Sengir02 - The long view on cottage cheese

I'll happily look at the carnage this evening, but if indeed Rotterdam and Grepursfory are lost next turn(s) we might as well call it a day!

I still highly doubt if this would have been winnable under better circumstances (and better play maybe). Mainly because I don't think there are any victory conditions we would have been able to meet... Not diplo or space because of lacking techs. Domination/conquest is out with pemanently inferior units and low production. Culture, also miss essential techs. Time maybe, although undoubtedly some AI would send a spaceship before time runs out.

Well we tried. Maybe we can try again a few games from now. Does anyone want to finish it out to make it official? If not I'll try to this weekend.

Hmm . . . were you officially up next, Norvin? Yeah, things look pretty grim, yet I am the kind of guy who likes to see things to the end. If nothing else, finishing the game (and by finish, I mean, play until England wipes us out--no point in making peace if he takes half of our empire) might at least provide a lesson in dealing with a superior opponent. Or, maybe not. We don't even have catapults to deal with enemy stacks.

I keep hearing mumblings about Sengir03. Is there a suggestion box, or are we leaving it up to the man himself? I wouldn't mind another race to Future Tech, but it would be nice not to have any restrictions on improvements.

@nocho: As a lurker pointed out, if we had made it to Nationalism, we could have drafted ourselves an army, especially with all the food surpluses.

Maybe we can do another map type. Has anyone ever played on highlands? I think I've seen a couple games on that type, could be rough. Could be interesting. I've also been interested in playing for an Islamic AP victory . . . but I'm surely getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, looks like you played as well as possible, sturick. But bronze age units just can't match medieval units, eh? And the amphibious landing isn't helping things, either. I've always thought our port cities were vulnerable, but it's not like we had enough units to cover everything.

Whosit said:

@nocho: As a lurker pointed out, if we had made it to Nationalism, we could have drafted ourselves an army, especially with all the food surpluses.

Click to expand...

True, but right now it's still 25 techs away, with lovely things like satellites to research first! With luck we'd have researched it somewhere at the beginning of the 21st century. By then we would have been overran by tanks or somebody would've launched.

Yeah we were getting crushed at Rotterdam even with the 40% cultural defenses and the hills.
He was fielding Cuirs and even Combat II spears were getting about 50/50 odds to win.

I almost think we would have stood a better chance against Monty with our Bourtange.

I think for Sengir3 I wouldn't mind a beeline to Future Tech attempt again.
But this time we would allow Espionage to steal worker techs and stuff like Currency and Feudalism.
Keep the No Tech Trading on as it levels the playing field.
No restrictions on improvements either.
Monarch level seems appropriate.

What does everyone think about that????

nocho said:

True, but right now it's still 25 techs away, with lovely things like satellites to research first! With luck we'd have researched it somewhere at the beginning of the 21st century. By then we would have been overran by tanks or somebody would've launched.

Click to expand...

Well, yes, that's true. I think I meant that if we somehow got Nationalism before the end of the world, that would have been a way to get an army.

Anyway, I disagree with the tech beeline. Even with a financial civ and plenty of rivers to boost cottage output, we still wouldn't have made it to the end before time ran out, it seems. Losing out on early techs ultimately slowed our research, I think . . . . Eh, but, whatever.

If no one minds, I like to finish this one off this weekend (so I have had at least one turnset in this game).

After that I will start Sengir03, I have a few options spinning around in my head:
- One more time with feeling: Beeline future tech (again), but allow for bulbing stuff on the tree and trading/stealing for stuff on the tree (no techs off the tree). We are not allowed to click the techtree again for resetting it, though if the computer does it for us it is fine with me (otherwise it would be to hard to keep track of what to research) > Prince or Monarch
- Cottage cheese - Extra blue: Cottages only (no other improvements, except for resources; all trees must be cut down as soon as reasonably possible). > Monarch

These two are essentially remakes of Sengir02, but with one variant each, instead of two combined.
The last option is:
- The Orwellian State: 3 Continents; we are not allowed to declare war on the other continents untill we have conquered our own continent (if we are declared upon we can have a defensive war only; we can declare war on every civ with a city on our continent, but are not allowed to take any cities that are not on our continent). As soon as we have conquered our own continent, we must declare war on one continent. We may get peace again, but as soon as we do, we must declare on the other continent (so we will be at war with at least one continent all the time).
Not sure what the best setting will be for the AI, one civ per continent or one team per continent (team of 2/3 civs).... will probably need a mapmaker for this one.

A slight problem with the beeline to future tech and allowing espionage is that alpha and thus spies come rather late, about the 16th tech and after astronomy. Well, that could still be an option, but as soon as we hit alpha we might be tempted to shut off research and steal our way through the tree, as if it were sengir01...

After our harsh experiences here I think I prefer a cottage cheese variant to a beeline-to-future-tech variant.

Or indeed something completely different, like the Orwellian state. Do we have to declare immediately on the civs on our continent? Or can we do a normal build-up and then declare at some point? I understand the idea is to have permanent war going on from some point in time.

I also have been thinking about another war-heavy variant which could be dubbed "don't spark my tension!". The idea is that we would have to declare on any civ with whom we have an overlapping tile (both our and their culture present) and we cannot take peace until that situation is corrected, be it by razing the offending city or conquering the whole civ or vassaling him. A pangaea map would be best of course for maximum confrontation. It could lead to a war on many fronts, depending on where we are located on the map. The variant could be softened up by having to declare only on 1 AI at the time, but as soon as peace is back of course we'd have to take care of the other cultural trespassers.

I like the Orwellian State idea. What can I say, I'm a fan of dystopias . . . .

We could do 1 civ/team per continent, though I haven't played any "team game" settings. But, we should set it up to ensure that the other continents end up being united. An AI left to their own devices would fill up an empty continent, right? We can probably work something out. I kind of feel like it should have an Industrial Age start, but that may be unimportant . . . .

Good thinking on the IA-start, IA might be a bit late though, as we have to unite our continent first before we can get the thing really of the ground.... maybe renaissance (what ages are there anyway)?

I'm afraid that an AI left alone with a rather large continent will have problems with barbs, thats why I suggested an AI team: that will get the continent settled quicker, so less barb problems. Though that could be mitigated through a no-barb-setting as well.

I wasn't officially up Whosit. I was just offering to hit "enter" until we got our defeated message but since Sengir wants to torture himself I say "Knock yourself out buddy!"
For Sengir03 I'm game for whatever you guys want though if forced to vote I would vote to postpone anything cottage cheese related to Sengir04!

Sengir said:

Good thinking on the IA-start, IA might be a bit late though, as we have to unite our continent first before we can get the thing really of the ground.... maybe renaissance (what ages are there anyway)?

I'm afraid that an AI left alone with a rather large continent will have problems with barbs, thats why I suggested an AI team: that will get the continent settled quicker, so less barb problems. Though that could be mitigated through a no-barb-setting as well.

Click to expand...

Well, you can start in any of the "age" you get when you hit a technological milestone: Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial, Modern . . . I might have missed one or two, but you get the idea. We can turn off barbarians, too. It would facilitate rapid settlement for all involved.

For the Industrial start, you get 3 settlers, 2 workers, 3 riflemen, and two explorers. Also, 100 gold in the bank, which is good, 'cuz you'll probably be losing some fast.

Also, only three Civs have Police State as a favorite civic: Genghis Khan, Montezuma, and Shaka. All of our favorites! We should probably pick a couple of them, maybe play the third.

I've tried rolling up a couple of starts, but I am running into some problems. With custom continents set for "one for each team," I'm getting the "starting on a 1-tile island" problem for us or the AI. I don't think that the AI handles that situation terribly well. Also, a Tiny map would be appropriate; possibly a duel, but that might be too small. Also, it ends up with two roughly square continents, and a very long one north or south. Dunno how to avoid that other than trying to build one yourself, but then you've spoiled it.

If we can figure out a way around that, should be good.

Other option: We don't necessarily have to do three continents, though I understand the appeal. Even a Pangea or some other map type with a solid landmass can work. I know that the Civ IV AI is better with water-wars, but continents might still be stacking it in our advantage. I'll play around a bit more.

So I ended it, took me 34 turns.. The AI even behaved halfway competent.

Turn 1
Start whipping like mad :whip:

Turn 2
Rotterdam falls ibt. Manage to kill a cuirassir though.

Turn 3
Hah, we manage not to lose another city this turn

Turn 4
Don't even lose a unit this turn

Turn 5
End of luck; Grepursfory falls ibt.

Turn 6
Ragnar pleads his loyalty to Shaka.

Turn 7
Maastricht falls ibt.

Turn 8
We manage to kill a knight in Nijmegen

Turn 9
Nothing (apart from the regularly scheduled bloodshed of our army people and civilians)

Turn 10
Kill a knight at Minoan; Nijmegen falls ibt though.
In other, non-violent news, Electricity is in, radio in 43t

Turn 11
Kill another Cuirassier, but lose Minoan anyway. Churchill gets a GG for the effort.

Turn 12
Ragnar and Shaka join the party by declaring on us.

Turn 13
Shaka lands an army next to The Hague (yeup, quite a decent one at that)

Turn 14
Zulu's attack The Hague

Turn 15
Kill Zulu knight at The Hague but it holds; Kill an English Cuirassier, 2 maces and 2 crossbows, but Utrecht falls nonetheless (I like cities on hills though )

Turn 16
Kill a Caravel and a Mace (both Zulu)

Turn 17
The Hague still holds (only 1 unit left though, city has been whipped to the ground, so no reinforcements).

Turn 18
There it goes, The Hague isn't ours anymore, but Shaka's

Turn 19
Nothing but mourning about The Hague

Turn 20
Zulu's decide to land more troops; near Leiden this time

Turn 21
Kill a Zulu knight at Leiden

Turn 22
Kill 2 more knights at Leiden, which is taken by the Zulu's despite the losses.

Turn 23
Amsterdam is being bombed

Turn 24
Kill 2 WE's and 4 pikes (did I mention that I like cities on hills)
Qin and Mehmed want a piece of the action as well and sneak attack us at Middelburg.. it holds for now (And here I was afraid that it might take the AI a while to get our last islands).

Turn 25
Amsterdam is now called York (well, the English renamed New Amsterdam to New York, so I'd assume that regular Amsterdam would turn into regular York, right?)

Turn 26
Mehmed takes Middelburg

Turn 27
One city left.

Turn 28
No takers yet...

Turn 29
War horns sound once more... Monty declares on Churchy... jeez, it only took him 424 turns.

Turn 30
Maybe we should sell Delft to the highest bidder...

Turn 31
Mehmed shows up to put Delft out of it misery

Turn 32
Bourtagne falls (yeah, I kinda missed that we still had units over there).
Our last proud East Indiamen sinks to the bottom of the ocean). We manage to kill an ottoman cuirassier and WE though.

Turn 33
Only four units left at Delft. For the record, Radio will take 793 turns right now.

Turn 34
There is no turn 34, as Delft falls ibt.

That's it, the end. Conquest defeat. Our lifes in misery gratefully shortened by AI's who knew how to take advantage of the situation (and are, thanks to 3.19, halfway capable of landing troops).

Will try to get Sengir03 started sometime soon (tuesday/wednesday)

Duh, Sengir takes a set and we lose!

Good you played it out, now no nagging feelings remain about that it might have been salvageable.

Sengir03 will be the Orwell idea? Maybe you should call it Sengir1984 then...

I echo the playing it out sentiment. Anyone care to put forward any theories on how what we could have done differently? I know sturick mentioned earlier about expanding quicker . . . I was wondering the opposite. If we had stayed smaller and compact to keep maintenance lower with cities tightly bunched to work as many cottages as possible. Just a thought (in case we try it again someday )

As the sponsor of one of your inspiration games, and a player in the other, I'd have to say that I don't think they were ever meant to be combined - neither is easy, as I'm sure you've seen now.... The combination of the extremely slow expansion rate forced by the cottage cheese (I still remember how much difficulty getting the first settler out in the original game there, although we were trying to get it done against Raging Barbs) and the tech complications of the Long View path just don't seem surmountable on the difficulty you were playing on. I have the greatest respect for your attempt, though.

I did find the differences in the tech tree from my original Taking The Long View quite interesting - that was in the original unexpanded game, and the tech tree has changed quite a bit since then. I might have to play it again myself just to see how it's changed.

Anyway, I wanted to congratulate you all on your attempt. It was good to see some of the old-time games resurrected, and I hope the combination of difficulties hasn't entirely put you off the variants for good - I'd still like to see the variants tried again, albeit probably one at a time.

--Garath

Well, thanks for playing to the end, Sengir. Certainly the Dutch fought bravely.

Thanks for voicing in, Garath. Seems like an astute analysis to me.

Look forward to #3. Let's see how the details get hashed out. Y'know, I don't know if anyone has played the Future Wars scenario, but it could kind of work. It's on an Earth map with, I think, four Super Powers with well-established empires. Main problem is that it's a huge map, not great for slower computers, and it uses some alternate rules and units. But, if we could find some way to set something like that up without spoiling things too bad, could be interesting.

'Cuz the key is to get at least three relatively even powers on the map, it seems.

I've been trying out a couple of settings. Thus far it seems that the AI won't handle advanced starts as good as I'd like; besides, I don't like it all that much either.

So my plan is as follows:
Have a mapmaker create three continents, two of which hold 1 AI each, the other holds us + 3/4 opponents (so that we have something to do in the early game). I don't think the AI needs the no-barb setting in this case; it should handle the barbs nicely, should even help them out a bit (they don't need to build as many settlers, and they are going to build the units anyway).

Variant rules:
- We cannot declare upon AI's not on our continent, nor take cities not on our continent untill we have both conquered our continent completely, as well as reached the industrial age.
- Upon fullfilling both requirements we are to declare immediately upon one of the other continents, and must stay at war with at least one of them for the remainder of the game.
- Other Orwellian game elements are encouraged, but I can't think of any atm.

Leaves the following questions:
- Difficulty: Monarch or Emperor
- Map size: Standard?
- Speed: Epic
- Leaders: who do we play, and are we going to pick the two big AI's? If yes, whom are we going to play against? (I don't think we need to pick the AI's on our island, let's keep that random).

If I understand correctly, those two AIs with their continent each will be in isolation for a long time. So maybe they should be economical strong guys, fin/org comes to mind. Otherwise we'll easily roll over Toku for instance, with his gigantic empire that just reached feudalism.

Or maybe the mapmaker can do it in such a way that those two AIs can have contact but not reach each other, so they each have their continent but they could trade (continents 3 water tiles apart, maybe with their capitals relatively close to eachother so they'll surely contact after a few border pops).

Level, I'd say emperor.

Orwellian elements, hmm... Have to get to state property asap, maybe? Everything that reaks of freedom will be forbidden, no free religion, free speech, free market. Representation, US, emancipation should be off as well. Not too limiting, but maybe for the extra flavour. And a combination of Police State, Nationhood, Slavery, State Property and Theo sounds like a darn fine Orwellian fighting machine!

I was thinking about our opponents all being the guys who like Police State, but that might not be good 'cuz we'd get happy bonuses with them (favorite civics).

Too bad that there's really no way to "oppress" our citizens, whipping aside.

Oh, and make sure that we're at war with just one, and peace with the other. I'll try to think of some more later . . . .