Co-op da Whoop Bullpen

[Silu]

Co-op da Whoop

This series is about two-player cooperative play against two-player AI teams. This is how I started and also how I played 90% of my first fifty games of Civ4, after Fleme talked me into starting up this damn-addictive game. Lately we thought to share our weird game setups with the rest of the forum and while doing so hopefully give some insights for cooperative play, an aspect of Civ4 not very prevalent on these forums. These are the default settings for the series:

Speed: Marathon
Map size: Large
Rivals: 5x2 AIs in teams
Difficulty: Deity, or Immortal with a serious twist
Other: Choose Religions, Simultaneous Turns


So, I guess a series isn't a series without a bullpen. Mostly what we're looking for here is feedback, ideas and suggestions. We're open to all kinds of suggestions about leader combo, catchy name for that leader combo (important! ), map settings and team-flavored variant rules for Immortal games (though lately we have been biased towards "just win" Deity), among other things. Drop a comment!

Some format-specific things to keep in mind:
- Starting techs for the leader combo are something to consider, as the team's leaders' starting techs are combined
- Maps that discourage splitting up teams, like ones that allow global pre-Astro contact, are favored
- Having 12 Civs on a map size that has 9 as default usually makes them crowded
- Even though it's tempting, we probably do not want to reuse leaders (running low on CRE ones already )


Games so far

#1 Perilgamesh (Pericles & Gilgamesh), Deity/Fractal

Spoiler result :

A decent immediate starting position, which ended up having Joao starting 9 tiles away from Pericles' capital. Two dagger DoWs from Joao/Hannibal before 1500BC put a quick end to this game.

#2 Shancoln (Shaka & Lincoln), Immortal/Fractal
Variant rules: Shaka cannot build buildings that give , , or modifieres for them, and Lincoln cannot build military units beyond a single unit per city.

Spoiler result :

A large 2½ team starting continent was subjugated by Shaka's War Elephant push, while an overseas Genghis Khan/Joao team proceeded to research Liberalism in 170AD. A big Zulu showdown with Fighters and Paratroopers put an end to Genghis Khan and Joao's terror reign, while the Americans stayed home tilling the fields.

#3 Mehmeryavarman II (Mehmed II & Suryavarman II), Deity/Pangaea
With a Hatshibal intro included.

Spoiler result :

A tight-packed Pangaea with several warlike leaders, the neighboring pariahs Boudica/Churchill were conquered with some serious Elephant effort. The game ended in a very quick fashion after Cannons/Janissaries and later Rifles were introduced, even through a double (quadruple?) DoW from the two leading teams. Noteworthy for being a game where the Khmer UU was useful!

#4 Dario I½ (Darius I & Joao II), Deity/Hemispheres/2 continents

Spoiler result :

A ridiculous game that started with Fleme rushing a neighbor with Immortals while I practically died to barbarians (2nd city razed, capital whipped to a max city size of 1). A midgame lull enabled us to recoup and meet the monstrous 60 city Shaka/Pacal overseas conglomerate. The endgame was an insane nuclear slog from a serious tech disadvantage, with over 200 nukes launched and global warming reducing the earth to desert. Finally city razing and naval superiority enabled us to have one of the Shacal vassals break free, which combined with the nuclear devastation (reduced population for the opponents) got us a diplomation end for the game.

#5 Ragnagawa (Ragnar & Tokugawa), Immortal/Pangaea
Variant rule: Cannot advance beyond the Medieval era.
Ongoing

 

[Yared]

Arabia and Byzantikum. After you've gotten the Knights UU, you're not allowed to tech Military Tradition or Rifling; you have to conquer the world with camel archers and cataphracts (along with siege, of course). Immortal, obviously.

 

[Moroktonos]

^^ Byzantiabia? Arabantium? Meh... not nearly as catchy as...

Spoiler :

RAGNAGAWA!

AND THE MACEMEN OF DOOM!!! Variant! Wipe out a team with Beserkurai!

 

[Yared]

Yes, Ragnagawa works as well with Samurai and Berserker.

 

[Sian]

how about a game where you both is same leader / same civ ...

 

[Silu]

Thanks for the suggestions so far

Yes, Ragnagawa works as well with Samurai and Berserker.

Another thing to note I forgot to mention about team play: strong combos arise from situations where you can utilize different strenghts of the teams. Redundancy is fun and all, but if both Civs in the team have a killer Mace that's great for busting cities, that's not nearly as nice as having one member with killer Maces and other with some synergistic strength, such as PRO Cho-ko-Nus or straight CR3 Trebs (Spain)

Of course, the coolness factor of a combo can easily override the usefulness factor!

how about a game where you both is same leader / same civ ...

Interesting idea Maybe do the same for AIs and only have all the IIs (Ramesses, Joao, Suryavarman, Mehmed, Pacal) with some guest starts like Louis (II*7) and ChurchiII ? Or just have nations team-battling with all different leaders, after all there're 14 Civs with multiple leaders

 

[Yared]

Well, yeah, but the whole point of it was to have you guys stop at building anything higher than a certain unit type and conquer the world with it

 

[nocho]

Nice series!

Just wanted to add the very useful point that "Dario 1½" is slightly unfortunate in the sense that Dario is spanish (and I dare say italian, portuguese) for Darius already. Hence Joarius 1½ would have been sooo much better.

For new combinations I would go for phonetic strong ones like Shancoln which sounded fearsome enough... Ragnakawa is a good one indeed! I'd also like Bischill, Isabull or Qin Khan.

 

[Yared]

That makes it even wittier We know it's a version of Darius, so it must be Darius the Persian leader, and we know it's a Portuguese version, so the other one must be Joao, the only Portuguese leader.

 

[TCMIV]

Zaramesh or Rambull II

 

[Fleme]

Raging Bull tickled my fancy as far as funny names go but the Ragnagawa one sounds interesting enough as far as playing on Immortal goes. Fishing/Wheel/Hunting. Haha, talk about a bad starting tech combo

 

[ahcos]

shakandi would be fun, the most aggressive and the most peaceful leader merged up :X or stalinvelt, russia and usa united against the world... oh boy ^^

love the series, keep it up (=

 

[Moroktonos]

Shaka's already used though...

Really. Anything -agawa automatically wins in terms of sheer catchiness.
If you guys aren't interested in Ragnagawa and the CRUEL, SLAUGHTERING BESERKURAI, you might also consider Churchigawa or Elizigawa (Victorigawa manifestly sucks) so that you can upgrade your Samurai to redcoats even if you overlap fishing as a starting tech.

Kublabella is sort of catchy too for Kesiconquistadores!

Ít's a lot easier to think up military synergies than economic ones, however...

 

[flashog]

How about my two favorite leaders in a nasty combo (I play this combo with my mate, and it's good fun):
"Cyrulius"

Early immortals rush followed up by the ever-powerful praetorians for world domination. (Immortorians?)

 

[Wreck]

How about a surf 'n' turf game. One player is allowed to use only water tiles (and the city-center, which he cannot avoid using). The other player can use only land tiles, and may not settle on any coastal site. Probably want to pick the Dutch for your "surf" player, else you'll never have any production... and some land power for the "turf" player. Lots of these to choose from, maybe Russia? Peter/Willem would be Peter van Oranje. Go with a Pangaea for this, and regen until you get reasonable starting positions (on/near a coast, and, not).

Another idea: culture buildings only. Neither player is allowed to build any building which does not give at least 1. Thus, the only basic buildings you can build are: Library, Monastery, Monument, Temple, Theater, University. A few uniques based on other buildings are also available, and of course most Wonders give culture. You might simply disallow cultural victories, but I do not think it would be very easy to get one without Cathedrals, so it might be fun to leave that possibility. (On Diety I think you could not beat a spaceship launch; not sure about Immortal.)

One other variant that I think would be amusing: no DoWs, including no on-request DoWs. You can use attack dogs freely. But for you to get into a war, an AI must attack you. Once you're in a war, you can do whatever you want. Thematically, you'd want to play some of the nice leaders for this, perhaps Hatty/Gandhi (Handhi? Gandepsut?).

 

[CHEESE!]

I wish you hadn't done Shaka, we could have Shaka Zuma!

 

[Fleme]

Ragnagawa is up next but Silu is currently more interested in Starcraft 2 Beta than Civ, sadly. I'll try and get him to play one of these days.

 

[Silu]

For any possible bullpen subscribers, the new game is up.

 

[Fleme]

And we're once again (or better, still) open to suggestions for our next installments.

 

[Alvin Tostig]

subscribed! i play a lot of co-op with friends, so hopefully i can learn a few things about co-op play.