RK13 - The Great Prophet Game

"Impatient Man wants to play more SG's."

Variant rule:
Simple, if ANY great person is generated, it MUST be a Great Prophet. If not, we MUST go into World Builder, delete the great person and change 'em into a Great Prophet. Use of Great Prophet is totally unrestricted. Not that we can make more than one golden age with them, but still. (I don't mind if you see stuff you shouldn't in World Builder, even the position of uranium in 1 AD. After all, we have prophets and they can see the future. But if you're really bothered with that, grab a buddy and have her WB on your behalf. Omm...)

Warning: No Academies!

Version: BTS 3.19
Map: Ring or Donut (I don't see it often in SG's)
Size: Standard
Leader: Random, or team suggestions?
Difficulty: Monarch or Emperor (team vote)
Speed: Normal or Epic (team vote)
Sealevel: Low
Climate: Tropical
Barbarians: Normal
Select Religions
Events and huts are on
Victory: All enabled (with team vote, shall we go culture or AP/diplomacy?)

Be back in 24 hours to check interest level. Looking for 4-5 participants!

Roster:
RK/Meatbuster
Glare Seethe
White Dragon
-
-
???

Recommended turns:
Set 1: 30-20-20-20-20
Then 15 turns (10 war) until 1AD
Then 10 turns (5 war) when you want
Feel free to play more turns if desired

24-48 rule is in effect. Because I am an impatient man.

I'd like to join.

My votes would be Emperor/Epic on a Ring world with a random leader. It'd be too obvious to go for Gandhi or Ramesses, for example, and I don't think the variant is too restricting - we'll probably be fine even if we get Genghis.

Thanks for the interest, Glare, glad you think the variant isn't that hard. Welcome to the game!

I guess we can all talk strategy once we see the starting civ/techs. But I would like to try for Henge* and Oracle at least. Emphasis on Oracle since it doesn't hurt in the long run compared to "normal" games.

* Even if we're creative, in case we go cultural. Better if we start with Mysticism.

I'd like to join as well. Don't know if I can handle emperor though.

Don't worry, man. In SG people usually beat games 1 harder than their usual difficulty level.

So your vote on difficulty is Monarch I guess. What's your vote on game speed?

Meatbuster said:

I guess we can all talk strategy once we see the starting civ/techs. But I would like to try for Henge* and Oracle at least. Emphasis on Oracle since it doesn't hurt in the long run compared to "normal" games.

Click to expand...

Yeah the Stonehenge/Oracle combo was the first thing that came up for me too when I started thinking about this game. Are we necessarily going Culture or AP? I don't mind either way, though if we go with a ring world it'd be kind of fun to go conquest, heading in one direction and ending up where we started.

Also with regards to the great prophets, the variant doesn't say that we even have to generate GP at all, just that if we do they have to be prophets. So my question is, is this more of a Prophet-based game, where we aim to generate as many of them as possible, or it more of a GP-less game, where we only allow one kind but don't actively try to pursue them. You know what I mean? Strategies will vary of course.

I'm guessing the former since you mentioned culture/AP and that'd be a good way to head towards either one of those. Either way, sounds fun!

Well for example we can build the Great Library, but it clearly isn't the same as running 2 free priest specialists in terms of output.

I would rather make as many prophets as possible rather than try not to make GP's at all. After all, this would just sound like a normal game "with prophets" if we don't. I can already forsee at least 5 prophets plus shrine in our wall street city (likely the capital).

Also, culture will be hard without settled artists and culture bombs. But it is doable, I just don't know if we can win before the computers do at Emperor. That's the "hard" variant. We can always switch to space anytime though.

Conquest is not a bad idea, we can see if we can support our cities with our shrine and wealth...

Though, in a ring map, I see conquest as... take over both next door neighbors, then destroy the rest in both clockwise and counterclockwise.

Epic speed. Haven't played either map type so that will be fun. On tropical climate will there be more jungle so we have to prioritize IW earlier than normal?

I just generated some maps to see what the difference is and it looks like on Tropical there is generally a bit more jungle, but more noticeable is the fact that there are barely any tundra or ice tiles, even in the north/south. So the whole map is generally warmer, although the amount of actual jungle will vary from map to map, I think.

Lurker Commentary: In addition to IW being somewhat more of a priority, I believe that Tropical also tweaks the resource placement for more jungle-y goodies like dyes, bananas, and sugar, so calendar may also be slightly more appealing as well. Obviously it all depends on the tiles you draw around the capital in the end.

Well, we could be on the north side where we can expand 1 city south before jungle or something like that.

1 more team member and a vote on difficulty (or 24 hours from now) and I'll roll the start already.

I rolled a start already while waiting for more participants. Hopefully interest will pick up soon.

The Random Number Gods have decided: we are Brennus of Celtia!
Brennus: Spiritual, Charismatic
UU: Gallic Warrior
UB: Dun (MEH!)
Starting techs: Mysticism and Hunting

Difficulty: Emperor
Speed: Epic

Our start: (scout has already moved)


Ok, I don't see any large patch of jungle (yet) so we must be away from the equator or something. I don't see much of a shore either. I suppose Ring is about starting in between a large patch of land.

My vote is settling on the Banana and getting a first religion (Polytheism first tech).

Build... STONEHENGE FIRST?

Doesn't look like too bad of a start. I like your plan to settle on the bananas. That will give us +1, right? Plus working those unimproved grassland gems will give us a good head start. I like the henge idea as well. As for a tech path, what do you think about Poly -> Mining -> BW -> Ag/AH.

Well I guess the game didn't want us to have too much of a hard time since we got a Spiritual leader who starts with Mysticism. Nice.

Settling on the banana is tempting for the gems alone but I'd be afraid of having a seafood resource near the gems and not being able to claim it with a coastal city because our capital is too close (that looks like coast to me, on a ring map I doubt it'd be a lake). So I vote for settling in place... but I don't really mind either way, they are both good.

I think settling in place calls for a standard Worker > Warrior > Stonehenge while teching Agr > AH > Mining opening. Settling on the bananas makes Poly first more attractive since we could work the gems once our borders pop and speed it up. Build order would have to be Warrior > Worker > Stonehenge, I suppose, while after Poly we'd go Agr > AH > Mining.

So either we have Stonehenge earlier but no religion, or we get a religion but delay Stonehenge. Or we don't get a religion and delay Stonehenge, could also happen. Without stone and not being Industrious I think SH is more important since we could bulb a later religion if we wanted, so my vote is for the standard opening.

That said, starting location discussions are possibly my least favorite part of a Civ game, so my real vote is let's just settle somewhere and tech something and see what happens!

Yeah, on the banana is +1 food.

Spiritual is actually nothing special. After all, it could be better, the RNG could've given us Huayna Capac of the Inca. Best for "Stonehenge first" starts, ever. Or someone Philosophical with Mysticism (Gandhi is the only one)...

In Vanilla, all AI civs with religious inclinations went Meditation first save for hut pops... meaning Poly was almost a surefire religion in most difficulty levels. I'm not sure about BtS, I swear I keep getting beat to Poly.

Ok, worker and warrior first before henge? Sure. No prob.

I'll play in 18 hours. I'm sleepy, and just played my first solo Emperor game to the AD's where I feel I actually have a chance of winning.

During that 18 hours, I hope we have a new recruit and a vote for difficulty. If not, I'll just go ahead start and pick Monarch or Emperor via coin toss.

Spiritual gives us cheap temples for the priest slots, though, so definitely helpful either for generating prophets or going culture via cathedrals. And I also get beaten to Poly 50% of the time, yeah... I guess it's a question of playing it safe or going for a riskier start.

White Dragon said:

As for a tech path, what do you think about Poly -> Mining -> BW -> Ag/AH.

Click to expand...

Not sure BW would do us much good before the food techs, as we have unforested hills that we can mine to get SH out the door quicker and without improved food resources whipping isn't so efficient. Plus we are one tech away from archers if we need defense.

Medi vs Poly to get first religion is like another coin toss, hopefully we didn't pick what the AI did.

I am going to go to sleep with this tech plan:
Worker -> Warrior -> Henge
Meditation/Poly (pick one) -> Agri -> AH -> Mine -> Archery/BW

Poly's almost always better I think... I don't remember what we need to get to Priesthood, though. If we want The Oracle it's better to tech whichever's on the way to that, I think it's Poly but I'm not sure. That's if we're on Emperor... if we end up on Monarch it probably doesn't matter that much. Plan sounds good to me, in any case.

Both Meditation and Poly reach Priesthood. Only Poly goes to Mono. Meditation unlocks Monastery. We aren't going Libraries right? This could be a cheap replacement.

I play now and hope to get more recruits later.
Difficulty? Coin toss says Emperor.

Turn 0:
Ok, found Bibracte on the Banana just as agreed.
I work the grassland+river tile for commerce.
Tech: Second coin toss says Meditation.

See that hut? I actually ignore it until later.

Turn 7:
Hut provides us map.

Turn 8:
Bibracte's borders expand, hut gives us 46 gold.
Micro Bibracte to work the river gems.

Turn 9:
Get another map from hut. Bad scout! BAAAAAAD scout! Stop getting maps and give us tech and money! You come back to the capital and I'm throwing you in the dungeon! Y-hear!?

Turn 11:
Meet Joao, north of us.

IBT: Scout beats Panther.

Turn 14:
Meditation is in. Agriculture is next.


Hmm... what religion to pick? Roll the dice, 1-6 from top to bottom of list, except Buddhism which Meditation normally founds. Get 6 which means...


Turn 16:
Christianity founded. I wonder who it could be... Isabella maybe?

Turn 20:
Gilgamesh met. He came from the west.

Turn 21:
Worker is in. Swap to Warrior next.
Hmm... worker has nothing to do.

Turn 28:
Agri is in. Go AH next.
Start a farm on the rice.

Turn 30:
Meet Charlie, also from the west. He is the founder of Christianity.
Gilgamesh adopts Slavery.

That's it. Now normally at this point I would definitely go Settler next. But as you can see our happy cap is TITANIC at this point in the game. We can grow to size 7 while building a couple of warriors, Taoist Monastery and henge. I also realized that we have a Charismatic leader, that's an additional benefit from henge. So we'll play like Obsolete and grow vertically.


Everything except the score seems to be in our favor right now. Check out our land. Let's see you try and dotmap this!


We seem to be in the lower right corner of the map. Apparently Ring isn't exactly a circle or even oval, but a rectangle.

Glare it's your turn next, feel free to play more turns (30?) since we don't have a big roster on this game so far.