rbd23 - c

This is the thread where RBD-c will post and play their game. Members from the other teams should not read or post in this thread. It is considered cheating, and is frowned upon. When the game is finished, the team "captain" (merely the vet rbder in the thread) will post "finished" in the original rbd 23 thread. When all teams have posted finished, we can compare score/weed and other such goodies .

Remember, this is a fun game, and should be treated as such. The victors are the team that gets the highest score, but the winners are the people who have fun playing .

Please confirm that you are still able to play.

Team-c roster

Zed-f (captain)
grey fox
arathorn
charliehoke
lovro

These are the starting conditions:

Small world
Raging Barbarians
80% water archapelago
arid
cool
3 billion years

Japanese civ
Opponents:
Germany, Persia, Aztecs, Zulus and one random opponent

Difficulty: Monarch
All victory conditions allowed

teams can choose their own order, but do so reasonably quickly.

I'm still in. Order irrelevant to me.

Arathorn

Ready.

I'm in. How about the following order:

Arathorn
Lovro
Grey Fox
Zed
Charliehoke

Recall turn duration:
- 24/48 rule
- first player plays 20, second 15, then 10 turns each after that


Grey Fox, in reference to your question about worker-poprushing, IMO we should not even consider the worker-poprush or any other exploits. Recall smegged's instructions:

- No ROP rapings. ROP rape includes sending masses of explorers into their territory and pillaging. (Ed. note: doing this at wartime is fine, just not moving explorers in under the cover of an ROP)
- No automated workers
- No long gotos
- No whipping loophole abuse
- No looking at the other teams game
- There is an exploit that allows armies to be upgraded. It is NOT to be used.
- There is a savegame hack that allows you to view the whole map, and change the AI's buildings. This is NOT to be used.
- Don't read or post in the other teams' threads.

The intention is that we play the game clean. If there is any doubt, DON'T DO IT! Or at least post here and ask before you do.

I'm here and ready to go!

Strategy:

Any thoughts? I'd be inclined to go for an early warmonger finish, rather than trying to max cities/population and postpone victory until 2050. All our known opponents are pretty aggressive, so we can expect a lot of wars; additionally, it seems to fit the small map and our chosen civ. I also don't particularily care for the idea of delaying the end of the game just to artificially inflate our score. Besides which, on a small map with 80% water there won't be a lot of room for pumping out a ton of cities.

My guess as to what we want to do during the ancient era:
- try to get an early FP site marked out and secured if possible; IIRC our optimal civ size is 8/16 cities on a small map
- concentrate on infrastructure/expansion and head for mapmaking, followed by literature
- explore the world 1st and broker maps/contact to the rest of the world (remember, a civ without contact is easy pickings!)

Our priority wonders (in order of importance, not necessarily when we try to get them) in the Ancient Era are probably Lighthouse, followed by Great Library and Pyramids. This is Monarch, so we can do our own research if we want to, but it's still cheaper to get it from the AI if we have contact with everyone, or free if we get the Great Library, and we can use that money for rushing improvements in our core and military/upgrades/barracks/temples at our edges.

We probably want to avoid pop-rushing in our core. We're religious, so we get cheap temples anyway, and there's nothing else we really will want to whip that we won't be able to build quickly or purchase by the time it becomes available (except maybe courthouses.) If we get the Great Library we probably don't even need to build libraries -- they don't help much unless you want to do your own research or want good relations with the AI civs.

We do have the option to forego the GL, do our own research, and try to get the jump on everyone else to Chivalry. We lose out on a lot of cash that way, but we might be able to get a tech lead out of it. My gut feel is this would slow down our win overall, but others might have differing opinions...

Originally posted by Zed-F
I'd be inclined to go for an early warmonger finish, rather than trying to max cities/population and postpone victory until 2050.

Click to expand...

That makes (at least) two of us.

UGH!!!! NO THANK YOU!

Fast militaristic? I'm all for that.

Of course, we do have 80% water archipelago to slow us down. Still, hordes of samurai on galleys/caravels should do the trick.

I would put Lighthouse as NUMBER one priority myself, as we'll need to cross seas as soon as possible to find (and ultimately defeat) our enemies -- unless of course, we're all packed like sardines on one island.

I would put Pyramids as of lesser importance. On island maps, those big continent-wide affecters aren't nearly as critical. Depends on the size of our island, of course, which I hope we find out post-haste.

Me first, huh? OK, I should be able to do that. I've downloaded. I think I can play tonight but it might be tomorrow. Will save me the trouble of trying to figure out (or follow) a dot map. Thanks!

Initial city thoughts? Unless there's a river near-by (I'll check), I think I'd vote for where we are -- as an isthmus city to let ships pass from one sea to another. Silks give +3 commerce, too, which could be an early boon. One north looks like it would give us hills, but that's about the only other option..... IMO, at least.

Arathorn

As far as I can see, the hills are within reach as is.

I'd agree that we should put it down right where we sit. Having that canal might be important!

Heh, if you look carefully at my post, Arathorn, that's exactly what I suggested.

I don't recall if Pyramids are civ-wide or just continent-wide. If the latter, then it's definately third in importance behind (1) Lighthouse and (2) Great Library.

One square due north is still a canal city; if it gets us better lands than the mountain & desert we might want to go for that. Of course there could be flood plains down in the desert... if so we can found another city down there. We will have a lot of coast here cutting down on the number of shield-producing tiles we have available; we want to make sure we have as close to 12 good tiles to work as possible.
Hopefully there's fresh water around here *somewhere*...

Well, I started us up. Not the prettiest of starts, but I think we'll be OK.

4000 BC - Founded Kyoto where we started. The goodie hut popped giving us a map of the region -- how ... sub-optimal. Research goal is pottery at 90% (we need it for map-making. With a small map, it's often worth spending the gold early. With our extra trade arrows from settling on the spices, I felt it was worth it). A warrior (explorer) is ordered to be found from the people.

3750 - A mere 250 years pass an a lone warrior is found who is willing to leave Kyoto. Goodness but we are a wimpy people. Another warrior is ordered. The first is ordered to explore the lands to the north, as it looks more promising than the mountains to the south.

3600 - A German archer appears near our cultural borders. His leader, an arrogant man named Bismarck, will give 10 gold for either of our techs and will not sell his at any price. We not-so-politely decline. In other news, Germany already has two cities, which means he got a goodie hut (or smegged snuck in a deity start under the title of Monarch by starting a scenario or something. If so, we're pretty SOL, IMO. The archer so early, the two cities, the exhorbitant trade prices all make me suspicious. On third thought, though, I seem to recall we were second (tied) in land area, which means Bismarck just got lucky. One more city for us to capture, I guess). Anyway, Kyoto is undefended, but a warrior will be created before the archer can close.

3550 - Second warrior completed in Kyoto. He will be sent to protect our worker from the archer/protect Kyoto from the archer, whichever is the greatest threat at that particular moment.

3500 - We have a weak military compared to Germany -- more suspicions. The German archer is on OUR wheat square, but I daren't order him off. The worker goes to our other shield grassland square, extremely disgruntled. We still work the wheat for the extra food, though. A settler is our next priority.

3450- Pottery completes. We begin alphabet, which is pretty expensive. Germany completes The Wheel at about the same time. Still no good trades. Germany has one horse source. We've found zero so far.

3300 - Northern warrior finds the northern border of our island. Three cities north of our capital, probably. Sigh. And Germans to the south.

3100 - Settler completes in Kyoto. Sent north to found a city. I ordered a barracks, but with little purpose really in mind. Next leader, please feel VERY free to veto.

3000 - I retire, with only one city. The settler should probably move one north (as I recall) and then settle (see next post for tentative dot map).

Our random opponent, BTW, is Russia.

Arathorn

Well, it's not very good. And I'm FAR from certain it's really what I want, but here it is nonetheless.

The picture is a bit old, from about 3150/3100 BC and not 3000 BC. It just shows the northern part of our island. We have a bit of a view of the south, too. Desert, mountains, and a German border. I forgot to mention that the German archer eventually moved south and I followed to explore.

My thought is to settle blue immediately with the current settler and then purplish pink second and then white, provided nothing in the south looks better.

Extremely early war with Germany? It's an option. Keep the two cities and crank out a slew of units? We have NO horses, so it'd be warriors (archers if we can get warrior code from Bizzy), which isn't pleasant but can be done.

And NO fresh water to be found (yet) either.

Edit:Trying to eliminate some of the white border on the picture...we'll see if I can do it successfully.

Arathorn

Got it.

I don't intend to go to war with Germany just yet. There should be some iron in all those mountains south of (heaven) Kyoto. If we run into someone with knowledge of Iron Working, it might be just what we need.

Well, another slow 10 turns. I stopped so we can consult each other and leave Grey Fox something to work with.

(1) 2950: Miscellaneous movement
(2) 2900: Osaka founded, people gather to build a warrior. Our south warrior climbs a mountain and sees a bunch of dots moving quickly across the canal. He invents the spyglass and recognizes horses Osakan warrior ordered to go north and protect mighty Japan from potential barbarians. Alphabet in 14 turns.
(3) 2850: Miscellaneous movement. Germany has two cities.
(4) 2800: Miscellaneous movement (MM from now on). Kyoto grows, Alphabet in 8 turns.
(5) 2750: German Archer/Settler pair spotted approaching the desert south of Kyoto.
(6) 2710: MM.
(7) 2670: Osaka builds warrior, settler ordered. Germans found Hamburg.
(8) 2630: Germans still refuse to sell any of their secrets. Barracks completed in Kyoto, warrior ordered.
(9) 2590: Our treasury is running dangerously low!
(10) 2550: Our south warrior is unable to explore further without tresspassing, so I order him to retreat. Alphabet in 3 turns. Worker sent out to gather silks from a nearby forest.

And the game:

A few words...

Kyoto will complete a warrior (feel free to switch) and grow next turn.

The island to the west seems continuous. We really should grab it as soon as we discover mapmaking (which is a long 24 + more turns away).

Here is a screenshot of the south.

I'm gonna email him. He's been dropping out from some of his other games. My best guess is that he will want to be dropped from this one as well -- especially since he might not realize he's in it, as we've gotten no verification from him.

I'm fine playing with 4. Smegged/Zed-F want to comment on this?

Arathorn

If he drops, he drops; we'll continue. I don't see any reason not to, drops could occur in other games too, and it's not like there's a minimum number of players required for a SG.

I'd like confirmation that he's dropping the game before I start my turn, however. Else I'll wait till his time elapses.