Sorry about the thread titl but i was really tired while typing it and can't figure out a way tochange it to something less demeaning to the people who post here.

Hi. I thought that it would be a good idea for someone to start an SG for people whohave never played one before or have hardly played civ IV before. I myself have only played one SG (well actually its still going:D ) and have really loved it, but suck:( .

Anyway unless someone wants them i'm not proposing any special rules (the first one to mention raging barbs will be shot:ar15: ... just kidding:goodjob: ) or wacky variants. Just good old Civ IV

Map type: Pangaea
Size: Standard
Sea Level: ???
Climate: ??? (i'd prefer tropical)
Civ: To be decided.
Level: Noble (unless anyone has any problems with it)
Speed: Epic or Normal

If anyone has any ideas please mention them.

Players (full, sory :sad: )
Roster
Sir Toma
pling
Chriseay
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty

I am hoping for 24 hours to get it and 48 hours to play and post the save but if you have a problem (eg. work, school whatever) just notify:)

I was hoping to make this a peacful sort of game but we will probobaly end up at war. Anyone is welcome to join and any advice would be appreciated:goodjob:

edit: must be patched to 1.09:)

I'll join in if I'm welcome :) ... never played an SG (only started lurking on this forum since CIV came out). I've never played on Noble, either, normally play on Warlord - but it'll be a nice challenge ;)

Thanks for the reply:)

Your more than welcome to join. I was also hoping that someone with some SG experience would also like to help us out as we're probobaly going to die horribly:D

I'd love to join. I was looking for something like this, as this would be my first SG. It seems like a fun idea, and it gives a little more meaning to all the time I spend playing civ. One thing though, a standard map would probably be best. I know at least on my machine, by the late game large is cumbersome, but by no means unplayable. Hope to get this started soon!

Chris

Okay Chrisheay your in. I'll change the map size to standard.
Any one got any ideas for our civ? i don't really mind.
Hopefully a few more people will post and then we can get started!:D

Sir Toma, I would like to join if you'd let me. I've never played a succession game so would love to join one with fellow n00b's :) I am playing at Noble at the moment.

In terms of leaders, why not Qin Shi Huang as if you plan to play a "peaceful" game, then Industrious and Financial would make great traits.

Edit: Providing I'm in, are we playing a patch level 1.09?

ok no barbs, how about always WAR!!!! :D


Have fun sir toma and omgomgomg stay far far away from flaming barbies!:lol:

Cheers!
-Liq

I'd be up for playing this - I'm currently playing Prince (badly) but haven't played an SG before - can't believe it took me until Civ 4 to realise there was a community going on :(
My only concern would be that 8 people is rather a lot to keep track of - if everyone takes the full 48 hours that's also a fortnight between turns for each player. I'd recommend sticking to no more than 6.

I think I like 6 people better too. Like Beefonthebone said, with eight people we're probably looking at almost a week for a full rotation at best, and longer if people get caught up in real life.

I think a financial and either creative or industrious leader would be good. I like creative a lot because it makes border expansion much easier. My votes would be for Catherine or Qin then, which is good because those are two I've not played (I almost always play on random leaders).

Chris

I'm quite partial to playing Catherine if I'm aiming for a more peaceful game :) But I've not tried playing as Qin so might like that even better if I tried it ;)

Creative is overrated in some cases - that border's handy, but the effect is replicated with an obelisk or an early religion. Qin also gets a better UU, but maybe I'm biased by beating up Cathy in my current game as China :)

Mmm, but with Creative 5 turns after you found the city it can work every tile it's going to be able to work, which can give you a few more options on city placement with respect to resources you'd really like to work :)

But then one of the best things about Civ4 so far is that the traits seem to be pretty balanced - in Civ3 I had a much narrower range of choices that I liked, but in Civ4 every civ has its good points :)

True that an early religion or an obelisk can accomplish the same thing as the creative trait, but at a much higher cost. Obelisks require mysticism to be researched and 30 hammers, plus they are pretty quickly obsolete. Religion must be researched and then spread, unless of course you want to wait for the unpredictable natural spread. I like creative!

Of course, it all depends on what your aims are and what challenges you want.

Chris

Obelisks never go obsolete, only the ones from Stonehenge, since their output is entirely culture. They do, of course, cost hammers, but I'd tend to go for whatever Qin's other trait is (industrious?) over creative, particularly since industrious+stone=Stonehenge is a fairly common event.

Obelisks never go obsolete, only the ones from Stonehenge, since their output is entirely culture. They do, of course, cost hammers, but I'd tend to go for whatever Qin's other trait is (industrious?) over creative, particularly since industrious+stone=Stonehenge is a fairly common event.

Ahh, I am mistaken. I thought all obelisks went obsolete. That being the case I definitely gave a little too much power to the creative trait.

Considering that we don't know how many A.I opponents there are going to be (unless it has been stated and I am blind (which is possible), culture may be something that is irrelevant anyway - at least in the early game until the landmass is filled in.

I think that Industrious (better for building wonders - although no "fixation" here and the Forges are a powerful improvement to increase hammers in the early game) and Financial (which tends to get better in the late(r) game anyway) are a better way to go. If the game turns out to be one where we will need to fight (and let's face it, on Pangaea maps, we are going to run out of room and are going to need more - same with the A.Is), then we will have the treasury - or at least a major boost to our income - needed to build an army to lay the :hammer: At the same time, we can more easily go into those Civics which are more expensive (and more useful) than the others.

I just hope that Alexander is not close to the starting location.

hi peeps. i'm an old fart. i'm also unreliable, irresponsible, insane and inane. i also like to experiment and have won space and diplo on noble standard. i'd like to play a game with some new blood to see what fresh ideas pop out. I'll play if u limit it to six and u'll put up with me. I'm not a mentor type.

Hey Admiral, don't know if you'll be in, but I have to say I like your title. I'm a Penn State grad still living in State College. The Orange Bowl will be fun, if I can scrape together enough money to make it down to Miami.

On the leader bit, it seems after some discussion and consideration that financial and industrious is better than creative. I do like the financial, it's very powerful by the end game. I suppose my vote goes to Qin then, which is ok since I've haven't played as him yet anyway.

hey chriseay. hope u can scrape up the money. i went to the 85 game where the lions lost to the sooners. it was a blast. re the civ, i'm ambivalent. I have strategies that have worked on noble, but I'll keep silent to see what everyone comes up with.

:eek: Admiral spreading the word of the greatest religion...."Idiocy". Have fun everyone SG's are a gas! ...FYI AK and I have a Bears-Steelers bet this weekend. My Az. Wildcat hat for his PSU Lion hat. :p
Yours in idiocy,
Major Idiot Whompinator :D

I would like to join your Succession Game, if that's quite alright. I'm a total noob (can't consistently beat noble) and I would love to join a game for noobs such as myself.

About the leader, I really don't care who we choose (I agree with pling). Qin sounds dandy.

ok no barbs, how about always WAR!!!! :D


Have fun sir toma and omgomgomg stay far far away from flaming barbies!:lol:

Cheers!
-Liq

Heh heh.
Remember when.... :twitch:

* Killed 2 barb archers easily. At the moment there are 2 barb warriors to the south, 2 archers to the east and one warrior to the North West
* A couple of barbs attack but are easily fended off. More barbs are coming up from the south.
* Barb archer attacks... God that archer with the City Garrison III is a barb killing machine.
* A couple more barbs attack and OMG our archer went down!!!...to 2.7 health.
* A few more attacks on Athens “YAWN”. Oh no there is a barb axe man to the north.
* There is another axe man approaching from the north, an archer & warrior from the south and another warrior from the North East.
* More barbs approach. Don’t they ever stop!
* Our archer takes down an axe man and 3 other barbs without a scratch. More barbs, I just can’t take it.
* 4 attacks occur, all victories. 2 more axmen appear. Not good.


You were a Barb killing machine Sir Toma! :clap:

Hope your SG goes well for you all. Have a great time everybody.
Wish you all the best. :thumbsup:

God i don't check this thread for 24 hours and suddenly there is an entirely new page!:eek: and i was thinking of scraping this idea

well...
@Sadan
You're welcome to join in and it is a standard map so there will be 7 civs (6 AI)

@ BeefontheBone
You're also welcome to join. I made it 7 players (holidays have just started for me and i'll probobaly be going somewhere) i hope that's ok.

@Admiral and Pie-es-tasty
You're both welcome to join and have been added to the roster

@Liquedated and Luv Muffin
That turn was stressful enough when i actually played it, it's worse when you have to read it and wonder. HOW THE F*** DID I SURVIVE!

So we have our roster full these are the settings at the moment (any of these can be discussed and changed)

Map Size: Standard
Civs: 7
Difficulty: Noble
Map Type: Pangaea
Civ: Qin (at the moment)
Temperature: Tropical
Speed: Epic (unless someone has problems with it)
Variants: None (unless we want always war or raging barbs, which i don't (for explination see the re-enacment of my turn by Luv-Muffin))

I like Qin because his industrial trait is useful, his unique unit is like a catapult that surveves:eek: , and i love the financial trait. I wouldn't mind Cathy either. If it comes down to it we'll have a vote. If anyone else wanted to join then i'm sorry but i may start another game similar to this (depending on how this one turns out). About missing turns, if you have to for any reason(going away etc.), please notify us as it saves us alot of stress. I'll probably start the game tomorrow.

p.s i live in Australia so time difference is often a killer for replies as i'm often sleeping when your posting:D . Usually we can get around it.

edit: crap that's a long post

Well I know what direction we'll most probably be taking if we get Alexander, Tokugawa, Monte and Genghis Khan on the map and close to us ;)

I think Epic speed is best for a SG (although I haven't played any so I don't really know what I'm talking about). I think any other speed setting though will make the game too quick and due to us having 7 players, some/most will only get a limited number of turns before the game is over (one way or another).

As for variants, lets leave it as is. I don't play with raging barbarians - they are annoying enough as is - and as for always war, if we are going to choose something like that, it would be best to go with an aggressive civ to start with.

What Victory type we going to aim for?

Edit: We have at least two Aussies in this game. I dont think the time zones matter too much as whilst we are sleeping :coffee: , the SG can continue to move along and vice versa.

Obelisks never go obsolete, only the ones from Stonehenge

I keep reading past this and thinking 'I'm sure they do go obsolete ...', so I've finally looked it up :) Obelisks are obsoleted by Calendar, regardless of whether you built them or got them via Stonehenge.

I keep reading past this and thinking 'I'm sure they do go obsolete ...', so I've finally looked it up :) Obelisks are obsoleted by Calendar, regardless of whether you built them or got them via Stonehenge.

Aha, I thought so. :eek: I didn't get a chance to play the game at all last night, so I didn't check, but I was all but certain they did go obsolete. Good to know, but even so, I'm very ok with the non creative leader, especially one I haven't played.

I think Epic speed is best for a SG (although I haven't played any so I don't really know what I'm talking about). I think any other speed setting though will make the game too quick and due to us having 7 players, some/most will only get a limited number of turns before the game is over (one way or another).

This sounds good to me, but how are we going to work the turns then? I've been seeing in most other SG's it's ten to person, but at least in the early game 10 epic turns might have almost no action. I'm thinking maybe a few more turns each round, 15 or even 20.

Can't wait to get this started, should be fun.

Normal practice is to do a couple of 20-turn plays for the first 2 players, then drop to 10, even on Normal speed - we could always try it and bump it up to 15 each if that's slow.

@pling: When you say "looked it up" what exactly do you mean? They go obsolete with calendar in the sense that you can't build them any more, but I'm almost certain they continue to produce culture after that. Ones you got free from Stonehenge will disappear because their presence is the (non-culture) effect of Stonehenge, so you'll just get the Stonehenge culture bonus (and GPP).

@pling: When you say "looked it up" what exactly do you mean?

Looked on the poster that came with the game, and double checked on this website. Hadn't thought about the two different sorts of obsolete though, which is a good point. Both the poster & the website just say 'Obsolete with Calendar' but don't clarify that. I'm not sure I've ever paid sufficient attention to notice if there's still that one culture/turn or not once I've got Calendar :)

Normal practice is to do a couple of 20-turn plays for the first 2 players, then drop to 10, even on Normal speed - we could always try it and bump it up to 15 each if that's slow.

I think that is a good idea. There is probably no point for the first couple of players to play their turns in a matter of minutes. I'd say give them 20 to get the ball rolling. I think we should probably leave it up to the Captain to decide however. Sir Toma, what do you think?

@pling: When you say "looked it up" what exactly do you mean? They go obsolete with calendar in the sense that you can't build them any more, but I'm almost certain they continue to produce culture after that. Ones you got free from Stonehenge will disappear because their presence is the (non-culture) effect of Stonehenge, so you'll just get the Stonehenge culture bonus (and GPP).

Wonders certainly do continue to produce culture once they are obsolete. I can't remember if this pertains to Obelisks however once Calendar is researched - especially if actually "built" in a city - i.e. no pseudo-Obelisks due to Stonehenge's effects. It probably remains the same however. I'll go on now as I am just repeating what you said, in a less thought-out way.

There is one problem however. Qin (if we choose to play as him) starts with Agriculture and Mining. We would have to research Mysticism to be able to build Stoney which may possibly mean we might have to divert from something else more important (depending on our start location). I personally usually don't place much emphasis on Stonehenge in the early game anyway. The culture it provides is generally not that great. This does depend on however the starting location, proximity to other civ's, our goals for the game, starting goals etc. Maybe we can squeeze it in before another Civ (especially one that starts with Myst.) can build it. This is obviously open for discussion about what we want to do - especially with our resource management of Wonders (spending between 5-30 turns a piece on building a Wonder - taking that city away from building other things).

Obelisks do go obselete and no longer produce culture after calendar is researched. Stonehendge ONLY loses the ability to put an obelisk in every city, it still keeps its +8 culture

For turns, we will play 20 turns each for the first round,this usually allows you to accomplish something on epic. After that we will play 15 turns each, because i don't think 10 is enough.

Are we decided on civ? i would choose Mansa Musa (Mali) or Qin Shi Huang (China). If we are agreed then i'll start the game later tonight (about 8 hours after this post)

edit: With Qin stonehendge is remarkably quick to produce after a while, i could produce it in under 10 turns in an epic game without stone!!! So if we want it but don't need it then we can wait until our economy is up and running and then build it in a few turns.

So wait, we all play 20 turns the first rotation, then down to 15 for the rest of the game? Sounds good to me.

And about Stonehenge, never found it that useful (probably because I usally play creative civs) but a different consequence of not starting with Mysticism is that if we have Isabella or Saladin (or both) we might end up having to get a later religion.

20 turns for 1st one or two players, then 10 after. If you're thinking about all the correct stuff you don't more than ten later.

Before we start talking strategy, how bout a screenie of our starting location? how we proceed depends on the resources and starting locations.

i've always played normal speed. Epic slows things down IIRC?

Sir Toma, I should mention that I am using the Blue Marble mod to play Civ4. Do you have any problems with this? As many know, the mod itself doesnt make any changes to the game except graphical improvements. Just thought I'd ask as some people do want each respective person's copy of Civ4 to be "pure" (or Virginal if you so wish :lol:). Let me know if this is a problem.

i've always played normal speed. Epic slows things down IIRC?

Yes it does. Everything it and of itself. I've found this post helpful in looking at the differences: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3362326&postcount=30

Btw, I dont know if the info in that post is still correct as I am sure I remember seeing a post that Firaxis tweaked the Epic speed in v1.09. Once again, with everything I say, I could be wrong...

OT: Anyone else notice that the "Insert Link" button and method has changed on CivFanatics? I originally thought it was FireFox causing the problem but now with IE, it is a similar thing. After you create the link and it appears in the edit box, you have no way to rename the link that appears. Is it me or does everyone else find this?

I've been playing my first epic game for the past few days now, and I think that while eventually 10 turns will be fine, 10 in the beginning will be too few. Everything at the beginning of the game seems to take forever. That's why I suggested the idea of 20 then 15.

I think I'm sold on Qin as our leader, hopefully we'll end up with some good terrain to start to take quick advantage of the starting techs. I think with some hills or flood plains (or a bonus food that takes a farm), we might want to go for a worker first.

@Sadan01
Blue marble is fine as long as it doesn't screw up with SG's (i heard it doesn't so its probably ok).

I'll post a screenie of our start in a sec. just let me start the game first.

I think that we'll play 20 turns for the FIRST ROUND, then 10 turns after that as we have quite a large number of people.

Okay i have started the game (but haven't played any turns) so lets discuss strategy. There are some pictures of our starting position attached. What we need to decide on is: which techs we should research and what early wonder we should build.

For our wonder the Oracle would probably be best as it is cheap (we don't have stone so the pyramids are probably not a good idea) and a free tech can go a long way.

For our techs, well, i'm not sure. I think an early religion would be good but we can research something else and then get Judaism and if we miss that we can use the oracle for Code of Laws or Theology. Some advice would be helpful.

I will start playing at 6:00pm Australian time

I would say go for animal husbandry so we can exploit those pigs (we already have agriculture and mining right?). Oracle sounds good to me.

Love the name by the way. Lord of the n00bs.

I agree with the animal husbandry reccomendation. We could get quite a bit of food out of that start, with pigs, wheat, flood plains and a coast (with lighthouse).

I'm thinking animal hunbandry followed by bronze working (for chopping and defence), archery (only if we don't get copper), monotheism (religion we'll also need the pre-req's) and then whatever

Yeah, I'd agree with that tech order :) Like the look of the start, too.

OOC, SirToma, what's your time difference from GMT? I'm too UK centric with my awareness of timezones :D

@Pling
GMT time difference is +10 (i think)

Anyway to my turn...
A man stood on a small hill near the place where the river flowed into the sea. As he gazed out into the horizon, a few more people walked up behind him.
"It's beautiful isn't it" said the man
"Yes" replied the others. They both looked at each other. "Sire, we have almost run out of food, we cannot stay here any longer."
"Of course we can, in fact i think we'll stay here for ever. We know how to make plants grow and how to dig rocks out of the earth, if we stayed here we would never be hungry again."
So the entire tribe stayed in the valley and grew prosporous over the years under their leader. His name was Toma. After his untimely death in 3240BC he was renamed. He became Sir Toma, Lord of the n00bs, Bringer of Prosperity. During his life he managed to teach the people of the n00b tribe how to heard animals together so they could be eaten, he contacted and befreinded another tribe who taught him how animals could be hunted as well another one who had also settled and called themselves the Aztecs, he explored the river valley and far beyond, and he trained more explorers to go out and reveal the secrets of the world. He died whilst watching that same horizon which he had looked out upon around 800 years ago knowing that the Chinese people, as they called themselves, would live to be the greatest tribe on earth.

Sorry about the long story but i had far too much time on my hands, don't feel obliged to write a story like i did.

Anyway here's my turn log

[1] 4000BC: Found Beijing, start building warrior,explore, start researching animal husbandry

[2-6] 3960-3800BC: Yawn

[7] 3760BC: Discover a great place for our second city, it has cows, clams, rice and a fair few hills

[8] 3720BC: Yawn

[9] 3680BC: The boarders of Beijing expand

[10] 3640BC: Yawn

Between Turns: Our warrior is attacked by a lion, he fights bravely and survives without a scratch, the n00b gods favour him.

[11] 3600BC: Pop a goody hut and get hunting for free!:dance: All praise to the gods of the n00bs:worship:

[12-13] 3560-3520BC: Yawn

[14] 3480BC: Find a source of stone to the south of beijing.

[15] 3440BC: Oh Crap!!! this game just became insane:crazyeye: , that's right we just met... Montezuma:eek: . NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!:suicide:

[16] 3400BC: Yawn

[17] 3360BC: Animal Husbandry has been completed, start work on archery. (Meeting Montezuma has re-awakened the defense nut within me:crazyeye: )

[18] 3320BC: Find some horses 1 tile east of Beijing. Warrior is completed send him to explore westwards, bengin another.

[19] 3280BC: Yawn

[20] 3240BC: Not much. I haven't pressed enter for this turn just in case the next player wants to change anything.

Pling your up next. After this warrior is finished i would recomend a worker to improve the land around Beijing and hook up some of our juicy resources. After that its your choice. Make the n00b gods proud.

Roster
Sir Toma (just played)
Pling (Up now)
Chriseay (On deck)
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty

I have posted some maps of the area around us and marked out some future city sites. I think that red would be a good bet for our first city if nothing interesting appears to our west. Blue would be a crap city but i think its worth it for the stone. Green wouldn't be too bad but we don't know enough about it yet.

Got the save :) Won't play till after lunch though (can't have lunch till housework's done, mustn't play games till after lunch ... only way I get the housework done now Civ4 arrived ;) ) It's only 9:20am here so that'll be a three hour gap before I start to play if anyone's waiting with bated breath (or hanging in the wings with advice!) ;)

First thoughts though are 'Argh! Monty!' :eek: and a yes on the worker, too :) And now I'll stop thinking and go do Stuff so I get my lunch promptly :cool:

Just in case anyone is confused you should post a "got it" within 24 hours of the save being posted and then put up a report of your turns along with the save within 48 hours of your "got it" post.
If your out by an hour or you accidentaly forget the save we won't kill you. It happened to me in my other SG (which is still going).

The red dot looks real good to me, and the blue could be ok and that stone could be important if we want wonders. I think that we should work on sailing soonish, as the lighthouses and being able to trade on the coasts would be very good for our empire, which it appears is going to be semi (if not completely) coastal. I also agree with the worker next, and then maybe one more warrior (or archer) and then a settler for the second city would be my plan.

I was thinking the same thing as Chriseay for our next moves, although after sailing (if we decide to get it) i think we should try and secure Judaism for our religion.

Hopefully playing promptly isn't an issue - I can always wait a full day after Sir Toma posts his save in future if that's what people would prefer :)

Turn 0 (3240 BC)
All looks good, so off I go ...

Turn 1 (3200 BC), Turn 2 (3160 BC)
Not a lot

Turn 3 (3120 BC)
Beijing grows: 3

Turn 4 (3080 BC)
Contact made: Incan Empire
Tweaked citzen placement in Beijing to work the gold, cutting back growth a bit, but speeding our warrior and our research into Archery

Panther attack! :eek: Warrior defeats (1.70/2): Barbarian Panther

Turn 5 (3040 BC)
Missed out on goody hut due to that damn thief Monty :(
Tech learned: Archery

Turn 6 (3000 BC)
Research begun: Bronze Working
Dithered between this, The Wheel and Fishing, but I think all the resources we have so far are linked up with the river, and given the Incans and Aztecs are hanging about I'm keen on the 'offence is a good defence' uses of copper (if we get it, fingers crossed) ... fishing & stuff next, perhaps? Though that's Chriseay's choice :)
Beijing finishes: Warrior

Turn 7 (2960 BC)
Beijing begins: Worker
Fortified new Warrior to give Beijing some protection

Turn 8 (2920 BC)

Turn 9 (2880 BC)
Warrior defeats (1.04/2): Barbarian Panther

Turn 10 (2840 BC)
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I

Turn 11 (2800 BC), Turn 12 (2760 BC), Turn 13 (2720 BC), Turn 14 (2680 BC), Turn 15 (2640 BC)

Turn 16 (2600 BC)
Contact made: Malinese Empire

Turn 17 (2560 BC)
Warrior defeats (1.64/2): Barbarian Bear

Turn 18 (2520 BC)
Warrior promoted: Woodsman I
Warrior defeats (1.70/2): Barbarian Wolf

Turn 19 (2480 BC)

Turn 20 (2440 BC)
I've not pressed enter on this turn, so the next person up can tweak things before starting off :) I'm pretty sure I left the governor OFF for instance.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106750&stc=1&d=1134048362
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106751&stc=1&d=1134048362
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=106752&stc=1&d=1134048578

Roster
Sir Toma
Pling (Just played)
Chriseay (Up next)
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty


106753

Forum newbie question - how do I make the images show up in the body of the post? Coz the way I tried obviously didn't work ;)

Got it. I'll play after work today, about 4ish EST (7 hours from now). I should have my report up before the end of the night. My plan is to finish bronzeworking and start on fishing -> sailing and to get a settler and escort out of Beijing ASAP. I plan to go for the red dot first.

Possibilities I've been pondering include a 3rd city soon? What to do if we don't have copper? Do we want to go for any early wonders? Should I switch to slavery when we get bronze? Early wars or not?

My preferences in a personal game would be a 3rd city ASAP and to still go for fishing -> sailing if we don't have copper. The others would depend on the situation. Let me know what everyone thinks though, and if I get in the situation to make those decisions I'll take the group consensus.

Possibilities I've been pondering include a 3rd city soon? What to do if we don't have copper? Do we want to go for any early wonders? Should I switch to slavery when we get bronze? Early wars or not?

My preferences in a personal game would be a 3rd city ASAP and to still go for fishing -> sailing if we don't have copper. The others would depend on the situation. Let me know what everyone thinks though, and if I get in the situation to make those decisions I'll take the group consensus.

My preferences would also be to get a third city out ASAP - particularly because the Incans are sitting quite close to the green site, so if we wait too long then we'll lose it and it does look rather nice. I think I'm keener on an early religion than you, so if I were just playing myself I'd beeline for Monotheism to get Judaism and also get Stonehenge along the way ... but equally, I can see that we need fishing at the very least as otherwise we're not going to be able to work half our tiles!

A second city, you mean?
I'm worried that that red dot is too far away from beijing - it wastes a few tiles and gets increased maintenance costs. Of course, the copper reveal we're about to get will probably change things. There's a few hills near the lake south of beijing which could contain it, and that's a handy place for a city anyway.
We should probably go for HBR fairly soon too since we've horses next to beijing - horse archers would be very useful for containing Monty / Huayana agression. OTOH if we're building the Oracle we'll want to get monotheism or CoL with it for a religion, so some prerequisites will be needed before then.

A second city, you mean?
I'm worried that that red dot is too far away from beijing - it wastes a few tiles and gets increased maintenance costs. Of course, the copper reveal we're about to get will probably change things. There's a few hills near the lake south of beijing which could contain it, and that's a handy place for a city anyway.
We should probably go for HBR fairly soon too since we've horses next to beijing - horse archers would be very useful for containing Monty / Huayana agression. OTOH if we're building the Oracle we'll want to get monotheism or CoL with it for a religion, so some prerequisites will be needed before then.

Nope, I meant a 3rd. The second is a given in my mind, and a third is questionable, but I would try to do it if I can. My preferred play style is to almost overexpand and then reel it back in, rather than be cautious and lose land and resources to other civs. On HBR, I didn't realize that we had horses in Beijing. Knowing that I agree that we should go for that pretty soon. I like to use the Oracle to get either COL or Theology, so if we're planning on building it, I'll try to steer us on the path to them as much as possible. I'll have to take a look at the situation, but I don't anticipate being able to move the settler myself anyway, so it will probably be Sadan01 making the decision in the end.

Turn 1 (2400 BC)
Tech learned: Bronze Working

Turn 2 (2360 BC)
Research begun: Fishing
Beijing finishes: Worker
I wanted to start HBR, but it would still take 35 turns and that is much too long. We should eventually switch to slavery, but I want to wait a little longer until we can get more use out of it.

Turn 3 (2320 BC)
Beijing begins: Archer
Start the worker on the pigs, then gold and wheat. The river is nice because for now we can neglect roads, which means we can neglect researching the wheel.

Turn 4 (2280 BC)
Contact made: Roman Empire

Turn 5 (2240 BC)

Turn 6 (2200 BC)

Turn 7 (2160 BC)
Tech learned: Fishing

Turn 8 (2120 BC)
Research begun: Mysticism
I think we want to go either for the Oracle or Judaism (or maybe both) so I figured I'd start us down the path to Preisthood and Monothesim.

Turn 9 (2080 BC)
The pasture finishes, and it makes it possible to time the archer, growth in Beijing and Mysticism to finish in 5 turns, subtracting 3 turns from the build and 4 from the research. I also start mining the gold before the wheat, as that seems more important since we've got one bonus food already hooked up.
Turn 10 (2040 BC)

Turn 11 (2000 BC)

Turn 12 (1975 BC)
We're rated 4th most advanced civilization by Thucydides.

Turn 13 (1950 BC)
Tech learned: Mysticism
Beijing grows: 4
Beijing finishes: Archer

Turn 14 (1925 BC)
Beijing begins: Settler
Research begun: Polytheism
Warrior defeats (1.80/2): Barbarian Wolf
Hinduism hasn't been founded yet, so I figure we can try for that, and if we don't get it at least we needed the tech for Monotheism and Judaism.

Turn 15 (1900 BC)
Hooking up the gold reduces Polytheism by 4 turns, and I'm headed for the wheat next. After that we should probably farm the flood plains.

Turn 16 (1875 BC)

Turn 17 (1850 BC)

Turn 18 (1825 BC)

Turn 19 (1800 BC)

Turn 20 (1775 BC)
Just exploring. Haven't pressed enter, so the next turn will start here.

All in all I think that we are doing well. We have no copper close, but there is some to the west a little north of the Incans. We may want to try to grab it, but it could cause friction. Here's a little dotmap of my two preferred sites for the second city.

edit: removed because of revision....see below

On the tech front, we should finish our religion aims, get the wheel, pottery and sailing, and then focus on military for a little while. We'll need either horseback riding or to get iron working. Iron working is a gamble though, because we know we have horses.

Here's a couple screenshots from my last turn:

http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/5864/civ4screenshot00098bm.jpg

http://img426.imageshack.us/img426/1475/civ4screenshot00155nf.jpg

Roster
Sir Toma
Pling
Chriseay (Just played)
Sadan01 (Up now)
BeefontheBone (On deck)
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty

the opinions below are soley those of the idiot writing them and should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

I like stonehange even without stone for border expansions.

I like to build cities in the direction of the nearest AI.

Open borders is not necessarily a given.

Enough horse archers can take the Aztecs down to one city.

Courthouses are more important than ever.

No wonder building in the capital, do it in a well placed second city.

I'd like to see that blue dot shifted north 1 tile - it overlaps less with the red one (which I'd be likely to build second to reduce maintenance), gets an extra gold in the radius (those commerce/prod bonuses are huge and we can already hook it up), gets more hills for possible later resources, is still on fresh water and wastes fewer tiles. This dotmap still wastes some great tiles along the coast though - ivory and some river tiles. My preferred location would be on the forest 2S of the warrior in that shot, then 1SW of red dot and 1N of blue dot - gets more resources, wastes fewer tiles, keeps the fresh water supplies up and has only slightly more overlap than the original plan with an extra city in there. It also leaves an excellent location 1SW of the mountain to the SW of blue dot with plenty of river grassland and no overlap - a perfect location for a Great Person-spewing specialist city, so long as we avoid the Inca getting over there ahead of us. In fact, I'll edit the dotmap.

Hmm, I realised that 1N of blue dot overlapped a lot - here's what it looks like on the gold 1W of there, which would be something of a waste perhaps, but the others are better IMO:
http://img421.imageshack.us/img421/5504/civ4screenshotbeefdotmap6we.jpg
There might even be room for another one right at the bottom of the shot 2S of the word "enter" - can't see what the rest of the terrain is like.

Agree on everything about the dot map, in fact I looked at it again and I'm not really sure what I was thinking. These two spots look a lot better, though I'm not 100 percent sure about the yellow:

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/122/untitled3ya.jpg

Regarding dotmaps:
Chriseay's looks the best to me so far, because there's less wasted space, altough everyone's so far is viable.

Remember to watch out for Montezuma.

i'm okay with chreasey's dotmap. In fact, I really really like it. blue first then yellow

Got it. I'll play it tonight. This game is moving quick. Expect my turn update either late tonight (say 10-12hrs from now) or tomorrow morning - I wish I wasnt at work at the moment - I could read up on this game and take note of the direction. All I can do is skim each post. It seems like we've done well so far even though Monte is near. Genghis and Alexander mustn't be too far away either :p I hope not!

More of my thoughts later.

About Chriseay's dotmap, i would move yellow south 1 or 2 squares to make use of the food resources down there. I think the blue dot should be our first city and we can settle yellow later. I'd prefer to move west and take some land off the inca's even if it means we get some quite ordinary cities. I think we should begin a war against either the Aztecs or Incas when catapults come along, hopefully they won't attack us before that.
Keep up the good work:goodjob:

edit: on the next page i have posted my dotmaps on what i think we should do

Okay took a while but i finally got around to making some more dot maps.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/dotmapsNearS.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/dotmapsW.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/dotmapsFarS.jpg

The three dots that are close together (yellow, that fleshy colour and brown) are our different options for that area. I personally think that brown is the best one of them but the others are okay.

The green dot would be great for our second settler or maybe even our first as it would deprive the Incas of some good land. The blue dot would also be good for our first settler.

The red dot to the west is only there because it is a source of copper. It would be a pretty crappy city otherwise, but if we don't get any iron then it could be a life saver. Invading with archers doesn't sound that good.

In the south i just placed three possible cities although there is a bit of overlap. Grey would be good for the stone it provides. Purple gets Gems, Copper, Sugar and Rice. And Black has cows and silks but is otherwise not that useful.

These are just my ideas and you don't have to follow them as they're probably crap and i haven't taken into account where the Incas will settle.

The green dot would be great for our second settler or maybe even our first as it would deprive the Incas of some good land. The blue dot would also be good for our first settler.

The red dot to the west is only there because it is a source of copper. It would be a pretty crappy city otherwise, but if we don't get any iron then it could be a life saver. Invading with archers doesn't sound that good.

In the south i just placed three possible cities although there is a bit of overlap. Grey would be good for the stone it provides. Purple gets Gems, Copper, Sugar and Rice. And Black has cows and silks but is otherwise not that useful.

These are just my ideas and you don't have to follow them as they're probably crap and i haven't taken into account where the Incas will settle.

I like the idea of going for the green one first, then back-filling for blue - though given where the incans are I'd be inclined to go for founding the next two cities as quickly as possible on green & blue otherwise we might lose one of those spots.

As far as the yellow/flesh/brown choice goes, I'm also more in favour of brown. I know it 'wastes' some tiles, but I've personally found in Civ4 that it makes more sense to go for the better city rather than making sure that you get the maximum cities on a given space ... we'll get that ivory with culture soon enough, won't we? (or is it 2 pops out?)

But take everything I say with the requiste large amount of salt ;) After all, I'm the lass who announced when she joined the game that she only plays on Warlord :cool:

But take everything I say with the requiste large amount of salt ;) After all, I'm the lass who announced when she joined the game that she only plays on Warlord :cool:

Don't worry about it. I only won my first noble game last night. It took me 55 minutes on epic .

I was the Romans on a duel map with 2 other civs (Mao and Toguwaga). I Praetorian spammed their arse. I ended up with a score of 40 000 or so. I now feel less like a n00b.:D

edit: Just relized that this is my 50th post. YAY!!!:beer: :dance: :band: :clap: :bounce: :spear: :woohoo:

edit2: i had to get rid of some smilies because i was over the limit

I only won my first noble game last night. ... I now feel less like a n00b.:D


Hehe! Congrats :goodjob:

Not sure what I was thinking with what became Toma's yellow dot - I was a bit stoned last night. My preference would be blue first then green to keep the inca off if possible, then yellow and 1SW of brown. That's only a total of 3 overlapping tiles, and how many size 21 cities do you see? Even if they do get that big there's plenty of food for a couple of specialists, much more useful than they were in civ 3.
I reckon green dot is going to be hugely important as it's an ideal specialist factory - if Huayana gets there before us we'll need to take it by force, especially since he's agressive and the desert in the north is so grotty. In that case I reckon we go for elephants ASAP, since construction is also close to Machinery on the tree, for our UU, stopping to pick up IW along the way, if not for anything other than showing us where the Incans' resources are. They may try to found one to the east of their capital for that ivory and gold, which is why we should get blue dot up first methinks.

I'm thinking green, blue and then if we want to be really bold red, otherwise some backfilling or just stop expanding for a bit. I really think that green and blue should be our next big priorities, to get those resources and also to take some land away from the incans. On the ivory, if it's important we'll have to go for the closest dot to the capital, because otherwise I think it's quite a ways off. Beijing will need two more border pops to take it in I'm fairly certain.

don't fixate on OCP. grab the resources.

Invading with archers doesn't sound that good.

no but invading with horse archers...

slow down a bit people. IMIO, this is not all about early expansion.

hey boss, Sir Toma, don't worry about spouting crap, that's what we're here for.

just remember we're gonna lose money on new cities til we get get better civics.

also need to decide if we are going to be a simple peaceful people or war like and agressive (how do we get guilds first and still stay in the tech race?)

did we miss oracle? sorry, i'm pressed for time and skimming

Seems I had a little problem with playing last night as work decided to take over my Friday night. :mad: I have the game right now and am about to start playing my 20 turns. I'll report back in just a matter of a few hours.

I want to catch up with what has been said thus far first and go from there. Won't be too long folks.

Sir Toma, congrats on the Noble win! :band: [party]

@Admiral
I think we should be a relatively peaceful people but we will probably end up attacking (or being attacked by) the Incas or Aztecs. If we don't go on the agressive at any point we will probably have very little room to expand.

Sadan i'm eagerlyawaiting your report on our many great achievments:goodjob:

After looking through all the dot-maps and everyone's opinions and then taking a good look at the game (been looking at the map for 10 minutes thus far without doing anything) I think we have numerous options here (obviously).

I am of the opinion that the blue dot would be the safer option for the first settler as after looking at the land around the Incan's, I have a feeling that they will send their settler south/southwest first to pick up the copper and gems (in a lot of the games I've played, the AIs seem to like to pick up the luxuries as a matter of some priority). The problem I think with the green dot, even though it is an excellent location, is that if we send our first settler down there, we will need to send the escort further (I plan on using that warrior in our city as our escort, as the archer can easily hold off the Mali warrior if necessary), and in addition, if the Incan's do decide to build a city towards their east, we could find we have our second city south of theirs. We'll also have higher maintenance (although not much at the moment).

I do believe the blue dot is the better (note, not best) way to go for our first city. The other point I just thought of it that those hills southwest of our capital (in the radius of the blue dot) could be a quite an inviting target also for the Incans. Let's take it before they can and we can go from there.

Sadan01 the Nubist

Edit: Ahhhhhh.. The pressure is on Sir Toma :goodjob: Some before first-turn pics coming up... Think of it as a pre-SG-game report on our standing.

just a silly post here. sometimes I leave the hometown undeffended to send out escorted settlers. putting paper bag back over my head and going to sleep

BTW, sadan, OT, are all tasmanians insane? i'm on IM with one now.

As promised, here are some pics of our tech tree thus far, diplomacy screen and the status of religion. There isnt much to report in these pictures however but I know how nice it is when reading about an SG in progress to actually SEE how it is going too without having to download the save for further information.

Besides, if you were scanning the succession game forum, and you saw a thread entitled "SGn00b" wouldn't you be interesting in taking a look? :) I know I would. So this is essentially for those that wish to lurk and to keep up and as things are going to get interesting soon.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/1_-_Diplomacy.jpg

Ok, first up, our diplomacy situation. As I said, there isnt much detail here except that everyone is cautious towards us and that everyone that we know of at the moment has contact with everyone else. This will become a factor I am sure later on.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/2_-_Tech.jpg

Just a quick shot of our tech tree and where we are going. I do agree with a religion choice (hey, we can convert the Incan infidels!) and also with the Oracle if we can build it in time.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/3_-_Religion.jpg

I don't remember seeing this in a report (however I am sure I did miss it somewhere) but another Civ we haven't met has founded Buddhism.

Ok. I am going to start my first turn and the Blue Dot is going to happen. Depending on what Civ4 throws at me, I do hope to be able to pump out another settler for the Green Dot or another choice. We'll see. Wish me luck Team. Newbie Sadan may need it.

Nothing wrong with leaving the hometown undefended. That settler is more important than the few turns it'll take to redefend anyways. Should be moot though, I seem to remember building an archer before the settler.

Should be moot though, I seem to remember building an archer before the settler.

You certainly did build an archer in Beijing, thus that's the reason why I feel it is safe to move the warrior out of Beijing and escort the settler.

Folks, I should let you know that I was on Turn 5 and pressed enter at the end of the turn to go to turn 6 and the game crashed on me and went back to the desktop. For once, I am thankful for the autosave feature as I was able to start again on Turn 5. I can assure you that the same moves were done from the crashed turn to the "replay" of it.

As a bit of an update, Blue Dot is soon to become a reality. I'll be pushing through the turns as quick as I can manage to post the log and the save for Bone to play.

A little OT: I've found this SG to be a kind of confronting experience in terms of making the "right" decisions in-game. I guess in some ways the "pressure" really is on to play at your best and hope that you dont make any glaring mistakes. Have you all found the same thing?

BTW, sadan, OT, are all tasmanians insane? i'm on IM with one now.

I could say a lot about Tasmanians, Admiral. But none of it is nice ;) No, they are nice people. I think a more "correct" statement would be that most Australians are insane.

Well I'm done and we have some interesting turns. Let's get right into it:

Before 1st-Turn

Checked all F# screens and everything looks in order. In fact, there is very little to report in this area.
Polytheism in 3 turns. Beijing looks good too. I don't bother moving citizens around the city radius. I think they are in their best locations anyway.

TURN 1 (1750BC)
Not much to report. Beijing settler in 8. Warrior in far west heads south down the hilly range. Warrior near Monte heads
South-West on hill to find more grasslands. Mansa's warrior is wandering near our capital's radius. Try our Archer my friend!!!! :hammer:
Poly in 2 turns.

TURN 2 (1725BC)
Hinduism has been founded in a distant land... We are 1 TURN away from Poly! :sad: The Civ that founded religion instantly has 19% influence. Hrmmm.. I think I might make a beeline to Judaism (it is 12 turns away after Poly next turn) which I do hope to get. We can also convert to Organised Religion for a nice bonus to building buildings - I don't know about you folks but I would much rather this civic than Slavery as sacrificing population, unless absolutely dire or if the city is in a food-rich, production-poor area, will hurt the city/empire. I think Organised Religion is a better bonus.
Far-west Warrior is moved south-west along the ridge-line. Uncovers nothing but more trees and hills. We can also see a little more of the Roman border to the north-west.
Warrior in South heads south-east (another hill) back towards the southern part of Monte's borders. What can I say? I like running along the ridgetops! :crazyeye:

TURN 3 (1700BC)
Poly researched.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/1_-_Poly.jpg
Choice... Hmm. I've had a few :smoke: over this decision. Two techs do stick out at me: The Wheel and Monotheism (I believe it is too early to try and build the Oracle Wonder in Beijing or elsewhere, through Priesthood (even though the tech only costs 5 turns from this point)). The Wheel for roading may be a good help in the case of pushing reinforcements or other units around our empire and it is never too early to get started. Here are the turn stats: TW: 5 Turns; Mono: 9 Turns. However there is one other problem. For us to get Mono/Judaism, we need Masonry (5 Turns). So our technology costs are as follows: TW: 5 Turns; Masonry: 5 Turns; Mono: 9 + 5 Turns at this time; Priesthood: 5 Turns. I've decided on Priesthood to shake things up. If I can give the next player the choice for building the Oracle, I want that as my legacy :lol: and that free tech could be a help as that is probably all I am going to be remembered for... Seriously, I do think we are going to have to start on The Wheel and Mono/Judaism soonish however. Think Cho... Ko... Nu... in the distant future.
Ouch! Huayna Capac of the Incan's has converted to Hinduism (he founded it). Will he try and convert us!? I don't know now about trying for Judaism as it will strain our relations. What do you folks think? I still think we should try and found a religion no matter what hit to our relations with the Inca.
Move warriors around. Monte has a scout over near the Romans and our exploring warrior finds both Pigs and Horses due south of Roman territory. Settler in 6 turns; Priesthood in 5 turns.

TURN 4 (1675BC)
Nothing happens except that our southern warrior runs further south-west away from Monte's territory and finds a lovely pack of wolves, howling on some tundra in front of them. Next turn should be interesting.
Beijing worker finishes farm on Wheat square. Move one citizen off flood plain square to wheat. Settler now in 4 turns. Worker to move next turn.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/2_-_city_radius.jpg

TURN 5 (1650BC)
Warriors continue exploring. No sign of the wolves - seem to have pooped themselves and run away at the sight of our mighty warrior. Team up Worker and Warrior in Beijing to move to gold-hill near Blue Dot. Settler is only 3 turns away so will get an early start on working the terrain. Nothing really else to do in Beijing anyway.
Press Enter to go to next turn and game crashes to desktop. Lovely! Thankfully Civ4 had autosaved on this very turn.
Reload from autosave (I've set it to autosave every 2 turns but I might change it to every turn instead).

TURN 6 (1625BC)
Game seems to have moved on to this turn okay. Thank God!
Warrior in south fights Wolves that came out of fog. Warrior beats them without losing health. They continue to head in a south-westerly direction.
Warrior over near Roman empire moves south-west.
Worker and Warrior continue to Blue Dot Gold Hill.
Priesthood in 2 Turns; Settler in 2 turns.

TURN 7 (1600BC)
Meet Tokugawa!!!! His scout appears south-west of Beijing. He is third in the points score, behind the Incan's and the N00b's. As much as I would like to tell him his head would look good on a pole, I choose peace instead. He knows the Romans, Incan's, Monte, and Mali. He also seems pleased with Monte and the Incan's but pissed with Mali (annoyed). Lucky him. Tell him to go away as I have more important things to do. :coffee:
Warriors turn up nothing of interest. Priesthood and Settler both in 1 turn.
Worker and Warrior continue to Blue Dot Gold Hill.

TURN 8 (1575BC)
Meet Saladin of Arabia, who I think has a lice-problem in his beard. I choose peace. He is the founder of Buddhism. He knows the Romans, Japan, Monte and Mali. He is pleased with the Romans and cautious with everyone else. Once again, I tell these people to stop bothering me and he goes. It wont be long before he knows the Incan's.
Priesthood discovered. I think a Mono push now is at hand for Judaism. Start on Masonry (5 turns). TW is going to have to come soon for roadage. I may leave that for the next player to decide as to "when" or if at all.
Wonder (ha! :rolleyes: ) about building the Oracle or Stonehenge. Oracle in 33 turns. Stonehenge in 26 turns. I think they are too long, especially since we only have one city at this time. Settler in 13 turns; Worker in 8 turns. I decide to push further along with another Settler even though this unit will finish on BeefontheBone's turnset. It really was a toss up between another settler and a second worker. I think we should REALLY push in getting a third city (even if the science rate has to come down to 80-90%) as that land is not going to last for long.
Move Settler towards Blue Dot.
Warriors are still moving around but found nothing of interest.
Tokugawa has adopted Slavery.

TURN 9 (1550BC)
We are now fourth on the score list behind Saladin on top, second is the Inca, and third is Japan (Japan and us are 4 points apart).
Move Warrior to guard hill where worker is about to start his mine once Settler gets there. Worker set to sleep for a couple of turns (note that if I had kept the Worker in Beijing, there would not be enough time to say, irrigate something and then have the worker down at the new city site before the new city was built. In fact, I do remember that to irrigate a floodplain it was something like 8 or 10 turns in this game. I'd rather have the worker do nothing for 2 or 3 turns and then get to work in a more important location than waste turns irrigating something we don't need right now and we will need GOLD for when a third city is thrown out there).
Masonry in 4 turns, Settler in Beijing in 12.

TURN 10 (1525BC)
Warrior fortified on gold-hill due-west of to-be new city. Settler in is position and will build Shanghai next turn. Worker will wake next turn to start a mine on the gold-hill.
Didn't mention it before but Saladin has at least two cities due-west from Monte. They may be his only two.

TURN 11 (1500BC)
Shanghai built.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/3_-_Shanghai.jpg

Starts on an Archer to show some "strength" - built in 13 turns if I place a citizen on the forest to the north.
Question: How does everyone feel about the good ole forest chop?
Worker to mine the gold hill.
Science rate brought back to 90% as we have gone to -1gpt at 100% (we have nothing in our treasury anyway). At 90%, we are getting +2gpt. Masonry still at 2 turns left.
With the addition of Shanghai, we have gone back up to third in the score rankings and actually catching Saladin (who is now second) and the Inca in first.
Hesitant to move to Slavery Civic as we really have no use for it at the moment. Shanghai only has 1 pop and Beijing is still building the new settler.
Masonry in 2; Settler (Beijing) in 10; Archer (Shanghai) in 13.

TURN 12 (1475BC)
Nothing to report. 1 turn to Masonry. Monotheism will be next up.
Most A.Is are keeping to themselves at the moment. Probably due to no one discovering Writing yet to piss us off with open border agreements.

TURN 13 (1450BC)
Masonry comes in. Start on Monotheism - due in in 12 turns. I've managed to get that back to 10 turns by changing the citizen utilisation in Shanghai (working the lake instead of the forest for more commerce). However, it does mean that it is 30-odd turns to build that damn Archer. We do have that Warrior nearby to defend if necessary. I do think we are going to be left alone for now so probably safe. I think we need a good go at Judaism anyway and if not, go on to other things. Constructive critisism is welcome here and everywhere else in this turnlog :)
Beijing's borders to expand in 3 turns. Monte has sent up a Warrior to snoop around Shanghai. I dont think he means harm at the moment but remain vigilant.

TURN 14 (1425BC)
Monotheism in 9 turns.
Saladin has marble due south of what could be his capital. His borders haven't expanded over it yet.
Monte's warrior disappears.
Nothing else on this turn. We are getting closer and closer to Saladin in points - We are on 181; Saladin - 186; Inca - 192.

TURN 15 (1400BC)
Move Warrior further south around Saladin. Warrior seems to be at the bottom of the world now.
Settler in 6 turns; Mono in 8 turns.

TURN 16 (1375BC)
Beijing expands its borders. Horses due-east of city are now under borders.
Monte's warrior has reappeared south-east of Beijing.
Nothing else to report on this turn.

TURN 17 (1350BC)
Warriors move again. Warrior near Saladin has found a huge mass of tundra on Saladin's southern borders. Lucky him.
The other warrior has been moving steadily south-west from the Roman borders and has just found the coast.
We are now second on the score list, 2 points behind Saladin.

TURN 18 (1325BC)
Nothing at all to report.
Monotheism in 5 turns; Settler in 3 turns.

TURN 19 (1300BC)
One of our warriors meets a barbarian warrior. It should attack us next turn. Our warrior has 20% jungle defense and we are in a jungle at the moment. Shouldn't be a problem for us to win.
The other warrior has reached the end of the line in terms of land. Saladin seems to be a the bottom of the pangaea tucked into a corner of sorts.
Nothing else here to report.

TURN 20 (1275BC)
Monte and Julius both adopt Slavery.
Our warrior fights the barbarian warrior and wins however it is down to 10hp (/100). In other words, 0.2/2.0. He has also gained a promotion. I will leave the promotion for the next player and in addition, the decision on whether to let him heal - 9 turns - or not.
Gold-Mine finished near Shanghai. I left the citizen working the lake instead of the mine as it does not make a difference to our coinage at this time. The only difference is either the city is growing in 9 turns (working the lake) or stagnant and producing the archer faster. I leave this decision, if needed to be changed, to the next player.

So the save is of my last turn with the warrior still able to move.

Monotheism in 3 turns. We might just get it first :)

I'll post the save here and then post some more screenies of how we are going.

Save...

And the Roster
Sir Toma
Pling
Chriseay
Sadan01 (Just Played)
BeefontheBone (Up Now)
Admiral Kutzov (On Deck)
Pie-es Tasty

Great turn Sadan, i can't believe we missed out on Hinduism by 1 turn!!!

Next i think we should research the wheel (i've looked at the save), build an archer in beijing and the a worker. We're really low on defence. I think the settler that is being produced in Beijing should go straight to Greendot along with the archer in our capital. About the forest chop the only thing i can say is chop away!

Good luck BeefontheBone. :D

If we do miss Judaism and get Hinduism or Buddhism spread to us, we could always go the "True Believer" path and just sieze the holy city by force.

Here are some screenshots.

First up, our empire as it looks with Shanghai added:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/4_-_Empire.jpg

Here are the current scores at the end of my Turn 20:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/5_-_Scores.jpg

Then the finance window showing -1 gold for distance maintenance.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/6_-_Finance.jpg

And finally, the latest diplomacy screen showing everyone's relations to us:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/7_-_Diplomacy.jpg

I'd be somewhat reluctant about chopping in Shanghai unless its production improves and it starts on a wonder - it has 5 forests which is optimum for +2 health and will probably need the lumbermill bonuses - I'll have a look tonight when i get back from work.

Great turn Sadan, i can't believe we missed out on Hinduism by 1 turn!!!
Yeah I put a "sad" smiley in there when it should have been a pic of me being pissed and needing a :smoke: I could not believe that the message appeared saying that we'd missed Hindu by 1, one damnit, one turn. Hopefully Mono/Judaism will come through for us.

Next i think we should research the wheel (i've looked at the save), build an archer in beijing and the a worker. We're really low on defence. I think the settler that is being produced in Beijing should go straight to Greendot along with the archer in our capital.
I agree about The Wheel. We are going to desperately need roads very soon. I hope my turnlog showed that I was seriously pondering about researching it. If we do get attacked shortly down the track, those roads are going to come in handy. Not to mention eventual trade routes besides those from rivers. Actually, seeing we do have a large coastline, this may not be a factor at all for trade.

What you said, Sir Toma, about the archer (build another one) and an additional worker. We need these badly. I dont really think there is much more that can be done in Beijing at the moment (we dont need more food for the time being) and unless we wanted to chop forests there, there is not much else we need to do. Shanghai and the future Green Dot are a different story.

I'd be somewhat reluctant about chopping in Shanghai unless its production improves and it starts on a wonder - it has 5 forests which is optimum for +2 health and will probably need the lumbermill bonuses - I'll have a look tonight when i get back from work.
Lumbermills dont come into effect until Replaceable Parts, which is a fair way down the line at the moment. Unless health is an issue in Shanghai, maybe someone could do a chop if a particular build going on there is required and urgent (maybe just one forest that is not located on a hill for example). This one is a hard call as you are correct regarding the hammers Shanghai is producing at the moment. Practically nothing! :D Hopefully that will change as the population grows.

Good Luck Beef! :goodjob: :thumbsup:

If we chop the forest that I think we can see 2 squares on the SE diagonal does that come back to Shanghai? I can't remember (and don't have time to reboot now to test it) if chopping outside our culture boundaries gives us hammers or not.

...if chopping outside our culture boundaries gives us hammers or not.

I am sure it does although I dont know if it has been fixed in 1.09. You used to be able to take your workers to just outside an A.I's cultural border and chop all their forests and you get the hammers for it. Nice! :)

But well and truly an exploit. It should be only forests in your cultural borders.

But well and truly an exploit. It should be only forests in your cultural borders.

Ah, wasn't aware it was considered an exploit - I'd only ever done it just outside my cultural borders though, I'd not thought about going and doing that to enemy territory :D

Argh I'm dissapointed about Hinduism. I suppose though that would have just been a bonus as the plan all along was to go for Judaism. If we get Judaism and convert we will have to probably destroy the heathen Incans sooner rather than later. I think after Mono and the wheel we should go for horseback riding and make sure to get the horses outside of Beijing hooked up in time for that. We could kick some Incan but in that case. Plus if we do it soon enough, we won't have to worry about the diplomatic penalties of attacking someones friend, because they won't be trading yet.

On the forest chop, I almost never do it unless I am planning on putting another improvement on that tile anyway. I'd be ok with it if someone else wants to. We should use Beijing to build another archer before this settler so it has an escort, and then finish the settler. A barracks might be useful too if we can get it somewhat quickly.

Great turns so far everyone, and lets hope for good luck in the future.

Hmm, I'm having some issues with the autologger, so I'll just type this as I play.

1275 BC (0)
I promote the warrior to Woodsman II for the healing effect and double movement, and the worker near Shanghai starts a farm on a plains for lack of much better to do without the wheel and pottery (and IW for jungle clearance). The warrior there is gonna head SW to make sure we get Green Dot with the settler. He spots a barb archer though - erk!

1250 BC (1)
The barb archer moves toward us in the IT - the warrior is going to have to stand on a hill and hope for the best methinks. Settler finishes in Beijing, and heads south. The archer in Beijing is coming with him and I start another to replace it. The warrior near Shanghai fortifies in the forest to try and maximise defence, but it's a 50-50 thing. Western warrior healing, southern exploring.
http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/3223/turn1shot14qk.png

1225 BC (2)
I gingerly hit Enter, and the warrior takes barely a scratch! Hah! It'll take him a turn to heal. Everyone else is pretty dull movement.

There's some Copper to the NE of the Incan capital I only just noticed - could be important.
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/1423/turn1shot23ej.jpg

1200 BC (3):
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7898/turn1shot38mt.jpg
Woo! Monotheism completes, and Judaism is founded in Shanghai. That cultural boost could come in rather handy! I remember to switch Shanghai back to its growth-emphasising arrangement of tile use having altered it to get the archer done quicker. Sorry. Adopt Judaism as state religion giving a turn of anarchy, queue up The Wheel for transport. I also check where Green Dot was going :)

1175 BC (4):
We come out of anarchy with 5 turns to go on TW. Everything else is pretty dull :)

1150 BC (5):
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/3254/turn1shot43iz.jpg
Western Woodsman Warrior, now renamed Woody, spots the edge of Tokugawa's territory using his magical double movement. We're looking good for getting Green dot, but it's gonna need some mighty jungle clearance - IW seeems to be quite a high priority, but I'll start the Oracle next turn when Beijing completes its archer, so I'll need to make sure we're set with some useful prerequisites.

1125 BC (6):
Our warrior is glad he went to escort that Settler, as another archer shows up. The hill tile has a 75% bonus, so I'm pretty confident. The settler hangs back just in case - this has delayed our founding GD for a turn either way :( I had a shot of this, but neither unit showed up, so it's not that exciting. Dang.
I change my mind in Shanghai, work the gold tile for extra gold (cuts a turn off the wheel) and production at the cost of stagnating growth - I'll balance it when the archer is done.

1100 BC (7):
Noooooo! Damned archer killed our warrior. We've an archer coming behind, but this is slowing down our settling. Bah! I've no choice about it though. (Again, image wasn't any use. Bah.)

1075 BC (8):
I start Writing, setting us up for Code of Laws with the Oracle if we get chance. The other option was to do Pottery allowing Metal Casting which leads to Machinery, but I decided we'd need Courthouses and an extra religion more. We're going to need lots of defence soon - Tokugawa and Huayana are rather unpredictable! If we've no iron, we might have to wait for Construction for elephants and cut off his Copper in the north. On a positive note, we're now first in score!

1050 BC (9):
The wounded barb archer attacks into a jungle across the river, and is mercilessly cut down by our brave archers. That'll learn 'em.

1025 BC (10):
http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/1448/turn1shot50qs.jpg
Guangzhou is founded at Green Dot. It'll have crappy porduction for now due to all that jungle, but we'll sort that out. I start it on an obelisk to try and get the borders expanded for another forested hill. The worker starts on a road between Shanghai and Beijing, then will try to boost the shields in Beijing, maybe with a chop if I feel like it :) There's some more copper south of the Inca (west of Guangzhou. Dang.)

1000 BC (11):
Archer completed in Shanghai. I consider moving the citizen to the now-irrigated plains for food and a bit of production but it would delay writing by two whole turns - I'll see again next turn.

980 BC (12):
Switch that tile over - Writing is only one turn slower, but it gets some growth going. A barb archer shows up in the southeast.

960 BC (13):
The archer disappears for now. Huayana and Saladin adopt Slavery. There's a barb warrior near Woody, but he'll have him in the jungle.

940 BC (14):
Told you. Woody is successful. That barb archer reappears, and I notice it's got 2 combat promotions. Yikes! Must've been slaughtering scouts or something.
http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1664/turn1shot78ck.jpg

920 BC (15):
He's off again. Meh.
Monty's off to found his second city on the southern coast. He's way behind on score.

900 BC (16):
Writing comes in, and I notice it also allows Theology, probably a better choice for Oracle tech - it costs more beakers, enables more and still founds a religion. The Oracle's due in 7 turns, Beijing being nice and productive. Getting that road finished will hopefully spread Judaism there. I start Pottery - we need cottages for the tech boost, then it should be IW. We need to be able to clear jungle and make the most use of the resources available with our next couple of settlers.

880 BC (17):
Another barb shows up in the north, seeming to ignore the Inca for now. Monty founds that second city.

860 BC (18):
Wait, make that his THIRD city. That did seem a bit slow.

840 BC (19):
Monty offers Open Borders. I see no reason to refuse, might as well boost our relationship slightly. It also lets me have a bit of a scout around Teotihuacan.

820 BC (20):
Not a lot happens, bit of an anticlimax after the first few turns. Pottery is due in 2 turns, I say we go for IW and get some cottages up on the grassland and floodplains, or connect the horses in anticipation of HBR. The Oracle is due in 3, Theology being a no-brainer for free tech. Shanghai is building a second archer, it'll want a monastery soon (lots of gold is good for science, and missionaries make sense, particularly if we get monty to convert) but we can't build those yet. We'll definitely need a couple more workers ASAP, probably coming out of Shanghai and Beijing, and some more settlers.
There's a couple of barbs about, so definitely no unescorted settlers! At present, there's one to the East of Guangzhou and one near Huayana's northern copper resource.

The magnificent Chinese empire, as at 820 BC:
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8251/turn1shot80ft.jpg

Finally, the save and a roster.

Sir Toma
Pling
Chriseay
Sadan01
BeefontheBone (Just Played)
Admiral Kutzov (Up Now)
Pie-es Tasty (On Deck)

So looking at the save, I'm thinking if we can manage to get one more city on the same southwest axis the rest are on, maybe even getting the copper to the south of the incans, we can seal of the backside of the continent for 3 or 4 cities for ourselves. If we can manage to get the northern copper spot as well, we've probably denied the incans copper all together. We'd also have 3 fronts to come at them in what I see as an inevitable war.

Excellent turnset Beef. Good to see that Warrior in the beginning survive against that Archer. The barbs are only going to get stronger from now on and I don't think we want to get 'surprised' when an barb axeman heads for a city. I think we need to make some military techs a priority (although maybe not top priority). Horse Archers would be a decent unit to combat them if and when they appear. The Cho-Ko-Nu would be much better however as they are designed to attack melee units (besides being our UU).

I'm glad we founded Judaism. We may even want to try and monopolize the other religions later. Theology from the Oracle would help greatly in this end (Christianity founded). Theology is probably the better choice anyway as it would be the most expensive tech to go for free.

That's usually something I try and do, same with the GP's (even though you don't get a choice with the GP); if I want to gain a free tech, I will pick the most expensive. In the case of Great People, I will wait even for a tech they can give for free to be researched to get the "next" one free (or at least take most of the required beakers off it).

I do agree with Chriseay's analysis with building another city on the SW axis and then backfil (oh, and also the copper - didnt read that to begin with). However, we are going to need to concentrate or be mindful of two main things:

1). Road infrastructure between all cities and increased amount of workers and defense for all cities. How many units do we want to garrison in each city?

2). Gold going to the treasury. With a further city on the SW axis, we are going to lose more gpt going to distance maintenance. How far are we prepared to go in dropping the science rate? I think a major saving grace with this strategy however is the fact that we have the gold-mined hills. Excellent.

Chriseay, regarding the three fronts, unless we attack on all three fronts (or majorly-attack one front and feint on two others), it also means that the Inca have three fronts to attack us with. Don't get me wrong - this point does not stand against building further cities on the SW axis and expanding, but our defense of all cities is going to have to improve over time. But that's cool, it is only early days! :)

Ah, wasn't aware it was considered an exploit - I'd only ever done it just outside my cultural borders though, I'd not thought about going and doing that to enemy territory :D

Sorry pling. I should've worded that a bit better. I consider it an exploit. If it was only in cultural boundaries, then that's fine but being able to forest chop outside borders and still get the bonus I think is a little unfair. The A.I doesn't do it (that I know of).

I dont know if this has been banned in GOTM (chopping outside cultural borders) to make it "official". Sorry for the confusion. :blush:

Chriseay, regarding the three fronts, unless we attack on all three fronts (or majorly-attack one front and feint on two others), it also means that the Inca have three fronts to attack us with. Don't get me wrong - this point does not stand against building further cities on the SW axis and expanding, but our defense of all cities is going to have to improve over time. But that's cool, it is only early days! :)

Excellent point. I'm not all that great at this warring stuff yet. I think the point is as long as we can defend our cities, having three places to attack from and three cultural borders pushing on his is better than one or two. I'm not completely keen on a city north of the Incans though, especially if we can snag the copper to south.

There is room for a city in the north with some rice and so on near the copper, but the south is more appealing I'd say, although it would have a higher distance modifier. The science rate is still at 90%, but no longer with a positive GPT, we're breaking even.

I think the point is as long as we can defend our cities, having three places to attack from and three cultural borders pushing on his is better than one or two.

This is where we are going to start having a problem - when our cultural borders start encroaching on the Incan's borders. This is where our relations might take a plummet with them and war may be inevitable. Having three main points of attack can be a blessing and a death-wish at the same time. I could make a bold prediction and say that because we are only playing Noble, the chances of the AI making a huge strike against us would be unlikely but there is one thing I have found in Civ4 - You just never know as the AI is more cunning than in Civ3 and before. I think I might browse through some other SG's to see how others have done it. As you can probably tell, the higher-level strategy involved is of great interest :thumbsup:

One other point involving the three points of attack, it essentially means 2 to 3 times the amount of troops needed. This means longer production times to get to that "magic" amount of troops needed and also will be a drain on our treasury - although being Financial should help.

I don't know how the AI would react in Civ4 when it would see three advances at the same time coming towards it - would it split its troops; concentrate on the most important city such as the capital, or do something totally unexpected? I just haven't been involved in enough wars to quantify the AIs behaviour.

Ok, enough of me crapping on ... :banana:

I'm not completely keen on a city north of the Incans though, especially if we can snag the copper to south.

I think we should try and snag both the south and the city north of the Inks. From when I played - I don't know about after BotB's turns as I havent looked at the save - the Incan's had not expanded to a second city. The borders we can see are it. It will be interesting as to where they go next.

Hey guys.
I would have posted earlier but it's 11:00pm and i only just got home from my grand parents.
Great turn BeefontheBone, i'm happy that we secured Greendot (if i'd beenplaying that's what i would've called it:D ). About our next city, i believe that we should go for one of the copper resources. If possible we should try to grab both but the incas will grab one of them i think. I believe the south one should be our priority. I know it will cost more in mantinance but the north site will either miss the rice or have some problems with the typical 1 square from the coast thingy. After we secure 1 of the copper sources i think we should consolidate and build up our war machine for the incan war.
I think that our strategy should be to attack from 1 point (most likely Greendot) and hold the incas back along the rest of the front. I'd say 2-3 defensive units/city should be alright. One thing i'm not sure of is when to attack. Do we attack with swordsmen when we get catapults or wait for Chu-ko-nus to destroy them?

Good luck admiral for your turn (damn, there's no saluting smilie:D )

got it. :salute: ;)

Fire this puppy up and take a look around.

Oh my, we have a religion, much, much, earlier than I'm used to!!! On the other hand, our resource connecting abilities appear somewhat challenged. But who needs resources this early?

Obelisk in Guangshou? Does someone have Freudian issues? ;) Change that to an archer.

We got BW. Got axe, will chop. :)

The copper in the SW is dead in the water. With the luck of the idiot (me, no offense intended to anyone else), we'll grab the NW copper. Goals! Dad will be so happy that I finally have goals! :bounce:

PUSH THE BUTTON

1) Forgoe violating Japanese borders and just move the warriors
2) Pottery in. OMG, these costs are way more than I'm used to. Must be epic. :) Start HBR (pony rides are a hoot).
3) Oracle done. Take Theology. It was the most expensive; it must be good. Start a settler in Beijing.
4) Oopsy, got another religion. Start Shangian archer to NW so they can get there before the settler.
5) The lost turn
6) Take out a barb warrior (think his name was Bill)
7) Beijing gets religion (Christianity)
8) Open borders with Mansa Musa (JoePa hopes to recruit there someday)
9) Shanghai finishes archer, start a worker
10) Archer in the NW takes down a barb archer

still trying to solve autolog.

Of note:
Settler due in 1 in Beijing. Suggest we send him NW to the obvious spot. Please connect the ponies. Please build more workers and connect the resources we've got sitting about.

dotmap map skills are rusty. so, unpack the crayons and come up with these (and in alphabetical order in preference to settle, no less):

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/noob1.JPG

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/noob2.JPG

Please don't ban me. I'm having fun. :salute:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Lord_n00b_BC-0620.Civ4SavedGame

note the dotmaps are for AFTER we send the settler NW

Got the save, shall be settling Red Dot then, if that is the prefrence. My first SG turn ever! I'm so excited. Will play later tonight.

On a side note, I'm glad my turn landed on a Sunday, because my teachers hate humanity and will assign ten tons of homework due on Friday.

Hey Admiral :salute:
Great set of turns and now we have Christianity founded too. Are we still playing a set of 20 turns each for the first round however or am I :confused: ?
I'll take a look at the save later and post some thoughts and maybe even my own dotmap :eek: if I can remember how to.. :)

Great work admiral:salute: (i found it!)
I'm glad we got the oracle but i would have either got code of laws or metal casting but theology's okay too.
Just to clarify about the turns we were supposed to play 1 round of 20 and then 10 each so Pie-es-tasty you play 20 turns and then we all start playing 10.

Good luck pie-es tasty:goodjob:

Where was Christianity founded? Beijing? That Obelisk was there for a reason, btw - we need to get the borders expanded quickly in order to get access to more than 1 tile which is worth using, and since we can't assign an artist or spread religion there manually, I thought an obelisk was the obvious way to do it.

It looks like christianity was founded in the obelisk city, so the culture there shouldn't be a problem. So my question is, when does the war against the heathen incans start? We have decided that that will be the righteous (and necessary) thing to do, right? I think that sooner rather than later is the way to go, though we need the copper hooked up and maybe the horses (or we could wait for cats, but that could take too long). We just have to be careful about counterattacks, because those quecha's can be hell on archers if there are enough of them.

It looks like christianity was founded in the obelisk city
So it was. In that case, the Archer was the right thing to do :) What class of unit are Quecha? Are they melee? If so, some axemen on defence will be handy, so we definitely need the copper. I'm in favour of a preemptive strike on Huayana, he's bound to attack us eventually if we don't, and the earlier we do it the less he can make use of his agressive bonuses, and the cheaper it will be for us - it's much easier to take cities which don't have 6 million units in them and a 60% defence bonuses. We should also spread some religion about our cities and Monty's - if we can get monty to go Jewish (or Christian, if we switch our own religion) before anyone else gets to him, especially Huayana who is both nearest and the controller of the Hindu holy city IIRC, we can cultivate an ally or at least stop him from attacking us, and boost our shrine income as soon as we get a prophet or two. A priest in Beijing might even be worth having for the extra GPP.
To that end, I reckon we should finish HBR, get those horses connected and try to get some copper, build up our forces (horse archers, axes and a few spears if Huayana has horses, plus a couple of archers) and get some research going on priesthood or whatever it is that allows monasteries. Polytheism? The science boost is not to be sniffed at, either. Then we definitely need IW, unless anyone fancies trying to get CoL for Confucianism. Entirely possible to do on Noble, but we might have other priorities - we ought to try and take advantage of our industriousness with some more wonders, Hanging Gardens and Colossus for example (these, along with Construction's cats and 'phants, are also on the way to Machinery which gives us the awesome Ch-Ko-Nu).

Basically, we should try to do everything :)

So it was. In that case, the Archer was the right thing to do :) What class of unit are Quecha? Are they melee? If so, some axemen on defence will be handy, so we definitely need the copper.
....
Basically, we should try to do everything :)
Hahaha, everything it is then! :p

Anyway, quechas are melee and they start with combat one, so with just a barracks they can be at cover 1 plus inherent +100% against archery units means archer killer. Add one more good civic (for xp) or a battle won and you can have a combat 1, cover 1 and city raider 1 quecha....for a small amount of hammers (15). I don't know if the AI is smart enough to realize the potency of the quecha, but it sure is there. Axes are a must for defense just in case we get counterattacked.

Sorry for the delay, I meant to have my turns up by last night, but I only managed to play 14. I might be able to finish tonight but it's doubtful. I'll definitely have enough time tomorrow so give me till about 10 pm (GMT -8) and I'll get em up. If not I'll post them anyway and just skip my last few turns.

About the obelisk thing, indeed Christianity was founded in Guangzhou (obelisk city) but it doesn't generate culture if you have a different state religion (which I forgot about so the obelisk isn't built).

relax and trade the tech

relax and trade the tech

Hmmm, I thought it still generated 1 culture per turn. Maybe I was thinking of the shrine. In that case, maybe we should consider switching to Christianity, since it's present in Beijing too - it's already in more of our cities and would set up the culture better. Just a thought.

Okay, so I lied earlier. I found some free time to finish playing and shall now post my report.

----------------------
First SG turn-set ever! Hope I don’t mess anything up too badly. Here goes:

Turn 0 (620 BC):
We’ve got wet tissue paper defenses here, and I don’t think Shanghai should be producing a worker at size two, switch to archer. Other than that, deep breath and hit enter.

Turn 1 (600 BC):
Settler finishes in Beijing, order archer. Move settler toward Red Dot. Explore with warriors. I’m a little worried about Guangzhou and that barbarian archer (having only one defender) but there’s nothing I can do about it before he reaches there. Micromanage Shanghai a bit. Hit enter.

In Between Turns: Barbarian archer moves away (!) from Guangzhou. Must have ADD or something.

Turn 2 (580 BC):
Continue moving settler toward Red Dot (whoever put that archer on the hill, thanks!) Warriors explore. Nothing much happened.

Turn 3 (560 BC):
Emergency! Incan settler pair looking like it’s going to settle near Red Dot! There’s nothing I can do, short of declaring war (which would be suicide, considering the sorry state of our military). He’s settling right next to the copper. I’ll still settle Red Dot and hope we can get a culture bomb there later to grab the copper back. Oh and Shanghai’s borders expanded. Kind of an anticlimax, it seems. Warriors explore, end turn.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/Pie-es-Tasty/IncanSettlerPair.jpg

In Between Turns: Argh! Now I see what the Barbarian archer was doing: waiting for reinforcements! Now there are two archers outside of Guangzhou. I’ll just have to hope for the best.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/Pie-es-Tasty/TwoBarbArchers.jpg

Turn 4 (540 BC):
We lose. Incan settler pair settles a city with a long unpronounceable name. I’m thinking now that Red Dot is a lost cause (it’d be stuck behind enemy lines) and I’ll go to the Admiral’s Dot A instead (because we really need copper). Sorry guys. Also Beijing finishes archer, orders barracks to grow then I’ll switch to a worker.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/Pie-es-Tasty/RedDotLost.jpg

Turn 5 (520 BC):
Barbarian archers are right outside the city. Have to hope that our lone archer there wins. Worker at Beijing finishes pasture on horses, order a road to be built.

In Between Turns: Our archer for the win! Promote him to City Defender I. Should be a cinch to beat the next archer now.

Turn 6 (500 BC):
Nothing happens. Units move. Turn ends.

In Between Turns: Barbarian archer got owned! Our archer wins without a scratch. Rename him The Only in honor of him being the only one who was actually at the battle.

Turn 7 (480 BC):
Only been seven turns? Feels like 30 normal human turns. Beijing grew to size six, switched from barracks to a worker.

Turn 8 (460 BC):
Barbarian warrior appears near Shanghai. I’m not worried, as another archer will be finished before it gets there. Hmm… there’s really nothing left for the warriors to explore, so I start sending them home. Continue to hook up horses.

Turn 9 (440 BC):
Archer finishes in Guangzhou, start another archer. Send new archer to escort the settler, while the archer that was on the hill goes to protect Guangzhou (faster that way). Nothing else happens.

Turn 10 (420 BC):
Evil omen; Montezuma calls us up and cancels open borders. I hope that doesn’t mean war in the future (it probably does). Horseback riding finishes, start Iron Working, maybe there’s some iron in our territory.

Turn 11 (400 BC):
Horses hooked up, have them start cottages. Archer heading towards Guangzhou backtracks to try to get the barbarian warrior to attack him before reaching our farms. Oh great. I spot Incan territory near Dot A. They are just beating us to everything, although it could just be the edge of a more distant city. I’ll check it out.

Turn 12 (380 BC):
Archer trumps Barbarian. Leave him unpromoted for now. Yup, there’s a big arrogant Incan city sitting right on Dot A. Shanghai finishes archer, start on another archer.

Turn 13 (360 BC):
Stonehenge completes in a far away land. Settler is sitting on a good secondary site, in my opinion. It’s closer to the copper than Dot A was, and it gets silk too, although it’s not perfect, it has a lot of jungle, and it over laps a teeny bit with Guangzhou (once both of their borders expand). I look again and decide that one tile south is better, because it eliminates a jungle square instead of a forest one, it doesn’t overlap, still has the copper, and it has a floodplain in its radius. I’m settling there, sorry to overrule the dotmaps.

Turn 14 (340 BC):
Beijing finishes worker, goes back to barracks. Good Enough settled, named because it’s good, but not as good as we would have liked. And it reveals those evil dot-stealing Incans at Machu Picchu. Lower science to 80%, but we’re still losing gold. I’d rather run at a defect for a while (knowledge is important!).

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/Pie-es-Tasty/GoodEnoughFounded.jpg

At this point I’m quitting and finishing the next day (sleep is important too!).

Turn 14a:
Look over things again after loading it up again, change from archer to obelisk in Guangzhou and Good Enough so their borders can expand.

Turn 15 (320 BC):
Move new worker down towards Guangzhou. Promote archer that arrived there to City Defense I and fortify. Continue moving warriors towards home. Nothing terribly exciting.

Turn 16 (300 BC):
Caesar calls and asks for open borders. I accept because he doesn’t have a religion so we won’t piss off anyone else, and I can explore his territory. I wish Iron Working was coming faster so we could cut down jungle. Nothing else happens.

Turn 17 (280 BC):
Explore Roman territory. The cottages finish at Beijing, start a farm down on the floodplains.

Turn 18 (260 BC):
Start a farm down at Guangzhou to offset some of the food lost from unhealthiness (Iron Working please come quickly!).

Turn 19 (240 BC):
Tokugawa comes and demands us to cancel deals with the Malinese. I tell him to go shove it, because he’s never going to like us no matter what we do, and the Malinese are good for trading techs with later. Barracks finishes in Beijing, starts Horse Archer to improve our pitiful military. Move warrior right next to a barbarian archer hidden in the fog. He’ll probably make it out alright because of his Woodsman II.

Turn 20 (220 BC):
Argh. Barbarian archer kills our warrior, despite odds against him, but he was hurt pretty badly. I move the other warrior that’s nearby to hopefully finish him off.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b353/Pie-es-Tasty/China220BC.jpg
Chinese Empire, 220 BC

--------------------
End of Turnset Thoughts:
Really sorry I couldn’t secure either our first or second city site choices. Watch out for Montezuma, he will be trouble. Improve our military! I put an extra archer in each city, but it’s still pretty weak. Also, once Guangzhou and Good Enough get expanded borders, we will have cut off a good sized chunk of the continent from the Incans, and we can expand at our own pace without having to race them. Good luck to Sir Toma!

Roster:
Sir Toma (At Bat)
pling (On Deck)
Chriseay (In The Hole)
Sadan01
BeefontheBone
Admiral Kutzov
Pie-es Tasty (Just Hit)

Good set of turns there Pie. You had some good/difficult decisions to make there too. I think with Monte, the writing might be on the wall there with him cancelling the open borders. I think as long as he doesn't "ally" with the Inca, we should be fine in pushing the Inca back when we are ready. We do need to start a military route of research though, I feel (in which IW was a good choice).

I didn't look at the save, but is the last screenshot accurate in so far as 6-turns until Iron Working? Hopefully we will have IW, in which case our military aims are made much easier.

Good Luck Sir Toma! :) And I think the Era of the N00bies (EotN) is about to start.. :thumbsup:

Edit: Duh! I should've looked closer. The last screeny is even titled with "Chinese Empire, 220BC" which was your last turn played.

i'll play in a few hours. i think i'll build up our miliatary and our economy in anticipation of an attack against the incas. As for the bastards who settled near our cities:ar15: . However i disagree about burning Ollasomething. It could be useful after the war and is in an okay position.
Get ready incas, the n00bs are coming

Just had a quick look at the save. Couple of points for discussion (in no order of precedence):

Roads. We need the two newest cities connected up to the empire ASAP to spread our religion (whether it be Chr or Jud) and then change, if necessary, our religion to the one most widespread for culture and happiness benefits. Or we can choose a religion to go with and force the issue with missionaries.

Once the above has been done (maybe there is an order of precedence here :lol:), I think we need to change our Religion Civic to Organised Religion for a while to increase our construction-rate of new buildings - that 25% is quite handy - especially if we want to build obelisks and other culture-creating buildings.

Once we decide on war, we can then change our Religion Civic to Theocracy for the increase on exp for our units built. As a footnote, I think Slavery is still a no-show ATM.

I am worried about that copper resource just north of Good Enough (good name for that city! :) ). I hope our borders can expand before the Inca's otherwise they might just claim it. As it stands, we have another 11 turns before another citizen comes online there and there ain't much shield.. err hammer production there as yet.

At the moment, the Inca, Arabs, and Japanese are all annoyed with us (these are mainly due to religious tensions however). The Inca are also pissed as our borders are sparking tensions - well they should never have built there in the first place! :rolleyes: The rest are cautious towards us.
Monte and Japan are both "Pleased" with the Inca. This could get very interesting as we could be in a 2 vs 1 war.

Metal Casing is an expensive technology (945 beakers) however it does provide us with the Forge. Because we are industrious, we get them (Forges) for half-price and the forge will give us a 25% improvement in hammers in each city they are built in. Besides that, we have gold-mined-hills in our lands and they will provide a +1 happiness bonus too (from the forge being built), not to mention the use of the Engineer specialist. The Colossus may be handy in a future coastal city too. Have I sold any of you yet on this important tech? Ok, one more. Metal Casing is the pre-requisite of Machinery which gives us the Cho-Ko-Nu. I don't think it should come next in the tech-pipeline however it should come soonish.

Alphabet probably wouldn't go astray either to see what we can get out of the A.I's.

Let's discuss... :)

As regards to the roads situation: We need more workers! I focused on military just because without workers you stagnate, but without military you die.

As regards to the religion situation: We should switch to Organzied Religion (and Slavery while we're at it) and zerg rush some missionaries to convert the rest of our cities and our allies' cities.

As regards to the impending war sitiuation: We should use a blitzkrieg and capture the two stolen dots (burning Machu Picchu of course) quickly, then if we do get dogpiled we can back out, having already achieved our objective.

Here is my turn

Preturn 220BC: Convert to Org. Religion and slavery.

[1] 200BC: Not Much

[2] 180BC: Yawn

Between Turns:: Our warrior is attacked by a barbarian. Easy victory.

[3] 160BC: Our exploring warrior spots 2 archers and a settler belonging to Huanya Capac. Archer is completed in Shanghai, continue with worker.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/incansettler.jpg

[4] 140BC: Nothing

[5] 120BC: Incans settle near Caesar.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/incancity.jpg

[6] 100BC: Yay! We have Iron! I started research on Sailing so we wouldn't have to build a road to Good Enough.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/iron.jpg

[7] 80BC: Begin chopping the jungle around Guanzo whayever. Also go to mine the iron near beijing. About Beijing, it has enough food at the moment so i recommend putting cottages on the other flood plains so we become rich.

[8] 60BC: Guangzou finishes its obelisk. Start it on another worker. I don't think i'll be able to build a miliatary,

[9] 40BC: Nothing

[10] 20BC: Nothing

[11] 1AD: (sorry i must have played an extra turn) A barbarian city has sprung up east of Shanghai and there is an archer entering our lands. I haven't moved any miliatary units towards it so the next player (pling i think) can do what he wishes. What really pisses me off is that it's one tile north of where i put my brown dot!!! I HATE BARBS!!!:mad:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c285/SirToma/barbcity.jpg

In summary: Our situation is not looking good. We have very few workers (i'm currently pr