RBD SG3 - The Builders

This is the third Succession Game being played by folks from Realms Beyond Diablo.

I've recently tried my hand at a larger map with fewer civs and discovered the joyous possibilities of an expansionistic building game, with civs widely scattered and endless open terrain to expand into, building dozens of cities, just expand and expand and expand and expand. That's been surprisingly fun, and I the itch to try it in a succession game, Space-Diplo-Cultural disabled, and play all the way to 2050 (or, perhaps, roll over the world militarily if the mood and opportunity strike us). I've never seen past the year 1995, and rarely see past the mid 1800's.

Because this will be such a large, time-intensive game relative to a typical game, I'm protective of my investment in it, so this game will only be open to experienced folks I know won't wreck the game in the middle by dropping out, vanishing, etc. Larger maps go slower, as there's a LOT more to do, and a game with endless building-building-building, always settling more and more land, yet still dealing with military, tech, and other concerns, is not the best situation in which to meet new people. On the other hand, those of us from RBD do not want to become an isolated clique here at CivFanatics, which is why most of us have been jumping into other people's games, as well as playing in the ones we've organized and inviting anybody interested into some of our games. This particular game, though, is just for RBD players.

Game Scenerio:

Difficulty: Monarch
Civ: Americans
Map Size: Large
Landform: Pangaea
Landmass: Large
Climate: Hot, Wet
Mountains: Flat
Barbarians: Sedentary
Opponents: the five Commercial civs, plus Russia and Japan
Victory Conditions: Space, Diplo, Cultural disabled
Scenerio Objective: Win with the highest score in 2050, by being the most expansionistic and having the largest empire over time.


Turn Length: 10 turns (first round subject to number of players).

Current Roster:

Sirian
Charis
Carbon Copy

One or two spots still open, but planning to close the rotation after the first round.

Some thoughts on scenerio objectives: Securing the Pyramids is a top priority, since that will be the most valuable wonder, and denying it to the AI's is just as important as securing it for our own use. The Great Library would allow us to cruise through the middle ages, and once again, denying it to the enemy would be good. One other thing it would allow us to do: run higher luxuries through the early game, to boost our happy-people score. We are going for score, and if we build the GL, we would be sitting around waiting on the AI's to make discoveries for us, at least for a while, while we build up cash and score, and expand. On larger maps, wonders offer more bang for the buck, and the AI's are more likely to build them slower as they may start them in some small city -- the more cities they have, the more likely they will start a wonder in a crappy never-gonna-build-it location -- and yet if those are allowed to sit around and keep building up forever, the wonder cascade may never be broken, and they will steal middle ages wonders that way. High priority ought to go to breaking the cascade, and that will start with building the Pyramids. If our capital starts on a river, we can probably use it for continuous wonder building through the early part of the game.

Which brings me to the idea of tech trading. In a nutshell: the slower the world's progress up the tech tree, the better for us. There is no space race, no race to the UN, no race to much of anything except wonders, and research on larger worlds takes longer. Don't be fooled by the apparent "high" cost the AI's will pay for tech, as the research costs to discover it for themselves are equally inflated. I've selected the five commercial civs as opponents because they should be best equipped to do well with sprawling empires. In short: tech brokering generally runs counter to the particulars of this situation.

An early forbidden palace in a good location may be the second key to victory (the first being getting some or most of the best wonders). So I plan to scout widely from the very start, and look over our land and see what I can plot out for city plans. The shape and quality of our land, and the proximity of neighbors, may affect such a decision. Yet on a map like this, corruption is lower, and the FP doesn't have to be rushed with a leader, it can be built fairly soon in a good location if we dedicate to it. Neighbors will probably be too far away for us to get into any early wars, and by then, we'll have cities capable of building wonders, so I would urge the first leader be used to make an army, make sure he gets a victory, and build the Epic. If we even get into any wars at all in the first five thousand years.

No barbarians means safe to boldly expand early, so keep that in mind. Don't want to be so weak as to entice a neighbor into attacking, and units will be needed to keep people happy, but the first cycle of turns can be safely spent mostly on grabbing land.

I've played the opening. Report and game file to follow.


- Sirian

Since the Americans are the one civ that completely defy the logic of the Civ game structure (we formed up as an offshoot of other civs, primarily English, with French, at first, then absorbing immigrants from all over the world) I don't exactly have a theme for playing this one in-character. Being American, I'm not keen on the contortions necessary to adapt our history and culture to the civ model of starting as an ancient tribe -- just don't see that as a good fit. So rather than set a theme, I'm just going to start with a standard report, see what develops in other people's reports, what they are moved to write about their turns, and go from there.

We started on two rivers, one turn away from the shore, but on a grassland with no shield. I contemplated a couple of minutes on this starting position, finally deciding just to plop down right where it started us. I set research to Ceremonial Burial, sent our worker onto a flood plain to irrigate, and increased science rate to 100%. (Science at 100% and research into a cheap utility tech, like Pottery or Ceremonial or Bronze, is always my move of choice on a river start, where there is plenty of extra trade. Conventional starts, I may go for 40-turn discovery of something costlier, and pick up the cheap util techs from huts, trade, or coming back for them later once there is more commerce going in my empire and I can discover in a reasonable number of turns).

I send our scout to the south and build another. When the flood plains are irrigated, I swap to them, slowing building of scout but increasing growth rate. Built a road on the flood plain, sent second scout north, nabbed a goody hut and got Warrior Code, building a third scout now. Worker moves to adjacent grassland with shield and mines. (Just 3 turns! Industrious can get a real jump in this regard). Third scout heads eastward (there is coastline to the west). Start building settler.

Mined another grassland with shield, giving Washington one flood plain with 3 food, 2 trade, and pair of grassland with 2 food, 2 shield, 2 trade. Micromanagement of whether to be on the flood plain or grasslands in full swing, to time out settler production and size 3 city for earliest production of settler unit.

Scout heading south has found origin of South River, where there are silks just two city lengths away. Scout heading north has found lots of hills, some wines near Washington, drier lands beyond. Scout heading east has found... nothing but jungle. We have a VAST jungle here, hopefully a site for coal and rubber. I am also hoping there is iron and horses in the area. On the down side, our chances of finding saltpeter or oil anywhere within a gazillion miles looks slim. And resources are widely scattered on maps like this.

New York founded three squares south of Washington on the diagonal, with 2 overlap. Not the best long term situation, but I simply HAD to get that irrigatable wheat within immediate range for the value it will bring to our growth curve, and still build on the river, and make best use of the land there. 2 overlap won't affect us at all until after Sanitation, so I went with it.

Southern scout finds some goody huts, gets gold and Mysticism. He follows western shore a long way south, then cuts back to scout out the interior south of New York. Northern scout cuts across continent back and forth, uncovering all lands up there. Eastern scout found ocean to the east rather quickly, went north along eastern shore to explore area not covered by north scout, then turned back south and followed eastern shore. Southern scout finds goody hut with conscript warrior, who is sent on to become our great defensive army at New York. Ceremonial burial was discovered, started in on Bronze Working.

New York builds a warrior, which is sent to Washington, which is building second settler. North scout, traveling clockwise along the west coast, discovers Romans to the north, a wee bit closer than I would have liked, but still quite distant. Romans are the most dangerous ancient opponent of all, in my view. Their legionaries function well as attackers and can do more damage in small numbers than even Immortals, because you can't counterattack them effectively. Large stacks of immortals are worse, but even just a couple legions can wreak havoc. I am concerned about this development, but somewhat mollified when north scout turns the corner and returns, discovering that the Romans are isolated on the end of a peninsula and, if we cut our borders across from sea to sea, can keep them isolated from other civs for a long time to come. They are annoyed with us, which is not good, but they want an arm and a leg for their Alphabet tech, and I am NOT giving them Masonry ever. Things were little tense -- so tense looking, over time, that at the end of my turn I did something I rarely ever do: I offered a gift of ten gold to improve relations. They are now "cautious" and likely not too ill disposed to us for the next period or so. A trade or other positive exchange may get them to "polite" even, although under no circumstances should they be traded tech that could let them start on a wonder.

A goody hut in the south was empty. *sigh*

South scout cuts back across continent again after learning of all the lands south of New York. That area has not provided us any encounters with other civs and looks to be our "second breadbasket" where the Forbidden Palace and bulk of our expansion will go. East scout follows coast south, then eastward into the far reaches. At the end of my turn, still no contact with anybody but the Romans. Our scouts have ranged quite far!

Note to Charis: If you give away our world map for free, I'm going to bop you on the head! :crazyeyes

Finished Bronze working, started researching Iron. I'd LIKE to get going toward literacy and the GL, but I figure we'll get Alphabet from the romans sooner or later, or maybe we'll run into one of the other commercial civs -- they all start with Alphabet. Or maybe even another goody hut will be kind to us.

Second settler finished at Washington, sent north to found city on a wine in the hills. I founded ON the wine for strategic reasons. Did not want to be on a flood plain, get the wine online sooner, and have more early food available (there were only two flood plains there, the rest would be quite sparse foodwise if not for the wines). Boston looks like it will be strong strong city some day. Built a warrior, then set it to build a worker, as Washington is now on the pyramids and needs more land improvements, as well as getting the luxuries online soon.

New York gets irrigated wheat and two mined grassland w/ shield, then original worker returns to work more on Washington. Pyramids are underway, but a long long way to go, and we must hurry! New York builds a settler and I send him south to the silks. I looked over the situation and chose another non-optimal long term location with 2 overlap for the short term benefits. I wiped out a jungle with the settler, giving us an extra grassland in the area, in effect, by not settling on the grass, and there is so much jungle in this region, every good square counts.

Boston can be the settler factory for the north, but its first duty of the moment is to help support Washington. New York is on full blown settler factory output, while Philadelphia has just been founded and is doing not much of anything as yet.

Here are the Sirian Land Surveys of our home region, starting with the vital south.



Purple dot is the top priority. After much contemplation, that site looks ideal to me for Forbidden Palace construction: a cattle and river, some hills, some grass, some flood plains, and it grabs the ivory. If we seize this with our next settler from New York and get it going quickly, it may make our game in the long run.

Yellow Dot is a high priority. It makes good use of the land in the area, is close to the capital, and would complete our borders from sea to sea, perhaps cutting off the Romans from ever exploring past us -- if we are stingy with our world and territory maps: we have nothing to gain from them as we already know all the vitals of their region. Yellow dot is also on the sea, but would need some irrigation help before too long to come "online".

White Dot is yet more overlap with New York, but beyond it is only more jungle, and this is yet another "sacrifice overlap for growth curve". The city will become a producer MUCH sooner from this position than it would further south in the jungles. This would be a third priority. Blue dot is a good site for linking up to purple, and has lots of good land to grow strong sooner. All the green dots are good inland sites in a pattern that I pondered and played with for a good bit of time. It's all based on supporting Purple Dot, though. Red dots are coastline cities, mostly in rugged areas: the rest of what could be done with the land.

Now for the north:



You can see Yellow Dot on this picture as well. White Dot is the priority site: grab that rich land on the river by the sea before the Romans get to it. Must be defended with troops, as well, though don't wait for troops to go grab it.

Green dots are strong and urgent sites, the one on the river as a defensive strong point against future Roman incursion, and the one by all the food goodies as a strong grower. Red dots are other good sites for later, and I've not planned out any further because the Romans would only wreck any longer range plans. They do NOT have much land up there and will start coming south before long. We should get the two greens and the white, and insist on those being ours, and be flexible about the rest. If they grab some land in the middle, as long as its not encroaching on white and green, we can get along with that. Stopping to fight an ancient war is not in our best interest, BUT... under no circumstances give the Romans tech if they threaten us. Expand quickly, but then consolodate and prepare. I've gone for Iron so early to give us the chance to defend against Rome if we have to.

Gray dot in the west LOOKS like the best site over there but may not be. I simply don't have the information. There could be more land over there than meets the eye. What it may come down to is a question of building ONE city, on the river, and having it be strong early, or two cities on the coasts. I like the hill next to gray dot, but it looks landlocked, which is absolutely not desirable for a city over there. I'll leave it up to Charis or Carbon to figure out what to do over there, if anything. Looks to me, now, though, like a lower priority than reaching out to grab purple and blue in the south, yellow in the east, and white and green in the north.

I played 40 turns. Next up is Charis with 20 turns, then Carbon with 20 turns, and we'll see if anyone else signs on by then.

Above all else, the one thing we not do is let the pyramids slip out of our hands. It was a bit of a gambit to build a second settler, I hope that pays off.


- Sirian

Count me in. Sounds fun!

I'd be interested in joining this game. I've been a constant lurker on the other RBD games and enjoyed them thoroughly. I've mostly played regent/monarch games on large world maps, but so far I've mostly blitzed as soon as I got knights and later, cavalry, so a building game should be a good change of pace. I have never actually played a succession game, however. So, can I join?

Sounds very good

Snagging the file and will play it tonight...

Charis

2150 BC (0) - The American nation had been founded, and strongly so, by
our first President, Sir Iyan, but the people felt that their religious
freedoms were at jeapordy, so they turned to a man of the cloth,
Deacon Charis Lincoln, to lead their country over the next twenty years.

A studious man, Deacon Charis looked over the memoirs of Sir Iyan,
and was pleased with what he read. Only a few points bothered him...

First, the yellow dot east of Washington seemed misplaced. NE one spot
gets us the gold, on the coast, and still 'locks' our borders if a
temple is built there. The crucial southern purple dot was also a slight
puzzle. It was great except for one thing -- it wasn't ACTUALLY on
a river square and would not get those special bonuses (so was it best?)
To the north, the western white and left dots seemed highest priority,
although timing-wise, the green spot on the hill looked more appropriate
against Roman incursions. Deacon Charis does not trust Caesar, and expects
him to expand straight at us, and try to place the border more than
halfway between us. The histograph suggest they have three cities right now,
while we have four, and will place their fourth soon. That border line,
if drawn halfway, would two squares north of green dot, include the nice
sea spot, and be just one square from the NW wheat. Without 'sealing' though,
if we take away a spot where they were moving a settler too, it will keep
moving 'forward' and place itself like a thorn in our side. One question
is... would they like the Egyptians in RBD2, start an early war if we
have many cities with no/little defense, or would they chill out given the
greater room to grow compared to that game? If the latter, low warrior-
high settler gambit could mean a huge space advantage. If not, we'll
not meet the same success as we did their, with this panagaea map and
expansionist neighbors.

2110 BC (1) - Southern scout finds dual wheat site on sea and river
with fish!! Wowza! It's JUST below where you scouted and showed on
your map, but it's a doozie. Deacon Charis may try to grab that site
ASAP and settle 'back' from their towards Washington, unless someone
else gets there first.

2070 BC (2) - Oh crud! It's a stone's throw from our next neighbor,
the Indians.

2030 BC (3) - Worker pops out of Boston which starts on a warrior
en route to becoming a settler factory. Madras is contacted, and
Charis meets with Gandhi. He is prepared to give us 50 Gold and Alphabet
for Masonry. Normally the Deacon would accept such an offer, but
his memory prodded him of notes of Sir Iyan, pointing out it's no
deal if we end up losing Pyramids by a turn. Instead I offer him a
token of goodwill (a VERY small token, 1 gold). He would have to be
the worst scout on the planet not to land on this golden site just
to his west.

1990 BC (4) - To the Far East (appropriately) we run across an elite
green warrior, from a country called "Japan". We introduce ourselves
He is annoyed, and points out he is skilled in the arts of war. As
it would take him 500 years just to reach us with warriors, Charis
was not overly scared. Oh my, not only did he not need any tech from
us, but he had Alphabet and the Wheel as well. Hmmm... a worker was
available as well?? He would not part with knowledge, but would actually
sell us a worker! I took him not as a slave, but as a disciple, and
'donated' 27 gold (less than the 30 Tokogawa wanted). They too have
four cities. An extra worker that costs no upkeep this early, nice.
Our industrious bonus vs a 'slow' foreign worker - together this came
out as a non-industrious normal worker (6 turns for a hill road, 12 to
mine, vs 3 and 6 for our regular industrious worker). Acolyte Toshi was
sent to connect Boston to Washington and bring in the holy wine!!

1950 BC (5), 1910 BC (6) - More scouting

1870 BC (7) - Settler and Warrior seen heading due south from Rome.
New York finishes settler and starts warrior, and we discover the
secrets of Iron. The man of the cloth starts Polytheism and notes
a very early Monarchy could be started. Iron is seen to on the
hill one square from white dot near Washington, in the mountains
far east of Rome, and is not seen ANYWHERE else over the visible
map. Fairly scarce I would say, making it a high priority grab.
(If Rome does NOT see their supply they will come after us)

Where to send the settler FIRST? He'll be the only one for a while,
given that all our cities are again size 1. If I look at Rome's area,
that settler of his is heading for the river/sea/whale spot, and his
next area would be the cattle, then perhaps the river to the south.
After that, if he's searched, the sea spot or the wheat would be
prime choices for him. 'Our' iron spot is invisible and too far.
So until we actually need to build something with iron, it can
wait til we 'take our boundaries'. As for heading North or South,
Rome has no choice and will have to come South. India might, for
some reason, go east, and we may have more time. Plus if they get more
jungle while we secure top dog spot in our northern pennisula and
end up hemmed in by India and take out Rome, we're in good shape too.
So first focus will be to the North. Let's go outside-in and hope
Rome follows a more normal "spread from center" approach. The settler
is sent for green dot on the sea. (With its wheat it can provide the
settler for the white dot to its North). "Sealing" with yellow is nice
in theory, but Rome will feel free to walk right on through our
territory (correct me if I'm wrong) and we're not going to get
pushy and say "get out!". The deacon is confident with a strong
Washington that if we don't trade away Masonry we'll get those
Pyramids.

1830 BC (8) - The Deacon is starting to think that Boston should
slip in a Barracks to act as troop provider, while New York
needs a temple to expand boundaries and get that extra wheat square.
He's also worried about disease in Philly someday.

1790 (9), 1750 BC (10) - Simple moves. Philly finishes warrior and
starts a worker. (Why not take advantage of being industrious?)
New York warrior heads to Washington to stave off some unrest when it
hits size 4.

1725 BC (11) - While they're free and towns are quiet, warriors head
to peek west at the fog zones along our coast there.
1700 BC (12) - The iron spot on the hill has TWO fish at knight's
moves from it, nice! (This is the hill next to the grey dot, and
it's not landlocked afterall, but a great spot!)
1675 BC (13) - Nothing but jungle and plain coast west of Philly.
1650 BC (14) - Roman archer shows up nearby, but alone. He's exploring.
Deacon meets up with Joan of Arc, and is nearly smitten with the
Saint. His immediate impulse is to woo her with Iron Working for
her Alphabet and Wheel, and she has met the English and the Greeks.
Joan is to the East of the Indians, quite a long distance away and
through jungle and mountains. Pretty cruddy land for these folks!
She would give us either of her techs merely for contact with the
Romans. But hey, we're the only ones the Romans have met or will
meet in a while. Why help them out?! And so, Deacon's counselors
persuade him it's best to let her muddle along and learn what she
needs to on her own. "Never mind."
1625 BC (15) - Ah, a goody hut seen to the west of Washington, so close.
After turn, Joan offers Alphabet for Iron Working. I give her 1 gold
instead, to be polite.
1600 BC (16) - Atlanta is founded at Green Dot. 50 Gold from that goodie
hut (decent, although I would have preferred tech).
1575 BC (17) - Cities near growth, wonder if they'll stay happy.
1550 BC (18) - French and Japanese start the Pyramids, but we're way ahead.
Our scouts note Paris has spices out the wazoo right at Paris.
Considered whipping the temple in New York, but production rate is
actually pretty decent. (Same for Barracks in Boston, it's doing fine)
1525 BC (19) - Move scouts.
1500 BC (20) - Washington expands culture boundary. Philly worker pops
out, ready to work. Starts on road for Silks and connecting to Washington.
Other workers have ignored this key task to mine production in DC.

Consider in DC shifting a worker from the irrigated area to the gold
hills. That would set growth to zero, but we're at max til the silks
arrive. That would shave 3 turns off pyramids too.
The worker next to Philly was planning to start a road and the worker
in the hills of wine was about to mine.
Philadelphia just started the settler, switch if needed.
Note none of the visible capitols of other countries are on the coast.
Gambit Colossus in Atlanta?

Trade? You can get the Wheel from France for 37+1/turn, or the Alphabet
for 32+1/turn.

Suggestions: (Take as my 2 cents) Do *NOT* trade anyone contact with the
Romans. Let them languish in anonymity. Neither give in to any
demands from anyone at this stage. I would stick with the no-tech trades
to Rome either.

Good luck, (Carbon unless Sirian inserts someone in the order)
Charis

Consider in DC shifting a worker from the irrigated area to the gold hills. That would set growth to zero, but we're at max til the silks arrive.

Click to expand...

Max? MAX??? Run luxuries and keep growing! 10% will probably only affect Washington anyway, AND the gold from the extra square will pay for it, since we're on a river. Keep growing... and growing and growing. I'd like to see Washington roaring along at size 12 asap, no matter how much luxury has to be run (gold is plentiful and cheap on large maps), and we want to run some luxuries anyway as we go to improve our average score.

As for purple dot, in that forest square, it's definitely on the river. Right click it and observe "1 gold". That's how to tell. Is the only reason you opted not to head down there, that you thought it wasn't on the river? Or would have you sent north anyway?

Yellow dot where it is, vs where you suggest, it would give up two plains (one currently a forest), a hill, and two jungle (future grassland) for the hills with the gold and four sea squares. I really think where I suggested is stronger. Gold is desirable but not worth quite that much, even though it was a painful decision to abandon it. Plus, where you suggest would give it fewer soon-available good food and shield squares.

Green dot up north on the coast, with only one wheat in range, is going to be on one food after reaching size 2 unless a temple is rushed. It's a good grab, but not likely to provide a settler any time soon unless you supply irrigation in a hurry. Everything else sounds good, including the tech stinginess.

AI civs will not just walk through your borders indiscriminately. They will not tend to do so unless they disrespect you as being too weak, or have already "seen" map area beyond, or if they are intent on reaching a barbarian camp. I've held to a tenuous cross-continental situation like that before and not had AI's crossing through. It can be tense, as they may grow restless and demand contact, or if your seal is imperfect. Most often, AI's explore so much (especially expansionist ones) that they slip something past you before you realize it. If the Romans have now marched an archer past us to the south, it's already too late, and don't worry about it.

And yes, they might attack us. We're past the early "cushion" when you can safely run no military. It would be a good idea, if possible, to send a troop with each settler or get one there soon.

I'm glad to hear we're in the lead with the Pyramids. French were the only other civ to start with Masonry, and if they just started, then we should be in good shape if we keep growing Washington.


Carbon: I disagree with Charis's assessment of the urgency of establishing borders with the Romans for one reason: corruption. I plotted out about as far as we could go before the corruption starts to eat in, unless we build the FP up there, and all the lands beyond what I marked are pretty arid. Crowding the Romans may not be the best plan, although we might want to use a scout or two to obstruct them from reaching the best sites for them to build, to mess up their layouts.

The south is going to be the same way with corruption, as the good lands beyond the jungle are also beyond range of the Palace in Washington to control well. A good FP placement down there can double our productive lands eventually, while up north we'd not get as much benefit unless we made a point of trying to wipe out the Romans. If we're going to put the FP at purple dot without needing a leader, we have to get started soon on founding the city, getting a temple and courthouse going before despotism ends, AND still defend the place and secure more cities in the area. The FP coming online will add hundreds of trade and dozens of shields PER turn to everything in the area, so speed really matters.


Time's running late, I'll sort out roster tomorrow.

- Sirian

I'm thrilled at the 'little things' I'm picking up here. I find myself micromanaging and optimizing when my 'errors' are so much bigger or easier to see. Hadn't even thought of looking for '1 gold' to signify river. I right clicked the tile to inspect it and so
no river at all on the border, and thought it not river. Cool! :crazyeyes: (A gaff on the 'max' too, had it come to it,
raising the luxuries is obvious)

I tend too focus TOO much on the special squares vs "give up two plains after you deforest vs sea squares. Good tip.

I didn't think I could seal up border vs scouts, and yes, I'm pretty sure an archer got down. I must be considered 'weak' in other games, cuz they sure like to tromp all over my land (and I do the same to theirs ;p)

The river-ness of purple wasn't the main reason I didn't grab it. I thought two of the nicer ones up North would be at high risk if not founded early, while I don't see Gandhi as saying "I want to expand up to that useless jungle!!" He's just too far south, imho, to be the main threat. Plus if we gain the south and lose the north border, the Romans are a stone's throw from our capitol, which is not true in reverse. Both going N and S have merit, only time will tell I think. Getting ONE settler down there to purple dot is probably a good idea though in any case.

Thanks for the good input,
Charis

Well, far be it for me to look gift volunteers in the horse. They were in scarce supply last week. So here's our roster for starters.

Sirian
Charis
Carbon Copy
Toasty
Schnarrd

Carbon will take 20 turns, then we'll settle in to the 10 turn rotation from there forward. I really like 10 turns, because with any more, huge chunks of the game go by before you get another turn, and I feel a little disconnected from the game that way, like things just look SO different when it comes back to me, and you only get a few total turns. With 10 turns, there is more frequent interaction and less dependent on what any one player decides to do.

The roster here is now closed. Good luck, Carbon, and good luck to this team. We have a lot of building ahead of us.


- Sirian

This is gonna be a tough one to decide how to play. But that's what they pay me the big bucks for, right?

I have yet to start my turn, but I've looked at our world map and I agree with Charis that a higher priority should be placed on containing the Romans to the north than spreading to the south. Settling the yellow dot, the white dot, and the inland green dot should be enough to keep the Romans' growth severely stunted. The area to our south with the purple and blue dots, unless we're REALLY slow off the blocks and India is highly motivated, will be ours anyhow, but that won't necessarily be true of the white and green dots to the north. Sure they'll all be corrupt, but they'll all be ours. If nothing else, we could use them for worker production, especially white dot, that one has a ton of food available (which doesn't get affected by corruption), and the limiting factor in worker/settler production over the long term is almost always the city's growth rate, not the shield output.

I agree with Charis, in that it would be a good idea to send 1 settler down to purple dot quickly to get the FP city going early enough that it will be able to build/whip the stuff it needs to prior to starting the FP. If the rest of the south can be safely ignored for the moment because India's not likely going to expand that way, then it's reasonable to consider doing so until you're satisfied with the situation in the north, but you probably ought to at least plant a stake in the mud down there. It will also help give you advance notice if India does start doing the unexpected and expand in your direction.

Of course I'm not playing in this one so feel free to disregard...

Thanks for adding me to the roster, Sirian. I look forward to playing my turns!

I also agree with Carbon Copy. The Romans can be a formidable ancient to early middle age foe if allowed to spread indiscriminantly. Although the emphasis in this game is on building and I would prefer that we not risk early combat, I think we can essentially take the Romans out of the game if we move to contain them quickly.

Glanced at the latest save. Looks good so far. I think we're going to get the Pyramids, which IMHO is the best of the ancient wonders and plays along nicely with the building theme.

In the year 1500 B.C. there was suddenly a vacuum of power in the fledgling American state. The nation found itself in desperate need of great leadership, but the only two who answered the call of duty were the tacky and unrefined Carbon "C." Lincoln, and the charismatic advocate of temperance and "free silver", the perennial loser William Jennings Bryan. And thus it was that "C.", as he was informally called, took the helm of state in the most lopsided contest for power seen to date in American history, and these are his exploits...

Here's the particulars of my turn. It a classic case of good news/bad news.


1500
-Caesar wants our Ceremonial Burial for his Alphabet. I decline.
-Boston finishes barracks, starts working on spearmen

1475
-The Olmec tribe teaches us Alphabet :crazyeyes (this is a recurring theme. every time I almost trade for tech, some goody hut gives it to us on the next turn)

1400
-We get our first glimpse of actual Japanese towns. They're almost up to France's eastern border along the southern coast

1375
-New York finishes temple, starts on settler

1350
-Boston finishes spear, starts another.
-road from Philly to the silk is complete, still need to connect it to the rest of the country, though.
-Adjusting sci/lux rate to account for Washington growing and limiting wasted beakers

1325
-Both scouts encounter goody huts that they can grab on their next turn. The suspense is killing me.
-Polytheism discovered. Since Poly is pointless by itself, the next tech I queue up is Monarchy. Even if we don't switch to it till after Code of Laws (if we don't just wait for Republic), we appear to be the first to try it so we can probably get the Hanging Gardens all to ourselves.

1300
-Drop sci to 10% as there's no way to get this tech in less than 40 turns without losing a lot of money per turn.
-The goody huts yield a conscript warrior by Japan, and up north the Inuits give us the wheel. I check our territory for horses, there is not a horse to be found within any region that we could possibly colonize, however, all other civs on our map have a horse.

1275
-A warrior that I thought was Japanese turned out to be Greek and we made contact with Greece. He offers Writing for Iron working, which I deny, but I do pay 20 bucks to contact the English. Elizabeth also wants iron working for writing, so i just give her a dollar to shut her up.

1250
-The Inuit tribe comes to our rescue, teaching us writing :crazyeyes. HA!

1225
-The Inuit aren't through with us yet, they give us Mapmaking as a parting gift. So that's five new techs discovered on my turn.

1200-1175
-On one of these turns, a settler is produced in New York, and is sent southward, to either the blue or the purple dot.

1150
-Japanese start the Oracle
-the northern scout makes contact with the Russians. Damn, they're a backwards people. Nothing worth trading on them. Have no clue where they're living, though.
-Establish embassies with the English (so I can figure out where they live, they're to the east of Greece, wich is in turn to the east of Japan, which is east of France, which is east of India, which is to the south of us, just to be different) and also with India. Only had enough cash for two, and those two were the cheapest besides Rome.

1125
-Japan DEMANDS contact with the Russians. I tell Tokugawa to stuff it, if he wants to march 500 turns over to our place he is welcome to do that. Turns out he was just kidding, after all.

1100
-Rome is starting to pick up the settling speed, and if you're paying attention to this you should have realized that we've yet to found a town on my turn. Rome is up to 9 towns now, and their next settler is likely going to land on or near the white dot. I have spearmen staked out on the Green Dot and on the hill near the red dot on the coast, waiting for settlers to be produced. The white dot might end up in Roman hands unless Atlanta can be persuaded to grow more quickly (it's sitting on all the shields necessary to build a settler but is still 7 turns off of size 3 by the end of my turn).

-I grow suspicious of India's recent expansion and I trade 20g for their territory map. Holy crap, they're almost settled up to the purple dot! I have the settler bypass blue dot (to be settled by a trailing settler from NY or Philly) to grab the purple dot, but we are two or three turns short of founding it there (one or two of movement, then another to settle).

1050
-Get my hopes up with a goody hut, only to find it deserted.

1125
-Unit movement (there's a settler from NY headed to the northern green dot, and a settler from philly to settle on the blue dot in the south)

1000
-More movement. We are going to get the Pyramids no sweat. Monarchy is still something like 30 turns away from discovery.

Summary:

-We acheived 5 techs, 4 from goody huts, one from actual research on our part

-We made contact with the Greeks, the English, and the Russians

-We're starting to be out-settled. I don't know what we could have done differently on my turn to prevent this. Boston, with the only barracks in our empire, was churning out vet spears to stake out dots while both NY and Philly did nothing but settler production on my turn after their buildings were done.
Romans settling on White dot is a very real possibility. If that happens, the settler should move to either the red dot on our east coast to seal our borders with Rome or to the Gray dot to get our Iron on line. After the red dot is settled, our expansion efforts should be concentrated downward to meet the Indians. the Purple dot settler is almost to the site, blue dot is on its way, and the northern green dot settler is currently goto'd to reach the correct spot. I think Sirian gave us too many opponents for a large map to do *endless* expansion, it would have worked for a huge map, but I think we're one or two civs too many for a pure settlement game.

-We're about the only civ in the game that doesn't have any horses, nor any chance for horses in the forseeable future unless we conquer another civ.

-We're the most technologically advanced civ, thanks to the huts.

Wow, Carbon will be known as the "Great Scientist", we're in great shape on tech. I got scared by the lack of founding and your description, but after looking at the map I would say we're really in good shape.

- We'll beat Rome to White and one other dot at the border
easily. All his cities are puny, new size 1, and with no great foodstocks. We'll have our key spots settled long before they can crank out another settler, and Rome is too far. Too see if they have one coming from Rome, get that scout up on the mountain asap!

- India is by NO means "almost up to the purple dot". He's no further north from his capitol than we are south (ok, a little bit more) If you split the distance from Washington to Delhi, we can settle there and fill in and do just fine in the South.

- Seal the Rome border before bringing iron online would be my thought

- There seem to be a good amount of Spearmen around, get at LEAST one settler for the north out of boston before resuming with vets

- Good job not caving in to Tokogawa. (Now if he were the rbd2 Toko, we would be doomed ;p)

- Rome is SO isolated and our tech so strong, that if we dont sell contact with Romans, he'll be doomed for early obsolescence ;p

- Once the south is settled and both borders sealed, our only major disaster would be for both India AND Rome to go to war at same time. We could not sustain two fronts (heck, one will take all we got) It will be very nice indeed if this does stay a builder game for a while, we've got a ton of work to do including jungle clearing.

Well done, and good luck to Toasty, who's up next.
Charis

The big worry I have is that Rome has access to both Iron and Horses (which equals knights if/when they make it to chivalry), and the iron just by itself means that we'll have Legionaries on our hands before too long. We don't even have so much as a pack mule to ride in America, so if we do get into any conflicts with the Romans, it will be our swordsmen versus their legionaries without any fast-moving units on our side (this is sounding kinda like the Infantry game). Maybe if we're lucky the Indians will have a spare horse in their lands and we can buy it off them for a lux or something once we connect roads.

Also, note that once they get mapmaking they're going to start sending settlers to the as-yet unclaimed lands to the East (in which case they're going to build a bunch of corrupt dirt-eating villages, but will also inevitably find the other civs and trade up to tech parity without us)...unless we launch our own flotilla to block them out of shore squares. And we don't even have a city on the shore yet. Oh well, I may not have founded a city, but Toasty is going to found at least three on his turn. Just be sure to put the cities on the dots.

The good news is that there might not be too many civs for too much longer. Out east, it's almost inevitable that someone along that east-west chain of civs on the southern coast (India, France, Japan, Greece, England) is going to get cut off by the surrounding civs. This is a wildcard factor, it may turn out that the East becomes a hopelessly Balkanized region of tiny civs for centuries, or the biggest civ in the neighborhood could just wipe out all the other ones. In the meantime, though, whoever comes out top dog in the less-crowded West (should be us) could become the dominant world power.

I'm going to be gone until around 2:00 AM tomorrow (actually day after tomorrow), so if Toasty uploads his game tomorrow, I'll have to be skipped. Can I be slipped in after Sirian instead?

It's been almost 24 hours since last save posted and no word from Toasty yet. If you still have time, Schnarrd, (and Toasty doesn't post first, to say he's got it) go ahead and take your turn next.

- Sirian

I'd be happy to join in someones place, but i'm not that good yet so you might not be interested, but hey, can't blame you. I followed in the wake of a great many Lurkers, mostly Sirian, his webpage helps

So if someone turns up missing, and you'd like to give me a chance, i'll be more than happy to take it.

Toasty, almost 48 hours have passed since the last save was posted. The sands of the hourglass are slipping away.