RB29d - Cultural Extermination

Arriving fashionably late, the members of Team D are

uberfish
blid
pindicator
mostly_harmless

Official variant rules:

1) Cities may not be captured or razed under any circumstances.
2) Our units cannot enter enemy territory without Open Borders.

lurking and mad that his CIV4 vanilla disc is MIA so he can't participate.

Seeing as how this is Vanilla ...

Need a fifth? ( Now where's the smiley of a guy drinking out of a bottle ...)

should be fun to watch

checkin'in

Initial save is fine with me

checking in!
So we are using the same save as Sulla and we are not allowed to look into the other teams threads. Right?
Are we using any fancy stuff like Blakes better Ai??? Me vote no.

Ok, we've got a general consensus to use the same starting save. We will not be using blake AI or any other gameplay altering mods as it would spoil the comparison.

If the other team members would like a 5th, I'd be happy to have T_McC on board.

Here is our starting save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/RB29-BC-4000.zip



Barbarians are off.
We are facing Tokugawa, Caesar, Napoleon, Temujin, Roosevelt and Bismarck.


Strategy discussion

The starting spot looks decent. Even assuming we settle on the spot though, we already have a key decision to make:

a) Standard economic development - research AH + build worker
b) Religion rush - research Mysticism + build settler, trying to exploit the lack of enemy civs with Mysticism and deny them early culture by grabbing the first two religions.

I'll kick off when everyone's checked in and has a preference on how they would like to play this.

I tentatively suggest turnsets of 50/25/15, as I feel 40/20/10 is too low for players to feel they have done much in a non-warmongering Epic game, but this isn't set in stone.

Checking in! All hail the mighty gunship!

I'd like a fifth. Oh, and T_McC can join, too

Thanks for the spot.

I've already read Sullla's open, so I'll join in the discussion after the first turnset.

Hi,
settling on the spot looks good to me.
I think there might be another hill 2N (could be tundra also) judging from the bleeding. That would give us two hills plus the settled on plus the hammers from the cows as production eventually.
Personally, I would prefer the religious way, landing even the first three religions, not just two. I am currently playing huge terra maps with 18civs on monarch. Not much religion founding for me there.
As for the starting tech, consider going fishing first.
1.) its cheap!
2.) it will give us access to the fish tile and the single tile lake "Lagoda" and with being financial, that gives 3cpt boosting our next research efforts significantly. With no mysticism for the AIs from the start that should be doable.

Any thoughts on this?

This being no barbs, I think we want to have at least one more scout for intensive recon. No threats to them for a long time to come and we need to spot the AI's cores soonest.


Another thing:
Although this being pangea, there is still a possibility for existence of one tile islands. Flipping a city on tose might become very difficult.

Also, no problems with a fifth player.

mh

Welcome T_McC

So uber, you don't want the fish ? (yeah, that was lame )
Seriously, what about doing fishing then chasing poly and judaism ? The fish would make the settler come quickly anyway and we'd still have two of the early religions

otherwise, I would still take the religious option with buddhism and hinduism

EDIT : I somehow missed Mostly_harmless post. Buddhism after fishing and mysticism is a bit risky IMO , even on prince.
For the island thingy, we just have to be the first to astro
I just realized we are playing this on vanilla, so no capitulation. Arghh, it won't be a piece of cake

Ok, our roster:

uberfish (up)
blid
pindicator
mostly_harmless
T_McC


The team seems to be in favour of religious opening, and MH and blid have raised an idea I hadn't thought of, which is to go for fishing first. Fish are (unsurprisingly) one of my favourite resources. However, if we do go for fishing first we increase the chances of losing one or both of the first two religions to the AI. I agree that losing one is not a horrible disaster though. And the bonus is that the other teams will be unlikely to play this way, if I know them they will go for mysticism first.

Not to threadjack but I think that you would be hardpressed to find any other people who believe that fishing is remotely compareable to financial.

I had a good idea for the Fishing opening and the timing seemed right, so here we go. I can't resist unconventional starts:

Research Fishing (8); Build Settler (38)
Pop the hut for gold. Scouting East I find Roosevelt's capital 10 tiles east of us, and then Toku 10 tiles south of him. Ack.
3790 BC (7): Fishing -> Mysticism. We got a tech discount from meeting the AI saving us a turn on fishing.
Scout circles back clockwise and finds Napoleon worryingly close to us to the south. We pop another hut for gold.
Queue fish boat ahead of settler and set Moscow to work the plains hill to get the boat out as quickly as possible.
Mysticism -> Meditation
Fishing boat -> back to Settler
3100 BC (30): Buddhism founded in Moscow, Meditation -> Polytheism
We discover Berlin to the distant southwest.
2800 BC (40): Settler is out, this took only two turns more than building settler directly. Fantastic opening.
2710 BC (43): Found St Petersburg...
2680 BC (44): and with perfect timing...



Err, what is that purple crap in the screenshot I hear you ask?

That is us as Russia exercizing our right to be complete jerks by culture pushing AI capitals before 2500 BC



This city is by far the best spot I can reach in time to coincide with the founding of Hinduism. Not only is it a great spot in the early game with its 2 Financial Oases, it claims the only luxury within easy range and hopefully we will be able to steal the cow from Paris too especially if we build a Wonder there.

So that the next player can be a complete jerk too, I started another settler in Moscow (Barbarians are off) and start researching Masonry for Monotheism. Here are our options to the east - Genghis' capital is further east:



The enemy capitals' borders are due to expand at the end of the next turnset, which is Blid's (25 turns for the rest of the first round.) First we should discuss where to put the third city, there are also possible choices in the west:



If we do want to found Judaism in the third city, we'll actually have to delay monotheism slightly I think. We can research discounted worker techs of course (having met everyone) and the second oasis in St Pete will be running soon, probably best to run out one worker in each city when their current builds finish and get the ancient worker techs before pursuing the wonders we want such as Oracle and so on.

Save: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/88630/RB29_-_Cultural_Extermination_BC-2500.Civ4SavedGame

But let's discuss our overall strategy first. It is a slightly weird continent. I think Caesar must be in the west as I met him rather late and the map has been generous with space for him and Bismarck. There are arguments for expanding both ways.

That would be a real way to say your cultural demolition hellos by planting city 3 (and Judaism) 3S of Washington or 3E1N of Kyoto. With creative, you match early AI capitals in culture, and a religion makes them totally outmatched, 7 to 2. Go get those close borders diplo demerits.

Appears as though Roosevelt got boned. He's got tundra on either side and we could cut off the FPs from him with the next city. I'm not sure we need to jam Paris anymore, although even with another border pop we won't cut him off from going east.

Anyway, here's Kyoto:



The red dots are where his borders will be in 25 turns, and the two dots crossed out are illegal for us to settle (only two tiles from Kyoto). The good news is that with a settler due in 15, we can reach at least the N-W dots before the border expansion. Any of the three northern red dots will cut him off to the N and W at the 150-culture plateau, and will also start to push the city square at 150 culture. I like the central red dot and we can reach it in 21 turns. It will also take away the best site for Roosevelt to settle. My second choice might be the grass tile NW of the Ivory.

We could do the same trick to Rosie instead (the tile 1 NW of the scout), but I think if we grab the site near Toku before Rosie can settle his 2nd city, Rosie will have to settle a crap city in the Tundra (or something into the teeth of our culture). I also think Toku is more of a military threat than Rosie, so the earlier we cripple him the better.

We won't be able to reach any other capital before the 150 culture border pop. After that we'll have a long stretch before the 750 pops (barring anyone building a wonder). For ourselves, do we want Stonehenge for denial? I would think the Pyramids are almost required as I expect we'll have an SE due to the number of cities we'll own and our desire to generate Artists to settle.

I like the idea of getting our grubby little (cultural) fingers in everyone's business as quick as possible. T_McC makes a good case for squeezing Toku next. Are we going to be able to delay Judaism for 21 turns? Even more important, aren't prince-level AIs going to have a 2nd city up in 21 turns?

I agree that Pyramids seem a very good wonder for us. So do the Parthenon & Oracle. In fact, we may be able to use the Oracle to pop Philosophy and then use Great Prophets to pick up the remaining religions while we research towards Music on our own.

Excellent opening. I am very happy that worked out as intended for us. I am looking forward to the opening comparisons with the other teams.

I can only judge from the screenshots provided, since I am at work currently, but I would prefer to push further to the east and try to found judaism in the third city. The eastern AIs are closer and we would not have to delay monotheism that much for a push into the west. If we found Judaism before having a third city, it will probably go into Moscow, due to the higher population. And there it won't do us any good.

I like T_McCs Japan strategy, although I have no idea about the time AI found their cities. Can we plant our scout on a nearby hill to look for settlers?
I imagine the riverbanks of the Japan-American stream are highly priced.
T_McC's dot for third city looks good to me.

As for Stonehenge ... I would like to look at the save and the production available. Can we squeeze it into Moscow after the settler? Shame we have no stone or marble (for later) in reach.

mh

Quick question about the culture influence. Sulla mentioned in his "example game" that culture is stronger on the axis than on the diagonal. Wouldn't make the red dot/yellow circle the stronger choice? Not to mention the land is good there too.
I did notice the 2nd city placement was on the diagonal and not directly due north. You do pick up the phants and two oasis that way, but is it worth the loss in culture pressure - or does it really matter?

Excellent posting and looking forward to reading more.

Dawn: yeah elephants + 2 oasis makes our St Pete location better, we aren't really trying to culture flip Paris anyway, just steal his space and cows.

The reason we aren't that well scouted in the northwest is I brought back our scout to keep an eye on America and Japan settling second cities. I agree that they are likely to build second cities soon and our city placement will have to react to that. One idea if we get an aggressively positioned 3rd city that has some production is to build Stonehenge in one city and Oracle in another after their workers are done. We have an accessible stone site if Napoleon doesn't take it. The snag is we have 3 or so industrious AI here (if you ask me this is actually a *difficult* opponent set, I would rather face cre/phi/fin AIs than this lot of warmongers and wonder builders.)

I think it is worth holding up monotheism for a few turns to try and push Judaism to our third city, none of the AIs were prioritizing religion at this time and we are outresearching them. (This is why financial is better than organized, it starts working extremely early on and you win races to key techs.)