LotR6 - Progressive Paranoia

Difficulty: Deity
Map: All random
Civ: Ottomans
Rules:
Ancient Age -- Any diplo goes, as long as it's not exploitive (e.g. no RoP). Alliances, pointy-stick research, whatever.
Middle Ages -- Each player gets ONE turn during his 10 to wheel and deal with anybody and everybody. During the other 9 turns, he can only accept/reject AI offers, not counter, not change, nothing.
Industrial Age -- Tactless, so no contacting the AI civs at all. No Nationalism slingshot this game....
Modern Age -- Always war rules. Upon entering the Modern Age, we must declare war on everybody and never make peace. (So much for a diplo win! )

Roster:
Gothmog -- up now (20 turns)
Skyfish -- on deck (10 turns)
T-hawk
JMB
Arathorn

Our opening position isn't the best I've ever seen -- I hate dry starts. Founding on a gold hill will give us a nice commerce boost, though.



Save file at http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-4000bc.zip

I actually played 20 turns to 3000 BC, but I forgot to save and lost the auto-saves, so I'm a bit corrupted on knowledge, so I'll go last. Gothmog, will you start us off?

Everybody else, please check in. You've all requested to be in this game at one time or another, so I just made the roster. My standard 24/72 applies.

Arathorn

I'm in.

JMB

BTW, don't you mean "the standard 24/48 applies?"

Nope, my games run under 24/72, because I want feedback that people are playing but allow a little extra time for playing, mainly because I occasionally need it. I find most people still play in well under 24 hours, because they can, but having a longer "to play" time has worked well for me and doesn't stress people as much when they have one day's gaming completely lost....

Glad you're in, JMB!
Arathorn

All right, I'm in and I like the modifications to our tactlessness. We'll start out as David and end up as Shrub.

The start is dry and with no bonus food. In this position I will often build a quick settler out of the capital (after some scouts of course) and try to make my second city the settler factory. Though, with all those BG's we might be able to get to five turn settlers at our capital with a granary and size 4-6 rotation but it would take a while to set up. Opinions?

'Got it'

With forest in range and being industrious, with no food benefits, we can almost assuredly get a granary built before we even reach size 3. That's probably worth it. Then settler. That's my typical forested, industrious start plan anyway.

Second city as settler generator and capital as military might work better, though, for mid-, long-term. Depends on the lay of the land, so I'll be quiet now....

Arathorn

Good point about being industrious and having forests about, with those BG's we don't need to worry about mining for a while either.

This is always a hard decision for me and will depend a bit on what our first ring looks like and how close our neighbors are.

Checking in (thanks for the heads-up, Arathorn).

Even with no food bonuses, I go for the granary first. Spending ten extra food for growths is a killer when you don't have any bonuses. As Arathorn says, the granary can likely be finished before the city even grows to size 3.

BTW, one clarification - on the Middle Ages diplomacy rules, can the player check diplomacy every game turn with the AIs, and jump in when a round of brokering presents itself, or do we get to contact them and look around only once per player turn?

During the Middle Ages, we can do "spying" diplomatic checks every turn, just can't do any deals, except for the one turn. This is still a reasonably powerful position. (So, we could go in and see if we could afford something, for example, on a non-trading turn, as long as we don't pull the trigger. That's all "spying" diplo, in my current opinion.)

[This also opens up a new middle ground, with limited diplo "spying", too, but we're not going there for this game.]

And, yes, we can delay our entry into various tech ages as long as we feel it's necessary. But, once we enter the next age (via whatever methods), we are bound by those rules. That is, if we trade for magnetism to get into the IA, we immediately become tactless, even though the trade started during MA rules.

Arathorn

The potential bonus of building a settler first is that you get your second city up more quickly and so you have two production centers earlier. Then you can start the granary in your capital. If the second site has some bonus food this can lead to faster overall civ growth. This is especially true if you don't have any bonus grasslands around and are forced to wait for mines to be built, and of course Arathorns point about the forests and our industrious nature factors in too.

Count me in of course !
Thanks a lot for counting me in Arathorn.

Apart from myself of course, and give or take Charis, Sirp and Cartouche Bee, it looks like the SG Dream Team again I see

...the "Royal Society for the Protection of the AIs" called me up this morning : they were not happy at all about us...


ps : About the granary, being industrious, I would chop wood and get it first done.

SG Dream Team? I guess, sorta, maybe, but your presense, Skyfish, does nothing to bring down the team. RSPAI is as much after you as any of the rest of us. Glad to have you on board.

Personally, I'm amazed people want to play with me -- this is at least the second time for all of you. Haven't you guys learned anything????

Good luck, Gothmog. Go team!

I don't think I mentioned clearly/explicitly...Gothmog plays 20 first time around, then 10 turns for everybody thereafter, with 5 a possibility if we need for later turns.

Arathorn

Hey, if we're going to be the dream team - can I be Christian Laitener?

My report:

Preturn: no changes

(1) 4000 BC – Found Istanbul on gold hill. See game in our 21. Set research to pottery @ max. Move worker to BG towards game and spot gems.

(2) 3950 BC – road BG, mine wouldn’t help for first warrior anyhow.

(4) 3850 BC – road -> mine.

(5) 3800 BC – (IT) spot american scout. Warrior -> warrior.

(6) 3750 BC – spot coast to our west. The only way to get full value from BW is to package with 3 gpt for pottery+CB, I hold off.

(7) 3700 BC – mine complete, move worker to game to road.

(9) 3600 BC – spot NY borders just to our south, has unhooked furs and water to its SE. BW has now lost some trade value so I pull trigger on BW+1gold for CB.

(IT) warrior -> granary prebuild

(10) 3550 BC – spot two silks to our north.

(11) 3500 BC – move worker for chop. See where washington must be from border expansion.

(12) 3450 BC – see three american workers!

(13) 3400 BC – what are the american workers doing?

(14) 3350 BC – the american workers are moving east with my scouting warrior , I start to worry about barbs.

(IT) american workers apparently on road trip, I spot two barbs (damn american scouts) but pretty distant.

(15) 3300 BC – spot a coast to our SE and an orange border, also a very high food spot with flood plains (one with wheat) and a normal plains w/cow.

(IT) pottery -> IW @ min smoke:? Should I have gone myst @ min or WC @ max?), barbs move away from us.

(16) 3250 BC – here comes a barb hunting stack o’ 4 american warriors (I hope that’s what they are doing), chop reveals another BG! That’s 5 in our 21 -> mine.

(17) 3200 BC – yes, I spot a hut. Contact england, they have Alph+WC just like america.

(IT) the american stack avoids our borders (phew), see two more american warriors coming north. I see one of the american workers east of Istanbul???

(18) 3150 BC – [dance] get WC from hut.

(19) 3100 BC – meet Korea, trade masonry+17 for alphabet (polite). England and Korea seem to be barb hunting too.

(IT) I want some of whatever america is smoking as I see all three american workers East of Istanbul (I just like to say that) and heading north? Far away from NY and Washington.

(20) 3050 BC – that’s all folks. Picture is worth 1000 words so here’s a screenie.

The Save: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/lotr6-3050bc.zip

Oh, the barbs are to the north and north east.

The last time I saw some workers running away from a civ in the early game, they were trying to bring irrigation home from a fresh water source halfway across the world. I haven't looked at this map, but if America's got no fresh water at home, that's what I'd bet on. And if they're trying to do that, their core is going to be woefully underdeveloped and unimproved for a LONG time to come. Long enough for us to attack with many swords, maybe even MDI...

Yeah, now the screenshot loaded (lousy dialup connection) - I'd guess America's looking for irrigation. That river to the south is behind the wall of mountains; looks like the AI's magical map knowledge strikes again, leading them to water.

Oh, and URGENT MICROMANAGEMENT ALERT: according to the picture Istanbul is due to grow this same turn as it completes the granary. DELAY the growth by one turn by reassigning tiles, so that the granary is in place when the city does grow, saving us the half-a-food-box; do the math and that gains the city four turns on growing to size 4 and therefore all future sizes.

Oh, and is that a forest-game square within Istanbul's radius? Clear it! It still gets +3 food even un-irrigated. With the granary, city growth every 4 turns is certainly better than every 5; settlers every 8 turns instead of every 10.

Just my famous Highly Detailed Wrath (tm)

Well the americans did have scouts running all over the place.

The picture is correct, I thought growth the same turn as build got us the half-a-food-box, but I bow to your greater knowlege T-hawk. :worshp:

I hope your right about the workers, I have no better explanation. It would mean we have fresh water nearby!

T-Hawk is referring to the English in Epic24, which he sponsored.

Nearby...

If it's not on the screenie it ain't nearby for me...

Epic 24 indeed, I am sure that's what the workers are doing, we should actually protect them from barbs as they will very conveniently bring water to us as well

Quite a cramped start, pointy stick time

Got it !

Epic 22, that is, which I didn't sponsor And yeah, we have no idea how far they're going to find that water, but it would be cool to let them bring water to us (they're industrious too) and then capture them

Judging by the geography of the land I'm guessing there's a fresh water inlet/lake to our east/northeast in that fog. Otherwise they would be headed to a river way to our north, time will tell.

Go Sky!