Vanilla 1.74 - Double Team

[Tyrghen]

So, we're starting a new vanilla game with 2 human teams of two players.
The main goal for this game is a chance for all of us to get into PBEM and see how it goes and what we like/dislike
It's also for the most of us a first "classical start".

The game options we agreed upon will be :

• 2x2 human teams
• 3x2 AI teams
• Prince level
• Normal Fractal Map
• Low sea level
• Normal Climate
• Classical start
• Normal Barbs
• Non aggression between humans till 1250

The roster is complete with (in playing order) :
Tyrghen (team1) - Washington
Port16 (team1) - Caesar
Elros (team2) - Catherine
DNK (team2) - Elizabeth

The non aggression pact is simply there so we avoid falling into early rushes and have some time to learn to play together and through a PBEM.

I'll be e-mailing the savegame today to the first player in line.

PS: Sorry for the dry intro but I'm not in a creative mood right now

 

[DNK]

DNK checking in. Looking forward to finally starting. Hopefully we can get this whole agreement thing figured out

Technically, me and Port already did a classical start... so it's only for half of us a first

And, yes, I'm facing Port in another game right now, so that just makes this all the more complicated

 

[Tyrghen]

Ah well, it's even better to know each others and playing more games together

I should be able to start the game now, I'm finally done with the morning meetings
I just hope I'll be left alone long enough to start it. *raises sand bag walls around his desk*

 

[Tyrghen]

So let's start the thread with some thinking on my own starting position.

Here is what is looks like :


So, it's rather good food-wise, it should make a nice Specialist house and early commerce town, though in the long run it won't be very good because of the lack of cottages.
Production wise I only have one hill and some land tiles. So I plan on putting workshops on the grassland tiles, watermills on the river tiles and cottaging the two plain tiles.

I went to research iron because I don't have copper in my immediate surroundings and hope to have iron, those classical starts can be very rough if your enemies start with horses and push for an early rush
I don't know what my team mate has as a plan though.

Important thing to note, there is a big patch of desert just north which will probably prevent me from expanding in that direction. I hope the east won't be as bad...
It's noteworthy that my team mate is located just north of me, on the same land mass. Now we'll need to explore a lot before we can say if it's a good or bad thing

With vine rather close and hopefully a religion along the way, I should be able to expand to a decent size quickly.

Regarding my planned route from here, I want to chop rush two workboats and place the grassland workshops asap. To offer me a big extra of food and some decent production.
Then I'll build a military unit followed by a settler as I should be near the happy cap around then so better work on a settler.
A lighthouse will my next move.

Tech-wise, after the iron gamble, I'd like to beeline to the Great Library, it's my favorite wonder And in Prince or above, you never have enough science boosters!
The colossus and the great lighthouse should be good wonders for me too if I have copper and one or two more coastal cities.

I'm still wondering if I revolt directly to slavery or wait for iron to finish. I never like anarchy, but I guess as I'm not after a religion, I might just revolt now. Though, if my teammate wants to chase code of laws right out of the gate, then we'll go for that one. Which will give us a religion and takes us closer to Administration. Plus courthouses are REALLY nice and cheap for me

PS: Just noticed... I installed the game in french... which I usually never do, guess I was asleep when I did that But I'll translate the important parts

 

[Elros]

Checking in. Sorry I'm late guys . Different timezone and all

 

[Port16]

I've got the game, but I woke up a little late this morning. I"m at work now, but I'll get to it as soon as possible.

 

[DNK]

Well, we might have to replay this since the save isn't working, but I'll add in my two cents anyway for fun.

I would personally just turn that into a GP farm. Four food resources and three farmable grasslands is really good for that, plus you have lots of production capacity for wonders and infrastructure. I don't think you're going to find a better spot, really, for either in your team - that's a rather absurdly good farm location, you can grow pretty high before even needing to work the farms. If you don't, then certainly making it "work" for you would be best, plus you'll get a nice cash boost from all the coastal tiles with food resources.

Great draw, although I get the feeling you're about to lose it

And suggestion: turn on resource markers and possibly grid/tile markers. It makes discussing strats easier and we can figure out what side of the equator you're on at least.

I disagree that Iron Working is a risky move. With a classical start and tough AI teams, it just makes sense. Somehow I get the feeling there won't be any in that particular fat cross, but certainly close by.

[Edit:] after checking the savegame, it's 1.7.4.0. Maybe the French thing is an issue (not sure why that would be)?

 

[Tyrghen]

Well, looks like from the threads I went through that this problem can have many different causes with the same result...

I've emailed you some questions to nail down the problem ;-p

Though it might not have a solution as I cannot open the savefile you sent me... one of the possible cause posted on the forums is a different "my document" folder than the default one. But using a company computer I cannot change the folder

We'll see how we can possibly fix that.. but the threads on the forum don't give me much hope.

Might have to let you guys run the game with a fourth one and get back to Pitboss

 

[DNK]

That would be funny. Me playing Ulfang and Port in two consecutive games

Can you not play from home at all? It seems really silly that where My Documents is can stop a game dead like that. How did they manage to program that?

 

[Tyrghen]

Well, there are other possible causes like having BtS 3.13 when others don't.
And some other listed through a good 20 threads I've been reading.

Looks like there is no easy solution...

I too wonder how such a stupid thing can happen when we all have the 1.7.4 version... that just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, now that we went through all the discussing/configuring, I don't want to see the game stopped just because my dang computer doesn't want to. Let's see how a save file from someone else works out
And don't lock modified assets!!!

 

[Port16]

Do I need to make the save game? I can do so tonight if no one else has time right now. Although we already know that Tyrgen can't open my saved games. Does someone else want to make one for him to try?

BTW, if you want to wait a little bit and see if you can figure out a workaround, that's fine by me. Since you have my documents re-direct, I assume you must be on a domain or something. You could try to log onto the machine locally and see if that helps. It would at least eliminate the my documents issue.

 

[Mitchum]

Friendly lurker here. I've had this issue before and myproblem was the .dll file in the Assets folder. If you want, PM me with your e-mail address and I'll e-mail you two different files that you can try.

 

[DNK]

Yeah, that .dll as I just e-mailed might be the problem. Not sure if it works for both BtS and vanilla, but you could just swap the two around as needed. I'm in no rush right now, well, I do need to get going but that's a different thing altogether

Good luck, we can find a solution to this I'm (90%) sure.

 

[Tyrghen]

Swapping crashed Civ4
I'll PM Mitchum...

If not working, as I told you, no problem with me for letting the 5th person in. Would be bad to go through all those discussings and just stop here.

I can login locally to the machine but we have a special winXP build for the company with many "security" restrictions and "features". I'll make some tests as soon as I have spare time and see if I can work around the issue

 

[Tyrghen]

Hello everyone,

Good news! Mitchums DLLs allow me to open the savegame that you sent me. So one of you guys should create a game with the above infos and sent it to everyone

So we can finally start playing

 

[Port16]

OK, game is created and on it's way. I put me first, and Tyrghen last (but still on the same team, so that the play order isn't changed. Everyone is still sending it on to the next person stated in the first post.

Hope that isn't too confusing. Let me know if there are any problems, or if we should recreate it.

Tyrghen, you can probably try to open the save I sent you, even though it isn't your turn yet.

 

[DNK]

Alright. Told you we'd get things working. Too bad about that start, though. Hope you (I) get it this time around

 

[Tyrghen]

Hello guys, the savefile is working for me! Yay!
*kisses mitchum*

Now I'll wait for my turn
Catch you all soon then.

By the way, my DSL connection is still down. As I'm on a mobile connection during that time, don't expect much from me until the DSL connection is fixed. I'll be able to play but won't react much on the board.

They promised to fix my connection on monday though... last time it took them a month
*cross fingers*

 

[Elros]

I've lost DNK's email. Can one of you PM me it?

 

[Port16]

Well, it looks like we're on a roll now! Just to clarify the playing order, here's the roster.

Port16 (team1) - Caesar
Elros (team2) - Catherine
DNK (team2) - Elizabeth
Tyrghen (team1) - Washington