The Green (peace??) free-for-all succession game

[Sharkbait]

The order of play so far:

Solo
Elephant
Old n Slow
Sharkbait
Elephant
Six Thousand Year Old Man
Sharkbait
Old n Slow

StuporMan - feel free to start the body count!

[StuporMan]

I will try to make the time for Civ, but I know for a fact I will not have time until Monday, and even then it is unlikely I will be able to play.

My problem right now is that Grad school has started (I am taking Cryptography), and is essentially eating all of my free time after my full time job. On top of that I still have my Supply and Demand Calculator project that I am working on (which I am still making progress on, just very slowly). Oh, and my wife likes to see me too

After all of this comes this succession game. Basically, I have time to check in now and again, but getting the time and energy to play 10 or so turns with so many cities with a decent amount of micromanagement seems just out of reach until I get my grad school groove on again. I will try, but I would heartily recommend someone else take the game up next just in case I can't find the time.

StuporMan

[Sharkbait]

Wow! Thats a busy schedule - many important priorities.

Cryptography eh? Sounds interesting....

[Addled Platypus]

that means writing speeches for President Bush

he talks cryptically

[solo]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
that means writing speeches for President Bush

he talks cryptically

Curious George?

I doubt he is capable of this.

Deceit requires a minimum level of intelligence.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by solo


Curious George?

I doubt he is capable of this.

Deceit requires a minimum level of intelligence.

Conspiracy theorists believe the world is controlled by an evil genius.

Conspiracy realists believe the world is controlled by an evil moron.

I count myself in the latter group

/me wonders... is anyone going to play some turns?

[StuporMan]

Grad school homework kicked my rear again, so no turnset from me. Should I get really lucky and figure everything out I may have a chance to play in the next couple of days. If not, I probably will within the week.

StuporMan

[Scouse Gits]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man


Conspiracy theorists believe the world is controlled by an evil genius.

Conspiracy realists believe the world is controlled by an evil moron.

I count myself in the latter group

[Sharkbait]

A quick glance shows that we can get another wonder next turn in Little Bighorn with the dips ready and those we can PRB, if we so wish. Copes maybe? Navigation / Magellan is some way off - prob have time to get Copes and have enough dips for Mag when its ready.

[Old n Slow]

Copes is underexciting with a small town; I was thinking that we'd want Magellan and Mikes (hopefully the next tech -- we may to bargain sometime for Literacy from the French...)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I vote for Mikes/Magellan. We don't have a city that really justifies a science wonder.

[StuporMan]

I would strongly recommend holding out for Mikes. Happiness is already a big issue and will only get worse as we get more and more cities from bribes/conquest/building.

Also note that it appears that several AI are close to discovering Monotheism so we could trade for the prereq's of Monotheism or wait until someone else discovers it and trade techs with them.

The other path we might try to take is to get the prereqs for Democracy and build Statue of Liberty to get us some soft Fundy so we can really start cranking out the military.

Unfortunately it is looking less and less like I will be able to complete a turnset. The sheer number of cities to manage appears too daunting to one with such a limited amount of free time.

StuporMan

[Sharkbait]

I agree with Mikes, and maybe SoL for second one. The shape of the land is such that we never have huge expanses to cross, so if we get some canal cities going maybe Magellan's isn't vital. A nice wonder to pick up though if we can.

[Andu Indorin]

Re: The Green (peace??) free-for-all succession game

A few thoughts from a Retired Druid posing as the proverbial “devil’s advocate” (i.e., with many a ). Which is to say, it is written in the spirit of friendly mischievousness.

This game that raises some interesting philosophical debates. (Personally, I thought Civ III should have included a “Green” type of government; sooner or later, there’ll be one.)

One issue, I think, is whether you’re playing the game as “enlightened” environmentalists or “radical” environmentalists. (I use these terms with descriptively and with great reservation.) If you were to play the game from a “radical” environmentalist, I would argue reductio ad absurdum that your settles would never have founded their first city, and instead would’ve spent the next six thousand years trying to avoid contact with any other civilization. In a way, the very concept of Civilization is inimical to a radical environmentalist.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
SPECIAL RULES... please read carefully

The underlying concept is... respect for the environment, animal rights, avoidance of techs and improvements that are, or could be, bad for the environment. When in doubt, the rules below will be interpreted with this concept in mind.

The underlying concept of “respect for environment” suggests the more enlightened approach; but “animal rights” (i.e., animal slavery) suggests a more radical perspective. Civilization’s advance would have been considerably slower without beasts of burden … and human slavery, of course, cannot be considered any better than animal slavery.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man

1. No building cities with the following in the radius: Whales, Pheasant, Silk, Buffalo, Furs, Muskox, Ivory. Fishing for subsistence is permitted (but no mass netting - see below re: Harbours being banned). If a city is accidentally built with one of these specials in the radius, it must be starved down to size 1 and disbanded by building a Settler.

This is perhaps a little extreme … perhaps you cannot build immediately next to the potentially exploitable “resource.” And then, of course, you cannot utilize these resources; if a city’s population goes up, you must adjust the resulting worker accordingly. This way, you let the greens have their whale watching tours. (See also, further below.)

(Btw, the Muskox, as a relative of the goat, is a limited source of wool and milk … ergo, like sheep, you do not necessarily have slaughter them … but then again, there those environmentalists who consider milk to be no-no.)

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 2. No terrain improvement or terraforming with the exception of roads, and RR along the shortest path between cities. No mining or irrigation allowed. No fortresses or airfields. Pollution clean-up is OK.

I can see the argument for no farmland allowed – nasty chemical fertilizers. But a can a civilization get off the ground without some irrigation? And if you want your Armor and busses to run on bio-fuels, it would probably require some irrigation to produce the quantity required to fuel a modern army and mass transit. Perhaps only irrigation when needed … i.e., with the advent of bio-fuels. …

And, as you’ve discovered with your discussion on trade: mining is a real problem. Civilization would get too far with out the ability to mine iron and bauxite; and then there is the whole oil=plastic equation …

Also, sooner or later, the AI civs will start cutting down trees. I’d think it most appropriate – speaking as the retired Druid here -- to plant some trees to restore the global ecological balance – especially if it is done in the offending AI civs city radius. Finally, no city’s production should be ever be allowed to produce pollution …

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 3. Mounted units (horse slavery!) are barred. This includes Camel units. Nuclear Missiles are barred, as are Carriers, Battleships and Submarines following the discovery of Nuclear Power.

How about air units, source of noise pollution? This, of course, assumes that bio-fuels can generate enough energy to get off the ground. Otherwise, you may have to wait for fusion power.

And again, mining for the metals required for weapons. I’m guessing you guys aren’t planning on having your warriors try to fend off attacks from Armored units …

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 4. The following city improvements may NOT be built: ... Supermarket (sells product of factory farms) ...

Factory farms? With your enlightened government policies, I think you will find a way to save the family farm as well as the mom and pop store.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 5. The following city improvements MUST be built in preference to other improvements once available: Solar Plant, Mass Transit.

You forgot Recycling Centers. And to get to Solar Plant, you must first build factory. Ergo, start and finish factory, start Solar Plant, and then immediately sell factory?

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 6. The following Wonders may NOT be built: Hoover Dam (hugely disruptive to local ecosystem), Manhattan Project (should be obvious why not), Cure for Cancer (animal testing!).

Other restrictions (?):Great Library (use of animal skins for scrolls); Darwin’s Voyage (collection of animal specimens, which required killing); Adam Smith’s Trading Co. (The Wealth of Nations is not really on the Eco-Friendly reading list); Apollo Program (at least before the discovery of fusion power); Colossus, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty (requires extensive use of metals not found nature, ergo, requires mining???). (And I’m not even going touch upon some of the more extreme environmentalist opinions regarding Christianity.)

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 7. The following advances must be delayed as long as possible (in practice, this means that where they show up on a list of choices, they may not be selected unless no other choices are available. We don't have to guide our research to avoid their prerequisites): Steam Engine, Railroad, Industrialization, Corporation, Refrigeration, Refining, Combustion, Automobile, Nuclear Fission, Nuclear Power, Plastics. Technology advances may be stolen, but once Spies are available, they must be directed to steal an advance OTHER THAN the ones noted above. Where the AI only knows the barred advances noted above, a tech cannot be stolen.

It’s a pity you cannot customize the tech tree while allowing the AI civs to continue their unenlightened course. I.e., it’s a pity you cannot get to environmentalism without industrialization. …

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 8. Spies may not poison the water supply or plant nukes. When destroying city improvements, the primary target MUST be an offending improvement (one listed above in point #4.). Once all offending improvements are destroyed in the city, other improvements can be targeted.

Hmm, I believe this is called eco-terrorism.

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man 9. Where an AI city is captured, all offending improvements must be sold, starting immediately. Terrain improvements (except as noted above) must be pillaged within 10 turns. If an offending terrain special is in the radius, it must not be worked. Forbidden units captured or bribed must be disbanded (set free).

On the one hand, I think you must every effort to bribe the offending unit so that you can set the animals free. On the other hand, seems to me if you’re going to engage in eco-terrorism, you might as well require the razing of any city with terrain specials. As of 560 ad, that’s only 15 of the 28 AI cities. …

(Here's hoping I haven't annoyed anyone too excessively

[Sharkbait]

One point Andu raises is the capturing of cities with specials / wonders we're not allowed.

I guess the wonder cities would need to be starved and disbanded (or maybe if we're rich enough the rules should be to RB settlers and disband that way - faster). Or else we must destroy the walls and raze the city not capture it?

With captured cities, it seems to say in the rules that we can't use the special square, and improvements must be pillaged. I guess we'd have to check each turn to see whether there has been any growth which has caused the AI to reassign the workers to its "optimal" view. Bit of a drag but otherwise we'll be wiping out cities like mad if we have to raze them or disband after capture and relocate the populace (the Khmer Rouge spring to mind for some reason ).

Re the mining, I'd say that the game implicitly allows for some gather of metals without mines, since a lot of improvements cannot be built without metal but you can generate the shields without a mine. So I think no mines can be read as being "No industrial gathering of metals". We're not having restrictions on iron, gold and coal specials IIRC.

Re air units and their noise pollution, I guess even more important re their pollution would be the amount of fuel they expend flying, and the damage they do to the upper levels of the atmosphere. Another possible restriction re units and airports...I think avoiding air units would be easy, but I'd like to keep airports for the freight bonus.

One other bit of food for thought - some greenies these days are beginning to advocate nuclear power given the side affects of other power sources such as oil and coal. So an argument could be made for having nuclear power plants but we'd need to immediately build something to clean up after it. I must admit I don't think i've ever built one (good old Hoover) so don't remember the risk of a meltdown and how you mitigate this). So if there is always a risk maybe we should say no to them. However, saw an article the other day of how the Chernobyl area has become a wildlife haven now that it has been evacuated, so maybe if we have an ccident the rules would be to disband the city and never settle there again?

Another thing I think we'll face sooner or later will be barbs. Since most of them are mounted, the usual defence of bribing and using that unit for attack is I guess a no-no. Could still bribe and disband but doen't make sense. Or we could pay their tribute if the reach a city. Otherwise some decently placed defence will be needed.


BTW I played 10 turns and can post but since I played only 2 turns ago I'd prefer to let someone else go. But let me know if you want to see the fruits of my labours. I'm going to be away for 2 weeks from the 17th so won't be able to play then.