Ruff09: Which Improvement?

[LKendter]

Lurk mode on.
My computer can't handle large maps well, so I won't try huge.

 

[CHEESE!]

Is it humanly possible for a teh n00blet like me to hold on to a scrap of hope of being a reserve?

 

[sunrise089]

Looks like a fun game Ruff. I actually think skilled players like you will find it pretty easy...remember in the two RB no-improvement games we still didn't have much resource trouble. With farms and a SE you will own the noble-level AI.

 

[mystyfly]

I'm also ready to lurk

Really looking foreward to see how you do. I see farms as the only reasonable choice. Cottages are a waste with all those resources and you'd have to settly ICS-like to make use of them (why don't you? Worked with us up to immortal ).
You haven't discussed corps so far. They're quite a no-brainer imo though - cereal mills (if you use farms). An interesting option would be standard ethanol - having all that rice churn out beakers

Oh, now I remember that this discussion is up to the team, not to the whole CFC have fun discussing then (I'll have fun watching you stumble ).

One Last Thing: I don't find that rule:

Roads / Railways don't count as improvements, however, we can only build roads / railways between cities (most direct route possible) and no city can have more than 3 roads / railways

'not' very clear. At least that last part about "not more than 3 roads/rrs"...

 

[ruff_hi]

Summary

• I think we have enough to start - no polycast people yet but I will give them until Sat afternoon to put in an appearance
• oops - while I may have said team discussion, I did mean open discussion with team members getting higher weight (just not higher than mine )
• are we clear on the roads / rails restriction? A city tile can only have max 3 tiles touching it with roads / rails

Discussion Points Settled

• Improvement: Farms (clear leader)

Discussion Points - some settled, others open ...

• Difficulty: Noble or below
• Leader: Which one? - maybe select a set of traits and work from there (my preference is philo and (spiritual or organized)
• Corporation: Which one?

 

[CHEESE!]

Okay.

For teh max enjoyment of teh game, I will say that my picks would be:

Difficulty- Noble or Warlord. Whatever.
Leader- Definitely Filo. Gandhi would be Teh Boring! Pericles popped into my head, but I think my avatar played a part in that.
Corp- Cereal Mills, I would say. Though it would be hilarious to found, say, Sushi or Civilized Jewellers.

 

[ruff_hi]

Actually - thinking about it (and someone's valid comments about the fast worker on marathon speed), we could just be Peter ...

Peter Russian Philosophical / Expansive Hunting / Mining Cossack / Research Institute

 

[r_rolo1]

lurker's comment: Maybe a civ that actually starts with Agriculture would be advisable

 

[Liquidated]

Actually - thinking about it (and someone's valid comments about the fast worker on marathon speed), we could just be Peter ...

That would have been a liq.

I would rather 4 roads not 3 as that would make connecting towns much easier, not to abuse it to rail up hills etc. Must say though that no experience in minimal roading so take that with a grain of salt.

Not trying at all to sound annoying here btw but....

I don't understand the choice of Russian Peter when...

# Unrestricted Leaders: On
# Random Personalities: On

This bit on the first post, is it designed to handicap us? Why are these settings even an option if not?

If it is just to handicap us then I don't understand the soft overall difficulty of noble or warlord.

Entire thing just seems counter productive.

So lets say we don;t get to play unrestricted leaders, OK, Liq is game. Would not a better choice of a legal leader/civ pairing start with agriculture?

Lincoln (cha, phil) Fishing and Agriculture, late game UU UB
Sitting bull (pro, phil) Fishing and Agriculture early UU and UB
Suliman (imp, phil) Agriculture and wheel mid game UU late early game UB

Of those three leaders I'd vote link again though that wasn't my intention.

From pure traits I like Freddy of Germany (phil, org) late game UU and UB as well. Germany starts with mining and hunting again though so that defeats my main rant, er message!

I just don't understand Russian Peter I guess.

------------

About corps, I am to assume we do not own the parent tech? If we do then that messes it all up as mining inc runs away with the show haha.

For corps assuming Farms are locked in...
Cereal Mills is food
Mining Inc is hammers
Creative Constructions is hammers and culture
Civilized Jewelers is cash and culture.
Standard Ethanol is research and Access to Oil
Sid's Sushi and Aluminum Co aren't realistic options with only farms.



Musings on Cereal Mills
Whip penalty lasts 30 turns on marathon evidently so without the Aztec UB, we will not be able to capitalize on that option for the excess population Mills would bring in.

Until we get caste for merchant spam, might also be dangerous to farm every single resource the Corp consumes due to costs.

Overall food accents the Phil trait but doesn't counter farms well as we'll be low hammers all game.



Musings on Mining Inc.
This option works since we can settle on top of the mining inc resources for the corp to consume.

Works well with farms as it balances the innate food we gain from farms and the hammers farms lack.

We can control the number of hammers in order to balance costs as paying for the corp is going to be ugly early on.

We can see gold and silver right off the bat but copper and iron need early game techs. We would be best off beelining BW and IW at the expense of expansion and other techs. The last resource of coal is lost to us except in trade as it comes into view far to late for us to settle on.



Musings on Creative Constructions
Much the same as Mining Inc's benefits and issues.

Stone and Marble are much more rare than gold and silver I find, so less hammers overall than Mining Inc.

The culture this corporation would give would be absolutely crushing to any civ which has the misfortune to start close to us.



Musings on Civilized Jewelers
No hammers, no food. All this corp gives us is cold hard cash and absolutely crushing culture.

Slider to 100% all game and we can outright buy builds late game.

All resources consumed are in plain sight from the start so we can focus on getting our economy going.

+33% culture per resource consumed over Creative Constructions early game would consist of just passively consuming our neighbors.



Musings on Standard Ethanol
Beakers are redundant to phil's main strength under representation. Since this is noble or lower though we will not be able to broker much and will be forced to self research most techs so doubling up on beakers might be a good plan.

Every resource is revealed at start and we control the one improvement to unlock the resource for corporate consumption.

Corporate access to Oil is NOT to be taken lightly. Oil is a rare tile that is both land based and seaborne. Since we are unable to see oil until late game and we cannot exploit seaborne resources, this means settling on top of oil is not at all guaranteed. Our best hope is to spot oil early and then take it from a neighbor.

Overall, each corp adds an entirely different flavor of game and is not at all clear which way is best.

Hammers seem to compliment farms better than Food so I would give the nod to mining inc or actually creative constructions as the culture brought to the table far outweighs the hammers lost imo.

Since this game is likely to drag on to late era, Standard Ethanol is a much safer bet for the oil.

So guess initial thoughts are with
Creative Constructions for culture and hammers
or
Standard Ethanol for beakers and assured oil.


Edit: seems Rolo beat me to questioning the choice of Peter hehe.

Cheers!
-liquacious

 

[mystyfly]

@rolo: civ is set, india. What ruff has been thinking there in his last post I don't know

 

[ruff_hi]

what ruff has been thinking is that the original idea of India is flawed due to marathon and he is open to suggestions. Peter appealed to me because of late game UB and traits.

 

[CHEESE!]

what ruff has been thinking is that the original idea of India is flawed due to marathon and he is open to suggestions. Peter appealed to me because of late game UB and traits.

Why? I suppose I have not been keeping up with the literature.

 

[ruff_hi]

because he only gains 1 turn (due to quick movement) when chopping jungle takes 12 (or so). A very small improvement. On quick, that 1 turn compares to 3 (or so) for chopping. A much bigger improvement.

 

[Diamondeye]

Would anyone be opposed to... Say... Alexander of the Ottomans? That'd give us Phi, some midgame war possibilities (Lib->Nat draft aggressive Janitshars) and an okay UB.

Or. We. Could. Pick. Mayans. And. Link. Happiness. Would. Be. Nice.

Sorry for the odd writing... But Mayans with Lincoln would be a blast talking happiness... Cha trait and BC UB. We'd need the happiness since we will only have the lux we settle.

Coorp, I'd say either hammercorp (if we pick Alex or Link of Ottomans or something that can fight) or culturegoldcorp (if we pick the more peaceful Link of Maya or something the like).

 

[CHEESE!]

I was thinking of the Aztecs. Whipping mania!

 

[Liquidated]

I was under the impression we couldn't partake of mixed civ/ leaders judging from ruff's mysterious post fragments ehehe.

If we do go that route the civs that make a liq drool are..

HRE and Zulu for city maint.
Aztec to make whipping viable.
For late game I really like Germany and America
Rome for ultracheese duh

Aztec Link though would just be broken funny.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[CHEESE!]

Yeah. I think, ruff, we need one single post that describes exactly what you are suggesting.

Liq:

HRE-Zulu- Though these are awesome civs, (organized ), I think we should gear more to our variants.
Aztecs- My suggestion, Alex/Link, for WTFPWNZORZLOLOMG Jaguars, and to maximize farms for specialists. Plus we can whip a heck of a lot of citizens, and maybe cream (after AH)
Germany? America? How far do we expect this to go? Remember this is Marathon, and therefore turns will be PAINFUL. Germany would get my vote here- Engineers Galore!!!

 

[Liquidated]

well I only mention Germany and America because Ruff mentioned Russia's UB. I too love germany's Engineer slots but do not discount the synergy of a corporation + charismatic + mall.

HRE/Zulu Freddy would work as well imo.

Cheers!
-Liq

 

[CHEESE!]

I think Pierre of the Aztecs would be bestest for the variants. Filo (duh!)+ Expansive (workers+health, remember we are on a rainforest)+Sacri Altars (only farms, WHIPPED CITIZEN!)+ Jagknifes (woody II= super movers)= Potent!

Attack of the killer plums!
-CHEESE!

 

[mystyfly]

Oh please don't expect this game to be anything but long. Only VCs allowed are time and conquest (another reason why I wonder about ruff suggesting russia ) and conquest on a huge map really will be a challenge.

I think the main point of this game will be whether or not you manage to win by conquest before time (though noble helps a lot there).

I would suggest the aztecs as a great warring civ (I guess you know why) and some spiritual leader probabely (though some anarchy might come in handy, especially early) so probabely pick... agg/org hammurabi? (well doublespeed altars are just insanely cheap (though not as cheap as zigs but still - sumer would be another great civ to help you here - please consider vultures and cheap PH courts... about as good as you're gonna get it).