Goz-2 The unbelievable dream.

[gozpel]

I posted the guys who might want to play this game, so no new takers right now. Well I leave one spot open for someone daring and comfy at Emperor level.

I'm starting up a new game, it's only fair we take turns, not every game has to be Munchhausen, which is really the Immortal territory.

So I continue my second game on Emperor, with a little twist.

The game will be on a Fractal map on Standard map, much more scouting for us all. I'm thinking of adding another AI, just because of my idea.

We won't look into Religion, except shrines so we can get at least a pantheon. After that we wouldn't care less, because we don't believe in anything but the sword!

Let the AI bring their religions to our cities, while we're sharpening our swords.

Did I spam you guys enough?

 

[gozpel]

Player roster:

gozpel
NotSure - pending
Brichals - pending
Optional - pending
grandad - pending

Edit:Not by any means is this the set order of playing, only that I take the first 10 turns, scrap what I said about taking many turns, we keep at 10 as always.

 

[Optional]

I'm hoping you'll just have me as a lurker. My style of play is too different from the rest of the team, which is becoming more clear with every SG. I'm certainly up for another SG at some stage, with these or other people, but I would enjoy it more if it was 'fresh' again.
It's good to start up a new game straight away though, hopefully it'll attract a few new people as well, as lurker or otherwise.

 

[grandad1982]

I'm interested enough.

Civ ideas? Would be nice to get some early war in as I never do that. Persia? Rome?

I'll wait to see what the take up rate is before I think to hard about anything!

 

[gozpel]

I'm hoping you'll just have me as a lurker. My style of play is too different from the rest of the team, which is becoming more clear with every SG. I'm certainly up for another SG at some stage, with these or other people, but I would enjoy it more if it was 'fresh' again.
It's good to start up a new game straight away though, hopefully it'll attract a few new people as well, as lurker or otherwise.

I certainly want you on the team, but I'm not going to twist you arm if you don't feel like it. You have sound ideas, you only have to advocate your reasons a little bit stronger, so if you can sway team-mate, you might sway all.

It's your choice, if you want to join or just lurk.

 

[gozpel]

I'm interested enough.

Civ ideas? Would be nice to get some early war in as I never do that. Persia? Rome?

I'll wait to see what the take up rate is before I think to hard about anything!

Persia and Rome are both good choices, and I can live with that. Some reasonably early warfare would also be fun, maybe if that's the case I would vote for Persia. Those Immortals are pretty nice.

 

[Brichals]

It would be great to get a new player on the team. There should be more SGers. So if you're lurking, join!

I think early aggression may be a good thing. I am wondering how the bully CS mechanic works. I think for immortal it is necessary to use this now. Because I've rolled a few random starts lately and been crushed early on. I've only bullied a CS once, at immortal the AI starts with extra units so they can bully so easily.

 

[nerovats]

I'd like to join a SG. Emperor should be ok for me. Just ordered the expansion so should be in in a couple of days. So only some experience with Vanilla. Just couple of low level games to get used to Civ V, and to try all the VC's. Then moved up, won firsth King and firsth Emperor game. Just got bit behind in firsth Immortal, so should be ok.

Back in Civ III when I played a lot of SG's i found them most fun in all random. Just an idea. If you'll have me I'll let you know when the game comes in. If you put me in the back of the roster I'll probably have a game finished by then.

 

[Optional]

The trickiest thing with the expansion for me were the things I thought I knew that were different all of a sudden. Like triremes that can't range attack anymore, since they're now melee units.
Or Tradition that'll remember you've chosen the free culture buildings policy and will grant you a free building retrospectively if there wasn't one available when you picked the policy.
Great Generals who can't be used to generate a Golden Age anymore, but are now creating a culture bomb when they're being used to build a citadel...

Religion will take a few games to judge what to do with that. The first pantheon is strong, as most of the bonuses are immediately effective, and definitely worth the investment of a single 40 hammers that a shrine costs.
But to found an actual religion you'll need lots more faith points and beat some of the AI's to it, while the bonuses are often up-in-the-air kind of things; 'gives a tech boost when you convert a town that belonged to another religion'; 'gives extra happiness from a temple in a town of yours if it belongs to your religion and there are at least 5 people following it'. That kind of thing. Religion invites you to spend more and more faith points, but the pay out is very late and you wonder if you couldn't have gotten the same rewards otherwise.
Then later in the game you can buy great people with faith, which is strong again, but for that I don't think you need a religion, just gathered faith points.
If you pick a civ that gets their faith points almost for free - Celts, Ethiopia - it's an easy decision, as you'll get your religion with a minimum of investment, but for most civs it's a more difficult choice to go for a religion or not.

 

[NotSure]

Hey Goz, I'm in. Welcome, Nerovats!

Optional, I don't think you play differently than us at all. I often agreed with your decisions/input. If you don't feel up to another one right now, I understand, but I never felt at odds with your style of play and I definitely enjoyed playing those games with you. I learned a few things in each game too. I hope you reconsider.

Anyway, I say we play as the Celts on one of the new maps... either the forest-covered one or rough-terrain one. Sorry, I can't remember the names of the maps right now. I'll check in a few and get back. That's just my suggestion though. I'm cool with whatever... except maybe Gandhi. No Gandhi.

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

Hello gents Another rusty old timer here, comfy at emperor; I'd be happy to hop in if your roster isn't full - otherwise lurking would do me some good anyhow.

Turnlogs:
0-10 by Gozpel
10-20 by NotSure
20-30 by Beorn

 

[NotSure]

Hey Beorn, welcome!

OK, I looked it up... the map names are Arborea (sounds like something you get if the cook doesn't wash his hands) and Frontier. I haven't played the Arborea map (described as "a world covered in forest"), but I've played the Frontier map several times and it's pretty nice. There are a lot more forests and hills and less jungle. The Frontier map is described as "a single continent" but half the time there are two or three continents. ...again, just a suggestion. I'm cool with anything but Gandhi.

One more thing... Lets say right away what are game goals are? We did a fairly good job of that in the last game calling diplomacy before the first turn, but we sort of wandered around on social policies a bit. If we call a win condition again, maybe we can decide on three social policy trees we'll stick to for the majority of the game?

 

[gozpel]

Welcome nerovats and Beorn.

We have a crew:

gozpel
grandad
Brichals
Notsure
Beorn
nerovats
If Optional still wants to join, I'm fine with that, I don't think there's a big difference with 6 or 7 players. There will always room for a few turnsets on a standard maps. If Optional prefer to lurk, he can be sub, we never know what happens in these games.

When I started up this thread, I mentioned in the first post, that we will ignore Religion except for the pantheon. That is not set in stone though, so everybody chime in and give us your ideas of civs and winning condition.

We have Rome, Persia (my choice) and the Celts. We already discussed a little bit about early wars, so all 3 civs are ok in that respect.

We have won by conquest and diplo, what did you do in first Munchhausen?

If we have a big roster with 6 or 7 players, would anyone be tempted to do a science victory? It takes a bit longer than some other victories, but I think we can push for a decent date, with the observant crew we have.

For SP's I think Tradition is a must, Liberty is getting very old for me. Then I would really like to explore the Honor-tree. Then Rationalism, if we're going to space?

 

[nerovats]

My last games were culture and diplomatic, so science is fine. Any civ is ok by me. If we want some early war, I wouldn't build more the 2 cities. Not much buildings in them either. Mostly units, and take cities the AI builds. I often hear people they go for war, but still build buildings a lot, which doesn't really work. If you chose a path then go all the way towards it. Could use early war to expand and grab the best nearby cities. An honnor start should help. Then turn more peacefull and upgrade our science output with food (Tradition), buildings and Rationalism.

 

[NotSure]

Here's something that might be interesting... Celts; Interfaith Dialogue; Tradition/Honor/Piety as social policies; aggressively spread our religion and duke it out with anyone who objects; win the space race as a bunch of wacky religious zealots. Sound like fun? Rationalism is for "fastest time" games and Deity... of which I have grown weary.

 

[gozpel]

Here's something that might be interesting... Celts; Interfaith Dialogue; Tradition/Honor/Piety as social policies; aggressively spread our religion and duke it out with anyone who objects; win the space race as a bunch of wacky religious zealots. Sound like fun? Rationalism is for "fastest time" games and Deity... of which I have grown weary.

I can buy this and we can leave No-Religion for another game, as Gandhi

Pictish warriors are very strong for their era, so we will have to consider tech-paths accordingly. Archery, BW -> Spaceship? IF we go for this, of course we want 3 forests around our Cap. PW's gain 4 faith for every foe he slays too, so we'll get a religion for sure.

Did anyone of you ever notice that when the narrator in the beginning, doesn't know her name? Something like, Great Warrior-queen. Not Boudica or Boudicca or Boudicea. I think that's the only comp-player, that doesn't have her/his name mentioned in the prologue.

I don't have any DLC-civs like the Babs or Korea, so when I start to roll maps it will be just plain G&K.

Anyways, we always let other players give their thoughts, before we start rolling maps. So we might get started over the weekend, if everyone hurry up.

 

[Brichals]

Welcome nerovats and Beorn

Celts and science victory sounds good to me. I've won a Celts domination victory, which she is very good at. So I think choosing a science win is a bit more balanced. Something like Celts/domination/small might be stacked too much in our favour for emperor. Maybe we could plan to get science from a large puppet empire, because we might not be getting many RAs, not like the last game where everybody liked us.

 

[Optional]

Optional, I don't think you play differently than us at all.

I probably build less buildings than 90% of all players. I like to build units, expand, explore the map, see what the CS's are up to and such. Playing a set in these SG's sometimes feels like playing with my hands tied to my back. When there's still a lot of unexplored territory, ruins, barbs and barb hunt quests out there I like to have units, but they won't be there in this team, as everybody mostly builds infrastructure (not sure if this goes for the new guys, of course).
I always question the use of any building I build. What if I use the hammers for a worker or settler instead? What way do I gain the best result? There's a time and place for most buildings in the game, but you'll end up like a Gandhi if you insist on building everything straight away. Gods & Kings has added religious buildings, and will probably have let players drop a level, because they want to build everything, and on a high level then the AI will then spread around you and simply choke you.
Nothing makes a game easier than a decent expansion, for which you don't need many buildings at all, just some units for safeguarding.

Maybe others in this team didn't disagree with my posts that much, but the routes you took were very different. No problem, but it did become a little predictable for me what others were doing and not doing, and I would just be making the same posts over and over again.
But being a lurker is also a way of participating, I did that in Goz 1 as well, that's a role I also enjoyl.

IF we go for this, of course we want 3 forests around our Cap. PW's gain 4 faith for every foe he slays too, so we'll get a religion for sure.

Celts have indeed the advantage that you'll get a religion almost for free, so you can pass on the discussion about building shrines. I definitely would rather build Pictish warriors than shrines if the aim is to get to a religion a bit quicker, as the Pict is a good and useful unit even without its faith gathering property.

What you might find strange is that I actually prefer to have just 1 forest as Celts; with 3 you'll need to pick your pantheon already after 5 turns. 10 turns give you a better chance to look around, and of course most pantheons are terrain based.
What you'll need to consider as well in an SG is that you'll probably want to stop the game for some team input before picking a pantheon. It might be nicer to do this after 10 turns when there's a bit more to talk about.
What could also be a thing to look for in the start position is to have a Mining resource, rather than just Calendar/Trapping resources, as that would make teching towards your Pictish warrior easier.

 

[grandad1982]

Hi Beorn-eL-Feared and nerovats. Welcome to the team!

At this very early stage I want to say that I think we should fill in ONE and ONLY ONE early game SP tree. Filling in two of them at the same time means you seriously delay the later, generally better SPs and finishers in both trees. Filling them in sequentially means not getting the best from the second one filled in as by then you should be looking at later era SP trees. Also by taking to ancient era trees you are reducing you number of late game SPs that have some strong policies in them. If we want science then I have to say that Rationalism is a must or we'll be playing for ever!

I'd be ok with Frontier or a Pangea style map. I'll throw a great Plains in for confusion value

I'm happy with any of the civs mentioned so far. If we do go for the Celts then Optional raises a good point about how fewer forest gives more chance to explore an see what we might want.

I'd still like a game were we don't go out of our way to get religion or faith. Units not shrines!

 

[gozpel]

Good point about a single forest, Optional! My only fear is that if Maya and/or Ethiopia is in the game, we end up with crappy beliefs, but as grandad mention, maybe we just should play loosely on the religion thing, if it happens it happens.

I'm going to start up a game with the Frontier script, I never really tried it.