CTR3 -- China Isolationism (Historical)

The purpose of this game is to attempt to simulate an actual historical event and to see what kind of effect a policy similar to China's in the 1420s-1430s would have on a game of Civ.

Civ: China
Level: Monarch
Map Size: Standard
Geo: Continents, 60% Water, random terrain
Barbarians: Roaming
Opponents: Japan, Korea, India, Arabs, Russia, Mongols, Ottomans
Victory Conditions: All

Variant Rules:

1. We must trigger our GA with Riders, not by Wonders, so we must avoid building Wonders that would trigger an early GA

2. We can only build our Forbidden Palace during the GA; a prebuild can be ready to go, but a city can not actually be building the Forbidden Palace unless it's during a GA. If the Forbidden Palace does not complete before the GA finishes, it must be abandoned and can never be built (not even used as a prebuild)

3. We must get Monarchy before leaving the Ancient Age; if by trading we get into the Middle Ages without Monarchy, we must research it next

4. We must get Chivalry as soon as possible once we enter the Middle Ages

5. Once we have Chivalry, but before we gain another Tech (by trade or research), we must have declared War against a neighbor with the intention of triggering our GA (and adding some territory); if we're already at war with a neighbor, we must stay in War until we've triggered the GA

6. The first turn of the GA is the last turn that we can make any 20 turn deals with another Civ; no deals must survive the end of the GA. If we make peace during the GA, we can not receive gpt or luxuries/resources as part of the deal, as that'll last past the end of the GA

7. The turn after the GA ends, the following happens:
a. We must have a Revolution; we must become a Monarchy. This is the case even if we are already a Monarchy. We must remain as a Monarchy until we reach the Industrial Age.
b. We can not make any deals whatsoever with anybody. If a demand is made, we won't give in. We will not initiate contact, even if the goal of doing so is a peace agreement (or to declare war). This prohibition ends once we enter the Industrial Age.
c. Any of our cities of size 6 or less that are within 3 tiles (ie C -- T -- T -- C) of a foreign city must be abandoned. This only needs to happen on the first turn after the GA ends (so if another country plops a nearby city later, we don't need to abandon anything). Strategy note: We may want to use our GA Warfare to eliminate border cities that would cause us to abandon our cities. BTW, something similar did happen historically.

8. Once we hit the Industrial Age, all variant rules (except for the one concerning the Forbidden Palace) no longer apply and the remainder of the game is playing catchup.

I know it looks like a lot to remember, but it won't be that hard as they're tied around specific events and not the entire game. The goal is historic re-creation, but the end result will be a handicap at the beginning of the Industrial Age we'll need to strive to overcome.

I'd like 5 additional players for this game...shout out if you're interested.

Roster:

ChrTh >> Go Lance!
grimjack >> UP!
hotrod0823 >> On Deck
meldor >> Warming up
Aggie >> Put me in Coach!
Yndy >> I want to fight Mike Tyson!

BTW: CTR2 will still happen as scheduled.

Being that HOT7 will be on Hiatus until August I will sign up and would prefer to play on Monarch. With all the variants I think emperor would be a bit much and Monarch would give the right amount of challenge as oppossed to Regent.

Grrr, another good one I promised myself to only join promising concepts with a maximum of 2 SG's. I am tempted though. This sounds very interesting!

If you only manage to get 4 players I will join. If you want me.

hotrod, Monarch is fine; I was going to do the level based on who signed up

Aggie, you're signed up we won't play with less than 6 players, and our turns shouldn't be that long until way late in the game, so I think you can fit it in (if you don't want to, let me know, and I'll drop you from the roster)

One other variant rule: When we're in our self-imposed isolation, we can not conquer other cities (is considered foreign contact), although we can raze immediately neighboring cities if we're at war with them (within 5 tiles of our border).

If you want me, I would like to try in a monarch setting.

( Fitting as we will be monarchs. )

Grimjack

Very interesting concept.

I would like to propose a couple of things though and you can add me to the list with a question mark.

Ancient Age: We definitely need to build the Great Wall.

Middle ages: We must focus on research following our revolution after the GA and our objectives will be to be the first to discover the following techs: Printing Press. Gunpowder, Magnetism.

Industrial Age: We must remain in monarchy until somebody else discovers communism then switch to Communism and remain Communist until the Modern Age

Modern Age: We can now choose our government and focus for the ‘Long March’ space program.

I would also vote for Monarch and I would prefer China as the civ to play

@Yndy: your addition looks very interesting I'd would be great to have you in the team.

Originally posted by Yndy
Very interesting concept.

I would like to propose a couple of things though and you can add me to the list with a question mark.

Ancient Age: We definitely need to build the Great Wall.

Middle ages: We must focus on research following our revolution after the GA and our objectives will be to be the first to discover the following techs: Printing Press. Gunpowder, Magnetism.

Industrial Age: We must remain in monarchy until somebody else discovers communism then switch to Communism and remain Communist until the Modern Age

Modern Age: We can now choose our government and focus for the ‘Long March’ space program.

I would also vote for Monarch and I would prefer China as the civ to play

Click to expand...

Great Wall: If we build it, it'll trigger our GA; while more historically accurate if we possess it, the fact is that the Great Wall did not create the GA for China that I am seeking to emulate.
That being said, we can try to build it (and have it complete during our GA, or even afterwards), but it's not imperative to the purpose of the game.

Middle Ages Tech: I thought along similar lines, but historically speaking, the Chinese already possessed all of those Techs before their isolation. Two of the three we need to research anyway to get to the Industrial Age, and I think that we're going to fall behind enough without having to research Printing Press as well.

Industrial Age & Modern Age: I think that with the isolation imposed upon us, we're going to have to work like crazy to catch up; I think imposing even more historical conditions at this point would likely kill us.

The goal of the game is really to simulate the effects of the isolation and its recovery afterwards...my interest in maintaining historical versimilitude in other aspects of the game isn't really there. That being said, I think the Monarcy until Communism idea is one we should make the call on once we get to the Industrial Age (we'll put it to a group vote) determined by how far back we are.

One other thing everyone needs to be aware of is that we've effectively reduced the benefit of our UU to 20 turns...by the time we can start actively waging war again, Riflemen and Cavalry will be prevalent.

I’m OK with your points regarding the Wall, I’m OK with downgrading the inventions to ‘wishes’ instead of rules as well as the Monarchy, Communism thing.

But I just understood you also mean no war during the isolation period. What if:
- someone else declares war,
- foreign units enter our territory

To go with the historical theme we should fight back while the enemy is in our lands and maybe accept peace if the AI asks for it (we won’t do the contact). Of course we won’t pay anything.

Again if the AI refuses to retreat and does not declare war either, we should attack without a warning while they are in our territory.
For me monarch is easy enough and while we won’t fight we would probably be researching hard so I don’t think we’ll fall back much.

I just had another idea to go with the theme. We should not even check what the AI’s are doing (e.g. techs they have, historygraph, F11).

From the sounds of it we are tacticless and defient. It should be interesting.

I agree we shouldn't allow tresspassers while we are isolationist. Demand they leave and nothing more. We should be able to fight within our lands at any time. To do nothing more than head off a possible sneak attack.

Looks like we should be building a lot of horsemen and cash buildup for a upgrade to riders.

Are we ready to start??

Hotrod

If Yndy and Aggie say that they definitely want to play, I'll do the first 20 turns tonight...we still need to add another player.

Originally posted by Yndy
I’m OK with your points regarding the Wall, I’m OK with downgrading the inventions to ‘wishes’ instead of rules as well as the Monarchy, Communism thing.

But I just understood you also mean no war during the isolation period. What if:
- someone else declares war,
- foreign units enter our territory

To go with the historical theme we should fight back while the enemy is in our lands and maybe accept peace if the AI asks for it (we won’t do the contact). Of course we won’t pay anything.

Again if the AI refuses to retreat and does not declare war either, we should attack without a warning while they are in our territory.
For me monarch is easy enough and while we won’t fight we would probably be researching hard so I don’t think we’ll fall back much.

I just had another idea to go with the theme. We should not even check what the AI’s are doing (e.g. techs they have, historygraph, F11).

Click to expand...

Yeah, if someone attacks, we can kill troops in our territory. We can demand that opponents leave if we're not in a state of War.

But we can't decide to attack another civ for the purposes of expansion.

We can't contact the other Civs, so there's no way to find out if they have more techs. Although it's ok if we look at histograph...and check the Foreign Minister occasionally to see if the other civs have had a picture change...

I'm in under the circumstances. Be sure to let me know how things are going before Friday noon GMT as I don't surf in the weekend unless I have to.

Originally posted by Yndy
I'm in under the circumstances. Be sure to let me know how things are going before Friday noon GMT as I don't surf in the weekend unless I have to.

Click to expand...

Ok, I removed the ? from your name

I'll start the first 20 turns tonight, and then Hotrod can take 15, and then 10 after that (until we decide to drop it to 5 when 10 takes too long). Not sure if it'll get to you this weekend, I guess it depends on how fast we play

I will join with one problem. I will be gone from July 11th till July 20th. IF you will put last and maybe skip me the first round (if it goes that fast) then I will join at that point.

I definitely want to play in such a great team

meldor, you're in. We have enough players for the first few rounds. Just let us know when you're back.

Roster is Locked, game starts tonight...

BANZAI!

Roster:
ChrTh >> UP
hotrod0823 >> On Deck
Aggie >> Warmin' Up
grimjack >> Put me in coach!
Yndy >> Chillin'
meldor (skipped until 7/20)

Man, thing just started and already there's a delay

I need to work late tonight, so I'm not going to have the game started until tomorrow evening ... but I figure we waited our entire lives for this game, what's another day?

Heh

Grimjack