RBC10 - Cultured Communist Comrades

[Kylearan]

I agree that a fast expansion phase (and a nice war or three ) is key for a 100k victory, that's why I mentioned not to forget researching pottery. And you may be right that an early temple in the first 2-4 cities isn't very important. However, I still think it's very dangerous to rely on buying CB from AIs in an archipelago setting, as your non-settler-farm cities will want to build a temple soon and may not be able to if you don't manage to find any AI, or only AIs without CB.

Kylearan

 

[Aggie]

So with Grimjack wanting to join the Russian team we have two games with one open slot left (when Ridgelake confirms).

Lord_all_mighty and 6thGenTexan want to fill those spots. Does one of you have a preference now that there appears to be a choice? The biggest differences are:

-Russia is demigod and continents
-Byzantines is emperor and archipelago

Shall I create a new thread for the Byzantines already?

 

[Lord_all_Mighty]

Could you place me in the Byzantines slot?

 

[Aggie]

OK Lord_all_Mighty. That makes our Byzantine team complete. Shall I start the game now people?

 

[T-hawk]

Go ahead, Aggie. You might want to PM Ridgelake as he hasn't checked in yet.

 

[Aggie]

OK, PM-ed him. The link to the Byzantine variant is here:
RBC11 - Cultured Communist Comrades variant

 

[T-hawk]

OK, and I think we're ready to roll this one too. I missed 6thGenTexan's signup when I checked the thread earlier, but I see it now.

ROSTER:

T-hawk
Bede
Justus II
Kylearan
6thGenTexan

Game settings:

Civ: Russia
Difficulty: Demigod
Map: Standard, Continents, 40% land
Climate: Cool, wet (Siberia )
AI Aggression: normal
Opponents: let's pick historical Russian opponents for flavor, and most of these are not culturally strong, too. America, Germany, Japan, Rome, Scandinavia, Mongols, ????

Rules: Standard, except that I'd like space and diplomatic victories disabled. We're here to play with communism, not get forced into desperate spaceship-killing capital captures.

Barbarians: Restless (Having some barbs forces us to be honest on military in the early game, rather than running farmer's gambit out to 10 cities and then panicking when someone declares war )

Kylearan, are you still sick/bored and looking for Civ to play? If so, would you like to do the honors of starting this one? Since expansionist civs have plenty to do in the early game, go 20 turns to start, then 10 each after that.

 

[Kabuki]

T-hawk - unless you've already started it I recommend China, Austria or Gemany for the last civ slot. Historically all are apropriate - Early modern era and WWII for China, Turn of century and WWI for Austria and Germany is rather obvious.

My 2 cents.

Looking forward to the games.

 

[Grimjack]

Sad to miss this one, I hope you have fun.

Grimjack

 

[Kylearan]

Kylearan, are you still sick/bored and looking for Civ to play? If so, would you like to do the honors of starting this one?

Well, I have recovered actually and have to catch up with lots of work and stuff, so...

Ah, what the heck, I hate my lack of self-control. I'll do it. But I'm still fairly new to the SG scene and never have started one before, so don't hesitate to if you spot any .

-Kylearan

EDIT: Grimjack, unless anybody objects you can join this one, too - T-hawk's original roster for this game had six slots, and we're only five players at the moment.

 

[Grimjack]

Great. I want to get my skills up to par on Cultural games.

Grimjack

 

[Kylearan]

I have set our opponents to be America, Germany, Japan, Rome, Scandinavia, Mongols and Ottomans. Here's our start...



4000BC (0): We're on a river, which is nice - I have the impression that you get fewer river starts in C3C with non-agricultural civs than before. We also have gems in reach and tobacco for some extra commerce, but no bonus food and rather barren lands around us. I move the scout on the mountain and the worker on the tobacco to get a better view but find nothing that would justify a move, so Moscow is founded and a scout is ordered.

We know pottery already so I start to research iron working, hoping for a trading opportunity. The alternative would have been to shut down research immediately, but we're scientific, so...

3600BC (8): Our second scout goes exploring, a third is ordered up.

3550BC (9): Moscow's borders will expand next turn and it will grow at the same time, so I raise lux now to prevent a clown when workers get reassigned during cultural expansion.

3500BC (10): Germany is contacted. A volcano erupts near our first scout, and I'm glad lava doesn't kill units as it should.

3450BC (11): Finally, we pop our first hut and get...maps.

3400BC (12): We produce a third scout and a warrior is ordered next. I hate to go over our free unit support so early, but with 40% land I wanted to take max advantage of our expansionist trait, and now we need a warrior to defend against any restless barbs.

3300BC (14): Another hut and...more maps.

3200BC (16): And another one: 25 gold. Seems the barbarian settlers are hiding somewhere together with their techs...
The newly produced warrior leaves Moscow for a short while to explore the rest of our immediate surroundings, and a granary is ordered up next.

3100BC (18): A Víking warrior is met in the east.

3050BC (19): Germany knows iron working now, grand.

3000BC (20): Finally, a hut yields something useful: Warrior code! The tech both our contacts know already, yeah...



There are some nice lands southwest of Moscow, a river with two cows and another river with flood plains, and there are spices to the east. To the north and west lies Siberia, though.

I had decided to continue research on iron working, maybe we can get it before Scandinavia or other AIs meet Germany.



May you have more luck with huts...

Roster:
T-hawk
Bede
Justus II
Kylearan
6thGenTexan
Grimjack

Edit: I guess we should do first come, first serve for the first rotation to finalize playing order.

-Kylearan

 

[T-hawk]

(Grimjack, you're in. My apologies for missing your signup before. )

OK. Looks like Moscow has a fairly dry start; it's a very non-optimal site for settler building. I think this calls for some unconventional tactics...

I would suggest this plan. Have Moscow build a settler right now, before the granary. Send that settler to white dot in this image:



Have that city be our settler pump instead. (Build an archer or two first to defend against barbs.) Then have Moscow build the Pyramids. The Pyramids will provide the civ-wide growth we'll need to get a large number of cities out there and functioning quickly. This plan leverages the strengths of each of those sites better than having Moscow be a typical granary-settler-settler producer. Moscow should then later be in good shape to try for the Great Library and/or Temple of Artemis, while all the other cities put out settlers.

What does everyone think?

As for the roster, I'm not a fan of grab-it-and-go methods. Let's keep it in the order Kylearan listed. 6thGenTexan, that would make you up now, hope you are watching.

 

[Kylearan]

Getting a city in a more food-heavy region and making a settler factory out of it certainly is a must in this situation. White dot is awfully close to Moscow, but I understand that 100k victories need dense settling - I need to adapt to that.

I would have had Moscow produce military and additional settlers, but of course getting the pyramids would be much better - we all know their power, especially with our expected high number of cities. However, I have small doubts if we will be able to get them. In my last demigod games, the first wonders fell quickly, and Moscow isn't exactly the best place for building wonders with its slow growth. But I don't want to spread too much pessimism here; let's try it anyway!

Regarding the roster, in theory I like the grab-and-go method for the first round, as it should adapt quite well to different time zones and playtime habits. But of course the given roster is fine as well.


So, roster again:

T-hawk
Bede
Justus II
Kylearan
6thGenTexan <-- UP NOW
Grimjack <-- on deck


-Kylearan

 

[Justus II]

I'll throw in my vote for the Pyramids as well, especially after reading T-Hawk's comments in RBC11. It's a high-payoff wonder, and even if we miss it, there are plenty of other wonders to fall back on. With the added early wonders, it seems the cascades last longer and longer. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing but it does make going for early wonders a little "safer".

 

[Kylearan]

Yes, I too think we will be able to fall back on another wonder if we miss the pyramids. However, only the great library or the temple of artemis are really useful to us. For all other wonders, more settlers/escorts would have been better in this scenario.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying to get the pyramids - I believe we have a chance to get them, but it's more risky than usual IMHO. I just wanted to point out that we also pay a higher price than usual if we miss the pyramids, the great library and the temple of artemis.

Of course, even then an early war will get us more cities in any case... (Hm, somehow I think a lot more about early wars since I played with Charis... )

-Kylearan

 

[T-hawk]

I was bored at work and so decided to run a couple 'simulations' of the game in a spreadsheet.

A surprising, counterintuitive result: Moscow builds the Pyramids about three turns sooner if it goes granary-settler-Pyramids than if it goes settler-Pyramids! The granary actually recovers more than 60 shields due to faster growth, by the time the wonder is finished. With a granary, Moscow reaches the size-7 plateau producing 10 shields per turn (using the one forest) 37 turns from right now. Without it, that doesn't happen until 60 turns from now.

This does assume sufficient worker labor to always provide irrigated plains tiles when Moscow grows and needs them. So Moscow needs to keep the original worker and white dot's first job will be to build a worker for itself. (BTW, Tex, the worker's next job should be to move south and irrigate that plains tile. Sorry, I can't resist giving out micromanagement instructions. )

And finally, if we do happen to miss the Pyramids, then Moscow still has a granary for future use.

So, 6thGenTexan, stick with that granary build; and of course briefly slow growth (use the forest) so that the granary completes before the next city growth.

 

[6thGenTexan]

I'm here and I've got it. Whe I first saw I was up, I thought I was playing with a group on Europeans who did not watch the Super Bowl. It took a minute to realize I'm number 2 not 5.

The plan will be complete the Granary before growth, get the settler to the white dot and build the Pyramids.

If our whole military force is the one warrior trying to beat the Germans to the nothern huts, how much will another warrior from Moscow risk our chances for to complete the Pyramids?

 

[T-hawk]

A warrior from Moscow will set back the Pyramids by a turn or two. I couldn't possibly say whether that would make the difference in us missing them or not.

Thanks to Charis over in RBC11, I also realized that we need to somehow get Masonry so we can actually start building the wonder (there isn't any prebuild Moscow can use)... do any of our neighbors have it yet?

 

[6thGenTexan]

Looking at the save now and no one we know has Masonry yet. Too bad we are not near the coast to do some sea exploring.