Dr kossin #17

[kossin]

Welcome to Dr kossin #17.

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.

Previously, I had been using maps that had been verified for isolation or semi-isolation. I have terminated that practice as, while a common sort of map, it doesn't entirely reflect the reality of gameplay and was a big hint that there were at least 2 civilizations nearby even if you started on an island by yourself.

Since I have become more-or-less comfortable on Immortal, the goal of the series is now for me to move even beyond Immortality, into Deity grounds. Hopefully, readers will also be able to pick up a few things here and there to alleviate their own playing.

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 #17​

Round 0a Discussion and warrior move
Round 0b Further moves and discussion
Round 1 Finally settling and early expansion
Round 2 Mouse problems
Round 3a Liberalism and war
Round 3b Alpha Centauri, here we come

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

The leader, this time, is:


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

The start:


Interesting start. First of all, no fresh water... this is a bit annoying as the city will be unhealthy a lot sooner than otherwise. 2 hills for production, the third has pigs. Researching through AH will take quite a while and leave us with a worker that can only build roads for a while. There are a lot of forests to chop and marble available so I expect that I can get a few wonders built. On the bright side, there's quite a bit of green land and not too much brown.

Going Fishing first also allows me to research a little bit faster early game being Financial. There are a lot of techs required here to get started.

Possible moves include: SE for more hills and fresh water, somewhere to the west, trying to get a second food resource in the BFC.

 

[Fleme]

If you decide on 1SE you could almost as well go for settling on the marble and leave the pigs for a second city. Would be a decent capital as far as production is concerned and with the amount of water it'd get, Moai Statues would be justified as well. Then again, the alternative of 1S or 1SE makes for a better all-around capital if that's what you're after. In fact, 1S seems like it would make an extremely good commerce site.

 

[Soirana]

Possible moves include: SE for more hills and fresh water, somewhere to the west, trying to get a second food resource in the BFC.

Second? You already have four. It is rare case where i would plop in place without too much thinking.

 

[Artichoker]

Second? You already have four. It is rare case where i would plop in place without too much thinking.

Yes...even without the river, you get +1 health from the clams with a Harbor. Fish and crabs will boost that to +3. And you have no flood plains.

 

[kossin]

Second? You already have four. It is rare case where i would plop in place without too much thinking.

Second improvable by a worker I meant.

I have to agree that in place seems quite strong though. With this much food and that much green, there's a lot of cottages to be had it seems.

 

[bestsss]

cottages here?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Move warrior east and if you don't make seafood un-workable settle SE IMO. Health is a big deal after the very early game.

 

[UWHabs]

SE for a GP farm, then cottage the green to your west with your second/third cities.

 

[shyuhe]

I'd go warrior sw and possibly settle 1S on the hill.

 

[Artichoker]

I'd go warrior sw and possibly settle 1S on the hill.

The lake gives you 2-tile visibility in all directions, so I consider that a good decision. But only move the settler if there is something really good out there.

 

[kossin]

cottages here?

With marble right there to be had, chances to get Parth+TGL+NE combination are quite good. With this much food (+12 from pigs+Clams), 2 scientists can be run while still having a good food surplus to grow. It's probably stronger as a pure GP farm and I might do that if there's a good Bureaucracy capital candidate available out there.

Move warrior east and if you don't make seafood un-workable settle SE IMO. Health is a big deal after the very early game.

Yes it makes sense, but I'd move the warrior SE instead: we get to see more tiles and the only water tile (2N2E) different we can't access in any case (except it there's an island/continent).

SE for a GP farm, then cottage the green to your west with your second/third cities.

As long as there is food over there yea, that'll work. Permanently borrowing the pig from Timbuktu would be somewhat counter-productive for a GP farm.

I'd go warrior sw and possibly settle 1S on the hill.

That would give coast for certain on the other side of the landmass. Might luck out and catch a fish there but it'd take forever to get it improved. We'd also be stuck with 1 hill and marble for production... nothing more.

The lake gives you 2-tile visibility in all directions, so I consider that a good decision. But only move the settler if there is something really good out there.

Do you mean the 1-tile lake? If so we already see everything around it. If you mean the other water visible in the fog... that looks like coast to me (waves and the river delta). As I said above, might be lucky but it'll be extremely production poor.

In any case, I've just moved the warrior SE resulting in:

Spoiler :

This is turning out as an interesting stating location! 1SE doesn't block the new clams and it has a decent production capacity.

Perhaps an Oracle->Monarchy slingshot to grow the capital very fast might work here.

 

[Shurdus]

in place or SE it seems. I would be tempted to settle in place since I hardly see a bonus going SE, except maybe from one bonus hill. Either one would be fine I think.

 

[Nilmerf]

in place or SE it seems. I would be tempted to settle in place since I hardly see a bonus going SE, except maybe from one bonus hill. Either one would be fine I think.

The biggest bonus is fresh water health which is great with all that food..

 

[Artichoker]

There are 2 plains hills in the area to the SE. One of them is a good place to settle, but the other one is in the fog. There is a slim chance that the 2nd plains hill has something really good (maybe Gold?).

If you settle SE, then you potentially forfeit a really good city site on the plains hill that is visibile, if you want to claim the 2nd plains hill (if it is a great resource like Gold).


Edit:
I am referring to the plains hill 1SE of the Marble. There is a 2nd plains hill (or grassland hill, if I am mistaken) 1SE of the 1st one, which can have a really good resource like Gold. If you settle 1SE, you cannot settle on the 1st plains hill. You can still settle on the 2nd plains hill, or a nearby city. Assuming there is a Gold on the 2nd plains hill, you would either have to forfeit the Clams or the Gold.

 

[kossin]

There are 2 plains hills in the area to the SE. One of them is a good place to settle, but the other one is in the fog. There is a slim chance that the 2nd plains hill has something really good (maybe Gold?).

If you settle SE, then you potentially forfeit a really good city site on the plains hill that is visibile, if you want to claim the 2nd plains hill (if it is a great resource like Gold).

Good observation. I'll be sure to have the warrior check that before settling. Worst case scenario I move the settler again.

 

[UWHabs]

I'd move 1SE, then next turn, you can move the warrior more to the east to see if you should then settle on the marble, or save that extra clam for a second city.

 

[Artichoker]

Good observation. I'll be sure to have the warrior check that before settling. Worst case scenario I move the settler again.

In that case, though, would you be prepared to start without the Pig in your BFC? What would be your opening build, without a worker-improvable food resource?

Or would you move back to the original starting point?

(I know this is a hypothetical situation, but being forced to throw away a Clam or Gold is no trivial scenario).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

1 AD

Spoiler :

Settled SE. Going for marble wonders like parth/sistine and of course paya since we have gold. Gold I can't work because I'd lose seafood, but at least I get the happiness.

I oracle'd confucianism too after the first 3 religions went and wang had none of them. Got him to pleased.

To liberalism

Spoiler :

It was a tight race but wang went off on guilds and everyone else was a step behind.

Nobody really likes me except wang, but nobody is below cautious either and there is a lot of religious hate, and there is an epic war between AC and Mao. As of a little after this, Hatty and Wang look like they'll jump in on that. Louis too.

1832 ---> Victory

Spoiler :

You know, I'm glad I did this. I got sistine and used only my own religion for culture. Fine. The reason I'm glad I went culture is that this map is ass. Nothing like AIs getting >20 cities peacefully, and on weak commerce terrain only they could afford to spam out so many cities so early.

Hatty had 3 religions and build all the mass media wonders, but failed horribly at keeping up with me. One AI got apollo up IIRC but nobody was remotely near winning anything except me.







^ Now THAT's a legendary city .

I'll take it though.

 

[kossin]

I'd move 1SE, then next turn, you can move the warrior more to the east to see if you should then settle on the marble, or save that extra clam for a second city.

This is exactly what I did...

Spoiler :

Artichoker, you psychic!

Settling in current location is definitely a no-go. The question is where though?
-back to NW: only 1 turn wasted this way. Frees up clams+gold city with potentially another seafood.
-on the marble: Pig goes to another city, gamble on having food to work the gold
-hill W: wastes 1 turn and we have low production. Otherwise same as going back NW.
-SE: grabs gold in BFC and 3 clams. kinda weak land otherwise.
-any move E: so much brown land for a gold tile. Also the possibility of making tiles unworkable.

I'm inclined to go back to the starting spot to avoid losing further time. Will just have to deal with the another way.

 

[UWHabs]

Throwing away the pig isn't big. If you get an extra clam, you just go warrior/wb/wb/wb, then worry about grabbing the worker later.