MIC1 - The Commercial Research Hater

So here comes my first SG.

The idea is to not do any serious research. We hate research. We want to make money and rule the world, and we deem science a way for that purpose only. We can buy, steal, extort techs, but we never fund research ourselves except minimum. The variant rule is very simple: we can only do min research.

So we will be playing Rome (commercial and militaristic). The two traits fit the theme the best IMO, and the UU will rule the ancient ages.

This means the science bar can never be more than 10% (unless at the beginning when income is low, 10% might be outputting 0 sci, so in this case you can try 20% or higher but stop at the first percentage when science output is non-zero), and we cannot hire more than one scientist. In one word, we cannot self-research a tech faster than 50-turn. We are stingy and will only invest the bare minumum in research!

I want to try it on demigod/standard map/continent. So I need a bunch of deity players. We need good trading and warmongering skills (yes, we'll have a lot of wars).

I can play both 1.15 and 1.22, but I prefer 1.22.

I prefer that no scientific civ in this game. I probably will make sure only we start with Alphabet so no other commercial civs either.

Sign up (please indicate if you can play 1.22):
Aggie
gozpel
barbslinger
betazed
microbe

And the basic rule is that no exploits and no breaking deals/peace treaties on purpose. I'll adopt Aggie's ruleset for now:

BANNED TACTICS
These are the exploits that I want to avoid in the game:

"Phony Peace Treaty": Making Peace Treaties without having the intention to stay at peace, just to get cheap techs or money.

"Palace Jump"; Jumping the palace by disbanding the capital. Rushing a palace or building it brick by brick is OK.

"RoP Rape": Using Right of Passage to move whole armies into attack position.

"Throwaway Cities": It is possible to go everywhere by settling, moving a setter one tile further in, abandoning the old city, founding a new one, etc...etc... A city shouldn't be abandoned in the same turn as it is settled.

"Resource Piracy": Sitting on resources or deny a civ access to a tile inside the borders of the rival while at peace.

"Dogpiling": Adding multiple workers to cities to increase population beyond the food supply.

"Seed Corn": It is not allowed to buy the LAST TWO workers from the AI before 1000 BC.

"Negative cash research": The penalty of negative cash is only one unit/improvement. So there are cases where this can be worthwile. Science spending must be lowered when the cash would go below zero.

Anyone interested?

Hmm...this reminds me of an RBCiv Epic. Namely, the Numistic Numidians (don't remember which number though). I'm assuming you're keeping min research to get TGL?

(Note, this isn't a sign up, I'm in enough SGs already)

Rome is commercial / militaristic!! I'm interested by the way

I might have got the idea from some RBCiv game, but I don't remember which ones.

Regarding Great Library - I don't bet on that and I doubt we'll get it, but we'll see.

Aggie said:

Rome is commercial / militaristic!! I'm interested by the way

Click to expand...

OK Rome it is! I am surprised why I didn't think of that, considering I am playing a game with it now. I'll update the first post.

Unfortunately, not a sign-up either. But ...

The RBCiv Epic in question is the Numismatic Numidians. The Civ was Carthage, and I believe the level was Emperor.

Isn't Rome Comm/Mil?

Oddly, the higher the level at which you play this, the less of a variant it is. Does anyone do their own research on Sid? On Demigod, the point where the human starts to do their own research is usually late Medieval or early Industrial Age.

[Edit: Obviously the cross-posts were flying fast and furious. ]

T_McC said:

Oddly, the higher the level at which you play this, the less of a variant it is.

Click to expand...

I agree, but I'm afraid Emperor would be quite easy as I've had games finished before 1000AD.

I think the variant would kick in seriously at Industrial Ages. We'll be stealing a lot of techs and I want to push that to an extreme.

I also expect things would be quite difficult at the beginning of Middle Ages.

Why not ban min research as well? That would make it more spicey!

Aggie said:

Why not ban min research as well? That would make it more spicey!

Click to expand...

Min research means we are stingy and want to get a tech by investing almost nothing. So it fits the theme quite well anyway.

It might help us out, or not. I just want to have a backdoor like that in case money wouldn't work.

I would like to join.

However, as T_McC pointed out in Deity this will be pretty much the standard game that we play, which btw is also another reason why I am joining up. I am participating in 4 SGs and all are variants. Time for a standard one, I guess.

I prefer 1.22.

Welcome betazed.

This is demigod, not deity, so things will be a little easier.

I also prefer 1.22 by the way.

What is the preferred victory type? It would be extra special if we have to win by Space Race

Aggie said:

What is the preferred victory type? It would be extra special if we have to win by Space Race

Click to expand...

I thought about that too.

Any win is fine with me (culture is not feasible though).

Both diplo or military win will fit the theme well, but I agree space would be the most challenging.

I would say let's shoot for a space or at least a modern age military win. I am really interested in playing a game in which there is a modern age war. I do not remember when last I played a game that needed modern armor or mechanized infantry.

Come to think of it, I have never used stealth bombers. are they any good? Do they work?

So if this game converges on a modern age war that would be great. Of course this is your game and you have the final say on what we should shoot for.

Sounds fun. Count me in if you want me

Erh yes, 1.22 is fine.

Does stingy research count with a single scientist?

gozpel, you are always welcome.

Yes, single scientist is OK. The point is that each tech we research will have to take 50-turns.

@betazed: I do want the game to last into Modern Ages, as others have pointed out, the variant wouldn't be much relevant before Industrial Ages. But I won't make it a hard rule at this point. Let's see how the game goes first.

Since we have 4 players already, I will probably start the game tonight. Aggie will be the first to play (20 turns), and each player 10 turns afterwards. I'll also select all civs and not include any scientific or commercial ones.

One last slot is left, hurry up if you are interested.

Great!

Hmm, I never tried stealthbombers, but I played with normal bombers in a couple of games now and find them overpowering. I believe Aggie backs me up on this.

When ever we can build them, I think we will need a serious discussion if we should build them at all, or if we should keep them down to a descent amount?

I can mod the game to get rid of the lethal bombardment of bombers, if people would like. This will also make stealth bombers more attractive. However, I must warn you that since we don't do self-research, it would take forever before AI does it.

Any suggestions are welcome, but do it quick before I start.