Role Play Challenge, TNG: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!

[madscientist]

Pregame Thread
PArt I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
Part X
Part XI
Part XII




Welcome fellow CivFanatics, to the next RPC, TNG! It's a MAD, MAD, MAD,MAD World!!! An earth-map where I play as myself, Madscientist, against select Civfanatics victums, I mean posters, on an Earth-Map! Select posters were either hand selected (those that helped me improve my game or helped in classic RPCs) or volunteered. A single player game mind you, this is NOT multi-player!

Call it a little vengence for the Classic "Paranoia" game!

Settings:

Huge earth-map with 18 civs.
Emperor Difficulty
Epic Speed
No VASSALS

RPC Rules (gotta have some)

1) We can only get a domination win. With no vassals, you all must die!
2) We follow the combat promotions only. Exception is seige which can be promoted anyway I see fit!

The leaders and the Fanatics representing them!

MadScientist = Ghengis Khan
MonteZuma = TheMeInTeam
Roosevelt = michmbk
Hyuna Capac = Futurehermit
Frederick = Sian
Elizabeth = MadmanAtW
Catherine = Jaaboo
Julius Caesar = Insanity X
Louis XIV = MTMacc99
Alexander = semirami
Isabella = r rolo1
Saladin = Bandobras Took
Mansa Musa = Attacko (shadowed by Ignorant Teacher)
Tokugawa = Lansky
Cyrus = Loki Strikes
Hatshepsut = DaveMcW
Qin Shi Huang = Yared94
Ashoka = Neal

First of all, The scourge of the Civfanatics world



The dismal starting land



And once again, starting conditions



The Mongols start with hunting and the wheel, and beeing an earth map, horses in teh BFC. Animal Husbandry is a no brainer here to start!

Any poster wanting to shadow the game as their namesake, feel free. I suggest spoilers to avoid confusion on maps.

I added a normal save of the game and a Worldbuilder zipped file that you can used to play as a scenario. When I altered the WB game I got a message in the Custome Scenario menu that the MadsWorld could not be loaded but apparently it was. You know me, WB saves are not my thing!

EDIT: Important nore on teh WorldBuilder save. It is NOT saved with no Vassals option, you have to add that yourself under the custome scenario option. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[MadmanAtW]

I can't wait to see how this goes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TMIT Takes on...THE WORLD! Of CFC!

Same settings and rules as Mad, except no events.

The shenanigans to 10 AD and an unexpected opening:

Spoiler :

How was it unexpected? Well, in monty's default capitol, you get stone, covered in jungle. I think this was intended to prevent him from getting early stone wonders as the AI.

However, TMIT's glorious Aztecs want wonders and bypass this little problem by settling ON the stone. Note that this site is pretty iffy. On the one hand, it has a nice 2H (it was grassland stone!) tile for the city tile, and 2 corns. On the other, the vast majority of the remaining tiles are terrible. But it does allow for a) stone, which means easy stonehenge/mids/etc and b)





Sorry Michmbk, but I need that city took. I am posting this after he did the same to me, but I got away with 1 less warrior! Hah! Well, I'm more confident in the 5 warrior rush with AGG anyway...

I hit an unexpected snag:



OUCH. I have a huge/epic map, with a gimped tech rate due to a far early conquest, and I just lost my only *easy* anti-barb solution! D'oh! Now I'll have to rely on the coveted "warriors only anti-barbs" until I can hook up metal. You know, the metal north of washington...though I manage since I know the mechanics.

I DO get stonehenge, and this time the pyramids also. Finally, I chop very aggressively in washington to bang out the most abusive wonder on the whole map: GLH. With that, there is some expansion in mind...but for now, I stop this spoiler at 10 AD

Onward to peaceful development and liberalism 1160 AD (which I lost)

Spoiler :

First of all, we have an interesting proof on why GLH is so strong for anyone in the americas (as well as japan and some others):



Whoa, all 2 commerce, everywhere. How am I getting 2?



Laugh if you want, bad as all of those cities are (with the exception of cuba, which is my eventual moai site), each one instantly improved my research AND gold per turn the second they were founded. Note that they also conveniently culture block barb galleys out of the gulf of mexico. Score! I eventually, gradually, like taking forever, would whip in some minimal infrastructure in each of them, in addition to some work boats for south american cities.

Speaking of south america...



I have already started settling it. However, I made no effort at lib. Oh well.

1500's AD and the complete subjugation of all but 1-2 cities in the western hemisphere:

Spoiler :

Land is power. Land is power. Land is power. Give me your land.



And someone wins the race to prove the world is round, not supported by turtles all the way down!





Futurehermit is cut down easily (no castles). On the other side of things, apparently most of the entire forum hates DaveMCW:



By the way, I opened borders with everyone for diplo without astro. Normally, this would be criticized (especially by R_rolo1), but in my case it was fine: I'm running merc for now (complements rep very well, and since I am #1 in city count denies a LOT of trade routes to the AI).

Trebs + high combat maces are more than a match for barbs, and the aztec empire continues south:







Above is the first look at my improvement choice for south america. Cottages? Possibly, but not until the cities get granaries/courthouses and grow. There's a lot of juicy riverside, but not much in the way of food tiles especially in the interior. I re-thought using serfdom for this playthrough...it really does suck. I stayed in slavery and slaved all over the place as needed (exactly 1 city in my empire is cottaged).

Now, that's some massive expansion pre-communism. How am I financing it? Incredibly, mostly with a combination of courthouses, GLH, and BANKS/GROCERS/MARKETS haha. I deliberately teched that line first just so that I could afford permaexpansion. What kind of permaexpansion?





These 2 cities have been full time worker/settler pumps since BC times. Other cities helped out on occasion, but the vast majority of expansion hails from these 2 sites. I mostly picked them because they were already on all their good tiles so had the lowest opportunity cost.

And finally, we get the 1560 AD, and most of the land is already clear-cut:



A look at the tech pictures:





And some other basic stats:





Aztecs are in control of this game. I'm still behind in tech, but I JUST switched to state property, which vaulted me from ~600 BPT to > 1k. The cities in the south are still developing, but are now not far from being ready to be workshopped/watermilled at decent populations...and the workers are already all shipped down there. Although it will suck to obsolete GLH, I will head for assembly line next to set up factory/coal workshops, tech out arty/flight, and crush CFC. Alternatively, I might go flight/industrialism and just use tanks. That should be quicker, I'm forced to take combat anyway (so will be good in the field), and flight should support the basic bombardment needs as I step all over everybody.

Controlling the americas is already a hefty % of land/pop. I'm thinking I'll head into africa first, where most of the war has been going on via davemcw getting super dogpiled. I can meet the enemy troops there and kill them ASAP before they get too upgraded, and then quickly control africa + europe.

Now with more GIFTING of NUKES!

1869 Domination

Spoiler :

We left off with the western hemisphere colored green, finally having some OK research now that we're in state property. Got to a very brief tech lead before research stopped mattering.

There is a 30 screen shot per post limit so I won't show EVERYTHING here.

Shortly after the last segment ended, I a) used steampower/serfdom and b) automated (!) workers with all cities but my 1 cottage site emphasizing hammers. While doing this, I beelined assembly line. Once most of the workshops/watermills were up I switched to caste. After teching AL, tech path went ----> combustion ----> industrialism ----> flight -----> refrigeration -----> fission ------> rocketry (as a backup plan) ------> ecology (in case) ------> doesn't matter.

But teching dropped by nearly 1/2 after industrialism as I switched to police state and started building units rather than wealth/research in the factory/power plant cities I now had all over. I set 2 waypoints: the NE tip of maine and the eastern tip of south america, depending on which side of that annoying mountain the cities were on. I set up 2 naval dry dock ship factories, which built destroyers and transports. Every other city built tanks (later on, some took over fighters and eventually nukes).

At first, the invasion stack wasn't very big, but it didn't need to be: most of Europe would be defending with RIFLES:





It turned out the teching fission/rocketry "in case" was a good call. Yared, the bastard that he's been in this series, built manhattan project, causing the two of us to be the only ones who could field nukes. He also went back to town on attacko (his favorite punching bag once daveMCW was off the map).

At that point, I didn't want to deal with getting nuked, so I wanted attacko to survive while I murdered europe, persia, russia, and of COURSE (by necessity) the mongol sissies! Haha! To do this, I had to collude with the forum's ultimate mystery god player...



Whoa, that's weird. Where did those 50+ yared units go? Why does Yared really hate him for nuking him a lot (way more than yared launched) despite attacko not knowing fission? And where did attacko suddenly come up with 30+ tanks from all those flood plains?! It must be because he's that good.

With china locked in war and distracted and lansky picking fights with neal, I was free to mow everyone else down. Tanks and fighters are very solid, and even infantry will tend to lose to tanks if damaged first (even without bombard). There wasn't much stopping in these wars.

How did I get units across? Airlift? Definitely not. Too much micro (thought it seems that automated workers will airlift themselves, and they did do that because I put airports in my fighter cities). My MILITARY was shipped over. With refrigeration, you do not need navigation to load units and sail from s. america to africa in a single turn (!). Going from maine to spain is 3 turns. Tanks move very fast even over roads but the auto workers started slapping railroads around anyway too. Reinforcing with massed units via navy was easy, it felt just like a normal size map.

And thanks to epic speed, we even get a comparable completion date:



Well, having to go across the ocean AFTER settling a huge continent slowed things down, but whatever. The best domination times will come from the old world civs. It's possible michmbk beats me too since he was ahead in tech and barely behind in expansion at checkpoint 2, but my warring itself was pretty fast so we'll see.

End game stats/score



Hi, I have some tanks!



Not great, not terrible, but the first time I had the patience to clear south america myself and play from the western hemisphere attacking the east.

 

[Insanity_X]

I'm looking forward to it too. Hopefully I'll be a dominant force in europe, rather than just eating pasta and not doing nothing else in Italy.

Neal settled 1NE, there'd probably be little difference if you settled in place. but in any case, as you said AH is the first priority.

Also, I won't be shadowing this one (initially atleast) my computer freezes frequently, and with huge turns taking an age on a bad computer, chances are my computer will freeze before I play 10 turns.

 

[Jaaboo]

Jaaboo will take over the world! Or something. Can't wait to see this played out, Mad! I'm 50/50 on even starting a shadow, Earth 18 games tend to swallow my computer whole around 1500AD or so.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So is Yared going to die to warriors on turn 20 or so ?

I have a proposal for myself and all shadowers: limit our direct shadow games to one post, and edit it as the game progresses. With 17 potential shadow games (even though most probably won't play it out), it could be hard to follow how each person does if they split up their progress. Of course, this rule can/should not apply to the mad host of this series, but I think it would keep the thread cleaner overall and easier to follow how each person does.

 

[Lansky]

Japan Wins For Once


Playing same settings as Madscientist, however made a few changes to the map
- Mountain NW of Spain start is now an ocean tile.
- Plain E of China start is now an ocean tile.
- Several holes punched in the Andes mountains.
- Several resources (bananas, sugar, gems, rice) inserted into South American jungle. I’m hoping the Inca will do something with them but I doubt it.

Of and I left domination victory enabled as well. At first accidentally, later to avoid having to hunt down everyone on a huge map. I just don't have the patience.

Spoiler :

To 35BC

Spoiler :

So Tokugawa got up on the wrong side of the bed today and I killed him for this offense. So now I’ll take the Japanese empire to glory! This is a good start considering I'll likely only get these two huts!



The first leader met is our glorious host. He is the only leader that will get mentioned in this manner. Short term he could be annoying. Long term his land sucks and is not even worth the early conquest time.



Then in 1725 BC the true power of a non Tokugawa led Japan comes to fruition. I have already put 2 cities in Korea and the most powerful wonder to grace the eastern Asian seaboard is finished with a chop and some whip overflow. Maybe could have waited a bit and used another settler whip overflow to finish and get this a bit later after more expansion, but I have NO clue when wonders go on the world map. I have not played this map in a long time.



Research is set towards writing to actually utilize said wonder when I get the only random event of this first stretch. HEALTH! Cities are already suffering from the whip, but screw it. This event is great.



Kyoto whips a library asap, works 2 scientists…. and at low odds Kyoto miraculously gets a GS. An academy goes down with much rejoicing. Also we can see that Yared is kind enough to adopt Representation and tell me in what far off land the ‘Mids are located. There is once again, much rejoicing.



As you could see in the last shot Math is in and all the Korean forests chopped down. Tokyo and Osaka are whipped to hell. Yared is now weaker than Japan. Take solace that the wonder will help me greatly. Also went for Confucianism as until I was halfway done with this tech there was no religion present in Greece. Then BAM! Everyone goes Hindu. Le sigh. There is very little rejoicing.



Okay there is much rejoicing once again. Yes I had many selfish motives for making China start coastal



RNG throws me a curveball and founding Confucianism is not a waste. While I cannot adopt it as everybody and their dog is Hindu a few turns in NSR will pop the borders and keep tiles away from that greedy Mongolian caveman. He’s already falling behind in tech!



Even losing a couple axes I stay above Yared in power. I can see why. He whips in an axe but I take the city and raze it. A settler is en route to move it to a coastal location. The rest of the cities have just as pathetic resistance.



In 365BC, turn 149, China is gone. This city is also razed and resettled coastal. Normally I wouldn’t bother but I built the Great Lighthouse for a reason! Also by settling one south the city is able to hold the resources that DaveMC’s cottage powered culture would have certainly stole.



My conquest gold dwindling, I did what any smart leader does – or American at least… BEG! As you can see from the peace treaties all the of swell Hindu leaders gave me a small handful of gold or gpt except Sian. Screw that guy. Get almost 300g from begging. This deficit gold plus foreign trade route access with all these nice Hindu people is just asinine amounts of research. Every city is chopping/whipping in research multipliers as fast as they can. Whipping is very liberal as with calendar resources up the happy cap is huge. Silver, Gold, Dye, Sugar, Silk, Incense, Religion… it’s… beautiful. Even more rejoicing!



The glorious Japanese capital where all of the rejoicing occurs. To commemorate the early success a Great Artist has volunteered his services. He's thrown to the side for a while and told to shut up.



The glorious Japanese empire that causes all of the rejoicing.



I can't find the picture of the tech situation so I'll just leave it at - I'm winning

To 445AD

Spoiler :

So we left off with Yared dead and that’s about it. All of the rejoicing made it seem like a prudent decision to build a Mausoleum to a group of minstrels who died during the rejoicing in order to feed the hungry rejoicers. The leader of their group was oddly names Maussollos.



Normally beaker events are great. This time I’d rather keep my gold.



The Great Artist, formerly known as Victor Hugo, is told to do something cool. He jumps off a building saying he can fly and abruptly dies. He was an annoying bloke, so naturally the entire empire throws a giant party.



During the party the first two major steps are the building of a large depository of books that can catalogue the many reasons Japan rejoices as well as understanding that machinery is necessary to wield a samurai sword. The party still has 9 turns left, however the populace is getting rowdy. They need to be put back into their place with a massive whipping effort converting their now useless possessions into funds to quickly train an elite guard, or attack force whatever, of Samurai warriors. Why does Japan the world’s leader in science need an elite attack force of Samurai warriors? Mind your own business. Nosy bastard.



In 175AD Hypatia appeared in Kyoto spreading the knowledge of Egyptian cottage mathematics. Unlike Hugo this information seemed greatly useful so she was chained into the Depository of Rejoicing to write down why I should care.



A few years later Beijing completed a building the locals named The Parthenon. Within the marble columns one could find various statues of people having a good time drinking alcoholic beverages out of strange cylindrical containers. The plaques say that these will one day be known as cans. Here’s to you futuristic party statues!



The best trained Axemen left over from the bullying and untimely and accidental death of Yared are given swords and told that letting the enemy attack first is dumb. Enlightened by the idea of attacking their enemy before themselves being smacked in the face they decide to sit in a jungle for a few more years.



In 325AD after many many citizens are killed so their possessions could be used to train more and more Samurai a Russian scientific emissary comes to Kyoto to speak about human rights and why killing people is bad. Hypatia who has grown wearing about writing down the math for setting up granaries, farms, and cottages in newly set up commerce cities is given a breather and allowed to beat on this emissary until he deliriously rambles about protons and electrons. What a moron.



A few years later a great Samurai of odd descent travels back to the great Japanese stronghold of Kagoshima to receive a medal of valor. He is given one favor of his choosing in honor of his great deeds in both the Chinese and ongoing Indian war. His request? Stay here and not have to see his troops in the field ever again. They apparently just tease him for his silly name. Samurai can be so cruel.



At long last the Indian capital of Dehli falls. Death tolls were astronomical – for them – but you cannot count deaths when faced with great success. It’s just takes away from the fun of winning and rejoicing. Especially the rejoicing.



After allowing the remainder of the Indian workers to stack up into a neat and tidy package the final traces of the Indian empire are destroyed. Neal I bid thee adieu. Err arigato. Err konnichiwa. Screw it.



In the year 445AD we stop to take a breather. As we look out upon the newly expanded Japan the true power of the former Indian civilization is revealed – MOUNTAIN TRUFFLES! OH YEAH BABY!





Anyway a small peak into a few cities -

The military stronghold of Kagoshima:

Spoiler :

Guangzhou, the city of a thousand whips:

Spoiler :

Kyoto, The Center and Cataloger of Rejoicing:

Spoiler :

Jaboo and Madscientist are currently the best friends the Japanese have. We are all at war with Sian. Remember him? He’s the douchebag that would not give Japan 20g when the conquest gold had run out. Screw him!

 

[michmbk]

Oh boy, do I start shadowing tonight, or watch opening night of college football. This almost tempted me enough to play instead of watch the games, but, it's football, back after 8 months. Will have to wait until tomorrow night to control the Americas. At least in one of the 18 games, TMIT will get beat down.

Here's another vote for each of us posting our shadows via edits...this will get confusing and out of hand otherwise.

 

[Loki Strikes]

May shadow sometime this weekend, so reserving the post this will be most amusing

 

[JTMacc99]

Hee-hee! I'm a Mad Scientist typo victim, and it's only the first post.

I will not be shadowing as myself, strictly due to the Huge map. I look forward to being discovered and can't wait to see if I end up being some sort of factor. (Seems unlikely.)

 

[Lansky]

Oh boy, do I start shadowing tonight, or watch opening night of college football.

4 words

Laptop
Television
Second Television*


*It is the last week of NFL preseason as well and after 8 months I was far too deprived to even ignore preseason.

 

[r_rolo1]

Bah, now I'm forced to kick a certain Mongol dude that is calling me both Spanish and woman ...

Reserved for the show

P.S For all the people that is shadowing: remember that, due to mad's handicap, everyone except Mongolia starts with 2 warriors/scouts in the WB save he posted. I'll edit mine to reflect some more realistical conditions for *gasp* Spain ...

 

[Silu]

^ Look at the bright side of being Spain, at least you have a UB that's actually worth building under some circumstances

 

[madscientist]

Bah, now I'm forced to kick a certain Mongol dude that is calling me both Spanish and woman ...

Reserved for the show

P.S For all the people that is shadowing: remember that, due to mad's handicap, everyone except Mongolia starts with 2 warriors/scouts in the WB save he posted. I'll edit mine to reflect some more realistical conditions for *gasp* Spain ...

Did I do that???

 

[semirami]

I'm looking forward to it too. Hopefully I'll be a dominant force in europe, rather than just eating pasta and not doing nothing else in Italy.

No, you wont. I'll be the dominant force. Just make and eat your salads


Reserved for shadow.

 

[michmbk]

4 words

Laptop
Television
Second Television*


*It is the last week of NFL preseason as well and after 8 months I was far too deprived to even ignore preseason.

I only wish civ ran well on my laptop. It only runs well on my souped up desktop pc, which, alas, is nowhere near any of my televisions, much to my chagrin. Of course, I sat and watched a 7-3 game - that's how happy i was about having football back.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

You can all be as good as you want and try as hard as you can, but we all know one thing for sure.

The evidence is clear:

Attacko is the superior.

 

[Lansky]

Well... just about done with my shadow

I'll post it in segments when I get around to it and Mad actually plays some of his own game to put up first. Never realized how amazingly powerful Japan's start is when played by a human... or I just forgot how strong GLH is when you start on an island.

In my version Yared99 builds the Pyramids before he dies

 

[Neal]

My shadow game can be found linked in my sig... Though I will admit that a few of the AI Civs are a bit different

You need to change up your avatar, Mad! Unless Tesla's now your regular pic.

But, yeah. My Mongol game was a romping good time, and that's with my usual cautious tendencies taken into account. It'll be fun to see what a true warmonger is capable of doing with Keshiks...

 

[Killroyan]

Now this is going to be incredible interesting. Especially with all the big names in here.