RBC11 - Cultured Communist Comrades variant (Byzantines/emperor/archipelago)

[Aggie]

RBC10 proved to be so popular that it was decided to start a 2nd game with the same theme. This theme is to explore the effectiveness of Communism in C3C, while trying for a national culture victory (100K victory).

This is an emperor difficulty level game. It may seem a relatively low level, but the pangaea shape of the world may make it difficult to get 100K. Our civ of choice is the mighty Byzantines.

VARIANT RULES: We must follow the government sequence of Despotism-Feudalism-Communism.

GAME RULES (added info on barbs, victory types, AI aggression, opponents on feb 2, 9.30 AM CET):
Standard/unmodified. Standard map, 30% land, archipelago.
AI Aggression: normal
Opponents: random
Rules: Standard, all standard single player victories enabled
Barbarians: Roaming

ROSTER (updated feb 3rd, 11.30 PM CET):
Aggie
Charis
JMB
Dwip
Ridgelake
Lord_all_Mighty

I will start with 25 turns. Next up can take 15/20 turns, and the next leader 10-15, then 10 each turn after that.

When you're up, 24hrs to post a "got it" notice, and up to 48hrs after that to finish and post your turns.

Here I go. The very first time for me to start a SG. I hope I don't make too many decisions.

Turn 1 (4000 AD) The start looks very promising. We have a river, three bonus grassland tiles and a wheat. To name a few highlights:



I settle on the spot. We now see game SW of us I start Pottery at 100% (due in 12). First unit will be a warrior. I wanted to start with a curragh, but there is a goody hut that might pop barbarians once our borders expand:



Turn 2 - 5 (3950 - 3800 BC BC) Worker starts irrigation of the wheat.

Turn 6 (3750 BC) Worker roads the wheat.

Turn 7 (3700 BC) Constantinople grows to size 2 and lux tax adjusted to 10%.

Turn 8 (3650 BC) Constantinople: warrior->curragh.

Turn 9 (3600 BC) Worker finished roading and goes to a bonus grassland tile.

Turn 10 (3550 BC) Worker starts mining the BG tile. Science to 80%. Pottery in 2.

Turn 11 (3500 BC) Our borders expand and we pop barbs from the hut Our warrior kills one barb, but is red-lined. Since he left home, lux has to go to 10%.

Turn 12 (3450 BC) We discovered Pottery. Constantinople grows to size 3. Lux can stay at 10% as the warrior returns. Research to Writing at max (in 40).

Turn 13 (3400 BC) Constantinople: curragh->curragh.
The remaining barbarian decides to do nothing just outside our borders.

Turn 14, 15 (3350 - 3300 BC) Curragh sails north-east.

Turn 16 (3250 BC) Worker roads the mined BG tile. A laborer is swapped from the game to the lake for extra commerce. The curragh will still be finished next turn.

Turn 17 (3200 BC) Constantinople: Curragh->granary. Constantinople is now size 4. Lux goes to 20%.

Turn 18 (3150 BC) One curragh continues sailing north-east, the other goes north-west.

Turn 19 (3100 BC) BG tile roading finished.

IT: The last barbarian moves in the direction of our worker.

Turn 20 (3050 BC) Our warrior moves on the mountain to prevent that the barb goes there. Worker starts mining another BG tile. Lux to 30%.

Turn 21 (3000 BC) Warrior kills the last barb.

IT: The 'History of the world' reveals the largest nations:

-Iroquois
-Americans
-Aztecs
-Inca
-Romans
-Vikings
-Hittites
-Byzantines

Turn 22 (2950 AD) Constantinople is size 5 now. Lux to 40%.

Turn 23 (2900 AD) The warrior returns home. Lux can be dropped to 30%. We meet the Hittites. They appear to be on our island. They have Warrior Code over us and also still have only one city.

Turn 24 (2850 BC)

Turn 25 (2800 BC) Our curragh to the north-east sees red borders.

The granary will be ready in one turn. The research is at top speed towards Writing and Philosophy. We appear to be on a large landmass, shared with at least the Hittites and the Romans.
The world as we know it:



To the northeast we see a Hittite city. The Romans are even further to the east.

Charis<-- up
Dwip<---- on deck

2800 BC save

 

[Ridgelake]

Checking in. Been out of town. Will comment more when I have a chance to catch up.

 

[Charis]

We're on a standard map with archipelago, but 40% (lots) of land which plays
almost like continents. Despots-Feudalsits-Communists. Going for 100K. That
means a *fast* and aggressive expansion, LOTS of cities, and lots of libraries/
temples from each one. We'll be "pop-rushers" the entire game.

No weed in those turns Aggie, nice job, although this comment may have displayed a
misunderstanding:

> First unit will be a warrior. I wanted to start with a curragh, but there is a
> goody hut that might pop barbarians once our borders expand:

If you have NO military units you will NEVER get a barbarian from a hut, which is
precisely why something other than a warrior would have been good. (Alas, it may still
have been correct because I'm not sure if a boat would count to avoid barb warriors!)
Nice opening spot. Looking at the list of foes, you either had cultural groups on
or we were hit by the "American Group" bug, sheesh - America, Incans, and Aztecs.

> Turn 23 (2900 AD) The warrior returns home. Lux can be dropped to 30%. We meet the
> Hittites. They appear to be on our island. They have Warrior Code over us and also
> still have only one city.
Wow, just one city still???? There *WILL* be an ancient war (or two) to swallow them
completely, so future leaders should keep this in mind, it's really not optional with
our 100K goal. Those Romans will eventually go too, but they might not get a whoppin'
til later with their Legions. BTW, we usually count 4000BC as turn 0, so 25 turns
usually ends at 2750BC - no biggie. We're scientific (cheap libs/univ) and seafaring
(extra commerce bonus if city founded on coast, plus cheap harbor and +1 ship movement
and better chance to not sink) OK, here we go, aiming to take 15-20 turns.

[0] 2800 - Granary due in 1, growth due in 2, well timed! I hate leaving my immediately
land unexplored, so the warriors hit the road (lux tax must go up)
[1] 2750 - Granary->Settler. Indeed we do contact Rome, who is only up Warrior Code,
same as Hitties (wow, reverse culture shock, tis nice to be on Emperor )
[2] 2710 - Settler due in 2.
[4] 2630 - Now what... settler wouldn't hurt of course, but a quick Colossus has
a lot of merit too. It would not hurt to have us let Constantinople grow large
and hit 10-15spt and let another city be the settler farm, but we'll need a 'good
food' spot nearby to do that. The settler heads EAST, toward our foe, not away from
it, as backfill will be easier. Actually, rivers and fresh water will be scarce,
so I'm going to put the next city unusually close, right on the inland lake.
We run into Vikings out in their boat, and they have WC, Masonry and CB (AND gold)
They must have met several others, so we're heading the right way
[5] 2510 - Adrianople is founded, but we'll still need a higher food city. Curragh.
[9] 2350 - We sail by and meet the Incans, with WC and Masonry, and see green borders.
[10] 2310 - Those green are Aztecs, with Wheel and WC, and finally a civ that lacks one
of our techs! Alphabet nets both of these plus 10g. Vikings are still up Mas+CB,
Incans up Masonry and lack Wheel, Rome down wheel, Hitties, even. However, Incans
must be about to get Wheel.
[13] 2190 - Adrianople, Curragh->another (vetoable, perhaps granary, but I want to
send one Curragh right to explore lands for us to settle and one left to see new
regions). Barb camp found up north.
[14] 2150 - Nice cattle just east of us, but sadly, tundra to south below that.
Tech situation about unchanged, except Incans did come up with Wheel.
[15] 2110 - Barb camp cleared. Sell Rome Wheel for 20g while we still can.
[18] 1990 - IBT Colossus completes in Constantinople
Our capital can now hit 15spt (and +0 food) but lacking anything 30 shields to build,
we go high food and 10/11 spt for now, to get a few cheap MP (regular warrs),
then our next choice will be: rax and units, or Pyramids (!) I would definitely
not suggest non-vet spears/archers.
[19] 1950 - Aztecs start Pyramids, hmm, that was OUR idea *BUT* I look at the
top city list and ALL other capitals are size *2* while we are size 7! Aztec's cap
isn't even listed. If we go for Pyramids now, we can get them!
The added commerce of the Colossus lets us speed up Writing, now due in 4.
Rome has Iron Working, as do Vikings who still monopolize Burial. A few others have
Masonry which Rome has. Writing due in 4 should get all known tecs. I'll hand off then.
[20] 1910 - We see ivory north of the cow - that's our next site!
[23] 1790 - Writing comes in. With our nice commerce we can research Philosophy in 12,
which is nice and will give a free tech. We're first to writing, and let's see.
Vikings have IW,CB,Mas, Incans have Mas+CB, Aztecs have Mas, Romans have IW, Hittites
have nothing. Writing to Vikings for IW+Masonry+70g. IW to Incans for CB+25g.
Aztecs get IW for 50g. Note they DON'T get CB to let them start on culture. Note
also that our closest neighbors, Hitties and Romans, get NADA. This is to keep them
a little behind the pack. The downside risk is -- if they demand it.
Constantinople starts Pyramids, due in 25. (Pardon going over a few, I wanted to MM
the capital's prebuild and sell around Writing)

We're now the most advanced and richest nation on the planet.

Notes/thoughts:
- After Philosophy, free tech might be: Map Making (Dromons!), pricey Construction,
Literature for cheap culture (and GL), or if we had Myst and Poly by then, Monarchy.
- If we need to make a suicide galley run AFTER exploring all the area we can 'get to',
that's fine, but don't throw them away - the Curragh upgrade to our nice Dromons.
- We have several pathways ahead of us, it would be good to discuss as a group
what is preferred:

1) Pyramids. If left alone, the strongest long-term move which will make for
the most rapid expansion in the medium-long run. Obviously a slow expansion at
the get-go, but we seem to have space and time? Upside - with Pyramids and Colossus
our expansion period, fueled by Dromons-GA, would be explosive. Downside - if
we're attacked about 5-10 turns in, our defenses are very weak. This doesn't scare
me, but if the team finds this too risky, so be it.
2) Rax and units from Constantinople, found 1-2 more cities, then go to war for
further expansion. If Hitties were to poach land right on top of us, this has
merit, but if they're further away, tis senseless. No one can demand on us or scare
us going this path, but it's the "shortest" term in focus.
3) Rex, not Rax, go heavy settlers and continue the near farmer's gambit low-military
we have so far. This removes immediate danger and expands well short term, but
it's not as good long term as getting Pyramids first.
Note that with just 25 turns to Pyramid, we're only talking about 4-5 settlers, vs the
savings of a free granary in every city on our continent, founded and captured.

If it's not clear, I favor the Pyramids approach. Colossus cost us short term expansion,
but it's going to make us rich tech leaders for the rest of the era. Pyramids is the
same short term sacrifice for a long term gain. Our 100K goal will be best served by
filling our entire continent ASAP with about 2 or 3 dozen temple-library-whipped
3-step-apart-from-each-other cities. Pyramids, big horse build up and a lot of
ancient war will see us through 2/3 of the continent, and Knights vs Legions the rest.



In the image above, the near iron (far away!) is circled, as are closeby horses.
FILLED red dots are good city sites. The cattle-ivory is great, and coastal.
The white box is another close city-site, grabbing the horses, 3-steps from capital,
and coastal. There are lots of back-fill spots West of capital, but except for maybe
one I would avoid those and settle east first. The darker red circles are further
East and likely too far to get to first or to hold, but include a iron-horse site,
wheat, river site, with everything coastal. Get that cow spot first, and note that
with one warrior south of it we can blockade the tundra area for later settling.

Aggie
Charis
Dwip <-- UP
JMB <-- On Deck
Ridgelake
LAM

RBC11 Save file 1790BC

Good luck, Dwip,
Charis

 

[Dwip]

Ruh-roh. Feast day in Dwipland. I don't think I can get to this AND RBC9 tomorrow, so it might be best if JMB and I swap in the roster order.

 

[Aggie]

Great to see us catch the Colossus I'd go for the Pyramids and if that's not the preferred road by others, I'd go for option 3.

Edit: Welcome Ridgelake.

EDIT2: Regarding the cattle/ivory site: one tile SE will give us the whales in expanded borders!

I would settle near the cattle and horses sites first (both east of us).

 

[Aggie]

Originally posted by Dwip Ruh-roh. Feast day in Dwipland. I don't think I can get to this AND RBC9 tomorrow, so it might be best if JMB and I swap in the roster order.

That's OK to me:
- JMB----> up
- Dwip--> on deck

EDIT: I changed the roster in the first post as well.

 

[Aggie]

Originally posted by Charis
We're on a standard map with archipelago, but 40% (lots) of land which plays almost like continents.

Woops, I made a mistake in my report there. I created a 30% land map, not 40%! It is corrected in the first post now.

Originally posted by Charis ...this comment may have displayed a misunderstanding:

> First unit will be a warrior. I wanted to start with a curragh, but there is a
> goody hut that might pop barbarians once our borders expand:

If you have NO military units you will NEVER get a barbarian from a hut, which is precisely why something other than a warrior would have been good. (Alas, it may still have been correct because I'm not sure if a boat would count to avoid barb warriors!)

Thanks for the tip! I've learned a lot of little but significant things in the last couple of days with comments in SG's.

 

[Speaker]

Any chance of sneaking in Code of Laws before Philosophy and grabbing the Republic as your free tech?

 

[Kylearan]

They won't become a republic in this game, only feudalism and communism are allowed.
Trading it away could yield a lot of other techs and money, but I'm not sure if that makes up for the disadvantage that the AIs could revolt into a better government earlier, and the trading could be done with other monopoly techs nearly as good.

 

[Speaker]

Originally posted by Kylearan
They won't become a republic in this game, only feudalism and communism are allowed.

Open mouth, insert foot.

 

[JMB]

Ok, I see it and will try to play tomorrow... Speaker, with how I've heard that the AI now prioritizes Philosophy, I don't think we'd be the first to research it if we researched CoL first.

JMB

 

[Speaker]

Originally posted by JMB
Ok, I see it and will try to play tomorrow... Speaker, with how I've heard that the AI now prioritizes Philosophy, I don't think we'd be the first to research it if we researched CoL first.

Not that you'd want to in this game, but it is very possible to research CoL and then Philosophy on emperor. I have not found that the AI prioritizes it at all, and the Colossus and size of Constantinople will help fund research.

 

[Aggie]

True, we want to get Feudalism, but Republic still is the most attractive tech to have in the ancient age, because the AI likes to pay a lot for it. That said: we are already wel on our way to Philo, so I agree with JMB to stick to the research path.

We should be able to grab it, unless one of the expansionist civs pops a hut (like NMT2).

EDIT: Like Speaker I have noticed that Philo isn't that populair with the AI.

 

[T-hawk]

If I might comment, to Charis... what in the world were you doing building the Colossus? That sets back founding of several cities by dozens of turns.

20k and 100k culture games require very, very different strategies. The Colossus is top-notch for 20k, but it's almost meaningless for 100k.

Culture from wonders is virtually invisible when going for a 100k cultural victory. Your Colossus will provide about 1400 culture by 1950 AD. That's less than a third of what will be generated by a simple regular city with regular improvements! And spending time on the Colossus this soon certainly cost you at least a third of a city's worth of expansion. The Colossus adds at most 12 trade to its city. You can get that by simply building two more settlers with the resources that went into the Colossus.

For a look at the general thrust of a multi-city cultural opening, have a look at the reports of Epic 29. Those who got their five cities founded the fastest made out best with culture in the long run.

The Pyramids, however, are definitely worthwhile. Nothing else comes close to speeding the growth of a large number of cities like that wonder. Double growth = double shields from terrain and double population available for whipping.

 

[Charis]

I was wondering if the Colossus would raise any eyebrows

It may not be best, for the reasons T-Hawk cited. It slows down laying down the first several cities. I didn't choose it, btw, for the cultural value - you're right that's a pittance for 100K while useful for 20K. I wanted to try something a little different, taking a longer term approach than pure rex. My main two objectives for the reign were to make more Curraghs and explore, and to let Constantinople grow to a useful size rather than cycle small and do settlers.

Colossus set us back 18 turns in the capital - but in actuality less since going settler-settler would cycle it at between very inefficient 2-4 sizes and turns would be lost with the paltry shields - so a dozen turns at most, certainly not 'dozens'. It did put us in great shape for research and economy, and established it as a 15spt city, which dovetails into phase 2 - Pyramids and/or a horse or sword based expansion. It looked to me like we had extra time before interference from the Hittites. Also, with all the Curraghs and no MP, our econ would have been shoddy with the typical opening. Notice, btw, how slow Burial was to get discovered by anyone, and how long it was before we could purchase it.

I've had one 100K Emperor win before, and I was surprised at the time just how little impact the core cities had, and how the number of cities was the dominant factor; this influenced my choice. Had I followed Epic 29 more closely however, I may have concluded like T-Hawk did that the first 4-5 cities were key. So yes, it was different, but for good reasons and not a misguided 20K view, and yes, maybe it won't turn out great, we shall see. (If a high-food settler farm city had shown up nearby out of the fog, it would have looked better I think.) I may, after several more player turns, when we have Pyramids and about 4-6 cities, try a quick replay without Colossus and see how the two compare)

I'm glad you agree that Pyramids would be HUGE for us, doubling our whipping power for ages to come.

Thanks,
Charis

 

[T-hawk]

I do understand the logic of building a wonder quickly rather than squeezing out settlers from a small-size city. That's common in my game plans, yes.

But, the *best* option would've been to put those 200 shields into the Pyramids instead of the Colossus, no? I can't believe that didn't occur to you...?

 

[Greebley]

A lurker comment:

One advantage of the colossus is increased chance of an SL. At emperor, you can actually keep up in research given the right conditions. If you pull an SL it could be a big boon, getting the lighthouse AND pyramids for example.

One advantage of emperor level is it allows for more strategies because you don't always need to take the optimal one to win. I like playing some games at emperor for this reason - you can do things like going for the Colossus.

Besides don't communists like big statues?

 

[Charis]

True, T-Hawk, Pyramids first would have been even better, since the coastal requirement of Colossus meant we could have been first there anyway. The only problem with that, and why it was never mentioned, was that I could NOT buy Masonry. By the time Colossus was due to complete, I was near broke and no purchase opportunities -- this was due to going full-bore on Writing (which we did get to first). I could have slowed down shields for 4 turns to get Writing first, to have something to trade for Masonry, but was scared that someone else would get their first and leave us really behind in tech (and still no Masonry).

Good point by Greebley that a SGL could rush Pyramids But no, that's too remote to claim that as support for the Colossus.
Point well taken on the possible sub-optimality of Colossus, but in the absense of Masonry I thought it something interesting to try.

EDIT - lol, just read RBC10 post. I love the idea of immediate settler to white dot for non-capital settler farm and going for Pyramids as a long-term winner! On Demigod you'll do well to get one quick wonder, nevermind the two we're going for here.

Charis

 

[Aggie]

Although the Colossus probably isn't the best way to start when going for 100K, I must say that Greebly has a point when he states that this increases our science output and therefore our SGL chances for a long period Besides, I've played a lot of OCC's lately and I grew very fond of the Colossus

 

[Ridgelake]

Well, I actually like the Colossus move. Definitely not what I would have expected. But as Greebley said, communists are supposted to like big statues. Now we have one of Comrade Charis.

In looking at the map, I would be sorely tempted to send the next settler to the ivory/cow/whale. First build a worker, then start on Zeus. Ancient Cavs will be wonderfully helpful in taking out the neighbors.