LotR Series...

[Vol]

Arathorn,

I'm a long time fan of the LoTR series. I would love to get involved in the Civ4 edition.

I have a Civ4 Prince win as Germany (Frederick), and I'm fresh off of Rat 07 - English Role Play.

I'll self-identify my weaknesses in Civ4 as balancing depth/breadth of research (I always feel like I'm on the verge of falling behind in techs), and knowing what to do with workers once all the obvious improvements are done (I still don't see value in cottages/hamlets/towns until much later in the game).

The Deity level is certainly intimidating, but it must be explored, and an understanding that a win is not expected is crucial to making this fun. I think the 1v1 option could open up strategies that would otherwise be impractical.

Frankly, I'm not sure we understand the intricacies of the various leader traits (especially at Deity) to make an informed decision. Same goes for any other setting. So, I'm game for anything. But logic seems to dictate we don't want to share a landmass with our opponent, or else we'll be quickly overrun.

 

[bed_head7]

Well, I am not afraid of public humiliation, so sign me up. With exams, I may have to request a skip here and there, though, so if that is a problem, I understand.

 

[ndthsmdy]

Well, looks like I'm too late...

I did do somewhat well on the one Deity game I've tried--pretty much as Sirian said, going as the Mongols and attacking early. Eventually I overextended myself in Medieval and got whacked in early Industrial...but go for it. All your learned heads on it could mean a win.

 

[Arathorn]

Dueling Deity roster:
Arathorn
grahamiam
Mark1031
Vol
bed_head7

Random responses:

it would be fun to try out naval warfare

I'm doing a lot of that in my current game right now. Attacking from the sea is kind of nice, because you don't have to worry about your stack (of doom?) being artilleried to death while it's getting into position or after the attack. I've been marining cities, razing them, and then moving on. The cities are rebuilt but they're much smaller and not developed, so I think it's a win. A transport makes round trips to get new suicide artillery for each new city. It's actually pretty effective, although I've not gained land because of it yet. Picked up a bunch of relative population, though, and killed the opponent's research capabilities.

With exams, I may have to request a skip here and there, though, so if that is a problem, I understand.

Requesting a skip is very rarely a problem. It's when people disappear completely that there's a problem. As long as you can monitor the thread enough to know when you're up and keep us up to speed on your ability to play, I'm happy.

Taking out the diety AI militarily scares me as they are quite improved in battle

Yes, they are improved. I still think my personal strength is in this area, though. The AI was SO BAD at military before, even a 100% improvement (roughly what I've seen so far) makes them still well below my tactical ability. That's always been my greatest strength as a Civ player and it doesn't seem to have changed for Civ4.

I will start the game once I have a bit of time. LotR16 takes priority tonight, so it might well be tomorrow. It was a bit late last night (*cough, cough* -- darn Aztec sneak attack in the middle of my Egyptian campaign), but I still feel the itch 24/7 at this point.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

LotR17 possibly started at

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=137333

Read the thread to find out more. Something ain't right.

Arathorn

 

[Xarathas]

Hi, is it to late to sign up for this (whenever the next available game is?). I've never played succession games before but I've been playing Civ since the original. Please let me know, thanks

 

[Arathorn]

Hi, is it to late to sign up for this

Too late for LotR16 and LotR17, and still too early for LotR18, which hasn't been announced yet! Watch this thread -- whatever it is, it'll be announced here first. And, then, it's a free-for-all.

Arathorn

 

[Arathorn]

Sign-ups and discussion for LotR18 are now open! Please only sign up if you are willing to discuss the game in some depth before we even begin.

LotR18: No Cottage Challenge
Difficulty: Prince (up to negotiation, but "feels" right to me)
Map type: Custom -- continents with random number -- pretty random
Civ: TBD -- see discussion below
Map size: Standard
Game speed: Standard
Variant: We may never work a tile with a cottage improvement -- no cottages, hamlets, villages, or towns. This will make commerce challenging, to be sure. We can never build them with our workers. If we capture land, we must be sure to pillage the improvements so our new cities can not work cottages.

Kylerean has mentioned that the regular game is still interesting enough that we need not dive off into variants. While I agree, I find that enforcing variants can lead to new and improving styles of play. Personally, I find that I am greatly struggling with making use of specialists. What better way to learn in that area than by requiring them -- they'll be the primary sources of commerce in the game -- scientists and merchants and .... Can we pull it off?

What I envision -- growing cities rapidly and having them support specialists as soon as possible. Maximizing income from trade routes or from specialists or both. Representation is an almost complete MUST for the extra commerce. Statue of Liberty and/or Mercantilism might help. Caste System seems a plus, but if we can build enough regular buildings to specialize cities for science or gold or production or whatever, it might not be necessary. We'd have to play and see.

Certain techs and Civics become almost valueless. Printing Press is not a big rush. Pottery can maybe wait (but granaries are still good). Universal Sufferage and Freedom of Speech are significantly weakened. Emancipation's bonus to cottage growth is gone.

Civ discussion. Traits are going to be key. I'll give my initial thoughts.

Aggressive -- Always a reasonably handy trait. I do think we'll probably need to go to war a bit more than normal in this game. An extra combat I for our pillagers might help them survive. A reasonable choice, in my opinion.

Creative -- Widespread cultural power. I don't see synergy with the variant, but I don't see conflict with it either. Free border expansions are always nice. Probably don't need this and spiritual, though.

Expansive -- 2 health is not always useful. With us wanting to grow our cities a bit larger to support more specialists, it may be very nice. Cheap granaries to help that growth, too? Feels like pretty good synergy to me. Definite possibilities here.

Financial -- non-starter. Absolutely requires cottages to be effective. We'll not want this trait.

Industrious -- Wonders help with commerce on occasion. Extra GPPs. Might help us get Pyramids, which could be crucial (Representation will be key, I believe).

Organized -- Cuts the costs for our hopefully large empire. Larger pops cost more. Our probable Civics are middle-of-the-road cost.

Philosophical -- Feels like good synergy to me. Lots of specialists to give lots of GPPs to give us more potential for keeping up in tech. Use 'em for techs or for their specials or.... But I question the value of Philosophical in some respects. It feels underpowered to me, as an extra few thousand GPPs is only really an extra person or two. But they come earlier, so I dunno.

Spiritual -- I don't foresee a lot of Civics changing. But an early religion or two could provide the cashflow we will need to support our empire. A bit of missionary work and we could potentially roll in cash, to help offset our poor commerce production. It's a possibility.

Roster: -- FULL already! (@11:03 a.m.)
Arathorn
ThERat
Speaker
Jabah
Obormot

No requirements to sign-up, except willingness and time to play and discuss.

Arathorn

 

[ThERat]

I have always wanted to participate in one of your game. This variant sounds challenging. If you have me, that is.

I think philosophical and industrious might help here. Is there any such combination in this game?

 

[Speaker]

I'll bite. My specialist-play needs a ton of work and I've been "limiting" myself by using a lot of financial Civs.

 

[ThERat]

I checked and there is no such combination that I wanted, but Greece has philosophical and aggressive, maybe that is a good combination.

 

[Jabah]

Hi,

I'ld like to be member of the team, if you don't mind, of course...

(like probably some others, I will be away and not able to play around the 25th and between the 29th of dec. and 4th of january)

I have to slightly disagree with your comment on the financial trait. it will be not to bad (and even quite good) for coastal cities (and windmill mountains on river and of course special ressources), so depending on the map (not pangea) we might consider it (not saying we have to have it).

Expansive seems a good idea, we need to grow fast and early & cheap granaries are good.

On the research subjet, going quickly to libraries is necessary as we need their ability to put 2 citizen into research...

Ready (kind of, i am at work) to discuss all that!

Jabah

 

[Arathorn]

LotR18 Roster:
Arathorn
thERat
Speaker
Jabah
--open--

There is no philosophical/industrious leader. The synergy of the traits is too strong. Too many GPPs.

Something else we might want to consider is the starting techs. I don't know the tech tree too well yet, but I think getting to Writing for libraries fairly early will be important. What techs enable that?

Contrariwise, if we get spiritual for religion, we can get early priests with temples and use those as our specialists, but they don't provide the research we'll need/want.

We had one vote for Greece -- Phil/Agg.

I'm tending to lean slightly Exp/Phil, which is Peter of the Russians, myself. I do think Phil is a good place to start.

Philosophical leaders:
Saladin of the Arabs (Spi), UU: Horse Camel, starts with Mysticism and Wheel
Mao Zedong of the Chinese (Org), UU: Cho-Ku-Nu, starts with Agriculture and Mining
Elizabeth of England (Fin), UU: Redcoat, starts with Fishing and Mining
Frederick of Germany (Cre), UU: Panzer, starts with Hunting and Mining
Alex of Greeks (Agg), UU: Phalanx, starts with Fishing and Hunting
Peter of Russia (Exp), UU: Cossack, starts with Hunting and Mining

Lots of fishing/hunting/mining going on.

Arathorn

 

[Sirian]

I think philosophical and industrious might help here. Is there any such combination in this game?

Check out the audo interview with Soren, at Apolyton. He mentions this issue in the final part.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Something else we might want to consider is the starting techs. I don't know the tech tree too well yet, but I think getting to Writing for libraries fairly early will be important. What techs enable that?

Writing is the most accessible tech in the game. It's the only one with a triple Or-Gate. You can get to it via Priesthood, Pottery, or Animal Husbandry.


- Sirian

 

[Obormot]

Can i join? I also like to discuss first, then play

Peter and Alex do look like best choices and either one is fine with me. As for the techs, i think best starting techs depend largely on the starting position.

 

[Arathorn]

Well, that didn't take long. Roster full.

LotR18 Roster:
Arathorn
ThERat
Speaker
Jabah
Obormot

Continue discussion of civ. Do we want to try to grab an early religion or not? I'm tending to think not, but that potential of 4-20 gpt is hard to pass up. Our capital could be a cash city.

Writing is easy. Pottery seems unlikely, since it hard requires Wheel and only Saladin amongst Philosophical starts with that. Animal Husbandry comes with either Hunting or Agriculture, so all but Elizabeth and Saladin can do that as the first tech (if so desired). Priesthood is the third route in, but that's after Polytheism or Meditation, so second line at best. Bottom line, all the Philosophical civs except Elizabeth can research Writing as their 2nd tech. And we might even go that way.

Other thoughts/ideas/concerns? I mean, obviously, it's going to depend on our opening position. If we have wheat, corn, and rice around our capital, I think I'll go for Agriculture first, regardless. But some plans somewhat survive first contact.

I'm also thinking that we'll want to have some cities with markets, grocers, and banks, running all merchants. But a majority of cities with libraries, universities, observatories running a ton of scientists. At least, that's what I think now. Maybe we'll be best served mining everything and bonking heads, but I tend to doubt it. Philosophical gets us double-speed universities, too, which is great. We'll want to take advantage of that, because universities provide for more specialists, too.

Hmmm....

Arathorn

 

[Vol]

Neat idea.

Just a data point: I won my first Prince game (as Frederick) without any cottages (well almost none), because I didn't "get" them. They seemed worthless to me at the time, so I didn't build any. In retrospect, I was able to win that game by having lots of land on rivers and having the Colossus and working coastal tiles. Of course, this was all assisted by being alone on a pretty decent sized chunk of land.

Assuming you don't get miraculous land, this should be very interesting to watch. I'd suggest going with at most 2 continents. An archipelago, coupled with Financial, would make cottages completely unnecessary. So to make this variant have teeth, avoid excessive amounts of coastline and obviously don't pick Financial.

 

[Obormot]

I think we would want to adopt Caste System at some point. Libs. markets and the like are pretty useless for us, since our base commerce will be low and 25% of that will only add 1 or 2 beakers. I would only build those in towns with a several gold/gem mines or other commerce bonuses. Wasting so many shields just to support many scientists when we can just adopt Caste System is a waste imho. The benefit of that civic is huge for this variant. So we need to get to CoL ASAP. This also means that we have a shot at getting Confucianism. The question there is how to get there fast. I don't remember the tech tree, but i think there is a more or less short way of getting there. The tech itself is quite expensive, maybe we can use Oracle to get it. This should work good if we have marble.

I would research the farming techs that are apropriate for our staring position first, then maybe BW for chops and axemen to fight barbs. If we don't have copper we may go for archery. After that go for Caste system.

 

[Sirian]

Libraries and other improvements that boost shields, coins, beakers work on specialists, too.