Becoming a better CIV player: Random leader & map on Prince

So where are you going to settle?
What is your first 4-5 builds?
First 4 techs?

It is up top also, but I am thinking SIP and then start on a Worker. For techs, I was torn between going for Buddhism/Hinduism, or Animal Husbandry for the Cows. I also could do Mining->Bronze Working, get a second Worker out before Bronze Working finishes, and then chop out a Settler. By that time my Quechua should be able to find a good 2nd city spot. I am doing 15-turn turnsets so I wasn't trying to think too far ahead.
 
It is up top also, but I am thinking SIP You are better off settling on the PH to east. Your worker will comeout faster and all the others will get sped up.and then start on a Worker. For techs, I was torn between going for Buddhism/Hinduism,With ivory you already have a happy resource. I would skip religion and learn hunting before going AH or Animal Husbandry for the Cows. I also could do Mining->Bronze Working, get a second Worker out before Bronze Working finishes, and then chop out a SettlerI would learn the wheel and pottary. You do have a few riveside tiles for cottages and for the terrace. There are 3 good tiles to begin with. So grow to size 3 and build your first settler,. By that time my Quechua should be able to find a good 2nd city spot. I am doing 15-turn turnsets so I wasn't trying to think too far ahead.

Here is a worker management tip. WHen your worker is done, have him do 1 turn of farming on the tile the settler is on, cancel the order and have him build a farm on the corn, when done, do another turn of farming on the original tile and move the worker on to cow for the pasture, when pasture is done next do another turn of farm and do the ivory the next turn. You just did 3 turns of farming without loosing any turns. Good luck. I am going to sleep.
 
It is up top also, but I am thinking SIP and then start on a Worker.

You missed the point - think deeper. A plan is more than your next immediate move.

Here's a hint - you should already be thinking about what the Ivory means to you after the opening.

For techs, I was torn between going for Buddhism/Hinduism, or Animal Husbandry for the Cows. I also could do Mining->Bronze Working, get a second Worker out before Bronze Working finishes, and then chop out a Settler. By that time my Quechua should be able to find a good 2nd city spot. I am doing 15-turn turnsets so I wasn't trying to think too far ahead.

Until you have a opening plan that incorporates early religion, you should abandon that research line. Learn strong developing moves, then worry about getting fancy.

SIP is fine; but you have two very strong alternatives you should consider. (a) settling on the ivory (b) settling on the plains hill to your right. In both cases, that move will be worth an extra hammer per turn from here on out.

You should also be thinking about what size your city should be when you train the first settler.
 
OP - you don't have BUG/BULL installed?

I guess you did not read everyone's comments about going early religion. Please do not do this for now while learning. If you want to do a religion type game on your own, that is fine. However, it is generally not and optimal way of playing, especially if you want to move up levels.

It's too bad the Quecha is not better placed to reveal tiles to the East. (of course, he did reveal a lot of bad land not to move forward.) I agree with VoU that settling on ivory or PH is a good option. However, it is a bit blind and I would hate to lose too much production later as a result. Yet, I would do it.

I would move the Settler onto the Ivory first and check the land. No harm in this as you can still settle there this turn or move on the PH which would take a turn anyway. (Just to be sure, you do see the bonus of settling on ivory or PH, right?) Settling on ivory may be the best play anyway since you are likely to get more river tiles and better land.

I would not set your first 2 techs in stone until actually settling. I could consider going BW or AH as possibilities here.

Post a screenshot either after you move settler 1 tile or after you actually settle.
 
this new start looks surely better then the yesterday and honestly that map was total crap, I clicked it through a bit and it was plainly bad.

as VoU and L said... settling on Ivory or PH are very viable options here, but you probably won't do bad with SIP (it has minor benefit of irrigating the corn without need for farming the FP on the tile the settler is now).

I favor on Ivory, worker first while teching Agri. after agri it could be good stop to think about further techs (AH x BW)
 
Other things you might consider before settling:

Where to move your warrior?

NW would reveal the tile 1N2W of the settler, which right now you can at least tell is non-forested plains. That means it could be wheat or a strat (horse/copper iron). If it's wheat, I would SIP as a result. If it's empty, I'd check if it's irrigated (indicating a lake to the north, or a river). If riverside, it's not a bad tile to cottage if you go for a cottaged bureaucracy capital, which is often a good choice when playing a FIN leader. However, the non-irrigated grassland NW of the settler indicates it's less likely to be irrigated... So NW could be a good warrior move, but only reveals one tile, and that tile is no good if you want to take advantage of the extra city hammer from the plains hill or the elephants.

NE seems to me to be a more likely choice. Why? Because as others have mentioned the extra city centre hammer from phants or PH is very powerful, so you'd be moving NE or E to take advantage, and thus want to know about the tiles to the north and east. The best your warrior can do for you in that respect is to move NE and reveal the tile 1S2E of the settler, which we can see is unforested grass.

There are added benefits, however. If you follow lymond's advice and move onto the phants you'll either reveal a resource/other desirables (like riverside grassland or riverside hills) that makes you want to settle on phants, or you'll reveal nothing too convincing, and move again onto the PH. Once on the PH you would reveal the tile your warrior had revealed, but by moving the warrior first, you had an easier time deciding whether to settle on the phants or move onto the PH. Then, on turn two the warrior can reveal the tile currently 3E of the settler (2E of the PH), which will help if you're having a hard time deciding whether to settle on the PH or possibly move back onto the phants (though after spending a turn to get onto the PH, you probably want to take advantage of that).



By the way I had to check about plains ivory giving an extra hammer. It does, and the info is presented in this guide:
You won't get the bonus commerce from FIN unless you build a camp on the ivory, so that might be a consideration in settling on the phants or the PH. Oh, I see Htadus already pointed that out!

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/completeguide1.php
 
Yuck to the random. Random leader is fine, but your more likely to get good (ie common) problems to solve if you use land maps on normal settings.

The maps that shuffle can return are actually fairly narrow. The only ones that would really harm a learning experience would be an extremely unbalanced fractal draw, or archipelago. Even so, those wouldn't exactly neuter his ability to learn the basics.
 
As suggested, I stopped after settling:

Spoiler :
attachment.php


I chose the Plains Hill. By settling there, I did lose out on one PH, but picked up the second Silk for the extra commerce. I started on a Worker.

I am considering going Hunting to get a Camp up, which will give me three commerce in the Ivory plot (plus the extra happiness), and then Animal Husbandry, to get the extra food and hammers from the Cows. My Worker will start on the Corn once he is built. I could then go Wheel -> Pottery to get Cottages and my Terrace up while letting my city grow a few levels. I am then thinking Mining -> Bronze Working for the ability to chop plus Slavery. I then could chop out or whip the first Settler, but will this be too late to get him out, considering this is Pangaea and it will most likely be a land rush?

Also, if I find a nearby neighbor, I could get some Quechua's built and try to rush him. It would have to be early, before he gets Axemen or Chariots.

OP - you don't have BUG/BULL installed?

Nope, I have a Mac, and based on what I read, they no longer have it for Mac. I could be wrong though!

Here's a hint - you should already be thinking about what the Ivory means to you after the opening.

Besides the extra happiness, maybe a beeline to Construction for a War Elephant rush?

Here is a worker management tip. WHen your worker is done, have him do 1 turn of farming on the tile the settler is on, cancel the order and have him build a farm on the corn, when done, do another turn of farming on the original tile and move the worker on to cow for the pasture, when pasture is done next do another turn of farm and do the ivory the next turn. You just did 3 turns of farming without loosing any turns. Good luck. I am going to sleep.

I am probably missing the obvious here, but I do not see the advantage of this over just letting him improve the four tiles in order?
 

Attachments

  • Screen shot 2011-11-25 at 5.24.22 PM.jpg
    Screen shot 2011-11-25 at 5.24.22 PM.jpg
    160.5 KB · Views: 186
That worker management trick is a bit micro intensive, but pays-off pretty well.

The idea is that any time your worker makes a 2 space move to a tile you intend to improve, you could instead move 1 space, part-improve an interim tile and then cancel, then move 1 space and improve the following turn. As far as the tile you really cared about, the result is identical (ie. no penalty), and for the middle tile, it gets 1 turn closer to improvement for free, basically +1 worker turn, which is actually huge value for such a simple trick especially if you manage it multiple times in one game.
 
I chose the Plains Hill. By settling there, I did lose out on one PH, but picked up the second Silk for the extra commerce. I started on a Worker.

Good.

I am considering going Hunting to get a Camp up, which will give me three commerce in the Ivory plot (plus the extra happiness), and then Animal Husbandry, to get the extra food and hammers from the Cows. My Worker will start on the Corn once he is built.

All good. At higher difficulty levels, there's a potential problem, in that Hunting first may mean that you don't have animal husbandry in time to pasture the cows immediately. The benefit is some free beakers, plus being able to camp the Ivory sooner. But here the natural play should be fine.

I could then go Wheel -> Pottery to get Cottages and my Terrace up while letting my city grow a few levels. I am then thinking Mining -> Bronze Working for the ability to chop plus Slavery. I then could chop out or whip the first Settler, but will this be too late to get him out, considering this is Pangaea and it will most likely be a land rush?

I think you should turn this question around - what size do you want to be when you start training the settler, and how many turns before you reach that size?

The number of turns allows you to estimate how much tech you can get finished before you start training the settler.

The cows and the ivory cancel out, so your going to be growing at +5F/turn mostly. You'll have about 15 food stored when the corn is ready, so you'll be at size 2 two turns after that, at size 3 five turns after that, at size 4 another five turns after that (ish).

So you're looking at T19 for size 2, T24 for size 3, T29 for size 4, etc.

At size 3, training a settler takes 8 or so turns (4+3+4+2 hammers/turn, once you've improved the three tiles available). So you could get a settler out on T32 or so.

If you research Wheel + Pottery first, the settler will be ready long before you know where the copper is. Not good.

Alternatively, you could decide to grow to size 5 (T35?) or size 6 (T40?), which allows you to start working some cottages sooner. Chops or whips will speed the settler a little bit, but you're still looking at T45 for training the first settler... that's later than I really like, but it won't lose the game for you.

It's a bit early to commit here, because you haven't finished AH yet. If you have horses here, that's another few turns of work for your worker, and a good excuse to grow to size 4. Furthermore, if there are horses near by, copper is less urgent.

(So it might make sense to set your next checkpoint at the turn when you discover AH, because there's a branch decision to be made there).



Also, if I find a nearby neighbor, I could get some Quechua's built and try to rush him. It would have to be early, before he gets Axemen or Chariots.

In that case, you'll probably want Mining/Bronze Working sooner, for the production benefit. It's another choice that waits until about the time that AH comes in (if you haven't found a rush target in 15 turns, there's a decent chance it's not going to be the best play).


Besides the extra happiness, maybe a beeline to Construction for a War Elephant rush?

The War Elephant also requires Horseback Riding, so I wouldn't describe it as a beeline, but yes you should be thinking about the fact that you have Elephants available to you.

You should also have it in your mind that a Market gives bonus happy for Ivory and Silk.

And you should also keep in mind that Ivory provides you a production bonus if you decide to build Statue of Zeus. It's not a wonder that human players like very much, but you've got a candidate for earning some fail gold.


I am probably missing the obvious here, but I do not see the advantage of this over just letting him improve the four tiles in order?

gorf37 hit the main point here. It's a trick you want to be a little careful about when considering hills, trees, and India's fast workers.

I'm not to keen on it here, because given the research timing, the only improvement you can put there is a farm, when the improvement you want on that middle tile is a cottage.

(When you discover Civil Service, you'll want some farm with fresh water next to your corn, so that the corn tile gets an extra bonus food. But that farm can just as easily be on one of the brown tiles next to the fresh water lake.)
 
Great point VoU, this isn't a good spot for a farm. I got too excited about explaining the worker management trick.

As VoU said, irrigation should almost certainly come from the western lake for the corn. (Because with a FIN leader, making this capital a cottaged bureaucracy monster will be hard to beat, and in that case you want every riverside grassland to be a cottage.) Another nice benefit there is you'll soon have that plains tile in your culture, so you can probably get a farm there before civil service, and enjoy the irrigation benefit for your corn the turn that the tech comes-in.)
 
Regarding BUG:

Nope, I have a Mac, and based on what I read, they no longer have it for Mac. I could be wrong though!

Mac can run BUG 4.4 fine. You have to delete one line and otherwise install it the same as for Windows. Have a look in the Mac forum. Rhino asked a similar question there a few days ago. My answer on how to do it is posted in his thread.
 

Another issue is that the presence of religion blocks autospread, and also makes it harder for incoming missionaries to succeed in spreading. A missionary will always succeed to spread to a city with no religion; each religion increases the chance of failure.

So if you want someone to spread religions to you founding your own will make things harder, especially if they're the type of AI to not like missionaries. Picking it up via autospread is handy for the most part.

So aiming for an early religion not only slows down your own tech, but makes diplomacy slightly harder.

And the real question is not "why not?" but "why?". There aren't really that many compelling reasons to do so.
 
OP, VoU has covered most of the points and I would like to add a few comments to augment or counter what he has said and gorf37 covered the micro.

Regarding the farm on the SIP tile, yes I do agree it is a great cottage location. But you get a farm for the cost of 3 turns with micro. If you go the BW route, this farm will be your 4th most powerful tile untill BW is done. And you will not know how to build a cottage. So that is a gain. Even if you do take the Pot route, this farm will help you grow fast. So if you decided to come back and build a cottage on that tile, you have not lost anything.

Reason for Pot route is two fold. Roads to connect cities and the terrace. Since Inca is not creative and with such a useful UB, why would you want to delay it? For the prize of 2 monuments you get a grainary and 2 culture per turn.

The reason for not going for BW immidiately: Terrace and cottages. Someone might ask, how can you build a cottage on a forsted grass tile? Well you can not but the second city might have 21 :crazyeye: flood plains and it will not need BW.

Regarding the faster second city, coming from the xOTM background, I can promise that very little action that you do in the early part of the game that help you more than founding that second city asap. This applies at all levels but I will not speak for diety. Growth is the name of the game, land is power, food is king and that first worker is plenty enough for the task of connecting and improving the second city.

BTW OP, regarding that second silk, you do not have to wait untill plantations to develop that tile and out do a plantation.

Also I played this map to 1AD. We can compare notes at that point, or any other point. BTW I am a builder player.
 
I would take animal husbandry and Hunting(if didn't start with it) to get the ivory and cow ASAP if I were you. It doesn't look like your near an ocean so I would skip fishing. Since it'll be a few turns before you can churn out a worker, you could attempt to find a religion first or possibly get masonry or bronze working before Animal husbandry. Starting near a cow is a huge plus.

I usually play island maps on Monarch and I find that continent maps are generally easier to win on(if the barbarians are contained early).

Do you guys usually produce a settler first or a worker first? Thats my main question. I usually wait until my city is size 3 then go for worker, then settler. But it may be better to get the settler first and then get a worker instead. Thoughts?
 
Another issue is that the presence of religion blocks autospread, and also makes it harder for incoming missionaries to succeed in spreading. A missionary will always succeed to spread to a city with no religion; each religion increases the chance of failure.

So if you want someone to spread religions to you founding your own will make things harder, especially if they're the type of AI to not like missionaries. Picking it up via autospread is handy for the most part.

So aiming for an early religion not only slows down your own tech, but makes diplomacy slightly harder.

And the real question is not "why not?" but "why?". There aren't really that many compelling reasons to do so.

I used to play alot of culture games and am aware of the points you made. But I will have many cities and the auto spread take place. I have settled cities extreamly far away to get a 3rd or 4th religion. I get the infection and chop/whip all 3 missionaries. Escort them back and almost always one will be successful. Then gift that city to a nearby AI. Cost is 1 settler. There is always a way. just dont plant a city next to Monti while running a different religion. :p

As for the real question of why? If I can get a religion with the expenditure of 8-9 turns and get the benefit of its usage and know how to leverage that usage, then I know, I can win the game that much better. As someone who almost always build the Oracle, I do know that I did not loose those turns.

The only thing I know about the game in the begining is the few tiles I see and the civ that I am. Everything else is a surprise unless it is a HoF game. That is when I decide if a shot at a religion merits the game. As I said to OP for this second start, skip the religion. It is pangia after all.
 
Do you guys usually produce a settler first or a worker first? Thats my main question. I usually wait until my city is size 3 then go for worker, then settler. But it may be better to get the settler first and then get a worker instead. Thoughts?

Almost alway, including Always War games(not speaking Diety), worker first is better. Then let the city grow to use 3-4 strong tiles before building the settler.
 
To turn 36, discovery of bronze working. Includes map spoilers, so shouldn't be viewed by OP until ~turn 70-80.

Spoiler :

picture1yft.png

Sorry that I didn't leave the scoreboard up. I've met brennus (SE, Hindu), Mansa Musa, Charlemagne (Buddhist), and Gilgamesh.

I went Hunting, AH, Mining, BW. This resulted in Htadus' point about the farm making perfect sense, and even with that 2nd farm built, I had to burn 1 turn waiting for the settler to catch-up.

Brennus is the only one who's nearby, but he has a bunch of FPs in his cap. I'm sure someone will spot a better 2nd city, or a better way to settle the one I did, but I wanted to grab the gold so as to up my early happy cap to 7 (nice for cottaging), and to deny it to brennus. Even though the city isn't awesome, it's good to settle towards brennus if I intend on dropping him early (I want to cottage his FPs, and cottages are always a lot better when worked early.) Once the mines and FP farms are developed, it'll have respectable hammers.

The land looks really good. The only calendar resource not nearby is incense! :D
 
Back
Top Bottom