Friends, Mongols, Countrymen. Lend me your ears. Our esteemed clan leader Piparoo dislocated his hip while testing out our mad scientist's invention called a "stirryup" (or something like that). While he has been incapacitated, he's passed the reins (have we invented that yet?) of government in my inept hands. Looks like you've all been suckered into me guiding our currently marvellous Mongol nation for the next half a millenium.

Now, as it is our Khan's mandate that I be the next Khan, I (not so) reluctantly shall guide our future. I am however, open to suggestion and will (try to) listen to the ideas of our wise men and advisors.

All bow to your new Khan and Khanqueror. Or else.....

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I'll play the turns Sunday Morning, US time. Not everyone has a holiday season ya know ;)

For those that need a refresher, this is the state of our nation.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=104912&d=1132768425

We're building a settler (4 turns) in our capital, our scouts have mapped out the land fairly well, our capital is of capital size (5), with 2 archers defending it. Our worker is building cottages at the ivory and has already irrigated the corn. We're researching Animal Husbandry (4 turns) now.

I have been watching the demo game, but not been very active posting. Sorry about that ;). So, now I'd like comments about what I should do next. Suggest places to explore, places to build cities, stuff like that.

I'm taking a look at the save now and hope to have some comments this evening. Be aware that the recent patch makes the Horse resource HIDDEN until you get Animal Husbandry, so in future games, this selection should be treated as Bronze-working... speculative, but opens up a resource to be discovered and exploited.

Well, this won't wait... Please stop the worker chop.

There seemed to be a slight agreement that forest chops were premature. I proposed "defense" chops or "shield-only production" chops but didn't see any consensus on those thoughts.

However, I see no value in a worker chop and least of all that tile. If we finish the chop we've provided 20 shields (possibly to a settler build; though it looks like they will finish at the same time) and we've rendered the tile a 1F, 1H plains with a cottage upon it, whereas we can work any other tile and get either 3 units or 2 units and commerce.

I would recommend roading to the Ivory so we can get the commodity bonus in our town. Moreover, I would build roads partway to wherever our proposed build sites are.

---

Build sites:

I favor the hill 3NE and 1W, though a coastal spot 3NE or 3NE and 1N have merits. I'd avoid the jungle build spots until we're decided upon Iron-Working (I think we're eventually trading for that one).

THe Hills spot provides access to our horses and provide a cultural border against both Arabia and Egypt. Moreover there's fresh water in the 4 tiles surrounding the hidden tile, so that's got to be a lake/oasis which we can use for irrigating farms.. We also get access to a river for additional commerce.

A coastal spot provides ready access/defense of the marble, but we're probably not ready to exploit that yet.

I'm taking a look at the save now and hope to have some comments this evening. Be aware that the recent patch makes the Horse resource HIDDEN until you get Animal Husbandry, so in future games, this selection should be treated as Bronze-working... speculative, but opens up a resource to be discovered and exploited.

This is my first demogame, and I'm not quite sure about procedure, so humour me.
I understand that final decisions about moves are made by the DP, but how much debate actually goes on? I'm looking at the save, I see that a settler is almost finished. Has any thought been given to where to settle next? Is that something to discuss, or is it not a big deal here in the warmup game?

If there is room for input:
I always treat the positioning of my second city as vital -- virtually as important as founding my capital in a good area.
I often use my second city to creat a buffer between the capital and my closest rival.
However, I see that (known) resources are scarce in that area between Karakorum and the Arabian empire, aside from some rice and ivory (we already have the latter). Who knows what might be discovered later.

I also see that Animal Husbandry is nearly finished? I can assume that with the advantage mounted units have, grabing on to any available horses would be in the cards. So, do we wait until the new tech and horses are available before making a decision?
And if we are driving toward horses and mounted units, will Horseback Riding be the next tech to research?

Thanks for humouring me...

Sorry for the needless questions. I had started writing before starbolt had put in those comments.

@ starbolt:
I like your reccommendation about the hilll as a potential build site. However, how do you know that there are horses? Am I the only one playing with a patched version?

Copied from the previous turnchat:

Turn log and save to follow. To avoid confusion. The scout starting on the upper left will be known as scout 1. The scout on the lower right will be known as Elvis, wait no he'll be scout 2.

Since units can be named individually, I strongly suggest we do so. (How-to: Click on the name "Scout" on the unit panel on the left buttom corner of the screen, a rename unit dialog will pop up.)

@ starbolt:
I like your reccommendation about the hilll as a potential build site. However, how do you know that there are horses? Am I the only one playing with a patched version?

I think this has nothing to do with patching but with "cheating" - either trying the moves out or taking a look at the map in the WorldBuilder (map editor). I'm not judging here - I've done that a lot myself. But of course I won't do it in the demogame since I do believe most people disapprove cheating.

I'm taking a look at the save now and hope to have some comments this evening. Be aware that the recent patch makes the Horse resource HIDDEN until you get Animal Husbandry, so in future games, this selection should be treated as Bronze-working... speculative, but opens up a resource to be discovered and exploited.

Well, actually Animal Husbandry provides a lot more than horses. Being able to build pastures on cows and pigs to get their increased food and health is huge, even if no horses get revealed. Likewise bronze working and iron working give you more than just visibility to bronze and iron. IW lets you chop jungles, even if no iron is discovered.

Well, this won't wait... Please stop the worker chop.

There seemed to be a slight agreement that forest chops were premature. I proposed "defense" chops or "shield-only production" chops but didn't see any consensus on those thoughts.

However, I see no value in a worker chop and least of all that tile.

I have to agree. No matter you like methodical chopping (as a common routine) or not, that particular tile should be off-limits. Build cottage on some blank tile, and chop - if you need to later, the forest on the NEE of our city (S of the Marble) which would provide the same amount of 20 Shields and cannot be worked on anyway.

I would recommend roading to the Ivory so we can get the commodity bonus in our town. Moreover, I would build roads partway to wherever our proposed build sites are.

Also, I agree with starbolt that Roads are important - in many aspects. I wonder why nobody has proposed building Roads yet.

I think this has nothing to do with patching but with "cheating" - either trying the moves out or taking a look at the map in the WorldBuilder (map editor). I'm not judging here - I've done that a lot myself. But of course I won't do it in the demogame since I do believe most people disapprove cheating.

The provided screenshot clearly shows horses which I looked for when the previous DP indicated that horses had been located.

Prior to the patch that I got Wed/Thu, horses were plainly apparent (when uncovered) regardless of the techs you possessed, but the patch notes stated that Animal Husbandry had been changed to reveal horses (similar to how Civ III worked). Personally, I think this is a silly mechanic -- hiding iron and copper makes sense since ores are largely hidden unless you know what you're looking for... I'm not sure that applies to horses.

If the patch was available before then I've been on the official release, rather than the patched version. I'd hardly call that "cheating" :)

Well, actually Animal Husbandry provides a lot more than horses.

I agree. But only if we connect those resources to our towns :)

More roads; less chops!

Copied from the previous turnchat:

Second!

<filler to reach 10 character minimum>

Second!

<filler to reach 10 character minimum>

If by that you mean we should give units really long names - I don't understand why. :confused:

EDIT: OK, I see you didn't mean that, you mean the minimium required for a forum post... :lol:

I suggest to give DP the power of naming units created in their turns - this might be something relevant for the Consitution and Code of Laws.

I also suggest we limit the choice of unit names to common given names - to avoid controversies by using celebraties' names.

In my own single player game, I name units after the city they're created in, like "Galleon@New-York". When there is more than one, they get an alphebatical suffix like "Worker.B@Moscow". (And no, I never ran out of letters, since creating many units is not my style - I rather choose to build buildings.)

I've never played aggressive leaders (not in my Civ 3 days, either), and needless to say, my own playing style isn't very aggressive (read "war-friendly"), though I don't remain peaceful at all time, either (my usually game is to start war with a neighbour when we're fighting for resources between our borders). So now I have some newbee questions regarding our military strategies (short- and long-term), please bear with me:

1. We have two Archers and a Worrior sitting in the city. Do we really need all of them for protection? Or could we send one Archer out?

2. How do we intend to take advantage of our aggressive (and expansive) nature? What is our war plan? When shall we start invading our neighbour(s)?

3. If we start war soon (say, before we have build a second city), how would our chances look? What implication would it have? I remember I once succeeded eliminating a neighbour at a very early stage (when he had only one or two cities) in Civ 3, but it was on a very easy level.

1. We have two Archers and a Worrior sitting in the city. Do we really need all of them for protection? Or could we send one Archer out?


Regarding military strategies:

Without a military goal, there's no point to battle. We're not pressed for expansion space, yet, and we don't have an idealogical rub with any of our neighbors. That said, our diplomacy will be better if our military is decent.

---

I find that in the early game, 1 garrison unit per town and 1-2 mobile units at hub towns is enough to defend against barbarians. Your neighbors require a more robust defense, but usually intelligence is your best defense and leftover scouts on forests hilltops perform this function admirably. I would not have built 3 military units but this works out fine if we build two settlers, send them each out with an archer escort and then have each new town build its own 2nd archer while our capital builds additional worker support of gears up the military with a barracks and subsequent Keshiks.

I find that in the early game, 1 garrison unit per town and 1-2 mobile units at hub towns is enough to defend against barbarians. Your neighbors require a more robust defense, but usually intelligence is your best defense and leftover scouts on forests hilltops perform this function admirably. I would not have built 3 military units but this works out fine if we build two settlers, send them each out with an archer escort and then have each new town build its own 2nd archer while our capital builds additional worker support of gears up the military with a barracks and subsequent Keshiks.

Yes this sounds like a plan to me. I'm all for early founding of new cities. In my experience, the delay (no growth in cities building settlers and workers) drawback is more than acceptable compared to the gain.

In my limited experience with Civ4, growth-related resources (read: food) aren't as usually as dense as in our sight of the map (or it might be that small maps have different proportions), we should definitely take the advantage by expanding soon - we are an expansive folk, after all.

On the questions of which items should the DP get input for, finding out which decisions are important and which are "no-brainers" is one of the reasons for doing this warmup game. That means if as a citizen you feel strongly that we should make a particular move, then push for it. As a DP if you're not sure what to do then ask what we should do. It's OK, even recommended, to start a new thread for important decisions, outside the thread dedicated to a set of turns. If the people are split on an issue, then polling it is the right way to go.

Sunday morning, US time is over. What, if anything, has happend now?

Let me just ask a noob question. There seems to be agreement that I set the worker in the wrong place the last round. I thought the consensus was to start a cottage. Was this the wrong place? Why? Where would have been better?

I'm not whining, I'm really just curious as I learn to play better.

Cheers!

2550 BC : Instantly stopped the forest chop and instructed worker to move south, so as to connect ivory to our capital. Renamed our units to Scout 1, Scout 2, Karakorum Archer, Karakorum Warrior, Freelance Archer & Slave Gang 1.

2500 BC : Scout 1 discovers a lovely city build point north, with Wheat, Crabs and Fish all accessible and desert hills nearby to provide production.

2450 BC : Scout 1 discovers gold, and a village next to it. Unfortunately, we'll lose the Crabs if we move the what I've christened "lovely city point" one space south. However, I've determined another city location between our capital and "LCP" that will fit exactly so that our city borders do not collide, and will have access to both the gold and nearby cattle. Scout 2 unfortunately runs afoul of some Lions, but ends the turn in a forest. I start moving Freelance Archer north.

2400 BC : Scout 2 successfully defends against the lion, but needs 5 turns to heal up. I order it to heal. Scout 1 checks out the village and is rewarded with 35 gold. Slave Gang 1 moves onto the Ivory and starts connecting it to our capital.

2350 BC : An eventful turn, we discover Animal Husbandry. I decide to research Fishing (3 turns) so as to be able to exploit the resources available at "LCP". Our settler is also complete. I decide to build a Granary (3 turns) to assist Karakorum's growth. Karakorum will increase to size 6 in four turns. I decide to move both the Freelance archer (ETA: 7 turns) and our Settler (ETA: 5 turns) to "LCP". Scout 1 discovers an oasis just about our horses.

2300 BC : Slave Gang 1 after connecting ivory, keeps building roads to the north. Nothing else important to note.

2250 BC : Scout 1 nears egyptian borders and finds a tribal village. Scout 2 (while still healing) detects a Saladin city come up nearby. The second ivory is taken , in the city limits, as is all the sugar. The rice is thankfully out of the city's reach.

2200 BC : Scout 1 is rewarded with yet another Scout from the tribal village, christened Scout 3. Karakorum finishes it's Granary and work commences on a Barracks (3 turns). This is done so that our city gets to population 6 next turn. Our worker continues building roads north. Fishing has been discovered. Research begins on Mysticism (3 turns) so that we can get a source of quick culture.

2150 BC : Beshbalik is founded, and work immediately commences on a work boat. Freelance Archer is renamed to Beshbalik Archer. Karakorum's Barracks (2 turns left) is preempted for another worker (4 turns). By stocking up on health resources, we can trade then for sugar (happy) later. Scout 1 discovers Silver in the tundra north, while Scout 3 meets up with a wolf (he's safe on a hill, though). Scout 2 is redirected to help our cartographers map our land completely (explore the chunks of FoW)

2100 BC : Scout 3 defends, but needs 5 turns to come upto speed. Scout 1 explores the Icy Northern frontier. Scout 2 moves back. Slave Gang 1 continues building roads north.

2050 BC : Mysticism has been discovered. I have temporarily assigned Masonary (4 turns) as our research target. wcil steps down.

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Remember, you can change research goals with nigh a penalty now. The screenshot below suggests the build locations for the next two cities.

We can research the following : Meditation (5), Polytheism(6), Sailing (6), Writing (7), Masonary (4), Horseback Riding (16), Iron Working (13), Metal Casting (28)

http://siddhant.name/games/civ/img/earlybird2050bc.jpg

The saved game :: http://siddhant.name/games/civ/Early%20Bird%20BC-2050.Civ4SavedGame

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Suggestions : Let Slave Gang 1 connect Beshabalik to our capital, and irrigate the wheat there. Slave Gang 2, when built, should irrigate the bananas below. This will help our city grow faster (We can change it to a plantation, once we discover the Calendar, anyway). We should finish our Barracks, and churn out an archer, followed by a settler. We should move them to build our next cities.

Beshbalik should proceed onto an Obelisk, followed by another work boat once it's work boat is finished. This'll give us some minor culture, and let us claim the clam resource as well.

I suggest spot 1 be taken ASAP, so that it'll act as a culture barrier to our neighbour's explorations.

Please discuss if my actions were or were not worthy, and why. True, I took a risk by building a second city a bit far out, but I believe the rewards will be well worth it.

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wcil watched as the premiere wise men of the Mongol nation demonstrated a new way of building homes. No longer did our people have to stay in flimsy mud homes, they claimed! No longer did they have to stretch unimaginable amounts of hide for tents. This new "masonary" gig was interesting... Solid homes, easily built! But alas, as wcil stepped to check out this new technique, the weak masonary gave way and a brick fell on his esteemed personage! Sorely hurt and unfit for continual rule of the nation, wcil, taking instance from his predecessor Piparoo, stepped down and named "noldodan" as the new khan.

May he guide the Mongol horde to greater heights!

Let me just ask a noob question. There seems to be agreement that I set the worker in the wrong place the last round. I thought the consensus was to start a cottage. Was this the wrong place? Why? Where would have been better?

I'm not whining, I'm really just curious as I learn to play better.

Cheers!
I'd believe that there are more important things to do at this current moment in time. For instance, we should have connected the Ivory to our capital. That'll help our citizens become happy and let our city grow to population 7 without :mad: citizens, as opposed to 6.

And talking about growth, irrigating the bananas is not a bad idea either, especially as our city is using that square anyway, and the irrigation will assist our city get bigger even quicker. Cottages can come... later. (Esp. as we're not Financial, so the benefits from a town or a village by the river is negligible)

2550 BC : [...]

[...]

2050 BC : [...]

First, congratulations for having done a fairly good job - at least in my eyes.

However, the actions you've logged are a little bit hard to follow, specially the movements. May I suggest the following notation theme, named Numkey Notation, for the future, which I've use myself for my personal singlegame logs (yes, you need one if you're a fanatic micro-manager like me):

1a. Use numbers to indicate movement directions: 1 = south west, 2 = south, ..., 9 = north east. It's the same pattern as the numblock keyboard shortcuts you can use to move units around.

1b. If a unit moves several spaces in a turn, write the numbers one after another, just like the keys you would press to navigate the unit: 363 = one space SE, then one space E, then one space SE again.

2a. If a unit engages in a fight and kills an enemy, use "#" (as "checkmate" in chess) to note it: 4# = moved one space W and killed an enemy there, 9#1 = moved one space NE, killed an enemy there, and moved back automatically because there are more enemy units there so we can't occupy the space.

2b. If a unit fights, fails to kill the enemy, but successfully withdraws, use "+" (as "check" in chess) to note it: 8+2 = moved one space N, fought and withdrawn back.

2c. If a unit fights and dies, use "-" (as "strikethrough") to note it: 7- = moved NW, fought and got killed.

3. Use "0" to note "fortify" or "sleep": 220 = moved two spaces S and fortified.

4. To note certain points on the map, use significant geographical feature as reference point, and note the difference in X- and Y-axis (W/S or right/down as positive, E/N or left/up as negative): Peak +1/-2 = one space E and two spaces N of the peak (provided there is only one peak we could have possibly talking about, so confusion is ruled out), Karakorum -4/0 = four spaces W of Karakorum, Gold 0/0 = exactly where that gold is.

EDIT: I've posted this as a standalone thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3381748) in the Demogame forum. If you like to details of this notation, please go there.

The screenshot below suggests the build locations for the next two cities.

I'd like to suggest a different location, one roughly between "1" and "2": the spot north west of the horse (or north east of "1"), or Karakorum -4/-4, to use the "Numkey Notaion" (see above).

If we build the city there, we instantly get the horse and can start building a pasture. Later the rice and the cow will fall into our reach as well. That spot is also in a very fine distance to our capital, not too near and not too far either.

Further possible settling points for later are:

- Karakorum +5/+3, a coastal hill with immediate access to gems and later access to rice and gold.

- Karakorum -1/+8, also a coastal spot - very likely and hopefully to the ocean to our south west (in which case the spot has great strategical importance), and with access to copper, rice and gold after some growth.

We can research the following : Meditation (5), Polytheism(6), Sailing (6), Writing (7), Masonary (4), Horseback Riding (16), Iron Working (13), Metal Casting (28)

I strongly recommend Sailing, so as to build a galley (maybe even two) to protect our work boat and/or explore the coast line. The protection is important because babarian ships may come and detroy our work boat - it happend to me before. The exploration is important for obvious reasons.

Suggestions : Let Slave Gang 1 connect Beshabalik to our capital, and irrigate the wheat there. Slave Gang 2, when built, should irrigate the bananas below. This will help our city grow faster (We can change it to a plantation, once we discover the Calendar, anyway). We should finish our Barracks, and churn out an archer, followed by a settler. We should move them to build our next cities.

I second that.
Beshbalik should proceed onto an Obelisk, followed by another work boat once it's work boat is finished. This'll give us some minor culture, and let us claim the clam resource as well.

I'd suggest building a galley before we proceed to obelisk (see above).

I suggest spot 1 be taken ASAP, so that it'll act as a culture barrier to our neighbour's explorations.

Also agree here, just not exactly spot 1 (see above).

Please discuss if my actions were or were not worthy, and why. True, I took a risk by building a second city a bit far out, but I believe the rewards will be well worth it.

I strongly support your decision to build Beshbalik there. An early coastal city is very important in my eyes (usually I always build my capital on coast), and it's good we've reached far to claim all the space in between.

Obelisks obsolete very early, so it often isn't worth the trouble of building them unless we need a quick border expansion to get a resource. If we're not going to proceed towards the tech which obsoletes Obelisks (is that calendar, or compass?) then building them might be more reasonable.

Obelisks obsolete very early, so it often isn't worth the trouble of building them unless we need a quick border expansion to get a resource. If we're not going to proceed towards the tech which obsoletes Obelisks (is that calendar, or compass?) then building them might be more reasonable.

It's calendar and I often avoid this tech for a bit anyway. The bananas are an argument in favor of Calendar but not a compelling one.

However, you can either build Stonehenge early (the computer doesn't seem to value it) or build a library first (theater in mid-game).

As an aside:
If you have a Holy City (and structure), I find building a mititary unit first will often give enough time for that religion to spread there and then you have the option to build a monastery instead. It's cheaper (therefore faster), gets you the same culture, and you trade some reasearch (25% vs 10% getting obsolete in the later mid-game) for the ability to designate a town for spreading the good word throughout your kingdom. Using this technique, I had a cultural victory without ever declaring a state religion <grin>.

If you have a Holy City (and structure), I find building a mititary unit first will often give enough time for that religion to spread there and then you have the option to build a monastery instead. It's cheaper (therefore faster), gets you the same culture, and you trade some reasearch (25% vs 10% getting obsolete in the later mid-game) for the ability to designate a town for spreading the good word throughout your kingdom. Using this technique, I had a cultural victory without ever declaring a state religion <grin>.

That's definitely a very interesting idea, which has been proven practical by your victory.

Let me just ask a noob question. There seems to be agreement that I set the worker in the wrong place the last round. I thought the consensus was to start a cottage. Was this the wrong place? Why? Where would have been better?

I'm not whining, I'm really just curious as I learn to play better.

Cheers!

There will always be style differences so take this with a grain of salt.

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After farming up the corn, I would build a road in place to connect it to our capital so we'd get the trade good and the +1 Health benefit it offers. After roading the corn, I would road NW once, walk NW, place a camp (to get the hammer bonus in that tile), and road to connect the camp to my trade network.

If you still had turns, I would consider my settler builds and probably road up to the new city site. I feel this is stronger than building cottages because the new town will have access to whatever trade goods we've connected AND mutual town defense will improve as you can more easily share units between them. This generally generates more commerce and production by making workers available and I think the benefit easily matches early deployment of cottages.

At that point, I think the horse city build makes the most sense. After that, the northern coastal city site has merits, as does the marble site (Oracle, Great Library, a couple of religions buildings).

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My wife was under the the impression that you get a lot of these benefits just by having things in your cultural borders but the truth is that you only get credit for a commodity when it is connected via a trade route (which is deceptively similar).

I *think* I got credit for a commodity (iron in this case) that I mined and roaded that tile despite only being connected to that commodity by water and it was within my cultural borders (no attached town). I know roads and common waterways count as connectors but I thought that was only between cities; not cities and resources. I can't confirm this, but was odd enough to attract my attention when it told me I now had access to iron and I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else has run into it.

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To answer your question (at long last), I tend to build my early cottages on already cleared grasslands (our banana tile wouldn't be a horrible place either) that cannot be easily irragated because the governer and likely the player would prefer to use that tile for growth which helps develop the cottage. You also don't lose any time moving from tile to an adjacent tile to make the next cottage.

The tile that the worker was developing has these strikes:
1) The build is delayed 3 turns moving into the forest and then waiting for the forest to be cleared (time enough for 2 cottages to be dropped).
2) The resulting tiles is one that needs to be improved further to be a desirably tile for growth. Since every population unit wants two food (more if unhealthy), grasslands offer unfettered growth. Plains only offers one food, so every two plains we work reduces our growth potential by one. The standard AI governor won't even work the tile until it has no better choice so you never see any early benefit from your cottage that doesn't cost you more.

Lastly, the reason I pause before building cottages on farmable squares is that the 3rd food unit gives you the flexibility to use mines for production without losing growth potential. Also, once you get Civil Service, you can use farmed territory (your city counts as a connector), to chain irrigation further inland. In our case, we might find it valuable to extend that irrigation to those inland plains (I'm primarily thinking about our eventual marble city).

I *think* I got credit for a commodity (iron in this case) that I mined and roaded that tile despite only being connected to that commodity by water and it was within my cultural borders (no attached town). I know roads and common waterways count as connectors but I thought that was only between cities; not cities and resources. I can't confirm this, but was odd enough to attract my attention when it told me I now had access to iron and I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else has run into it.

I can confirm this. Waterways - rivers, lakes, oceans - do connect resources. I was surprised by that, too.

...

Lastly, the reason I pause before building cottages on farmable squares is that the 3rd food unit gives you the flexibility to use mines for production without losing growth potential. Also, once you get Civil Service, you can use farmed territory (your city counts as a connector), to chain irrigation further inland. In our case, we might find it valuable to extend that irrigation to those inland plains (I'm primarily thinking about our eventual marble city).

Thank you for the excellent and thoughtful response to my question. Thanks also to wcil for his thoughts on my question and for turn playing.

Cheers!

Lastly, the reason I pause before building cottages on farmable squares is that the 3rd food unit gives you the flexibility to use mines for production without losing growth potential. Also, once you get Civil Service, you can use farmed territory (your city counts as a connector), to chain irrigation further inland. In our case, we might find it valuable to extend that irrigation to those inland plains (I'm primarily thinking about our eventual marble city).

I totally agree that chained farms are extremely important for growth in thd mid-game. I'm however a little bit irritated by your intention to claim the marble so early in the game. Do we want to build wonders so early? Because if not, we can wait until our capital grows again and the marble spot falls into it, or some other place to find marble (it's rare, I know, but not unlocateable).

I've yet to encounter Barbarian Boats (but I play Pangeae / continents at Noble mostly)... So I dunno.

Vert -4, Horiz -4 from Karakorum is a great idea... Dunno why I didn't notice that!

Vert -4, Horiz +2 on the desert from Karakorum will also give us both the marble and the gold! As a down side, it wont be a coastal city. Moving to the coast will mean giving up the bonuses of the marble or the gold (though both will eventually come into our cultual borders)

The (-4,-4) is what I agree with totally though. (Civ 3 ICP has sorta spoiled me) :p

Personally I wouldn't "waste" (no offence meant here!!) production for galleys right now. I tend to underprotect my units in my SP's though. The idea with the monastery (from starbolt) is excellent! If we don't have that choice I would suggest the obelisk for expanding our borders early (no other purpose there I have to admit).

Thanks to starbolt for your excellent description on worker-handling. I think that's my weakest spot when playing civ and therefore your remarks are greatly appreciated...

While the idea of a galley for protection is a good one (there definitely are barb ships out there), I agree with the previous post by Stilgar08. We can get away with leaving a fishing boat unprotected for a while yet.
If we do see more barb activity, it'll come over land first.
From my experience, we probably don't have to worry about barb naval units until the continent we're on is entirely revealed by us and our neighbours.

Thanks to starbolt for your excellent description on worker-handling. I think that's my weakest spot when playing civ and therefore your remarks are greatly appreciated...

Thanks for the kind words.

This kind of micromanagement plays to my strengths since I used to play chess professionally and opening theory analysis is second nature :)

BTW, do note that forest chops can be used to speed up wonders. (the same is true for buying, and poprushing wonders!)

I'm however a little bit irritated by your intention to claim the marble so early in the game. Do we want to build wonders so early?

If I'm irritating you already, then you're probably taking this game too seriously :)

I should be clear that my arguments are intended to be backchannel discussion unless otherwise noted because I want to learn also. If I *really* wanted to implement these ideas I'd sign up to be a DP (which I've not done)... If I use words like "recommend", then I'm probably serious about it - lol

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Let's ignore the wonder argument (and we shouldn't) for the time being.

When worked by a city (not just within our cultural influence), this marble tile is worth 1 food and 2 hammers base. Improved, it's worth 1 food, 4 hammers, and 2 commerce. If you were excited about working the ivory (1/4/1) (and we shouldn't) then the marble should pique your interest. This tile is also accessible from the coast which makes it ideal for building up a monster research town. The nearby desert/plain squares are discouraging, but it's still quite a find. As to the rarity of marble, there seems to be ~1 such tile for every 2 civilizations (the same seems true of stone).

Still discounting the wonder argument (and we shouldn't) ... in the 5 turns we spent getting to the fish/crab/wheat square (a FABULOUS location, I agree), we could have travelled a road and settled in 1 turn and gotten up to 16 hammers and 8 commerce. That's 1/3 of The Oracle.

Finally, looking at the wonders... since marble will halve the production time, we have a tremendous edge over any competitors (even if they had the tech available before us). I'm including a tab-delimited .txt file that I recommend that you import into Excel and use the sorts/filters.

The first marble wonder, The Oracle, collects a very respectable 8 culture per turn until the end of the game, produces 2 GPP to Great Prophet (admitably one of the weaker GPs), and a free tech (which should be translated as ~1000 beakers) that you can immediately choose based upon your need/greed. I can't tell you how often this results in Music (Great Artist) or one of the later religions (and subsequent Holy City structure).

The second marble wonder, The Great Library, also produces 8 culture until the later middle game and 2 GPP to Great Scientist (Academy is very strong) and 2 free Scientists (which I think also contribute GPPs to Great Scientist as well as research). Winning the tech war is still a valuable weapon in winning Civ.

Lastly, when you get Music and either Hinduism or Islam (and 3 temples of that religion), you get the double speed production of their respective cathedrals which are monster culture and happiness structures. With two religious neighbors, we should get access to at least one of these religions assuming we don't discover one ourselves.

There are another half dozen structures to which marble contributes and those are season to taste in my opinion. My point about marble is that it should be respected as a potentially game-defining commodity; especially if it's within your starting sphere of influence.

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The better play, however, is to head our second settler NW (assuming you had pre-roaded to the ivory) and settle on the hill (or the square north of the hill) and gain access to horses. You could potentially have 1/2 a Keshik ready to go and you've severely pinched of expansion territory for our not-so close neighbors (Egypt, at least) looks far off. I like the hill better than the plain because you get a little more of the river for commerce, you get a more defensible position (important for a buffering frontier town), and at least half again as many forest chops to hurry production along. You'll almost certainly gain access to the wheat/cow through culture and you'll have room enough to build another town N or NNE to exploit these resources.

I'd then use that road as a launch point to build our third city where the DP built the second, and then built our fourth city on the marble coast to crank out Great Library.

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None of this has any bearing on the current direction of the game... I'm just explaining the reasons behind my suggestions.

[...]

None of this has any bearing on the current direction of the game... I'm just explaining the reasons behind my suggestions.

Very throughout analysis indeed, definitely worthy of a former chess pro. :goodjob:

I certainly agree with you that Marble and Stone can be "game defining". In fact, in this epic singlegame I've played on a Terra map, where the primary goal is to be the first to discover "the new continent", I did, and the first thing I did there is to find Marble and Stone and settle. I know how useful those resource has been to my game.

However, I generally believe in "later but powerful start" in building Wonders. I consider it more balanced to have at least 3, preferably 4 cities with all the basic infrastructure buildings of the classic/renaissance era first and start rushing for Wonders from there on. In my experience, cities that start with Wonders too early often get surpassed growth-wise by the later starters.

So, we *will* get that Marble, that's for sure. The question is when, and how - with a new city of via expansion of our capital.

We have no religions in grasp. Buddhism and Hinduism have both been claimed by the Spanish. That's the reason why I researched Obelisks, for quick Culture till Libraries.

BTW, do note that forest chops can be used to speed up wonders. (the same is true for buying, and poprushing wonders!)

You can do what? :eek:

I imagine pop rushing would be kinda drastic, like taking 8 pop off a 9 pop city, but that's a huge change! It would still be more efficient to have a city concentrate on trying to breed Great Engineers, but this does give the capability to win wonder races -- that is if you have some way of knowing how hard you need to try.

Can you chop, have a forest grow back (that's very cool too) and chop it again?

Thanks for the kind words.

This kind of micromanagement plays to my strengths since I used to play chess professionally and opening theory analysis is second nature :)

One of the things I've noticed about Civ is that you get into both opening theory type thinking, in terms of what order to acquire techs, resources, etc., but also it has the positional nature of thinking about cities like pieces, and what influence will they exert from different positions.

OK, now that I worked this post into being on-topic, I can squeeze in a chess question. ;) Professionally as in titled level, or as in making enough money from tournaments to pay expenses etc.? I'm A-class in postal play, but only USCF 1500 or so OTB, and haven't played for years. :)

Professionally as in titled level, or as in making enough money from tournaments to pay expenses etc.?


lol - the factual answer is the latter, but I'm a living anecdote :)

As an 18-20 yr old punk, I travelled the midwest in my beater-mobile, The Green Bomb, on the weekends and made enough to subsidize my adventures. After I'd exercised my newfound freedom and felt I'd been wronged in the prize distribution at a tournament, I made a conscious decision that I didn't want to buckle down and play chess for the rest of my life (it's bad when you dream chess all the time). My rating never kept pace with my level of play. I attained a rating within spitting distance of 2000 (1983, I think), but the last tournament I played, I scored 5.5 of 7.0 losing to a grandmaster, drawing a grandmaster, and beating 3 masters and 2 experts. I've no doubt I could have made master or better had I chosen.

I've not played competitively for over 15 years, but I do play pickup games with a rated Expert buddy who still actively coaches chess and I hold my own.

The first marble wonder, The Oracle, collects a very respectable 8 culture per turn until the end of the game, produces 2 GPP to Great Prophet (admitably one of the weaker GPs), and a free tech (which should be translated as ~1000 beakers) that you can immediately choose based upon your need/greed. I can't tell you how often this results in Music (Great Artist) or one of the later religions (and subsequent Holy City structure).

The second marble wonder, The Great Library, also produces 8 culture until the later middle game and 2 GPP to Great Scientist (Academy is very strong) and 2 free Scientists (which I think also contribute GPPs to Great Scientist as well as research). Winning the tech war is still a valuable weapon in winning Civ.
...
My point about marble is that it should be respected as a potentially game-defining commodity; especially if it's within your starting sphere of influence.


I concur. For the Oracle production boost alone, it's extremely valuable to hook up Marble as early as possible. I often grab Metal Casting as my free tech, providing a slingshot to Forges in every production-heavy city (helps establish early military prowess) and the Colossus in my first coastal city.

You can do what? :eek:

I imagine pop rushing would be kinda drastic, like taking 8 pop off a 9 pop city, but that's a huge change! It would still be more efficient to have a city concentrate on trying to breed Great Engineers, but this does give the capability to win wonder races -- that is if you have some way of knowing how hard you need to try.

Can you chop, have a forest grow back (that's very cool too) and chop it again?

Yes you can, as long as you don't improve the terrain. Although, it's quite random when a forest will spawn. Some games, they seemed to spawn every other turn, other games, I could count the number of spawns with 1 hand.

Do forest grow back faster in "Wet" maps as compared to "Arid" ones?

Yes you can, as long as you don't improve the terrain. Although, it's quite random when a forest will spawn. Some games, they seemed to spawn every other turn, other games, I could count the number of spawns with 1 hand.

But I like to point out *again*, since there is a common misconception regarding this, that forests *do* grow on tiles with roads. I have seen it with my own eyes, and it has also been confirmed by other people:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3384317&postcount=28

But roads don't "improve" the terrain in CivIV...

But roads don't "improve" the terrain in CivIV...

It's just a matter of definition. Roads are built like those "improvements" and can be destroyed ("pillage") as them.

But I like to point out *again*, since there is a common misconception regarding this, that forests *do* grow on tiles with roads. I have seen it with my own eyes, and it has also been confirmed by other people:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3384317&postcount=28

Does this mean that if you chop a forest tile that has a road on it and then the forest grows back that the road then disappears? :confused:

Does this mean that if you chop a forest tile that has a road on it and then the forest grows back that the road then disappears? :confused:

No, the road remains.

Of course, this makes sense. The only thing that can be built with and without a forest is a road. Everything else requires the forest to be cleared first. It doesn't really matter, though, since we have no control over the forest regrowth (at least, we think).