BTS Roleplaying Challenge: Sitting Bull

hooray!!!!! that was really really fun. for me, i mean. probably not for joao, or justinian, or pacal, or genghis...

imagine how different it would have been if somebody else had built Statue of Zeus with your WW problems as it was, ugh. and the AP ;) i don't think the AP system is perfect as designed but i think some people overlook how it can come in really handy at times *giggle*

i can't fight that many wars in a week. how do you do it so fast? sheesh! my brain's just not wired that way.
 
Congrats!

My suggestion on the creating a colony was aimed at going for a Diplo win, which I think suited more the spirit of the Civ we played.

However, Native American's kicking the white skin's hard was also fun to watch. :D
 
Excellent, for a bunch of war-crazy tree huggers. I'll keep that crazy amount of WW in mind if in my RP Challenge, if I get dragged (literaly. It's one of the two ways to go to war for me) into one. Hope to see more of these from the creator of 'em :worship:
 
Even More Final Thoughts -- the impact of the RP handicaps

No slavery: Yes, it can be done! Truthfully, I only wished for it a few times. My production did remain constant, too. There was no up-and-down spiking from growing/whipping/growing. This predictability let me plan better in the early game. And I didn't have to deal with slave revolts, either.

No chopping: This was by far the biggest handicap. My cities in the Cawak homeland were unable to grow to max size or get the production boost from chopping. Saving the trees had some nice side effects -- extra production and health, and much later, commerce from forest preserves -- but the inability to get extra food from chopping and farming was a substantial hindrance.

Also, the Cawak workers didn't have a whole lot to do after a certain point. But that's what we here in Texas call a "Cadillac problem" -- a good problem to have.

RP Diplomacy restrictions: These were not horribly limiting. I was able to do what I needed to win the game.

Civics Requirements: Aside from the No Slavery rule, we had to take Environmentalism. As I hadn't been chopping trees, my cities' health was just fine, and Environmentalism was overkill. This was a handicap. I could have really used State Property in a major way. Also, I never got out of Organized Religion or Theocracy for RP reasons. We weren't pacifistic, so that civic didn't get used, even thought it would have meshed nicely with Philosophical. Free Religion would have been very handy to help deal with war weariness in my conquered lands, but the Chief was stubborn about the Great Spirit.

Overall, then, I think the RP restrictions were meaningful. Prince difficulty was about right for me, given the restrictions.

Lastly, I'm sure I didn't get the most out of Philosophical. Without chopping and farming, GP farming was out, and no other GP farm really presented itself, or I forgot to look for one. My flow of Great People slowed to a crawl in the end, but that may be more because the turns were so long.

Protective actually was handy for my gunpowder units. My typical Cawak doughboy was CG I, Drill I, Drill II, and Pinch, right out of the gate. Not bad, but Charismatic or Aggressive would have been better overall.

Oh, and while it was fun to put a Great General on a siege unit, I wouldn't recommend it. Even with the Leadership promotion, they just don't earn xp like a regular unit. I would have been better off with a medic.
 
Yea thanks! This was absolutely brilliant idea and game!

-lurker =P
 
I really enjoyed reading your posts, too. When you got into difficulty because of the RP constraints, I was reminded of what happens in some role-playing games like D&D or GURPS, where there is a tension between people who want to play "in character" and those who want to play "optimally". Sticking with the RP constraints sometimes removes the "best" move from your set of possibilities.
 
Here's some preliminary city placement. What do you think?

View attachment 160498

By the way, I am not too concerned about city overlap in this game. We will probably not be working all 20 BFC tiles in any of our cities for a long time, if ever, due to the reduced amount of farming occasioned by our anti-chopping RP Handicaps. So if you want to champion a city site just 3 or 4 tiles from another city, go for it.

The closest good city site is to the southwest of Cawak. By placing a city in the desert next to the oasis, I keep fresh water, get to work all three floodplains, and only end up with one desert tile in the BFC. I lose coastal access, though.

The other river system further southwest, near Justinian, also begs to be colonized quickly. It also has floodplains (5 of 'em) and two gold, and lots of food resources in the delta area. I am having a hard time positioning two cities in that area, and could use some help. I have preliminarily decided that the forest tile at the river mouth is one potential spot, as it gets the pigs, fish, and corn.

The last strong site is in the center, with sheep, wine, corn and elephants. Unfortunately, all of them can't be reached with one city, so I am considering leaving the corn to a a coastal city to the northeast that can also work a fish tile. The central city gets fresh water access, again, by being adjacent to the oasis and can work all of the river tiles in its BFC and get the sheep, wine, and elephants.

Discussion points:

1. Settlements. Which first? Before or after Stonehenge? Justinian doesn't have Sailing (or Fishing for that matter, yet -- his clams are unworked as of now), but it's a matter of time before he loads up some Albino followers into a galley to settle near that gold.
2. Research. I'm planning on going for the Stonehenge techs (Mysticism, Masonry to work the stone) then trying for Monotheism.
3. Build order from here. I'm almost done with the worker, then I'm thinking finish the warrior I interrupted (for more fogbusting), then Stonehenge, then a settler. I really want to get Stonehenge out of the way so (a) I don't miss it and (b) I can grow Cawak to size 5 to crank out settlers, working the pigs, stone, lake, and two forested plains hills(this will Stagnate Cawak at the initial happy cap and produce 12 hammers/turn, and it will likely stay that way until we get some gold and/or elephants hooked up).
4. Other wonders. I'm not averse to other wonders, but since we can't rush produce them, we have to be careful. Great Wall is probably out due to time constraints, but the Great Burial Mounds (pyramids) are a possibility, if I can get another city capable of producing units in the meantime. The good news is that our worker will have nothing to do at Cawak after the pigs and stone are hooked up, and so he can drive a road to the new city and help improve it quickly.

Attached is the savegame file.
I have a slightly off-topic and very very lame question for you - in the picture you've got the wee pointer thingies showing where your cities are going to be. Is that something you had to do in photoshop, or can you do that in Civ 4?

I'm hoping for the latter, because I want to use it to name geographical features.
 
I have a slightly off-topic and very very lame question for you - in the picture you've got the wee pointer thingies showing where your cities are going to be. Is that something you had to do in photoshop, or can you do that in Civ 4?

I'm hoping for the latter, because I want to use it to name geographical features.

If you press Alt-S and click on a square, a little window pops up that lets you name the "pointer" / sign.
 
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I am finding that giving my units names and personalities helps me slow down and enjoy the game more -- which has the effect of greatly improving my play.

I will try to exercise restraint on the voluminous images, though, for my sake and yours.



Good point. I may end up putting it in Constantinople, then. This would dovetail nicely with my plan to put the Forbidden Palace there. It would really make it a nice second capitol.



Was it round 2? I can't remember. :p I had the ivory hooked up and it finished pretty quickly.



Actually, I had forgotten; thank you for the reminder. One more reason I suppose for Constantinople to be a hybrid city.



I have played round 4, and let's just say I have another victory condition in mind. I'll post it later today, after I finish making :gold: IRL.
Another dumb question - how do you name your units? I was looking for that option, but couldn't find it.
 
Well, now that I've finished reading this game, very well done indeed! This was a cracking good read!

I almost enjoy watching games like this more than I enjoy playing the game myself.

Great stuff, keep 'em coming! :)
 
Argh, I can't believe I dropped off the map here and missed this game... I was having such fun keeping up with it too.

You fought damn well, SB. I'm impressed, I know I'd probably panic if my research slider dropped below 50% - nevermind to 0% and having to hoard so much...

I should fire my RPC back up... I lost my discs for a while, but I unearthed them recently and found my way back here. :D
 
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