Role Play Challenge: Churchill, the English Bulldog

Welcome to my next RPC, Churchill the English Bulldog. These games are meant to be both somewhat educational as well as alot of fun.

This game will try to play up Englands historic defense of it's islands, so I will try to play true to WWII era England. Of course there are game limitations!!! As education, I am going to try and play a strict defensive game, and leverage the protective trait as much as I can while taking full advantage of the charismatic trait.

So Churchill's Motto is as follows

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"

Yes, the English Bulldog indeed.

Before the rules, the settings

Standard size hemisheres map, with 6 cintinents!
Marathon speed
Monarch difficulty.

Rules
1) Churchill MUST control his entire land mass or continent! If there is a 1 or 2 tiles land bridge connecting to another large land mass (picture the sinai penninsula) then we conside that water for the RPC flavor.

2) IF we have another AI on the continent, that AI MUST be eliminated ASAP. It must be a BC time rush!

3) Churchill prefers to keep the English army on English soil, but he is able to act appropriately to prevent an AI domination or cultural win. To prevent a space win if applicable Churchill must use espionage!!!

4) The English navy has free reign of the oceans and Churchill has minimum requirements: 7 galleys/triemes once metal casting is teched, 15 galleys/frigates once we have astronomy/chemistry, 30 destroyers at combustion. Also, Churchill MUST exploit privateers AMAP!

5) Churchill is very stubborn, he is a loyal friend and a hated enemy! He will always jump into a war at a friends request, and never forgive an enemy!!!

6) If England's home islands are invaded he must defend them and never declare peace until they are fully expelled.

7) Churchill can win anyway as long as it does not conflict with the above rules (this includes attacking a friend to prevent a culture win).

8) One final point, we shall try our best to run an espionage game here although I will not wreck the game trying to achieve this. Given the criteria, espionage agamist a different continent may be challenging!

So onto our stubborn leader



And the start



A very interesting start! I am tempted to move 1 west and settle another city on the eastern shore on the river!

I'd move warrior NE. Settler probably goes S. Post new picture.

I'm thinking settling on the stone may be an option, depending if you see any food over there.

Editagain. Made comment about freshwater lake west. NVM, one tile doesn't have the bonus, so there is some other freshwater (another lake or oasis) hidden S-SW of the cows.

settle in place

tycoonist said:

settle in place

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We'll never get a 5page discussion before the warrior move with a comment like that.

Churchill, The English Bulldog: Part I

Not much discussion on where to move what or settle, so I bulldozed aherad with this.

The old English Bulldog got off to a very good start.

First we settled in place as suggested, based on the computer USUALLY knows best, and giving up stone in the BFC really makes no sense.



So we have cows/seafood/stone in our capital.

Imediately we pop Bronze Working froma hut and revolt into slavery.



Since we know the number of continents (thus assuming we are alone on ours) and popped BW we decide on a slightly different techpath

Masonry/wheel/hunting/AH/archery/pottery/sailing.

Build order was : workboat/worker/warrior/scout/Great Wall/walls (whipped)/barracks/archer/settler/archer

After the first warrior get's killed here is the landscape



No copper, yet.

After exploring the entire continent



So we do have copper, and landlocked away from pillaging AIs. Of course we do see a few barbarian warriors which we must exterminate!

And very soon we get



So we can expand in peace, once we get the copper locked up.

To get teh "MOST" out of protective we tried the whipping trick since also have stone.

London before the whip with 1 turn left on the walls



And after



OK: We gained 132 gold. We have 13 turns for a barracks which is what the time frame was if we built it before the walls, and the 1 lost population can be recovered well before we hit the 6 happy cap. I say that this is an excellent benefit for a preotective leader and I plan to whip walls in every city when there is one turn left.

We placed York right by the copper and sheep. This will be our production/military city!



So looks like there are alot of good resources to work and we can get alot of good coastal cities on this map even with a decent amount of desert.


So choices to make

1) Do we use London for mass producing settlers/archers to claim alot of land and pay for it with wall whipping?

2) Do we built wonders in London? Pyramids eventually, but what about a run at the GLighthouse??? Or a fast run at Stonehenge since we have stone???

I say a very good start!!

Well, you only have three happies and two of them (silk and whales) in opposing tech tree branches. I'd say you need something to appease the people. Get a religion for added happiness, plus, if possible, ToA in your capital. Since most of your cities will need to be coastal anyway to make use of the food resources, I'd say go for TGL and a trade route economy. Since your coastal cities can have decent food, whipping harbors (and walls) to support TGL will be no problem. Castles kind of fit in with your RPG rules anyway. Can they be whipped for money? Also castles are next to Notre Dame, which is an infrequently built (for good reason!) wonder which might just help you a lot this game.

My two cents.

Actually, I don't think happiness will be that big an issue.

1) We have access to silk/fur/whale which is and extra +3 with a market, so we need markets pronto.

2) We are charismatic and get +1 happy because his citizans just love Churchill's face (no accounting for English taste) and another +1 from those LARGE Churchill monuments!

3) We have a great shot at the pyramids and can run representation for that +3 happy

Toss in a religion and temples and we are set!

Ah, charismatic. Totally forgot about that. Yes, Stonehenge defininitively. What about the castles/trade route economy? I'm no pro Civ player, just making educated guesses here.

BornSlippy said:

Ah, charismatic. Totally forgot about that. Yes, Stonehenge defininitively. What about the castles/trade route economy? I'm no pro Civ player, just making educated guesses here.

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That's what I am thinking with the Great Lighthouse. We have the time to build it and York should handle the settlers. The pyramids can wait but I am unsure I can nab all three. But we shall see, a trade route economy with representation from the pyramids would be pretty powerful even though we can have a few nice cottage cities with the rivers.

Yes I plan to focus on castles and nationhood for the espionage and trade routes. With the Great Lighthouse and castles, corporation and economics can be delayed a very long time.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves!

To answer your questions, I don't think you're in a huge hurry to REX, so why not build wonders and maybe some workers in London while bulding settlers etc from York?

So it would look something like this in London: finish archer, 1 more worker, TGL/Pyramids. York: Whip walls, overflow into archer, then maybe another worker and pump settlers.

Dunno if that makes sense. It does in my Noble mind.

By the way, a tiny optimization: if you wait until your worker has popped before revolting into slavery, you get a 'free' worker turn. If you wait until it's actually time to whip something, you run less risk of a poorly timed slave revolt.

Glh, Glh, Glh

MyOtherName said:

By the way, a tiny optimization: if you wait until your worker has popped before revolting into slavery, you get a 'free' worker turn. If you wait until it's actually time to whip something, you run less risk of a poorly timed slave revolt.

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Yes, this is true, the same goes for settlers.

Nice game so far. I'd suggest settling more cities, but not rexxing. The city on the desert hill up top with the crab/fish/floodplain would be a good GP farm.

I think you should have a go at the Great Lighthouse before it's too late. Although it won't help you that much during the early game, since you don't have any trading partners yet, after Astronomy it will be huge -- all of your foreign trade will be intercontinental by default.

The Great Lighthouse falls early though, so you don't have a lot of time left. You'll still have plenty of time for the Pyramids after that.

The Colossus is "meh", only build it if you don't have anything better to do.

You should also consider founding a religion, maybe even locking in the Apostolic Palace. With your strict rules the AP might help a lot with steering wars and such into the right direction (and with the eventual victory, of course .

futurehermit said:

Glh, Glh, Glh

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Luckily I know the Heimlich Manuever even if I can't spell it. But, hey, It's a MadS RPC so spelling is not required. (BTW MadS, Loved Stalin but Mao is still one of my top 5 games ever followed on these forums)

Anyway, my Nuggets "o" Nowledge (the k is not only silent but invisible)

Nugget #1: Happiness won't be much of an issue because you have no food. That is actually good. Common opinion being what it is about English food. Even all the seafood will be quickly absorbed feeding the masses on the plains.

Nugget #2: Oracle for Metal casting and the Colossus. With only internal trade routes you will get 2 extra commerce per coastal city with GLH. Which is the same as you get from 2/3 of a coastal tile with Colossus. Plus you have copper. 1/2 price.

Nugget #3: Health is going to be an issue for your inland cities. Only one grain for granary health bonus for a grand total of +8:healthy: Though with limited food available in the interior I don't think you will be getting to size 12 very quickly. Civil Service for irrigation chains could be a priority since you can ignore military techs altogether for quite a while. Axemen should be enough to handle barb cities that spawn. i wouldn't fog bust since the exp will be nice. You need a level 4 for the HE.

Nugget #4: Do you see the little patch of land to the East? Send a boat there asap. It might be a decent island for a city or two. Or it might have another civ. If it has another Civ then the GLH comes back on the board. Though i really think the Colossus is the way to go. If you miss the GLH and someone else does the MC sling shot (which nonspiritual Civs tend to do. I think it is because religious civs have Monotheism and writing which makes theocracy the most expensive tech. While other civs only need pottery and BW) You can almost guarentee the Colossus between getting MC first and the copper. Plus there is the possiblity of the neighbor not opening borders.

Nugget #5: Did I mention i really really liked Mao?

Nugget #6: Other than GLH or Colossus, how do you plan on financing your research? I know I harp on your economy every game, but in this case you will probaly have issues. Please keep in mind that settling that other island will incur colonial costs. But it is a very British thing to do.

Nugget #6: I see the Yankees have climbed out of last place. unfortunately they did that by sweeping my beloved orioles. If you're Met fan, guess you don't care. If you're Yankee fan, then I hope Ragnar is on the other island and has gold, gems lots of food and hills and farmlands and 1000000 berzerkers wipe your pinestripe loving @$$ off your miserable little desert rock you call England.

There are a lot of islands - NE, E, SE and SW. Getting a workboat out would be a priority to explore. I think there is a good chance you will make contact. Which makes GLG very attractive.

If you are building Stonehenge, GLH, Pyramids your capital won't get to do anything else. Which is OK - that should set you up for the game. Get York to build another worker and use its forests to chop settlers. Let it handle your expansion - since you don't need a military for a while.

InvisibleStalke said:

There are a lot of islands - NE, E, SE and SW. Getting a workboat out would be a priority to explore. I think there is a good chance you will make contact. Which makes GLG very attractive.

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Even without contacts, I'm pretty sure you still get an overseas bonus on the trade route. So the great lighthouse is again good.

madscientist said:

4) The English navy has free reign of the oceans and Churchill has minimum requirements: 7 galleys/triemes once metal casting is teched, 15 galleys/frigates once we have astronomy/chemistry, 30 destroyers at combustion. Also, Churchill MUST exploit privateers AMAP!

5) Churchill is very stubborn, he is a loyal friend and a hated enemy! He will always jump into a war at a friends request, and never forgive an enemy!!!

7) Churchill can win anyway as long as it does not conflict with the above rules (this includes attacking a friend to prevent a culture win).

Click to expand...

I will be shadowing this game. Need practice with the hybrid EE. Couple of questions on your ruleset.

Rule #4: do we have to pump out the minimum naval requirements to the detriment of everything else ? Or can we be rational about building the navy ?

Rule # 5 & 7: I'm curious how you define 'friend'. Many civs will ask for your assistance in war even if they are only cautious in attitude and would just as soon stab you in the back or make peace with the target AI the next turn. Does 'friend' mean they are 'friendly' in their diplo attitude towards England ? This is a fairly large consideration IMHO.

cas

MyOtherName said:

Even without contacts, I'm pretty sure you still get an overseas bonus on the trade route. So the great lighthouse is again good.

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The bonus is for foreign trade routes. You get 2 extra trade routes but they are usually worth a whopping one commerce each.

That's a very nice island. The game is won, imo.