Nobles Club CLIII - Lincoln of America

tijup

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Joined
Mar 23, 2009
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The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

LINCOLN of AMERICA, starting techs are fishing and agriculture
We last played Americans with Roosevelt in NC CXXIX.



LINCOLN is philosophical/charismatic
philosophical : Great People birth rate increased by 100%. Double production speed of University.
charismatic : +1 :happiness: per city. -25% XP needed for unit promotions. +1 :happiness: from Monument and Broadcast Tower.

its UB is MALL a Supermarket that gives :gold: and :). It comes quite late in the game, so some players consider it very weak compared to other UBs. The extra cash might be useful in keeping research at a higher rate in the late game, where it could make a difference in a space victory race.


its UU is NAVY SEAL a Marine with March promotion (can heal while moving) and 1-2 first strikes (one of few late-game units to have them), making it a very strong late-game military unit. Like the UB, some players consider it weak because they're in too strong a position at that point to need it (or have won the game already).


And here is our starting position:


Spoiler map details: :

Custom_continent
3 continents
default for everything else.
Spoiler map edit :

Changed some tundra tiles to some warmer ones for 2 very unlucky AIs.



Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:

There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:

4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other
continent if applicable, etc)
1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)

This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps for most of the series, and all of you for playing.

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 73 Pericles Noble" (or Monarch, if you want the AI to start with its usual Archery bonus tech, or Immortal for Archery+Hunting, or Deity to add Agriculture). This allows you to play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.

Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:

Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians: :

Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
Exit the worldbuilder.
Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
 

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I don't see any reason to move. BW is clearly needed with all of the forests. Mining > BW. Farm corn > mine gems > chop WB. Coastal starts are often tricky with many possible openings, but this one seems pretty cut and dried.
 
I don't see any reason to move. BW is clearly needed with all of the forests. Mining > BW. Farm corn > mine gems > chop WB. Coastal starts are often tricky with many possible openings, but this one seems pretty cut and dried.
Yes - with fishing and Agri in hand then SIP and mining -> BW seems obvious.

Thanks for the map tijup!
 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 2320 BC

Spoiler :

SIP, and revealed another Gem. Now this start looks really easy.

Met Khan in 5 turns. He somewhere south nearby. Immediately started looking for some possible rush routes. Copper was somewhere north, as my initial warrior scouted out. OK, that can be settled with corn. However, when i was growing my city to fully utilize the 2 Gem before building the first Settler. AH was researched and the NW peninsula turned out is a better place to settle with horse and corn.

So, now it's 42 turns. 2 cities, 2 workers, 3 warriors. Met Gilgamesh a couple turns earlier who sent out a scouting fish boat. Still scouting out the surroundings. The land to the east and north looks huge and without AIs. A REX frenzy?

Not very motivated on this map due to super fast research rate with the 2 Gems. Maybe shooting for 12+ cities by 1 AD?


Thanks for the map tijup!
 
Immortal/no huts/normal speed to 1 AD

The start looked very promising, after playing around with the map a bit things turned out rather great.

Spoiler :

My first attempt was a failure (trying to chariot rush gengis, but I was too late, he had already walls in his cities), caused by not being focused. But with such a start (double gem, food fitting the leaders initial techs) there should be some crazy stuff possible.

Tech path went mining -> bw -> AH -> TW -> Horseback raiding -> Hunting -> archery ->writing -> math.

Founded New York on the horses, build only barracks there, stables in the cap, then start producing HA and cought Gengis totally with his pants down. His cities all had granaries and ok locations, so I kept them.

After that I had some highly promoted HA and Memet was quite low in his power rating and still in expansion phase. He did not seem to have metal either, or at least just hooked it up, so I went after him as well, got TGW in the process and made peace for metal casting and priesthood (I got alpha from Gilgamesh for HBR and math).

Now its the second attack, his last city has only size 1 and will autoraze, but I wait, until I have a settler near, since SB is moving a settler in circles near that location and I dont want him to expand any further to the NW.

All in all a very very fortunate play and lots of love from RNG. Currency is in, I have monarchy and will get CoL soon. Then its aesthetics time, having marble and stone. On a reflection, I think the start is too easy, having like 14 cities at 1 AD, plenty workers and not going broke. Such a progress on immortal is way more then I manage to get in usual games, playing felt more like Emperor, so I am not sure if I will finish the map.

Civ4ScreenShot0020.JPG

Save is attached.


Thanks for the map
 

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Emperor - NHNE - 775BC - Normal speed

Spoiler :
Usually play on Marathon but as I'm involved in a succession game am practicing on normal speed. Like Amoa I settled the Horse / Corn 2nd and am now training HAs to take out Khan. I also settled the Copper / Corn / Cow site to the NE. Met Sitting Bull and one of the Ottomans on the continent as well as work boats from Gilgamesh and Louis. Should be ready to take out Genghis very soon.
 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 700BC (2nd Try)

Spoiler :

Yes, 2nd try on Noble :blush:, because I lost my CS slingshot by a few turns sometime past 1000BC. I was too distracted with all the "cheap" tech that i thought i'd need. I researched Sailing because that would let my 2nd city build LH without which the city was lacking food. I researched Alphabet because there was another thread where everybody was saying you'd see AI already got IW by then. I then researched IW because NONE had IW and I thought I did need it for chopping down jungle to the south. I also researched Masonry for ... no reason, well, remotely, i might build GLH sometime later. In the end, Louis picked up Monarchy. And I rage quit.

OK. 2nd try, then, from where I saved last time. This time I still researched Sailing because it was half researched, then I straight beelined Priesthood after Sailing and as I researche Math and CoL, I started building the Oracle w/o building another settler, which basically granted my 100% research rate.

So, 700 BC this time, only 4 cities so far. Khan's land is very juicy. I think I'm gonna settle 1-2 more cities before going after him. Most likely with Catapults. I also failed to get my first GS due to Oracle pollution. Well, I sent him to New York for the holy city.

Screenshots
Spoiler :

known world and resources


known leaders with 1 missing


techs with CoL and CS out of sight


AI tech rate, only 2 got IW by now. none when i got Alphabet after the CS slingshot.




 

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Up to 525bc immortal.

Spoiler :
Started Mining/BW. (worker build.) Farmed corn, mines on the gems. Settler size 3.

2nd city New York 2480bc built 1E of corn on plains hill. (Hadn't noticed the horse resource.)

3rd city (1880bc) between corn and horse but the northern site. Took a few extra roads but blocked off Sulie nicely.

Went Ah, Myst, poly, PH. Hunting, TW, archery, pottery (1760bc) and writing (1520bc). Got Oracle 1360bc in NY. Took HBR.

Mongols had 5 cities at this point. All rather weak. His distant city was settled on Iron as it had 2 base hammers. Built 9 HA overall and lost 2 during entiire war. Took his first city before his capital with 4 HA. Followed through with 6-7 HA for his capital defended by 2 archers. Then took out his cities more on the mainland. Eventually took peace for IW. He now has a 1 pop city surrounded by plains. He has 2 galleys out at sea too.

His capital is next to my shrine city which is pumping out 9 culture per turn. He may have iron but not too worried about him for now.

Tech wise I went for COL next. Traded for alphabet before I took peace with Mongols for IW.

I have 6 cities/ 8 workers (4 stolen during war.) but have 2 settlers being built. Both should be built in next 2-3 turns.

Used Great priest on conf shrine.

The only major downside is my cities lack infrastructure. Need to start using caste and specialists once I have a decent food city.


 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 640 AD

Spoiler :

After settling 2 more cites, I stopped and went into war preparation against Khan. Finally declared at 125AD with Cat/Axe/Sword/Chariot and a couple of newly arrived macemen. Khan quietly went down by 375AD. I took 3 of his 4 cities. Then I had to pick a target, Mehmed or SB? Both are settling new cities near my borders, occupying the last sites around me. So, I don't need REX anymore.

I finally decided to pick on Mehmed because I hated the fact that he got more cities than I did, even after I just annihilated Khan...

So after my main stack moved to the front, all healed up, and with new units (such as knights) added in, I moved into Ottoman's domain. 2 cities down, 1 taken 1 razed. This will be long, because he still has 9 cites.

Empire building side: Got GS, built Academy, built GHL, used heavy pop rush overflow and heavy chopping to built the Moai at the Fish/Corn/Sheep site. 12 cities, no courthouse ever built yet. Economy is still holding strong. Teched almost everything by myself. Considering tech to Gunpowder and Chemistry. But this might taking ages, so also consider other possibilities. I think I should start a GA to ease the pain of growing maintenance cost. However, GA w/o MoM is kind of waste. And MoM w/o Marble is hard to build. And I didn't have marble...

No time to play further for at least a few days. Life with or without kids is like playing Noble vs playing Diety.

Spoiler :







 
Continued this past 1ad.

Spoiler :

I have 9 cities and Mongols now left with 2 pointless cities. Mehmed looks to be a pain with 10 cities.

Just got currency, aesth and lit. Traded for Monarchy.

Capital has got an academy. Thinking of places to build HE and NE. Great lib in capital.

About 3-4 techs ahead of most known AI. Music or CS will be good next. Used my last golden age for civic changes.

Hopefully play this more this weekend. Overall map is looking pretty easy after double gem start.
 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 1100 AD

I've hit the era where the fun starts to fade away. Many of my recent Noble games stops here when there are so many cities to be taken care of, and there is always a war going on, and also need to think about teching, diplo, economy, and etc... oh, there are many workers by this time as well, i need to hand pick them...

Spoiler :

Ottoman was gone by around 1000's. I took all his cities or razed them. No vessel accepted. Now walked into SB's territory. SB used to supplying me Ivory. I cancelled the deal peacefully and negotiated one with Churchill before he started thinking that I was his worst enemy.

I haven't met the last AI yet. But it doesn't matter. I figured I'd be able to reach Domination limit w/o conquering the last AI. Say, just like 60 cities should do. Now that I've got 27 online, almost half way through!

Tech the south line up to Chemistry so that the workshop is fully upgraded with GA. Now turned back to north line heading for MilTrad. I hope Churchill won't get LB before I went after him. He did recently just reached Machinery. I'm not sure how high he'd evaluate Feud.

Economy is not as good as usual. I just out of my first GA and found that I'm only at +34 coins with 0% science rate, and -430+ when 100%. Not as bad as it looks though. if I set a few of my cities to build some wealth, This can change dramatically.


 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 1150 AD

Spoiler :

Just a few more turns. With ever growing military, sweeping SB was easy and he's gone on 1140 AD. And Louis peace vesseled me this turn. Traded his Theology, had him switched over to Confucianism, gifted him compass, and asked him to research Optics. Let's see how fast he can get it. I still feel I'd be able to reach Domination limit w/o having to known the last guy. But an invasion to Gilg's land seem necessary. So, i'd better building up transports by now. Just declared on Churchill, Knights pouring into his land...

Tech wise, Nationalism just researched, financed by city sacking cash. So, I started Taj and a third GA is secured. Also waiting for RNG god's judgement next turn to see if i could get next great person not GA, nor GM, then I'd have enough GA turns until this game ends.

Again, Knights are super effective against Archers, Axes, Swordsmen, and even Spearmen. :D
 
@Amao - seems like you are doing a good job there!

@Zarkon: thanks. you can tell i'm having fun here. I played a little more last night to 2am. Not too late :mischief:

Noble/Normal/NHNE 1240 AD

Spoiler :

Churchill was reduced to an offshore city. So I ceased fire and send all my 1 move units down to former Monty's territory preparing to the next invasion. I'm building a few Galleys in the nearby cities so that I could send a few Knights to Churchill's last city.

So, I own the continent now with 42 cities. I could see a couple of coastal sites for more settlers and there are some islands offshore former English area, maybe also worth settling.

Empire wide, I build a lot of courthouses and Forbidden city in former Mehmed's capital, which helped me eased the pain in maintenance. However, the GA is still the major factor. I'm currently in my 3rd GA, which was triggered by Taj. I didn't get luck on great person generation for the 3rd round. I got another GAr instead of GS, GE, or GPr. Whatever, I just wait a few more turns and finally got a GS. I sent the extra GAr to London to saving a few turns of anarchy, also to see if I could push the island city's culture back so that I could do some scouting before the last blow.

Since the capital was not reliable in generating great person, I set up another GP farm on the island south. I was planning to generating a GS from it. However i didn't force a science specialist in the city. So the governor silently switching all the specialist to merchant. When I checked again, it's half and half chance for GM/GS. A lesson learnt, don't automate when you need some important great person. It also seems i should have set up a few GP farm in this game as i forgot Lincoln was PHI, and I had MANY cities...

With ever growing number of courthouse, my spy points were growing fast. And I concentrated on the next target to get what he was doing. It's showed that Churchill was 7-8 turns from Feud, which was in fact too long because as my knights taking out his cities one by one, the turn count just jump flying up. Gilg, instead got the time researching the tech. Well, I got Cuirassiers ready for his longbows. :D

Louis said he needs another 6 turns for optics. I may or may not wait. I'm 2 tech away from Communism, SciMeth and Lib. After that my economy and production will leap forward. But that should be about the game. I don't think I'm gonna using up all 4 GA time before reaching the Domination limit.

Some screenies showing empire growing in the short time span
Spoiler :

640AD


1000AD


1040AD


1240AD


 
Noble/Normal/NHNE 1390 AD
Domination victory, scoring 193982

Spoiler :

Got Communism at 1290 AD, the economy will no longer be a problem. Churchill was retired. I could either milking the game or shooting for space from here. I have 2 more GP ready, one GA and one GSpy. So, it's guaranteed that I could get a 4th GP powered GA if I really need them for milking (one GM from Economics, and one GS from Physics). However, I was not in the mood for either. So, I just moved all my troops southwest preparing for an invasion on Gilgamesh.

Louis finally finished optics. Traded that and used a single GS popped Astro, not a single beaker invested. Teched Replaceable Parts and Biology too boost the economy and was going for Steel and it opens up the Ironwork wonder.

Settled a few island cities offshore London area, and some land filler cities in the middle. In the meantime the whole troop across the entire continent and loaded into Galley upgraded Galleons and invaded Gilg. Just on the 3rd turn after landing, taking 3 cities in one turn, Gilg was willing to vessel. I gave back all his cities to get closer to Domination limit, there was less than 1 % margin. Whatever, raised culture slider to 100% and got the win regardless i was 1 turn from steel. (Did I mention I had Louis researched Drama and traded it?)

some screenies:
Spoiler :

Lib->Communism


known worlds at 1290 AD


final techs


winning pictures








Thoughts about the map:

Spoiler :

The map is BIG even with the added AI. As you can see, almost every AI grow to something like 10+ cities unchallenged. This would definitely give player a lot of pressure on higher levels. Even on Noble, having 30+ cities pre-communism is not fun.

Also, this map features a lot of sub-optimal lands outside the starting position. The capital was very good, no question. The question was no other cities can help the capital really soon. They are either high food site with no river, or river site without grassland, and some sites had neither but just some strategic resources that you had to get.

Looking around other player on Immortal, they seem to be successful pre-AD with some mounted unit rush. I'm looking forward how they finish the later game. I guess keep the empire size in control pre-Lib might be a good way out? :rolleyes:


Thanks to Tijup
 
Well, this was supposed to be a SpaceRace but...a surprise AP vote carried the day.

Very brief summary
Spoiler :

Early game: SIP'ed with initial tech path Mining>TW>BW>Myst>Pott>Writing. Decided to pursue the Oracle so MED> Prst followed by AH>Math. Was able to chop out the Oracle at 1280BC and took CoL.

My first settler founded NY in what I thought would merely be a junk 'blocker' city to hem in GK. As it turns out NY was a very useful city. NY was founded on the grassland hill located 2SE + 1E of the capital--a site with no food resource at all! This city became the Confucian holy city, the headquarters of Mining Inc., and also Wall Street.
The holy city culture eventually proved too much for Kahn's city of Beshbalik and he offered to give it to me in tribute!...which I gladly accepted. GK basically rolled over in this game and was never a threat.


Midgame to Lib:
At 1 AD I had 7 cities plus the gift city from GK (@ 625 BC). So the basic plan here was just staying out of wars and winning Lib (to take MilTrad). I generated a GProphet in 550BC that was used to build Confucian shrine in NY. Made a point of spreading Conf. to all cities and to Mehmed, Sitting Bull and Kahn.
Eventually entire continent was Confucian. Louis and Gilgamesh were kept at around pleased by running HR most of game. Vassalage and same religion kept Mehmed happy.

Lib and beyond:
Won Lib in 1190 AD and took MilTrad. Contemplated declaring on Mehmed but by this point in game he was pretty huge and had large military. So I decided to pick on the weaker civs with my new shiny cuirassiers.
DoW vs SB in 1280AD-1580AD: the only tough war, SB cap'd after taking 5 cities.
DoW vs GK in 1600AD-1610AD: cap'd after taking one city (which was founded on oil resource).
DoW vs Alex in 1670AD-1685AD: cap'd after taking Athens and Corinth. This DoW primarily to get access to coal. However, the AP (Hindu) was also in Athens. Corinth gave access to oil btw.

Endgame:
Churchill remained as a possible vassal target. But I used a GE I had been holding onto to found Mining Inc (in NY @ 1660 AD). I decided rather than continuing warring that I would try to win a MiningInc powered space race. Once Louis adopted UnivSuff my diplo modifiers for running HerRule were out the window so I expected an eventual war declaration from Louis. This deterred me from continuing along the warring path vs Churchill or even vs Mehmed.

So, the plan became spreading MiningInc to all my cities and to at least one of my 3 vassals' cities. Once Louis switched to UnivSuff I did too. My final civics were US, Vassalge, Emancipation, FreeMarket and OrgRel.

On the off chance that the AP would still matter I did manage to spread Hindu to every AI and to almost all my cities. This was an 'after-thought' type of thing as I felt the UN would be built before I could muster enough AP votes. But as it turned out (after 2 unsuccessful AP votes) that Mehmed also voted for me in 1858AD.

The tech pace in this game seemed very slow. I thought Louis or Mehmed would tech much faster. Alex was kinda screwed by the map, along with GK whose passive behavior was strange.

My empire basically functioned off two cities. The capital Washington with TGLib, UofSankore and the NE for GP-generation...and the 'junk' city of NY with Confucian shrine (52 gpt), MiningIncHQ (100 gpt) with an additional 2X for Wall Street and bank, grocer, market. NY produced approximately 500 gpt at endgame (with not a single cottage!) and Washington produced about 300 bpt.

Maybe one day I'll get better at these writeups/summaries if I'd take the time to do them in segments instead of one final entire game writeup.


Thanks for the game, Tijup, enjoyed it.
 
I'm fresh off my first Noble victory (space in 1999, playing the Dutch on an archipelago map), and at Noble Zarkon's suggestion I decided to come over to the Nobles' Club and pick a map to play. I've been wanting to play the Americans for some time, and after having Roosevelt as a rival in my Dutch game, decided to give this one a spin. I still have lots to learn to get my game tightened up, so I'll probably be making more than my share of noob mistakes and asking a lot of noobish questions. :)

ETA - sorry, I forgot to add my game particulars. Noble, Normal Speed, Huts and Events on.

Any way, I've played to T27 so far. Settled in place because there really wasn't anything better than that already excellent spot, and moving the warrior wouldn't have revealed much else, if anything at all. Built a worker first as a WB to the fish would have cost too many turns, and a worker would have plenty to do between mining the gems and farming the dry corn. Tech path - Mining > BW >TW > Pottery to get that worker out chopping and hooking stuff up as soon as possible, get the granary and a cottage or two built, and open up the door for Writing.

Sent the warrior fog-busting to the south and -

Spoiler :
Met Genghis Khan on T5. Obviously this puts early rush on the list of options if copper can be found, as he's a really bad neighbor. I never have done an early rush before, so this could be a good chance to practice if it looks like the best way to go. The hut down that way netted 41 gold. Besides Genghis there's lots of jungle down that way, so north and east seem to be best for early city building.


I swung the warrior back on a NE to NW arc to bust more territory to the east, and when the worker popped I put him to work mining the gems, and started the WB build.

Spoiler :
Finishing BW revealed the copper to the north, moving the warrior around revealed cows and corn, and the hut up there bulbed Hunting for me (very nice, IMO, because it opens the way for Archery if needed and lets me build scouts). Time to plan city #2; here's the screen with a couple of dot maps.

Spoiler :


The gems bubble covers up Washington's banner, but it's Size 2 going to 3 in three turns, with WB in six turns.

The yellow cross is the first location I considered. It's a bit far away and would need a road to connect it to DC, but it puts the copper and a corn in my inner circle. Plus it's plains/hill, so an extra hammer in the city. The magenta cross was a second idea; it puts the next city quite a bit closer to DC, and being coastal as well, would not require a road yet. OTOH, to hook up its copper and corn, I'd have to research Mysticism, chop a monument first thing, then wait for the border pop before being able to access the copper and corn. I'll have to do some math but my inclination is that location 1 would actually end up costing fewer turns.I may run both scenarios to see what happens.


In the cap, I'm thinking to just let the WB build,

Spoiler :
mine and road the second gems for the extra commerce minimize the lowering of the research slider, pop out a quick scout, and then work on the settler, probably with a whip/chop dumping the overflow into a granary. Tech to Writing next and get open borders with Genghis, then send the scout down there to do some recon.
 
@Gator Country:
Spoiler :
I haven't played the game or read the thread, so everything I say is based on your knowledge of the map, no spoiler info. :)

First of all, a little terminology issue to avoid confusion: Fog busting means using military units to prevent barbs from spawning (barbs can not spawn within 2 tiles from any of your units). In practice this usually means you place units on carefully chosen tiles and keep them there, creating a barb free radius around your lands. Usually you do this after the initial turns of exploring when barb units start to appear. Most important is to fog bust your next city locations so that it is safe for your settlers to move there. What you are doing here is not fog busting, it's just exploring. :)

Then some other things. You said you mined gems first? Rule of thumb is always improve food first. After the initial worker you need to grow your cap asap. Also, skip the roads until you have improved all resources. You don't need health or happiness bonus in the cap, but you need good tiles to work. If you farm corn first, like you should, then the city will very quickly want to grow onto the gems. You can build roads later when your cities are already working good tiles and you need the roads for connecting cities or hooking up bonuses.

About settling, pink spot is very bad for second city. Too slow. Another rule of thumb: food in first ring! 1SW of pink spot on the plains hill would be much better. Can share one corn with capital to immediately start growing (while cap can work fish and gems) and has another corn ready for use. Yellow spot is a good spot, but I probably wouldn't put second city that far away. 1NW of cow would also be decent, or 1N2W of cow to share corn with cap, but this requires border pop for cows, so not ideal. Would need more map info to look for more spots.
 
@elitetroops

Spoiler :
Thanks for the comments. Fortunately it didn't take me long to figure out that that pink dot was a terrible choice for the second city, so I avoided that trap. I did go ahead and build the city on the yellow dot, though; I wasn't thrilled with the distance, but thought it was important to secure that copper as quickly as possible.

WRT the roads, I thought it was very important to connect the cities as soon as possible to establish trade routes if there was no river or coast to establish them automatically. I know resources adjacent to rivers don't need roads, but thought that if a resource tile was landlocked, it needed a road to make it available. I guess I'm kind of hazy on how this works. I will definitely heed your advice to develop food before everything else in the future.

I went ahead and played this thing out to T87 (700 BC). Screen of where I'm at is below, but I'm up to four cities now and looking to plant at least one more in the next ten turns or so. I have lots of saves, so if I've completely borked things up I can go back and redo segments of the game pretty easily. :)

Spoiler :


FYI, Washington is Size 7, NY is Size 5, Boston is Size 3 and Philly is Size 1 (it's brand new).

Research since Pottery - Writing > Myst > Math > Alpha > beeline to CoL though Med and PH. I traded for Archery and AH after Alphabet, and chose Boston's location on the basis of the horses appearing. It doesn't have food, but does have a couple of floodplain tiles nearby, one of which is already farmed, and the second of which will be farmed once the border pops after completion of the monument.

All cities except Philly have granaries, and that is Philly's first build which will be hustled along with a chop or two. Washington and NY have libraries and Wash has already popped one GS. She built the Academy there after I managed to scoop the Oracle with a 3-pop whip in DC and a couple of chops. I bulbed Philosophy with that in preparation for the Liberalism race.

One question I do have, though. In my first Noble win, lymond's pointers on managing whipping were invaluable in improving my game. I'm still practicing and trying to develop the "feel" for when to whip and when not to, but one thing I'm still quite unclear on is when the time is right to leave slavery behind and move on to other civics; in this game probably Caste System as that allows me to use Abe's PHI trait to its fullest. I've already noticed diminishing returns on whipping as my cities improve more and more tiles; any suggestions on how to recognize the best time to make the move?
 
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