Armed Zealots

[vadalaz]

Hi, it's yet another instalment in the current series of Deity SGs. This time we'll play as Byzantium, go Piety at some point and spread our religion, by force if necessary (and it will be necessary).

Provisional roster:

@raider980
@Nizef
@beetle
@Grendeldef
@vadalaz

Turn order is up for discussion, only thing to note here is that I'll have 20-30 turns of map knowledge so I should go last or second to last.

***
So far I've been rolling maps with these settings:

Deity / Large size / Standard speed / Continents / Arid / Low seas / Abundant resources

- Abundant setting reduces the # of unique luxuries but has more copies of each, so lux-related pantheons get stronger. It also spawns more bonus tiles and strategic resources
- Arid to reduce the amount of jungle
- Low seas for more space to expand and more oddly-shaped continents

I have a couple of maps ready. If these settings are fine with everyone, I'll roll another one and post screenshots here to hold a vote on which map to play.

***
Ruleset of the last game:

• No Bees: No bribing AIs into war. No bulbing GMu and GS. No restrictions on other Great People.
  
• No one-way Open Border deals.
  
• No negotiating peace: Peace deals must be accepted as-is.
• No early working stealing: Can DoW AI for worker only after 1st expo planted. No DoWing CS just to steal worker(s).
• No abusing gpt trades: Accept the default offer for resources (typically 1 gpt per resource).
  
• Cap on net total gpt from AIs at 10 gpt per era.
• No internal food trade routes to cities with higher population

I liked this and the only adjustment I'd propose is to allow DoWing AIs early for worker steals, but ban making peace until our first expo is planted, so that the AI actually has something it can demand for peace. This way we avoid the white peace bug, but still have some early game freedom to harass AIs.

 

[Grendeldef]

I wholeheartedly support early Worker recruiting with some self-set sanctions/limitations. As much as an early Worker(s) is guaranteeing a VC without additional rules I get seriously bored by T30 if I don't have any or even a legit chance to get one/few.
I'd also be fine for DoWing a CS for a Worker but limiting the peace negotiating to part of larger peace deal with a major civ. The other exit strategy out of war would be capping the CS.

With Theo there're always two possible paths the game can go. a) RP game with religion focus or b) a more conventional game with a cruise control religion if it somehow by accident happens and since we're going religion hunting with this one I feel the handicapping part of our game should rather be post than pre-religion ie let's start with minimal limitations but throttle game from CS onwards or something to that effect. Depends a lot of available dirt, obviously.

 

[beetle]

Looks very good to me!

As far as the ruleset goes, we ended up softening the “no negotiating peace” one. Our modified rule was more like “No abusing White Peace bug”. Player may not delete cities, etc. from their side of an AI peace offer. Player may delete from the list of what an AI is offering for peace, but may not add to it. (Not very pithy.)

I agree with the adjustment to the early-AI-worker-steal rule.

My objections to CS worker stealing are twofold:

1. It is cheesy. Almost every map, it is just so very easy. Low skill, high reward, near-zero risk.
2. In some games, being able to DOW a CS later in the game (say, if they have a 2nd city which can be liberated) is amusing. It is also an opportunity that does not happy often, so I hate to rule out the possibility.

I'd also be fine for DoWing a CS for a Worker but limiting the peace negotiating to part of larger peace deal with a major civ. The other exit strategy out of war would be capping the CS.

Those are both okay with me. I am also okay with DOWing an AI because they are allied with a CS that you can steal workers from.

 

[Grendeldef]

Yup, I agree that stealing Workers is cheesy & way too easy and there should be limits with that but what I really, really don't want is preventing Worker stealing from both major civs & CSs in this case. It probably isn't gonna prevent us winning to any meaningful degree but it may seriously handicap the RP part with religion. The latter part may be unknown until the last religion goes but give me Uluru visible at T0 but no OwN allowed and I'll give away my rights to steal Workers or something similar.
I don't mind playing Theo, not getting religion & not stealing Workers but that would defeat the purpose of this particular game and rerolling @60 is likely going to hurt more than playing solo. On the other hand I'm likely to go last or 2nd to last so this may not affect me at all hence I'm still pretty much open to any rules regarding Workers.

 

[raider980]

I'm ok with any rules. Large map with low seas; land lots of land. I didn't know low seas tended to generate more irregular shaped landmasses, I'll have to try that. That's one reason I like Fractal, the interesting land shapes.

As for turn order, vadalaz is going last or second to last or last; @Grendeldef are you saying you want to go last or second to last? @beetle and @Nizef have you gotten a chance to go first (assuming you want to)? I kind of like going first if no one else wants to claim it.

 

[Grendeldef]

I didn't know low seas tended to generate more irregular shaped landmasses, I'll have to try that. That's one reason I like Fractal, the interesting land shapes.

That's the reason I don't have razor blades in the house I can't stand the thin snake-like land-wannabe-masses which are way too common with low sea level which I most often use to increase the # of land tiles, not to reduce land.

As for turn order, vadalaz is going last or second to last or last; @Grendeldef are you saying you want to go last or second to last? @beetle and @Nizef have you gotten a chance to go first (assuming you want to)? I kind of like going first if no one else wants to claim it.

I don't have a preference but as a late entry being last seemed natural though if Vada cooks the map & therefore goes later/last I assumed I'd be 4th/5th. I do, however, prefer changing the order so everyone can eventually have a stint after and before everyone else. This seems a good way to go in the nature of these games. Neither of these is a gamebreaker by any strecth of imagination so you do you. I don't know if there's any difference on adaptation to playstyles after just 10 turn stints but I'd like to find out and experience it if there's.

 

[beetle]

If we were a Bridge club, we would do the work to figure out partner rotation. I am not sure I think it matters so much for these succession games! After the first one, I proposed that we switch up the order because @raider980 drew the short straw (following me), but he didn't have a problem, and nor did anyone else.

I would therefore ask that we keep players in the same relative order as with the Hot Seat game the few of have going. So that order would be @Nizef then @raider980 then @beetle then @vadalaz. @Grendeldef can slot in anywhere.

I got to go first in the Rome game. So I think it’s either @Nizef for @Grendeldef turn for that honor.

I will also note that I have gotten to go last in two of our three games. You people are slacking.

If we don’t catch a religion (as Byzantium) then I think we should restart.

@Grendeldef — stealing workers from AI is quite okay. It is the AIs tendency to allow White Peace that we agreed was an exploit to avoid. Early AI worker stealing, before you have an expo, is a variation on that. (You don’t have a city, so the AI cannot demand a city for peace.) But it is not actually the early AI worker stealing which is an exploit, it is the ability to easily make peace (after catching 2/3/4 workers) without also having an army.

 

[Grendeldef]

I would therefore ask that we keep players in the same relative order as with the Hot Seat game the few of have going. So that order would be @Nizef then @raider980 then @beetle then @vadalaz. @Grendeldef can slot in anywhere.

You just pretty much resolved this. You (plural) do you and I'll stay 5th in all games or I can start one after others have done so. I'll get to play after everyone eventually and the consequences of following me will be distributed equally Not that there's any need to make this the hardest thing in the game after rolling a playable map.

So, will we go for open(ish) Worker hunting season but severely limit the terms of ending the season? I like this general direction.

 

[vadalaz]

So the proposed turn order is: @Nizef, @raider980, @beetle, @vadalaz, @Grendeldef. Everyone OK with that?

Apparently it's really diffiult to roll a wine/incense map that isn't complete garbage, so I only have one of those and two alternatives with other dominant luxuries. Let's call them Wine, Gold and Silver:

Wine:

Spoiler :

Gold:

Spoiler :

Silver:

Spoiler :

I removed ice blocks and added a fish tile for each capital. Please vote for the start that looks best to you.

 

[Nizef]

I vote for the "Gold" option. It simply seems to be the best start.

 

[beetle]

Yes, +1 for Gold. It has Incense, so that is still a buff to Monasteries. And it is the only start of the three with a river.

 

[raider980]

Gold for me too. If there’s one incense hopefully there’s more. The order is ok with me.

 

[Grendeldef]

Mr Negativity reporting for duty. If this is a WYSIWYG situation we aren't gonna get a religion in any of these. Switch the Silver to Pearls and we might be in the game. Other than that I'm fine with any of these.

 

[vadalaz]

Gold it is then!

 

[raider980]

Wait, are you saying there is Wine and Incense on the Wine map? In our capital? If so I vote for that one.

Edit. Oops, cross post. Missed it by that much.

 

[Grendeldef]

I was about to post that I have a potential map but luckily the site notified about an unread post.

I think this is easy to agree SiP.

 

[Nizef]

Lift off!

t0 One of the easiest SIPs in the history of Civ 5. Start on Pottery&Scout.
t1-4 Scouting.
t5 Scout done. Start on another, it is a large map after all.
t6 More scouting.
t7 Spotting 2 ruins.
t8 Ruins: Culture and Pottery. Aargh, why did it have to be Pottery, 2 turns before it would have been researched anyway? After thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that, while being bad 99 times out of 100, this is actually an exception to the rule! We need to get a Shrine as soon as possible and even two turns might count. Second Scout was done and we started on a Shrine.
t9 Open Tradition and more scouting.

 

[raider980]

Hmmm, so gold is our abundant resource. Faith and culture just like wine and incense, nice. Don't see many naturally fantastic expo spots, except inland. I guess we have to go inland to all that gold and sheep first right, not that I'll be settling any cities. But I'll be picking a SP this my set, we go full Piety next?

 

[Grendeldef]

Since we went Tradition, 2nd city riverside where the Scout is, use the Wheat for it to grow faster & build the rest of the Settlers there?

---

Even better, there's another Wheat on 3rd ring of Constantinople workable by the 2nd city. One city somewhere north by the Marble and a couple coastals.


----

But I'll be picking a SP this my set, we go full Piety next?

I don't know what we're really going for here but if & it seems reasonable Religion is step one I'd open Piety next, Organized Religion after that & then back to Oligarchy & Legalism unless others are going Piety in masses and the good Reformations are going fast.
Const 3 pop, 2nd city by the river -> Shrine ->2 pop ->Settlers running 2 Gold tiles until the Prophet pops. If we don't get Religious Idols this (& we) is obviously screwed. For securing a good city spot Consta may have to build 2 Settlers but now there're quite a few variables at play.

 

[beetle]

+1 to opening Piety next. I agree the catching Religion just from Religious Idols is 50/50. Expos with early Shrines will help.