LK69 - Babylon - 80K challenge

Our opponents will be culture duds as I mentioned in the start up thread. Our opponents are the Zulu, the Vikings, Rome, Mongols and the Aztecs. I am not as sure on the Aztecs, but you know they will waste too much time in early war.


3950 BC
Babylon is formed. We have no food bonuses to start with.


3400 BC
(IT) Our next research project is Masonry.

Summary:
We still don't have much in the way of food bonuses. It looks like multiple cities will have to supply the settlers.

Although this is an 80K game - we still need at least one city pumping out military. Don't focus solely on culture.

We need lots of tightly packed cities. Don't plan for cities using more then 12 tiles.

Signed up:
LKendter
Microbe (currently playing)
SesnOfWthr (on deck)
Ankka
Karasu

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
>> Starting with LK68 the LK series is on patch 1.22.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/LK69-3000BC.zip

The variant rules - this is meant to be a passive cultural win game as much as possible.

1) During despotism we must cave to all demands.

2) After despotism we have the right to refuse demands beyond cash / world map.

3) We may not demand other AI civs leave our territory, except for a clear sneak attack. If the Zulu and Vikings are fighting each other going through our territory we allow it.

4) Once spies arrive, we many only plant spies, and steal techs. I don't want other actions that are designed mainly to encourage war.

5) We must accept peace once the attack civ will give it to use for free. We are allowed to take concessions during the peace talks. This pretty much rules out alliances and MPPs.

6) We may not declare war except for the following reasons:
A) To stop a space launch
B) We hit 80K, but another civ has at least 40K. This still is meant to be a limited war.

7) When in doubt about actions please think about the spirit of the game.

The following tactics are PROHIBITED:

RoP Rape - if you have to ask...

RoP Abuse that includes things such as irrigating all tiles with a city building wonders, denying resources with a RoP, putting a unit to block a land bridge, etc.

Scout resource denial - parking a scout on a resource, as the AI won't ask scouts to leave. The same scenario also applies to workers.

False Peace Treaties (must wait for the 20 years to end).

The negative science exploit - you can run a huge deficit (-250 / turn) of negative cash with a token penalty of one lost worker / cheap building. If cash will go below zero, the research level must be dropped.

Ship chaining exploit - you can move a ship, unload troops to another ship, move that ship, etc. This allows you to ship an indefinite distance, and that is why I consider it an exploit.

Resources disconnect / connect exploit - I consider most resource tactics fine. Delaying to hook a resource, trading it away etc is fine. The exploit is to do this every turn. Build a stack of horses, connect saltpeter, upgrade to cavalry, and disconnect.

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace.


Standard LK house rules:
1) Worker automation of any kind is prohibited.
2) No worker purchases during the first 50 turns to avoid civ crippling.
3) Declaring war / demanding leave solely for the purpose of getting out of trade deals. This includes nonsense spying simply to force a war. Stealing techs is fine.
4) Even if not covered under exploits listed, please try not to use tactics that take advantage of holes in the game design.
5) Our trading reputation is golden - please respect it.
6) Complete your turn. It is frustrating to get a 1/2 completed turn.

Just Checking in.
And thanks for making all rules clear.

Checking in.

Sounds like the start won't be an easiest one if we have no food bonuses...

No pictures of the start for the lurkers?

Got it.

I think after Masonry we should beeline to Literature? Libraries and GL would be nice to have. How about ToA?

T-Hawk said:

No pictures of the start for the lurkers?

Click to expand...

It is a pretty BORING start. Hopefully the next couple players can find some good tiles.

microbe said:

Got it.

I think after Masonry we should beeline to Literature? Libraries and GL would be nice to have. How about ToA?

Click to expand...

ToA will depend on us finding a decent site for wonders. For the most part I hate that wonder, but in this case bonus culture would be nice. The trick is we still want the regular temples ASAP. We want the doubling affect.

We really want libraries. The more culture the better. But let us start with more cities, building some troops, and find some bonus food tiles.

Checking in. Looking forward to this one.

I agree with Literature.

I didn't get to build the ToA in my lone Conquests game. Do the free temples it gives get the 1000 years bonus too?
In any case, it does seem the 100k-victory wonder...

However (and you can check SirPleb's spoilers for GOTM31) the 1000-year culture doubling does not seem to have very large an impact on a 'fast' victory -of course, this does not mean we shouln't try to make the best use of it.

As the boss says, our #1 target should rather be that of expanding like crazy, and problem #1 is of course that we cannot fight...

That's an interesting challenge. Well thought, LK!

Karasu - I can't speak for the 1000 yr bonus, but we may never know as the temples disappear when the wonder expires, with Education. It's a great thing to have to consolidate borders and get an early culture boost, but we're still going to need to build the temples in every city. As LK said, the sooner the better.

They *disappear*? Well, it was too good to be true...

Yeah that was pretty much my reaction in the one game I built it. I wondered why my people got so mad all of a sudden....

preturn: nothing, so press enter.

IBT Settler->Temple.

(1)2950BC: Warrior in the north reveals a possible settler factory site, but it's too far away. Move the settler to
(2)2900BC: Warrior reveals one more food bonus in the north!
(3)2850BC: huts give us 3 angry barbs.
IBT one barb attacks our warrior and loses.
(4)2800BC: Nineveh founded -> warrior. Our warrior kills a barb and redlines.
(5)2750BC: ZZZ
(6)2710BC: ZZZ
(7)2670BC: ZZZ
(8)2630BC: kill a barb.
IBT Masonry->Alphabet in min. I'm hoping to get it from the AI (Romans and Vikings have it). Warrior->warrior.
(9)2590BC: Got another 3 barbs from hut.
(10)2550BC: kill a barb.
I'm sending a warrior to the west to scouting. We need more contacts.

Nineveh should start settler after the warrior and set up the factory asap. Irrigate two 2 floodplains (one with bonus) will give us +5 food. Mine those bonus grasslands. We seem to need a temple first so that will not be very fast to set up. Babylon too on settler (temple due next turn).

We seem to have a nice choke to defend ourselves. Explore more and see if we can settle there at some point.

Light blue circles are barbs.

The dotmap for discussion.

huts give us 3 angry barbs.

Click to expand...

No surprise - I hate poping them at high levels unless expansionist.


The good news with the map so far - 3 luxuries nearby, if we can get them all.

=====================

LKendter
Microbe
SesnOfWthr (currently playing)
Ankka (on deck)
Karasu

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 to complete.
>> Starting with LK68 the LK series is on patch 1.22.

The variant rules - this is meant to be a passive cultural win game as much as possible.

1) During despotism we must cave to all demands.

2) After despotism we have the right to refuse demands beyond cash / world map.

3) We may not demand other AI civs leave our territory, except for a clear sneak attack. If the Zulu and Vikings are fighting each other going through our territory we allow it.

4) Once spies arrive, we many only plant spies, and steal techs. I don't want other actions that are designed mainly to encourage war.

5) We must accept peace once the attack civ will give it to use for free. We are allowed to take concessions during the peace talks. This pretty much rules out alliances and MPPs.

6) We may not declare war except for the following reasons:
A) To stop a space launch
B) We hit 80K, but another civ has at least 40K. This still is meant to be a limited war.

7) When in doubt about actions please think about the spirit of the game.

I think the dotmap could be tighter. Some of the cities are quite far apart, and we want as many cities as possible to get the max out of libraries & temples.

Nicely played, microbe I generally never get to build a second city this early in the game!!

I concur on settling as tight as possible: we really need to put as many cities as possible on the board. I'd say two to three tiles spacing immediately outside our core region.

About the settler factory: what about starting a Granary in Nineveh asap -with a prebuild of course while we research Pottery? With only two turns at min on Alphabet we could change research target without loosing too much. And delaying the temple in Nineveh 10 or 20 turns is certainly not going to kill us.
Babylon could build one or two warriors and another settler in the meantime (or Barracks?).

It's just an idea to be discussed of course: my usual approach is to set everything up first (in this case, Granary before any other settlers), which sometimes may not be the most time-effective I guess...

I think the dotmap could be tighter. Some of the cities are quite far apart, and we want as many cities as possible to get the max out of libraries & temples.

Click to expand...

Actually, the dot map may be to TIGHT. We want to get around 12 tiles out of our core cities. We should plan to never need hospitals. Once we get far enough away that the cities are mostly corrupt, then pack them tightly.

About the settler factory: what about starting a Granary in Nineveh asap

Click to expand...

It has no bonus food tiles - no settler factory possible! The flood plains wheat is the only possible source of a lot of settlers / workers quickly.

We also need a spot to start building military. The last game was war and demand overload in the begining. That was because we did TO much culture, and very little military.

Yeah, the AI seems to count on your power only on military in the beginning...

I got it. play tonight or tomorrow daytime.

You must be right about Nineveh, LK. When I read "flood plains" on microbe's log I jumped on it and assumed it could become our settler factory. So much for talking without checking the save myself...

I totally agree on one (actually more) cities building military.

On city spacing: I still favour a very tight placement, especially if we want to achieve the 80k mark as quickly as possible.