My final huzzah

[shyuhe]

I'm going to be going on a civ 4 hiatus pretty soon (yeah it's almost summer time!). I wanted to start up one last SG before I have to stop playing, and I needed to make sure it's an SG I can finish in a month. So here are the settings:

Version: 3.13, BUG is banned.
Map: Small pangaea with high seas
Speed: Marathon
Opponents: 18 random
Our civ: HC. I think you can guess where this is going now
Difficulty: Immortal (we need to give the AI some help here)

Variant rules: we are NEVER allowed to build a settler. We must win by domination (all VC enabled). Players must attempt to eliminate at least one civilization during their turn set. Accordingly, players must declare war at least once during their set. Each turn set will last until the targeted civilization is eliminated or vassalized (by anybody). If the player feels that the civ can't be eliminated, then the player may take peace with the targeted civ but must pass the turn set on to the next player.

Yeah, this is gonna be a blood bath But hopefully an amusing one We'll need to eliminate 9-12 civs in the game to win so we'll probably each play 2-3 turn sets (a short SG). I haven't tried a map with these settings before but I imagine alphabet and currency will both be very useful. Also, techs will be hard to trade for both because the AI will hate us and because not many civs will know the tech that we want to trade for (thereby triggering the "we don't want to start trading away this technology yet").

Here's our starting position (and our first victim as well!):


I'm thinking moving SW to found on the marble and rushing Stalin while trying to tech towards priesthood for the oracle. Unfortunately I think you need masonry to get the marble bonus (even if you found on it).

Roster:
shyuhe
open
open
open
open

As for what a huzzah is, I don't really know. It's a phrase my friend uses...

[ungy]

OK-Shyuhe count me in.
My guess is we should be able to do this without too much difficulty.

I wouldn't go towards Stalin--don't think we need the overlap with our second city, Moscow.

I'd consider 1N on the hill--that hammer bonus is huge for the quecha rush (of course the marble gets it as well). But 1N puts the gems in the BFC.
there must be a food in the fog--maybe 2 and the marble loses them. 1N risks only a single tile that can't be unfogged.

Quecha rush and rush and rush and rush

[shyuhe]

Yup. This game will probably feel like a monarch -- emperor level game.

I think settling on the marble is better because it allows us to work the plains hill forest (5 total hammers at size 1) for a faster quecha rush. Going 1N loses a turn for moving and probably a turn for each quecha produced but we gain the gems. I think there is bronze or copper on the hill north of the settler so that's another reason why I'm reluctant to move up.

I imagine we'll have to tech up to maces to finish the game. Maybe further depending on our neighbors...

[tycoonist]

i'll play shyuhe - it's been a while since i have played one with you.

with the quechuas, should a barracks be built before the first quechuas baring in ming that we will have to rush a couple of enemies?

as for settling, 1N looks good - Stalin will get the cows and gold for us anyway

[ungy]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

I think settling on the marble is better because it allows us to work the plains hill forest (5 total hammers at size 1) for a faster quecha rush. Going 1N loses a turn for moving and probably a turn for each quecha produced but we gain the gems. I think there is bronze or copper on the hill north of the settler so that's another reason why I'm reluctant to move up.

good points. However, there's likely to be a food resource that we move away from at the marble--maybe even 2.
However, since this will hardly be a typical game, that could be OK--just view the capital as a quecha-spammer, not as anything long term.
The AI will surely settle nearby anyway.

I have no idea about what will be needed to win this, but I think these settings and marathon the quecha will go a surprisingly long way, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if we need little else--maybe some axes/spears/swords.

[shyuhe]

Awesome tycoonist. Nice to play with you again (and ungy too!). Now we need one more to start the bloodshed

I was viewing Cuzco as a quecha factory since we'll want to incapacitate 2-3 civs with quechas. I tested the map once and a few AI should start reasonably close (within 10 tiles) of us.

You're right ungy - we'll probably give up a food resource by moving to the marble but there's a chance we'll give it up by moving to the plains hill too since we lose 2E1S of the settler's current position.

[Rusten]

[lurker comment, not a sign-up]

2E1S looks forested to me, so no food resource. I'm getting a wibe that there's corn or pigs 2E--time will tell. As it's a plains hill it doesn't really matter all that much if a resource pops up there, you'll get a 3 plot on the city tile, which owns just as much as working the tile. I'm with ungy on that one.

Originally Posted by shyuhe

Version: 3.13, BUG is banned.

That alone was very tempting, but I'll stay out anyway.

[pigswill]

Worker stealing should be viable with this set-up so you should be able to simply build quechas and rush asap. If you get bw and pinch a worker then you can chop out quechas at a reasonable rate. I would imagine that most civs are going to start with 2-3 cities before the land runs out. No need to worry about missing out on resources, someone will build a city there for you.

If you're looking for a (relatively) naff player to round out the roster then I'll join. If you want someone who actually can play immortal then I'll bow out.

[tycoonist]

Originally Posted by pigswill

If you're looking for a (relatively) naff player to round out the roster then I'll join. If you want someone who actually can play immortal then I'll bow out.

it won't feel like immortal. if you have won at emperor i suspect you will be more than good enough

[shyuhe]

Indeed. I doubt it'll feel like an emperor game The one thing we have to be careful of is completely crashing our economy by getting carried away with rushing

We're at 4 now. I'll wait a day or two before I start this in hopes of getting to 5, although 4 will do too.

edit: @Rusten - you sure you don't want to play? I'd love to have you join the fun

[mystyfly]

If you still need someone, I'll play as I should have plenty of time. Sounds like a pretty fun variant .

Otherwise, I'll surely be lurking.

[Rusten]

Originally Posted by shyuhe

edit: @Rusten - you sure you don't want to play? I'd love to have you join the fun

Yea I'm sure, quechas freak me out, I couldn't handle a game dedicated to them
I'll be lurking though!

[shyuhe]

ok mystyfly, you're in. And now we start the fun.

So I moved 1N to settle on the plains hill to get the food + gems. We can't spam settlers so we want maximum coverage with our cities. And settling on a 2 hammer tile is a must if we're going to rush.

Turn 1: We meet Shaka (SE) and Mehmed (NW)

Turn 7 - Cyrus visits us (E)

Turn 8 - Vicky finds us (NE)

Turn 9 - Alex (NE) and Zara (NE) come by

Turn 10 - Brennus and HRE both come from the west.

Turn 12 - Babylon and Ramesses also send scouts from the west. I also find a tempting worker steal that I can't pass up:



And so my target civ becomes Zara.

Turn 16 - Justinian comes by but I can't find his scout...

Turn 17 - Pacal and Willem find us from the west as well.

Turn 24 - mining is discovered. Now our workers can actually do something I stole a worker from Mehmed as well since he was wandering in the open (and his borders were blocking the shortest path to Zara).

Turn 48 - Zara is no more:



Not the fastest quechua rush. Settling on the marble 1SW and working the plains hill forest would have made 6 turn quechuas instead of the 8 turn quechuas that I was getting. The upside is that now we can work the gems to get the requisite military techs - i.e., axes, chariots, and swords.

We are still at war with Mehmed - so he doesn't automatically count as the "target" civ for ungy unless you decide to eliminate him There are 2 quechuas in Aksum and one next to Istanbul. I think the rule of thumb (at 20% culture) is 2 quechuas per archer. We might want to swap the rookie quechua for the 2 CR quechuas in Aksum.

The hill 1W of Istanbul should have either copper or iron. If it's copper, I think we'll want to take out Mehmed next. If it's iron, then either him or Stalin I guess? We can try Shaka (he's SE of Stalin) or Vicky (E of Aksum) too. Also, remember that cities of size 1 will auto-raze unless we have culture in them.

Roster:
shyuhe just played
ungy - UP
tycoonist (on deck)
mystyfly
OPEN

[ungy]

Ok-got it for tomorrow.

I'm inclined to just finish Turkey--keep it neat and there's a lot of forest to chop. Chopchopchoprushrushrush.

[pigswill]

shyuhe: I seemto have disappeared from the roster.

[shyuhe]

Woops. Indeed you are. Sorry about that!

Roster:
shyuhe just played
ungy - UP
pigswill (on deck)
tycoonist
mystyfly

[ungy]

OK-here goes:
turn 48 all is well.
Boy I haven't played marathon in a long time--it's really different. At other speeds I might go for a barracks in Cuzco but at marathon it's 5 quechas so we don't do it.

T 56 BW in--we revolt. change research to wheel
change Cuzco to rice.

No bronze in our territory yet --a couple in neutral zones.

T61 Mehmed builds an archer but sends it out --we're able to manuever it into the open

T64 the sun sets on the Ottoman empire--we lose only a single quecha.



BTW the correct promo line for the quecha is cover first--then the CR line.

We're losing some hammers on our chops but I'm still thinking it's better to skip the barracks--not positive tho.


The state of the world:



Over for the next victim....

[ungy]

save is here:

[pigswill]

Got it.

Charlemagne seems to be a nice candidate for annihilation mainly because Prague has copper in bfc.

Techwise I assume we're going for pottery next.

[pigswill]

I'm wondering if we should go for stonehenge. Its four chops for an industrious leader (5 1/3 quechas) but it gives us instant culture in every city. We might however have left it a bit late.