Open Role Play Challenge: Sneaky Mao

[madscientist]

Welcome to the third of my Open Role Play Challenge. The purpose of these games are to open new challenges for all of you players out there and get many different views and stories with a given set of rules that you may choose to follow, bend, or plain our break! You may post screenshots and game discriptions, a brief synopsis of how you played, or simply complain about the game . The best thing is I have to do nothing except post the start as I do not plan to play it out! Some I have played before, some I simply created in world builder!

Here we have a game that will emphasize the uses of espionage. Mao Zhedong is a sneaky bastard and prefers to play the espionage angle! But how to go about that is YOUR decision! However there are three ways that we are going to go about it

A) Settled Great Spies while running a science slider as needed. This is a partial espionage game and acceptible here. You are allowed ONE Scotland Yard.

B) The espionage slider!!! Great Spies are only used for scotland yards and you MUST turn the science slider off in favor of espionage AT alphabet!

C) Infiltration where you get big amounts of eps towards a single leader at one time. Once you commit to this with the first Great Spy, you have to continue that path, no settled Great Spies or Scotland yards. However, you may start infiltrating late in the game even if following paths A and B first.



RULES! No RPC is right without them!

1) You must complete the Great Wall. You are China folks and you would not be complete without it!

2) You can only build Great Spy producing wonders! Exceptions are National wonders. Accidental Great People must be used for golden ages.

3) You can only run spy specialists. NO scientists/merchants/artists/priests/engineers!

4) Espionage is an art best performed at peace, so you cannot declare war as the aggressor. However, you can defend yourself AND you can join a war if invited. Backstabs are allowed and encouraged

5) Finally! You must win via Space!

Of course this is an RPC so feel free to alter, make new, or plain out breaks any rules at you most opportune convenience!


First of all, game settings



And the ever important start




I am attaching both a worldbuilder save and a regular game save (marathon speed and emperor difficulty). I am not as good as others in posting the worldbuilder saves so if you go that route you will see the other civilization which are here

Spoiler :

Summeria
Korea
Mali
Dutch
Ottoman Empire
Egypt

I played this game out myself using the espionage slider route and came very near to victory but lost at the very end. So it is winable.

One last thing, I have some advice here for those who care for a little assistance here

Spoiler :

1) If you settle in place you have stone in the BFC. If you go east you miss it.

2) Scout the lands and consider some agressive city blocking strategies. It's an excellent RPC for espionage, but also allows you to learn about effectively blocking land off from the AI.

3) It's an arid map, so chill about the desert regions!

I will leave the writeups and checkpoints to all of you players. Just make clear which espionage path you choose and let us know if you alter it or break it! I will likely be playing this out again but not posting the game (other than simple game summary).

ENJOY!!!!! (and remeber spoilers please!)

 

[Lansky]

Definitely going to give this a go. Been messing around with self imposed rules lately as the jump to deity has gotten frustrating to say the least. Though it will definitely be altered to not be marathon. I like to finish games in 2-3 hours not 2-3 months.

 

[Single Malt]

what version 317 or 19?

 

[madscientist]

what version 317 or 19?

Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm.............

I orinially played the game with 3.17 but made the worldbuilder save today using 3.19!

Does that answer the question

 

[Maronae3]

I think I might tackle this on marathon just to give it the Madscientist feel... I was reading the Boudica game today and I believe you eliminated 3 civs in the medieval era... seems like warmongering is a lot better on that speed.

Anyway, signing on

Edit: I don't recognize that kind of WB save? How do you access it? I'm used to saving to the C: drive but that won't work with this type of file.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's probably some newer version of file compression...try to extract it.

Anyway, the whole marathon space thing puts me off (hell, the war rules and espionage only for space puts me off, too), but I'll keep an eye on how others fare.

War rules can be skirted by spamming arrogant demands.

 

[Lansky]

Gave this a go Emperor/Normal using Gspies for Scotland Yard - so option B.
Spoiler is until 1200 something - Lib still up for grabs

Spoiler :

First goal is ever so hard to accomplish, but somehow, someway, I manage to build the Great Wall in 2360.



Settle aggressively towards Gilgamesh in order to block off all the prime jungle land and to hopefully piss him off.



This doesn’t count as building a wonder as far as I know! I might have done that with the oracle too. Not motivated to build libraries, monasteries, and so on due to no research slider soon. Instead I rotated around building various wonders for failure cash.



I also might have gone for CoL before Alphabet and this is a shot of the empire after getting CoL and getting courthouses up.



Despite being a total bastard to him Gilga still doesn’t hate me enough because he adopted Buddhism just like the rest of the freaking continent. So I might have given him a little push by politely requesting all his gold a few times. Sure enough he decided he was fed up. Too bad for him he only brought a dozen or so catapults and a handful of axes. I guess that’s an improvement over a dozen axes and 2 catapults?



Anywho after letting him suicide against my western city I moved up my siege and went on a little city razing/capturing spree. His western cities were battling with Willem for land and I had no shot at keeping them productive, or even mine, so they were burned. His core cities are pretty nice however.



Shot of the empire shortly after the war is over. Oh yeah I’m using maces, axes, and swords to fight a war in the 1200’s. The tech pace is painfully slow. I had been stealing from Wang but I’ve run out of stuff to steal from him, so now I’m likely going to put some points into Willem as well. Is this normal when the human player doesn’t trade with them? Am I just used to Immortal tech pace? Oh Alex is a colony of Mehmed.



At this point I’m thinking of contacting the other nations with a caravel just to do something. I'm relatively safe right now from a DoW and have a large enough army to slap down Willem if he tried anyway. Not much to build other than units after castles as at this rate Willem will get Democracy sometime in the 1800’s…

 

[Single Malt]

I'm asking about the save. I don't wanna touch the WB

 

[madscientist]

I'm asking about the save. I don't wanna touch the WB

The save is 3.17.

 

[madscientist]

@ Lansky

Spoiler :

Nicely played especially getting Gilgamesh ticked off and self destruct.

HOWEVER! You have just destroyed a decent AI to steal techs from!

The techpath still seams about right for an emperor level/normal speed game.

Also once Wang get's education he will be building his UB and be teching fats then.

Also, you got an issue about hunting or just being an animal right's activist (The chinese UU sort of needs archery!)

 

[Lansky]

Mad -

Spoiler :

Not too worried about Gilgamesh's potential for tech stealing. I can get techs relatively cheap from Wang and nab the slightly more advanced stuff from Willem. I've played a few more turns and it is working out very nicely. Wang and Willem are going stronger down the middle with Education, Lib, Astro, whereas Mehmed has gone towards democracy so I steal from Wang/Willem and trade with Mehmed. I have no fear of outproducing the emperor AI in a race. Not grabbing all the various wonders I would normally build at emperor is actually really tough. My "failed" pyramids was at first a genuine attempt to build them until I realized I can't!

As far as winning all that I feel I need to watch for are culture attempts now. Since I can't declare war I suppose I will need to be prepared to permanently revolt a high culture city or bribe people to war - kind of hard without techs to offer. Mansa is the biggest concern here as he has founded 3 or 4 religions and is in fact Mansa Musa so I doubt I could get him to launch an international invasion against me even if I tried.

Hunting... I honestly completely overlooked the UU and was holding off on it so I could hook up metals while still being able to build warriors for HR happiness combined with a complete lack of camp requiring resources at the start. Now that you point it out however I feel like an idiot

 

[ciel]

Ugh, Mao. My roommate actually has a copy of his little red book.

Anyhoo... this looks like fun! (I really liked your Mao RPC!) I've never done an RPC... is there any way to change the speed of the save? I usually play on normal.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I actually thought of something I might want to try for this: tight city placement.

Take option A. Settle lots and lots of cities tightly packed as possible. They all get a courthouse and a spy spec, probably building wealth to keep EP slider up after that. Capitol gets a SY and settled spies, using cottages + bur for the espionage once we're comfortable converting to the slider full-time.

> 100 EP/turn should be possible by the early ADs that way, enough to get a lot of techs if one takes advantage of the reducers.

Since going option A the science slider and the multipliers (other than academy) are available to us. Browbeating most of the chumps in the world and then either going runaway research with 40 cities or using vassal tech + steal + ep rape should work.

 

[Steve250]

It was a fun idea for a challenge, but I found that it got quite tedious at late stages of the game. Did anyone else find the ai teched incredibly slowly this game? Without my help in teching im at about 1930AD and can only build one space ship piece.

I don't think I'll bother to finish this one off but I'm looking forward to your next rpc mad.

 

[cripp7]

2) You can only build Great Spy producing wonders! Exceptions are National wonders. Accidental Great People must be used for golden ages.

Refresh my memory, besides GW what other wonders produce GSpy points?

I'm going option A on Prince level, Emperor is to tough for me

 

[madscientist]

I think the Kremlin and Pentagon. Not much else!

 

[tycoonist]

I think the Kremlin and Pentagon. Not much else!

statue of liberty produces net spy points....

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Played until the first GSpy showed up. Emperor/Marathon

Spoiler :

I settled in place because of the gold and corn. Built a settler to block some land and built the G Wall.
Haven't done much besides settling a couple of cities to secure my borders and cottaging it up. However a nice event occured:



Now, my first Great Spy was born and I stopped because I didn't remember the rules.

The empire so far:




I had a question but I can't remember what it was...

BTW, Mad:

Spoiler :

Sorry for not finishing the Barb Monty RPC. My PC was not being able to handle it. Started to crash every other turn.

 

[madscientist]

IT

Spoiler :

Don't worry about the Monty game, it's all about fun and crashing computers are NOT fun!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I'm going against what I said before and doing this.

Since a spy game on marathon with these rules is too easy, I had to go and kick it to EMP/normal. Only other setting used was "no events".

I was sure to fix the max turns setting in the WB text file, too. Read my guide mad .

Anyway, onwards with option A, to around 1600's AD

Spoiler :

This isn't a revenge game of my Mao RPC failure without this sucker.



CITIES!





WK makes some demands and I keep telling him to shove it. Does he take the bait?



Yes! But not until he has feudalism . That's OK though. I have lots of swords and catapults. He has like 6 cities. Pshhhh. Die.

First, his invasion SoD is cut down by just hill swords. GJ wang.



Then, I swordcat every city on the continent. I don't have feudalism yet and he escaped to a small island. Fine. I'll take the techs, he can keep his watery hell freedom.



Lands.



I predictably get beat to lib



So what about the spy game? Well, I settled the first in cap, them SY in cap, haven't had more spies yet. However, with MASSED cities and eventually getting courthouses in them (many are running spies automatically), I do have a decent EP take. Enough to pass mad's intent, I hope! Let's look at some tech-theft.









I stole other, smaller ones too...literature/drama/thelogy/engineering/guilds/machinery at least...possibly more. I fully intend to steal the RP/Rifling line since gilgahair has it. Then, I draft about 50 rifles, bribe gilly into war with willem, and accept willem's war request. Finally, I switch into FR, focus espionage on mansa, build jails, then finally build some science multipliers since this RPC doesn't forbid them.

I should be able to get 1000's of BPT and beat mansa this way. Willem's been war-torn all game, and I don't think he'll contend for culture without any of the modern wonders. Mansa looks to be going culture too possibly, so I might have to spylock him or do another war manipulation. We'll see.

Empire as of now:

I do wish we weren't required to win space. I'm in position for an easy military win but space will of course be more annoying. It's looking likely I'll win no matter the VC now though.