SGFN-04: Ragnar for Secretary-General!

Ragnar Lodbrok, ruler of the mighty war-like Scandinavian peoples, sometimes known as Vikings, was reading the latest newspaper. One particular article had him vexed. The headline asked “Are the barbarian Vikings capable of living as a peaceful nation?” Ragnar took great exception to the mocking treatment of his noble people. He roared to his closest advisors that he would show them all, someday he would rule the whole world! Not by the blade of his armies’ mighty axes, nor by the dint of his brilliant scientists, but by the quality of his leadership and the economic might of his people. Through the power of diplomacy, the Scandinavian peoples shall be friends to all. Someday, he, Ragnar Lodbrok, would be elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations!

This is an Emperor-level, zero-science game, with Diplomatic Victory as the only way we want to win. To be fair, all standard VC's will be enabled. If someone launches a spaceship, we will have already had many years to win, so we will have failed anyway. The world parameters are Standard size, continents, 60% water, warm temperature, wet climate, 4 Billion years old, Roaming barbs, normal aggression. Opponents are random. My SG's are a democracy, all members have equal weight when making decisions. My aim is for a friendly, non-critical environment. However, debate is welcome, as it can be a valuable learning tool. I think a relaxed 48 hours to get the save, 96 hours to play will work best. I am sure everyone can give enough notice of skips/swaps that things will move along well, as it has in the past. Our roster is set. This is our team for the fourth go-round:

1: TheOverseer714
2: Anaxagoras
3: WanderingNoob
4: ThinkTank
5: TadEmpire
6: Sercer
7: Pol1

If anyone else is interested, please post here. The roster number could even grow, with the length this one may go, there will be changes, as RL occasionally rears its ugly head. With the roster set, we voted for a start out of 8 choices.

Here are my first 4 opening saves screenshots:



Here are 4 more, just to give us more practice at site selection:



After some mulling over and discussion, Choice A was the group consensus.
Here is the save, if any lurkers want to play with it:

ThinkTank said:

Signing in. I think we need a good long term strategy before we start. This is not a variant I have seen before. First issue is, what are we allowed? Is the variant just science slider at 0 always? Can we use scientists? Or only 1 lone scientist? Is the Great Library allowed? And Theory of Evolution? My votes are slider at 0, lone scientist, GL and ToE allowed.

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From what I have read, and there is very little about this variant that I can find here, you are right on about the rules. No beakers, ever, not a one. Same goes for scientists. Slider never moves off of 0%. Since those 2 wonders require no beakers invested, they are fair game. In fact, any wonder is fair game, including Newtons, Copernicus, SETI, and Internet. Not that we would build any of them, as they would only add culture, since they are all multipliers. Any number times zero is still zero.

I would recommend that everyone roll a start with these settings and play through 10 BC to just get a feel for what works and what doesn't. I have done that twice, it really has helped me. BTW, any lurkers with any experience with zero science, please chime in, as we are all in new territory here.

lurker's comment: First lurker! I'll be watching. If my second emperor game (in progress) goes better than the first one before this starts, I might join in.

Sercer88 (Former Knight of Peace) signs in.

Just be sure to mention what civs we are facing, unless they're random (I assume that's what they are.) And post here what the difficulty setting is.

Other than that...it looks great!

Signing in. I think we need a good long term strategy before we start. This is not a variant I have seen before. First issue is, what are we allowed? Is the variant just science slider at 0 always? Can we use scientists? Or only 1 lone scientist? Is the Great Library allowed? And Theory of Evolution? My votes are slider at 0, lone scientist, GL and ToE allowed.

any chance to join in?
i am strongly interested to play this one and start playing SGs.
(i've never played SG before, but i've been lurking).

ThinkTank posted good questions : just slider at 0 or no beakers at all, ever?

I'm in.

I would vote no wet-lab research, ever. Not even a lone geek with a single retort at a rickety table by candlelight. We should have a beaker-free society.

On the other hand, the Great Library isn't built with beakers. If we get information off the stacks, we are just taking advantage of the achievements of others. We aren't doing the research ourselves, and we can't gain an outright tech lead that way.

On the other hand again, even though it takes no beakers, we _can_ get a lead with the ToE. The Civ that builds the ToE chooses the research, and it can go beyond anything any other group has already done. So I would say no to the ToE.

Summary of how I'd vote: No slider, no geeks, no ToE; but if we build or capture the GL, that's OK.

Game settings are OK by me. As for opponents, I'll go with whatever Overseer posts. Are we on Emperor?

Well, I see your points, anaxagoras. You're such a good presenter of the facts...I think I agree with you on your game rules. (But, just because it's such a cool wonder...I'm extremely reluctant to say "no TOE" )

I'm in again, good job overseer getting this started up

I gotta vote for start A, there, Overseer, but it is close. I don't like that we're in the extreme north and will have a lot of water tiles in the fat cross. But the wine turns the hill into a BG and I like the sure-thing lux and the extra commerce. We're going to need cash with this variant.

Not sure if it would be better to settle in place on the BG, or go 1 tile NE. I probably would move first.

I'd love to hear what others think.

anaxagoras said:

I gotta vote for start A, there, Overseer, but it is close. I don't like that we're in the extreme north and will have a lot of water tiles in the fat cross. But the wine turns the hill into a BG and I like the sure-thing lux and the extra commerce. We're going to need cash with this variant.

Not sure if it would be better to settle in place on the BG, or go 1 tile NE. I probably would move first.

I'd love to hear what others think.

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I would pick either A or D

Both A and B are in the far North...with probably tundra all around

C, just doesn't look too inviting with all of the plains around the area.

D...only has 1 BG from what we can see, but I like the more equatorial position. (Those are Forests, right? I don't want any more Jungles )

A:
AFAIR there shouldn't be lot of tundra or desert tiles, it's warm and wet and we are already in the far north, however, i believe that tiles :
W of cow, N-E of the hill and N-E of mountain are tundra/tundra-forest.
as anaxagoras said, settler stands on BG. if we want to check the N-E (grassland maybe?) the option will be to waste one worker turn.
irrigated cattle + wine would give 5sfpt
D:
it looks like forest from art file, and N-W tiles seem like plains. also settler stands on BG tile.

i would pick A (B, D have a lot of water but Vikings have cheap harbours)

lurker's comment:
A is a good site and so is C; forget about the rest. I would consider moving the settler south and settle on the wine and mine the current tile. That makes sure you have a source right from the start and don't have to waste worker turns to connect it. Put the second city on the coast.

Remember, this is Emperor. You get a cranky citizen when you grow to size 2. Having a nearby luxury will save a lot of cash and let you keep people working in the fields and toiling in the mines, not doing knock-knock jokes for the masses.

Of the two, I prefer A, since it has two wines; one for you and one to trade away.

In a zero science game you get smarter in two main ways. You either trade for your brains or you fight your brains.

This is also a diplomacy game, so warfare won't be the main way to earn your brains. Once the UN is built by the Flower-Power Vikings, you'll want to declare war on your main rival and then sign everybody to an MA against them. That should insure that you win the UN vote.

im in I guess

Please include choices E through H in your consideration for our start. IMHO some of them might even be better than the first bunch. The extra wines would be nice, but they are in the far north. I think food and gold are more important in this one than luxes, at least in the early game. Later, the luxes would equal trades, so that is a trade-off. I like C best, then E,, due to being in warmer climates. One I didn't add had 3 silks, but was surrounded by forested plains. I could add it to the list for consideration.

Ok, my new vote(s) are for A and F.

TheOverseer714 said:

BTW, any lurkers with any experience with zero science, please chime in, as we are all in new territory here.

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lurker's comment: I'm not sure if I'll be able to lurk this one (RL is being a pain), but here is a link to a zero science game we played a while back.

You will find that we used every option available for advancement (trade, pointy-stick, buying, and theft) and also needed to build the UN because we had a SS VC. We even lost our trade rep, so that eventuality is covered too.

Good luck.

i would stay with A (second choice is C, i didn't write it earlier)

I vote for A too. Good commerce, and a possible 4-turn settler factory. I would move the settler off the BG to the NE. Compared to settling S as Cbob suggests I think NE is better: although we do not have wines immediately connected, (1) we are on the coast then and this gives an extra coin since we are seafaring; (2) we can send out an early curragh, and (3) we can immediately use the cow.