Team Play 101 - Totally Hot Cathy

Greetings all and welcome to Team Play 101, a series of games in which the various aspects of the civ teams function will be explored.
This series is intended to be informative, interesting and most of all, entertaining.
Of course no Team Play session would be complete without a team member, so without delay I introduce the man who needs no introduction, the aptly named TheMeInTeam.

Together we'll be working through the series of games utilising different aspects of team games. More often than not we will be learning things for the first time and success is not guaranteed.
Feedback, discussion and debate is the ultimate goal and we hope for plenty of community feedback. For our part we will endevour to maintain an interesting and varied walkthrough of our gameplay.
Initially we will be running the games in a two person succession game format playing the same civ, with the intention of developing a number of multiplayer games controlling different civs.

For our first up challenge, allow me to introduce
TotallyHotInATotallyHistoricallyAccurateWayCatherineTheGreatofRussia
Who shall henceforth be known as HotCathy.



Catherine the Great is a Russian leader with the creative and imperialistic traits.
She begins with hunting and mining, her unique building is a Research Institute which replaces the late game laboratory and offer 2 free scientists.
Her unique unit is a Cossack, a cavalry replacement which gains a bonus against mounted units.
We will be running HotCathy through a diplomatic gauntlet on our way to a glorious domination victory, or a humiliating and degrading loss.

The Game Settings
Pangaea
Speed: Normal
Size: standard
Difficulty: emperor
World wrap: flat
Climate: cold
Sea Level: medium

Aggressive AI ON
Complete kills ON

Lonesome HotCathy will be squaring off against a trifecta of dynamic duos.

Team 1
HotCathy

Team 2 Mongolia
Kublai Khan
Genghis Khan

Team 3 Germany
Otto Von Bismark
Fredrick the Great

Team 4 France
Napoleon
Charles De Gaulle

Team 5
*gasp*...not you again!


If it looks like the picture was constructed by a 4 year old using MSPaint...
.. I'm a physicist damnit man, not graphical designer!

In addition to the game settings we will be imposing several rules.
As the leader of the Russian Empire HotCathy (the great) will not be allowed to declare war, however once a war is begun she may not end it until the last sign of the enemy has been obliterated from the face of the earth.
She may however use her feminine wiles to befuddle and confound her inevitable suite of suitors, and if two men were to end up fighting over her? Well, she can hardly be blamed if they happen to misconstrue her intentions... can she?

May not declare war
May not make peace
May not make vassals
May accidentally bribe other AI into declaring war on each other completely not on purpose honest, total misunderstanding.


Without further ado
The start


Looks dry but we have irrigated corn and cows. Am tempted to move the scout east where it looks a little greener.

Comments? Thoughts?

I'd definitely send the settler east-it will put you on the river instead of the lake.

Dude, this looks like the Earth 18 start for Cathy...eerie.

Anywho, settling in place sounds good. 1SE nets a river but also two unimprovable sea tiles in the BFC.

That is some fine artistry! It's at least at the level of somebody 9 years old, and possibly higher !

HotCathy is aptly placed in the sandwich position in the diagram, just how she likes it. She takes a gander at the surroundings and thinks them "fertile".

I say we use flip a coin, read tarot, or interpret a yugioh card to determine whether the scout goes E NE or W NW. We are looking for convincing reasons to summon monsters or perhaps settle 1E or 1W.

So which triangle diagram will HotCathy enter first? Only time will tell!

Scout 1W then 1NW.

Settler 1 NE then post a picture to discuss where Settler should end his turn.

This will reveal more surrounding lands. We are looking for more green land and resources. South is near the coast. Better to settle on a river tile.

Played quite a bit of team (2) games emperor/immortal and important thing to consider, which was quite annoying compared to single, is when thinking about your diplomatic status always take into account the least favoured opinion about either of you. Example:
Bismarck pleased with Cathy1
Frederick pleased with Cathy1
Bismark pleased with Cathy2
Frederick annoyed with Cathy2
Germany annoyed with Russia, so they won't trade, are more likely to declare and so on. And this gets more frustrating throughout the game as sometimes it's hard to please both parts of a team (especially when each of them runs different religion), which results in no trades. Moreover I like throwing in more teams and going with large map for more diversity, so that you can actually have 7 teams as in a standard single game.

Apart from that I find bulbs to be less effective as the cost of techs goes up and GP born in your team influences both of you not equally though. So if one of you is running two scientists and the other has GL+NE set up in a GP farm, the first person will probably never produce a GP as the cost keeps going up.

Wonders are the upside of teamplay as they usually affect both of you with Taj Mahal being an exception.

Let's play. I liked ABCivFans suggestions but ended up moving the scout 1E first.


Stone on a river, looks good to me.
move settler onto the forest, settle the next turn.



Doesn't take long to start to meet the crew


I am Napoleon, military genious and emperor of France. My invasion plans are already... wait... I say too much. I see you soon little woman.


MEIN HUT, DER HAT DREI ECKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Hellooooo nurse, there's a party in my mouth and everyone is co... wait... where are you going? come back!


Hello my Dear, ignore the little corsican cretin and the absurd germans. Please, come, take a seat on my hat.



She can take a seat on ... no wait... don't leave, come back...

I'm so alone...


---------------

No sign of the Mongols or Shaka yet, looks like party time at the other end of the continent.


Our scout meets (and bests) a rogue jungle cat.

We begin to see the land, looks very good.




Irrigation and AH is in. Tech set to BW, but considering Masonry to grab the stone.
A perfect chance for TMIT to show off his barb busting skills. I was planning on circling the scout back around along the eastern coast (try to do the inland stuff before archers start showing up)

Where to settle first?
Bronzeworking or Masonry for GW now?

I'm considering the GW not for the barb immunity, but for the early great spy. I have a feeling that espionage could play an important role in this game.

All yours, Teammate =D

3 cities come to mind:
1) Agressive settling 1E of the top stone. Gets you horses in the second ring, stone, 2 silk, an oasis and a gold. Little low on food but definitely not bad on the resources.
2) 1N of the sugar. Commerce heaven with 2 gems and 2 sugar. Enough money, riverside and enough production. You need iron working though to work the gems
3) 1E of the spices. Nets you in spices, horses and fish or 1SE of the spices depending on the rest of the land there.
4) Maybe bananacowcity also, giving you a decent amount of land and strong cities.

I'd say two quick cities - first one 1 or 2 E of the NW cow, the other getting the N gems and gold, depending on where the food is there. After that it really depends on what scouting reveals. Can't really tell if you're boxed in or if there is room to the NE or W. Have to wait and see where the coast goes.

There's not enough explored land for any good advice on city placement. 1N of the sugar seems like a killer commerce city, but useless until IW. The gold/stone site has promice, but there's no visible food source. Get some more warriors out and explore the coasts for seafoods, that will clarify things.

I hate sugar... I always have my tea with honey if nothing at all
Back to the cities : 2 quick cities sounds good, 1st 1W of stone so you can net all resources in BFC if for no other reason than to deprive them from the AI and the second ON TOP of the northern sugar, netting the resource for the bonus and farming the other one (will become a 5F tile post biology and not this meager meh . .. .. .. . sugar is.

What's the game difficulty again? Any thoughts about GW? Imperialistic can leverage GW very nice and you can rex to oblivion with barb protection on. Since you won't be able to declare, I say go-go GW. You even have stone, what more do you want?

First decision is on tech.

I suggest Mason -> BW.

You are Imperial, plain river stone gives hammer boost for pumping settlers. And Mason makes BW cheaper (-2 turns?) Also you will have the option of super early GW.

There are some good suggestions on city placement already, need to be aggressive with settler chopping though:

1. 1W of top stone on hill. This gets horse, gold, silks, denies a precious stone to the AIs, and on hill for defense bonues

2. Banana+Cow

3. 1N of suger (2 gems, 2 sugers and cottagable grasslands)

Yes, circle the scout around to explore NorthEast of capital, 2nd worker at pop 3 for chopping/mining/roading. Early rush is also possible. This looks to be a very strong openning.

In response to the questions/suggestions: The difficulty is Emperor, the AI is in teams of two and we may not declare (so early rush is out of the question), only provoke wars on us.
However once war is declared we may not make peace, meaning that this game may quickly descend into an always war scenario if we do not stay in top of the diplomatic situation.
We may only win by Domination, thus provoking wars and balancing our power rating to allow the AI to declare is going to be a major part of this game.

I'm in favour of Masonry to build GW while we grow our pop, once GW is in then switch to settler spam to claim 3-4 front line cities.

Will probably go for alpha fairly early to pick up IW in trade.

Considering that you might get stuck in some long wars and all, I believe you are right and espionage might play an important role this game. GW for the GSpy is a strong move.

I would go for Mason->Wheel->BW next

The first 2 cities in mind would be

1. 1E of the Horse, you can work on the oasis and horse immediately and have Char ready for early defense.
Edit: forgot that cath is creative, so 1W of the stone is much better.

2. 1N of the cow

This two cities will complete block the rest of lower land for yourself.

I would start the 2nd worker at pop 2 and settlers at pop 3 to quickly settle those two cities. preroad to the city site.

I would not suggest for GW, by careful diplomatic manipulation, you won't and don't be involved in more than one war at a time. So Gspy is useless early on.

Well, TMIT is away looking for employment (btw, if anyone is interested in employing two guys who play waaaay too much Civ, give us a call!)

I'll play the next turnset.

Tech order: Masonry->Bronzeworking->Wheel

Build order:
Warrior->Settler->Settler->GW

It's a something of a race to beat the barbs with that sort of build order, but it's only Emp and with stone in the BFC and bronzeworking for chops, the GW will be in place to protect the cities before barbs think about entering borders.

The lone warrior and scout work together as a team keeping a line clear to our planned city sites.

So let's see what happened

My name is Shaka Zulu, you killed my father, prepare to die.


My dear man, you need to work on your diplomacy.
Annoyed with us already, what a cranky pants.




French settler sighted! This is actually a good thing, will prevent barbs approaching from the west. Warrior moves east to open up the settler coridoor


Here is where I chose to settle, screenshot taken a few turns later once borders popped.
Turns out we missed the bronze by 1 tile, no other bronze in our territory. Oh well, still a good city and at least we have horses (not that we'll need them right away)
Second city is also visible.
The combination of having the scout on the hill to the north and the warrior busting the jungle in between means that our settlers were never in real danger from animals and GW should be finished before barbs even consider entering our territory.

Speaking of which

With the help of a chop and excellent production tiles, completed in record time.


Dotmap of third blocking city. That leaves us with room for a minimum of 3 cities to the east. 7 cities on good land should be more than enough.

Hmmm, 7 cities feels pretty short for a typical emperor game. Perhaps we need to make fun of the french team package (...) or poke fun at shaka. Womanly wiles can be quite...demanding! But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

I'll have the next segment up in a few days, but perhaps the hive mind can have an influence on hotcathy's activity for the near future. But don't forget that sometimes women are hard to understand, especially if something goes awry......

There's land up around our northern city and hopefully more space to our west as well so we might be able to rex out even more if you're not comfortable with 7-8 cities. I haven't done a lot of scouting (obviously) because I wanted to make sure I secured our city sites, which meant using our few units as early fogbusters rather than for scouting (although I did forget to move our scout off the hill once the city was settled >.<


I've set tech to writing with zero beakers depositied, but you probably want to take pottery first instead.

pottery-writing-alphabet should get us access to spies at around the same time as our Gspy is born. I'd go with infiltrating our french neighbour and backfilling from that. There are three seafood resources visible to our west, hopefully there's another fish hidden in the fog for a good early gp farm and a late Globe whipping post. 2 seafood/food is usually what I aim for.

Goodluck guys. I'll follow this one.
Since the teams will normally outtech you guys Im curious how you will handle them.

If you whip in a couple of settlers you can probably steal the land directly to the west of the capital, that makes for 9 cities, which is plenty. The only concern is the amount of food you'll have for early production. Both the settled cities don't have any right now. The stone/gold/horse city won't until CS, and the gem city won't have any until IW, and even then only marginal growth, suitable for a cottage city. A high food whipping site would come in handy.

And writing? What do you guys need writing for? IW will give far better returns by opening up two gems, directly opening up the jungle, and revealing iron. Considering health is not a factor, you having two forge-powered happiness resources, and plenty of potential post calandar, Novgorod can be a powerhouse.
IW, then a beeline toward calandar would have my preference, both for the early high happicaps and the high commerce tiles it would free up.