The "Barren 'Burbs" Succession Game

[-Jrabbit]

I'm back and have d/l'd the SG(2) save.
20 turns, right?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by La Fayette
I could be player #8.
Tell me whether it's OK.

It's OK! adds La Fayette

@Jrabbit - yes... 20 turns, or less if you get bored. In fact, this game will remain 20 turns all the way through the first round, for the sake of fairness.

Play list updated...

1. atomant
2. Jrabbit
3. OldnSlow
4. SG(2)
5. STYOM
6. Bob_Smurf42
7. SCG
8. La Fayette
9. Zedd
10. ?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

A couple of thoughts...

I was thinking about rehoming NON settlers. This might be a good idea, because it would allow us to get more nomads, potentially, while still letting us collect 2 or 3 (or more) for roadbuilding puposes.

On the other hand... there's really no way to tell if a settler with a home city of, say, Rhodes, was rehomed or was built

Naturally none of us would cheat, except by accident, which has happened in some succession games I know of So I'll tentatively say that rehoming nomads is OK.

There seems to be 2 schools of thought on how many turns to play in succesion games. On the one hand... the first 2 or 3 players have little to do except worker management and moving a couple of units, so it makes sense that they play 20 turns, or they'd barely be playing at all. But by the time we've been through the playlist once, that's 160 turns with 8 players, or about half the game Naturally, we all want to play more than once or twice... so in most games the turncount is reduced to 12 or 10, and then later to 8 or 5, even. The downside of that is that the first person playing the reduced number of turns feels slighted.

In any event, I'm erring on the side of letting people play more turns, instead of less. It's more fun to develop a long term plan than a short term one. So we'll keep playing 20 turns, until we meet our first AI, when we'll drop to 15. 15 should be plenty for most purposes... and will ensure that everyone gets to play at least twice, I think.

Also... another rule (even though this was supposed to be simple ). A player's turn ends when he eliminates an AI civ. This way we all get in on the mayhem

Looking at the map... lots of good city sites along the NW coast... fish & whales, fish and spice... mmmmm

[Scouse Gits]

For obvious reasons I've never rehomed a NON settler. Are we sure that rehoming would produce the desired effect? Once the game has recorded a nomad on a continent the change in support may not alter the flag counting the NON.

Once overseas exploration is possible it might be better to ship some nomads back home.

------------------------------

SG(2)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
For obvious reasons I've never rehomed a NON settler. Are we sure that rehoming would produce the desired effect? Once the game has recorded a nomad on a continent the change in support may not alter the flag counting the NON.

Once overseas exploration is possible it might be better to ship some nomads back home.

------------------------------

SG(2)

Well, I've never tested it but I would think the game checks to see if you have any local NON settlers and then readjusts the hut result probabilities (?). I don't see why rehoming the settler wouldn't have the same effect as building a city with him - but, I probably need to consult solo's hut thread, again.

You're right, it may not work. Someone should test that, someday

And yes, a trireme with a diplomat on it could gather a couple of Settlers for us That's why I'm in favour of getting MM and LH.

[-Jrabbit]

...and thine enemy shall be boredom.

It's 1050 BC and King Bun gives his empire the once-over. Hmm. 5 cities, little science. And how did Romulus & Remus get out to the barren 'burbs? Oh well, not much to do but press Enter...

1000 BC -- some moving about of exploratory units.
975 -- Indians start work on Colossal statue.
950 -- Zulus, too. Cul de Sac builds Warrior.
925 -- Polar hut spotted. Diplomats now being built in all 5 cities.
900 -- Hut contains scroll of ancient Horeseback Riding. Research now at 14 turns.
875 -- Southern explorer finds hut containing.Polytheism. Small barb force appears nearby.
850 -- French move capital to Orleans. We tweak research down to 11 turns.
825 -- Barb horse destroyed, but the oh-so-accessible king vanishes into thin air.
800 -- Rhodes produces diplomat. We note that it has a decidedly unsuburban name. French reportedly start work on bizarre Pyramidal structures of unknown use.
775 -- Two more southern huts spotted!. One yields the advanced tribe of Coventry! Indians start Pyramids, move capital to Bombay.
750 -- Population soars to 200,000. Hut yields scroll of Bronze Working!
725 -- Chinese move capital to Shanghai.
700 -- Intimidated by Indians, French abandon Pyramids.
675 -- Our "wise" men finally learn secret of Map Making!!!! Begin study of Pottery.
650 -- French change their minds, start Pyramids again. We launch our first trireme.
625 -- Our mighty capital produces a diplomat, starts work on Lighthouse.
600 -- We launch another trireme.
575 -- More capitals on the move -- French to Lyons, Chinese to Beijing.
550 -- Rhodes builds barracks, starts on vet elephant.

King Bun decides to turn over the reigns before he falls asleep.

Quick notes -- One of the polar explorers has found a nice, fresh continent, and our Triremes have already found some landmasses of interest. I urge my successor to use diplomats for exploration.

I started the Lighthouse, and think that might be the right call. Happiness problems don't get serious until 12 cities, and HG may well expire before we get to that. OTOH, the lack of settlers may be a good argument for Pyramids...

The tricky bit here will be balancing the cost of white goods (virtually no income) vs. the cost of units (shield-starved, too!). I'm proposing a massive diplomatic corps as a solution (at least until we develop Trade).

I'm pretty sure the next player will encounter at least one other civ. (At least then we'll be able to check the Foreign Advisor screen...)

Hoping this will be a bit more ennui-free for our next contestant...

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Jrabbit Took a quick look at the log on my way out the door... will d/l and play tonight/tomorrow.

[-Jrabbit]

musing...

The most frustrating thing about this game will be the lack of control over quantity and location of our city sites. We can't repair poor positioning of advanced tribes, and settlers will be so rare that, when we actually get one, we'll need to commit them to building roads and irrigation before even contemplating a city build.

We're all used to maximizing our position through clever city positioning, early roads/trade, and the like. Amazing how this "simple" set of rules changes the basic nature of that approach...

[-Jrabbit]

BTW, atomant -- I'm still several rounds from breaking 90 for the first time this year. My short game remains in a shambles...

[atomant]

I'm actually using my sandwedge for the short game. I find it has better back spin than either a pitching wedge or a nine iron. Perfect for anything say 60 metres from the green.

Works for me, then again, here I don't have to worry about things like carrying the bag so I get to concentrate more on the game.

[Old n Slow]

My early thought was to collect whatever rag tag army we could collect from huts & send them out for "harvesting" ai cities -- razing akin to failure

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Re: musing...

Originally posted by -Jrabbit

We're all used to maximizing our position through clever city positioning, early roads/trade, and the like. Amazing how this "simple" set of rules changes the basic nature of that approach...

That's the idea

I want to grab some nomads and soon, when I play my turns. Lots of good city sites out there, but more than that, we need some roads. Seafaring and Harbours is another tech on the wish list... since the ocean doesn't need to be roaded and irrigated

@Old n Slow - if this was a smaller map, with a lot of civs close by, we'd undoubtably have overrun them, using the strat you described

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

The humdrum reign of King STYOM

550 BC: Toys with worker placement. Annoying, the corruption thing. Normally, the solution would be to maximize shields per DaveV and pump out Settlers... but, oh well, isn't going to happen. BB, with its 0 corruption as capital, ought not to be doing something as shield-intensive as building a wonder - it should have its workers in the water. Nothing to be done about that, tho. No real changes, presses ENTER

525: Not much notices we are running a deficit We may have to sell that Barracks.

500: Hut 274,0 - Nomads!! Ooops, on the North Pole... which means they'll need, oh, about 56 turns to walk back to a decent city site (looks up 'A Study of Hut Outcomes', by samson.) They start walking... we should have Magnetism in no time, and a Galleon to go pick them up BUT, if we find a hut in nomad-suited territory, I might have to disband the little b*****s... as we have less than 16 cities, we cannot have another NON

Indians move capital to Calcutta
Zulus are nearly finished Colossus.

475: Not much. Zulus build Colossus.

450: Begin to collect Diplomats in BB, as poor man's Caravans.

425: Temple in Free Parking, starts Diplomat... and we squeeze out another beaker by putting workers on the water.

Land Ho, south of Coventry.

Hut 196,58 - (suited to tribes, not nomads, so we don't disband our polar traveler) - Advanced Tribe NoWhalesForYou!

Bede rates us fourth in "Powerfulness"

400: Barracks sold in Rhodes. We were at -2 g/turn, and that wasn't helping.

Indians are nearly finished Pyramids.

375: Hut at 187, 79. We debate long and hard and finally the Nomads wandering the arctic wastes are fed to a pack of hungry walruses (walri?) Now a nomad-free society, we open the hut and find... a HORDE of Horsemen

Dehi builds Pyramids. Indians switch from Pyramids to Lighthouse We are still a looooong way from finishing LH. French change to Hanging Gardens

350: Cul-de-sac builds Temple. Rhodes, when it finishes the Ellie, looks like a good place to start another wonder. Assuming we build any

325: Tweak a little science, to get Pottery in 2 turns, instead of 1 3/4 turns

Spanish start Lighthouse.

300: Rhodes starts Lighthouse. I still have hopes of getting 2 of MPE, HG, LH or STWA, depending on what techs we find in huts...

275: Pottery discovered, at long last. Debate on whether to go for the 'quick fix' of Seafaring but ultimately choose to research Currency, at the near-blinding pace of 19 turns/tech. We could finish HG at the cost of the 3 Diplomats in BB and selling off some Temples... but choose not to, for now. Let's see how bad things get, first.

Barbarian ship sighted near Coventry. Luckily, we have a Horse and Ellie inside.

250: More exploring.

Barbarian Archers land. Chinese start HG.

225: Elephant dispatches an Archer. More exploring.

200: Ellie kills another Archer.

175: Stupidly did not notice impending disorder in Cul-de-sac; buys Elvis.

Barbarians near Freaky Finds!

150: Hut at 95,13 > 25 g

125: Moves a Diplomat back towards FF - hoping to buy a barb horse and catch the king

100: Hut at 306,0 > 25 g

Legion defeats Barb horse in FF, becomes vet

75: More exploring.

50: Hut at 212,94 > Literacy

Well, I could blame this on my hut luck, but we are down to 4th in pop at 440K, we still haven't built a wonder (though one is practically built in BB - and we have a good start in Rhodes, also) and we still haven't found anyone else!

Suggestions/notes for my successor: The Diplomat in Freaky Finds is lying in wait for the unattended barb horse, which can be bribed for about 40 g and then nab the king for 150... if all goes to plan

Boring Bastard has no trade specials... so a HG-induced celebration is of limited utility there. But then again, all other sites have so much corruption, they wouldn't be much of an improvement.

Next!

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

The save would probably be of assistance ....

Also, on further reflection, what I really should have done was research Seafaring, build some Harbours, get a bunch of cities up to size 5 and Xin for both science and tax Oh well... Cul-de-sac is close to being Xinnable.

[Old n Slow]

I thought that it was a limit of one Non per continent -- iirc, the Poles doen't seem to count (I recall having more than one Non at a pole walking for service)...