RB25 - The Golden Five

[Sullla]

This Realms Beyond SG is brought to you by the number 5!

RB25 (Five 5s): The Golden Five
Civ: Frederick (Creative/Philosophical)
Map: Small Fractal, all other options default
Difficulty: Monarch
Variant Rules: 1) 5CC (Five City Challenge - no more cities, ever!)
2) All victory conditions are in play, but we must trigger five golden ages before winning - one for each of our five cities!

The Start:



Roster: (Five Players!)

Sullla
mucco
T-Hawk
Gusto
Strauss

I started with 30 turns, and we'll see how things go from there. Wish us luck!

[Sullla]

(0) 4000BC I roll a game, take the first start and begin. The starting position already poses a tough choice - stay where we are, or move to get the corn in play. Well, we DIDN'T move to get corn in play in my last SG, and I thought that was a mistake, so there's no way I'm going to ignore that corn this time! (Not to mention, with our game and variant goals, more food = very good indeed!) I move one tile southwest and found the capital; this leaves three hill tiles intact for production, while giving us two major food resources and a floodplains, plus oodles of grassland tiles for potential cottages. Yay!



The city is named Cornelia, after the family line of my namesake Lucius Cornelius Sulla. I was also considering Sulllavilllle, but even I don't want to type THAT many Ls. (Note to other players: don't go with the default names for this game. Come up with something interesting and unique! We only get five cities, so we can afford to have some fun with this.)

We started with Mining and Hunting, so I figure we may as well go Agriculture/Animal Husbandry to take advantage of the tech discount for know the prerequisites of AH. Worker out of the gate to start, and with Hunting tech, we can probably skip warriors and go right on to archers for real defense afterwards. I've enjoyed doing that in the past with civs who start with Hunting. Alright, let's get this started!

(1) 3960BC Pop a hut on turn one of the game - new tech!



And it's BRONZE WORKING! [dance] Wow, what a lucky break. We have copper located just to the west of Cornelia. On second thought, we may not need to research Archery soon after all. I rename our scout "Bronze-Finder" in celebration of his mighty deed.

(2) 3920BC Bronze-Finder (hereafter B-F) spots fish AND clams off the coast to the south, right by the bronze.



Perhaps this will be a good spot for one of the golden five (?) Lot of desert tiles though...

(3) 3880BC We meet Cyrus who is REALLY close to us:



Interesting. Nothing says that we have to be peaceful in this game though! (Keep that in the back of our minds.)

(8) 3680BC Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry. Buddhism FIDL (obviously not by Cyrus, unless he popped Mysticism from a hut).

(15) 3400BC Worker -> warrior in Cornelia. We ARE going to need at least one military unit here, and there's nothing else to build but barracks at the moment. Basically, running max food and we have to put shields into something. B-F also popped a hut in the tundra north last turn for 36g. The land up there does not look promising, we may have to get creative (ha, a Sirian-like pun!) in this game with the city locations (or be aggressive against Cyrus!)

(16) 3360BC There's another corn + cows location in the east, but there's a LOT of tundra around it. Another place we'll have to think about though!

(18) 3280BC AH -> Wheel. I'm heading to Wheel en route to Pottery, since we already have Bronze Working for Slavery. Can't see anything else out there at the moment that we should be pushing for... (maybe Mysticism for Stonehenge, but that's more of a long-term deal)

(22) 3120BC Cornelia to size 2, still pushing max growth. Cyrus has built a second scout, which is poking around our borders. What a waste of production!

(25) 3000BC Hindu FIDL - by CYRUS! OK, that settles it. He's gonna have to go down! We can make Persepolis into one of our Five Golden Cities if desired (or raze if a potentially better spot is seen). Priority #1 is now beelining a settler to the copper before Cyrus can get there. Cornelia will grow to size 3 next turn, finish its warrior the turn after that, and then I'll start a settler.

(26) 2960BC Borders expand to size 3, we finish Wheel and start Pottery, warrior due in 1.

(27) 2920BC Cornelia on settler, due in 9 turns.

(30) 2800BC And that's where things stand after 30 turns.

I believe our next city should go here, on the red dot:



It might look like a bad location, but there is only one tile of overlap with Cornelia, it claims COPPER, there are only four actual desert tiles (not great but it looks like more than that), and fish + clams = one awesome location for our variant! Down the road, we can almost certainly get the Colossus in this spot (ok, maybe that's being a little TOO forward-looking!) I envision our worker building roads towards that spot and then hooking up the copper, followed by some slaved axes from Cornelia (which has a ridiculous amount of food). This being Monarch, the AI won't have a chance of holding out.

To the team: what say ye?

[Sullla]

The Map:



Now you see why I'm pushing for the rather-lousy red dot location!
(Gonna have some fun picking the city sites in this game, that's for sure)

We're going to have some longer-than-average turnsets here, I want everyone to have the chance to found one of our five cities (and claim it as their own). mucco should play 20 turns, and we'll see where things stand after that. To all observers - we're off, wish us good luck!

Sullla
mucco <<< UP NOW
T-Hawk <<< on deck
Gusto
Strauss

[jdotmi]

(Lurking)

Wow! That's, um. That's an interesting start location... Initial location? Beautiful! Rest of it? Not so much... Subscribing to this one. Should be quite entertaining!

[T-hawk]

Checking in.

Bronze Working from a hut -- how lucky is that?! I certainly agree with the red dot copper plan. And hey, popping the border for the fish and clams will make great use of our Creative trait that I was maligning over in the RB thread.

I'm all for an axeman rush at Persepolis, at least if the city isn't on a hill. I won't get to found a city on this round, as mucco will get to build on red dot and I'll be whipping axemen. But I'd be happy to claim Persepolis as my city.

How many axemen will it take? Since Persepolis is the Hindu holy city (+5 culture), it will reach 100 culture by the time we attack, meaning +40% defense. A fortified archer will be defending at 3 + 115% = 6.45 strength, against only 6 for a CR1 axeman. So this means at least two axemen per archer to be sure of winning...

And thinking further ahead, if Persepolis or a replacement is city #3, we'll want a fourth city northeast for the corn, silks, river, and either deer or cow. (One tile NE of the silk pulls in lots of hills -- possible Heroic Epic city?) I don't see any good spot for city five just yet...

[Strauss]

Hmmm... some poor land surrounding us there. Red Dot certainly looks great compared to the rest. A city grabbing the Deers, Corn and Silk in the north will also be decent. I think the remaining two cities will probably require 'removing' Cyrus. Didn't Cyrus start so close to you in RB21 as well? Poor boy

[mucco]

Already up? I suppose the rule is 24/48 as usual, so I got it. Or is it 25/55?
I'll found the second city on my turn 9, it seems. The worst task will be finding a good name for it... Lousy, you say? There are many great cities in lousy places... I think I've got an idea. Too bad you'll have to wait until tomorrow since here, in Italy, it's past midnight now, and tomorrow school so I'll play in the afternoon.

Oh, by the way: Cornelia is not only the name of Sulla's gens, look here. This city is the beautiful daughter of our first Emperor Sulla!

Wow, I'm in a SG between the first winner and the first runner-up of a RB epic ever . Surely my mistakes will be fixed quickly!

[Gusto]

Agree. Red dot looks fine to settle. Axeman rush against Cyrus will be fun. Persepolis will make a good third city just in the fact it's a capital location and a holy city. His territory needs to be revealed to see if we can settle a fourth city around there. North of Cornelia is a decent location but we should keep it in reserve if nothing presents itself for the last two cities.

[Mutineer]

Lurker comment:

Small map/monarch is to easy, no any challenge or even potencial problems.
Just kill all rivals exept one and left one with one city and do what you like for the rest of the game. Boring.

The only thin needed is to buld Taj Maxal.

[Kodii]

lurker's comment: a lurker comment to a lurker

Originally Posted by Mutineer

Small map/monarch is to easy, no any challenge or even potencial problems.
Just kill all rivals exept one and left one with one city and do what you like for the rest of the game. Boring.

The only thin needed is to buld Taj Maxal.

I don't see how you can criticize the variant in this game. I'd like to see you go out there and accumulate the GPs needed to run four golden ages. Plus, I don't believe this variant was meant to be "oh so challenging". It was meant to be a break from the past few grueling RB SGs.

[darrelljs]

Originally Posted by Sullla

To all observers - we're off, wish us good luck!

I'm tempted to wish you bad luck as I enjoy watching you overcome it, but...good luck

Darrell

[Dicorion]

Lurker in:
I wish you lucky GP hunting! Got to learn something more about GP farming and managing

little 2 mucco: I see you are fun of Juventus like me So I wish you to see Juve next year in Seria A

[Strauss]

Originally Posted by Mutineer

Lurker comment:

Small map/monarch is to easy, no any challenge or even potencial problems.
Just kill all rivals exept one and left one with one city and do what you like for the rest of the game. Boring.

Why would we do that? Please wait until we finish the game before you say whether the game is boring or not.

[jdotmi]

Lurker's Comment:

Seeing as how they'll need to be building Wonders sooner rather than later in order to get teh GP they need to trigger 4 golden ages, AND they have to build the Taj Mahal, I'm going to go out on a limb and say rampant warfare is probably not the best idea in the world. It's not really easy to build a sustained army and get your key Wonders at the same time. Especially in the early game when you're not going to have a Tech advantage to cushion your building time. Even doubly especially since they are so limited in how many cities they can have.

[mucco]

Originally Posted by Mutineer

Lurker comment:

Small map/monarch is to easy, no any challenge or even potencial problems.
Just kill all rivals exept one and left one with one city and do what you like for the rest of the game. Boring.

The only thin needed is to buld Taj Maxal.

Variants are all about finding new ways to play, elaborating different strategies, role-playing. Everybody knows about the "best" ways to play a small pangaea-like map, why keep repeating the same thing over and over? No point in it.

What's the point of a variant, if we just have to chop axes until we kill everyone? That's old stuff, everyone can do that, but, as you said, it gets boring.

Btw, I'm about to play. Expect a report in, say, 5 hours . Wonders, huh? Stonehenge + early library could make a superfast GA, plus another almost sure prophet/scientist combo in the very early middle ages. It's also true that we'll need to start up GP production as soon as possible. But we're going to stock our GPs for later, I suppose, so maybe some military action is allowed in the beginning.

[Sullla]

Originally Posted by mucco

Oh, by the way: Cornelia is not only the name of Sulla's gens, look here. This city is the beautiful daughter of our first Emperor Sulla!

Cool, we have another player with knowledge of Roman history! Sulla's daughter was indeed named Cornelia - but then again, so was every female born into the Cornelius family line.

Originally Posted by Mutineer

Small map/monarch is to easy, no any challenge or even potencial problems.
Just kill all rivals exept one and left one with one city and do what you like for the rest of the game. Boring.

The only thin needed is to buld Taj Maxal.

This being Monarch, I'm sure that we could do that if desired. But in the fine tradition of many past Realms Beyond games, this succession game is not really interested in pursuing the strongest power play options on the table. We're going to do some fun stuff with Great People and see how many golden ages we can hold before the game ends. Could we do the same thing on Emperor? Maybe, but we're not trying to kill ourselves here. In the spirit of the RB Hippies game - like, it's just for fun man. Chill out.

(By the way - attacking another SG team's idea is very impolite, to say the least. Even if you find it boring, not everyone else may think so. OK? )

[T-hawk]

Originally Posted by mucco

Btw, I'm about to play. Expect a report in, say, 5 hours . Wonders, huh? Stonehenge + early library could make a superfast GA, plus another almost sure prophet/scientist combo in the very early middle ages.

That'd be a fast GA, but our goal isn't to have the GAs as soon as possible. Probably better to hold off on triggering the GA until all five cities are in place and have grown up to size.

I think our best long-term plan is to put most of the wonders in one city (probably the capital) along with the National Epic, and have it generate as many GPs as it can, of a variety of types. Then have each other city keep its GP pool pure for one type. Engineers in particular are the hardest to get; I'd suggest pushing for the Hanging Gardens in an off-capital city; the +health willl be quite helpful too in a limited city count game.

[mucco]

Ok, here's my turn.

(0) Really nothing to do here.

(3) No, look: Cyrus has his probably only worker farming a tile which isn't in his capital's radius! I could gain that worker... shall I do it? Yes! And then I'll park my warrior forever on a forested hill near Persepolis crippling him totally until we... Ok I think I'll shut up now. My warrior is on a most important scouting mission, we cannot afford to waste time killing foreign slaves !



(5) B-F defends himself successfully from some wolves in the snow, and moves to a forest to heal.

(6) In this turn, I face a really tough choice. Where to found my second city?



Red dot looked like obvious, but a source of wheat has appeared inside the borders of Persia. The green dot I've put there grabs the fish (6f), the sugar (4f with calendary), and the wheat (5f after civil service), for a grand total of 9 surplus food. It also has more hills for production (Colossus+GL?), 3 less desert tiles, and overall a better place to be. But it needs level 3 culture to grab copper, which we can achieve only with much efforts, and basically this choice denies the axe rush to cyrus. The wheat will also be hard to get without war, as a culture fight with Persia's capital looks... you get the idea. However, we're still getting that copper in little time (I hope), so maybe the attack is only delayed for a couple dozens turns. What to do, what to do???
In the end, I decide for the green dot. We're only getting five cities, they must be the absolute best ever! No great person has ever been born from copper - sugar is a much better idea to cultivate clever minds! Plus I'm sure Cyrus would found right west of the green dot if we settled the red one. So forgive me please , but I'm not settling in the red.

(7) warrior produced in the capital, granary next. I had picked fishing as the next tech, because we want that fish soon, right?

(9)Cyrus adopts slavery... I found the new city, which honours one of the most beautiful, powerful, and GP-producing cities of all times:
Venice.



Why the hell did we have to start on an island with our only opponent which is also creative? That trait could have helped us so much here...

(10) At this time, it's the moment to choose a research path: do we want sailing for additional food? Or maybe mysticism, to put shields into stonehenge? or IW, so we can hope to have iron in the capital? Or masonry, to take a shot at the pyramids? Mysticism can provide a stonehenge in 25 turns, letting cornelia pop borders again in another 20 turns or so, so I go that way.

(15) Complete the granary in the capital, and mysticism. Stonehenge starts right now. Iron Working too, we may be lucky.

(20) Nothing else happens. On my last turn, Venice reaches size 2 and can whip, and the worker can start building a cottage on the flood plains. However, I didn't do any of these two things, T-hawk will know better what to do. I've already made a big mess in my first turn!
Stonehenge due in 5 turns, so copper due in 29 turns.

A shot of our Empire in 2000 BC:



And the save.

[rodneysandy]

How nice. Two of my favourite players in the same game.
Sullla the master journalist and T-Hawk the wizard of the numismatic Numidians.
Welcome back T-Hawk, long time no see.

[Sullla]

Originally Posted by mucco

I've already made a big mess in my first turn!

I don't think so, actually. You made the decision to go with the location that had greater long-term potential at the cost of temporary gain. Obviously that has its own advantages and tradeoffs, but I think the call was a sound one. Venice should be much more productive over the long haul than the proposed red dot. As Sirian would say,

Originally Posted by Sirian

I urge you to think long-term.

The other reason why it's not such a big deal is that we WILL have copper in our borders in about 30 turns, faster if Hinduism spreads to Venice on its own. T-Hawk said he wasn't impressed with Creative overall; well late-game it's not doing much, but right NOW, we're getting a heck of a big benefit from it. And isn't the early game the most important time of all?

I'm also glad you didn't snipe the worker and choke Cyrus' capital. We don't need to go down that road in this game.

T-Hawk should play something like 20-30 turns. Ideally, we'd see another city founded (or captured and renamed) on T-Hawk's watch, but that may not happen. We can always switch up the roster later on though to make sure everyone gets to found one of our five.

Crazy thought: with this being a relatively small island, do we want to save one of our five cities to be founded later on another continent? That would be pretty far-out, but maybe it's something to keep in mind!