Fox-03 -- Trying to be Special

Background

This is basically a training SG, so, nothing as crazy as rolling dice and all that ... (despite trying to come up with a catchy title for the SG)

A recent SG had me thinking ... I have been wining in Prince, but my city specialization sucks. My tactics had always been to rely on an early war to double my cities, and then build up from there. With twice as many cities, you don't need specialization to win. You have already out-matchs all AIs in terms of commerce and production capabilities.

But I want to learn more ... and hence this SG.


The Game

In short, this game attempts to formalize the idea of city specialization with the following variants:

• Every city founded must be designated as one of the following:
  • Production City: a city focused on production.
  • Science City: a city focused on generating research beakers.
  • Gold City: a city focused on generating gold.
  • GP-Farm: a city focused on breeding Great Person.
  • Hybrid City: focused on more than one thing.
• For every Hybrid city founded, there must be at least two non-hybrid cities.
• City Designation cannot be changed after city is founded, with the following exceptions:
  • Capital City: may be changed once.
  • Holy City: non-Gold City may be changed into a Gold City or Hybrid City if a shrine is built.
  • If all players agree to change.
• Each city must prioritize city improvements according to their designation:
  • Prod City: Barracks, Coal Plant, Dry Dock, Factory, Forge, Hydro Plant
  • Gold City: Bank, Grocer, Market
  • Science City: Academy, Monastries, Laboratory, Library, Observatory, University
• The following wonders can only be built in a certain city type:
  • Prod City: Heroic Epic, Ironworks, West Point, Red Cross
  • Gold City: Wall Street
  • Science City: Great Library, Oxford University
  • GP-Farm: National Epic
• Prioritized buildings means that these buildings take priority over other production in their respective cities, with the following exception:
  • Wonders: All world, national and project type wonders
  • Growth/Happiness related Buildings: Granary, Lighthouse, Harbour, Theatres, Temples
  • Units: Millitary Units for Prod City, Non-Millitary Units for Non-Prod City

Examples :

• If Prod-City is building a worker when Forge is enabled, it must either switch to build Forge first, or rushed to finish the worker.
• If Science-City has library available for building, it can proceed to build a Wonder, a Temple, a Granary, a Settler before building the library

The Settings

• Difficulty: Monarch
• Map Type: TBD
• Map Size: Standard
• Civ: TBD, non-financial. I am thinking of Philosphical.
• Raging Barb: On, not-finalized.
• Victory: All enabled

The Players

I have given Fox-01 players a priority for sign up, currently here is the roster:

-- GreyFox
-- Blid
-- Kikinit
-- namliaM
-- Bede
-- rex_tyranus

-- Alternate: badgerpendous (away on vacations until 17 Apr).

So, there is still one slot up for grab. No qualification needed, just need to be willing to do lots of discussions (eg dotmpas, arguing why a dot should be Prod instead Gold, etc). Also, beware that the players already signed up have a reputation of posting more than one turnset in a day on the average.

If any specialization expert wish to guide us in this SG, you are definitely welcome!


SG Ethiquette

Normal SG ethiquette applies. Standard 24hrs got it, 48hrs to play and report.

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lurker's comment:
Interesting idea. I don't believe I'm strong enough on Monarch yet to play a variant, but I will keep an eye on this one because it's something I've been thinking about lately.

Question: You mention prioritizing city builds, are you going to restrict some as well e.g. Production City can't build Banks?

Good luck

ChrTh said:

... I don't believe I'm strong enough on Monarch yet to play a variant, ...

Click to expand...

Goosh ... am I too ambitious? I have only win monarch once ... and that is by early war. I see I am going to have a though time in this one ...

ABout buldings, its up to discussion. My original idea was to outright disallow certain buildings in certain city types. But some players convince me its better to just prioritize buildings. Another player suggested that buildings to be limited by era (eg A prod city can build library if we are already one or two era ahead of the era where library got enabled).

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Lurker comment.
City specialisation change often in a cource of a game.
I would advice to respecialise cities one's every age(decide do you keep old specialisation or change it to new.

Checking in...

Ouch Monarch, never tried it even...

On the gp farm, certainly it can build any wonder? It generates GP points...

How about having another 'specialisation'? Culture...
Just in case we deside on a culture victory

Gold city: Would seem to be one where we build the Minaret (if we get that chance) and if possible the Holy shrine for some (preverably multiple) religions.
While running a high research rate a Gold city doesnt do much....

Just a short question... I am asumming any city can build Military if/when they dont have anything to build?

Good idea, Muntineer. What do the rest thnk?

Do the rest think Monarch is too high? I personally had only won in Monarch once, and that is through early war.

@namliam: The list in the first post only specifies which wonders must be built in what type of city. Those wonders that are not mentioned can be built anywhere, including GP-Farms.

Hmmm... culture ... but cultural win requires no freaking specialization, just cathedrals, cathedrals, cathedrals, and even more cathedrals

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GreyFox said:

Good idea, Muntineer. What do the rest thnk?
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Click to expand...

seems Okay provided current builds can be continued. Haven't thought about it, but unlocked improvements and city size can change specialization indeed.
I just thought of something that can help us a bit without affectinf much the specialization variant : half price buildings (depends on traits) can be built anywhere. This way we are not giving up a bonus each AI has. For other bulidings strict priority applies.

For leader, what about Freddie ? He is philosophical and creative. No culture specialization => no bias. Or maybe Mao ?

GreyFox said:

Do the rest think Monarch is too high? I personally had only won in Monarch once, and that is through early war.

Click to expand...

Don't think we can get it without a little (or a lot) in' anyway. I vote Monarch, don't mind loosing as long as I learn. It also means a lot of discussions ...

Question : what happens if we discover a new tech while building some non specialized building, say a lib in a commerce city and we discover currency ; switch to market or wait for lib to finish ?

are you going to restrict some as well e.g. Production City can't build Banks?

Click to expand...

lurker's comment: I would think this would be too restrictive... especially with banks, universities, etc which require 6 (or whatever number) to open the national wonder. If you could only build Banks in the gold cities, it'd be hard to get ehough to build Wall Street.

I'd say it be better to prioirtize builds. i.e. must build all available science buildings in a city before building a gold-related building.

Hmmm....my city specialization sucks, so I'd probably be a hinderance to this SG. Though maybe I'll have to lurk.

lurker's comment:
@GreyFox: Actually, cultural wins require a lot of specialization. Three cities focus on culture, 1 or 2 focus on GPP production, and the rest build Grenadiers to protect you from the Infantries and Tanks landing on your shores ...

You should add the Parthenon for GP cities

lurker's comment:
Interesting variant. I definitely suggest you go Monarch for the challenge.

Best of luck!

@ChrTh: of-course, I was just kidding. I just don't think it necessary for there to be a culture city. I mean, its useless for other kind of win, right?

@Maquis: right. AFter givig it a second thought, I was persuaded to change the variant to priotitize instead of disallowing

@Dantski: hmm ... but I thought the effect of Pantheron is civ-wide and not localized like the National Epic? So you can build it anywhere, and it will still give you +50% in your GP-Farm, right?

@rex and maksim: thanks for the support ....


Damn, ratio of lurkers to sign-ups == INFINITY : ZERO

I will give this another 24 hrs, afterwhich we will simply proceed with 4 players.

EDIT:
@blid: Freddie sounds like a good idea, although it will seems like a practice SG for Adv5 ... or is it the other way round?

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Damn, ratio of lurkers to sign-ups == INFINITY : ZERO

Click to expand...

Warning: divide by zero error in showthread.php line 5

Edit: @Fox, I'll join if it looks like you really want another. Monarch doesn't scare me, I'm just not the best specialist.

I'll pick up the shillin', Fox.

I like the idea as writ. If you run out of things to do with the "Money" town it can do wealth, same for the "Science" city doing science, and "Hammer" towns are spitting out troops anyway.

Looks like I was pipped a king. Have fun guys!

lol @ rex ... you want in? I can accomodate 1 more.

Bede: welcome! Good, we have found ourselves a Deity tutor!

(I knew advertising it as practice game for Adv5 would net me something )

I will roll us a start soon ... (read: anytime between 0 - 24hrs later).

Everyone okay with Freddie, Continents, perhaps no ragng barbarian (since I considered myself a monarch noob)?

As for change of city designation, I think we can be flexible about it. If tere is a need to change, we will change.

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Reporting for duty

Greyfox, I think Monarch is just right. The variant is almost the way we should play anyway, just that we have to make the choice of what type of city will be doing what earlier than we may in a normal game. Or at least earlier than I do in a normal game .

Just won my first game at Monarch tonight. Launched into space in 1986. I tried to specialise my cities and did reasonably well but couldn't work out a GP city. Did get quite a few production, science and gold cities. The lack of GP's definitely slowed down my win but got there in the end.

Looking forward to the roll to see what we have to designate our capital as!

EDIT: Forgot to mention. Freddy, Continents sound ok to me. Freddy with cultural and philosophical will be interesting. Raging barbs.. hmm.. not sure if we need that challenge. But it's a challenge for the AI as much as us and gives you lots of barb cities to take over. Then we won't be able to choose quite as carefully.

GreyFox said:

lol @ rex ... you want in? I can accomodate 1 more.

Bede: welcome! Good, we have found ourselves a Deity tutor!

(I knew advertising it as practice game for Adv5 would net me something )

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Click to expand...

Far from a Deity tutor in C-iv. Keep stumbling into winning positions on Monarch. Thanks for including me, though, this will be interesting.

lol @ rex ... you want in? I can accomodate 1 more.

Click to expand...

<twisted_arm /> Fair enough, I'm in, unless Kikinit tipped the roster.

@rex: nope ... kikinit was already on the roster

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I started the game:





Pretty standard, here is the initial map. I have moved the scout from its initial starting position shown in white circle to the forest above the settler, revealing the corn and wine.



I will play the initial 20 turns tomorrow. Some initial discussions on whether we should settle on the spot or move the settler 1W or 2W. Each ha sits own merits.

Late now, so those of you on the other side of the world, do continue the discussion without me. Will check back 10hrs later

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