HN02-A The Pacifist Power of Religion

[LuvToBuild]

The Game

Leader: Ghandi (Spiritual/Industrious)

Settings



Variants/Rules

1. May only achieve a Cultural or Diplomatic victory
2. They must acquire or convert to at least one of the following religions: Buddhism/Confucianism/Taoism
3. They value human life and would never condone slavery or the razing of an enemy city.
4. They may choose between Pacifism or Free Religion as needed but never a Theocracy.
5. They never engage in wars of aggression against a neighbor.
6. Defending friends against aggression is not required but is encouraged.
7. They may build any wonder they choose regardless of the GP points it provides.
8. They may build wonders anywhere it will benefit them the most.

The Team

Current Roster
LuvToBuild
Pigswill
Krockel
FoolontheHill
Omurtag

Alternates
None at the moment

The Start

 

[pigswill]

Start 1 looks nice; no sign of tundra; on a river; lots of forest for chopping coz we ain't slavers; lots of hills for production when we reach caps; and pigs!

 

[LuvToBuild]

I was thinking I liked Start #2 but the grasslands would probably be more flexible in terms of improvements. Cottages, farms, watermills. Moving 1NE on Start #2 might make a decent GP farm. Not spectacular though and a bit production poor.

 

[Krockel]

Start 1 or 2 are to be prefered over Start 3. I have a hard time to decide between them.

Regarding Start 1 I would move Settler 1W, to avoid waiste of forest and to bring some more hills in the fat cross. Five hills and lots of forest for production. Pig on a hill for some food, farms by river for more food.

Concerning Start 2 I would move settler 1NE to get sheep and avoid waste of a flood plain. Cow, sheep, 2 FP and at least 3 hills is nice. On the downside is sign of tundra in the south, some flatland plain tiles and not so continent central location.

Start 2 have more of food excess, which make it fast groving. Start 1 have more hills, which means production.

Normally I would chose Start 2, but for this variant I vote for Start 1. Reasons? Well.........

1. Seams to be located in the center of our continent. That will be good for geting some early spontanious spread of Buddhism, specially if the river is of decent size. We also will have more land for expansion.
2. We're Mahatma, aka the wondermaster, and then production is a key factor. I bet one of thoose hills contains iron or bronze!
3. Gooty hut
3. The whole screen shot is so warm and cozy. Look at our warrior and settler standing there glancing at eachother across the river, with all that green colors floating around them. Nice....

Vote: Start 1

 

[LuvToBuild]

Yeah it is a pretty peaceful looking valley isn't it? If no one comes along and objects, I say Start #1 it is then.

EDIT: And in the tradition of HN I've taken the name Gyurme Zangpo. I found it on this site Buddhist Names where they list several. Mine supposedly means Unchanging Noble One. I'll probably go by Zangpo just to keep it short though, unless someone else picks one that ends in Zangpo.

 

[Krockel]

That was a long list of names there. I fell for LHAKPA DORJE or Mercury Diamond. Just Dorje would work fine for you team members.

 

[pigswill]

Who else will be joining our questfor global enlightenment?

 

[LuvToBuild]

I'm thinking Codeman and Xtream may be going to the Dark Side so we may draft FoolontheHill and adamlan. I've been waiting to see if Xtream has a preference.

I'm a little concerned about getting Buddhism with our start. Not much commerce to speed the research. Too bad the silks can't be improved for quite a while. Having a lake or coastal tile with a food resource would have been good.

I think moving the warrior to the pigs for an elevated looksy would be good. This way if there happens to be something in the fog that we don't want to move away from (i.e. stone/marble), we can still settle in place. I hate to lose the forest too though so if nothing important grabs my attention, I will move across the river and settle in the clearing.

Opening tech is obviously Meditation. Priesthood after that or BW? Animal Husbandry? Do we want farms/cottages or a combination? Masonry if we see stone or marble nearby to hook up quickly. I'm thinking we should try to concentrate most of our wonder production on GA wonders like the Parthenon, the Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame, and Taj Mahal. Hopefully this will give us early GAs to merge for long term benefit. Music would be a priority at some point if we can get there first.

 

[Krockel]

I'm a little concerned about getting Buddhism with our start. Not much commerce to speed the research. Too bad the silks can't be improved for quite a while. Having a lake or coastal tile with a food resource would have been good.

Since we don't start with fishing (mining and mysticism is Indian starting techs) a lake or coast wouldn't have helped us. Silk and Pig will give 1 commerce from scratch so we'll have to work those to start with. To bad we don't have a three-food tile to get us faster to size two though.
But all in all I think we have a decent chance and if we miss it... well then we just have to go on and chase Confucianism.

I think moving the warrior to the pigs for an elevated looksy would be good. This way if there happens to be something in the fog that we don't want to move away from (i.e. stone/marble), we can still settle in place. I hate to lose the forest too though so if nothing important grabs my attention, I will move across the river and settle in the clearing.

Agreed.

Opening tech is obviously Meditation. Priesthood after that or BW? Animal Husbandry?

Agriculture-> AH -> BW if we start with making a worker.
BW -> Agriculture - > AH if we start with making a warrior.

Do we want farms/cottages or a combination?

Farms to start with, so we can work as many hills as possible, for wonder production. Then later I guess a cottage or five make sense.

Masonry if we see stone or marble nearby to hook up quickly. I'm thinking we should try to concentrate most of our wonder production on GA wonders like the Parthenon, the Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame, and Taj Mahal. Hopefully this will give us early GAs to merge for long term benefit. Music would be a priority at some point if we can get there first.

Good thiniking!

What about the Oracle? For CoL or Metalcasting, the first for our variant and the second for our cheap industrial forges.

 

[pigswill]

I've reverted to Sir Quentin, a warrior from the barbarian west seeking spiritual enlightenment, mainly because I'm playing religious fanatic in Chaos 3 based on this Sig; being Chaos he could certainly rename himself at some point.
In terms of early game I'd see our first tech priorities as aimed towards acquiring our religions so meditiation first which will be a gamble, then an oracle slingshot for CoL and Confucianism, then a slingshot towards philosophy for Taoism and pacifism - there is a GS slingshot for that I think but I don't know the details. We'll likely need slingshots to increase the odds of getting the techs first.
Tech sequence something like meditation, hunting, AH, archery, priesthood, writing, bronze.
Advantage of industrious is we get chop bonus for wonders (30 hammers per chop for a wonder, 20 hammers for anything else) which might give us a shot at stonehenge and oracle though oracle would be priority.
A very basic question: are we going to focus on diplomatic or culture victory?

 

[LuvToBuild]

Since we don't start with fishing (mining and mysticism is Indian starting techs) a lake or coast wouldn't have helped us.

Good point. I wasn't thinking about starting techs. My biggest fear would be Isabella sitting somewhere on the coast or a lake. She starts with Mysticism and Fishing so bye bye Buddhism if she starts out working a water tile. Hopefully she would go for Hinduism though. It sure would be nice if one of those hills turns out to have gems.

BW -> Agriculture - > AH if we start with making a warrior.

I think I like this path since it will let us grow and we could use the second warrior to help scout faster. The earlier we can pick city spots and start grabbing territory, the better. I'm thinking we should attempt to get about three cities setup around the capital in a triangular fashion if possible to minimize distance maintenance. They should be far enough away to allow for filling in later but not so far away that they become too vulnerable.

What about the Oracle? For CoL or Metalcasting, the first for our variant and the second for our cheap industrial forges.

I like the Oracle for grabbing COL, I just hadn't mentioned it because I liked Parthenon better for GA points. Hopefully we have marble close or can secure some fairly quickly with a second city. It would be nice to get the Parthenon and the Oracle. Stonehenge is cool too but I'm not sure that I would prioritize it. Settlers and warriors might be better choices to grab land. I'm kind of thinking we might should have went with Asoka. I considered it but I thought the Organized trait might be useless. If we have far off core cities early though and him building quicker courthouses after COL, he might have had a useful trait after all. Probably not as good long term though as building faster wonders.

@pigswill
And so an adventurous knight has come to us for enlightenment. He has grown tired of war and seeks peace and tranquility in our lovely valley.

I can't say I've ever heard of the GS slingshot for Philosophy, unless you are talking about building a library and setting up a couple of scientists. I think the GL would be good for getting those two freebies. Philosophy is far enough away that we could probably get a GS by then and grab it. An academy would be nice but we could use a second GS for that.

Oracle, Parthenon, Great Library.....Man, I REALLY hope we have some marble we can grab somewhere.

I'm thinking if we use Krockel's tech path and copper shows up nearby in one of those hills, we could probably skip Hunting/Archery for a little bit. Axemen will do nicely. If we don't get copper, then we need to choose between Hunting/Archery, Ironworking, or Priesthood. Protecting our fragile Valley of Peace will be paramount but getting the Oracle is a priority too.

I'm leaning towards getting a Diplomatic win, just because it feels more Utopian. Peace and Love, all that good stuff. It will probably be easier than a cultural win too. I would like to at least be close to a cultural win though. It will help us to flip cities and maybe grab some useful resources. To make the diplo win a little harder, I was thinking we should try at least three times to get all of the resolutions passed. It might be impossible to get all of them passed so I don't think it should be a requirement but an attempt at it should probably be made. The no nukes is usually pretty easy. The others can be tough. Convincing other civs to adopt the techs ahead of time might make them more willing to vote yes. I'd just like to explore the UN more and see what it takes to accomplish certain things.

 

[Cosmichail]

I can't say I've ever heard of the GS slingshot for Philosophy

Use it all the time it works.....

At some point if you don't research masonry GProphet will give you most of CS after COL.

 

[pigswill]

GP Cs Slingshot; get CoL, meditation,polytheism, avoid masonry Prophet gives you 90% CS.
Cosmichael: could you give details of GS philosophy slingshot (please).

 

[Krockel]

Good point. I wasn't thinking about starting techs. My biggest fear would be Isabella sitting somewhere on the coast or a lake. She starts with Mysticism and Fishing so bye bye Buddhism if she starts out working a water tile. Hopefully she would go for Hinduism though. It sure would be nice if one of those hills turns out to have gems.

Then that's nothing we could have done about it and we have to race for CoL instead.

I think I like this path since it will let us grow and we could use the second warrior to help scout faster. The earlier we can pick city spots and start grabbing territory, the better. I'm thinking we should attempt to get about three cities setup around the capital in a triangular fashion if possible to minimize distance maintenance. They should be far enough away to allow for filling in later but not so far away that they become too vulnerable.

Get that second warrior out fast and have him fight some animals for promotion is great for the oncoming barbs.

I like the Oracle for grabbing COL, I just hadn't mentioned it because I liked Parthenon better for GA points. Hopefully we have marble close or can secure some fairly quickly with a second city. It would be nice to get the Parthenon and the Oracle. Stonehenge is cool too but I'm not sure that I would prioritize it. Settlers and warriors might be better choices to grab land. I'm kind of thinking we might should have went with Asoka. I considered it but I thought the Organized trait might be useless. If we have far off core cities early though and him building quicker courthouses after COL, he might have had a useful trait after all. Probably not as good long term though as building faster wonders.

Marble would certainly be very very nice to have in this game. I'll prefer warrior over henge at raging barb.

 

[LuvToBuild]

It looks like we have our roster of 5 now so I'll go ahead and get us started out. It'll give us a little more to discuss. I haven't heard any objections on using Start #1 so I'll use that one.

 

[FoolontheHill]

It looks like we have our roster of 5 now so I'll go ahead and get us started out. It'll give us a little more to discuss. I haven't heard any objections on using Start #1 so I'll use that one.

Sorry I've been out of pocket for a couple of days. Start 1 looks good to me.

 

[LuvToBuild]

EDIT: For those of you just joining us, I managed to screw up the original starting position by having checked the "Lock Modified Assets" box when I generated the map. It seems my cohorts were unable to open the save I posted at the end of my opening turn. So, I rolled a new start and that's why the discussion up to this point doesn't match what you see in the first post

 

[pigswill]

Slight problem: can't open save. 'file modified to protect assets'.

 

[LuvToBuild]

Do you have some kind of mod or some custom XML files in the CustomAssets? I checked the "Lock Modified Assets" to turn off the WorldBuilder. I assumed that was all it did but maybe it makes the game unplayable for anybody but me. Can one of you other guys check and see if you can open it up? I hate to roll a whole new start but if we can't resolve it then I guess that's what we will have to do.

I found this thread if it helps: Lock Modified Assets

 

[omurtag]

I can't open the save either, I was using blue marble terrain and civscale in the past, but uninstalling them didn't help :|