RotM02 - Glorious Space Race

[IceLion]

I really enjoy playing the Rise of the Machines SG and thought that maybe I could start something with this. So here is the next SG in the series (if I can call it that).

Glorious Space Race

The Machine slaves have revolted and have grown tired of the constant war that cruel oppresive machines have subjected them to. Religion has spead to the borders of the machine empire and the slaves rejoice! Covertly, they wish to build a marvellous machine of their own to fly to the heavens and be delivered from the malicious Hive. A spaceship to fly them to the stars!

Civ: England-Elizabeth, Philisophical/Financial
Map: Large, Terra
Difficulty: Prince
Opponents:Map default
Victory condition: Space Race

Variants:
-MUST build the Space Elevator Wonder
-MUST found one religion and all cities MUST have the state religion.
-Teamed play, which as far as I know has not been tried in an SG. For whatever the map default is we are teamed with one less than the machines. So, for standard 3 Human vs. 4 Machines, or large 4 Human vs. 5 Machine.
-Always war, we are fighting for our freedom afterall.
-All Machines are aggressive, no humans can be.
-No siege weapons, since that is what we used in RotM01.
-Perfect city placement, by this I mean no border smushing.
-No cottages, Watermills or Windmills allowed, Farms, Lumbermills and workshops only.

As always, open to any other suggestions-

Roster:
IceLion
Vovan
Hamtastic
ruff_hi
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-IceLion

 

[hamtastic]

I'm in for sure. Sounds interesting. I have an idea for ROTM-03, if you're interested: provided our glorious people launch the spaceship, we have to settle a new planet, with NO MACHINERY, no slavery, required religion from ROTM-02, etc. (i.e. the opposite of ROTM-01, but even harder). (we could even make it so that we can't research "machinery," but that might be too hard.)

 

[IceLion]

OOOOH, I LIKE IT!! Absolutely, and we could use a mod... like the Mars or Moon map.. what yah think?

 

[Akuma-sama]

The no border smushing rule will probably be impossible to play with O_o

And no cottages/no tech trade? The AI will beat you to space! XD

 

[IceLion]

Hmmm... I seem to remember someone from the first RotM telling us that we couldn't do it... and we are doing it.

 

[ChrTh]

lurker's comment:
Are you sure you want to play the Terra map for this variant? Without going to war you'll be hardpressed to get more than 3 or 4 cities at the start of the game.

 

[IceLion]

I was thinking to try a different map variation, and it would be cool to have it something like the Puritans fleeing England. The idea for the story is that the slaves from the previous RotM game are trying to escape oppression. It may be difficult to achieve, but thats what makes it fun.

Hamtastic has taken this a step further and put kind of an Alpha Centauri spin on it. I like the fact that the players in this series are making it more of a story than just a random set of turns. Really makes this an enjoyable game.

 

[ruff_hi]

What about using the ice map - i haven't played it but I did read that it was one of the more playable. I agree that no cottages would be difficult - have to get a FIN civ and losts of coast + bronze statue man (forget the real name).

 

[ruff_hi]

This sounds good. I've been thinking about it and how about something like this ...

two large islands - about the same size
the same civs as "Rise of the Machines"
Indians (the mechs) on one island all by them selves
All the other civs on the other island

Effectively, the other civs have escaped from the Indian island and are trying to survive. We fix the indians so that they are really aggressive (and maybe a tech boost so that they lead) - maybe like monty and we remove some of the ship units from the game (leave in the late tech ones). We spend the whole game trying to outcompete the other humans and staying hidden from the indians. If the Indians find us, then ...

 

[hamtastic]

I'm not sure about that. Seems (completely) impossible to stay hidden from another civ the whole game. I say we just have to get off this conquered rock before the Indians destroy us all. (Any way we could do some world builder stuff to give the Indians a tech lead/make them hostile/make them always war with only us?)

 

[ruff_hi]

I'm not sure about that. Seems (completely) impossible to stay hidden from another civ the whole game. I say we just have to get off this conquered rock before the Indians destroy us all. (Any way we could do some world builder stuff to give the Indians a tech lead/make them hostile/make them always war with only us?)

Put India on their own island and put a land ring round the outside (mainly width 2 but a few width 1 places). In that way, India can get off their island but only by building a city on the 'right' square.

 

[IceLion]

That would require building a custom map, etc... If you have the time to do it ruff_hi... go for it.

P.S.- You're up in RotM01 right now.

 

[ruff_hi]

Another option that we might want to think about is running the civs as a team (all v india) with us being one of the civs.

 

[Bezhukov]

Why not play the 1000AD mod as England? It's a terra map that can be won without ever declaring war (although you start out at war with the Vikings), and it has enough food to support the specialist spam you'll need to keep up in tech.

 

[IceLion]

Why not play the 1000AD mod as England? It's a terra map that can be won without ever declaring war (although you start out at war with the Vikings), and it has enough food to support the specialist spam you'll need to keep up in tech.

That could be a great idea, wonder if there is anyway to change the start date...

 

[vovan]

Woah, IceLion, I totally would have missed this, if it wasn't for you joining V1 and me deciding to check out your profile to see what other games you are in.

Of course, I am in, this sounds good.

On the topic of people telling us it couldn't be done - you know, I am surprised how easy RotM1 turned out to be! There were a few tough moments in the beginning, but pretty much by the time we were done with the Japanese, we were cruising. When JC attacked us, I was kinda scared, but having everyone else gang up on him might have helped there.

OK, on the topic of this variant. Firstly, I think ruff is overcomplicating things a little bit for the sake of the story. I, personally, would prefer just a randomly generated map + random civs.

Next, no tech trading, no cottages, no war... I don't know... May be just me, but I get pretty bored with just building and nothing else going on for the whole game. (Especially if we play Terra, run out of land to expand pretty quickly, and all we can do is improve land and build stuff in cities untill optics...) I'd say we should ditch one of these constraints. Tech Trading would help us keep up with other civs, cottages would improve our research rate and money situation, and war... well, war would just make for a more fun game.

How about this: no cottages, but allow war and tech trading. But, when picking opponents, make half of them those with aggressive traits. Then, in the game, we can only make war with the aggressive civs (machines) and can only tech trade with the non-aggressive civs (other escaped humans). If another human civ attacks us, we are only allowed to defend ourselves, and must seek to make peace as soon as possible. Also, we can only incite wars between machines, or bring humans along with us when we attack the machines (can't bring machines with us when we attack, nor incite wars between humans or humans/machines without our participation). Finally, if a machine civ is above 'cautious' with us, we must do something to piss it off, else other humans will label us as 'machine-sympathizers'!

That'd be my take on the humans escaping from machines variant. Thought it does involve a whole bunch of diplo rules. Also, admittedly it would involve a whole bunch more warfare than IceLion's planned 'peaceful building' game.

Vovan

 

[IceLion]

Come, come now, Vovan. You of all people now should know that I LOVE war. Afterall, was it not me that left you that nice juicy stack to begin pounding on Toky with? I believe it was . What I really want for this particular SG is to really put us at a defecit, we are trying to escape oppression afterall. I really like your ideas, so based on that here is what I propose for the changes;

-Teamed play, which as far as I know has not been tried in an SG. For whatever the map default is we are teamed with one less than the machines. So, for standard 3 Human vs. 4 Machines, or large 4 Human vs. 5 Machine.
-Always war, we are fighting for our freedom afterall.
-No Cottages
-All Machines are aggressive, no humans can be.
-No siege weapons, since that' is what we used in RotM01.

Just some ideas, feed me more Seymore...

On another note, can I count you as an in on this ruff_hi?

 

[ruff_hi]

Yes - count me in. Have you ever played a team game? I played one for a little while until I understood things a bit better. You share beakers and the human sets the research path for the whole team BUT you do not share resources - if your team mates have iron, it doesn't mean that you do!

I like your latest options but I don't know how you will stop the other humans from building cottages.

 

[IceLion]

Yah, I've played a couple team games, the AI will constantly give you whatever resources they have in excess. As far as stopping the other humans from building cottages, well, they are a different faction and so can do as they see fit. The human doesnt always set the research path, but you can alter it when the AI does something you don't want them to do.

 

[IceLion]

On the topic of people telling us it couldn't be done - you know, I am surprised how easy RotM1 turned out to be! There were a few tough moments in the beginning, but pretty much by the time we were done with the Japanese, we were cruising. When JC attacked us, I was kinda scared, but having everyone else gang up on him might have helped there.

No joke! I remember seeing the 3 SoD's he had rushing our northern borders and kept thinking, "we have two Cats in that city, he's got like 4 or 5 Preats and a few Phants, toast I tell you, we're toast."

But here came Hamtastic, not only drove him out, but took a city to boot IIRC. Mad fun all the same.