So, this will be my first succession game for civ4

Roster (closed):
Mr. Blonde
Belisar
batteryacid

Difficulty level: Belisar heavily argued for Monarch, but as we still need some practise (and we don´t want to look too bad) we finally decided for Prince

Map size: standard, continents, else random
Game rules: everything standard, normal speed

Civ and leader:
up to discussion

My 2 cents on this issue: organised and expansive trait are out for me, they seem underpowered in comparison

Aggressive: nothing special, good units can be handy for aggressive play. Would be more important on Pangea, imo
Industrious: Wonder grabbing, could be interesting style to play
Creative: early culture, not too bad
Financial: very strong
Spiritual: Cheap temples, very good early on; civic switching could be very interesting later on
Philosphical: Leaders are very imprtant I noticed in my first games yeah for me

starting techs: Mysticism for an early religion? Farming or Mining would be nice to give our first worker something to do

I will post my 5 favourites, other members please post their preferences, I will then make a last post with my decision and wait for an OK and then start playing, preferrably today evening (CET)

Possible civs
Arabia: Ph Sp Mystcism Wheel
Atztecs: Ag Sp Mysticism Hunting
China with Qin Shi Huangdi: In Fi Agriculture Mining
English with Elisabeth Ph Fi Fishing Mining
Germans with Friedrich Ph Cre Hunting Mining
Greek Ag Ph Hunting Fishing
Inca Ag Fi Agriculture Mysitcism
India with Ghandi Sp In Mysitcism Mining
Mali Sp Fi Wheel Mining
Mongols with Kublai Khan Ag Cre Hunting Wheel
Russia with Katherine Cre Fi Hunting Mining

My 5 favourites out of these are
Arabia
China
Inca
India
Mali

Procedure: we play when we have time; when finishing your turn please post the next occasion you have time for playing.

I agree with you on the traits- the best starting techs and traits will alway be revealed by the starting position, so we have to stick which works semi-optimal in all starting positions and goes fine with our playing style

So- with all options open I would say: creative is not a must, other traits are ok.

we want roads or agriculture or mining; fishin is too much starting position depending; mysticism is a must if we want to found a religion; some players statet that it´s not a must to grab an early one; I think we will want one for spying and happyness reasons, so I vote for mysticism.

lets have a look on the possible leaders:

hmmm... so much trait combos
hmmmmmmm.....


1) ghandi looks good- spiritual and industrial - Happyness and Production and civic switching and cheap wonders - as techs we have mysticism and mining, two musts for the start I think

2) Inca: financial and aggressive- tech lead in early game - depends on starting near floodplains ( with cottage very strong I read) or a lake (2 food; 3 gold with lighthouse), aggr. for promoted units - should be relative unproblematic to play; and we don´t have to think that much concerning civic switching; myst. and agri not too bad

3) china: industrial and financial: interesting, but I think these two traits will make our first improvement discussions complicated (mine or cottage? ) they have agri and mining as techs (not too bad, but not the best for grabbing a religion)

4)Mali plus: spiritual and financial; plus wheel and mining; minus: some Sgs already with mali on the way; would be nice to try someone else


5) Arabia- Phil and Spir.: minus: no production or money or military bonus, plus: more great people- perehaps I am a bit biased against phil and great people, because I cannot estimate their importance, but it would be nice to play such a cultural monster ; mystic. and the wheel are Ok.

So, these were my 5 cents; now we are waiting for Belisar and his comments , man am I eager to play - perehaps we can finish before sirian and sulla when we play 24/7 for the next week :lol:

So for now I´m finished - will resume studiing the new tech tree -man, this seems to be more complicated than the script for my last duty-exam at the university- The Technology of Inorganic Materials :crazyeye:

Got a PM form Belisar, he doesn´t want industrial and he wants spiritual in. He doesn´t have objections to organised, Asoka would also be OK for him.

That leaves us with Arabia, the Inca and the Mali. Inca or Mali for me as my first civ4 game was with the Arabs already. As some succession games are on their way with the Mali I suggest playing Inca.

I will start today evening and play the first 5-10 turns. We should see the land next to our capital, maybe even a site for a 2nd city. Tech and expansion strategy will be discussed at this point.

Any objections for playing Inca?

As I was eager to play and noone posted objections so far (I didn´t give you too much time, though ;) ) I played the first 5 turns.
Settings: Inca (Aggressive, Financial), Prince, Standard size, Continents, Climate and sea levels random, Ancient start, Standard gamespeed
Variant: As proposed by Belisar we go for a 10CC. Not too challenging, but should force us to choose the cities carefully we found/ keep. Btw: can you abandon cities?

Start:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2_start.jpg

Imo not too shabby, build city on spot and start Polytheism immediately. City builds second UU. Notice how the woods balance the health minus form the flood plains.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2_3880BC.jpg

3880BC: hut gives us mining :D

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2_3800BC.jpg

3800BC: 2nd hut gives us 42 gold
Situation after 5 turns:
We got corn, marble and gold in our 1st city, 2nd city should with current knowledge be built on green spot. Sea tiles -> lots of commerce for us, additionally horses and cows in radius.

The 2nd unit should also explore (made arrows), maybe a better site for the second city pops up either on the eastcoast or more towards N. Build either a 3rd unit or, if the capital is already on 3 a worker (starts irrigating the flood plains). Our capital will have plain of food surplus and should be able to sustain lots of cottages and some specialists..

Tech: grab polytheism, then go for masonry. We have to decide if we also go for monotheism directly or research pottery and animal husbandry first. A second religion and the gold should eliminate early problems with happiness.

Strategy is now up for discussion:
Next player: Belisar, please state if you want to be skipped
My next turn: Thu or Fri

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2-_BC-3800.Civ4SavedGame)

Checking in...

Our civ is fine with me.
This looks like a good start. Lots of commerce with the gold in the north, will make a dotmap after some exploration.
Floodplains = lot of food, but I want to avoid a "full" floodplain city because of health.
Opening strategy: Early worker for powerfull improvements, then getting a core running quickly, no fishing villages (at least a good amount of land tiles)

Will play tonight :mischief:

First look at the known land: A decent start, Monarch-diff would
have been doable, but the 10CC will keep the difficult level later on, good.

The one thing our capital lacks is production. For now, getting masonry and
those marble will help but later we will need some workshops or watermills.
I will build a second UU-warrior (a good thing they don't trigger a GA any more)
and then a worker.



3600BC Quechua finished, start worker. The other explored on the coast north,
we find cows and rice.

3520BC We get Poly and Hinduism as our state religion, nobody has Buddhism yet.

3400BC Someone founded Buddhism, took them 15 turns, maybe no other civ
with Myst in the game. We find some nice furs, clam and sugar in the west,
but no AI yet.
We get some gold from a hut and kill wild animals while scouting.

3200BC We learn Masonry and I take a shot for Monotheism, if the AI needed 15 turns
to Meditation, we will get our 2nd religion. AnimalHus for the cows of the
second city can wait because it will take some time for the settler.
We also got a second tech from a hut, fishing. Our southern Quechua defends well
against a panther, second promotion now possible.

3120BC Our first worker starts building a farm on the corn.

2920BC we kill 2 more wild animals, the good thing is 50% defense in jungle and woods,
75% on jungle/wood-hills.

2880BC the next animal, and after the farm on the corn the gold is next, then the
marble and the floodplains.

2800BC I hand the save over after 25 turns, next player could play 15-20, then
we should reduce to 10-15, but I recommend handing the save over when it seems
"naturally", not with ten things left "todo" for the next player.

NO AI found yet. We could very well be left on an island. Now the question is:
Do we want to play such a game (with no trading partners until ships) or do we start
over? (after all we chose continents) On the other side, we have a good start
and it is only Prince, so we should be able to keep up on our own.
Any suggestions? I could live with both, haven't done a builder game for some time.


Dotmap: I would settle this 3 first, a lot of jungle in the south,
we need some workers to clear it. The gold with the commerce boost ist always
a priority. Cows/floodplains will help a lot.
The sugar in the south is not worth much until Calendr.

MicroM: don't forget to shift to the gold hill when the mine is finished, this way
we still get 3 production for the settler AND a lot of cash from the 3rd tile.

Good luck batter,
Belisar

Thanks for playing, Belisar

No AI so far hmmm...

My 2 cents:
Dotmap: Looks very fine although I noticed 1 tile overlap :nono: ( :joke: )

Gold and marble online after irrigating 2-3 tiles (corn first of course). If your gut feeling tells you we might be alone and you are right I would suggest to make the 2nd city on a productive site at the sea (left or right spot). I want ships out rather soon, maybe we have an early seabridge.

Tech: wheel of course, animal husbandry should be finished when 2nd city is built and 2nd worker is online. Throw in priesthood for temples. There may be sugar hidden in the jungle as 2nd lux, maybe there is a cityspot hidden in between all this bright green ?
Wonders: The Parthenon in our capital (start when it is ~size 4-5 and our worker is done) is a must, imo. 2nd city should, if possible go for the colossus (comes with metal casting) 4 coins from seatiles :eek: -good for research. I think we have some woods near the right spot to make things faster.

So go wheel -> priesthood -> animal husbandry -> copper -> iron -> ->metal casting
Throw in pottery maybe before animal husbandry, cottages near rivers bring in 3 coins from the start. then: if we don´t have contact yet go directly for Optics (Caravells)

Important: If we are alone leave some units as sentinels in unsetteled regions, otherwise the barbarian horde will appear!

My notes are of course open for discusssion

Good luck, batteryacid ->15 turns

Question to the audience: can you abandon cities in civ4 ??

Asking about the floodplains: I read that corttages at floodplains are nice for commercial civs, because you get 3,3 tiles which is huge at the beginning, so we should save perehaps 2 or 3 floodplains for the blue city for cottages, since we will get a lux/happyness problem (since we started on a smaler continent we will be short on lux goods) when we irrigate too much floodplains

What to settle next? Blue or green?

Another Question: I would say we should get bronze working asap for chopping help for the second settler?

Do we need Priesthood that early? wouldnd´t be bronze for chopping help better ? I would change priesthood with bronze (since trading with other civs seems to be out of question at the moment)

I would vote for blue, then green then red.

All 3 sites are a must, I would probably go for the gold/floodplain city first,
but not critical.
Forest chop ist OK, but not too much because we need the health from the woods.
Yes, there is sugar in the south (plenty for trading)
and we have clam and fish on the west coast for health.

In the southeast, were MrB wanted the second city, there is still room for one
later (on the small river).
The western coast city could build the colossus.

I would recommend bronze-working (chop), animalHus, wheel+pottery (for cottages and granaries) and then priest.

The 1-tile overlap: I had a feeling that this would be Ok, because the cow and the gold are that important. We also have some mountains, but one can only work with the map one gets ;)

So, played my turns til 2000 BC which sounded the right number to end my turns

Sum Up:

Mil: scouted our nice little continent- NO AI - so much for the aggressive trait:lol: - beware of the bears in the north, scout the south for barbarians
Found a small island in the northwest
FURS AND ONE WHEAT IN THE NORTH - ONE MORE DOT ON THE DOTMAP!!

Tech: monotheism- WE FOUND JUDAISM (hmmm should we try to compete with sulla and his six religions... ? ;)
get bronze, the wheel, FIND IRON WORKING IN A HUT- WE HAVE IRON IN OUR CITY RADIUS!
animal husbandry is next

Cities: found our second city; switched it to worker after small discussion with MrB. - the other worker is needed for the Iron and ozur roads, this one should be finished in few turns.
Marbel is hooked up

So : big question:

Settler : 8 turns, faster with chop (if we want one)
or should we try to get the Parthenon (as we are alone for the next time so we should try to grab some wonders) 25 turns! even faster when the city is growing and the iron is worked; settler should also be faster with bigger city and 1 or two irrigated floodplains (perehaps in 6 turns instead of 8)

I vote for: Parthenon (with chop): ~ 17 turns if not less
Settler , Settler : Sum : 12 turns
then if necessary worker til other cities are founded and Happyness and Healthyness are ok; then temple, forge

our other city: worker on the way; then perehaps barraks? granary? which is better? with no ai (perehps nasty Barbarians, but they ahould not be trouble with our well trained Army - perehaps we even let them build one or two cities in the jungle which we can grab later) there is no reason yet to go for military.

So, let us discuss our next goal .
Mr.B is up!

Pics:http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/inca2000.jpg;http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/inca2000b.jpg
Savegame (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_BC-2000.Civ4SavedGame)

I would go for another settler to have 3 strong cities running as soon as possible. Parthenon is fine, (with marble hooked up!), but don't sacrifice expansion and growth.

I don´t know if its that bad-
We loose 17 turns - with chop even less
we gain 4 turns for the next settlers because of more worked terrain (and our main city has a lot of surplus tiles) and we gain commerce from the more worked tiles - and we have then a good wonder (we will have to stick to great people as we are now stuck on this island, on the other hand it is a culture wonder- but can we deny a world wonder when we are able to grab it?

Let´s see what Mr.B has to say

My thoughts:

The parthenon will grant us great people points, culture and increase the chance to get great people. The question is: how do we use them. In my experience without priests or engineers we get artists first, their culture increase is not that helpful in this situation, burning them for science or saving for a golden age neither. Engineers or prophets are more juicy, so we should ensure that we can build temples or a forgery the moment we have the parthenon.

The colossus is, imo more vital in our situation - we need every commerce we can get as this will probably end up in space race (with some pillaging/ eco crippling action from our side if things get close).

Settler first with chop, mining iron, starting the parthenon. 2nd city needs imo a cultural building after the worker to get more productive tiles online.

3rd city: east or west?

East: horses after 1st exp, cows and rice in 1st ring, some hills and woods.

West: Floodplains (after expansion) + 1 cow + more wood to chop

West will probably grow faster, East will have more production early on.

The worker from our cap should move to the coast city and start improving there, imo. We don´t want to loose time for the Colossus by building workers because we don´t have copper!

Opinions? And again: can we abandon cities (in case we want strongholds on other continents)?

Go with west first, closer to capital, could be 1-2 coins less
maintainance and the 4th gold-tile is important.
I don't know if there is an option to abandon cities, according to the rulebook there is NO option to rename, so there is probably none for ab. too.

played this evening here is the summary:

Start, as discussed a settler in our capital, support with a chop after mining the iron. Turn 6: settler finishes -> Parthenon, move to westcoast and build city. Worker finushes in 2nd city turn 7, start improving tiles.

Research: Turn1: Animal husbandry -> writing as I think libraries are essential in our position, start library in 2nd city after worker.
Start library in 3rd city after founding, support with 1 chop, still needs time to finish.

Writing comes turn 5 -> metal casting for workshop/ colossus

Little happens until turn 23: Metal casting->sailing (or Theology for a 3rd religion...?) and....the Parthenon is ours

Situation: Capital is for the next person to decide: worker, settler, library and workshop are for discussion. capital is size 7 and on its happiness limit. -> specialist could be handy....
2nd and 3rd city build their Library, because many juicy tiles are outside their 1st border. After that: coast city needs workshop and tile improvements for the colossus!
Maybe 2nd city could build another worker, and capital starts settler (maybe after library)?

Up: belisar
batteryacid and me have time on sunday, next occasion tuesday for me).

Here is the SAVE (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_BC-1080.Civ4SavedGame)

Strategy is up for discussion!

A good move starting our research-kulture infrastructure.
The other priority will be optics and contact with the rest of the world.
Will try playing tonight.

Nope, you can't abandon cities anymore.

Lurker: You could actually abandon a city though - just pull everybody out, wait for somebody to claim it (with probably few troops if it's empty) then re-take it and raze. A hassle, I know but . . .

MinionJoe and Panth thank you for the information! Giving the AI one city...over my cold, dead corpse!

Hmmm....
That makes city challenges more interesting (and that you can´t build colonies any more)

@belisar:
Overthought the situation. I think the main city should go worker -> library -> settler (and see that you can get the scientist specialist so we don´t get a great artist)
We need to hook up that iron (didn´t build road to save time for coastal city)so we have something to fight the barbarians that will start to pop out. That way we can avoid hunting and archery.
Coast: finish library -> forgery -> lighthouse -> colossus
2nd city: flexible
Any thoughts if a 3rd or 4th religion are of profit for us? It would mean more temples and monasteries for us, but the AIs should have some different religions to keep them divided...

Good luck with your turns (I know a player of your calibre doesn´t need it, just wanted to be polite) !

My turns: I played until 600 BC with the founding of our next city

Research: Priesthood, Sailing, Alphabet, Code of Laws

Barbs: A Lot of barbs around :eek: - found a barb city in the north (1 tile away from our Dotmap, would get Furs and cow, but would not have freshwater; my proposed city tile would be 1 tile southwest of the barb city. We have no casualites so far, but every 3 turns 2 barb warriors appear in the north, and two more in the south; Watch our iron and marbel! the Quechua in the jungle is meant to bind the barbarian forces there; shouldn´t have trouble with all of his promotions.

We now have Libraries in our cites; Lighthouse is one turn away, then switch to colossus immediately; chops are a nada because of health; one chop might be possible IF (thats one point I don´t know ) 0,8 health from woods count as 1; then it is no difference between health-wood effect from 3 and 2 tiles in the west coast city.

Units: I built one worker, one settler and one swordsman (was necessary to be on the safe side with that much barbs; I promoted him to City raider as he is thought to go north to pillage those nasty barb city

Cities: all our cities are at max pop; they need granaries and temples for more growing; but we have to develope more tiles and close our road network first; the two power cities produce now a forge which gets ous one more happy face from our precious gold.


Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_BC-0600.Civ4SavedGame)

screen (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/600_bc.jpg)

forgot to mention:
SWITCH TO THEOCRACY FOR 25% FASTER BUILDING RATE !!

The bad news: On my laptop, the food-only bug remains, "merde"
on my high-end workstation, the program sometimes crashes, this is a huge problem.

Preturn Check:

Tiwanaku is alread unhappy, no way we are going to wait 20 turns for a forge,
changed to temple, as Sirian says: happines first!

575BC: Machu Picchu finishes lighthouse, starts forge.

550BC: We get CodeofLaw and our 3rd religion, in Machu Picchu.
We adopt Caste System and Organized Religion in the same turn.
Max science in Cuzco.
Research Mathematics, we need the aqueducts for health.

400BC: Our first Great Person is born in Cuzco, the great scientist
M.Ptha, he forms the famous academy of Cuzco :D
Forge built in the capital, changed to granary cause of the health-problem.

300BC: Cuzco finishes granary, starts axeman/settler pair
We want axemen, they have 50% melee bonus which should be handy against the barbs.
Tiwanaku finishes temple, starts granary.

250BC: We get Maths, start Theology.
Machu builds forge, I ignore the health for now and max production for
colossus, hopefully 18 turns is quick enough.

150BC: Cuzco settler, set to a quick worker, then more infrastructure
(temple, granary)

125BC: someone got Taoism, the AI keeps up in science.

In 100BC, after 20 turns, I save for MrBlond.
We are 1 turn away from our 4th religion (Christ.)
The settler is already on the correct tile, yes, 2 tiles overlap with
the capital but the commerce, the river, the distance and 2! health-res. will
compensate this. 2 workers will be up shortly, I would say go on with infrastructure and make that health-ressources (fish, clam, rice) a priority.
If our state religion (Hindu) doesn't spread quickly, we will have to push it
by missionairs.

Onwards to the middle ages... :D

Belisar

Thanks for playing, belisar. Will play tomorrow.

One question: does the barbarian city in the N still exist? -> Another city next to this spot would include wheat and furs as resources! Sugar and Spices exist in the jungle, they should be within cultural borders soon, I think a city there is waste.

Have you explored S, there may be a second barbarian city.

Research: going directly for optics?

The barb city still exists, will have to look if it is on a good place.
Research: I had to throw in Maths and Theology, Currency would be nice too,
but as stated, optics is a priority for us.
You are right, we want only productive cities at the moment, we will build in the south when we have enough workers to clear that jungle.
North (fur, wheat) is the next spot.

Belisar: I somehow miss you mention a Colossus build- wasn´t this our priority in the west coast city? Is it better to finish forge first ? 4 commerce from water tiles would be nice- imagine the money output from our fish - crab city- can grow relatively big with the two water resources and can grab ~8 water tiles

EDIT: Sorry, must have missed the colossus build when skipping through your log- btw, forges bring us + 1 happy face with gold, when I´m correct; we also should consider our next city to grab either furs or the sugar - and we should also check for barb city in the south

Is it better to finish forge first ?
we also should consider our next city to grab either furs or the sugar - and we should also check for barb city in the south

A Forge is necessary to build the colossus, the lib was necessary for
the cultural expansion, but the lighthouse wasn't a priority, it should
have been built after the wonder, hopefully no AI has copper online yet.

For the next city: As MrB stated, the sugar will be in our fish-clam city,
so I vote for the northern site after razing the barb-city,
1 tile east from the wheat, with the last flood-plain and the furs in the second ring.

Forge AND Lighthouse are needed for the Colossus ;)

However, next city after the fish/ clam city should be built in the NW to get the furs. Perhaps we can get the sugar and spices only with cultural border expansions.
Concerning the slowly growing city: plan was to let the foodstorage fill closely to growing and then stop it until the happiness problem is solved, so we don´t loose turns for growing.

Forge AND Lighthouse are needed for the Colossus ;)

Unless this is a new bug, a lighthouse is not required for the colossus.
I know this because in my first monarch game, I had copper online early and
my second city was on the coast, so I decided to try out the colossus.

Played right now

to the colossus issue: will check in my next game

However, here comes my log:

We found christianity. 4 religions now, the Islam would still be free :) Research currency, then go for machinery
Set new city on Library as well.
Cuzo finishes worker starts temple, east coast city finishes worker and starts library
Turn 6: game crahes:rolleyes: , load and redo my previous turns
build missionary in cuzo after temple, convert 2nd city to Hinduism, set to build 2 axemen to cleanse the northern barb city and found our own city there 1 tile SW on the hill, set worker to build way up there. This city will give us wheat and furs!
.
.
.
Turn 15: colossus is in :goodjob:

To discuss: capital finishes 2nd axe and is on hapiness limit: settler, then temple and more missionaries (or Axes) are my suggestion
2nd city: when forge is done temple and let it grow (or settler here first).
Sisitine and Citizen Icha are no priority, imo.

research: when machinery finishes we have guilds (grocers), optics (for making contact) or calendar (sugar plantation for happy face) as choice
We might need hunting for the furs in between, monarchy->feudalism for civics? up to the next player
Imo, we have 1-2 workers too much!

Btw, we are 1st in population and production :D

Belisar is up (you switched with batteryacid last time as I recall)

our continent (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB_continent.JPG)
statistics (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB_statistics.JPG)
The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-0200.Civ4SavedGame)

Seems like a good set of turns, the game is evolving very well, should have notched up the diff.level, :mischief: Hehe...

Agreed on not wasting production on wonders like Sistine and C_Icha,
but we have marble and should take a shot on the GLib, boosting great people.

Otherwise, with beeing financial AND the colossus, we have practically full developed TOWNs on every ocean-tile, nice :D

Btw, you can NEVER have too much workers, we will start clearing the jungle south of the capital,
2 very productive cities are possible there.

We must not forget our self-imosed city limit of 10.

5 cities built, 1 planned near the furs, 1 very sweet spot south of the jungle (near the lake). 2 in the jungle 1 maybe on the East coast, makes already 10.

What I want: I want to see at least 1 naval invasion with pillaging/ razing. We should anyhow be prepared to do this if space race gets close or a computer is aiming at culture or domination (veeeery unlikely, though).

Timing: to decide, but we should have at least frigates.

My suggestion is building only 9 on our landmass and capturing a real good site at another landmass (maybe for ressources), securing it by a great-artist-cultur-bomb

Hmm, we will stop after 9 cities and decide after we know our opponents. To pull this off we should have 1 great artist, so our second city should start producind GPP by setting artist(s). GL brings 2 free scientists - build in capital.

To decide: do we use our next GS to settle down (even more GPP) or for another scientist workshop?

Edit: do we go pacifistic if possible and pull even more GP?

4 Religions already and possible 5:eek: - we really compete with Sulla and Sirian :lol:

With our current setup we could also call our SG "The greedy gold grabbers"

Cultural bomb seems a good idea- For the next cities:
I would say we build fur city (cow, wheat and 2 furs possible), sugar city (2 sugars one rice in the southeast, coastal and loss of one sugar better placement imho) and the city in the south grabbing cow iron and fish- makes one more on our continent- either a second fur city in the northeast or a second coastal rice-sugar city in the southwest

made a small dotmap (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/dotmap2.JPG) based on the screenie, we have to check for fish ressources with our first ship !

This should get us nice cities, with a LOT of commerce as most cites will have nice 2-4 sea tiles - so we can switch nicely between commerce and production when necessary


That makes one more to go for the other continent.

playing tonight...

Preturn Check: Everything looks good, start playing.

(1)
225AD: Cuzco finishes axe, set to temple, Tiwanaku forge, set to aqueduct,
I increase food for growth.
Send units north to clear the barb city

(2)
250AD: Ollantay on the east coast builds lib, starts more infrastructure
(granary, temple and lighthouse are needed first, state religion to speed this
would be nice)

(3)
275AD: We get machinery, research optics.
Homer is born in Cuzco, I let him discover Literature instantly, 2 nice buildings,
GLib( 2 free scientists) and National Epic (+100% great people birth rate) are now
possible. The heroic (military) epic is also possible as we already have a level-4 unit,
we will have to decide where we want our (primary) militaistic city.

(5)
325AD: Cuzco finishes 2nd temple, I set it to the GLib, thanks to marble only
in 10 turns.

(6)
350AD: We clear the barb city in the north, both of our units promote to level 2
(the important 5th experience point). The good thing, we get 50 gold and a
free worker - MUST HAVE MORE WORKERS.... :D

(8)
400AD: Machu and Ollantay start a temple.

(10)
450AD: We get Optics and I start on calendar for sugar-plantations

(12)
500AD: A barbarian axeman is spotted in the south, we need more military soon.
I start improving the soon-to-be furs town in the north, roads and
the pasture on the cow are already possible.
I also start clearing the jungle in the south because this is a long-term project.
In CivIII, you just planted a city and cleared the jungle afterwards.
Now with maintainance for additional cities and the health problem you have to
start clearing this mess before settling, at least part of it.

(13)
520AD; Barb axeman dies attacking our level 2 (combat1,shock) axeman in woods,
I like this promotion system, was the same unit but had practically no chance.
The fish/clam city starts workboat.

(14)
540AD: We get Calendar and Machu finishes temple, starts a Caravel for
searching the other civs.
If there are no objections I would say we go Monarchy -> Feudalism -> Guilds
(throw in 1-turn hunting when the furs-town gets the expansion)

(15, last turn)
560AD: The furs city in the north is settled, the cow already improved,
wheat is next (wasn`t in our cultur-radius)
A lib is ordered for the important boarder expansion.
Ollantay on the east coast finishes temple, starts lighthouse, after this
one is finished it can begin working coast-tiles as well.


The Future: The GLib finishes in Cuzco next turn, it needs another temple, an aqueduct
and then I would vote for missionars next, spreading state religion for faster buildings.
A second Caravel in Ollantay after the lighthouse to speed up contacts would be nice.
Don't forget the National Epic, maybe in Tiwanaku, (double speed with marble again).
If we get to guilds, grocers are important.
The worker south should continue jungle-clearing in the sugar-rice area, at least 2 more
are necessary.
The 3 cities in the south: Two inland-cities SW and SE of Cuzco, both with access
to 1 rice and plenty of hills, we want two productive powerhouses.
The 9th and last one on this continent as proposed by MrB on the lake south, iron and cow.


Ressources: Next turn, the fish city gets the expansion, so fish and clam are next.
The sugar plantation is already under construction, but because of the jungle it
takes additional turns. Wheat and furs in the north, Batter's turns will be the
"ressource-mongering" time, I think ;)

GS: we need academies (at least in the gold-cities and the cities at the coast)

Good luck Batter,
Belisar

That game seems to develop nicely :D

I will play today at night-

Do we want really two inland cities in the jungle? Belisar: Isn´t it better to get a lot of commerce and start cashrushing? What are the statistics for it ? I mean we get 2 4 from sea tiles; isn´t that enough to be equal to a plain/hill mixture ? I vote for one inland city one tile southeast from the western rice and for a second coastal city which grabs cow and rice or sugar and rice at the east coast- we need to check for fish in the eastern sea first.

I will check today the landscape of the jungle for better placement discussion

resource mongering barely a compensation for lacking war mongering :cry:

Question: do we get shields from clearing the jungle ?

No shields form chopping jungle, only from forests.

We need those inland cities (mined hills) for middle/late-game production.
(Depending on our victory-goal, space or military)
A city on the coast is great for commerce, but will always have production problems. We need specialised cities and with the two inland in the south we will have 5 on the coast and 4 inland, that's a good mixture.
Just clear jungle at one site for the moment, then build the first, then repeat on the other site.
Meanwhile we can settle the ressource rich southern city on the lake, IF we have enough military cover and enough spare workers.

So
Here is a small log of my turns :

1-WE GET THE GREAT LIBRARY - perfect! Start national epic in Tiawanku. HEROIC EPIC NEEDS BARRACKS!! - So the barracks in Cuzco pay finally of Belisar :D , even more when considering that we need experienced axemen as I FIND ANOTHER BARB CITY ON THE PROPOSED DOT AT THE LAKE IN THE SOUTH

zzzz

4- Workboat -> workboat

5 found continent in the west- Peter greet us - he is up Meditation, Hunting, Horseback, we are up Code of Laws, Polytheism, Metal Casting. He has 7 cities but NO RELIGION-
I trade open borders with him (perehaps he will get infected with one of our religion soon- we should get some prophets for our shrines

6 scientist appears, founds academy in Tiawanku, National Epic is on the way

HEROIC AND NATIONAL EPIC FINISHED
zz

9 ) workboat

zz
zz
zz

16) we meet Alexander the great on a continent in the east
Techs: We: Poly; Feud, Civil Service, Optics
He: Meditation, Hunting, Horseback, Construction
make open borders as well

Big Question; which techs shopuld we trade? Both are 1/3 points behind us, so they don´t seem to be a danger, but we don´t know their neighbours. I vote for trading one expensive "safe" tech (lack a bit feeling for tech worthiness in CIV 4 so I´m glad for proposals from more experienced players)for construction and hunting.

Our Cities: most of them can grow now 3-4 or more as sugar, fish, wheat crab are there, should even be more with the furs. the 2 newest cities lack our state religion, the others are already missionaried and happy lambs.

Tech: Music or theater perehaps no bad idea ? Are very cheap. I found civil , feud and mon; Guilds are on the way.

Cities and Citie placement:
Barb City is going to fall soon as 3 axes and one Quechua (+100 vs. Archer!)are already in position - the barb has 3 Archers; jungle around Sugar-rice citie is on the way of being removed, so a settler is to be built asap

I found a little continent in the south with INCENSE and iron, so we should perehaps consider to place something there - we should transfer one axe there anyhow as I saw 2 free huts

our two ships should meet asap to grab magellans voyage

here is a screen (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Civ4ScreenShot00052.JPG) of the southern region

here is the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-0880.Civ4SavedGame)

On the tech-issue:
Trading for construction seems to be an option as we need it, but the other things they have (they seem to be behind, sounds good) like hunting (a 1-turn research), I would only take as a bonus during the construction-deal,
don't give them our monopols.

City-placement: maintainance is a big deal for cities far away, so unless there is a really good (and I mean GOOD!) site, I would not settle more than our 10th city on another continent.

Our own research: I think we should go directly for Liberalism/Democracy, as those will enable the real powerful civics (Can you say 8-gold-per-town, Hehe) with low upkeep as well.

played my turns, here comes the log

900: Cuzo Remple->Missionary
920: Caravel wins against Barb galley; Oll: Temple->court
940: Contact Napoleon, we run short on money, decide to trade away Polytheism: deals: Alexander: we get hunting (on time) + 20 gold
Peter: Meditation (for philo->liberalism) + 20 gold

Cuzo: Miss->Maceman (we need him fro barb city)
Research: Guilds->Paper

960: meet Togukawa, nothing to trade
980: Cuzo Mace->Grocer; Machu: Market->Grocer Cor: lighthouse->Temple

1000...
1010...

1020: Napoleon wants worldmap for nothing...nay; we get the worldjourney :D
Oll: Court->Harbour
We draw Artist in Cuzo :mad: with 3 scientists at work..., keep him for now
We meet Roosevelt: Poly gives 40 Gold for us

Research: Paper->Education
1040...
1050: take Barb city, lose 1 unit

Continent (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2_1050land.JPG)
Stats (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/MrB2_1050stats.JPG)
No.1 in people, production, food No.1 in GPD, no.4 in Area no.1 in Points (930 vs. 750 for Roosevelt and Alexander) no.2 in trade
Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1050.Civ4SavedGame)

Strategy: I didn´t build settlers yet, our cities are still growing, and we have a little deficit at 80% research. The 2nd founded city has a priest and 40% great prophet chance, will increase until GPP bar is full
Research: Education->Philo->Lib->Printing Press. Reset civics after Liberalism (to discuss if PP is free tech or something more expansive) , I didn´t change them yet as there is only 1 sensible change now.
Build one of the 2 missing settlers and concentrate the free workers to the new city. Our cities can still grow (furs should be hooked next round)
All in all we should win with space rather unchallenged if we keep focus, we could pillage Alex or Roosevelt (or both) as they are closest in tech.

Up: Belisar, Tue for batt, Maybe Fr or latest Sun for me (I think I visit the parents on the weekend, no possibility to play there).

Edit: Divine right with Islam is still free, the Spiral minaret is a wonder that brings us income. If we agressively convert the Russian (still without religion) and the Greece it would be worth it. However, if we don´t get a great prophet in our second city, should we leave converting for now and concentrate on our infrastructure? We are for the moment safe from invasion as we can only be reached with caravels but the moment the AIs have optics as well we should have some frigates and 2 garrisoned defensive units per city at least and 10-15 fast interception units stationed in 2-3 stacks. The converting vs. military safety issue should be discussed, imo.

My opinion: if we don´t get the great prophet quickly I say we go the free religion path and ignore the spiral minaret and converting other players. Then send the caravels to discover the last AIs, build 1 galley to milk the hoods on the south continent.
To discuss: liberalism for divine right (5th religion, Versailles!, Spiral minaret) or PP (+coins).

It´s not that bad with the artist- we need one for our Cultural bomb, and eventually we will burn one for a golden age (should be discussed when we want it)

Sorry for discussing that much for coastal cities :mischief: - I didn´t know that the colossus is useless with astronomy, I though he would give us cash all play long :lol:

Next techs are clear- we want liberalism and we will want democracy , we will want to grab the free tech

Great with magellan +1 for naval units is what we want for our expansion phase and for our warmongerin - somewhen we will warmonger I hope! :ar15:

Whats with wonders? Hagia Sophia : increases worker speed + GL points, expires with Steam power
Is the hangig garden still free? He would be handy, because he doesn´t expire according to the Civ4 section here

but WE WILL WANT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY COMES WITH DEMOCRACY AND SHOULD BE BUILT ASAP- one free specialist per city! 1500 pp, halves with copper

the spiral minaret is not that bad, but as we will have democracy soon we should sheduel the statue of liberty in our most productive city that leaves Cuzo for the spiral minaret - but that would be the city for building our next settler (unless we put olla´or coribua´ Macchu´on the settler , but they should be able to grow)

my vote :

Spiral minaret in Cuzo (should be finished soon ) and when the first of the other cities hits the happyness ceiling we should begin the settler there. Tiawanku should be saved for the statue of liberty

The Hanging Gardens are still free. The Spiral Minaret is useless if we go for free religion! I don´t think we need it if we have representation and free religion, PP, and banking. We can play wiht rather small military for a while considering the enemy caravels can not transport military units and galleys can´t cross the sea. You need frigates for a military invasion over sea!

5th religion and free religion with only on-continent missionaries (we need monasteries then)

BTW- we should disuss a bit about national wonder placing in the cites ,
wall street I guess should be placed in tiawanku;
and oxford university should be placed in Cuzco;

these two cities will then have reached the National wonder limit of 2 since they have built heroic and national epic. we want to built iron works in Ghuzz because of the iron in the city radius (if caught it right on the screen) ; otherwise we have to build it in Cuzco and place oxford elsewhere,which I wouldn´t like

That leaves hermitage and globe theatre should eb in the same city for artist milking) for one of our other cities - Maccu´ or Olla`I would say

BTW- we should disuss a bit about national wonder placing in the cites ,
wall street I guess should be placed in tiawanku;
and oxford university should be placed in Cuzco;

these two cities will then have reached the National wonder limit of 2 since they have built heroic and national epic. we want to built iron works in Ghuzz because of the iron in the city radius (if caught it right on the screen) ; otherwise we have to build it in Cuzco and place oxford elsewhere,which I wouldn´t like

That leaves hermitage and globe theatre should eb in the same city for artist milking) for one of our other cities - Maccu´ or Olla`I would say

Agreed with WallStreet in Tiwanaku, Oxford in Cuzco, but
HeroicEpic should have been built in a high-productive city, together with WestPoint :rolleyes:

Agreed with WallStreet in Tiwanaku, Oxford in Cuzco, but
HeroicEpic should have been built in a high-productive city, together with WestPoint :rolleyes:

We play this SG to learn and I doubt this one decision will cripple us decicively. Calm down and do your best to make up for batts mistake. ;)

However: what is your stance on

Spreading state religion + Spiral minaret vs. Free religion + build up military

Honestly, I don´t think money will be a problem for us in this game and I prefer units that actually can fight :D

Preturn Check: Something about micromanagement: (You know, I'm always watching ;) )
The following is for improving our play.
The gold city Tiwanaku needs every food it can get and someone built all those mines
on plain-hills (we will have to change those to windmills later).
On the other side, the fish/clam city has a huge food surplus, needs production and
I see farms instead of watermills and workshops!
We need to manage improvements more adequately.
Additional, as stated, we need more workers, will try to fit this.

(1) Machu Picchu and Ontallay finish infrastructure, start workers
explore with our ships and move some defenders back to the core.

(2) The furs city finished lighthouse, start a granary after which it can grow.

(3) I start directing 2 more workers to the soon-to-be city south of Cuzco, clearing
jungle. Alex shows up with a Caravel, it's annoying, he is the only one with
Philosophy and he won't trade with us becaues of religious reasons.

(4) Cause we have to wait for emancipation a considerable period I adopt serfdom
for our workers, should clear the jungle more quickly.

(5) Ontallay and Machu build worker, start a rax for military and settler.

(6) I find a Greek city on the American mainland, maybe the advanced Greeks (science)
are our main problem, not the far behind Americans and Russians.

(7) Game crashed, luckily, I saved last turn
We get Education, start the first univeristy in Ontallya.

(8) Start university in Cuzco, spot 2 barbarian axemen

(9) Kill both axes, start unis in 2 more cities after infrastructure was completed
send settler south.

(10) Start more universities, settler in place.

(11) found Vilcas on the sugar, my feeling tells me that this should be the right
place, no overlap and a lot of production, fresh water within range north.


The future: Liberalism in 7 turns, then we want free speech and free religion.
Maybe we should just drop a cultural bomb in the new city Vilcas, we should get
another Great Artist for our invasion.
The southern city should build the lib very fast, then set it to growth (wheat, cow, fish!)
Don't forget an aqueduct in Cuzco for health next.
Our worker problem is now under control and we need just one more settler, then we are set!
A bit more military wouldn't hurt, rax in Ontallya and in Cuzco in place.
When we are done with 6 unis, -> Oxford!

Good luck batter
Belisar


PS: according to f9 the final AI is Mali, must be on a SE-island, financial, they built NotreD, could be on the same science-level as Greeks

Thanks for your turns, Belisar. Two notes: Mali are Sp/Fi, a tough competitor for Space race indeed. So we already have two targets for our "peacekeeping operations" :satan:

Question: If we conquer a 10th city, drop a CB (or more :mischief: ) and cities start to flip cough uninntentionally cough would we consider this within our moral code.


Imortant note: The patch is coming out!

We will have to check if the save still works with an updated civIV version. Batt should try on his laptop first.
If the save works some important gameplay changes will concern us: Space Race will require more hammers and modern Techs more beakers. To decide, but imo this will make the game easier for us as we have more time to react to another civ building SR as well.

if the patch works with the save, i would like to patch as soon as possible, had some frustrating crashes on desktop and the food bug on laptop.

concerning the game, i think we wait until we have contact with all civs, the we decide about our main target.
if cities flip to us, and we can´t aband. them, this is not our fault, so i say we just go on normally.

I came home rather late today , so I played only 7 turns- we need a tech discussion anyway

Here´s what happened in my turns:

CIVS: We meet Mansa Musa- He is buddhist, has 11 cities; Techs: he is up Construction, Horseback riding and archery, as well as music theory and divine right which he doesn´t want to trade; we are up civil service, guilds, Philosophy and Paper

Buildings: Some universities and granayries are finished, but not enough to start Oxford; I switched Cuzco to a jewish monastery as this is our weakest religion and we need it for the happy faces when we switch to free religion

Tile Improvements: Mostly Cottages, as some tiles are not acessible to irrigation and we need them anyway when we have liberalism ; I didn´t set off the culture bomb yet, as it is not yet necessary; this is up to mr.b

Military: we kill some barbs, get two promotions for our axes

Tech: I get liberalism and get Printing press with it, switch our civics according to the discussion to free speech and free religion

Here is something to discuss; The tech - I put it on nationalism to get to democracy, which we will want because of universal sufferage and the statue of liberty; we can switch in banking which we don´t really need at the moment, because we run on 90% research and make only -5 which is enough to finish to democracy without being bancrupt; the cottages we use now should grow us more money with time anyway.

here´s the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1240.Civ4SavedGame)

You are perfectly right on the tech issue.
The main priority is improving our economy, -> democracy
With 80-90% science, banking can wait additional turns.
It is no big deal that the Mali has already divine right.
He isn't the tech-top-dog (we have the important things like liberalism)
but our invasion will probably target him, because the most advanced guy is our main opponent in a space-race.

BTW - is it just something I dreamt somewhen or does the AI get unhappiness when we are the first to switch to emancipation ? BEcause then it is a Must and we can outdistance the AI even more

IMPORTANT:

I installed the patch today in the morning, my next save will no more be compatible to the vanilla civ4 version.

I could load our save. Then I tried some new games and the game crashed several times in the first rounds. I changed the settings and now it seems to run stable. Don´t forget to hold SHIFT when starting if you have experienced crashes as this will clean the cache.
I will play on sunday as I wasn´t quite in the condition yesterday evening when I came home. Btw, I hope I didn´t loose the sheet from the whiskytasting where I made notes, out of the 13 samples 4-5 were very excellent. :D

My Plans: research democracy, build oxford university, build 9th city and start to build up military. Missioning in between buildings. Question: tech trading for horsebackriding or construction? What tech could we give away?

Tech: I would try a 2fer (1-1 tech with one AI, then with the same tech another from 2nd AI)

This is the "farm-plan" for Vilcas. Until Biology, we have to pair farms
with mined hills and the rice will speed the growth of the town.
When Biology comes in, we can rearange for even more production.

played 15 turns, here the log:

6th uni has to be built in the coast city where forge finishes next turn for Oxford Uni
Built courthouses, FP should be possible after the next one.
Cuzco built monasteries (science) and a couple of missionaries.
Settler is built, last city not yet built
Taj Mahal finished in 11 turns

Research: researched Nationalism and Constitution. We could revolt to Representation.
Trades: I traded for construction, horseback riding (we need it for Cavs later) and archery as bonus with Roosevelt and Petter for Code of Laws and Monotheism.
Possible trades: Alex will give us Engineering for Guilds and Civil srevice
Peter Astronomy for Nationalism, Mansa musa Banking for Civil Service and Paper. Don´t sound too good, imo, to discuss.

Dropped Culture Bomb, got another Great Scientist, built Academy in Colossus city.

Belisar is up then Batteryacid

The Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1390.Civ4SavedGame)

Sounds like good progress.
Possible tech-deals don't sound good, you are right.
Representation comes in handy, boosts 5 biggest cities, thats an option
for our soon-to-be 9cc :D
Tomorrow is critical, but cause I am now able to play on the laptop (food-bug solved) there is a chance.

PS: The whiskytasting, Hmmm, musttastealsoinfuture....

Hmmm....I thought the boost was only for the 3 largest cities (+3 happy faces - not neccessary now and +3 beakers per specialist). If it´s 5 cities go for it as this will mean as well 30 or so more research.

Discussion on what to research after Democracy?

Imo an economic civic should be the focus next, state property may come handy with our watermills and workshops...

For Belisar: build some military between, we are 7th in this field and Astronomy is already out!

Good news- I installed the patch and it works so far:D

bad news- the game is just (even at minimum settings) painfully slow on my laptop :cry:

I don´t know what I should do- the units are in slowmotion with unanimated battles (looks kind of creepy) and the zooming into the city screen is rather timeconsuming - perehaps I can negotiate for no MM during my turns? :satan:

well- I guess improving my gameplay through single player games will take its time - so Mr.B and Belisar will have to live with some "creative" and "but I had the feeling that this will work" moves from my side :lol:

Played first 5 turns last night, some MM, throw in Economy for free markets (still some time until
state property or enviroment.)
Spotted a 9-commerce river-town, makes me asking for more :D, we are in good shape.

To discuss:

Research path. We need both the military path (chemistry...) and
the replaceble-parts path for rails. Additional, Chemistry leads to Biology!

Civics. I think we should go with Representation/Free market/Emancipation and wait with
Universal Suffrage until we have enough towns for the extra shield.

Good to hear you are alive, Belisar :goodjob:

I also had problems with crashes after installing the patch. The solution imo was to reduce the screen resolution to 1024x768. I am eagerly waiting for the turnlog
Thursday batt will be able to play afaik. I am not sure about Fr evening or Sat before noon I may need some time to purchase Xmas presents this weekend. Prepare yourself for next Mon or Tue for the next round.
Replaceable parts are important, a free great merchant is in if we are first for corporation, I don´t know yet what path the AIs will take, Mansa Musa is aure a candidate to grab it.
Infrastructure wise we should have now some free space to build up some military (a must, imo)

Was a bit complex, this time, additional I had limited opport. for playing, but here is my log:
If batter plays next day, I could probably make a few turns on saturday morning, and
MrB next (Sunday?), but take all the time you need. Good turns are better then quick turns ;)

Preturn:
First, a bit MM: Cuzco works an unimproved tile, fix it (additional, send 3 workers
back into the core to improve Cuzco, and, later, Machu and Ollantay)
Machu and Tiwanaku set to more growth, the sugar near the fish/clam city isn't worked, fixed.
Uuuaaahh, someone forgot to build the 6th university for Oxford, after the current project
I max the fish-city for production, start uni, it will take 16 turns before we can start
Oxford :(


Next, the tech situation: I thought this over for some time, in the end I
traded for astronomy with Peter. Colossus is lost, but the foreign trade routes are
worth more, I checked it, science and cash-flow is now +7%, Nationalism was out already,
so we get at least an important tech for it.
Then Civil Service for Banking with the Malinese, science set to Economics in 3 turns.
Wait with revolution (representation) for Free Market and Emancipation.
The added benefit for having astronomy is beeing able to trade ressources and seeing what
the AI has (Peter for instance has no iron :D )
This will give us the option to trade lux/health with the weaker AIs to grow our cities even more.
We are still up the important Paper/PrintingPress tech-path, so we should get Democracy first
even after Economics.
I trade with Peter, we need more health ressources, pig and deer for cows and sugar.

Astronomy allows me to start observatories in the core, Ollantay starts production of knights,
Machu should also be set to military after the current project.

I settle our last city on our continent and continue jungle clearing. Our new southern
cities are maxed for growth, keep an eye on them, the default governeur is way to shield-greedy.
The workers in Cuzco clear the rest of the forest as we have enough health, we need more towns.

We were first to economics, got a free great merchant, need to send him on a mission.
Democracy is next.

The future:
Military: I started knights, 2 of our cities should build them, maybe Ollantay and Machu,
upgrade to cav.

Civics: Democracy is in 6 turns, then we could revolt to representation/free market/emancipation.
IMO, Suffrage should wait until we have enough towns to get the extra shield, but open to discussion.

Tech: We are in front the important paper/printing-press tech-path, next I would probably
go for coporation (additional trade path would bring in a lot of additional science/cash)
and then the steel-path that brings in rails.

MM: Don't forget the core, some cities need more food and now that we will get Democracy soon,
towns are a high priority.

Trading: Avoid giving the Malinese ressources, health should be ok now, if we need lux
(representation should take care of it), trade with the weak AIs.
The one thing we should get after democracy is copper for the statue-of-liberty.

Good luck batter
Belisar

good to hear from your turns. What to do with the great merchant? Is the trade route the best choice ? does anyone know the calculator for the cash it is giving?

waah unworked core tiles- I guess it happened when the city grew - could be that it happened the last turn before uploading the save- I tend myself to forget to MM Cities in the turn I know someone else is continuing to play, I know I´m lazy :mischief: - but this way you can thirsten your addiction for perfecting the MM , Belisar :D

Other questions: How is our great wonder strategy developing ? Are we building the Statue of Libert? Or are we still some techs away?

I heard that the AI tends to be more aggressive with 1.09- is our Military still composed of axemen and worriors? are we strong enough to survive a 4-6 unit sneak attack from the AI ?

I will try to play today evening - I keep you informed about my turns; when anything unusual happens I will report and play remaining turns (we are now in a ~10 turn rotation ? ) tomorrow morning

Democracy is due in 6, so the statue can be started soon enough. Try getting copper, it´s a 1500 shield toy.
Oxford in Cuzco is the main priority.

Military: i started knights in Ollantay, Machu should join after an observatory.

As promised here is the log of my turns

So far nothing unusual happened.
The most important things:

We now have DEMOCRACY (I switched to free market and Emancipation after finishing the Taj Mahal), Next was Replacable Parts (strengthened our Windmill/Watermill tiles, Begin to build lumbermills in the core) then corporation,

Oxford University is started in Cuzco, Statue of Liberty in the City North of it

I traded after ~5 turns copper with mansa which reduces the statue of Liberty costs from 54 to 29 turns - I think this is worth it, since we want to build wall street also in this city (As he begins to fall rather fast back concerning victory points I see no danger doing so; he gets one happyness resource, I forgot which one)

Great people: we get another great merchant in Cuzco, we produce one great artist in our North-Eastern Coast City

Our 3 Southern cities develope really great, they really have the potential for powerhouses

Up to decide:
-should we build the forbidden palace? It will give us i guess 6-10 gpt, we now make +9 at 90% science I don´t think it is a must

-where to build the wall street, we still need 2 banks for it; city is to decide since we have some potent candidates, one of it building now the statue of Liberty)

-Tech:We will want Biology, but for this we still need engineering (1turn) Gunpowder (2 turns) Chemistry (4turns), Biology will cost us 5 turns (will be 4 I guess with more commerce coming) so- if able trade those techs and if what will we give ?

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1560.Civ4SavedGame)

Yea, those southern cities will be really good sites, shows once more the power of a worker-horde improving the land quickly. There was a mess of jungle, now there are some fine cities :D

The tech situation: If the techs we want are very cheap (1,2 turns)
don't give away one of our monopols, we can afford to research those by
ourself. Exception: if we get multiple techs out of a deal.

To MrB: Sunday or should I fit in 5 turns before?

Belisar

I will definitely have time tomorrow, but I have nothing against the pace speeding up as the next SG variant is waiting.:D

The course is set in stone for the next turns: Go to Chemistry and send the two great merchants on their mission. We need big and far away cities for them, so Map trading with the US and France may be helpful, I think their terretories are on the opposite side of the globe. I think we need Open borders for the merchants to enter foreign terretories, so map trading, deciding for a city and open border deals will have to be negotiated. We ignore Tech Trading for now. Where to build the FP is to decide.
Banks + Wall street, some knights in between, maybe some longbows for defense. We will need 5-6 galleons for our invasion.
After chemistry: Biology first or Steel-->Rails? Imo biology -> more specialists / city growth should come first, it´s just 4-5 turns difference anyhow.

As Belisar did not post in the meantime I start playing now.

I played, here is my turnlog:

1565: Engineering ->Gunpowder
trade worldmaps with MM, Peter and Roosevelt, choose Washington for trademission
1570: nothing remarkable happens
1575: gunpowder->chemistry
1580: Oxford Uni in
1585: Chemistry -> Biology
1590: Knight in Cuzo
1595: Knight in Cuzo
1600: Trade mission gives us 1700 gold. I keep 90% science with + 20 Gold per turn for now, we need the money fro upgrading
1605: Biology is in. I MM the cities, the 6th Bank is in next turn
The next player has to decide where to build the FP and Wall street (Wall street on one of the westcoast cities, Statue of Liberty still needs 20 or so turns), FP maybe in our most southern city? Happiness will be our next immediate problem (I couldn´t prevent Cuzo from growing, I set collosseum to build), trading would make sense (Alex has for instance lots of Ivory)
We are techwise in front concerning Liberalism, Chemistry and RP, back Music, Drama and Divine right with Mansa Musa and Peter. Concerning the city locations I expect Roosevelt ahs excellent ones, I think he will keep up soon, MM and Peters land is imo mediocre.
Research: Steel, Combustion or Rifling make sense, I would guess Rails and then Military Tradition as we don´t have enough units yet for an invasion is the best choice.

Belisar is up

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1605.Civ4SavedGame)

Mali (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_Mali.JPG)
Russia (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_Russia.JPG)
US (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_US.JPG)
Greece (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_Greece.JPG)
France (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_France.JPG)
Japan (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_Japan.JPG)

Checked the forum saturday too soon, so missed the post.
I got it and hopefully I have time tomorrow.
Looks like we are ahead the important things.
Rails are my priority for now.
Great to hear that the merchant paid off.

Belisar

Hi Guys
Yesterday I was able to play halve of my turns- and something happened that needs a bit troubleshooting:
Heres the log so far:

Preturn: checking cities- everything looks fine - we are a bit short of happynesss in some cities- so I decide to spread christianity a bit and begin to build Missionaries (not that bad with 2 turns / miss. and 3-4 monks that are needed).

Summary of the turns: Tile improvement: I begin to road all mines as Railroads are only 8 turns away

Cities: most finish happyness/research/Cash I throw in cannons and grenadiers and knights as possible (we now have 2 gren, and 1 cannon ; some knights are also added;in one of the eastern coast cities I decide to build a drydock and to push naval units a bit as we need them anyhow; I would be more happy with the western coast city to push our navy ; but since it s heavily short on production this is no option; we will have to cruise around our continent to begin our invasion as the Greeks and the French are the best invasion options : We can grab Ivory and corn from the Greeks or dyes and Bananas respectively dyes and gems from the french (we can´t grab all three with one city I fear)

Tech: we are now 1 turn away from steam; RR will take another 4 turns; that means we are 5 away to build some Machine gunners and be able to relax a bit concerning bad guys

So here is the trouble: Napoleon is 2 turns away from our coast !:eek:
He has roughly 3 catapults , 2 Longbowmen and 9 cavs ready in frigates - this doesn´t look too nice if he decides to go for us; we will have to upgrade all units and perehaps accelerate research to get to the MachineGunners asap; I hope we have enough cash to make both. our navy is a bit small with 3 ships and 2 of them on the wrong side of pur continent; with steam we will have to build ironclads in the city with the drydock (the name slipped from my mind, but I switched it for a 3 turn grocer intermezzo for health reasons)

So, Belisar here`s the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Chemos_AD-1635.Civ4SavedGame) - good luck with your turns; I will take the game today if you finished yours and finish my 10 turns

@belisar:

I know you are in a kind of stress- but could you please post next time when you announce to play and have no time ? I could have played some more turns yesterday if I had known that you no time to troubleshoot the Napoleon issue

I will finish my turns on Tuesday evening if I don´t get any lifesigns from you- we must accelerate the pace and improve our communication if we want to play variants in the next SGs

AI IS CHEATING :mad: :mad: :mad:

What the Hell is this?

I played 2 more turns. First of all I see 8 Cavs 4 grenadiers and 3 catapults approaching- no war is declared from napoleon yet. I begin to trade replacable parts with other AIs to get to military tradition and to upgrade our 6 knights and what´s this ?
NOBODY HAS MILITARY TRADITION; NOT EVEN NAPOLEON!!! HOW THE HELL CAN HE HAVE CAVS ???

I give him 20 gpt and 1 lux, but he declares war one turn later

I try everything, change civics to be able to draft and to cash rush I block the coast with cavs and one Pike , but we loose

I cash rush one cannon and draft one Musket in the coastal city, I attack his SOD with all our knights - AND I CANT`S EVEN SCRATCH THEM! With 11:14 strenght I was expecting to loose, but without result?

We loose the city, the Pike and the Musket (even with upgrade against gunpowder units) are gone, he has lost NOTHING

DAMN we are only 3 turns away from railroads and machine gunners :cry:

I play two turns further, and now, what a miracle, Napoleon has Military tradition !- approximately (calculating shipping time, upgrades etc. 5 turns LATER than he could have got his cav :mad:

So : I ask:

Does it make sense to play further ? Shell I replay my turns and go for MilTrad. ? I mean, this action from Napoleon can only be a joke - a bad dream dreamt by some nasty bits of code

We may have discovered another bug, this time the "tech-bug".
Currently, I`m running some tests to check this, but I`m also in Innsbruck
at the moment so takes some time.
MrB should probably check this too, so we get two independet results.
I will only play any further (from batter`s first save) IF the rules are the
same for any player, including the AI.

Hi Belisar

I started a thread about this in the Strategy forum- there were other complaints about AI wonder cheating- it´s just nasty- I mean we would have a chance if someone would have Mil.Trad. because then Napoleon would face cavs when he tries a naval attack, which would him cost some of his units, then perehaps we would be able to delay him long enough to come to our machinge gunners and throw him out of our island- but so it´s not fair- he looses nothing, and he can take 4 cities and probably reinforce his forces to destroy us once and for all- I mean we would have played the last 10 turns differently if the danger of facing cavs would have been there

The other thing that comes to my mind: all AIs are really backward concerning InfraStruct. and Money techs- I mean Napoleon must have prepared this sneak attack VERY long since his cities are not that overpowered concerning production

So the decision remains: do we replay the last 15 turns keepind in Mind that Nap. gets "units ex macchina" help ? or do we try to throw him out (rather 50/50 chance with a huge setback for us and our really polished cities)

I can also play batt´s turns again, maybe tomorrow evening or sat afternoon. The question is: is it a bug or some script initiated to pose a "challenge" for us because we are in front and alone on an island. I was present and had a look at the last save (after 5 of batt´s turns) and the issue is the way as described. I will load before batt´s turns and have a look where and how this stack appears in the worldbuilder. If it is obviously scripted or bugged we will report it.

Something similar happened to me once with barbarians. An axemen came and wiped out a city with 2 archers (40% def. bonus). I replayed the last 2-3 turns, tried half a dozen different moves (letting both archers be attacked in a wood square, attacking the axe on a tile without def. bonus, ect.) and every time the axe could wipe out 2 archers and my city. This also smelled like a script to me.

Something similar happened to me once with barbarians. An axemen came and wiped out a city with 2 archers (40% def. bonus). I replayed the last 2-3 turns, tried half a dozen different moves (letting both archers be attacked in a wood square, attacking the axe on a tile without def. bonus, ect.) and every time the axe could wipe out 2 archers and my city. This also smelled like a script to me.

This should be the 'random seed' working as intended. It is to prevent people from reloading and trying again when confronted with bad luck.

(note: if you take different actions in previous turns, you can still influence the random seed. If i.e. you'd have attacked the axeman with both of your archers one turn earlier you may have gotten different results)

I´m not talking about replaying the same turn, the save I loaded was 2 turns before the axeman made it into combat. I´m sure the random seed is made for only 1 turn at the beginning and not for all possible fights some turns in the future. I am very aware that the random seeds for 1 turn exists and this is good so.

I replayed batt´s turns and it seems the AI was playing correctly, the not being able to trade the tech tree up issue which got us into trouble is something to be aware of next time, though (and it is not mentioned in the handbook). However, the question stands: what do we do now? Batt´s save before the invasion is still there, but we get our ass whooped.

My personal opinion: now that we know the issue we start another game with warfare included. Replaying is imo a kind of cheating, on the other hand we would have had a decent chance if we could trade for MT and upgrade our knights. Well, you always learn something new :)

Planning for "MrB2: now it´s personal"
Difficulty: Monarch or Prince
Pangea
Standard size/ random climate/levels
Epic speed
Variant: Aggressive civs on pangea, maybe aggressive AI on :D , rampaging barbarians. All victory conditions on but we have to win via conquest
Civ: Greeks (I want to try the GP milling and cultural bombs can be useful)

AIs: Mongols, Incas, Napoleon, Japan as other aggressive civs, Isabella, Cesar and Otto for their humble personality ;) .

I say we leave the oscillating war variant for now as the war weariness seems to be a tad imba (imo Theocracy should lower WW and Police state increase experience)

Opinions?

Hard to say- we have three options:
1)play with the lst savegame- we loose one city, have some nasty turns in Front of us, but according to one player which postet in my strategy.thread we will be able to throw him out with a lot of losses, with the bonus of Alexander and Teddy ganging up- we should bot have a lot of troubles with them since we will then have infantry and machine gunners
2) we play with the savegame 5 turns earlier: we loose nothing, but it smells like cheating- we will have an easy space race victory in this case I guess
3) we play MrB.s next SG and are now aware of the tech trade mechanics

I might add that it would be a pitty not to play this SG to the end after we invested so much time and Mm in it- it developed really nicely, but with not knowing that tech uptrading is not possible we had a real disadvantage the time the sneak attack came- with knowing and taking the savegame 5 turns earlier we the AI has a real disadvantage- I have no idea how to level things up between us and the AI to get the natural game flow back again

So my vote: I would be either to eat the lemon and play with mil. trad. or RR coming to late for the sneak attack, or we close this SG and play the one MrB proposed- option 2 is out of question imho

Hard to say- we have three options:

1)play with the lst savegame- we loose one city, have some nasty turns in Front of us, but according to one player which postet in my strategy.thread we will be able to throw him out with a lot of losses, with the bonus of Alexander and Teddy ganging up- we should not have a lot of troubles with them since we will then have infantry and machine gunners

2) we play with the savegame 5 turns earlier: we loose nothing, but it smells like cheating- we will have an easy space race victory in this case I guess

3) we play MrB.s next SG and are now aware of the tech trade mechanics

I might add that it would be a pitty not to play this SG to the end after we invested so much time and Mm in it- it developed really nicely, but with not knowing that tech uptrading is not possible we had a real disadvantage the time the sneak attack came- with knowing and taking the savegame 5 turns earlier the AI has a real disadvantage because we know of the sneak attack- I have no idea how to level things up between us and the AI to get the natural game flow back again :confused:

So my vote: I would be either for eating the lemon and play with mil. trad. or RR coming to late for the sneak attack, or for closing this SG and play the one MrB proposed- replaying 5 turns and preparing for the sneak is out of question imho