Lotr5 -- Tactless Darius

Arathorn

Catan player
Joined
Jan 10, 2002
Messages
3,778
Location
Illinois
Game parameters:

Difficulty: Deity (of course)
Map size: Standard
Opponents: Random
World set-up: All random
Win conditions: All standard ones enabled
Civilization: Persia

Variant rules: No contacting any other civilization at any time, for any reason. If another civilization comes to us with a deal, we must either accept the deal offered or reject it outright (no using ESC to try to just cancel the deal). This means NO contact, not even to see what techs/cities/etc. they may have.

Repercussions (for those who may not have thought it through): No 2-fer or 3-fer tech deals. No buying tech. Only local luxuries. No alliances of our choosing (no dog-pile). No beating techs out of people. No peace on our terms at all. Heck, we can't even decide to make peace. That's all up to the AI.

For those of you who think that another major handicap like not controlling our capital would be possible, I heartily disagree. I think this game will be nearly as tough as always-war, in a lot of ways. I fully expect to be at least an age-and-a-half behind in tech.

Proposed roster :
Arathorn
Gothmog
Charis
JMB
T-hawk

Sorry for the delayed start,
Arathorn
 
Well, I took the first start generated.

Good news:
- We have fresh water.
- We have two wheats in range of Persepolis.
- Popped a goodie hut for conscript warrior in 4000 BC.
- Persepolis built on a luxury.

Bad news:
- No rivers.
- Zero bonus grass visible.
- Capital on end of a peninsula.
- One hill and two forests are only real shield-producers.

Why don't I just post a map? My video card is getting flaky and anytime I try to Alt-Tab out of Civ3, I get a BSOD. I also get one every time I exit out of Civ3. So no maps from me.

Around 3500 BC, we saw our first enemy. I believe it's Germany, because I saw spears and archers -- militaristic and scientific starting units. Plus, they're that nice blue.

Persepolis built a warrior to explore and is now working on a granary. It's 3000 BC, so I only played 20, not 30, to get things started.

We researched Pottery at max. I then started Ceremonial Burial, as the cheapest tech. Knowing where iron is will be very important, too, but I was following the general principle of going with the cheapest required tech, as that will allow us to spend the fewest total research dollars. We're only a turn or two into CB, if that much, so the next leader can change to IW if so desired.

There's a lot of wheat between us and Germany. I hope we can claim a lot of it. There's a two-wide neck we can try to block, but we don't have enough units to do that and explore and keep workers going.

Gothmog -- up now
Charis -- on deck

Save file at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-3000bc.zip

Please verify that you're in, if you're on the roster.

Arathorn
 
Well, I was looking for a challenge and I guess I found it. 'I got it'

"Around 3500 BC, we saw our first enemy."
I guess we wont be making nice-nice with them?

Off topic: It might be fun to try a game with all the AI handicaps. Those being: no prebuilds for wonders and manditory auto goveners and workers. Possibly no haggling too, I am not sure if the AI does much haggling. The game would move at a quicker pace without the micromanaging.

Edit: Can we build embassies?
 
How do you make nice with someone you can't talk to? Especially when they are as aggressive as Otto? :)
 
Embassies are necessary to see who is at war with whom, which could be useful to us. Also, you never know - someone might offer us MA or MPP that we could use. It might even encourage the AI to give us a call just to chat!

@Zed-F: Well, everyone likes Pie - so maybe we could send one to Otto.
 
Confirming... sounds good.

This will be... different! :p
Don't expect any embassies on my turn. Since that's something the AI 'can' do (like sell contacts) I'll never initiate it. Charisarius don't have enough 'tact' to set up an embassy.

The rules will help the game move quicker, that's for sure, since I'm used to checking every civ every turn if playing on deity. We'll have to infer from turns-to-research what the other civs have or don't have. The AI does occasionally offer tech, btw, but I've only see it done when you have cold cash sitting around, and the only thing I can remember for sure being offer is an optional tech like Printing Press.

Clearly a ton will depend on how things go, but any initial thoughts on most likely victory type?

Charis
 
The AI will offer a great variety of techs. I was offered a number in my aborted no-tech deity effort -- Pottery, Alphabet, BW. But you can't build a 2-fer from it. And can't expect to keep anything resembling parity in techs with cash.

As for victory, diplomatic is obviously right out. Cultural is also pretty much impossible, as even a 20K city needs to be supported with lots of tech buys, which we can't do. Nor is Persepolis well-situated to crank out shields. And 100K on deity is essentially a joke.

Me being me and from what I've seen of Gothmog, the military victories look reasonably appealing. Immortals vs. muskets isn't the easiest of battles, but it can be won. And artillery vs. mech infantry to prevent a launch? Dunno. That'd be my guess, though.

Space? Teching is so hard on deity. And once I get synthetic fibers, I can't stop, generally, from just wiping everybody out. Stealing Laser to launch before the AI doesn't strike me as very good on the nervous system, but it might end up being our route....

Histograph? :lol: Seriously, this is deity...and no sand-bagging. No way.

My odds-makers say 70% likely is a military victory of some sort. 20% likely is a loss. 10% likely is a space launch win. Nothing else is even on the radar. YMMV, of course.

BTW, barbs are also set to random. I saw zero on my turn, but I also didn't leave much fog around....

Yeah, ignoring diplomacy made my turns go faster....no bartering for best deal, no thinking about whether/what techs to trade, no searching for workers to buy, just MMing cities and moving units.

Arathorn
 
huh... grunt. Military victory sounds good to me. Like Arathorn, once I have MA I rarely wait around for a Space Launch. Those three movement points are too tempting.

Hopefully we can get around to Immortals vs. Pikes though. :p

War is a much different undertaking when you can't get MA's, initiate peace negotiations, or even try to stop a dogpile against you. We will have to be careful about getting into wars.

Actually, this game will have some serious builder aspects to it. We will need infrastructure to be able to research ourselves, much like an AW game.
 
Preturn: I see our wheat laiden peninsula and Germany nearby. Not a great start. Persopolis will riot so I up lux to 40%, CB in 22.

(1) 2950 BC - German archer/spear pair makes me nervous by moving south on our peninsula. A road competes and CB now due in 15.

(3) 2850 BC - We grow in 5, granary in 4, good.

(5) 2750 BC - German pair heads back north after dancing with our warrior.

(7) 2670 BC - First settler started. I spot an unpopped hut.

(9) 2590 BC - Hut empty. Germans found Konigsberg on the border of our peninsula, with 2 wheat in their 21 range. We need a city up there pronto.

That's about it. We have a capital well equipped to churn out the settlers but not much room to settle. We may want to shoot for a dense build on the peninsula and an Immortal war with Germany. It looks like we're alone with them on a small island, although I can't be sure. There is still a German archer/spear on our peninsula. They headed back south after Konigsberg was founded.

The save and a screenshot:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5-2550bc.zip

 
As we begin, things are already looking tough. We still have one city, but
at least it has a granary and is ready to pop a settler. There is a *majorly*
wheat-filled site just opposed to Konigsberg. That spot must be ours!

Charisarius, the homebody domestic advisor while Darius is out fishing,
ignoring foreign affairs, comes to power under these conditions...

[0] -2550: His first decision is to... swap off settler to barracks?!! Is he
as daft as Darius? Perhaps, but the way the shields are working out we're set
to lose almost 8 shields by being just short on the settler this turn,
and there's no way this Ancient era is going to be peaceful 8-\

[1] -2510: zzz

[2] -2470: Oh crud, here comes that archer/spear toward our capital!

[3] -2430: I wish we could hit 10spt. The pair makes a neutral turn, neither
towards nor against our city.

[4] -2390: Another neutral turn. Spear due soon.

[5] -2350: Ceremonial Burial due in 1. The pair head back north.

[6] -2310: We go for an important cheap tech, warrior code. Spear done.
We start warrior for MP, and to make ourselves seem less inviting.
Even if we had a settler, I wouldn't send him anywhere unescorted with the
leeches nearby. The worker has headed back, to mine the hill, which will give
us 10spt at capital. That sounds minor, but over 8spt that's a 50% to 100%
improvement in troop 'output'.

[7] -2270: Shave a turn off the warrior at no cost to growth.

[8] -2230, [9] -2190: zzz.

[10] -2150: Archer-settler seen in the east near our conscript.

Well that was quick :p

Perseopolis is size 8, spear due in 1. Do NOT casually switch to settler!
It would finish one turn before the growth, plopping us down to size 6 and losing
a ton of food. If you want a settler badly, you'll need to reduce build time to
match the growth time. I would stick with spear and do settler immediately after.

Not a wonderful turn, I know folks expected expansion - so did I. But I was
prepared against instant loss (a *real* threat with the Germans), and have Perseopolis
ready in a few turns to crank out one proto-Immortal per turn :p

If we get no iron, we'll need to crank archers (or horses) and go. Since we can't
actually rent iron, there would be no hope to get any without use of force.
Build densely, as we don't have much land to settle! We'll need several cities purely
for militia support, even if we end up disbanding one or more later when German is
ours. Oh crrrrrrudd... I just realized. Two *KEY* things about war. First, if we
don't win decisely, such that the foes come to us begging for peace, it's game over,
there will be no way to make them stop. Second, we can't extort techs!!! They'll
come and offer free peace. Gah!! With this in mind... Perseopolis is ready for an
OCC attempt! (Ya right, all self-researching)

This reminds me of the nekkid civ game, where Vikes were stuck on an island much
like this one. They were fortunate to have India opposite them, but it was rough.

Save game 2150BC

Good luck, (JMB, then T-Hawk, I believe)
Charis
 
-2150 (0) - Oh boy... I haven't been in this rough a situation in a long time (ever? :(). Hopefully, I won't screw things up too badly...

-2110 (1) - We are now over our unit support limit... Send newly produced spearman to front lines near wheat to blocade this area from German settlers. Persiopolis begins settler (due in 5).

Turns 2 - 5 - Not much.

-1910 (6) - We produce our first settler. Begin producing spearman. IBT, the Germans begin the Pyramids and Carthage completes the Colossus.

-1870 (7) - We found our second city and begin producing a worker.

-1830 (8) - Not much. Produce spearman in Persiopolis, begin another settler (likely our last one before war...)

-1790 (9) - Not much.

-1750 (10) - Swap Parsargadae from worker to barracks (can be vetoed, but we could probably use it...). Move worker onto forest tile for lumberjacking (to help speed the production of the barracks and allow us to irrigate the wheat up north). Setter due in four turns out of Persiopolis, and WC due in 6.

Here's the save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr5_1750BC.zip

Good luck T-hawk!

JMB
 
@Charis: Yes that German archer/spear worried me too. That's why I put up the big red roadsign. I respect your decision to swap to racks. In a solo game I would probably risked a settler first, but it would be a very high price to pay for a slight miscalculation.

We really need IW to see the iron, but we need WC too for archers. Times are tough, but we should be able to whip Germany in the long run. Immortals would be absolutely huge.
 
Anybody sign up for an easy ride? :) No? I didn't think so. It's gonna be rough. Iron would be really nice, but with only one foe on our island, I think we'll be OK. Definitely, the whole island is ours, though. No ifs/ands/buts about it. The island is Persian.

I hope it's a watery 'pelago world and we're not the only ones in this fix. Could be really ugly.

T-hawk, you're up!
Arathorn, you're on deck! :eep: Already?

Arathorn
 
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