Welcome to the Start of the Civ4 MTDG! :D

The following includes instructions on playing this turn (3960 BC - 4000 BC was needed for password reasons) as well as for all turns in this game.

Here is the turn sending order (note: it is different than the roster sign-up order!):
Loco
Piffle
Aloha
Innovia
Epsilon

So Team Innovia, you will be receiving the save from Team Aloha (cfcaloha AT gmail DOT com), and you will send it to Team Epsilon (team.epsilon AT gmail DOT com). Also send a copy to the admins! (emails are in the Team Info thread in the main forum). Please remember that you have 24 hours to play the save once you receive it unless you request an extension. Also, keep in mind that once you have played the save, to record it in the Turn Tracker / Save Info thread in the main MTDG forum.

When saving the turn, please use the default saving convention in game.

Without more talk, your starting location in the map courtesy by Sirian (be sure to thank him!) is attached.

Your password for the save is: nova

You are free to discuss this, as well as where you should explore, research, settle, etc., but remember: we will not send the starting save to Team Loco until the current Ruleset poll in the main forum is done, so that's a bit of an incentive! ;)

Enjoy the game!

by RegentMan and Ginger_Ale, Administrators, with thanks to Sirian, Map Maker

Woohoo :D Thanks Sirian and admins.

The start sure looks interesting. Three food bonuses if we settle in place, but only one hill. And not too much forest, so production seems limited. The water to the left is salty, right? Or can civ4 have fresh water lakes up to 22 tiles like civ3?

So Team Aloha, you will be receiving the save from Team Piffle (TeamPiffle AT gmail DOT com), and you will send it to Team Innovia (team.innovia AT gmail DOT com).
I think that would be Aloha>Innovia>Epsilon for us ;). I guess you forgot to edit it after copying from the post to Aloha.

Woops! At least I didn't copy and paste Aloha's save password. :crazyeye:

Btw, you can now just use the default saving convention name in game instead.

This start location prompts a bunch of strategy questions. The fresh water question is a biggie. Perhaps we should consider moving the settler to the SW, to allow use of a lot more hills and give room on the penninsula, if it is one, for a 2nd city. Producing anything from the start location will take an eternity until workshops are available, then a stipple of irrigation and workshops will give decent but not spectacular production. Irrigating the heck out of the area and specializing to a GPP farm is another possibility. Cottage all those grasslands and it will generate loads of gold, but how do we get the buildings to use it properly?

Yep, interesting times are ahead!

I agree daveshack, Perhaps just move ONE space South, so that we may still have access between bodies of water, and hey, Sirian did put us where we are for a reason, perhaps we are in a nice position already. But you are right about production, and that might be more important then sirians mindset.

If we settle on the spot we'll have three food bonuses within the city radius and the city will make a good early settler/worker pump, despite its low production. And later in the game it could make an excellent great people farm. Actually I don't think settling on the spot would be that bad.

Just a reminder that I am not all that great at Civ4, but I'll throw my 2 cents in none the less. I personally like the spot to the SW that Dave spoke of. Merely for the better production values. Also, would we want to move the warrior to the NW on that hill for a quick look over the mound?

I wouldn't put it past Sirian for this to be a challenge in the form of seeing if we understand the city specialization concept. As Theoden pointed out, if we go for a really high food city, we can run with lots of specialists and make a :gp: city. Or we could put the :gp: city elsewhere and try for :hammers: or :gold: in this one, in which case we should move.

We have a day or two before we must decide, let's hear from as many people as possible.

I would like to see what the warriors will uncover in the fog before we decide *exactly* where our settlers will go. Maybe we should move those warriors SW to uncover a couple tiles, then decide?
And I have to ask, just how useful are great leaders going to be? I haven't played CivIV online yet, so I can't offer much opinion myself, but unless they're going to be of utmost importance, I lean towards making this city a :hammers: city, in which case, the tile SW would be best.

That's the big question actually we need to answer before we decide where to settle: :gp:, :gold:, or :hammers:?

After a bit more thought on this, I'm now thinking we can't decide whether to move or not until we find out if the water is fresh.

We have received the save and are now on the clock.

Am I remembering right that I'm playing? I'm looking at maybe 10pm tonight MST (GMT-7), please post any more input you have on the first turn before then. Also please contribute to the various strategy threads. :)

So we're planning on moving if it isn't fresh water, possibly settling SW of the current? Then once we're settled warrior and poly? Just double checking.

I like how our leader name is much longer then the others =D Ours is all serious, I like it.

Great! We're strategising the dawn of our civilization, and Nomad Bryce's 2 cents is.... "name...longer...me like..*burp*":crazyeye:

Did someone clear out the gmail account? There's nothing in the inbox!

Found out from the turn tracker thread that the save wasn't there due to a bad email address, so received it and played:

The water to the NW is fresh. This gives a nice bonus in that each freshwater lake tile starts out 2f+2g. A capitol settled in place will be able to grow to a very large max size. We can leave the forests and mine the one hill, and with a pasture on the pigs will get mediocre but not spectacular results. This will be a good place to pop rush though, which might be our best way to get the early buildings.

So... Moved the warrior SW and found that there is saltwater coast to the W. This means we're either at an isthmus or near the northern tip of our landmass, given that the pattern of land W->E is salt water, land, lake, land, salt water all within our field of view.

Settled in place.
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7948/civ4screenshot0003medium1fe.th.jpg (http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0003medium1fe.jpg)

Set production to warrior (8), and research to polytheism (12).

There is room for a town to the NE and one to the NW, possibly another straight N but no way to tell until its explored.

After the warrior borders will be expanded, and we can build a worker while working the pigs, then improve the pigs and get a big food surplus.

The "isthmus" theory sounds most plausible to me. As we have jungle to the south and some desert to the north, this looks like somewhere in the middle to me. We should maximise the number of cities we found by the lake, as the land doesn't seem to have an abundance of rivers.

I'm not sure we should build a worker after our first warrior though. The only thing we can build right now is roads, and as we are going for a religion it'll take a while before we get access to the improvements we need (farm and pasture). Waiting until the city is size two will also let us produce the worker faster.

As the next 4 or more turns will be exploring only, I plan to just move, post screenie, send. We can discuss developments along the way on the other teams time. One thing for input will be MM once borders expand.

I've forgotten the tech screen overnight, we don't have anything for a worker to do? Another warrior would come up next, I guess. Don't want to build too many though, so hope archery comes quickly.

Turn 2:

Warrior entered the tribal village, and the villagers provided us with a map.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/2946/civ4screenshot0005medium0fg.th.jpg (http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot0005medium0fg.jpg)

This changes a lot! We're either on an island with a large lake, or on the southern tip of something bigger. There is more land just visible to the far SE.

So, we might need to consider a boat as an early option in order to be the ones at an advantage of making contact with others without them knowing where we came from.

That's all for now. :)

No updates for 4 days ????

Yeah, that is a bit of a stretch. DaveShack, would you mind forwarding the game saves to my email address at mfs10@students.uwf.edu from now on? I'd like to take a look at what we have going on. Thanks. :-)

Is it possible to upload the save here for us all to take a peek at?

sorry, I keep getting home, pushing it through to get it to the other Dave before he goes to bed, and then the kids help me forget there hasn't been an update in the thread. :blush:

All the saves are available on the team gmail account. It should be possible to set it up to forward everything automagically, if that hasn't been done by later today then I'll do it.

I also have some screenies so will upload them.

As for the game itself, we're just about ready to pop out our warrior for MP duty, and are close to growing to size 2. There is another lake north of the one we knew about already. We have room for about 6 cities in our little patch of eden, and then there is a fairly barren zone before the land improves again. We're about 6 turns away from finishing polytheism.

Upcoming decisions are what to build next, what to research next, and any MM advice you might have.

hmm, if Indians dont discover buddhism soon I'll be inclined to say they also went for hinduism. That would be crappy for us.

Image at end of turn 8

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/9748/civ4screenshot00103on.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00103on.jpg)

Tech

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/6199/civ4screenshot00117dc.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00117dc.jpg)

City

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/5425/civ4screenshot00126sd.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00126sd.jpg)

If you can time the construction of the second warrior with the growth of our capital that would optimal.

Unfortunately we don't have any workable commerce tiles so we can't speed up our research. If the Indians produces just a single commerce more and goes for Hindiusm then they will get it.

I'm not being a smart behind, but have a serious question. Why would it be optimal to have the warrior built the same time as pop growth?

This might also have something to do with my first question, but shouldn't we be working one of the 3 food tiles?

On question 1, I don't think the growth / production timing matters.

On question 2, the key is getting it out asap because there are a couple of black squares where barbs (animals) could show up. We'll want to work a high food tile next.

We'll want to get pottery asap, or maybe fishing. Actually in hindsight it might have been better to go with fishing first, to be allowed to work the water and thereby get the commerce. Too much excitement over starting the game finally, I guess. :hammer2:

Wow, does anybody see the sailing advantage we may gain? A double canal through the lake! Sail away baby, straight through this stringy continent with big lakes!

Turn 10. Polytheism is due in 3. We're in 2nd place for gold, but no way of telling who's getting more. This is with just 1gpt, we're not horribly behind as best I can tell.

To our NE is what appears to be a very large desert, inhabited by lions.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/881/civ4screenshot00159oq.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00159oq.jpg)

To our SE is a coastal bridge to some other land, somewhere to go after we have boats.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/8634/civ4screenshot00161sv.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00161sv.jpg)

Turn 11, 3560 BC.

Loco got Buddhism, which means our 50/50 chance of picking different worked out OK. We're due Polytheism (and Hinduism) in 2 turns, population growth in 2 turns.

I'm planning to switch the warrior build to a worker after we grow, does that sound OK? Also we need to decide what to research next, so our worker will have something to work on.

Great. We'll get Hinduism now!

As for research afterwards I think agriculture would the best choice as the rice is next to fresh water, thus giving us lots of food. If the worker finishes before we get agriculture, it can just build roads to the rice, which would be needed later anyway.

I haven't posted for a while but i've been spectating how we are doing. And i'd like to say that my vote goes to the agriculture.

I'm going to concur with everyone else, and say we should go for Agriculture next.

Turn 12 is on its way to Epsilon.

We're done with polytheism, and should have religion next turn.

Our exploring warrior has run into a lion, let's hope he can hold on.

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/5272/civ4screenshot00182ov.th.jpg (http://img82.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00182ov.jpg)