Bz7 - Conquest Of Conquests

After a brief personal review of Conquests and reading many posts my personal opinion is that I have been let down by Firaxis. Apart from the egregious bugs of corruption and gpt trades, I have issues with volcanoes (does not have anything to do with gameplay), military leaders unable to rush wonders (then why give the ability to science leaders?), so much more pollution, a stupider AI (hey I thought that was impossible ).... need I go on?

But....

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betazed : Damn! I hate this new expansion pack. They really goofed this one, didn't they?
betazed's wife : Then why did you buy it?
betazed : Well.... you know... errr... it is a civ3 expansion....
betazed's wife : I bet you will be playing this as much as the last one. { mutters something in exasperation, sighs and changes the tv channel... }

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Now, I really cannot let down my wife, can I?

So here is BZ7, to be played in conquests.

However, I will make one change. I will make a game in which I will edit number of optimum cities to 100% and reduce default corruption to 0 for everybody . I can think of many objections to this but it will make an interesting variant (and I would rather have this than having a newly built FP increase corruption is all of my empire).


Apart from that here are the specifics :-

Civ - Netherlands
Civ traits - Agricultural and Seafaring (let's try out the new traits and see how they perform)
Difficulty level - Sid
Map type - Continents
Map size - Huge
everything else - random

P.S. Bz6 is not finished yet, although it is close to completion. However, I started the ball rolling over here so that we can have at least the initial discussions as that game winds up.


Roster
Earp
Betazed
Teknoice - MIA
SAAM - dropped.

I'll join again. I am as dissappointed with Conquests as you are. I think the 'income from other civs counting twice' bug is as big of a problem as the problems with corruption.

I think we should try out the 'Sid' difficutly level.

Originally posted by Earp
I think the 'income from other civs counting twice' bug is as big of a problem as the problems with corruption.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, there is no way I can edit that out.

Originally posted by Earp
I think we should try out the 'Sid' difficutly level.

Click to expand...

Sid it is then. However, at this level the AI to AI trade rate is 200%. That makes the above problem almost murderous for the human player.

Here is the start position. Although this map is generated I consciously did not look at anything in the map. I just tweaked the corruption factors and loaded up the game.

I will post the start when we have a few more players.

I'll join up.

Dutch is an interesting Civ. We start with 2 important techs: Alphabet and Pottery. And the UU: Swiss Mercs. have an def of 4. (Replacing Pikemen with a def of 3) Which is great for defending against Knights.

Seafaring is only good if you plan on building coastal cities to get the city center commerce bonus. Faster moving ships and coastal improvements don't really go a long way in civ 3. (Unless we're playing on an archipelago map)

Agriculture trait is ok. Center tile has one more food. Hills get a bonus of course if they are adjacent to a river. Agriculture improvements build faster but I'm not sure about the granary.
Golden age can be reached by building wonders such as Pyramids and Hanging Gardens.

Welcome aboard, Teknoice.

:soldier:

Originally posted by betazed
I will make one change. I will make a game in which I will edit number of optimum cities to 100% and reduce default corruption to 0 for everybody . I can think of many objections to this but it will make an interesting variant (and I would rather have this than having a newly built FP increase corruption is all of my empire).

Click to expand...

I have a few questions.

Does this mean that corruption will not be affected by distance from the capital? Can we build hundreds of cities and not be affected by corruption?

Will we have no need for a FP or courthouses? Are there any other buildings that we should place less emphasis on?

Will this change have any affect on the different forms of goverment? Will a despot have the same corruption as a democracy?

Does this mean that corruption will not be affected by distance from the capital? Can we build hundreds of cities and not be affected by corruption?

Click to expand...

Yes corruption should not be affected by the capital. I turned down the corruption slider to 0 and made percentage of optimal cities 100. If we still see corruption then we will know we have found another bug!

Will we have no need for a FP or courthouses? Are there any other buildings that we should place less emphasis on?

Click to expand...

Yes no point building a FP or courthouses. In any case under C3C we would have been penalized for building a FP. This was one of my primary reasons of making this change.

Will this change have any affect on the different forms of goverment? Will a despot have the same corruption as a democracy?

Click to expand...

I have made corruption same (I could only make it to Minimal) for all forms of goverment. With the slider set to 0 and 100% optimal cities all forms of goverment should have the same corruption - 0.

Whether this will really be the case, we will see. My guess is as good as yours. We will come to know right away when we build our second city.

So here is the big question?

With corruption gone what changes do you think we should do in our strategy?

One thing is obvious. Expand, expand, expand! More cities the merrier. In fact I am thinking grab as much land as possible in the beginning and then go for ICS!

So let's get 2 settler factories

Or maybe 1 worker/settler factory and 1 settler factory.

Allow me to jump back in. I'm picking up my copy over the weekend when the show is finally done. But, I have a life once more and Civ can reenter it. Just stick me at the bottom of the roster for now and don't expect me to do anything for tomorrow or the weekend (final show is sat, party lasts till 2am). Come Monday, though, im in. As for Sid, It would make an excelent Cap Feather. During Beta, I tested Sid some. I was lucky to get a fourth city down.... The corruption factor should help us, but the AI is going to love it. Look for would-be fishing village metropolises.

@SAAM: Welcome back. You are in.

Unfortunately, I have to go to Vancouver this weekend. I may not be back till next weekend.

So if you guys want to start this game please go ahead.

If you do start, then Earp plays the first 20 turns and then 10 turns as usual from there on according to roster (skip me till I am back).

Here is the save.

0 - 4000 BC
Move worker west to cow
Found Amsterdam
Set Amsterdam's production to warrior
Set research to writing at minimum

1 - 3950 BC
Worker begins irrigation

2 - 3900 BC


3 - 3850 BC


4 - 3800 BC
Amsterdam Warrior --> Warrior
Warrior moves south

5 - 3750 BC
Warrior moves south
Worker finishes irrigation and begins road

6 - 3700 BC
Amsterdam grows. Increase lux slider
Warrior moves south

7 - 3650 BC
Amsterdam Warrior --> Granary
Fortify Warrior in Amsterdam and decrease lux slider
Warrior moves west

8 - 3600 BC
Warrior moves south
Worker finishes road and moves east

9 - 3550 BC
The exploring warrior could pop a hut, but I think it will probably contain barbs, so he moves west
Worker moves south

10 - 3500 BC
Amsterdam grows. Increase lux slider
Warrior moves east
Worker begins to clear forest

11 - 3450 BC
Warrior moves northeast

12 - 3400 BC
Warrior moves east

13 - 3350 BC
Warrior moves north

14 - 3300 BC
Amsterdam grows. Increase lux slider
Worker finishes forest chop and begins road
Warrior moves east

15 - 3250 BC
Warrior moves north

16 - 3200 BC
Warrior moves southeast

17 - 3150 BC
Worker finishes road and moves southeast
Warrior moves south

18 - 3100 BC
Amsterdam Granary --> Settler
Amsterdam grows. Increase lux slider
Worker begins road
Warrior moves south

19 - 3050 BC
Warrior moves south

20 - 3000 BC
Warrior moves west

Our first two cities can be 4 turn settler factories with +5 fpt. We should be able to grow very quickly if we pump out a settler every two turns. I think we need to found the second city SE, SE of the game. We need to irrigated the game to get +5 fpt for the second city. We will need to mine the seven BGs to increase the spt for the two cities. Amsterdam needs to work the irrigated cow and three mined BGs, and the second city needs to work the irrigated game and four mined BGs.



Don't forget to adjust the slider as Amsterdam grows and shrinks.

I think we might want to build a second worker after Amsterdam finishes the settler. We have lots of BGs to mine and connecting the wines will help us conserve some gpt.

The SAVE

can you post a dotmap of where you want our next couple cities?

Thanks.

Here is a quick dotmap. I agree that we will need a dotmap considering that we will be producing a settler every other turn, but it is kind of early to make one after only twenty turns of exploration.

All of these dots are open to discussion. I am not sure if we want to build denser than this based on the 0 corruption.

The blue dot is the city location I have in mind for the second settler factory.

Thoughts?

ok I've got it.. 10 turns right?

yes, 10 turns from now on

Pre flight checks:

Thanks for that dotmap, it helps a lot to get an idea of what's good (or not) for city placement.

Watching lux slider/amsterdam growth...
Worker after built settler in amsterdam...
Going to continue to scout...
Second city location pinpointed...

OK!
GO!

1 - 2950 BC
Warrior -> S
Worker -> mine bg
Amserdam growth in next turn lux slider 40%

2 - 2900 BC
Warrior -> SW
Settler built next turn in Amsterdam Lux slider down 20%

3 - 2850 BC
Move new settler to second city placement. (SE,SE, of game)
Warrior -> W

4 - 2800 BC
Warrior -> W
New city: Rotterdam -> building warrior
Increase Lux to 30%


5 - 2750 BC
Amsterdam builds Worker -> Settler
New worker moves to irrigate Game for Rotterdam
Warrior -> W

6 - 2710 BC
Warrior -> W

7 - 2670 BC
Worker finishes mine -> mine next BG
Warrior -> SW
Increase Lux to 40%, Amsterdam growth next turn

8 - 2630 BC
IBT French are building Pyramids and we spot a French Warrior close to our
borders.
Contact French (They are Polite!)
They have BW, Masonry, and WC.
I trade them Pottery for all of their gold (35).
Worker mines BG
Warrior -> S discovers French border

9 - 2590 BC
Warrior -> S

10 - 2550 BC
Amsterdam builds Settler -> Settler
Move lux to 30%
Worker mines BG
Settler Moves to Settle below Rotterdam
Warrior -> SE

Done.

Watch the lux slider/potential mood changes.
Settler en route to build 3rd city.
Amsterdam needs more production.
We have close friends (French) their mood toward us is polite.
Good stash of cash.

Our Civ:



Save

lurker's comment:

If you wanted to do a farmer's gambit, you could make the black dot (and the yellow dot, if it's on a river) a four turn settler factory as well.

Also, any city in the southeast on freshwater that can work the game can become a 4 turn settler factory.

Maybe you should see how far you can peacefully expand with nothing but settlers seeing as your only known neighbors are the french.