Replay #6 Short Story

[Seraiel]

Hi everybody

(tl;dr = read bold parts)

This Replay is going to be different:

• It's gonna be very short!
• It's gonna be readable even for ZxZeroZx!
• It's no Sushi game!
• The game didn't last 200h+!
• I only have 500 savegames for the Writeup, most of them have no title, therefor, I have to reconstruct a lot!

Plz don't get me wrong. In my last Writeup I said, that it's gonna be the last for some time, so this is really special. I write it, because I feel in someone's dept. The person is Revent. He won the guessing competition in Replay #4, I promised him that he could choose the leader I had to play. He took one of my favourite Civs, Rome, for which I'm thankful, he could have been a lot meaner. However, what would it mean if I just played that round but didn't write about it? Nothing. Still, I said, that I needed a pause from this Replay, so Revent and everybody: I hope you understand my reasons why I keep it short, you all know that I'm working on Strategy Guides with my friends atm., and remember what I said about needing a pause from the Writeups. I'll make sure that every information that's important will be mentioned.

Seraiel

 

[Shaandore]

Great! Time to have some non-sushi fun!
Honestly, I'm much more interested in good wars, so Revent did a nice job when choosing Rome

I'm already subscribed

 

[Seraiel]

The Setup:​

Leader: Julius Caesar
Map: Huge "Micro" Pangea (tororial worldwrap, cold climate, high sealvl)
Gamespeed: Marathon
Number of opponents: 10
Chosen Victory type: Conquest

The opponents:

1. Pacal
2. Mansa Musa
3. Willem
4. Frederick
5. Lizzy
6. Lincoln
7. Hatty
8. Ghandi
9. Brennus
10. Roosevelt

Explanation towards why I took exactly these opponents:

1. Cannot remember exactly why I chose Pacal, think because I needed "bad" AIs, meaning AIs with low peaceweight, so that the "good" AIs have someone to hate more than me, someone that fuels their hate, someone that starts wars so the tech-rate is slower. Best thing about Pacal: He's the only AI that has a 60% rate (very high) to bribe others in his wars, but also for other reasons, he was perfect.
2. NN to explain this normally, but when I plan for Conquest, I need a tech-partner that trades with me even though I declared war on all his friends. Mansa is the only choice. Him I killed last.
3. Some call him "Wimphelm", again saying, he's weak, and he trades techs almost like Mansa. He would prove to be... Won't tell that .
4. He's a wimp, a general weakling.
5. Again a weak AI that builds few units.
6. Weak AI, but his high tech-rate due to his economy and flavour should make him quite challenging though, he also got a lot of land, the factor that makes an AI strong.
7. Hatty is one that's easy to befriend through shared Organized Religion in the beginning, also, War Chariots are no opponents for Praets, she was planned as a partner in the beginning and easy target afterwards.
8. The weakling of the weaklings, builds more Missionaries than other units .
9. The best Meatshield one can get imo, because easy to befriend through shared Organized Religion again, loyal (cannot plot against pleased) but with the lowest peaceweight of all Civs, he sucks up hate like noone else and is able to fight against 3-4 opponents simultaniously.
10. Roosevelt is loyal, builds Wonders, and again is a general weakling because of that. The american AIs are generally weak, only Washington can be a threat when it comes to demands, Roosevelt is an awesome opponent in a conquest game because he builds all necessary Wonders for onesself.

Why not maximum number of opponents?

No idea, saw the games of Moonsinger and took that as an orientation. Maybe fewer AIs would have been easier, maybe more difficult, you can discuss this, I don't know.


The starting scene:



There is little to say about the start. I think I generated about 50 maps that had 2 Luxury Ressources, preferably Gold, because get multiplied when producing Settlers through Rome's IMP trait. Gold needs a strong Source of , Pigs are strong, Cows aren't. Biggest disadvantage definately is, that I need AH which takes a lot of time to research, well, believe it or not, but from 50 starts, maybe 2 had wet Corn. Either unlucky, or feature of the map-settings, got too little knowledge about Pangaea maps yet. Anyhow, I didn't care, because oracling something insane like Feudalism demands 3 Golds and at least 1 Corn (or wet Rice / Wheat) , had no plans on that this time, CoL fits perfectly with ORG. What I definately looked for was a plains-hill, because a strong starting tile, well, you'll notice the difference if you play a few starts, on Marathon, an extra means i. e. 6 turns on the 1st Worker, or 15 turns on a Warrior, those are huge differences.

Conclusion: Decent start, could have more , could have more , definately strong, overpowered is something else, having to research AH is a disadvantage that's not that bad in this case.

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Next post going online soon, I promise, I'll keep it short Till then, cya

Seraiel

 

[Pangaea]

Love how you mention this will be short, and then say the TLDR version: just read the bold part

Look forward how this goes. Can still hear the faint sound of the wardrums thum-thumping

 

[WelshGandalf]

This is already the longest short report EVAR, I've never seen anyone but Serial say why he picked his opponents

Looking forwards to praetorians!

 

[The Oz-Man]

I still say Revent should've picked Tokugawa.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Man the food on this start is soooooooooo good!

 

[Seraiel]

4000 BC to 2000 BC


1st turn: Due to fog-gazing skills I knew which tiles to expect in the south. In the east (also indicated through the blue circle) is the coast, therefor, obvious move for me, Warrior 1 NW:



Revealing a 3rd Gold. Not that the city could work it due to lack of Food, but maybe the 2nd city can share it? I see no reason to not SIP:



Ok, that's obviously a lot of Gold now . Anyhow, no way to work it with that Food, let's look around.... (Exploration until 3055 BC: )



Got one Goody Hut, yielding 150g. This will be the only one I'll get this round.

Research-path: Agriculture -> AH.

Buildorder & Micro: Worker (improve Gold) , Warrior, then I worked the Gold at size 1 to speed up AH, and when the city cannot grow, building another Worker seemed logical choice.

Observations: Nice spot for the 2nd city that can share the 2 Golds the capital cannot work, overall decent but not overwhelming situation of Food. Amount of plains is ok, amount of Forrests is good. Stone, Marble or Elephants don't matter at all to me this round, because I have Praets and don't plan on building a single Wonder besides Oracle.

(Ideas on) city placement:



Red: Spot for the 2nd city. Could obviously be 1W on the Silks, but then I'd miss a great tile once I have Calendar, which is usually very early on Deity.
Blue: 2 sources of Food, only few good tiles, imo the best spot for a GP Farm as it has little else to offer. I don't value GP that high, and I don't think that Hatty will settle there soon, so I plan on settling that spot late.
Orange: Settling on the Marble gives an extremely strong tile and the city has quite a lot of green hills with a decent source of Food, high production sites are what I need in this round, anyhow, I plan to settle...
Green before that, just because Willem is near. The Plains-hill is again a strong tile, it can grow on 2 sources of Food in the beginning, with its River this is another good Commerce-site for me.
Black: Is a weak Hammer-site with dry Wheat, just to block the two
White Spots, that are mainly backfill-cities, but where there is , there can be a city, right?

If you have questions regarding the city-placement, ask. Basically I'm trying to split up the Food and found cities with as much overlap as needed but as little as possible, I look for strong tiles to settle on and instead of founding a few "Super-cities" with double Food I prefer having more weaker ones with only one source of Food.

I improve the Capital's Food-Sources (the Gold is already improved) and build a Settler at size 3. If I had wanted max Research, I'd have let the city grow to size 4 and work both Golds, but this time, I plan for maximum expansion, grabbing a lot of land seems more important than a crazy Oracle gambit to me this time.

Antium gets settled 2460 BC at Red:



Research after AH: BW -> Priesthood beeline

After the foundation of Antium, I let Rome grow to size 4 to work the 2nd Gold, and heavy powerchopping starts, always switching in Settlers / Workers when chops are rdy so the city can grow on a Barracks. With BW everything goes superfast:

2200 BC: Foundation of Cumae at Green.

2090 BC: Foundation of Neapolis at Orange:



Just as an info: I stick to the 1.5 Workers / city rule at this moment, so I have 6 Workers for 4 cities, and of course I've adopted the Religion of my neighbours (Hatty + Willem) .

I've traded for Hunting, TW, Pottery and Writing in between, nothing unusual, many Civs on Deity get Alpha betfore 2000 BC.



Research: Aesthetics for Trade-bait.

Priorities:

• Improve only the fewest tiles that the cities need.
• Chop chop chop chop chop chop...
• Settlers / Workers.
• Granaries.

After the 3rd Settler I switch to Slavery, it's a good time because the Whip will begin soon and I want to gain Workerturns, I also chop out the Oracle which completes in 1920 BC!





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A lot shorter than the usual posts from me, but I hope you still got some answers and that the most important things were covered, city placement, no rush but harsh REX through powerchopping (Rome has almost no Forrests anymore) , no extreme Oracle gambits, everything else should be viewable on the screens, or, you can aks .

Cya,

Sera

 

[Revent]

Thanks for the honourable mention in your post
Enjoying this. Interesting game,

 

[civac]

Hunting->AH would have been faster, wouldn't it?

 

[Seraiel]

Great! Time to have some non-sushi fun!
Honestly, I'm much more interested in good wars, so Revent did a nice job when choosing Rome

I'm already subscribed

If you favour war, there's gonna be enough for you in this Writeup It's basically an endless war, because I went for Conquest Victory .

Love how you mention this will be short, and then say the TLDR version: just read the bold part

Look forward how this goes. Can still hear the faint sound of the wardrums thum-thumping

Hehe . The tl;dr version is for people like Zero, who got extreme form of ADHD and cannot follow one sentence .

This is already the longest short report EVAR, I've never seen anyone but Serial say why he picked his opponents

Looking forwards to praetorians!

2 things:

one minor: It's Seraiel, not Serial, but I blame Kaitzilla for that mistake, as he called me Serial in the Civ-illustrated-user-grp.

and thing that I find important: choosing the opponents is one of the most important things when playing for HoF, I learned it the hard way. Because of this, and because it's a not well covered feature of the game, we write that guide and I write about it here.

I still say Revent should've picked Tokugawa.

Maybe there's gonna be another competition and you or another Tokugawa fan will win? I'd like to play Toku, he's as crappy as can get, but there are still slots in HoF I think I could challenge even with him .

Man the food on this start is soooooooooo good!

. Pigs and Cows, also more my taste than Corn or Rice, but that's not talking about Civ .

Thanks for the honourable mention in your post
Enjoying this. Interesting game,

You're welcome . I hope this game will be interesting for all readers, it's the 1st conquest I ever played, and Praets are machines . Could have won the whole round with them (no joke) , still, conquest was a lot more difficult and exhausting than I expected, almost like Sushi .

Hunting->AH would have been faster, wouldn't it?

It would have been, by a few turns, but then I could haven farmed that FP in the 2nd city. Agri -> AH usually is the stronger combi except in some very rare cases.

Sera

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Oh man this start actually has WAY WAY WAY to many gold. XD Good joke right?

 

[troglodyt]

It's 2000 BC and you are basically broke (but not broken). Why am I not surprised?

Are you hoping that you'll get iron automatically by settling as much land as possible? The times I played the Romans, I beelined straight to IW just to find out where the stuff is. But that was on normal game speed and lower difficulty with a coastal start. Obviously not feasible here.

[Edit: I've overlooked the fact that in your screenshot you were in anarchy. So maybe not broke!]

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

It's 2000 BC and you are basically broke (but not broken). Why am I not surprised?

Are you hoping that you'll get iron automatically by settling as much land as possible? The times I played the Romans, I beelined straight to IW just to find out where the stuff is. But that was on normal game speed and lower difficulty with a coastal start. Obviously not feasible here.

[Edit: I've overlooked the fact that in your screenshot you were in anarchy. So maybe not broke!]

I think Seras mentality here is if you're going to go broke you gotta go big or go home. There is no point in going to the Olympics if you don't want to win the gold, so there is no point to going broke in Civ unless you go really broke.

 

[troglodyt]

I think Seras mentality here is if you're going to go broke you gotta go big or go home. There is no point in going to the Olympics if you don't want to win the gold, so there is no point to going broke in Civ unless you go really broke.

That begs the question: What is the gold medal here? Obviously it isn't highest score.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

That begs the question: What is the gold medal here? Obviously it isn't highest score.

Obviously fastest finish date.

 

[troglodyt]

Obviously fastest finish date.

As fast as possible with Romans? I think he's a little slow for that.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

For HoF and Huge maps, the minimum # of opponents is 10.

Enjoying your latest story!

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

As fast as possible with Romans? I think he's a little slow for that.

Are you trying to be funny or are you really just ignorant?
Moderator Action: Calling another member "ignorant" is uncivil. Please discuss the argument and not the individual.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Killroyan]

Ok, this will be interesting again. CoL is in place. I love the fact that your cities almost have no culture half of the time But then again Atrium can work 6 good tiles with ease so who needs culture anyway.