This is the fourth succession game following the Realms Beyond rules, this time exploring the oasis map.

Leader: Cyrus of Persia (exp/cre)
Difficulty: Monarch
World Size: Standard
Map Script: Oasis (standard)
Opponents: Six
Victory Conditions: All enabled

Roster:
Kylearan
jameson
Snaproll
hiob
dopplex
Zeviz

You have 24 hours to post a "got it", and another 48 hours to complete your turns. This is not a strict rule; if you need more time then this won't be a problem, but please say so in the given timeframe and keep us updated on your progress.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb4_4000bc.jpg

-Kylearan

Checking in :). Animal Husbandry seems the way to go for tech.
I assume we popped a map at the start ?

Founding Persepolis had explored a tribal village which has given us maps, so we can see a bit more of our surroundings. (In hindsight, I should have explored the village with our scout before founding the city, so that the scout might have received xp which I find very valuable early on. :smoke: )

We have pigs in our initial 21 tiles, which isn't the best of starts...especially because we are expansive and won't need the health bonus anyway. Apart from that, we're on a river, have a nice mixture of a floodplain, some flat grasslands, and several hills around us, plus a lot of forests. Deserts can be seen to the north, so I guess we are on the south side of the map.

We start the game with hunting and agriculture. I won't be able to play my initial turns until Monday or even Tuesday, so let's discuss our options for our opening strategy...

a) We can go for an early religion. We will work the floodplain in the beginning which gives us a commerce, so a "non-spiritual hinduism gambit(tm)" could be tried. In my experience, emphasizing commerce and going for mysticism -> polytheism works 80% of the time on Monarch. This would probably involve creating an early great prophet for the shrine, and building an army of missionaries later. Downside would be that we won't have access to worker techs immediately, and of course that the gambit might fail.

b) Or we could research all the worker techs first to make our capital an early powerhouse. We would then wait and see which of the AIs convert to which religion, carefully choosing sides and making some allies.

c) Or, given that we are expansive (+2 health), have a pig resource near us, and are surrounded by a lot of forests, we could go for mining -> bronze working first, while immediately building a worker (instead of a scout and a warrior). Then, we could chop most of our forests to speed up the production of two ultra-early settlers and/or a wonder. Normally, I'm a bit weary of removing precious forests because you also throw away production, but we have several hills around us which might compensate for this. Downside would be that our capital will lack improvements for some time.


Opinions?

-Kylearan

I see you chose to start in the South, with a civ who has a Horse-requisite Unique Unit. Deliberate handicap or accidental? :)

Pigs, Deer and Corn all in visible range. Looks like good fun!


- Sirian

Hi,

I see you chose to start in the South, with a civ who has a Horse-requisite Unique Unit. Deliberate handicap or accidental? :)

Accidental. I swapped team number with the first AI to get a random start as you've suggested in the map guide. And in my (limited) experience, the UUs aren't as important as they had been in Civ 3, so having to, uh, "earn" us some horses might be fun. :)

By the way, is there a special reason why seven civs is standard for standard-sized maps? Why not eight?

-Kylearan

A few thoughts,

Persia has agriculture at the start, so our workers aren't totally useless even if we don't go for worker techs right at the start. I think that we should grab a religion while working on our first worker, and then irrigate the flood plain as soon as mossible, then after we (hopefully) get hinduism we should knock out mining 2nd and animal husbandry third. This will combine two of our goals that Ky spelled out (early religion and a strong(ish) first city.

I would be completely open to strategy 3, however - that one is the most focused on utilizing our expansive trait, which follows the old adage of "exploting your advantages". It would be an interesting switch from the seemingly usual hinduism gambit. Is it true that in multiplayer the ability to chop forests is considered the strongest opening move?

I thought I'd quote the map reference here just to have it handy:


Oasis
Regional Map: No world wrap
Land-Heavy Map: 52 plots wide, 32 plots tall, at "Standard" map size
Neutral Zone: Nobody ever starts in the desert region in the middle of the map.
Teams Alternate: Lowest team number starts in the south, next in the north, etc.
Assymetrical: The south gets more arable land but fewer resources.
Nile-Style Rivers: There are always four rivers, running randomly from south to north.

Resources Anywhere: Cow, Coal, Copper, Uranium
Southern Resources: Dye, Fur, Gems, Silk (rare!), Sugar, Banana, Deer, Pig, Rice
Northern Resources: Horses, Marble, Fur, Silver, Spices, Wine, Sheep, Wheat, and seafoods.
Oasis-Region: Aluminum, Corn (abundant!), Iron, Oil, Stone, Gold, Incense, Ivory

In Single Player: You will always start in the south, unless you use the Advanced options and swap your team number with the first AI listed (or similar action).


From the looks of it, we can forget about the marble wonders unless we chop heavily (the Oracle could be a candidate for that). Stonehenge does nothing that our Creative trait doesn't do. I hadn't noticed horses would be out for us, so chances are we'll never build our UU at all (and animal husbandry somewhat less of a priority)

I would prefer to build 1-2 scouts first while going for the worker techs. On the downside, happiness could become a bit of an issue.

I swapped team number with the first AI to get a random start as you've suggested in the map guide.

That shouldn't give you a random start. (It's impossible to get a random start, actually. Your team number is supposed to choose for you!) Sadly, after looking at it, I see that something got broken after the last time I had tested this script. (The problem is not in the script, per se.)

Currently, in single player it is impossible to start in the north, as intended.

Sorry about that! I've reported it, now, but it will be until the next patch before this could be fixed!


Anyway, the South is where you are, and the only region in which you could possibly start at the moment, so make the most of it. :)


- Sirian

Hi,

That shouldn't give you a random start. [...] Currently, in single player it is impossible to start in the north, as intended. Sorry about that!

I didn't know that, so to me it sure looks like a random start! :lol: Don't worry, I'm sure we will have a lot of fun the way it is. :)

-Kylearan

I am here.

Looking at the map, I notice that we have many forest hills around our capital. This can make worker-chops particularly good, because a mined hill is better than a forested hill, so we'll have to clear all those forested hills anyway. I count at least 7 forested hills on the map, so that should give us enough chopping material.

If we'll be making early settlers, we'll need several scouts to find good city locations (preferably grabbing as many resources and as much territory as we can, especially with our creative trait guaranteeing fast border expansions). So my suggestion would be to build 1 or 2 scouts while researching bronze-working and then go for a worker and get some settlers, chopping only on the hills.

As for religion, there are some benefits of not getting an early religion: for a peaceful civ, no religion means no relationship penalties with any neighbors; for a militant civ, it's better to focus on military techs and steal a holy city from one of the neighbors.

So I guess my suggestion for overall tech path would be to start with bronze working (but chop only on the hills) and continue with dual-duty technologies: research animal husbandry (build pastures and reveal ivory) and iron working (chop jungle and reveal iron) and send one or two scouts into the desert to look for important resources. If they find anything good, we can send our third settler in that direction, to grab strategic resources.

I thought I'd quote the map reference here just to have it handy.

There's a map reference? Never knew this... doesn't seem to be in the pedia. Where is this info?

Weird, I thought it was stickied in the General forum but it's no longer there.
Here's an HTML version (http://civilization4.net/3/175/).

Weird, I thought it was stickied in the General forum but it's no longer there.

They decided to un-sticky it. :smoke: [pimp]


- Sirian

Checking in, will have a chance to take a look at our start later tonight!

After having had a few moments to look at the map, I find myself agreeing with Zeviz - we seem to be in very good position to choprush some settlers and get some expansion done quickly. With creative, fast cities + fast border expansion could give us a nice territory advantage.

We're in the South - we should find out how far from the edge we are. If we can seal off the southern edge, that's a border we don't have to worry about defending. Even better if we're in the corner, and we can rely on two of our borders being secure.

I'm worried about the risk of going for an early religion without Mysticism - we may get it 2 out of 3 times, but that 1 out of 3 seems an awful lot to gamble our start on (Especially if Isabella is on a lake somewhere else on the map!).

It's my opinion as well that we should use the forests to our advantage, so the mining -> bronze working route it is. According to the map guide, some critical resources are in the middle of the map (iron, for example!), so getting IW soonish and having some scouts to find these resources would be another priority.

My scouts are especially lucky today! Another two maps and xp, and two techs, The Wheel and Animal Husbandry! That's very nice, especially that we got more worker techs. :D

I sent the first scout eastwards, to make contact with our neighbours. I find Louis XIV and Victoria. And good thing we didn't go for an early religion! Hinduism gets founded in 3520BC, and Louis founds Buddhism in 3360BC! :eek:

Our second scout I sent north, to look for potential city sites, and to cross the desert eventually. I've invested three turns into a warrior (to let our capital grow to size three), then started our worker. After the worker, the warrior should be finished for protection, but he can also be used to scout the lands to the south.

I suggest using the worker to chop forests on hills only, as there are enough of them near us. It would be nice if we could keep some of the flatland forests.
After the warrior, either build a second one for settler protection (animals are roaming around) and then the settler, or build the settler first and use our first warrior to protect it.

Our eastern scout had killed a lion and is healing at the moment.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb4_3240bc.jpg

Roster:
Kylearan -> just played
jameson -> UP NOW
Snaproll -> on deck
hiob
dopplex
Zeviz

The next player can play 20 turns, then it's 10 turns per player from then on.

-Kylearan

Got it, will play later today. Yay for goody huts, er, "tribal villages" !

Two techs from huts! What a great start!:goodjob:

Plans for the turn, get started on expansion, do some scouting,

IHT: Not much to do

3160 BC (2) Pop another hut and the Northern scout gets experienced too.

3120 BC (3) Bronze Working comes in, I decide to go for Pottery next. We can now switch to slavery, but there doesn't seem to be much of a point to that yet. We have copper in Persepolis's range ! Our scout becomes a Woodsman now he's nearing the northern region.

3000 BC (6) Meet Gandhi to our West. Northern scout pops a hut for 41 gold and meets the Greeks. Persepolis finishes worker, I decide to let the warrior finish first so it can start building the settler at size 4. Worker will start to pasturize the pigs as I think that's the most efficient in terms of extra output per worker turn (+3 food in 4 worker turns).

2960 BC (7) Eastern scout uncovers the edges of the map, will start to double back for exploration nearer the capital.

2920 BC (8) Our hut luck continues :D

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/40/rb4hutluck9bk.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2880 BC (9) Quatorze (XIV) comes offering Open Borders, I see no reason to decline.

2800 BC (11) Meet Peter the Great to the Northwest

2760 BC (12) Pottery comes in, go for Archery next. The time for Barbarians appearing is near, so we'll have to send proper escorts. Warrior is finished, settler is next. Worker starts chopping NW forest hill, warrior is sent North along the river to clear the fog for the upcoming settler.

2680 BC (14) Southern Scout on defense defeats panther without a scratch. Got to love that woodsman promotion !

2600 BC (16) Chop is done, worker starts mining Copper.

2520 BC (18) Archery comes in, mysticism started. We have no use for Masonry yet. Warrior arrives at where I think the next city should go and fortifies. We have full LOS over the path the settler should take.

2480 BC (19) Settler finishes, Archer started.

2440 BC (20) Pop another hut for xp, our Southern scout is now level 3 (I suggest a combat promotion). Settler will found next turn. On hindsight, maybe it was better to send him West but I didn't spot the cow bonus at first.

Re the Scouts, I should probably have sent one to the NE instead, our scout in the North could probably do that job now. Alternatively, double the Southern scout back again and create a new one (or an extra archer) to investigate our immediate scoutings a bit more closely. On the bright side though, the scout did pick up a rather expensive tech, so sometimes it's better to be lucky than, well... :mischief:

Here's a map of our lands, warrior is at suggested city spot.

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/9991/rb4map8ri.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB4_Cyrus_BC-2440.Civ4SavedGame).

Hi,

a third tech from a hut?!? :eek: :D

[scout] ...create a new one (or an extra archer)
I'd prefer to build an archer instead of a scout. I don't expect our scouts to be able to survive long, now that barbarians will surely appear.

Roster
Kylearan
jameson -> just played
Snaproll -> UP NOW
hiob -> on deck
dopplex
Zeviz

-Kylearan

Not just that, but IIRC Horseback Riding is worth 357 beakers; that's quite as good as 3 first-tier techs !

I see it, and should get to it tonight.

Now, if only we had Horses!:lol:

That's very nice luck with tribal villages.

Was the idea with Pottery to go on to Writing and Alphabet to try some tech trading, or are we going to go for Iron Working next?

Here I go :)

Some preliminary thoughts:

Louis asks for Open Borders... in 2880 BC :eek: That means he has writing - looks like we weren't the only ones to pop some techs! We are going unhappy with growth next turn, so the current archer build will have to stay in the city. I'll have to build another archer to push back the borders. I think the city location is a good one, though, with plenty of food and production. Healthiness might be an issue there.

So I get ten turns, in which I'll probably end up building mostly archers, but we'll see!

Pre-turn - 2440 BC - Fortunately, Louis is the only one with writing. Amazingly, we have a trade route with Alexander all the way up in the north! Our river goes all the way to him! He doesn't have anything to trade at the moment, but it's something to keep in mind. Other than that everything looks really well set up!

Turn 1 - 2400 BC - Pasargadae founded on the river to the north. I'm not sure what to build there. Interestingly, our quick connection to copper has left us with an inability to make any more warriors. It is starting on a floodplain so it has very little production, but I want to keep it there for growth. Hmm. We could use another worker but I don't want to start a worker at size 1. There is a barbarian archer immediately to our north however! Ack, we could very well LOSE this city to that barb! I couldn't see him until AFTER I settled. Well, this game might become a real challenge here in a bit... In any case I set production to an archer, that should be changed to a worker when we reach size 3

105601

Between turns - the archer moves away. THANK GOODNESS. I wasn't looking forward to losing the game for us. Our scout to the east kills a panther on defense - I had left him unpromoted to this point to try and use his promotion for healing (he's already woodsman 2), but he wasn't injured so I guess I'll leave him for now.

Turn 2 - 2360 BC - Our scout pops a hut, and we get:

105602

Another tech!!! We were in the process of researching this, so it only saved us 2 turns, but still, four techs? What to research next... I normally would go for priesthood becuase we need more happiness, but we don't have a religion, so it won't help us much. We could try for Judaism, but monotheism is 22 turns away altoghter, so I don't think we would get it. That leaves writing at 9 turns and iron working at 13 turns. I'll go for iron working. I'm not sure this is the best approach, but if we can grab the sources of it first, it wouldn't hurt. Our worker completes the road on the copper mine, so I move him to one of our forested hills to start a chop. I plan to build an archer but switch to a settler the turn the chop finishes, then back to the archer.

Between Turns -

Turn 3 - 2320 BC - Persepolis grows and finished an archer, but cannot grow anymore without becoming unhappy. I suppose we've found the disadvantage to not going for an early religion. I set it to max shields (which consists of several plains forests) and we are producing 11 shields. However, we can get two archers every five turns, which we'll need. I am going to mine some hills around it and, of course, when we build settlers and/or workers the food surplus is not a hinderance.

Between turns - no less than 3 barbarian archers in sight, and they are just the ones our scouts can see.

Turn 4 - 2280 BC - Two archers in production, and the worker is chopping for the settler. Our scouts are returning to home to try and clear some fog and also see what is to our west. I switch to a settler as the forest chop is coming in next turn.

Between turns -

Turn 5 - 2240 BC - The forest chop hits our settler, and I switch back to the archer.

Between turns - Persepolis finishes the archer, starts again on settler automatically. I set it to ANOTHER archer first - we need to secure pasargadae and still have an escort for our settler. This was a tough call - we are delaying our growth a bit (2 turns), but I want to make sure we are properly defended from these barbarians.

Turn 6 - 2200 BC - The newly created archer moves to defend pasargadae, and I insert another archer into the queue before the (four tenths completed) settler. Worker starts a mine on the newly cleared grassland hill.

Between Turns -

Turn 7 - 2160 BC - Nothing of note.

Between Turns - Pasargadae expanded its borders a few turns ago, and I note that we are first in score. Not bad for monarch, so far.

Turn 8 - 2120 BC - The next archer finishes, and I reconfigure for max food to build the next settler. This archer is going to move out towards the cows to help the scout look for another city site. Our scout looking west finds fur in the same general area as the cows and the deer - we DESPERATELY need that luxury resource!

105603

Between turns -

Turn 9 - 2080 BC - Pasargadae grows to size two. Our scout finds dyes and another river to the west!

105604

Between turns -

Turn 10 - 2040 BC - The worker starts a road. The intention of this road is to hook us up to the furs as soon as possible. Getting more happiness I think is the best thing we can do for the worker right now.

Our lands:
105605

Notes:

- Persepolis is a great archer / worker / settler factory, even at size 5. However, it need careful micromanagement depending on if it's building a worker/settler or an archer. It can be set to no growth and 12 shields when constructing an archer, or 5 food + 10 shields when doing a worker / settler. I think this could be managed using the halt growth / maximize food buttons, but I find it easier to do it manually.

- I suggest the spot 1S of the cows for our next city. Pulls in cows, fur, deer, and two hills as well as lots of grassland (for cottages?).

- The scout to our north has a hidden archer directly below him, which I passed last turn. Be careful moving him, and remember he only gets one move in desert!

Good Luck! Here is the save! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB4_Cyrus_BC-2040.Civ4SavedGame)

Yay, yet another tech. *yawn* :p

Someone on the general forum suggested that Firaxis had upped the chance of getting a tech from a hut in the patch, and at first I thought the guy just had good luck. Now, after playing a private game and seeing this one here...I'm not so sure anymore.


After Iron Working, I suggest going for Alphabet next. It's almost guaranteed we will be the first with the tech, which means we can make some good trades. (I can't understand why *no* AI goes for Alphabet in any game...)


Pasargadae and its flood plains looks to be a nice spot for some cottages.


Roster:
Kylearan
jameson
Snaproll -> just played
hiob -> UP NOW
dopplex -> on deck
Zeviz

-Kylearan

While that's possible, I think your tech-popping is more likely due to the fact that there are tons of huts in the middle "desert" part of an Oasis map. Pretty much every time I've ever played that map I've opened up a lot of them and received several techs. So it's probably due to the fact that this map script simply has a lot of huts that the AI is slow to grab, rather than any chance in the patch. :)

(0)
archer near pasagardea fortifies and the worker starts to build a road

(1)
I move the northern scout on the nearest hills next to a barbarian warrior (couldn't see him), which gets him killed in the next round. :-(

(2)
We're ranked as the 5th most andvanced nation of the world and spot indian borders to our west. Our only remaining scout will move north to explore what we can get get peacefully.

(3)
Persepolis finishes a settler, which is order to the proposed citysite, and starts an axeman. (It did gather some excess food while building the axeman to allow for growing immediately after the fur is hooked up.)

(4)
Our settler arrives at his destination and will found Susa next turn. His personal guard (the western archer) spots a hut in the south. (I didnt open it in my turn)

(5)
Judaism is founded as is Susa. Work on some garrison is immediately started(archer).Meanwhile Pasagardea grows to Size 3.

(6)
Persepolis completes an axeman and starts on a much needed worker.
The axeman moves to Susa to act as temporary guard.

(7)
Our worker finished the road that is connecting Susa with the rest of our empire and starts the work on a furcamp

(8)
Ironworking comes finally in and we start researching writing(due in 9 with 90% research)

(9)
The Archer finished in Pasagardea is send out to scout the area north of his hometown, which is ordered to construct a worker next.

(10)
Susas borders expand while Persepolis completes a worker. The worker starts constructing a cottage on the Floodplains.

I started a settler in Persepolis, but thats vetoable. The only iron we know of is far away, therefore is i sent two archers out to explore some more.

Attached you have a picture of our mighty empire alongside eastern india and the save.

Will get it when I get home from work tonight.

10 gold says that hut to the South gives us another tech :lol:. I do have the impression that huts give tech more often in regular maps too - I've toyed with multiple starts (usually on pangaea maps) on monarch level and seem to have a fair chance of picking up at least one tech from huts every time.

A bit late to reply but:


Was the idea with Pottery to go on to Writing and Alphabet to try some tech trading, or are we going to go for Iron Working next?

Actually, it was just for cottages. My opening strategy definitely needs some improvement (though I will frequently go for Alphabet first too).

Thank you for the explanation. I am just trying to understand the strategies that everybody uses. (This is my first full game on Monarch level.)

About strategies, what should we do in the next few dozen turns? I know that a lot could change before the game gets to me, but I want to start planning strategy already. Should I focus on building cottages around our cities and settle a couple more cottageble locations? (That's what I do in my solo games to keep up technologically.) Or do we want to build up an early army to steal Bombay? (If I read the screenshot correctly, it's Jewdaism's holy city.)

EDIT: It seems that Bombay is producing no culture. (Size 4, but still radius 1.) Should we settle on the opposite shore from it, grabbing gold and floodplains, and hoping to culture-flip it with our creative trait? I think culture-flipping a holy city would be very amuzing.

I think (And I could be wrong) that holy cities will produce culture because they are holy cities. Perhaps it just lately became a holy city? EDIT: It became a holy city five turns ago. it's borders will expand any turn now.

At the same time, the idea is certainly interesting... We'd be coming from a standing start culture wise, but if we really emphasized it there, I'm sure we could eventually flip it - but how long would it take, and would the resources devoted to that be worth it?

EDIT2: Oh, and Got it. Since I've played hardly any Monarch, I'm going to take a look and post my thoughts before commiting us to anything particularly dire. (As in: Turn 1: I declare war on Louis, Victoria, Ghandi, Alexander, and Peter. Turn 2: This military is expensive, so I'm disbanding it....)

About culture from holy cities, you get it only if it's your state religion, unless you are running with no state religion. (In RB1 they intentionally turned off state religion for a few turns in the beginning to let culture build up.) Anyway, that was just a random idea and I am not sure if getting a holy city for a secondary religion that will not be spread without our help is worth it. (Although that gold resource could be useful.)

Right, so since Ghandi founded hinduism, he's not likely to convert - hence no culture from Bombay. It's an interesting idea, and good use for the settler if that's how we go. I'm going to keep the settler build for lack of a better notion... So the question becomes where to start the journey to?

I see four options:
Pictures fixed now.
http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0000.JPG
This one has iron, and a bunch of food resources and oasis(es? What's the plural of oasis?)

http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0001.JPG
Lovely floodplains for mass cottaging (I can be worse than the AI sometimes when I play a financial civ...).

http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0002.JPG
Floodplains and ivory, for elephants if we see conflict in our future...

http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0004.JPG
Ye olde Culture Bombe... This might be the most fun, seeing as we'd be going after a holy city of our Very Own.


On second thought, I'm not going to be building that settler straight off (Nobody to escort, and it's too dangerous to go alone) so the ultimate decision gets made by whoever comes after me. But any consensus as to the next site?

Oh, and is it worth trying to bring the northern scout all the way down just for the better shot at popping a tech?

Scout survivability is pretty low in unexplored areas now that barbs are around, so maybe it's the best use of it? Then again, that's around 10 turns for the AI to steal the hut...

0:
Keeping production at Persepolis at Settler. Archer scouting in the SW is going to come back to escort it to the new city location (Location yet to be decided)

1:

Start worker building road to furs

North Scout moves East to explore more. Ends one space from barb warrior. Ouch.

Between Turns: Louis adapts Organized Religion.

2:
Furs Connected. Our southern archer spots a barbarian archer in the jungle, which moves away.
Susa worker starts pasture on cows.
Pop the village with our archer, we get a warrior. Ah well, the tech luck can't run forever. I send the warrior south to explore.


Between Turns:
Barb Archer moves into view near Susa.

3: I change my mind about which archer gets to escort the new settler. The southern archer moves into the jungle to hopefully get engaged by the barbarian archer with the 50% defensive bonus.

Between Turns:
Our archer has defeated the barbarian archer!

4:

Fortify southern Archer to heal.
Worker near Persepolis finishes cottage. Worker moves to mine the other grassland hill next turn.

Our warrior sent south had a very short journey - he hit the edge of the map in one go! I start him east to see what there is to see.

Between Turn:

5:
http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0007.JPG

Writing is discovered! I'm starting Alphabet here, so we can tech broker a bit - hopefully we can trade for all those cheap techs I'm passing on!

Worker mines hill near Persepolis. Northern archer explores a bit more north, and will head back to pick up the settler.

Between Turns: Ghandi adopts Slavery! What a tyrant!

6: Persepolis finishes settler. I start it on barracks - pretty soon we'll have barb axemen calling.

Now comes the settler question - where to send it? All the spots have something to recommend them. The most interesting idea is to try to culture flip Bombay (The Jewish holy city). I'm going to start the settler to the northwest, so it can either try that, or head up to the iron near where our scout died. I have to admit to liking the idea of stealing a holy city out from Ghandi's nose (peacefully, of course!)

Pasture finished. Worker Starts road.

7: Not much going on.

8: Worker built in Pasargadae. Starts an Axeman.

Susa trains an Archer. Starts Axeman (Near 1000AD, not comfortable just with archer defense)
Susa worker moves to build a camp on deer.

Settler and archer move within range of Bombay's city radius - it still has no border expansion. If we want to try to build near to culture flip it, now's the time to try. Pasargadae worker moves to work corn.

9:
Spoke too soon! Bombay's borders expand between turns, taking our prime building site for culture flipping away.
Worker starts farming corn near Pasargadae

10:
Our Southern warrior stumbles across a hut! Unfortunately, Ghandi's warrior is next to it, and will likely grab it before us.

Archer scouts our ivory building site, and it also has stone!

I'm leaving the settler and archer escort unmoved. We can either settle them in place and try to win the cultural battle with Bombay, or we can move to one of our other possible sites.


Current State:

Alphabet in 15 turns.
Susa builds Axeman in 4.
Persepolis builds Barracks in 1.
Pasargadae builds Axeman in 9.

Settler and archer are two squares away from Bombay if we want to try to assimilate it, or we can move them north for iron, or east for ivory and stone. They have yet to move this turn.
Settler and Archer:
http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0009.JPG

Here is our empire:
http://www.dopplex.net/CIV/Civ4ScreenShot0008.JPG

Here's the save.

Got it.

Too bad about Bombay. It looks like it controls tons of resources.

As for our settler, I think ivory is far more important than iron. We need some fast moving units and elephants can last well into middle age. Also, macemen can be built with copper and elephants can replace pikemen and knights. So with copper and ivory alone we will be able to ignore iron completely.

I think we need at least 1 more worker and (if I have time) 1 more worker/archer/settler set to grab iron.

Proposed new city cite is attached. It grabs ivory and stones and, after a couple border expansions, spices. Does anybody have comments before I play it in the next couple of hours?

- Persepolis is a great archer / worker / settler factory, even at size 5. However, it need careful micromanagement depending on if it's building a worker/settler or an archer. It can be set to no growth and 12 shields when constructing an archer, or 5 food + 10 shields when doing a worker / settler. I think this could be managed using the halt growth / maximize food buttons, but I find it easier to do it manually.


Why is it necessary to MM (in civ4)? What does it save you there?

Why is it necessary to MM (in civ4)? What does it save you there?

The city was at its happiness limit, so I wanted to avoid growing anymore. So, when building an archer, I set it so that it would have no extra food but maximum hammers. In this configuration, it produced 12spt but would not grow. However, when producing a settler or worker, any excess food goes into the production of the settler instead of into growth. In the city's max food configuration, it would pull in 10spt and 5 extra food per turn, for a total production of 15 for the settler.

If i didn't micromanage, I could have left it in either max food or max production. If I left it in max food, it would grow into unhappiness, and the new citizens wouldn't be working, leaving me at 10 shields per turn despite my larger size, so I would produce archers slower. If I left it on max shields, I would be getting 12 spt but no extra food, so I would produce settlers slower.

Back to the game, remember that war elephants still only have one movement point, so they aren't faster than foot units. I personally would lean more towards grabbing iron, as that is important for many types of units, but in all honesty both of the proposed city sites look good to me.

Wow, the game moves along fast! :eek: :goodjob:

Regarding micromanaging cities: I rarely feel the need to MM the cities by hand, only exception is when building a wonder and I want starvation. Apart from that, when I want to produce a worker or settler, I just emphasize both food and hammers and deemphasize commerce, which will max production. And when I want to produce something else important and "emphasize production" won't give me enough hammers, I'll check "avoid growth" and the game automatically maximizes hammers (without starvation of course), which is exactly what I need.
There *are* some oddities with the governor, but they don't happen very often.


I'm somewhat glad Bombay's borders expanded already. Culture-flipping a holy city would have become *very* hard, would have needed some major commitment on our part, would have taken ages, and would have annoyed Gandhi, so good thing IMHO we didn't try that. :) I'd like to have at least one of our neighbours to become our ally, and I find Gandhi usually easier to befriend than Louis - but we'll see.
By the way, I believe holy cities generate a little bit of culture even if it's not your state religion, but I'm not 100% sure about that.


Regardless where the next city will be founded, it will most certainly be a major drain on our economy because it's far away from our capital. Be careful with founding more cities rapidly; maybe we need some turns of consolidation before founding more, depending on our income. We will also need more workers.


I noticed Susa and Pasargadae are building axemen without having a barracks. Since barracks will be complete in Persepolis in two turns, maybe we could build our military there and switch Susa and Pasargadae to other things? If Zeviz feels more comfortabe with the axemen around it's of course okay, too. (I tend to neglect military in the beginning, which admittedly is a bit risky ;) )

-Kylearan

With the reporting and double-checking everything these 10 turns took longer than most of my single player sessions. :) How do people find time for several SGs simultaneously?

Here is my report. Is it too long/too short/too informal, or fine as it is?

1200BC (0) The mighty Persian Empire looks good in 1200BC. We are 3rd in land area, army size and food production and 4th in most other areas. The only concerns are our slow research pace and limited infrastructure.

Since all our cities are more healthy than happy, we will not need corn for a long time. So the worker at Pasargadae is ordered to stop farming corn and go to build cottages. This town has no barracks and will take 9 turns to finish its axeman. Our capital, on the other hand, is about to get Barracks and will be able to put out an axeman every 4 turns. So Pasargadae is ordered to stop training troops and start building Granary (10 turns) and Library (30 turns).

The settler is ordered to move to the spot marked above. That would give us access to ivory, stone and spices, while making good cottage city on our primary river (so we will not need extra roads to connect it to our trade network).

Finally, since we can now sign open borders, I sign open borders treaty with everybody. This will give us many positive relationship points and trade route opportunities. If we decide that some treaties are bad, we can cancel them later, with no penalty.

Archer that was guarding the settler goes to scout out Indian territory. (Settler will be moving through our territory until he meets new escort near destination.) Bombay is guarded by 2 archers.

IBT We hear rumors that Stonehenge was built in a distant land. We don’t care about useless piles of stones. (We are creative, so no need for obelisks.)

1160BC (1) Persepolis completes the first Barracks in our empire. Our generals order a massive celebration, which involves a lot of marching and shouting. The architects start working on a Granary (3 turns, in time for growth in 4). (We are Expansive, so Granaries are cheap.)

Susa also throws in a Granary in 5 before its grows in 6. Axeman has 3 turns left and can be moved to front of queue if need arises. Both western archers move into Indian territory.

1120BC (2) Troops march. Workers work. Cities build.
Archer in SE gets a map from villagers.

1080BC (3) Archer scouting around planned city site sees barbarian archer. Moves to a nearby hill.

IBT Archer wins against barbarian, proving once again the superiority of Persian culture.

1040BC (4) Persepolis is about to grow into unhappiness. Ooops. MM to avoid growth. Axeman in 3.

1000BC (5) Troops march. Workers work. Cities build.

IBT Archer scouting in SW kills a barbarian warrior. Those savages never learn.

975 BC (6) Arbela is founded. Starts on Granary.

950 BC (7) Axeman is trained in Persepolis and sets out to destroy yet another barbarian archer that foolishly ventured close to our lands. Persepolis starts training Worker in 3. Worker completes mine near Susa, goes to help build cottages near Persepolis. I wanted to build a road to start a trade route along India’s river, but those barbarians didn’t have enough sense to connect their cities on the river to their capital. Perhaps they haven’t invented the wheel yet. :)

Delhi is protected by 3 archers, two with city garrison. Lyons by an archer and a spearman with no promotions.

IBT Axeman defending in forest kills barbarian archer with just a scratch. Perhaps that will teach them to respect our borders.

925 and 900 BC (8 and 9) Susa completes Axeman and starts working on Barracks in 8. City governor gets an angry lecture about building Barracks before you start training your army.

I notice barbarian border east of Persepolis. Axeman goes to investigate what kind of defenses these savages have in their cities. Susa axeman moves in the same direction to join the fun. Archer scouting in the southwest is recalled back to Susa. (Will return in 8 turns.)

875BC (10) Persepolis is arranged to build a worker in 4, but can be switched to an axeman if you decide that 2 axemen isn’t enough to take that barbarian town. A worker is standing on ivory waiting for border expansion due in 2 turns.

We are still 4th in GNP and 3rd in most other things and are falling behind technologically. Research will have to drop to 70% in 2 turns, even without taking barbarian town. We need a lot more workers to build tons of cottages around Arabela, Pasargadae and Barbarian town (once you clear the jungle). And we'll need to mine some hills around Pasargadae to solve its production problem. We also need a library in Persepolis and Arabela. Persepolis can grow as soon as we connect Ivory. Alphabet is due in 3 turns, so that should catch us up technologically for the time being, but we still need those cottages.

Attached screenshot is overview of our empire at the end of my turn. The barbarian city is located under the red dot (directly north of sugar).

PS About diplomatic situation, Louis, Alex and Peter all like each other (and have open borders) and dislike Ghandi and Victoria. However, Peter still hadn't met Louis. If those 3 form an alliance and we aren't a part of it, we might be in trouble unless we have a strong alliance ourselves.

PPS Perhaps instead of capturing the barb city we should raze it and build our own west of the peak. That would give us better space utilization, access to same resources (by the time we can use sugar, borders will expand to cover it), and more minable hills and some farmable land near the river. Or we could capture it AND build our own, but that would cause too much overlap in city radii.

Hi,

With the reporting and double-checking everything these 10 turns took longer than most of my single player sessions. :) How do people find time for several SGs simultaneously?
I second that. Playing SGs means playing with other people, so I double-check everything so not to screw up anything. Especially with a team that has players I think that are better than me, my 10 turns take a looong time... ;)
Now imagine we would double-check everything in our private games! :eek:

Here is my report. Is it too long/too short/too informal, or fine as it is?
I like it! I especially like it when players spell out why they did something, not only what they did. :goodjob:

Alphabet is due in 3 turns
Yay, looks like I get some trading to do! :)

Got it.

-Kylearan

Zeviz, I thought your report was great. I'm getting good vibes about this team!

After Alphabet, I think we might want to embark on the long research to courthouses, unless we want to persue a military strategy. Getting the courthouses built as early as possible will let us continue our expansion without getting hopelessly bankrupt. This is especially useful because we get such cheap courthouses.

I'm glad to see your note about the Louis Peter Alex alliance that seems to be forming - I've learned that it's important to watch these things and ensure you form trading alliances with one particular group of friendly civs. In one of my early single player games I ended up with a -4 diplomatic modifier with every single civ by trading indiscriminately, so I've learned that lesson well!

:goodjob:

I second the thumbsup on the reports by everyone, actually :).

From the looks of it, we might very well have named Arbela "Pink Dot"- it's way out there ! OTOH, those extra luxuries will sure come in handy and stone might even help us nab the Hanging Gardens at some point.

I'm also wondering if it's feasible to start a road to Gandhi to help religion spread to us ? That is, if the happiness gain doesn't outweigh the diplomatic minuses.

Snaproll, thanks for mentioning that courthouses are cheap for us - I forgot about that! The question is what to go for first, currency (for the extra trade route) or CoL for the courthouses?

jameson, I agree on the religion thing. We don't need to convert, but the option of building temples would be nice.

Personally, I would delay converting to any religion as long as possible, until we know who is allied with whom and which side we want to be on. I agree with Snaproll that choosing sides is very important; you cannot be friend with everyone. We should keep that also in mind when trading resources!

Does anybody know if trading techs counts as "trading with worst enemy"? I don't think so, but I'm not entirely sure.

-Kylearan

I suspect courthouses will be valuable sooner seeing as we can probably trade only domestically at this point anyway.

No clue about the tech trading thing.

Code of Laws is actually easier to get than Currency, as it has an "or" gate from priesthood, which is really cheap. We could go Mathematics -> Currency, but I think that would take a bit longer. If we weren't expansionist, I'd probably go for markets first, but in this case I'd probably do Code of Laws. If we get it, then we will also found Confucianism!

Whoops, double post.

While I'm editing, I should mention in response to jameson that we can trade with Alex already, as he started on the same river that we did. However, I'd probably still go with courthouses.

About "trade with enemy" relationship modifier, I think it's equal to the "enemy's" "fair and forthright trade" relationship modifier. So we don't have to worry about it unless we start selling techs for much less than their value and giving gifts/tribute.

For research path, we will get much more benefit from Currency, because our current upkeep is only 8$, so even after we build a courthouse in every city we'll save at most 4$. Currency on the other hand will instantly give us at least 4$ (1 trade route per city) without need to build anything. Courthouses are also limited by the fact that our remote settlements in the desert are very weak on production and have many more important things to build (granaries, libraries, etc.) Finally, Math gives us Hanging Gardens and a chance to research Construction (elephants and catapults).

EDIT: About road to Ghandi, the last time I checked, he didn't have his river cities connected to the capitol. However, his worker seemed to be building a road the last time I saw him before moving the archer. So it might make sence to build a road to his river in about 6-12 turns. (To make sure his capital is connected to river cities by the time we build our road.)

A day late and a dollar short, I know, but I just wanted to point out that a city couldn't have been founded on the "Culture Flipper" tile anyway since it was within 2 tiles of Bombay.

I'm learning a lot about the Oasis map by reading this SG, so thank you all! (My first experiences with the Oasis map ended in tears. :sad: )

Heh, I hadn't even realized that it couldn't have been founded there. In any case, hopefully I avoided screwing things up too badly on my turn (I'm probably one of the less experienced here).

I emphasize food in Pasargadae to speed up growth to max happiness, then hit enter.

850BC (1): Set Pasargadae and Susa to max hammers now that they have reached max happiness. Our axeman investigates Ghuzz, the barbarian city: It has 3 archers as garrison.

825BC (2): Gandhi completes the Oracle.

800BC (3): Alphabet comes in. Let's see who has what... Notation: we have/they have, * means AI won't trade.

Alex: writing, horseback riding / meditation, fishing, *masonry
Louis: alphabet, horseback riding, iron working / meditation, polytheism, fishing, masonry, *mathematics
Victoria: alphabet, horseback riding / fishing, masonry, *mathematics
Peter: horseback riding / fishing, masonry
Gandhi: agriculture, writing, horseback riding, iron working / polytheism, fishing, masonry

What's up with Gandhi? Despite building the oracle, he's so far behind?
Trade Gandhi agriculture and iron working for polytheism, fishing, masonry.
Trade Alex writing for meditation.

More trades won't be possible this turn. However, next turn the next techs after the ones we got this turn will become visible.

I ponder setting research to metal casting (nice trading material, and we need production/have health) instead of mathematics, hoping Victoria or Louis will trade mathematics after some turns. This is a bit risky however, as both might want to build the hanging gardens and won't trade it, so I start research on mathematics nonetheless.

775BC (4): Persepolis completes worker, starts settler. Do another tech check:

Alex: polytheism ,alphabet, horseback riding / priesthood, sailing
Louis: alphabet, iron working, horseback riding / monotheism ,sailing, *mathematics
victoria: meditation, polytheism, alphabet, horseback riding / sailing, *mathematics
peter: meditation, polytheism, horseback riding / sailing
Gandhi: meditation, writing, horseback riding / priesthood, monotheism

Trade Gandhi writing and meditation for monotheism
Trade Alex polytheism for priesthood

750BC (5): Gandhi now knows *monarchy. Ivory is hooked up, so cities can grow again. Switch Persepolis to library for a turn to let it grow, then switch it back to settler.

725BC (6): A French archer has killed one of the barbarian archers in Ghuzz, but our two axemen (one with no experience!) won't be enough to take out the two other archers, so I wait for a third axe to arrive.

700BC (7): Nothing to report.

675BC (8): We meet Hatshepsut! Ouch, we already have a -4 modifier for trading with her worst enemies! :eek: How's that possible? She's the only one we have a "worst enemy" penalty with. Maybe she has been at war already? :confused:

Anyway, she immediately suggests open borders, and I accept. Maybe that will improve relations a bit. She's also friend with Gandhi and Victoria.

650BC (9): :sleep:

625BC (10): A barbarian archer appears at Arbela! I notice we only have an archer in the city and nothing to protect our resources. :eek: I move an axe towards Arbela, but it will take an eternity for him to arrive.


Some general thoughts:

- I noticed we have several improved tiles without roads. Maybe that's just a matter of varying playstyles, but I prefer to road a tile where my worker stands on. That saves worker moves, especially on hills.

- A friendly reminder: Please avoid leaving units on goto; I didn't notice an archer was on a long goto until after playing 8 turns or so. Thanks! :)

- Arbela is on max shields at the moment until the granary will be completed. Then, switch it back to max growth until it has reached its happiness limit.

- Gandhi now has monarchy for trade. Even if we have to pay through the nose for it (alphabet and horseback riding, I think), I would consider doing the trade. We could switch to hereditary rule, allowing us to grow even more.

- When mathematics comes in, switch either Susa or Persepolis to aqueduct, then hanging gardens. Susa would have two forests on hills to chop, but Persepolis might have a slightly better production - not sure.

- Where should we send our next settlers to? Grabbing iron is a priority, but after that I'd suggest settling two cities in the area where the barbarian city now is, to grab all the resources.


Roster:
Kylearan -> just played
jameson -> UP NOW
Snaproll -> on deck
hiob
dopplex
Zeviz

-Kylearan

Got it, will play tonight/ tomorrow morning.

- Gandhi now has monarchy for trade. Even if we have to pay through the nose for it (alphabet and horseback riding, I think), I would consider doing the trade. We could switch to hereditary rule, allowing us to grow even more.



I'd wait till we have mathematics and try to get monarchy without giving up our alphabet-monopoly (assuming we have it ;-))

If we really want to settle the ironsite, which i wouldn't, not because its bad, but it will be quite costly being that far away, it would be good to have some military in that area, preferably before the settler gets there.

Sorry about leaving that archer on auto-move.

About tech trading, I would hold on to alphabet for now. If Ghandi is behind technologically, we probably shouldn't give him this chance to catch up.

Sorry about lack of axemen at Arabela. The newly trained axeman was on the way there when I got distracted by that barb town. By the way, we absolutely have to take that town. If Louis gets it, we will lose all the resources it controls. So should we build a couple more axemen and go for it? (3 axemen should be enough to take out 2 archers and if Louis is attacking it already, we don't have much time.)

What about following military strategy?
1) Train 1 or 2 more axemen to make sure we have 3 available.
2) Take the barb town.
3) Send 1 axeman to guard iron site, 1 to guard the road between Pasagadae and iron site and leave the 3rd one to protect our core.
4) Settle iron site.

PS About roads on improvements, my strategy is to build only the roads we absolutely need while we are short on workers. Those 2 or 3 turns spent putting a road on a mine could be spent building a desperately needed cottage. (Or a trade route to our neighbor.) Those extra roads can be filled in later, when our workers run out of tasks.

If we really want to settle the ironsite, which i wouldn't, not because its bad, but it will be quite costly being that far away, it would be good to have some military in that area, preferably before the settler gets there.

I'm still not convinced that going to Code of Laws before Currency isn't the right move, for exactly this reason. I am not saying that it is an obvious better choice compared to currency and marketplaces, but I don't think going for markets is obviously better either.

There are a couple nice things about going for code of laws first over going for currency:

1) We get a religion, increasing happiness, which will give us more citizens, and more gold.
2) Courthouses can be built quickly in our smaller, remote cities, where they will have the most effect anyway. This has the benefit of not tying up our core cities during this critical military / settler expansion phase. Markets are fairly costly, especially so early, and this will tie up our capitol at a key point in the expansion phase. I feel that markets shouldn't be built until the initial land grab phase is over.
3) Remember that courthouses reduce the maintainance costs directly, whereas markets give us 25% more commerce. At high research rates, very little of the marketplace's increased commerce will give us any more actual gpt. Now, we will be getting more science, that is true. As I said its not an easy decision.
4) The same is true for the trade route income that was mentioned. True, we'll get 4 more commerce but very little if any of that will actually be applied to our gpt (I think that's true, but I'm not 100% sure of that). Theres no disputing that if you want to decrease the amount of gpt you are spending, courthouses are the most effective early way to do this, IMHO. And, they are so cheap that we can put them in early cities with minimum effort!

Anyway, just some thoughts for us to discuss. Even if it doesn't end up applying directly to this game since we've already started on math, I wanted to bring it up.

Finished playing, don't have time to post anymore though. Report up tonight.

Hi,

By the way, we absolutely have to take that town. If Louis gets it, we will lose all the resources it controls. So should we build a couple more axemen and go for it? (3 axemen should be enough to take out 2 archers and if Louis is attacking it already, we don't have much time.)
I already moved a third axeman to the city; the three were ready to attack in one turn. Let's hope Louis wasn't faster (he had two archers there - do the AIs get a bonus vs. Barbs?).

About roads on improvements, my strategy is to build only the roads we absolutely need while we are short on workers. Those 2 or 3 turns spent putting a road on a mine could be spent building a desperately needed cottage.
I prefer to build the roads at once as it will save time overall, and in case you get attacked, I value a good road net very high.

But that's the fun about SGs, seeing how different playstyles turn out. :)

-Kylearan

Hi,

Markets are fairly costly, especially so early, and this will tie up our capitol at a key point in the expansion phase. I feel that markets shouldn't be built until the initial land grab phase is over.
I agree, but I like to research currency not for the markets (which I sometimes build never at all :eek: ) but for the +1 trade routes, which helps economy immediately without having to build anything.

But then I had great success with building courthouses in my late games; they did help my economy a lot more than I had expected - so I'm still undecided in what situations which choice is better.

-Kylearan

I agree it's a tough decision (courthouses vs. markets). Remember the +1 trade routes add to commerce, which will make almost no difference in gpt. Courthouses add directly to your gpt. (I'm pretty sure I'm right about that, but not 100%)

Hi.

Remember the +1 trade routes add to commerce, which will make almost no difference in gpt. Courthouses add directly to your gpt. (I'm pretty sure I'm right about that, but not 100%)
I think you are right, but then I'm not exactly sure what the practical differences are. +commerce means higher beaker output, +gold means we can sustain a higher research rate - won't that be the same in the end? :confused: And because the +1 trade routes will be in effect in every city immediately, I prefer currency most of the time.

I'm really confused about the practical difference between gold and commerce. :crazyeye:

-Kylearan

Hi.


I think you are right, but then I'm not exactly sure what the practical differences are. +commerce means higher beaker output, +gold means we can sustain a higher research rate - won't that be the same in the end? :confused: And because the +1 trade routes will be in effect in every city immediately, I prefer currency most of the time.

I'm really confused about the practical difference between gold and commerce. :crazyeye:

-Kylearan

I thikn this is going to take some actual experimentation to really work out. With a courthouse, you are offsetting the maintenance costs of your outlying cities, allowing you to run a higher research rate. With a market, you'll have to run a lower research rate to keep gpt in control, but will be making more science with the rate you are running because of the increased commerce. The extra trade routes seem to push markets ahead of courthouses.

I think the answer is probably "it depends". In our case, I think that tying up our capitol building a market during the expansion phase will hurt us in the long run, whereas building courthouses in our new cities while expanding with settlers and military from our first 2-3 cities will allow us to expand our territory faster, giving us a better long-term position. Of course, once the expansion phase is complete and we can work on infrastructure, a market would be my top priority. And don't forget the added happiness and possible shrine income if we get confucianism.

I think it's probably a win-win. It's good to have these discussions - I'm not at all convinced my take is the correct one. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that we get cheap courthouses from our civ traits I'd probably go for currency first as well. I'm always inclined to go for a civ's cheap buildings early - leveraging your advantages and all that.

Great discussion! :goodjob:

the expansion phase

A concept that may be past its prime.

Commerce splits into gold, science, and culture (with Drama). Commerce comes from trade routes, working tiles, and some buildings (like the capital). Neither a market nor a courthouse affects commerce at all.

Science is very similar to Civ3's model, which I think y'all know well. It gets a chunk of the commerce from the city. Add in specialist beakers. Apply buildings (that order is different from Civ3, though) like library, university, Oxford, etc.. That's the total beaker output of the city.

Gold coins also come from the commerce of the city -- whatever is not used for other things. Add in specialist coins. Add in coins from buildings (only shrines, to my knowledge). Apply buildings (like grocer, market, bank, Wall St.) multiplier. That's the gold production of the city.

City upkeep maintenance cost is an expense for your civ, which is independent of the commerce produced. It depends on your civics (I think), the distance from the capital (or FP/Versailles, probably), number of cities, and some other things. A courthouse will just halve this number, saving your empire gold but not producing any additional commerce.

SO, in this case, Currency helps commerce by providing an additional trade route/city. That's probably 1-2 gold in raw commerce/city, at this stage in the game. I have no idea if you have potential building multipliers or not, but that would play a role (a pretty significant one, actually). Markets themselves, will only help in the portion of commerce that is going to gold -- which I can't determine from any recent screenshots. 25% of that will be added. That's generally pretty insignificant.

Now, courthouses will generally let you run higher science rates, as your total costs will be lower. Lower costs means less % of commerce needing to be put into gold (meaning markets are less valuable).

The question is, will the extra trade routes (suitably increased by buildings) provide more raw commerce than the courthouses will save? That depends on your number of cities, Open Border agreements, upkeep costs, and probably some other things. You'll absolutely need both techs, though. It's just order. Currency's extra trade routes effect is instantaneous, though, while courthouses take a bit to build. Lots of trade-offs and I don't have any kind of answer. I hope this helps clarify the issue a bit, though.

Arathorn

Hi,

I thikn this is going to take some actual experimentation to really work out.
Have I mentioned how much I look forward to reporting day for Epic 1? :D

Of course, once the expansion phase is complete
I find that I usually have multiple expansion phases. Ususally, I stop expanding after having 3-4 cities, letting them grow and get some infrastructure, before being able to expand more. I then have to stop another time after founding 3-5 more cities, and so on. If I don't do this, my economy is ruined and I get behind in tech (an example of this would be what happened to us in RB3).

and we can work on infrastructure, a market would be my top priority.
In my games, I often end up building markets very late, sometimes as late as the end of industrial age! :eek: Most of the time, there are better buildings (or military) to build IMHO, and markets are very expensive for what they do. When I need +commerce buildings, I often have banking already and build banks instead (happiness can often be improved by trading resources, which I'm doing anyway to get allies).

I think it's probably a win-win. It's good to have these discussions - I'm not at all convinced my take is the correct one.
Agreed. :)

I'm always inclined to go for a civ's cheap buildings early - leveraging your advantages and all that.
Good point, and especially given our spread-out empire, CoL might have indeed been the better choice here.

-Kylearan

In that case, you'll be happy to know I did go for CoL before currency :)

Inherited turn: change nothing

600 BC (1) Alex had 2 archers attack Ghuzz ( the barb town), both defenders are now hurt. I give one of our axes a second
city raider promotion and charge in, killing the Garrison archer and gaining 3XP. I could probably charge in with the other one, but that would autoraze the town and after taking a closer look, I prefer to keep it - it controls no less than 4 resources and saves us having to send a settler there. I did consider the comments (its placement is not ideal) but in my opinion, having a good extra city now beats having optimal city placement a hundred turns down the road.
I move the archer out (!) of Arbela hoping to get the barb archer there to get to attack across the river instead of pillaging our ivory.

IT Alas, the archer pillages ivory anyway turning Persepolis, Susa and Pasargadae unhappy.

575 BC (2) Ghuzz grows to size 2, its lone defender is at 2/3 health, our axe charges:

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/7593/rb4capture9hr.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Gandhi will trade monarchy but not fairly. Alex wants us to stop trading with Gandhi. I have to consider this but we want to maintain open borders with him to get religion to spread, so I decline.

550 BC (3) Mathematics comes in, after having read everything over, I decide to go for Code of Laws ( due in 14). I don't expect to found a religion with it, but the gpt we save with courthouses will allow our research to be turned back up, now at 80 but that won't be sustainable.
Susa produces another archer, I have it start on a worker. Persepolis starts on the aqueduct (7 turns).

IT Archer defends against Barb near Arbela and promotes. I hold off on the exact promotion.

525 BC (4) Axe attacks another barb near Persepolis, promotes.

IT Great Lighthouse is built somewhere.

500 BC (5) Tarsus founded along the river to the North (another floodplains / hills city). The reason I founded it there was we want more commerce, mainly, and it ties in well with the rest of the empire. I didn't go for the iron because it's way too far out and we don't have adequate military to guard a settler on a long trip. An alternate choice would have been to send the settler to the South of our capital, but it'll get more commerce on its current spot.
On the downside, we're now at 19 gold and -7 income.

Here's our lands now (screenshot grabbed at last turn, not this turn)

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4918/rb4lands9ir.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Ghuzz stops protesting and starts a granary.

Trade Alex Monotheism and Mathematics for Monarchy and revolt to Hereditary Rule and Slavery (no harm in the latter).
Interrupt quarry construction and get Arbela's worker back to get ivory online again.

475 BC (6) Turn off growth in Susa.

450 BC (7) Pasargadae Library- Barracks. Arbela Granary - Library.
For want of alternatives, mainly.

IT Confucianism is founded, meaning we aren't first to CoL.

425 BC (8) Pasargadae is unhappy at 7 - I checked only last turn and it had a spare happy face, otherwise I'd have turned off growth.

400 BC (9) No matter, as the ivory is back online ( I don't road it yet , we want the stone online asap now and we don't have the spare military to guard the camp).

3 barbs along our borders: one axe suicides against our axe, another one takes out an archer with first strike in a forest between Susa and Persepolis. Susa's nexly built axe goes to contain it.

375 BC (10) Persepolis aqueduct finishes, Hanging Gardens due in 16 but the stone should be online in 4 turns max (2 remaining on the quarry, 2 for the road.

The road to India is finished, rest is up to them ( stupidly I sent the worker back; we could have had him build a road within Indian borders). One axe from Susa goes North, the other two available Axemen should sweep the Southern area where barbs are still popping up. I suggest to keep Susa on military for MP happiness and antibarb patrols. Other cities should spit out a few more workers when we can. There's a worker to the East of Persepolis which can either chop to aid in Hanging Gardens construction or move and get the gems online for extra happy and growth.

No immediately useful trades presented themselves, though we do want to pick up Sailing if only because it's a prerequisite for Calendar (which we can use for the incense to the East of Tarsus and the dyes to the South of Perse).

And here's the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB4_Cyrus_BC-0375.Civ4SavedGame).

on edit, I forgot to add: the worker to the East of Persepolis can either do some chopping to aidd in Hanging Gardens construction or go and connect Gems. I'd prefer the chopping personally.

I see it and will comment and play tomorrow. GF is sick tonight, no time for civ.

Things are looking pretty good! It's too bad we didn't get confucianism. However, we are at 60% science making +3 gpt, so some courthouses will help. Our city maintainance is 16gpt (out of 20 total), or 80%. I change Persepolis off of hanging gardens for a couple turns and plan to finish up the worker that's due in two turns. With stone coming online soon, I don't want to spend any turns putting hammers into the wonder until we get the 50% modifier. This is more efficient, overall, but it's at least concieveable this will cost us the wonder, as it will delay completion by 2-3 turns. If that happens, it's completely my fault! Other changes: Susa had a cottage it wasn't working so I switch that. I also make one trade - Peter and Victoria don't have monotheism yet (the others do) so I trade Peter Monotheism for Sailing. We have a -4 from Hatty now for trading with her worst enemy - not sure if that was there before that trade or not!

Turn 1 - 350 BC - Not much - complete a few worker projects (including the quarry, but need to connect it) and move a worker towards persepolis for a chop. The AIs are all on different research paths, and there is probably something I can work with here.


106211
There would be real possibilities here if the AI would trade anything

Let me use Kylearan's notation for technology trades: [QUOTE=Kyleraran]Notation: we have/they have, * means AI won't trade.[QUOTE]:

Alexander: Horseback Riding, Alphabet / Code of Laws*
Louis XIV: Horseback Rising, Priesthood, Alphabet / Calendar*
Victoria: Meditation, Polytheism, Horseback Riding / Currency*

Obviously, we can't do anything yet, but we should keep an eye on this - there are definite possibilities.

BT - The Egyptians ask us to cancel deals with the Greek. Hmm. I'm really not sure what to do here. Peter is confucian, and we have a trade route open to him via our river. Hatty is farther away and already hates us (although mostly because we are trading with Alex). By the way, the only "trade" we have with him is open borders. I decide to maintain open borders with alex, and I tell Hatty to shove it. With any luck confucianism will start to spread to us down the river and we can make a good friend with Alex.

Turn 2 - 325 BC. The worker pops out of Persepolis and then start an axeman, due in 2 turns. As soon as that is done, stone will come online the same turn and I'll start the gardens.. Our axemen in the south don't find any barbs, so I move them back towards our cities. In other news, the Parthenon is completed and Taoism founded this turn.


106212
A few important events

Turn 3 300 BC - Our archer successfully repels another barbarian trying to cut off our ivory. Pasargadae finished a barracks. I start another settler there. Now, founding another city will definately put the hurt on financially, but with some cheap courthouses I'm hoping we can keep our heads above water, and in the end, more territory is obviously better.

BT - Alex asks for copper in return for wine. I was just looking at this. We are at the happiness limit in a couple cities, and this would certainly help us. The question is if trading copper to Alex would come back to bite us. I'd still like to cultivate him as a friend, so I make the trade.

Turn 4 - 275 BC - Clearing the forest created 60 shields for Persepolis (are forest shields modified by stone benefits?) and with stone online we only have 6 turns on the hanging gardens!!! And I haven't even spent a single turn working on it yet! We are at 60% now and -1 gold. Can't wait to get courthouses going!


106213
60 shields on a chop? Was it modified by stone?

Turn 5 - 250 BC - Not much really. Lots of worker actions and military being built.

BT - Hatty converts to Confucianism! Now both of the most powerful AI civs are confucianist. It sure would be nice if it spread to us so we could join in their little pact!

Turn 6 - 225 BC - Things are slow. Waiting on Hanging Gardens and Code of Laws.

Turn 7 - 200 BC - Code of laws comes in , and strangely Taoism spreads in Arbela. We want Confucianism!!! The AI is still totally unwilling to trade any tech, which is unfortunate because we could really pull off some nice ones, I think! With CoL done I start on currency. You know, for markets, and trade routes... Starting a few cities on courthouses.


106214

Code of Laws comes in, time for some cheap courthouses!

BT - Now Ghandi asks us to stop trading with the Greeks! For the same reasons as above amplified by the fact they are supplying us with wine, I refuse. I hope this Greek relationship pays off, because it's sure hurting our relationships with some other civs.

Turn 8 - 175 BC - We kill another barb warrior coming after Arbela - I keep having to move the archer out of the city to keep them from pillaging stone or ivory. I'm sending another archer and an axeman up that way as it seems to be the one that the barbs like to attack the most.

Turn 9 - 150 BC - Troop movement, worker actions. One of my main focuses with the workers has been a road to Arbela for unit movement purposes. Other than that it's quiet.

Turn 10 - 125 BC - Hanging Gardens finished, and we are all set on happiness so that no one gets unhappy (due in large part to the wines from Alex. I have a worker getting ready to hook up gems as well (clearing the jungle now) and the +1 health from the gardens should keep us going. We have strong cities here! Our major problem right now is research rate, but with courthouses available and currency coming in soon I think the growing pains should be manageable. Our military is decent - in fact we have exactly the same number of troops as the average. We have about an archer and an axe in every city.


106215
The Hanging Gardens

106216
We are really doing well, especially for Monarch

Notes - There is an axeman on a hill to the south dealing with a barb archer - I expect him to defend next turn. One of the axeman in Pasargadae is there to escort the settler due in two turns. I haven't really thought much about where the settler should go.

We will have to go to 50% science soon, might want to go for it immediately.

We seem to be doing well. We are at the top of the score list on Monarch, and some of that is due to our cultural trait, but we are number 1 in production, number 2 in GNP, Food, Population, and Land size, and number 3 in military. I'm encouraged!

I apologize if there was any weed during these turns. I think I did ok, but I played them a little less carefully than I would have normally. My girlfriend's "sickness" turned out to be an appendicitis, so I'm playing this on my laptop while she's in surgery. Nice that the hospital has WiFi!


106217
The situation at 125 BC

Here is the save game! (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB4_Cyrus_BC-0125.Civ4SavedGame)

Chops are influenced by the bonuses of the city, yes. A city with a forge will get more hammers from a chop than one without. An IW city will get its bonus, too, for example. Does that make waiting to chop worthwhile? <Shrug> I dunno.

Arathorn

Hi,

our situation looks very nice! :goodjob:

The -4 modifier for trading with Hatty's worst enemies had been there already when we met her on my turns. Nothing we could have done about it, and I'm not really sure what happened there. I haven't thought open borders alone could result in a -4 modifier so early? :confused:

I'm curious to see how our "friendship" with Alex will turn out. I had mixed results with him; sometimes he seems to attack out of the blue, so we might want to keep a medium-sized military around, just in case. Trading him copper for a single resource should make him very happy, though.

Hope all went well with your girlfriend's surgery, Snaproll!

Roster:
Kylearan
jameson
Snaproll -> just played
hiob -> UP NOW
dopplex -> on deck
Zeviz

-Kylearan

okay....got it and had a look at it but will not play before tomorrow evening

I'm open for suggestions on where to send that settler, in a private game i'd probably send him somewhere southwest of Susa. Furthermore i think we're a bit thin on military and cottages so i'll be working on that. ;-)

Hi,

I'm open for suggestions on where to send that settler, in a private game i'd probably send him somewhere southwest of Susa.
I agree that we should found two cities south of Persepolis/Susa. There are several resources and productive lands in short distance to our capital which would be a shame to lose to France or India.

Another priority would be iron IMHO, but that seems to be far away...can it wait a bit longer? Not sure, haven't looked at the game since my turns.

-Kylearan

sorry for taking so long.....and sorry for not writing a report now, but i'm in a hurry at the moment.

Basically i did what i said i'd do (build cottages, courthouses and some axeman)
Traded Calendar for CoL with Ghandi and declined going to war with egypt (proposed by alex). Both decisions moved us away from alex and i'm sorry if thats against our gameplan.
Currency came in last round, which allows us to up research to 60% again.
What to research next heavily depends on where we want to go with that game so i left it open to be decided by the next player

Hi,

sorry for taking so long
No problem. :)

[...] declined going to war with egypt (proposed by alex). Both decisions moved us away from alex and i'm sorry if thats against our gameplan.
I hate being dragged into a war by an AI, so I think your decision was fine.

Roster:
Kylearan
jameson
Snaproll
hiob -> just played
dopplex -> UP NOW
Zeviz -> on deck

-Kylearan

A good question, actually: where do we want to go with this game ? Do we want to go for domination/conquest, space or diplo ( culture is probably out) ? If we go for a military win, who do we conquer ? India and France look like obvious targets, Alex is way out but one should fear the Greeks even when they're bringing gifts anyway (in the game, at least).

I played to a rather late conquest in the GOTM simply because I didn't have a plan in mind; it doesn't seem too early to pick a target victory here.

A good question, actually: where do we want to go with this game ? Do we want to go for domination/conquest, space or diplo ( culture is probably out) ? If we go for a military win, who do we conquer ? India and France look like obvious targets, Alex is way out but one should fear the Greeks even when they're bringing gifts anyway (in the game, at least).

I played to a rather late conquest in the GOTM simply because I didn't have a plan in mind; it doesn't seem too early to pick a target victory here.

It's never too early to pick a victory, IMHO. Even this early in the game having a clear focus will make large differences in the style and efficiency of play.

If we do decide to go for war, I think it would be interesting to attack a northern civ first - the whole point of the Oasis map is that the northern side has different available resources than the south, so a civ with control of land on both sides of the desert has a distinct advantage. Logistically it's more difficult with the slow desert movement times and distance from the core, but it might be fun!

We could make that a short term goal and then re-evaluate our strategy depending on the outcome?

Got it. Will play tonight at some point.

Hi,

Regardless of what we do, I'd like to befriend at least one of our direct neighbours rather sooner than later. I don't have much experience with Louis yet, is he a similar untrustworthy snake as Napoleon is? Gandhi I know can be trusted more or less, so maybe we should be nice to him.

If we go to war, a northern civ would indeed be interesting and fitting to the scenario, but also stretch our empire awfully long. Still, that would be something I hope to achieve in this scenario. A forbidden palace in the north would be nice in that case.

Regarding our goal for this game, I'm still undecided. I admit I often postpone these decisions until the land-grab phase is over in my games (except when I start a game with a specific goal in mind beforehand). I'm open to everything (except culture maybe), but like to hear Zeviz' and dopplex' preferences first because they are both new to Monarch.

-Kylearan

Looks like we are doing well so far. :)

For the final goals, I would like to try a military victory, because I am usually a builder, so I'd like to take this chance to practice fighting under guidiance of more experienced players. (I do understand how combat works, but never seem to build enough troops to finish off my enenies, instead of just crippling them and returning to peace.)

About alliances, it would probably be better to ally with Louis, especially if we want to try attacking across desert. Ghandi is unlikely to attack us himself and wouldn't make a useful ally in wartime.

Another thing we'd need to attack across desert is to start building a road right away to have it ready in time. We could also build slowly across the desert by putting cottage-surrounded cities along our river all the way to Alex's territory. All those cottages should make the cities pay for themselves (and for distance maintanence of our northern conquests) and the cities will also help guard the road.

Got sidetracked, starting play now. Will take a look and either focus on military buildup or infrastructure during my 10. War sounds good to me - I tend to superbuilder and then only go to war with an overwheleming tech advantage. Be interesting to try that on a difficulty where I won't have that advantage.

Louis declared war on us for the third time just now in the MM8 game, but that may just have to do with the close borders and religious differences. I think as long as we stay in the same camp he should not be that dangerous ( ... famous last words :D ).

I second the call for a military goal; if we're to go for that, we should probably send an expedition to the iron a bit sooner; engineering will also be very useful for increased road movement. I do think Gandhi is an obvious first target; despite the resource advantages of having both Northern and Southern holdings, we can do without horses just fine. Gandhi also has two religions that we could spread to our cities for happy help & his cities are easier to get to, cheaper to maintain and will help fund later campaigns in the North earlier on.

(1) Start turn. First thing that pops up: Choose our next tech! I go for civil service - it's the deepest in the tree, and hence more valuable trading (In addition to the irrigation benefits and being a maceman prereq)
Move some settlers, fortify some axes. Nothing much going on.
I check to see if there's any trading to be done - not much. No CPUs have any techs they're willing to trade.

(2) Build a pasture.

(3) Pasargadae builds Courthouse. Starts Aqueduct, as it is over its health limit currently.
Confucianism spreads in our lands. I don't convert, since I'm not a big fan of what religion does to international relations.
(4)Susa builds aqueduct. Starts market. (Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney!)
I ratchet up science to 70% - we're losing 3 per turn, but we have 61 in the bank.

(5)Persepolis finishes courthouse. Starts Chichen Itza. Stone coming online in a turn or two to speed this too.
Shuffle workers around!
(6)Stone online. Alexander has a settler party near our northern borders. Barbarian appears in the south - I start to move an axe or two to patrol the wilderness until or borders expand a bit more to eliminate barbs from spawning.
(7)Victoria doesn't like us trading with the Greeks. For now, I think Alexander is both a bigger threat and a better trading partner, so I tell her to shove it.
The Persian Empire is 2 million strong!
(8) Moving a worker to add a chop to Chichen itza. Every little bit helps! He's chopping from just outside of Persepolis' fat cross, so no health hit there.
(9) Shuffle workers around. Dodge the barbarian warrior.
Gordium finishes Granary, starts Courthouse
Worker near Persepolis starts chop.
(10) Axe kills a barb near Persepolis.
Turn ends.

Mostly building worker things and infrastructure. Nothing else of interest, except that I annoyed victoria slightly by refusing to stop trading with Alex.

Sorry for slow reply. I'll play it in a few hours.

Does anybody have any suggestions/recommendations?

If not, I'll continue expanding north (perhaps grabbing iron) and start prapairing for war.

In 350AD, the mighty Persian Empire looks as strong as ever. We are #1 in score, GNP, Production, Land Area and Population and #2 in food and trade income. Our army is only 5th largest, but quality is better than quantity.

We are still short on workers, so I throw in a worker in 4 before a Market in Susa, because market will give us only 1 extra gold per turn and we can get that much from having the worker build cottage 3 turns earlier.

375AD (turn 1) - Gordium Worker starts building road to Furs. Free worker at Arabela starts building road to insence. Pasagadae worker starts building a road to corn. Persepolis worker finishes chopping forest, starts building road. (Will be useful for last settler.)

400AD (turn 2) - Workers work, troops march, cities build. Ghandi's missionary spreads Hinduism in Susa.

425AD (turn 3) - Pasargadae starts Confucian monastery in 5 (improves science and gives us option of building missionaries). Louis' missionary spreads Buddhism in Persepolis.

450AD (turn 4) - Worhers near Ghuzz start making plantation and road on sugar. Susa finishes worker, goes back to Market (in 3), worker starts building cottages. One worker at Arabela starts plantation on Insence, while another starts one more cottage.

475AD (turn 5) - We discover Civil Service and enter Medieval Era. I start research on Construction in 5 for Catapults and war elephants. We could go for Literature and Great Library, but everybody else has been working on it for a while (refusing to trade literature), so I don't want to risk it. Arabela finishes Library starts on Aqueduct in 10.

Ghuzz finishes courthouse starts on Library in 9. Tarsus finishes courthouse, starts on Library in 11.

500AD (turn 6) - We complete Chichen Itza. Persepolis starts on Buddist Monastery (3) for research bonus and a chance to build missionaries. We revolt to Burocracy, because improved production and commerce in Persepolis will be more than enough to offset the maintanance cost and even a lost turn of production will pay off eventually.

520AD (turn 7) - Anarchy is over. I send an axeman to infestigate Barbarian borders to our east.

540AD (turn 8) - Louis offers dyes for our extra fur and I agree, because nobody else wants our furs. Susa finishes Market and starts Settler in 5.

560AD (turn 9) - Persepolis finishes Monastery, starts Spearman in 1 Pasagadae finishes monastery, starts spearman in 3. (Alex's troops massing on our border are making me nervous.) One of Pasagadae's axemen goes to check whether Iron site is still available.

580AD (turn 10) - Peter demands Civil Service. I refuse. We finish construction, start on metal casting in 5 (for forges and Machinery that will enable Macemen) Persepolist finishes Spearman and starts War Elephant in 2. I guess building that spearman was a mistake, because Elephants fulfill the same function. Spearman goes to Arabela.

Attached screenshots show overall view of our empire, as well as detailed picture of our NE border with Alex's town and barbarian town.

Looks good! I got it.

So the concensus seems to be to go to war. I guess it will take at least my set of turns to prepare us for that; I'll give a more educated suggestion whom to attack after I've seen the game.

-Kylearan

Inherited turn: When revolting, it wouldn't have hurt to revolt to organized religion as well. Changing one or two civics makes no difference regarding length of anarchy, and it might have saved us a turn of anarchy later in case we adopt a state religion.

I reconfigure most of our cities, and emphasize growth/commerce where limits haven't been reached yet, and emphasize hammers/commerce otherwise. Persepolis especially has a lot of potential for growing - which it should, as it is our capital. Emphasizing growth slows down military production there slightly, but in the long run it will be worth it if the city grows faster!

We should choose our allies now, which of course won't be set in stone and can be changed if needed - but I think it's very important to cultivate some friendships. If we want to attack Gandhi, I think we should try to get Louis to be our friend, and Alex as well. That would keep our back safe when warring. Both seem to like each other, so that will help.

To help with this, I trade incense to Alex for wheat.

600AD (1): Move an axemen to the barbarian city of Ligurian. Two archers are defending it, but it is also surrounded by units from several nations.

620AD (2): Hah! Peter has killed one of the defending archers, so I see an opportunity for our axe to act. He gets two city raider promotions, and takes the city.
I thought long about whether I should raze it or keep it. It's not in the best of locations and wastes some tiles, but on the other hand we won't be able to send settlers there fast enough, and it would make a good outpost towards France. I decide to keep it, although not entirely happy about it.

640AD (3): A scouting axeman finds out that the iron sources are under Russian control.

660AD (4): Metal Casting -> Machinery (towards Engineering for increased road movement).
I know Catherine is probably in the wrong camp, and I won't make any resource deals with her, but techs...I cannot resist...
I trade Metal casting and Civil Service to Catherine for Literature, Feudalism, and 290 gold.
Then I trade Construction to Louis for 370 gold, serving two purposes: It will improve relations, and it allows us deficit research for a long time.

680AD (5): Seems like Gandhi used a culture bomb!?! I've never seen something like this before, amazingly intelligent! :goodjob:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/rb4_680ad.jpg

Peter will be in trouble, but this is very nice for us: Now we might be able to get iron with our war against Gandhi as well! (I hope Yakutsk will be flipped by then)

I do some more trades:
Metal Casting to Alex for Compass (relations!)
Civil Service to Peter for Music

700AD (6): Found Bactra, south of Persepolis.

720AD (7): Alex starts a golden age.

740AD (8): :sleep:

760AD (9): Machinery -> Eengineering.
Argh, despite having ~75% odds of generating a great engineer in Persepolis, we get a great prophet instead! :mad: I'm not sure what to do with him yet, so I save him until we've discussed this.

780AD (10): :sleep:

Got it. I suggest using the prophet on Divine Right if it hasn't been invented yet.

Some thoughts...

- I used Susa to spit out workers during my turns, and I think we need some more.


- I've set many of our cities on building military. If we want to go to war with Gandhi, we need to dedicate our empire to this (and we were frigheningly weak anyway!). I've delayed building forges in favor of military, too - they have to wait until after a war. But we have to have at least some units on the Greek and French borders as well, in case they get funny ideas. The rest can be sent to the Indian front. Build some pikes, too!


- We might consider converting to a religion soon. Only problem is, which one? Confucianism, because Alex (and Hatty) are Confucians? In that case, we should try to convert Louis, although this might be tough. Or Buddhism, because Louis is our Buddhistic direct neighbour? That would tick off Alex most likely. I'm not sure who will be easier to convert.
The third option would be to remain atheistic, but as I've said, I'm a huge fan of making some real friends, even if that means pissing off other civs. I'm not sure if we will be able to achieve this without religion boni to offset close border penalties and such.


- What to do with the great prophet? I don't think we will ever generate many great people, and any great engineer we might get will be better spent on rushing a wonder. So I don't think saving him for a golden age would be the best choice here. We could use him to discover Theology, or save him for a more expensive tech - but that would most probably be Divine Right, which I often skip entirely in my games. So I think the best choice would be to let him join Persepolis, but I'm open to other arguments here of course.


- The next player should probably switch to vassalage (and organized religion), for the experience bonus. Gandhi and Alex have adopted vassalage as well - maybe they are building up an army, as we do.


Roster:
Kylearan -> just played
jameson -> UP NOW
Snaproll -> on deck
hiob
dopplex
Zeviz

-Kylearan

Hi,

I had intended to play my turns just now, but as it turns out I'm way too tired to do any justice to my turnset (my weekend from work consists of Mondays instead of Saturday and Sunday). Since my next opportunity to play won't be before tomorrow evening late CET, I humbly request a skip or a swap.

Hi,

Since my next opportunity to play won't be before tomorrow evening late CET, I humbly request a skip or a swap.
I think tomorrow evening would still be in the (relaxed) 24+48 hours timeframe, so no problem there. But a swap with Snaproll would be fine as well - whatever you prefer. :)

-Kylearan

either is fine; if Snaproll happens to be able to pick it up tonight or tomorrow, I can play on Monday. Otherwise I'll try and pick it up tomorrow evening.

It's unclear to me at this point if I'll have time or not, but chances are I'll probably play 10 before tomorrow night :)

edit: 666 posts :eek:

I've got it, playing now :hammer:
Goals:
Buildup military
Determine who our friends are once and for all and commit to that strategy. (With a religion change)

Overall there wasn't much to do before I click next turn, naturally, as would be expected following Kylearan. Persepolis is working acouple of grasslands that are unimproved, so I'll divert some workers that way to get some more cottages built. I wake up an axeman in Susa and send him into Ghandi's territory under Open Borders to scout out the defenses there. Only other thing I notice is that we are at 100% science, losing 67 gpt. I am all for defecit research, but I decide to cut our defecit back some and keep some gold around, just in case timely upgrade is needed on the French border (see below).

However, as Ky mentioned it was time for some serious decisions about who to ally with, and the first step in that was the religion decision. After a little deliberation, I decide to immediately revolt to confucianism. Here is my reasoning - Ghandi is our target, so hinduism didn't make too much sense. Both Alex and Hatty are confucianist, and number 3 and 4 in score, respectively. Ghandi is number 2 (after us), but he won't stay there for long, so allying with two relatively distant but strong civs seemed prudent. The most obvious negative is that it will alienate Louis, our next door neighbor. Worst case is that he attacks during the Indian war, which is a eventuality we should prepare for. In any case, the die is cast.

We only have one confucian city, which will start on a missionary as soon as its current build is complete. More on that later.


107101

Decision is made, for better or worse.

Turn 1 - 800 AD - We enter confucianism, but all our build orders look pretty good. I am not going to revolt to vassalage / organized immediately, opting instead to wait until just before our next units finish building. No point in paying high maintainence for OR if we aren't using it for anything yet. When I revolt to vassalage I will, of course, throw in organized religion.

I agree that the great prophet decision is a toughy. Grabbing Theology is very tempting, although not the most efficient use of a great person (some of the potential is lost due to the cost of Theology, I think). I am torn between a super specialist and waiting for Divine right, and I decide to side with our fearless leader and go for the superspecialist. The earlier a superspecialist is created the more overall benefit is gained, so we'll see how this pans out.

Our axeman scout reveals a longbow in Madras. Catapults will definately be required, especially if he upgrades any archers.


107102

Longbows are catapultastic

Turn 2 - Very quiet turn, as no builds complete. Hatty switches to vassalage. I think that's everyone in vassalage now. It's the deep breath before the plunge...

Turn 3 - A few of the workers are working on increasing our tactical road network connections. Other than that, see Turn 2.

Turn 4 - It's time. lots of units due next turn, so it's time. REVOLT! Vassalage, Organized religion. Obviously, nothing completes this turn. I had a nice screenshot, but Irfanview is giving me some nasty results (in fact, lost some Epic one shots as well). I'll take a pic using the shortcut defined by irfanview, and it'll take a pic, but often missing large portions of the interface (like cities). Any suggestions?

Turn 5 - Remember what I said about the plunge? Louis starts things off by declaring against Victoria!


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I get the feeling we will see more of this (some of it initiated by us!)

Turn 6 - 2 catapults, 2 war elephants, 1 maceman complete, all with extra experience thanks to vassalage. I'm moving them to Susa to gather for the initial thrust against madras. I notice when the build cues come up that both Tarsus and Arbela don't have barracks yet, and were producing units! Ugh. I start them both on barracks, with serious thought placed into whipping them next turn. See next turn to fins out if I did. Here's my basic idea for this initial thrust: Red dot is staging area, blue dot is bombardment site, and then an attack along yellow line to avoid attacking across the river while maintaining defensive cover.


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Napolean I'm not, but a simple plan is better than no plan!

We are doing well on science in comparison with all except Alexander. He will make a good trading partner, which fortunately fits into our diplomatic strategy.


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Future trade material

Turn 7 - Ghandi comes to us between turns and demands civil service. Um, no? Don't need to keep him as a friend...


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The fact that Ghandi is making demands is a little strange, though

I whip a barracks in Tarsus, costing 2 population. Tarsus has happiness to spare, and those two citizens were working unimproved tiles anyway. I hold off on whipping in Arbela, though, as every tile being worked there is quite good. I later whipped it for one population about turn 9 or so.
Turn 8 - Loius asks for help against Victoria:


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This one is actually a tough decision

I deliberated for awhile, and came very close to going for his offer. Victoria would never reach us with any units (she'd have to go THROUGH Louis to get to us), so we wouldn't actually have to fight anyway. This would really help our relationship with Louis, helping us breathe a little easier on our eastern border. So why didn't I? Here's why - Hatty is pretty good friends with Victoria, and we've identified her as our friend. It's this extra layer of diplomacy that makes these decisions hard - any decision like this can reverberate through the entire diplomatic situation, and you'll end up at a point where no one likes you. Still, upon further reflection, I think I should have made the effort to keep Louis happy. I guess we'll see if he attacks us or not, which will tell us if the decision was right. There's a lot to learn here!
Tarsus finished its whipped barracks, starts pumping units.

Turn 9 - Engineering comes in, but, of course, we can't build pikes without iron. Another catapult and maceman finish up as well as a confcuian missionary. Here's my plan with the missionary - I move him to Arbela, which is our city furthest away from the battle. This will be a good place to build more missionaries as the supply line is a bit lengthy for the war. I start research on guilds, due in 8. We don't have horses, but can trade for them if we need to and start building knights once that comes in. And, it leads to gunpowder.

Turn 10 - 960 AD - Confucianism spreads in Arbela, as planned. Start a missionary there. Here is our stack, reday to attack soon:


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2 War Elephants, 1 maceman, 1 axeman, 2 catapults, with more right behind

The next player should be able to attack in the next few turns with good success.


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The world!

Here is the save (http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/RB4_Cyrus_AD-0960.Civ4SavedGame)

Hi,

very nice turnlog, Snaproll! :goodjob: I should take more screenshots during my turns too...
Regarding Irfanview, I have no troubles with it like you do. But I'm using its in-built screen capture only rarely; most of the time I use print-screen in Civ 4 and paste in Irfanview, only losing the mouse pointer that way. (I use windowed mode by the way; you too?)

Sorry for producing units in no-barracks cities! :blush: Missed that. :smoke:

I think/hope we will be safe from Louis for the time being, as his units are busy elsewhere. Let's hope he will be on the losing end of his war! It would be a pain to face his experienced units from a previous war later...

When we attack Gandhi, we should leave a couple of units in our territory to deal with counter-pillagers. Good call to scout what kind of forces he has!


jameson is up next, but won't be able to play before late monday evening.

-Kylearan

Got it again.

My take on starting wars is that you usually need more troops than you think you need, but I'll try and start laying down some snack during my turns.

Hi,

My take on starting wars is that you usually need more troops than you think you need
I agree, especially if you want to take cities fast in the initial punch. During my turns, I felt we were very light on military even for peace time - I haven't looked at the situation now, but if you think we need more time for military build-up, then don't declare yet. An early war can slow us down, so we might as well make sure we will gain something out of it, too.

If you feel we have enough units already, feel free to :hammer: away, though. :)

-Kylearan

Oh, and one more thing: What about building some spearmen? Gandhi will have war elephants, and since we can't build pikes (which will hurt us...), we don't have a clear anti-elephant unit. Spears would fight as good or bad as our own elephants or macemen against them, but they would be a lot cheaper. On the other hand, they won't be useful against anything else, so I'm not sure...

-Kylearan

If we attacked now, about all we could take is Madras. More buildup is certainly a good idea, and