Archive Bingeing: picklepikkl plays the oldies

[picklepikkl]

This is fun to read. Thanks for the nice reports. There was at least one other guy that seemed to be in a similar boat to yourself in terms of experience. Once you've completed this, maybe you could look to start a PBEM to see how that goes?

After Montezuma and Genghis most (not all... ) of the players on this site are a lot more passive!

Thank you for your kind words! I'm tentatively interested in multiplayer, but feel like I have a long way to go yet. Monty and Genghis have been big teddy bears so far -- a real human being would never let me get away with this stuff!

@Dave: No worries! My latest update had a whole bunch of images, and now that I know the algorithm I ought to be using, it wasn't too much of a pain. I'm just a whiner .

[picklepikkl]

My first order of business was grabbing my 5 AD autosave and redoing everything like I’d done before. I’m so used to Ironman mode in games like Europa Universalis 4 and X-COM, which save as part of exiting the game, that I forgot to do so myself at the end of my last session .

Montezuma founded Confucianism in 35 AD, in Teoihuacan. That same turn, my Great Merchant made it to Washington and brought in the sweet dollarydoos -- no need to switch off 100% science for a while!

In 50 AD, several interesting things happened. Judaism spread into Paris -- the first religion we’ve had all game -- and this little stack showed up:



Possibly they are heading for the spur of land north of Azteca. Also possibly, they are heading for the horses site in my northwest. I think I’d actually prefer the latter to the former, but there’s little I can do under the honorable ruleset -- I could close borders, but that would hurt my trade quite a bit, and I don’t think it’s worth it.

Meanwhile, I founded Marseilles, my sixth city.



True enough, this city is drowning in lack of health, but I have teams of workers in place to clear out the jungle and improve its resources; besides which, next turn it will be connected to my trade network.

Also, check out the culture! Apparently, founding on the same tile as the barbs had means that now I have residual barbarian culture! Weird! :crazyeyes:

With Literature in, I start research on Monarchy and begin The Great Library in Orleans. Calendar has raised my happy cap, but I’m going to start feeling the roof in a few turns anyway; I need Hereditary Rule for a longer-term solution. I also start Lyons on an Aqueduct -- with plains cows, grass horses, and three potential grassland hill mines, it seems like an excellent place to build the Hanging Gardens.

Genghis Khan comes knocking for tribute. I decide to tell him no; at this point, I am by no means scared of what he can do to me, even if he does now have Horseback Riding. Also, I’ve decided that yes, I do want to go for the Magical Christmas Land site -- I’ll send two galleys with an expeditionary team and see what happens.

Montezuma gets Merit Ptah the Great Scientist (from Scientist specialists, surely, because Azteca has yet to build a wonder), and bulbs Philosophy, founding Taoism. I’m pretty sure that makes him the raw beaker leader in terms of technology, funnily enough! Christianity and Islam have yet to be founded, but only Gandhi has Monotheism. On the same turn, I get Monarchy and swap into Hereditary Rule -- to borrow from Rita Repulsa, make my cities grow! My tech path continues onto Currency, after which I will probably go for Code of Laws and Civil Service.

In 200 AD, Gandhi converts to Judaism, which is now in three French cities. This seems a potent argument for adopting it myself -- I don’t need the happiness, but the diplomatic gains seem potent, and Organized Religion will be nice for future wonder spamming. We have nothing to lose but a turn of anarchy (and our foreskins, I guess), so I go for it. This does, however, anger Montezuma sufficiently that we lose our Open Borders. Alexander converts on the same turn, so most of the world seems to be in one happy Jewish love bloc!

Oh hey, the Mongols founded their galley city! Which one of my spots did they end up stealing?



Enjoy your complete lack of food resources! (god I hope none of my lategame resources are up there, or I will look really stupid)

The Khan then offered me Horseback Riding for Monarchy, which I declined -- without Archery, I won’t need HBR until Guilds (since I have no ivory for war elephants), and it will probably be cheaper then.

In 305, something happens I didn’t even know was possible:



I knew you could flip from other major civilizations, but not from barbarians! Thracian is not a city I would have picked for myself -- no food, one resource -- but I’m pretty sure that if I said no, the city would raze, and that’s against the rules of the variant. So we’re going to have to live with it! At least it’s coastal, for delicious Great Lighthouse strength, though that won’t stop it from being a burden on our economy while we get it up and running.

Speaking of burdens to our economy, I founded Chartres in the frozen north, to claim silver and crabs:

(apparently I forgot to take the screenshot, whoops; it’s on the ice tile west of the silver)

Montezuma’s fish city denied me the spot I wanted, and probably rules out the single fish site as well. Possibly I should have founded up here before claiming Marseilles, but this city is junk apart from coast and silver, whereas Marseilles will be a commerce monster. Breakeven science is now 40%, ugh. But Code of Laws will be coming in soon, and with Markets, Courthouses, and Bureaucracy, my empire should get on its feet in no time. This is definitely a period of expansion, though.

And now time for a comic interlude!





That same turn, CoL comes in, and Lyons finishes the Hanging Gardens -- I’d been sandbagging it a bit so that the northern city would benefit. In other pleasant news, Gandhi will talk to me again! I sign Open Borders (trade routes!), send him my spare Iron for Ivory, and sell him Code of Laws for Monotheism and all his gold. Pleasure doing business with you!

Also, Washington built the Pyramids and went into Universal Suffrage. I mention this because I’ve been clearing out all the wonders, so one not going to me is worthy of notice. :P (Also, looking at the wonders screen, it appears Gandhi got a Great Prophet and used it on… the Buddhist shrine . Great job, AI, picking the religion with 5% penetration instead of 30%) He also traded me incense for dyes -- happiness resources for everyone!

Speaking of happiness resources, incredible luck strikes:



Popped Another One™, as I believe the meme goes. Now I feel somewhat foolish about Chartres, but there’s nothing to be done. The silver actually costs me a hammer at the mine, but I won’t complain about five commerce! Great Library comes in, and Orleans begins to chug merrily along at 14 GPP/turn toward a Great Scientist.

But then, as it was destined to eventually happen:



Oh dear. I’m going to need to take some time and think about this.

[picklepikkl]

No game post today; I wasn't feeling well, and the next bit of the game seemed weighty enough that I didn't want to go into it half-assed. I have been spending time thinking about it, though, and I shall post my thoughts for your entertainment.

Most of the units I can see from Genghis are Keshiks -- he's got two on a galley heading for probably-Rheims and a few more in Beshbalik. I am not worried in the slightest -- even in the event he gets odds on me, he doesn't have enough stuff to punch through my garrisons, and Keshiks have no defensive bonuses, so my axes can clean up no problem. So: this attack does not in any way present a threat.

It does, however, present an opportunity. I am not allowed to declare war, but according to the "You Have Chosen Unwisely"™ rule, I am allowed to keep this war going until the Khan is wiped from this Earth. I'm not sure if I want to go that far, but I can certainly seize his best land before demanding peace (though getting used to the Civ style of warring -> taking land -> negotiating peace as opposed to the Paradox GSG style throws my intuition off a bit). However, I don't think I'm economically prepared to integrate his land -- I need markets and courthouses, and it's going to take time to build them. I've recently added three cities to my empire, and all of them are going to take some work to pull their weight. Furthermore, my best units are about on par with his, and I'm not keen on getting into a fair fight.

So here's what I'm thinking: keep this war going indefinitely. As long as we fight only inside my borders, I don't think I suffer appreciable war weariness. Following Civil Service and my revolt into Bureaucracy/OR, get my infrastructure up and economic house in order while researching Construction, trade for Horseback Riding, and use that and the ivory Washington's been sending me to build War Elephants and Catapults and just go conquer his stuff. He has literally nothing that can get odds on a Shock WE. I could hold out for Guilds, even, and probably skip the catapults. He's pretty behind.

Possibly that is going to take a long while. Most of my cities are not set up for high production, and this is Epic speed. Given that IRL I am a conflict-avoidant person, and really I just like playing builder games where wars, if any, are very short and to the point (I am, uh, not a tactically gifted person), I am strongly tempted to just sign white peace at the first opportunity, or even just bribe him to go away. But I'm playing this game to get better, and there's no growth without a bit of pain.

[picklepikkl]

On a related note: one of the things I did with my "sick day," as it were, was finish reading the scooter/pindicator thread from PB13. It was pretty epic, entertaining, and educational (though I fear I may not have enough game knowledge to get everything out of it that I could). Any other recommendations for game threads?

[scooter]

On a related note: one of the things I did with my "sick day," as it were, was finish reading the scooter/pindicator thread from PB13. It was pretty epic, entertaining, and educational (though I fear I may not have enough game knowledge to get everything out of it that I could). Any other recommendations for game threads?

Glad you enjoyed it! The two of us also had a PB8 thread together if you're up for seeing the part 1. I'd say it was equally entertaining, but maybe not in the way you're expecting. I won't totally spoil it (though there were plenty of references to it in our PB13 thread)... it's really best if you just go in blind and enjoy the ride.

[LKendter]

Site for pictures - http://s120.photobucket.com/
You will get ad overloaded, but the cost is right (free)

[Brian Shanahan]

2) My current plan rests entirely on the coast being clear of barbarian culture that would block Lyons from my trade network. I learned from reading the opening to the 2012 intersite demo game that it’s possibly to block barb city spawns by having units in the area. I should look up what the rules are and quickly establish a sentry network on the west coast to prevent this nonsense; I don’t want to be forced to road across my peninsula.

As far as I know barb spawn rules for vanilla are same as BtS, which are:

Barbarians can also be generated out of nothing, in any land or coast tile which is

out of the line of sight of all cities (including barbarian cities),
out of the line of sight of all units (excluding barbarians), and
not within the 5x5 square centered on any existing unit (excluding other barbarians?).

Taken from the wiki

This works the same for cities as for units.

[Brian Shanahan]

My first order of business was grabbing my 5 AD autosave and redoing everything like I’d done before. I’m so used to Ironman mode in games like Europa Universalis 4 and X-COM, which save as part of exiting the game, that I forgot to do so myself at the end of my last session .

You can set the game to autosave every turn, and keep extra autosaves if you want to, by amending your CivilizationIV.ini file in your my documents folder for the game. The lines to change in the file are (with my personal settings):

Code:

; The maximum number of autosaves kept in the directory before being deleted.
MaxAutoSaves = 150

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves.  0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 1

MaxAutoSaves is defaulted to 4 IIRC and AutoSaveInterval is definitely defaulted to 4. If you play tournament games of any type it is a good idea to change these two lines.

[picklepikkl]

@LKendter and Brian Shanahan: Thank you for the advice! I appreciate it greatly.

I'm currently not working on this game, because my game time is limited and I've been putting my thought and attention into PBEM 74B, but I will definitely return and finish my first Epic . If you liked my reporting style here, though, come hang out with me in my spoiler thread there! [/shamelessplug]