Calling all CE enthusiasts

[futurehermit]

Nothing wrong with conquering the entire world before 1000Aad, although on normal speed and continents I would say that is nigh impossible.

I wouldn't say also that we're using "purist" rules, we're just trying to work as many cottages as possible while expanding at a nice pace. Nothing too purist about that really.

If we have say a coastal tundra city that has 3 seafood and next to no grasslands, then sure run specialists, that makes perfect sense.

But if you have a pig and a riverside corn with the rest being mostly grassland (former jungle) then avoid the temptation to run 4+ scientists and instead increase your and cottage that baby.

 

[Sjaramei]

But if you have a pig and a riverside corn with the rest being mostly grassland (former jungle) then avoid the temptation to run 4+ scientists and instead increase your and cottage that baby.

Temptation to run scientists at a city like that? Nope, never had that one

But point taken, post the save!

 

[futurehermit]

Ok, here is the start!!! Good Luck

 

[ratrangerm]

Nice starting spot. Would be even better if there was gold in the capital's BFC, but maybe you'll get lucky and there will be some in those squares that haven't been uncovered yet.

Although I'm not playing, pottery would be nice to get fairly soon. Building a cottage on at least one flood plain square means you can work it for food. You can get AH to work the pigs and then mine one of the grassland hills. That gets you a pretty good balance of production, food and commerce for a size 3 city,.

 

[Mutineer]

You made it a monarch dificulty. It is way, way to easy to show anything.

 

[futurehermit]

You made it a monarch dificulty. It is way, way to easy to show anything.

The point is to allow more people to play. Really high difficulty levels (emperor+) require lots of warfare and leveraging the AI, etc. That's fine, of course, but only a smallish % of the community plays at these levels. I like to play monarch usually because it is more relaxed.

It is still challenging for many players to play on monarch and it's my opinion that FE/SE is the way to go at higher levels. So for a CE imo it makes sense to ease up a bit on the difficulty level

 

[Jet]

Never mind. Not worth it.

 

[obsolete]

You made it a monarch dificulty. It is way, way to easy to show anything.

Well another part of it is the turn speed is quite slow as well in this setting. Are we on epic? That's also a huge advantage for the human player.

Anyhow, I tried, but before I even got the second tech discovered I had to quit because of bordom. Too slowish a pace at Monarch just doesn't hold my attention very long...

 

[frob2900]

Well another part of it is the turn speed is quite slow as well in this setting. Are we on epic? That's also a huge advantage for the human player.

Anyhow, I tried, but before I even got the second tech discovered I had to quit because of bordom. Too slowish a pace at Monarch just doesn't hold my attention very long...

?? Its normal speed.

 

[Jet]

Well... I played all the way through. Sorry if I'm doing it differently from the intention. We didn't say it would be a multithreaded succession game or anything, so I thought it would be OK. Inside this spoiler, each save and discussion is in its own spoiler.

Spoiler :

2000 BC

Spoiler :

Seeing the terrain, settled 1W, planning on Great Library + Heroic Epic + National Epic + Bureaucracy (odd, I know). Maybe Oracle, but probably not. Building a Scout first worked well; I popped a scout and a tech. Roosevelt beat me to the horses. Not seeing another nearby strategic resource, I went Pottery for Granaries and cottages while researching IW. But no cottages yet.

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Cottage_Economists_BC-2000.CivWarlordsSave

1000 BC

Spoiler :

Between a lot of Aggressive Warriors and a crowded map, I'm not getting trouble from barbs. Nidaros just whipped the Settler for Iron city. Cities 2 and 3 are a little short on food, but it's not bad.

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Cottage_Economists_BC-1000.CivWarlordsSave

1 AD

Spoiler :

With just ~3 cottages in Nidaros and good luck I got great post-Alphabet deals:
1. Med from Roosevelt for Writing
2. Masonry and Sailing from Gandhi for IW
3. researched Poly
4. Math from Catherine for IW, Poly, and Med.

I was able to build both the Great Library and roughly the units on the map now: 5 Axe, 3 Spear, 7 Sword. Enough to take New York but not Washington (with my units spread out). I'm pillaging and building research to get to Construction. I have a couple extra cottages on the river. Not many. Cities 2 and 3 are stagnating at their happy caps. I enjoy that much more than micromanaging growth and whipping anyway.

While I was building the Great Library I switched to Judaism for the extra happy in Nidaros and one other city. But on the turn of the save I've failed to micromanage Nidaros. It has an extra point of happy and probably should be working a food tile instead of a plains cottage. But I usually worked the 1F3C3H Marble no matter what.

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Cottage_Economists_AD-0001.CivWarlordsSave

500 AD

Spoiler :

Got through Monarchy and Currency fast and traded for Calendar. I might have traded for part of Monarchy. Code of Laws last because I don't plan on Caste System (no suitable cities, for one thing) nor building Courthouses soon (have to build units). I want Roosevelt's southern cities before I go after Gandhi, who has conveniently changed religion.

Now Nidaros is in fact working "all" cottages, even though it's building Heroic Epic. I'm not in a big rush to get it built because I have enough units to finish Roosevelt, then build some Courthouses. Otherwise I'm working a motley assortment of food, cottages, and production tiles. I think that's partly a result of this map: most cities have hills. Besides Nidaros, the only Libraries I have/am building are for post-Calendar culture. I've started with Monument, Granary, Barracks, then just built units.

First scientist went to an Academy in Nidaros. A funny choice, I realize later, since I won't be able to build Oxford there.

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Cottage_Economists_AD-0500.CivWarlordsSave

1000 AD

Spoiler :

Catherine declared on Gandhi a few turns before me, which has made Gandhi a pushover, but I'm advancing cautiously.

I have built Courthouses and am working an average of 2 cottages per city. At the moment Nidaros is working 7.

The Chariot I'm building in Washington was a feeble, abortive attempt to build military police. Usually if I have a big science city I'll build cheap MP at least for that city. But in this game most hammers went into attack units.

Second scientist popped Philosophy, but I wasn't the first to it. In this game I had very good GPP luck from Great Library + Heroic Epic + National Epic, and didn't pop an Artist until after Chemistry.

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Cottage_Economists_AD-1000.CivWarlordsSave

1500 AD

Spoiler :

I missed Liberalism by 12 turns in 1200, and finished Gandhi in 1410, and getting through PP (Hannibal first contact, with Compass, for Education and Drama) and Chemistry (lightbulbed). I've started a prolonged and tortuous period of Grenadier spam. Time is of the essence here because I'm trying to beat Catherine to Cossacks. But she has stacks and stacks of Knights and crap, so I feel I need some defenders first.

I am finishing 6 Universities, but it's probably a bad idea since (a) I haven't specialized my cities much (b) I've idiotically forgotten that I already have 2 national wonders in Nidaros. I will build Oxford in Delhi, but much later.

Many cites are way below happy cap because of leftover war weariness. Some citizen assignments are pretty dubious - I'm micromanaging less. It only gets worse from here .

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Cottage_Economists_AD-1500.CivWarlordsSave

Not for the faint of heart:

Spoiler :

Looking back at this, I noticed I built Forbidden Palace in Madras, which is... 8 tiles away from Nidaros.

Spoiler :

What the hell was I thinking?

Spoiler :

I think playing from midnight to 4 AM might have had something to do with it!

1675 AD

Spoiler :

Here I am in the throes of non-micromanaging Grenadier-vs-Cossack slog, 0% science, 20% Culture, 40 turns from Constitution. I've gotten Rifles late, and that was with a very good trade for Replacable Parts.. I have too many units: many are left over after Catherine. As Catherine started to dwindle I probably should have transitioned from hammer tiles to commerce tiles. Which I finally do, somewhat, getting Constitution from 40 down to something more reasonable.

The golden age I'm ending helps keep me afloat. I think it's an Artist (finally from Nidaros) and an Engineer.

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Cottage_Economists_AD-1675.CivWarlordsSave

1814 AD

Spoiler :

Here I am after uneventfully zipping Democracy and Astronomy, spying on my neighbors. I'm still not managing tiles very carefully. Brennus is the weakest, but you see he has Transports and Machine Guns. My navy is just getting started. Mostly I've been building buildings (Banks, Drydocks, etc - in 3 turns I'll start Factories.) My stacks left over from Catherine are hanging out on the beach, staring at the waves.

I'm in HR / Free Speech / Emancipation / Free Market / Free Religion. I adopt Universal Suffrage not long after (although with happy resources from the whole freaking continent under my control, I probably should have adopted it right away.)

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Cottage_Economists_AD-1814.CivWarlordsSave

1894

Spoiler :

I got most of the barb island, and now I am in fact at 63.93% land mass. I had to take a couple cities on barb island from Brennus, who I was attacking on the mainland anyway. Brennus then went ***** to Hannibal, who started kicking my ass with Tanks and stuff (he took back Durnorvaria, killing my Medic III Spearman and a whole big stack.)

I never make any real headway on the mainland. But four turns from now my mad Viking culture will expand to encompass that one empty desert tile on barb island, and I will win Domination. Not a very exemplary game, but my second highest score ever!

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Cottage_Economists_AD-1894.CivWarlordsSave

 

[futurehermit]

If people don't want to play then don't. You don't have to gripe about it

 

[r_rolo1]

My 2000 BC checkpoint

Spoiler :

Not much to say so far. Met Catherine, Roosevelt and Gandhi ( just these 3 promise a interesting game. Researched Agri, Wheel, Mining , BW ( Catherine got that from a hut ), Archery ( cooper too far away ( Bye bye axe rush )) and 1 turn away from AH. Gandhi founded Judaism and Roosy is expandind towards me.
Near future: Oracle -> Monarchy (got marble, maybe doable) and cottage capitol.

The save

 

[obsolete]

Hmm, taking another look indeed your right, it's normal speed. Though for some reason I'm so used to quick it seems painful.

This morning I had time to burn so I hit it up again....

Spoiler :

Rolo, I had trouble finding copper near but there was Iron. So I did an axe-sword rush and took out USA right from the start practically. This free promotional thing made it much too easy... I also got a stonehenge out of the deal..

 

[futurehermit]

I find quick too fast, especially at high levels. The AI just zooms away and there's really nothing you can do. Especially financial leaders peacefully teching away on the other continent...

 

[DaveMcW]

Nice start. I count 16 cottages in the capital, and I'm tempted to cottage the silks and bananas to make it 18...

 

[futurehermit]

Nice start. I count 16 cottages in the capital, and I'm tempted to cottage the silks and bananas to make it 18...

Dave, you GOTTA play this game Your game is the one I'm looking forward to the most

 

[Dirk1302]

Spoiler :

Started with a scout. Popped a total of 130 gold with the scouts. After the city grew to 2 i started a worker, researched wheel , pottery and started cottaging. 2000 bc i have 2 hamlets that take 8 and 18 tuns to grow to village and 2 cots that take 3 and 10 turns to grow to hamlet, a fifth cottage is being build at the moment. had to deflect to archery since i'm in no position at the moment to take the faraway horses or copper.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Nice start. I count 16 cottages in the capital, and I'm tempted to cottage the silks and bananas to make it 18...

Me I'm worried about too many floodplains - tempted to go 1s unless the scout shows something exciting to the north. Maybe I'll get two great cottage cities that way.

With pigs and bananas and floodplains this city will produce food like crazy. Unless thats your only banana cottaging the banana is a great idea and I like cottaging silk (unless its my only one of course).

 

[futurehermit]

1 S looks like a good possibility, but I think it would be better to try and find wheat/rice/corn somewhere nearby to offset health problems. The long-term potential of this city really is amazing.

The funny thing is that this is only the 2nd start I rolled The first one I scrapped because it was an isolated start

 

[Kennigit]

Spoiler :

Well, I've played to the 1000 Ad mark. I got agriculture first, farmed 2 squares at cap, by time I finished farms I got BW and chopped first settler. I used these farms w/ pig and later 1 mine to crunch out my settlers, then replaced them. I'm doing well I think, and its my first game in a long time. Roosevelt founded Atlanta 1 turn before I founded city I have there w/ dyes, but I have iron from culture. I got liberalism in 840 AD with help of my 1rst GS who helped pop education, and am 1rst in GNP (sometimes 2nd, it fluctuates some). I'm tech leader and I am using gunpowder to go to war with ghandi once I get some units built. I should change to free speech once acouple towns develope. Heres my saves