What would YOU do in this situation?

E

erajah

Chieftain
Joined
Aug 30, 2010
Messages
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As any good player knows, the most important moves are the beginning ones. I've rerolled many many maps over and over again trying to learn the intricacies of the opening moves in an attempt to improve.

I eventually rolled into this monstrosity. As Genghis, and starting relatively close to Monty and Shaka I thought that this would be a great learning experience. Then, after revealing the map I realized this is a start only a masochist could love. I don't really think I'll play this out just because I think it's overly bad, so I'd like to ask the pros here about how they would proceed.

If there was a gun to my head, and I had to play it out, I think my strategy would be for GLH, and build cities along the coast as I reach the Fish/Gems city, but that would be extremely slow. Second city has to share the cows as there is nothing nearby that would be any useful otherwise.

Didn't really include the rest of the capital, but you have stone and a grassland sheep as well, if that changes anything, and there's no room to place a city north. In hindsight, I think settling on the stone would've been the best choice, but really, I still wouldn't know how to proceed.

Attached is the original save. It's on Emperor/Fractal with huts and events on (I know, I know, but I just used the Play Game option).
 

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yuuuppii! kesik fun in jungle!

Rice/horse 2nd city and you dont need more. AH/sailing/HBR/Archery/ other stuff in the middle (Masonry (gwall? yep, we have stone),pottery, writing) and it will be soooooo funny. Monty diiieeee!!!

I will try it if it is possible, i am a kind of masochist :D
 
I would quit to main menu and restart a new game. Sorry but you asked and that is what I would do.
 
Macksideshow said:
I would quit to main menu and restart a new game. Sorry but you asked and that is what I would do.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Food poor maps suck outright.
Is Monty and Shaka too far away? If they're close enough, they might settle the horse spot before you do. If I was forced to play, I'll wait till construction for cat wars since they are relatively far.
 
Food poor and double cow start. Cruel!!! All that jungle too. No horse bearby from what I can see either. At some point Shaka will most likely declare on you. That gem site is too far away and still requires IW and a border pop!!!

Time to start a new map. This map will take a lot of effort for little reward.
 
I would go for BW first and then chop as many workers and settlers (thanks for Imperialistic) as possible. There pretty much forests to chop them and Great Lighthouse (i would even settle a city without any resourses). The third city should be near double jems+horse, I think.
If this one would Deity I wouldn't try att all %)
 
Gumbolt said:
Food poor and double cow start. Cruel!!! All that jungle too. No horse bearby from what I can see either. At some point Shaka will most likely declare on you. That gem site is too far away and still requires IW and a border pop!!!

Time to start a new map. This map will take a lot of effort for little reward.
Click to expand...

And Shaka has the most terrible counter units to Keshiks. :lol:

*Looking at the map screen* Where is the food!? Man, civ4 map generation can be so unfair occasionally. This map makes no sense as there is literally no food! :lol:
 
I must be a masochist then. I might try this when I get home.

My first impression is to build five cities on the west coast, the ones you have highlighted plus one northeast of the northern gem, and one to hook up horses. Take a run at great lighthouse (fishing, sailing then masonry) in the second city (chop it out). After that's built, or failed, take a run at great wall if it's not built already. If great wall fails I think archery becomes a priority.
 
Spoiler :
I saved it as a worldbuilder save, turned events off and switched difficulty to immortal. Settle on the stone (otherwise you have to settle on the sheep, which is not the end of the world though) and got two settlers out @size 3. Founded cities to locations to borrow cows, as there are no good early sites really. Worked non-lighthouse coast in these two cities for a while as we are starving for commerce.

GLH is great on a start like this, as you don't want to settle early to the jungle, but rather found cities on coast to claim seafood (later it dawned that there is zero claimable coastal seafood on this map :eek:) so techpath AH-fishing-sailing-mining-masonry. Early BW looks like a mistake to me. BW brings hammers, but it's clear from the get-go that commerce is what you need. You have enough base hammers in cap to get GLH in a more or less safe date. Tech after masonry was writing-BW-alpha. 1 worker is enough pre-BW.

Got GLH around 1600BC, got failgold from GW (I rather take the gold, as it's hard to imagine stealing lots of good stuff from these two and barbs are imo never a real problem below deity) and I'm trying to get Mids.

Capital focuses on wonders/GP-production, one city with high hammers goes barracks-axe* to take barb city on the east coast, which is cutting off trade routes to Shaka. Smaller cities focus on producing settlers (imperialistic is not totally worthless! :)) Plan is to claim all those mediocre coastal sites I can get. It's not a great position, but certainly winnable.



Update 1 AD:
Spoiler :
Got 10 cities (the ones visible in the screenshot plus one on an island just north of Monty). Gifted cities to both of them so I'm like +9 with Shaka and +7 with Monty. Research is weak, infra is weak but at least diplo is ok? :mischief:. Trying to tech towards astro but since both :gp:s have been GMs looks like it will be slow. I hate settling :gp: but maybe should have in this case, as the game will probably be long. I guess I won't be bulbing astro, will build Colossus and research slowly towards optics.

 
Update 800 AD
Spoiler :
Optics 600 AD, met the other continent and circumnavigated asap, astro in 800 AD (no bulbs towards it). :gp: was GM(bulb currency 625 BC)-GM(mission)-GE(saved, maybe for GA?). Was growing and working Colossus coast, now starting to whip infra (forge-courthouse at least). Other continent is backwards, despite Mansa's presence. Nobody has CS or philo by 800 AD. I think I can win liberalism like 1200 AD. :lol: Our continent is still in grouphug-mode. My research is not great even with inter-continental trade routes, but it doesn't matter much as none of the AIs are threatening.

620 AD city count below. Other continent is Mansa+Zara vs. Toku+Huyana (Zara currently at war vs both). M+Z don't have enough cities to be a long-term threat and Toku is just too weak AI. Shaka is doing ok, but he will be my first victim anyway.



Tech 800 AD. Nobody has nothing. I have optics+astro on everyone, machinery on everyone but Huyana and Shaka+Monty still lack MC.





Empire has poor :hammers:-potential due to lack of :food:, so maybe I have to tech pretty deep before war. I mean, not sure if cuirassiers are going to cut it. Cannons it is I guess. Or maybe diplo victory? :groucho:
 
To be fair I can't load save as due to bug mode. You have made a decent go of this map Sampsa. You really are playing this game well at present. Playing the map rather than the leader.
 
Wow Turfan is rather interesting city, just staying at pop 1 working what? Plainhill or representation specialist/citizen? I've heard people advocate size 1 cities for using gold mines, but not have seen city like this. How are you planning to use that city Sampsa? After CS it could be irrigated and farmed.

I guess it can be worth it if the city isn't too far away from cap and with cheaper settlers.
 
Gumbolt said:
To be fair I can't load save as due to bug mode.
Click to expand...
There is some issue with the autosave, it didn't load up properly for me either despite I do have BUG 4.4 installed. That's the original reason why I saved it as worldbuilder save.
Gumbolt said:
You have made a decent go of this map Sampsa. You really are playing this game well at present. Playing the map rather than the leader.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Yup, being Mongolia is no reason to go blindly bashing skulls... Attacking your precious trade partners early on is something I try to avoid. I mean, it's completely different if you have early contact only to 1-2 AIs compared to if you can meet everyone quickly. In the latter case, someone is certainly disposable.

sinimusta said:
Wow Turfan is rather interesting city, just staying at pop 1 working what? Plainhill or representation specialist/citizen? I've heard people advocate size 1 cities for using gold mines, but not have seen city like this. How are you planning to use that city Sampsa? After CS it could be irrigated and farmed.
I guess it can be worth it if the city isn't too far away from cap and with cheaper settlers.
Click to expand...
It's not great, but probably better than no city at all. :) I didn't foresee that I'd whip it back down to 1 (it was size 4 at best, working both cows and two PH mines building settlers). When my happy cap increased, it seemed better to give cows back to capital so I kinda had to whip it down (also needed those axes quickly to take barb cities). Still, with GLH it's winning me :gold: being @size1 building wealth/failing wonders working PH mine.

Yes, when I can irrigate I will build a granary and whip units size 4 -> 2.
 
pomthom said:
Very nice sampsa. Are you planning to move cap to Pig/Dye city?
Click to expand...
I decided against moving the capital, because

- coastal capital has 25:commerce: from trade routes, pig/dye has only 4:commerce: from tr:s. Capital also popped gems ~1000 AD :), so moving the palace wouldn't win much :commerce: anyway
- I plan to be in nationhood rather soon, maybe for more than briefly as the :)-cap is huge
- I don't have an academy and I don't think investing a GS to it at this point is good

To 1250 AD
Spoiler :
Tech aesth-literature(NE to capital, HE to rice/horse)-philo(got Taoism, spread it to Shaka+Monty)-CS-nationalism(rushed Taj with GE)-paper-edu-gunpowder etc. Won economics, will win liberalism but it seems I have to take mil trad or rep parts with it. I am going to rifling, but Huyana can tech liberalism already so I don't want to gamble.

Screens from 1110 AD when my Taj golden age started and switched to Tao-bureau-caste-pacifism:

NE+wonders in capital, spitting out great people. I mostly got GMs, sent on a trade mission. Despite it's a GP-farm, :commerce: is not hopelessly bad thanks to trade routes. Started a second, consecutive golden age with a GE.



Moai city spreading Taoism. Not great, but it's not bad for a city with no food resource.



Ex-barb city helping with :gp:-production. GS was used to partially bulb printing press.



Also founded these three, of course they are pretty marginal but with GLH and sold resources pay themselves back very quickly.







Tech screen 1250 AD looks pretty good:



Somehow Shaka is still not friendly towards me (+10 though), despite me feeding him tech for 30-50:gold: still no +1 from "you have shared your technological discoveries". I think that would push him up to friendly... Doesn't matter much anymore I guess. He must go. :devil:

I have two GMs on the way to Mansa's capital (ToA) and I'm building trebs and elephants (to be upgraded to cavalry). Plan is soften the hard spots/stacks with rifles+trebs and mop it up with cavalry.
 
A cake walk :)

Funny how you put tags for your begs near your cap, I do it near their respective cap :lol:

I also write down the amount begged, aswell as the cumulated amount from all begs for each AI even though I don't know the formula to estimate the amount you can beg :crazyeye:
 
I noticed Seraiel used the Alt-M shortcut in BUG for that. Maybe I should start doing that too, as I can never remember, and pretty soon all I get is no :|

Adding the text is more visual though, and you'll know roughly when you can beg again prior to whatever turn you mark it for with Alt-M.
 
pomthom said:
A cake walk :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's in the bag for sure.

pomthom said:
Funny how you put tags for your begs near your cap, I do it near their respective cap :lol:
Click to expand...
I put them near my cap so that I don't forget about it. :)
pomthom said:
I also write down the amount begged, aswell as the cumulated amount from all begs for each AI even though I don't know the formula to estimate the amount you can beg :crazyeye:
Click to expand...
I don't know the exact mechanics either. I just try to beg roughly every 25 turns, for 50 :gold: or so. If getting the peace treaty is useful (like it was in this game with Shaka), then beg for less.

Pangaea said:
I noticed Seraiel used the Alt-M shortcut in BUG for that. Maybe I should start doing that too, as I can never remember, and pretty soon all I get is no :|

Adding the text is more visual though, and you'll know roughly when you can beg again prior to whatever turn you mark it for with Alt-M.
Click to expand...
For whatever reason, I really dislike pop-ups of any kind, so I just prefer to do it like I do. :)


To 1525 AD
Spoiler :
Took rep parts with liberalism. On the last turn of the golden age, switch to police state-nationhood-slavery-free market-theocracy. Whip trebs, 5 turns later rifling is in, start drafting rifles. 6 turns from that (1380 AD) army is big enough to declare war on Shaka. When military tradition was in, started whipping cavalry (and upgraded some phants). Turned tech off pretty much at that point as my trade routes were gone (everyone was in mercantilism) and I was losing gold @0% research. War was a bit messy and since he wouldn't capitulate quickly I just took all his cities in 17 turns. Huyana declared on me at some point (I had refused a demand and forgotten about it) and invaded with 3 knights and 3 cats, which was good enough army to take a coastal city from me. For one turn.

City count. I bribed Zara on Huyana because it was cheap. Monty been WHEOOHRN (on Mansa I think) for a long time.



Army



New land



Finishing it is a bit boring and not very challenging, so dunno if I bother. Capitulate monty and move troops to the other continent.
 
sampsa said:
Finishing it is a bit boring and not very challenging, so dunno if I bother. Capitulate monty and move troops to the other continent.
Click to expand...
Well, decided to finish it anyway. :)
Spoiler :
- declare on Monty 1530 AD, capitulation 1560 AD
- whip a load of galleons (had 30 in the end), some frigates for protection+bombardment, transport troops
- kill Huyana's stack, take Lalibela, gift it back to Zara



- Toku had declared on Zara, so his stack was around. Declare and destroy. Cavalry vs medieval troops on open field is so unfair



- Toku caps without me taking a city, which was surprising as he had 12 cities anyway

- declare on both Mansa and Zara, Mansa caps in three turns

- win domination 1620 AD




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unless you are stuck on some tiny tundra island, every map is winnable below deity. Building a solid economy is important, and there is more than one way to do it: GLH, cottages, specialists or just working high :commerce:-tiles. Even with a sub-par start, you should be able to run away in tech or get such a massive amount of cities that tech parity is good enough. Attack from a position of strength, when getting more cities is beneficial for you.
 
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