RBD16 SG - Opium Moghuls Luxury Game

[Charis]

RBD Succession Game 16 - The Opium Mughals

The Mughals of India were a strong people with a rise to dominance, a Muslim
empire spanning from 1526-1857. In the late 1500's, led by Akbar, Opium was
a significant source of revenue and its impact was worldwide, although the
trade of these 'luxuries' were considered illicit by many. In this SG we
explore the aspects of a game focused greatly on luxury trade as a source of
happiness and wealth.

The Mughal leaders here have a goal, and one goal only, to achieve
magnificent wealth and power through the trade of luxuries. They disdain
religious and western forms of luxury, and do not build or use the temple,
cathedral, colloseum. Happiness wonders are special - they do NOT want these
in the hands of others and must control all happiness great wonders to win.
They must also have all eight luxuries available in all their cities to win.
The emphasis is on trade and luxuries, obviously, and a strong military
may be unavoidable.

Game Summary:
Civ: Mughals, led by Padshah Akbar in the city of Agra (Mughals replace India)
Traits: Commercial / Expansionist
Techs: Alphabet and Pottery
Map: Large, continents, medium land mass
UU: Pachyderm. 1.1.1. Shields: 30. Carries one foot unit, can build colony.
Requires Currency and Horses. All terrain as roads. (Scouts on steroids! )
Unit changes: Taj Mahal replaces Hanging Gardens (in name only)
Smith's Trading Company: Increases luxury trade, +50% lux output in city
(This company specializes in money laundering and racketeering) 800 shields
Marketplace: 'Increase luxury trade' is activated
Resources: Some name changes and minor tweaks (you'll see)
Saves: This is a scenario with no 'mod' to install. A one-time copy of four
folders is all that's needed in addition to the save file.

Mughals (also spelled Moguls) have two other unit tweaks:
Gurkha - like immortals in strength, the Gurkhas are able to fight while
hiding their true nationality! They're available with Nationalism.
Migrant Worker - Available with the Corporation, these workers can MOVE,
and can build roads, rails, colonies. They can clear forest and jungle
but not plant, mine or irrigate.
While only the UU, the Pachyderm triggers a Golden Age, all three work together
toward the goal of the game, to establish and hold luxury colonies.

Win conditions: All victory types are enabled, but... we must also:
- Have all eight luxuries and no unconnected cities
- Must own (or destroy) all non-obsolete happiness great wonders
- Amass at least 10,000 gold in the treasury
- Every 'Opium' and 'Pungent Weed' luxury on the map must be under your control

Variant rule: Player cannot build temples, cathedrals or courthouses.

Game play:
- The Moghuls hate corruption and do *NOT* wish a massive empire of a hundred
cities, rather, they prefer to let the AI grow large and increase their
trade revenue. This will also reduce our corruption. *As far as you are able*,
only capture cities with a luxury inside the city radius OR a city between
your core/harbor/airport and a luxury city/colony. Harbors and airports will
play a KEY role in allowing us to hold a minimum number of cities but
control all the luxuries.
- The Moghuls like to look like a legit government and seek a 'colony island'
as soon as feasible, which has some illicit luxury, where they can carry
out farming and research. Make map mapping and at least one colony a priority.
- The other priority is Currency. With no temple or cathedral, the marketplace
(and library) are crucial for culture. We also get our UU with Currency,
and it gives bonuses to our trade. We'll eventually seek to own or destroy
all happiness wonders, but one to definitely try to build ourselves is Smiths!
- Use whatever means necessary to capture luxury cities - culture, espionage/
propaganda, or military. If a country is at war with you, no trade - non-military
options are beneficial
- A goal, but not a rule would be, once whole map is visible, start to take over
luxuries one by one, ie get a monopoly on each of the 8 lux in succession. Make
war and set war objectives along these lines.
- After a lux objective is met, consider making peace and giving away something
to regain them as friends. 'Serial' targetting, one country as foe first,
then ally with it against another, might be a way to win brownie points.
- How many luxuries on a large map? If rbd3 is any indication, about 52!
Looking at a few games around late 1800's where we expanded nicely but didn't
concern ourselves with luxuries, we were short 12-15 lux cities. If targetted
earlier that number could be reduced quite a bit.
- On Large size, 'optimal' number of cities is 24, when you can start the
Forbidden palace. I'm envisioning but not dictating, that initial expansion
plus colony island can get us 24 cities, and we set up no more than another
24 cities, each a luxury town (or harbor to get lux home).

* Our word is vital * Do NOT do things to ruin our reputation. Successful
business absolutely depends on it. This means no sneak attacks while in RoP,
etc, and it may mean no MPP.

"Lux, Lux, Lux!" -- that's the game's motto!

Starting map is shown, the roster is not finished, but I'm hoping some of
the following folks will play...

Sirian, Jaffa, Zed, Cy, Carbon Copy ... (time in other-SG-game permitting)
Ozymandous, Warstrike... mentioned 'OpiumLord' interest
Melle, Schnaard, Jester... mentioned general game interest

Some/many have gotten into games and not ready at this time to join
another. If we're not full, I'll open up the roster and get more.
Sirian, this one is further off into the sphere of left field, but
I'm hoping the lack of 'odd rules' and the opening of victory conditions
will make it of interest. (If you take game objective as: monopolize ALL
luxuries, do it in a way that is strategically sound, win with any condition,
as make good use of the special units, it would I hope be very accurate!
The only real variant 'rule' is build no temple/cathedral/colloseum)

I'll say this, knowing other factors in the scenario, this one is NOT as
easy as it looks!

I won't be starting this one, as I needed to do some minor map adjustments,
so I'll be putting a 'solid-starter' up front.

For more info on Mughals and Opium see:
http://opioids.com/opium/history/ - Opium history
http://www.travel-burma.com/history.html - Burma history
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/mughal.html - Mughals
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MUGHAL/AKBAR.HTM - Akbar of the Mughals

So... who's in? Any questions?
Charis

 

[Iester]

Sounds like good stuff. I'd like to join, since the deity OCC filled up in about 5 minutes.



Jester

 

[Sirian]

I have some concerns:

Smith's Trading Company: Increases luxury trade, +50% lux output in city
(This company specializes in money laundering and racketeering) 800 shields
Marketplace: 'Increase luxury trade' is activated

Need more description on that Smith's. What flags did you tinker with there? And most urgently, have you tested it?

Markets already "increase luxury trade", that's the flag that leads them to give bonuses after the first two lux. Did you change something there? If not... why did you mention it?

Variant rule: Player cannot build temples, cathedrals or courthouses.

Why no courthouses?

That would be a deal breaker for me. If I want to play without courthouses... I can play any other SG on the board and just opt not to build them myself on my turns. Seriously, without courthouses, you can forget 24 cities, much less 48. You can also forget anything further out than Aramis, relative to Athos, in RBD5, other than as a no-production outpost for controlling resources. And most of all, you can forget 10000 in the bank, as the economy is going to suck really hard. Under those restrictions, AND playing with restrained expansionism, and bending everything to try to go secure distant luxury sites... functionally speaking, I'm afraid this one is way more out there in left field (in my estimation) than anything we've yet put on the table, including the army variant.

Even if you repeal the courthouse restriction, the idea of having to physically control all eight luxuries may be a problem. I would not want to place the entire fate of the game in the hands of the random map generator. If it pulls one of those scenerios where luxuries are concentrated in one location, right there in the heartland of other empires, then BY DEFAULT you've taken on "Just Another Conquest Scenerio", rather than a trading game. Smaller maps would be much more reasonable for that, frankly, but even there, it's more likely than not at least two luxuries would be monopolized in the heart of some empire or other, and again, you have just another conquest scenerio. The idea of taking and holding ONLY the luxury sites is wayyyy out there, since the AI is set to fight tooth and nail for those. Then there's struggling uphill against culture flips, with no temples or cathedrals and lower overall culture, either hogtied from razing all the cities around the luxury sites, or forced into it.

I would think that this particular rules set would almost demand a human touch in constructing the map, OR... some dramatic rules adjustments. Or maybe even both.

An alternative might be to play a large map with lot o civs, start with one luxury in your area and control the world's entire supply, on a smallish continent off the beaten path, and have to win without ever acquiring or trading for any other luxuries, including your 10000 in the bank concept. Not allowed to build markets, banks, wall street, libraries or university, perhaps even some wonders off limits, and HAVE to rely on selling your one marketable resource to win the game. Now THAT would be a trading game. THIS... is just another conquest scenerio, I'm afraid. One with unique twists, which -might- be a lot of fun to play, or might just be tediously uphill in a "what are we doing here" kind of way... all depending on the map.

Of course, even the trading game would probably require a custom map, since the odds of it generating you next to the only supply worldwide of a given luxury are remote -- so either way, it seems to me that this concept of building the game around luxuries needs to be customized, and whoever does that won't be able to play.

And by the way... amount of resources on a randomly generated map is tied directly to number of civs. On a huge map with 16 civs, I've literally seen a smallish continent with about 15 spices on it, and mountain ranges just FILLED with gems. A large map with 8 or fewer civs, the resources would be scattered and sparse like they are in RBD5.


- Sirian

 

[Charis]

I may have some more answers later, but wanted to clarfiy one oops right away!

Why no courthouses? That would be a deal breaker for me. If I want to play without courthouses... I can play any other SG on the board and just opt not to build them myself on my turns. Seriously, without courthouses, you can forget 24 cities, much less 48.

Gah!! A subliminal typo!! That was supposed to be "colossuems"
The idea is no plain improvements for happiness, relying on luxury. Courthouses would be vital in this game

btw... i hope you noted in the Bab Utopian game I had a big turn with "why no courthouses?!?" and started several. Would be interesting to see how many got vetoed

On controlling the eight luxuries, the bare minimum way to get that is via trades, but that would be a big underachievement. Having at least one of all eight under city control is the 'intent', plus having a monopoly on Opium and Weed The ultimate would be monopolies of every luxury, but I have no idea if that's possible. So these are 'minimal', 'good', and 'outstanding' realizations of the victory condition. It will be an interesting strategic decision or set of decisions to see which to shoot for.

Actually, you raise a victory I didn't envision, but that would work. Own at least one of each of the eight luxuries and on the others, if you can get in and cut off all the rest, this is absolutely in-theme, which I'll state this way: "You get your happiness from us, or not at all!" - hence denial and ownership/destruction of happiness wonders it as much in-theme as seeing all the lux 'make it home'. I can picture a late game scenario where you are doing well but, say, there are still 6 strong lux cities in the hands of 3 strong neighbors, and one happiness wonder. What to do???? Bend a campaign around a diversionary tactic to pull away defenders, then on one turn capture the wonder city and pillage every single non-owned luxury square, and only then, also on the turn, 'claim the victory' by whatever means you can. There's a TON of creative ways to pull off a victory, but they may require a some thinking outside the box as well as good tactical and strategic planning.

They like to fight tooth and nail for them? Excellent! That's why it's Monarch, not Emperor. The goal however, is very much NOT just another conquest scenario. The intent, the described play, the mention to careful limit the cities you take or control, speaks clearly against conquest. Now one key question is... would razing harm us or make enemies to hard to turn back to friends? A no-raze, or raze-only-with-lux-in-radius would be a rule to consider.

The special units are designed precisely to allow capturing a city deep in enemy territory without *having* to resort to the standard 'conquest your way in there'.

Your trading game alternative is a very different goal, but one that might be quite enjoyable in itself. It would be more of a 'need to trade and wheel and deal cuz we don't have much', while this is a 'we're going to try to be the tradERS, not the tradEES, and do so in a way we have someone left to trade to.

Can "lux cities" live in isolation from the rest of your network? Rather than an automatic "no way, that's too hard" I can think of several things to try that 'might' work, and have set goals that are good/better/best not win/loss.

In this game I've taken the first map generated, take what we get, but made minor adjustments to fit the theme in our starting area. So I know a little bit about that and will not go first, but at the end of first round, and I don't know anything about the rest of the world.

I think this will be a very rich and challenging game... give it a try

Charis

 

[smegged]

I'll play. This looks like fun

 

[Sirian]

Well... as long as I can build courthouses I'll give it a go.

But no colleseums? Um... aren't sporting events a PRIME location for the trading and consumption of, uh, "luxuries"?

I'm still worried about that wonder, too. Have you tested it?


- Sirian

 

[meldor]

Let me know....I will play.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Okay. I'll play.

This is normal-turn-rotation and not RBD-Cretan-style, right?

(Some day, when RBD5 and infantry finish, I will start an army game, too ).

 

[smegged]

I've nearly completed my Australian mod, and have decided on the following. Australia is scientific/commercial. The unique unit is the Lighthorse infantry. It requires horses, but no saltpeter, costs 100 sheilds, and has these stats: 8 offense, 5 defense and 3 movement.

When I work out the couple of bugs (the original version had lighthorse costing 1000 sheilds - whoops ) I'll start a new thread.

 

[Charis]

Smegged - Hey hey! We've already got an official hijack thread when one post inadvertently did some hijacking earlier

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16912

(Good luck with it )

--
Jaffa, ya this is normal turn style

Charis

 

[Ozymandous]

Sounds like fun, but.. Kinda busy so will have to watch this one as well...

Good luck to all!

 

[Arathorn]

One possible sticky spot -- not every map has all 8 luxuries present. In particular, in my most recent diety solo game (20,000 culture in one city in 1973 -- GREAT game that I really should write up), there were precisely ZERO total luxuries on the entire map.

I've seen six/seven total luxuries fairly commonly. Just something to keep in mind. You might not have all 8, unless your tweaks took care of that.

LOTSA military action in this one, I'm sure.

And, no, don't sign me up.

Arathorn

 

[Warstrike]

Can't do it. I'm in 2 games now, which is about 1 1/2 games more than I have time to handle. Have fun!

 

[Melle]

I won't be clamoring for a spot on this one. In one of my solo games, I DID manage to get all luxuries...by trading the AI an arm and a leg. And my firstborn, my sister and my immortal soul.
Some other variant some other day, maybe.

 

[Sirian]

Arathorn: zero lux on the whole map? Never seen any maps at any difficulty level that did not have all eight. Are you tinkering with the rules in the editor for your solo games?

- Sirian

 

[Charis]

Ok, I think we're set to go!!

The starting save file is attached.
Let me clarify a few points and mention instructions:

> But no colleseums? Um... aren't sporting events a PRIME
> location for the trading and consumption of, uh, "luxuries"?

This one I've gone back and forth on this one. The coloseum is hardly the same type of happiness as with religious buildings, but it reduces reliance on luxury trade. Seems like early game these would
be good things to build, more needful than overbalanced, and later they don't matter quite so much. Wouldn't be overly opposed to this, just not sure from balance/challenge standpoint
if they're better in or out.

> I'm still worried about that wonder, too. Have you tested it?

Aye. Did two nights prelim testing of the mod including that, and some more tonight using RBD3 and Boston which has Smiths.

- No change to the marketplace function. Yes it does have 'increases luxury trade' to start, don't know why I mentioned it :crazyeyes:
- Smiths has incr.lux trade flag on. It's NOT cumulative with mktplace, but same flag. If you have mktplace (which you would in Smith city) it's benefit is moot
- Smiths in the mod has +50% luxury. This flag is never used as far as I can tell... What it does is, in the Smith city only, increase by 50% the number of smiley faces appearing as a result of the luxury slide. So if setting the slider to 20% with 35 commerce bundles worked on the land gave 7 smily faces unpatched, it would now give 10 (7+50%, rounded down). Result: a few extra happy faces in Smith's city, that's it.
- Smith reduces corruption in the city it's built in. Same flag as courthouse, so probably not even cumulative. Game effect is minor. Finally, it has the 'Colossus' flag of one extra commerce on every tile already producing one. Pretty nice, but nothing ridiculous. Together these extra bonuses to Smith are what pumped the shield cost up to 800.

As far as a map with no luxuries?! Never seen anything approaching this. I can't recall ever seeing less than the full eight.
I only know there are 'some' luxuries in the game but did not look at the whole map to see if/how many others there were.

Roster is looking like:
Sirian <<< up
Jester <<< on deck
Smegged
Jaffa
Meldor
Charis

For first round, starter should go 40 turns (2550BC) or less,
second player 20, third 15, then 10 games turns apiece per player turn (less is always ok).

This looks like a good number. Any further requests would be on a stand-by basis.

Instructions: A few simple folder copies in the Art / Units folder:
1) Copy "War Elephant" to "Pachyderm"
2) Copy "Explorer" to "Migrant Worker"
3) Copy "Rider" to "Arabian Knight"
4) Copy "Immortals" to "Gurkha"

In each case, inside the new folder, rename the INI file only: "oldUnitName.INI" --> "newUnitName.INI"
Don't forget spaces when appropriate. No changes are necessary for the Taj
That's it.

So Sirian, start us up when you're ready
(Let me know if you have any problems or further questions)

Charis

 

[Arathorn]

Arathorn: zero lux on the whole map? Never seen any maps at any difficulty level that did not have all eight. Are you tinkering with the rules in the editor for your solo games?

No rules tinkering at all. I'm waiting for a bit more stability in the editor before doing much of that on my own. Something simple like the Bull Rider, I'll do, but more than that.....

I can post/send a copy of the game, if you're interested. It was a tiny map, archipelago, 80% water (my 20,000 culture deity win).

I see only 7 fairly frequently. It seems (NOT verified) the map editor decides on a land mass for a certain luxury and then checks for appropriate land type on that land mass (e.g. mountains for gems, desert or hills for incense, etc.). If no appropriate land is found, the luxury doesn't appear.

Anyway, with lots of land and continents/pangea, you should be OK (I think). I just am 100% certain it's possible to "miss" a luxury or two.

Arathorn

 

[Sirian]

With a regular Diablo night on, I didn't get to this today. I'll see what time I can spare early tomorrow.

 

[Sirian]

4000BC: Agra founded on the river. (We might have moved AWAY from the river if we had started smoking that Opium or Pungent Weed as yet, but no, that didn't happen. ). Our scout pops the nearby goody hut, we learn Ceremonial Burial.

WOW, can only manage one shield per turn! I send our worker across the river to irrigate some plains.

WOW, tech research is ultra ULTRA cheap for a large map. Did Charis give us some kind of bonus? If not, and this is worldwide, and he tinkered with the tech ratio slider, we're going to be in Modern Age in BC times. Heh, or close to it. I start Bronze Working, due in an insanely short number of turns.

WOW, we're expansionistic and can't build scouts. I can't complain too loudly, made the opposite mistake with Cretan mod.


Early turns: no more huts to be found. We are, in fact, on a rather smallish island. After building one warrior, I opt for farmer's gambit. Researched Bronze, started Writing (got a feeling we're going to need Mapmaking in a huge hurry).

Middle turns: spot Opium on north corner of island! Also spot coastal currents! Bombay founded. Yep, we're not going anywhere in this game without boats. Finish writing, start mapmaking. (Yes, already, this tech rate is lunacy!)

Late turns: Haha, Arathorn's going to get a kick out of this! Our next door neighbor... is Joanie! Yes, I see her slip peeking out of the skirt of darkness to the north. *sigh* Um... that was the only direction we had in which to expand. Madras and Bangalore founded.


CHARIS: Are you SURE you got this right??? :crazyeyes

I played the first 40. Good luck to the next baron. Dotmap to follow, uh, such as it is.


- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Forgot to Mention, Bombay is just on placeholder to build a ship. We need to get off this rock ASAP.