RB5 - Rome, Emperor, Lakes, Just win

We're the Romans on a normal size lakes map on emperor level, and our aim is simply to win, whatever it takes.

Roster:

Sirp
Skyfish
Iester
ToddMarshall
bed_head

Game speed is 'normal'.

I will play 20 turns, and it'll be 10 turns each after that.

Our starting location:



I'll be playing it in the next few hours. I'm slightly torn between settling on the starting location, and wasting the forest versus moving onto the hill to the west, and settling there. I'm leaning toward settling on the spot though.

I think this is a good start: lots of food with all the flood plains, a health resource and luxury resource, each of which can be used early, and some hills which should give nice production. Lots of forest to give health or chop (I'm a pretty avid chopper, though in some ways it feels a little 'cheap' because it seems rather powerful to me). Couldn't ask for much more, except perhaps an extra resource or two.

-Sirp.

Checking in,

(BTW: The name is Jester. Iester is simply the closest I could get on this forum.)

Nice, I like that start. Good thing we're expansive, because otherwise, all that floodplain would cause us no end of health-related headaches.

I think wasting a forest on this difficulty is probably a little too painful. Better to save it, methinks.

-Jester

I wonder if thats a coast to the southeast or a Lake..

Ordinarily, I like fouinding on plains hills for the extra early shield, so that'd be what I'd do most likely.

BTW - I'm in the process of moving, so if I don't respond for 48 hours when I'm up, skip me no questions asked

- Maniac

PS: Forgot it was a lakes map DOH! Lakes maps DO sometimes generate large salty lakes, but thats not a big consideration....

Checking in. I like settling on plains hills as well, and we still have +2 health from the forests to compensate for the unhealthiness of the floodplains. On the hills also looks like it should have a bit less food and more production from the added hills, which is good since where we are now is a bit more food heavy. Oh, I guess put me on autoskip until the 14th, at which point I do not have any travel plans so should be around full time.

I didn't even know the tile you settled on affected the city squares income. Well, live and learn.

Starting to play now, and will be sure to settle there.

-Sirp.

@ Sirp Mostly it doesn't. However, settling a plains hill will give you an extra shield. Not much diffrence come the AD years, but very helpful in the early years

4000BC (1): I send the settler west to settle on the plains/hills. I do have one question though: does flood plains still give unhealthiness if you settle *on* it?

There is now going to be rice in Rome's radius too. Nice.

We have a large salt water lake to the West, but the lake to the East is fresh water.

With a stretch of jungle to the north, and the salt water lake to the west, I send our warrior east, to see what lays along the river there.

3960BC (2): Rome is settled, and set to build a warrior.

3920BC (3): Our warrior discovers wines and marble near the river flowing to our east.

3880BC (4): ...

3840BC (5): Our warrior keeps going east, through a river valley between two peaks, and comes upon a village. I'm not going to enter it though, because it's far too risky, especially since the village is on flat land.

3800BC (6): ...

3760BC (7): Rome's borders expand. Dark blue borders are visible across the salt water to the west. Looks like there's nothing but tundra to the south.

3720BC (8): ...

3680BC (9): I find another village with my westward exploring warrior. The Roman senate votes to continue the 'no pop' policy.

IBT Mansa Musa shows up, in the form of a scout by our warrior exploring to the east. We assure him of Rome's peaceful intentions.

3640BC (10): Rome grows and builds a warrior. We can build a worker in ten turns, or another warrior in seven and have Rome grow in six. I decide upon the latter option. Our new warrior is sent to make contact with the dark blue civilization.

3600BC (11): We discover Agriculture. I decide to research Bronze Working next, due in 15 turns. The other candidate was Animal Husbandry, but I don't think hooking up the sheep will be as high priority as the gold, while the option to chop forests is always nice. Even if we don't want to chop forest inside Rome's borders, there's plenty of mediocre land to the south-east of Rome which has forest on it, which we could chop.

Buddhism is founded in a distance land. Lions prowl to the east of Rome. Our eastern warrior starts heading north, and will then head west, to explore an arc around Rome.

3560BC (12): Our warrior is within one turn of making contact with the blue civilization. Our eastern warrior comes across Malinese territory. They have a protected worker building a mine.

3520BC (13): We make contact with the French, led by Napoleon, to our east. Of course, we assure him what a friendly, peaceful civilization the Romans are.

3480BC (14): I start heading the western warrior back to Rome. All the land down there looks mediocre. The new warrior can head north-west, while the existing warrior can garrison Rome.

3440BC (15): ...

3400BC (16): Rome grows to size 3. Warrior due in one turn.

3360BC (17): Rome produces its warrior. I set it to produce a worker, which is due in nine turns. Then we can start churning out settlers.

3320BC (18): Our exploring warrior, now to the north-east discovers ivory, to the north of the marble. Too far for us to dream of getting in the land rush though.

3280BC (19): Two groups of lions still prowl around east of Rome. We'll want to make sure we have a warrior in position of the city to make sure our first settler doesn't become victim to one.

3240BC (20): Our warrior exploring in the north-east sights red colored borders. Contact will be made next turn...

Firstly, I know it goes without saying, but this is only my fourth real game of CivIV, and thus any constructive criticism of my turn or below analysis from either fellow players or the peanut gallery is more than welcome. I'm glad I already learnt about the plains-hills-hammers thing.

A screenshot of our situation:



I think that red dot is an ideal second city site, and blue dot is also a decent site. There might be other good sites along the river too.

I tend to think we can get to red dot, depending on how fast Mali and perhaps the red civilization expand, and where they put their cities.

Rome can grow to size four, but will hit unhappiness at size five. Fortunately our worker should be able to hook up the gold and let it get to size five reasonably fast. We don't know of any other near-term luxuries though (though wine is monarch -- not nearly as bad as calendar).

Eventually we should probably search to the south, especially the south-east to see if there are any furs or other luxuries down there.

Sirp <-- Just played
Skyfish <-- UP NOW
Jester <-- On deck
ToddMarshall
bed_head

-Sirp.

Oh, I should add: Skyfish, feel free to take 20 turns if you want. It looks like you won't be able to do much for most of the first 10 turns but move two warriors about.

After that, ten turns each though.

-Sirp.

lurker's comment: Flood plains turns into desert when you settle on it, and the unhealthiness thus goes away.

That's a really nice looking capital. I wouldn't worry too much about the unhealthyness. We have health resources, we're ON the river which helps, and we got forrests (if we don't chop... we may chop). Looks good to me. I'm not sure if i like blue dot there on on the hill. I'd like to see some of that fog peeled back before deciding.

-Maniac

If health is going to be more of an issue than happiness, we probably ought to chop only one of the forests, leaving five for the +2 health.

Got it !
I have never played at "normal" speed, only "Epic"

One west of Red Dot would be an ideal fit with Blue and Rome, and still pull in the resources there, still be on a river, etc.

Isn't one west of red dot a plains hill, too? Again, not such a big deal late, but it can be HUGE early. Course, you might want to try to chop the forest to get the hammers before settling it....

Good luck!
Arathorn

Well, it's pretty easy to agree with two of the best civ players around, but I'll do it anyway.

West of red dot makes sense for so many reasons. My vote goes there.

-Jester

Sirian said:

One west of Red Dot would be an ideal fit with Blue and Rome, and still pull in the resources there, still be on a river, etc.

Click to expand...

Lurker's agreement:My thoughts exactly - it avoids wasting tiles, still gives the resources and gets a better base production output and defence bonus. The only issue might be the delay in getting the marble since Caesar's neither creative nor likely to get an early religion (and neither are France or Mali) - only really an issue if you were intending to go for the Parthenon, the Great Lighthouse being a non-starter on a lakes map.
5 squares due East of it also looks like an ultimately useful spot, particularly if that lake to the east is a large one, since it will let you cut off a chunk of land.

I really ought to get involved in one of these myself instead of commenting

Well, thanks Sirian, Arathorn, and others for pointing out a better city placement idea.

-Sirp.

lurker's comment: @ Beef -- Do eeet. It really is great fun. *waves at Sirp*

Skyfish: ping. It's been 24 hours since my post and I don't see a "got it". Also PMing since he never signed in...

-Sirp.