They're All Barbarians.

[pigswill]

I'll no doubt be over-ruled but my first thought is not to go for early Gwall as I think we have higher priorities at the start. I also don't see the value of investing EPs in Qin if we're planning on wiping him at an early stage, other civs are probably too far away to make it worthwhile.
I was thinking that if we're going for espionage Asoka would be our best target, once we've got China we'll meet up with India somewhere in SE Asia so we'd have some nice nearby cities, he's not hyper-aggressive and India is kind of tucked away in a corner of the map so can be left until later. As soon as we meet Asoka we can allocate all our early EPs to him and let them build up while we get on with our initial expansion onto the mainland.

 

[r_rolo1]

i wonder if there's a spot still open...

can't seem to find a rooster

Why do you want a rooster ? Are you hungry ?

On topic, GWall would be nice if we could do it in mainland, a thing that we will most likely will not be able ( to fend out the black barbs ... SIberia is a big , big place ... ). I think we can keep in tech as soon as we are big enough ( Merc + Rep would help a lot in there ).

On spying... well, Asoka is a good target for the early one ( if we really want to go that way ) ... we will want him to cut out the jungle for us in SE asia and that give us some time.

P.S Can I ask for a option ? No vassals, please

 

[nocho]

I'd just want GW for the spy points, the Khan can take care of the Siberian barbs... I'm just not sure we can really keep up in tech without stealing, sure when we reach a good size with rep+merc we won't really need anybody else, but it might take a while to reach banking and constitution all by ourselves. We can't capture the mids after all and I guess we don't want to sacrifice early expansion for a shot at (stone-less?) mids. GLH sounds reasonable to me as well though, we'll want sailing early enough anyway.

 

[pigswill]

With Hats and Louis on the map Gwall tends to go pretty early, to stand a decent chance of getting it we'd probably need to build it before we built a settler. For the sake of 2GS points I'm not convinced, once we get to Col we can whip courthouses and start allocating spy specialists one of whom will eventually produce a Great Ninja.

Vassals? wtf? They're barbarians!!! What the barbarians do among themselves is beneath Our dignity. So barbarian Spain vassalises to barbarian Russia, who cares?

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

a classic disorganized post:

I don't think gunning for the GW is wise since it will allmost certainly fail with Toku start. Oracling COL (remember chinese marble) and whipping courts will get us techs soon enough I bet. As Rolo said, I think grabbing the excellent asian sites will be enough to put us in a technology lead (with COL and currency alone, our gnp should skyrocket and razing cities should get us some gold to burn into techno) (@nocho: this part of the map is exceptionnally rich in grasslands and resources).

Also we are prolly better getting ride of Genghis asa Qin is dead. Counting on him for anything (like monitoring barbs) isn't a good idea (except maybe for an ugly backstab) And there are furs and gems up in siberia!

Welcome to the jedi btw (I always loved your avatar Pholkhero)

 

[pholkhero]

ok first off, the rooster is to sacrifice for the dark arts

B) i haven't played cIV in many months, so my play level...is probably as bad as it was before so its good that rolo's here ~ he can take the GreyFox role and me after my set. that's also why ii'll have little to say strategy-wise for now as i get reacquainted

and 4, if you google "tolerance for jedi" you used to get a link to me but you should also get a link to the actual british protest I grabbed the image from

finishing loading Civ onto my new computer and will DL the map and try some games out

 

[pigswill]

pholkhero: teaching is a dark art (or is it actually a Dark Art)? Up to a month or so ago I hadn't played civ for several months but its like riding a bicycle: always easy to fall off!

edit: When played by the AI Tokugawa's isolationism invariably leads to Japan falling behind and becoming an also ran. The aim of the variant is to see whether this can be overcome through (hopefully) better strategy and tactics.

Another restriction implied but not stated explicitly before: no resource trading!

Good news is that we are a spiritual people and we're quite happy to embrace one (or more) religions.

 

[r_rolo1]

Vassals? wtf? They're barbarians!!! What the barbarians do among themselves is beneath Our dignity. So barbarian Spain vassalises to barbarian Russia, who cares?

I have 2 words for you: colonial maintenance Remember, we start on a island on the eastern shore of the big landmass of the map and soon we will have more cities in there than in our island ....

 

[pigswill]

Thank you for those two words.

Not to be outdone in generosity I gift you these three words:

Move the Palace.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

Thank you for those two words.

Not to be outdone in generosity I gift you these three words:

Move the Palace.

<insert usefull comment>

 

[r_rolo1]

Why move the palace ? We can use those hammers in units ... not mentioning that moving the palace does not make the issue go away Really, people are being picky about the hammers for GW and then they say "move the palace" like if the palace costed 1 hammer

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

GW is an earlier investment. You must be picky with your first hammers. Palace move is needed when you already have established an oversea base. Its opportunity cost is lower then imo.

 

[pigswill]

Given that you can't move palace until you've got 4 cities on standard (so probably 6 cities on huge) its not an early move, its more of a "we've got rid of Qin and started settling China so what do we do next?" type of move. Palace costs 200 hammers vs 120 for CH (inflated by gamespeed) so its not a huge difference. If you only have 2 cities in Japan then you don't hit colonial maintenance at all.

edit: unless I'm missing somethng obvious of course.

 

[nocho]

Maybe we should just start this?

And talk about the opening sequence? Or do the pros have a precooked plan for Japan? Something like worker first while teching Ag, Mining, BW, Sailing? Masonry next if we want GLH? I guess with the rices and fish we can postpone AH slightly?

 

[pholkhero]

pholkhero: teaching is a dark art (or is it actually a Dark Art)?

heh, i sacrifice the fowl just so the Dark Lord will at least give my students paper and pencils

Maybe we should just start this?

I thought we finished. 26)

 

[pigswill]

Do we want to play with huts and events? I'd prefer not to but I don't know how to edit them out of a scenario.

In terms of starting I'm thinking SIP, settle Osaka on silver (most northerly location with access to food tiles), build Glight in Kyoto, then galleys and axes (maybe swords later) and stomp Qin.

I've done a couple of practice runs for Glight, earliest I've managed with 2 cities is 1600bc. I'm still not sure of optimum starting strategy so any thoughts would be welcome.

Qin's settlement pattern does seem to be quite random. I think it does make sense to roll up China from the south leaving Qin trapped between us and Mongolia.

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

@Pigswill: start the game using the "custom scenario" menu. Once u select Toku, you will have the usual option screen and you can then select "no huts/Events" options. I am OK with these .

in place or se looks good to me. I am not sure on the settling order though, is it better to go for city 2 on the continent or go directly for the copper/silver site? (my usual tech path for this map with TOku being agri for two irrigated rice then mining /BW then sailing). I like settling a city between the gold and fish in southern Japan also.

The Glight is nice yeah (i think better than GW) though I would choose between it and killing Qin right away. Those hammers must be worth the axes needed to grab a couple of cities...

 

[nocho]

Remember we can't grab cities, just grab the land they are standing on. So not only do we need axes, but also settlers... That's not to say I'm against early rushing, but the prize is significantly lower if we can't hold on to our conquests.

With no tech trading for us I do think the GLH would be nice to keep something of a decent economy going. I figure we'll want to settle the whole coast from Korea to Indochina relatively soon so the economic boost from GLH will be very noticeable. I do think though that getting a galley out and at least 2 settlers soon for korea and around that marble will be very worthwhile, after that I'd start with killing off Qin and grab the rest of his land. Don't know if GLH and 2 extra quick settlers is really feasible though.

I thought we finished. 26)

Thanks for that, Loretta. It was a pleasure playing with you!

 

[pholkhero]

when u say no mods, does that include BUG or BAT??

'cause I may need them since i still suck at the game.

also, trying ot gtet eh earth18 script so i can be of some use

 

[RRRaskolnikov]

So not only do we need axes, but also settlers...

You are strenghtening my argumentation against any early wonder

More seriously: There are really really few chance of going for a wonder and building a galley and settling Korea. Qin usually goes there with its third settler (Shangai is generally south east of Bejing) if Genghis doesn't beat him to it. If we want to contend for this site, it has to be the priority from turn 0 imo. The marble site we have a bit more time.

about the glh: maybe attempt it after we built a settler/galley? even if I am not sure how it fits in our early builds, it is still huge I agree.