Game difficulty: Monarch
Player race: China. (Industrious, financial. - Mining, Agriculture)
Map: Continents
Everything else: Default
Goal: Learning how to play this game

Invited:
-Gozpel
-Offa
-dmanakho
-Wotan
-grahamiam
-Xevious
-WackenOpenAir

tag :p

OK I am in. But I freely admit I don't remotely like or understand "civ" 4 yet, but this game is irresistable.

OK I am in. But I freely admit I don't remotely like or understand "civ" 4 yet, but this game is irresistable.

I am not yet liking it either, but i will give it a chance. :)

Ok... I am in but, first let me to revolt on Civilization. I prefer to play as Catherine...
She is creative and those free 2cpt per turn per city will help us from building obelisks or chopping Stonehedge.

I also suggest to play as Wacken mentioned before.
Everybody who is willing plays 1st 50 turns with very detailed write-up and explanations. We then pickup the best start (will learn from it too) and then it will go forward as a regular SG.

Objections??????

How about we play 2 games. :)

The one i now made as normal SG and one that you make with Catherine where we all play 50 turns :)

I'm fine with that (2 games) idea

ok lets do that - 2 games idea.

as for the opening moves i suggest to move warriors 1 tile SE and if nothing good opens on the east move settler family NW and settle on fresh water plains. the grassland where settler stands now will be better used for a cottage. I'd rather waste plains tile than a grassland.

I wanted to wait a bit for everyone to come in before starting all the discussions :)

For settling, we have some things to weigh against eachother:
-Settling on a plains hill is the only real favorable tile for a city. It provides an extra production. It will allow a worker in 12 instead of 15 or a settler in 20 instead of 25.
-We start with mining, so many forests could be nice for forest cuts. (IMO, we want to leave 5 for health bonus)
-We want as many resources in the radius as possible.

If you settle on plains hill you will loose Rice. If we settler where i suggested and build a warrior first our pop will grow to 2 (with town expansion and switching to 3 food rice) we will still be able to build a worker as our second build in 12 turns and then use him to chop forests to get an early second settler.
We certainly should beeling for BW as a 1st tech to research and then get agriculture to build the rice farm for food and health. If we get stone in area Masonry will be important but only after worker will be built. I like to chop stonehedge if stone is connected. That gives free culture for new cities to expand and great prophet very early in the game.

sorry double post.


-We start with mining, so many forests could be nice for forest cuts. (IMO, we want to leave 5 for health bonus)


It really not important on our current map. we have a river +2 health and rice and cow each gives us +1 health. We won't have so many luxuries to support larger population early in the game so i say we chop forests for settlers and as i mentioned before for stonegedge if stone is connected.

well, the rice will be in our empire whether we move the settler or not. however, by moving, the rice is still in our initial border and we get another grass (2fpt).
rice grass will be +4fpt with a farm
cow plains will be +3fpt, +3spt with pasture
having both for the capitol will be good. What's that thingy just W of the warrior? sorry, not 100% used to reading the map yet :)

That is exactly what i am saying we need to move 1 tile NW and settle,
but 1st move warrior east just as a safety precaution to make sure we don't miss anything there.

I think forums were down and one Wacken's post has dissapeared.

I agree with Wacken on some points and STRONGLY DISAGREE on the Hill location.
I can't type much now, but try to elaborate later.

-Settling on a plains hill is the only real favorable tile for a city. It provides an extra production.

settling on hill gives us 2f and 2s in the city center, right? You normally get 2f and 1s so the bonus from the hill is +1s?

then, working the grass gives us 2 food.

total f+s = 6pt = settler in 17 turns or worker in 10 turns, or am I screwing something up? sorry, i haven't played enough games were this is all second nature.

settling on hill gives us 2f and 2s in the city center, right? You normally get 2f and 1s so the bonus from the hill is +1s?

then, working the grass gives us 2 food.

total f+s = 6pt = settler in 17 turns or worker in 10 turns, or am I screwing something up? sorry, i haven't played enough games were this is all second nature.

There are many tiles that produce a total of 3 production/food. Forests for example produce 2f1s.
Normally, the city produces 2f1s.
This produces a total of 6f+s, 2 of those are eaten, leaving 4 to produce a worker in 15 or a settler in 25.
Settling on a plains hill, the city produces 2f2s, for a netto result of 5 f+s making a settler in 20 or worker in 12.

-There are no tiles that produce more than 3 total f+s unimproved.
-A city will always have 2 food in its central tile.
-With possible (or probable) exception of bonus resources, there is only 1 tile that can be settled on that produces 2 shields: The plain hills.

Therefore, this is the only way to reduce the build time for the starting city. Usually i refrain from walking to the nearest plain hills because it has no fresh water. In this case, it does offer fresh water.

Deleted: double post (forum claimed to be down but accepted the post anyway)

This all sounds very clever guys, I am sure I will learn lots (not difficult given my low base).

If I understand correctly Wacken, you want us to move the settler to a plains hill as this will give us 2 hammers (FKA shields) instead of the default one. We will research straight for bronze which will let us cut down trees, which we will then use to build a settler ASAP. I am favourably disposed to this sort of plan: much better than the lame test games I have tried before in which I went straight for religions.

However, doesn't moving to the hill put a lot of the forests out of range?

I don't have a good feel for the power of the traits either: why China?

As you said in the sgotm Wacken, civ 4 seems overcomplicated, whereas most great games (chess, bridge, poker, civ 2/3) have simple rules but deep game play. I really don't like the graphics: the city screen is straight out of civ1, the units take ages to move, you can't zoom in on a town from F1 etc). I see from your screenie you have got rid of the multi-unit graphics, a pointless gimmick if ever I saw one. Anyway, I have only played about 3 hours yet altogether: maybe I will learn to love again :mischief: .

About the forests i would like to add that you can cut forests not only outside your city radius, but even outside your cultural borders. If you cut forests 1 tile outside your cultural borders, you get the full shields. If you cut them further than 1 tile from your cultural borders, the rewards from teh cut are reduced by 5 shields per tile that you are further away from the border.

Religion i have also tried. I don't know at what level the religion fanatics are playing, but i found on monarch and emperor that the AI simply researches faster than i and even if budhism is the very first tech i research, there is a extremely big chance that the AI will get it before you. Hinduism seems a little less favored by the AI, but still it is very often researched faster than i can get it.
Using a lake tile could help a little bit by increasing your research from 9 to 10. I have not tried it myself though. I think it requires fishing to use the tile and still then, it will reduce your research only a little. It will only help for those levels where the AI has a very small advantage and just barely outresearches you. I am learning this game to prepare for deity of course. (unless i decide the game really sucks and put it away within the next few weeks) On deity, a lake won't make you get the religions either.

The most important reason i would like to have a religion is the culture. It is very nice to have SOMETHING providing culture in every city. So nice that i'd almost call it a must have. Luckilly, there are many options to get this. Religion is one option, being creative is another, and stonehenge is a third.
I just explained why i dislike early religions; the risk of being beaten to it and pretty much wasting your first 10 turns of research.
The creative trait is usefull for this, but i prefer to have the industrious trait. Industrious makes it very easy to build stonehenge, This one makes sure you have that culture in early game and it can produce a great person. This great person can then be used to get theocracy i believe, providing us with a later religion.

Of course, creative is nice. And there are many more nice traits. comparing all the civs however, i really liked the chinese because everything is good about them. They have the strongest trait with financial (appearently this is the nr1 like we had industrious in civ3 and agri in c3c) It has mining providing the option to go for forest cuts (i think forest cuts are an extremely powerfull opening strategy and expect it to be patched later) It has agriculture, enabling you to work some of the more common bonus tiles and providing acces to animal husbandry, enabling you to work other very good and common bonus tiles. A perfect combination.
Industrious i think by itself is not an extremely powerfull trait, but it is at least a fair trait and it fills that culture gap by providing a cheap stonehenge.

Finally, i want to say, i also have only about 10 hours of play time now in civ4. So don't take what i say for wisdom yet :) (but try using good argumentation if you think i am wrong :p)
You probably have already noticed that i am a gamer who likes to analyse things a bit :)

The most important reason that i want to give civ4 a good chance is that they also tried to ruin civ3. When i first met the corruption in civ3 and the culture flips i also thought "do these guys at firaxis actually not like strategy games? Do they prefer sim city ?"
Yet, civ3 still ended up a good game and a true strategy game.

Updated, so if you read it do it again :)

Ok… Here are my arguments….

Let me try to crush your game plan Wacken:

1. I understand that it is really cool to buid a worker before everything else, but Monarch is a very top difficulty level this strategy will work out. Everything above chances are good the game will be lost in 1st 12 turns. But since we play monarch yes we can have worker as the very first build. Just remember this is not the way to go if you want to play emperor or diety etc... If we are not lucky we may fail even on monarch, this is very risky strategy. Some wondering barbarian can raze our capital before we have a single unit to defend.

2. We’ve settled on the hill… What do we want to research 1st? Bronze working? Sure.. it will take 15 turns (or may be 14 if you have a tile with a gold). So you have worker in 12 turns but you don’t have bronze working yet.. What do you do next 2 turns??? Mining and agriculture are the only techs you have. Are you going to irrigate grassland??? This might be a good idea if you don't have any other food surplus, grass land in Civ4 much better with cottage though. Irrigate plains? Even worser idea since it gives you just an extra food and lousy one hammer. We could irrigate rice however to get whopping 5 food, but you just placed it outside of city border by deciding settle on the hill. We don’t have Animal husbandry to build a cow pasture. Oh yes we can mine and yet depending on what opens (and I only make my decisions based on what I know) we might not have a single hill to mine… We can’t build road we don’t have a wheel. Therefore our worker for 2 or 3 turns will have nothing to do. Isn’t that a waste????!!!!!...
But if we follow my plan and settle on plains we will get worker in 15 turns same turn we get BW and no turns will be lost. Also that hill can be mined later and give us whopping 4 hammers. Rice and Cows will give us 9 food!!! And having extra food will help us to use our plain tiles for cottages and also work the plains hill. In a long run those extra shields we will get from mined hill and extra gold from cottaged (not mined) plains will actually save us whole lot more than 3 turns you are planning to save early in the game by building a worker a little faster. In addition to all of that when you mine a hill you have a chance to discover minerals like copper, iron gold or silver even if they are not visible initially. That happened to me twice so far.

3. Let say we follow any of the plans and have worker and finally can chop the wood.
We need to build a warrior but building warrior by chopping wood is waste of forest. Oh well lets do something else.. Ah, I forgot our worker hasn’t learned anything but chopping wood. So we chop forest get a warrior chop more forest get settler… yet we wasted forest for that 1st warrior.

4. Religion. Religion is important in this game. On monarch level if you have mystisicm you have 90% chance to be 1st and get Hinduism. For some reason AIs prefer buddism.
In our situation we have good shot at Confucianism. When we meet AIs it will be very cheap to research Meditation and Priesthood then writing and CoL to get Confucianism.
But… it can be even easier if we chop our way to Stonehedge very early. Stonehedge give 2points towards great Prophet. Gr. Prophet can research religion related technology or build Shrine in holy city. If we get Stonehedge early we will get Gr.Prophet just by the time we need to research CoL for us. CoL is expensive and might take anywhere around 20 turns. With stonehedge we can beat AIs to Confusianism even on harder levels using free tech from a prophet. And then we can get a second prophet before researching calendar (calendar makes stonehedge obsolete and which is very doable if you don't have luxuries that are unlocked with calendar) . We can use that second prophet to build a shrine in holy Confusian city to spread our religion around our cities. with organized religion we will get +25percent of city build productivity and with shrine in holy town we will get lots of gold from each city with that religion.

5. Great Wonder – Stonehedge. Usually I hate building Gr. Wonders, but this wonder is very cheap and can be chopped in no time especially if you have stone hooked up. Another effect of Stonehedge is 2free CPT for each town on the same continent. That actually makes as even with Creative trait civilizations. This is very important in Civ4. In Civ3 we simply built cities close enough and didn’t need border expansion to work every tile. In Civ4 it only makes sense for optimal city location and even farther away from optimal depending on resources. The only way to grab tiles is by cultural expansion. If you don’t have stonehedge you have to build obelisks everywhere or wait forever until you have writing and build expensive libraries, also takes time. It is much cheaper to build stonehedge in one town than bunch of useless obelisks in every single of them.


6. I don’t claim to be an expert in Civ4. but so far I rolled several dozen of starts trying to figure the best starting sequence. I never went past medieval ages and I have no idea who to play middle of the game. But right now I think I know a little about the beginning and I don’t like your suggestions Wacken.

and finally the picture that shows the difference between your and mine startup locations.
As of now the only reason i will go with hill start if you know something that i don't know (in other words what's located under the fog we can't see in the startup picture).

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/4000BC-Dima.JPG

I'm in for both games. I would prefer to settle on the hill also. It looks like there might be grass south of the hill. I've played a few starter games (up to about 1000AD), and the most recent one I tried this chop settler first strategy and I must say it really works.

@Xevious: Please look again, please read my previous post and tell me if i miss something and please look at city map on picture and lots of tiles will be lost because of tundra at the south pole and there is very little food if you settle on the hill.
you get one grassland and lose at least 2.

Again, i am only saying what i see on screen shot. I can't be certain what's hidden under black fog. From what i see hill is a bad location

Wow, looks good dman. :)
I am now too tired and stoned to really read everything and go into it, so that i will do tomorrow. The only things i can say from skimming over your posts is that you are probably right about not settling on the hill and that i do not think you are right about the risk for worker first. In none of the games i have tried (also just the starts, most on monarch, few on emperor) i have met anything remotely risky for worker first. Anyway, tomorrow i will read your post with the attention it deserves and think about everything properly.

PS, will you make that second game we are gonna play ?

I agree with dman, move the warrior 1st, then settler NW and settle. nice analysis dman :thumbsup:

Yet another point against the hill. If we settle at location I suggested we can settle one turn earlier since moving on top of the hill will make us to lose a turn. Hence, worker will actually be built not three but only two turns earlier compared with settling on plains in 4000BC.

I also dare us to play gambit and chop a second settler instead of the warrior after we complete our worker. we just need to make sure we don't lose our original warrior to wild animals and here him nearby to ecscort settler when if ready. I just hate to waste forest on warrior

It might actually work if We are careful

EDIT: Also when scouting always fortify at the end of turn. in Civ4 you can fortify even if your unit is out of moves. That improves defence bonus against wild animals. Some of them (lions, panthers) can move 2 tiles and run from under the fog when you least expect it. Fortification at the end of turn saved my scouts many times and at least decreases number of turns they need to heal

Yep, have you guys read that thread where battle is explained and the win chances for different strength comparisons ? Also includes first strike effects. Very intresting.

good analysis dman :) but one simple thing i don't agree : when you want to
build warrior-settler, chopping the warrior helps you to get your settler much
earlier and no hammer is lost because redundant hammers will go to build of
settler.

good analysis dman :) but one simple thing i don't agree : when you want to
build warrior-settler, chopping the warrior helps you to get your settler much
earlier and no hammer is lost because redundant hammers will go to build of
settler.

Indeed, no shields are lost.
The only thing is as i posted, the difference between spending the forest for production or food.

Yep, have you guys read that thread where battle is explained and the win chances for different strength comparisons ? Also includes first strike effects. Very intresting.

If you mean Arathorn's post, then yes I have read it.
The combat seems unduly complex, perhaps it is more in line with RTS games (of which I have no real knowledge). The interface in general is similar to RTS games, and I presume the makers are hoping to appeal to AOE and rome:total war players etc.

I suspect that once we get used to it, combat can be manipulated to great effect, as outcomes are much more predictable than in Civ3. Combat was also very predictable in civ2. At present it seems people are tending to suicide a couple of catapults to soften up targets for other troops. It would be nice not to have to rely on cats though.

Indeed, no shields are lost.
The only thing is as i posted, the difference between spending the forest for production or food.

I guess i wasn't clear on that one :) . First of all lets call them hammers...
Hammers gentlemen... Shields are part of Civ3 world :) . I need to get used to that myself (offtopic: How are beakers called in Civ4??)
Yeah, shields (khm.... sorry hammers) are moved to the next build, but there are some issues that
are spoken about in the following article

My point however was that i thought it was waste of forest hammers if we use them for building a warrior. In my book forest should only be chopped for settlers and workers. (and stonehedge or pyramids in certain situations).
Hence, i called it waste of hammers, i would much rather take a risk and chop a settler immediately after the worker.

As for combat. It is indeed more complex than Civ3. More predictable? perhaps. But i have had quite few cases when my unit with much better chances to win would lose a battle. So there is still an element of surprise.
I am not trying to make complex calculations when i play game as of today.
I just use Alt button to figure out the possible outcome.

For the moment i am trying to learn more about economy. CIv4 makes much greater emphasis on economy and it is even more complex than combat.
I have yet to calculate optimal number of food/shields/gold for the town based on surrounding tiles. Cottages are something i have to learn how to handle well, Civ3 tought me how to get production and food and now i need to learn how to get gold, otherwise your tech progress will be crippled later in the game.
Also, it is important to know when is the best time to expand and plop new city.
I recommend everyone to read this article.
It shows how much you pay for cities upkeep. At first, it was very hard for me to understand that there isn't such thing as corruption in Civ4. However you pay extra for the city maintenance if it is located farther away from capital.
Well... quite few things to learn, and i hope we are going to have lots of fun playing Civ4.
All i can say, i like it more and more every day.

That last article gave me hope for civ4 :D

If i understand it correctly, they are saying that we can build pretty much unlimited cities without problems. As long as every city produces 6 gold, or 3 with a courthouse, it will be good :goodjob:

By the way, i am stubborn and i will keep calling them shields and beakers.

it seems everyone in here. i say we light this candle and start the game! first one who can play, grab it. we then can sort the order by timezones after him.

I am out. won't have time until late saturday afternoon.

Yep, have you guys read that thread where battle is explained and the win chances for different strength comparisons ? Also includes first strike effects. Very intresting.
go thru the LoRT17 - Dueling Diety SG thread. Lots of talk and pics on warfare, including a demonstration on the usefulness of catapults by Vol.

By the way, i am stubborn ...

That I've noticed :lol:

Well it certainly isn't me first. I have to play sgotm, which will have to wait until tommorrow as it is!

I would say it is for dman, since he pretty much made up the start sequence.

If we want to wait of course. IMO, we are not in a hurry with so many games we are playing simultaniously.

You guys go ahead and start.
I am sure you, Xevious or Gman can roll out a great start of your own.

Offa, haven't heard from you on Catherine's thread. We are playing 50 turn individual startups due on Sunday night. :)

please let me come back on that detail. Now i think cutting a forest for a
warrior isn't a waste of hammers, it's a waste of food ! Because if you cut
a forest for a settler (or worker), less food will be spend on the build of the
settler, so the city will began to grow again sooner.

Asperge

Because if you cut
a forest for a settler (or worker), less food will be spend on the build of the
settler, so the city will began to grow again sooner.
Asperge

Precisely, That is why i always prefer shortening times required to buld settlers and workers by chopping wood and spare forest just for those actions only. As in a real life forest is way to precious to waste. :)

So, is anyone going to start this game at all??? :rolleyes:

I won't have time today, but if it still isn't started by tomorrow I can start it.

I guess it is up to you Xevious to start this one :)
Just don't settle on hill and if you manage to save warrior until after worker is build i'd suggest start chopping a settler right away.
It would be nice to have 2 or 3 very early cities.

Still no takers, so I'll be starting this tonight.

You go ahead and have fun.
We will ask Wacken to set up roster after you have your turned played.

I didn't have any time at all to play as i promised... (well... yes i played Catherine mirror game but i did it 2 days ago):)

Wacken practice SG

4000BC(0) Before moving to plains, move warrior NE to uncover some tiles. Don't see anything to make it worth moving that way, so settler NW, and found Beijing. There is another wine W of Beijing and a hut 2SW,W of Beijing. Will have warrior scout counter clockwise toward hut. Start worker and Bronze, both due in 15 turns.

3960BC(1) Warrior NW.

3920BC(2) Warrior NW, river cow N and hut on flood plain W.

3880BC(3) Warrior W, pops hut for 85g. Silks W. Looks like I've found a good second city location already (silks, cow, floodplain).

3840BC(4) Warrior SW, heading for other side of mountain towards hut.

3800BC(5) Borders expand, now working rice. Won't get us to BW any faster but will give an extra gpt to head start the next tech. Warrior SW to coast.

3760BC(6) Warrior SW, between coast and mountain.

3720BC(7) Warrior S, there's ocean fish off SW.

3680BC(8) Warrior SE below mountains.

3640BC(9) Warrior S, pops hut for experience! This will allow woodsman 2 for extra movement in forest/jungle, excellent for scouting. and getting back home.

3600BC(10) Warrior promotes to Woodsman 2. Warrior S,SE, finds sheep.

3560BC(11) Warrior NE,NE to get back to the forest and stay close to home.

3520BC(12) Warrior NE (now SE of Beijing).

3480BC(13) Warrior NE,SE.

3440BC(14) Warrior SE,NE, hut N,NE, silks NE,E, wolf SE,SE. I expect it to attack me next turn, so fortify warrior.

3400BC(15) Wolf attacks, warrior wins with no damage. Learn Bronze. Copper is 2NW of Beijing. Worker built, start Settler. Worker E. We are on river, as is rice and cow. If we settle up by the cow/silks we are still on river so we won't need roads too soon. Start Animal Husbandry. Warrior N,NE popping hut for 49g. Horses W, but worse, lion NW. Warrior is on grass. Fortify warrior, and switch to warrior in Beijing, working cow (8 turns) just in case lion kills warrior.

3360BC(16) Well that was a bit of bad luck. Lion killed the warrior as feared. Want to save forest for settler, so Worker NE, farm rice. This takes 5 turns, warrior done in seven, so worker can be chopping a forest when warrior finishes. Farm will add 2 food to rice speeding up the settler anyway.

3320BC(17)

3280BC(18)

3240BC(19)

3200BC(20) We need 5 hammers for warrior and 12 food to grow. With rice we have +5 food and +1 hammer. With cow we have +2 food and +2 hammers. If we work cow this turn, and rice for 2 turns, we'll grow in 3 and be one hammer short of warrior, which should come from the new citizen (haven't really checked to see if it works like civ3 in that respect).


Animal Husbandry is due in 6. Warrior should come in 3 (read above). Losing the warrior really hurt. Settler chop should be next and then pasture on cow.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/3200BC.jpg

Yay!! we have the start...
Bad luck with lost warrior, but this should be expected to happen once in a while.
I reckon we want to put second city where Xevious suggested. As for exact location i suggest to put it such so copper is also in city limit. That will make a little overlap with Benjing but not too bad.

Who's playing next???

Wacken, why don't you set up a roster as a captain.

Ok, but i'm a lazy captain. I'd say lets play in alphabetical order, but Xevious started so lets do reverse alphabetical order :)

I notice Wotan is not in on this, so that means i got to play. Will do so tonight if noone has things to discuss anymore.

@Wacken: I guess not much to discuss so early in the game.
You won't be able to achieve much in 10 turns. Just settler that second city, warrior should be the 1st build.
Chop another worker and a settler from capital.
We will have to make a semi-urgent decision on cultural expansion.
Do we want to build obelisk (10 to 15 turns) in each new city or chop a stonehedge in just one? It is twice as expensive to chop it without stone.
In both cases we have to learn Mystisism otherwise we won't be able to use cities in full capacity until writing and libraries are built.

Roster:

Xevious - just played
Wacken - up
Offa - on deck
Gman
Dman

We could settle on top of that Silk. Would this provide silk before calendar maybe ?

It would certainly be a better city position, with less tiles sharing with the capital.

We could settle on top of that Silk. Would this provide silk before calendar maybe ?

It would certainly be a better city position, with less tiles sharing with the capital.
let's try it and find out. this is a practice game, after all :)

Turn0:
Rice field is ready and put to use.

Turn1:
--

Turn2:
Moved to using plain forest to make warrior next turn.

Turn3:
Warrior - Settler. Change to ricefield.

Turn4:
Forest cut completed.
Temporarily swich build to warrior to allow growth (1 food was needed)

Turn5:
Grown to size2. Swich back to Settler (don't you love Firaxis when they think of things to reduce micro management)

Turn6:
Damn, worker will have to wait 1 turn for Animal Husbandry.

Turn7:
Out new Warrior killed a Lion and now a Bear is planning to attack it :mischief: Those are too strong for our young warrior so i move away from it.
We now go research the Wheel, we want roads.

Turn8:
--

Turn9:
--

Turn10:
Worker still unmoved, we can still decide if we want to cut another forest.

Downsides on settling on silks:

1. Silks won't unlock for :) now
2. Silk won't unlock for :) even after calendar. Plantation is required to truly unlock silk after calendar is researched.
3. Not a big deal we have another source of silk but:
3a. We lose a source of silk we could trade for another lux
3b. we lose extra $$$$ that plantation provides

Also, Do you guys know if there is a way to disband city in Civ4? I haven't found any.

Other than that
Offa is up
Gman on deck

1. Silks won't unlock for :) now


That would have done dman :)

no way to disband that I know of, other than gifting the city to a civ and then capturing and selecting the raze option

Looks like Offa is up in both games :)

Xevious -
Wacken - just played
Offa - up
Gman - on deck
Dman

i can swap with offa, if he prefers. however, that would put him behind me in both games, and that may be too cruel ;)

I bet you it is not as cruel as playing before Gozpel :lol: (see SGOTM thread)

gman, by all means go first. But don't rush, as tommorrow looks bad for me.

actually, tomorrow is probably bad for me, so I'll play tonight. maybe offa should slide down behind dmanakho?

I bet you it is not as cruel as playing before Gozpel :lol: (see SGOTM thread)

I saw that! :spank:

I played this last night but the forum got a little wacky and I couldn't load anything. Probably due to patch traffic :)

We have AGR, Minings, BW, and AH. Reseaching wheel in
4T
Settler due in 3T, not sure if the chop is worth it
right now, but then again, the worker has nothing
better to do.
No religions founded yet. Wines need Monarchy, which
takes us thru Judeism :hmm:

Turn 31 (2760 BC)
worker chops forest S of rice
Warrior SE to hill, sees more rice
We have marble to our SE, could help if we want
Literature wonders (GLib, etc)

Turn 32 (2720 BC)
Warrior moves SE to forest hills, next to a lion
Beijing finishes: Settler

Turn 33 (2680 BC)
Beijing begins: Settler
I'm starting a settler so the chop goes to it, but wil
switch to a warrior after it's done
Also, the lion avoided our warriors :( I fortify them
on the hill, hope they attack next turn so our settler
can dash to the horses
Tech learned: The Wheel
Warrior defeats: Barbarian Lion.

Turn 34 (2640 BC)
Research begun: Hunting
I chose hunting so we can build some scouts.
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I
Warrior promoted to Woodsman 1 for safety's sake
Settlers move NE, see Wolves, then move back in our
border. We need an escort
Beijing begins: Warrior
Switch Beijing to warrior

Turn 35 (2600 BC)
we see bears to the N. Crap, this settler doing
nothing feels really bad.

Turn 36 (2560 BC)

Turn 37 (2520 BC)
wonderful. barb archers appear from the S. who said
you could ignore early military?
I run the settler back into town. Not much it can do
atm anyways, as the warrior has to stay put.
Tech learned: Hunting
Beijing grows: 3
Beijing finishes: Warrior

Turn 38 (2480 BC)
Research begun: Archery
Warrior's are healed, moving back to escort the
settler. New warrior stays in town. Will build
another to keep us safe.
Beijing begins: Scout
Scratch that. Hinduism was founded somewhere. We
need to meet people so build a scout

Turn 39 (2440 BC)
I'm taking a high risk gamble with the settler.
Probably very stupid but it gets us a town earlier if
it pays off.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/grahamiam/TeamWacken2440BC.jpg

Turn 40 (2400 BC)
Move the settler 2T E to the hill, warrior covers.
this is a good spot for the 2nd town as it gets the
rice, horses, silks, and had decent tiles. We have 1
dead tile (desert) but otherwise the spot is good.
Barb archer keeps poking out of the tundra due S of
Beijing, then jumping back into the fog. Watch out
for him.

Since Offa didn't play the other game last night, he is now up in 2 :lol: alright to switch as follows?

Roster
Xevious -
Wacken
Gman - just played
Dman - up
Offa - on deck

Also, I will be out of town on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Ok... i have it and Offa is up in the parallel game.

Need some time to study and play

Ok. Thanksgiving hiatus and i only briefly visited civfanatics yesterday.
I am up in two games and will try to get to both of them today.

I am not sure about Bejing building scout. Personally, I need some convincing why it is important to meet other folks in Civ4. Trades aren't possible until alphabet. The only agreement that is possible initially - open borders. AIs simply won't trade before getting to know better each other. Trading technologies also not possible until much later in the game due to AIs reluctance to trade in this version. So, i am not so sure it really mattters if we find somebody now or 50 turns from now.
However watching what happened to Offa in parallel game we really ought to start building up some military to defend against barbarians. If they have archers now 10-15 turns from now we might expect barb axemen to show up if we run out of luck.

EDIT: I've also updated my computer with the latest patch, i am not sure if that would make my saves incompatible with pre-patch Civilization. I suggest you upgrade :)

Ok, i see... Gman lined up production queue in Bejing for next 2 players....
I really don't care about that scout but it is almost completed so does not make sense to remove the guy now. Next turn.

T1. Shanghai is founded on proposed hills. We need to expand borders to take advantage of "good" tiles. Need to research mistysism for obelisks. At the same time we need Pottery urgently. We can't research without source of income.
T2. 2320BC. Bejing scout->warrior in 2 turns settler next.

T3. 2280BC. Scout is scouting

T4. 2240BC. Archery comes switch to pottery. Workers finished chopping wood. Settler in 3 turns.

T5. 2200BC. Sending workers to connect copper. Sending warriors up north to the new city location besides silk. Scout uncovered another source of rice over there. Lots of food and gold. That town will definetely will be the major source of gold and specialists and it will only share 2 tiles with Bejing.

T6. 2160BC. Scout sees a village... Also, looks like we are alone on the island just like in the Catherine's game.

T7. 2120BC. Barb warriors appear just next to our copper. Damn! Dispatch warrior to deal with those. Bejing settler->archer. We get stinky 29gold from the village. I was hoping for a free tech or something.

T8. 2080BC Guangzhou is founded. Perhaps i should have sacrificed one source of silk anyway... Location is still good but not ideal. Also, Copper is outside of city location for now. It needs to expand borders. We need another worker.

T9. 2040BC. Bejing is rioting.

IBT. Bejing expands and we get copper in our city borders, but i already moved workers out.

T10. Move warrior back to Bejing to quell riots. Archer will be ready next turn.
Settlers ended turn next to barb archers. Here is another point why it is waste of hammers to build settlers. Chances are they get killed before you can move them anywhere.
I have just emphasized rule in my book on not building a single settler. :)

Pottery comes next. We need to decide how we want to expand our cities. With culture obviously but there are two ways to do it. Obelisks (mystisism) or libraries (writing) Obelisks are cheap but expire soon. Libraries are better value but more expensive.
I marked suggested locations for the new city. But we need to improve existing 1st a little before getting 4th.

Roster:

Xevious - on deck
Wacken
Gman -
Dman - just played
Offa - up

Save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/WACKEN BC-2000.Civ4SavedGame)
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/wackentrain2000NC.jpg

This is pretty tough. The link to the save is dead, so I got it direct from the uploads 10 directory, only to find it is in the new patch, a 25MB download.

Hopefully can load up the game eventually.

Edit: I have loaded it. It looks like a scout, not a settler next to the barb archer.
I think I will go for myst, as it will give culture sooner.

My first go at this post got chewed up in cyberspace.:mad:

Nyway the moves went very fast.
I researched masonry by mistake, as it was selected when I clicked on monotheism: I thought the game was bypassing polytheism or something.

2000
finally load up game in new patch. Have to change preferences back to single units etc

Ibt
Scout in east is killed by barb archer.
Barb warrior west of Beijing

1960
Beijing archer -> barracks
Worker to build pasture

1840
Myst learnt, click for monotheism brings up masonry.

1800
Beijing grows causing unhappiness.

1720
Barb archers now to east of Shanghai, to south of Beijing and barb warrior on our copper.

1680
Our archer kills the barb warrior on the copper, reducing to 1.6/3. Our copper road has been pillaged though.

1640
Shanghai is due to finish archer next turn, but the barb archer is ready to attack

Barracks complete in Beijing, start an archer: due in 2.

ibt
Shanghai is attacked and a newly complete archer successfully defends! That is a change from civ3.

1600
Nil to report

Ibt
Capital is attacked and our archer wins again

1560
Archer finished in capital.
Promote archers to drill1 and drill2.

Start Stonehenge.

Notice I have overshot by one, so stop.
Our defensive position looks OK now, although it looked pretty dicey earlier on.
Lots of work for our worker, who could do with some help.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/1560bc.GIF

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/WACKEN_BC-1560.Civ4SavedGame

Well, I've been beating my head against the wall trying to get Civ4 GOTM to work on my computer (4 deinstall/reinstalls so far), so I guess I'll play this instead.

I got it. I'll take a look and give my thoughts and wait a bit for anyone else to post, though I may not wait long (9pm already here).

Looks well...
i am not sure if we get to complete Stonhedge before AIs though..
We need few axemen to dispatch barbarians.
Best job for archers is to place them outside of our borders on top of hills in strategic spots and fortify. They will lure and kill all wondering barbarians and our workers will work safe meanwhile.

EDIT: Sorry about changing the graphic preferences. For some pervert reasons i enjoy multi-unit graphics and the battles in high graphic definition. :). And my fault on the dead link. I think that's because i had a space in the file name.

1560BC(0) Switch to grass in Guan for food since barracks is overrun. Warrior from Beijing SE to go exploring. Switch to worker in Beijing, we need another one sooner rather than later, will take 5 turns. We can chop stonehenge with the worker. Maximize gold in Beijing also, cutting a turn off Poly.

1520BC(1) Guan:Barracks->Archer. Grows in one. Worker SW, mine copper. This will give us a lot of hammers to speed a settler or worker in Guan. Warrior NE,SE.

1480BC(2) Barb warrior to hill N of Shanghai. Warrior SE.

1440BC(3) Barb warrior attacks Shanghai and loses (no damage). Barb Warrior on hill NE,E of Guan. Archer due in 1 there. Warrior from Guan NE to cow. If barb kills warrior, it should be weakened enough for archer to take it out. Warrior explores S. Shanghai archer promotes to City Garrison I. Learned Poly, start Priesthood to allow Oracle (and free tech). Will rush new worker to marble, and a settler to allow us to use it. If we can then learn Writing and Monotheism before Oracle finishes, we can get Theology (and Christianity) for free.

1400BC(4) Barb warrior attacks cow warrior and loses. Judaism learned by someone. Warrior promotes to Woodsman I and goes E to forest hill. Guan:Archer->Archer. Archer promotes to City Garrison I. Warrior SW, finds furs (2) SE of Beijing. Copper is mined, MM Guan for archer in 3. Trying to get Priesthood down to 2 turns, but just can't make it. Hmm, come to think of it, would be better to use all those shields in Guan to build Stonehenge there. Then build Oracle in Beijing. If I rush a settler out of Beijing and then hook up marble I can speed up Oracle.

1360BC(5) Barb warrior appears SW of Beijing. Beijing:Worker2->Settler. Work one wine for extra gold. We'll get 6 turns of 12 hammers plus 30 from forest for 102 to build settler. Can use second wine on last 2 turns. Worker2 SE,NE,E. Worker1 road copper. Warrior SW. Seems more likely I'll use Guan to build Oracle after Stonehenge, as it can use forest hills after expansion for even more shields. Not going to get marble hooked up fast enough to be of use for Oracle, so will likely concentrate on furs.

1320BC(6) Barb warrior now 3SW of Beijing. Archer (5exp) heading to forest SW,W to draw it's fire. Warrior SE to fur on coast, sees barb archer 2SW. Will stay here and hope it comes to attack. Worker2 chop. Shanghai grew, MM for barracks in 5.

1280BC(7) Priesthood->Writing. Barb warrior SW,SW,W of Beijing. Barb Archer approaching Shanghai from NE. Just noticed the barb archer way south of Beijing is sitting on top of a hut (didn't move). Copper connected. Archer W to forest NE of barb. Worker1 N, will chop to help Stonehenge/Oracle.

1240BC(8) Barb goes E, S of our archer, fortify and hope he attacks, otherwise, will have to attack him. Barb archer now NE of Shanghai. Notice barb city pop up 2SE,2S of Shanghai.

1200BC(9) Barb archer attacks Shanghai and loses. Warrior now SW of Beijing. I'd attack it, but the defending archer has better win odds (50% city defense + 40% from city + 25% fortify = 115% for 6.5 vs 2 from warrior?). Worker2 road. While we need the lux from furs, we need to get Shanghai hooked up, which will net us horses also. Use 2nd wine in Beijing, still 2 turns to settler. Decide not to attack barb.

1160BC(10) Barb attacks the forest archer near Beijing and loses. Forest cleared for 42 hammers to Stonehenge, which overruns it. Queue Oracle so it will be next build there.



Stonehenge, Settler and Barracks will all finish next turn. Writing is due in 2 and I've queued Monotheism and Theology next. If we're lucky, we'll get Oracle right after Monotheism and can take Theology for free. PLEASE keep an eye on completion time so that it doesn't complete too early (i.e. before Mono finishes). Another option would be to speed Oracle with another forest chop and take Monarchy for free to allow us to hook up wine. The only thing I don't like about this is Theology is a much more expensive tech that will give us a religion to boot (no way any other civ will get theology first unless we lose the oracle).

Forgot the save.

1560BC(0) Switch to grass in Guan for food since barracks is overrun. ....

.............Forest cleared for 42 hammers to Stonehenge, which overruns it.


Why do you refer to those as overrun? Technically all extra hammers will go to the next project and there is no need to move workers around. I reckon you did it for city growth rather than to save "wasted" hammers.

Personally, i never managed to finish Oracle before AIs on monarch level. I reckon that will be the case here as well. But we might be lucky, who knows.
Is Code of laws taken already? We can research writing and go straight for CoL to learn Taosism instead of theology. That will make fewer turns to research

While hammers are carried to the next project, it is still an overrun, but yes, I meant that I was going for more growth. An extra citizen in Guan would be great. If we chop another forest I think we have a very good chance of getting Oracle, especially since we get 50% bonus to building world wonders. Chopping one of those hill forest and then mining it would provide hammers from the forest plus 4 hpt.

I completely forgot about COL. Of course we could take that right after writing for Confucianism. Theology was a very expensive tech which was my main reason for going that way. I still think we should research monotheism, but if Oracle is about to finish before Mono is done we could take COL instead. Also need to keep an eye out to make sure Confucianism isn't learned in a distant land before taking that free.

Oh sorry, didn't notice i'm up in this one as well :blush:.
So many games is not good for me.

Turn1:
Bejing Worker
Ghangzhou Granary.
Shanghai Granary.
Turn2:
Research to Code of Laws.
Turn3:
Found Nanjing start Archer.
Turn4:
Ghangzhou Archer.
Turn5:
Bejing Library.
nanjing completes archer with forest cut. - Worker.
Turn6:
--
Turn7:
--
Turn8:
--
Turn9:
--
turn10:
--

Turn 85 (750 BC)
We will have CoL in 4T, but someone already has Confusism?
looks like theres 1 lux on the island (furse) near Nanjing
Actually, we also have wines. Wonder why we reseached CoL instead of Monarchy? We could use the wineries
Machinery gets us our UU, but we need to send ships out to meet people

Turn 86 (725 BC)
actually, we also have silks, so we do need calender
Beijing grows: 7
Shanghai finishes: Granary

Turn 87 (700 BC)
Shanghai begins: Library
Start some shields towards a Lib in Shanghai, but will switch to an axeman once the road to town finishes
I see an archer is on automove, and I assume that this is where we want the settler
Guangzhou finishes: Settler

Turn 88 (675 BC)
Guangzhou begins: Axeman
Guangzhou begins: Library
Guangzhou begins: The Oracle
Go for Oracle in Guangzou. With marble connected, it could finish in 12T
Confucianism founded in Guangzhou
Confucianism has spread: Guangzhou
Tech learned: Code of Laws

Turn 89 (650 BC)
Research begun: Monarchy
Ok, I was wrong about CoL :) We also have a confucian misionary. I hold on to him for now. Religion will spread to the capitol fast enough
I use the anarchy to select Slavary as well

Turn 90 (625 BC)
Stone comes online, Oracle in 7T. I also start a chop nearby
Shanghai begins: Axeman
Shanghai switched to Axeman in case any nasty barbs show up
Archer has reached settlement site
Guangzhou grows: 5

Turn 91 (600 BC)

Turn 92 (575 BC)
Guangzhou begins: The Parthenon
Well, that didn't last long :) Oracle completed elsewhere, switch to Parthenon, another marble wonder (15T)
We get 75h for the chop
Beijing finishes: Library
Nanjing finishes: Worker

Turn 93 (550 BC)
Beijing begins: Axeman
Nanjing begins: Library
Confucianism has spread: Beijing
Xian founded
Xian begins: Library
Xian founded, starts a Lib. Worker is roading towards the new town. I got impatient with Beijing and joined the Missionary to get another citizen to worker

Turn 94 (525 BC)
Start a camp on the fur near Nanjing and chop another forest near Parthalon town
Guangzhou grows: 6

Turn 95 (500 BC)
Not much. Screenie to show our progress below.

If we want to drop one of the 2 CIV games due to game overload (as has been hinted in the sgotm thread), we can always just put one on the backburner for later?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/grahamiam/TeamWacken500BC.jpg

Xevious -
Wacken
Gman - just played
Dman - up
Offa - on deck


I am up in both SGs... will likely be playing this one first and Catherine's either today or tomorrow at latest....

I have a feeling we lost it with Civ4.... :)
fuzzy, misunderstood, lack of communication and strategy.

I admit i played absent mindedly although tried my best...
Not much happened during last 10 turns. all i can suggest for the next player. build more cottages and workers... I am not sure on tech research. I was going for the calendar to build silk plantations. I wouldn't start any wonders, we will definetely be beaten.

t1 475BC.
t2. 425bC Bejing axe-granary (for health not growth really)
t3. 400BC.
t4. 375BC. However had a brilliant idea to build Parthenon - it didn't work out
We lost the race and get some 300 gold instead. Such a waste of time.

IBT. Some man called Gibbon put together a list of greatest civilizations.
He called us Wacken the hopeless

T5. 350BC.

T6. 325BC.

t7. 300BC monarchy comes start on fishing. Decided to revolt to accept hereditary rule

t8. 275BC. Anarchy is over.

T9. 250BC.

T10. 225BC. Bejing granary->worker.

save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/WACKENBC-0225.Civ4SavedGame)

Looks, like we burried our Civ4 SGs,
but i just wanted to say i am dropping this game as well. (please see my post in Catherine's game).... :(