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

[Sharkbait]

Death creeping closer to our foes....

Who's up?

[solo]

I'll play a set of turns.

[solo]

Well, that didn't take too long, did it?

It’s a nice change of pace returning to Civ II, after spending so much time recently getting acquainted with Civ IV.

It was hard to tell what some units are being built or used for when joining the middle of a game, but I decided to do my best to accelerate our progress towards Democracy, since the SoL followed by Fundy sounds like our best plan. Once we can start cranking out lunatics, we can go on the offensive.

Here is my log of key events:

980 Russians start on Copernicus. I decided to talk to them and after giving them a tech, they agreed to peace and were willing to trade me The Wheel and Engineering upon the subsequent contact. The only problem here was that I had to make one more trade just to make sure Invention would show up as one of the next research choices, so I also made one tech trade with the Carthaginians to ensure this. Now, instead of 4 more turns to go until the Wheel it would be only 6 more to go until we have Invention, so I thought that was a good deal.

1000 The French capture the barb city of Lyons! Hmm, I wonder who founded Lyons to begin with? Egypt starts working on Copernicus. I start learning Invention, using the beakers put into The Wheel as a head start.

1020 Egyptians learn Feudalism.

1040 Russians and Japanese go to war. Green Acres founded for the Tree Huggers.

1060 I had a trireme with a diplomat lurking near a French city being attacked by barbs. I was hoping to somehow nab the barb leader, but a French boat surprised me by zipping out of the city and sinking my trireme instead! In retrospect, being greedy was not too bright! Maybe the French AI were somehow being given a hand behind the scenes by LaFayette. It seemed like too smart a move for the AI to come up with on their own. Carthaginians learn Banking on this turn.

1080 Americans build Copernicus. All the others switch wonders to Magellans, which is the wonder we now have under construction.

1100 Invention is ours, and the good news is that no one else will have it for awhile, too. Democracy was chosen as the next tech to learn and it will take 10 turns. Save the Whales founded for the Tree Huggers.

Now I am unsure which wonder we should go after, but I have been spending the last few turns moving diplomats towards and into our capital. I’ve also been sending spare settlers in that direction, too. Soon there should be enough around there to disband towards the wonder of our choice, but maybe we should discuss this and make a decision before the next player takes over.

If we want Fundamentalism ASAP, than we should wait 10 turns for Democracy and build SoL first. However, Leonardo’s would be nice for upgrading triremes and other units. Last thing to consider is that if we delay Magellans, one of the AI may build it first. My own choice would be to prioritize SoL.

Since I started the game making too many turns, I will give back a few of those now and will turn the game over to the next person who wants to continue the game.

[Elephant]

If the AI building Magellan's is not too far away let them finish it for us. The Statue is more important to current plans, as long as we don't mistakenly raze the city with Magellan's.

[StuporMan]

Elephant,

Due to the game restrictions, we may HAVE to raze the city with Magellan. But I still agree SOL is much more important at this stage. Once we have fundy, much of our problems vanish and we can destroy all opposition with the might of our fanaticism!

All Magellan is going to do is speed up the conquest a little bit.

StuporMan

[Scouse Gits]

Hear hear! - but don't forget - lunatics come with hard Fundy not soft! So my moneys on the Workshop!

Stu

[solo]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
Hear hear! - but don't forget - lunatics come with hard Fundy not soft! So my moneys on the Workshop!

Stu

Errrrr, very good point! After the few miileseconds needed to consider its merits, I agree that the Workshop is our best choice now.

When I used to play Fundy, I usually beelined to Democracy, and skipped the techs leading and upto Monotheism. SoL was more appropriate in that situation, when I needed immediate happiness control.

This game is different since we already have HG and MC. Why not get more use out of them. We are also slower building wonders because we can not use caravans, so why build SoL when Fundamentalism is only a few research steps away, anyways.

After learning Democracy, we can switch to that form of government until Fundamentalism is learned the old fashioned way through research. The only intervening techs we need are University (which we can trade for from the Egyptians), Gunpowder, Metallurgy and Conscription. These are very useful techs to have earlier on, too.

Using Democracy, we could probably research to Fundamentalism before we could build both SoL and the Workshop, anyways. Right after we get Fundamentalism, we can celebrate cities as high as possible under Democracy before switching governments, too.



I have another thought regarding the use of Fanatics, once we have them:

I think we should give them a special role this game. I think the primary mission of every Fanatic should be to make a beeline to the closest offending misuse of resources, and make an immediate attempt to disrupt their exploitation by either pillaging the tile or sitting on the resource so it can not be used. Fanatics should give no thought to their personal safety in their attempts to save valued species and resources. They should fight only when attacked.

The conquest of cities should be left upto other military units, unless it can be verified that a verboten city improvement is present, making the immediate destruction of the city imperative.

[StuporMan]

I would have to agree with your use of fanatics solo, however, once all offending squares/improvements have been properly addressed, I see no reason for the fanatics not to take measures to ensure no further abuse by conquering the civilizations that were resposible in the first place.

This just so happens alo goes along with the ancient proverb "Pillage first, then burn"

StuporMan

[StuporMan]

Well, I had some free time so I decided to play a set of 10 turns. And here is how it went:

1100: Continued moving diplomats toward Capital, Moving settlers to Unsettled areas on SE islands. This is my overall strategy for my turnset, Hopefully we will get a wonder before my turnset ends.
1120: Carth: give techs, share maps (elephant and catapult showed up, this was mainly to avoid war), could have traded for bridge building, but held off to get Demo faster, continue moving Diplomats and settlers, also working on making a ship chain to connect all of our islands. Egyptians oppress their camels and force them to deliver goods to Point of Rocks. We will keep their +2 trade bonus in protest.
1140: The Egyptians again oppress their camels to Naples. Again we are outraged and keep the trade bonus as protest.
1160: Arborville and Casa De Arbol founded, cash in dips + 120 gold to build Leo's
1180: Leo's Built, Now building Magellan's to store for SOL, as settlers a being built, they are being changed to diplomats to expedite the building of the SOL (that and we will not have need for too many more cities). I notice that Carths are researching Gunpowder! Should we tech bomb? Hollow Wood, Pheasant Guard Founded.
1200: Not much, ship chains forming, settlers moving/roading, dips being built and moved to Capital, Thinking about switching tax rate after Demo to get Magellan's as well. Two extra movement points would help considerably in moving units around, and with an empire as vast and expansive as ours, we may need it more than we need SOL right away.
1220: Bought library in three forks, can sell it later if debt issues arise.
1240: Crystal Waters Founded, switched science for tax to delay Demo for Oedo year.
1260: Rushing & partial rushing some dips with the extra cash, maybe we can get Magellan's before the AI. If we can, then SOL should come not too much behind where it would have originally (due to faster movement across the ocean).
1280: Egyptians announce that they will build Magellan's next turn. Well so much for that idea ... or is it. I still have some settlers scheduled to be sent to the island opposite the Russians, but we will have more than enough cities anyway. I figure if I disband all the dips, settlers, a large collection of the pikemen on the island, and most of the money I have remaining I can just get Magellans. I figure out that I can safely get rid of the pikemen and not lose the WLTED, so I decide to go ahead and do this. We have more than enough dips in production to get SOL quickly enough, a few extra turns in Monarchy/Democracy won't kill us (hopefully), and the pikemen can be replaced quickly enough.
Oh, and the Egyptians don't take the hint and again oppress their camels to Point of Rocks, another +2 trade bonus taken in protest.

1300: Magellan's is built, If my calculations are correct, then we should get democracy in 1360 which is the next Oedo year if we want to switch govt's. With added city growth/disorder/celebration this may be a little off so someone should check this. I would wager it would be in fewer turns rather than more turns because there have been more celebrations than disorders lately. It is so hard to keep track of such a large empire!


So there you have it. Hopefully I didn't put us in too bad a position. The ship/road chain (I had to use a partial land route for the ship chain due to landmass arrangement and sheer size of our empire) is nearly completed, and I will leave my successor to finish it and reap the rewards. I did my best to leave us in a good position to transport units from Great River (our northernmost city) all the way to Pheasant Guard our southeastern most city. I came up a little short, but along the way we got a few more cities, 2 wonders of the world, and some more infrastructure.

So, where do us tree hugging types go from here?

StuporMan

[StuporMan]

And here is the save.

[Scouse Gits]

Well, shortly you will have tree-hugging riflemen

Stu

[Bloody Monk]

Nice turnset StuporMan.

I think this game is much more interesting than I originally imagined.

Just one question. Is it a good idea to plan on an immediate switch to Democracy?? Until you get Magnetism, your 15 Caravels won't be able to put to sea w/o causing red faces all over the empire.

Monk

[Scouse Gits]

You might also consider having a Warrior production phase before you get Gunpowder, 10 shield Musks (and later Rifles) are a seriously good deal ...

Stu

[StuporMan]

Is it a good idea to plan on an immediate switch to Democracy?? Until you get Magnetism, your 15 Caravels won't be able to put to sea w/o causing red faces all over the empire.

Doh! I had forgotten that caravels counted as a military unit! Well the decision to switch governments is up to the next player at any rate.

As to the warriors -> pikemen -> musket -> rifle. I had already been thinking of that for usage for building a WOW or two. Getting those free shields really helps offset the disband penalty. Maybe our next player should change production from dips to pikemen.

I know that the Carths are researching Gunpowder, I have no clue how close they are to discovering it, but it might be worthwhile to try and let them discover it for us. This may take too long to use converted muskets to build the SOL though.

I think we have a really good production base going for late game conquest. I would imagine by the end of the next turnset we will be able to start waging war in earnest against our environment killing neighbors!

StuporMan

[Sharkbait]

Letting the Carths discover Gunpowder would let us decide when to get it. I haven't looked at the save yet, but we could keep producing dips near LBH but start making warriors in cities too far away to transport or where its easy to launch an attack. we can take the upgrade once enough warriors are finished.