Role Play CHallenge: Joao the Restless

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

About the game at hand: definitely found in place! You don't get FIVE seafood (two of them fish) in the capital BFC every day.

This is almost perfect for your purposes, more than what you could have asked for.

See if you can use the fur with a second city.

Calouste · Apr 14, 2008

I'd settle in place and spam workboats. You can get a decent amount of commerce out of those seafood tiles, and they will be excellent to build settlers and workers once you are going to build the fleet that is going to colonize the new world.

Iranon · Apr 14, 2008

Colonies are generally an underexplored aspect of the game. I read an interesting Deity walkthrough on a German site some time ago: Joao with a 1-city empire letting colonies (with their Deity bonuses...) do the dirty work.

I will be following this with interest.

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

Iranon said:
Colonies are generally an underexplored aspect of the game. I read an interesting Deity walkthrough on a German site some time ago: Joao with a 1-city empire letting colonies (with their Deity bonuses...) do the dirty work.

Wow, that's a brilliant idea. Could you maybe link the article? (I might be able to understand it :-)

.

I will be following this with interest.

I've played the map until 470 BC now. It is going to be a BLAST! The map is terrific, opening up some nice directions into which to go toward the Greater Goal. Difficult, but not impossible. I'm so excited about what Mad will do with this.

Edit: Some highlights (do not read this unless you've played a shadow game already yourself until at least 0 AD):

Spoiler :

Settled in place, built work boat, worker, work boat, archers, settler (chop)
Settled my second city ON THE GOLD MINE (the uppermost of the three), right next to the coast and river, close to the Khmer's second city. Chopped a Monument there, then spammed archers.
Declared on the Khmer, stealing two of his workers in the same turn. This really helped because I needed a lot of them.
Chopped the Oracle for a religion (none had been founded yet around me), I was very lucky there with the holy city being the one next to the Khmer, helping with the border fight (1125 BC).
Third city settled after Oracle in between the first two.
Techs: BW, Hunting, Archery, AH, Myst, Sailing (to connect the remote city), Meditation, Wheel, Priesthood, Writing, CoL (from Oracle), Iron Working. Then revolted into Caste System and ran three Scientists in the capital. Pottery (825 BC, didn't really need it until then, but Granaries were overdue at this point; the Khmer had kindly provided me with a flood plains cottage even before Pottery, I got it after the border flip .
IW in 900 BC revealed that the Khmer has it right next to his capital. Sadly for him I'm choking him with three promoted archers at the same time, so it doesn't look like he is going to build any metal troops soon. He doesn't have copper, either. He will die.
I have Iron as well, and it is EXACTLY in between the capital and the second city. Either city will grab it with the next border pop. Since I'm in Caste System at this point already, I run 2 Artists in the second city because that will get me the Iron at the next possible opportunity (the capital would have taken longer and I want to run Scientists there).
Built the Academy in the Capital from the first Scientist (700 BC).
Temple of Artemis in a far away land (800 BC), turns out to be Korea. He is far away, which is good because I'm going to send a Great Merchant into that city, so much is for sure.
Pyramids in a far away land in 675 BC!!, Vicky adopts Representation, so it's her. She must have access to stone...

Status quo: three OK cities, some happy resources (Gold, Fur) and a religion. Iron is being mined right now. I'm going to let the cities grow, then extinguish the Khmer and build the pilgrim fleet, bring those barbs on the new world some Confucianism. Speaking of which, it has spread in the meantime to both Saladin and Vicky, my two next door neighbours, which is excellent! I never thought I would ever give Saladin a religion, and not even an early one, before he got his own. Usually he founds Buddhism ;-).

NintendoTogepi · Apr 14, 2008

siggboy said:
I've played the map until 470 BC now. It is going to be a BLAST! Difficult, but not impossible.

I played until about turn 150, on Noble and Normal Speed.

Well Mad....get ready for a challenging game :eek:

Spoilers!

Spoiler :

BalbanesBeoulve · Apr 14, 2008

NintendoTogepi said:
Spoiler :

Shaka DoW'd me VERY early, I barely survived, and right now the whole continent is involved in war, barbarians have already wiped out the Khmer and one other civ I forget...., missed out on Oracle, but I did get the Great Wall (which saved me from the Philistines and the Aryans) and the Pyramids (great GP farm capital).

I think the best way to go is to have very few cities on the old world. I only have 2 and I probably won't found a 3rd one.

Spoiler :

pangu · Apr 14, 2008

Hi Madscientist

I was actually inspired by your rpc poll re: Joao and tried it out earlier (different map) on Monarch level normal speed.

The main problem as I see it in settling in new continent and making old cities your colony is that when I colonised 3 cities (I avoided setting a 4th city in new continent to prevent overseas maintenance penalty) and then build palace to liberate the old cities, the maintenance I got for supporting my vassal is huge. Basically, I got around 9 old cities which I liberated and it was very hard to support them with just 6 new cities (I got 3 more up once I liberated my old cities) and immature cottages. Researching anything is almost impossible and I had to build wealth to avoid a strike. I also sold off my map to get more cash which helped a bit. Secondly, my biggest rival in the game ended up as my colony because with my excellent infrastructure in place, his tech speed was crazy. He was researching fission while I struggled with replaceable parts. :sad:

In the end, I got up 12 cities (all cottaged) ran US (to get the structures in place fast - such as national epic, universities, markets etc) and emancipation (faster cottage growth) but I lost the game via space race by 10 turns. He got 3GD, SE, internet... what can I do? :lol:

Using spies in my colony's cities in the old continent is very inconvenient. I already delayed him a bit by forcing him to research crap like Mass Media and Laser, but yet the catching up is hard.

I actually forsaw the problem at the start, I farmed GS and so when I set up my new capital, I already shipped my few GS to the new capital and got an Academy in place, but the catching up is still very tough because 9 cities > 3 undeveloped cities with settled GS. :crazyeye:

My colony also got a couple of Golden Ages soon after liberation due to the wonders I built in my old capital (stonehedge, mids, GL, SoZ).

With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have settled fewer cities in my old continent, perhaps 3-4 is the right number, so the vassal maintenance is more manageable.

I hope your game turns out more successful than mine, good luck!

tycoonist · Apr 14, 2008

classic SG with similar variant:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184835

Killroyan · Apr 14, 2008

@Tycoonist: That was indeed a classic game which I enjoyed a lot reading.

@Madscientist: Gogo my friend. You have a decent start so this ought to be fun even if it is a rerun of the above mentioned SG. Better a good rerun then a bad self made up game

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

Update 625 AD:

Spoiler :

Researched Metal Casting, Compass, Aesthetics, Literature;
traded Alphabet, Construction, Mathematics, Monarchy. I think I've teched very efficiently, I still have hardly any cottages and often was not running any scientists either (due to war preparations and whipping).
Lightbulbed Philosophy with the second Great Scientist (25 AD), founding Taoism (for Pacifism which I'll be running now that the Khmer is gone); I've got another GS ready and waiting, and I'm now wondering if it's better to keep him for an Academy in the New World or lightbulb Paper. Tough decision.
I'm now 4 turns away from Civil Service, which will give my research another big boost. Shame I don't have the Pyramids...
The Great Lighthouse built in 145 AD by myself
Construction 250 AD (trade with Wang Kong)
Christianity founded in a distant land 295 AD (still unknown to me who it is)
I start whipping Cats and capture the first Khmer city in 415 AD, moving swiftly taking the other two, wiping out Khmer in 655 AD. I've kept all three cities, growing my empire to 6 cities total. Actually more than I had planned for, but those Khmer cities where too good not to keep them, and all of them are coastal. I have the Great Lighthouse so there will be quite a few bucks flowing in from trade routes.
I might not have enough workers at this point to get it all going quickly. I lost two to the Khmer early when I did not properly guard them :-(. Got a few back of course I still might have to built one or two more.
Colossus built in a distant land 625 AD. This hurts a bit, but I did not have Copper and my capital was busy producing other things so I decided not to go for the Colossus. Probably it was a trading partner of Justinian who built it, who I traded Metal Casting to first (or it's him, but the owner doesn't show yet on the wonder screen).
Since I have the Great Lighthouse this is OK. I guess you cannot have both and fight an early war at the same time anyway at this difficulty level.

Two Generals have been born during the Khmer war. The first one I settled in the capital, probably a mistake since I did not end up producing a great many units there. The second one I'm going to keep around, probably settling him in one of the new world locations. I should have kept both, I had enough troops for the Khmer and would not have needed any additional promotions from a General at all.

The war was really easy since I knew I would be facing only Archers, so I promoted the Swordsmen with Cover. Later on he built a few Catapults but nothing to worry about. I also got the random event giving all my Axemen free Shock promoting, actually a extremely strong event but utterly useless in my situation (the Khmer did not build a single melee unit, since he did not have metal ;-).

The south east Khmer city will become a production power house: two ocean resources and loads of grass land hills. The Moai Statues will go here (I'm currently building them in the capital, it's a hard decision but probably this city is better; that way I can also build the Great Library now in the capital).

Lots of wars are going on across the world, Vicky keeps bashing heads with Shaka and Justinian. I'm in a phony war with Brennus (killed one of his scouts and a stray archer, but nothing else. He keeps demanding CoL for peace so I'm not settling. Maybe I should, sooner or later before he'll invade with a dagger stack.

The diplomatic situation is interesting, lots of different religions, nobody really gets along well with each other (hence the many wars). I'm in a good position myself, with the Khmer gone and my two other neighbours having my religion.

I'm going to get Machinery and Optics now and set sails. Two Triremes are built, I've used them to pillage the Khmer fishing nets (actually leaving them in place would have been better, now I have to rebuilt it all...). Those are going to be my first two Carracks.

Soon enough I'll try to generate a Great Merchant and send him to the Temple of Artemis city, solving my gold problems for good.

Maybe I should have made a few screenshots, but we'll have plenty of Mad's when he plays it anyway ;-).

The map is amazing (BTW I'm playing Monarch on Epic speed).

By the way, does anybody know if we can built all the National wonders AGAIN as soon as we liberate our original settlement? Has somebody tested this yet?

Update 1000 AD:

Spoiler :

BTW it costs 65 gold to upgrade Trireme -> Carrack. Cheap! Trireme is 75 hammers, Carrack 90, so the Trireme is a lot more whip-able than the Carrack. Probably one should build only Triremes and upgrade instead of building Carracks directly.

Update 1365 AD:

Spoiler :

Ended all the phony wars mentioned in the last spoiler without fighting a single battle (had to pay a few gold but it was OK). It was a typical AI opportunity dogpile with no real consequences. England has gotten a fair bit smaller due to Justin chewing into her territory. She's also dropped in score considerable. I feared a possible runaway AI due to her living in Cottage Heaven (flood plains galore) and being financial, but apparently she sucks at war ;-).
Explore a good half of the new continent, it looks as expected (not as resourceful as the starting areas with all the artificially boosted city spots, but good enough for a few nice cities).
Lo and behold:

Astronomy from a hut! Again! This happened to me before, apparently Astronomy is the cheapest tech you can get at this point, so any hut that can pop a tech will give you Astronomy. Funnily enough it happened just after I was really close to changing my research to Astro because I suddenly remembered that you can't trade intercontinentally without this tech.
I still don't have Liberalism, I'm currently delaying it because nobody else is even close due to all the warring. I'm also delaying Guilds, waiting for more AIs to get it so Vicky will trade it to me. I won't be able to do this forever, though, since it's on the beeline towards Economy, and we want those Feitorias soon.
Currently I've got a few Longbows, Maces, Missionaries, 3 Settlers and 3 Workers over there. Going to start settling soon, still looking for a good spot.
Probably going to get this barb city as my first settlement:

.
I'm also building Courthouses in each and every city right now, because they will be needed after the transition.
A Great Merchant that I've farmed in the meantime netted me 1950 gold from a trade mission to Seoul (Temple of Artemis city). None of the other cities would have given more than 1650, most only 1350 or even less. What a shame that Seoul is not coastal, because the additional harbor would ramp up the profit even more.
Popped a Priest after the Merchant in the capital. I was hoping for a Scientist. I'm keeping the Priest for a new settlement to help with hammers since the shrine is already built.

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

tycoonist said:
classic SG with similar variant:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=184835

Very similar, but since the idea is not that far fetched it's not surprising that is has been tried before in an online game.

This here is different though, since our leader has a new Unique Unit specially suited for this scenario, and we also have the possibility to explicitely vassalize our old lands. Both did not exist when the abovementioned succession game took place (they had to gift away their old cities, or have them capped deliberately).

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

@Nintendo:

Spoiler :

@Balbanes:

Spoiler :

BalbanesBeoulve said:
I choked Shaka. He's on a tiny little peninsula that only has a 1 tile wide exit. I stuck a couple of archers and a woodsman 2 warrior there and he's yet to even try dislodging them, despite having about 10 archers in his capital

Well, it's a two tile wide exit, actually, with an opening to the east as well. But choking him early means he's not going to expand into that direction anyway (I've got Saladin sitting there by now in my own game).

I first plunked a city right next to his feet, to grab the gold and other goodness there, then choked him with Archers.

I think it's strange that the AI builds such huge defenses inside their choked cities before even making an attempt to chase you off. I once had a single Dog Soldier sitting in front of a Persian city with 8 Archers inside it when he finally decided to kill it... he had horses right in front of him which he could not access because he cowardly refused to attack the choking unit. But that's a different story (BOTM 02 by the way).

But between survayaman, and saladin, and even victoria i had very little room for cities. only about 5, and only about 2 of them in good spots. If it was a normal game i'd definitely go to war, probably against survayaman, but since you're aiming for the new world 5 cities is more than enough to get you to the new world, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad. I didn't keep playing but it shouldn't be too bad. Shaka will be more busy with Victoria, Saladin isn't that aggressive as long as you're not a different religion, the only real threat is Survayaman.

Turns out this is exactly the case in my game as well. I think what you get if you kill the Khmer (and you have to unless you want to play it as a Two-City challenge) is more than enough. You end up with 5-6 cities ranging from decent to excellent quality. A larger empire is only hindering you anyway after the transition to the new continent -- and it will all be gone anyway soon enough.

Everybody else is too far away to be a real threat.

Yes, manage to hold peace with England/Arabia and deal with the Khmer (either defend or kill), and you're set.

siggboy · Apr 14, 2008

pangu said:
Secondly, my biggest rival in the game ended up as my colony because with my excellent infrastructure in place, his tech speed was crazy. He was researching fission while I struggled with replaceable parts.
[...]
With the benefit of hindsight, I probably should have settled fewer cities in my old continent, perhaps 3-4 is the right number, so the vassal maintenance is more manageable.

Yeah, what you're saying is exactly what I found in my test games as well. I haven't played any of them for long enough to actually see what my old colony would be doing tech-wise, but obviously if you make it too strong yourself you have yourself a formidable rival there. Vassal maintenance is not the only problem as it seems.

By the way are you sure that you need to found 4 cities for your colony to incur additional maintenance? I'm pretty sure it sets in after the second city already.

I guess we don't have Permanent Alliances enables, which is a pity since that would help (can you PA with a Vassal, actually?).

Probably it would be best to actually GIFT a few of your old cities to a rivaling civ before creating the colony.

Spoiler :

KrikkitTwo · Apr 14, 2008

siggboy said:
I guess we don't have Permanent Alliances enables, which is a pity since that would help (can you PA with a Vassal, actually?).

No, and in my opinion that is a real disadvantage of colonies. (and of PAs in general, as well as the AIs tech leakage to vassals)

Refar · Apr 14, 2008

Uh, i am sure i am outing myself as complete illiterate here. I still going to ask the dumb question:

1776 AD :confused:

madscientist · Apr 14, 2008

Refar said:
Uh, i am sure i am outing myself as complete illiterate here. I still going to ask the dumb question:

1776 AD

Anerican Independence!!! I am an American or Portugese decent!

God Bless America, dammit!

Refar · Apr 14, 2008

Hmmm, i even knew that.
But somehow it had no conntection to Joao or Portugal in my mind :lol:

(Still hasn't

)

Sorry about that :mischief:

Calouste · Apr 14, 2008

madscientist said:
Anerican Independence!!! I am an American or Portugese decent!

God Bless America, dammit!

Having had a quick look at the history of Brazil, I think you should move the Palace before 1808, and colony off the Old World by 1822, to be historically acurate

And you better get Cristo Redentor quick, as you will need to alternate between Representation, Police State and Universal Suffrage every few years...

r_rolo1 · Apr 14, 2008

If we are going to discuss Portuguese history.... *adopts sever look and pose of History teacher*....

1808 was when D. Maria I ( that was a little :crazyeyes: at the time ) and her son , prince D. João ( later to be D. João VI ) decided to move to Brazil to avoid capture by French marechal Junot. They stayed there until the Constitutional Assembly formed in the 1820 revolution demanded that the king returned here.... after that and some exorbitant demands from the assembly, the Brazilian masons ( the portuguese heir prince, D. Pedro , Emperor D. Pedro I of Brazil and King D. Pedro IV of Portugal ( not at the same time ) , was a mason and acepted to be the leadman ) decided to force the indenpendance....Techincally Portugal only recongized Brazil indenpendance in 1826 ( with the death of D. João VI and the coronation of the Brazilian emperor as portuguese king :crazyeye:

... he abdicated to his daughter Maria and that would lead to a big and nasty civil war. but that is for another chapter... ), but 1822 is a decent date.

Now you only have to find Napoleon in this map, run away to the new world from him, come back and give independance to the New world :lol:

madscientist · Apr 14, 2008

Joao the Restless: Part I

No wonder Joao wants to leave. What a garbage heap of land we have here. Those of you who shadowed and posted in spoilers, no wonder you were laughing. Not only is the land crappy but we have one of the worse leaders RIGHT onTop of some great land.

Well, Joao will not be hindered!!!! For those of you who did not shadow, read on!!!!!

First where to settle. We settled in place. All that seafood, forrests and hills? Makes alot of sense.

Here is a view of Lisbon

Typical start for me, when we have seafood and fishing, build a workboat using the greatest hammer tile.

Our Build order this round: WB/WB/WB/scout/archer/archer/worker/settler/worker/archer/settler/archer

Tech: hunting/BW/archery/AH/IW start the wheel. I am not so happy with out tech order, should have went BW first and we are currently doing wheel which should be mysticism.

Soon we meet the monster of CIV

I really hate this freak!!!

And just look where he is and the land right there!!!

Gold/floodplains, man we could sail to the new world fast with that city!!! Joao get's a very greedy look in his eyes!!

We meet another couple of AIs

MY oh MY!!! OK< I think we will avoid any religions and let those dudes fight it out!

After teching BW and AH we find

Well, that is just great. Not only does the land suck, we have no copper or horses nearby!!! We decide to tech Iron, let's find out right away what we need to do.

We settle city #2 (Joao can really spam workers and settlers!)

That's right, we'll ram it right down Sury's throat!!!!!!! Get's us deer and gold right away and cows after the border pop.

We meet the last AI of the round

2 more left, still a chance for old Napolean Rolo!

After finally teching IW, we have our third settler underway. and

Iron in our borders!!!!

Well, I saved there. I guess we have to finish the wheel to hookup the Iron.

After it' hooked up what do you all think we should? We, it's not a democracy, I'm going after Sury ASAP. Time to chop, chop, chop Swords/spears left and right. The Alien Freak will Die very very soon!!!!

The question is how much land do we save? We don't need much more, maybe just enough to mine alot of gold to finance caracks!!! OPtherwise burn, pillage, and burn some more. No sens eleaving prime realestate for the next tenant!

Role Play CHallenge: Joao the Restless

Monarch/Epic

Deity

Deity

Monarch/Epic

Noble Pacifist

Emperor

Chieftain

Deity

Deity

Monarch/Epic

Monarch/Epic

Monarch/Epic

Monarch/Epic

Immortal

Deity

RPC Supergenius

Deity

Deity

King of myself

RPC Supergenius

Similar threads