Ruff09: Which Improvement?

ruff_hi

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I discussed SGs as a guest on polycast and covered various games that I have played in or followed. One obvious example of an SG is a themed game. In light of that, I introduce this game that will, more or less, be based on this thread however, there will also be some other items that I want to include, namely:

Game Settings - not up for debate!
  • Difficulty: Noble or below
  • Map Type: Rainforest
  • Size: Huge
  • Civs: 18
  • Speed: Marathon
  • Our Civ: India
  • Unrestricted Leaders: On
  • Random Personalities: On
  • Victory Conditions: Conquest, Time
  • Special: We will start with 1 corporation
  • DM Etiquette Guide (see below) apply except for Golf: 1

Discussion Points - decisions made - see below
  • Difficulty: Noble or below
  • Leader: Which one?
  • Corporation: Which one?
  • Improvement: Which one? (Edit: Roads / Rails don't count as an improvement for this game)
  • Other Game Options
  • Other?

Other Rules
  • No Worker Automation - ever!
  • Cities should be placed to minimize tiles not covered by BFCs
  • Roads / Railways don't count as improvements, however, we can only build roads / railways between cities (most direct route possible) and no city can have more than 3 roads / railways
  • this isn't a rule as such, but I really want to see how big an in-game score we can get

Roster - 5 or 6 person roster
  • Ruff
  • CHEESE!
  • Open
  • Liquidated
  • Diamondeye

Reserves
  • Held for possible Polycast / modcast / revcast hosts
  • Held for possible Polycast / modcast / revcast hosts

Polycast / modcast / revcast hosts can automatically claim a spot if they want one but I would like some reserves (this might be a long game :D). I'm looking to start this game on or about April 7th so lets try and finalize the discussion by then.

After discussion ...
  • Difficulty: Noble
  • Map Type: Rainforest
  • Size: Huge
  • Civs: 18
  • Speed: Marathon
  • Civ: Aztecs
  • Leader: Frederick
  • Unrestricted Leaders: On
  • Random Personalities: On
  • Victory Conditions: Conquest, Time
  • Special: We will start with 1 corporation - Mining Inc

We'll be using DM's (rip) rules:
Spoiler Etiquette Guide :

Alpha: The quality of your report outweighs the quality of your play. We’re here to have fun, and, of course, winning is fun, but losing in style is preferable to a boring win.

Bravo: Reports should be detailed, with plenty of screen shots and player commentary, explanations, musings, etc; an auto-log dump will not suffice. Shots of the F9 screens and overview shots of the empire are nice too, once in a while.

Charlie: Punctuality rocks! “24/48” means post a "got it" within 24 hours of when the last save was posted, and play within 48 hours of that ‘got it.’ Waiting 47 hours to ask for a skip is lame. Punk out two times in a row, and you’ll be dropped from the roster. Skips and swaps are fine, but try to let us know sooner, rather than later.

Delta: Major game decisions (war/peace declarations, religion swaps, city placement, etc) should be arrived at via group consensus.
1. If the team disagrees with you, either argue your case better, or do it their way. Do NOT just blow them off and do it your way because it's your turn.
2. However, if there’s no consensus and you’re up, do it your way and explain why. Conversely, if someone else is up, don't whine when they do it their way.
3. Similarly, overruling techs or city builds is rude and should be done via consensus, barring an emergency.
4. In extraordinary situations, sometimes an opportunity presents itself that the group didn't foresee. If the consequences of it are great, players should stop, and refer the question to the group.

Echo: Being a better player does not give you the right to belittle anyone else or their play. Other people are going to disagree with you on major decisions; get used to the idea, and play nice. If not, take your ball and go home.

Foxtrot: Thread spam is good. Trash talking, poking fun, gentle ribbing, virtual noogies, and generally horsing around are all encouraged, but don’t be rude.

Golf: Automate sparingly.
1. Workers should almost never be automated, except perhaps late-game or building a trade network. However, if you have to, set your game options to “disallow automated worker forest chopping” and “keep previous improvements.”
2. Use of the “Emphasis” buttons is fine, but let the group know and explain your reasoning (specialization is a major game decision). If you prevent growth in a city, let the group know and remind them to take it off. Do NOT let the governor select build orders.
3. Sending units on go-to routes that last beyond your set is acceptable only if they’re heading for a rally point or if you otherwise inform your teammates.

Hotel: NEVER fortify Great People. Is it so hard to push the spacebar 15 times??

India: Sign spamming is rude. Signs can be helpful reminders, but too many signs makes them easily ignored. Once a sign is no longer valid, delete it. [The only exception to this are city specialization signs.]
 
I don't get it, so very stupid question incoming: You are allowed no improviments besides roads/railroads? Is that what I gather or am I just saying bs here? I just ask that because I saw the "noble or below" and I know you are an experienced player. But yea, probably that was a very stupid question! :scan:


I am probably just reading too much into it.
 
You are allowed 1 improvement (excluding roads / rails) - the actual improvement will be a team discussion.

So, the team can select any single improvement from the following (probably not an exhaustive list as some smart-a$$ will point out that I missed one)
  • fort
  • cottage
  • Mine
  • Farm
  • Pasture
  • Work boats
  • Plantation
  • Windmill
  • Watermill
  • Oil Well
  • quarry
  • camp
 
Farms seem the obvious choice(whip/draft to the end of time), but then one realizes it would be pretty hard to pick up metal unless you settle right on top of it (actually sounds like a good idea)

I don't think I can join, however this will definitely be great to shadow.
 
Humm. It'd be interesting to try such a game out, I'm a bit busy the next couple of days, but at the end of the roster would be just fine. (Assuming Monarch/Emperor play is good enough)

As for improvement... I would say Farm. Food can be converted to hammers, food can be used for specialists... Somehow, hammers from mines cant be turned into food.

Yes, we'd have to settle the strat resources. So preferably we'd need BW before settling any cities. Being denied Copper because you settled next to it would be odd and very, very unfun!
 
This reminds me a bit of RR2- No Worker Paradise which I enjoyed lurking. I think there they permitted workboats, but no workers whatsoever, so this one actually sounds more doable, being able to road and have one type of improvement! :p In this one all improvements in captured lands can be maintained as well?
Would definitely say farm as well. Resources can be settled and farms allow growth which is everything.

Not a signup, I'm not a big fan of Marathon and Huge and it can unfortunately not be debated! :)
 
In this one all improvements in captured lands can be maintained as well?
My current thinking is that all none approved acquired improvements must be pillaged.

I'm not a big fan of Marathon and Huge and it can unfortunately not be debated! :)
I selected these two to try and max out the in-game score. I can open them to debate depending on some other comments :).
 
Just pick a Civ that doesn't rely on metal or horses hehe.. Arabia comes to mind with their archer knights.

Actually Churchill of Arabia might not be the worst combination to pick.

Uh any way would be willing to join I guess.. bit under the weather right now so stalling me the first round prolly wisest.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Not a sign-up.

Rules question: Can you chop? I'd go all farms or all cottages. I may actually prefer all cottages as you can (eventually) rush buy under US. If you go all farms, you'll probably have to war a lot to accumulate lots of land. Speaking of which - do you have to pillage all other improvements?
 
My current thinking is that all none approved acquired improvements must be pillaged.

I selected these two to try and max out the in-game score. I can open them to debate depending on some other comments :).

That would be nicer to have to pillage all indeed. Otherwise it would have been easier to just conquer everything!

This is one I'd really enjoy to play, but 4 SGs, even for me who does everything from home, is a tad too much.

I hope you find people to play this one, sounds like fun.
 
I'm interested in playing.
I'm actually against going farm, as I feel it's A) the obvious choice, B) a bit too simplistic, and C) just not interesting enough
If the map's rainforest it actually makes plantations a pretty good choice. Makes the early game challenging, then makes things explode when you get all those sugars and bananas and silks and dyes hooked up. Also, it's one of the few that gives both health and happy. Just my opinion.
 
I don;t see the point of allowing any alien improvements to remain unmolested if our culture touches it. That would make the game trivial as we just allow the other AI's to building things for us.

Actually since you can just found towns on top of strategic materials, one shouldn't be too limited in the amount of units one can field so protective seems a waste.

Farms seem the clearest improvement as food is everything and farming is the most universal way to get it on a land based map. I am assuming there's no trick like no chopping forests right?

A choice that might not seem obvious would be forts. What's not to love about being able to strategically hook up any land based resource by plunking those critters down on top of them.

So many ways to go about this plus the corp.... fun stuff.

traits that I like.

Organized helps halve the cost of some critical buildings which is doubly important considering how poor the towns are going to be hammer wise.

Spiritual allows us to pick and choose when you want that whip and the 5 turn reset is almost nothing in marathon. strong with any improvement choice.

Charismatic's free happys are major when you cannot assume one can just clean house on happy resources. Less exp is also good for the combat minded.

Phil would be great with farms. The spec economy is all about minimal tile improvements.


Seems two ways to consider corp... as is for it's face value or as a gimp purely to generate cash.


For farming as an improvement I would go with Cereal mills as an obvious choice.

Farm -> Cereal Mills -> Lincoln (phil,cha) or Fred (phil, org)-> Aztec (Jags own in rain forest + sacrificial altars with a food corp?) or Zulu (mobility spears + super barracks)

Aztec Fred's Half priced sacrificial altars just makes a liq giggle but rather have charismatic honestly. Aztec link wins liq's vote.

other civs that come to mind are
Holy Roman rathauses are awesome since you are prolly better off spamming lots of small towns to maximize whipping

Zulu for the amazing mobility troops + a barracks similar to HRE's rathaus effect.

So many ways to look go about this be interesting to see what other people are thinking.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
Game Settings - not up for debate!
  • Our Civ: India
I like the discussion (will read and comment later) but wanted to point out that our Civ is locked with India, so our UU is the fast worker and our UB is what ever India gets (jail replacement?). Triats and techs follow the leader and that is up for debate.

Re traits: I am leaning towards philo, spiritual or organized - probably in that order.
 
I would be fascinated to join, but I am nothing near even a Monarch, and I'm not well known at all so I will probably lurk. However, I don't fully understand the rules: if you choose farms, are corn and rice or whatever acceptable? Because if you choose all farms, and have such resources, it isn't too restrictive.


Are forts discounted too? Because then it gets too easy...
 
This sounds like it will be a fascinating lurk. The variant is pretty wild indeed. The way I see it, you guys will need to spam a city on top of every resource you want to hook up, as I'm reading that roads are only allowed to go between cities (and no veering off to pick up resources). Each city (I guess the BFC?) only gets 3 road tiles max, so I foresee a lot of river abuse, and settling cities diagonally so you can exit the BFC with 1 road tile. With that restriction, it seems that forts would be useless as resource pickup (unless they are in culture and not a BFC, which is against the variant except for border cities I'd guess).

Since it's a rainforest map (never played one personally but assuming lots of green), I'd think that the best combo would be Cottages + Mining Inc. That's surefire commerce to feed your tech rate and the corporation, and hammers from Mining to let you actually build stuff without whipping.
 
Each city (I guess the BFC?) only gets 3 road tiles max
Not 100% what I meant by this restriction. Someone floated the idea of running an SG with minimal roads and I am (sort of) stealing it.

What I meant was that each city tile can only have a max of 3 tiles with roads / rails on them around it - the immediate 8 tiles around the city tile (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W or NW) - the other 5 tiles have to be road / rails free. Other tiles can have roads / rails but each road / rail tile has to be in as straight a line as possible to another city (no wandering all over the map).
 
oh man missed that. really wanted to abuse Sacrificial Altars :D

Not sure understand the 3 road rule... 3 road tiles total in the bfc? then again liq had to throw up so you prolly posted in the mean time.

Seems Diagonals would be best and mindless grid spam hehe.

Anyway, never have to twist liq's arm to play the Mahatma Man. Favorite leader of all time.

So basically two main ways to think about this.

Farms -> Philo -> C.Mills
Cottages -> Fin -> mining inc.

Already covered Philo and farms. Can farm over just about everything. To pay for the corp just keep the food given low ad + 6ish food per town is just broken good as is. One trait I like with phil is charismatic though as it's happys we'll be needing.

But yes organized and spiritual are also favorites of mine.

Still vote link as that hat he has is just boffo.

For the cottages + mining inc....
plan would be spam cottages on all that grassland and plunk towns wherever a mining inc resource is. Don't need to work hammers since the corp grants you them. Just lay cottages and the ability to stay awake. Financial for the snooze.... er win.


Anyway, don't see the power of the fast worker in a marathon game as the UU is best on standard or quick. And yes!!! India gets the happytimejail... the most confusingly entertaining UB around.... next to the sacrificial altar in comical matters. If India is meant as a handicap then that's perfectly fine.

Cheers!
-Liq
 
I didn't notice the road thingie either... But I though about something else; Rainforest will probably hold a fair amount of Jungle - early access to Health through farms might be essential, especially without being able to pick exp trait.

I'd say Phi/Spi.
 
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