LotR 2 - Zealous Zulus (Monarch variant)

[Arathorn]

Game parameters:

- Large map - only 9 enemies (10 total civs)
- Continents with 70% (middle) water
- All win conditions enabled
- Difficulty level: Monarch
- 24/72 hours to post "Got it"/play

Variant:
- NO PEACE! If we can contact a civ, we must declare war on them -- that turn. Some trading is allowed before the war declaration but only of hard goods (cash and tech, no per turn deals). Similarly, no peace treaty will ever be accepted.

That's it. One clean, easy rule (I believe). But with MASSIVE game effects -- no trading, probably Monarchy forever (if not despotism) to avoid war weariness, ancient combat inevitable....

Could well be an ugly early loss, if we meet lots of people soon -- such is life.

The goal is "Veni vidi vici" though!!!!

Roster:

Arathorn << ON DECK
Jester
Sirian
cpp1 <<< PLAYING
Toecheese3 -- SKIPPED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

Roster is completed.

Arathorn

 

[Sirian]

Sounds fun. One issue:

Similarly, a peace treaty will be accepted ONLY if war is later re-declared THAT turn -- by us (taking the reputation hit).

That would be a deal-ender for me. I'm in minus that one. That is, declare war and never accept peace = OK by me, even with a betrayal on first contact. Accept phony peace to gain concessions over and over, then declare again immediately, not interested.

Which is your intent?


- Sirian

 

[cpp1]

This variant sounds fun! I agree with Sirian though, it would be more challenging to always declare war on the turn you meet someone and never make peace with them again. It's cleaner and harder that way. If we can do that I'd like to give it a shot.

Since this is my first post, let me give you some background. I played alot of Civ2 and got bored with it because I usually won even on diety. I lost my first game of Civ3 because I was under attack by the nearby Zulus but one city they captured reverted back to me!!! That made me realize Civ3 was significantly different than Civ2. Since then I've won on Regent and Monarch.

My current game is a variant on Emperor. The variant is that 1) I cannot build any settlers, and 2) If I capture a city I must raze it. This means that culture flip, propaganda (never happened yet), and goody huts are the only way of getting cities. I now have 5 cities (1 original, 3 culture flips, 1 from hut) and am actually holding off the world superpower (Persia) on the way to a culture win in 24 turns. Artillery saved the day for me in this game!!!

 

[smegged]

Yes, I must also say that I cannot play in a game where betrayals are commonplace. I am NOT a fan of betrayals. I play my game clean, and will very rarely blacken my reputation. In on game on Monarch difficulty, I was being offered peace by the persians in the early game. Accepting it would mean the cancellation of two alliances, and would get me out of the broke/being whooped stage. But I weathered the storm, eventually they broke the alliance, I got out of being broke, and then whooped the Persians backsides with my glorious samuri!

My point being that I do not like to play in games where I'm being amoral. It makes me bored with the game and dislike the game. I played those kind of games in civ 2, and promptly realised that I am not one for the evil playstyle.

 

[Arathorn]

(wetting finger and raising it...which way is the wind blowing?)

Hmmm.... I see that the idea of betrayals is unpopular. So be it. Would a rule amendment to only sign one peace treaty EVER make the game more acceptable? Betrayal on first contact is ok. And we have ONE shot ONE time to make and break a peace treaty. After that, it's total war.

Or does it have to be zero? I'd like the bit of wiggle room for one peace treaty -- not that it would last.....

Arathorn

 

[Sirian]

I'd like the bit of wiggle room for one peace treaty -- not that it would last.....

Why? What's the attraction?

Any rule set you like can be implemented. However, where is the priority? What is the Main Theme?

If it's total war, based on the idea that The Strong Should Rule and We Are the Strong, then we don't need or want to mess around with "tricks" and "deception". We can just take what we want! That would be the "characterized" approach, and would not involve any betrayals ever, including prior to the first declaration of war. "No Talk, You Surrender Now or You Die."

Then there's the functional variant approach, played without a role but for the Challenge of No Peace. But... that would look and play the same as the above, just based on a different theme.

Or... there are similar themes that could be chosen that include for limited or unlimited "betrayals", but from the role perspective those all clearly take on an edge of "evil", as smegged described, and from the challenge side, they all ameliorate the challenge in an environment in which the game opponents are not designed to properly respond.

Do you have a theme in mind? I get the impression that you wanted originally to FEATURE the betrayal aspect, to explore it to its limits, in the environment of total reputation blackening. I'm not looking to negotiate away or change your game plan, just to get you to define it, so I can figure out whether or not I want to participate. Fair enough? Well perhaps you've defined it well enough now.

And based on the idea that you would be compromising your wishes to move to a "lower amount" of betrayal that I would still not want to partake in... I think I should bow out. Stick with what you had in mind originally, is my advice, and good luck with it.


- Sirian

 

[Arathorn]

Why? What's the attraction?

A backdoor in case it doesn't go as I expected it.... Frankly, that's it. I am starting to swing around to your way of thinking and deciding it's inappropriate for this game.

I guess I'm still struggling with what exactly I want. I need some outlet besides this forum to hash over ideas before I go putting my foot TOO far into my mouth -- my knees aren't very attractive.

Goals:
- Feature ancient war
- Eliminate any chance of just buying every tech
- Still be able to win

That's pretty much it. I didn't conceive of this as "evil" necessarily, just as a bit of the caricature we've come to associate with Shaka -- he's coming! This time, I want to be the one who's "coming to get ya"! I guess it kind of even fits a noble enemy, in that I was envisioning declaring war via the diplomacy screen instead of by attacking. A bit of the Clans from the BattleTech series, if you've read such things.

I think the challenge is enough that I chose Monarch instead of Emperor because I think even on that level, total war is limiting enough that it will seriously hamper a path to victory. I'm wanting to explore that route in more depth.

Yes, at some point, I need/want to fully explore the betrayal, lying cheating route. Whether I do that solo or try to get a SG to do that is something I'll decide later. But that's not really important for this game.

Stick with what you had in mind originally, is my advice, and good luck with it.

Well, if I'd had my mind firmly set, I would certainly have done that, your advice not playing any role. However, my mind was still semi-waffly about the exact set of rules and I'm happy to "blow with the wind" on this one a bit, as it were. With LotR1, I was clear on what I wanted and wouldn't have altered much. this time.... well, it's a different story.

I think I should bow out.

I hope you'll reconsider, but you have to do what is right for you, of course.

Proposed rules:
- No peace
- War is always declared via diplomat at first meeting, with some trading (no per turn deals -- cash/techs ONLY) allowed at that time

Arathorn

 

[Charis]

Interesting stuff...

(Most others don't like the continual betrayal either, so I won't dwell on that)

What's going to be hard is, as you pointed out, having to research *ALL* your own stuff. Or hope you run into a smart civ late in the game and you're rich enough to catch up. Having the infrastructure to do that AN wage continual, unending war, is going to be a REAL mess. Frequent war is one thing (Cretans and Japanese of the Verses know that) but being at war with all known civs, all the time - ouch.

I'll toss out one thought: sure Shaka does come at you, but... does he not stop until you're exterminated?? No. Does he ask you for peace? No. He waits until you come begging, then HE will dictate the terms. You accept or you get run-over. An alternative, likely further out than anticipated here, would be war-on-first-contact, then no peace until he begs and accepts the terms you dictate. I prefer the rules as they stand now though, for the research-it-yourself aspect. (Hmm... alt 2: the only techs you get are ones you earn as tribute or steal via espionage... better save that for another time)

*IF* you're short of peeps, I'll join, but I've got too many more than I should already, and would strongly hope someone else can get in here - should be a good game.

cpp- neat Variant! A OCC that grows to 5CC or more. Emperor even? grats This is one I'm going to have to try sometime. Might name the capital "Deacon's Beacon"

Charis

 

[Zed-F]

Remember, there are other options. You can try to steal tech from enemy civs, with sufficient gold. Not sure how that option compares to buying it outright, as I've never really tried it, but here you don't care about blackening your rep, so you might as well learn about it!

EDIT- oops, I see Charis already mentioned that possibility.

I might be interested, if the map were smaller (like, small or tiny.) But, I don't like and don't have time for late-game movement of hundreds of units.

 

[Sirian]

All right, then. Count me in for this one.

The thing I will be curious to see is how the AI responds. Will they throw everything they have at us and continue to do so for all time? Or will they have the restraint to let "phony war" rage at times, while they do other things? I don't expect to find major new flaws in the AI's, but would not be surprised if this goes better than expected.

I really don't know what your game plan will be, but on first glimpse, I would probably try to follow something along the lines of RBD9's major war: IE, Fortress Zululand, priority to defense, and with our land (relatively) secure. If I might suggest, especially in the ancient era, pillaging may be more worthwhile than conquest. Cripple any nearby neighbors: lock them up in their cities, no workers, unimproved land, no resources, and no more settlers able to go anywhere. (The ones they do send out, becoming our slave labor). This can be accomplished with fewer units and fewer losses, and take the fight to our neighbors by undercutting their production (as opposed to building up our own, which is my usual strat).

I do NOT expect the brute force beeline-to-conquer method to work out simply because with SO MANY enemies, we will have to maintain a low casualty ratio. Setting up some (as you pointed out) Fortified positions on hills, across rivers, etc, may be part of the ticket. Or... this all could be misguided, but in my limited experience with ancient warfare, it has always been easier to hamstring than to conquer, because you can go offensive sooner and buy time.

Whatever our military strat, we'll have to keep some backburner priority attention to workers and settlers, and expansion, or we may meet early success only to falter later.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

One more note:

The AI's do not sell one another contact with the human player. The burden of paying for contact between human and AI ALWAYS falls to the AI, so we can limit our frontage by limiting our explorations. Sure, if the AI's stumble upon us, then they get added to the List of Targets, and there is some contradiction involved, in that we need lots of contacts to lower our research costs, but I think it might be prudent to limit those at first, try to "stay focused" on the current enemy before we go hunting for further targets.


- Sirian

 

[smegged]

I think that by removing the false peace treaty, you are doing a lot of good with this game. I still don't want to join it, because I had enough of me vs the rest with civ II and the diplomacy options are one of the greatest attractions of Civ III.

I'll watch this game to see how you go, but I won't play. I'm a pacifist at heart and wage war only when necessary. Peaceful trading/expansion is my forte .

 

[Iester]

With RBD 9 and 6 both winding down, and school stuff starting to come to a head, I could jump in on this one. It sounds like a hoot!

None of this prissy diplomacy crap. It's all about the HAMMER!







!!!

 

[smegged]

Hey Jester, have you cheked out rbd23 yet???

 

[Arathorn]

Alright.

We have 3 yeses, one more maybe (cpp1) and one "if I'm really needed" (Charis). I'd like to get a definite yes/no from cpp1 and one more, but running with four is fine.

I'll try to play in the next few days, but Maunday Thursday service, Good Friday service, helping my in-laws move, and such could easily push it back until after Easter.

No time limits enforced until after the holiday!!!!!!

Arathorn

 

[cpp1]

OK! Looks like there is an agreement of deals on contact, but only immediate deals, no gpt or lux trades or other deals that last 20 turns.

On strategy, if we meet civs one at a time, then taking them out quickly to reduce war weariness might be a good strategy. Of course we might be in monarchy the whole time so it doesn't matter.

As others have pointed out, if we get into a fighting quagmire then a strong defensive position taking advantage of terrain and artillery units (catapults early on) would be good. I'm a big fan of artillery units because they can fire on the AI's turn as well as your turn and inflict damage with any chance of damage to you.

Even then, you must have a strong, fast strike force that can beat wounded units with a minimum of losses. I agree with Sirian that the key is the ratio of your losses to other civs losses. Also, this game might give a change to pillage with explorers, which never occurred to me unil I read that article here.

I've noticed the AI does probe for weak points, it doesn't just go after the same position over and over again. But the biggest weakness I've seen is that after the initial rush of units, it just sends a little dribble of units out each turn. It should save them up and make a strong attack every so often.

Charis - thanks for your kind words, the theme is that our city doesn't want to actively push our civilization out into the world, but if other people decide they want to join us, we're not going to say no. Congratulations on your Diety OCC game, that was great reading at the end!

 

[cpp1]

Arathorn - I must have been writing my message as you posted your last message so I didn't see it in time.

Count me in, but I'd like everyone to know that I haven't played an SG before so I have some silly questions:

1) Do you save at the end of the turn, or at the beginning of the next turn?

2) Can you only have one attachment per post?

3) Do you use the new uploads area for the saved game, or attach it to a post?

Sorry for all these questions, I'm just trying to the mechanics of everything figured out.

 

[Arathorn]

Glad to have you aboard! Everybody has a "first" SG and has some questions. I suggest you continue to read some of the other games to get mechanics. It helped me immensely!

1. Using Cntl-P, enable "Always wait at end of turn" (the game will surely be passed to you that way). Then, save at the end of your 10th turn (with a bit of leeway on that). General rule is always save at the end of a turn, but it's not unheard of to pass off with a unit or two unmoved.

2. You can only have one attachment per post. Using the upload folder, you can do other funky things. Or, if you have your own space on the 'Net and want to host your own pictures/saves, you can do that freely (I think).

3. I still find attaching save files easier. Once the game is "old", it might well be worth going back and deleting old save files. I believe the option to delete a post has been reasserted, so you can use that, too, if you want (but please don't delete any write-ups, as those are important to the flow of reading!).

As a warm-up, if you have the time (and this game might be a bit), you might want to try taking a turn in one of the "open" games lkendter runs occasionally (see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18486 for instance). If you've not done so, I would read the "Sticky" threads at the top, too. It's really pretty easy, once you get the hang of it, though.

Feel free to ask more questions -- either here or by sending me email/PM. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I'm very willing to share what I do know.

Arathorn

 

[Toecheese3]

If you need one more Arathorn, count me in.

 

[Arathorn]

Toecheese makes 5.

We're ready.

Don't be surprised if my first turns don't get posted until next Monday. It's either tonight (unlikely) or not until Sunday night.

Arathorn