Clive2 - Random Monarch

[Sir Clive]

I enjoyed the 2 SGs I have played so far and learnt a lot but am still not ready to move to Emperor.

Thought it was therefore time for another one at Monarch

I still seem to have problems getting off to a good start when I am playing solo. I think this is because

a) I normally play most settings random and it obviously takes a little time to discover the type of land mass you are on, work out the age , climate etc and maybe have to deal with scarce resources.
I may also therefore end up with a civ who is not suited by the map

b) I always take the first start I am dealt no matter how lousy

I'd therefore like to try an SG with the following settings

Version - Conquests with latest patch
Map size - Standard
Civ - TBD
Difficulty - Monarch
All other settings random.
We MUST take the first start we are given no matter how nasty it looks.
5-6 players total

I am fairly open to suggestions for Civs although I would like to avoid Hittites and English as I have already played them in SGs, and would prefer to try one of the lesser played SG civs.

Korea, Inca and Byzantines are 3 which I am pretty certain I have never tried before but there are quite a few others I have only played once or twice.


Ideally would like 4-5 more people to join - anyone out there interested ?


Currently interested

Sir Clive
Noldodan
Louis XXIV
ChuckDizzle
DBear
YanksGiant87

 

[Noldodan]

I'll join up! I play on Monarch too, and have been wanting to play an SG for a while. As for civ, the Inca look fun.

 

[Sir Clive]

You're welcome Noldodan

Bear in mind this might play a bit more difficult than standard Monarch since we MUST take the first start we are given!

I just did a short practice run as America and despite popping a village with a scout early on it looked like this after a few turns - nasty map position and too much tundra ,too many mountains , no fresh water nearby and not many bonuses

If we get something like this (or worse ) , we are stuck with it

We'll decide on civ once have 4-5 takers.

 

[Admiral Kutzov]

lurker's comment: Nice to see you back Sir Clive. Not a sign up. Try the Incas. Kind of fun to explore while you're expanding like crazy. Be careful of the early GA due to UU. It is nice to have scouts that don't die when they stumble on barbs.

 

[Sir Clive]

lurker's comment: Nice to see you back Sir Clive. Not a sign up. Try the Incas. Kind of fun to explore while you're expanding like crazy. Be careful of the early GA due to UU. It is nice to have scouts that don't die when they stumble on barbs.

Good to hear from you AK!

Been away from Civ for a little while due to RL but things are a bit quieter now so hopefully time for a bit more civving.

Coindicentally I am currently in the middle of reading Page 3 of AK5 , rule of the idiots ! Looks like an interesting game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think I might be interested in joining this game. I haven't actually played a succession game, although I've followed along with some others before. Monarch difficulty is fine by me. Any civ is fine as well.

 

[ChuckDizzle]

I'll join you, if you have a spot. I'm up for any civ except for Spain. I'm perfectly willing to play one of the civs that are often passed over. Holla.

 

[Sir Clive]

Welcome Louis XXIV and ChuckDizzle !

Once we get one more player I will roll a start and post a screenshot(hopefully that will be tonight UK time) , we can have a pre-game discussion and I'll then set the roster. Looks like we will be playing Incas unless anyone violently objects.

Louis + Chuck - looks from the times of your posts that you are both in N/S America ?
Noldodan - which timezone are you in ?
I am in UK and normally play Evenings and Sunday afternoon.

First player will be 20 turns, 2nd 15 turns , 10 turns from then onwards.

I am not going to enforce a strict time for turns to be taken. As we are all presumably here to improve our games it would probably be useful to have a quick discussion before each player takes their turns. However I would hope that once someone has posted a 'Got it' and we have had a pre-turn discussion that the player should complete within 48hrs to avoid the game griniding to a halt.

Rules - I have played the last couple of games using LKEndters ruleset which seem to work pretty well and are as follows -



===========================================

The following tactics are PROHIBITED:

RoP Rape - if you have to ask...

RoP Abuse that includes things such as irrigating all tiles with a city building wonders, denying resources with a RoP, putting a unit to block a land bridge, etc.

Scout resource denial - parking a scout on a resource, as the AI won't ask scouts to leave. The same scenario also applies to workers.

False Peace Treaties (must wait for the 20 years to end).

The negative science exploit - you can run a huge deficit (-250 / turn) of negative cash with a token penalty of one lost worker / cheap building. If cash will go below zero, the research level must be dropped.

Ship chaining exploit - you can move a ship, unload troops to another ship, move that ship, etc. This allows you to ship an indefinite distance, and that is why I consider it an exploit.

Resources disconnect / connect exploit - I consider most resource tactics fine. Delaying to hook a resource, trading it away etc is fine. The exploit is to do this every turn. Build a stack of horses, connect saltpeter, upgrade to cavalry, and disconnect.

Palace Jump - You abandon the capital city to move the palace to a new location. If you want to move the palace, build a new palace.

Mass troop jumping - You can't give away a give a city to transport a large amount of troops to another land mass.


Standard LK house rules:
1) Worker automation of any kind is prohibited.
2) No worker purchases during the first 50 turns to avoid civ crippling.
3) Declaring war / demanding leave solely for the purpose of getting out of trade deals. This includes nonsense spying simply to force a war. Stealing techs is fine.
4) Even if not covered under exploits listed, please try not to use tactics that take advantage of holes in the game design.
5) Our trading reputation is golden - please respect it.
6) Complete your turn. It is frustrating to get a 1/2 completed turn.
7) Once you post a skip notice it is irrevocable.
8) If I skip a player to due a missed got it, or over due turn the turn is invalid if the next player has posted a got it.
__________________

 

[DBear]

Hmm, this sounds like an interesting one--sign me up. I don't really want to play Korea, as I'm already in a succession game with them.

 

[YanksGiants87]

ill play I wanna try out the new civs from conquests because I just got it and had ptw.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Make sure you download the latest patch

 

[Sir Clive]

OK - DBear and YanksGiant87 have been added.

That now makes six of us so I am going to close this game.

I'll generate a start and post it shortly so that we can have a quick pre-game discussion.


As starter of the thread I'd like to go 2nd or 3rd.

Anyone like to go first ?

I will set the provisional roster as

Noldodan (up - first 20 turns)
Louis XXIV (on deck - next 15 turns)
Sir Clive (10 turns from here on in)
ChuckDizzle
DBear
YanksGiant87

We are Inca,

Incas information

I would guess first priority is to get some Chasqui scouts out and exploring and pop a few goody huts.

Until we know who our opponents are and what the map type and our starting location are there is not much else to be said.

Start coming up shortly ....

 

[YanksGiants87]

that link isn't working for me but if i recall correctly incans are agricultural, expansionists, btw what victory are we going for?

 

[Sir Clive]

Here's what we got - Not great but we do have fresh water and coast.

Looks to me that we should move worker W and then settle either SW or W of the starting position depending on what comes up.

Seeing as we are in the bottom right hand corner of the map, W looks better
than SW to me.

We'll need to get some workers going to irrigate but my thoughts
are chasqui scout first and get exploring !

 

[Sir Clive]

that link isn't working for me but if i recall correctly incans are agricultural, expansionists, btw what victory are we going for?

Sorry YanksGiants87 - screwed up the link - should be working now.

Seeing as we are playing almost everything completely random I think
it is a bit difficult to decide on a victory condition at the start.

Our first action IMHO should be to try to send out Chasqui scouts to pop huts / explore , hopefully settle a few decent cities , make as many contacts as we can and then decide based on the circumstances.

With agricultural / expansionist trait we should be able to get a few decent size cities up and running fairly quickly . However we don't know our opponents yet and if we are surrounded by a bunch of warmongers it may check our expansion more quickly than we would like.

As far as I understand it he first 50-60 turns are normally the most important - that is why I would like all to proffer their thoughts before each turnset. Hopefully we can all agree on the best strategy once the map /opposition becomes clearer.

 

[ChuckDizzle]

My thoughts on the start:
Movements: Worker NW to sugarcane. Irrigate if we get a food bonus that isn't swallowed by despotism. Settler to coast, direction depends on what scout and worker moves reveal.
Build: Scout, then worker, then perhaps, granary. We need to scrounge food. At least we have fresh water.
Tech: Philosophy slingshot is possible, or we could try for great library. Nevertheless, writing on min, build up some cash.
GA: We need to take care not to trigger our GA too early. With the Chasqui scout, that shouldn't be too hard. We just need to keep them out of combat until the right time. Maybe we can build wonders to trigger our GA.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think this start isn't too bad, with agricultural, irrigated deserts are the equivalent of bonus grassland.

IIRC, we start with a normal scout, so we should send that in some direction to get a better look at the map before settling. No matter where we settle, we have to make sure we stay on fresh water (even if we don't get the coast).

Move Worker NW and mine sugar (sugar is 1.0.1 food/shields/gold. On a plains, that's 2.1.1. Irrigating does nothing on despotism, but mining will bring it to 2.2.1).

Set production to Chasqui Scout and work either the sugar or the forest.

 

[ChuckDizzle]

My bad. I was under the impression you didn't need to be by fresh water to recieve the food bonus. We'll have to see if we can pull off a costal start, yet retain our food bonus. You're right, we should mine the sugar. Deserts aren't as bad for us as non-agri civs, but we still need to irrigate heavily, which is why i suggested building a second worker after our Chasqui scout.

 

[DBear]

What are the barbs set on? Or is that random, also?

 

[Sir Clive]

@DBear - Yup - barbs are random.

The only things that weren't set at random were Land size (Standard) , Civ (inca) and AI Aggression (normal)

I might be wrong here but I don't think we need to worry about barbs. I thought that as we are expansionist then we couldn't get barbs from a hut ?

I would agree with setting prod to Chasqui scout then worker - we need to get out exploring and hopefully find establish whether there is land slightly more suitable for pumping out our settlers.

Re research - I tend to avoid GL these days and go for the philosophy slingshot but either way I agree with Chuckdizzle that min on writing is probably the way to go.

I will post the save when I get back home (about 6pm London time)


Noldodan - do you want to get us started ?

Noldodan (up - first 20 turns)
Louis XXIV (on deck - next 15 turns)
Sir Clive (10 turns from here on in)
ChuckDizzle
DBear
YanksGiant87