Civ 5 Draft - Round 2

[XeKr]

Great Wall was indeed pretty annoying and Inca had Just War for the +20%, plus a Great General where I didn’t. Still, it was mostly a steamroll. The Foreign Legions did help push through faster, though a few gave their lives.

Comanche Riders were great simply because of 5 move. Could maneuver around Great Wall and rough terrain slightly easier. Later when Inca got Dynamite they stomped through some Artillery. Also great for defending my southern city and Zurich, where Inca had a secondary army.

Cultural Heritage passed, but I guess it’s okay since I now have by far the most wonders.

The bigger problem is Arabia had like all the city states but 2 (that I had). I proposed World Ideology Freedom so they couldn’t propose Order, but they went ahead and proposed International Games, which I don’t think we’re going to be ready for yet.

Been slowly trying to grab city states from them via spies and bribes and might have enough if the votes are split…

[spoiler=the dream]

Machu Pichu in Machu. :D

Petra Hills + Terrace Farms. :D

[spoiler=rekt]

1 more score. ^_^

Like all the science buildings in these cities got destroyed though, which is unfortunate.

[spoiler=Hello again]

Made (temporary) peace and liberated Persia to virtually eliminate the warmonger malus and to give me more host votes.

I’m thinking I might kill off Inca later so I don’t have to worry about their culture. Also probably gives me more Great Works. Then trade a city to the Celtics, because otherwise I can’t trade with them since they have no coastal cities (they lost one to Arabia).

I see you Arabia. >_<

This is a slight problem because I only have 1 good coastal, Te-Moak, that it looks like he’s going for first. They definitely don’t want to attack anyone else with bribes, not even Celts who is a different Ideology. Weird, but it forced me to bulb Refrigeration to get Subs. Also bringing the Artillery line back for defense. Hopefully that’s enough.

Victory is guaranteed even if I lose Te-Moak but it would still be lame.

State of the culture game. Haven’t built Musicians Guild so that should be 2 quick natural Musicians and I think I’ll have at least enough for 2 faith-buys. Should (hopefully) be enough once all the cities+Hotels+Broadcast Towers+Internet are online. Inca will probably die as mentioned.

Louvre isn’t gone as no one went Exploration. I may go for it. Saving Artists in case I can get that theming bonus. Besides that I still need 2 policies in Aesthetics and 1 in Freedom, at minimum. To that end still have a Writer coming (conquered 2 GW for the Oxford theming) and Statue of Liberty’s free policy. Ideally I’d finish Rationalism too but we’ll see. Still have Oxford though for a free tech there, probably internet.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Well, I recently got a new computer, allowing me to finally start this. So...here we go.

Difficulty: King (might have been Emperor, but I'm pretty sure it was king)

Civilization: Celts

I started coastal, two adjacent forests, It's certainly annoying how I never get the three forests, but whatever. There where 3 cottons, 2 stones and 2 cattle nearby, so overall it looked pretty good. I settled where I started despite not having sea resources and rushed calender.

I mostly scouted to the south, where I ran into an Incan scout and the Shoshone close by...*grumble grumble*

So pretty quickly I founded a pantheon. I considered going God King since nothing else leaped out at me (Oral Tradition is nifty, but I didn't see it as that worth it). I ended up going with tears of the gods because there were some diamonds near by. I settled Dublin to the west (further west was China) on a hill, by a river, next to a mountain, and all it took was one purchase to secure both diamonds in range from Pocatello. I did this somewhere around turn...fifty or so, I did it when Edinborough had three population.

I went down tradition, hitting Monarchy just before settling Dublin (literally the turn before or something). Landed Elite had to be delayed because I was running into happiness issues at the time, since I have trouble getting workers on time. After that I started working on Stonehenge, pumped out another worker and then got the Hanging Gardens. I decided not to try for the Great Library, Wu got that (and the Parthenon, either her or Darius, who was to my north).

Religion founded turn 60, I decided to go for Pilgrimage and Mosques. Probably not great ideas, but hey, the faith should be great.

Settling became a bit hard after Dublin, the Shoshone took the only place I really wanted, though there a nice patch of desert I'm considering settling and using a great engineer to secure Petra. Of course, it'll probably go to Arabia (south of China), who also got Ulura in a city on a lake near an oasis...because why not? There's still Mount Kilamonjaro but it's quite far, separated by mountains and surrounded by city states. However, I found a super-plentiful, banana and spice laden patch of land a bit south of China, which would be great to secure if I could.

Just to prove that the Shoshone are hell to deal with, their capital is in a place to get their observatory, and their two biggest cities have diamonds (something I want, given my pantheon. Having a monopoly on them doesn't hurt either). So I planned to lead a war to take two or three of their four cities, leaving them alive to avoid warmonger penalties, and then enjoy my diamonds. Of course, they declared on my while I was working on a Hanging Gardens and while Dublin was water-milling, so...blegh.

They threw their troops against Dublin, which thankfully was protected by a lake and a mountain. I eventually got a composite bowman over their and they withdrew their melee army before going for peace. Immediately being friendly, I'm pretty sure their ambition is not fettered. Right now Edinborough is building a stone works, and after that I'm going to get a strong army of bowman, chariot archers and Pictish Warriors ready to go clear some of their land before they hit astronomy and I can't stop them at all. Of course, I've neglected how poorly I handled the war: trading a horse for flat gold to buy a horse archer, giving gold per turn for a horse, and them buying a Pictish Warrior in the end, because I just suck as Civ like that.

Anyway, right now I don't have a victory type in mind, just three goals:

Take Te Moak and Moson Kahni, thus removing the Shoshone from my threat list.

Get Machu Pichu in Dublin, and maybe Petra in a potential third city (which I could get with an observatory if I do it right).

Settle that lovely, spicy, fruity land to the north-west.

That would give me six cities, but I'm not really interested in domination, though I may just do it anyway if science doesn't become an option. I feel that's probably what will end up happening, so faith-buying great scientists should prove useful if that's what I do.

[XeKr]

Basically this sums up the rest of my game. >_>

[spoiler=oops]

(actual writeup coming)

Edited October 16, 2014 by XeKr

[AnonymousSpeed]

Basically this sums up the rest of my game. >_>

[spoiler=oops]

(actual writeup coming)

*whistle*

[BBM]

so much aluminum

fun fact I have never gotten aluminum or uranium without having to trade for it, ally a city state, or conquer someone (or Recycling Plants for aluminum)

[MacLovin]

I never seem to get enough coal. I get more uranium than I should need though. Enough to obliterate neighboring cities.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Wow, that's actually kind of funny.

[Psych]

wow whoops thought this was the other civ thread

Edited October 17, 2014 by Psych

[XeKr]

so much aluminum

fun fact I have never gotten aluminum or uranium without having to trade for it, ally a city state, or conquer someone (or Recycling Plants for aluminum)

I never seem to get enough coal. I get more uranium than I should need though. Enough to obliterate neighboring cities.

It’s not so bad with aluminum since by the time you really need it (parts), the AI/City-states are sure to have some which you can cheaply buy. Plus recycling.

Coal and Oil are worse because you’d like them immediately for ideology (why it’s safer to go Modern) and war, respectively. Uranium too, but you don’t need nukes that much (except in mp).

No iron on water maps also sometimes sucks because you need a lot for efficient conquests.

[BBM]

I don't tend to get a lot of Coal or Oil either but it's not never like with Uranium and Aluminum.

But tbf I generally only have 2-3 cities (I'm not very good at efficiently setting up new cities in the earlygame) so that hurts my chances a lot.

[AnonymousSpeed]

But tbf I generally only have 2-3 cities (I'm not very good at efficiently setting up new cities in the earlygame) so that hurts my chances a lot.

Same here, I have two cities in my game and it's turn ninety or so...

[XeKr]

I find 2 city Tradition NC works extremely well with how things are timed. Like you can granary+caravan boost the first satellite (and still have an international caravan if you want to detour to sailing), then when it finishes a granary is about when the route ends and you can boost the capital. But you can always expand afterwards (and usually should, more cities is generally a stronger game).

If you want to experiment with more cities early (it is a bit harder on small maps), then you can try 4 cities pre-NC Liberty. Add more cities after. Synergizes well with early war (make your additional cities an enemy capital. ;D).

The thing with how BNW is that there really not much reason to grab land early pre-NC, unless it’s incredible land you want now (Faith NW or something) or you’ll be blocked off from it later (because the AI does eventually want it). Even 1 city pre-NC works on Deity and you can win with 2-3 cities total fairly easily.

[XeKr]

Culture Victory turn 278. Could have been ~255 I think, could have had 4-5 Musicians by then. 2 natural, 2 Faith, 1 Broadway. Faith was the limiter if I had bothered to time things (could be even faster if I saved Jerusalem somehow during the Arabia war). Possibly sub 240ish if I tried to win the international games the first time around instead of voting it down, built less labs and went straight into culture stuff (4 musicians was enough, ultimately. Enough faith leftover to engineer Broadway, instead of hardbuild and buy a 2nd Musician).

Sub 250 Science was also probably possible if I bought GS and went Rationalism finisher first + buy Spaceship parts instead (almost certainly so if I didn’t devote resources to war, it was turn 150ish Sci Theory).

Kinda (really) overkilled the Science. At some point while building Research Labs, I suddenly realized I only needed like 2-3 bulbs to the internet (had like 5 GS saved, plus Porcelain Tower unbuilt. Note I “wasted” some bulbs on Radio and Refrigeration too) and still had Oxford and the rationalism finisher free. I ended up bulbing all the way to Hubble and then X-com for fun.

As a result I completely mistimed all the Tourism stuff. Didn’t have Musician’ Guild, Broadcast Towers, Hotels, National Visitors Center, etc built and was already at the Internet. It’s actually pretty sad actually how badly played that was… I kinda get lazy after leading in all demos.

Anyways, Arabia dow’d to no-one’s surprise, but was easy to defend with Artillery and Subs. He did manage to kill a few of my city states. Actually was a “sneaky” backstab, since he was friendly with trades and such. Later made white peace.

[spoiler=civ diplomacy]

Managed to vote down International Games with some coups and the vote split with World Ideology- Freedom, and proposed it for the next time. Eventually got all the culture stuff online for that when it came around. Tourism wasn’t amazing because of the lack of landmarks, but sufficient (I did get the Lourve). Didn’t need to max it out with Airports either. Just spammed units after a while.

[spoiler=overkill]

The AI just didn’t have enough cities (not enough space to?). Obviously this would be better optimized if I put less hammers in. Though I didn’t go max, max hammers either, with all production tiles and Statue of Liberty Specialists and overflow.

[spoiler=I find the death quotes pretty amusing. Rare because of warmonger penalty tho.]

Later killed Inca completely (in 1 turn, rocket artillery op), each city had like 7 more GW, but I didn’t need them so gave some more cities back to Persia (happiness considerations).

[spoiler=international games just ended btw]

Toured Arabia and Celts with 2 musicians each. 1 natural musician (the first one, kinda defeats the whole purpose of not building the guild early… >_>), 2 Faith-bought, 1 from Broadway (lol). By then, Celts were actually down to 1 city, courtesy of Harun. If Arabia actually eliminated them instead of making peace it would have expedited things as well.

Could have sold Celts a city to concert tour easier them but eh. Too busy preparing to drop 15 X-coms on them I guess. >_>

Other retrospective:
- Okay start with the mountain capital and relative isolation. Pathfinders help boost that a bit. Still, no coast, no religion, fairly short river system (and only in 1 city).
- The 2nd city had great production early/midgame for a satellite but food was a small early issue with little fresh water.
- 3rd city took a while to get going because of the late settlement and low food/production but eventually generated some nice science with the jungles.
- In general, though, my cities didn’t grow that tall. Still hit Education and Scientific Theory with good timing.
- Incan lands+wonders were nice, even if we killed all their sciency stuff. D:

- Ended with 20 wonders total spread out across the empire. Not much competition for the later ones.
- Small maps are small.
- Inca: was the leader for much of the game, was just about to really runaway after killing Persia. ;) Tradition + Terrace farms probably gave them the food+production necessary to take that lead.
- Persia: From what I saw, fought well with an Immortal and then Pike-based army, but eventually lacked the population to keep up and ran out of steam. Piety start probably didn’t help matters. They’re usually stronger than this as an AI, especially if they get to a long golden age lategame.
- China: Had a very strong capital (30+ pop quite early), but got teamed into oblivion by Arabia + Celts.
- Celts: Most notable for getting completely run over in like 10 turns by Harun, even if they were about equal population and land-wise before then. Don’t know what they were doing.
- Arabia: Did extremely well, even with a Piety start. I think they went a Patronage mix which certainly helped since other AIs mostly ignored city states. It seems they may have some extra bias toward the oil-based units from their UA so they were a bit more effective at lategame war.
- No AI was very close to victory, even by turn 280ish. No one had built Apollo, even. In the next 20 turns of so Arabia might have picked it up but they were too busy buying Shoshone blue jeans and listening to pop music. ^_^

Was pretty fun overall; I'll try to join if we ever do this again in Civ 5 (probably a less standard strat) or perhaps Beyond Earth.

Edited October 19, 2014 by XeKr

[AnonymousSpeed]

Small update...the next draft will have started by the time I end this.

Snagged three wonders in, what, 40 turns? Mausoleum of Halicarnases, Machuu Pichu in Dublin, and Hagia Sophia in my capital. Enhanced my religion, and went for Divine Inspiration and Holy Order. I used my Hagia Sophia prophet to spread Protestantism around the world, even completely converting Persia. I was considering a holy site, but I'm at 30+ faith per turn now, so meh.

Declared war on the Shoshone. They had more units than I expected but I could pump them out and get them over faster than they could kill them, so while it took awhile Temoak was not to hard to take. Gem monopoly, here I come! I got a great general from all the battle which I'm keeping around, and I also earned a great engineer from Stonehenge, which I plopped down on a hill.

Apparently I'm a bigger dick than I thought, because the Inca and the Persians declared war on me at the same turn. Hey, I still get pilgrimage bonuses, so whatever. Persia's way behind on military tech so I repelled there attack on my capital easily. Literally, it was warriors and archers, they had one pikeman. The Inca are to far to do anything either. I ended on turn 160, just a bit after conquering Temoak.

[MacLovin]

finished-317 turns.

Victory by Domination

highlights-

-Nuked everything.

-Sent GIANT ROBOTS to kill Clergy

-The Shoshone were the last Civ left. Right before I shoved a nuke up their asses.

-I fucked up and ended up with no major religion. I ended up getting Islam from Arabian clergy.

Went Liberty+Tradition->Honor->Rationalism.

[AnonymousSpeed]

...round two?

[XeKr]

fwiw I'm sorta back in a Civ mood lately. >_>

[BBM]

is anyone still up for Round 2?

Round 2!

1. We're playing for fun; so turn counts don't matter.

2. All victories are allowed, except for Time because it's lame.

3. We start in Ancient Era. Random map type, Standard size (8p), whatever pace and difficulty level you want. Using Acken's mod is recommended but not required.

4. There is a ban list, below the rules, based on the 12 civs that were banned/picked in Round 1. People pick in an order that will be randomized upon the start of the draft.

5. Set all the AI civs to the civs that the other people picked.

6. Have fun!

Ban List:

Venice

Spain

Mayans

Poland

Babylon

Korea

Arabia

Persia

China

Shoshone

Celts

Inca

Players:

1. Ghost - Austria

2. HF Makalov Fanboy Kai - England

3. Friend 1 - Japan

4. Friend 2 - France

5. Shin - Portugal

6. AnonymousSpeed - Ethiopia

7. Xekr - Assyria

8. BBM - India

Edited December 29, 2015 by BBM

[AnonymousSpeed]

I mean...sure. I can't promise I'll be responsible enough to write down what I do, but I'll take an excuse to play.

[BBM]

let me try PMing the people who signed up last time I guess

Also, I think this time we skip the ban round, but all 12 civs that were banned/picked last time around are pre-banned.

Edited December 24, 2015 by BBM

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

sure i could be down for another round of this, i need to play civ 5 again anyways.

[XeKr]

Ah, Civ's the only game I've played lately so I'm in.

Recently I've been playing Acken's mod which is considerably more challenging than the base game, in large part due to AI (which is quite impressive). It's not very different from the vanilla game in policies/units, but far better balanced, and requires much "better" play overall. Vanilla deity is probably comparable to modded Emperor, with similar or less bonuses at equivalent levels (less starting tech handicap). I play demigod mostly.

Anyways, just wanted to bring it up because AI that can't even move and shoot is just silly in case we want to try it. Regular BNW is okay too.

Edited December 24, 2015 by XeKr

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i haven't had any mods work for me recently, think i should uninstall them all and only reinstall afew of them.

[XeKr]

Delete the "cache" and "ModUserData" folders in where your Civ folder is (usually in My Documents) and restart Civ. Then just select this 1 mod (if we choose to use it).

That's always worked for me.

Edited December 24, 2015 by XeKr

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Delete the "cache" and "ModUserData" folders in where your Civ folder is (usually in My Documents) and restart Civ. Then just select this 1 mod (if we choose to use it).

That's always worked for me.

where would i typically find the civ folder?