FTS-01 The Accountant Wars

Fun-Time-Sally just wants to Rule The World! Saladin of Arabia will be taking on the bean counting financial civs in a world filled with lots and lots of water. Who will help him in his quest for world domination? But wait, there is a catch ... The Colossus is off-limits. That's right, our opponents will have a 50% commerce advantage on all of those coastal tiles and one lucky opponent will have a 100% advantage over us. Our only advantage is that the AI is not very good at launching an overseas attack.

Game Settings

• Leader: Saladin
• Difficulty: Monarch
• MapType: Archipelago
• Sea Level: High
• Map Size: Standard
• Speed: Normal
• Victory Condition: Domination (All Enabled)
• Opponents: 6 AI (all Financial)
• Barbarians: Raging
• Other Options: Aggressive AI
• Variant: Not allowed to build the Colossus

Starting Screenshot



So, who is up for fighting the Accountants?

Roster:
Conroe
Foolonthehill
Ozbenno
Asperge
pigswill
Nares

Lol this forum had some bad luck with Salad lately=P it'll be fun to watch.

You're absolutely MAD. I'll be lurking, the way some people like to watch a building detonation.

You're absolutely MAD. I'll be lurking, the way some people like to watch a building detonation

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:suicide: :suicide:

lurking, will watch with amusement, ah but just imagine popping many, many Great people.....

Since I am a CPA, I found this thread irresistible.

I'm consistent at Prince now but haven't had much success on Monarch. However, this one sounds too interesting to pass up.

I haven't played a succession game before but have been lurking for a loong time.

I'm in if you don't mind a noob.

ChrTh said:

You're absolutely MAD. I'll be lurking, the way some people like to watch a building detonation.

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You crack me up sometimes, CT! Like watching a building implode, huh? I don't know, I don't think it will be that bad. Actually, I had originally thought about doing it on Emperor, but I was concerned that the map would make it too hard at that level. I really think that an early war is critical to success on Emperor and that is not always possible on these island maps.

The reason that I chose Saladin for this game is his Mysticism will give us a leg up on grabbing the Oracle. We can use that to get Code of Laws and it will quickly (since we are Philosophical) pop out a GP that should research most of Civil Service for us. There is no reason that we shouldn't be running Beaucracy in the BCs. Running Caste System will allow us to pop a GS for Philosophy and all of a sudden we are popping great people 200% faster. Plus, we will have 3 valuable trading techs with CoL, CS, and Philo to trade for everything that we have missed.

Honestly, I'm afraid that this game will be too easy. That's why I went with Aggressive AI, hoping that it would compensate. But, I'll try to play a solo game tonight and see what it is really like ...

FoolontheHill said:

Since I am a CPA, I found this thread irresistible.
I'm in if you don't mind a noob.

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No, I don't mind a noob. Now, a CPA on the other hand, well ... Seriously, though, we were all newbies at one time or another. An SG is an incredibly fun way to play civ. And, most folks have discovered that you can play at a level higher as part of an SG team than you would normally by yourself. So, if you are a Prince player, then you should do fine on Monarch.

The only thing that I would ask of any first time players, though, is that they understand the time commitments involved in playing an SG. A quick SG can take 6 weeks (minimum) to play out, with most games taking 2 to 3 months to finish. But, other than that, anyone is welcome to join.

Would be interested in joining this one.

Currently winning on Monarch about 50% of the time and involved in a couple of SGs as well. Got enough time on my hands to squeeze in another and this one sounds interesting.

Conroe said:

No, I don't mind a noob. Now, a CPA on the other hand, well ... Seriously, though, we were all newbies at one time or another. An SG is an incredibly fun way to play civ. And, most folks have discovered that you can play at a level higher as part of an SG team than you would normally by yourself. So, if you are a Prince player, then you should do fine on Monarch.

The only thing that I would ask of any first time players, though, is that they understand the time commitments involved in playing an SG. A quick SG can take 6 weeks (minimum) to play out, with most games taking 2 to 3 months to finish. But, other than that, anyone is welcome to join.

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Does it help if I'm not a very good CPA??

The time commitment isn't a problem, pretty open summer this year.

Early bureaucracy does seem to be the best way to go. I'll try a couple of SP games with these settings so I can get my head handed to me and get a better feel for Monarch.

Allright, FoolontheHill and Ozbenno are in. We've got three and are looking for two more players ...

Conroe said:

But, I'll try to play a solo game tonight and see what it is really like ...

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Well, I played until 125BC and it wasn't that bad. I used the Oracle to grab CoL and a Prophet got me most of the way to CS. Then, a GS was burned to give me Philosophy. I also trained 3 Settler's (w/ Warrior escort) and a Worker. I met 5 of the 6 rivals. Of these, I had 3 monopoly techs and only 2 others had Alphabet. Even though I was only 4th in GNP, I did have the tech lead.


The effects of Aggressive AI was interesting. They didn't seem more aggressive, just more annoyed. The option should probably be called Crabby AI rather than Aggressive AI. Getting open borders was a little more difficult, and my guess is trading will also be more difficult (I did not do any trading during my test). I was hoping the option would have them build more troops, but I can't really say that I saw anymore than usual. I'm undecided, but I may end up leaving this option off; as it also affects the AI's relationship with each other.

I once knew a demographer who always wanted to be a CPA but didn't have enough personality for the job.

I'd love to try this one out -- I'm an always-win-at-Prince, always-lose-at-Monarch player. But I'm way over-committed at the moment. I'm going to pull up a seat and watch; myabe I can substitute in the future.

I would like to join this game. Are we allowed to build the lighthouse?. I like both traits of Saladin very much.

If you're still looking for a.n.other I'd like to have a go. Playing on prince, just started another succcession game.

Welcome aboard, Asperge and pigswill!

Asperge said:

Are we allowed to build the lighthouse?.

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You mean the Great Lighthouse? It is allowed, but I don't think it is possible to get both it AND Civil Service. In order for a Great Prophet to research CS for you, you cannot research Masonry. And, of course, Masonry is the required tech for the Great Lighthouse.

It would be nice to have, though. I guess it might be possible if you were to forego a Worker and the worker techs. But, if you miss it, you are pretty much SOL.

Here are the game settings:


And our starting screenshot:



Fish, silk, and rice in the city radius. Plus some forests and hills for a bit of production. Not the best start I've seen, but not too bad.

While the actual listed variant doesn't seem all that thrilling, the psuedo-variant of playing against all Financial civs will certainly spice things up.

Given the latter handicap, you may want to consider running two Scientist specialists early on, pop a GS sometime early, and build an Academy. It's definatly a solid plan to combine with Bureaucracy. I don't know where you'd want to fit it in with the GP. Probably before the GP, so as to prepare Mecca for Bureaucracy (via Cottage spam). EDIT: Here's the strategy as implemented by Jastrow

And tell me you have plans on renaming something (anything) to IRS. You may also want to rename a whole class of units (ie Axemen) Tax Collectors.

Certainly looks like a settle in place type of start to me!

We're not allowed to build colossus. Are we allowed to capture colossus?
Edit:settle in place; ifwe're not going for lighthouse/great lighthouse then a starting combination of food sources,cottages on flatlands and hills for production seems a reasonable generic city.
Name units by specialisation:city-raider=taxman, city garrison=lawyer?
Name capital Tax Haven?

Conroe said:

In order for a Great Prophet to research CS for you, you cannot research Masonry.

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Can you explain why? And most of the times AI's are not so quick with GL while CS won't run away. Further financial civ's have an advantage of 50% with watertiles and the one with the Colossus has an advantage of 100% imo iic, and that's without monarch-disadvantage.
We also could go for Great LIbrary, then philosophy, but whatever we do we will win

(I can't see the picture's, don't know why , only see red crosses...)

Nares said:

EDIT: Here's the strategy as implemented by Jastrow

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Interesting link that you posted. I didn't realize that the current GOTM was playing Saladin. The thing about Jastrow's strategy is that it requires using the Oracle to get Civil Service. That is doable on Prince, but a bit more difficult on Monarch. Unless you start with gold or some other high-commerce start, it is quite risky to run the CS slingshot at this level. Plus, I'd rather use my first GS to get Philosophy since it opens up Pacifism.

pigswill said:

We're not allowed to build colossus. Are we allowed to capture colossus?

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I hadn't thought about it. My initial thought is that it would probably be OK to capture the Colossus. However, in keeping with the spirit of the variant, I would not want to make it a priority or base any war decisions on it. Of course, that may not be so easy to do ... I don't know, let me think about it ...

Asperge said:

Can you explain why? And most of the times AI's are not so quick with GL while CS won't run away.

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The great people will only offer you certain techs in a pre-determined order. See this post for a list of those techs. A Great Prophet would rather give you Monotheism and Theology before Civil Service. But, Masonry is a prerequisite of Monotheism. So, if you don't have Masonry, then those techs will not be offered. And, you end up getting offered CS instead!

We can certainly go for the Great Lighthouse before Civil Service. I will leave that up to the team to decide. But, if we do go that route, we will most likely have to research CS ourselves. And, that could take 50+ turns. Personally, I think CS would be more valuable to us than the GL. Not only does it open Beaucracy up but it is also one of the two techs required for Macemen.

Asperge said:

Further financial civ's have an advantage of 50% with watertiles and the one with the Colossus has an advantage of 100% imo iic,

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You're are correct! I was thinking it was 1/3rd more on coastal tiles, since we would have 2 commerce to their 3 commerce. But, you're right, it is 50% more. I will correct my earlier post ...

Asperge said:

(I can't see the picture's, don't know why , only see red crosses...)

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I'm not sure why, as I can see them. I uploaded them here to CFC, so I would think that they'd show up. Anyone else having problems with the pictures?

Conroe said:

Interesting link that you posted. I didn't realize that the current GOTM was playing Saladin. The thing about Jastrow's strategy is that it requires using the Oracle to get Civil Service. That is doable on Prince, but a bit more difficult on Monarch. Unless you start with gold or some other high-commerce start, it is quite risky to run the CS slingshot at this level. Plus, I'd rather use my first GS to get Philosophy since it opens up Pacifism.

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Yep. It was on Prince level and I actually pulled off my first CS slingshot on that one. Conventional wisdom is that it is much harder on Monarch. The COL slingshot and the GP to grab CS is probably a lot more likely. EDIT: Didn't mean to make this sound like I posted the original link. That was Nares.

Conroe said:

I hadn't thought about it. My initial thought is that it would probably be OK to capture the Colossus. However, in keeping with the spirit of the variant, I would not want to make it a priority or base any war decisions on it. Of course, that may not be so easy to do ... I don't know, let me think about it ....

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The Collosus is a tool of the capitalistic spawn that keep us under their boot!! Must be caputured and razed!! (just a suggestion for the variant).

Conroe said:

We can certainly go for the Great Lighthouse before Civil Service. I will leave that up to the team to decide. But, if we do go that route, we will most likely have to research CS ourselves. And, that could take 50+ turns. Personally, I think CS would be more valuable to us than the GL. Not only does it open Beaucracy up but it is also one of the two techs required for Macemen.

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Hmmm. This is a hard one. We gain the advantages of bureaucracy probably 50 turns early (huge if we want to build an early tech lead and maybe some early )

However, if we do end up with a large number of cities, those plus 2 trade routes in each city could really add up, and they last until corporation....

Conroe said:

You're are correct! I was thinking it was 1/3rd more on coastal tiles, since we would have 2 commerce to their 3 commerce. But, you're right, it is 50% more. I will correct my earlier post ...

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That just means that we will have to be twice as big as everyone so we can keep up.

My vote would be to settle in place. We need as much tech as possible as early as possible.

How early does the AI grab the Oracle on Monarch?

Know how you can tell an introverted accountant from an extroverted accountant? An introverted accountant looks at his shoes when he is talking to you. An extroverted accountant looks at your shoes when he is talking to you.