Jumpmasters 1C: We are a backward people! (C3C/Emperor/No Research)

This is the third game spun off from ScoutX .

Roster
Now in order-of-play:
SesnOfWthr
bed_head7
scoutsout
Detlef_Richter
romeothemonk
Merum

Moved to Vanilla Team (Roster B)
Slicknick1136

Computer problems/back to provisional roster
JavierLQ
Manwaring

The Start


Game Settings
Software: v1.22
Level: Emperor
Variant: No research, period!
Target Victory: Spaceship Launch (or Diplomatic?)

More to follow....

Variant Rules - No Research, Ever!
This means:
Science slider must be set to 0 at all times.
No Scientists may be hired (or tolerated) in any of our settlements.

We can, however, build Libraries, Universities & Research Labs for their cultural impact. The Great Library is also allowed but not manadatory (we'll just have to see how things look before deciding on this one).

General Game Rules
A lot of SGs use RBCiv, and I generally like them. The biggest differences between RBCiv and Game of the Month rules involve ship-chaining and Palace Jumping. These are allowed under GOTM rules, and disallowed under RBCiv. Though I personally don't regard ship-chaining as an exploit, we will play under RBCiv rules because I like the values and "spirit" of non-exploitative play that RBCiv tries to foster.

Ted's team is playing under an additional rule that they will not buy more than one worker from each AI before 1000BC. In CivIII Conquests, the AI places a higher value on their workers, so it is a lot more expensive to strip an AI of all of its workers. This rule is open to discussion, but worth considering.

More to follow...

Succession Game Etiquette Guide
Please do:
Let the team know if you're going to be unable to play for an extended period - holiday, illness, exams etc.
Post a "Got it" notice or ask for a skip within 24 hours of the save becoming available (I reserve the right to skip a player who hasn't responded after the 24 hour grace period is over).
Play and post within 48 hours of posting a "Got it". Additional time may be requested and granted for expected delays.
Write up a log of the events occurring during your turn and post it along with your save.
Provide notes for the next player as to the current situation and any immediate plans for the future - are those Caravels heading NE or SW? is that Swordsman fortified to heal or act as a lookout? Our forces are mustering for an attack on...
Feel free to pause and ask for advice, or simply discuss, if a situation arisies in the game and you're unsure of the best course of action.

Please do not:
Automate Workers.
Use City Governors unless the team has discussed and agreed their use.
Leave units on goto orders that will extend beyond your turn. (Auto-moving is bad form in SGs)
Make deals on your last turn. However, you should notify the next player if trading opportunities exist.
Make wholesale changes to build orders on the inherited turn without consulting the team. One or two is okay, and pre-builds may naturally get changed.

More to follow....

General Gameplay Notes

Reputation: we will need to protect our reputation very carefully in the early part of the game. Losing the ability to make GPT deals early on would make the game much harder.

Brokering: for those unfamiliar with the term it's just a shorthand for acting as "middleman" in deals - e.g. buying a tech from Civ A then selling it on to Civs B, D & E (hopefully picking up something else of value along the way). We'll need to be on the lookout for brokering opportunities at every turn so I suggest that we use CRPMapstat to monitor trade opportunities. This utility offers no information that cannot be gained by slogging through the Diplomatic screens every turn, it just presents the information quickly and simply.

Keeping the AI Isolated (from each other): again, this is an important factor that will help us to maintain our position as a broker. Even if we have to devote significant resources to keeping the AI isolated we will still benefit by controlling trade. Obviously this situation can only last until the end of the Middle Ages but it is well worth the effort!

Roads: we will need every gold piece we can lay our hands on in the early game so building roads has an even higher priority than normal. We really don't want our citizens working unroaded tiles.

More to follow...

Useful Links

Although this isn't a Training Day Game I plan to put links to useful reference material here.


Monarch to Emperor: The Great Leap by Ision. This article is a must-read for any player working their way up through the levels. Together with his articl on "Wonder Addiction", the "Great Leap" artical has helped my game tremendously. It is no small coincidence that this game started as a "Jump School" concept.

Babylon's Diety Settlers by Bamspeedy. This is the groundbreaking work on settler factories, and a definite must read.


GK2 - The Training Day Experiment - hosted by Gengis Khan and Sir Bugsy, two players to whom I personally owe a great deal. This thread has an absolutely ridiculous post count (to which I have contributed) but a wealth of information and discussion to go with that post count. There is an index on the first page with links.

The Conquest Training Game hosted by Ainwood. Though a great deal more structured than GK2 (and not open to de-lurking) this thread also offers some great pointers.

GK2.2 - Trading Exercise - something that you can play to work on tech trading skills. Set up by DJMGator13.

More to follow...

Great,lets get this thing going.

Glad you're here Nick. We'll probably need just a little pre-game strategizing before we kick this off. This variant will be a complete about-face for me compared to the game we're playing in SGOTM2.

Another reason for discussion: Sesn and I are in a couple of SGs together, and he's the only one on the team that I've ever played a game with. It will take a little time to get to know you guys.

I'm thinking about asking either Sesn or romeo to play 20 to get us going. How do you guys feel about that?

Also - since we have a 3/4 mix of stronger players (instead of 3/3 in the other teams) I want to structure the "order of go" carefully. I know Javier is somewhat new to the game, but if I could get some feedback from the rest of you as to where you are with your game, it will help me. I'm going to have to put 2 of you Regent/Monarch level guys next to each other in the order.

I think that having an experinced player do the first 20 is important,seeing how the beggining of the game makes a great impression on how the game will go overall.

Checking in.

Are we trying to pad our post count there Scout? Five posts in a row, you should have gone for six and included all of our SG histories.

The one worker rule is a standard "LK rule", and although geared towards Vanilla, might be good to keep intact.

We may want to detail our rules a bit more clearly. For people who have not been in SG's, it may be a bit daunting to know what is/is not expected of them. Also, the RBC rules can be extremely restrictive, if followed in full, and probably a bit more than we're looking for.

Have no problem starting this thing, or passing to Romeo. Tell me what to do, O Captain, My Captain!!

For the newer guys, as we have four, we should at least wait for some input/critique before the second goes in a row.

To ALL: the greatest benefit of an SG is the learning that takes place during discussion of turns. Please don't hesitate to inquire about/critique our moves as well as your own. I'm sure Scout and Romeo will admit that we're all still learning too.

I agree that we need to go over the RBCiv rules. Are we staying away from the exploits, or staying away from anything dastardly whatsoever? Personally, I see nothing wrong with a few of the things considered dastardly, especially suicide galleys.

As for skill level, I wouldn't say I have mastered regent by any means, but it has been a long time since I have started a game on regent and had any doubt about whether I would win. Monarch is challenging, and the current COTM is typical of my Monarch games, with me even in tech, but with a smaller army than my neighbors, less culture, and less infrastructure. I am sure I will catch up towards the end of the Middle Ages, and surge ahead ath the beginning of the Industrial Age, barring unexpected disaster of some kind, but Monarch is still challenging. And my last trt at Emperor was ugly, though I have improved greatly since that attempt.

Exploits like RoP rape, sneak attacks, and free palace jumps are certainly a no no.

Suicide galleys, razing cities, and starvation diets are some of the things I was referring to...

Just checking in here..will read the rules on the links you posted.


Javier

@Sesn: You make a lot of good points in your posts. RE: "Padding", I plagiarized Ted's opening extensively, which is why there are 4 in a row.

RE: RBCiv: "Dastardly" is in, the clearly exploitative stuff is out. If you think RBCiv is over the top, we could play this by GOTM rules. I think ship-chaining and palace-jumping are the more important differences between the two. If you know of others, let us know.

@Team: On discussion between turns in general... this game may develop a little slowly and pick up as our strategy comes into focus and we get to know each other. It looks like we need a couple more team members to check in before we get started in earnest.

As long as dastardly is OK, then RBC should be fine.

In addition to waiting for check ins, we're also waiting for a couple "self-assessments".

I didn't want to open the save up yet, but what civ are we? Did I see someone say we were the Dutch?

I'd also like to see some discussion on what people think the first turns ought to be, once everyone is here.

BTW - I think this may be a tough weekend to start this up. I know that I personally won't be around Sunday (hosting a cookout), but I'll do my best to contribute regardless of liftoff date.

EDIT: difficult to keep straight everything I read in the scoutx thread, but didn't the game difficulty get bumped to DG?

SesnOfWthr said:

I didn't want to open the save up yet, but what civ are we? Did I see someone say we were the Dutch?

Click to expand...

I took a peek, and we are C3C's most nerfed up tribe: The Vikings!

The reason I say nerfed up is this: The Viks changed from Expansionist-Militaristic in PTW to Seafaring-Militaristic in C3C. Both the Seafaring and Militaristic traits get cheap harbors... so there is something of a loss of synergy there.

However - for this variant and map type (I think it's going to be a 'pelago) we should be in good shape. Since we're going to be acquiring our techs through sums of gold and the "pointed stick", the research weaknesses of the Vikings won't be an obstacle.

SesnOfWthr said:

EDIT: difficult to keep straight everything I read in the scoutx thread, but didn't the game difficulty get bumped to DG?

Click to expand...

Mad-Bax was kidding about that part, although the variant may make this a little harder than a straight emperor game.

On another note: If the Vikings are not your favorite tribe, there is a fair chance that your fav is in this game. We've got something like 13 AI civs in this game.

Actually, if you were to go back and dig up my only (thus far) hosted game, you'd see that we were able to use the Vikings, and especially the zerks, to great effect.

I'll find the thread later (SESN1) as that's also a good game for people who have the "I have no iron so I'm gonna lose" mindset.

/delurk

Scouts there's quiet a few threads out there to show you how powerful the viks can be on an archiplego. Just explore the waters early is the best bet... in my game I made it manditory to build a naval unit before even a warrior.... it helped ALOT for exploration... it basically gave us a 3 move coastal scout.

Also, you may want to shuffle the roster around a bit so there's a few monarch level players between each emperor level player.

Alerum - the roster in the first post is not the same as the turn order will be. I believe Scout intends to alternate between gold and silver wings, as much as is possible anyhow.

Agree that the three movement curragh is great for early contacts.

Also here's the aforementioned thread: SESN1

Okay - I overstated the 'nerfed up'-ted-ness of the Viks - and you guys are right, they can be a terror on a 'pelago map. I just think the trait combo is a little silly, and the PTW/Expansionist version of the Viks are a little easier to play well.

Do you guys think that someone who likes Marines so much wouldn't like the Berserks?

@Alerum - I do plan to re-shuffle the roster, and stick the Regent/Monarch level guys between the stronger players. You're suggestion is what I had in mind.

This should be a really fun game.

To ALL: the greatest benefit of an SG is the learning that takes place during discussion of turns. Please don't hesitate to inquire about/critique our moves as well as your own. I'm sure Scout and Romeo will admit that we're all still learning too.
Nope, I know everything. Muhahaha.
Actually I will be out of town for a couple of days and would like to get slotted near the back of this roster. The No Research is going to make this annoying as with a commerce heavy start like this I would be the tech leader the entire game on Emporer.
I advocate the worker move to the first wines and mine. If nothing else is spotted I would settle us where we sit. Set research to CB at 0 so we don't pop a totally useless tech. Pottery is the next in order after CB. (We are the Vikings, not the Babylonians.) Since we start with Alphabet and WC, I would pump a very early curragh (1st build) and go looking for targets. On Emporer a Viking Archer rush is very deadly to the AI. Take 1-2 cities and get 4-5 techs. Rinse and Repeat.
I advocate a very dense build initially, 8-10 tiles per city, as unit support is going to be what costs us immensely in this game. I do not advocate for the Great Library. Any techs it can give us are very easily pointy sticked.
I would have to see if there is BG under any of the resources to determine mine or irrigate. If no BG, then irrigate our wines, if BG then mine.
More to come after the first turn set goes out.