Apocalypto

[Cam_H]

No problems vranasm - "lol" I assume is League of Legends?

I must say that I've been a bit distracted myself ... with Civ4! Playing loads of OCCs on continents/immortal games as Augustus Caesar (shooting at Great Wall + Pyramids out of the gate). Averaging around 30% win-loss!

lymond <<< Up
nocho <<< On Deck
Sengir
Cam
Norvin_Green
Mikehendi

 

[vranasm]

yep league of legends... it has different in game dynamics (rts x tbs) but has a lot of strategizing too and it actually was made into an e-sport...

 

[lymond]

ok...a bit of dilemma here. Where to put HE? We don't have many juggernaut production sites. Xulpi and Cakamul are possible candidates. Xulpi has the horse, cow and stone but lacks food. However, it can be irrigated eventually and get another mine up so it will have pretty strong production and a central location. Cakamul has Maoi written all over it, which I plan to get up quickly after the stone finishes next turn. So we could have a Maoi/HE high prod Naval base here. Location wise, not ideal for Continent takeover, but if we go Curs it won't be that big a deal.

We should switch to Bureau, ofc. I'd like to go Caste/Pac as well, but we don't quite have the growth for it and I'd like to whip out some mishes for newer cities pronto. I could do a Bureau switch now and wait a few turns for a double Caste/Pac switch and starve out some GS that will allow us to bulb our way to Lib and either Nat or MT depending on where the AI stands. It's getting kinda late though so we have to consider what the chumps on the other continent are up to.

Not sure I like settling next to Capac like that with the lone settler we have out there. Any site around there is iffy and really just filler at present, but could be made stronger later with irrigation and workshops. I prefer 2E of the current spot to share cow and possibly later take on the iron from Capac if we take that city. Settling adjacent to an AIs culture is risky for a city that will take a long time to get up any infra. I've seen cities like this quick flip all the time and it would take forever to take that rice from Capac anyway. Not worth settling there IMO - and if not for all that open land and the fact that Capac settled behind us, I'd probably not settle there at all.

So, anyway, my plan would be to push through to Education, hopefully double bulbing. Then decide if we risk teching to Nat first and Libbing MT. I expect we can bulb Lib as well as long as we don't get unlucky with GPs. I will keep my eye open for good trades like CS>Feud.

Ofc, war on this continent will be tricky with everyone Hindu. However, bribes might be possible.

I'll play tomorrow.

Edit: Just noted the other variant about Astro. We could Lib that easily as well and still bulb Lib. Put the bulb into Lib, which does not complete it and then go back and backfill the Astro prereqs. Ofc, this will throw off are Cur war but it still might be feasible. At least we can go out and meet the AIs. Anyway, this does not change the immediate plan.

 

[Cam_H]

lymond,

I like the plan.

Same thinking on Maoi.

I thought that Hurrian could make a good Heroic Epic spot too ... just to complicate matters! Four hills, loads of grassland under jungle for farms/workshops, and riverside for levee and health. I'm not a 'big navy person', but it is coastal too. I'm OK with it if you want elsewhere.

That Settler - no issue with two tiles east. I thought one tile south-east could allow it to 'share' the stone and if we take Vilcas at some later point, then it could 'share' the rice. If you still like two to the east, that's 'tickety-boo' as far as I'm concerned.

I'm fine with the proposed Education double-bulb as suggested, and Astronomy slingshot via Liberalism was what I also envisaged.

Not sure on the roster's thinking if we can trade around Music ... some suggest that it opens a gateway for prospective AI cultural wins, and 'the player' shouldn't trade away Music unless necessary. I'm not so hard-line on it, and am quite OK to get a 2-for-1 with it.

All the best!

 

[lymond]

Blimey!!! Hurrain does have a lot of decent HE potential. I feel like kicking a Kangaroo and molesting a Wallaby. Ultimately, it might give us two very nice Naval bases while saving the indigenous wildlife down under. I was distracted by all the freakin' vegetation.

I envisaged (I effing love this word..I really do...have for a long time) us kicking Monty's rear end.

As for trading Music worrying folks about Culture. Music opens MT which is the primary tech for showing these losers who is the dominant force in the Americas (oh...in case yall haven't noticed this is a total Native American "Joint" so far)

 

[nocho]

Fine with the plan. I consider music as ideal trading fodder... Harmless in AI hands and if they're stupid enough to switch into culture mode over it, all the better.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Keeping Music away from the Ai is fine by me - I think HC was researching it but stopped when we got it first. Good luck lymond!

 

[lymond]

Ok, a little post-Super Bowl civving here.

Highlights:

1) Monty and SB make peace a couple of turns in. Monty goes into WHEOOHRN a few turns later.

2) Monty declares on Capac a turn ago, which is good. At least it is not us

3) Make some trades. Get Feud and Constr. Paper>Compass>MC come quickly. Our tech rate is good

4) Double Bulb Edu

5) We meet Lizzy of the Brits near the end. I could not see from which direction her Caravel arrived, as I did not see the ship. She obviously has Optics, but not Astro yet. Lib appears safe at the moment.

Lizzy:

Spoiler :

6) Get quite a bit of fail old from Sistine, which I almost completed. It was built overseas somewhere

7) HE up in Hurrian and Moai 2 turns from completion in Calakmul

8) Hindu now fully spread.

Here's the tech situation - not bad at all

Tech:

Spoiler :

I have Machinery as a place holder, but we can change it. The idea though is to open Astro, but we want to bulb Lib before teching Machinery. I think we should do a temp switch to Caste/Pac and starve out another GS. We have the pop now to make it happen.

A riskier move might be to starve out 2 GS while opening Astro and then double bulb it, then go back and try for a Lib>MT deal.

Mutal is quite large and nice now. We might want to just cottage everything but the feeder farm. We could actually create a feeder farm from Itza to sheep city and cottage all of Mutal.

Capac settled that island north of Calakmul. We should keep culture up in this city so Capac does not steal our coast tiles for Maoi. We want them all.

 

[nocho]

Looks good, lymond.

Got it. I'll try to get the universities up for Oxford and queue that in the capital.

So I understand that right now a GS would bulb lib as long as we avoid machinery? Would it bulb lib completely (I guess not)? Would it be an idea to part bulb lib, follow up with machinery/optics and take astro from lib?

IF indeed we want to produce some more GSs I see the case for caste/pacifism which is 1 turn of anarchy, plus of course a turn for switching back (need to whip universities in some places...). Is that indeed worth it?

 

[Cam_H]

I agree - moving along very nicely. Well done.

Do we go to war with Montezuma if asked by Huanya Capac?

A Liberalism bulb will give us (right now) 1692 of the 2275 (or three quarters) required for Liberalism. I'm happy do as you suggest, and slow research but not complete Machinery (and then maybe Gunpowder) until our next Great Scientist pops - sooner (Caste/Pacifism) or later.

Given that Elizabeth's not really all that technologically advanced, and Wonders such as Sankore have yet to be built would indicate that the other continent is 'unlikely' to be making too much advancement toward Liberalism, and we can 'probably' afford to 'get our platypuses lined up' for an Astronomy slingshot.

I suppose alternately there's the old fashioned way of trading our way there ... gift HC some technology (such as Music and/or Compass) and gamble that he'll get to Friendly. Trade something (from whatever's left other than Education) for Machinery out of him, and then trade Optics out of Elizabeth (maybe with Philosophy) while we self-research Liberalism. It'll probably be as quick as any other way, but will mean giving up some tech'.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Looking pretty good. I am horrible at figuring out what to bulb later in the game so take this for what it's worth. In a solo game I'd probably not do the civic switch (hence me being stuck at emperor level ) so I'd like to try lymond's way of doing it. Hopefully I can learn something (but probably not!)

 

[FiveRings]

Do I correctly understand that all the bother about Astro is because of the variant and the need to have it before the deadline? Are there some higher considerations involved?

 

[nocho]

Satisfying Cam's requirements is of the highest consideration!

 

[Norvin_Green]

Well that . . . and lining up our platypusus!

 

[nocho]

Played a quick set. I started with the proposed switch to caste+pac and we pop a GS after 5 turns who bulbs part of lib. I decide to switch back to slavery+OR immediately. A 2nd GS will take too long while we can use both slavery and OR quite a lot.

Meanwhile Monty got machinery so we could trade for that.

Decide to tech optics in two turns. Shortly after we meet two more filthy Colonial Imperialists or Imperial Colonialists in Isabel and Willem. Surprisingly Izzy is the big boss on the other continent as she is WvO's master (let's call her Felipe II ) and also of Liz who became her servant just after we met her master.

WvO is of course always handy for a trade. The map shows Portugal as yet another Imperial power. So we have a native continent that will take over the colonialists in a nice turn of historic events.

I leave the set as we have very little left of lib. We can lib astro if we want. Note that Liz just got education.

We have many universities queued. Too many actually for Oxford, maybe we can unqueue some.

 

[Cam_H]

nocho,

Thanks for the turnset - and we continue to do well!

I've yet to have a chance to go through it thoroughly, but I see what you mean re. Uni' builds ... I guess we want Oxford up quickly so you've queued them up for high production cities, while you've also queued them in commerce cities - 'cause that's where they belong.

Just a prompt in the meantime that our roster is;

lymond
nocho
Sengir <<< Up
Cam <<< On Deck
Norvin_Green
Mikehendi

 

[Sengir]

Got it, will look at the save tonight, but I probably won't play before the weekend.

 

[Sengir]

The Plan:
- Finish Uni's, start OU (in cap?)
- Finish Lib, take Astro, set tech to GP (, or Nat; do we want a cuir war or a cannon war?)
- Set tech to 0% until Uni's are done.

 

[nocho]

Oxford in cap, yes.

I think for our own continent cuirs will be fastest, but for the other continent cannons will be needed. Or at least convenient.

So depends on the VC of our liking too. Did we decide that already? If not, now would be a good moment.

 

[Sengir]

Wait, you mean there are other ways to win this game, then just by obliterating all resistance?