Infinite City Sprawl 03 - Divine

[r_rolo1]

BUG doesn't have a draft list.

You don't need one... read this....

In a nutshell: You can draft.....

Warriors ( yup... you don't need hunting, BW, Engineering..... to get Natio )
Axes
Macemen
Muskets
Rifles
Infantry
Mechs

and corresponding UU.

on maze 4x4 : we can get a nice square grid ,as ssmage said above, if we settle in the corners and follow up.

And maybe collosus would be useful in here: no rush for astro, lots of coastal tiles.....

 

[Snaaty]

Whatever you do, most important are

a) politics with your direct neighbours (same or no religion, resource-gifts, tech-trades). once you end up as the "worst enemy" of a direct neighbour, you are usually... ...well... ...dead

b) blocking cities... ...get land without allowing the AI to squeeze cities in. The neg. diplo of a long border is... ...well... ...see a)

 

[r_rolo1]

I do agree... running a shunned religion in this game probably was the big nail in the coffin....

 

[Chieron]

Lurker's Comment:

When you look at the screenshot of the maze, you can see that settling around 2 bends there will get problematic as the distance between the segments does not fit

it would then look like this:

..............OOXO
..............OOoO
..............OOoO
XOOXOOXOOXO
OOOoOOOOOoO
OOOoOOOOOoO
XOOXOOXOOXO
OOOo..............
OOOo..............
XOOX..............

X-City, O,o-land, .-water

perhaps it might be better to say that cities always can be founded in the corners, the rest has to be settled according to the normal grid rules with maximum symmetry, leaving out blocked places. This should still get a desired neat pattern, just denser settlements at the bends..

 

[qwertz]

damn, we lost our first euro match

Lurker's Comment:
perhaps it might be better to say that cities always can be founded in the corners, the rest has to be settled according to the normal grid rules with maximum symmetry, leaving out blocked places. This should still get a desired neat pattern, just denser settlements at the bends..

totally agree. the hardcore 3x3 gird would be somewhat suboptimal here.


@land blocking: one reason why I like this map is that it makes land blocking very easy. with a bit luck we could get a really nice ICS empire quite early

@difficulty: I'm not a deity player myself, but I would definitelly like to retry this on deity.

@leader: I am leaning towards darius a bit; really good traits and the UU & UB are nice too.

 

[r_rolo1]

totally agree. the hardcore 3x3 gird would be somewhat suboptimal here.

That is why i supposed 4x4 maze

 

[qwertz]

so are we starting an another game or do we wait for mysty?

 

[r_rolo1]

If we are all agreed, I think we can start a new one... mysty, besides having issues, must be still chewing your nat team defeat on Saturday ( sorry, couldn't avoid it )

 

[ssmage]

Yes, Start a new one, But we need a kickass title for it, Like ICS 4: The Lost Ones. (At the shock defeat at diety by pacals masive HA stack we ran like cowards and got lost in a maze)

 

[Diamondeye]

That is why i supposed 4x4 maze

Cheiron used a 4x4 maze for his example:

Lurker's Comment:
..............OOXO
..............OOoO
..............OOoO
XOOXOOXOOXO
OOOoOOOOOoO
OOOoOOOOOoO
XOOXOOXOOXO
OOOo..............
OOOo..............
XOOX..............

X-City, O,o-land, .-water

...The maze is 4x4 and the grid is 3x3, which is troubly when thinking more than one bend ahead. Using a 4x4 grid on a 4x4 maze would be as problematic as a 3x3 grid on a 3x3 maze. Sad, since the idea was good. Anyway, I'd like to sign up to the SG whenever you get the fourth running

EDIT: If mr crosswordcode (yes, I broke it ) is against going below Imm, we can give it a try. I do, however, think we need to plan this maze-thing throughoutly, so we don't catch mistakes once we are rolling (what a bummer that'd be!).

Also, on leaderchoices:
1) I think unrestricted such as Darius of HRE is rather cheesy. Besides, HRE has really bad starting techs (I think Myst/Hunt?).
2) JC (Org Imp?) is a nice leader, and his UBs are good if we are aiming for markets fmro curr beeline. But don't count on praets to save us - they have reasonable odds against Xbows, but they can't compare to Maces (which, IIRC, Pacal had plenty of last game?), so I suggest we keep both feet on the ground with relying on Praets as a strength. They are mostly usable when ahead in techs, which we are not going to be on IMM with a proper ICS

 

[ZPV]

@Diamondeye

I will look at modding the maze map script so that it will give us a 3x3 maze where the land extends one square further north and one further west. This will give us what we want as we can put cities in the SE corner of each 3x3 square.

I agree that Darius of HRE is too cheesy, and tbh, we didn't get much use out of Courthouses this game, so a boosted one isn't worth that much to us.


We spent too much time messing around trying to get wonders to stand a chance militarily, and we didn't pay enough (any?) attention to diplomacy, which was nearly as big a mistake.



As for leader, if we are trying to pop GPs from meagre GPPs (e.g a wonder) to power our tech beeline, then I think Philo would be a big help. I would recommend Lizzy (Philo/Fin speaks for itself) or Peter (Philo/Exp and cheap Harbors will be bigger than usual as every city is coastal).

@r_rolo
We can also draft explorers and Mayan Holkans (resourceless Spears) should we want to.

Edit: I agree with starting a new game.

 

[qwertz]

must be still chewing your nat team defeat on Saturday ( sorry, couldn't avoid it )

hehe, at least we weren't as bad as the Italians. The world champions loosing 3:0...



I think organised should still be very usefull here. Not only for cheap civics and courhouses, but the cheap lighthouses will also make TGLH easier to get.
For the second trait, there are several usefull ones. My vote still goes for darius, but there are also other good leaders.

For the whole 3x3, 4x4 gird discussion; I think we can get a nice result by just "cheating" a bit and making a bit bigger distances between cities if needed.

so instead of:

00000000xxCx0
00000000xxXx0
00000000xxXx0
0CxxCxxCxxCx0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0CxxCxxCxxCx0
0XxxX00000000
0XxxX00000000
0CxxC00000000


we can just shift the east cities 1E and squeeze another citiy in:


00000000CxxC0
00000000xxXx0
00000000xxXx0
0CxxCxxxCxxC0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0CxxxCxxCxxC0
0XxxX00000000
0XxxX00000000
0CxxC00000000


feel free to open a new thread for the next game, I can do it if you want, but not before thursday as I have some work to do for the scool ATM.

 

[mystyfly]

I think I'll be able to play civ again soon

I didn't read all the discussion here but I think we should definitely try deity again. Another ORG leader too, probabely FDR? He's good since we also get the GLH easier (cheap wonders + lighthouses). Then go the usual drafting route and try to get some land so we'll be able to build lots of seals later.

and , :suicide: abt the czech's luck. Bad play from then but still winning

 

[Diamondeye]

I think I'll be able to play civ again soon

I didn't read all the discussion here but I think we should definitely try deity again. Another ORG leader too, probabely FDR? He's good since we also get the GLH easier (cheap wonders + lighthouses). Then go the usual drafting route and try to get some land so we'll be able to build lots of seals later.

and , :suicide: abt the czech's luck. Bad play from then but still winning

Deity? Well, if there is not other way, we can try that.

And ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF, that sounds like a good idea. If I understand it correct, that is:
OOOOOOXXXOOO
OOOOOOXXXOOO
OOOOOXXXXOOO
OOOXXXXXXOOO
OOOXXXXXXOOO
OOXXXXXXXOOO
OOOXXXOOOOOO
OOOXXXOOOOOO
OOXXXXOOOOOO

O = water
X = Land
X = modding adds this land
X = unsure whether the mod will cause this?

 

[ssmage]

What he is saying is that we always put cities on the courners, and move cities 1 left/right/north/south to fit the pattern. So some cities will be 3 tiles, not 2 tiles apart.


00000000xxCx0
00000000xxXx0
00000000xxXx0
0CxxCxxCxxCx0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0XxxXxxXxxXx0
0CxxCxxCxxCx0
0XxxX00000000
0XxxX00000000
0CxxC00000000

See, that the bold ones are not coastal? So we move some cities 1 right(italiced) and add new cities(underlined)

 

[r_rolo1]

Anyone that has free time from the team should start it... I'm with some internet problems and I'm not reliable for some days.

 

[Diamondeye]

I'm reliable from t'morrow some time after 2 PM GMT, unless ofc I actually decide to go officially nuts in my old Rayman game with a friend. S'been a while since I played that one .

 

[ZPV]

This is what I meant with the modded map script. There are a couple of imperfections, but otherwise it fits 3x3 perfectly.

 

[Diamondeye]

Hwoah! That's great! I love that mapscript already.

Okay. Leader choices:
Roosevelt: (Org / Ind)

Pros:
Organized helps keep upkeep down
Organized helps get courthouses and lighthouses faster
Along with this, Industrious calls out for GLH!
Good starting techs (Fishing / Agriculture)
Cons:
We are going to work water tiles eventually. No financial is a con here.
UU is lategame, past the really decisive moment.
UB is lategame, past the really decisive moment.
Very sparse synergy between traits and uniques​

Julius Caesar: (Org / Imp)

Pros:
Good starting techs (Fishing / Mining)!
Organized helps keep upkeep down
Organized helps get courthouses and lighthouses faster
Imperialistic allows for faster settlerspam
The UU is early and powerful, both on defense and offense.
The UB is early and provides a useful bonus to an already useful building
Cons:
We are going to work water tiles eventually. No financial is a con here.
The map is not suited for offensive combat, which the UU is excellent at
The traits and uniques are only decisive earlygame. We will have trouble lategame.​

Elizabeth: (Phi / Fin)

Pros:
Good starting techs (Fishing / Mining)!
UU is draftable
Financial will be a huge boost when working water tiles.
Philosophical allows for more GPs for bulbing etc.
UU and UB are both good and decisive midgame.
Cons:
Very sparse synergy between traits
Very sparse synergy between traits and uniques
No bonuses to REXing (no Org, Imp or Cre)​

Darius: (Fin / Org)

Pros:
Organized helps keep upkeep down
Organized helps get courthouses and lighthouses faster
Financial will be a huge boost when working water tiles.
Very nice synergy between traits.
UB replaces a useful building with a needed 2 added.
Cons:
Not very good starting techs (Agriculture / Hunting)!
UU is not decisive unless we aim straight for AH, which we don't.
Very sparse synergy between traits and uniques.​

Charlemagne: (Pro / Imp)

Pros:
Imperialistic allows for faster settlerspam
The UB is a solid replacement of a - later on crucial - building
The UU is a good medieval unit, especially on defense.
Protective provides a nice defense against the frothing deity AIs.
Cons:
Very sparse synergy between traits and uniques.
Very bad starting techs (Hunting / Mysticism).
We are going to work water tiles eventually. No financial is a con here.​

Zara Yaqob: (Cre / Org)

Pros:
Organized helps keep upkeep down
Organized helps get courthouses and lighthouses faster
Creative helps new cities get up and running faster
UU is draftable (and well-suited for it, even!)
Good synergy between traits.
Cons:
Very poor synergy between traits and uniques.
We are going to work water tiles eventually. No financial is a con here.​

Thanks to Ralph_Jackson for posting starting techs, even if Charlemagne is wrong

 

[Ralph_Jackson]

I like the modded map script

Roosevelt: Fishing Agri
Julius Caesar: Fishing Mining
Elizabeth: Fishing Mining
Darius:Agri Hunting
Charlemagne: Agri Hunting