Rat38 - Silence is golden

[Greebley]

Settings:
Map: Large
AI: Random
Civ: America
Continents
80% water
Sedentary Barbs
Deity
Variant: Silence is golden

The rules of the game are sort of semi-defiant.

1. I may never initiate discussions with AI or start trading. Only if the AI starts to open the dialog box, am I allowed to start trading and haggling with that AI (only).

2. I have the option to boot the AI off our territory, it is not a must, but can be used. However, this means strictly booting only without starting negotiations.

3. I am not allowed to purposely enter enemy territory to get booted in order to start negotiations. If I enter enemy territory and get the boot, I will NOT start negotiations

4. I will never give in to AI demands, but am allowed to make peace, even if it costs us some gold. Peace can solely be initiated by the AI.

5. I not allowed to use mapstat or open dialog box to check AI's resources etc. So, I will not know the AI's science progress or other information unless in the dialog box.

6. No embassies established by me, spies are wanted for steals later on

7. Alliances or RoP, trade embargos are allowed.

Roster:
ThERat
whomp
Northern Pike
Greebley
Mumpulus

 

[Greebley]

I did the first turn unit movement and settled the town in place. The start isn't bad.

We should discuss tech to go for and such. Note that I chose sedentary barbs so we can put our expansionist trait to some use. I also basically randomized the % water and we got minimal land.

 

[Greebley]

I attached the save so ThERat can start the game after any initial discussion. I settled and moved units so we would be working with the most info. The unit moves seemed pretty obvious - Scout to explore, Worker to Cow, Settler seeing nothing better settles in place.

 

[ThERat]

Are we going for some min research and hope to grab techs with our cash?

I assume we want the cow to be irrigated

 

[Northern Pike]

Yes and yes.

The capital site is fine, but the surrounding sites don't look good at all. Well, we wanted a challenge.

 

[Mumpulus]

Checking in.

I'd go for BW and/or WC, at max if that helps (i.e. faster than 30 turns or so). We have to assume early war. I wouldn't count on being able to trade. But maybe I'm being overly cautious.

 

[Greebley]

My instinct was for WC at max as you can tell by the screenshot. It is 50 turns now, but we are only playing on large so I suspect it will be 30 turns or less once we get roads and grow.

Still trading while doing min research is not bad either, so I guess I am fine with that. It seems we should get some contact before war is declared.

Note that I set AI Agression to normal.

 

[ThERat]

I played 18 turns and we have now a settler and need to decide where to send it. To the north are Arabia and Persia and they are both very close.

I built 2 scouts and 1 warrior, so that we could make full use of our trait. However, while we popped 4 huts, I got only this piece of technology



We got a warrior on the last turn that now heads back to our capital.

As for the settler, we should definitely try and claim land towards Arabia as we should be able to seal off the land south. There is a very nice choke to the southwest that we could seal off easily by settling on top of the dyes



Remember that we have 3 scouts to do the job of popping the huts. I sped up research as we might want to get WC faster.

 

[ThERat]

Roster:
ThERat
whomp - up
Northern Pike
Greebley
Mumpulus

 

[ThERat]

@whomp.

I just realized that I forgot to MM the last turn, please reduce the luxury rate to 0%, we can speed up WC to 11 turns

 

[Northern Pike]

I'd say that we should use the settler to try to grab the two-cow site seven tiles NW of our capital, which shouldn't be too corrupt on a large map. Obviously this is risky and completely against the principle of siting cities as if we were playing AW, but I think the general lack of promising city locations justifies the gamble.

I'd suggest that our hut warrior should explore, not head for the capital. In that terrible terrain it can move just as fast as the scout.

Good work popping huts, especially when the Arabs are expansionist too; too bad there was so little reward for it.

 

[Whomp]

OK I got it. All that desert to the north does not help us much except in battle.

 

[boardinfailboat]

you guys did not get a good spawn at all. I would suggest going soutwest on a hill and choppin the trees. shoulda hoave probably switched settler production to barracks and built epic army to take over though(land is really bad in this one).

 

[Whomp]

Pre-turn: Turn down lux to 0% and research to 100% getting WC in 11 with 3gpt deficit with 29g in the bank. Those cows are a long way away but it's really the best available land around. Too much jungle, desert and worse marsh. I suppose the silver lining is the AI won't work marsh so considering it's right at the choke keeps this space pretty secure.

IT
3050 View a stack of 4 Arabic warriors nearby 2 Persian warriors. We can only hope they have hate in their hearts. My guess is they are looking for barbs.

3000 Worker to flood plain since we'll be at 6spt and 8 doesn't help like growth. Lots of dyes, silks and wines along with our incense.

IT DC warrior--> warrior
2950 Fortify warrior to keep science up. Start irrigation on FP.

IT Persian attacks something and I presume it's a barb.
2900 It was a barb. Find a new border with our conscript warrior and our scout on the northwest side the choke sees grass and gems on mountains.

IT See a Enkidu.
DC warrior --> settler
2850 Climb a hill and see Kish.

IT Gil comes visiting and we cut this deal...


Sweet.

2800 See a hut.

2750 Close in on the hut. WC due next so I'll stop there for further plans on research.

2710 Our scout gets this.


There's movement for the worker and settler. I think the settler is in the right spot and think the worker can go to tobacco before the BG but want to make sure NP agrees. Turn research to alpha at 10% but we can get it down if we run hard. It's pretty obvious we're going to need an above average number of workers even being industrial.

I think we should settle the choke before the Sumerians.
A view of each side of the choke.

 

[a space oddity]

Cool, another one to feast my eyes on!

Now, if I could only find that Civ3 disk... ...you guys really make me miss it.

 

[ThERat]

Nice to pop another tech and strike a deal. I would settle the choke with the next settler and then start to fill all the gaps if possible. We are quite exposed in this game.

Are we trying to get the Glib or what are our longer terms plans? This would affect the next tech we go for. We could chose either IW or thwe writing route.

Roster:
ThERat
whomp
Northern Pike - up
Greebley
Mumpulus

 

[Mumpulus]

Next settler should definitely go straight for the dyes/choke, or that site will get poached. We have two marsh sites in between that can wait a bit. I'd take the hill 3NW of DC to produce workers. The coastal/oasis site after that. I'd gamble on almost exclusively settlers in DC, get military from elsewhere.

For tech, I'd take IW, just so we know where it is sooner.

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment Rat38-2310BC.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

2710 (0): I think I'll move our settler inland a little before founding the two-cow town, because if we settle in place the city will only command three land tiles until it gets a cultural expansion, and that may take quite a while. So thanks for waiting, Whomp.

I set research on Alphabet to 90%. We've had our initial contacts and we can't count on more trades, though Mysticism may attract some interest.


2670 (1): Washington settler --> warrior.


2630 (2): We found New York, claiming the two cows.


2550 (4): We found Boston on the river hill within Washington's radius. Obviously this is cramped, but I wanted to settle on the river without killing a floodplain tile, and the adjacent hill commands too much worthless desert.

Our exploring warrior, which waited a turn so we wouldn't have a settler when it entered the latest hut, gains an Apache hut settler.



We're able to get the Arabs to throw in 26 gold, too.

We don't have iron, but our new hut settler may be able to grab a source.

Washington warrior --> settler.


2310 (10): We found Philadelphia, claiming both iron and dyes, though it'll be some time until they're hooked up.

Another success for our hut-busting warrior:



We have horses three tiles from Washington, though not yet within our borders.

 

[Northern Pike]

The settler we're about to complete should head east to try to grab the iron in that direction (unlikely) or at least found a city which claims some or all of the oases. As a third choice it could found a town on the coast between Washington and New York--not much of a site, but at least it would begin to unify our territory. The horses are in a safe spot and we probably don't need to claim them at once.

Boston should proceed right to the Great Library pre-build as soon as it finishes its walls.

The scout closest to Washington is moving to the choke to block it off.

Our position is beginning to develop, but it all depends on whether we get a few more rounds of peace.