PH10: King Solomon's Marbles

[pholkhero]

or, The Priests of X (where X=the civ we choose )

I tried it out in PH04: One Happy Family, but it didn’t scratch the itch quite right. Then, inspired by PW01: The Holy One, I decided to try it out again with some more restrictions.

So, what am I talking about, you say. I say, shut it, you!

Basically the aim of this game is to use religion to its utmost. We must run a specialist economy with only priests, and we must get a “true” Apostolic win.

Leader: Ramesses or Gandhi (pending team discussion)
Opponents: 6 pre-selected
Difficulty: Prince
Map: Pangaea, Natural shoreline
Size: Standard
Speed: Epic
Victory Conditions: All enabled (but see variant rules)

Variant Rules:
* We must win via “true” apostolic. What this means is we must spread our religion to every city in the land, and then win via Apostolic vote. We CANNOT do a backdoor diplo win here. We must have 40% or less of the votes; we’ll have to win friends and influence people
* We must found at least 4 of the 7 religions, and build the shrines for them all
* We must run a specialist-economy, and only run Priests. Any non-Prophet GPs must be destroyed
* Buildings which have a religious element (found religions, enable GP wonders, priest bldgs, etc) must take priority over everything
* We must build the following wonders: Stonehenge, Pyramids, Oracle, Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, Apostolic Palace, Univ of Sankore, Spiral Minaret (all GP-producing ones plus Pyramids for Rep early). [If this seems like too much, I would limit it to Pyr, AW, AP, US and SM (pending team discussion).]
* I am putting on No Tech Trading or Brokering (pending what? You guessed it, team discussion) in order to slow down the tech pace, and prolong the power of religion

Finally, here is the DMSGEG. Read it. Learn it. Love it.

Spoiler Deviant Mind Succession Game Etiquette Guide :

Alpha: The quality of your report outweighs the quality of your play; a log dump is right out. We’re here to have fun, and, of course, winning is fun, but losing in style is preferable to a boring win. Remember, your report should be a new reply to alert other players.

Bravo: Reports should be detailed, with plenty of screen shots and player commentary, explanations, musings, etc; an auto-log dump will not suffice. Shots of the F9 screens and overview shots of the empire are nice too, once in a while.

Charlie: Punctuality rocks! “24/48” means post a "got it" within 24 hours of when the last save was posted, and play within 48 hours of that ‘got it.’ Waiting 47 hours to ask for a skip is lame. Punk out two times in a row, and you’ll be dropped from the roster. Skips and swaps are fine, but try to let us know sooner, rather than later.

Delta: Major game decisions (war/peace declarations, religion swaps, city placement, etc) should be arrived at via group consensus.
1. If the team disagrees with you, either argue your case better, or do it their way. Do NOT just blow them off and do it your way because it's your turn.
2. However, if there’s no consensus and you’re up, do it your way and explain why. Conversely, if someone else is up, don't whine when they do it their way.
3. Similarly, overruling techs or city builds is rude and should be done via consensus, barring an emergency.
4. In extraordinary situations, sometimes an opportunity presents itself that the group didn't foresee. If the consequences of it are great (war declarations, birth of Great People, even some quests), players should stop, and refer the question to the group.

Echo: Being a better player does not give you the right to belittle anyone else or their play. Other people are going to disagree with you on major decisions; get used to the idea, and play nice. If not, take your ball and go home.

Foxtrot: Thread spam is good. Trash talking, poking fun, gentle ribbing, virtual noogies, and generally horsing around are all encouraged, but don’t be rude. See any SG I or other DMers have been in to see what I mean.

Golf: Automate sparingly.
1. Workers should almost never be automated, except perhaps late-game or building a trade network. However, if you have to, set your game options to “disallow automated worker forest chopping” and “keep previous improvements.”
2. Use of the “Emphasis” buttons is fine, but let the group know and explain your reasoning (specialization is a major game decision). If you prevent growth in a city, let the group know and remind them to take it off. Do NOT let the governor select build orders.
3. Sending units on go-to routes that last beyond your set is acceptable only if they’re heading for a rally point or if you otherwise inform your teammates.

Hotel: NEVER fortify Great People. Just press enter for 15 turns. Is that so hard?

India: Sign spamming is rude. Signs can be helpful reminders, but too many signs makes them easily ignored. Once a sign is no longer valid, delete it.

Team Roster:
pholkhero
r_rolo
pawelo
pindicator
Cabledawg
ungy
Meiz

There's some things that need to be discussed before I post a start and all, but I'm still looking for 3 more people. As it is, we need to decide on a) a leader, b) the wonder list, and c) the brokering/trading option.

a) Ramesses will be good for all those early priests from the Obelisk, as well as the Ind trait for the wonders, while Gandhi will get us more GPs. I'm leaning Ramesses at this point since we won't need all THAT many Prophets.

b) I'm all for going for the whole enchilada, though I may be over-reaching.

c) I think No Trading is best so as to greatly slow down the tech pace. However, I fear we may get too big an advantage over the AI b/c of it. What's more, our commerce might be light since we're running an SE and only priests.

Thoughts from others??

 

[pindicator]

oh deer,
i fear
i must get in here

-- wait, that was a different DMSG wasn't it?

signup please!

um... thematic votes for Justinian or Charlemagne. Otherwise, I'm thinking Ramesses II is the one for us.

 

[Cabledawg]

Sign me up.....Ramy would be my choice for a leader. I would be more inclined to go with No Tech Brokering...it is prince after all.

Are wars ok?

 

[ungy]

I'd like to give it a try--I've never won an AP victory.
No real opinion on leader--spiritual is always nice for an SG to have lots of civic changes.

 

[Meiz]

Signing in. I prefer Ramsess over Gandhi.

Edit: Whoops! Too late?

 

[r_rolo1]

Checking in....

About the wonders: Henge + Oracle + Mids will be extremely hard by it self... But I'm willing to try the big list as well

And please, do not destroy a GE if it appears

And, of course, Rammy

P.S I saw you discarted my suggestion of burning the infidels cities

And you should pick Fox 8 before Mr Fox you

 

[pawelo]

Checking on this religion ride and leaning toward Rammy.

Oh my god, we will have to play this one friendly
And getting one true religion into all cities on the land (love the narural shorelines remark ) and winning through AP... Also, the less than 40% votes might be tricky.

Agree on the GE - leave it or die

No tech brokering - agreed. Tech trading I would allow to get relations to friendly.

 

[Ozbenno]

No tech brokering - agreed. Tech trading would allow to get relations to friendly.

I think this is good advice, a true AP win means getting all the +ve modifiers you can.

I've already had my say on why you should be Gandhi

 

[endymion]

i was wondering if i could join up i only recently moved up to prince thoug and only had 2 victories there. so im definitly not a pro.

i do like the concept of an sg i can learn a lot and the discussions are fun.

 

[pholkhero]

alright, everyone's in, including you Meiz, if you still want in; an extra person will give me time to play a set or two of DMI-vi (i'll update the roster when i get on a better computer)

seems like ramesses is hte choice. also, good pt pawelo re: trading and relations--will keep on brokering.

i didn't expect to have this fill up so fast, and have all our decisions made already, so i won't start this up until tomorrow. I'll play the first 30 then, unless the start poses some dilemma, AFTER fox08 (which is tonight ).

let's also figure out about the wonders. Rolo makes a good pt that those first three will be a nice challenge to grab all 3. Maybe only the small list will be required.

techwise, i'm torn btwn a religion or not. There's nothing in the rules AGAINST burning infidels cities, as there's nothing against beelining war chariots and taking our first religion from their cold, dead hands

edit: cross-posted w/endymion - :sigh: i'm an old softie, so if you want, i'll take on one more player . .. or should there be a PH10a & b adn we have ourselves a little competition: one w/ramesses, one w/gandhi

 

[Meiz]

Glad to be in as I've been looking for a SG with variants. And roster is full of skilled players

So no cottages, ever? If we get one with border expansion or by capturing city, they must be pillaged?

I agree with the rest, not sure if I can survive after killing a GE

In spirit of the game, we should atleast try to get all religion related wonders. But maybe it's too harsh to lose the game if we miss one.

I kind of miss discussion about capital location at the start. Could it be possible to post our start so we could decide this as a team?

 

[pholkhero]

that's fine. I'll try to get something up tonight for us. i'm all for discussion.

edit: captured cottages, i guess, should be razed. the aim of the game is power of the priest, and though Rammy's not an ideal SE candidate, it should work out well w/the Obelisk's 2 priest slots, esp in the early game.

also, opening strat ideas?? as I've said @ the DM site, Philo, Theo and DR are priority techs due to their wonders, so those should be 3 of our religions. Perhaps for the opening Myst > Med or Poly if the religions haven't popped yet. If they have, go Mining > Masonry > Med > Mono for Judaism. Obviously, there's no worker tech but what we start with, i.e., Agr and Wheel, so perhaps warriors and settlers are the order of the day?? W/aiming for the Pyramids, it would be nice if city 2 went into a spot that could either build them or pick up the capitals slack for founding new cities.

 

[Meiz]

I started a little test game. Here are some things I learned from there.

Buddhism seems to be falling very quickly even when opponents dont have Mystiscm as a starting tech. So two of our starting techs should be Myst -> Polytheism. Then we can learn necessary worker techs and aim for Monotheism after that.

Stonehenge was almost guaranteed by settling a second city and working mined plains hill right from the start.

Capital build order should go something like this: Worker -> Warrior -> Warrior -> Settler. I think we should start Pyramids right after that and if we obtain horses, build two war chariots in between. Bronze Working can be ignored for quite a while if we have horses.

Second city can also build Oracle after we can take Code of Laws with it. First GP can pop Theology.

I also noticed that by ignoring fog busting, barbarians settled lot's of cities only guarded by warriors. One or two war chariot can capture these easily. We can save lot of hammers if we get lucky cause we have no need for settlers.

Okay... Maybe we shouldn't try to get all religions when we have to build shrine for each of them?

 

[endymion]

if im too late im too late ill lurk the game then and see how u guys do.

should be really intersting how this plays out especially with hatsy.

 

[pindicator]

If we start with agri & wheel we shouldn't need many other worker techs -- not like we can use pottery anyway -- maybe AH. Agree that the religion tech line needs to be researched first: Henge should be our top priority wonder if we play Ramsy. Masonry and Pyramids would be next and Oracle third.

No GPs other than Gr Priests means we are going to need to hand research Philo (or pop a lot of Priests), but with a lower difficulty it shouldn't be too much to worry about.

 

[ungy]

Agree that the religion tech line needs to be researched first: Henge should be our top priority wonder if we play Ramsy. Masonry and Pyramids would be next and Oracle third.

Why the pyramids before oracle? The BTS AI is much slower to build the pyramids than earlier versions but oracle could then be lost. Don't have any idea on prince timing tho.
Since we can't use the normally precious engineer, maybe start the pyramids in city 2 asap and the others in the capital.

 

[pindicator]

Why the pyramids before oracle? The BTS AI is much slower to build the pyramids than earlier versions but oracle could then be lost. Don't have any idea on prince timing tho.
Since we can't use the normally precious engineer, maybe start the pyramids in city 2 asap and the others in the capital.

I was not very clear. I think the priority of Pyramids is greater than Oracle because we will be running a SE exclusively with priests. However, if we can get the Oracle and Pyramids both, we most likely will need to build the Oracle first and therefore should (as long as it doesn't jeapordize Pyramids).

It's also very possible I'm wrong

 

[pholkhero]

Okay, here's a start to ponder tonight/tomorrow.

I won't be able to play for another 18 hours or so, maybe even tomorrow, as its my son's 2nd bday, so ya'll can discuss to your hearts' content until then.




I've already moved the warrior SE to that hill. We got lucky w/those FPs, and i think we should settle on that spot.

i randomly chose opponents, but discarded those w/a religious bent. Therefore, we're up against Qin, Genghis, JC, Liz, Washington & Ragnar (if i know, only fair you all know, right?) Qin is our main competition for wonders, while liz and ragnar may head for an early religion w/the FIN trait, but we'll see.

techwise, i still think Myst > Poly if hinduism hasn't dropped, though i'm not sure i'd go w/a worker first. I'd like to grow faster to put more FPs w/their commerce under work. Maybe warrior > warrior > worker at pop2??

 

[Darth Meanie]

Lurker Comment:

Settle on the Hut! Cow, Wheat, and Stone for the religious wonders, + FP river, and coast!!!

 

[Meiz]

Nice start! Have to agree with Darth Meanie. If we settle in place, no stone for us in long time + we lose the wheat.

On the other hand, we lose some production and one turn by moving.