LK102, Deity, RaR, just win.

[LKendter]

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads9/LK102-2550BC.zip

I didn't specify a map type, so I will go with the less played continents.

We didn't take the first start as it also has the VP win screw-up.

4000 BC
Our random civ is the Mali. It feels like I played them before, but they don't show up in the LK series list.


3900 BC
Gao is found in a weak spot. We have no visible food bonuses.
Their started techs are week as we have NO second level techs to go for.


3450 BC
(IT) Our border expansion shows a civ coming from the south.


3400 BC
The Sioux lack Pottery. All I can do is sell Pottery for $38.


3250 BC
We can't do a thing with Alphabet.


2850 BC
We are going to be squeezed all to fast. I found an Incan city that is also close. I give them Alphabet and Pottery for Domestication, Warfare and $10.

I give the Sioux Alphabet and $80 to get Ritualism.
Ritualism gets us Masonry and $10 from the Inca.

The capitol looks stronger with visible pigs.
We have very close by horses. The city will be weak until irrigation, but having horses is a good thing.


==========================

Summary:


Signed up:
LKendter
T_McC (currently playing)
Greebley (on deck)
Romeothemonk (skip May 7th to May 20th)
Sanabas (skip to May 9th)




Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

 

[LKendter]

The below is the initial starting lands.

 

[T_McC]

I got it. How many do I play? 10 or 15?

 

[LKendter]

I got it. How many do I play? 10 or 15?

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

 

[T_McC]

LK102 - Nothing but Malicious Lies!

2550 BC (0)
Not sure where the Hardy is going, but he ain't founding there. That isn't fresh water. I am sooo tempted to ram it up by Quito and steal those two Cows. But that's too far away and we're not going to get another settler out anytime soon to link our empire.

So retreat to the river and set up to claim the Horses and Incense with the same city.

2510 BC (1)
Roading and moving.

I think our best shot is to have the Sioux denied Horses, then we can take them out. We probably can't win a first war against either of these guys so I'll try to keep our heads down.

2470 BC (2)
We'll have a new friend soon. Blue borders in the North. Ugh. Do I give up the river defensive bonus to claim the Horses in our first 9? Yes. We can't work more than 3 Mountains before Rails, and I think the extra tiles are 2 deserts and a plains.

2430 BC (3)
Found Jenne, start on Monument to get our culture up a bit. Could be swapped, nothing too inspiring about any of the available choices.

The mystery civ is America! We appear to have gotten the "random" opponent set, so the Iro and Aztecs must be on the other continent. Abe's doing well. 4 cities, Incense + Elephants + Horses.

We should have a Math monopoly next turn. Can't turn research down, and don't care to make our people happy.

2390 BC (4)
Let's get cute. I don't suspect the Americans have met the Sioux, so how about we trade Math at monopoly twice. Math + 15 gold to Sioux for Caste System + Boat Building. Caste System + Math + 1 gpt to Abe for Scrape Mining and Urbanization. Math + 2 gpt to Inca for Mysticism + 10 gold.

We have no income, but we have tech parity and 15 shiny gold pieces to rub together.

I actually think this is one of those situations where we want to slow-play Dynasticism ... scratch that, we're Agricultural, the settlers aren't more expensive. Research set to Writing, likely to be obtained at 4th, but what are you gonna do?

We have Iron at Gao, so we can build our UU.

The only lux I see is a Tobacco in our backyard.

2310 BC (6)
Worker Housing completes, start on TG. We don't want to look too inviting.

The Americans are building a long road to nowhere.

2270 BC (7)
Stupid Governor won't put Gao into 10 spt. Will have to wait for next TG.

2230 BC (8)
The Americans are sure spamming Settlers. Sioux yell at us because our Scout is crossing their lands to come home. I'm running as fast as I can!

2190 BC (9)
TG completes, set to 10 spt for another. Figure get 1 more and then go back to growing. Maybe sneak a Granary in there soon.

We're still on Writing, lots of optional junk available for trade. Might be interesting to get Weaving, maybe we have Sheep in the Mountains?

2150 BC (10)
Now I'm regretting not going for the Cows. They are still available. Blue dot in the picture is my thought on the next city. The one-tile lake counts as fresh water (4 food in city center, even in Despotism) and it gives us a start on a short front with the Sioux. Or put together a settler party to head north.

 

[T_McC]

The aforementioned picture:

If you want to keep building the Monument in Jenne, and want an oddball play, whip out a 2-turn Monument in the capital as well. Being the cultural leaders (at least for a while) might have its advantages.

Regardless, don't let the capital grow again before building a Granary. We can make 10 spt, or 2 fpt at size 3. At size 4 we lose the ability to work the Iron mountain before Dynasticism.

 

[LKendter]

We have no income,

That is a very scary phrase in chiefdom with slider stuck at 50% science. I hope we don't get forced to hire taxman to avoid going broke. I have found trading GPT in chiefdom to be a bit risky. I almost went broke in chiefdom.

Blue dot in the picture is my thought on the next city.

I agree on this one. The only resource influence right now is to claim incense, and I would be surprised if the AI takes the northern one any time soon.

The Americans are building a long road to nowhere.

This is a colony to order. The only question is Camels or Horses.

Regardless, don't let the capital grow again before building a Granary.

If we go this way, then we need to time the granary for AFTER we get our GPT back. I don't want to go negative 1 a turn.

The only lux I see is a Tobacco in our backyard.

There could still be more. We haven't gotten a lot of the techs that reveal luxuries yet.

Now I'm regretting not going for the Cows.

Well I would regret going for them. The early game is when the human player usually suffers the most in the culture wars.


Signed up:
LKendter
T_McC
Greebley (currently playing)
Romeothemonk (skip May 7th to May 20th)
Sanabas (on deck?) (skip to May 9th)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

 

[T_McC]

If we go this way, then we need to time the granary for AFTER we get our GPT back. I don't want to go negative 1 a turn.

I'm not too worried about going broke. Once we get Writing (now likely at 1st) we can get some cash from the AI as part of trades. We could have traded Math to the Inca for ~70 gold, but I valued Mysticism more than the cash. Plus I figured they were less likely to demand money from someone already paying them. It will be a bit tight when we pop our next settler, but that should only require holding out for 2-3 turns.

Jenne grew on the last turn so we may be able to get another buck from working new tiles (not sure what the Governor picked). We also get an extra 2 trade per turn when we don't work the Iron mountain. If we have the Granary we'll be working the river (food) tiles instead of the Iron (shield) tile.

We've already been at -1 gpt. (You can also adjust the tiles a city works in mid-demand.)

 

[Greebley]

Took a look at the game. Looks like we will be able to grab 2 iron. That will be nice for trade.

I liked our UU. A defense 3 fast unit is rare.

We can grab one of the two cows with no overlap.

[Edit: The city would be just North of the Incan spear in the screen shot - the forest. It will also make a strong line with the desert that noone can settle in. We can grab the land behind the desert and forest town.

 

[Bezhukov]

lurker comment:

IMHO, Mali is hands down THE strongest RandR civ (AGR is a huge advantage - look which AI civs dominate, and COM gets better as the dificulty increases even in unnmodded without counselors). You've already noted the utility of the UU, which is just gravy. Will be watching to see how this one plays out.

 

[LKendter]

IMHO, Mali is hands down THE strongest RandR civ (AGR is a huge advantage - look which AI civs dominate, and COM gets better as the dificulty increases even in unnmodded without counselors).

I guess the random civ gods liked us.

 

[Greebley]

I have to agree.

Looking at the turn order I see that I am up. I got and hope to play when I get home from work.

 

[T_McC]

Mali is definitely a strong civ, but I'm not sure about being hands down the best. Of all civs, Korea can do some nasty things in the hands of the human. Ag is more powerful at high levels for the AI (1 extra fpt means more when you only need 12 to grow instead of 20, and the AI is forever building Settlers that have to wait for city size to catch up to actually be produced), but Comm is extremely good for the human. We also have the luck that our first two cities secure the necessary resources for our UU.

Speaking of resources and the advantages of the commercial trait ... I don't believe I've seen any Horses for the Sioux. I see the big advantage of our UU being that it won't automatically die when it's attacked by another mounted unit/Inquisitor (no Horses required ). We might be able to pursue a plan of getting ~8 cities down in our little area, and then putting our efforts into improving the lands rather than pushing settlement any farther. Gear up for a war of conquest vs. the Sioux, if they don't have Horses we can win their first war, and use their cities/land to expand our empire. The Inca are so quiet I wonder whether they and the Sioux might already be fighting. Or maybe the continent goes on for a ways to their east.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

lurker's comment:
Yes, I think Mali is clearly one of the strongest Civs. Runner-ups are Korea (if you happen to have food bonus you can actually see), and Arabs (thanks to the IMHO strongest UU in RAR). And Greece (an elite Hoplite is a better defender than a vet Line Infantry!).

 

[LKendter]

I agree 100% on Korea being powerful. With cheap corruption and science help they are just awesome for a long term game. They were a GREAT space race game civ.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

lurker's comment:
Sorry for the threadjack, but with all that expertise here:
What do you think is the worst RAR Civ?
Persia? Siam?

 

[Greebley]

Rome's UU seemed worthless with no real point in building them. I would rate them fairly low.

I haven't been really able to play enough to do a real comparison myself though.

 

[LKendter]

I haven't played enough of the civs to comment. However, I still think the Hwacha (sp?) is a bit lame. I hate it in C3C, and dislike it in RaR. To bad, as Korea overall rocks.

I do think the UU for Polynesia SUCKS. Outside of helping with earlier contact on islands, it has little value.

 

[Greebley]

Preturn: Looks good

Early: We buiild our Monument.

Mid: We get Writing before Inca and America.
Trade writing to Inca for Slavery.
Trade writing and Slavery to America for Sailing and weaving.

Since Dynasticism will have a huge cost mark up, I start reasearching it. It will be a long 22 turns.

Late: Build a Cultivator and settle Timbuktu on the blue dot of TMcC.

Notes:
Since we have slavery, I think we should go with a slave Market in some towns and raise lux a bit if needed. It is a decent increase in shields to do so.

I drew a dot map with the Red, Yellow, and Blue towns. I was thinking of getting them in the order I listed, though there are strong arguments for getting Yellow next as otherwise the Sioux could get it first. Of course we could lose the Red dot to Inca too.

I liked blue being on the river for the extra food.

Edit: It looked 3 or 4 cities to the North, but it is hard to decide where when we cannot see everything.

[Edit2:Another thing I like about the Red dot is we are setting the distance from the Incan cities already placed so we don't have overlap (at least not to the E/SE). We may still have problems with future Incan towns. It also makes a good block with the Desert having no enemy towns (IIRC, one can't settle Desert. That will give a natural barrior vs overlap if we take behind the desert.

 

[LKendter]

Signed up:
LKendter (currently playing)
T_McC (on deck)
Greebley
Romeothemonk (skip May 7th to May 20th)
Sanabas (indefinite skip -waiting to hear back in the loop)

Remember 10 turns per round - STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.