Purely Winnable Cooked Maps: Commerce is King!

Gwaja

Gwaja

King
Joined
Feb 11, 2011
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Welcome to another blog of mine about anything Civ 4. Today, I'd like to introduce another cooked map for your enjoyment. This time, the map is totally winnable and not so evil like the first one with Wang Kon. This map should be total cakewalk for most skilled players, and at the same time, it should give you a reasonably fun map for lower level players to hone their skills.

Before further introduction, I'd like to make a few suggestions for you:

1. Explore early by any means wherever you can move.

2. Prepare to deal with lots of barbarians.

3. This game will NOT be about early warring, so if you are looking for that, the game is NOT for you.

4. The map has been tailor made to take advantage of the chosen leader's strength as much as possible.

5. There is a LOT of land!

Then, without further adieu, let's introduce our new leader of the day that will surely guide you to an easy and relaxing victory!

Spoiler :


The Settings: Screen shot is taken at Deity, but down to Monarch level starting saves have been attached.

Spoiler :


And the starting position: I felt so bad about the last cooked map, I had to give some love this time! ^_^

Spoiler :


And before you start thinking something funky... NO... I am NOT trying to trick you or anything like that. The game won't bite... it will be much more relaxing affairs this time around. And literally the hint is where the title is... as it should be played out anyway.

So go and have some relaxing fun and I hope to see some victory screen shots!
 

Attachments

  • Commerce is King Deity AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
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  • Commerce is King Immortal AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
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  • Commerce is King Emperor AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
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  • Commerce is King Monarch AutoSave_Initial_BC-4000.CivBeyondSwordSave
    36.8 KB · Views: 88
Tried it on IMM and...
Spoiler :
Totally owned by barbs! I had forgotten how plentiful they can be at that difficulty. :sad:

Map seems fun though! :)
 
Too many maps, too little time...
Have fun those playing :D
 
Played 30 turns:
Spoiler :
I went for early BW to hook up seafood fast. Started with a wb in the cap and used pigs-tile, then 3F1C after border pop. At size 2 I used pigs and grasshill forest to complete wb in 2 turns. Then I switched to a worker and had 33 :hammers: in the worker when BW came in and I switched to slavery to whip the worker.

Worker chopped forest to a wb and pre-chopped another while waiting for Agri. Then improved the wet corn. As I saw copper in south in spot where I could share some food I thought 4S of the cap would be my 2nd city site. Or maybe 3S to grow cottages for the cap? As Gwaja warned about the barbs I decided to tech wheel in order to hook up copper fast.

I stopped after using the pre-chopped forest for settler since th wheel was completed. Now I could whip the settler next turn, which I think I'll do.

Question is what to tech next. Sailing is a placeholder. With a coastal start GLH is always a consideration, but I don't know if I have even neighbours for trade routes. I think I could get some overseas trade routes with island cities but not certain about that either. And I think a lot of my cities are going to be inland not coastal. Future city sites could use border pops so I'm also considering mysticism, monuments are boosted with cha. With fin pottery is useful to be able to get the cottages running earlier. AH would be needed to get the pigs and a lot of future sites could use AH resources but it's not an immediate priority since cap has high food already and 2nd city can't use cows without border pop+ I already have strategic resource nearby for barb def.

Overall I'm planning to expand south, hope to find AIs to trade with. A lot of jungle in the north and jungle gems make me consider iron working but right now I'm still waiting to see if I meet an AI who could tech IW for me and just go for the good sites in south.

 
Following info is a MAJOR spoiler about the map, so don't open if you want to find out about the map yourself.

Spoiler :
This is a Terra map that had our starting position swapped out to the new continent, while all the other AIs are still on the old continent. To ensure that we are not isolated, the two continents are connected by chain of islands that start right off the coast of our capital, which means that just by having Sailing, trade routes are possible with the AIs. We just won't find one on our continent.

Therefore, it is highly suggested that the Great Lighthouse be built ASAP before you get beaten. If you want to go all out on the trade route economy, you can also make Currency and Compass your priority, since Currency gives 1 extra trade route, and Hannibal's UB, the Cothon, also grants 1 extra trade routes as well, possibly giving you 5 trade routes!

Also, because of the fact that we are completely alone on our continent, barbarians are going to be a major problem, so you'd have to deal with it constantly. It is possible to build both the Great Wall and the Great Lighthouse with this start on Deity. I got the Great Wall built in 2480 BC, and the Great Lighthouse in 1400 BC. You need to chop like a madman obviously, and this will hold your expansion a bit, but I think it will be well worth it though to completely eliminate the barbarian headache.

Suggested research route would be Bronze Working -> Masonry -> Sailing. I started with a work boat first, and then a worker, then started pre-chopping the forests for the Great Wall. It will go by very fast, so you would have to get started right away, but it is doable.

After that.... it should be pretty smooth sailing from there.
 
IMM 1100 AD:
Spoiler :
After a second failure due to massive barb attacks, I started over a third time and went for axes asap. Settled Utica NW of copper 2600BC and had worker there to build mine immediately. Whipped out two axes on the same turn that that horde of barbs started approaching my cities, then a third shortly after that. This was barely enough to keep them warriors back... Then I realized: GW! :hammer2: I've been away from civ too long and can't remember all the stuff there is to build! Could have saved me a lot of trouble had I thought of it earlier. Had it up by 1640BC, then I could calm down a bit. Was nice to have a few axes though, they could explore the entire continent without fear of getting slayed.

You told us to explore early by any means possible. Sounded to me like I should get a galley out asap, and it sure was worth it! :D

Everything was going smoothly, had a bit of a tech lead and was just about to lib Bio when 1080AD Buddhism spreads to one of my cities, next turn there is AP vote (options Alexander or abstain) and the turn after that Alex wins diplo with 11 votes from Sury, 156 from himself and the rest of the world abstaining! :mad::wallbash::mad:

This came totally out of the blue, I don't remember ever seeing an AI AP cheese like that. Haven't played much IMM though, maybe they do it more on higher levels. What could I possibly have done to prevent it? I don't feel like playing the map all over from the start and was thinking about just reloading an earlier save, but I don't know how far back I need to go to be able to prevent this from happening. I suppose I could go back to before Buddhism spread to my city and go Theocracy, but that would be totally stupid as I don't even have a state religion... Any other options?
 
On Deity, up to 740AD so far. Not a level I'm comfortable with normally, but since you said it's winnable...

Spoiler :

Decided to forgo the early wonders. Started with BW as first tech while building a work boat, then whipped a worker when BW came in. Settled Utica 1E of copper to get that other clam in the BFC. About 4 axes and a few warriors on forested hills took care of early barbs reasonably well while I built granaries, libraries and lighthouses.
Once everything was safe and a 3rd city up I tried for a late GLH but was beaten by 3 turns in 775BC. Ah well, let's have an honest, no-cheese game. :)

Met the first AI shortly before IW came in, may have been around 1000 BC. Obviously I was behind, but not horribly so. Aesthetics paid off as usual.

In 740AD, I just won Lib (into Nat) ahead of Mansa. I would have liked Astro for observatories, but couldn't risk Mansa beating me. 9 cities, 5 of them well established at size 10 or so. Clearing the jungle and expanding further into the south.

Overall the position looks good. Plenty of expansion is needed, but this is monster cottage land. Late game commerce shouldn't be a problem. AIs like me, so it's probably going to be diplo or space.
 
Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try at monarch since it's an easy map.
 
elitetroops said:
IMM 1100 AD:
Spoiler :
After a second failure due to massive barb attacks, I started over a third time and went for axes asap. Settled Utica NW of copper 2600BC and had worker there to build mine immediately. Whipped out two axes on the same turn that that horde of barbs started approaching my cities, then a third shortly after that. This was barely enough to keep them warriors back... Then I realized: GW! :hammer2: I've been away from civ too long and can't remember all the stuff there is to build! Could have saved me a lot of trouble had I thought of it earlier. Had it up by 1640BC, then I could calm down a bit. Was nice to have a few axes though, they could explore the entire continent without fear of getting slayed.

You told us to explore early by any means possible. Sounded to me like I should get a galley out asap, and it sure was worth it! :D

Everything was going smoothly, had a bit of a tech lead and was just about to lib Bio when 1080AD Buddhism spreads to one of my cities, next turn there is AP vote (options Alexander or abstain) and the turn after that Alex wins diplo with 11 votes from Sury, 156 from himself and the rest of the world abstaining! :mad::wallbash::mad:

This came totally out of the blue, I don't remember ever seeing an AI AP cheese like that. Haven't played much IMM though, maybe they do it more on higher levels. What could I possibly have done to prevent it? I don't feel like playing the map all over from the start and was thinking about just reloading an earlier save, but I don't know how far back I need to go to be able to prevent this from happening. I suppose I could go back to before Buddhism spread to my city and go Theocracy, but that would be totally stupid as I don't even have a state religion... Any other options?
Click to expand...

Abstain? Would think that should help with that many votes.
 
I assume no early warring and lots of land are hints that we are on our own continent, possibly a large one. That changes the dynamics of the early game a bit as we only need to settle cities when they are profitable or needed for resources, and not just for the sake of claiming land. This also gives us time to go for an early wonder.

I would think the GLH would still be strong here even if initially isolated. We should be able to settle loads of coastal cities and +2:commerce: per city will help fund expansion. Once we meet other civs the trade route income should explode. Potential uses for the Oracle are reduced quite a bit here. Going for CoL Oracle to secure a religion is the only thing that would really make sense to me, but I'd probably prefer to try the Philo bulb if possible.

These coastal capitol starts always make things interesting too. If we started with Ag the 12T worker would look pretty good, but without AG it seems the 8T work boat while teching BW is stronger. The coastal fish and clams are quite strong with the 3:commerce: and BW first will hopefully allow us to find copper. The barb onslaught could be pretty nasty.

My two early priorities would be 1) secure barb defense and 2) build the GLH. Hopefully the deity AI will cooperate with me on the 2nd.
 
Won on Deity.

I expanded too slowly, in the end Mansa and Darius got two cities each in the north. Should have taken them all way earlier, which should have given me a better economy sooner as well.
In the end, Mansa decided to go for culture after Mass Media. He was close, too - he popped an artist that could have brought his 3rd city to legendary the very turn my spaceship arrived. Sure, there was plenty of production capability to send over some marines, but I didn't really feel like going through the hassle.

Thanks for the map, this was quite different and very interesting!
 
As expected the Deity barbs are ruthless here in the early going.
 
Think i would build tgw on deity, you can see it's not 100% safe (turn 37), but i would say 80-90% ;)

Spoiler :


Slower settler and stuffs should be made up for easily with no barb defense needed, with so much candyland around that can be grabbed safely now :)
 
I forgot to follow up on my game. Won space in 1834AD on immortal. I guess this goes to show that I still have much to learn! With this knid of map I guess many of you could reach Alpha Centauri a century earlier on IMM.

Never got an answer on how to prevent that AP loss I first suffered. After it happened I just reloaded to a couple of turns before the religion spread to me, this time it didn't spread and there was never a problem. So apparently it was only the RNG that decided to screw me over the first time. But in any case, was there anything I could have done to prevent it the first time it happened?

To recap what happened:
Spoiler :
Buddhism spreads to one of my cities, next turn there is AP vote (options Alexander or abstain, I abstain) and the turn after that Alex wins diplo with 11 votes from Sury, 156 from himself and the rest of the world abstaining.
 
Financial leader and from starting screenie we can guess it's going to be tons of riverside grass?
1000bpt in BCS anyone? :lol:

Will look into it, just not right now. 1 hour to SGOTM results! God, what a dramatic games. Huge thanks to soundjata and kcd.

25 thousand pages of discussion... seem to be impossible to read them all.

How about writeups here in S&T? I believe that would be just HUGE.

Fippy, Gumbolt, Lymond, Kossin, Doshin, Mitchum and Dhoomstriker, do you hear me? Please!
 
GKey said:
Financial leader and from starting screenie we can guess it's going to be tons of riverside grass?
1000bpt in BCS anyone? :lol:

Will look into it, just not right now. 1 hour to SGOTM results! God, what a dramatic games. Huge thanks to soundjata and kcd.

25 thousand pages of discussion... seem to be impossible to read them all.

How about writeups here in S&T? I believe that would be just HUGE.

Fippy, Gumbolt, Lymond, Kossin, Doshin, Mitchum and Dhoomstriker, do you hear me? Please!
Click to expand...

Hope you will participate in the next tournament :p
 
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