Co-op da Whoop #5: Ragnagawa!

Co-op da Whoop #5 - RAGNAGAWA BERSERKURAI!!11

After an insane lategame slog of what was Dario I½, it's time for something more refreshing and straightforward. RAGNAGAWA! Yeah, I think I'm obliged to say that randomly every once in a whilRAGNAGAWA!e.

So. SettinRAGNAGAWA!gs:

Silu playing Ragnar of the Vikings
Fleme playing Tokugawa of the Japanese

Difficulty: Immortal
Map: Large Pangaea
Rivals: 5x2 AIs
Variant rule: Can not advance beyond the Medieval era. Specifically, this prevents us from researching or trading for Printing Press, Nationalism, Education, Gunpowder or anything beyond that.

Thanks to Moroktonos and Yared for the variRAGNAGAWA!ant concept


My starting position:



Solid enough for a FIN prod based game. Some early 1/3/3 Jumbos goodness with a ton of hiRAGNAGAWA!lls.

And the immediate surroundings:



Now that looks boring. NeverthRAGNAGAWA!eless, mass river dotted with some flood plains and complete with a ton of hills. Does not get the Vikings to the moon, but should provide ample early comRAGNAGAWA!merce and great production.

In the north, perhaps the Vikings' first victim lurks...



So, that's the start of that! Hoping for a bit more... fair? (interesting? short?! FUN TO PLAY?) game than the last one.

...

RAGNAGAWA!

Hooray, Dario is dead and buried in that nuclear dump of a world and our civ cooldown has finally ran it's course. Let the good times roll, it's Ragnagawa time! See Silu's post for prose, as I'm just going to kick back and enjoy the ride. I mean, Immortal is like going back to the little league once you've played in the majors that is Deity.

Leader of choice for me is obviously...



... the grumps! Now, if this was a debate between pirates and ninjas I'd have to fly the pirate flag but since it's a debate between the Samurai and the Berserker, I'm flying the 侍 flag instead. Any wagers on whether or not Protective will play a part? My money is on... not.

Forgive me for lacking a screenshot of my settler standing at the starting spot but here's the next best thing:



While I would generally find something to complain about that capital, mainly the fact that all the food is rather poor (4 yield unirrigated, unlighthoused), it suits the purpose of this game just perfectly. Lots of hills and enough green/food to have them all mined come cs/machinery and just use it for unit pumping. Heck, I'm already certain that this city will host the Heroic Epic one day. Even better, that hill just south looks like it might have a strategic resource - let's hope for Copper or Iron.

Onward and upward, fast forward to our first checkpoint at t100:



It's an inland sea between us and I don't think those can spawn barb galleys. Yay.

Fortunately for me, unfortunately for HC, his capital is less than 10 tiles from mine.



There's copper between us and if I beat him to the spot I can pretty much guarantee that the axe will fall and I'll be 1 capital richer. Cuzco looks like a poor spot as far as capitals go but still, Axing is fun innit?

At least this time neither of you will be on 1 city for thousands of years .

You went ahead with the idea

And btw, for those who havent realised it yet, the reason why they cant go past the Medieval era is because they have to stick to Samurai/Berserker hordes.

this one looks interestRAGNAGAWA!!!ing

why does Cuzco look bad?

Because there's no Gold resource like there always seems to be? Or maybe it's the fact that Silk is a Calendar resource, so it's going to take a little while to work them?

Interesting idea, although playing Tokugawa without ever being able to draft Gunpowder units seems a bit of a crime...

lymond said:

why does Cuzco look bad?

Click to expand...

Because Fleme's definition of "bad" is "less than 3x 6food tiles, one of which may be replaced with Gold/Gems"

silu: change your signature you've moved on from the hell of a game! although i'd understand that you like to see people reading the thread, it was truly epic...

@topic: great, you guys continue with the one of the most entertaining series surprise, surprise: fleme has gems in his BFC. poor boy, 3x 4foodyield resources and gems only, that's really a bad start for fleme standarts! ain't joking. only 5 hills, mass grassland, river, gems, seafood for a civ starting with fishing, weak neighbour nearby .. i feel your pain.

expecting some serious barbarian party for silu and some serious "you've discovered a source of gold in kyoto!" party for fleme

joking, but it seems to be part of the series that silu gets the beating and fleme the candy, ain't it?

Silu said:

Because Fleme's definition of "bad" is "less than 3x 6food tiles, one of which may be replaced with Gold/Gems"

Click to expand...

Maybe the floodplains will make up for it a little?

Hey, hey! I just appreciate the finer things in life!

And as to why Cuzco isn't as good to me as it could be is that it has a plainshillsheep and clam for food, which don't exactly make for the best capital there is! And yes, I like my carrots and am fine with Silu getting the sticks! Exclamation mark!

lymond said:

why does Cuzco look bad?

Click to expand...

It's a great spot to capture, but it's very low on food for a start location. From the screenie, he's got clams (4F with an expensive workboat and a tech HC doesn't start with), 1 flood plain and a sheep on a plains hill. Cuzco will be very slow growing at the start of the game which will set HC back a long way.

Using a pangea map takes half of the viking UU down , no? And better not talk of the nerfing you did to both UB by using that variant + those map settings ..... Atleast you could had used snaky continents or B&S ( major galley MM FTW )

Fleme has 100% reasong regarding Cuzco. Ok, it will be a decent spot after those forests go down and with a good couple of farms in top and plantations in those calendar resources, but it is a fairly poor food start ( especially with those alpine sheep ... ) and will grow slowly, so it is not a good place to start and it is not a good place to grab in a early rush.

BTW what AI leaders do you have in game? Obviously you have Justinian, Saladin and HC , but the other civs have more than one default leader ... and, as far as early rushes are concerned, dealing with Louis XIV is a little diferent than dealing with Napoleon or De Gaulle , right?

r_rolo1 said:

Using a pangea map takes half of the viking UU down , no? And better not talk of the nerfing you did to both UB by using that variant + those map settings ..... Atleast you could had used snaky continents or B&S ( major galley MM FTW )

Click to expand...

Well, if you can't get Astro (which I think I forgot from the first tier Renaissance techs) maps which can give non-preAstro-reachable Civs is a bit of a bummer Nerfing the UBs is okay, goes along with the horrible starting techs

BTW what AI leaders do you have in game? Obviously you have Justinian, Saladin and HC , but the other civs have more than one default leader ... and, as far as early rushes are concerned, dealing with Louis XIV is a little diferent than dealing with Napoleon or De Gaulle , right?

Click to expand...

Good point. We have Louis&Roosy (Louisevelt?), Maodica, and Gandhi with HC. So yeah for once I'm hoping for a few wonders to appear on my northern border

Ok, snaky continents maybe not, but atleast something to make the viking UU and UB boosted units useful ... even natural shoreline pangea would probably give some reasons to make the boosted galleys useful, like off-shore islands, gulfs and inland lakes/seas reachable with fort usage/cities , especially with a large map. B&S would be simply crazy

Interesting, is any victory allowed?

oranje willem said:

Interesting, is any victory allowed?

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Sure. Obviously a Space Race win would be a bit hard for us to achieve though

How many beserkurai's does it take to destroy a modern armor army

With trebs?

Signing up for some nice actRANGAWA!ion. Couldn't help myself.