CG14 - Ultimate Settler Factory

[cgannon64]

I think CG13 died because it was too basic, so here is my next SG, which should be a little more interesting.

Civ: Any Agricultural Civ.

Level: Emperor. (I can go to Monarch or Demigod if people ask for it...)

Map: Made in the Editor. It will be continents, and we will start on a river in a desert/plains with at least one wheat nearby.

Enemies: Max.

Version: Obvoiusly you will need Conquests.

Rules: Not many. This game is to explore the full possibilities of the Agricultural trait, on the territory where it is best - a floodplain river with plains and desert nearby. Why the desert? Remember one aspect about Agricultual that I find cool, irrigating desert gives it 2 food instead of one, so they are as good as plains then (2 food 1 shield).

Overall, this game should see how fast we can expand and if we can actually keep the AI from conquering us as we try to match our expansion with troops and improvements, since we'll be in low shield territory.

Roster: Me
rubberjello
betazed
amerisan
earp

 

[Ankka]

NIce. Sounds good, but I'm a few difficulties lower player and I still have to wait for C3C...

So I won't join.

 

[Rubberjello]

I'm there. Emporer level is fine.

 

[betazed]

I'll join. However, do not put me near the beginning of the roster since I do not have Conquests yet. Plan to get it this weekend.

Emperor is no problem.

 

[cgannon64]

OK, so the roster:

Myself
rubberjello
betazed
(Open)
(Open)

I'll work on making the map now. What Civ do you guys want? Keep in mind they have to be agricultural. That limits us to the Celts, Incans, Mayans, Dutch, Sumerians, Iroquois, and Aztecs.

 

[betazed]

Let's work with a new conquest civ. I really do not know what the features of these are so any of the new ones will be fine by me. So anything apart from the Iroquois and Aztecs and Celts...

 

[Rubberjello]

That leaves us the choice of the Sumarians, Incas, Netherlands or Mayans. There is already some SGs going with the Netherlands and Mayans, so if we want to be unique we are left with the Incas or Sumarians.

I played the Sumarians in an Intro Conquest and it is an incredibly fast-start civ with their UU giving you a big boost (but a wasted Golden Age). Any of the 4 is fine by me.

 

[cgannon64]

The Sumerican has the Warrior replacement that is 2/2/1, right?

My only problem with that is that they cannot build Spearmen, which means they can't upgrade and have to build their Middle Age defenses from scratch.

As for the Incans, the Chasqui Scout is pretty good (I played a little bit with them). The no penalty for hills/mountainst trait is surprisingly powerful - you have no idea how good it is to run up mountain ranges. Also, they are expansionist/agricultural, which should make for some of the fastest expansion you can get.

I'm making the save now (sorry I got caught up in WWII Pacific), I'll post a screenshot of the start in the Editor.

EDIT: A teaser...

BTW this game will have one extra Civ since I added our start location rather than using a pre-generated one. Just letting you know. Don't worry though, there are no Civs right on top of us...

 

[kryszcztov]

The Sumerians have the Enkidu warrior as their UU, a 1/2/1 warrior replacement which upgrades to the pikeman. As for the Chasqui scout, enough said in the Conquests forum. I plan to play a game as Sumer in a week. I wouldn't mind if you played as Sumer, I would even suggest you tried this civ. They are my new favorites, though I don't have the game yet ! But if you play as the Incans, then I'll happily lurk too, so as to see the weakness of the Chasqui scout in action. Now prove that I'm wrong, please !

Oh, BTW, I'm not signing up, I don't have much time, and I still can't have the game of course !

 

[cgannon64]

I'm all for Sumer, now that I see they upgrade. They're basically really cheap Spears, which is pretty good.

 

[cgannon64]

*BUMP*

We need some more input on the Civ from our two players...and we need two more players...

 

[betazed]

Sumer looks fine to me.

Although this might not be the right time but what do you think about the Fascism form of goverment. Sounds great for war mongering, isn't it? Do you know when we can discover this form of goverment?

By the way I have not seen a pic of the new tech tree? Can anyone post a link for a pic of it?

 

[cgannon64]

Fascism is in the early/mid Industrial, but I'm sure you could have guessed that.

I'm too lazy to post pics of teh tech tree, but only one thing was changed, IIRC - they made Ironclads an optional tech in Industrial to prolong the Age of Sail.

 

[cgannon64]

One last BUMP before I let this one go.

Normally I'd start with three but since betazed still doesn't have the game, we can't start with only two.

 

[betazed]

I have the game.

Three, two, one, launch....

 

[cgannon64]

Great! Unfortunately I won't be able to make the save and play the firs 40 turns tonight, I left alot of homework until the last minute.

Tomorrow I will play it.

 

[cgannon64]

The first 30 turns:

[Turn 1 - 4000 BC] Founded on start spot. Worker goes to irrigate Wheat. I'm going to make sure to check our cities EVERY TURN for happiness, since this is Emperor and we're going to be expanding very rapidly.

[Turn 2 - 3950 BC] Start Burial at 90% for 20 turns. I figure we're going to need thsoe Temples.

[Turn 3 - 3900 BC] Nothing...

[Turn 4 - 3900 BC] ...

[Turn 4 - 3850 BC] Ur grows to 2, lux raised to 20.

[Turn 5 - 3800 BC] ...

[Turn 6 - 3750 BC] Wheat irrigated, worker starts to road it.

[Turn 7 - 3700 BC] ...

[Turn 8 - 3650 BC] Enkidu Warrior->Enkidu Warrior. HE goes to explore to the West.

[Turn 9 - 3600 BC] Worker goes to mine grassland. Lux raised to 30% on account of third citizen being created.

[Turn 10 - 3550 BC] Hills, 3 incense, and coast to the West. (Can you tell I'm trying to fill space in this report? )

[Turn 11 - 3500 BC] Border expands. We disturb three very angry warriors. Don't worry, we'll have an Enkidu to fight them off.

[Turn 12 - 3450 BC] Disease kills a citizen. Enkidu->Enkidu.

[Turn 13 - 3400 BC] 2nd citizen dies off, Ur down to size 1.

[Turn 14 - 3350 BC] Ur grows to 2, I drop lux to 10%. Ivory spotted to the West. Statue of Zeus, anyone?

[Turn 15 - 3300 BC] More Flood plains seen to the North.

[Turn 16 - 3250 BC] Even more Ivory spotted.

[Turn 17 - 3200 BC] Enkidu->Enkidu. This will be our last explorer, then we start the Enkidu/Settler pairs.

[Turn 18 - 3150 BC] ...

[Turn 19 - 3100 BC] Burial finished, we start Alphabet. The Arabs send 3 Warriors into our view. We are even in tech. Plains mined and roaded, worker goes to hook up Incense.

[Turn 20 - 3050 BC] Enkidu->Settler.

[Turn 21 - 3000 BC] ...

[Turn 22 - 2950 BC] We contact Persia to the North. They have Masonry and Warrior Code. Seeing as they won't make any straight tech for gpt deals (I dropped to min sci to check) and there are no inter-Civ trading possibilities, I keep going at max sci.

[Turn 23 - 2900 BC] Our Enkidu is wandering around in vast tracts of desert. We seem to have an OK start, we have 2 good settler factory spots nearby one to the north we may be able to grab, and then we have a plains/hills combinaton to the south we can use for production.

[Turn 24 - 2850 BC] ...

[Turn 25 - 2800 BC] ...

[Turn 26 - 2750 BC] ...

[Turn 27 - 2710 BC] I remember one key fact about Agricultural - irrigated desert brings in 2 food, making it 2 food/1 shield, equal to grassland. What does this mean? Desert doesn't look so bad anymore. With this in mind I sent the settler to a very lucrative spot with Flood Plain, Ivory, an Oasis, and some Plains. We contact the Hittites. They have Masonry, Code, and Alphabet. The Persians have Masonry and Code. The Arabs have Code. I see some nice trading possibilties here. Accidentally end turn. Damn Diplo button so close to End Turn button!

[Turn 28 - 2670 BC] OK, one turn late, I lower tech to minimum, giving us 3 gpt to work with. Not much, but rememeber, we just built a settler. Sadly, with this, we can do nothing. Oh well, I will wait until the second city is built so we can get some more gpt.

[Turn 29 - 2630 BC] Not much. There is a surprisingly long peninsula to the south, I shall explore...

[Turn 30 - 2590 BC] Enkidu->Settler in Ur. Sumer is founded. (Weird that the Sumer is not the Sumerians capital, but Ur - what used to be the Babylonian capital in vanilla - is now their capital.) The peninsula ends, but we can see territory across the sea. Must build a Curragh eventually and check that out. I drop lux to 0%, giving us 11gpt to work with. Finally, some room to trade! I check around and find that we can give 10gpt and 16g to Xerxes or to the Hittites and use that to trade for Code from the Arabs. This is a tough decision - its nearly all our gpt, which wouldn't leave us much room to use for lux - so I decide to leave the offer on the table so the rest of the team can decide.

THE SAVE

EDIT: Damn Photoshop not working.

 

[Rubberjello]

Doh!!!! Horrible start in techs. Horrible start with disease which wipes out our fast growth start completly?
I thought this was supposed to be a fun game where we blow away the AI in a flood of Sumerian settlers? Now we've got to work at it!
Got it.

 

[betazed]

Also change the settler build in our capital to Granary. For faster start we need that.

@CG: Almost in every case it pays to build a granary even before you pump out your first settler.

EDIT: Also stop the research. It is pointless. We are better off saving the gold.

 

[cgannon64]

The research is in min sci now. Don't get so down about the tech situation - we'll only be 1 tech down after the trade, and have parity with the other 2 Civs. The only problem is that we won't have much gpt to work with after the trade.

I was thinking of going for the granary after the second settler, but you're call betazed. (I usually go for the granary after the first, but I figured we needed to catch up on short-term growth after the disease, but I see that's a little misguided now.)