The Story of Celtic Baseball - OOTP Meets Civilization IV

[sbrylski]

Welcome to...
The Story of Celtic Baseball

I have kicked around this idea for a while now, and am finally going to force myself to do it. Here's the premise:

I have only played two computer games extensively in my life - Out of the Park Baseball and Civilization. So naturally, when playing Civilization one day, I came up with the idea to create an OOTP baseball universe within my current game of Civilization. Genius, if I can say it for myself. I put together a few futile attempts to manifest my dream, each time tweaking adding a little bit more to my self-made Civilization mod. I think I'm finally ready to play out a full game and show my design to the community.

Now, the mod is nothing flashy or special by any means. It is simply a small handful of alterations to allow my Civilization game to more strongly dictate the happenings in the OOTP baseball universe created to fit within it. The fundamental change is the addition of baseball as both a "religion" and a corporation. Hopefully, my civilization will invent baseball in the early 1800s, and down the road from there build a powerful professional baseball corporation with which to aid my conquering of the entire world!

For any Civilization veterans out there, note that I'm using personally customized settings roughly equivalent to what you would have under an epic game speed. I'm also electing to play under Monarch difficulty level, though I usually play under the Emperor level. I just want to give myself a little insurance, I don't want to get wiped off the map in my official dynasty game. I can also do a few things for preference or aesthetics, rather than making sure everything is done to strict strategical optimization. Lastly, I'll be using a standard size terra map.

For my official dynasty game, I have selected to play as the Celts. This way I can get by using an English name set for a large portion of the players in the universe, and its a much more interesting choice than the British, in my opinion. I ruled out the Americans because I'm starting on the Old World - America is sure to come later.


And so, to set the stage...

[sbrylski]

Bibracte, 4000 BCE

Our nomadic wondering of "time immemorial" has led us to a quite suitable location for which to found our first and capitol city, Bibracte. We have plenty of fresh water, with both a lake on the north side of the city as well as the headwaters of a river to our west, at the foot of a mountain (barely visible off the left side of the picture.) An abundance of stone we'll be able to quarry lies on the northwest side of the lake, near the edge of a desert. We should be able to build something pretty special with that stone.

But the most exciting feature of the area is the abundance of food. We will definitely look to cultivate the corn on the nearby grasslands. The wild rice well to the south of our settlement is too far away to rely on, but we will be kept plenty busy in the bay. Once we figure out how to harvest the seas (we currently do not have advanced fishing techniques developed yet), there is a great wealth of clams in the harbor on which we may feast.

[Tyke]

I really like this idea, good luck with it!

[TribeFanInNC]

Indeed. I would have never have thought to tie the two together.

[sbrylski]

Tribal Village of Expert Miners, Well West of Bibracte

Outside our own borders, our scouts plotted the local wilderness and brought back wealth and knowledge from other small tribes they encountered. One small tribe we happened upon, well to the west of Bibracte, can be credited with teaching us with many of the nuances of successfully mining a hillside.

Our scouts also made contact with a number of populations more advanced and civilized than the small tribal villages dotting the countryside. Even farther west than in the picture above, we met Pericles, leader of the Greeks. To the north, we met the leader of the Indian civilization, Gandhi. In one of our scouts travels, he met another band of scouts claiming to represent Zara Yaqob of Ethiopia, though we do not yet know where that nation is centrally located. Lastly, a the people of a local tribal village spoke of a great city the lies east across the sea from Bibrate, known as Rome. We expect to meet personally with the Romans quite soon.

From L to R - Pericles of the Greeks, Gandhi of the Indians, and Zara Yaqob of the Ethiopians

[sbrylski]

Closer to home, as our city slowly grew, our people began to innovate. Mastering agriculture, we cultivated the nearby cornfields. Mastering basic ship building, we honed our fishing capabilities to begin extracting large quantities of clam from the bay. And the development of masonry techniques led to the quarrying of the nearby stone and the production of a paved road on which to transport the great construction material back to the city.

In 2250 BCE, we had our first major domestic development. A group of Bibracte citizens saw great promise in the land and sea straight south of the capital city. We already knew of the wild rice in the area, but the ocean side of the southern peninsula was also as tremendous a fishing environment as the bay was for clams. This new group of settlers elected to construct a new city on the peninsula to take advantage of the rice and fish, and one day foreseeably compete in the bay's clam market. They named their settlement Durnovaria, the second major city in the nation of Celtia.

Bibracte and Newly Founded Durnovaria, 2250 BCE

[sbrylski]

Less than two centuries later, we had our first cultural breakthrough - in Bibracte, we completed the construction of Stonehenge! A tremendous accomplishment, it establishes us on the world stage as one of the great civilizations of the Ancient Age. With the completion of this epic project, our cultural borders will spread quicker than ever. Other nations will look upon our incredible culture and engineering abilities with wonder.

Construction of Stonehenge


Bibracte After Completion of Stonehenge, 2075 BCE

In the above picture of Bibracte, one can see our new monument peaking out from under the treetops on the south side of the city. To the north, one can see the quarry from which the stone originated, and the road on which it was brought to the city. Pulling the incredibly heavy blocks of stone on wooden rollers up and over that hill must have been a real chore. Also note the corn farm and the fishing boats in the near harbor. Our nation is developing nicely.

[sbrylski]

Nearly 2000 years into game play, the following images are an overview of the land we've discovered so far. We can see that across the sea from Bibracte to the east lies Rome, as told to us by a small tribe of seafarers that lived along the sea's northern coast.

The Eastern Sea, 2050 BCE

In the overview image of the west, we can see the full length of the large local river, which cuts through the central highlands of our subcontinent and then winds through a large jungle down to the ocean. This jungle holds many valuable treasures, such as gems and sugars - it is land with great promise once we are able to efficiently remove the jungle for mining and farmland. Farther west we can see the small but high mountain range of where dwelled the villagers who taught us mining techniques, and beyond that lies the cultural borders of the Greeks.

The Western Subcontinent, 2050 BCE

Our exploration efforts may be halted for a while. Our two scouting parties lasted many years before wild animals managed to finally win the battle and forced them to disband. And a new threat appears to be emerging in the form of small bands of hostile warriors, looking to pillage and plunder mercilessly. I haven't had to deal with any yet, but I'll be sure to quickly strengthen my currently anemic military in anticipation of approaching conflicts.

[Johnny Canuck]

Baseball as a religion? Very neat idea!

[MorseMoose]

Fantastic! What Expansion packs are you using? I don't recognize the L and the R guys.

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by MorseMoose

Fantastic! What Expansion packs are you using? I don't recognize the L and the R guys.

I've got Warlords and Beyond the Sword.

[MorseMoose]

Originally Posted by sbrylski

I've got Warlords and Beyond the Sword.

Figured you had both. I'll be following .

[kq76]

Love it. I'm hooked. I often base my leagues off of other games, but I've never actually tied a league into the gameplay of another. You've got me wanting to do that now. Keep it going. I can't wait to see how this plays out.

[sbrylski]

In 1675 BCE, we founded our third city, Camulodunon, meaning "the Fortress of Camulos". (Camulos is our pagan god of war, analogous to the Roman god Mars.) Unlike Durnovaria, this city was built with a specific purpose. Our scouts had reported an abundance of copper in the hills west of Bibracte, and our resident redsmiths have perfected methods to create powerful axes and spears from the material. With a growing military threat in the form of wandering barbarians, we must build a army capable of withstanding an attack, and eventually fighting back.

Camulodunon and Bibrate, 1675 BCE

The city and surrounding area will take a while to start producing axe-wielding Gaelic Warriors, as we'll need to establish the city's food source (clams again, we have an insatiable appetite for clams it seems) and construct a barracks, as well as build the mine and roads in the surrounding areas to extract and transport the necessary copper. So for now, Bibracte is training a large archer force to strictly defend our three settlements. Note that our first small town has also popped up along the beginning of the river.

(As an aside to other Civilization veterans, I realize building Camulodunon one square southwest of where I actually built it would make for a much better city. However, I've dot-mapped out my region and needed to sacrifice slightly one spot in order to squeeze in another city into my plans. This move is also one of those aesthetic/preference decisions I hinted at allowing myself to make in the lead post.)

With our third city established and the foundations of our nation laid, I'm going to pick up the pace slightly with these pre-baseball posts. Important events, constructions, and general updates will definitely still be posted, but often grouped together, for at the current pace this thread might be ten pages or more before there's a wiff of baseball. Not to say that the Civilization side of this dynasty isn't an equal part of its construction, but this is a baseball forum after all.

[Sparrow]

For what it's worth I'm enjoying it and not antsy for it to move forward and get to baseball. I have an old version of this game and, as much as anything I'm enjoying seeing how far the game has come.

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

For what it's worth I'm enjoying it and not antsy for it to move forward and get to baseball. I have an old version of this game and, as much as anything I'm enjoying seeing how far the game has come.

I'll make sure to be thorough, with plenty of pictures. I love the graphics in Civ IV.

[sbrylski]

Early Barbarian Attack on Camulodunon

I was correct when I begin to brace for impending barbarian attacks. We can see above one of their early ambushes (actually two, they look pretty neat super-imposed on each other though) on the city of Camulodunon. Later, they attempted to pillage my copper mines, but both series of attacks were successfully dissolved by my archers. This steady stream of barbarian forces got me curious, so I sent a scout back west on a reconnaissance mission. Sure enough, these barbarians have an organized settlement called Vandal. The only way to end the attacks on the Camulodunon region is the destroy the source, so as soon as my military is of sufficient size there is no doubt we will pay the Vandals a visit. If the Greeks don't get to them first, that is - the Greek city visible on the north side of the central sea in the image below is none other than the fabled Sparta.

The Vandals to Our West, 1025 BCE

On the other side of the nation, in 1100 BCE we settled our fourth city on the isthmus to the northeast of Bibracte. Due to its positioning on the strategic choke point, it has been named Ratae, meaning "ramparts" in the Brythonic language. Though it likely doesn't have the land and resources to become a great military production city itself, its walls will serve as first defense to any potential raiders invading from that direction.

Ratae, 1025 BCE

Ratae is of course in the middle of the above image, on the isthmus as stated. I've zoomed back and labeled the cities surrounding the isthmus (one Indian, three Roman) to highlight its strategic location. Future attacks could come from anywhere, but they would have to come through Ratae. The Roman city of Ravenna was settled very shortly after Ratae, and Roman settlers were visible in the forests adjacent to the eventual site of our new city. It appeared that it was only a matter of days by which we beat the Romans to the plot and laid our claim.

In other domestic news, our second largest city, Durnovaria, has grown so fast that its infrastructure has been unable to keep up, and is currently one of the most unhealthy cities in the known world. Population growth in the region has stunted, and some action will have to be taken for the healthy diet of rice and seafood doesn't keep the city healthy alone. The city recently completed production of Celtia's second library and has visions of becoming a international center of knowledge. It will be hard to attract the world's brightest minds to a noxious city rife with disease.

Durnovaria's Health Problems, 725 BCE

[Tyke]

This is great, sbrylski, I'm really enjoying it. Is there any chance of you making your "self-made Civilization mod" available so that others may follow where you lead?

[sbrylski]

Originally Posted by Tyke

This is great, sbrylski, I'm really enjoying it. Is there any chance of you making your "self-made Civilization mod" available so that others may follow where you lead?

You don't even know what it all pertains yet!

To be honest, its still a bit of a work-in-progress. That partly why I started this thread, because if I didn't have something I felt tied to, I would be perpetually tweaking the mod and restarting my game over and over again. So as I get nearer to the baseball era, I'll be finalizing all of the mod's details, which I can do because none of them take effect until then. When I get to that point, I can definitely make it available.

Again though, its not that flashy or anything. I think I only added one minor graphic, and then created some buildings/units that are usually associated with a religion and a corporation for the additional baseball category in both, but they just use existing graphics. And lastly, some self imposed rules for the OOTP side, e.g. No leagues spanning across water before discovering advanced flight.

(The main details I'm tweaking pertain to making sure things in Civ connected to things in OOTP are actually beneficial to do in Civ, but not too powerful. So essentially game balance.)

[sbrylski]

And thanks everyone for expressing praise so far. Definitely a motivator. Suggestions at any step of the way are welcomed as well, specific to Civ strategy or the mod or whatever. (Though I'm pretty comfortable with the road I have planned.)