Diety Game #2: Crowded House

[BasketCase]

Heya folks! Time for BasketCase's Diety Game #2. Are y'all ready for something completely different?

Here's the deal: I loaded up the Civ editor, put the Sn00pyG terrain mod on the drawing board to get the nice graphics, then made the following mods:

-- Turned up the maximum number of civs on a Tiny map to 16.
-- Took away the extra units and support the AI's get at the start.
-- Turned the AI-to-AI trade rate down to 100.
-- Turned down the corruption slider about halfway. No reason, just personal.

I left the cost factor alone; AI's will still get the production and research bonuses. But taking away the extra starting units was essential--otherwise somebody who doesn't get any military units at game start (i.e. ME) would get steamrollered pretty quick.

It took a few tries before I got this whacked-out setup to actually work--because I haven't edited a game in eight months, and I forgot that in order to have a scenario randomize a map, you have to turn Custom Map OFF in the menus. First few tries, the game crashed with an error when I tried to start this setup, because it was trying to start with the specific default map the editor gives you--all ocean. Kinda hard to place starting civs in the ocean unless somebody is Atlantis.

Okay, let's rock!

Starting game settings: Tiny world, 16 civs, Pangaea, large land percentage so everybody can start beatin' on everybody else real quick.

Oh yeah, and I set the barbarians on Raging.

I'm gonna get my ass kicked, aren't I....?

Since this is my first Crowded House game, I figure I might as well give myself a mediocre chance. Say, an Ancient Age defensive UU that doesn't require any special resources. Doesn't this just scream "Greeks"?
So I choose the Greeks, and we go to my starting position:





Oh, come ON, you've gotta be kidding me. This start would take a Nobel Prize in one of the "worst start ever" threads.

Uhhhh....I'm gonna have to get back to ya on this one. I'm pondering whether to ditch this start and roll up a new game.

 

[Xerol]

One turn from ocean and plenty of choppables? The lack of start bonuses is what'd turn me off from it.

 

[Tribute]

Actually the lack of fresh water and so many less than 2 food tiles worries me. Especially the lack of industriousness. Hey, Sumeria is what screamed to me. But I like Greece better.

Good job on beating that diety game. But is war the only way?

 

[CoolioVonHoolio]

whoa! gnarly start!
id still go with it, possible bonus grass under those "choppables"
and if you think "awe man! this start is terrible, gotta restart..." just think of tricky's game: now THIS is a bad start. (i think that was what it was called)

 

[soul_warrior]

do this basket, you can do it

 

[BasketCase]

You guys all just want to see me get stomped, don't you?

 

[soul_warrior]

you said it

 

[Ansar]

You guys all just want to see me get stomped, don't you?

Definetly.

 

[MeteorPunch]

i don't think you should play that start...you're game won't last past the AA.

 

[BasketCase]

Ahh, what the hell--ya gotta die sometime. Well, actually it's just a game and I can't actually die in it. Unless maybe I get electrocuted by my PC.....

So, in 4000 BC, the Greeks delay a little in order to discuss the idea in the forums--and then, after much debate, they decide to evolve from a nomadic tribe into the Greek civilization.



Bring marshmallows everybody--this is gonna get rowdy!


Okay, Basket. Gloves off. Get dirty. Bad start and close quarters. That means military. LOTS of it. Scout fast and defend hard. Starting build order: 3 warriors. Worker moves to that one grass tile, builds a mine, then a road, then goes straight to hook up the incense.

I get my first cultural expansion--and things suddenly don't look so bad:



Three luxuries within easy reach. Hot diggity! (Egads, he's doing the Hot Diggity thing again....)

A black civ border is already visible to the east. I wonder if my old friends the Zulus are back for another beating. I also bump into the French to the north. I actually have a good defensive position: I can block off the east by fortifying on the hill where the incense is, and there's empty territory and ocean to the west as far as I can see. A few turns later, that changes a little as a blue border appears to the west of France.

I hook up the incense and get my one worker busy clearing out the jungle so my capital can expand.

I spot a goody hut just west of Paris, and pop it. OOPS! Angry warriors from some tribe or other. My warrior gets killed immediately. Bummer. At least Paris will get hit next.....

After finishing my 3rd warrior and getting the incense connected, I build a barracks, a settler....and start on Hoplites.

My settler moves north, and I take my time deciding where to put him. Defense and territory are both critical. Normally I would settle on the plains, but in the end I decide on defense and settle in the hills to the west. This gives me the defense bonus and also secures an Ivory tile.

2390 AD:


I finish The Wheel, continue working towards Horseback riding, find horses present a couple tiles south of Doomville, and trade Wheel to France for Masonry and 7 gold.

I build a Hoplite and then a worker at Doomville. This chops my capital back down to size 1, but then it's not gonna get very big anyway. My new worker joins the first one in clearing jungle. In the southwest, I find a barbarian camp and disperse it. So far it's barbarians 1, BasketCase 3.



ACK! The Ottomans! For some reason this scares the bejeezus out of me. I have absolutely no idea why.......

I spot a brown border down south across the water, just west of the Zulus. Oh, and I also spot an Impi escorting a Zulu settler:



Oh, great. Just terrific. Settler is gonna settle right next to the incense, putting it inside HIS cultural border. Dammit. I move my Hoplite from Doomville to fortify on the hill.

Next turn the settler and Impi turn around and head for home. WHEW.



Suddenly I notice that the graphics are all wrong. This is definitely not the graphics for Sn00pyG.

Then I realize the problem. The reason my updates were sporadic last game is that I've been having to play that game (and this one) on two PC's in two different locations about 20 miles apart. To make my scenario, I copied the folder containing the Sn00pyG custom graphics into a new folder, with the same name as my scenario.

I forgot to do this on my PC at my friend's house. Once that's done, the map looks MUCH better:

 

[soul_warrior]

lurker's comment: things are looking MUCH better, basket.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'll be reading this. I love your captioned pictures.

 

[BasketCase]

I stare at the known world, and see several tough problems. My territory is short on grassland. What little land that's actually flat is desert or plains. There's no fresh water anywhere in sight, making those plains and desert harder to utilize. There also appears to be no good direction in which to expand; my neighbors' land looks equally forbidding. (The map is looking a lot like a Young world with its big chunks of hills and mountains)

In order to make use of this difficult territory, I'm going to have to build lots of TINY cities. I mean, really sardine them in. We're talking OXOXO spacing here. Use the cities themselves to get the 2-food advantage gained by the laborer working the city tile. I don't see any other way to play this one. If I can find some fresh water, ANYWHERE, and build an irrigation chain back to my cities, this will change.

I trade Alphabet and 12 to the Zulus for Pottery; then I turn around and trade Pottery and 40 gold to France for Iron Working. I may not have much use for granaries, but Pottery is a step towards Map Making--and with this food-starved empire, coastal cities with harbors are looking like a great idea. The benefit of Iron Working speaks for itself. I have two sources of iron in my territory. Err....make that three sources--one of them is right under my capital!

One of my warriors becomes elite after killing another barbarian camp up north. Watch--I'm gonna get a leader from a warrior.....

My workers finish clearing that first jungle tile, and finally my capital city gets some breathing room. Needs more. My workers build a mine, then move to the next jungle tile.

France asks for a donation of 20 gold. I refuse. France delcares war! WOOHOO! Time to party!!

That blue border up north is Germany.

Doomville, which has iron already under it, starts building swordsmen. Sparta, which isn't connected to the empire yet, keeps building Hoplites. Both cities have barrackses (???). For the entire game so far, I've been seeing an uncharacteristic lack of settlers moving in on the open territory north of me. Maybe everybody is at war.

A few turns later, I haven't seen any offensive action from France. I place the city of Corinth next to the incense northwest of Sparta; the culture shift steals the incense from France and puts it in my territory. However, Corinth can't even grow to size 2, so I put its second laborer on the incense tile and start a barracks. Sparta will be my worker pump, building workers whenever it reaches size 2 (it can't grow any larger) and troops when it's size 1. Doomville will be building settlers and swordsmen.

1150 BC: A French swordsman appears from the north. I position a nearby Hoplite between him and Corinth. Both of my other cities are already covered (not defended at the moment, but Hoplites nearby can fortify immediately in the event of trouble).

The general situation: I've got two luxuries hooked up (though to different cities) and two more within reach, horses and iron safely accessible deep within my piece of the map, my workers have cleared some space around my capital and are now connecting my cities together, and I've got one pissed-off neighbor to the north who has to pass through an easily-defended piece of real estate to get to me. I also seem to have a nasty habit of writing run-on sentences and comma splices.

This one's turning out to be fun! Very tough territory, but fun!

The current situation....



....and the scorecards.

 

[BasketCase]

I direct your attention to the Hoplite and Swordsman facing off at the top of the previous screenshot.

Regular French Swordsman attacks my vet Hoplite. The fight goes straight down the middle, and I win with a red-lined Hoplite.



Uhhh....gee....this is good news....I think....

Great. Golden Age with three size 1 cities. Well, those cities are at least producing some extra shields. Good excuse to get myself some extra troopers!

 

[BasketCase]

I'm doing 40-turn research on Mathematics. I get Writing from the Zulus in exchange for 20 gold and contact with France. Then I notice that "Communications" is present in the list of tradeable items. I give the Zulus contact with France and Germany in exchange for other contacts, trade with those contacts in exchange for still others, and in a trading chain reaction, I gain communications with all other civs on the map. Plus I get Philosophy from Babylon in exchange for a contact and 80 gold. Net profit: 15 contacts, 160 gold, and Philosophy. In the process, I bump into a welcome acquaintance:



People start spreading rumors immediately.



There is, in fact, one thing that travels faster than light: gossip.

Anyway, the scorecard now looks a bit different. Gonna stick to just the score graph from now on, until a bunch of civs get whacked:



From left to right: Me (Greece), Carthage, Rome, Egypt, Russia, France, Spain, England, Vikings, Celts, Germany, Arabs, Ottomans, Babylon, Persia (no good color match, they're the grayish-blue), and finally the evil and vicious ZULUS, who have a major beef with me from last game, and are next to me again.

 

[Ansar]

Keep it up!

Nie job in the captioned pictures.

 

[Toshiro126]

Looking forward to seeing how this one plays out. As always, great captions, Basketcase.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Sorry for the repetition, but I love your captions. Nice work on everything else.

 

[Invisible Rhino]

I'll join the horde. I love your captions too and will definitely be reading this thread! Good on for you for not quitting! I would have quit once I saw there was no fresh water.

 

[BasketCase]

After beating up that French swordsman and setting off a very early Golden Age, my wounded Hoplite retreats to Corinth to heal up. A fresh Hoplite moves up from Sparta, and heads for the mountain tile south of Paris:



Once he gets there, incoming troops go around him instead of attacking him:



Very well then. Time to put the computer's cowardice to my advantage. That Hoplite pillages France's iron tile with no opposition. He then moves northwest, pillages France's incense, and keeps going to open up the map some. To the north he sees another iron deposit, next to the French city of Reims. There's ocean beyond that. Note that there's a nice big stretch of grassland just east of Paris. I want that grassland.

While that adventuresome Hoplite is making his trip northwest, the French troops who avoided attacking him continue south to attack Sparta and Corinth. His spearman manages to get onto the road between Doomville and Sparta where the Ivory is. You know he's gonna pillage that if he gets the chance. So I kill him with a swordsman. My other swordsman, on the way to the front after having just been built at Doomville, kills a French swordsman, promotes to elite, then gets ganged-up on and killed by two French archers. A French swordsman and archer attack Corinth; both die. This leaves one red-lined French archer in my territory.

Meanwhile, a German settler sneaks past the west edge of my territory, heading straight for the coastal jungle I was planning to put my next settler on. Oh well, Germany is the weakest civ in the game anyway. You get one guess how I'm gonna deal with him. I say hi in the diplomacy screen and request a donation of 25 gold. Bismarck gives in. Wow. That's like the first time an AI has done that in my games.....

France is willing to give up Map Making in exchange for peace if I fork a few gold in return. No thank you, Joan. I'd rather sack Paris and THEN take Map Making from you.

Thinking to start doing some leader farming, I send an elite Hoplite to engage that red-lined archer.



Booyah! I'm gonna be using this guy to build an army.

In 830 BC, the German city of Hamburg appears, next to the dye. Damn.

In 825 BC, a Russian galley drops off a settler just north of that.



Looks like the AI is making up for a lack of earlier settlers. Damn again. Germany and Russia are going to have to be slapped after I destroy Paris. True to its name, this scenario is getting crowded!

I finish Mathematics and start on Literature. I check with the other civs, and nobody really has anything worthwhile that I want. A couple civs are willing to pay gold for contact with Germany; Russia and France both have Map Making. That's about it. Russia wants a lot for Map Making, and I see no reason to pony up if I can get it from France for a lot less.