Hiya all,

First off the the words in the title does not link together. I would like to express thanks to Mad Scientist for his enjoyable RPC's that I've been looking at over the weekend. I like the stories and even though your on a hard difficulty then me, it really fun to read and seeing the Civs asking you for techs most of the time and you giving in was fun.

Best one was the George Washington one with the 4 ladies and 3 other men.


Anyway, I never post in here without a question :p. Whatever I ever play whether Civ 4, WoW, Black and White, etc I just hate starting out and in Civ 4 I detest it. You start off with a settler, and look for a good spot to plant your city, if your lucky on turn 1 you'll do this in a good position.

My frustration is the aftermath of this, depending on what goal your aiming for, what do you build first. With 1 as population I never build a settler or worker. I wait till at least 2 or best 3 to pop.

But in the meantime whether its 15 or 30 turns what do you build...? I started a warlord (difficulty) game and met Catherine and i had 3 cities by the classical era and she had 6-7 cities, am I worrying to much or playing crap? I didn't think you needed to expand that fast (marathon and the date was 2150/60 odd).

Cheers

Private Freddy

Worker as a first build is generally a good way to start, unless your start is coastal with seafood (and you start with Fishing). Tech whatever you need to improve the food resources around you (e.g., Agriculture if you've got wheat, Animal Husbandry if you've got pigs, etc.). Once your food source is improved you'll be able to grow quickly and make up the lost growth.

You do need to prioritize expansion early, either through settling city sites (try to settle in a way that blocks the AI from expanding towards you - that way you'll be able to backfill cities later), or by taking them with an early war. Bronze Working is a key tech for the ability to chop / whip settlers for the former, or axemen for the latter.

As for Catherine, remember that she is Imperialistic, so she gets a discount on settlers. It's much easier for her to settle more cities quickly.

Hiya all,

First off the the words in the title does not link together. I would like to express thanks to Mad Scientist for his enjoyable RPC's that I've been looking at over the weekend. I like the stories and even though your on a hard difficulty then me, it really fun to read and seeing the Civs asking you for techs most of the time and you giving in was fun.

Best one was the George Washington one with the 4 ladies and 3 other men.


Anyway, I never post in here without a question :p. Whatever I ever play whether Civ 4, WoW, Black and White, etc I just hate starting out and in Civ 4 I detest it. You start off with a settler, and look for a good spot to plant your city, if your lucky on turn 1 you'll do this in a good position.

My frustration is the aftermath of this, depending on what goal your aiming for, what do you build first. With 1 as population I never build a settler or worker. I wait till at least 2 or best 3 to pop.

But in the meantime whether its 15 or 30 turns what do you build...? I started a warlord (difficulty) game and met Catherine and i had 3 cities by the classical era and she had 6-7 cities, am I worrying to much or playing crap? I didn't think you needed to expand that fast (marathon and the date was 2150/60 odd).

Cheers

Private Freddy

Fred,
Thanks for reading the RPCs! GW was one of my favorite leaders of all time, and one of my top 5 to play. Just with that RPC ended in victory, but oh well!

Starting off is not that bad of a chore. Also do not compare yourself to Catherine who is one of the better REXers in the game. It is typical for her to have that many cities early, the key is to attack her early as she has ALOT to defend.

Some points on starting off

1) Never build a settler first, always grow to a decent population first
2) Build a worker first IF there is something for him to do, such as corn/wheat/rice when you have agriculture. Hills to mine. Livestock ect... An earl;y worker is valuable, but only if they are kept busy.
3) If you are trying to excel early, always settle in place. 95% of the time it's a good location and well suggested by the computer.
4) If you have seafood and know fishing always build a workboat first, AND work the highest hammer tile even if it's 3 hammers and the pop does not grow. You will catchup fast once the seafood is improved.
5) Nothing wrong with building warriors/scouts while having the population grow.
6) Once your capital is at a decent population and you have a few military units, start spamming workers and settlers from the capital. Let the later cities build military for a while.

There is a thread from Snatty while explains very well how to run an early game in BTS. It changed my gameplay (one of teh best articles that did) and I suggest it strongly!

Warriors and archers are good things to build in the hyper early turns of your games. They fend off barbarians, they fogbust (keep terrain unfogged so that no barbarians can appear there), they are needed for expanding (you can't leave new cities undefended), they can pop huts and last but not least they can explore. Also, since you are playing on Warlord you will not be paying any maintenance for military units until you have a very large number of them; no reason to hold back on spamming (= building in great numbers) them.

Do keep in mind that you need to get a monument up in each of your new cities (not in the capital) to make sure the borders expand. Except if you're a Creative leader (+2 culture from the get-go in every city) or own the stone henge (free monument in all cities).

Hiya again,

Thanks for the replies. I have a selection of saved games from the game I am playing at the moment. If you would, please, just look at it and tell me where I am going wrong/right?

Cheers for all :goodjob:

Fred,
Thanks for reading the RPCs! GW was one of my favorite leaders of all time, and one of my top 5 to play. Just with that RPC ended in victory, but oh well!

Starting off is not that bad of a chore. Also do not compare yourself to Catherine who is one of the better REXers in the game. It is typical for her to have that many cities early, the key is to attack her early as she has ALOT to defend.

Some points on starting off

1) Never build a settler first, always grow to a decent population first
!

Never say never.

Never say never.

Nope, that is the one CIV topic I think never is never. Never build a settler first!

Nope, that is the one CIV topic I think never is never. Never build a settler first!

Imperialist on marble hill with plains forest hill in small cross starting without any worker imporable food resources and without fishing on a high enough difficulty/big enough map that techs are quite expensive? There are less extreme starts than that but it is sure possible to be a wise choise

Okay, taking a look at the 1430 BC save...

It looks like you're prioritizing production over growth (e.g., Berlin is stagnating to build the library quickly even though it can grow much bigger at the moment. Same goes for the other cities, you should be working higher food tiles). Early game, it's best to let your cities grow to the happy cap - with the extra citizens you will be able to work more tiles and quickly catch up any production you sacrificed while growing. If you need urgent production, use your food and population to whip with Slavery (which you should be running at the moment), instead of working mines.

The priority here is to block Zara, or rather, try not to get blocked by him. He's creative, he's in your way, and he's the only Jewish civ on a continent of Hindus, which means he's your enemy; maybe not now (as you still have some room to expand peacefully), but eventually. Taking that barbarian city before he does is important, as is settling the gold site (2W of the wheat, maybe). That will allow you to block off your peninsula, settle whatever other sites there are and gear up for a medieval war with Zara. Make sure you scout his land.

Horseback Riding is not important now (though I see you haven't invested any research into it yet, so maybe it was just a placeholder). Alphabet for trading with your Hindu buddies is better.

Remember that in the early game growing your cities' population is the most important thing. Hamburg needed that grassland river farm that you are building earlier. You built a lighthouse there, but are not working any water tiles, and in any case, a farm on that river tile will give you +3 food, as opposed to +2 from any water tile. So a lighthouse at this stage of the game was unnecessary and a waste of hammers.

Okay, at 750 BC things are looking better, as your cities are now growing. You don't really need The Pyramids, though, you need an army to take the barb city and a settler for the gold - Zara's culture is creeping up there already. Hamburg is probably not the best site for the Moai Statues, a city 2W1S of the rice would work more water tiles and make better use of them.

Also, you're trading Ivory to Isabella for Corn. That means you lost one happy resource (lowering your happy cap in Berlin, for example, from 6 to 5) and gained a health resource. But you don't need a health resource at all - your cities are still healthy and will reach the happy cap before the health cap. Health generally becomes an issue later in the game. Also, Ivory is a strategic resource allowing Isabella to build war elephants. Granted, her position at this moment is not very good and it doesn't look like she'll be fielding any any time soon (she needs both Horseback Riding and Construction first, and she has very little land and many enemies), but nevertheless, be cautious who you trade strategic resources to. Isabella is also a lone Buddhist, which means she's disliked by all of your Hindu friends - by trading with her you may suffer diplomatic penalties with them. Trade with the Hindu block, shun Zara and Isabella - they will be disliked by everyone, most likely, and they're the two closest civs to you which means they are your prime targets if and when you decide to go to war (which you should!).

Okay, sorry, that was a bit long. Hope it was useful.

Edit: Also, when you want a worker to improve a forested tile, set him to chop the forest first. You will get the production bonus earlier than if you just tell him to build whatever improvement you want. For example, the worker building the mine near Berlin will finish the job in 19 turns. If you set him to chop first, you will get the production bonus in 10 turns instead of 19. Then just tell him to mine the hill afterwards.

Hiya all,

i'm eating strawberries and ice-cream at the moment after a frustrated game of Civ where I wanted to chock Fredrick to death for being...well...being him.

Anyway, the tips were good but I noticed one thing you said...
Hamburg needed that grassland river farm that you are building earlier. You built a lighthouse there, but are not working any water tiles, and in any case, a farm on that river tile will give you +3 food, as opposed to +2 from any water tile. So a lighthouse at this stage of the game was unnecessary and a waste of hammers.

But tell me, why is the light house unnecessary. I know I'm not working any water tiles but without loading up the game, there was no fish/crabs/etc to put a fishing boat out to.

But tell me, why is the light house unnecessary. I know I'm not working any water tiles but without loading up the game, there was no fish/crabs/etc to put a fishing boat out to.

All a lighthouse does is increase the food output of your water tiles +1. But if you're not working any water tiles, you're not gaining the benefit of the lighthouse. Two grassland farms by the river would have been enough growth for Hamburg for the moment - to get you to the happy cap - and in the meantime you could have built something that would be more immediately useful, such as a few axemen to take that barb city.

Once your happy cap is higher and Hamburg needs to grow again, working the water tiles become an option, and a lighthouse is then useful. But at this stage there are more important things.

I recommend this: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/sisiutil.php