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

Checking in...

I guess with domination comes diplomatic pretty much automatically... if we try to build the UN, I'm sure we won't be among the first to finish.

I suppose first things first. We simply can't go running about with the name "New Team 5"... so, what shall we call ourselves?

Based on what I can see in the screenshot, moving 1S will get us the cow on the first expansion. Still a good mix of tiles, should give us a pretty versatile capitol. Thoughts?

New Team #5
BrianS, Dolphan, Doom Train, Goodenuf, Groin_Apologist, gskur, Merum, Perugia

There should be a sticky topic that contains information who belongs to which team.

Our team name should be something different. "CIV 101" is my opinion its like university course.

and for the game, i think we should focus on domination if there is 1 continent. Otherwise it will be logical to go for diplomatic.

Hopefully naming the team will be easier than naming a band (it's a running joke with a band I've been in for years). A couple thoughts for a team name playing off the 5 in Team 5: Fifth Circle; Fifth Regiment; Fifth Wing; Fifth Column.

We also need to have a team captain. This is my first SGOTM, and I think it would be good to have someone who has done a SGOTM before help with that. Have any of our team members done this?

Hopefully naming the team will be easier than naming a band (it's a running joke with a band I've been in for years). A couple thoughts for a team name playing off the 5 in Team 5: Fifth Circle; Fifth Regiment; Fifth Wing; Fifth Column.

We also need to have a team captain. This is my first SGOTM, and I think it would be good to have someone who has done a SGOTM before help with that. Have any of our team members done this?

Agreed. Who has done SGs before?

Well, this is me checking in. Strategy thoughts - they've been quite clever with this. The main risk with a domination strategy is the always peace with an unknown civ. Sods law says they're on the other side of the map and have a nice start. If they do well, we're faced with a possible situation where we can't get domination, and this is especially likely on a higher difficulty level like monarch. If we go all out for domination and that happens we could end up having to use diplomatic anyway - in which case we'd get it slower than teams who went straight for diplomatic.

I'm guessing since we know Huayna Capac it's reasonably likely he'll be nearby. If he is we might as well see if we can pull off a worker steal, seeing as we're locked into war. It'll be in our interests to wipe him out as soon as we can, whichever victory we're going for - which I'm guessing is why they chose the Civ with the earliest UU for this role!

Merum - I would suggest 1SW rather than 1S for the capitol. We still get the cows, but settle on the plains hill for the extra hammer and defence.

According to the members list, gskur doesn't exist? Is it an abbreviation? Perugia is our team co-ordinator to start with, although he hasn't checked in yet.

Having a look at the sign-up thread, do we all normally play on prince or below? We could struggle to survive, let alone win.

Fifth Element?

I've played in one abortive SG, where a bunch of the players bailed and then it kind of petered out from there. I understand the concepts and mechanics, though.

Personally, I think of myself as a "high prince" player... that is, I win greater than 90% of my prince games, yet I lose pretty much consistently on monarch. I agree if we don't have a true monarch player we're going to struggle a bit, but I suppose if we put our heads together and play as a team, we'll at least learn a trick or two.

As far as weaknesses, I tend to lean too far towards building, and I'm often unwilling to go to war with "short stacks", which can lead to some paralysis by analysis for me. I'm getting over this, however, by playing predominantly with a goal of early conquest or domination. I also hate micromanaging, and quickly grow bored with it.

@Dolphan yes, after looking some more, 1SW might be the better choice, and give us a chance to squeeze another small city in on the coast, if we find it's worthwhile to do so. The defense from the hill is a nice plus, too.

I agree that we should definitely try to toast Huayna as early as possible. Do unto others, then split. We don't need a locked war dragging at our necks for the entire game.

Looking forward to playing with you guys!

There should be a sticky topic that contains information who belongs to which team.
Done. I intended to do it, but got sidetracked. Good call :thumbsup:

Fifth Element works for me.

I'm a noble player. However, I believe that collectively we will play at a higher level than we play individually. Also, I have a horrible tendency to rush my turns when playing single. I've been trying to put on the brakes and am hoping this exercise will reinforce that.

Agree on SW to the plains hill.

I also am looking forward to this game. This is gonna be fun!

One other thing. Do most people run a mod to help keep track of what's happened in their turns? Is this what the HOF mod is all about?

Not quite sure what mods are allowed... I'm not sure if we can even use one, since we'll be opening a save. Perhaps our esteemed leader can enlighten us.

If any, I suspect it would turn out to be the HOF mod, but like I said, I don't know exactly how that works when opening a save.

Hm… This is gskur checking in. Well, I do exist! There is also my sign-up post somewhere there…

I’ve never played teams before, but will do my best.

About the square for our capital… I tend to save the 2-hammer hills for production use. Why would we be that desperate for an extra hammer to start with? Besides, going SW will, from what can be seen thus far, make the cows the highest production square. This is not what I would like to have in our capital. On the other hand, moving S will get us 2(!) plain hills and the cows. However, I would prefer to settle SE: this is both high hammer production (4 hills) AND high food/commerce yield location. The only detriment with both S and SE is higher that average pollution due to the abandance of the flood plains in the city area, which usually is not such a big problem, but who knows how it will turn out here. Also, I am not a “chopper” and, with the v1.61 patch, wood chopping is not as effective initially. So this might not be an extra argument for SW, I would think.

To summarize:
1. SW gives an extra starting hammer but lower overall resources in the capital in the long run, esp. hammers.
2. S E gives more of everything, but one-hammer-slower initial development.
3. S is a middle ground between 1 and 2.

Are there any techs we will have at the start? This could bare on the choice of location.

I have no doubt we will have more then enough opportunities to settle a city or two on the coast later on.

I think that Huayna Capac will need to be eliminated ASAP if he is close to us. I wonder what is the discontent level for “locked in war” situations—I never played this one. Usually, prolonged wars create lots of unhappy faces. If this is not the case here, and if Incas are not our immediate neighbor, then we might be able to avoid facing the task of taking him out, or at the very least will manage to postpone it (we might want to avoid active participation in the war)—being at war and waging war are two different things altogether.

What are these “mods” some are talking about? I am totally ignorant here. So, what are mods?

Fifth Element sounds a bit corny (considering the movie with this title), but will do just fine. Also, there are eight of us in the team, so we could be, say, The Fifth Eight, or The Fifth’s Eight (both a mouthfull and a bit cryptic). Maybe just “The 5th” is all we need? Then there are “Random 8” and “5th Chance” and “Fifth Corner” (why, it reminds me of Pooh Corner!)

Let's have a fun game! (and win it too!)

Now I realize why I made that comment about The Pooh Bear: it was a freudian thing, for I have made a funny spelling error. That phrase should read

"Are there any techs we will have at the start? This could bear on the choice of location."

Now, I just realized I could have just edited the post above.

Oh well... Live and learn!

The starting save will have Locked Assets to dissuade players from using game breaking modifications. Unfortunately this will mean it will also not allow the use of fair mods - those that don't disclose additional game information.

We are looking at using the HOF mod in future, but it is not ready for prime time in the GOTM series of competitions yet, so it will not be included for this game. However, we do hope to provide you with a facility to dump the log information when you upload your end-of-turn-set files.

Maybe just “The 5th” is all we need?

"The 5th" suits me.

7 Players checked in as of 11 May, I have pm'd Goodenuf.

BrianS
Dolphan
Doom Train
Groin_Apologist
gskur
Merum
Perugia

Fifth Element is fine by me besides I like corny and many of the old Civ3 SGOTM team names were corny. Relying on having eight team members is not good as over the course of several SGOTMs some may drop out some may join if the team is fun.

SUMMARY: Fifth Element was proposed by Merum, seconded by BrianS + OK for 2 others. No other suggestion so far has even been seconded it looks like our team name will be Fifth Element unless your poststhere is .

I have completed one SG so I guess that's why Alan made me the coordinator.

Agree with @Dolphan #5 about always peace with an unknown civ on a remote continent could scupper an early domination victory especially as this is a hand-built map. We should factor this in to early exploration. We could get a Great Engineer factory (Stonehenge, Pyramids) up and running to mitigate against this. Were Eqypt aren't we so maybe were supposed to build the Pyramids to win!

I agree with the sentiments that we should target Huayna Capac from the start. Let's steal his worker then use 3-Horse Chariots and other units to conquer rather than settlers to found [edit].

If you do not mind I will comment on the settle spot later. Please keep your thoughts coming in. Please refer to others ideas by post number

Do not be afraid to use the edit function to expand on on a strategy. Once a strategy is agreed instead of repeating it on endless posts its OK to edit the original post at least until a major strategy change is required.

Looks like we won't be using any turn logger so its back to standard SG practice. Please try to use a short narrative style avoid being banal, only list really interesting stuff/decisions and please use general movement descriptors eg 3w5sw plus screenies to show the outcome of scouting/encounters not boringly describing every turn move.

...then use 3-Horse Chariots in place of settlers

I am not familiar with this. Could you explain, please.

I am not familiar with this. Could you explain, please.


I think he just means using units to conquer rather than settlers to found.

On the site for the capital (Post 12) - take a look at the borders of the hidden tiles. 2SW of the settler and 1W of the cows are both plains hills. The desert hill to the E is less valuable, and 1SE takes us away from the forests, whereas SW gives us 3 adjacent to the capital for chopping. Plus its monarch and we're expecting an early war, so the defence bonus is worth considering - as is the health penalty from all those floodplains, as health limits are going to kick in pretty quickly. Lastly, as I've learnt to my cost in some of the GOTMs, on higher levels the AI expands fast. Moving away from the coast makes for a better land grab. I still say 1SW.

I'm fine with '5th Element'. As for a captain, Perugia is our team co-ordinator and knows what he's talking about, so he seems to fit the bill.

Oh, and we'd better consider our leader. Hatsheput is spiritual and creative. Spiritual is a pretty weak trait IMO, but I guess it can be useful switching easily to war mode (flick to vassalage and theocracy for powered up units) and back again. Creative isn't great either, but it means we don't need cultural buildings for border expansion in the early game - we can build war chariots rather than obelisks or stonehenge.

Perugia (Post 16) - the great engineer factory would require us beating the AI to stonehenge and the pyramids. Stonehenge we could chop if we needed to, but is that the best use of our forests? And how likely are we to get the Pyramids? These are serious questions, rather than me dismissing the idea - I don't know monarch level well enough to measure our chances.

Re: Dolphan, #18,19
1. I do not think we’ll have enough forest to effectively chop even Stonehenge. If Incas are nearby, chopping military units would be the thing, right?
2. I agree with this most powerful point on AI’s expansion habits. This might be one of our biggest concerns in choosong a strategy for the beginning of the game. Whatever strategy alows us to settle the second (and the third) city to stake out a good chunck of land ASAP with a good overall hammer capacity for building units—that would be it. That’s why an extra early hammer from the SW location could be very helpful. Also, +2 culture from the Spiritual leader is quite fitting for early expansion and it helps to assimilate the captured cities.
3. I do not know about Monarch level and health penalty either vs., say, Lord or Prince. Anybody?

Hi everyone-

Glad to see we are up and running. Since I am more of a Noble/Prince player, I will no doubt need some direction (or redirection) from the more experienced people.
I have no major objections to "Fifth Element", although I thought the special effects in the Bruce Willis movie (especially with regard to the 'bad guy' aliens) were pretty lame.
With regard to the starting location, this may be a newbie comment - but can we switch the cursor onto the settler and then see if we are already standing on one of those ubiquitous blue circles? It might be an indicator that we are in range of other resources already?

I've been playing some games as Egypt on Monarch, various mapstyles, to get a feel for what we'll be going through. I don't know if anybody else has, but it's a fast pace, for sure.

@Groin - We can't highlight the settler until we get the save, which will be on the 12th. I suppose we should take some time after it's available to do just that, and discuss what we're going to do?

If we want to go pyramids, we might consider skipping stonehenge altogether. Don't want our engineer production cheesed up by prophets, and we can use those forests on the pyramids instead. I'm not really that good at creating GP farms, so I'll defer to somebody else on that. I'm not sure we're going to have a lot of opportunity to build much except military early on anyway.

Re: groin_apologist #21

Dunno about everyone else, but I find the computer tends to put those blue circles in stupid places a lot of the time.

Re: Merum #22

Have you tried to get the pyramids in any of your practice games? I'm worried about wasting the chops if we miss it - would three adjacent forests be enough to overcome the AI lead?

I think we have to be very careful about relations since diplo may turn out to be the best option. My instinct is to avoid going for a religion and try to pick one up that gives us a block of friends (lots of open borders) - then go for whoever hasn't got it to whittle down the playing field and get those big mutual military struggle bonuses.

Re: Merum #22

Agree about skipping Stonehenge. With Creative trait, we get the quick early city expansion making Stonehenge less useful. If we can get Pyramids, that would be great. I'll try it in a practice game tonight. I have tried a couple Monarch practice games and agree about the fast pace. It's shocking how early you see archer/axes from the AI.

Game starts tomorrow. Are we going with 48 hours to get, 24 hours to play? Or is it the other way around, I can never remember? And is the first player going to do 20, 10 each after that? I assume Perugia will go first.

1. Ask to be skipped, or play your turns on time. Please don't just go missing in action.
2. Do not automate workers without first discussing with the team.
3a. Do not use city governors without first discussing with the team.
3b. If you change production in a city make sure you inform the team and leave any part-completed items on the build queue.
4. Do not leave units on goto orders that extend beyond your set of turns. If for some reason this happens, then be sure to inform your team as to what the unit(s) is/are going.
5. Finish all your turns and upload the game saved at the END of the last turn.
6. @Dolphan 25 When it is your turn to play, it is normal to pick the game up within 24 hours of the new save being made available, and to post a new save within 48 hours of that (so 72 hours in total). If you cannot meet the deadline then your team captain may grant you an extension or skip you at his discretion.
7. Only post a "got it" message once you have downloaded the save and actually opened it in the game. It is not unusual for something to happen that prevents the save being opened.
8. Post a turnlog which describes your set of turns. Provide enough information, not only on what you did, but what your intent was for the next few turns. "Where is that galley going?" and "Oops that palace build was actually a pre-build" are not uncommon comments in the threads.
9. Respect your team mates, and demand their respect. Take care of your writing style, accept that people whose first language is not English will use English in a different way than you are used to. Disagree by all means, but don't make it personal, and don't take it personally.
10. SG's are team games. Be a good team member. Post your ideas, argue your corner and encourage and praise your team mates. Don't be afraid to post in your game thread. That is what it's for.
11. The following Game Options are preferred except Wait at End of Turn which is mandatory.
126455
12. Have fun.

The above is based on the guidance from C-IV SGOTM Reference Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=168439) and copied here so it can be amended to our own needs.
As this is Civ4 I have added new rule 3b so hammers don't get hidden.

Definition of Number of turns to Play
1. 10 turns during wartime
2. For every 2 turns at peace you can play 1 optional turn up to a maximum of 15 turns
3. If HC is the only leader we are at war with, you can treat any turn where no act of war (fighting, pillaging, capturing workers etc) occurs as a turn of peace.
4. As normal SG convention it is 'good form' to stop early if a key decision coincides with turns 9-15 or you feel your are getting out of your depth but the choice is yours.

Preferred Game Options added 11May06

Many appologies for suggesting we build Stonehenge. We definitely do not heed it for border expansion with the Creative trait. I meant to write the Hanging Gardens should we want to persue a Great Engineer strat but we are very unlikely to snag both The HG and pyramids.

The Spiritual trait is no good to us unless we are revolting. To do this we have to have Civic options so the Pyramids would be really good to have to make the most of our spiritual trait and have a head start on the UN if we need it.

Someone asked what our starting techs are, the answer is Agriculture and The Wheel. The good news is they are amongst the highest cost baseline techs. So we can immediately do something useful, if we only had a worker.

What about our initial research path folks?

Fishing to get a bigger discount on Pottery or direct to Pottery for cottage spam or AH to find the horsies. We can probably delay pottery initially due to all the flood plains and monarchy limits our capital will soon reach its limits so we dont need a granary until our second city.
I do not know about Monarch level and health penalty either vs., say, Lord or Prince. Anybody?It's the same as Prince, one worse than Warlord.

Checking out this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158130#postcount=1), I found that the difficulty level bonuses for Warlord, Noble, Prince, & Monarch are:
Health 3, 3, 2, 2
Happy 5, 5, 4, 4

Hi guys, ... just checking in on my lunch break :)

Now... let me catch up on the rest of the discussions.

Thx!

edit:
OK... finally caught up :)

First SGOTM for me, but played the regular GOTMs in Civ4 only. I'm a strong Noble, weaker Prince player; usually more of a builder than a warmonger, so this should be a nice change.

1. Agree with SW on plain hills start. Food should not be a problem here given all those flood plains. Health may be another story (or is flood plains still a health issue in Civ4 like it was in Civ3?).

2. Research... did we want to attempt an Oracle slingshot? Given Monarch level, we may be faced with getting CoL at best... perhaps Monarchy or even Alphabet with an Oracle, plus it may imply a more direct route to Priesthood (i.e. get BW first then go for Priesthood).

3. Would agree that Stonehenge isn't necessary given our traits. Would be good to get Pyramids, though.

4. We should probably go for domination if possible. However the earlier discussion re: locked in peace may mess us up if they get off to a good start. Can we pay off other civs to attack them ?? ;)

5. Given that we're locked in a war... military is important... so Archery, BW, IW, Horseback will be important. Perhaps this would preclude Oracle slingshot?

That's it for now. Looking forward to this :)
Thats it for now.

Hi guys, ... just checking in on my lunch break :)

Now... let me catch up on the rest of the discussions.

Thx!Welcome aboard. No real decisions have yet been made except the Team name. Hope thats OK by you.

RE: The starting tile discussion posts #2 through #20.....

Unless the save reveals something unexpected I agree that we should settle 1SW. Settling S or SE will leave us with too much food and hammer poor. With Monarch on top of all those FPs we will be in unhealthy trouble. S or SE might have been OK for a mid-game commerce city with lots of health resources conected but for an exponential start we need maximum hammers. 1SW gives just about enough floodplains to support all the mined hills and with 3 forests we get some extra hammers before we have mines. BTW I reckon there's a forest/hill poking out of the fog 1SW1W. After the second expansion the forests to the N at distance 3 can also be chopped without penalty.

I also agree with the sentiments about early war and the need for units. Don't forget we are in a locked war with the Inca and may need the extra hill defence.

Huayna Capac
Aggressive, Financial
Agriculture, Mysticism
Que-Cha (+25% city defense, +100% vs archery + Melee unit so start with combat I)

Yikes!, How about building an early barracks! Let's no bother about learning the dead-end tech Archery until we know where Huayna is. We should send our initial warrior and more 'scouts' to find out if Huayna is nearby. First build will probably be a second warrior.

@gskur We are losing one 'potential' hammer but it would cost us 2 food every turn to work the mined plains hill whereas the extra city hammer requires no food.

Another question...

If we are locked in Peace, does that also imply a Defensive Pact (i.e. we go to war to support them and vice versa)?

I suppose if we get in a situation where we can't win domination because our 'friends' are too big... as long as we're bigger we can still win by diplomacy since our vote will be larger. I would think, though that a diplomatic victory will be waaay too late to actually win this thing. Me thinks that some of these expert teams will likely win with some insane time like 500AD...

Another thought would be (since we are creative/spiritual), that we try to win culturally by acquiring religions and wonders, and just building enough defense to keep the incas out.

Finally, perhaps our best scout would be the UU war-chariot. Good movement, stronger than a regular chariot, and we only need horses for it. It can take care of those pesky Incans if we come across them right away. That would raise the need for Animal Husbandry right to the top.

Ultimately, I think our strategy heavily depends on where our friends and especially our enemies are. If the Incas are close by, we've gotta fight. If they're not, then we can probably do some building first.

Just some random thoughts to stir around.

One last thing re: schedule.

I am pretty open most evenings to play, but next weekend (May 19-22) is a long weekend in Canada, and I am away. If my turn comes up then... consider me as 'skipped'. Thx!

by Goodenuf 28
4. We should probably go for domination if possible.
I think it sounds right, so far. “Locked in peace” means we cannot declare was on them and they on us, that’s all. On the other hand, it’s just ONE unknown civilization, one out of 4 unknown, is it? It might make little difference to what general strategy we pursue, I think.

by Perugia 29
@gskur We are losing one 'potential' hammer but it would cost us 2 food every turn to work the mined plains hill whereas the extra city hammer requires no food.
I thought we would have 4H from the plain hill with the mine, so it’s the loss of 2H and the loss of 1G (and this is Research money!) as well. Also, the 3F from the floodplain will come loaded with gold pieces (when developed), which we will need desperately, one way or another. But I agree, of course, that the immediate +1H in the capital can outweigh the extras that would come later on. This +1H and the defensive bonus are very important if HC is nearby. But then, if this is what we assume our major consideration is, we (to be consistent in our strategy) need Archery ASAP or we will not be able to defend effectively. Having a few archers will postpone the inevitable attack and give us time enough to develop (hopefully). HC will attack with archers (Archery is an AI free tech!) if we have just warriors. Bronze of horses might not be there for us in the capital, and if they are close enough for us to settle the second city near them, it will take time to get these resources available for our military. But then again, I once got lucky finding myself settled right on top of Copper--but not this time, I bet.

I agree with skipping Stonehenge. Also, Pyramids require a massive qty of hammers, and TIME. I’d go after them only if we get lucky with the second and the third settling location so that we can lock our capital out of the development for a while. If Pyramids are not possible, what would be our strategy then? Do people build Pyramids often when payning at Monarch level?

@Perugia: thanks for the Health/Happy info (bottom of 27). Monarch is like Prince here, and I play Prince often, so I know now that the impact of the floodplains might be quite manageable till city size maybe 9-10+. Usually it is the happiness that is a universal limiting factor, so we will need Hereditary rule early, I guess.

by Perugia 27
Fishing to get a bigger discount on Pottery or direct to Pottery
Could you point me (and others, maybe), towards some posts or something describing these "discounts" and how they work. I will search, for sure, but would hate to miss a good source, if you know one. Thanks in advance.

re: #31
Could you point me (and others, maybe), towards some posts or something describing these "discounts" and how they work. I will search, for sure, but would hate to miss a good source, if you know one. Thanks in advance.

I wish I could find this as well. I did read somewhere that the more prerequisites you have for a tech, the cheaper it is. So for pottery, getting Fishing as well will discount pottery, say 20%. It would be good to find the actual info that state how this works.

re: Research. I would think Animal Husbandry would be researched first so we can see if there are horses nearby. If so, then we have our UU chariots, and we don't have to worry about getting Archery right away. If not, then research Archery for defense. Plus AH would get us access to the cows.

Yes, Goodenuf, researching AH is the #1 priority, agreed!

But could you please elaborate on why/how the chariots could replace achers for us? Arechers have the best defensive adjustments in the game, per hammer invested. I figure a single defending archer with a promotion in a walled city on a hill (we are settling in the 1SW, right?) can take on 3-4 swardsmen/axmen and maybe 5-6 Que-Chas even with their 100% agains archers and their promotions. Until catapults are available, it would be a pure suiside for HC to attack our capital if archers defend it. And archers are cheaper/faster to build as well. We could easily end up facing the same problem trying to take him out early. I am missing something here...

The start is now available (one team have actually played to 3400BC) so I'm going to leave work now and head home so I can post a "got it". I will also report anything I can glean before settling.

I'm sure I can find the to threads discussing research bonuses and will post a link later. I also think that no one actually gives the formula or figures but we do know that the bonuses come from optional techs. Let's see if we can work it out for ourselves in this game.....

Research will be AH and likely build order warrior, warrior, worker (once we reach size 2). Any odd hammers will go towards a barracks.

I will play 20 turns but will stop for consultation if any big decisions need to be made eg planning further research depending on whether any horses are to hand.

[edit]
The save loaded OK. BTW incase anyone wonders the sea near our warrior is salty (1F2C).

Does anyone know how you rename a unit in Civ4 as its not an "ABC" icon and there doesn't appear to be a keyboard shortcut listed in my references.

Perugia (up)
Merum (On deck)
Doom_Train
BrianS
Dolphan
gskur
Groin_Apologist
Goodenuf (skip on May 19-22)

So what will be our playing order?

@Perugia: Can you post a screen shot after a turn or 2? Very interested in seeing the lay of the land.

Does anyone know how you rename a unit in Civ4 as its not an "ABC" icon and there doesn't appear to be a keyboard shortcut listed in my references.
Select the unit, then click on its name in the bottom left frame.

@Goodenuf #30

I've been reading the spoilers put up by the top players in the last few hard GOTMs (3 and 4) and I think early aggression is very important, whether HC is near or not. If we can steal workers or take cities early on, we should - sitting back and building is a recipe for getting behind the AI.

@Goodenuf 28, mentioning the Oracle slingshot.

I think we'd have trouble beating the AI to that as well, we'd probably have to beeline for it, and I don't think that would be worth it , especially given the likelihood of an early war.

@General discussion of diplo vs. domination

This is guesswork, but here's my thinking - this is a handbuilt GOTM map. The only victories available are domination and diplomatic. Normally domination is always going to be faster, so I think we should take into serious consideration the possibility that our 'always peace' civ is a) miles away and b) has a very good start position. Say we trounce HC and two others and they take down the remaining two. To vote ourselves into a diplo victory from there we would need to be a reasonable bit bigger - and getting there could take time.

I say our 1st objective should be to set ourselves up and take down HC, assuming he's nearby. After that, we see what we know about the situation and decide from there.

re#33 archers vs chariots

For defense, no question the archers are the way to go in the early game; especially if we start on a hill. Given a single garrison upgrade puts them effectively at a strength of 7 or 8 while defending a city. I suppose the question is whether we go out on the attack right away and fight the battles on someone else's turf (hopefully HC's). For this, we need some offense, and this starts with the chariots (movement advantage, strength 5).

If it were my call, I would research AH first (for horses), then Mining/BW to see if we have any copper (and give us chopping, such as it is in 1.61). If we are blessed enough to have both, then we rock on. After BW is when I would look at Archery.

Normally I would get archery right away, but given we have a very early unique unit... I would take advantage as early as possible.

re#38

I concur re: Oracle slingshot. Its a roll of the dice on Monarch whether or not we get it. One advantage is that we are spiritual, and therefore have Mysticism already. On the other hand, chances are we would have to chop for it, so we needing Mining/BW as well... certainly turns it into a long shot.

re more random thoughts

I was thinking about the idea of a cultural victory... we certainly have the right traits for it. I suppose the biggest problem is that we are locked in a war, so we can't dedicate ourselves to the cultural path, and the goal isn't a high score, but quick victory. Culture is tough to win early. Diplomatic victory suffers the same fate. Conquest is out due to the locked in peace (unless someone else wipes them out). To me the only real solution is domination.

The other thought was space victory (or the fact that it is disabled). I wonder if the AI is sophisticated enough to realize this, and therefore not gun for the research to achieve this? It seems that some AI civs tend to develop for this (America, for example). How does the AI adjust to alternative victory conditions? Do they all now go for building military? That could spell a lot of extra resistance in any domination attempt on our part...

@Goodenuf #39

We have to win by diplomatic or domination - no cultural allowed, although it is enabled so technically the AI could get it or we could get it by accident, but in practice neither of those is likely.

@Perugia: Can you post a screen shot after a turn or 2? Very interested in seeing the lay of the land.
How about this.......
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element003.jpg

I am stopping now as the extra resources may impact our research path.

The rice & stone make AH look slightly less favourable but we are getting a 20% discount against it for knowing agriculture. We pay only 180 beakers for a tech worth 223. If we knew hunting then AH would only cost 135 beakers.

If we are serious about Archery then we should research Hunting now which will double the bonus which effectively gives us hunting for half-the cost. The overall research time before we get AH will not go out by more than a handful of turns.

I have added the schedule to post #34 and I am taking a 16hr time out......

How do you know about the discounts? Where would anybody go to look it up? I've just started a random game as Egypt and the thech tree shows 223--no discounts!--and a few turns in it is still the same. It's very puzzling!

Unless we (the team) all know how this happens, we can never be on the same footing with you in developing our strategies or in efficiency of decision making.

I've searched the forum and browsed through many posts with no success so far…

[added on 05-12-06]
to Perugia: I finally figured it out (mainly through experimenting and (remarkably!) examining closely the Tech Tree poster that accompanied the game CD. No one else seams to be bothered by this, so this note should rightfully end my one-sided panicky conversation.

Good luck playing the first 20 turns!

re: 41, research priorities

With the beaker costs laid out as presented, I would go for Hunting first.

Also. with Stone, Pyramids are looking better now. But since we are seemingly going for domination (or diplo) victory, would we what them? Does anybody know how Pyramids can help us here?

@ Perugia #41

Thx for screenie! Good logic on the Hunting/Archery/AH costs. Hunting also gives us scouts, which are most definitely useful for seeking out the emeny. So, Hunting, then AH, then (depending on proximity of horses) Archery or Mining/BW...? Either way, Archery should probably be in the top 5 to research.

The city location turns out to be a bit of a powerhouse as well with access to 3 resources (that we know of), The available stone makes Pyramids a possibility, too. Also with the fish, we may eventually want a city where the warrior currently stands...

How about build order? Warrior or Worker first? Or Barracks until we're at size 2? If we research Hunting, do we beeline a scout?

Enough flag-raising i guess; it's all about solutions. My vote would be to research Hunting then AH, then decide. Build order would be Warrior, then barracks until size 2, then worker, then scout.

Has anyone mentioned that this game is deep?

That's a darn fine city site.

I agree with Goodenuf's vote on research: Hunting, then AH, then see if there are horsies nearby.

As to units, I also agree with warrior, barracks until size 2, but would suggest we bypass the worker and go steal one from HC if he's nearby.

I'd like to know how you can actually do it. We are kocked at war with HC, right? And to steal a worker you would need to get next to it, right? So how can you steal one, practically speaking?

Research: Hunting/AH/maybe Archery

I'd like to know how you can actually do it. We are kocked at war with HC, right? And to steal a worker you would need to get next to it, right? So how can you steal one, practically speaking?

Ya that would be a challenge.

1) use a unit with movement 2 (like a chariot)... even then if he's within line of site of the worker, the worker likely moves back by the time you can execute the steal.

2) attack someone else. So much for diplomatic victory ;)

Very good city place.

I also agree with Hunting--->Animal H for research. As for BO i suggest Warrior--->Barrack--->Worker--->Scout or Warrior.
also it s not possible to steal worker from in early game without chariots(Maybe scout can also do the work) because we are locked at war with HC.

@Goodenuf and @Doom_Train

Yeah, seams vertually impossible to steal a worker from a nation you are at war with, if the worke is not "geographically" trapped or surrounded. However, stealing a worker from a "third party" might not be a bad idea at all. Yes, it means we declare on yet another country, but it does not preclude good relationship with them even in not so distant future, in my experience, esp. if they are not aggressive (like Gandi, say)--so we just choose well.

By the way, because scouts cannot attack thay cannot steal a worker, I think, but you can use a scout to declare a war by sending him into a "closed-bordered" terretory and even to occupy an ungarded enemy city. Anybody knows for sure if I describe this "scout" stuff correctly?

Does anybody know how Pyramids can help us here?

If we go Representation, the +3 :) in largest 4 to 6 cities is huge on Monarch level. Its also at low maintenance, so no extra cost for this privilege.

Alternatively if we go to war, the lower war weariness and bonus military production rate in Police State is significant. And (being a Spiritual civ) there's no anarchy to switch between them. We only need to wait the 5 turns to switch again.

The pyramid culture and GP bonus is good, too.

That being said, its is a significant commitment to try for it. Those are lost military/settler cycles/hammers that would need to be regained by the benefits of the Pyramids over the long term (geez I sound like I'm in marketing...).

re: 49
I don't think its a good idea to start war with "third party" since we aren't much familiar with monarch level, we ll have hard time to handle 2 enemies. Also it may cause negative impact on possible B plan(diplomatic victory).

That's a damn fine start.

The stone is nice for pyramids, but we're still not going to get it unless we can chop. That means BW, and sooner rather than later.

Pyramids can be mighty powerful. Great Engineers can be very handy. If we can get the main city into leader farm shape, we could be flush with them. If we can farm engineers, we can bank some of them for Eiffel Tower (huge culture boost = border expansion) or the UN (Diplo, obviously). Of course, that idea is predicated on us actually surviving that long.

Representation will also give us +3 beakers per specialist, which is a nice bonus when you're farming GLs.

An alternative might be to use a second city for building the pyramids, but we'd have to get it up soon, and in a dense forest.

War Chariots are going to require horses. Let's hope we don't get thrown a curveball there.

We have to prune our rivals early. Otherwise, they'll run away from us. HC is unlikely to start wars if he's locked in one with us, so we're going to need to do our own dirty work. If Julius is around, we're really going to have to keep him in check. I've been on the receiving end of way too many praet rushes at that sucker's hands... I don't think he likes me very much.
I agree we should do Hunting/AH, then decide what to do next based on the availability of horses. No horses would make me think real hard about trying to get BW as soon as possible. Doubt we can hold off that long against quechas without archers, though.

Edit: That stone there almost looks like pyramid bait, doesn't it? What's the catch?

Double Edit: Isn't Egypt where the 5th Element saved the world from absolute evil? How appropriate.

Brilliant discussion folks [#42+] with which I concur on every significant comment made.

It really helps to play as a team and we seem to be pulling above our weight.

Without further ado I'll get on with it accordingly.....

@Merum #52

If we go for domination I think we would hope to get it a good while before the Eiffel tower becomes available.

@General discussion #42+

Definitely agree with the importance of horses. If they're nearby, grab 'em and pump out the chariots. Otherwise, archery. I've played as HC once or twice and found that archers on hills really scupper a quechua rush. If we have a barracks for city garrison 1 our capital should be secure.

Thats one of the best capital positions I've ever seen. However, I'm guessing the majority of the other teams will have gone for it too, so its more of an advantage against the AI than anything else.

At the dawn of civilization the Egyptian empire is mostly ignorant but has received a great revelation from on high to settle the plains hill 1SW in order to be closer to our beloved gods.

Meanwhile Anhur being a warrior-god, and therefore pre-disposed to seek out the high ground to remain close to his father Ra, moves to the desert hill from where he beholds flying fish. He receives a revelation that beyond the fog a mere three leagues North lies another hill and he resolves to head there. At a date humans know as 3910 BC (whatever BC means!) he spies a more habitable range of two plains hills.

While Anhur takes a well earned rest at the start of 3850 BC to gather his strength for a third ascent, the borders of Thebes expand revealing the NE coast of our continent and another shoal of fish. Anhur finds a good spot for a second city bordering tundra with 2 cows, 5 flood plains and 4 plains hills in the fat cross. Anhur is now getting cold and wonders what he can do to warm up beside more exercise.

It looks like we are in the top third of the map on a penninsula tipped by tundra with sea to the East, South and North West. We could even be in an island. To resolve this asap, Anhur wil continue North while I MM Thebes to convert 1f>1h by moving our citizen off the floodplains and on to the cow to get the second warrior out sooner. This warrior is destined for an early explore to the SW to see what lurks down there.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element006.jpg

3820 BC Anhur meets a wolf and we take and receive 4 hits leaving us at 52/100HP and wolf at -28/100HP. Anhur shrugs off his wounds and heads to a nice wooded hill from where he feels really safe as the legendary silver mountain at the top of the world can be seen.

3730 BC We discover Hunting which, as our soothsayers have predicted reduces the cost of AH to less than 150 beakers in place of the 223 base cost. Start AH in order to locate the horses.

3700 BC Tefnut (warrior) born in Thebes so start putting some hammers into a barracks as planned.

3670 BC Anhur sees a Lion and has no major area to explore so stops to heal...
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element007.jpg

3610 BC Tefnut has now travelled four leagues from Thebes and ascends a coastal plains hill next to a jungle full of wild sugar canes. What appears to be an Island peers out of the fog to the SW... http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element008.jpg

Tefnut our female warrior, sighs and turns NW but is cheered to finding shellfish and then meet Catherine's Scout IBT that appears to have come from the SW.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element009.jpg

Tefnut turns back W then SW again as she is on an Isthmus with the NW blocked by mountain and coast and Russia somewhere in the south. The 'island' we saw earlier is probably just part of our continent.

The good news is we are not alone and even better Catherinew does not (yet) know Inca :)

3580 BC Thebes grows switch barracks>worker as we are now at size 2.

3490 BC Anhur has taken all the Elixir of the Gods he can stomach and now feeling fit agian heads home. The lion is still there guarding the forest. IBT lion attacks and we take no damage. I save the first promotion and move on past the NW fish

3430 BC 20 turns played so I save the game.

Summary

We are in good shape geographically with a penninsula all to ourselves loads of health and with a smatteing of other resources. We can go ahead and settle our land without too much trouble from the AI.

We have met one other Civ that we can either cultivate or steal from without intefering with our plans. The Inca seem quite some way off.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/SGOTM1_5th_element010.jpg

Merum play 11 turns so that the turn numbers from the log tie up.
Our worker is due in 10 and AH in 5.

Tefnut needs to find Catherine while Anhur needs to check out there are no other isthmuths on the coasts that are partly hiding in the fog.

Turn log
Here's the log provided by the upload page - plus my own entries for the first and last turns.

Turn 0, 4000 BC; Start
Turn 1, 3970 BC: Thebes has been founded.
Turn 4, 3880 BC: The borders of Thebes have expanded!
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf (1.00) vs Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) (2.90)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Combat Odds: 0.0%
Turn 6, 3820 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: (Plot Defense: +25%)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 12 (88/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 12 (76/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (68/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 12 (64/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (36/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (4/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 12 (52/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Barbarian's Wolf is hit for 32 (0/100HP)
Turn 6, 3820 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Wolf!
Turn 8, 3760 BC: You have discovered Hunting!
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) (3.40)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 17, 3490 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 17, 3490 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!
Turn 17, 3490 BC: While defending, your Anhur has killed a Barbarian Lion!
Turn 19, 3430 BC: Save & upload (20 turns played). Note the turns numbers start at zero which is why the 2nd player should play 11 turns to even things up.Cheers for now....

Anyone know why my post #55 is so wide!

[edit] this won't make sense unless like me you are using a 1024 x 768 screen see #57 & 58 below.

@Perugia #56

Looks normal to me.

@Perugia #55

Looks like we were wrong about the Incas. I suppose when we find them we can bribe others into war against them and get nice mutual struggle bonuses without ever getting a 'declared war on our friend' penalty. As we don't face a quechua threat I suggest we get out our 1st settler out before the barracks and settle 1S,1SW of where Anhur is in the first screenshot. If a) we have horses in Thebe's fat cross and b) Tefnut finds catherine reasonably accessible, we should probably build chariots and rush Cathy - we need to lever an early advantage.

Anyone know why my post #55 is so wide!
The third and final images are quite wide. They display OK on my 1280 x 1024 screen. You could reduce them before uploading. 800 width is usually recommended to ensure that they'll work OK on a 1024 x 768 screen.

I have the save. Play later today, most likely. Tefnut is going to explore SW looking for Catherine, while Anhur continues to explore our western coast.

The only significant decision this turnset will come on turn 10, when the worker builds. Any thoughts on what to build next are welcome, otherwise I'm just going to go back to the barracks to try to preserve as many hammers as possible on that.

The first 5:

turn 20: Anhur has no movement points left. Tefnut goes SW, and sees the land extend

Turn 21 3400BCE: Tefnut climbs a hill, and sees a gem deposit twinkling in the jungle below. Egypt will make good use of these.

Turn 22 3370BCE: Tefnut finds Catherine. She's close, just on the other side of that water. It looks like a lake, but it appears to be salt water. Anhur continues SW, up the hill.


Turn 23 3340BCE: Tefnut Probing Catherine's borders, Anhur continues his journey SW


Turn 24 3310BCE: Catherine is already mining gems. Tefnut spots a pride of lions on the hill before her and hunkers down the best she can in the forest.


Turn 25 3280BCE: Tefnut defeats the lions. AH researched. Get ready for an early war. Catherine has the horses. Either way, it's going to be a while before we get them. BW is 31 turns away. Masonry is currently 24 turns away. With the revelation of the horses, and the fact that HC doesn't appear to be in our face, I'm going to pause here for a discussion of tech direction.

I don't know how to embed the screenie right in the post. See the thumbnail below. I kind of prefer to view them this way anyway.

Umm... duh. After looking at the map some more, I see through the fog that we have our own set of horses (see thumb #2) north of Thebes. Still holding, because I'm not sure Archery is the best path. We can load up on Chariots and go after Cathy while we research something else. My heart is leaning towards mining.

For future note: If we chop at Thebes, we're going to have health problems due to the flood plains. We'll get +2 from the rice and the cow. We'll need to build granary and aqueduct to keep the city healthy.

Based on our location so far, I think health is going to be a consistent issue during the game. We'll have to be on the lookout for health anywhere we can get it. Clams and fish should be on the priority list.

My guess is that salt water between us an Cathy is likely an inlet that opens SE of what we can see; otherwise it would likely be fresh water. If so, we will want to place a city right by those piggies to cut off the choke point. Perhaps with the right placement, we can make a canal out of a city to allow ships to pass thru from ocean to ocean.

However, I would say getting the horsies is a priority. I would build a settler and settle 2W of the horses so that we can get the fish as well.

(by the way, for future screenies, can we have the resource display turned on? helps to see where everything is... thx!).

What is the Monarch initial city size ceiling that we have before health is an issue? I would think a city of size 3 will likely be the maximum before we need 'help' (e.g. aqueduct or granary). So we may want to check this and suspend growth until that ceiling goes up.

The eastern mountain range is interesting. I wonder what our illustrious map designer placed behind it? No land, or perhaps an isthmus to the enemy, or a resource dump... who knows :)

Any thoughts on building a scout after the worker? If this is just an island with Cathy and us (if we were stuck on a desert island with 1 other leader, who would it be... oh, never mind;) ), then the scout build may be a waste of time. Perhaps settler, then scout...

I also presume that we've come across zero huts... so no help in that regard. Warriors and goody huts on monarch = pretty bad stuff. This is where the scout would be handy.

Techwise... I'd be tempted to go with Masonry so we can get the stone (or is it pottery we need for a Quarry? No, thats for granary and cottages).

Those are my thots... take them for what they're worth.

@Merum #59

Tefnut should look out for a worker steal opportunity. I think the horses clinches the deal for a settler - I'd say get one right after the worker.

@Goodenuf #60

I still say settle 1SE of the horses. I know 2W gets the fish, but 1SE is a very nice city site that we can use for whatever we want, without all that nasty tundra. We can get fish to the east of thebes later if necessary.

I agree with mining for research path. Chariots will get eaten by spearmen later, so we'll need axemen - I'm thinking head for bronze working rather than archery because we want to know where the copper is asap, and because it would be good to have the option of chopping units even if we don't end up using it.

Note that there might be mutually contradicting statements/ideas here. Also, it is just a patchwork, and incomlete at that as well.

Rushing Catherine now:
Do we have any advantage? I do not see anything obvious, so I assume we would be wasting time and effort trying.

Expansion:
Landgrab is very important. We do not know how much space Catherine got in the back, but I would bet she will quickly try to expand to her North regardless of what she’s got there. We want that land as well! If that’s the ONLY way she can expand and we grab it first then she will choke for the lack of space and will be an easier target a bit later. We do not know now, but still: grab that territory! Somewhere at the isthmus by the cows, W-SW of Thebes is the spot!

Build order in Thebes:
Finish worker; build settler and settle W-SW. Then we need to see how much land is in the fog-of-war. This is because of the “Barbarians are coming!” problem if we have any land fogged. They will be archers, and axes, many of them. We either light up the land by spreading our units (warrier/warreir/warrier…) or research Archery and build archers. Building archers does not preclude lighting up the land using them (to an extent)—they are more exensive—and they are good to have in the city by Catherine’s border, but it is an extra research to do—as if we didn’t have enough to learn without it. Need to explore the dark areas before committing. This also means that maybe the second settler goes SW to shut Catherine off. Need to explore SW of Thebes!!!

We need money for research, guys. So far we are in bad shape here. Pottery is about the ONLY answer for us (for a while) on this map: we need that to start building cottages on the floodplains.

Research (Archery might be necessary as well)
1. Fishing (gains 20% off on Pottery). Switch to working the fresh water lake tile to boost research.
2. Pottery. Build a cottage ASAP, add as needed. Switch from lake tile. Meantime develop cows (3H+3F).
3. Mining (it is one of the 2 optional prerequisites for Masonry, gives 20% off Masonry; Mysticism is another one). Mine on of the plain hills, say the one SW of the city, for 4H production. Note: farm rice for health, only if needed—I hope we will grow fast enough without working it. For food use floods with cottages, and make sure they are being worked (MM if necessary).
4. Mysticism (for another 20% discount on Masonry)—maybe?
5. Masonry (can build city walls and Pyramids). Build quarry on the stone tile. This will give us 5H.
6. Bronze Working. (By the way, it will take less time to research Mysticism+Masonry than BW!)

Tiles worked on in the city:
Pop 2: cows+flood
Pop 3: cows+flood+lake?
Pop 4: cows+flood+mine+flood/forest
Pop 5: cows+flood+mine+flood+stone

Worker works on:
Cows, Cottage, Mine, Cottage; fill in building roads. If a worker has nothing to do, build the road towards the next city site.

We should avoid chopping wood until Writing/Math for greater yield. Pluse the additional doubling when building Pyramids with stone hooked up! Got to have at least 2 more cities with good production befor going for the Pyramids though.

It would be great if the players would always show to the rest of the team Resources, Yields, and the Grid in the screen shots! If those are in the way of something, supplement with the “plain vanilla” images.

What do you think? :confused: :crazyeye:

@Gskur #62

The advantage is the only one we're going to get - our UU. We cannot stand up to the AI by trying to out build it on this level - it'll just outclass us. We need an early advantage, and Cathy's cities would give us that. Taking the land to her north is not going to make her easier later - the longer we wait, the further ahead of us she'll get, in tech, cities, production, everything. Also, she might start making deals with other civs, in which case attacking her is going to make any possible diplo victory that much more of a struggle. If we get the horses with the 2nd city, it doesn't matter if she gets that land - we'll just be taking it back.

I agree we're going to need pottery sooner rather than later. But get mining first. If we sit still, I highly doubt we'll end up better off than teams that attack Cathy.

PLEASE ENSURE RESOURCES ARE ON FOR SCREESHOTS Ctrl + R and consider whether you want to minimise Ctrl + I or remove Alt + I the interface.

There are two possible locations for the canal city but as one is actually on top of the pigs the only logical choice is the desert tile 1N of the pigs. This also converts the desert into something useful and also nets the clams.

However, there is no need to get that site settled until we either need those clams or find ourself having to build a navy. This city can wait. It would be good to get a city settled to block out Catherine the best site is 1N of where Tefnut stands in the screenie avoiding any overlap of fat crosses with the canal city.

The worker should pasturise the cows and then farm and road the rice. We should be working the rice (1 loaf unirrigated) instead of a mine or forest when building workers and settlers

I support the research plan proposed by gskur. We need cottages for research and having the option to build a granary in food poor or unhealthy cities will be useful later.

I agree we should leave the forests for health and also as they are our only source of extra shields and being able to replace them with mines is a looong way off just now.

We should build a minimum number of extra warriors as a cheap way to push back the fog of war. But once we get some chariots we can let a few barbs spawn to earn promotions. Later these warriors can be garrisons to avoid the 'We need protection' penalty

Don't worry about losing the shields on the barracks. AFAIR these don't start getting depleted for 50 turns on buildings (10 turns on a units). So we have until turn 65 to resart the barracks.

We should settle the tile 1SE of the horses.

We can grow to size 4 before health penaty kicks in, size 6 with the cows and rice. The. we will need happiness.

I'm going to finish out this turnset this afternoon. Please try to comment before 4PM CDT (2200GMT) if you haven't yet. We are pretty divided on tech path right now, and in a perfect world everybody would comment before I choose, but I'll go with what I have at the time.

Re: Dolphan 63
@Gskur #62

The advantage is the only one we're going to get - our UU. We cannot stand up to the AI by trying to out build it on this level - it'll just outclass us.

Of course we can: just have enough production capacity! It's the RESEARCH that the AIs will kill us with if we do not pay special attention to it. And it is Catherine's research vs. our research that is an issue now, before tech trading is possible. We need to pressure her to spend her efforts on building not on research. We can do it by showing off with a big arny at her border, or by grabbing land close to her and pressing her borders (do not forget we get +2 culture for being what we are--this is our weapon as well! and it is a strong one!) At least this is my experience, albeit not vast, at Monarch. And this takes money. Domination victory is not likely otherwise.

Explore around Catherine. When we research BW and can see Bronze on the map, and we have it in our domain, we'll know with a good degree of certainty if she's got it as well. If not--we party!

Normally, I like to get BW as early as possible because you end up with a production booster and those critical axes. In this case though, I'm inclined to rely on the chariots, and go with gskur's approach, at least through Mining. Then we have a tough choice whether to go for Masonry/Pyramids or BW killing power. However, that won't happen in this set of turns, so we can leave that for the future.

@Gskur #66

By out-build I meant get ahead on research, land and everything. The AI has a head start on expansion and production - we're not going to catch up without a war. The later we leave the war, the harder it gets.

You are right in general: without being a very large and very rich country we can never outperform AIs peacefully. Well, there is that Diplomatic approach... but we do not what it, do we? So war it is--smartly, carefully, assuredly!

@Gskur #69

Can you win diplo without fighting? Can you win anything except cultural without fighting? Its the soul of this game :) Yes, we do have to be careful. But I keep falling victim to the 'I'll just wait and build up an unassailable army before attacking' line of thought - it doesn't work very well, and if you look at some of the GOTM spoilers, it pays to be bold.

@Dolphan 70

Yes, it pays to be bold, true. But you see the successful attempts, and all the multitude of failures go undeclared. it's like "it pays to play state lottery." And I too have many a time fallen "victim to the 'I'll just wait and build up an unassailable army before attacking' line of thought"--I know exactly what you mean, and agree with you on futility of being timid.

And yes, you can get diplo without fighting, if you can "trick" AIs into voting for you, which has been done before (providing you survive that long).

I agree we need to engage with Catherine pretty soon to keep her down to size. Our UU gives us an opening to do that as at this stage we don't need to capture cities its about hit and run tactics. Remember we have an command and control edge when it comes to warfare. Catherine starts with hunting so we must not let her build a copper mine, if we can't do this and see spears deployed against us, we can retreat back up the isthmus until our axes come on line without damage to our core.

It is absolutly essential that the next few moves should scout out Russia. I think it would be better to get as much info on Russia as we need before attempting a worker steal. Once we have the info by all means steal. It would be great to get some road building from both ends of the isthmus if we can pull that off. Might be better to steal when the Russian worker is doing something on the NW side of their territory to make good our excape.

The inside corner of the Russian border makes this city looks like the capital to me (palace expansion) so I expect we could easily get beaten to the gem/horse site as this could be the Russian second city.

Therefore my vote would go with building a settler immediately after the worker. Use the worker to maximise food + hammer yields to get the settler out as soon as possible. Then build a force of chariots to send down to Russia.

Meanwhile we can research towards pottery to get cottages in the flood plains in both cities. With cottages on line we can go down below for BW to give our force some defensive backbone then we can send a settler towards Russia to create a forward base. Our creative trait means a forward base even if close to Moscow will hold its own culturally. With luck copper will be inside out borders quite soon ater that again due to the creative trait.

Pottery is 13 turns away. Mining is 9. If we go to pottery we have a cottage 16-17 turns from now. If we go mining we have a mine 12-13 turns from now. Do we benefit more from the added hammers, or from the added 1 gold 4 turns later? I'm not sure. The granary will help, but that's a good 30 turns away at least.

Do we really want to build settler at size 2? That's going to take forever. Perhaps it might be best to grow to 3 first. We'll probably end up getting the settler in the same net number of turns, and have a warrior as a bonus. We'll also benefit from the gold the extra citizen gains us for those turns (if we put them on gold-bearing squares). That means faster research.

I'm inclined to go for the south horses first. Catherine is Creative, which means she gets +2 culture from her cities. I agree that that city is probably Moscow, but it may not be. She's going to push her borders culturally just as hard as we push ours, if not harder.

BW is almost useless to us for chopping on the land we have now. Chopping any of those forests will give us serious health issues. There's simply not enough of them. In that context, BW should be considered in terms of axemen only.

If Catherine gets to copper before we can attack, we're screwed. We have to hit her hard and fast. No amount of extra gold from cottages will fix that. It's a difficult set of choices.

Catherine's gem mine is not hooked up with roads. She may not have the wheel yet. I'm planning to send Tefnut around that border with the next 5 moves, and Anhur is heading SW to check and see if we have more than one path to Russia.

Merum,

I see where you are coming from now and agree. Most everyone is agreed we should war with Catherine, to war we need shields and we need 'em as soon as possible so go for mining.

I like your ideas about getting some more gold in without cottages if we agree to work the rivers. Growing to size 3 before the settler is also fine by me as we can work rice/cow and a lake or river tile for commerce. We really could do with another warrior to protect Thebes and the worker and with all the jungle/forest on the Russian border if would be good to send Anhur down there with potential for Woodsman 1 as his 2XP promo.

If we can get the southern horses and mining then we can get some commerce from the gems.

Remember, this is an SG not a Diplo game. You are UP so you listen to everyone's opinion and then make the executive decisions.

Here's the last 5 of my 11. I don't want to bury it up behind all the discussion we've had.

Turn 26 3250BCE: I decide to go for mining. We need hammers more than the potential for gold later on. As other civs research pottery, it will become cheaper for us, and maybe we can get both in the same net turns. Tefnut heads south along the russian border, and Anhur heads to the potential middle route to Russia. A lion is spotted near Anhur. I'm tempted to give him woodsman, but the lion is far enough away yet to make me do that now. Tefnut reaches another coastline, and can see across a small bay to what looks like more land. She can't go any farther this way, so turns around to explore the northern Russian border.


Turn 27 3220BCE: I put Anhur in the forest to give him extra defense vs the Lion without spending the promo just yet, and he defeats the beast during the IBT, gutting it and storing away the meat for his voyage. The protein will give him strength.


Turn 28 3190BCE: Nothing of much interest to report.


Turn 29 3160BCE: The "Middle route" does not lead to russia, but to more salt water. There's sugar here, and we'll make use of that for happiness once we get Calendar. Anhur needs to go SW of Thebes now, to see what he can see.


Turn 30 3130BCE: The worker builds, and I send him to the cows. I put the build on warrior, this could be changed to scout if the next player desires. Warrior and scout both build in 8, and growth is in 12. We'll have to decide what we spend those other 4 turns on. Thebes growth will change after the pasture is built, so it may not be an issue.

Edit to add: I don't think a scout is a very good build right now, based on what we can see of the map. We may already be hemmed in until open borders or war.

Anhur is at 1.7 health. You can rest him or continue to explore.

Turnlog (Thanks, AlanH!)

Turn 23, 3310 BC: You have discovered Animal Husbandry!
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) (3.40)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 23, 3310 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) is hit for 15 (70/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 23, 3310 BC: Fifth Element's Tefnut (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion (2.00) vs Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) (3.40)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Combat Odds: 3.6%
Turn 26, 3220 BC: (Animal Combat: +20%)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: (Plot Defense: +50%)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (75/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (50/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) is hit for 15 (85/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (25/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Barbarian's Lion is hit for 25 (0/100HP)
Turn 26, 3220 BC: Fifth Element's Anhur (Warrior) has defeated Barbarian's Lion!

Turn 28, 3160 BC: You have trained a Worker in Thebes. Work has now begun on a Barracks (I switched this to worker)

The Schedule: Doom_Train, you are UP!

Doom_Train (up)
BrianS (On deck)
Dolphan
gskur
Groin_Apologist
Goodenuf (skip on May 19-22)
Perugia
Merum (just played)

PS: I recommend "Shu" for the next warrior's name. :D

The pics:

(somebody tell me how to spoiler this and I will)
put ..... tags round it without the space in the first one.

Just checking in again, since I appear to be more lurking than anything else as of yet. I understand we are going with the settler once we reach size 3, but it seems like we're unclear as to where we will found our second city. Are we saying that we will try to steal Cathy's horses (and the two gems besides)? What are our chances of beating her to them? And if we are trying that, should we hold a warrior (this build or next) to escort the settler?
But I agree with going to war earlier rather than later. I think we have to use the war chariots as soon as we possibly can, or they become obsolete (once Cathy gets copper and spearmen).

Also, I'd better ask this sooner than later: how do I capture a screen shot?

@GA 77: See my fourth screenshot (Added in an edit) for my suggested 2nd city placement.

@ 78: Press "Print Screen" and the screenie will go to your \My Documents\My Games\Civilization 4\ScreenShots folder.

@Merum #75

I see the logic behind your suggested location. We should think about connecting it up though - do we want to set the worker off building roads right behind the settler, so he can then stick a pasture down straight away? We're going to need a 2nd worker at some point, whatever we do.

Loving this so far guys - I think we're coping reasonably, and its strangely enjoyable just sitting discussing a game most of us haven't played in yet!

It sounds as we are set for confrontation with the Russians. It seems that it is just the two of us, we and Catherine, who share this landmass. Need to hurry for there is no one else to war with her, to our advantage.

It’s tempting to get the proposed location (re: #75, 4th screenshot). Yet it is too far, in my opinion, and is not as important any longer, with us getting into war with them. Besides, we might not make it anyway. I suggest to settle by the horses in the North. Build Pasture on Horses tile, connect to Thebes with roads (that’s where we will be building the chariots). The second worker (see below)will help building the connecting roads.

I suggest the spot for the second city to be 4N2E from Thebes (just E of horses). This location covers the horses (immediately after settling!), the two cows, and 3 plain hills (great production potential) and also a few flood plains (5 of them?). One or two of those should be Irrigated (if only to be converted to hamlets later on) to speed up this city growth.

Production queue at Thebes: finish the Warrior/ Settler/ second Worker/ finish Barracks/ Chariot/ Chariot/ Chariot… /

Any thoughts on Chariots’ promotion? Shock (+25% vs. melee units), Flanking I (+10% withdrawal chance), or just Combat I (+10% strength)?

Shock promotion is good vs. Spearman, making defensive combat odds almost even. With 20% withdrawal chances our chariots have, we should do just fine here, just move in stacks of, say, 3 chariots or more. The good news, nay, the better news is that it takes 37H for a chariot and 52H for a spearman. We will easily outproduce the Russians if need be.

Research:
Masonry becomes very important to boost H-production in the capital.
1. finish Mining. Build a mine in the capital.
2. Masonry. Build the quarry in the capital.
3. BW. After that it will depend on where copper is.

Farm Rice, and maybe a flood plain tile, to support the Hammers from the mine and the quarry.

Catherine has Archers (the cost is 37H, just like that of Chariots). We cannot reasonably hope to take walled cities full of archers and a few spearmen with chariots. Not until we can build axmen/swordsmen with City Raider promotion, and those we’ll need 2:1 against archers. If Moscow is on a hill and walled—there is not a chance until we have catapults. So the goal is to contain: outproduce militarily, pillage, intercept, disconnect… Any new settlement can be taken by Chariots, but not Moscow.

These is the core of our plan, the way I see it. Comments? Disagreements? What’s your reasoning on this, my teammates?

Just a couple of things for the record...

1. In a fit of paranoia, I checked to see if Catherine was who we were locked in peace with... she doesn't appear to be.

2. It's 10 moves from Thebes to my proposed city site. It's entirely possible that we might get beat to it. However, until we do, we should consider it.

If we do get beat to it, I pretty much agree with the second proposed site... it has a lot of potential, and it looks like it could crank out the chariots.

If we're planning to go after Russia, then seizing horses is paramount. We have an easy one to the N (agree with 1SE of horses for city location). I would think that building a city close to Russia in the hopes of outculturing her for the horses is very risky; she is also creative, so that part is a wash, and her capital has the advantage over our second city.

Trying to place a city next to moscow right away is risky at best (IMHO). To me the better bet is to get the horses that are close by, get the worker to hook them up asap, then build chariots and head south. If they've hooked up their horses, then that's the first pillaging job for the chariot. If/when we capture Moscow, then we are way ahead of where we would be by building the city S of the choke point this early.

Greg

@#81-83

Agreed - I was going to drop lobbying for that city site, but if you lot agree ...

Definitely shock to deal with spearmen. Does anyone know how our chariots are likely to cope against archers?

Got the save opened it with no problems.

I ll play couple of turns tonight and post the process for further suggestions.

put ..... tags round it without the space in the first one.
@Alan, Thanks from me too, I always wondered how to do that.

@Merum I like using a spoiler for the turnlog, I'll go back and edit my post tonight and include the combat stuff.

Has anyone checked whether we can go to war with Russia. I didn't try during my turn set. [edit #82] Ah Merum you too had the same fit of panic. That'll teach me to post before reading the thread to the end. It looks like we can fight Cathy.

Overall I am fully in agreement with the current thinking as summarised @#81-83.

... Shock promotion is good vs. Spearman, making defensive combat odds almost even. With 20% withdrawal chances our chariots have, we should do just fine here, just move in stacks of, say, 3 chariots or more... Not sure from the above but I'm pretty sure our chariots can only withdraw when attacking. Also don't think they can be Medics so we should slip a warrior into the chariot build queue. From 4XP were only one fight away from Medic I and we should pick that +1XP up from the barbs.

Looking forward to your progress Doom_Train...

@gskur 81: I agree with your suggestion to put our second city near the northern horses . The southern horses are at a very nice location, but if we're going to take out Catherine, they'll be ours anyway soon. The northern city will get us chariots quicker and safer.

Got the save opened it with no problems.

I ll play couple of turns tonight and post the process for further suggestions. You probably know this but just in case you didn't and for the benefit of any lurkers.....

....When the worker is built the first job is going to be to pasturise the cows. As that is two movement points away on flatlands, our first worker turn will be wasted on just movement if the worker moves there all in one go.

Therefore the trick is move only one tile south the first turn and order the worker to farm the FP (you could choose to road instead). Then IMMEDIATELY cancel the worker action by reselecting it the same turn and either 1) ordering it to move to the cows or 2) pressing the cancel order icon (red circle with a cross in it).

On the second turn the worker completes the move to the cows and as it has a spare movement point still gets to start pasturising the cows and when we later go back to the FP there is one turn less to complete the road or farm.

I completed 5 turns. Here is the process so far.

Turn 1 3130BC : Moved Tefnut to the hill(New sugar source discovered two tiles away from the hill) and Anhur is going to rest for 2 turns. Worker move points already finished when i got the save.

Turn 2 3100BC: A russian archer spotted by Tefnut. Worker started to build pasture. Tefnut will continue to scout russian border see if he can get inside information.

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/3097/civ4screenshot00001aj.th.jpg (http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00001aj.jpg)

Turn 3 3070BC: Buddihisim founded on distant lands. Tefnut moved to new sugar source and from there she can clearly see the defenses of Moscow. 2 Archers are guarding Moscow( So far we have spotted 3 archers ). Also there iis a worker building pasture. Anhur is ready for action again, his new mission is to explore the land down the river.
http://img452.imageshack.us/img452/2053/civ4screenshot00010fy.th.jpg (http://img452.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00010fy.jpg)

Turn 4 3040BC: Nothing interesting

Turn 5 3010BC: Mining researched. next masonry. But i didnt ended the turn just in case.

I will continue tommorow night so post your further suggestions for worker BO, research and city BO.

i am planning build a mine after pasture finishes, city will work on barracks until size grows to 3 (I think everybody agrees with this). When size hits 3 i ll switch it to settler. Tefnut will continue to scout Russian border and Anhur will explore the land down the river.

Perugia thanks for the tip but worker was already on cows (and movement points finished) when i got the save.

A question: How many turns do i have to play 10 or 20?

I agree about a mine next as mines are the quickest improvement, I propose this is the grassland hill directly south of moscow from where the worker move in any direction.

Also agree on barracks until grow to size 3 but be ready to put at least some hammers into another warrior if barbs show up.

Not sure about Masonry just yet as it will take a while for the worker to get to the stone. If we are building a settler then the rice farm is as good as the stone and we already have the tech for that.

How many turns until pasture completes 7? + 1 to move to hill 6 to mine + 1 to move to rice and start farm which takes 8 turns AFIR. After that we can quarry the stone to make Thebes really rock as a production powerhouse and while the quarry is being built the rice should allow rapid growth to size 4.

You should play 10 turns. When you upload the save you will be given a turn log to paste to your post. This should be for turns 31 to 40.

I still think it is better to mine SW of Thebes, not S. Yes, it is an extra turn to move, but it is an extra Hammer each turn thereafter.

As for the worker getting to the stone, I thought he might have time for connecting that tile to the capital while the settler is being built.

Also, if we decide firmly where the next city is going to be, the worker can start building roads to connect that site with our capital, ahead of time.

Bad news: Ouch! Catherine's capital in on the hill... Does anybody know how it can be taken without catapults?
Good news: Russians are backed by the ocean, it seams. If so, we stand a great chance of retarding their development with our chariots.

Therefore the trick is move only one tile south the first turn and order the worker to farm the FP (you could choose to road instead). Then IMMEDIATELY cancel the worker action by reselecting it the same turn and either 1) ordering it to move to the cows or 2) pressing the cancel order icon (red circle with a cross in it).

On the second turn the worker completes the move to the cows and as it has a spare movement point still gets to start pasturising the cows and when we later go back to the FP there is one turn less to complete the road or farm.

This is good to know, but it seems like an exploit to me...

I moved the worker to the pasture on turn 10 of my set. I didn't know about this little feature. My bad.

The capitol should be building warrior until growth, not barracks. We need the extra warrior. With the cows, growth and warrior build should be almost even.

I'm not married to my city selection, I just like it. The North site is fine with me.

I've taken cities like this with just chariots. It's doable, but it's expensive and painful. Need to bring at least a 2-1 advantage.

The hills a major annoyance, but it is the capital so we'll be happy to take it. The good thing is those archers don't have promotions, yet. The important thing is to bring enough chariots to overwhelm them in one turn, or they're going to pick up city garrison, at which point we're in trouble. I'd say 4/5 chariots, and bring the warriors in case we have to finish off weakened archers.

This is good to know, but it seems like an exploit to me...
It's not an exploit and I bet all the top teams are doing it.

If an enemy or barb moved next to the worker it would halt it's orders automatically. If the player saw a barb or enemy approach and wanted to run away with the worker then the cancel order button would allow this. It the player just started to improve one tile and then changed their mind and went to an adjacent tile as well then this would also apply.

Besides if you read the Designer Notes at the back of the manual, they gave the worker an extra move in Civ$ so they could be moved and ordered in the same turn and that is all we are doing here. Note also that this only applies to flat terrain.

This is a competition so anything that's not on the official GOTM exploit list is fine by me.

For what it's worth I just found out by mistake that you can post a quick reply and edit an existing post at the same time. Not sure if that's at all useful?.!

Maintenance Forum

I'm sure you've all been keeping up with developments there. Some salient points if you haven't...

# You can make a note in the turn log using the 'Chat to All' feature of Civ4.

# Anyone not 'UP' can look at the current save but don't carry out any actions that could reveal more information than we currently have eg move units, found city etc.

# You should set the ini file autosave option=1 to autosave every turn. That way if the game crashes you only have to replay one turn. Reloading for any other reason is forbidden.

# You do not have to play all your turns in one go and saving for security is fine (it's rumoured there is some life beyond Civ4, so eating, sleeping, working are all within the rules although highly discouraged of course). One caveat, you should avoid manually saving every turn to avert moderator suspicion.

This post can be deleted

one question

How do you add those yellow notes squares?

Some comments/questions from someone who's played for awhile, but still learning the finer points of the game...

It's not an exploit and I bet all the top teams are doing it.

Oh ya... don't get me wrong; if it's not stated specifically as an exploit then by all means lets take advantage of it. I will have to remember that one in future games.

It just seems like an exploit to me, since I'm not sure this was the intended behaviour. I would have thought that the worker's activity would be credited (so to speak) at the end of its turn to avoid this type of thing. So, to take this further, can a worker start a road, then cancel this order, start a farm, cancel this order, then move to the next square... and then move back to this square later and have both/either 1 unit of work already done for both/either the road and farm?

How do you add those yellow notes squares?

Ya, I'd like to know this one as well.

edit: I see it now... Alt+S

RE: Turn log...

How does one get the turn log from the game (i.e. after I play my 10 turns, how do I get the turn log that is generated so I can post it if necessary)? The 'Chat To All' feature is handy... if I can get the log later. I'm used to using the popular AutoLog mod, but if this also works, then perhaps the AutoLog is not as necessary... outside of its formatting options I suppose.

Thx in advance for indulging me on these. :)

The turn log is output as part of the feedback that you'll get when you submit the save at the end of your turn set.

My turns are completed i have uploaded the file. Also worker has ben renamed to "Leonardo".

Here is the process

Turn 6 2980BC: There is nothing down the river. So Anhur is returning to home.
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/3403/civ4screenshot00025lg.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00025lg.jpg)

Turn 7 2950BC: Leonardo completed the pasture.

Turn 8 2920BC: Leonardo moved to 2nd hill S of Thebes. Shu(Warrior) has born in thebes. 3 turns for growth so i started extra warrior production as majority of you suggested.

Turn 9 2890BC: Leonardo started the construction of mine.

Turn 10 2860BC: Nothing interesting.

Borders expanded and city reached to size 3 after i finished my last turn. So be sure change the production to settler. I think Russian scout has killed by lion, one of our warriors can kill him with no problem for xp.

Here is a latest map of our continent.
http://img271.imageshack.us/img271/1647/civ4screenshot00043sz.th.jpg (http://img271.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00043sz.jpg)

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

Turn 32, 3040 BC: You have discovered Mining!

Turn 35, 2950 BC: You have trained a Warrior in Thebes. Work has now begun on a Barracks.

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

Turn 39, 2830 BC: The enemy has been spotted near Thebes!

Next:BrainS. good luck!

BrianS
Dolphan
gskur
Groin_Apologist
Goodenuf (skip on May 19-22)
Perugia
Merum
Doom Train

I'll download tonight and will post my plan before making any moves.

Brian

Doom Train, can you please give your rationale behind starting building a mine on 2S from Thebes?

Perugia said in #90 "the grassland hill directly south of moscow." I am sure he ment Thebes, our capital; so did he mean 1S form Thebes?

I pointed out the 1SW from Thebes location in the post #91 and, IMO, gave a reasonable explanation why I thought it was the choice.

If you just missed it--it's O.K. by me, but if you had a game-based reason--I, for one, would like to know what it was. I am just very curious...

Thanks.

Added later on
BrianS, if it was just a miss, I think we should drop building the current mine and move. So we lost two/three turns of worker production, no big deal, but an extra hammer per turn is quite a prize, I think.

Random thought of the night...

If we're going to take down Catherine early, and if she's the only other civ on our continent (if it is a continent) we're going to need caravels quick, otherwise we'll end up waaay behind in techs to the people on the other continent.

Not an urgent issue, just something to keep in mind.

Interesting thought on caravals Merum. I've been wondering just what's on the other side of the mountains to the east of Thebes. Galleys may be called for soon, which would lead us nicely towards caravels.

As Ra rises over Egypt in the arbitrary year of 2830 BC, he looks down on his favored country and sees in the tiny city of Thebes a bud of greatness to come. He wonders, will the citizens of Thebes glorify him with the building of great pyramids? Or will the threat of civilizations growing in the south lead them first to war?

As recorded in clay tablets by clerks, Thebes statistics are:
Pop: 4
Growing (13 turns/9F-6F = 3F gain)
Building Warrior: 1 turn
7H per turn
7 health - 5 sickness = 2 health margin
5 happiness - 3 unhappiness = 2 happiness margin

Thebes units report in as follows:
Anhur and Shu are stationed in Thebes to defend their beloved capitol.
Leonardo is building a mine 2S of Thebes on a grassland hill. 4 turns to completion.
Tefnur curiously finds himself wounded on the rice E of Moscow, wounded presumably by the expansion of Moscow borders. Tefnur is at 1.4 strength and requires a rest of 3 turns to regain his strength and vigor.

The scholars of Thebes are studiously researching Masonry, which they will master in 7 turns. They are contemplating their next field of study, which could include:
- BW: to reveal the glory of copper and the strength of axes
- Pottery: to build their riches and bring health to their cities
- Archery: to defend their cities
They are torn between BW and Pottery, but are favoring BW to satisfy their desire to know where copper may be found in their realm.

The leaders of Thebes meet to establish a 10 turn plan and consider the following:
A. Send Shu out as fog buster north near 2nd city site.
B. Heal Tefnur, then move to fogbuster location on isthmus N of Russia or keep next to Russia as spy?
C. Move Leonardo to 1SW of Thebes on plains hill and build mine as suggested by gskur? Gets extra H, loses 1F over current mine build location.
D. After mine completed, start road to 2nd city/horses or build quarry on rocks? The quarry is favored, but the leaders are tempted by the desire to build chariots as soon as the gods permit.
E. After new warrior is completed in 1 turn, move warrior to fogbuster location SW of Thebes on route to Moscow or keep as defense of Thebes?
F. Start build of Settler after new warrior completes.
G. The civilization must expand, and the cartographers contemplate a prime location for this city, marked in heavenly blue.

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/7614/sgotm15the2830bc2dn.th.jpg (http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgotm15the2830bc2dn.jpg)

More random thought goodness...

Tefnut is female. ;)

Thebes is at pop 3.

The offspring of Tefnut and Shu (who were brother and sister) are Geb and Nuit (for future unit naming) :D

I love Wikipedia.

I think Tefnut should fog-bust. The last thing we need is barbs out the wazoo.

I favor bronze working over pottery.

I favor the stone quarry over the road.

I like a nice Tawny Port with some Stilton.

I think we only need to road one square, between the rivers, to connect the cities.

We should work the river tiles as much as possible for extra gold.

I like BrianS' pre-turn assessment a lot.

I think we have a good team, based on what I see so far. :cool:

Must agree on Tawny Port with Stilton, Merum.

I've always counted circles for population, which includes the city circle. Is that not the way it's done? Should the city circle be excluded?

One other thought before I head to bed. Is our attention being unduly diverted by Catherine (she is quite comely)? I fear that hordes of HC minions will appear from the east on galleys.

Send your feedback on my plan tomorrow, and I'll play my turns tomorrow night.

If the east is a concern, maybe our third city should be the greenie in the attached. This gives us a coast city, which we do not currently have and access to the east.

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/2003/sgotm15the2830bcb9pf.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sgotm15the2830bcb9pf.jpg)

Top priority is get the settler to the blue site. I favour the horses over the quarry, then we can be producing chariots while we build the quarry.

Tefnur curiously finds himself wounded on the rice E of Moscow, wounded presumably by the expansion of Moscow borders. Tefnur is at 1.4 strength and requires a rest of 3 turns to regain his strength and vigor.I expect that was caused by the death of the lion that killed the Russian scout. Is she now at 1XP?

I've always counted circles for population, which includes the city circle. Is that not the way it's done? Should the city circle be excluded? The city doesn't count as population so when it is size 1 you actually get to work 2 tiles one citizen plus the city tile itself. The population doesn't need counting as its shown eg the 3 inside the star just to the SW of Thebes.

I think Leonardo's top priority to to join Thebes trade net to the northern river and to the horses and time this so the road on the horses completes the turn before the city on the blue dot is founded. That way as soon as city 2 is founded the Leonardo can begin improving the horses and as soon as the horses are improved both cities can start a chariot.

On the other hand Leonardo should not move to the horses too early so he has nothing to do.

Some more thoughts on the BW/Pottery thing. We only have one worker at the moment who needs to build a few roads, quarry the stone, tame the horses and so forth. So if we add to that list building a copper mine or cottage we are not going to see these improvements all completed any time soon and I don't see us agreeing to build a granary just yet either?

I don't see us actually building any cottages or copper mines for the next 15 turns at least. If copper requires a third settler then that will take some time to build too so we ought to know so it can be planned on the dot map. So I'm now more inclined to go for BW just to find out where the copper is.

The green coastal site could be the third city (depending where copper is) and we need ships so sailing needs to be factored into research. In the future we could build a workboat for the clams or fish that could spend a few turns exploring what lies beyond the coastal mountains to determine if galleys are going to be of any use.

So having thought some more I think our research should be BW>Pottery>Sailing.

In all the hurry, we forgot to examine the baby carefully—and she suffered injustice all these years. Poor lovely Tefnut!

The location for our second settlement shown by BrianS with light blue dot on his screenshot is where the barbarian lion is located. This will work well. In addition, I would like us to consider an alternative placement of cities as shown in the picture below.

http://gskur.com/civ01/Fifth_Element_2830BC_gskur.jpg

The “2” location is on the coast, can grow as fast/faster, has very respectable hammer resources (also gets 2 cows and the horses, but 1 plain hill, to say nothing of the forests), and allows for the another 2 good-sized cities on the east coast. These “$” location will be for the cities in the future that will be mainly working cottages for gold. Note: the lower one is the BrianS' "greenie".

re: BrianS #105 above
A. O.K.
B. O.K.
C. We’ll be building settler and worker next, so continuing with the current mine will give us no short-term advantage vs. building a farm on the rice. Having this farm, however, will allow us to grow population faster to the size 5 while operating the quarry (5H!) all the way.

The way it looks at this point, we would rather move to rice, farm it, and then move to build a quarry. In the meantime (starting in one turn, while building the settler and the second worker—population is not growing!) we move working spot (in the city screen, function key F10) from 2W square to rice for +1 settler production. When the quarry is done, we move the worked square from rice to quarry for another +1 settler/worker production. At some point we will need a worker to finish 2S mine, which is being built now, and to build a 1S mine. In the end of this juggling, we will be working the following:
the center for 2H2F1C, 1N2W (quarry) for 5H, 1E (flood) for 3F1C (build hamlet to grow Commerce), 1S (grassland hill mine) for 3H1F, and 2S (grassland hill mine) for 3H1F. The TOTAL is 16H10F3C; stagnant growth at health/happy limit, low on commerce, max hammers for military production.

We are now 2 population before we hit both happiness and health limits. In order to get at 5 popuplation fast, we start workin the rice fields as soon as the second worker is built (switch from quarry!), with the next growth going to quarry but continuing working the rice, then to 1S and, immediately abandonning rice, to 2S.

There will be some additional juggling/delays in order to start working on the hooking up the horses to our capital while the second worker is being built. Maybe a steal from the Russians, sacrificing a warrior, could help us much.

D. re: the plan/schedule in C above. If we go with the BLUE city location then we could build pasture on horses starting the turn following the founding of the city. If we go with the yellow location, this will be postponed by 15 turns (the time it will take for the second city boundary to expand). The difference in the capital’s production capacity will be maybe 3H (like 10H vs. 13H), at least part of these 15 turns, so it’s not a heavy consideration, I would think. The 15 turn delay is about 2 chariots, which is a consideration of note. However, the choosing of the location for the cities, IMHO, must have a supreme long-term strategic priority over almost everything else (just 2 chariots are no big deal in comparison) because we cannot move cities.

I loved the blue spot. Now, after all this analysis, I am inclined to favor the yellow spot, trading 2 chariots for an excellent costal city location. It’s definitely the team’s decision here. Considerations and votes, please!?