[BTS] Catherine Pangaea Map

[krikav]

Spoiler T150 :

Sury declared on Bella T140. She won't hold that long I think.
T141 I got engineering from Freddy for paper+theo+200g+map
Ran around and scouted this area abit, looks like a nice vector to attack.

More city gifting tricks. This partly to get some quick war success against Sury so I can get peace when I need it later on.
But it also messes up the culture, making me able to reach Toku.

Warrior attacked from Galley, deleted him now so he doesn't die.

Nifty!

After Kyoto I kind of gave up and started cheating though. I just moved every unit straight away to Surys next city on the flatland. Something that you simply cannot do (way to high risk of just getting all units killed).
Also tried abit of reloading and see what I could do differently.

There was a AP vote to stop war against me I voted yes and then tried to take Nara.

The longbow was immortal though, took 5-6 units for it to even get wounded.
Waited a turn here to get the AP vote through, but Toku defied.
So got Peace with Sury for Rostov (The nasty foodless gold city).
Can get him off Bellas back for 950g and thats required to have some hope in the future.

Freddy has started plotting, and Pacal is his worst enemy.

In theory you could probably iron on from here, get some semblance of an economy again. The scoreboard says 16 cities, but it's more like 6. So many foodless cities and others that share food with some other city and is lacking granary/lighthouse.

But I think I'll concede defeat here instead.
Map was way harder than I thought in the beginning, and I didn't give my A-game with regard to scouting or diplo.
Its also questionable if the settlements I did after GLH was worth it. The cities where so slow to get up to speed, and hardly contributed anything.
Should likely just have focued on warfare right away at that point.

Well played Sury and thanks for a really fun map @jnebbe

 

[Snowbird]

Strikes me as a game where you need to take some early risks to avoid a long time suffering. Okay, Lain would do something completely opposite....

Spoiler :

One gamble/risk not worth it cause of holkans



Another worth doing cause - Cathy is creative.


The downside of course is no single worker, yet. I think getting St. Petersburg is a major improvement for the whole situation.

 

[krikav]

For sure!
But I think even with that approach, worker first and then sailing rather than TW wins out.
In the example below I started the chop assisted settler T23, worker then spent a pair of turns more to chop out a trailing warrior+workboat before following settler.
It feels abit more like justifiable play without map knowledge too.

Might not be worth it with TGL here though as some powder is burnt for the early landgrab, but having those two cities connected right away is valuable.
Archery is probably adviseable from here on, the goldmines certainly make it affordable.

Spoiler :

BTW, @jnebbe I noticed that Capac is missing his second settler in the deity wb-save.

 

[Snowbird]

Yes, The wheel on this map is not a great choice... I have not played Civ4 for a month or so.

Spoiler :

I've played further and got annoying barb city at cow/copper spot. On the bright side, between all seafood and 2 goldmines tech rate is nice and Surry has 3 spare ivory resources for trade.

With Pacal (with 6cities at moment) as a neighbour... well, it is very clear -- get Surry to pleased, give whatever he asks for 10 turns of ivory, whip a bunch of elephants, catapults and probably archers (does not seem like I get metals soonish, unless lucky with iron).

I can't really see how it fails to produce a win.

 

[jnebbe]

BTW, @jnebbe I noticed that Capac is missing his second settler in the deity wb-save.

Whoops, should be fixed now

 

[sampsa]

T132

Spoiler :

Bulb philo 50AD, get HBR+constr+ for music+CoL from Sury. Pacal declares on me 75AD, snipes some workers, but not much to do with them anyway. That's pretty much all he got from this war as he had very few units. I immediately bribed both Toku and Isabella on Pacal for some old tech, mainly for extra diplo points. Started golden age when at CS. Have GLib+NE in St.Pete. In general I don't love that combo when running a music golden age, because it usually means that one city spawns every , which is inefficient. Spawning a GA because of NE would be borderline disastrous. Even the core cities are tiny for this date, mainly due to low -cap.

I'm pushing for Lakamha (bombed defences down already) and have gathered a small force in Yekaterinburg, too. Have two galleys transporting troops.

After paper, double bulbed edu, went MC-compass to be able to bulb liberalism. Got calendar via trade for the same purpose, too.

Pushed towards Mutal and bombed it down so that Toku can suicide his small army.

Bulbed towards liberalism. Got Mutal with no losses and was able to trade for feudalism and machinery (only now, after partial lib bulb!) and chose to cap Pacal. Yes, wrecks diplo a bit but I don't think I really need any techs via trade anymore and everyone but Sury is a lot behind anyway. Chose to stay in caste+paci for now to get the GM out in fish-city. Some 150 fail from Parthenon and a lot more of AI failgold that I got by selling old techs.

Sury has been plotting on Toku for a while, so I'll jump in too when I finish nationalism+gunpowder+rest of lib. Pretty weak cuirassier date, but should be able to cap everyone with cuirs anyway as only Sury is strong.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Played the deity save for some turns. Will not finish. I am not usually too interested in difficult or unusual starts because the options are limited and the map plays itself. I prefer easier "sandbox" starts where different options are available.

Spoiler :

Pangaea map, all civs accessible early for tech trade, resource trade, foreign trade routes. We start in a corner away from everyone, no danger of land squeeze or early invasion. Both neighbours are very religious, easy to get to friendly. Then they leave you alone until you attack and take their cities.

My overall plan will be:
1. Attack Pacal early with ancient-era units. Pacal does not build too many units and when he does, he sometimes makes holkan instead of archers which are worse at defending cities. He also tends to build wonders.
2. Attempt to trade for ivory and attack someone with elephants + catapults.
3. I will never learn to like curaissers but those can be upgraded from elephants. The capital makes a good GP farm with Great Library and thus music follows.

I played a few turns to explain what I mean.

Spoiler :

Settle on marble. Good location for the Great Library. If I find stone then later on Globe Theatre for drafting. Not a major production or commerce centre. Later on will move the capital elsewhere.

I could have settled on the plains-hill but Catherine is imperialistic. I left open the possibility of a cheese opening which I actually got to do.

I broke a sweat when I saw their settler move onto the hill. Not onto the plains next to the marble?! I got saved by turn-order! One turn slower, one turn, and I would have been locked and frozen into the arctic! The spot had no seafood, no resources, no freshwater, nothing. The only purpose was to screw me over. The city would have been on a hill that could only be attacked from one direction. It would have been GG.

I chop out fishing boats, but not for the capital. I sent the fishing boat to my new city next to the two gold tiles. I had no choice, I got cockblocked by Pacal remember? Specifically, I grew the new city to size 2 to whip out a worker there. The capital will instead work on a settler to connect the fur tiles.

I need sailing for galleys anyway, so I might as well go masonry and Great Lighthouse. At least that was the plan. Unfortunately, just as I finished masonary and a lighthouse, I got news that Pacal already built it, in 1920BC. Also look at the Oracle date.

Second time I got cockblocked by Pacal. He had to die. I go for iron working since it tends to show up in plains, snow, and tundra tiles. At the same time I will settle two more cities to the South and try to flip the barbarian city using the creative trait. This gives me a total of 6 cities. (There are situations where Catherine seems very strong).

Iron shows up in my cultural borders. I can also trade iron working around. I took animal husbandry and agriculture off Isabella. Then, next turn, I took mysticism and writing from Fedrick.

I stopped taking screenshots by this point. The next phase was as planned. I even traded iron working to Pacal for pottery and archery. I whipped out granaries, a dozen swordsman, and attacked Pacal, taking the Great Lighthouse and some cities. I had two fishing boats exploring the coast. The galley was used to transport swordsman from Moscow around the cockblock city to the mainland. Overflow went into creative libraries (Again there are situations when Catherine can be rather strong). Traded for alphabet. Went literature and Great Library.

I stopped playing. Once I get music, I will trade it for horseback riding and construction.