RBC14A - Age of Discovery - Portugal, Sid

T-hawk

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Ok, here we go.

General info:

We are Portugal, Religious and Seafaring. We start in a Golden Age prior to the first turn, having automatically built the Dias' Voyage great wonder (and get 400 VP for it). We have no Unique Unit.

We start with six cities. Two developed cities in Europe, one in Morocco, and three size-1 island cities with a couple improvements, one with a harbor. Lisbon starts with almost everything already built (a colosseum is the only omission) - it also starts with a useless courthouse that I'll sell unless someone can think of a reason not to.

Most of the available units - swords, MDI, pikemen, knights, longbows - are standard. Musketmen are 3-4-1 and there is a 2-3-1 Swiss Pikeman. Colonists, settlers for 1 population, are available with Printing Press on the first level of the tech tree.

Minimum research is 80 turns; we can get on to the Native American branch that way, but there isn't anything there besides cultural buildings and a couple wonders that we'd never get.

I think we're best off just leaving research off at the beginning - there isn't any tech we can get first, and the tech tree is quite wide, meaning plenty of brokering opportunity at each step.

By "corruption is lowered", the game means the corruption slider on the Difficulty Levels page is lowered to 70% for all difficulties. The standard OCN is 16, but the penalty of it being 50% of usual on Sid is still in effect, so corruption will still be a big problem.

Tundra and desert are impassable, which removes the Sahara in Africa from play. Southern Africa is in play, and has resources to exploit and no rival civs, which gives me an idea...

Proposed plan: Run a settler down to somewhere in Africa ASAP, and have it build the Forbidden Palace ("Colonial Capital", 160 shields, available with a second-level tech). We aren't going to be able to build a FP in the Americas in the short timeframe of this game, and on Sid we can't war for the sole purpose of getting a Leader for it, but we can build it in Africa and make much of that land productive.

Any suggestions on that plan or any other comments?

I'll shuffle the roster around a bit from the last game, so we get folks following different folks. This look good? :

T-hawk << UP NOW
Speaker << On Deck
Jabah
Charis
Arathorn

Map of the starting position in the next post, after making initial adjustments of lux tax to 10% and build order and tile assignments.
 
rbc14a-start.jpg


It does feel a bit wasteful building population out of size-8 Lisbon, but we need to start expanding with settlers, and the city doesn't have any space around it to grow into anyway. I peeked in the editor and Madrid starts with 100 culture while Lisbon only starts with 10 :mad: so our city won't get ahead even with Dias' Voyage.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/rbc14a-1490ad.zip
 
Checking in...

Any chance Lisbon can get ahead of Seville in culture and reclaim some squares that way? I hate seeing our capital not even in control of its first ring....

Other things to note:
- Ocean squares take two movement points to cross, so be wary.
- Lots of units (MDI, knight at least) have amphibious attack, so don't think Azores or Medeira or Cape Verde Islands are secure because they are one-tile islands. Those towns can fall.
- Everyone should read the Civilopedia in more depth -- lots of things change, like some things that are normally luxuries aren't.

Arathorn
 
Checking in as well.

I have no idea about this scenario. Just hope we can convince Spain to follow the 'no war in Europe' restriction.

Jabah
 
Wasn't there a bug where commerce calculations were wrong when you changed the corruption slider?
 
What limitations are we imposing on ourselves? I think that's a key question. Lots of things have been discussed and the other RBC14 threads are going in all kinds of different directions.

I feel fairly strongly that if our capital leaves Europe, we should consider the game lost, even if we technically can still win it. Other than that....
- Do we war in Europe? If so, to what extent? Do we instigate war on turn 1 when we can get paid for alliances and the Sid discounts haven't really kicked in?

My answers are "Only if pressed", "To recapture our cities only and/or pillage", "No" in that order.

What other things might we want to be concerned about? Anybody have better options for my questions?

Arathorn
 
Hi! I'm here... checking in :king:

I think Arathorn hit the main issues I was concerned about, and I lean for the need to maintain a capital actually in Europe, and identical answers
to Arathorn: offensive war? "Only if pressed", when? "To recapture our cities only and/or pillage", war on turn 1? "No"

Charis
 
I think that's a good compromise, T-hawk. No more treasures but we can try for cultural (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!) victory or a VP victory from fighting. As long as we avoid cashing in treasures in America, I think I'll be happy.

[Needless to say, I think it'll be 400% easier to win by cashing in treasures in Europe, but a back-up plan is always good to have in place.]

Arathorn
 
And awaaay we go!

As I said, my plan is to focus on Africa initially rather than the Americas. Lisbon starts building a settler immediately to go build our future FP city in Africa.

On the first turn, I send one caravel (movement 8) with a pikeman and explorer from Lisbon west towards North America. The caravel in Cape Verde loads up the MDI that starts there and heads for the Ivory Coast of Africa. The last caravel in Lisbon moves north to uncover some extra map info and will return in a few turns to take the settler south.

Research is shut off as I mentioned.

Selling the newly uncovered map data around gets us 7 gold per civ - a nice figure that we'll probably be able to keep up for some time.

==========

1491 AD: Lisbon's culture did indeed get ahead of Seville. Oporto worker -> explorer. More sailing and selling of maps.

1492 AD: More map sales. I'll keep doing this every turn.

1493 AD: Lisbon settler->worker. Load the settler and pikeman and head south.

Land the pikeman somewhere around North Carolina. Keep sailing around past Florida with the explorer. More map sales.

Dutch demand 48 gold, paid.

Between turns, our pikeman watches a Spanish caravel land a settler pair in North Carolina (already?!)

1494 AD: Lisbon worker->pikeman, to replace the other one. Oporto explorer->settler. Ceuta worker->worker.

Contact the Iroquois; even though there's Iroquois units two tiles away from Spanish units, they haven't made contact yet. Sell Alphabet to the Iros (at monopoly) for their WM + 150 gold. Sell the Iro contact around to all the European civs to pick up about 120 gold total.

Also contact the Maya; sell them Alphabet for their WM + 88 gold.
Also contact the Aztecs; sell them Alphabet for their WM + 101 gold.
Sell all the maps to the Europeans to collect almost all their remaining gold; I don't sell these contacts to the Europeans yet because most of them are now broke.

1495 AD: Two barbarian archers kill the MDI that I had exploring Africa. Oops.

1496 AD: Move pikeman and settler into place to build our Forbidden Palace city in Africa.

1497 AD: Rio de Janeiro founded. City is over 50% corrupt! but a cash-rushed courthouse will fix that. I'll rush a temple first, though.

Contact the Inca and sell them Alphabet+WM for 185 gold. Explorer is exploring South America while the caravel wanders the Caribbean.

Spain demands contact with the Maya, and we cough it up.

Dias' Voyage in Lisbon produces a Colonist! I didn't realize that would happen, but excellent!

1498 AD: Load the colonist + pikeman + explorer on a caravel that returned from Rio.

1499 AD: Cash-rush a courthouse in Rio.

1500 AD: Sell maps for the n-th time.
 
Notes:
Oporto will grow this turn and auto-pick the iron hill to complete the pikeman; let it do that. (Don't reassign Lisbon to that tile.)

Rio de Janeiro is on top of ivory; rush a harbor here next turn to get that connected, then have it start a Forbidden Palace (Colonial Capital) prebuild. The Colonial Capital is available with Colonization on the second level of the tech tree.

We have 1781 gold in the treasury, but don't get greedy! Keep research off and wait to broker. You can't go paying first-civ research prices on Sid.

Ceuta is a worker farm extraordinaire. Keep shipping workers from here to Africa.

The caravel down by Rio has a colonist-pikeman pair; find some location that looks good. There's a gold mine under the fog at the nearest river to Rio; I'd recommend settling on or near that to have an easy, quick treasure producer. The next colonist after that should probably go inland, near where that barbarian camp is.

I have no idea what to build in the island cities; have fun. :) I also have no idea how much to try to garrison the European cities; Sid Spain could sneeze and wipe us off the map. There's already a Spanish longbow parked in our territory; it's been there since the first turn; I have no idea what it thinks it's doing.

T-hawk
Speaker << UP NOW
Jabah << On Deck
Charis
Arathorn
 

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T-hawk said:
anarres, I have no idea what you're talking about, can you elaborate?
Sorry it took so long, I've been away.

Here is the bug report, it took me over 30 mins to find it in the bugs forum!!!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=69277

It may have been fixed in a patch, it has certainly been reported more than once in the bug forum.
 
Looks good T-Hawk. Got it.

Off Topic: I watched your alma mater get blown out in the NCAA Lacrosse Quarterfinals the other day, T-Hawk. Despite the tough ending against a loaded team with a great shot at winning the national championship, it was a great season for your school. Easily their best ever. Don't know if you have any interest in lacrosse, but I thought it was interesting.
 
Really off topic, yeah.... I never paid much attention to school sports when I was at Stevens, and even less after I graduated. I actually was aware of the lacrosse team making the quarterfinals this year -- but only because their doing so meant they needed the school's athletic field (we have only one) to practice, kicking my fraternity off of it when we had it reserved for a softball game with our alumni association on our alumni reunion day. I mostly hated my school when I was there, and don't have any love for it now either. Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity is the real legacy of my college years.

BTW, congrats on your own graduation too, Speaker [party] :goodjob:
 
IT- Pick up an extra 50 gold hawking our WM.

Madrid builds Sistine Chapel.

1501AD (1): Oporto Pikeman => Caravel. Oporto mm'd for growth. Horses are connected. Explorers churn up a ton of map. These suckers can really fly. Rush harbor in Rio. Land colonist-pike pair next to the goldmine. Make a bunch of cash trading WM (I'll do this every turn, so no need to report).

IT- France demands contact with the Inca and I give it.

1502AD (2): Ceuta Worker => Worker. I wonder if it could reach 10spt and 5fpt at size 6 for a colonist every other turn. Rio Harbor => Copernicus (prebuild for FP).

IT- France builds Leonardo's Workshop.

1503AD (3): Sao Paulo founded on goldmine in Africa. Starts courthouse. Netherlands now have Printing Press, but no one else has any new tech. Worker and pikeman being sent to Africa.

IT- Some Aztec troop movement (1 jag). Spanish longbow vacates the area near Lisbon.

1504AD (4): Ceuta Worker => Worker. Continue the worker shuffle to Africa. Lisbon Pikeman => Pikeman. Oporto Caravel => Caravel. Caravel grabs pikeman and an explorer and heads to South America.

1505AD (5): England and Netherlands now have Magnetism and Printing Press. France has nothing.

1506AD (6): Colonist produced in Lisbon. Ceuta Worker => Worker. France has Magnetism, so a two-fer is possible, though I will have to buy @3rd. I'm afraid of getting shut out if Spain develops Printing Press next turn, so I go ahead and make the deal (shadowing the next turn shows I would have been shut out, and buying PP @5th would cost around 1600). I buy Printing Press @3rd from England for 1750 gold and trade it to France with 580 gold for Magnetism. I recoup some of our losses by selling Spain Printing Press for 23gpt and 30 gold.

1507AD (7): Colonist is loaded onto a boat with a worker and sent to Africa. Pikeman in Florids disperses a Seminole encampment and we pick up 25 bucks. Two close island cities (Madeira and Azores) switch over to Colonists, with a Carrack and Pikeman due from the homeland next turn (partial rush in Oporto).

IT- Pikeman in Florida promotes against a barb.

1508AD (8): Lisbon Pikeman => Pikeman. Oporto Carrack => Carrack. Ceuta Worker => Worker. Madeira Colonist => Colonist. Damn English Carrack is blocking the one-tile passage next to the Canary Islands, so our Caravel must go around. Disperse a Songhay settlement in Africa near the Ivory.

IT- Barb archer kills our 3/4 pikeman in North Carolina.

1509AD (9): Our first Carrack will be finished loading next turn. I meant to rush the last few shields of the colonist in Azores but forgot, setting me back a turn. Spain now has Gunpowder, which she sold to England for our cash and Magnetism.

IT- Madrid builds Copernicus.

1510AD (10): Navigation School in Lisbon produces an explorer. Ceuta worker => worker. Disperse a Cherokee encampment in North Carolina (or so). I have left some movement on 4 workers on the homeland, since all tiles are improved up there. I have also left movement for a few caravels.

Conclusion- Game is really starting to pick up now with colonists becoming widespread. I suspect we will have to start settling in North and South America to pick up treasure, although there are 3 more unclaimed treasure units in Africa which we should grab as well. I had planned for that unloaded colonist near Rio to settle near the Ivory, but if so desired, a caravel can be brought down to send it to the other gold. We are still several techs away from mining though, so building a few more cities will be more beneficial I think. Watch out for a potential two-fer opportunity, which should happen soon, since Gunpowder is out there. Have fun.
 

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I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy your time at school, T-Hawk. I loved mine, and am pretty sad that I had to graduate. I never pictured you as a fraternity member, but then again, my school didn't have any, so I guess that's a portion of college society I don't really know about. I know that my team tried to create as much of a fraternity atmosphere as we could and certainly did enjoy ourselves. Thanks for the congratulations. Now I just have to find a job...

Now back to your regularly-scheduled Civing:

T-hawk
Speaker
Jabah << Up Now
Charis << On Deck
Arathorn
 
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