[BTS] BOTM 172: Saladin, Immortal: First Spoiler: 1AD

[pomthom]

But the most important thing is being able to trade techs for gold and resources for GPT.

Oh yeah that too

(and no..Markets are by no means a reason..I don't build them by the way).

Exceptions can be holy city and sometimes for happiness when applicable. Or heavy cottaged capital. Generally avoid

 

[Pangaea]

Good points by Lymond ofc, but as a slight counterpoint or perhaps encouragement, if you look further up in the thread you see my updates full of frustration and no warfare yet. When you have completed your game you can read how it went for me in the final spoiler thread.

It's a good idea to try to implement some of the tips, though, and see it more as friendly advice than criticism. Many good threads in the Strategy and tips forum, not least the Emperor game already mentioned.

 

[jerza]

@lymond thanks, I really appreciate the effort you took in writing such a detailed answer
you're definitely right about me missing some of the basic aspects of the game (I actually said exactly that in one of my earlier comments) and I guess the YT walkthroughs are a great way to identify these. I have already looked at AZ's channel and I was really impressed (and somewhat overwhelmed ), that's some 1000hrs of deity CIV4 playing . I do read stuff in the S&T forum (also a bit overwhelming in general), mostly to find out more about particular things (like corporations, early war, ... tech trading has to be next I guess ), but I reckon something like that empreror thread you recommend is what I should be looking at most urgently
thanks again for those tips and for the answers to all of my questions, it's been a huge help

 

[krikav]

Haven't played in over a month and it really feels.
Thanks for a nice and relaxing map with not too much crazy going on.
T117 (50AD)

Spoiler :

I settled on the PH 2E of starting location.
Went hunting->mining->bw, then archery wich was a mistake, could have defended easily with warriors.
Onwards to fishing->pottery->writing. Chopped/whipped madrassas.
I had big problems with economy, and settled way too many cities way too fast. At T117 I also have 3 settlers just running around scouting AIs, and I have already gifted the city Fustat to Germany.

Teched aestethics and traded that for alfa, also accepted poly which I got as a gift from kind zara.
Eventually settled the spy at Stalins cities, and have backfilled with tech-stealing (math+agriculture+masonry).
Just finished currency, economy is finally starting to come alive.

Germany and Russia are both lacking iron and almost all their cities are on flatland, so I'm starting to contemplate camels.

 

[cseanny]

Played til just shy of 1AD.

Spoiler :

I settled on the Pigs while also immediately settling my GSpy. Tech path was Hunt, AH, Wrt, Fish, Alpha (Poly, Min, Bw, Agr, Pot), Masonry (Mids finished 975BC), Priest, CoL, Bureaucracy from the Oracle in 1200 BC, HBR, Monarchy, Fued (650 BC), MC to bait war, Currency (shoulda got this before MC), Machinery, Guilds (should finish 125 BC).

My Capital b/o was worker, warrior, warrior to size 3 then switch to Settler, finished the warrior, 1 chariot which was followed by a Library which finished at 1960 BC, at which point I ran 2 scientist which would bulb Math. 2nd city went chariot, warrior, chariot, monument, Settler; which would settle on top of the marble. I got max fail gold from the Oracle and over 300 fail gold from ToA.

My initial warriors captured 3 workers from Stalin. My chariots captured a 5/4 city (1 Archer) from Germany while capturing a Settler, worker, and pillaging. Those same chariots then razed a Stalin city (1 Archer) while capturing 2 more workers. The espionage points really paid huge dividends allowing me to see all the details. Those same chariots then captured 2 workers from Inca, pillaged a lot, and then razed a size 1 city with 1 Archer and a Settler!

My Capital was completely roaded and pre-chopped (while already having Barracks/Stable) so under Bureau I had 12 1t HAs. My war vs Germany (700 BC) used a Gspy to city revolt but my 7 HAs and 1 chariot had extremely bad luck. Took my up to 400s to Capitulate him. I also attacked Stalin with 8 HAs (4 Capital and 4 2nd city) and 2 chariots at 600 BC and wiped him off the map in a few turns. I captured 4 more workers during both wars.

I was also running max GM specialist as soon as CoL finished. Actually, I've been in REP/Caste the entire game and haven't used the whip once (no slavery all game). This helped me get 2 GM which I used for trade mission to the ToA city. This enabled me to run max research and get enough Gold to soon upgrade 12 HAs to Knights. I've already chopped 5 forest from every city as well as pre-chopped the remaining forest while building wealth/research in route to Guilds.

This means most cities will build 4 Knights in as many turns, so before 1AD I'll have around 32-33 Knights, and again, simultaneous war on the horizon. I've already got 3 spies for Zara and 2 spies for Inca for city revolts again. I've bribed Zara/Inca into war around 450 BC so their cities are light on units. I'm hoping to Capitulate both of them nlt 50AD and follow that up with the last two within 200-400 years later.

 

[lymond]

Excellent write-up, cs. Great outside-the-box thinking, especially settling on pigs which was a power move. Don't know why I did not even consider that here. Looks like you have an extremely strong game going

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Excellent write-up, cs. Great outside-the-box thinking, especially settling on pigs which was a power move. Don't know why I did not even consider that here. Looks like you have an extremely strong game going

I guess usually most people wouldn't consider settling on pigs because grassland-pigs-pasture is such an amazing food tile. Settling on them gives you a faster worker production at the start but you potentially lose so much in the long term. But on an unexplored arboria map, you could reason that there's likely to be so much food around anyway (I'm talking in general, with no comment implied about this particular map) that losing food from a pasture on the pigs isn't such a big deal. At any rate, that's certainly a very strong game that cseanny has described - well done!

 

[pomthom]

I also agree settling on Pigs was the way to go, I just didn't do a great job out of it (bloody barbs )

 

[shakabrade]

Settling on pigs is not that important if you steal workers. It is important to get horses in bfc for chariots which can steal even more. But basically, on this map you only had one cow and jungled pigs, and prioritizing AH is just a gamble for horses nearby, a coin flip with low odds. If you settle on pigs, the reasonable thing is to delay AH as much as possible and not to prioritize it and take Archery for defense against Agg leader and barbs. I am saying that settling pigs should make you delay AH even more. If there were no horses nearby, it would have been a crippling move to sit on pigs and research AH.

I settled double deer location as you get both hammers and food with one cheap tech. Dont see how pigs make more sense. But if I knew about horses (rare on arboria) , I'd consider settling pigs as well. However we did not start with AH and we did not know it.

The odds for pig settling to work better were lower than any other opening.

 

[pomthom]

I settled double deer location as you get both hammers and food with one cheap tech. Dont see how pigs make more sense.

It's also getting the Silver in the BFC which I found was a huge boost. Civ4 is all about production but that's really not an issue on this type of map imo, there's food and production literally everywhere and typically few luxury resources which limits whipping a bit (really just a bit and in this particular map if you explored well that wasn't an issue) ie limits the yield of food, so sacrificing a GL Pigs is really no biggie and a quick start is never bad - cseanny didnt run Slavery once which is crazy and illustrates my point (I think!). Early commerce helped me not miss on Oracle also for ex.

Settling on pigs is not that important if you steal workers.

I agree with your assessment about stealing workers which I didn't do, mainly because I struggled with Barbs (I did avoid AH and didn't tech Archery because I generally think it's a waste on Immortal if you fogbust correctly and don't get too unlucky which I failed on both counts )

The odds for pig settling to work better were lower than any other opening.

Again no shortage of production and early commerce makes it not a gamble imo

 

[cseanny]

I mentioned in the initial 172 game start thread that I did many random test games on this map script and metal was almost always missing, while horse were very frequent. Therefore, AH gives the best success at an early strategic resource and early access to beeline directly towards Alpha, which imo, makes it the superior opening. We obviously had horse in BFC, and another horse spot very close NE of us. Likewise, Germany had horse very close to the Capital as did Russia. Seems most of the map had horses everywhere, so again, with a little testing it makes it easier to pick your opening.

I'm surprised some had issues with barbs. I only saw 2 bears (fought one of them) and 2 wolfs (fought one of them). I had no encounters with a single barb warrior, archer, or the likes. Barbs seemed non-existent on this map,and I only fog busted a single tile in the early game; a forested hill to the SEish of the Capital, between Russia and the jungle, hills gem, near the coast.