Civ 5: GMR part 4 - Needs salt!

[banthesun]

Spoiler: To Spectators

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Welcome, one and all to your tour of the New India Empire. Having freshly emerged from the bunkers, you must have plenty of questions about the world above, and this tour will aim to answer them. Photography is not allowed in the seminar room, and please keep all questions till the end of the tour.

Spoiler: Slide One

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This is a map of the current area claimed by the New India Empire, and it's sister state M'Banza-Kongo. Our scouting forces have recently secured this area from the savages occupying it, so be assured of your perfect safety within this region.

Spoiler: Slide Two

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This is the fine city of New Old Dehli, or Dehli for short. Of particular note is the newly completed Hydroponic Gardens, providing a bounty of food for all citizens, safe within the city walls. Please disregard the plumes of smoke coming from the west. The culprits have already been dealt with.

Spoiler: Slide Three

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If life in the big city isn't for you, never fear, a settling party is being gathered to establish a new seaside resort town, at the location shown. Located near the spectacular natural beauty of Uluru, now inexplicaply close to the sea, this new town will be the perfect get away from the hustle and bustle of New Old Dehli

Spoiler: Slide Four

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For those of you interested in the diplomatic situation of the New India Empire, we have prepared this slide showing our southern neighbours. The area south seems to be heavily populated, both by permanant settlers and travelling vandals, and fierce fighting between these groups is common. The New Indian Empire is currently considering a peacekeeping mission into the southern lands to assist these poor peoples.

Spoiler: Slide Five

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For the more adventurous of you, you might consider joining the Recon Corps, a joint military operation between the NIE and MBK forces ((they gave me an archer at the end of my turn)). Expeditions into the wild lands to the west are being considered, after the initial exploratory forces gave their lives to rescue a holy man from the bandits of the region ((I chose Godess of Love, since Fertility Rites was taken and lolhappiness)).

Spoiler: Slide Six

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For those of you of a more intellectual bent, the New India Empire is rediscovering technologies at a rapid rate, and our scientists would be happy your help. Current projects include the developing towards a system of Civil Service and Irrigation techniques. Old technologies are being rediscovered by the day!

Spoiler: Slide Seven

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And finally, we have the options for the NIE political organisation. Developments towards a Monarchical system and the implementation of large scale public works projects is under way, but we still need your voice!

Wow, what a time to be alive! As we have seen, the New India Empire is rapidly evolving to be the centre for arts and sciences in the surface world, and with your support I'm sure we have an even brighter future ahead of us!

Glory, Loyalty, Diligence
-The New India Empire

[Illven]

Yay tours!!

[Driderman]

Spectator update:

Spoiler

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If all goes well, I should settle my 4th city in 3 rounds and have a 5th settler ready 4 rounds after that. I'm skipping the early wonder rush to spit out settlers as I managed to snag the Fountain of Youth (+10 happiness tile, doesn't need to be worked) and will likely also get Mt... Kailash I think it is (+2 happiness, +6 faith). Already generating decent faith with my Desert Folklore and my Pyramids, from next turn onwards I'll be rolling for my first prophet so with a bit of luck I'll be first to get a religion. In which case I'm probably going for Tithe and Religious Community as they're very solid picks in any scenario. Secondary Follower choice is probably Feed the World, as my cities will need a growth boost. With a bit of luck, I'll get a Great Person from my Mayan Calendar pretty quickly for the second Prophet.

I've also managed to spot Lake Victoria. It's somewhat far away from my other cities, but grabbing a third Natural Wonder, especially one as good as Lake Victoria (+6 food, basically a Hanging Gardens) would be pretty sweet (and make me regret not taking the One With Nature Pantheon after all) so my 5th settler is probably going in that direction. Even if somebody manages to settle it before me, there's plenty of good land in the area so it wouldn't be completely wasted. I've pretty much already scouted out potential spots for my next 3-4 cities.

Still haven't actually built a worker, but I should have one before long. My happiness is going to dip low soon with the additional cities, but I have access to a good handful of different luxuries so I should be able to make it, and once I get some more culture generation I can finish up Liberty for an additional faster worker, more happiness and a Golden Age.

All in all, I think my prospects are good. I have a handful of military units to protect my expanding empire and while I won't be dominating the demographics for a while, I should be able to grown into a powerful position in the mid-to-late game if I can continue to expand into the lovely lands around me. I may also consider building the Borodurur and creating a religion snowball since I'm currently working on Theology, but that would mean spending production on that instead of more cities and the infrastructure to support them.

(this is where I'd place a screenshot of my lands if I could figure out Steam and it's horrible screenshot system)

[Illven]

Good explanation, bad tour (No pictures)

[Driderman]

Good explanation, bad tour (No pictures)

Can't figure out how to make Steam screenshots available

[Luzahn]

I might have mentioned it before, but they seem to not work when brought up through the steam client. I've had luck logging in to the steam website and finding my screenshots there.

[OrcusMcP]

Spoiler: To Rome

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My people overflow, and will need to settle in the river valley rich in horse and iron to your southwest. I trust this will have no bearing on our future friendship? I plan no more settlements in your direction.

Spoiler: Spectators!

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Screenshots will have to come after my next turn. I've been in big rushes my last few chances to play.

Rough outline, though, Just got my second city going, about to have a 3rd settler finish. Getting beat to the Great Library hurt. There are not a lot of city states very near to me, and I've only met Rome so far. This will hurt my trade route bonuses, at least for a while.

The good news, is that I have a lot of room to expand, but not a lot of great city locations. I may have to spread thin along the coast. Lots of desert, which will be good for my Kasbahs once I have them.

[banthesun]

Can't figure out how to make Steam screenshots available

If you tap Print Screen it'll save a screenshot to your My Documents/My Games/SMC5/Screenshots folder.

Edit: Thought people might like to see this:

[Driderman]

To Carthage:

Spoiler

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Well met.
We see that you have settled by the fertile waters of the Great Lake. As a token of peace, we allow this but know that all lands west of Utique belong to Pacal. We urge you to not settle any further west than you already have, or you shall face The Doom That All Men Face sooner, rather than later.

To spectators:

Spoiler

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Well that solves the Lake Victoria consideration for me. Carthage just settled it. No big problem, the whole idea was making me feel overextended anyway. I'll do my best to deter him from settling any further west though, but unless that settler has been in route for a long time it'll likely be while before they produce another one. Unless, of course, they have the same plan as me and want to settle as much as possible as quickly as possible. Hopefully not.

[Luzahn]

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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The Roman people would be displeased to have another city expanded in our direction, and request that your people refrain from colonizing any more of our abandoned lands.

[OrcusMcP]

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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The Roman people would be displeased to have another city expanded in our direction, and request that your people refrain from colonizing any more of our abandoned lands.

Spoiler: To Rome

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I am not unreasonable, but most of what surrounds me is barren desert and the ocean. I can only settle in so many places. I would be most pleased to allow some beneficial trading to occur between our peoples, and as I mentioned, once this city is settled I plan no more expansion to my east(your west, south)

[Luzahn]

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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The site in question is still too close to provinces currently under imperial control. Settle if you wish, but know Rome disapproves of such action. We ourselves value those iron supplies highly.

[OrcusMcP]

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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The site in question is still too close to provinces currently under imperial control. Settle if you wish, but know Rome disapproves of such action. We ourselves value those iron supplies highly.

Spoiler: To Rome

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That is fair. I will just have to prove reliable and trustworthy that this might be forgotten. There is much salt and iron in the rivers to your south if you seek such resources.

Spoiler: To Carthage

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As-Salaam Alaikum, fair Dido. It is a fair sight to meet another mighty civilization, we ourselves have felt very isolated, and knowing you are not far as the ship sails bodes well for our future trade opportunities. There is much barren desert between our lands, so messengers are slow.

Spoiler: To Byzantium

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As-Salaam Alaikum, beauteous Theodora. The great Consul greets you. I am confused, however, I have already met an "Augustus of Rome". Are you also cut of the Roman cloth?

[Closet_Skeleton]

Spoiler: to spectators

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Got lost a while after the first game ended. Here's a quick update. Lots of barbarian problems but I've build the national college and just founded a second city.

[thirsting]

Spoiler: To Byzantium

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As-Salaam Alaikum, beauteous Theodora. The great Consul greets you. I am confused, however, I have already met an "Augustus of Rome". Are you also cut of the Roman cloth?

Spoiler: To Morocco - (stealth edit)

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Ah! We were mixing you up with the creepy doomsday cultists, Mayas, and dared not respond. But as it seems you are not them, we are relieved. Greetings! Apologies about the mix up, please don't hold this against us, they really are worrisome folk.

The old tales and lies about us sharing roots with any other people should be ignored. Byzantium has been here always, and always will be. In fact, we have not even heard of this Augustus before, nor of Rome.

~ Byzantine representative

((Edit: I'm not sure why I got confused OOC - doesn't make sense, in retrospect. Chalk it up to tiredness, and the less than healthy level of sanity of my nation's leadership))

[thirsting]

Byzantine empire would like to share with all the peoples and nations of the world the Warmth of our Empress's all-permeating love, the comforting Warmth of quality stone ovens our dedicated masons produce, and the promise of terrible, searing WARmth for anyone who threatens our peaceful empire.

Spoiler: Warmth specifics - because these can be seen ingame anyway

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Pantheon: Stone Circles (+2 faith per quarry)
Founder: Papal Primacy (+15 influence resting point with city states following this religion)
Follower 1: Pagodas (get to buy +2 faith /+2 culture / +2 happiness buildings with faith)
Follower 2: Mosques (get to buy +3 faith / +2 culture / +1 happiness buildings with faith)
Enhancer: Holy Order (missionaries and inquisitors have 30% cheaper faith cost)
Bonus belief: Itinerant Preachers (religion reaches and spreads to cities 30% farther away)
Reformation: Jesuit Education (can buy Universities, Public Schools and Research Labs with faith)

[banthesun]

Quick heads up, my turn said it didn't upload, but now it's thirsting's turn, so hopefully everything worked out.

[thirsting]

Worked fine.

I'm bit worried about having to set myself to vacation mode this coming weekend, as I have a settler out... I'm going to give a stern stare at the imagined GMR robot playing my turn, if it decides to settle without my permission.

[Driderman]

Worked fine.

I'm bit worried about having to set myself to vacation mode this coming weekend, as I have a settler out... I'm going to give a stern stare at the imagined GMR robot playing my turn, if it decides to settle without my permission.

I *think* that, unless your settler is mucking about areas that the computer has recommended for settling (you know, the ones with the yellow city icon), you should probably be safe. At least, my settler didn't do anything stupid when I missed my turn. However, if the settler is standing on, or near, a recommended spot I'd guess that the AI will probably put down a city or move towards doing so.

[banthesun]

Alright, the issue was coming up again, and the file wasn't slipping through this time, so I posted on the GMR forums. Turns out it was a file bloat issue, and I was pointed towards a mod to fix the bloat. That works, but it seems to have reverted everyone's ruler names back to the default.

[Luzahn]

Alright, the issue was coming up again, and the file wasn't slipping through this time, so I posted on the GMR forums. Turns out it was a file bloat issue, and I was pointed towards a mod to fix the bloat. That works, but it seems to have reverted everyone's ruler names back to the default.

You know, I'm ok with that. Hail Caesar!

[OrcusMcP]

You know, I'm ok with that. Hail Caesar!

Ahmad al-Mansur was getting confused any way. He did not understand the "Orcus" nickname everyone seemed to know him as. Was it some kind of fruit?

[OrcusMcP]

Mighty Ceaser, I see you have sent a Legion to my settlement frontiers, may I ask what you intend?

[Luzahn]

Mighty Ceaser, I see you have sent a Legion to my settlement frontiers, may I ask what you intend?

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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Barbarian activity has been particularly high in the region of late. We wished to make the area secure for a future colony and to secure our western frontier.

[OrcusMcP]

Spoiler: To Morocco:

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Barbarian activity has been particularly high in the region of late. We wished to make the area secure for a future colony and to secure our western frontier.

Spoiler: To Rome

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Very well. If you can trust me, then it would be the height of rudeness not to trust you in return. As our borders converge I would be more than happy to arrange wealthy caravan routes between our might peoples.

[The_Snark]

Spoiler: To spectators

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Hello, spectators (should we have any)! I haven't given you any updates for a while. More accurately, I haven't given you any updates since ever. I meant to, I even took a few screenshots in the early game, but at some point I persuaded myself that it would be clever to wait until my civilization discovered Writing before I began posting its history. However, Writing was not high on my priority list at the time, and I think I had forgotten or was busy by the time it came around, and long story short it never got done.

Until now! Behold, the glorious city of Carthage!

"But wait, Dido," you may be protesting, "how can your capital be so tiny at this moderately advanced stage in the game?" An excellent question, fair spectators. This is a screenshot of Carthage as of Turn 1. It didn't look like an especially promising spot at first: three luxuries (two of which are somewhat distant from the city) and a couple of nearby stone deposits. It's coastal, which is good, but only one sea resource means I won't be hauling in a lot via lighthouses and seaports. No river (meaning no water mill), and I chose to found the city on a hill, which means no windmill - that said, it appears that founding the city on a hill offers a slight production advantage. It's trading a small early-game boost in production for a larger late-game boost, but better than nothing at all.

And now, the same city some 3000 years later:


Suffice to say, the location has grown on me. Two quarries (plus stoneworks) and a pasture gives me a respectable amount of production at this stage in the game, and the grassland keeps the city's growth at a reasonable rate.

I have, of course, elected to pursue the course of Liberty, allowing my people to spread freely in this new land. Early explorers discovered several city-states, but distressingly, they also discovered that we had settled near the shores of an inland sea. Not ideal for a would-be maritime power, though it at least gives me easy access to internal sea trade routes.

Behold, the Carthaginian Sea and surrounding expanse:

All is not lost; as you can see, the inland sea comes very close to the outer sea near Malacca, and I have already begun plans to build a canal city there, allowing my capital access to the high seas. In the meantime, my explorers made one other valuable discovery...



This is the small but rapidly growing city of Utique, fed by the bounty of Lake Victoria. Between the luxury resource and the natural wonder, I wanted to stake a claim to this spot before anyone else did - unlikely, maybe, but my nearest neighbors aren't that far away. I have plans to settle the rest of the inland sea, too; there's enough sheep, cotton and fish on the northern shores to make two to three cities worthwhile, and given that I'm pursuing Liberty with a coastal civilization in a Pangea map, I had better take what I can get.

Indeed, my next Settler set out not long ago, but unfortunately...


... I was careless enough to send them out without a guard, and they passed near a barbarian camp which had spawned since the last time I'd sent a scout that way. Fortunately, their escort was only one or two hexes behind, and by sheer accident I had an archer in position to flank the camp. Not a disaster, merely a handful of turns' worth of delay.

The Colossus should be finished soon, at which point I plan on starting work on the Pyramids (my population is growing fast enough that I could use the spare workers, and it's not usually a hotly contested wonder). I'll start boosting my new cities with trade routes, secure the luxury resources within my territory, found that canal city and then start exploring along the coast for new trading spots. That's about as far as I've planned! My neighbors don't seem too bad; Byzantium is likely to try and convert me, but I'm not putting a lot of effort into getting a religion, my pantheon bonus gets weaker in the late game, and Warmth doesn't look too bad (Pagodas and Stone Circles are both something I could benefit from). Morocco is solid, likely to be more interested in trading than feuding, close enough for cargo ships but not so close as to be a threat. And Persia... well. There might be trouble there, depending on whether Closet Skeleton is feeling expansionist. I'm going to settle along the coast where I can, which should minimize territory squabbles, but we'll see.

Spoiler: To Morocco

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Honorable Consul al-Mansur, Queen Dido the Immortal has received your emissary and would like to convey the following reply:

"Well hi there to you too, honey. I’m afraid our navy is having just a teensy bit of trouble finding its way out into open waters, but once we’ve got that little problem sorted out we’d be happy to send a few ships your way."

Spoiler: To the Unknown People (Driderman)

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(Note - I overlooked your message earlier, and while you've evidently spotted my territory I don't think I've met you in-game yet. Still...)

The honorable Queen Dido the Immortal would like to convey the following missive:

"Well hey there, sweetie. It's nice to meet you too, even if my boys seem to have missed spottin' your boys somehow. As to your kindly worded request... define 'west'. Y'see, Utique happens to be sort of on the eastern edge of our land, we're already west of it. I'm afraid I've got to give a categorical No to any demand that we give up claim to the shores of the Inner Carthaginian Sea, which we consider to be ours by divine right, practical right, and right of havin' seen it first. That said, if you're eyeing a spot on the coast, we could maybe see about coming to an agreement - might be handy to have a trading partner sittin' right there. And if you're not eyeing the coast, then go right ahead. I hear there's some nice land up north: gems, jungle, sugar, cotton."

"So where exactly are you lookin'?"

[banthesun]

Well, if no one has any problems, then everything's great. I now know how to debloat save files, so I should be able to fix that if it comes up again.

Also, Orcus, I think I can see the edge of your territory, but I don't have any scouts presently nearby. Would you be up for opening communications before we've officially met?

[OrcusMcP]

Also, Orcus, I think I can see the edge of your territory, but I don't have any scouts presently nearby. Would you be up for opening communications before we've officially met?

Eh, I suppose it's ok.

[OrcusMcP]

As Morocco grew, Ahmad al-Mansur commissioned a tour be organized for visiting dignitaries, now that the various heads of state were in diplomatic contact.

Spoiler: Spectators!!

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Marrakesh. It's not at the size I would like it to be by this point, but I went Liberty and getting beat to the Great Library so close to the finish line hurt. I only have one worker, but I'm confident I will finish the Pyramids and that will give me a leg up. I will keep my Liberty Great Person in reserve until I can use a great engineer to rush build Petra in my next settled desert city. I will be needing all the trade and resource help I can get.


The frontier cities. Casablanca and Fes have just been settled, and they are not far from the Roman border. I'll be going North and West of Marrakesh for my next settlements. Fes is in an ok spot, defensively, but Casablanca is super vulnerable. I straight up settled there for horses and iron, and warned Rome I would do so, promising to not settle any further to my east. And there is a lot of Iron and Salt to his south that looks really juicy to me, but I can't risk antagonizing Rome when he has Legions near my borders. If he has those, he probably has Ballistas already. He'll want to use them on someone. I hope it isn't me.

"But Orcus, why didn't you settle in a ring?" you might ask. My area is very luxury resource poor. I have a lot of silk from where I've already settled but that's pretty much it. There is a LOT of barren desert around me. I'm waiting until I have a decent economy worker/trade-wise before I try to settle there.

As far as longer term strategy, I'm not sure. With everyone being super spread out it will be hard for me to take full advantage of my boosted trade routes, but Rome is right beside me so they will see a lot of trade from Morocco. I have to stay on their good side.

Also, not having many city-states near me will hurt. A lot. Rome is beside a few, Byzantium is beside a cluster, Carthage is beside a cluster, but all I have is Milan.

[banthesun]

Spoiler: To Morocco

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Sorry for asking to chat and then leaving you hanging. The New India Empire is located above Rome, if you're interested in paying us a visit.

The reason I wanted to get in touch with you is because my forces are currently engaged with barbarians just north of the Roman capital. I noticed your concern with Roman passing nearby your lands and thought it might help if my troops leave the barbarians for Rome to deal with, to occupy their troops for a while.

Please let me know what you think.