A Mini-Tourney

[Alkis]

I played it too. I am in the industrial age with all other civs in the game, no one eliminated. Second civ is probably America.

The interesting thing I did is that I got a winning position by doing absolutely nothing Ok, the starting position was... well, what to say, magnificent? once in a lifetime? In any case I never had such a nice start in any of my games.

Nice starting position and Monarch level that's a combination that makes a game really easy. I started by building a temple and since the city was growing very rapidly I rushed the temple. Then a warrior and a settler, and more settlers. By 250 BC I had 14 towns.

Since it was a lower level than I normally play I thought I would experiment with great wonders and I builded the great library. I met the Americans early and later the Indians and although the Indians were a little behind in technology I finally got 5 techs. I would have gotten a lot more if I could make contact with the other civs but they were far away. Lincoln with his great lighthouse didn't manage to find them. In the end it was I who found the others but after Navigation ! That's rare I think. Anyway, the other civs were not scientifically advanced or anything. Mao had Metallurgy when I met him and I had two technologies that he didn't have.

I started a short war with Lincoln at about 1000 AD. I did that just for the GA. I would have done it earlier but I had no Chivalry. I got my golden Age but Lincoln was stronger than I thought. My idea was that my army would be enough for the war. Instead I had to build more Samurai during the war. In the end I destroyed three American cities and builded two of mine there. I got a GL too. I used him to rush the Theory of Evolution.

At 1080 AD I signed a peace treaty getting Astronomy, the only tech I didn't have but paying some money ( 40 gold ). Then changed to Democracy.

I made contact with the other civs (aside from America and India) at 1200 AD. A little after I discovered Navication. I didn't sell any contacts I let them find each other by themselves.

I had in mind to play peacefully till the end but... I had no coal ! When this happens my style changes completely. I become a bloodthirsty barb. I looked at our continent, there was no coal in Lincoln's territory. So it was India's turn... I attacked India immediately, dragging the Americans in the war. Not that I needed them much but they had a colony on India's continent which I hoped they would lose. They didn't! Now it's the only foreign town on my second continent. This war lasted for 20 turns ( I always respect treaties) and in the end I had to put luxuries at 40% to keep my people content. When the war was over I got all the continent, a lot of corrupted cities etc but I don't mind that. I got two tiles with coal and two luxuries.

Something I forgot to mention is that at some point I had more than 10000 gold. In the war I wasted 4000 gold building temples and having high tech and luxury rates. War is bad for business

Now we are well into the Industrial age, I am 3 technologies ahead and I am building hospitals. I already have factories. I managed to build the theory of Evolution with the GL and also the Universal Suffrage manually. I have a city building Hoover Dam, the other civs don't even have Atomic Theory.

I said earlier that I experimented with wonders. I builded many of them. GL was the first, then the Colossus in the same city and in the middle ages Sistine and Bach's. I also managed to build Newton's in the same city with the Colossus.

That's all. Now I will continue with my research and my industrialization and I will probably launch before the others build any spaceship parts.

I think it was a little bit too easy.

[Alkis]

Some questions (and answers) to clarify things.

Q: Why didn't you kill the Americans?

A: I had no reason to do that. I had a big empire, for my standards, 20+ cities so I found it meaningless. They had no luxuries that I didn't have and no resourses that I needed. I wanted to show that on Monarch level you don't need to do many things in order to win. Not that I would play differently if it wasn't a tournry game.

Q: Why didn't you use the GL to rush a FP?

A: Because I didn't have the GL at that time. I builded my FP rather early, a little to the left of the southern choke point. I had a town between the cattle and the wheat. The FP was in another town 4 tiles away (to the left) from the the cow.

Q: Why didn't you use the GL to build a new Palace on the Indian continent?

A: Because I don't care much about my new conquest. I consider them colonies rather than cities, even though I rush a building or two from time to time. If I put a new Palace there, sure the corruption will sieze, but my core cities will have more corruption. This is tricky. Some players underestimate that because core cities have builded most of their available buildings, but you will definately lose gold and technology if you move your Palace away from your BEST cities.

[Harovan]

New Minitourney proposal

After the big fun in the first one, I see a growing interest for a new minitourney. Since the first game was pretty easy, I would propose to play an emperor game this time. The rest of the settings were fine. So, what about

Emperor
Standard size
Restless barbs
Continents
70% water
Warm/Normal
3 billion years
6 opposing civs.

Or what about 60% water and Temperate/Wet? Discuss.

Note, that this is not meant to be an opposition to BillChins GOTM. In the CFC also exist more than one competition, with HOF, GOTM and a big tournament. And different to a real tournament, it's not designed to compete for years or score points, but to compare strategies (everybody comments his choice), share battle plans, to learn from each other and to have fun. The latter is the most important. Also, spoilers during the running game are explicitly allowed and are a part of the game. The players should only avoid to reveal the map in early posts, or to give hints that might take the fun of exploration out of others games. Each post shall have a headline with the current year in it, so that people who aren't yet so far may decide not to read the post. For the spoilers, an extra thread should be created.

So what do you people think? Who would participate? When should we play? What civ should we use? Or random?

[vulture]

Since you were looking for a game with a killer civ, I'll mention the one I'm just nearing the end of, which I can post the initial save for if anyone is interested. I found it to be a really fun game, and it produced a huge AI civ (that ate up 5 others in my game, including one that was initially twice its size, and whilst fighting a war against every other civ on the planet (at around 500 AD) was still taking cities of most of them at a fair rate).

This is playing as the Chinese (I wanted to compare them to the Japanese - I'm another one who was impressed by the Japs when I first played them). Large map, 12 civs (only 4 survived to modern times in my game), 5 billion years, other land settings normal, Monarch level. It is modded slightly from the standard rules as follows:

No culturally linked starting locations.
No diplomatic victory.
To make the UN useful it does the same as Darwin's voyage - 2 free techs. Not convinced by this one...
Sea movement slightly altered (galleys the same, destroyers +2 moves, most others +1 or +2 moves).
DOUBLED ALL TECH COSTS. Hence in Regent level we hit the modern age somewhere around 1900, which I think works pretty well (and makes the ancient era last quite along time).
Not sure, but I think I made swordsmen upgrade to infantry - as it happens that was never an issue.


Anyone interested?

(EDIT: corrected difficulty level)

[Catt]

I took a look at about 7 saved games Sir Ralph sent me, the first being in 10 AD. Very interesting to see the similarities and differences in AI behavior with the two games. From reading the other posts, it seems like mine was the only game where England actually played a bit of a counterweight to China -- in my game, England did not lose any cities to Zululand, and out-settled China to the dye-city at the westernmost chokepoint; in Sir Ralph's game, China built the dye-city, and Liz seems to have lost a couple of cities to Shaka.

Sir Ralph, one of the more striking early differences that I noticed between our play styles is that at 10 AD, you had built a temple in your capital (IIRC), but not one other city (out of +/- 15 IIRC) had built a cultural improvement. Nonetheless, although you got behind a little bit culturally early, I noticed that you had no trouble overtaking all civs as the undisputed cultural leader.

I'm curious: is this a normal start for you (avoid "wasting" builds on early cultural improvements and/or force the razing of your cities should you end up on the losing side of a few early battles), or were your build priorities specific to this game (i.e., need to REX like mad, and with one civ on the shared continent, not too worried about cultural encroachment)?

Catt

[Harovan]

In the 10AD save I have 23 cities, 21 of them I built and 2 just took from Abe. None of them has a temple or any other cultural improvement, including the capital. It's 236 culture points came from the Palace. I was the last, cultural.

In 1000AD I had broken even cultural with the leader (China), and 1615AD (the last save) sees me with twice as much culture as China has.

It depends on the situation. If REXing is crucial, I build only units and settlers. If militaristic (like in this case), I press rather a barracks between 2 settlers, than a temple. I don't like to attack with regulars, that's it. I usually don't lose cities being razed, because in the border cities I usually build settlers early on and since they need 30 turns for a settler, they grow quickly over size 2 which would prevent them from being razed. And considering the fact, that usually I am the evil attacker and I like short wars (10 turns max), my cities are fairly safe.

[Arrian]

Different strokes for different folks...

I'm pretty sure I was the culture leader wire-to-wire.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

By the way, Catt and Theseus, where are your saves? I would like to take a look. You should have my email address.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
By the way, Catt and Theseus, where are your saves? I would like to take a look. You should have my email address.

Sir Ralph - posted mine in this thread. Several posts above.

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph,

About your idea for the settings for another tourney... sure. I will say this, though: I've never played Emperor. Therefore, I very well could get my butt kicked.

Civ choice... Persia?

-Arrian

[Theseus]

I'll email mine in a couple of minutes.

In re your proposal for a new tourney, all settings fine, but I'd like to go with 7 AI civs.

The player? Why, Deutscheland Uber Alles.

[Harovan]

Arrian: The way you master Monarch (ultimate domination) it's unlikely that you will get your butt kicked on Emperor. You'll have to struggle a bit more and to conquer some of your beloved wonders, rather than to build then, that's true.

Theseus: Waiting anxiously

Catt: thanks, I overlooked that... , now downloading

All: There's a IRC chat with Firaxis running (organized by CFC). At irc.webmaster.com, channel #civfanatics. Started 4pm EST.

[Theseus]

OK summary:

Emperor
Standard size
Restless barbs
Continents
70% water
Warm/Normal
3 billion years
7 opposing civs.

The question: Persia or Germany.

[Theseus]

Oh, also, culturally linked?

[Harovan]

If Germany, culturally linked, we would for sure face Joan, Liz and Cathy. Not that this is bad, at the countrary . I would like it.

If Persia, I don't really care about the linkage.

I abstain. I just have a German game (CFC GOTM8) and having fun. The Archer rush worked a charm. No leader in the BCs, though. But Persia would also be ok with me.