Acronym's Bucket List Succession Game - sign-ups open!

[Acronym]

Hi again all - apologies for the radio silence.

I've been pretty busy all week and am now going on holiday for a week. I'll still check in on the thread, and I'll read back on what's been going on and chip in my thoughts where I can, but if my turn comes up before Friday, I'll be unlikely able to play.

I did see the discussion regarding the Colossus on MrRandomGuy's turn - but I think everyone's said their bit. Suffice to say I'd be in agreement with everyone else that important decisions - particularly at this stage of the game - should be given a decent amount of time for discussion!

Cheers, will post again soon.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Working: riRivPl, riFlPl (+1Taxman)

I knew I forgot something. That taxman was made to save shields on something and I forgot to place him back to work.

Aaarrrgggh! Just realised that Konigsberg has been founded in the wrong place! According to Lanzelot's last posted dotmap, it should have been placed 1S-3SE from Oasenstadt (i.e. 1 tile SW of its current position). Where it is now, there will be a lot of overlap with Oasenstadt, and we currently have very little room to place City4.

NO! I used the wrong map as a reference!

Possible responses:

1. Just live with it, and make the best of the situation. It can still act as a worker-pump for now
2. Build a Worker before growth to Pop2 and disband K'berg (4 turns with MM), and rebuild later
3. Abandon it (1 turn, no worker produced)

Obviously, Options 2+3 would waste the 30 shields and however many turns it cost to build the Settler that founded Konigsberg -- and we'd later have to clear the ruins in order to use that RivHill tile -- so not ideal. But at least Option 2 would give us another worker.

Options 2 is a good idea. We'll need to relocate the city at some point, but we probably shouldn't do it right away.

Don't really want to reduce the science rate, though...

If I remember correctly the science rate was 80%. You can move the slider to 20% and just deal with a deficit for a small period of time until the city produces a settler or something without changing the science rate.

That's about all I can think of. The rest others would probably have a better idea than me.

 

[Lanzelot]

Coming back from vacation and now I have to read that:

1 - 2110 BC

Changed production from colossus to spearman to be complete in 2 turns.

...snip...

Our capitol produces a settler. Production changed to barracks so we can produce veteran units.

...snip ...

Writing has been discovered. Research set for philosophy.

Honestly, MrRandomGuy, are you reading anything of what we others have been discussing and deciding and where we put so much effort into?

The game is now damaged beyond repair. It won't be a "space race" anymore, at most a "space crawl" -- if we survive at all, that is.

• I explained in much detail that the Colossus is one of the strongest wonders for a science game, providing up to 30 extra beakers per turn for almost three ages (early ancient age until the end of industrial age). Abandoning it for an unnecessary reg spearman is bad enough, but then building barracks in that town and then going back to the Colossus plan is topping it. We have wasted 60 shields, and in addition the barracks costs 1gpt slowing down our research, while not providing any benefit for the next 30 or so turns...
  
• I explained that with so many floodplains, the capitol is perfect for churning out lots of settlers. So it doesn't need barracks, it needs a granary. In fact, we had already agreed on a build order for the capital, hadn't we: worker - settler (or two) - granary - settlers en masse. The other towns were supposed to provide the military.
  
• We wanted to try for the Republic Slingshot! That means we need to research Code of Laws before Philosophy!!! Going for Philosophy right away means the loss of 540 beakers plus approximately 40 additional turns in Despotism! I think I don't need to emphasize what 40 turns in Despotism means: crippled growth, crippled research and crippled production.
  
• And that is not yet everything: a quick look at the save reveals that our capitol is currently operating at size 1! At this time it should be operating at size 6, giving 6 times the commerce that we currently have!
  
• I wrote in my handover notes, that the northern scouting warrior should move on the mountain in turn 41, taking a good look at the Viking capital. That has not been done.
  
• Hamburg is producing military, but does not have barracks, while two towns that are (or should be) producing non-military projects have barracks... What kind of "strategy" is that?!

I can only repeat what Acronym said:

important decisions - particularly at this stage of the game - should be given a decent amount of time for discussion!

As this clearly has not taken place here, I see only two options:
a) scrap the game (continuing it in its current ruined state will be a waste of time)
b) go back to turn 40 and try again, this time with decent discussion (and reading what others have written...)

 

[tjs282]

• We wanted to try for the Republic Slingshot! That means we need to research Code of Laws before Philosophy!!! Going for Philosophy right away means the loss of 540 beakers plus approximately 40 additional turns in Despotism! I think I don't need to emphasize what 40 turns in Despotism means: crippled growth, crippled research and crippled production.

Oh poop, I didn't even spot that we hadn't got CoL yet. Guess that's what comes of doing an assessment at 1 am (and being habituated by Vanilla to choosing my next research options as a beeline to the tech I want, rather than paying much attention as to which order I get the prereqs)...

That said, I didn't think we were aiming to break any HOF records here (at least, I wasn't). For me, mere survival at Emperor level would be good, a win would be 'successful', a space win would be gravy. I was prepared to try and do some damage control on my turnset to try and get the game back on track, but you've made it pretty clear you don't think that's really worth it?

Replaying from turn 40 though, feels kind of like cheating, since we now have a much better idea what our continent looks like, etc.

 

[choxorn]

Is a in order?

Too tired. Will begin woohooing in a few days.

1. Just live with it, and make the best of the situation. It can still act as a worker-pump for now
2. Build a Worker before growth to Pop2 and disband K'berg (4 turns with MM), and rebuild later
3. Abandon it (1 turn, no worker produced)

We could also Settler-Abandon it (Get it to size two, stop its growth, make it hit 30 shields)

Vikings do not yet appear to have a coastal city -- they will probably not be starting Colossus any time soon. London appears to be landlocked as well, but York is coastal, so could build Colossus if good Queen Bess decides that she deserves it.

Silly Map Generator, you're supposed to make Seafaring civs start on the coast! Not that I'm complaining...

Oh poop, I didn't even spot that we hadn't got CoL yet. Guess that's what comes of doing an assessment at 1 am (and being habituated by Vanilla to choosing my next research options as a beeline to the tech I want, rather than paying much attention as to which order I get the prereqs)...

It's not as massive of a difference as Lanzelot is making it out to be- at this point in the game CoL can't be researched much faster than Republic can. The difference is closer to 10 turns than 40, and with cities this small, being in Despotism doesn't matter as much.

Still, it was a mistake.

Replaying from turn 40 though, feels kind of like cheating, since we now have a much better idea what our continent looks like, etc.

Agreed. I'm okay with starting over if you really want to but replaying is cheating. We made mistakes (well, MrRandomGuy made mistakes), we have to live with them.

And, honestly, we might get the Colossus anyway, and even if we don't, not having the Colossus is not the end of the world.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Honestly, MrRandomGuy, are you reading anything of what we others have been discussing and deciding and where we put so much effort into?

Trying to, there's so much discussion that it's hard to recall everything

The game is now damaged beyond repair. It won't be a "space race" anymore, at most a "space crawl" -- if we survive at all, that is.

That's an unfair statement. Yes I made several mistakes but they can be worked around. Since I've joined this site I've learned that the vast majority of games can be saved.

To the rest of your points, I'm not ignoring them. I acknowledge I made mistakes. I'm sorry, I didn't have ill intentions.

As this clearly has not taken place here, I see only two options:
a) scrap the game (continuing it in its current ruined state will be a waste of time)

That would be giving up way too easily. There should at least be some effort made to save it. Upon seeing that I messed up badly I could have just up and quit, but I didn't.

b) go back to turn 40 and try again, this time with decent discussion (and reading what others have written...)

That is one of the first things I thought. I didn't want to mention it because I know that replaying turns is heavily frowned upon.

BUT

the idea does have merit. Maybe instead of someone taking the save I did, they can go back on your save and I play as the last person in the roster. That would put us 80 turns away from startup where our empire has been completely built. I'm someone who at times has a hard time with starting out a civilization. Once the startup period is over I generally do well with managing the empire. I didn't mention this before because I thought any mistakes I made would be fixable since someone else would be taking control of the game after me.

 

[Elephantium]

lurker's comment:

Trying to, there's so much discussion that it's hard to recall everything

If you're having trouble following the conclusions of the discussion post a "pre-flight" where you say what you plan to do.

While I agree that the game could still be won, I'd be wanting to restart if I were part of this SG.

 

[LKendter]

lurker's comment: If you're having trouble following the conclusions of the discussion post a "pre-flight" where you say what you plan to do.

Sometimes there is to much in the discussions. I keep a note pad log for my turns, and I've already pull multiple snippets from the forums into the log to keep track.

Keeping a SG going where one or more players feels the game has been damaged is very tough to do.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

Then I guess the best idea is to just scrap the game, take me off the roster, and I'll just lurk through the thread for educational purposes.

 

[choxorn]

You'll learn more from playing than you'll ever learn from watching us play. Just, in the future, remember to ask us before making any big decisions and pay attention to the things we've talked about, and I don't think you can possibly screw us up too badly.

 

[Lanzelot]

Well, I guess it depends on what the intention of most of the team members is: if you just want to manage your first ever space-ship win on Emperor, we can play on. But if you are trying for a good date, we should restart (or rewind to turn 40).

I'm fine with what the majority wants. Rewinding indeed feels like cheating, but I think in a case where one player overrules several important strategic decisions without consulting the rest of the team, this would be justified? And I think we can learn the most from rewinding. (Especially about the early setup phase of an empire.)

As to the extra-time in Despotism: CoL is 300 beakers, Republic 840. We can do CoL in less than 20 turns (with Oasenstadt operating as a 5-turn settler factory), while it would not be worth it to attempt a "full blown research" on Republic, paying the full 840 beakers just to barely save 5 turns on it. So we'd most probably do a lone-scientist run on Republic. It may not be 40 turns difference to a successful slingshot, but definitely way over 30 turns, and we can expect a longer anarchy period later in the game.

 

[Lanzelot]

We could also Settler-Abandon it (Get it to size two, stop its growth, make it hit 30 shields)

One can also settler-abandon at size 1! But if we really play on, I would just live with the town at its current location. We are already far behind, have the Vikings right in our front-yard and cannot afford losing a town this early. We are still too vulnerable. Let the town produce a couple of warriors for MP and for keeping the Vikings from getting stupid ideas, and then do 2-turn workers, when the town hits size 6.

The most important thing is to get Oasenstadt back to size 5-7. With 3 floodplains and a granary it could create another citizen every second turn. At the moment it is using none of the floodplains and doesn't have a granary, so grows only every tenth turn! That means our empire is growing only at a fifth of the speed that it could be growing (in addition to losing lots of income due to our "mini-capital"). The results can already be seen now: it is 1500BC and not even Philosophy is finished. With a start like this, by 1500 BC we should have finished CoL and already put some beakers into Phil.

 

[tjs282]

Well as I say, I'm game to keep on if everyone else is.

Lanzelot:
I'm not fussed about an early win-date for the Spaceship -- just so long as it's earlier than the AICivs! I appreciate that chopping and changing back and forth between strategies was/is a bad idea, but I think we do still have a shot at the Colossus, even if we don't get it as soon as you wanted (we've over 40 shields in the bin again already, and neither the English nor the Vikings have started it yet, which suggests to me that other AI CIvs might not have either).

My main aim over my turnset would be to get a Settler out to Spot4, and maybe another to Spot6, to expand our borders and increase our CPT.

Also, whatever else MRG did, he is right that our military is weak (of course it was, we started with nothing, and the AIs started with several Warriors each), and until we can get our unit-numbers up, that is an invitation for an 'aggressive' AI (such as the Vikings) to attack. So I also think we should expand our military as much as feasible, even if only with Warriors for now.

There's another good reason for doing this: if we're going to be stuck in Despotism a while longer, we can't get decent SPT out of any city until they grow, but they can't grow without unhappiness shutting them down. So we need EITHER mil-pol to keep order, OR Clowns which stunts city growth, OR increased Lux which stunts research (since our CPT income is also low). Mil-pol is probably the most cost-efficient at this stage in our (lack of) development.

And while I'm not happy about paying upkeep for unnecessary Barracks either, the one in Oasenstadt could be useful (though I think we should probably sell the one in K'stadt, since it gives us no benefit anytime soon). Until Oasenstadt grows a bit (and/or we can get Republic), we won't have the SPT to build a Granary fast, so I can at least build a few 4/5-turn MM'd vet-Archers (for intimidation purposes) before it's turned (back) over to Granary/Settlers.

About salvaging the misplacement of Konigsberg, we could do like Choxorn suggests, build a Settler from K'berg, and then resettle at Spot2 as planned; but I also had another idea: Leave it there for now but keep it small/undeveloped, just building Workers and mil-pol (reg)Warriors to allow our other cities to grow. Then later, maybe plant another city 4SE of City4, at the other end of that ridge of hills (see the screenshot; it would be distance-5 from O'stadt, like Cities 4 and 6 will be). Placing here rather than your Spot2 -- although it's off the river, and wouldn't be a great worker-pump -- would be possible even before K'berg is finally disbanded. And once the jungle is cleared, it could be a useful city.

Also, doing this would free up a few more shield-tiles for Oasenstadt, which I feel is otherwise not going to have a lot of shields available (because K'Stadt and H'burg also need shield tiles to build the things we want in them). I know we still need a Harbour in H'burg, but I was thinking maybe also to use it to build mil-pol (reg)Warriors and Workers for now.

Finally, going back to my earlier idea of pressuring Copenhagen, I would suggest a Plains city to the NE of Oasenstadt (again, see the screenie) -- not so much for culture now, but more for border expansion. I'm really not happy with our Capital being in the firing line, so to speak. NB Just in case the 2 red text labels in the upper right of the JPG are illegible, they say: "Placing here too close to Spot6?" and "Placing here will annoy Ragnar" (the two bottom centre say "Lanzelot's planned Spot2" and "K'berg's eventual replacement?")

What do you think?

 

[Lanzelot]

Before making the final decision, we should hear choxorn's, Acronym's and CommandoBob's opinion.


Meanwhile, I replayed the turns 41-60, just to give you an idea of what the difference between the current game and a "reference game" could look like. See the attached 1500BC save.

Comparison of the two empires at 1500 BC:

Current game:
Total population: 10 (8 in towns and 2 workers)
Food: 26 collected, +7fpt
Production: 198 shields (2 barracks (40), 3 warriors/1 spearman (50), 2 workers (20), 2 curraghs (30), 43 in the Colossus, 12 in an archer, 3 in a worker). Currently making 11spt
Research: 120 beakers in Philosophy, currently making 15bpt

Reference game:
Total population: 16 (12 in towns and 4 workers)
Food: 25 collected, +11fpt
Production: 242 shields (granary (60), 5 warriors (50), 4 workers (40), 86 in the Colossus, 6 in a settler). Currently making 11spt
Research: 222 beakers in CoL, currently making 21bpt

Summary:

• Population is 60% larger (16 vs. 10) and growing ~50% faster (+11fpt vs. +7fpt) plus we already have a granary which doubles growth in the capital
• roughly 25% more shields produced (242 vs 198)
• roughly 90% more beakers researched (222 vs 120) and researching ~50% faster (21bpt vs. 15bpt) plus we'll gain an additional 540 beakers by getting Republic as freebee instead of CoL
• and we'll gain more of everything by a shorter Despotism phase.

This is already quite a significant difference, considering that it accumulated over a period of only 20 turns. And the two games will drift further and further apart, as everything in Civ propagates exponentially.
The game may still be winnable, but it'll be a tough uphill struggle...

 

[LKendter]

Civ is very much a early weight game. A mistake on turn 50 is far more significant then a mistake on turn 300. I've already hit late games where I don't even play that clean as I know the position is won. Civ is all about a strong early game.

 

[MrRandomGuy]

So what exactly are we doing now? Several things have been suggested. I'm up for whatever the majority wants to do, it doesn't matter to me.

 

[choxorn]

I'm fine with either rolling up a new game or continuing from here and trying to salvage our position. Acronym said he's on vacation, so I'm not sure when he'll be around to comment, and CommandoBob has been AWOL for the past two weeks, or at least not said anything in this thread.

 

[Lanzelot]

Ok, so at the moment we have:
tjs282: continue
choxorn: continue or roll a new one
MrRandomGuy & Lanzelot: go with the majority

So I guess we can just continue? If we discuss the next steps for 1-2 days, Acronym will hopefully show up again as well.

Your general plan (#113) looks already quite good. Some comments:

• The most important task during your turnset should probably be to get Oasenstadt to size 6 quickly. (Use 2 floodplains at size 2 for growth in 5T and 3 floodplains afterwards for growth in 4T). While growing back, it can produce 1-2 more units, then sell barracks and build granary. (Or maybe 3 units. But 5 would definitely delay the granary for too long! We finally need to get the expansion going. As you can see in the "reference" game, Oasenstadt is already in 1500 BC producing a settler every 5 turns without falling below size 5. We should aim at achieving the same before 500 BC, otherwise we won't need settlers anymore, as the AI will already have settled all good spots...)
• How to deal with Konigsberg: just rename it to "Königsberg"... We'll live with it at the current site, it's not that bad, we'll probably be able to get all first-ring cities to size 12 anyway. It can produce a few warriors now, and when it hits size 4, use 3 floodplains and a roaded hill for a worker every 5 turns without ever losing population. Once we have cleared two jungles for it, it can build a granary and then operate as a 2-turn worker factory at size 6 for the rest of the middle age. (Workers will be needed to clear the jungle and then pump our cities to size 12.)
• I like 8 better at it's original location, especially with Königsberg now 1 tile further east. From the original site it has access to the second bananas, which it wouldn't have in your dotmap!
• Research: pick CoL as freebee, trade for everything England and Scandinavia have to offer and then start Republic. We need to decide, whether we want to go full steam or do a lone scientist run?! With full steam we can get it probably in just under 40 turns. With a lone scientist, it'll take 50 turns, but we can save around 1000g and do a warrior-swordsman-mass-upgrade with that gold? If we are militarily weak, a lone scientist run has one disadvantage: our accumulated gold will make the AI ask for tribute... So then we either have to give them our gold or risk an early war which could spoil our infrastructure buildup. (Though in most cases giving tribute isn't bad: the AI has now way of spending that gold yet, so we can most likely buy it back when we get Republic. And we can use some of the early income for establishing embassies to improve our relations.) But that also depends on whether we have access to iron or horses.
• As for pressuring Copenhagen, I like the nearest of the three spots best. The other two have already too much corruption for my taste.

 

[choxorn]

I thought tjs and I were less "continue" and more "we're cool with whatever you're cool with," just like you and MrRandom.

 

[tjs282]

OK Choxorn, I guess I wasn't clear enough.

Well then, I'll be more specific. For me, rerolling a new start at this point would be like saying "Here's the candy -- but you can't have it (yet)!". I've had this savegame burning a hole in my mind since last Friday. I wanna plaaaaaay (Play, play, play, ... play? *whine*) I'm good to go if/when you all give the word.

Besides, Lanzelot, if we do manage to salvage this game from this point, we can all feel that much smugger when we launch

Going to go and do some proper work now...