All Random Prince

[AnOrangeGent]

Hey hey hey. So, I've been playing Civ IV for a while on Noble, and I've been doing pretty well. I thought I'd step up to Prince, where the computer does have a plain, stated advantage over me, and post my progress here, just so I can get opinions and hopefully some advice from the large base of experienced players on the forums. Because I'm not gonna lie, I don't have high hopes for this experiment. But, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, to quote Conan The Barbarian. ON WITH THE SHOW!



Here's my start off. All Random, as that's pretty much how I play every game. I set it to random because I don't really like going into a game with a specific idea of what I want to play. Half of what I enjoy about Civ is the large amount of choice the game offers you, and selecting random widens that degree of choice.



And the Random Number God has gifted us wiiiiith - Huayna Capac and the Incas! Which means, number one, a buttload of unpronounceable city names, and second of all, the traits Aggressive and Financial which seems to direct me towards warmongering, which is fine with me. I'm not gonna lie again, I'm not the most experienced with utilizing traits, but from what I see, the Incas are most directed toward war, simply because Aggressive gives the military units extra experience, and Financial gives us the extra money to keep on churning them out in wartime.

The unique unit for the Incas is the Quechua, an early military unit that replaces the Warrior. It recieves +25% City Defense, but also 100% against Archers, which means that it's fairly flexible, though I'd probably be more inclined to use it as an early city assault force, especially with the prevalence of archers being used to protect cities in the early game.



And finally, starting position. Now, there's not too much around. Quite a lot of dye to keep the people happy, but I'm not going to be able to take advantage of it for a while, as well as some bananas to the north. The only immediately exploitable resource is the wheat to the south, which we can use what with us having Agriculture to start out with. Although the starting position is quite nice, I'm tempted to move south slightly and see what's going there. North just looks like some desert/jungle, which won't be particularly helpful for a while, and the west is also pretty moored in jungle. Then again, I might be being totally thick, which is why this thread is here. So, opinions? Criticisms? Help?

 

[Capellan]

Can you post the initial autosave, please?

There's jungle on the hill to the south of you, as well as to the north.

The only way you'll be able to see more to the South is to move the Settler ... right now, we know 1S would lose you a riverside dye (though another city could pick it up) and gain you a (jungle) grassland hill. Any further would obviously cost you a turn. It's also possible there's a strategic resource 1S.

I'd be tempted to move the Quecha 1N to see if there is a reason to settle on one of the dyes. If there isn't, I'd probably settle in place . The dye tiles are 2 3 for you, even before they are improved, and you can cottage spam the other riverside grassland.

 

[Fluroscent]

As for settling, you can settle in place just fine here. It is all green and cottagable, which is nice for a financial leader. You will want to utilize Bureaucracy here.
But the capital is only good for commerce, so you will need to look for a nearby site for your 2nd city that has more special resources so that it can function as a settler/worker pump. Get BW early so you can chop out the first ones from the capital.

Huge maps are huge, and with a standard amount of opponents, you will have an obscene amount of land available. Focus on settling more cities, building more workers and keeping a good number of quecha's on the perimeter to fogbust against barbarians. Quecha's are excellent barb control units.
You probably won't see any AI close enough to warrant a war any time soon, but since you are playing on marathon speed, you can go to war easily later on. Riflemen would be a safe bet.

 

[AnOrangeGent]

My first instinct was also to settle in place, as the commerce from the dye tiles seems pretty lucrative even before improving them, especially with Financial. I'm also particularly disinclined to move the Settler to the south, because as you said, it would waste me a turn if I found nothing and moved back up to settle the two dye tiles.

And although I'm fairly certain there won't be anything particularly lucrative 1N I might move the Quecha up there anyway on the offchance, as there isn't particularly anything else they can do. If I do settle one of the dye tiles, it'll probably end up being the one 1NW, so I can still catch the wheat in the BFC, if I'm correct in my estimation anyway.

Oh, and I added the save to the initial post.

EDIT - I tend to play on Huge maps simply out of habit, but I may make the move at some point to smaller sizes. As for settling another city, I'm tempted to scout both south, for the Settler/Worker city that was suggested, and then move west into the jungle. Beeline for IW and use the jungle to chop out a military production city, or a few early Wonders, at least as an early plan.

 

[whats a navy]

Marathon and you got Inca? Don't be tempted by the idea of taking over your continent by 2000 BC.

 

[AnOrangeGent]

I'll try my hardest not to. I'm not adverse to the idea of steamrollering everyone and anything, but if push comes to shove, then yes. I will destroy everyone.

 

[Capellan]

But the capital is only good for commerce

That depends on what we can't see, really. He could have several hills we can't see - and maybe iron or copper in one of the clear grassland tiles. We know the corn will help for pumping early settlers and workers.

If I do settle one of the dye tiles, it'll probably end up being the one 1NW, so I can still catch the wheat in the BFC

1N also gets the corn. 1NW does get the banana, though. And 1N doesn't currently show any hills (though moving the Quecha may change that).

I might take a quick look-see at the map tonight, though I doubt I will play beyond the initial scouting. The game takes long enough to play on Standard/Normal, I'm not going to play a full game of Huge/Marathon

 

[Ghpstage]

1 NW is horrible, jungle bananas are not good tiles for a capital as they take so long to be useable, plus you pick up another 4-5 jungle tiles on top of that. This will seriously hamper your start!
1N doesn't call out as a great improvement either..... There may be something up there for you Warrior to find so do delay deciding till you scout, but don't hold your breath.

Theres no need to move. Its not the greatest start ever, but it is certainly not bad and it has a great deal of cottage potential.

 

[Capellan]

I'm not holding my breath either, but there is always the faint chance that moving the warrior 1N will reveal something juicy

 

[AnOrangeGent]

Shifted the Quecha 1NE but didn't discover anything particularly lucrative.

Thanks to Ghpstage for talking me out of the madness of settling 1NW. I hadn't really given much thought to how much the ruddy jungle would hamper me, but to be honest, it is a nuisance, and always has been. Decided to just settle in place and hope for the best.



Founded the city of Cuzco, actually pretty pronounceable, and discovered that not only to we have some more bananas that'll get swallowed into the BFC, but we also have a lovely little tribal village to give me some goodies, which is nice.

Started part build on a Worker whilst I research Hunting, just so I can get a Scout out, and move the Quecha back into the city. I hate scouting with Warriors or the equivalent, the movement speed just makes me want to cry my tiny eyes out.

As for research, my thoughts right now are definitely for Hunting - The Wheel - Pottery, just so I can take advantage of Financial and stick a load of cottages around the place. My problem is I also want Bronze Working so I can start chopping out those forests, and eventually the jungles, but that'll lead to me having to research Mining - Masonry, which seems like a waste until I settle in those hills to the north. It's a bit of a dilemna, as I want to get the corn hooked up and start cottage spamming. I think that's my immediate concern right now, so I think I'll take the former path and hope I get lucky with some nice hut pops.

Quick note, the hut was nice, gave me a Scout, although I'm not sure if I should now put off Hunting and go straight for the Wheel, or use the time I would have spent Hunting on Mining.

 

[lymond]

that's a terrible start and non-regulation...not sure how that happened unless here were different algorithms on vanilla.

I really recommend that you get BTS.

 

[Gwaja]

I haven't opened up the save yet, since it is Vanilla and I can't quite play the game at the moment.

This starting location is... pretty dismal. What tiles do you have to the south of the capital? For now, I only see 1 hill and that could be a problem. Granted, the land is great in food and commerce, but early hammers will be tough after you chop out all those forests. On top of that, all those jungles... hmmm... hopefully there is good land to the other direction away from the jungle.

 

[Capellan]

Shifted the Quecha 1NE but didn't discover anything particularly lucrative.

Any reason you didn't go 1N to benefit from the +1 vision range of the hill?

that's a terrible start and non-regulation...not sure how that happened unless here were different algorithms on vanilla.

I really recommend that you get BTS.

I rolled a BTS start last week that was an island of about 30 squares total size, half of which were ice. It looked like there was a galley-reachable landmass to the SW, but still a much worse start than this one. This is hammer poor, but commerce rich, and hopefully it has horses or metal to alleviate the production weakness.

 

[Ghpstage]

Started part build on a Worker whilst I research Hunting, just so I can get a Scout out, and move the Quecha back into the city. I hate scouting with Warriors or the equivalent, the movement speed just makes me want to cry my tiny eyes out.

Scouts are terrible, the only thing worse than building scouts is wasting reasearching Hunting just to build them! They have almost no survivability and no advantage once (if) they survive initial scouting, use your starting Quencha to scout in a circle around your capital, it will be safe empty for quite some time yet.
Warrior speed isn't close to an issue on marathon, in fact they are faster than normal speed scouts!

Surrounded by jungle and with no production, this won't be easy. Iron Working is a very high priority here, its possible you won't have any viable sites before you get it..... early commerce from those dyes will be vital

 

[coanda]

The big feature I'm seeing is jungle all around you. Those are a little trickier than your typical start. It's possible that as you explore you'll realize it's actually a very small jungle with plenty of other land around, but otherwise you'll have to make serious adjustments to your playing. Here's a few points ways I tend to adjust my playstyle for jungles...

(1) More workers! 1.5 workers per city is a baseline; when swamped with jungle I usually end up pushing it up to 2 per city or more.
(2) Iron Working is a huge priority. On high difficulties you can often get away with just trading for it because the AI gets it so quickly, but at Prince you're probably going to want to research it yourself... and quickly.
(3) Odds are that hammers, not commerce or food, will be the major limiting factor in your early growth. To that end, I would consider getting into Slavery even more important than usual, and think about spamming lots of farms to get a good food surplus in cities if necessary.
(4) Watch out for ninja panthers while scouting. Try to keep your Quecha near the coast once you find it, or at least not in the middle of the jungle.
(5) Jungles generally take a little longer to get developed, and a lot of their resources aren't very useful until Calendar. So you may be struggling in the early game here; on the other hand all that beautiful river-grass underneath is quite nice once you start using it.

 

[Fluroscent]

Scouts are terrible, the only thing worse than building scouts is wasting reasearching Hunting just to build them! They have almost no survivability and no advantage once (if) they survive initial scouting, use your starting Quencha to scout in a circle around your capital, it will be safe empty for quite some time yet.

Ah but, this is HUGE and with HUTS. I am sure building a couple of scouts will easily repay the investment. You may even pop IRON WORKING

Another note. I'd put the quecha on the hill. It is the only hill you have, and it is at risk of catching jungle. A unit on it either eliminates or drastically reduces (not sure) the risk of jungle spreading.

 

[AnOrangeGent]

Lots of stuff to respond to, and a lot of rookie mistakes apparently.

I'm planning on getting BTS at some point, but financial issues prevent me from buying anything that isn't food at the moment.

I hadn't actually realized that hills give a +1 vision bonus but I'll keep that in mind in future.

As for the Scouts issue, I basically got one for free from the hut, so I'll take as much advantage of that as possible, and use it to probably scout south for now. I can't think of much more than more jungle being north, and for now that'll do me more harm than good. The general consensus seems to be that I should be looking for hills for more production, and that seems pretty sensible to me.

I also agree that Iron Working is a massive priority so I can actually make the most of what is a fairly unhelpful starting location, so I can start getting the most out of those jungles. The area is quite food heavy already, enough so that I can just put a few farms down and subsist on those while I head for IW, and then backfill in up to Pottery, so I can hook the corn up and start cottage spamming.

 

[cabert]

I don't understand why :
- you didn't start a quechua (a handful of quechuas will give you another capital city early)
- you didn't tech anything useful to do for your worker like roads or mines

 

[AnOrangeGent]

It wasn't in the screenshot but I've stared on teching Mining, before moving on to The Wheel, as by the time the Worker is done I should have the tech to at least start doing something useful with it. I don't particularly want to waste time on starting up a settler before I knew that the surrounding area was of any use to settle in. There's a chance I might be literally surrounded by jungle, which would really stifle me.

 

[AnOrangeGent]

Actually, as it happens, I've managed to borrow a copy of both Warlords and Beyond The Sword from a very generous friend of mine, and I'm in the process of installing them now. Based on the fact that I've made several mistakes in the game setup, such as map size, length, etc, I'm going to scrap this, and maybe start again, or use one of the saves already set up by the more established posters. Thanks all for the help offered though, some of the little insights have been very helpful.