Mentor game

okay so I play a couple of turns just so i could get a better idea of the area near the clams and look what i found ;).
Civ4ScreenShot0130-1.jpg


alright so there are several possibilities. blue and white cities are either or. I originally was thinking white, but with the development of fish+stone, it becomes a tougher choice. also red and yellow are either ors as well and depends on what is scouted down there. I'll post the save for you just because i got a "tin" random event that gave you +2 hammers to the plains hill you mined ;). also, when i looked in your city, you were working a river GL. were you working it for the commerce? i'm guessing it was probably just that it was a forest you were working that got chopped.

so lets go into the benefits of each city.

pink city:
it has 1 ocean fish, 1 plains clam, plains stone, 2 plains (one forrested but overlapping), 2 GL (one forested), and 2 lakes. with a lighthouse, we're getting a net of +6:food: or in other terms enough to get us to size 20 pop. however, I think the best move is to probably work some specialists in this city. while working the seafood, stone, and lake tiles, the would reach a max of size 10 and could run 5 specialists. unfortunately, it probably wont reach that high because all the :) resources you have are wine and silk, which need monarchy and calendar to work. monarchy would actually be useful because it would give you hereditary rule as well.

teal site:
this would be a natural commerce site.with the sheep an dFP, it has plenty of food. it's also on a plains hill which gives the city an extra :hammers: boost to production

blue and white: both kind of meh. blue gets you more production, but white more food. white would also make a good candidate for a moai site. white would also equate to less overlapping.

red/yellow: would be a production city, if you could call it that. it could make for a hybrid production/commerce city as well since it does have a lot of rivered tiles. the area needs to be scouted better so you can decide where to put it exactly.

also, since it is pretty food high, you'd be focusing a lot on whipping whatever you need built, same would go for white city. if you want my advice, i'd get red/yellow explored as soon as possible and settled with maybe your 2nd settler. the horse is a strategic resource and if you're lacking iron and copper, heaven forbid, you'll need it. india is pretty close as well so you at least want to deny them that. and also, looking at indea BFC, i'd say capture it ASAP. tons of calendar resources so so my guess is they also got ivory and dont have iron/copper/horses in their bfc. so most likely you'll be facing archers. so looking for either a mass chariot rush (which would actually help a lot since they're far away), or researching IW and get some iron and send over some swords/axes.


your happy cap looks like it'll be 6 with resources hooked up, 8 if a religion spreads to you, and 10 if you capture india's capital, and 11+ if you run hereditary rule.

and I recommend looking at orions thread. it is definitely very informative and I think it would help you out a lot. he goes into tons of details about a lot of the aspects of game play.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/93140/Mentor_BC-2360.CivBeyondSwordSave
 
oh yes, city founding order. I'd probably settle teal first just because it's got the biggest early production bonus and easiest to expand and the sheep are in the BFC. i started another settler, but i think it'd be best to go war>worker>settler
 
I just have A question on what the acronyms BFC GL and dFP mean. thanks a lot for that very useful
 
BFC is big fat cross. it's the area that your cities use, it generally also is used when referring to your capital's start. GL means grass land. not something that's necessarily intuitive, but it saves a lot of writing lol. and dFP was actually a typo. was supposed to be FP for flood plains. I'll also write it out whenever i use acronyms from now on. i thought about it a lil and I think the white city is better, especially with moai statues.

you'll also have to get fishing and sailing at some point, sooner rather than later. I think it's fine to settle the stone city first, then move on the the horse city. i'd switch research right away to fishing and have it start pumping work boats.
 
uh i didnt write down what i did this time but i only played 15 or so turns. i settled in the pink area. then i changed production from settler to warrior. then the warrior was created. i believe i had my worker mining. damn it sorry i didnt write this down. well after the warrior i switched to a worker. then after poly i switched to fishing. after the worker was built. i switched to the settler. after that was built i settled in the red area by the horses. im sorry for this . .. .. .. . report it wont happen again. after fishing i switched to iron working.
 

Attachments

do you know how to take screen shots? just use the print screen button and the picture can be found in the screenshots folder in your bts folder. what you could do is take a screen shot of your action log as well as any major events, and cities. and dont feel too bad, i tend to not write down my reports and do them mostly from memory, it just depends if you want amore detailed analysis of the game play ;). what i'd focus on next is scouting and grabbing the horses area. axemen and swords are good, but HAs (horse archers) and chariots will be able to get to india in ~1/2 to 3/4 of the time. I just became a big fan of the HA in a recent game of mine where i used them to take out the native americans :lol:.
 
jake2007 said:
my strategy would be to get bronze working then ironworking,
then i beeline to machinery
then i get hunting and archery
then i beeline to fuedalism
Click to expand...

Lurker tip:

try not to fall into the trap of thinking YOU have to research all of the needed technologies. A very good strategy is usually to figure out how to get the most out of the OTHER ways of acquiring technology.

You can get a free technology from the Oracle. Many strategies revolve around getting the most bang from the Oracle free technology.

You can get a free technology from researching liberalism first. Same thing. The Oracle and Liberalism are even more important because by getting them, not only do you get a technology, but you prevent the freebie from going to an opponent.

You can get technology from great people. Good lightbulbing strategies can get very advanced very fast and are not at all needed on Prince, but just so you know...

Finally, you can get technology in trade from other CIVs. This is actually where experience can help out a lot. I know that the AI loves to tech Iron working. I almost always try to get iron working in trade. Why? It is usually not a critical tech (although it can be), it is an expensive tech, and the AI's almost always have the technology.

All things being equal, you want to focus your research on technologies that the AIs ignore. This gives you maximum bang for your research buck because you can trade your neglected technology to EACH of the AIs for something nice.
If you research neglected techs and do your tech trading well, you can magnify your beakers by 5x or more (and you can keep any individual AI to maybe only a 2-3x multiple on their beakers).

Anyway, a long winded way of saying... you need the technology, but there are a lot of ways to achieve the goal!

GS
 
lurker's comment:

Just on food counting

I guess to add further clarity on the 'food counting' issue, I hope MrFelony doesn't mind me adding to his response with this blurb, as it's a really important thing to grasp.

Not all 21 tiles

Due to health and happiness issues, most cities won't be working its full quota of 20 tiles + the city centre for the bulk of the game, so when calculating food surpluses and deficits, it's not dire if you end up with a food deficit.

... but you usually don't want your cities to stagnate on size 6 either!

It's important to grasp the idea of food counting if you intend your cities to grow to a respectable size - especially if the city is to work good food-deficit tiles (e.g. Silver mine) and/or run specialists (-2:food: to support).

Need to Farm?

So, it's good to do a quick food count to see how this city can develop, and crucially whether you need to farm and 'chain irrigate' in order to build population.

This can also be important when stumbling upon an area with several 'food negative' resources (e.g. a couple of Gold Plains Hills amongst Plains tiles and no quick access to Fresh Water).

It's also imperative when you find a spot that you want to build up as a commercial centre, as building Cottages into Towns will (typically) form a big part of this city's development - but a Cottage must have sufficient food to be worked, so before Cottages are 'spammed' over most tiles, you need to be mindful of food surpluses and deficits, and assess whether the +1:food: from a farm is required to work the Cottage on another tile. This might not be such a big deal on Grassland-heavy sites, but an attractive site with some commerce resources (e.g. a sweet spot between Incense-Gold-Silk amongst several Hills and Plains) may need some careful thinking about how many Cottages you can lay down before the city stagnates and you're unable to work good tiles.

The Count

So looking at your early-game Beijing;

jake_food_count.jpg


Every citizen or specialist consumes 2:food: until you run into unhealthiness, where unhealthy citizens consume 3:food:. So for instance, to work an unimproved Plains tile is -1:food:, because the citizen will consume 2:food: while the tile produces only 1:food:.

You get 2:food: free from your city centre.

You've got the Pigs in a Pasture, so there's 2:food: to support the Pig Farmer and an excess of 4:food: for other citizens.

The Plains Hills do not produce food in the early game, so if you want to work them, they'll cut into your food surplus from the city centre and the Pigs.

You've also got several Plains tiles, and while they remain unfarmed, they will each be -1:food: if worked. Therefore, if you want to work them, you'll be cutting further into your food surplus, or otherwise you need to look for other tiles to support the Plains tile. An alternative is to Farm the Plains, which makes them :food:-neutral.

As technologies, civics, and new improvements become available, the food surpluses and deficits will typically change.

A Glance at Beijing

A quick look at this city would probably lead to mining the other Plains Hill, putting a Cottage down on the riverside Grassland tile, and farming at least one of the lakeside Grasslands. You have an 'odd' number of Forests - so you could chop one of them down without compromising :health: when you wish. This is actually a pretty tough city for a capital, as it has only one food resource and several food-deficit tiles. Several of the tiles will need to be Farmed to continue to support good population growth if the two Mines are to be continually worked.

Summary

Anyway, there's an elementary introduction to food counting. I hope that it's helped.

When looking at city placement, especially when settling amongst Plains, near Tundra or Deserts, near Hills, etc. it is important to identify how to feed the citizenry to allow the city to continue to grow and make a worthwhile contribution to your empire.

As new technologies, civics, resources, and improvements come into play and happiness and healthiness caps begin to rise, cities become more dynamic, where; converting Mines to Windmills, Farms to Plantations, Farms to Workshops, etc. are further considerations.
 
no, any help from others is more than welcome :D. I think you definitely did a good job explaining the food situation, possibly better than I did ;). I was thinking about making a visual like yours, but didnt take the time heh. One of the things I mentioned earlier as well is that, with fishing an sailing, the 2 lakes will also bring in a +1:food: surplus. And i definitely agree that it isnt always important to obsess over max populations of cities

Gr8scott also brings up another good point. I'll try not to overload you, but one of the things to consider is which techs does the AI favor researching. these techs you can usually avoid while researching other techs and then just trade for them later. the same goes with espionage.
 
Excellent food counting demo! :thumbsup:

Looks like a good "walk-through" which could help a number of people. Thanks for putting it out here. :goodjob:
 
Thanks MrFelony and Dawn,

'Yeah' - I also looked at the Lighthouse situation, but felt that I might have been opening a 'can of worms', then needing to talk about the various civic effects, other improvements, city roles, the Cottage Economy vs. Specialist Economy, Great People Farms, etc etc. Decided on the K.I.S.S. option - which even still was pretty rambling! :lol:

Anyway - good work on the mentoring - I like the idea! :thumbsup:
 
could you look at my most recent save and tell me what to do from this point on i have no idea what the correct play is.
 
alright. I have a midterm on monday and a paper to write still so i may not get to it for a while. plus i've been busy focusing on a Rome Earth 18 civ write up. I've been procrastinating a lot so i may get to it before monday. Dont worry so much about making the correct play, just play and learn ;). Life is all about getting dirty and making mistakes and learning from them after all
 
okay so i originally wrote a HUGE post cause its almost 8am and i havent gone to bed yet. before you play, tell me what you're going to do. i think that'll work better from now on. post your "report" before you actually play. so like "i'm going to send a settler to this spot and then start a ___" and once this tech is done i plan on researching ___. this city will finish ___ soon so i'll build ___ next blah blah blah" also, i apologize if i came off as harsh anywhere in here. it was really late :/. i've seen some improvement, but as always when learning a new skill, there is much room for improvement. stick with it and I'm sure i can help you beat your first prince game ;)



here's what i said
Spoiler :
ahh, i didnt know you already played the next round since you didnt report . can you tell me why you thought the 2nd city needed a barracks first? I'll be honest. a barracks isnt the worst thing for the city to build, but its pretty close . if anything, you should be building a monument to pop its borders or a work boat to claim the clams. i might have actually gone with a work boat first because it would get you an improved tile faster and would allow you to grow faster so you can whip a monument faster. also, it's undefended with a barbarian warrior right next to it . you should get one there as fast as possible. I'm not sure when barbarians begin to enter cultural borders on prince, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. also, the ToA isn't the best thing to build, but i dont think it was a bad choice. it's very important to get your capital at the happy cap (do you want me to explain happy and health caps?) so that you can spam workers/settlers as fast as possible. however, you need workers in your 2 other cities ASAP and that should be your focus right now. the longer they are left unimproved the longer they are running unefficiently. you should have at least one worker per city, but because of their distance away, you'll need at least an extra worker to build a road from your capital to that area, especially if you want to send chariots at asoka still. He hasn't seem to expand much yet if he has so i think a chariot "rush" is still a very viable option, especially with these food rich areas. also, you DONT need 4 or 5 farms in your capital. it's only going to be able to work 5 tiles anyway. send both your workers down to your other cities to improve their tiles ASAP. getting those horses hooked up is very important. I'm pretty sure you should get sailing just so you can get access to your horses when it gets hooked up. as for IW, you don't really need it right away. sure metal is nice, but chariots are good enough as defenders and, with enough of them, as attackers on prince level (since the AI doesnt get as many defenders at this level). I would stop working on IW for now and switch either to pottery or sailing (probably sailing first just so you can get those horses when they're hooked up and start building chariots). sailing will also give you trade routes with other civs which will bring in more from trade routes (want an explanation on these?)

umm so i think this is the summary of what i think you should do.

as soon as you finish growing you capital to size 5, build at least 2 more workers and use them to get all of your NEEDED tiles improved. one of the biggest problems i see you having is how you prioritize your workers. you built 3 farms you're probably never going to use/need when you should have sent them down with your settler to improve the tiles in your new cities ASAP. they shoudl have also chopped a forest to hurry the monuments in your other cities.

also, don't leave your cities completely undefended. if that barb warrior wanted to, he could capture himself a nice little city for his barb friends.

you also should have focused on buildings that offer the greatest benefit for each city. you did so in your horse city by starting with a monument (though i dont think this city needs it right away since the tiles it will be using are mostly in its borders already), but you started a barracks in a city that is mainly food and will most likely whip a library and run scientists and hardly, if ever, build troops.

so get your workers down and start improving your other cities. get your resources hooked up. get the horses hooked up and build/whip about 6-8 chariots and send them down to claim india's capital and raze any city that wont be able to pay for itself or that is poorly placed. most likely just take his capital and raze anything else. when whipping, make sure you check the faces and try to time it so that you don't have more than 1, or two if you can afford it, at one time. you can only usually afford 2 if you have a huge amount of more than , which usually never happens this early in the game. sorry i'm kind of rambling but its almost 8 am and i havent gone to bed yet

this is kind of tough predicament about what to research. I'd say priesthood so you can make sure you get the oracle (which is now iffy since it's so late). we may have to scrap


and heres what i think you need to do.

grow capital to the next size while working the ToA and then switch and build 2-3 more workers. send one worker to your horse city and have the other build a road down there. get the horses hooked up as fast as possible. send one of the new workers to your seafood city to get those tiles hooked up and chop one of the work boats. get a defender in your cities asap. that barb could just waltz right in and claim it for his own :eek:. start researching priesthood and used your 2nd worker to chop the remaining forests for it. then you can either finish IW since it's almost done, then pottery>writing. do the next 15 turns. I think you should be able to get priesthood and IW in that time as well as 2 workers, start improving your expansions, and start the oracle. don't even try to build the ToA at this point ;). only put hammers in it if you dont have anything else to build and this would solely be to get money out of it when it's built by another civ.


once again i apologize for the rambling. it's late and there is a lot that should be changed. I think we may need to scrap the cho-ku-nu rush. there is just too much space in between you and the other civs that i don't think it's very effective to rush them with them. I would rather take over india and settle peacefully as long as you can and build your economy.
 
not for nothing, but I have to say i followed the game closely to see just exactly when the impatient young man/woman would be done with this ~

ahh, well ~ it's still a great idea to work into an SG for 'weaker' players
 
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