The Reign in Spain: Inquisition, Exploration, and Enlightenment

[Cam_H]

I've not played a test game for myself, so I don't know whether it really is going to be atrociously difficult, or whether these numerous obstacles end up being little more than annoyances. The way I play, which is usually relatively passively, not having access to a lot of the prohibited options in this particular game would lead to a serious re-engineering of my approach. Given that it's a SG and IPEX will eventually want to see some balls, maybe our capacity to capture cities with foreign religions and World Wonders will make this all pretty straight forward.

I've found, as I'm sure we all have, that a strong capital site does not necessarily lead to a great map, so I'm not going to dwell too much on what might have happened with 'B'. Sorry Whosit - it's in the dustbin of history.

Norvin, apologies ... I didn't answer your questions! No to BAT and BULL, I've just gone with BUG. I'm not a big fan of modding games because I'm fairly computer illiterate and live in fear that everytime I install something that comes with a Windows warning, that a kitten dies.

The Mel Brooks clip was way too long, but quite amusing I thought nonetheless. I thought about doing something with the Python boys, but I find their humour is/was a little too eccentric and frenzied, although 'The Holy Grail' and 'The Life of Brian' were great.

 

[nocho]

Interesting start, definitely looks like prod rich and commerce poor. We'll have to look for another site for commerce, maybe the floodplains extend a bit further to the south east...

Anyway, I'm thinking that maybe we may have to shoot for stonehenge quite soon. Getting it would surely help a lot with our GPr-generation, obviously. Maybe a start of worker-warrior-SH is called for. Or even skip the warrior... Then tech agri-mining-AH-BW and get some quick farms and mines up first.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Will settle 1N, tech Ag>Ah (though if we agree to farm FP's we could go mining instead) , worker>warrior>warrior. Will plat to 40 or end of AH, whichever comes first. Should we leave hut to second border expansion or snag with the warrior?

 

[Cam_H]

I'd go for the hut with the Warrior. We're not going to spawn Barb' Warriors at this stage of the game, surely not.

Don't forget that we must declare war on Arabia on first contact.

 

[Sengir]

Settle 1N indeed, that's enough production for a long time to come. About the hut, it won't pop barbarians, but it's better to pop it with a border pop as that gives us a bigger chance on a tech (no chance for xp).

 

[Norvin_Green]

My concern on waiting for the capital to pop its border is losing the hut to a competitor. Being as this is a terra map one would guess that we shall meet our rivals fairly quickly.
Thanks for the reminder Cam_H. As far as I can tell that is the only part of the variant that might occur during my set, correct?

 

[Cam_H]

Thanks for the reminder Cam_H. As far as I can tell that is the only part of the variant that might occur during my set, correct?

Don't obliterate Portugal with a Warrior rush!

 

[Norvin_Green]

4000 b.c.

Our journey begins with our settler heading northward and spotting many hills while our first Spanish Inquisitor, renamed Alonso, climbs atop a southern hill.

3975 b.c.

Alonso heads SE without revealing anything new. Our settler moves to the PH and sees this:

Spoiler :

Hmmm, maybe moving wasn’t such a good idea! We shall see.

3950 b.c.

Here take a look at this:

Spoiler :

Found Madrid on the PH anyway. Set research to Ag (14) and worker will be ready in 15 working the center tile and another plains hill (4 )

3925 b.c.

Alonso snags 69 gold from a hut.

3900 b.c.

Send Alonso NE in search of food near the spices, silk and gold.

3850 b.c.

Alonso climbs onto the gold hill and sees some more FP’s.

3750 b.c.

Madrid’s borders expand netting us 75 gold.

Alonso has to evade a lion out in the eastern plains area.

3700 b.c.

Alonso is faced with a bear and lion and retreats. The IBT sees him use up his “Get out of jail free” card against the lion.

3675 b.c.

Spoiler :

Alonso continues to heal but we meet our first adversary, Charlemagne. Marked the position where his scout finished the turn. Also, Buddhism was founded on the IBT.

3650 b.c.

Conversion bells ring and it’s our lone neighbor Charlemagne that they chime for.

3600 b.c.

Alonso defeats his second feline-type and nets Combat 1. We complete our first tech and move on towards AH.

Spoiler :

3575 b.c.

Our worker arrives so he puts 1 turn into farming the FP on the way to the wheat next turn. Work the FP to grow quicker and start a warrior (11).

3375 b.c.

Somewhere out there Hinduism is founded. Alonso is sweeping SW and finds a river mouth and coast.

Spoiler :

3350 b.c.

Worker finished the wheat farm and goes back to the FP to farm until AH arrives. Our new warrior, dubbed Balthasar, heads west.

3325 b.c.

As we reach population 2 work the FP to grow faster and for more commerce. Should I have worked a lake tile instead?

Louis enters the picture.

Spoiler :

3275 b.c.

Alonso slays his 3rd lion.

3250 b.c.

Alonso takes refuge on a lush green hill. Across the expanse of water he spies this:

Spoiler :

3225 b.c.

Meet the man from the green border on the next turn.

Spoiler :

3150 b.c.

AH in and not a hint of horse manure anywhere! Slot in mining as we need to do something with all these hills.

Spoiler :

Land overview:

Spoiler :

Food:

Spoiler :

Luxuries:

Spoiler :

A link for names of Spanish Inquisitors that I used for the warriors.

http://libro.uca.edu/lea1/append2.htm


The save.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Sorry for the large frames on our rivals. Any clue on how to prevent that?

 

[Cam_H]

Nice work Norvin ... good exploration.

Wow ... Barcelona's going to be great!

So ... the dot mapping begins!

Despite the overlap with Madrid's Wheat, how's the tile between the Gold and Spices?

Sorry for the large frames on our rivals. Any clue on how to prevent that?

"Large frames"? Que? If you mean smaller portraits, then the Civilopedia has ones smaller than the screen shots taken from the game.

 

[TCMIV]

1W of the gold looks like a good second city to set up for commerce. FPs + gold + spices and silk at calendar. It can steal the wheat from Madrid when necessary for growth as well.

I'd say start on a settler now at 3 pop while improving the cows, working the gold will pay for itself quickly. 1 more border pop from Madrid, or a border pop from the second city, would link them via river (assuming I understand how this works). That's if we settle 1W, other options may be better (1N would link them immediately and grab more FPs).

Cross post with Cam, agreed on 1W of the gold for Barcelona.

After that we'll probably want to hook up copper with the next settler, assuming it's not found inside our borders when we discover BW.

 

[nocho]

Good going Norvin.

Definitely a case of "darn, why did we get ourselves lured away by a stupid plains hill?"...

Wow ... Barcelona's going to be great!

Duh, it already is!

I think I definitely prefer it to go 1N of the gold instead of 1W. Cottaged flood plains eventually give more commerce than silk or spice and obviously give more food. We'd have 2 FPs more. It also gives 2 extra hills (be it desert hills) so it would be a bit more versatile production wise. On top of that I rather settle on a plain than a nice riverside grass for further cottaging pleasure.

We could have another city pick up rice and the three 3 silks.

I think I agree with TMCIV TCMIV (sorry, it's hard not to read CIV in your nick! ) about settler next. And does anybody have any interest in stonehenge?

 

[Cam_H]

^ Yeah ... I can see your point.

I'm happy to go with either west of the Gold or north of it, but I'm leaning to nocho's proposal of north as he pointed out - we'll get more value out of the Cottaged Floodplains than the second Spice + the Silk, and there's not a lot to split the rest of the terrain. I think it's a good call, although for the rather unecessary "Duh" comment I'm inclined to rename the city .

 

[nocho]

I think it's a good call, although for the rather unecessary "Duh" comment I'm inclined to rename the city .

But you're last in roster, by then we should have founded Barcelona by ages (during TCMIV's or my set presumably...). You're not going to change city names retrospectively, are you?

 

[TCMIV]

Assuming we steal no food from the capital and cottage spam, we're at -1F in either spot. 1W shares less tiles with Madrid and doesn't have junk tiles like desert hills in the BFC. I'm inclined to go 1W because of this, but scouting should be done first to see if we can make a good city out of the remaining 2 FPs combined with that cow.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Can't stand when RL gets in the way of a good game.
What I meant by my screenies of the leaders, for example, is that when you open the spoiler it looks as if another photo should be to the right of his. Not a biggie but if someone out there understands how to correct it I will.
Now to the important stuff - while mining>BW seems to make sense it is possible that we will run into barb troubles. Normally on a terra map civs seem crowded and it more or less helps but it certainly appears as if the low sea level has created quite a lot of space to settle. If we don't net copper my hunch is we will become hampered by hordes of barbs. It's just something we should think about.
I like nocho's placement better as well as due to the fact it will establish a trade route being on the river with Madrid.
I'm not sure we should rush to settle it very quickly though. Perhaps put some turns into SH first until the city grows to size 4 or some spawn-busting warriors.
We could also work the lake tiles for extra commerce to speed ourselves along to BW and the wheel.

@ Cam_H - the reason I trust BAT is that it's from the same folks who do BUG. If I get some time I'll post some screenshots for comparison.

 

[Norvin_Green]

Oh, one more thing - on turn 40 whomever is next will get a reminder to "stop". That's from BUG's alt-m to remind me not to pass 40 turns.

 

[TCMIV]

So am I playing 30 + 6 turns (I think we were at t34?)

Or just 30 turns and let it get uneven? Either way we still need to reach a consensus on settler now or grow as well as where to settle, tech path, etc.

 

[Sengir]

I'd go for 1N of the gold, though scouting the tiles around the Desert Hill might sway my opinion. If they are decent we might build another city over there to pick up the FP's, otherwise, better to give them to Barcelona.

I'd go for Warrior > SH > Settler at size 4. We want SH for the GP points, and while the location is very good, there's no need to stump city growth at this point.

 

[nocho]

What I meant by my screenies of the leaders, for example, is that when you open the spoiler it looks as if another photo should be to the right of his. Not a biggie but if someone out there understands how to correct it I will.

The spoiler tags simply create a space (or spoilerwindow if you like to call it like that) that is at least as wide as the width of the entire post. The width of a post is the width of the browser window, if there are no elements (images normally) that are wider than that. In that case the post is wider than the browser and you get horizontal scrollbars. Anyway, if no unspoilered and very wide images are on the page, the spoilerwindow will be as wide as your browserwindow. Hence if the content of the spoilerwindow is (much) smaller than the width of your browser, the spoilerwindow has a lot of free space to the right. I think you expect the spoilerwindow to adjust to the size of the contained image regardless of that size. Well, it adjust to the size only when the image is bigger (wider) than the browserwindow, not when it is smaller.

Hope I explained well enough. EDIT: All this might depend on the browser you are using.

Now to the important stuff - while mining>BW seems to make sense it is possible that we will run into barb troubles. Normally on a terra map civs seem crowded and it more or less helps but it certainly appears as if the low sea level has created quite a lot of space to settle. If we don't net copper my hunch is we will become hampered by hordes of barbs. It's just something we should think about.

I think definitely mining next, if only to give our worker things to do and to have decent production if we want to go for SH. My inlcination is to go BW next and hope for copper. If we don't have that either (no horses) we may have to consider archery. think there would be still time for that, especially if we fortify some warriors on our hill town. They'll hold out for a while.

I'm ok with the idea of SH before settler. We seem to have space enough so indeed not that much of a hurry.

@TCMIV: regarding turnset length, if we indeed go mining>BW I'd say play until BW is in. A natural stopping point as people call it is always a better moment to stop than a fixed numbr of turns. I guess until BW it will take 30-ish turns anyway.