Civilization (Cretan Opening Moves)
Ken Burnside
Crete. Crete has some advantages...the easiest of the AST progressions,
and a plethora of city csites to expand on. It also has a HORRIBLE opening
position. These are the moves that I plotted out ahead, and in advance.
(There are two decks of trading and Civilization Cards, including calamities,
for a 10 player game including Iberia, and Africa)
The crux comes at turn 3. Crete has a population of 8, and 2 options:
Build a City
Kill two population for a boat.
Building a City: You can now buy the boat, but your census has
dropped considerably. You have to wait one turn before you have
anybody to colonize WITH.
Razing the City for five population tokens, after you've had two turns
of city income. This has the advantage of buying the boat, and having
a stockpiled treasury to maintain it with, AND giving you 5 tokens
to colonize the Peleponassus with. However, any turn that you lose
all of your cities, you go BACKWARDS on the AST. You will have AMPLE
resources to rebuild your city on Crete, however, and on the mainland.
(You can build up to three cities, and maintain them on the next
turn.)
Killing off two people for a boat. This also cramps your expansion
style. Your best bet is to clear off one half of Crete, and dump
them on the 2 western parcels of land on the Peleponassus. This
allows you to have two cities in two turns, and four in three.
Comments? Have I missed anything?
Ken Burnside.
Chris Shaw
>Build a City
>Kill two population for a boat.
>
>Building a City: You can now buy the boat, but your census has
>dropped considerably. You have to wait one turn before you have
>anybody to colonize WITH.
You have 4 by the time boat-buying happens. That's enough.
Someone mentioned the "build boats first option". The conventional wisdom
in our games has been that this is a bad idea, but only two people have
played Crete in our games. Me once, and Jacques "Mr Crete" Benoit countless
times. I built the city in turn 3, bought a boat turn 4 and colonized Asia
Minor. I managed to win that game under the traditional first-on-AST rules,
although I was well behind on Civ Card points. Because of the tortuous
geography of Greece proper, colonizing it second seems sensible, since
Illyria isn't usually interested, and you can always toss him out
with multiple navy landings.
Jacques always lands on Greece first, and essentially leaves Asia Minor to
Asia, which I think is stupid.
>Razing the City for five population tokens,
This is explicitly illegal. Besides, you don't go backwards in the first
"age" of the AST. (Otherwise, nobody would move until a city got built)
>Ken Burnside.
--
Chris Shaw University of Alberta
cds...@cs.UAlberta.ca Now with new, minty Internet flavour!
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Darin McGrew
>Someone mentioned the "build boats first option". The conventional wisdom
>in our games has been that this is a bad idea, but only two people have
>played Crete in our games. Me once, and Jacques "Mr Crete" Benoit countless
>times. I built the city in turn 3, bought a boat turn 4 and colonized Asia
>Minor. I managed to win that game under the traditional first-on-AST rules,
>although I was well behind on Civ Card points. Because of the tortuous
>geography of Greece proper, colonizing it second seems sensible, since
>Illyria isn't usually interested, and you can always toss him out
>with multiple navy landings.
In the past, I've always built a boat and colonized the Grecian
peninsula first. After the first boat, I waited until I could
build boats with Treasury before building any more. However, the
next time I play Crete I think I'm going to experiment with
another strategy, something like this:
Turn 1, 2 Tokens
Turn 2, 4 Tokens
Turn 3, 6 Tokens, 1 New Boat, move 4 tokens to either Asia or
Greece, leave 2 tokens on Crete
Turn 4, 11 Tokens, 1 Supported Boat, move several tokens to the
other peninsula, 4 tokens on Crete
Turn 5, 13 Tokens, 1 City, 1 New Boat, 1 Supported Boat, move
tokens to build city on a 1-token region
Turn 6, 12 or 18 Tokens, 3 or 2 Cities, 2 Supported Boats, Enter
Early Bronze Age
We'll see how it works. This has the advantage of colonizing
both peninsulas early, maintaining enough tokens to maintain
defensible settlements, etc. Crete doesn't have to be in a rush
to build cities, so it can afford to build a couple ships with
tokens early on.
Darin McGrew mcg...@Eng.Sun.COM
Affiliation stated for identification purposes only.
Eiji Hirai
> Strange. Crete needs an experienced player, but it virtually guaranteed
> to arrive at the finishing line on schedule.
In the games that I've played, there are usually a couple of nations that
are at the same AST level as the other leading players. Once this is firmly
established, these nations send out men to destroy the cities of the
competing players to eliminate their source of income. I can't see any sane
reason why they wouldn't except in the case of having to defend against a
massive attack by another nation or several other nations.
Crete's cities are one of the most accessible cities on the mapboard. So I
can't see Crete comfortably finishing the AST track without some of their
cities ravaged. Maybe some shrewd diplomatic deals and lots of spare men as
detterence will help. In any case, if the Crete player is likely to lose
some potential income and therefore, the opportunities to buy civ cards in
time. Maybe the folks you play with aren't bloodthirsty enough... I dunno.
In our games, accessible cities of leading players aren't left alone unless
something weird happens.
Even if you make it to the end of the AST track, if there are other players,
it's likely that they have more points than you do at the end because they
were planning on winning with more points to satisfy their victory
conditions. In that case, you lose even though you had an easy AST track.
Therefore, I would say that Crete finishing comfortably on the AST is far
from "virtually guaranteed."
--
Eiji Hirai @ Mathematics Dept., Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081-1397
hi...@cs.swarthmore.edu | hi...@swarthmr.bitnet | uunet!hirai%cs.swarthmore.edu
Copyright 1990 by Eiji Hirai. All Rights Reserved. Permission to reproduce or
quote explicitly denied except on Usenet. I don't speak for Swarthmore College.
Brendan Mahony
>Someone mentioned the "build boats first option". The conventional wisdom
>in our games has been that this is a bad idea, but only two people have
>played Crete in our games.
Strange. Crete needs an experienced player, but it virtually guaranteed
to arrive at the finishing line on schedule. There are oodles of city
sites in Greece and a couple of nice agricultural regions in Asia Minor,
which allows Crete 6-9 cities. The relatively cramped territory ensures
that Crete is not represented visually as a THREAT, and usually means
moving last for most of the game. Moreover Crete has very easy victory
conditions given the above circumstances.
My tactic has always been to built a ship and take 4 pop units to
Greece. Next turn I support the ship and move 2 or 3 units to Asia
Minor. When I reach the first boundary I build a city on Crete and one
in Greece.
Last game I played Babylon and found the requirement to build two cities
so early was a phenomenal check on my expansion prospects. Babylon
has very stringent victory conditions.
--
Brendan Mahony | bre...@batserver.cs.uq.oz
Department of Computer Science | heretic: someone who disgrees with you
University of Queensland | about something neither of you knows
Australia | anything about.
S. Gwen Johnson
pushy neighbors. They way the board is set up Asia or Assyria can get
to those Levantine city cites before Babylon does, and if they want
to, they can keep Babylon boxed in a small area that has some city
sites and some agricultural land, but not enough to get beyond about
five cities. And because Babylon has got to get its two cities early,
and support them on rather narrow margins for a few turns after that,
it can't afford the people to take territory by force. Babylon has got
to be a good diplomat (and it irritates my husband that as Babylon I
talk a lot and try to talk people into not doing things that hurt my
chances of future development, Jeez!)
Crete has some of the same land problems, clothmaking and agriculture
are de rigeur to make Crete play. On the other hand, because they
have to build a boat early, and because getting around in Greece is a
real pain because of the limited population levels and wierd ways
water and land areas connect, it's also hard to impossible to fight
for land. Crete has got to negotiate too. Being an island nation
helps, with ships you can race down a coastline to city sites and
farm land faster than the Tracians and Asians can, so they end up
holding the interiors and Crete has cities and farms spotted here and
there along the coast. They are the two hardest to play in my
opinion.
Egypt's a piece of cake, Africa and Italy aren't bad (but we haven't
played them a lot) I don't have the western expansion set (is it fun
to play? How many players do you need to use it? Can it be used with
say four or five players, leaving off the eastern mapboard? I get a
little tired of the same old map.) Asia Assyria Thrace and Illyria are
easy because they have plenty of population to spend on squabbling so
they can afford to be pushy, and they have plenty of city sites and
farm land if they're just a little greedy.
Gwen Johnson
s...@slc1.brl.mil
Friendless
>Egypt's a piece of cake, Africa and Italy aren't bad
I thought Egypt was pretty damn difficult, actually. All of the city sites
are on the really good farming land, meaning that you're left scrounging for
farminmg land, and you have a big wall of cities stopping your population
moving around. I got to the situation where the only territory that I could
make a city on, and still be able to support it, was around the Red Sea, but
it was physically impossible to get 12 people there to do it. Luckily the
country to the north of me offered me a city site and it was OK.
Furthermore, floods are utterly devastating. I think I had three cities and
say 4-6 people on the flood plain. I lost (I think) half of them every flood.
I suppose I would have done better if I'd got Agriculture, but I was so wiped
out I couldn't afford it before everyone else got them. I found it very very
difficult to get the 7 cards.
On the other hand, I won Italy almost by accident. I needed to hold either
Sicily or a bit of territory to the East, and I had my 9 cities and 18 people
all the time. Also, sea-borne invasions just didn't happen unless the invader
had Astronomy.
Friendless
Darin McGrew
> On the other hand, I won Italy almost by accident. I needed to hold either
>Sicily or a bit of territory to the East, and I had my 9 cities and 18 people
>all the time. Also, sea-borne invasions just didn't happen unless the invader
>had Astronomy.
My brother had a similar experience with Italy. Of course, in
his case, the fact that neither Africa nor Illyria were in the
game helped a lot too. The easy AST sequence and comfortable
geography made Italy an easy nation to play.
I used to wonder why anyone would play Illyria. I'm starting to
realize that Illyria's easy AST sequence is a big advantage, and
that that should make (more experienced) players willing to
endure a little extra crowding on the western end of the board.
Darin
eric remy
>>Egypt's a piece of cake, Africa and Italy aren't bad
>
> I thought Egypt was pretty damn difficult, actually. All of the city sites
>are on the really good farming land, meaning that you're left scrounging for
>farminmg land, and you have a big wall of cities stopping your population
>moving around. I got to the situation where the only territory that I could
>make a city on, and still be able to support it, was around the Red Sea, but
>it was physically impossible to get 12 people there to do it. Luckily the
>country to the north of me offered me a city site and it was OK.
Why are you building cities on the Nile delta? Move up into Palestine
if at all possible, (Easy if you have a passive Babylon, a little harder
otherwise.) and then wall yourself off. The surrounding areas have such
low population densities that the cities become nearly invulnerable, except
for those on the coast. Also, don't always build on city sites: Put 12
person cities on your outlying 1 and 2 areas, and almost no one can touch
you. This isn't always a trivial task, but much easier than other countries
have it.
> Furthermore, floods are utterly devastating. I think I had three cities and
>say 4-6 people on the flood plain. I lost (I think) half of them every flood.
>I suppose I would have done better if I'd got Agriculture, but I was so wiped
>out I couldn't afford it before everyone else got them. I found it very very
>difficult to get the 7 cards.
Engineering is, of course, a really important buy for Egypt. (and Babylon)
With it, it's easy to rebuild next turn. In my experience, in a seven
player game the flood card comes up rarely enough not to give Egypt
enough of a problem to offset its advantages.
>
>Friendless
Eric (Maximum leader) R.
edr...@d31ha2.stanford.edu
Jonathan King
> In article <55...@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> far...@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes:
> > I thought Egypt was pretty damn difficult, actually. All of the city sites
> >are on the really good farming land, meaning that you're left scrounging for
> >farminmg land, and you have a big wall of cities stopping your population
> >moving around.
Was anybody else amused at the assertion that Egypt doesn't have
enough farmland?
> >I got to the situation where the only territory that I could
> >make a city on, and still be able to support it, was around the Red Sea, but
> >it was physically impossible to get 12 people there to do it. Luckily the
> >country to the north of me offered me a city site and it was OK.
>
> Why are you building cities on the Nile delta? Move up into Palestine
> if at all possible, (Easy if you have a passive Babylon, a little harder
> otherwise.) and then wall yourself off.
More specifically, the first two cities you should build are the two
on the southern mapboard edge. By the time you actually build them,
you will your other tokens heading toward Palestine. You get at least
two of these city sites unless Babylon is being forced to play dead by
the Assyrians, or the Africans get really uppity.
> The surrounding areas have such
> low population densities that the cities become nearly invulnerable, except
> for those on the coast. Also, don't always build on city sites: Put 12
> person cities on your outlying 1 and 2 areas, and almost no one can touch
> you.
This is a nice goal, but it won't work unless either Africa or Babylon
are asleep.
> This isn't always a trivial task, but much easier than other countries
> have it.
You said it.
> > Furthermore, floods are utterly devastating. I think I had three cities and
> >say 4-6 people on the flood plain. I lost (I think) half of them every flood.
> >I suppose I would have done better if I'd got Agriculture, but I was so wiped
> >out I couldn't afford it before everyone else got them. I found it very very
> >difficult to get the 7 cards.
>
> Engineering is, of course, a really important buy for Egypt. (and Babylon)
> With it, it's easy to rebuild next turn. In my experience, in a seven
> player game the flood card comes up rarely enough not to give Egypt
> enough of a problem to offset its advantages.
I assume you mean Egypt's geographical advantages. Its AST is so
crippling, however, that it's tough not to get held back. In a 7
player game, things get pretty rough.
> >Friendless
>
> Eric (Maximum leader) R.
> edr...@d31ha2.stanford.edu
jking