[PC] Of Spock and Communism: Civ IV Succession Game

Hi,

I was wondering if you could add me as a reserve for this game / participant for the next one.

I picked the game back up when I saw this thread and have worked my way back to Noble difficulty without any major problems, and I find the concept of a Succession game to be intriguing so it would be nice to try it out.

How ya doing, buddy?

Thanks for adding me Araes.

I have a question regarding game version while I'm at it.

Does Vanilla simply refer to the 1.74 patch or are there actually different versions of the base game?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm on it. I should be able to play my turns today. I'll show these Egyptians whose boss.


Additional Spam:




And show them I did. I took Elephantine without too much effort (lost maybe 3 or 4 axemen, a chariot and a spearman) and thanks to the funds we gathered from the pillagin' of their thatched-roof cottages, we're well on our way to getting Knights as soon as we finish researching horseback riding.



Yay! We can conspire against the public now! That brings us one step closer to forming the GOP!

It looks like there is another Barbarian city to the north of Hurrian as there is a steady flow of barbarian archers attacking that city. Once we get knights, we could send one or two up there to take it before they get longbowmen.

Also, Pi-Ramesses seems to be the Egytians main target, so I sent a longbowman from New Bronzington to buff up their defenses. It got attacked and we lost a spearman and an axeman there.

Ah, and it's too bad we don't have diplomatic victory turned on, we probably could have managed it, granted that we haven't had contact with any of the other Civs yet and their probably screwing up their relationships with wars et al. right now. Oh well.

Turbo, you're up!

GFF Civ4 Savegame

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

My turns actually moved us much further in the direction of conquering the Egyptians, thanks in part to meeting Alexander and having the chance to get two techs (Compass and Civil Service for Guilds and something I can't remember) from him in what I consider relatively fair trades. Hatshepshut has started churning out pikemen, so our precocious discovery of civil service should serve us well in countering that threat with the help of a few well placed macemen.

The African She-devil came around with an offer, which I proceeded to try and make more fair for everyone. She refused.

How can we have a two-state solution when all she does is try to take advantage of us?


Some dude made a list.

Damn.

I also spent a turn in Anarchy to set the civics to Vassalage and Theocracy, that way we get 4 bonus experience points for every military unit we churn out, which will likely be quite a few in the coming years. Also, I started building a boat in Pi-Ramesses, seeing that the Egyptians have a few less than adequately defended cities just off our shores. Getting better boats might not even be necessary for a while as we don't have to go out into the ocean to reach their cities. Still, it wouldn't hurt to be able to start exploring the rest of the world.

Also, Alexander would have gladly joined in our war effort, though I didn't ask him to right now since I figured more pillaging for us would equate in a better chance at winning this thing, plus the Egyptians won't churn out any opposition we can't handle, being the peace-loving, culture-obsessed hippies that they are.

GFF Civ 4 Savegame

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Sure thing. I'll try to take them tonight or tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to take the Egyptian capital and give our civ a good boost!

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, my turns went rather well, though I've made a bit of an annoying discovery.

To start though, I took Thebes with little fuss, in fact we lost only 5 catapults and a horse archer to take it.




After that, I fortified our attack force in the two newly captured cities until we can get decent defenses set up.

However, while exploring the south eastern portion of our island, I discovered this:



which pretty leaves us with no choice but to capture the barbarian city (defended by longbowmen ) before the English do, lest we want to have to start losing land to them. Another, less appealing option would be to simply boost the culture in our cities (with our newly discovered drama tech) but I really don't see the fun in that.

Anyhoo, we are no longer dead last as far as the score goes, so we still have a chance to win this thing!

Turbo, you're up!

GFF Civ 4 savegame, AD-1810

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

If you don't mind, I'll give Pang until Tuesday to claim his turn, since I'm working today and tomorrow and I might not have the time or energy to play my turn until then anyway.

If he hasn't claimed it by Tuesday though I'll definitely play on that day.

FELIPE NO

We might want to see how far off we are from communism and the police state, otherwise we could make peace with the Egyptians once we've secured the continent...

















...If we were pussies.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I guess it is a bit too far off. Getting the Internet should probably be our main focus then, seeing that we aren't exactly the most advanced Civ and that the space race seems to inevitably be the way this game is going to be won this late in the history of the world...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

As my rule started, a messenger brought me news of the world's civilization, and the cultural wonders that were part of it.




And so, as my first act I decreed that all our cities should know the wonders of theater, and have wondrous ideas to ponder. This land would not fall because it's people lacked food for their imaginations, I staked my life upon it.

Though our people felt secure, I was well aware that the barbarians were still at our doorstep, and so I proceeded to make their city of Yua Che a part of our great empire. However, a new group of travelers, led by their warlord Kublai Kahn, settled on the northern shores of our empires, and unease once again started to settle amongst our people.



Hence, to keep their minds occupied, I gathered what troops were at the ready and sent them upon our small naval fleet to prepare for the daunting task of chastising the Egyptians once more in their island capital, in hopes of making them see that what little respite they had gotten from our lack of naval preparation would not last very long and that the only way they would be able to live in peace would be to bow down before us.



The founding of a new city upon our eastern shores was cause for great celebration, and our new found vantage point would surely permit us to keep more unwanted visitors from settling on our lands.



After seeing how lovely this new settlement was, I decided to fake my own death, by using a trick I had learned from from an actor in one of our newly built thaters, so as to pass the burden of ruling upon my next of kin that he may choose the best course for our people to take. I would wait out old age in my newly founded coastal paradise. I left him this map to help him orient his efforts.



(I set our research path in a direct line to computers since as I've mentioned, it seems like we will require the internet if we are to finish the space race before the more advanced Civs. As always, feel free to change it as you see fit.)

Civ 4 savegame, AD 1870

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Goddamn it. That's... (Talking about the game, not your reply, Hawkeye)

Oh well, I'll hopefully be able to take my turns tomorrow after work, and continue this wondrous adventure into the invasion of a homeland.

Good work on the micromanagement by the way, I too often forget to check out the details of our cities' production.


Edit: Well, I forgot I had to jam tonight so I didn't get a chance to play my turns. Tomorrow night (sunday) is the night!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

And so, it came to be that my ascension to power came at a time where our empire had a great number of knights able to conquer cities easily, yet very few musketmen to defend them once they were taken. I embarked upon my journey as ruler determined to remedy this pitiful situation. Hence, the training of these fine soldiers was one of my main concerns.

Culture, also, was of importance, as new cities had sprouted around us in the last century where the people's beliefs and customs differed quite a bit from our own. The most dangerous aspect of this was the fact that they answered to rulers from far away lands. Engraining our great empire's history into their minds would remedy this situation.

A few of these cities fell to our mighty horsemen, and one city was raised for the impudence of its people.




In Pi-Ramesses, the first of many great galleons to come was brought to completion. Hence, the She-devil, the remainder of her kin, and any others who dared oppose us would come to know the magnitude of our wrath very soon thanks to these terrors of the high seas.





[Very little of note happened during my turn besides the capture of the barbarian Magyar and the razing of the Egyptian town to the north of it. Our economy should start picking up quite a bit very soon, as the printing press will allow us to build banks for mucho $$$$$. It should also help our research speed up quite a bit. Also, Kublai Kahn declared war on Hatshepshut, so we should hurry in capturing as many Egyptians cities as possible.]

Here's the new savegame: Civ4 savegame ad 1926

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Araes

I assume the Egyptian town was raised because that location is pretty suck? I'm hoping we can extend culture enough to stop them from just recolonizing it, but we may have to jump it again.

Bingo. The location was absolutely horrid. Snow tiles, far from the capital (which means high upkeep) on top of shared production tiles with the newly conquered barbarian city meant that keeping it would have been more trouble than anything else.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Actually, I'm pretty sure you could jump in now if you wanted to, seeing that we are down to three players from the original five.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

It looks like we're officially back in the game! I wasn't expecting our culture to be effective so quickly, but if we can get it to the point that we don't even need to attack any of these invaders precociously it would be good. I'll most likely take my turns tomorrow as I'm off from work.

If I can get enough exploring done, we may be able to start plotting a worldwide conflict by convincing some of the other Civs to fight each other.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Araes

Just have to crank the artists or build wonders like nobody's business. If you do, culture can actually get things done in close proximity without too much waiting. This is almost precisely the kind of situation its good at. Also, good call on building the Globe Theater near Greece, whichever one of you two that was. That has singlehandedly crippled Rhodes.

I took my time deciding where to build it, and I'm glad I did, because the results followed shortly after:



As I suspected, the other civs have started to put pressure on us to pick a side quickly, and studying their relationships to each other was the main focus of my turns, besides figuring out a way to update our cities' defenses. Through the discovery of chemistry, we are now able to start building grenadiers, which effectively negates our enemies' riflemen.

During my turns, all of these things happened as far as the democratic relationships of the world go:









After offering Alexander some eyedrops with a "no hard feelings" style demeanor, I accepted the Kahn's defensive pact, seeing no possible negative consequence in having the most advanced civ watch our backs. I declined Elizabeth's request, as I doubt she has the means to make us regret it in any way.

For now, one of the options we have is to join in on the Anglo-germanic effort against the Greek empire with the certainty that Montezuma will come in and defend his butt buddy Alex. This would also have a bit of a negative consequence on our relationship with the Mongols, though I doubt the declaration of war on Alexander would be enough to get them to turn on us. Another option would be to declare war on Germany or England, though we can be certain that the two would band against us and that we can't expect much support from anyone besides the Kahn. Our final option is to keep going for a Space victory by staying our course for building the Internet, which, in my estimation, could be easily achieved as long as we keep our cities defended to the best of our ability, so as to not invite the warmongering Aztecs to attack us. In my opinion, declaring war on the Greeks would probably be our best option, though I doubt we have the military might to get on with it just yet. Giving the other two European civs a chance to weaken Greece's defenses certainly won't hurt anyway.

Our island cities are very poorly defended, so getting them up to par should be a top priority in the near future. We should also try and convince the Kahn to stop trading with the Greeks, though I can't recall his exact opinion of them.

I shifted our research towards getting infantry. I figured we would most likely need them to get a military edge should we decide to go back on the warpath. I believe we could shift our attention back to getting the Internet after getting the assembly line and still be able to get it before any of the other civs. As always, if you guys see a better direction we could head in, don't hesitate to change our research to whatever suits your fancy.

Pang, I'm sorry that your first turn will be one of revolution, but I discovered banking on my last turn and mercantilism seemed too good an advantage to live without for even a single turn. Also, since the Kahn seems to want to be all buddy buddy with us, you might be able to kindly ask if he would be willing to show us a tech or two free of charge.

Here it is: GFF Civ 4 savegame, 1956

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The two Mongolian cities are resisting fairly well to our cultural expansion, which doesn't surprise me much considering the fact that they are he most advanced civ and can probably afford to build cultural buildings a plenty. I sent the great artist to build a great work in the city to the northeast of it (can't remember the name of the city). I've never really studied Kahn's habits in game though, so I'm just saying this based on the standings. In any case, if we're going to try and retain good relations with them, maybe we should lay off the cultural pressure just enough to not have the negative diplomatic consequences of the border struggle growing bigger. What's more, having the Kahn present on our continent means that, should we ever be attacked, he can help us defend our continent at the drop of a dime since he already has troops stationed on it.

Overall, if you look at the pic in my last post, you can tally up our diplomatic relationship with them at +13, minus one for our adoption of mercantilism. Declaring war on Alexander would probably net us another -2 at most, unless the act of declaring war on their friend would cause us to lose the +1 for "years of peace" and the +2 for "mutual military struggle". Even then, and subtracting another point or two for the expanding border struggle, the worst case scenario would have us at around +5, which should keep them from taking retributive action. Even better, if we can convince them to stop trading with the Greeks, we can retain our good relations with them and maybe even eventually get them to join in on the slaughter.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'll see what I can do with this thing tomorrow, I happened to work 5 hours today (even though I was supposed to have the day off) and went downtown to see part of the Stevie Wonder concert.

Hope we can take the lead during my turns!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, My turns went by in a dull flash of uneventfulness. I continued with my plan of supplying a grenadier for every city, and it has almost been brought to completion. Our lead over the Kahn will probably be greater than 100 points by the time Pang ends his turn, we have about five hundred gold coins stacked up, and we are about to get the Assembly Line tech. Hence, we might do well to keep the gold piled up until the Assembly Line is done so we can change some of those classical age troops to infantry and have our military be up to date for the first time since what seems like the dawn of time.

Here you go Pang: GFF Civ4 Save file AD1986

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It should only take one turn anyway, so I guess it wouldn't hurt. I have to be honest that I played my turns much faster than usual, as I made an impromptu road trip to Ottawa yesterday and I didn't want to hold up the game. There really wasn't much that happened though, besides the discovery of two or three techs.

Heck, I didn't even get a single visit from another world leader!

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, it looks like things are looking up even more than I could have imagined!

I'll try to take my turns tomorrow, but it might have to wait until tuesday, as I'll be off and certainly more disposed towards playing them then.

One thing though, looking at your first post in the thread, Araes, seems to indicate that we have the time victory turned off, but did you guys decide otherwise in the subsequent pre-game posts? I'm asking because you've mentioned and I was just curious since it might affect the way I will play out my turns.

I was speaking idiomatically.

And so it was that the last decade had brought such great discoveries in the various fields of science that it was inevitable the people's view of their government would be shaken.

I stood at the front lines of the revolutionary body for the two years that it lasted.



As we took the parliament, the last of the Greek sympathizers on our continent saw the movement of our people and felt it best to cast off their old overlords and join our great cause.




Though the revolution mostly happened in the political arena, a certain number of military battles took place, and it is in that context that some of our most deadly weapons to date came to see the light of day. [I also discovered the railroad, but deleted the pic by accident]



A man of great wisdom appeared in our capital, and our people celebrated him by building a great temple, that his memory may serve future generations in having the courage to live their lives to the best of their ability.



A messenger arrived from a tour of our island cities and brought news that though our troops defending them were equipped with some of the most modern weapons, their numbers were few and it would be necessary to send more soldiers to defend them in case a war broke out.



After helping our people to stabilize their new government, I left to pursue a simpler life. The last thing I noticed before handing over power to the newly elected leader was that our nation's economy had never been so well organized.




(The space race should get underway at anytime now, as pretty much every other civ has access to biology, artillery and industrialism, which means the Kahn is probably more advanced than that and should be on the verge of starting the Apollo Project [if he isn't already on it]. Though they will certainly take quite a while to get all the components together for an actual victory, and even though we don't have to worry about the game ending from the time limit in half a century, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the space race itself will impose a time limit on us as far as our endgame plans go.)


Here's the save Pang, hope your turns go smoothly!

GFF Civ 4 Savegame: 2016

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Though I'm not one to back down from a fight, caution should be the name of the game we play right now and there's one major reason why: Montezuma.

This fucker is just sitting there and waiting for us to end our defensive pact with to Kahn so he can pounce on us. And, if we attack Alexander, I'm almost 100% positive that is how it will go down. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't go to war, just that I'm starting to wonder if he shouldn't be the one we tango with.

Everyone in the world is pretty extreme now so far as diplomacy goes. The English and Germans Are friendly with each other but displeased with everyone else (besides us) and the Mongols, Aztecs and Greeks are all friends.

Hence, if we were to attack the Aztecs, we could convince the Anglo-german alliance to join in (plus they're on the same continent, so they'll participate quite a bit) and dealing with Alexander (who'll surely join in against us) on the side would be a lot easier than doing so with Montezuma, should we start with Alexander.

As far as research goes, I would be of the mind that after combustion, industrialism (Navy Seals ahoy!) should be our next target, on our way to Fiber Optics and the Internet. According to my calculations, we should be able to get the fiber optics tech in 30 turns with research at 90%, which we are now able to do with only a very small loss of funds per turn (between 5 and 10). Getting the internet will gift us with all those techs that we don't yet have and need for the Space Race victory, should it ever come down to that, and it will most likely give us access to most missing military units at the same time.

Also, combustion, which we are one turn off from learning, will allow us to build a mighty armada to ferry our Navy Seals and tanks across the small channel that separates us from Montezuma. This means we can get to it much faster and control our flow of troops into foreign lands much easier than if we attack Alexander. The Kahn will idly sit by during all this, which is what he will do anyway unless we attack him directly.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Why don't you ask Khan to help you pwn Alexander as well

We tried that, but he seems to be too prominent a member of the Man-Boy Love Association to ever attack its founder.

FELIPE NO

Actually, just demanding something from them over and over again will make their hate for us shoot up by -10. However, I'm not sure if that would even be enough to get them to attack us, as they'll probably cower before the might of our forces united with those of the Kahn. It might not hurt to try anyway, since we're not planning on peacefully winning this thing.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well, in fact it is deactivated, so we won't have to worry about that very much. In fact the only victory conditions that are open are: Domination, Conquest and Space Race.

Jam it back in, in the dark.