Dr kossin #39

Welcome to Dr kossin #39.

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 #39​

Round 1 Trying a gambit
Round 2 Better late than never
Round 3 Industrious at its best - played by Dirk1302
Round 4 Towards Liberalism and beyond - played by Dirk1302

Game settings
Deity
Normal Speed
Fractal
No Events
No Huts
Fractal
BTS 3.19 with BUG 4.4 in CustomAssets and BULL 1.2 mods - >>>Get Them Here<<<
No isolation - thanks to my girlfriend for verifying this.
Everything else is normal.

The leader, this time, is:


Please refer to the Egypt Civ IV wiki for more information on this leader/nation. (sorry for the un-readability!)

The start:


Well this was a strange one. This is actually the 5th map I generated, the first four ended up in isolation.

I don't very like this start to be honest. No food special and a freaking cow tile on plains. Moving 1W on the plains hill is not even a good idea because you'll be hit by unhealthiness at size 5 which is pretty bad.

Stupid map generator, 4 isolated starts then this!!!

There's a very high chance that there are no additional resources in the BFC because of all those crappy floodplains. (sorry but only floodplains sucks. No way but 7-turns farms to feed the hills while keeping a decent food surplus)

I guess I could always move 1N or SIP to get some health from the forests.

Sorry Kossin, but why does moving 1 W increase unhealthiness? Is it the loss of the two forests on the side, the extra flood plain, or some other factor? hmm I guess I answered my own question + 2 unhealthy.

breakpoint. 7FP = 2.8 unhealth = 2 unhealth (rounded down)
8 FP = 3.2 unhealth = 3 unhealth (rounded down)

1W has the edge of settling on the plains hill, and gets the gold. The health will suck. If only you had wheat around, then with an early granary you could manage it. For BFC gold, it might be worth it.

This start looks good. Each flood gives -0.4 but each provide +1 you can always get more health resources by rex or trade, so as far as the REX phase of the game it is not a huge concern. They give you +food to build worker/settlers, or cottage a few.

Settle 1W is good, you ll need to farm some flood plains, but over all this start has enough food, great production and gold. I would build the 2nd worker while working the cow and gold hill.

Wow, eight floodplains in the capital BFC .

I don't think floodplains suck, but the unhealtines is not great when you have eight there. 1N so that you would crab the gold and you can left some floodplains to another city.

Many floodplains feel suitably Egyptian. So it's a very thematic start.

I don't think floodplains suck,

Click to expand...

They do suck for BFC.

I am not deity player (only Monarch), but i thought that settling 1N would be better then SIP, because of gold in BFC. But you would probably get more brown in the north, at least 1(2) tile looks like plains, i think the gold is worth it... but am no expert on this...

Is early unhealthiness really that bad? You are very likely to get some sea food resources to the south west, so those will help some. You could also try to split the floodplains between two cities, but then you won't have a monster capital.

Did you add the three forests you'll have if you settle 1W? Or do they offer a meaningless healthiness bonus? (SIP does offer more forests, though...)

Looks like a clear tile 2E1S - maybe even food. Having said that 1W will be very powerful *after* city 2 and 3 can pull in some health. 5 grass hills don't need much food to feed them anyway.

Shame you have to build one of those filthy forges too after the oracle!

@CT
You end up with a total number less of forests if you go 1W, which causes -1 health already, the extra flood plain adds to that. This means a net loss of 2 unhealth.

However, it seems that the main disappointment for floodplains is you have to be working them to offset their health issues and farming them takes too long?

wouldnt it be good to move the settler 1E to the grasshill and if there is food settle there or else settle 1 south of the cow.

CivilizedTiger said:

Is early unhealthiness really that bad? You are very likely to get some sea food resources to the south west, so those will help some. You could also try to split the floodplains between two cities, but then you won't have a monster capital.

Did you add the three forests you'll have if you settle 1W? Or do they offer a meaningless healthiness bonus? (SIP does offer more forests, though...)

Click to expand...

if he moves west unhealthiness kicks at size three. of course you can make extra worker and road cows, but it is still uphill battle.

You don't have high yield tiles and iof you start chopping health problem increases.

Have not analysed fully but i rather do something like settle 1NW for 4FP, gold, cows and nice hills. Do not recall if FP you plop settler on counts towards unhealthiness...

Good luck kossin. Its interesting to see different opinions about this start. Usually i would consider this one as a monster (when you can grab some health resources with your first settled cities), but at this difficulty level i agree that this one slows you down...

If you want to settle on turn 1, the only move that gives you any additional information is moving the warrior SE.
Maybe he'll find double seafood and corn or something.

- - -
I think I'd gamble.
Move the warrior NW on the two first turns, while moving the settler E on turn 1 (turn 2 depending on what you find).

Still: SIP won't be that bad a capital either.

What I'd be interested in seeing would be a different kind of win than the ones you usually pull off. That is to say, Space, Cultural or Diplomatic would well be in order - you already know you can Cavalry charge over the world and you've proven it time and again. Ramesses is excellent for different approaches than your usual one.

All that FP makes for a slow start with you lacking any proper source of food and the massive unhealthiness it causes but even so, 1W seems like the best move with the alternative being 1N which obviously wastes a FP but in return gives you less unhealthiness. I'd opt 1w, definitely not SIP.

Soirana said:

Do not recall if FP you plop settler on counts towards unhealthiness...

Click to expand...

I believe if you settle on FP it turns to desert which is a terrain type, while FP which could appear on riverside desert is a terrain feature, so it's like how settling on a forested tile auto-chops the forest; it removes the terrain feature and hence any benefits or penalties from the terrain feature, therefore settling on FP removes -0.4 and 1

j0anne said:

I believe if you settle on FP it turns to desert which is a terrain type, while FP which could appear on riverside desert is a terrain feature, so it's like how settling on a forested tile auto-chops the forest; it removes the terrain feature and hence any benefits or penalties from the terrain feature, therefore settling on FP removes -0.4 and 1

Click to expand...

Don't know what it removes and waht it becomes but from quick view and my memmories it is still FP.

So four FP+1 you settle on is 2 unhealthy. Peace to you.

I play unmodded BTS 3.19 so perhaps it was changed in a mod or from another patch, because when I mouse over cities or city ruins over FP it says desert. Peace to you too

I too would move 1N or 1NW. It doesn't look like you will get any extra food resources if you SIP. You'll at least take a shot if you move. Of course the warrior is in the perfect position not to provide you with any help in making that decision.