All Leader Catastrophe 1 - Stalin

[CaptainPlatypus]

Inspired by Silverbow's All Leader Fail, which is more in my spirit as a player than the All Leader Challenge, I've begun my own attempt - the All Leader Catastrophe, which is yet more personalized. We'll be starting on Prince (my current difficulty), and I'll use my own discretion about moving up to Monarch.

The Story Thus Far:
Part I-a: the start (turn 1) (this post)
Part I-b: the settle (turn 1)
Part II: the panic (turn 21)

The point of this series is to get advice and try to develop myself as a player quickly, so there'll be lots of pictures and relatively slow play between updates. Since I do my best to not be a complete selfish jerk (when not playing Civ, that is!) I'll also explain my own reasoning and moves very clearly, for the three guys out there who could possibly learn anything from my trash play. And their dog!

I'm playing with Buffy for all the lovely information (apparently an old version? hopefully soon to be updated). The first game will be played (appropriately) with a random leader, on a Fractal map, Standard size, Normal speed, with Modified Assets Locked, No Huts, and Choose Religions set. I originally got Hannibal, but since Silverbow's playing that right now, I rerolled into Stalin of Russia.

A nice first leader. Industrious will make selecting some strategic wonders simpler without slowing growth and war too much, Aggressive will power the war. Yes, I plan on a warlike game - war is one of my big weaknesses in Civ (I think I just don't make enough units), so I may as well dive in headfirst! If the game goes long enough, Cossacks will definitely be useful, and Research Institutes will make an excellent backup plan. If the land doesn't fit a war, well, we can reassess.

We start with Hunting, Mining, and the following land:

Yuck. Lots of brown, lots of water if I SIP (which seems best in terms of resources) and I can't even cram all four snacks into one BFC. Irrigated corn will be nice, though, and there's a decent amount of forest. I'm thinking of sending the scout either 1SE1NE or 1N1NE to check what else I've got. If there's extra seafood north, I'd still be unenthusiastic about the coastline, and whatever's east, I already know it's more brown.

Not really sure what the plan should be here. Already less than ecstatic about this game. By the way, what do you guys think of the image sizes? Too big? Too small? I can always reupload, it's just two - better to get it right now than when there are 50 already up.

 

[Keilah]

SIP, this is settler pump -> gp farm, move the cap later as you see fit.

 

[shyuhe]

You should also note that you're playing with BUFFY (and an old version at that!), especially since you have lock modified assets on.

 

[CaptainPlatypus]

SIP, this is settler pump -> gp farm, move the cap later as you see fit.

Makes good sense. Any thoughts on the scout?

You should also note that you're playing with BUFFY (and an old version at that!), especially since you have lock modified assets on.

Right, done. Can you direct me to the latest version, by any chance? This is the only one I could find.

 

[Quaren]

Moving scout NNW sounds good and then continuing to scout your surroundings clockwise. Think the only thing that might make me move is if there are fish to the north that can't be reached by settling anywhere else(and it still might not be worth losing fresh water for).

 

[Mylene]

As he doesn't start with fishing, i would probably move 2E1S which is a very strong spot for a capital (1 desert won't kill your poor citizens )

 

[Gumbolt]

As he doesn't start with fishing, i would probably move 2E1S which is a very strong spot for a capital (1 desert won't kill your poor citizens )

That or SIP seems good. My beef with SIP is that it only has 3 grasslands to cottage.

For me I would move the scout north to the coast to check for hidden food resources before you consider 1e/1se

SIP offers some interesting tech choices. AG/BW/fishing would all be early techs required. AH too but the sheep wont match the corn and the fish. The fish also provide to extra commerce a turn.

 

[michmbk]

I'd move the scout 2E and make a call based on that. 2E1S isn't too bad if something else decent is revealed. Otherwise, SIP is still ok - this can be a solid production capital, and like others have said, will quickly churn out workers & settlers by working the three food and a mine.

Not to mention if you have a strategic resource and a nearby neighbor, SIP will allow you a pretty quick rush with whips/chops, so you can claim an extra capital.

 

[CaptainPlatypus]

One move by the scout later, I mind this start a lot less:

This seems to rule out Mylene's option. I could still go 2E1S, but the only way I could get either seafood at that point would be to place a second city on the fur, whereas I can still use the sheep and wheat if I settle for the fur, seafood, and corn. I move 1N (giving up fresh water for clams and fur) and found Moscow:

We'll be able to tech quickly here, we still have a lot of Settler-churning power (more, in fact, because we can run an extra citizen before too long), and there's five forests in the BFC - not bad for this much water. Moscow might even be a good Moai city, though I usually make pretty poor choices in placing that wonder.

As has been pointed out, we have some interesting tech choices to make. Fishing > BW > Agriculture > Wheel seems strong to me - optimal for getting all the resources hooked up and the capital ready to churn out settlers. Does that seem right to the rest of you? I'm also not sure on the math in terms of starting builds. My guess is that it would make the most sense to switch to a WB as soon as Fishing completes, then finish the worker, then chop the second boat - if we go straight worker > WB, there'll be five turns between having the worker and having both BW and Fishing to chop a boat. I'll defer to my advisors (that's you guys) on that one! I've put in Fishing and a worker for now, but when I play the next round (hopefully a bit longer than these first two!) they can easily be switched.

And yes, the save still says it's Turn 1. You're lucky I was confident enough to settle Moscow without further input.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I would settle in place on the grounds that (1) hey, it's only Prince and (2) you have to move a long way away to avoid blocking the fish, since there are only two tiles that can reach it. Besides, there's still room for crabs/clams on the north coast.

Looks like you are pinched between tundra and desert. There might be one good location to the south west (brown fed by food is OK), but I expect the primary advance to be eastward along the river, so that's the direction I'd send the scout.

You could go BW + grow-to-size-two-and-whip-worker on this start, but my conclusion is that the tiles really don't support it. That means Agriculture + ???, and you have to decide how you feel about a stall...

For example, if you go worker first and Agriculture, you'll be done farming the corn on turn 20, and then what? Bronze Working won't have come in yet. Animal husbandry might finish in time, but you will stall right after the pasture is done - unless that tile to the north holds horse. You could research the Wheel early, but roads don't buy you much in the opening.

I'd probably guess Agriculture -> Bronze Working.

Edit: Cross Post. Yuck, I hate the move north. You already had access to the crabs, so all that you've done is bring the furs into the fat cross, and maybe park on top of a resource. You've traded three ocean tiles and furs for three land tiles, some forest and sheep, plus a riverside grassland for a plains tile. Bad deal in my view.

 

[Silverbow]

Why move? I would've SIP after what you revealed, trading a plains hill, sheep and two plains forests for fur and THREE ocean tiles seems like a really bad deal to me. The fur could've been worked by another city further to the east.

 

[Mylene]

Yip you couldn't settle on 2E1S now, but you could go 3E1S which is just 1 turn as well.
On higher diff. you really wouldn't want to stay on the coast if you can have a long river and an irrigated wheat instead. Building workboats costs time, corn and wheat costs no time and is even more efficient for settlers.

The SIP loc is an excellent GP farm, but that is a strong reason to not make it the capital if it can be avoided.

 

[Nydaeli]

I think the main argument for the move north is that it allows city #2 to be placed on the PH between the sheep and wheat. Which might be ideal if there's no seafood to the SW.

 

[CaptainPlatypus]

Wow, crabs were within SIP radius. Not sure how I missed that. Could be worse, but the catastrophe's already starting to live up to its name.

Any thoughts on the build/tech paths?

 

[Zechnophobe]

hah, oh man, First city is too important for those kinds of mistakes! Giving up a sheep for a rather lack luster fur, ouch!

Well, maybe it'll be the rare and reclusive Moai Capital ;P.

I would go fishing-Agg. Start work on worker, stop when you finish fishing and build a workboat(for FISH). (Work a two hammer square to get it out in 10 turns). Research agg next. You should have work boat on fish at about turn 16, much faster than if you'd built a worker and just farmed first.

Worker comes a bit later, and farms the corn.

Then onward to Bronze working! You'll want to build settler at size 3 while working Corn, Fish, Clam.

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Not to laugh at your misfortune, but after the complaint that there are too many water tiles in the BFC, seeing you settle N for three more ocean tiles made me

Always account for hills in your turn 0 analysis. Yes, special tiles are awesome, but hills are usually the muscle of your cities in the early- to mid-game. If you have enough food to work them, they give you buildings, wonders, units, and wealth.

Also note that fur has zero production value for workers and settlers, which your first city probably wants to make some of.

 

[Gwynnja]

Damn, you gave up an outstanding starting position moving north like that. With industrious (and a relatively easy difficulty level) you could have build the Great Lighthouse and then had an ultimate settler/worker pump. Now you lose two food resources and riverside. Those unseen crabs still would have been in your BFC and you would have the fur in your cultural border on turn 51 at the latest (this is normal speed right?) Anyhow, IMO industrious + coastal = TGL therefore my tech order would be AG, mining, BW, fishing, sailing, masonry.

 

[GKey]

After revealing crabs+furs I'd follow Mylene's suggestion and settle on river. 1 thing I've learned on these forums - listen to deity players.

 

[Gwynnja]

After revealing crabs+furs I'd follow Mylene's suggestion and settle on river. 1 thing I've learned on these forums - listen to deity players.

Haha, one thing I've learned on the forum is follow Dave McW's axioms, in this case SIP until you can beat monarch. Doesn't 2e 1s sacrifice both seafood resources? Edit: never mind, not both, but it does sacrifice the fish

 

[LeftAdjoint]

Back when I played the original Civilization, at the age of 8 or 9, it was too stressful to manage more than one city. So I'd routinely spend a dozen or more turns with my first settler looking for the perfect place to make a city. It would have to be coastal—otherwise I wouldn't be able to make every building!

Close to two decades later, when I decided to take the game a little more seriously, the advice to settle in place 100% of the time was very helpful. It's just less to worry about in a game of staggering complexity.

In particular, I struggled all the way through Emperor level with elementary visual mistakes like the one here—moving to get a resource that is already accessible. When giving advice, it's often hard to remember just how much mental training was required for us to be able to effectively judge good settling options at a glance.

In any case, the mistake has been made, so we can now work on the most important skill in life: adaptation.

We have hunting to improve the fur, which is a respectable tile, and we have riverside corn, the strongest earlygame tile there is. So why delay our first worker? I like Agriculture into Bronze Working here. I haven't done the exact math, but I'm 98% certain that our worker will finish improving the corn and fur shortly after she gains the ability to chop. (and if not, improving fur before corn could speed things up, or else the worker can blow a turn or two farming the riverside)

Again, in the absence of explicit testing, I think this will lead to a faster opening. We get immediate access to two extremely strong tiles: the riverside corn and the chopping tile.

What is the chopping tile, you ask? When a worker begins to chop, assuming that she spends just one turn moving between forests, 5 per turn are produced at no cost to the city. Therefore, a chopping worker is equivalent to a free citizen working a 2 5 tile, stronger than a grassland copper. Of course, when the forests run out this citizen changes back into a worker, but it's a good concept to keep in mind when evaluating the production value of chopping.

The fish and clams just don't measure up in the early turns, and the early turns are important here, because if there's one thing this opening says to me, it's this: "Expand."