AZ-02: Merchant Queen

[azaris]

My first SG having been a success, we now change the setting from plains warfare to high seas exploration. I'm adding some minor variant rules to make things more interesting. Isabella is usually cast as a religious nutjob in themed SGs, but here we play her as a patron of commerce and exploration (La Conquista). Oh, and we also want to wipe out the Moors (La Reconquista).

Version: Warlords 2.08
Mods: NO
Leader: Isabella (Spain)
Difficulty: Prince
Map: Archipelago
Landmass type: Archipelago or snaky continents
Size: Standard
Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal or epic
World wrap: Toroidal
Opposition: Saladin + 5 random AIs

Special rules:

No vassal states (fight to the death, baby)

Variant rules:

• Merchant specialists (if available) must be assigned before any other specialists can be assigned. If a city can assign 2 merchants, 3 scientists, and 1 priest, it must first assign the 2 merchants before it can assign any scientists or priests. It is not necessary to assign merchants, but then no specialists can be assigned in that city. In Caste System, the only specialists allowed are merchants. Citizens do not count as specialists.
  
• Great Merchants must be used to conduct trade missions. If they are unable to do so, they must be put to sleep until able to do so.
  
• We dislike the Moors (Arabs). We consider their land to be rightfully ours. We can never make any deals with Saladin, and if either of us declares war we can never make peace with him again.

This is not meant to be a gnashing-of-the-teeth variant, so I'd like to discuss the variant rules beforehand. The idea is that we finance our expansion and conquest using a merchant-based specialist economy as opposed to the usual cottage spamming. Standard timing of 24 hours "got it", after which it's 48 hours "to play and report", will be upheld.

THE ROSTER:

1.azaris
2.FuRRie
3.Codeman
4.Orion071
5.mice
6.Sealot

 

[FuRRie]

Hello

To begin with, can I sign up ? I've been out of Civ for some time, but I should be able to handle Prince.

About the variant, running an almost pure Merchant economy won't be easy, but should be fun.
If we pop any other Great persons we can just use them right away? Or are they only allowed to merge with the city they popped up? (To give us an extra challenge)
If I can play i prefer Pure Archipelago and Normal speed

 

[Rex Tyrannus]

Just a note: the governor will constantly auto-assign specialists. You'll have to do a lot of micromanagement to keep the variant rules satisfied.

Good idea on the non-nutjob Isabella, though. She really shouldn't be cast as such a Zealot.

 

[pholkhero]

Just a note: the governor will constantly auto-assign specialists. You'll have to do a lot of micromanagement to keep the variant rules satisfied.

Good idea on the non-nutjob Isabella, though. She really shouldn't be cast as such a Zealot.

Hey, I tried a game with a non-freak Isabella, where's my kudos? Ah, there it is, under my book. m m m m...

where was i? oh, yeah, you *could* set the cities to emph food, hammers and commerce and it won't set specialists, so when you set them, they stay on as forced. Alternately, you can turn off the Governor Automation of Citizens, and it shouldn't assign them. Though you will need to MM everytime a city grows ~ if only there was a mod that did that could let you know when a city grows . . .

/interruption

 

[FuRRie]

I often play without city governer.
It makes me take the time for my games, but with better results then with the Governer turned on.

 

[Codeman]

i think epic, but both are ok.

i've actually gotten in to the habit of checking each city on each turn so gov on or off doesn't matter.

 

[pigswill]

Lurking

HoF mods gives you warning of city growth but then everyone has to install it including the part-time lurkers if they want to check the saves.

Epic makes for comparatively fast exploration which can be useful especially if aiming for early circumnavigation.

Your first game seemed a military walkover; good idea to try a different approach on a different map; good luck.

 

[Orion071]

I never play archipelago maps, but since it's only Prince I'll sign on again. Is this going to be another warmonger game? That doesn't seem to fit in with the Merchant Queen. Perhaps a Diplomatic victory? Spread some religion, throw some Merchants around, make some friends and win. OK, do all that, kill Saladin, then win.

Archipelago maps with low sea level will allow us to sail around and meet everyone, but still have plenty of room for expansion too. I have no idea how snaky continents work, but couldn't we get just one wacky-shaped continent? We certainly wouldn't want that.

 

[azaris]

I never play archipelago maps, but since it's only Prince I'll sign on again. Is this going to be another warmonger game? That doesn't seem to fit in with the Merchant Queen.

For some players every game is a warmonger game. Of course if you think we'll still make a complete pushover of it I can always add variant rules.

Perhaps a Diplomatic victory? Spread some religion, throw some Merchants around, make some friends and win. OK, do all that, kill Saladin, then win.

Yes, except that in Warlord 2.08 no matter how much you suck up to everyone the AIs will probably vote for the biggest jerk around (I mean after us) unless you control enough votes to practically allow a domination victory.

Archipelago maps with low sea level will allow us to sail around and meet everyone, but still have plenty of room for expansion too. I have no idea how snaky continents work, but couldn't we get just one wacky-shaped continent? We certainly wouldn't want that.

You can set up games yourself and use the Worldbuilder to check out what they look like. Basically the "islands" are bigger and there's more water in between them.

Actually even with archipelago you're not guaranteed to circumnavigate without Optics - in my first test game I ended up stuck on a small set of islands, surrounded by ocean everywhere, with Wang Kon, who refused to trade any techs. I didn't check if the old "ocean within cultural borders can be entered" trick would've worked to escape the idiotic Korean limbo, but it's annoying to have to found a city just to cross one square of ocean.

 

[mice]

The variant looks good.

I'd like to play if you have a place for me. Snakey conitents will give a bit more production.

Epic or normal are both good. No preference there for me.

BTW Ruff_hi's assets in your custom assets can tell you when the city grows.
It's easy it put in and causes no problems.

 

[azaris]

It would appear that we now have a full roster. I will run some tests to see that the variant rules work and then roll a start. I'm leaning towards epic speed. We'll see.

THE ROSTER:

1.azaris
2.FuRRie
3.Codeman
4.Orion071
5.mice
6.Sealot

 

[Sealot]

Oi wasn't sure would I sign up afterall, but looks like I'm already booked in!
Okay yeah I'll play. But gotta say, I have absolutely no eye for micromanaging. Maybe this will train me a bit on that aspect.

Epic speed would be nice. Anything goes though.
For the theme of this variant, should we make a great merhant pool?

 

[azaris]

Here are our settings:



And here is the start:



May I be the first to say:

I moved the warrior to show a jungle to the N. I don't have a lot of experience with archipelago starts, so what are we aiming for first? I can see several possible routes:

1. Settle where warrior is now. Research Fishing and rush a work boat first.
   
2. Settle in place, start a worker, found Hinduism.
   
3. Something else?

 

[FuRRie]

Looks like a nice start.

Isabella starts with Fishing and Mysticism, so we should settle at warrior spot or just 1 NW.
The spot 1 NW, stil lgives acces to the sea, and leaving those Forested grass tiles in our BFC.
Get an early religion and then aim for Bronze Working so we can chop a settler.

Just my ideas

 

[Orion071]

We're on a plains hill right now, aren't we? I say settle in place. It wouldn't surprise me to see seafood in one of the 4 BFC coast tiles we can't see. But even if there isn't, the Corn is enough for us. We can save the Clams for another city. I like the extra hammer. We need Agriculture and then Mining for those Gems. But I agree with Polytheism first.

Start with a Worker so we can get those Gems on-line as soon as possible. That's going to be a HUGE boost to early research. If we have seafood, then a Workboat to start, then a Worker.

 

[Sealot]

Orions plan sounds good but we can only hope that there's a good spot for second city at this island or those clams will be useless. Actually, is it worth wasting a few turns for moving a settler SW to see if there are any sea food resources down there. If there are, settle on plains hill, if not settle 1 NW of settlers starting tile.

If it's not worth moving, just settle 1 NW tile.

 

[FuRRie]

I'd rather just settle 1 NW and "wasting" 1 turn, then wasting 2 to see we have a seafood at West

 

[Orion071]

So the Clams are useless. It's not that big of a deal. If we settle 1NW, then any potential seafood in the fog will be useless. I think the benefit of settling on the plains hill outweigh the Clams. I think if we settle in place we should go Worker first. We've got to get those Gems mined before the jungle spreads over them. That would be a disaster forcing us to go Iron Working to use them.

I think this will be extremely difficult because we don't have any terrain for a second city. We're on a peninsula with jungle to the north. Yuck.

 

[Codeman]

1 NW of warrior is 3 tiles away from current spot settler is in. he has 2 moves, so on turn one he will move to 1 S of proposed. on turn 2 he will cross a river in to a jungle, this will consume second turn. will be able to found city on turn 3.

i personally think it's better to just settle in place or one NW of settler (to get clams), than to wait until 3rd turn to build city. also, there may be limited space on this island to put cities. moving north may hurt the city placement options once we see the rest of the island.

 

[Orion071]

I think the choices have always been either settle in place or settle 1NW of the Settler's position. Maybe the jungle hill 4N of the settler can be city #2. Plus, 1NW of the Warrior is the Clams.

We have low water level, so there should be a decent amount of room on the home continent. I just hope it's better than what we've seeing now.

If we want to found Hinduism, we shouldn't waste time. We won't be working a commerce tile at the start (unless we work the lake). Well, it is Prince, it shouldn't matter too much.