AZ-05: Dan Quayle Challenge

[NoChildren]

said quayle, but for us i agree that either a diplomatic or cultural victory is best option.
I guess for cultural we would need 6 cities to get those academies out there to boost culture, but if we keep them really tight we wont get to high on points because of land, maybe we should try to have coastal empire as well, since we will be high on culture, claiming land in that way.

on the other hand it would be interesting to try out an AP-win, since I haven't done that myself yet.

 

[shyuhe]

I don't think an early religion is very plausible, since it'll require mysticism first and the AI still gets commerce bonuses over us at monarch. I think we can start picking up religions around judaism, confucianism, and taoism. We can definitely get the latter two religions, and we don't want to win culturally too fast do we?

 

[NoChildren]

of course not! time is of no importance in our game, but still it would be nice to get one of those early religions as well. perhaps if we sign some open borders the AI will be kind enough to spread them to us. perhaps we won't have to build all the academies, but if we have to it would be nice to have the possibility.

 

[tycoonist]

have any of you tried doing a cultural on Bts?

 

[azaris]

have any of you tried doing a cultural on Bts?

Yes, but I was backstabbed by Suleiman and wiped out. It seems a bit easier with the beefed up Sistine Chapel and the slower AI tech pace making religion grabbing easier.

We don't seem to have agreed on the plan yet; what about the start? Do we plan to pop a second city near that gold hill (if there's not too much desert)?

 

[NoChildren]

i somehow managed to miss the post with the screens, so sorry about the late input. but if there is decent food i think we should try to settle near the gold hill as soon as possible, since it would give a big boost to our early research and enable us to secure some early religions.
owning the early religions will be helpful not only culturally, but it might also be useful to control them out of a diplomatic point of view. settle in place seems nice to me. some production from the hills, food from floodplains and hopefully some bonus recourse in the dark.

 

[NoChildren]

yeah, i've won cultural on emperor in BtS.

 

[azaris]

It's time for the American people to take a step forward and settle in place. First tech is Mining. Villagers provide a scout, handy. He shall see many unseen places. As Washington expands it pops another hut for a scout. After Mining, Bronze Working. I find marble. We meet Pericles in 3600 BC. Hostile villagers kill our warrior. Judaism FIADL in 3440 BC (I have Choose religions on). After BW we revolt to Slavery and start Mysticism. Copper in the fat cross of Washington. Buddhism FIADL in 3080 BC. Pericles converts to it. We meet Ramesses, who is Jewish. Let my people go! I mean, let your people go... Ah, heck.

We have a nice little cul-de-sac with lots of nice resources, so we should be able to set up a few good cities and turtle our way to the modern age. Maybe consider building a fortress line to protect us from would-be attackers with superior technology? We have the landscape for it. But first, decisions about city placement need to be done. Super-commerce city with gold + gems? Use the gold to bribe everyone to be our friends? How very... Republican.

I'd like to grab Oracle for CoL and then use the prophet to pop Theology. We can probably forego Henge since we'll have few cities and every wonder will bring us unwanted score. Whatever we do, let's not lose the AP.

I have made good decisions in the past. I have made good decisions in the future. Hopefully so will the next player.

Roster

azaris (just played)
tycoonist (UP for 20 turns)
shyuhe (on deck)
NoChildren

 

[shyuhe]

looks good. Where around the cows do we want to plant the second city? next to the cow on the river looks good, but so does one east and south of that as well.

I would recommend skipping the oracle. We can beeline for theology after the basic worker techs and get the AP that way. The oracle will probably just end up being unnecessary points by the end of the game.

 

[azaris]

If we can skip Oracle then let's do so, but I know that the AIs tend to prioritize AP and we are facing industrious civs. Is it too much of a risk?

 

[NoChildren]

i haven't looked at the save yet, but at i first glance things are looking really good. no AIs nearby which is good since we don't want to go to war.

how many cities are we planning on building? i think we should make a decision on this fairly soon also, we should avoid to grab to much of all that juicy land. this surely is a strange variant.
but a city by gold/cow/gems is obvious, perhaps one near the dye and banana as well later.

 

[NoChildren]

couldn't help but have quick look even though i'm in a hurry. made a little dotmap, maybe not the best suggestions, i had some scond thoughts, but i thought we need something to get a discussion going.

 

[azaris]

I don't think number of cities is important to decide now, they can be gifted away/starved if necessary later. Let's just develop normally at the moment. More important is to decide which wonders and techs we can afford to grab.

I like the red spot.

 

[NoChildren]

i prefer red dot as well, blue might be a bit short on food.
are we going to run a SE or CE?
With the improved Sistine Chapel i feel that running a SE might be very effective if we get that wonder.
Theology is something we're aiming for anyway isn't it?
For building the AP and founding the religion.

I kinda like the idea of building the oracle and getting CoL to found religion and then using the GP to bulb theology.
Are we going to try to bulb Philosophy as well?


Wonders:
Oracle
Apostolic Palace
Sistine Chapel (?)

EDIT:
I've never had Pericles this close, what's he like?

 

[tycoonist]

i haven't played against him, but being Pericles is so much fun! i am currently running the best SE ever with him (7 cities, 500 AD, liberalism, about 4 scientists in each and 8 in one!!!! real pity i didn't make the pyramids deadline, missed by about four turns). anyway, the red dot and the yellow dot look good, the other two are not bad but not nearly as good. i will play twenty when i find a break away from school work (today was first day back making me go back in August!)

oh and of course GOT IT

 

[NoChildren]

I've been thinking since we want this game at a slow pace maybe we should run fairly high espionage to encourage the AI to do so as well, this will slow down the techpace and allow us a later victory.

 

[tycoonist]

good point

 

[shyuhe]

does a higher espionage slider make the AI run theirs higher too? I didn't know... I've been playing all my BTS games with 0% espionage

Red dot looks good to me as well. I still don't think the oracle is necessary to win the race to the AP, especially if we get an early religion (maybe off of monotheism?).

 

[NoChildren]

yeah, it seems the AI doesn't want you spying on them so by raising your espionage you force them in to do the same thing and you get yourself a real nice cold war.

 

[tycoonist]

in the end i only played fifteen turns cause it took us up to 40 and i have made some choices and now is the opportune time to object if you feel it necessary. overall, a fairly quiet turnset, main incidents are listed below.

Northern scout: explored a bit but after surviving simultaneous attacks from a wolf then a weakened bear, got eaten by a passing lion.

Southern Scout: beat off to wolves to obtain woodsman II. after this and northern scout's unfortunate demise, was ordered north to put that woodsman promotion to good use by exploring the jungle.

Washington:built warrior, then another to allow for growth before a settler was started. settler completed at 2440 BC at which point it heads for gold, Gems, FP city.

Research: ah, the crux of the matter: i finished mysticism and then chose poly as it opens up both priesthood (for oracle) and monotheism (for religion/opening up theology) at the end of the turn began on priesthood, but no hammers invested. we might consider wheel as a priority ion order to get the copper hooked up, or do we want to play it risky and beeline to the oracle first. it should be noted that we also require writing for theology.

met this dude:

settler destination:

world map:

so your choice shyuhe on the city site (settler is heading for red dot now) and research path.