SSG01 - Succession Story Game - Holland to Hydrae

[choxorn]

lurker's comment: Most of those make sense, but England? With a great trait combo for money-making (and thus tech-researching/buying), and a UU that's fairly good, you'd think people would use them more often.

 

[anaxagoras]

OK, so we are off and running in SSG01. I hope you agree with my early decisions. We have some catching up to do, but I am hopeful that I set us up to do just that.

Here's how the game start looks:

Spoiler :

As noted in the turn log, not a bad looking start. Not awesome, but quite workable for an agricultural Civ. Speaking of the turn log, here it is:

Spoiler :

Open Civ, open BBEdit, generate game start:

Forces available:
1 settler
1 worker

4000 BC:
Possibily decent start. Cow, plus a lux.
Experience shows a lux nearby usually signals another civ nearby.
We'll see.
Worker to cow.
Science to 100% on Writing.
Production to rWarrior in 5.

IBT:
-

3950 BC:
Irrigate cow.

3900, 3850, 3800 & IBT:
-

IBT:
Amsterdam rWarrior - Granary(15)
I'm going to take a risk and immediately build a chop-aided Granary. We can get a settler pump here, given we are agricultural.

3750 BC:
Warrior fortifies in town for garrison duty.
Worker roads in place.

IBT:

3700, 3650 & IBT:
-

3650 BC:
Worker heads to forrest OUTSIDE our boundaries to chop. Expansion will occur before chop completes.
WHEAT! There's wheat along the coast!


IBT:
-

3600 BC:
Start chop.

IBT:
Cultural expansion. Can see tobacco, second river.
Population also expands. Set lux slider to 10%. Writing still in 33.

3550 BC:
-

IBT:
-

3500 BC:
-

IBT:
CONTACT!!
Japanese warrior moves next to chopping worker.
With zero military, this could be interesting....

3450 BC:
Check trades. Japan knows BW, Masonry, The Wheel, and CB. Japan also has furs.
Obviously, they know someone we don't.
Trades are limited, and he must be researching Alphabet. We can't trade it straight up for anything but CB. We finally settle on Alpha and Pottery for The Wheel and 20 gold.

IBT:
-

3400 BC:

IBT:
Chop completes, granary now in 3.
Japanese disappear from view.

3350 BC:
Worker roads in place.

IBT:
-

3300 BC:

IBT:
-

3250 BC:
Amsterdam grows.
Up lux slider to 20%; Writing in 28.

IBT:
Amsterdam Granary - Settler(5)

3200 BC:
Worker stays on this side of river to road and mine BG.
Lux still not hooked.

IBT:
-

3150 BC:
-

IBT:
-

3100 BC:
-

IBT:
-

3050 BC:
-

IBT:
-

3000 BC:
Begin mine. End set.


Summary:
Amsterdam - Settler(1)
Mine complete in 5
Japan has one city, no gold, no new techs.
Lux is on 20%, Science 80%, deficit of 1gpt, 26 in treasury.
Writing in 23, pending new settlement.

Priorities:
Claim wheat, claim land S on river Amstel, investigate the River IJssel by Alleen Heuvel (the mountain to the east).
Build curragh and make contacts.

And here's how the empire looks at the end of the turn set (not so different from the beginning):

You can read the story here.

And the save is attached.

 

[anaxagoras]

One turnset a week? That's a pace I can handle.

I take it that means you want to join? I have added you to the roster, and I may say it is a pleasure to have you on board, Bob. I've read several of your games, and I'm impressed. I look forward to reading your stories, too.

(If you didn't really want to play, consider this peer pressure to join us!)

 

[anaxagoras]

Here's a Roster update, just to make sure everyone is on the same page:

Roster:

1. Anaxagoras - just played
2. AutomatedTeller - UP!
3. Rodent - On deck
4. CivRulesAll - In the hole
5. CommandoBob - dugout
6. ??


Questions and comments on both set and story are most welcome.

 

[CommandoBob]

Oh,yes, that was a sign-me-up post.

Excellent story for the first turnset!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

good first turn set.

Where do we want our next city? On the tobacco? or SW of the wheat? I figure, depending on what the shields around there looks like, SW of the wheat will give us another factory.

I'm going to send a warrior out exploring, as well - we need contacts for trading - probably send him up the Amstel, to find the headwaters of the beer, er, river.

And I got it!

Won't be able to play it until early next week, i don't think.

 

[anaxagoras]

Where do we want our next city? On the tobacco? or SW of the wheat? I figure, depending on what the shields around there looks like, SW of the wheat will give us another factory.

We might get another factory there, but we need to be expanding south as rapidly as possible. We know there are at least two civs on our landmass, and one of them was close enough to make contact both with our capital and with another civ by the eleventh turn. We need to race south for territory as quickly as we can, I think. I would head up river with the first settler and we'll catch the wheat with the next one, depending on what else we can see by then.

I wouldn't settle right on the tobacco, necessarily, though. If the square SW of the tobacco (i.e. exactly three diagonal squares due S of Amsterdam) is both regular grassland and gives the river commerce bonus, I would settle on that square, instead.

I'm going to send a warrior out exploring, as well - we need contacts for trading.

Sending a warrior out there is good (and we need a unit or two for short-term defense, as well), but don't forget the power of the curragh. We have three-move units at our disposal, and we're more likely to make a monopoly contact by boat.

Won't be able to play it until early next week, I don't think.

Take your time. We set this up as a slow-play for a reason.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

good point. And it makes for good story lines, too

I think curragh from the capitol and a warrior from 2nd city.

 

[ThinkTank]

Can I join? I must warn you that I am Dutch.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

you should realize that any stories I write may well end up making fun of the dutch, either by exploiting common stereotypes or making up stuff out of whole cloth, based on where my mind went at that moment. It will be meant as no disrespect towards the Dutch, of course - I think all people need to be randomly made fun of.

 

[CommandoBob]

you should realize that any stories I write may well end up making fun of the dutch, either by exploiting common stereotypes or making up stuff out of whole cloth, based on where my mind went at that moment. It will be meant as no disrespect towards the Dutch, of course - I think all people need to be randomly made fun of.

I suffer from the same delusion.

Well, that is one of my delusions, especially when Gandalf and Mr. Spock leave.

 

[ThinkTank]

I think all people need to be randomly made fun of.

Yes! In fact, this should be made part of the Fundamental Human Rights!

 

[anaxagoras]

Here's a Roster update:

Roster:

1. Anaxagoras - just played
2. AutomatedTeller - UP!
3. Rodent - On deck
4. CivRulesAll - In the hole
5. CommandoBob - dugout
6. ThinkTank - dugout, and waiting for the ever-popular "Dutch jokes"


I'll at least let ThinkTank be orange in the roster.

 

[ThinkTank]

I'll at least let ThinkTank be orange in the roster.

In fact I'm sort of a republican and would gladly see the royal house removed. Even if the role of the queen is largely ceremonial, the whole monarchy thing is so outrageously outdated that we should send it to meet its maker.

 

[anaxagoras]

In fact I'm sort of a republican and would gladly see the royal house removed. Even if the role of the queen is largely ceremonial, the whole monarchy thing is so outrageously outdated that we should send it to meet its maker.

All the more reason you should be orange! Besides, you need to fit in at the World Cup....

 

[Spoonwood]

This sounds like the "pass the story around the room" exercises I, and no doubt many others, did back in school, but with Civ III.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I know I'm allowed to make this decision on my own, but since it's one of the most important decisions in the game, i wanted to get everyone's thoughts.

Right after I created the settler and started walking, japan settled a town (Osaka) right south of where we were going to settle (attached screenshot)

We need a new site.

Options are:

A) On the tobacco.
B) NE of the tobacco, or perhaps E of the tobacco
C) SE of the wheat, or perhaps SW of the wheat.

My first thoughts were by the wheat, but now I'm thinking either NE or E of the tobacco. I'm a little worried about putting a town right next to japan's 2nd town, but worry that if we don't, we might get squeezed out.

What do you guys think?

I'll finish the set tomorrow, based on whatever feedback I get. Currently, I'm thinking east of tobacco.

 

[CommandoBob]

I favor Site B, NE of the tobacco. It is on a river, so it can grow to size 12 without an aqueduct. It has a BG to it's NE, which will be nice. The tobacco is inside the initial 9 tiles, so we'll have it for a while. It is also on the same side of the river as Amsterdam. Once that road is built we'll have quick reinforcements, if we need them.

Site C can be our third city.

I would rather build towards Japan than away. It looks like our landmass is rather cramped, so we'll have an AA war whether we want it or not.

 

[anaxagoras]

We don't know what is E or SE of the tobacco, so I would head for site B and then see if it is worth one extra move. I think E of tobacco would be ideal, depending on what we can see by then. We can't build culture, but he can, so settling right on his border is probably a bad idea.

I would not settle SE of the wheat. That's one off the coast, and we'd probably regret it. SW of the wheat would potentially be OK, and that's where I'd look with settler 2. Is the curragh more important than a second settler at this point?

My gamble to build a granary first might not have been so hot in this game. We are in the extreme north, so staking out ground to our south is a huge priority. Whatever we have to do to make that happen we should do. We may even need to be thinking about an archer rush (assuming we can learn WC from somewhere). Tokugawa knows BW, so taking him on with warriors is probably futile.

This could be a challenging start.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I think the curragh is important, to learn WC and other techs and get an edge on Tokugawa - Tokugawa didn't start with extra archers.

It will be challenging, yes, but not all that bad. And there is plenty of room for cities up here - Japan will go south, east or west next. With the granary, we will out-expand Japan without much of a problem (we will have a new setter every 4 turns when it gets going, where Japan will take 8 or more turns to get pop up unless they started with multiple food bonuses.

Worst case, we run out of space and can create lots of workers.