MIC2 - Lightning Chinese Riders

[microbe]

In this game we'll be playing as Chinese, emphasizing the 3-move UU we have. The variant rules are:

1. We cannot attack cities within that AI's territory.
2. Slow units cannot enter enemy territory, nor can they attack outside of our own territory.
3. We have to accept peace as soon as 1) we are at at least 10th turn of the war and 2) AI is willing to pay for peace. This means we have to be well prepared before declaring and take as many cities as possible at the beginning of the war. A lightning profitable war is the idea.
4. No MA or MPP is allowed.

It's on Emperor standard pangea. Victory is Domination. Conquest is OK if we could do it, but AI may have cities burried inside mountains or hills which would make this almost impossible, but we can try. I hope we can finish it before Industrial Ages.

It emphasizes middle ages war and we'll need combat settlers a lot I would assume.

Roster:
- microbe
- gozpel
- grahamiam
- Aggie
- grs

 

[Gogf]

2. We have to accept peace as soon as AI is willing to offer to pay us. This means we have to take as many cities as possible at the beginning of the war. A lightening profitable war is the idea.

Do you mean we must take peace as soon as the AI initiates dimplomacy, and it willing to give us peace, along with something else? Or if they are just willing to give us straight peace?

 

[gozpel]

Checking in.

Standard map is alright.

I think we should set a limit too, when to take peace. So if we say 10 turns, then is the time we WILL talk. Before that we just ignore the request?

 

[Gogf]

I think we should set a limit too, when to take peace. So if we say 10 turns, then is the time we WILL talk. Before that we just ignore the request?

Sounds good to me at least.

 

[microbe]

Basic rule: no exploits and cherish your rep. I'll adopt Aggie's ruleset for now as I am lazy to write my own:

BANNED TACTICS
These are the exploits that I want to avoid in the game:

"Phony Peace Treaty": Making Peace Treaties without having the intention to stay at peace, just to get cheap techs or money.

"Palace Jump"; Jumping the palace by disbanding the capital. Rushing a palace or building it brick by brick is OK.

"RoP Rape": Using Right of Passage to move whole armies into attack position.

"Resource Piracy": Sitting on resources or deny a civ access to a tile inside the borders of the rival while at peace.

"Dogpiling": Adding multiple workers to cities to increase population beyond the food supply.

"Seed Corn": It is not allowed to buy the LAST TWO workers from the AI before 1000 BC.

"Negative cash research": The penalty of negative cash is only one unit/improvement. So there are cases where this can be worthwile. Science spending must be lowered when the cash would go below zero.

 

[Gogf]

"Seed Corn": It is not allowed to buy the LAST TWO workers from the AI before 1000 BC.

Could you please elaborate on this?

 

[microbe]

Since I copied it from Aggie, he might have an authorative answer. My impression is that we cannot buy all the starting workers from AI before 1000BC.

Under Emperor AI gets one additional worker. So it means we can only buy 1 worker from each AI before 1000BC.

Under demigod we can buy two, because AI gets 2 additional worker at start.

This rule is not very important to me, as I think it was meant to address the original game's problem of AI selling workers too cheaply. In C3C every worker costs about 110g, so I guess we may just want to get rid of this rule?

EDIT: I also get rid of the "throw away cities" rule. We'll use combat settlers for sure, although I don't see we abandon the cities.

 

[grahamiam]

checking in

looking at this roster, maybe we should bump up the diff. and play dg?

 

[Aggie]

Checking in

Regarding a: I would limit slow units to only allowed to use them in our territory. But any decision is ok
Regarding rule 2: I think that it would be challenging to keep it strict. So when an AI wants to talk and give cities for peace, you have to take it. Note that the AI will be more and more reluctant to talk when you are at war with them more than once. I once had to wait 18 turns before the Zulu would talk, despite my gains (3 cities).

I'd like to be at the end of the roster

 

[Aggie]

Could you please elaborate on this?

This rule is included to avoid an easy way to cripple the AI. By buying their workers they have no possibility to work their lands and grow. Workers are vital in the early game and the AI doesn't know it. I think that 110 gold is very cheap for early workers. The gains are far bigger than this.

So I 'copied' the rule from RBCiv and kept it in my list: You are not allowed to buy the last two workers of an AI before 1000 BC.

 

[microbe]

Checking in
Regarding a: I would limit slow units to only allowed to use them in our territory. But any decision is ok

OK. Since this is just emperor let's have some more challenge.

I'll also allow them to be in neutral territory (including AI territory which we have RoP with) in case they have to do so to move to other cities. But they may only attack when inside our territory.

Regarding rule 2: I think that it would be challenging to keep it strict. So when an AI wants to talk and give cities for peace, you have to take it. Note that the AI will be more and more reluctant to talk when you are at war with them more than once. I once had to wait 18 turns before the Zulu would talk, despite my gains (3 cities).

Hmm, as I envision the major war is after we get our UU, at that time the AI's towns will be reasonably big. I don't think it's that easy to make them give cities for free thus I'm worried it would make the variant irrelevant. I want the war to be short and fast.

I think I'll just make a 10-turn grace period during which we can ignore the AI offer.

So in short: we must make peace if 1) the war is at or after the 10th turn (the turn it's started is turn 1) and 2) if AI agrees to pay us anything for that.

If people agree I'll update the rules.

 

[grahamiam]

the rules sound good to me

 

[Gogf]

This rule is included to avoid an easy way to cripple the AI. By buying their workers they have no possibility to work their lands and grow. Workers are vital in the early game and the AI doesn't know it. I think that 110 gold is very cheap for early workers. The gains are far bigger than this.

So I 'copied' the rule from RBCiv and kept it in my list: You are not allowed to buy the last two workers of an AI before 1000 BC.

Well, what AIs would leave all of their workers in their cities? I thought the AI was at least smart enough to send out its workers.

The ten turn grace period sounds great, IMO.

 

[microbe]

I updated the rules and will play the first 20-25 turns tonight.

EDIT: or tomorrow if I don't have enough time.

@Gogf: AI may temporarily have workers in their capital. You'd have to check F3 every turn to catch that.

 

[microbe]

4000BC: We found Beijing directly. Set min research to Alphabet. We have ivory next to our border. Ancient Cavalry would be good to have!
3600BC: Warrior reveals furs in our north.
3500BC: Beijing grows and lux to 10.
3450BC: spot a green border. MM to get warrior one turn faster.
3400BC: We meet Greece. We are up Warrior Code and he is up Bronze Working, Alphabet and Pottery. I'll meet someone else before I trade techs. From F11 seems we are the only Militaristic civ..
3300BC: incense in the west.
3200BC: We meet Spain. She is up BW, Alphabet and CB. Greece now has BW, Alphabet, Pottery and CB.

So WC+1gpt+60g to Greece for Pottery. WC+Pottery to Spain for Alphabet+19g. Min research set to Writing.

3100BC: Greece gets the Wheel.
3000BC: Our opponents: America, Mongols, Spain, Greece, Egypt, India and France.
2900BC: settler goes west. Silks found somewhere to our north.
2750BC: Greece settled close to the silks.

I leave the settler unmoved this turn. I am not sure whether to settle directly there or one tile west. I prefer one tile west as that would claim the incense too. Maybe someone comes up with a dotmap and the team can decide. We need to settle toward west and north first.

I hope we have horses. If we don't, we can use foot units to capture it from AI, but that's about it.

EDIT: we are doing min research on Writing but since our income is very low 10% sci doesn't do research at all. You may want to raise it to 20% or more to make it non-zero, and drop it back to 10% as soon as possible.

Roster:

microbe
gozpel - up (play 15 turns, then everyone plays 10 turns)
grahamiam - on deck
Gogf
Aggie
grs (to be confirmed)

 

[microbe]

Someone comes up with a dotmap please. I am normally wrong about it.

 

[gozpel]

I got it.

Will play as soon as possible.

 

[grs]

Signing in. Will post my thoughts later.

 

[gozpel]

Not happy, Jan!

I really hate the AI sometimes, with enough meditation I will learn foresight!

Pre-turn - Set Writing to 10% since we've been researching already for 9 turns. And it cost us a gold per turn.

Shanghai founded on the right side of the river -> barracks. I thought of moving one step further for the incence, but this was my choice.

We make 5gpt atm.

Change the warrior to barracks in 4t in Beijing and save 2 shields.

2710bc - Warrior near Greece spots GH.

2670bc - We meet America (3 cities) north of Greece, they are up BW, CB and the Wheel, same as Greece. I could buy the Wheel for all our gold and gpt, no deal.

2630bc - Worker done roading to Shanghai, start chop.
Warrior near Greece can't resist goodyhut and of course find barbs.

2590bc - Barbs ignore our warrior

Beijing barracks -> warrior

2550bc - A bit of tundra south of Shanghai, but we find furs! And a cow nearby.

2510bc - With the chop Shanghai produce barracks -> warrior

2470bc - Beijing warrior -> warrior. Send him to check out GH near Beijing

2430bc - Not much

2390bc - We get 25g from GH. Switch beijing to archer to save 2 shields since GH was ok.

Buy the Wheel from Greece for 2gpt and 123g, and Alex is only cautious now.
I give the Wheel, 4gpt and 4g to Isabella for BW and CB.

That leaves us with 0gpt and 6g in the kitty. We have 1gpt as a buffer in research if we would need it.

Switch both cities to archers to save 2 shields in each city. Archers are better then spears in my world and we might have to fight for horses later. Spain and Greece will probably take the 2 visible sources.

2350bc - Not much

2310bc - Southern scout find a barb. A greece worker stands on a mountain outside their borders?

2270bc - Beijing archer -> settler

Nice AI trading, they all knows IW and Mysticism now.

2230bc - What are those Greece workers running around in the wild for?

Barb approaches Shanghai.

2190bc - Shanghai archer -> settler

Warrior takes out barbcamp and 25g.

2150bc - I think the Greece worker wanted the furs as colony, our warrior stands on it.

Ah well, I wouldn't be able to get IW or Myst even without the Wheel-trade. They traded IT between each other and at least we CAN build spears if we need it.

The problem is to get to the horses, they are a bit away from our "core"

Settlers are due in 5t in Beijing and 9t in Shanghai.

Settlers to horses, please.

 

[gozpel]

Dotmap on beer: