Welcome to your C_IV SGOTM 2 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?p=4354542) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

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

You are cast in the role of Tokugawa, mighty leader of the Japanese. Tokugawa's brother has left the island city of Kyoto to avenge the death of his wife and only son. He has travelled to a distant land without finding their murderer. So the brother of Tokugawa will settle and found a new Japanese colony, and the Japanese have sworn to conquer the rest of civilization in order to hunt down and destroy their enemy.

The game is on a Standard size fractal map, modified as only Gyathaar knows how, at Epic speed. All victory conditions are enabled, but the laurels for this contest will be awarded to the fastest teams to achieve a Conquest victory. The number of AI rivals has not yet been revealed. It will be played using version 1.61 of Civ4 with locked modified assets.

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 August 8th.

Here's the start position.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/civ4games/images/SGOTM02_start.jpg

Map Parameters
Playable Civ - Tokugawa of Japan
World size - Standard
Difficulty - Monarch
Landform - Fractal, hand modified
Game Speed - Epic
AI Aggression - YES!
Barbarians - Raging!!

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

Notes:

A. ONLY Civilization IV v1.61 is supported for this SGOTM. All teams will compete for up to four awards - the Gold, Silver and Bronze Laurels for the fastest finishes, and the Wooden Spoons for the lowest scoring finisher.

B. All teams must play the sponsored variant - victory will be awarded for the fastest victory by Conquest.

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.

I'm sure you'll enjoy this game :D

Hi Guys! I can't believe we got everyone back (minus VM) for another SGOTM. :beer: I hope everyone has been doing OK during the break. This looks like a really interesting start, and we have to pull off a conquest victory to boot. Should be quite a fun game. I'll brush up on my fast conquest victories and post some thoughts before we start next week. I'm thinking A'AA's write up in the first GOTM06 spoiler may be a good place to start. It was a fractal map and he turned in a heck of a good time. In the mean time, post your thoughts on strategy, order of play, or whatever.

Anyway, welcome back and let the [party] begin!

Yeah! It's great to see everyone back. I went ahead and tried my best to develop a practice game. I hope others find it useful too.

I thought a practice game might help us develop a strategy since this is such an unconventional start with 1) Kyoto in such a weird place, 2) aggressive AI and 3) raging barbs.

Hopefully a few practice games will tell us exactly how raging the barbs are and how aggressive the AI is.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/SGOTM2_Practice_3_epic_BC-4000.Civ4SavedGame

Hi all,

Mushroomshirt...thanks for the set-up. I will play a few starts, tonight.

I will take Grog's suggestion and read the GOTM6 write-up. I will be away from my computer this weekend, so I will check back in Sunday or Monday night.

Later...Leo

Everyone needs to play through the start of Mushroom's game. I did not realize how much the start will effect this game. Your capital is on the other side of the world so city maintenance is huge. The capital is almost useless. You cannot expand due to costs, but you cannot do a palace jump until you have 4 cities. Research is very slow due to costs. Of course, you have the raging barbs...don't forget that.

This game will be very, very interesting.

I took a brief look at your game ms. Thanks for doing that. Wow, this is going to be an interesting game. Lmtoops is right, Osaka will cost us 6gpt in maintenance from the start, as well as each new city we build on the continent. We'll definitely want to get 2 more cities and jump the palace to the main continent as soon as possible. Otherwise our research will be down to 0% in no time. I also didn't realize until 8 turns in that Kyoto (the island city) was the capital, so Osaka won't expand culturally until we build a culture building there. That makes the spot where the settler is standing much less attractive because we won't be able to pick up that rice for quite some time.

2N might be a nice spot as it give us the rice immediately, though 1NW would let us work the floodplain (3f,1c) and pick up the rice&fish after expansion. If we moved the warrior 1E onto the hill and the settler 1 NW, we'd be able to see almost the entire fat cross of either of those locations and decide if moving the settler farther is warranted. Either of those spots is off the river, but unless we spot something on the first turn, that may be the lesser of the 2 evils.

Research wise, I believe we may want to go for mysticism first. Wherever we put Osaka, it's going to be very hard to put everything we need within 8 tiles, so we'll need to get it expanded quickly. Mining->BW will be pretty important also, if for nothing else than pop-rushing in Kyoto. And pottery for cottages. Agriculture seems fairly low priority for initial techs in my eyes (since we can get the fish.)

Long term, I think getting Samurai out conquering quickly and getting to Astronomy ASAP will be critical. There's a chance a fractal map could be a 'pangea' but it seems to be fairly uncommon so I think the safer bet is to assume we'll need Astro to conquer everyone.

I'll try and play the test game some more this weekend and see how bad the raging barbs and aggressive AI's will be.

Hi everyone. Its great to see the team back together!

I'm going to be on vacation next week and RL has been pretty busy lately. I'll try the test game as soon as I can. I think we will need a very clear path for research to deal with the barbs and what I assume will be a painfully slow research rate at the start of the game.

I'm curious, is the 6gpt consistent with a map that wraps or no wrapping? We won't know from scouting due to the barbs but expanding west may be a bit better if the world does wrap. (After the capital expands we may want to whip a boat if we can get to the mainland without caravels). I guess that early axes for barb busting and lots of commerce will be critical. Do we want to prioritize agriculture, pottery, and BW? I will try the start focussing on those techs and see what happens. Hopefully I won't be slaughtered before I get axes.

Hello, Good to see everyone back. It looks like we will come in 4th place for SGOTM 01. Pretty good for our first time! :goodjob: I am looking forward to a battle this game. In SGOTM 01, I never had the opportunity; we were always regrouping or massing arms during my turns.

Mushroomshirt, thank you for the sample game. I will play awhile this weekend and post any thoughts.

Some administrivia: I am packing up the wife & kids and going on a road trip next week. I will not be able to play until the 23rd at the earliest. Please place me towards the end of, or last in, the rotation. Any thoughts on mixing up the order from last time?

I'm going to play my broken record one last time for each team:


Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?goto=lastpost&t=180489) for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

Anything I post there will NOT be repeated individually in every team thread. You may even find some useful information there now :p

Originally Posted by First post in this thread, first paragraph
Please also subscribe to the Maintenance Thread for this game, where teams and staff may post non-spoiler information of general interest.

Thanks! I had totally missed the fact there was a new maintenance thread. I guess after you've seen too many (S)GOTM starts you just sort of go to the pertinent datapoints without reading the whole thing. :blush:

The most important thing I saw there was a confirmation that Osaka will cost us 7gpt in maintenance, which is actually slightly worse than in mushroomshirt's practice game.

Any thoughts on mixing up the order from last time?

I was thinking about just reversing the roster, making ungy first and me last. No need to get overly complex. We can adjust as needed for absences. So it would look something like this:

ungy
llib_rm*
RobertTheBruce
Danthor
Lmtoops
Mushroomshirt
Grogs

* - Absent until 23 Aug; add in once he's back and up to speed

As for turn length, I was thinking 20/10/10 for the first/second/third rotation. That's 280 turns, or 1340 AD. Hopefully we'll win before then.

The most important thing I saw there was a confirmation that Osaka will cost us 7gpt in maintenance, which is actually slightly worse than in mushroomshirt's practice game.


Yeah, I was going to point out that I just kind of winged it with the location of Kyoto & that since distance is important the 6gpt maintenance will not be exact. I'm glad that other teams were counting pixels, not me!

Glad people seem to be finding the practice game useful.

Glad to have you all back--I think we did very well last game especially for a first try as a team.

Mushroomshirt thanks for the practice start-haven't had time to check it out yet.

I read the CFR and Peanut threads from the last game and a few strategy threads and thought I'd share a few things:

both teams have some strong players whose posts are worth reading--on CFR Akots and Lexor and Peanut Daviddesj, Malekithe, Ainwood.
A good MM strategy thread is Zombie's--I think MM is worth it in this type of game. The thread is long but the meat of it is his first page.

1. Binary research--is a bit better to either research 100% or 0%. So keep research 0 until enough gold to get to tech.

2. Whipping is stronger than I was giving it credit for--makes sense in cities with food bonus tiles to whip consistently vs. work mines. Especially with a bug (described in detail in Zombie69's MM thread.)

A couple of other general ideas--I think it makes sense to pause during a turnset if something major comes up and open up for comments for a day if possible. Both those teams seemed to do that.

As far as this game goes--my first thought is that we don't need to settle in a hurry. Since we will pretty much tank our research when we settle, I think its important to look for a better spot--getting a gold would be huge. If we need 4 cities for a palace jump we need some commerce as that means 3 cities with distance penalty.

So I think run a few test games (and keep track of when animals show up)and plan on looking around a bit would be my vote.

This looks like a very interesting challange and I'm looking forward to playing with you all again

As far as this game goes--my first thought is that we don't need to settle in a hurry. Since we will pretty much tank our research when we settle, I think its important to look for a better spot--getting a gold would be huge. If we need 4 cities for a palace jump we need some commerce as that means 3 cities with distance penalty.

So I think run a few test games (and keep track of when animals show up)and plan on looking around a bit would be my vote.

This looks like a very interesting challange and I'm looking forward to playing with you all again

I was thinking the same thing about settling. If we can figure out when animals show up we can send our settler due west and settle a turn or two before the first animal shows up. This could reduce our maintenance costs (if we are lucky and are on a pangea or large E-W continent) when we are forced to settle. We'll also have the benefit of a 2-movement unit (settler) doing some scouting.

Personally, I am a domination player primarily. I have never won a conquest victory at all - so I will be trodding new ground. My favorite example of a fast conquest victory comes from deluche's GOTM 3 fastest win. Coincidentally, this is a Tokugawa game on monarch. Deluche eschewed any infrastructure with the exception of courthouses and barracks and won the game primarily with horse archers. I dug up a link to that save game. Unfortunately there are no spoilers.

link to saved game (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/gotm40003/deluche_C4003_C4152_01.Civ4SavedGame)

Link to GOTM3 Results (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/results/index.php?month=40003)

However it is on a map that doesn't require astronomy - I doubt we will be so lucky on this map.

EDIT: I guess it is hyperbole to say I have never won a conquest victory. I actually forgot about GOTM 5. In any case I'm not very good at it since I came in 102nd.

I am constantly amazed at the lightening conquests and dom that some of the good players have in the GOTM. One thing that is consistent is that they have a clear idea of what tech they need to win and they go no further. They will have basically just courthouses and build units, units, units. I generally have:
1) too much builder in me and
2) not the confidence to know what will be enough tech
3) generally a little too cautious on the attack--more likely to have too much force than not enough.

Also in my solo games I generally play only to win, and quit if victory is assured. So I have little experience in a "fast" game.

As for aggressive AI, I have not played with it but my guess is they will be more likely to DOW us than usual. Should not affect the very early game at all.

Have to try a few starts to see how the barbs play--my guess is that we will want bw fairly early and if no copper easy then archery. An important question on the barbs is if raging means earlier barbs or just more barbs.

I'm happy to take the first go--actually works out pretty well for me as I've got a few trips planned later in the month. One idea we could consider is to leave the turn count a little flexible--so if things look busy we could do less and if quiet do a little more. Or leave it as is but break a few turns early if you come to a decision point.

However it is on a map that doesn't require astronomy - I doubt we will be so lucky on this map.


I seem to remember a GOTM fractal map--the Mongol one was all one continent if I'm remembering right. I didn't finish that one--actually was on a reasonable game but got a bit bored with it and just never finished.

I seem to remember a GOTM fractal map--the Mongol one was all one continent if I'm remembering right. I didn't finish that one--actually was on a reasonable game but got a bit bored with it and just never finished.

Yep - just to pat myself on the back I actually came in 14th (http://gotm.civfanatics.net/results/index.php?month=40006)on that one. My highest finish to date.

Ainwood has made some comments about being a warmonger & it makes sense since everything since GOTM1 has not required astronomy (can't speak for GOTM 9 yet). The fractal map you're referring to had low water level - a common trait for civ IV GOTMs.

If you regenerate a bunch of fractal maps and open them with the world builder (I had to to create the practice game) you see that you never know what you are going to get. Also this fractal map is custom build by Gyathaar - so I'm sure he has something sneaky planned.

I'm not sure how this should affect our initial tech path. BW 1st makes sense to me for slavery and for axemen if we can find copper. I have never been a big fan of researching archery - I like chariots better anyway for taking out barb axemen before they can pillage. Maybe we should go animal husbandry if there is no nearby copper?

I guess the real questions are:
1. what is our tech path if we don't need astronomy?
2. what is our tech path if we do need astronomy?

They will probably be the same for a while until maybe after alphabet, so we have some time to figure it out.

Yep - just to pat myself on the back I actually came in 14th on that one. My highest finish to date.

Hehe, that was a weird one for me. I scored pretty high (20th) even though I had quite a slow (1795) domination victory. I think it's because I put so much effort into building infrastructure and had a really high base score as a result. That's actually *my* kind of game, conquer the world and build everything while I'm doing it. I've only done one fast conquest and it was in an SG. 3 of my 4 GOTM victories were peaceful (2 SS & 1 Diplo) so I'm pretty far back score-wise.

Re: fractal maps - I fired up 15 fractal maps to see what sort of land masses I would get. I got 1 continent 6 times, 2 5 times, 3 3 times, and 4 once, so 40% were non-astronomy maps. I think we'll just have to guess one way or the other. As far as research, we'll need machinery either way (for Samurai) so with luck we'll have a good idea of whether or not we'll need Astro by the time we get there.

For the practice game, here's a suggestion: Everyone who wants to play 100 turns and post up your 50 and 100 turn (2500 and 1000 BC) saves. That way, rather than just hearing someone say 'we ought to do this' everyone can see firsthand what results that particular opening strategy will produce. Also, if everyone will take note of when they see the first animal, the first human barbs, and when wonders (if any) are finished, we'll have a general idea of what to expect on that front.

I do find the idea of moving the settler around for a few turns while Kyoto does 100% research strangely appealing, though I wouldn't go too long, only far enough to find a really good spot, since we'll need to get cranking on those defenders/fog-busters before the barbs show up. I've never played with raging barbs before, but I'm suspecting that as big of a pain as they will be to us, they'll help hold the AI's in check for a while by forcing them to build more archers when they would normally build a settler/worker.

Hi everyone, I'm here at last. I wasn't aware this thread had been opened since I don't check these forums very often, unless I get the automated emails.

I'd like to go 2nd as I'm more of a builder and *hate* warring.

I've never win Domination or Conquest victory, only Cultural, Diplo and Space Race, but I disable that one most of the time (and of course Time).

Hello, I just played the sample game a few times. Wow, raging barbs are something to contend with. Perhaps if copper was available I would have faired better. In three game, two palace jumps came in AD. The other game was a loss to barbs.

Some misc notes/thoughts:
1) Building Stonehedge is possible in the capitol using citizen specialists and whipping. Even if we get beat to it, the extra gold will help.

2) BW/Slavery and high food saved my arse by whipping up units to fend off the barbs.

3) Fog busting help reduce the number of barbs. I was using warriors most of the time since I had no metals for axemen. The barb bonus is substantial. Many of my fog busters got killed first off thus generating more barbs in the new fog. For centuries I was doing nothing but building warriors to fend off barbs. They appear to have significant advantage. I once had a combat II axeman die attacking a barb archer.

4) We better have some villages/towns up & running before city #4 gets created.; the (-21 gpt) will hit your budget hard.

2. Whipping is stronger than I was giving it credit for--makes sense in cities with food bonus tiles to whip consistently vs. work mines. Especially with a bug (described in detail in Zombie69's MM thread.)


Is that in the strategy forum? I heard that a bug exists, but was unaware of the detais.


A couple of other general ideas--I think it makes sense to pause during a turnset if something major comes up and open up for comments for a day if possible. Both those teams seemed to do that.


Sounds good.


As far as this game goes--my first thought is that we don't need to settle in a hurry. Since we will pretty much tank our research when we settle, I think its important to look for a better spot--getting a gold would be huge. If we need 4 cities for a palace jump we need some commerce as that means 3 cities with distance penalty.


This is a bad gamble IMO. The starting spot has ample food and some trees for chopping. Copper or iron is usually close by the starting location in GOTMs. With raging barbs, having axemen is a huge bonus. By moving, we run the risk of missing metals (assuming history repeats). Beside extra gold, what is there to gain?

I have been having a hell of a time with this practice game. I have been trying to head west with my settler until I saw an animal in hopes of lowering maintenance costs. The earliest I have seen an animal is 3790BC, but other times it was 3640 or 3670, so I could get a fair distance before settling.

I've then been trying to worker steal and build a bunch of warriors until size 3 then settlers. By the time I am building my settlers, barb archers are appearing like mad and decimating my fog-busters.

None of my saves are worth posting - they are miserable! I am learning the following though:

1) I don't like my idea about moving the settler west until animals appear (3800BC). I think we would be better of finding a good city spot & settling there instead of trying to minimize maintenance costs.
2) I am seriously thinking that hunting->archery is better initial tech than mining->BW. Getting archers out there as fog-busters instead of warriors should go a long way, even when barb axemen start to appear. Normally I hate archery - esp. with an aggressive civ - but I wonder if it isn't appropriate in this situation.
3) During one try I built a barracks - this was a bad idea, I would have been better off with another fog-buster. Even promoted warriors have a tough time against archers.

I am seriously considering setting up another practice game and trying out these lessons. I've tried so many times with this one I think it's spoiled for me.

PS - Strange observation - I tried just a random fractal map instead of the simulated start and animals NEVER appeared - I think this was because I wasn't settling my first city.

For the practice game, here's a suggestion: Everyone who wants to play 100 turns and post up your 50 and 100 turn (2500 and 1000 BC) saves. That way, rather than just hearing someone say 'we ought to do this' everyone can see firsthand what results that particular opening strategy will produce. Also, if everyone will take note of when they see the first animal, the first human barbs, and when wonders (if any) are finished, we'll have a general idea of what to expect on that front.


This is a great idea. I wish I had read this when I played. If I get another chance this weekend, I will keep track of the dates.

This is a bad gamble IMO. The starting spot has ample food and some trees for chopping. Copper or iron is usually close by the starting location in GOTMs. With raging barbs, having axemen is a huge bonus. By moving, we run the risk of missing metals (assuming history repeats). Beside extra gold, what is there to gain?

One thing about this start (and practice game) is that there is no blue circle indicating a good city location. I believe this means that the start location is heavily modified since normal starts always have a blue circle where the settler is.

Per my previous post, I am currently wondering if it is a good idea to explore the general starting location for a really good city spot (esp. for a city that won't expand culturally for a long time). We will actually be more efficient at research prior to founding this city, so we have some time to pick a good spot.

...barb archers are appearing like mad and decimating my fog-busters....

2) I am seriously thinking that hunting->archery is better initial tech than mining->BW. Getting archers out there as fog-busters instead of warriors should go a long way, even when barb axemen start to appear. Normally I hate archery - esp. with an aggressive civ - but I wonder if it isn't appropriate in this situation.


This happened with me too, although I prefer Mining->BW for the extra hammers & slavery, not to mention th chance of having copper near-by. Archery as a backup may be worth while.



I am seriously considering setting up another practice game and trying out these lessons. I've tried so many times with this one I think it's spoiled for me.


Please post it if you do. The last one was an eye-opener.

Is that in the strategy forum? I heard that a bug exists, but was unaware of the detais.


Is in the strategy forum by Zombie69. The essence of the bug is that if you have a bonus from org rel or forge you get extra hammers if what you need is in the "bonus zone" so with 25% bonus if you are within 46-57 hammers (epic) and you whip you will get 90 for one pop.

I am seriously considering setting up another practice game and trying out these lessons. I've tried so many times with this one I think it's spoiled for me.



Great idea--although I haven't had a chance to play yet I think we are on uncharted territory here and the more we practice the better. I don't think we should be in a hurry to start.

This is a bad gamble IMO. The starting spot has ample food and some trees for chopping. Copper or iron is usually close by the starting location in GOTMs. With raging barbs, having axemen is a huge bonus. By moving, we run the risk of missing metals (assuming history repeats). Beside extra gold, what is there to gain?

I strongly disagree. From what we see now, this is a pretty mediocre site in my book. I would explore a few turns here in any game and look inland. Lots of trees, but to get the fish and rice you have to give up fresh water and weak on production. I think better strategy is to plan on city #2 with the bronze. My guess is iron comes too late to help us vs. barbs but is currently just a guess. Also I hate to base a strategy on "surely they would put metal within our border". As for the bonuses, rice(non irrigated) is the weakest and we may have to deal with barbs on the fish. We also have to consider that we don't get an automatic culture expansion.

I


1) I don't like my idea about moving the settler west until animals appear (3800BC). I think we would be better of finding a good city spot & settling there instead of trying to minimize maintenance costs.


yes when in doubt west better than e but I think top priority find a good site.

Another date to record from practice games is when barbs attack our cities --does that get earlier? It seems like it will be difficult to keep the fog busted with warriors.

I think better strategy is to plan on city #2 with the bronze. My guess is iron comes too late to help us vs. barbs but is currently just a guess.

...Another date to record from practice games is when barbs attack our cities...




Another date to record is when city #2, our third city @-7gpt, can get built and current troop strength.

Edit:
I may have mistaken your post Ungy. Were you saying we should not build any cities until BW and then settle #2 near the copper? ...or to scout and settle in a better area. Then build a second city (actually #3) near copper after BW has been discovered?

I've uploaded another practice game. I haven't tried this yet but I will with the thoughts outlined in my previous posts. I'll try to keep track of the important dates, too.

EDIT: (added my later save games)

Read the spoiler below for my results:

Damn! This one is hell, too. It's especially bad I think because we are on a continent by ourselves. Maybe my conclusions are different than those who played more on the first practice game.

Here's my data:

animal: 3760
archer: 2650
warrior: 2590

I wandered a bit until I found a plains hill - I think it will be a good idea for us to find a plains hill for the production boost. Early worker improvements will be tough - I had to defend my mines with archers 100% of the time - not sure we'll even be able to build cottages until we have enough archers to fog-bust. Even chopping was almost impossible!

I think archery is absolutely essential. I don't think I can stress this enough. My fortified promoted warriors on forested hills die quite easily to the raging barbs. With archers and "hill" promotions, I was just starting to beat back the hordes so I could found the 3rd city after 1000BC.

I think barracks are next to useless since the barbs will be promoting our units like crazy anyway.

I suggest tech path of: hunting->archery->mining->BW

I think we have a decision point for the next tech depending upon whether there is any copper nearby. We'll need at least some military resource once barb axemen start to appear!

Here is a sample game based on Mushroomshirt's but editted in Worldbuilder.

Another date to record is when city #2, our third city @-7gpt, can get built and current troop strength.

Edit:
I may have mistaken your post Ungy. Were you saying we should not build any cities until BW and then settle #2 near the copper? ...or to scout and settle in a better area. Then build a second city (actually #3) near copper after BW has been discovered?


Sorry what I meant was city #3 or the city with our first constructed settler--so scout around a few turns to take a stab at a better spot and make sure we get BW by the time of our first settler build and then hook up bronze.

My guess is we will probably tech pretty quick to BW--it may make sense to get myst to expand borders. I think one thing we should do is track when the barbs start to attack cities and estimate when we can get bronze hooked up assuming we give it top priority. If we can get that in time then we can skip archery

A few other thoughts: our city spot, unlike a normal game, will not necessarily be our capital. Since we will surely do a palace jump, we may choose a more central city or just a better one. So I would prioritize gold obviously if we find it and long term prospects a little less than usual.

In any case, when we're ready to play I plan to pause after a few scouting turns to get feedback on settling and also get a consensus tech path (which we'll need prior to the scouting).

In the last game the city site was pretty obvious--every game I looked at had built the same spot. Likely to be different this time leading to immediate divergence. Also seems like the possibility of real trouble if the early game not careful.

Not sure if we'll have the tech, but an interesting build for me in Kyoto would be the Great Lighthouse. In a conquest game we could end up with a lot of cities and likely never get to corp. I think we could get it if we get the tech reasonably early (which might not make sense for other reasons).

Well, I just got done with my first 'serious' practice game. I think this pic really says it all...


[URL=http://imageshack.us]http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/4739/grogstest2290bcfv0.jpg
I think archery is absolutely essential. I don't think I can stress this enough. My fortified promoted warriors on forested hills die quite easily to the raging barbs. With archers and "hill" promotions, I was just starting to beat back the hordes so I could found the 3rd city after 1000BC.

I think barracks are next to useless since the barbs will be promoting our units like crazy anyway.

I suggest tech path of: hunting->archery->mining->BW

I think we have a decision point for the next tech depending upon whether there is any copper nearby. We'll need at least some military resource once barb axemen start to appear!

I've come to pretty much the same well, maybe not conclusions, but hypotheses. I saw my first barb archer in 2590 BC. From 2290 BC on, there was never a turn when I didn't have 3 barbs within 3 tiles of Osaka. I had built a worker, but he turned out to be useless because by the time he could chop forests, he couldn't leave the city. I couldn't defend him and Osaka at the same time. Even with 3 fairly experienced warriors in Osaka, barbs took the city in 2020 BC, which pretty much ended it... no chance of pulling off a OCC conquest victory from Kyoto. Back to the drawing board I guess. This time I'm going for defense first and everything else will have to wait.



BTW, my dates: First animal - 3760 BC; First barb (archer) - 2590 BC.

Here is a sample game based on Mushroomshirt's but editted in Worldbuilder.

llib_rm, I tried your game, here are my results:

I hope, hope, hope that there is this much copper on the real map!

Not knowing about all the llib_rm goodies, I still went hunting->archery ->mining->BW first. My plan was to settle on a plains hill and build no workers. My second settler would land directly on the copper.

Based on my last game, I didn't want to have to expend fog busters to defend my improvements. That's why I was planning on settling directly on the resources.

Anyway here are two screenshots from 2500 and 1000BC - fog is nicely busted in 1000BC (with help from geography and America!)

2500BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Civ4ScreenShot00004.JPG

1000BC:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/Civ4ScreenShot0001_shrunk.JPG

Lessons learned:
I think a big difference with this game versus the one I posted about earlier was that my city spot was basically surrounded by water on 2 sides - this helped immensely with the fog busting (as did the presence of other civs nearby).

I still like hunting->archery to start. It took a lot of the early guess-work out of it and I maybe lost 1 warrior the whole time because the archers took care of the barbs before the copper got hooked up. I think counting on the kind of start llib_rm set up is a bit of a gamble.

OK, this one is much less disastrous. I at least didn't manage to lose in the first 100 turns and was actually doing pretty well, all things considered. Dates for first barbs/animals were the same. My 3rd city was founded in 1330 BC.


2500 BC SS:
http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/621/grogstest2500bcue4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

1000 BC SS:
http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/1205/grogstest1000bcnt9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I wandered west with the settler (towards Kyoto to hopefully lower maintenance, which it did) and settled on a plains hill in 3880 BC. The site I selected had lots of FP's for food and a plains/hill/forest, which made a nice 3h tile to work. I followed ms's research path of hunting-> archery-> mining-> BW, then pottery for cottages and granaries, mysticism for obelisks/SH, Animal Husbandry for the nearby sheep and pigs, and writing (8 turns away as of 1000 BC.) I built nothing but warriors and archers for quite a while, until I built a worker ~2500 BC. Once the worker was up, I had him chop a forest for the settler that founded Tokyo in 1330 BC. Kyoto built 4 workboats, 1 archer, a granary (pop-rushed) and then began working on Stonehenge. It's incomplete here, but I was able to finish SH in 925 BC with a 3 citizen pop-rush in Kyoto.

One of my fog-busting archers encountered one of Roosevelt's archers and a settler in 1660 BC. The archer was at half strength, so I declared, killed FDR's archer, and captured the settler as a 2nd worker. FDR never sent troops after me and I made peace as soon as I was able. As of 1000 BC, I also have the 2nd settler under construction and I would guess the 4th city would be founded ~ 700 BC. I don't see a need to go to war yet since there's still good land surrounding us and at least 1 barb city to capture. I'd start working on some axes and hopefully get them some xp on barbs before I started working on serious conquest. I can expect my first Great Prophet from Stonehenge in 175 BC and if I research the proper techs (meditation, polytheism, CoL, *NOT* Masonry), I can have him discover CS for me.

EDIT: BTW, many thanks to mushroomshirt for putting this practice game together. I think going into this one with the normal CIV strategies (go for BW, expand as quickly as possible, etc) has a big chance of getting wiped out quickly. I never would have realized that without these sample starts.

OK, this one is much less disastrous. I at least didn't manage to lose in the first 100 turns and was actually doing pretty well, all things considered. Dates for first barbs/animals were the same. My 3rd city was founded in 1330 BC.


Grogs, without giving away your spoiler for those who want to try out the game - what do you think about looking for a first city spot on plains hills on a peninsula or other area bounded on at least 2 sides by water. I think this could make fog busting a lot easier. Do you think that would have helped you in your test games or doesn't it matter much?


Grogs, I wonder why you didn't found tokyo closer to (or on) the copper? I guess you were building an obelisk there & by the time BW came along maybe you had fog-busting well in hand?


EDIT: BTW, many thanks to mushroomshirt for putting this practice game together. I think going into this one with the normal CIV strategies (go for BW, expand as quickly as possible, etc) has a big chance of getting wiped out quickly. I never would have realized that without these sample starts.


You're welcome! I'm glad you find the practice game useful.

Grogs, without giving away your spoiler for those who want to try out the game - what do you think about looking for a first city spot on plains hills on a peninsula or other area bounded on at least 2 sides by water. I think this could make fog busting a lot easier. Do you think that would have helped you in your test games or doesn't it matter much?

Well, probably the most defensible spot would be on a hill with water on 2 sides and a river on the other two. That would mean maybe 2-3 fogbusters instead of the 4-6 I had out and any attackers would suffer the penalty for crossing a river. We'd like to have the plains hill, obviously, for the extra hammer, but there's a bit of a balancing act between wandering too long (and getting extra research) and settling too late (and losing turns that could be spent building defenders.) In a city on a hill, an unpromoted archer will have a strength of 6-6.75, which should be plenty for holding off the barbs. I think I had 2 warriors and 1 archer out and 2 more archers in Osaka by the time the first barb archers appeared. I should also mention that the barbs seemed a little bit smarter than normal as I watched several bypass my fogbusting units and head straight for Osaka instead.

One thing that definitely has to be considered in the original placement of Osaka is that it will only have the 8 surrounding tiles available for a long time, so a city that's right next to one good resource is probably preferable to one that's two tiles away from 3 good resources. With that in mind, we can't afford to have too many water tiles in the city radius since we'll want at least 4 good tiles to work before we expand.


Grogs, I wonder why you didn't found tokyo closer to (or on) the copper? I guess you were building an obelisk there & by the time BW came along maybe you had fog-busting well in hand?

Stupidity probably. Yeah, as soon as I saw your Screenshots, my first reaction was #$%^, I should have built Tokyo on the copper and I would have been producing axemen already. I did have fog busting pretty well in hand with 5-6 units out busting and 4 in cities, but that would have gotten me started on an offensive force earlier. Also, and probably peculiar to this particular game, all the other civs had units wandering around in the area and that seemed to help with the busting duties as well.


EDIT: I'm wondering how many teams aren't familiar with this type of game or won't play a few practice games and will get taken out quickly. I consider myself to be a fairly solid monarch/emperor player and I got taken out pretty quickly on my first attempt using the 'tried and true' strategies that most players use.

One thing that definitely has to be considered in the original placement of Osaka is that it will only have the 8 surrounding tiles available for a long time, so a city that's right next to one good resource is probably preferable to one that's two tiles away from 3 good resources. With that in mind, we can't afford to have too many water tiles in the city radius since we'll want at least 4 good tiles to work before we expand.


Well, I actually wasn't thinking of water in the city radius or even the fat cross. I was just thinking that as long as the coast is not obscured by fog, it requires fewer fog-busters. I agree that a plains hill city is probably more important.

I guess a lot depends upon the geography of the starting continent. Because the continent in the 1st practice game was long E-W but not N-S, it was a little easier to fog-bust than the 2nd practice game where there is a huge continent. I founded my city smack in the middle and was pretty much toast having to fog bust in 4 directions.

Well, I actually wasn't thinking of water in the city radius or even the fat cross. I was just thinking that as long as the coast is not obscured by fog, it requires fewer fog-busters. I agree that a plains hill city is probably more important.

I see what you're getting at now. Yes, absolutely. If we only have 2 directions to worry about barbarians coming from, we can bust twice as much fog in the other two directions. Of course with only a ~15 tile max radius, a peninsula might or might not be possible to find. We probably can find a nice piece of coastline, probably even one that's in a corner of the continent, so we can put our back against the sea at least. That's probably not a good location for a capital, but as ungy said, the first city we build doesn't have to be the capital.

Something else to consider about raging barbs is that unless we've only got a very small piece of land for ourselves, there should be quite a few barb cities popping up, so we may be able to do a good bit of our initial expansion by capturing them.

Something else to consider about raging barbs is that unless we've only got a very small piece of land for ourselves, there should be quite a few barb cities popping up, so we may be able to do a good bit of our initial expansion by capturing them.


Considering the resources taken to build settlers, it might be smart to plan on capturing city #4, & if possible #3, regardless of whether they are barb's or another Civ's cities.

I played mushroomshirt's second test game. The result is not worth posting, but here are the dates:

3490 BC - Animals
2620 BC - Warrior Barb
2590 BC - Archer Barb
1360 BC - Barb City
520 BC - Axeman barb

2830 BC - Budhism FIDL
880 BC - Stonehedge BIDL

I was building Stonehedge in the capital when it was BIDL. The exchange of hammers into gold is pretty high and boosted my gold by 130 gold. This allowed me to keep research $$ flowing. I strongly suggest we build stonehedge in our capital. If we get it, free culture & GP points. If we miss, extra gold.

Having archers is significantly better than warriors. If we go for BW first and are stuck without metals, then we will have to fend off archer barbs with (cannon fodder) warriors.

Considering the resources taken to build settlers, it might be smart to plan on capturing city #4, & if possible #3, regardless of whether they are barb's or another Civ's cities.

#4 would be great, but capturing #3 that way would be difficult. Unless we happen to plop our settler down next to copper or horses, all we'll have is archers and it's pretty tough to take a city with just archers. Hopefully we can build #3 on top of copper and look to capture #4 with axes.

I fired up a random game with these settings, placed Kyoto approx. the correct distance away, and played from there. I'll post the save below if any of you guys are interested in looking at it. I wandered the settler as long as I could safely and settled in 3760 BC. The location isn't nearly as good as the one from ms's test game, but it is on a plains hill and it is defensible. The problem with wandering that far in one direction is that I ended up very close to 2 AI capitals. That's good and bad. Bad because I'm getting boxed in, but good because the AI's have kept my southern and western borders completely free of barbs. The only barbs (and there were many) I've seen came from the east. Research was hunting-> archery -> mining -> BW -> mysticism -> pottery -> AH -> writing -> agriculture. Copper was a bit too far away to hook up with my 2nd city, but I did manage to grab horses. I managed to finish Stonehenge in Kyoto (is that what you meant by 'capital' llib_rm?) in 1240 BC. I've got a 2nd settler nearing completion who can hopefully claim copper, along with sugar and dye.

Here's the save and the start, if anyone is interested:

Played mushroomshirt first practice--a real eye opener. Most significantly for me the first barb at 2620 came straight for capital and at 1500 they went for pillaging instead of the suicide attacks. So bye bye cottages as I didn't have the bronze hooked up yet. Palace 385 all AI wonders late--seems like there is no shot of anything except maybe stonehenge if we want it in kyoto.

Game was looking winnable but off any usual pace and by 1 AD Alex was making noises. will try more practice

Played mushroomshirt first practice--a real eye opener. Most significantly for me the first barb at 2620 came straight for capital and at 1500 they went for pillaging instead of the suicide attacks. So bye bye cottages as I didn't have the bronze hooked up yet. Palace 385 all AI wonders late--seems like there is no shot of anything except maybe stonehenge if we want it in kyoto.

Game was looking winnable but off any usual pace and by 1 AD Alex was making noises. will try more practice

A real eye-opener indeed. FWIW, you did better than I did on my first go. I lost Osaka to the barbs and that was pretty much it. You picked exactly the same spot I settled Osaka on the 2nd go round, so that's a good sign. I also had a similar experience with cottages. In both games so far, the barbs began to let off by 1200-1000 BC, so that's probably a fairly safe time to start working on them. In the early game, we just won't be able to protect flatland improvements (farms/cottages) very well, so I think we'd like to settle where we've got at least 1 natural 3F tile available. I don't know about you guys, but I can still see FP's in the fog, so heading in that direction initially might be wise.

As for Kyoto, I think we've got a really good shot of grabbing Stonehenge there since we don't have to worry about defense (ex. 1 warrior for garrison) or really anything but a few workboats, for a long, long time. The key seems to be managing how many citizen specialists we employ there.

tried both mushrooms 2 nd save and grogs start--mushroom #2 was basically a nightmare--not sure if it is winnable even. Did OK I think w/ Grogs game (my second go--first time I popped a hut w/ my settler--mistake).

Having trouble attaching for some reason.
2600 on the barbs seems about right.

I'm leaning to go for archery--I think too dangerous to wait for BW and bronze. Myst needs to be in there somewhere.

Thought a bit more about Grogs game --for some reason still having trouble posting save so I'll write a bit here. Went way west and founded near 2 and later 3 AI. This turned out to be great as they blocked the barbs. Went straight for archery and got a steal as soon as I got an archer. Built more archers to defend territory and improvements and expanded culture. Bronze was too far--because I had gone so far west was not tanking too bad and got IW and put second city by close iron. At 1000 BC things look great as I'm building axes and swords and should run over the nearby AI.

Key point in all this is getting boxed in not so bad as the barbs are so tough.

As long as there is some space so that likely can get bronze or iron better to let the AI defend against the barbs and then build a real army and take them out.

As for Kyoto, I think we've got a really good shot of grabbing Stonehenge there since we don't have to worry about defense (ex. 1 warrior for garrison) or really anything but a few workboats, for a long, long time. The key seems to be managing how many citizen specialists we employ there.

It seems like we can likely get stonehenge if we want to like that. I think 2 wb, war, stonehenge should do it (maybe with a whip at the end). Probably worth it but downside as I see it is that we may spend a lot of turns working specialist instead of 2 commerce and get a prophet that we can only use for tech. Alternatively we can whip a library and have more research--obviously loads of time to decide that.

I think we're not in contention for any other early wonders--or likely any wonders period.

I was building Stonehedge in the capital when it was BIDL. The exchange of hammers into gold is pretty high and boosted my gold by 130 gold. This allowed me to keep research $$ flowing. I strongly suggest we build stonehedge in our capital. If we get it, free culture & GP points. If we miss, extra gold.

I'm intrigued by this primarily for the GP - we can save him for CS if we don't research masonry as Grogs pointed out in an earlier post. Then go for machinery and start the samurai rolling!

tried both mushrooms 2 nd save and grogs start--mushroom #2 was basically a nightmare--not sure if it is winnable even.

:sad: I came to about the same conclusion. By 1200 BC when I gave it up, I had pretty much reached a stalemate with the barbs. The barbs couldn't dent the CG3 archer defending Osaka, but they were attacking 2-3 per turn. My archer fogbusters all had at least geurilla1, so they were untouchable too. I couldn't get any more fogbusters out though, because they'd get killed before they could reach a nice defensible hill. And I only research 4 techs in the first 3000 years. When I saw there was no copper on the entire continent, I gave it up. The only bright spot in that entire game was that I moved the bar on Stonehenge back a little further to 1300 BC.

Did OK I think w/ Grogs game (my second go--first time I popped a hut w/ my settler--mistake).

:lol: I did that first time through too. Yep, lost the settler on the 3rd turn of the game.

Attached is my 1120BC save from Mushrooms first game. I learned the same lessons as the others.


I waited as long to build our second city, which allowed for 100% research for all of our first tech. I kept the city population small to control cost (frequent whipping).

Moving the city closer to the capital saved 1-2 gpt, which was great.

Getting Stonehedge was very important. I was able to get it easily and could have shaved a few more turns with better micro-management. As stated earlier, this keeps our capital doing something productive...Tokyo has very few build options.

I must have been lucky with my warriors. My fog-buster warriors held up to all barb attacks. They were able to upgrade to guerilla II, and more. In the end, I could have managed without archers.

I will try mushrooms second save and live the nightmare.

:The only bright spot in that entire game was that I moved the bar on Stonehenge back a little further to 1300 BC.


I've been playing around with Stonehenge in Kyoto a little. If we are willing to tech hunting->archery->mysticism->mining->BW, I think we can get stonehenge in 1810BC.

build order in Kyoto is as ungy said wb->wb->warrior->stonehenge

rules are:

improve fish with 1st workboat (extra food)
second improvement doesn't matter because health penalty cancels extra food from fish if 2nd fish is worked.
always work improved sea resource if available, otherwise run citizen
pop rush stonehenge when possible


If we are willing to delay BW a bit, this gives us the earliest possible Stonehenge, I think.

Edited because I forgot mysticism in tech path!

I played Grogs game with some success trying a completely different approach.


In Kyoto, it was the usual workboat (X2)->warrior->workboat->stonehedge

With the settler I scouted until animals appeared (3730BC) and grouped my warrior & settler on a forested hilltop.

Research: Mining->BW->Hunting->Myst->Agr->Pottery->Writing

Once BW was discovered I settled on top of the Cu and built:
Axe (X2) -> Barracks ->Axe (X12)

After this, it was basically an Axeman rush and took out the French capitol along with two other cities.

Well I did Mushrooms 2nd game, and it was tough. I think it's winnable, but not a good score.

In short, I moved toward Kyoto to reduce maintenance cost, but it did not work out too well. I settled in a good defensible location with fish within my borders.

My build order was the same in Kyoto. In the second city (Osaka?), I built my warrior fog buster, which held up just fine. Most of the barbs were attacking America and the other civs. I had few problems with barbs.

I built Stonehenge in 1780BC, which again was very easy.

I conquered a barb city, and then settled our 4th city (Tokyo?). I mis-managed my money. I tried to max research, and tried to build the palace, and keep all my military. In truth my military was too big for my budget. In any case, my troops went on strike...I had zero cash flow and still had 12t until the palace was built. In the end, I lost 2 workers, 3 chariots, and 3 warriors (OUCH!!!) :eek: The palace was built in 220 BC.

Well I did Mushrooms 2nd game, and it was tough. I think it's winnable, but not a good score.


was that the second or the first? I never found another civ in game 2 although I didn't get to the top of the continent.

Do you guys want to wait around a bit and play some more practice games or should we get started?

If we get started I will take the save and plan on scouting a few turns until I get to a possible city site and pause for comments.

Research hunting-arch-probably myst but that will be after my set.

I think important to get archers asap as a big difference if you have even one by 2600 when the barbs show up. If we go to BW we will only have axes if we are very lucky with bronze --we may not have the fat cross even by then. I think too risky to do anything else.

If we end up settling near ai I think that is much better. I mean the barbs are worse than an ai you are at war with (other than ww). As long as we're not too boxed in we could be ideal in that case.

So my plan would be to head west and look for a good spot and pause after a few turns for a day for comments.

I played Grogs game with some success trying a completely different approach.


Very interesting--do you think we should try it?

@llib_rm: I have to give you an A+ for a completely novel approach. I don't think it's something I'd want to try in actual SGOTM play though. All it takes is one bear or a lion that catches our warrior/settler pair in the open and it's game over.

@Lmtoops: That sounds like mushroomshirt's first game to me as well. I'm pretty sure the 2nd save was an alone on an island game and it was a nightmare.

@ALL: The official save is up over on the progress and results page.

I just took a look at the save and 2 things jump out at me immediately. First, there is another river w/ FP's just east of the start. I'd rather move west, but it may be a possibility if we can't find a good city site to the west. Also, Kyoto isn't as isolated as we thought. There's land of some sort to the north and it should be reachable by galley/workboat after the first cultural expansion.

Very interesting--do you think we should try it?

I think you should try it in practice and then decide.

I don't think it's something I'd want to try in actual SGOTM play though. All it takes is one bear or a lion that catches our warrior/settler pair in the open and it's game over.



This was not as bad as you might think. Fortified on a forested/jungle hill give good odds against animals, except bears, I actually survived a lion attack, I'll have to check the turn logs. You can always run away too.

I probably was playing another practice game. I think we are done with practice and get on with the real deal.

I less priority in getting archers. I think we could manage without, but it is a more risky approach to use warriors. It's too eary in the game to take that risk. In any case, if another tech looks better we can wait on archers.

I would wait to settle as long as possible. Even after animals appear, you can wait a few turns. Just be careful about the panther (2 movements)

Build priority in new city is build some fog busters (2 warriors) and then a worker). Kyoto should build work boats until Stonehenge is available. Per Grogs post, we can use 1 or 2 to explore.

Unless someone has a strong opinion about more practice, I will play a few turns tonight and post a screenshot (or the save if I can't figure out how).

I was thinking of sending the warrior to the hill to check out what looks like a river e, and send the settler in the sw direction.

I think W would be definately better than E but if there is a compelling spot E I think take it.

I think we need archery--based on 3 practices it made a huge difference. Don't know if this is an anomoly, but I fortified combat 1 archers on pastures and they were never attacked--curious if anyone else had this experience. They weren't quite in the path to city tho.

Not sure when we get myst will depend on city site. Getting culture is pretty important usually and also does a fair bit of fog busting.

As for quality of city, early cottages not so good, mines good, obviously gold huge. I think ah resources will play in a reasonable amount of time so still very important.

I think close to AI is good--a bit of a gamble but if there is reasonable amount of space we're likely to still get metal and have a much easier time with the barbs. Also not too far inland--that will help as it's tough if they come from all sides.

As for the land near Kyoto, may give us more AI contact--I think we wouldn't try and settle there no matter what and AI will not be able to get to us.

As for Kyoto, I think better not to work specialist at least at first. It bumps up pretty soon into the limit and the extra 2gpt from the tile is pretty significant given our total (net) commerce.

I think you should try it in practice and then decide.

After some more thought, I think overall too risky. Great idea though--I never would have thought of it.

After some more thought, I think overall too risky.


It is risky, but my experience is that calculated risks must be taken to gain fast wins.

I suggest you/we take an evening to run another practice game trying this approach and gauge the risk from that experience.

I'm kinda lost :confused:

I'm kinda lost :confused:

There is debate on the opening strategy for this game. The distance penalty, raging barbs, and uppity AIs make the start challenging. The choices under discussion involve:

1) Settle on the spot or search for better location.

2) Research BW or Archery first

3) Variations of 1 & 2

We have been playing practice games to figure out the best approach. I suggest you download and try one. It was an eye-opener for me.

I gave llib_rm's opening gambit a go using mushroomshirt's first game. Research is fast, obviously, especially considering I didn't have to research hunting/archery right away. There are quite a few downsides I see though. First, I got less scouting done. Since the settler and warrior need to be together by ~2800 BC, I could only send the settler west and the settler east for about 4 turns before I had to start bringing them together. That meant I explored a lot less terrority than in previous games, especially considering that in the more conventional start, I would continue scouting with the warrior long after the 2nd city was founded. I was fortunate and there was copper in the neighborhood, so I was able to found Osaka 3 turns after BW was discovered. Because of the strategy, the only spot I could settle on was directly on top of the copper, and it wasn't a particularly awesome spot. I actually had to pop rush the first axe because there was a barb archer standing beside Osaka before the axe was finished. Also, because axe cost ~50% more than archers and because I had a lot less time to build them, I had many fewer actual fogbusters than in any previous game.

Overall, I think the risk of such a strategy is too great. It means, essentially, betting the entire game on there being copper close to the starting point. If there isn't, we're in deep trouble. While I agree with llib_rm's sentiment about calculated risks = fast wins, I think there's a difference between a strategy that will slow you down if you fail and one that spells utter disaster if you fail.

BTW, I was also able to grab SH in 1660 BC this game, which was actually early enough I was never tempted to put an obelisk in Osaka.

It is risky, but my experience is that calculated risks must be taken to gain fast wins.

I suggest you/we take an evening to run another practice game trying this approach and gauge the risk from that experience.


I'm in no hurry to start, and I think its important for us all to try and get on the same page. I'll play mushroom1 and grogs game with that strategy tonight if I have time. My guess is that the "conventional" strategy will come out ahead.

BTW, I was also able to grab SH in 1660 BC this game, which was actually early enough I was never tempted to put an obelisk in Osaka.

One thing we need to think about is how much to prioritize production in Kyoto. Certainly you can get SH out quicker, but it might be better to get the commerce especially in the critical early phase. I think we want to get it early enough to be certain on getting it but not sure if it makes sense to get some more commerce at the cost of building obilisk in Osaka. Also you would build it earlier than that and get the expansion earlier as well.

One thing we need to think about is how much to prioritize production in Kyoto. Certainly you can get SH out quicker, but it might be better to get the commerce especially in the critical early phase. I think we want to get it early enough to be certain on getting it but not sure if it makes sense to get some more commerce at the cost of building obilisk in Osaka. Also you would build it earlier than that and get the expansion earlier as well.

makes sense - since I imagine that we want to use the GP from Stonehenge to get CS, we will have to research all the way to CoL, which will take a while. The GP will probably be sitting around for a while before we can use him if we build SH super-fast.

But I think the trade-off is not primarily between research and SH building, but between research and founding the first city. To really optimize research, we need to delay the founding of Osaka as late as possible. I guess that is what llib_rm is proposing. I'm sure there is a happy medium somewhere - personally, I think we are at next to no risk to delay settling until 3800.

Edited (twice) for date of first animal ~3800BC

I think we should delay Osaka for at least our first two techs. I don't know about waiting for copper. The problem is that we have no way of knowing if there is any copper, anywhere. If there is no copper (or it's far away) we are screwed.

I would delay, but not past the first 2-3 techs. We will need Osaka to set up our fogbuster screen, build workers, and develop the city to build the palace, quickly.

I do think we should risk not researching archery. Fortified combat1 warriors in forests do a very good job. They are barb magnets. The barbs will attack them before they attack a guarded city...I think the 25% defensive bonus scares them off.

The risks: bad luck and barb axemen. If this happens, all is not lost. We would have a setback that would negate the risk (not researching archery).


Scenerio 1. Skip archery and all goes well. The warriors hold up and we may have axemen and/or chariots to help. We save archery research time.

Scenerio 2. Skip archery and thing go poorly. We loose warriors and have to build more...maybe have to rush. We have to axemen or chariots. The saved research time is lost...it's a wash.

I tried a couple of starts with the strategy of waiting for bronze and it didn't work to well for me. In mush 1 I did not explore the copper and in grogs 1 I settled close to the French in a pretty bad location. I think the fundemental problem with this strategy is that you:

1. must explore copper. Likely but not certainty. BTW my constraint was to get safe at 3700 with the warrior in forest near forest hill and one game had a wolf at 3730.

2. You must put your first real city right on the copper. This is a serious constraint. Most locations for cities are pretty bad and that is what is likely to happen to us. Copper is great but not critical.

Why I think archery is the way to go:

1. for fog busting you don't just need battles that rate to win like the fortified warriors in woods. You will get attacked a lot and 70-80% does not cut it, especially if you need to heal. Warriors also cannot defend mines. Your archers will be pretty much invulnurable in terrain or when they get some promotions and there should be one cg3 that can handle an axe. BTW I also didn't see any axes.

2. If you can get city #3 by bronze and get it hooked up you are in good shape--we all can agree on that. If not, you still have excellent chances. In Grogs game I never got bronze but settled close to AI and by 1000 had iron hooked up and about 10 archers with great tiles working. I'm sure that would have been a fast conquest. Another possibility is to get horse if no bronze. Is pretty unlikely that none of those happen.

So there is a lot of versatility with the archers, and presumably your city is in a good location.

I would repeat that it seemed very useful in my practice games to be close to the AI--I think ideally one side would be covered by AI. That also makes the empire compact as presumably the plan is a rush as soon as barbs under control. Another thing I was able to do was a steal, and then instead of losing my warrior the AI lost its archer. I don't have that much steal experience but it really does seem to be huge--getting that worker and gimping your neighbor is pretty big--another advantage of settling close.

As for the slow research, it really only slows down a lot with city 3--if we're at -7 compared to a typical game we get 3 back if we fish 1 square and pretty quickly get the whole 7 unless we hurry to stonehenge. Getting gimped in tech a bit but getting a "free" stonehenge isn't a terrible deal compared to a regular game. The no early culture and barbs I think is a bigger deal by far.

So I respectfully disagree with waiting and settling the bronze and strongly think we should settle before we have any animal danger and play a more "normal" game.

Priorities:
1. W better than E
2. Near an AI good
3. Peninsula or near coast also good

I will play a few turns tomorrow night and pause when I think I have something unless anyone wants to keep the discussion going

ungy - sounds like a good, well thought out plan. Looking forward to your post tomorrow.

Well, like I said in another thread, holding off on Osaka is a balancing act. We get more research every turn we wait, but there's an opportunity cost involved. Every turn we hold off is a turn we lose building fogbusters, or eventually workers/settlers. Given, we probably can't build archers, axes, or whatever at first, but the city will be growing. It takes a painfully long time for a size 1 city to build a unit, much quicker at size 3 or 4.

Re Kyoto/SH: I ran it fairly conservative to get a 1660 SH. I let the citizens work the fish until size 3, when I pulled one for a citizen. Then at size 4, I pulled another because the garrison unit wasn't complete. At 5+, I let a 3rd citizen work a water tile. We really *need* to work a citizen specialist or two or else we'll have unhappy citizens there in no time. Also, since Kyoto might not be *completely* isolated, we've got more items to build than previously thought, so getting SH knocked out and on to a couple of WB's for exploration would be great. Finally, getting the GP early opens up another possibility. Moses beat the founding of confucianism by 5 turns in that last game, so it could give us the option anyway, of picking up CoL and founding confucianism with the GP. Probably unnecessary in a fast conquest game, but having options is good.

EDIT: To be clear, I think ungy's course of action is good. The only point of disagreement we have, pulling citizens in Kyoto to speed up SH, would be beyond his turnset anyway, so I'm fine with you going ahead and playing tomorrow night.

I tried a couple of starts with the strategy of waiting for bronze


Thank you.


Why I think archery is the way to go:


I agree that archery is a way to go. Sounds like you have a good plan.


I would repeat that it seemed very useful in my practice games to be close to the AI--I think ideally one side would be covered by AI.


Remember that the AI's are uppity. I had Ghengis declare on me in 1400s in one practice game. Don't leave your back door too open.


As for the slow research, it really only slows down a lot with city 3--if we're at -7...

So I respectfully disagree with waiting and settling the bronze...


Not tanking our research was a driver for trying the "Cu-gambit".


I will play a few turns tomorrow night and pause when I think I have something unless anyone wants to keep the discussion going


I believe the laurels will be won in the first 100 turns. I think discussion is good!

I am checking out; heading north to explore the great state of California with the wife & kids. :D

Looks like I'll be missing some fun around here too. I'll check in when I'm back.

I am checking out; heading north to explore the great state of California with the wife & kids. :D

Looks like I'll be missing some fun around here too. I'll check in when I'm back.

I'm jealous--I was 15 years in the bay area and loved it--never thought I'd leave--now I find myself somehow back in the town I grew up in NY w/2 year old twins.

Remember that the AI's are uppity. I had Ghengis declare on me in 1400s in one practice game. Don't leave your back door too open.


good advice --I guess one good thing about the barbs is that you are pretty much prepared for an early DOW from the AI (certainly as compared to a normal game). My guess is that we will be playing such a militaristic game that the aggressive AI will not cause us too many problems.

OK here goes--w/kids out so started this aft.

4000 --war e to hill--holy **** river running ew rice sheep gems(grassland) all in a row. no water for rice but sheep and gems on river.

settler s, se sheep and plains hill gold.

I'm thinking we need to settle near here.
research hunting 0%

3970 war se --another grassland gems!!! and oasis and fp--maybe several fp in the fog.

I'm going to pause here for comments and thoughts. Was planning on playing a few more turns but this has really changed the dynamic.

Sorry guys I'm really lame at this posting--can't figure out how to post a screen shot--can somebody tell me how? Save is up.

Also I can't get my paper clip to work to attach files

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/saves/civ4sgotm2/Short_Straw_SG002_BC3970_01.Civ4SavedGame

Here's the pic:

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1608/ss3970bcdj1.th.jpg (http://img340.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ss3970bcdj1.jpg)

All I can say is holy crap! That hill where the warrior is standing is absolutely *awesome.* Sheep, rice, 2 gems, and gold in the fat cross. It's on a plains hill, and it has gems, gold, and the oasis in the original city radius. That gold and those gems, once worked, can more than make up for the extra distance to Kyoto. I haven't seen a spot that good in any of the practice games.

At first look my guess is to settle ASAP in the plains square that works everything in the fat cross. If we can survive the barb rush that will be an absolute blowout city. Change research to mining and build a worker!
We have basically a free pass until about 2600 or about turn 46. We could settle turn 4, worker comes turn 22, mine turn 28. Second mine turn 35.

I think early barbs will not pillage unless right in their way so if we get 1 archer out by then I think we OK and 2 is great.

Commerce: max commerce in Kyoto--not sure if we -7 or -8 here. We need to research mining, hunt, arch. We should be able to figure out about how long that will take--I'll work on it.

Seems to me settling here is mandatory. If not is basically a gamble that there is no metal or horse anywhere near otherwise rest of field will absolutely trounce us.

For posting pics:

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page on any CFC page (this one is find.) On the red bar at the bottom, you'll see a link that says 'upload file.' Click on it and a small window will appear. I've started using the ImageShack link at the top of the page, so just hit the 'Browse' button, navigate until you find your file, double click on it, and then hit the 'host it' button. You should get an ImgaeShack window showing that the file has been uploaded. There are several pieces of code listed there that are links to the pic you just uploaded. I used the 'Thumbnail For Forums (1)' code for the pic I posted above. Just copy the one you want into the thread and the thumbnail should show up. If in doubt, I'll hit 'Preview Post' before I close the ImageShack window.

thanks grogs

At first look my guess is to settle ASAP in the plains square that works everything in the fat cross.

I think the plains/hill where the warrior is standing is much better because:
- we will not have acces to the fat cross for a while
- defensive bonuses +25% (+50% for an archer)
- the extra hammer will be critical during early turns
- we still get fresh water with the oasis
- the initial working tiles would be the oasis (doesn't need improvements) and then the grassland/gems (which does)

There is debate on the opening strategy for this game. The distance penalty, raging barbs, and uppity AIs make the start challenging. The choices under discussion involve:

1) Settle on the spot or search for better location.

2) Research BW or Archery first

Archery! Isn't it obvious? (faster & cheaper, doesn't need a resource to get the units) Why don't you like archery??

Seems to me settling here is mandatory. If not is basically a gamble that there is no metal or horse anywhere near otherwise rest of field will absolutely trounce us.

Yup, it looks like this spot was carefully engineered to be the start for all civs. Pity any teams who decided to focus their search west for a spot with slightly lower upkeep.

I agree with mining, hunting, archery from your discussions. the gold mine should be defensible with archers and will offset most of the upkeep for the city. This does mean that Tokyo (I think thats the second Japanese city name) will not grow for a long time. We will need to get fog busters out to protect the area before we can switch from working the gold mine to the gem mine and start growing. At least water to the north limits the area to be fog busted.

Edit: I cross posted with Danthor and didn't think about working the oasis much after building a worker. It may be best to postpone working the gold mine for 7 turns (IIRC) after the gold mine is built to grow to size two. This will delay fog busters but we are founding 5 or 6 turns faster than we originally planned. Working the oasis and gold mine will add a couple of commerce and let the city grow very slowly. Or the forest/additional mine micromanaged with the oasis to give slightly higher production for faster archers.

I'm not sure we need Stonehenge as badly with this position. With gold, oasis, and grassland gem tiles in the first nine and happiness limits without the capital we are going to be waiting a long time before we want to work the additional gems, rice, and sheep. (This starting location is crazy!) Maybe an additional workboat in Kyoto for scouting and bronze working for whipping before we start SH. Perhaps build monuments in the first cities and focus on exploration in the capital. Kyoto's location has whip factory writen all over it. Edit: Kyoto will probably whip early wonders, a library, courthouse, forge and barracks since it has so much surplus food and not much else to do. After we explore enough to establish trade routes and happiness from gold and gems, it can support a couple of scientists.

Curiously, our second city will soon grow larger than the capital with the happiness resources hooked up. We should look for a coastal site for one of the first 4 cities so we can start a trade network and grow the capital after sailing.

It may be possible to get metal casting from the Oracle after SH if we delay agriculture and animal husbandry. Add a great prophet assisted CS and we would be most of the way to Samurai. This may be too late since we need BW for MC and would probably whip to finsh the Oracle.

I would propose mining, hunting, archery, (BW location in order debateable but we can whip to finish SH and find any nearby copper sites), mysticism, meditation, priesthood. Then worker techs; polytheism, writing and code of laws if we get at least one wonder and have a great priest on the way. Oracle for metal casting, great prophet for civil service and push for really early samurai if everything goes well. If we miss the wonders build monuments, libraries and axes. Researching meditation with no hope of founding Buddhism and priesthood will slow our development of our cities but it gives Kyoto a chance to do something useful while Tokyo is busy pumping out archers and then settlers. The worker will spend a lot of time camped in Tokyo but a don't know if it would be able to do much anyway with raging barbs.


Even ignoring the samurai, I think CS and a very fast shift to bureaucracy will be key for a fast win. This city site has huge commerce and good early production with the gold mine, two mined hills and the plains hill city. I think it should be the capital regardless of the location of other cities. I just would have such a huge benefit from bureaucracy.

Do we have a set of critical techs we want researched before we turn off research and found two more cities? Has anyone considered building two settlers when Tokyo reaches its pop limit and then founding at the same time with a screen of archers and quickly moving the palace? Is grabbing nearby metal or establishing a second archer factory asap too critical to do this? We can then quickly build/whip a palace in Tokyo and limit the amount of time we have 3 cities with high distance maintenance.

to research archery after mining we need about 310 or so beakers. Assuming no huts, if we settle immediately we have 33 the first three turns. We also get a "freebie" by going at 0 research--we still get 1 beaker.

Osaka size 1 working oasis until turn 28 then work gems.
turns 1-3: 11 =33
turns 4-17 14-8=6/turn for 94.
turns 17-27 16--8=8/turn for 88.
turn 28 work a 7 g gems and kyoto grows so 15 in Kyoto and 8 in Osaka for 15 net. so I think we get archery around turn 33 or 34 so we have one archer out for sure before we see any barbs.

I think just settle on the plains hill and research mining with max commerce in Kyoto. I think can use specs in Kyoto after we get archery but until then I want max commerce.

Hey RTB--several of us played a few practice games and I highly recommend playing at least one. We had to totally rethink our strategy as the barbs were way worse than our expectations initially. They come earlier and cross culture from about 2600. They also raze earlier, hence the priority to get metal to take them out. I think the only early wonder we could consider is SH in Kyoto--I think it makes a lot of sense. We will need way more and better units than normal so Oracle is I think unlikely.

Top priority is
1) defending our bonus squares.
2) hooking up metal, with this much commerce we could go to IW if no bronze nearby. So with Osaka building a ton of units and then presumably a settler and possibly a obilisk oracle is a luxury we won't be able to afford.

After those practice games it is pretty hard to think past defending against the barb rush but I don't think I've ever seen a city this good so I think we'll have lots of good options.

My guess is that since we are settling so close to our initial spot, there are no AI that are too close and we will deal with barbs from 3 sides.

Anybody see a reason not to settle on the plains hill? Maybe I'll just do it tonight in about 8 hrs since it seems kind of obvious.

I think the plains/hill where the warrior is standing is much better because:
- we will not have acces to the fat cross for a while
- defensive bonuses +25% (+50% for an archer)
- the extra hammer will be critical during early turns
- we still get fresh water with the oasis
- the initial working tiles would be the oasis (doesn't need improvements) and then the grassland/gems (which does)

you are certainly right--in my first look I missed the oasis and was thinking fresh water. the plains hill is the spot.

Hey RTB--several of us played a few practice games and I highly recommend playing at least one. We had to totally rethink our strategy as the barbs were way worse than our expectations initially. They come earlier and cross culture from about 2600. They also raze earlier, hence the priority to get metal to take them out. I think the only early wonder we could consider is SH in Kyoto--I think it makes a lot of sense. We will need way more and better units than normal so Oracle is I think unlikely.

Top priority is
1) defending our bonus squares.
2) hooking up metal, with this much commerce we could go to IW if no bronze nearby. So with Osaka building a ton of units and then presumably a settler and possibly a obilisk oracle is a luxury we won't be able to afford.

After those practice games it is pretty hard to think past defending against the barb rush but I don't think I've ever seen a city this good so I think we'll have lots of good options.

My guess is that since we are settling so close to our initial spot, there are no AI that are too close and we will deal with barbs from 3 sides.

I'm sure you are right. I'm without CIV until next week so I haven't been able to play practice games and don't usually play with raging barbs. At least there are a few forested hills and a river near Osaka for archers to camp.

If there is no copper nearby, I agree IW for metal is much more important than the Oracle. I was thinking about whipping it in Kyoto which won't have much to do while Osaka is holding off the barbs. I read your comments on test games so I assume even a barracks is a luxury we won't be able to afford in Osaka.

It may be impossible because even cheap techs like meditation and priesthood will be too slow to research. I assumed it would be impossible and didn't really think about it but with the gold and gems to offset maintenance we may be able to squeeze in the Oracle if we delay worker techs and find copper for axes.

Before writing and a library (which may be a long time), I'm just not sure what else Kyoto will do. I shouldn't propose ideas when I can't test them. :) I'm playing vicariously right now and this idea has no influence on the first 40 or 50 turns anyway.

Yup, it looks like this spot was carefully engineered to be the start for all civs. Pity any teams who decided to focus their search west for a spot with slightly lower upkeep.

Yeah the city site is great. I'm a little disappointed about it though, to be honest. The obvious move with the warrior was east onto the hill, so I suspect most everyone will see and settle in that same spot. I had kind of hoped for some more marginal terrain, which would have had people settling Osaka in lots of different places. It's always fun to see how people handle an initial opening like that.

Even ignoring the samurai, I think CS and a very fast shift to bureaucracy will be key for a fast win. This city site has huge commerce and good early production with the gold mine, two mined hills and the plains hill city. I think it should be the capital regardless of the location of other cities. I just would have such a huge benefit from bureaucracy.

Agreed. We've got a good plan for getting to CS with the Great Prophet from SH, so we've got that angle covered at least. We'll still have to get the whole IW->MC->Machinery angle covered before Samurai, but with a couple of gems/gold worked, research should go pretty quick.

Has anyone considered building two settlers when Tokyo reaches its pop limit and then founding at the same time with a screen of archers and quickly moving the palace? Is grabbing nearby metal or establishing a second archer factory asap too critical to do this? We can then quickly build/whip a palace in Tokyo and limit the amount of time we have 3 cities with high distance maintenance.

I've considered it, but there are a lot of tradeoffs involved. For example, we probably won't have access to copper in Osaka, so we'll want to put our next city there. If we have a nearby AI, delaying that too long means risking an AI grabbing that spot. Also, if we can capture a barbarian city, that means one less settler to build. Unfortunately, we'll need at least axes for that, which means having a 3rd city on the copper.

I think just settle on the plains hill and research mining with max commerce in Kyoto. I think can use specs in Kyoto after we get archery but until then I want max commerce.

No problems with that. I frankly wouldn't consider assigning a specialist in Kyoto until pop 3. My 'fast route' to SH involved one spec at 3 and another at 4 and got SH in 1770 BC or something like that. My 'slow route' involved pulling one at 3 and another at 5 going on 6 and still got SH in 1260 BC.

Anybody see a reason not to settle on the plains hill? Maybe I'll just do it tonight in about 8 hrs since it seems kind of obvious.

None here. BTW, what's your plan for the warrior? I've pretty much sent him out scouting on all the test games I've played and Kyoto has been unmolested until the barbs show up.

Yeah the city site is great. I'm a little disappointed about it though, to be honest. The obvious move with the warrior was east onto the hill, so I suspect most everyone will see and settle in that same spot. I had kind of hoped for some more marginal terrain, which would have had people settling Osaka in lots of different places. It's always fun to see how people handle an initial opening like that.


agree with you--I would have found a more scattered and challanging opening more interesting--this is shaping up to be so strong it may be a race like last game. There still may be some surprises for us tho.

None here. BTW, what's your plan for the warrior? I've pretty much sent him out scouting on all the test games I've played and Kyoto has been unmolested until the barbs show up.

I was planning on scouting and assuming the AI will not gank us as they can see Osaka unguarded. I think we're safe--just don't think its in the programming to DOW this early. I will be extra careful scouting tho as we will have use for this warrior later.

I suppose settling ammediately makes sense. I thought about waiting until after we research mining...that just delays building the worker, which is the real bottleneck. If our first build is the worker, we will only have to cut research for minimal turns (build worker, and mine the gold). OK, it makes sense.

I suppose settling ammediately makes sense. I thought about waiting until after we research mining...that just delays building the worker, which is the real bottleneck. If our first build is the worker, we will only have to cut research for minimal turns (build worker, and mine the gold). OK, it makes sense.

BTW I am going to mine the gems not the gold first--we have to mine the gems so city can grow

Wow! I have read the posts & like the consensus plan.

This heavily engineered start makes me think llib_rm from many posts back is probably right about copper being in the start area. I don't think we should count on it (I like mining->hunting->archery->BW tech path that is on the table) but I will be surprised if copper is not there.


Archery! Isn't it obvious? (faster & cheaper, doesn't need a resource to get the units) Why don't you like archery??

Actually I tend to avoid archery in my GOTMs and "solo" (non-GOTM - I don't play multiplayer) games. I find that it is usually more efficient to go straight for BW and find copper to build axemen. The problem I have with archery is that it is a dead-end tech, so it can slow my overall tech progression.

It sounds from the earlier posts that many of our teammates also follow this path & seldom research archery. What's surprising from playing the practice games is how critical archery & archers are with the raging barbs!

Here goes:

3970 settler to gold
3940 warrior ne, settler to spot
3910 sorry guys accidentally moved settler instead of warrior lost 2 turns!! warrior ne
3880 warrior se settler to spot
3850 Osaka, warrior se. Osaka is 8 gpt building worker. 46 vp
3820 warrior se
3790 warrior s
3760 warrior sw--Izzie ? Kyoto expands looks like 2 small islands
3730 Izzie scout 5e,4s war sw
3700 war e
3670 another izzie scout 3s, 1w war sw
3640 war e
3610 war sw lion
3580 mining, war heals at 70%.
3550 run ne from bear
3520 zzzz
3490 zzzz
3460 war nw
3430 bear was 2s, 1w of warrior 4 turns ago. Next up can take my turn as want to keep lion in view.

Sorry again about the wrong click--it was late when I got to play and I was curious about the map and thought I could manage this simple task.

Here's the roster:

ungy - Just Played
llib_rm*
RobertTheBruce - UP
Danthor - On Deck
Lmtoops
Mushroomshirt
Grogs

* - Absent until 23 Aug; add in once he's back and up to speed

Very interesting so far. We've got Isabella as a neighbor? I may be the only one, but I usually like having Isabella as a neighbor. She's a known quantity. Either we have her religion, in which case she'll be our best friend and ally, or we don't, and she'll attack us. There's just no grey area with her.

I find it somewhat comical that shortly after we build SH (assuming we do,) we'll pick up stone in the cultural borders of Kyoto. Also, I believe that after 1-2 more cultural expansions, we'll see land to the SE of Kyoto. I can see a FP there, and the 2 ocean tiles SE of the fat cross have 1c, which means they're within 2 tiles of land. If it's the same continent, this may(?) link Kyoto to the rest of our empire once sailing is in and we have a coastal city. That would be nice since it would give us the health resources on the continent and the happiness resources in Kyoto.

Don't sweat the settler. It happens.

The next player (RTB) definitely needs to take note of the fact ungy was running binary research and the slider is currently set at 0%.

Any thoughts on what to build next in Osaka? I'm thinking a 2nd warrior, followed by either a 3rd, or else at least the start of a barracks until archery comes in. Some of my warriors have had pretty good luck against barb archers, assuming I had them un a forest/hill and a WL1/2 promotion. After archery, we obviously want to build several archers to fend off the barbarian hordes.

Hmm... I love Civilization and I like playing for fun. But I recon if we want to win, inorder to compete with the other teams we'll have to do cheap stuff like binary research, transport-chaining, cottage spamming, extreme chop-rushing, the whipping abuse bug, etc.
I just want to say for the record that I am contrary to those things and consider it "cheating". :(

Actually I tend to avoid archery in my GOTMs and "solo" (non-GOTM - I don't play multiplayer) games. I find that it is usually more efficient to go straight for BW and find copper to build axemen. The problem I have with archery is that it is a dead-end tech, so it can slow my overall tech progression.

It sounds from the earlier posts that many of our teammates also follow this path & seldom research archery. What's surprising from playing the practice games is how critical archery & archers are with the raging barbs!

Actually, since I got Warlords a few weeks ago (2?) I've been playing with raging barbs all the time. I also build the Great Wall to keep those bastards out, but we can't do that here ;)
Anyways, I ALWAYS rely on archers for defense (except with Persia, immortals are great) and I usually skip Axemen because I prefer Swordsmen + catapults (with a defending archer/longbow later) to attack cities and mounted units to kill loose units.
You seem to assume that we wll find copper within our borders and I think that is a HUGE mistake. If we don't, barbs won't wait till we get it: they'll come to pester in masses, and usually from different directions in such a way that 1 or 2 defenders will not be able to fend them off at the same time.

If it were up to me, I would still avoid archery, but the majority find the risk too great...which is fine with me.

Hmm... I love Civilization and I like playing for fun. But I recon if we want to win, inorder to compete with the other teams we'll have to do cheap stuff like binary research, transport-chaining, cottage spamming, extreme chop-rushing, the whipping abuse bug, etc.
I just want to say for the record that I am contrary to those things and consider it "cheating". :(

If you state, "I don't enjoy this level of micro-management." I would agree. That why SGOTM is great; I only have to micro-mange for 20 or 10 turns. When I try to do this for GOTM, I suck. :sad:

Cheating is not following the rules, which as established by the GOTM staff. All the methods you stated are allowed, so by definition it's not cheating.

Of all the strategies you mentioned, I would say that transport chaining is the most questionable...but it has been allowed since Civ3.

Is there a whipping abuse BUG??? I'm not up to date on these things.

Concerning binary research, when do you decide to switch to 100%?

[QUOTE=Lmtoops]If you state, "I don't enjoy this level of micro-management." I would agree. That why SGOTM is great; I only have to micro-mange for 20 or 10 turns. When I try to do this for GOTM, I suck. :sad:
QUOTE]

agreed--I think this is different in that respect. I also think there is much to learn in some of the MM issues, i.e. which tiles to work and why and I think that is good topic for discussion. When I play a regular game I tend to play fast (and if I did something like I did with the settler last night I would reload).

Don't sweat the settler. It happens.


thanks--still bummed about it tho. My challenge to chill and let it go.

Sorry to be so lame about this but how do I get a screenshot into a file on my computer so I can upload?

Concerning binary research, when do you decide to switch to 100%?

The theory on binary research is that fractions round down, so is a little more efficient to avoid them totally. Also if you research 0 you get 1 "free" point--not insignificant at this stage. So in this stage I would go 0% for a while, then 100% for a while and back and forth. Later in the game the strategy would be to run 0 until you can run 100% to get where you need. There are other factors--useful to build a cash hoard in case of attack but also AI may demand it, also gives you more flexibility in trading and switching if you don't have partial tech researched as much. Also as you tend to build libraries is better to wait and go 100% once they're in. (reverse obviously true of banks, etc.)

Well, most games I've played, GOTM or otherwise, I can usually hold off barbs long enough to find copper or horses and hook it up. I did have one emperor game once where I was alone on a continent and I had to research archery because I was getting overwhelmed, and this one seems even worse, so going archery is the safe bet. We can't win if we don't survive.

As for the 'cheesy' stuff, like ship chaining, I usually don't do them. It just seems kinda lame, and also really easy to misclick somewhere and lose more than you would gain from the chaining. With the whipping bug, I've never paid attention and probably get it some times and don't at others. I've never done binary research because it seems like too much MM for too little gain. I do employ the whole 'chop-switch' thing a lot because that one really doesn't feel to me like an exploit. YMMV.

Techwise, I'd like to go hunting->archery->mysticism->BW. Otherwise, I think we'll be done with the 2nd workboat &warrior before we've got mysticism and it will delay the 'henge. We also need to consider pulling a citizen in Kyoto, if not at 3, then at 4. Once the fish are worked, the city will boom to size 6 in no time. In Osaka, like I said, I think we should build a warrior or 2 after the worker finishes and until archers are available. We can expect those barb warriors and archers to start rolling in around 2600-2500 BC.

On the roster, I went back and checked and noticed RTB said he will be without CIV until next week, so let's go ahead and move on with the roster and come back for him. That puts Danthor next. Do you have any ideas on what you want to do for the next 20 Danthor?

Roster:

ungy - Just Played
llib_rm*
RobertTheBruce**
Danthor - UP
Lmtoops - On Deck
Mushroomshirt
Grogs

* - Absent until 23 Aug; add in once he's back and up to speed
** - No CIV until the 14th(?)

Hmm... I love Civilization and I like playing for fun. But I recon if we want to win, inorder to compete with the other teams we'll have to do cheap stuff like binary research, transport-chaining, cottage spamming, extreme chop-rushing, the whipping abuse bug, etc.
I just want to say for the record that I am contrary to those things and consider it "cheating". :(


I agree that the whipping bug is unfortunate, and I hate the idea of planning around it--it has also I hear been fixed in Warlords. As the stronger competitors will use it, we can decide how competitive we want to be.

I hope ship chaining is not a part of this game for the same reason.

However, I'm mystified by your opposition to chop rushing and cottage spamming. In my book you have limited forests to chop or not chop and whether and when to do so is clearly part of the strategy of the game. Same with cottages--you have choices on which tiles to work and what tiles to develop, cottages are a longer term investment--usually another tile is better initially. If that isn't a legitimate strategic choice I don't know what is.

Sorry to be so lame about this but how do I get a screenshot into a file on my computer so I can upload?

Just hit the 'Print Screen' button. You should get a confirmation, like 'screenshot successful' in the upper right of CIV. You should have a 'screenshots' folder under My Documents->My Games->Sid Meier's Civilization 4. The last file in that folder should be the screenshot you just took.

Alternatively, if you have screenshots disabled like I do (my graphics card struggles with CIV and it saves a little memory) you can just open paint or something similar, hit edit->paste, then save it as whatever you want.

a few thoughts on our position:

I think on the next set we just build a warrior and then archers asap.

We can get Osaka to pop 2 pretty quick but then I think we may want to work the gems and the gold and hold there for a bit.

I think we definately mine the gems and work the oasis to get growing, then switch to the gems until we get to 2. By the time the gold is mined we should be almost to 2 and then I think just work those tiles and concentrate on defense.

We'll have to decide if we want to build obilisk or wait for SH--we can probably defend the gems and sheep pretty well using the river and if we can expand culture Osaka can really rock.

Danthor since you're up next glad you've been playing raging barbs--no GW here tho.

I would suggest BW after arch followed by AH. We should research pretty well--defense will be our key and my guess is initially we will be playing close in as we will not have many units when the barbs show up. Might make sense to fortify our first archer on the gems as we want to defend that and if Osaka is under attack is strong enough not to need the extra fort. bonus.
I would think we would want to get archer #2 out to the plains hill e as that is the direction we are most worried about. The spot where the warrior is seems good too--with arch promo a fort warrior could be useful there.

I was happy to see Izzy--with luck she will get a religion and we will get it from her.

Danthor BTW there is a bear lurking SW so keep that in mind