VoiceOfUnreason
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2005
- Messages
- 3,663
Specialist Best Ball Challenge
After reading lord knows how many SE vs CE vs AEIOU economies, I don't feel as though I really have a better grasp of what would be recognized as a "pure" specialist economy, and how it would develop. So I hereby invoke the power of the hive mind.
Originally, I had envisioned this as more of a succession game concept, but I've decided to try something a bit more free form, to allow for flexible schedules during the holidays and beyond.
So the primary goal in the Specialist Best Ball series will be to craft a pure specialist economy, subject to additional constraints which will change from game to game.
Suggestions and comments from the peanut gallery are welcome, but all are invited to contribute to the experiment. The drill is to take some save that represents your idea of a pure specialist economy, and play it to the next checkpoint. Then post your save, along with your own comments on play. When you are ready, grab another save; lather, rinse, and repeat.
Discovering and sharing important techniques is an important part of this project, so the attitudes you brought to the Challenge series are the right ones to bring in here - multiple plays of the same segment are welcome, as is reading ahead, replaying, and so forth.
It may turn out that a map is totally unsuitable for a specialist economy. Suck it up and give it your best shot. At worst we learn what sorts of conditions absolutely require a different choice of strategies.
Experiment #1
I've decided to launch from a baseline similar to that used by Wodan's Head to Head experiment.
Therefore, we have Monarch Continents, leading the Zulu to Glory!
Shaka is Aggressive and Expansive. The Zulu start with Agriculture and Hunting. Impi replace Spearmen with extra movement and mobility. Ikhanda replace Barracks, saving 20% on city maintenance, but at a higher production investment.
Victory Conditions
Everything is enabled. I deliberately chose continents in the hopes that research would need to stretch out to Astronomy, but haven't doctored the map in any way to guarantee this. Choose whatever condition makes the most sense from the position(s) you find yourself in.
Additional Conditions
Goodie huts are disabled. Kind of a bummer when you are a civ starting with Hunting, but so it goes.
Pyramids are nerfed: they may be built or captured, but you may not adopt any government civic before discovering the required technology. SE without representation is part of this exercise.
Mechanics
When you report a result (there is no obligation to report all results) please be sure to attach your save (so that another player can take off from your position), and link to the post where you found the save you started from (to make it easier for people to follow the reports back to the starting position).
The save you attach should not include any moves on the checkpoint turn - allow your successor to control their own fate (in other words, we want the autosave).
Reloading between checkpoints is strongly discouraged.
Official check points
- 2400 BC (Turn 40)
- 1000 BC (Turn 75)
- 125 BC (Turn 110)
- 600 AD (Turn 140)
- 1100 AD (Turn 170)
- 1400 AD (Turn 200)
- 1600 AD (Turn 230)
- 1750 AD (Turn 260)
- 1820 AD (Turn 280)
- 1860 AD (Turn 300)
- 1900 AD (Turn 320)
- 1925 AD (Turn 335)
- 1940 AD (Turn 350)
I live in San Diego, you'd think I'd have gotten that faster. 
This sounds like fun. I've almost always run a hybrid econ, so it should be interesting to see how miserably I fail at sticking to a strict SE type thing.
forget it, too much work 
