LotR28 - Random Rollicking for Returning Refugees

Farming the hill first wouldn't save a worker turn, as I understand it. After spending a turn crossing the river, our worker could take one move to the cows and start work there just as if it crossed directly onto the cows after farming the hill. I don't think that spending one MP delays the work, does it? And going back to the hill will eat a full turn's movement, but it's a hill; it'd eat a turn of movement no matter what.

Either way, got it.

I definitely plan to do settler before warrior though; that's what the early policies are for, so let's get the most out of it that we can! I won't play beyond building the Settler, certainly, but I'm thinking that the area between Dublin and Paris looks like a beautiful production area. Some rivers, some cows, and a metric ton of plains tiles (which are actually pretty good in Civ 5). Where the northern river drains into the sea looks like a nice production location as well, for later, with all the deer to produce food for plains and forested plains tiles (which are a lot of production with lumbermills). Oh, and it'd have furs. The only problem with the latter is the barbarian encampment sitting right there; it'd have to wait until we have a military.

As for tech, heading for Calendar seems like a logical plan. We'll need the happiness sooner rather than later if we push expansion.

Our initial warrior will probably be pulling back towards Paris to cover the capital and our eventual Settler. Yeah, it cuts down on our scouting potential, but we have a solid idea of our immediate surroundings and this is what allows us to go straight to Settler production.

lurker's comment: Ok found the real game... oops but talk is good too

Turnset Report

I played 10 turns. That flies by this early in the game, but we're coming up on a number of significant decisions within the next couple of turns.

Things start off interesting when I realize that our Warrior is within striking range of the eastern barbarian encampment, garrisoned only by a weak Brute. Onwards, for the glory of France!




Well, actually, for the cash prizes, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it. Unfortunately, it's not that simple; another Brute, presumably from the same gang that killed off our Scout, attacks us between turns. We survive, but are hurt.

So, naturally, when it comes back to our turn, we charge!




Victory. This isn't as foolish as it sounds to Civ IV vets. Open terrain in Civ V has a punishing defensive penalty of -33%, so if the enemy is directly in your face then it's mathematically better to attack first rather than fortifying or maneuvering into defensive terrain.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story either. Another Brute, again seriously wounded, appears out of the fog and stops two hexes to the NW. While we have decent odds to win that fight, for the same reasons as before, we might also lose - and our one Warrior is our entire military, upon which the safety of our initial Settler rests. I retreat 1SW into the forests after promoting to Drill I for the rough terrain combat bonus (very useful on defense), and issue a "fortify until healed" command after the Brute declines to follow.



With the barbarian front quiet, we receive a herald with an interesting proposition:



I accept the pact of cooperation. Arabia is on the opposite side of our city-state neighbors, meaning our borders are unlikely to conflict any time soon (unlike Rome and India). Further, both we and Arabia have money:



If we pick up writing, we could finance research agreements to boost our teching. If I understand how diplomacy works in Civ V, the Pact of Cooperation makes Arabia inclined to accept trades and treaties (and to expect us to accept the same). Obviously spending our money on research agreements would conflict with the rapidly-becoming-standard plan of bribing maritime city-states, but it's worth considering. Particularly if it's possible to pop Civil Service as a random tech...

The next bit of news is bittersweet:



We have almost no military. On the other hand, we've started the process of buddying up with the most powerful military in the world. Another potential reason to get on Arabia's good side with a research agreement, perhaps?

The rest of the turnset is uneventful, though an Indian spearman wanders over to our borders. Probably a scout. Both Pottery and our Pasture are due in 1 turn, and our Settler is due in 2. Our empire:



Our demographics - note our cash income:



And now the three most likely city sites, in counterclockwise order. The south, between Dublin and Paris:



The east, by the former barbarian encampment - probably my favorite, considering the sheer quantity of bonus resources in the area:



And the north, a site with abundant wildlife - including barbarians!



Upcoming choices for the next player:
- What tile(s) to improve next (farming the river hill is a strong possibility - but mining the silver would give us a faster Golden Age).
- Where to settle our second city (I suggest east).
- What to build following the Settler (probably a military unit of some sort - the question is which one? Archer, Spearman, or Warrior?).
- What to research next (I'd suggest either Calendar for happiness or Writing for research agreements).
- Within the next two turnsets: what our third social policy should be (many good options)

Roster:
Arathorn --
Corbeau -- JUST PLAYED
ThERat -- UP NOW (24 hrs to claim)
Jaffa Tamarin -- on deck
Kylearan --

Oh dear. It's just been brought to my attention (because it came up in another SG thread here) that there's some sort of bug making special edition (Babylon-edition) games incompatible with regular edition games. I have the deluxe edition, with Babylon. If that screws my save, I have no idea what to do about it.

I tried to load the save and yes, Civ 5 crashes on me. What is this? Any solution for that?

Sheesh, special edition saves not compatible with regular ones? What silliness is this? I really hope there's a solution for this, or otherwise the community will be divided.

If we can continue playing somehow, I'd be for farming the hill before mining the silver. If we mine it immediately thereafter, we should still be able to avoid unhappiness even with a growing second city. I don't think delaying our golden age for a little bit is that bad.

Since we've taken Liberty as our social policy, researching Calendar next for more unhappiness would allow us to build yet another early settler, taking even more advantage of the policy. I don't have much experience with research pacts yet though.

First note, research pacts come with Philosophy, not Writing, unless I'm terribly mistaken. So those are a little while off yet. Writing allows Open Borders, which are reasonably OK, but they're not the same as research pacts.

Incompatible saves? Can someone else verify? I'm at work and I can't do so for another 10ish hours. If that is indeed the case, it's pretty inexcusable. What possible reason could there be for that, other than terrible testing and really poor design? Once we verify that it's that screwed up, I guess I'll figure out what to do from there. But that's just nuts.

A third city makes good sense to me, honestly, after a spearman. Ranged units are great, but you generally need something to protect them. The other option is warrior, intending to upgrade to sword once we research iron working. I prefer having a spearman around, though, so we can go after barb encampments once the city-states start complaining. That's a great way to get them happy with you early. Doubly/trebly if the barbs manage to capture a worker or two first. I would finish settler, then spear, then settler. But warrior instead of spear is a very legit option, IMO.

I would settle south and NE, in either order. Rivers are great. Plains are great. Together, they rock pretty hard. I would settle 3 (SE) of the warrior in the NE. 1 (SW) of the cows in the S looks like a good city between Paris and the city-state, too. Should have good production and such.

Calendar next research really makes sense to me.

For research pacts, is it really random? I've always gotten the cheapest tech I don't have and am not currently researching. That could be a sample-size phenomena however.

Irrigating hills. I have to wrap my head around that. It makes so much sense, in a way. But not something I've done yet in Civ5. That's why the community is so cool. We can all learn together. A 1/2/1 tile is pretty nice. And the governor will probably be more likely to choose it. Is it better than a 0/3/3 tile, though? (Isn't that what the hill silver will be?) While we are still growing, the 1/2/1 may well be better. We want both done, though. At Monarch, it probably matters little. I think I would go for the silver first, for the happiness bonus and to get production going. Irrigating the floodplains on the same side of the river can follow and allow for continued growth while we produce.

One thing in Civ5 is that most worker projects are about the same -- they help a bit regardless of the square. So you want to improve the tile(s) you are already working, instead of prioritizing resources or bonus squares SO highly. I would probably go cows, flood plain, silver, honestly, unless we're really hurting for happiness.

Arathorn

FWIW, I have Babylon and the save game loads fine for me.

And a demographics screen? Oh joy! I was looking for something like that, and somehow managed to miss where it was hiding.

Well, Jaffa, at least we know deluxe version is compatible with itself. That's something, but those of us without Babylon (until someone mods it in, which should take, what, 15 minutes, once they release the modkit?) aren't allowed to play in the deluxe version, according to ThERat's test.

Thanks for testing. This is an annoying issue.

Arathorn

(It's possible one of the civs in this game is simply Babylon, which a special edition turn 1 player would be able to generate, but a regular edition would not. Logically this should have been programmed to allow only special edition players to generate Babylon, but everyone else to play against them in already-started games. Thus the special edition player still gets something special, but doesn't pay the price of multiplayer isolation. That the conflict crashes the software, suggests nobody even thought about this problem, which doesn't bode well for DLCs.)

A workaround for now is for starting players to manually select AI civs. But I agree, this is beyond foolish, given that SGs have been a vibrant part of the community for a decade now!

timski said:

(It's possible one of the civs in this game is simply Babylon, which a special edition turn 1 player would be able to generate, but a regular edition would not. Logically this should have been programmed to allow only special edition players to generate Babylon, but everyone else to play against them in already-started games. Thus the special edition player still gets something special, but doesn't pay the price of multiplayer isolation. That the conflict crashes the software, suggests nobody even thought about this problem, which doesn't bode well for DLCs.)

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I'm pretty sure that Arathorn doesn't have the DLC, and he generated the game. According to the bug thread there's something different about how the editions save games. Quite possibly something as simple as a larger array size for the deluxe editions (probably not literally, but something of the sort).

And yes, research agreements come with philosophy. Oops. Well, good thing I didn't commit us to writing... or anything, if we can't use my save. I really, really, really hope that this issue is high on the patch list, because this is ridiculous.

However, Civ just updated today. I highly doubt that this got fixed, but it's worth a try until we know. Re-saved and attached to this post. If it still doesn't work, it's possible for someone with a vanilla version to replay my turnset the same way (I mentioned every decision that I made, and it's a short turnset) to the same result (since we don't have New Random Seed enabled), and I'll just take skips in the future until the issue is resolved.

I tried the new save with the new patch. No go.

Who all has the "bonus" content and who is stuck without Babylon and whatever the other custom civ is that portends terrible problems for other DLC and mods?

I'm a "without".
Corbeau is a "with".
Jaffa is a "with".
ThERat is "without".
Kylearan -- which are you?

I started this game with fixed opponents. Would Jaffa or Corbeau take 10ish quick turns and then upload the save and we'll see if we can continue that way. That would be nice.

Arathorn

Done. Save from turn 20 attached.

This is what i feared would happen. With steam and later on all those DLCs we all have different games and won't be able to play SGs together. Really, what is this

Firaxis, get your act together and clean this up, please!

Still crashed the entire Civ5 game for me. So that's not a solution.

Corbeau, do you want to start a game, any settings except no Babylon, and post it, so we can see if we can open it? I want to track this down.

Arathorn

P.S. Yes, totally unacceptable release of the game.

Save attached - absolutely no Babylonians, guaranteed.

Ok, so can we get someone to verify whether a 'standard' edition player can open Corbeau's save? I am at work and will only be able to do so late tonight.

If that works, do we restart our game?

This is beyond stupid. I'm "without" (i.e., I have the regular edition). I'm at work too and can only try to open the save in about ~10 hours.

Arathorn said:

To the north, a nuclear launch is detected!!!

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I see I'm not the only SC'er around.

Also, subscribed.

Edit: Oh, FML. You write it out in clear text in the next paragraph.