Liquidated
Goofed Up on Cough Syrup!
Sorry Mike but the flu about killed me and I'm going to suffer it work wise the next month. Have to skip this one.
Cheers!
-Liq
Cheers!
-Liq
The Realms Beyond - Succession Game Discussions
- Thread starter Sirian
- Start date
Mike Lemmer
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2005
- Messages
- 340
Okay, we have enough to start now. We'll keep a slot & a reserve open in case anyone else wants in. We'll use standard 24/48 handoffs, with 20 turns the first round & 10 turns every round after. I'll start the thread up tonight.
There was a suggestion which came up in the WFYABTA thread on the RBCiv Forum which intrigued me: that of setting your civ's research to Future Tech on turn 1 and then never changing it. I think the intention there may have been to see how well you could get away with trading for everything missed, but I've been mulling it over, and personally I think that would be too easy (and too like Adventure 4, for those who played it). So I've been wondering what would happen if you took that concept *without* the implication, and ran with it, and I came up with this idea, which I think will run well as an SG if people are interested. Without further ado:
Taking The Long View:
Variant Rules:
Essentially, there is only one:
Research Direction must be set to Future Tech in 4000BC and then never changed.
Settings:
However, the settings are built to worth with the variant.
No Tech Trading - this is what turns it from an exercise in trading into a game about what you can do with as few techs as possible (and with those you do get coming in a completely screwy order).
Difficulty: Noble (or *maybe* Prince if it's a really good crew)
Landmasses: Not Archipelago. Not anything with screwy resource distributions. (We *need* Copper!)
Leader: Three options, in my opinion. The two American leaders, who both start with Fishing and Agriculture (NOTE: this is the only sane way to get Fishing before 33rd on the list). Alternatively, Persia. (NOTE: this is the only sane way to get Hunting at all.) No matter what, we won't be playing a civ without Agriculture, or we won't get it at all.
Map size, etc: No particular preference. Can be discussed later.
Naturally, there are *massive* ramifications to this "tech strategy". I have thought about them quite a bit more, but they'd be better placed in another thread. So the question is, is anyone interested in joining me on this ride? It's sure to be a wild one!
Entry requirements: Solid Prince ability. Preferred Monarch wins, since this is a *tough* variant. More crucially, you *must* open up a new game, set research to Future Tech, and have a look at your tech tree. What you miss, what you get late, what you get far too early. What civics you miss. What units you miss. What victory conditions aren't available. For your own sake, have an idea what you're letting yourself in for before you sign up!
--Garath
Taking The Long View:
Variant Rules:
Essentially, there is only one:
Research Direction must be set to Future Tech in 4000BC and then never changed.
Settings:
However, the settings are built to worth with the variant.
No Tech Trading - this is what turns it from an exercise in trading into a game about what you can do with as few techs as possible (and with those you do get coming in a completely screwy order).
Difficulty: Noble (or *maybe* Prince if it's a really good crew)
Landmasses: Not Archipelago. Not anything with screwy resource distributions. (We *need* Copper!)
Leader: Three options, in my opinion. The two American leaders, who both start with Fishing and Agriculture (NOTE: this is the only sane way to get Fishing before 33rd on the list). Alternatively, Persia. (NOTE: this is the only sane way to get Hunting at all.) No matter what, we won't be playing a civ without Agriculture, or we won't get it at all.
Map size, etc: No particular preference. Can be discussed later.
Naturally, there are *massive* ramifications to this "tech strategy". I have thought about them quite a bit more, but they'd be better placed in another thread. So the question is, is anyone interested in joining me on this ride? It's sure to be a wild one!
Entry requirements: Solid Prince ability. Preferred Monarch wins, since this is a *tough* variant. More crucially, you *must* open up a new game, set research to Future Tech, and have a look at your tech tree. What you miss, what you get late, what you get far too early. What civics you miss. What units you miss. What victory conditions aren't available. For your own sake, have an idea what you're letting yourself in for before you sign up!
--Garath
Jabah
Emperor
Isn't the tech order recalculate after each discovery (if it is the cheapest way to get to Futur Tech, AIs discovering a tech (or not) will change the costs of it for you, which in theory could change the 'optimal' way to go to futur tech.
If I had to play something like that, on pangea I probably could live with fishing 33rd. On the other hand, never getting Agriculture and (less) Hunting is something I won't be happy with (as connecting bonus/improving lands help a lot in growth).
On theory, I would say that Noble seems to easy...
If it on prince, I would like to join if there is an empty seat.
Jabah
PS - I will do the 'research checking' later at home...
If I had to play something like that, on pangea I probably could live with fishing 33rd. On the other hand, never getting Agriculture and (less) Hunting is something I won't be happy with (as connecting bonus/improving lands help a lot in growth).
On theory, I would say that Noble seems to easy...
If it on prince, I would like to join if there is an empty seat.
Jabah
PS - I will do the 'research checking' later at home...
I've played a testbed game a fair way in, without seeing any change in the order of techs to be researched. It doesn't prove that it can't change, but I don't think it does.
No *way* are we playing without Agriculture. The question is whether Hunting or Fishing is worth more. I agree, it may well depend on the map script.
Look at the order of tech research. *Then* tell me what difficulty level you think it should be on. My last paragraph in the previous post was serious. Very serious. Just to give one example, did you know we won't have Courthouses until our 40th tech? (out of 62 or 63)
Garath
No *way* are we playing without Agriculture. The question is whether Hunting or Fishing is worth more. I agree, it may well depend on the map script.
Look at the order of tech research. *Then* tell me what difficulty level you think it should be on. My last paragraph in the previous post was serious. Very serious. Just to give one example, did you know we won't have Courthouses until our 40th tech? (out of 62 or 63)
Garath
knupp715
King
I have an idea for an SG series, but I'm waiting for some of the ones I'm currently in to be over. Anyways, the idea is this:
We would be playing a duel sized map with all 18 civilizations. Of course the only victory that would be honorable would be a conquest victory. It would start off on prince level, then the second game in the series would go up to monarch level, then monarch level with aggressive AI, ect ect ect.....
It looks like it will be a very fun game, I just don't have the time to start it up right now.
We would be playing a duel sized map with all 18 civilizations. Of course the only victory that would be honorable would be a conquest victory. It would start off on prince level, then the second game in the series would go up to monarch level, then monarch level with aggressive AI, ect ect ect.....
It looks like it will be a very fun game, I just don't have the time to start it up right now.
Liquidated
Goofed Up on Cough Syrup!
knupp, that was tried already and it was a cake walk. let me find a link....
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144964
Problem is once the players get a second city, it's all over as the edge in production just starts snowballing from there.
Also races that start off with only scout are SCREWED
To make it more challenging might I reccomend a few changes...
No war for X turns.. the AI gives a default duration on not declaring war, player should as well. Not sure on X
Make it a one city challenge via options to force the raze.
pangaea map would be much preferred.
Just a few ideas for consideration.
Cheers!
-Liq
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144964
Problem is once the players get a second city, it's all over as the edge in production just starts snowballing from there.
Also races that start off with only scout are SCREWED
To make it more challenging might I reccomend a few changes...
No war for X turns.. the AI gives a default duration on not declaring war, player should as well. Not sure on X
Make it a one city challenge via options to force the raze.
pangaea map would be much preferred.
Just a few ideas for consideration.
Cheers!
-Liq
Spatzimaus
Mad Scientist
Garath said:
I've been lurking on these threads for a while, and this concept seems intriguing, but I thought of the three other ways to get techs off the beaten path:
1> Goody huts
2> Great Leaders
3> The Internet
The Internet is easy enough, just don't allow the player to take it, or accept that it'd only come up at the very end anyway. But if the game re-orders your tech path to account for newly-acquired techs, the other two open up all sorts of possibilities. (Imagine spending a leader to learn Agriculture!)
Goody huts I'd noticed. I was probably going to remove them from the game. The Internet is irrelevant, when you'll never learn the tech that enables it!
Great People learning tech, I hadn't actually thought of!
I'll throw that open to any signups: Either allow it in full, at which point it probably becomes at least a minor focus of the game, and many more of the techs will eventually be learned. If that's chosen, the game should definitely be played on Prince. It'll chop a *lot* of the difficulty off.
My preference, since I'm *looking* for a tough, restrictive variant, is simply to disallow that, player-side. There's no way to formalise it other than to simply disallow it, but that should do.
Opinions will be accepted.
Garath
Great People learning tech, I hadn't actually thought of!
I'll throw that open to any signups: Either allow it in full, at which point it probably becomes at least a minor focus of the game, and many more of the techs will eventually be learned. If that's chosen, the game should definitely be played on Prince. It'll chop a *lot* of the difficulty off.
My preference, since I'm *looking* for a tough, restrictive variant, is simply to disallow that, player-side. There's no way to formalise it other than to simply disallow it, but that should do.
Opinions will be accepted.
Garath
Mike Lemmer
Prince
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2005
- Messages
- 340
Personally, I think Great People would throw just enough of a twist into the game to keep things interesting. I doubt they could abuse it too much ("I used a Great Person to learn Agriculture! It's so overpowered!") and it introduces choices into tech decisions, something that was lacking before.
Actually, I'm be interested to know what the lists of techs that each of the types of Great People do discover, in order, is. I imagine I haven't seen most of them, particularly the early ones we'd be likely to have the option of in this game.
Does anybody know where to find the lists, or already have them to point me at?
Garath
Does anybody know where to find the lists, or already have them to point me at?
Garath
knupp715
King
Liquidated said:
Thanks for the information Liq. Looks like I didn't think of that idea soon enough. However, we could always do it on deity level....
Garath,
I like your idea and would like to join. Prince sounds fine to me... Um, Great People, I will go with whatever, I think I like the idea of a harder variant... Oh just to be clear when you mean set for future research in 4000BC you mean to let that command decide the order of research right? I assume since you are talking about fishing coming 33rd. Well for the moment I will assume that (I hope that is what you are talking about).
Now fishing or hunting...... I don't think it matters, we can always trade for health and happiness resources, so I would choose fishing since the imporvments that accompany that- "improve" the tile so much more that camps do. But really if you don't get courthouses til 40th tech, I would choose and Org., probably Washington maybe Rome for the health. To sum up I would not overvalue starting techs to the exclusion of traits. Without courthouses I think trading farms/work boats for less maitainece might not be so bad.
Also I assume that "pointy stick" research
is out of the question right? I don't think huts would be that big a deal, I mean, on any map except the ones with no water I never pop more than one tech.
To sum up- I would like to join and the more difficult the better
Atlas
@Knupp- Those guys only played on noble, step it up to Monarch/Emperor and you might have something there, taking an AI capital on Emperor is no cake walk. If played on Prince with OCC that might make it better and negate the snowball effect of acquiring cities.
I like your idea and would like to join. Prince sounds fine to me... Um, Great People, I will go with whatever, I think I like the idea of a harder variant... Oh just to be clear when you mean set for future research in 4000BC you mean to let that command decide the order of research right? I assume since you are talking about fishing coming 33rd. Well for the moment I will assume that (I hope that is what you are talking about).
Now fishing or hunting...... I don't think it matters, we can always trade for health and happiness resources, so I would choose fishing since the imporvments that accompany that- "improve" the tile so much more that camps do. But really if you don't get courthouses til 40th tech, I would choose and Org., probably Washington maybe Rome for the health. To sum up I would not overvalue starting techs to the exclusion of traits. Without courthouses I think trading farms/work boats for less maitainece might not be so bad.
Also I assume that "pointy stick" research
is out of the question right? I don't think huts would be that big a deal, I mean, on any map except the ones with no water I never pop more than one tech.To sum up- I would like to join and the more difficult the better
Atlas
@Knupp- Those guys only played on noble, step it up to Monarch/Emperor and you might have something there, taking an AI capital on Emperor is no cake walk. If played on Prince with OCC that might make it better and negate the snowball effect of acquiring cities.
Spatzimaus
Mad Scientist
Garath said:
Not sure it would; if it does rearrange which techs you went through, it could make things worse. Imagine if a tech you thought you'd have down the road suddenly was no longer on the shortest path; all your long-term planning might go out the window. Some things wouldn't change; all the dead-end techs (like Military Tradition) would still be off-limits.
Anyway, I'm at work, but the easy way to find out which techs the leaders grab is simply to start up a new game, open the worldbuilder, plop down a ton of great leaders, and just go nuts.
EDIT: Forgot to add, I thought of another problem. Well, two, actually: The Oracle, and Liberalism. Do you force the player to choose the next tech in your progression, which requires writing this all down, or are they free to choose something essential that wasn't available before? (This one's irrelevant if the two techs aren't along the main route, of course.) Same decision as for Great People, of course.
Atlas: Great to have a signup! I still do recommend having a look at the tech path it chooses for yourself, as well. You are correct that the set to Future Tech in 4000BC will determine the entire order of research for all time. Have at least a quick study of how handicapped our military is going to be all game. Then, once you've realised that, realise that the only victories possible are the military ones. 
Pointy Stick is disabled by setting No Tech Trading just as much as more voluntary tech trading, no? I appreciate that setting No Tech Trading also handicaps the AIs a bit, but I doubt that'll be a problem with how handicapped we are, and I don't really want to be rejecting trades from them every other turn.
Huts might well only give us one tech, true. But it'd be most likely to be Animal Husbandry or Archery, either of which would make a massive difference. We just need to decide whether that amount of uncertainty in the difficulty is OK. I think if we're going to run this on Prince, though, we can use all the help we can get! So I'll leave barbarians on, I guess.
I'm more inclined to disallow GP tech discovery with your agreement, but other signups also get a vote.
I'll start the game some time tomorrow if I have enough by then.
Garath
EDIT: and to respond to Spatzimus, Liberalism is an optional tech, therefore will not be on our path, and Priesthood comes late enough that we can't possibly get the Oracle.
Pointy Stick is disabled by setting No Tech Trading just as much as more voluntary tech trading, no? I appreciate that setting No Tech Trading also handicaps the AIs a bit, but I doubt that'll be a problem with how handicapped we are, and I don't really want to be rejecting trades from them every other turn.
Huts might well only give us one tech, true. But it'd be most likely to be Animal Husbandry or Archery, either of which would make a massive difference. We just need to decide whether that amount of uncertainty in the difficulty is OK. I think if we're going to run this on Prince, though, we can use all the help we can get! So I'll leave barbarians on, I guess.
I'm more inclined to disallow GP tech discovery with your agreement, but other signups also get a vote.
I'll start the game some time tomorrow if I have enough by then.
Garath
EDIT: and to respond to Spatzimus, Liberalism is an optional tech, therefore will not be on our path, and Priesthood comes late enough that we can't possibly get the Oracle.
this variant. No archery 
no animal husbandry Yeah. No Copper is probably actually *too* hard, since we wouldn't have anything better than warriors until Muskets! The AIs or potentially even the barbarians would be sure to kill us!
It may have to be in my criteria for a valid start position (*visible* Copper, that is, not right at the start location or anything) along with a usable food bonus at the start.
Garath
It may have to be in my criteria for a valid start position (*visible* Copper, that is, not right at the start location or anything) along with a usable food bonus at the start.
Garath
Jabah
Emperor
At Garath.
I checked yesterday the missing tech.
You have a lot of interesting 'missing' block:
- agriculture/hunting/animal/archery/horseriding
- alphabet and co --> see Adventure4
- lots of civics tech (Liberalism/democracy/fascist/nationalism)
- flight
Agriculture and Hunting ARE optional indeed, so starting without both means you are not gonna improve any food (still can trade with neighbours).
Animal is never going to be learned so forget pig, cow, sheep and horse...
no Agriculture means no farm so growth will be extremely reduce (because of no food surplus, not because of health).
On the tech order, prepare to be hurt, going deep inside the tech tree (lower part first, the only good point is mining, bronze and metel early). and be ready to miss all the religion (the 2 'early' ones are like 12th and 20th on the research order) and depend on the AI for early spreading.
Having Agriculture as a start means fishing very late (as you wrote).
Cyrus (Agri+hunting) might be the easiest to play for a start.
If you don't want Cyrus, but want Agriculture (which is the more sensible), it could be good to take someone with Fishing as well (or go for Pangea).
Civics-wise, the ultimate gouvernment will be somthing like 'representation/bureaucracy/free market/organised religion', be ready for heavy emancipation demonstration in your street...
For great people, at least I know you can have Alphabet with some of them.
I still remain interested by being a member (but prefer prince).
Jabah
PS about the no copper. don't forget we can trade to get Copper or Iron, we 'just' have to be able to give something in exchange...
I checked yesterday the missing tech.
You have a lot of interesting 'missing' block:
- agriculture/hunting/animal/archery/horseriding
- alphabet and co --> see Adventure4
- lots of civics tech (Liberalism/democracy/fascist/nationalism)
- flight
Agriculture and Hunting ARE optional indeed, so starting without both means you are not gonna improve any food (still can trade with neighbours).
Animal is never going to be learned so forget pig, cow, sheep and horse...
no Agriculture means no farm so growth will be extremely reduce (because of no food surplus, not because of health).
On the tech order, prepare to be hurt, going deep inside the tech tree (lower part first, the only good point is mining, bronze and metel early). and be ready to miss all the religion (the 2 'early' ones are like 12th and 20th on the research order) and depend on the AI for early spreading.
Having Agriculture as a start means fishing very late (as you wrote).
Cyrus (Agri+hunting) might be the easiest to play for a start.
If you don't want Cyrus, but want Agriculture (which is the more sensible), it could be good to take someone with Fishing as well (or go for Pangea).
Civics-wise, the ultimate gouvernment will be somthing like 'representation/bureaucracy/free market/organised religion', be ready for heavy emancipation demonstration in your street...
For great people, at least I know you can have Alphabet with some of them.
I still remain interested by being a member (but prefer prince).
Jabah
PS about the no copper. don't forget we can trade to get Copper or Iron, we 'just' have to be able to give something in exchange...
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