Civ 5 We Hardly Knew Ye [Spoilers]

[Rowain]

I don't deny that tradition is better and easier to play.

But you are a very good player Ichabod. In our game you destroyed yuris. My backstab only worked because your returning Army was just a little bit too slow (maybe 4 turns ) to repell the attack.

[Ichabod]

Now that you've picked here's a quote from lurker thread you might find amusing.

Filthy Robot's Tier ranks with possible picks and inane commentary:

Ichabod - Persia / Japan / Iroquois 1/5/6 (Hard choice )

Yeah... Really looks like I didn't get a choice at all.

I don't deny that tradition is better and easier to play.

But you are a very good player Ichabod. In our game you destroyed yuris. My backstab only worked because your returning Army was just a little bit too slow (maybe 4 turns ) to repell the attack.

I'm favoring the idea of going for Liberty again.

About our game, I remember having a heart sink when you picked the Foreign Legion tenet. Then I shrugged it off thinking that you could go there just for defense, and soldiered on against Yuris. The rest is history.

But even if I brought my units back earlier, I think you had a very big advantage in our war, in the fact that your borders extended very close to my cities, since your culture was way stronger. The vision and mobility advantage of that is masive; for instance, the first city you captured, I couldn't even see the units that attacked it, in the previous turn, so I wasn't expecting it. In the long run, I don't think I could have ovecome this, even if I could have resisted a bit longer, if my units were back home sooner.

That is actually a lesson learned for my next games: if going Liberty, try to get some filler cities on your borders, because your cultural borders will never expand as much as the Tradition ones.

[Rowain]

Yeah that was your best city with Machu Picchu and a lot of other buildings inside.

[chumchu]

Here, finally are your starting screenshot. Goodie huts will be reshuffled before start

[Rowain]

That is an awful start.

[Ichabod]

It's interesting, I think. The better Liberty city would be 2N, I think, before seeing anything else. We need to get hills on the first ring of tiles for Liberty, otherwise the city won't grow there. It's worth remembering that we will be building settlers constantly from the Capital if we go Liberty, and in Civ 5, cities apparently don't starve when building settlers in Civ 5, even if you work no food at all (and the Liberty police only doubles hammers, not food). On the 2N spot, we'd get a 2 hammer plant, a 3f tile to grow to size 3, two 1/2 tiles (I think borders will expand soon to the sheep) and, if my fog gaze is working alright, a few more hills.

Well, I thought 2N would be coastal, giving us another advantage, compared to most people that would settle inland (we'd be way ahead for building Colossus, which is very powerful). But if the fish is 3f, it means that's a lake... Yeah, 2N loses a lot of appeal if that's the case.

2N also means no river, so no watermill for growth. It'd be nice in the Capital, though we can't really spam them everywhere, due to the high maintenance cost. We also lack on the luxuries, but we'll probably settle on top of one of the cottons next (which is also the other places I can think of for the Capital).

Warrior either goes 1E, 1NE, to the hill, or 2NE to the other hill. Depends on if we thing 2N is possible. After seeing it won't be coastal, I kind of feel bad...

Other settling options are on one of the cottons to the East, or on the SE cotton, which gives the deer tile to work (but the overall first ring land is very, very bad).

Not really feeling this start right now, though I feel the same with most Civ 5 starts, other than the ones with salt and wheat...

[chumchu]

I gave everyone else so much salt and wheat so that there was nothing left for you ; )

[Ichabod]

I gave everyone else so much salt and wheat so that there was nothing left for you ; )

That's alright. I'll work them when I capture their cities.

And here I was talking about where to settle. The decision is obvious: 2E and rush Petra.

[Ichabod]

In order to have something to talk about in this slow turns, I'll report a SP game that I'm playing with a variant. Here's how the variant works:

1. Can only work and improve water tiles.
2. Specialists are allowed.
3. Chops are not.

Other settings are emperor difficulty, archipelago with high water level map, legendary starts (I just wouldn't get anything decent without it, the variant requires a nice map, I think), 8/16 random civs/CSs.

I'm playing as Japan, because it's thematic (they get culture from atolls and fishing boats). Polynesia, Carthage or England would likely be better, but whatever. Japan wins because I can call the game Nobun'Água, which is a pun for "Nobu in the water" in portuguese.

After rerolling a lot, I ended up picking this map:



Moved to the silver to settle, since no improvements means no luxuries, except if settled on. There's even an atoll (which are very rare), for production and culture early, and a lot of fish. There's also a pretty nice second city spot, on top of marble.



And free extra hapinness from the Old Faithful - I only need cultural borders there to get the 3 happies, no need to work it. Very good start, indeed!

Ruins gave +1 pop and culture for my second SP. In that regard, I went with liberty, with a plan to get exploration ASAP. The plan is to spam cities and benefit from the free production on the city centers, so liberty seems the way to go early.



While waiting for pottery and the shrine, I spent some turns on a settler. Workers are useless and units are not needed right now, since we don't have optics yet. I'm debating about allowing the free production from pop growths... Not sure yet.



Initial plan is to beeline Optics, since lighthouses will be a big boost. If we get the "god of sea" pantheon, fishing boats will also help. I already have a strategy in mind regarding what to do after, but I'll live a bit of suspense for later. I'm debating if it's possible to get the Great Lightouse... Probably, but is it worth it? And if so, do I do it on the marble city or the Capital?



Initial island is really, really great. It has room for 4 cities and it gets 2 unique luxuries and 1 to spare! I'm still debating if I'll allow myself to sell luxuries to the AI... Not sure, perhaps Nobun'água won't mess with no land dwellers...

[El Grillo]

That is a fantastic pun