ALC Game 11: Carthage/Hannibal

Pre-Game Thread

Start: 4000 BC (in this post, below)
Round 1: 4000 BC to 2880 BC
Round 2: 2880 BC to 1200 BC
Round 3: 1200 BC to 775 BC
Round 4: 775 BC to 620 AD
Round 5: 620 AD to 1400 AD
Round 6: 1400 AD to 1550 AD
Round 7: 1550 AD to 1880 AD
Round 8: 1880 AD to 1950 AD
Post Mortem

The idea of the All Leaders Challenge is that I'm going to play a game with each of the Civ IV leaders--mostly the less popular ones--that I haven't tried before. With the help of all the posters who participate, I will attempt to make the most of the leader's unique characteristics: traits, starting techs, unit, and building. Aside from the leader, the other game settings are kept constant, at their defaults, for the sake of comparison. I will post the saved game files, screenshots, and status reports here as the game progresses. Everyone then has a chance to chime in with their strategy ideas, or voice their frustration (or glee) when I make a mistake.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible.

In this ALC game, I'm playing as Hannibal, leader of Carthage. Obviously I'm playing the game using the Warlords expansion pack (complete with the recent patch). The difficulty level is Monarch, and the map and game settings remain at their defaults. Here's a look at them if you're curious about the details:



And here's the starting position:



Since I could see coast, I decided not to regenerate in search of a better start, as we discussed in the pre-game thread. There's no seafood available, but there's a farmable resource (corn) and three Calendar-enabled resources (Sugar). There's also a river with mostly grassland (good for the financial trait, and the fresh water health bonus) and some hills for production. Not too many forests for chopping, though.

Sugar ain't exactly a thrilling resource. It'll provide 3 food and the ones next to the river will provide 1 commerce off the bat, pretty similar to a floodplain, so that will help a little with initial growth and research. When I get Calendar, I only put as many sugar plantations as I absolutely need--1 for the happy and only as many more as I need for trading. I can often do better with a cottage on the tile rather than a plantation; with Financial, the two riverside sugar tiles will yield 3 commerce with plantations--good but not great. So we'll have to see what the resource trading situation is like when I get Calendar.

Here's a funny thing: the Settler is not on a coastal tile, but the Warrior is! Probably because there's no seafood visible in the water. Based on the hills to the north and the jungle to the south, I'd say we're a little north of the equator of our continent, somewhere on its eastern coast.

So our first decisions regard the limited movement options of these two initial units, which always seems to spur the most debate in any ALC thread! I'm tempted to move the Settler to the hill the Warrior is on and found the capital there, but the lack of seafood is giving me pause, as well as the loss of a turn on Monarch difficulty. I'm willing to bet there's seafood to either the north or south--where and how much are the key things to determine--which later cities can grab.

The Warrior is already on a hill. The best move for him is probably into the jungle tile to the north, just to reveal what's in the tile north of it, which would be in the fat cross if the capital was founded on that grassland hill. But I'm also willing to bet that there are other resources either to the Settler's west or south, possibly both. Frankly, I'm tempted to just found the capital were the Settler's standing. I count 14 riverside tiles in that capital's fat cross and I could cottage at least 11 of them. That's pretty good!

Please keep in mind my long-term goal with this game, which is to war early with the Numidian Cavalry unique unit (among others), then settle back and work towards a peaceful win of some type, leveraging the Charismatic trait initially and the Financial trait afterwards. You know, just for a change of pace.

Just watch: with that plan, I'm practically guaranteed to get Montezuma, Shaka, Napoleon, and Isabella for neighbours.

The saved game file is below.

A jungle start, and so close to the sea but still so far

Jungle start with financial leader is often nice, as the fat cross is cleared of the foliage, most often leaving you with a very cottable capitol, most of the time with food to run extra scientists as well.

Looking at what would be your fat cross if settled in place:
- food and grassland, and river. Four resources already in there, so not said that you have any of copper, horses or iron in the area.
- to the north, one forest currently in fog. Forests rarely hide resources, and I wouldn't expect silk nor spices there (deer and fur being right out, uranium way off in the future).
- to the west, three flat grasses. Not sure if there's forest in the southernmost of the three.
- to the south, two flat grasses, one hill. Is that grass or plains hill?

The RNG gods aren't exactly merciful, but I've found gems to be fairly common in jungle starts. They would be very nice, providing instant commerce and happiness. No guarantees.
Elephants are another fairly common jungle feature. However, elephant camps aren't always the best resource to work - riverside plains elephants are nice in that they get river commerce and ivory commerce, triggering financial trait and thus three coins total, but without the river it's a bit on the meh-side (I have run a production city on six plains elephants once, but that was a weird starting location in many ways).

The jungle, while cleared in the starting fat cross, can grow there. Once I lost rice and one gem before I had a worker out, and was racing madly building improvements to block the jungle from entering to my fat cross anymore (it did claim one more grass tile). In any case, jungle starts make IW more important than usual.

If you think about moving to the coast to found Carthage, then definitelly first move the warrior. Considering settling on the hill the warrior is now standing on, the only tile in the fat cross you can't see at the moment is the one north of the jungle, 2N of the warrior. That's also the only tile the warrior can reveal with one move, so moving warrior 1N sounds reasonable.

Settling on grassland hill doesn't provide any special benefits, unless you consider the defense bonus. I don't really expect my capitol to ever get under attack - not even by barbs (unless going for raging barbs) - so that's mostly non-issue.

Coastal location seems to have food, cottable land, and only six water tiles. One of them ocean (not coast), which is close to useless (2F1C - not going to be worked until there's absolutely nothing else to do and too much happiness and health left). Either position also nets you a few hills, so mines will give you reasonable early hammers as well.

Considering that there's no seafood visible, none in any of the water tiles a city on the grass hill under warrior would catch, I'd expect the RNG gods to have a fish somewhere just outside your reach, so moving down and settling on the hill might cause a bit of frustration - a fish you can't catch with Carthage, and can only catch with a city heavily overlapping with Carthage for no other reason than to catch the fish. An eternal source of frustration for me, but thems the breaks - it's a game of cruel jokes played by RNG gods, and you just have to make the best out of it

So... what would I do? Move warrior 1N to reveal the one tile that would be in coastal capitol fat cross, then consider the potential again. The settler is standing on a spot that might very well make for Great Library, then later on Oxford. And I feel the coastal location of capitol becomes a big issue only if you plan on Temple of Artemis there - not a cheap wonder by any means, very hard to get without forests (lack of which being one jungle start problem).

hmmm...

Interesting start, if that wasn't the capital, I would of made it a GP Farm.

I'll Settle where you are, I'm not sure how much Extra Map information your warrior can give you in that location, the only directions he can go to give you extra information in this turn is either north 1 tile or SW 1 tile.

I say Bronze Working, Pottery and Farming techs are the Early Techs to go for and Cottage early on those River Grassland tiles to take advantage of your trait early and hopefully you'll have a good head start in research.

This will be interesting. In my current game I'm playing Hannibal too, on Noble though. I'm curious to learn how you make the most leverage out of the Charismatic trait.

I would settle in place. This is something I do 99% of the time, as I want to start producing and researching right of the bat.

I would move the warrior SW and explore along the river using the hills.

Good luck with your game.

edit: typos

Sisiutil said:

The Warrior is already on a hill. The best move for him is probably into the jungle tile to the north, just to reveal what's in the tile north of it, which would be in the fat cross if the capital was founded on that grassland hill. But I'm also willing to bet that there are other resources either to the Settler's west or south, possibly both. Frankly, I'm tempted to just found the capital were the Settler's standing. I count 14 riverside tiles in that capital's fat cross and I could cottage at least 11 of them. That's pretty good!

Please keep in mind my long-term goal with this game, which is to war early with the Numidian Cavalry unique unit (among others), then settle back and work towards a peaceful win of some type, leveraging the Charismatic trait initially and the Financial trait afterwards. You know, just for a change of pace.

Click to expand...

OK, warrior north one. There's no information that the settler could reveal that will change this decision, so you might as well play it to learn what you can.

If the hidden tile to the north were one of the power resources (the tile looks to me to be grassland, so corn, rice, pigs, cows would be the options), I might reconsider - but as it stands I'm not at all fond of Warriors Hill as a starting location. The river has you connected to the coast anyway, so you aren't going to be losing time setting up the traderoutes, the water tiles are of dubious value (you'd rather have the cottaged river tiles), and the defensive value of the hill? How long has it been since you had to defend at the capital?

But the biggest reason is that you cannot make Numidean Cavalry from seahorses. Warrior's Hill has six ocean tiles in the fat cross where horses won't appear, and an additional five in the third ring which are guaranteed not to have them.

Comparing just the fat crosses, there are four tiles where horses might appear at Warrior's Hill, and seven or eight where they might appear if you settle in place.

If you decided immediately to commit to a coastal wonder like the Great Lighthouse, I'd be looking at setting on the sugar to the south of Warriors hill. That gives you a free +4 tile to start with (and spares you the bother of building a plantation), and two or three more hills that you can mine for the production that you need. After the initial wonder is finished, and the settlers are pumped, the grassland mines can be converted to cottages.

The other possibility I would consider is settling across the river. You still get the city built on turn one, but leave a little bit more space along the coast to drop a second city. I'd be a little bit worried about jungle hidden in the shadows to the west (the visible terrain looks to me as though it may have been carved out of jungle). Again, settling on the sugar would be pretty tempting.

What VoU said.

Also, consider using the settler as a scout. Losing one turn means jack if you aren't chasing an early religion. You could move west->north to get a peek beyond the river and then decide on turn two, where to settle.

i like that you can see coast, we know some exists within reach, so you won't miss out on your UB. but i'm leaning towards starting in place, not moving to the coast. i'm not tempted like you are to move to the warrior's hill, i just hate 'wasting' grassland hills as city tiles. plains, sure, if it fits the layout, but grassland i just try not to.

in a game where i wasn't trying to merchant-wonder a lot like we talked about in the pre-game, i'd start right where you are. all that river, yummm. "Sugar ain't exactly a thrilling resource. It'll provide 3 food and the ones next to the river will provide 1 commerce off the bat, pretty similar to a floodplain, so that will help a little with initial growth and research." pretty similar = better, no health negative.

so, i like where the settler is. i'd rather have 2 + 1 + 1 resources rather than 1 + 3 of the same one, but you get what you get, and the river is sweet. i'd move the warrior north first of course just to see what he can see, but if he doesn't find much, i don't see the good side of settling on the whill where he is. there's not a lot of chopping you can do for the wonders we talked about, and no seafood tiles to work to build up pop to whip while getting commerce.

plenty of time to settle coastal cities later, when we scout around more and find where the seafood is, and what land tiles would give production in those cities. how many coastal wonders that will let you build, well, no telling at this point.

oops: typo'g settler instead of warrior when talking about which to move to explore is not so good!

For flavour I would settle at the coast, but with no seafood whatsoever this is a tough call.

But then again, if it wasn´t Carthage I would settle in place no matter what, so it might be better to worry about the coast lateron. You might wanna check 1N with the Warrior to make sure though.

Which I found peculiar is the suggestion to settle on the sugar. Waste one ressource and forfeit the river? Why the heck would I want to do that?

Interesting start. I too would settle in place here, in hope to gain one of the strategic resources in the fat cross. I'd also try to find a coastal location for a future Colossus/Great Lighthouse city, but that can wait.

With so many sugar tiles just asking for Calendar I'm not so sure about Stonehenge anymore. Chances are you'll find dye/bananas/etc in the jungle close to you, so you'll probably want Calendar fairly early. Unless you see stone in a good location I'd say resign yourself to building Monuments wherever needed.

If you do settle in place I'd be careful where I place my cottages. You might want some watermills at a later point if the production from the hills isn't enough. Tiles 2N1W and 2S are both on the river and un-watermillable so go for cottages on them first. And at both right angles of the river you can only build 2 watermills out of 3 tiles anyway. Actually, scratch that. You'll have enough grassland tiles that you can workshop anyway.

I agree with VoU too. If a coastal start is needed, settling on the sugar is better, unless something is hiding on the north. Answering TheArchduke, my point on not settling on the hill to use the river is that you would have more ocean tiles on your BFC. And you only need one tile of road to connect you to the river anyway. If you settle in place you'd have to road 2 tiles to hook up the corn. Settling on the hill too. Settling on the sugar, you'd have to road the corn tile and road one more to connect the city to the river if needed.
As Sisiutil pointed, losing one turn might be harmful, so I'd say settle in place. It has at least 3 hills (maybe fourth is S-SW), at least 4 forests and we know the map generator won't give us a desert tile on the west. Might not be "the optimal city location" for Hannibal, but with the information we have and not affording to lose a turn, that's the best I can think. Also, seeing that jungle tiles so close makes me think you're on the middle of the equator jungle, so moving will make IW a really top priority and until then you'd have some improving troubles.

Hmm, in light of that 'jungle invading tiles' I'd also say that you need to start with Worker and Agriculture and farm that corn tile ASAP...

TheArchduke said:

Which I found peculiar is the suggestion to settle on the sugar. Waste one ressource and forfeit the river? Why the heck would I want to do that?

Click to expand...

OK - two parts to this answer.

As far as the river is concerned, it's a flat trade off - settling at warrior hill gives me the river: a health bonus and a free connection to an upstream city. The latter I don't consider a big loss, and I don't expect health to be a problem here (we've got grain for the granary, the ocean view means a harbor to multiply the seafood bonuses as they come). We get some commerce compensation, since settling on the sugar gives an extra river tile to work. I don't expect the difference between 5 health and 7 health to be a big deal - you've got a bunch of obstacles to deal with (like the happy cap) before health becomes an issue.

As far as the sugar is concerned, keep in mind that the sugar is still there after you settle on it (it's a resource, not an overlay like a floodplains or a forrest). Thus note the following three points:

1) The opportunity cost is low. Sugar Plantations add 1F and 1C - basically thats a farm with one extra coin. Big whooptie do. Sisiutil already hinted that he wasn't planning on many plantations in any case, because the return disappointing - he'll probably drop cottages on them instead. Also, the plantation cannot be built until Calendar comes in, which is a ways off yet.

2) Founding the city on the resource means that we don't have to improve it. As soon as we discover Calendar, we've got sugar connected to our entire trade network. A minor savings in worker turns.

3) A city settled on sugar has a yield of 3/1/1 instead of the usual 2/1/1. Essentially, we've settled on a plains hill... except that this is even better, because it gives food, which can be converted to hammers at need whipped but in the mean time means accelerated population growth, an extra half scientist, etc.

One additional point: the coastal sugar tile is two tiles from the settler. So if that move is appealing, move the settler SE on turn one (after moving the warrior). The view from the grassland hill may expose enough tiles to suggest a interesting alternative that we cannot see at the moment.

I wish I had warlords so I could check this out, but I'm holding off on it until I get at least decent on vanilla first (just yesterday I had my first true runaway victory on warlord difficulty). Having read through only the Asoka and Monty ALC threads, I don't have a large sample size, but if I throw in my own games, I can see a pretty solid-seeming trend: The settler placement seems to have two factors that we can't evaluate from the beginning:

- strategic resource. In most games I've played, as well as in the Monty game, there's one of copper, iron, or horses in the capital's fat cross, which you risk losing by moving.
- "resource split," by which I mean although the capital might not seem ideally situated, it is set up such that a second city fairly close by can pick up a couple important resources without FC overlap or even too much cultural overlap - we saw that in the Asoka game where moving the settler cramped the ability to take advantage of stony wheat.

Already having 4 resources in the FC, I would hazard a guess that the second factor might come into play here - maybe golden elephants in the southwest jungle or fishy marble to the north or south. So, I guess my rookie question is - is this factor real? or have I just been getting strange starts? If it is real, is it worth having a general rule of "settle in place, unless there's a much more obvious spot"?

I'm going to shadow this game as Sisiutil's intended overall strategy is fairly similar to the way I typically play and I'd be interested to see how the two compare. Because of that I'll stay out of the discussion, but if you'd like me to post updates when the thread reaches appropriate dates, let me know.

FYI KMad shares my thoughts on where to settle and why

BlueSoxSWJ said:

So, I guess my rookie question is - is this factor real? or have I just been getting strange starts? If it is real, is it worth having a general rule of "settle in place, unless there's a much more obvious spot"?

Click to expand...

howdy and welcome to CFC! i have seen the "where to settle debate" go on in these ALC threads or in SG threads pages and pages and pages, it's too fun.

the factor's real enough. i don't read code and have no idea how it all magically works together but there is something in the code that does special spiffy stuff for that first BFC, so move at your own risk (i sometimes do move anyway). it seems most people settle in place unless they see something much better, but we all have different values of "much better". you'll often, but not always, get a strategic resource in the original BFC, as you've noticed.

i'd forgotten about that stone near where asoka's capital was in that game, and it literally wasn't possible put a city to claim it where i'd have most wanted to, because that tile was too close to where we'd moved the first settler to. i'm little miss priss about city placing later on, when i know the map, to make sure that won't happen, but you can't control that until you see the map of course.

and about your first line: "I wish I had warlords so I could check this out, but I'm holding off on it until I get at least decent on vanilla first (just yesterday I had my first true runaway victory on warlord difficulty)." that's a theory, probably one many on these forums wish i'd followed before i got warlords and learned how to post haha. i type too much and here is one example of my brilliance: i was really really proud of myself for killing Brennus yesterday pre-catapults even tho he had city walls at his capital. his other cities died easy, in fact one the barbarians took care of for me, which was fine, i was gonna raze it. then many of my brave soldiers had given their lives in the war, and it was soon going to be time to decide whether to capture the capital or raze it. i turned the resource indicators on, to help me decide, all it had in it visible from the outside was a lighthouse, and it was size 5 or so by the time i'd pillaged farms, so resources were gonna be my only factor. i looked at the map and thought 'what an idiot! why did he settle ON the horses? they're much more useful pasteurized, extra hammers!!!' and then it hit me ... he of course didn't know AH in 4000 BC, so he didn't know they were there. yes indeed, i was the stupid one there.

grats on yesterday's victory, may you have many more!

I like your chances of finding horses in the BFC of your capital. Get pottery and writing quick for acclerated research. Having to research HBR is a bummer but you're UU will be able to cripple your first victim by pillaging. Then it's a matter of getting catapults online. To find ivory would be a huge bonus.

If the coast doesn't yield appropriate early seafood, maybe you should scrap the early coastal wonders.

Yay! Finally getting in on the ground floor of this one. With Hannibal, my favourite!

I'm going to go with the masses on this one. Go 1N with the worker, see what's to the north, and if nothing good pops up, then settle on site, turning your capital into a cottaging powerhouse.

Edit: I'm not sure if I'm the only one who does this, but since Sugar resources come in clumps, I cottage all but one (for the food bonus), since you only get 1F/1C when you plantation it. Of course, I don't resource trade a whole lot. Any thoughts on this?

the only reason i would sat settle on the coast is because your second city is probably going to grab horses. i find that i almost never have horses in my fat cross when i settle in place. so if you move you probably wont be losing horses but you might. if you are in favor of settling in place, then you second city HAS to be on the coast

also if you are thinking of turning your capital into a cottage powerhouse, you might want to read the city specialization guide because it has alot of great tips (im not saying you dont know this stuff already but my favorits part was this

Originally posted by Excl

The first thing you need to do is count the number of extra food in your fat cross. Remember you get an extra +2F just from the city itself, so count that as well. Any tile that gives you more than 2 food, count as an extra +1F. A floodplain gives you +3F, so that's +1F. Various resources will also give you bonuses. Count the extra amount of food given over 2. Don't count bonuses given by creating a farm. This is just "as-is" bonuses.

Next you need to count the number of spots that have less than 2 food in them. Any Plains spots count as -1F. Deserts, Tundra and Mountains count as -2F. Jungles are a bit tricky, because they take away food bonuses. You should plan on chopping your jungle to make room for a cottage or mill, so count it as if it were normal grassland, hills or plains. (Note: If you are planning for a smaller city because of useless terrain, do not count the terrain you don't plan on improving in your calculations)

Then combine your two numbers. If your number is 0 or greater you are in great shape. If it's below zero, then you will know exactly how many farms you need to add to maximize your land.

So for example, if you have a city built with 6 plains spots, 1 floodplain, and every thing else grassland ... Your extra count would be +2F (city itself) +1F Floodplain for +3F. Your losses would be -1F x 6 (6 Plains) for -6F. Everything else provides 2F, so they don't effect the equation. Add the numbers, and you have a -3F shortage. Build three farms, and you are even. Everything else can go towards specialization.

Building farms on food resources where a farm is needed (corn/wheat/rice) is highly recommended, since it will give +2F on top of it's initial value. That means you have one less farm to build elsewhere. Not to mention you also get the health bonus and resource as well.

Click to expand...

it makes sue you dont build to any farms and your city will stagnat at size 20 or 21

flamingzaroc121 said:

it makes sue you dont build to any farms and your city will stagnat at size 20 or 21

Click to expand...

The one thing I've found that throws off those numbers is Biology, which is the boost usually needed to push the cities to their maximum sizes.

BlueSoxSWJ, welcome to CFC and thanks for jumping in. Your instincts seem correct--for vanilla Civ IV. In my handful of recent Warlords 2.08 games, I've had a critical resource revealed just outside the capital's fat cross, in the third ring--and a couple of times it only appeared there because I moved the settler. In other words, I don't think the map generator guarantees you a strategic resource in the capital's fat cross any more.

I'll probably play the first round tonight: move the Warrior 1N, settle in place unless there's something thrilling up there, and research... what? Ah, the next item for discussion. Bronze Working, the old standby? Or Agriculture for the corn and then Animal Husbandry for horses?