LK123, Monarchy, highlands, Japan

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/1898/LK123_BC-2200.zip

3970 BC
One pathetic capitol is settled. In playing around with the highlands map some, it seems like most of them aren't great.




3700 BC
Our first hut gives us hostiles.
(IT) Luck is on our side and he survives.


3460 BC
I met our first neighbor of Caesar.


3190 BC
I met the religious psycho lady - Isabella.


2800 BC
(IT) Add Mao to our list of targets.


2590 BC
Add Huayna to the list.


2470 BC
This is the latest I can recall seeing Hinduism founded.
(IT) Huayna just converted, so I know who founded it.


2350 BC
(IT) Mao already made it to writing! I accept his offer for open borders.


2290 BC
I found a hut in the extreme SW corner, and it gives us a pathetic $23 in gold.


=======================

Summary:

The below is my proposed next city. Food is scarce, and I really want that cattle spot.



Planned national wonders:
Heroic Epic -
Globe Theater -
Wall Street -
Oxford -
Forbidden Palace -
National Epic -
Iron Works -

==============

Signed up:
LKendter
Bede (currently playing)
Conroe (on deck)
Sooooo
Remconius

Our win target is domination.

Remember 15 peace / 10 war turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

An overview of our lands

Good stuff, Lee.

Pretty average capital site, but we can make it work.

Nothing like the capital I rolled last night in my single game (Corn, Rice, 3xMarble, Deer, sheep and Horses) Pretty happy about that one

Some remarks
-Why dont we build the second city below the cows to bring in the other silk and wine.
-With regards to food, there are floodplains to the North-west. In the screenshot I count only 2, but they can be farmed for two cities to provide 4 food each. One near horses and one near gold.
-Your build orders were worker, a couple of Archers. anything else?
-From what I gather from the screenshots you researched The wheel, pottery, hunting, archery...

Got it for tonight.

Pretty reasonable highlands start. If past experience is any guide somewhere in the fog is a land of plenty, we'll just have to wrest it from the natives.

Signing in

It would be nice to scout the area near the horses before the settler appears. If there is food in the area, that spot may be better than the cows spot. The cows spot is OK if not, but it does have 4 desert tiles and 3 peaks. I would advise BW next to get us the location of copper. Good decision on early archery - barbs are generally a big problem on this map and it would have been unwise to gamble on copper.

I really like the highlands/ridges map, so I'm looking forward to this game

remconius said:

-Why don't we build the second city below the cows to bring in the other silk and wine.

Click to expand...

Highland maps from what I could tell tend to be short of food even tiles including grassland forest. I really hate to give up grassland forest and get another hill we probably can't work. In addition, as mentioned the barbs are a pain in the neck. Having a city on a hill is always a good thing.

remconius said:

-Your build orders were worker, a couple of Archers. anything else?
From what I gather from the screenshots you researched the wheel, pottery, hunting, archery.

Click to expand...

I build a second exploring warrior for the northwest. The first one found the southeast corner.
We started with the wheel. What you missed is my research on agriculture to get the wheat into play. Plus mining will complete next turn.

Bede said:

If past experience is any guide somewhere in the fog is a land of plenty, we'll just have to wrest it from the natives.

Click to expand...

From my little bit of checking out highlands, IMHO this area is a land of plenty. The northwest corner isn't bad at all as we get some floodplains along with gold and dyes.

Plus it will be great from a strategic point of view. Once we can bust all of the fog up there, we could have some backline cities that we don't have to worry about and keep just one obsolete military unit in.

sooooo said:

It would be nice to scout the area near the horses before the settler appears.

Click to expand...

The northern exploring warrior is close to the hut by the horses. As long as he survives the barb warrior, we will know more about that area shortly. With more forest hinted at in the fog, I don't know how great it will be.

sooooo said:

I would advise BW next to get us the location of copper. Good decision on early archery - barbs are generally a big problem on this map and it would have been unwise to gamble on copper.

Click to expand...

I fooled around a few times with highlands before starting this game, and I caught that barbs feel above average.

The Save

The warrior in the south turns back to the northwest. He's found the Spanish borders and the southern edge of the world - a long way away - and there is a big black space on the map



Huyana beats us to Bronze Working in 2020BC and southern warrior survives this encounter and gets his Woodsman II badge



Osaka goes up on the hill in 1870BC



and the local wanderer, who has been healing in the woods before busting the villagers is beaten to it by an Incan just as he wakes up



The Incan was pretty badly mauled, so the villagers must have been hostile. He continues his journey to the south and east and encounters another village with a guard



Meanwhile another religion is founded and Julius is Jewish

Knowledge of Broze Working is the biggest news of 1750BC and the location of the only known Copper




No beakers are invested in Writing yet, so a change to Iron Working may be in order. Though a library in Kyoto to gen up a Great Scientist to help carry us to the expensive Samurai technologies is something to consider.

The worker is putting the cows behind fences after digging a mine for Kyoto and getting the foundations of a cottage in on the grass to the south. Various hostiles of varying strengths (warriors and archers) have been seen skulking in the weeds to the north and the south of Kyoto, so Kyoto is training another archer to escort our settlers into their new homes

And anti clockwise from Kyoto this is what's available

Planned national wonders:
Heroic Epic -
Globe Theater -
Wall Street -
Oxford -
Forbidden Palace -
National Epic -
Iron Works -

==============

Signed up:
LKendter
Bede
Conroe (currently playing)
Sooooo (on deck)
Remconius

Our win target is domination.

Remember 15 peace / 10 war turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

It isn't real clear in Bede's picture since you hardly see the pigs,
but we have another good looking site south of Kyoto.
We need to bust more for to say for sure,
but it looks like some potential cottages can go there.
From what I have seen of highlands GNP looks like a real challenge.

Of course, all these lakes will help GNP, but a 2/2/0 tile doesn't excite me that much.

Once we are ready for city #3, this is my current proposal. Fog busting could easily change this if copper shows up nearby. I really want to fog bust around the southern pigs. I am not willing to wait for a border expansion to get the horses. We really want more then archers at some point, and we don't know how long until we get metal.

Of course, I want a lot more military before another city. Barbs are out, and we have no "spare" units for a bad RNG roll. Once Kyoto is size 5 we can configure it for all shields, and military will start to appear at a good pace.

I don't know what I was smoking when I proposed the horse city. Lets try again, as it is crazy not to put a food positive oasis tile inside the 21 tiles.

Overall, an uneventful turnset.

Turn 75 (1750 BC)
Revolt to Slavery With the lack of food resources, I'm not sure how much use we will get out of it. But, it is sure handy to have around in an emergency.

Turn 78 (1660 BC)
Our capital is now at max population, so I reconfigure the city for max hammers. Meanwhile, our Warrior exploring in the SE has so far only discovered a barbarian.

IBT:
While defending, Warrior defeats (0.98/2): Barbarian Warrior at 78.9 percent.

Turn 79 (1630 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Archer and begins: Barracks as I really hate producing inexperienced units any longer than I have to.

Turn 81 (1570 BC)
Our newest Archer is sent north to confront the latest barb threat.

IBT:
While defending, Archer defeats (0.60/3): Barbarian Archer at 90.1 percent. Ouch. He is going to need 8 turns to heal!

Turn 82 (1540 BC)
Our Warrior that is healing down in the SE is up to 1.4 health. However, another barb is trying to sneak up behind him.

IBT:
While defending, Warrior defeats (0.82/2): Barbarian Warrior at 86.8 percent.

Turn 84 (1480 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Barracks and begins: Archer

Our exploring Warrior, who was checking out the pigs city site, comes across a barb Warrior. Our boys quickly forge the river to increase the defense bonus.


Notice we have more pigs and some floodplains further south of Kyoto.

IBT:
While defending, Warrior defeats (0.60/2): Barbarian Warrior at 99.2 percent. For a moment, I really thought we were going to lose that one! Seven turns to heal. I decide to risk him and get a bit more exploring done for our dot maps.

Turn 87 (1390 BC)
Tech learned: Writing and Research begun: Iron Working
As I've not seen hide nor hair of any copper, I thought I would follow Bede's sage advice and see if we have any iron.

Turn 89 (1330 BC)
Kyoto finishes: Archer and begins: Settler for the horse city, I suppose. I've sent an Archer over to LK's pink dot to bust the fog.

Uh-oh. My gamble with our wounded Warrior may have been a mistake. A barb Archer is spied on a hill. It looks like he will have to leg it out of there!

Turn 90 (1300 BC)
The barb Archer goes the other way. It is probably best to let our boy do some healing. Meanwhile, our Woodsman II wanderer in the SE comes across Rome's second city.






Iron Working will be complete in 16 turns. We will have another Settler in 12 turns. Osaka will grow next turn, so the next player may want to that Granary to completion. Our lone Worker has started a road in the direction of the horses. We could probably use another Worker at this point, as well.

Here is a screenshot of our empire and the lands to the north. I've noted LK's pink dot city with horses.


And another screenshot of the lands to the south.


I've thrown a couple of dots onto the maps as a starting point in the discussions. To tell the truth, there really isn't anything exciting about any of these city sites.

It will probably be a bit before the AI's start trying to settle the northern lands. So, we may want to prioritize the southern lands first. The downside is we could really use the extra happiness from the gold.

It will probably be a bit before the AI's start trying to settle the northern lands. So, we may want to prioritize the southern lands first.

Click to expand...

I agree overall outside of the gold city. If we build northern blue dot quickly, and get some culture, then our borders should expand to cover the dyes by the time calendar arrives.

I will wait a bit before even thinking about the south. We need the happiness from gold before any of the southern sites.


Signed up:
LKendter
Bede
Conroe
Sooooo (currently playing)
Remconius (on deck)

Our win target is domination.

Remember 15 peace / 10 war turns per round. STRICT 24 hours got it, total 48 hours to complete.

We may want to think about a run to Monarchy and Hereditary Rule for Wines and garrison happiness, given the dearth of readily exploitable happy resources.

Moving Blue Dot one north gives another city site on the riverbend which can use the floodplains and looks to have access to some nice production hills as well, though not a great deal of commercial potential unless there is grass under some of that jungle.

Got it.

I have a suggestion differing from LK's plan to put up for discussion. The desert gold will give us hapiness, but we will not be able to actually work it until max growth unless we grow very slowly.

Right now, IW is due in 16 with a settler due in 12. If we work a lake instead of a mine at Kyoto, both will be due in 14 turns. To my mind, iron is much more important than gold/dyes for our third city, and I would prefer the settler in the queue to settle us some iron if there is a suitable location. Thoughts?

I agree to blue dot 1N. We need the dye for happiness sooner rather than later. We can use the other FP for small production town, with +4 food we can work a few hills, build barracks and nothing but units.

Cyan and green cities would also be good production towns (+6 food)

The yellow dot could even be a bit of a GP factory (+10 food potential)

Given the fact that we'll have samurai and are going for domination, we can beeline for samurai techs (CS and machinery, IIRC) and then stop science and kick ass.

I agree with soooo that the next settler should hook us up with iron. Afterwards we can found the 4 cities that will be the backbone of our military machine.

sooooo said:

I have a suggestion differing from LK's plan to put up for discussion. The desert gold will give us hapiness, but we will not be able to actually work it until max growth unless we grow very slowly.

Click to expand...

I don't care about the town working the gold. I am looking at overall empire city size.

sooooo said:

Right now, IW is due in 16 with a settler due in 12. If we work a lake instead of a mine at Kyoto, both will be due in 14 turns. To my mind, iron is much more important than gold/dyes for our third city, and I would prefer the settler in the queue to settle us some iron if there is a suitable location. Thoughts?

Click to expand...

That works for me, and we can then have another dotmap discussion at the end of your turn.

We are still working toward pink dot (horses) right now if no iron showing.

remconius said:

Given the fact that we'll have samurai and are going for domination, we can beeline for samurai techs (CS and machinery, IIRC) and then stop science and kick ass.

Click to expand...

This is one plan I won't accept. I am not willing to gamble that we can dominate the world before the AI get the appropriate counter. If they do, they we have really screwed ourself as we will they suffer the worse Civ4 fate - a major tech hole. Remember, in Civ4 tech is king.

On the inherited turn I changed from working the mine at Kyoto to the lake, bringing IW down from 16 turns to 14.

Turn 3 (1210 AD) The grasslands south of Kyoto only has 2 more turns to build a cottage, so I finish it.



Turn 4 (1180 AD) Our archer on a forest hill kills a barb archer. I promote him to guerilla and heal. Should be a useful promotion on this map.

I work our new cottage at Osaka instead of the silk, which delays the settler by 1 turn. I figure 10 turns of maturing the cottage is worth the delay.

Turn 6 (1120 AD) Osaka finishes a granary, starts a worker.

Turn 8 (1060 AD) Our C1, W2 warrior on a forest hill kills a barb archer in the southeast. Our worker goes to chop the forest hill at Osaka to speed up the worker it is building and get some overflow.

Turn 10 (1000 AD) Meet the barb city in the southeast:



It is close to Rome, and he will probably try to claim this city. We could send some troops over to see if we can take it once Rome has thrown some troops at the defenses.

Turn 11 (985 AD) Our guerilla archer kills a barb archer, heals.

Turn 12 (970 AD) Our healing woodsman warrior kills another barb warrior, is now at 9 exp. Move the archer out of Osaka to occupy the forest in the face of an incoming barb archer. It doesn't increase the odds if he attacks, but it will block the pillaging route.

Turn 13 (955 AD) Our archer wins against the attacking archer.

Turn 14 (940 AD) Worker finishes at Osaka, we start a barracks. Stonehenge BIDL.

Turn 15 (935 AD) A momentous year. The first pop up box appears, telling me what I want to build now. An axeman is an option! Our iron is already hooked up at Kyoto:



Remanage Kyoto and start an axeman here.

Our lands:



I started mysticism for obelisks. After that I recommend alphabet.

The save is here