Open Role Play Challenge: Atlantis!

[madscientist]

Spoiler :

You know, I'm looking at my dot map and I ended up with 8. That is most annoying, since 9 would certainly be a better number. I have no idea how I'm going to fit another one in. Maybe I should restart, but I've already founded two religions (from CoL and popped Philosophy with my first GS) and I'd hate to need to go back from that point.

@JMT

Spoiler :

I purposely set the land like that to sort of see how many went 8 cities thinking of ideal placement or went a tight 9 like TMIT to max out culture.

 

[Sian]

@MS/JMT

Spoiler :

I actually only went 7 cities

1758AD Monarch/Marathon

Spoiler :

when you get to Combustion (quite easy with some beelining) you can easily make your island completely safe ... i'm stuck in a war with Shaka / Saladin (Vassal after a major war between Shaka and all the Zealots) but have completely blocked all Shaka's coastal cities with Movement 9 Destroyers killing everything naval (including work boats) ... and if Genghis / Toku (Vassal over a series of i'd guess fairly equal wars till i met them and backfilled with Genghis, giving him a hefty (non military) tech advantage, which he transmuted into a military advantage) gets frisky and jumps me (somewhat unlikely since i'm pleased with Genghis currently) i'd just block those two out as well with Destroyers ...

of landbased army i have a whooping 7 Warriors (and 3 riflemen i built before i managed to churn out enough destroyers to feel safe from Shaka)

Currently beelining Computers to take the grap the internet (while building the hits wonders for more happiness (which is somewhat lacking) and tradebait), and then i'd go beeline a spaceship

 

[budweiser]

My progress so far...

Spoiler :

I just got Combustion and Flight. Its mid to late 1800s. I am putting in Airports in most cites for the extra trade routes. Izzy is 4 or 5 techs ahead and thinks I am too advanced. Toku is about 1 tech ahead. Only Justinian will trade with me. I finally gave in and made peace with Shaka and Toku, giving each one Liberalism for peace. The war was just too annoying. I have 7 or 8 well promoted frigates which I am upgrading now to destroyers. I have been running 70-80% science so it has been difficult to find spare cash to pay for upgrades.

Its a long way to a space ship, I am not sure if I can make it.

 

[Sian]

update

Spoiler :

this is going to get ugly i think ... Genghis have his eyes set on Dominion and have vassaled Shaka ... luckily he doesn't have enough land so he have to kill one of the Zealots as well ... just sad that i'm camping the whole continent with Destoyers and Battleships while building my SpaceShip back home ... he can't get out unless he gets Shaka to build some big ships with his Uranium (which MS must have forgotten to delete) ... and even then he have a problem, since my Destroyers are at mininum Combat II, most of them Combat III ... and have a hefty techlead (and Cristo so if theres a problem i pop Slavery one turn and whip out 7 new Destoyers) ... at the same time Isabella have built Apollo (but doesn't seem to have the beaker output to get the toptree techs for space before me) and Justinian have gotten his first Legendary city (though his other cities are rather far behind)

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Mad, can our navy carry fighters and missiles offshore?

 

[JTMacc99]

Mad, can our navy carry fighters and missiles offshore?

I am going to assume the answer is ABSOLUTELY. If I don't get overrun before then, I plan to have quite a few aircraft carriers.

 

[JTMacc99]

@JMT

Spoiler :

I purposely set the land like that to sort of see how many went 8 cities thinking of ideal placement or went a tight 9 like TMIT to max out culture.

Spoiler :

And I was thinking I was going to be okay with my 8, since it didn't seem like I'd get a third religion, and then I got a prophet and went ahead and picked up Divine Right before anybody else. I should really get my butt in gear and pick my three culture cities, and put some thought into where I could cram a ridiculously unnecessary city for the specific goal of having it build three temples. I think I have an unworked plains hill to use for this. I'll just have it work one other tile and end up rush-buying the temples.

At some point, I'll actually go ahead and write this one up properly.

 

[madscientist]

Mad, can our navy carry fighters and missiles offshore?

You bet they can

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@JMT

Spoiler :

I purposely set the land like that to sort of see how many went 8 cities thinking of ideal placement or went a tight 9 like TMIT to max out culture.

Spoiler :

Of course, a food corp totally limits the issue with tight placement (really all corps do). This is why my 3 legendary cities were all at or above pop 20 even though they all overlapped with multiple cities...

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Started to play.

Spoiler :

The game has progressed unitl 1398AD and it has a name: PIRATES!!! I've got 12 privateers in some points of Shaka's coast right now. BTW, he's a monster and is teching superfast, too many inland cities. I've already got a GG and am about to unlock HE to combo with Moai. Everybody's free so far. The one thing that bothers me now is that you can't take bombers on carriers.

 

[budweiser]

The end.

Spoiler :

Toku launched in 1980. There is nothing I can do about it. My economy wasn't strong enough to self research all the way to space. In 1953 I flipped the culture switch but I am at least 60 turns away. It was a fun game. No units ever stepped outside my cultural border. Two frigates did attack into an ocean sqaure because I was frustrated, but they never actually entered the tile. I was completely safe militarily the whole game.

 

[madscientist]

The end.

Spoiler :

Toku launched in 1980. There is nothing I can do about it. My economy wasn't strong enough to self research all the way to space. In 1953 I flipped the culture switch but I am at least 60 turns away. It was a fun game. No units ever stepped outside my cultural border. Two frigates did attack into an ocean sqaure because I was frustrated, but they never actually entered the tile. I was completely safe militarily the whole game.

Spoiler :

Similar game that mine was heading, I even lost the damned internet to Toku!

This is a problem with the Space approach I think, the land is too small and the war-mongers land too large. I think it's difficult to win Space race and culture is probably the way to go.

 

[JTMacc99]

Got a few minutes here to start the story, so here we go:

Checking in with Monarch/Epic.

The great civilization of Atlanta spent almost five thousand years dedicated to making itself a great place to live...

Spoiler :

The glorious capital of Atlanta (known as Capital City) was founded right where the great leader stood, and proceeded to build many workers, work boats and settlers. Eventually the city also built a library and gave birth to a great scientist who discovered the secret of Philosophy, founded the second religion (after the one from Code of Laws) and brought the people of Atlanta the concept of pacifism. Several more great people, have been born and eventually the great Parthenon in capital city also helped generate more great people.

The economy of Atlanta is still cottage based, despite the great people bonuses, and much of the research path has been with the idea of getting the cottage economy civics in place.

The early years saw a plan to settle 7 more glorious cities: Braves, Hawks, Thrashers, (Later renamed Turner Field, 95 and Humid, and Peachtree respectively), Coca Cola Inc., Delta Hub, Foxworthy, and This Is CNN.

In 775 AD, this is the state of the nation when the citizens of Atlanta discovered the secret of Optics:

The first of the three nations we met immediately dropped in to make threats against the Altantian way of life:

The other two (Justinian and Saladin ended up being much more friendly and good trading partners for the next 1,000 years. The other good news was that Atlanta was a fairly advanced nation at the time of first contact:

A while later, as Atlanta's caravels circled the globe, they met three more civilizations who took an instant disliking to the beautiful and peaceful people of Atlanta. Some careful trading and granting of gold demanded for no particular reason allowed the people of Atlanta to develop a cordial relationship with Toku and Genghis Khan. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to make the warlike Shaka happy with us.

The people of Atlanta decided to focus on two specific goals in order to protect themselves from what was clearly becoming a very dangerous world. First, they would make a drive towards combustion and therefore the ability to field a powerful navy. Along the way, they would also be able to build a fleet of Privateers to keep an eye on the hostile nations as well as build up some much needed military experience. The second goal was to work on things that would improve the cottage economy. Any other technologies would need to be secured through trade.

Being first to discover Liberalism was easily in reach of the citizens of Atlanta, so they stopped research one turn short of completion, traded for the secrets of gunpowder, researched chemistry and then took Steel as their free technology. The Atlanta Hawks lobbied for the nation to take advantage of this moment in history by building a large number of cannons and teaching that pain-in-the-ass Isabella a lesson, but the idea was quickly shot down as going against everything the nation stood for.

Instead, the nation used it's knowledge of steel to build drydocks and move forward towards its goal of combustion. A dozen privateers were built and began to set up a complete blockade around the city of Tuxedo, which is where the Spanish were massing a large navy while stating they had "other things on their hands right now" during certain talks we had with them. A separate group of four Privateers was sent towards the Zulu nation to see what his "other things on his hands" might entail.

The privateers discovered MANY ships in his coastal cities.

Then, around 1700AD, with Atlanta still 15 turns away from discovering combustion a large fleet of Zule caravels and galleons set sail on a direct path for Atlanta!!! The four gallant privateers launched a series of attacks on the Zulu fleet. Eventually, they were joined by 6 more privateers sailing at top speed from the Spanish coast. The Zulu fleet was destroyed, and Atlanta privateers did chase down this one galleon that had turned around in an attempt to get back to a Zulu city.

The happiness of this news was VERY short lived, when one of the galleon hunters spotted this off the coast of Zululand.

CRAP. Frigates were not going to be a good thing for the fleet of privateers and Atlanta's scientists were still a long way away from building steel ships. The hope was that the Zulu nation lost enough troops that it was going to take them a few turns before they could reload a new bunch of galleons and try again.

Atlanta decided it was no longer a good idea to be hanging around developing great people when it would probably be a much better idea to be developing an advanced navy. Also, the citizens of Atlanta were starting to get very unruly regarding the lack of emancipation. A snap decision was make a couple trades with our friends Justinian and Saladin to pick up democracy and scientific method. We needed have that oil ready to go, and we could certainly use all the extra hammers from the numerous towns of Atlanta.

Only a two turns after the Zulu Frigate fleet was spotted, and one turn after the nation went into revolution, ANOTHER Zulu fleet of three caravels and 4 galleons was spotted off the coast of Spain by the four remaining privateers near Tuxedo.

In the first turn, they destroyed the three caravels and one galleon. Unfortunately, the remaining galleons were close enough to Atlanta's waters and the Zulu declared war and sailed them right up to the coast of Atlanta. Shaka also obviously bribed his (and formerly our) friend Toku to declare war on us. The privateers quickly destroyed the three galleons before any Zulu troops landed. However, the damage was done.

The war was on, the nation was in revolt, and the citizens of Atlanta were going to be in SERIOUS danger if they didn't hurry the heck up and do something to defend themselves.

Also in the back of their minds before the revolution, if Isabella decides to declare war whenever Shaka does, we will not have enough ships or troops to stop her from landing and overrunning us with her cavalry. This made us decide to go into free religion and are hoping that we might be able to quickly mend some long-standing animosity between the two nations. It's a long shot, but drastic times call for desperate measures.

The next update should be interesting.

 

[dalamb]

I suppose cultural has to be the way to go here, though I find the standard strategy rather boring at the moment.

Spoiler :

fishing > mining > BW >pottery, building a worker until fishing, then two workboats, then finish worker. Then sailing; not sure it's worth trying for the GLH although some cash from losing it might be nice. Similarly with Oracle. Both are "builder instinct" moves -- standard strategy avoids everything but GA-generating wonders.

I just finished chopping a settler and am deciding where to send him. jesusin's strategy only requires 6 cities and 2 religions, but I'm a lot more comfortable going for 9/3 -- though on the Alexander Nobles' Club I lost out on all the late religions but Confucianism. If I need nine cities, all I can see for placement is the following, which is very, very tight:

White is an obvious GP farm especially if Uruk builds Great Prophet-generating wonders. Possibly cyan and green in the north should each be 1W so green is on a river. Any advice?

 

[JTMacc99]

Here's a question: What would have happened in all of your games if you, along with the zealots, had put a some effort into denying the warmongers a single religion? It wouldn't have taken much to do so in my game.

I suppose cultural has to be the way to go here, though I find the standard strategy rather boring at the moment.

Spoiler :

fishing > mining > BW >pottery, building a worker until fishing, then two workboats, then finish worker. Then sailing; not sure it's worth trying for the GLH although some cash from losing it might be nice. Similarly with Oracle. Both are "builder instinct" moves -- standard strategy avoids everything but GA-generating wonders.

I just finished chopping a settler and am deciding where to send him. jesusin's strategy only requires 6 cities and 2 religions, but I'm a lot more comfortable going for 9/3 -- though on the Alexander Nobles' Club I lost out on all the late religions but Confucianism. If I need nine cities, all I can see for placement is the following, which is very, very tight:

White is an obvious GP farm especially if Uruk builds Great Prophet-generating wonders. Possibly cyan and green in the north should each be 1W so green is on a river. Any advice?

Spoiler :

I was able to get three religions by focusing research on CoL, building a library in the capital, adjusting research to open up Philosopy, and then using the scientist to bulb it for the second religion. Later, I once again had to alter research and use a great person to grab Divine Right first. At least all three of those techs fetched nice stuff in trades.

I didn't need the Oracle to get CoL first, and I opted against the Great Lighthouse as well, since it would be LONG time before I could establish any trade routes with other civs. Since it was pretty hard to crash the economy on this island, I found it was much more useful to use all that food and production in the capital to build workers, settlers, and work boats to quickly settle.

If you are going to settle those nine cities like that, you damn well better make sure you get three religions. Also, while you are focusing on your culture victory, don't lose sight of the danger around you.

 

[dalamb]

@JTMacc99:

Spoiler :

+2 trade routes in coastal cities (which most of my hypotheticals would be) is still useful, isn't it? The big deal with cultural, though, is polluting the GA gene pool.

 

[budweiser]

Spoiler :

Similar game that mine was heading, I even lost the damned internet to Toku!

This is a problem with the Space approach I think, the land is too small and the war-mongers land too large. I think it's difficult to win Space race and culture is probably the way to go.

Spoiler :

Toku got the internet in my game. One time he finished 5 Space Ship parts in 1 turn! He was huge in my game because the Mongols were wiped out very early. At one point he and Shaka went at it and I gifted oil to Shaka. That was no use. Toku kept on taking cities and building his ship at the same time. BTW I think the war mongers come visit because of the oil.

I doggedly kept after space, but if I had flipped the switch around 1932 instead of 1956, I might have beat him. But that wasn't the point. Culture here was an obvious choice.

I rarely replay a map, but I might do so here if nothing else interesting comes up on the boards. I'll try again for space and focus just on that. I will also allow my Navy free reign.

 

[JTMacc99]

@JTMacc99:

Spoiler :

+2 trade routes in coastal cities (which most of my hypotheticals would be) is still useful, isn't it? The big deal with cultural, though, is polluting the GA gene pool.

Spoiler :

Useful, yes, but they are all going to be +1 trade routes. By the time you can turn them into intercontinental trade routes, the rest of the world is going to be converting to Mercantilism. So with 8 coastal cities, you are picking up and extra 16 commerce per turn. That's not to shabby early on, but it ends up being a lot less useful when you realize that many of those cities are hammer poor, and will take a LONG time to build the commerce multiplying buildings.

I wouldn't worry at all about the great artist gene pool. If you're going to survive long enough in this game to win a culture victory, you'll probably need some scientists, engineers, and even a merchant or two along the way. If for nothing else, you'll want a merchant to found Sid's Sushi for you. (I'm trying to build one now in my game.

 

[Mikehendi]

I also gave it a go @ monarch. What other victory type can be right for atlantis except for culture!

untill 1 AD:

Spoiler :

Settled in place, went worker first while teching mining-bw-ah-fishing-pottery-writing-iron working.

I tried to get a 10XP unit, but @ 7XP I could send my brave warrior on retirement.

By this time nobody had even built stonehenge yet, so I went myst-med-priesthood and teched COL while building the oracle. I whipped the oracle in 825BC, founded confucianism in 800BC, and chose Philosophy as a free tech, founding taoism on the same turn!

So that's 2 religions in the pocket.

By this time I have founded 3 cities: the capital, Eridu south of the capital, and Kish, on the other side of the island, for the +1 happy from silver. together with the +1 from gold, and +2 from forge, +1 from religion and then some from temples, that's a HUGE early happy cap! I whipped like crazy all game long!

I then researched metal casting for colussus, since I will have 9 cramped cities I'll be working water tiles frequently, and start a beeline for theology (masonry-mono)

After MC I whip forges in the capital and Eridu, and start building the GLH and the colossus (No copper in sight though...)

I 4 pop whip the GLH in 100BC (eridu has 3 big food sources, so growing back goes immensely fast.

Check out the HUGE difference in research before and after the colossus/GLH combo:

And the log says, in 1 AD I founded Christianity! My game is historically accurate! Hooray!


So, the glorious Island of Atlantis @ 1AD:

Cities:

So, 3 religions are in the pocket. I hope to get divine right also later on. Teching Metal Casting relatively early turned out really well, with the increased happy cap from gold/silver/forges/temples and +50% production (forge + org reg), and foodrich land, I whip buildings like no tomorrow.

plans:
- Literature for Glib ( I never bothered to put up a "perfect" Gartist farm, I'll just run a bunch of artists when I've switched to caste, and hope for the best )
- Music
- Apostelistic palace for hammer bonus
- divine right
- spiral minnaret (or sistine chapel? the one with culture bonus I mean)
- Lib
- Sushi
-WIN

 

[dalamb]

Spoiler :

Well, if the GLH is a bad idea on an isolated start, then I should have postponed Sailing and Masonry in favour of more urgent techs like Priesthood, for the Oracle and cheap Ziggurat/Courthouses. So I started again. Also, give jesusin's advice that only 2 cities need cathedrals for my intended cultural win, and given I'm playing at Noble which is much easier than most of you are doing, I figured I could spread cities out and so am trying the following revised dotmap:

Moving cyan 1SE puts it on a river but loses the crab and crowds the already lousy black potential 7th city. I don't think any of these are especially great for production but several have a couple of hills.