A Portugal Game

[Fresol]

We have the new pope (popess?) elected! Lorenzo de' Medici is not getting any love. The +2 relation boost with Spain is much needed.

Ireland is not historical area for Portugal, so we don't need to grow it too much.



Finally Catholicism spreads to Ireland. I had to train a missionary for this.

Meanwhile Tibet and Byzantium collapsed. That's 2 less OBs for us.



Meeting China. Notice anything unusual? They adopted free religion after acquiring Pagan. OB. Since trade route hasn't been established yet, we are unable to trade techs with them.



The Khan is not happy about us. But it doesn't matter. Bite me.

I forgot to take a screenshot there. I had 10 OBs at the time.

 

[Fresol]

Another random event. Spain is not friendly enough to invest some money in boosting our relation. A pity.

And the Plague hits.

Ponta Delgada was settled and Catholicism spreaded there. I strongly recommend adopting fanaticism as Portugal.



Meeting Khmer. Very uninteresting and no OB.



The Mughals. Infidels but they are willing to OB.

 

[Fresol]

A demand from the mighty Spanish queen. I have no options but to agree. Peace between the 2 nations should be maintained at all costs.



Funchal settled. This is our first African city, and it provide our first TC resource. The and sugar brings is also soothing. The city itself, on the other hand, can't accomplish much without any food resource.

 

[Fresol]

We received another quest: Holy Mountain. It has little meaning for us.



Meet Thailand. They aren't too friendly, just like the Khmers. They won't OB with us. A hell lot of techs they have.



Meeting the heathen Indonesians. Money is needed to buy Open Border agreement. They are totally backwards.



Terrific, magnificent and very lucky trade! The Mughals are willing to teach us the secrets of Gunpowder. Timely trade route connection I'd say, though I'm unaware of how it is connected.



More good news. The music-loving Chinese are hospitable enough to share their knowledge of Music, along with the local geography.

 

[Fresol]

Holy Mountain revealed. It seems to be somewhere in Scandinavia.

I believe Spain has Optics by now.



Cathlicism spreads into Funchal, along with the Plague. Even Jesus can't save the poor people on the island.



Khmer capitulated to Indonesia, which is rare. Meeting and bribing Indonesia, they wouldn't OB because I'm their worst enemy. But one turn after they agreed.

 

[citis]

Yours is a story. Mine is more like a journal, and not well-written. So don't feel bad about it.

I'm sure S&T can create a new "journal" category.
The truth is that authors would like to post their stories in the respective mod threads (which is fine with me), but moderators have different opinion.

The result is that DoCers' stories are burried in the large pile of unreachable stories in the bottom of the S&T pile, doomed to be forgotten forever. And the worst thing: A DoC player may be interested to read DoC stories and don't even know their existence.

Should you doom your journal to be burried under the merciless S&T heap of oblivion?

Do whatever understand...

 

[Leoreth]

citis, I'm not sure which incident you are talking about. Contact me by PM if you want to discuss this further, maybe I can get some clarification on the proper process from the other mods.

 

[Eric Cartmenez]

Thx Fresol for this interesting stuff, just in case ... is there a chance for a similar Moors story in the future?, I really fail playing as them in making the right decisions at the right time, not able to win UHV a single try.

 

[mrrandomplayer]

I'm sure S&T can create a new "journal" category.
The truth is that authors would like to post their stories in the respective mod threads (which is fine with me), but moderators have different opinion.

Civ 4 Stories and Tales is where the stories belong, simply for administrative purposes. Giving each mod their own stories section would be a poor idea in my opinion because
A. It would only benefit larger, established mods like RFC and FFH that have their own subforum. One good way to spread info about a mod is to do a story on it
B. It would tear apart the Civ4 S&T community, which while the individual members have changed over the past 10 years, the forum itself has remained a watering ground where people across several different mods and communities have been able to tell stories in a unique fashion.

The result is that DoCers' stories are burried in the large pile of unreachable stories in the bottom of the S&T pile, doomed to be forgotten forever. And the worst thing: A DoC player may be interested to read DoC stories and don't even know their existence.

There are two easy solutions to that.
1. Get it on the story index for DoC (which admittedly, I've done a pretty poor job managing and probably somebody else should do). That allows people on this forum to look for stories that are already finished even if they've fallen through the pages.
2. Put it in your sig. My Babylon story is complete but it's still in my sig and gets views. I discovered DoC through stumbling upon a post of Tomorrow's Dawn that had his Kition story in his sig, and I just reread his China DoC story recently.

Should you doom your journal to be burried under the merciless S&T heap of oblivion?

Do whatever understand...

Plenty of good ideas and threads in this subforum have had interest lost in them, and most complete stories (I reiterate) get put in the owner's signatures, allowing any regular DoC users to see the stories.

With regards to this specific game, I think it straddles the line between story and strategy guide. I personally think it is on the story side of the line and should get moved to S&T, but having a complete Walkthroughs (with only strategy and screenshots as examples) thread is not a bad idea imo.

tldr; Move the story to S&T, every other mod works that way, the S&T community would be destroyed by tearing mods away, this community is intact as is. There are plenty of ways to prevent the story from being consigned to page 2 of S&T, especially if finished.

 

[Fresol]

Thx Fresol for this interesting stuff, just in case ... is there a chance for a similar Moors story in the future?, I really fail playing as them in making the right decisions at the right time, not able to win UHV a single try.

If I could finish this Portugal game soon I would consider to do a Moor game next. It's good to see some audience's feedback.

-snipped-

If the thread gets moved to S&T I'd have to readjust the thread. I haven't visited the S&T subforum for quite a while.

I'm sure S&T can create a new "journal" category.
The truth is that authors would like to post their stories in the respective mod threads (which is fine with me), but moderators have different opinion.

The result is that DoCers' stories are burried in the large pile of unreachable stories in the bottom of the S&T pile, doomed to be forgotten forever. And the worst thing: A DoC player may be interested to read DoC stories and don't even know their existence.

Should you doom your journal to be burried under the merciless S&T heap of oblivion?

Do whatever understand...

Guess the only way to remind people of my thread would be to put it in my sig.

 

[Fresol]

Isabella asks us to join the one-sided war against the Moors. I choose to refuse. Hopefully the war will drag on a little bit longer and delay Spain's research and expansion.

There'll be more war-ally requests in the future, and my policy stays the same: stay neutral.



Our Catholic brother Italy is at war, but we aren't helping them. They wouldn't show appreciation even if we do help, so why bother?



The Moors are dead. And the Spanish are getting out of control soon. In the worst case, they can get circumnavigation and both conquerors, and then declare war on us and send us to our doom. Let's hope it doesn't happen.

 

[Fresol]

Finally we have finished the research of Optics in 1405 AD. Is it late? Spain surely got it earlier than us.

The Portuguese UP makes Ocean trade available with Optics instead of Astronomy. Combine this with the Carrack UU which can carry two ordinary units, the Portuguese are uncontended new world settlers during this period of time.

Note that settlers can't be trained on other continents until Astronomy, and Trading Company is not enabled yet.

The Plague is gone. The Portuguese people have entered a new era. (Not literally.)



We have reached our peak of stability.

 

[Tigranes]

Why is your science 0? You just show off how much max gold can you make? Also your expenses look ridiculously low, 1 gold for civics? I think Leoreth needs to see this picture!

 

[Fresol]

Our Scandinavian friends are willing to teach us the complex system of Civil Service in exchange for the knowledge of Optics.

I wouldn't switch to Absolutism though.



The Carrack carrying 2 settlers from Coimbra (Belfast) and Lisboa heads straight for South America. In a situation where Spain gets caravels this early, Inca/Argentina have higher priority than Aztecs. And to circumnavigate we need to go south anyways.

 

[Fresol]

Why is your science 0? You just show off how much max gold can you make? Also your expenses look ridiculously low, 1 gold for civics? I think Leoreth needs to see this picture!

No, I'm just saving money so that I can research Astronomy with 100% slider. It's the same.

As for civic upkeep, I think low population and low upkeep civcs did that.

 

[Fresol]

Poland vassalizes to Russia. It's 1425 and the Mongol hordes haven't reached Russia yet. Trade route connection to China is lost.



China has quite a few techs at hand, but the lost connection and lack of tradable techs on our side makes it meaningless.



Our third Carrack explores the western shore of Africa. We meet the Mali empire there. To our satisfaction, they are backwards but they have Paper for trade. The Open Border agreement with them is the 13th we have right now. We need 1 more.

 

[Fresol]

1 turn later, our carrack finds the Congolese people on their land. Barbarians they seem to be, but the willingness to OB shows first sign of a civilized society.



We have attained OB agreements with 14 different civilizations, excluding the dead ones. They are: Spain, France, Holy Rome, England, Italy, Vikings, Poland, Russia, Mughal, Mongolia, China, Indonesia, Mali and Congo. The year is 1435.





In the same year, the cities of Porto Alegre and Buenos Aires are settled. We settle these two cities first because they are good city spots, and the second ring of Buenos Aires covers Montevideo, where the Spanish loves to settle. Porto Alegre is in Brazil and is on historical tile. There's a tobacco resource within city radius.



Our Italian friends are willing to teach us Philosophy for a price.

 

[Fresol]

Fanaticism makes sure only Catholism spreads to our newly founded cities.

The Mongol hordes finally find out about Russia, the war is inevitable.

Meanwhile we are going to settle the caribbeans, and try our luck on the Aztecs.



Good news and bad news. We are just in time to be the first to reach the Incas. Crumble in fear in the presence of the mighty conquerors, Incas! There's a Spanish caravel in the vincinity, obviously they lost direction. But Spain has already circumnavigated. Their +2 naval units movement UP plus circumnavigation bonus is making me jealous. That's a 6 tiles/turn difference on ocean! Fortunately we have the harbormaster quest.

 

[CaterpillarKing]

Humans have a bit of an advantage with the conquest events. I say a bit because they are programmed to try to get it, but humans know exactly where to go and what to research

 

[Royal Tenenbaum]

I've never thought of going down to 0 science to save money for 100. That's a very Keynesian way of thinking. It would benefit you more since you have more cash on hand for a long time. Hm.