BTS 3.13: Infinite City Sprawl 01 - Manhattan Empire

[Zherak_Khan]

Manhattan Empire -The kingdom of neat
Closed for signups.

This variant will explore a style of play which is hardly ever used, but still surprisingly efficient.

Civ/Leader: Aoka [Spi/Org, Mining(?)/Mysticism, Fast Worker, Mausoleum]
Size: Standard
Type: Pangea, Lakes or similar
Speed: Normal
Difficulty: Emperor
Other: None
Version: BTS 3.13, regular (Unaltered gameplay mods okay)

Variant: Every city we control must be exactly three tiles vertically or horizontally removed from another of our cities.

Clarifications: This means that all our cities will always be in a neat and as tight as possible grid. Our second city must have exactly two open tiles between itself and the capitol - not diagonally, but either horizontally or vertically. We may keep captured cities if they adhere to this grid - else, they must be razed.

If a peak or lake somehow hinders us from founding a city in our grid, that city will simply not be founded. This is not an exception to the rule of sprawling.

We are allowed to snake our cities, but this increases upkeep.

(As soon as we found our capitol, all potential cities we can control are decided. Our only choice is if/when to actually build these cities.)

Thoughts:

This variant is somewhat tough because the number of cities completely strangles our economy unless we play it well. Combining Courthouses and Organized is completely necessarry to offset this as Manhattan Empire grows.

A holy shrine (or three) will be extremely valuable. We need CoL early, so we should consider Whoracling CoL for Confucianism.

While we won't easily be able to seize land, our many-small-cities Empire will use more tiles faster. Assuming an infinte numer of cities, each city will have eight tiles to work plus centre, minus eventual peaks and deserts. This means health and happy will not be much of an issue.

Conquest is the most likely victory condition. Other suggestions are welcome.



Roster
Zherak_Khan (CET, GMT +1)
Betruger
shuye
ungy
stuge
mystfly

Regular SG rules apply.

 

[Winth]

Errr... I don't like the ICS concept at all, because it pretty much adds a lot of tedious micromanagement, and after all, I'd like to see 20 size cities... It's just not my style. Besides, it opens up few exploits. Still, I will give it a few lurks.
It will be hilarious when you find out that the only Copper/Iron resource within site can be settled way after "chaining" 12 cramped cities...

 

[Betruger]

Sounds like fun, count me in.

What about Charlemange? Imperialistic/Protective is not really a great combo, but those -75% maintnance Rathauses are sure worth considering.
Also, being Imperialistic, we would produce settlers much quickier.
All in all it seems to me like a perfect leader for this scenario.

The way I see it, we should grab oracle -> COL, and start spamming those settlers.

 

[shyuhe]

Organized = half price courthouses. It's very helpful as it reduces the whipping cost of courthouses to a pop 4 city (2 pop without the rushing penalty). Sign me up. I'd vote for a standard sized map because that's just what I normally play. Emperor or immortal - either is fine for me.

Our leader choices are Asoka, Hammurabi, and Frederick? No love for the others? Here's the full list of organized buddies:

Asoka (spiritual), Hammurabi (aggressive), Napoleon (charismatic), Darius (financial), JC (imperialistic), Roosevelt (industrious), Frederick (philo), Mehmed (exp), Zara (creative). So the only trait organized is not paired with is protective Asoka, Darius and JC are obviously out (overpowered). I don't really mind any of the other leaders.

 

[Betruger]

Immortal might be too difficult to pull it off, I'd say emperor will be challenging enough. Standard size for me too plese
I still think that Charlemange is the most thematic leader for city spamming, maybe not the best but certainly fun to play.

 

[Zherak_Khan]

Possible strategies:

Asoka - Spi/Org
Single-city->Buddhism->Oracle->CoL/Confucianism
From here on, the combination of lower upkeep, cheap courthouses and two-headed Hydra will allow us to actually ICC without crushing our economy. I imagine civic-juggling should be helpful.

Darius - Fin/Org
Obvious cottage spam ICC. I don't think this is particularly strong and not much fun either.

Napoleon - Cha/Org
Charismatic will allow us to get large cities with less happy-resources and religion. However, each city having very few tiles, there isn't much large happening anyway.

Mehmed - Exp/Org
Extra health, cheap granaries. UB for larger yet cities. Don't see the fit.

Frederick - Phi/Org
Phi goes well with our most-likely farm-based economy. UU and UB is as lategame as they get.

Charlemange - Imp/Pro:
I think no-Org is really going to hurt. We will have to emphasize fast Courthouses even more, and I'm not sure how 50%->75% compares with no half-civic upkeep.


I think the Asoka Buddhism/Hindiusm+Confucianism -> City-Spam would be both fun and help us actually play the variant, rather than playing around it. Else, we will just take a more generic approach, maybe using our strong production to play war-based with Nappy/Hammurabi.

 

[shyuhe]

Each interior city will have a cap of size 8 tiles worked so any city over size 9 will be running specialists. On the upside, we'll never need to pop borders

Corporations will be really nice if we get that far. I don't think HRE is a good choice. Slower courthouses will cripple our growth rate. Darius won't be very useful now that I think about it. 8 towns may be nice but most cities won't have that many cottages. If we're going to play more farm based, I'd vote Asoka. I think he's a little over powered but spiritual is always good for SG's and his UU is awesome.

 

[ungy]

I'd like to give it a try.
I agree about immortal being too tough--this is a pretty serious constraint.
I would say organized is more in the spirit of the game, and probably our strongest choice.
I also agree with Asoka, as I like spiritual for SG but IMHO Darius is stronger.

 

[Zherak_Khan]

Original post updated. I will give it a couple of days, allowing some more discussion and 0-2 more signups, before I roll the start. As is, it seems we are going to see Asoka Lakes Standard, Oracle->CoL, but this is subject to change.

 

[mystyfly]

I'd like to play a SG (THIS SG). BUT: I never played a SG. I don't really know what ICS is (does someone have a link??). I only played a few Emperor game (Monarch before). But I think you tell me what to do, I'd do fine . I really like Asoka for his traits and UU. I never played a Lakes map.

If you don't mind, count me in

 

[shyuhe]

I agree that this game will probably feel more like an immortal game since our cities will suck until corps. Our border cities will have more than 9 tiles available though so it's something to keep in mind when we settle new cities. Also, we can juggle tiles between cities so that one city works the neighboring city's BFC. It may result in a few utter junk cities but it will ensure that we have at least 2-3 good cities.

AP + SM + UoS may also provide a good combo. It will provide a base of 4 hammers, 4 beakers and 4 gold to all cities. Plus religious warfare is always fun

 

[Betruger]

All right, I concur, Asoka seems like a fun leader to play, especially with religious warfare in mind.

 

[stuge]

I'd like to sign up. Looks like an interesting variant.

 

[Zherak_Khan]

I'll try to accomodate you, mystfly. I'm not a SG-veteran myself.

ICS = Infinte City Sprawl - a term mostly orginating from Civ3, where corruption meant all non-core cities would make 1 Shield and 1 Trade, so might as well build as many of them as possible. We will mimic the city-spam playstyle in this SG, even though corruption does not exist in Civ4.

I'm busy for the rest of today, but I will whip up a start on Friday.

Question: Is there any map which will give us less trouble in the form of unsettleable tiles (peaks and lakes/sea)? I'm thinking Pangea, but it has a lot of coastline, or Inland Sea. In theory, with a bit of bad luck, our start can force a non-OCC-triggered One City Challenge.

[Current strategy: Depending on opening, I will try to stick to one city all the way through Oracle->CoL. With one happy resource and winning Buddhism and/or Hinduism, our city can grow to size 8, which is a real boost. From there on, the City spam ensues, fueled by 1-2 Shrines and Courthouses. Capitol will either work as a GPFarm or our (only) cottage centre.

With a less fortunate start, though, I'll have to abandon the Hydra idea and instead pursue a combination of Oracle->CoL and moderate expansion. We might need a plan for early defence, because we aren't great at seizing faraway resources. Archery does suck, though.]

 

[mystyfly]

You'll just have to show me how we'll place those cities. I didn't play civ 3.
Tropical removes most peaks I think. I like Inland Sea (lots of warmongerering). Inland sea also generates lots of land. Our only protection would be against barbs, as we play without agg ai (am I right there?). So a couple of axes is enought I think.

 

[r_rolo1]

lurker comment

@mystyfly

City placement sohold be something like:

CxxCxxC

With C being cities and x other tiles..... The objective is to maximixe land usage ( of course that in Civ III it was a almost absolute need )

And it is good to see that you finally entered in the world of SGing

 

[shyuhe]

We're allowed to snake our cities so it's unlikely we'll be stuck in OCC mode. Rule question though - can we skip a ring of cities? So can we settle :

capital-x-x-blank-x-x-new city

or is that a rules violation? I wouldn't restrict ourselves to one city while building the oracle. We should settle city #2 before starting the oracle otherwise we'll lose out on getting lots of land. Also, drafting will be VERY powerful for us once we hit rifles + nationalism since we'll have so many cities (with spare room on the cap. So land grab as much as possible without completely destroying our economy during the BC years, then aim for nationalism from liberalism and start drafting a war stack.

Lakes with low seas should be fine. Pangaea will make us snake our cities unless we start in the middle of the map. Archery may be nice for barbs if we don't get horses or bronze nearby.

 

[mystyfly]

r_rolo: thanks for your kind words

our city-placement - in 2D, does it look like this:
CxxCxxC
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxx
CxxCxxC
??

We're allowed to snake our cities so it's unlikely we'll be stuck in OCC mode. Rule question though - can we skip a ring of cities? So can we settle :

capital-x-x-blank-x-x-new city

What do you mean by 'snake our citites'?

If we can skip a ring, we could aim for a big land grab, seal a lot of land off. But then we need at least 2, more likely 3 settlers, and escorts. This would make the Oracle very risky (and very situational). But I like aiming for a lot of land to backfill.

Can we possibly do an early rush? Say if our closest neighbour founds Buddh/Hindu, would we switch from whatever we're researching to BW since we start with Mining (are we agreed on Asoka?)?

 

[Betruger]

I don't think skipping a ring is really an option.
As for map, pangea with solid shoreline seems to be good for this.

 

[shyuhe]

What if we capture a distant city? Do we have to raze it if it's not connected but in the right spot?