SGFN-02: Spain to the Stars

[TheOverseer714]

In the beginning, Queen Isabella the First asked that an assembly of the Spanish people be gathered before her. "My people! We stand here today, at the dawn of our country, to set forth the goals for which we shall strive. There shall be sacrifices and hardships, but there shall also be much progress and many triumphs. Our goal is to settle widely, to explore our world, and when the world has been explored, we shall look farther, yea even unto the lights of heaven! We shall someday roam the very stars!

We have finished the first Succession Game for Newbies and it was quite successful! We had fun playing as the French and got a Firaxis score of 5452 in the year 840AD via Domination. The thread is still open if anyone wants to read or post comments. I think we will expand the definition of newness to include those who are new to succession games.
We have started game 2. As the title says, our goal is to launch the SSS Christopher Columbus by 1490. We will only consider it a victory if we launch by 1492(1490 is the closest game date)

Current vital stats for SGFN-02 are:

Civ: Spanish
VC: Space
Difficulty: Emperor

_Map Settings_:
Size: Standard
Landmass: Pangea
Water Ratio: 70%
Humidity: Wet
Climate: Warm
Age: 5 billion
Barbs: Restless
AI Opponents: Scientific Civs: Russia, Germany, Greeks, Byzantines, Ottomans, Sumerians, Koreans

Normal everything else except uncheck "Culturally-linked start locations" and
"Respawn AI players".

We have all slots filled, 1 confirmed alternate just in case someone has to drop-out, but we welcome lurkers.

1. TheOverseer
2. Othniel
3. Tad Empire
4. firepeoplebb
5. Kumquat
6. Anaxagoras

Alternates: HyCrest, AskReeves

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

Thats gana be a hard one, but ittle be fun

 

[Othniel]

Othniel here, checking in on our new thread.

I'm leaning toward playing with a Pangea map. It'll help to keep the tech pace fast and will also force us to be on our toes a little more militarily.

Yeah, launching in 1492AD will be a little tricky, but I'm excited for the challenge.

Once we get some saves up here, we can start doing some pre-game discussion...

 

[Kumquat]

I will roll some starts

 

[Own]

lurker's comment: If you're planning to launch on 1492, that will be tough, as the years are going by fives then .

 

[Kumquat]

Here are 4 randomly generated starts all Pangaea the first 2 are 70% water


These 2 are 60% water

 

[TheOverseer714]

The 1st and 4th look best. Try making the world arid to get more floodplains, but those are pretty good. Here's three of my best:

 

[Othniel]

lurker's comment: If you're planning to launch on 1492, that will be tough, as the years are going by fives then .

Aye, that's true. We'll have to launch by 1490 and beat the historical Columbus to the punch...

 

[Ansar]

The 1st and 4th look best. Try making the world arid to get more floodplains, but those are pretty good. Heres one of my best: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/110452/2Cows.JPG

lurker's comment: I'd say that one is the clear winner.

Floodplains aren't very good. Growth, yes, but contain disease.
Cows and grasslands don't cause harm, only good.

 

[Othniel]

If we're going to go with a great start, my vote is for Overseer's 2-cow one.

I wouldn't mind, though, just going with the first randomly generated start we find, ideal or not. Anyone game?

Anyhow, whenever we pick a start, let's make sure to have some pre-game discussion on strategy...

EDIT: cross-post with Ansar...and we are in agreement on the start.

 

[Othniel]

@ Overseer

One last preference note: When we pick a start, can you edit the first post with that screenshot and then also clearly delineate our goal of getting the SSS Columbus in space before 1490AD?

I changed the date to 1490 based on Own's catch that there is no 1492 in Civ years...

That would be awesome and hopefully add some interest to the game...Thanks!

 

[Tad Empire_0_o]

Wines are also a foodbonus it also makes the people I would vote with the cow, wine one or if you already decided with a start im ok with that I'm assuming that Kumquats in

 

[Kumquat]

Yes I am

 

[firepeoplebb]

If my turn falls on the last week of July you can just skip me because I have to go camping.

 

[TheOverseer714]

No problem, fire. We had several skips and swaps in game 1. I think I'm going to go with a slightly more relaxed schedule, you will have 48 hours to either pick up the save or pass it to the next player, and 72 hours to play, maybe more when we hit the Modern Age, and might even go to just 5 game turns per player in the late stages. How does that sound team? I know I was getting a little overwhelmed by having several hundred units and 50 cities to look after. Especially during the work week!

 

[TheOverseer714]

I have 3 more starts for everyone to look over, I think they are all good, and they all are on rivers for good measure. No floodplains in sight, and plenty of shields. Here they are: If we can get a consensus, we can then discuss our tech strategy and begin charting our course.

 

[firepeoplebb]

I like the third one since it has two cows but the second one would give us an early fur luxury.

 

[anaxagoras]

You folks still have one open slot? I've been on the forums for awhile, but haven't posted much, and haven't really played much until recently. I've never played a succession game before. It sounds like fun. I've been able to do well at Monarch, but I'm crashing and burning in this month's DG COTM, so hopefully Emperor is the right level for me.

Sign me up if you have the space.

 

[Othniel]

I'm really okay with any of the starts...Was there a problem with that 2 cow one you originally posted, Overseer?

I'd really prefer to just pick a start and then deal with whatever comes. It doesn't have to be ideal. It'll be a little more exciting that way...

Regardless of start, here are a few thoughts on overall strategy for this game:

Research:
Obviously this will be a high research game. We need both us and the AI smashing along the tech path as quick as possible. So I suggest we consider doing a few or all of these things to help that out:

1. Go to Republic ASAP through the slingshot. More commerce = more science
2. Concentrate on roading our lands a little more than normal, for reason said in #1
3. Gift the AI techs if we start getting ahead. We want to be careful about giving away monopoly techs for too little, but I expect we'll need to do more tech gifting than most of you are used to.
5. CAREFULLY plan out what techs we research. This means team discussion
6. Corollary to 3 & 4: If we plan it right, we can get the AI to concentrate on a certain tech path while we research other required techs, making overall progress to the Modern Age quicker. More on that later...
7. Avoid researching non-required techs where possible.
8. Develop science farms as early as possible
9. Play with Scientific AI civs and "farm" them for their free techs at the age changes. This will be tougher because we are not Scientific ourselves...That means we need to be super-careful about eliminating the Science AIs and also means we would pre-select our opponents
10. Develop a super-science city that builds Copernicus, Newtons, and possibly also the Colossus.
11. Research Literature early and spam libraries where it's beneficial for us. Also, gift the AI Lit early even if it doesn't get us much in return. We want them building Libraries...
12. Also research to Education quickly to get Universities, ignoring the bottom part of the Middle Age tech tree for a while
13. Ideally, we get 4-5 turn research in the IA. That's got to be our goal.

Other Strategy:
Probably a normal "farmer's gambit" to begin, meaning we spam settlers at the start and do a normal REXing phase.

We will need to do some warmongering in this game .

Ideally, I think the best thing would be to get the game down to ourselves and maybe 2-3 other large civs (if there are a few OCC Science civs hanging around, that's cool). But if we can concentrate the available land in the hands of a few, hopefully the AI will research faster.

Carefully plan out when we get our GA for max benefit. Probably end of Middle Ages to start of IA.

Build our cities to size 12 early and then get to hospitals ASAP. More pop = more commerce = more research.

Also, to get cities to size 12 faster, we'll probably want a few dedicated worker pumps that create workers solely for the purpose of being joined to another city.

As usual, avoid useless city improvements. We don't need lots of wonders or cultural buildings, and we only want to build courthouses, marketplaces, and libraries where it actually helps.

Remember, courthouses are no good in overly-corrupt areas--marketplaces either--and marketplaces are not much good if we are running 100% science and have only a couple of luxes...

This is by no means an exhaustive strategy post, but hopefully it gets us started.

One More Thing: I think probably the biggest area we could improve in is just discussing strategy with our team before and during our turnsets. That means we discuss with posts of some length--doesn't have to be as long as mine --but I think that will help us be more of a team and play better to boot.

 

[Othniel]

You folks still have one open slot? I've been on the forums for awhile, but haven't posted much, and haven't really played much until recently. I've never played a succession game before. It sounds like fun. I've been able to do well at Monarch, but I'm crashing and burning in this month's DG COTM, so hopefully Emperor is the right level for me.

Sign me up if you have the space.

Welcome anaxagoras! I think there was at least one more spot open, so I'm sure we'd be happy to have you join us.