Bulgaria1 - The nameless enemy - C3C - DG

Hi, all
Having played SG for a month now, CIV for several years, and having considered this ever since, I’ve decided to launch my own game.

The roster:

Tone
MeteorPunch
Beorn-eL-Feared
Bagatur
Vizurok
Khan_Asparuh

The variant:

We can not build workers if there is a chance that they are Bulgarians (this excludes the conquered cities). We can have only one native worker (the initial) to supervise our task force.
We cannot buy slaves until 1000BC.

The Map:

This one will be played on Marla’s Europe Map, really crowded as 24 civs play on a standard sized map. But that’s what I’m looking for, it’s cool.

The civilization:

I’m a Bulgarian. So this one will be played with a totally new civilization: Bulgaria, starting (I didn’t wanted to change this) north of the Danube in the Balkans. In the real life Bulgaria is in the south of Danube.

The history:

Bulgaria was founded in 681 AD by a Khan named Asparuh leading the pré-bulgarians, migrating tribe related to the Mongols, which crossed Danube and along with the slavyan locals proclaimed Bulgaria. They were forced to fight a lot against Byzantium to earn the right to call these lands their own. And they did, victoriously, even if a few centuries later Byzantium managed to occupy the country for 2 centuries.
Later in time the big Tzar Simeon managed to expand Bulgarian lands to the point of having three sea access, along with a serious cultural development of the country.
Unfortunately the recent Bulgarian history is somehow less brilliant, because of the 5 centuries spent under ottoman occupation and after our liberation in the end of the XIX century, the country have participated in the WW1 and WW2 on the losing side. And Bulgaria was communist country for 45 years (1944-1989).

The Traits:

We’re agricultural (you all know the yoghurt, don’t you), and militarist (because of our heroic past).
I’ve considered a scientific instead of militarist too, because of a person named John Athanassov, who is known to have created the first computer and who has Bulgarian origins.
Of course, he’s one of our scientific heroes (I think I have left them on ).

The Unique Unit:

This is where it becomes interesting. Our unique unit is the Haidutin, an archer who has the particularity of not showing his Nationality (Hidden Nationality flag is checked). Imagine what we can do with this unit. Just know it, the Haidutin CAN NOT attack enemy cities. Nothing to do, it’s hard coded.

A bit of history – Haidutin is a name given to the leaders of Bulgarian rebellions against the Ottomans, who were respected even from their enemies. And some of them, using their ruse and intelligence, managed to penetrate wherever needed and to hide and disappear quite fast. That’s why I have chosen the anonymous treat for them.

The level:

Demi-god, we start with a 4 turns settler factory so we may consider some variants – like “No worker builds allowed” for example. Fits perfectly with our UU.

The victory:

I think that a diplo victory out of 25 civilizations (like the actual EU) would be interesting, even if I hate to go for diplo in standard games.
Domination would be nice. We can consider this as an union (a bit less pacific) of the EU type.
Space is the default victory; I’d say our last issue. And I have never made it for a cultural on DG (never went for, to be precise).
Conquest isn’t really a goal I would like us to have.
So for me the two most interesting VC will be Diplo and Domination. We must decide this quite early.

I’d like a team of 4-6 players who have already some DG experience (at least one victory, preferably not Diplo). I’ll keep a reserved place for the other Bulgarian I know here in CFC, I hope he can join.

I’ll be offline this weekend, the last one from now as I install Internet home next week.

Please give in your eventual sign up your preferences on the following questions:

Difficulty level – Emperor or Demi God
Variants – can we build workers? (For me it’s an absolute No if we play emperor)

Victory conditions ranking:
Gold medal - Culture
Silver medal - Diplo
Bronze medal - Domination
Space/Conquest - We won, didn't we

This is C3C 1.22
Here’s our start.
Edit: some details I forgot. Standard 24/48, no exploits, if you doubt ask the team. Our reputation is golden, but all I can say is that gold has a price too...
Edit2 : With 25 civs, the first one plays 15 turns followed by 10 for the next.
The BIQ file

Sounds like a cool game Khan, although I don't get the no worker variant. How do you figure to manage that one?

lurker's comment: Interesting UU.

Meteor, you could use the hidden nationality archer UU to snag enemy workers and settler pairs without causing war. You'll end up with tons of slaves. I'll be lurking.

Ginger_Ale said:

lurker's comment: Meteor, you could use the hidden nationality archer UU to snag enemy workers and settler pairs without causing war. You'll end up with tons of slaves.

Click to expand...

oohh, sneaky!

In fact I have a game on in these conditions, the 50 first turns brought me something like 15 slaves. The UU is playing AW but the captured slaves return home quietly. And my neighbor's lands have not many improvements...

I'd like to join, Khan. It sounds really different and interesting.

I'd prefer DG but not too fussed either way.

Would we want to build workers with so many slaves 'on the market'. It might be more difficult to say that we cannot snatch workers until a fixed date, say 1000BC.

Since you're using Marla's map (a very nice map), I wanted to mention that there is a *lot* of bonus resources. How will this affect the game on demigod level? I imagine it would benefit the AI more, but maybe not.

You're welcome Tone.
I think that the 1000 BC restriction will waste our UU, as it will be used only to pillage.
The UU will expire with the Invention and we'll commit despotic GA so I think that this is not the best.
Meteor is right, the map is highly ressourced so DG with the worker variant and the good start (a lot of free space around us) is not so bad.
I've played this for a while, so I'll be at the end of the roster.
Tone
Open
Open
Open
Reserved
Khan

Edit: The worker restriction impacts the whole game, so if we start poorly we may never recover. That's why I'd like to keep it.

Edit2: Here is the biq file, I'm having troubles to upload it so...

Just a devious suggestion! Some SG games use rules (LK?) that do not allow you to buy AI workers in the early stages as it stunts AI growth.

Looks like an interesting game. Not a sign-up, but I will be lurking. Good luck!

Downloaded the biq file. When we are ready to start I select standard sized map, all civs should be chosen, culturally linked, SGLs on? Just confirm/correct this and tell me when to start (presumably when you are back on-line on Monday).

Hi,
I've brought a save for the start, with everything ready to go.
I've made some changes (in fact we'll play with 24 civs, because with 25 there is a ???bug???, I played once with two Incan civs, once with two Zulu. Go figure.
Let's wait for a third person (or a confirmation for the reserved place) and then we can go.
I've playtested the game. On emperor its quite easy. But the lap to demigod is incredible due to the second starting settler of the AIs. This means that when we start there are 47 settlers in a standard world
I've played for 70 turns (I'll stop now). Just to let you know, the game went medieval at turn 48, and when I pulled up the scientific civs in turn 50, the first tier of techs was known. I've never played a game with this research rate.
Our UU is precious all along the game, it gives new sens to the RoP (suicidal). We must be sure to have at least a dozen of them before Invention and keep them covered with other units of ours (even workers do the job).
It'll be extremely interesting.
Edit: Not buying workers from the AI is ok for me until 1000 BC. I'm simply against the restriction of the use of the UU to capture some before that date.

Well Meteor wants to join, that's three of us. You can start it Tone. I hope that we'll have full roster, and that especially the reserved place will be taken.

Sounds like fun; could you put me in the roster and skip my first turn? I'll be way busy up until the 25th but on vacation from then on, so I'd rather have it that way. DG is cool with me, too.

Perfect Beorn.
That makes four of us allready signed. We can go seriously now.
EDIT: What VC seems best to you?

Khan_Asparuh said:

Our UU is precious all along the game, it gives new sens to the RoP (suicidal). We must be sure to have at least a dozen of them before Invention and keep them covered with other units of ours (even workers do the job).

Click to expand...

Excuse the stupid question but I should treat them like privateers because if they venture out alone, every AI unit will hunt them down on a Seek and Destroy mission, right? Should we send them out with a warrior guard in the early game? Are they safe in cities. IIRC privateers are safe when in port.

Khan_Asparuh said:

Not buying workers from the AI is ok for me until 1000 BC. I'm simply against the restriction of the use of the UU to capture some before that date.

Click to expand...

No problem. One final question on game rules, can we build workers? It was a no-no at Emperor but as this is DG...

I've got the save and can play tomorrow evening. Do you recommend no research, minimal research or should we go for a particular tech at full pace? If the tech pace is so great in the early game, perhaps we are better off saving our cash and getting warriors out to make contacts and getting trades going to keep up. Our starting techs are not too valuable so plenty of trading partners will be the key IMO.

I'd be for workers, though we probably won't need to get all out into making them with our UU. As for them UU's, wouldn't it give it away that we are their possessors if we escort them?

Diplo sounds like a nice challenge, and 100k too for just about the same reasons, but that's just me.

Beorn-eL-Feared said:

As for them UU's, wouldn't it give it away that we are their possessors if we escort them?

Click to expand...

It doesn't for privateers. You hide them under galleons or frigates and come out of hiding, attack and then retreat under them again into safety. They cannot attack the covering units without declaring war so the other units are safe! Other situations that 'give it away' for privateers are only one civ has magnetism or only one civ has magnetism and all the resources needed to buy them but this still doesn't lead to a DoW.

If you think about it the AI will know who owns these units just like it knows where all your units are, what the entire map looks like and where all the resources are. However with nationality hidden it cannot be pinned on the attacking civ. I'm just asking if they act in all ways like privateers.

@ Tone: As I said, our UU is playing AW. But we won't be able to escort it unless we have RoP so in the early game I'd send it unescorted. It explores nicely and can get us some workers. But if it has any unit with our colors under it, even a worker, the AIs wont attack him. So basicaly it can find its own escort quite fastly. And when it's escorted, the enemy workers dont run away :suicide:
I was thinking about avoiding the early GA by not attacking the early settlers. Sooner or later we'll have to commit it and I'd be really surprised if we make it a republican GA. Up to you and the game advancement, we should be a republic in about 50 turns or so.
As for research, as I said the rythm of advancement is insane and a lot of trade is needed. Still, research cheapens the techs, so 0% is not a must. To be decided along the game. And forget the Philo free tech, BTW.
Finally, lets go with the no worker build variant. It doesn't change that much.
A note: wars are important, try to get some phony for WH and give techs for MA. We must keep the AIs occupied, or we'll never survive for the election.
Try to cripple our neigbors, we must take their lands. The ottos are difficult as Istanbul is a chokepoint, but Serbia and Hungary are doable. Even Poland and Austria.
@ Beorn: 100K IS a real chalenge, personnaly I doubt we can handle this on this crowded map. Still, I'm warm to go, but this will require a lot of warring and ICS. A lot of spice
Lets say victory ranks:
- cultural - gold medal
- diplo - silver
- domination - bronze
- space/conquest - well, we won, didn't we...
If we decide to go for a cultural, build the outer ranks and then fill for the ICS.

Here iz me! Tnx for reserved place, Khan! Its my first SG, btw. Excuse me for any future mistakes or delays. Having several Huge Deity vicotries under my belt so far, so I hope I won't disappoint u
RTG