Role Play Challenge: HC's 3CCC

[madscientist]

Welcome to my next RPC game, Hyuna Capac's 3 City Cultural Challenge (HC's 3CCC). These games are meant to be fun, entertaining, and education with certain rules to make the game more of a challenge.


This game has only 2 rules

1) Hyuna Capac can only found three cities. No additional cities may becaptured and must be razed if HC goes to war.
2) Hyuna Capac MUST get a cultural win.

There you have it, a three city challenge! He can acheive this any way he wants. I'll say not an origional idea, I have read the idea from another website (for the life of me I cannot remember where). A very difficult thing to do considering the buildings you CANNOT build, such as catherdrals, OXford, Globe Theater, Iron Works, etc....

Also I personally think HC is the best leader in the game, which is why I chose him for this game. Financial and Industrious. What a combo!!! A culture producing granery as the UB, and the early dominating Quencha.

So the settings

Marathon speed
Monarch Difficulty
Shuffle map (Pangea/Archeopolego/fractal/continents)
Temperate
Medium water level
All victory conditions active for the AI


SO here's our Supreme leader



And the start



Gotta say I was tempted to reroll the start but the hell with it, let's give it a whirl!

 

[NintendoTogepi]

I vote one northwest.

Can someone make a scenario out of this? I wanna try this one!

Edit: Perhaps two north, for an extra clam so you can run more artists.

 

[Jerrymander]

Settle in place, the far grassland tile is bound to have a resource on it.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Aim for a late culture victory. Don't touch the slider except as needed for Happiness. A Wonderspam city can achieve Legendary without any help, and the Sistine Chapel will make up for a the lack of a whole lot of Cathedrals. Aim for the Eiffel Tower if at all possible. Don't underestimate the Hermitage.

Those are the only things I can think of, generally.

 

[Backwards Logic]

My vote would be 1 NW. You gain the cows and an extra clam at the expense of a possible resource in that grassland tile. You end up with 3 hills, 4 clams, one cow, and a great spot for the Statues (if making national wonders is allowed). Talk about an uber specialist/wonderspam capital!

 

[siggboy]

Here's the scenario file. To use the scenario, unzip the file into your "My Games\Beyond the Sword\Saves\WorldBuilder" folder. Then start the game, "play a scenario" and pick the "RPC HC 3CCC" scenario. You can also start a custom scenario if you want to change some game options (NB you will see the opposing civs on the options screen if you do this!). Any mod can be loaded before you start your game (your save file will then require that mod, however).

BTW nice idea to nerf the Inca for an RPC. It's an overpowered civ, no wonder that it's disallowed for the HOF gauntlets. I'm going to give this a shot until I have the nerve to try PYL II again.

 

[siggboy]

My vote is 1NW. This will be one out of three cities we are going to settle on what could be an Archipelagos map. So there's no way you can afford to skip the cows and the additional clam tile for the capital (very, very unlikely that you can found a good second city to make use of them, and all three of your cities will have to be top-notch).

A resource on the grassland is not even guaranteed. It's not reasonable at all to forego the cows/clam based on pure speculation here.

 

[siggboy]

My Shadow Game (TM) (Monarch difficulty, Epic speed, "Choose Religions" enabled)

Spoiler :

Talking about an overpowered UU:



Exit Khmer in 3125 BC . Actually I was lucky here -- my plan was to steal the worker and then kill him a few turns later with some additional Quechuas out of the capital. However, when I realized that my (cover promoted) starting Quechua had a 30% chance to kill the lone Khmer archer I decided to give it a try. I had captured the worker already, so losing my warrior at this point would have been only a minor nuisance.
This gives us a second very good city to play with, albeit not being coastal...

My bet is that Mad will also capture this city very early with a Quechua rush, so our games might go down similar lines.

 

[siggboy]

Adding to Bandobras' remarks:

• We can, and should build The Partenon, The Hermitage, The Sistine Chapel and as many early culture generating buildings as we can. Every building doubles its output after 100 turns (I think), so it should be top priority to get a Monument and a Terrace out ASAP in each city.
• You should skip Stonehenge since with it you can not build the early Monuments anymore (the "Auto-Monuments" from the 'henge are not subject to the culture doubling effect).
• As far as Wonderspam goes, the Pyramids are great (obviously), but the trade related wonders should probably be skipped. We only have 3 cities so their effects are limited, also they generate Merchants which we don't want in this game (at least we want to have control over when we get one, since we might want to found Sid's Sushi). The Hanging Gardens might be worth the trouble, though, if we pop an Engineer that's nothing to scoff at.
• NATIONAL PARK! (again). A decent jungle/forest site with the Park and the Sistine Chapel built will probably beat every other city in terms of culture output (6 per artist, and with a good site you can easily get 8 or more free specialists, you do the math...). Under Environmentalism, each Forest Preserve will give 3 even (since we are financial). I think this wonder will positively rock.
• Getting to Liberalism fast is obviously a priority. I'm currently wondering what tech you should pick there. Nationalism might seem obvious (for the Hermitage), but if you pick Astronomy you get to Biology/Medicine a lot quicker and the National Park will be worth more than the Hermitage (which you can't lose out on anyway since it's a National Wonder).
  However, even Economics is not out of the window here. The AI loves to go for it early, and we could use the free Great Merchant to found Sid's Sushi, so we would not have to skip a regular Great Artist to get one.
• I'm not sure I agree about not touching the slider. I think we should shut down research after Medicine and run 100% culture. We don't have loads of religious buildings to rush(buy), so we'll stay in representation all the way. The humongous amounts of merchants we are going to run in the National Park city will generate a good amount of beakers on their own. If it turns out that we're still a good distance from the target we will have to go for late cultural wonders and then, of course, shutting down research might not be an option.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

Seems like a cool game. Wonderspam is so much fun.

 

[grandad1982]

1NW. Clams for breakfast, lunch and dinner and the odd capaccio of beef. Yummy. Well not if your vegetarian like me....

Seriously though max the food and free up that hill and get the hammers from the cows.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

My Shadow Game (TM) (Monarch difficulty, Epic speed, "Choose Religions" enabled)

Spoiler :

Talking about an overpowered UU:



Exit Khmer in 3125 BC . Actually I was lucky here -- my plan was to steal the worker and then kill him a few turns later with some additional Quechuas out of the capital. However, when I realized that my (cover promoted) starting Quechua had a 30% chance to kill the lone Khmer archer I decided to give it a try. I had captured the worker already, so losing my warrior at this point would have been only a minor nuisance.
This gives us a second very good city to play with, albeit not being coastal...

My bet is that Mad will also capture this city very early with a Quechua rush, so our games might go down similar lines.

Spoiler :

Yep, i took him out too, and made that my 2nd city. My 3rd city was southeast of there grabbing the fish, cow, and 2 dye.

I'm shadowing the game and i'm in the home stretch. The never ending "enter, enter, enter, enter" phase as you get to the goal.

Spoiler :

Overall this has been an incredibly easy game. Got an easy liberalism for nationalism. Teched to military tradition for defensive pacts with Wang Kon and Isabella. Then teched to rifles, and turned off research. Wang Kon took some weird research path and i was able to trade for steel, steam power, and railroads. With rifles and machine guns and cannons i'm completely sure i'm safe for the rest of the game. Wang Kon is the only one that could get to assembly line before I win and he's friendly

Got the pyramids earlier, been in rep most of the game, but switched over to US to rushbuy cathedrals and the hermitage. It's 1500 now and i'm at 100% culture on the slider and still making 90+ gold. Will win in 134 turns, probably earlier as i pop great artists.

Built a ton of wonders. Oracle, Great lighthouse, temple of artemis, colossus, sistine chapel, statue of zeus, spiral minaret, versaille, pyramids, hanging gardens, and maybe some more i can't remember. I got access to 3 religions. Hindu from wang, Taoism and Islam self researched. I missed out on the parthenon, and that was a big mistake on my part.

The only threat so far was a dow from Charlie. I neglected my military in the early game, but my single rifle in my capital took out his entire offensive and his health never even dropped. Castles + Walls + sick culture + stupid ai attacking directly from the ships will do that. And I had a def pact with izzy and wang so that kept him busy too.

Now comes the worst part, the never ending enter, enter, enter until i win.

 

[BalbanesBeoulve]

There's no need to tech all the way to the culture corporations. The game should be won long before then. The only time you use those to win a culture game is if you effed up somewhere, and for some reason you're not able to get a real win. If i'm going for a culture win i'll usually turn off research at rifles, maybe machine guns if i feel threatened. Just enough to keep you safe. I know some people will go for a win with longbows. Plus teching past sci method means you lose the bonus from parthenon. Maybe i'd still be worth it for the extra specialists, from the extra food, who knows.

 

[bestje]

my advice is settle in place and try to get 3 cities down as early as possible
don't forget you get an extra hammer a turn from settling on the plains hill which gets work boats out much quicker

 

[madscientist]

First recap coming. Those of you who played a spoliers game very likely know what happened.

 

[madscientist]

HC's 3CCC: Part I

I have said HC is overpowered and the strongest AI in the game. Well, let's just see how so.

First we moved the Quencha west to view the land



Not so hot although another plains hill which would compendate for the lost southern one if we moved. That did it for me



Settle 1 NW. All that seafood, can't pass it up especially with a financial leader. Can anyone say MC slingshot for the early colossus. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The Quencha explored and quickly we find the first AI.



The absilute best we can get. I love to kill him, and nothing like running a horde of quencha down an AIs throat.

QUENCHA RUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our scouting quencha skirted the perimeter of Sury's lands.



Notice what's in his BFC???

I should say our tech path

fishing/AH/wheel/mining/start BW. We did not go for the early religion because of teh surplus of seafood and we had no commerce producing tile. Again my rules on early religions (Unless the RPC rules dictate otherwise) is to go after the early religion if we have at least 1 commerce tile and start with mysticism.

Build order??

Quencha/workboat/workboat/quencha/quencha/quencha/quencha well you get the idea

Our scout Quencha killed a bear which gave us a promotion, took cover.

We then hung out near Sury's horses



With a force of 6 Quenchas and more being build in the Cusco, we are ready



We arrive at the capital and find level ground (which I suspected) with 2 unpromoted archers and 1 settler. 3 quencha per archer.



And at the loss of 2 quenchas



Khmer is no more and we have the second of our legondary cities! Some veyr nice cottagble lands there, and a free worker from the settler. Also Sury did not whip a defending archer, guess we were too fast for him, he never teched off BW!

SO the maps



And the south of the former khmerian city



SO my biggest question is where do we actually drop the thrid city??? Seams like I cannot cover all the resources in teh BFC. And do we aim for production or sommerce there??? Also we should have BW by then but perhaps we should wait until IW is tech before committing to the third city.

I plan to use the Quencha as fogbsuters to protect the city roads. a quencha and chariot are enough to ward off any Barb trouble, while we tech and wonderspam.

So by arround 2500 BC we

Established a massive commerce empire already (well for this early it is)
Destroyed a dangerous civilization
Got a worker and second city.
Have essentially a satisfactory army though probably 1 AD.

Incan's overpowered? You bet

 

[DMOC]

Nice job!

Settle your third city as a production city, preferably down in the jungle next to the river which means levees and watermills.

 

[siggboy]

SO my biggest question is where do we actually drop the thrid city???

I still haven't continued with this game because I can not decide ;-). To me it looks like one of these options:

• 1S of the cows, to grab cows, fish and 2x dye. However, this city will have many ocean tiles and they are quite a waste, even with the Colossus. Rating: D-
• 1SW of the cows, leaving the fish alone (you can still grab it as an unworkable resource later); this will give you no ocean tiles in the BFC, in exchange for more land, and you can still work both dyes. You also have 1 more grassland hill for some reasonable production. Rating: C
• 1NE of the wheat (at the river bend). This is the location I'm leaning towards right now for my own game, and it's for one single reason: National Park. We do not have to trim the jungles around on the dye plantations, so we can replace them with forest preserves after Biology. 13 (!!) free specialists. Rating: B+
  [Alternatives are 1E of the wheat (16 specialists after NP, but weak in the early game) and 1NW of the dye (gaining spices but losing hills and forests).]

So my vote is 1NE of the wheat.

I don't think being coastal is super-important here. The Khmer capital is settled already anyway, and missing out on the National Park goodness for some mediocre water tiles and some intercontinental trade is not cutting it in my opinion.

Incan's overpowered? You bet

It is ridiculous. I've captured the Khmer capital in 3125 BC with a single Quechua (who happened to have cover promotion by that time). I only wanted to steal his worker, but I arrived there so early that there was only 1 Archer in the capital and 20% cultural defense, so I had 30% chances of winning the fight, took chances and voila ;-). Two nice cities + two workers in 3125 BC...

I really don't understand what was going on with the game designers when they made this unit. Not only does it get 100% against archers, it even gets a free combat I promotion on top of it... compare that to some of the almost useless UUs that other civs get (Marines, anyone?).

 

[matthewthegreat]

A very difficult thing to do considering the buildings you CANNOT build, such as catherdrals

You cannot bulid catherdrals?? I'm 90% sure it only takes 3 Temples to build 1 catherdral in a standerd world size. Unless this is a larger map you should be able to build 1 catherdral per religion.

 

[siggboy]

Cathedrals are possible (3 temples needed). With being first to CoL and Philosophy we've got two religions of our own, and researching Divine Right might be feasible here for a possible third religion and opening up Versailles. If something spreads along the coast, even better (might be unlikely though depending on who founds what on the other islands).