[BTS] Yet Another Succession Game

[ATM]

We all loved civ4 succession games but it looks like there is not much interest in them anymore (the Succession GOTM seems to be the only exception). Let us enjoy the old nostalgia by playing Yet Another Succession Game!

I am aware of the fact that many of us try to avoid big time committments. Therefore I decided to keep the rules very easy. In short - no closed lists of players, no rosters and no obligations at all! Just download the latest save and play!

Rules
If you want to participate then do the following:

1. Let us know by posting to this thread. (This is optional but recommended so that we avoid any forks.)
2. Download the latest save.
3. Play (and enjoy)! You can play any reasonable amount of turns.
4. Upload your save and post a short report. (And remember that people love pictures!)

Please don't hesitate to participate. The more players the more fun!

Are you a strong veteran player? Then show us some of your skills and play a few turns please!
Are you a moderate player? Then help us win the game and play a few turns please!
Are you a new player who wants to improve? Then learn by experience and play a few turns please!
Are you a long time lurker (as me)? Then register at these forums and play a few turns please!
Are you a troll? Then ruin our game by some obviously stupid decisions and play a few turns please! (Or rather not. This was just a joke )

I generated a random game at Immortal difficulty. Our leader is Saladin and this is the start.

Spoiler :

If no one volunteers then I will start the game later this week. But I encourage you to do so earlier if you wish! The starting save is attached.

Turnsets
T0-22 played by @Pangaea
T22-41 played by @Gasp
T41-54 played by @ATM
T54-73 played by @Pangaea
T73-91 played by @Pedro78
T91-103 played by @Snowbird

 

[Pangaea]

Not entirely sure what a reasonable amount of turns is defined as, but I presume it's similar to SGOTM, which I believe is 15-20 turns. A little leeway given the early turns are pretty straightforward, at least on a start like this with few real options, so I played 22 turns.

Just a note: Huts are evil. They give the AI a bigger advantage the higher the difficulty level. Because the AI starts with more units and can grab more, and the human has disadvantages in terms of possible (nasty) surprises. Anyway, the starting hut next to the settler gave us a map. Noticed two other huts, but no chance to grab them against a team AI scouts.

Spoiler :

As to the settling, there didn't seem to be much point in moving, given forests all around and little visibility. Moved the warrior NE in the beginning, since the west looked like plains, and the east was at least green, with a hill and a 'naked' tile. The naked tile didn't hold anything, and I kept scouting in that general direction, until a happy camper showed up...

Before that, we met Hannibal from the north already in turn 4, so he is close. Only two turns later, and another nasty hut event. Hannibal revolts to Slavery. Which means he got Bronze Working from a hut. Naturally this changes the early game something fierce. It's basically the holy grail in terms of hut gifts. Short of utter madness like Writing from a late-ish hut (or Astronomy from another continent, but that's a totally different kettle of fish).

In turn 9, two more AIs show up in addition to Hannibal:

Spoiler :

Shaka!!!!
and Sitting Bull

A team of buggers so far.

The land nearby looks promising though, which might mean tough competition for it. Speaking of... Shaka settles his 2nd city in T19. Could mean he got a settler from a hut. Unless he went settler as the first build. Not sure if the AI does that. Must be rare.

Given there are forests in every single square that isn't food, tech choices were severely limited, and there will be many lost turns. I started with Agriculture to farm the best food source. Then I went Animal Husbandry. Thankfully Saladin starts with The Wheel, so the worker can at least do something, but it's nasty. Have lined up Mining now, and then we should grab Bronze Working, so we can deal with that huge forest.

Hannibal has a settler party that will probably settle this turn or next. Shaka is to the east, and presumably Sitting Bull north-west. South looks like tundra and ice, meaning barb issues. Figured the next warrior could go down there. There is horse and marble nearby, though, which is very pleasant news.

Spoiler :

EPs on Hannibal so far, as he's by far the best techer between these three. Thankfully Shaka already hates somebody else more than us, but with him, you always have to prepare for the worst. It's not a question of "will he declare?", but how soon, and on who.

 

[Gasp]

After opening the world builder in a few Immortal games I can confirm that AI is sometimes (not rarely) building a settler first...
The land close to AIs is attractive...Horse+Elephants and Pig+fish+gold that's a problem already Luckily both of them settled (or are going to settle) in the other direction.
Why not settling on the Marble or 1N of it?

 

[Pangaea]

That's one way to go about it. Or go 2 further north, a bit aggressive, and settle with horse and elephants in the inner ring

 

[ATM]

Good to see some progress

I have not opened the save yet but I think there are two nice city locations (probably the same as suggested by @Gasp): 1NW of the Fish and 1E or 1SE of the Ivory. But they are not very close so maybe it is a good idea to settle somewhere else first.

What about settling our next city 1E of the Marble? We could farm the FP (so we can still keep the Corn for our Capital). The production is ok (Marble + a grassland hill) for the initial phase of the game and it could work up to 4 grassland riverside cottages for the Capital later.

 

[Gasp]

I played this turnset till T41

Hannibal settled his 2nd city east of Bananas thus moving our warrior scout south. I decided to move him into the jungle to later explore south of Carthage.
Pangea's idea of settling 2N of Marble was enough to make up my mind about this location. So our worker had the duty to road until there for faster movement of our settler.
I let Mecca finish the warrior #2 before doing a settler at size 3.
T36 Medina is settled. It was about time, thus we force Hannibal to settle elsewhere
I decided not to build a Monument there and wait for Mecca's border to pop. We'll have to research Masonry anyway.

Spoiler Beautiful Medina :

Mecca built a settler, a warrior #3, a worker (in progress).
I think warrior #3 could have been delayed so we could have another worker already: we must chop some forest if we want to settle that gold city (NW of Fish is what I think is best). Thus we'll have plenty of land to settle peacefully with filler cities. Nonetheless south east exploration reveals a nice spot for a city on a PH I think.

Spoiler city 4 perhaps :

Oh and here is good news:

Spoiler random event :

Other good thing is that we have no barbs south and west as I killed them. But there's an Archer somewhere east! I someone plans to settle a 3rd city there, a warrior must go to fogbust ASAP.

T40 here I stop. Except I pressed enter... so T41. Slider is at 0%, I chose Pottery but someone will be free to decide what's best!

Spoiler Our world :

Now, who do we Chariot rush ?

 

[ATM]

Other good thing is that we have no barbs south and west as I killed them. But there's an Archer somewhere east! I someone plans to settle a 3rd city there, a warrior must go to fogbust ASAP.

But there IS one archer in the west! So we still need to be careful from both sides.

Nevertheless these were nice turnsets! I will add some references to my original post soon.

 

[ATM]

I played until T54.

This turnset turned out to be rather bad so please don't be mad at me

Research was: Hunting (so that we can camp the Ivory), Fishing (as this is a prerequisite to Pottery and we need it for our third city), Pottery. The next tech is not definitely chosen yet.

Everything started by another nasty event.

Spoiler :

Also note that there was still that annoying barbarian archer in the west. So I wanted to finish a chariot ASAP to be on the safe side.

Spoiler :

Hannibal sent a settler party in our direction.

Spoiler :

But he settles a not so good spot.

Spoiler :

I whipped the next settler and put the overflow to another worker. One worker was improving the Ivory (near Medina) and the other chopped a forest into the first chariot and then built some roads to speed up the whipped settler. This third worker is primarily intended to build a new pasture over the Cow.

Spoiler :

Oops, no Ivory for us. At least, untill we whip a madrassa. So let us chop into a granary then.

Spoiler :

Then we lost our dreamed city spot to Shaka by two turns. So I decided to settle the PH 1W of the Fish.

Spoiler :

These are our cities in T54.

Spoiler :

This is our land.

Spoiler :

You can see my suggestions for the next cities. The spot for City 1 (1NE of the Gold) is maybe very aggresive (close to Shaka) but it is also a very good spot. Cities 2 and 3 are planned in the south. Cities 4 and 5 are low priorities but seem to be good filler spots.

 

[Gasp]

Nice report ATM

But he settles a not so good spot.
Spoiler :

This is fun what a horrible spot!Poor Hannibal, he has no land to settle but jungle... and brown

I don't mean to be annoying and I'm not mad but I spotted what I think was not optimal, so just my 5 cents here:

Spoiler :

I don't think hunting was a good choice. Medina is low on food so it'll take some time to grow until it could work Elephants. And these are not needed yet since we have the gold for +1 (and a worker to be used for something else (Horse should be pastured though)) on the other hand Granaries are welcome. I believe Pottery was better (no matter if we keep the Ivory or not).
Then as we can see Damascus should have been settled earlier. This is a terrible spot you picked in my opinion We miss that precious gold ressource now. This chariot wasn't necessary; with all that forest around Mecca chopping directly into a settler + whip (Mecca was size 4 already) lead to a faster 3rd city before Shaka decides to settle there.
I played from my save at T49 I settle Damascus NW of Fish (one could argue that this PH SE of Gold was better). Once the 2nd worker is done, I send him E to chop the forest into a settler. I 2-pop whip the settler the same turn the chop is done, producing 40 OFH for another worker. In the end I have 3 workers and Pottery. Granaries will receive a chop in both Mecca and Medina in 2T.
My point is that it's probably better just to chop this early once food is improved.

Spoiler :

Also I would not research fishing yet. Fishing can wait as we won't be able to improve the Fish before we can improve the Pigs anyway. Teching to HBR (I mean Horse Archers) or Writing is an option.

 

[Pangaea]

I've played on a bit, to turn 73. Have settled another city (that grabs gold), and have two more settlers in the pipeline.

Spoiler :

Masonry was lined up in the previous save, but I don't think that would do much for us. Sure we could hook up marble, but other things are far more important, especially given this crowd, and the placement of the fishing city meaning there will soon be border pressure with the peacenik Shaka Therefore I chose Writing. Means we can open borders, explore their land, and get better trade routes.

First, a little intrigue. Hippo isn't a grand city, sure, but do you see something funky about the tile yields?

Spoiler :

2 Which means he settled on top of Iron! This is also confirmed by Hannibal bragging about having Swordmen.

Moving on, chopping and getting up cottages to help out our poor tech rate,I got out a settler and sent him towards the gold. A little unfortunate to lose the forest, but it's the best spot I think, as it has floodplains for food, and gold in inner ring. I improve the gold first, and work it until the floodplain is farmed. Then work the floodplain until size 2, when the city can work both and still grow.

(The fishing village is building another workboat for exploration purposes.)

Since we have two chariots and there is no risk of barbs right now (well done on the fogbusting!), one of the positives of crowded maps, I sent one of them out exploring. With Writing online, and sent out the other one too, through Hannibal's empire. The first one going north-east met somebody...

Spoiler :

Ragnar!! Quite a crowd we have Thankfully he too hates Sitting Bull, which might protect us a bit against all these war mongers.
Next up...

Spoiler :

Mansa!!
I've changed EPs to Mansa, as always really. Means we'll lose tech view on Hannibal eventually, but Mansa is the best tech trader in the game, and we should get to know what Hannibal picks after Polytheism in time.

Apart from that, not much excitement really, just plugging along preparing for a few more cities, and getting up cottages, as we quite desperately need them. I've put up some which can be worked from the helper cities. There was a brief moment up north, when I spotted a hut. But it's protected by a barb warrior on top of a forested hill, so odds are pretty lousy at 42% with a virtually full health chariot. Several AIs have gold too, so the tech rate is fairly decent I would think. I've lined up Aesthetics next, so we can trade for Alpha. Have enough gold to tech it at full pelt now. Pretty sure somebody else should grab Alpha in the near-ish future with so many AIs on one continent (we still haven't found the last one, though) and Mansa in the world.

So then, a view at our cities in Turn 73:

Spoiler :

The overview looks like this, with the capital up to size 6 now. It's working on a settler, and I'm thinking we can just slow-produce + chop it. Then whip something else later.

Mecca at size 6, working 3 cottages. Another chop should be ready soon, so the settler can come out pretty fast without a whip. It can arrive at the cow-horse spot in one turn due to the road and non-river crossings.

Medina. Since Hannibal's capital is north, the ivory was always going to be 'lost' for the time being, but we'll get it back eventually. I've queued up a worker here, as we have 4 and could use a few more, especially with 2 settlers coming up. It can be 2-popped next turn, and then it can build a cottage for instance on the green river. Overflow goes into the Madrassa, unlocked at Writing. Or he can chop it out by going into the forest instead.

Damascus. The second settler is in the works here, and can be 2-popped in a few turns. Overflow goes into Granary, and after that it probably makes sense with a Madrassa, despite the close border with Shaka. Initially it will only be one tile "crossing wires" so maybe it should be okay. This city recently finished the explore boat, which is now trekking south of Shaka's land. Hopefully it or the chariot can find the last AI, and where Ragnar is located (probably south of Mansa/north-east of Shaka, in that general area).

Baghdad, or Gold city. As mentioned earlier, workers first improved the gold here, as we desperately needed more commerce, and worked that while workers improved the farm. It's now working the farm to grow, and can after that work both and still (slowly) grow, which will do wonders for our commerce. Naturally don't whip this anytime soon, as we need to work both those tiles. I've put a chop into a granary, so it should come out fairly soon once the city works 3. Later, the city can have access to two more floodplains, depending on how we share them around.

Sorry about the dotmapping in the screenshots. I sometimes forget to turn it off, as I sometimes simply play with them on, particularly in the early stage when planning city locations.

Speaking of that, I've adapted the plans a little. Am thinking that maybe the first city we should settle is the crabs in the west, to secure it before Hannibal goes there (which he definitely can, given he has a city nearby, it's 'free', and he has jungle elsewhere), plus to block off land so we can safely backfill the sheep+deer later. Sure, it would be nice to preserve the green river tile for farm/cottage, but without being creative, it's more important to have food in the inner ring I think. It usually is. Food is .

The other settler in the queue can grab the cow+horse city, which is a pretty good and obvious spot, with the added benefit of a city on a plains hill. On that note, if Shaka goes to war against us, he should target the fishing village, which is located on a hill. That will make defending it a little easier.

Below is an overview of our south, with the cities I have in mind. Please note that cities cannot be placed two tiles apart (must be 3+ on the same landmass), so those two in the west is probably best like this, so both have food in the inner ring.

Spoiler :

Hopefully this was a reasonably agreeable turnset. Should be an interesting game.

Note that both Hannibal and Ragnar are plotting.
Most likely against the hated Sitting Bull, but if Hannibal is plotting against us, we'll be in a pretty tough spot. He has access to Swords (not seen any yet, but they will be around soon), and probably War Elephants soon too, as I know he has teched Horseback Riding (only needs Construction). But hopefully none of them will declare on us, and once we get Alpha, we can if needed give away stuff to get them to Pleased, which should help diplomacy. Hopefully Buddhism spreads to us soon too. If Judaism spreads, don't change, as that will paint the crosshairs on our backs, with an angry Shaka nearby. Not good

Edit: I played a few more turns......

Spoiler :

Hannibal declares. We're screwed!

 

[Gasp]

Edit: I played a few more turns......
Spoiler : Hannibal declares. We're screwed!

Let's hope Shaka will not join the war.

 

[elmurcis]

This is fun what a horrible spot!Poor Hannibal, he has no land to settle but jungle... and brown

When you think AI did something really stupid but it turns out to be best play that he could do

 

[Pangaea]

Let's hope Shaka will not join the war.

Yes, let's hope so. This is one of the potential challenges on maps with warmongers, which it is difficult to impossible to "control". Short of placing that first city closer to home, we couldn't really have done much different in terms of not provoking the guy. And sooner or later he would settle against our border anyway.

Extra annoying here as it's so early, we don't have metal, no military to speak of, and Hannibal is Cautious with us, Annoyed with Mansa, and Annoyed with Sitting Bull, who is also his worst enemy. A very bad random roll perhaps. Whatever caused it, this is a pretty sticky one to get out of, so if somebody wants to go back and replay my turnset, I suppose that can be done. Or maybe better players than me can get out of it somehow. Get Archery quickly and start spamming them. Nothing to do with horse-ivory city, but maybe we can defend ourselves elsewhere with enough units. At least he doesn't have catas.

 

[ATM]

@Gasp Thanks for your comments. I think you are right about researching Hunting. But why do you think that Damascus is in a terrible spot? This was the only way to include fish into the first ring and we could finish a work boat within only 3 turns! In fact, I was still pretty happy with this location.

Hopefully some strong players help us to defend against Hannibal This really seems to be fun! I don't think we can defend Medina now but maybe we can take it back later. Anyway, it may be a good idea to tech Archery ASAP.

 

[Gasp]

But why do you think that Damascus is in a terrible spot?

Because the Gold is not in the big fat cross and Gold as it is very important for commerce was the main reason why we should settle our 3rd city there. In your scenario, Shaka settling above Pigs, I would have settled Damascus on the PH that is SE of Gold: it has gold + 3 FP in the first ring and even though it's not coastal will be able to work the fish later with a border pop (assuming we have a coastal city elsewhere).

Extra annoying here as it's so early, we don't have metal, no military to speak of, and Hannibal is Cautious with us

This is the reason why I suggested to HA rush Hannibal after we settled our 3rd city next to Gold. But things went differently.

Now, who's going to play the turnset of our death?
Edit: I tried to play a few turns out of curiosity and it's not lost... yet at least

 

[Pangaea]

Are you playing the next turnset then? Unfortunately it sounds like a very stressful one. Sorry!

Thankfully we have some gold at least, so can research Archery and Iron Working. Bloody well hope there is iron somewhere close!!

 

[Pedro78]

I'm don't usually play on IMM, but the next turnset looks fun. Anyone mind if I play a few turns?

 

[Pangaea]

Fine by me! 10 turns from now, and Hannibal is dead

 

[Pedro78]

Opened the save.. Ughhhh.. Didn't play any turns yet (not even sure I wanna play these), but in case Hannibal is plotting on you, I see two ways to limit damages on your side.

1. 3whip the Settler in Mecca. The hill 2S3W of Carthage cannot have Hannibal's culture. Place the city here and you'll get +4 trade bonus and +1 "you liberated our cities" diplo. Can then beg ivory and avoid DoW (assuming you haven't begged yet).
2. If you see Hannibal's stack on your borders before you can gift him a city (btw, WTH are these chariots doing on the other side of the map??), the best move is probably to gift him Medina. Can then beg ivory and HA-rush him later (all cities but maybe Carthage are on flatland, and there's horses in the south). If the beg fails, it will still give you some time to build up Archers (the AI will always send units to an unguarded city). Pretty ugly, but can't do much better. You have 200 in the bank -- could have HBR & Archery already.

A bit disheartening

 

[Gasp]

Opened the save.. Ughhhh.. Didn't play any turns yet (not even sure I wanna play these)

I thought you were a courageous player