Rat44 CCM - Ultimate Challenge

ThERat · Mar 19, 2012

Yes, you read correctly. Dismayed by the AI's inability to produce a strong contender to our expansion and world dominance, the team decided to go for the ultimate challenge.

CCM hands every player the same penalty to expansion, that is an auto-produced settler every 20 turns. However, this lead to very balanced opponents with no runaway civ. Hence, we asked the creator of this mod, civinator to come up with a unique setting that allows the AI to produce settlers at will while the human player is left with a mere settler every 20 turns. :eek:

Will the AI produce a run-away civ as we know them from C3C? Will we prevail despite the odds?

We will be playing as the USA, deity on continents w/o barbs (because ThERat hates barbarians)

The Roster:
ThERat
Northern Pike
Greebley
Elephantium
CommandoBob

Stay tuned for the opening moves

ThERat · Mar 19, 2012

So, this is the start I get after around 5 re-rolls. It seems decent enough to me:

Two cows, green lush grassland, nice

Just need to find a proper place for the second city, which turns out to be so so only

I start to research the wheel at min to save some coins for trades, that we hopefully get. For this I build 3 scouts, then in our second city workers housing and then 2 warriors for MP duty

The scouts do roam in different directions and on turn 16 I run into Mongols and Japan at the same time giving us options to trade

Sweet deal. the Mongols do not have any other tech as well, but I do sell the sails for all the gold they have (39g)
Immediately switch our capital to slaver's hut.

On turn 20 Japanese get BW, we get our first settler and need to decide where to settler. The land seems longish with Mongols northwest and Japanese way north, but Mongol founded another city already nearer to us.

The situation from a birds eye.

ThERat · Mar 19, 2012

We need to decide where to settle next, not an easy decision. Maybe to the south to grab more grassland?

As for the scouts, I would let the northernmost search north, while the scout near Mongols might want to turn southwest as the desert sure holds nothing of interest. The 3rd scout should head east from where it currently is.

LKendter · Mar 19, 2012

Lurk mode = on

CommandoBob · Mar 19, 2012

Southeast and build on the south side of the Mountain Creek?

Greebley · Mar 19, 2012

Those hills + grassland will make a strong town once we remove the despot penalty.

It looks like the first square to the west (heading south) of the river not with a hill gets lots of hills, 4 bonus grassland, and a gold within its 20 squares. That is not a bad square to settle.

There is also elephants to the North, and the argument that heading north first (towards the AI may ultimately grab us more land. The AI may form hard to protect (for them) cities to our south, that we can take, with the downside we can't choose which square to settle on.

[Edit: I can't load the game at the moment, so I may be missing something. This is a first impression]

PS: Do I need to download the new file from civintator or is all the new info in the save from startup?

Northern Pike · Mar 19, 2012

Nice work getting scouts out quickly. :goodjob:

I've got it.

My inclination is to settle at 1 on the screenshot. We can see a lot of other decent sites, but they'd all be limited to +2 food and slow growth in despotism. I think that claiming the third cow for +4 food (once irrigated) will justify the need to irrigate some plains. In the long term, the mix of hills, rivers, and a food bonus there is perfect for a powerhouse city.

I won't be playing for several hours, however, so more discussion is welcome.

Northern Pike · Mar 19, 2012

Northern Pike · Mar 19, 2012

Greebley said:
PS: Do I need to download the new file from civintator or is all the new info in the save from startup?

From the Rat43 thread:

Civinator said:
My guess is, that only the player who starts such a game needs such a biq, but I think if anybody would need such a biq, this would be no problem, too.

ThERat · Mar 19, 2012

NP, I agree with that spot.

In my testgame I can say that we will struggle to plant 5 cities without challenges. It will be good to use our enslavers to hunt down settler pairs.

Northern Pike · Mar 19, 2012

ThERat said:
In my testgame I can say that we will struggle to plant 5 cities without challenges.

Amen to this. In my trial game even the fourth city went in a compromise location forced by AI settlement.

ThERat · Mar 19, 2012

Lol, it depends on the location, here it does seem that we have same space to the north. It will be interesting to see what happens once the AI runs out of space to settle. Or will we hit city limits?

Elephantium · Mar 19, 2012

The "1" tile looks good to me.

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

View attachment Rat44-2540BC.SAV, end of turn

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

3000 (0): I change New York's warrior build to American Flag.

2950 (1): I send our eastern and northern scouts in the directions suggested by Rat. The western scout I send west, after some thought. There may be nothing in this direction, but OTOH I don't think it's a great bet that there's room for another civ south of Mongolia.

New York produces an apprentice, upgraded to a worker next turn.

2900 (2): We begin irrigating Washington's second cow, to bring the city to +5 food.

Our eastern scout discovers red borders.

New York American Flag --> warrior.

2850 (3): Our eastern scout meets the Canadians. We're able to trade Warrior Code for Bronze Working and 122 gold (all they have). No twofer develops as the Japanese and Mongols already have BW.

Our northern scout is taken by a slaver near Edo. :mad:

Not only is this bad in itself, since the scout had good prospects of meeting new civs, it means slavers are in play very early. At least we have the option of turning our western scout north at some point.

Washington SLAVER'S HUT --> native spearman (henceforth just spearman).

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

2800 (4): The Canadians have Polytheism. We can't afford it and no twofer is available, so we don't do anything about it.

2750 (5): Bah--our western scout seems for a moment to have met a new civ, but it's just a Japanese warrior far from home.

We found Boston, our third city, on site 1. The Mongols have seven towns, the Japanese and the Canadians five.

Boston gains access to its BG tile immdiately by the fill-in effect, so the problem of its being at +1 food for fifteen turns until it builds AF and gets an expansion doesn't arise.

New York warrior --> warrior. Since slavers are definitely in play we can't push the farmer's gambit as far as we'd like.

2700 (6): Enemy settlement comes closer to our homeland, with the Canadians founding Winnipeg ten tiles SE of New York.

Our eastern scout, still in the midst of Canadian cities, meets a Greek Hoplite. Unfortunately the Greeks have all our techs plus Polytheism, so no new opportunities arise.

The Greeks have five cities.

Washington spearman --> spearman.

2660 (7): Not much.

2620 (8): Our western scout justifies his choice of direction by meeting the Germans beyond the western desert, and the trade position is ideal:

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

We're able to pick up The Wheel, Polytheism, and their 100 gold for just Pottery and The Sail, not even including Masonry.

The Germans have eight cities.

We have horses two tiles directly west of Washington, though not in the town's fat cross and not within our borders yet.

I'd like to switch Washington to Royal Stables immediately, but it looks too risky--at least one more spearman will have to come first, and for that matter AF.

New York warrior --> warrior.

We complete our road from Washington to New York, with no river crossings.

2580 (9): Washington spearman --> American Flag.

Boston AF --> walls.

2540 (10): We get our workers properly covered against invisible attacks.

Our eastern scout reaches the end of the continent, so he'll have to backtrack and try to make his way north.

Northern Pike · Mar 20, 2012

Early chapters:

Rat44 CCM - Ultimate Challenge

Deity

Deity

Deity

Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!!!

AbstractArt

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Malcolm was a very good cat.

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

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