I regularly won on Monarch with Cathy in vanilla - cottage spam cultural victory. I just recently got BTS and struggled a little bit with Noble, got a domination win with Ragnar (random) and after reading some of the great posts here and my win, figured I would notch it up to prince.

Map = Shuffle/Large
Civs = 8 or 9
Speed = Normal
Civ/Leader = Random

Ended up with Ragnar again :) I didn't like the starting position (1W of current) so I moved 1E which was forested and ended up losing a turn. Popped a ton of huts and got a map, 2 more scouts, upgrade and some gold. I wish I could sell my map this early. I beelined Bronze Working and then spent some time looking at what all my scouts had revealed.

I rarely reload or regenerate, it seems like a lot of times a poor starting spot gets rewarded later on. But I think I need some help with this, I am about to start whipping/chopping my first settler and I don't see a good spot for a 2nd city much less a third or fourth.

http://i32.tinypic.com/smud0k.jpg

Any ideas for city siting would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg65/ursexelcior/smud0k.jpg

This is what I'd do.

Black cross first to get access to copper, then red cross/yellow cross/purple cross in quick succession to block off Roosevelt (I can see his blue borders at the edge of the screenshot) Then backfill remaining land.

But by the time you settle black cross it might be too late for yellow/red/purple since America is so close, so an axe rush might be needed.

Also, those unrevealed tiles in the yellow/purple fat crosses are annoying :(

You could also crowd those northern cities a bit (moving the yellow cross one step to the west, the purple cross two steps). That'd make room for another city on the eastern coast (on top of the northernmost Sugar, as you have plenty). Call this city the orange city.

Because of your neighbour I'd settle red>purple>orange>yellow before black. Make sure to have Archery.

You went from Monarch to Noble when upgrading to Bts?

I'm also playing my first Bts game, decided to stay on the same level, and I have to admit it looks harder (probably not 'harder' but got to get used to the new stuff). I actually had trouble to take out my small and backward neighbour on our island. He's protective and wrecked havoc with spies, I didn't really take that into account.

This is what I'd do.

Black cross first to get access to copper, then red cross/yellow cross/purple cross in quick succession to block off Roosevelt (I can see his blue borders at the edge of the screenshot) Then backfill remaining land.

But by the time you settle black cross it might be too late for yellow/red/purple since America is so close, so an axe rush might be needed.

Also, those unrevealed tiles in the yellow/purple fat crosses are annoying :(

Thanks for all the suggestions.

The unrevealed tiles is where my warrior is headed, another warrior to pop next turn and then start another warrior for 3 turns until capital bounces up to population 3. Next chop should be done just in time for start of settler, then whip the rest of the settler.

Black is what I was thinking too. Washington has room on all sides and there is lots of jungle between him and I so I think gambling that he won't come way my right away is a good bet. The entire area seems food poor to me, only green has more than 1 food resource and only grey has river. My last game, I really experimented with a specialist economy and that worked great but this map seems so food and river poor. So not only could I use some advice on the placement of cities, I could use some ideas on strategy too.

Since the area is poor, I was thinking of grabbing the copper and axeman rushing Washington right away, then settling Red. Maybe focusing on the coast? Black might be better 1W, a total of 8 coastal tiles? A canidate for Moi Statues?

Here is more revealed:

http://i32.tinypic.com/2qd5q89.jpg


You went from Monarch to Noble when upgrading to Bts?

Yeah, I was focused on just using Catherine, Cottages and Cultural wins on the inland sea map. Now, I want to pick random and try to make different Civs and leaders win on random maps. Just didn't expect this kind of map ;)

The 3000BC save is attached. I use the HOF mod, so you will need that to try it out.

I can't say that this a bad map. Lots of good spots as USR already has pointed out. Focus on the black and red city first. Both have enormous potential. Gold for growth, both enough production, stone for nice wonders. Please do not reload. This map is better then 70% of the maps I got.

I can't say that this a bad map. Lots of good spots as USR already has pointed out. Focus on the black and red city first. Both have enormous potential. Gold for growth, both enough production, stone for nice wonders. Please do not reload. This map is better then 70% of the maps I got.

:agree:

Including what's in Washington's BFC, I count 11 extra Calendar resources! That's some most excellent trading fodder.

You have a strong Bureaucracy capital ... and whaddyaknow: your UU is unlocked by Civil Service! ;)

The only thing bad about this map (if you want to interpret it as such) is the lack of a single stellar Coastal Production city to make the most of the Viking UB bonus. Black has enough food to Workshop over, but that only goes so far, IMO.

(However, it looks like Hannibal and MM's capitals are coastal, so maybe one of them will be kind enough to 'loan' you theirs.)

I hope you post and update us on how it turns out.

-- my 2 :commerce:

Purple city could be rather hilarious in late game if you cover it's fat cross with forest preserves and add a national park.

Probably not a smart strategy, but i've always wanted to see someone do that. :lol:

Axe rush roosevelt and you'll be able to block off a a pretty substantial territory.

Well, I did try to continue playing. Because of chops and overflows I had 3 warriors which I thought might have a chance against Washington. By the time they reached the city, he completed Stonehenge and had 40% cultural defence. I figured I would seige the city while my axes finished and traveled. I even assigned a worker to build a road but it still took 8 turns for my axes to travel. By that time, Washington had whipped a couple of archers.

First lesson learned, you can only upgrade units in your territory. I had planned on upgrading the now promoted warriors to axes so I would have 5 axes. I kept attacking with axes as they arrived to prevent the archers from getting fortification bonuses. I only ended up losing 1 axe but between the travel and his archers I chewed up a lot of turns.

I had 3 cities and a stack of 7 or 8 axes with nothing to do, so I figured I would take a peek at Mansa further to the north and east. He was spread really thin, but had chariots so I added a couple of spears and attacked. I captured the first city and only lost 1 axe so I moved onto the next city. I guess I didn't keep a close enough eye on the announcements because by the time my healed stack reached the 2nd city he must have built something that granted +95% strength? I should have taken a screenshot :( But my odds were down to 1% and I asked for peace.

I tried running a strictly SE and I was really disappointed. I had pretty high maintenance because of being so spread out. In hindsight, I should have cottaged my capitol and farmed Washington and the other cities. The SE helped me maintain tech parity but not much else. After peace with Mansa, I went into full infrastructure and peacetime expansion.

With America gone, it was just me, Mansa and Carthage left on this continent. I figured Mansa would be a good tech trade partner, but I never got anything decent from him and Carthage was worse. I should have concentrated some research and shipbuilding earlier to discover the other civs.

Mansa built the AP which saved him a couple of times from Carthage, but they continually warred. I did discover the other continent and realized I was a little behind in tech, but not too bad, it seems all the AIs sucked at research.

It was already in the 1800s and I was still researching gunpowder era techs. I had kinda figured in the beginning that I would go after a domination win but I never really focused and just didn't have the energy to try and pull out any kind of victory. I don't blame the map, I blame not taking advantage of what I did have and developing a solid strategy from the beginning.

- Lessons Learned -
1. Early war is expensive in terms of turns. An empire with only two cities whipping/chopping an axe stack plus travel is quite a few turns of lost expansion and infrastructure. I think if I had first whipped or chopped another settler I could have used that new city to keep up expansion and infrastructure while I used the other 2 cities to wage war.

2. Units can only upgrade in your own territory! I guess I always built my attacking army right after a new technology and either forgot or never had the opportunity to upgrade on the march. I think the siege overall though was a decent strategy. My warriors were fortified outside Washington and he did send some counterattacks which only helped me by earning experience. By the time I took Washington, I had 2 CRIII and 1 CRII warriors that could be upgraded to axes and added to my SoD.

3. Pay attention to messages! Overall, I need to pay more attention to what the other civs are doing. Towards the end, I did experiment with espionage quite a bit and got much more comfortable with how it works.

4. The map dictates some things. This was a continents map and not having contact for so long with half of the other civs really hurt. As I stated earlier, I got addicted to a certain map and certain play style. I took for granted how beneficial contact with all the AI civs is.

5. One economy does not rule them all. In my previous game, I ran SE, I don't think I built a single cottage. I was also at war almost the entire time and had the game all but won by Berserkers and Cats. SE does work great for research while expanding and warring but I think more of a hybrid or changing over time economy works better. I will have to play many more games to get comfortable with the economy.

6. Plan for UB and UU use. If I had been satisfied with taking Washington and pulled back and beelined for Berserkers and Cats in this game I am pretty sure I could have rolled over Mali and Carthage and claimed the entire continent. With Financial I would have been perfectly set up for a culture or Space victory. Or better yet, experimenting with continents warfare. I didn't use the UB at all and I never even found out what the Navigation I promotion does?

Thanks to everyone who posted. While I didn't finish, I did play enough to learn a lot. The other thing I learned, a dot map is great for planning, but even the best laid plans sometimes never bear fruit :) Especially when barbarians are involved. If anyone else did grab the save and play, I would be thrilled to learn how you played it.

I did start a new game. Random again and this time ended up with Ethiopia. Another continents map, this time a map of extremes - either barren or stupidly rich. It is 600BC and I have Elephants and Cats and have started waging war. Foregoing a singular economy, I have my cities set up to multipurpose depending on the circumstances. I really like Organized and am looking forward to the Ethiopian UU.