The Conscientious Empire: A Peaceful Builder Challenge

They could be used as lures to pull AI shipping away from where they are pounding your shores, as bombardment is very bad for the environment. Build one in an isolated port and on alternate IBT's put it one tile out to sea. Offensive AI ships make a beeline for privateers when exposed, then turn around to resume their original mission when they aren't exposed. It's the seafarer version of the bikini babe trick. Of course the enemy ships are wasting fuel....

meisen said:

I read the book he wrote about his adventure. Very enjoyable book, with a lot of info about the curraghs and their probable construction. Being built of wood frames over which hide was sewed. The waterproofing was a coating of fat. Severin speculated that had the monks used a more southern route, into warmer seas, the temp would have washed away the fat waterproofing the hide shell and the craft would have then failed to keep out the water and...

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I just learned of this book when researching St. Brendan. I'll have to give it a read.

Timeover51 said:

Actually, the ships that the Vikings used to get to Iceland, Greenland, and North America were not the classic Viking longboats, but the knorr or knarr, the Viking cargo ship. There is a very good description of them in Farley Mowat's book, Westviking. Also, the Wikipedia site has information. The Knorr carried a fair amount of cargo, which could include cattle and sheep as well as people, and were the ships used to colonize Greenland and the attempt at colonizing North America. They were much closer to the curragh than they were to the galley.

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I was hoping when I started this thread that it might help me learn a few things, and that certainly has been the case. Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the subject.

You've convinced me that the curragh is my main exploratory vessel. I'm still getting used to how devalued mapmaking is from vanilla; I can certainly hold off on it until I have no more need for curraghs. I rarely build many galleys anyway, unless I have nearby islands to colonize.

I'm debating whether to give the slower curragh three turns before the coin flip, which would put a standard curragh at the same place a standard galley would be after two turns. I'll flesh this all out when I start a new game.

Privateers:

I forgot about this last night (still thinking in vanilla), but the biggest problem I have with privateers is the enslave ability. If there's no way to use them without the possibility of ending up with a slave unit, then I have no use for them. We don't, under any circumstances, own slaves in this empire.

D.N. Pacem said:

Privateers:

I forgot about this last night (still thinking in vanilla), but the biggest problem I have with privateers is the enslave ability. If there's no way to use them without the possibility of ending up with a slave unit, then I have no use for them. We don't, under any circumstances, own slaves in this empire.

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In Vanilla Civ3, there is no enslave ability. There is in Conquests, but it can be turned off in the game editor. I dislike the term "enslavement" when it is applied to ships, as the use of captured shipping only applies to the vessel, not the crew. Many times, the privateer would ransom the crew, or release them in order not to have to deal with prisoners, who might attempt, and sometimes succeeded, in retaking the ship.

I am glad that you are finding the information useful to you. For my own purposes, I give curraghs the same carrying capacity and speed as a galley, but lower attack and defense values. A curragh is a 1/1 for attack and defense, a galley is a 2/2, and the rest of the ship values increase from there. Ship values are one of the more severely distorted aspects of the game.

Ship values are one of the more severely distorted aspects of the game.

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I totally agree! Especially after Steam Power, when you can move armies across a continent in what only can be presumed as less than a year, it takes even the fastest ships a few years to cross an ocean! I think navies are one of the coolest features of Civ3, and I usually play Seafaring to reflect that!

You talk about changing their values? How would one go about doing that? Not that i'd want to make things unbalanced, but there needs to be a huge change in steel vs. wooden ships. I imagine that a Battleship would be able to kill 20 ships of the line, whereas I'd easily expect a privateer to kill a Galley or Caravel!

Sorry for off topic...D.N.Pacem, you'll be pleased to know that my Conciencious Civ has taken a lead in the approach to the 20th century. I will post screenshots tonight, but the discovery of Rubber has cemented my dominance. My mainland has 5 of the 8 sources of rubber in the whole world. I have just secured two of the others in a war with the mongols & spainish (they started it), and the other one is next to my northern island colony of Arctic Australia ( ), a culture rush should take care of that!

My fleet have secured the lives of whales across the globe, whilst I am talking to the Inca's about stopping their use of ivory.

D.N. Pacem said:

So I'll leave this up to those with more privateer expertise. Can anyone imagine (and describe for us) a use for privateers that you would consider ethical?

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Would you consider it ethical to use privateers purely for scouting purposes, taking advantage of their ability to enter other civilisation's waters, but never engaging in combat with them ?

Or failing that, would you consider it ethical to use privateers for scouting purposes without intentionally violating anyone's territorial waters, but as a means of avoiding the situation whereby a cultural expansion of an AI city suddenly places your explorer on their territory without warning ? I have occasionally at sea, and very often on land, been surprised by a cultural expansion of the AI's, or a city founded by a settler invisible to me, catching me in situations where a unit doing early-game scouting abruptly had no options but to intrude on someone's territory, regardless of my preferences in the matter.

timerover51 said:

In Vanilla Civ3, there is no enslave ability. There is in Conquests, but it can be turned off in the game editor. I dislike the term "enslavement" when it is applied to ships, as the use of captured shipping only applies to the vessel, not the crew. Many times, the privateer would ransom the crew, or release them in order not to have to deal with prisoners, who might attempt, and sometimes succeeded, in retaking the ship.

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meisen said:

Actually, in the age of sail, almost all ships defeated in war were captured, not sunk. . .

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I would have no problem with the "enslave" ability if the captured ships were subject to unit costs the same as the others. This would be closer to historical accuracy. With no unit costs, you have to assume the crews on these ships aren't being paid.

Exwing17 said:

D.N.Pacem, you'll be pleased to know that my Conciencious Civ has taken a lead in the approach to the 20th century. I will post screenshots tonight, but the discovery of Rubber has cemented my dominance. . .

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Go Exwing! I'd love to see the screenshots -- and more details on how you're going to talk the Incas out of using ivory

rysmiel said:

Would you consider it ethical to use privateers purely for scouting purposes, taking advantage of their ability to enter other civilisation's waters, but never engaging in combat with them ?

Or failing that, would you consider it ethical to use privateers for scouting purposes without intentionally violating anyone's territorial waters, but as a means of avoiding the situation whereby a cultural expansion of an AI city suddenly places your explorer on their territory without warning ?

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It's difficult to avoid combat when you're running through the fog of an opponent's territory in a vessel that everyone wants to attack on sight.

I think you're worried too much about this. Straying into the AI's territory doesn't affect their attitude toward you or your trading rep. If they really want you out, they'll kick you out or make you declare war. Often though, after the initial warning, they'll let you roam around their countryside for awhile. Just be sure all your troops are out of their territory before you declare war on them.

You may think trespassing is unethical, but I have a rather lax trespassing policy with regard to other civs, too. While I rarely sign ROPs, I'll usually let friendly civs roam around in my territory so long as they're not sending settlers toward areas I want to colonize.

Plus, if you decide you want to go to war with someone with troops in your territory, when you order them out, they may do you a favor and declare war on you.

meisen said:

Don't use the captured ships, but send them to a port of yours for immediate scrapping - disbanding.

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Excellent idea -- I hadn't thought of that.

I always view enslaved ships as trophies of naval battle. The crew that weren't killed are given the choice to be marooned or to join the ranks of our navy as rattings.

Most often a fleet of ships (like Man-O-War) would split captured crew between my ships, whilst placing a chain of command and loyal troops on the captured ships. I agree about slave workers, but i think enslaved ship crew are paid from the coffers of the bounty in the captured ship!

I keep forgetting screenshots D.C, apologies! My Civ has taken a turn for the worse...

The Greeks & Inca's are my friends, and after a war with the Arabs i have secured some elephants, but I have had to build nuclear weapons in order to defend my Commonwealth, as my enemies have them and are threatening us!

What should i do?

Exwing17 said:

The Greeks & Inca's are my friends, and after a war with the Arabs i have secured some elephants, but I have had to build nuclear weapons in order to defend my Commonwealth, as my enemies have them and are threatening us!

What should i do?

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Building a few nukes is usually enough of a deterrent to keep others from using them against you. Hopefully that will buy you enough time to finish your spaceship.

OK...update on the Conciencious Republic of England:

I withdrew my invasion force from Roman lands and declared peace. I am now at peace with all the Civs in the world. Although there is are serious power issues between The Democratic Greeks and my Republic, and the other rogue Facist nations! I think 6/7 of all the Civs now have nuclear weapons and 4 are building parts to the space ship!

I had thought about nuking my closest rivals, but that wouldn't be very nice of me! Besides...if one of us has to colonise Alpha Centuri, it should be the one who doesn't believe in genocide!

Do you have a favourite Tribe D.C?

Exwing17 said:

I had thought about nuking my closest rivals, but that wouldn't be very nice of me! Besides...if one of us has to colonise Alpha Centuri, it should be the one who doesn't believe in genocide!

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Exactly!

Exwing17 said:

Do you have a favourite Tribe D.C?

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No, not really, though I have been partial to the scientific trait lately. I probably used the Russians the most when working out the C.E. strategies, but the expansionist trait isn't as helpful when you get beyond monarch level.

My last game I won with Korea on monarch. In my current game I'm playing the Byzantines at emperor level, but things aren't going too well. A poor starting spot and an early war with the Inca hampered my expansion phase, and an ancient cavalry rush from the Iroquois have me on the ropes.

(By the way, it's not D.C., it's D.N. - for "dona nobis pacem" which is "give us peace" in Latin.)

Hmm I have consistantly called you D.C instead of D.M! Sorry mate

Exwing17 said:

Hmm I have consistantly called you D.C instead of D.M! Sorry mate

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No worries.

Did you win your space race?

The Iroquois took several of my Byzantine cities and whittled the rest down to one defender each, before my allies the Mayans came to my aid -- and proceeded to take the cities I had lost to the Iroquois and wasn't yet strong enough to retake.

So I went back to monarch and am playing a non-scientific civ -- the Portuguese.

I've discovered another strategic use for foreign workers sent back to be recaptured.

When the Mayans declared war on me, I freed about 15 German and Babylonian slaves that were holed up in the cities I took, and joined a couple of barbarian slaves to my cities. I didn't find any native-born Mayan workers.

I built several Mayan workers to pare down the population in my new cities, and since I don't use slaves, I sent them to the Mayan front to be captured. Earlier I showed how these workers can be used to slow down advancing troops by absorbing their attacks. This new strategy is a bit more devious.

You've probably noticed that the AI likes to send strong defensive units up into your hills and mountains where it's difficult to roust them out. When the Mayans started sending riflemen up into my highlands, I used the workers to lure them down to a coastal field:

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Then I called in the cavalry to finish them off.

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I lured four more riflemen and a longbowman to their deaths on that grassy plain.

Is there a reason why your cities are so close together?!

And no, unfortunately I lost it! My war weariness went through the roof, and even when i'd pulled back some troops and won a few naval battles it was still causing me intense problems! I just couldn't get the german's to peace me even though i was vastly superior!

I lost a few turns of production until they would see my envoy, i got loads of cash for peace and tried to catch up. The Greek's were already 2 techs ahead of me, and built the ship when I had three pieces left to make! I didn't even get to integrated defence either!

Was a great game though...funnily, about 2 turns away from the end of the game the Babylonians nuked the Greeks, and they nuked back, and still built a space ship! Crazy...I just stayed clear, I'm sure our friends the Greeks will take a few English books and astronaughts to Alpha Centuri!

Exwing17 said:

Is there a reason why your cities are so close together?!

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Samarra was a Mayan city I hemmed in with my own so it couldn't grow, and then I took it when they declared war. I don't usually have cities this close together unless I'm building specialist farms.

Sorry you lost the game -- war weariness can be a real pain.

Avoiding war weariness is one reason that I use a modified Monarchy, although I do my best to avoid wars, unless I am against the Aztecs. I have been using them as my opponent for my unit testing, figuring that they are one civilization that should be knocked out. And I see that being conscientious definitely does not prevent you from being highly devious, D. N. Using returned workers as decoys is pretty good. I will need to keep that in mind. However, when I play the against the Aztecs, I keep all of the workers that I capture, figuring that keeps them from being sacrificial candidates.

Minimalist Warfare

It’s 1798 A.D. We’re alone in the modern age, just researched rocketry and alas, we have no aluminum. Looking around the globe, we find that the only civ with enough to trade is the Celts. They’ve already declared war on us twice, so even if we could afford to wait for them to discover it, we can’t count on them for a steady supply.

In this empire we avoid war when possible, and our illustrious Portuguese haven’t declared on anyone thus far. But aluminum is such a necessary resource for spaceship-building that it justifies an aggressive procurement strategy. Such a strategy, though, must focus on the needed acquisition, avoid unwarranted plunder or destruction, and strive to be completed as quickly as possible.

The Celts are on the other continent, and the Ottomans have some way down in their tundra, but we have two neighbors, The Germans and Mayans, who have aluminum we could more easily get under our control. In the zoomed-out map below, the German aluminum is under the Leipzig banner, and the Mayan aluminum is northeast of Tikal.



Here are some close-ups:

Leipzig :


Tikal:


The players:

We are the Portuguese (purple on the map). Rocketry is our only modern-age tech. We have all the world’s tanks, 23 of them, located at Eridu, and more on the way. We have at least that many cavalry, some at Eridu and others spread along the borders, and a cavalry army at Ashur. We have 5 battleships, a couple of frigates and a carrack on the east coast, no naval units yet in the newer cities on the west coast. Our cities are defended by infantry 2-3 deep, and all are connected by rail. Our advisor says our military is strong compared to all others. We are currently at peace with everyone.

The Germans (dark blue) still need flight and mass production. They have 24 gold.

The Mayans (light blue) need the corporation, scientific method and replaceable parts. They have 13 gold and are at war with the Celts (allied with Ottomans).

The Romans (red) need the corporation and electricity. They have 1 gold.

The Ottomans (orange) need refining and atomic theory. They have 116 gold and are at war with the Celts (allied with the Maya).

The Celts (green) need refining and electronics. They have 23 gold and are at war with the Mayans and Ottomans.

Current trades:

Germany gives: Wines, 231 gold per turn. We give: Incense, silks, spices. (13 turns ‘til all deals run out) (They’re paying us for a tech or two also.)

Maya gives: 11 gold per turn We give: incense (15 turns)

Ottomans give: Furs, 39 gpt. We give: Incense, silks (14 turns)

Celts give: Dyes, gems We gave: Corporation (7 turns)


So what would you do? How would you go about hooking up this resource as quickly and painlessly as possible?

In a day or two I’ll post what I did and how it worked out.

Interesting idea, definitely makes for long games. I personally wouldn't use it, but it looks like a good story mode.

To do it without war, you need to use culture and city placement. Plant a city on the jungle tile that is in your territory. Rush a temple, a library and maybe a cathedral to get fast culture pops. When the hill 2 tiles south becomes your territory, plant a town there and repeat the process. This will work below Emperor level, above that, your cities will flip their way. The other possibility is to try to culture flip Viroconium, since it is a "cultural island", isolated from its' parent civilization. If you go to war for a resource, you are violating peaceful principles.