CS-1 - Farmer's Paradise

I've been playing around with this one in private games, and I wanted to see if anyone was interested in such a thing.

- All flatland, non forest, non resource tiles must be farmed if they can be.
- We must start with agriculture or research it immediately.
- Through some combination of great people, Oracle, and research we must get Civil Service asap.
- We must also beeline to Biology, though I am unsure how to structure this. A dead on beeline would surely make the game very hard, but there must be some sort of way to do it. This is open for discussion.

For the leader, I want to take someone who has agriculture, otherwise we will use precious early beakers researching something that we could have avoided. We should also probably take a philosophical leader. The extra food we are sure to have will certainly make for more specialists, and thus more great people. The second trait I am not too sure about. Here's a rundown of the possibilities I see:
- Expansive: All that extra food will lead to more unhealthiness. Plus half price granaries and harbors will help with health, and commerce...plus allow us to use some of that food for a little .
- Financial: Some coast with extra commerce would help since we'll have virtually no cottages (only place they'll be allowed is grassland non resource hills). Probably weaker than Expansive.
Based upon my analysis, it looks like my choice for a leader is Peter based on traits, or any of the leaders who start with agriculture.

On getting Civil Service, this is very important because it allows us to spread irrigation. I've found that if I research writing, priesthood and meditation, but not masonry I can get Oracle for Code of Laws and then a Prophet (popped from Oracle) will take Civil Service. I haven't worked through a good Biology beeline as of yet.

Roster (closed as of 2/10):
chriseay
beestar (?)
Morred
Woebearer
Sina
Snaproll

I'd like to get 5, but I'm willing to play with 4 to get the game going. Anyone interested? We'll get started as soon as there are enough players.

I'm interested, this ought to be good, I have to run, I'll post more fully once I get back.

You could do a rule that once you reach a certin tech you have to beeline to Civil Service/Biology after that...

Such as Writing/Priesthood/Monotheism ---> Civil Service

Biology is a bit more tricky if you go too far back the beeline is too long, but if you get to close to it then it doesn't have much of an effect.

Nationalism/Printing Press/Liberalism/Gunpowder ---> Biology

I'd be interested in a spot btw...

I'd like to participate as well

I think it'd be interesting to see how a game without cottages works out science wise. Maybe a financial leader would be good to get at least some commerce?

Edit: I should probably say why I think financial will allow at least some commerce. I'm thinking colossus here and coastal cities.

I like this idea Chriseay. I've become so cottage dependent that it would be nice to try a specialist based economy. Count me in. I'd like to be towards the end of the roster.

Ok, everybody that posted before this is in. I guess the roster'll look like this, and I'll pm beestar to make sure he's still in. I'll do twenty, beestar or Morred 15, and then 10 from then on.

Roster:
chriseay
beestar (?)
Morred
Woebearer
Sina
Snaproll

I'm thinking these settings, any preferences or changes?

Leader: Peter (PHI, EXP) or Elizabeth (PHI, FIN)
Map Script: (Custom?) Continents
Level: Prince
Size: Standard
# of AI's: Default
Speed: Normal
Victories: All on, no preference on how we try to win
All other options standard, unless someone wants something changed....let me know.

As soon as I get a consensus on leader and script, and any other things we might want to change, I'll start the game. Probably tomorrow sometime.

Woebearer said:

You could do a rule that once you reach a certin tech you have to beeline to Civil Service/Biology after that...

Such as Writing/Priesthood/Monotheism ---> Civil Service

Biology is a bit more tricky if you go too far back the beeline is too long, but if you get to close to it then it doesn't have much of an effect.

Nationalism/Printing Press/Liberalism/Gunpowder ---> Biology

I'd be interested in a spot btw...

Click to expand...

I wonder if it's possible to set up a beeline to get Liberalism first, and take biology, or something directly in the biology line, with the free tech. Somehow I think not, as lib. and bio. are pretty far apart. I'll play a little tonight and see what I can find out about this. I'd like to set a rule before the game starts, but it might end up being a flexible thing....something like, get biology asap while being prudent in other areas.

I think you are saying set it so that we get Lib and get Bio with the free tech. Nope, they are much too far apart for that I think.

We could have it so that once we discover Liberalism (or once an AI does ) then we have to beline to Bio asap.

That sounds like an idea Woe.

As for a financial leader, I'll do a few tests, but I think that Specialists will be our ticket to science, with Representation.

As far as civics go, Representation and Caste System are a must. Mercantilism could be useful too.

Pyramids could be a useful early wonder, Great Library is pretty important, as is the Statue of Liberty.

Possible wonders would be the Angkor Wat and Sistine Chapel.

As Morred said. I don't think we absolutely need a financial leader on prince, so Peter would do just fine. And Lizzy without cottages...nahhh...you are kidding me.
But she and The Collossus would still be a match made by heaven.

Okay, I did a bit of testing, playing a Hotseat game with those settings using Peter and Lizzy and Peter absolutely killed Lizzy.

Peter managed Oracle first, and despite Lisabeth being financial, Peter was winning in science too. The beeline worked well, and we could grab CoL early.

Both teams had Stone, and Peter once again managed to grab the Pyramids first, giving us a double swap of Caste System and Representation. Suddenly giving Peter 12 extra beakers, and 20 GPPpt (Great Person Points per turn).

There's only one problem and that is the free tech of civil service, we apprently need Theology before Moses wants us to grab Civil Service. With Peter, that's a 21 turn tech. I stopped there before checking to see what else we would need before that.

We could always 'skip' theology by not discovering writing, but then we can't grab CoL, so it is a conundrum.

As for Peter, the health advantage is huge. Despite settling on floodplains with minimal forests, Moscow grew to 9 without any health or happiness losses, by 500 BC.

Anyway, I think I have also managed to find a decent researching path.

Agriculture - Mysticism - Polytheism - Priesthood - Writing - Bronze Working - The Wheel - Masonry.

After that, it depends on if we stick with the Moses Civil Service Slingshot. If so.

Meditation - Monotheism - Theology

Or if not.

Mathematics - Pottery

Ok, here's the problem with Morred's suggestions. I think in order to pull off the Civil Service beeline with certainty, we can't build pyramids. This is because Masonry (needed for pyramids) opens up Monotheism and then Theology. A great prophet will take civil service after CoL if that is the only available tech. If the Mono or Theo is available, we will have to research them first.

It is an important point that representation (from pyramids) is one of the most important civics we can have. The question is how to get it while getting Civil Service the (somewhat) easy way? My thoughts are we do one of two things:
1. Follow my original "beeline" and get CoL with Oracle, and then Civil Service with the Prophet. Then research masonry and hope we can still get pyramids.
1a. Get stonehenge, take CoL with first prophet before Oracle finishes, and then Civil Service with Oracle. Continue on to pyramids.
2. Build pyramids and just do our research the old fashioned way. May indeed be as fast as the stricter beeline, with extra happies and research from representation. And if we research right, we could still possibly use a prophet for civil service.

The two research paths would then be:
1. agriculture -> mysticism -> meditation -> priesthood -> writing -> CoL -> civil service, with a possibility for worker/metal techs in between if we need them or need more time to build. We might need polytheism too for the first prophet to take civil service.
2. agriculture -> mysticism -> polytheism -> masonry -> meditation -> preisthood -> writing -> CoL -> monetheism -> theology -> civil service, again with substitutions as needed.

What does everyone think? I'm going to get a start right now, and I'll post it up in about 10 minutes. Don't plan on playing my turns till tonight.

Ok, here it is. The start and a 4000 BC save to look over if you want. Discussion?

I think the Pyramids are too important to miss out on them, so I'd go for 2. It depends really who is in the game and if they have stone. Pyramids can go very early (especially if the police state loving chinese is around as well).

Just a note, when I was researching, I saw civil service up there, and it would take has a whopping 57 turns to research! I think a prophet/oracle is definately the way to go there.

As for the start, if we haven't moved the scout yet, put it on that hill to the northwest.

Still, quite nice for our farmers, at least two floodplains, two health resources and lots of food. It looks a bit lean production wise, but still quite nice.

I'm up for #2 as well due to our expected poor research power and the delay before we can start building the Pyramids. I'll go have a look at tech tree in the save ...

Morred said:

As for the start, if we haven't moved the scout yet, put it on that hill to the northwest.

Still, quite nice for our farmers, at least two floodplains, two health resources and lots of food. It looks a bit lean production wise, but still quite nice.

Click to expand...

Scout hasn't been moved, in fact I didn't touch a thing from what came up as the game started. We'll need to get fishing immediately after agriculture, and then sailing rather soon to take advantage of lighthouses. Probably end up leaving all the trees, except for maybe 1. We don't need the health, but the production definitely. I'm on the wrong computer to check, but it looks like there is a hill forest which we might chop to get the extra shields. We should probably leave most/all of our flatland forests though, because if we chop them, that square gets no production for the rest of the game. I'm thinking of playing pretty soon, so if anyone else has any thoughts....chime in soon.

Edit: It looks like we're leaning towards definitely trying to build the pyramids. That's great, in fact I think it's the right move, but it means we have to be really strict about our research. Maybe the best thing to do in that case is to build an early stonehenge, and then use the prophet from that for CoL, so we could then use Oracle for Civil Service. This would mean holding off on starting pyramids till after stonehenge and a prophet, but that's a lot sooner than otherwise. This also means we have to try to get all three early wonders, meaning we'll be bad off in other areas. The other option is stonehenge and make sure we can use the second prophet for Civil Service, making us not rely on Oracle. This means theology has to be researched, and even then I'm not sure the prophet won't take divine right or philosophy before CS. Ahhh so many options to think about! It'll take some careful planning and hopes that no one beats us....if we have to research Civil Service that early manually we could be in trouble.

Are we going to settle in place?

A question about commerce: do I understand correctly that our only commerce is going to be coming from tiles adjacent to rivers (1 coin), water tiles (1-4 coins, depending on Colossus), and resource tiles with the appropriate improvement? Civic maintenance alone is going to be tough - this could mean we need to prioritize grabbing resources for their improved commerce value.

Edit: I have to admit that I normally don't bother with the early wonders because I hate getting beaten, so this will be a good learning experience. This leads to some questions:

- Do we need to detour to Bronze Working so that we can chop for wonders?

- We could always focus on military and conquer the Pyramids, if it's built near us. I don't think our self-imposed constraints necessarily hurt our military so much, as we are allowed to mine hills.

beestar said:

Are we going to settle in place?

A question about commerce: do I understand correctly that our only commerce is going to be coming from tiles adjacent to rivers (1 coin), water tiles (1-4 coins, depending on Colossus), and resource tiles with the appropriate improvement? Civic maintenance alone is going to be tough - this could mean we need to prioritize grabbing resources for their improved commerce value.

Click to expand...

I can't think of any good reason to not settle in place. Moving one east is the only plausible alternative, but it would cost a turn and a forest....both losses I don't think we can afford. On commerce, you are mostly right. We will also have commerce from specialists, of which I hope to have a ton, and we can also build windmills when we get to them, which provide commerce (at the expense of production) as well. Resource grab will be very important. We'll need to keep our large population happy and healthy as well as needing the coin.

Hmm, conquer the pyramids. That may work, but it could be a big risk if it's built across the ocean. Chopping wonders is something I usually don't do, though here it might be something to consider. Problem is, if we chop a flatland square we lose all production it gives, and must farm it. Has to be considered carefully.

We have to research Agriculture first and need Masonry as well. In that time we should be able to tell if there are forrests outside the fat cross that will not be needed by another city. If we have such forrests, BW will be a good thing to get right away. Especially as we need to use production on workboats with this start.
We need to check top 5 cities next turn to estimate our chances for pyramids properly. It really depends on our neighbours/competitors/targets to make a good decission.