RB-31: Playing God

[Berrie]

I played my 10 turns up until 600 AD. Not much happened until the last turn...

Report:

- Inherited turn:

I see the military build-up is going very nice.

I change one thing: I decide on a civic swap from organized religion to theocracy. All our cities are building units, so the +2 experience will come in handy for those units. Besides 4 out of 5 cities are already Christian. I do hope that this switch isn't against the spirit of this variant as we are not able anymore to build missionaries. But we are spirtual, so a civic swap doesn't cost us anything.

- Turn 1: 400 AD

Jerusalem: Phant --> Cat
Jericho: Phant --> Cat

- Turn 2: 425 AD

Literature discovered. I pick Music as our next tech as decided by the team (I hope).

Jericho: Cat --> Axe

Our Great Prophet is put to work as a specialist in Hebron

- Turn 3: 450 AD

Hebron: Axe --> Work boat (Hebron needs to grow and the fish isn't hooked up yet)

Rome has got a Great Scientist

- Turn 4: 475 AD

Jerusalem: Cat --> Sword
Tyre: Sword --> Sword
Jericho: Axe --> Cat

Sint-Petersburg has come out of anarchy. I start on a archer.

I start to move some troops in the direction of Moscow. I hope they will fare better then Napoleon's and Hitler's men!

- Turn 5: 500 AD

I drop to 90% science. We are losing to much money.

- Turn 6: 520 AD

Offer from Frederick to trade Calendar and 60 gold for Alphabet. I decline. I want the borders of Sint-Petersburg to pop first (calendar obsoletes Stonehenge and obelisk) and we don't really need calendar right now. Besides, let the others wait a little longer to start trading techs!

- Turn 7: 540 AD

Jerusalem: Sword --> Granary (The city is reaching its 'health limits')
Jericho: Cat --> Cat
Hebron: Work Boat --> archer

Reduced defenses of Moscow to 22%!

Trouble brewing?

- Turn 8: 560 AD

Offer from Cyrus: Calendar for Monarchy and 30 gold. I hesitate but decline. Borders of Sint-Petersburg popped, but we can't do much with Calendar. We can trade it later for another obsolete tech.

Tyre: Sword --> Cat
Sint-Petersburg: archer --> granary

Germany pops a Great Prophet

I install fishing nets near Hebron.

I kill a Russian swordsman but our axeman is badly wounded.

- Turn 9: 580 AD

Defenses of Moscow to 0%

- Turn 10: 600 AD

We make a deal with Caesar: spices for furs

Jericho: Cat --> forge (next player can veto this!!)

The attack on Moscow begins! There are 8 defenders; I have 13 units including 4 catapults. I sacrifice two catapults to do some collateral damage. The city raider II swordsmen come into action. I lose a war elephant against a spearman despite 88% odds in my favour. All other battles are won at 90% odds (I made two catapults city raider II or I: don't use them as suicides !!)

This is the result:

End of turns

________________________​

Some closing screenshots:

Notice the marauding swordsman and the axeman guarding the iron near Novgorod! I already moved some units towords Novgorod.

Music will be discovered in 4 turns. And we are still in Theocracy!

In my opinion there are enough units to finish Peter. Maybe we should switch to a building phase in short time!?

To the next player: Happy !!

 

[mrwhite89]

Nicely played turnset, Berrie!

I change one thing: I decide on a civic swap from organized religion to theocracy.

Great Idea. It's great to be spiritual!

Offer from Frederick to trade Calendar and 60 gold for Alphabet. I decline.

Offer from Cyrus: Calendar for Monarchy and 30 gold. I hesitate but decline.

Well played! Calandar would not only not help us, it would remove the effects from Stonehenge.

Music will be discovered in 4 turns. And we are still in Theocracy!

In my opinion there are enough units to finish Peter. Maybe we should switch to a building phase in short time!?

I'll probably put us back into Organized religion during my set of turns.

To the next player: Happy !!

Looking forward to it.

 

[mrwhite89]

I'll play my turns tonight. Some thoughts:

1. Where to place the Great Artist? I'm thinking either Novgorod (when we capture it) or the mystery Russian city in the far south-east. That city might be a good idea to push back Cyrus' culture a little bit, but then again, I have no idea if that city is even woth capturing at this time. Novgorod would benefit, as it would not only help push back Cyrus' culture, it would probably help Hebron's culture war against Hattie and her city Elaphantine. I don't think we need to put him in Moscow, as it will expand on its own and is in no dangerous culteure-border battle.

2. Once Music is dicovered, where do we want to go from there?

We could do Feudalism/Machinery/Guilds/Banking which would give us, among other things, our unique unit and Mercantalism.

We could do Philosophy/Civil Service/Nationalism/Constitution for Representation and to build the Taj Majal.

3. We need to start thinking about building Sistine Chapel!!


Berrie -- Can you send me the save? And how do you draw red circles and squares on your pictures?

 

[scooter]

Nicely played Berrie I agree on the Theocracy switch, as well as denying the trades.

I'll play my turns tonight. Some thoughts:

1. Where to place the Great Artist? I'm thinking either Novgorod (when we capture it) or the mystery Russian city in the far south-east. That city might be a good idea to push back Cyrus' culture a little bit, but then again, I have no idea if that city is even woth capturing at this time. Novgorod would benefit, as it would not only help push back Cyrus' culture, it would probably help Hebron's culture war against Hattie and her city Elaphantine. I don't think we need to put him in Moscow, as it will expand on its own and is in no dangerous culteure-border battle.

Yeah I agree now that using it on Moscow would be a waste now that I'm looking at the map. For some reason I was thinking it was further NE. Right now I'm not 100% sure where is the best place, Novgorod looks like it for now, but I'll leave that decision up to you (unless someone has another idea). As for the far eastern Russian city, we'll probably want to raze it, unless it has some resources that we don't have (if we keep it we want a courthouse there ASAP because it's decently far away from Jerusalem). Plus if we kept it we'd be under intense cultural pressure from Cyrus (worsening relations and closing borders). Relations with Cyrus are the one thing that's worrying me about culture-bombing Novgorod, as to me it seems the AI is most willing to go to war about border tensions (besides religons). Speaking of religons, Hatty has two Christian cities, see if she'll convert for a price (Cyrus has one but he won't convert with that few). We could probably switch back to Organized religon fairly soon, since we've got enough military already to take out Peter it sounds like. After that we need to go into builder/missionary mode for awhile, and whoever we can't convert we will capture their cities and then convert them .


Another thing I think we should do semi-soon is put a filler city in our very back on the coast (on one of those tiles where the culture gap is), for two reasons:
1. keep AI's from poaching that land
2. there are several "wasted tiles" between Jerusalem and Tyre that it could use.

2. Once Music is dicovered, where do we want to go from there?

We could do Feudalism/Machinery/Guilds/Banking which would give us, among other things, our unique unit and Mercantalism.

We could do Philosophy/Civil Service/Nationalism/Constitution for Representation and to build the Taj Majal.

Hmm, this is tough... Honestly the thought of running Representation is the most appealing reward for reaching any of these techs, since we'll be running quite a few specialists, but it's hard to wait on feudalism/machinery/guilds much longer... I'm leaning towards making the run towards nationalism and constitution, and trying to trade techs to backfill (this will be easy if we convert someone like hatty or cyrus) feudalism/machinery/guilds. I'll need to open the save whenever it gets posted and take a look at our current tech tree, but right now I'm leaning towards making the liberalism run to grab nationalism and get constitution for representation...

3. We need to start thinking about building Sistine Chapel!!

Agreed, I'll take a look at the save whenever it shows up since off the top of my head I'm not sure where it should go.

Okay this post is getting longer and longer so I'll just post it and hear what you all think.

 

[mrwhite89]

I might not be able to do my turns until Saturday night if I don't get the save in the next couple hours, just FYI.....So please bear with me, as I will not be near a computer for the next 36 hours after tonight.

One last point of discussion: After we annihilate Peter, is there anybody else who looks like a potential foe?

Although we are trying to convert Hatty, she is sitting on some nice green real estate, which would bear many food-rich (and specialist rich) cities. Also her UU, the war chariot wouldn't stand a chance against our forces if we beeline to Guilds before attacking.

Frederick doesn't look like he'd be too hard to run over, but he doesn't look like he's hanging onto any great land.

Cyrus and Louis would both be tougher to beat, but definitely doable and rewarding. Especially Louis, who, although his map isn't totally revealed, what I see looks pretty good.

Or we could do nothing and try and make friends with everybody.

 

[Berrie]

Oops, sorry guys. Here is the save:

View attachment RB31- Playing God AD-0600.Civ4SavedGame

Hope it's not too late mrwhithe.

I will read the comments later, I'm off to work now!

 

[mrwhite89]

Got the save. I'll probably not post until Saturday night though.

 

[Berrie]

1. Where to place the Great Artist? I'm thinking either Novgorod (when we capture it) or the mystery Russian city in the far south-east. That city might be a good idea to push back Cyrus' culture a little bit, but then again, I have no idea if that city is even woth capturing at this time. Novgorod would benefit, as it would not only help push back Cyrus' culture, it would probably help Hebron's culture war against Hattie and her city Elaphantine. I don't think we need to put him in Moscow, as it will expand on its own and is in no dangerous culteure-border battle.

Hebron would be a possibility, but it would cause border tensions and we are trying to be friends with Hatty, no? Hebron is fighting a cultural war with two Egyptian cities and a revolt in Elephantine (the city-site they grabbed from us ) is possible.
What will the great artist lightbulb? Maybe go that route?

Berrie -- Can you send me the save? And how do you draw red circles and squares on your pictures?

Sorry again about the save. For the red circles, that are my first-rate Paint skills you see in action! You can also use the tool in-game (zoom all the way out, if I'm not mistaken)

Another thing I think we should do semi-soon is put a filler city in our very back on the coast (on one of those tiles where the culture gap is), for two reasons:
1. keep AI's from poaching that land
2. there are several "wasted tiles" between Jerusalem and Tyre that it could use.

I agree, but not too sone. After the war we need to build up our economy fast because we have barely any cottages running and our proposed specialist economy is not into place yet. Spreading Christianity would be a good start for the shrine income.

About the tech route. In short term feudalism and civil service would be great. Civil service gives us the option to set up the specialist economy by allowing to farm more tiles. I was already running out on options for our workers. I didn't want to start chopping the forests because improving the land was often not rewarding and we can use the hammers from the chops for more important things.
Don't forget we need to discover horseback riding to use our unique unit.

One last point of discussion: After we annihilate Peter, is there anybody else who looks like a potential foe?

Although we are trying to convert Hatty, she is sitting on some nice green real estate, which would bear many food-rich (and specialist rich) cities. Also her UU, the war chariot wouldn't stand a chance against our forces if we beeline to Guilds before attacking.

Frederick doesn't look like he'd be too hard to run over, but he doesn't look like he's hanging onto any great land.

Cyrus and Louis would both be tougher to beat, but definitely doable and rewarding. Especially Louis, who, although his map isn't totally revealed, what I see looks pretty good.

Or we could do nothing and try and make friends with everybody.

Louis is annoyed with us, so look out for him.

If we really want a true diplomatic victory, we must decide now who our friends and enemies are.

 

[mrwhite89]

If we really want a true diplomatic victory, we must decide now who our friends and enemies are.

I agree with this. I would like to pick a fight with one more civ in the near future, then make friends/convert the rest.

It would be nice to batle Caeser, but he's too far away. I'll look at who is friends with who, but I'm leaning towards either Cyrus or Louis.

Any comments/ideas/advice before I take my turns? You have all day today and most of tomorrow to reply before I take my turns.

 

[Clovis]

I hate to do this, guys, but I'm going to have to withdraw from this game. It turns out I just have too much stuff to finish up at the end of the school year. I should have evaluated how much time I had more carefully. It was fun while it lasted! Thanks for a great time.

Good luck!

 

[mrwhite89]

Well that sucks!

I guess we can go with the remaining players or we can add a new one.

KMad?? We could learn much from you, oh wise one

 

[dawn]

@Clovis - good luck in your studies! We'll carry on the spirit of the game!

@Kmad - well? How about it? Care to join us?

 

[dawn]

Roster check:
Kmad (?) - on deck
Dawn - waiting patiently
Scooter - resting
Berrie - just posted
Mrwhite89 - Up!

 

[scooter]

I hate to do this, guys, but I'm going to have to withdraw from this game. It turns out I just have too much stuff to finish up at the end of the school year. I should have evaluated how much time I had more carefully. It was fun while it lasted! Thanks for a great time.

Good luck!

Bummer, sorry you're busy with school and do well on the rest of it! Don't forget to drop in from time to time to see how things are going and weigh in with your thoughts!

Edit: yeah KMad if you can swing it we'd love to have you join!

 

[KMadCandy]

clovis you leaving makes me sad. i hope you can find time to check in and watch what you started. even more than that, i wish you luck with your studies.

the invitation makes me grin! i am of course petrified that i will let you down, since i am oh so much better at spouting off words that sound like wisdom than actually applying them in practice. but we can see how it goes .

ps thank you scooter for your soooooper seeeeekrit help.

+4 you made my day by asking

 

[Clovis]

There is a possibility that I could play a few turnsets here and there one or two weeks from now, but for for now, I'm out.

 

[mrwhite89]

Just got back in town & will play my turns shortly.

 

[KMadCandy]

i looked a lot of this over again today, and looked at the save, if i'm going to actually have to like, do stuff, and not just sermonize. and i have basically only one new comment.

Or we could do nothing and try and make friends with everybody.

usually, mrwhite, doing nothing doesn't make friends with everybody. you generally have to put some effort into it . have fun playing tonight!

 

[chessplayer]

actually 0AD does not exist, but this has probably been mentioned before

 

[mrwhite89]

OUR WORLD AS WE KNOW IT:

IBT: I see that Jerusalem is about to pop a great person ( and Kudos to whoever removed the Priest specialist and added 2 Scientists..........was that you, Scooter? )

So as you see, we have a chance to pop someone other than a great prophet, which although nice in the beginning, is getting a little old. This gives me the option of starting a golden age once we get the Great Artist from music (if we get it )

I also move an archer from Jericho and one from Hebron towards Moscow for protection and to free up all our forces healing up there. I also switch production in Hebron from Forge to Lighthouse (sorry, Berrie), but I'm thinking that Hebron will be expanding shortly and could benefit from two food per ocean tile in the near future.

TURN 1: 620 AD Jerusalem: Granary--Sistine Chapel
Tyre: Catapult--Lighthouse
Great Prophet born in Jerusalem. I think we're up to our ears in Great Prophets in this game! I start healing our Southern army in Moscow--should be all healed within 2 turns. Worker chops a forest in Jerusalem....I'm not worried about another civ discovering Sistine before us, but I want it built and some Great Artist benefit before we pop another Prophet!

By the way, our great prophet lightbulbs part of Divine Right, as I thought this would be the best thing he could do--Divine Right will allow us to build the Spiral Minaret, which is a must, since we are playing religious juggernaught!


Our scout also gives us a view of Rostov.

TURN 2: 640 AD Jericho: Axeman--Library
I change up our civics from Theocracy to organized Religion and from Slavery to Caste System. Our scouts get a better glimpse of Rostov:

So we have 1 gold and 2 fish in the area.stupid AI! This would have been a great city had they founded it one more spce to the right! I wonder if we can fix that...

TURN 3: 660AD Scout dies :suicide: Yeah, i saw that coming. It was a suicide mission to get him that close to our enemy. Still, he gave us an idea of what Rostov looks like....Peter offers us Calendar for peace...I tell him to stick it. He's weak and he's stupid. He's not a Brother, he's not a friend..... (Just finished watching Godfather 2 for the 1000th time ) BTW, Russia's got a crazy litttle swordsman on our mined hill southwest of Hebron....trying to get an axeman up there, but too late, he pillages it.

But his days are numbered.

We start the siege of Novgorod:

IBT: We lose a swordsman to a russian axeman