VQ-09 Alg Ore's Exploit

[bobrath]

Warlords
Game Settings up for discussion

A long, long time ago our forefather - Alg Ore - foretold that one day he would gift us with a wonderous invention that would teach us all the most important knowledge, if only we would be worthy of the gift. This invention would be named "In Ter Net" and we must be the first to obtain it.

If we are not working towards our forefather's goal, we are dishonoring him and must return to the path. We will build the Internet, however we will never self-research anything that does not contribute to building the Internet.
That's right, Animal Husbandry and Agriculture will never be researched (just to name two early techs). At the start of the game, I'll click on Fiber Optics and the list of highlighted techs will be posted. We can research them in any order desired, but *never* research anything not listed.
We can trade for techs, but may not receive a tech that is not on our path to the Internet.

Alg Ore was very wise, he told us that his invention would allow us to know much that others may alraedy know. It would be foolish to deny gifts from the world. As such:
We will accept any tech offered to us for free. We will not ask for techs tho.
We will always be happy to get any tech from a hut.
Great People are wonderful, but they may not be used to lightbulb techs off the path. They are true followers of Alg Ore and would never dream of going against his teachings.
Starting techs of our civ are fine (so you could pick a leader with agriculture as a starting tech to avoid that handicap). Depending on going Warlords vs. Original there are some fun and more difficult choices for leader.


All other aspects of civ are left as normal. Which victory condition we choose to pursue is up to the players in the game. However, no vicotyr can be obtained until we have acheived the In Ter Net.

Signed up So far: (and now playing order)
Bobrath
Namliam
Ozbenno
GreyFox
Maquis

 

[GreyFox]

GreyFox standing by to hack the Internet ...

 

[namliaM]

Hacking in !

Got warlords recently, but havent played it much! *walks away to fire up Warlords *

What civ will we be using?

 

[bobrath]

civ choice is up in the air. We can go with luck of the draw, or pick n choose the traits/techs we start with.

 

[namliaM]

A civ starting Agriculture or some other tech we wouldnt puck up otherwize...... May well be nice... but is it "stacking the deck" ? ?

 

[bobrath]

From my test games, having either Animal Husbandry or Agriculture makes it noticably easier - so if we want to start with Agri then I'd suggest we move the difficulty up a level.

 

[GreyFox]

What's the difficulty anyway?

 

[bobrath]

TBD

To Be... difficult?

 

[GreyFox]

Could you post the list (or screenshots) of all the techs we will be eligible to learn? At first glance, if we are going Warlords, I will pick HC. If vanilla, I'll pick QSH. Finiancial is always helpful, and I think Industrious is good for us as well.

Difficulty wise, I think Monarch should pose a very good challenge, Prince might gives us a reasonable challenge. If going Emperor, I'll further suggest turning off Tech Trading (since we aren't trading anyway).

--

 

[Ozbenno]

I was going to suggest that if we start with Agricukture, we go up one level of difficulty, but bobrath already did . Maybe Monarch with, Prince without.

I'd also say financial would be a good trait but expansive might be the best trait as we will likely be without health from animals and crops. That used to be Victoria but in Warlords, I can't seem to find anyone conbining those two. We also need to make sure that the UU and UB are on the tech line.

 

[bobrath]

Hunh.... Odd that they removed the expansive/financial trait.

We could over analyze the leaders UU/UB/traits... I'll gen 1 start with random leader selection, 1 with HC, and 1 with Ragnar. Team can then select the one we want to play.
Monarch difficulty, Warlords, Fractal, large map, normal speed. Any other settings or requests?

 

[namliaM]

Monarch?? *OUCH*

 

[bobrath]

The techs we need to research (from clicking on Fiber Optics with HC as leader):

• Fishing
• Mining
• The Wheel
• Pottery
• Sailing
• Animal Husbandry
• Polytheism
• Masonry
• Monotheism
• Bronze Working
• Writing
• Metal Casting
• Iron Working
• Mathematics
• Monarchy
• Compass
• Calendar
• Construction
• Currency
• Machinery
• Engineering
• Feudalism
• Optics
• Theology
• Guilds
• Paper
• Banking
• Printing Press
• Education
• Replacable Parts
• GunPowder
• Rifling
• Astronomy
• Chemistry
• Scientific Method
• Steel
• Physics
• Artillery
• Electricity
• Rocketry
• Radio
• Satellites
• Computers
• Fiber Optics

Not sure if your leader's starting techs make a difference in the path taken.

 

[bobrath]

Rolled the three starts.
Fractal, Large, Temperate, Medium Sea Level

1)

2)

3)

 

[GreyFox]

The most painful part is missing Civil Service. No Archery means we will have to defend with Warrior/Quechuas only until BW/IW. No Alphabet, Literature, Liberalism, AssLine and Industrialism is going to hit us hard on our research and production.

If we play HC, our best bet is to go for Polythesim and spread the religion like crazy to gain us happy friends who are willing to give us tech for free.

--

 

[Meatbuster]

Lurker's Comment:
Do you by any chance pass through Polytheism on the way to Internet?

AFAIK if you click on Priesthood or Monotheism, it always goes through Meditation instead.

 

[Ozbenno]

The Civil Service route to Paper would have been better, rather than Theology.

The techs required will change with each leader as if you don't have agriculture to start with, you won't be able to get Animal Husbandry (will go to Writing via Priesthood instead, I assume). This would only affect Ragnar, so would be interesting to see what changes there are in his tech list.

I like Ragnar's start the best, floodplains with his financial bent looks good but if we have no civil service then no UU, we'd also miss agriculture.

Huayana's start is all right too and we'd get agriculture and a good UU.

Mao's start is also all right and we'd get the best UU of them all Chokonu, especially with the protective trait, and agriculture.

Can't really decide which of the three is better, so happy with any.

 

[GreyFox]

Lurker's Comment:
Do you by any chance pass through Polytheism on the way to Internet?

AFAIK if you click on Priesthood or Monotheism, it always goes through Meditation instead.

I don't know, I based my comments on bobrath's posted list of tech.

--

With no CS, going with Ragnar is a . The floodplains in ragnar's start is easily compenstated by the 2 food resource sin HC's start.

Now mao's start is great (health might be issue tho), but AFAIK, we would not be going through Drama, so the UB is useless.

--

 

[bobrath]

Yes, we do pass through Polytheism (at least on HC's click) - and Robo if you're interested in joining in we can make room.

"better path"? boggles the mind. How can the AI be wrong especially if ALg Ore is involved?

We won't be getting the Cho-Ko-Nu since that requires Archery which is not on the path. If you want to run a UU in this game, it will have to be HC's. Also the protective trait will have minimal impact for the early game since we won't have archery units.

BTW, we also miss out on Code of Laws and Drama so becoming too big or being in protracted wars is no fun. All sorts of good stuff hidden in this.

I'll wait to hear from the group as a whole about which start to go with. So far:

Ozbenno - Happy with any
Bobrath - Doesn't like the Mao roll
GreyFox - no pref stated
Namliam - leaning to HC
Maquis - ??

 

[namliaM]

Poly => Mono => Theo => Paper
is much cheaper than
Meditation => Priesthood => CoL => CS => Paper

Which is why the tree goes that way....

Moa tho means no UB, as we cannot research Drama.... Good for isolating our nearest neighbour (i.e. hope its Toku or Isa and have her own religion) then take him/her out with CKN's
Ragnar mean no UU, because of the lack of CS.... To bad the Capitol is not coastal...
HC's start look fit for a Quecha rush... Lots of hills for production and a nice food source...

I like HC I think... Even if we (probably) wont have a cottage in the capitol.
If we have any Elephants anywhere Near(-ish) I guess that would be a priority?!