RR12 - A perfect spy

[lymond]

Good write-up on the leaders, Thar. Sorry, but I'm not seeing the importance of Hunting and Scouts.

Zara seems like a good choice, although any of those leaders would work. Second would be Sumeria. Yeah, Zigs come before Alpha, but you are still accumulating EPs against an AI(s) up to the point you can actually build spies. However, if you Oracle CoL then you really are getting CHs fairly close to when you would get Zigs, except that Zigs are cheaper too.

Although in the long haul Creative is really not all that as far as culture, it does allow us to use ploys early such as plopping down cities real close to an AI while at the same time create quick pathways for our units via culture - both ways. It almost seems essential in this game. Zara's UB will actually have some nice value for once. It would be nice having the Vultures early though.

 

[nocho]

Yes, nice list Thrar!

Thinking it over a bit more I do think we should be creative. Late game indeed it won't matter much, but early game I feel it's very important to get an early edge and earlier culture grasp of enemy territory. I like Zara or Pericles. Gilga is ok, but we already used him in RR6.

I think it wasn't mentioned yet, but as compared to the original game we have another rather powerful tool at our disposal in BtS: corporations. (that came with BtS, right?)

Sorry, but I'm not seeing the importance of Hunting and Scouts.

Umm, to scout? We do want to know a bit about our surroundings I presume and scouting with workers won't be very optimal if we are not allowed to do so with warriors. Wouldn't necessarily want a civ with hunting for it, but likely hunting will be one of the earlier techs to research.

 

[lymond]

ugh....my brain was having an out of body experience...duh

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, i think that we can make a definition of units as things that can kill others. That excludes workers and settlers, but includes scouts and explorers. Aerial recon and battle is OK because the units never leave home.

On leader: Nice resume, thar. I would actually prefer to do this SG espionage heavy and culture light ( simply because there is a good bunch of games with this variant done culturally ... even some Always peace dom win games in vanilla days ). For espionage use, no UB or traits are especially helpful, barring the ziggurat that is cheaper and comes with a easier to get tech than the regular counterpart. The Ethiopian UB IMHO would even be conterproductive because it would make getting to Communism harder.

I'm also not sold to using a Cre leader. The culture bonus is inconsequential in the long run ( and we actually it would make the AI less eager to settle against us, a thing that we do not want ) ... half priced libs are obviously a good boon OFC ( since we will have to tech hard until we get the actually good espionage buildings ), so I'll consider it.

Freddy ... well, it would be a nice alternative indeed. I like it.

 

[nocho]

Ok, i think that we can make a definition of units as things that can kill others. That excludes workers and settlers, but includes scouts and explorers. Aerial recon and battle is OK because the units never leave home.

So how are we supposed to explore? Not at all, or just by sending our workers and settlers literally into the dark?

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, fair enough ....

So, we will exclude the recon units ( explorer, scout ) and the initial warrior ( if appliable )out of the prohibition . The rest of the units that can can kill stays home .

 

[LKendter]

Sumeria - Gilgamesh:
Their main advantage is probably the UB, allowing us to get spy points a lot earlier and postpone CoL.

Most spy points don't come to later in the game when the slew of spy buildings open up. Shields are so tight early game we may be challenge to even build this UB much before CoL anyhow.

After courts how many techs to we research before another spy building? Don't know the exact count, but it is a LOT.

Setting up an empire to get a shield heavy empire for when the good buildings become available is the key.
I really think the best traits are one that set up of for a large empire to build a ton of spies. Organized will really help hear.

 

[Thrar]

I agree with LK there, I can't see all that much value in the Ziggurats either. Organized would be a useful trait by making courthouses even cheaper than Z's (at 60 hammers) and it'll a big boon later on once we start getting large.

It appears to me that an SE would be a lot more favorable regarding the tradeoff of for that we'll have to make. My reasoning:
By using the slider, 5 convert to 4 (assuming libraries). This is what we'd be looking at for a large part of a CE game, for a ratio of 5:4.
By using specialists, 3.75 convert to 1.25 and 4 for a ratio of 5:7.
Settled specialists are similar, converting 7.25 and a to 12 and 3.75 . The is hard to quantify for this comparison; if we just look at commerce it'll be a ratio of 29:63 or slightly better than 1 (and a ):2.

The downside of an SE is that for a large part of the game, we can run just one spy. This may be enough to just perform culture missions, but we'll want more if we need to steal techs or other things.

We need to consider whether we want to run our eco mainly spy-based or if we want to research stuff traditionally. If we opt for the spies, PHI would be a great trait to have, as it would give us roughly 50% more GSpies. If we choose to do our own research, I think it would still be a good idea to use specialists for EP generation for improved efficiency. In that case, however, we won't need as many EP, so we could do without PHI.


I guess these would be my favorite traits for this game then - CRE, ORG, and PHI, in no particular order.

 

[nocho]

Above all, I think rolo should just roll a start to get this thing going! I guess there's a wide enough consensus that the leader should at least be organized. For the other traits PHI and CRE are indeed good options, I think even a case could be made for FIN and IND. Hence I'm fine with any of Fred, Zara, Darius or Roosey.

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Above all, I think rolo should just roll a start to get this thing going! I guess there's a wide enough consensus that the leader should at least be organized. For the other traits PHI and CRE are indeed good options, I think even a case could be made for FIN and IND. Hence I'm fine with any of Fred, Zara, Darius or Roosey.

Total agreement! Rolo should ask the RNG god and take whatever he suggests!

 

[r_rolo1]

^^The issue is that the stock Civ IV does not allow to say to the RNG "I want a Org leader, the rest is optional"

Well, I'll try to start today ... with a org leader. Can someone gimme a link for a good net dice for sorting between the org leaders ?

 

[nocho]

Well, I'll try to start today ... with a org leader. Can someone gimme a link for a good net dice for sorting between the org leaders ?

Umm, here are 4 spoilers with the 4 leaders I proposed put in a random order thanks to http://www.randomizer.org. Take the leader from the first spoiler you open. Random enough?

If you wish, you can open another one if you don't like the first one and not tell us about it.

Spoiler 1 :

Roosey

Spoiler 2 :

Zara

Spoiler 3 :

Fred

Spoiler 4 :

Darius

 

[r_rolo1]

Yup, random enough

Tries randomizer to get a random integer between 1 and 4 .... and the winner is #2

*opens spoiler*
Zara
*closes spoiler*

Zara it is then Will try to start the game today ... still have some stuff to do today

 

[Thy_Spellcraft]

Zara!!!!

 

[r_rolo1]

Added starting spot pic and save to the first post. Discussion is welcome

 

[nocho]

I'd move the scout on the gold to see if there's abundant sea food or anything else interesting in the 3 most eastern tiles of a SIP BFC. If there isn't anything, I'd settle 1W and gamble on something to the west. If there's nothing revealed by the scout, 1W at least won't lose anything with respect to SIP (well, a turn, but with 2 gold that's entirely irrelevant).
If no other resources show up AH sounds logical.

 

[Thrar]

Next to the gold I think we have coast SE and forested plains E, then unforested grassland NE, with more unforested grass further north. I think scout NE could be interesting, revealing the same grassland tile as well as those on the other side of the river up north.
If there's anything useful, we could move the settler NE or N and settle next to the river. If nothing shows up, straight N for river access might be an option, out W there's just more forest I think.

Regarding techs, BW first for chopping or Agri+AH for the pigs? Either way worker first for the gold looks solid to me.

 

[r_rolo1]

I think that the main question now is to know if there is food around. To be honest I do not expect a food resource neither in the unforested tile 1N 2E or in the coastal tiles around ( because the existance of a lot of forest in our BFC, a sure sign of a general lack of food resources in the starting BFC ). Oh , and there is another issue: noticed the tundra hill 3S 1W of the settler? Yup, we are near the south pole, so pushing south is definitely not in our goals ...

IMHO, barring some seafood, I think the best thing to do is to move 1N. If there is seafood, then settle in one of the gold resources....

 

[Thrar]

Would a single seafood resource be worth largely wasting one of the gold mines? By settling on it, all we get is a +1H (from plains hill) +1C in the capital, don't we? I'd prefer using both gold mines for early research fueled by the pigs and getting some farms near the river as needed - what's the point in food if we don't have any decent plots to use the surplus on?

For a single seafood, especially clams or crabs, I think the investment is too big to be worth it. Researching fishing, 30H for the work boat, then sailing and another 30H for the lighthouse soon is quite a bit, plus we won't be using one of the gold hills. If there's a double seafood, maybe.

Scouting the NE is probably unnecessary if 1N becomes our default settling location anyway, so checking for the seafood alternative with the scout sounds good.

 

[lymond]

^^^I'd prefer food over the extra gold mine, but agree that 1 clam may not be worth it. 1 fish would.

I'd settle on the northern gold tile