Back In the Saddle: Monarch, Normal, Not Huts, NO Events, Fractal.

[pigswill]

I'm also not totally convinced by the scouting pattern but its not a big deal as you'll likely go for one or more warriors after worker to get city growing before a settler. For coastal exploration/trade routes an earlyish WB is pretty good.

 

[MegaLurker]

You're going to want hunting before BW I think, that fur tile is actually pretty good. It actually might have made more sense to go hunting before AH, for the beaker discount and so you can work the furs to get AH in faster. On any level below Deity you should never have to self research archery unless you get a very early red fist with no bronze. I'd think wheel before BW as well, this is not a capital in which you need to whip or chop.

 

[cseanny]

I opted to open Agr > Hunt > AH > Myst > Wrt > Alpha (1875). I'm not sure if it's the best opening but it has nice potential regardless.

 

[Dhar Khosis]

I opted to open Agr > Hunt > AH > Myst > Wrt > Alpha (1875). I'm not sure if it's the best opening but it has nice potential regardless.

What are you doing with your worker(s) in between? (No roads, no cottages, no chopping). I don't know much about fractal maps (usually play shuffle), but isn't it possible that Pericles is the only other guy around here? What worth is an early Alpha then?

 

[i_imperator]

What are you doing with your worker(s) in between? (No roads, no cottages, no chopping). I don't know much about fractal maps (usually play shuffle), but isn't it possible that Pericles is the only other guy around here? What worth is an early Alpha then?

Fractal Maps can provide isolated or semi isolation starts, however as Pangea (IICR) said in a previous post the late meeting of AI's dosent mean too much on Monarch, and this is Epic speed, It just means we have alot of space between us and the AI or we are semi-isolated.

Good points on the workers however this isnt a very cottage heavy start at least untill i finish my scouting, so i am interested to see what cseanny did too .

As for my game plan im wondering is it really worth to get hunting first and the discount for AH even though Im halfway researching AH?

Cant decide on city placement until more scouting is accomplished. Definitely find out whats W of 2x gold. And you really need more land info before deciding on what your tech path after AH will be. BW seems rather unattractive imo. I don't see lots of trees and I wouldn't be whipping away tiles like cows.

Hunting for sure! You want to get those beavers online asap. Myst will probably be needed for future city's. The fish to the south needs a pop for sure. The tricky part though is what you find past the gold mines. W/out BW monuments obviously take longer, and that can be problematic if most new cities need them immediately.

The Capital could always pump out its first settler at 4 pop (working wheat/2xcow/fur) and then build SH in the Capital. You're Charismatic so I don't see the harm in picking up Myst after Hunting if the need arises. It really does depend on what else you scout but I'm just saying, if it lets you bypass 20t for BW then denying AIs a Wonder and picking up charismatic monuments isn't Bad per se.

Alternatively you could indeed tech BW (after Hunt), followed by Myst and chop out SH in your 2nd city. This could become attractive if you find no horse and or more forest in future sites. But given your Capitals 2x cows, unforested hill, and 3 fur tile (and unattractive whipping) I'm still inclined to do my best and skip BW if possible.

I really like the sound of the above plan, i think that is very possible to do especially on monarch, so depending on what city locations I have available when I Scout with the gold with my sceond warrior, I am strongly leaning towards this approach.

My final question is in regards to scouting, should I continue with this warrior in the "unsual" path or should I just return him back to the capital?

The Next Round will be up either tonight or at the latest tomorrow evening

 

[cseanny]

What are you doing with your worker(s) in between? (No roads, no cottages, no chopping). I don't know much about fractal maps (usually play shuffle), but isn't it possible that Pericles is the only other guy around here? What worth is an early Alpha then?

I concentrated on getting to 6 pop Asap so my 1st and only worker (for a bit) improved Wheat > riverside grassland farm (waiting for AH to finish because I went Hunting first) > 2x Cow > Fur > hill > another farm > and then went with my 1st Settler to improve my 2nd city.

The map is set up for Sailing to enable TRs. Roads would be a waste of worker turns. There's absolutely no need for any early cottages. I don't think I laid down my first cottage till after 250BC. And what is there to chop? That Capital has very little trees not to mention unattractive whipping. Alpha has the potential to get you BW > Whl > Pot > Sailing > Masonry > Poly > Med. That's a ton of saved research.

Pericles could in fact be the only person on the map but I'm not about to play the game under that being the only possibility. It's much more likely to meet other AIs.

My final question is in regards to scouting, should I continue with this warrior in the "unsual" path or should I just return him back to the capital?

Yes to unusual, no to returning. With your Capital being a production monster you can easily pump out 4 more warriors before you even think about doing anything else. This gives your first warrior the chance to meet other AIs. Since you have hunting it's not a horrible idea to get out a scout to help with the process.

 

[i_imperator]

SESSION 2 (31 TURNS) 3500BC To 2725BC

I decided to continue my warrior on its "unsual" scouting pattern while the capital finished up its worker and warrior.



I switched up the tech path to Hunting then AH

The warrior killed two panthers and I decided to promote him along the woodsman path, handy considering the jungle and forest terrain in his scouting path.

My scouting warrior spotted the borders of another civ.



And on turn 35 I meet Qin of china, guess we know we are not isolated.



My Techpath went Hunting-AH-BW-Mysticism. I am planning on going for that Stonehenge start
The good news is that I have scouted my surrounding area, the bad news is that the land is not the best, so we have to be decisive when it comes to planning out cities, I have placed a few dotmaps sites as suggestions. And I have just switched into slavery, might be a bit early for it.



I needed to grow the capital so I built a few warriors and a work boat, I don't think its the best choice but I suppose we can use the work boat for a coastal city later.

We Have access to copper but not horse at the moment so an early rush is out of the question, especially considering that the AI's are quite a distance away.
The next big question is where do we settle our 2nd city or do we chop out heng first?

 

[pigswill]

If you want stonehenge better start it now. It doesn't look like there's anyone close so your sites should be safe (apart from barb cities of course!).

 

[Dhar Khosis]

Stonehenge is no option as long as there's no Mysticism - should've teched that before Bronze.

Changing to Hunting when you already had that much turns into AH seems not optimal to me, finishing AH as planned would have let you start pasture the cows immediately after farming the corn.

Why would you want to grow that city even more until starting to build a settler? The farmed grassland and the camped fur will only give you one more production for a settler (the fur gives you more gold, but that's not accelerating the settler), you could mine the ghill for 2 prod, but what are you doing now except building warriors? Are you planning to whip the settler for 2 after reaching 4pop, or 3-pop-whip from 6?

Regarding the dotmap: I agree with your bronze-city, but I would put two cities into the west: One coastal between deer and cow, the other SW of the gold (needs monument to work corn). I don't like that desert-incense place. Putting a filler by the clams? Depends if the workboats finds some more over there, more likely not.

 

[cseanny]

Why would you want to grow that city even more until starting to build a settler?

This is an excellent choice if the plan is to beeline Alpha because it allows you to work more "crappy coastal tiles" for the commerce boost......and you don't want to incur the early 2nd city maintenance fees before you reach Alpha (not more than a few turns for sure). This also coincides nicely with building SH in your Capital and then finishing your 1st Settler.

But if you're not making a Beeline for Alpha, then I agree, there's no reason to grow past size 4 (and would certainly change tile improvement order). Seeing how he went BW first maybe the OP plans on pre-chopping SH at the gold site along with a 2 or 3 pop whip in Capital. I'm not really sure. But i have to admit, it doesn't seem ideal.

In regards to the dot map, the only city I like is the Clam city to the East. I'd settle the 2X gold site 1S. This frees up the grassland tile to be farmed later, leaves room for a filler TGLH city 1W of the Deer later, and also grabs one additional plains riverside for cottaging later.

I'd settle the copper city 1E, off fresh water also. By doing so you free up room for another decent city. If you scout a little bit more you'd actually find theres room for at least 8 good city sites in your land, 7 of which you can already found from your current scout knowledge. I'll provide my own later dot-map after you've gotten further into the game (even if this means after you've already settled your new cities because I don't want to spoil yer game!).

 

[i_imperator]

Ok so I restarted the last round again, with the only differences being that I tech ed mysticism before Bronze Working, met William a bit earlier, and managed to pick up henge. Im about to settle my first city, im just wondering is the double gold corn site better than the site nearest to my captial for a second city? I did play this game a little bit and

Spoiler :

the land quality inst the best, between us and china, at least for cottages

 

[cseanny]

the land quality inst the best, between us and china, at least for cottages

With TGLH, more coastal cities, and the eventual Cothons, you don't need cottages anytime soon. And in general, all you need is one Bureau Capital and whip the rest of your cities hard. You can easily bring in 400+ per turn in the early ADs with such a set up.

But yes, definitely set up the 2x Gold city first. Here is a look at my 2x Gold city at 775 AD during a stacked GA (Air brushed Mini map so safe to look).....and note, I didn't even start my 1st cottage there until around 200 BC. Up till that point I was building/chopping more settlers and didn't even really grow past size 5 or 6 (maybe 7?) till around 1AD.

 

[Dhar Khosis]

@i_imperator: In a mirror-game I did I came up with a position pretty similar of that in your screenshot, only that I had a additional mine on that ghill NWW of the capital. Where did you lose ~7 worker turns?
Why did you go for Sailing next? What's your plan? And why?

@cseanny: So you went for tGLh, settled a lot of coastal cities got friendly with all the AI for a lot of foreign (not-intercontinental) traderoutes? Is Cothon worth it? - I really usually don't like harbors and an additional traderoute for ~2(?) more commerce/t doesn't make me like that 150h much more.

 

[MegaLurker]

A city 3S of the capital can work cottages for the capital and have 3 grassland farms with civil service, eventually becoming a half-decent filler city. Site south of the bronze then gets moved 1SW. This is a better use of the land around your capital, especially with the Great Lighthouse.

 

[cseanny]

@cseanny: So you went for tGLh, settled a lot of coastal cities got friendly with all the AI for a lot of foreign (not-intercontinental) traderoutes? Is Cothon worth it? - I really usually don't like harbors and an additional traderoute for ~2(?) more commerce/t doesn't make me like that 150h much more.

You only need open borders, not friendly. I ended up with something more like (edit+18-22C total which is almost +20% research or 2 ticks. Later in the game this could easily be +10c per city. My break-out war was Cuirs which meant I had more time for building research/wealth/and additional infrstructure. Here are 3 screen shots, the first when I get Alpha, 2nd/3rd at 775 AD showing my empire, city locations, tech rate, new Capital, and my 1st turn of Queing up Cuirs in all cities (whip fest begins next turn except Capital). And I think you're forgetting the Cotton gets you +1 TR in addition to +50% TR yield. So at the bare minimum the Cothon is improving each city by +3C. So my equation above might have been on the low side.....especially once you start adding in bonus modifiers like Libraries. I.e., take a city with 19C w/ a Library before the Cothon. @ 100% research you get +23. Throw in a Cothon and you could get a base of 24C which, at 100% the Library would now net you +2. So the Cothon would have gained this city +7 with a 100% slider.

I'll let you be the judge if Cothons were worthwhile. And to reiterate the sentiment in my previous post, with TGHL and other wonders you don't need to even think about making a cottage til almost 1AD. Instead, work higher production yield tiles and focus on expansion/wonder/infrstructure.

Spoiler :

 

[Dhar Khosis]

Are you planning to resume this game, i_imperator?

 

[i_imperator]

Are you planning to resume this game, i_imperator?

I'm afraid not, college has been too busy at the moment, and I've had a few other offline games that did not quite go my way, I'm just not as good as i used to be before i took that break from civ iv over two years ago, that and I think i'm just loosing interest in civ iv tbh

 

[pigswill]

Its certainly a lot of work to post a game in its own thread and if you're feeling rusty it can easily become a chore. It may be heretical but there's other games than Civ 4 and rumour has it there's a whole world outside of computer gaming (ridiculous I know. but that's the rumour).

 

[i_imperator]

Its certainly a lot of work to post a game in its own thread and if you're feeling rusty it can easily become a chore. It may be heretical but there's other games than Civ 4 and rumour has it there's a whole world outside of computer gaming (ridiculous I know. but that's the rumour).

Haha yeah, I really do respect people like Searial, Kossin, Neil and MadScientist back in the day, the amount of games they've posted is just impressive,and i am a bit worried if i am doing it right at all, i tend to rush these things sometimes and not give as much thought to them as i should. I have been playing other games, Starcraft, Xcom, EU4 and Tomb Raider, and even (shocker) Civ V just to name a few...I feel like my passion i used to have for civ iv has just faded a bit. I tried replaying that jaou game i posted back in june alongside this one but it infuriated me.

I do appreciate the posts and the interest on this thread however, I feel kinda bad now that I may have wasted your time, but there's just no point in continuing it if i don't feel interested enough in civ iv. I guess i'm facing a similar situation as lemon merchant had in terms of interest in civ iv.