grass cows!

Let me see... let's look at post-despotism numbers - use one irrigated and three mined cows, one mined hill, one mined BG, that's for a size 6 city, will give +10 food, 13 shields. Kick it down to size 5 for a size 5->6 cycle and drop that BG, and it's
+10 food, 11 shields, or 10 after corruption.

I think we have us a MEGA worker factory, once it's done with settler production and we're out of despotism. Cool! :cool:

Zed, Carbon, Griselda, jump on in if you have time here, else someone else go right ahead and help settle our lovely holy island :P We're just avoiding folks going twice until those who showed definite interest got to play once.

Charis

I've been pretty surprised at how much of my free time has evaporated this week. :( I'm not going to have time to play until this weekend, so I'm hoping some other lemmings might jump in in the mean time.

I know I'll be off work for at least two weeks after this one, then I can do more jumping. :)

-Griselda

I'll try to take a shot at this one tomorrow night. I know I won't have time for the Korean Diety game then, but I think I can squeeze some turns in then if somone else isnt playing it. That doesn't mean wait on me, heh, anyone feel free to take it of course.

I tried taking a turn this morning, but for some reason my Civ3 PTW CD is not working, so I'm going to have to skip out on playing this one for now at least. :( We'll see if I get an opportunity to try and take another turn if/when I get the problem resolved.

I came home to find the house surprisingly quiet. :) I'm going to start now, and should have a report up by some time tonight.

-Griselda

(0) 1500 BC - Everything looks great :)
BT- Mecca completes settler, starts warrior. Damascus completes settler and starts granary.

(1) 1475 BC - Settlers move off to spots 7 and 8. Medina worker heads south to connect the road. There's an extra warrior that Medina doesn't need right now, that will head to the coastal hill for a lookout (look! water!). He'll join one of the settlers for MP duty. Mecca gets to use the mined grass tile (aargh, dense builds means lots of tile swapping, doesn't it?).
BT- Baghdad temple -> worker

That's when I got to thinking, does the "cultural rule" apply to wonders? Do we want it to? That is, can a city build a non-cultural building if there's a wonder available? That would fit with the rules as written, but in reality could mean a ton of wasted shileds unless the AI have been only trading :smoke: Anyway, for now I tried to play it out kind of in the "spirit" of that one, but haven't put enough shields to anything to commit.

Anyway, Nayran completes worker, starts Oracle. If nothing else, this could be swapped to an early library.

(2) 1450 BC
BT- Mecca war -> war

(3) 1425 BC - Tile swap between Mecca and Baghdad. New warriors will be headed to the NE for MP duty. It's a long enough walk that I don't want to wait until I need them to start sending them.

(4) 1400 BC - Kufah founded @5. I spent way too long trying to decide between the wheat and the game tile, and ended up starting on the wheat. This would have been the right choice in any other game, but with the Tithe rule I should have started in the game forest. Anyway, I swapped it once it grew and I realized the mistake.

BT - Mecca war -> settler
Baghdad worker -> granary

(5) 1325 BC
(6) 1300 BC - Najran worker moves to Damascus. Mecca is size 6 and needs a scientist until the settler is done.

(7) 1275 BC The ancient age equivalent of the twin cities. Two settlers set out on the same date, one from Mecca and one from Damascus. They spent many long years in travel, and finally founded "Basca" (@7) and "Khurasan" (@8), once again on they very same year. This was widely seen as a good omen, inspiring the people to begin construction on twin temples. Damascus now needs a scientist.

(8) 1250 BC
BT - Mecca settler -> settler

(9) 1225 BC - Kufah grows and immediately hires a scientist, oops!

(10) 1200 BC -

State of the Holy Land-
There's only one settler, who is on the way to site 9. Mecca has another settler in the works, and Damascus will be able to crank when its granary is complete, in 2. Damascus is set to grow again in 1, but with +7 food the box will at least be a good way towards a refill when the granary is full. Some workers over by Mecca and Damascus are building roads over plain tiles, they are on the way to bg tiles to work.
Baghdad and Najran are on very veto-able projects. Barracks are of course right out, and they can't make MP units anyway! I thought it may be good to grab a granary in Baghdad while there's no cultural option, and the Oracle seemed so fitting for the Civ that I couldn't help but start it somewhere. Najran has higher corruption than Baghdad, but more shield tiles available. Of course, it could be swapped out to a library or something as the tech comes in.

Writing is due in 4 with a small deficit. We still haven't met any of the faith-less heathens.

The 10% tithe rule definitely changes things more than I'd have expected! I hope I didn't let the cities grow too much on my turn (how often do you hear that in the ancient age?)

Enjoy! :)

-Griselda

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-gris-1200bc.zip

That was a good turn Griselda. :p

In general, no, you do NOT have to start a great wonder to satisfy the culture rule. That would end us up too much like the AI, trying to build Hoover Dam in a spot with 3 shields per turn. In this specific case, we don't lose TOO much having Najran going for the Oracle, and it's quite "fitting". There are also two other wonders to swap to if it gets finished by someone else early.

If we do keep in on a wonder, the next leader might consider letting Najran have the mined-cow and mined-BG squares. That would give it almost twice as many shields. When it hits size 4-5 it will pull a very nice 8-10 shields. Also, if you can road and mine the gold hills, working that tile would be high squares AND due to the high commerce cause an extra smiley face in the city.

Medina is doing great on its FP production - it looks like it will be ready just about the time our 12th city is founded!

And yes, the tithe rule will be tougher and more important than one might think, especially when it comes to war time, or if we make the mistake of importing and getting used to a bunch of luxuries, then see them dry up.

Game is free... come lead our holy people to greater glory!

Charis

Since we are on an island and Medina will obviously not help with any navy, what is the ruling on these military units. Is Mecca our only source on navy in the ancient times and pre war times? Whatever the guidance, how about adding to that guidance "No naval units unless the city has a harbor"?

I wasn't suggesting having wonders going in all the 3spt cities, but I was thinking that if they were being built in a good city or 2 that they then wouldn't be options for our little cities ;)

I think that we have enough restrictions that we shouldn't force ourselves into lost causes, but we should maybe make the "in character" ones a priority when realistic.

-Griselda

Vessels are merely vessels for our holy warriors. Things made out of wood and pitch and lines. There is no restriction on making these (beyond the expected - don't build one first if it delays a cultural bldg improvement)

We must take our faith to the world!

Abu-Charis

I got it

1200BC(0) - The holy land... what's so holy about this land. It is far from a holy and just place with its restless citizens and lazy workers. I will do much during my rule to make this land a "holy" one through the rigid application of the bambo cane. I veto the production of the granary in Baghdad and build another worker instead. I also switch our second scientist to a taxmen with Writing still due in 4 turns and only -3 per turn now.

1175BC(1) - Baghdad Worker -> Granary. Our worker from baghdad journeys to medina to help improve the many plains around our future winter place of worship. The decision to build the oracle in Najran is troubling. I think one of the heathen nations will complete a similar wonder before we do. I may move the Oracle to Mecca and put all effort into building this great temple honoring our holy land.

1150BC(2) - Our granary completes in Damascas. The holy land will soon be graced with hordes of settlers! My advisor's bring me anchient texts from the great Abu-Charis which contradict my plan of building the oracle in Mecca. If we do this they say I won't be able to build our cane wielding warriors to "protect" the populace from immoral thoughts. I order the reorganization of our workers in Najran to speed the building of the Oracle. 92 turns now. This is still not good enough. I will continue to ponder this problem...

1125BC(3) - Mecca produces another settlers and begins a "cane" Warrior. Our worker reaches medina and begins a great irrigation project to bring rich fertile lands to our coastal cities.

1100BC(4) - Our holy scientists discover writing and promptly write down the rules of law for our holy land. We must find a way to spread our message to others and begin research into map making. Anjar is founded where Abu-Charis decreed in the ancient "dotmap" (number 9). A temple is ordered. I drop our scientific research to 50% for Map Making in 29 turns a -1. Anything higher we cannot afford. Najran grows and now we complete the oracle in 68 turns.

1075BC(5) - Mecca completes a cane warrior and starts another. I declare we need gold as additional tribute so a mine is ordered on our gold producing hill near Najran.

1050BC(6) - Our temple in Kufah completes and I order a worker.

1025BC(7) - Mecca completes a warrior and I order another. OH THE SHAME - the Heathen Iroqouis complete a great monument to their gods before us.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3oracle.jpg

I order our master architect beheaded for his incompetence. I switch Najran to the Colossus.

1000BC(8) - Damascus completes another settler and I order up another one. Still angry over losing the Oracle I whip a temple in Khurasan as homage to our god.

975BC(9) - Our temple in Khurasan completes and I order a worker. Mecca completes a warrior and starts a settler.

950BC(10) - Our worker completes in Kufah and I start another. I'm going to undo one of the irrigated cows as we need shields in Damascus more than food now. Next leader should continue building temples settlers, workers and "cane" warriors. Irrigation of the land around Medina will be critical once the FP comes on line. The more prepared we are when that happens the better boost we will get from it.

Here is the great holy land as of 950BC.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3950bc.jpg

Here is the save:

950BC (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-arabs-950bc.zip)

Be warned, holy ones, that Colossus will trip a golden age for your people. (And pray, pardon an interruption from this most humble of lurkers.)
:jesus:

Surely the heathen are both bold and industrious to complete so great a project as the Oracle! Fortunately, besides Colossus we have Pyramids and before TOO long, Great Lighthouse.

But if the heathen get even busier still, there is an out. We have two settlers in the field I think, and one more about to come out. Have the latter head to the city site the closest number of turns away, to found the 12th city. The FP can be built the turn that is founded - I think we're probably real close to the shields already, and Narjan will have the Palace open to change too (if other GW's get built) If open wonder choices are built and we've not settled our 12, the shields would be lost.

If things are nicer, as I hope, we'll reach Map Making and can snag the Lighthouse before then. It'll depend on whether someone's capital is on the coast.

Good luck to our next pious leader...
Charis

Unless a more worthy leader steps forward a shall continue this crusade for cultural dominance beginning this evening.

I will check tonight if a more qualified leader emerges from the darkness to grab the staff and continue before I complete my turns at the helm.

(In other words if someone has a problems with me playing 10 turns please let me know)


Hotrod

There is no more worthy leader than the one who cares for the good of his people....

Rule wisely, rod of heat! Consult the star map of dots or choose your own path, but found our 12th of cities with rapidity, that we may grow in grace and truth!

Abu-Charis

We welcome the vote of confidence. The round has begun and may the path to cultural domination come easily! ;) Report will come later tonight

Hotrod

And so it Continues: The Holy land is very close to the glory of the FP.

950 BC (0): The citizens are reorganized in Mecca and Demascus to grow and build settlers each in 4 at Mecca and a new settler from Damascus in 4 as well.

925 BC (1): Damasscus grows to 6 and requires the aid of wizard to keep the peace, settlers shall leave the city the next time it grows. Maps in 16 with +0 gold.

900 BC (2): Found Fustat at site 10 to the NW, begin our temple as required by our faith.

875 BC (3): The city to the East is to be founded soon, only 1 more site and we shall realize our dream of a vast land free from corruption.

850 BC (4): Mecca releases a group to settle within the holy lands, and begins a warrior to help control the masses. Damascus too creates a group of followers to spread the word, and starts another. Found Aden to the East, begin the temple. Production must be slowed in Kufah, too much shields.

825 BC (5): Production on the settlers continues at Kufah. The 2 settlers head to the North and toward greatness.

800 BC (6): The warrior leaves the capital in search of new citizens to "protect". Our settlers arrive at site 13 next turn, the glory of the the FP shall be realized in due time.

775 BC (7): The play at Kufah is a bust, the tireless workers completed a mine and pushed production ever closer. The 12th city will become a reality next turn.

INBT: The horror the infidels of Spain have completed the Colossus, humm is there anything to change to????

750 BC (8): Found Yamamma at site 13, start temple. Change the great project at Medina to the Forbidden Palace and swap the Colossus of Najran to the Pyramids. The gods have wished well upon us ;).

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/medina.JPG



730 BC (9): More warrior leave from Mecca to keep the peace, a group of villagers begin. Medina completes the Forbidden Palace :D, starts barracks. Khurasan releases a worker and begins a granary. Basra builds the temple and starts a worker.

710 BC (10): Damassucus builds a settler and starts another. Egypt completes the Pyramids, Najran is changed to Palace. Japan completes the Great Wall. Found Muscat to the NW of Medina.



The lands have been well settled but many sites still remain. Our first boats will be available in 4 turns, then it is on to Lit and the culture of the library.

Good luck to the next leader.

Hotrod

Here is the save:

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3_710BC.zip

http://civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-710BC.JPG

Great blessings upon our nation and thanks above for providential timing! Those wonders did go quick, as the heathen did lick them up, but our most wonderful Palace in Medina was complete in time to save Najran, as well as bless the people of the eastern part of our lands.

The rod of heat has led welll... who will be next, and teach
us how to read the scriptures?!?!? Mayhaps meet another civilization? :king:

Abu-Charis

PS Wow, hand-built FP in 730BC on a large map, that's a record for me.

PPS We'll actually need a wonder tech before the Palace would finish at Najran, or it will be a very expensive library :P
(EDIT - in response to Hotrod below, GL or GL, tough call! I wish I knew what the rest of the map was like! Library is probably more useful, but more likely to go before we get the tech. Lighthouse could be uber on the right map, or useless on the wrong one - more thoughts on this would be helpful)

PPPS I just looked at our island picture again, and it seems like the 'dry hot weather' version of Cuba!

The Great Lighthouse will be available in 4 turns. And after that the Great Library. If they do not go before that :eek:.

Hotrod

I got it. Will post in an hour or so. :)

[0] Not a whole lot to say here. Most of the build orders/tiles worked are pretty much on auto pilot because of the scenareo or the lack of any tile improvments available.

Things of note.

1) The capital is cranking an evil 9spt at size 5. We will want to fix that to 10 this turn if possible by mining that irrigated BG.

2) We need more workers!!! I'm going to set up a worker factory at our cow city after it finishes the settler. I'm also going to found the cities slightly out of order, skiping 14 for now. I assume we agree to axe city 20? That should just leave 14 and 19 to be founded.

3) With the inability to touch the slider, I assume Monarchy would be better for this sceneareo? Maybe T-Hawk or one of the better number crunchers can give us the rundown of whats better being stuck at 10%. IT just seem's like we'll have an awful lot of clowns arround with 10% tithe and no lux/MP.

4) We are OBVIOUSLY way behind in tech as the Great Wall has allreday been produced. We have a SCARY choice of which wonder to choose. What if we are on an island that can't reach anyone before Navigation *shudder*
No build orders are changed.

[1] Baghdad Grainery -> Settler (Should only need one more settler started other than this to fill in the Holy land, and site 19 is so deset laden 4-5 turns delay on it should be no biggie)
Kufah Settler -> Grainery (Harbor Placeholder Perhaps)

[2] Spacebar Turn ZZZZZZZ

[3] Mecca Settler -> Settler (The last one we need)
Barsa Worker -> Grainery (Library Prebuild)
Slider Adjusted so we get 16gold as Map Making comes in.

[4] Map Comes in, Research Started on Lit at 12 turns with a 1gpt clearance.
Narjan swaps from Palace, to Lighthouse..... Hope there is still a wonder available 26 turns from now.....
Damascus Settler -> Worker I see this city can crank one of these every 2 turns without even needing the 4th cow, and should probably do this now... NO WAIT, DOH. I don't see ANYWHERE else that would be able to complete a Harbor before Literature... If I don't build one here, NOW, we wont't have one until AFTER Libraries. The settler factory is going to have to wait for a few turns...
Mansura founded at spot 17, starts temple (duh)

[5] Medina Baracks -> Worker (the 6th pop point isnt doing us any good)

Continue micromanaging the heck out of the overlap tiles around Mecca/Damascus/Narjan to keep them all growing/building at the best available rate. It's funny to see all 3 of them working tiles closer to everywhere else than home :lol: Lighhouse now due in 19.

[6] Anjar Temple -> Worker

[7] Medina Worker -> Warrior
Bukhara founded at site 16
Aleppo founded at the adjusted site 18

The 2nd hill near Narjan is now mined, puting an end to the swap everyone arround every turn fun :) The Harbor will complete the same turn Lit comes in, so assuming we arent FORCED to use Scroll ahead to swap lo library, we will have one finished so that no matter what, when Navigation comes around we will have a trade route with anyone we have found. It's kind of bad that our only Harbor is in our worker factory city, but at least there IS going to be one. There is no further benifit to MMing the wonder because the extra sheild is lost to corruption, and the Capital will grow just as it completes the settler. Wheee, that was a micro managing headache now put to rest.

[8] Mecca Settler -> Galley
Fez founded at site 15

[9] Medina Warrior -> Warrior

[10] Muscat Temple -> Grainery


Notes:

We are now losing 2gpt on research. I check and we can go down a notch and still get Lit in 5 and we will make 4gpt instead.

We have a settler near Aleppo that should be sent along to fill in the last costal spot near Fez, and a Settler which will complete in Baghdad next turn to fill in the final gap. Our first Galley will complete in the Capital in 4 turns, our Harbor will complete in cow town in 5, the same turn Literature comes in. The Lighthouse is due in 14 if we decide to take that rather than go for the Library.

I messed up one thing, letting Mansura borrow the Game forest 1 turn too long, so it will grow to size 2 one turn before the temple completes. Next player will want to watch this to make sure it doesn't riot at the end of his next turn.

Pretty basic and straightforward turn with few critical decisions to be made. The next couple of leaders will have far more important choices to make than I did, such as research stratagey, and wether to keep on the Lighthouse, or go for the Library, risking the Lighthouse being swallowed via cascade.

As soon as our harbor finises in cow town, we should set it up as our worker factory, and, perhaps even make a settler out of it first to send out on a galley.

To whomever follows me, good luck.

Save file can be found at:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-Arabs-510BC.sav

Got it.

0 - everything looks good. Medina completes warrior, begins spearman (it is making 7 spt). Bagdad completes settler, begins harbor (library prebuild). Anjar completes worker, begins harbor. Aden completes temple, begins worker.

1 - with our current map, I really don't see a need/reason to settle position 19 (it will only help us reclaim 1 desert tile). Instead, I send our settler towards the capital to board our soon to be completed galley.

2 - Nothing much. Mecca completes galley, begins another. Yamama completes temple, begins worker.

3 - Nothing much. Medina completes spearman, begins another.

4 - We see land to the W of Kufah. We should be able to get there (safely) next turn. We learn Literature, begin researching Mathematics. Damascus completes harbor, begins settler. Fustat completes temple, begins library. Switch Najaran to the GL, due in 22 turns! Switch most of our harbor and granary prebuilds to libraries.

5 - We found Shiraz to the N, NW of Manura. We begin building a temple. Aden produces a worker, begins a library.

6 - We found Merw and a the friendly Numidian tribe gave us their map of our region. Begin a temple (does the temple have to come before a worker? If not, the next leader might want to consider building a worker first to help speed up growth. Alternatively, one could send a worker from from the Holy Land...). Change Medina from Library to a spearman as we could still use more MP. Mecca produces another Galley, begins a Library. Medina completes spearman and begins another. Kufah riots (Grrr... I must have missed it when I was scanning through the F1 screen. I hire a tax collector.)

7 - Nothing much. It appears that we might be alone on our newly discovered island as well. Hopefully we'll be able to reach another island if that is the case. Yamama completes a worker, and begins another.

8 - We have to MM Mansura this round to prevent rioting. I take the game tile from Kufah to prevent starvation. We hire another tax collector in Mecca to prevent rioting (is there a particular reason we can't raise the lux slider beyond 10% (I understand that if we lowered it, we would no longer be contributing our tithe :nono:, but if more of our economy was being used to teach about Allah's benevolance, it could increase the happiness of our citizens... :)) Damascus produces a settler, begins another. Mansura completes its temple, begins a worker.

9 - I set a couple of workers outside of Yamama to chop the forest there. The next leader should pay attention to when they will be finished so that we can be sure that Baghdad gets the shields instead of Yamama or Bukhara (swap Baghdad to using that forested tile on the turn that the workers will finish chopping down the forest).

10 - Note to next leader, do not use our warrior on our western island to pop the goody hut until we get several more troops over there. We don't want to have barbs harassing Merw. Speaking of which, we should probably send the warrior back to Merw soon in case some barbs show up on the northern part of that island. I hire an entertainer (is this allowed, or are we only allowed taxmen?) in Damascus to prevent rioting. I have switched the tiles around between Mecca and Damascus. If the next leader wants to practice their MMing, you could swap the one cow tile between the two cities. This would allow Damascus to collect 6 food one turn and 4 the next (growth in 2. Otherwise, Damascus is collecting 6 food (growth in 2, wasting two food) or 4 food (growth in 3, wasted food = 2 (if Mecca keeps the cow tile))).

There is a settler and a warrior in the galley outside of Kufah. They should be able to make it to our western lands next turn. I considered swapping Mecca from a library (to a galley), but that would waste about 6 shields next turn. The next leader can decide what they would like to do (it might be a good idea to switch as we really do need more galleys to explore...) If we are able to produce galleys out of any city :confused:, Fastat could produce one in 4 turns and Anjar in 6. These are probably the best locations because few shields will be wasted, and if we were to produce a galley out of Mecca, it would take at least 4-6 turns to get it to these locations so that we can start some serious exploration...

Also, I completely forgot about whipping temples... [pimp] The next leader might want to consider doing that in Merw as soon as it has accumulated 10 shields towards its temple (it should be size 2 by then; in 6 turns). I also forgot to do something with our scout... :smoke: He is currently en route to the Mecca area (or wherever the next ship will be built...) to hop on the next ship built.

Math is due in 3 turns (-2 gpt, 112 gold in our coffers). Choosing to research Mathematics was very weedy, but, I thought that perhaps we might have contacted someone by now... We really need to 1) get contact with the other civilizations soon, or 2) get the Great Library, so we can catch up on ancient era techs quickly and cheaply... I don't think we need to worry too much about losing the Great Lighthouse (should we desire to get it; if so, we should might want to begin building it...) because I don't think any of the AIs have Map Making (going on the assumption that there are no barb galleys unless at least one AI has Map Making. Is this assumption correct?).

Interestingly, we are first in terms of population and land area! (from the F11 screen) However, we are 8th in terms of literacy, suggesting that other civilizations may be competing with us for the Great Library...

At this point, I can't really think of anything else... The file can be found at:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-Arabs-310BC.zip

JMB

A couple points about the rules:
- The first build in EVERY city must be a temple (Temple rule)
so the island town must build a temple before worker
- No non-cultural bldg can be started if there is a cultural choice
available in that city (Culture rule) so we should not be swapping away from Library to other non-critical things (like galleys or MP...) -- remember, you're going for 100k victory, you need lots of early culture
- Luxury slider permanently set to 10% (Tithe rule) -- part of the point of this scenario is to see how well we can manage things with only limited lux tax (everyone knows how to manage happiness with unrestricted lux tax, let's learn something new) -- besides, we don't want our people to grow soft and coddled with too much lux now do we?

Someone want to post an updated map?

Oh great merciful bounty from heaven!! The cleric JMB has found the land spoken of by the prophets of old! It is "Prophet's Isle," lost island of the Holy Lands! No wonder we could not comfortably fit 24 glorious cities on our mainland - there is room for 5 on the Prophet's Isle! This new land should be treated in all respects as part of the Holy Land, settle there with tremendous haste! Let the people whip themselves into a zealous frenzy with great projects like Temples, Libraries and Ambitheatres!

A joyous day for our nation, blessings to JMB. And our thanks to the cleric Zed who has rightly divided the truth! Our tithe is indeed fixed for all time, and the approved method for helping the people is through "Offering Collectors", "Scholars" and "Revival Speakers" who heathen refer to as taxmen, and entertainers. The people must not be 'coddled'! Also true, do not switch off a cultural building. And who knows, maybe we have been guided into the choice of Mathematics (on the surface quite inferior to studies in theism of course!).

Minor tips... work forest tile in Aleppo to speed temple finish, Medina should do Library in spite of need for more MP, likewise slip one in at Damascus (but settling Prophet's Isle is a sufficient reason to wait a short bit), whip the Library in Basra and similar towns, when down to 20 shields left. Finally, let "Yamama" learn how to read :D

Theocracy, er... Monarchy, sounds much better than western forms of representative government!

Here are pictures of our entire Holy Land...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-HL310BC.jpg

Note - the one unworked tile - it will be the future home of "Voice of Arabia" a great radio transmitter (whatever that is!) to bring the words of hope to people of all lands, and to strengthen the resolve and defense of those in its radius. It shall be "the voice of one calling in the desert!"

And a close up of our Prophet's Isle - be sure we get a total of 24 cities between the two. Some thoughts on locations are shown (and please take as suggestions, not prophecy :P )

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/RBP3-Island310BC.jpg

Who now will lead what may be the most important era of our nation, the rapid settling of Prophet's Isle?!

Abu-Charis

Look at that map closely. There is a coastal tile peeking out from under the fog above Fustat. Kursan finishs its library in 4. If we can't switch to galley now, then get a galley our from there as soon as the library finishes even if we have to whip it! (I dont suppose given we KNOW there is an island there we could invoke a spreading the word of Abu-C doctrine and make an exception in this one case :(. No? Didnt think so :( )

Skim a worker off Medina before going on to the library, the 6th guy is a specialist anyway and we are dying for workers to irrigate all those plains tiles!

Mathematics?? hmmmm. OK, thats diffrent.... I was rather hoping for Polytheisim then a 1 scientist run at Monarchy (we know we are way behind in tech and we need money to start buying them eventually, especailly as we may not get around to ever building many markets.

One thought. The library could turn out to be a curse if we get it. What happens if we pop chivalry from it almost immediately. We will have to immediately decalre war on somone, possibly without even knowledge as to where they are :(.

Honestly, I really wish we'd gone poly, because i sort of suspect that Hanging Gardens might be a better wonder given our happiness situation anyhow and it seems very likely to me that we will find SOMONE up there on that other island. (It would be really surprising to me if we didn't at least).

The Abu sent for his scribes and teachers of the law to discern how to respond in the face of both Prophet's Isle and this new land where it is suspected there will be those who need to hear the word...

> - No non-cultural bldg can be started if there is a cultural choice
> available in that city (Culture rule)

So careful is the crafting of the ancient laws! Only a non-cultural building is disallowed, not critical ships that will carry the word (and later our Ansar Warriors) out to far away lands. If our next leader has a vision to build a galley before library, he may do so. (Just don't 'crank' them and ignore the library)

Praise be the merciful as well as the keen eyes of Marshall for discovering this great new opportunity. Just do NOT neglect the founding of the Prophet's Isle - it's the first priority for settling and building culture - although a beachhead on the island above could help. Looking at the map it seems that
three or four galleys could blockade our lands from invasion. Too many ships to do now, but something to keep in mind.

Best wishes to our next leader!
Abu Charis

Profits Isle?!? WOOHOO! [party] Yes, I, Abu-alFerengi, will step up immediately to secure our acquisition of Profits Isle! :crazyeye: :lol:

- Sirian

Maniac sends Abu-alFerengi a vision to build the galley and hopes he takes heed ;). Btw, what did you have to pay the editor to come up with what seems to be virtually the perfect map for this scenareo?

I think we should eventually get arround to building that 19th city anyway (after the islands). 18 + 5 = 23. Didn't the ancient writings say we would have 24 cities in the holy land?

Word to the Wise: Never question the validity of the Ancient Writings! :whipped:


IT 310BC: Abu-alFerengi, a wise man rising up through the ranks of the new mathematicians and learned men, is swept into power of the mosque at Najran when he throws an absolute fit over the construction of the great library. "No, no, no! You idiots! We don't want to gather the learned works of the infidels! We want to carry our holy wisdom to them so that they may join us in our enlightenment!" After making an example of some who would blaspheme the great Him in this manner, the great project was redirected to make a gloriously grand tower reaching up to the very skies, to invite His Light to shine down and guide the way for our brave sailors and missionaries embarking for distant lands. "This is how we shall become inspired to heights of greater worthiness!" So it was written.

Missionaries (settlers) ordered up in Baghdad and Anjar, while ships directed to be built at Fustat.

290BC: NOOOOO!!! The vile Persians have constructed a Lighthouse! Abu-alFerengi sinks into a deep depression, muttering about "Now it will be eons before we can conduct safe trade within the Holy Land, across the sea to Profits Isle." Reluctantly, the Great Library project is resumed. Spearmen (from Medina, of course) redeploy to Khurasan, where the population is growing rapidly.

270BC: Missionaries land on Profits Isle.

250BC: Mathematics discovered. Abu-alFerengi is pleased that there is now a system in place to explain the concepts he has understood all his life. His vision now is that this new system of numbers be put in place to improve trade. He orders the wisemen to pursue the mysteries of trade, markets, and currency. One day, Profits Isle shall be the envy of all mankind, a land so holy that pilgrims will trek there from all over the world.

230BC: The holy city of Balkh is founded on Profits Isle. Galleys are completed at Fustat. Temple completed at Aleppo. Damascus starts library. Khurasan library completed, starts harbor. Spears sent to guard the holiest city of Mecca. Medina starts library, due in ten (with help from one lumberjack).

210BC: Library at Kufah, starts harbor. Our unarmed missionaries have located a tribe called the Cherokee.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-210bc.jpg

190BC: Apparently, the Cherokee are a minor tribe. Our missionaries report them unreceptive to The Word. However, we have also encountered a people called Aztecs, and they have introduced us to four other civilizations. Our missionaries are unbelievably excited!

Um... hmm, this is odd. ALL of these civilizations possess major bodies of knowledge that we lack. How can this be?

Abu-alFerengi mortgages our entire economy for the next twenty cycles, obtaining contacts with all other civs (we're LAST to the trading table), and a complete world map. An embassy was established with one of our closer neighbors, the Spanish, who seem receptive to the Word and have good relations with us. (They are the ones who sold us most of our map information, too). India is also polite and receptive, fellow brothers in peace. The rest... we'll have to see about the rest. Lots of dour faces out there. China, also somewhat backward like ourselves, was willing to trade us some knowledge for our now extensive maps. There are unclaimed jungle lands between Azteca and Spain. Holy lands, perhaps? Perhaps. (I suppose we need a prophet of the likes of Abu-Charis to determine these things).

Oh, by the way, there are about a thousand civs building a "great library". I tried, but there is no way to speed our ETA. That may be a very pricey regular library here shortly.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-190bc.jpg

170BC: Damascus and Khurasan swapped to settlers. Merw completes temple. Mecca completes library, starts barracks.

150BC: A minor tribe has taught us horseback riding! Unfortunately, our missionaries are not having as much luck with the Cherokee. Meanwhile, the holy city of Mosul has been founded.

130BC: Our missionaries were slaughtered by the vile Cherokee! This has become a holy site. We must defeat the wicked Cherokee and build a great mosque in the jungle in honor of these fallen martyrs!

The holy city of Aydab has been founded. We have established an embassy with the friendly Chinese people. This warrior race seems receptive to the Word.

70BC: The HOLY city of Missionary Mosque has been formed on the site where our peaceful missionaries were martyred. The evil Cherokee were so awed by our holiness that they have dispersed their settlement! We have established an embassy with mighty Egypt, second in glory only to our own.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-70bc.jpg

50BC: Barracks completed in Mecca. The Cherokee riders have fled from the holy site of Missionary Mosque without a fight. Surely they understand the grave sins they have committed.

10BC: Our warriors chase down the cowardly Cherokee and put an end to their reign of terror. The holy city of Suhar has been founded, completing our two dozen holy land sites. Profits Isle stands completely settled now, every inch of its land contained within our borders, as foreseen by the great teacher Abu-Charis.

10AD: Disaster! The Aztecs have completed their Great Library with only one turn due on ours. The Iro's immediately took out the Gardens on the cascade. How painful is this? ONE TURN! All is not yet lost, though. We now have enough cities to increase the cost of a palace to 600 shields. We have another 25 turns in which to buy ourselves up to Sistine Chapel technology. Oh, and perhaps this is meant to be, as He has granted our prayers and already boosted our knowledge, thanks to the friendly Cuman tribe!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-10ad.jpg

Also, map brokering brings in some revenues, which allow us to purchase currency from India. We now have only three techs we need for Sistine: Polytheism, Construction, and Theology. Feudalism and SunTzu is another alternative.

The city of Taif has been founded. This is our first non-holy city. We beat the Celts to the area by half a turn. Also, we have an iron deposit in the holy land.

30AD: Our wounded spears are running interference (politely engaging the Celts in religious dialogues) near Taif, while our own settlers head deeper into the jungle.

50AD: Our settlers' escorts fight off some hostile Mayans. The age of Abu-alFerengi comes to an end. We are flat broke, with eight more turns of payments on most of our deals. With luck, we can manage to build something out of that mass of shields we have stored up. Remember, Missionary Mosque is holy ground! The rest of the holy land is contained in the homeland and Profits Isle. I did what I could to further the great cause. The good news, of course, is that our culture is naturally so impressive, the whole world stands in awe!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-50ad.jpg

So why are there no lux on our home continent? Did Charis edit the map? :) Oh, and never question the ancient writings! :whipped: :lol:

RBP3 - 50AD (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/rbp3-arabs-50ad.zip)


- Sirian

Nice turn and fabulous luck on the Palace going to 25 more turns just in time! If we can manage to get to Sistine in time, that could be the absolute BEST thing that happened!!! Unfortunately, the cascade didn't die for us :(. Several people are now working on Sun Tsu's :(.

One nit though. Hopefully you didn't pay too much for those contacts... Most likely you'd have gotten nearly all of them free from the Aztecs trading contact with you to everyone with 30 gold or more :(. In ptw, i like to buy one, thus killing the monopoly on you and making them trade contact with you like wildfire on the next 1-2 AI turns.

Actually 2 nits! You played more than 10 turns :p, but I'm guessing that as you had a profound mission to accomplish Abu-C may forgive the profit seeking feringi.

Most glorious progress!! We have moved from a backward people to the forefront of culture and knowledge, the Abu-alFenengi was most wise and cunning!

As always, current events and circumstances move us to re-evaluation our interpretations. (Of course this is no doubt whatsoever in the value and truthfulness of the ancient writings, but as imperfect beings we must look carefully at ourselves and how we interpret)

The words did seem to speak of Holy Lands all to ourselves and unfettered by foreign influence, and the mainland and Prophets Isle fit that description. What we do not know is.... have we grieved ourselves by not founding on the non-overlapped desert tile, the future home of the Voice of Arabia?? Surely that site though it knows no city bounds is part of our Holy Land!? And yet... the blood spilt by our FIRST martyrs cannot ever be forgotten...

Until it is made clear otherwise then, here shall be our sign --
If the cultural border of Missionary Mosque integrate with that of the mainland, it is TRULY part of our Holy Land, with all privileges and rights thereof. If it is razed or captured before locking borders, it will be the event that marks the start of our Crusade, but it will also be a sign we have forsaken the voice of him in the desert. Fate will soon make this clear, as Fustat and the Mosque both near completion of religious cultural institutions.

Although the missing of the library by a mere one turn is galling (in act, the Abu's draw did drop on hearing this!), it is also clearly a sign that coming by such knowledge by infidel would be heinously wrong and would taint such knowledge. It is truly a blessing in disguise! All the more so if we can build the great Mosque of Al-Sistine! Abu-alFerengi was wise to be the first to see this.

> He orders the wisemen to pursue the mysteries of trade,
> markets, and currency. One day, Profits Isle shall be the envy
> of all mankind, a land so holy that pilgrims will trek there from
> all over the world.

Although his spelling is MOST unusual! :lol:
It is good that some among the holy men do not neglect the realm of trade and good stewardship.

> There are unclaimed jungle lands between Azteca and Spain.
> Holy lands, perhaps? Perhaps. (I suppose we need a prophet
> of the likes of Abu-Charis to determine these things).

There is a sense in which all land where we exert influence is holy, of course, but our homelands and 'given lands' have a special nature and character. We will spread the word and extent our boundaries, but the taint of being originally surrounded or founded by infidels puts all that land in a different category. Some have gone so far as to call these 'other' areas "Crusade Lands"
Their 'proper' term is "Expansion Cities", of which Taif is the first.

Speaking of crusade... the menacing encroachment on our Missionary Mosque by the Aztecs, and their stealing away the Great Library, have led some in the court to view them as potential enemies which will see our first crusade. The situation
may dictate otherwise, but early impressions suggest that the lands currently inhabited by the mean green machine would do FAR better to be very densely populated with Arabian temples and mosques and libraries.

Oh, and never question the ancient writings!

Well said!

Who then will lead us in this great era?? Seeking the al-Sistine mosque, seeing whether the Holy city of "Missionary Mosque" can fuse borders with Fustat, and bringing us to the verge of Chivalry, these are exciting times!!

On the extra turns, he was following a common convention (though not mentioned here) - a 40-20-15 sequence before we shift into 10-turn mode, especially when REX'ing. We should shift into 10-turn modes here, but if there something dire that needs 1 to 5 more turns, go ahead in this game.

Abu-Charis

PS -
> So why are there no lux on our home continent? Did Charis
> edit the map?
...
> Btw, what did you have to pay the editor to come up with what
> seems to be virtually the perfect map for this scenareo?

Surely there is lack of faith here!! :lol:
Actually, no editing. No removal of lux. In fact... I was somewhat dismayed to see no lux, and none even on the island. Also, I missed seeing the currents north and thought we might be stuck. What I did was generate several maps and go for several turns, not so much for a 'good' start but as one that 'fit' the theme, and that had enough space for 24 cities. This was one of the first maps I generated, and the island was a surprise - I was expecting and hoping to be part of a continent, but when it seemed enough to hold 20-ish cities, it became a 'go'. Prophets Isle is a surprise too, as I hadn't gone that far. The Aztec land belt is somewhat ideal too as far as semi-contiguous expansion with room for many cities. Feel free to pack them in nearly ICS, 2 and 3 steps, outside the Holy Land. If we expand and denselyl fill all the way to the chokepoint to the west, that will probably be all the cities we need in the game, and the way the rest carry out will be for fun and RPG, there will not be a need to build 80-100 cities. Pack 32-40 cities in the Aztec area and we're "Golden".
(Of course, wanting to spread the word we won't stop there, but it will be ad lib not out of necessity)

PPS I agree fully with Marshall on contacts in PtW. Buying a first one to get out of monopoly is critical, but I've never seen further contacts wait more than a VERY short while once you do that.

PPPS Sistine would indeed be better than sliced bread in this game! Do anything (legal) needed to help snag it!!

All the civs that could pay for the contact had already done so. I paid for the other half, then brokered our world map to every civ on the planet and started playing map broker. Besides pulling in all the territory maps this way, I probably also netted another 200g or more, ultimately paying us back for what the rest of the world map initially cost us. I would have gotten even more out of the trading, except I expected the great library to come in for us. When it did not, I sure was glad I bought all the cheapest techs, and we got two pricier techs out of huts.

My math was also off. Not sure why I was thinking we were scientific. We'll also need Monotheism, so we're four techs short of Sistine, three short of SunTzu. As for the math on my turn, I wanted to complete my mission of finishing the holy lands (the inherited turn was an odd date, so I straightened it out by going long, instead of playing short), as well as the fact that I had to stick around to avenge the martyred missionaries. (Uh... man in the desert? Was I supposed to leave him there? THAT was the missionary who got martyred on the foreign soil). That was such a heinous occurance, it had to be corrected. So anyway, if the "last holy city" was tied to the "man in the desert", then that's precisely what happened, as Missionary Mosque is built on the very tile where he perished.

I'm glad Abu-Charis found my results... palatable. :love: Now, I can't wait for the cha-ching from Profits Isle! :D


- Sirian

The man in the desert founded Missionary Mosque??!

That was no less than Al-Henna, one of the most outward looking clerics the nation has ever seen! :worshp:

Surely he went up North to share the word, and to collect the dyes there for special 'henna' craftsmanship! Rare indeed are the dyes and great is their value! Surely it will bring much happiness (and much-needed happiness!) to the people back home!

Let us hope we can live in peace with our new Aztec neighbors...
:slay:

For if they, or anyone, lays a finger on the glorious site founded by Al-Henna...
:saiyan:

Abu Charis

As you play around more and more in ptw, you WILL see I was right about lux not being so evenly distributed as it was in vanilla. There it was a virtual given outside of the tinyest maps where sometimes it couldn't fit the lux in that you would start with one. And on regular sized maps with 8 civs, you allways in my experience had an exact 1:1 ratio between # of civs on landmass and # of lux there.

In fact, i used to count lux as I went exploring heh. I'd say hmmmmm, ive seen 5 lux and only 4 civs on this landmass, so where is the 5th most likely to be hiding and rushed exploration that direction on occasion. Maybe this is one reason why lux isnt really dependibly evenly distributed now.....

I had annother "continents" map the other day on standard size world. I had to practically ICS my island to get 9 cities in, had no lux, and by the time i poped mapmaking, found India accross a one tile gap on an "island" 5 times the size of mine with...... no lux either :(. Turns out the other 6 civs were supercontinented with all 8 lux on their continent :(.

The up side to Open SG's is that they can move very quickly, when folks are juiced. The down side is that they can move slowly without a scheduled player for the hotseat. I know it's the Christian holidays and all, but Ramadan is over! We should break our fast! From whence shall emerge our next leader in this exciting time of advancement?

Abu alFerengi

I was wondering the same thing... I am interested in this game, but think it is a little early for me to pick it up again as I just played right before you (Sirian).

Perhaps some of the people who helped start the game would like to grab it in the near future so that the game doesn't get buried...

JMB

So it was written, in the days of old:

"Griselda, Carbon and Zed pre-signed up and no one should grab it a second time before they've got it at least once"

I've followed the lead of prophet Abu-Charis here. He has not directly led the people for a second time, so I had assumed that nobody else should, either.

An advantage is that there have been lots of players participating, but some more momentum might be helpful. Perhaps it is time for some "creative reinterpretation" of the ancient texts? ;)

-Griselda

It is a glorious New Year in the glorious Holy Lands of Arabia!!

:band:

Thus endeth the 'first round'. It's now open to all without restriction. Come lead us to glory, and have a good New Years' Day!

Abu Charis (who's finishing up another SG game on New Years)

Got it !

Ben-Skyfish the Ignorant will hopefully not destroy everything the great Al Ferengi piously built...

Coming after the Great Al-Sirian-Ferengi was a pleasure, everything was right on tracks, nothing special to do.

50ad : set one taxman (in Mecca) to scientist in order to have min science on Construction.
70ad: Aztecs building Sun Tzu ! Some lone stupid Viking founded a city where Al-Ferengi indicated a preferred site (:-( The Great One will be mad...
Oh no ! What are we to do now ? No-one to help poor Ben-Skyfish...we Will just make sure we grab some dyes then...as we are short of those Luxuries that make us so happy..
Hama founded. Khurasan rather pay more tithes than have riots on their hands. Also the pious people of Aydab rather sacrifice one of them rather than be without a place of worship. What a devoted and faithful people the land of Arabia has !
90ad : Some worker movements, nothing special. The learned followers of Mansura also execute some of their bad seeds instead of missing out on the great knowledge a Library can bring.
110ad: Muscat builds barracks, switch to Soukh. Hama is threatened by Barbarians : one warrior and one Horseman. Hopefully a Spanish archer will help our Land of Faith get
rid of them.
130ad : Mansura completes a Library and starts a Courthouse as the people feel Mecca is too far and there is too much crime around the village.
The Barbarian warrior is killed by our Spanish archer friend, long live the Iberians !
150ad : The great people of Arabia praise their Imams : they start to build Abu Bakr's Palace ! The Barbatrian Horseman flees towards a Spanish city.
No civilization wishes to trade knowledge with us. They certainly fear our huge and beautiful culture, hahaha.
170ad: The Barbarian horseman is killed by a Celt spearman. Hama is safe ! Praise Allah !
190ad : Kufah completes a Harbor, and switches to Soukh. Aden completes a Library, switching to Harbor. Bakh builds a holy worker. Yamana gets boost in production from the hard labour of our Forest people.
Suhar sacrifices some of its people for a Mosque.
210ad : Our long time hatred ennemy, The Persians, are building Sun Tzu's war academy. Few or our Workers are busy bringing water to our Holy desert Sahara and the western part of the Holy Land.
This year some of our previous deals end. Let's see what we can get... Construction is available at 13gpt + all our treasury (40)+ WM. After much indecision, we go for Polytheism
at 7 gpt + 33g from India. Remembered Abu Charis advice on Theocracy...Republic is not available (neither Monarchy), also could not get both Contruction and Polytheism.
Baghdad need ssome attention as we'll get some unrest soon. Our followers there seem to fear some "bowls of fire falling from the Sky", our messenger could not be clearer...
230ad : The Celts and Japan are also starting to build this Sun Tzu academy. Two Workers are sent to Prophets island by galley.
250ad : All is calm and quiet in the Holy Land...before the storm ?

For my humble descendant :
- left some Soukhs as pre-builds for possible Settlers if Abu-Charis or Al-Ferengi feel we must go on with a peacecful landgrab. My feeling was that the only land left is bad jungle,
and since we have our Holy Land of 24 cities, we will follow expansion by Crusades (Chivalry is just round the corner...)
- Techs : we need to get Theology in 15 turns in order to get Sistine's Great Mosque, so we need to buy techs ASAP : I guess 13 gpt is OK for Construction but Republic & Monarchy will also be really expensive..
We need expert advice on this.

It was a great honour and pleasure to Lead the Holy people of Arabia as Ben-Skyfish the Ignorant and hope the Land is not too much worse off.

Yours piously,

Ben-Skyfish

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads3/Abu_Bakr_of_the_Arabs,_250_AD.SAV

My advice would be to forget republic completely (representative govts need to use that lux slider a lot) and skip monarchy until we have Sistine secured. Might go to democracy after monarchy, once nav tech opens up sea lanes for us to import enough goods to overcome the three lost MP's, at least. Also good to get going on those cathedrals right away, and especially to build them AHEAD of libraries in all towns without a library completed, as we get same culture at same cost but more benefit. I don't know how much of our own research we'll be doing -- might be worth it sometimes if we have libraries and unis but no banks -- but once we get to where we can buy one tech and trade it for one or two more, we'll be in good shape.

OK, no takers yet so I got it.

I'll try for a little more color commentary in the write up. ;)