Dirty Succession Game

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
I think building a Happy WoW and then keeping it for a while in order to enjoy it is clearly an exploit under these rules and should be banned. However, as we are supposed to be incarnate in this game perhaps doing that which is clearly not allowed is fully in the spirit of our ness

Stu

Exploit?? Clearly not allowed??

The reference I quoted above was from the page 1 ruleset for this game. Not only clearly allowed, but also, encouraged. The dirtiness factor comes from disallowing that WOW being built and used by the AI.

But, it is going to make the dirty job easier. Maybe this part of rule #3 should be banned?? What say you OnS??

Monk

[debeest]

Re: Dirty Succession Game

These are two important questions, on which I think we should defer to O n S.

Originally posted by Old n Slow
#3: Our first Wonder must be the Eiffel Tower. By creating this, we will be forced to continually perform despicable acts to maintain our reputation. Once we have this wonder we can make more…BUT we must destroy all wonders so that they never get into enemy hands. (So yes, we can build Darwin’s, but plan on building it in a small city, and then disbanding the city ASAP -- same with Apollo & Manhattan. In fact, this might be a good strategy with other wonders as well; but remember, Eiffel must be the first one built.) If we come across a city with a Wonder, we can either take the city and then sell off the improvements and shrink the city to nothing, or simply raze it -- the goal is to end up with one Wonder (the Shining Silver Spire) and the remaining ones either Lost or never built.

From this I take it that it's perfectly OK to build any Wonder, but the cited ones are sort of one-shot usage. Leonardo's could be put into that category, too -- potentially worth building even if we had it for just one turn. But the key question in my mind is, if we build, say, Michelangelo's, HOW FAST do we have to disband the city? OnS's rules say "ASAP" -- but how fast is that, really? What do you say, OnS?

#4: Winning condition (you have to ask?) -- building spaceship parts is for losers.

Earlier there was discussion about whether we could go for Alpha Centauri. I took it from this quote that we couldn't. Right?

[Zedd]

Precisely why I asked, if we let a size four city naturally shrink to Size 1 and then disband it then IMO we have not broken these rules and for four turns we have the wonder.

As for the dirtiness, how more despicable could you get than to build Michaelangelo's Chapel and for fourty years let your people flock to it in wonder and awe, marveling at its beuty, then destroy it while the city starves itself to death in repentance for the act of its construction.

Surey these great minds can contrive things more devious than "blow up thier temple in peace time"

[Old n Slow]

Nice guys could also give 8 camels and the techs to the neighbors...(hint, hint) and cash too! After their friendly neighborhood ai completes said wonder, slowly raze the city...

Perhaps time the conquest of various cities to enjoy the combination of wonders as they slowly grind down to dust...

But if some of the players want to "use wonders", I guess some of us are going to HAVE to waste good production after bad.

Yes, the "rules" will allow a player to build a spaceship (and be called a loser), retire (and be called a loser) and surrender (and be called a loser).

On the other hand, should the player before me launch a spaceship, I will spend my turns dismantling the capital to see if said wasted metal can blow up...hmmm haven't done that before, maybe we should try it!

[Old n Slow]

For those who see the need to sleaze around the rules, consider joining the Lazy game (already in progress) or the proposed Silly II (coming soon after STYOM returns.)

For those who want happiness and growth to size 8, hang on until the advanced governments turn up -- we should be OK with Democracy, some infrastructure & reasonable trade routes (and a little bit of Lux.)

[debeest]

Originally posted by Zedd
if we let a size four city naturally shrink to Size 1 and then disband it then IMO we have not broken these rules and for four turns we have the wonder.

The reason I asked how long "ASAP" means is that cities usually don't naturally shrink at all, and it takes significant expense to shrink them. Four turns would mean rush-buying an entire settler each turn, which would make it hardly worthwhile.

Old n Slow, it sounds like you're saying your rules are intended to keep us from using lasting Wonders. Is that right?

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Old n Slow
Nice guys could also give 8 camels and the techs to the neighbors...(hint, hint) and cash too! After their friendly neighborhood ai completes said wonder, slowly raze the city...

I'm sure that the AI doesn't use caravans like that. Does it?

[-Jrabbit]

Depending on the AI to build a wonder is kinda goofy imho. Much more efficient (and more in the spirit of the rules) to found a new city, build the WoW there, and disband the city immediately after.

[Bloody Monk]

This whole WOW idea is kinda goofy, but...

It may be a marginal until all the other AI are found on the ground of not allowing some Civ that is still lost in the black building it.

Otherwise, just say no. Focus on more obvious dirty deeds. But, your mileage may vary.

Monk

[Zedd]

I should say my Idea was met with a resounding NO WAY, however i have one question.
On the issue of disbanding a city...

The reason I asked how long "ASAP" means is that cities usually don't naturally shrink at all, and it takes significant expense to shrink them. Four turns would mean rush-buying an entire settler each turn, which would make it hardly worthwhile.

wouldn't makeing all citizens elvi make the city starve to a size on (provided it was not founded on grasslands) and then you rush one settler? thats where I got the 4 turns for a size four city, and that would be ASAP correct?

Any way the idea was to increase population not to make the world a happy place, but I can see all the reasons why this is not desirable.


Zedd, continuing the learning experience

[debeest]

Oops. I've never starved a city, so I forgot how easy it can be. Each turn after you empty your food box, you'll lose a citizen, right. But the food box you begin with may take you quite a few turns to empty, so it could take maybe 5-15 turns to starve out a size-four city.

I'm up around 1620. I'll try to play some more tonight, but if I don't finish ten turns, I'll post whatever I have tonight, because I'll be out of town for the weekend.

[debeest]

Dirtlog, 1550-1630

The kingdom passes into my hands in good shape. I tweak a few citizens, part rush a few builds to make the shields come out right, but there’s really not much of that to do.

We’re 180 turns into the game, and we’ve only been able to explore less than half of this ringworld. Who would have thought we’d reach 1550 and still be mostly reliant on triremes?

We probably should have kept a bunch of Mongol cities alive as trading partners. If we wipe out every city as soon as we find it, we’ll never have a decent trade program. Finding the last two Mongol cities is a priority.

We’re still in monarchy, but my suggestion before my last reign has only been partly followed – we haven’t been celebrating our monarchy. 25 of our 37 cities are currently size 3 or more. What would happen if I kicked the luxuries way up for a couple of turns and got us into representative-government trade levels? Ouch. Lots of corruption, and it looks as if only a few cities would celebrate even at 60% luxuries with all the citizens working trade squares. Sigh. Can’t go to republic, either. This Wonderless deity stuff is a challenge.

If we had more cities, we’d have more blackfaces, and then it would be easier to get cities to celebrate. Maybe we should be building settlers from our larger cities, building new cities, and growing them all to size three.

Meanwhile, we need warriors for martial law to get our entertainers to work. And caravels for deep open exploration. I switch several cities from diplomats.

1560 barb legion kills legion in Oily Rag, and another legion sacks the city
- wow! one thing for sure, I will not be using the GoTo command in MGE anymore! I spend a few minutes searching out all the units with GoTo orders and clearing them
- horsemen exploring the southwestern continent find and kill a Babylonian explorer, causing the Chinese to declare war on us
- build Mendacity on eastern continent

1570 find Babylonian Shuruppak
- gems, demanded, Big Valley-Beijing yields 306g
- steal university from Beijing (ah! finally I’m misbehaving! but they already declared war on us last turn…. )
- silk, not demanded, Muddville-Chengdu yields 198g
- ecccch! sticky mouse loses trireme offshore with caravan aboard
- rushbuy temple in Mendacity so we can go whaling there
- horsemen near Shuruppak survive attack

1580 nothing but movement
- rushbuy temple in Mirky Waters so we can fish or go whaling

1590 build Hogwash in the three-special island spot Zedd suggested (yes, we could usefully put multiple cities on that island, but we’ve got no end of good places to put cities)
- village 61,23 yields nomads

1600 physics (research steam so we can build Awful and then maybe others)
- silk, not demanded, Vermin-Chengdu yields 168g
- gems, not demanded, Foul Play-Chengdu yields 180g
- village 40,42 yields eight barb horsemen – sigh – if I bribe any one of them, and that one kills the ones on each side of it, the other five would still be within striking range – he prepares to pop some cyanide
- village 55,23 yields 100g
- build Smarmy
- rushbuild temple in Hogwash

1610 build Bathtub Ring
- gems, not demanded, Lost Soap-Chengdu yields 180g
- rushbuy harbor in Sordid so it can grow, and temple in Smarmy for whaling

1620 we’ll learn steam engine in about 4-5 turns, so I set Muddville to work on a Wonder
- village 53,29 yields crusaders
- beads, not demanded, Aleppo-Chengdu yields 110g
- rushbuild harbor in Feculent, temple in Bathtub Ring

1630 Babylonians complete Michelangelo’s Chapel; Chinese switch to Leonardo’s
- village 66,14 yields legion
- village 59,29 yields 100g
- Chinese agree to ceasefire! (but they won’t make peace – apparently the word is out on us….)
- silk, not demanded, Squalor-Chengdu yields 198g, bringing us just short of a tech


That’s it for me for now.

The demanded silk can now go safely to Shanghai before we break the ceasefire. The explorer on the boat by Tientsin can go ashore and scout out some more Chinese cities to trade with before we capture them. I went through eight turns without managing to sully our reputation at all (not that it’s possible right now), but miraculously I did manage to set it up so the Duke can.

I’m afraid I’ve thoroughly disrupted the shipchain. I don’t play on big worlds and have never needed a long one, and I wanted to get stuff there ASAP, so I didn’t maintain the smooth setup Zedd handed me – but they’re all still on the line, with a few added, too.

I started to stack crusaders on the little island north of China where they could stay without getting into trouble until enough of them arrive to kick butt (but please be sure to do lots of foreign trading first).

Has anyone already noticed that Babylon is situated on the 193 x-coordinate, while Shuruppak is at 297? Those Babylonians are really spread out. That little bit of land around Shuruppak is the same continent that the Chinese are on, and it extends almost out to where we’ve explored around the Mongol continent. I’ve got two caravels heading across the deep water with diplomats and a caravan and a horseman to explore.

The settler southeast of Kashgar is intended to build there, making another port city. In retrospect, I don’t think it really adds anything to the existing crossing, but I think it’s still a good place to build.

Long distance trading is going to get harder and harder, so I tried to buff up some of our own offshore cities to at least allow intercontinental trading.

I think it would be highly worthwhile to build Leonardo’s Workshop. I left plenty of caravans near Muddville to build Eiffel when we learn steam engine this turn, but I didn’t know that our opponents were already able to work on it, so I haven’t prepared for that. So I recommend that we save up a little more cash to buy it outright in some little town we don’t need. (In fact, we could build one just for that purpose.) I didn’t spend it down this turn.

There may still be a lot of barb horsemen wandering around in the darkness south of Mendacity, so be careful if you get to explore down there soon.

NOTE: I have not done my usual end-of-turn run-through of the cities to check for possible impending disorder, rush-buy white goods, even out the shield counts by partial rush-buying, etc.

Take it away, Duke!

[Scouse Gits]

Loses a city and a Trireme/Camel

Yeah - I too sought to celebrate - but it just isn't on - hence my attempts to build up the capital and nearby cities with 'b'ing Settlers. For my money, I doubt that we will ever have a viable representative Government - so I guess we will have to target Commie or Fundy.

Look like pretty good turns, Stu

[duke o' york]

I've got the save, but as I said in the Sailing thread, I don't know if I can get it done by Monday. I'm fairly sure I can, but I may have to make some irritating phone calls to more techy-minded friends to sort it out.
Update on Monday though - with more despicable deeds.

[Old n Slow]

Good work debeest -- rather than building Leo's for a turn, we might be better served to take from an ai -- we might even get a couple of upgrades as the city grinds to dust.

The Tower is coming, the tower is coming, the TOWER is almost here!

And the challenge to stay dirty will really begin!