Dr kossin #23

Welcome to Dr kossin #23.

Dr is an acronym for Daily Round. Yes, I mean to get in an update every day to the games I will be playing. Of course there might be some days where I can only play a little or not at all, but I will make up for it those other days when I do have extra time on my hands.

Since the 21st edition of this series, the difficulty level has been cranked all the way up to Deity. I'm not at the point where I can win every game thrown at me on Deity level... I probably can't even win every game thrown at me on Immortal but it is getting a bit boring. My goal is now to achieve competitive skills on this level which should hopefully help me improve more.

You, the reader, can help me achieve this goal by pointing out where I got astray, give suggestions on how to proceed, use complex abstract mathematical analysis to argue, curse at me or anything that you may like. Please note that you must respect the Terms of Service of CFC in any case

You may shadow this game and post it here if you please, but I kindly request that you put it in spoiler tags and that anyone reading the report abstain from using information found there to help me out.

Should you want more clarification about something I've done, just ask for it and I will try to answer as best as I can.

Enough talk, on to the game.

Dr kossin #23​

Round 0 Settling
Round 1 Scouting and a settler
Round 2a When barbs attack!
Round 2b Working on the economy
Round 3 Towards Liberalism
Round 4 The cost of war (or The rewards of war)
Round 5 A bit of everything

Game settings
Deity
Normal Speed
Fractal
No Events
No Huts
BTS 3.19 with BUG 4.2 in CustomAssets and BULL 1.0
Everything else is normal.

A special thanks to bestsss who provided the map.

The leader, this time, is:


Please refer to the Vikings Civ IV wiki for more information on this leader/nation.

The start:


While it looks like an obsolete start at first, there are two more potential food resources available here. A pigs/sheep 2S of the settler on the hill and something (corn/pigs/cows?) NEE of the scout and possibly also 1N of that. Moreover, 2N of the scout is an unforested plains hill which could feature something (gold/marble?).

For settling, in place doesn't look bad.
Moving 1E might provide a few more river tiles and there's the possibility of a resource 2S2E of the settler as it appears there is no forest there.
Lastly 1N might gain access to an extra food resource or something else.
In any case, there will be a lot of trees for production.

Going by this, I'd either move the scout NE to get a better look at what lies north OR move the scout 2S2E to reveal what's on the bottom grassland hill and if moving 1E is viable.

Techs will largely depend on what settling will reveal. Animal Husbandry is definitely looking like a necessity here, the question is will I go straight to it or go via Agriculture.
After that it's Mining/BW almost for certain. The river might allow to skip The Wheel right away if the second city is on it and close enough to Nidaros.

I see no alternative to settle in place, unless you find something spectacular by moving the scout NE. The extra coin by the river is also nice for settle in place.

You will probably soon need Agriculture (in this city or in the second city), and will research AH quicker with this technology. I can not see that you need BW so early so you need to not make Agriculture now.

But as you play on deity, and I am not - see these advices as not from an expert.

Haha! The cow glitch is an obsolete start . I like it. I will just insta-transport all these starts to him .

Torgny said:

I see no alternative to settle in place, unless you find something spectacular by moving the scout NE. The extra coin by the river is also nice for settle in place.

You will probably soon need Agriculture (in this city or in the second city), and will research AH quicker with this technology. I can not see that you need BW so early so you need to not make Agriculture now.

But as you play on deity, and I am not - see these advices as not from an expert.

Click to expand...

Well, the reason for BW is that from the look of things, he has very few unforested tiles, so he's going to have to chop them down in order to build cottages/farms/mines etc.

Also, if there's copper in his BFC and there's someone close by, he can build the 8 Axemen Wonder.

Looks like you're pretty polar, my guess is north. At least you'll be able to chop your way to greener pastures. Since you know you've got nothing west or north in forest, why not move the scout 2E/2E1S, and if you find anything settle 1E? You'd still get the cow, whatever is on the grass hill 2S, more river tiles, and whatever else is potentially east.

Torgny said:

I see no alternative to settle in place, unless you find something spectacular by moving the scout NE. The extra coin by the river is also nice for settle in place.

You will probably soon need Agriculture (in this city or in the second city), and will research AH quicker with this technology. I can not see that you need BW so early so you need to not make Agriculture now.

But as you play on deity, and I am not - see these advices as not from an expert.

Click to expand...

As pointed out below, there are a lot of forests in the BFC. It'll be difficult to improve anything without BW. Moreover it'll accelerate initial expansion and hopefully I can settle more than 6 cities for a change

TheMeInTeam said:

Haha! The cow glitch is an obsolete start . I like it. I will just insta-transport all these starts to him .

Click to expand...

Riot said:

Well, the reason for BW is that from the look of things, he has very few unforested tiles, so he's going to have to chop them down in order to build cottages/farms/mines etc.

Also, if there's copper in his BFC and there's someone close by, he can build the 8 Axemen Wonder.

Click to expand...

Might be more than 8 Axes on Deity but I like the faster build speed that Aggressive provides to this Wonder

goodolarchie said:

Looks like you're pretty polar, my guess is north. At least you'll be able to chop your way to greener pastures. Since you know you've got nothing west or north in forest, why not move the scout 2E/2E1S, and if you find anything settle 1E? You'd still get the cow, whatever is on the grass hill 2S, more river tiles, and whatever else is potentially east.

Click to expand...

Looks up north yea, but I can't see any hint of the coast so it's a guessing game.
WRT scout: 2E is worst than NE imo as we already know there's forests to our east and won't get vision past those. NE will provide some more vision however.
2E1S won't reveal the forest-less tile, I'm assuming you mean 2E2S(which also reveals the second grassland hill)?

I'm a bit torn on which way to move the scout to be honest. Both could reveal something or nothing.

I'll give this one some thought and play tomorrow. Tonight I have enough on my hands right now... (if you know what I mean )

an Obsolete start, I love it. He did leave a mark perhaps forever here as the great complainer. (cow glitches/firaxis/AI/bugs) he was always all over it. Good job Kossin moving to deity. I've been following these games.

IMO Ag first leaves too many idle worker turns. I'd do AH/Mining/BW and start pumping a few workers/settlers at size 3.

Quickly becoming one of the best series posted too IMO - keep up the good work!

Berkobob said:

Quickly becoming one of the best series posted too IMO - keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Agreed. I've really been enjoying these, especially since you've moved to Imm/deity.

Just change the triple-x name to something more appropriate.

Btw, i dont quite understand comments on the tech. path before the settling or few turns after if there are huts.

I agree that this is probably the best series going currently.
Look forward to seeing Ragnar in action here.

Udey1 said:

an Obsolete start, I love it. He did leave a mark perhaps forever here as the great complainer. (cow glitches/firaxis/AI/bugs) he was always all over it. Good job Kossin moving to deity. I've been following these games.

Click to expand...

He'll be back. They always come back! Mwhahahahaha </Sid>

Berkobob said:

IMO Ag first leaves too many idle worker turns. I'd do AH/Mining/BW and start pumping a few workers/settlers at size 3.

Quickly becoming one of the best series posted too IMO - keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Thanks. We'll see about heading straight to AH once settling is done.

CynicalMagician said:

Agreed. I've really been enjoying these, especially since you've moved to Imm/deity.

Click to expand...

My thanks as well. Just like to point out I started on Immortal

bestsss said:

Just change the triple-x name to something more appropriate.

Btw, i dont quite understand comments on the tech. path before the settling or few turns after if there are huts.

Click to expand...

We know there aren't huts.
I changed the name in game but the change doesn't appear right away. I'll see if I can change the pictures.

mc-red said:

I agree that this is probably the best series going currently.
Look forward to seeing Ragnar in action here.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the ! (Now here's the we had agreed upon...)

kossin said:

WRT scout: 2E is worst than NE imo as we already know there's forests to our east and won't get vision past those. NE will provide some more vision however.
2E1S won't reveal the forest-less tile, I'm assuming you mean 2E2S(which also reveals the second grassland hill)?

Click to expand...

Ahh you're right, I didn't look close enough to notice the forest edge in 1NE from scout. I still have a sneaking suspicion that there are some goodies east worth settling, but I'm only emperor so what do I know!

Anyway I follow your series with anticipation, would love to see some amphibious conquest!

I just can't believe we're on 23 already. Certainly the most prolific series on the boards if nothing else. But it is a good read. The only thing is, it's like magic to a poor Monarch player like myself.

kossin said:

While it looks like an obsolete start at first, there are two more potential food resources available here. A pigs/sheep 2S of the settler on the hill and something (corn/pigs/cows?) NEE of the scout and possibly also 1N of that. Moreover, 2N of the scout is an unforested plains hill which could feature something (gold/marble?).

Click to expand...

What is the meaning of obsolete here? Generally it is used for something that was useful but not anymore, It can't apply in this case since the game is starting, so I am assuming it has a different meaning.

I guess I would settle in place - I don't like to delay the capital, but I'd move the scout 2S2E just in case you find something great outside your BFC.
Because of all these forests, you're bound to find more resource on the two hidden tiles you pointed out (NEE & 2S). Plus I wouldn't be surprised if you have 1 strategic resource hidden. After all this is a spot fit for a capital, you can't possibly start with only a cow.

2N1E from the settler is not forested nor is 2S of it. 2N1E is almost certainly food and 2S might be a hill pig or a hill sheep.

I don't think it's an obsolete start.

Edit:

Romanichine said:

What is the meaning of obsolete here? Generally it is used for something that was useful but not anymore, It can't apply in this case since the game is starting, so I am assuming it has a different meaning.

Click to expand...

obsolete is a skilled player and... a notorious whiner about glitches and things he finds to be coded wrong. He claims to have quit the game or is planning to quit but if you peruse these forums you can't have missed him. An obsolete start is a start where your only food resource is a lone plains cow, a topic which most regulars here have seen him rant on about.

^ But he does value chopping those trees for rushing his wonders, so it could be in reference to that as well. Interesting start. I would tempted to move my settler S (maybe SW) if the scout doesn't show anything NE.

Round 0

Guessing it was unlikely to get side-by-side resources to the north, I sent the scout SE and then SE again.


As I thought, there was indeed a pig on the second grassland hill. Moreover we can see we're actually on the south end of the map and coast is close by. This might be good news as there might be some expansion room and backfilling cities on the coast for later.

Unfortunately nothing showed up 2S2E of the settler so moving 1E wasn't looking so good. A wasted turn has got to have a justification. What would be gained by moving 1E?
The 'possibility' of a strategic resource appearing and 1 more grassland would be riverside. That's not good enough to justify moving considering the downsides. Moving a worker to the pigs would take 1 more turn, the loss of a forest and uncertainty about what lies to the east.

Therefore I settled in place.


This looks like a strong production capital which also has the possibility of bringing in some commerce thanks to 9 grassland tiles.


AH first looks like a no-brainer now, followed by Mining and then Bronze Working.


Worker first(15 turns) improves the pig (+5 turns), improves the cow next to it (+4 turns) moves 2N2E (+1 turn), improves the grassland cow (+4 turns) gives until turn 29. Bronze Working will not be available before turn 45 (maybe a bit sooner if we meet enough AIs) as there is no commerce on any of the available tiles. Therefore the worker will probably have time to mine the grassland hill before going off with the first produced settler, depending on whatever's around.

I think the Scout should start investigating along the river for a second city as it looks like The Wheel will not be available for quite some time.

dirtyparrot said:

^ But he does value chopping those trees for rushing his wonders, so it could be in reference to that as well. Interesting start. I would tempted to move my settler S (maybe SW) if the scout doesn't show anything NE.

Click to expand...

Settling south, possibly on a hidden resource? Possibly Iron? I'd never take that chance.

And by SW, you mean SE... otherwise you'd be settling on the cow, which I'm sure you don't want.

^ I meant scout a little with the settler.