Dave Leads the Thousand Nations of the Persian Empire

[luddite]

This whole situation seems like "exhibit A" for why RAs should be banned from future Civ V multiplayer games...

[NobleHelium]

future Civ V multiplayer games...

I think this part of the sentence needs further consideration first.

[oledavy]

This whole situation seems like "exhibit A" for why RAs should be banned from future Civ V multiplayer games...

I don't agree with this sentiment at all.

I don't use RAs in SP, because you can abuse them thanks to:

A. The number of AIs.
B. AIs will sign them with you regardless of whether they're friendly, cautious, guarded, furious, etc.
C. Resource selling to AIs for infinite gold.

Basically, you can keep a full set of RAs signed with every AI in the game, which is really broken.

In this game, there are really only three potential civilizations I can sign RAs with. Furthermore, in two of the three cases, I have to supply their gold as well as my own if I want to sign them.

RAs are inherently really risky. Yuris could declare war on me at any point and all that gold would go to waste. I've prioritized a wonder and a policy to get more out of my RAs, and I'm willing to take the risks to sign them, and you're suggesting they should be banned because they're overpowered? I haven't even gotten the payoff from my first one yet.

My point is, I don't think they're unbalanced at all in an MP setting playing against humans (especially considering it's AI diplo). If you do want to ban RAs, you need to ban stuff like Scholasticism and GS bulbing as well. At any rate, this particular MP game is far too young to make a judgement on whether they're unbalanced or not.

[oledavy]

Do you have any useful boats you can upgrade now that you have iron?

Just the trireme, which is really far away from my territory. I currently have two frigates under construction in Thermopylae and Gibraltar, making use of the two iron from Mist. Next turn I ally with Florence though, which will make our iron problems go away

I'm really hoping Yuris does not take offense to me allying with a CS in his backyard.

I think the question is, what's f&i gaining from it? If it gave him a slim chance to be relevant, or you were hell bent on liberating his capitol- fine move. But I don't think either of those two things is likely to happen with your current strategy.

Good point. I really don't know if he'd be up for it or not. That would be part of the risk. If he just wants to survive until the end of the game, I think he will.

[luddite]

My point is, I don't think they're unbalanced at all in an MP setting playing against humans (especially considering it's AI diplo). If you do want to ban RAs, you need to ban stuff like Scholasticism and GS bulbing as well. At any rate, this particular MP game is far too young to make a judgement on whether they're unbalanced or not.

Well I don't really think they're unbalanced per se, but they seem cheesy and not-fun. They bring back all the issues of tech-trading, except that with tech trading at least you need people strong enough to research techs themselves, whereas here it's enough to just have him survive with one city in your back lines. They're also hugely random- if it finishes you get a massive benefit, but if he backstabs you or someone conquers him then you get nothing. Just seems like a lot of headaches and drama for not much reward.

[oledavy]

[SIZE="7"]Turn 93[/SIZE]

We're now at war with SevenSpirits.

How did this happen, well, I opened the turn to see this from Yuris:



I'm not sure if he wants 10 gold to go to war with Seven, or want to wait ten turns. I was hoping he would understand the countdown and offer 8 gold in return. However, then I saw this:



Mist is crashing and burning. We need to do something now. So, I accepted the offer. With any luck, Yuris doesn't think I was trying to take advantage to him. I intend to pay up the 150 gold amount from his original offer to him in the upcoming turns.

So, Yuris and I are now at war with Seven, as well as Almaty, Vienna, Singapore and Helsinki. The war also cancelled my Sugar for Cotton deal with Seven, driving my happiness down to -7. I was hoping to mitigate this with incense from Florence right away. However, paying Yuris to go to war put me at 499 gold Just one short of being able to ally with the city-state. Yuris did just hook up a surplus source of furs, and with 81 gold coming in next turn, I made him an offer:



I was planning on offering him the gold either way as a sign of my good will. Seeing he had surplus furs, I added them to the deal. It's not like he has anyone else to trade them with right now.

South of the war zone, my scout found the Iroquois city of Kiowa:



So, my alliance with Florence will now happen next turn. I'm hoping Seven is unable to find the city and cut me off from my iron. However, considering it's location: wedged between two English cities, the sea, and a mountain range, I doubt that's a possibility. He may not have even met it yet, which would be even better.

Back home, my caravel completed, and I put to sea, finding an island not far from my coast covered in barbs and surrounded my archipelagos.



There is a pretty good city to be founded there at some point.

For right now, I just passed by and took a potshot at the barbs. I'm planning to leave the encampment there for awhile so my ships can stop by and rack up on XP. With any luck, I'll get a CS quest from Rio to pop the encampment.

I haven't shown what my cities are building in awhile, so here is my Economic Advisor:



Focusing on throwing up Colosseums for right now. Next turn I start research on Printing Press, and am readying the capital to begin work on the Taj Mahal. I've been running scientists in Gibraltar, Thermopylae and Auropolis, getting close to a GS from the capital

This, unfortunately, was my last turn in a GA

I've decided against harboring fire&ice. Upon further thought, I would rather not set such a poor precedent for any future Civ5 MP games.

And Noble...

I think this part of the sentence needs further consideration first.

Pretty sure there will be :neenernee

End Turn.

[Bobchillingworth]

Mist is crashing and burning.

I'm not familiar with Civ 5 outside of what I've read on RB- how can you tell Mist is doing poorly? Is his city badly banged up or something?



Also, out of curiosity- why have you allowed Rio to remain intact, if they have Iron? It looks like a natural addition to your empire, but I'm sure I'm missing some advantage to letting it live.

[NobleHelium]

What do those archipelagos (those look like atolls to me) do? Sea oases?

[SadGit]

You can see Mists city of Crow has taken damage, the health bar is still in the green but dropping.
Keeping a city state as ally instead of conquering, taking the city would give unhappy and either lock it on money/defence production as puppet or up the culture/happy lvl needed for policies and golden ages. Also as an ally it would give a specific bonus on top of the resources granted, in this case culture. This culture goes up as you progress through the research bands, could be around 20 culture per turn at this point.

And yes the atolls function as oasis, cant be improved, dont count as resource worked for the harbor bonusm but do give a hammer on top of the food.

[oledavy]

I'm not familiar with Civ 5 outside of what I've read on RB- how can you tell Mist is doing poorly? Is his city badly banged up or something?

You can see Mists city of Crow has taken damage, the health bar is still in the green but dropping.

SadGit hit the nail on the head. Crow is under siege, and the situation is looking dire.

I really cannot understand how things could go so badly so quickly. A dozen turns ago, Mist had the most powerful military in the world. Now, from all outward signs, it's been wasted and the Iroquois are on the ropes.

Also, out of curiosity- why have you allowed Rio to remain intact, if they have Iron? It looks like a natural addition to your empire, but I'm sure I'm missing some advantage to letting it live.

A variety of reasons. Mainly because it's a friendly maritime, which is a pretty valuable type of city-state. The only reason I haven't allied with it yet is because I'm currently in unhappiness and won't benefit from the food at all, and because allying with Florence and getting RAs in place are both higher priorities at this point. Basically, the city is more valuable as an ally than as a conquest. Other than the pearls an 2 Iron source, there really isn't that much going for that city anyway. It's surrounded by desert.

What do those archipelagos (those look like atolls to me) do? Sea oases?

And yes the atolls function as oasis, cant be improved, dont count as resource worked for the harbor bonusm but do give a hammer on top of the food.

They are Atolls, I just got the name wrong when writing the report Sadgit is right. They're basically a plains riverside farm, constituting a 3/1/1 tile if the city has a lightbouse. A city on the middle of that offshore island could pick up four of them. Not bad