LotR28 - Random Rollicking for Returning Refugees

[Arathorn]

Let's get this party started!

Randomness rules the decisions. Random is our past. Random is our world. Random are most things. But our rule shall not be random. We shall form order from the randomness that until now has defined us. We shall work together (ideally with lurkers, too -- active lurking encouraged!!) to forge a destiny. Will that destiny take us to the stars? That has been discussed, but who knows what fate has in store?

To start, our opening settings...


Our world is a mystery. Islands? Pangaea? Ice world? All waits for our discovery.

The first mystery revealed is our identity. The world will know us as Napeleon of the French. History will record our deeds and credit them to this short man. But stature matters naught. Only our actions matter.

Our opening lands....


Discussions can begin now. I will research our nation a bit and continue in a few moments, I hope.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

Napeleon's ability is Ancien Regime (with an accent mark that I'm too lazy to figure out how to do). That gives all our cities +2 culture until the discovery of Steam Power. I'm not sure if that's our discovery or anyone's.

This ability seems very strong to me. Early culture will let our cities grow their borders without an expensive building (both in hammers and upkeep gold). We should also have early and extra social policies.

We have no unique building(s). So no worries that way.

We have two unique units. The first is the Musketeer. With 20 power (instead of a musketman's paltry 16), we can rule the early gunpowder age, if we so choose.

The second is the foreign legion. Foreign legions replace infantry and have a 20% combat bonus outside friendly territory. It costs the same as an infantry, but we don't really want to be defending with it too much. It's better attacking or aiding an ally.

Our UUs are future. For now, we need to decide on where to settle Paris, what to build, and such.

In place is my default position, though I can be convinced otherwise. Fresh water is not the need it used to be and all those mountains NE make me wonders about moving 1 to settle.

Initial build? With mountains to protect the NE, I'm not sure we need an initial military unit. Barbs will be a bit less of an issue. Worker-first can be OK, though the river wines are a great tile without improvement. We probably don't need a monument, since we already have +2 culture, unless we want to try a culture win.

Lots to discuss. We can start now. The real game begins tomorrow, after sign-ups officially close.

Arathorn

 

[muxec]

That's a lot of hills. Which means lots of production once city is large enough. Probably a unit pump when needed. River is good and will become better after civil service.

Does anyone have any idea of how to plan strategically in civ5? Since French have 2 free culture per city I suggest getting 2 extra cities fast to increase initial culture gain (culture cap raises by 30% with every city) and get some social policies fast.

 

[Corbeau]

If I understand the rules correctly it looks like I'll have to wait for the next SG, but I have a few comments in the meantime. I'm kinda sad, since France is probably my favorite Civ at the moment.

My personal tendency when playing France is to use the initial fast culture (first policy in under 10 turns) to go Liberty and spam cheap Settlers. This relies a bit on good scouting for luxury resources so that the extra unhappiness doesn't destroy your growth rate, but can produce an abnormally high production rate (due to the free hammers from city tiles). I'm not sure whether the best second policy for this strategy is Citizenship (for workers to improve all those luxury resources) or Collective Rule (to exploit settler spam further), or even Honor (if the barbarians get uppity - probably not a problem on this difficulty level). The third social policy tends to be what got passed up in the second pick though.

My initial build order would be Scout -> Worker -> Settler after settling in place (well, technically after moving the Warrior SE). Go for Mining and Calender, but without any huge rush - King level isn't quite the happiness crunch of the higher levels, though it'll certainly feel restrictive enough with this strategy. A lot depends on the geography and what resources are in the vicinity.

 

[ThERat]

I would first move the warrior south onto that hill before making a decision to settle. There are too many mountains in the north though the rest of the land looks good.

Build order for sure should be a scout, then worker for those flood plains.

As for techs, do we plan according to tile development or some sling shot?

 

[Aretii]

1SE onto the wines is a good move for the settler, to get the cows in faster and still settle on t0. Grass Wines on a river is a 2/0/4 tile after improvement - nice, but not that great. That's only one gold stronger than the river Grass Trading Post you could build on the settler's current position, and you still get the wine hookup. River Grass Cows are an excellent tile to have soon, 3/1/1 after improvements.

Definitely move the warrior onto the desert hill to scope out the situation, but I'm 90% sure the current location of gay Paree is on the river wines.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

I agree with Aretii, I definitely would want to settle closer to the cows.

What are the implications of settling on a luxury resource? Does it become automatically available, or do we lose it because we can never build the improvement on that tile? (Which in this case only means we would lose the second wine for trading, so not that bad).

Depending on what is seen when scouting, I might even like to move two SE and settle on the hill, which loses a turn but makes the cows immediately available and gets the city-on-a-hill defensive bonus.

 

[Aretii]

What are the implications of settling on a luxury resource? Does it become automatically available, or do we lose it because we can never build the improvement on that tile? (Which in this case only means we would lose the second wine for trading, so not that bad).

Depending on what is seen when scouting, I might even like to move two SE and settle on the hill, which loses a turn but makes the cows immediately available and gets the city-on-a-hill defensive bonus.

It's hooked up as soon as you learn the tech for it, which would be Calendar, saving several worker-turns in building a Plantation.

I don't like settling on a hill in C5. Unlike C4, you don't get the extra city hammer (unless you settle on a hill with a resource that gives an extra hammer, like iron, coal, or uranium). Furthermore, farmed hills are great tiles - 1/2/1 is nothing to sneer at in the early game, before you have the maritime bonuses/granary-equivalents that let you work zero-food tiles more easily. You can only farm riverside hills (possibly lakeside too, but I don't think so), but it's well worth it. The hilltop defensive bonus shouldn't be that important, not against the AI.

That said, if moving the warrior onto the hill reveals another food bonus (a good one, that is - desert wheat is lol) that would be more accessible from the desert hill, by all means settle there. But I think the river wines is a better spot than the origin.

EDIT: Scout-first is very good. It gives a jump start on Ancient Ruins and city-state contacts, and cities are robust enough that a barb or two is not a real threat, even with no units around. I'd go scout --> worker, then either warrior or settler.

 

[Arathorn]

Good advice. I'll try to post a pic sometime before I play, but Civ5 seems to take forever to load. So it's not happening tonight (err...technically, this morning).

I did want to post something, though.

Final roster:
Arathorn (a lot)
Corbeau (0 games)
ThERat (2 games)
Jaffa Tamarin (5 games)
Kylearan (6 games)

Corbeau, you are actually in. First to sign up with 0 games, so you win. Or lose. Hard to say.

I like the idea of a quick Liberty push and a fair number of smaller cities to start with. Cranking settlers makes good sense.

Initial tech? Worker techs seems so unimportant. I think I'm tending towards racing for horses ASAP, via animal husbandry. Nothing else motivates me much, honestly. But I'm always open to learning.

Arathorn

 

[Aretii]

You have grass cows, AH has to be your first or second tech so that your worker can hook it up post haste. I'd vote for first, so you can see more quickly if you have horses, and direct your exploration thusly.

 

[Corbeau]

Animal Husbandry definitely should be a priority. After that, probably head for Calendar - though it depends on what out scouting reveals of the surrounding terrain. I like Calendar for the fast expand style, since the happiness is critical, but the map might present other options. Mining is another tech to pick up if the fast expand becomes reality, since we have silver.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment: move south on the hill and then decide where. That hill along the river looks good for Paris as it pulls in all your visible resources. first build scout. Keep the warrior close to home. The barbs seem to be significantly nastier than C4. This no stacking thing is strange

 

[ThERat]

Hi AK, you're still alive!

I agree with your suggestion to move onto the hill and then decide what to do

 

[Arathorn]

Between my busyness and the forum's overfull status, it's been a pain to get this up. Anyway....moving the warrior south reveals more cows.



I still like the wines, personally. Getting to the desert hills take a little too long, IMO.

Arathorn

 

[Kylearan]

Checking in. Aretii's arguments for settling on the wines sounds convincing, so I'm all for it. Scout first is also approved, definitely.

Wow, these are a lot of hills! I'm looking forward to all the hammers we will have access to later.

 

[Corbeau]

Yeah, 1SE and settle sounds strong - particularly since we wouldn't have to spend worker turns getting the happiness from Calendar. That'd give us even more leeway if we wanted to pursue a policy of fast expansion.

 

[Aretii]

With the revelation of a second river grass cows (!), you may want to strongly consider founding on the desert hill for an awesome early growth curve. Sacrificing a hill farm is tough, but river grass cows, man!

 

[Arathorn]

I took way too many pictures, but since this is one of the first SGs to run, I figure it’ll be good to show some of the details that later we’ll be able to just tell. For only 20 turns, it felt like I had a fair few decisions to make. Moreso than in my solo games.

I decided to send the warrior south along the river. Rivers are good for expansion, because of the extra commerce they provide. No health bonuses, only a few buildings, but the commerce can add up fairly quickly. Only a few turns in, our brave explorer found something interesting – ancient ruins. At the same time, the independent city-state of Dublin is discovered. We are first, so we get 30 gold. AND, the same year, Old Faithful, our first natural wonder, is found. The person (not people, not yet) in Paris rejoices. At the very least, it might get us an earlier Golden Age.



Bear in mind, it’s 3800 BC, so I’m not exactly sure who would have left these ruins. Aliens? Dinosaurs? Regardless, ruins are there, so we must explore them. They are always good in Civ5, from what I’ve read and experienced.



People! Cool. Population expansion can be slow, so an extra person (half a science beaker/turn, plus working a tile for +1 gpt and maybe extra food) is a pretty nice pop (pun intended). Our warrior continues on his way, reassured by the now-larger Paris behind him.

40 years pass. The warrior, somehow, continues on as strong as he was in the past. Descendents of the original? Did they discover the fountain of youth? No one is certain, but the warriors report the discovery of a bountiful area, with sheep, bananas, cotton, and incense.



Our first true foe is discovered a few years later. Gandhi. He has more gold than us (indicating either gold in ruins or contacting more city-states). Our income is higher, though.



Around the same time, 3680 BC, our scout moves out of Paris, exploring the world in the opposite direction. To the west is water of salt. To the north, a nuclear launch is detected!!!



Oh, wait, it’s just a spot of red on the tundra hill. It looks so much like the old Starcraft red dot that it threw me for a minute. This scout’s job is to follow the river in the other direction. I expected to send him a little west across the rough terrain, but that plan was ruined. Paris is working on a worker who will hopefully improve the land significantly.

A second set of ruins came in after Animal Husbandry was learned. A quick scan of the surrounding area showed … wait, let me count again, double-check, yep, zero horses anywhere near Paris. We shall not be mounted Frenchmen.



That advanced technology was archery. We have the ability to build a ranged unit! Good news. Work continues on a worker. I select Mining as our next technology. Mining is a good worker tech (especially with silver nearby and all our hills) and it leads to better ground units than warriors/archers. With no horses, we’ll need some semi-metal units.

At the same time, Paris’s culture overwhelms our people. As discussed, I push us down the Liberty path. The French shall have their Liberty! Once we get into expansions/extra cities, this will be really nice. Settlers become much cheaper this way. And while settlers need escorts, cities can defend themselves pretty well against barbs without additional units.



Then, Augustus Caesar of Rome shows up by our doors. I didn’t capture his gold/trade status, but no deals are made. We part ways as friends.



More ruins. Not such luck this time. A map of the nearby enemy barb encampments, one of which we already knew about, one of which was right on our scout’s path, and a third one we can do nothing about. Oh well.



More foes. Added to the list. Harun al-Rashid of Arabia also shares our continent. Both he and Augustus were also in my first game. Bad PRNG problems again?



To be continued....

 

[Arathorn]

More ruins. More blasé results. Maps of the surrounding area, which do little but reveal another set of ruins in the scout’s near future.



Those ruins, however, are much more exciting.



Culture! Big-time bonus. That lets me….



Yeah, our new cities will get to population two a little faster. It’s also on the road to Republic, which gives every city +1 production, which could nearly double our empire-wide production, should we choose to go that route. Worker production speed was deemed less important, for now, by me.

The neighbors are restless….



I turned him down. Rome’s closer than Mecca and I see no need to infuriate anyone at this point or to pick sides. So I sent him away.

Three real foes. And a second to-be-ally, potentially. Hello, Venice. We French have always loved the Italians. *cough cough* Our warrior is pleased to meet you.



We do appreciate the gold, however.

Our scout is in trouble, surrounded by two barbs. And not a good fighter. I try to fortify him to heal, but I fear for his life.



Actually, pretty good move by the AI to surround our scout. With zone-of-control limiting movement, I can’t run away (which would be my default action). Plus, it gives +15% to their attack(s). I misjudged how they would move (leaving their spawn point) and forgot that warriors could move two.

With the scout in trouble, mining finishes and I select our fourth tech. I went with Bronze Working, for spears to protect archers, since the others all felt like they could easily wait. Trapping gives Trading Posts, which are also extremely critical, but I deemed a semblance of a military a bit more important.

A couple turns later, the scout does indeed die without killing a single barbarian.

In my last move, I set up Paris, now size 3, to emphasize production, to get that worker out a bit faster. I would leave the emphasis on production until after we produce another military unit or two, too, personally. Size is power, but the smaller size, for a bit, gives us happies towards a golden age, and the ability to actually make units this eon. This can be easily veto'd however.



Once the worker completes, he can waste a turn moving across the river. He can then move and improve the cows. The silver will take a couple moves anyway, and then the floodplains will be ready for farms. It should work out nicely.
Our capital….

Roster:
Arathorn -- JUST PLAYED
Corbeau -- UP NOW (24 hrs to claim)
ThERat -- on deck
Jaffa Tamarin -- in the hole
Kylearan -- chilling his heels

Corbeau, I'm still feeling out how many turns are appropriate for the early turns of an SG. Eventually, it'll be 10 each. Why don't you take 10, 15, or 20, whichever feels most appropriate? I was thinking I would take 30, but I feel like I did quite a bit in 20, and while we're all learning, I think it's good to take slightly shorter turns to over-discuss things. I feel like 10 or 15 might be ideal, but that might just finish a worker and a unit or something, so I dunno.

That’s all for now!
Arathorn

 

[Aretii]

I'd recommend farming the hill after improving the cows. Farmed hills are the flood plain cottages of C5 - a tile you'd work any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Hell, you might even want to farm the hill before improving the cows, to save worker-turns moving over the river. A 1/2/1 tile is far better than anything you're working now save the cows.