Open Challenge Game - A lamb in the horde of wolves

[pawelo]

@Giaur
Thanks for your try and comment on AI.
I haven't had the opportunity to give it a shot myself yet. I will balance conditions regarding your remarks to make it more doable.
However, I wouldn't limit the military upkeep to 0 gold. It depends too much on civics.

@All
Variant's change due to Giaur's weak free AI comment:
We have to make sure our military stays as low as possible. Therefore, we must limit our number of soldiers to Rivals Average in the Demo screen. This limitation kicks in after our IW discovery.

I think this time we can speak of a balanced play

 

[Giaur]

@pawelo: I would disabled Vassalage (I am not sure about the pacifism) and keep to 0 military upkeep, because your solution favors small amount of cities, while military upkeep is dependent on size of the cities. You are assuming that number of units should be constant, while it's difficult to manage bigger empire with that assumptions. Example:
You have 10 allowed units.
6 cities: only 4 units can move, 6 others has to stay in the city and avoid We fear of our safety penalty.
10 cities: none of units can move and practically the game is lost.
As I remember correctly: Every 4 population points allow you to support one unit. With medium sized city (10), you have support for 2,5 units plus initial support dependent on difficulty level.

There is one more problem: being attacked by 2 or more civs at the same time.

btw. I am quite certain that all civs were chosen manually . If it was large map we would see: Isabella and Shaka.

 

[pawelo]

@Giaur - I see your point. In fact, I have never knew how the stuff was calculated . In this case, our current rule is suicide.
Also, in case of being attacked by two or more AIs, I propose to disband this rule and defend our lives by any means. Our safety is valued more than the global military upkeep.
Btw, is it possible to disable vassalage once the game is off ?
And you're right, our neighbors are a small home selection of mine

Sorry for so many changes, I'm rather newbie into creating community games and haven't waged all the implications enough before posting the game and the rules

To resume, for followers among you:
Variant rules changes:
* we must prove our peaceful nature by refusing to pay for any military upkeep. However, attacked by more than one neighbor, we may temporarly pay for our troops. Still, as soon as this war is over, we have to disband all extra units, letting them go back to their homes and civil life.
By war, I mean the whole war, not just if one civ settles for peace and the other still fights. I imagine we settle for peace with the weakest of two and fight with the other one, while disbanding our troops...

 

[nbcman]

If you refuse to pay any military upkeep, what happens if you run Pacifism? Will you have to fire all military or will you allow at least one unit per city?

 

[pawelo]

If you refuse to pay any military upkeep, what happens if you run Pacifism? Will you have to fire all military or will you allow at least one unit per city?

Another good point.
I would limit to 2 defensive units per city when running Pacifism.
I think it keeps the game challenging without too much handicap.

 

[namyzarc]

I say you guys do away with the military restrictions all together. Why not allow any amount of soldiers, with the only restriction beeing that they can only be used for exploration and defense (and perhaps attacking barbarians), but never offensively.
Also, I might even go further and say that taking enemy cities should be allowed, but only if they were the ones that started the war. There has to be some form of revenge and punishment for those who oppose our peaceful ways...

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I think that the point of the military restrictions is so that we are low in power and are more likely to get attacked.

 

[MrFelony]

It may be a better idea to choose your neighbors lol. or at least be very skillful in diplomacy with neighbors like ragnar. it's hard, but i've managed to notbuild many troops all game and never have him attack me once (closest neighbor)

 

[pawelo]

It may be a better idea to choose your neighbors lol. or at least be very skillful in diplomacy with neighbors like ragnar. it's hard, but i've managed to notbuild many troops all game and never have him attack me once (closest neighbor)

I agree with you. Since we decided not to look at the powergraph but at the military units upkeep, I think we have pretty nice chances to defend ourselves ( barracks, walls, castles, cities on hill + all culture bonuses ).
This one is doable, although I will only have a moment to try it tomorrow.
I'm not sure to win - I won only one @Monarch and am comfortable with "normal" conditions @Prince, but I have some ideas about how to manage it

I hope you will post a nice report MrFelony

 

[pawelo]

I started mine and played 50 turns.
It is not a real report ( like turn by turn ), but some general info about it.

Please advise me if I'm doing something stupid - I would like to stand up to my own challenge

Spoiler :

Check point 1 – T50
Overview



I settled Cahokia in place, building worker, warrior, worker, warrior, settler, wall and worker. I wait for connection to the stone to challenge Stonehenge or Great Wall.

First city settled next to the wine/pigs/stone and bronze. Could have been much worse I chopped the monument and started walls in the meantime.

Techwise : Mining, BW, The Wheel, Masonry, Mysticism, Pottery, going for IW to clear the jungle into a wonder. I don’t know is someone has already discovered this, but Genghis is already running Slavery for at least 20 turns.

Hammurabi is Hindu, and an unknown civ is Buddhist. I hope to go for Theo or Philo to get my religion.

Protective, I decided it's more than important to protect oneself with stuff like walls and culture. Therefore, I hesitate between Stonehenge and GW challenge. The latter may prove itself more useful, given that I wouldn't have to worry for the barbs.

Looking the play the next 50 tomorrow.

Thanks to you for your criticism and advice!
The next OGC will be better prepared, promised
I still hope you have some fun from it, for those who give it a chance.

Cheers!

pawelo

 

[MrFelony]

I just realised that this was the exact opposite of the great khan role play going on lol. you made a convincing arguement so i decided to give it a try. usual emperor player, but with not being able to build a whole lotta troops ona pangea...gonna be difficult .

Spoiler :

I decided to not settle in place. jungles= so i wondered up north away from the jungle belt (forgetting i was going to the artic i stopped and settled next to the river with the pig and hils. good early production with enough forests/food to chop many settlers for rexing. oh shoot (see i'm good at censoring myself mods ), i just looked at the power graph and, though i have one soldier in each city, i'm 3rd in soldiers . After settling, i built a worker, then warrior to grow off the pig, and began chopping everything in my BFC to get as many cities as possible. Khan settled a city on my boarder, and thanks to him i got a free city . at turn 100, I have 6 cities peacefully, soon to be 7. I'll probably finish around 9 cities (though i might just stop here. I also used my 2nd city to use it's stone to build GW. I chopped the oracle and got CoL which found confucianism in stone city and built the holy building in the city with my first GP. I have to go back and make sure i'm following all the rules lol. my current plan is to spam cottages/barracks/high level Archers. I NEVER tech for feudalism, but in this case I think I will. Also, I'm going to run monarchy/bureaucracy for the favorite civs bonuses with ragnar, joao, and hammurabi. I know we're supposed to keep religion to ourselves, but I was really hoping confucianism would spread more than it did so we'd get the religious bonuses. I really think the rule limiting that is going to be the hardest aspect of the game. going for space I believe, MAYBE culture.

Spoiler :

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[MrFelony]

man, you dont know how bad i want to conquer these guys . khan just declared war on me. i guess he wanted ot get his heathen city back . I have to say, this is the first time i've ever been very happy researching feudalism. dual war with khan and ragnar makes it a VERY useful tech.

So i started to break the rules for keeping troops lol. I saw boudica massing troops and just got out of a war with ragnar so I was like "okay so i KNOW she's going to attack me soon, and if i really did care about my people so much to not even whip them, then I wouldnt want to release troops when doing so would cause me to lose a city" I have a pretty good tech lead on everyone (and having built the apostlotic palace helped me get a couple more of khan's cities) as well as manage wars easily. I'm probably not going to finish it just because I like domination and i cant dominate here lol. but if you want i could post an update. it's 1640 and i'm in my 23rd turn of GA's (3 so far, 2 in a row, all 12 turns). I also put a GG on a LB because I figured it went with the feel, unfortunately the brave general died protecting precious Native American lives from the viel Ragnar. I dont have the points lead anymore (which was significant in the beginning) because I havent been able to expand more than whatever city gave way to my culture. i think i may play just to see if i can switch the mongolian capital with my own capitals culture

 

[pawelo]

hey mr Felony!

Thanks for joining! You proove it's a possible challange, so I still have some hopes .
It becomes pretty tough though.

Here is the next 50 turns:

Spoiler :

First, the overview on turn 100 :



I went wonder-crazy for this turnset. With stone connected it was pretty easy. I grabbed Great Wall, Oracle and Stonehenge with great help of jungle-hacking process. Pyramids are due in 7 turns btw.

As for the expansion, I’m already pretty boxed by Genghis to NW, Ragnar to SW, Joao to SE and Boudica to the east. One more decent spot though, the clam NE to Mound City. Some tundra but we have to make some expansion.

Here are the techs for this turnset :
IW -> Meditation -> Priesthood -> AH -> Writing -> Polytheism -> (Code of Laws from Oracle) -> Hunting -> Monotheism -> Alphabet

Religious:
Got Confucianism from Oracle and already spread to Cahokia. Also, a mongol city got spread by itself… Poverty Point is the holy city, waiting for a shrine due in 2 ( at 66% probability ).

Great People:
Got a Great Spy for the Wall in Cahokia, started immediate GA as advised in rules.

Build queues:

Cahokia – the wonder path – worker – barracks – Great Wall – Oracle – Stonehenge – Pyramids ( due in 7 ) – Chitchen Itza (?)

Poverty Point – expansion path – walls – granary – settler – warrior – settler – warrior – settler – dog warrior – settler

Mound City ( floodplains NE ) – totem – library

Chaco Valley ( east, on cows near Guimares ) – warrior – worker

Mesa Verde ( south, stone and river ) – walls

I already have great problems with my border on Genghis… Also, Chaco is pretty close to Guimares.

Will go for Chitchen for defense, and then Feudalism path for longbows. And pray to be still alive before I can do it

Everyone, feel free to join and try it!
It's a quite challangeable if you go along the rules regarding religion and military ( it is already challangeable if you get 6 aggressive AI around you on a pangea without those rules ).

Stay tuned for the next part

cheers!

 

[MrFelony]

So I pretty much finished it tonight (well define tonight seeing as how it's 8 am lol) i decided to not finish though since i had developed such a large tech lead and because of the dynamics of the game, no one who would be able to defeat me was going to declare war on my since the 2 other powers were warring with each other.

Spoiler :

I played later than this, and ragnar was able to take my southern city thanks to the 2 defender limit, despite it being curraissairs vs infantry .
here's my territory. I'm not sure what the rules stated about taking other civs cities, but my cap's culture eventually flipped khan's capital and a 3rd city to me

and here is the differing GNP scores lol.

Spoiler :

you can kind of tell where I had GA's and when Ragnar captured a my souther city (which he did multiple times)

 

[MrFelony]

Pawelo: I wouldnt say i think it's bad to go meditation to get to priesthood (it is faster and if you want missionaries then it's a better path) but there are usually more benefits that come from going polytheism. it opens up a good wonder, and i also believe it's a prerequisite for one of the techs in the literature line. also, techs like meditation are very easy to trade for. Also, another thing that i never do in my normal games, but did in this one, is researched is engineering for castles/pikes as well as +1 road movement incase you are invaded so you can get reinforcements there as fast as possible. If the peace loving native americans happen to move to the city above your Holy City and it requests to join its "mother land", would the peace loving native americans deem it appropriate to accept the city?

 

[pawelo]

Pawelo: I wouldnt say i think it's bad to go meditation to get to priesthood (it is faster and if you want missionaries then it's a better path) but there are usually more benefits that come from going polytheism. it opens up a good wonder, and i also believe it's a prerequisite for one of the techs in the literature line. also, techs like meditation are very easy to trade for. Also, another thing that i never do in my normal games, but did in this one, is researched is engineering for castles/pikes as well as +1 road movement incase you are invaded so you can get reinforcements there as fast as possible. If the peace loving native americans happen to move to the city above your Holy City and it requests to join its "mother land", would the peace loving native americans deem it appropriate to accept the city?

Thanks for the advice

And it surely will be useful to head for engineering/feudalism.

About the culture flip, they're not considered as conquering other civ cities. If foreign people want to join us, we are wide open

 

[pawelo]

Here I am again, and still alive in turn 150

Here is how it went:

Spoiler :

The overview first.
South:



North:



This was the first turnset when I get to understand what it means to be surrounded by Aggressive*2 ( from trait and from starting option ) AI.

My global plan is simple – aim for Cultural or Space, while staying far away in techs and upgrading defenses as soon as possible. Also, keep everyone around ( GK, Ragnar, Joao, Boudica ) Cautious with me by giving away whatever they ask for ( sometimes gifting by myself ) just to make them fight each other rather than fight me.

It almost worked, I am friendly with Ragnar ( who, without my spreading religion to him is Confu also ) by gifting few techs and getting into a phony war with Hammurabi ( far away for me ), Boudica and Joao started to fight each other and Alex, though I refused (by rule) to become Jewish, stayed at Cautious and OB with me.

The one guy I wasn’t been able to contain was Genghis. I gifted him six techs, accepting to pay tribute etc, and he still attacked on turn 126, warring until 139. Although I had no causalities in cities, I lost two units and a worker, and some villages/pastures have to be restored.

Being at war with two AIs – GK and phony Hammurabi – I managed to raise 6 protective archers, two spears and a dog soldier to defend the main target, Poverty Point. The war lasted until GK cat was there lowering my defenses. When I decided to suicide my dog soldier on it, and terminate it with an archer, I got peace on the next turn.

What proved its major importance was – roads, high production, walls & Chitchen Itza and Protective archers. Otherwise I was dead against swords and keshiks. He will be back, I’m sure, but 1 turn from Feudalism and longbows I fear his keshiks less.

I had to disband several troops – old time warriors, one dog soldier and three non-barrack archers, to get to 0 upkeep as soon as the war was over.

Anyway, here are my paths:

TECH : (Theology with Great Prophet) -> Alphabet -> (Archery and Sailing for Meditation and Polytheism from Joao ) -> Math -> Monarchy -> Currency -> Feudalism (1 turn left)

CITIES :
Cahokia – went on defense for all path, followed by growth and money path: Pyramides ( go for Representation )-> Archer -> Spear -> Archer -> Spear -> Aqueduct -> Archer -> Archer->Conf. Temple->Granary->Market->Library

Poverty Point – wonder path for culture pressure: Settler->Chitchen Itza->Apostolic Palace

Mound City: Library->Walls->Archer->Aqueduct

Chaco Valley: Worker->Walls->Archer->Spear->Granary->Archer->Courthouse->Mausoleum of Massalos (long shot, plenty turns to go)

Mesa Verde: Walls->Barracks->Worker->Courthouse->Granary

Snaketown: Walls->Workboat->Archer->Archer->Market

GREAT PEOPLE:
Great Prophet – used to bulb Theology and found Christianity in Mound City
Great Spy – sleep for a GA
Great Spy – sleep for a GA
One Great Scientist almost finished in Mound City – Academy in Cahokia probably

FOREIGN DEALS:
Friendly with Ragnar (gifted away 6 techs, Monarchy for 30 gold , went to war with Hammurabi for him)
Cautious with Boudica, Joao, Alex and Genghis – too many gifts to be mentioned
Annoyed with Hammurabi – who cares, he is weak and too far.

Plans : upgrade every archer to longbow, get castles, get Divine Right for Islam, and spread religions in our cities. Problem for cultural victory, we need three more cities to get three different cathedrals. Probably will get them through culture pressure from Genghis and Joao.

Stay tuned to watch my rise ( or fall )

 

[MrFelony]

I didnt ask/bribe anyone to declare war on anyone else cause i thought it went against our peaceful nature. I also never declared war (even phony ones) because i thought it was against the rules

 

[pawelo]

I didnt ask/bribe anyone to declare war on anyone else cause i thought it went against our peaceful nature. I also never declared war (even phony ones) because i thought it was against the rules

I may have overpassed this rule
Tried to play with the spirit - do anything to keep your neighbours happy and therefore preserve peace for your cities.

I will never make the mistake again, promise

 

[MrFelony]

i was never able to get about cautious because of the rule because EVERYONE wanted me in there war on their side. If a civ asks you to declare war on another civ and you say no, shouldnt that give you a +1 modifier with the other civ? a "you decided to not dogpile us" modifier or something