Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 1 Team Thread. Please use it for all internal team communication, turn logs and discussions. Subscribe to it to receive notifications, and do not visit the other team threads for this game until you have finished. Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=170295) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest. I hope you enjoy the game.

This game will be played in Civ4, patched to v1.61.

This first SGOTM will not feature any advanced variant.. the winner simply will be the team that wins the game at the earliest game date with either domination or a diplomatic victory. All victory conditions are still enabled though, with exception of Space Race, so you have to avoid getting another type of victory (and of course prevent the AIs from winning).

Individual start files for all teams will be available on the SGOTM Progress and Results Page (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/submit/civ4sgotm_submission_list.php) at midnight, server local time, at the start of May 12.

Here's the start position.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM01_start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Hapshepsut of Egypt
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Mystery
Game Speed - Epic

Permanent Alliances are turned on (can form permanent alliances after either communism or fascism is researched)
Space race is disabled.
Egypt is locked into war with Huayna Capac of the Incas.
Egypt is locked into peace with an unknown civilization.

The map is hand built, and therefore may not have a standard configuration.

Please visit the following links to ensure that you are adequately prepared:
Civ4 SGOTM reference thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439)

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization4 v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for a single award - the Gold Laurels.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by either domination or diplomacy.

C. All saved game files uploaded to the server are parsed through software that extracts and archives data about your save, including reload count for each turn set.

Good luck to your team, and remember rule #1: Enjoy your game :D

Hi guys :wavey:

(Sorry, couldn't resist to be the first to post in this.)
I've asked to be a dedicated Peanut lurker for this, hoping to learn something.
Hope you don't mind if I take part in your conversation occasionally.

Go Peanuts!

Wow! We're up! And we have a dedicated Lurker (hi Mathilda) who can hopefully provide us great wisdom in our game play.

AlanH listed me as the coordinator for Team Peanut. This is fine; I'll help get the ball rolling (and I'll be PM'ing everybody shortly). However, I would prefer not to be the captain at this time. I'm already captaining the Civ3 Team Peanut, and besides I only have completed 2 games of CIV (GOTM4 and GOTM5) so if possible I think it would be good to have a bit more experience leading the team.

So please, if you are interested in being team captain, please post that interest. (Otherwise, as coordinator I might let the power get to my head and ASSIGN the position! he..he..heeeee )

One initial thing that is useful is to establish a team roster order based on location around the world. This allows for the timely changeover from member to member as turn sets are completed. So please post your time zone.

I am on the USA West Coast, so currently GMT-7

When it's your turn, we usually try to hold to a 24 hour period to post a 'got-it' saying you will play the turn set or pass it. If you play it, please try to complete within 48 hours, including any questions or discussions about the current play, the play itself, and posting the results to the system. This allows for a pretty quick set of turns, and keeps the game going and the team members' interest up. If you can't play a set of turns, its fine to arrange a swap or a delayed turnset; it's good to keep everybody involved and interested in the game so we want to accommodate someone who would otherwise skip a bunch of turns.

That's all I have for now. Please post that you've noticed the thread, that you're ready for the game and your timezone.

Checking in! :yeah: I'll post more later, got to rush-off to a meeting. :ack:


OK - time zone is GMT +11-12, depending on the time of year.

Regarding the startin position - looks great for a GPP city, a commerce city or at a pinch, a science city (although production might be a tad low), and we'll certainly need some health bonuses with all the FP around - the cow is visible, at least.

As Egypt, we start with agriculture & the wheel, which means we can build farms straight away. Animal husbandry could be a good option for the first tech to get the cow as well as reveal horses for our war chariots, and maybe we should prioritise pottery to get granaries for growth - plus health if there is corn, rice or wheat around, as well as spam a few cottages on the FPs.

If we're at war with Huayna Capac, then we might want to find where he is straight away. Normally I'd just build a worker from the start, but this is risky if he's nearby with Quechua's out exploring. Maybe go for a warrior first?

Checking in. Looks like a great team. I am GMT-5.

What are the odds that they would place the Inca nearby? This is the first GOTM. I doubt they would set this game up in a way that would knock a lot of newcomers out right out of the gate. Perhaps building a worker first would be worth the risk. This would give us a big advantage over all those teams that build warriors first.

Keith

Hey my time zone right now is -6 I think, I'm Canada/USA mountain time. I would perfer to be later in the turn order. Mainly because I'm kinda unexperienced and would like to learn how to play better. Ainwood's suggestions sound great. I personally like building a worker first and chop more workers/settlers; but, there doesn't seem to be very many trees so AH pottery will probably be a better choice. I think making our starting city a good commerece city will be the best choice. With all the floodplains I don't think we will be able to support a very high population and early research is always helpful. Although there are many pros for making it a gp city. If we farm all those fps we would have 18+ surplus food. Also with slavery/herditary rule we could mass sacrfice to mass units and possibly a wonder. Well those are just some ramblings of me, well lets do this.

Paulk

Checking in.

My notes:
1. The start location has too many FP for my liking. I fear we will encounter too much health problems. I would consider moving our starting settler SW to the plain hill. this will get us 2h in the capital + the cows, we will still be on the river and have access to 6FP. This city will probably be a production city.
We will probably put a future city in the desert hill NE NE E of the current position to take advantage of the rest of the FPs.
In this configuration we will only loose 1 FP (SE SE of settler)

2. I am not sure that we should play as quickly as we played in Civ3 SGOTMs. From lurking in many SG in Civ4 and playing one for myself (TM01) it appears that Civ4 require MUCH more coordination between the team members. we need to discuss our path of action, what buildings should be build in what cities (especially national wonders and city role assignments), Wars should be discussed and finally diplomacy that is usually get ignored in SG.

3. I am located in Israel (GMT + 2). However I am not sure that we should base the roster on that due to #2.

4. Based on past experience, I nominate CS as the team captain.

5. I think we should start with AH tech and a worker. We should use the warrior to scout the immediate area and than come back for home defense.
I do not think we should chop any trees (health problems)

Crikey ! Looks like you have a high powered team here ready to take the nutty banner to new heights of glory !

Well, I will join Mathilda as an unofficial lurker and wish you the best of luck to complement your undoubtedly superb CIV skills in this SG.

I hope to learn something of how to play this version by watching you experts.

PS. Strewth mate - good to see an antipodal participant in the team, Ainwood. Brings a nice sense of global balance.

Thanks, peanut!

@Mailman - nice analysis. The extra defence in the capital will be useful, and using the warrior for defence greatly reduces the risks associated with this locked-war in going for the worker first. It will be at the expense of wider exploration, but to be honest, there is a good chance that there aren't many goody huts nearby (game balance).

@Keith: Wouldn't surprise me at all to see the inca nearby, but I'd hope that the game design would be to reduce completely random events. I like the warrior nearby solution - good risk management.

@PaulK: Another argument against (too much) chopping is the health reduction. Moving to the hill should really help this - less flood plains & (potentially?) more forest.

BTW - if we have some health bonuses, that desert tile SE of the warrior might be a good (later) commerce / GP city with slavery to get basic improvements (granary, lighthouse, harbour).



Edit:

Any thoughts on locked-peace / locked war? I've never played with that before. How willing is your locked ally to trade? I guess my concern is that you have to prevent the locked-peace player from getting too big to prevent a domination victory (although I think that's reasonably unlikely given how bad the AI are at taking cities - unless they're dog-piling). If your peaceful ally wins a diplo victory, does that mean we win too?

I think that locked-war AI will behave the same way as AIs in an always war game. That usually keep them a bit backward since they focus on military. However we should keep an eye on the WW issue.
In AW the WW is somewhat reduced. I do not think this will be the case in this game setting. Thats means that until we are ready to take the Inca completely out, we should only fight inside our borders!!

I think that locked-peace AI (never played that setting) means that we can declare on him, and he can not declare on us. However I think that we MAY be at war with him due to a mutual protection pact!
We will probably want to make the locked-peace AI our Ally. With an allied AI we share the same techs (we can ask him to give us whatever tech/resource and he will always say yes - even if it the last resource) and more importantly we share the domination limit.
What that means that we should keep a very good relations with that AI

OK, we've heard from everyone except Phabuk, so please post if you can.

Currently we have:
MailMan at GMT+2
Keith Larson at GMT-5
PaulK at GMT-6
civ_steve at GMT-7
ainwood at GMT-11/+12

I think MailMan's idea to found on the Hill to the SW is a great idea. Gives us 2H right away, and access to lots of fldplns and possible forest, and that Cow space.

I would suggest for a 2nd city site, that we be sure it is accessed to Fresh Water. I think that means it has to be adjacent to a River or Lake, so if this is so and we want the extra health, perhaps we want to found on one of the Hills spaces near where the Warrior is standing. Unless we find a better spot.

I agree that being cautious initially is warranted, so maybe the Warrior does a circuit route going counter-clockwise around the capital, perhaps a distance of 4 or 5 or so, just enough to get the lay of the land, perhaps locate a good resource or two, and defend the capital.

AH sounds like a good first Tech - develop the Cow and locate any nearby horses.

War Chariot sounds awesome! At 5 strength, with 20% chance to withdraw, it sounds like a good offensive unit to use, and at only 25 hammers vs 50 for the Horse Archer, the better unit to build and field.

Egypt is Spiritual and Creative. That means no Anarchy when changing Civics, and +2 culture per city. Combined with the War Chariot, I would think I would think the Domination approach has the potential to be the quicker victory condition. Especially if most civs are on one major landmass. I haven't attempted any invasions of territory off my initial continent in CIV, so I don't have a good feeling for how difficult that might be.

We may want to get a read on whether we want to go for quick domination or fast research. Either way, I think Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet is the first set of Techs we should learn. In the meantime, develop our capital, find Horses, get a couple units out scouting, and establish a 2nd (and 3rd, maybe) city. Around this time we should know enough to settle on our approach.

Also, I have no idea how locked-peace might work. It would make sense to locate this AI and make them a good ally.

Couldn't go a day without some kind of post in our thread!

We seem to have a basic starting strategy - found our capital on the Hill space to the SW, build a Worker, send Warrior in a fairly close radius around capital for protection, start on Animal Husbandry, followed by Pottery. Science on highest sustainable rate.

I'd like to keep the general order per our time zones. I do request that I start off the sequence, if no one objects. I will be out of town most of next week, so this weekend is probably the best time for me to get a turn set in. In that case the turn order would be:

civ_steve
ainwood
MailMan
Keith Larson
PaulK
DaviddesJ
Phabuk

The saves are available. If no one objects, I'll play in about 24 hours.

AlanH and I exchanged a few PM's tonight. Since we haven't heard from Phabuk, he mentioned a few players who would like to join up. Looking at the Team thread, and at the player's names on the Status sheet, I think it's official enough to welcome DaviddesJ to the Team!

AlanH suggested I join your team as a standby for your missing member, which I am glad to do!

More comments later. My only quick thoughts are (1) it's not so important to play in timezone order because I think it's nice to give everyone enough time to comment (if they want) each time the turn is passed, and (2) with a floodplains start, it's relatively more attractive to build warrior first, because you can grow to size 2 and increase your city's productivity more quickly than with non-floodplains starts. (But I'm not taking any strong position on warrior first vs worker first.) I think SW for the capital is ok, although it will create some awkwardness regarding where to situate a second city to the east to use the remaining floodplains.

I'm usually in US/Pacific, but currently in US/Eastern (and will be on the east coast for much of this summer). But when I can play the game is pretty erratic anyway (sometimes in the middle of the day, sometimes late at night, etc.).

I like the idea of moving SW to the hill as well. If we have to fight off an early attack it will give a great defensive bonus in addition to all the other advantages mentioned.

My vote is still for a worker first. Our starting techs just invite early development. I have found it very important to play your civ's strengths in Civ4.

I also agree with the close to home, counter-clockwise scouting. I doubt there are many huts to pop and at this level popping huts is not always pleasant!

Finally, I am strongly in favor of the research order Civ-steve outlined. After that I think we should research the industrial tech at the bottom of the tree. If the Inca are near by it is to our advantage to know were all the metal resources are. Unless I am missing something I don’t see what archery and the spiritual techs will give us right now.

At Monarch, I don't believe we'll ever end up having to defend in our capital (unless maybe our locked-enemy is right near us, which strikes me as unlikely). We'll end up defending in the field to stop pillaging. So I don't really count the extra defense in the capital as significant. But the extra hammer certainly is.

An alternative tech order I could imagine is skipping Animal Husbandry to go straight for Pottery. Get the cottages going right away. But since we know we have Cows, plus we want to look for Horses, that just seems all wrong.

Pushing for religion and then cheap temples could also work. But I'm less of a fan of that approach---and the floodplains really call out for cottages.

David,

Come to think of it I have never once had my capital city attacked by the AI. I there something in the code that prevents this?

Keith

Come to think of it I have never once had my capital city attacked by the AI. I there something in the code that prevents this?

Not that I know of. Just that they will compute the probability of success and not attack when it's low. And usually you won't give them a high-probability shot. Plus, your capital usually has high defense and the AI doesn't really use bombardment effectively. Plus, at Monarch we can pretty much expect to be stronger than the AIs throughout (unless they were to rush us early, which they don't do).

Barbarians are a more likely threat. But, as I said, usually you aren't going to want to defend in your capital and let them raze your improvements---that's a last resort. At really high difficulties sometimes you have no choice, but at Monarch, we should be able to stay on top of them in the field.

Part of me wants to push up the Tech tree after Pottery and go after Writing and the Alphabet - and trade for the other Techs. After all, if we do find Horses nearby, I'd think we'd want to be building a lot of War Chariots, and not too many Axemen. Drawback is delay in ability to Chop.

Is there any strong feeling between building a Warrior or a Worker at first?

Steve,

I think there is no question that going all the way to Alphabet is the best move, I was just starting the discussion of what after that? Our starting location makes chopping not as important or desirable.

Keith

I'm fine with Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Writing, Alphabet. Although there won't necessarily be so much available to trade for when we do get Alphabet---sometimes rushing for it so quickly just leaves you with an unproductive tech and nothing to trade for and you still end up researching basic stuff, which it would have been better to have earlier. So I'm also happy to divert along the way for Hunting or Mining, if it turns out to be important for an improvement.

If we're working the floodplains, then it's 11 turns to grow to size 2, during which we generate 22 hammers, which is basically a warrior. (Unit cost at Epic is 1.5x, right?) Then, at size 2, we generate 6 surplus/turn, which is 15 turns for a worker. That's 26 turns, compared to 18 turns if we do worker-first at size 1 and 5 surplus/turn.

Those 8 turns mean we get the Cow/Pasture 8 turns sooner, which is +24 production. Plus our worker starts the next improvement 8 turns sooner, and the one after that, etc. Against that, it will take 29 turns for us to reach size 2, which means we're losing 1 surplus/turn for 29-11 = 16 turns. Pretty clear that the worker is better. (Unless the extra warrior would have gotten us a good hut. But huts can be bad....)

I'm keen to keep the discussion going, depending on what resources we find (eg - whats over the hills in the fog).

OK, I'll start us off, and flip a mental coin about the Worker/Warrior as first build. In SGOTM3 we usually did 20 turns for turnset 1, then 10 turns per set after that. Not sure what works well for CIV SG, so I'll aim for somewhere around 15-20. Back shortly (I hope).

OK, first turn set is in!

4000 BC - the game starts! 223 commerce needed for Animal Husbandry, so if it takes longer than 30 turns, I may as well build Warrior first!
Settler SW - mostly Forest, a couple of Hills revealed
Warrior N - Floodplains and hills as far as the eye can see ... about 1 tile

3970 BC
Found Thebes - ah ah! Rice and Stone are added to the resources we will have access to once culture expands!
hmm - Worker in 18, and AH in 18 - sounds like a match!
vs Grow in 11, Worker in 15, 8 turns delay to get Cow pasturized
Go with Worker first
Warrior N - a 2nd cow is revealed, 3 spaces North of Thebes

3940 BC
Warrior NE, on to hill; Coast up ahead, and appears to be Coast on other side of Mountains

3910 BC
Warrior NW

3880 BC
Warrior N (hills on Coast - nothing to see out at sea)

3850 BC
Borders of Thebes expand - (4 cpt); it appears we are on a peninsula, near the tip; Fish can be seen
Warrior NW - another Cow, and tundra; about as far North as I care to go

3820 BC
Warrior West - forests

3790 BC
Warrior SW - at this point, nothing more to see until reach other side of capital

3760 BC
Warrior W

3730 BC
Warrior S

3700 BC
Warrior S

3670 BC
Warrior SW

3640 BC
Warrior SW

3610 BC
Warrior W - another River ... and Lions (I was wondering if we were all alone!)
I'm in forest, so if they approach, I'll fortify.

(IBT - Lions do approach, over river)

3580 BC
Fortify Warrior in Forest (should be 55% defensive benefit)

(IBT - Lions attack, and we beat them into Lion paste with our clubs)

3550 BC
Warrior is 1.6 strength; I'll pause a couple of turns to get him up to strength

3520 BC
still healing

3490 BC
Full strength - SW; River looks short

3460 BC
Warrior SW - Hills, and more impassible mountains

(IBT - we're not alone! We meet a scout from Catherine of the Russians
We agree not to cut off each other's heads)

3430 BC

Animal Husbandry is learned, on to Pottery next
Worker is finished, and moved to Cows; start on Warrior next.
Alright! We have Horses to the North!
Warrior SW

(IBT some Lions show up to the East)

3400 BC
Warrior SE
Worker starts the Pasture - 6 turns

end of log

I'm attaching a screenshot of our empire from 10,000 feet. Horses to the North, several Cows around, Russian Scout to the West, Lions to the East. Our Warrior is SSW of the Russian Scout (under part of the blue screen).

From our earlier discussion, I don't think the Russian scout is a threat, but our capital is undefended right now. If there's any concern at all, we could work a 2 Hammer forest and get a Warrior out in half the time, at the cost of growth.

Worker is developing the Cow. We started on Pottery. Not sure how many people will be on the starting landmass, but it seems likely we will need ships to achieve Domination (unless there's some thin connections around - possible, but we'll know more with scouting.

That's about it, here is our save from the Results Page:

3400 BC Save (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC3400_01.Civ4SavedGame)

It does show you the log from your turn set when you upload it; here is that log:



Here is your Session Turn Log from 4000 BC to 3400 BC:


Turn 1, 3970 BC: Thebes has been founded.

Turn 4, 3880 BC: The borders of Thebes have expanded!

Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Peanut's Warrior (3.40)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 14, 3580 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 14, 3580 BC: Peanut's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 18, 3460 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!

You may wish to copy and paste this into your turn set post to use as a report framework.

Here is the player order - I just added DaviddesJ to the list:

civ_steve - Just Played
ainwood <=== You're UP
MailMan - on deck
Keith Larson
PaulK
DaviddesJ

ainwood - over to you!

To everybody, please post any discussion regarding near or far term strategy. And if anybody would like to set up a city dot map to guide our future settlements, please be my guest!

Good Job Steve. As far as technologies go, once pottery is discovered should we continue with writing-alphabet or should we possibly go for masonry and try to build an early wonder? I would like to go for masonry and attempt to build pyramids for the early civics and the engineer but would really like to hear your guys opinions. Attempting to build wonders is dangerous and can waste production that can be used to conquer Catherine and those damn incas. Once our worker has completed the pasture, farming the rice seems to be a good option. The other possibility would be to spam cottages on the floodplains which has its own distinct advantages. Also what is our capital's specialty going to be? Commerce/production highbred, GP/Wonder factory? (specialization very important, but I don't need to tell you guys) The second city should be to grab the horses and be a great production city (on the grassland/river or plains/river.) Finally has any religions been discovered yet? Would going for a religion be the most beneficial option? Let’s please discuss this as the early game is incredibly important and I would really like to learn what the experts do.
Paul

Good turn set Steve! I like the coastal plains tile NW of Thebes. This will give us 1 fish, 2 cows and 1 horse. I would like to work the rice before starting cottages. IMO growth and health are more important than commerce in the early game. I love using the whip! As for Techs my vote is to continue on the writing-alphabet line. I have found that when you bee line to alphabet you usally have someone to trade writing and pottery to. If however, you slow down and pick up some other techs you may still be the only one with alphabet, but you have nothing else to trade because by then the AI has pottery, writing and any techs you slowed down to research. Besides our worker will have his hands full with more important work than connecting stone to Thebes.

3970 BC
Found Thebes - ah ah! Rice and Stone are added to the resources we will have access to once culture expands!
hmm - Worker in 18, and AH in 18 - sounds like a match!

Duh, my math was way off. Sorry---I haven't been playing Civ4 much and I'm pretty busy with other stuff.

If we have Stone, then we should seriously think about Pyramids. We don't have to do it, but we should think about it.

More later. I suggest we wait at least 24 hours before continuing to give people (including me) time to comment on overall strategy.

There's no reason to farm the rice for quite some time (until we need the health and can connect it). The farmed rice, without irrigation, is only 4f, which is less than a farmed floodplain at 4f 1c.

Next improvement should probably be one farm along the river, then some cottages. If we finish the farm before Pottery, then we might build some roads that we will need eventually. You can micromanage road construction to build a "partial road" if you're waiting around for a turn or two with nothing to do. (Indeed, we could have gotten a free "partial road" while moving our first worker from the capital to the cows, so we're already off the optimal development path. :cry: )

I'm not worried about defense. Once the cows come online we'll have plenty of hammers. Of course we will try to start on a Granary soon after Pottery.

It's not even clear that we need any farms. We're going to hit our size limit pretty fast. I'll work out some calculations later.

Thanks, guys!

(Indeed, we could have gotten a free "partial road" while moving our first worker from the capital to the cows, so we're already off the optimal development path. :cry: )

Very good point, and one of the reasons I'm glad you're on the Team, DaviddesJ! I've only played 2 complete games, so details like this are well received.

I thought about Farming a Floodplains to increase growth, initially. OTOH, we will have pretty fast growth as it is, and we do want to get Cottages going. We have a couple of health resources identified, but no Luxuries yet, so Happiness will be a hard limit soon.

On the sound of it, Keith's suggestion for city #2 looks good. And we expand naturally after 8 turns, so we don't have to build any buildings to get the extended resources.

Looking forward to more discussion. With Catherine available for trade, I feel better about researching to Alphabet. A 3d AI (non-Incan, please) would be even better.

On a personal note, I will be out of touch Monday, back home Tuesday, then out again Wednesday through Saturday evening, so I will have little interaction for the next week.

Just to elaborate on the "partial road". Suppose (as in our case) you want to build an improvement at distance 2 from your current worker position. What you do is move the worker one space, then choose "build road". Then re-select the worker and choose "cancel improvement" (the red X). Then, next turn, you'll be able to move the worker the second space, and start the improvement there at the same time as you would otherwise have. And, whenever you later build a road in the intermediate space, you'll take one turn less to do it.

In fact, we could have built a "partial farm" on the floodplain we moved through to get to the cow (since we already have Agriculture), which would be even better than a "partial road". Then we could return to that after the pasture, and complete a farm there one turn sooner.

OK - posting a 'got it'.

Note that its about 9:30 am on sunday morning here. I can either play later this afternoon (ie in the next 8 hours or so) or leave it until monday evening.

Sounds like the preference is for a bit more discussion - so my current plan is to play in about 32 hours from the post timestamp.

DaviddesJ - just to clarify, you would give the Worker an action (Road, or Farm), and in the same turn, cancel the action, correct? If I understand the turn workings, if you were to press enter and complete the turn first, the Worker might use the next turn as well before the action could be cancelled. (?)

I think that we took the right path with the worker first. there is a lot of work for him to do.
I would use him next to farm a FP. I agree with KL that food is very important. I also like to use the whip in the early game and our city is great for whipping with all that food and health problems.

Later on we will have 3 possible configuration to the capital:
1. commerce - we could have even 12 towns with some mines to boost production a bit.
2. GP farm - each farmed FP can sustain 1 GP so with the rice and cows we may have 7-8 GP working in the city.
3. production - we have 4 hills + cows and some trees. I can see about 20 base hammers and later on with some workshops about 30-40 base hammers

I am thinking about either option #1 or option #2 (I really would like to try #2 - but I am not sure it is the best).

Near future plans:
crank 3-4 warriors until we reach size 3 and than produce a settler and a second worker.
I really like the plain spot with the 4 resources KL mentioned but a full dot-map should be best.
Regarding research - we might want to pick up sailing to pass the mountain barrier to the east.

DaviddesJ - just to clarify, you would give the Worker an action (Road, or Farm), and in the same turn, cancel the action, correct? If I understand the turn workings, if you were to press enter and complete the turn first, the Worker might use the next turn as well before the action could be cancelled. (?)
This is correct

DaviddesJ - just to clarify, you would give the Worker an action (Road, or Farm), and in the same turn, cancel the action, correct?

Yes, exactly. When you give the order to the worker, it will be automatically deselected in favor of the next unit, so you have to explicitly reselect it (just click on it) to cancel the order. You want to do that the same turn because if you wait until next turn the worker might (especially if you're not careful) perform another turn of improvement before you get around to changing its orders. This can't happen if you cancel the order before ending the previous turn.

If you haven't done this before, you might just start up a test game (with a random map---it doesn't really matter) and play around with doing it a few times until you're comfortable with it.

2. GP farm - each farmed FP can sustain 1 GP so with the rice and cows we may have 7-8 GP working in the city.

It's going to be a long, long, long time before you have 7 GP! We haven't seen any luxuries yet, but maybe you can stack lots of troops here under Hereditary Rule for happiness. But you're going to need roughly +10 health from where we are now. This seems a long ways off. There's also a difficult tradeoff in terms of population growth---if you're running a lot of GP (for the short-term benefits), then you're not growing your population to have more in the longer term.

Let's not forget that we're supposed to be playing for fast domination. I assume that we're going to have to cross oceans, so basically the speed at which we can dominate is going to be constrained by how fast we can get Astronomy. That suggests to me at least one big science city, and this is an obvious location. My inclination is to try to get at least one Great Scientist pretty early (for the Academy) but otherwise to build lots of cottages here.

On the other hand, if we want to get a settler out as quickly as possible, farms will help with that. And if we do that, we're also going to need a second worker pretty soon---we have a lot of tiles to improve.

But before any of this planning, we really need to make a decision about the Pyramids (and wonders in general). E.g., if we're in Representation (vs Hereditary Rule), then, at least for the early game, I think we're going to want many cottages and just a couple of GPs (which the flood plains, cows, and rice will support without extra farms), because we just aren't going to have enough happiness for working all of the floodplains with farms on them.

I'm pretty interested in figuring out whether there's a good 2nd or 3rd city location for building the Pyramids in. I'd be glad to get a Great Engineer, but it's going to be hard if we're going for an early Academy.

There are lots of different issues here---sorry for the disorganized nature of all this.

Re the people suggesting slavery - when should we prioritise bronze working? At the moment, we're looking at the other half of the tech tree. With lots of FPs, I think we can get to writing and have two scientists working on a GS for an academy, and still maintain a growth rate.

About city locations... It seems like we're going to place our second city on the costal plains. So does that mean we're going to eventually want to build a second city on the costal destert square by the most northern mountain? Also would it be wasteful to try to build in the area east of Thebes?

With improvements to the capital so we want to build one or two farm on the floodplains for early growth and settler/worker production then switch to cottages for fps? So how large are we going to grow Thebes until we start pumping out settlers/workers (can someone do calculations to figure the most productive route)? If wanted to have a really commerece city we could have 15 cottages, 1 mine, 1 quarry, 1 pasture, 1 farm, and 1 lake (and still have 1-3 specialists).
Paulk

About city locations... It seems like we're going to place our second city on the costal plains. So does that mean we're going to eventually want to build a second city on the costal destert square by the most northern mountain? Also would it be wasteful to try to build in the area east of Thebes?

It's unlikely to be a good idea to build on the desert spaces without access to fresh water, because the health situation in that city (with no forests, lots of floodplains, and no fresh water bonus) will be pretty awful. I'm not sure where to build. On the desert hill 4E of Thebes is one possibility. On the floodplains 4E 2N is another possibility. The floodplains 4N 3E of Thebes is a very good site, with horses, cows, fresh water, several floodplains, and coast access. But it conflicts somewhat with the idea of building on the other coast, 4N 1W of Thebes.

If wanted to have a really commerece city we could have 15 cottages, 1 mine, 1 quarry, 1 pasture, 1 farm, and 1 lake (and still have 1-3 specialists).

Again, we're not playing a space race. We're trying to dominate the world in 1300 AD (or whatever). Our cities aren't ever going to get that big.

OK, I thought about this some more. I still see cottages as more important than farms. Eventually we're going to reach size 5, and even with 2 Great Scientists (after Library), we're going to have positive food with 2 GS + Cows + 2 Floodplains (that's 11 food for 5 people). Or GS + Stone + Cows + 2 Floodplains is the same. We're going to want to be working a couple of floodplains/cottages, so we might as well start them as soon as possible so they get big.

However, we have 12 more worker turns before we can even start cottaging, and we can finish the cow pasture in 5 turns, and build a farm in 8 more turns, for 13 total. So I think it certainly makes sense to delay the first cottage by just 1 turn, in exchange for getting a farm to work right away.

My suggestion is that we build the farm NE of the cows, across the river. That way, if we eventually build a city to the east, we might swap the farm across to the new city (when our capital doesn't need the growth anyway).

After that, we can either stay on the east of the river to build cottages (on the theory that that gives us the flexibility to swap them to a new city later), or we can build cottages on the west of the river (on the theory that we might eventually want to build farms on the east). I lean toward the former.

Hey, here's another, completely different idea. Suppose we start building a settler as soon as we reach size 2. I think this gets us the settler 6 turns earlier than if we wait to grow to size 3. We put the settler near the horses and connect them up quickly. Then we build War Chariots and blitz Catherine.

If we want to go this way, I think we should finish the second warrior and then start prebuilding a barracks. When we reach size 2, switch from barracks to settler. The worker builds one farm and then maybe one cottage or the rice farm (just for future value---we won't be working it for a while), then some roads that we'll need to connect the two rivers, and the horses to the river. When the settler is done, switch back to barracks while we hook up the horses. When we found the city, the worker is ready to build a pasture on the horses. Hopefully, finish the barracks around the time we connect horses, start pumping out war chariots, and attack.

(The barracks is not even that important, I think---it's just that we can build it if we don't have anything better to do. I'd actually also be fine with just building a granary, skipping the barracks, and attacking with unpromoted War Chariots.)

Does this appeal to anyone? I think it could be pretty effective. Perhaps we should chop even more forests than I'm saying---the faster we get the War Chariots out, the sooner we can attack, plus the less prepared she will be.

Plus I like the idea of using our UU. If we don't build War Chariots fairly early, we may never bother with them.

Of course, the peaceful route is fine, too.

(Edit: deleted silly comments about chopping forests without BW.)

Regarding research - we might want to pick up sailing to pass the mountain barrier to the east.

I don't think there's anything but water on the other side of the mountains.

I like the war chariots blitz idea.

We first should check if we actually can declare war on the Russians (we are locked with always peach with one of the AIs)

As I mentioned I also think that the cottages are the way to go for our capital, but one farm as DaviddesJ suggested is a very good idea, it help us get the settler sooner and allow more flexibility.

We might want to consider cranking up a second worker

I do not think we should go for an early wonder. It is too much risk at that level with rather small benefits to my liking. It is far better to have 9 war chariots than the pyramids

OK - looks like it will be an uneventful turn-set -> Not much to do but explore & wait.

Turn 1: Hmm. Not sure which way to send the warrior - he's at a fork. I decide on SE (not as 'out-of-the-way', and its traversing hills).
The coast continues to bend east - looks like its the end of the lobe.

Turn 2: 3340 BC;
Warrior confirms its a small lobe - but finds sugar.

Turn 3: 3310 BC - warrior heads back to take other fork. Is that where the russians are?

Turn 4: 3280 BC: Running out of things to say here....

Turn 5: 3250 BC: Complete the pasture. The governer hasn't changed production, so I do it manually. I really should pay more attention to what the governer does & the inter-turn mechanics. I'm fairly sure that the governer does change the assignment on the interturn, but I need to check. Anyhow - cows are on the river, so they're conected (health = 7; 3 Mr Icks.)

Turn 6: 3220 BC: Follow the suggestion of a farm on the other side of the river. 10 turns to complete (I'm not used to Epic!) Warrior finds clams.

Turn 7: 3190 BC: Complete warrior. Agree that we shouldn't start a settler until size 2. A barracks pre-build is as good as any, although we may lose a couple of 'decay' hammers if we pause to crank-out too many settlers. Could damned-near get a second warrior to explore the east flank. On reflection - I decide to do that, noting that once we get to size 2, we can work the stone for one turn to complete the warrior, then start straight on settler - warrior provides escort (which may not be needed this early), or it goes exploring. First warrior finds more horses & gems - this really is a resource-rich land!

Turn 8: 3160 BC: Second gems spotted - and the russian border. Looks like catherine is surrounded by jungle, so we should have a good approach if we are to blitz her. Might want to take a worker to road it, though.

Turn 9: Thebes grows next turn.

Turn 10: See catherine has (a third supply!) of gems hooked-up. If we raze moscow, there is a city radius that could have 3 gems, rice, horses & a couple of hills (or lose rice for a coastal tile). Could be a great science city.

Current status: Thebes has just grown to size 2. Building a warrior, 15/22 hammers, with 2 turns left. Currently working pasture + grassland forest (grow in 12). The worker is building a farm, but will take another 6 turns. Pottery is 2 turns away.

I suggest that we work the stone for a turn to complete the warrior, then get on with a settler. For the first warrior, I'd like to see more of catherine's land - may be helpful to know if she has resources later (especially metals for spears if we're going for chariots).


>>SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC3100_01.Civ4SavedGame)<<

Turn 6: 3220 BC: Follow the suggestion of a farm on the other side of the river. 10 turns to complete (I'm not used to Epic!)

Ick. I remembered Epic, but forgot about the Desert cost. We could interrupt the farm to start a cottage a few turns sooner, but that won't make sense, certainly, if we're trying to get a settler out.

I'll look the new map over and post further thoughts. Suggest (again) we take our time before the next player goes---there are some key decisions to make soon.

I got it. Will probably play in 10 hours or so, unless you want to have more discussions before that.

Current plan: finish warrior in 1 and start settler. send the warrior as fog buster for the settler. start research writing

Edit: cross-posted with DaviddesJ - it seems that we want more discussion ...

I'd rather delay an extra 24 hours for another round of discussion, if that's ok with everyone. Also would like to give people a chance to chime in on overall direction, as there are several reasonable possibilities that have been suggested.

If we want to finish the warrior in 1, I suggest we work the forest/plains in place of the stone.

It seems that we can declare war on Catherine (at least, I'm seeing the option when I load the save file). Attacking her is looking more attractive now that I see those gems. On the other hand, there's some downside if we're wiping out the only AI on our continent (leaving no one to trade with). It looks like it's 10 turns movement for a War Chariot from Thebes to her capital. Can reduce that to 9 by building a single road SW of Thebes.

If we're going to start the settler now (well, in 1 turn) we should decide where it's going. A big question: if we're in a hurry to connect the horses, do we want to put our 2nd city next to the horses so we don't need to wait 8 turns for cultural expansion before building a pasture? Or, even put it on the horses, so we don't even need to build the pasture?? I hate to walk away from those fine fish, but, we can pick them up later with a city 3W 2N of Thebes, if we really want to.

If we wait for cultural expansion, that gives us just about enough time to build a barracks, if we want to. Barracks will take 18 turns at 5h/turn. Settler will take 3 turns to settle, 8 turns to expand borders, then we need 6 turns for pasture (I think), that's 17 total. This lets Thebes go for max growth; we can then switch to emphasize production when we start cranking WCs.

That gives us 1+16+18 = 35 turns before we need to have Horses connected. If we're going for the fast settler and then war chariots, I suggest this: 5 turns to finish the Farm at 2E 1S, 1 turn moving, 4 turns for a Road at 2E 1N (connecting the rivers), 1 turn moving, 3 turns for a Road at 1E 4N, 3 turns for a Road at 1E 5N, 3 turns for a Road at 4N, 6 turns for a Pasture at 4N (on the cows), 6 turns for a Pasture at 1E 5N (on the horses). That gives us both cities and the horses connected, and cows and horses available for city 2 to work, in 5+1+4+1+3+3+3+6+6 = 32 turns. Maybe we can build another Road somewhere along the way (if I haven't miscalculated). This skips cottages near Thebes for now (because if we're going for the chariot rush then production and connections are more important, not to mention the improvements that will make our early 2nd city actually useful).

For the first warrior, I'd like to see more of catherine's land - may be helpful to know if she has resources later (especially metals for spears if we're going for chariots).

We aren't going to know that unless we prioritize Bronze Working and Iron Working, ourselves.

If we're going for the chariot rush, then we should rethink whether Writing, then Alphabet, makes sense. Upside is that Catherine will probably trade us some techs, before we kill her. Downside is that we aren't researching stuff that would help us build our army faster, like Bronze Working and Masonry.

B.T.W - I looked at the graphs at the submission page to try and learn what other teams done for opening plays.

- I think that only one team settled on place (or at least on the first turn) - Queens Men. This is by looking at the culture graph.

- 2/3 of the teams started with building a worker, I think the following teams started with building a warrior (by looking at the power graph): Chaos, Fifth element, Lunatics, madviking, Memphis Blues, Rat Pack, Team One.

The above is just a guess

Since I knew it going to be a very boring turnset - I played tonight.
Nothing much happened:

1. 3070BC
Buddhism FIDAL
a lion near by ate a Russian scout
I am sending the newly created warrior to deal with the wounded lion and than I will send him to be a fog buster up north

2. 3040BC
Pottery --> writing (16)

3. 3010BC
the warrior defeated the wounded lion

4. 2980BC
I think that Russia can only expand our way

5. 2950BC
zzz

6. 2920BC
notice that Russia can also expand south and Moscow has 2 archers
the worker finished the farm and spent 1 turn on building a cottage 1N of the farm

7. 2890BC
the worker start on a road to connect the rivers
send the warrior in Russia back of for some barbs defense

8. 2860BC
the borders of Moscow just got expanded which resulted with a flying warrior that was just bounced over the water onto a forested hill south west of our capital. On that hill the flying warrior feasted on a lion in order to get back the energy the flying exercise took. that energy manifested in a knowledge of fighting in forests and jungles (woodsman I promotion).

9. 2830BC
Our borders expanded

10. 2800BC
The northern warrior defeated a wolf
the worker finished the road.

The SAVE (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC2800_01.Civ4SavedGame)


Turn 30, 3100 BC: Buddhism has been founded in a distant land!

Turn 31, 3070 BC: You have discovered Pottery!

Turn 33, 3010 BC: Peanut's Warrior (2.00) vs Barbarian's Lion (0.53)
Turn 33, 3010 BC: Combat Odds: 100.0%
Turn 33, 3010 BC: (Animal Combat: -20%)
Turn 33, 3010 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (6/100HP)
Turn 33, 3010 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 26 (0/100HP)
Turn 33, 3010 BC: Peanut's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 37, 2890 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Peanut's Warrior (3.90)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Combat Odds: 1.0%
Turn 37, 2890 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: (Plot Defense: +75%)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 27 (73/100HP)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 14 (86/100HP)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 27 (46/100HP)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 27 (19/100HP)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 27 (0/100HP)
Turn 37, 2890 BC: Peanut's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 38, 2860 BC: The borders of Thebes have expanded!

Turn 39, 2830 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Peanut's Warrior (3.40)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Combat Odds: 0.0%
Turn 39, 2830 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 35 (65/100HP)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 35 (30/100HP)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Peanut's Warrior is hit for 11 (89/100HP)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 35 (0/100HP)
Turn 39, 2830 BC: Peanut's Warrior has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!
Turn 39, 2830 BC: While defending, your Warrior has killed a Barbarian Wolf!

Interesting--I think this is the most tense and exciting time, not boring at all. We have already made many key decisions that will have more effect on our results than most decisions later on, when more is happening but for the same reason no one decision has a big impact.

I'm somewhat doubtful about Writing vs Mining -> Masonry -> Bronze Working, given the trajectory we seem to be on (which isn't going to prioritize a Library for a long time?). I'd be more inclined to buy the techs that will help us build up. Still not clear whether we will find anyone else to trade with? If we are alone with Catherine, she probably won't trade us much of value.

Moscow is further south than I expected - forgot catherine was creative.

Re finding the location of her metals, we might be able to see what the workers are doing, but yes, if we're not prioritising bronze working, then its difficult (probably won't know until we see spears or axes). Catherine does start with both hunting & mining, so she will probably prioritise spears.


I'm somewhat doubtful about Writing vs Mining -> Masonry -> Bronze Working, given the trajectory we seem to be on (which isn't going to prioritize a Library for a long time?). I'd be more inclined to buy the techs that will help us build up. Still not clear whether we will find anyone else to trade with? If we are alone with Catherine, she probably won't trade us much of value.

If we don't get alphabet, we won't be trading techs with her anyway. I agree that we need to be clear about which direction we're going in, and don't want to research ourselves into a half-way house. We are half-way to writing though, so completing it isn't too far out of our way if we choose the military route.

The calcs to date for the war option are to only have 2 cities. From the lay of the land, we have some great city locations - I think we should have three cities before we go on the war-path. This would allow us a bit more time to grab a library in Thebes and start on a GS for an academy. The main risk is that Catherine get more troops, and the delay in attacking her can be offset with more troops of our own in the form of more cities to produce them. I do note that cathrine has at least two mines already, and with cows she probably has good shield production.

What are people's thoughts on long-term trading with catherine? I've always found her quite difficult to trade with - not in tokugawa's league, but she seems hard to keep happy.


Edit - maybe there's someone to the south of her? A detour via sailing to get a galley out? (lower priority, but it would be nice to know before we play the xenophobe card on our only known competition).

The calcs to date for the war option are to only have 2 cities. From the lay of the land, we have some great city locations - I think we should have three cities before we go on the war-path. This would allow us a bit more time to grab a library in Thebes and start on a GS for an academy. The main risk is that Catherine get more troops, and the delay in attacking her can be offset with more troops of our own in the form of more cities to produce them.

I don't believe we're going to produce more troops with more cities. A settler is going to require 150 shields, which is 4 WCs already. Then the new city will have to grow before it's ready to make anything. It certainly won't have a barracks for a long time so it will be making unpromoted troops (not that the promotion is so important for WCs, since they can't get city attack, I think). We'll probably need a second worker to make these cities productive, which is another 3 WCs.

My guess is that we only need 6-8 WCs to march in and take her out. We can get there with two cities much faster than building a third.

With a different civ I would play very differently; I just like the idea of leveraging the particular advantage of Egypt. But it's a "more fun" analysis, rather than a "must do" analysis; if we want to build up and let her also build up so we have more cities to take, that's ok too. She's going to develop a tech edge over us, with all of those gems, though.

As I said, if there's no one else on our continent then I predict we get almost no useful techs from her. The AI is too reluctant to trade "monopolies". If she has more neighbors, then Alphabet may be worth more. We may not be able to figure this out.

If we're doing the early WC rush, then Writing by itself is of minimal value. Personally I would have chosen Mining, and I would now switch to Mining. We can save our progress toward Writing, after all, and finish it whenever we feel we're within 6-8 turns of actually starting a Library. On the other hand, if we're going to skip the WC rush, then finishing Writing and building a Library in Thebes (instead of Barracks or Granary) is perfectly logical. But then we should be building cottages with our worker, not roads for the horses. This is why I'm uncomfortable with the speed with which we're playing and making decisions---we're doing stuff that makes sense only if we're going in certain directions, which we haven't necessarily agreed on yet. I think we can go in any of several directions, but I'd like us to try to be consistent.

civ_steve checking in (while out of town).

I like the WC, but is it very useful in a 'continents' type of game? I have to assume that Gyathaar has balanced this game so that Domination and Diplomacy are roughly equal in terms of game time. So I don't believe we will find a lot of civs on our chunk of land.

If we have to cross the seas to take out other civs, will the WC do us much good or is it too weak? I ask this because if the other civs are overseas, and the WC isn't that effective, I'm not sure how much effort we should devote to getting them early on. If Catherine is the only other civ on our starting landmass (not known), do we hurt ourselves substantially by taking out our only initial, possible trading partner? Would this be similar to Civ3 where the more civs you know who knew a Tech, the easier to trade for it? (In my limited experience, it's more like increasing your odds that someone will trade, rather than reducing the cost.)

So we could spend time and effort to take out Catherine, which might delay us somewhat (or a lot) in finding other AI's, and slowing our Tech progress in research and trading. This is in opposition to our WCs losing effect as the game progresses.

I'm inclined to play more of a research game at the moment, and to search out whatever AI are out there. Writing gives potential for Open Borders, so we can clearly see what's in and behind Catherine. I would suggest we continue on to Alphabet. By the time we have learned that, we should know for certain if it's just us and Catherine. If so, I would be willing to trade even Alphabet for whatever we can get from her; after all, there is no one else for her to trade with so there's no harm as long as we get a good value. Then we can build up to take her out, if it makes sense, or keep her to help us research our way off the landmass. If there are more AI than Catherine, we will have more civs to trade with and we keep Alphabet for the time being.

If we are alone with Catherine, and if there are 3 or 4 such groups of civ-pairs, especially if they are separated by ocean, how long before we can make contact? If this is the likely case, and getting off-shore is one of the key points to the game, I would suggest we focus on the best path to do that.

I have to assume that Gyathaar has balanced this game so that Domination and Diplomacy are roughly equal in terms of game time.

I think that's impossible. I'll offer 2:1 odds that the 5 fastest wins are all Domination, and 10:1 odds that the fastest win is.

If we have to cross the seas to take out other civs, will the WC do us much good or is it too weak? I ask this because if the other civs are overseas, and the WC isn't that effective, I'm not sure how much effort we should devote to getting them early on.

Obviously, we're not going to attack overseas with WCs---by the time we can get to other lands, they are long obsolete. The question is, if Catherine is the only other one on our landmass, do we gain more by taking her out early or late? In GOTM1 (admittedly at Noble difficulty so quite different) I think simply killing the Greeks at the earliest opportunity, and then developing the continent unmolested, was the best approach. You simply don't gain that much by trading with one other AI, because they won't give you many useful techs (in my experience). Plus the fact that Catherine has the gems, and we don't, is a pretty strong reason to attack.

If there are others on our landmass (with Catherine between us) then that's even a stronger reason. We should be able to find out once we get Writing and Open Borders (which is one good reason for finishing Writing---although we really need to set our direction now, imho).

So we could spend time and effort to take out Catherine, which might delay us somewhat (or a lot) in finding other AI's, and slowing our Tech progress in research and trading.

I don't quite understand this part. Either there are others on our landmass, or not. Whether we attack Catherine isn't going to affect whether we find them. If we're alone on the continent, I think we will get to Astronomy (quite a bit) sooner by taking out Catherine asap, and then growing unmolested, than by sharing the land with her, or attacking later. If there are others on the other side of Catherine, I still think the same.

My own guess is that Catherine is in the middle and there's at least one other civ on the other side of her landbridge. But, of course, that's just a guess.

If we're going to attack Catherine with WCs, then I strongly believe that the sooner we do that the better---her defenses will be much less and I'm so much happier attacking Archers than Spearmen and Axemen. If we're going to try to out-tech her in the medium term, despite her gems and our lack of luxuries, then I strongly believe that we need to concentrate on cottaging up our capital and getting our commerce and science up. So these are two pretty different directions, and we need to pick one before the next set of moves (actually, I think we really should have picked before the last set---we played as if we're going for the WCs, not the cottages, and we've already cost ourselves quite a bit if we backtrack on that).

Anyway, I vote for the WCs, following the general schedule I described in #46. (It would be nice if someone would double-check my turn counts. And think about what we should do with the few extra turns. Note we can't build the horse pasture ahead of schedule, because we can't start it until we have cultural expansion from our 2nd city, assuming we're putting the 2nd city on the coast.)

I am very sorry that I played so soon without a proper discussion.

I like the WC rush idea, however I think we can finish research writing and get OB in order to use the time until we get our army ready to scout her backyard.

I also attached proposed city locations - please comment.

In the case that we are on a small landmass with Russia, we are better off without her. If we are on a large landmass with her, we may be better off with her - so scouting is important!

I also attached proposed city locations - please comment.

I just don't see the blue and orange dots as viable. In the desert, no fresh water, with -2 and -3 health penalties for deserts (respectively), the blue dot will be unhealthy as soon as it reaches size 2, and the orange dot will be unhealthy at size 1! Sure, we'll have a few health resources, but these cities will be very constrained by poor health.

I do not see FP as a health penalty, rather as a 1/2 food bonus over grassland (jungles on the other hand...).

What I mean is that unless the city is very unhealthy from the first pop point, we can just work the FP to offset the health problems.

Note that until we found those cities we will have 4 food resources: cow, rice, fish and crabs (I think it is crab in the orange city range). the fish and crabs worth double for coastal cities that can build harbors.

Well, we can wait and see. It depends to some extent on when we build them. I hate to give up the +2 health from buiding on fresh water. But maybe I'm overvaluing that---I see the other side, too.

P.S. Those are clams, 2S from the orange dot. Note there are also clams near Catherine---we haven't seen any crabs yet.

@DaviddesJ - my comment about delaying contact with the other AIs is if they are off-shore. This is another way of saying "let's decide which path to take" and I think we're all agreed on that.

I am deferring to your experience - let's take out Catherine with WC's, then build our empire unmolested (unless there's someone else behind her.)

A reminder - I'm out until the weekend. Good Luck!

(PS - I like the light blue site to the West. Rather than the Pink dot, perhaps on the River (plains space 3 to the right of the Pink dot; gets the health advantage of the river, several Floodplains and hills spaces, both Cows and horse - potential for very strong city with only one space overlap with the Capital. Found another city on the coast later for Fish)

(PS - I like the light blue site to the West. Rather than the Pink dot, perhaps on the River (plains space 3 to the right of the Pink dot; gets the health advantage of the river, several Floodplains and hills spaces, both Cows and horse - potential for very strong city with only one space overlap with the Capital. Found another city on the coast later for Fish)

I suggested that on post #25 but everyone shut me down and said the costal city was better.

The second city should be able to grab the horses and be a great production city (on the grassland/river or plains/river.)

I think it would be better to have 1 great city in that location instead of 2 average ones in the same area.

Paulk

I'm fine with building on the grasslands/river just south of the horses, if that's what we prefer. This is the discussion I wanted to have when I said we should figure out where to put the second city, so we can schedule what our worker should be doing. If we're going to build on the grasslands/river, then we should put a pasture on the cows to the south (which are already in our cultural borders) before founding the new city, so it can work that improved space immediately.

I hate to give up the fish, but, it's true that we're getting 4 floodplains, and fresh water, in compensation.

I think the grasslands south of the horses are better than the plains SE of the horses. More forests, fewer deserts---just a generally better location. Only downside is that it makes it difficult to connect the fishes later on.

I am deferring to your experience - let's take out Catherine with WC's, then build our empire unmolested (unless there's someone else behind her.)

I don't have that much experience---most people here have probably played more Civ4 games than me.

I do have an analytical nature so I can work out the consequences of particular decisions. But if other people have opinions from experience with the game (like: Catherine is generally hard to deal with), those opinions are likely to be more well-informed than mine.

Are we going to do an early WC rush?

If yes than building on the grassland river is the best location. It gives us horses way sooner. What we can do is once the settler is complete start construction of a barracks. It will take 3 turns for the settler to reach this spot. 3+6=9 turns for settler to reach this spot. The worker can move N one and prebuild a farm for one turn. Next move to the cows and build a pasture for 7 turns. Next move one NW and prebuild a road for one turn. Finally move one NW, prebuild road for one turn and then start building a pasture for the horses. 1+6+1+1=9 until city built and started construction for a pasture.
Plus the 6+2=8 turns for pasture and road to horses. A total of 17 turns for horses to be connected to Thebes.

In Thebes once the settler is done we can start construction of a barracks. If we work the farm and pasture we will grow in 7 turns and make 5h so thats 35 h+any overflow from the settler. Once we grow to population 3 we will start working another floodplain. Work this flood plain for 6 turns; which will get us to population 4. Once we hit pop 4 we switch from the floodplains to the grassland forest and with the new pop start working the stone. This will complete the barracks in 17 turns.

This will mean that the barracks is completed, Thebes is at 4 population, and the horses are connected to Thebes. This means we can start pumping out WCs upgraged out of Thebes. We will be procucing each WC in 3-4 turns depending on the amount of overflow if we work stone and plains forset. We will also eventually grow to Pop 5 and increase our WC production further.

There is what I would like to do if we are going to do a WC rush. So it will take approximately 45 turns from this point to build a barracks hook up horses and produce 8 WCs. (we might be able to take out Catherine with 7.)

For the worker once the horses are hooked we can have him finish the other cow pasture and then have him build some cottages along floodplains (until we get some more technologies). Also I think we should take our chance with researching alphabet and rushing. If we are only with Catherine we might possibly weaken her to the point of destruction and then get as many technologies as possible. Then 10 turns later finish Catherine off. IF there are other civs south of Russia we will be able to trade with them after the destruction of Catherine. There is my choice for our direction and a few calculations (somebody check my math for accuracy).
Paulk

P.S. we can check to see if there is anyone south of Catherine with an open boarders agreement.

Re: city locations - I still think my proposed dot map is the best we can do with the land we got.

My experience tell me that health issues are of much less importance than happiness issues.
Note that in the long run the coastal locations with no fresh water is better than the inland/fresh water location due to harbor than gain us at least +2 health and 50% increase to trade routes.
According to the current known layout of the map, we will need a strong navy which our coastal cities can provide.

With the proposed city location in the plains on the river I really do not see and good city location that can grab the fish and therefore we will waste the fish.

I think that both the pink and the blue dots will be great city locations (rather than average ones).
The blue dot should be production city, farm all the FP and mine all the hills will let us work all the 4 hills (15h) and maybe watermill on the plains and all the sea squares.

pink dot - GP farm - we can have up to 5 specialists. excess food: fish(4) +cows(1+2) + grassland farms(1+1+1).

orange dot - commerce (at least 5 towns + sea tiles)

light blue - commerce / production

I more or less agree with Paulk, but I haven't checked his math. I like the idea of the grassland river city, because as a single city it will be better than the coastal city (the 4 extra floodplains are worth more than the fish), and it will get going significantly faster, and it will connect the horses faster. Having this city be good quickly is way more important, imho, than whether it can build a harbor eventually. Since we're depending on it to pump stuff out while our capital builds the WCs.

I think it's acceptable to plan to use the fish by eventually putting a city 2S of the fish, with access to fish and cows. The light blue dot on the river, with only one resource tile in its range, isn't particularly exciting, so moving that city to use the fish seems fine, to me.

The city location will affect us for a very long time (i.e. all the game) I really think we should found 2 cities in the north rather than 1.

Since this could be one of the most importnat decisions in this game we need to discuss what the advantages/disadvantges of each choice and what we plan to do with each choice (ie. WC rush, Better Researching locations).

I realize that in the long run the plan you have suggested would be the better choice. But right now I think we need better production and quicker access to horses. With your plan it doesn't seem very productive right now; especially since we don't have fishing yet. Like a GP factory is nice, but with the direction that we are going right now building our second city on the grassland river seems to be the best for an early WC rush.

Here is a potential City dot map.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=127048&stc=1&d=1147875685

Oops! I hadn't noticed until just now that Moscow is on a hill! That's going to make the attack a lot less fun---archers defending at 7.2 against our WCs, right? I always get confused about how the combat bonuses actually combine, but I think they get +40% for culture, +50% for city defense, +25% for hills, +25% for hills defense. Compared to only 5.7 if there were no hills.

I wish they weren't on the hill, but we're going to have to do it sooner or later. Waiting requires more patience than I have. :-)

Anyone have any ideas for how we should make a decision? At some point, should we have a "vote"?

archers on hill get 2 bonuses: 25% from being an archer on a hill + 25% that all the other defense units get (tile defense).

archer in a city on hill with 40% culture bonus should be:
3 * (0.4 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.25) = 7.2
on flatland:
3 * (0.4 + 0.5) = 5.7

by the time we get there, the arches might be promoted with city garrison:
3 * (0.4 + 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.25 + 0.2) = 7.8

and do not forget that archers has first strike ability.

We will roughly need 3 WC per archer!

Anyone have any ideas for how we should make a decision? At some point, should we have a "vote"?
I think the general rule in Peanut's team that the one who plays the actual turns gets to choose what to do. I am not sure about that since most of the time we manged to reach a consensus after the discussion.

and do not forget that archers has first strike ability. We will roughly need 3 WC per archer!

WCs are immune to first strikes---this is part of the point of the unit. Our WCs should have Combat 1, which gives us 5.5 to the defending 7.2. Our first couple of WCs should be able to come off the production lines and find a barb somewhere to kill to get a 2nd promotion (which should be Combat 2) while we build the rest of our force. I think a lv2 WC plus a lv3 WC should generally be enough for one archer.

I think the general rule in Peanut's team that the one who plays the actual turns gets to choose what to do.

I'm all for that. No trying to tell other people what to do (I apologize if I've been guilty of that). Nevertheless I think now is a good time to try to form a consensus on one primary plan:

1. Prepare for earliest feasible rush with WCs, unless we learn something that changes our minds.

2. Prepare for a later WC rush, perhaps after building up to 3-4 cities. Expecting to have to face bigger defenders but since WCs are cheap we can just bring a huge number of them.

3. Just play builder for now, and eventually plan on a later attack with Swordsmen or Macemen.

IMHO a good idea would be to try to get everyone to "vote" for one (or more) of these, and see if we can form a general consensus.

I'd vote for #1, primarily because I think it's "more interesting" use of the Egyptian UU, and because I think Catherine is going to be much more annoying than useful if we don't do something early.

But I think any of the plans can work ok, so if there's a consensus for a different plan I'm happy to climb onboard.

Another conceivable alternative is to try to put our 2nd city on the isthmus near Catherine, and block her in. Don't attack her, refuse to give Open Borders, and defend if she attacks. I'm not all that enthusiastic about this plan, but I thought I should mention it.

Eventually I would like to build a city on the isthmus desert square creating a canal (but not for the first city). I wouldn't be suprised if we are on a long snaky continent and ice might possibly blocking off the North. My vote would be for option #1. Paulk

I see that mailman played his turn set yesterday. I will try to play mine tonight or tommorrow evening. I will not get home until 8:30 PM this evening, so I can promise that I will complete all ten turns until tommorrow.

Keith

I generally vote for #1, but I would not compromise future city locations for that.
I would settle on the plain square by the sea that gets us the fish, while our capital work on barracks. The worker should aim to connect the horses ASAP (road first and than pasture).

The second city can start on a second worker.
A second worker will come in handy for to reasons:
1. help setting up all the tile improvements faster.
2. road toward Russia to get our forces there faster

I would send the southern warrior back toward Russia in order to pass her using open borders.

I generally vote for #1, but I would not compromise future city locations for that. I would settle on the plain square by the sea that gets us the fish, while our capital work on barracks.

I guess I think the coast is an actually worse location, both in the short and long term. Much worse in the short term, slightly worse in the long term.

[P.S. A significant short-term advantage comes from using our worker to improve the cows that are already within our borders, before we settle the city. So we would want to start doing that on this next turn cycle, as well as the roads for connecting the horses.]

I don't see packing in more cities as very important, if we are going to actually attack Russia. We'll likely conquer the world before filling up our land.

The second city can start on a second worker.

Surely we have to grow to size 3 first, to work the 3 resource tiles? (Not counting the fish, even if we are on the coast, since we won't have Fishing for a while---although, if we do settle there, I'd be happy to prioritize Fishing so we can grow the city while building a workboat.)

Hi,

sorry for not post sooner but I was on holidays and had no access to a computer.

I am GMT +1

Hope it is still possible to participate

I think we are at a very important point here and I would like a little more consensus before I do my turn set. My vote it #1 early WC rush and I am leaning towards the second dot layout map, with the dark blue dot on the river. We might be able to pick up fish from another location and as the map show we can always build on the green dot.

Anymore input before I begin? I can play in about 5 hours or can delay until tomorrow evening. Speak now or forever hold your peace!

I'm keen on the WC rush - and on reflection, the sooner the better. "Overwhelming numbers" will probably be the order-of-the-day - if catherine gets spears, we're in huge trouble - so maybe we should try to grab bronze working?

The other benefit from sooner-rather-then-later (aside from reduced defenders) is that I really like the look of those 3-gems. With a library and an academy, thats (3*7*1.75) = 36 beakers fairly early on.

1. 2770BC

Worker moves N and pre-builds farm. Northern Warrior heals. Southern Warrior on Barb patrol, but do move SE to un-fog sea tile.

2. 2740BC

Worker moves to cows and starts pasture. Northern Warrior promotes to woodsmen 1 and heads north. See wolf on hill. Southern Warrior on patrol.

3. 2710BC
N warrior kills wolf, wounded, but will move NE to heal in woods. Catharine has BW and adopts slavery.

4. 2680BC
Nothing new.

5. 2650BC
Nothing new.

6. 2620BC
S Warrior see borders of 2nd Russian city.

7. 2590BC
Settler built and start Barracks. Settler moves…
S warrior discovers St. Pet is on hill S of cows, just north of Moscow.
I have to go to a meeting this evening. You have about 3 hours before I am back.

BW thats not good, hopefully she doesn't have copper near mosscow. IF she does have copper we might need to get a few WC over there and pillage the lands. If we prevent her from having copper than at best she will have archers battling in the field potentially 3.0 vs 5.5. Worse case scenario is that she has bronze hooked up quickly and builds a spearmen. Then we will have to go builder untill we have BW.

@Phabuck - I would suggest private messaging AlanH and see what he says.

7. 2590BC
Settler built and start Barracks. Settler moves toward river site.
S warrior discovers St. Pet is on hill S of cows, just north of Moscow.
I have to go to a meeting this evening. You have about 3 hours before I am back.
N warrior moves to protect settler.

8. 2560BC
Learn Writing, start Mining.
Hinduism founded in a distant land.
Worker pre-builds road on second cow.

9. 2530BC
Memphis founded. Worker starts pasture on horses. Worker started in Memphis. Open borders with Cathy. Move S warrior to explore her lands.

10. 2500BC
Nothing of interest.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC2500_01.Civ4SavedGame

@Phabuck - I would suggest private messaging AlanH and see what he says.

Or post in the maintenance thread. I'm not sure what he will want you/us to do, best is to ask.

I guess I am up to bat. Another 24-48 hour discussion period should be in order. I won't be able to play for 48 hours from this post; but I will play immeditaly once I return from my trip.
Paulk

I really don't like building a worker in Memphis, instead of growing to size 3 first. At size 3 we could build the worker in just 7 turns! I'd much prefer to be building a Granary (which will be quite useful when we get Slavery).

I agree, I will change to a Granary immediately. And will contunue to research mining and then to BW. Build barracks in THebes. Have the worker finish the horse pasture then finish the cow pasture. I'll move the north warrior to keep it so there is as little fog in the north. Finally move the South Warrior through Cathys Land and explore. Sounds good or anything that I should change?

Wow way to participate in disscusion everyone.

I agree, I will change to a Granary immediately. And will contunue to research mining and then to BW. Build barracks in THebes. Have the worker finish the horse pasture then finish the cow pasture. I'll move the north warrior to keep it so there is as little fog in the north. Finally move the South Warrior through Cathys Land and explore. Sounds good or anything that I should change?

Don't forget we need a road for the horses. Also, I think we should consider Masonry before Bronze Working, so we can add a quarry on the stone and produce War Chariots more quickly. I haven't timed it out, but I think this would come at about the right time for our worker to build the quarry after the cows (and that if we do BW first, the quarry will be significantly delayed). Of course, BW is useful for chopping and rushing, plus spotting Catherine's bronze (I sure hope it's not the mine right next to her capital), so we could go either way.

I will also build the road after the horse pasture, of course. For technologies I feel like BW would be more useful. We would be able to start pop rushing, forest chopping, find where Cathy and our copper is. And since we aren't going for any early wonders (as it stands), masonry isn't that useful we only have it so we can work the stone and thats it. BTW I don't find walls all that practical as we will be offensive. We are spirtual so we can change civics right away.

(I sure hope it's not the mine right next to her capital), so we could go either way.
I believe she had that mined before she had slavery, so it was probably mined for production.

Wow way to participate in disscusion everyone.
Weekends are traditionally slow - people off doing other stuff, I think.

BTW - I'm happy with the strategy as you & david have suggested.

Alright then ill play my turn tonight.

For technologies I feel like BW would be more useful. We would be able to start pop rushing, forest chopping, find where Cathy and our copper is.

True, but it's also more expensive. Every turn earlier that we get Masonry is one turn sooner we can build the quarry, which is then +2 hammers/turn. If we accelerate Masonry by 18 turns, that's 36 hammers, which is 1 extra WC. Against that, chopping sooner doesn't really get us more hammers than chopping later, and it's not clear how soon we're going to have enough pop that we actually want to rush with them.

But I can see it either way, I have no problem with your preference.

I believe she had that mined before she had slavery, so it was probably mined for production.

Yes, certainly. But the evil map designer who edited the map could easily have put bronze there, knowing she would be likely to mine it right at the start.

once the barracks is done what should be made in THebes? A worker or should I start producing WCs or another Settler?

once the barracks is done what should be made in THebes? A worker or should I start producing WCs or another Settler?

Start making WCs, I think. Will the Barracks be done in your 10 turns?

Mephis switches to granary. North Warrior (NWar) heals. South Warrior (SWar) moves southeast. Worker making horse pasture, still.

2. 2440BC

SWar continues SE.

3. 2410BC
SWar moves SE. Move NWar south. Heading for the desert hill west of Thebes.

4. 2380BC
SWar moves SW. Thebes grows to 3 pop. Start working stone. Barracks done in 6 turns.

5. 2350BC
Horse pasture done start road. Mining Discovered. Start Bronze Working. Barbarian Warrior spotted West of Thebes. SWar moves SE.

6. 2320BC
SWar moves SE. Barb goes back into fog.

7. 2290BC
SWar moves SE onto hill. Memphis culture expands. Road complete horses connected.

8. 2260BC
Barb contunues moving around west of Thebes not very aggresive. Worker moves to finish cow pasture. NWar continues to move towards desert hill. SWar moves east onto sugar.

9. 2230BC
SWar moves SE to forest.

10. 2200BC
Move NWar onto desert hill. Fish spotted. (Good food city location can reach clams and fish.) Thebes completes Barracks start on WCs. Move SWar onto a hill I can see some trees.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC2200_01.Civ4SavedGame here is the save file.

Got it. I will probably play on Monday. Why is the worker not doing anything?

It's pretty clear we are alone with Catherine on this continent. Of course there may be others reachable before Astronomy, we haven't ruled that out yet. Good news is there's lots of room, if we kill her we'll be able to grow like crazy.

I am inclined to work floodplains instead of stone, to grow our capital faster. Food is as good as hammers, because we'll have Slavery soon.

I'm back in town, and will get caught up on the game tomorrow (It's a bit after midnight right now, in Southern California).

I had a couple PM's to take care of when I got in. Phabuk was on vacation when the teams were set up and play started, which is the reason for Phabuk's delayed response. I'd prefer not to exclude anybody from participating who signed up and wants to play, so I've asked AlanH to add Phabuk back to the roster, assuming Phabuk is still interested, which I'm inferring is true. If so, we haven't quite completed a round for everyone, so I'd place him after DaviddesJ.

I'd prefer not to exclude anybody from participating who signed up and wants to play, so I've asked AlanH to add Phabuk back to the roster, assuming Phabuk is still interested, which I'm inferring is true.

Or he can fill in on another team, if there's someone with fewer players than us? I don't have a strong stake either way; there's such a thing as too many people, though.

Hi!
Glad to be back in the team!

I've read the thread to be informed of what have been done and it seems also clear for me that we must rush over the russian with our war charriots.

It is also a good idea to farm the flood plains in order to grow and have a better production.

Perhaps it could be interesting to found a city in a short future just at the north of St petersbourg where there is a barb. It could be a good support for the invasion...


A technical question:
I will play just after david, if i well understood ?

Hi!
A technical question:
I will play just after david, if i well understood ?
Sounds like it! Good to have you here. :)

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am leaving for a conference this afternoon and will not be back home until late Thursday PM.

I played a few turns and finished the cow pasture and I'm wondering what the worker should do next. I see three reasonable choices:

1. Cottage on floodplains.
2. Mine on stone hill.
3. Mine on grassland hill.

A cottage is worth most in the long run, but it doesn't help us build war chariots faster. The mine on the stone hill gives us the best production in the short run, but it's "wasted" work in that we'll eventually have to replace it with a quarry in order to get access to the stone resource (even though the mine and the quarry give us the same production from the tile). The mine on the grassland hill takes the longest to move to (3 turns from current location) but it will be useful in the long run, plus, who knows, we might discover bronze (or another resource!) on the tile.

I think my choice is the mine on the stone hill, but, I'll wait until tomorrow morning to see if anyone has any other thoughts.

Since we do not need stone for a very long time, I think that mine on the stone is a good choise for now.

Since we do not need stone for a very long time, I think that mine on the stone is a good choise for now.

Assuming we aren't going to try for Pyramids, we'll probably want Stone for the Great Lighthouse and/or Hanging Gardens, which aren't too far off, potentially. I don't have enough experience to know when these are likely to be built by the AIs, on Monarch. Anyone?

It's also not inconceivable that we could try for the Pyramids still, although pumping out enough WCs may make that too slow. Even if we don't expect to win the race for the Pyramids, it may be a very good idea to start building it (with stone hooked up) so that we convert our partial progress to gold which will speed our research quite a bit.

Getting 1f 3h from the grassland hill isn't much worse than 5h from the stone hill.

I'm just putting forth the arguments on both sides. As you can see, I often have a hard time making up my mind.

I do not really see the pyramids as such important wonder. I think that the greatest benefit from it is the early 2gpp that goes into engineering.
If we want to consider WC rush there is no point in trying to get a wonder!
If we eliminate Russia - that a different story

The hanging gardens are usually built quite late by the AI (mainly due to the aqueduct pre-req) and we may get it later on.

I usually prefer food over hammers, but I think that in the current configuration 5h is better than 1f3h due to all the FP around.

I think the payback on the hammers by mining the stone will be worth it. We'll delay a cottage by a few turns (and the snowballing benefits of that), but we'll get catherine's land faster.

Since we're going for a WC rush of Catherine, I would do the actions that hasten that the most; sounds like more Hammers, so I would suggest mining the Stone Hill

How many WC's before we start the attack?

OK, I'm at 1930 BC, two more questions before I finish up:

1. Memphis just grew to size 3. Do we want worker (7 turns) or settler (11 turns) next? If we build a worker it will probably be for chopping, we have to decide how we feel about chopping now vs. waiting for Mathematics. But chopping would help accelerate our WC buildup, so that seems consistent with our overall strategy. Settler would also be useful and could go to the fish/clams spot, but that doesn't help us attack faster.

2. Bronze Working is complete. No copper in our area; two sources in the south, but Catherine doesn't have either hooked up yet. The northern source will be easy for us to pillage in our initial attack. What to research next? The original idea was Alphabet, trade techs with Catherine before we attack. Another reasonable idea is Mathematics, for better chopping, which may help us get out an extra couple of WCs, and also help develop Catherine's cities post-war. At some point we may want to divert for Fishing, but that's so quick we can just switch to it a few turns before we need it, or Masonry, but no point in that until we need it, since I'm already mining the stone hill.

Actually, I thought about this some more, and I propose building at least a couple of WCs in Memphis, before we do anything else. They won't have XP from barracks, but this is the fastest way to rush Catherine before she gets spearmen. We can also use Slavery efficiently in Memphis, although, we're going to run into happiness problems soon. When happiness becomes an insuperable problem, we can revert to building worker or settler. Ideally, what we would like to do is fill up our food basket and then rush a worker or settler. Thoughts?

I can't look at the game - but how does happiness compre to health (for the slavery strategy?)

One of the biggest "problems" I have in my play-style is that I try to achieve too much at once, rather than going for a single goal. I see this happening if we try to grab another settler now rather than later - the settler will also stunt growth for 11 turns - are we at our pop limit? If we are going for a settler, we could pop-rush it, but overall, I'm more in-favour of going for war chariots.

How long would it take to get barracks? If we go for a couple of war chariots now, what is the plan? Declare on her with only a couple and ensure that she doesn't hook-up copper? That is dangerous, as it will mean she will focus on archers - in a city on a hill with 40% defence! :eek: Maybe we could sit them on the edge of the territory, and attack the worker if (when) she goes to hook it up?

As for research - if we have the tech we need for our initial strategy, perhaps the next techs should be towards the long-term strategy - which will probably be getting off this continent! That said - mathematics has uses for both - and gets us closer to construction if we need catapults.

Currently our cities are limited by happiness at least as much as by health, and we can improve health (by connecting rice) more easily than happiness. So Slavery is going to be of limited (but significant) value, as we'll eventually limit ourselves by reducing happiness more than we gain by converting food to shields.

I think we can attack with 8 or so WCs in the not too distant future, especially if we start building them in both cities. We're generating nearly 20 hammers/turn, plus some hammers from Slavery, plus some potential hammers from chopping.

If we're looking to get 3-4 WCs out of Memphis, at 37 each, it makes way more sense to just start building them than to try to build a barracks at this point. It's got to be better to have 4+ inexperienced WCs, than 1-2 experienced ones.

I'm pretty much decided on building a WC in Memphis, my question still is Mathematics or Alphabet. Honestly, I think we're probably going to want to attack Catherine before we get either (attack about 20 turns from now, vs. 25 turns to Mathematics or 30 turns to Alphabet). We may consider letting Catherine live with one city for a while in exchange for some techs, which would be an argument for Alphabet. On the other hand, we may want to start chopping to improve all of our new cities, which would be an argument for Mathematics.

OK, I couldn't decide between Alphabet and Mathematics, so I decided to punt and research Fishing first. This will be useful when we go for the clams and fish, and we can defer the Alphabet/Mathematics decision for a few turns.

2170 BC: not much

2140 BC: not much

2110 BC: Cow pasture finished, spot barb warrior in far south (evaded)

2080 BC: Thebes grows to size 4

2050 BC: Catherine has 2 archers in capital, 1 more nearby

2020 BC: start mining stone hill

1990 BC: not much

1960 BC: complete 1st War Chariot (promote to Combat 1)

1930 BC: discover Bronze Working, adopt Slavery, someone founds Judaism, Huayna Capac adopts Slavery, Memphis builds granary, Memphis grows to size 3, pop rush 2nd War Chariot in Thebes, start researching Fishing

1900 BC: build 2nd War Chariot (promote to Combat 1), 1st War Chariot kills barb warrior (level up), warrior in south spies new continent!!

Here's the save: http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm1/Peanut_SG001_BC1900_01.Civ4SavedGame

Screenshot:
127707

Here's my ideas of what to do next. Thebes should keep building WCs, in 14 turns when the unhappiness goes away it can pop rush again. Memphis should keep building WCs, when it grows to size 4 it can pop rush. The northern warrior needs to return to garrison Memphis (I sent it north just to see if there was anything I could spot from the silver tile). The southern warrior will finish exploring in the south (there's a black spot where I didn't want to fight the barb warrior so I ran away---leave this for a WC when it gets down there) and then spy on Catherine so we know how fast she's building up, and/or hang out on the tip of the peninsula hoping to spot another civ's unit on the other continent. The WCs will scout and go barb hunting for promotions---we should try to save the barbs for our WCs that are at 4XP. The worker will finish the mine, and then probably should chop one forest near Thebes (which doesn't cost us any health), then start cottaging.

My reckoning is that we should be ready to attack in 20-25 turns.

Spotting the new land is ideal for our attack-Catherine strategy; we can, hopefully, grab this whole continent for ourselves, and still have someone to trade with before Astronomy.

Interesting tidbit: we seem to have jumped to the highest Firaxis score and highest Power rating of any team, as of 1900 BC. I guess no one is building WCs as aggressively as we are. I like being different. :)

I am unable to look at the save until late tonight, can someone post some pictures to show the current situation?

Re: Alpha vs. Math - I think that we will try to eliminate Russia instead of giving her peace for techs, however I am not too keen on chopping, we will want some health bonuses with all those FP. another point toward alpha is that the AI prioritize Math and is usually late for alpha.

I added a screenshot to #116.

If we're going to have people to trade with (as seems likely), then I'm for Alphabet.

I do like chopping for Granaries, which can then be used for efficient pop rushing.

I don't think health is going to be much of an issue: we have plenty of health resources (including fish and clams) and few luxuries, so happiness is much more likely to constrain us, for quite some time. Probably we can win the game before health ever becomes a real constraint. Of course, there may be certain cities that are most impacted by deserts, that we won't want to chop too much around, but that still leaves many alternatives.

I think we consider building a settler out of Memphis to grab the calm/fish/7FP desert site east of the capital (4E 1S).
This is prime location for whipping and later on a GP farm or commerce city.

I am not sure we should do it right now, but this location should be prioritized soon.

I agree with a settler out of Memphis as soon as we have "enough" WCs. I just think we need to build a few WCs there first, because the sooner we rush Catherine, the easier it's going to be. (Hopefully, we'll capture a couple of workers, so we won't have to build as many of those.) Also, the fish/clam site is going to grow very fast, so it's not so essential to get it up and running right away---in particular, until we have some workers to prepare the tiles, it's not going to generate that much for the rest of our empire.

Looks good. Warrior needs to get back to Memphis before it grows - they're unhappy.

Regarding war chariots - perhaps the non-promoted ones should try a bit of barb farming. For promotions, I think we should follow the combat line, not the flanking one. Would be nice to grab a medic promotion - maybe the one the just beat the barb? And protect that chariot. We should keep an eye on the russians hooking-up copper. I'd image that they will try to get a third city in the south, and then link them & hook-up copper. Maybe we should watch the copper in the north, and at the first sign of mining it - attack and nab the worker (they probably won't defend the workers this early in the game).

Maybe we should also position the warrior in the south near the other copper, to keep an eye on it - and pillage it (if required) once the war starts.

ok I've got the save.
I will play tonight or tommorrow night if you want to have more discussion. Let me know!

- I agree to built a settler in memphis after have built enough WC but the point is : How much ?
I would say we could wait for 9 rounds in order to build 3WCs in memphis and 4WCs in thebes. Then we 'll have 9 WCs, thebes still building WCs and memphis up to 4 peoples, ready to build a settler.

- concerning research: after fishing we should go to mathematics in order to chop the forest near thebes and build more WCs and it leads us to catapult.

- I will bring back the north warrior to memphis as we have no more unknown land to explore

- il will use the 2WCs to spy the russian country, no ?

If you agree with that I play tonight...

I posted just after ainwood...

I agree to look at the copper and attack at the first sign of mining!

sound like a good plan.
Can we spare the worker to build a road toward Russia? it will speed up the reenforcement.

yes we could begin the road on the west tile near thebes, just after mining the stone