JB1 - Generic Random Deity

[JustBen]

Version: PTW 1.27
Difficulty: Deity
Civ: Random
World Size: Standard
Geography: Random
Terrain: Random
Barbarians: Random
Victory Conditions: Everything activated. Diplomatic is off the table for us ("I mean, come on.").

(Signups Closed)
Roster:
JustBen
Darkness
Kuningas
Greebley
T_McC

Other Mechanics:
We'll do the traditional 20 turns for the first player, then 10 per round. We'll keep it there till the Modern Age, at which point we'll turn it down to 5 turns per round because my attention span starts to drop off rapidly in the face of modern warfare. 24 hours to claim, 48 hours to play. If this is a problem for any specific round, please talk to us about it.

I feel comfortable playing on Deity, but not so comfortable that I feel a need to make up variant rules to make it harder. Anyone else interested in such a boring, easy game for whatever reason is welcome. Previous Deity wins are helpful but not required (I'm not committing ritual suicide if we lose, but this is not a training day so at least don't expect to not be yelled at).

I'm willing to negotiate any settings except difficulty level and civ. Of some concern to me is the possibility of extreme barbarian activity. But only some.

I'll spin us up a map once the slots are full.

Standard rules for fair play are in effect. Please don't use:
--Ring City Placement
--Corruption-Due-To-Rank abuse
--RoP Abuse
--Scout Resource Denial
--Declaring or inciting war to escape 20-turn payments
--Reneg on military alliances
--Abusing spies or demands to incite war
--Negative science spending exploit
--Chaining transports
--Using trades/disconnects to build obsolete units for upgrading purposes
--Free Palace Jump
--"Worker farm" breeding programs

 

[Darkness]

I'm with you, JustBen. I'm also comfortable on deity but not that comfortable that I need extra challenges...

 

[Kuningas]

Roster:
JustBen
Darkness
OPEN
OPEN
OPEN

Sign me. I have deity wins and extra challenges are welcome.

 

[Darkness]

Excellent! Now there's three of us! 2 more needed... C'mon people....

 

[JustBen]

What are your feelings on the barbarian setting? I'm not as frightened of Raging barbarians as much as I am of being Expansinionist and getting No barbarians.

Though it would be a shame to wreck to game's theme...

 

[Greebley]

I will join you all if you would have me. My diety experience is somewhat limited, but emperor has become pretty easy recently.

I figure if I am unsure, I can always stop and ask.

I prefer totally random. I like playing totally random games and so have some experience with that. Expansionist with no huts is a bit of a bummer, but the ability to get first contacts is still useful enough that it isn't a total loss (unless you also get archipeligo but that is getting pretty unlikely).

 

[JustBen]

Sounds good, G. We'll hang out for another day or so to see if we get any takers on that 5th spot, but I'd rather get started and accept a 5th sometime into the game than wait around till the weekend for "game on".

 

[Darkness]

Why don't you just keep everything random and we'll just see what we get. I like surprises (somewhat... )

 

[T_McC]

Hi folks

I'd like to play. I usually play on Deity, and win more often than I lose. I usually win by space, as by the time in the game military victories are possible, space is by far the path of least resistance.

It may be better to specify the landform (I figure continents), rather than leaving it as random, to limit the possibility of lousy Civ-Map combinations. But it's not a big deal either way.

If the game starts soon, I am not available this weekend. Shouldn't be a problem if I'm late in the rotation.

Thanks

 

[Greebley]

I like the concept of purely random. Not knowing the pangea/continents/archipeligo setting does add a bit of a challenge though.

Oddly enough, expansionist on archipeligo does have some value. You find out quickly (usually by the time you get pottery) if you are all alone on an island and know to to bee-line for map making at max research.

 

[schadenfreude]

Might make it tougher or easier than your usual set up deity game. Certainly tougher to begin with. I played one expansionist game in which the four other closest civs were all expansionist as well, so almost zero huts and behind everyone from the get go.
You will have to play somewhat cautiously to start out. I think random civ is the most "natural" and a great challange. Tougher than many of the "beyond deity" varients where players know evey last detail of the set up IMO.
Best of luck! I will be reading with interest.

 

[amirsan]

well if this is open, I shall play, but it looks like its full, I cant find another REGULAR diety game on this forum thats just starting, I was going to sign up last night too. I am trying to get back into SGs.

 

[JustBen]

4000 BC
I couldn't decide whether I should mine the grassland first or risk chopping the forest into something suboptimal. I decide to pop the hut first, and get no help. I decided that we could do worse than going Warrior-Barracks, so I head to the forest first. Pottery, blah blah.

3700 BC
Forest chops, irrigation starts.

3650 BC
Our Warrior makes contact with a Babylonian Settler pair to our west. For Masonry and Warrior Code, we can score 10 gold, Ceremonial Burial, and Pottery, the last which means my preemptive chop goes toward our Granary instead of our Barracks. Science switched to Bronzeworking so we can... y'know... defend ourselves.

3600 BC
Beijing grows to size 2. Time for Granary drops to 21. I decide that having more than 1 Warrior in the field would be the polite thing to do for our next player, so I opt to go back to the Barracks. Was this correct? This is the sort of extremely subtle early play that I just don't have enough experience to judge properly.

3500 BC
Border expansion. We can take in a rivered bonus tile.

3450 BC
I've been skirting his border for a turn or 2, but suddenly we have contact with the Persians. I squeeze BW and 12 gold out of him for Pottery and CB. With 2 civs to trade from, hopefully we can avoid monopoly price, so I set science to minimum on Ironworking.

3350 BC
Beijing Warrior -> Warrior

3200 BC
Beijing Warrior -> Granary (at last)
Luxuries get turned down.

Nothing much more happens for the duration.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads5/JB01-3000BC.zip

JustBen
Darkness (up next)
Kuningas (on deck)
Greebley
T_McC

 

[JustBen]

Our position as I last saw it:

 

[Greebley]

I think you can go either way on the barracks vs granary.

The granary leads to getting better sites as you make towns earlier. I would build less military in this case and spew out settlers as fast as I could.

The barracks leads to losing races for prime land, but gives you veteran warriors. With any luck you have iron. Thus this strategy lends itself to upgrading warriors and the good city sites.

I myself would have chosen the granary, but then I am a better builder than warrior.

I am thinking we should seriously consider building up cash for upgrades and some veteran warriors over the next 1000 to 2000 years in the hopes we get iron or can trade for it (especially if that annoying babylon settler takes OUR silks by settling on the lake).

Kind of neat actually. One could (should?) base the entire early game strategy on that single decision.

I am hoping we can get some good spots in case we don't get iron however.

Edit: By the way, I assume you chose totally random? I am going to step out on a limb here and use my advanced civ knowledge to predict we didn't get archipeligo

Also a minor point: I have always felt that using F10 to find all the other civs without meeting them seems against the spirit of the random game. How do ppl feel about not using F10? Anyone else have an opinion? (or already looked?)

 

[JustBen]

Yes, we do have a completely random game. I even covered my monitor so as not to get a sneak peek at the terrain settings.

I always forget to look at F10.

When I had to make the call on the Barracks, the green borders of Persian were just beyond the fog, so I had a sense that we may have been put onto a 20% landmass. I'm still not sure if strengthens or weakens the argument for the Granary, but I have absolute confidence that we'll get our money's worth out of that Barracks.

Of course, knowing that we're next to Immortals and Bowmen doesn't exactly fill my heart with warmth and joy.

 

[Darkness]

"got it"

Will play it tonight and post tomorrow.

PS: I would also have gone for the granary, but I think that's just a matter of personal preference. I may not be the best judge in this case though, as I played the fist 80-100 turns of GOTM20 (deity level) almost like a farmers gambit. I usually build barracks only if I know I'll be going to war soon...

 

[T_McC]

I too would probably have built the granary first, but building the barracks now only delays the granary by ~4 turns. After the granary, I think Beijing can settle into a settler-spear cycle, so we'd have wanted an early barracks anyway. (Not enough food for Beijing to do continuous settlers)

Some good news ( ) from the save, as the pictured Bab units are a spear-warrior pair. Was there a settler pair that already moved out of view?

I think we should have some discussion about city placement. On a standard map I figure we need 4 or 5 cities that can have access to 20 land tiles to allow for 1/turn tank/MA/MI production (or for SS parts). Usually this would be the capital, FP site, and 1 or 2 neighbors for each. Unfortunately, in this game our capital can't be one of them. So I'd suggest we think about an FP 1st ring to Beijing, and plan for a leader-jumped Palace elsewhere.

For the other cities, I think our goal should be to use a high percentage of the tiles in our territory before hospitals. I usually found cities with 5-6 tiles of overlap, so most could reach size 15, but one could arrange tiles to get a 20 and two 12s.

The only early war I see us in is a war against the natural jungle habitat.

On a serious note, with so much jungle around us, Beijing will have to produce the settlers and the military for our entire civ, at least for a little while. However, it looks like we can expand north unencumbered, so war may not be necessary until much later in the game.

 

[JustBen]

Originally posted by T_McC
I too would probably have built the granary first, but building the barracks now only delays the granary by ~4 turns.

Well, it actually delayed the Granary by the length of time it took to build 2 Warriors and the Granary itself. But I wanted recon and a "garrison".

Some good news ( ) from the save, as the pictured Bab units are a spear-warrior pair. Was there a settler pair that already moved out of view?

I'm... hm... 90% sure there's a Settler running around there.

I think we should have some discussion about city placement. On a standard map I figure we need 4 or 5 cities that can have access to 20 land tiles to allow for 1/turn tank/MA/MI production (or for SS parts).

Bah! Homer-cles cares not for Modern Armor production! I have never, ever lost a game after I've built a single Modern Armor. Not even after building a Tank. I'd rather pack 'em in for the push through the Middle Ages and abandon cities later if you're that concerned about having cracked-out Metropoli. But this is a call that's probably going to go to whomever happens to be building the Settlers.

The only early war I see us in is a war against the natural jungle habitat.

I know the pacifistic nature of the Persians when they're sitting on Immortals and right next to a civilization with 1/3 their score is legendary, but don't you think we just might get into an early scuffle? I see an early war as a good chance to pick up a little bit of land and maybe some technology, but only time will show how much war is feasible. I agree that we should focus on grabbing whatever land we can via Settlers first, though.

Anyway, at least we pulled China. Jungle is a lot less scary with Industrious. For being pinned against 2 hostile ancient civs and a vast expanse of jungle, we did as well as could be hoped.

 

[Greebley]

Ya, I don't worry much about sizes over 12 either. If in the end game if one city is more important, I simply give it more resources at the expense of other cities (I tend to not put cities within the workable squares of another).

Also I find building warriors much better than building spearmen. You get two warriors for one spearman. With barracks like we have, for 40 gold we can upgrade them to veteran warriors. Two warriors also save money as it supresses 2 unhappy ppl in despot instead of 1 for a spearman so you don't need as much Lux.

In actuality, I just guard my settlers with 1 warror as I can output more settlers. 1 is usually sufficient, though there is some risk when barb horsemen appear.

Once I start getting several towns, then I start building spearmen (making sure they are veteran for the long term).

The only exception is when my town is making 7, 8, or 9 shields as you can get a spearman every 3 turns and warriors every 2.

Edit: I am thinking we should try to make a dot map and discuss city placement at some point.

Edit: You are right. I assumed the spear was over the mentioned settler, but when I looked at the save it is a warrior instead. And here I thought our silks were doomed.