A Game of Education

ehrie

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
11
Well hello there everybody. I've been playing the Civ series since the first one and have really enjoyed them all. I've been playing Civ4 a lot latly trying to get better at it inspired by the ALC series, which are some of the best AARs of any game on any messageboard, a real hat tip to all involved. Basically I want to try one of those because gosh darnit, I just can't seem to get myself beyong Prince. All the lower levels I can win any kind of victory pretty easily, but my play is so inconsistent on Prince that the only way I seem to ever win is a Space Race. The rest of the AIs that are left usually always end up ganging up against me. So, that's where the rest of you come in. I'd like to play a game in a smaller series of turns than the ALCs, probably have twenty game posts in all or so. The game settings I'll be using are the following:

Map : Fractal
Speed : Epic
Difficulty : Prince
Special Settings : Choose Religion(I like this one, adds a neat flavor)

As for which Civ I will play I would like to throw that out to the board. I usually play as a Financial or Industrious Civ and I wonder if I'm not playing them correctly or lean too heavily on those traits to the failure of the Civ's second trait. So lemme get a few suggestions on what you all think and then I'll probably roll a dice among the suggestions.

Quick Links

Initial Start - 4000 BC
Round One - 4000 BC - 3025 BC
 
Stop building stupid cottages.
 
Ehrie, try an aggressive financial civ and attempt a domination or conquest victory.

Ragna I think comes under this banner.
 
Try getting away from Financial and Industrious altogether. Play Montezuma. Aggresive and Spiritual. No building wonders. No building cottages. Just capture everybody else's.
 
Hi ehrie and welcome to civfanatics! I think the biggest crutches in the game are Financial, Philosophical, Industrious and Spiritual. Financial because it lets you outweigh the AIs research rather easily, Philosophical because you can get insane amounts of GPs, Industrious because you'll tend to wonder-spam, and Spiritual because it makes you not care about proper civic switches that much. So in order to learn I'd use a leader that has none of those. That way you'll have a good basis for playing with any leader, dealing with the situation at hand instead of being forced to play in one way (cottages for Financial, GPs for Philosophical, etc), and when you'll go back to playing a leader with those traits you'll just use their advantages on top of what you learn now.

So how about giving Mehmed II of the Ottomans a try? He has a very good unique building (Hammam, an Aqueduct with +2 happiness) and his unique unit (Janissary, Musketman with +25% vs. archery, melee and mounted units) is a very good overall unit (attack or defense). His traits are Expansive and Organized, nothing too shiny at Prince level, but they're both good traits. It's not like you're Imperialistic and Protective, which many people think are the weakest traits. :)
 
Hi ehrie and welcome to civfanatics! I think the biggest crutches in the game are Financial, Philosophical, Industrious and Spiritual. Financial because it lets you outweigh the AIs research rather easily, Philosophical because you can get insane amounts of GPs, Industrious because you'll tend to wonder-spam, and Spiritual because it makes you not care about proper civic switches that much. So in order to learn I'd use a leader that has none of those. That way you'll have a good basis for playing with any leader, dealing with the situation at hand instead of being forced to play in one way (cottages for Financial, GPs for Philosophical, etc), and when you'll go back to playing a leader with those traits you'll just use their advantages on top of what you learn now.

So how about giving Mehmed II of the Ottomans a try? He has a very good unique building (Hammam, an Aqueduct with +2 happiness) and his unique unit (Janissary, Musketman with +25% vs. archery, melee and mounted units) is a very good overall unit (attack or defense). His traits are Expansive and Organized, nothing too shiny at Prince level, but they're both good traits. It's not like you're Imperialistic and Protective, which many people think are the weakest traits. :)

I like your thinking here. I think that's a great idea. Okay so that's rule number 2. None of my favorite traits are allowed. Sounds good. Anybody have any other suggestions besides Mehmet II? Isaw Monty back thre too, Thanks for the suggestion vixafox, but as Monty is Spirtutal, we're going to skip him.
 
Monty could be ok too, even if he's Spiritual. You could save him for a second game for example, or choose another of your favorite leaders. It will be more of a display of what you've got from the first game and how you take advantage of your favorite traits.

Other candidates for the first game: Shaka's a good example of an early power. Zara Yaqob is pretty similar to Mehmed (same type of UU, shares a trait). Churchill is more of a mid-to-late game military power. There are others of course, but some of those require more pointed strategies (less variability), or have unique units that are either weak or hard to use. I guess you can stick with a good unique unit for your first game so that you get at least one era in which you use superior military to expand your empire.
 
I liked Carl's suggestion so much that I decided to go with Mehmet. Here's a quick reminder of what Mehmet has to offer and the settings for the game:





Here's the starting position:



So far Corn, Fishies, and Silver in the BFC, though some of the inital BFC is still shrouded. Coastal capitals are always nice, so I'm inclined to settle here, but since this is a game of Education I will throw it out to the peanut gallery. Other things to consider :

Initial Tech Path: Obviously getting that silver online is a priority I think, though working sea tiles is also good for initial commerce. Mining -> Fishing -> BW is my inital thought.

Initial Builds: I usually in almost every game do Warrior -> Worker -> Settler. What does everybody think of this?

Warrior Scout: I was thinking of moving him one Southeast before settling just incase it revealed something delicious that might make me move my start. With Fish in the BFC, I always go for a coastal city, so the only logical move if it presents itself would also be one SE for the Settler. What does everybody think of that?

Plagarism: My apologies to Sil, I am blatantly ripping off your style. Imitation is the yada yada flattery and all the jazz? :D

And though it is prolly obvious by now, if do download the file and play it some, please keep any spoilers to yourself.
 

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Hmm, too much of a good thing here. :lol:

The starting techs (Agri & the Wheel) spell Animal Husbandry for instant Chariots, though the near-tundra start means there might be furs or deer nearby, in which case you'd better go with Hunting before AH, to make AH cheaper.

The fish and the silver both need new techs to be worked, but they're both great tiles!

You already have the tech for farming the corn, so a worker first might actually be a good idea. Especially since you get +25% bonus on it and can either work the grassland forest hill 1SE for 1food+4hammers+1bonus hammer or the silver hill for 4hammers+1bonus hammer+commerce (don't remember how much). Worker -> workboat -> settler could be a way to start. With maybe a warrior in between the workboat and the settler so that you could grow and work all three improved tiles for the settler. I really don't think it's worth moving the initial settler no matter what you find by moving the warrior first; the extra production on the base tile due to settling on a plains hill is very cool to have.

As for techs, since you're gonna farm the corn first anyway you could go Fishing (to build workboat once you finish the worker) -> Mining -> Bronze Working. The silver is nice, but you need to grow too, so both the fish and the corn are a higher priority in my opinion. Next techs: Hunting -> Animal Husbandry or directly Animal Husbandry if there are no camping resources around.

Oh, and a bit of advice: when you post a screenshot, it's easier for us if it has grids and resources turned on. I almost missed the fish there. :lol:
 
I like to reduce the number of water tiles in my capital, if I can do so without sacrificing anything important. So I would investigate the possibility of setting one tile east.

Therefore, my first movement is SE with the warrior, so that I can consider if I want to trade my initial position for one that picks up whatever is three tiles to the east.

But setting in place is not going to be worse than a strong second choice, so I wouldn't quibble.

Warrior first strikes me as very wrong, especially with irrigated corn and Agriculture already in hand. I would go worker first (Mehmed is Expansive still, right? So we want to make sure that we are earning 4 base hammers per turn while we train the worker).

Now the worker should improve the corn first, then head toward the silver. We need Mining soon, but not immediately. So why not fishing first, so that you can train a workboat immediately after the worker is finished?

Possible answer: you don't need the workboat that soon - in which case I'd choose Mining then Bronzeworking.
 
I like to reduce the number of water tiles in my capital, if I can do so without sacrificing anything important. So I would investigate the possibility of setting one tile east.

Yeah, one east is also a good solution, although now in BtS you have the Maoi Statues to take care of water tiles... On second thought Expansive & Organized means both cheap Harbors & Lighthouses, which also means we'll want to prioritize coastal cities, and you're likely to get another city with more water tiles to 'improve'.

Therefore, my first movement is SE with the warrior, so that I can consider if I want to trade my initial position for one that picks up whatever is three tiles to the east.

I guess that's the first move to make after all. My first reasoning of settling in place no matter what meant moving the warrior only after that, but we really have more than that one option. By the way, if we settle 1E or 1SE we can still enjoy the Expansive production bonus for the first worker by working the forested plains hill, so what's lost is only 1 food/turn or silver-commerce/turn.

But setting in place is not going to be worse than a strong second choice, so I wouldn't quibble.

Same goes for me and settling 1E. :p ;)
 
By the way, if we settle 1E or 1SE we can still enjoy the Expansive production bonus for the first worker by working the forested plains hill, so what's lost is only 1 food/turn or silver-commerce/turn.

I'm not quite sure I follow that. Epic speed, so a worker is 90 hammers.

If we move (losing a turn), and then work the forest plains hill, the worker is trained at 5 hammers per turn, so comes in at turn 19. If we stay in place, and work the forest grassland hill, he is trained at 6 hammers per turn, and he arrives on turn 15. That leaves 4 turns working the corn - so you are 12 food and 8 hammers behind, plus the extra worker turns.

Then on top of that, you are losing the 1 hammer per turn afterwards.

What tile are you likely to find over there that would be worth that much? Another source of silver to mine? is that enough? Or just more production potential for early game wondering?
 
Seems I didn't explain quite as well as I thought: the 1 food/turn was turned into production for the worker (so yeah, 6 final hammers per turn), and my other alternative was working the silver while building the worker for total 5 hammers per turn but with a bonus for research. I agree that the best in terms on worker turns is settling in place and working 1F2H hill, but I was comparing to what happens if you move a tile east. And it was you who said we could settle 1E, so don't ask me about eastern tiles. :)
 
Keep it coming. I really like the detailed explinations too. I can see now why starting with a warrior, which I usually have always done, is kind of a waste. I'm more inclined to settle there. That wasy of the open grassland tile ends up being anything fun, which I've found that with capital cities is a strong possibility, we'll still get it.
 
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