Revival of Silence is Golden - Rat 36 (?)

[CommandoBob]

5. We are not allowed to use mapstat or open dialog box to check AI's resources etc. So, we will not know the AI's science progress or other information unless in the dialog box.

One of the biggest uses I have for MapStat is checking on city unhappiness. However, it would be very easy to "forget" the limitation to only check on unhappiness (and sneak a peek at another tab).

With that said (and MapStat not available), would setting CivAssistII to only indicate when a city has a happiness issue be allowed?

 

[ThERat]

I actually use mapstat for this game but only and really only to check unhappiness. This should be no issue unless you easily forget and check the enemy status

 

[plarq]

One of the biggest uses I have for MapStat is checking on city unhappiness. However, it would be very easy to "forget" the limitation to only check on unhappiness (and sneak a peek at another tab).

With that said (and MapStat not available), would setting CivAssistII to only indicate when a city has a happiness issue be allowed?

lurker's comment: In past strict AW games, I had used Mapstat to check unhappiness, without peeping at enemy. You just need to fight the temptation to look. Try it! I can!

 

[Whomp]

OK I got it and will play it tonight.

 

[Mumpulus]

Two things to consider:

1) Working the BG in Carthage will get us a settler in 4 turns (forest picked up upon growth, additional citizen should stay there); the alternative is to stay on the river grassland for extra commerce, 16 shields left to go after growth, which gives us a settler in 5 turns from now at the earliest and also sacrificing growth, or in 6 turns with maximum growth and commerce. I'd rather go for a few fast settlers.

2) The silks will always be ours, but the wines aren't a certainty. Shouldn't we go for those first? Settling S of the southern wines puts us at CxxC with a town NE-NE-E of Carthage, to backfill later.

 

[Northern Pike]

Looks like a pretty good start.

I'd rather use our next settler to grab the two wines tiles, which we might lose to another civ, than the silks tile, which is so close to our capital that it should be safely ours even if we wait a while. I agree that we want a quick curragh, but we can easily fit one into the build sequence at Carthage; we don't need a second coastal city just for that purpose.

I see that I've cross-posted with Mumpulus. Great minds think alike.

 

[Whomp]

OK I actually will have time earlier so I'll play it right now. I'll pick up the settler earlier and agree that grabbing the wines early makes a lot of sense. I think knocking out a curragh then another settler after that in Carthage is my turnset. It appears sending the curragh south makes sense as we're in the NW quadrant of the map.

 

[vmxa]

Kibitzer:

Well you can easily check the happy issue with F1 for a long time. If you have the pop head mod so the happy faces are easy to see. It works quite well, until you have a lot of towns.

 

[Whomp]

Summary We meet the Vikings and English. I could've traded for pottery but thought we'd need some war techs. My thinking was to trade for BW under the view we could get something for it.

Oops...looks like I stopped one turn early but here's the save. We can move the Carthage BG to the new commerce tile next turn. I just noticed that the wines are at risk to volcano and it might have been better moving a little further for the other wine tile.

Pre-turn: Switch the commerce tile to the BG. Set governor to "all cities" to "emphasize production for future reference.

12950 Move the worker to mine at Utica so it will have another tile to work on growth.

2 2900 Continue to work hills and mountains with our scouts. Turn up lux to 20% for the capital and keep the citizen on the forest for two turns.

3 2850 See a cow 3SE and another gem 5SE of the NE wine.

4 2800 A Scandanavian warrior appears. Let's see if he'll dial us up.
Settler finishes and set to curragh. Our NE warrior scout locates another Scandanavian and sees 4 gems tiles. The settler will have a wheat tile to use. Turn off lux.

52750

62710 Worker finishes mine and starts a road. Our NW scout finds another a dead end to the NW but sees what looks like a land bridge to the east. This gives us back fill to the north as well.

72670 Curragh finishes and start another settler. Keep the new citizen on the BG and will leave it for two turns.
To the north it is not a land bridge.
Turn up lux to 20% and curragh will finish next.

82630 Vikings start the Colossus. Spy a orange border with our westward warrior. It's England since they appear on the "Start diplomacy screen". Let see if they'll dial us up! Move the worker to a river tile so Carthage and Utica can share the commerce when needed.

IT
The Scandanavians have alpha and masonry along with their opening techs Pottery and WC. England starts with Alpha and Pottery.
The Vikings also have BW, The Wheel and CB.
They'll trade Pottery for 119g. We don't need it right away but could use a war tech.
They won't trade the wheel for 158g and 8 gpt.
They'll trade BW for 147g and 2gpt.
WC for 145g and 1gpt.
CB for 158g and 5gpt.
They'll do WC and pottery for 7gpt and 156g.
No trades for WC and BW.

I think we can get WC and/or pottery if England dials us up since they both start with pottery and I'd guess they exchanged alpha for WC.
We need some war techs and BW seems to have some trade availability if England dials us up.

She does dial us up. She doesn't have masonry but does have BW, iron working, Pottery and WC.

No deals on IW.
She'll do WC and Pottery for masonry 6gpt and 11g.
She'll do WC or pottery for masonry straight up.

We take WC for masonry.


9 2590 Leptis Magna settled 1S of the wines. Start a worker.

10 2550 English start Colossus. This is the last turn needed for the BG so we can work the new commerce tile the next turn for the settler.

Satelite view:

 

[Northern Pike]

Sounds good. It's too bad the natural site SE of the capital is so heavily wooded, though.

I've got it.

 

[Mumpulus]

This is the last turn needed for the BG so we can work the new commerce tile the next turn for the settler.

We can't get the settler faster than 3 turns, so might as well switch to the tile being roaded right away for 2 extra gpt on the next IT.

 

[Greebley]

Looks good so far. 3 Lux is nice.

Need one clarification on the rules:

You don't explicitly state whether I can switch to another civ to trade with them. I am assuming that you can't - it seems against the spirit of the variant if you could, but I think it should be stated.

1. We may never initiate discussions with AI or start trading. Only if the AI starts to open the dialog box, are we allowed to start trading and haggling but only with that AI.

Or something like that??

Oh one other:
Do we declare war simply by attacking or refusing to leave(no dialup from us)? Don't know that it makes too much a difference, but it does change when war is declared (on AI turn for refusal).

Out of curiosity, why math instead of writing?

 

[ThERat]

Yes, Greebley, you are right. Only with that AI of course. I didn't think someone would be that scheming. We are trying to be silent unless one particular AI wants to disturb us.

I would declare war by simply entering and attacking. That is the spirit of a silent game.

Great grabbing the wines. However, I caution the team. A game like this can turn into a AW game very soon and I see us having few military units. Please do not invite the AI to make demands, because this could mean early doom.

I chose maths based on the fact that writing could be started by anyone with alphabet. Only we can start maths though. We do not need writing so badly for embassies as we can't establish any. And there should be enough time for maths and then writing -> literature.

Our Team:
ThERat
whomp
Northern Pike - up
Greebley
Mumpulus

Again, could we get a warrior into Leptis Magna in order not to give the AI the wrong idea.

 

[ThERat]

Another issue, gpt deals are our friends in this game due to war declarations by the AI. This will save us money I guess

 

[Northern Pike]

View attachment Rat36-2150BC.SAV, end of turn

 

[Northern Pike]

2550 (0): I adjust Carthage as suggested.


2470 (2): Carthage settler --> warrior.


2430 (3): Our curragh discovers an island--two, in fact--but they're probably too close to the South Pole to be important, and I won’t waste time circumnavigating them.


2390 (4): Carthage warrior --> warrior.


2310 (6): Carthage warrior --> settler.

Leptis Magna worker --> walls.


2270 (7): We found Theveste in the forest SE of the capital.


2230 (8): Our curragh discovers a French city.


2190 (9): Joanie introduces herself with an offer of Pottery for 100 gold. She’s also ahead of us by the Wheel, CB, and IW. She has five cities and silks.

IW is the most expensive offering, but I decide that given the quasi-AW nature of this game, we have to have it. So, 100 gold and 8 gpt to France for IW…and we have iron between Utica and Leptis Magna, so the gamble pays off. There’s another iron source two tiles beyond our present borders, and we’ll have to decide what to do about that.

BTW, once we spotted the French city, I had our curragh wait just outside France’s borders. This is an important finesse when we discover a new civ, since otherwise the first contact will just be a boot order, which according to our variant we can’t exploit.


2150 (10): The English and the Vikings didn’t initiate any contacts this round, apart from boot orders.

 

[Northern Pike]

We have to decide now whether to use our next settler to found an otherwise poor city controlling the second iron source in our area. Since the only good sites remaining to us are on the northeastern peninsula, and we’re unlikely to be beaten to those, I think we should try to found the iron town for the sake of the extra options it’ll give us in the long term. If we’re worried about having demands made for the iron, we can just leave the town off our road net.

Our two front-line cities are building walls, given the risk of war in this variant. Both builds should be speeded up by forest chops—in Theveste’s case on the silks, and in Leptis Magna’s on the woods/river tile next to the iron.

Carthage will complete its settler in three turns on growth, so it doesn’t need to work its unroaded BG tile.

 

[Northern Pike]

The iron hills:

 

[Mumpulus]

Agree on going for the iron. I'd even be more aggressive and also try for the jungle tile 3SE of Leptis Magna, and if it hasn't been taken, the hills 3E of Leptis Magna. That'll give us lots of room to grow. Otherwise we'll be cramped fast.

If we're going for iron hill, then I'd switch the walls in Theveste to a warrior. Theveste won't be exposed as much, and I think at the moment we need units more.

It will take some time until we get the "inner" iron (colony, or culture from GLib most likely), so I'd rather hook up forward the iron.

 

[Whomp]

I think going for the iron beyond Theveste makes sense since there's always the volcano thing.