The Rise of Russia

[grandad1982]

Hello and welcome to my second Civ5 SG.

Sadly my first SG An Island Race has ground to a halt.

Luckily I have been enjoying playing Civ5 more now that I was even a couple of months ago. I guess this is down to more experience playing the game, meaning I have started to find ways to play that I enjoy. One way I have been doing this is by using the Tradtion tree, as it suits my REX and Turtle play style quite well - Commerce is good here to.

Now I'm not suggesting that this is how we play this game. SGs are about playing the map as a team and seeing were it takes you, and thats why I play them. That and I'm terrible at finishing my offline games

So with out any more blather.....

..... The Rise of Russia [tRoR]

Our leader is Catherine, who I'm sure has made a few "things" rise in Russia

Spoiler :

Her unique ability is pretty strong in my opinion as in some games I've had 231 riverside horse tiles early on. In a GA thats a 7 power tile (I count gold as half a power) and with a hydro plant an 8 power tile! Nice for a food neutral tile. Also extra strat resourses can be handy if the RNG is cruel to you.

Her UU and UB are the Cossack and the Krepost.

Spoiler :

The Cossack is ok esspecially if you get some horse units early to upgrade later.

The Krepost is a situational build in my opinion and not very strong. I feel I might build it more that a Barracks but not by much as my cities have other things to build normally.

The following is important as it will talk about mods that I am using

First off I'll give the game settings.

Spoiler :

I like to play with fewer than the standard number of City States. I feel it makes each one more special and reduces their overall impact on the game, whilst making their indervidual potential worth even greater depending on type and personality.

I also play with Promotion saving on as I feel its much more fun. I rarely use InstaHeal (maybe in a tight siege or desperate holding action) so I don't feel like I'm exploiting the system.

I have all of the Leader DLC. This means that you will also need the DLC as one of the AIs could potentially be a DLC leader.

I have also created this game with several mods active.

Spoiler :

Of these mods the only two that you need to have active are InfoAddict (v.10) and Satellites Reveal Map (v.2) The former as it says it affects the save game and the latter for gameplay reasons.

I would however strongly recormmend all of the installed mods. In relation to this game I would esspecially suggest, CivWillard(v.1), Csebmod(v.2), Attila Mods(v.13) and Improved Notifications (v.6).

After the boring technicalish bit lets have a look at the start location. Its quite a nice one.

Spoiler :

A very nice coastal location and more than one potential place to found the capital as far as I can see.

The play will be in a 48/72 got ,it play it. The firsts sets will be 20 turns dropping to 15 and then 10 in the ADs. I would like to see some form of Pre Play Plan before sets are played as we're ment to be playing this and dissucsing this together!

I'd like 4 or 5 players including myself though I will start this before that number is reached if it seems like the right thing to do.

The Roster
grandad1982
cripp7
CenturionXX
Chimera1804 - ghost in the system
?


The Save

 

[cripp7]

I'm in! I tried to finish Island Race and made it build the U.N., info screen told me I needed 10 votes, so I get CSs up to 10 votes but the U.N. vote never popped up.

Oh well..this looks like a fun one, what VC

 

[grandad1982]

The vote never happened? I think it taks 10 turns after the UN is built. Anyway I'm glad you finished it.

I have no VC in mind. I just want to play a "fun" game! What ever that might mean.

Pleased to have you back onboard cripp7!

 

[Chimera1804]

Count me in on this. First time SG for me...I've lurked in a few though.

...first I'll need to get those mods though...but wasn't the Satellites Reveal Map rendered obsolete by a patch?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

One note, the Krepost is bugged, it gives its bonus to every city in your empire (just like Angor Wat.. when they fixed it, they broke the Krepost)

Build 2 Krepostsand you get the max dedcution (-85%) in your whole empire's tile culture cost

 

[grandad1982]

@ Chimera1804
Welcome onboard! I have no idea about the last patch rendering Satellites Reveal Map obsoleteI'm affraid. If its true it doesn't matter as it doesn't effect the save game AFAIK.

@ Krikkitone
That is some crazy crazy shizzal. How did they let that slip through?! Actually don't answer that.

I guess this means we have to decide if the Krepost is an exploit or not. I'd say it is but I don't want to never have the option of building it for the troop XP.

 

[CenturionXX]

Can I play? First SG as well. Also how do I post screenshots? (Just wondering.)

 

[Chimera1804]

Krepost. Interesting. Perhaps we could toss that in as a wrinkle that we can't build it and thus can never build units with XP? There's also the Heroic Epic that would be eliminated but I don't know how good it is (I tend to play peacefully).

And I don't know if this is too early but I'd vote for sending the warrior west -> north-west and, unless something proves otherwise, settling on the hill that the warrior is on. We get more grasslands and less of those mountains that way.

 

[Sparthage]

lurker's comment: If only I had the Babylon DLC...

Oh well, I'm content to watch. It's also nice to finally see a new SG.

 

[grandad1982]

Thing is if we settle 1E then we can build an Observatory and that works well with a potential National College capital. We would lose improvable tiles and gain more mountains.

If we settle on the hill like you suggest then we can still build a Garden if we want due to the lake, but we would lose the ability to build a Windmill. A plus for on the hill is we can have an extra riverside farm for Civil Service.

@ CenturionXX

Your more than welcome to have a place!

To take a screenshops you pess Print Screen. The screenshots are then stored in C:\Users\[your name]\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\ScreenShots.

They are a TGA file for reasons that escape me. I convert them to a JPEG using Convert hub.

Then you need a Photobucket or similar account. Upload your files and then use the

 

[Chimera1804]

...ooooh wait...darn...just noticed the bit about the leader DLCs...(thanks for pointing that out Sparthage). I won't be able to play any turns in that case but would it be okay if I hang around as a non-turnplayer-participant?

In regards to the city, a lot would depend on what's in the fog. The mountain range seems to extend a good bit east so it might work have another city on the other side of the mountains for national college, but it would need to be able to be on par at least with the capital (which, in my relatively limited experience in Civ V, is not too often). And yes, good point about the windmill as well. I do think though that our capital will severely lack production until lumbermills really kick in later in the game and with seaports, so any extra engineer slot would be helpful.

 

[grandad1982]

Hey Sparthage. I know what your saying. Thats part of the reason for starting a new SG. I feel sad to see the way players have dropped off of civ5 SG. I'm sure we can make civ5 SG work. We just need to find out how

@ Chimera1804

Aarrghh! That sucks. More than happy to have you hang around and chip in though.

Also on the river gives us a Watermill. Production early might be an issue but with a Seaport this city is huge! On the hill gives more 3rd ring hills as far as I can see. Just imagin if there was fish in the fog...

 

[Chimera1804]

Right...the watermill as well. I'm starting to like settling in place more now...moving east, while it does give us that mountain it will lose us the cow and give us a bunch of desert (1E of the closest mountain appears to be desert). With a watermill, windmill, and eventually the seaport (and maybe the policy under Commerce that gives +3...merchant navy I think) this would be a beast...and due to the lack of land resources I wouldn't be surprised if there's a strategic one around...then again this is with unbiased starts...so...

 

[grandad1982]

Well it looks like there is the 3 of us for the time being. I'm going to see if I can entice more people to join still but I think if your up for it we can start this up soon.

What is everyones take on the opening? I'd vote in place or 1E. 1E give the option of an Observatory for the sci spec and sci 50%(?) boost. In place has less mountains and keeps the cow in the 3rd ring. Both locations are production poor till Steams +1 on Lumbermills and a Seaport.

Tradition down to Monarchy and the opener from Commerce will make gold flow in this city.

 

[Chimera1804]

First I'd say move the warrior either two NW or two SW just to see if that affects our settling decision (which I doubt it will). If there's nothing my vote is for in place to avoid all the desert around the mountains. If the river and mountains continue further south-east there probably would be an excellent location to settle a proper science city with an observatory.

 

[grandad1982]

To the NW I can see open ground and what appears to be some desert tiles, whislt to the SW looks like rough terrain.

I decide to move the Warrior NW as he won't lose movement points in the open, I want to see if there is fish nearby and I also want to know if the desert has a floodpains river or any of the desert resousers (gold, silver, incense, a floodplain wheat - one of the best tiles IMO - etc).

This is what it reveals.

Spoiler :

A whole lot of not much! So much for a resource rich desert.

I guess this still makes inplace the prefered settling option.

 

[Chimera1804]

Definitely vote for in place now.

 

[grandad1982]

I'd like to hear what cripp7 and CenturionXX have to say on this as well.

Also whats our starting tech order? Pottery > Sailing > ? or AH > ?

Pottery > Sailing, will give us a great early gold supply. Good for buying settlers. This supports an early National College as we can buy some settlers to counter the slower expantion. Maybe not NC before another city but after we have 2 or 3 cities in total.

Mining doesn't seem that great here as a 1st or 2nd tech due to the poor hills production in the early life of the city. I quite often go Mining first but not this time I think.

AH first tells us if we can Horse rush anyone. I guess that the tech after AH is determined by what we find or don't find. If horses nearby then The Wheel (Watermill from this is nice) etc, if not then Pottery > Fishing?

First build as well. I would go with a Warrior first. I rarely build scouts now as I'd rather have a stronger unit I can upgrade to Swords. Next a worker maybe?

 

[Chimera1804]

For techs I'd go with AH first, then probably Potter->Sailing as we have so many water resources. I'm somewhat expecting there to be horses in the area given all that grassland and the stark lack of resources. Having said that though I'm probably wrong.

Generally in my games I build a worker first if there's a river to develop as they no longer stop growth...or a scout for exploring. I know they can't get upgraded but their ability to ignore movement costs is so helpful.

cripp, Centurion...what do you guys think?

 

[cripp7]

settle in place, I agree with Chimera on the tech order. I would go warrior >worker