RB-31: Playing God

[Berrie]

Berrir -- how did you attach the link for PLaying God on your signature? I can't figure it out; every time I try it, I show the HTML address instead.

Type for example RB 31 - Playing God, then highlight the text with your cursor (so it's blue) and then you just click on the hyperlink icon in the little taskbar. In the pop-up menu you can type the URL adress. And, voila...

 

[mrwhite89]

I'll play my turn in about 8 hours and post tonight.

 

[KMadCandy]

lurker's comment: howdy folks. i did warn you on RB that i'd be lurking, and probably not all of that quietly. none of the content is a game spoiler, i'm using the box merely to save space in your thread. many of my posts get really long since i type fast, and the more i type the more i think "oh yeah this applies too...". this post is no exception. i will respond to any comments, questions, and/or requests to keep quiet to the best of my ability "giggle*

Spoiler :

my main point: if you read only one paragraph this is the most important. feel free to read only one paragraph, i won't be offended!

if you run a GP farm, i highly recommend talking about your plans for the great folks ahead of time. you'll know what round you're going to get one, altho not what type. discuss the possibilities, and hopefully reach agreement about what to do if you get a GS or GP, what wonders are coming up if the guy's a GE so do we hang on to him for that, etc. in SGs often a player gets one but doesn't want to make the wrong decision, so leaves him waiting for the next player. that wastes turns of whatever advantage you'd get, but it's generally better than making the wrong call. if you can decide as a group ahead of time what advantage you want, and can start to benefit the turn he pops, that's ideal. and in your very first SG, i just plain recommend it, not just for the boring old "maximize efficient play" but to use the hivemind/brainstorm together/learn from each other--you know, the major reason for SGs .

2. Artist specialists produce tons of extra culture -- a great way to hog a lot of land if your city happens to be close to a rival civ's city and you're both fighting for space. Run some artists and your city will expand faster.

mrwhite knows what he's talking about. so much that if i shoot you in a dream, i think i'll wake up and apologize just to stay on your good side . all of your points were great.

clovis, if you get curious enough about the "usual standard SE economy" to read the guides about it, keep in mind that one of the strengths you will see emphaszied (popping your great people for techs to trade with the AI) is much more useful on the higher levels, where the AI techs much faster than the human. at noble, you'd not be able to do the "bulb one, get 3 or 4 in skilled trades" thing. i'd not at all recommend that you use the standard SE in this game; if i was not afraid to speak for someone named mrwhite, i'd presume that he agrees and that this was part of his point in a way, "we need to exploit the use of specialists as much as we can" and thinking but not adding that your game wouldn't go all-out "SE is the one true way". reading the SE guides might be educational if that's your sort of thing but ain't needed. with that out of the way, you can definitely enjoy the benefits he talked about in any type of economy no matter what you call it, and it can be done by a leader even with no traits at all, you don't have to "follow all the SE rules". any leader can use a GP farm or two, and run the rest of your cities as best suits their terrain and your overall goals. Sali's great for that, spi to change civics as needed and philo to get the actual great people sooner. flexibility rocks, part of why i'm still addicted to this game.

with hatty fred and louis in your world, you may well end up running artists and popping great artists, that's why i pulled out that one quote. you're spiritual, one of my favorite traits, lets you do so many handy-in-the-short-term civic switches. usually you need buildings to run specialists like you mentioned, but in caste system you can run unlimited sci/merchants/artists. you cannot be in slavery at the same time tho. spiritual = no anarchy = sometimes worthwhile to swap to caste when you've settled a city right up against one of those creative types. run an artist to get culture pop, i do it even with my one citizen if i have to, after all he won't starve. if you're running merc, that's even better. caste system is the only way to run artists before you know drama (i always know CoL before drama), or before the turn has a theatre (say, on the turn you settle it haha). put the citizen back to work after you get the culture pop, change civics anarchy-free again if another is better empire-wide, teach the city about religion, build/chop/whip buildings that put out culture and now "fresh border city X" is off to a great start in the culture fight.

many people get great artists and think "stupid national epic, i guess i'll save this guy for a golden age." IMO, great artists are potential military weapons and they have awesome power. if you create a great work while a city you've captured is in revolt, the revolt instantly ends and you get gobs of culture. you can rush production that turn (i generally whip 'em away), and you get control over some tiles. that's major, it not only lets you work tiles, now any roads still on them are now yours to use in wartime, the enemy is slowed down. add in that your shiny new city instantly gets cultural defense! my ideal SoD has a GA and missionary in it. if times are and look to stay peaceful, discuss the other options and decide. note that a culture bomb on the border trying to flip tiles/cities is best used (in that ideal world) when the city has already reached 1k culture so that the 4k great work will hit 5k and thus get your next border expansion (adjust if those aren't the right numbers for normal speed).

if you run a lot of specialists in Jerusalem, pray for the RNG to select a nice Christian holy city. moving your palace there might be fun given your theme! the commerce benefit from Bureaucracy applies to cottages but not to specialists, so i usually move my palace if my original capital ends up being a GP farm. you guys could get a flavor of the variant/better result of the civic double benefit .

random thoughts on religion spread: it can spread without open borders. even between civs at war altho that's very very rare, and even between two civs who've never met. i once met cathy when my state religion spread to her post-astronomy, archi map, i controlled the holy city; i'd completely forgotten there was another civ in the game . you know i'm sure that a city will only get one religion spread to it "naturally", for any others you have to send missionaries. when i'm on my "convert the heathens" rampages i prioritize big cities that already have a different religion in them first (capital pronto), hoping that at least some of the cities with no religion will get the "right one" and save me a missionary later. the limit of three is a pain and i never send all three far away at once, if two have just started long journeys then #3 will go to a closer target just so that he gets finished and i can put another out there. i don't know if the "don't send all 3 far away at once" is mathematically more efficient, but it gives me something to do. i can tell you that "hit the big cities first" has the best results. i've seen leaders convert (without me asking) to a faith that's only in their capital, when they were in another religion that was in say 3 little cities, when their capital had nothing. that's in the future for you of course.

thought just popped into my head: let's pretend you found one of the later religions. i don't know whether it will fit into your tech path or not, but could be handy to give the AI less motivation to convert to a belief they founded. the free missionary you get can be useful as a "semi-spy" to map out territory when you have open borders . i name him "Spy Only DO NOT USE!!" since i get forgetful at times, and then i just have him run around out there learning the lay of the land. costs me no hammers, 2 movement points, comes way before scotland yard. i don't care about the 3-at-a-time limit for that religion if i'm not trying to spread it. you do pay unit costs and supply costs for missionaries, so if you're poor, do something less off-the-wall with him to save yourself a gold.

disclaimer: i don't know y'all or your standard difficulty level. my preference in life and on forums is for people to over-explain rather than assume i know something that i don't. so, i often give details in my posts (see above). it's just what i do and i get "thanks yous" from folks that it helps, so i keep doing it. when almost done typing this monstrosity, it dawned on me that you're a tiny group, not a thread in General or Stragegy that first-month players will stumble across. if today's sermon was not at all useful please please please let me know so that i can spare you! my goal is to help you out not just hear my fingers on the keyboard and increase my point count. i'd just stick to the diplomatic stuff since at RB several of you said that's not your strength. sterotype alert: boys with their guns and axes . ps dawn: it's nice to not feel like the token girl in a thread for once! anyway, i hope i don't offend anyone be seeming condescending and/or waste your time with stuff you've known perhaps longer than i have.

have fun!

 

[mrwhite89]

Thank's for the advice KMad! I especially like the idea about using a religion-founded missionary as a spy. That's pretty genius. I also agree about us discussing what to do with great people before they spawn, so we're all in agreement over what to do with him......or her Anyway, please keep the lurker comments coming.

 

[KMadCandy]

That's pretty genius. I also agree about us discussing what to do with great people before they spawn, so we're all in agreement over what to do with him......or her Anyway, please keep the lurker comments coming.

why thank you for the "genius" thing! i'd perhaps call it "devious and stingy with hammers". i've added some of my favorite musicians, scientists i look up to, etc, into the xml files as great people, since it's fun to see their names pop up. Annie Lennox is a GA, my cousin Barb (a GPA) is a GM, that sort of thing. have fun playing tonight

 

[scooter]

Thanks for the input KMad, I definitely agree on the caste system/slavery comment. Since we're spiritual, be sure to take advantage of that, meaning running caste system (jerusalem makes a wonderful GP farm IMO), and whenever u need something(s) whipped, just pop into slavery, do all the whipping you want/need, and whenever it lets you have another revolution pop back into caste system. Keep the comments coming!

Sorry about the lack of detail in my post, since I'm GMT +8 (12 hours different from the US east coast), I figured it would be really nice if I could get the save up before I went to bed so that everyone else would have the day with it, rather than waiting 10-12 hours for me to get up. I meant to post the autolog but forgot. My (bad I'll admit) reasoning for building the settler was that we were quickly getting boxed in by hatty and peter (nothing a few CR swordsman can't fix ), so I was trying to crank the settler out, then I realized when I finished my turnset that Jerusalem could build a setter in 6-7 turns after finishing Oracle, so about then is when I felt pretty dumb...

Next GP should definitley be used for lightbulbing theology (hope we're not too late), so Meditation is #1 priority for research, if you need to switch research do it, just whatever it takes to make sure the next GP will lightbulb theology immediately. The great prophet after that should (obviously) make the church of nativity, and the sooner the better (to help spread christianity). That's about all that comes to mind at the moment, I'm sure I missed something, overall we're doing pretty well

Edit: fantastic news about the iron btw!

 

[dawn]

@KMad - keep the advice coming. That's part of running these SGs - I'm here to have fun and improve my game.

Definately like the idea of using the missionary as a free scout if you're not looking to spread the religion.

Caste is not something I've ever used a lot of, but have read a lot of people using it. I just never seem to have the food production to run enough specialists to make a difference.

 

[KMadCandy]

one more thing...when you found a religion, the holy city will be your city with no religion, if you have just one. if all or none of your cities have religion, there is some randomness. it basically favors your biggest city with the fewest religions. number of religions counts but whether it's a holy city or not doesn't. ties go to older cities, and the capital will not get picked (unless it's your only city of course, or if it scores at least 8x higher on all factors than all your other cities, so, it won't get picked).

i like wall street funding my empire in a city with lots of cottages, i adore double-holy cities, and often find holy cities useful in fights for space/border clashes. i sometimes have a settler build a city the turn before i'll learn the tech (or the same turn i bulb it, but before i pop the GP) and/or focus my efforts beforehand on getting religions to cities that i don't want picked as the holy one, because i obsess that way.

i don't think you're too late, but in those games i was of course trying to maximize future filthy lucre. you guys have a calling to learn the ways of christianity and then spread that faith around the globe! so just tuck away what i said in the back of your mind for some other game and go bulb Theology ASAP *giggle*.

 

[scooter]

I just never seem to have the food production to run enough specialists to make a difference.

Heh, wait til you see Jerusalem...

 

[mrwhite89]

Turn 0 (750 BC) Taking a look around.... I think we need to put some pressure on Peter & make our presence felt while also grabbing some choice real estate.....so I'm going to move our next settler next to Novogorod and call it Hebron.

We'll have 2 desert tiles in our cross, but we'll also have 2 fishies. The big plus is that Novogorod has no religion and is producing no culture, so we can definitely steal some of their territory-including one of Peter's iron resources II'm counting on Hebron being the birthplace of Christianity Oh well, we'll see shortly. BTW, I switched out the worker construction in Jericho to a granary, as I really don't think it's a good idea to build workers/settlers in a city that has a population of one . We should concentrate on populating Jericho before building those guys. I also switched our tech over to meditation.

Turn 1 (725 BC) Hatshepsut wants open borders. I give her the a-ok, as she might turn into one of our allies later on. I start moving our roaming archers over to the future sitre of Hebron. Meditation in 2 turns.

Turn 2 (700 BC)

Turn 3 (675 BC) Meditation founded. I continue our research into Monarchy -- NOTE TO TEAM: Heredity Rule is Hattie and Louis' favorite civic, so we need to exploit that! Workers finish the farm in Tyre. I start them building a road to Jericho.

Turn 4 (650 BC) Culture pop in Jericho!! We're already putting the squeeze on St. Peterrsburg.

Turn 5 (625 BC) Ceaser asks for open borders, and I give him the thumb's up Archers are postioned in the site for future Hebron.

 

[mrwhite89]

Turn 6 (600 BC) Settler built in Tyre. Start a worker and move settlers to future Hebron.
Hattie has founded Elephantine in our former future city site

Good thing we had a plan 2.....

Turn 7 (575 BC) Great Prophet born in Jerusalem.

I'm going to wait until we found Hebron before using him to lighbulb Theology....I have a good feeling about Hebron. I remove the priest specialist in Jerusalem to help increase the population one more to maximum.

Turn 8 (550 BC) Jericho is size 2. Parthenon in 4 turns.

Turn 9 (525 BC) Hattie converts to Buddhism.

Turn 10 (500 BC) Monarchy discovered. I switch civics over to Heredity Rule. Hopefully this will better our relationship with Louis, who is still annoyed with us. I figure our 2 best tech choices are Code of Laws (for caste System = free artists, scientists and merchants) and Mathematics & then Construction for catapults (to lay down some whoop-ass ). I'm going with Mathematics, as I think we should target Peter soon. He's weak , has nobody happier with him beyond, cautious he's invading our personal space plus we need to expand and he's going to be the easiest guy to run over. BTW, I have been moving our scout North towards Louis, so if he decides to be nice and grant us open borders we should scout him out.

 

[mrwhite89]

Turn 11 (475 BC) Okay, sorry! But I had to see the founding of Hebron and where Christianity was going to pop up -- so I am taking one extra turn. Please forgive me.....
Hebron is founded..........

Now let's discover a new religion!!
Theology founded in 475 BC

And where was Christianity founded??????

In Hebron!! Once we switch over to Christianity, Hebron is going to do some serious cultural damage to Novogorod and will become a powerful border city to the mighty Egytians.


--Mathematics in 7 turns, unless anybody wants to change it.
--Parthenon in one turn in Jerusalem -- probably should build a missionary, then start building some military.
--Worker in one turn in Tyre

Game Save:

 

[KMadCandy]

yay! i so completely approve! well, except for hatty's behavior.

 

[dawn]

Well played to get Hebron up as the Holy City.

Maybe send the missionary over to Elephantine? Start spreading the good word to Hatty to get her on our side?

Need to get that iron hooked up so we can build some axes and swords for the "conversion" of Peter.

Look for Freddie to start getting pushy up there with Hatty as he doesn't have much room for expansion. Freddie won't be pleased when we convert to Christianity (shouldn't we do that soon?) so we may be able to lead a crusade through Hatty to "convert" Freddie and liberate the people.

Wonders to consider:
If we're looking at trying Caste and SE, then Sistine Chapel would be great with +2 for every specialist.
Just noticed that the Parthenon will muddy the GPP in Jerusalem and we really need aonther GP to get the Nativity founded.
Angkor Wat - more production out of our priests. Not sure we'll be using too many priests - scientists and artists mainly.
Spiral Minaret - +1 for each of our Christian buildings. Gold is alwasy good.

 

[dawn]

Poking around in the save, do we need the Jewish temple queued up in Tyre? We're in need of military. Maybe move the archer up in the queue?

Miltary building site - Jericho? With the two food resources we should be able to mine the hills and get some good hammers.

 

[Berrie]

Looking back I made some errors.

- Choosing monarchy as tech, but I already admitted it as in my previous post. Luckily it was not difficult to rectify
- Building The Parthenon in Jerusalem. I knew it was debatable, but 14 turns, I couldn't resist Pity it will generate GA points in Jerusalem, so in the future we will not be sure about getting a Great Prophet.

The worker in Jericho is a question of preferance. In most cases I start building a worker in a newly found city to get at least one worker per city. And the lost growth is easily made up later on by being able to improve the land around the city.

Good call on Hebron, too bad about the other city site. It would have been a very decent spot.

EDIT: Oh and don't queu up buildings or give workers long assignments. It's not good SG etiquette

 

[scooter]

Great turnset mrwhite We got Christianity and in the city we wanted it in... We need to hook up that iron as soon as we steal it, then pump out some CR swords w/ an axe or two. Maybe a round of barracks would be an order? To pop one last Great Prophet (the christian shrine is very important, since it will help spread christianity plus the gold is a no-brainer), we can always run a couple priest specialists, and hope that the favorable odds swing our way (once we get caste system we can shut off growth for a few turns and run a ton of priests). I also definitely think Peter needs to go, especially before he makes any friends...

 

[mrwhite89]

Maybe send the missionary over to Elephantine? Start spreading the good word to Hatty to get her on our side?

Look for Freddie to start getting pushy up there with Hatty as he doesn't have much room for expansion. Freddie won't be pleased when we convert to Christianity (shouldn't we do that soon?) so we may be able to lead a crusade through Hatty to "convert" Freddie and liberate the people.

I totally agree with you, but I think per Clovis' SG rules we are not supposed to actively spread Judaism to any cities other than our own. If I'm wrong, that is exactly what we should do!

Wonders to consider:
If we're looking at trying Caste and SE, then Sistine Chapel would be great with +2 for every specialist.

I agree that Sistine Chapel is definitely a wonder we need. We also have a BIG head start on building it, since we are the only civ with Theology and can build it doubly fast with marble. Perhaps Hebron, once built up, would be a good site for it?

Just noticed that the Parthenon will muddy the GPP in Jerusalem and we really need aonther GP to get the Nativity founded.
Angkor Wat - more production out of our priests. Not sure we'll be using too many priests - scientists and artists mainly.
Spiral Minaret - +1 for each of our Christian buildings. Gold is alwasy good.

Poking around in the save, do we need the Jewish temple queued up in Tyre? We're in need of military. Maybe move the archer up in the queue?

As long as we run one or two priest specialists in Jerusalem, we shouldn't have too much trouble popping another priest eventually. I removed the priest specialist on my last turn so we could increase the population there a little faster, but once it reaches size 10, we should get those monks back praying for our city's souls

As far as the temple in the queue in Tyre -- it was being built when I got the save last night and I put a worker build in front of it. I didn't want to remove any buildings/units that were partially constructed in our cities (this applies to the half built worker unit in Jericho as well), so I do apologize for that. SG etiquette is my priority with you guys (and girls), but I am a newb (or is it a noob? ) to team play.

 

[mrwhite89]

I just had one more thought....(Morning coffee kicking in )

Once we get around to discovering Alphabet, we should be sure to discuss any potential trades with the AI civs before-hand. We need to be sure not to give any one of them a tech that might jeopardize our ability to get anything we want first - like any wonders. Since Louis is an industrial civ, we need to make sure we don't give him, say....Theology, as he could very well build Sistine Chapel before we do.

 

[KMadCandy]

spoilerbox is to save space since i'm your too-chatty lurker, it's not an actual game spoiler. i won't post any real spoilers ever. even if i was a jerk and wanted to, atm i can't even load vanilla to look at your saves. you should be thankful, if i could i might give even more useless advice/thoughts/ramblings!

Spoiler :

I totally agree with you, but I think per Clovis' SG rules we are not supposed to actively spread Judaism to any cities other than our own. If I'm wrong, that is exactly what we should do!

3. As Jews, we can only convert our own cities to Judaism.

I didn't want to remove any buildings/units that were partially constructed in our cities (this applies to the half built worker unit in Jericho as well), so I do apologize for that. SG etiquette is my priority with you guys (and girls), but I am a newb (or is it a noob? ) to team play.

pretty much the usual SG rules are:
don't leave units on go-to without a note about that in your report,
don't leave units unmoved for the next player to deal with, except maybe a settler to discuss where to put the city,
decide when setting up your team how important discuussion of strategy and detailed turn reports are, which you guys clearly did

IMO go-to orders are spiffy for y'all in the case of missionaries; just note where they're going so the next player doesn't duplicate efforts but do use go-to since it's easier. i actually name each missionary for the city it's going to, that way i can use "individual units" under F5 to prevent myself from sending two to the same place. i do all sorts of silly things like that to spare my brain the hassle of remembering details (like the naming the spying missionary a spy so i don't use him).

trades yup, make sure it's clear to all the ones you want a monopoly on until X event happens. sistine is a big priority, and an industrious rival is all the more reason to keep it a monopoly. you might want to decide as a group whether your preference is to keep the game moving, or for the player to take a break and post even on turn 3 if any pretty big decision that hasn't been discussed comes up that the player is not comfortable making a call on without a discussion. things like all city locations you've talked about are taken but your settler's ready, tech trade options that are great opportunities but you can't tell if they're dangerous, someone war on you and you want advice etc. i've seen SGs go both ways. i think part of what y'all want to do is have fun and get some SG experience but not necessarily become experts at "how to play any SG", right? besides, each team comes up with their own house rules. so IMO do what you're comfortable with, and don't over worry about "this is my first SG i don't want to do the SG part of it wrong". and whenever you see me use the expression "IMO" feel free to toss it out the window, as long as it's not a stained glass window in the Church of the Nativity.

about changing builds in progress in cities: if there is something already started in a city, the priority is units. the hammers invested in units begin to decay in 10 turns if you haven't worked on them in the meantime. you can work on it, put it back in the queue for 9 turns, back in the queue 9 turns, work one turn forever with no decay, but if you don't take that step to work on it you'll lose a few hammers. buildings don't start to lose hammers until 50 turns have gone by. i've heard rumors that wonders don't ever lose hammers but i don't know if that's true.

@berrie--don't give workers long assignments? if i have to leave them on a task that'll take a while i just say what and why in my summary is all. but this is y'all's SG and i need to hush . i agree on the queueing buildings for the future, just discuss those in write-ups. in the case of something you did start then changed your mind, tell the group why, and remember the decay thing above. sometimes it is worth losing the hammers to make something different.

ps do me a favor please? i like, have to win a game to meet a goal i set for myself, quattromaster for hall of fame. a goal that doesn't actually mean you're a good player, but something i want. i need to win, by may 24th, large map/epic speed/monarch difficulty. i have to win by cultural victory, but all victories must be turned enabled, meaning i have to make sure the AI doesn't build a spaceship etc. please root for me