Mad Scientist Role Play Challenge: The American Cowboy.

[madscientist]

Welcome all to my first Civilization V Role Play Challenge where we take our esteemed leaders to see how we can change our rules and think outside the box. If you never followed my Civilization IV RPCs, check them out now as they were a lot of fun! These games are meant to be educational fun, a different way to enjoy the game.

Segment 1: Home on the Range
Segment 2: The Bucharest Alliance
Segment 3: Rounding up the First Posse
Segment 4: The Arabian Turkey Shoot
Segment 5: Death of the Desperado
Segment 6: Taming the American Unrest

Here we have George Washington, great leader of the best copuntry in the World, the USA (yes I am American dammit!). He comes from all the way from Civilization IV to find that there is a new game in town! However, we need a new personality for old GW as the womanizer role will not work here.

SO Washington comes strutting into the continent, an old Cowboy looking for riches and land. There are other civlizations around and rumor has it that there are solo-cities known as City States. Sounds like nonesense to old George, however he is open minded about what to do with these folks, befriending them or taking their lands! MANIFEST DESTINY I tell you all, it's the American way!

As this is the first RPC and we need to get out feet wet in the rules and how to interact with the AI in an entertaining way, the rules are going to be pretty simple and general

1) Washington must control his entire continent, and ONLY that continent. All AIs must be destroyed.

2) We are not allowed to take any cities on other continents although we certainly can act militarily if act.

3) City states can be dealt with as we go along, I am unsure how they fit in. However, if the game goes too easy perhaps outright conquering is the way to go.

4) For flavor we should try to cover the entire continent in culture.

Game settings

A Small Conitnental MAp (6 AIs and 12 City states).

Prince Difficulty and Epic Speed.

Our Noble leader

The starting map

and a 2D version

And the early decisions to make such as techpath

And the social policies

Food seams tough so I think AH may be the way to go followed by a path to sailing.

My first build has generally been worker but perhaps a scout would be better to exploit America's free sentry promotion. Also America get's a 25% discount on buying tiles so I prefer to go that route, but who knows.

So where to start my friends!

Also these updates WILL be slower than past CiV RPCs as it looks like it will take longer to get the games posted as far as screenshots.

 

[Abegweit]

All right!! All these months of waiting are over.

 

[Platin]

The fishing/workboats actually do not add any food, "just" commerce. For the +1 food you need a lighthouse (optics). With a workboat and *without* the lighthouse the fish becomes 3f/3c, and the pearls 1f/4c.
Nevertheless, i think foodwise youre fine if you farm those riverside grasslands and hills. And looking at all that production you have available, you could try a great libary free technology to civil service for the +1f from riverside farms.

policywise you could try the first 2 in tradition. 1st one is +1f in captial, 2nd one for the +33% wonder construction, since you could try for quite a few with all that production.

 

[pawelo]

Good luck for your game!

Marble & Pearls guarantee some happiness.

I'd move the scout SW to see what's around. Settle in place ?
Scout seems a nice first build, with roads maintenance costs on one hand and natural wonders & ancient ruins bonuses on the other the scout wins over the worker as far as I'm concerned.

Looking forward to following your adventure.

 

[KingMorgan]

Back in the saddle - good thing too otherwise someone else would be hosting the RPCs

I find scouting for the citystate gold bonus for 1st contact is well worth a scout or even 2. Suggest scout-scout-warrior-worker.

 

[mgsmuhammad]

Washington?

Oh boy.

PLEASE tell me you're doing the Arabs next?

Still.. If anyone can lead the American devils to victory, it's probably you..

 

[CHEESE!]

The USA is indisputably the best copuntry in the world.

If you don't agree, name one copuntry that is at all better. See?

 

[QuixotesGhost]

Marble + 3 Seafod resources? That looks like an ideal site for the Colossus. The question is if Colossus is worth it or not. So assuming the Colossus is actually balanced there's a lot of reasons to take it at that start besides just the resources. You have a mountain currently visible to your West, that means you'll be able to build Machu Picchu in a city settled near it which will be very handy for a large empire like you plan. That has some synergy with the Colossus build since if you go Colossus, you'll want currency anyways for the market.

I don't know enough about the game yet to say what you should do - I do know however what I would try with that start and it's the Colosus. As for what to do with the extra cash? Depends on what you scout out there in the fog of war.

Production-wise, I'd go Scout --> Worker ---> Colossus (might be able to fit something else in there, like your first settler).

Tech, Mining ---> Masonry ----> Bronze Working ---> Sailing. After this it depends on whether or not you want to go to war or not. If so, tech Iron (Washington's SA is more effective with Horsemen, but not it's not worth teching totally out of our way for). Then use the gold income to rush-buy a barracks for a more effective fighting force. Plus Mathematics is on the way to Currency for Catapults and Courthouses. Might want to fit a Momument in there (rush-bought most probably) to help with early policies or find a Cutural City-State to befreind.

Policy decisions depend on what you scout out there. I don't think Tradition will be worth it for just the Colossus, but you may decide to Wonder-spam like others have suggested (but aren't we trying to expand - expand - expand in this RPC?). Liberty if it looks like peaceful expansion, Honor if it looks like bloody expansion.

 

[DrPepper836]

The fishing/workboats actually do not add any food, "just" commerce. For the +1 food you need a lighthouse (optics). With a workboat and *without* the lighthouse the fish becomes 3f/3c, and the pearls 1f/4c.
Nevertheless, i think foodwise youre fine if you farm those riverside grasslands and hills. And looking at all that production you have available, you could try a great libary free technology to civil service for the +1f from riverside farms.

policywise you could try the first 2 in tradition. 1st one is +1f in captial, 2nd one for the +33% wonder construction, since you could try for quite a few with all that production.

Well, the above is true, except that fish tiles have an inherent 3f. That means that w/ a lighthouse and a work boat, they become 4f/3c.

Food should be all right here... Between the fish, cattle, and all those riverside grassland. I'd probably culture-buy the cattle tile ASAP w/ manifest destiny, pick up the +33% capital food growth policy thing in tradition, and beeline cs for an extra food along the river. Put farms on the two riverside hills, and you should have a very nice city.

And as for those city states, they must die. America must expand to survive.

 

[mattkaru]

Settling in place may be your best bet, though I think that's pretty obvious. It's a good balance between food/production hexes and has that coastal fish for early growth.

As far as your first social policy, I think it's tempting to go with Tradition because it gives an early boost to growth in your capital city, but if we're going to roleplay as America, we should be more concerned with expansion. Liberty suits that role better as settlers get 50% faster construction. And we all know that "liberty" is one of the holy words of American society.

 

[Lormax]

I couldn't load your game? Is your game the steam version? Maybe I'm putting the file in the wrong place?

 

[madscientist]

I couldn't load your game? Is your game the steam version? Maybe I'm putting the file in the wrong place?

Not sure about this. I bought the CD-ROM version and used STEAM to activate it. I bought the Babylonia addition also.

By the way, I cannot seam to play as the Babylonian leader, is there something else I need to do after using the key to ulock it and download from STEAM????

 

[CHEESE!]

First (I haven't got the game), can I ask what Marble does exactly?

And second....





Madscientist, you have been deemed worthy.

It is the greatest honour a forumer could ascend to.

Yes, Madscientist, you have been chosen.

To host CHEESE!'s 2000th post.

Congratulations.

 

[es4]

+1 to settle in place. I'd go for a scout first here just for the RPC aspect; I'm not convinced that it's worth delaying the worker on most settings, but the +1 sight is really great for getting ruins/citystates. Also for the RPC, you really need Liberty.

I'd be tempted to go pottery first since AH only gets you anything if you pop horses (I doubt it's worth spending ~120 gold to get that cow), while pottery leads to both sailing and calendar which can be useful (Stonehenge is generally good and there are lots of calendar resources). Mining->Masonry isn't that great just because you don't want to work that marble tile immediately.

 

[Lormax]

Disregard. I rebooted and Steam said it finished downloading Civ 5 when I reconnected. Guess I was missing "something".

Marble is just a luxury resource, it doesn't do anything "special" other than add something to the tile like the others as well as increase happiness.

 

[QuixotesGhost]

First (I haven't got the game), can I ask what Marble does exactly?[/B]

It provides a +25% bonus to wonder construction to a city within 2 hexes of it (or maybe it's 3). It also counts as a Luxury resource and provides a decent amount of gold when worked.

 

[Delgar]

Marble is just a luxury resource, it doesn't do anything "special" other than add something to the tile like the others as well as increase happiness.

Marble also gives the city working on that tile a 25% production bonus when building wonders.

 

[Volapyk]

Settling in place seems to be the way to go. Moving further north would make that delicious marble even further away, moving south is a possibility but there doesn't really seem to be much worth having down there anyway, only fertile tiles are to the north right now and won't recommend moving away from your food sources.

As for tech path, going AH first is viable if you want to see if you have horses, if you want it to improve the cattle I would say not worth it. I would go for Mining -> Masonry to get access to that marble ASAP, extra happiness will allow you to support some fast expansion and growth, also with the heavy production capabilities of your starting position going for some early wonders is very viable, and with the extra bonus when building wonders with marble you will be spitting them out faster than you can tech them.

Another possible tech path is pottery -> sailing, an early work boat will give you an early strong economy and happiness from the pearls, since your city will be working those fish from turn 1 improving them for 2 extra gold sooner rather than later seems like a good idea. You will also have a shorter path to the wonder techs, calendar and writing comes to mind.

Now for the build order, I would strongly recommend a worker first, seeing as how you only got 1 3f tile available you really need to get some farms out there to increase your growth rate. Before the worker is done you will have researched 2-3 techs meaning it will have plenty to do from the start, and you really need farms.

Seeing as how you are playing on epic speed a single warrior will have a lot of time to scout the nearby areas for good expansion spots and will give you a better idea on how your empire will look in the future.

 

[ahcos]

@cheese: france, germany, netherlands, sweden, norways, denmark, austria, spain, belgium etc. etc... in europe there are tons of countries far superior to yankeeland, at least until you get rid of sarah palin and her comrades

yay, the mad scientist is back for entertainment x) great stuff.


SIP, go mining->masonry, scout-worker-warrior-warrior, more warriors if needed, pottery->writing and great lib for philosophy (i found it to be common that the AI rushes either great lib or stonehenge, so it might be a gamble to take CS from glib)

with such a hammer-rich cap and marble nearby it's really tempting to try for some of the early wonders, namely glib+oracle - both pretty nice and fast to achieve with marble+tradition policy.

 

[CHEESE!]

@cheese: france, germany, netherlands, sweden, norways, denmark, austria, spain, belgium etc. etc... in europe there are tons of countries far superior to yankeeland, at least until you get rid of sarah palin and her comrades.

I'm breaking my 2000 to say that I'm a Brit, through and through. Got a random mix of others, including N. American (now that was a genealogical twist) and French, but I'm overwhelmingly British Celt/Saxon. I've got the most British name imaginable, but I'll leave it to you to guess it.

My dig was on Mad's typing prowess.